Crises and Conflicts: Celebrating the First 10 Years of NewCon Press
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{Note1: See Memorandum on Efforts to Surreptitiously Debrief Wergen Colonists, dated December 2, 2525, which noted that most Wergen colonists were born off-world and appear to have been have purposely kept in the dark about the location of their home planet. However, certain love-smitten Wergens went silent when interrogated on this subject. This suggests they held relevant information about their homeworld but may have been protected by some form of mental shield that prevented its disclosure.}
Setting
The Triton negotiations between human and Wergen surrogates took place aboard the spacious 1000 square foot viewing deck of the Engagement with its spectacular views of the storm clouds of Uranus. In contrast, the more successful Mars talks occurred in the Pavonis Mons Caverns, in a shadowy den measuring only ten by twenty feet. Based on the foregoing, negotiations should take place in cramped quarters with no tables or other barriers between the attendees. Close physical proximity is likely to produce optimal results. The room must be spare, with no decorations, windows or other distractions for the Wergens.
Duration
During Martian negotiations, the lead Wergen representative interrupted the talks and took frequent breaks. As described by one of the attendees:
“Our interactions were polite at first, becoming more and more informal with each passing hour, before turning noticeably chummier. By the end of the day, the aliens had to take numerous breaks, staggering out of the conference room every few minutes, hugging their shoulders. On one occasion, while I don’t recall their exact words, I overheard them whisper to each other.” He imitates them, raising the pitch of his voice so that he speaks in a sickly sweet singsong: “‘So, so, beautiful... Their delicate forms... their soft voices... the warm sparkle in their eyes.’” His voice returns to normal. “The white scales that covered their face paled from a light grey to an ivory white. They averted their eyes, pulling their hoods over the faces while they retreated to compose themselves.”
Testimony of Representative Marcus Decinces, taken on August 1, 2525
at 45:32 – 46:44.
Accordingly, we must object to these numerous breaks and extend the duration of negotiations as long as possible. Most of our diplomats can tolerate being in close quarters with the Wergens for no more than a few days before experiencing psychological trauma. While countervailing considerations exist, as noted below, this factor is critical to a successful negotiation.
Touching
Physical contact with the aliens – a prolonged handshake, touching their arms, laying a hand on their shoulders (preferably skin-to-skin contact) – is strongly encouraged. However, great care should be taken not to overstimulate the Wergens for this may cause them to shut down and stop speaking altogether. Even worse, we might have a repeat of the Mobbing Incident on Mars, which resulted in psychological trauma to all human attendees.[2]
Nasal Receptor Blockers
Negotiators in close quarters with the Wergens for an extended period of time have complained about their stink, about the gag reflex that makes it difficult to speak while in their presence:
“An overwhelming stench – of vinegar and raw sewage and something else, something unfamiliar and unpleasant – grew more pungent the longer we remained in the same room with the three aliens. If they hadn’t requested so many breaks I’m sure I would’ve puked right on top of their flat heads.” He shakes his head, flares his nostrils in disgust. “But it was more than the terrible stink that made me sick; it was their alien nature – simply being in their presence – that set off some instinctive biological defense mechanism. It was as if a room full of rattlesnakes were drawing closer and closer. It took everything I had to fight the urge to flee. To this day, I wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night dreaming of those eyes, those large black pupil-less eyes boring into my soul.”
Testimony of Diplomat Baron LaPage, taken on Sept. 4, 2525, at 32:10—33:17
{Note 2 See Medical Analysis of Human Physiological Reaction to the Wergens, dated Oct. 7, 2525 at pg. 33: “The diplomats swarmed by the Wergens suffered dangerous short-term physical symptoms such as palpitations and elevated blood pressure as well as long-term post-traumatic stress. Other negotiators merely present in the same room with the Wergens routinely sought counselling for recurring nightmares.” See Section F below on Counselling.}
EC has developed an aerosol spray that numbs the nasal receptors for up to 10 hours and which should be used prior to any meeting. Unfortunately, while the aerosol prevents gagging, it does nothing to lessen the general revulsion felt in the presence of the Wergens.[3]
Availability of Counselling
Members of the Mars negotiating team – both those swarmed and those present during the Mobbing Incident – remain in therapy. This underscores the delicate balancing act we must strike: working closely with the Wergens, ingratiating ourselves with them, but also taking into account the mental health of our own negotiators. For this reason, free lifetime counselling remains available to all diplomats.
{Note 3: Some renegade Wergens have developed their own version of an inhalant, a dangerous drug that skews their thinking and suppresses their docility in our presence natural love for humanity. Needless to say, under no circumstances should we tolerate the presence of – let alone negotiate with – any Wergen employing one of these devices. [CONSIDER MOVING THIS FOOTNOTE UP INTO THE TEXT. THE WERGEN RENEGADES ARE BECOMING A DANGEROUS THREAT TO THE HUMAN/WERGEN PARTNERSHIP.]}
IV. Conclusion
The above stratagems should must be employed going forward to achieve the most favourable partnership terms possible. If we proceed judiciously, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to overwhelm persuade the Wergens with “[our] soft voices... the warm sparkle in [our] eyes.” The wellbeing of our settlers and the future of our colonisation efforts depend on it.
T.K.
cc: EC Representatives of All Nations
[ARE WE TAKING STEPS TO SECURE THIS DOCUMENT AND PRIOR DRAFTS – NOT JUST THE FINAL VERSION – VIA QUANTUM ENCRYPTION? IF THESE DRAFTS WERE TO FALL INTO THE HANDS OF WERGEN RENEGADES, THE CONSEQUENCES COULD BE DIRE.]
[RESPONSE BY TK: I’LL HAVE TO DOUBLE CHECK]
The Story of The Ten
Jo Zebedee
“Tell me the story,” Jay whispers, then yawns. His sleeping quarters are cramped, but that makes things cosier. It’s a good thing I like cosy – our share of the ship consists of a sleeping alcove, a tiny living area and a toilet. When we reach Terra Pierra we’ll find even the confined area of the dome huge. No need to worry about that yet, though. For now, I snuggle beside him and put my arm around his shoulders to get close enough not to topple off the edge of the bed.
“Which story?” I ask, but I’m teasing. There’s only ever one story Jay wants. The people at ISEB – the International Space Exploration Bureau – got their way with that one. They made me tell it as he grew up and ensured that storybooks and playsets about Terra Pierra were left in the communal living area we use for an hour a day, until all he wanted to know was how he fitted into the story. They won’t take the chance that a pliable child, putting up with medical tests in the name of science, might grow into an adult who’ll refuse.
“The story of the ten.” He’s smiling, too, enjoying the in-joke. It’s all I can do not to tighten my arm around his shoulders and try to stop time now, when he’s seven and still wants me to talk to. In another year, he’ll have grown and be filling this small space. Hell, in a year, we might be on Pierra. My throat closes, dry and sick, but I make myself relax, tensing my muscles and releasing them, one after the other, until I trust myself to speak.
“All right,” I say. “The story of the ten it is.” I shuffle and get comfy and his head comes onto my shoulde
r and I put on the sing-song lie of a voice I always use. “Once, there were ten, and one day there will be one...”
“It begins with Terra Pierra,” I say. “Humans never thought we’d be able to leave Earth, but we found a planet in the goldilocks zone...”
“Not too hot, and not too cold, but just right,” he chants, reminding me I’m telling him this from a script. I manage not to look at the ceiling, or at the small mirror hanging opposite. I don’t know where the listening devices are hidden, only that they must be. Watching devices too, no doubt – on Venturer-II, ISEB monitor everything.
“That’s right,” I say. A goldilocks planet with steady temperature and sun-activity, unlocked water and minimal life. Non-breathable atmosphere, of course, and gravity heavier than had been hoped for, but within tolerable limits. “Major Pierra and her team were the first to get there, and they stayed for three years, testing to see it was safe, before Venturer-I was planned.”
Venturer-I, the great shining beacon of hope. It would traverse stellar distances using the newly discovered compression and expansion technique, folding and unwrinkling space, stepping in and out of the reality of our universe. There was talk of a wormhole, so that travel to the colony wouldn’t take the seven long years it did now, bringing hope and optimism for a new Earth. All this talk about wormholes and wrinkling space proved to even the most sceptical that we’d entered the Space Era.
“And you wanted to go to Pierra,” Jay reminds me, moving the story on. “You wanted it more than anything.”
“I did.” I smile at the memory. They’re clever, the people at ISEB – they have me putting enough of my own truth into the story to make me complicit. “Your Grandpa and I watched the British colonists leaving London. People all over Earth did the same, went to the departure pad to see their people off, because the Spacers were taken from all over the world.”
A melting pot of cultures, all colours and creeds, had been promised. In space, it wouldn’t matter, ISEB had declared. The settlers would become Pierrans, not Earthlings. Fighting would be forgotten. Food would be limited to concentrates, pre-processed fare and micro farming – cultural preferences would be irrelevant. Utopia was promised, and we all bought into it.
“But they didn’t take you.” Jay knows the story as well as I do, but still we do the dance of memories. It tells him about people he’s never known, a past he moved beyond before he’d even been born. For him, Grandpa and Grandma exist only because of the story. Everyone exists, except Gabriel. Him, I can’t talk about. I can barely even think about his twisted smile and dark eyes. The same twisted smile Jay has, the same eyes that crinkle when he laughs. One day, maybe, Gabe will be in his memories, a part of the story. But not yet.
“No, they didn’t select me.” I can’t think of Gabriel – it’s the only way to survive, because survival comes from being strong, not lost and sad. “Not then.”
I’d applied to the programme on the day of my twenty-first birthday. My mother took me to the office, her hands tight on the steering wheel as we pulled in, fear mixing with pride. She’d turned and wished me luck, but I saw how her jaw tightened and how her voice shook. She didn’t trust ISEB, even in the early days. I should have listened to Mother, I tell myself, uselessly and years too late.
“Tell me about the office,” says Jay. “Remember, how you were asked to protect Earth?”
The centre of the story – the glory of the Bureau. The bloody lies they told in my voice.
“It was a shiny building, in the middle of the town,” I tell him. “There were ISEB representatives at the door. I’d never seen anyone wear a uniform like theirs before. The material was designed to be worn in space and it reflected the sunlight and made them seem as if they really were from another planet. It made them seem special.”
They’d smiled and made us welcome, seeming to hide nothing. Maybe those representatives hadn’t known the truth – or maybe the truth came later, after the sickness. It’s impossible to know but, on that shining day in 2017, they’d welcomed me and I’d suspected nothing of what would come.
“Were they like the ISEB we have on the ship?”
“Not quite.” The representatives on the ship carry weapons, discreet in their holsters but deadly. They call themselves soldiers and have hard muscles and harder eyes. They watch us wherever we go, making fear gnaw at my belly. My child grew up in these three rooms, never knowing daylight or air, or Earth itself, because of their decisions. I push away my thoughts – they aren’t helpful and might show in my voice. Somehow, I force a smile.
“They ushered people in and when we came to sign, we had to put our hand on the Bible –”
“The big book?”
“That’s right, the big book.” He’ll never know a bible, not here amongst the stars. That’s for Earth people, not Spacers. “And they made me say, all solemn...” I put my hand on my chest and clear my throat and boom out, “I swear my allegiance to Earth, and put my resources and self at her bidding.”
Jay laughs, as he always has, at the thought of me being so bold and confident, but I glare at the mirror. My resources and self, not my child. But they know how I feel, and they don’t care. Can’t care, they say. I’m one amongst thousands – and my child is facing a better future than those on Terra Pierra.
“But you didn’t go, even though you promised. You stayed at home with Grandpa and Grandma and watched it on TV instead. And you thought it was all finished for you.”
“That’s right.” I remember the dull white paper the rejection was printed on, heavy in my hands. The words had been cold, giving no reason. Father tried to joke but something died in him a little, too – a hope that a part of him would be on Pierra, carrying our family further than he’d dreamed, perhaps. A sense of me doing what he’d have loved to do, had he been deemed young enough to.
“Tell me about the ship,” says Jay. “I love this bit.”
So I talk about Venturer-I. I tell him all the design specs I remember, and he tells me many more that he knows from the books strewn for him to find. We talk about how space can be crossed. As always, I catch my breath. It’s one thing to imagine travelling through space in a sophisticated tin can but quite another to be reminded that’s exactly what we are doing. The room doesn’t move around us, and the engines are so smooth I only notice them when I concentrate – sometimes it’s easy to lie to myself and forget what this is all about.
I distract us both by talking about the telly programmes shown on Earth, documentaries about Terra Pierra and stories about the colony. I tell him about the first time I saw a full terra-naut’s suit, and he snorts at the idea of not knowing, Spacer child that he is.
“Mum,” he says, after I’ve told him about gathering to watch the launch. I make my usual rubbish joke about how it was good for humanity not to have all our humans on one globe and he laughs at the idea that humans are like eggs, but I don’t. Not now, when I know how fragile everything could be.
“Yeah?” I answer.
“Why do you always seem sad at this bit?” He’s biting his lip, worried perhaps at deviating from the normal story. “I mean, it’s exciting. The space launch, how you held your breath through the first Space-fold, how it took so long everyone was sure the Spacers were dead.”
“Do I look sad?” He’s getting older and able to read me so much better. That makes me even sadder.
He shakes his head. “You look the same. But you feel sad.” He touches my chest. “Here.”
And the moment hangs, where I could tell him about Gabriel. I could admit I was glad not to be called up the first time, because I’d never have met him. I could tell the truth, that while Venturer-I made for the stars I’d spent my time with Gabriel, all long-limbed and mine. I’d made the life I wanted – me, and Gabe, and a little bump of a baby growing in me.
I don’t think I can tell Jay about how I’ve been forced from Gabe. I’m not even sure I’m allowed to – it was never in the sanctioned story. I’ll be returned to him if t
hings work out, ISEB said, but not how or when. He’s my hope for the future – my reward for a job done. If I tell Jay – if I admit to a life that wasn’t about him – the words would be the end of whatever’s held me together throughout these years. So I laugh instead, and say, “It was just disappointment at not going, love.”
He leaves it at that. I guess even a smart seven year old still wants to be fooled when things seem bigger than they should. I fill the next bit with stuff he knows. About the colonists landing and how they shared their new world with us.
“They have printers that made the dome,” I say. “All thin sheets of printed plastic, so strong you could stand on it. And they’ll expand the dome, build more.” I give him a nudge. “You could design the planet-buggies they’ll use to get from one dome to another. You’re good at building things.”
“I can be anything I want,” he says. I’ve been telling him that since he was old enough to listen. I hate myself because it might be a lie. He yawns. “And after they made the dome, the sickness came.”
“Yes. All the news turned dark.” I lower my voice, trying to make the story sad but not too scary. Jay knows about it, of course, but he doesn’t know the true horror.