by Guerin Zand
“Hello, Guerin.” Milly came over and gave me a big hug and a little kiss. “It’s been a while.”
“I’ve been sort of busy, Milly. I mean, between creating an empire from scratch and dealing with family issues, I don’t have a lot of free time.”
“Yet you still find the time to mess around with the fundamental laws of the universe? What the hell were you and Diane thinking?”
Diane smiled and replied, “You know us, we thought it would be cool.”
Milly walked over and gave Diane a hug. “Please don’t encourage him. We have enough problems trying to stop him from carrying out the stupid ideas he comes up with on his own. The last thing Guerin needs is help with being stupid.”
“You know I’m standing right here, Milly?”
Milly just ignored me and moved on to greet Scirla. “Let me guess, Scirla, it’s your turn to babysit him?”
All three of the women seemed to find that funny. Even though I’d just pointed out I was standing right there, they still seemed not to notice me, or perhaps they really didn’t care. It really made me wonder what the inhabitants of this universe would do for fun if they didn’t have me to kick around.
As we started to head to the transport tubes, Milly continued her conversation with Scirla. “So, I understand you’ll be visiting Taes soon. You must be looking forward to seeing your homeworld again.”
“Yes, and no. I have seen and learned so much since I left Taes, so I’m not sure how I’ll feel about it.”
As we took our seats in the transport car Milly looked over to me. “So, what’s the reason for you visiting Taes? Julie mentioned you were going there, Guerin, but she said you hadn’t really told her why.”
“Well, as usual, Julie was wrong. I’m not going to Taes.”
“But—”
“Scirla is going to Taes, and Maria will be captaining the Ryvius for that visit.”
“Oh, I see. I know that Prima and Gamma are planning to move to the station for a while. What are you planning on doing while they’re away?”
“I haven’t really thought about it. It might be nice to take a little break, but there is a lot of work to do back on Athenia.”
“Speaking of that, I talked to Julie and Roger the other day. We’ve agreed to send a small construction crew out to help as soon as Roger has worked out the details. He’s working with the team right now. Their trying to define the scope of the project in more detail, and then come up with a design that will allow for future expansion.”
We arrived at the module where Milly’s residence was located. She had made arrangement for our quarters, so we took a transport pad to where we’d be staying. Our quarters were just one level below Milly’s penthouse. We were all going to rest up for a bit. Later that evening, we were going to join Milly for dinner in her residence. Scirla made us a couple of drinks, and we sat in the living area and talked for a bit.
“You know, Scirla, if you want me to go with you to Taes I will.”
“I guess it doesn’t matter. I was wondering why you weren’t going though?”
“You know Maria thinks I don’t give her enough responsibility, so I thought it would be best for her to take charge of the mission.”
“Is that all?”
“Why do you ask?” That was a stupid question. I could tell why by the way she was looking at me. “It’s not that I don’t want to be with you. With Prima and Gamma gone, I’d actually like to go, so we could spend that time together. It’s just if I went, I don’t think Maria would be too happy with that, and I want her to be involved with Taes. You need to go because it’s your home. I want you to be part of any decisions we make regarding Taes.”
“I’m not sure I want that responsibility, Guerin. I’m not sure if I’m ready to make those decisions.”
“Maybe not, but that’s why Maria will be there to help you. If I went with you, I think you’d depend on me too much. Hopefully, this trip will help you become more confident about your own abilities. If you still feel the same way when you get back, we can talk about this again. I’m not trying to force you to go, but I also want you to have the opportunity to figure out for yourself what it is you want to do.”
“Alright, but if you don’t want to be married to me, Guerin, you can just tell me. You don’t have to push me away.”
In case anyone thinks she wanted me to answer that with words, well, you don’t know anything about women. I had some work to do.
◆◆◆
Scirla and I showered and changed, then we went next door to pick up Diane. We walked down to the closest elevator tube and that took us up to Milly’s penthouse. The head administrators for these stations all had some pretty swanky digs. I always pointed out to them that these extravagant living quarters didn’t really jive with their socialist utopian ideals. They just ignored me since they knew I was right. I had read George Orwell’s Animal Farm when I was a young boy. As I grew up, it seemed to me as if that book described socialism better than any theory of economics. It only reinforced my opinion of their society when Milly’s staff greeted us at the door and then led us into the small dining room located in the kitchen.
To my surprise, Milly was in the kitchen having a drink with Cindy. Milly hadn’t mentioned that Cindy would be joining us. I was sure she left that little fact out on purpose. I smiled and said, “Hi, Cindy.”
“How long has it been, Guerin, and all I get is a ‘Hi, Cindy?’” I took the hint and walked over to her. I hugged her and kissed her on the cheek.
“So, are you going to tell me what you’re doing here, Cindy?”
Cindy gave me a frown and said, “And I missed you too.”
“Ok, don’t you two start.” Milly handed me a drink, and then did the same for Diane and Scirla. “Why don’t we take a seat at the table. We can talk business after our meal.” I had no idea what sort of business Milly was talking about. I thought we were just going to have dinner, a few drinks, and maybe catch up a bit. I should have known better.
Dinner was your typical alien vegan fare. It was actually Milly’s favorite meal. I’m sure the lack of any meat for me was not an oversight. Hopefully, this station had enough humans living on it that there was some sort of human pub or restaurant that I could sneak out to later on. For the time being, I pretended to enjoy the meal. I didn’t speak much during dinner. Instead, I just listened to Diane talking with Milly and Cindy about all of the things we had found on Athenia, and, of course, our latest experiment. Diane hadn’t changed much over the years. She could still talk your head off asking all sorts of questions about how everything in the universe worked. After dinner, we retired to the lounge to enjoy a few drinks and hear what Milly and Cindy had actually invited me to dinner for.
“In case you’re still wondering, Guerin, I’m here to help you out.”
“How’s that, Cindy?”
“You are looking for captains for your new ships and I’m here to volunteer.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes. Why wouldn’t I volunteer? I’ve worked with you over the years. Now that you’re expanding your force, and looking for Collective members to join you, it makes sense.”
“You are actually willing to take orders from me?”
“I was assuming that we would operate as we do under the Collective, without a system of rank and leadership.”
“Not quite. You won’t be working for the Collective. You’ll be working for us, and you will be expected to follow our orders.”
“You mean like Maria?” Cindy smiled that silly little smile of hers. “Does that mean I’ll get to be called Captain too?”
I shook my head and sank my face into my hands. “Dear God!” I don’t know why I said that. I was pretty sure God was in on this as well, and She was probably sporting the same silly smile as Cindy.
Milly was sitting in the chair next to me. She put a hand on my shoulder as she chuckled a bit. “Come on, Guerin. You know you need the help. Cindy has the type of experience you need in
your ship’s captains. We have a lot of other volunteers from the Collective as well. Once Julie told us that you agreed to integrate Collective citizens within your teams, we put out the call for volunteers. You will need more than crew members for your ships. What about logistics and ground crews? You remember Richard, from Cindy’s parent’s station?”
“Yea. The flight controller?”
“That’s him. He volunteered to head your flight control operations on Athenia. He can bring along as many controllers as you might need.”
“So much for Athenia being a secret base I guess.”
“Well the existence of the base may not stay a secret for long, but its exact location will. All of the Collective navigation systems have the actual location still hidden from the crews. Only the Collective and your group will be able to open portals to Athenia, and you still have the security system to protect you.”
“I’d prefer to talk to you about our security issues in private, Milly, if you don’t mind.”
“Fine. I still think you’re being a bit too paranoid, but Julie and I agreed that we’ll keep some of the security precautions between the three of us for now.”
“I think I have good reason to be paranoid, Milly. I mean, with Julie being sort of nice to me, there has to be a real shit storm heading my way.”
Diane was concerned by what she had just heard. “What do you mean, just between the three of you?”
“Diane, you don’t need to worry about that.”
“You need to give me a good reason not to, Guerin.”
“Diane, we all agreed, when we accepted Julie’s offer, that the Collective technology we had access to would not be offered to the humans in the Terran system.”
“Yes, we all agreed to that, including myself. Now you’re saying you don’t trust us?”
“I trust all of you, Diane. That’s not the issue. I just can’t say that we’ll never find ourselves in circumstances where we’ll disagree about this. What if the Terran system faced a threat from an advanced civilization? We can almost be sure we’ll have run-ins with the Trogans at some point in the future. What if things went badly for the Terrans?”
“So, you would just let the Terran system fall in that case?”
“No, I wouldn’t. At that point we would step in to protect the Terrans, but I fear that some of us would be tempted to share this technology with them to defeat the threat. We can’t let that happen. With that sort of power, the Terrans would become an even bigger threat than any enemy they might have. We’d be responsible for what happened next. I was going to talk to you about this alone, but now that Milly has brought it up, you will have to stop working with the Terran scientists now that you have access to this technology. It’s time for Terran technology to progress without any more Collective help.”
“And if I don’t agree to that, what are you going to do about it?”
“Diane,” Milly jumped in. Obviously, Diane was taking this the wrong way. “You have to know that Guerin is right about this.”
“I do, Milly, but I just don’t like the way he’s going about it. He’s basically saying he doesn’t trust any of us. Guerin says we’re all working together as a team, and then he makes decisions like this without discussing them with us first. His tone even seems a bit threatening, if you ask me.”
“I don’t think he’s threatening any of you, Diane. Aren’t you, by your own reaction, sort of proving that he’s right? Aren’t you arguing that you’ll decide if you’ll hold this technology back from the Terrans, even though you already agreed to do just that?”
“Maybe you’re right, Milly. But still, it seems to me that he expects us to trust him, but he’s not returning that trust.”
“You’re taking this all wrong, Diane. We gave Guerin access to Athenia and all of our technology. We’re trusting him to protect that knowledge, just as we would any other Collective member. If he were to betray that trust, we would step in, and you know that. He didn’t have to share this with any of you, but he did because he trusts you. So, how is he treating you any different than how he is being treated by us?”
“I don’t know, it just seems different somehow. We all started off trusting each other, and this changes things. I understand what the two of you are saying, and I don’t disagree, but Guerin has always been open with us in the past. Now he’s hiding things from us.”
“That’s not quite true, Diane. In the past, I hid things from you as well, and you knew that I did. What’s really changed is that we have to stop thinking of ourselves as Terrans. From now on, we have to put the Collective interests before those of the Terran system when those interests are at odds. For a lot of us, that won’t be so easy to do, not even me.”
This discussion continued for a while. In the end, I agreed that I didn’t mind if she shared what we talked about with the others. I was sure I’d have this same talk with the rest of the team when Diane told them, but I also made it clear that as far as I was concerned, I was the gatekeeper for the technology the Collective provided us. That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to share it with them all, it meant that I would prevent any of them from sharing it with anyone outside of the Collective. The one exception was the technology that I had locked away in the Athenian archives. I would decide if any of that information was shared, and who I would share it with. For the time being, that information was off limits to us all.
We finished that discussion and Milly decided to change the subject. “Perhaps we should discuss your daughter Gamma for a bit, Guerin.”
“What’s there to discuss, Milly? After I get back to Athenia, I’ll make arrangements for Maria to drop off Gamma and Prima on her way to Taes. Is there an issue with that?”
“No, but Maria had mentioned that Gamma might be gifted in certain ways. We think she may be right about that.”
“Oh please, Maria is just making that shit up as an excuse for some of the dumber things she’s done. Gamma is no different than any other little girl her age.”
“I am going to have to disagree with you on that, Guerin. You remember when you first found Gamma? We did a complete physical on her and noted a significant increase in brain capacity compared to a normal human child. We didn’t know at the time what that might mean, but we did a little testing while she was here. She seems to have above normal abilities in both telepathy and empathy. These abilities seemed to be most evident when she was interacting with the animals in the wildlife modules.”
“So, she’s good with animals. No big surprise there, but being able to influence people is totally different.”
“I agree, but Stella would like to get involved if you wouldn’t mind. She’s really hoping you’ll agree to let her work with Gamma while she’s here. You know how much Stella enjoys her work.”
“Sure, why not. I mean, she couldn’t possibly be a worse influence on Gamma than Julie was on Maria. Besides, Prima will be staying with her for a while to keep an eye on her. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about this little Bree boy she seems to have a crush on, would you?”
“Why? Are you planning on threatening the boy or something?”
I grinned, “Or something is right.”
Milly laughed, “Don’t worry. I’m sure Prima can handle it.” I raised an eyebrow in response. Milly changed the subject again. “What about your daughter’s, Diane? Have you given any thought to letting them attend one of our learning centers?”
“Hal and I think that they’re a little young for us to be thinking about that right now. We’re planning on settling down on Athenia for the time being, but we haven’t ruled out moving to one of the stations when the girls get older. It’s really going to depend on how things work out on Athenia. I’d really like to work with the Collective scientists at one of the learning centers myself. On the other hand, Hal, with his political background and his past working relationship with Roger on Earth, sees a lot of opportunities on Athenia.”
Milly’s eyes moved over to Scirla. “And how about you, Scir
la? Have you given any thought to your future plans? Perhaps, when you get back from Taes, we could talk about all of the possibilities that are available to you.”
“I plan on staying with my husband, and going wherever that may take me. I don’t understand why both you and Guerin think I would want anything else.”
“I know Guerin has talked to you about having the same procedure performed on you that he’s gone through. Have you decided yet if that would be something you want?”
“I don’t know. These things, your way of life, still seem very strange to me. Guerin said there was no rush for me to decide on the procedure, so I’d like to wait until I really understand what that would mean to me. It’s hard for me to imagine living as long as you do. The Guides sent me to Guerin, but they have not communicated for what purpose.”
“Maybe that’s because they want you to figure that out on your own. Guerin and I aren’t trying to influence your decision. We just want you to be aware of all of the options available to you. Guerin and I have talked about you. He wants what’s best for you, whatever you decide that is.”
“Then maybe you can explain why he isn’t coming to Taes with us?”
“I already explained that to you, Scirla.”
“That doesn’t mean I understand. Why is it wrong for me to depend on you? What’s wrong with me wanting you to be with me?”
Milly decided to help me out. “You’ll be here for a few days, Scirla. Why don’t the two of us plan on spending some time together. I’ll try and explain Guerin to you. It shouldn’t take that long. He really does mean well, but in case you hadn’t noticed, Guerin doesn’t really understand women all that well.”