The Omarian Gambit: A Pax Aeterna Novel

by Trevor Wyatt

  Since then we’ve shared a...well, I hesitate to call it a bond, but I will go so far as to say that I believe we understand each other.

  “Jeryl, I won’t sugar-coat it; your situation is being monitored at the highest levels.”

  I nod. This is one time when I can’t make up my mind if I’m glad that we have instantaneous communications capability via slipstream, or whether I regret it. On the one hand, it’s good to know that someone has my back. If I miss a regularly scheduled report, Flynn will be on the case immediately. But on the other hand, what I am dealing with is essentially a committee that wants to second-guess me.

  Flynn knows this, and he also knows that it’s in his interest to let me have full discretion. I know he is shielding me from a dozen officials who outrank me, and even him. Those of us in the field must be allowed to make command decisions on the fly without interference from above.

  “Let me ask you this, Captain,” Flynn says. “Do you have any assessment of their military capabilities?”

  I have to shake my head. “All I know is what I see, sir,” I reply. “It’s a big ship—bigger than anything we have. It could be fully automated, I suppose; even this Ghosal could be a hologram or a synth puppet run by their vessel’s AI. But what would be the point of that? Why would they bother? No, I think he’s got himself a flying city, more or less.”

  Flynn digests this. “To what end?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe it’s as he claims; they’re a research vessel. There’s no guarantee that an alien race would use small scout ships and research vessels like we do. But I think there’s something else going on.”

  Bluntly, he asks, “Do you think they destroyed The Mariner?”

  Now it’s my turn to digest his words. “I...don’t think I do.”

  “Mmm. Why not?”

  “Because, if he’s telling the truth about being in contact with other alien races, they would have learned by now that appearances can fool you. Sure, he’d be careful approaching The Mariner even though it’s like an elephant approaching a flea. But even if he sent off that puzzle transmission of his, he wouldn’t fire on them simply because they didn’t respond. He’s got to have enough experience to have tried something else.”

  Flynn nods slowly. “Yes, that makes sense...to our way of thinking. But as you pointed out there’s no reason to suppose that they think like we do.”

  “I believe they do, more or less,” I say. “Ghosal has an attitude, but I understand that. He seems pretty human to me in terms of his emotional colors. We solved his puzzles. He’s no fool. Arrogant, yes, but no fool. His ship can swat us out of space, but at this point I am not liking him for the culprit.”

  The Admiral draws a deep breath but simply nods at me.

  “That said, sir,” I say, “What do you want me to do?”

  “The main thing is to make sure this blue-faced so-and-so either is, or is not responsible for what happened to The Mariner. If not, we’re good, and history proceeds. If he did it, well, we’re in a pretty pile, and I don’t mind saying so. It’ll be a mess, son, a big steaming mess.”

  “I know.”

  “Very well,” says Flynn. “Stay safe, but don’t back down.” He smiles. “I suppose I don’t really need to say that to you, do I?”

  I smile back. “No sir, you do not.”

  “I thought not. Flynn out.” And he cuts the slipstream link.

  After he does, I sit looking around my office. It’s comfortable, but not what anyone would call luxurious. I have an art screen that’s usually tuned to Impressionist painters, my bunk, a closet, and a desk with a chair, which is where I'm sitting, looking at the blank slipstream monitor.

  I don’t want to go into CNC right now, but I don’t want to be alone, either. I put in a call to Ashley. “Lieutenant,” I say, “I want to see you.”

  “Sir,” she replies crisply. Within one minute my door announces her arrival.

  Upon entry, she says, “You were talking to Flynn.”

  “Am I that obvious?”

  “You have that look on your face, that ‘I just had a chat with my boss’ look.”

  “Hmph. I didn’t know I had one of those.”

  “Well, you do. What did he say?”

  I give her a précis of the conversation. She listens, nodding. “He’s being pretty reasonable,” she says.

  “Yeah, considering that he could fry my ass if he wanted.”

  She scoffs. “I don’t think he would ever do that, even if you screwed up royally. Which you are not about to do.”

  “Not deliberately, anyway.”

  She turns serious. “That encounter with Ghosal or whatever his name is...what do you think he’ll do?”

  “I really don’t know. I think, I hope, that he’ll reply as an equal, and not send a torpedo into our guts.”

  “Can we deflect one if he does?”

  “No idea.”

  “An action like that would make the Sonali into the biggest and nastiest bad guys we’ve ever met,” she says. “I mean Mankind, not us.”

  “That’s completely correct.”

  She emits a small chuckle. “I suppose there’s one good thing to be said about it.”

  “Yeah? What’s that?”

  “Humans won’t be hating AIs anymore. We’ll all be on the same side. Every xenophobe in the Union will have a new target.”

  “Yeah, no, that’s some cold comfort, there, Ashley.”

  She smiles ruefully at me. “It’s all I have for you right now, Jeryl,” she says.

  At that moment my screen lights up and I see Mary Taylor's face. She looks frightened. “There’s a new transmission from the alien,” she says.

  “We’ll be right there,” I tell her. Ashley and I head out the door on the double.

  Jeryl

  When Ashley and I enter CNC I immediately sense the tension. I go straight to Mary's station. Her face is damp with perspiration. I lay what I hope is a calming hand on her shoulder. “What’s going on, Lieutenant?”

  “We’re being hailed by the Sonali craft,” she says.

  “I’ll take it at my station,” I tell her. “Put it on the main screen as well.”

  The grim blue visage of command Legate Ghosal swims into view on the small viewer before me, while giving the air around the big screen at the front of the chamber a sickly beryl tinge.

  Without preamble, Ghosal says, “I have been in touch with my superiors.”

  A thought clicks into place at the back of my mind. Ghosal has inadvertently revealed that he, like us, has the capability to communicate FTL. This fellow isn’t as smart as he thinks he is.

  Ghosal clicks and pops at us. “Captain Montgomery,” he says in translation. “You were given clear instructions to leave this place. Why, then, are you still here?”

  Against my will, my mind flashes back once more to one of Professor Guss’s lectures.

  * * *

  “Let’s look at some hypothetical situations,” Professor Guss said, pacing back and forth at the front of the room. The hall had stadium seating, so it was easy to see him. Plus, less than a quarter of the seats were filled. The class was an elective, and it was obvious that most students didn’t consider it to be worth their while. But Professor Guss never seemed to mind.

  “You’ve landed on a planet that you know has intelligent life. You have seen cities from orbit, and individual structures. But these people are pre-spaceflight. They’ve lofted no satellites, and haven’t visited any of the other worlds in their star system. With all the best intentions, you set down on their planet in some out-of-the-way spot near one of their urban centers so that you can observe them before deciding whether to contact them or not.”

  Alyce Teodosio’s hand shot up. She was in my class, a small intense Latin woman who rarely smiled. “We shouldn’t contact them at all,” she said. “Ideally, we wouldn’t interfere with the course of their natural advancement.”

  He pointed at her. “And there are studies that back you up,
Miss Teodosio,” he said. “They claim that any contact with a pre-spaceflight people could result in a deleterious effect on their confidence in their own efforts. They could stop trying, in other words.”

  I raised my hand, and the professor nodded at me. “I don’t necessarily agree,” I said. “Instead of being intimidated, they could just as easily be spurred on to develop their technology, because they would have proof that it could be done.”

  “It might depend on how advanced they were,” said a young man with a blonde buzz cut. “If they were on the level of Cro-Magnons, say, they might run and hide, whereas if they were as advanced as Persia around the time of Jesus, they might ride out to investigate, with weapons ready but not intending to attack.”

  “Or if they were like Nazi Germany, they might just start shooting in the hope of capturing that shiny starship.” Alyce said, turning to look at him.

  “Any one of these possibilities could be true,” Professor Guss said. “Which is why you would, one hopes, as captain of that Union ship, spend a good amount of time observing them clandestinely. We currently have no laws covering First Contact, even though we have been exploring nearby star systems for many years. There have been efforts to create such laws, but the idea of intelligent extraterrestrial life simply isn’t taken seriously at the higher echelons of our government. One day that will change, but by then it may be too late.”

  “But let’s move on to other scenarios,” he said. “We won’t consider the possibility of contacting a benevolent species, because that’s a happy-ending sort of thing. Peace and love, blah blah blah.” He smiled at the ripple of laughter in the hall. “Let’s assume that you are the captain of an exploratory vessel that has entered a system that is home to a technologically advanced civilization. As you approach the target planet you see that it is ringed with myriad satellites, hundreds, maybe thousands. Perhaps there are bases on the outlying planets. You’ve taken care to avoid contact with them, and once you arrive at the home world, you’re glad you did. Scans tell you that many of the orbital stations are carrying nuclear as well as conventional weapons. The planet’s surface is environmentally degraded by mining for elements used in making weapons, and by insufficiently shielded nuclear plants. You may be surprised that they haven’t yet blown themselves to atoms or poisoned themselves to death.”

  Laughter rippled across the hall again, but this time it was a little muted. After all, something like this almost happened to our own planet.

  “Miss Teodosio?” He lifted his eyebrows at her.

  “I’d definitely want to lay off at a distance and observe them,” said Alyce.

  “So would I,” he said, “but for the sake of the discussion, let’s say they detect you and start shooting.”

  She blinked. “I wouldn’t return fire,” she said.

  “Why not? They have proved their aggressive nature. It’s clear that if they manage to get out of their system, they could spread that aggression and perhaps prove to be a danger to us. Why wouldn’t you at least knock the attacking satellites out of space?”

  I raised my hand again. “I’d sequester them,” I said. “Make sure they couldn’t be a threat to anyone else. Maybe incapacitate their weapons satellites and put up our own, to keep an eye on them.”

  “But doing that would be the same as interfering with their natural advancement, as Miss Teodosio suggested a while ago.”

  I bit my lips. “In the strict sense, yes; but if their ‘natural advancement’ would imperil us or other species, it would be justified. Uhm, in my opinion.”

  “And if this sequestration or segregation results in extreme hardship for them? When we could have assisted them to mature past their ‘primitive’ behavior?”

  We students cast uneasy glances at each other.

  “They’d have every reason to fear and hate us, if we shot down their satellites,” Alyce said. “I’d say do nothing, but establish an observation post to keep an eye on them. If they get out of hand, I don’t know...some sort of escalation would be necessary.”

  “Possibly, possibly,” said Professor Guss. “And we can leave it at that point.”

  “But what’s the answer, sir?” I asked. “How can we know what to do?”

  Professor Guss smiled at me. “That will be for you or one of your colleagues to tell us,” he said. “And I wish you luck. Because there really is no answer.”

  * * *

  Now here I am in a situation close to the one posited by the professor. And I have no idea what to do. I'm winging it, but I won’t tell anyone else that’s the case. I glance over at Ashley in her station, and I see her looking me. I’m sure she suspects. I give her a smile that is as calm as I can make it. To Ghosal, I say, “I apologize if I’m causing any stress, Command Legate,” I say, “but my orders are to determine what happened to our ship. I regret to say that we can’t leave until we accomplish that task.”

  “Perhaps I haven’t made myself clear,” Ghosal says, and there is a distinct edge to the translated voice. Our computers aren’t as sophisticated as ground-based machines, but are even so running neural networks with strong learning capabilities. They’re very good at analyzing subtext from both tone and body language, and it’s obvious that they’ve been able to educate themselves about the Sonalian emotional spectrum. Professor Guss would be happy.

  “You’re trespassing in our territory,” Ghosal goes on, “but we’ve no wish to be punitive. I offer you a choice: Come as an ambassador to the Home Planet or leave.” And for the first time, I see Ghosal smile. It isn’t a pleasant sight. “Or you can die,” he says.

  “You’re threatening me?” I ask, surprised despite myself. I think, Professor, I wish you were here with me now. I could benefit from some calm insight!

  And I hear him reply, Don’t react to his words. Think: What is he truly upset about? His civilization is familiar with others. There is something different here for him, and he is being reactionary. That doesn’t jibe with the idea of a cosmopolitan space-faring species. Perhaps there’s a personal for him in your interactions.

  Personal? I reply. How can that be? I don’t know him. I have no idea what his background could be. I don’t know what his cultural imperatives are.

  Then you’d better think about them, Guss says, and his shade evaporates.

  I haven’t got time to ponder abstract concepts like cultural imperatives—why has my mind even thrown that idea into my consciousness? Ghosal says, “These are not threats, Captain. They are statements of fact. You must choose which path you will pursue.”

  The screen blanks out.

  Jeryl

  I am left staring at a blank screen, with everyone in CNC waiting to see what I will say or do. I’m waiting to find out, as well.

  What I do is stand, lift my chin, and say, “I’ll be in my office.” Without another word, I leave CNC.

  I need to think about what Professor Guss had to say about cultural imperatives because there’s something there—I’m sure of it.

  But there’s another little detail I want to check on as well, and as soon as I’m alone I do it. I signal Gunny, the Armory AI, and have a brief discussion with him. After I’m done, I am satisfied that The Seeker stands no chance of winning a firefight with Ghosal’s ship. Analysis of the behemoth’s systems show that we are not only outgunned, we would also most likely be chased down and swatted out of space with little effort on the part of the Sonali.

  They aren’t a great deal more advanced than we are, but the gap is wide enough to give them an edge. We could probably improve our navigation and propulsion systems to match them—I know for a fact that we have ships on the drawing board that would be able to put up a stiff defense against Ghosal—but the Union hasn’t put any crash programs into development because there has been no need. The Outers aren’t any more advanced than the Union, so the improvement in our military capabilities hasn’t been a priority.

  Until now.

  But what I really want to think about is what Professor
Guss said about possible differences between intelligent species. Because there’s a hint there, I believe, if I can find it quickly enough.

  * * *

  “So let’s talk about the day after First Contact,” Professor Guss said at the beginning of another lecture. “You can talk to each other, and relations are being established. This is a good time to reflect on adaptation. Both sides are going to have to make changes in their worldviews if the relationship is to be successful. So you need to be aware of three levels of interaction: cultural exclusives, cultural electives, and cultural imperatives.”

  He paused, and there was silence in the hall. No one had a clue what he was talking about.

  “You’re thinking that you’ve wandered into a sociology class,” he said, smiling. “In a way, you have. But sociology is at the bottom of all the things I am trying to teach you. Without some understanding of how the other guy’s social relationships and interactions work, you’ll never get beyond the ‘C-A-T spells cat’ and ‘1 plus 1 equals 2’ stage of communication. What I am saying here is that the problems only begin when you first meet.”

  He snapped his fingers and a virtual data board appeared. On it were written three things: cultural exclusives, cultural electives, and cultural imperatives.

  “So, what is a cultural exclusive,” he said. “These are local customs. Earth is one planet, but it’s broken up into countries and nations, and those are broken up into states or territories, which are further broken into regions. Cultural exclusives pertain to regional people. To give a broad example, if you were a Christian, you wouldn’t go to a Muslim country and try to act like a Muslim. That would be deeply insulting. By the same token, you can joke about your own family, but if an outsider makes fun of them, you’ll be furious. That’s a cultural exclusive.” He looked around. “Are we clear on that?”