The word hereditary made Dan think of this structure as something of a caste system, and he considered it decidedly sub-optimal. Streaming citizens into set groups from birth ruled out anyone from excelling in any discipline other than that which was thrust upon them. Dan could only imagine the geniuses and breakthroughs Earth would have gone without had such a system been in place during the past few hundred years.
But as conceptually interesting as this was, he marked it down as one more thing to think and ask about once his real work was done.
“So I guess we’re standing and they’re sitting?” Tara said.
“Please,” a Messenger said, walking to the table and tapping its surface.
“You want us to stand on the table?” Dan asked.
The reply came back that it was a platform rather than a table, but this hardly changed how bizarre it felt in his mind. He was then struck by a thought of wonder as to what the aliens might make of the layout of the US Congress or a British-style parliament when seeing it for the first time, and suddenly this elevated setup didn’t seem quite so ridiculous.
Dan helped Tara up first and then took a step to join her. It was impossible not to feel like he was dreaming, and this was a feeling he didn’t fight; if anything, it helped to counter the overwhelmed feelings that came with considering just how real the situation truly was.
“Our counterparts from other groupings lack the direct ability to understand your thoughts and words,” a Messenger said, handing Dan and Tara a cable each. He thought he knew what came next, but the instruction that followed was for each of them to attach it to their index finger via a kind of semi-adhesive covering. To Dan, this didn’t seem altogether dissimilar from the old-fashioned rubber thumbs that bank tellers used to wear when counting large quantities of money.
As they painlessly attached the cables to their fingers in the same manner, far more welcome than the invasive insertions they’d imagined, Dan and Tara watched the Messengers attach the other ends of the cables to the table. Then, to their moderate surprise, the Messengers handed each of the councillors a cable and encouraged them to attach them to their own fingers.
Dan had already known that the other aliens lacked the Messengers’ communicational abilities, but he was only now coming to see that this ‘table’ was clearly anything but decorative.
The sight of seven aliens attaching a small device to themselves in order to hear and understand the words of two foreign visitors brought to mind old television footage from inside the United Nations, where countless delegates would listen through earphones to the speeches of others translated into their own native language.
It wasn’t quite like that, of course, but the thought was there.
The silence in the room would have been eerie if Dan had noticed it, but the sound of his heart was all he could hear.
Although no sounds were actually made, the silence effectively ended when one of the Messengers began proceedings by thanking the councillors for allowing them back into the room and promising that they wouldn’t regret it.
No replies came into Dan or Tara’s minds, but they couldn’t be sure whether this was because the councillors neglected to say anything or whether their brains were simply incapable of receiving their thoughts.
“Our friends from Earth would like to make a case for pursuing active cooperation between our races to an extent the Elders consistently advised against,” the Messenger continued, “and we beg you to consider their words. Earth is not a perfect planet, as we know, but it is populated by many good and true beings. We come to you today with two of them.”
The Messenger gestured towards Dan and Tara, who were side by side on the table rather than back to back. They each looked down at the faces on one side, forcing smiles through the impossible awkwardness of their elevated positions without even knowing if smiles would be understood.
Words were the way forward, quite clearly, so Dan McCarthy cleared his throat and spoke from the heart.
“We come in peace,” Dan said, fighting the urge to grin at finally being able to appropriately open a conversation with this age-old classic line. He spoke out loud primarily because he figured that doing so would focus his mind on choosing the right words and would reduce the chance of any imprecision or misunderstanding. “We come to usher in an era of active cooperation that will help you with your Great Shelter, and we come at the request of your Interpreters who have already done so much to help us.”
Upon completing this sentence and waiting several seconds for some kind of reply, it hit Dan that he wasn’t going to get any feedback at all during what was clearly going to be more of a speech than a conversation.
“I don’t know what your problem actually is here,” Tara interjected, taking over in a fairly sharp tone that gave Dan cause for concern. “You need help with this Shelter and if it’s just a technical construction thing, humanity can almost definitely give you that help. What else do you want us to say? What else do you need us to say? We have a problem of our own right now because your guys are causing it,” she continued, pointing quite aggressively at the blue-tunic wearing representative of New Kerguelen’s Squadron caste. “But your Interpreters… these are the guys you should be listening to. They saved us from the comet and they brought us here while there’s still a chance to save you from yourselves. Get out of their way.”
Dan glanced at Tara, wondering what the hell she was doing. But then he caught sight of the Messengers out of the corner of his eye and saw that both of them were nodding. Was this what they wanted… passion?
“Let me tell you a story you might not know,” Dan said, following his gut. “Once upon a time, a comet almost killed us. Once upon a time, your Elders almost let it. If your Interpreters hadn’t made a passionate case to the Elders in favour of intervention just like I’m making a passionate case to you right now in favour of pursuing active interplanetary cooperation, I’d be dead. Tara would be dead. Neither of us would be here to make this case, and no one on Earth would be alive to help you with your Shelter. Your Elders got it wrong until your Interpreters won them round, and if that doesn’t tell you that life can go on just fine without Elders so long as you listen to and trust each other… I don’t know what will.”
The silence and lack of physical movement that followed what Dan had hoped would be a decisive point told him that more was needed. He took a few seconds to think of how to phrase it, then spoke again:
“You’re an intelligent race with free will, bound only by the decision-making restrictions you’ve placed upon yourselves. Your Elders may have been wise and knowledgeable, but they were bound by limitations you don’t face. Unlike the purely rational Elders, you can be rational but you aren’t limited to only consider rational concerns. Ethically, morally, or however you want to frame it, you are capable of more… you are capable of better.
“You see, your Interpreters wanted to save Earth. They wanted to save us. Motivated by a desire to help for the sake of helping, they presented the issue to the Elders in a way that made a rational case for intervention: they argued that by protecting the only other intelligent race known to yours, the Elders would be keeping around a potential source of future help should the shoe ever be on the other foot… exactly like it is now. Your Interpreters were able to use rationality for good, but only because they were able to think beyond it. If they had taken the Elders’ initial answer that an intervention wasn’t justified, Earth would have been destroyed and I wouldn’t be standing here now, promising all the help my planet can offer.”
This time, Dan felt done. He didn’t know what the hell else to say, and no one else was saying anything. Until, that was, Tara stepped back in.
“There’s wisdom and there’s kindness,” she said, “and your Elders were only capable of the former. Your Interpreters, on the other hand, showed that kindness is stronger than cold rationality. And whether you know it or not, kindness is within you, too. Kindness is also within the people of Earth — so long as you
don’t pick out the worst possible example like your Squadron did — and the people of Earth want to help you. Please, get out of your own way and let us help you. Squadron commander, if you are the commander… just call back your guys before they do something they can’t take back, okay?”
The alien in question, sitting bolt upright in its sky-blue tunic, offered no reaction whatsoever to being directly addressed in this manner.
“And everyone else…” she went on, “wake up and reinstate your Interpreters to this council where they belong. And while you’re at it, let this council take the place of your Elders. You’ve already been accustomed to voting on which questions to ask the Elders and how to apply their answers, so just start asking those questions of each other! That’s what we do. It’s not perfect, but we’re still around, and all we want to do is cooperate to make life better for everyone. People from this planet saved Earth when the comet was coming and people from Earth can save this planet before the Shelter is beyond repair. But that’s just saving each other. Imagine all of the things we can share and achieve when we work together on progress instead of problems. That’s the way I want to move forward: together.”
One of the Messengers then surprised everyone, and no one more so than its human guests, by beginning a slow and physically laboured round of applause. Its partner joined in, with both looking like toy monkeys clapping their cymbals, but Dan didn’t know quite whether the Messengers thought applause was a sign of approval or simply what people did at the conclusion of a speech.
Without further context beyond what they had seen at the edge of the cornfield prior to the journey, when they had first copied this human action, he could see that the Messengers would’ve had a fair reason to believe either.
In either case, however, they clearly thought the speech was over.
“I’m so glad you came,” Dan whispered out of the side of his mouth, drawing a warm smile from Tara.
As silence returned, the Messengers removed the cables from the table. With his connection to the other aliens broken, Dan asked the first and only question in his mind: “How did it go?”
Tara waited just as eagerly for the answer.
Even before an answer came, however, the alien in the sky-blue tunic rose from its chair and left the room.
While one Messenger gathered the discarded cables from the surface of the table, the other positioned itself directly in front of Dan and Tara. Reacting to the Squadron representative’s exit, a slow and very deliberate smile spread across its face.
It wasn’t the most aesthetically pleasing facial expression Dan had ever seen, but it sent a flood of joyous relief coursing through his veins like none before it.
“The Squadron will be gone from Earth within minutes,” the Messenger said. “It is done, friends; you have succeeded.”
Tara excitedly wrapped her arms around Dan and jumped up and down like she was celebrating a last-second sporting victory. This victory was more important than any other she could imagine, and the joy was expressed with suitable physicality.
After five seconds or so she let go of Dan and turned to the Messenger, opening her arms. It rather humorously stepped back to avoid physical contact that would have been unwanted even though it fully understood the friendliness behind the offer. Then, however, it smiled again and extended its hand.
Tara shook it with mock formality, which naturally went way over the Messenger’s head but amused Dan nonetheless.
The other council members were by now on their feet and heading for the door, none appearing moved in any way by the celebratory scenes before them.
“What sealed it?” Dan asked, purely curious.
The Messenger ushered them towards the door as he replied. “Well, our councillors were unaware of our role in persuading the Elders to authorise the cometary intervention, and that detail greatly changed their perspective on both our trustworthiness and the Elders’ fallibility. It was an astute observation, but the point about looking forward to a progress-driven future of cooperation is what fully convinced the councillors of humanity’s positive nature. Diplomatic relations depend on trust, and you earned that today.”
“All in a day’s work,” Tara said, playfully nudging Dan’s arm to gloat that her spirited words had played such an important role.
For his part, Dan paused to consider the point about earning trust. Did people like Godfrey and Cole — the people who made most of Earth’s major decisions, when it came down to it — deserve trust from anyone, let alone a distant alien race?
He tried not to dwell on this, knowing that things on Earth would take care of themselves and that the future was now something to look forward to for all kinds of reasons. Diplomatic relations and a mutually beneficial information exchange between Earth and New Kerguelen were wonderful things to anticipate, but the biggest thing in Dan’s future utterly dominated his mind as soon as he stepped out of the council room.
“When can we go home?” he asked, picturing Emma’s face and the exciting months that lay ahead before their lives would be changed forever in the best way by the arrival of their child.
“Soon,” one of the Messengers said. It stopped walking and quickly revealed a new door in the now-familiar manner. “There’s just one more room I want you to see first.”
V plus 5
Sector Three Lookout
New Kerguelen
Standing beside a newly revealed door, one of the Messengers encouraged Dan and Tara to walk into a room from which the first loud noises they’d heard since arriving rushed towards them and filled their ears like a million birds singing at the sun.
Dan led the way towards what looked like a window but was in fact an open and elevated lookout to a vast area below. On the ground, hundreds of small aliens were frolicking around in colour coded groups, chirping out their hypnotising vocalisations and looking as human as aliens could be.
They didn’t seem to be inside, as such, but rather within a vast open area in which Dan saw water running in a stream and also some odd-looking trees that were just familiar enough to be recognised as such. The Great Shelter, Dan could see, was an extremely high and entirely transparent roof, in essence.
Roof may not have been the best word, but it didn’t look domed.
In any event, beyond the Shelter — which was only visible at all due to some areas displaying slight reflections — Dan saw the mesmerising light of two suns.
Somehow it all felt real only now: he was on an alien planet, looking down at hundreds of aliens and standing next to one of their senior figures.
The ending had turned out to be the kind Dan had hoped for, and he felt a glow throughout his being as he gazed down in happiness at the last-minute realisation that the setting was, too. He would never forget his time on New Kerguelen and would be forever grateful that the Messengers had given him this beautiful sight.
As Tara looked down, her eyes and mouth slowly widened in a cartoon-like display of wonder. “Can we talk to them?” she asked, overwhelmed by the scale of the cuteness.
“If the council meeting had failed, we would have announced your arrival in public as a last-ditch effort to force the council’s hand,” the Messenger said. “But as you succeeded, we do not need to involve the general population quite yet. Your existence is not yet common knowledge, and we will carefully consider how to break that news.”
“They deserve to know,” Dan said, quite firmly.
“And they will, very soon,” the Messenger replied without taking offence. “But as you know better than anyone, the manner in which such things are learned can have a profound effect on social stability. We will first announce that a solution has been found to our Great Shelter problem and that the council has found a way to assume the functional role previously played by our Elders, because introducing novelty to stability is always safer than introducing novelty to chaos.”
Dan nodded, accepting the reasoning. He trusted the Messengers absolutely and took this one at its word that the regula
r inhabitants of New Kerguelen would learn the truth before long — that they were not alone.
“I brought you in here to show you who you saved today,” the Messenger said, looking down at the youth of his planet. “Soon they will learn of this day — the day of the Visit — and you will both be remembered fondly.”
This brought a tear to Dan’s eye; not the part about being thanked and remembered, which was never what he cared about, but the fact that the Messenger had wanted them to see the alien children for such a thoughtful and warm-hearted reason.
“Thank you,” Dan said.
It turned to him and slowly shook its head. “Thank you, Dan McCarthy… and thank you, Tara Ford.”
Tara still looked slightly disappointed that she couldn’t talk to the children, but she took one last long glance and knew it was a sight she would never forget. “Now can we go home?” she asked with a slight chuckle.
The Messenger gave its trademark awkward smile. “Of course. Home.”
V plus 6
???
???
“Where are we?” Dan asked, waking up perfectly refreshed after a return journey which once again felt like it had taken no time at all. “And how long have we been gone?”
“Hovering high above the cornfield,” one of the nearby Messenger’s voices answered in his mind. “Totally undetectable, but we can remove the cloak at any moment. And we have been gone for less than one full day.”
To Dan, this was good news on both counts. He stayed seated for a few moments, mulling things over.
He knew that life would never be the same again given his reluctant telekinetic outburst before leaving for New Kerguelen. People would look at him differently all over again, and even more so than had been the case after Contact Day.
He didn’t know exactly what might happen as soon as he stepped back onto terra firma, but it seemed all but certain that a slew of shady federal agents would be waiting to take him away for testing.
The Final Call Page 37
