Notes from An Alien

17 ~ Sovereignty

 This is Sena again. I promised I'd return to continue the story of my people when the history reached my birth. That happened not so long after my grandmother died. Mura had just been in a meeting with the Aklan Council of Justice. Her daughter, Verta, my mother, was with her and my father, Alunur, watched the scene as a religious radical tried to kill Mura.

I say tried to kill because Morna's task was to make such a thing impossible.

As you've just read, my mother said to my father: "She died for your sake. Now, I will live for your sake."

Verta knew Alunur would be there. My grandmother knew, too, though she knew much more about Alunur than Verta did, primarily through information Anglana had given her. Grandma, deep in her heart, knew Alunur needed a powerful demonstration of love to galvanize his being, help him prepare for a life with Verta.

Mura, without conscious thought, had redirected the plasma shield Morna had created to protect her on to Alunur. She died for the sake of my father—demonstrated sacrificial love—because she knew my mother would marry him and, through Anglana, knew that Alunur was critical to the evolution of the Aklan Faith.

Mom and Dad got married only one month after Grandma's death. They had me after the nominal period necessary to grow a new child.

The situation in the Worlds at my birth could be summed up by saying that the Worlds' government was about fifty-six percent trustworthy, the state of trade and commerce was growing at a rate of ten percent per year, and the Aklan Faith comprised around thirty-four percent of the population.

Religion again...

No matter my personal beliefs, the Aklans as a group are the most industrious, most trustworthy, most giving people of the Angian star system. Whether that came from their adherence to the dictates of Akla or was just some chance result of the Angian evolutionary path has little practical importance for the folks who benefit from having people like this around. I think the Teachings of Akla are brilliant. He covers everything from how to maintain mental hygiene to how a government can best serve its citizens. Was He a Prophet Who spoke for God?

You decide.

I have more of the story to tell.

After my father had exposed the leaders of the Independents their force in our society quickly dwindled. Their henchmen, the Disciples, went on a brief rampage and killed thousands but the Worlds Protective Force had already been strengthened and if there are any Disciples of Faith left, even the nicer ones, they don't dare bother anyone.

Mom and Dad teamed up to carry on the teaching work that Mura had been pursuing—the work that my ancestor, Delva, had first championed, even though she didn't cling to organized religion.

I, naturally, went wherever my parents went until I reached my thirteenth birthday. That's when I went to stay with Anglana.

That dear, sweet Consciousness completely convinced me that our Worlds were well on their way to an enduring peace. She also gave me my life's work.

Mother could use plasma communication out to about 3,000 miles. Anglana and I discovered that I could use it at a much greater distance. I was able to reach out to other star systems!

This was a complete surprise to me and, without Anglana to translate and explain, I would have thought that the extremely strange things I was receiving were only some very disturbed Angians.

I spent the next twenty years, mostly emerged in Anglana's liquid embrace, experimenting with receiving and translating information from five nearby Worlds. Three were in one star system and the other two each in its own system. Still, the three from the same system were very, even radically, different. Nothing like the amazing similarities we of Angi's Worlds enjoyed. Even Anglana's difference of form was not as strange as the differences all five of these other Worlds displayed.

So, here I was, a woman of thirty-three, whose best friend was a widely distributed Consciousness, when I happened to meet a man...

He'd been an Independent and had converted to the Aklan Faith. He'd served on four Local Councils, two Regional councils, and two Territorial Councils. When they told him he'd been elected to the Worlds' Council, a revelation performed in the glare of the News Meshes, he merely said, "I've served the Worlds enough. It's time for them to serve me."

After all the commentators carefully explained that Neiiv hadn't meant anything like becoming some sort of ruler who was served by the people, that he only meant being "served" as in the service that any sane government performs for its citizens, I began to change my mind about him.

My days with Anglana were intense and arduous and took most of my time but I still kept up with happenings in the Worlds. And, Neiiv was a big Happening. I was immediately attracted to him but also felt afraid of him.

He was confident, capable, captivating, and cute.

I was studious and strange.

When news of his retirement from public service was released, Anglana, without my knowledge, made arrangements for him to visit me. All she said, on the day he was due to arrive, was, "A man is coming to meet you. Be very nice to him."

I've already talked a bit about plasma communication and how it's the foundation for many of the seemingly inexplicable ways that people can communicate without words or actions. My training with Anglana had involved mostly the task of receiving communications from other star systems and we were about to embark on a few experiments with me transmitting a few messages; but, along with all that, Anglana had also drilled me in methods of controlling my communication abilities, essentially, turning them on and off. When she told me a man was coming to meet me, I turned my powers on and widened my reception to anyone thinking about me.

Neiiv almost immediately entered my consciousness. I was at first thrilled with the mental taste of him. I then, unknowingly, sent him a thought and a feeling. Immediately, I was overcome with a withering rush of consciousness and I couldn't control it, couldn't mute it, couldn't do anything but let it wash over me. I nearly swooned under its impact and, before I could recover, he appeared at the top of a nearby hill. Seeing his form gave me a small foothold from which to begin to gain control of my mind and heart. Later, I would scold Anglana harshly. Now, I was eager to meet him, get to know him, devour him...

Since this book isn't a history of me but a story of my people's rise from nearly interminable war to enduring peace, I'll jump to the time after our wedding, when we began earnest discussions about the future of our people.

Neiiv's estimation was that another fifty years would see the Aklan Faith's membership reaching about 70% of the population. He also predicted that the Teachings of Akla would be the accepted moral norm for at least 85% of our population. He also thought that we were reaching a point in our culture's evolution where we would transition from learning how to live to teaching other people how to live.

Naturally, he was deeply involved with my experiments with plasma communication with other star systems but he had focused in on becoming the organizer of a physical voyage to one of the five systems under study.

He estimated it would take us another sixty years to successfully establish comfortable enough relations with one of those peoples to permit the sending of a space vessel full of brave souls. He even predicted which of the systems would prove safest to visit.

While Neiiv set about his spacey task, I continued to reach out to other star systems.

The very next one I made contact with was yours...

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