Earth: Starting Notes
Copyright© 2026 by Flubu
Chapter 9: Terms of Approach
By the third morning after Earth learned what Neris looked like, someone was selling her face on a cup. Jaydee found it before breakfast. This was becoming a problem. Neris came into the kitchen carrying Daniel’s chipped mug and found her niece sitting at the table with both paws wrapped around a display, radiating outrage. Lysa stood behind her. Neris stopped.
“What happened?”
Jaydee turned the screen around. A white ceramic mug rotated slowly against a commercial backdrop. Neris’s official portrait appeared on one side. On the other:
WELCOME TO THE UNIVERSE
Neris stared. Lysa said: “Technically, you were already there.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Jaydee pointed accusingly at the product. “They made your tail too small.”
Neris looked at her. “That is your objection?”
“It’s inaccurate.”
Neris put Daniel’s mug on the table. Jaydee noticed. Her eyes moved from the commercial mug to Daniel’s chipped one, then toward the painted courier cup. She looked offended on behalf of ceramics generally.
“Mine is better.”
Lysa changed the listing. Another product, this one was a shirt bearing Neris’s silhouette and the words:
FIRST CONTACT: CANADIAN EDITION
Neris closed her eyes.
The next one was a black and white plush, with a large tail, large eyes, and no muzzle to speak of. Jaydee leaned closer. “That’s cute.”
“That is not me.”
“It could be.”
“It has feet larger than its head.”
Neris looked toward Lysa. “You are enjoying this.”
“I’m observing cultural adaptation.”
“You have become ER.”
From the room terminal came: “I object.”
Neris looked over. “You were listening?”
“Yes. Earth public-response analysis.”
Lysa held up the plush image. “Thoughts?”
ER considered it. “The tail is proportionally inaccurate.”
Neris stared toward the terminal. “You are all impossible.”
Linnea entered carrying breakfast. “What is going on?”
Neris pointed at the display. “Earth has put my face on a cup.”
Linnea looked. Considered. “Poor placement.”
Neris blinked. “What?”
“The portrait is too close to the handle.”
Lysa laughed. Jaydee nodded.
Neris looked around the kitchen. Her family had adjusted to interplanetary first contact with disturbing efficiency. Yesterday Earth had learned that Xianglume was home to more than one sentient species and existed nowhere near the Milky Way. This morning her mother was critiquing souvenir layout. Linnea set breakfast down.
“Eat.”
Claire sent Daniel the phrase extragalactic civilization while he was fixing a barn door. His phone vibrated in his pocket while he held the lower hinge in place and Marcel tried to persuade the door that winter contraction was not a valid reason to become diagonal. He ignored it.
The phone vibrated again. He took it out. Claire had sent a link with the headline:
THE UNIVERSE MAY BE MORE CONNECTED THAN WE THOUGHT
Below it, Claire had written:
Enjoy. Civilization has discovered topology.
Daniel typed back:
Door still sticks.
The reply arrived almost immediately.
Humanity appreciates your priorities.
Daniel put the phone away. Marcel leaned on the door. It shifted, while Daniel adjusted the hinge plate. The barn door had been sticking since before Neris arrived. Probably before Claire’s previous relationship. Possibly before civilization developed topology. Daniel liked problems with visible screws. Across the aisle, Mabel watched. She did nothing., which was suspicious.
Marcel said: “News says there’s more than one kind.”
Daniel looked at him. “What?”
“Alien species.”
“Mephits aren’t aliens there.”
“They’re aliens here.”
“We’re aliens there.”
Marcel considered. “So, lots of them.”
“Looks that way.”
“On the same planet.”
“Yeah.”
Marcel tightened one hinge. “Like Toronto.”
Daniel laughed. “That analogy is going to make Claire furious.”
The door closed, not perfectly but better. Daniel opened it and closed it again.
“Good enough.”
Marcel stepped back. “Universe fixed?”
“Door is.”
“Start small.”
Daniel’s phone rang again. This time it was Marc Beaulieu.
Daniel sighed. Marcel took the wrench from him. “I’ll finish.”
Daniel answered. “Morning.”
“Daniel. Canada and Xianglume have begun preliminary discussions about an eventual intentional physical-contact mission.”
The request felt different from public images, statements and medical questionnaires. This one involved somewhere a ship might actually arrive.
“How eventual?”
“No date exists.”
“Encouragingly bureaucratic.”
“It should be.”
Daniel walked toward the end of the aisle. “What do you need from me?”
“We’re evaluating possible Canadian arrival locations. The original contact site has technical advantages because Xianglume already has detailed environmental and transit data from the event.”
Daniel leaned against the rail. “No.”
“Understood.”
“The farm can provide data. It is not an embassy, landing pad or media stage, and nobody is putting ministers in front of my barn.”
Beaulieu considered the last condition. “I cannot guarantee no minister will ever stand near a barn.”
Daniel looked toward the farmhouse. “Remember that I still own a tractor. What are the other options?”
Beaulieu summarized federal and civilian sites, a remote northern airfield, several defence locations whose symbolism worried the planners and several orbital or high-altitude concepts still waiting on technical feasibility.
“Would you provide environmental information from the original arrival? Conditions, terrain, weather, what you observed?”
Daniel thought. “Yes. Ask Neris for her account too.”
“We will.”
“Then fine.”
Beaulieu hesitated. “There may eventually be a request for a private visit.”
Daniel’s hand tightened slightly on the rail. “Neris?”
“Potentially her, potentially other members of the group.”
Daniel looked toward the farmhouse again: porch, kitchen, the place where first contact had happened before anybody used the term. “That is different. Ask me then.”
They disconnected. Marcel looked over from the door.
“Government?”
“Yeah.”
“Government well?”
Daniel smiled. “Getting ambitious.”
Neris’s first planning session for a deliberate return to Earth began with the sentence:
NO TRANSIT DATE EXISTS.
Neris sat in her parents’ study while Ivara occupied the primary display, ER joined from Takuhai and legal and transit officials filled two smaller panels. The document title read:
EARTH CONTACT MISSION — PRELIMINARY PLANNING FRAMEWORK
Neris read it twice. This was no longer an accident or a return contingency. Someone had written mission.
Her tail moved once behind the chair. Ivara’s eyes flicked toward it before she continued.
“This is planning, not authorization. No physical transit occurs until the route stabilization, transport capability, destination modelling and diplomatic terms are adequate.”
Neris nodded.
“And nobody is leaving tomorrow.”
“I am managing expectations.”
ER said: “Appropriate.”
Neris looked toward his window. “Traitor.”
“I prefer functioning transit systems,” he added.
The transit coordinator brought up a network map. Established Coalition space was dense with characterized routes; Earth sat alone beyond them.
For Neris, the missing pieces were obvious once she saw the map. An ordinary courier route gave her endpoint references, maintained phase geometry and mapped emergence volumes without demanding that she think about them on every flight. Earth had none of that. Takuhai’s accident had pushed it well beyond the established route network, where no such infrastructure and knowledge existed. The first crossing had depended on damaged hardware, Veyra support and an improvised path no one yet understood well enough to call infrastructure.
The increasingly predictable communications link helped characterize the endpoint, but it did not make passenger transit ready. Planned Earthside systems could eventually provide phase reference and receiving stabilization, while fixed Xianglume systems marked and strengthened the other end.
Neris looked at Earth’s isolated marker. “And people?”
The coordinator answered: “Takuhai.”
A vessel still had to carry its own transit envelope through the route. The fixed systems could stabilize the endpoints; Takuhai’s resonator had to protect the ship and everyone aboard it.
“The original resonator is unusable,” the coordinator said.
ER corrected: “Destroyed.”
The coordinator accepted the correction with visible effort.
Neris looked toward ER’s window. “So an Earth Contact Mission means Takuhai goes back.”
“If Takuhai is rebuilt and certified, and if the route is ready.”
ER said: “And if I consent.”
The coordinator stopped. “Yes.”
Ivara looked directly at ER, then at the coordinator. “That should have been said first.”
The meeting moved through the remaining categories: replacement resonator design, navigation and abort conditions, destination airspace and landing, legal authority, security, technology restrictions and medical contingency.
Neris leaned back. “The first trip happened faster.”
ER said: “The first trip was catastrophic. Speed was not a benefit.”
Ivara changed the document.
PROPOSED PERSONNEL FUNCTIONS
The preliminary list covered diplomatic, contact, medical, cultural, technical, legal and security functions. Neris found her own name.
NERIS VAEL — EARTH-EXPERIENCE / CONTACT ADVISER
She looked at Ivara. “Not ambassador.”
“You have been very clear.”
Neris smiled. “What do you expect me to do?”
“Tell us when we are being stupid.”
ER said: “She is qualified.”
Neris ignored him.
Ivara continued. “You know Daniel, Claire, Mara, Marcel and one community. That is useful experience. It is not Earth.”
Neris considered that. “I can tell you what four humans and one town taught me.”
“That is more useful than pretending you know eight billion.”
The personnel list shifted. ER’s name appeared under delegation rather than transport.
ER — CITIZEN PARTICIPANT / TECHNICAL AND CONTACT ADVISER
The legal official explained that the classification remained provisional because several administrative systems treated delegation members, registered vessels, transport assets and artificial citizens as separate categories.
ER’s sensor head tilted. “I am not a transport asset. My body may transport delegation members. That does not make me luggage.”
The official nodded. “Substantively, we agree. The problem is which department owns the form.”
Neris laughed before she could stop herself.
ER turned toward her display. “I would prefer resolution before anyone attempts to classify me under cargo.”
Ivara said: “We are resolving it.”
Somewhere downstairs Neris heard Ormaz. She had a terrible thought and immediately knew exactly how he would try to help.
Kaden’s first Earth-contact segment contained no private information about Neris. His producer disliked that; Kaden did not. The programme asked a harder question instead:
WHY BUILD A ROUTE TO EARTH?
The panel included a retired security official, a medical ethicist, an economics professor and cultural historian Ministry advisor. Their disagreements were substantive. Security questioned the risk of stabilizing a route toward a politically fragmented nuclear civilization. Medical ethics questioned whether distance justified refusing dialogue with billions of people who might benefit from knowledge Xianglume considered ordinary. Economics pointed out that nobody yet knew whether routine traffic was technically possible, much less desirable. The historian reminded them that every mature Coalition route had once connected societies that did not understand one another.
The presenter turned to Kaden. “Neris Vael intends to return.”
“That is her decision.”
“Does that make you more confident about Earth?”
“It makes me confident she has reasons.”
“You will not say what they are.”
“They are not mine to disclose.”
The presenter changed direction. “You have argued against describing Earth as technologically young, but they do not have dimensional transit.”
Kaden shook his head. “And we did not build their radio telescopes, legal systems, music, agriculture or history. Earth is not an earlier draft of Xianglume.”
Across the studio, the historian nodded. Kaden continued. “The question is not whether they are where we were. They were never us.”
The line became a headline before he left the building. Teral sent him a message:
NOW MY EVENT MODERATORS ARE QUOTING YOU.
Kaden replied:
SORRY.
Her answer arrived immediately:
NO YOU AREN’T.
The public release of Daniel’s medical Q&A happened at nine fifteen Eastern time. By nine twenty-eight, Beaulieu regretted enabling comments. Daniel knew because Claire told him while he sat at the kitchen table reading the published version, the maple transceiver quiet beside the secure Canadian device.
The report avoided miracle and alien-cure language and stayed with transmission, removal, enhancement and aging. Daniel had kept one answer Mara disliked:
Unfortunately, my knees say no.
Claire called. “You kept the knee line.”
“Mara says it undermines medical seriousness.”
“It humanizes medical seriousness.”
Daniel cringed. “You sound like a communications consultant.”
Claire laughed. Daniel scrolled to the answer already spreading far beyond the government page.
We do not know. My treatment happened in an emergency using technology nobody on Earth currently understands well enough to reproduce, prescribe, or generalize. People should not make medical decisions based on what happened to me.
Claire was quiet for a moment.
“That one’s everywhere.”
“Yeah.”
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
Claire let the answer pass. Daniel kept scrolling. The final section stated plainly that he had not consented to biological sampling and that medical information would remain limited to what he chose to disclose.
His ordinary email had become unusable, so the Canadian team maintained a screened correspondence channel for people sending medical histories. Most messages never reached Daniel. Some did when reviewers believed he should see them or when the sender asked only that he read.
He had managed three before stopping. Today Beaulieu had flagged another.
Daniel opened it. The photograph showed a child of eight or nine standing outside in a yellow coat. The parents’ message said their daughter had a rare progressive disorder with no effective treatment. They knew Xianglume medicine had saved Daniel from injuries Earth doctors believed would probably have killed him. They were not asking for a promise. They wanted to know whether he could ask.
Daniel read the message twice.
Claire said his name. He had forgotten she was still on the phone. “Daniel.”
“Yeah.”
“What do they want?”
He looked at the child. “Help.”
Claire waited. Daniel closed the message and opened it again. “I can send it to Neris.”
“Can you?”
“Yes.”
“Should you?”
Daniel did not answer. That was the problem. He had a private channel to Neris, and a family with a sick child had discovered it. The chain looked simple only until someone had to decide what ought to travel through it.
Mara arrived twenty minutes later because Daniel called her. She read the message and set the tablet down.
“Do not forward this to Neris yourself.”
Daniel looked at her. “They’re asking for help.”
“I know. But not like this.”
He started to answer. Mara stopped him. “You are not the gatekeeper to Xianglume medicine.”
“Feels like I am.”
“Then we need to fix that feeling before somebody turns it into a job.”
Daniel looked toward the maple transceiver. “They could help people.”
“Maybe. That is exactly why the requests need a system rather than you.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
“Help create the system that answers these requests responsibly.”
“That doesn’t help this kid.”
Mara did not pretend otherwise.
“She’s sick now,” Daniel said.
“I know.”
“And if there’s something there—”
“We don’t know that there is.”
Daniel looked down.
Mara continued. “You know what desperation does. That is why you cannot become the person desperate families have to persuade.”
Emily came back to him with enough force that he had to look away. “What if it were us?”
Mara’s expression changed. “It was.”
“And if someone somewhere had a treatment?”
“You would have wanted it. That still would not make one individual morally responsible for finding it for us.”
Daniel leaned back. The chair creaked. Mara tapped the screen. “This goes to the medical working group.”
“Will they read it?”
“Yes. I’ll make sure it enters the formal review channel.”
Daniel looked at her. “How is that different from me asking Neris?”
“Because I’m using a system designed to handle medical questions, not asking you to leverage the woman you love every time somebody is dying.”
Daniel looked toward the window. Mara continued calmly. “That is what happens if we do this wrong.”
After a while Daniel nodded. “Send it.”
“I will.”
“And tell them I asked.”
“No.”
He looked back at her. Mara folded her hands. “The child deserves evaluation because of the medical question, not because Daniel Mercer felt guilty enough to attach his name.”
Daniel absorbed that in silence, then nodded. “Okay.”
Mara picked up the tablet and began routing the case through the medical working group.
The landing-site discussion on Xianglume lasted six minutes before Neris rejected the first proposal. The transit coordinator displayed:
ORIGINAL EARTH CONTACT SITE — TECHNICALLY PREFERRED FOR INITIAL SURFACE MODEL
“No.”
Ivara looked toward her. “Explain.”
“It is Daniel’s home. Use the environmental data, but the farm is not first-contact infrastructure.”
The coordinator noted that a repeat site could reduce modelling uncertainty.
“Then ask Daniel.”
“Canada already has.”
Neris’s ears flattened. “What did he say?”
Ivara answered: “He declined.”
Neris settled back in her chair and looked at the coordinator.
“You sound disappointed.”
“I am responsible for transit safety.”
“And Daniel is responsible for his property. Those can both be true.”
The official accepted the point and moved to alternatives: remote airfields, federal or civilian research facilities, northern logistics sites and possible orbital transfer concepts.
Neris studied the military options. “A defence facility will read as military contact.”
The security liaison said: “It may also be the safest controlled environment.”
“For whom?”
“Everyone.”
“Maybe.”
Ivara marked the question for review. Neris moved to the proposed delegation size.
“Twenty-three is too many. If that many people arrive together, Earth will call it an invasion even if half of them are accountants.”
ER said: “The accountants may object to that classification.”
Neris smiled.
Ivara changed the heading to maximum public-facing arrival group.
“Smaller,” Neris said.
“Probably.”
“And not visibly armed.”
“Visible security is not currently planned. Remote protective capability may still exist.”
Neris nodded. “Humans will ask about that.”
ER said: “They should.”
The meeting moved on with fewer assumptions than it had started with.
Ormaz waited until dinner. Neris had almost believed she had escaped the subject. Halfway through the meal he said: “ER has an administrative classification problem.”
Neris put down her fork. “You know someone.”