SWNOVELS Chapter 17
ADMIRAL SHAN’S PRIVATE QUARTERS, ABOARD GRAVITY’S PULL…
“You mean to tell me that all those disciple freaks are Protectors of the Visitors’ Seedlings,” Prime Governor Henrick Valerio said with incredulity.He was met with the nodding of Admiral Shan’s and Dr. Franks’ heads.Dr. Franks was standing next to the admiral during the virtual emergency Council meeting.
Admiral Shan responded.“‘Protectors of the Seeds,’ is what they call themselves.We’ve been calling them Hausanite disciples, but…”She shrugged.“Anyway, we were able to confirm Ms. Brushwell’s story with several other Protectors’ stories.With the way we kept the detainees separated from one another, and how we did some story-switching to check for over-laps, I think it’s safe to say what Ms. Brushwell is telling us is true.”
There was a stirring among that rectangular honeycomb of the projected faces of the Governance Council.This time around, there were no Tellmondonian Respect guests for the meeting.Though it, certainly, pertained to them and their scientists!
Dr. Franks came in.“From what we’re told—and it’s the best we have to go on, right now—the Tell’ scientists must have encountered something akin to the Visitors’ nursery out in the Kuiper belt…one of those extremely distant planetoids floating about out there, where humans have probably never chartered from our scopes yet!”
“So,” privateer space miner, Gustan Furvor, came in over the holographic grid, “those Respects we had in our meeting some time ago…were they responsible for all this trouble with the Visitors?”
“All those attending that meeting,” Admiral Shan said as she nodded, “yes!Except one:Respect Aurora.From those same detainees we spoke with today, they all said, separately, that she was not in the faction of Respects that insisted on abducting the Seeds!”
“But she also wasn’t on Respect Hausa’s side, either,” Prime Governor Valerio stated bluntly.
Shan’s head snapped to the side as she thought on his statement.“Doesn’t seem that way…but, the fact that she was not with the Respects for the Seed abductions is a plus, in my book!”
There were some voices of consent in the meeting.
“So,” came Council Chair Xi, “what’s the bottom line to all this, Admiral; Doctor?How do we give the Seeds back to the Visitors beforethey do, indeed, lose their patience with Humanity?Given their technological abilities to just to abduct over 90-thousand people from space station Watcher 2 in mere seconds, I’d hate to see their weapons capabilities!”
Now the meeting had erupted into chaos!Xi, due to her own words, had to gavel the attendees back to order!At that point, Admiral Shan and Doctor Franks looked at each other rather dubiously.That was not lost on the prime governor!
“Ladies…?”
Admiral Shan sighed and lightly clasped her hands together before speaking.“Now, for what it’s worth, Members, it’s a suggestion from Respect Hausa’s primer, Mary Brushwell—whom is, I might remind you, a student at one of Mars’ Physical Universities!So, I suggest we, at least, listen to her… Perhaps we ought to utilize what is already in place?As the ancient saying goes:Why re-invent the wheel?
“Since Respect Hausa and his Protectors of the Seeds disciples have been adept at caring for the Visitors’ Seedlings, maybe we should place Respect Hausa in charge of a Governance-mandated agency?”
By that time, there already were voices of opposition within the Council!But not everyone.
“An agency,” the admiral continued, ignoring those voices, “with the charge of collecting however many more Seeds are at-large.May I remind you, the Governance’s Raid policy has taken valuable time, given that the Hausanite disciples are not cooperative!Placing the very person that those disciples follow—with their lives, I might add, it might make sense to let Respect Hausa be the face of the replacement of the Visitors’ Seeds…”
Still some disagreement from others in the Governance Council, but it had faded a bit!Admiral Shan had never stopped making the case…
“Upon collecting those Seedlings, have Respect Hausa’s deputized disciples re-locate all the Seeds back to the Kuiper belt region, where the Tell’ scientists had stolen them from to begin with!”
Volleys of consent seemed to over-power those opposing the admiral’s proposal.Which meant, in the lexicon of the Governance Council’s system of legislating, a motion to enact Admiral Reshma Shan’s concept…oddly enough, which, also meant that the Council would vote, indirectly, for the suggestion put by University student, Mary Brushwell!
But given the further gravity of the Phenomenon of the Visitors, yet, abducting hundreds or thousands of humans at a time, with the added sense that those blessed Lighted Ones had limited patience to get their offspring back, the Council voted to implement the ‘Brushwell-Shan Policy!’Indeed, while the Governance’s Sentient program conducted the voting, Chair Xi Zehan instructed the Governance Council to, also, vote on whether to rescind the Raid policy.Given that the policy had given powers to Governance military to enter and extract Respect Hausa’s followers without need for a writ, the Council thought it counterproductive to maintain the ruling.A large percentage of the majority of the Governance Council voted to rescind the Raid policy.Effective immediately.
Indeed, the irony of humans enacting a law that gave powers to their military to abduct their own fellow citizens, while trying to fight off the abduction of humans from an alien civilization was well-observed by the solar system’s media.