Episode #43: Reliant's World

(Stardate 48722.1)

By

Jay P. Hailey

Dennnis Washburn

and

The Star Trek Players

 I went down to the ship's lounge to get breakfast. Our lounge was at deck six, at the most starboard side. Most Galaxy class ship have their lounges at deck ten forward, but our design had to be altered to accommodate the colonization mission we carried.

I liked our lounge better. It had the feel of a cafe. It was just right for us. Ones on other ships are often run as civilian concessions. I admit we could have used a cook and a bartender or two, but the Discovery was running light on crew and so we had no one to spare for such trivial tasks. It meant that the replicators worked overtime and everybody served themselves out of them.

I took my usual seat facing the windows and watched the stars go by. Actually they aren't stars. The little rainbow swirls you see out side the windows are little pieces of rock and debris disintegrating in the warp field. They look pretty anyway.

Kamaline came in. She looked tired. She had baggy eyes and her uniform was rumpled. Our uniforms that year were mostly black coveralls with colored shoulders and lavender turtlenecks. I wondered where the lavender color came from, but most everyone looked good in them. It was also hard to convince one of those uniforms to look disreputable. They never looked quite as dressy either, but there are trade-off in everything, I suppose. Kamaline got a cup of something from the replicator and slumped glassy eyed in a chair a couple of tables away.

I was mostly done with my breakfast, so I put the dishes away and walked over to Kamaline.

"Long night, Lieutenant?" I said.

She looked up at me tiredly and grinned. "Hi, Captain. Yeah. I was up all night working on the new material."

"Are you going to be okay today?" I valued Kamaline's sharp eye on watch. If she was going to be dazed and sleepy on the bridge I wanted to be able to work around her.

"Oh, I should be alright." Kamaline said. She struggled into a more vertical sitting position and blinked her eyes trying to get them to open more widely.

I was not re-assured. "We have that new unstable variable coming up in a few days and you'll need to be one hundred percent for that run, okay?"

"I will be, Captain. Wouldn't miss that for the world." A star along our path had grown somewhat unstable since astronomers started watching it in the early 23rd century. We were detailed to do a flyby of the star and scan it for all we were worth. There was no reason for moderately large blue star to suddenly go unstable. With any luck we would find out why the star had gone unstable and make some new science. "Ensign Kitaen has come up with a new sensor interpretation algorithm. If it works out, we'll get wonderful readings of our variable."

"Ah. A new algorithm, huh?" I asked. It was one of the things that starships were actually for. Crews came up with better ways to do engineering and science. These better ideas were taken home and the techniques for engineering and science on Earth and in the Federation advanced. "Wonderful. Are you sure it will work on this pass?"

"I will record the raw sensor input and use it to double check the new algorithms against the older ones. We won't lose any data from our run, Captain." Kamaline reassured me.

"Good. It's a lot of work to get a starship out here. I don't think this star will get a close examination again any time soon." I said.

"Don't worry. I won't let the effort go to waste." Kamaline said.

Thank you Kamaline. Go ahead and take the day off and catch up on your sleep. I'll let Lucas know."

Kamaline smiled at the thought of her bunk. "Thank you Captain."

"Good night." I said.

-*-

I met Lucas McCoy on the bridge. He was an old timer. He had come forwards to our time from the previous century. It actually seemed like three or four centuries, but that was just me. McCoy was technically competent and fun to work with. He was my third in command and the operations manager. He handled the day to day operations of the ship in minute detail. Without him being the Captain would have been a 28 hour a day job.

"Good Morning, Lucas." I said.

"Morning, Sir." Lucas said. He sounded as though he always had a good morning.

"Listen, I gave Kamaline the day off. She pulled an all nighter last night and I didn't want her nodding of on the bridge." I said. "I hope that doesn't inconvenience you."

"Not a problem." McCoy dismissed. "What was she working on, that mitochondria thing?"

"No. She said that Ensign Kitaen came up with a new sensor algorithm. She said she was debugging it to test on our fly by in a few days." I said.

McCoy shook his head. "That's the fourth new thing since we left Colacorp and Agricorp."

"What?"

"We got us a ship of geniuses." McCoy said. "We're developing new science out here at fierce rate."

"Actually, That's true." I said. I remembered the description of the crew's overall mental state from a year ago. "We are a ship of geniuses."

"It's just running Kamaline ragged trying to keep ahead of it." McCoy said.

"Well, try to keep her focused on this flyby coming up. Would assigning more crew people to her section temporarily help?" I asked.

"I suppose so." McCoy said.

"Well then, log my permission and see if we can get Kamaline some back up." I said.

"Aye, Sir." McCoy said.

"Now, you have the bridge. I'm going to walk around for a bit." I said.

-*-

I went by the main science labs of the Discovery. It resembled a college in there. There were a variety of specific labs and some office spaces. The office spaces were the least military and organized places on the ship. The furniture there really looked beaten, old and comfortable. I knew for a fact that it was about two years old, the same as the rest of the ship, but somehow it contrived to look old.

There were PADDs and actual paper lying everywhere. On the walls there were a variety of posters, displays and models. In the center, in a place of honor, there was a framed photograph of Albert Einstein sticking his tongue out at me.

As I entered the domain of science on the Discovery, I saw several of my science officers lounging around and three colonists scattered among them. All were speaking animatedly.

As I walked in, the conversation stopped quickly, and several of the more alert science officers began to leap to their feet. Starfleet doesn't use salutes, but it is required that when the captain enters a room, that the Starfleet Officers in it stand up as a gesture of respect.

About three quarters of the science staff started to get to their feet. I figured that was pretty good for science officers. "As you were." I quickly said. That gave them permission to keep doing what they were doing.

Spivy was the senior researcher. His Starfleet rank was Ensign. That was because he assiduously avoided anything like Starfleet training and responsibility. He was a physicist and a scientific historian. He was readying a book on the workings of Starfleet science in the greater scientific world. He said the day his book was accepted for publication he'd quit Starfleet and deadhead back to the nearest starbase. Spivy had been working on his book for the last fifteen years.

"How's it going?" I asked. I grabbed an empty chair, turned it the wrong way around and sat down resting my arms on the back of the chair.

"Great." Spivy said. "Did you hear about Lee?"

"No. What about Lee?" I asked. We had three Lee's on the Discovery. One was in Security. One was in Engineering. The one in the Science Department was a biologist.

"She developed a new model for molecular energy transfers in the mitochondria. It looks like it'll work out." Spivy said. He sounded very impressed.

"And that's good?" I asked.

Spivy looked at me sadly for a moment and then said. "It's the first big advance in mitochondrial energy transfers for approximately sixty years."

"Okay." I conceded "Now I'm impressed. What do you mean when you say that it will work out?"

"Well, science is the art of coming up with guesses that accurately describe the world, right?" Spivy said.

"Right."

"So the way to determine if a given theory works is to..." Spivy prompted.

"You test it."

"That's right." Spivy grinned. "Well, when some one comes up with a new theory, we all test it to see if it's accurate."

"What, all of you?" I asked. Spivy was a physicist, Jones was mathematician, and Parker was a specialist in subspace wave theory.

"Well, this isn't a college, Captain. There's only a few of us to go around." Spivy pointed out

"But none of you is trained in molecular biology." I said.

"Well, we give ourselves extra points for becoming conversant in different disciplines. We give ourselves extra-special points for coming up with multi-disciplinarian tests for any given theory." Spivy said.

"I was able to use Vulcan logical analysis techniques to design a probability matrix for energy uptake by human mitochondria." Jones said proudly. "Not only does this seem to verify Lee's result, but it seems like Lee and I could get a paper out of the mathematics of it, too."

"Major, major points." Spivy grinned.

"And here I thought that all you did down here was suck coffee out of the replicator, tell puns and come up with dumb practical jokes." I said. "You all actually work down here."

The science officers had the good graces to look embarrassed about the practical jokes. One of them (we never found out who) had reprogrammed the computer to translate all output into pig Latin. The first anyone heard of it was when the computer cried "Arning-Way! Omputer-Cay Ecurity-Say Ompromised-Cay!"

"What joke was that?" Gwendolyn, one of the colonists asked.

This led to a retelling that was much more hilarious than the actual event.

"Gwendolyn, what are you doing here?" I asked. "I don't want you to feel unwelcome or anything, but the colonists and the crew haven't been mixing all that well."

Gwendolyn looked at me with a perfectly straight face. "I'm collecting science geek pick up lines, Captain."

This led to another round of hilarity.

"Don't let her fool you, Captain. She's trained in molecular biology and botany." Spivy said, chuckling.

"Are you really?" I asked.

Gwendolyn shrugged. "I graduated from UCLA a little while ago. It took a while for the colonization mission to get together. While learning how to be a sod buster I picked up a couple of degrees."

"Well that's quite an accomplishment." I spread an insincere smile all over my face "And here is where you find people with a similar frame of reference."

"Uh-huh." Gwendolyn said.

"Okay. Well that lets me know enough not cut off life support for sciences today." I grinned. "Thanks." I got up and left the main science office.

Down the hallway was the main computer lab where new programming and devices were tested. I walked in to find Ensign Kitaen banging away on comfortable programming console.

"Hello, Ensign." I said. She looked up, started. She hadn't heard me enter the room. As she started to get up I held up my hand. "That's all right. What are you working on?"

"I'm bashing on that new sensor algorithm, Sir." She said.

"Ensign, did you talk to any of the colonist when you got this idea?" I asked.

Kitaen looked thoughtful. "Yes, Captain. Dena Foote was there. She's the one who suggested dumping the old program and starting from scratch."

"And you went from there."

"Yes, Sir. Once I dumped the old program and started from scratch I was able to streamline the program quite a bit and use better logic filters during the pattern recognition stage." Kitaen seemed quite proud of herself.

"Did Mrs. Foote give you any hints about how to reorganize the program?" I asked.

"No, Sir, but she did point out some archaeological material for me to look at. I used the old Iconian programs as a matrix to base this new program on." Kitaen looked thoughtful. "When I write this up should I give credit to Dena or the Iconians?"

"Hmmm. Do what you think best, Ensign." I said. I walked out of the computer lab.

-*-

Elizabeth's kitchen smelled as wonderful as ever. The big gray tomcat twinned around my ankles buzzing happily. He knew that I was a sucker for cats by now. Elizabeth was puttering around busily. I had never seen her slow down. I don't think that slowing down was in her style much.

"Elizabeth, what are you trying to do to me?" I asked.

That stopped her. "What do you mean?"

"Your people are contaminating my science and engineering staff." I said.

"Are they?" Elizabeth asked. She was playing dumb. It was hard to spot on her, but now that I knew her a little better, I could see what she was up to a little better.

"You know why the Federation asked you to leave. You're an advanced culture. You know things that we aren't ready for yet. You're letting these advancements loose in my crew. Too much more of this and we won't be able to return to the Federation." I complained.

"Jay, no one is giving away anything." Elizabeth said. "We know why we're being exiled. Please try to understand that many of us are engineers and scientists. We've been locked away down here in your ship for two years now with limited outside contact. It's nice to be able to talk shop with someone who at least understands what we're talking about."

I sighed. "Right now, my crew is working on four science and technological breakthroughs. In three cases the inspiration for these new ideas can be traced directly to one of your people."

"Really? Are you sure?" Elizabeth asked.

"A good example is Ensign Kitaen's new sensor algorithm. Dena Foote essentially gave it to her. We wouldn't have that if Dena hadn't pointed it out. It amounts to cultural contamination."

"Didn't Dena just point out an already existing source in your own records?" Elizabeth asked.

"Yes, but-"

"So your Ensign Kitaen came up with a new program based on source material found in your records. Anyone might have done that." Elizabeth said.

"But no one did. A yoke for plowing is much simpler and easier than simply tying a rope around an animal's neck. Anyone might have thought of it. However, no one did until it was invented. Advances always look like that in retrospect." I pointed out.

"Some of your people are really enjoying the opportunity to learn new things." Elizabeth said, sitting down across from me.

I rolled my eyes. "Elizabeth, if someone from my crew wants to muster out and join your colony, then I have no problem with that, but if too many people leave my crew at Beta Howard then I won't have enough people to take my ship home. You'll be stranding the rest of us."

"Would that be such a bad thing?" Elizabeth asked me.

"I promised to act with my crew's best interest at heart." I said. "For a lot of us, being stranded would mean never seeing home or their loved ones again. I wish that this had been set up and billed as a one way mission from the very start. You would have had a whole different crew and captain. None of this would really be a problem."

"Well." Elizabeth said "That's not the way it is, and so we'll just have to deal with it." She stood up and began to putter again.

"I'll tell my crew enough so that they know what to look for." I said.

"I'll tell my people to back off a little bit." Elizabeth said shortly. "You let your people know that they'll be welcome if they want to come with us."

"Thanks." I grinned.

-*-

When I returned to my office I wrote a memo for the crew. I told them that the El-Aurians were from an advanced race and that any transfer of advanced technology or techniques would constitute a violation of the prime directive against the Federation. Then I informed them that people wishing to join the Beta Howard Colony would essentially be joining that alien culture and that all the advancements and benefits would be open to them.

The results of the message on the crew was swift and pretty extreme. Many of the Starfleet crew began to actively avoid contact with the El-Aurians. A small minority sought greater contact. They wanted to join the Colonists on the spot.

Spivy was in the later category. I had to restrain him somewhat. "Ensign, rather Doctor, I need you to fulfill your duties on this ship."

"Thanks," Spivy said. "What makes you think I won't be a good science officer if I start learning from the El-Aurians now?"

"That's just the problem." I said. "You'll be too good a science officer. You'll know too much from the El-Aurian culture and your reports on science will amount to contamination."

"Good point." Spivy conceded. "What if I stop acting as a science officer?"

"Are you that desperate? We're less than a year away from Beta Howard." I said. "If you're patient then you can muster out and jump right into your studies there."

Spivy thought about it carefully. "I suppose I can wait. Do you understand what you're asking me captain?"

"I suppose so." I admitted.

"You're asking me to spend another year in high school physics when I just learned that there's an open college down the street." Spivy said.

"I get it. Don't worry. You'll have as long as you live on beta Howard to catch up." I said.

"I'll stay for now, Captain." Spivy said.

"Thank you." I replied.

Fortunately, it went that way for about everyone.

Ensign Kitaen wanted to stay with the Discovery. She was actually a little upset at Dena Foote for putting her in that position.

"Do I have to delete my new sensor program?" Kitaen asked me. I could understand what she meant. She'd spent quite a bit of effort on it.

I thought about it carefully. Kitaen had done all of the work. Dena just dropped a word or two in her ear. It was an iffy position, but I said "No. We'll keep it for now. When we get back home Starfleet Command might decide differently. In that case we'll be obligated to delete it."

"Yes, Sir."

-*-

We found out what made the star unstable. Now we were trying to get the hell away. Smoke filled the bridge from the helm console. Spaat was still at his station, but he only had one hand to work with. His relief was on the way.

"Fifteen seconds until the anomaly fires again." Kamaline reported.

"Is the probe in position?"

"Aye, Sir." McCoy said.

"Activate it."

On the screen we could see the probe start to generate an overloaded subspace pulse. The probe was quickly destroyed, but the standing subspace field would last a little while.

The subspace anomaly threw a huge gout of plasma at it. Billions of tons of superheated, charged gas contained in a magnetic bottle buried our little subspace decoy. The subspace field chewed up the gas and made pretty fireworks in the cloud.

"How long until the star blows?" I asked.

Kamaline shook her head. "I have no way of knowing. Could be in five minutes, could be in five years."

"Assume the anomaly dumps another load of plasma in there." I said.

"That shortens the time frame considerably, but I don't know by how much." Kamaline said.

"Ready another probe." I told McCoy.

"Aye, Sir."

The subspace anomaly would have been a fascinating scientific curiosity except for two things. It fired large plasma torpedoes. They weren't weapons, but they were attracted to gravity and subspace fields. We discovered this when the anomaly shot us with a multi-billion ton torpedo. It was sheer luck that we weren't squished like a bug, but we had been damaged.

The second thing that made this an unpleasant experience was that the anomaly had been shooting the star with plasma torpedoes for one hundred and eighty years. Every fifteen minutes it dumped billions of tons of hot plasma into a star.

This wasn't too much a problem for the star. Stars are made of hot plasma. It was just more fuel to burn.

Now, after a couple of centuries the anomaly had disrupted the balance of gravity, fusion, fire and radiation that keeps a star steady. Our star was about to explode. Nothing too big. A simple nova. The stellar equivalent of indigestion.

"What's our critical distance?" I asked.

"I wouldn't want to be within three billion kilometers when it when it blew." Kamaline said grimly.

"What's our range?" I asked.

"Eight hundred million kilometers." Spaat said calmly. His replacement arrived and tapped him lightly on the shoulder.

"Can we survive the blast at this distance?" I asked Kamaline.

Shaking her head Kamaline said, "Not unless something changes."

"Our next decoy is ready." McCoy said.

"Fire." I said. Each decoy kept a batch of plasma out of the star and delayed its detonation. Maybe.

"Bridge to Engineering." I said.

Mishimi Miatsu answered with perfect politeness and no hint of what a madhouse his department was at this point. "Engineering here."

"I need warp drive as soon as you can give it to me. We're dead otherwise."

"I estimate that the warp drive will be restored in an hour, Sir." Mayatsu reported.

"I'm reading heavy turbulence in the surface of the star." Kamaline said.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"I don't know for certain. It might be exploding now." Kamaline said.

"Mr. Miatsu, I don't care what you have to do. We don't need a lot of speed but we do need warp drive now."

"Yes, Captain." I could almost see Miatsu sketching a short bow as he signed off.

For several tense minutes we watched the star contort. It was seriously troubled now.

"The decoy is in position." McCoy said.

"Four minutes until the anomaly fires again." Kamaline reported.

"Wait until one minute before it fires and then activate the decoy." I said.

On the screen we could see the star actually start to shrink slightly and grow white.

"Captain," Spaat's replacement said "I'm reading partial warp power."

"Best speed away from the star." I said. I dialed my repeater screen into engineering and saw what Miatsu had done. He had simply bridged the damaged nacelle out of the warp drive system. The Discovery was running on one overloaded warp drive nacelle. Theoretically our speed would be at best warp three. Miatsu had come close. We were doing warp 2.5 or so.

"Activating the decoy." McCoy reported.

A minute later we could see the anomaly firing on the decoy. The plasma looked dim and weak compared to the surface of our star. It was hard to see.

We kept running. "What's our range?"

"Two and a half billion kilometers." McCoy reported.

"We might actually survive this." Kamaline said. She sounded happier.

We watched while star reached a crescendo of writhing. Then all at once the screen went white.

"There it goes." Kamaline said.

"Sound collision alert. Shields to full power. Commit reserve power to the structural integrity field." I ordered. All I could do was hope.

It took the subspace shockwave created by the nova three minutes to reach us.

When we got hit, it felt like the Discovery was being tumbled inside a giant barrel.

-*-

A month later we made it to the next star system along our path. Most of the damage had been repaired, the ship looked almost the same as ever. I knew better. I could see it in Miatsu's reports. Our warp core was damaged. He needed to shut down and do a total rebuild on our main power source.

We lost four people in the blast wave. Lee, Howell and Goldstein in Engineering when a plasma conduit blew. We lost Constance Johnson from the colonists. She was caught between a horse and a barn wall when the blast wave hit. The horse died, too.

The morale on the ship took as bad a beating, but we were also recovering.

The star ahead of us was a small yellow star, comparable to Earth's.

-*-

We were pretty sure that the natives didn't have any technological sensors, so we entered orbit over their world. It was a high orbit. Even with a telescope they'd be fiercely lucky to catch a glimpse of us.

We began to scan them. The natives were using coal, wood and steam. There were some electrical signals, but they were spotty and hard to pin down. I guessed that they were using telegraphy. This was a communication system were a carrier line was periodically energized by an electrical current. It would be desperately slow, but better than messengers on horse back. They weren't using horses exactly, but the principle was the same.

Then we discovered the starship. It was buried under the biggest city on the planet. We could scan the metals in the degraded hull. When we scanned it deeply, we heard the faint signal. An old digital radio beacon was still operating.

-*-

The native came in. Inwardly I grimaced. He was a sad figure, short and stooped. He had sad eyes. I still couldn't believe the Earth people were doing this.

"Sssir?" The native said to me. He was asking for my order so that he could bring me a beverage. I wasn't sure I'd be able to hold it down and so I said "Thank you very much. I don't want anything right now."

He gave a short professional bow and left the room.

I looked at the President of Reliant's World. He was dressed in a long black coat. He had slicked back hair and bushy overgrown sideburns. He looked just as nineteenth century as he acted.

"Two words." I said to him.

He looked at me curiously.

"General Custer." I said grimly.

Harker shook his head and brushed my argument aside. "That was totally different."

"How could it possibly be different?!" I demanded.

"To begin with, the American Indians were humans. The Wogs aren't." Stewart blustered.

"And we have higher technology." Harker reminded me. "We benefit the Wogs by our presence. Without us they'd still be digging in the mud for their supper."

"All of these arguments are old. You have access to them in your own histories. The simple fact of the matter is that you can't treat people this way. It's wrong." I got a little loud.

"Is this what the men of Earth have become?" Stewart griped. "Whining liberals crying about rights and not wanting to offend anyone?"

"I'll remind you, Captain that my forefathers built this planet with their blood, sweat and tears. It takes real men to build a lasting society out here. This is something that you people and your Federation seem to have forgotten." Harker said.

"Just remember." I hissed. "I have the technology to bring you into the modern age. If you want it, you're going to have to deal with me."

"I don't need it. Not at the price you're selling." Stewart got up and stomped out of the room leaving a cloud of noxious cigar smoke behind.

"Captain, your technology is a very enticing lure, but you're asking us to give up what we've built here to get it." Harker said, patiently.

"No I'm not." I said. "I'm asking you to give up thinking of yourselves as some sort of superior race here. The natives are morally and ethically our equals. Remember, you have less of a claim to the planet because the natives evolved here. You and your people are recent immigrants."

"The natives are patently not our equals." Harker said. "Our research indicates that they have been here for thousands of years, content to live like savages. Since we have arrived we have brought them literacy, medicine and culture. We have begun to lift them up into the realm of the civilized being."

"How, by working them in your fields?"

"You're over reacting. It's not as though we have enslaved them or anything." Harker sniffed.

"There's such a thing as economic bondage." I pointed out. "You're doing that as well as any Ferengi."

"Who? Never mind. It seems as though Stewart was right. Since our ancestors were stranded out here Earth has grown somewhat... liberal." Harker made "liberal" rhyme with "effete" and "limp-wristed".

"Mr. President, I want to help you out, here. I want to help your people and I want to help this planet. You've got to meet me halfway. Please try to see my point of view." I pleaded.

"Perhaps that's your problem, Captain." Harker said. "You spend so much time chasing aliens and trying to empathize with them that you've lost track of how to empathize with your own kind."

"Well then," I said grimly. "Well."

"Captain, if you don't mind, I do have a heavy work load." Harker said. "I wouldn't want to be rude...."

"Think nothing of it. I ought to be going anyway." I smiled insincerely.

I shook Harker's hand as I left his office. I shouldn't have, but it was past the point where it mattered anyway.

-*-

Out on the main street of Jameson City I could see the train pull in. It was an excellent piece of bent iron steam technology. It puffed into the station with a huge cloud of mildly poisonous black smoke. There was plenty of coal on Reliant's World, and the human settlers burned it freely.

At the far end of the road natives came out of a steel foundry in orderly work groups. They began to load raw steel ingots onto wagons. Animals that resembled nothing so much as a cross between a deer and a gekko drew the wagons.

The servant who I had spoken with was sitting in a small alcove near the front door, where he could take the coats of gentlemen and see to their "horses."

He was staring ahead, glassy eyed, chewing something with distant joy.

Caffeine affected the natives about the same way opium worked on humans. Coffee and tea were powerful narcotics to the natives. That's what convinced most of them that working for the humans was worth while.

"Excuse me, aaahh...." I hadn't been told the native's name.

"Persssival, Sssir." He looked like a gekko evolved into a humanoid. He had green scaly skin and large, dark eyes. His head, like those of all the natives was completely bald. Neither the male nor the female of the race had any external sign of which gender they were.

"What's your name in your own language?" I asked.

"Persssival. My language is Englisssh, Sssir." Persssival said, proudly.

"Oh. I'm sorry. Are you happy here?" I asked.

"Oh, yesss, Sssir. I have asss good a posssiton asss any Wog could exssspect." Persssival was proud of his accomplishment. Well of course he was. He was the chief servant to the President of the colony. He had reached the pinnacle of the second class citizen.

"They even trussst me with a gun, ssssometimessss." Perssssival confided.

I sighed. "Why would you need a gun, Persival?"

"A couple of ssseasonsss ago the Wogsss," Persssival shot a disgusted look at the factory workers "grew disssatisssfied with their coffee rationsss. They demanded more. When the owner sssaid no, they rioted. I wasss asssigned to help guard the mansssion against them. If they had made it this far I would have ssshot them."

"They didn't make it this far?" I asked.

"No. The guardsss made sssshort work of them." Persssival actually seemed disappointed. I could understand that. By shooting down his fellow natives in the street he might have made his sell out status even more secure than evidently it was.

"Who worked in the foundry the next day?" I asked.

"There are alwaysss more Wogsss." Persssival said disssdainfully.

I left. If anything Persival was harder to deal with than Harker.

-*-

I met Commander Mendez down the street at the Jameson City Public Library. It was a huge building with a dome and an atrium and at least three wings. One wing was actually called the Jameson City Public Press and held a mechanical printing device as well as used up computer equipment displayed as museum pieces and trophies.

The rest of the library held a large portion of the settler's databases printed out in hard copy, bound into books and stored on shelves. Kamaline was there as well as several science crewmen. They were reading and scanning the books written by the colonists after they arrived. The Settlers had done a good job of exploring, surveying and describing their new home. I wanted to take advantage of their work before reinventing the wheel for ourselves.

"Captain, I have a few questions." Mendez said to me.

"I probably have fewer answers than I did before the meeting." I told him.

"I don't know about you, but I was never trained on just how to give technical support to a primitive world. If anything I was trained specifically how to avoid it." Mendez pointed out quietly.

"It's not a typical relief mission, is it?" I asked. Most of the time a relief mission to a colony amounted to keeping the colonists alive until they could recover the ability to do so on their own. If we just transported down relief supplies to the descendants of the Reliant, then they would use them until they were gone and go back to doing things their old way. We had to give them the ability to advance several centuries in technology. That I knew of it had never been done before. Every other lost colony was within range of supply ships. It joined the web of interdependent Federation worlds.

Reliant's World would have to take care of itself once we were gone.

"I'm sorry now that I didn't listen to you." I admitted to Mendez. "The technical aspect is nothing compared to the cultural problems that those people have."

"I don't understand, Sir." Mendez said quietly.

"They're playing Cowboys and Indians down here, with the natives cast as the Indians." I quickly sketched out how the settlers were exploiting the natives.

Mendez grimaced. "That's rough. As I recall in my history classes there was still quite a bit of jingo-ism on the part of Earth in those days."

"What else did we learn while I was busy calling the elected leader of a Federation Colony a savage?"

"Our records told us a little bit. The UNSS Reliant was a missile frigate assigned to Task Group Taffy Two during the second big push of the Romulan war. She disappeared without a trace when Taffy Two was routed. They were presumed destroyed or captured by the Romulans. The settler's history is complete if a little one sided. After heroic fighting against the Romulans, the log of Captain Jameson says that the Reliant overloaded her warp drive in pursuit of fleeing Romulan vessels. That created an unstable wormhole that dropped them here."

"Well someone was fleeing, anyway." I said grumpily. "Okay, so now we know who they are, what do we know about the colony since then?"

Starships at the beginning of the warp age tended to all be equipped to handle colonization missions. Early warp drives tended to be unstable and unreliable. Even when they worked they were slow by comparison to modern technology. So every crew of a Starship two hundred years ago had to live with the idea that they might never make it home. Every well equipped starship carried basic colonization tools and a thing called a "gene-bank" that held genetic material for a large number of useful plants, animal and people. If a ship found itself stranded near a suitable world, the crew had standing orders to go ahead and start a colony. Ruins of these emergency colonies were sometimes discovered. Sometimes it even worked, and a new planet called a starship crew their founding fathers.

Mendez summarized his research. "According to their own history they have struggled heroically to carve out a life on this world. They were aided by the natives at the outset, but as time has gone on, they have become less tolerant and more arrogant about the relative status between themselves and the Natives." Mendez said.

"Well that sounds familiar." I sighed. "The question is, how do we get the Settlers past seeing the natives as 'Wogs'?"

Mendez shook his head sadly. I let him go back to scanning the literature and art of the colony while I tried to think.

"Excuse me?" The young woman said. The native costume for women was not at all like what they wore on the UNSS Reliant. On the Reliant they wore mottled green 'fatigues' or blue jump suits. The young woman facing me wore a heavy black dress with a long skirt. It was sort of intimidating. I couldn't help but notice that we were drawing a crowd.

"Hello." I said.

"Are you the people from Earth?"

"Well, I'm from Earth. Not everyone on my ship is from Earth, but we're all from the Federation." I explained.

"But, you're the Captain, right?" The young lady asked.

I didn't like the question, but I didn't know how to extract the racial assumption from it while telling the truth, so I said "Yes. I'm the Captain." In the back of my head I started counting and realized the more than 75 percent of my command crew came from Earth.

The young woman smiled and said "Are you going to teach us how to build all the wonders that they have on Earth?"

"Ahh, Well." I said decisively. I tried to picture these people building Angel Falls or Ayer's Rock, but I failed. They might build a replica of the Eiffel Tower, but I couldn't imagine what purpose that would serve.

"You know. Generators that give power like the sun, flying vehicles and screens that can allow one to speak with one's friend no matter where they are?"

"Hmm. I can't make any guarantees. That's a long road for your people to travel, metaphorically speaking." I temporized.

The young woman sobered. She nodded sagely. "I understand. We have had to work hard for our lives on this world. Might we make it by the time my children are grown? Or their children?"

"I won't leave you empty handed." I said, impulsively.

"Thank you, Captain. I'm sure you're as good a Captain as Jameson himself."

"Thank you. That sounds like a wonderful compliment." I said. It wasn't. Jameson overloaded his warp drives fleeing from fusion powered Romulan ships. I liked to think I'd do better than that, but I didn't say it. It's rude to knock someone's cultural heroes.

The young woman left to give her waiting gaggle of friends the news that their children or grand children might learn how to fly.

Mendez came up behind me. "We're all getting similar visits and questions. You're sort of on the spot with this one."

I nodded sagely.

Then an idea hit me. "Let's go see if we can get the opposing view."

"What?"

"The natives must have leaders of their own. There are only two and a half million humans down here. They can't influence the whole planet the way they influence the local area." I said.

Mendez nodded. "Good idea."

"Of course it's a good idea! I'm the Captain!" I grinned.

-*-

"Do you understand me?" I asked the native. The human straw boss was standing over me suspiciously, lest I start to read to his workers from 'The Rights Of Man'.

The native looked at me with uncertainty. Why was I picking on her? "I understand you."

"I want to learn your language. Will you help me?"

She looked at me for a moment and the straightened. "It will take some time. My language is not like your English at all."

"I can't spare her for that long." The straw boss complained.

"It won't take as long as you think." I explained. I took off my badge and held it up to show them. "My badge has a universal translator. It will learn your language very quickly and convert what I say into your language."

The native leaned close to my badge and said something in her native tongue. Before she was finished with her short sentence, the rest of the field workers started laughing. Even the straw boss grinned.

My comm-badge beeped and repeated her comment in English. It was a suggestion about what I could do with the badge. It was impossible and sounded painful. The field workers stopped for a beat and then laughed harder. The woman I was speaking with was impressed. "That's neat." She said. The comm-badge repeated it.

Then the rest of the field workers started shouting their own suggestions in their native language. After a while I had to ask the straw boss if I could have some privacy to get the coaching I wanted. I escorted the woman away from her merrily shouting fellows.

In a short time she had given my translator a good working vocabulary of the native tongue, including all the nasty words.

-*-

The encampment of the natives didn't smell as bad as Jameson city did. It was no flower garden, but it wasn't a cesspool. either.

Add to that the fact that it was composed mainly of aliens. Their cooking, unwashed bodies and trash didn't have the same smell that humans would have.

I had beamed down to a location some distance away and hiked in. My reflexes were to try and shield the natives from as much of the Federation's advanced technology as I could. Without the Reliant's survivors we would never ever have contacted the natives.

Now it was a necessity.

Stephanie was with me as well as Mr. Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo. Stephanie wanted to bring more security with us. Mendez didn't want to let me go. I insisted. This amounted to wholesale disregard of the Prime Directive and I wanted to avoid smearing anyone else's record with it.

As we closed in on the main camp. Several warriors melted out of the bushes and confronted us. They had us dead to rights.

I raised my hands and said "Hello. We come in peace."

The lead warrior questioned me in an unfamiliar tongue.

"Communicator translate into native dialect." I said. The communicator had only one native dialect available. "Hello. We come in peace."

The leader cocked his head. "I hear you. Why you come here?"

"Ummm..." What a cliche "Take us to your leader."

The leader of the warriors shrugged and said "Okay..."

The rest of the party melted back into the forest.

"They seem to be on guard against something." I mused.

"I suspect that they are not guards at all but hunters." Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo said.

"Hmmm."

-*-

"I am Salosss, the chief of this Tribe." The native was old. His scales were pale and he had age wrinkles. His reptilian eyes sparkled in the light of a low fire.

"Greetings, Chief Salosss. I am Captain Jay P. Hailey of the United Federation of Planets." I said.

"What is a United Federation of Planets?" The chief asked.

"Are you aware that this world you live on is round?" I asked. I didn't know how much the Chief knew and how much background I had to explain.

"I know that this world is but one of many. I know that I am her child. I know that there is a link between myself and this world that shall never be broken." The Chief said.

"I travel between the worlds. I explore new worlds." I said. "I travel in a large ship in the sky between the worlds."

"The newcomersss have claimed this alssso. They sssaid that their sssky ssship broke down ssstranding them on our world." The Chief prodded.

"Yes, Sir. We are from a new sky ship that has discovered your world." I explained.

The Chief heaved a sigh. "I suppossse that given one sssky ssship, more of them only make sssense."

"Yes, Sir." I said. "Our Federation is where many of the people from different worlds come together for mutual trade, exploration and defense."

"It sssoundsss fassscinating, if you're interesssted that sssort of thing." The chief said. "Often I have made sssimilar arrangements with other tribesss of people."

"Yes, sir. That's what we're about." I said.

"Tell me sssomething. Do you wisssh to trade goodsss and ssstories between the tribesss of this Federation and our sssweet world?" Salosss asked sharply.

"Well, Sir, under ordinary circumstances, no." I said. "If not for the people from the Reliant, we would have left you alone."

"Hmmm," The Chief nodded "and why isss that?"

"We have a Prime Directive that states that we may not interfere in the growth or development of any world or culture." I explained.

The Chief looked at me for a moment and then said slowly. "This isss a very wissse rule. I did not expect sssuch thoughtsss from the likesss of you."

"Thank you, Sir." I said.

"If your Prime Directive forbidsss interference, then why are the people of iron and sssteam here on our world?" Salosss asked.

"Well, Sir. The Prime Directive wasn't in force when they came here." I said. "They did not feel compelled to leave you alone as we might have."

"We do not begrudge them their sssafe haven from the troublesss in the sssky. It isss sssaid that their sssky ssship would have failed them and that they would have died if they had tried to ssseek another world with no children to adopt them." Salosss said.

"That much is true." I said.

"Well now our world'sss torment is over. You can take your erring children away with you and back to their own mother world." The Chief pronounced.

"Ah, no Sir." I said.

"What? Why isss that?" He demanded.

"My sky-ship is far too small to take all of the people away. We couldn't take enough of them away to change anything." I said sadly.

"Hmmm. It doesssn't matter. They too are children of this world now. Her earth flowsss in their veinsss." The Chief said.

"That's very wise of you to say, Sir." I said.

"No. It isss a sssad thing to have to sssay. We must kill mossst of them now." Salosss sadly informed us. "Take sssome of them. Find the few with good heartsss and take them away with you. Ssspare them the cleansssing."

"Cleansing?" Stephanie asked dangerously, reaching for her phaser.

"Go ahead and kill me if you mussst." Salosss said. "I will rejoin my world again soon in any cassse. But now that you know, your blood may just moisssten our world, too."

"I came to ask if there was any way we could help make things better between the newcomers and you." I said quickly. "It doesn't have to come to bloodshed, yet."

Salosss shook his head slowly. "Many yearsss hasss this courssse been debated. Many years have the peaceful tried to sssmooth the way. All to no avail. Our World'sss adopted children misssussse and abussse her. They live in a way that ssshows their lack of ressspect for our home. They even abussse usss, their sssiblingsss of this world. No. They ssseek no enlightenment. They only ssseek their own wealth."

"Is there a way to avoid this? I believe I can find a way. Do you speak for all of the natives in this matter?" I had just thought I was being clever with the General Custer reference!

"Have you sssspoken with Harker, Ssstewart and their ilk?" Salosss asked me pointedly.

"Ahm," I hated to admit that I had. Given their attitude, he might just have a point. "Yes, Sir. I have."

"Then you know what their responssse would be." Salosss said.

"I'm sure we can come up with something." I said desperately. "I'd really like to see if we can come up with a peaceful solution to your problems."

Salosss thought about it. "There isss time, as you measure sssuch thingsss. It would require a huge number of our warriorsss to conduct the cleansssing. We plan to begin in ten yearsss."

"Can you speak for the rest of your people? I want to try and find an alternative to your cleansing."

Salosss sighed, sadly. "I would welcome another way to proceed. It has been difficult for usss to decide on the cleansssing. Many of usss had strong ressservationsss about sssuch an act."

"Good. Good! We'll come up with something." I said happily.

"I look forwardsss to ssseeing your sssolution." Salosss said. "Meanwhile, pleassse explain your companion to me. I have never ssseen sssuch a creature."

"I have been described as a wise spirit." Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo's vocorder announced. He smelled thoughtful, a hint of incense mingled with his usual strawberry smell.

"Oh. Pleased to meet you, Wissse Ssspirit." Salosss said, sketching a quick bow.

After a little more friendly conversation, I took my leave of the native chieftain. Now all I had to do was figure out how to alter a whole culture a change the mind of a whole populace.

As we left one of the village residents came up to us. She was human. "It won't work, you know."

"What won't?" I asked.

"Peace between the People and the Settlers. It won't happen." She said. She looked oddly out of place. Her hair was cut short and she was wearing skins from some animal or other.

"Don't be too sure." I said, trying to exude confidence. The first step to solving a problem is to have the confidence that you can solve the problem. "We might surprise you."

"I had to get away from them, with their fake nineteenth century culture. It's deliberate, you know. Abusing the People and now even each other." She said.

"It's deliberate?" I asked.

"Yes. The crew of the Reliant knew that eventually their technology would fail. They wanted to avoid having their descendants go native, so they set up a society based on nineteenth century America." She said.

"Interesting. And how did they know it would work the way it did?" Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo asked.

"I'm not sure. If I had to guess, I'd guess that they didn't really, they were just faking it as well as they could." She said.

"How did you discover this data?" I asked. I was a little suspicious.

She looked me straight in the eye. "I was raped, Captain."

"Uh. I'm sorry." I said. I had a peculiar reaction. I felt guilty by association. On the other hand, I felt that I understood her now. Of course she held bitter resentment against her people for doing that to her. I actually began to discount her at that point. I didn't discount her pain, but I did start to write off her ideas about the culture.

"Afterwards, I was told that it was my own fault for tempting the man in question." She said.

I grimaced, along with Stephanie. We'd heard of such things but I had never encountered one before.

"I asked myself how a people who could travel through the stars could look away from such injustice. You know my great, great, great grandmother was Leona Li, the second officer of the Reliant. How could a people let their officers, partners, mothers, wives, sisters and children be treated like that?" The woman looked at me.

I shook my head. "It's not like that where I come from. I guess that's damned little comfort to you."

"I know." The Woman said. "I read the original records. That's where I discovered that out founding fathers actually built their culture to resist influence by the People. I was just a side effect. So I left and came here to get away from the insanity."

"Oh. You're a child of this world, now?" I said.

"I always was. I am more aware of it, now. I'll tell you that any talk of human rights or equality with the 'Wogs' will frighten and threaten the men of Jameson City. They will not listen to you." She said.

"Thank you miss..." I said.

"Ssslenin." She replied.

"Slenin?" Stephanie asked.

"No, Ssslenin. Draw out the ess a little bit."

"Thank you, Ssslenin." I said. "Would you be willing to speak with us a little more about this? You are a natural bridge between the Settlers and the People."

Ssslenin looked haunted. "I don't know." I knew what she meant. She was living a new life, she was new person away from her pain. To ask her to consult with us about the native and Settler culture put her in the position of living back in her pain.

"That would be unwise, Captain." Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo told me. "But perhaps I could do almost as well."

Ssslenin looked at Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo and seemed to see him for the first time. "What in the world are you?" She asked.

"Miss Ssslenin, this is Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo, my ship's counselor. He is a Rhondan." I introduced.

"A Rhondan? An alien? In your crew?" Ssslenin asked, thunderstruck.

"Yes. I was born on Earth, but I consider myself a citizen of the Federation. The Rhondan home world is part of the Federation and Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo is my fellow citizen as well my professional colleague." I said.

"At least in terms of being a starship crewman. We are trained in different, yet complimentary ways." Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo amended. His strawberry smell was stronger.

"You're the counselor?" Ssslenin asked. Unconsciously she reached out and lightly touched one of Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo's tentacles. "You the um... head doctor?"

Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo gently touched back. "Yes. That's correct."

Ssslenin took a step back. "You two let him treat your minds? But you're Human and he's an Alien." She sounded confused.

"That can actually help." Stephanie said. "Explaining why I'm thinking what I'm thinking to him sometimes often helps me understand it better myself."

"That is one of my best tactics." Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo's vocorder sounded a trifle smug. Ssslenin grinned.

"We have already been in space for two years." I said. "If Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo wasn't competent, we wouldn't be here, now." I said.

"Oh." Ssslenin said. "Well it looks like things are better in the Federation than they are here."

"Like I said. Maybe we'll surprise you." I said.

"Ssslenin looked at me doubtfully. " Good luck, Captain."

-*-

"We'll slaughter them all." Harker said.

I shook my head. "There are more than half a billion of them. I'm not sure you could prevail even with our technology to help you."

"That's the way I'd expect an effete man from Earth to think." Harker said scornfully.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked. I felt a little hurt by Harker's insult.

"You grew up safe and secure on Earth. Even when my ancestors left it, Earth was well on it's way to becoming a paradise. Well paradises breed soft men. It's not your fault, but your manhood, your toughness, your grit have been underdeveloped in a safe, political environment. Out here we have had to struggle for what we have. We have had to build it from scratch. It gives one a different perspective than if one inherits one's world from the sweat of one's ancestors."

"Now there's a constructive attitude." I said.

"Those who can't do, criticize." Harker said. He was smugly tolerant of my inferiority.

"Okay, let's just push this metaphor all out of shape. There's a critical design flaw in this thing you've built. Unless corrected, this flaw will bring the whole structure down on your head." I said.

"All due respect, Captain, I can't see as you're competent to make that assessment. To continue abusing our metaphor, you're not an architect or a carpenter. You have no direct experience on which to judge us, except for revisionist history and politically correct thought untested in the real world."

I looked at President Harker for a few minutes. He had essentially rationalized me out of existence. There was no argument that I could make that he wouldn't write off as the rantings of an incompetent mind.

"Well, I've done all I can here for now." I said. "I'll be on my way, Mister President."

"Thank you. Captain. I encourage you to continue giving up easily. Eventually you'll leave and find greater happiness elsewhere." Harker politely escorted me out the door. If it had just been Harker, I would have been giving phasers to the natives.

-*-

The rest of the day went down hill from there. By the end of the day my arguments had whipped the Settlers to a near frenzy. There was talk of a preemptive strike and people were eyeing their field hands suspiciously. Everyone believed that the natives might attack, but no one was willing to concede that the attack might be avoided by a change in human culture on the planet.

After a while I found myself surround by a hostile crowd. Men and women were packing slug throwers and carrying torches, as well as pitch forks, shovels and various other implements of mob violence.

The sound was frightening.

"Wog loving bastard!" I heard a male voice shout.

President Harker moved to the head of the procession. "Captain, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

"I can't. You're a Federation colony, and you're my responsibility." I said. I was expecting to be shot or lynched at any moment.

"We want no part of your weak kneed milk sop Federation." The President said. His speaking voice was deep and sharp and everyone could hear it. The crowd cheered.

"Like it or not, you are human beings." I said. I sounded a little shrill to my own ears. "Like it or not, the Earth is a member of the Federation. This was decided long ago. Therefore, you people of Earth descent are part of our society and our responsibility."

"Is this how you fulfill your responsibility, by selling out to aliens and undermining legitimate human government?" Harker yelled.

"Nobody is selling anybody out!" I yelled. "All I'm saying is that it should be possible for the people of Earth to learn from history and not make the same mistakes over and over again. It's possible to build a society that works for everyone here, Native and Settler alike!"

"There's a mistake being made alright and you're the one making it." Harker said. "These people have had to work and bleed for their homes. They're willing to fight and die for them if necessary." The crowd's noise rose to a fever pitch. "I can't be responsible for your safety, Captain. It's time for you to go!" Harker had to yell over the roar.

I tapped my comm-badge and said "Hailey to Discovery. Beam me up, now. Emergency."

The bugs under the skin feeling descended and I began to sparkle away. As if it were a signal the crowd attacked. A couple of bullets whinged off the annular confinement beam. I felt a number of hands on me and something sharp dug into my arm.

As I materialized on the transporter stage on the Discovery, I had to staggered down and hold onto the console to keep my feet. I was woozy. Being swamped by a mob during beam out is no fun and I recommend that you avoid it at every opportunity.

-*-

We had a long night after that. The Settlers didn't attack their own working "Wogs". That would have cost them money. They left Jameson city in small scouting groups and tried to attack all native tribes near by. They were the tribes that hunted, gathered and scouted out fresh resources in return for coffee. We beamed down security to warn the natives and in one case we had to beam out an entire tribe as the Settlers cut off their escape. We suffered a couple of gunshot wounds and many Settler militiamen got stunned.

Other subsidiary towns to Jameson City either grew paranoid or sniffed disdainfully at the big city Settlers of Jameson City for being afraid of the patently peaceful and gentle natives. Either way, within two days the first moves of the war between the Settlers and the Natives were complete. President Harker declared victory and the Settlers quieted down, confident of their ability to exterminate any number of Natives required.

My crew was offered an extremely icy welcome in the city. By and large it was well known that our security forces had aided the escape of the Natives and we were resented for it.

The native "cleansing" project was beginning to look more and more likely.

-*-

"Captain." Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo said, "Soren and I have a project that we would like to propose to you. Could you meet us in observation lounge three?"

I thought about it. Soren the Elder and Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo were some of the best social scientists in the Federation. If anyone had any clues about how to rescue situation it would be them. Besides, Soren the Elder was widely regarded as one of the founding fathers of the Federation. A gentle request from him carried a lot of weight. "I'll be right there, Mr. Woo-Woo."

"Thank you."

-*-

"I believe that given enough time and enough leverage I can alter the human culture of Reliant's World to be more in line with that of the Federation." Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo said.

"How much time are we talking about?" I asked.

"I estimate no more than 90 to 100 standard years." Woo-woo said.

I boggled at him. "Mr. Woo-woo, we can't even stay here a year."

A strawberry smell backed by a gentle toasty smell wafted from the Rhondan. "I understand that. You will have to leave me here."

I stared at him with my mouth hanging open. "I couldn't strand you here, Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo."

"Not even to save millions of human and native lives?" Soren asked.

"First of all, I'm not certain that this plan, whatever it is would work. Second, I'm not good at thinking of millions of lives. That's an abstraction. You're my friend and my shipmate, Counselor. I can easily think of you. Do you realize what you're asking of me?" I explained. "You'd be stranded here effectively forever."

"I sincerely thank you for your concern Captain." Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo said with a blast of extremely fresh strawberries in cream with sugar. "I ask you to look at this from a point of view not of stranding your shipmate, nor from the point of view of a Starship Captain trying to save lives. I ask you to picture this from the point of view of a social scientist at the cusp of a great experiment."

Again I was stunned. "An experiment?"

"Much the same as Castros and the Planet Ortega." Soren pointed out.

"What, do you think that you can do better? Do you see this as a chance to prove yourself Castros' equal?" I asked.

"Actually Captain, our analysis suggests that work of Castros has much to recommend it. It can form the basis of a very solid workable plan for Reliant's World." Soren said. "It is only logical to use the best tools and techniques available."

A smell of cinnamon crept into Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo's smell and he darkened somewhat. "Soren provides a excellent logical defense of my plan. I would not be totally honest if I denied what you said, Captain."

Soren cocked his eyebrow at Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo.

"There is a certain amount of professional jealousy and pride involved in my plan. I have long envied Castros' ability to get an entire planet to remold according to his theories." Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo said.

"Fascinating. I could have sworn that you were approaching the task with complete logic and pragmatism." Soren said.

"These are real people we're talking about. More than half a billion of them. Our actions will determine the shapes of lives for hundreds of years in the future. I don't care how logical it is or what your professional pride is. Let's keep our eyes on the ball, here. This is about the people of this planet. Unless this project is about them, then I don't think you've adequately thought this through." I yelled. I shut up quickly. I was yelling at Soren the Elder.

"Emotionally stated, but essentially correct, Captain." Soren said.

"Please do not think that I lack any compassion for the people below us Captain. I wanted you to understand that I am committed to this project. The way that Castros was able to succeed in his project was to become part of it. He is an Ortegan. I propose to make a similar commitment myself. I will become, as the natives say, an adopted child of this world." Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo said.

"I just don't get it." I said. In addition, I didn't. Why would anyone want to jump ship and live on a single planet out in the middle of nowhere? Aliens as one's only company, and decades before another ship might open up regular contact?

"I can well empathize with you point of view, Captain. However, I am familiar with the ways in which you think. Please believe me when I say that the opportunity to do this is as attractive to me as the chance to travel in space is to you." Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo explained.

"Okay, let me hear your plan." I temporized. Maybe there was a way to talk him out of it somewhere in there.

"Our plan," Soren said, "unfortunately begins with something of a deception."

"Before that it begins with gaining the cooperation of the Native leadership." Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo corrected.

"Quite so." Soren nodded.

-*-

The tribal leaders of the Natives were seated on the floor, around a fire, under, so Ghod help me, a large tee-pee. Native blankets kept them warm. I didn't need one. My uniform was made of "smart" material that altered itself to fit to conditions. It would have kept me reasonably warm down to twenty below, assuming some sort of hat and gloves.

Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo and Soren arranged a large picture board near one side of the teepee and were making their presentation.

"Our plan is to teach the next generation of Settler leadership a more open and tolerant culture using the high technology of the Federation as a lure." Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo summarized. "We require you aid to be successful."

"How?" Salosss asked.

"Well, this project will take an estimated 60 to 90 standard years to complete. The time frame for four or five human generations to get started." Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo said.

The assembly of Tribal leaders rustled nervously.

"You wish usss to delay our cleansssing until that time?" Salosss asked again.

"Yes, Sir." Soren said.

"That meansss that the cleansssing would not sssucceed." Another tribal leader said. "Between the Sssettlers gunsss and their increasssing numbersss, within twenty yearsss the balance will turn againssst us. If we do not begin by then, we would never sssucceed."

"That, too is correct." Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo said. "It is our hope that our plan would make the cleansing unnecessary."

"I admire your kind intentionsss, Ssspirit, but I feel that you are being naive." The Tribal leader said. "The majority of the Sssettlers will not change."

"You are correct as far as you speak, Sir. Sadly, the majority of Settlers currently alive will probably not significantly change their attitudes and ways." Soren said.

"Our aim is not to alter them, but their children and grandchildren to a more acceptable form." Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo said.

I felt a little sick at the language.

"I like it." Salosss said. "Did our own forefathersss not think and plan in termsss of generations and erasss? Can we do lesss?"

"That bringsss up another point." An old female tribal chief said. "Our ancestorsss turned their backs on artifice and technology a thousssand generationsss ago. They elected to live in harmony with our mother-world. You technology would sssimply give the Sssettlers more powerful toolsss to rape our mother-world with."

"Captain Hailey, would you care to speak to that point?" Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo said.

I started "Oh, ah... alright." I stood up. "Excuse me, Miss...?"

I got the feeling she was smiling faintly as she said "Sssarnol."

"Thank you Sssarnol. On Earth, errr my mother-world if you will, we did terrible damage in times gone by. Industry, pollution and warfare rendered the Earth almost uninhabitable. We came to understand at last that yes, we were all children of our world and that we would either have to live in harmony with the Earth or loose everything, including our lives. We began to do much you have done. Electing to abandon many technologies that were harmful. However, there were too many of us. To totally abandon our technology as you have done would have condemned billions of us to starvation, disease and death." There was a big reaction to this.

"How many children doesss your planet currently have?" Another tribal leader asked.

"Our population has held steady at approximately ten billion for the last two hundred years." I said. "I think it's falling off slightly."

The council started at me in naked shock.

"Ah hmmm, anyway. We learned not only to live in harmony with the Earth, but also to enjoy her gifts to us without necessarily destroying anything." I continued weakly.

"That implies a cyclical reproduction rate of at least 2.3 percent." One tribal leader said accusingly.

"Actually, human reproduction increases when their standard of living decreases." Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo said. "Contented, well fed humans don't reproduce nearly as quickly as when they are struggling."

"That makes no sense." One tribal leader objected. "It should be quite the opposite."

"Are you aware of an esoteric method of warfare called a 'War of Attrition'?" Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo asked.

After the term was translated the tribal leaders allowed as they might have heard of the concept. They seemed very tense.

"Humans are evolved to fight a war of attrition against their home ecology." Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo said. "It is their natural state."

I was shocked. "I don't think that this is the case, Counselor."

"Strong evidence exists to support the contention, Captain." Soren said. he had the grace to look slightly embarrassed.

Dead silence held the Native council. With a shock I realized that we had just undermined their whole strategy for their "cleansing". Of course. The natives refused to use much technology at all. So groups of soldiers would have to live off the land as they moved. That means that any sizable army would overgraze the land and starve itself before accomplishing anything useful. So you'd use smaller groups over a period of time. Guerrilla warfare. Terror tactics. No specific group would expect to win victory on it's own. The object would be to hurt the enemy to a specific level or more before being destroyed. The hope would be that you could throw more bodies into the grinder than the enemy could. If you had one body left when his last soldier fell, well then you won the war.

"It ssseemsss asss though we will have to consssider your plansss after all, Wissse Ssspirit." Salosss grinned.

I felt as though I was going to be ill. "Please listen to me." I said. "We humans have learned to live with our planet and with our neighbors in peace. I am living proof of that. Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo is living proof of that. I have seen it in operation on my world with my own eyes. All we have to do in convince the Settlers that such a thing is desirable and we can make it work."

"Our plan has one added advantage that I wish you to consider." Soren said "It requires little or no violence and few or no deaths intrinsically."

"What would be required of us? May we ask for details?" Another tribal leader asked.

"Certainly." Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo said. "We will of course provide complete details and data to support our contention."

"Our plan requires a serious adjustment in your own culture, gentlemen." Soren pointed out. "It requires that you accept the concept of environmentally friendly technology. You do not have to adopt or use this environmentally friendly technology, but almost certainly the Human Settlers will. We expect by the end of the cycle that those who wish not to adopt technology will have their wishes respected, as per the Federation's Prime Directive."

"You have very high expectationsss for you scheme." Salosss said.

"Yes. I believe that it will be nearly one hundred percent successful or I would not have proposed it." Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo said. "My plan revolves around a school for teaching advanced technology to the human settlers and your sons and daughters."

This caused another stir.

"The basic reason is to put the next generation of Settler leading class in close and routine contact with your people. Once they begin to spend time with your people they will find it much more difficult to hold an invalid stereotype in their minds." Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo said.

"Also we plan to introduce cultural data into the technical curriculum." Soren explained. "We hope to instill a more open and tolerant view in our students almost without their conscious awareness."

Step by step Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo and Soren the Elder laid out their plan to alter and change the Settler culture. I had to leave.

-*-

Outside, the air was fresh and I could see out to the horizon. With a shock I realized that I wasn't used to it. No part of the Discovery was further than 800 meters away from any other. From inside it was usually much, much shorter. Inside the holodeck or on the colonization deck holograms provided the illusion of distance but I didn't pay lots of attention to those.

Something inside me wanted to wake up and go running through the fields. I soothed it and told it to go back to sleep. I was a long way from my primitive ancestors.

Salosss slid up next to me. "Our world callsss to you."

I took a deep breath. "I don't get out in the fresh air very often."

"Our world is a generous one. Ssshe hasss plenty of fresssh air to go around." Salosss said.

"Thank you." I said. I felt a touch better.

"Don't thank me. I'm jussst ssstanding next to you enjoying it, too." He took a couple of deep breaths of his own. "The dissscusssion inssside bothersss you."

I grimaced. "I was taught from an early age that everyone gets to discover their own truths. No government, no group of elders, no secret councils can learn a single damned thing for you. The best any society can do is to provide you the freedom to crack your own head open and learn your own lessons from it."

"You feel that we're denying the Sssettlers their own well earned cracked headsss?" Saloss grinned.

"Yeah. Yeah I do." I grumped. "Soren and Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo have it all figured out. The grandchildren or great-grandchildren will be nice little zombies, and not a threat to anyone."

"On your own mother-world, isss murder a crime?" Salosss asked.

"Huh? Yes, of course." I answered.

"And how many people did you, yourself kill before you uncovered this truth for yourself?" Salosss asked.

"Ah..." I had served in the Cardassian war. I was an engineer, so all I ever saw was the inside of the ships as the battles were fought. My Captain heard me shooting my mouth off about my ignorant, uneducated opinions and assigned me to a landing party. We encountered a Cardassian patrol. Some fire was exchanged, and I killed a Cardassian. I'll never forget it. I threw up at the time and had nightmares for a while. Then we discovered that our Cardassians were lost and stranded. They were told that we'd do nasty things if we caught them and so they decided to go down fighting. The survivors were surprised and horrified that we had humane opinions about POWs. I was as horrified if not more so. Those tired, hungry and sick soldiers didn't have to die. I'd killed somebody for no good reason. That made it infinitely worse. "Welcome to the war." an old chief had said to me. I didn't shoot off my mouth as badly after that, anyway. However, that's not what Saloss meant. He was asking if children and teenagers and civilians were allowed to kill to figure it out or if they were expected to learn that murder was wrong from the culture around them. "I see your point." I said.

"The lessons of your own culture are driven not by your own pain but by the remembered pain of your ancestors, am I correct?" Salosss said.

"Mostly." I admitted. "We're still learning new things. I think your Mother-World will go down in the books as a new one."

"You consider the People of Iron and Steam a part of your culture even though they have been separated from your Federation for a long time." Salosss said. "What does your Prime Directive have to say about that?"

I shook my head. "Lost Colonies from Earth are Earth's responsibility. If they are stable, independent and have a distinct culture of their own they might choose not to have anything to do with the Federation or Earth. That's up to them, but if there is damage or harm, then it's the responsibility of Earth to repair it. Those people have harmed you and your mother world by being here. I can't take them away, I can't fix that but I have to try and fix the fact of the harm they do. You're the real reason we're here. If not for you, we'd oh, I don't know..."

"If not for usss, you'd do your bessst to help the Sssettlers becaussse they would be alone asss the children of a new world." Salosss said. "But it ssstill bothersss you to hear of Sssoren and your Wissse Ssspirit speaking so casually about programming the culture to the Sssettlersss here."

"Yes. It does." I said.

"Are you perhapsss familiar with an obssscure military doctrine that Sssays- 'No plan sssurvivesss contact with the enemy'?"

I chuckled "Yeah. I've heard that once or twice."

"Well then, you mussst trussst that the Sssettlersss will not take Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo's medicene passsively. They will change it asss they go, to suit themselvesss." Saloss said. "And in the end it will the theirsss and oursss, not the Federation'sss or Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo'sss.

-*-

The opening stages of Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo's plan was going according to plan. The Natives had surrendered abjectly and sued for peace. The Settlers, suitably mollified and having had their egos gratified were happy to sign a peace treaty that would scandalize the Federation State Department when they saw it. It was a major capitulation on the part of the natives, but it was the first step. Convinced of their superiority, the Settlers would be less on their guard against new and radical ideas.

I had walked through every inch of the peace negotiations and the treaty signings with an insincere smile on my face, and the constant protestation that the Federation only wanted peace for everyone. It made me sort of sick. I started dropping weight fist fighting with things on the holodeck.

Afterwards there was a party and the Settlers accepted the crew of the Discovery once again. Except for me. I was smugly tolerated. I left early.

-*-

The next phase in the plan was setting up the technical school. President Harker had already agreed to it. The sales pitch was that new technology would be introduced to the colony in measured, controllable increments. The fact that a starship wouldn't be in orbit over his head was also a selling point. To Harker it looked like he was getting all the benefit of our presence without any of the drawbacks. Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo gathered a crew of volunteers to leave the Discovery and settle with him into the long task of altering the culture of Reliant's World. The big surprise to me was Dena Foote, one of three colonists to join the technical school.

"I'm sorry. It's been really hard for me to really give a damn about the El-Aurian colony since Mary was killed." She explained.

"I understand." I said.

"That's nice of you to say, but I don't think you do, really." Dena gave me a faint smile.

"Not really, I guess. I wish you all the best." I said.

I stood back while Dena and Justin Foote said their final good byes. Justin grinned. "Dirt under your finger nails all the time. Not enough light. Barely any running water. Just like old times." I could tell he was putting up a brave front.

"I'll see around sometime, Justin." Dena said seriously. "I just can't stay here."

"Keep your head down, Okay?" Justin stepped back.

Dena and the others stepped on the transporter stage. It was one of the big transporters that the Colony would use when it was settled. At the signal they sparkled away down to Reliant's World.

-*-

"Good-bye, Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo." I said. "We'll sorely miss you."

"And I you, Captain. Hopefully when I'm done there will be a world the Federation can be proud of, here." Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo said. In the back ground I could see Settlers and our own people raising a pre-fabricated structure. We had left the Technical school all of the survival and emergency equipment that the Discovery could reasonably spare. It was understandable when Elizabeth refused to part with much colonial equipment and few animals. She would need every bit of that at Beta Howard.

"Live long and prosper, Whump-Wuist-Woo-Woo." Soren said. He wasn't joining the Technical School, a fact for which I was deeply grateful. He said that he was too old to be of much use there, and besides, someone needed to carry reputable word of what happened back to the Federation with us. For all I knew it was the first attempt by the Federation to raise a primitive world to Federation standards by deliberate applied effort. They'd want to come back and carefully examine the results someday.

-*-

Repairs on the Discovery were as complete as they were going to get.

"Let's get moving." I said.

The Discovery moved away from Reliant's World and on with her mission.

-end-

Disclaimer: Paramount owns all things Trek. I claim original characters and situations in this story for me.