11th February 2001 (68:9:19)
— Contact plus 05.05.08:13.45
Idly watching everyone scramble about last-second preparations, Beth hugged her cup of tea to herself, ducked against the chill wind, struggling to force herself awake. She could seriously have used a nap.
Ever since the shuttle arrived in orbit, and they'd interpreted the flashing lights as a request to land, there'd been a crazed rush of discussions and negotiations and preparations, most of which Beth was only even vaguely aware of. There'd been some talking in Oxford, and then their small British/Irish delegation had hopped over to Paris, where there'd been some more talking with various people pulled from western and northern Europe. Beth had been in the room, since she was technically a head of state and all, but she didn't participate, or even really pay attention all that much — lots of speculation about how the meeting would go, some international politics stuff, most of the latter far over her head. A bit after sunrise, their somewhat pared-down group had taken a portkey to Iceland, and then a second portkey to somewhere on the southern shore of Greenland, and then a third portkey to Québec (as in the city), from where they could take a gate to New York City. Beth was pretty sure they could have gone straight from Paris to New York with a single portkey, but she guessed breaking the trip up was easier on the muggles, especially the ones who were a bit up there in years.
They weren't the only people arriving, a bunch of important people from all over the world come over to plan their little welcoming committee. Beth was only vaguely aware of the discussions going on. There was some suspicion about what exactly the aliens' intentions were, so it was agreed it would be better to pick a relatively isolated location for the landing, so if something went wrong civilians were less likely to get killed. Of course, that was kind of admitting it might be dangerous, so some countries were wary of hosting it, but at the same time, if it went well they'd basically be making first contact with an advanced alien society, which was a big deal, so some people wanted to host it for that reason — or, on the other hand, didn't want countries they didn't like to get the honour themselves. It was agreed pretty quickly that neither the Soviets nor the Americans should host it — both superpowers conceding that point gracefully, with the caveat that they'd both have representatives present and provide security for the event, which was fair enough — but that still left literally everywhere else to choose from.
Those talks Beth mostly missed, because she was occupied with the discussion of who would be there. It was decided pretty quickly that their frontman, the person who'd be directly meeting whoever the alien representative was and beginning talks, would be the Secretary-General himself, Yuri João Alves de Conceição — he was basically the highest-ranking diplomat Earth had, so that made sense. It helped that he was from a neutral (if vaguely socialist-leaning) country, and was reasonably well-liked by all the important players, so. Beth didn't pay that much attention to politics, she was only vaguely familiar with him because he came up in the news now and then. And, of course, Beth had been chosen to do the 'translating', as much as that was going to be possible. That decision also made sense — she was the most 'important' omniglot in the world, so — but making sense didn't make it any less vaguely irritating. There was some more talking about who the other people there would be, going around in circles, Beth didn't really pay that much attention, didn't seem important for her to know.
She'd had a brief conversation with the Secretary-General there in New York — mostly introducing himself and double-checking that she could behave herself in this kind of situation, she guessed. (They had been in the same room at the same time before, but they'd never spoken.) Yuri João, as he'd insisted she call him after she insisted he didn't need to use her silly titles and shite — both names, like they were supposed to be hyphenated — seemed like a nice enough bloke, if very, you know, stiff and dignified-like. Not a big surprise, really, being a career diplomat and all...
At some point while the talks were ongoing in New York, the sun rose — that would be sunrise number two.
While Beth was having...lunch? breakfast? Whichever meal it should count as by that point, she guessed. Anyway, obviously they wanted to have the meeting in daylight — it would be outdoors, during the day would just make it simpler — and the preparations they wanted to do meant they'd need several hours to get everything ready. After what felt like ages of discussion, they'd settled on holding the meeting some place in the middle of fucking nowhere in the Gobi Desert, early in local morning...which had still been like ten hours away at the time, giving them plenty of leeway to prepare.
Once the agreement was made, they immediately started moving people and equipment in. There'd been a short, confused delay before the representatives in New York who'd been selected for the landing were ferried across the United States through the national gate network — only taking a couple trips, the first bringing them to Chicago and then the second to Seattle, and then the third gate bringing them to an airfield, where the Americans shuffled them onto a plane that would take them most of the rest of the way there. They could, theoretically, hop all the way over to the Gobi with portkeys, but that would take several legs, and the things could be a bit rough on older muggles. Since they had some hours to spare, it'd been decided that they could afford to burn a few taking a plane ride.
Of course, they didn't have that much time, so it had to be a quick plane ride — the Americans volunteered the use of one of their experimental aircraft for the flight. As part of their efforts to try to get up into space, they were mixing muggle technology and enchanting and alchemy in creative ways to solve all kinds of engineering problems that were honestly over her head, this plane a product of that programme. It looked kind of odd, a long thin needle with stubby little triangular wings, the inside a bit cramped, the internal space far shorter and narrower than planes she'd been in before. The dignitaries and their assistants filed in, the flight staff — in American Air Force uniforms, shades of blue and white — firmly warning them to strap in. The chairs had four-point safety straps, around the waist and crossing over both shoulders, so Beth got the impression they were very serious about that. A couple mages and older people needed a little help figuring out how the things worked, but before long they were ready.
They gently coasted along on the runway a bit before the thing started to accelerate — and then it accelerated harder, the nose tipping up suddenly, the speed and the lift shoving Beth down and back in her seat, she completely failed to hold back a surprised, thrilled laugh, the French bloke next to her cutting her a glance. Fuck, that was a hell of a thing...
The acceleration trailed off gradually, but they were still rising pretty quickly, Beth's weight dragged into the chair. Over the intercom, one of the people said something about staying in their seats for now, they had another hard acceleration coming up in a few minutes. (Waiting until they were well over the water, she'd learn later.) After a delay — filled with the whining of some kind of engines somewhere, wind a low roar against the shell, a mix of dubious or anxious muttering from the passengers — Beth was suddenly kicked back into her seat again, some shocked or pained groans coming from other passengers, she bit her lip to keep more inappropriate laughter in, feeling a grin pull at her face...
The pull levelled off before too long, another announcement coming over the intercom that they could unbelt themselves for now, would be smooth sailing for a few hours at least. And he wasn't kidding about that, either — the flight was very smooth, only a faint vibration through her feet that was just as likely the engines as turbulence. Beth hung around back with the rest of the passengers for a little bit, but she quickly got bored, moved up toward the front of the plane out of curiosity. She was stopped by someone there, but after a short back and forth she was let in to talk to the officers in the cockpit.
(Sometimes, there were benefits to needing to be in uniform.)
They didn't understand much about how the plane worked, which was fair enough, she guessed — Beth couldn't tell you how to make a broomstick either, she just flew them. There was something to bleed off heat, which she was aware was an issue with supersonic flight, and a lot of the materials were super-strong, super-lightweight alchemised stuff, and some enchantments to neutralise the weight of the thing to cheat and get more thrust? They weren't sure how exactly, but they had been warned that the plane might sometimes act like it was rather lighter than it should be, so. They'd spend most of the flight between about eighteen hundred twenty-five hundred kilometres per hour, damn, not bad.
They were a bit dumbfounded by her personal top speed of thirty-six hundred — just shy of three times the speed of sound — did she really fly that fast on a fucking broomstick? Yeah, that shite's fucking nerve-grating, if the air bubble breaks she could instantly find herself in a free fall just from the sudden wind sheer, some of the test fliers had had joints wrenched out of their sockets from the force, it was no joke...
At some point, Beth had managed to sneak a short nap, maybe only an hour at most. It was just too loud in the plane, too many people moving around...
The descent hadn't been nearly as much fun as the take-off, the plane rattling and jittering from turbulence, Beth's stomach occasionally lurching to the side as they slowly slalomed back and forth. The landing wasn't great either, bouncing and harshly vibrating with an odd hissing roar, the plane seeming to skid a little as they tried to slow down, someone somewhere in the cabin hissing out curses. Some of the passengers had gone a bit shaky in the knees, it took them a moment to clear out. When they did Beth realised at least part of why the landing had been so rough: the runway was paved in gravel, apparently. Beth hadn't even realised muggles did that.
Also? It was fucking cold. The airport was in the middle of a cleared area, beyond it some narrow strands of trees, a river going by, a city a bit further that way, a dark blob on the horizon over that way might be mountains. (It was hard to tell, in the pre-dawn dark.) The runways themselves had been cleared, and some walkpaths here and there, but everywhere else there was a thin coating of snow on the ground. Beth quick covered herself with a warming charm — tagging Yuri João and his staff as long as she was at it — but ugh, why was it suddenly so cold...
She realised they were in northern China in February, but still.
They were shuffled into a building, where the diplomatic team was served an "early breakfast" by the locals, but they didn't stay long. From Yínchuān their whole group was zipped away by one of those famous Chinese ritual transport circles, arriving at some nameless plot of land somewhere in the Gobi Desert. It was cold, and windy, dust blown up into the air scratching at her face. The ground was rocky, in greys and reddish-browns, a few stubborn patches of snow here and there, scattered with little shrubs or hardy grasses. Supposedly the various governments in the region had been using the reverse-engineered beetles to convert parts of the desert into arable land — there were similar projects going on in Africa and the Near East, and a couple places in the Americas — but they were focussing on the leading edge of the desert, where it'd been spreading south into the country. They were well away from too many people here, the nearest sizeable towns over a hundred kilometres in any direction.
It was a reasonably safe place to put a meeting with unknown space aliens that could turn bad, she just wished it wasn't so cold. Honestly, weren't deserts supposed to be hot?
Some people had arrived to start preparing the site well before they got here. A large patch of land was cleared and flattened. A team of people with spray cans of paint were boxing off a big square, sticking posts topped with glowing red lights at the corners — that would be the parking spot, Beth guessed. It looked like they were assuming that these aliens also had weird gravity-manipulating shite, and could float down to a gentle vertical landing without needing a runway, but given how the shuttle had taken off from the flagship that seemed like a good bet. A couple pop-up shelters had been put up — filled with soldiers to back them up if necessary, Beth knew, keeping them out of sight to not make their guests feel surrounded — some equipment to record the event, a few wardstones that could pop up overpowered shield charms if they needed them. A row of chairs was set up, flags representing each of the countries who'd sent a representative — no spot for Yuri João and Beth, they'd be standing at the front to greet them instead. Back there were some tables, with some snacks and drinks set up for the people here, as they waited, and presumably more substantial food somewhere to serve their guests during the 'talks' (as much talking as there was likely to be). After a while some wards covering the whole area snapped on, cutting the wind off, the air gradually warming up to something more comfortable.
While the preparations were being made, the sun rose over the horizon, revealing sand dunes and craggy mountains in the distance. And that was the third sunrise Beth had seen since she'd woken up — fuck, what time was it? She had no idea how long she'd been awake, after hardly sleeping last night, it felt like this day had lasted forever...
At a back corner of the block was their spotlight. It was some kind of enchanted device, a comparatively little thing at the base actually making the light surrounded with a complex structure of mirrors and lenses, making a tube about a foot wide and over a metre tall, the crystal glittering in the sun. Once everyone was in place, there was a brief discussion, before it was agreed they were ready. A man in trousers and tunic Beth recognised as magical Chinese clothing operated the device, a piercing bright white light stabbing up into the sky — Beth had to turn away, blinking the spots out of her vision.
The mage operating the spotlight repeated the pattern the shuttle had used — one flash, then two, then three, then two, then one, and so on — over and over. After at least a couple minutes, a voice came over the radio they'd set up, announcing that the shuttle had changed course, angling down to enter the atmosphere. There was a pause of some minutes, nervous chatter hissing between the diplomats and soldiers and staff, before there was another update over the radio: the Soviet and American fighter planes up in the air had spotted the shuttle, and were on approach. (New enchanted one, presumably, most air forces worldwide had been devastated during Zero Day.) The aliens seemed to recognise the planes approaching them were an escort, slowed down to fly with them — they were flying in formation close enough that an American pilot could relay a description, no different from what they'd seen in orbit, but some of the surfaces still faintly glowing from the heat of reentry, the engines at the back dark, no visible means of propulsion anywhere despite their speed...
As the pilot said they were slowing down for their final approach, only a couple minutes away, Yuri João rapped his knuckles on the table. "I believe it is time to get into our places." Beth's Portuguese wasn't particularly great, but thankfully the Secretary-General spoke perfectly competent English, if with a bit of a bouncy accent to it. He was a somewhat older man, fifties maybe? (Spending too much time around mages had completely destroyed her ability to tell.) His skin had a bronzeish tone to it, dark hair speckled a little with silver, relatively short, but he had a firm, friendly, confident sort of air about him that made him kind of hard to miss anyway. He was in a smart muggle suit in neutral colours — Beth would argue there was nothing neutral about the standard three-piece suit, but whatever — though she noticed his striped tie was in the green, blue, and yellow of Brazil.
"Yeah, guess so." Beth threw back the rest of her tea before following Yuri João, vanishing the table and chairs (and tea cups) she'd conjured for them some minutes ago with a wave of her hand. (Her wandless magic was still pretty minimal, had nothing on the shite Dumbledore could do, but disrupting conjurations just took a generalised dispel, very easy.) Everyone getting into their seats behind them, Beth and the Secretary-General moved to their spot at the front, a quartet of armed guards in formal military uniforms moving up to take their own positions just to their rear — one American and one Soviet, as part of their agreement to share security duties for the event, and a pair of Peacekeepers. (Beth knew they hadn't really been a permanent thing before, but had transformed into a small international army over the course of the war, mostly just defending UN sites and officials and the like. Had a big role in helping to distribute food during the famine, that was a whole mess.) A few nods were traded back and forth as they passed each other, Yuri João stood alone at the front of the group, straight with his hands folded behind his back, Beth standing a step behind him on his right.
Where she could quickly draw her wand and cast without hitting him, of course — hopefully that wouldn't be necessary today.
They stood there for some minutes, waiting. The air tense and stuff, an occasional further update came over the radio, but for the most part it was quiet, hardly anyone speaking. If Yuri João was nervous, Beth honestly couldn't tell, standing there calm and straight and still. Eventually, over the constant gentle hissing of the desert wind, she heard a low roar of engines. Slowly growing louder, louder, she spotted eight wedge shapes low in the air to the southwest, flying between them the crescent-winged shape of the alien shuttle, silvery-white metal gleaming in the morning sunlight. There was a brief scramble of activity, some staff people ducking away, the radio switched off.
Beth was sure the cameras were rolling too, broadcasting out to who knew where and recording the event for posterity. Abruptly, she was very conscious of the fact that millions of people were probably watching her right this very second, tried not to think about that.
The eight fighter jets seemed to pull up a bit, and then they turned off right overhead, the group splitting in half to fly away at wide angles — helping to mark the spot the aliens were supposed to land, she guessed. (And incidentally also beginning the manoeuvre to come back around at the shuttle, just in case.) As they began to pull up, the shuttle instead slowed down, drifting closer to the ground...
It was slightly eerie, the big ship — maybe thirty metres from point to rear and wingtip to wingtip, but it was hard to say for sure — slowly coming in for a landing, floating through the air in a way that simply should not be possible for such a huge hunk of metal. Beth was more accustomed to things floating when they shouldn't than most muggles, but even she found it vaguely odd. As it neared, she felt a low deep thrum on the air, presumably an effect of whatever tech it was using to float like that, light and faint, blurry blobs of reflections playing over the surface.
That thrum almost felt like an aura of some kind, honestly. She kind of wanted to ask Yuri João if he could feel it, but this didn't seem like the time.
The ship drifted over the warded-off area, in front of Beth and only five to ten metres overhead — grains of sand and little pebbles beneath seeming to vibrate, making a grating skittering hiss. There had been some concern that their wards might mess with their visitors' electronics (assuming they used electronics), but either they used some other technology or it was shielded somehow, because the ship drifted right across the wardline with no visible stuttering. Little hatches opened up on the underside, skeletal landing struts extending out, and the ship gracefully sank down to the ground right in the middle of the boxed-off square. The pads at the bottom of the struts gently touched the rocky surface, and it settled itself down, compressing as though on hydraulics, the deep thrum and the skittering of the sand going silent.
For a long, heavy moment, nothing happened — their warded-off area silent, save for the occasional shuffle of a foot against the ground or a cough, light pinging noises coming from the ship (metal contracting as it cooled?) — waiting tense and breathless. Beth's eyes stayed fixed firm on the hatch, the ship oriented to put the exit facing them, her wrist turned ready to draw her wand in an instant...
With a low hiss of equalising air pressure, a seam opened at the bottom of the hatch, the solid plane of metal retracting upward — it was illuminated inside, plain white artificial light, but Beth couldn't see much of anything from this angle. When it was about halfway up, a rectangle of a darker, rougher-looking metal began to extend from the bottom of the opening, straight out for a metre or so before the whole length tipped at an angle downward, continued smoothly reaching down until it touched the ground. After it did, the ramp seemed to twist, something in it shifting, and abruptly it turned into a set of stairs.
Beth felt her eyebrows stretch up her forehead — what the fuck was that? It looked like transfiguration...but she guessed maybe they could just reshape the metal somehow. She didn't know, who the fuck knew what fucking hyper-advanced space-faring aliens could do...
Two figures appeared at the hatch, standing side by side. They were both wearing what looked like a formal military uniform of some kind, black trousers and boots and a deep red jacket (matching the shade of the red circle in the design on the side of the ship nearby), black and yellow sashes tied around their waist and crossing over one shoulder, buttons and what might be rank insignia gleaming silver. And they were, definitely, aliens — the taller one on the right had a face and hands covered in light honey-brown fur, his brow a narrow boney ridge, features overlong and angular with big eyes, like a cat, pointed ears maybe as long as Beth's hand; the shorter one on the left had greenish pebbled skin, shading lighter toward yellow at his throat, ears solid structures at the sides of his head, a translucent membrane edged with a firm boney-looking loop, with a flat nose and thick, almost beak-looking lips. Each was holding what looked like a rifle of some kind, but tucked loose in one arm, the business end over their shoulders, obviously not threatening.
The pair walked down the steps in unison, straight-backed and stern. Just as the pair of soldiers (presumably) reached the bottom of the steps — taking a couple steps to each side and then turning to face each other, their rifles dropped to rest the butts against the ground, gripping high on the barrel — a third figure appeared at the door. This one was wearing a long black tunic over some kind of leggings, belted in at the waist with a sash, black decorated with white six-pointed stars (like on the insignia). Over that was a deep red robe, loose and flowing but clearly designed to be worn open — the outfit immediately reminded Beth of the kind of thing some British mages wore, though it wasn't quite the same. Curiously, the man (Beth assumed by the angle of his jaw) had vibrant blue skin, the sclera of his eyes a vivid, intense red colour.
And that was curious, because he basically looked human — take a black and white photo of him, and Beth was pretty sure you wouldn't be able to tell he was an alien at all. The shape and proportions of his limbs and body, the features of his face, human, just the colours were off. And she wasn't the only one who noticed either, hisses and mutters passing along behind her, Yuri João's head seemed to tilt a little, thoughtfully.
The blue-skinned man descended the stairs, his pace smooth and graceful. A couple more figures appeared at the top of the stairs, but Beth wasn't paying attention to them — the blue-skinned man was approaching closer, walking straight toward Yuri João, coming to a stop a couple metres away. One hand coming up over his heart, he dipped his head in a shallow bow. "Inu na, Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe ismisa ham, ate Inapu-Itarisan demispanu mani sa."
Leaning a little closer to Yuri João, Beth hissed, "His name is Shar-ÿkl-korlåe. He's introducing himself...with his government office, I think." She wasn't entirely sure what the second half of that was, but that was the vague feeling she had.
Yuri João gave her a quick glance, surprised. Probably that she'd immediately picked out the alien's name — she had warned him that it'd take her a while to get used to a new language. The thing that'd tipped her off was that his name was obviously in a different language from the rest of the statement (obvious to her, at least), which made some sense, since it looked like they were a multicultural society to some degree or another. But he only delayed a second, copied the alien's little bow back at him. "My name is Yuri João Alves de Conceição, Secretary-General of the United Nations."
The man smiled — not showing his teeth, solid black lips kept closed. "Ita isinuapa sa. E ka, opisainu Inapu-Itarisan akaruminaka sosoöpa na." He stepped to the side, one hand gesturing behind him. While they'd been talking, a couple aliens — one with the same blue skin and red eyes as Shar-ÿkl-korlåe, the other mottled orange and green, with an oversized mouth and eyes on the sides of his head, like a lizard, both dressed in trousers and tunics in black and white and red — had brought a device of some kind off the ship and toward them, set it on the ground. They fiddled with it for a moment (the lizard-looking bloke occasionally turning his head side to side to look with one eye and then the other) before they stood up and stepped back, taking spots standing side-by-side behind the device.
There was a brief pause, before an illusion sprung up... No wait, that wasn't an illusion — it didn't look right, the displayed object visibly glowing and slightly translucent. She guessed this would actually be a hologram or whatever the fuck? Whatever. Anyway, it was showing a reproduction of the same insignia from the ship — nine six-pointed stairs in a ring, white on black, surrounding a white five-fingered hand on a deep red backdrop — playing music, a fanfare, the blaring of some kind of horns and the booming of percussion...
The image faded, instead showing a panoramic view of a town on some alien planet somewhere, the vegetation in greens and blues and oranges, the architecture unfamiliar. After a couple seconds a fleet of ships suddenly appeared in the air, and drop ships were falling toward the town, zooming in and panning down, odd-looking aliens with a pair of mouths where their cheeks should be storming through the streets, avian-looking feathered people fleeing from them, some captured and others shot with fucking laser guns. A cut, and they were at a farm, the feathery aliens labouring in the fields, heavy metal collars of some kind around their necks, the two-mouthed aliens keeping watch, rifles hefted threateningly.
Another cut, and there were a different species — the same as the green-skinned bloke by the ramp, Beth noticed — working in some kind of factory, with the same metal collars around their necks, watched over by the same two-mouthed aliens. Then there was another cut, another, another, different aliens species each time, obviously enslaved by the two-mouthed ones...
An attack on a city, the two-mouthed aliens rounding up more aliens. The view focussed in on one — dark with firm, almost armoured-looking skin, knobby little horns over his head — being forced to his knees, one of the slavers reaching to fix one of the collars around his neck, the music slow and heavy and sad. But then, a sudden crashing of what sounded like cymbals and a blaring of horns, and a second fleet appeared in the air — long and narrow and graceful, in the same dark-silvery metal as the fleet still lingering in the Jupiter system — firing on the slavers, and there was fighting in the streets, the two-mouthed aliens scrambling to defend themselves from soldiers in white and black armour. The aliens forcing down the bloke they were following were gone, and then a blue-skinned human-looking bloke was there, tall and strong in black trousers and a deep red tunic. He leaned down, reaching out a hand, and with a swell of strings he took it, the blue-skinned man pulling him up to his feet—
And then the dark horned bloke was in a uniform and carrying a rifle, charging alongside more of his people and the blue-skinned aliens (and some humans?!) at the two-mouthed aliens, trying to enslave another city, lasers flying, cutting the two-mouthed aliens down. The alien they were following paused, standing over some reptilian-looking person who'd fallen to the ground — he reached down a hand, and the person took it, pulling him up—
And then again, the reptilian person fighting two-mouthed aliens, finding another person, giving them a hand up. The image focussed on their hands clasping together, then showed another flash of battle somewhere, and then a flash of hands clasping together — mismatched, obviously belonging to people of different species — again and again and again, each image of hands clasped coming with a thundering of percussion and a blaring of horns. After a few times, they stopped showing battles, instead showing farming villages and cities and space stations, each time starting poor-looking and blasted out, fading in to a nicer, rebuilt-looking version — before and after pictures, Beth guessed. As hands clasped again and again, six-pointed stars building around them, showing more images each time, until they'd gotten up to nine, a hand reaching down to help up another person twisting around and fading to white. And then the video locked on the insignia, the music strong and bright and victorious.
...So, if Beth was understanding this correctly, the space-faring civilisation their guests represented were mostly former slaves, who'd united to free themselves from whoever those two-mouthed aliens were. That didn't seem so bad, did it? She was getting a sudden feeling that their second contact with aliens might work out very well for them, actually...
The bright fanfare ended, the music instead turning tense and dark and creepy. The insignia faded out, replaced with a view of space, a fleet illuminated in the light of a sun. Beth recognised those ships, instantly — knobbly almost rocky-looking blobs, or twisting shells, or huge spiralling masses, those were scabs. The music harsh and panicked, lava bombs burning through the atmosphere on one planet, and then there were those fire-squid things stalking through a burning town, dinos charging through the streets and rounding up people, the pace of both the music and the images frenetic, jumping from one scene to another to another—
And then, in a scene of some scab ships bombarding a planet from orbit, suddenly ships looking much like their visitors' appeared, tearing the scab fleet apart, and they were on the ground, laserfire sweeping over dinos trying to round up people. The image focussed on someone who'd been knocked down, a soldier stopping and reaching down, hands clasping with another boom of percussion. Like before, the video bounced from scene to scene, people of all kinds of different alien species fighting against the scabs, hands clasping again and again, the music once more turning bright and strong and victorious as they won battle after battle—
Abruptly, the video ended. Shar-ÿkl-korlåe moved, again standing in front of Yuri João — and he held out a hand.
Beth was considering whether she should explain that she was pretty sure that these aliens were the good guys — or potential allies, at least — but apparently she didn't have to say anything. There was hardly even a breath of hesitation before Yuri João closed the distance between them in a pair of steps, and took the alien's hand.
As the tension in the air broke, the people behind them muttering and a few clapping, Beth let out a sigh, her wand arm relaxing. She didn't think she was going to need it.
The plan had been, if the initial meeting went well, to take their guest back and 'introduce' them to the representatives from different countries — Beth didn't know how well that would go, not sharing a language, but they could try. (She suspected she'd be projecting illusions of the planet with each delegate's country labelled, just to give the aliens a general idea.) But apparently Shar-ÿkl-korlåe had his own plans. As Yuri João took his hand, the pair of aliens who'd brought the projector started packing it up again, and then there was more activity at the hatch. More aliens in black, white, and red — some in the civilian version of the uniform, others armed — were guiding a big crate of some kind, floating in the air, out of the hatch and onto the stairs down. Behind that was another crate, and another...
Yuri João obviously noticed the same thing, eyeing the approaching crates. "Can you make us a table, Beth?"
"Sure, one second." Her wand falling into her hand, Beth picked out a nearby rock on the ground — transfiguration wasn't her best subject, if she didn't want to spend a few minutes working at it was better to not use straight conjuration. With one spell, she transfigured her chosen rock up into a post, a second one spreading the top out into a table surface. There were noises of surprise and chatter in an unfamiliar language (or languages?), but Beth ignored it, after a breath of concentration conjured one chair, and then a second. She stepped over to the table, gave one of her chairs a once-over, grabbed the backrest and shook it a little — right, that looked good. "There you go," she said, stepping back and waving at the set-up.
Yuri João immediately moved to take a seat, waving for Shar-ÿkl-korlåe to join him. But their guest didn't move right away, standing there staring wide-eyed at the table. After a couple seconds he lurched into motion, slowly, tentatively reached out to touch a (oddly blue, the nails pinkish and the cuticles blackened) finger to the table. His hands spread over the surface, an expression Beth read as disbelieving and bewildered on his face. Looking up at Beth, frowning a little, he said, "Ash toræch Jedaj." That sounded like a different language entirely, and not quite like a question — like, asking-not-asking something you were pretty sure you were going to get a no to.
Beth frowned back. After a second of thinking, she took another step away from the table, and cast an illusion complete with sound, drawing from memory. The alien who'd done a suicide strike on their camp in Laos, standing over her and snarling, "Rrūshk mo plzhālitc junɦo-zhat si, al-dzhēdaj." She was pretty sure that's what he'd said, anyway, she'd picked up enough of the language from dinos later on to re-interpret it as something like die in shame...whatever dzhēdaj meant. She had the scab repeat al-dzhedaj once, and then let the illusion fade, gave Shar-ÿkl-korlåe a wide-armed shrug that hopefully communicated that she had no idea what that word meant.
He stared at her for a moment, before seemingly waving the subject off — that was how she read it anyway, glancing away for a second and pushing out and to the side with a hand. Waving an assistant forward — Beth hadn't even noticed...er, them show up, in a similar uniform, their skin deep red, funny tendrils drooping past their chin from the corners of their upper lips and a bony ridge along their brow — Shar-ÿkl-korlåe took the other chair. He still seemed a bit bemused that she'd made a table and chairs out of nothing, but was trying to play it off as casually as possible.
His hands folded on the table, facing Yuri João with a toothless smile, he spoke. From a step behind Yuri João's chair, opposite the red-skinned assistant behind Shar-ÿkl-korlåe, Beth listened, frowning, paying close attention — trying to pick up whatever she could, forcing her ridiculous language powers to give her a hint here. "Ah, I think they're offering us support. Supplies and stuff, you know."
"They likely expect that any world subject to invasion by the others would be desperate for resources and assistance in rebuilding."
"Yeah, probably." If they'd showed up four years ago, that definitely would have been true for them — Beth thought they were doing pretty well at the moment, though. She wouldn't be surprised if the whole reason their shuttle with diplomats and shite on it was even included in this task force was to meet with and offer help to people they came across. They even had crates already prepared and everything...
The aliens weren't waiting for any response — probably realised that, since they didn't share a language, there wasn't much point in doing so anyway — one of the crates being floated over closer to the table. It looked like it was on some kind of device, likely the thing making it float, the box itself made out of some kind of porous, blue-white material, not sure what that was. One of the pair moving it tapped something at their wrist, and the thing settled down to the ground, a lid was flipped back. There was some chatter in their language, a ceramic-looking box, about the length of Beth's hand, was pulled out of the crate and handed to Shar-ÿkl-korlåe, a moment later one of the aliens setting down a clear glass and a plastic-looking bottle — Shar-ÿkl-korlåe said something, and then there was a second glass added to the first.
Shar-ÿkl-korlåe picked up one of the glasses, and leaned over, scooped up some sand into it. The bottle was twisted open, and he poured some water out of it into the soiled glass, swirled it around to mix it a bit. He opened up the ceramic box, revealing a cylindrical device, made out of metal and some plastic-looking stuff, the black and white and red insignia of their government printed on it, what were presumably instructions in an unreadable script. Shar-ÿkl-korlåe picked it up, held it with one hand over the clean glass, and picked up the soiled glass again, swirling it around. Speaking the whole while in that smooth, rapid, rhythmic language of his, he poured the dirty water into the top of the tube — a second later, a stream of clean water started pouring out of the bottom of the tube.
He kept pouring and talking, until he'd gotten everything he was going to out of the glass, goopy sand stuck to the bottom and sides. Setting the soiled glass aside, he held the tube to his side, twisted something on one end — there was a crack-hiss, and a blob of sand was shot out of the other end, scattering down onto the ground. The tube set back on the table with a low click, Shar-ÿkl-korlåe picked up the clean glass, took a sip of the water. What he said next, Beth didn't understand, but the point he was getting across was obvious.
"It's a water-purification device of some kind, I understand," Yuri João said, nodding. "Quite impressive, the speed of the filtration especially." He didn't say that they could do much better than that, at scale, with magic.
Smiling and nodding back, Shar-ÿkl-korlåe held up the device, pointed at the box, held up five fingers, and then four — there were twenty of these in there, apparently. He said something to one of the aliens managing the box, they reached inside, pulled something up. A big device was in there, made out of a similar material. A larger version of the same thing, to filter more water at a time? Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe — Beth caught one of the other aliens saying his name, realised she hadn't heard it quite right — held up one finger. He held up both hands, palm out, all ten fingers extended. Then he turned one hand to show the back to them, holding up one finger; palms out with ten fingers, back of his hand with two fingers; and then the backs of his hands with all ten fingers. And then his hands gently swept out to both sides, and...
Even without understanding what he was saying, Beth could figure out what he meant. "There are twenty of these small filtration things in the box, and one big one. They have a hundred of these boxes back on their flagship, and I think he said they can bring more if we need them."
Yuri João glanced back at her for a second, one eyebrow arched up, turned back to Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe, his fingers tapping at the table. Then, with a forced casual air, he said, "Please draw a glass of water for me, Beth."
"What?"
"In the history of our world, colonisers have often come with gifts. I wish for them to understand that we are capable of standing on our own, and will not be so easily bribed into complacency. Which is not to suggest I believe they have such sinister motivations — I do not — but the precaution is still worthwhile."
...Fair enough. Beth drew her wand again, doubled one of the aliens' glasses (easier than straight conjuration), and filled it with water with a tap at the rim. Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe leaned back in his seat, black eyebrows stretching up his forehead, as Yuri João picked up the glass and took a casual sip. He set the glass back down, pushing it more toward the aliens' side of the table. Gesturing at the glass, "See for yourself."
Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe blinked, just for a second, before turning to say something to his red-skinned assistant. They stepped forward, retrieving a hand-held device of some kind from their belt. Something was detached from the device — looked like a plastic eye-dropper, almost — they stuck the end in the water, before slipping it back into its slot. After a couple seconds, their head tilted, they turned the device to Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe, said— She, this was a woman. (Beth couldn't tell, visually seemed very androgynous to her, but omniglots were cheaters.) Anyway, the diplomat looked surprised by whatever that was, took a tentative sip of the water. He gave Beth a narrow-eyed look, and said...
Beth let out a huff. "Whatever the hell a dzhēdaj is, he's decided I'm definitely not one." As long as they were playing around with magic, she might as well try this — she reached forward with her wand, cast a glamour on the water. "Anu na," she said, gesturing at the glass.
Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe gave her a funny look — either because she'd just said something in their language, or because she'd fucked it up and wasn't making any sense, hard to say — before reaching for the glass and taking another sip. A little gasp, he reared back in his seat, blinking at the glass. Then he was talking at Beth, smilingly...asking some kind of question, she wasn't sure what. She'd glamoured the water to taste like her jasmine tea — apparently he liked it.
She just shrugged in response to whatever he was saying, before muttering to Yuri João. "These people aren't like the scabs — our magic works on them. I'm getting hints from their minds, and I just glamoured that water to taste like tea, and it worked. If it comes to it, the mages won't be at a disadvantage this time."
He nodded. "Thank you, Beth, that's reassuring to hear." Spreading his hands between them, he spoke to Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe, despite there being absolutely no chance he'd understand the words. She assumed this was being recorded, so presumably he was speaking in clear English for posterity as much as anything else. "Any assistance you may have to offer in friendship will be appreciated. But, as you can see, these filters, as impressive as they are, do not address any difficulty we have — we have our own means to secure a water supply, which are perfectly adequate for our needs." Shrugging a little, his head tilting, Yuri João folded his hands in front of him.
While he didn't understand the words, Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe clearly understood the message. Packing up the tube in its box again, he was saying something, a bit of a...dry, vaguely sarcastic tone to his voice, Beth thought. There was a glance at her as he spoke — she thought he was assuming there were enough mages around to take care of their water supply, which was close enough. (A lot of water treatment these days was done with enchanting, so.) The water treatment crate was packed up, a ceramic-looking case — rather larger than a briefcase, maybe two feet to a side — was retrieved from another crate, one of the assistants setting it down on the table. Something was unlatched, one face of the case folded down to the table, revealing the contents. Most of the internal space was taken up by a large cloth bag, stretched taut by something packed into it. There was also a long tube of some kind along one side, a couple smaller squeeze bottles.
Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe was handed a flat, rectangular device, he set it down on the table between them — it was obviously a hand-held computer of some kind, the entire surface covered with a display. He poked at it a couple times, bringing up a video recording. Someone, the same species as the red-skinned assistant, dipped a bowl into the same kind of bag they had here and lifted it out again, now full of some pale yellowish-orangish stuff. They he took one of the tubes, while holding it over the bowl twisted something on the end, it released a dollop of a thick, brownish-reddish sauce. Then one of the bottles, a brief squirt into the bowl, there was a subtle sizzling noise, the texture of the yellowish-orangish stuff shifting somewhat — cooking itself somehow, maybe? The alien in the video stirred the bowl of stuff around a bit with a spoon, held a spoonful up to the camera for a moment before taking a bite out of it, and the video ended.
Across the table, Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe was speaking, gesturing occasionally, pointing up at the sky or counting on his fingers, Beth frowning as she listened. "I think, the stuff in the bag is some kind of grain, and in the tube...protein, you know. I think he's saying one bowlful of the stuff covers a person's nutritional needs for the day. If I have the proportions correctly, each of these cases could feed a family for a week, and there are fifty of them in that crate. And they have hundreds more crates on their flagship, and can ship in more as we need them."
Yuri João nodded. Head dipping a little, a sweeping gesture with both hands coming in toward himself, he said, "Food aid, on the other hand, would be most welcome. The attack five years ago disrupted our supply, leading to the worst famine in the history of our world." That was kind of understating it, Beth thought — hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people died in the space of a year or two. But whatever. "While we have recovered from the disaster of those early years, there are still intermittent shortages to this day. Any assistance that may address these shortfalls would be greatly appreciated."
Between his tone and the gestures, Beth was pretty sure he'd gotten the idea across, but she decided to help just in case. She cast an illusion of a blue circle, for the food situation before the aliens attacked — her understanding was that they had made enough food for everyone back then, it'd just been distributed badly — and then added a second illusion of the scab fleet over Earth, tweaked her circle into a pie chart, half of it turning red. Then she replaced the second illusion with the scabs out in the Jupiter system instead, her pie chart turning mostly blue, with a sliver of it still in red. Dismissing the second illusion, she pointed at the case of food, and then at the tiny bit of red in her pie chart — she flailed for a second, before casting an illusion of hands clasping, like from the video they'd shown earlier, before clearing the illusions away again.
It looked like Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe definitely got the message, smiling — saying something, he made a gesture, cupping both hands in front of his chest before extending them out toward Yuri João. Offering the food, Beth guessed. He tapped at his device some more, brought up an image of Earth from space, swept his hands over the picture. Explaining they could ship it wherever it was needed, maybe?
After that, there was another crate. A smaller case was set on the table, closer to briefcase-sized, the lid folded back to show unfamiliar packages and devices and little phials of liquid — actually, she thought this might be basic medical supplies. Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe said something to his assistant, she dipped her head a little (assent). From somewhere at her waist, she drew a short, straight-bladed knife, the metal an odd solid black. She pushed her other sleeve up to her elbow, and then gently drew the blade against her skin, opening a shallow cut.
The knife replaced at her waist, while picking up one of the flat, almost paper-looking packages, she held out her arm to demonstrate, a thin trail of blood leaking from the cut. Unlike the scabs and dinos, her blood was red — maybe a little darker than humans', but pretty similar.
Gripping onto one corner of the package with her teeth, she tore it open — it sounded a lot like paper too — retrieving what was obviously come kind of compression bandage from inside. Turning it to face them, there was an orangish poultice pre-applied onto the inside surface. She pressed the orangish side to her cut, and held it there. Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe counted off seconds on his fingers, started over once he got to ten.
When he got to twenty, the assistant lifted the bandage away. That orange stuff was left in little streaks on her skin, she pulled out a handkerchief from somewhere, wiped it off. And then she turned the inside of her forearm to them again — the cut was gone.
Yuri João leaned back in his chair a little, crossing his arms. "Beth, do you know enough healing magic to demonstrate?"
"Something this simple, yeah." She stepped closer to the table, her wand falling into her hand again. Dragging the tip along the palm of her free hand, she grit her teeth as the weak contact cutting charm opened up her skin, fighting not to visibly react. (It was hardly the most painful thing she'd ever felt, of course, but it wasn't pleasant.) Their guests seemed faintly alarmed — either because they were just realising now that her wand was also a weapon, or simply because her cut was rather deeper than the one the red-skinned woman had given herself, blood already dripping off her hand to the table — but she ignored them, patched up the cut with a single sweep of her wand. A second sweep of her wand vanished the blood. She held her hand up to the aliens for a second, proving that there was no sign of the cut left, and stepped back from the table again.
Of course, they didn't have enough mages around to take care of everyone, but they did make plenty of potions — she imagined their guests would have just as much trouble getting their healing stuff to everyone who needed it as they did, so. Basic medical supplies weren't really something they could use, they had that covered already.
The aliens looked a bit taken aback, blinking at Beth. But after a few seconds, Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe smiled again, said something in a dry drawl. He closed the medical briefcase, handed it back to the assistant who'd brought it over. Poking at his device some more, bringing up more videos, chattering all the while — listing other assistance they could offer, it looked like. The videos were clearly designed to make it easy to get across what they were talking about despite the language barrier they were likely to have when dealing with new contacts. There were what looked like building materials, power generators, transportation and communications equipment, even building assistance, examples including a dam, an airport-looking thing, a seawall...
"It seems to me," Yuri João said, when there was a break in the alien diplomat's rambling, "that you are offering a significant investment of resources. While I have no doubt that such an investment may accrue certain benefits to our people, I cannot help but wonder what might be expected of us in return. I'm uncertain we could ever agree to such a partnership in good conscience, due to the language barrier between us — it is difficult to negotiate when the parties involved cannot effectively communicate."
Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe, of course, wouldn't understand a word of that. Beth grimaced — how the hell was she supposed to get that idea across? After turning it over for a moment, she thought she had something that at least made some sense. She cast an illusion of two people bartering over...a thing. (She didn't put much detail into that part, just a box.) They went back and forth a couple times, and then one of the people handed over a couple coins, and the other one handed them the box. She dismissed that illusion, and then cast another one: a simple picture of Earth from space, and next to it the insignia on their ship. A big arrow came from the insignia and pointed to Earth — she added little pictures inside the arrow, their food bags and some kind of flying car thing from the videos earlier and whatever else she remembered. Then that arrow vanished, and she drew another one coming from Earth and pointing to the insignia; she opened up little empty white bubbles in it, where the pictures of things the aliens were offering had been in the other arrow, hopefully making it clear that she was asking what they wanted from them.
That made sense, right? She thought it did, this would be a lot easier if she'd had time to pick up some of the language...
It looked like Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe got the idea, at least. Smiling, he said... She didn't understand the words, exactly, but she did understand that they weren't expecting them to pay for this stuff. He fiddled with his device, after a little bit brought up another video — another pre-prepared one, by the look of it, they'd obviously done this before. Some unfamiliar aliens were boarding some kind of space ship, then it was flying up, there was a cut, and it was landing somewhere else. The same aliens were sitting in a classroom sort of space, paying attention to a lesson, and then they were talking with a mix of aliens — a couple of the blue-skinned and red-skinned ones, one of the green blokes like that soldier standing by the ramp, one of the feathered ones from their introduction video... — and then they were flying again, landing and filing off the ship. Then they were in a room, people gathered around a table, the same aliens as the group they were following on one side and a mix of people on the other. They were talking, going back and forth and—
Translators — the group the video was following were translating. As they went, text in an unfamiliar script accumulated on a screen in the background, and eventually the people on both sides of the table were standing up, clasping hands.
Beth got it. "They're going to train a group of translators, so we can properly negotiate a treaty."
"Reasonable," Yuri João agreed, nodding. "I imagine the aide they provide in the meanwhile is intended to make us more favourable to an agreement."
"Possibly. We're probably not the first people they came across who were just attacked by the scabs — might expect us to be suspicious of aliens, you know."
He just hummed, noncommittal.
Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe's explanation wasn't quite done — but it looked like this part wasn't pre-prepared, flailing to put together something that made sense. He brought up a multi-armed pinwheel image, a white-orange bright spot in the middle and curled arms extending out thinner and darker, in blues and oranges. Was that supposed to be the whole galaxy? Looked like it. He tapped at something in the bar to the side of the image, and the galaxy was shaded different colours, dividing the galaxy into six different parts of unequal size, the largest (in yellow) covering a good half of the galaxy, even entirely surrounding a smaller blob (in green), the smallest easily a tenth that size. The shading wasn't perfectly homogenous, in some places the solid colour, in contiguous chunks or spreading in funny webs, the spaces between or around the edges more translucent. Different interstellar governments, maybe, the solid colours for the places directly under control, and the clearer parts for areas in their sphere of influence?
Fuck, there was a huge bloody civilisation they knew nothing about out there, huh? That was, just, insane...
Another button push, and each of the blobs were labelled with a circular insignia, presumably representing that government. Beth immediately recognised their visitors', attached to the red blob at the top of the image — much smaller than the big yellow one, but bigger than the tiny blobs too, like maybe a sixth to an eighth of the whole galaxy? Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe tapped the red part, the image zooming in. When it got close enough, the red was replaced by a bunch of littler segments in a variety of colours — different sizes, some no more than tiny blobs, the largest a long, snaking, branching stitch through the middle of the image. He tapped another thing on the side bar, and a circular indicator of some kind appeared on the map — toward the edge, a short distance away from the nearest coloured blob, but still inside of what Beth thought had been covered by the more translucent part earlier. Pointing, Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe said a short sentence.
"That's where Earth is," Beth translated, just in case.
Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe zoomed in a little further, showing just the indicator labelling Earth and the coloured blobs nearby. Talking all the while — Beth frowning in concentration, trying to listen — he drew around Earth with a finger. He flipped back to the video from a moment ago, negotiating the treaty. He said something...something about the terms of the treaty (she didn't follow it at all), moved the video up to the moment everyone was shaking hands. Then he moved back over to the map, a couple taps and a blob around Earth was shaded a light blue — copied from the UN flag flying in the middle of the group back there, she guessed. Then he zoomed out again, all the different coloured blobs fading back into uniform red.
"Right," Beth said, "I think I get it. They're a confederation of some kind — you know, an alliance of governments, sort of like the United Nations but in space. As part of a treaty to join them, Inapu-Itarisan will recognise our control of this planet...and some of the solar systems all around us, by the look of it."
She wasn't done yet, but Yuri João asked, "Was that a name?"
"What? Oh, Inapu-Itarisan? That's what their government is called — I don't know what it means, just that that's the name. Um, where was I... Don't take this for certain, but, I think we'd be obligated to help with defence, and also assisting new people get on their feet. You remember before, the video where they were giving people a hand up? I think what they're doing is giving new members enough help to function on their own — like, the hand up they were giving people was meant to be literal and metaphorical — so, I think we're supposed to help with that too. Once we're capable of helping, anyway. But Earth, and the space around us, will be ours — and part of the whole common defence thing means Inapu-Itarisan will make sure it stays ours."
Yuri João was silent a moment. Watching Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe across the table — smiling, patiently waiting — his fingers slowly tapping against the table. "How certain are you about that?"
"...I don't know, honestly. About as certain as I can be without actually speaking the language? I really do think this is a space U.N. kind of thing. I'm less sure about the details, but I'm pretty confident they're not going to try to fuck us over. Or Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe doesn't think they're going to anyway — he feels pretty honest to me."
He sighed, muttering something to himself in Portuguese. "If omniglot intuition is all I have to rely on, I suppose that will do." Yuri João stood up — the chair hitching on the rocky ground a little, Beth grabbing the rear before it tipped over and pulling it out of the way — extended a hand out over the table.
While he obviously didn't follow English any better than they did...whatever language that was, he clearly realised they'd come to an understanding. Smiling in his soft, toothless, friendly sort of way, Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe stood up as well, and took Yuri João's hand.
With all that business out of the way, now it was time for Beth to project illusions of Earth with countries outlined as Yuri João 'introduced' their alien guests to the dignitaries that'd come with. Beth kept listening through the introductions, the repetitive structure and Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe occasionally speaking directly to her helping a trickle of the language slip into her head, her impression of the meaning as the alien spoke still vague, but slowly improving, a faint ache already starting to build in her head. As they got through the introductions, food started being set up at the tables — a sort of welcome to Earth dinner (or lunch), Beth guessed — Shár-ÿḳl-korlåe waving a couple assistants on that way, probably double-checking it was safe for them to eat, the alien and human workers kind of awkwardly stumbling around each other at times, Beth didn't miss some of the wide-eyed staring at the unfamiliar faces...
Beth was hardly the most optimistic person in the world — the scabs had burned out whatever had been left after her shitty childhood — but she had a good feeling. For as much as first impressions counted for anything, she thought these Inapu-Itarisan people were going to work out well for them. Which was honestly a huge relief — they could really use the lucky break, after that first alien invasion, fuck.
Yeah. Good feeling. She thought this was good.
But, she'd appreciate it if this meeting could get over with quickly, so she could get to fucking bed already...
Oh hey, first contact with aliens that actually went well this time! Yay.
Jumping back to The Good War for a couple chapters now, we'll check back in with Hermione after that.