Space Scout

by S A Pavli

“That is true,” she agreed. She stretched out her other leg over my lap and snuggled back in the soft cushions, taking a further sip of her drink. “Paul, can we talk? There is something you have not been told which may explain what is going on,” I sat up straight.

  “This sounds serious,” I said.

  “It’s very serious. Can you get Alfred on line? I want him to hear this as well.”

  “Sure,” I gently and reluctantly untangled myself from her long legs and walked to my room to retrieve my travel bag. Inside were a couple of communicators which had been patched through the Hianja network to Alfred. I gave one to Manera and put the other one on myself. Activating the call button I settled back into my sofa and retrieved my drink. Manera stood and started pacing the floor nervously. I patted the sofa.

  “Sit,” I ordered gently. “Alfred, how is it hanging?”

  “Hello to you also Paul,” came the cryptic response, “I have been informed of your little accident. I am happy you and Manera are unharmed.”

  “Thank you Alfred but it was no accident. I am fairly certain it was sabotage,” I replied.

  “So I understand Paul,” he replied, “But I cannot see who would want to murder you. Not on Mesaroyat. Now if you were on Vasmeranta, I can believe that Smetronis’s accomplices would be responsible.”

  “Smetronis and his fanatics are not just on Vasmeranta,” said Manera, “They are everywhere in some numbers small or large,” I looked at her in surprise. This was news to me, I had assumed that they were a small and localised clique.

  “Who are these fanatics Manera? What do they believe in and why are they so against Human contact?” I asked.

  “To answer that I have to tell you a long story,” she replied enigmatically. “It concerns the origins of my race.”

  “That does sound like a long story,” I replied, “I’ll have to re-fill my glass.” Manera began her ‘story’;

  “The first thing you must know, is that my species were not always the way we are now. A long time ago, before we discovered the Hyperspace drive and travelled the stars, we were like Humans. That is, our males were fertile and we conceived and gave birth naturally, like you,” I was topping my glass up when she said that, and I nodded in agreement.

  “I guessed that at some point in the past that must have been so,” I said. “I have noticed that everyone seemed reluctant to discuss this. Why?”

  “It’s not because we wanted to keep a secret,” she replied, “But because it reveals something about our race that is shameful. Something so traumatic that it shaped our psychology and made us what we are.”

  “What you are? But you are civilised and peaceful. How can you be ashamed of what you are?” I asked

  “Think of the problems your race had three, four hundred years ago,” she replied. “Our Society was in the same condition twenty thousand years ago. We had also developed science and technology very quickly, but our social and psychological development lagged far behind. Our society was dominated by males and male aggression also formed and controlled our social, political and religious systems. The world was split by Nations and factions, political, Nationalistic and Religious and dominated by fanatical old men who were happy to send young people to their deaths for the sake of their dogma. There was not a period when there was not a war going on somewhere in the world. Millions died, the world was ravaged and still we did not learn or forgive. Does that sound familiar?”

  “Jesus, was it that bad?” I asked, “I mean, Earth was pretty bad during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, but it did improve. We pulled back from the brink.”

  “Well, it did not look as if we would make it,” said Manera, “Then, you could say, fate took a hand. There was a great deal of genetic research taking place at the time. Some of it legal scientific and medical research, but some of it illegal weapons research. One of these projects was to perfect a virus that would pacify the enemy.”

  “Pacify the enemy? How is that possible?” I asked.

  “It was a character altering virus. It linked up with the hosts cells and excreted a drug that altered the persons personality. It was originally discovered as part of a research program to heal psychological disorders. Once infected, the host did not have to take drugs anymore, they were manufactured by his own cells. The delivery system was the virus, and it could be used to deliver different types of manufacturing systems. Different drugs could be manufactured by the host cells in other words.”

  “I seem to remember reading somewhere that we use the same delivery system,” I said . She nodded.

  “Once infected, there was no cure. The virus had delivered its genetic material into the host cells and died. The cell alteration was permanent.”

  “So they were going to deliver a personality altering drug using this virus. What effect would that have had on the enemy,” asked Alfred.

  “Like I said, the world was infested with fanatics. Men whose principles were so strong, or so they claimed, that they would have died for them. Except that it was usually not them who died but thousands of their brain washed followers, fighting and dying for their Country, their Religion, their Political System. It was actually a naked struggle for power, with no quarter given. It was this fanaticism, male dominated single minded aggression, which was the problem. It was a kind of insanity, a character trait which seemed to be unique to men.”

  “Manera, that is an exaggeration surely,” I protested, “Male aggression is largely a social character trait, it is not genetic.”

  “I am afraid that you are probably wrong,” she replied. “Certainly for Hianja, it was a genetic trait because they found a way to disable it using this virus delivery system. Fanatical demagogues, who were prepared to die for their beliefs, were suddenly transformed into calm and reasonable men, humane and non-violent.”

  “You mean they actually used it?” I asked.

  “Not on purpose, just experimented with it using psychologically ill patients. It worked all right, but many scientists had great misgivings about releasing such a massively mind altering virus as a matter of principle, but also because no long term studies had been done for side effects. Unfortunately, one small group of fanatics got control of the virus and released it by infecting their enemy’s water supplies. It was thought that the virus could only be transmitted internally, by ingestion in a special form. So they believed that they were safe from infection. The effects of the virus were very slow to appear and no one noticed anything for years. But gradually, their enemy started to become less aggressive, pulled away from confrontation. In fact, the virus mutated and became airborne. The whole world was infected.”

  “Well, was that such a bad thing?” I asked, “From what you were saying, these personality changes were all to the good. How was it noticed?”

  “It wasn’t,” she replied. “The original scientists who had released the virus took the secret to their graves. The problem was, years later it was noticed that the male female balance for new births was changing all over the world. More females were being born than males, and no one knew why. It took years of research before this virus was isolated, and even longer to discover that it was not a natural virus but an artificial one. Its source was discovered and the awful truth came out. But it took a couple more generations to realise that the decline in male births was continuing, and that soon no more males would be born. Our Species faced extinction,” I slumped back in my seat in disbelief.

  “Unbelievable!”. I took a sip of my drink and considered the incredible story.

  “But surely,” I protested, “Genetic Science must have been advanced enough to find a cure?”

  “You would have thought so,” she replied, “But the virus kept mutating, as viruses do. They could slow down the infection, but not stop it altogether. After a few generations, no male children were being born. Of course, they had stockpiled huge amounts of male semen, frozen in Government storage facilities. There was enough to keep the race going for generations, and they hoped a cure w
ould be found. But then, a group of female scientists discovered a new way to fertilise an egg, which did not need semen. They were able to culture a sort of artificial semen, the genetic material of one person was extracted, processed and injected into another person’s egg, fertilising it. Male semen was no longer needed.”

  “Ah yes,” I nodded, “The female dream had been achieved, men were no longer needed!” My remark was meant as a jest, but Manera winced.

  “Actually, there is truth in your joke Paul. A very powerful movement had developed, political, scientific, cultural, a movement which cut across all nations and religions. A movement that argued for not bringing back the male sex. It was argued that males had brought nothing but disaster upon the race, they were too unstable, too driven by their sexual urges to behave in socially unacceptable ways. And actually, peace had descended upon the world. No more wars, no more irresolvable conflicts leading to violence and confrontation.”

  “But the virus had solved that problem,” I argued, “Males were no longer aggressive.”

  “Yes, but if the virus was to be destroyed, allowing males to be born naturally, they would also be free of the pacifying drug. Things would go back to the way they were.”

  “So that was it? Males were consigned to the genetic dustbin?”

  “It’s hard for us to understand the strength of feeling at the time,” she replied, “The world had been an appallingly violent place. Hianja males were often very savage, more so than humans, and Hianja females were oppressed, second class citizens. No one wanted to go back to that.”

  “Incredible,” I muttered. “But you did get them back, although not fully functional?” I asked.

  “Yes, but that was much later. For thousands of years, Hianja civilisation struggled on the edge of collapse. You see, without the males in the early years, many industries and technologies were lost. The world became depopulated and the economies of all the nations collapsed. There was neither the will or the strength for war anymore, it was a struggle to survive. But slowly, over thousands of years, science and technology recovered. The knowledge had not been lost you see. Two thousand years after the ‘Great Disaster.”, as we call it, , biological research had recovered to the point where males could be recreated, but not as they were. Physically male, but infertile. To make them fertile required the destruction of the personality altering virus, and they did not have the courage for that. So they settled for a compromise.”

  “A male without balls,” I muttered unkindly. I thought of the male Hianja I had met and could not maintain my contempt. They were certainly manly enough in all the ways that are important. “Sorry, scrub that,” I added.

  “You are right in a sense,” she said surprisingly. “The modern Hianja male is a shadow of the original. But the original was a psychotic beast by modern standards, and we are well rid of him. We are happy with our modern male,” she said with a little smile. “Do you remember our discussion about sexual differences between the sexes? She asked.

  “Yes, you said that there were few differences now.”

  “That is right. And the reason is because the modern male is quite different from his primitive counterpart,” I looked closely at Manera, and she looked questioningly back.

  “Manera, how did you feel when you first saw me? Were you frightened?”

  “No, because I did not think of you as a Hianja male. You are an alien, a different species. But I was very interested to learn whether Human’s had met and overcome the same social problems as us. It was very exciting that you appear to have done so. I and many of my colleagues, are very respectful of Human society. You have achieved something we could not.”

  “But it appears that not all your people share this feeling,” I pointed out.

  “Exactly,” she replied, “And this is what my story was leading to. There is a faction, centred in Vasmeranta but apparently having agents here also, which is not so convinced that Humans have overcome their violent natures. They want to stop immediate contact, put it off for as long as possible.”

  “Why, it is bound to happen eventually,” I pointed out.

  “Yes, but if they can put off contact for a few hundred years, that will allow us to prepare for contact, and that will also allow Humans to develop socially, hopefully confirming that they truly have evolved beyond violence and aggression.”

  “So their aim is to stop me from returning to Earth, thereby preventing contact indefinitely,” I inquired.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “And the obvious way to stop them is for you to give us Earth’s co-ordinates. Once the Earth’s location is known, there is no point in them trying to prevent your return.”

  “Manera, there is a problem with releasing Earth’s co-ordinates, as Paul knows,” replied Alfred. “It is expressly against procedure.” Alfred pronounced ‘Procedure’ with a capital ‘P’.

  “Alfred, I promise not to release the co-ordinates without consulting you. It is just a case of being prepared,” I replied.

  “It is against procedure,” he repeated, “Under any circumstances,” I slumped back in my seat in frustration.

  “Alfred, if you are destroyed, Contact will not happen. And I will have no way of returning home,” I pointed out.

  “Our fate is unimportant Paul, as you know,” he replied impassively. “But I take your point about Contact. I will therefore translate the co-ordinates into Hianja convention and place them into your personal Computer. You must only use them if I am destroyed.”

  “Agreed Alfred,” I said with relief. I got up to refresh my glass and took Manera’s glass with me also.

  “Things must have been pretty bad in the old days,” I mused out loud, “for there to be such strong feelings around after thousands of years.”

  “Every generation is educated about those times,” replied Manera, “It is part of our social conditioning, to learn about those terrible times when our species nearly committed suicide. But also remember, we are the children of the virus; our personalities are different from pre-virus days. We are genetically altered to abhor violence and aggression.”

  “So how was Smetronis and his gang able to do the things they did then?” I mused. “Something very powerful must be motivating them to go against their basic natures in this way. And we have no idea what that something is.”

  Chapter 26

  The following few days of my stay on Mesaroyat were intensely interesting and stimulating. The days seemed to last for ever, as is the case when experiences are new and exciting. As the week came to an end and we moved into the second week, familiarity made the time pass more quickly and I was soon looking reluctantly and sadly at the end of my stay. Reports from the Lisa Jane were good, and the work was almost complete. The new Hyperdrive was installed and testing was taking place. Alfred reported that a couple more days should see the testing completed and we would be ready to depart. I went over the events of the last ten days fondly. This was a beautiful world, one which was full of natural beauty, and also, one in which the natural and the artificial existed side by side without conflict or disharmony. Hianja built their cities with a sure eye for balance and colour, without damaging or polluting the environment.

  Being a somewhat cynical materialist, I had especially been on the lookout for any signs of discontent, any sign that not everyone was happy with Hianja Society. Were there any poor or disadvantaged? Were there any shanty towns, any downtrodden peasant classes? Was there any underclass, alternative culture, revolutionary movements? Nope, not a sign. Everything in the garden seemed to be unequivocally rosy. Every city was populated by happy shining people, energetic and healthy and enjoying a full and rewarding life. I could not believe that any society could be that successful. We were in a Tanseh on our way to a Janesta, a Hianja Arts festival, on the outskirts of the city of Prinlak-Han when I put this to Manera. She looked thoughtful for a few moments before answering.

  “There are many groups of individuals who choose alternative lifestyles,” she said somewhat reluc
tantly. “But as a rule they are not a threat or a de-stabilising influence. Many are just eccentric and idiosyncratic individualists.”

  “What sort of alternative lifestyles?” I asked curiously. She looked uneasy and hesitated before answering.

  “These people are not representative of Hianja society,” she said evasively.

  “I understand that, but I am interested to know what their problem is,” I said, “You see, on Earth, it does not matter how idyllic life is, there will always be a number of individuals who want something different. It’s a Human condition, being cantankerous and difficult. But Society allows these freedoms, as long as they do not harm others or break the law,” I said reassuringly. She still looked reluctant to speak.

  “Have you been asked not to talk about this aspect of Hianja Society?” I asked quietly.

  “Not directly, but just...,” she paused awkwardly, “Just, to show you the best of our Society. We are very proud of our achievements,” she said defensively.

  “And so you should be,” I replied, “But actually, I would be more impressed if Hianja Society was more pluralistic. Catering for minority tastes is a sign of strength, not weakness.” She looked at me carefully, as if mulling things over.

  “Ok,” she said at last. “You are right Paul, and I will show you another aspect of our Society. If we cannot be honest with each other, then we will never trust each other.”

  “When?” I asked eagerly.

  “Well..,” she paused, “Do you really want to go to the Janesta?” she asked.

  “I could live without it,” I replied. She nodded and hit a couple of buttons on the control board of the Tanseh. The screen lit up and she gave directions to the computer. The Tanseh changed direction and picked up speed and height. She lent back in her chair.

  “The location is about 500 reck from here,” she said. (about 600 Km). The Tanseh continued to climb and accelerate. Soon we had achieved our cruising altitude and the Tanseh continued to accelerate. I calculated that we had achieved a least mach 3 before it started to slow down. Sure enough, ten minutes later we started to descend, coming back into the atmosphere at sub sonic speed and continuing to slow rapidly. Beneath us were two mountain ranges with a long winding valley in between. The area seemed uninhabited, but after a couple of minutes of following the winding valley a small village appeared beneath us. There were a couple of hundred houses, small white and dun coloured, nestling among the trees and surrounded by fields and orchards. It could have been a small farming community on Earth, except that each house had a large solar energy collector on the roof.