Here Comes Earth: Emergence (31 page)

“Major,” Julie said as she suddenly shifted her eyes to me. “We need to
get another message to Earth with instruction that when the Noridian’s arrive
they are not to inform them that we’re still alive or that they’ve had any
contact with us. They need to play along until we get there.”

“Will they do that? Will they believe us?” Dr. Spelini asked.

“For now they have no reason not to but once Jaki arrives there’ll be a
powerful temptation to not
want
to believe us. Honestly, without us
there I think it will only be a matter of time at that point until the greed
sets in and the only thing Earth will see is the magic Noridia has to offer,”
Julie concluded.

“Ok,” I said. “Major Reynolds and I will prepare another message for
Earth and then I want a doctor to take a look at him.”

Before he could protest Semi spoke, “We’ll take care of him major.”

“Mike, there might not be much we can do for cracked ribs on Earth but
I’ve got a feeling these guys are way ahead of us in that department so lend me
your thoughts on a message and then go get looked at.”

Iron Jaw
gave me a muttered aye,
aye and I turned the meeting over to Dr. Spencer to let him share his strategy.
I didn’t like splitting up the team but as he reminded me I had tasked him to
come up with a solution. I can’t say that he was convincing that he could
accomplish anything but I’d already learned not to underestimate this group.

Before we adjourned I turned to Silva, “I appreciate your cooperation
but I have a question.”

His look invited me to continue.

“Does that cooperation
extend to providing us with advanced communications gear and the like?”

“It might,” he responded.

“We need to talk,” I said
with a cold smile.

ΔΔΔ

After everyone else had
left I’d invited Silva to stay behind and share… breakfast? Lunch? Time was
getting away from me so maybe this is what they called brunch; at any rate I
wanted a chance to speak with him without the chance of being overheard.

We spent a lot of time discussing
what kinds of devices might come in handy for us and how much of it would be
faster to print here on Larga rather than on the ship in route. As much as I
didn’t trust anyone that had deceived my country I had to admit he seemed
determined to help us and give us anything we needed as long as we didn’t put
his dynasty at risk.

Although he wouldn’t share
with me how the technology worked he assured me that our ship would be ‘masked’
and that the Noridians would mistake it for one of their own. Apparently, this
was how he planned on getting us onboard their ship with the element of
surprise still intact.

“Won’t they be suspicious
and looking out for that kind of deception?” I asked.

“Why would they?” he
responded. “Galactic society has had no need for armies or military strategy
for millennia. It was our exposure to Earth and specifically my exposure to
your military intelligence organizations that taught us how to be devious.
Before that I’m afraid that we were all quite naive.”

Suddenly Silva grinned.
“That’s one advantage that Coridia now has over everyone else in the galaxy –
we won’t be surprised by you Earthers.”

‘Maybe,’ I thought to
myself. He might know us better than most off-worlders but if Silva thought a
few years living amongst us could teach him millions of lifetimes of Earther
survival lessons he had another thing coming.

I wasn’t going to look a
gift horse in the mouth though and he had more good news to share. Although it
wouldn’t be ready for training purposes until we were already a few days into
our journey, our ship was using nanotechnology to remodel a portion of itself
to duplicate the interior layout of the Noridian ship. We’d all spent a lot of
time on her but like a luxury cruise liner we’d only been given access to the
upper decks; most of the ship had been off-limits to us. Our boarding party
would now be able to train on what we believed to be a perfect replica of the
floor plan.

In addition, my concerns
about our team being out of practice or in some cases totally unfamiliar with
our new assault rifles were laid to rest when I discovered that a portion of
our new ship was also being reconfigured as a live fire range. Now even the
civilians could get some orientation. I couldn’t imagine a scenario where
they’d need that training before we returned them planetside and to the
relative safety of Earth, but I liked the idea of being prepared.

After Silva left I spent a
long time just thinking.

Although military leaders
are trained to make decisions on the fly there is a misconception that we’re
trained to make quick decisions. We are trained to think through as many
possible scenarios as possible so we’ll (hopefully) not be taken by surprise.
It’s called ‘Thinking in the Future in Detail.’

Quick decisions get you
killed; applying well thought out decisions quickly can keep you alive.

Our immediate safety
seemed relatively secure and we were at a standstill for a couple of more days
while essential matériel was being printed. I had authorized a number of our
civilian scientific staff (with military escorts) to go planetside and learn
more about the Largans so now seemed as good a time as any to take a little
time for myself. As fast as things had been moving and as unique as our
circumstances were it was time to do some serious soul searching.

Julie had focused us all
on what was in retrospect the obvious immediate mission, to take over the
Noridian ship and remove the immediate threat to Earth. But then what?

We would do our best to
convince the powers that be on Earth that the Noridians were a major threat and
that our actions against them had been necessary, but I’d been around long
enough to know that there would inevitably be a faction that opposed us and
vilified my command.

I was fairly confident
that we would be exonerated of any wrongdoing simply because the Coridians were
willing to come out into the open. I’m sure they still harbored some hope that we
would want to accept their offer to make Earth a protectorship so they had
every motive to support us against Noridia.

Of course discovering that
there had been an alien presence on Earth for several hundred years was going
to be a shock in its own right – this was the only part we’d left out of our
reports we were sending to Earth. I felt that everything would go a lot
smoother if we were there when this became known.

The best I could figure,
this left Earth with three challenges.

First, how would the
Noridian Dynasty respond to us removing Jaki and her people from the equation?
Would they attack? Would they forget about us?
Not likely.
If they were
inclined to retaliate and press their demands on Earth we didn’t have the
technology to resist them - so we’d have to figure out a way to discourage them
from being aggressive with us. Taking out the Noridian ship would buy us some
time but it didn’t remove the problem.

Dr. Spencer and Dr.
Spelini were off to try and solve that very challenge but Mark himself didn’t
give it much chance of success and I knew we couldn’t just sit back and hope it
worked – we needed to come up with our own solution.

Secondly, how do we
prevent Silva and the Coridians from simply replacing the Noridians with
themselves – going around us and offering Coridian protection and technology to
all the Earther world leaders? Silva was acting respectful to our wishes but
these were high stakes and I had no idea how much pressure he might be under to
make this happen.

Finally, what about all
the Earth politicians and governments that would see an advantage for
themselves by siding with the Coridians? Assuming we could keep the Coridians
from going around us straight to Earthers, what’s to keep Earthers from going
straight to the Coridians? Hell, I wasn’t even confident that my own government
wouldn’t disregard our warnings.

Human psychology is a
funny thing. If any other Earther government wanted to take away our sovereignty
we would fight tooth and nail but I had a certainty in my gut that many
politicians would see this differently. Especially since the benefits of
getting great technology and a much improved standard of living would be
immediate and the negative repercussions of losing our independence to a bunch
of galactic aliens that nobody ever had, and most people probably never would
meet, could take generations to unfold; and most importantly, if those same
politicians could keep their jobs and power and practice business as usual…
well, I didn’t have any confidence at all that they couldn’t justify selling
out the (Earther) human race.

Three pressing challenges
that I didn’t have a solution for.

Three challenges that I
needed a contingency plan for.

Or did I?

Was this really my
responsibility? I had promised Mike I was prepared to take out the Noridian
ship even if my superiors ordered me not to. I still felt this was my duty and
we
would
accomplish it, but we would almost certainly be ordered to stand down
after we did. Mike and I are both soldiers. We would defend our planet from an
imminent threat no matter what but there could be no justification for
disregarding orders once that imminent threat was removed. We would have to
turn over the future of our planet to the politicians.  As hard as the pressure
of command had been to bear in this ordeal, was I willing to set back on the
sidelines just watching; or worse, being kept in the dark? I know I need to
take my selfish emotions out of it – of course I want to be a part of
everything but do I have that right if the powers that be say differently? If
by chance I didn’t have to break orders to take out the Noridian ship there was
still a chance I would be in the mix because of my experience with the situation,
but I and my team would no longer be making decisions or calling any shots. The
government would take the burden from our shoulders and handle it from there.
Why then wasn’t I relieved at that thought? Why did it only leave me with a
sense of dread?

I didn’t sleep well that
night. I had nightmares about petty politicians making petty and selfish
decisions that traded away our future. Try as I might, I couldn’t visualize any
scenario where a majority of our leaders didn’t sell out; and even if the
United States refused the trap of Coridian or Noridian Protectionism it would
only take one country to accept to change the balance of power on Earth.

War. Global war. Dr.
Spencer had said that one world government would be the only possible outcome
and I was now realizing how he and his colleagues had arrived at that
conclusion. Even if the Coridians wanted to be benevolent to Earth they were
under the time pressure of the Noridian threat. Earth would have to unify to
accept a protectorship but the only way that would happen quickly was through
military might.

What was it that Dr. Mark
Spencer had said one night… something about great men in history seizing
opportunity and not waiting for permission? Who was going to step up and how
could anyone possibly lead us out of this mess? As sleep finally overcame me I
couldn’t help but hope that Julie was right – I hope there really is a God.

Dr. Mark Spencer

Anzio and I left early on
the morning after our sendoff party. It would be some time before I saw Major
Reagan or Julie again.

In addition to the
holo-recorder he’d given me Silva and the major had had a number of packages delivered
to our ship, some of which we were only now learning about.

The package we’d been
directed to open first contained a miniature smartpad that could be worn on the
belt or wrist (or virtually anywhere) and projected a holographic keyboard and
display. I knew this because immediately upon opening the package a holographic
image of Silva from the shoulders up had appeared with instructions about the
equipment we were being given.

He’d wanted us to open
this first because it had the potential to control all of the other technology
we now had access to. As incredibly advanced as it all was it was humbling to
realize that the Coridian’s had greatly ‘dumbed down’ the tech so we could use
it. For example, Coridians routinely managed considerably more technology but
didn’t need a holopad or holodisplay to do it; they managed everything directly
with their mind.

They didn’t need an
external display because images were generated directly on the optic nerve or
in the Cerebral Cortex (I wasn’t clear which) and could totally replace the images
from one or both eyes or could overlay data onto their vision much like a pair
of range-finding binoculars or thermal imaging sights. Want to share an image or
what you were witnessing with a friend? No problem. As long as both parties
were in range of a Coridian paired quantum communications device any number of
people could see the same thing you were seeing – even across interstellar
distances.

The smartpads we were
being given could (as long as we were in range) access communications for what
he claimed was the entire Coridian galactic network and our only restrictions
were on which databases we could access. Silva had apparently anticipated our
skepticism because he went on to explain that because of the extreme
circumstances with the Noridian Dynasty they were making an exception for us
and that this access was temporarily being given just to a select few of us. The
consensus was that it was in their best interest for Earthers to learn as much
as possible about the Coridian way of life (without of course actually taking
our side and arming us against the Noridians).

We did have a very limited
and rudimentary thought control of the smartpad facilitated by an earpiece that
fit smoothly and almost invisibly behind one ear; but the holographic keyboard
was required for anything extremely detailed. For everything in-between there
were voice commands.

Silva (or his hologram)
went on to describe several other pieces of equipment that, among other things,
included boxes of medical nano-pills. With instructions to immediately swallow
one this tech was preprogramed to run a diagnostic evaluation of our health
which we could access on our smartpad. Then, assuming we were basically healthy,
taking one nano-pill a day would maintain our health at its current level for
as long as the pills lasted – which looked to be quite a while.

Another piece of tech that
was at first puzzling was the Atmospheric Frequency Modulator. In essence this
allowed us to control the vibration of molecules in the air around us.

Much more intuitive was
what I called a Personal Force Field Generator. Apparently very common amongst
the dynasties, this created an invisible field that extended outward from the
body just far enough to encompass most items of clothing (and may explain the
propensity for dynasty members to wear tight-fitting apparel). Although it
wasn’t designed to stop anything massive (like a bullet), the force field could
protect and redirect radiation (including Light Amplification by Stimulated
Emission of Radiation, or LASER) and it could maintain temperature and
emergency atmospheric pressure when the wearer was exposed to a vacuum or
hostile environment.

Silva went on to describe
several other items but Anzio pointed out that we also had a recorded message
from Major Reagan and I was anxious to hear it.

“Dr. Spencer, Dr. Spelini,”
he began. “I want you both to know how much I, how much we all, appreciate what
you’re doing. We all have our respective missions to accomplish but yours might
very well be the hardest. You’re literally heading into the unknown and there
is no intelligent advice that I can possibly give you so I’ll just say this; we
believe in you.

“We also need you; Earth
needs you. If…
when
you find a solution for us come home quickly.

“In the meantime we’ve put
together a technological care package of sorts that will hopefully come in
handy. Silva has been very helpful and I know he’s recording some basic
instructions for you but I wanted to add a few thoughts…

“I advise you to use the
medical nano. Dr. Schein and I have both thought this through carefully and
believe we can trust the Coridians to limit this nano to only function as advertised.
The ultimate decision is of course totally up to the both of you but I don’t
need to remind you how important it will be to stay healthy for your mission.
Apparently we’ve already been exposed to similar nano by the Noridians – they
automatically included it in our food before our expected planetfalls to
protect us against foreign antigens and pathogens – apparently it’d be pretty
risky to just go from planet to planet without some kind of immune system
enhancement.

“On the same token however
we would encourage you not to accept any nano-enhancement to grow any type of
bioware. Silva has offered to give a few of us bioware enhancements very
similar to what all non-Earthers already have from birth. This would eliminate
the need for the earpiece and miniature smartpad as all the ‘equipment’ would
be in your head. There are obvious advantages but Dr. Schein and I both agree
that the risks of secret and silent observation, perhaps even some type of
subtle mind-control, are too great. I would rather be paranoid than compromised
so we have declined the offer and hope you will too.

“Anyway, we wish you good
luck and Godspeed. Reagan out.”

ΔΔΔ

I think Ashima had sensed
that I was somewhat melancholy about leaving the others behind. I don’t know if
she thought it was just the entire situation or if she knew I had feelings for
Julie but she was sensitive to it and gave me some space; it was a full week
before she started sharing my bed.

She wasn’t pushy about it
and she made it clear it was more for fun than romance but since it was just
the four of us on the ship and we spent all our time together it was pretty
much inevitable – and did I mention that she was fun?

Because of her area of
interest and expertise we were able to have incredible conversations about how
the greater galactic society worked and I was starting to get a better picture
of the hoops Earth was going to have to jump through if we wanted to fit in.

“So basically,” I asked. “Planet
bound cultures defer to the dynasties without exception?”

“Well yes,” Ashima
responded. “But it is not as if we really need anything from most of them. They
are not slaves; they just give us a level of respect higher than what they give
each other.”

She said it as if it
explained everything but I still didn’t get it.

“Why do they respect you?”
I probed.

“Because we are a dynasty,”
she responded with a strange look on her face. “Look Mark, most planet bound
societies are by your standards very advanced, totally self-contained, and have
more natural resources than they could probably ever consume. They have no
reason to develop interstellar relationships. We call the people Kikos after a
well-known animal, Kikosolentis, which marks out a small territory and then never
travels outside it. They make great pets,” she said with a grin.

“Most Kiko societies have
a space presence so that they can harvest the resources of their own planetary
systems but on the rare occasion that individuals might want to travel to another
star they can probably hitch a ride with a dynasty ship. Although it can be
kind of hit and miss because most planets don’t see a dynasty ship but once
every few hundred years or so as you would measure it.

“When a dynasty ship does
make planetfall, we bring news and information that can be invaluable to that
society. The last thing the Kikos would want to do would be to alienate a
dynasty.”

Judging from the look on
Ashima’s face I think it must have been obvious that I was still missing
something. After some thought I asked, “Why don’t the Kikos just build their
own starships or tap into the galactic networks and databases for their
information? Why are they so dependent upon the dynasties?”

“Oh Mark,” she said. “I
thought you knew. Faster than light travel and communications are restricted
technologies – just like gene modification and temporal physics. The Accord
would never condone Kikos using those technologies let alone transferring it to
them.”

No I hadn’t known, and I
was very surprised.

“Ashima, how does The
Accord prevent Kikos from discovering this technology on their own?” I asked.

“They don’t. No one has
independently made discoveries in those areas in hundreds of millions of
years.”

“Then how did the
dynasties get them? Surely they didn’t all independently come up with the same
discoveries?”

“No Mark, that is one of
the advantages of being a dynasty. Under The Accord all accredited technology
is shared amongst the dynasties – including travel, communications, etc.

“Those advantages come
with a price however; The Accord also gives us guidelines and responsibilities.
Let me give you an example: even though certain technologies are restricted
from the Kikos we may drop bits of other knowledge and technology to them as we
travel across the galaxy, but we have to be careful about even that. We have
learned the hard way that too much advancement too fast can be harmful – and
The Accord would take a very dim view on any dynasty that was damaging Kiko
societies. ”

I tilted my head and gave
her my ‘Oh really?” look…

Ashima laughed and said,
‘We told you Mark, in the case of Earth the Noridians are desperate.”

“Ok, at any rate that’s
why the Kikos all look up to the dynasties; you’re literally on a different
technological level than they are,” I summarized.

“That and the fact that we
act as a safety net for them. If there were a natural disaster or a pandemic
that threatened the planet we would be their best hope.”

“So, the bottom line is
that the Kikos need the dynasties more than the dynasties need the Kikos,” I
concluded.

“They need us more than we
need any one of them,” she agreed. “Collectively it is a very symbiotic relationship.
We all evolved on the surface of a planet and even though we are not planet
bound most dynasty members find it better, both physically and emotionally, to
spend time there. We would suffer if there were not any friendly Kiko
civilizations to holiday with.

“And of course there are
certain Kiko planets,” she continued. “A very small percentage which various
dynasty members might befriend or frequent for a while – Stiger hosting Semi
and her protégés are a good example of this – and then there are those rare
instances of a dynasty placing a Protectorship over a planet.”

“How does that work?” I
asked. “Everyone’s been quick to tell me the advantages for the planet but what
are the advantages and obligations for the dynasty?”

“That is very insightful
of you Mark to realize that a protectorship does carry an immense obligation
for a dynasty.”

Her eyes were sparkling
and I think she actually was feeling proud of me.

“When a dynasty places a
protectorship over a planet they are declaring to The Accord that they have
full responsibility for that society’s development and safety,” she continued.
“Protectorates can access and use all of the technologies that the dynasty
uses; so it is imperative that there be a close relationship that allows the
dynasty to steer the protected civilization away from danger. Left to their own
devices many civilizations would tear themselves apart with unrestricted access
to those advanced technologies.”