To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Nick,
Things are going well down here. I've put together a care package for you. It runs to about two tons. So of the goods are delicate, so be careful of the tea leaves. We've got it loaded up in a van and we're going to send it to the north edge of the parking lot at the closed-down UberMart complex in dford. Let know what ti is good for you. Any ti is good for us. I forgot the toothbrush, though.
Steven Z Holton
Assistant Systems Manager
Holton Dynamics, Boston Branch
Nick looked at the email and raised an eyebrow. Steve was speaking in code. "Be careful of the tea leaves," went back to a tabletop RPG they had played years back, when they had to smuggle an elven princess out of a country, and Nick's thief character packed her in among a shipnt of tea leaves.
Steve wants to send sobody up with the supply run. I wonder who's coming to visit?
"I forgot the toothbrush," related to a goofy real-life adventure they had in college, a long night when they ended up going through three different detours to get back to Steve's place just to get his toothbrush (and a dozen other things.) It had all made sense at the ti, if you had drunk the appropriate number of beers.
He thought it over. He ans to et at his place, not at the location described. Must be to throw off spies and reporters and stuff. Nick nodded to himself, and ssaged Geh!aoa.
< Captain, this is Nick. I have a request. >
It was a couple of minutes before Geh!aoa got back to him. When she did, she called; the Ooafans tended to prefer audio and video communication to email or text. Nick took the call.
"Hello, Nick. What can I do for you?"
"Hello, Captain. I would like to borrow a shuttle again for another pickup from the surface. A small number of humans and about...twenty tis my weight in supplies."
"Should I contact your President again?"
"No, this is a private delivery. If the shuttle could go down cloaked, that would be preferable."
"I see," Geh!aoa replied after a pause for translation. "Yes, of course, Nick. How soon?"
"As soon as is convenient."
"I'll talk to the pilots. It shouldn't be more than a kozeg." That was just about exactly ninety minutes, Nick rembered, and wondered why Petra hadn't translated the ti unit.
"Thank you, Captain."
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Nick sent an email back to Steve, hinting that they should be ready ASAP but saying it in a roundabout way. He wasn't as good at talking in code but he did his best. After that, he ssaged Sana. To his surprise, she also opted for a video call.
"Hello, Nick."
"Hi, Sana. I wanted to let the ship's doctor know that we have at least one more human coming to visit shortly."
"At least one? You don't know how many?"
"My friends are being secretive. Certainly not more than four."
"All right, I'll make sure the quarantine area is ready." She gave a sigh. "Just when I was almost done getting the humans out of quarantine..."
"Sorry about that. I know you're really busy."
"It's not a problem. I'll be curious to et the new humans. Maybe the extra data will help figure out what's wrong with Penny."
"Still no luck there?" Nick asked in sympathy.
"None at all. I'm slogging through the chemical pathways trying to find the source, but Gold—I an, human physiology is still complex even by modern standards."
"Oh. Well, I'll let you get back to it."
"Stay, Nick." Nick recognized the hand motion. It's weird how even gestures are different between languages.
"What's up?"
"Two things. One, it is ti to give you the brain surgery."
"Oh, great!" Nick felt a bit of butterflies in the stomach, but he'd had a while to get used to the idea, so he clamped down on the feeling quickly. "I'll be right there. What's the second thing?"
"A private discussion about information sharing. I have discovered so things that might be troubleso. We need to discuss what is best to do."
Well, that's not ominous at all. "I'm on my way."
* *
"Okay, I'm ready," he told the doctor in person. "Discussion first, or brain surgery."
"Discussion first. You will need ti to adjust to your changing brain."
"All right. What have you discovered?"
Surprisingly, Sana went through procedures to secure complete privacy before sitting down with him. "I was comparing human and Goldaskian DNA. I found so unexpected similarities."
"Oh, have you figured out why we are so close we can almost interbreed?"
"Yes. I was looking at the chromosos we have in common, and taking another look at the Goldaskian one you lack."
"That you have extra."
"Truer than you know," Sana said with so amusent. It was one of her favorite English idioms. Then she sobered. "Nick, I have made a discovery, and I am worried about the public and governnt reactions."
"What is it?"
"Goldaskians are of human origin."
Nick blinked. "You an..."
"Our ancestors ca from Earth."
Nick took a mont to digest that. "Wow."
"Yes, very wow. Our unknown uplifting race apparently took so humans from Earth thousands of years ago as raw material, and created Goldaskians by adding a synthetic chromoso."
"Huh." Nick had a feeling he wasn't grasping all the implications. "You're worried about the human reaction to this news?"
"Partly."
"What, are all Goldaskians from a specific region on Earth?"
Sana looked surprised. "Yes, actually. Our ancestors ca from the place you call—"
"Don't tell ," Nick pleaded. I don't know what would be the worst possible answer there, but we don't need stupid Earth bigotry getting applied to Goldaskians. Fuck, humans would start to bla that ethnicity for everything bad aliens do. Humans getting blad for alien behavior. I can just see the headlines now: "Goldaskians are secret Jews!" or "Goldaskians are all Muslims!" or "Goldaskians are all African!"
"Is there any way to keep that detail secret?" he checked.
Sana shook her head. "Once humans know that Goldaskians are of human stock, it will not take long at all for them to determine ethnicity."
"Shit. All right, it sucks, but that's just because humans are stupid. We'll cope."
"Well, there is a different problem," Sana replied. "Not the human reaction. The Goldaskian one."
Nick paused and thought about that. "You an, when Goldaskian warships eventually co to Earth? They find out that...wait, if you're from Earth, didn't you notice that you didn't have close ancestors on your world? Like—"
"A missing link. Yes. Humans do not have one, but Goldaskians did. We have long known that we are an uplifted race, but we did not know where we ca from."
"So...how will Goldaskians react when they find out their ancestors ca from Earth?"
Sana took a deep breath. "They will annex Earth into the Goldaskian Empire."
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