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Zachariah Urle felt reassured in the knowledge that he’d done everything he could possibly do to prepare.
Yet as the officers of the Craton arrived and took their positions, he felt an unexpected tightness in his stomach.
He went back over his checklist. For a Star Angel the necessary actions were many and intensive, but they hadn’t forgotten anything.
And he was not nervous about being in command for this. It was far from the first time he’d had to arrange a formal welcoming for a dignitary, and from all accounts Star Angels seemed incredibly hard to upset or insult.
A message popped up in his HUD, and he saw it was from Hannah and Persis. They were still ten minutes from the ambassadorial shuttle’s landing, and he brought it up.
An animation of him shaking hands with a giant glowing, angel-like being appeared, followed by cartoony, smiling faces of his girls.
“Good luck, Captain-Dad!” they said together.
He couldn’t help but smile as he tucked the message away and backed it up.
But his stomach felt worse now, all the same.
He’d always wanted to be the captain of a star ship. It had been one of his many dreams that he was determined to make come true.
And part of him was excited that it was his chance.
He’d been overlooked before – many times. He occupied a strange position where he had not wanted to leave the Craton – or stop working with Ian Brooks – and it had cost him career advancement.
Perhaps he felt guilt.
Most of all, though, he’d never wanted it to be like this. To have his advancement come at his closest friend’s cost.
He shook his head. Why did he even keep thinking this way? This pervasive sense of doom about Brooks, that he was truly going to be stripped of his command.
He had to shake the idea, and focus on the moment.
Every officer was in position, standing starkly at attention. His scanners picked up no sign of anyone being ill, but tension still seemed high.
The shuttle carrying the new ambassador was preparing to dock, and the stray thought that the Craton really should have its own ambassadorial staff ran through his mind again. If the Diplomatic Corps wasn’t so busy elsewhere, perhaps they would . . .
“Attention! Docking procedures completed. Coupling is now initiating. All personnel, wait for the all-clear to open vacuum hatches.”
Then, a moment later; “Pressure established. Shuttle Hatch Doors opening now.”
Urle snapped to attention, every other officer following suit.
The shuttle doors opened, and two men and a Sepht in diplomatic corp uniforms came out gravely. Between them, carried by drones, was a casket.
For a moment his system identified it as a coffin, sized for a baby. His heart rate jumped, but then his system corrected and noted it as being a Faraday cage.
“Greetings, Captain,” the oldest of the diplomats said. “I am here speaking on behalf of the Ambassador.”
“Greetings, Ambassador,” Urle said, knowing that in such cases he should address the man as if he was the ambassador.
“The Ambassador expresses its pleasure at being on your vessel, and hopes that you and it will get along in peace and equanimity,” the Ambassador replied.
Urle imagined that the man was somehow communicating to the Ambassador within the casket, but he didn’t actually know.
“You have my deepest thanks, Ambassador, and I hope for the same.”
The man nodded. “With your permission, Captain, the Ambassador would like to move proceedings to Fusion Reactor Seven, so that it can greet you more directly.”
“Of course,” Urle said. “Follow me.”
Dismissing most of the officers, Urle led them out of the hangar.
They travelled down through halls and lifts, but it did not take long to reach Reactor Seven.
The reactor personnel were prepared, and snapped to attention as they entered.
“The Ambassador would like them to be comfortable,” the man said. Urle could see now that he had some kind of device in his ear. Bulkier than any normal communication device, but probably scratch-made just for communicating with the Star Angels.
Urle had the techs connect the casket to the fusion reactor. They’d already prepared systems that would allow the Star Angel to transfer into it without trouble. It had been developed and tested before, outside of their ship, but to Urle, this was still the most dangerous step.
“Successful transfer,” the older man said. “We should give the Ambassador several minutes to become acquainted. It will inform us when it is ready to speak again.”
Urle nodded, and the other man grinned suddenly. “I can’t tell you how excited I am, Captain Urle.”
“I am as well,” he said, not feeling it as much as he said. Yet, he was excited. The Star Angel was an entirely new form of life, and now it would be partners with them, joining them in their travels of the cosmos.
It was hard not to be moved by that.
The ambassador shook his hand. “William Prince. I was lead on the project to decipher and understand the Star Angel language.”
“That must have been extremely challenging.”
The man nodded. “I admit – it was. Everything about them defies our theories of life itself. We’re going to have to re-define a lot of terms! Star Angels have no concept of food, ecosystem, or matter, for instance. Yet they are highly intelligent and emotional beings – how this came about in their plasma environment seems to be just an incredible stroke of fortune.”
He shook his head and laughed, at the absurdity of how much stranger reality could be than fiction.
“It helped greatly that they are the most patient and good-natured beings I have ever met. I have yet to find one be anything close to cross or angry. Far more patient than I am.”
He looked to the fusion generator. “Yet it was worth it.”
He stiffened suddenly. “Ah, the Ambassador is ready to speak to you. Can you jack into my system?”
Urle did so with a thought, and scanned the special software the man had in his ear piece. It was a complex translation package, as advanced as any he’d seen. It did not simply convert words, but very carefully attempted to parse feelings between beings as disparate as flesh and plasma. To convey at least some sense of the feeling behind it. Prince had even gone so far as to come up with a way of transposing the specific frequencies of Star Angel speech into something approaching human sounds – to approximate, as much as was possible, the radio waves into a voice.
He heard a very pleasant woman’s voice in his ears.
“Greetings, Captain,” it said. “Thank you for allowing me aboard your vessel!”
“It was my honor,” Urle replied. “Are you comfortable?”
“Oh, yes – I know you must have gone through much trouble to prepare this, but it seems to be working quite well. It is more comfortable than the box, for sure!”
Prince spoke. “Ambassador, you had mentioned picking a name for us to call you once you settled in. Perhaps now might be an auspicious time?”
There was a pause. “Perhaps soon,” the Star Angel told him. “For now you may keep calling me Shine.”
“It is a play on sunshine,” Prince said to Urle. He was surprised that the man said it so plainly in front of the Ambassador, but reminded himself that the Star Angels seemed to be near uninsultable.
“Yes,” the Ambassador agreed. “But it is not my name. Soon I will have one!”
“At your leisure, Ambassador,” Urle said, offering a bow, though he was unsure if the being saw outside of the reactor yet.
A laugh that was melodic and beautiful came from the being. “You are so kind, Captain. I am really quite glad we are getting to meet. Let us talk again soon – I hope I am not being rude, but I would like some time to grow acquainted with the insides of your reactor.”
“Of course, Ambassador. I will be only a call away,” Urle replied, bowing again.
Other Terrestrial 