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[I was surprised, during my research, to discover that the President of the United States had actually visited my own planet as one of the four the visitors could select at random from established Federation worlds.
[The leading diplomat, Yol Ja Ruud, had kept notes of the visits and also some recordings. I preferred recordings when possible as it eliminated interpretation from the discussions, so I have plenty of material to work from. Yol Ruud’s notes were in one of the files I found in Ambassador Hareen Trestogeen’s office. Tucked into the side of the folder which contained them, was a letter from Prime Minister Melanie Grange of New Zealand to her thirteen-year-old daughter.
[At the top of the letter, was a hand-written scribble from one of Yol Trestogeen’s diplomats, although I don’t actually know who it was. The hand-written Galactic Standard at the top translated as “Hareen, this shows you they’re not all bad!”
[It was certainly helpful for me to see how this first visit of a human to an alien world impacted upon her. RBB]
Dearest Gina,
See. I kept my promise. You should get this later today by QE transmitter or first thing tomorrow. I’m on another world. Can’t believe it really, darling, a bona fide alien planet and it has two suns in the sky! How about that? Just like Star Trek, eh!
Our ship is a futuristic silver dart with delta-wings, it’s more than two hundred metres long, hovering above a vast field of some golden-brown crop. Both suns are shining from roughly the same direction because they orbit each other. One is blue, creating magical highlights on the metal and glass of our ship. The other is a vibrant yellow, darker than the sun back home.
This world, which is called Daragnen circles the suns at a similar distance to Earth from Sol. The sky is the pale blue colour of a cold spring day back home, although it is quite mild. They say that when the blue star partially eclipses the yellow one, which happens about once a week, you get the most wonderfully coloured shadows.
The atmosphere is thinner than on Earth, with less oxygen so we’ve been provided with small cylinders to breath from if we feel faint. I’ve been okay so far, but Prime Minister Channarong from Thailand has been struggling a little. He’s very overweight.
It’s strange that the one thing you don’t expect is for the air to have an aroma. You’ll remember I told you there was a hint of cinnamon on the Ambassador’s flagship, well here, there is a fragrance of pine, although there are no pine trees in view and the nearby tree smells more of nutmeg than anything else.
The crop extends as far as the eye can see in one direction. The other way there are quite straight roads lined with the most beautiful blue trees, like the jacarandas we saw in South Africa last year. The colour is as much from the leaves and branches as from the blossom. I have a fallen piece in my hand and have taken a photograph of it for you to take to school. One of the Federation diplomats scolded me for touching it without asking. I might have been allergic, but I’m okay. I’ll be more careful in future.
In the distance there are small communities of houses and a bus is being sent for us so that we can travel into a bigger town and talk to the people. I’m really looking forward to that. It is really wonderful being able to converse with each of the other leaders in Galactic Standard, too, so much better than having to interpret pidgin-English.
President Spence was standing in the crop with Ya Lindron of the diplomatic team and I crashed their conversation. He wanted to know what sort of crop it was and how it was planted, grown, and harvested. It is a rather strange plant with yellow stalks. I have pix. The golden-brown colour arises from the leaves which have separated to allow the seed pods to expand. I asked if I could taste one and Ya Lindron checked with the ship who suggested not. It seems it is indigestible in its unprocessed form. As I said, we’ve been warned to take care.
Oh my God! Stunning! Gina, you won’t believe what just happened! A flock of giant butterflies, at least a metre across, has just fluttered by us. They’re pastel greens, cyans, turquoises, and the palest of lemon yellows. Simply delightful. One actually hovered and looked into my face. I asked if I could touch it but was told not to. Again, one of the biggest problems with visiting strange worlds as a new species like us is that they don’t have a library of our allergies and tolerance levels of particular pollens, scents, and dusts. Do you remember how that furry caterpillar gave you a nasty rash last year? That’s the sort of reaction they’re worried about with us, but we’re being well looked after. Funny that no one ever thought of that problem when filming Star Trek.
The bus arrived, but it’s not a bus really. It’s the size of a minibus but sits on a single central ball. Heaven knows how it remains upright, but we all climbed in and it set off along the road at about 40K. Everywhere is so clean, Gina, and the edges of fields perfectly straight. Along the way we’ve passed small groups of people walking or bicycling on the roads plus a few motor vehicles and robots too. They are strange looking people. Very short, half our size, dark brown skin with two arms and legs, but their heads are part of their shoulders. Must be awkward looking left and right.
We came to a huge industrial complex and we all got out to look around with a local Daragnen guide. The buildings covered about a square mile and automated cultivators were arriving from the fields with the crop. We were taken into the largest area and watched the crops being fed into hoppers and taken away along conveyor belts.
I asked the guide what the finished product looked like.
The strange little man looked up at me and said, “This is primarily a staple food which is converted into many others. Probably seventy percent of our diet comes from these pods.”
“Do you export much of it?” asked President Spence. “With this sort of mechanical cultivation, you must make good margins.”
I don’t like the President’s bull-in-a-china-shop manner, but thought I’d tell you about the conversation to add some flavour. Don’t let anyone except Dad see this letter, Gina.
“Very little food is exported from Daragnen,” the little man said. ‘We create enough to be self-sufficient. It is not a luxury product, so the export market is small and prohibitively expensive on any large scale.”
“So, what are your main exports?” he asked.
“We produce some particularly delightful beverages and our moon is the source of some rare gasses which we provide to other worlds.”
“And does that provide a living?”
“Sorry. I don’t understand,” said the little man.
“Yol Spence,” said Ya Lindron, “economies in the Federation probably don’t work in the way you expect. These people do not work for a living. As with all Federation citizens, each person receives an annual allowance and they add to that by carrying out community service or volunteer work or projects.”
“Yol Dereen, what’s your occupation at the moment?” the diplomat asked the small man.
“I study the butterflies and take groups of visitors to see them during their breeding season. It really is spectacular. You should try to come back later in the year. I could show you.”
“So, why are you here, today?” asked the President.
“Ya Lindron asked me to attend to provide a local presence,” said the little man with an obviously puzzled expression.
“So, if you don’t run this factory. Who does?” asked the President.
“I don’t understand,” said the small man again.
Ya Lindron cut in, “Yol Spence, factories are automatic. No one runs any factories.”
The President stood open-mouthed, then recovered, “So, what do people do?”
“People do whatever they wish. You must provide ten percent of your time on community service projects, but other than that your time is your own. As Yol Dereen explained, he shows people the butterflies.”
“Not just that!” the small man added enthusiastically. “I write as well and make toys for children. I also like gliding and several sports.”
President Spence was dumbfounded and stood stock still. I must admit that I, too, was taken aback by this revelation.
“Is this only on this world, Ya Lindron?” asked the President, suddenly jerking himself back to reality.
“No. This is on every world,” said Ya Lindron, “although you will be visiting a relatively new transition world later and you will find manual labour still continuing there.”
President Spence became very quiet after this moment in the tour. I felt he was brooding. Again, you mustn’t tell anyone I said that, Gina.
The small town was lovely, a few thousand colourful houses with parks and playing fields. Tea had been laid out for us in the village hall with specially selected foods which would cause us no harm. Gina, it was lovely, so friendly and a really joyous time. They loved meeting us. They asked us about our planet and its best features, its wildlife and what we enjoyed doing. No one showed the slightest interest in our occupations, and now we knew why – occupations were of no importance.
Gina, when we came out of the village hall, you would not believe what was in the sky. A huge, huge, ginormous moon. It was just rising over the horizon and we could only see about a third of it, but it filled our view. Do you remember looking at the Remarkables on South Island in the spring? Well, this moon was at least as wide as them on the horizon. There were craters, obviously very old, mountain ranges and clouds of varying colours drifting almost imperceptibly slowly across the surface. It simply took my breath away and I’ve taken dozens of pictures as it climbed into the sky. Absolutely wonderful, darling.
Next stop, back to the ship and halfway around the world to a tropical jungle.
On its very edge we visited a large city and met some more people who were delighted to show us around their homes and show us their hobbies which were usually synonymous with their volunteer work.
There were two institutions for us to visit here, too. One was a prison where the inmates sat in silence reading books and the other, a hospital, where most of the nursing was done by robots, but all the Daragnen staff were people from the city, fulfilling their community service obligations. Most of that work seemed to be in supporting and talking to the patients, so a social services sort of function.
After an exhausting day, we boarded the starship and slept en route to the next venue.
I’ll write again tomorrow, Gina. Give my love to Dad. Keep my letters for me as I will want to treasure the memories. Remember that only you and Dad can read them.
Mum. Xxx
[I assume one of the ambassador’s diplomats thought he might like to see a first-hand impression by an Earth person from the first diplomatic mission.
[I am a Daragnen, by the way, and I can assure readers that our ability to look left and right is not diminished by the lack of a neck! RBB]