by Reg Franklin
Ms. Morsalis waited until the assembly had quieted before answering.
“I was going to address this shortly anyway, but if you would rather know now, our home is somewhere we could settle and not be persecuted. We became concerned following the Trial Riots of ‘47, and relocated somewhere we considered safe, and free. Somewhere we would not be obligated to any particular nation or leader in exchange for Sanctuary. As such, we have removed ourselves approximately three hundred sixty thousand kilometers away in lunar-synchronous orbit.
We dwell aboard the vessel Chancel, orbiting the moon.”
Shouting and outrage spread across the crowd, with citations of the Outer Space Treaty and Moon Treaty, which both forbade national ownership of the lunar surface. Raising a hand for silence, Morsalis simply pointed out “Lunar surface. We are in lunar orbit. Nor do we claim ownership of that orbit, merely our homes aboard the Chancel.”
The assembly continued in uproar, albeit a bit more subdued at the technicality. Morsalis continued over the grumbling, “And if our current orbit is that concerning to all of you, we have no problem relocating our orbit to a different planet or moon. But we would much prefer to address that particular debate another time.” The crowd began to quiet now, interested in what the ambassador would say next. “All we request is recognition as a distinct nation, with all rights therein. We want to have tourism, immigration, and yes, even emigration. Imports, exports, everything that every other nation in our solar system has. We do not want hostility, we simply want to be recognized and enjoy a friendly, peaceful relationship with our original home.”
The silence that followed that pronouncement could have been cut with a knife. Finally, the British delegate, Anthony Prendergast, rose and spoke. “My dear woman, has it escaped your...leader’s attention that he is a wanted criminal here? That people were deliberately killed in an effort to escape justice? Why in God’s name would we want to have a relationship with a people who willingly choose to follow a man such as that?”
Morsalis’ reply was curt and to the point. “Your people followed Churchill, and he was an absolutely horrible human being. The Americans re-elected a man who started a war that most of them did not believe in. Do not speak to me of who we choose to follow as a leader. I’ve made our request in the interest of friendship, not in the interest of conquest or ill-will.”
The German delegate, Johann Mueller, now rose. “Fraulein, I for one would welcome the chance to begin this sort of relationship with your people. My concern is however also related to your choice of leadership if only because there seems to be a certain cult-like fanaticism regarding him. I would express hesitation if only because I recall the unfortunate case of Jonestown in the late 1970’s. Would your government consent to inspection if only to ensure that sort of incident might not be about to be repeated?” The crowd of ambassadors murmured agreement.
Morsalis seemed deep in thought. “I would naturally have to bring this request to his attention before confirming anything, but I do believe that would be acceptable if it would lead to our nationalization.”
There was a certain amount of surprise in the room upon hearing this. Morsalis continued, “And just to provide further proof that this is not a Jim Jones sort of situation, I would be willing to remain as a guest of the inspector’s home nation in order to guarantee their safe return. No tricks, no hostage crises, no assassination attempts. All we want is to prove that we are on the same side as our Earth-bound brethren.”
At that point, she requested time to contact the Chancel and discuss the arrangement with the Emperor. Secretary-General Oiseau granted the request, and moved to recess any further discussion on the topic. That done, the gathered ambassadors frantically contacted their heads of state to discuss precisely what to do. By far and large, leaders in the Western Hemisphere wanted nothing to do with the relocated Alphites. Europe and Asia however were more receptive, which began to alienate the Americas. Mueller reported that the German government was more than willing to provide an inspector in the person of Mueller himself. Several other nations such as Russia, Japan, and France also wished to send a delegation to view the Chancel.
Morsalis herself had contacted Stragdoc, who according to her was warmly excited by the opening of diplomatic relations with any who were willing. Both the American and Canadian ambassadors left the chamber in protest against the idea, the former stating in no uncertain terms that the United States would have to seriously reconsider its relationship with any nation willing to deal with a criminal such as he. Morsalis volunteered the location of her transport, leading the gathered ambassadors to a boat, explaining that her vessel was located in the Atlantic, to avoid general panic if the shuttle had landed in a public space.
Mueller and the German government welcomed Morsalis as their guest while he toured the Chancel, and less than two days later the ambassadors were travelling to the shuttle’s location.
4.
Under a week later, the delegates arrived back in New York harbor, all visibly affected by the trip they had taken. Mueller was the first to hold a press conference, describing the initial trip to the moon aboard a “diamond-shaped” vessel, and that the Chancel was still a work in progress, from the outside resembling a floating city under construction.
The orbiting city featured towers, skyscrapers that were described as being constructed in a modular fashion, allowing reconstruction or expansion if ever required. The intertwined Greek letters of psi and omega featured prominently upon the hull, leaving little question of who had constructed this eerily beautiful edifice in the stars.
The population were happy, well treated, and while there was a certain uneasiness about how they virtually worshipped Paul Stragdoc, he personally had no objection to the conditions there. Everyone had a job to do, but there was plenty of leisure time as well. Mueller resisted the urge to call it akin to a Utopia, but he secretly wanted to emigrate there himself one day, if only to live out a boyhood dream of being a space explorer.
The other delegates reported similar experiences, and all agreed that they would encourage their governments to open diplomatic relations with the vessel. The Americans reacted with outrage, threatening trade embargoes against them if they did so. Morsalis returned from Germany, stating that her hosts had treated her most generously, and that her one regret about returning to space was that “There really is no comparison to German sausage made fresh in Germany.”
The one thing all delegates found disappointing was that they did not meet with Stragdoc himself. He had made excuses that at the moment his attention was claimed with a delicate construction effort to establish a full hydroponic system to feed the populace, utilizing stellar radiation to stimulate photosynthesis.
The Americans made good on their threats and cut off any nation trading with the Alphites. Canada and Mexico were less willing to isolate themselves from world trade, merely issuing statements denouncing the trade with an admitted criminal.
In lunar orbit, Stragdoc smiled as a fresh wave of chaos spread on the planet, for, as always, that was his goal. Yes, he desired trade with the Earth, if only to gain access to resources he needed to complete the Chancel, but keeping the world unstable would make manipulating events that much easier.
Within six months of these events, the American government formally withdrew from the United Nations, and requested that the global body relocate their headquarters elsewhere, simultaneously ejecting any ambassadors who belonged to nations that were trading with the new Empire. Mueller was re-assigned as ambassador to the Chancel on behalf of the European Union. Psi-Omegan technology began to reappear on Earth as trade began in earnest, with a proper embassy opening in London to facilitate trade and emigration.
Then one of the automated trade ships returning to the Chancel exploded.
Nations trading with the Psi-Omegans were outraged when it became clear that the explosion was not due to equipment failure, but sabotage. Security footage showed an unidentified blonde woman near the shut
tle, presumably tampering with it. The Europeans accused the Americans, who in turn accused the Alphites of deliberately sabotaging their own vessel in order to cast blame on the leader of the holdout nations. The Psi-Omegans locked down all travel to and from Earth.
Nevertheless, Stragdoc knew it was not the Americans...the Europeans...any of the Asiatic nations...no, he knew exactly who was behind the blast. But like how he turned the Midwestern shootings a decade before to his advantage, he now turned his thoughts to how precisely he could turn this situation into personal gain.
It quickly became apparent that he did not have to do a damned thing. The back-and-forth accusations caused those nations allied with him to begin strengthening ties and issuing dark threats against his detractors. He quickly relaxed the travel restrictions and issued a statement that the Empire would begin its own investigation into the explosion and promised to seek retribution against whatever nation had supported the attack.
Then the other statement arrived at several news media outlets around the world. A woman’s voice stated that she alone was responsible for the blast, and that it was a wakeup call for the world, an attempt to alert them that while the Alphites were just like everyone else, Stragdoc himself was blackly evil. It advised people to look more closely at his past, stating that before the incorporation of Psi-Omega, there was no record of Paul Stragdoc.
While most news organizations dismissed them as insane ramblings, a few journalists tried to track down some history on him, and found that the woman was right, there was a total blank regarding his past prior to 2036. At that time, his age had been estimated at his early thirties - young looking early thirties - so digging for the most part had stopped at around the early 2000’s.
Therefore, they went back further.
And the absence of information began to leave a strange hole. A small town near the Canadian-American border seemed to be the focal point. In 1999, a school had exploded following a hostage crisis. Who the hostage takers were had been removed from news archives as well as official police reports. Two years before that, a husband and wife had been killed in a car accident, leaving one son. Again, the names were either omitted or deleted at some later point. Nine years prior to that, there was a news article about a young man who had been injured in a bullying incident, injured to the point of death…but had miraculously recovered. Names again were missing. However, six months after that article was dated, there was another article about a different young man who had been paralyzed from the neck down in some sort of schoolyard incident.
At the same school that the other incident had occurred at.
As they began to connect the dots, one article was passed by about a young girl named Jennifer Safyo who had recovered from thyroid cancer at the same hospital that the boy had recovered at. It was dismissed as inconsequential.
5.
When the articles detailing the strange gaps pointing towards the newly minted Emperor came out, the backlash was immediate. Two of the journalists who had taken part in the investigation died under mysterious circumstances. The Europeans recalled Mueller from the Chancel...except he refused to return, calling the accusations baseless and that his home was now the orbiting city. Medical records almost eighty years old were unsealed by court order, revealing that Stragdoc was the one hospitalized. And considering his listed date of birth was the summer of 1981, his youthful appearance showed that the process by which he granted the gift of immortality had to be far older than the incident of ‘47.
In his lunar orbit, Stragdoc fumed. He had gone to great pains to delete his history, silencing those who might recall it, ensuring that when he reemerged that he would be relatively anonymous. Somehow, he had missed that the absence of information might itself be evidence against him. Despite his anger raging within him, he managed to maintain a level of focus that most could not, scanning news reports from across the globe. Morsalis had been arrested, with the entire Psi-Omegan embassy being seized by the European governments, who were awaiting American investigators, having persuaded the Europeans to allow them to take part. Morsalis and her Alphite staff were being permitted to remain within the embassy, pending the additional arrival of interrogators.
“So.” He began, turning to face a group of advisors who had arrived. “The humans have seized our property and citizenry who are guilty of nothing more than attempting to maintain diplomatic relations with our original home.”
“My lord, we cannot allow this to stand. I have what small fleet we have prepared to launch an orbital assault in retaliation.” A slight woman offered. This was Tilial Dalth, commander of all transports and ships the Chancel carried. By default, she carried the title of Admiral of the Fleet.
“No...No...We do that and they’ll vivisect our people...they're animals down on the planet, in need of strict leadership and guidance…” Stragdoc murmured. He did not actually believe the first part of that statement, of course, but was rehearsing his eventual statement to the whole Chancel. “Our best course of action at this point in time is to send a small force to rescue the staff and destroy the embassy.”
“Destroy it, sir?” That was Simon Peters, chief scientist under the Emperor.
“Yes. I have no intention of allowing our earthbound cousins retaining any knowledge we have left there.” Stragdoc rose from his information bank. “Admiral, prepare a shuttle for a stealth mission. Additionally, I will accompany the team selected. It is time that the humans realize precisely what they are dealing with.”
The gathered advisors glanced nervously at each other. “My lord, I don’t…” A representative of the engineers in charge of the Chancel’s defense began before suddenly being thrown backwards against a far wall. He struck it head first, snapping his neck.
Paul Stragdoc, the Emperor, had not moved an inch. He waited until the man’s body hit the floor, and then strode forward towards the broken body, which was already mending. Grabbing the soon to be former advisor by the hair, he dragged him to his feet, eyes burning into the poor man’s terrified face. “You dare question me?” He snarled. His presence seemed to fill the room, the lights almost darkening from the sense of oppression. Stragdoc turned to face the others, who with a few exceptions (notably Dalth and Peters), were struck with terrified awe at the unleashed power of their leader. There had been rumors of the Emperor’s rages and secret power since his escape from his trial, and to see it unleashed was utterly terrifying. “Would anyone else care to question my orders?”
Dalth was the first to speak. “I would not dream of it, my lord, I only express concern for your well-being should things go wrong on the surface.” Dalth had witnessed the Emperor’s anger before, upon delivering the report on the shuttle explosion and had volunteered her life as forfeit for the failure to prevent the sabotage. Despite his temptation to vent his rage against her, he had admired her devotion to the cause and had instead given her charge of the fleet of remaining shuttles. Stragdoc nodded at her.
“Then I shall have to try very hard to not give cause for concern.” He snapped, and threw his victim across the room again. “As for that worm, space him immediately.” A pair of guards dragged the poor man from the room, him moaning objections the whole way. “Now, a small extraction team is to be assigned within the hour. I will meet them in the shuttle bay at that time. Dismissed.”
Once his advisors left, he glared at the blue-green globe far below. Damn you. He swore in his head against his opponent, directing his rage with laser-like precision at the planetary surface. Unexpectedly, a voice entered his mind unbidden.
You damned yourself long ago, Paul. It lamented sadly.
Stragdoc took a step back, shocked briefly. Gritting his teeth, he responded mentally. So. You inherited the power as well.
Sad to say, but yes. The woman’s voice came back. Not that I wanted it.
Stragdoc’s mind whirled. He had assumed that his own abilities resulted from the massive reconstruction his neural pathways had undergone following his injury long ago. How
ever, her brain had not been destroyed the way his had.
Nope. Her voice was sadly smug, if such a thing were possible. Looks like the development of psionic ability is an inevitable consequence of your particular brand of evolution.
Swearing aloud now, Stragdoc erected a mental barrier, cutting off contact with the woman who had become his chief nemesis. “Damn her.” It always seemed to come back to her, time and time again. He was confident that she had not been rooting around in his head, confident that she did not know he was going back tonight.
Confident that this was the opening salvo in a war he had been planning for over half a century, which he had, manipulated global events to orchestrate, and that nothing, not Earth politics, not public opinion, and certainly not Jennifer Safyo was going to prevent him from bringing to fruition.
6.
