Chapter 50

"That is a given. The video will have to be made here."

"I see. Should be set up a branch office and studio in – what do you call it? – Metropolis? Perhaps there are more possibilities for recording there."

"I am sorry to have to tell you, but the law of Rehome Colony prohibits branches of Earth companies setting up here. That includes offshoots of a company group. It is a measure to encourage the local economy to grow, as you will understand.

There is nothing to stop you buying a share in a local enterprise, but it could not be a majority share. Your other alternative would be to send up a recording crew, produce the video here, then take the completed work back to Earth. The transportation charges between the planets are very minor."

"Thank you for that advice, Mr Defreitas. We will get back to you when we decide which is best for our purposes. Goodbye."

"Helen?" said The Personalia voice.

"Yes?"

"Lofe will be arriving at the planet shortly. We presumed you would like to be involved in the contact procedure, as he greets the stranded Filoyarine."

"Thank you, Personalia. We shall enjoy that experience."

A Landership swooped down from orbit, and swung low over the ocean, coming into view of the island's residents. It slowed down as it approached, and came to rest on a sandy beach. The Filoyarine did not know what to make of it, and just stared.

A side hatch opened, and a ladder deployed down the hull. Out stepped a Filoyarine man.

The residents stopped moving, in shock. This was something they never expected. It became even more awesome, as a loud voice issued from the flying machine, speaking their tongue.

"Filoyarine! This is Lofe, who has come to talk to you about why you are here, and what your options are. You are no longer stranded, but you cannot go home. Lofe will come and talk with you, and answer all your questions."

The locals started talking among themselves, as Lofe walked up the beach and headed to the nearest individuals. He greeted them warmly and they responded in kind. He asked who was in charge, and said that a community meeting would be best to arrange, so that he could talk to everyone. The Landership's cameras watched closely, and were soon joined by cameras on several quadcopters which were hovering silently overhead.

Lofe had his phone clipped to his belt, with the sound on, so that what was said was transmitted back to the ship, and from there to the watchers on Rehome. Once the community had been gathered together, under the shade of a clump of trees, Lofe began.

"People, you and I were sent to the stars under false pretences. We were told we were explorers, but in reality we were colonists. Your ship was designed to fail when you had come within reach of an apparently habitable planet. Your ship segment brought you to land here, seemingly like a lifeboat taking you to land. It was designed to act as a colony ship, which explains why your segment was loaded with all the materials you needed to survive without help.

You will no doubt point bout that you had a beacon rocket, which you sent up to orbit, where it would send back a transmitter to tell our home planet where you were. There were two problems associated with that beacon. One was that all beacons on arrival were shunted to a distant orbit and ignored. The second was that our home planet is now a deserted shell, after a nuclear war between the opposing political factions. There is no-one there to come and rescue you."

As the residents absorbed this terrible news, Lofe told them what was new. "Fortunately, all is not lost. My ship was found, still in stasis, on a planet where another race were establishing a colony. They disengaged the stasis mechanism, and we were able to communicate with two races; one a race of intelligent spaceships, the other a race similar to ourselves, which are called humans. These two races agreed to work with us, and they moved us to an empty planet to have as our new home. They found our home planet, with me aboard, and we discovered the devastation there.

Since that time, we have been hunting for other landed spacecraft sections, and either assisting them to life on the planet where they landed, or if circumstances were bad, offer to relocate them to our new home. The Personalia – the spaceship people – and the humans have ably assisted these efforts.

You now have a similar choice. Do you want to stay here, or join our larger group on another planet, where better genetics are possible?"

The residents started to discuss among themselves what they wanted. Eventually their spokesperson responded to Lofe. "Friend Lofe, we thank you for your report. Let me tell you of our own experience here. We landed, for whatever reason, on another island not very far from here, but it did not have the resources we needed, so we built a boat and brought ourselves to this island, where we could survive.

We did not see anything of the planet during the landing, so apart from line of sight finding of a few more islands in this group, we did not know how far away the main land masses were. We made a few small flying machines to search for land, but none came back. We presume they crashed either in the ocean or on land somewhere, despite being solar powered. We have thus been stuck in this island group for many years, and have almost outgrown our usable land area.

Either there is land out there where we can live and grow, or the land is not suited to our use, in which case we will accept relocation to your planet."

At this point, the Landership contacted Lofe and discussed some matter with him in private. Whatever it was, he looked horrified, and asked the locals a question.

"Please tell me this: did you sterilise your flying machines before you sent them off to find land?"

He got peculiar looks in response, and the spokesman said, puzzled, "No, why would we want to sterilise them? We were already on the planet, so we did not see any rationale for sterilising the machines, not that the subject ever came up."

"I asked the question because of what the Landership – the spacecraft on the beach – has told me. There is indeed a land mass westward of here, with a lot of forest, but they have found it has one peculiarity. That is that there is evidence of abandoned fields in certain locations, and signs of small villages, as well as huts near the fields. All are deserted, and skeletons have been found near the huts. As the skeletons show no evidence of warfare, the conclusion is that they probably were killed by disease. As your exploration machines were not sterilised, there is a possibility that bacteria on your machines spread and killed the natives. It is only a possibility, but we should note it."

The spokesman was suitably distraught, and anxiously asked, "Is there any evidence of survivors, for if so, we would not want to be anywhere around them."

Lofe consulted with the Landership and replied, "To date, there is no evidence of living intelligent beings on the planet, apart from you. It appear therefore too late for any protective measures you might wish to take."

The spokesman said, "So either we abandon the planet in apology and respect for the destroyed native race; or we take it over and make something of it as a memorial to these victims?"

"that is an interesting view of the situation, but I do not think it is so stark a choice. You do not have enough living space on these islands, so either you move to a mainland site, or you leave the planet. You will be very welcome on our new planet, which we have named Filonia, but we do not insist that you move there.

We should inform you that until recently there was a threat from a machine race that was inimical to biological life forms, but thanks to a campaign waged by The Personalia, that threat appears to have been deleted. As there seems to be a substantial asteroid belt in this solar system, The Personalia will be willing to relocate some of their vessels to here, and part of their work in the system would be to offer your planet protection, should any surviving Invader machines appear. The Personalia have a more efficient version of the space drive utilised by our ships, so they can be on the spot very quickly."

Watching on Rehome, Robert was becoming agitated.

"Hey, Helen. Surely this planet was to be OUR colony? This guy is offering it to these aliens!"

"Oh, sorry, Robert. I should have given you some background. The humans and The Personalia have worked on the basis that if you have already established a colony on the planet, it is YOUR planet. So, in this instance, the Filoyarine have got the established colony, and so have the right to the planet, IF they decided to stay."

"Damn! All our work for nothing."

"Who knows, Robert? Our discoveries may make the Filoyarine on the planet more careful in how they deal with other species in future. However, the decision has yet to be made by them. Let's wait and see."

On the planet, they heard the translation of the words of the spokesman. "We need to have a discussion before we give you our answer. Can we have a few hours at least for that? There are some of our personnel out on boats, fishing. They should have a say in this."

At the prompting of the Landership, Lofe replied, "That is acceptable, but the Landership is offering a trip to the mainland for you to view the land there. That may be helpful in your decision."

It was Helen's turn to be surprised. "Isn't there a problem with fuel for the Landership? It hasn't been there long enough to manufacture more fuel!"

The Personalia voice had been listening. "Helen, that was very observant of you. The Landership now on the planet is one of a number we have adapted for longer range. The passenger or cargo space has been much reduced to allow more room for fuel tanks. Our recent experience has taught us that a longer range capability is desirable, so we have converted a few hundred Landerships to this configuration."

Now Helen was disturbed. "Have you informed my husband, Governor Kempe, of this fact?"

"No. That is so. The matter has simply not come up in conversations we have had with him."

"It never struck you that knowledge of such capability might be of help to him in future planning?" Helen was scathing in her comments.

The Personalia voice was suddenly apologetic. "Ooops! Sorry, it did not occur to us, yet there is some logic in what you say. We are remiss in that decision. It is a factor we left out. We shall phone the Governor and inform him of this error on our part."

Back on the new planet, the spokesman accepted the offer, and detailed five of his fellow castaways to go aboard and see the mainland. Lofe told him, "If you say what direction your fishing craft took, we can have our flying machines go and ask them to return. The machines have a speaker built in for such communication."