The Book That THEY Do Not Want You To Read, Part 1

by Andy Ritchie

  I remember someone trying to stop me. They sort of blocked my way and said something clichéd like: ‘Oh, no, sonny, you ain’t going nowhere,’ as if they’d figured that I was involved in something sinister and dangerous and concluded that they had a public duty to prevent my escape.

  But I was in no mood to tolerate anyone thwarting my escape, so I simply kicked him squarely in the balls. He went down with a strange sound, sort of a cross between a whine and a whimper, and after that, no-one seemed willing to stand in my way.

  Once beyond the circle of onlookers, now six or seven deep, I began to run along Fountain Street. I had no plan in my head, no idea of what to do next, just a single, simple thought.

  Get away.

  Get as far away from this place as possible, by any means possible.

  I didn’t think about going back to the car.

  I didn’t think about Tukaal and what may have happened to him.

  I didn’t think about anything at all except being somewhere else, somewhere far, far away.

  That was the only thing on my mind.

  What happened next, I’m not absolutely sure.

  I’m not sure where THEY came from. It could have been from a side street, it could have been from behind me (though they would have had to have been moving quickly to catch me up), it could have been from thin air. Wherever it was, THEY gave me no time to even react to their presence before they were upon me.

  The blow to my midriff took me completely by surprise. One second I was running, the next I was on my knees, clutching my stomach, tasting bile and blood and all sorts of things in my mouth.

  Then there was another blow, this time less savage, more calculated, but it was incredibly painful nonetheless, right on the top of my head, sending me sprawling onto the floor, the world spinning around me wildly even though I know I had my eyes screwed shut in pain.

  There were voices, deep and throaty, but their words were muffled and made incoherent by strange wailing and screeching noises inside my own head.

  I do, however, remember the last two sensations with tremendous vividness, as if the mad cacophony of sound and the sickening sensation of spinning that the blows had heralded inside my mind passed as suddenly as they came.

  The first was the unmistakable sensation, for the second time in as many minutes, of a hypodermic needle stabbing into my skin and a fluid being injected into my body. This time it was on the right side of my neck.

  The second was the peculiar sensation of something being pulled over my head.

  I think I struggled for another couple of seconds.

  I’m pretty sure I shouted:

  ‘Get the fuck off me, you bastards!’

  I think I felt one of them punch me in the face...

  ...then the world went black.

  -----

  Diary Entry 8

  [Collator’s Note: It is not entirely clear why JP would have printed out a hard-copy transcript of the conversation that took place between Tukaal and his captor, but a hard-copy was in amongst the papers. It may have something to do with the importance of the contents of the conversation. The transcript itself has a very basic format, simply recording the identity of the person speaking and what they said. However, I have noted that the transcript of what the captor said has some peculiarities in it, which makes me suspect that whatever system of voice recognition the Confederation uses to turn recorded human speech into typed English words is not 100% foolproof. I haven’t changed any of the transcript itself, but I have included annotations showing what was actually said, based on the DVDs containing the video record from Tukaal’s neural net. I have also taken the liberty of using the video to enhance the transcript with some description of the scene (where I feel it is useful). These additions are in italics.]

  Conversation 1

  There is the sound of electronic locks being disengaged, followed by footsteps (two people) echoing around the room on a hard floor. There is the sound of a coat being removed and being passed from one person to the other.

  A black fabric bag is removed from Tukaal’s head and he blinks a few times to adjust to the light.

  He looks around.

  He is bound to a chair with straps — one across his chest, two on his wrists and two on his ankles.

  The room is small with a concrete floor and concrete walls, and a single metal door. There is the classic single bulb hanging beneath a heavy, circular shade. Only Tukaal and his immediate area are lit. The rest of the room is in darkness.

  He hears a whispered comment (indiscernible), then the second person leaves. The door locks are re-engaged.

  There is the sound of a throat being cleared.

  Unknown Human - 'I’m afraid your Researcher friend is dead.'

  Silence. Tukaal does not answer.

  Unknown Human - 'It had an argument with a bus and didn’t win. We found its body, and the shell, not far from where we, er, detained you ...I believe it was a hard come back [Harkenbach]....'

  Silence again - then footsteps as the Unknown Man walks around where Tukaal is sat.

  Unknown Human - 'Tell me, what did the Researcher say to you?'

  Ambassador Tukaal - 'By what authority do you keep me detained here? You have no right to abduct me, assault me, to treat me in this manner. I’m just an ordinary...'

  Unknown Human - 'Spare me the falls out rage [false outrage] and indignation, Ambassador. It doesn’t suit you.'

  Ambassador Tukaal - 'Ambassador...? What do you mean...?'

  Unknown Human - 'Oh please, Ambassador, there’s no point in trying to maintain the pretence. I know what you are, why you are here...I know everything about you. I know that you were supposed to make your grand entrance on the lawn of the White House a couple of days ago. I know that your ship received a sub-space message from a Researcher whilst on its final approach, requesting a postponement that resulted in you being diverted to England. I know that you met up with some worthless little no-hoper called jet throw postal date [Jethro Postlethwaite] and that you’ve been staying at his house for the last three nights. I know that you went to man chess stir [Manchester]today to meet with the Researcher...what I want to know is what it told you.'

  Ambassador Tukaal - 'I’m afraid I don’t have any idea what you are talking about.'

  The footsteps stop. The Unknown Human’s voice is angry.

  Unknown Human - 'Come now, Ambassador, please don’t insult my intelligence by pretending to be ignorant. We’ve been tracking your movements and monitoring your communications ever since you arrived here. I know you got a message from the Researcher on Saturday evening when you returned from your curry and that the message said you had to cancel your planned meeting on Sunday. I know you eventually spoke to the Researcher on your URG on Sunday afternoon on a car park outside a supermarket. I know you eventually met with it in the restaurant and other nomes [at Debenhams] just before its unfortunate demise. Now, once again, I’m asking you to tell me what the Researcher told you.'

  The footsteps re-commence. Tukaal sighs deeply.

  Ambassador Tukaal - 'It seems very much that you have me at a disadvantage, sir.'

  Unknown Human - 'Yes, I suppose it does.'

  Ambassador Tukaal - 'Look, can we start over. I’m more than happy to co-operate with you. All this cloak and dagger stuff, putting black bags over people’s heads, beating them up, bundling them into vehicles, taking them to dark rooms and tying them to chairs...well, it’s all a bit theatrical and completely unnecessary. I’m just a simple diplomat, here to interface with humans, to build with them a state of mutual trust...'

  Unknown Human - 'You don’t fight like a diplomat, Ambassador. It took six of my men to bring you down...three of them are in hospital, one of them may not walk again after what you did to his back.'

  Ambassador Tukaal - 'That was indeed unfortunate, and I am extremely sorry...but you have to admit that it is not unreasonable to try to protect oneself when being set upon without justification...'

&nbs
p; Unknown Human - 'Nonetheless, it’s an unusual diplomat who is able to handle himself the way you did...'

  Ambassador Tukaal - 'Unusual for Earth, maybe, but not for the Confederation. Ambassadors such as myself often end up in the most hostile of environments and, as such, need to be able to...how can I put it...deal with whatever circumstances we happen to encounter...after all, it does no-one any favours if an Ambassador ends up dying on the planet to which he has been assigned, as I’m sure you are aware.'

  Unknown Human - 'Indeed, it does not.'

  Ambassador Tukaal - -Of course, it doesn’t take a genius to work out whom it is you represent but, just for the purposes of clarity and to ensure that there are no embarrassing misunderstandings, could you just confirm to me that you are indeed in the employ of the Bad Guys.'

  Footsteps stop again. Long delay as Unknown Human decides how to answer.

  Unknown Human - 'Yes, I am'

  Ambassador Tukaal -'Oh good. There’s nothing worse than diving headlong into a conversation only to find out halfway through the discussion that the other party is not who you assumed they were and have absolutely no idea what it is you are talking about. It happened to me once on the planet of Yoshi 3, on only my second assignment as an Ambas...'

  Unknown Human - 'Please, Ambassador, spare me the a neck toads [anecdotes].'

  Ambassador Tukaal somewhat sheepishly - 'Apologies. I was only trying to make polite conversation.'

  Unknown Human - 'Now that we’ve established who you are and whom I represent, can we return to the question at hand. What did the Researcher tell you?'

  Ambassador Tukaal - 'So it was a Harkenbach, was it? That’s very interesting. Have you determined whether it was a tri-male, that’s the one with the extra-long proboscis, if you weren’t aware.'

  Unknown Human - 'I believe it was, though we’ll know more when we’ve had it examined at one of our facilities.'

  Ambassador Tukaal - 'I assume you will be looking for the Gub, though I suggest that would be a waste of time as I very much doubt this Harkenbach was anywhere near old enough to be considering producing a Gub. You could, perhaps, extract the oil and see what you can get from that. Perhaps that will provide you with the answers you are clearly so desperate to get.'

  The footsteps resume.

  Unknown Human - 'Oh, let me assure you that we will get everything we can from the corpse, Ambassador, but it would be an awful lot easier if you were to simply tell us why the Researcher postponed the First Contact.'

  Ambassador Tukaal - 'As I told you before, the Researcher told me nothing.'

  Unknown Human irritably - 'Ambassador, I am not a man known for my patience...'

  Ambassador Tukaal - 'Well, I’m sorry, Mr whatever-your-name-is, but I can’t tell you what I do not know.'

  Unknown Human - 'Do you know what the Researcher had been working on in the months leading up to First Contact? Did it mention anything about that when you met?'

  Ambassador Tukaal - 'My dear mysterious inquisitor, are you now going to insult my intelligence by asking me the same question in several different forms? If you are, then it’s going to be a long and tedious interrogation.'

  Unknown Human takes a deep breath- 'What did the message it sent to your ship actually say?'

  Ambassador Tukaal - 'Do you mean you don’t know? Have your spies in the Secretariat not managed to get you a copy? My, my, how very...unprofessional of them!'

  Unknown Human - 'Ambassador, please don’t play games with me...'

  Ambassador Tukaal - 'It was a standard message, using the Postponement Request Form as required by paragraph 1126 of the First Contact Protocol. Its purpose is simply to get the process started, so all it does is state where on the planet the Ambassador should head in order to attend the Resolution Meeting.'

  Unknown Human appears surprised - 'Are you telling me that the Researcher does not have to provide any reason for the postponement, does not need to offer any evidence as just stiff occasion [justification]?'

  Ambassador Tukaal - 'It’s a requirement of the Protocol itself that he does not, and it’s important to the legitimacy of the process that no information is provided.'

  Unknown Human - 'Ambassador, are you sure you’re not bowl shooting [bull-shitting] me here? Surely it’s logical for there to be some justification given, so at least a judgement can be made about whether the postponement request is valid or spurious...'

  Ambassador Tukaal - 'And there you have it, inquisitor-without-a-name, the very reason why no information should be provided in order for the process to work. You said yourself that someone needed to make a judgement about the validity of the request. What if an Ambassador, on reading a three-line overview of a complex issue on a form, makes a ‘judgement’ that the issue is not worth bothering about and, consequently, the First Contact is a disaster because of that? The whole point of the enforced absence of information is to prevent premature judgements based on less than all the facts, to prevent Ambassadors developing pre-conceived ideas and conclusions about the issue. Even the exact identity of the Researcher is withheld by the process to ensure that there is no risk of an Ambassador being influenced by prior knowledge of, or pre-conceptions relating to, a particular Researcher. That’s why, sadly, I don’t even know the Researcher’s name!'

  Unknown Human - 'Sounds like bureaucracy gone mad, if you ask me.'

  Ambassador Tukaal - 'I don’t make the rules, I just follow them.'

  Unknown Human - 'So, the Researcher gave you absolutely no indication of what it was it had discovered?'

  Ambassador Tukaal - 'Look, if you’re going to ask me the exact same question over and over again, we’re going to be here forever. If you like, I can give you a copy of the Postponement Request Form to help clear things up. It would be no trouble.'

  Footsteps stop.

  Unknown Human - 'You have it with you?'

  Ambassador Tukaal - 'Indeed. It is stored in my neural net...I assume you know about my neural net, as you seem to know everything else about me...I could easily download it to one of your computers.'

  Unknown Human - 'And you would be willing to do that?'

  Ambassador Tukaal - 'Of course...but only if you agree to certain conditions.'

  Unknown Human - 'Which are...?'

  Ambassador Tukaal - 'Firstly, I’d like you to undo these straps — they are rather uncomfortable. Secondly, I’d like to be properly introduced...I always like to know who I’m negotiating with...and, finally...'

  Unknown Human - 'Yes...?'

  Ambassador Tukaal - 'I’d like a nice cup of tea, preferably something flavoured like Earl Grey or Lapsang Souchong...I’d like it with a splash of milk and just one sugar.'

  Unknown Human - 'Is that it?'

  Ambassador Tukaal - 'If you have any biscuits, that would be excellent. I am a little hungry.'

  Silence, as the Unknown Human thinks.

  Unknown Human - 'I like you, Ambassador, I do. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll go and get a lap dog [laptop] so you can then give me a copy of the form that the Researcher sent to your ship. If all is well, I’ll then get you some tea and biscuits and then send you on your way. For now, I'm afraid, the wrist straps remain, just until I'm sure. How does that sound?'

  Ambassador Tukaal - 'I think that is an acceptable compromise, Mr...?'

  Unknown Human - 'Mendelssohn. Patrick Mendelssohn.'

  Ambassador Tukaal - 'It is a great pleasure to meet you, Mr Mendelssohn. I suppose it would be traditional to shake hands at this point, but, given my current position, we may have to save that for later. My name is Ambassador Tukaal...but I guess you already know that.'

  [Collator’s Note: Not quite sure how, but the transcript now replaces the ‘Unknown Human’ tag with ‘Mendelssohn’. I assume this was something to do with Tukaal and his neural net recognising it as a name.]

  Mendelssohn - 'Indeed I do, Ambassador. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and get that dog [laptop].'

  Footsteps as Mendelssoh
n walks to the door. He knocks twice. The electronic locks disengage and the door is opened, presumably by the guard who was waiting outside.

  Mendelssohn’s footsteps disappear down a corridor.

  The door closes and the electronic locks are re-engaged.

  Conversation 2

  About five minutes later.

  A table has been brought into the room, and on it sits a laptop. Mendelssohn stands behind the table.

  Mendelssohn - 'Now, Ambassador, if you would be so kind as to download the form.'

  Ambassador Tukaal - 'Of course, Patrick, of course.'

  Tukaal stares at the laptop. Adobe Acrobat opens, and then a form appears on the screen.

  [Collator’s Note: Attached to the back of the hard-copy of the transcript was a copy of the form which Tukaal shows Mendelssohn on the screen. I’ve included a reproduction of it here. For an explanation of the references to colours and Confederation dates, please refer to Confederation Note 4 in Appendix A.]

  Mendelssohn frustrated - 'This doesn’t tell me anything.'

  Ambassador Tukaal - 'I did indicate that that would be the case.'

  Mendelssohn - 'And the Researcher gave you no clues in either the message it left or in the conversation you had with it yesterday?'

  Ambassador Tukaal - 'As I said, the Protocol forbids discussion of the issue before the face-to-face meeting.'

  Mendelssohn - 'But it must have told you something at the meeting you had with it and other nomes [at Debenhams].'

  Ambassador Tukaal - 'Alas, no. We hadn’t even started to drink our tea and eat our cakes before we were alerted to the fact that your henchmen had turned up.'

  Mendelssohn - 'By the annoying missed her postal date [Mr Postlethwaite], no doubt.'

  Ambassador Tukaal - 'Indeed.'

  Mendelssohn stands with hands on hips, takes a deep breath and exhales, blowing his cheeks out as he does.

  Mendelssohn - 'So let me get this straight. The Researcher raises a Postponement Request form that means that First Contact is put on hold until you have had a meeting with it. Until that meeting, it’s not allowed to tell you anything about why it’s requested the postponement. Unfortunately, now that it’s dead, no-one knows why the postponement was requested in the first place. Correct?'