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The Secretary General had a very busy week on the telephone, trying to explain to the leaders the basic misunderstanding which had occurred with the Ambassador and getting their feedback on how it might be possible to mitigate it.
Some, like Ken Hood, Jeanne Meunier, and Dimitri Ivanov seemed to grasp the fact that things were going to have to change. Da Cheung was playing his cards close to his chest, but Jack Spence was hostile to the whole situation. A six-way meeting with Perfect Okafor in the chair was about to begin. The following day, they would be meeting Ambassador Garincha Dela Moroforon and her advisers on the Ambassador’s flagship.
I was thrilled to be asked by Perfect to sit in on the meeting to take minutes. Normally that was undertaken by a proper minutes’ secretary, but I think she valued my input after these events so had chosen me. I had notepads and pencils as well as a recorder which sat in the middle of the table.
President Cheung brought an assistant and an interpreter. The others each had one assistant. With tea, coffee, or soft drinks from the refreshment table, we took our places in comfortable maroon leather chairs around a large polished teak table. While I waited for the chit-chat to end, I admired the original African works of art which adorned the walls.
Alien shuttles had been made available to transfer the leaders to the UN to save the need for lengthy air travel. When I entered the meeting room, they were all speaking in glowing terms about the revolution such a transport system would bring. The US President hadn’t had the opportunity to sample the technology yet but could see the effect it had upon the others.
Perfect began the meeting just after ten. ‘Tomorrow we have our meeting with the Federation Ambassador. As I’ve already advised you, she was expecting to meet a single leader with advisers or a small committee who were authorised to speak for the world. We are neither of those alternatives, so we should start with views on how we can achieve what Ms Moroforon requires.’
‘Frankly, I’m not at all happy with the situation and the United States can never allow someone to speak on its behalf,’ said President Spence.
‘But she’s explained that they have nearly a quarter of a million worlds in the Federation. They can hardly deal with each of hundreds of countries on each of those worlds,’ said Perfect.
‘I suppose, we could do it as a committee, but I’m not going to consider Perfect speaking on behalf of us,’ said President Spence.
‘Ambassador Moroforon explained to me that once we’re in the Federation, we would likely find we’ll no longer need our individual governments,’ said Perfect.
‘That’s not acceptable to the people of Russia,’ said President Ivanov.
‘Nor us,’ said President Cheung. He seemed perfectly happy to speak his pidgin English, but I noticed everything the others said was being translated for him. Perhaps he was able to express himself but worried about misunderstanding what others were saying.
‘Wait a minute,’ said Prime Minister Hood, ‘we’re making a lot of assumptions here, and while we might be prepared to participate in a committee initially, what about all of the other countries. India is the biggest democracy in the world and there are many others who’d be most unhappy for us to speak on their behalf. This is the people of the world we’re talking about, not the nations of the UN. We have to compromise to some degree or another.’
‘Exactly,’ said President Meunier, ‘and what of the Muslim countries. We can’t expect Iran and Saudi to have us express their opinions – and how about Israel? They consider themselves different from all other nations!’
‘This is my worry,’ said Perfect.
‘What’s happened on other worlds?’ asked President Ivanov.
‘The Ambassador told me that they either had a world leader or formed a committee, but soon found, as part of the Federation, that local governments – organisations she called them – were irrelevant,’ said Perfect.
‘Oh, come on, Perfect. As if the USA would surrender its sovereignty to any world president. It’s crazy! It is not going to happen.’
‘Well,’ said Perfect, ‘what do we do?’
‘As I understand,’ said President Cheung, ‘Ambassador Moroforon is going explain the ground rules, tomorrow. Then we are permitted to visit other worlds – see Federation working. Let us take up her offer and see where it leads.’
‘I can live with that,’ said President Ivanov.
‘Me, too,’ said both the British and French leaders.
‘Jack?’ asked Perfect.
‘Okay... in the interim,’ he replied.
‘I have another suggestion,’ said President Meunier. All eyes were suddenly upon her. ‘We do need to show ourselves as willing participants and, if we come back from these visits and want to take the world with us into the Federation, I see real trouble. We need to be inclusive.’
‘How do you mean?’ asked Perfect.
‘Each of us needs to take four or five leaders from other countries with us. That way we’ll have twenty to thirty leaders on board. They would need to be diverse too,’ she replied.
‘Yes, great idea!’ said Perfect. ‘If the other members knew that I was allocating who should travel, we could defuse tension. I’d be sure to put widely varying leaders together to assure them that they were getting full access. How does that sound?’
‘As long as you’re sensible about it. I don’t want to have the Iranians travelling with me,’ said President Spence.
‘I’ll draw up a list,’ said the Secretary General.
««o»»
There was a massive press contingent in Central Park when the members of the Security Council turned up to board the alien vessel.
I noticed a sizeable anti-alien demonstration on one side of the ship, chanting for the aliens to “go home” and waving mixed-message placards portraying a variety of slogans such as: NO ALIEN INTERFERENCE; ALIENS GO HOME; UFOLOGISTS WERE RIGHT. There were also crackpot placards scattered among them: THE EARTH IS FLAT; SPACE DOES NOT EXIST; IT’S ALL SPECIAL EFFECTS; TAKE ME WITH YOU! etc.
Inside the ship, that fragrance of cinnamon and balsamic vinegar welcomed us as we followed Yol Merofort along passageways until we entered a modernistic conference room. It was all metal and glass with shapes, sometimes misty, occasionally well-defined, comprising pastel and raw colour meandering across or within the curved walls and floor. I was surprised how restful it was, even with the brighter spectrum elements in more jagged geometric patterns.
A single circular table boasted seven legless chairs hovering in mid-air. Around the perimeter were more conventional seats which, I presumed, were for the minions such as me.
The room was almost circular and there was no obvious head of the table, so the leaders took their seats, cautiously letting their weight settle and feeling the reaction of the floating pews, which compensated quickly to the varying body masses.
‘Comfortable,’ said President Ivanov as he leaned left, right, back and forward. ‘Very comfortable.’
‘Yes. Notice how the sides and back rise up to encompass you. Interesting. Wonder what keeps them floating,’ said Prime Minister Hood.
‘It’s obvious that their technology is way ahead of ours,’ said President Meunier. ‘We must keep in mind that we’re likely to gain more from the Federation than we’d be in a position to give. Just imagine the effect on our economies of this instant travel and force fields etcetera. We should be careful not to be too negative.’
‘Or too positive. I’m more concerned about the downside on our businesses if this socialism of theirs were to take root,’ said President Spence.
No sooner were we all seated, than Ya Moroforon entered the room in a most elaborate gown and headdress. She no longer wore her mask, of course, and I saw the American, Russian, and Chinese presidents look at her mouth in surprise, as it moved in its strange vertical manner.
Everyone stood until she took the seventh seat, between Perfect and Prime Minister Hood.
‘Welcome all,’ she said, and everyone sat, except Ya Mistorn who hovered near the ceiling above the entrance.
Yol Merofort sat beside me and there were two other aliens. One was similar to Yol Merofort – the same powder blue hair, but not all over her, only on her head and shoulders. She seemed much slimmer than Yol Merofort and I guessed she might be a female of his species. I’d ask him later. She wore a maroon garment, not one of the green uniforms and carried a translucent sphere about twenty centimetres in diameter. She placed it on the table in front of Ya Moroforon.
I’d already seen the other alien in the atmosphere laboratory the last time we were on the ship. He or she was about one metre tall with a roundish body, thicker at the bottom than the top, like a pear but more squat. It stood on four legs coming out of the body equidistant from each other with joints at the hip area, knee and foot. The legs were very thin, barely more than skin and bone, spidery would be a good description, although the skin colour was stone blue. Two similarly emaciated arms emerged from the shoulder areas, barely twenty centimetres long. Two longer arms, maybe sixty centimetres long, with six opposable fingers, emerged from the torso in front of the stubbier arms which also had six smaller vestigial fingers. Its head was no more than a wedge-shaped piece of flesh sloping from back to front with a single opening. Its eyes were on top, like a frog, and there was no sign of any ears. It wore a garment over its torso through which its limbs emerged. It was a blue oblique check and was buttoned at the front. It was quite the strangest looking creature and I wondered if all of the quarter of a million Federation planets had different intelligent species. Perhaps so. How could anyone know all the identities of such a large number of creatures? I also wondered if any planets had beings similar to any others. Perhaps not. Could they all be unique?
‘Good morning, everyone,’ said the Ambassador. ‘Ya Okafor, how did your discussions go about how we should progress.’
‘We can all speak for ourselves,’ said President Spence and the rest of the leaders looked around at him in annoyance.
Da Cheung said, ‘Jack, we agreed; feed questions and answers through Perfect, we stick to our decision.’
‘I just want everyone to be clear that no one speaks on behalf of the United States. Carry on, Perfect,’ the order given as if he were permitting it.
I was furious on Perfect’s behalf. The more I saw of the US President, the less I liked him.
‘Thank you, Jack,’ said the Secretary General, apparently unaffected by his unpleasantness. ‘Ya Moroforon, we had a meeting yesterday at which we agreed to take advantage of your offer of six starships for the five permanent members of the Security Council, but, if we’re going to show the world how inclusive we can be, we’d like each ship to carry a further five leaders chosen to be as diverse as possible. We’d also like to know the conditions, or rules, of membership in a little more detail.’
‘And costs!’ said the US President.
‘Yes, and an indication of how the Federation economy operates and its cost to member planets,’ said Ya Okafor.
‘Thank you, Ya Okafor,’ said the Ambassador and waved her hand over the cloudy sphere on the table before her.
The colour of the mist morphed from slate, through blush, to a pastel mint green. As I was sitting to the right of her right shoulder, I could see hieroglyphs progressing out of the mist to the front of the sphere and then rising to the top and slowly dispersing like smoke.
‘What is the object?’ asked President Spence.
‘This is a large secradarve. Most are smaller. In addition to my own notes, it allows me access to the Frame, which is a storage system centred on Arlucian, the Federation’s capital world. It is a little like your internet,’ she paused. ‘If sharing your inspections of Federation worlds with additional leaders is what you wish to do, we would have no objection. One or more of my assistants will be with each group and will assist in interpretation and will guide you regarding cultural implications.’
‘You must understand,’ said Yol Merofort, ‘that each world will be different from the Earth. You might need to wear breathing apparatus or suits and must not attempt to eat or drink anything without checking out with your Federation helper. Also, we don’t have allergy information on each of you, so it will be important not to touch anything without asking. That includes shaking hands with other species, although we’ll have pre-warned you if that is a problem.’
‘Is there much danger?’ asked Ya Meunier.
‘Oh, no, Ya Meunier,’ said Yol Merofort, ‘I didn’t mean to worry you, but we’re used to moving from world to world. Species who don’t do that very often can be vulnerable. Be assured that we’ll be looking out for you very carefully indeed, but if we say, “don’t touch it” then you can be fairly sure there is an excellent reason.’
‘Thank you, Ya Moroforon, Yol Merofort, I’m sure we’ve all taken that on board,’ said Perfect.
‘Rules and conditions,’ said Ya Moroforon, ‘are, as you might imagine with such a large and varied Federation, numerous and complex, but the bulk of them deal with basic law and order and the provision of services.
‘Each world is assessed as to its overall economic value, when it joins the Federation. That value is used to set the number of afeds, our currency, paid to each member of the world initially. Gradually the amount of wealth fed into the world brings it up to a Galactic Standard value. So, the Federation subsidises new members. Once that point is reached, each person on the world makes a regular contribution of afeds to the Federation so that the economic value of any world is maintained at the Galactic Standard.’
‘So, you’ll want contributions from us when we join?’ asked President Spence.
‘Yol Spence, with respect, it would be better to try to understand before worrying about the detail. However, as it happens, from what we’ve seen of your world, the flow would certainly be inwards to bring you up to standard,’ said the Ambassador. Whoops! Was the Ambassador letting her diplomacy slip a mite?
‘We’ll be a net drain on the Federation, then?’ asked the French President.
‘For certain. Your overall value is considerably less than the average world so there’d be a substantial inflow for some time, a great number of your years, probably, but as I said to Yol Spence, try to understand the Federation before looking at specifics.’
‘Thank you, Ya Moroforon. Please continue,’ said Perfect.
‘Well, actually, I’d like to know more about this,’ said the US President. ‘You’ll be pumping finance into our world for many years, you say?’
‘Yes, but more is fed into the poorer areas,’ said the Ambassador. ‘One of our first priorities would be to stop, at a stroke, the starvation and hunger rife in many of your nations. For the last few days we’ve been monitoring your television, radio, internet, and print media and, from those alone, it’s clear that there’ll be much to do in the first year.’
‘So, you might not be putting much into my country?’ asked President Spence.
‘I’m sure we will be also raising your own country’s standards, Yol Spence, but it would be done with emphasis being given to urgent need first. Again, I think we should avoid too many specifics at this stage,’ said Ya Moroforon.
‘Okay. I’ll come back to that at a later time,’ said President Spence, seemingly satisfied with the answer for a change.
The Ambassador continued, ‘As part of the assessment of a world’s economic value, we even out the differences between individuals. That is achieved by every person receiving exactly the same number of afeds and dissolution of all other currencies, but that would be a year or so down the line.’
‘No!’ said the US President, becoming somewhat heated. ‘That is communism and offers no rewards to the individuals who risk their wealth to create companies and invent new products. This is anathema to our country! It violates every capitalist principle’
‘Again, Yol Spence. You need to visit other Federation worlds to speak to the populations and study how they operate. I suggest you don’t prejudge us.’
‘Okay. Sorry. I’m listening,’ he said, but now back in his usual very prickly manner.
‘New worlds invite Federation induction teams to assist in stopping conflicts, dealing with wealth distribution and putting in place, or helping to adapt, education systems so that all have the same basic start in life.
‘The Federation throws open its technology as all technology, wherever developed, is the property of all. This means you’ll have disease prevention systems, nutrition systems, quantum starships and shuttles, reduced pollution, help to prevent overpopulation or to relocate people to more sparsely populated planets. None of this is done without the full permission of the population. Freedom of the individual is sacrosanct in the Federation.
‘You’ll see the effects of this on our worlds, how everyone is able to live a full and productive life.’
‘This sounds too good to be true,’ said President Ivanov.
‘That’s what I’m thinking, Dimitri,’ said President Spence.
‘Once more, can I ask you not to prejudge, or, for that matter, raise expectations too high,’ said the Ambassador.
She continued, ‘While you are visiting the Federation worlds, I’ll have inspection teams visiting Earth and they’ll help assess where we’ll need to apply those first resources. We’ll cure world hunger within a month.’
‘Really?’ said Prime Minister Hood, ‘Are you confident of that or is it a provisional estimate?’
Yol Merofort cut in, ‘We’re absolutely certain. It would probably only take a week or two. A month is a safe overestimation.’
‘A week or two!’ said President Cheung.
‘Indeed,’ said the Ambassador. ‘Supremely wealthy individuals will also have to reduce their incomes as part of the process.’
Whether she said that deliberately to annoy the US President, it would be difficult to say, but annoy him it did.
He threw up his hands, ‘This is not going to work. You expect people who’ve spent their lives building their businesses, to hand back their wealth. That will not happen!’ he said.
‘You would rather see entire nations starve?’ said President Ivanov. ‘This might seem too good to be true but let’s at least look at it with open minds, Jack.’
‘Also, in my secradarve,’ said the Ambassador, ‘are lots of small regulations about products and foodstuffs, but they are all relatively simple. They maintain safety and conformity to food production standards. We’ll skip that detail for the time being.’
The sphere in front of the Ambassador had its last symbols wisp away into the background mist. It returned to a rather dull, swirling slate grey.
Yol Merofort spoke in their language to the Ambassador.
‘Ah, yes. Slindo reminds me that you’ll not be able to understand Galactic Standard language. Those of us who are interacting with you have esponged some of your languages. Esponging is a system of rapid learning and we’ll provide it to each of your delegates so that you can speak freely on any planet you visit. Slindo will arrange that for those of you in this room after the meeting ends.’
‘How will you select the planets we visit?’ asked Da Cheung.
‘We won’t, you’ll select them. We wouldn’t want to be criticised for selecting the most preferable worlds.’
‘But you said the Federation is spread through half the galaxy. What if we choose planets which are too far away?’ asked Dimitri Ivanov.
‘Nowhere is too far away. Journey times from here would be from an hour to about eight or ten hours. You can select them by name or by random means.’
Yol Merofort spoke in Galactic Standard again.
‘Yes, Slindo reminds me that a small number of worlds could be fifteen hours away. Anyway, we’ll provide a list of all established member worlds, from which you can select four; some transition member worlds which have recently joined, from which you can select one; and we’d also like you to visit the capital, Arlucian, so that you can see that there’s no favouritism. Arlucian is no more nor less prosperous than any other established world. We’ll choose a day when the General Council is meeting and that may give you an opportunity to meet our President Ye Dimorathron.’
‘What does “Ye” designate?’ asked President Meunier.
‘Ye Strighiton Dimorathron’s species has no sexual reproduction, and they take the title of ye,’ said the Ambassador. ‘The other honorific you might not have encountered yet, is yo which is for hermaphrodite people.’
Slindo spoke to the Ambassador in Galactic Standard.
‘Yol Merofort tells me ye would be used for a person who buds, like coral, or reproduces like jellyfish or anemones.’
‘Fascinating,’ said Prime Minister Hood.
‘The second part of our assessment involves our own inspectors visiting your nations or countries. They need to have a rite of passage into any nation of their choice and you’ll need to protect them. Sadly, we hear that some places on your world are not very safe and you’ll need to ensure no ill befalls them,’ said the Ambassador.
‘Yes, Ya Moroforon, we’ll have blue helmet UN soldiers accompany them. Will they be using your shuttles?’ asked Perfect.
‘There’ll be four teams of two and, yes, they would each have a shuttle. From monitoring your television, we know that there are conflicts in some countries and the inspectors will be certain to want to visit one or two of those areas. I presume the warring parties will cease hostilities for the duration.’
‘That won’t be so easy to ensure, Ya Moroforon, but we’ll do our best,’ said Perfect.
‘It is expected,’ said the Ambassador in a flat monotone. ‘You’ll need to explain the importance of the visit to each of the parties concerned. Surely none would want to derail negotiations being carried out on behalf of the entire world?’
‘I’m afraid some might,’ said Perfect, ‘but we’ll do our best.’
‘You can’t hold us responsible for terrorists, Ambassador,’ said President Spence.
‘The Federation does not tolerate conflict. A very dim view would be taken if any harm came to Federation people carrying out their duties.’
President Spence was about to speak again, but Perfect jumped in, ‘Every care and precaution will be taken,’ she said.
However, the US President wasn’t going to be stopped. ‘What do you mean by “a dim view being taken” in this context?’
‘The individual or group would need to come under Federation justice for their act and complying with that would be critical to your application.’
‘And what is Federation justice, Ya Moroforon?’ Jack Spence asked.
‘It isn’t important at this stage. Visit a prison on one of our worlds, but please try to control the warring factions. The sanctity of life is the Federation’s most important principle. What concerns us is that you don’t seem to share that principle.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ asked President Spence.
‘There are children dying in conflict and famine areas, yet no steps have been taken to stop the fighting or feed the starving,’ said the Ambassador.
‘The United States spends a fortune on aid to poor countries and trying to resolve conflict,’ said President Spence.
‘Not from what we’re seeing so far,’ said Yol Merofort. ‘This one city throws away enough food each day to resolve the famine in Sudan. It is a matter of the application of resources.’
President Spence was about to answer, but the Ambassador defused the situation by saying, ‘Yol Merofort has a background in disaster relief. Forgive his outspokenness. He has developed disaster relief procedures which are among the best in the Federation.’
The meeting continued with questions and further explanations for another hour. Eventually, everyone seemed to be satisfied.
‘Yol Merofort will now take you and your assistants to our language laboratory where you’ll be esponged into Galactic Standard. It’ll take about an hour,’ said the Ambassador.
‘What does the process involve?’ asked the Secretary General.
‘The Galactic Standard language will be implanted into your minds as if you’d learned it from birth,’ said Yol Merofort.
‘And how do we know you are not implanting some other system in order to control our minds?’ asked President Spence.
‘For what purpose, Yol Spence?’ asked the Ambassador.
‘To make us hand over power to you!’
‘You need not learn the language, Yol Spence, if you don’t wish to. We’ll provide you with a translator, but it would make understanding the worlds you’re visiting more difficult for you,’ said the Ambassador, and she rose from the seat, as if saying “take it or leave it”.
‘Jack, if they’d wanted to harm us, interfering with our minds would seem the least of our worries,’ said Perfect.
‘This is your trouble, Perfect! You’re too gullible by half!’ said President Spence in a hushed voice. It was, however, deliberately loud enough to be heard by the rest of the group.
Everyone stood, and the powder blue ape asked us all to follow him. It involved another short walk through the ship and led to a rectangular conference room with fifty or so comfortable armchairs, facing a screen at the front.
‘If you’d all like to sit facing the front, we’ll begin the esponging procedure. It’s painless and only requires you to wear these opaque eye masks,’ he said, handing out the blindfolds. ‘I’ll bring some more for the rest of your party.’
Yol Merofort disappeared through a door near the front and returned with more eye masks.
‘Now, put on the masks and relax.’
‘We’re not going to be harmed in any way?’ asked Jeanne Meunier, settling into her armchair.
Yol Merofort laughed. ‘If we were going to harm you, I don’t think we would be undertaking it in such a luxurious manner.’ Whether the powder blue gorilla said this deliberately to negate President Spence’s earlier comment was difficult to tell, but the words were very close to a repeat of Perfect’s original statement.
The chair was exceedingly comfortable and once the eye mask was in place, I felt decidedly drowsy. A voice began speaking in the strange, slightly guttural alien language. I found it increasingly difficult to concentrate and realised I was almost asleep. I mustn’t fall asleep. I mustn’t be the only one to not learn the language. Stay awake! Stay awake! I fought to maintain wakefulness, trying to hear each of the syllables being spoken. I failed absolutely.
I awoke what seemed like just a minute or two later and heard Yol Merofort telling us that we could take off our blindfolds.
‘How do we know it has worked?’ asked President Cheung.
‘Yol Cheung, you know it worked because I am no longer speaking either Chinese or English. Are you all understanding me?’ said Yol Merofort.
There were a number of affirmatives and gasps of surprise among the visitors.
‘Am I speaking Galactic Standard?’ asked Prime Minister Hood.
‘Yes, you are. Fluently,’ said Yol Merofort.
‘But how do we switch back to English?’
‘Try,’ said the apelike alien.
‘Am I speaking English?’ asked the Prime Minister. ‘Oh, yes, I am. It’s as easy as that, just wanting to speak the language you desire. What an amazing system.’
‘The system must be good in order to make the English learn someone else’s language,’ said the French President and guffawed. The whole party laughed at that including the British leader who was, of course, the butt of the joke.
‘What’s so amusing?’ asked Yol Merofort.
‘The English always expect everyone else to learn their language!’ said the French President.
‘Well, I’ll be...,’ said President Spence. ‘Amazing!’
‘You’ll experience many wonders during the coming visits, Yol Spence,’ said Yol Merofort.
‘Indeed,’ said President Spence who was quite obviously astonished by the application of a second language. ‘So, I’m now speaking alien?’
‘You are, Jack,’ said Perfect.
‘Astounding! Simply astounding!’ he said.