CHAPTER 11 – GETTING TO KNOW EACH OTHER
13:46 (Universal Time)
Tuesday, December 25, 2317
Command bridge of the A.M.S. KOSTROMA
Low orbit around ERIS
‘’KOSTROMA, this is Stennis: the VEON SHOURIA is now completely free of ice and my digging teams are in the process of pulling out of the site, over.’’
Tina, sitting in her command chair, replied herself to that message.
‘’Understood! Advise us once your teams are at a safe distance from the basin.’’
‘’Will do! Stennis out!’’
Tina then concentrated on the view of the VEON SHOURIA on one of her screens. Three days of intensive work by Jake Stennis’ digging crews had hollowed a basin in the methane ice with a diameter of nearly 500 meters and a depth of 550 meters. The Koorivar ship now rested in the open at the bottom of that basin, standing on its five landing legs. Six minutes later, just after Stennis had reported that all his workers and their equipment were back in their shuttles and on the way back to the KOSTROMA, Tina saw the Koorivar ship starting to slowly rise from the basin, probably under some sort of anti-gravity propulsion. She watched, fascinated, as the alien ship emerged above the surface ice of Eris, then moved sideways equally slowly, finally landing back on its skids on the methane ice surface. Less than a minute later, she heard on her opened radio channel the slightly high pitch voice of Shanya, the central computer of the VEON SHOURIA, speaking in its now more than decent English.
‘’Thank you, KOSTROMA, in the name of the Koorivars.’’
Spirit, the KOSTROMA’s central computer, replied to that in the Koorivar language, with the English equivalent being scribbled simultaneously on Tina’s viewer. Then came a message from the VEON SHOURIA that Tina had been hoping for since she had withdrawn from the alien ship.
‘’Captain Forster, Captain Shanandar would like you to meet him aboard his ship, at your convenience. You may bring up to three companions with you if you wish so.’’
Tina hurried to answer at once.
‘’VEON SHOURIA, this is Captain Forster. I am pleased to accept the invitation of Captain Shanandar. I will be at the foot of your ship with three companions in approximately one Earth hour. Thank you again for your invitation. KOSTROMA out!’’
As soon as she closed the channel, Tina thought about who would accompany her and with what. It took her less than a minute to take a decision and switch her intercom on.
‘’Attention, please! This is the Captain speaking! I want Jim Lowell, Doctor Maria Perez and Doctor Steven Barrie to report immediately to the command bridge conference room. I say again: Jim Lowell, Doctor Maria Perez and Doctor Steven Barrie are to report immediately to the command bridge conference room. Thank you!’’
Next, she called the head of her agronomy department, Janus Kadar.
‘’Janus, this is Tina. You remember the list of vegetal products we checked for possible compatibility with the Koorivars’ biochemistry?’’
‘’Yes, I do! We also checked out a few dairy products as well.’’
‘’Then, I want you to prepare samples of all those products, as well as of the food items we produce on the ship out of those products. Measure enough of those products and items for multiple sampling and analysis. Make it quick: I will be getting them in about half an hour.’’
‘’Holy! Then, I better get on it right away!’’
‘’Thanks, Janus!’’
Tina then got out of her command chair, heading towards the small conference room of the bridge complex.
15:03 (Universal Time)
At the surface of Eris, near the VEON SHOURIA
Tina’s small group stepped out of the shuttle that had brought them close to one of the landing legs of the Koorivar ship, carrying two large storage boxes full of foodstuff samples. The armored door of what seemed to be an access tube integrated into the landing leg and skid then opened as they heard a radio message in English in their spacesuit helmets.
‘’Please enter our access airlock with your companions, Captain Forster.’’
‘’Thank you!’’ Replied Tina before starting to walk towards the open door, followed by the three others. Climbing the ramp leading to the door, she entered a fairly large compartment that would have been large enough for twelve humans in spacesuits. As soon as the whole group was in, an airtight door on the inside closed and the noise of hissing air filling the compartment started to be heard. Pressurizing the compartment took about twenty seconds, with an inside door opening afterwards, revealing what looked like an elevator cabin. The group of humans could not help step back in surprise on seeing a suited alien figure inside the elevator cabin. The Koorivar, who stood about 155 centimeters without his spacesuit, bowed to them and spoke on the radio in his language, with his ship’s computer translating at once.
‘’Welcome on the VEON SHOURIA. I am Kooroo. Captain Shanandar sent me to guide you to him. Please step inside the elevator cabin.’’
‘’Thank you, Kooroo.’’ Said Tina before entering the cabin, imitated by her companions, who put down their two storage boxes. She waited until the door of the cabin had closed and that they had started moving up before speaking again.
‘’Kooroo, may I present my friends, from left to right: Doctor Steven Barrie, Jim Lowell and Doctor Maria Perez.’’
The Koorivar eyed all four of them with intense curiosity, evidently noting the difference in body shapes between the two men and two women.
‘’You have both male and female friends with you, right? We did have such male/female differentiated species on Shouria, but we are ourselves what you would call hermaphrodites, I believe.’’
‘’Me and Maria Perez are indeed females, while Jim Lowell and Steven Barrie are males.’’
‘’And what did you bring in those two crates, if I may ask, Captain Forster?’’
‘’We brought with us samples of the various vegetal foodstuff we have on our ship, so that you could test them for compatibility with the Koorivar digestive system.’’
Tina thought that she saw then a sudden spark of interest in the purple eyes of Kooroo, who made what she believe to be a smile with his small, deer-like mouth.
‘’An excellent initiative indeed, Captain Forster. Aren’t you going to unseal your spacesuits now? I assure you that our atmosphere is completely compatible with your breathing needs.’’
‘’If you don’t mind, we prefer to keep our suits sealed until we are both reassured that we are not going to contaminate you and your ship.’’
‘’An understandable precaution, Captain. Ah, here we are!’’
The cabin now stopped, its door slid open, revealing a long, wide corridor lit by red overhead lamps.
‘’Please follow me!’’ Said Kooroo before stepping out of the cabin and starting to walk down the corridor while removing his spacesuit’s helmet. His gait was strange indeed in the eyes of the four humans, his two thick, muscular legs reminding them of chicken legs, but with an extra joint. While definitely alien in aspect, the Koorivar could be said to look cute in a way, the way a human would find a young deer or kangaroo cute. The Koorivar in fact reminded Tina of a kangaroo with a deer head, but with no tail and with different, much thicker legs and arms. It had no fur, its pale brown skin being smooth and bare under its spacesuit, and its long snout, with a narrow mouth under it, sported what looked like a vestigial short horn at its tip. Slight bulges in the torso of Kooroo’s spacesuit showed the presence of a pair of breasts, something Tina had seen previously on the anatomical charts inside the alien ship’s infirmary. Breasts would be logical for hermaphrodites, on top of both male and female genitalia, since all the members of that species could procreate and have to feed infants. The knowledge about breasts with the Koorivars had pushed Tina in thinking that maybe they could eat and digest some of the dairy products produced on the KOSTROMA, which was the reason she had asked Janus Kadar to include dairy products in the samples.
Following Kooroo while carrying their two storage boxes, the four humans were finally invited by him to enter a room on the left side of the corridor, close to the central core. They found themselves in a large, nearly empty room whose only furniture was a ‘U’ shape arrangement of twenty seats. The seats itself were strange, looking like chairs placed backward and with computer terminals and screens attached to their high backs. Tina’s eyes however hooked at once on the six Koorivars waiting in the room, each one behind a chair. They wore a sort of loose fitting blue coveralls and wide, soft sole boots. One of the Koorivars, whose coverall sported more white braid than the others, then spoke in his language with a high pitch voice, with the ship’s computer translating at once.
‘’Welcome on the VEON SHOURIA, Captain Forster. I am Shanandar, captain of this ship. I must say that your KOSTROMA makes for an impressive sight indeed.’’
‘’Thank you, Captain Shanandar. However, your ship’s interstellar trip is even more impressive.’’
Shanandar bowed to that compliment, then looked at Kooroo.
‘’You may return to your duties, Kooroo.’’
‘’Yes, Captain!’’ Replied Kooroo before turning around and leaving the room. Once the door was closed behind him, Tania pointed her companions to Shanandar.
‘’May I present you my ship’s medical doctor, Doctor Maria Perez, my second engineer, Jim Lowell, and one of our top astronomers, Doctor Steven Barrie.’’
Shanandar and the five other Koorivars bowed after that, with Shanandar returning the favor.
‘’And here are Krennek, my ship’s navigator, Shoumak, my chief engineer, Shirani, our head planetologist, Kazmiriel, our ship’s healer, and Shourazan, our head bio-chemist. Before we go further, I must thank you and your crew for delivering us from our icy tomb. Without your visit and your subsequent digging work, we would have been probably condemned to stay in cold sleep for many more centuries, until our isotopic batteries would have run out. Then, we would have all died, and with us would have died one of the last hopes of our species.’’
‘’To save your ship and crew brought us great pride and joy, Captain Shanandar. As you may have seen from our history, which you were able to view, we may be a violent race at times, but we are also capable of much compassion and kindness.’’
Tina thanked at that moment the fact that they had to pause to let the ship’s computer, Shanya, translate both sides of the conversation, something that let her ample time to think before speaking. Shanandar bowed again.
‘’Your honesty and openness are certainly reassuring to us, Captain Forster. I must say that we were at first nervous to face carnivorous beings, especially after seeing the way you raise animals and then eat them. On Shouria, we had all but wiped out carnivorous predators, so that our people could go around in peace.’’
That made Tina smile.
‘’I certainly can understand your point of view, Captain Shanandar. While on the subject of food, we brought with us samples of all the types of vegetal and dairy foodstuff that can be found on our ship, so that your specialists could analyze them and confirm if they would be edible or not for your people.’’
She didn’t miss the fact that all the Koorivars immediately looked at the boxes with apparent intense interest. Maybe their food situation was bad and they were short on rations. That was a very real possibility, since a 301 year-long trip in space would put to the ultimate test the shelf life of any type of preserved foodstuff. The next question from Shanandar only reinforced that supposition.
‘’Do you have much reserves of those vegetal foodstuff on your ship, Captain Forster?’’
‘’We in fact grow our own food on our ship and have enough surplus to be able to sell part of it at our various stops. We also happen to have come to Eris to establish a scientific research station and we brought substantial extra food reserves to stock that station. Even for my ship, which is considered very fast and long range by human standards, the return trip between Jupiter and Eris takes close to one Earth year, so that station needs to have enough food reserves for two years. Are you in immediate need of some food?’’
Tina, anxious to see if Shanandar would be frank with her or would try to hide his difficulties because of pride, was reassured to see him answer in a straightforward way.
‘’We in fact are facing a cruel problem right now, Captain Foster. When we woke up, we initially used a synthesized liquid nutrient formula to regain our strength in the first hours. Then, we opened our ready reserves of solid food, only to find that they have all turned bad during our long trip among the stars. Further checks showed us to our despair that all of our food reserves, including the seeds from Shouria that we intended to use to plant new crops once we had found a new home, have gone bad and are unfit for consumption. I am afraid that, if your own foodstuff is found to be incompatible with our digestive systems, then we will be condemned to starve to death.’’
Tina, like her three companions, was left speechless and horrified by that declaration.
‘’But…but, there must be something that can be done to prevent that. Surely, some of our foodstuff will prove to be edible by Koorivars.’’
Shanandar saw the emotion in her response and nodded his head somberly.
‘’We hope so as well. Shourazan, Kazmiriel, you will need to work fast from now on. Bring those food samples to our bio-chemistry laboratory and start analyzing them at once.’’
Maria Perez, who had been even more shaken by Shanandar’s confession than Tina had been, then took a quick decision.
‘’Then I will stay and help your people test our samples.’’
Tina, like Jim Lowell and Steven Barrie, looked at her with surprise and misgiving.
‘’But…you will run out of air for your spacesuit in about twenty hours, Maria. You can’t remove your spacesuit here until we are sure that you won’t contaminate the Koorivars with some human disease.’’
‘’Then, I will have Minnie, my assistant, replace me in fifteen hours. Time is of the essence now and extra helping hands are needed here.’’
What appeared furiously like tears ran down the faces of Shanandar and of the other five Koorivars present.
‘’You were not lying when you said that your race was capable of compassion and kindness, Captain Forster. We will be most happy to accept the help of your doctor and to host her. Kazmiriel, you will take Doctor Perez with you to the laboratory.’’
‘’At once, Captain!’’
They all watched as the two Koorivars and Maria Perez walked out, carrying the two boxes of food samples. Shanandar then pointed the ‘chairs’ nearest Tina and her two companions.
‘’Please, have a seat: we have much to discuss together.’’
Shanandar then sat himself, advancing with his legs spread until he straddled one of the chairs’ horizontal bench, lowering his posterior on the bench and leaning his chest on the front vertical padded support, with his two arms straddling the vertical support and now being in position to use the computer terminal attached to the vertical support. The three humans imitated him and actually found the benches quite comfortable. Shanandar addressed Tina again, with Shanya continuing to translate.
‘’Now that the most urgent matter has been taken care of, let us talk about the future, Captain Foster. Your information sent to us showed that, apart from going through a fratricidal war recently, your race’s original planet is grossly overpopulated, heavily polluted and depleted of much of its original natural resources. In these conditions, what are the chances that your race will be able to offer us some viable living space? Before you answer that, please know that, contrary to you, the Koorivars are mostly a sedentary people and did not travel or live in space to the extent you humans do. While we certainly had the technology to easily travel within our solar system, we made a conscious choice to cling to firm ground and thus built only minimal space installations and ships. You could in fact say that you are truly space veterans compared to us. Your own KOSTROMA, while not having an interstellar drive, is a very impressive ship by Koorivar standards. You also seem to have some types of technologies in which you are superior to us.’’
‘’In which technologies, if I may ask?’’
‘’In weapons, for starters.’’ Replied Shanandar with a meaning smile. ‘’Your so-called ‘gravity sails’ are also way superior to our own short range anti-gravity fields in terms of secondary propulsion system. Our computer technology, while different, seems to be about on par with yours in terms of capability. Where we Koorivars particularly shine by contrast is in bio-chemistry and what you would call the decorative and creative arts. While you humans seems to be very good at working in space, we Koorivars fancy ourselves to be artists first and foremost. Our nature is mostly pacifist, probably due to the fact that we don’t eat meat and never had to hunt other species. The time and resources you expended to make war during your own history, we used to develop our social and artistic skills. So, what could your race offer to a community of artists and farmers?’’
‘’To be frank, that would rightly be a decision to be taken by my politicians, Captain Shanandar. I however can tell you that, while much of Earth is indeed overpopulated and polluted, some areas managed to avoid those problems, through more careful local management and long term policies. There are still intact territories large enough for a few tens of thousands of people that are available on Earth, notably in a number of natural wild life reserves and parks. I myself periodically go take vacations in such a park area on the west coast of what we call North America, which is the best preserved continent on Earth by far. There are dense forests there, with long ocean coastlines and plenty of wild life. I am sure that you would love it.’’
‘’I would indeed like to visit it, Captain Forster.’’
‘’Please, call me simply Tina.’’ She replied with a gentle smile. Shanandar made a smile of his own and nodded his head.
‘’Very well, Tina. And what would your politicians ask of us in return for giving us a place to live?’’
‘’That is something that only they could decide, Shanandar. Hopefully, they will ask for nothing in return save for your friendship. I myself would find that more than sufficient. Just the cultural exchanges between us would stimulate greatly our own social growth and, with luck, make us a less violent race. Please understand that the question about whether other intelligent beings existed in the Universe has been one that has resulted in many heated debates during our history. Now that we have found you, that debate could possibly now turn to a more positive one, by shutting up the demagogues who were claiming that we were some kind of special exception created by God.’’
‘’Ah yes, this religion business.’’ Said Shirani, the Koorivar planetologist, in a guarded tone. ‘’We once cultivated such kinds of beliefs, thousands of years ago, but we thankfully outgrew them once we realized how tiny a part of the Universe we were.’’
‘’Many of us have also outgrown those beliefs, Shirani. Unfortunately, some still push those beliefs, targeting in particular the least educated and the more naive of our people, with the goal of influencing them and gaining power on them.’’
The Koorivar chief engineer, Shoumak, then jumped in the conversation.
‘’Tina, you have sent us much data about your history, your bio-chemistry and the structure of your society, but you have given us little hard data on your own ship and its various systems, save for its general characteristics and performance.’’
‘’To which I could reply that you did yourself tell us little about your ship, my dear Shoumak.’’ Replied Tina without hesitation but in a polite tone. That seemed to amuse Shanandar, who looked at Shoumak while speaking to Tina.
‘’Please excuse my chief engineer, Tina: he tends to be more suspicious than me on many things. It must be a professional deformation on his part. However, he was correct in saying that you didn’t say much specifically about your ship. For one, you didn’t tell us if you have any weapons on your ship, yet your recent history mentions your KOSTROMA as having taken part in the hostilities during your last war.’’
‘’Touché!’’ Said Tina, electing to stay honest with the Koorivar. ‘’At the time, I deemed those details as superfluous: finding ways to help you was a more pressing matter. To answer you: yes, we have weapons on our ship. In fact, despite being officially an ultra heavy cargo ship, the KOSTROMA is presently rated as the most powerful warship in this solar system. We destroyed dozens of enemy warships in combat before peace could be reestablished. Be assured however that we have nothing but peaceful intentions towards you.’’
Her direct answer threw a bit of a chill on the conversation, as she had expected but, in her mind, lying would have been worse in the long run. Her gamble seemingly paid off, with Shanandar bowing to her.
‘’Honesty is a quality we admire most, Tina. Let us talk openly to each other, then. I can tell you now that our ship’s main propulsion system is based on the release of energy from the mutual destruction of matter and anti-matter.’’
Jim Lowell’s face lit up at those words.
‘’I suspected so! Only an anti-matter rocket engine would have the power to propel a ship up to a notable fraction of the speed of light, short of some kind of system that would distort space and time. But manufacturing this much anti-matter must have been a huge industrial undertaking for you, no?’’
‘’Not really, Mister Lowell.’’ Replied Shoumak. ‘’We produced our anti-matter as we went.’’
That pronouncement left Tina, Jim Lowell and Steven Barrie speechless for a moment. Lowell finally got over his stupor and nearly shouted his next question.
‘’But, how could you do that? We need huge particle accelerators and fabulous quantities of electrical energy just to produce a few milligrams of anti-matter.’’
Shoumak nodded at that.
‘’Your data showed that much to us. However, know that we have developed a technique to transmute matter into anti-matter, using little energy and only very compact equipment. Our ship is fuelled by lead pellets, with pellets melted and heated into vapors. Half of those vapors is then converted into anti-matter and injected into a rocket exhaust chamber, along with an equal amount of normal lead vapor. The reaction between the two types of vapors then liberate massive amounts of energy that is funneled out through our main rocket nozzle, propelling our ship.’’
‘’But…but, that’s fantastic! This could revolutionize our whole space travel industry and make space travel much cheaper.’’ Exclaimed Lowell.
‘’But it also could cause our utter destruction.’’ Replied Tina somberly, her face grave. As Lowell and Barrie looked at her with confusion, she spoke in a gloomy voice.
‘’Imagine what some on Earth would do with such a technique to easily produce anti-matter at will. It would take no time before someone produced weapons and bombs with that technology, weapons and bombs that could blow to pieces whole asteroids and carve huge craters where our subsurface space cities are. Do you think that men like President Mobutu of the African Federation, or Marshal Khan, would have hesitated to use anti-matter weapons against the Spacers League, or against the Northern Alliance? I don’t think that they would wait one second and there are plenty of men like them left on Earth…and around the Solar System.’’
Lowell and Barrie were unable to reply to that, mostly because they realized at once that she was right. On his part, Shanandar got up from his bench and clapped his hands together, obviously imitating human applause.
‘’I see that I judged you right, Captain Forster. You are indeed a good, honest and forward-looking person whom we Koorivars can fully trust. You would be one of the first persons to benefit from using our anti-matter technology, yet saw at once its potential dangers if put in the wrong hands. So, what would you counsel us to do with that technology?’’
‘’It belongs solely to the Koorivars by right, Shanandar, and no human should order you to give it away. If I would be you, I would destroy your anti-matter engine and erase all the computer files concerning it, to avoid its misuse.’’
‘’And how would we then bring our ship to your Earth afterwards?’’ Asked Shoumak, as Lowell and Barrie gave Tina stunned, outraged looks. Very conscious of the kind of trouble this could put her in, Tina ignored the looks from her two companions and answered the Koorivar engineer.
‘’Simple: my ship would take you in tow and bring you to Earth. The KOSTROMA can tow a mass of up to twenty million tons behind its stern and could easily handle your ship. It could even enter vertically the atmosphere of Earth and gently put down your ship on the spot of your choice.’’
‘’But, you don’t have the right to take such a decision by yourself, Captain!’’ Objected Steven Barrie. ‘’This anti-matter drive could open to us the road to the stars.’’
‘’And would you argue that we should acquire it by all means, including outright theft, Doctor Barrie?’’ Shot back Tina, hardening her tone. As an heated verbal exchange started between Tina and the astronomer, with Jim Lowell watching from the side, unsure what to say, Shanandar spoke to Shoumak in the Koorivar language.
‘’Shanya, do not translate my next words to Shoumak. Shoumak, go at once to the engine room. You know what you have to do now.’’
‘’I understand, Captain. I’m on it!’’
Shortly after Shoumak had left the room, Maria Perez entered it, attracted by the increasingly harsh words she was hearing on her radio. Having heard the whole exchange from the human side, she already knew the reason for the dispute and charged Steven Barrie, patting rather roughly the left shoulder of his spacesuit.
‘’How the hell do you dare talk like this to our captain?’’
‘’How do I dare? I dare because she is going to throw away a chance for Humanity to make a tremendous step forward in science and in space exploration. That is not her decision to take. That’s a decision that belongs to our political leaders and to the leaders of the scientific community.’’
‘’Wrong! That’s a decision that belongs to the Koorivar, and to no one else. Did you even listen to her arguments, or are you so completely blinded by the possibilities of that technology that you are ready to forget all that happened only two years ago? Are you advocating that we take that technology by force?’’
Only then did Barrie seem to remember that there were Koorivars present, listening. He gave them a side look and kept for himself the words he had in his throat. As for Jim Lowell, while the engineer in him screamed of holding on to the anti-matter technology at all cost, the man in him started to understand the point of view of Tina. Shanandar looked gravely at the four humans present in front of him.
‘’Captain Forster was certainly right about the ownership of our anti-matter drive technology: it is ours to decide, and ours alone. She is also right about another important thing, in that the preservation of peace is more important than boundless technological progress. That is a lesson that we Koorivars learned during our millenniums of history. You would do well to remember that, Doctor Barrie.’’
The astronomer reddened with anger at that rebuke but didn’t reply to it. Judging that her group better leave now before the controversy blew up again, Tina got up from her bench and bowed to Shanandar.
‘’I believe that me and my people better return to the KOSTROMA now and let you analyze those food samples with the help of Doctor Perez, Captain. Permission to leave your ship.’’
‘’Permission granted, Captain Forster. Thank you again for all that you did for us. We will advise you by radio as soon as we have the results of our sample analysis. Krennek will guide you back to your shuttle.’’
Tina left after a last bow, following the Koorivar navigator and with Lowell and Barrie in tow. On her part, Maria Perez nodded her head to Shanandar and left to return to the bio-chemistry lab.
Two hundred meters below, in the main machinery room, Shoumak, helped by his assistant engineer, finished disconnecting the matter conversion chamber and its molecular inverter tubes, then carried it into another compartment used to effect major repairs. Fixing the seventy kilo piece of equipment to a work bench with the help of a vise grip, Shoumak grabbed next a plasma torch and lit it up. A few repeated passes were enough to transform the conversion chamber and inverter tubes into pieces of molten slag. Gathering all the spare parts related to the anti-matter drive, he also melted them down, then erased all the computer files documenting the drive and its governing