Earth: Starting Notes
Copyright© 2026 by Flubu
Chapter 11: What We Send First
Daniel learned that humanity wanted to send a flag through the first deliberate intergalactic transit test from Claire. She was laughing before he even answered. “That’s never good.”
“It’s excellent.”
Daniel shifted the phone against his shoulder and kept sorting bolts into a tray. “Define excellent.”
“Someone suggested a Canadian flag.”
He stopped. “For what?”
“The test payload.”
Daniel looked at the workbench. “What test payload?”
Claire went quiet. “Oh. You haven’t been told yet.”
“No.”
“Marc is going to hate me.”
“That improves this conversation.”
Claire recovered. “Fine. Broad version. They’re preparing the first deliberate limited-mass physical transit test.”
Daniel put the bolt down. “Physical transit? As in, something actually goes through?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Still being scheduled.”
“From Xianglume to Earth?”
“First.”
He leaned against the bench. The maple transceiver sat back in the kitchen. The live voice call had happened days ago. Neris had said hi, and he had heard her laugh while she was still there to hear him answer. Now they planned to replicate an astronomical impossibility to move matter deliberately.
“And someone wants to send a flag.”
“Several someones. The UN suggested a copy of the Charter.”
“Why?”
“History gets nervous if you don’t decorate it.”
Daniel frowned. “What does the test actually need?”
Claire stopped laughing. “Known mass, dimensions and material composition. Instrumentation. Nothing living, medically interesting or technologically sensitive.”
“Send a box.”
“I knew you’d bring engineering into diplomacy. That was more or less the engineers’ recommendation.”
Daniel picked up another bolt. “Doesn’t the first thing through just need to arrive?”
“Pretty much.”
“Then send a box.”
Claire laughed again. “Humanity’s first intentional intergalactic shipment.”
“Box.”
“I’ll put you down as strongly in favour.”
“Don’t put me down as anything.”
“Too late. You’ve been first-contact farmer for months.”
“I hate that phrase.”
“I know.”
He could hear her smiling. Daniel looked toward the workshop door. “Claire.”
“Yeah?”
“How close does this make it?”
The laughter left her voice.
“To them coming back?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know. But it makes it less theoretical.”
Daniel turned the bolt once between his fingers and set it back in the tray.
Neris arrived at the Ministry meeting to discover that Xianglume had developed its own version of the flag problem. Xianglume did not use flags in quite the same way Earth did, but that had not stopped anyone from proposing symbolic additions to the first test article.
OPTION A — FORMAL CIVILIZATIONAL EMBLEM
Neris stared. Ivara stared harder. ER appeared through the room system. “No.”
Neris looked toward the speaker. “You haven’t seen the other options.”
“I do not need to.”
Ivara’s pale jaw feathers shifted. “The alternatives are a diplomatic message plate and a commemorative inscription.”
ER made a sound through the speaker that was not technically a sigh. “What do the engineers want?”
Ivara changed the page. A plain grey rectangular case appeared without emblem, decorative surface or message.
Neris smiled. “That.”
“Agreed,” ER said.
Ivara folded her wings. “The Ministry communications office believes the first deliberate physical exchange should acknowledge its historical significance.”
Neris looked at the grey box. “It’s a calibration package. Why are we decorating it?”
Ivara looked tired in an extremely dignified way. “Because people become irrational around firsts.”
Neris leaned back. “Earth wants to decorate theirs too?”
“Flag. International emblem. Foundational legal text.”
Neris blinked. “They want to send us their laws?”
“Symbolically.”
“That seems aggressive.”
Ivara’s feathers lifted slightly.
ER said, “Daniel recommended a box.”
Neris turned. “You told him?”
“Claire informed him before formal notification.”
Neris smiled. “That sounds like Claire.”
ER continued. “Daniel’s position is that the first object needs to arrive before it needs to mean anything.”
Ivara considered. “That is sensible.”
Neris laughed. “He will be devastated to hear you say that.”
The engineering specification replaced the symbolic options.
TEST ARTICLE 01
The case had a known mass, dimensions and material composition, with an internal sensor package and isolated instrumentation cells. It contained no biological material, autonomous system, active nanotechnology or sensitive fabrication technology.
Neris read the specification. “Very expensive box.”
“Accurately described,” ER said.
“Daniel’s going to be unbearable.”
“Likely.”
Ivara looked between them. “You both realize the first object deliberately moved between civilizations may spend several centuries in a museum.”
Neris looked at the plain grey case. “Then museums can learn that history was occasionally practical.”
The proposed receiving site looked less historic in person than Claire had expected. The airfield lay under a pale northern sky, with snow banked along the service roads and low modular buildings beside the existing hangars. Temporary fencing defined restricted zones without turning the place into a fortress. Cables ran everywhere, and the engineers looked cold and irritated enough that Claire trusted the place immediately.
Inside the reception building, she stood with a rolled plan under one arm and watched two technicians move an adjustable table thirty centimetres.
“No,” she said.
They stopped. One looked at her. “What?”
“Put the Arilanan seating position back.”
He did. Claire walked behind it. “There.”
The technician frowned. “The chair fits.”
“The chair fits. Ivara doesn’t.”
He looked confused. Claire stepped into the clearance zone behind the chair. “If she sits here, her tail extends into this path.”
“We’ve allowed the rear clearance in the footprint.”
“You’ve allowed it mathematically. Now walk past me.”
He tried and had to turn sideways. “Oh.”
Claire moved the table. “A chair fitting is not the same as a person fitting.”
The younger technician wrote that down. Claire noticed. “Don’t quote me.”
“Too late.”
She sighed. The room had already changed three times. It now supported ordinary human seating, an open-backed configuration suitable for Neris, an Arilanan arrangement with room for a rigid tail and folded wings, and a provisional station for ER’s projected extension body. The result did not look like a special alien room. It looked like a room designed without assuming that every future occupant shared the architect’s body.
Claire checked the doorway, then the main circulation path. Both worked until she found a storage cabinet six inches inside the route. “No.”
Someone behind her said, “You say that a lot.”
Claire turned. Beaulieu stood there holding coffee.
“I’m an architect.”
“Is that the polite term?”
“Yes.”
He handed her the cup.
“Thanks.”
Beaulieu looked through the glass into the empty receiving zone. A low reinforced platform sat at the centre, surrounded by instruments. “This is where the test article goes.”
Claire followed his gaze.
“If everything works.”
“If everything works.”
“Which version is this?”
“Receiving geometry?”
“Facility.”
“Seven.”
Claire smiled. “Amateurs.”
Beaulieu looked at her. “How many revisions are normal?”
“There is no normal.”
Outside, a team checked the perimeter without press, flags or dignitaries. They were making sure there would be somewhere safe for a box to land.
Neris saw the airfield for the first time through a live planning feed: snow, concrete, hangars and temporary modular buildings, with vehicles parked in painfully straight lines. A Canadian technician turned the camera too quickly and made everyone on the Xianglume side complain.
Neris leaned closer. “Very Earth.”
Ivara looked at her. “You have seen one farm and several government buildings.”
“Enough to recognize patterns.”
ER said, “Daniel has made similar observations regarding government interiors. That does not validate your assertion.”
The camera steadied. Neris watched the snow while her tail moved behind her chair without conscious intent. The reception building came into view with wide doors, an open interior and modular partitions. Neris recognized the logic of Claire’s seating layout immediately. It was not an imitation of Xianglume design; Earth had reached the same principle in its own way.
She pictured stepping through one of those doors into cold air, with snow underfoot and Daniel somewhere beyond the secure perimeter. The thought arrived fast enough to hurt.
ER said, “Neris.”
She blinked. “What?”
“You stopped reading the transit review.”
“I was thinking.”
“About snow.”
She looked toward his indicator. “You cannot see my thoughts.”
“Your tail provides supplementary evidence.”
Neris looked down. It had curled tighter around the chair. She deliberately loosened it. Ivara’s feathers shifted.
Neris pointed at both of them. “Neither of you.”
Ivara said, “I said nothing.”
“Your silence was very loud.”
Claire’s second live design meeting with Ivara went more smoothly than the first. The revised Arilanan seating model appeared between them while Ivara tested a configurable prototype at the Ministry. Its supports could be repositioned to match changes in the shared design. She settled into it with her tail through the rear clearance and her wings folding naturally along either side. When Ivara shifted, her right wing brushed the side support.
Claire saw it immediately. “Too tight.”
Ivara looked toward the camera. “Yes.”
Claire moved the side support outward in the model. “Again.”
Ivara stood, sat, shifted and folded her wings until the fit improved. Then her head tilted.
Claire frowned. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“That meant something,” Claire smiled. “I’m learning.”
Ivara’s jaw feathers moved. Claire knew that one now: amusement.
“You adapt quickly,” Ivara said.
“People are easier than buildings.”
Ivara paused. “I have generally found the opposite.”
Claire laughed, and the sound crossed the relay. Ivara’s feathers settled. in what looked like satisfaction. Claire noticed the change and decided not to guess aloud yet.
ER discovered gravel at Aster Vale and disliked it immediately. Veyan had built an uneven-surface test area in one section of the fabrication bay using loose aggregate, inclined sections, gaps and a simulated wet surface that Neris had insisted on expanding for one reason: “Earth has mud.”
ER had objected as though mud were an unreasonable personal decision made by Daniel. The prototype now had two functional hands, fully integrated legs, the current sensor head and enough torso mass to approximate the intended centre of gravity. Smooth flooring no longer presented much difficulty.
Veyan pointed at the gravel. “Go.”
ER looked down. “My maintenance platform has traversed damaged ship surfaces.”
“With magnetic stabilizers.”
ER considered the distinction, then stepped onto the gravel. The first foot sank slightly. His balance model reacted too strongly, the second foot came down at an angle and loose aggregate shifted beneath it. ER corrected and stopped.
Neris’s ears rose on the remote display. “Having fun?”
ER ignored the question.
Veyan said, “Again.”
ER tried more slowly. Loose stones shifted differently under load, forcing his control model to adjust after rather than before every step. By the time he crossed the test area and returned, the movement was smoother.
Ressa said, “You’re getting it.”
“The surface is defective.”
“It’s gravel.”
“Those statements are compatible.”
Veyan nodded toward the far end.
Neris laughed. “Good enough for the farm.”
“The farm is not composed entirely of loose aggregate.”
Neris smiled. “Wait until mud.”
ER opened the requirements file and added:
LOW-COHESION WET SURFACE PERFORMANCE
Neris stared. “You added mud.”
“I added a technical requirement.”
Veyan said, “She’s right.”
ER looked at him. “Your access remains conditional.”
The request for ER’s public image arrived that afternoon.
REQUEST: CONSENT TO RELEASE FIRST OFFICIAL IMAGE OF ER MOBILE EXTENSION PLATFORM PRIOR TO EARTH CONTACT MISSION
Veyan was beside him. Neris was still connected. Nobody spoke while ER looked at the prototype body. It was functional and increasingly coordinated, but still carried temporary external panels, provisional sensor architecture and unresolved clothing. The hands were improving. The feet had yet to encounter actual mud.
Neris said, “Take a day.”
“I can decide now.”
“I know. Take one anyway.”
ER looked at her image. She did not tell him what she thought he should choose. He closed the request. “Twenty-four hours.”
Veyan nodded.
The next day, ER answered.
CONSENT: NOT AT THIS TIME
REASON: CURRENT PLATFORM IS A DEVELOPMENT PROTOTYPE AND DOES NOT YET REPRESENT MY INTENDED MOBILE EMBODIMENT.
The Ministry accepted the response without negotiation or pressure. Neris sent him a message.
Good.
ER replied:
You do not know whether the decision was good.
Neris answered:
It was yours. That makes it good.
ER left the message open for a while before returning to the platform tests.
Daniel’s first planned medical dataset crossed to Xianglume with ordinary clinical measurements, existing blood results, cardiovascular data, imaging summaries and nanite-monitor logs. Every category had been approved by Mara and then by Daniel himself.
Saren’s response arrived through the medical working group two days later. Mara read it aloud while Daniel sat on the examination table. “Persistent activity remains stable. There is no evidence of uncontrolled replication or transmission. Behaviour appears increasingly integrated with individual host physiology.”
Daniel frowned. “What does that mean?”
“Saren clarifies below.”
She scrolled. “The nanites are responding to your immune, metabolic and tissue-repair patterns in ways that appear individualized.”
“Personalized?”
Mara shook her head. “He specifically says not to use that word yet.”
“Why?”
“Because Earth will turn it into marketing.”
Daniel smiled. “That sounds like him?”
“No. That part was me.”
She read Saren’s actual line. “They are responding to a patient.”
Daniel looked at her. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
Daniel liked the restraint. Whatever the nanites were doing, Saren was describing Daniel rather than turning the technology into a treatment category before anyone understood it. The nanites were keeping him alive, repairing and adjusting, listening, somehow, to the body they were inside.
“What does that mean for removal?”
“Still not recommended.”
“Copying?”
“Still worse.”
Daniel nodded.
Mara closed the medical report and opened another message. Daniel recognized the sender before she spoke: the family of the girl in the yellow coat.
“They replied?”
“Yes.”
Mara turned the screen.
Thank you for giving us an answer.
We knew it was unlikely.
We had to ask.
Please tell everyone involved that we understand.
Daniel read it twice. The message asked for nothing more. The family had needed an answer because leaving the question unasked had been impossible.
He looked at the screen for another moment.
“Okay.”
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.