Chapter 4: Contact

Trat's command module managed to climb out of its hole just 3 days after the birth of the colony. Moving closer to the earthling birthing camp made surveillance possible.

Trat had no protocol to follow based on the situation he found there. The entire population of Golan was effectively in military and medical quarantine. His command module was not equipped to fight. His ship was not supplied with enough equipment for himself and the infants to remain hidden.

The plan called for the population to accept the babies as their own. When they grew up, they would be introduced, one at a time, to Trat and the command module. Their people would be reborn as a subset of the sentient population of Earth.

Trat was forced to improvise. Contact was necessary.

Making initial contact was easy. Simply walking to the gate of the facility assured him a meeting with the camps leadership.

A simple conference room served as the actual first contact room. It was virtually empty aside from the table, chairs and white boards. Everyone in the room came as they were for this extraordinary event. The base commander was in his exercise clothes and exuded the musk of someone recently exerting himself.

Trat got straight to the point. He described everything openly and completely to the best of his knowledge. He was a specialist, as all members of advanced civilizations tend to be. He did not know how the spaceships worked. He could not point at his star. He could not tell those in the room why his planet was a volcanic mess.

Trat did know that his people were peaceful. He did know that his ship and his person were devoid of microorganisms that might be problematic for the Earth ecosystem. He assured them that the seeds planted in the women and girls were the last seeds of their kind within several hundred light years.

The 36 Golan in the intensive care unit may very well be the last of the Golan species. They were a large enough population with enough diversity to survive, but it would be many generations before they would see substantial population growth.

The command module was rich with data useful to the earth. Certain materials in the command module would prove revolutionary to the modern world.

Within a week of first contact, Trat had a framework for the future.

A colony would be established in Montana, near the town the Golan were first introduced to humanity. Technology trade would provide the capital to build the Golan settlement. The United States would even grant rights similar to the Native American tribes to the Golan. Official treaties would bind the US and Golan to specific conduct.

Trat did not think of himself as a world builder or an ambassador. It was simply his job to keep the species alive despite the death of his home world and the unfortunate accident on route to Earth. The Golan had found a new home.

The Golan had found a stable planet with a stable civilization. Would evolution change them or would they change the world?