Chapter 14: Requests Turn Into Demands

After a very satisfactory breakfast, both for the contact team and the chef who had them autograph their order chits, they returned to the ship to be faced with an ultimatum from the visitors demanding that the ‘requests’ were fulfilled to the letter.

“As I see it you are not going to get every request fulfilled completely,” said Huw, “we may refuse some of them at least partially.”

“But you didn’t, hence our presence here,” said Hln, “You do not understand the technology needed to resolve these matters. We needed to apply powerful magic which is somewhat unpredictable.”

“We went through that paradox thoroughly once already,” interjected Huw, “We did not do it in your future. If we do it now the future will be different and you might not have come back to us. Heaven alone knows what that implies. All this gets us nowhere but, please, stop treating us as pre-industrial revolution ignoramuses. We have atomic power. We have spaceships. Men have walked on the moon. Even now remotely controlled vehicles are on their way to Mars. We and you do not use magic, though it might appear that magic is involved in my communicating from inside a Faraday Cage to the building outside, we both know that all that is needed is a length of wire. If you were to persist in these demands we could easily destroy this ship albeit very reluctantly. Keep the present image on the screen as a communications channel and let’s get back to business.”

‘It was Huw who finally asked the question which had been intriguing him for some time. The realisation had started the first time they met the visitors, when they had fallen silent and stood quite immobile for several minutes while he sorted out the language problem with William. There were all sorts of other little things he had noticed as well and they finally added up. It wasn’t odd that the visitors could communicate with others in the ship without Huw and Bronwen hearing what was said, and it was inconceivable that they were receiving communications with anyone in the future from which they came.

“How many real humans are on board? You are clearly simulacra of some kind,” he said, “I don’t know whether you are physical objects or merely well manipulated screen images, but you are certainly not real flesh and blood.”

“Indeed master, we are not of blood and bone as ye be. None in this ship is fashioned as a man; all are made by rude mechanicals, smiths and joiners and the like. We are but emissaries of our masters who made us,” replied Hln.

“So why are there two of you?” asked Bronwen.

“It was thought meet and right that for two of ye there be two of us. If that be not needful I can be one.”

With that the image of Hry apparently walked out of the room next door.

“That be more easy for me to control, if that be acceptable to thee,” said Hln.

“What do you really look like?” asked Huw.

“I am but strings and sinews, and pieces of rock and wood and metal, master. It was thought that ye would be affeered if a machine spoke words the like of a man. That ye would believe the Devil himself had come among ye.”

“For the umpteenth time, you are in the twenty-first century. Superstition has gone. We have computers and jet engines and atomic power. When we threatened to destroy this ship we meant it, at least that we are capable of it,” snapped Huw.

Bronwen laid one hand on his arm and spoke softly to Hln, “He is tired and angry. It is difficult to talk with you since our language has changed some of its meanings and you don’t seem to have the necessary words for many modern concepts. When we say ‘destroy this ship’, let me explain. First, what is an atom?”

“It be the tiniest part of a thing, so tiny that it cannot be seen by human eye. Why ask you?” said Hln.

“When we say ‘destroy’ we mean that we set the atoms of a bomb to break apart into even tinier things and thus make a greater explosion than any that gunpowder can cause.”

Hln was rigid and silent for fully a minute, then it said, “I have perused the scrolls of your time and this be not within the power of your alchemists.”

Bronwen lost her temper at this, “If we put eight kilograms of enriched uranium together quickly just outside this spaceship would that convince you? A kilogram is one fiftieth of my body weight. Uranium is the element number 92 in the periodic table. The isotope enrichment increases the proportion of isotope Uranium 238 to Uranium 235. Now tell me we cannot do it. And if we are so primitive how is it that we detected you and could communicate with you as you came in, and with our base from here?”

There was another lengthy silence and then Hln replied, “But thou wilt not do it because thou didst not do it. History tells me so.”

“We went through that paradox thoroughly once already,” interjected Huw, “We did not do it in your future. If we do it now the future will be different and you might not have come back to us. Heaven alone knows what that implies. All this gets us nowhere but, please, stop treating us as pre-industrial revolution ignoramuses. We have atomic power. We have spaceships. Men have walked on the moon. Even now men are preparing to go to Mars. Keep the present image on the screen as a communications channel and let’s get back to business.”

“The language was set when we first set sail on the trip, which has taken hundreds of subjective years for those undertaking it.”

“That explains the language error. But why have you come here? What has justified the vast amount of resources it cost to build that thing and send it into your past?”

“There are only a few thousand humans left in the future, and they are too valuable to risk on the trip. And we thought, that is our masters thought, that if the gene pool were widened it would help.”

Huw thought for some moments and then said, “Here is what we will recommend to our superiors, who are all politicians and don’t care about you or the future beyond the next election. In order of your demands, first you ask for ‘Fifty or more live females, to be transported in frozen hibernation;’ – perhaps a few volunteers will be allowed to go, certainly less than ten. Second you asked for ‘Hundreds of human ova, also frozen;’ perhaps some but well under a hundred. Third you want ‘Thousands of samples of human semen from different males, also frozen;’ there I see no great problem and the same with your final request for ‘Many ova and much semen from a variety of animals used as food by humans’.” This response was, of course, not made public but was notified secretly to Angel One, but got no reaction, save that William said that they were to come out of the ship and go to London for what he described as “consultations” with Angel One.