Carrearranis (Fourth Fleet Irregulars Book 5)

by S MacDonald

  ‘Perhaps,’ said the Sub in charge of the project, clutching at a very thin straw, ‘it’s the kids who’ll take them up. They certainly look like they’re going off to do something with them.’

  And so they were. Following the ten year old girl who was currently their leader, they went to the Dark Pool, so called because it was deep and so heavily shaded by trees that it never got any sunlight on it. Here, the kids activated the lights and threw them in, shouting and laughing. They were briefly amazed at being able to see right to the bottom of the pool and by how weird it looked with light coming up from the water and shining on the underside of the trees, but the novelty of this only lasted for minutes before they thought of a better game and went running off again. Later, when the adults found out what they’d done, they were scolded – not for the loss of a valued resource, but for leaving the lights in the pool, dirtying the water.

  The boxes of lights the Fourth had manufactured and had ready in the expectation of distributing them to all of the islands were returned to the hold, while the project team were consoled by their friends.

  The comms team, however, were being congratulated. Arak’s comm was a great success, and the ‘Can I have one too?’ count was ticking up at high speed.

  The Fourth was ready for this – they hadn’t been able to manufacture more than a few hundred of the comms, as each one required about a quarter of an hour’s crew time for manufacturing, assembling and programming. For now, they could offer comms to the island chiefs, and for boats. The boats the islanders used for fishing and island-hopping were terrifyingly small and fragile, so they had been prioritised for comms. Until such time as they had them, an active watch was being kept over all boats out at sea.

  The first batches of comms began to be delivered later that day, brought by the same lander drones which went down to start collecting samples. The drones caused a great deal of excitement. They were low energy drones, about the size of footballs, programmed to glide just a few centimetres above the terrain., They were brought in to land very slowly, drifting down at no more than the speed of a falling leaf. Once there, they moved very slowly, too, and after a pause, gave soft little beeps before they started moving again. After opening up their upper storage box so that the islanders could take the comms it had brought, each drone began a series of sampling tasks which, would take several hours to complete. The drones, in fact, often had to pause because there were so many people gathered around watching that they were unable to go anywhere, and there were quite a few calls from the ship asking people to A, give the drone room to move, B, stop poking it with sticks, C, stop picking it up and carrying it to where they thought it wanted to go, D, stop trying to feed it leaves, fish or fruit, and E, in one remarkable case, stop grabbing it back from the edge of a cliff and screaming at it, because it was supposed to go down the cliff and sample the rocks and vegetation there. When they eventually departed, stuffed full of samples, there was a feeling of slight regret and a general agreement that that had been fun.

  ‘I absolutely love this planet,’ Martine Fishe observed, with a broad grin as she watched the trickle of drones returning to the shuttle which had deployed them. ‘Can you imagine the panic if alien visitors landed tech in our cities, crawling around taking samples? Even with full public explanation and reassurance, it would be chaos. But here, we tell them it’s safe and they accept it, no problem. The trust they have in us is amazing.’

  ‘It is,’ Buzz agreed. He glanced at the anthropology screen, which was reporting a marked improvement in the Carrearranians’ wellbeing. They had not forgotten the loss of the Guardian, of course; the trauma of that was a scar that would lie across their society for generations. They had recovered from the first tremendous shock, though, and perhaps in that a lack of imagination was a good thing. It had certainly helped that the Fourth had stepped things up, putting new lights in their sky and then moving things on so there was always something happening, new and exciting things to talk about. They were more focussed on the present, now, than on the past. They were starting to look to the future, too, as quite a number of them had been asking, today, how soon the Fourth would be able to visit them in person. Thinking back to the cacophony of panic their first arrival had caused, Buzz thought, they had come a very long way, remarkably fast.

  They were, however, about to face a setback. Alex knew that telling them they were a different species from humanity would be sensitive, and he had spent some time with Simon, Rangi, Davie and Buzz to decide exactly how to explain that and what vocabulary to use.

  For all their careful preparation, though, it did not go well.

  ‘Don’t be tup,’ Arak said, expressing the bewilderment on the faces of the elders and assorted villagers from all but a few of the islands, responding to Alex’s request for a global conference call. Tup was another word which was slipping into such common use aboard the Heron that the system no longer saw the need to translate it. Like many Carrearranian words it could mean different things according to context – in this case, childish, reckless, irresponsible or deranged. ‘Of course we’re people.’ The situation was complicated by the fact that the Carrearranians had no words for ‘human’ or ‘alien’, only one word for people, which they had applied to their visitors as a matter of course. They had learned that in the Fourth there were many different kinds of people, all sorts of shapes and sizes and colours, but they were all just people. Most had understood that Silvie and Shion came from worlds which were not part of the League, but to them, they were no stranger than any of the other genomes in the Fourth’s eclectic mix, so they too were just different kinds of people. To be told that they were a different kind of people too was so entirely obvious that it seemed ridiculous even to say it at all, of course they weren’t like the people on the ship, they knew that, they were neither blind nor daft. But to say that they were not in fact people at all was as ludicrous as it was insulting.

  ‘Yes, of course, you’re people.’ Alex backtracked and tried again. ‘There are different kinds of people, yes? All of us in the League belong to a kind we call Homo Sapiens – Homo, that means people, and Sapiens means thinking, we call ourselves the thinking people. Other kinds of people we call by the name of the world that they come from, like Silvie, Silvie is Homo Aquarus, that means people from Quarus, and Shion is Homo Pirrelli, her world is Pirrell. We decide if people are Homo Sapiens or a different kind of people by how their bodies work – that’s what we’ve found, you see, you look like us, but deep down your bodies work differently and that means you’re not Homo Sapiens like us, you’re a different kind of people, Homo Carrearrensis.’

  Three quarters of an hour later he was forced to recognise that he had hit what the Diplomatic Corps called the Wall, a morass of mutual incomprehension and mounting frustration from which there was only one escape. It was the exodiplomacy rescue, calling a halt to the discussion with ‘Never mind, it isn’t important.’

  On this occasion, though, just as Alex was going to apologise and ask them to leave it for now, Silvie intervened.

  ‘Listen,’ she said, cutting into the call from her own wristcom. That was not supposed to be possible but as far as Silvie was concerned security blocks were as trivial as cobweb. She swept her way through them impatiently, taking over Alex’s call and leaving him tapping at controls in an ineffectual effort to get it back. ‘This is very simple. Humans are a family and they decide whether new people they meet are allowed to be a part of that family or not. The way they decide that is absolutely bonkers and makes no kind of sense whatsoever. The Olaret made you, me and Alex’s worlds, so you’d think, wouldn’t you, that that would make us a family. But oh no, the humans have their own tup rules; they’re like children drawing a line in the sand and saying ‘You’re one of us, and you aren’t.’ And yes, that is very rude; I can tell you they don’t intend to be rude, they’re mostly quite nice people when you get to know them. It’s just that they have these tup ideas and can’t seem to change them. My people don
’t actually want to be in their human family, we’re very happy calling ourselves Homo Aquarus, no problem with that. But we would like to be treated as equals, allowed to visit their worlds as they visit ours. We’re not allowed to do that, though – the only way I’m allowed to be in their space is because I was made to look like a human and even then they have to ask everywhere I visit if I’m allowed to go there. That is what will happen to you, too, if you let them say you’re not human, you will never have the same rights and freedom on their worlds as their own people do. So you need to think about that and talk it over between yourselves, to decide as a people whether you are happy to be kept out of that human family or whether you are part of it, that you are human and they’re just being tup and rude by telling you that you aren’t. And if you do decide that, you need to make a stand right now, tell them straight that you are human too and if their tup rules say you’re not then their tup rules are wrong and their tup rules have to be changed.’ A fierce grin. ‘And if anyone tries to argue with that, the words you need to use are, ‘Up yours.’’

  As the population of Carrearranis fell into a buzz of consternation spiked with anger and bewilderment, Alex dropped his head and gave one long, heavy sigh.

  ‘Well,’ he said, pulling himself upright again and assuming a philosophical air, ‘That could have gone better.’

  Sixteen

  By the following morning, shipboard time, the Fourth had made two significant steps from their data analysis.

  The first was the confirmation of pathogens, endemic in the biosphere and to which the Carrearranians themselves were effectively immune.

  The second was a revelation about the way in which the singing stones communication network functioned, and specifically, how it was powered. Considerable amounts of money were changing hands when it was confirmed, as some of the more tech-savvy had guessed, that the stones themselves were extremely simple solar-powered units operating as FM transmitters. Whatever tech there had been which had boosted that signal eleven light-hours out of the system in a matter of moments had vanished with the Guardian.

  While the Fourth had been analysing this and the wealth of environmental data returned by the probes, the Carrearranians had decided that the Fourth’s attempt to tell them that they weren’t people was another situation like the storm, an incomprehensible idiocy on the part of the offworlders. It was, they’d agreed, obvious that they were human people too and they weren’t going to let anybody tell them otherwise. A lot of them were taking Silvie’s advice, too, and many an attempt to discuss the situation ended with the Carrearranians telling them ‘up yours’. Silvie found that highly entertaining. So, for that matter, did Alex. He had attempted to remonstrate with her for hijacking his call and interfering with official diplomatic matters, but Silvie just hooted derisively.

  ‘Come off it,’ she said. ‘You’re pleased. You agree with me, those rules are stupid!’

  ‘Emotionally, yes, and I won’t deny that that is my personal opinion,’ Alex said. ‘But neither my feelings nor my personal opinions matter when I’m speaking in my official capacity. I had to tell them what the law is, and it would have been grossly unprofessional for me to say that I don’t agree with it myself. I certainly could not have advised them to challenge that law and demand that we change it.’

  ‘Well, now you don’t have to,’ Silvie pointed out blithely. ‘Because I did it for you.’ She gave him a dazzling grin. ‘You don’t have to thank me; I know how grateful you are.’

  ‘Ohhhh.’ Alex groaned, but he was laughing, too. ‘All right – thank you.’

  Silvie slapped hands with him in a matey fashion and went off to celebrate. She was, she remarked, really getting the hang of this ambassador thing.

  Commander Mikthorn, predictably, was appalled. And he managed to get hold of Tan Ganhauser later that day, too, to tell him emphatically just how appalled he was.

  ‘This whole thing is a mess,’ he said, ‘a diplomatic disaster. The indigenous are up in arms and refusing to accept that they are not homo sapiens, and von Strada hasn’t a clue what to do about it. It’s clear they have no respect for him, which is hardly surprising given that he went on global broadcast just a couple of days ago and told them he’s an idiot!’

  He broke off, taken aback, as Tan chuckled. The ambassador-in-waiting had been courtesy itself as he accepted an invitation to have coffee with him. They had gone to Commander Mikthorn’s quarters, for which he had apologised with a terse comment about not having a suite, which was evidently resentful of the fact that Tan had been given one. In fact Commander Mikthorn had nothing to complain about; the cabin provided for him was bigger than his Fleet rank entitled him to and fitted out to just the same high standard as all the passenger accommodation. It was currently in daycabin mode, the bunk swung over to become a sofa and the desk folded out from the wall. Rather awkwardly, Commander Mikthorn had fussed Tan into a seat on the sofa, then sat down at the desk himself. It might have been intended to give his guest the more comfortable seat, but it came across as something like a lecturer having a student in his office for a seminar. There was a faint suggestion that Tan Ganhauser should be taking notes.

  ‘Brilliant,’ Tan said, and it took a moment for the disconcerted commander to work out that this comment really was in response to his report of what he considered von Strada’s abysmal lack of any kind of professional decorum.

  ‘Uh?’ he said. Tan gave him a look in which amusement was mingled with a kind of compassion.

  ‘Unorthodox, of course,’ He conceded. ‘A regular Corps ambassador could never have said it. But that’s why Alex von Strada is here, of course, and doing a brilliant job of it, too.’ He surveyed the commander, who was swelling with indignation. ‘You don’t see it, do you?’ he observed. ‘But he is, you know. Exodiplomacy is always chaotic, that’s in the nature of it. You can’t have a plan and stick to it, you have to be ready to change plans at any moment or come up with something new, thinking on your feet, just always trying to move things in the right direction. Admitting that he’d got things wrong and making a joke of it was absolutely the right thing to do – it defined that situation as a minor misunderstanding between friends and in doing so, strengthened the relationship. Alex von Strada is superb at that, mostly because he’s just honest. That doesn’t play well in orthodox diplomacy, of course, and his public relations skills are truly appalling, no argument with you on that score. But in exodiplomacy, that honesty cuts through the muddle and facilitates clear communication, which is always the biggest hurdle in trying to make sense not only of an alien language and culture, but an alien psychology. It helps, too,’ he added judiciously, ‘that he enjoys it so much. That’s genuine, you can’t fake it. He’s so thrilled and fascinated; he beams out goodwill like a strobe light. If he could feel the same way about getting to know and communicate with journalists, his PR status would be very different, that’s for sure. But don’t be misled by the chopping and changing of plans, Commander, I assure you that Alex von Strada knows exactly what he’s doing and that he is, in fact, doing it very well.’

  ‘But the planet’s up in arms!’ Commander Mikthorn protested, with just a hint of a wail in his tone. He had written this phrase in his notebook and was very taken with it – up in arms, he thought, had just the right dramatic ring to convey the state of crisis to which von Strada’s incompetence had brought this mission.

  ‘Really?’ Tan looked interested, though answering Commander Mikthorn’s hint of a wail with just the tiniest hint of chilly rebuke, ‘I don’t see any armed threat or aggression. The people of Carrearranis are simply registering a protest against a policy they consider to be unfair, and we, whether we agree with them or not, have to respect their right to that opinion, don’t we?’

  ‘But it’s futile,’ Commander Mikthorn declared, in unshakeable certainty. ‘They are not human, that’s the truth, simple as that, they’re not, and for them to protest against that is just futile and stupid. They should be told.’ />
  Tan Ganhauser sipped the tea he’d brought in with him, regarding the commander thoughtfully.

  ‘Would you be saying that, I wonder,’ he mused, ‘if they were a more advanced technology than ours, and had tech we wanted?’

  Commander Mikthorn flushed, goggled, and struggled for words.

  ‘But they’re not, are they?’ he managed eventually. ‘I mean, yes, of course, we should handle things with sensitivity, not just move in and bulldoze their villages, but all this kowtowing and giving them their own way in everything is taking it too far. They’re primitives, and I for one am not afraid to use the word, they are at a primitive stage of development, hunter gatherers living in primitive huts with very limited understanding of their world. How can they possibly know what’s best for them? If they’d been human, I’d have said that we should be handling this like disaster relief, telling them what we’re going to do for them and putting structures in place – a global government, for a start, it’s utterly preposterous to be negotiating with each individual island. But the thing is, they’re not human, so I beg to question whether we have any responsibility to providing aid for them at all – humanitarian aid means just that, after all, aid we give to other humans.’

  ‘Actually, it means aid we give because we’re human,’ Tan countered. ‘But let’s not get bogged down in that – you are, of course, entitled to your opinion, which I have no doubt will be argued at all levels of our society. But I beg to point out to you, Commander, that your personal opinion on this is your personal opinion. Which is fine, you’re entitled to it and can even express it to others if they’re willing to listen. But that’s all it is, okay, just your personal opinion, and it would of course be totally out of order for you, as a Fleet officer, to be trying to interfere in an exodiplomacy mission because you don’t happen to agree with how it’s being done.’