The Protectors by H.W.

Chapter 3

When Joanne woke up again she found herself on a bed in a roughly fifteen by fifteen feet room. It was amazingly quiet, and the only sound Joanne could hear at all was the moving of air where, she assumed, an air-conditioning unit blew fresh air into the room. She set up on the side of the bed and took a closer look around her. She spotted her clothes lying on a chair against the opposite wall and quickly looked down to see that she was wearing some kind of white jumpsuit uniform. She got up and walked over to her clothing, fully intent on switching back into them again. When she reached the clothing she leaned back against the wall, wondering just what the hell was going on.

Suddenly the wall moved and Joanne jumped forward in reflex. Looking behind her at the wall, she noted that apparently it wasn't a wall at all, at least not the part where Joanne had been leaning. It was actually a door which had opened to reveal a corridor behind it. Just as she wanted to step through the door it started to close again. She looked at the wall for a moment, totally amazed by the fact that she didn't see a single seam; as if the door and wall had simply melted together. She did however see a silver colored plate on the wall that was about three by four inches. Joanne assumed that she had accidentally touched the plate while leaning against the wall, so she touched it again to see what would happen.

The door opened once again and slid back into the wall. Once again, Joanne couldn't see a single seam on the now opened doorframe. Confused, she stepped through it into the corridor; totally forgetting about changing into her own clothing. She looked up and down the corridor in both directions and after shrugging her shoulders decided to follow the corridor heading to the right.

She followed the corridor for almost two hundred feet without seeing a single door. Then she mentally slapped herself against her forehead. Her door had been invisible as well, but the metal plate had opened it. She looked down the corridor again and only now noticed the evenly spaced metal plates on the walls. She studied a few of them and noticed that there was writing on all of them. She couldn't read it, but it was clear to see that the writing on every plate was different.

She continued to follow the corridor a little further when suddenly a door opened right beside where she was walking. A man came out wearing the same uniform as Joanne, only in a green color. He walked right past her without saying a single word or even looking at her. Joanne looked back at the closing door and just before it was fully closed she took a glance into the room behind the door. What she saw gave her a lot of information to form an educated guess as to where she was.

'Playing children,' she thought. 'That means that I'm in the private area of these... people. Hmm, that more than likely means that I'm on some kind of mother-ship, especially taking into account how long this one corridor already is. Since you don't put families in unnecessary danger I guess that it's safe to assume that we're hiding right behind Mars or something like that at the moment. Perfect, just perfect.'

Joanne looked back down the corridor to see if she could still see the man that had come out of the room. She didn't, but Joanne did spot someone stepping out of the room where she had woken up. The person looked up and down the corridor, and after spotting Joanne, came walking in her direction.

As the person came closer, Joanne saw that it was a woman, who she guessed to be around thirty-five years old. The woman was wearing a yellow uniform, and Joanne started to wonder just what those different colors meant. When the woman had almost reached her, Joanne noticed that she too looked beautiful, but she sure couldn't compete with Terry. Thinking about Terry made Joanne wonder just where the brunette was and if she had already gotten her punishment; whatever that was.

"Hello, would you please follow me?" the woman asked in English and a friendly, but flat tone of voice. Joanne nodded her agreement and followed the woman. She was tempted to ask her some questions, but decided not to. Seeing how little Terry had been willing to share, Joanne had the distinct feeling that this woman would say even less.

They walked through a maze of corridors, stepping time and again through doors that were opened by the woman pushing on those metal plates. The design of the plates changed from time to time, Joanne noted, but the placement; close beside the door, was always the same, as was the height from the floor. As they moved through the corridors they came across more and more people. All wore the same uniform, but in a variety of colors. Joanne had seen green, red, yellow, and black, but no other color, with the exception of her own white uniform, of course. Normally the people were in discussion as they walked through the corridors and it didn't seem to matter which color uniform they were wearing, with one exception.

Joanne had noticed that for the most part, nobody spoke to the people in a black uniform, except for the other people in black uniforms. She had also noted that most people moved out of the way of anyone in a black uniform, including the woman that was showing Joanne the way.

At one point two of the people in a black uniform were walking down the corridor and Joanne's guide moved so far to the side that she was nearly standing flat against the wall, just to make sure that their path wasn't obstructed. They moved past the woman without giving her a second look, but the man in the black uniform brushed against Joanne because she hadn't moved as far out of the way as Joanne's guide had.

The man looked at Joanne as if he had deadly intent, and was just about to speak up when Joanne's guide said something in a hushing way, in the language that Joanne didn't understand. Even though she didn't understand the language, Joanne could certainly see the results. At first the man looked furiously at Joanne's guide; only to have his expression change to one of shock as the woman finished what she was saying. He laughed a little nervously, but was friendly all of a sudden, before saying something to Joanne's guide in that strange language, and quickly walking on while saying something to the woman that was with him.

"What did you say to him?" Joanne wondered, confused by the sudden change in behavior.

"That the Leader's Council is expecting you."

Joanne started to wonder more and more about the strange atmosphere that she felt with these people, but then decided that these people were aliens; literally. Even though they were humans, according to Terry, Joanne shouldn't expect the same behavior from them that she would expect from people on Earth. At the very least they would have a totally different social makeup.

Suddenly the woman stopped and pushed yet another of those plates. "This is where you are expected."

She nodded her head a little to indicate that Joanne should walk down the short corridor behind the door, and once Joanne had entered, the woman turned around and walked away.

Joanne slowly walked down the corridor, which opened up into a large, and totally empty room, at least thirty feet wide and sixty feet long. She slowly walked on until she was in the middle of the room. She stopped walking when she heard a hum that was so soft that for a moment she was wondering if she was just imagining it. She took a surprised step back, when suddenly the floor started to move and rise up. A table about twenty feet long, and six feet wide formed. Once the table and six chairs behind it were formed, the soft hum stopped and the room was once again filled with total silence.

She stepped closer to the table to have a look, when a door at the end of the room opened and six people entered the room. The first five were wearing a blue uniform and they sat down in the chairs, leaving the left chair free. The sixth person was wearing a red uniform and took up position on the right side of the table. Joanne looked at Terry, the person in the red uniform, for a moment to see if she would get any reaction, but all Terry did was look straight ahead and past Joanne.

Seeing no reaction from Terry, Joanne looked at the other people for a moment. From left to right Joanne saw a man she guessed to be about fifty years old, a woman of about forty, a man of about sixty, a man of about thirty, and lastly a woman of about thirty. Joanne couldn't help but notice that all of them looked surprisingly good, and that in fact, all the people Joanne had seen until now had looked good. She also realized that the oldest person she had seen yet was sitting right across from her; the man she guessed to be sixty.

"Welcome, please have a seat," the oldest man said while at the same time a chair rose from out of the floor. As Joanne sat down the man continued. "My name is Eric Bittan and I'm the chairman of the Leader's Council. To my left you will find Sandra Hill and David Lofgren, and to my right you will find Barbara Plotkin and Jon Landau. We are the Leader's Council."

Eric gestured at Terry before adding, "And C8, Terry Lee, you obviously already know. Terry acted against our direct orders when she brought you to our ship; our home. That is a serious offense, which surprised us because until now Terry's record has been exemplary. She thinks that it's very important that we talk to you. Well, seeing that the damage of you being brought here has already been done, we figured that we might as well see if Terry sacrificed her perfect record for a good reason and see what you have to say. I hope you don't mind a friendly conversation?"

"Not at all," Joanne assured with a smile. "I have tons of questions that are just dying to get asked."

Eric laughed. "Tell you what. I'll give you a short version of our history and why we're here. That will probably answer a lot of questions for you. Then we can have a little talk about the things Terry here feels you have to tell us."

"Sounds good to me," Joanne agreed. She felt herself relax as the conversation continued. There might have been a strange atmosphere in the corridors, but in the room the atmosphere felt friendly. So much so that Joanne could easily forget that all of these people were aliens and merely see them as humans she didn't know.

"Alright, let me start at the beginning," Eric said before starting his story. "About a billion of your years ago there were already a number of civilizations in the universe that were millions of years old. However, none of those old civilizations ever evolved, or felt the need to evolve, the space technology needed to do more than stay in their own solar system, except for one.

One species, who called themselves Manraqi, had evolved on a planet that was on its last leg, so to speak. The star in their solar system had reached the last stage of its life and was becoming increasingly unstable. The Manraqi knew that in order to survive they needed to go into space. They built the spaceships needed and left to find a new world. They had little luck. It seems that the atmosphere they evolved in, that they needed, was so unique that they couldn't settle on any of the otherwise perfectly fine planets they found. They also found something else though; a planet that was just as close to dying out as their own planet had been. On this planet there were sentient beings, but so un-evolved that the Manraqi saw them as little more than animals; animals with huge potential. Because the Manraqi had the means, they decided that they would save the animals; it would keep them busy at least."

Eric had lifted his hands in a 'so what' manner to give more meaning to just how relatively unimportant the animals had been to the Manraqi.

"Soon the Manraqi decided that since they were taking these animals with them anyway, they might as well do some experiments with them to see if they could speed up the evolution process a little. The experiments showed that the sentient animals were surprisingly fertile and relatively quickly able of evolving to where they could handle new environments and atmospheres. Since the Manraqi couldn't settle on any of the planets they found, they decided that they might as well use the planets for something else and tried to populate them with the sentient animals. This was mostly done to see how they would change and adapt, and which of the different breeds the Manraqi had created would survive.

By the time they reached your planet, the Manraqi had several breeds ready to release. Most died out quickly or ended up being food for non-sentient animals. Some of their skeletons have been found recently in your history. One of these skeletons has been called 'Lucy' I believe I heard. Eventually two breeds survived for a longer time. You now know them as the Neanderthals and the homo-erectus.

As time went on the Neanderthals died out, and you know what happened to your ancestors, the homo-erectus. The homo-erectus evolved into the Home-Sapiens, who turned out to be extremely resilient and highly adaptable. This was the proof the Manraqi needed to decide that this was the line that needed further refining.

Time passed and eventually the Manraqi finally found a planet that might sustain them. The Manraqi predicted that they had a 90% chance of surviving on the planet. By this time they were tired of the space travel and so they decided to take the chance. They landed the ships and released the latest two versions of the sentient animals they had been working on. Unfortunately, and ironically, the Manraqi could indeed live on the planet, but they were extremely susceptible to a disease on it. Only one year later they were all extinct. However, the two breeds of the sentient animals they released thrived."

"Was the difference between those two breeds as big as the difference between the Neanderthals and the Homo-sapiens?" Joanne asked. "Considering that if I understand this correctly, this happened after they visited Earth and therefore these two 'breeds' had to be more advanced than the original Homo-sapiens that were placed here on Earth."

"All in all the two breeds were very similar, just that one breed was more advanced than the other. The less advanced breed lived to be 80 years on average, the more advanced one lived to be 180 years on average. The less advance breed had one thing that the more advanced breed hadn't; a higher resilience and tolerance for environmental situations."

Joanne frowned in confusion and Eric explained. "A higher tolerance for heat and cold, the body was better suited to repel or deal with diseases, things like that. This is why the Manraqi had been still experimenting with that breed even though they also had a breed they considered more advanced. The more advanced breed didn't have those traits at that moment, but they had been bred to adapt to changes in general even faster so it evolved a lot faster than the less advanced breed. Of course, with adapting fast I'm still talking in terms of generations, and not in individual years.

So before the difference in evolution between the two breeds could become too apparent something else happened; they crossbred. The result was that one mixed species formed. But, those more advanced genes were still there, somewhere in that mix and slowly started to form some changes. All members of this new species now lived to be on average 80 years old, but the aging had changed. Now the aging continued just like it does in you humans but only until puberty has set in. Then the visual aging slows down. For instance, Terry here now pretty much looks like you do since you are in the same age group. However, at age sixty she will look like you at around forty. And at age eighty she will look like you at age sixty."

'Ah, that means that he is also older than I first guessed,' Joanne thought while Eric paused for a moment before continuing in a slightly new direction.

"It was then that the genes of the more advanced breed threw the final surprise at us. Sometimes, apparently randomly, a child is born that is destined for more. They don't live to be 80 years old on average, but 1000 years old on average. I don't think that it will be a surprise when I tell you that we did research into this, and even tried to guide it; but we can't. If two people are of the kind that live long that still doesn't mean that their children will live long, and vice versa. It can be that for a hundred generations there never was a long living member in the family, and then suddenly such a long living child is born.

It was reasoned that there had to be some reason to this apparently random behavior, and the fact that the long living were vastly outnumbered by the short living. The reason was found in life experience. Clearly if you lived longer you gather more experience and therefore can make wiser decisions. And so, over time, these long living individuals became a ruling class, called the leaders."

"And the short living accepted that just like that?" Joanne wondered.

"They did, but mostly because this leading class was not made up by some people that hand their power down to their own family from generation to generation. That leader can just as easily be the child of a family line that never had a long living individual in their family line. When a leader does eventually die a new leader will be selected to fill his or her position from the long living, so the power of this leader won't go to his family or the like."

After this explanation, Eric continued with his short history lesson.

"Eventually the day came that our technology had developed to the point that we found the spaceships that the Manraqi had used and had landed on our planet. Since the Manraqi were long dead we claimed the ships, and the technology, as our own and started to explore space. Once we had grown confident in the use of the ships, and had explored our own solar system, it was decided to use the ships to visit the planets where the Manraqi had once released some of the sentient animals that were our, and your, ancestors. Of course, this was really nothing more than curiosity to see how those 'brothers and sisters' had fared and to see if they needed help.

In the ships we had found the stellar charts that the Manraqi had created, and put them to good use. As excited as we were by the time we finally reached the first planet, that planet was a huge disappointment. There wasn't a single living being to be found; not even a single plant. Also, the entire planet was mined to such an extreme that it was unstable and it was too dangerous to send someone onto the planet for a closer inspection. In short; the entire planet was robbed and not a single valuable resource was left. The worst part of it was that the mines showed that all of this was done deliberately by some species, we now know are called the Bundar. We managed to find out that they had forced the entire population of the planet into slavery to mine the resources of the planet, and once that was done they sealed the surviving slaves in the mines and left them to die."

Joanne had to swallow when hearing that, and especially since she got the distinct feeling that these Bundar were on their way to Earth.

"We followed the trail of destroyed planets," Eric continued, "Until we reached a planet where the Bundar were still in the process of plundering it. We obviously didn't have to think twice to realize that it was up to us to try and stop the Bundar once and for all. In the beginning things went surprisingly well; better than we had even expected in a best case scenario. But then it happened. Even if things go well, you still use resources. We used the resources we had and there was no way of getting more, while the Bundar continued to rob the planet and use those resources to continue the war.

As difficult a decision as it was, we decided that we couldn't save that planet and had to move on to the next planet to restock on resources so that we could continue the fight. We had noticed on our stellar charts that for one reason or another, the Bundar were taking the same route that the Manraqi had used so many millennia before. Because of that we could guess with utmost confidence what the next planet would be that the Bundar would visit, once they were done with the other planet."

Eric was quiet for a few seconds before saying, "For the last 320 years we have been on route to this next planet, and finally we arrived here. At the moment we're in the process of exploring your planet to see if you have the resources we need to fight the Bundar, and win. We also want to see if we can actually get the help of Earth when we try to defend Earth against the Bundar. Terry here thinks that we should talk to you to get your opinion on how to handle this."

Eric stopped talking and it was clear to see that he was waiting for a reaction of Joanne.

Joanne let out a soft whistle. "Well this sure beats all my expectations. I mean, I had always assumed that there was other life in the Universe, but not even in my wildest dreams would I have thought that I would meet people that are descendants of our ancestors, but just happen to come from a different planet. On top of that, that they're here to defend Earth and need our help to do so, it's... way out there."

"It may be way out there, but we are never the less still here," Eric pointed out. "Terry said that you think that we're doing things incorrectly. As you see from the story I just told you, we may be experienced in space travel, but first contact is new to us as well; not counting the war with the Bundar of course. So, why don't you give us your opinion?"

"Well," Joanne said thoughtfully. "I think that the biggest problem is that you're scaring people, which sure isn't a good thing. Mind you, in the beginning your approach was correct. To show yourself slowly to more and more people so that rumors would start and eventually nobody, no government, could discount your existence. But now you've established that. Now people know you are here. Now they've started to wonder, why do they visit us and then make no contact? Now they're starting to fear that you have more in mind than just contacting us. Fear like that is not a good thing. It makes people that might have been willing to trust you become suspicious instead. If you continue like that you'll erode away your potential support, and that's the absolute last thing you want."

"And what approach would you suggest?" Eric wondered.

"Before I answer that, may I ask a question? How long do you think it will be before the Bundar reach Earth?"

"Their ships are slower than ours, but we don't know exactly how much slower. In the best case scenario, we estimate that it will take them ten years to get here, and in the worst case, only five."

"Let's take those five years then," Joanne said. "I don't know if your research has shown this to you already, but we Earthlings are a strange bunch. We have wars; we try to press our beliefs onto each other and vice versa. But as soon as a bigger threat arrives, even the worst of enemies reconcile their differences, for the moment, and unite to fight the bigger threat. We have a famous saying here that I think conveys exactly what I mean. 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend.' Meaning, if I hate someone for their beliefs, I might still work together with him to save the home we both live in. After that I still have enough time to try and kill him, as long as we managed to keep the home for ourselves."

"Interesting point of view," Eric said thoughtfully.

"Interesting, but a fact," Joanne assured. "So, if you were to just try and take the resources you need to fight the Bundar; you would have a war on two fronts on your hands, the Bundar, and us. To make matters even worse, that saying would come back to bite you; 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend.' Even if you were to explain that you're the good guys, we would never believe it and would think that the Bundar are the good guys simply because they started to fight the people, you, that were, in our eyes, trying to plunder our planet. So, if you truly want to win that fight with the Bundar, you need our full support. You need to show us your good intentions. You need to prove to us that we can trust you. If you succeed in that you'll find a united Earth behind you when the time comes to fight the Bundar. I think that what you need to do first is find yourself a middle person; someone that's from Earth, but believes in your task. It would be up to that person to sell your cause to the rest of Earth, and if the person succeeds in doing that you'll find Earth willing to help. Help mine the resources you need, build the weapons needed to fight the war. And even more importantly, if it turns out to be a hard war, you'll find that we would work extra hard to win the fight instead of extra slow to hamper you. Because, make no mistake about it; if you're seen as the oppressors this is exactly what will happen. People will work as slowly as they can get away with instead of as hard as they can."

After having stated what she thought could be the negative side affects from the way things were done until that point, Joanne moved to explain how she thought it had to be done.

"But this will have to happen in steps. As I said, first you need to find someone that can plead your case. Besides that you also need to give Earth something else than just threats of an imminent war. Show them that having you around betters their life on a personal and individual level as well. My guess is that some of the technology you have would suffice there. The added bonus to that is that it would indirectly help in the coming war because by that time Earth will be used to new and advanced technology. You also need to do something socially. Open factories for instance, so that unemployment is cut down dramatically. This will give you a broad support because people will have gotten a job because of you, or at least will know someone in their circle of friends and family that owes their job to you."

"We are totally self-sufficient," Eric pointed out. "We don't need factories on Earth; we wouldn't even know what we could use them for."

"Ah, but that's the fun part," Joanne grinned. "You can use those factories to make things that improve life on earth; to fight poverty in third world countries, to make it possible to have a farm in the middle of the Sahara, to end deforestations of the rainforest. The factories will employ people; which will be liked; they will help better the world, which will be liked; and the factories will train a competent workforce. That last bit will be of benefit when the war starts and you'll need those factories to make the weapons you need to fight the war."

Eric nodded his head thoughtfully. "You make some valid points. I think we will now go and discuss your words. Excuse us for a few minutes."

Eric and the four others in a blue uniform stood up and left the room, leaving Joanne and Terry alone. Joanne looked at Terry, who hadn't moved one bit since taking her position beside the table. The blonde stood up and walked towards the person she once thought she knew. She looked her in the eyes, but that sparkle she had always loved to see in those green eyes was still nowhere to be found. Finally, more for lack of anything else to say at the moment, Joanne asked, "So, did you get your punishment yet?"

"I'm not authorized to have a conversation with you at the moment," Terry merely said in a cold and flat voice.

Joanne could not believe that this was the passionate and sometimes mischievous person that she had gotten to know in the weeks before. "Can you at least tell me if you are alright?" Joanne asked, but this time she didn't get a response at all. She shook her head in disbelief and went to sit back in her chair.

The 'couple of minutes' turned into half an hour, which left Joanne with nothing to do but study the room. She noticed once again that there wasn't a seam to be found. The entire room, from floor to ceiling, looked like it had once been a solid block of metal where the room had been carved out from the inside and the surfaces smoothed after that. The same could be said for the table. It looked like it was made of some kind of marble, yet the legs of the table somehow 'melted' into the floor without a single seam to be seen. The same thing was true for the chairs. They stood lose, and Joanne could move her chair around, but if she tried to lift it, the legs just got longer while the ends of the legs stayed firmly 'melted' into the floor.

And then, of course, there was Terry. The woman Joanne thought she loved, but now? Now she was showing less emotion than a toaster oven. At least a toaster oven radiated 'some' heat.

Joanne had to chuckle at her own comparison. 'Just what is it with lesbians and toaster ovens?' She thought amused. Then her thought turned serious again and she sighed. At the moment the only thing that really proved that Terry was actually alive, was the fact that she was breathing. Those green eyes Joanne loved so much now looked cold and emotionless. No, Joanne had to admit, this Terry held no attractiveness for her.

To Joanne's feelings the 'couple of minutes' had turned into an hour before the door finally opened again and the Leader's Council retook their seats.

"After some consideration we have decided that we can see your points and we will try it your way," Eric smiled before adding, "After all, if it doesn't work, nothing is really lost; we're only back to the situation we have now."

"Great," Joanne said happily. "I don't know how far your research has gone, but if you want I can make some suggestions for a middle person."

"We were actually thinking of asking if you were willing to be that middle person," Eric said.

"Me?" Joanne asked, floored by the suggestion.

"Yes, you. Do you know anyone that has a better grasp on your ideas than you do?"

"Um, well, as much as it pains me to say this, but here on Earth, if you want a middle person that the entire world can accept, you probably need a man. In a lot of countries women are still seen as less than men."

"Then they need to adapt," Eric said firmly. "If the time comes, we need all the help we can get, and not only half the help because the other half is not seen as fit because they are female."

"I can see your point," Joanne had to admit. "But besides that I also really like my privacy; I don't want to get scrutinized by every human on Earth."

"Then get a spokesperson, or we can set up a public's relations department," Eric suggested again. "Besides, you'll need to do that anyway. Your time will be taken up by meetings and negotiations all over your world. You won't have the time to give a lot of interviews and appear on TV time and time again to make the same point. You do the actual negotiating and let your PR department do the interviews."

Joanne sighed. "Guess if I want to help save the world, I have to make some sacrifices as well. Alright, I'll give it a try."

"Glad to hear it," Eric smiled. "Well, if you're going to represent us, you'll need to know our customs and habits, as well as other things. Like just what our technology level actually is. Let me get back to that in a moment though."

Eric suddenly looked at Terry before addressing her. "As for you, Terry."

At the mentioning of her name the statue that was Terry moved and turned to face Eric.

"You disobeyed the direct orders of this Council," Eric noted. "As you know, punishments for disobeying Council orders are normally most severe. But, seeing how you might actually have had a point, we decided on some leniency, and your punishment will actually be quite mild. As of now, you are prohibited from joining any activity onboard of any of our ships. If you're onboard, you are to stay in your quarters, unless you have direct orders that demand that you're somewhere else. These direct orders have to be orders from this Council, and are only valid orders if given to you by this Council directly. You are prohibited from contacting anyone, with the exception of this council. At a later time you will get five minutes to explain the situation to your friends and say good bye to them. Is this clear?"

"Yes sir," Terry stated firmly.

Without saying another word, Eric turned back to face Joanne, just in time to see her lifted eyebrows. "I know that to you this might seem harsh, but history has taught us that we can only survive and thrive on these ships if there is a clear hierarchy, and everyone knows their place. The only way to ensure that is to place importance on orders being followed, and have tough penalties for when an order is disobeyed."

"I can see your point," Joanne had to admit, "But I can tell you if you want to unite Earth to help you, you can forget about introducing punishments like that; especially if this is still a light punishment."

"We will take it under consideration," Eric assured. "After all, we don't even know if, and to what extent, we will mingle with the population on Earth, and if any of our rules will be even needed. As for now, I'm sure that you are dying to learn more about us and our ship."

"You're absolutely right," Joanne grinned.

"Good. In a moment we will appoint you a guide, but first. Seeing the position of trust we will be placing you in, I'm sure that you'll not be offended and can understand that we will send someone along to be at your side at all times and to observe first hand."

"I hadn't expected anything else," Joanne assured. "Besides, I think it's a good thing. That way I always have someone I can ask questions without having to contact you for the smallest of things. Like, are your people allowed to do this or that, or will this be a problem."

"I'm glad to hear that you understand this. Seeing that we already established a reason and background for Terry to be in your part of the country, we were thinking of sending her with you again, unless you object."

Joanne looked at Terry to see if she would get any reaction from the statue, but there was nothing but a blank stare into nothingness and a rigid stance that would make any soldier proud. For a moment Joanne wondered how she could ever have had feelings for the woman. That is until her heart reminded her that those feelings were still there; just covered with a layer of disappointment.

"No, no problem," Joanne finally said before looking back at Eric again. "But I have to admit that I'm surprised that you're sending her with me; aren't you afraid she'll disobey orders again?"

"That we are strongly disappointed that she disobeyed orders doesn't mean that we won't make use of the fact," Eric explained. "Terry disobeyed orders because she thought we were doing things incorrectly and that we should listen to your suggestions. That means that she already thinks you have a point, and that in turn means that she will be more devoted to helping you achieve that point than anyone else would be simply because they had gotten the order to help."

Joanne nodded, seeing some logic in that, if flawed. But she reminded herself again; different people, different ways of doing things. "Well, as I said; it's fine with me."

"Good. Terry, you just heard what your task will be, but for now you are Joanne's guide on this ship. She is allowed full access and you are free to answer any question she may have. During this tour your punishment will not be active yet so you are free to talk to anyone you want, but you're not allowed to tell them about your punishment or use the opportunity to say goodbye to anyone. The announcement of your punishment will happen in the usual way."

"Yes sir," Terry merely said.

Eric turned back to Joanne. "As I said, Terry will be your guide. Feel free to ask her any question you want. Tomorrow we will return the both of you to Earth. Once you two are back on Earth, Terry will have a communication device to contact us whenever needed and once you two have your story in order as to why you're always together now, we will contact you and talk about details and how to put the plan into motion. Good luck."

After a last smile, Eric and the rest of the Council stood up and left the room.

Once the Council was gone and the door had closed, Joanne stood up and moved a little closer to Terry. Her focus was drawn to the table and chairs for a moment when they started to move and apparently 'melted' back into the nothingness of being a flat floor; once again leaving a whole room without a single seam to be found.

"So what is the normal way for punishments to be announced?" Joanne asked, not really knowing how else to start the conversation.

"On the busiest places on the ship the punishments will be publicized on notice boards. From that moment on the punishment will be active and anyone that does not keep the conditions will be punished themselves." Terry's voice was still as flat as before, but at least now the coldness seemed to have disappeared.

"Would you please follow me?" She asked as she walked past Joanne in the direction where the little plate was on the wall that opened the door.

Before she realized that she was doing it, Joanne gripped Terry's arms and stopped her. "Terry, talk to me please; are you alright?"

When Terry looked at her, Joanne was amazed by the sudden transformation. Her green eyes were full of life once again, and she was literally radiating emotions.

"I'm very alright, and glad that I'll be able to spend more time with you. Jo, you need to understand one thing. Here on this ship, you never show your true emotions, for they will be used against you in punishments. Had I shown how much I lo... how much I care for you, they would never have allowed me to leave with you again."

Joanne nodded her head. After she had seen the punishment Terry had gotten, she believed right away that her emotions would be used against her in a punishment.

She stepped even closer and said softly, "Now that I know that the person I met is still in there, let me just inform you, Terry Lee, that I love you as well, and I'm beyond thrilled that you're coming back with me."

Terry closed her eyes for a moment as she let the words wash over her. "Yes, love. I love you Joanne Rock. I love you so much it hurts, but in a good way. But for now, I'm sorry I have to do this."

After the last word, Terry's expression changed again to the one of the cold statue.

"Eek, talk about a cold shower," Joanne said with a smile. Now that she knew that Terry, her Terry, was just under the surface of the fa�ade, she didn't mind it so much anymore, but she definitely preferred the other Terry.

~~~~~~~~~~{}~~~~~~~~~~

As Terry preceded her throughout the ship, Joanne noticed that a lot of the people they met were also talking as emotionlessly as Terry had. Joanne started to realize that it was a way of life for these people to not show their emotions clearly. Then she realized that they really had only met people that were in the corridors.

"Tell me," Joanne asked when she was sure that nobody was around to hear them. "This emotionless behavior all of you people are showing, is that all the time, or just when you're in places where someone might hear you that you don't want to hear you?"

"The last," Terry assured. "We still love, we get married, we have friends, family. We just get a lot more careful where we might get overheard."

"They could bug houses as well," Joanne noted.

"They could, but they don't. We don't have bugs, as you call them, at all. Our leaders realize that you need some places where you speak your mind freely, otherwise the pressure of never being able to talk will drive people insane or into depression. As an individual you have all the right to say whatever you want, the Leaders just want to prevent those words from being spread over the ship. Therefore, if you're overheard saying negative things it will be reported, but we don't monitor people to see if they actually do say negative things at home. We expect family and friends to report people that form ideas and ideals that are too extreme."

They entered a round room that was about thirty feet across, and from the number of metal plates on the wall Joanne could see there were about twenty other corridors ending in the room as well. Besides that there were four different looking plates that reminded Joanne of the floor buttons in an elevator. She looked at Terry with raised eyebrows and the brunette started to answer the unasked question.

"You could call it a distribution point. Depending on the type of mother-ship you will find three or four of these points in one sector. All the main corridors, like the one we just walked through, end in such a point. Besides it acting as a crossroads of sorts, it's also an elevator that brings you to the different levels on the ship."

Joanne lifted her hand and frowned while asking, "Wait a minute, are you trying to tell me that all the places I have been to until now have all been on just one level of the ship?"

"Yes. All mother-ships have either 100, or 150 levels, depending on which of the two types of mother-ship it is."

"I'll be damned! Just how big are these ships of yours?"

"The small type of mother-ship is about 2 miles long, 1,500 feet wide, 1,500 feet high and has 100 floors. The large type is 3 miles long, 2,500 feet wide, 2,000 feet high, and has 150 floors. We are in a large type now, by the way."

Suddenly a soft chime sounded and Terry walked to the other side of the room.

"What was that?" Joanne wondered.

"We reached the top floor on the ship," Terry explained, and only now Joanne remembered that Terry had pushed one of the buttons on the four metal plates that looked different from the rest. Terry walked into the corridor and Joanne started to follow.

When Joanne looked at the door she once again didn't see a single seam. Remembering that she could ask Terry any question she liked she asked, "Tell me, what kind of metal is this; I never see a single seam."

"We don't know for sure. We know how to make it, and we know how it works, but we don't really know why it does what it does."

"What do you mean?" Joanne wondered.

"Well, we know how it works; with heat. You have metals with 'memory' on earth. You know, mostly used as toys. A straight metal thread that changes form to form letters if you submerge it in hot water, right?"

Joanne nodded her head to show that she knew what Terry meant.

"This metal has the unique feature that you can form it many times and it will 'remember' those forms. For instance, you take a piece of metal, and at 40 degrees you form it into a cube, at 50 degrees you form it into a ball, and at 60 degrees into a triangle. Then if you cool that triangle down it will first turn back into a ball at 50, and finally a cube at 40. Of course, this only works as long as you used to same amount of metal. If you take something off when making the triangle there won't be enough metal left to form that round ball or that cube and you will have holes in it."

"Alright, I get that," Joanne assured.

"Good, now, with these doors they are set to open at one temperature, and to close at another. You could compare the plates besides the doors to switches, and when you touch the plate you start up a system that heats or cools the metal; opening or closing the door. Mostly opening, since most doors are set to automatically close again after a certain time. Obviously, if you make something that must take more than just one form, you have to keep the forms that lie in between in mind and form the different forms in the right order, since those other forms will be formed as well when the metal is heated up."

"So, if you form it into a ladder, a platform, and a railing, you want to make sure that you do it in that order to make sure that the platform doesn't disappear as the railing is being formed," Jo surmised. "But doesn't that mean that you can only form one thing with it?"

"Not at all," Terry assured. "We can make very complex machinery with it. You can make connection points, as long as you make sure that the connection points stay the same in both forms. For instance, we hardly use hydraulics. Instead we have pistons that are made of this material and then at the end there's a connection point that, say, attaches to a ramp. The piston change length, but the connection point stays the same, since the piston change length the ramp is pulled up. It's actually quite simple; it just needs a rethinking of the way you're used to how things work. As for the doors, at normal temperature they are closed, but if you touch these plates, you activate the mechanism that heats the door, and it opens."

As Terry had said the last she demonstrated by pushing the plate once more. "This metal is so precise that we use it even for our message boards. We have pieces of the metal on the board and at different temperatures they change to different symbols of our writing."

"That still doesn't explain why there aren't any seams," Joanne noted.

"Oh, they are there," Terry assured. "You just don't see them. See, another benefit of this metal is that it doesn't contract or expand depending on outside temperatures. From the coldness of outer space to the point where it's so hot that it becomes pliable and can be formed, the dimensions stay exactly the same. It's the only substance we know of with this characteristic. As for those seams you seem to be so fixated on, since this metal can be programmed so exactly and doesn't shrink or expand depending on outside temperature, we can make tolerances between two parts extremely small. These doors are programmed to expand a little in thickness when they are fully open or closed and then they press against the other material and there is literally no room between them, which is why you don't see a seam."

"And how come the legs of my chair got longer when I tried to lift it?" Joanne wondered.

"Again, logical thinking you simply have to get used to. This metal is more than just metal. It's packed full with several different kinds of sensors and heating/cooling units. We need the connection to the floor because... well, that's where the metal goes if you don't need the object anymore. But we also need things like tables and chairs to be movable. So, there are sensors imbedded in the metal and when a certain stress level is measured, an automatic signal is sent to the heating/cooling units in the legs and expands them. So when you're trying to lift the chair, the legs get longer. The extra metal is then formed by, for instance, the legs getting hollow. Obviously, there are limits to that, but they are within common sense. For instance, the average chair can be lifted three feet before you can't lift it any higher. Any higher normally means that you want to get the chair out of the way totally instead of just moving it and then you can simply have it become part of the floor again instead."

"That table looked like stone though," Joanne noted. "But once it was back in the floor it looked like metal; how come?"

"You just said it; it looked like," Terry explained. "Looks can be deceiving. Give metal the texture of stone and the colors, and you think it's stone. Give metal the texture and color of wood and you think it's wood."

"And it's used much on these ships?"

"The whole ship exists out of it, and it's also used a lot in daily life. Of course, I have to add that not everything can be replaced by metal. Something as simple as a pillow still has to be a real pillow because you can't make metal behave like that."

"But you can make it behave like a thin, easy to bend belt, until it heats up and it becomes hard like, well, metal," Joanne said, remembering the seatbelt in the spaceship. "So you can give it different characteristics like being bendable at one temperature and flexible at another?"

"Right. This is however more complex than the simple forming I just told you about. Therefore I can't tell you how it's done."

"You can't, or aren't allowed?" Joanne wondered.

"I can't," Terry assured. "As I said, the metal is more than just metal; it's a complex mix of sensors and other things that are literally imbedded in the metal when it's being created and is still in its liquid form. If you want I can look it up for you, but the simple reason why I can't explain it to you is because I'm not an expert in the field. To compare it with Earth, tell me Jo, how do they make a light bulb?"

Joanne had to laugh. "I wouldn't have a clue. Alright, point taken."

"Do you need to be at this door longer, or can we continue?"

"We can continue, but I have a few more questions about this metal if you don't mind."

"Not at all," Terry assured.

"Alright then," Joanne said as they slowly continued to walk down the corridor. "First off, just how strong is that stuff?"

"Again, if you want it exactly I would have to look it up, but if my educated guess is enough..." An affirmative nod from Joanne and Terry continued. "My educated guess is that if you take a plate of titanium, cover that with carbon fiber on all sides, you'll come pretty close to the characteristics of a plate of this metal of that same size and thickness. As for the strength, I would say that the titanium plate would have five percent of the strength of a same plate made of this metal. But that's only comparing the initial characteristics. There's so much more to this metal that would make you choose it over anything you have on Earth."

"Really? Name them," Joanne said with a smile.

"Well, first of all, I mentioned that the metal can be made to take on certain forms at certain temperatures, but the really strange part is that this heating or cooling to the right temperature has to be done artificially. For instance, if you have a piece of metal that is a chair at fifty degrees, and a table at sixty, you warm it up to fifty and it forms that chair. Now, you would assume that if the room temperature reaches sixty that the chair would turn into a table, but no, it stays a chair even though the room temperature has changed."

"Any explanation for that?" Joanne wondered.

"Actually, yes. Tests have shown that the quickness of the temperature change is of importance. If the temperature changes slowly, like a room being warmed up or the temperature on a planet dropping at night, then the form stays the same, but if the temperature changes very fast, then the form of the metal changes. That's why the bigger the amount of metal you want to change, the more heaters have to be imbedded in it. You have to have enough heater/cooler units to actually produce that fast heat change all through the metal. If you have a metal beam a foot thick, then the center has to be heated at the same time as the outer layer of the metal."

"Ah," Joanne said in understanding. "So it's really more a mix of metal and technology. Or keeping in mind the small size these things have to be because I can't see them in the metal, you might actually even call it nanotechnology. Whatever you call it, if you don't have any heaters in it you can at best only change a little piece that you can warm with, say a gas burner. But something like the size of those doors and that table need to have heater units imbedded in the metal to make it work. Without the technology the metal is just, well, metal, and without the metal the technology is just a pile of gadgets that mean nothing. Do I get the concept here?"

"Well, yes," Terry had to agree. "I guess you're right, if you forget for a moment that you actually don't have this technology on Earth and therefore I doubt that it would mean nothing to your people; it would mean a lot actually. We just tend to forget that part because when the metal is initially formed these heater/cooler units and sensors are added to the liquid metal just like it's an ingredient that is needed to make the metal. So most of us, in fact all that don't actually make the metal, just see the finished product we're so used to."

"So did your people develop this metal or was it developed by the Manraqi that built these ships originally?" Joanne asked.

"It was the Manraqi. In fact, it took us a couple of thousand of years after we found these ships to unravel their secrets and to find out how to make the metal and make it change shapes."

It was only at that point that Joanne realized just how old the ship she was on truly was. "Wait a minute; you're trying to say that this, this very ship I'm in now, is one of those original ships found? That this ship is already millions of years old?"

"Yep. That's also one of the nice things about this metal. It doesn't corrode and it doesn't suffer from wear. In fact, believe it or not, but we've only a very limited number of engineers. Once something is made with this metal it keeps working. To come back to the doors, I can't remember ever having heard of one of the doors being stuck. The engines are the same; they always work. The relatively few engineers we do have are mainly for if we actually want to change something in a ship and of course to maintain the things that aren't made of this metal."

They were interrupted by a door opening about fifty feet away. Two people clad in a black uniform stepped into the corridor and Joanne recognized them as the man and the woman that she had seen before as she was led to the Leader's Council. They came closer and stopped in front of Terry and Joanne. The man started to talk to Terry in that language that Joanne couldn't understand, but Joanne swore that she could decipher a childishly mocking tone in his voice. Terry reminded him in English that the Council had mandated that everyone on their ship had to speak English to learn the language better.

"Fine," he said after snarling at Terry for a moment. Then he continued in what Joanne could only describe as broken English. He had clearly a lot more trouble with it than all the other people that Joanne had met or come across. "So, did you say goodbye to your friends already, or are you afraid that they don't want to talk to you anymore now?"

"You know as well as I that I'm not allowed to tell anyone about my punishment yet, and that I'll get a chance to say goodbye later," Terry replied, her voice as cold as Joanne had ever heard it.

"Hmm, I heard that your punishment will last for one year at least. But don't worry, I'll be more than happy to have a nice little chat with you if you get bored."

"I'd rather make a spacewalk," Terry said, only to add as in afterthought, "Without a spacesuit."

The man took another breath to speak, but before he could say anything, the woman he was with leaned closer and whispered something in his ear in that strange language. The words had a clear affect on the man because all of a sudden he gave a short nod of agreement, or understanding, wished Joanne a pleasant tour of the ship and moved on. A little further down the corridor he pushed on another plate and the two disappeared through the opened door.

"He sure wasn't too friendly," Joanne noted once the door had closed behind the two black clad figures. "Who was he?"

"Him? Oh, you don't have to worry about him. His name is Jeff Dallas. We dated for a while, but after a couple of months I dumped him."

"What? You dated a guy? Ewww."

For the first time since seeing Terry again, Joanne finally saw a smile on those lips, and it made her glad that she had picked this time for her little joke.

"Told you that I was an equal opportunity kind of girl," Terry reminded. "In fact, I didn't just date him; I slept with him as well."

"Ewww, that's so gross."

"He really loved oral," Terry added.

Joanne held a hand to her stomach, pretending to be sick. "Oh, god, you just had to say that didn't you? I think I'm gonna puke. I kissed that mouth and you... god."

"Yep. But he was pretty decent at giving too, though his tongue sure didn't even come close to being as skilled as yours."

"Please, enough, I don't want to get sick for real."

Both of them smiled for a moment before Terry deliberately removed her smile.

"So why did you dump him?" Joanna asked after a moment. "Besides his charming manners, of course."

"I dumped him because he boasted too much about the fact that he's a Leader. It's interesting at first, but gets tedious if you hear it time and time again. Apparently he never got over it that I, a normal person, dumped him, a Leader."

"What, that was one of your leaders? I thought the leaders were those five people I met."

"Then you misunderstood. The leaders are the people that can live to be a thousand years on average. Those are 'the' leaders. But 'our' leaders are the Leader's Council. They have the power of leadership. Jeff, he's a nothing really. He only has the rank of A15, and even that only because the Leader's Council couldn't account for giving a leader an even lower position. But her, her you have to watch out for. Her name is Pam Scott, and if you ever meet her again; watch your words."

"Why?"

"Because she isn't a leader, and yet she managed to rise to the position of A3, and something tells me that she is considered a good candidate for replacing the A1, should something ever happen to him."

"How could he know about your punishment though," Joanne wondered. "I thought they were only announced later?"

"Well, despite all he is still an A, and they're always informed immediately of any and all decisions of the Council. After all, they're the ones that make sure those decisions are implemented."

"And just what exactly does that A stand for?" Joanne asked.

"Oh, I'm sorry, it's so normal for us that I didn't think of you not knowing this. Allow me to explain our class system. Let me begin at the bottom. First you have the white uniforms, like you're now wearing. There are no ranks there because white is only used for those occasions where someone doesn't fit into the class system; like you now. Anyone in white only has to account to the Council; nobody else. After that come the green uniforms. The green uniforms are for the class we call the workers. These are really the majority of people. Their class is, besides the color, depicted by a letter; D. At this level you will find only one Leader, namely D1."

"Let me guess," Joanne interrupted. "D1 is the highest position you can have in the green uniforms, and there's only one leader there because they want to make sure that the highest position under the 'common people' is still filled by a not so common leader."

"That is one explanation," Terry agreed. Her words making clear that there were more explanations, amongst which probably also an official one, but her tone of voice indicated that she personally fully agreed with Joanne's explanation. "Anyway, above the green uniforms you get the red uniforms, like mine. The red uniforms are reserved for what you would call the Army with your people. Of course, here there are ranks as well. For instance, I'm a C8. In the C class you find some more leaders, but they are all in key positions."

"And how far up the ladder is a C8?" Joanne wondered.

"Very rough comparison with the American army, I would say that I would be a Major. But as you could see from the fact that I was working alone; you can't really compare our Army makeup. Anyway, above the red uniforms you'll find the yellow uniforms. Their class is indicated with a B. You could consider them more of a Police force, which also shows that you can't really compare your Army and your police with our C and B class. I'm just using the comparisons to give you an idea of the general makeup of our society."

"I get that," Joanne assured.

"Alright. In the B class you'll find leaders in pretty much all important positions. Then above them you find the black uniforms. Their class is interesting in the fact that it has two layers basically, but not officially. The lower ranks are for the Leaders that couldn't be placed in those key positions in the lower classes."

"Basically giving them a position of power simply because they are a Leader and therefore a member of the leading class?" Joanne asked.

"Right," Terry agreed. "But the higher ranks are an entirely different story. They got those higher ranks because they deserved them, not simply because they happened to be a Leader. There are only a handful of non-leaders amongst the black troops, as we call the people in the black uniforms. Those are the ones you have to watch out for the most."

"Why?"

"Because there must be a reason why they got there. They must have earned that place amongst the Leaders. The black troops have power, but the non-Leaders in the black troops are ten times as dangerous. By the way, watch what you say around a black troop member. As I said, we don't have eavesdropping technology, but we do have black troops that won't hesitate to report anything they hear and find interesting directly to the Council. And talking about the Council; they are above all else. You could see them as our Government. They wear a blue uniform, as you saw, but I don't really call them a class because really, they are black troops that have been picked to replace one of the council members if a spot became available."

"Alright," Joanne said thoughtfully. "I get the classes, but the ranks have to overlap, don't they? I mean, you can't tell me that a C90, if that rank exists, has more power than the D1?"

"There's where it becomes a bit complex and it drifts more into social behavior," Terry said, partially agreeing.

"Um, where are we actually going?" Joanne interrupted when she noticed that they had once again entered one of the access points.

"Nowhere really," Terry admitted as she didn't push a button this time, but instead directly walked to one of the other doors and opened it. "I really like walking through the ship. It makes me relax, and I wanted to indulge in it one more time before my punishment is announced. Do you mind?"

"Not at all," Joanne assured. "I like the conversation, and a nice stroll is always good. So, social behavior you said?"

"Yes," Terry agreed while she continued down the corridor, and with her story. "You see, strictly according to the rules, yes, everyone with a green uniform has to do what someone in any other color uniform, except white, tells him to do. A person in a red uniform has to do whatever someone in a yellow or black uniform tells them to do, and a person in a yellow uniform has to do whatever someone in a black uniform tells them to do."

"And for in the colors themselves it's actually the rank that decides who has to listen to who," Joanne said, mostly to indicate that she got that part.

"Right, and there is where the social part comes in. The thing I just mentioned is theory. In reality someone with a rank of A15 really won't go ordering the D1 around. You simply don't order a 1 around, unless you're a 1 yourself. So the bigger the rank difference is, the more it will go from ordering to asking. For instance, that A15 will politely ask if the D1 can take care of something. If the D1 finds it a reasonable request he'll order some other D to do it. On the other hand, theoretically a D can't order an A to do anything, right? But if that D1 were to 'ask' that A15 to do something, you can bet on it that the A would do it."

"Sounds complex."

"It is," Terry agreed. "Unless you grew up in the system, then you don't know any better and it's the most normal thing around. Anyway, in some way or form there's always someone higher in the line of command. The only exception to that is the A1. There are a lot of people with, say, that rank of that A15, but there is only one single A1. And he only has to account to the Elder's Council. He can basically do whatever he wants, as long as the Council is happy with him."

"You said that red can be loosely compared to the Army, yellow can be loosely compared to the Police; then what is black?"

"I can't think of a system on Earth they would compare to. They're obviously the highest power below the Council, but more than that they're the strong arm of the Council. If the Council makes a decision, the black troops make sure that the decision is also enforced."

"Hmm, let's call them the NSA/CSS then," Joanne suggested before asking, "So why don't you have any insignia? I mean, alright, so you see from the color of the uniform what class you have standing in front of you, but how do you know which rank that person has? Or what if you meet someone with the same color uniform that you never met before?"

"First of all, you're expected to know your commanders that you deal with in daily life," Terry explained. "There aren't too many. For the rest the color does give you an indication. Normally when you get into a situation where you have to give, or get, orders to people you don't know, it's because you've been transferred to a different part of the ship, where you'll be introduced first. It's not like someone from the other side of the ship will come here and start giving orders; their place of work is on the other side of the ship after all."

"That does leave the chance that someone simply puts on a different color uniform if they want to be more than they really are."

"They could do that," Terry agreed. "If they want to die that is. Putting on a color uniform you aren't allowed to wear is a crime punishable by death."

"I see," Joanne said slowly, not really sure what to make of that. "So, all these positions are handed out by the Council? That seems like a lot of work."

"It would be, and besides that, there's no way that they would know everything about everyone on the ship. Local commanders know a lot better who is suited for what kind of job or command. No, it goes like this. Every year there's a chance for people to sign up to be promoted to a higher rank. Then the layers of command above that decide whether you're fit to be promoted to that position you wanted."

"So it's one rank a year and you have to work your way up from green onward?" Joanne asked. Then she frowned. "No, that can't be, otherwise you could never be a C8 at your age."

"That's correct," Terry agreed. "You sign up for the rank you would like to be promoted to, and it's decided if you're capable of doing that. It took me, for instance, four promotions to get where I am now. Though I do have to add that the Council is not totally impartial there. They have to approve all promotions, which is mostly standard without checking any files; trusting the choice of the people that approved the promotion. But besides that they follow some cases that have caught their attention for one reason or another. I personally guess that this is the reason why it only took me four promotions to get my rank. I don't know when, or how, I came to the attention of the Council, but I know that I have. Before we reached Earth I met them about twice a month on average, but there are a lot of people that grow up and eventually die of old age without ever even seeing a Council member."

"So where do you want to go in ranks? You also want one of those black uniforms?"

"Oh no, absolutely not," Terry said firmly. "See, the thing is, once you have one of those black uniforms, you have a lot of power, but very few friends. Take me, at C8 I'm considered 'safe' and because of that I have a nice group of friends. I like having my friends, which is why a big part of my punishment is not being able to interact with them anymore. As I said; we don't tend to show our emotions and feelings in the open because it will be used against you. Anyway, once you're one of the black troops, your friends start to fear you; worrying that you might report what they tell you as a friend. The few friends the black troops normally have are normally amongst the black troops themselves."

"So if the higher ones decide over promotions, who chooses the highest force? Who chooses the Leader's Council?"

"They aren't promoted into their position as such. A Council position is for life. Only if one of the members dies a new Leader is chosen to sit in the Council, at that point it doesn't matter which rank he or she has since they're selected on other criteria then."

"You know, since we aren't really going anywhere special, why don't we do that 'not going anywhere' in directions of things that are interesting?" Joanne suggested. "I have to admit that now that I'm on a spaceship for the first time of my life, I would kinda like to see some of its more important parts."

"That's a good idea, wonder why I didn't think of that," Terry said and it took Joanne a moment to get past the impassive voice to realize that Terry had actually been joking.

~~~~~~~~~~{}~~~~~~~~~~

As Terry showed her some of the more interesting things on the ship they continued to talk about all kinds of things. As they met more and more people during their walk, Joanne realized that she hadn't seen a single unsightly person. At best they had been good looking people that just weren't Joanne's type. Finally she asked, "Tell me, how come there isn't an ugly person on this ship, as far as I can see."

"Huh?" Terry asked confused before understanding the question. "Oh, that's because our medical knowledge and all things related to that field are vastly advanced compared to Earths; including plastic surgery. I know that with your people the looks of a person are very important. I know that you all cry from the highest rooftops that this is not the case, and that true beauty comes from the inside and all that. But you know just as well as I that it's the truth. We were the same in our history once, but instead of trying to convince ourselves that beauty wasn't important we accepted that it was a factor in social life and it became nothing more than normal to change the things about yourself until your body was just the way you want it."

"But if everyone looks good isn't the problem just moved to the details? Where before it was, 'man, look how big her nose is,' now it will be, 'man look at that nose line'."

"But it still fits in the overall beauty scheme and seeing beauty is still up to the beholder. One person will find that nose line, as you say, as ugly as can be while the other will find that nose line as sexy as can be."

"And how far do you take that plastic surgery?" Joanne wondered.

"We have the ability to change everything about the body. That's another thing that does make us different despite the overall beauty. Changes are made for someone's personal taste. They'll have their body exactly like they want it to look, while that still doesn't mean that this person is suddenly everyone's type."

"So, have you been altered as well?" Joanne asked, letting her eyes drift up and down the body she had seen naked and up close several times already.

Apparently Terry liked the words, or the look, because before she could stop herself a broad smile formed on her lips. But she quickly caught herself and the smile was soon gone again. Her voice was a different matter though. It was suddenly filled with that sexy purr that Terry sometimes had used to drive Joanne wild.

"Noooo, I told you once before; I'm all natural. I consider myself truly gifted because I was born with these looks. I never had plastic surgery."

"Never, ever?" Joanne asked, not really able to believe that nature could create such a, in Joanne's mind, perfect body without a single flaw.

"Nope, well, I have been operated on once, but that's normal."

"Normal, how?" Joanne wondered.

Terry looked around her for a moment, making sure that nobody could see her. Then she moved in front of Joanne and opened the zipper of her uniform so far that Joanne had a very tempting cleavage view.

"See that spot?" Terry asked pointing to a little bump about two inches above her heart. "That, is normal. Everyone has at least one operation in their life shortly after puberty has ended and then they get 'something' implanted in their body."

"And what is that 'something'?" Joanne asked while Terry closed her uniform again.

"Nobody knows, and we're encouraged not to ask, if you know what I mean. Down here is the last thing I would like to show you before I bring you back to your room."

Joanne took the subject change for what it was and silently followed Terry as she walked a little further down the corridor. At one point Terry pushed one of the many plates on the walls and as the door opened she explained, "This is one of our weapons rooms."

"A weapons room?" Joanne repeated as she followed Terry into the corridor behind the door.

Terry continued down the fifty feet length of corridor and pushed small plates along the left and right side of the relatively narrow corridor. Panel after panel moved out of the way to expose racks reaching from floor to ceiling, all stacked with things one could easily recognize as weapons.

"I thought Eric had said that you didn't have any weapons," Joanne noted.

"Then you misheard. We don't have the heavy weapons we need to fight the Bundar, but we have more than enough weapons to take the resources we need from your planet even against your will."

"If you have all these weapons," Joanne asked as she looked at several different designs, "then why didn't I see any before? The police for instance, um, I mean, the yellow troops. Or what about the black troops?"

"The police don't need weapons because crime is so negligible that one could say that it doesn't exist. Obviously not really true, since crime of some sort or another will always exist, but the amount is really very low; we don't even lock the doors to our quarters. These weapons are really only used in training so that we know how to use them if need be."

"If you don't really need a police, then why do you have the yellow troops?" Joanne asked as she moved on to the next rack. One of the weapons caught her attention, but mostly by it size. It was the smallest weapon there; it would easily fit in the palm of Joanne's hand.

"In the past, before the war with the Bundar, we didn't have any police. We had the workers, the army, and directly above them the black troops. But it seems that during the war it turned out that the difference between the two classes was too big. Where the black troops were only a minority, the army existed out of almost half of the population on the ships. As I said, the difference was too big. It turned out that especially during war time the black troops couldn't keep the level of control that the Council wanted them to have. To remedy the situation there were quite a few people selected out of the army and they were turned into a new class; the yellow troops, or the police like you seem to prefer to call them. The police class was obviously not as big as the army because these individuals had been selected out of the army. The important part was that the army class was now smaller and therefore this new police class had enough people to control the army, and on their turn the black troops had enough people to control the bigger, but not too big, police class."

"So if I understand this right, you initially compared them to police because it's their task to 'police' and keep the army in line."

"Right," Terry agreed, "but we don't really see it like that because we just see the red, yellow or black troops. For instance, even though the yellow troops compare the most to your police, you don't see them performing patrols of the ships. The black forces do that, and to come back to the weapons, they don't need those weapons to keep the order."

"Why not?" Joanne wondered.

"Because of their training. With us every person is trained in, well, you would call it martial arts. But this training is done until a certain level, which is linked to your position. The higher your class and rank in that class, the more time is spent learning martial arts, and the more moves you get taught. This last is done to prevent someone that is really good in martial arts from advancing too much so that a black troop member will always be better in martial arts then, say, a worker. The workers are only trained in martial arts. The army however is trained in the martial arts and weapons usage as well; we use these weapons for that training. The police are trained in the same and in ways to apprehend an armed individual. And again the black troops are the top. They're trained in all that and then some kind of, I don't really know what to call it, different kind of martial art, or even magic, I don't know. I do know that a trained black troop individual is expected to be able to dodge bullets fired from a weapon. The name of this specific martial art is only known to the black troops themselves, but I can assure you that it's highly effective. Pam Scott is extremely good at it, probably due to her A3 status and training she gets because of it. I saw her give a demonstration once and she was able to dodge the bullets fired from three of these weapons."

At those last words, Terry picked up a weapon that was roughly the size of a 45 Magnum. "Since they really aren't capable of moving faster than a bullet, I assume that the training is more about other things, like guessing where an aimed weapon would hit if fired, and making sure not to be in that position. But that's just a guess of mine."

"If they have to learn more, I assume that they also have to train more; training like that would take up a lot of time."

"It does," Terry agreed. "I have heard that the black troops are expected to train at least four hours every day, though with the lower ranks like Jeff this is not really enforced. He sometimes went days without training. Pam Scott is different though. I think that if I needed to, I could win a fight with Jeff. Sure, he knows more moves than me, but I actually keep my skills as high as possible while he just wings it. But I think that Pam Scott would be able to wipe the floor with ten of me. Rumor has it that she trains at least twelve hours every day. Add to that the time she patrols the ship and she only has about six hours every day just for sleeping and eating."

"Rumors can be exaggerated, in fact they normally are," Joanne noted.

"They can be," Terry agreed, "And I really have no intention of getting to know that woman close enough to find out if the rumors are true."

"Alright, I think I get the class makeup, but still if only the workers do the work, don't others get bored as hell? I mean, you just told me that that the black troops are the ones that do the patrolling and I assume the investigating of the little bit of crime you do have. So what do the police and army do the entire day, not training according to your own words."

"I never said that the workers are the only ones that truly work. I guess you can see it more as the difference between manual work and bureaucratic work. For instance, I told you that the Council is basically our government, but they can't do all of it alone. We have over 300 million people on all these ships combined. Five people can't run that alone. You need people that are the highest power on a ship that the Council isn't on. You need people that interpret the laws and make sure that they're kept. Or more simply, you need people that make sure that enough tailors are trained so that we actually can all have our uniforms. Those kinds of jobs are taken up by army and police as well. While the more powerful jobs, what you would call political jobs... but we don't since we don't have politicians... are taken up by the black troops. Then the workers are indeed the base physical workers. The gardeners that grow our food, the people that operate the machines that weave our fabric."

Terry hesitated before saying, "I guess you could say that we're bipolar. On one side we are those trained troops, I really am a soldier, but on the other side we also perform jobs that make sure that we continue to be, and thrive as, a society. Those normal jobs are also a lot freer. You can train in them, you can get a job, and you can decide after a few years that you want to do something else. All that is fine, as long as there is actually a position available to do that job. It's not unheard of for someone to move to different locations in the ship, and even other ships, over their life time simply because they try different jobs because the one they have starts to bore them."

"Just that the more powerful ones aren't accessible to all," Joanne said in understanding. "Like, I don't think that you as a C8 would be able to get into a position where you can control a full ship."

"Right," Terry fully agreed.

"And what is your job besides being a soldier?"

"Well, since we arrived at Earth my job was to gather information, as you know. Before that I actually worked in the gardens. I don't know, there's just something very calming about being surrounded by nature, even if that nature is the crops we're growing to eat."

Joanne nodded her head in agreement before waving around her with a loose hand gesture. "Anyway, are these all the weapons you have?"

"We have a lot more; this is just one of many weapons rooms."

"Alright, then there's something I don't get," Joanne said. "Clearly you have the technology to make weapons, and your people have been traveling centuries to reach Earth. Why not use that time to make new weapons?"

"Because that would put us in the very position we wanted to avoid. The Bundar would have passed us while we were mining for the resources we need to make our weapons. We would then catch up with them here and be once again faced with an enemy that is plundering the planet while we can't restock a single bullet we fire."

"And here on Earth you'll finally be the ones fighting from the position where you can restock while the enemy can't," Joanne said in understanding.

"Right. Besides that we also have a problem that brings us so many benefits on other fronts; the metal around you. We have a stockpile of this metal, more than enough to make the weapons, but we can't use it for that. On the other hand, if we had stopped to mine for other metal, the Bundar might have passed us. We really didn't have a choice but to get here first and then see about making the heavy weapons we need."

"Why can't you use this metal to make weapons?" Joanne wondered.

"As I said, the metal only reacts and changes form when heated or cooled down at certain speed or faster than that. Weapons certainly fulfill these criteria. If you make a weapon of this metal, you would be able to fire one shot before the extreme heat this created will deform the barrel of the gun beyond use."

"Use Energy weapons," Joanne suggested.

"This isn't Star Trek," Terry said with a smile, only to catch herself and remove the smile. "Energy weapons only work on TV. If you really wanted to make an energy weapon that can destroy a spaceship, the damn thing would be pretty much nearly as big as a spaceship to begin with. Not to mention the energy it would actually take; about three power plants running at full capacity for five hours. Just think about it; five hours between every shot. Nope, for an effective weapon you can't really beat projectiles. Bullets, rockets, missiles, that kind of thing."

"Probably true," Joanne had to admit. "But in that case, what's this?" She picked up the small weapon that had been intriguing her since she first saw it.

"We aren't really sure. It was already onboard this ship when our ancestors started their journey."

"If you don't know what it is; why keep it?"

"Because of its power. It's so small, looks so innocent, and it's the most powerful hand weapon we ever came across. During testing an accidental shot was fired. I told you how strong the metal all around us is. Well, that one shot went through four walls before the projectile finally got stuck in the fifth wall. Mind you, we aren't just talking walls here; we're also talking the rooms that are made rooms by those walls. Normally it's almost impossible to damage these walls, and if you do they 'repair' themselves most of the time by the metal taking on its old form again. But that accidental shot I just told you about happened almost 400 years ago and the holes in the walls are still there and the walls didn't repair themselves at all; not even the thickness of a hair."

"Your mechanics could have long fixed that by now," Joanne couldn't help but point out.

"They could have, but the scientists don't want them to. From what I hear the scientists like to leave the holes as a potent reminder that science can kill if you aren't careful."

"But at least you can use it now?"

"No, it truly was a lucky shot. The testing went on for years, but they never managed to fire a second shot. We don't even know if it can fire a second shot at all or if it's a one shot weapon. All we really know is that it's very powerful, we can't use it, and we can't recreate it."

Terry put the small weapon back in its holder and moved out of the small corridor. As she followed Terry, Joanne noticed that this time the doors, or in this case panels closed automatically as soon as that part of the corridor was empty.

'And yet another way that the metal reacts,' Joanne thought. 'Or is it the sensors? Are there sensors in there that register if nobody is that deep in the corridor? Does it matter? Regardless, it's a killer combo.'

"Anything else you want to know or see before I bring you to your quarters?" Terry asked.

"I can't think of anything. No, wait, there is one thing. You're talking about things that happened centuries ago as if they happened yesterday. How come you know all of that so precisely?"

"Schooling. Our history is taught to us from a very young age, and we're expected to learn it. You could ask a child and they would be able to tell you all the things from our history that I just did. The Council finds it extremely important that we all know our history."

As Terry guided Joanne through the maze she called a ship, Joanne noticed for the first time a door that was clearly visible thanks to a blue color where the rest of the wall was gray. "What's this?"

"Behind that door is the part of the ship where only the Council is allowed to be. It's off limits to anyone else, including the black troops."

After her explanation, Terry continued and Joanne dutifully followed. Some time later they walked into a room and Joanne recognized it as the one she had woken up in.

"As you know, tomorrow we will be brought back to Earth," Terry said as she turned to look at Joanne. "There's one more detail we have to address. What will we say to others that we are? Friends, or, um..."

"Tell you what, before I answer that, I want to ask you some questions."

"You've been asking me questions the entire time," Terry pointed out, slightly confused.

"No," Joanne disagreed. "I have been asking my tour guide questions. Now I want to ask you, Terry Lee, questions. The kind of questions I couldn't ask out there."

"A... alright," Terry agreed hesitantly.

"Good, first of all, let's sit down, shall we?" Joanne suggested as she gestured to the chair in the room and the bed, giving Terry a choice between the two.

The brunette looked at them both for a moment before moving to the bed and sitting down on its edge. Joanne sat down beside her and after a deep breath stated, "Basically, all you ever told me was a lie."

"A lot of it," Terry had to agree. "But definitely not all of it."

"Alright then, let's start at the beginning. Terry Lee, is that really your name?"

"It is," Terry assured. "As we came closer to your planet we started to pick up transmissions; radio and TV signals. We learned a lot long before we ever reached Earth. Seeing that there were so many languages on Earth it was decided that every ship would learn a different language and the people would choose a name that fitted with the language. This ship was selected to learn English. I was five years old when that time of choosing a name came, so my name has been Terry Lee for 20 years now. I told you the truth there; I heard the name Terry Lee on TV and I liked it, so I picked it. The thing I didn't tell you was that this TV program was a TV signal we had picked up and that I was watching it to learn English."

"Then why do you sound American English and not English English?"

"Because we were assigned certain countries, or regions if the country was too big for only one person to explore. I was picked for the part of America where we met. I formed my accent after TV shows and movies that were set roughly in that area. It's so much a part of me now that this really is how I speak now, unless I use my native language of course."

"Your father that taught you how to drive?" Joanne asked.

"That was all a lie," Terry admitted. "We don't force people into marriages and some people never marry at all, but to make sure that our numbers don't drop it is mandatory for every woman to have at least two children in her life. If the woman doesn't want the child it is raised by the state, so to speak. I'm one of those children. I never knew my father, or my mother for that matter. In fact, I don't have any family at all that I know of."

"The truck driving?"

"Partially true, partially not. I learned to drive trucks on a simulator here on the ship. You have no idea how valuable Internet is for aliens wanting to learn stuff about Earth. Internet goes over satellites, a part of the transmission beam misses the antenna since the beam is wider than the antenna to make sure that the antenna is actually hit, so it travels off into space. We intercepted internet messages for years before coming here, and on the internet you can actually find blueprints of all kinds of vehicles. It was decided that I would pretend to be a trucker to get information, therefore I learned how to drive a truck. Which, by the way, also explains why I really never drove a car; I never learned. That's how it really did happen. The part that wasn't a lie was how much I love it. I had been driving a truck on Earth for over two years before I was relocated and met you. I love it, and I really did live in my truck for those two years. It also really was my home if I wasn't in my real home here on the ship."

"The whole story you told me about your family, I bought it all. Hook, line, and sinker; never doubting a word of it."

"That's the whole point. It's a trick we were taught. Be very free to offer up the story in the beginning. That way it doesn't seem like you're hiding something, but later on you can brush almost every question off by saying, 'I already told you everything there is to know; there's nothing left to tell'."

"How the hell did you actually get that truck, or was it made on this ship?"

"No," Terry assured. "Remember the resources of other metal are much too valuable for that. No, you should know how untouchable money on Earth is these days. Add to that our advanced technological state. No, we simply created a fake bank account and went to a truck dealer and said 'do you take credit card?' Since payment was really nothing more than digital numbers being exchanged, his account was updated so he got 'real' money and we got ourselves my truck."

"Still, I'll never know what parts of what you told me were true, or bent truth, or a total lie."

"I'm really sorry about that, Jo," Terry said while looking down at her hands. "You have no idea how hard it was to lie to you every time I saw you. It was never supposed to happen, but I developed feelings for you. Every minute I was with you I felt more alive than I have ever felt in my entire life."

"And yet, I'll never again be able to trust you, will I?"

"No you won't," Terry agreed, and to Joanne's dismay she saw tears start to role down that beautiful face. Right at that moment, Joanne knew that whether she would be able to trust Terry would never again be an issue. Because one thing was for certain; she sure as hell couldn't see the brunette in pain. She took her in a comforting hug while assuring her with soothing words that everything was going to be fine.

"No it won't. Now you'll always doubt me. Am I lying, or am I telling the truth this time. There's no way around that."

"Yes there is," Joanne assured, trying desperately to find a way to comfort the woman she loved. "There's this thing called 'a second chance' that has saved many a relationship. Yes you lied, but really what else could you do? Tell me on the first day that you don't come from Earth? Or on the second day, or before the first time we made love, or after? Just when is a good time to break the 'by the way, I'm an alien' news. Terry, I already told you that I love you. I do. Do you think I would give you up for something like this?"

"You sure sounded like you were going to," Terry couldn't help but point out.

"Maybe I did," Joanne agreed. "I don't like being lied to; you know that. So yeah I was a bit insulted. It's not like I was planning every move in this conversation like a game of chess, but I think what I was looking for was a promise that it wouldn't happen again. Definitely not for you to think I would give you, would give us, up for that. You're the best thing that ever happened to me, Terry Lee, and I'm not about to give you up that easily."

"So you are giving me a second chance?"

"Absolutely."

"It's still not fair. You have to trust me again with me doing nothing to earn that trust." Terry moved out of the hug and wiped away her tears.

"I think we kinda hit a circle here," Joanne observed.

Terry couldn't help but smile. This time, knowing where she was, she didn't remove the smile immediately. "How about we turn it into a deal instead? You're an executive, you like deals, don't you?"

"Let's have it," Joanne said, smiling as well.

"I don't get that second chance; I buy it. I buy it with an I Owe You. I messed up now, you forgive me, from now on I owe you one forgiving for a major fuckup you created."

Joanne laughed. "For a major fuckup you say? Are you that confident I'll mess up?"

Terry leaned in and placed a kiss on Joanne's lips. "Sure. After all, you always insist that I'm perfect. Perfect people don't make mistakes, so if we ever find ourselves in a mess it has to be your fault by default."

Joanne laughed again, but soon the laughing stopped, while the kissing continued. Minutes later they were somehow lying on the bed instead of sitting on it. Terry cupped one of Joanne's breasts, which prompted Joanne to ask with a shaky breath, "Stay with me tonight?"

"I can't," Terry said while sitting up. Joanne's words had brought her back to sanity long enough to know that she really had to go now. "I still have some things to do today. Thank you for speaking up."

Joanne groaned. "Are you trying to tell me that if I had stayed quiet a little longer you would have stayed?"

"Without a doubt," Terry assured. "I told you that you would mess up. You want to use my I Owe You now?"

"Depends, would it make you come into bed again?"

"Nope."

"In that case I would only be wasting it anyway. No, I'll hold on to that I.O.Y. a little longer if you don't mind."

"You do just that," Terry said with a smile before opening the door and moving out of the room.

Joanne sighed and took a look around her. Now that she knew what to look for she saw four more of those little plates and knew that the room actually was part of a set of quarters instead of just one room. For a moment she was tempted to go exploring, but then decided against it. The faster she went to sleep, the faster she would wake up again and see Terry again. She groaned at that thought when realizing that she most definitely had it really bad.

~~~~~~~~~~{}~~~~~~~~~~

Nine hours later Joanne woke up from a deep sleep. As she stood up she noticed a small, dull pain about two inches above her heart. Without having to check she knew that she now too had 'something' implanted in her body.

"Great, just great."

She had just finished putting her clothing on when the door opened and Terry the statue walked in.

"The Council told me to bring you their apologies for what happened last night. The operation was a necessity that had to be fulfilled."

"They could have done that while I was awake; I wouldn't have objected. There really was no reason to knock me out in my sleep. Did you know this was going to happen, is that why you had to leave yesterday?"

"No, I didn't, I really had other things to attend to yesterday," Terry assured. "Though in hindsight we both should have seen this coming."

"Well, as I said, they really didn't have to knock me out for it."

"I know," Terry assured. "The council also told me to ask you if you could meet with them again today before we leave."

"Alright," Joanne merely said as she pulled on the sleeves of her white uniform a last time to settle the material a little. She walked over to Terry and looked her in the eyes for a moment. She opened her mouth to say something, but before she could she suddenly felt herself being pressed against the wall and her mouth being invaded by a very demanding tongue. Joanne gladly surrendered and was treated to a searing kiss that left her knees week. Suddenly Terry pulled back and removed herself a few steps.

"Sorry about that, I, um, couldn't resist the temptation."

Joanne chuckled. "You don't hear me complaining. Damn woman, you hide so much passion under that cool statue look of yours. God, you can be so damn hot."

"B-b-b-b-baby you ain't seen nothing yet," Terry sang with a smile, singing a line of one of Joanne's favorite songs. "Just you wait. Now that I don't need to keep any secrets from you anymore, and I don't have to worry about holding back, believe me baby, you ain't seen nothing yet."

"Baby, huh? Alright babe, I look forward to finding out. Which reminds me, though I have no idea why it reminds me, that I never answered your question yesterday about just what your relation to me would be. It's really up to you, but me personally, I, um, would really like it if I, you know, could tell people that you're my partner."

Terry smiled. "Partner? As in what gays call a person they consider more than 'just' a girlfriend?"

"Yes," Joanne said softly.

"I like that, and that I am." Terry assured. Then she sighed. "We really should get going; we don't want to keep the Council waiting."

Joanne agreed and soon they were walking down the corridor. They took the same route that Joanne and the woman in yellow had taken the day before. Once again they met people, but this time something strange was going on. Whenever they came close to people and they would be noticed, the people would stop talking and turn away from Terry.

"What's going on here?" Joanne asked after seeing the same behavior in yet another group of people.

"My punishment has been announced and these people are doing nothing more than following the rules," Terry replied in her flat voice. But still Terry could hear that trace of a breaking heart.

'I really need to make them understand that if they want our help, punishments like that won't be allowed to leave these ships,' Joanne thought. 'People will never accept this.'

As they rounded a corner they almost literally walked into Jeff and Pam. Jeff became angry about the fact that someone had bumped into him. "Watch where you're going," he said angrily. "The next time I'll..."

He stopped talking though when Pam whispered something in his ear. He gave a short nod and started to walk down the corridor. Pam continued as well, but not before shooting Terry a look of pure venom.

"His problem I understand; his ego is too big for his head, but what's her problem?" Joanne wondered.

"Her problem is that she hates me."

"Why?"

"It's just her thing," Terry explained. "If you've done something that warrants a punishment like mine it means that you weren't loyal enough for her taste, and you lose all value in her eyes. Luckily I don't know her too well, but the little I do know is enough to assure me that I hate that bitch."

Joanne chuckled at that but said nothing. They continued until a little while later they were once again in the same room facing the same Council.

"So," Eric started. "Any idea on how to start once you are back?"

"It's really quite simple. I'll go on some talk-shows and such and talk about that we really should try to do things differently, that the government is doing it all wrong and all that yada yada. It won't be long before the people that can get us a meeting with the right people will show up to tell me to shut up. Once that first contact is made..."

~~~~~~~~~~{}~~~~~~~~~~

The next three hours were spent going over the plan, details, side-plans, and emergency situations. During all that time, Terry stood, once again, like a statue beside the table looking off into nothing. The focus only came back to her when Eric told her that she could go and prepare for departure.

Once Terry had left the room, Joanne said that they needed to talk about those punishments some more.

"We really need those kind of punishments on our ships to keep order," Erik noted. "I know that with your people it's more normal to just confine someone for a certain time. But if we were to do that we would be taking a productive member out of our midst and less would get done. We would, in fact, be punishing ourselves just as much as the individual."

"As much as I don't like it, I can see your point, here on the ships, but on Earth things have to be done differently. Most people won't understand the punishments and will consider it emotional cruelty, which will result in people actually trying to help our enemy fight you instead of fighting the real enemy. I think the best thing you can do is to install a second middle person, one focused more on justice. Someone that can look at your laws and, if needed, change some of your punishments to something that the people on Earth can actually understand and accept."

"But why?" Eric asked, clearly not getting that part.

"Well, let's take Terry as an example. The punishment you gave her might be fitting here, but on Earth people might see it as emotional cruelty. Not just to Terry mind you, but also to themselves. After all, by forbidding them to talk to Terry, they also get the 'punishment' shall we say, of no longer being allowed to interact with their friend. To use theoretical numbers, your punishment of one individual would also hurt the twenty people that know that individual. That's twenty people that won't be happy with the united governing we want to introduce. And unhappy people are the last thing we want. We might have a good plan, but there's a lot that can go wrong, the absolute last thing we want is to create more opportunity for things to go wrong."

"I can see your point," Eric had to admit. "Well, considering that you're our middle person, I hope you can take care of that as well."

"I don't know," Joanne said thoughtfully. "That's a lot of power right there; combining politics and law. It really would be better to have two people for that. Let's not forget, I have no experience in either. I'm good at talking and seeing how businesses can be ran more effectively, but that doesn't automatically mean that I'll be any good at negotiating with governmental leaders, let alone change rules around."

"Why don't you try it, and if it turns out we really need that second person, we will find a second person." Eric suggested.

"Alright, I guess we could do that," Joanne relented.

"Good," Eric said pleased. "As far as Terry's punishment is concerned, as I said we need such punishments here, but seeing how she might indeed have helped us a lot, I personally will see to it that her punishment is kept quite short."

"That's a good start," Joanne said before the talk turned to other things until Terry returned with the message that everything was ready for departure.

"Terry will bring you back to your quarters so that you can change. Terry, you have your Earth clothing in the truck?"

"Yes sir," Terry assured.

Eric gave a nod and looked back at Joanne. "Alright, once you have changed clothing you two will be brought back. I wish you the best of luck."

~~~~~~~~~~{}~~~~~~~~~~

Not long later Joanne was once again back in the room and had just changed clothes. Terry had offered to leave for a moment, but with nothing more than a chuckle Joanne had stripped out of the uniform and put her own clothes back on. As Terry asked her if she was ready, Joanne's eyes fell on one of those other small plates on the wall again.

"One moment, I have been wondering for some time now; let me quickly check where those other plates lead to."

Terry merely nodded as Joanne went around the room. At the left wall she found another bedroom. At the wall opposite from where the connection to the corridor was she found one bathroom and one kitchen. While at the right wall she found a room that left her confused. It was the largest room yet, but it was totally empty.

"What a strange setup. Why have two bedrooms but no living room, and then such a total waste of space as that room there?"

"The room we're in now is normally the living room," Terry explained. "I can't tell you why they put a bed in here. Normally there's only one bedroom to these kind of quarters since they're single quarters."

"This room," Terry added as she walked into the empty room. "Is not such a waste of space as you think it is. Every set of quarters has what we call a fun room; this is it."

"A fun room? And just what is so fun about this room?"

"Remember I told you that we could use this metal to take on different shapes?" Terry asked as she patted one of the walls.

"Of course."

"Well, the Manraqi apparently also liked to have some fun from time to time. These fun rooms can be turned into all kinds of d�cors."

"A holodeck?" Joanne asked amazed.

Terry shook her head. "You and that love for Star Trek. No, no projections of light. Though it does involve mimicking how things look."

She pointed to a plate on the wall that was about twice as big as the plates that normally opened the doors. Joanne saw that there were ten buttons on it, with two bigger buttons below the first ten, and above the buttons was a little screen. Joanne didn't have to ask to know that this was an input device where you could set in a number on the small buttons, check on the screen if it was what you wanted, and then use the bigger buttons to activate and deactivate the room.

"There are almost one million codes programmed in there."

"That many?" Joanne asked surprised. "Are you trying to tell me that this metal has the 'memory' capability to take on one million different forms? That heat programming must be exact down to thousandths of a degree."

"It can, and it is," Terry agreed. "But to tell you the truth, while we would be theoretically capable of letting the metal take a million different forms, in reality we can't manage that. Let me rephrase that. We're capable of using the metal to take on different forms, and the number of forms we can create if we want is certainly more than a million. While we sure can do that, what we can't do is program every piece of metal in this room to take on different forms so that we get a million d�cors in here. Frankly, we aren't smart enough to solve that puzzle. Just think about it; a million forms for every part of metal that is in this room, on top of that you need to program the parts in such a way that they all form the right form at the right temperature to get a usable room, and finally on top of that, you also need to do the programming in such a way that you have the right temperatures at the right time to keep the illusion. As I said, you can make this metal look like wood, but wood does not feel as cold as metal. So, to keep the illusion of it being wood you have to do the programming in such a way that it takes the form that looks like wood at the temperature where you feel like you are holding a piece of wood. Can you imagine how many billions of parameters that programming would cause? We're not able to do that, yet millions of years ago the Manraqi that built these ships were already capable of doing so. That goes to show you how intelligent they had to be."

"So, what kinds of things can you form in here?"

"Within reason, everything. There are several hundred different sets for children to play in, you know, with slides and climbing racks and such. There are also several hundred different fitness room sets, and, there are actually over ten thousand rooms where people like you and I could have some fun."

"What do you mean?" Joanne asked. She had been looking at the metal plate, and therefore hadn't seen Terry's smile.

Terry stepped closer and molded her body against Joanne from behind while slipping an arm around her to cup one of the blonde's breasts. "You know, you, me, fun. Get it?"

"I think I get the idea," Joanne said as she turned around. She captured Terry's lips with her own while she placed her hands firmly on the brunette's butt to pull her closer. "You, me, fun. Got it alright."

After a moment they broke apart, smiling. "Fun," Joanne repeated before getting serious again. "I'm confused though. Alright, so this metal can take on different forms, can look like metal, or like wood. But how do you get soft surfaces? I mean, you mentioned fun; hard surfaces all the time aren't fun though."

"But not all are hard. You already know that it can be formed like bendable fabric; simply have springs form behind the 'fabric' and there you have your softness. Granted, it doesn't cover everything and you do need to take some things with you in here sometimes, like the blankets or sheets for a bed simply because you want cleanness, and that feel can't be totally reproduced. But most of the time all is covered. A very comfy chair is actually very easy to form."

"Interesting," Joanne said thoughtfully.

"Uh huh," Terry agreed. "You want to know what's even more interesting?"

"Sure."

"You know how I told you how we can form this metal, and that it repairs itself? Well, especially that last. The metal repairs itself, but only on the ships, but even more importantly; sometimes we don't have to program the metal at all. I mean, when we want to change a room to have a table in it instead of a bed from now on, then yes, we have to remove the metal with the 'memory' of being a bed and put in the metal with the 'memory' to be a table. But more basic things sometimes form themselves. For instance, we take out the metal that has the 'memory' of being a bed, but we don't want anything new in there. So we need to replace the metal we removed with metal that has the 'memory' of just being a part of the floor, right? Wrong. We place a lump of metal there and a day later the metal will have reformed to become part of the floor."

"You're shitting me," Joanne said amazed.

"Nope, all true. But again, this only works on the ships. My personal guess is that this goes along with the automatically repairing and that it's actually done by the ships computers."

"But you don't know this for sure?" Joanne asked. "And why would you have a piece of metal with the 'memory' of being a bed when you don't use it for anything else? Why not simply use a real bed? That way you can also simply pick it up and place it in a different room."

"Oh, but we have that too," Terry assured. "For instance, that bed you slept in? That's probably a normal bed. Yes, its body is made from this metal as well simply because we use little else, but the metal will simply be formed once to be a bed without any second form being created with it. As for us not being sure whether a lot of this changing is done by the ships computers... See, the thing is, we have two kinds of technologies."

"Meaning?" Joanne asked confused.

"Well, first we have the computers on this ship that were created by the Manraqi when they built these ships. Frankly, the programming of those computers is so complex that even after all this time we haven't been able to figure it out. We just have those computers on the ship and they always work, like the control panel of the fun room. Now, besides that we have the technology we ourselves evolved over time. Exactly because we didn't understand the Manraqi's computers we started to create our own technology. The reason why we're more advanced than Earth in this regard, is probably simply because we had some great inventors coming up with the right stuff at the right time."

"So, if the computer in this control panel would break, none of you would be able to fix it, yet at the same time you yourself have a technology level that's decades ahead of Earth. Interesting."

"I would rather call it ironic," Terry noted. "For us at least. For as long as we live on these ships we have these computers around us showing us what is possible, yet all that time we've never been able to match that level of technology."

"But from the other side, it might still have helped in your development of your own technology. See, with us someone first had to have an idea; think that something has to be possible. But with you, your people already knew it was possible and they could try and match it. That's a huge difference, and a lot of incentive to try once more, while Earth humans have to try something that has never been done while people say it's impossible."

"You have a point," Terry agreed. "But either way, we really should be going."

This time Terry led her through a part of the ship that Joanne didn't know yet, but here too she could see people turning away from Terry, and that it was hurting the brunette like a knife twisted right into her heart. About ten minutes later they entered a part of the ship where the smaller scout ships stood. They got into one of the ships and Joanne saw that Terry's truck was standing there waiting for them. She also saw that now all of a sudden, Terry was speaking to the crew members and that they replied. As Terry sat down in the chair across from Joanne, the blonde lifted her eyebrows in question.

"Orders," Terry explained. "No matter what your punishment is, you always need to be able to give or receive orders, unless the Council decreed something else. As you know, nobody but the Council can give me any orders during my punishment, but that doesn't mean that I can't give orders to others."

Joanne nodded her head in understanding and after a moment of silence decided to look out of the window for a moment. The scout ship lifted off slowly and drifted closer to the wall of the mother ship.

Terry, in her turn, spent a moment looking at Joanne. 'I can't believe how much I love that woman,' Terry thought. 'I know that we'll be happy together, we just have to make sure that the Council doesn't find out. Otherwise I'll have to spend the rest of my life on that ship; away from Jo.'

Joanne saw that the ship was getting dangerously close to the wall of the mother ship and just as she was starting to brace for impact, she noticed that the ship was simply starting to drift through the wall. "What the hell?"

"I see that you still aren't fully used to this metal," Terry noted. "As soon as the scout ship hits the wall the sensors activate to open the wall a little. The further the ship goes, the more the sensors activate so that what you get is the wall opening and closing with such precision that you have an airtight seal and the ship can drift into space without us losing any air in the hangar."

"Yes, that metal of yours, can it also be made on Earth?"

"Sure," Terry affirmed. "But you have to remember that the metal as you know it is more than just the metal. The sensors and the heater/cooler units are just as important. Without that the metal is just a lump of useless, well, metal."

"So, I guess you could call it Sentient Metal?"

"I... well, I guess," Terry said slowly. "It really depends on whether people know the real meaning of sentient. On Earth, and with us too, the word is often used to indicate higher evolved life, simply because we all have no idea how to otherwise indicate the difference between an evolved life like a human, and lesser evolved life like, say, a dog."

"But strictly speaking both are sentient life," Joanne said in agreement, mostly because her hobby of knowing about space had taught her the difference long ago.

"Sentient life really means life of which you are sure it can feel emotions. Hate, love. Feelings like that are what make a being sentient. So a dog is as much sentient life as you and I are. As such this metal can't be sentient. But because of the sensors, and possible automatic reactions to what those sensors detect, we'll be able to get away with calling this combination of metal and sensors 'Sentient Metal.' Sentient life will probably always be used to indicate life like us, but I think that people will understand the difference between sentient life, and Sentient Metal. Besides, it's a snappy name."

"You've been interested in the metal a lot; more than standard curiosity. Now you're asking if it can be made on Earth, and are looking for a 'snappy name.' Just what are you up to?" Terry wondered.

"In two words? Instant gratification. See the thing is, from what I have seen until now you have the technology and the medical knowledge to vastly improve the life on Earth. The problem with those is that at first most people don't really experience those themselves; they just hear about them. It takes years for the technology they have to wear out so that they will spend the money to buy something new that has that new technology. Medical knowledge is the same. Once someone has a problem you can help them with, they experience it, but the people that don't need medical help for years also don't experience the differences. But with the vast variety of uses the metal can be used for, we can introduce it and within weeks people will experience advances your people have brought. Be it at home, or at work, or a bridge they drive over, or anywhere else where they happen to come into contact with the metal."

Suddenly the ship started moving at an incredible speed. Even though Joanne didn't pass out this time, she sure was getting nauseous. She was sure that she would have to throw up at any second when she heard Terry's words.

"Look outside. I can't get enough of the view you can only get from truly being in space. It always makes me forget all about my nausea."

Joanne nodded her head and look outside, just in time to see Mars moving past so close that Joanne could see some of the surface details. "How fast can these ships move?"

"We aren't sure. We do know that the mother ships are even faster than the scout ships because the indicated top speed is faster, but still. We have only been able to fly at one third of the indicated maximum speed of one of the scout ships."

"Why not faster?" Joanne asked as she turned around to face Terry. Now that the ship was moving at a steady speed, Joanne didn't feel the actual movement anymore and her nausea had thankfully disappeared.

"Exactly because of the speed. One third is the fastest we can go and still have time to react. There once was someone brave enough to try and test the speeds of the ships. He managed to fly a scout ship at half the indicated max speed; once. When he tried it a second time he didn't have enough time to react and literally flew straight into a star."

"Ouch," Joanne merely said.

"More than you can imagine. I already told you all about this metal, so you probably won't be surprised when I tell you that we can repair all on the ships... should it ever be necessary of course, since hardly anything ever breaks down. The engines are a different story though. We can't rebuild the engines totally. Once we lose an engine, it's gone for good. Once a ship is totally destroyed, there's no way we can replace it. So once we lost one ship it was decided that we knew what speeds to use safely, and let's stick to that."

"If the engines are that impossible to replace, don't you worry that the engines will break down at some point and you'll be stranded in space?"

Terry shrugged at the question. "Since our ancestors started the journey so many years ago, not a single engine has ever broken down or even given us some trouble. We're used to them working; they always have, and the way no wear and tear has been noticed since we started using them, it's safe to say that the engines will also always continue to work."

"But you don't prepare for it, just in case?"

"These ship's engines have been working literally longer than humans have existed on Earth, and not a single time did they give us cause to worry. It just doesn't happen. So, no, we aren't prepared, if you want to call it that. Why would you train an engineer to know all about the engines when you're certain that this knowledge will never be used?"

"I guess you have a point," Joanne had to agree. "It's just, let's just say that I really like the saying; 'better safe than sorry'."

~~~~~~~~~~{}~~~~~~~~~~

Continued...