Original Fiction:

Tri Again

A Modern-Day Morality Play in three parts

© 2001 by Stephen Stonewall

1.

Dear Aelred - I bet you never thought you’d get a message squirt via your neural implant, eh? Just thought I’d try sending you this message as part of the optimal cyberdump outflow in your official monthly instructions from the company. (That’s assuming you get this message at all - but just don’t tell the company, eh?)

But I felt I just had to tell you the news - and I suspected that the company wouldn’t want you to know this at this time - not because they’d want to hide the most important news in history from you - just that I’d imagine they’d be concerned that this news might distract you from your work.

And I do reckon this is the most important news in history - just scan the attached uploads for further details. The future has arrived.

Yes, it’s true. Humanity has made official contact with an alien species! We finally know - for certain! - that we’re not alone in the Universe. The aliens appear to live on a planet orbiting Tau Ceti, (see Attachments AstroNav- A, B and C for details and triangulation formulae) but we’re still trying to fully decipher all their transmissions.

It’s just as well that we’re here, at the station on Io, because Earth communications are somewhat strained at the moment. You know the internal political situation there (see Attachments EarthWarZones- A through G for further news) so it’s lucky that a remote outpost such as ours is able to function as a separate entity. We can act as mediators between these aliens and the rest of humanity.

Hope to send you more in the next month’s transmissions. Good luck on the installation work. Hope that summer on Pluto isn’t too cold, eh?

With love,

Stan.

2.

Hi, Aelred - Sorry to be out of touch for a couple of months. Just a nano-message this time (no message attachments) for reasons that will become obvious.

Firstly, we’ve managed to decipher the alien transmissions, and begun preliminary first contact with the aliens. As you can imagine, the communications antennae have been pretty busy, so this message has to be quick.

Secondly, it seems that the news about alien contact has tripped a revolution back on Earth, and there’s a lot of civil uproar - everything from religious hysteria to political unrest. Hordes of refugee ships are starting to arrive from Earth, and we’ve had to turn away some thousands of people in the last couple of months. I mean, we can be sympathetic to these unfortunate people, but we can’t take them all. Various bleeding hearts argue that it’s our humanitarian duty to welcome all comers - after all, the very survival of humanity may depend upon the establishment of large and self-reliant colonies on all our outposts, so that way, we won’t depend upon Earth being the sole home of our species.

Most people here, however, seem to agree with the official line. Let Mars or Venus take the refugees - they already have so many, and here on Io, we have a concern about our quality of life.

In any case, Earth's political unrest has given us a good incentive to contact the aliens and suggest that we, on Io, should become the principal ambassadors of humanity. Other humans appear to be so busy with their petty bickering and internal wars!

I’ll squirt you again next month when I can,

Love Stan.

3.

Hey Aelred - Hope that the liquid hydrogen volcanoes aren’t giving you any more trouble out there on Pluto. We’ve had some turbulence of our own out here.

I’m sure I’ve told you about the refugee ships arriving from Earth. Well, it seems that, a couple of weeks ago, one got turned away at Ganymede and was heading for us - but they suffered a hull breach and exploded. A few hundred people died (see Attachments Io LocalNews A, B and IntraDiplomats A through D for further info and gossip). Of course, that’s pretty sad, but we can hardly be blamed for that, can we?

Onto the shock news of the month - the aliens have broken off contact with us! (see Attachments BigNews A through N for details) There’s lots of speculation about the reason - everything from mechanical problems at our end, to possible all-out nuclear war on their own home planet. The most perplexing rumour comes from an amateur radio-astronomer on Mars (see Attachment MarsNews C2), who claims that the final alien transmission said something about humanity not being ready to step into the future - that we need more compassion and less compulsion, or something like that. Can’t imagine what that might mean, can you?

I expect that your furlough will finish soon, following the completion of the company’s nuclear missile silo shield network on Pluto. Looking forward to having you home soon.

Lots of love,

Stan.