“They asked the ship.”
“The ship communicates. Not aliens. Just the ship itself.
Interesting. A robotic device, it would seem.”
“Yes, sir.” Appearances to the contrary, the chief was not daydreaming.
He swiveled back around to face his undermin. “We must have a meeting of the council.”
“I’ve already taken the liberty of transmitting a formal request to all the members together with the reason, sir.”
“Good. Meanwhile I think we should tach an official message to the federation, the Keiretsu, the Eeck, and all the rest explaining exactly what’s happening here on good ol’ Mater Earth. If this thing should turn unpleasant, we’re going to need assistance in dealing with it. A lot of assistance.”
“Yes, sir.” Jiang’s tone was heartily approving. “Urgent message to everyone, sir.”
“Everyone. Right down to Zulemaa.” The latter being a newly colonized world in the Cascarite Sector with a population of less than a million. “You never know where your help’s going to come from until it arrives.”
Jiang was halfway to the door. “Anything else, sir?”
“Yes.” The white-haired chief relaxed his steepled fingers and smiled earnestly at his undermin. “Tell all of them to hurry.”
“Will do, sir.” Jiang vanished.
The chief administrator sighed and pivoted again to face the ancient sea. He had a gut feeling that his heretofore-lazy day was about to fill up very quickly.
And it had started out to be such a nice, uncomplicated morning.
“It’s a trick of some kind.”
The President sat at the head of the long white and green Rufigia burl table. His Vice President sat on his right, the Secretary for State on his left, other cabinet secretaries farther down. The other two-thirds of the table was occupied by the senior senators from the twenty-four First Federal Federation worlds. The rest of the magnificent meeting chamber was packed with Secret Service personnel, recorders, and other senior officials. It was downright crowded.
Similar meetings were taking place in the capitals of other federations, leagues, and alliances, as well as on the independents. Ever since tachyspace travel had provided humankind with not only a means to reach other solar systems but a damn cheap one, every country and would-be country had exported its populace wholesale into the welcoming reaches of space, abandoning their tired and overexploited territories on Earth in favor of rapidly discovered virgin worlds.
The United States of America had given rise to the First Federal Federation, the Japanese hegemony to the Keiretsu, the Brazilian Empire to the Candomblean League, Europe to the Eeck, and so forth. Even nations which had once been, such as Dreamtime and Amerind, had found refuge and strength as members of the good ol’ LFN, the League of Forgotten Nations. Then there were the independents like Kabala and Morgan, which acknowledged allegiance to no multi-world system.
Contrary to the hopes of the effete dreamers, faster-than-light travel did not make a dent in the human tribalist tradition. Settlers took their phobias, beliefs, dogmas, governments, and flags with them out into deep space. Philosophers found this depressing, but not the people themselves. They considered it perfectly natural and, besides, they were generally too busy to care.
In fact, the only world whose government could not trace itself directly to an archaic nation-predecessor was Earth itself, which had become very much an interstellar park, largely abandoned but not forgotten by its highly dispersed, space-traversing offspring.
As President of the First Federal Federation, Johann Maine Wallace knew that the facts which appeared on his desk every morning had been filtered through the most sophisticated, extensive, and complex information gathering system known to mankind. In light of this it was only normal that he regard it with the greatest suspicion.
“Someone’s out to get us,” Wallace declaimed with the same unrepentant positivism which had elected him to office.
“No doubt.” Senator Goldman of Bama spoke from the far end of the long table. “Unless it’s a deception of some kind.”
“If so it’s one hell of an effective one.” Secretary for Inter-spatial Relations Lamark let her penetrating gaze scope the room. “You all should have seen the stats by now, and the vids.”
“It could be a cleverly fashioned hollow shell,” another senator pointed out.
“Even a hundred-k-long hollow shell capable of powered atmospheric flight would be quite a feat of engineering,” Lamark pointed out.
“The one thing we’re sure of is that it can’t possibly be an alien vessel. That’s absurd on the face of it.” The President waited for one of his advisors or one of the senators to contradict him. No one did. “Then who’s responsible for this threatening fraud?”
Secretary for Commerce Kalenkin confirmed what they all suspected. “The Keiretsu is the only outfit besides the FFF with resources and money enough to put something like this together.”
“Now the obvious question.” The President’s expression was hard. “Why?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Senator Holbrook of Dakota took the floor. ‘To lure us into some kind of confrontation with this thing on Earth. Everyone knows any weapon bigger than a sidearm is forbidden in the Homeworld system. If we were to fall for this ‘alien ship’ ploy and stupidly try to take control of it by force, we’d end up embarrassing ourselves on every settled world. That would be a violation of the Sol Charter, and would please the Keis no end.”
“Bottom line?” President Wallace asked.
“It would cost us a lot in trade,” Secretary Kalenkin said.
Wallace nodded. “On the other hand, what if this is a real ship the Keiretsu has put together? In secret, on Earth, out of sight of our own and everyone else’s industrial inspectors and in violation of the interworld agreements restricting the size of competing commercial vessels?”
“Building such a craft on the Homeworld would also be a violation of the charter,” Secretary Lamark pointed out.
“Exactly,” Wallace concurred. “Unless they could convince everyone that it is an alien artifact. After establishing that, they ‘take control’ of it, claim it as their property, and while studying it ‘for the benefit of all mankind,’ put it into incidental commercial use against us to pay for their ongoing altruistic ‘research.’ ‘Alien’ craft aren’t covered by the commercial charter conventions. Neat, eh?”
There were murmurs of appreciation the length of the table for the President’s analytical skills.
“If we go after this thing, we violate the Sol Charter,” Wallace went on. “If we ignore it and it’s capable of interworld travel, they use it against us.”
“If that scenario’s true even in part,” Senator Collingsworth wondered, “how do these five retirees on board fit into the picture?”
“Easy,” said Secretary Lamark. “Cover for the Keiretsu’s story. If the retirees were named Yoshi, Masa, and so on, they’d give themselves away instantly. So instead, they’ve gone and recruited these five seniors to propound this ridiculous story. But they made one mistake.” She smiled wolfishly. “Their presence on board is so laughably unreasonable it only points more clearly to the Keiretsu’s hand being behind this. It’s a simple diversion intended to keep us from realizing the truth.” She sniffed at the self-evident absurdity of it.
“We’re not going to respond wildly as the Keis hope,” the President informed them all. “We’re not going to blindly violate the Sol Charter. But we are going to learn the truth about this thing. Quietly and quickly. Then we’ll respond. And I can assure you, ladies and gentlemen, that response will be appropriate to the situation.”
“There can be no doubt,” said Shimzu. “We have studied all the available information exhaustively. Despite repeated denials from FFF representatives, it is obviously a secret project of theirs, carried out in clear violation of the Sol Charter.”
Humashi sat on the bench in the courtyard, surrounded by the pools, wave-polished rocks, and tentacled koi of the Stone Garden ponds. Whenever he glanced in their direction, the genetically engineered fish extended the tentacles on both sides of their mouths out of the water, begging for food. The carefully raked garden gravel had been brought from ancient Fuji, the dark boulders from a beach on ancient Hokkaido. To his right stood a semicircle of vid screens and a small holo projector, each alive with extensive information. All blended perfectly with the garden, each a small masterpiece of industrial design.
“What are we to make of this development?”
“Difficult to say immediately.” Shimzu watched the Prime Executive. “We are trying to learn more about the vessel in order to determine how best to react.”
Humashi used the willow stick he held to trace patterns in the sand at his feet. His fingers were gnarled with age, but perfectly manicured. “I wonder: What if all the official speculations are wrong? What if there really are five elderly persons aboard and they are telling the truth about the ship being of alien origin and having lain dormant on Earth for thousands of years, if not the million they claim.”
Shimzu marshaled a cautious reply. “In the actuality of such a remarkable truth, sir, there would be obvious commercial and political advantages to gaining control of such an artifact.”
“In which case it would behoove the FFF to loudly brandish diverting accusations while they made plans of their own to do just that.” Humashi drove the stick slightly deeper into the ground. “Deny everything, admit to nothing. Meanwhile we will make plans of our own which encompass every foreseeable eventuality. Let the First Federals rant all they want. We know what they are truly up to. I confess to being impressed. Ordinarily I would not credit them with such subtlety.”
“Nor I, sir.” Shimzu rose and bowed slightly before departing, leaving the Prime Executive of the ruling Keiretsu Board to contemplate the intricate patterns he had drawn in the sand as well as those being woven elsewhere.
“Hey, my friends, we’ve got to find out about this thing, whatever it is.” Fortunado, Chosen Oba of Bahia II, nudged the doll on the table in front of him, observing idly as it swung from its miniature wire noose. Not that he believed in its powers, of course. No one in his position could admit to anything so primitive. But there were traditions to be observed. He was expected to keep the strangled image of his principal political opponent close at hand.
The doll was a good likeness. He knew that Samas of the opposition carried a similar effigy of the President of the Candomblean Council with him wherever he went, and when ceremony required, stuck pins in it.
