Alien Alliance (10 page)

Simone let Helkmid check her also and take
blood samples. But like some of the other adults, she was wondering
why they had not yet been contacted. She explained what Paswalda
had told them. Helkmid was very concerned.

“This Paswalda is well known to me. He is a
slaver amongst other things. It could be he has lied to you. Have
you got credit, money?”

“No.”

“Then how will you pay for your stay here?
Donny said you are living in the hotel in this building. It is
expensive!”

“We thought the People who invited us would
pay. I don’t understand. Why would he bring us here otherwise? Does
this mean we can’t get home? This doesn’t make sense.”

“I’m afraid it does. It makes a great deal
of sense as far as he is concerned. What are the occupations of
your people? Donny says his parents are scientists and his father
currently a Diplomat. Such people are very valuable especially if
you don’t have to pay wages but just buy them. Slave price for such
people is the equivalent of three to five years wages but they then
must work for you for nothing but keep for life, unless they
somehow manage to buy themselves free or someone else buys
them.

I wonder if Paswalda has ‘supplied to
order.’ If so, he will be paid by the ‘orderer.’

“But he can’t sell us! He doesn’t own
us!”

“This is difficult to explain. He has bought
you here. You are now incurring costs. Sooner or later, you will be
asked to pay. If you cannot you are in debt. Once that debt rises
to a particular level, or it is seen that you will be unable to
pay, then you become a slave and can be sold.”

Simone was horrified. “What is this level of
debt?”

“This is complicated. It varies from Race to
Race. It varies according to Alliances.”

“What are Alliances?”

“Political groups of planets.”

“What if we have no Alliance?”

“That is bad. The level is lower. The level
is actually determined by the ruling Council’s court. It is
somewhat arbitrary, changeable.”

“Where does Paswalda come into this? How
does he profit?” asked Donny.

“When you come up for auction, he will be
paid 10% of the price for each of you for providing you. That is
after your debt comes out.”

“But a lot of us, most of us, paid for our
trip here!”

“Can you prove this?”

“No.”

“By the law here, you will have to argue
this in court. But even if the court does believe you, it makes no
difference. Unless you can prove you can pay your debt or can earn
it, you are sold. Everyone must pay their own way. Ignorance of the
law is not taken into account. It is irrelevant.”

Simone left with Dieter, and Donny and
Helkmid talked as Helkmid provided some food and drink. Donny
experimented until he found some he liked. Donny, as usual, was
full of questions. He wanted to know what was the power source on
Torroxell.

“There’s a mixture that feeds into one
grid.”

“But what kind? How is it generated?”

“Well the Priskya insisted on sustainable
energy and demanded no pollution. They also subsidized it so what
they wanted was done. There’s solar and wind power in the smallest
centres and hydroelectric power on the main rivers. There are also
wind turbines and solar panels in the cities. What power do you
have?”

“Well we also have hydroelectric where I
come from and I know these others. We also have coal, ethanol,
lightning and tidal.”

“What are those? The Translator does not
know.”

Donny thought and then described them. He
then went on to describe nuclear power stations and then realized
Helkmid had gone still. “What’s wrong?”

“This power is by splitting the most minute
particle that life is made up of?”

“Yes.”

“It produces enormous power?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have many of these?’

“Yes, hundreds.”

“Donny this is madness. It will destroy your
world. The waste produced will poison your world. It will sicken
all life.”

“Yes we know. But the people that build them
get very rich from it. They don’t care. They lie and discredit the
scientists and others who try to explain what will happen. They
don’t live anywhere near the power stations themselves. And they
have enormous amounts of money with which to bribe and influence
politicians; the people who govern. Also the people who govern want
the weapons that come from this process. So they lie too.”

“You have nuclear weapons?”

“Yes.”

“Donny this is terrible. Your world cannot
survive this. If the weapons do not kill you the waste will. Other
People have got to this point and wiped themselves out. How long
have you had this power?”

Donny thought. “I’m not sure.”

“Have there been accidents?”

“Yes, several. Some were really bad. Two bad
meltdowns were caused by natural disasters. One country had a
couple of bad earthquakes that caused a lot of contamination and
one country had an earthquake that tipped a nuclear power station
into a lake. My country has this power too. And there are
alternatives. It wasn’t necessary to use this method. But the
combination of incredibly wealthy people and corrupt or stupid
politicians is just too much. Some of the scientists were paid to
lie too. You ought to hear my parents on this. It’s one of the
reasons my parents were so keen to get here. My parents say that by
the time enough people realize the danger, it will be too late.
”

“Your parents are right,” said Helkmid
sadly.

“But that’s another problem,” said Donny.
What are we going to do about Paswalda? I mean what can we do?”
asked Donny who was only just coming to grips with this now. “I
know! I’ll go and get Sarah and Alan.”

Donny ran off and returned with Sarah, Dan
and Alan having explained what Helkmid had said.

“You have to let him check you out first for
his research.” Donny informed the bemused three.

As each went through the tests, Simone
brought them up to date with what Helkmid had told them. This
gelled with the unease that Sarah had had. But first there was
another problem. After checking all three, Helkmid said,

“You two are fine but you are not.” He
looked at Alan. “Several of your organs are under severe stress and
close to failing.”

“Yes I know,” said Alan. “Lungs, pancreas,
liver and heart, I presume.” Sarah quickly told Helkmid what the
functions of these organs were. Helkmid added the circulatory
system to the list.

Donny burst into tears and hugged Alan.

“Oh Donny I’m sorry. No one lives forever
and I don’t mind. I couldn’t afford to buy the 3D Printed organs
and am low on the transplant lists for transplants because of my
age and lifestyle and the multiple organs I would need and didn’t
really want all the hassle of the awful anti-rejection medication I
would have to take. This way, my kids will have a bit of money when
I shove off and in the meantime I’ll live every day like it might
be my last and enjoy life.”

Donny looked up at Helkmid. “Can’t you treat
him? I’ll work for you to pay. I don’t mind the messes. I used to
clean up my Granddad. It was our secret. He didn’t want anyone to
know.”

Helkmid looked at Alan. “You could have
treatment in little bits and pieces when there are gaps in
treatment schedules. When we start treatment, we don’t know how
long it will take for the full treatment. You would have to stay
here and wait just in case we finish earlier than we have allowed
for. So long as Donny cleans up the Machines. He does it very well.
You must not tell others though. We don’t make this offer often. We
do the full treatments overnight. If you make sure you are both
here very early in the morning. You see we allow an hour each to
clean the Machines and Donny does it faster than that which would
give you some more minutes. So with a few minutes one day and a few
minutes another it will buy you time and start to heal you. It only
takes the Machines a minute or so to hook you up once they have
your profile. ”

Alan, who had listened to the descriptions
of what the Machines could do, was stunned. Nothing made him want
to live like facing imminent death and then being offered a way
out. Humbly, he thanked Helkmid and accepted the offer. He later
that night set his alarm calculating hours not the real time.
Torroxell’s day was divided into 28 segments and was just under 30
hours. The night was fairly short, only nine hours, because it was
just before midsummer in the Southern Hemisphere but the days, at
19 hours long, were very very long.

They still had not been contacted. Alan had
heard Simone’s worries over what Helkmid had told her. He was now
very concerned too. This looked suspicious. Surely they hadn’t come
all this way on a lie. Some first contact this was turning out to
be. Still, Sarah was onto it. He smiled, he had a lot of confidence
in her.

Alan’s confidence was not misplaced. Sarah
had realised the probable truth and was preparing to act. She
thought the situation was appalling and getting worse. She needed
to find solutions, and fast. The diplomats were back at the large
assembly hall where it appeared some type of government was. That’s
if their Translators were right, if they had asked the right
questions, if they had been understood and if they had been
answered correctly. They had no way of knowing. And that was a lot
of ifs.

Sarah looked over in frustration at Mathew
who was sucking up to one of the three white Aliens that looked
vaguely like emperor penguins. They towered over him. She didn’t
recognise any of them. Mathew had once again acquired one of their
precious hired-with-no-way-to-pay-for Translators. The man was
insufferable.

“I don’t understand him. How can he go about
life as if there’s nothing wrong? Does he not realise how much
trouble we are in?”

“I think he either doesn’t or he’s looking
for someone like you to solve it.” answered Dan looking
sympathetically at Sarah and thinking. No, Sarah was too straight
up to comprehend the way a political animal like Mathew understood
reality. He saw that Sarah’s problem was that being an idealist,
she could not understand people like Mathew. She thought she could
reason with him. Dan knew this was a waste of time. There was no
reasoning with him. He added,

“Those Ridianit talking to Mathew are
lawyers or the equivalent for what passes for those here.

“Right,” said Sarah and walked down the
steps towards them. Dan and Alan glanced at each other and
followed.

Sarah waited at the polite distance, turning
her Translator onto the ‘wish to speak’ purple colour with the
patient, slow ‘not urgent’ pulse. Mathew glared at her. She ignored
him.

Bored with Mathew, the Ridianit, Iwygin,
noticed the creature that had made Mathew so angry yesterday. It
had seen them talking loudly and had been told they were
disagreeing. This might be interesting.

It looked towards Sarah, switching on the
‘query’ pulse. Sarah indicated with the ‘my thanks’ pulse, looked
up and began. She had been thinking hard.

“You may be aware that we suspect we were
brought to Torroxell under false pretences.”

The Ridianit, Iwygin, signalled, “Yes”.

“Please inform me if I am mistaken in my
understanding. The trader Paswalda, that transported us here, told
us we were coming here on a diplomatic visit, and that it had been
asked to transport us here. It told us we would be guests. Our
understanding of this word ‘guests’ is that we would be greeted on
arrival, fed, accommodated and looked after by the People that had
invited us. In our culture, this would often then lead to the hosts
being invited back to the visitor’s planet under a similar
understanding. Do my words make sense?”

“They do.” It was well aware of this.

“No one has greeted us, contacted us or
contacted where we are staying. Is this usual? If we had been
invited here?”

“No.”

“Is it reasonable to assume we were not
invited?”

“Yes.”

Sarah had expected this but it still felt
like she had been punched in the gut. She continued,

“Now I suspect/have been told, that the
Trader is a slaver. That we all collectively owe a huge amount of
money we do not have and that, because of this, we are in danger of
being sold into slavery by this Trader. If that happens, the Trader
will be paid a sum of money for each of us, that is far in excess
of what it cost to bring us here. This, despite us paying dearly to
transport 400 extra people here.”

“So I understand.”

“I believe this is all legal.”

“Yes. You appear to have been deceived. You
are not the first.”

“What are our options to help
ourselves?”

“What is it that you want to achieve?”

“Ideally to be able first to accommodate and
feed ourselves while repaying our debts and then to be able to
travel home. If we could legally reduce our debts, or were able to
earn money, that would help. But we do not know what we can and
can’t do and what our rights are. Are we correct in our
understanding from one of your colleagues that different Races have
different rights?”

“That is correct. As an unallianced,
unrecognised race, you have few rights.”

“Then how can we earn or otherwise get
rights, to at least be able to negotiate on our own behalf. And how
do we achieve the right to work and earn money?” Sarah noticed Dan
and Alan ‘escorting’ Mathew away from the helpful Ridianit. Iwygin
continued,

“You must find sponsors who would speak and
negotiate on your behalf. You cannot do this yourselves. You would
not be granted an audience.”

“Yes we did try, but the Civil Order
Department told us we could not even make an appointment. We did
not understand why.”

Alan and Dan were back. Excusing the
interruption, Sarah quickly explained to them.