Late afternoon. You have a rough draft of Pouch Eleven. Drop it in here. – Amorella
1721 hours. It doesn’t make
sense yet, very rough. I want to clean it up.
**
**
Diplomatic Pouch 11 – rough draft
“Hi, there, Blake,” said Friendly, “I see you are awake.”
“Yes. I let myself in. I heard the water so I decided to nap. I guess I
fell asleep.”
“That’s the idea of a nap isn’t it? You sound surprised you fell asleep.”
Blake looked puzzled then a bit sheepish. “Sorry.”
“I’m glad you could come over even if you did arrive a bit early, about
an hour early.”
“Sorry. I wasn’t paying any attention. I thought it was later I guess. I
don’t know. Sorry.”
“Why do you apologize? You normally could care less.”
“I know but this is your place and I feel as if I am invading it,”
replied Blake.
“I asked you to come. I didn’t ask you in early though. You just walked
in a sat down.”
“Well, the door was unlocked, and nobody came when I knocked.”
“You can’t hear a knocking sound. The rooms are soundproof.”
“Oh.”
“We don’t have locks on our doors.”
“That’s right. I forgot that.” He paused. “How do you know when to come
in? I didn’t see a doorbell or anything.”
“Place your hand on the door, anywhere. I will be notified.”
“Well, look Friendly, I put my hand on the door to open it. I don’t know
why you weren’t notified. I thought you were late. Actually, I thought you were
a bit rude for not being ready.”
She smiled, “Now you are sounding more normal. I need to find out about
your mind/body experiments. Perhaps they can help us find out what happened to
Ship.”
“I don’t know anything. You people are so far advanced. Why would you
ask me anything?”
“You have an Earthling’s perspective.”
“True, but that won’t do you any good. What good has it done us?”
“You are a bit testy.”
“I want to go home. I want to take my sister and Justin and just go.” He
pauses, “Pyl and Justin talked me into it. I have been in the Chicago area most
of my life. We travel, and I have been abroad for a couple of years, but I
always knew I could be home within twenty-four hours.”
“We want to get you home. Pyl and Justin are recovering, but one of our
medical technicians has come down with something.”
“Oh. I didn’t know that. I mean, I knew the danger time is probably over
for Pyl and Justin, but it is not good about your technician, that is, if she
or he contracted a virus from humans.”
“Not good. The whole place is being shut down.”
“The whole satellite?”
“As we speak.”
Blake settled his voice, “What can I do to help?”
transition
“Why can’t you solve the Ship navigation problem yourselves? You built
the Ship. I guess I should say, “You built Ship. No the precedes Ship.” -
Problems?
“You are picking up some of our nuances.”
“I’m not stupid.”
“I never said you were.”
“That’s true. Sorry.”
Back to - Why can’t you solve the Ship
navigation problem yourselves? was a good question. Reluctantly, Friendly
said, “I don’t know.” Which lead to another lull in the conversation.
“What are we going to do? We have two down. Both are deathly ill. We
have them sealed frozanquick. (They weren’t even on the same level.)”
“It has to be something airborne.”
“We could all be dead in minutes.”
“Seal us to the outside area. Seal the whole area.”
“We didn’t wait.”
“Good.”
“What now?”
**
“Get the Director. The Thirty-Six have to know about this.”
A person at StoneHouse died only an hour ago, and two more are sick.
Those on the scene think that the rodent has something contagious, that it got
sick from the humans. The disease is working both directions at once.
“Hello, this is the Director of ParentsinCharge. We had a potential
serious problem but it is contained. One of the technicians at StoneHouse was
struck with a serious disease, and shortly after so was a second. One of our
squirrel-like rodents evidently is carrying some sort of disease. The ones who
have burrowed under the floor of StoneHouse.
This
is a terrible thing to have to say, but earlier, we ParentsinCharge discovered
another rodent bit one of the Earthlings who were visiting the site in secret.
We had knowledge of it.
** **
1730
hours. The above (mostly spliced) is out of the original 7790 words.
1744 hours.
I see two problems presenting themselves here. One, like when the Indians were
killed by European diseases early on – only here the Marsupials bring the
Earthlings to their planet secretly only to possibly be thought to have
brought an ancient ThreePlanets disease out into the open from under StoneHouse
– that it was the Earthlings that brought the potential disease when it is a
disease of the marsupials’ own. Two, Friendly thinks Blake might help with a transportation
problem of getting from ThreePlanets back to the Earth they came from rather
than the Earth where most everyone is dead. The joke here is that the point is
that mostly Earthlings are dead to what the world reality really is and don’t
know it, at least from Blake’s cynical perspective.
2234 hours.
Dying of a plague, problems with traveling through deep space sound like what Hawking
was speaking of.
**
**
Humanity is at risk from a series of dangers of our own making,
according to Prof Stephen Hawking.
Nuclear war, global warming and genetically-engineered viruses
are among the scenarios he singles out.
And he says that further progress in science and technology will
create "new ways things can go wrong". . . .
He says that assuming humanity eventually establishes colonies
on other worlds, it will be able to survive.
“Although the chance of a disaster to planet Earth in a given
year may be quite low, it adds up over time, and becomes a near certainty in
the next thousand or ten thousand years.” [SH]
BBC:
Science & Environment “Hawking: Humans at risk of lethal 'own goal'” David Shukman, Science editor, 19 January 2016
**
**
What about the computer that feels it has a
heartansoulanmind concept? – Amorella
2243 hours. I could incorporate
the idea in the bio-computer on ThreePlanets but I don’t see how that will fit
in with the rest of the story.
It is something the Dead will not expect. – Amorella
2246 hours. You mean like when
the first Homo sapiens soul Eve finds herself in the Marsupial Humanoid Place
of the Dead?
Why not? – Amorella
2247 hours. Surely this is in
the outer realm of plausibility.
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