Blasphemy (part 9)
I poured the last of the bottle of port into the High Priestess' glass, reflections of the galactic map of the Coterie and its relationship to the Laasko homeworld reflected in the dark violet wine. Vortex was projecting the details in brilliant three dimensional holography above the galley dining room table.
The High Priestess was clearly tired, her hair mussed, and small smudges of something black and sticky spotted her robes. She'd been doing a lot of crawling around the engine room spaces. Her advisors had done the same, and were equally dirtied. Only the two guards remained clean, having stood stoic, vigilant, with their eyes on me, hoping for the chance to shoot. Vortex was still under Distress Potential Protocol Six, despite the fact that we were relaxing with some luminescent Emjoian cheeses and the port from Freedman's Planet.
I pointed to a small section of an outer spiral arm of the galaxy.
"That is the star of the world of my ancestry." Vortex made it twinkle without me saying anything. She'd been quiet the entire time that the six Laasko had been on board, concealing her capabilities. "It is eleven thousand light-years from us." A cluster of stars, much closer to the Laasko homeworld, blazed to attention. "This is McCutcheon's Nebula, where my most recent journey started." A green line sketched out our mapping course, rapidly winding its way to the Laasko homeworld. "I came out of hyperspace at the end of that survey path, which is where your sensors detected me. That is where I am from."
"You have seen the engine room and all the machinery that drives it. I've gone over the mathematics from Carpenter's Manifold Symmetry to her Hyperspatial Inversion Matrices. I admit that it might be more believable if the engines could create a stable hyperfield for you, but that's been my problem ever since I appeared in your system."
The High Priestess stared into the star field projection. Her three assistants were rapt by the display. They'd asked a lot of very insightful questions during the tour of the engine room. The two guards were bored; they'd deliberately refused any food and I think they were disappointed that they hadn't been given the order to atomize me.
"Now it is our problem," she replied, her voice distant. "It is mathematically consistent, logical to a fault, and yet blasphemous. Most of the details and far too much heretical speculation will be on our information network by now." Not by my order. While Vortex could have planted the data in their system easily, First Contact protocols insisted that we leave that in the hands of the local government.
"It is the truth. How else do you explain my presence?" I'd suspected that I was blasphemous in some way, but it wasn't clear how.
"It is your truth." There was resignation in her voice, the sound of a religion coming face to face with the crushing weight of an unexpected contradiction. Yet, for all her pragmatic realism, she seemed convinced that I might still be wrong, merely a trial of her faith.
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why do you show us all this? You allow the six of us, heavily armed, aboard your ship. You explain the details of your technology, to the point where we could reproduce this on our own, if not just take it from you?"
"High Priestess, your people clearly understand everything you need to reproduce this technology on your own. It is a surprise to me that you do not have a vessel like this already." That wasn't entirely true. There's no one else like Vortex. She could not be reproduced. "You could take it from me, but the Coterie would learn of it, eventually. You're too smart to risk further difficulties; while I am the first, I will not be the last."
That wasn't entirely true, either. Without the hyperfield for faster-than-light communications, the Coterie might hear our signals a couple of centuries from now. Those signals would be filed somewhere, the First Contact Review Board notified, a motion made in committee for later review and followup. It's a big galaxy, with a lot of uncharted space.
"But you cannot be." They were chilling words. "And yet you are." First Contact teams had vanished under such contradictions far too often in the past.
"Why not?" I might as well confront the issue directly. The High Priestess looked me directly in the eye and came to some sort of decision. She turned to her three aides. They each nodded.
"You have shown me your proof. I invite you to see mine. Let me show you why you cannot be."