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We know, from Paula Wilson’s biography of Perfect Okafor, that she emerged from the Security Council meeting in some anguish. She felt that the leaders were parochial and governed by self-interest.
The Secretary General stopped all incoming phone calls, cancelled all of her meetings, and spent an hour thinking through the issues and attempting to plan some sort of strategy. President Spence had hurt her feelings, trying to belittle her in front of the Security Council and accusing her of overreaching her authority. She didn’t like him as a person or many of his policies, which she was able to watch first-hand, being based at the UN building in New York.
After a quiet hour, she picked up the Federation communication device she’d been given by the Ambassador. It was smaller than a cell phone and had only a single blue key on one side. She sat back in her comfortable leather chair with the desk before her almost cleared and pressed the key. It produced a steady, quiet, gong-like sound. She waited.
A few seconds later, an anonymous voice announced, ‘You are connected.’
‘Ya Moroforon, Perfect Okafor here. We’d like to set up the tour for you.’
‘Good evening, Ya Okafor. This is Yol Merofort. The Ambassador has asked me to liaise with you. What do you have in mind?’
‘President Spence has offered us a Boeing 797 which will be ready to leave within an hour’s notice. I thought Britain might be a good first visit.’
‘Britain sounds like a fine first visit, Ya Okafor. However, I think we’ll decline the offer of your aeroplane. If we use the Ambassador’s personal shuttle, it is equipped for her, Heldy, and me to stay overnight on board. It will be faster too. Would that be okay with you?’
‘Yes, of course, Yol Merofort, we think Paris would be a good second stop.’
‘Fine. Come to the ship tomorrow at nine and we’ll be ready to depart. Do please thank Yol Spence for the offer of his aeroplane.’
‘I will. In addition, Prime Minister Hood and President Meunier and their assistants would also like to travel with us as far as London.’
‘That is not a problem. The Ambassador’s shuttle hovers in the same manner as this ship. Could you ask Yol Hood for coordinates in London where we could arrive and park during the visit? The shuttle is only fifty metres long.’
‘Certainly, Yol Merofort. I’ll ask for them and call you back.’
‘Many thanks, see you at nine. Goodnight, Ya Okafor.’
The Secretary General called each of the leaders to bring them up to date with the arrangements then, quite fatigued, left the office for her Manhattan residence at Sutton Place. By the time she’d packed for the visits, she crawled into her bed at three in the morning, still concerned that she’d not had the conversation with the Ambassador about her actual role.
««o»»
[One of the diaries I had access to in Ambassador Hareen Trestogeen’s office on Pestoch, belonged to Paula Wilson, the biographer of Perfect Okafor. She had been tasked with keeping notes on the work and life of the United Nations’ Secretary General. Her well-written biography of the Secretary General and her diary were invaluable to me in writing these early chapters. There were photographs of her in the file with the Secretary General. She was a short human with dark hair and light skin. There was little background information about her other than her being a well-educated journalist. RBB]
The humans who were to accompany the Ambassador on her visit to the place called Great Britain, which was itself comprised of a sub group of nations called England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, included the Prime Minister, Ken Hood; Perfect Okafor, herself; Jeanne Meunier, the French President; the leaders’ civil servants and bodyguards; Perfect Okafor’s bodyguards, and the biographer, Paula Wilson. Only the named individuals are of interest to our story.
[Strangely, Ken Hood wasn’t the actual head of state of Great Britain. That position was held by an elderly individual called King Charles Windsor. RBB]
The party arrived at the entrance to the ship in Central Park a few minutes before nine and tried to take in the magnificence of the interstellar craft, which still hovered a few metres above the ground with no visible means of support, casting an enormous shadow over the baseball diamonds.
[Much of the following is taken from Ya Wilson’s diary. As she naturally wrote it in first person, I have followed that format. RBB]
At exactly nine o’clock, the door in the craft opened and the powder blue gorilla, Yol Merofort, descended to greet the party. Another, smaller member of what looked like the same species, perhaps female, waited on the platform outside the door. Up close, Yol Merofort truly was enormous. Both wore green clothing which might have been uniform or a traditional dress.
‘Welcome to the Federation Starship Ronoi,’ Yol Merofort said as he reached the ground and shook the hands of the party.
‘Good morning to you,’ said Ya Okafor, as she introduced the members of the party with whom Yol Merofort was unfamiliar.
‘Come aboard,’ he said, waving his colourfully lengthy arm in the universal gesture of “come this way”. He climbed the staircase with the others in tow.
The stairway had no bannister, nor any other visible system to prevent you falling to the ground.
[In fact, a forcefield provided protection against falling, but that wouldn’t have been apparent to the humans. RBB]
I wasn’t sure that I’d like to be using the stairs in anything stronger than a light breeze. Fortunately, today was remarkably calm, with hardly a breath of air. Perfect was above me on the stairway with the Prime Minister of Great Britain. There was barely room for the two of them side by side. The President of France followed, then me, next the civil servants and bodyguards. The morning sun was on the other side of the ship, so it was difficult to see any detail of the interior. However, as we reached the top, an unearthly glow inside grew in brightness. It was a blend of whiteish-blue and iridescent pale green light, yet the pattern of my jacket still showed its normal colours. It brightened further as we entered. I guessed artificial lighting on the ship would match some other world, so was different from what we might expect on Earth.
We were in a six-metre-long metallic tunnel about two metres wide and high. A thick door, like one which is typically found on submarines, barred our way forward. Behind us, the second powder blue ape, smaller than Yol Merofort, activated a device which began to close the outer door. As it locked into place, he or she moved forward to the inner door. This was obviously an airlock.
‘Yol Merofort,’ said Perfect, ‘we can breathe whatever atmosphere is behind this door?’
‘Oh, yes, Ya Okafor,’ the ape said quickly to reassure. ‘It’s similar to your atmosphere, but there are some different trace gasses, nitrogen is higher and oxygen lower, but not by enough to affect your species. Pressure is slightly greater.’
‘Thank you,’ said the Secretary General, satisfied that we weren’t going to be overwhelmed by some noxious gas.
The door swung open. There was enough of a pressure change to cause my ears to pop and I took a tentative breath. I was pleasantly surprised to find there was the distinct aroma of cinnamon which masked a slightly more pungent smell beneath. I couldn’t identify the odour, but balsamic vinegar came to mind. How delightful to think that each world probably has its own flavour of atmosphere.
As I entered the wide corridor beyond the door, I spoke to the second powder blue ape, ‘Tell me, please, what is your species?’
It shrugged and raised its arms in a gesture which clearly told me he or she didn’t understand. I’d have to ask Yol Merofort later. I thought I’d like to build up a list of the species or races we were meeting.
Halfway along the corridor, which continued across the width of the ship, was a crossroads and we took the branch which led towards the rear. I noticed sounds which were so low in frequency that they might have been no more than vibrations, yet there was a slight melody to them. It was pleasant, but not a tune that I would have been able to reproduce. Warm, reassuring, homely were the adjectives which I whispered into my recorder.
The new corridor stretched the length of the ship, vanishing into the distance. It was surprising how a few hundred metres, inside a structure, seemed so much farther away than it did outside. The ship was truly enormous, reminiscent of one of the larger ocean liners.
‘Sorry about this short walk,’ said Yol Merofort. ‘We’re making our way towards one of the rear shuttles which provides the personal on-world transport for the Ambassador.’
The Prime Minister and French President thanked the powder blue ape for the information.
We had walked approximately three hundred metres along the corridor, seeing many junctions off to the sides, vertically above us and, more disquietingly, vertically beneath us. At the first of these vertical junctions, Yol Merofort walked straight on, but our party stopped. Ken Hood and Jeanne Meunier were looking down into the corridor which appeared to be an uncovered hole. Yol Merofort stopped, when he realised he was alone and came back to the hole.
‘Be not concerned. A forcefield will stop you falling,’ he said.
Jeanne Meunier took a tentative step, found an invisible floor and the party continued on its way. When it came to my turn, I could see why they stopped. There was, literally, nothing there, just a hole. As I stepped on to it to catch up, I noticed that the forcefield felt slightly spongy, like walking on a mattress or over-tight trampoline. A strange experience and I hurried across in case someone switched it off while I was in the middle.
I heard one of the English assistants say to the other, ‘Just imagine what we could do with forcefields. Incredible!’
The other assistant wistfully said, ‘Yes, amazing. I wonder how it’s done.’
We crossed at least five more of these forcefields as we progressed along the featureless passage. Those in front stopped at another left/right junction. We turned left and were faced with an open airlock door, much smaller than those at the main hatch. Both doors in this airlock were open and we entered a larger room with various furnishings, noticeably a few easy chairs, mostly facing towards the rear of the ship. There were no windows or portholes, which was a surprise. Ya Moroforon was standing at the focal point of the chairs.
‘Welcome, all. This is my Ambassadorial Shuttle and we’ll be using it to visit the countries you have suggested. By all means make yourselves comfortable,’ she said, while Yol Merofort closed the airtight doors.
I noticed she no longer wore the face mask and guessed there was something in this atmosphere which she needed, but which was absent from ours or vice versa. I wondered what it was. She had no nose. Did the spongy organ between her eyes serve that purpose? Her mouth was almost normal, but a jaw on each side of her face manipulated vertical lips as she spoke, which took some getting used to. Her eyes were large compared to the rest of her face, giving the impression of a lemur, but without the hair, of course.
I was fascinated at all the different species we were encountering, but they interacted with each other without any sign that the creatures were anything other than people. Their colours, physical appearance, and size seemed not to be of any importance. Perhaps when there are so many different species, any differences fade into insignificance, unlike Earth, where the number of black, white, brown or yellow individuals are large minorities wherever you might be. On other worlds, were there so many minorities that it was almost unnoticed?
The rearward seat faced the opposite way. The Ambassador sat and the rest of us sat facing her. I noticed there were no safety belts. Perhaps, in worlds which possessed forcefield technology, seatbelts were no longer required.
Yol Merofort opened a bulkhead doorway behind the Ambassador and I could see a control room into which he disappeared. The fairy, Heldy, flew out into our sitting area and the door closed behind her.
‘I hope you all slept well,’ said the Ambassador.
There were general affirmative answers.
‘You received the coordinates for Horse Guards Parade?’ asked Ken Hood.
‘Yes. Thank you,’ said the Ambassador.
‘I have a transport on standby to meet us there for the tour,’ he said.
‘My party will be heading back to Paris,’ said Jeanne Meunier, ‘but I’ll see you again when you arrive in our city.’
‘Thank you, Ya Meunier. I will look forward to it,’ said the Ambassador.
Perfect later told me she had just made up her mind to raise the subject of her not being world leader, when, a few moments later, Yol Merofort came back out of the control room and opened the airlock door. Ya Moroforon retrieved her mask from a table and stood, making her way to the airlock.
We continued to sit, not sure what was required of us. Had they forgotten something? Was another person to join us?
As she entered the airlock, the Ambassador looked around, realised we were all still seated, and said, ‘We are here. It is time to leave.’
I swear to God, I had neither heard nor felt anything, yet I saw on the television news later in the day, our shuttle breaking off from the main Federation ship in Central Park and shooting away so fast that it was out of sight of the cameras in less than three seconds. Astounding. Such technology. But it was the fact that we had sensed nothing which was astonishing.
The party stood, as surprised as I, and we crowded into the airlock. We felt a slight reduction in air pressure, the outer door opened, and we descended onto Horse Guards Parade, at the back of Downing Street. An armed police contingent greeted us, the commander looking somewhat perplexed at seeing the Prime Minister so soon. The air was warm and dry with a hint of traffic fumes. I missed the cinnamon-like odour from the shuttle immediately. Our air smelled polluted, dirty.
‘Er, sorry, sir. We were not expecting you quite so quickly,’ the police officer said. ‘I’ve called the transport. It will be here shortly.’
‘Thank you, commander,’ said the Prime Minister. He laughed. ‘It took me rather by surprise too!’
We’d travelled several thousand miles in, seemingly, much less than a minute. Extraordinary.
««o»»
The French contingent left in an ambassadorial vehicle to begin their onward journey to Paris. After a longer than expected wait, a midi-coach eventually arrived, and the rest of us boarded.
It was mid-afternoon in the British capital, powder-puff clouds peppered the sky as a patchwork of sunshine lit the parade ground. Our first stop was the London Eye, a giant wheel, first opened thirty years previously at the turn of the millennium. Standing in a pod, the party observed the city stretching out before them. The Prime Minister pointed out all the important structures and their purposes.
From there, the coach travelled to the National Gallery where the aliens looked at works of art. Yol Merofort was in rapture over the Constables. I stayed with him for a while and it gave me the opportunity to discover that his people were Purrs, the Ambassador was a Racutaan and Ya Mistorn was a Clueb.
The Natural History Museum in South Kensington came next and this really fascinated our visitors with them spending far longer than had been allocated in the halls which displayed creatures from prehistory. Ya Mistorn looked at the birds with her own special interest.
The final visit was to the Palace of Westminster. The Ambassador waxed lyrical over the architecture, but inside the building, she was less comfortable as she learned what took place in these elaborate halls.
Ken Hood said when they entered the House of Commons, ‘This is where my government does much of its business. My political party, the Conservatives, sit on this side of the room. My senior ministers sit on the front bench. The opposition sit on the other side with the Speaker, a sort of referee between the two, keeping order.’
‘And what do you discuss here, Yol Hood?’ the Ambassador asked.
‘Well, everything to do with running the country.’
‘And the result of your deliberations is passed to Ya Okafor?’
‘No. We govern ourselves, Ya Moroforon.’
‘So how does this building fit in with the United Nations?’
‘It doesn’t. The United Nations is funded by the countries to provide a place to discuss international affairs and security,’ said Yol Hood.
‘Sorry. I’m having trouble understanding. You make decisions in this room which affect your province, but there’s no coordination to ensure those decisions are more widely introduced.’
‘No. Laws we make here are passed through to our Upper House. If they approve them, we obtain the permission of our King to introduce them into law. They then affect only our nation,’ said Ken Hood.
‘And Ya Okafor has no input to any of this?’
‘No, Ya Moroforon,’ said the Secretary General. ‘The United Nations doesn’t interfere in the decisions of individual countries.’
‘So, these provinces of the world, which you call “countries” all operate under different laws and standards?’ asked the Ambassador.
‘Yes, that’s more or less correct,’ said the Prime Minister.
‘What is this “Upper House” to which you refer?’
The party walked through to the House of Lords.
‘It appears almost identical to the other hall,’ said the Ambassador.
‘Yes. It’s similar, but the representatives are appointed, not elected,’ said Yol Hood.
‘And the King? You mentioned a King. What is that?’ asked the Ambassador.
‘It is an hereditary position.’
‘A single family has the final say? He can say yes or no to all of your decisions?’
‘In law, yes, but it would be an extremely rare event for the King to refuse to sign a bill into law,’ said the Prime Minister.
‘So, who should I be talking to? Who runs this world?’
‘No one. Each country runs itself.’
‘And you, Ya Okafor. What do you do?’
‘I administer the United Nations and only have such power as the individual nations might confer upon me at any time,’ said the Secretary General.
‘Okay. Enough. Let the tour move on. I shall sleep on my shuttle. Ya Okafor, please join me at nine tomorrow for the journey to Paris. Yol Hood, it’s been interesting to meet you. Thank you for explaining how your country is governed,’ said the Ambassador who then spoke in another language to Yol Merofort.
The powder blue ape spoke to the rest of the party, ‘We’ll now return to our shuttle. Please call the transport.’
‘Certainly, Yol Merofort,’ said one of the British civil servants and we all moved to the exit of the Palace of Westminster.
The atmosphere had certainly acquired a distinct chill.