by S. H. Jucha
One of the officers on station murmured to the first mate, who responded urgently. A couple of moments later, the probe’s view of an expanse of garden surrounding an ancient-styled house appeared on screen. A single image was captured and enhancement programs reviewed it several times. With each successive pass, the individuals walking in the garden became clearer.
“Humans,” the first mate murmured. “Humans, Captain,” he said, adopting a command voice. “This is the site of our colony ship’s landing!”
“Excellent, Captain! My compliments to your officers and crew,” García said expansively. “Now, Administrator Wombo, I await your good news as to the analysis of these humans’ carrier-wave technology.”
Captain Lumley felt a flash of sympathy for his friend. Word had reached him of the scientists’ failure to decipher the comm technology.
“There is no good news, Speaker García,” Wombo replied. “We are left with no alternative but to broadcast our message in the open on our ship’s customary frequency and hope that these people are able to pick up and decipher our carrier wave and message.”
“I see,” García replied, his mask slipping back into place. “One wonders why the powers on Earth pack my ship with scientists when they are of so little use to me. “Very well, Administrator, have Yoram Penzig’s message forwarded to me for review. Captain, please advance the Reunion into the system on course for the populated planet and broadcast the message once I’ve approved it. Wide beam, if you please, in case their ships do have FTL comm capability as Administrator Wombo theorizes.”
García left the bridge as perfunctorily as he had arrived. The captain gave Wombo a commiserating twist of lips and a shrug of eyebrow. Only performance above expectation received the speaker’s approval, everything else was unsatisfactory.
-2-
Méridien comms and the entire Confederation, for that matter, burned with little else than messages of a strange ship entering the Méridien system. Fear that another alien race had found their civilization was the first thought on most minds, but as the odd, wing-shaped ship continued to advance toward Méridien, no fighters spewed from the ship and no weapons were unleashed on the Confederation’s ships.
Days after the intruders entered the system, Méridien SADEs, self-aware digital entities or artificial intelligences, detected the ship’s broadcast signal, recorded it, stripped the carrier wave, and relayed the remaining signal to the Council’s SADE, a known linguistics master.
Winston could choose who to communicate such critical information in Council Leader Ganesh’s absence, and the SADE chose Gino. President Racine’s treatment of the Haraken SADEs had rubbed off on Gino, and, in turn, he was treating all Méridien SADEs with courtesy, and they were reciprocating in kind. The information gleaned by merely being courteous was invaluable, and Gino never betrayed the SADEs’ trust or abused the privilege they granted him.
* * *
Mahima struggled up in bed and ran a couple of mental exercises through her implant. No use sounding dull-witted to Gino. The upstart hungers for my Council Leader seat as it is, she thought.
Mahima signaled the bedroom lights on, swung out of bed, and donned a dressing gown. The slender and exotic body she once possessed was gone. The cell-gen injections preserved her health but not her beauty as she approached the end of her second century.
For the first time since her abrupt awakening, Mahima admitted Gino made the right decision to contact her. The information was troubling. Have we just been invaded by alien humans? Mahima asked herself.
-3-
Alex Racine, Haraken’s president, and Renée de Guirnon, his partner, sat in the cool shade of the cliffs beneath their house, protected from Hellébore’s summer sun. Their six-year-old son, Teague, was squirming in his father’s lap, upset that he couldn’t play today with his alien friends, the Swei Swee. Renée was fond of saying, “As it regards patience, Teague takes after his father.”
When Teague was born, Renée asked Alex for the privilege of naming their child and requested the name of Alex’s male ancestor who arrived aboard his people’
s colony ship, New Terra. “I would honor that Ancient and his partner, my love,” Renée said. “Without them, I would not have the world I have today.”
When Teague was frustrated, as he was now, Alex held him. The son inherited his father’s genes for stature and at age six was already more than two handfuls. Alex and Renée opted to forgo Méridien genetic tinkering with their child. The result of happenstance was a striking Méridien face adorning a New Terran’s massive body. The one concession the parents did make to Méridien technology was the use of an artificial womb. Renée’s slender body couldn’t have carried a child the size of Teague to full term.
Within months of Teague’s birth, Alex took his son swimming, sharing his love of a pastime enjoyed as a child on New Terra. Renée preferred to watch from the safety and comfort of the bay’s black-and-white crystal sand beach. As Teague’s independence progressed, he began riding on the back of the matrons, emulating their young, racing the Swei Swee along the beach, not that a two-legged boy could keep pace with six-legged aliens.
Teague was typical of the newly born Haraken children, who never saw the Swei Swee as their parents first encountered the aliens. To Haraken’s first youngsters, the Swei Swee were exotic companions, and none considered the clawed, multi-legged, whistling aliens more as friends than did Teague.
While all Haraken young were highly regarded by the Swei Swee, much as they cared dearly for their own, it must be said that the Star Hunter First’s youngling was most precious to their twin hearts. That the Star Hunter First and his mate had produced only one egg over so many annuals was a great lament among the People, which is why so much care was taken with the youngling and his parent when they swam. Several hunter species of the People lurked in Haraken’s waters, and large Swei Swee males always accompanied the two to ensure their safety. If necessary, the People would gladly travel the endless waters to ensure their protection.
To date, none of the Swei Swee were required to pay the sacrificial price. As a species, they could sense the electrical impulses of both prey and predator. When hunters approached, alarms were sounded and Teague would grab the front edge of a male’s carapace, exiting the water onto the beach like a hydro-skiff, sputtering and laughing uproariously. His father required two of the larger males to accomplish a similar exit, ending his trip in the shallows. In an ironic twist, Teague never showed any interest in accompanying his father into space. The Swei Swee were Teague’s world, and they were everything to the boy.
Today, the Swei Swee’s ecstatic whistles and tweets filled the air, and they bobbed in anticipation of the upcoming event. Males clicked their claws, anxious for the search of the endless waters in the company of the one known to them as “Zee,” a human sound they could whistle. The Swei Swee were an intelligent species that lived off the sea, and the large males dove deep for their catch to depths a human could only reach in a dive suit.
Z had downloaded himself into his latest avatar, a 3-meter-long alloy imitation of the crab-scorpion-like Swei Swee. His latest mobile creation was identical to the Swei-Swee male — small true hands; large, sharply pointed claws; six legs with swimmerets; and a long, segmented tail with lateral fins that folded against the tail when out of the water.
If this was the Confederation, a SADE such as Z would still be trapped in a box on the bridge of an FTL-capable starship or in a closet of a Méridien House. But this wasn’t the Confederation and this wasn’t New Terra, whose people led the fight to free the Swei Swee and end the destruction of the Confederation colonies by the Nua’ll. This was Haraken — an amalgam of New Terrans, Confederation refugees, and a rescued, sea-hunting, whistling and warbling, intelligent alien species known as the Swei Swee.
Z, encased in his avatar and decorated in the blues and greens of Swei Swee carapaces, scurried across the sands to launch into the breaking waves. Alex applauded and noisily whistled his appreciation, which Teague imitated.
At Alex’s whistle, the Swei Swee First, the hives’ leader, had spun around on the sand, reared back on his six walking legs, and focused his four eyestalks on the Star Hunter First. His whistle of acknowledgment split the air, and then he spun and raced after Z. He didn’t want to miss the moment — searching the endless waters with a “Star Hunter Who Wasn’t.”
It had been difficult for the Swei Swee to comprehend the concept of a SADE. It was much easier to accept the entities when they appeared on Haraken, walking, crawling, and flying. In their alien minds, all entities that surrounded the Star Hunter First were members of his enormous hive.
* * *
Julien watched from the cliff top as the Swei Swee ended their raucous celebration and dived into the breaking waves in Z’s wake. The wind fluttered his wide-brimmed hat and loose clothes, a very un-Haraken style of dress. At least the wind appeared to affect his attire.
The SADEs chose to build avatars that were neither Méridien nor New Terran in stature but something in-between, closer to the former than the latter. The new shape suited their design considerations. All but Julien and his partner, Cordelia, adopted Haraken-style clothes for their appearances; even Z did when he was at the Central Exchange.
Julien and Cordelia’s atypical response to clothing began when Julien could not decide how he wished to appear. He felt that he should be celebrating his new life, but admittedly he wasn’t one of the more adventuresome types when it came to the concept of attire.
Cordelia, a master of the visual arts, had stunned Julien with her answer. “We can project our clothes, Julien,” Cordelia said. “We’re virtual people, if you will, why not have virtual clothes? I can design algorithms that sense your environment and react to it, and you can incorporate holo-vids in our synth-skins that can project the images outward. In this manner, your attire can suit your mood whenever you wish.”
Julien was slow to adopt the idea, but the more he considered it, the more he realized it was the direction that he and Cordelia, as independent SADEs, should take. He noted to Cordelia that they would still require physical clothing for certain events, such as aboard ship, when the holo-vid illusion could be pierced by human contact.
Julien and Cordelia spent the first few days after their transfer to their avatars in the privacy of their new house. Cordelia pushed her artistic skills to create new algorithms for their virtual clothes to see what Julien preferred. The hours Cordelia had enjoyed with Renée, discussing intimacy, and the testing of the resulting algorithms on Alex, turned out to be excellent preparation for this time when she held her beloved companion in the flesh, so to speak.
On the first day Julien and Cordelia left their house to walk among other Harakens, they stepped with confidence and yet waited with some trepidation for reactions. Their unique body shapes identified them as SADEs, and people politely requested bio-IDs to identify them. To the joy of Julien and Cordelia, they received a touch of the heart, a nod of the head, and a quiet “Sers.” They were not just being greeted; they were being honored. After the first few exchanges, Julien’s confidence grew, and he extended his arm to Cordelia, imitating Alex and Renée. Cordelia responded by smiling and tucking her hand in his elbow. The two SADEs spent the entire morning strolling the streets of Espero, greeting their fellow citizens.
Neither of the SADEs detected the individuals surreptitiously tailing them, who were reporting to Étienne and Alain, the directors of security and twin crèche-mates, that Julien and Cordelia were being magnanimously received by Haraken’s citizens. And Alex paced up a storm throughout the house, with Renée worrying he might wear himself out, until he received the twins’ report. Renee hung on Alex’s broad shoulders for a while, witnessing the relief flooding through him at the news that his friends w
ere accepted by the people of Haraken. It was one of the few times that Renée saw Alex shed tears of joy.
While the SADEs enjoyed their first morning, walking the streets of Espero, Julien recalled the moment, ensconced in his box on the Rêveur’s bridge, when Alex contacted him and Z. The Haraken–New Terran agreement was signed, and the Méridiens’ advance payments for the travelers, the gravity-driven shuttles the Harakens would build, would arrive soon at the Exchange. In time, the SADEs would earn significant funds, operating Haraken’s first bank as its directors, but Alex decided not to wait.
“Julien and Z, time to get started on Z’s plan,” Alex said.
Julien waited for Z to share his plan, but time ticked by.
“Your pardon, Mr. President, would you remind me of which particular plan we will be discussing?” Z finally asked.
“Your greatest wish, Z. It’s time to make it come true,” Alex said.
What was a surprise to both SADEs was that Alex was already clearing the way for their transformation. He had pulled aside the visiting House Leaders, who had the foresight to purchase Haraken’s first production of travelers, and told them of his plan to free the Haraken SADEs. In no uncertain terms, Alex told the Leaders that he expected their cooperation with any requests for specialists and equipment he might need, and they agreed. Such was the enticement to possess Haraken travelers.
Alex committed his private funds, transferred from New Terra, to start the research, and Julien and Z began communicating requests for specialists and material to the Méridien Leaders. Naturally, the orders were received by FTL comm, which meant the House SADEs handled the communications. Receipt of the first requests and the divining of the intent behind the requests meant every Méridien SADE knew within moments of the Haraken SADEs’ purpose. Within days, every Confederation SADE knew.
