Ambassadors; Part 1.

[victorhadin]

This is part one of a story I have been writing. It is but a first draft, but if any critics amongst you would have the patience to read it, I would be very grateful indeed.

[victorhadin]

Ambassadors


The craft began the final stage of its decent through the planet’s atmosphere. Sleek and light grey in colour, it took the form of a huge flying wing, its forward end curved gently but with a slightly less aesthetically pleasing rear, which bulged out in the middle and tapered towards slim, fragile looking wingtips. It glided through the sky with deceptive speed on its final approach, the whole looking like the very figure of aerodynamic efficiency. Wingtip vortices stretched out behind it invisibly, marking its path through the air.
Several miles distant, two other craft descended parallel to it, their small figures dart-like and covered with thrust vectoring nozzles and miscellaneous weapons. They were escorts to the behemoth.
The great craft was descending fast now, approaching the concrete smear on the landscape far up ahead. It was approaching with some speed, tearing up the atmosphere at its wingtips silently.
As the aircraft neared the runway, flaps jutted abruptly from its unblemished frame. Spoilers were extended and for a brief moment the trailing edge was as the wing of a bird, ragged with protruding surfaces. It flared up over the asphalt briefly.
And then the rockets activated, shredding the surroundings with sheer noise and the massive machine came into a gentle and surprisingly slow, measured landing.


Conrad Ellis stood in the reception, hands behind his back and nervously twitching his fingers. He became aware he was sweating in his tight-fitting uniform, be it shaded as it was here in the reception, away from the sight of the furnace sky.
He looked at the giant wing currently taxiing down the runway and gently removed his earplugs. He had been informed about that beforehand, and to no real surprise; aliens were unlikely to adhere to such simple Confederate policies as noise regulation, now, were they? Looking around him, he could see, by the shocked expressions on their faces, several who had probably not taken his precaution.
He paused to wipe sweat from his uniform. Bloody country. He had been in Oman for a week now, and had not enjoyed it one bit. Sat here, on the flat rocky stretches of the midland regions near the coast, he had felt like he should be in a permanent siesta, caged by the heat. The moment he had walked out the vac train into this country a week ago, he had wished he had never done it. The heat, back then, had entered the cabin and struck him a solid blow as he had walked out, sapping all energy.
-Alas, however, there is no choice about the matter. The aliens liked this kind of heat, and so he was stuck with it, playing the good host as with everyone else present.
He turned to the woman at his side, Helen Poistra. She stood uncommonly tall, level with him, and sported a white council uniform just as he did, beneath a tight bun of brunette hair and a decidedly prim look. Nervous? Possibly. This was to be her first opportunity to see the sentients, just as it was his.
The aircraft had halted in front of the reception, glinting in the sunlight, it’s vast shadow coating the ground beneath like some dark angel pulled earthwards. Give the buggers this, he thought, -by accident or design, they certainly had a sense of drama.
There was a sudden quiet in the reception. The aircraft was opening up. On the upper surface a hatch recessed and a contraption emerged; a complicated ramp assembly leading over the edge of the aircraft fuselage and to the ground.
The crowd held its breath.
And they came out.


Dieter Avoss, a balding man in his late fifties, emerged from the council meeting flanked by his associate, a tall and surprisingly youthful man wearing the same grey suits as himself and all the council members. He walked briskly down the highly decorative hallway and emerged soon afterwards into the light of a summer in western Europe, in what was once France, a short distance north of Toulouse.
Walking into the parklands surrounding the council, he lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, blowing the smoke despondently at the air in general.
"Mr. Avoss, you shouldn’t really-" began his comrade.
"No. I suppose you’re right, but a small vice won’t be any trouble. It’s more than I deserve, after all that palaver." He gestured back towards the council buildings now obscured by trees, and made a point of looking out for anyone who might spot his illicit smoke. A short period of silence ensued as he made his way through the cigarette. "God damn it, those idiots." He finished.
"The council?"
"The colony representatives. How dare they make a show of us, to demand where we will park our own reception for an alien species." He scowled at the park in general.
His associate had sat down on a small boulder and was squinting into the sunlight. "But Dieter, to give them the benefit of the doubt, it is understandable they feel rather infringed upon by the receptions."
"Oh?" came the reply, glaring at the associate’s look of open-ended reason. "Why shouldn’t any rational person expect the sentients to be accepted on Earth? We’re not just the centre of human space, we practically are human civilization.” He glanced aside to see the other man settling down, a vacant grin on his face, which promptly vanished once Dieter looked at him. “You feel up to a lecture?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Right. The first moon manufacturing facilities were built in 2283. It was built by and financed by the Confederacy. Asteroid mining was in full swing by the turn of the century. Again, this was financed by Confederate funds and manpower. This is history, you know all this.” He dropped his cigarette, pausing to dig it into the ground and cover it with soil. “In 2321, it was Confederate scientists who invented faster-than-light travel with the Beijing Project. It was at this time, as you know, that the first squabbles over private ownership of assets started in the asteroid belt and the trojans. At the time we had no ability to counteract this and settle the disputes ourselves.”
His associate nodded. “True enough. I did a thesis on the asteroid rebellions.”
“The robber barons, you mean?”
A nod. “Yes.”
“Anyhow, as I was saying, if you have to look at a single instigator for human colonization in space, for the beginning of the space age and for the centralization of power amidst our worlds, it has to be Earth. There is no other substitute. The Sol system possesses a population and economy rather more than all twenty developed colony worlds put together. It isn’t a matter of quibbling; we are scales of magnitude ahead of the competition.”
There was quiet. For a minute the two sat and stood respectively, looking out over the parkland and the picturesque trees, planted just-so. They stared at the distant figures of other council members and staff walking or relaxing on the grass and nothing was said for a while.
The associate turned to Dieter. "You know, it’s funny."
"What is?"
The man stood up from his boulder and dusted himself off, thinking. "Well I’ve only noticed it recently, and I’ve never noticed it beforehand, whether or not it went on, but all the councilmen are doing it now."
"What?" Repeated Dieter.
"You’re referring to them as competition. You never used to do that."
There were a few more moments silence, and both of them turned and made their way back to the council building.


It hung in space in Earth’s orbit like some vast grey whale, it’s main bulk taken up by the slowly rotating main section, grey, metallic and misleadingly fragile. To the front was a wide, flat circle, silvered and smooth, the widest point on the vessel; the hyperspace shunt. To the rear was the chunkiest and most sturdy-looking part of the whole parcel, the fusion motor and the vital radiation shield, forming a significant looking cone.
Two Hanger personnel looked out at it through the tiny plexiglass windows, marveling at its bulk.
“An impressive sight, isn’t it?” Asked one to the other, smaller man.
“That it is.” Replied the other. “Bigger than anything we’ve got by a fair margin, that’s for sure.”
“I have to wonder, though, could we make something like that. You know, if we wanted to?”
The smaller man was silent for a couple of seconds. “Probably.” He gestured towards the hanging bulk. “It’s big, granted, and that brings its own structural problems, but leaving that aside it would take only minor modifications to the Hanger to produce something like this. It’s already been enlarged three times during its lifetime; it was designed to be easily modified.”
There was silence again as the two looked out at the vessel, as they floated in free fall and their gaze was drawn to the side, where several reactionless cranes were visible, currently untethered and unpowered. These were the real muscle of the Europa space station and construction array, in mid-level orbit over Earth, without which the current industrial output of the setup would simply be impossible. They comprised of a massive base section, made purely for bulk and incredible mass, containing within the critical hydraulic and pneumatic systems that would power it all, and an extendible system of arms reaching out from one side of the crane. The arms could extend, pivot and branch and at their ends were the many branches that allowed them to safely support and move the larger construction segments with ease. The cranes, by themselves useless, had to be connected to an external power supply with which to power their pneumatic arms and the electrically run reaction motors. This power supply was provided by the superconducting web that was the wall of the ‘Hanger’ section; a cylindrical web of cables which the vast currents required would flow and power the cranes, hanging near to the walls of the web and manipulating sections within. The cylinder itself was vast, some five hundred metres in diameter and several miles long. The assembled parts, be they built on the moon or forged in the free fall facilities to the rear of the Hanger or the rare few constructed and shipped up from Earth itself, would enter one end of the cylinder. The sections, guided by the tiny welder/ transport drones, would be flown to the waiting arms of the cranes in the front section of the cylinder and the vessel or engine or factory component or whatever would initiate construction, from the inside out. The items to be constructed would be steadily moved down the length of the cylinder until they emerged, fully functional, either at the end or through the larger holes in the walls of the Hanger section.
The smaller worker spoke again. “Of course there is a definite advantage to constructing on a large scale, at least within limits. Their engineers are certainly aware of that.”
“So enlighten me.”
“It’s all to do with the hyperspace shunt you see. Generally they will tear a circular ‘hole’ into nullspace. The hole will remain for a set period before becoming unstable and the energy required to open it is directly proportional to the area the hole encompasses. Needless to say, this is a considerable amount in any case. Now what with the tendency towards bulk haulage between stars, to keep costs down the governments and multistellars need vessels that can maximize the ratio between haulage capacity and hyperspace energy requirements. Of course, hyperspace energy requirements will increase in square numbers and the volume of a vessel in cubes. The natural tendency is to build big."
“But as you said, there are limits.”
“Yes. There are several problems you encounter when you build big. One is that the bigger you get, the greater the stress on any part of the vessel’s structure when it accelerates at a set rate. With the largest ships, you have massive stresses within its structure when it performs even a small manoeuvre. The larger the stresses, the more significant the support structures required, which cuts down on the advantage of higher haulage capacities.”
“Wait just a second. What about the elevator? We’re using super-tensiles on that. Couldn’t it be used for ships too?”
“Of course it could. The space elevator and super-tensiles is already causing a small revolution in ship construction. The main reason for that though is the sheer influence of supply-and-demand caused by the elevator itself.”
“Tell me, my learned friend.” The tall one smiled.
“Of course. The elevator is a vast project. The amount of super-tensile materials that are being demanded for it are gargantuan and an entire industry has grown up around it. Critically this includes free-fall manufacture in a big way. The sheer size of this industry is what has driven the prices down, else we would simply not be seeing the advent of vessels with super-tensile construction. Once the elevator is completed, it will all shoot up again if another is not initiated.”
“Crap. That I wasn’t aware of.”
“And that isn’t the only problem.” The other said, ignoring the tall one’s look of veiled irritation. “There is another factor aside from stress within the structure that limits the speed of massive vessels. There is the factor of the amount of power per kg mass that can be supplied by the fusion engines.”
“Rubbish!” Spoke the tall one. “Fusion engines haven’t even nearly reached their zenith. No ship today requires the amount of power they could potentially offer if taken to their highest output. The designs have a lot of room for improvement.”
“Quite so, but consider this” he shaped the imaginary vessel with his hands, “the volume and mass of a vessel will increase in cubes as the design increases in size, but the area available for fusion reaction engines increases only in squares. Though indeed fusion engines could be made to deliver the required acceleration and that the limits for exhaust speeds are not yet anywhere near reached, you must consider that high-speed engines are always less fuel efficient than low-speed ones. Fold-out engines and other novelties still cannot act to quite cancel out this factor. It is, as ever, a balancing act. Massive ships increase the amount of haulage per hyperspace joule, decreasing costs. High-speed fusion engines that are required for such ships increase costs via increased inefficiency and lower speeds which would result from avoidance of high-speed engines would increase transit time. Increasing transit time means increasing other miscellaneous expenditures and potentially losing the company business to swifter competitors whilst raising the necessity for more vessels, driving up start-up costs.”
The two lay quite still, gripping the handles provided and watching the alien vessel. “It’s always a bugger when you look at the details, isn’t it?” Spoke the tall one, glumly.


Conrad Ellis stood once more on the soil of Europe, in the park outside the Security Council building. The sun was finished in showing itself over the horizon and clouds were showing in the morning light, red underlit and brooding, gathering together for rain.
“God I’m tired. I never slept a wink all the way back.” It was Helen Poistra, stood nearby.
“Can’t say I blame you. I found it hard myself.”
“Hard? You were out like a light when you first sat down in the train!”
“Well.” He shrugged. “It was all that heat, no doubt. Sapped my strength.” He grinned thinly. “What’s your excuse for having been awake, anyhow? It was hardly a rough ride.”
She looked away briefly. “It was those aliens. They really made me shiver. Couldn’t stop thinking about them.”
“The Bunali?” He asked nonchalantly, as if he met an alien sentient every other week. “Just great big centipedes which talk. Nothing scary about them.”
"Cut it out. I saw your face when you looked at them. You were damn near terrified."
A shrug. "OK. I confess I was a touch nervous, but terrified? Come, now." A grin.
Helen sat down, hand over her knees. "Mind, they certainly were intimidating. They seemed so…. Predatory."
Conrad nodded. That was certainly true. Some six metres long each, and with a head that reared up to eye-level, they did indeed look like massive centipedes more than anything else. He distinctly remembered the silence of their movement and the deceptive speed at which they stalked over the distance between their craft and the reception. “Agreed on that. Apparently they were top predators all the way back into pre-sentience. It shows.”
“I wonder if they actually have teeth under all those mandibles.”
“Would they need any? The mandibles seemed sharp and dexterous enough as it is.”
“Possibly. Maybe.” She said. “You reckon they’re ambush predators or something else? Pack hunters, maybe?”
“Hmmm. Tricky. I’d place my bet on pack hunters.”
“Oh?” Spoke Helen. She looked towards the distant hills on the horizon, currently sheathed in stark patterns of light and shadow and spindly, less-than-healthy trees. The sun lit them only sporadically, as if indecisive about the whole concept. The air smelt of damp leaves and faint organic decay, somewhere on the cusp of the senses.
“Yup.” Spoke Conrad, carrying on. “They’re not the speediest of chaps, I’ll wager, but the fact that they are civilised sentients argues against ambush predators. Ambush predators tend towards being solitary and the Bunali are clearly social enough to have developed a technological civilisation, hence my guess on pack hunting.”
“On the other hand perhaps you just find yourself unable to think of a species too far divorced from humanity. We are also social animals, after all. Tribal even.”
“You may have a point there, but I still can’t see solitary creatures so easily evolving towards civilisation.” He stopped and looked out at the morning scene, a cool breeze playing. “I wonder, what about isolationist humans?”
“What, you mean antisocial people, hermits? That sort of thing? What of them?”
“Just, you know, how prone we are to isolationism.”
She stirred in the cold morning air. “Not much. We are a social species, as I mentioned.”
“True, true. But what about the isolation of a society?”
“A different thing, surely?”
“Yes. Kind of. What I meant was how prone the Bunali might be to other human traits other than being social animals; whether they are tribal, for example.”
Silence for a moment. “Interesting. I can’t say I have considered that, or the ramifications of it.”
“The ramifications of it could be serious.”
She thought to herself. She thought of societies opposed, divisions, conflicts.
Wars.
And that was it, wasn’t it? People would always ally themselves to a group or tribe. –A group of friends, a neighbourhood, a football team, a city, a nation. From the start humans had been tribal creatures and on the larger scale this was reflected today, in organisations, alliances, nations, asteroid states and planets.
A bird settled on a branch, fluttering crazily, causing the narrow twig to oscillate, its amplitude dampening gradually. It paused to clean itself, its beak ducking underneath its wings for grooming.
-It was responsible for so many things, that tribal facet of human nature. Trade disputes, lack of empathy, the great wars of human history, including of course the Last War which had scarred the Earth and paved the way for the Confederacy.
And the Sol Confederacy itself, dominating human space as it did these days. It pledged unity and progress, the former of which was as close to a big fib as you could easily get without being too obvious. It was, of course, just a bigger than average tribe when you looked at it that way. Once Earth had been divided and the Confederacy, after the Last War, had emerged and formed a loose union of sorts, a union which had tightened and become more centralised and essential as time went on. The disputes in the asteroids with private concerns, anathema to Earth politics, and the so-called ‘robber barons’ had caused the Sol system as a whole to become one single governmental body, by dint of military force more than anything else, probably.
And yet it had retained the term ‘Confederacy’ as it did so, a term that was presumably partially viable given its confederate dominion over most of the colonies these days. A loose net of aligned worlds, most of the twenty developed colonies in existence now, pledged allegiance to the Confederacy with Sol at its centre.
She listened with half an ear to Conrad, who was idly muttering about some problem of his and kicking at the ground absent-mindedly, digging a little crater.
And yet through it all humanity was as tribal and argumentative as ever. Even now separatists ruled several colonies and rather more asteroid states, whilst within Confederate-aligned colonies resentment grew.
Is humanity destined to live at odds with itself? She thought to herself.
Conrad’s tired monologue drew to a stuttered close. “You agree?”
“I guess.” She said, before looking out over the landscape beyond the park. The distant and shadow-flecked gentle hills, the scattered trees and scrub and the rolling cloud, only just giving way to sunlight in places. The sounds of the animals and birds, hidden amongst the leaves and the smells of the naturalistic scene.
But as she turned away she noticed one more thing. A thing which she never failed to notice when in the park. It was a fence, several miles distant and visible by the extended poles marking its boundaries. Beyond it was poisoned land, radioactive and lethal for over two centuries after the Last War.
And as the two turned to walk back into the council building, it called out to her once more about mankind’s true nature.

[victorhadin]

"They what?" Spoke Jonathan Phillips, associate and aide of Dieter Avoss, security council member.
"They have no agriculture, like I said. You heard me perfectly well, John." The two sat in a plush, rather upwardly-mobile and decidedly pretentious café in one of Toulouse’s satellite towns. The tables were set wide apart, music which was perhaps music and perhaps the very bones of melody played on the cusp of hearing and the two were, as with everyone else, encased in a sonic dampening field. There was privacy, or the illusion of it at least.
"Sir, they have a population of many billions. Have they outlined how they manage this in a technological civilisation without agriculture? It seems altogether hard to believe."
Dieter frowned and mixed his mocha for a moment, stirring it and casually obliterating the carefully crafted foam riding on top. "Their society is somewhat different from ours. For a start they don’t live in cities, per se."
"How does that work, then? Decentralised chains of production would be difficult things to manage."
"True, true. It seems they have quite an impressive transportation system. Like our vacuum trains, but far more all-encompassing. Their settlements are arranged with some regularity; very evenly spaced and small, each one surrounded by rainforest, doubling as hunting grounds."
Phillips looked thoughtful at that. "Odd. How did their society spread and industrialise, I wonder? That’d be something to ponder."
"Apparently" Dieter continued, "they have a system of tribal colonialism. Each settlement functions as a tribe, growing in population, and each will construct a road or vacuum tube to a viable new region for colonisation. When that is complete, the mother tribe breaks in two and half moves to the end of the new road or vac-tube. They’ve been doing this kind of thing throughout their existence, it seems. I imagine it is instinctive, to control available resources in an area and prevent them from being exhausted."
He looked out of the window, at the bustle outside, at the walking and hurrying people carrying bags and purses and separated from his range of hearing. He watched them move to and fro, brushing against each other, forming natural pathways in the crowd; ‘lanes’ in which people would move following the person in front. Order via chaos; order via self-interest within the individuals of the crowd.
"Is there something on your mind?" His associate spoke.
Dieter jerked his head back to bring his gaze on Phillips. His eyes, previously distant, refocused themselves. "No. Yes. I suppose so." He shrugged. "I’ve just become unnerved about some certain aspects of our visiting alien sentients."
"Certain aspects? Are you willing to divulge these ‘certain aspects’?"
A nod. "Why yes, of course. It’s nothing sinister, really. Certainly not cloak-and-dagger stuff." A smile. "But I’ll get to that when I get to it, John."
"Baiting me eh? You swift bugger. We’ll just have to see if I bite."
"Indeed we shall." A short silence followed as the two sipped their mochas, thoughtful stares flicking around the surroundings. "I am willing to bet however, that you’d be happy with making some educated guesses."
A raised eyebrow. "Well you’ve led me along so far with this tendency towards hunting as a sole form of obtaining food. I shall placate you by following with that and we’ll just have to see how far off I am." He wagged a finger. "Well last of all we were at their decentralised industrial infrastructure. Am I hot or cold?"
"Cold. Think back."
"OK. Their carnivorous nature as hunters. Warmer?"
"Yes."
Phillip’s fingers drummed on the table. "Well they are pack hunters. Do they display tribal loyalties as with many species of wolves and primates?"
"Not at all. Quite the opposite."
"Indeed? So they are pack hunters, living in tribes and small societies and yet they are loyal more to the species than their tribes or societies. Obviously they are not solitary, so this leaves…." A frown, a grimace and a look of irritation "quite a bloody puzzle and no mistake. Do they share individuals between tribes for the purposes of mating or partnership?"
"Yes."
"Hmmm. I suppose this could potentially give the drive for inter-tribal loyalty and loyalty to the species as a single group. Is this unification one of your ‘certain aspects’?"
"One of them, yes. It certainly disturbs me." Dieter looked outside again. "What do you see out there?" He gestured at the crowds of jostling people outside and promptly finished his own question. "You see disorder of a sort. Everyone works for themselves and everyone else is a possible rival."
"You can’t go that far, sir-"
"I can and I will!" Dieter interrupted, his face reddening. "It is easy to ignore it on Earth but let me ask you, Phillips; do you know your history?"
"I know some, yes."
Dieter smiled and gestured again at the mass of people. "They may not be tribal, Phillips, but we certainly are. Remember the circumstances under which Earth became, at last, united." He was referring to the Last Great War. The two great empires and their allied masses had obliterated most of the population of the planet in that brief, searing conflict. It was the great lesson of the modern age, taught to school children and adults alike; Earth must remain one people. Do not forget the consequences of division. Since then, of course, the Confederacy had risen almost as a reflexive action, eventually evolving into its current system of total-control in the entire Sol system. Humanity’s largest and most powerful bureaucracy.
Jonathan nodded. "That is regrettably true. This disturbs you?"
"Absolutely. The Bunali are a united species, John. A species not encumbered with division within its own boundaries, a species united in intent and purpose. Against a fractured and fragmented humanity, even one as unipolar as it is currently, that is potentially a deadly threat."
"They have shown us nothing but friendship thus far, sir. Furthermore, what we know of their military indicates a capability far inferior to our own."
Dieter nodded. Jonathan couldn’t help feeling that something small but crucial was being kept from him.
"Think about things along a different route, John." He said. "These creatures are predators. They have no natural enemies and never have. They have not our advanced sense of paranoia. They have not significant tribalism within their own species. What would such a species see as a threat?"
"I am not sure." He frowned and steepled his fingers, resting his chin upon them. "Other predators, maybe. Creatures that occupy the same environment." He deepened his frown. "I really don’t know."
Dieter looked out at the crowd again, then back into the café. Beyond their own personal area of diluted sound, conversations sprouted, lived, raged and died. People conversed, exchanging ideas and soundbites. Views and knowledge. Themes and angles. Their chatter overlapped, sometimes ignored by others and sometimes used as a seed for further conversation. The topics circulated; an odd word by one seeding the development of another, birthed from the mind of one who had heard the odd word and been reminded of something intriguing. The ideas, the memes, spread.
"I shall tell you what it is, Phillips." He said. "The thing that bothers me."
"Yes?"
Dieter leant forward, his eyes narrowed and his face grim. "They have a religion, John." He stopped for a second. "Not even that, really. More of a species-wide conviction. It regards assumptions of superiority and inferiority, and chooses to rank sentient species according to one criterion or another. They gave us a rating, John! A rating of our worth, openly and without effort to disguise their thoughts."
There was relative silence at the table for a few lonely seconds. "What do they say? How are we rated?"
The answer was not what Jonathan Phillips had expected. "They worship us."


The deep ocean swept by, black and unseen as the train continued down the tube, separated from the threatening liquid by a thin layer of vacuum and the walls of the tube themselves. Helen Poistra observed it.
She sat and looked out of the tiny window and watched inconsequential blackness streak by, untouchable and at stupendous speed. The recycled cabin air tasted cool and almost fresh here in first class, almost. Her seat was doing a fine job of adjusting to her, swallowing her up in its form-fitting curves and the lighting was clear and bright without being offensive to the eye. Not too shabby, all in all. It was certainly easy now to forget about the thousands of tons of freight some distance further back being hauled on the same train, or the passengers of second and utility class, cramped and conversing.
Being a ranking government official carries its few rewards, she thought.
Conrad Ellis sat next to her and tapped his fingers, consistently, loudly and without even thinking it. It was getting annoying.
"What’s that you’re reading?" She asked.
He turned, somewhat startled for an instant at being woken from his own private universe. "Hmm? Oh." He grinned and presented the cover, ‘Social Economics; Oppression by The Masses?’
"A bit political, isn’t it?" She queried. "You could get into bother reading too much of that kind of thing."
A shrug. "I didn’t buy it on Earth anyhow, so it’s no trouble. I got it on Plynthe when I was visiting. One more item in the diplomatic bag didn’t hurt anyone." A grin.
"Plynthe, eh? Correct me if I’m wrong, -which I’m not-, but they’re aligned with Allenia, aren’t they?"
"Yup. Card-carrying corporates, the lot of them. More than a bit temperamental with their politics too." He looked around, faking paranoia. "I could get into hot bother buying stuff like this, which makes it all the more fun." She nodded. A bit of naughtiness was liable to be overlooked, but you never did know. Certainly the intelligence bureau were near certain to be aware of Conrad’s little acquisition, but would probably turn a blind eye, provided he didn’t repeat such a thing too often. Books like that were counted as being hazardous to the state and its interests, and their ideology was hostile to that of Earth and the government, hence the safeguards against them; them and their authors, the ‘Privateer Barbarians’. -She grinned cynically at the title-. She herself had before purchased offworld political literature banned by the state on Earth; every higher-up did at some point or another. It had never intrigued her overmuch. The notion of loosened government control over basic affairs and services seemed utterly illogical; what society would possibly allow such a thing to occur?
Quite a few, as it happened. The Sol System was the sane and clearheaded centre of a circle of widening entropy, as private institutions took up roles from the government or in many instances merged themselves inextricably with the government itself. That had happened once before in Sol, of course; the so-called ‘Robber Barons’. It had been at the dawn of interstellar travel and technology had simply prevented Earth from doing anything about it for some time. The conflict had been brief and almost entirely one-sided, of course, and Earth took Sol as its own.
And yet private interests grew and flourished nonetheless, outside Sol’s reach. It was a sad state of affairs.
"You never struck me" spoke Conrad "as the type to be interested in politics, Helen. Is that so or is it a charming façade?"
"It is so." She spoke stiffening and stretching her limbs in the space allowed, cracking her knuckles and loosening her legs. "I can’t say it grasps me as instinctively as it does many."
Conrad was silent for a moment and, apparently, quite interested, despite himself. "That’s interesting" he said, speaking his mind. "Don’t you find it strange that so many of the higher-ups in the council and the upper bureaucracy never show much interest in ideology?"
"Certainly they do." She spoke, an eyebrow raised. "They are always on the networks stating their opinions on one matter or another." It sounded empty even to her.
"Of course, Helen, but they don’t believe in it like many do, -like I do." He was on the edge of frowning, perhaps at the presence of such a cynic, of Helen herself, simply not caring as much as he. "I won’t lie to you Helen; I am an ideologue and you know it. I believe in our people and what we are trying to achieve, in care for all the people and in opposition to the outsiders. You don’t though and so many others don’t either, like-"
"Like?"
"Like that councilman, Avoss, that we are going to see. He’s another cynic, in it for the position and for the power."
"I expect he cares about his duty as well Conrad." She wished earnestly he would keep it down. She could almost feel the attentiveness in the air from the other scattered passengers in the carriage.
"Well maybe, but you get my point. There is so much resignation in the bureaucracy and the council these days. It needs changing."
"And you’re the one to change it?" That was decidedly blunt, but it made him stop for a second.
"No." He frowned. "No. Not me, but someone has to. Someone needs to stand up for what we believe rather than what they work for. I’m not saying that I should or could, but it needs doing."
She stayed silent for a long moment, letting him simmer down a bit and cool his opinions. It wouldn’t do to encourage a verbal argument when interested parties were there to listen in.
"Maybe it helps with the job." She shrugged absently. "Cynicism, that is. Perhaps it helps them deal with reality better."
There was no answer from Conrad. He was reading again.


The globe hung on his screens, grey and oblivious.
Dieter watched it through steepled fingers. On the left, images of the planet showed infrared heat displays, x-ray output, gamma ray output and the various forms of non-visible radiation emanating from the planet at numerous angles, forming a static display of colour, each different screen showing different hues in differing intensities. On the right were fewer, duller screens, showing their own colours, interspersed with jagged lines, dark blotches and numbers, showing the states of the planetary crust. On another screen was a number of views around the planet in normal, bog-standard visible light, showing the thick swirling clouds covering much of the planet.
And on another yet was something entirely different; a man, encased in reactive webbing in a cramped environment the interior of a starship primed for high-g manoeuvre. His surroundings were all instrumentation, display, holographic projectors, neural interfaces, covering the walls yet smoothed out and built sturdy against accidental impacts by a flailing leg or elbow, not that this would be a problem here. The man wore a g-suit and a thick visor, coupled with a respirator and a neural interface unit. He looked utterly alien. Machinelike.
The planet wasn’t much to look at, by comparison. It was a murky-looking world, about the size and mass of Venus, with a rather thinner atmosphere, though still somewhat on the dense side compared to Earth. It was home to a collection of airborne algae, fungus and a whole lot of murk.
The environmentalists would go bananas if they ever found out about this.
The man appeared to be doing little, but appearances could be deceptive. No doubt the man was using his neural link, conversing with crew and watchmen and observers alike, giving orders and taking orders in a succession too quick to follow by any other method. His visor was blank and expressionless, its flat gleam reflecting only the dim and winking artificial lights of his darkened surroundings. He was alone in his bizarre, cramped bridge, and yet connected to every other member of the operation. –Dieter knew this. He had once worked using neural links, and he knew how it felt, to be part of a huge scintillating network, thoughts flashing like liquid silver. To be part of a huge collective of many minds attached to each other; nothing else could come near to equaling it.
And yet now there was suddenly movement. The man on the screens moved and gestured towards the camera, his visor glinting. He waved and began to speak.
"This is admiral Chen’di Wong. Have achieved safe distance and optimal position. Requesting permission to proceed as planned."
Another voice ran out. This time the voice was that of Dieter himself, talking on the recording.
"Clearance granted. Proceed."
"Acknowledged. Detonation sequence initiated." The visor sank back to its initial position and ceased moving once more.
Dieter Avoss sat back in his chair and watched the screens, and then at his watch. He had seen the recording before and knew it would take a minute or two before anything particularly fascinating occurred from this point. He looked at the face of the watch for guidance on the matter, and at its charming little hands, ticking away quietly. It was an archaic piece of equipment, certainly, but that kind of thing was rather more popular on Earth these days because of it. A connection to the past is always good when you have so much of the past to flaunt. –Not like the colonies, anyhow. None of them had any real history to speak of, not really, and items like the watch he wore on his wrist would seem to be ridiculous and old-fashioned in many of their eyes. Many of them, Allenia and its ilk most of all, would rather tell the time with a neural chronometer tapping straight into the brain. He shivered. He would use neural networks when his job dictated it, but not all the time and certainly not for purposes of fashion or image; such reckless yearnings for the new and modern could do no good.
He checked his little archaic watch again and looked at the screens. Here we go, he thought.
Nothing happened at first, but then in a fraction of a second every screen changed, one way or another. He looked over them, through the gamma, infrared, seismic and visual interpretations of the event, backtracked and watched from the first moment of change, slowly.
A flash! High above the atmosphere a pinpoint flash of inconceivable brilliance burst into life, staining every band of radiation with a brilliance to blind gods, before vanishing in the next instant, gone as suddenly as it had appeared.
But it’s legacy was left behind, and a powerful one at that. The infrared and visible screens came awash with bright images. –A great circular region of the atmosphere was aflame, heated to incredible levels and to the point at ground zero where the very atoms of the air were torn into plasma. The circle was vast, thousands of miles wide and cooler towards the edges but nevertheless as hot as the core of the most intense chemical fire. The circle was not standing idle, however, as it grew outwards, passing heat energy outwards and away, exporting its firey brilliance.
Dieter watched avidly. Down on the ground, just past the horizon of the flash, the view would have been very briefly astounding, even through that thick smoglike atmosphere. With the moon having for a short period blazed in actinic shades, before fading to a dull glow, illuminated by the very fires of the atmosphere of the planet, any creature standing on the surface would have stared skywards at the spectacle, -assuming it was out of reach of the initial flash, of course.
He looked again, this time at the seismic screen, projecting a rotating 3D globe and showing the emanation from ground zero of a considerable seismic pulse, running through the crust and the mantle. It was a minor footnote to the main event, however, played on the theatre of radiation and terrible heat. He imagined again what it would be like for a creature standing out of range of the first flash.
With the spectacle of the glowing moon distracting it, would it be aware of the great death moving unstoppably closer? Depending on it’s distance from the initial flash zone, it was a toss up as to what would alert it first; the ground shaking under its feet or a flaming hurricane dry roasting it. Either way, death was coming.
Dieter pictured it. Looking away from the moon and the sky, you would come to notice a glow on the horizon, as if of a sunrise, but stretched all the way from one corner of your vision to another. It would glow hotly, and would keep getting brighter and brighter and-
Looking again at the infrared readout, he could see what the flash zone had expanded into. Stabilising after the initial rapid expansion, the region of flaming atmosphere was now growing slowly and steadily, at the speed of the local speed of sound or thereabouts.
-The glow would intensify and the air would grow warm, then hot. The horizon would become an intolerable glare to the eyes, and from a high vantage point you might be able to see something else; a shockwave, moving inexorably through the air and over the landscape, smashing down everything in its path. At this point your skin would be aflame and you would be, for a brief minute or two, in agony as you burned helplessly, with no escape and with even seas and rivers boiling at the surface. No doubt any such hapless creature would be dead even before the blast wave hit them, scooping them up with all the rest of the debris and carrying their crispy, disintegrating corpse forward with the advancing hurricane.
He sat back in his chair and fast forwarded rapidly, skipping the first hours, the first day, the first week after the blast. What was left was something entirely different left. –An atmosphere ripped apart and torn by massive storms; huge Venusian clouds casting death down on those beneath, and scattered throughout the overheated atmosphere.
All of it fiercely radioactive.
He sat and watched the vista for a few minutes before switching off the screens, the holograms and the various readouts. Standing up from his seat, he smoothed down his hair and stretched his limbs, before walking out.
"Technology." He said. "An incredible thing."

[victorhadin]

It was a city. A city vast in size and ambition, and it stained a continent.
And yet the mere term ‘city’ is a gross understatement in this case, hence the usage of the term ‘Supercity’ when talking about the vast zone of urban conquest. As one of three such entities in known space, it was an achievement in itself that boggles the mind.
Welcome to the triumph of urbanisation, where concrete, steel and composites spread their grey, metallic and colourless presence over hundreds of thousands of square kilometres. Where at not one but several city centre zones, strung out over its elongated bulk, skyscrapers towered, surrounded by an ocean of lesser development. Not so much a pure city in itself as a level sea of housing, it was by any standards impressive. Not so densely populated as an Allenian city or an Earth city of the older ages, it chose to forego a compact crowded layout for one that covered a much more terrifyingly vast swell of space, field, hill and floodplain.
It was, naturally, built on Earth. Only Earth had the sheer manpower and numbers required to force such a creation into existence, and only the Sol government had the single-minded totalitarian will to create such a technological monstrosity with not a single feeling of remorse or embarrassment or excess. Why the Earth administration had felt it necessary to build the three great Supercities was a matter of consternation and debate; the affairs and desires of Sol were clouded at best and a screen of lies at worst. The most popular theory was that of forceful economic restructuring and to give the rest of the world a purpose. The Supercities were utterly impractical in reality; they could simply not stand up by themselves and indeed depended upon the constant influx of grain, food and water from the rest of the world. Be it the collective farmlands of the East, the still-poisoned North American grain fields or the fishing territories of Africa and the Mediterranean, it was vital.
In short, they represented something that Earth had always been greatly interested in.
Control.
The asteroid states depended on the Earth Supercities for trade and industrial output. The Supercities depended on the farmers of Earth for food and the farm collectives depended upon the asteroid states and their weaponry to protect Earth and the Sol government that gave them equal importance and prosperity next to the urban sectors.
And of the great cities, there were three.
-The South American industrial zone, thriving body of production and process that it was. Heart of Earth’s industrial might.
-The Far Eastern Supercity, stretching around the East coast of former China, heart of Earth’s financial system and the leader in interstellar trade.
And one more Supercity in Europe. Heart of Earth’s government and administrative centre of the Solar System, stretching in an extended line under the Carpathians through the nations that were once Romania, Hungary and Austria. East of the poisoned Western lands and West of the great bread-baskets of Asia, it held over three billion souls within its breadth. From the nightside of the planet it could be seen as a great artificial fire burning up Eastern Europe with its billions upon billions of tiny striplights, polluting the atmosphere with thermal systems the size of nations.
Welcome, weary traveller, to Narodgorod.


Helen Poistra presented her documentation in the main foyer of the building. The clearance officer scanned them and nodded before motioning for her to present her eye to the machine in front of her, itself sporting a glassy mechanical stare.
A sequence of electronic bleeps and clicks and she was through, the retinal-reader giving its own approval to the clearance officer, who let her through and onwards into the gleaming high-ceilinged hallway that marked the entrance of the building. Walking to the end, the lifts awaited, and she picked one, stepped inside, dialed a floor and let it take her upwards. The interior of the tiny, cramped space was one of reserved luxury. Her surroundings were given the aura of wealth and prosperity through subtle means; a delicate blending of contours, subtle plays on colour and its variation and indistinct highlights gleaming from intricate but tiny constructs at every corner. It was an aura of a prosperity that was almost afraid to call attention to itself, but was present and visible for all who knew how to look. No music played, for that would be too open and clear for interpretation, but the hum of the machinery outside was subdued noticeably more than in any normal elevator in any normal building on Earth. Carefully, striving to avoid giving offense, the elevator conveyed power and influence.
And just as silently and carefully as it had ascended, it stopped and opened its doors to the floor she had dialed. The doors parted and she walked into the corridor beyond. No guards or security agents were visible as she moved along the glossy surface to the office at the far end of the corridor but she could feel the stares of hundreds of tiny devices, embedded in the walls. Almost invisible as they were, there was no way of knowing, but she was nearly certain of their presence; each guided by a simple artificial intelligence, she would be observed, classified and judged against known records. If so much as her natural pheromones were off-balance, she was certain that a far more human presence would arrive imminently and with haste.
Reaching the end of the corridor, she encountered a door, featureless save for the more noticeable than usual border to the frame, bulging as if impregnated with machinery. Again; more tiny observer-machines. Beyond the door was the office of the councilman she was due to meet, Councilman Dieter Avoss. She had heard of him, or of his reputation, more to the point. He had risen through the ranks of the Earth governing bureaucracy and the Council as if it was his natural right. He had presided over two of the last great sweeps to uncover dissenters on Earth and was responsible for the disposal of millions of them; millions of traitors and ill-wishers towards Earth’s rule over humanity. His reputation was one of a hard man who got the job done, and rarely engaged in the dramatic display of promises, values and loyalties run by other Councilmen to each other and to the viewing public. In this he had earned a grim respect by the Council, and more than a little fear; it was a commonly-held conviction that there were many Council members who wanted rid of him, for their own security and well-being if nothing else.
And she was to see the man himself. She felt rather overawed.
Prompted by whatever signals from within and observations from without, the door opened and admitted her into the office. It was large but spartan, its size practically the only thing separating the status of the man behind the large central desk from any minor bureaucrat or representative. There were no decorations, no carefully selected patterns of lighting on the walls and none of the almost-ubiquitous portraits of great Earth government chairmen long gone.
“You arrive on time, Miss Poistra.”
She looked ahead. There, silhouetted against the skyline in a small reclining seat, was Councilman Avoss, his graying and receding hairline forming a faint but noticeable halo over his head. “Do sit, Miss Poistra.” Came the voice again. She did so.
She waited, as good manners dictated, for him to open the conversation himself. Several seconds of silence chased each other before he did so.
“Miss Poistra, you are no doubt wondering why I brought you here. I shall cut to the chase; you have recently, on a couple of occasions, had a chance to speak with our sentient visitors.?”
“The Bunali?”
He returned a gaze coupled with a raised eyebrow. “Correct. The Bunali. What were your impressions of them?”
She shifted under the gaze. “They seem affable enough, sir. They seem to be social creatures, and have a good sense of hierarchical discipline. It comes as no surprise to me that they found us easy to communicate with.”
A raised hand interrupted her. “Indeed they do. Indeed they do. And yet someone, to bring myself rapidly to the point, is required to speak to them tomorrow, on the subject of a trade shipment. You are that person.”
“Me? But why-“
Another raised hand. “You spoke with the sentients previously. They responded, which is more than can be said for most ambassadors present. You also noted something of their social structure by observing and deducting their behaviour.” He leaned forward to rest on his elbows. “You are as good as many and better than most, Poistra. I suggest you take this offer; it would be most advisable.”
She paused for a moment, suddenly somewhat dubious. “Yes. I shall, sir.”
“Excellent. You are to talk with them on the Omani site again, but this tie on matters of interstellar trade. As you know, such proposals have been gathering strength. It has taken time for the Council to deliberate naturally, but fortunately in this case we have the lead on time. Earth’s exclusive access to the aliens renders us with an unparalleled opportunity to initiate trade first and set the benchmarks for trade with the Bunali. Preferably high ones that other… competition might be incapable of matching.”
“The separatists?”
“Indeed. Them and Allenia. Three bloody colonies and several asteroid nations, and look at the trouble they have caused us.” His veneer began to crack slightly, before sealing up, dispassionately. “They would leap on the chance to assess trade with an extraterrestrial sentient, and we must not allow this. The Allenians are notoriously speedy in the signing and securing of trade agreements.”
“Speedy?”
“Careless.” He corrected. “They do not think ahead before drawing out their economic plans. They act on instinct, with immediate profit held before all and do not hold thoughts as to the eventual consequences of their actions and decisions.”
She nodded. She knew it to be true, that the separatists were like this. Many extra-Sol systems increasingly erred that way these days; a worrying tendency. It signaled the fall of humanity towards more brutal roots, and should be prevented.
“In any case, Poistra, you have a mission.” He slid several dossiers over the desk to her. “Read them at your leisure; they detail the agreements and limits you will settle on. You will discuss them with the aliens and not go beneath the limits given.”
She leafed through the documents within. “What is this? The escort for the trade envoy?”
“That is the trade envoy, yes. Five Gradspree class freighters, which will be making their way to the sentient’s homeworlds when the trade agreement has reached an acceptable medium.”
"Thank you, Councilman."
"That is not all." Councilman Avoss’s expression grew, if anything, even darker than before. "There is something else you may wish to know about these aliens, Miss Poistra. Something else that others may not have deigned to tell you."
"Yes?" She was suddenly attentive.
"The sentients, Miss Poistra" the pause was all too evident "they worship us."
"What?"
"I do not mean that in quite the literal regard you might have thought, however. Allow me to explain. The sentients come from a planet where several quite natural threats to their survival crop up regularly. –That we must at least assume, from what little they have chosen to tell us. Certain parasites and predators frequently threaten their existence, causing significant extinction events within their species. Naturally, they try their utmost to stamp out the offending species, but it has left them with an odd respect for nonsentient threats in this world. You have probably noticed how their regard for intelligence in a species is not quite what one would have hoped?"
"Indeed Councilman. Several of the Bunali, after exiting their lander, actually ignored the greetings of the diplomats entirely and started talking about some sort of species of plant-"
"An algae, yes." Interrupted Mr. Avoss. "A species of algae which is making a fine job of covering ocean surfaces and coastal seabeds worldwide. They inquired as to its biomass and success on this planet having apparently ascertained the extent of it’s spread and it’s status as a single species from orbit. That in itself is a significant and most disturbing feat."
"I’m sorry." Muttered Helen. "I don’t see how this is connected."
"Quite simply, Miss Poistra. The Bunali, possibly due to their existence on a planet where survival is frequently threatened by more adaptable and biologically successfully species, have developed a grudging if somewhat puzzling respect on successful species, regardless of form, creed or intelligence. This has taken on something of a religious nature with them; they give worship to the species with the greater biomass than their own, even if that species is a mere weed." The silence that followed was intense.
"We are one of those species, aren’t we, sir?"
"Correct. We have spread ourselves in significant numbers over many colony worlds. We have, as such, positioned ourselves in such a way that we have a rather superior species biomass to the Bunali." He paused to steeple his fingers and glanced sideways, at a holographic monitor silently displaying a muted news channel. Several people were present on the image, surrounded by police and being beaten; they were huddling in balls, feebly trying to protect themselves from the hard plastic that fell upon them. "I ask you, Miss Poistra," he continued, "what difference of action and intent does humanity show to a species which is either less successful or more successful than ourselves?"
"I’m not sure I understand the question."
"Picture it as a predator species, or a potential threat to humans. How do we react?"
"I think I see." She said, looking thoughtfully at the holographic screen anew. The police and their batons were gone, replaced by an impassive newscaster. She turned back to Dieter. "I would expect, sir, that we would see a successful and numerous predator species as a threat, and attempt to minimise or destroy it. On the other hand, a species which is significantly lesser in its numbers and its threat to us may be pitied and protected. The predators of the African savanna, for example."
Dieter nodded. "Quite so." He smiled. "I would now like you to think what would be the case if we did not think of things in that way; if we did not react to a species with hostile intent proportional to it’s numbers and abilities."
Again she stuttered, unable to answer a question put forward in so vague a fashion. He completed it for her.
"What I mean is," he continued, "what if we did it the other way around? What if we admired and respected the large and successful threats, whilst hardly pausing in our decision to annihilate the smaller ones?"



--End of Part One.--

[Col. Crackpot]

nice! something completely different from the norm around here. keep it up, i'd like to see where youre going with this.

[Mark S]

I've only read the first two posts of this but I have to say, so far, it's REALLY good. My advise to you would be stop posting this. Seriously. You could probably sell this someday but not if it's floating around the net.

[victorhadin]

Seriously, cheers.


-There is a reason you can only see part 1 here. I can be rather overcautious sometimes....

Mind, if any of you have any constructive criticism, I would be happy to hear it. This is a first draft, after all.