James Wittenbach - Worlds Apart 03

by Bodicea

“There’s a euphemism over there. I’ll be waiting when you come back.” Pieta let go of his hand.

  When he was alone, he told Tobias, “I need to know the source of this legend. It’s possible, according to our culture anthropologists that the men of your planet have created a legend of rescue, based on memories of the Commonwealth, to help cope with the situation in which you live.”

  Tobias considered this. He looked as though he were about to say something, then changed his mind.

  Alkema continued, “None of the people I have spoken with think the way men are treated on your planet is right. If we can secure relations with your planet, there would certainly be an opportunity for things to change.”

  “Ciel would like to change things, or so she has told me on occasion. However, she is in a weak position. Her seat on the Inner Circle was given to her more by heredity than merit. She can not do anything that would offend the Neo-Traditionalists on one side or the Progressive Reactionaries on the other, or she will lose her seat. To even suggest expanding men’s rights would surely bring her down. If she thinks this would be the result of forming relations with your world, she may oppose them for that reason alone.” He looked forlorn by this information.

  Alkema put his hand on Tobias’s shoulder. “Even if we aren’t the literal fulfillment of your legend, you should know that most of us on this ship stand with you. Maybe we can find a way to make it come true regardless of what Ciel or the Council decide.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Alkema said, “but if there is a way to help you out of your situation, we’ll find it.”

  In the Jade Ballroom, things were turning ugly.

  Ciel had turned speaking duties over to Fraya, who had been designated the Speaker of the circle. She was, like the others, middle-aged. Her long brown hair was neatly brush and shot through with white and grey. She might have been pretty were her expression not so perpetually dour.

  “The Inner Circle has studied through your Mission Logs. They confirm what we had feared. In your first mission you unleashed weapons of mass destruction on a populated planet.”

  “That was an accident,” Keeler wanted to shout, but he realized how it would sound.

  “After destroying the caretakers of that planet, you turned your back on its population, leaving them to suffer and die in the absence of the beings on whom they had become dependent for survival.”

  “On your Second Mission, you came across a society that practiced slavery, ” the last word came out almost as a shriek. “You did nothing.”

  Except risk the lives of our crew to save some of those slaves, Keeler wanted to retort.

  “What do have to answer for yourselves?”

  Lear spoke up, tentatively. “A thorough reading of our mission logs will show that, in each case, we seriously debated the consequences of our actions. We weighed what we could accomplish against the needs of each planet. If we did not do more to help the people of Meridian, it was because our resources and understanding were too limited. If we did not end slavery on EdenWorld, it was because our mission was not to end slavery. Our mission is to find and evaluate. Follow on missions will address each planet in a tailored, responsible manner. Furthermore, I have given your Council repeated assurances that we have no intention of enforcing our will upon your planet’s culture. Certainly, you must see now that I spoke honestly.”

  Keeler put it differently. “I can say that the people of those worlds are better for us having called there than they would have been had we not.”

  Fraya continued. “This ship confirms our worst fears about the patriarchal excesses of your two cultures. This ship is too large, uses too many resources, and carries too much weaponry to be regarded as a ship of peace. The First Resolution of the Inner Circle is that you should immediately disarm this ship. Strip it of every weapon and go in peace. If you go looking for peace, we are certain that peace will find you. If you set out prepared for war, then you shall surely find war. Therefore, the Council passes a First Resolution on a vote of seven to five, that the Mission of the Starship Pegasus be redefined along lines of peace. The ship should disarm itself of all weaponry, and pledge to correct social inequalities and injustice on worlds it encounters, but not to interfere with worlds where social inequalities and injustice are not present.”

  Keeler almost choked on his wine. He had to check to make sure Fraya had a straight face, even though he doubted she could make any other kind of face.

  She turned a page. “We have also studied your own writings on your own world. After much debate, it was decided that these writings ought to be viewed in the light most favorable to you, because they were undoubtedly intended as propaganda for any new worlds you encountered.”

  “We have determined that Sapphire is a world that allows inequalities to thrive, does not allow its people to participate in self-government, is too dependent upon technology, and has taken inadequate measures to protect its environment.”

  “The Second Resolution of the Inner Circle, passed with eight in favor and four against, is that the planet Sapphire must enact the following reforms before relations may be established.

  - The planet Sapphire must establish a system of electoral representation open to all citizens of the planet and must abolish the distinction its law makes between citizens and non-citizens.

  - The planet Sapphire must declare, at minimum, 80% of its land area as protected wilderness and protect it from development.

  - The planet Sapphire must reduce its dependence on technology

  - The planet Sapphire must secure, by law, equal access of every citizen to all the necessities and comforts of life, including food, shelter, medical care, clothing, education, entertainment, art…”

  “Excuse me,” Commander Keeler asked. “I know this is going to seem impertinent, but who, exactly, are you to be ordering us to reform our planetary culture?”

  “Commander, all women … all humans everywhere in the galaxy are entitled to an equivalent standard of rights and an equivalent standard of living. If your world desires an alliance with ours, then it is our social responsibility to see that your people have the same rights as ours.”

  “Our Third Resolution concerns the planet Republic. The Inner Circle admires Republic for its diligent efforts to secure the rights of its own citizens to representation and all the previously enumerated necessities and comforts of life.” Keeler stole a glance at Lear. She was trying hard to keep from smiling, but not hard enough, and her chin was raised just a little higher than usual.

  “However,” Spokeswoman Fraya continued darkly, “Republic forces its citizenry to live in cities of up to forty million in habitants each. Forty million people!” She shook her head.

  “Such megacities are an affront to the notion of human continuity. The first term of our Third resolution is that the Planet Republic begin drawing up plans to disperse its citizenry across the planet, into communities of less than 500, 000 people, over the next 200 years.”

  “We recognize that technology is vital to the sustainment of human life on the Planet Republic. However, we believe that current use of that technology is inappropriate. Instead of adapting Republic to support human life, humanity itself should change, gradually, to adapt to life in the natural environment of Republic.”

  In other words, everyone on Republic should learn to breathe methane, Keeler thought.

  “Finally, we note with supreme disappointment, current efforts to alter the environment of the fifth planet in the Sapphire system, the world known as Loki. It is wrong to alter an environment solely to make it fit for humans. The planet ought to be left in the condition the Goddess intended. For that reason, these efforts must be halter. This is the Fourth Resolution of the Inner Circle, passed on a vote of ten-to-two.”

  “We regret any discomfort that may have been caused by hearing these resolutions.

  Criticism of one’s own culture can never be pleasant to the ears. However, it is th
e consensus of the counsel that to merely accept your worlds, as they are now, would be an abdication of our social responsibility to the people and the native environments of your worlds.”

  “May I ask a question,” Keeler said. Fraya handed him the speaking wand. “Thank you.

  How do you expect us to effect policy changes on our homeworlds?”

  “If your worlds value relations with us, they will hear our words. If they care about the well0being of their people, they will adopt our resolutions. If they do not, then, perhaps it is best that our world remain on our own.”

  If it were up to Keeler alone, the next words the Inner Circle of Bodicéa would have heard would have been, “Don’t let the airlock hit you on the way out.” However, he had a sense that Lear viewed the Bodicéan resolutions as an opening position for future negotiation. Well, fine then. Let her spend six weeks cooped up in a conference room with these blattering nags.

  Tomorrow, he would be back on the moon base, picking through the crew quarters.

  “I, for one,” Lear said, rising, “I would like to commend the Circle for their frankness, for their openness, and their willingness to share their open opinions with us. Let me propose a toast, to …”

  The communication link on Keeler’s cuff-link began calling urgently. “Commander, this is Specialist Shayne American on the bridge. The Aves Prudence has returned.” CHAPTER TEN

  Report of Lt. Commander (Tactical) Phillip Miller

  Mission Commander

  Reconnaissance Mission 1 – System 12 055 Vulpeculus

  Following a standard launch, our ships accelerated away from Pegasus achieving a cruising speed of .7 c within fourteen hours after departure. We set our course for the trailing anomaly in a vector formation with Prudence on point, followed by Hector and then Xerxes.

  For about four days, nothing interesting happened… um, except for an inconsequential food fight for which I apologize. Specifically, this resulted from an assessment made by Specialist Ng and myself regarding the unpalatable nature of a Republicker food item known as sea foam jelly, and a defense on the part of Flight Lt. Driver regarding its nutritional and general health benefits.

  Probably because of the boredom of the crew, this led to a discussion of how the waste evacuators might be deployed to expel globs of this substance into space and whether the aforementioned jelly could maintain its cohesion in a cold vaccuum. That the interior of Prudence and several exterior points of both Prudence and Hector suffered from these experiments, I also regret.

  At the end of four days travel, we were finally closing on the objects. We maintained continuous sensor scans, but because of our speed, our distance, and some kind of energy field surrounding the anomalous mass, we were unable to make any further analysis beyond what had been determined on board Pegasus for several days. We were almost five million kilometers out before we could get a high-resolution sensor fix. We didn’t recognize that the objects trailing Pegasus were ships until we were almost on top of them.

  We were closing in on the objects, very rapidly. At our cruising speed, we would have shot through the entire fleet in a matter of seconds. I ordered the pilots to intercept and match course and speed with the objects so we could study them. So we swung around and altered the field geometry of our engines to match their speed.

  It looked like an asteroid debris field at first, but then we realized the asteroids were all virtually identical, and far too geometric in form to be accounted for as ordinary interplanetary phenomena. There were hundreds of them. Our sensors identified 668 separate returns. They spread out in a vast, irregular crescent shape, and we were on a course to intercept near the edge of the outer point.

  They were almost more like slabs of rock than ships, tapered and smooth on one side, with kind of segmented sections on the opposite edge. We couldn’t tell which side was top or bottom.

  They looked like they had been hewn from rock, like asteroids fused with extremely dense material. The rock was dark colored, and very difficult to pick out against the backdrop of space.

  It did gleam slightly when light hit it. They gave off no light whatsoever, no internal illumination, no formation lights, no marker lights.

  Each ship measured between 600 and 800 meters long, 45 to 60 meters wide and about thirty meters high. They were separated by an average distance of 600 kilometers and were travelling at .25 c.

  They didn’t appear to give notice to our presence. We moved alongside one of the ships at a safe distance, we guessed, and scanned its entire surface. We didn’t detect any kind of markings or external instrumentation. We did detect an intense gravitationally-based propulsion field, but no energy output. Most likely because their hulls focused all energy back into the ships.

  Our sensors could not penetrate their outer hulls. Our instruments suggested they were solid all the way through.

  As we studied the data coming in, we began speculating Honeywell and I entertained the notion they were some kind of weapon. A solid rock traveling at a quarter the speed of light could destroy a planet in quite a spectacular fashion. If impact were initiated at precisely the right point, the planet would be pulverized, all its matter sucked through the point of impact like a doughnut, and the debris would coalesce into a kind of halo.

  Depending on the impact pattern, you could also produce a starburst effect, or, conceivably, any other debris pattern you desired.

  We then produced a model showing that if enough of the rocks could encircle the planet at a precise distance and catch it in their slipstream, they could drag the planet into the sun. Can you imagine what that would look like from the surface? The sun gradually fills the sky until it is ablaze with fire. Then the atmosphere burns off into space under the relentless solar wind. The seas churn and boil before finally boiling off into space. The crust bakes into a hard glassy shell and finally the whole planet is swallowed into the fusion-fueled furnace of the stellar interior.

  We also speculated that if the rocks could be accelerated even further, they could punch through the planet cleanly, leaving perfectly shaped entry and exit wounds and turning the planet into one great Jutland cheese. Molten core material would then gush through the open holes, vaporizing the oceans and covering the surface in red hot magma.

  In a similar vein, Lt Honeywell suggested that if the impacts could be staggered, rather than simultaneous, you could blow a planet apart one-piece at a time over a course of days or weeks. We speculated as to how long this process could be prolonged before there was no habitable surface area left, or at what point the planet would lose integrity and collapse on itself.

  As you can imagine, this discussion persisted for several minutes, and I’ll spare you further details for the purposes of this report. We returned to studying the alien vessels.

  That these ships had no running lights, no external markings, no indication of any one inside seemed to support our hypothesis that they were, in fact, simple weapons. On the other hand, they seemed to have been built in deliberate shapes, and protected by a coating of armor plating not known to be found in ordinary asteroids. Such extra work would not have been necessary if the ships were just guided weapons. Eventually, we also detected what seemed to be signals bouncing between the ships to ensure proper separation, kind of a quantum sonar.

  We decided to move in closer so as to check out one of the ships at close range. Honeywell and I argued over whose ship should go in. Eventually, we had a contest, whose details I would prefer not to discuss, but at the end, he won. So, I pulled rank on him and ordered Flight Lieutenant Driver to bring us up alongside one of the ships while the other two Aves held back.

  I note that, at this time, we attempted to send a transmission to Pegasus, through both electromagnetic and neutrino-burst transmittal systems, detailing our analysis to that time and explaining our next course of action. I am at a loss to explain why this transmission was not received. It may have been internally reflected by the same energy field that enveloped this alien fleet.

>   Flight Lieutenant Driver executed a series of maneuvers that put our ship within one meter of one of the unidentified vessels. Specialist Ng scanned the surface and found a circular seam we believed to be an airlock. Driver maneuvered the ship over the airlock and extended the ventral umbilicus. We connected, sealed the umbilicus, and began analyzing the material on the external hull of the ship.

  The outer shell was built from a very complex molecular matrix, mainly a kind of uranium, incredibly dense. Its molecules were laid down in a crystalline matrix, interlaced with atoms and molecules of other dense materials with strands of neutrons forming a sheath. There was a layer of the same material beneath, with a different arrangement of the same elements. This went down to a depth of at least sixteen centimeters. It was heavy-duty armor-plating, easily twice as strong as the hull of Pegasus.

  Our first challenge was to break through this material. Our best bet was the quantum disruptor, but we weren’t sure we could re-seal the hole afterward. We decided to take the chance, and began peeling through the ship’s outer armor.

  For all we knew, these ships could have been constructed of this solid material all the way through. We could not fathom a reason why this would be, but we had to consider that we were dealing with an alien logic system potentially completely different than the way humans think.

  Also, that these machines might have some terrible purpose beyond our ability to comprehend.

  After about forty minutes of careful penetration, the entire assembly gave way and collapsed into the ship. We had access to the interior of the alien vessel, but we could not see inside.

  After stowing a sample of the shell material for additional study, we dropped a micro-aerial probe into the hole and scanned the atmosphere. It was very thin, carbon dioxide and nitrogen with a trace of hydrogen hexaflouride, at a pressure of less than 01 standard atmosphere.

  Internal temperature of the ship was minus 140 degrees. The Micro-aerial probe detected no life forms, and limited electro-mechanical activity apart from the drive systems.