"Visitors' Arrival: Book 3 of the LUNAR SERIES."

The revelation that Respect Hausa of Asteropia had abducted, as it turned out, over a hundred of the Visitors’ Seeds had completely changed everything about how the Council of the Governance would approach the Phenomenon, as it was often called, of the arrival of the Visitors!Of course, Admiral Shan would have to quickly set up another virtual meeting with the Members as soon as she and her small incognito crew made it back to Headquarters.

But before the admiral could worry about the meeting, she had to place Respect Hausa and his two guards, Astro’hope and Sahurell, under arrest!Her crew of four simply whipped out their hand-sized guns they had been hiding on their person, and commandeered the Respect and his guards with their guns that they, also, had hidden on them!The Governance operatives were legally obligated to arrest the three based on a few Governance laws, along with non-binding agreements with the Tell’ society.Since there was no official political relationship between the Sol Governance and the Tellmondonians of Asteropia’s asteroid field, the two societies got around that with unsigned, but witnessed, agreements…in the case of the arrest of Respect Hausa, it was based on the fact that ’Governance personnel with knowledge and the witness of the offender(s) with the illegal ascertainment of persons, and/or item(s) of significance...’

As the Governance crew stripped the Tell’s’ guns from them, Admiral Shan made sure to document the whole episode.For the animosity between the Governance’s Erth-based culture and the Tellmondonians living mostly in the asteroid field ran deep and long.She did not want to start an intra-solar war between the two sides, should Respect Hausa’s arrest be interpreted as something of an infringement on Tellmondonian sovereignty!After all, Hausa was a Respect.Despite Tellmondo’s societal philosophy of every citizen being on par with one another, the Respects of the Advisory Council still held a higher level of concern when it came to intra-solar conflicts.

And, then, there was the Visitors’ Seed…Admiral Shan made sure she took care of transporting the reinforced case that contained the tiny, hard-surfaced Object!Shan had First Lieutenant Hu record her taking official Governance custody of the Seed as Shan recited legal codes while doing so.She had always felt funny doing that part of the job.She was not a particularly religious or spiritual person, but she had visited several theist institutions where they would chant as they part-took in ceremonial rituals.When she did the codified readings based on Governance’s laws throughout her career, she always thought of those theist institutions.

After the admiral’s team inconspicuously walked Respect Hausa and the two young Tell’s through the industrial section of Pacificalis’ spaceport, they placed the three men into the back of their land vehicle and drove back to Governance’s headquarters.Just before the ride, Admiral Shan, taking Cadet Pointe with her for backup, hopped into the back of the large vehicle with the Tell’s so she could convince the Respect or one of his guards to tell them where the rest of the Seeds were.The old man and his aides politely refused to disclose the location.That made Shan’s job a lot harder.For, now, based on those same non-binding agreements between the Governance and the Tellmondonians, she had to contact the Advisory Council on Asteropia!

All this, while Admiral Shan had to worry about when the Visitors would strike next…

“Admiral,” one of the cadets from the command suite informed her in one of Governance’s headquarters-halls, “the Prime Governor is here for the meeting.”

“Thank you, Cadet Krickens,” Admiral Shan said; exhaustion beginning to show on her face.She straightened her posture and made sure her dark uniform was in place.Prime Governor Henrick Valerio may have been a civilian and young enough to be Shan’s son, but he was the chief of the entire Governance government!

Tall, slender, and dressed in traditional business attire, Prime Governor Valerio approached Admiral Shan as she stood next to the door of her official quarters so they could join the on-going virtual meeting with the Advisory body of the Tellmondonian Respects.He was flanked by five body guards.One handed Valerio a briefcase; the Prime Governor nodded a Thanks to him.Those same five guards took positions right in front of the admiral’s quarters, which was in a section of the Governance’s headquarters where the halls were wide and posh…a reflection of the higher ranking Governance officials in that section of the base.

Admiral Shan and the prime governor shook hands and went right into her suite.During such emergency virtual meetings, it was against policy to have any aides amid the proceedings.So the hard work of keeping notes, working out logistics, and other practical things were incumbent upon each official attending.

The projected patch-work of tiny, three-dimensional head-shots of most of the several hundreds of Governance Members in the checkered format was up and running already.What was different was whenever there were guest-speakers in an official meeting with the Members, those guests’ images were shown several inches off to the side from the large, holographic table that was projected a couple of feet off of the admiral’s desk…that way, it was easy for the Members and said-guests to keep track whom they were speaking to.

Normally, Reshma just sat in her chair to conduct her meetings with the other Members.But Prime Governor Valerio just stood before the admiral’s machine that transmitted their images before the others in the meeting.Not wanting to look lazy—especially as an olderMember!—Admiral Shan, also, stood.Automatically, the machine transmitted Valerio’s and Shan’s faces within the projected, checkered tables of the Members and several Respects.

“Ahh, I see the prime governor has joined us,” one of the Respects, Utopian’s Rocks, announced; though unnecessary since the Sentient that ran the machine’s program always alerted the other Members whenever someone else had joined in the conversation.

Several within the multi-boxed projection greeted Valerio.He, graciously, nodded back.

“Before you left to usher the prime governor in,” Council Chair Xi Zehan, said, as she picked up the business, “Admiral Shan, you said that you and your people were not able to get any further leads to the location of the other Seeds from Respect Hausa…”

“That’s correct, Chair Xi…I thought, perhaps, one of the distinguished Respects could help out in this regard.I’ve got a feeling that Respect Hausa would be more receptive if another Respect were to talk with him.It would save a lot of time…time, which we all need to prepare for another round of abductions or strike from the Visitors!”She gave a shrug, and the prime governor gave an approving nod.

“But, Admiral, he is no nationalist; he’s simply a deeply spiritual man with a big following that’s taken things too far,” Respect Hannah’mondo informed.In her mid-fifties, she was one of the youngest of the Respects!“He has disciples all over the solar system; some are even non-Tellmondonians!These people have been colluding with him in kidnapping these Seeds!That last situation you all spoke of earlier, on your space station Number 2?There was word among Tell’s that there were several of Respect Hausa’s people that had infiltrated your station and had something to do with Watcher 2’s abductions!”

“Considered that confirmed, by way of my several sources,” Yavon Baker, prime minister of the United Kingdom, contributed.

“Ok,” Admiral Shan said, “we know that Respect Hausa has disciples all over Sol, whom are willing to risk other humans’ lives at the hand of the Visitors; all so he and his followers can abduct the Visitors’ babies…”She shrugged again.“And do what with them?Trust me, fellow Members, my team and I went round and round with Respect Hausa and his guards.But they just sit there, in their separate cells…talking about the blessed Visitors and smile!”

For the first time, the entire grid of solar system powers actually fell silent!

“Admiral,” this time it was the prime governor that contributed, “what did you do with the Seed that Respect Hausa had?”

All eyes in that giant, floating grid fell on her.She turned to address him directly.“Given the special circumstances of the Seed’s status as both a political situation and a scientific one, I ordered for it to be placed into Governance’s laboratory vault.”

The prime governor and many of the Governance’s Members were nodding in agreement with her choice.But the Respects, most scattered about the solar system just as the Members were, began to stir.

“With respect, Admiral,” Respect Mores came in, “but you placed an alien infant in a vault?”

She smiled.“It’s a vault designed to withstand a nuclear or fissionary bomb blast…without giving too much away, Respect, it was designed when the island of Pacificalis was first constructed nearly 70 years ago.”Admiral Shan noticed that Prime Governor Valerio gave her a cautious look!“And that’s about all I can tell you…”

“What if we took it out of the Vault and shipped it to open space and just let the Visitors take it,” President Julio Raposa of Chile suggested.

There were boisterous agreements to Raposa’s words.Council Chair Xi rapped her gavel!

“It would at least get them out of the region of space between Mars and Erth,” Vornan Huntworth, the real estate tycoon with space station properties and other estates throughout the solar system, commented.

Again, more loud consent!And, again, more pounding from Chair Xi’s gavel!

“Even if that were true,” Admiral Shan came back in, “what about the rest of the Seeds we can’t locate at this moment?I’ve got a feeling that the Governance giving one infant to the Visitors just won’t satisfy them when there are at least a hundred more they’re looking for!”

There were more tacit agreements on Shan’s point.

“Well, we can’t do nothing,” the prime minister of Nigeria, Alkana Omalade, said.“If we cannot get the information of the whereabouts of the rest of the Visitors’ children from Respect Hausa, then, perhaps we ought to conduct raids on his disciples and take the Seeds from the followers and give them back to the Visitors so we can all go back to our own lives!”

Absolute pandemonium…The Respects visiting in the virtual meeting had heard of the legendary Governance proceedings, but this was the first time for most of them to have sat in on one!They gave very uncomfortable looks over the grid projection.

As Chair Xi continuously beat her gavel in a fruitless attempt to bring order to the Council’s meeting, Prime Governor Valerio looked at Admiral Shan with a questioning face; wondering if Prime Minister Omalade had a good point, especially with so many of the other Members in agreement.She, in turn, gave a defeated shrug.

“Prime Governor,” came the strong voice of Chair Xi after she had gotten order back into the meeting, “what is your opinion on this, Sir?”

He glanced back at Admiral Shan, then back at the holographic wall with the hundreds of faces looking right at him…

“I absolutely agree with Prime Minister Omalade, that we simply cannot suffer paralysis!Not when we could get hit with another round of abductions by the Visitors; and we cannot let Respect Hausa’s disciples make things worse for all of us in the solar system by their careless actions!I say we vote on Member Omalade’s motion!”

In the old days of governing on Erth, a system called Robert’s Rules of Order was the given language of the day.The Sol Governance political machine was so vast, with the majority of Erth’s governments being affiliated with it, the majority of the thousands of independent space habitats and stations affiliated as well, the various colonies on Mars and on several moons of other planets were a part of it, and pretty much all of human settlements scattered all the way out to the Pluto region… Such sprawling, meta-bureaucracy required a system of governing that was fluid!

Hence, since the founding days of the Sol Governance in the mid-22nd century, a more flexible version of Roberts Rules was adopted:once a Member simply stated an opinion on an issue, it was considered “a motion.”After the prime governor’s statement—by newRobert’s Rules standards, a second of her motion—he called for the Council’s Sentient to conduct the vote.And by a wide majority, the Sol Governance’s Council voted on Prime Minister Omalade’s motion and passed it.

The Governance’s solar system-wide raids on Respect Hausa’s disciples would begin, contingent upon the Governance’s military officials’ discretion.

This was where Admiral Reshma Shan took control of that machinery of the solar system-wide government…