by Jerry Oltion
"How's that?" he asked. "Can you hear me?"
"Yes, that's fine," the speaker replied. The butterfly flapped its wings and the speaker said, "If you will follow me, then, I'll give you the tour."
Trent and Donna pulled themselves around to the front of the pickup and were about to push off after the butterfly when a slit in the docking bay's inner wall spread apart and Allen Meisner and Judy Gallagher floated through.
"Trent! Donna!" Judy yelled, and she launched herself toward them, her arms held out wide. 35
Judy was a medium-tall, dark-haired woman with a big smile. She wore a blue coverall and brown socks with individual toes in them so she could use her feet as well as her hands to grip things. Trent got a good look at the socks on their way past as Judy tumbled in the air and landed feet-first against the windshield of the pickup, leaving her in perfect position to wrap her arms around Trent and Donna's waists and give them both a big sideways hug.
"How are you?" she asked.
"Doing okay," Trent said automatically.
"Better now than we were, that's for sure," Donna added.
Allen was tall and blonde and wore the same smile and the same basic clothes as Judy, only his coveralls were bulging with pockets full of science-geek equipment. "Hey," he said, hanging onto the doorframe.
"Hey yourself," Trent said.
"So what brings you here?" Judy asked.
"Long story," Trent replied.
"It's the United States problem," the speaker on Trent's arm said, and it took him a second to realize that it was the tug pilot—presumably just a different extension of the same Potikik they had talked to earlier—who had spoken.
Judy shook her head, and her short black hair flipped from side to side. "Oh, man. What isn't?" she said. "What did they do this time?"
"Dropped a meteor on us, for one thing," Trent said.
"What for?"
"Visiting a French colony."
"Oh. Well. They are at war, you know. At least the Americans think so."
"But these were civilians. The U.S. is bombing civilians."
"That's not surprising. They've been doing that in other countries for decades." Judy straightened up and said, "Come on, let's show you around a little, and then we can meet up with some of the other Federation delegates and you can tell us what happened."
She pushed off toward the doorway, carrying Trent and Donna with her, and Allen caught them when they got there. The corridor behind him was smaller, just the right size for two people to move through side-by-side and let each be able to touch a wall. It was oval in cross section and had a rough surface, like tree bark, with lots of knobs sticking out for gripping. Doors opened off either side at irregular intervals; marked only by the seam where the two sides would pull apart when you pressed their edges. They did that to a few. Some of the chambers behind the doors were huge; several had big windows looking out into space, with sunlight streaming in on green parks and lush gardens.
"This was all just waiting here, empty?" Trent asked. "Along with maybe a million more of them?"
"Yep," said Allen. "And to answer your next question, no, we don't know who designed 'em. Near as we can tell, they died out or just packed up and left over a million years ago. None of the original stations have survived that long, as far as we know, so we haven't found any artifacts, other than the stations themselves. That tells us plenty, though. For instance, they were about our size, breathed air, lived in groups, liked open areas with lots of light, and came and went in spaceships."
"And they thought big," Donna said.
"That, too."
They came to a door that opened into the biggest chamber they'd seen yet, a bubble at least five hundred feet across with three big skylights that poured sunlight into a spherical park filled with trees and bushes and flowers. Dozens of unfamiliar animals floated among the vegetation, some browsing on it, others just hanging onto it for support, and after a minute Trent realized that most of them were engaged in conversation. These were aliens.
"Let's introduce you around," Judy said, leading them into the park. "These aren't all of our delegates, not by a long shot, but they're enough to start with."
Even so, there were more names and body types than Trent could remember. The reptilian guy with the big yellow gills was Kasak, and the fuzzy snowball with the sticks for arms was Menaripal, but the others went by too fast for him to do more than nod and say, "Pleased to meet you." Most of them didn't speak English, but when they used their own language, the speakers on Trent's and Donna's arms would translate, using different voices for each.
Judy led them all to a sunny patch of bushes where they could nestle in and not drift around while they talked, and she had Trent and Donna tell everyone what had happened to them. When they got to the bit about going 20,000 light-years too far, and figuring out how to get back only to have the program do it again when they tried to jump to Federation headquarters, Allen said, "That doesn't sound possible if they're using the control software I wrote for the core code. Can I have a look at that program?"
"Be my guest," Donna told him. "I was going to ask if I could download one that's more reliable. And we should warn people not to use this version."
"Certainly. On both counts."
There were a few seconds of silence, then a shiny green bug about four feet long chittered something, and the speakers on Trent's and Donna's arms said, "Go on with your story."
"That's pretty much it," Trent said. "Donna figured out how to find our way back, and here we are." The bug chittered some more, and the speakers said, "So let me make sure I understand your complaint. Your government is suppressing personal freedoms within its own borders, and attacking other humans it disagrees with outside its borders. But it is not to your knowledge attacking other species?"
"Not that I know of," Trent admitted.
"This sounds like an internal matter to me."
"And to me," said several of the other aliens.
"The Federation stopped the war that broke out when Allen invented the hyperdrive," Trent pointed out. "That was an internal matter, too."
"It was," said the arm speakers in a high-pitched voice. Trent didn't know who was talking, but the voice went on to say, "It was the Federation's first act, entered into when there were only four member species, and it was entirely a bluff. There would have been no retaliation if humanity had destroyed its homeworld. I believe your governments knew that, but perhaps welcomed the excuse to withdraw from the brink of disaster. I doubt if we would be so lucky a second time."
"You don't have to threaten them with war," Trent said, addressing the entire group for lack of a specific target. "There are lots of other ways to make people back down."
"All of which require the Federation to interfere in a species' internal affairs, solely to improve conditions for certain members of that species," the speakers said. "That is not our purpose."
"So you're just going to let the U.S. keep killing people it doesn't like?"
"That is what humans seem to do," said the yellow-gilled reptile, Kasak, using English directly. "You aren't the first of your species to come to us with this request. We've investigated the matter thoroughly, and we've concluded that humans kill one another when they disagree. That is your way of solving problems. If we impose our own moral code on you, we would be forcing you to do something unnatural for your race."
Donna hadn't said much, but she spoke up now. "We're not all the same. Peace is the natural state for most of us. It's just the kind of people who go into government who like to fight wars."
"And the kind of people who go into military service," said Kasak. "You have the highest proportion of your populace devoted to military service of any species we have encountered."
"They're still a minority!"
"But they are the ones who run things."
She looked over at Judy and Allen. "Come on, you two. Help us out here. You helped set up this federation. You can't believe it's right to let something
like this go on, can you?" Judy said, "Of course it's not right, but think for a minute what you're asking. You want us to go in and overthrow a government because it's gotten out of control. But how did the United States become what it is today? By overthrowing governments that were out of control. They thought they were the world's policeman."
"That's not why they did it," Trent said. "They were after oil."
"Maybe at first," Judy said. "I could argue otherwise, but even if that was their motive at first, they had all the oil they wanted after Iraq, and they didn't stop there. They got locked into a foreign policy of bullying other nations to get their way, and they're still doing it."
"And you're saying that's okay?"
"No it's not okay! But if the Federation starts doing the same thing, where do you think we're going to wind up in twenty years?"
Trent didn't have an answer to that, probably because the answer was so obvious.
"What can we do, then? Start bombing Washington ourselves?"
"That would be the natural way for humans," Kasak said.
" Some humans," Trent said. "Idiot humans. We're not all like that."
"Yet you carry a weapon in your vehicle," said the arm speakers. That had to be Potikik, the only one who had seen their pickup.
Trent looked up to the butterfly, who floated over the middle of the group and kept itself in place with gentle flaps of its wings. "That weapon saved our lives a time or two. There's a difference between self-defense and murder."
"It is perhaps a more subtle difference than you believe," said the speakers. Trent almost said, "Tell me that when they're dropping shit on your head," but he knew that wouldn't gain him anything. Instead, he said, "So what would you do, then, if you were in our shoes?"
"Speaking only for my species, we would exchange members with the minds opposed to us until we achieved consensus. In extreme cases, we would swarm the offensive mind and force it to disband."
"Killing it," Trent said.
"Redirecting it," the butterfly said. "Or you might say outvoting it. None of the individual members would be sacrificed."
That didn't seem particularly helpful. "How about you?" Trent asked Kasak.
"We eat the eggs of those we oppose. The next generation is descended from the winners."
"And that's not murder?"
"The eggs are purchased, and the seller knows what they will be used for." Donna made a puzzled face. "Why do they sell them, then?"
"Because they believe that they can out-breed their opponents." Trent snorted. "So your solution is to make love, not war."
"Precisely."
"My grandparents' generation tried that. It didn't work."
"Perhaps they weren't rich enough."
Hah. That was probably closer to the truth than they had wanted to believe. Love and compassion were great in theory, but it seemed like the rich were the ones who called the shots in practically every political system humanity had ever invented.
"Any other bright ideas?" Trent asked, looking from alien to alien around the circle. The fuzzy snowball squeaked and shivered, and the arm speakers said, "Educate the warmongers. My species learned long ago that those who preferred violent solutions to their problems were simply ignorant of better ways."
That was probably true of anybody, Trent thought, but one guy couldn't very well educate an entire nation. Not Trent, anyway.
The green bug chittered, and the speakers said, "Your species' belief in religion offers a possibility. If you start a new religion based on pacifism—"
"Been done," Allen interrupted. "The religion gets subverted, and before you know it, you've got crusades."
There was an embarrassed silence. Trent felt sorry for the bug, who was just brainstorming, but then he realized that the embarrassment wasn't for it, but for humanity.
"Your first instinct was perhaps the wisest," the speakers said in Potikik's voice. "Remove yourself from the violence, and seek a better life elsewhere."
"That would be fine if it didn't follow us," Trent said, "but there's no escaping it. Not if we want to stay in contact with civilization, such as it is. And besides, I promised Andre I'd try to stop it." Judy said, "I don't imagine he expects you to turn around twenty years of hostile foreign policy by yourself."
"No, but he expects me to do what I can, and I'm going to do it." Kasak said, "An admirable attitude, but the execution is between you and your government. We wish you success, but we can't interfere."
"Don't say 'can't' when you mean 'won't,'" Trent said.
"Very well; 'won't,' then."
The snowball started chittering, and a moment later the arm speakers followed along behind it, saying, "We can do one thing. I have long felt that we should undertake a mapping project of the entire galaxy. Your experience with inadequate star maps underscores the need for a more comprehensive survey, and this is a task that falls directly in the Galactic Federation's purview."
"Better star maps," Trent said. "People are gettin' killed, and you're going to make better star maps."
"Yes," said the snowball. "Those maps will save lives, too." That was probably true. They would certainly have helped him and Donna find their way home. But it was a far cry from the help they had wanted.
"Knock yourself out," he said. Then he turned to Donna and said, "I think we're done here. Let's go home."
36
They didn't leave right away. They still needed to install a better navigation program on their computer, and Judy wouldn't let them go without at least having a meal with them and catching up on old times. Donna wouldn't have a meal with anybody without a bath first, so she and Trent wound up in a guest room just off the docking bay, trying to figure out how to use the plumbing. They identified the bathroom easily enough by the mirror and the sink and the medicine cabinet, though the sink had a clear bubble over it with holes in the front to stick your hands through so water wouldn't come flying out all over the place, and the medicine cabinet had clips and pockets instead of shelves to hold everything. The toilet was either disgusting or amazing; Trent couldn't decide which. The seat was soft enough to seal around his butt when he sat down, and then the air pressure went down inside, sucking everything down to the bottom of the bowl before it could make a mess. It took a minute to get used to the steady breeze blowing down between his legs, but he eventually relaxed enough to get the job done.
The shower turned out to be a separate room beside the bathroom, an oblong big enough for two or three people at once, with lights at either end and little round bulges with holes in the ends of them sticking out of the walls every foot or two. Those had to be nozzles, but there was no obvious way to turn them on. Trent grabbed one and gave it a twist, then pushed on it, then pulled on it and a jet of warm water sprayed him right in the face. He shoved it in again and it stopped.
"Success!" he said, scraping the water off his face. It drifted away in fat globules, which Donna, watching from the open door, batted back inside the shower. She slipped on in and the door closed behind her, and Trent tugged the nozzle on again.
Water sprayed against his chest and bounced everywhere, dancing in the air all around them; then a soft breeze began to pull it up through an opening above their heads.
"I think that's where our feet are supposed to go," Donna said. She curled into a ball and turned over, stretching out again with her legs next to Trent's face.
He wasn't quite as limber, but he managed to turn around, too, and open another nozzle on that end so they had water flowing at both ends of the shower.
There was a bar of soap in a little mesh bag hanging right where they needed it. They had fun lathering one another up and washing each others hair and rinsing off, then they had even more fun experimenting with how other things worked in zero-gee. It was a long shower by the time they turned off the water jets and chased all the loose globs of water into the drain before they opened the door again, but they both felt a lot better about life by then.
They toweled off and pu
t on fresh clothes that they'd brought from the camper, then set out to find Judy and Allen's apartment. Trent wore his hat and boots, even though he wasn't likely to need either inside a space station. He just felt naked without them.
Potikik guided them through the space station with instructions through their mobile speakers, leading them to a huge open atrium lined with shops and filled with airborne aliens—with a guy-line along the walls that they hung onto so they wouldn't become airborne, too—and into a more conventional corridor that led past several more parks before ending at an unassuming slit in the wall.
"You're there," said Potikik. "Enjoy your dinner."
There was no doorbell. There was no door to knock on, either. Trent rapped a knuckle on one of the lips, but it made practically no noise, so with a "what the hell" shrug, he pushed the two sides apart the way he'd learned to open all the other doors on the station.
This one didn't open, but it did make a loud hum, like a singer warming up his voice. Nothing more happened for a few seconds, but just when Trent was wondering if he should make the door hum again, it opened to reveal Allen floating there with his arms out wide.
"Come in!" he said, reaching out and pulling them into the living room beyond. At least that's what Trent assumed the place was; it had paintings on the walls, and bookshelves with little elastic webs across them to keep the books from drifting loose, and potted plants and some kind of twisted abstract sculpture that had to be alien. There was no furniture, but in zero gee there didn't seem to be any need for it.
Allen didn't even pause in the living room. He led them right on through, and through a video room with a six-foot screen on the wall, past archways that led to bedrooms—with hammocks rather than beds, just like in their guest room—on through a dining room that had a table with attached chairs and seatbelts to hold people to the chairs, and into a kitchen, where Judy was busy chasing vegetables through the air.
