Harrington took the square then looked up at him, trying and failing to hide a small smile, “Why, thank you, sir.”
He just returned her smile and they walked towards the nearest van. Then suddenly his smile faded. A large gray utility van had pulled up and two men had gotten out. Upon seeing Leewood and Harrington, they walked towards them. De Bella’s “special” team. “Get in the van,” Leewood said to Harrington.
“But…” she tried to protest.
“That’s an order.” He watched her get in the van, then turned and faced the two men. They walked up and stopped six feet away from Leewood.
“Things have not exactly gone according to plan,” one of them said.
“That’s an understatement,” Leewood replied.
“Don’t suppose you have any idea what the hell happened?”
“Everyone seems to be asking that question.”
“We were ordered to…gather up some doctors and nurses,” the speaker gestured back towards the gray van.
Leewood looked over at the gray van then back at the speaker. “I’d return them if I were you.” Just then Leewood’s com unit buzzed. He looked at it, it was President Wicker. “Excuse me for a minute,” he said, then he spoke into the com unit, “Leewood here.” He listened for a moment then, “I’m glad to hear that, sir. There are some people here who have told me they were ordered to 'gather up' some doctors and nurses…yes, sir.” Leewood tossed his com unit to the man he’d been speaking with. “It’s for you.”
The man said, “Hello,” and his eyes went wide. “Yes, sir, right away, sir.” He handed the com unit back to Leewood. He looked a little panicked. “We…need to return our guests.”
---
Congressman De Bella jerked his arm free from the hand of one of the security officers who had escorted him to President Wicker’s office. As he did, the blubber in his jowls shook violently. “I took the steps I considered necessary for the security of Amular,” he spat out in his shrill voice.
“They were bad choices,” Wicker said. “Very bad choices.” De Bella glared back at him. Only the President, the Secretary of State, Ed Fisher, De Bella and the two security officers were present. The President placed his hands on his desk palms down and said softly, “I want your resignation on my desk by the end of the day.”
The congressman literally screamed, “The hell, you say!” Spittle flew from De Bella’s mouth. “I’ll be…”
Wicker came around his desk so fast that De Bella and the two security men all took a step back. He got nose to nose with the congressman and jabbed his finger into the fat man’s chest. “Falsifying reports and withholding information from your Commander in Chief.”
“You needed plausible deniability!” De Bella hissed.
Wicker continued as if he hadn’t heard. “Faking an accident and the death of one of Amular’s most cherished heroes and his wife and his child,” Wicker yelled. “Ordering their imprisonment along with a doctor and five nurses.” Wicker was shaking. He jabbed his finger again into De Bella’s chest, “You are lucky I’m not filing charges! You are lucky I’m not releasing your actions to the press!” Wicker stepped back and composed himself. De Bella had turned white. Wicker turned and walked back to his desk. Without turning around he said, “Please remove him.”
After De Bella was gone, Ed Fisher asked, “Why did you let him get off so easily?”
Wicker stared into space for a few seconds then said, “What if the Loud hadn’t taken the extreme action they took? What if they hadn’t offered to resolve the overpopulation problem?” He looked over at Fisher, “What would have happened? What options would we have had?”
“I don’t know, Mr. President, but I know that you wouldn’t have done what De Bella planned.”
“Yes,” the President replied, “but De Bella didn’t know that.” The President’s eyes went out of focus again. “And I’ll tell you, Ed, I’m not sure if my decisions would have been any better than De Bella’s.”
Chapter Nine – The Avatars
“The Loud are about a thousand years ahead of us in technology and science, and Bugs, in the opening address, plans on discussing some of the main differences in how we view the universe (applause) … please, (applause) please… (applause) thank you. This should be one of the most eye opening and important opening addresses in our history. As you know, the Loud have a great desire to open trade with us (applause) and have stated that they intend to freely share their advanced technologies and knowledge with us. (applause) Please, (applause) please… (applause) thank you, (applause) thank you. Despite the differences in our physical appearance, mannerisms and biology, we have many things in common: our desire to grow as a species, advance our knowledge and sciences, and our dedication and desire for peace and cooperation (applause), exploring the universe (applause) and living in harmony (applause) with our new neighbors from the stars. (applause) It is my great pleasure (applause) to introduce (applause) Bugs. (applause)”
Dr. Wayne Brittan, Chairman of the House Science Committee
Introduction to The 23rd Amular Symposium on Quantum Physics
Source: The Archive
One year later…
Adamarus, Leewood and Harrington looked out through the curved transparent walls of the hover capsule at the miles of wheat that stretched off unbroken to the enclosed horizon. The hover capsule maintained an altitude of 250 feet—midway between the fields below and the ceiling of lights above. Stretching off into the distance impossibly thin looking columns supported the ceiling. Far away they could see a darker area shaded with gray mists with vertical streaks – rain, or at least water, coming down from the ceiling. In the other direction several massive machines could be seen – harvesters sitting idle now, but soon they’d harvest tons of wheat and other crops which would be distributed both to Amular and the off world settlements.
Bugs, or rather the robot avatar, turned from the front pilot seat, “Would you like to land and walk around?” Adamarus had not faced a Loud in person in the listening chamber in almost a year and almost no one else ever had. The Loud’s use of avatars had become so common that the avatars were the Loud in people’s minds and even Adamarus had slipped into that illusion.
Adamarus shook his head, “I don’t think so, Bugs.” He looked at the others who indicated their agreement. “I think we’re done here. You can take us back to the ship.” This had been their first chance to get up to the planet’s smaller moon to see “the farm”. The moon had been completely enclosed by the Loud using the same nanotechnology they used to build the listening chamber back at Hillcrest – the same technology which had created the hundreds of domed settlements scattered across the larger moon, and the neighboring planets and their moons.
Beyond the lights above them, the outside surface of the moon was covered with solar cells. The only areas of the surface that were different were the thirty-six one-mile circles that were used for docking and the five-mile circles at each pole. Here, comets were deposited providing water and atmosphere. Right now the comets being used were ones that orbited among the planets. Eventually a steady supply would come from the solar system’s distant comet shell--the first shipment was already in route from this distant haven.
So much had changed in so little time, Adamarus thought. The titanic asteroid project which had been needed for the giant rail gun had been scrapped – the Loud had handed them technologies that superseded the need for a rail gun to launch things into orbit. The asteroids had been reallocated for orbital habitats that would, in time, ring their planet and others. These orbiting cities would be the transfer points for goods to and from the planets as well as shipyards and zero-gee manufacturing environments.
The Loud had kept their promise to resolve the problems with overpopulation resulting from their immortality treatments and the conversion of Adamarus’ people from a mortal species to an immortal one. Half a billion people were now living and working in off-planet settlements and another half billion would be re
located in the next year.
This moon could feed all of them and expand almost endlessly to feed the increased populations of the future. The second level was already being created underneath the surface of the wheat fields they now flew over. Below the surface, countless nanite were busy converting the rock that was there now into supports that would allow another level of farm land to exist below this one. And, after that, levels could keep being added as needed, deeper and deeper into the moon. A moon on the forth planet out was also being converted so there would be more than one food production world.
Adamarus watched the fields. The thin black columns and overhead lights passed by faster and faster until they were just a blurred mixture of colors. Not for the first time he wondered why, with all the excitement and wonders of their contact with the Loud, he felt an undefined hollow ache inside, an immense sadness that he could not define nor give form to. When he was busy, which was most of the time, he was fine, but during idle times when his thoughts could drift where they would, like before sleep or while jogging, the hollow ache and sorrow would come. He had tried to look at it, see its face and understand it, but time and again he failed to identify it.
The conversion from a mortal society to an immortal one was done. A year after the first distribution, the campaign to dispense the doses to every person on the planet had been declared a success with 100 percent of the population treated. There was a very small percentage—less than .01 percent—that refused the treatment for various reasons. Other than that, everyone was now between the ages of twenty-seven and thirty-two depending on their own biological clocks. This had had some unexpected side effects. For one thing, mortuaries, many pharmaceutical companies and thousands of other businesses dealing with all manner of middle age or geriatric needs had all but gone out of business overnight. At the same time, industries tied to the needs of the twenty-seven to thirty-two age group suddenly could not keep up.
Most of his world was scrambling to adapt and redefine. Leading the list was insurance companies, health care professionals and religious institutions.
Older people who had been counting their days, some in their nineties, suddenly found themselves back in the prime of their lives. While some of these people were redefining the terms “overachiever” and “type A personality,” others feared going outside least some accident take away their newfound immortality.
Divorces were way up in this older-made-young-again group as were pregnancies. Also, many of these people had retired with only enough money to last the remainder of their days. Now they needed to re-educate themselves and get back in the work force.
At a more basic and deeper level, death had been inevitable for ”everyone” – now, it was not. This was a profound change. Before, some had risked their lives to one degree or another with the attitude that they were going to die anyway, while others had done everything to insure their life would be as long as possible. Overnight things had changed. Now, you could live virtually forever unless a fatal injury took your life. Now life was worth a lot more in some ways and a lot less in other ways. No one could yet predict the full impact this would have and everyone would need time to adjust. More than not, people would forget and carry on as if death was still inevitable in a certain number of years—then they’d remember. But for everyone, it was just too new and too soon to process this new situation and integrate it into the way they acted or made decisions.
But trends were beginning to show. People were making more babies – the birth rate was up by over 100 percent which was worrisome. Suicides were up by 300 percent which was wholly unexpected. The crime rate had not changed. Colleges were swamped with applications. Savings were down, the debt rate was up, the stock market had gone insane and unemployment was non-existent due to the effort to move people off planet.
Adamarus continued to watch the fields fly by below the hover capsule while he thought about all these things.
Bugs announced that they were almost there, interrupting Adamarus’ train of thought. Soon, what looked like a black wall appeared ahead. One of the space ports. It stretched from the golden fields to the lit ceiling. The space ports were built to hold and load the large carrier ships that were just being built and had numerous docking facilities for other ships.
The hover capsule entered one of many entrances along the enclosing wall, and then wove its way round enormous conveyer belts and control towers to the dock where they had locked down their landing craft. Bugs parked the hover capsule perfectly beside the dock landing, then the three humans and one avatar exited and walked down the suspended ramp to their ship, a standard in-system craft made for travel within the planetary system.
Both the hover capsule and the ship were built by the Loud, but even now factories were being built to mass produce these types of craft.
Once aboard, Bugs began the pre-flight check list while the others got strapped in and back to work. Leewood got right on the com unit while Harrington unfolded her PDA and started answering messages. Adamarus also got on his PDA and started checking the schedule for the coming week. There was so much going on and so much to do. It was overwhelming.
Ten minutes later the craft lifted up and departed the moon. Their next stop was the 23rd Annual Symposium on Quantum Physics. Bugs had agreed to be the keynote speaker and planned to address how the two species viewed the universe. It would be televised around the planet and anyone remotely interested in science would be watching.
It happened without warning as the craft left the moon. Adamarus abruptly stopped checking the schedule on his PDA and looked up, his eyes unfocused. Through the semitransparent hull, the unnatural geometric mirrored surface of the moon was dropping away, but none of this registered with Adamarus. It had come to him out of nowhere…in a flash of insight that had jarred him. He suddenly knew exactly what was causing the bouts of sadness inside him. He didn’t know why he hadn’t seen it before. It seemed so obvious.
Before the Loud had come, his people had strived to progress – to move forward with both disappointments and elation, failures and victories, but always advancing and discovering. Ever since they had fallen out of the trees and started walking upright they had, without help, pushed the envelope of their understanding of the universe. There had been pride, ambition, newness and wonder.
But now? Now all of that was gone. The Loud were a thousand years ahead of them. Want to know something…anything…just ask and get the answer from the Loud.
No, he corrected himself, not ”all” of it was gone. There were still areas that the Loud seemed to have no interest in: art, music, fiction and even some areas of science. And in some areas the Loud would give Amular what they knew and then they would be even, both on the edge of that one area pushing the envelope.
Still, overall, these were just small exceptions. He rubbed his eyes and wondered if anyone else had looked at it this way. He thought of the suicide rate and wondered if that was related at all.
A sharp sound shook him out of his thoughts. A heat shield had slid over his window; they were entering the atmosphere.
---
Professor Floyd Earl Woodworth, famous historian, had been seventy-two years old. Finding retirement not completely fulfilling, he had taken a second grade teaching position in Hillcrest.
Then the skies had filled with little white immortality doses. Now he was a young man again and of course he loved it. Besides the de-aging process making him look young again, it was the difference in the way he felt! Endless energy is the only way he could describe it.
Like many in his same situation, he felt more comfortable in the type of clothes he had worn as a young man and chose to dress that way at his “new age.” He looked quaintly out of date. However, this mode of dress had become a style in itself.
Professor Woodworth stood five-foot-eleven again, but at first, his body had been just as out of shape as it had before the treatment. He had placed himself on an exercise routine and now it was starting to show.
Li
fe was good. Life was great!
But right now he was confused, not to mention embarrassed. The suggestion he had made to his second grade class regarding their one and only chance to ask a Loud a question had seemingly backfired.
Mistake indeed! How could such an error be made? People all around the world had seen the dim star change into a bright new star and reported it, some meticulously describing the location.
When Nero A. Maximus had told the class that the Loud had said that there had never been a solar flare, he had been shocked. He made a class assignment out of researching the issue and finding the problem. But none was found and so he had had to wait until the summer vacation before he could pursue it further.
And so here he was. He had traveled 700 miles from his home in Hillcrest to Bakersfield where the archives were kept at the Central Museum of Science. He was supposed to be on his way to the 23rd Annual Symposium on Quantum Physics, but felt that he could make this detour and still be there on time. Now, he sat in a viewing room reviewing the original accounts of the solar flare that had been observed 1,023 years ago.
Astronomy had been a little different back then, but it had still been a mature science. The Loud’s home star, G214h, had not been classified, logged or named back then, but other large stars around it had been and, of course, the constellations had been named and documented for thousands of years before that. G214h was dim but visible to the naked eye.
He leafed through the twenty-two accounts of the event that he had narrowed his search to. There were other accounts, but the ones he needed were the ones that had documented where the star appeared to be in relation to the constellations and other bright stars. These accounts came from sources all around the planet.
Eighteen were completely consistent on where the star was located. One was a few degrees off while the other three were significantly off… maybe. The eighteen consistent accounts were all from better developed areas for the most part.
Encounters 1: The Spiral Slayers Page 14