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[Mainly from Yol Slindo Merofort’s notes and video, plus Bob Nixon’s autobiography. RBB]
‘This is their capital planet?’ asked John Slimbridge as they took in the view of Arlucian and its rings.
‘Yes, beautiful, don’t you think?’ asked the President.
‘Those rings are spectacular,’ said Mark Deloitte. ‘I assume they’re asteroids. Do they ever break free and crash to the surface, Yol Merofort?’
‘I don’t know,’ said the powder blue ape. ‘I do know the inner golden ring is not natural. It comprises tens of thousands of small satellites.’
‘I suppose they’ve had a space-faring culture for a long time,’ mused Bob Nixon.
‘Yes, for nearly a million years,’ said Yol Merofort.
‘Wow!’ said Melinda.
Harry McBride asked, ‘A million years! Amazing. We’ve changed a lot in the last million years. Do the Arlucians notice changes to their species?’
‘I don’t know about them, but my species certainly have. Males have grown larger in bone, muscle and general body size,’ said Yol Merofort.
‘But not the females?’ asked Harry.
‘They’ve grown taller and more slinky,’ he said and smiled. ‘We’ve lost much of our body hair. A male a million years ago on Purrs would be much shaggier than me,’ he said and laughed.
‘Interesting,’ said Harry. ‘What’s the schedule, Mr President?’
Jack Spence stood and faced the others. ‘Visits have been arranged to a couple of multi-purpose factories, a farm, a hospital and we will also meet a group of ordinary citizens who have agreed to be questioned by us.’
‘And we’ll still be back for dinner?’ asked Vernon Ledermann, tongue in cheek.
‘Well, give or take. You know what galactic travel can be like these days,’ said the President with a grin.
««o»»
[This is an almost verbatim extract from Robert Nixon’s autobiography. I’ve removed sections in which he speculates about the future turn of events. RBB]
On Arlucian, we were certainly treated with respect, but with no more celebration than any ordinary guests. The President of the United States was of no more nor less importance than any local mayor or councillor on this world.
We were met at the spaceport by a robot who was to be our liaison for the day. I couldn’t see anything in its behaviour which marked it apart from a living being – other than the fact that it was made of metal. It spoke intelligently on any subject we raised and moved about with even more agility than we sedentary politicians.
An autonomous minivan collected us from the spaceport and took us rapidly to our first destination. It was remarkable to see how it negotiated with other traffic, permitting a high-speed journey without the constant traffic jams and signals we had to suffer back home.
The Arlucians were very much like us in build, about six feet tall, with arms and legs more or less in the right places, although the legs represented no more than a quarter of their height. Their shoulders were broad, the neck short and the head much more rounded than ours. In my mind, I couldn’t help making a comparison with the Michelin man’s facial features, especially with their very light skin colour. In fact, we hardly interacted with living creatures at all during the early part of our visit.
At an industrial complex, our robot guide jumped down and was soon in conversation with another automaton. The rest of us disembarked and were led into the first factory by something which looked as if it had been built from Meccano.
It introduced itself to us exactly as if it were a person then took us off on a tour of its factories. We only visited three, but it told us it was responsible for the entire industrial estate of more than six square miles.
At each turn, it would introduce us to individual factory managers, line supervisors, repair-bots, design-bots, more conventional factory machines, and distribution managers. Wilson Greave was absolutely enthralled by what he saw.
The farm visits included helicopter travel, although in the like of no helicopter I’d ever seen. It had a rear steering rotor, but no sign of any vertical lift power.
Again, the pilot was an automaton, but so too was the agricultural manager for an area four times the size of Virginia, responsible for producing nearly two per cent of the planet’s food.
We saw giant cultivators, irrigators, and harvesters, but no animals. The agricultural manager told us there was no livestock farming on Arlucian, except by hobbyists. All meat was produced from vegetable protein. This inspired the obvious question of whether the Federation was against eating meat. The manager told us that it wasn’t banned, and many planets produced all manner of meats which were imported to Arlucian. The President confirmed to the others that he’d seen livestock on other planets and had met a man who bred a form of four-legged chicken-type animal as a hobby on Dabrune.
The hospital was equally enlightening, but we did our best not to intrude on patients. The matron-bot showed us some of its helpers. Specialist robots carried out all sorts of functions and just parked themselves when not required. We watched one monitoring a patient, taking his blood and talking to him about how he was feeling. It could also give injections and conduct other routine tasks, but different bots looked after diagnosing illnesses and others were surgeons who wore adaptor packs depending upon what type of operation was required.
The matron-bot said that a great advantage we would find with autonomous hospitals was that once a patient described a symptom, every robot who treated him/her would know exactly what had been said and what treatment had been applied. It speeded up diagnosis and treatment by cutting out all the conversations between specialists.
In geriatric wards, robots also carried out the more menial cleaning and caring tasks which were done by humans on Earth – washing them, tending to wounds, dressing them, and looking after all of their needs. I wondered if, one day, my old age would find me having my bum wiped by an automaton – probably preferable to the embarrassment of having such a service provided by a human carer!
We also watched the A&E department where flying autonomous ambulances with their smaller comprehensive robot crews were despatched to emergencies.
Tim Brownlee asked about sterilising instruments and the matron-bot took us to a section where we watched robots entering and being spray-cleaned and irradiated before returning to duty.
Our final visit was to take a version of afternoon tea with twenty or thirty local people in one of the larger housing quarters of the city. On Earth we would expect these people to be among the poorer administrators or blue collar workers. We were in for a real surprise.
No one felt they needed more money. They all had sufficient funds to look after themselves and their families, take several holidays per year and enjoy a luxurious lifestyle. Even the President was surprised when he learned that the basic income was received by everyone including children, so, a family of five would have an income of roughly two hundred thousand dollars and a couple, eighty thousand.
We really quizzed them and there were more revelations. There were no additional costs like property taxes, rent, phone, heat, or light to pay. It was all free. When asked why they lived in apartments rather than houses or bungalows, there were a variety of answers. Some loved the nightlife and sports activities in the city and others delighted in living in a friendly community. There were a few who had their names down for rural properties, but because main-residence rents were zero, some rented holiday properties elsewhere, like holiday homes and flitted between the two. What you did with your money was a personal choice.
Exhausted, both mentally and physically, we boarded the Ronoi and rested while the starship made all speed back to Earth. We were in the White House residence by mid-evening, where the President and First Lady had organised a light dinner for us all.
With the exception of John Slimbridge, the President and I both thought everyone was on the same wavelength. The next step would be the presentation to the American people.
««o»»
[From Yol Merofort’s notes and video. RBB]
‘Thank you for all your hard work, Perfect,’ said the Ambassador. ‘I think it is remarkable how you have held all of this together for so long.’
‘Needs must, Garincha.’
‘Right, Slindo. Can you summarise where we’re at?’ said the Ambassador.
The powder blue ape passed a hand across his secradarve and began to read. ‘Of the world’s one hundred and ninety-five countries, Perfect estimates that there are one hundred and forty-one in favour of joining, forty-nine undecided, four against and the Holy See has decided not to take a position.’
‘You must remember that this is from talking to heads of state, Garincha. We have no guarantee that they will also vote along those lines when it comes to the General Assembly,’ said Perfect.
‘We should think about the four negative countries,’ said the Ambassador.
‘North Korea – they are a rebel state and the leaders are very protective of their authority. That will not change. Secondly, Myanmar which is dead against any free flow of peoples across its borders. Third, we have Taiwan. They might come around, but currently they have a serious concern about their nation statehood becoming absorbed into China. Finally, we have Israel who consider their territory sacrosanct and fear that many Palestinians will flood back into the country and “steal” back properties they owned in the early part of the twentieth century. Many of the people of Israel consider their country to be a land promised to them in perpetuity by God. It is often referred to as The Promised Land,’ said Perfect.
‘What will the reaction be if they are outvoted?’ asked Heldy.
‘With North Korea and Israel, there could be a violent opposition. Both are nuclear powers. The North Koreans made it quite clear to me that any attempt to enforce a new economic system upon them would be considered an act of war,’ said Perfect.
‘Do you think they’d try to use nuclear weapons?’ asked Slindo.
‘I suspect Israel would come up short as there is no single enemy to attack, but North Korea, well... that is a different matter. They might just strike out at their neighbours or America,’ said Perfect. ‘Do remember that the majority of the positive nations will still need to put through legislation to complete membership, but with the majority in favour being so huge, I don’t anticipate any serious problems.’
‘What about the parliamentary arguments we’ve been seeing?’ asked Slindo.
‘Yes. Britain, France, Germany, Argentina, Mexico and others have had furious arguments,’ said Perfect. ‘It was primarily among the wealthy members of their parliaments realising their power and influence was about to end. Eighty of the Conservative members of parliament in Britain walked out when the proposal was placed before the house. Ken Hood’s bill still passed with none against. The absentees were recorded as abstaining. Watched it all on television.’
Garincha asked, ‘I take it most of the populations know the basics of what the Federation will mean to them?’
‘The big one, America, has a presentation and television debate tomorrow,’ said Perfect. ‘Their non-partisan steering committee are to appear on a nationwide broadcast with a number of well-known journalists and political commenters questioning them.’
‘Okay, Perfect. We’d better call a halt now. When’s the vote?’ asked Garincha.
‘In three days’, Friday four pm. Leaders will begin to arrive in New York the day after tomorrow,’ said Perfect.
««o»»
[This live BBC debate was compiled from digital video material stored in Yol Hareen Trestogeen’s office. RBB]
Questioner, ‘So, how much do you earn for this diplomatic function?’
Yol Herodeen, ‘I volunteer for work like this and, in addition to my normal income, the Federation standard amount, I also get an amount for providing my ten per cent of my time to this duty. I’m good at it and thoroughly enjoy it.’
‘But you must be away from home more than ten per cent of your time.’
Yol Herodeen, ‘Of course. I am working maybe sixty hours a week on this project, but I earn no more for it than I would spending my ten per cent of community service in my local school. The money is not as important as the satisfaction. By the time you’ve been members for a decade, you’ll realise that too.’
Another questioner, ‘I read science fiction and it makes me wonder whether the robots are in charge of all of this and if, when they’re ready, they’ll take over and destroy us all.’
Yol Herodeen, ‘There are sets of rules, hard-coded into all processors.’
Questioner, ‘Asimov’s four laws of robotics?’
Yol Herodeen, ‘Sorry. Don’t know the reference. I’ll look it up later. A robot uprising should not happen.’
Questioner, ‘You said “should not”, why not say it “cannot” happen. I’d feel a lot better then.’
Yol Herodeen, ‘Better minds than mine have examined that possibility. They are sure it cannot happen. Hopefully they are right, but I suppose there can never be any guarantees.’
Questioner, ‘I am not reassured.’