Secundo told me that it would take a few minutes to set up, and to stay where I was on the beach while they made some adjustments, so I looked out over the sea, the waves tumbling beneath the shredded clouds speeding towards me. I smelt the salty air pressing against my body, and over the roar of the breakers I heard the harsh crying of the gulls as they balanced in the wind, hovering effortlessly. I realised that it was going to be my last experience of peaceful solitude for a long time. Then a strong feeling of electrical tension began to develop, triggering a powerful sense of déjà vu – if I had had any hairs on the back of my neck, they would have stood up. With a sudden loud hum, a circular opening appeared in front of me, another reality bizarrely hanging in the middle of the scene. A room was visible in the background. In the foreground stood my friends; Primo, Secundo and Tertia. The warmth of their greeting washed over me as I stepped forward and entered their world.
11
I staggered momentarily as a wave of nausea swept over me, then steadied and looked around. I was standing in what seemed to be a portable cabin, lined with machinery humming loudly with a frantic note which indicated high stress. Secundo made some adjustments to a control panel and the noise slowly wound down to nothing. I looked behind me and saw only machinery – the hole had disappeared. There was a moment of awkwardness when I turned back to face the saurians, none of us, I realised, being quite sure what to do next. We were all conscious that this was the very first meeting between a human and a saurian. They were a little shorter than humans, their heads up to my shoulder, but their small upper bodies contrasted with the power of their legs. Tertia broke the impasse by leaping forwards and flinging her arms around my neck. I laughed and hugged her, then broke away to shake hands warmly with Primo and Secundo. Their opposed thumbs felt strange, but their skin was the same as mine. We exchanged no coherent thoughts, just emotions of delight and welcome.
I felt the cabin move suddenly, and looked around in surprise. There were small windows to each side, and a skylight in the ceiling. I looked out of a window, and saw the ground receding. My little island looked basically the same, but there was no house, no jumble of stones at the peak, no sheep or visible animals of any kind, and the short turf was replaced by shrubs and occasional stunted trees. I stepped over to the skylight and looked up, and saw that the cabin was being winched up into a large dock at the bottom of a huge airship which loomed over us.
'You've put the machine in an airship?'
'It's the most efficient way of carrying the slider machine: it means that we can open a connecting hole to a parallel world anywhere on the surface of the planet.'
'Slider machine?'
'Your scientists insisted on calling it that, we couldn't quite understand why. It seems to have some mythological significance?'
I grinned, recalling the science-fiction series on television which had involved people moving between alternate worlds; evidently the scientists included a fan with a sense of humour. 'You could say that.'
There was a muffled thump and the cabin came to a halt. Secundo opened a door at one end and we walked through, the saurians waddling rather awkwardly, into a tunnel made from some kind of synthetic material. This led to an open lobby, the sides sweeping upwards to follow the curve of the hull. A wide ramp led downwards and the saurians hopped effortlessly down it, moving with such speed that I was jogging to keep up. This led into what was clearly an observation deck; there was no furniture except for one human chair, just transparent walls all the way round. Tertia patted the chair as the saurians settled back on their legs and tails in what was obviously a comfortable rest position.
'We made this for you. Humans seem to like sitting down.'
I thanked her and sat. The view was spectacular, completely unobstructed except for the floor and the ceiling. Sitting close to the front, I felt as if I was flying like a bird. The giant airship was eerily silent and I realised that I had seen no other living being.
'How many crew does this ship have?'
'Only about a dozen. Its operation is fully automated so it can be flown by one person. The others are there to keep it going for twenty-four hours a day, and to provide relief for the duty pilot.'
I looked back and saw big, slow-turning propellers.
'What's the power source?'
'Most of our airships use hydrogen fuel, but the slider machine requires far more power that that system can provide. Our fusion plants are too big and heavy even for this airship to carry one, so this uses microwave energy, transmitted from a series of orbiting satellites to provide constant coverage.'
I felt my skin crawl a bit. 'You mean we are being bombarded with high-energy microwaves?'
A mixture of mild shock and amusement from Primo. 'Oh no, that would be far too dangerous. Come around here.'
He led me around the ramp to the back of the deck, which provided a clear view to the rear. The vast hull obscured most of the sky, but several hundred metres away I could see another huge airship, linked to ours by a loop of cable.
'That has no crew, it is a drone remotely controlled by our ship's computer. It contains a huge antenna to receive the microwave beam, which is very tightly focused onto it, and the necessary systems to turn this into electrical power, which is sent to us along the cable.'
'Neat. But what if the beam from the satellite slips a bit?'
'There is a feedback system – the airship transmits constantly to the satellite while it is receiving the microwaves, enabling the satellite to keep its beam focused on the centre of the antenna. If the microwave beam slips more than a couple of metres away from the centre of the antenna, the transmission stops and the beam is instantly shut off.'
'Could be awkward if the power goes down while someone is stepping through the slider hole.'
A sense of tolerant amusement. 'You are forgetting that we are not risk-takers. The drone ship has some electrical storage capacity plus emergency generators, as does our ship, and even the cabin with the slider machine has a few seconds of power stored on board so that a transfer through the hole can be completed.'
'You built this airship specially for the slider machine?'
'Oh no, this is one of three such vessels we have had for some years; we use them for tasks requiring very long endurance.'
We returned to the front of the observation deck and I settled down to enjoy the view. I learned that the ship was travelling at some 250 kilometres per hour, about twice as fast as the great human airships of the 1930s. Secundo explained that this was possible because the saurians had made the hull out of a rigid, lightweight synthetic material, much more able to resist the air pressure than the fabric used on the airships I was familiar with. It still relied on helium for lift, though – physics was no different for saurians than for humans. This was combined with a hot-air system, powered by the microwave beam, to fine-tune the buoyancy; they didn't need to vent gas or drop ballast.
We reached the Clyde about an hour later. I recalled the densely populated city of Glasgow, the river banks lined with old shipyards being regenerated. None of that was visible here – just a scatter of low buildings spread along the riverbank, with one graceful bridge crossing the river. A ship was visible, moored at the end of a jetty. The landscape of the central lowlands looked very green, and empty of anything much except trees; the largest open spaces seemed to be around the settlements.
I alternated between observing with fascination the scene unrolling in front of me and questioning the saurians. I learned that only about a million saurians lived in the British Isles; that of course they needed no arable or pasture land but only orchards for their fruit and nuts, but they kept a semi-domesticated species of small grazing dinosaur specifically to maintain open spaces for aesthetic more than practical reasons – they enjoyed a view as much as humans. Unlike my world, most of the population was concentrated in the west of Britain since their orchards grew better there, and they preferred to eat local produce as much as possible. The ship I saw was powered
by hydrogen. Like the airships, it refuelled from special stations – a safe distance from other activities, naturally – where water was split into hydrogen and oxygen by electricity generated by fusion, geothermal or solar power, depending on the location. Burning the hydrogen used up oxygen in the atmosphere, which was replenished by releasing the oxygen generated at the fuelling stations. A neat and pollution-free system.
The ship continued to cross the country, heading approximately south-east. About two and a half hours into the flight, I recognised Flamborough Head as we set out over the North Sea, and began to feel some curiosity about what the saurians planned for me.
'Where are we heading for?'
'We are taking you to meet our Planetary Assembly.' Primo responded. 'They are gathering in what you know as the Netherlands. They meet in various different places, but this is the closest – and we think you'll find the location interesting compared with your world.'
It was afternoon by the time we reached the coast. It looked very different from the Netherlands I knew. Instead of sea walls and drained polders, the sea spread far inland behind a line of sandy islands: the great bay of the Zuider Zee had not been tamed into the Ijsselmeer and was still open to the North Sea. There was no clear-cut end to the sea, it just merged into sandbanks and marshlands, with a network of open pools lined with reeds. The saurians kept up a running commentary, briefing me as we approached. A settlement came into view beside a lake, one large, circular building being prominent. Primo gave me the mental identity of the place, which translated as something like "small town by a lake close to a large bay in location xxx where the Assembly sometimes meets", so I promptly dubbed it Laketown. The Assembly was gathering there, as it had enough facilities to accommodate the members as well as house the meetings. A couple of other airships were visible in the distance, bringing representatives from overseas.
The airship slowed to a hover close to Laketown, and Primo led the way up the ramp to another part of the huge hull, where a smaller version of the cabin for the slider machine was waiting for us. It lowered us smoothly down to the ground and we jogged and hopped the short distance across the turf to the buildings. I looked curiously at the grazing animals, which moved out of our way but otherwise ignored us. They were about the size of sheep, with a brightly-coloured scaly skin, but did not look like any reptile that I could recall. Not too surprising, I supposed, as evolution had taken a different path for what must have been tens of millions of years. Above us, the linked airships moved away. They did not need to berth anywhere, but remained constantly aloft except for occasional maintenance sessions.
A dwelling on the edge of Laketown had been set aside for our use. I was fascinated by the opportunity to discover what "home" meant to saurians. The building was flat-roofed, single-storey and sprawling. The walls were lightly constructed panels, many of them glass, and there were entrances in every wall. Inside, the rooms were large. The main living room had a human-sized table but no chairs, and there was plenty of space to allow those powerful tails to swing around. The bedrooms had low pads on the floor, except for mine which had been equipped with human furniture complete with an en-suite bathroom which, Tertia informed me, had been copied from a human luxury hotel.
Shortly after we arrived I sensed another saurian outside, politely requesting permission to enter; a mind-link made doorbells unnecessary, I realised. Primo went to meet her and led her into the living room, introducing her to me as the Convener of the Planetary Assembly. She welcomed me warmly, her emotion tinged with politely controlled curiosity. Limited as I am to written words, it is hard to explain the feeling, but her mind had a distinctive signature. In addition to the usual saurian measured deliberation, her personality had a power and complexity beyond any mind I had yet linked with. The Assembly would not meet until tomorrow, but she would spend the evening with us.
Mealtime with the saurians involved no ceremony. Dishes of various types of fruit and shelled nuts, including several which were new to me, were placed in the centre of the table for the diners to pile onto their plates as they wished. I gathered that the saurians had applied their genetic skills to developing many new varieties. The conversation was lively, as mind-linking allowed us to eat and communicate at the same time. The saurians supplemented the mental interchange with arm gestures and rapidly-shifting patterns of colour over their skins, adding up to an amazingly rich and colourful conversation.
After the usual social chit-chat about the journey and my impressions of the very different landscapes I had travelled over, I asked about their use of the skin patterns. The Convenor answered: 'It developed long before we had mental abilities. At first, it was simply a matter of providing camouflage against our enemies. But it became a lot more sophisticated later. We spend much time in water and it allowed us to communicate clearly underwater. It was really a language of its own, although now we use an evolved version to supplement mind-linking. It isn't strictly necessary, but we find that it adds something to the conversation.'
'We use facial expressions and body language in a similar way. As you say, it's not necessary to convey information, but it adds an extra dimension to speech. I wonder if that will still be true after humans get used to mind-linking?'
'Many things will change for you. Some we can predict from our own experience, but others will be peculiar to humanity. You are in for some interesting times!'
With the aid of the mind-link I learned to interpret some of the meanings of the shifting body colours, but I couldn't quite grasp the finer nuances. I think this was mainly because they often seemed to use the skin patterns to send a slightly different message, as a kind of ironic counterpoint to their mental communication; that seemed to be the basis of much of their humour. They also showed amusement by a quick flash of colour – it was their visual version of smiling or laughing, their faces being too stiff to show subtleties of expression. Even if I had understood perfectly, I could not have joined in; the pattern changes were much faster and more intricate than anything I could manage.
I turned to an issue which had been intriguing me. 'I know that you have a world-wide democracy, but exactly how does your political system work?'
'Our society is organised into local groups of approximately one hundred people, who meet from time to time to discuss any issues of concern. They choose one representative who attends occasional district meetings, again of about a hundred. In turn, each district group sends one member to a regional assembly of about a hundred people. As you may have guessed by now, each regional assembly sends a representative to the Planetary Assembly, which also has about a hundred members. If you multiply those figures out, you will see that they come to our population of one hundred million. Our society and economy are very stable, with few political decisions required, so the Planetary Assembly normally only meets once a year for a few days, but we have been meeting rather more often since your accident.'
I thought about their system for a moment. 'It sounds impressively simple. I can see that it has the advantages of keeping everyone involved in decision-making, plus ensuring that the representatives at the Planetary Council remain closely tied to their regional, district and local roots, rather than allowing them to become isolated. In a world without mind-linking, though, the small numbers of key individuals involved might make it more open to abuse. And even in a virus-transformed human Earth, I couldn't see our political organisations liking the idea; political parties would be unlikely to form in such a system.'
'That is true, we have no use for political parties as such. Of course, what you might call "issue blocs" can form if any major questions arise, and these can result in clear-cut divisions of opinion where a compromise solution is not feasible; for instance, over the decision to contact you. That caused intense debate before a clear majority emerged.'
'What were the main arguments?'
'The newly-found ability to communicate with parallel worlds threw up a major issue for us. Those against contact argued that it would c
ause huge disruption to human society and we had no moral right to interfere in this way – they were highly critical of the rash scientists who were responsible for your accident. Those in favour felt that having caused your transformation, we had a moral duty to explain our actions to you, but the far more important argument, which eventually won the day, was that your civilisation would self-destruct like all of the others if we stood back and did nothing.'
'I expect that you had a similar debate over releasing the virus I asked for?'
'Not so much; having taken the major decision to make our existence known to humanity and observed the disagreements this caused in your society, we realised that only mind-linking would enable you to take the action you need to save yourselves. You would stand no chance of reaching agreement without it.'
'True enough. It's going to be hard enough to achieve even with it.'
The Convenor then started quizzing me about human democracy; she had learned to read English and, she informed me, spent much time scanning human internet sites.
'I have noticed that in the USA many of the constituencies have their boundaries carefully drawn around population groups with a particular political leaning, so that it is almost impossible for them to change party in an election. How can that be described as a democratic system of government?'
'Good question. Of course, that kind of thing isn't allowed in the UK – it's called gerrymandering after the man who invented the tactic.'
'Ah yes, there are also certain things which intrigue me about the "first past the post" system used in the UK, and I'd like to test my understanding of it. It seems to me that this can produce some very odd results, and it depends a lot on the distribution of support for each party. If one party can concentrate all of its membership in fifty-one percent of the constituencies, but distributed so that they have slightly more votes in each than any of the other parties, then they could win the election outright with less than twenty percent of the vote, could they not?'
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