“Colleagues....I do not like this!
The fascist ambience is accablant! I have never in my life....” Vendredi,
sometimes the teacher riding herd on her classroom of siblings, rushed to
quiet the oblivious Mondidi.
“Shush, Mondidi! It would pay to
behave ourselves considering the story we have to tell them. Complaining
will only alienate them!”
Ralph, Avril and Hanquong were
taken into a large conference room after they entered an enormous
trapezoidal edifice. The security staff here obviously had remote sensors,
because none of the party was physically searched before proceeding past the
reception area, where the troupe was left, under guard, to wait for their
own interrogation. The cockpit crew themselves were facing twenty rather
tight-looking military types who all stared as they were ushered in by what
looked like either sergeants or lieutenants of the most rigid demeanor.
Captain Jordan Draper, director of
the base, was a little less stiff than those around him. It was he that
Ralph had communicated with over the comm link on the shuttle. He, however,
cast a very dubious eye at Hanquong who, though humanoid, did indeed look
quite different from an ordinary Earther. His appearance, in fact, was
causing quite a commotion in the room as the majority of eyes in it
appraised him disapprovingly. Even Draper dripped acid when finally breaking
the ice with the three.
“Which one of the humans of you is
Ralph Krimson....?” Ralph winced just the tiniest bit at the phraseology.
“I am, sir. And who may I ask do I
have the pleasure of...”
“Captain Jordan Draper, ECF Land
Forces and Moonspace Reconnaissance. I’m the person you talked to
up....there.” He pointed upward, feebly, all the while eyeing Hanquong,
whose strange appearance almost made it allowable. He continued.
“When you mentioned
extraterrestrials, I assume you meant the illustrious third among you, am I
correct? What is...it’s name...?”
“He’s not an ‘it’, Captain...he’s a
he! Just like you and me. Hanquong here and I have developed quite a close
relationship over the years....”
“Excuse me. That’s ‘Hong Kong’,
like the ancient far eastern city....?”
“No...‘Hahn-kuwong’. He hails from
a planet in the Betelgeuse system. Um...does this culture keep
astronomical records going back a millennia...?”
“Then you might remember reading
about a rift opening in the northwestern, early autumn sky west of the
constellation Draco back in 2657....”
“Why yes, it’s still there, as a
matter of fact.”
“Well, before the appearance of
that fissure, there was a flare-up of a quasar. It would be recorded as
astronomical neo-entity 560, near the constellation of Orion. At that time,
and I know you’re going to find this hard to believe, I was on a colonizing
mission for the apparently now-defunct UFN, comprising the establishment of
bases on both Titan and Iapetus in Saturnspace. After the completion of that
mission, the combined effect of those two celestial aberrations threatened
to nearly destroy the gas giant planets of our system....”
“That would be the Great
Disruption. When was this...precisely?”
“Twenty six fifty seven point
eight. Right after the Great Robotic Advance in the UFN. The bases were
established as Nova Terra I and II. I assume they were probably destroyed by
what you call the Great Disruption. Aside from the expulsed raw power
of the two anomalies, there was the molecular suction of the rift and the
undertow of the magnetic attraction of the quasar, both of which served to
pull me at hyperlight speeds toward Orion and into the orbit of one of the
planets of the Betelgeuse system and there I stayed in the company of
Hanquong and his colleagues for roughly twenty years, Earthtime. I admit
freely that this is a far-fetched story, but every grain of it is the truth,
I swear! The clones were originally part of the Titan colony, but through
similar circumstances, ended up in the same system, but on a different
planet, lush, but uninhabited. Again...the truth.”
“That, Mr. Krimson, is a fantastic
tale! Do you seriously expect us to believe you?”
“You can check old IMO records, if
they’re microfiched. Or you can ask any one of the clones...or better yet,
the living proof right on front of you...ask Hanquong!”
“Mr. Krimson...you must know, as
every living creature in this solar system knows, that the Earth, the mother
planet, has been at war with the Mars colonies your precious UFN started
for, oh, the last 400 years....”
“No, honestly, I didn’t! The
fourteen of us just completed a 225 year voyage from....” Draper cut him
off, dripping more acid.
“...From a star system 500 to 650
light years away, and we all know there were no hyperlight vessels in the
UFN fleet! Come on, Mr. Krimson...who do you work for? Guerropolis Prime,
New Guerropolis or Venus’ Refuge....?”
“‘Venus’ Refuge’?! Captain Draper,
whether you believe it or not, neither I nor my friends outside have been in
this solar system for more than a thousand years. I have no idea where or
what Venus’ Refuge is!" Draper looked as if he were starting to give
Krimson and company the benefit of the doubt. Some of the acid had
disappeared from his voice.
“Those are the colonies on the
other side of Mars, Mr. Krimson. Here, let me introduce you to Dr. Potovar
and Major Hagendorf, our base psychiatrist and security overseer here. We
have devices, harmless to humans, I hasten to add, that will unequivocally
get to the bottom of this! Gentlemen....?”
With that, the two yeoman-types
that brought the expatriates in ushered them to another room, this one
filled with elegant-looking, but nonetheless ominous-appearing devices,
made, presumably, for the purpose of extracting the truth better than any
strength of sodium pentothal ever could. The other eleven were thrown in
with them.
“Assassins!! Assassins!! Go ahead
and do your worst! You’ll get naught out of me! The mollusks of Mauritania
will be as lubricious sailors by comparison!” Ralph winced. Mondidi could
cook it for all of them if she didn’t shut up immediately! Fevrier tried
everything he could to quiet her down, and it eventually worked, though she
still muttered on unintelligibly.
After they were brought into the
room, two men in white, presumably testers or lab technicians, burst in and
made a beeline for Hanquong. Preliminary tests to make sure he survives an
inculcation designed exclusively with humans in mind, perhaps? Even Ralph
was not sure how compatible his physiognomy was to human conditions. His
constitution, if it followed his inborn athletic superiority symmetrically,
would definitely be stronger than most humans’, but what about the mass of
the Earth as opposed to Sonsuang. What about the lesser ozone in the
atmosphere. In the twenty years he was there, Ralph had never determined,
much less even been interested in, whether the elevated ozone in Sonsuang’s
atmosphere was actually crucial to life there, specifically the humanoid
life. Nonetheless, Ralph didn’t object when his “stepfather” was tested by
these pillars of rectitude for the reason that anyone who could live under
that profusion of ozone on Sonsuang had to be indestructible! Mondidi was
another case altogether. She squirmed and fought like a child visiting a
20th century dentist for the first time to have a firmly anchored tooth
pulled. Invoking every noble quote from all the “righteous rebellion” roles
she, her sisters or the Garçons ever played, she carried on like a street
brawler resisting police intervention. Charlotte Corday, Jean Valjean,
Hamlet, Robin Hood, Joan of Arc, Ruth, Deborah...she finally ended her
tirade definitively with a blurted and wide-eyed “Give me liberty, or give
me liberty!”
To no avail. She was probed with
the others, and, to everybody’s amazement, was released with the others with
a clean bill of health. She was, however, the only one applauded as she left
the room, defiantly, under guard.
It spoke volumes for the spirit of
the privately valiant.
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