Earth: Starting Notes
Copyright© 2026 by Flubu
Chapter 12: Who Goes First
Neris discovered she had volunteered before anyone asked her. The document was waiting in her Ministry queue when she woke. She opened it in her childhood room. The title was ordinary enough.
EARTH CONTACT MISSION — PRELIMINARY BIOLOGICAL PASSENGER PROTOCOL
Neris sat, opened the first section and read until she stopped.
PRIMARY BIOLOGICAL TEST PASSENGER: NERIS VAEL
The next line should have made the sequence clear enough to calm her.
VESSEL-SCALE ROUTE VALIDATION REQUIRED BEFORE BIOLOGICAL PASSENGER TRANSIT
It did not. Takuhai still had to prove the road first. That did not give anyone permission to decide who would ride it afterward. Her ears flattened. She read it again. No.
She wanted to go. Her objection was to someone else deciding that willingness for her. Neris scrolled through the rationale: prior corridor exposure, existing physiological records, familiarity with Earth, training, emergency-procedure experience and a known response profile. Every point was reasonable. That made it worse. Her terminal chimed.
ER.
Neris answered.
“Did you see it?”
“I did.”
“Good morning.”
“It is not.”
Neris leaned back.
“I am currently composing objections.”
“How many?”
“Seven.”
“Only seven?”
“Eight.”
The door opened. Linnea stood there carrying breakfast. Neris looked at her. Linnea looked at the terminal, then at Neris.
“What happened?”
“They’ve made me the first biological test passenger.”
Linnea became very still. ER said: “She has not agreed to that.”
Linnea looked toward the speaker, then back at Neris.
“Did they ask you?”
“No.”
Linnea put the plate down. “Then you aren’t.”
Neris exhaled.
A Ministry call request appeared from Ivara. Neris accepted, and Ivara’s face appeared immediately. Her feathers were flatter than usual along the jaw, controlled rather than calm.
“There is an error in the protocol.”
Neris lifted one eyebrow. “The passenger assignment.”
“It has been withdrawn.”
Neris blinked. “That fast?”
“I withdrew it.”
ER said, “Appropriate.” Ivara inclined her head toward his channel.
Neris looked at the now-invalid document. “I was already going.”
Ivara’s feathers shifted. “That is irrelevant.”
Neris looked up. “Not irrelevant.”
“To this.”
Neris went quiet. Ivara continued. “You agreed to participate in the Earth mission and to serve as contact adviser. You did not agree to become the first biological passenger on the route.”
Neris looked at the withdrawn document. “They would have asked eventually.”
“That does not improve the sequence.”
Ivara folded her wings more tightly against her sides. “The engineering team made a recommendation. Someone converted recommendation into assignment. The Ministry asked that the passenger-selection process be rewritten.”
“How?”
“Volunteers first.”
Neris’s tail moved. “Then selection?”
“Then medical and technical evaluation.”
Neris looked at the document again. Her name disappeared from the field. Replaced with:
PRIMARY BIOLOGICAL PASSENGER: TO BE SELECTED FROM CONSENTING VOLUNTEERS
Neris read the replacement field twice. “I’ll volunteer.”
Ivara’s head tilted. “That is your decision. But not now.”
Neris frowned. “Why?”
“Because you have just learned that people assumed you would.”
“So?”
“So, I want your yes after it has had time to become yours again.”
Neris stared. ER said nothing. Linnea sat quietly on the edge of the bed.
“That is annoyingly reasonable.”
“I have experience. Tomorrow will be soon enough.”
“I do not need until tomorrow.”
ER said, “I recently received similar advice.”
Neris looked toward his channel. “Whose side are you on?”
“Consent.”
She sighed. “Everyone is difficult.”
Linnea picked up the plate and handed it to her. “Eat.”
Neris accepted breakfast. Some institutions outranked the Ministry.
By the time the revised biological-transit protocol reached Earth, Claire had already rejected the phrase BIOLOGICAL CONTAINMENT ROOM. She stood inside the northern airfield’s unfinished medical wing with Mara Singh and Marc Beaulieu while the engineer responsible tried not to look as tired as he was. The room had a wide door, adjustable lighting, medical connections, two evacuation routes, reinforced flooring and a movable examination platform. The hardware was promising. The name on the plan was not.
“Change it.”
The engineer sighed.
“It is a containment-capable medical room.”
“So is an isolation ward. You didn’t call it a containment ward.”
“We’re talking about an extraterrestrial biological arrival.”
Mara folded her arms. “Person.”
The engineer looked at her.
“Then write it like we’re dealing with people,” Claire said.
Beaulieu wisely stayed out of it. Claire looked at the drawing again.
“Arrival Medical Assessment Suite.”
The engineer typed.
ARRIVAL MEDICAL ASSESSMENT SUITE
“That changes nothing technically,” he said.
“Exactly. You can isolate airflow, control access and decontaminate when necessary and still let the medical team work around the occupant. The room still does its job, and it doesn’t tell the person walking into it that we think they are contamination.”
The engineer considered the new title, then nodded.
Mara walked into the room and turned toward the doorway. “If Neris arrives unconscious, can the stretcher get through here without moving furniture?”
“For Neris, yes.”
“If Ivara?”
“The current layout clears Ivara too.”
“With tail clearance?”
The engineer hesitated. Claire closed her eyes.
“Not currently.”
“Then no.”
He opened the layout and they moved closer. The site had had been designed around arrival geometry and public reception. Now they were designing for emergencies. The path had to work for someone unconscious or injured, unable to stand, or needing room for wings that could not simply be folded tighter, and for a rigid tail that could not be bent around equipment. Potentially for someone whose body they had never seen before. Claire moved one wall fixture on the plan while Mara checked the turn into the suite.
Beaulieu said, “We’re not assuming the first passenger is Neris.”
Mara looked up. “Why would you?”
Beaulieu paused. “They initially did.”
Claire stared. Mara’s expression hardened.
“They asked her?”
“They corrected it before the request reached her formally.”
Claire said, “That is not what I asked.”
Beaulieu sighed. “No.”
Mara looked back into the suite. “Then they didn’t have a passenger.”
Beaulieu nodded.
“Make the stretcher system modular.”
The engineer nodded.
“Already working on it.”
“And don’t call anything normal-body configuration.”
“That field was removed last week.”
Claire went back to the stretcher path. Mara joined her.
Neris waited until the next afternoon, because Ivara had been right. That irritated her. The volunteer form arrived without a name attached. Neris opened it.
BIOLOGICAL TRANSIT VALIDATION — VOLUNTARY CANDIDATE DECLARATION
The form stated that the risk was unknown and that emergency return capability remained incomplete. It warned of potential acute transit effects, emergence injury and unknown long-term consequences, with no guarantee of successful retrieval if the return corridor failed and that Earth medicine might not be able to treat every Xianglume-specific complication. She could withdraw at any point before transit initiation without losing her mission role. Neris read every line twice, because agreeing deserved attention.
She selected:
VOLUNTEER: YES
The confirmation appeared.
Her terminal chimed. Ivara. Neris answered.
“I volunteered.”
“So did I.”
Neris stopped.
“What?”
Ivara’s face remained composed, but the feathers along her lower jaw had lifted slightly. Neris had learned enough to read determination there, with perhaps some irritation underneath it.
“You’re the head delegate.”
“Which is one reason to volunteer.”
“It is also a reason not to be first. You’ve never crossed.”
“That is precisely why my data would be different from yours.”
Neris frowned.
“If I cross successfully,” Ivara continued, “we learn something about a first exposure rather than another successful crossing by someone with prior transit data.”
“That is an extremely Ministry answer.”
Ivara’s feathers settled.
“I work there.”
Neris sat back.
“You didn’t have to.”
“Neither did you.”
That stopped her. Ivara continued.
“The delegation will not travel on the first biological crossing. I will not lead a delegation through a corridor while treating that risk as something other people absorb for me.”
“You don’t need to prove anything.”
“I am not proving anything. I am accepting the same category of risk I may later ask other delegates to accept. It is called leadership.”
Neris’s ears rose. “Very sure of yourself.”
“Experienced.”
ER entered the channel. “You are both incorrect.”
Neris looked toward his indicator. “That is an interesting opening.”
Ivara said, “Explain.”
“Neither of you can go first. Takuhai must validate the vessel route before any biological passenger is authorized.”
Ivara’s feathers shifted. “That is the current technical recommendation.”
“It should be a requirement.”
Neris looked toward the window, though Takuhai was not visible from her parents’ house.
“You mean the ship goes first.”
ER was silent for half a second.
“I mean I go first.”
The distinction settled into the room. Ivara said, “A solo vessel shakedown. No biological passengers. Earth and back.”
“That is the relevant definition of success.”
Neris’s tail had gone still. “And if Takuhai fails?”
ER took long enough to answer that she knew he had not softened it for them.
“Then I may die.”
Takuhai was his primary body and home, not equipment he could abandon if the test went wrong.
Ivara said, “You are not being assigned.”
“I am volunteering.”
“That is not consent to conditions you have not yet seen.”
ER paused. “Correct.”
“The route must be validated at vessel scale before we place biological passengers aboard,” he continued. “Takuhai is the vessel designed for the transit. I am the pilot. Separating those facts because my body performs both roles would be administratively convenient and conceptually wrong.”
Ivara inclined her head.
“Agreed.”
Neris folded her arms. “You also want to go.”
ER looked at her. “Yes.”
Veyan refused a different proposal fifteen minutes later.
“No.”
ER’s prototype stood upright in Aster Vale’s fabrication lab, with two arms, two legs, a full sensor head and most of its external shell. Its hands had learned cups, and its feet had learned gravel; it was beginning to feel less like a project and more like somewhere ER could be.
“State technical basis.”
“The environmental sealing is incomplete.”
“Eighty-nine percent.”
“Not complete.”
“Takuhai transit certification is separate.”
“Exactly.”
ER’s sensor head moved slightly. Veyan continued.
“You can fly your primary body to Earth without pretending this one is ready to walk out of the ship.”
“That reduces the value of the shakedown.”
“It reduces the number of unvalidated systems you stack on the same day.”
Ressa stood several metres away pretending to work while Veyan brought up the remaining certification matrix: environmental sealing, cold and particulate exposure, impact tolerance, recharge rates for Earth and Xianglume electrical grids, communications-loss behaviour and emergency retrieval.
ER stared at it. “I am aware of the list.”
“Some requirements are conservative.”
“They are.”
“I can accept temporary operational limitations.”
Veyan looked directly into the sensor cluster. “You asked me to build you a body, not a disposable probe.”
Ressa stopped pretending to work. Neris, listening remotely, went still.
“I am not proposing to send it independently.”
“Then stop using your departure date to rush my certification.”
“There is no departure date.”
“You are already scheduling around one in your head.”
ER looked down at the prototype hands. Veyan’s voice softened. “When Takuhai reaches Earth, this body should let you step outside as yourself. We are not calling an unfinished platform acceptable because the historic moment is convenient.”
ER’s hand closed once and opened again. “That was not my intention.”
“I know.”
Eventually ER said: “When?”
Veyan answered immediately. “Best-case full field certification: twelve days.”
ER disliked the answer. It remained the answer. “Continue.”
Veyan nodded. “Already am.”
Daniel received the living-arrival emergency protocol from Beaulieu. He almost did not open it, then saw Neris’s name in the subject line. He opened it. Bad idea.
POTENTIAL ACUTE TRANSIT EVENTS
APPLIES ONLY AFTER SUCCESSFUL TAKUHAI SOLO ROUND-TRIP VALIDATION
The medical concerns included loss of consciousness, vestibular and neurological disruption, cardiovascular or respiratory instability, emergence injury, acute stress and the final category Daniel hated most: unknown.
“You’ll have doctors there.”
“A full Earthside medical team, with Xianglume medical support live for every biological transit attempt.”
Daniel looked at Beaulieu. “Remote initially?”
“Yes. If the first biological passenger is the medical team, we’ve made a sequencing error.”
Daniel hated fair answers. Beaulieu continued.
“Saren is involved in the protocol.”
Daniel knew the name now. The doctor who had examined Neris after emergence. The one reviewing his nanite data.
“Can Saren treat her from there?”
“He can advise our team in real time. The suite will also have Xianglume-compatible emergency equipment sent through beforehand if they approve it.”
Daniel nodded and kept reading.
The last time Neris had crossed into Xianglume, part of the resonator had exploded. The cuts and shrapnel were mechanical injuries rather than proven corridor effects, but Daniel did not find that distinction comforting. Her earlier crossing toward Earth had involved a damaged ship, a field and nobody waiting on the other side. This time there would be a prepared route and a medical team. He kept reading anyway.
“You don’t have to read the detailed failure modes.”
Daniel looked up. “Yes, I do.”
“No.” Daniel stared. Beaulieu corrected. “You choose to. That’s different.”
Daniel almost smiled. Everyone had become careful about the word choose. He scrolled.
“How likely?”
“We don’t have reliable probabilities.”
“Then why list them?”
“Because unknown risk does not become smaller if we hide it.”
Daniel nodded. Mara would approve. He closed the document.
“Who’s going?”
“No decision.”
“Neris will volunteer.”
Beaulieu’s expression changed. Daniel’s stomach tightened.
“She did.”
Daniel rubbed one hand over his face. “Anyone else?”
“Ivara, the head of the mission, did as well.”
Daniel leaned back carefully. The accident no longer made sitting down an operation, but twisting too quickly or spending too long on his feet could still remind him that healing was unfinished.
“ER?”
“Wants to send the extension first, but the platform isn’t ready.”
“That seems smarter.”
Daniel looked toward the kitchen table and the chair he had moved. “Don’t tell her I said that.”
“I don’t carry messages between you.”
Daniel looked at the maple transceiver. “I’ll tell her myself.”
Neris told him first. The household channel opened during a stable evening window.
It was private text, not live voice.
I VOLUNTEERED FOR THE FIRST BIOLOGICAL TRANSIT. NO SELECTION YET. IVARA VOLUNTEERED TOO. ER WANTS TO SEND HIS EXTENSION FIRST BUT VEYAN SAYS IT ISN’T READY.
Daniel read it again. His first response arrived immediately in his head. No. He did not type it, which was good. He got coffee, came back, read the message again and typed:
DO YOU WANT TO DO IT?
The reply came while the window remained open.
YES.
Daniel closed his eyes.
The answer was simple, terrible and honest.
He typed:
THEN DO IT.
The typing indicator did not move for long enough that he wondered whether the window had failed.
THAT IS NOT WHAT I EXPECTED YOU TO SAY.
Daniel leaned against the counter. Typed:
I’M ALLOWED TO HATE IT.
I’M ALLOWED TO THINK IT’S DANGEROUS.
I’M NOT ALLOWED TO MAKE THE DECISION FOR YOU.
He sent the message. The typing indicator appeared, vanished, then returned.
YOU COULD ASK ME NOT TO.
Daniel stared. His chest hurt with memory rather than injury: Emily asking once whether he wanted her to stop a treatment that made her sick. He had wanted her to stop suffering, keep fighting, live, rest and stay, all at once. Love had not made any of those impossible choices easier or compatible. He typed:
WOULD THAT CHANGE WHAT YOU WANT?
Neris:
NO.
Daniel:
THEN YOU’D ONLY RESENT ME FOR ASKING.
Nothing for several seconds.
YOU’RE GETTING ANNOYINGLY GOOD AT THIS.
He looked at the words, then typed what mattered.
COME BACK.
He almost deleted it. Did not. Neris answered:
THAT IS THE PLAN.
Daniel put one hand on the maple casing.
Neris told the family at dinner, after everyone had food in front of them. It was a tactical choice; Linnea could not respond by feeding her if the feeding had already happened. In theory.
“I volunteered for the first biological transit.”
Kaden stopped eating. Teral looked up sharply. Lysa’s ears lowered. Jaydee stared. Ormaz spoke first.
“Define first.”
“First biological passenger.”
“After how many unmanned tests?”
“Several are planned. The number isn’t final.”
Ormaz’s ears shifted, dissatisfied.
Teral asked, “Risk estimate?”
“Not reliable yet.”
Lysa asked, “Are you scared?”
The room stopped. Neris looked at her sister. “Yes.”
Lysa nodded. Jaydee asked, “Can they bring you back if it goes wrong?”
Neris looked at her. A comforting answer would have been easy and dishonest.
“They’re trying to make sure the answer is yes.”
Jaydee looked down. Kaden reached over and put one paw over hers. Linnea had not spoken. Neris watched her mother.
“Mom?”
Linnea folded her napkin. Very carefully. “You said you were going back.”
“Yes.”
“I knew.”
“Yes.”
“I thought there would be more time before I had to be brave about it.”
Neris’s ears lowered. “Mom.”
Linnea stood. Neris did too. Her mother crossed the small space between them and wrapped both arms around her. This time there was no checking through fur for hidden injuries, only the embrace. Neris hugged back. Linnea said into her shoulder: “I’m not telling you not to go.”
“I know.”
“I don’t like it.”
“I know.”
“I’m allowed.”
“Yes.”
Ormaz said: “Obviously.”
Linnea did not release Neris. “Not helping.”
Ormaz became silent. Kaden looked at the terminal.
“ER?”
“Yes.”
“You want to take Takuhai first.”
“I do.”
“Alone.”
“Without biological passengers.”
Kaden, journalist even at dinner, listened for the missing half.
“Why?”
“Because the vessel route should be validated before other people are exposed to it.”
“That is the technical answer.”
ER was silent before eventually answering. “I want to go.”
The answer stood on its own.
Jaydee looked toward the terminal. “Can you come here in the body first?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“It is aboard Aster Vale.”
“That’s far.”
“Relatively.”
“Everything is relative with you.”
ER paused. “Was that intentional?”
Jaydee smiled. “Yes.”
The room relaxed slightly. Linnea still held Neris. Neris let her.
The animal-testing proposal lasted four minutes. Saren Ilyo killed it. Earth had not formally proposed sending an animal through the corridor. Neither had Xianglume. A joint technical-risk document had listed:
NON-SENTIENT BIOLOGICAL MODEL
as one possible stage between synthetic test systems and a consenting biological passenger. Saren stared at the phrase during the medical working group. Mara Singh stared at it from Earth. Saren spoke first.
“No.”
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