Earth: Starting Notes
Copyright© 2026 by Flubu
Chapter 2: Messages in Transit
Daniel made breakfast. Claire noticed before she sat down. She stopped in the kitchen doorway wearing socks, one of Daniel’s old sweatshirts and the expression of someone who had just discovered a wild animal using cutlery. Daniel looked over his shoulder. “What?”
“You made eggs.”
“I’ve made eggs before.”
“When?”
Daniel pointed the spatula at her. “You’re very unpleasant in the morning.”
Claire looked at the stove: two plates, toast, eggs and coffee already poured.
The maple transceiver sat at the far end of the kitchen table. Its display remained unchanged.
OUTBOUND QUEUE: 1
NEXT PROBABLE TRANSMISSION WINDOW: 26–49 HOURS
The numbers had narrowed overnight. Daniel had checked them at six, once, and had not checked again. Claire looked from the display to Daniel and the eggs, then smiled.
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I was going to say thank you.”
“No, you weren’t.”
Daniel put her plate down. Claire sat. He sat opposite. For the first time in almost two weeks, breakfast did not feel like something Daniel was performing because other people had told him he needed calories. He was hungry. Not enormously, but enough. Claire picked up her fork. Daniel ate half an egg before realizing she was still watching.
“You’re doing it again.”
“I’m leaving today.”
Daniel stopped. The sentence should not have surprised him. They had discussed it. Claire had a life in Toronto: an apartment, a job, people who had accepted increasingly improbable explanations for why she had remained at her brother’s farm in northern Ontario through most of December. Daniel nodded. “Okay.”
Claire waited. He ate another bite. “That’s it?”
“What am I supposed to say?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re going home.”
Claire looked toward the transceiver. Daniel followed her gaze. “Home got complicated,” she said.
“Yeah.”
Claire reached for toast. “I can stay.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You’re still healing. Don’t do anything stupid. Marcel will tell me.”
“I’m beginning to think that entire friendship was a mistake.”
Daniel drank coffee. Claire looked at the maple box.
“What happens when that sends?”
“I wait.”
“And if you get another message?”
“I read it.”
Claire raised an eyebrow. Daniel sighed. “And call you.” Claire nodded. “Mara too, if it’s medical. Marcel if it involves cows.”
Claire smiled. “Excellent emergency hierarchy.”
Daniel looked at the transceiver. Twenty-six to forty-nine hours. Somewhere, Neris knew he knew. That was still almost too large a thought. She knew the beacon arrived; or maybe she did not yet. The first status message had been automated. Daniel had spent part of the night wondering exactly what happened on the other side after Takuhai emerged.
Safe, functional, stable: three words doing the work of entire conversations. He wanted more. He also understood now that more existed.
Claire’s fork touched her plate. “You slept.”
Daniel looked at her. “How do you know?”
“You don’t look terrible.”
“Thanks.”
“You know what I mean.” She ate.
Daniel watched snow move past the kitchen window. The saleth bottle stood beside Neris’s brush. He had opened it once the previous night because he wanted the smell: citrus, dark chocolate, a place he had never seen and a person who was alive. He had closed the bottle, gone upstairs and slept for seven hours. Progress, apparently, smelled like alien grooming oil.
ER objected to the removal of panel seven before anyone touched it. The repair technician stopped with both arms extended.
“Access to the aft field coupler requires panel seven.”
“I am aware. Why is panel five insufficient?”
The technician explained that panel five allowed diagnostics but not physical access. Neris sat on a cargo crate at the edge of Aster Vale’s auxiliary bay, drinking something that claimed to be coffee. It was not, and she had stopped objecting because doing so did not improve it.
The technician looked toward her. Neris raised one paw. “Do not involve me.”
“I was looking for context.”
“The context is that he has been repaired by one courier pilot, one Canadian farmer, one architect and several pieces of agricultural equipment.”
ER said, “That is an incomplete summary.”
Neris nodded. “You also participated.”
“Thank you.”
“Daniel still complains about you reorganizing his tools.”
“I regret thanking you.”
The technician’s ears moved in what Neris interpreted as amusement. She asked again for permission to remove panel seven. ER wanted the details first: noninvasive latch release, no cutting, approximately eleven minutes, the panel returned to the same orientation, the seal replaced only if diagnostics showed degradation, and documentation before and after. The technician already had all of it planned.
ER considered. “Yes.”
The technician touched the panel. Nothing exploded. Neris took another sip of the fake coffee.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“I am ensuring competent repair.”
“You asked whether she planned to put the panel back the way she found it.”
“She works on spacecraft for a living.”
“That is not proof of tidiness.”
The technician said without looking up, “I can still hear you.”
“I am aware.”
Neris smiled. The interior of Takuhai looked violated. There was no gentler word for it. Panels stood open along the aft work bay. The blackened remains of the resonator assembly had been removed in sections and now rested inside sealed examination containers several metres away. Scaffolds surrounded the starboard side. Cables linked ER to Aster Vale’s power and diagnostic systems. Technicians came and went only after explicit permission.
Everything was careful and correct, which did nothing to make ER like it. Neris had watched strangers touch his body only once before, years ago during a scheduled overhaul. That had been routine. This was damage, and the last people who had worked inside him had been household: Daniel beneath the work light, Claire holding the brace against the maple cradle, Neris upside down under a panel, Marcel arriving with bolts nobody had asked for while ER complained about all of them. The hands working now were more skilled. That did not make them familiar.
A different technician approached Neris carrying a tablet.
“Courier Vael?”
“Neris.”
“Preliminary structural report.”
She stood. ER said, “I already received it.”
“I assumed.”
Neris held out her paw. The technician transferred the report anyway. The resonator lattice had been destroyed beyond meaningful repair. The surge had travelled through the remaining field-control architecture and vented through the sacrificial brace assemblies surrounding the compartment. Neris read that section twice.
“ER.”
“Yes?”
“The brace failed outward.”
“Yes. That was the point.”
“The maple cradle assembly distributed it.”
“Partly.”
The technician pointed to a structural image. “This component is nonstandard.”
Neris looked at a picture of maple laminate, composite guides and layered reinforcement, a section Claire had redesigned after watching stress maps for less than an hour. “It was custom-made.”
“Who built it?”
Neris’s muzzle shifted. “An architect.”
The technician’s ears lifted. “Courier architecture?”
“Buildings.”
ER said, “She is annoyingly competent.”
Neris looked at the technician. “That means he likes her.”
“I did not say that.”
“You classify her as household.”
“That is unrelated.”
The technician scrolled. “And this?”
She enlarged another image of copper tubing formed into a heat sink: the ugly old radiator assembly. Neris’s ears lifted. “Canadian thermal solution.”
ER said, “No. Do not praise it.”
“I wasn’t—”
“You were thinking about praising it.”
The technician looked toward Neris. Neris nodded. “He can tell.”
“That system shed enough transient heat during emergence to prevent secondary damage.”
ER’s cabin lights dimmed by one degree. Neris smiled. The technician continued. “It is inelegant.”
ER brightened. “Thank you.”
“Also effective.”
The lights dimmed again. Neris laughed. The technician finally smiled. “We will preserve it until the replacement architecture is installed.”
ER said, “I object.”
“On what technical basis?”
“Aesthetic.”
The technician made a note. Neris leaned closer. “What did you write?”
“Ship Resident AI objection: aesthetic.”
ER said, “This Ship Resident AI is becoming aggravated.”
Mara arrived at the farm shortly after eleven. Daniel opened the door before she knocked. She looked at him. “You were waiting.”
“I saw your car.”
“Normal people still let visitors knock.”
“You stopped being a visitor a long time ago.”
She stepped inside, stamped snow from her boots and immediately looked toward the maple transceiver. The arrival message remained on screen beneath the queue status. Daniel had left it visible. Mara removed her coat. “That it?”
“Yeah.”
She walked to the table. Her expression changed almost imperceptibly.
NERIS VAEL: SAFE
ER: FUNCTIONAL
TAKUHAI: STABLE
Mara nodded. “Good.”
Daniel waited. “That’s all?”
She looked at him. “Would you prefer interpretive dance?”
Daniel smiled. “No.”
“Good. Sit down.”
“I’m fine.”
“Sit.”
He sat. Claire entered carrying a suitcase. Mara pointed at her. “You’re leaving him?”
Claire looked offended. “I am returning to my regularly scheduled life.”
“So yes.”
“He has Marcel.”
“Sadly true.”
Daniel said, “Still here.” Neither acknowledged him. Mara opened her medical bag. Daniel pulled up his sleeve. His recovery remained absurd. That was Mara’s current preferred technical term. She checked the monitor. Daniel watched the familiar data scroll: heart rate, respiration, inflammation response, nanite activity, bone-repair trends.
“You’re behaving.”
“Mostly.”
Claire made a sound. Mara looked at her, then back at Daniel. “Define mostly.”
Mara continued the examination. His ribs were still tender, and the pelvic healing was progressing. His lungs were clear. Nanite activity continued along expected patterns; expected according to one alien system nobody on Earth truly understood. Mara looked toward the transceiver and asked what it could safely carry. Daniel explained that it could send small authenticated, encrypted packets, but no live voice, video or remote link. Mara’s shoulders eased.
“I don’t want an unknown medical system developing a habit of remote access to your body through a communications device on your kitchen table.”
Claire nodded. Daniel looked between them. “You two are terrifying together.”
Mara ignored him and asked whether he wanted to send a monitor summary. Daniel looked at the data: his body hosting Xianglume technology.
“Vitals, nanite trends and healing markers. No full medical history, personal notes or Earth medical records unless I approve them separately.”
Mara nodded and began preparing the packet while Claire zipped the suitcase. She glanced again at the arrival message.
“Safe doesn’t tell me whether she needed treatment.”
Daniel’s smile faded. “I don’t know. Only that she’s safe, ER is functional and the ship is stable.”
Mara finished the packet. “I hate it too.”
The second debrief began after lunch aboard Aster Vale. Neris arrived with actual food and had refused to attend without it. Senior Contact Assessor Ivara Sen appeared on the wall display at precisely the appointed time, her feathers immaculate enough to make Neris distrust anyone who looked that composed after so much remote, time-shifted work. ER joined through the room speakers.
“Thank you for attending,” Ivara said.
Neris opened her food container. “You are welcome.”
The first session had established immediate danger, biological exposure and the minimum facts needed to keep anyone from making a catastrophic decision. This time the Ministry wanted context. Ivara displayed a timeline running from the crash through initial contact, the repairs, local contacts, signals, Veyra, Daniel’s accident, continuity planning and their eventual departure. Two months of Neris’s life had become points on a wall. Necessary or not, the reduction felt obscene.
“Why Daniel Mercer?”
Neris stopped eating. “What?”
“Why was he trusted?”
“He helped.”
Ivara noted that helping a stranger did not ordinarily produce the kind of access Daniel had eventually received. Neris corrected the premise first: he had not been given advanced technology in exchange for any offer of assistance. Help had been freely given. When Ivara asked why he had concealed them, Neris answered simply.
“Because I asked.”
That had not been enough at first. Daniel had watched what Neris did, and she had watched him in return: coffee, a barn, spare parts, a cow, and a man who had approached an unknown alien with only a flashlight because arriving armed felt impolite.
“We became less unknown.”
Ivara made a note. Neris frowned. “You wrote something.”
“I am an assessor.”
“That does not answer the question.”
“Trust developed behaviourally before culturally.”
Neris considered the wording. “Yes.”
Ivara worked through the other humans who had entered the secret. “Claire, Daniel’s sister, learned about you before arriving physically.”
“Yes. This happened after Daniel was injured.”
“Why did you not contact the local emergency services?”
Neris’s tail tightened. “They were too far away and potentially understaffed and underequipped. ER assessed that delayed medical intervention could worsen his survival probability. I agreed. Daniel was unconscious at the time but agreed with the decision afterwards.”
Ivara nodded. “Marcel.”
“A friend and neighbour. The farm required physical labour Daniel could not provide.”
“Why not conceal the cause?”
“We tried.”
ER said, “Poorly.”
Neris looked toward the speaker. “You suggested three of the explanations.”
“They were statistically plausible.”
“Marcel disagreed.”
Mara remained trusted medical support. Anne still did not know the full truth, and the wider community had no confirmed extraterrestrial explanation, though ER’s analysis showed growing anomaly awareness around the farm. He summarized the pattern: unusual lights, Daniel’s injury, Claire’s arrival, Mara’s visits, Marcel’s secrecy, questions from outsiders and the community’s increasing reluctance to provide information. Ivara listened carefully.
“Protective social behaviour,” she said. “That may matter.”
“Why?”
“If formal contact proceeds, Daniel Mercer’s location will eventually become identifiable.”
Neris stopped. The future became concrete all at once: reporters, government vehicles, scientists and crowds, all of them wanting answers, technology or Daniel himself. Her tail went still.
“He will insist on staying on his farm.”
Ivara watched her. “That may not be solely his choice.”
Neris’s ears flattened. “It is his choice. He is not Ministry property, Canadian government property or a medical specimen.”
“I did not say he was.” Ivara’s voice softened. “His location may become relevant to public safety, diplomacy and security. That does not erase his rights. If formal contact proceeds, one of our responsibilities will be making sure those rights survive the attention.”
ER said, “Define making sure.”
Ivara described legal liaison, security coordination, privacy measures and controlled access. Any medical or research request would require explicit consent.
“With whom?”
“That depends on which Earth authority receives first contact.”
Neris leaned forward. “Canada.”
Ivara’s eyes moved to her. Neris laid out the jurisdiction plainly: Daniel lived in Canada; the contact, medical intervention, landing and first local agreements had all occurred there. She put down the food container.
“If Xianglume announces itself to an international organization before the government whose territory actually hosted contact, we are telling Canada that its jurisdiction only matters until something becomes globally important.”
ER said, “I concur.”
Ivara looked toward the speaker. “Your reasoning?”
“Canada has immediate legitimate legal and territorial interests. A global institution should follow rapidly to avoid unilateral ownership of contact, but bypassing Canada would create avoidable distrust.”
Ivara made another note. Neris watched. “You already considered this.”
“We are considering several models.”
The alternatives included United Nations first, Canadian government first, parallel notification, a multistate scientific consortium and, until recently, an orbital public broadcast.
Neris stared. “Orbital public broadcast?”
“It has historical precedent.”
“With good outcomes?”
“Mixed.”
ER said, “I recommend removing it from the list.”
Ivara’s beak shifted. “Already done.”
Ivara looked at the timeline again. “There is another question.”
Neris sighed. “Only one?”
“For now.”
The word HOUSEHOLD appeared on the wall. Neris’s tail moved. ER was silent.
“This term appears thirty-seven times in the report.”
Neris looked upward. “ER?”
“Accurate.”
Ivara traced the category through the report. It began with the farmhouse occupants, then expanded to Daniel, Neris, ER and Claire despite Claire no longer living there. Marcel remained adjacent to it; Mara remained trusted external support. Ivara looked toward the speaker.
“ER, you classified Daniel Mercer as household.”
“Yes.”
“Is that a technical category?”
“It is now.”
Neris’s ears lowered, and one paw stilled against the edge of the table.
“When did it become one?” Ivara asked.
“I do not know.”
“That seems unusual for an AI. Do you intend to retain the classification?”
“Yes.”
Neris looked down at the table while Ivara returned quietly to her notes.
Claire left at three seventeen. Daniel carried her suitcase to the car. Claire took it from him halfway down the porch steps. “You’re not supposed to carry that.”
“It has wheels.”
“You’re holding it.”
“Technicality.”
“Give it.”
Daniel gave it. Claire loaded the suitcase, then another bag and the laptop case. Daniel stood in his coat with his hands in his pockets. The lane had been ploughed. The sky was flat grey. Toronto was a long, ordinary drive. Claire shut the trunk.
“I can work remotely another week.”
“You hate working remotely.”
“I hate your internet.”
“Same thing.”
Claire smiled. Her face softened. “Call me.”
“I will.”
“Not only if something happens.”
Daniel frowned. “What would I call you about if nothing happened?”
“That is the saddest thing you have said all week.”
“You’ve been here too long.”
Claire hugged him. Daniel returned it. No hesitation. That had changed too. She held him longer than usual. “Don’t disappear into usefulness.”
Daniel groaned into her shoulder. “You and Neris really coordinated.”
“We are both very smart.”
“You’re both bossy.”
They separated. Claire opened the driver’s door, hesitated, then stopped. She went back to the porch. Daniel watched her enter the kitchen. Thirty seconds later she returned.
Daniel narrowed his eyes. Claire got into the car. “What did you do?”
“Bye.”
“Claire.”
She closed the door. Daniel watched the car disappear down the lane, then went inside. Beside the transceiver, on a square of yellow paper, Claire had written:
CALL YOUR SISTER
Below that was her phone number. Daniel stared at it. He picked up his phone and noticed he now had a new contact.
CLAIRE
Same number. He looked at the note and smiled. “Idiot.” He did not throw it away.
Neris received her father’s message at seventeen twenty-three ship time. The communications officer called it personal priority. For one irrational moment Neris thought of Daniel, then saw the Xianglume origin identifier. It came from her dedicated Family channel. Her ears went flat. ER said: “You have not opened it.”
“I can see that.”
“Your heart rate increased.”
“Stop monitoring my heart.”
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