Chapter 1

12 Earth years — 7.2 Ellan years before the year N

"The High Council of Ella is in session now!" Called the secretary. "The Highest Counselor, Madam E'eliana presiding."

The twelve counselors waited for the High Counselor to sit before they took their places behind a table arranged in half-a-circle. Madam E'eliana, a strikingly beautiful woman sat in the middle and the other councilors on her left and right. The council was composed of 13 women all dressed in similar dark, richly decorated robes that hided their bodies and hair leaving only their faces uncovered. The only robe with spark of bright colors belonged to council president. Behind the counselors toiled a flurry of minions, all women clad in similar but much simpler robes. In the middle of the semi-circle facing the counselors stood a tall woman flanked by two other females, all dressed in silver robes tailored like uniforms with insignias on shoulders and sleeves.

"Captain M'naui, please partake with the counselors the news from your scouting expedition."

"As you commands, High Counselor." M'naui gesticulated in the direction of one of the clerks and a spherical three dimensional projection materialized between the counselors and the uniformed women.

"Our mission, counselors is to explore the neighbor star systems on the recently developed FTL scouts."

"FTL?" mused one of the counselors.

"Sorry, Madam. This is technical lingo. It stands for "faster-than-light" and allows us to make a round trip that I am about to describe in a little under two years. Without it we would take more than two hundred years even at the limit of light speed, which is not practical within our life-spans." She drank a glass of water before proceeding. "Ten of our three-women scout ships were assigned to a small star system near the outer spiral of the Galaxy." She pointed at the projection where the Ella system was and its relative position to the targeted system.

"We were interested in this system—we call it T02—because we knew that it would harbor planets and probably life, as there was quite a lot of regular—as opposed to random—radio activity reaching Ella for quite a long time, with the source pinpointed to T02."

"Why weren't we informed?" Asked one of the counselors.

The captain shrugged. "Sorry counselor, it is outside my knowledge and responsibility."

"She is right," interjected Madam E'eliana, "I decided to inform only the counselors which are controlling or involved in scientific projects. Please continue, captain."

"Arriving at the T02 it became evident that all radio activity was originated from the third planet and possibly its single moon." The projection changed from a star model to actual pictures. The captain started to tick the points illustrated by the photographs.

"There's a large intelligent population on the third planet, counting in billions." A photo of a blue planet was followed by space-craft. "They have an extensive technical development—in some ways far superior to ours—but they don't have FTL drives. They explore their moon, an asteroid belt between their two giant gas planets and some of outer moons of the system. They have a large traffic of spacecraft propelled by some kind of engines that baffled us. It looks like they throw away a concentrated fuel at high speeds which makes the spacecraft move in the opposite direction."

She paused for a moment. "Before we arrive to the real reason for this meeting, I have to worn you, counselors that some of the images will greatly disturb you. They passed through Madam E'eliana censorship and I have her authorization to show you. As far as we can tell, after one year of continuous observation and mainly after we were able to decode their moving image transmissions, the inhabitants of this world that they call "Earth" are very close to Ella norm." A picture of a human female clad in an Arabic chador was projected. "They call themselves 'humans' and are on average a little shorter than Ellans due to their higher gravity. But, there're several very important differences." She stretched the words for larger impact. "This civilization relies for reproduction on the ancient animal form of mating two different species: women, very similar to us, and..." she paused for emphasis, a picture was projected, " ... and men." The picture, probably taken from a body-building competition showed a huge man with bulging muscles, clad only in a very tiny slip which did nothing to hide his large manly appendage.

There was a collective gasp from the counselors and two of them run to the adjoining toilet facility to retch their insides out. M'naui politely waited for the women to return and proceeded. "As you know, in ancient times, thousands of years ago we had this horrendous species on Ella, as well. But our great prophet A'anna—may she reside at the right hand of the Almighty—taught us how to get rid of those beasts and how to reproduce without their nauseating violation of our bodies."

She called for more pictures which started to change in an increasingly quicker sequence while she talked. "The woman clad in respectable clothes is an exception. We are looking at a civilization which could be ours if not for saint A'anna—may she reside at the right hand of the Almighty—women being dominated by men, violated and forced to exhibit their bodies in auctions..." A picture of a beauty pageant with a dozen women clad only in string bikinis provoked another collective gasp from the audience.

"And now look at what those beasts do to themselves and to their womenfolk." War scenes followed war scenes, one explicit bloody scene worse than another. Rapes followed kung-fu kind of fighting and culminated in a hanging scene of a naked woman. All those pictures were taken from human movies—but the retching Ellans couldn't know that it was fiction. Even if they knew it, it wouldn't make the smallest difference to their final decision—a civilization which could even dream on those images was not fit to live.

"Let's call our scouts out and forget this wretched star system!" bellowed one of the counselors. Madam E'eliana's powerful voice raised above the babble. Thank you, captain. Please wait until we vote your orders." Addressing the clerks she ordered, "all clerks, with the exception of Madam secretary, out. We will call if we need you." She waited until the counselors were alone in the big room, with the exception of the secretary and the captain—her two companions having left with the clerks—and rose.

"Simply recalling our scouts and leaving them by won't do. This is a warlike civilization and highly inventive. We have no warranty that in ten or a hundred years they will spread to Ella system bringing with them their nauseating civilization and their weapons. We have no weapons to oppose them. We don't know how to battle since we get rid of those vermin. Our whole culture is based on beauty and women love of women and organic science which powers our scouts. Those beasts developed a mechanical civilization with weapons of mass destruction and they have no moral restriction to use them on themselves—so you can imagine what they would do to us." She paused for a while. The image of the hanging naked woman with her hands tied behind her back and her tongue hanging grotesquely from between her lips lingered in front of the counselors.

"I vote to exterminate them." Madam E'eliana's voice was firm.

"How do we do it?" objected one of the lesser counselors from the left extreme of the table, another very beautiful woman clearly much younger. Differently from the regal beauty of classical features of Madam E'eliana, the counselor face was cute and tomboyish. But her steel-grey eyes left no doubt that she was a fighter.

"Our scientists calculated that if we send three of our scouts at the same time to materialize inside their sun, the resulting interference will trigger a chain reaction which will force the sun into a nova in more or less six of our years—ten of their planet years. I already decided for it and to be sure of the results, ordered four of the scouts to do it at the same time—one more than the calculation, just to be on the sure side. The remaining six scouts will return one every year to report on progress until the last one will jump at the very edge of the star turning nova."

There was a smatter of applause from most of the counselors. The same one who asked how they would do it, asked again: "What about the crew of the four scouts?"

Madam E'eliana already marked that counselor as troublemaker—she was young, on her first tenure as counselor and should be watched—raised a hand. "They are more than happy to give their lives for the safety of Ella."

"Did they volunteer?" Insisted the counselor.

E'eliana was getting annoyed, "As a matter of fact, they were chosen by lot. Madam V'vida, are you questioning my actions?"

The younger woman wasn't cowed by the council president. In their violence-free society every daily aspect of their lives was governed by strict rules and everybody abided to them, so she was perfectly within the rules to question the president. After all, the council was there exactly to supervise Ella government. It is true that during Madam E'eliana presidency the council was acting more as rubber-stamp for E'eliana decisions, but the young counselor had her own ambitions.

"Of course, Madam President, as is my duty to this Council and to Ella, I'm respectfully inquiring into actions that will result into the loss of lives of our citizens."

E'eliana gulped her rage. The young brat was competent and courageous, something rare in the sheep-like council—she definitely should be watched. "The scouts were drawn by lot, but from each crew of three, a volunteer will remain to make the jump. The remaining eight pilots will be distributed in the six scouts that will return every year. There's enough place for additional two people on board of each craft, so the eight pilots will be easily accommodated."

"So, we are scarifying four Ellans to insure that our civilization will not be threatened?"

"Yes."

"What about the women at that planet? Shouldn't we try to save them?"

"And how do you propose to do it? And even if we could, they are corrupted by cohabitating with the vermin to such an extension that their simple presence here would put our society in danger.

"Well, I agree with that but before I vote for the extinction of that sentient race, did we analyze all the aspects of the problem? What about the worst-worst scenario. Let's say that we are unable to destruct the system, they discover our attempt and come for revenge. Isn't this scenario extremely threatening?"

"The youngest of our counselors has been reading too many fantasy stories," dismissed the High Counselor and without bothering to answer, called for votes.

V'vida was not yet defeated. "Madam President probably is overlooking the fact that I'm the head of Science Department of this government, and as such required to present before the council all the facts before the council is required to vote."

'Oh, shit', thought the High Counselor but without missing a bat she replied, "oh, yes. I do recall swearing you in a couple of weeks ago. Do you think that you have enough knowledge already to present to this noble council?"

"As a matter of fact, yes." She turned to the captain and asked sweetly, "How courageous of you, Captain to land on that beasts' planet to bring us this nauseating record of their every-day life."

The captain was confused. "But madam counselor, I never told you those are live scenes. Those scenes are taken from their moving pictures transmissions. They are made for their entertainment." There was a smatter of whispers coming from the counselors. Sensing that she in some way hurt the High Counselor presentation, the young captain concluded lamely, "but the beast showing his body and the women auction is from real events, as some of the other scenes..."

"Thank you captain," interrupted V'vida. "Counselors, the fact that this race is able to think that those horrors are entertainment is as terrible or probably even worst than the real thing. I'm not arguing against their destruction, I'm simply asking if we can do it safely enough."

E'eliana pounced on the opportunity. "Well, you should answer it, Madam Head of the Science Department."

V'vida refused to be on the defensive. "I simply don't know. The nova calculations are correct and with safety margin. It took us more than 50 years to develop and make usable the FTL organic drive, I can't see how this race could develop it in the short time they will have between detection of the unusual solar activity and it turning nova. If they try to flee their star system on their slow mechanical engines, than it is already too late, they will be blasted by the explosion before they are out of their sun expansion limit."

She paused for a while. "But I do wish that we had more time to analyze all the aspects of it." V'vida was happy. She called attention to herself, made her point and made the old witch explain a little of her actions. She didn't really care for the women in the scouts and even less for the vermin on the doomed planet, but she did care very much on her carrier within the council. She was young but on the raise. She already had the ear of one of the younger counselors, possibly two. The voting on the council precluded surprises. Madam E'eliana voted only on two occasions. When the vote was tied, or when the vote was going against her wishes. She had three votes, so to defeat her it was necessary for 8 or more counselors to vote against. For the time being it was impossible, but V'vida would bet on the future.