by Bodicea
Coronado continued. “Look around you. Could a violent species have produced such beauty, such wonders? Violence is not in our nature. To be Aurelian is to be pure of mind, and perfect in body.”
“What of the spirit?”
Coronado smiled condescendingly. “Really, Goneril, a woman of your intellect, embracing such childishness. I do not mean to be insulting, but surely, some part of you must be at least skeptical of the faith you place in magical beings.”
“The debate was settled millennia ago.”
“Our conversation attests that it was not. No matter, we need not concern ourselves with this distraction. There are serious issues at hand here. You, and your ship, are preparing to prevent us, or to attempt to prevent us, from integrating the world called Bodicéa into our Union, quite against the will of her people, who may wish to join us.”
“If Bodicéa does not wish to be integrated, we will stand with them.”
“Brave words. You must realize you can not defeat Aurelia. However, conflict between us would be destructive and unnecessary for both sides and in the end the planet would be lost anyway. The intellectual consensus must be to not fight.” Lear said nothing. “Playing it close,” Coronado said. “Betraying nothing. Perhaps you think you do have the firepower, or the tactical knowledge to eke out a victory against us, against overwhelming odds. Perhaps, you think perishing nobly in battle is an honorable way to die; a common belief among superstitious primitives.”
“You insult us,” Lear said.
“Not at all. I am actually surprised a culture as advanced as yours still clings to such things. I actually have respect for your culture, and your achievements, one achievement in particular.”
“What would that be?”
Coronado held up a tiny gold triangle, representing Pegasus, and a larger gold sphere representing the Aurelian World-Ship. She released them, and let them hover above the pool.
“An imbalance exists between us. Aurelia has superior forces, superior intellect, superior strength, and vastly more resources than your ship or your worlds. You do however possess something we do not. Do you know what that is?”
“We can navigate hyperspace. You can not.” Lear said confidently.
Coronado reacted with surprise that was almost certainly feigned. “You are correct! We know of hyperspace. We know how to enter it, but we do not know how to control our re-entry point. We do not even have a propulsion system that functions in Hyperspace. How is it that you arrived at such knowledge before we did?”
Lear let the shadow of a smile cross her lips in a way she hoped looked enigmatic.
Accustomed to the water now, she slid into the pool. It made her feel somehow less naked.
Coronado seemed to approve, and gave her a brief nod as she sipped away at a cup of pink liquid. “Did you develop hyperspace technology on your own, or was it something you encountered in the course of your exploration of space?”
“What difference would it make?” Lear asked.
“We know the ancient humans,” she said ancient humans with a kind of disgust,
“possessed hyperspace technology. It was how they were able to metastasize themselves throughout this poor, unfortunate galaxy. If you encountered an ancient artifact, perhaps, the wreck of an ancient Commonwealth starship, and gleaned this knowledge from it, then you did not actually create the technology. The technology would have to be considered part of the legacy of all humankind, do you not agree?”
Lear waited a long time before responding. “Perhaps, but you are no longer human.”
“True, and on the other side, if you developed this technology on your own, then it is your possession, and you may decide to share it with us, or not to share.”
“A very interesting perspective,” Lear admitted.
“In any case, the fact that you possess this technology and we do not creates an unacceptable imbalance. You are a highly intelligent woman. Certainly more worthy of command than that strange, degenerate man who pretends to command your ship. By now, you have deduced that we are very interested in this technology. Do you know what I am going to propose?”
“That you will spare this world in return for our hyperspace navigation technology.” Coronado’s laugh roared through the chamber. “Oh, no, no, no. Nothing so trivial as that.
What we would offer to you would be an almost infinitely greater gift. We are willing to propose and exchange, an exchange that would be an extraordinary gift to your people, and your worlds.”
“The absorption of our worlds into the Aurelian Body, presumably, that would be your goal already.”
“Think beyond that. Yours are the first worlds we have discovered who travel among the stars. You could be our partners, our allies. The gift of hyperspace navigation would be like… a wedding gift.”
“And what would your dowry be?” Lear asked.
Coronado maintained her beneficent smile. “Anything of ours is yours, just ask. Any technology, our knowledge of the galaxy… a place reserved for you worlds within the Aurelian Union.”
“Sparing Bodicéa?”
Coronado smiled. “A most interesting suggestion.”
That’s why you thought of it, Lear said to herself, sipping the wine.
The Aves Basil returned to Pegasus from the planet Bodicéa promptly at 1800 hours ship time.
Keeler received Flight Captain Jones and Specialist American in his quarters, meeting them at the entrance with a bottle of well-chilled Sudloon Merlot. “Welcome back.”
“Good to be back, commander,” answered Jones, more or less automatically. Like all the commander’s visitors, they could not keep their eyes on him with all the room’s distracting contents. No one had quarters anything like the Commander’s. The walls were hung with Forrester tapestries from ancient monasteries, paintings too muddy and faded to be anything but originals, and holoposters by the 94th century master, Mr. Synch. The furnishings were definitely not Odyssey-issue, enormous leather couches so soft a baby’s ass was like sandpaper in comparison. A great fireplace dominated one side, they could swear they had seen it before.
(A reproduction of the one used in the classic holiday holo-fiction, White Solstice, which was made at one of the Keelers’ country retreats.)
“Please, have a seat. I’ve arranged for some snackies, I hope you like caviar from Lake Swisher in Boreala, if not, I’ve got a nice spread of snack cakes from Jolly Addison.” Jolly Addison ran a baked goods shop on The Mall. Her cream-and fruit-filled cakes had developed quite a following among the crew, were too rich for the immediate tastes of American and Jones. They politely accepted smears of caviar on the little bread-puffs he had laid out. They were still dressed in local finery, such as it was, something like sweat suits with billowy pirate sleeves and stitching designs on the lapels.
“Love to sink my claws into those vestments,” came a voice.
The women turned to see a largish gray tabby cat with a white bib emerge from the sleep-chamber. He was staring them up with thoughtful green eyes.
“Ignore him,” said Keeler, setting into a patchwork lounge chair. “Tell me what you learned about the people of this world.”
Jones looked at American. American looked at Jones. Jones looked at American again.
“Well,…?” Keeler prompted.
“Where should we start?” asked Jones.
“From the beginning.”
This made it more like a mission report. Jones could handle that. “After depositing an away party on Mab, I traveled 1700 kilometers southwest, landed Basil outside a city called Callista, on the interior of the southern continent. It was shortly before mid-day.”
“What was the city like.”
“It was very… well-planned.”
American agreed. “You could tell the city had been very deliberately planned. The streets were laid out like spokes from the center. It made it hard to double-back once you were lost, and we got lost a lot. The buildings were close, like they didn’t want a single meter
of space to go to waste.”
“Did you blend in?” Keeler asked.
Jones shook her head. “Neg, our costumes marked us as Assistants to the Outer Circle. We could barely walk a hundred meters before someone would come up to us, wanting to know if we could get the Circle to intervene in some matter.”
“Everyone thought we were there to take appeals, which I guess is what assistants do.” Queequeg jumped up onto the couch between the two women and rolled on his back, spreading his legs apart. “Scratch my belly.”
Almost unconsciously, Jones began scratching his ample kitty midriff. Queequeg lay back, stretched, and closed his eyes. “We tried to find a central shopping area, but they don’t really have them as such. They have shops where they make food and furniture and clothing, and people work there, and sometimes the people making clothes go and get food from the people making food.”
“We eventually got lunch from one place by agreeing to plead a case to the Outer Circle on behalf of the cooperative who ran the food outlet.”
“How was lunch?”
“You’ve had legumes and rice-grain before, haven’t you commander?”
“Of course.”
“Imagine beans and rice seasoned with oranges and peppermint and sprinkled with leaves and roots and that’s pretty much what lunch was like.”
“Tell me more about this pleading.”
“The women at the food cooperative wanted to be moved to a larger dwelling. They live communally, you see. A family unit can be four, six, ten women and all their children. This cooperative had recently taken in a woman and her two daughters from another unit. The local Community Circle wouldn’t approve them for a transfer, so they wanted the Outer Circle, which is a planetary authority, to compel the Community circle to find them a larger dwelling.
American added. “We had to write out the plea on long sheets of … I think it used to be called ‘paper.’”
“You learned to write in Bodicéan?” Keeler said, surprised.
“We… engaged a scribe.”
“A scribe, you say. How very interesting.”
“Now, do the ears!” Queequeg demanded. “And how ‘bout some o’ that caviar if you’re not going to eat it. Hungry cat here.”
“We had to arrange for lunch for the scribe … and … something else she wanted.” American blushed and looked at the floor.
“You’re not going to tell us, are you?” said Queequeg.
“Queequeg!”
“Well, they aren’t.”
“It’s not important, so, what were your impressions of the … of the ordinary people. How do they live? Are they happy?”
“The city we were in was… it was nice enough,” said American. “There were garden parks, fountains. It was very clean.”
Keeler set down his merlot. “I sense that something about it bothered you. What was it?” Jones wrapped both hands around her beverage and frowned. “I couldn’t get my mind around it until the return flight to Pegasus. I spent five years traveling around Sapphire with my husband. When Phil… Whenever Lt. Cmdr. Miller and I traveled to a new city, we always went to a pub, and we’d meet people, and someone always offered to let us stay in their home.
Always, it happened in every city. Of all the women we talked to in Callista, no one offered to let us spend the night with them. When I told some of them that we had traveled from a distant city, and wondered where we might stay for the night, no one offered to take us in.
They all offered directions to the local shelters for travelers, but nobody would take us into their home.”
“Not even the scribe?” Queequeg asked.
“Queequeg!”
The cat flattened his ears and stretched out again. He over-stretched his balance, and fell behind the couch. Feline pride obligated his to lie there, as though he had intended this all along.
“Do the Bodicéans have any idea what’s going on?”
“When we were down there, the major story on the news kiosks was an extension of the Public Donation. They have these news kiosks in every work place, and every public square.
Once an hour, two women from the Circle of Information appear and tell then what the government is doing.”
“People don’t pay much attention to it. Come of them were a little angry because the public donation was being expanded.”
“What’s a Public Donation?”
“Every Bodicéan woman is required to turn over half of everything she earns to the community she lives in. The community gives half of that to the provincial government. The provinces all give half of that to the Inner Circle, who use it to distribute resources equally across the planet. The Outer Circle voted that once a year, every Bodicéa n should take ten percent of what remains and donate it directly to the Inner Circle.” Keeler was shocked. The government took half of everyone’s income? “Public donation,” he spat. “They make it sound so nice.”
“They were unhappy because they said their city always donates more than it receives in benefits from the planetary government.”
Keeler chuckled. “Looks like the Aurelians will arrive just in time to put down a tax-revolt.”
“Actually, no one was speaking against the tax,” Shayne American put in. “Not when they thought we were listening, anyway.”
“They support it?”
“Nay, they don’t support it, but they were afraid of the Monitors.”
“Monitors?”
“They’re like an internal security force. They are usually very large women working in pairs. They were dark black and blue robes with brass insignia. They’re supposed to keep order, but they’ve been very active lately. A few women asked us why there were so many more monitors on the streets, and why so many woman were being detained.” Solay’s security forces, Keeler thought.
“We saw them in action,” Jones reported. “It was rather frightening. A whole squad of them, eight in all, all wearing heavy armor, stormed into a print shop. They came out with four women and two girls.”
“That’s when Jones did something stupid,” Shayne American grumbled.
Keeler smiled. “What did you do?”
“All the women were looking at me, and I knew they expected me to intervene. I went up to the guards, introduced myself as a representative of the Outer Circle, and demanded an explanation. The lead monitor…”
“An enormous, terrifying womanoid,” American added, almost under her breath.
“… was just deferential enough to me to tell me it was a matter of security. I demanded the names of her and each of the women under her, which she provided. She would not tell me what the women were being charged with, so, we asked the women who were in the area if they knew anything about the women. They wouldn’t say anything until the Monitors left. We were leaving to, when a woman gestured to me, and told me privately that the women and the girls from the print shop had just broken off from their collective group and had been critical of both the Inner and Outer Circles. Their print shop had published leaflets critical of some of the Circles’ policies.”
“They arrest people for criticizing the government?”
“Not normally, but they do have a law that says you can be arrested if you knowingly make false accusations against the government or against any member of the Circle.
Apparently, it’s a generous technicality.”
“Is Solay cracking down on anyone who disagrees with the government?” Keeler asked.
Jones and American shook their heads. “Neg, only on people who are talking about us.”
“Really?”
“The four women had published a weekly journal. The journal was about four pages front and back, about this big,” she indicated a space with her hands about the size of a wedding invitation. Anyway, they had written about the ‘false signal,’ the government had received a few weeks ago, and sightings of strange lights over the Isle of Mab and Serenopolis. They thought the government might have made contact with the Commonwealth, and were withholding the i
nformation.”
“Do you know what happened to the women?”
“They were taken to a detention facility. We tried to get in to see them, but the Monitors began asking us too many questions about our identification. We did not want to arouse suspicion, so we returned to the ship.”
Keeler got a contemplative look on his face, but it quickly passed. “Thank you, you did very well. File complete reports when you’ve had a chance to settle in. Don’t leave out any detail.”
“Does that help, commander?” Jones asked.
Keeler sighed. “Not really. I’m kind of back where I started. I was hoping you would either come back and tell me that this planet is wonderful and peaceful and by all means save it, but instead, it still sounds like a planet populated by basically good people, ruled over by a government I don’t care for. If it weren’t for the Aurelians, I’d move on and not give them any more thought. Let the Rep… let the home worlds deal with them, but unfortunately, I’m here and I have to make the call.”
“Would you like my opinion?” American asked.
“And mine?” Jones added.
“Sure, lay it on me.”
The women looked at each other. American went first. “I say fight for them. If you really think the Aurelians are out to destroy them, then you have to fight for them. They are humans. Their leaders can not possibly understand the danger they’re in. We do. We have the means and the opportunity, and that gives us the obligation.” Keeler looked at Jones.
“I agree, we have to fight for them. Not because of who they are, but just because their world is unique. If the Aurelians destroy it, there will never be another place like it.”
“Thanks,” Keeler said half-heartedly.
“God put us here for a reason, commander,” American added.
The women left. Keeler fingered a Jolly Addision cake, then put it down again and reached for a glass of Maram Blended Whisky.
“Want to know what I think?” came a voice from behind the couch.
