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CHAPTER 2

Charles Jesus was a man used to dealing with obstinate politicians. He would be the first to admit that he, too, could be quite obstinate when the situation called for it. But he really didn’t like dealing with people pulling the same trick on him, especially since he knew all the signs that this woman was stalling and not negotiating from some real, unalterable position. The question was why? Jesus, unlike his more famous and godlier namesake, was no saint. He was quite sure that the woman with whom he was negotiating, Secretary General Balfine Arctinier, the one who had successfully managed to exasperate him, was also not a saint. No one who can rise to be the chief executive of a government, especially a planetary government, can have done so without making compromises and getting dirty. It was, unfortunately, the nature of high-stakes politics and, in the history of humanity on Earth, it was rare for someone with scruples to reach the pinnacle of leadership. The only possible exception he could think of was the twentieth-century US president Dwight Eisenhower, and he wasn’t so sure about good old Ike. There had to have been a skeleton in his closet somewhere.

Arctinier was close to wrapping up her latest diatribe, and to Jesus it sounded like a bunch of gibberish. Of course, since she was speaking in her native tongue, which Jesus had only learned on the trip from Earth, he could only understand everything she said when he was intentionally concentrating. He had done fairly well with that early in their meeting today, but he was getting fatigued with her repetitiveness and that had caused him to tune out and miss most of what she had just said. He suspected she was droning on and on in her native tongue for that exact purpose. He would have to wing his response.

“Madame Secretary General, I understand your military does not yet trust us. And I deeply regret that we had to make that trip to Misropos without your express permission, but it was essential for us to gain confidence so that we could trust you. And, if we are being honest, I think we both came out of that experience with trust issues. For what you consider very valid reasons, you were keeping an important part of your history hidden from us. And when we suspected there was something there that you did not want us to know, we acknowledged that we undertook a mission there in violation of our agreement to remain in one location. But please know that what we learned has given us important historical context that will, hopefully, aid us in finding the cause of the Gender Plague and perhaps its cure. I want us to move beyond that event from a year ago and look at the situation today and where we need to be tomorrow,” Jesus noted, careful to not repeat word for word what he had used in his last appeal to her, paraphrasing enough so that it would be (hopefully) heard as a new argument.

“Ambassador Jesus. It is not that simple. Yes, your people have been model visitors since our rather rough start, but it is simply too soon for us to feel comfortable with one of your ships scouting and surveying all the other planets in our system. Despite the fact that we don’t yet have spacecraft as capable as yours, these are our planets and any Atlantean artifacts that might be upon them are part of our heritage and belong to us. We realize you really don’t need our permission to do this, and we have no way to stop you, but I hope that our strong objections are enough to keep you from ignoring our wishes,” Arctinier said.

Jesus fixed his gaze upon this head of state with whom he was sparring—not really yet negotiating since that would take both parties being willing to give and take—and briefly wondered what her ancestors had looked like when they separated from their Earthly cousins’ genetic tree branch those millennia ago, and how and why they had been brought to Proxima Centauri b. Cause and effect had always fascinated him and this was no different. He didn’t dare pause too long, and when he sensed that enough time had passed to make it appear he was deep in thought, which he was—just not about the topic they were discussing—he responded.

“We will gladly take a delegation of your choosing with us as we begin the exploration, and I commit to make them full partners in viewing, assessing, and deciding what to do with or about any Atlantean artifacts they might happen to find.” Jesus was going out on a bit of limb here. When he left Earth, he was given some pretty firm limits as to how much technological insight he could give the Fintidierians, and having them on one of the ships was specifically discussed as a no-no. Fortunately, the ones who set the rules were over twenty trillion miles away and might not even know he broke the rule for another four years—if he decided to tell them.

The offer caught Arctinier by surprise and she did not do a particularly good job of hiding it. Jesus smiled to himself but managed to have his outward appearance remain stoic.

“Mr. Ambassador, that is an intriguing offer. I will have to discuss that with my staff,” she countered, rising from her chair.

From experience, Jesus knew that meant the meeting was over and he was dismissed. He gave the customary local bow—which was thankfully not much different from what was customary in Japan, a country to which he had traveled many times as part of many delegations—thanked her for the meeting, and backed his way out of the room.

Now Jesus would have to explain to Mike Rialto, the Samaritan’s chief of security, that he’d invited the Fintidierian military aboard one of his ships. Rialto was just going to love that.

They would be like kids in the candy store. But if they were to find any Atlantean artifacts in the system, then it would have been worth it. Things last longer in the vacuum of space where they are not subject to the extreme weathering of a planetary biosphere. In vacuum, they were likely to be in fairly good shape, or at least in better shape than what they’d found in Misropos. The Atlanteans had come to Proxima Centauri b, and Earth, from the look of it, when Earth’s humans were running around battling woolly mammoths in the latter part of the Pleistocene, during what was commonly called the Ice Age. If the Atlanteans, whoever they were, were that advanced fifty thousand years ago, then who knew what they might have left around the Proximan star system. He was determined to find out. Just one more kid in the candy store.

Jesus did not get back to his office until well after noon. On the way back, he stopped off at his favorite Fintidierian restaurant, which had a name that translated roughly to “the slab of beef with as few vegetables as possible,” for a sampling of what its name advertised. The local grass-fed beef was to die for, and he enjoyed every bite, undisturbed by politics, news, or anything even remotely concerning all the issues he had to juggle as the ambassador. Unlike many others he knew, Jesus had no problem “turning off” his job to enjoy some downtime, especially if it involved steak and wine. Unfortunately, the local wines, unlike their beef, fell short of his standards.

When he arrived at his planetside office, located in a renovated elementary school not far from the city’s central park, he was no longer worried about the security implications of the offer he’d just made to the secretary general; that would now be Mike’s worry, not his. He paused to say hello to his Fintidierian aide, Sam Smith, an up-and-coming civil servant in the Fintidierian diplomatic corps. Of course, Sam Smith was not his real name—who could have that as a real name? Smith’s real name was Sgurom Smyo, and, like many of the Fintidierians who worked with the Terrans, he’d adopted a more Terran-sounding one. It seemed that gave him some stature with his friends, who all wanted to work with the exotic visitors from the stars. Earth names were quite the fad. Smith informed him that his next meeting would be in thirty minutes with Roy Burbank and Rain Gilster. They had not provided a topic.

Jesus spent the time pacing in his office, using his net-connected contact lenses to scroll through and answer or ignore the many messages that were awaiting him after being out for most of the morning. He made a practice of turning off the contact lenses and aural implant network interfaces during important meetings. Not because he didn’t want to have instant access to all the information that might be relevant and available from the vast data library they brought with them from Earth, but because he did not want to risk someone hacking the system and eavesdropping. Granted, on this technologically backward planet, such hacking was not likely, but “not likely” did not mean “impossible.” Jesus believed information security was far more important than ease of network access.

Jesus heard a knock on the door and instinctively looked at the time. His thirty minutes had gone quickly. He walked to the door and opened it, seeing Sam and his two visitors standing in the outer office.

“Come in. I’m just catching my breath after another wonderful morning’s discussion with Secretary Arctinier,” Jesus announced, knowing full well that his guests would be put at ease by his apparent lapse of formality in front of his aide. Jesus had no doubt that Sam reported most everything he heard while working with the Terran ambassador. Making such casual statements publicly would, hopefully, lull the Fintidierians into underestimating him when it was time for him to be underestimated. It was simply another move on the diplomacy chessboard.

Roy and Rain came into the office and Sam dutifully closed the door after them as he returned to his desk.

“How may I help two of my favorite people?” Jesus asked.

“Ambassador, as you know,” Rain began, “my team and I have been working for months trying to decipher and learn more about the radio messages being beamed here by someone, perhaps the Atlanteans. We’ve done all we can do from the ground and to make any sort of progress, and we need to take either the Samaritan or the Emissary to the outer solar system so we can get a better baseline and learn from where the message originates. I’ve worked out the details with the communications engineers on both ships and either one can be easily modified to get the data we need.”

“Well, I—” Jesus started.

“Before you object, I want you to know that I asked Roy to double-check all my calculations and confirm that the radios on either ship should be capable of picking up the signal and determining its strength relative to what we pick up here. By triangulating and measuring the relative signal strength, and unless the source is much farther away than we think, then we should be able to pinpoint from which star system the message originates up to a distance of a little over a hundred light-years. Personally, I think the source is close. If it were that far away, then what would be the point? Roy?” she asked, speaking rapidly.

“Rain, things have changed and I—” Jesus interjected, trying to not be rude. This time, Roy cut him off.

“Ambassador—Charles, I want to let you know that I looked over Rain’s calculations and agree with her assessment. By taking these measurements, we can determine where the signals originate once and for all. It may not seem as urgent or important as solving the Fintidierian fertility problem, but I can’t help but believe there may be a connection to what happened to the Atlanteans thousands of years ago. I found no mistakes in her calculations or conclusions” Roy said.

“That’s good to know, Roy. I’ve been talking with the secretary general and—”

“I know she’s got some reason she doesn’t want us to leave orbit, but you have to convince her that doing so might help resolve this crisis. This is important,” Rain added, finally pausing for a breath.

Jesus raised both his hands and made a T-shape with them.

“Time out! Time out!” he exclaimed.

“Wha—” Rain started to say, but could tell by the look on Jesus’s face that he had the floor and she should be quiet.

“I agree with you. And I think the secretary general might allow us to make it happen. My meeting with her this morning was on a related topic and I made her an offer she is not likely to refuse, in exchange for her blessing to take the ships and do some exploring of the other planets in the system. While they are away, they can take all the measurements you need,” Jesus said, smiling and leaning back in his chair.

“Both ships? If they go to opposite sides of the system, then we will get an even better baseline! That’s wonderful news. When can they depart?” Rain asked.

“Oh, Secretary General Arctinier has not yet given her approval, but I expect it any moment now. Once we have that, I expect the ships will be able to depart within a few weeks. We might need to do some training of a few locals to join the crews, but that can be expedited. To save time, I recommend you go ahead and start working the details of what you need with the comms people on both ships,” Jesus responded.

“Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. Thank you!” Rain said, rising from her seat to shake his hand.

“Thank you, sir.” added Roy.

“My pleasure,” Jesus replied, chuckling to himself. If only all my decisions were so well received.

* * *

“Are we sure the Terrans aren’t listening?” asked the secretary general as she looked around the room at her three top advisors. Arctinier decided to keep her inner circle small on all matters relating to the Terrans. After all, they were aliens on her world and from what she could tell from Earth’s history, courtesy of the Terrans themselves, they were far from the united planetary government that she represented. Their history was filled with even more wars, more spying, and more covert operations than even her own world’s sordid past. As much as she liked Ambassador Jesus and the rest of the Terrans she’d met, it was difficult to put their callous trespass on Misropos in the past and not have it influence her current thinking regarding trust. She had to wonder if Jesus was his real name. From what she could discern about the Christian religion’s savior of the same name, his “turn the other cheek” and “love your neighbors” admonitions were just the characteristics one would want to have in the forefront of a potential opponent’s mind as a way to put them at ease. If the Jesus she met with this morning was like the historical Jesus, then he should be trusted implicitly. Ha! Not a chance.

“As best we can tell, the room is secure,” Lortay Vistra, her secretary of internal security, replied. The Fintidierians had no equivalent to a secretary of war or defense secretary since they had not been at war with anyone for quite a while. Sure, there were always discontents who made trouble, but they were far short in capability to warrant any sort of defense forces. No, the national police under his authority were more than enough. Perhaps. With the Terrans’ arrival, the verdict was still out.

“For all we know, they could have one of their miniature drones in here listening to every word we say and we would never know it. From what we learned in some of their fiction and media stories, they seem to have the capability to build flying microphones the size of houseflies,” the chief of staff added.

“Raolo, they very well might. But no matter how good their technology is, they cannot be everywhere. And I am sure their flying insects have batteries with some sort of lifetime storage and usage limit. We will have to keep moving our meeting locations around and hope we don’t develop any discernable habits that will make our choices predictable. After all, we didn’t decide where to meet today until barely an hour ago,” Arctinier replied. The object of her rebuke, Raolo Vinsavan, was unfazed. That’s why she liked him. He expressed his opinions and did not really care if they were accepted or rejected. But he was determined to be heard and had been right far more often in his advice than wrong.

“We are as secure here as we can be anywhere. If we let our paranoia get ahead of us, then we’ll quit talking altogether and that would be disastrous,” Vistra said.

“I agree. We need to get on with it. As you know, the Terrans have been wanting to use their ships to explore our star system and, at your request, I’ve been steadfastly refusing. Well, today they finally offered what we were hoping they would offer—places among the crew for some of our people to accompany them in their search for artifacts left by the Wrackvulta—or, as the Terrans refer to them, the Atlanteans,” stated Arctinier, leaning back in her chair to watch for the reactions from her staff.

“I must say, you played that well,” Vistra said as he, too, leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. “With their technological superiority and their callous disregard of our quarantine protocols last spring, I was sure they were going to ignore us and do as they please. It appears you were right to take a hard line. They might actually be sincere in what they’ve been telling us.”

“Be careful to not generalize their response under this particular circumstance. We have many, many reasons to be wary of them,” Vinsavan replied.

“Whatever their reasons, they caved and now the ball is in our court. I told Ambassador Jesus I would respond to his offer expeditiously. Unless there is objection, I will accept the offer this afternoon,” she declared.

No one objected.

“In that case, I would like Lortay to provide a list of candidates to join them in their expeditions in two days. I need ten people for each ship, and I want most of them to be above reproach with expertise relevant to finding and understanding any artifacts that might be out there. We have to take the search seriously and not just as an opportunity to gather intelligence on their technologies and capabilities. If we send them a list of military people and politicians, they will reject it outright. Raolo is correct in one thing: they can probably access our communications and systems more than we can imagine. If we claim someone is an experienced anthropologist, then this person damn well better have the pedigree one would expect. But I do want some, one or two on each team, to have as their top priority gathering the intelligence we need.”

“Madame Secretary General, I have another item that we have discussed before, and it is becoming more and more urgent. Before the Terrans arrived, the fertility crisis was driving us to a complete breakdown in the social order. People were not showing up to their jobs, depression and suicide rates were climbing steadily, especially among young men, and the stock market tanked—taking most peoples’ savings with it. The prospects for future profits are zero if there is no one here to buy anything. We were facing anarchy. The arrival of the Terrans seemed to put a pause to all that. With their advanced technology, there was general optimism that the fertility problem might soon go away. Well, it has been nearly a year and that has not happened yet. And we are starting to see the optimism bump-reverse itself. Unless there is a breakthrough soon, then I fear the societal depression will return,” Vistra said.

“I had an update from the surgeon general on the progress of the joint medical team this morning. The good news is that the Terrans are implanting the first of thousands of female fetuses in women volunteers and, so far, they seem to be ‘taking.’ Granted, that’s not nearly enough, but I think we should have a deliberate publicity campaign to highlight this minor success. It might help prolong the optimism and delay the inevitable chaos,” Arctinier commented. “Also, I want you to implement a more vigorous effort to find top young students in science, technologies, and mathematics who can be apprenticed to Terran scientists. I have spoken to Ambassador Jesus on this issue and this is not a request from us to them. I made the point that this is a requirement.”

“Ma’am, many of the citizens are somewhat reticent to work with the Terrans, while others are quite eager to do so. They are afraid of them,” Harma Oo’ortava explained. The old woman had a look on her face that suggested she might be fearful of the Terrans herself.

“Harma, as secretary of commerce for our people, figure it out,” Arctinier ordered. “We have lists of our best. Now find some of them willing to apprentice to the Terrans. Not a request, Harma. A requirement.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And the bad news, Secretary General?” Vinsavan inquired.

“The bad news?” Arctinier looked puzzled.

“Yes, ma’am, you told us the good news about the fertility efforts,” Vinsavan said. “What’s the bad news?”

“Ah, yes. I see. The bad news is that, of the natural conceptions involving Terrans, there is only one that is female.”

“Shit,” uttered Vistra.

“There goes the genetic diversity argument,” Vinsavan said.

“I’m afraid so,” Arctinier agreed. “It seems our saviors are as susceptible to whatever is causing the problem as we are.”

“Shit, shit, shit,” repeated Vistra.

Arctinier could not agree more. She felt like the entire planet was in a bucket of it.



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