Chapter 9A: The Mission

Lori led a very subdued Sheba back to her house. I followed her, wondering what my life would be like now that I'd let this young and yet rather bossy lady into it. Lori showed me to an in-home office furnished with a computer monitor rather larger than I would have thought necessary. Before I could comment on this, Lori said, "Sometimes I need to be able to show people things and it is easier with this. Now I'm glad I got it for another reason. I think that it would be a good idea if I see what you're being asked to do."

"You seem sure that I will be accepting the Confederacy's approach," I chided Lori.

"You will," she said, "I could see it in your face."

I pulled out the piece of equipment that looked like a USB drive and said, "Where do I plug this in?"

Lori took it from me and examined it, "That looks like it's made to plug into a USB port so I'll just plug it in here," she suited actions to words and plugged the device into an empty USB port that was on the top of the desk. Almost immediately a scene of an office occupied by Tribune Whitefeather came up on the monitor. He appeared to be aware of me as he said, "Mr. Giovanni, you certainly are prompt about reviewing this information. Our records show that you've only been at Ms. Beeman's place of residence for about an hour and a half."

"What has that to do with me wanting to get on with learning what the Confederacy wants me to do?" I asked.

"It shows that you are able to prioritize your life even when you're in the presence a concubine with baby making on her mind," Tribune Whitefeather said.

"I wouldn't say that..." I laughed a little, "she just seems to be more urgent about it than I remember women being."

The Tribune said, with a short laugh, "It sounds like she'll make a good concubine," then he asked, "I suppose you are wondering what the Confederacy wants from you that they are willing to spend so much time and effort pursuing you?"

"Very much so," I said.

"If you take a look at the contents of this USB drive you'll see a text document that will explain the basics better than I believe I can, since my job is to find unique people to fill unique positions rather than to recruit for unexpected positions."

I searched for what the Tribune had mentioned and found a text document that was titled An Overview of Cross Cultural Contact in the Confederacy. I opened the document, absently noting that it had a hypertext table of contents among other parts. I backed out and looked at the properties of the document. I noticed that while it appeared to the computer that I was using a document on the drive, I could not see an actual size for it and realized that I was seeing a document that wasn't really on the USB drive.

I reentered the document and began reading with the first section. As it was twenty pages of fairly dense legalese. I wondered where I would find someone to interpret it for me. I really knew that I didn't want to skip this part but doubted that I would truly understand it as I slogged my way through it. The gist of the matter seemed to be that I would give lifetime service to the Confederacy in return for their moving me and sundry dependents to a place believed to be at least a hundred years in front of the Sa'arm advance. Since I had very little other than a body that had until a few days ago been on its last legs, I could understand in some ways the advanced races of the Confederacy seeking to bind me to their service. What I really couldn't understand was what the Confederacy races gained. I made a note on the document reminding me to ask why the Confederacy needed humans. Even with the fact that they seemed largely unwilling to face such a concept as war, it seemed to me that they could possibly have made semi-intelligent machines to take the war to the Sa'arm rather than to have recruited humanity with all of its warts.

I was somewhat surprised to have this question answered by receiving a message on the computer screen. The Confederacy races had essentially entirely bred any aggression out of themselves. They had also apparently suffered at least one time under the less restrained rule of AIs that had done more than ensure the peace. Even with only a few of my speculations addressed, I started in on reading about the core mission that I would be doing if I decided to accept a lifetime of service to entities that seemed to have lost their will to defend themselves; a life which seemed like it could be rather longer than I suspected some people who had volunteered realized ... I wondered if the lack of will among the Confederacy races was the result of AI enforced peace; I also wondered if the AIs had been subtly manipulating the genome of their charges to first eliminate war and then even competition and conflict.

Having finished reading the AI's answers to my questions, I began to read what their rescue of me and the sundry others that I chose would obligate me to do. I began to suspect at this point that all priorities in the Confederacy were set by the AI community. It seemed that I was to approach certain of the Confederacy worlds that were the furthest from the core of the nearly moribund civilization in an attempt by them to secure more advantageous access to some of the exotic goods that had evidently filtered through the 'hands' of the Darjee. This led me to believe that the Confederacy wouldn't really consider humans to be full members of their league for a long time. Indeed the manner in which I was being approached caused me to think of a series of novels I'd once read about how primitive races were uplifted by races that were further along the evolutionary scale except that in those novels there was more conflict among the advanced races. I made a note in the document to ask for clarification of my status within the Confederacy. This note wasn't immediately answered ... Therefore I continued to read. From what I could understand it appeared to me that there might be small fissures among the races which were presented to us as a monolithic whole. I was tasked to carry samples of intoxicants, art and plant life; these would go to the races that were sponsoring my mission. I called up a schematic of the James Cook and made a note to ask how I was to carry these items if I was also to amass a harem and staff the ship. This note was answered by Tribune Whitefeather as he identified himself when he wrote the answer that I was also being assigned a single trader class vessel that would be crewed by members of the Fleet Auxiliary.