Chapter 2: I am Neon (SOTU)



Claudia had stepped out of the shower and put on a clean skirt suit and felt much better now. This entire trip and the location were so far out of her normal comfort zone, no one knowing her would believe she had made this trip voluntarily.

Dr. Bloch checked her reflection in a mirror field.

She wore her brown hair in a clean, no frills layer cut bob, that gave her face a rounder appearance than it actually was. She hovered at the edge of slight overweight and purposefully disregarded any health and fitness advise she got from her physician at the annual check up. Not that there was anything ever wrong with her. Dr. Claudia Bloch was just another very healthy ninety eight year old, of an overall very healthy society. Many described her appearance as unremarkable and dull. She didn’t stand out in a crowd of one. Everything was average for a being of Terran human origin.

She was neither noticeable tall nor remarkably short. She was not flat chested but neither endowed with more noticeable assets, but then outer appearances had never mattered to her and she was perfectly content the way she appeared, or to have been without a life partner. While there were a few candidates over the years, both male and female, no one could ever draw her attention away from her one and truly love, the science of Xenobiology.

What was not average was her mind.

Dr. Bloch was a leading specialist in her field and a renowned capacity in Non-cell based life forms, and especially in non cell based sentient life at the University of New Cambridge.

Of course there was nothing really new about either the university or the city of New Cambridge on Britannia planet. Her home world, a moderate GW-C 3A (Garden world Class 3A) had been colonized now for almost 3000 years by mostly human colonists from Earth. It had little secrets left and no surprises that had yet to been discovered. It snowed in the winter, was warm in the summer and its rain consisted of nothing else but normal water and to the casual visitor it was almost impossible to find much differences to good ol’ Earth. That impression to be somewhere on Earth was especially given when walking on well maintained Duro-Crete paths between old lloking buildings that contained auditoriums, lecture halls, her office and her on campus home. She never traveled much, and in the last thirty or forty standard years, a trip to the eastern coast town of Portside two hundred miles from New Cambridge was as far as she wanted to go.

Dr. Bloch even dismissed an invitation to the Hive of Minds, an aloft, elusive association of the brightest minds of the Union with much prestige and cloud. She declined the invitation on grounds that she might have to travel to Pluribus at least once a year.

It was about six weeks ago when she received a GalNet call from Dr .Chimeer. That inhuman, frightening multi-pod with huge pinchers, appearing very much like a human sized centipede had also been one of her most beloved students.

Dr. Chimeer pursuing a career within the Union Science corps had been sent to a recently discovered gas giant, a Jovian planet in the similar recently surveyed Aplarox system.

He had called her for help and she had put all her dislikes to leave her cocoon of creature comfort aside and had been traveling to this destination ever since.

She tugged on the seams of her old real tweet blazer, brushed over her knee high skirt and went out into the curving, shadow less illuminated corridor of this station.

A Holdian specialist not taller than maybe fifty centimeters had apparently waited for her. Holdians had great similarities to Earth squirrels and this one made no exception. What ever was not covered by the maroon colored uniform of the Explorer corps was covered in soft brown and white fur. The being had shimmering black eyes and long whiskers emerging from each side of his pinkish nose. It also shared a large bushy tail with those Terran rodents that had been brought to Britannia planet and the Terran parks of New Cambridge so long ago.

“Dr .Bloch,” the being chattered in a high voice befitting its small statue,” if you please follow me I am to take you to the conference room on Deck four, the main deck.”

“Lead the way then.”

“I am sorry, Dr. Bloch. I have not introduced myself.” The small beings tail twitched as he turned a little to talk to her, while trying to stay ahead of her. “I am Durk Garner, this stations engineering specialist. We all wear multiple heads so to speak. Our meteorologist Dr. Sudvahl, doubles as shuttle pilot and I am fetching people between keeping this station and all the systems in working order.”

“Wouldn’t a page light or a bot drone have done the same job?”

“Not in your case Dr. Bloch, Chimmie was quite adamant that you be treated with the utmost respect and courtesy.”

Claudia’s usually stern face was disturbed by a soft smile. “I appreciate the sentiment then.”

After a short trip on the Inter Station transport system she and her furry guide emerged on the main deck and moments later stepped into a well lit, comfortable and functional furnished conference room. It was spacious but not overly big and around the oblong diamond shaped table, eight beings had assembled. The latest one of which was Dr. Bloch.

She entered the room and of course recognized Dr .Chimeer, but she was certain the bald headed Blue was Dr. Sudvahl. To her all Blue looked very much alike and it could also have been someone else.

Next to Chimeer was a Saran female, completely human of course and only recognizable as Saran by her darker complexion and the traditional Saran wig of black shoulder long hair. There also was a Vantax, a chrome skinned Homo Stellaris, the Holdian specialist and a very tall somewhat humanoid Stik.

Chimeer welcomed her again, and served her with a cup of hot tea, in a very nice porcelain cup with saucer spoon and two lumps of brown sugar on the side. Just as she liked it. However as she noticed the liquid in the cup moving from one side to the other she realized that she didn’t imagine the swaying feeling she had contributed to her earlier malady.

“This, this place...this station is moving. Who is in charge of the stabilizing?” She said with a gulping noise, trying to keep the squeezy feeling that was taking hold of her stomach once again, under control.

The Holdian felt addressed. “I am in charge. It moves only a little, Dr. Bloch. This is a relative small station and these storms out there are, even for a Jovian, quite violent and powerful. You won’t even feel it after a while.”

The Blue gave her a sympathetic look.“It took me two weeks. Dr. Bloch.”

“Let us get on with the matter at hand. I hope I am on my way back to New Cambridge two weeks from now.” With a reassuring smile, the Saran woman got up and reached across the table dropping a small blue pill onto the saucer before her.“This should completely eliminate your motion sickness Dr. Bloch. I am the CMO of this station and I must say I never came across a case of such strong motion sickness. If I had known, I would have called the CMO of the SC-Nils Bohr to prevent the unfortunate effects you had to experience, I apologize.”

Claudia took the pill and washed it down with some still unsweetened tea. “Never mind that now. I am here, but we are safe right?”

Again the Holdian felt addressed and this time he almost sounded really insulted.“Dr Bloch, I am the chief engineer of this floater base, would I sit here leisurely or allow anyone new brought aboard if we would not be safe?”

He hopped on the table and next to him appeared a three dimensional projection of the upside down bottle. “This is a Mark IV cloud base approved for gas giants up to class X. This is a class VII. We are held at station by an ArtiGrav anchor and can raise triple layer Paradim shields. The walls are made of the same material as the armor of our battle ships. Molecular compacted Ultronit. All systems are green and we have enough energy for the next 2000 years. We are safe, I asure you Dr. Bloch.”

She raised both hands.“Then go and fix things or something. This is a science meeting. I didn’t make this long trip to be lectured on Jovian stations.”

The Holdian hopped of the table and left muttering in an agitated high pitched way.

She completley ignored the stares and said demandingly. “Why don’t we cut through all the introductions and small talk and right to the matter at hand. Chimeer, why am I here?”

The Kilonian flowed out of his spoon shaped vari-form seat and erected almost a third of his body segments.“Let me give you a little background, Claudia. It will help you understand why I called you and hopefully won’t make my reason for calling you less insane.”

The projection of the station changed to a representation of the M-0 galaxy, with all its spiral arms and the bright glowing galactic center.

Chimeer highlighted one quadrant of the galaxy and said.“This is, as you all know the Upward Sector of our galaxy and the core of Union space.” The projection focused on one of the spiral arms. This is the outer spur of the Sagittarius arm and below it is the Orion arm.

While the apparent dark region between the spiral arms are not void, the star population in what Astrographers call the arm gaps is much less than that of the spiral arms itself.”

Claudia, like the others looked at the projection and so far nothing new had been added to what she and pretty much everyone knew, but she suppressed another snappish remark, because it was Chimeer who gave the presentation. It had taken her quite some time to get the shy Kilonian youngling to speak openly before a class of of students, so she didn’t want to curb him now.

Chimeer projected a green line from one arm across the darker gap to the other arm. “The majority of Union systems are in the Orion arm, but the march of expansion has added many new destinations in the Sagittarius arm. Adding to the many member societies and colonies in this part of the arm, one must of course think chiefly of the nearby Stepping Stone system with the connection to the Large Magellan Cloud. As you know the entire Attikan empire is located there and has joined the Union with all its members quite a while ago.

While modern space ships can cross the gap of almost six thousand light years without much problems, it is preferable to make such a long non stop trip with freshly serviced ISAH pods and all fuel tanks topped off.”

Dr .Bloch thanked the Saran woman for another cup of tea and begun to wonder if she should say something after all.

She had never been a very patient woman, especially if she was removed form her comfort zone, but instead of asking her star pupil to come to the point she sunk two lumps of sugar in the hot beverage and slowly stirred it.

Chimeer who knew her well from the semesters he had spend studying under her and from the two years as her assistant was certain she would understand the reason for his sermon soon. He continued. “Mostly because of the Attikans of course, there is an enormous stream of passenger and cargo traffic going both ways. Some of it can go via Space Train, but you all know the size limitations and high cost of that option. Until recently only very new and modern ships attempted the short short cut across the gap. Mostly because there are very few star systems in this region of space and taxing ISAH pods to the very limit of their range is not recommended for very valid reasons.

Only about a year ago the Aplarox system was surveyed. While it only featured one Jovian with three major moons and two rock core planets. It happens to be 5500 light years from Gelbendawn system on the Orion side, a well developed Union system. If Aplarox can be developed as well, it would make traversing the gap safer, provide a fuel stop and if neccesary a service stop for freighters, passenger clippers and so forth. Cutting the route from Pluribus to Stepping Stone by over 12,000 light years.

This fact makes this tired and old star system a perfect service point system, for check ups, freight distribution, passenger hubs and of course an excellent fuel stop. In other words very desireable to business and thus for the big megas.”

The three meter tall Stik, a native of the distant planet ‘Woorld’, assisted the Kilonian by taking over. “The Union is the only space faring multi cultural society we know of, that utilizes gas giants, primarily of course for fuel production.” He pondered at this for a second. “This might actually be the factor that we discovered life on such planets while other societies pay little attention to them.”

He made waving gesture as if to dismiss his own train of thoughts. “Anyway, We are the only society in known galactic history that has seventy four sentient member species that are native to gas giants, most prominently of course the Bellebees and the famous Hotzies.

There are over a thousand gas giants on record with lesser, non sentient forms of life. Thus by Assembly law, all new celestial real estate: be it rock core, ice ball, sun or gas giant must be checked by the Science Corps for any form or sign of life and should we come across sentient life, the planet can not not be occupied or utilized. A world, any world and its moons, should it have any, always belongs to the sentient species.”

Dr. Bloch nodded.“I am well aware of this. I made it my life’s work to identify life and especially sentient life in places and under conditions that are usually considered unable to support conventional forms of life. I successfully identified life where others failed. So it will come to no surprise to you when I tell you that I didn’t spend my time coming here on the leisure deck waisting time as lesser disciplined and easy distracted minds might do; I read your reports and checked all your survey findings you filed on this world, Shirrocco. There is nothing in those reports and there are no indications in the probe and scanner results that suggests the presence of a native life form.”

She got up, leaned over the milky white, illuminated surface of the conference table. Tabbed on a few icons and opened a folder, commonly accesible by all and with flicks of her wrist threw survey data onto the projection.“Radar studies don’t show any mass concentrations of matter. Bio chemical samples do not test positive for bacteria or even RNA strand like molecules. There isn’t enough solid matter in form of aerosols to serve as any kind of food for a potential life form. One of the defining criteria of life is that it must consume. There apears nothing consumable out there.The only faintly but completely irrelevant interesting fact is that there is a unusual high percentage of Neon gas in the atmosphere.”

The Kilonian clicked with his scissor like mandibles. “Yes, but...”

The door to the conference room opened and a man in a modern black business suit in the popular star sailor cut came in. He was human and had a pale complexion, bright white hair and a space ship dealer smile on his lips. For a human he was tall and Claudia could not deny a certain suave handsomeness.

He straightforward approached her. “Dr. Bloch, what a privilege to meet you here of all places and away from the New Cambridge University campus. I am a great admirer of your work and was fortunate enough to follow several of your lectures, what a surprise indeed to meet you here.” He pulled a black business card and swiped it in to the conference table surface.“I am Ralph M. Iseratte. SII Energy Inc. Resource Procurement department.”

Claudia was quite overwhelmed by the man’s no hold bars in your face boldness. “Uh, nice to meet you as well Mr. Iseratte.What brings you...”

“Glad you ask, Dr .Bloch.” He cut right into her question.“I am representing SII corp and we have first claimed this planet and filed utilization rights with BoCA. Thus I was sent by my superiors to monitor your research to keep my company informed. As you can understand this is important to us. ”

He produced a copy of his companies application to the Bureau of Colonization Affairs and also tossed it with a swipe into the surface of the table for everyone to see and continued. One of our corporate ship was more or less right on the heels of the Union surveyor so to speak, by coincidence of course. Schwartz Fuels claimed the Gas giant.”

Chimeer added, interupting the corporate man. “Even before the Union surveyor slowed down enough to deploy probes.”

Ralph did not loose a beat or his smile. However the case may be, the application is quite standard and also quite legal. Anyone, be it a group or corporation can claim any celestial object for whatever purpose if they were first. ”

Again the Kilonian added his comment and it appeared the Xeno biologist was not a friend of Schwartz Industries. “By Union law they may only to take posession once the science corps has cleared the world. The claimant must have the means of taking posession and no one questions the ability of SII to take posession of something and of course any Union borne entity including corporations have to follow these pesky, so inconvenient Union laws. Let’s say if there were native sentient life forms present.”

The Blue gave the Corporate agent an unreadable glance from the side .“Such a world is instantly off limits, the law is quite simple and straight forward in that regard. Isn’t that so Mr. Iseratte?”

Ralph still smiled and Claudia at this point suspected some sort of muscle control implant. No one could be that happy all the time, The corporate man pointed at the document. “SII is always complying with any and all Union laws and regulations for three thousand years I might add. Including of course regarding new discovered worlds. We welcome the diligent detail oriented investigation of the Science corps lead by Dr. Chimeer. However the moment you finalize your findings, SII will begin to develop this world and this system.”

No Claudia revised her opinion, the man’s smile had actually grown colder as he grinned into the Kilonian’s direction. Then he addressed her again. “There are trillions of credits at stake. This planet has no native life not even a hint of non sentient molecule combinations that could develop into something eventually. Just like you did, we also checked the reports and findings that this team has published. SII has very capable scientists under our employ. I can assure you, I am quite certain Science Central has checked the data and now you, a foremost expert in this field confirming it. I am hoping all this will lead to final verdict soon. Tiny Tim transporters with Scooping stations are already on its way. We have a good mind to bring this before the Assembly for a decision.”

Dr .Bloch said.“I just came here and I would like to have a little time to check the data in detail. Besides, I am sure SII lawyers and advocates would have already pressed for an Assembly vote if you would be certain of the outcome.”

“Of course, Dr. Bloch. As I said we are a great admirer of your work and there could be a research position at Onyx planet in your near future, Dr. Bloch.”

Claudia was not a materialistic person and she was more than just content just right where she was, but every scientist and scholar knew about the paradise of knowledge and the true boundless pursuit of it, an invitation to Onyx planet represented.“I am flattered, Mr. Iseratte, but I am happy where I am at.”

The SII agent waved, smiled into the room and left. The Saran woman shivered. ”Ammuntherah the devourer has a friendlier smile than this man.”

Chimeer spread his mandibles.“He is urging us to clear this planet, so they can move in with their refinery platforms and make MOLGAS out of the planets atmosphere. The science council is sympathetic to our hesitation of course, but now it has given us ten more days in which we need to find tangible reasons to deny SII the claim and put this planet on the list of protected habitats.”

The Vantax joined the conversation.“I am afraid Chimeer is seeing something no one else can see. I neither like or dislike SII, but they have a valid claim and I for one think we should pack up and move on to the next planet. There is nothing extraordinary about this Class VII. We even had a Hotzie specialist tele-present last week and it too confirmed that there is no sentient, heck no life at all out there.”

Chimeer pointed to the Vantax, “By the way this is Dr. Yolti our bio chemistry specialist. The quiet Stellaris next to him is planetologist Dr. Hilburger and the Saran female to your left is Patha Negis. She’s our MD or more precisely our chief medical officer. The Stik to my right, listens to Gwoonly and is in his final six month of the 22 month Citizen Service. He choose to volunteer with the Explorer Corps and was assigned to us.”

The Stik rose from his seat.“I am going to study Xenobiology, Dr, Bloch and Dr. Chimeer told me so much about you.”

Claudia waved in front of her with an impatient gesture she could no longer suppress. “I am still sitting here not really knowing why I am here. If I get it straight, SII wants this planet. Science Central already went over the reports and is inclined to release this world. Dr. Yolti thinks there is nothing out there to warrant any more study, but despite all that you think there is something, right?”

Chimeer clicked with his mandibles in a nervous, apologetic rhythm.“Yes, Claudia. But I am not going to point out what it was I saw or think I saw. I want your unpolluted, unbiased opinion. Just bear with me and simply check our scanner results, make your own observations and all that. We got ten more days.”

Claudia leaned back. “Alright, this time the roles are reversed and you challenge me to see. I accept.”

Chimeer was utterly non human and yet she knew him well enough to sense his relieve. She crossed her arms and leaned back. “Yes I accept, and you will know the very first question I ask.”

He tried to approximate a nod.

She gestured across the reports and scientific observation notes. “If sentient life of any kind is expected, what about a psionic evaluation?”

He pulled up the initial survey folder. “There was a Psi talent aboard the UE Vandegris that initially surveyed this system, but no psionic activity was recorded in their official survey report.”

She looked over the same documents and said.“I can see that there was a psionic gifted officer among the survey crew, but the report does not mention one word about this officer making an evaluation or comment of any kind.”

She didn’t even notice that she slipped back into her role as a teacher and as she got up and gestured the survey report before the Kilonian and enlarged it to prominence.“Chimmie, there is a difference between a psionic survey with a negative result and no record of such a survey at all.”

He didn’t respond to it directly and tried to proof to her that he knew the difference and was aware of the lacking psionic evaluation. “I have summoned Makma Makedi, to make another psionic evaluation, he is a Leedei friend of mine and a very potent telepath form what I understand.”

“I have no doubt he is, but it would be the first psionic survey as we have no indication one was made before.”

He again tried to nod.