Chapter 32

A week after the meeting a very excited radio astronomer reported that he had found intelligent extraterrestrial life. When other astronomers corroborated his findings the headlines got very large. Government types were very quick to comment as well as some carefully selected 'man on the street' types.

Hysteria was narrowly averted. Digital pictures were sent from space and humanity relaxed for the beings looked very much like them. It took a full month before the source could be triangulated, the red shift taken into account and finally the speed and direction of the emanations to be calculated accurately. Word hit the street that the ship was only a small three person vehicle. It would be arriving in a bit less than a hundred days.

The response was carefully choreographed ahead of time and again there was a near miss in the hysteria department. As the days passed more information came in picture format. Mathematics, the universal language was explained in base twelve which any intelligent race would use. By the time all but a week had passed, observers spotted a long flare of energetic gases. No race would use this as a means of propulsion between the stars but it made the people happy to see that the ship was even too small to be visible.

As a precaution some months ago members of my family and I changed our looks. I went on television just after the discovery of the radio waves as a noted mathematician. I explained what was being said in the messages. This had started in the week the message was first detected and the complex mathematical formulae reached us. By the time the ship arrived I was a very well known figure. Beside me were Sandra, Megan and Marina. Each had been drastically changed and presented some facts not covered in mathematics but other information transferred from the ship. They too had been introduced as experts in their respective fields. As part of their persona they acted like good mothers at every opportunity.

The ship was actually a very small boat. It was only fifteen metres long. It circled the Earth many times while sending down digital and analogue messages in the Seffra language. A drone had sent all the data and the girls had only been in the boat for a few hours.

Responses were given in a great variety of languages. Those on board started to learn the languages supposedly from television and radio signals. The voices coming out of Earth radios was distinctly childlike. Those onboard made many gaffs but this endeared them even more to those on Earth.

Sweden was eventually chosen for the landing site by those on board the small ship. This brought most of the world against this choice. Most people wanted their country to host the reception of the first extraterrestrial life officially seen on Earth. Sweden though gave its approval and after three more days the ship came to land like a meteor for some neighbouring countries were not happy with the arrangement.

All of Sweden's air force was ready to protect the ship when it got into their airspace. It landed not at a military base as the authorities intended but at a commercial airport in Stockholm. With no tanks or guns the small boat opened up and three small figures got out. The ramp closed after a minute and the ship accelerated back into space.

I raced to the landing site but I didn't want to be first. Beside me were the much changed Sandra, Megan and Marina for the children were all their first born.

The three girls played their act very well with the fright and the broken Swedish. When things began to get out of hand the mothers moved in and the girls clung to them. It was shown that the women were providing succour for the girls and acting as a sort of temporary mother. After that the girls clung to these mothers and it would now be seen by all the viewers on television that this was the way it should be. It was a good portrayal of Earth mothers helping slightly alien girls in a traumatic situation.

Quarantine was not needed for the girls had laughed at the backward health conditions on the planet and what their instruments were capable of doing to assist them.

The army moved in but since the television cameras were there first and they couldn't pull any heavy handed manoeuvres. The mothers acted as strangers and asked leading questions. This was all within their act as experts in their fields. Not all the questions related to secrets but to common things that endeared the girls to humanity. The answers were caught on television and broadcasted to the world.

The three women happened to speak broken Swedish but also other languages much better. It was quickly found that the girls could speak in these languages too. Marina spoke in Russian, Sandra in English and Megan spoke French. Now there were more people to hear with their own ears the words spoken in their own language. I knew if there were any trouble a mob of mothers would come to protect the girls from anybody thinking of hurting them.

A few selected government ministers had been coached on what to do in this situation. They took the girls in their cars with the helpful women away to be interrogated but in a nicer way than they normally would.

The next four weeks were very stressful to all of us. Most of the people doing the questioning were not in the loop and just tried to get as much information as possible. The girls refused to help if the kind Human women were not with them. The girls came across as much less educated. We hoped that Humans would not expect young girls to know everything about their technology.

I came to them, on camera, and asked many more leading questions. Some were aimed at the politicians that wanted to separate the girls or the girls from their 'caregivers'. They told of what it was like on a Seffra ship. This went on for a long time for the Seffra had to be explained as kind and benevolent to backward civilisations.

They mentioned that as children they were supposed to do their own projects to further their education. Recently they left the main ship in the boat to check a small nearby system. A Suma fleet had come upon the mother ship and it had to flee for its life. The girls decided to do the same thing but in the other direction because the Suma would do a search as they usually did. The girls stated that they flew through a stellar corona to obliterate their trail. This would still frighten many Humans. They mentioned that it was months after that they had come on Earth and the kind people here.

The Suma were further explained the next day along with some of the races the girls had heard of. They pleaded fatigue after their talks and soon their quite reminiscing were a very popular subject. Many people would comment after and talk about how this might affect Earth and Humans.

I talked to them about mathematics and in doing so we educated the Humans into multidimensional math that was unlike anything they had known before. On many subjects the girls only claimed a partial recollection and on occasion one could fill in for the other. This made it look like they were actively cooperating with the Earth authorities.

There was a lot of pressure on the Swedes to separate the girls or to bring in new women so they could be interrogate more thoroughly. The Swedes in power knew about us and refused, though it cost them quite a bit in diplomatic currency.

Sandra, Megan and Marina didn't look their usual selves. This helped a considerable amount for they also didn't look like the girls either. Their fictitious history was flogged to the world and people were selected to talk about them. Their history also was used to justify their current position as protectors of the girls.

The girls brought with them some sacks which were quickly taken from them. They only contained clothing and some powered holograms showing pictures taken from Borin's memories of my life on Soldoy. More images of the Seffra and how they posed as friends with various races they had come across.

The tales of the AI were given with the description of the Seffra. This time the AIs were going to all be treated as living creatures. Computers were only explained in broad terms and very little could be learned from the girls' memories about the actual construction. Young and pretty girls were not supposed to be able to see into more than three dimensions anyway.

Humans were becoming casual with the 'alien' girls and could not see a threat from them. Religious leaders weren't in this group and used the excuse of the girls' arrival to strengthen their hold on the uneducated. Perhaps they could improve on the state of their coffers at the girls' expense. A great many educated and sympathetic people shot these leaders' arguments down. There were still a great many people that would espouse what these men of the cloth said for they had no other suitable figure to follow and it was much too hard to think for themselves.

Governments asked to see the ship that the girls had arrived in but Amanda said, "That's not allowed." I played the Devil's Advocate and asked why. She replied, "It is against our laws to give out something that could be used for war. Our people though will eventually find us and we will need the boat to let them know that we are here."

This alone made the governments think twice about doing something hasty with the girls' safety involved. An angry parent in a powerful ship of a very advanced race was not something they wanted to see.

When the situation was milked for all it could, Borin showed up at the airport instantly one morning. She had landed in an unused spot and just became visible. Tom and Margaret had changed their looks and both came out of the ship speaking perfect Swedish. They were taken by an informed and quick thinking government agent to where the girls were held.

There was a heartfelt reunion that was caught on worldwide television. Tom and Margaret played their roles to the hilt. The girls were not their daughters but that of the captain which had not been mentioned before. Margaret mentioned that one of the Suma ships had found a way to cut them off. A short battle had ensued and this Suma ship had been destroyed. This showed that the Seffra were not as toothless as the girls made them out to be.

We were all free to travel now. We went to many dinners where my wives and I played straight men so that one of the others could say something that was needed. The rest of the group on the moon were watching just like the Humans. On occasion a good idea came our way and we played it. Different countries were now visited and the girls made an effort to pretend that they were pleasantly amused by Human ingenuity.

The state visits lasted for thirty nine days. The last day Tom took his wife and the girls away to a very formal reception attended by only the most highly placed dignitaries. My wives and I had long been expelled for we had done our job. Besides some presidents, kings or prime ministers needed our chairs at these affairs.

Tom stood and gave his speech and promised to give the Humans some gifts. The question was asked about what it was and he told them of our reactors for electrical power, an energy storage unit and the machine to remove nuclear and chemical waste. There was a lot of clapping and Tom bowed. It was his due for he had already made the parts and they were presently in lunar orbit ready for delivery. He even said that he would set up some equipment up on the moon to make what was necessary.

The world got back to normal or nearly so for the next month. A receiver given to the Earth brought news of the arrival of the first four of our ships of the Borin class. Clearance was soon given and the ships descended to present the gifts to the people of Earth.

One brought a reactor while two others shared a load. This was one of our small fabricators. It was especially designed for its speed. Its size alone required two ships and six contra gravity units for transport. The last ship brought a long string of empty ceramic containers that would be used for nuclear and chemical disposal. The containers stayed in orbit till needed.

The reactor was just set down in northern Mexico. This was the country that agreed to first take our gifts and to show the world what we could accomplish. Their oil monopoly was state owned and had less power to stop the government but only just. Pressure was put on in other sectors but we purposely went quickly to produce the equivalent of a fait accompli.

One of the ships started to plow up the desert sand and gravel with its tractors. The other two ships put the fabricator down and then worked to get the two portions put together. An army of Human engineers, government official and equipment operators had been waiting for three days in the desolate area that we had picked.

A movable conveyor belt designed for open pit mining was already in place. It was constructed by humans hands for this project. Sand, gravel and loose rock were loaded onto it by trucks and large excavators driven by men. All this was used to feed the long belt and our fabricator.

Out came long grey billets of especially formulated ceramic material in the correct proportions for this particular job. The machine was starved for raw materials most of the time. The system would eventually get better with practice.

After twenty four hours we had a very large pile of processed billets and other large containers of dross. One contained mainly aluminum but did contain iron, some light metals and even some gold. Others contained pure elements that could be useful for other purposes. There was a large amount of calcium produced for we could not use all that we found. This and the other metals were sold with an aim of encouraging a more educated Mexican society.

All this was basically a test on many levels. This material was all pulled away for a large ceramic pod came to us carried under one of our ships. It was full of radioactive waste. Another field went up around this container and everything including the pod went into the fabricator. People were around with all sorts of test equipment but soon the readings dropped to very near zero. A much smaller container of very radioactive materials was nearby and in a protective field of its own. This happened to be a stasis field and kept the material from heating and reacting for there was enough to make a sizable nuclear explosion.

More empty pods were dragged from orbit and placed were they could get filled. This was just the testing phase for Humans would have to bring other cargos to our reprocessing stations. The moon was openly used now to make it appear that we had set up a small site on the back surface to make the ceramic containers and other things destined for Earth.

Tests were now made by Humans on all of our processed products. The stasis box though was not opened for obvious reasons. The rest of the material had much less than the normal background radiation present since Humans started exploding nuclear weapons.

Smaller billets were given for testing both before and after the nuclear material was added. The Human scientists could find no differences and neither could we.

Forty three containers in all were processed in the next few days. Thirty eight of them were from Europe, Russia, China, Pakistan and India. In the future they would have to carry their own waste to the fabricators stationed on their soil. Not all of the waste was nuclear for chemicals were also brought including some very contaminated soil. In every case nothing but clean products emerged.

Some valuable metals were extracted and these were sold on the open market. The money raised continued to go to various charities dealing with educating the poor.

Everything we had done would still disrupt commerce. The companies that specialised in destroying or removing contaminated soils would now disappear after doing the last of their work. Oil companies would have less markets but would last much longer before their reserves ran out. The power generating companies and the automotive companies though would be big losers.

Cars would still be made but now they would be much simpler to manufacture and there was less ways for the manufacturing companies to hide their profits from the tax man. Oil burning electrical plants as well as coal and nuclear would have to be phased out but we would have to fill the gap with a commitment to provide power for now and until Humans found their own way of generating cheap energy.

This would mean that a great many people would be laid off while the industry reintegrates itself. Short of managing the world economy there was little we could do beyond make-work projects to take up some of the unemployed.

Television cameras were on this project all the time and interviews had to be given. On occasion I had to give them. All of my comments had to be coached from the mathematical point of view for I was not listed as an engineer. Statistical research though was a valid avenue to pursue.

The operation in Mexico was turned over to the youngsters for this simple operation was well within their capabilities.

In two weeks an odd vehicle was landed near this site. When the reactor was put into position long lines of ceramic material were layed out with precision along the path to each of the step down units. The majority of the time there was little in our way and the machine took off with an additional load of ceramic in its belly. It would pick up the ceramic as it travelled to replace the ceramic taken internally. This was processed into energy conduit with a small energy shield projector every metre of its length.

We used a small engine here but it didn't operate on any Newtonian Physics. There were no reactive gases or treads to pull the machine forward. It did lay the ceramic at seventy three kilometres an hour in the rocky soil. After two hours the speed was increased to a hundred and thirteen kilometres an hour.

The next day three more units arrived and began to work. Soon we had most of northern Mexico covered in our grid. Conversion units were put close to existing high voltage lines now and the lines connected between the two.

When eight such connections were made Tom and Margaret came back and pushed the switch in front of a great many dignitaries. The real control for all of these units was put into Human hands for they would be the ones using the power. We made it as idiot proof as possible as well as sabotage proof as we could.

More reactors had to be delivered and these too had to be connected to their own step down units.

The children on Earth began making special accumulators and the conversion units to produce simple electricity or vice versa. The reverse used the mains to feed the accumulator in the first place. These were all produced on two small fabricator units. Everything of a technological nature was safely hidden within the unit. Almost six thousand accumulator and conversion units were produced in an hour. These went sold to car companies that had already been experimenting on similar units.

With these tasks well in hand I left the system to test more of my engines. These tests had to be quick for a tentative engine had already been chosen. This time I took Ronny with us as well as Raisa. In a weeks time I flew back with the children continuing with what I had started.

They felt good to be intrusted with this responsibility and I was happy to get their assistance. The tests were scheduled to last almost a full cycle but the two didn't mind the challenge. They were much like what I was at their age.

Others had to go to the remaining areas of the world to negotiate the placement of the reactors and the fabricators that would help clean the planet. The wives of Tom and his son usually did this even if some countries were averse to dealing with a women especially ones that were very beautiful. Vested interests were still opposed to what we were offering and fought us with all their power.

Our manpower shortage was now very acutely felt. I wanted to complete the lattice framework to mount the shield generators on the ship and to complete the temporal/inertial commentator hookup. The former could be handled by automated equipment but would take up a great deal of our machinery and computer time. The latter though consisted of a goodly amount of grunt work that could not be fully automated. One day if we were to build enough ships the investment in a specialised machine of this purpose would be worthwhile.

To get around our manpower shortage would require some of us to go on another recruitment drive. The government of Mexico and then the Mexican newspapers had been told of our quest. It was kept as low key as possible but no matter how we said we could cure diseases and allow the aged to work many more productive years we would get swamped. The new people would have to be trained and all this took from our available supply of help.

Mexico was a test in many ways and the world governments were watching very carefully what we were doing. Not only was it the electrification but all of our dealings with the humans. We were also showing the world how we expected things to work for any obstruction was investigated and the person or group questioned by their own superiors.

Our morals and culture suited both the Seffra and us but sadly would not be readily accepted the very parochial Humans. Those recruits allowed to come to us would have to be assimilated in small numbers until they all understood our position and embraced our culture. The secret of our existence was out but not a great deal was known of the way we interacted socially.

A possible alternative to our recruiting would be to have the Humans themselves choose people that fit our criteria. Their age and physical condition would not matter much as long as we could get them alive into our tanks. This would predispose the governments to give us their old men and women that had done them favours in the past. Others would be old soldiers that had many years of following the orders of their Human superiors. Either was not acceptable for they would still harbour a great deal of misplaced loyalty. Reprogramming them was much easier but abhorrent to us.

My wives had spent some of their emotions and a lot of their thoughts on this subject too. They wanted to recruit children that were either too sickly to survive or perhaps already antisocial in nature. Our recruiters would just pick from this limited number to see how well we could do. The Humans would rid themselves of those that would be unproductive and cost a great deal to keep. Logic though was not a thing that humans always followed.

In two weeks the project in Mexico was nearing completion and we had already began to move toward the northern border. The Mexican authorities had assisted in finding those they wished to be rid of before we left. We had long talks to explain our position and to keep public opinion on our side. Governments could not survive if the electorate got a disjointed view of what was happening.

Facilities had to be built by us to process all the people and this meant many medical tanks and simple stasis chambers were constructed. Computers and other infrastructure had to be constructed not only for training but to perform many of the mundane tasks necessary to care for a great number of people.

Marina and the rest of us seen on television changed so we could now work as Seffra. She visited a large children's hospital to start her day. Here there were a great many sick children and almost all of them were desperate for a cure to their afflictions. There were many forms of cancer in the first section and most of the children showed the effects of radiation or chemical treatment. Other children had acute forms of diabetes but these were usually at home. Sexually transmitted diseases were also present and in these cases the state usually had custody of the children. Parents wanting assistance had to come to the hospital so their children could be assessed.