The arrival of the explorers
July 26, 2625
I was sweeping off my porch when we heard engine noise in the sky. I assumed it was just one of the few old jets that some of the rich people liked to fly for fun and ignored it. Instead I listened absently to the ssst-ssst-ssst of my broom as it brushed the smooth stones of my porch.
It was an ordinary morning for us, as most mornings go. Wake up, get dressed, feed the animals, make breakfast, eat and then do the rest of the morning chores around the house. Soon after that’s done, we would go to our work shop in Mostly Human Town where we make arts and crafts for a living.
My husband and I co-own a small but profitable family business selling various handcrafts. We do our part by making carvings, ceramic sculptures, pottery, baskets, jewelry and paintings in colored pencil. My children, grandchildren, and any other blood kin or even any of my in-laws who happen to be talented in profitable skills such as cooking, management, arts and crafts can also find employment at our shop. For those who have no useful talents, there are employment opportunities for dealers, janitors, waitresses, cashiers, table bussers, and stock people who are also needed. So no one in my family is left out when they need to seek employment with us.
Many of my kin folk do not work directly in the shop itself. Instead, they make or grow their products at home and deliver them to the store and later receive a commission when their items have been sold.
This morning I wanted to finish off a ceramic sculpture of a wyvern. I had just finished firing it yesterday and now I needed to sand it down and paint it. I thought I would like to paint it gold with copper tips on its feathers. I am sure that it would fetch a good profit; the statue was beautiful even unpainted as it is now.
The noise of the engines was steadily getting louder, and I could now hear it echoing off of the mountains. We lived away from the cities to avoid the crowding, the noise pollution, and the ugly scenery. Now this unpleasant roar from the sky was disrupting the peace of our forest lands. Louder and louder it came. My beloved symbiote, Beauty, thought the old jet would fly over us and shake the very foundations of our cabin.
I also sensed her hope that the persons flying that thing were being careful. The People of the Third Clan and the People of the Fourth Clan lived in Paradise Valley as we did. They were winged humanoids that frequented the skies here. Also there were dragons and shape shifters that soared in the same heavens as this bothersome jet.
I was sure the noise would give them enough warning to get away in time. Yet, I did agree with Beauty that it wouldn’t hurt for them to be extra careful while flying that dratted machine so low.
And still the engine’s roar grew louder. By now it was beginning to vibrate the windows of our house.
My husband came out and joined us on the small porch and looked up through the lodge pole pines to see if he could spot the source of the awful racket.
“I think that jet is flying too low, he could hit someone,” he commented with his voice full of concern as he continued to stare up through the trees. Beauty could hear him thinking about the people that couldn't teleport, for they would be the ones likely not able to move fast enough to get out of the speeding jet’s way. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the ever increasing racket. “And he has to know this is a no fly zone! Why is that ass breaking the safety law? ”
“I'm worried about that too,” I replied as I raised my own voice above the steadily growing roar. We spoke to each other in a mix of English and Cherokee. Having grown up in bilingual homes, we tended to speak both languages at random, sticking mostly to Cherokee when we were by ourselves and then switching back to English when we were in the company of others outside our family.
“I’ll warn him off and ask him to go back to where he belongs,” he said as he walked purposefully around me and started off for the clearing that is in front of our house a few yards away.
I placed my broom against the side of the house and followed him. As soon as we came out of the trees and entered the clearing, I looked up at the growing con trail coming from the north. It was then I noticed that the jet flying in the bright blue sky that something about its shape didn’t look quite right and I couldn’t figure out why it looked wrong. It was still too far away to make out clearly even to my symbiont enhanced eyes.
“It is close isn’t it?” Rising Sun, my husband’s symbiont, thought to us in surprise. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that it was heading straight for us, almost as if it meant to land in our clearing.”
“It does look like that,” I agreed as I continued to watch the craft with an odd sense of unease. “We obviously aren’t an airport so he won’t land here. Besides, there’s not enough runway.”
That last bit was meant as a joke, all be it a lame one. I sometimes used humor as a way to deal with stress.
My husband nodded in agreement. None of us really believed the craft would land here, the old jet planes required a good deal more runway to take off and land. We did use the clearing as our own personal landing field and kept it maintained so the forest would not reclaim it. Our clearing was just big enough to accommodate two large dragons at a time. If that blasted old jet were to land here, it would crash into the trees demolishing our house before coming to rest. We would be fortunate if it didn’t explode as well.
No, we had no reason to expect the craft to land here.
Louder and closer it came, and amazingly fast! By now I could feel the sound of it vibrating my rib cage; none of us had ever seen an old jet move so quick. In seconds it would zoom over us and out of sight in a blink of an eye, or so we thought.
Before Rising Sun could help my husband telepath his warning to be careful of other flyers in the area, it quickly slowed to a stop like a hover craft. Then a moment later it descended, its landing struts extending as it did so.
It blasted us with hot wind, dirt and grass kicked up from its thrusters. My husband and I covered our ears with our hands to protect them from the painful roar of its engines, at the same time, Beauty and Rising Sun shielded us via telekinesis from the flying debris.
Then the blast stopped and the engine’s roar died down. As we uncovered our ears, we looked at this intruding machine in astonishment. We could now see it was not an old jet plane as we had first thought. Instead, it was a large craft that strongly resembled the space shuttles that we used to hear about on the news on another world and life times ago. Only this one was larger and sleeker in design and all in shining silver.
The shuttle craft popped and ticked like an old hot car as the hatch opened up from the underside of its nose. A set of stairs lowered to the ground and landed solidly in place. Then a man in a black military like uniform came into view as he descended the steps. He appeared to be roughly in his late twenties to his early thirties and about five feet nine inches in height. He was a handsome man of Mexican descent, clean shaven, his black hair short and neatly swept back.
He was holding up a small device in his right hand as he looked interestedly about, as if the world around him was all new and undiscovered territory.
“What the hell?!” my husband swore in stunned amazement.
“Is that a Terran?” I asked him in equal astonishment. I thought he must be. It was the only logical conclusion I could come up with. Only and off-worlder would land a shuttle craft in our front yard and act as this man did.
The man heard us talking to each other and looked up, finally noticing us watching him. A look of mild surprise crossed his features, then he smiled in greeting, causing his black eyes to twinkle.
My husband stepped forward a few paces to greet him, and I followed beside him by his side as he did so.
“Hello,” my husband greeted politely in English.
“Hello,” the stranger said as he stepped forward to greet us as well with his free left hand extended. “My name is Santiago Gomez. I am a Terran emissary and I and my crew have come to make peaceful contact. Please don’t be afraid, we mean no harm.”
“Well, he’s telling the truth about that,” Beauty thought to us privately as she and Rising Sun warily monitored his thoughts. Caution seemed prudent in this strange situation and our symbionts were listening to his mind intently. Thanks to them, he really couldn’t do any harm to us even if he wanted too.
“It’s okay,” I said in my most reassuring and friendliest manner. “We are not easily frightened.” Mike and I were doing our best not to look as taken aback by all this as we felt. We hoped that projecting an aura of confidence would be helpful in this unexpected situation.
Mike smiled and confidently grasped Santiago’s proffered hand by the wrist in typical Cherokee fashion. He opened his mouth to politely introduce us in turn, but was abruptly distracted by the next person that came out of the shuttle.
She was dressed in the same kind of black uniform as Gomez, but that was where her similarity ended. We were hard pressed not to gape rudely at her as she came down the shuttle’s stairs. She was green, and she was also the first alien we had ever met that was not native to this world.
She had a graceful sweep of boney ridges on her head. One part of it stared in a single small bump just above her forehead and then it rose to a three inch high crest as it swept back along the middle of her skull then back down into a small bump. Then several small ridges swept back from the sides of her head and gradually up. Both the crest and the ridges met at the back and center line of her head in a small and gracefully up turned point.
Her eyes are large and almond shaped a deep blue-green, with no visible irises or pupils. Her ears are elfin and her nose broad and flat with a hint of nostrils on both sides of its base. Her mouth is a horizontal slit that didn’t look at all unattractive with the rest of her features. Her body is proportionally a little longer in the torso that I had ever seen in a humanoid before. Her limbs were long, graceful and well muscled. Beauty and I thought she is a lovely creature to behold.
We watched her approach, all of us fascinated to see such a creature and very much impressed by her beauty.
She caught sight of us as she came down the stair way and stopped dead in her tracks half way down. She also looked a little surprised, but she also recovered quickly and gave us a polite little bow and said in a friendly and musical voice, “Hello.”
“Osiyo-um-hello,” I replied as I remembered to stop gaping rudely at her and almost forgetting to speak English. Then remembering our manners, I added politely, “Why don’t you two and whoever is still in your space ship come in for some coffee?”
“Hey, good idea,” my husband agreed with me in Cherokee. Then he switched back to English and said as he too fell back on courtesy as the next and safest course of action to take in this most unlikely and surprising situation, “My wife makes excellent coffee and we are more than happy to share.” Then he added after a moment’s thought, “I know this sounds a bit cliché, but am guessing you want to talk to our leaders? We have a few in-laws that work in the Main Council. We can call them to make the introductions and answer each other’s questions.”
Santiago blinked, looking somewhat taken aback by that bit of information. Before he could reply another of his crew came down the steps just behind the green woman.
“We have everything ready to be locked up, sir,” said another Terran man in a black uniform as he came into view. This one was a mix of African and Caucasian decent, with medium dark skin, a fine nose and large black eyes. He saw us and stopped dead in his tracks behind the green creature. “Um, hello.” He looked as if he didn’t quite know what to make of us.
“Why do they keep reacting to us like that?” I thought to Beauty curiously.
“They think that you two are members of a lost colony,” Beauty thought back to me and let Rising Sun listen in too so my husband would know what we were thinking to each other about. She was reading their minds as easily as breathing, “They have encountered them before…hmmm…lost human colonies are quite rare. When they are discovered, most still remember something about their origins, but a few don’t remember anything about where they came from. Often their first contact with such members of colonies that have forgotten is a fight or flight response. Even the lost colonies that have at least some memory of their origins will sometimes have the same reaction. A lot of facts can get twisted up into ugly shapes after a long time apart from the rest of humanity.”
“They are surprised that you two are so calm and confident,” Rising Sun added. “Your attitude is totally opposite to what they have learned to expect from members of a lost colony.”
“Hey! Why are you blocking the stairwell?” complained a voluptuous blonde woman dressed in a black uniform like the others just a moment after the brief mental conversation we shared. She was fair skinned and had sky-blue eyes that sparked with sharp intelligence. Her features were well made and pretty but not extraordinarily so. She also had an unusually high and mousey voice.
“Hello,” my husband and I hailed her in near unison.
She saw us and blinked a few times in surprise then said, “Oh! Um-hello.”
“Do you like coffee?” I asked as I pointed a thumb in the general direction of our house behind us. “We have a fresh pot. I’m sure we have enough for everyone here.”
Then my husband added, “We don’t know how long it will be for the Main Council to show up after we call them. It could be five minutes to and hour. Likely they will just send someone to bring you back the Main Capitol just north-west of here. Until we find out what they intend to do, you might as well come in and make yourselves comfortable. My wife’s name is Molly and mine is Mike Langley.”
“Thank you,” Santiago replied looking a bit taken aback. Beauty and Rising Sun sensed that he was surprised by the rapidity of his first meeting with the locals. They expected to take months and even years before they could establish the trust they needed to create the working relationship as they attempted to reintroduce the lost colonists back into mainstream society.
Then he remembered to finish the introductions and said to us as he pointed out each of his remaining members, “I am the team leader and anthropologist as well as the lead emissary. This is Zillga of Esha-goh. She’s my second in command and team botanist. Celeste Malone is our pilot and geologist. George Jones is her co-pilot and our team biologist.”
“Nice to meet all of you,” I replied with a small and genuinely friendly smile. I noticed that our tactic of falling back on the familiar routine of common courtesy was indeed working. The off-worlders were calming down and becoming more professional in their demeanor and minds. Heck, it was making us feel a little less disoriented. It’s true that we Edens had been hoping, waiting and expecting a visit from Earth for centuries. But never in our much extended lifetime did we expect them to come to land in our front yard and incidentally make us ambassadors of Eden.
Beauty and Rising Sun refused to ‘path to them as they continued to observe the unusual events unfolding before us. They were just as surprised as we were and they were also hiding from our visitors because we weren’t supposed to tell about them just yet. As far as the off-worlders were supposed to be concerned, we were just ordinary humans living where no human should be.
“Nice to meet you too,” Santiago replied with automatic politeness. Then he said, “If you would lead us back to you house, we would like to take up your offer of coffee and a meeting this Main Council of yours.”
“Sure,” I said with a nod and beckoned them all to follow us back into the trees were our home resided.
The other three team members finally descended the stairs and joined Santiago on the ground. Santiago then pulled out a small device from his right pants pocket and pointed it at the ship. He pressed a small button on its top with his thumb, the stairway rose back up into the ship’s hatchway and the hatch closed up tight behind it.
After he replaced the device back into his pocket, he turned his attention briefly to the larger device he had been holding in his hand. It was the size of a miniature television set, grey in color and had a small key pad as far as I could tell from where Mike and I were standing. I guessed it had a small monitor on the upper portion of it as well. Beauty confirmed that my guess was correct. She was still peeking into his mind without his knowing about it.
He punched something in, pointed it this way and that, and looked into the screen as his did so. When he seemed satisfied that the thing was working correctly, he walked towards us so he could follow us back to our house.
Beauty and Rising Sun were still keeping an “ear” tuned into the minds of the others and helping us listen in. If any of them thought of doing anything wrong, we would know about it before they would have time to act. We were being polite and cheerful, but underneath that was a cautious reserve, a sort of wait and see attitude.
Shifting their own small carrying cases and setting up their own little devices, the other three followed Santiago as we led them out of the clearing. It was then we noted that they did not appear to be armed at all. Beauty informed me that they were, but their weapons were concealed. She also sensed that they had no intention of using their weapons unless they had no other choice.
We didn’t like that they were armed, but we decided with a brief wordless thought and a shared glance that we would tolerate the weapons. They were useless to them anyway and we had no plans of provoking them.
“We are coming.” thought a familiar mental voice in our minds. “We will meet with them in your home shortly.”
Without missing a step or even giving any indication to our guests that the Representative Speaker of the People of the First Clan had just contacted us telepathically, we led them to our cabin door and let them in.
“Why did you take so long to tell us that you were aware of them?” I asked her mentally, switching back to Cherokee as I did so.
“We were curious to see what they would do when they saw you,” she thought back in Cherokee also. “So the Council voted to watch and judge their reaction to meeting you when it was discovered where they planned to land. Obviously they would not be able to hurt you should they turn out to be hostile, so we permitted them to go where they wanted.”
“May we show ourselves to them now Ithe?” asked Rising Sun. Ithe meant ‘mother’ in Cherokee (pronounced “ith-ee”). He was her son after all and like her, he too was telepathic. In fact, that was just about the only way he could communicate with anyone.
“Not now, Love,” his mother and Councilor replied mentally. Then she reminded us (unnecessarily, I thought to myself with mild irritation), “You all need to wait until after the Council has spoken to them first. You should know that I will not release any of you from your oaths until then.”
“We will keep our promise to you Madame Councilor,” Mike thought back obediently with a wordless question if he was right to be so formal.
“Yes, please do call us by our formal titles while they are here,” the Councilor confirmed. “It would help if you could bring a few extra chairs and some refreshments,” I thought to her. “I have just enough coffee in our pot for one cup per off-worlder. Also, I have nothing as far as fast food that will look fancy enough for a formal meeting. The best I can do is sliced fruit, cheese and crackers. I believe some of the formality you want will be destroyed if I serve that and have some of us sitting on the floor.”
“There will be no need of that,” the Councilor replied mentally. “We plan to only come long enough to introduce ourselves, answer a few questions, then teleport ourselves and them back to the Capitol.”
“I will still need chairs,” I insisted mentally.
“I will arrange for some when we get there,” she replied.
“Okay, Wado,” I thought back and she broke contact. (‘Wado’ was Cherokee for ‘Thank you.)
“Do you think they decided to come here for first contact or for other reasons than she told us?” Mike ‘pathed wonderingly to me in Cherokee with Rising Sun’s help. “They’re coming here is very odd in spite of what she said.”
With Beauty’s help I ‘pathed back in the same language, “Well I guess it would be a rude shock to be suddenly teleported elsewhere. Especially when they don’t know such a thing can be done.”
By the time they all came into the living room and I shut the door behind them, the telepathic communication between the Councilor and us had ended. The off-worlders were totally unaware we were ‘talking’ to anyone.
The explorers looked about with interest at our living room.
“Wow,” Santiago commented with obvious appreciation.
Zillga’s skin deepened in color to a richer emerald green in reaction to her emotions. As far as I could tell, she looked impressed by our collection and Beauty confirmed my guess.
Fascinated and delighted by Zillga’s ability to change color with her mood, I was hard pressed not to stare rudely at her with wide eyes. Mike slightly lifted an eye brow in surprise at the sight of her pretty color shift.
Our cabin is of relatively modern build. Meaning the logs on the outside of our house were strictly decorative. Inside the house the walls were just smooth sheet rock that had been painted white.
Bare wooden floors were in every room for the sake of convenience. We often had animals and children living with us, and bare floors were easier to maintain than carpets.
We had a large living room, large kitchen, three bed rooms and an even more spacious master bedroom for Mike and me.
Currently we had no children with us to fill those extra bedrooms. They were all grown up and had children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren of their own, too many for us to even bother to count any more. All twenty-five of our children were still living as well as most of the twelve or fourteen generations after them. Thank God for the Shining Ones and the symbiotic relationship they have with us.
When our guests came in the first things they noticed was how familiar things looked to them. Also the surprising collection of various artifacts we had on the shelves lining the wall and the fire place mantel. The shelves were full of paperback books, old magazines, even more stories on audio disks, nick-knacks, small statues, baskets, sea shells, shed dragon scales, a few skulls, teeth, fossils of many kinds, horns, and tusks (the animal parts came from animals that died of natural causes only). Also, bug specimens, and enormous well preserved Galapagos tortoise shell, and lapidary samples of many sizes and kinds (most of fine quality). Whole or only slightly damaged egg shells from various oviparous creatures including our symbiotes’ egg shells they had hatched from so long ago set in with the rest of the hodgepodge. There was also quite a collection of ancient Native American pots, bowls, ladles arrow heads, baskets, wood and bone flutes and ceramic ocarinas.
Many of the bare spots on the walls were covered by various paintings, prints, and drawings. All of the originals were done by my husband, myself or by our children or grandchildren. No family pictures though, we never liked them enough to hang them on our walls.
There were two plush blue reclining rocker chairs in front of the large bay window that looked out through the trees towards the clearing. A small elegant wooden coffee table with a small and lovely antique Tiffany reading lamp on it stood between the two chairs. Strait across the living room in front of the two chairs was a large entertainment center. It contained a medium large electronic system that worked as a television set, a computer, vid-disk player, and stereo system all in one. The largest component being the monitor, the rest was quite compact and streamlined and extremely easy to use. Most of its functions were voice activated or one could use the touch screen on the monitor. Every available shelf and surface was filled with more books, audio disks, vid-disks, and even a couple of nice house plants.
The only other available seating in the living room was a large plump couch that matched the reclining chairs. It was placed to the left of the chair closest to the front door and parallel to the shelf lined wall behind it, several feet away from both the chairs and the wall.
In the facing wall across from the couch is a fire place. It contained no fire yet, but we often did light it in the evening for the beautiful light the fire cast.
Just to break up the floor space, we had a large oriental rug in the middle of the living room that was otherwise devoid of anything else. True, the carpet was often at risk of being soiled by animal or child traffic when they were in here. But the living room would not look right without it.
“You have a little of everything in here,” Zillga commented with pleasure.
“What are those teeth from over there?” George asked with interest. “The large ones next to those clear crystals.”
“Those crystals look like quartz,” Celeste commented as she noticed the sample on the mantel George had indicated. “They are quite lovely. Where did you get them?”
“From a shop a while back,” I replied tactfully while trying to look relaxed. It didn’t occur to us that our living room would give rise to so many awkward questions. If they were observant enough, they would notice much of what we had was Terran in origin. We had promise to tell them nothing, yet our collection told much of our history.
George approached the mantel and picked up a fossilized shark tooth the size of his hand. He stared at in wonder. “This is a Melodeon tooth! Where did you get this?”
“Bought it in a gem and mineral show some years ago,” Mike answered.
“Yeah, like five hundred and a half centuries ago in Tucson, Arizona,” Beauty mentally commented uncomfortably to me in private. “I hope Ithe won’t be upset with us. Our collection is bending our promise to the breaking point.”
“Really?” George said as he turned his curious gaze toward us. “How did the dealer get it?”
“Likely from another dealer,” I said evasively. We wouldn’t lie to any of them; honor prevented us from doing so. Also, for me there was another reason for sticking to the truth. I am no good at lying, so holding back information is the best I could do.
“Why are you being so evasive?” Celeste asked curiously from where she stood next to George. She looked and sounded like the stereotypical dumb blonde, but everything in her demeanor and the way she looked at everything all but screamed of high intelligence. I had never seen someone have that look of excellent smarts dance in one’s eyes so much and I found myself being fascinated by it.
“The Main Council bid us not to tell you anything until they got here,” Mike answered. “They are preparing to come here and introduce themselves as we speak.”
“And they know you’re here,” I added helpfully. “They’ve been watching you ever since you came into orbit.”
“How do you know that?” Santiago asked. He looked as if he suspected we might be lying to him or playing a joke.
“Sorry, we can’t tell you that either,” Mike replied apologetically.
“The Council will tell you everything when they get here,” I added with mild reassurance.
Zillga asked politely, “When will this Main Council of yours arrive?”
Before we could answer, there was a loud knock at the door.
“About now, I suspect,” I replied as we watched Mike cross the living room and open the door.
“Hello?” Mike said to an unfamiliar man holding an electronic clip-board.
“Hullo,” he answered in a thick English accent. He wore an expensive three piece suit with highly polished black shoes. He glanced at his electronic clip-board then asked, “Mr. Langley I presume?”
“Yes.”
“I am Mr. John Stuart,” the black haired, brown eyed man said. “The Main Council sent me ahead. They will be along in a moment. May I come in?”
“Yes, of course.” Mike stood aside so Mr. Stuart could enter.
Mr. Stuart came in and stood at attention in front of the curio cabinet to the left of the door.
Mike, seeing no one outside at present, closed the door behind him and rejoined us.
There was a loud, ‘knock-knock-knock!’
Mr. Stuart unnecessarily straitened his black suit coat, opened the door and announced formally, “All rise for the Main Council.”
We were already standing, so we waited quietly as the first of the Councilors stepped through our front door.
“Councilor Eloyis,” Mr. Stuart introduced formally, “Representative Speaker for the People of the First Clan.”
Eloyis, both our kinswoman in Joining and Main Councilor, which is a sort of president here on Eden, is one of the most beautiful creatures in existence.
Her body in its true form is humanoid and well proportioned, curved and slender in all the right places. Her unusually large eyes (by human standards anyway) were a solid black, with an Asian slant and almond shaped. The rest of her facial features were fine and very human like. Her silver hair shone beautifully with its own matching halo of bioluminescent light as it cascaded from her head nearly to her feet. Her pure white skin also glowed with its own white light where the thick cloth of her dress didn’t cover her body. Her dress is elegant silver that matched her hair and sensible dress flats also in metallic silver. No jewelry adorned her person. She didn’t need it; jewelry would have only detracted from her beauty instead of enhancing it. She is just that kind of stunning.
The off-worlders stood in silent awe as she regally took her place in the nearest rocker recliner.
“Councilor Ian Malcolm,” Mr. Stuart announced as the next V.I.P. walked sedately through our front door, “Representative Speaker for the People of the Second Clan.”
Ian Malcolm is a middle aged human man. He is a little heavy set, eyes the color of lapis, thinning red hair going grey at the temples, clean shaven, fair skinned and unjoined. He wore a steel grey business suit and black dress shoes that shone like polished obsidian.
He crossed the living room and took the other rocker recliner.
“Councilor Red Bird, Representative Speaker for the People of the Third Clan,” Mr. Stuart announced.
With a brief glance and a polite nod at the door man, Councilor Red Bird took the nearest seat on the couch. Then she waited silently for the ceremony of formal introductions to finish.
Red is a Joined One like me, her symbiote’s name is Star Jamison. It’s normally considered rude not to introduce one’s symbiote as if they were nonexistent, but someone must have told Mr. Stuart not to mention the unseen entities just yet.
Just looking at Councilor Red Bird, one would not know that she is not human. In fact she is a Harpy, named after the Greek myth they strongly resembled in avian form. Her species talent is the ability to shape shift at will into a human headed, half bird-half humanoid creature. Now she looked completely human except for the ever so faint feather like markings just under her skin, and a short feather tufted tail that stuck out of her slacks. The fine hair-like feathers were colored red like a scarlet macaw’s feathers.
She is small boned, with hard wiry muscles and only four feet and five inches tall, emerald eyes and fine reddish brown eyebrows. Her rich red hair is so dark that it is almost brown. She wore her shining locks in an elegant bun. She wore low heeled pumps, black slacks, silk blouse of a rich violet, black dress coat long enough to hide her tail and white pearl ear rings.
She smiled kindly at the off-worlders as she took her seat and the next Councilor was announced by John Stuart.
“Councilor Silvia Lloyd, Representative Speaker for the People of the Fourth Clan.”
Councilor Silvia Lloyd is a beautiful woman to behold. She wore a professional black business suit (the kind with the knee length black skirt), white blouse, nude panty hose, a black low heeled pumps. Her hair is long and golden like honey and held back neatly in place by a fancy hair clasp. She has a face and body that would have easily wound up on a cover of a fashion magazine; if that is, the photographers didn’t mind her being only three feet six inches tall. She is not a midget however, her small stature is normal for her species.
What is most remarkable about her appearance is her huge silver multi-spared butterfly like wings. They were held back and open to both display them and enable her to pass through the front door. Her wings are so large that the tops of them nearly touched the top of the door way and she had to keep the bottom parts of her wings partially folded up to keep them from dragging on the ground.
As she headed for the middle of the couch, her wings and a hump of muscles that went all the way down her back began to shrink. In seconds, her wings were reduced to four fin-like structures to either side of her back, and the hump of extra muscle mass had been reduced to smaller, more human proportions.
She folded what remained of her wings flat as she hopped up onto the couch. Feet hanging inches off of the floor and her back well away from the back of the couch, she still managed to project all the dignity and authority a Council woman should in spite of her child sized appearance. She was young for the position of Main Councilor, only about thirty. Yet she apparently had all the right stuff to make it to such a lofty position in Eden’s government.
The off-worlders could not help but gape at Councilor Lloyd’s display of her species talent. For them, she was a legend come to life. How could this be?
“Councilor Keto, Representative Speaker for the People of the Fifth Clan,” John Stuart announced as a huge and magnificent lion stepped through the door.
Celeste let out a barely stifled, “Eeek!” when she saw him.
Santiago quietly demanded of me, “Is this some kind of joke? Why is a lion on the Council? How did it get here for that matter?”
“Watch,” I whispered back to him. Then I thought to Keto, “Show off!”
Councilor Keto is not a true lion at all. Well, that isn’t quite accurate. He is a cat - sort of. All one had to do to know this is to notice the visibly darker diamond shaped patch of fur on his fore head.
Like Red Bird, Mike and I, Keto is Joined. His symbiote’s name is Timothy, son of Governor Amoitoy and Councilor Eloyis. This made him one of our in-laws.
Keto had ignored my playful telepathic remark. We were friends, but he is all business today.
He paused before the third and final seat on the couch before demonstrating his species talent. His muzzle became shorter and the place where his spine attached to his skull changed so his head could be comfortably held upright. His chest changed from cat to a well muscled humanoid torso. Shoulders, arms and hands metamorphosed from paws and forelegs. Hips flattened out and broadened into human like hips. Male feline genitals became humanoid, he was quite well endowed. His hind legs lengthened and rounded out as the distance between his hind toes and his hocks became smaller. He settled down on his newly formed heels as his tufted tail shrank up and out of the way between his well formed buttocks. The entire transformation took only about five seconds.
Stunned, the off-worlders could only stare at him as he took his seat next to Silvia.
Mr. Stuart announced the Sixth and final Council member before shutting the door behind them.
“Councilor Shardan, Representative Speaker of the People of the Sixth Clan.”
Shardan’s name is actually two human names stuck together, a common tradition among the Sirens. Her name came from the two names ‘Shar’ from Sharron and ‘Dan’ from Danny. Shardan had long silver antennae that resembled dense ostrich plumes on top of her head. Or his head if one preferred. For Shardan was both male and female. Though most preferred to be referred to as female, it made things simpler that way.
Her antennae shimmered in the indirect sunlight coming through the bay window’s lace curtains. This shimmering effect is caused by the cilia on the hair like fronds of her antennae and moved inward as they waved in the air in their dense multitudes to generate a small air current to bring even the slightest smells to them.
She has a rounded, triangular shaped head and strong jaws. Small nostrils were set close to the end of her small blunt ended snout, one on each side. Large dark grey eyes protected by boney eye ridges that were set on either side of her head. In spite of the arrangement, of her eyes, Shardan had stereo vision like predatory birds. Just three finger spaces behind Shardan’s eyes are where the pinky finger thick bases of her antennae were attached. Slightly before and three finger spaces down below her antennae were the small lizard like openings to her ear canals.
The Sixth Clanner’s body is well muscled with elements of both male and female. From the waist up, Shardan resembled broad shouldered man. From the waist down, she resembled a woman with well defined hips. Shardan, like most of her kind wore no clothing, so her very human like male sex organs were easily visible while her female sex organs remained hidden just behind them.
Her hands and feet had only four digits on each of them and were broad and powerful looking, tipped with shiny black claws.
Except for the tips of her dark nipples, the foot pads and the undersides of her fingers and the palms of her hands, Shardan is covered in a sleek horse like fur coat. It shone silver grey as she sat in the rocking chair nearest to the one Ian occupied.
As she sat down, she squinted and blinked her eyes a few times before shutting her inner lids. Sixth Clanners had excellent vision, especially at night or in dark places. Though able to see well enough in lighted areas, they were a bit photophobic. The entrance way must have been dark enough for to open her inner lids. Then it became too bright for her by the window. The photosensitive inner lids quickly darkened like prescription sun glasses, making them appear solid black.
Mike had Rising Sun teleport the rocking chair from our bedroom when he noticed only five of the six Councilors had places to sit.
Shardan had taken her seat with quiet dignity as the off-worlders tried to figure out where the chair had come from. Distracted by her entrance, they had not seen its sudden appearance nor had they noticed the slight breeze from the displaced air when it appeared.
Eloyis eyed Mike reproachfully at his and Rising Sun’s nearly breaking their oath of secrecy. Mike just smiled serenely.
Eloyis sighed quietly and gave in. With a slight outward breeze of displaced air, six folding chairs appeared in a semicircle in the open space in our living room.
“Sa-rrru Cha!” swore Zillga as she paled to a faded yellow green, an expression of what could we could only take as shock and wonderment.
The others gasped and stared in confusion and wonder, apparently lost for words unlike Zillga.
Mike took the chair next to Shardan’s left, and I sat to Mike’s left.
“Do not be afraid,” Keto rumbled in his deep growling voice. “Councilor Eloyis teleported chairs for all of you. Please, be seated.”
“It’s okay,” I added encouragingly as I kindly gestured for them to take their seats.
The off-worlders looked at each other, and then Santiago shrugged and took the seat next me. Zillga, Celeste and George took the other three chairs.
“On behalf of the entire Main Council, welcome to Eden,” Eloyis intoned formally in her lovely alto. She smiled radiantly, quite literally. Her glow momentarily brightened as she smiled, and no, the inside of her mouth doesn’t glow.
“Why make first contact here?” I thought to her. I wanted to know if the Council really had any other motives for coming to my house for this historic event.
“We decided it was only fair that we hold it here at least in part because we did let them land right in your front yard after all,” Eloyis mentally replied.
“Very thoughtful of you,” I thought back appreciatively.
“We will answer your questions now,” Eloyis said to the off-worlders.
“How did you make these chairs appear?” Santiago asked.
“We First Clanners are telekinetic,” Eloyis answered.
“That’s quite a talent,” Santiago said, looking impressed.
“Do you know who we are already?” George asked.
“Yes,” Eloyis answered. “We have been monitoring your activities ever since the Nova was detected by one of our lunar stations.”
“We voted to simply to observe you for a time to see what you would do,” Silvia said in her sweet, almost musical voice.
“From the moment of our agreement,” Keto rumbled in his rich bass, “the Council has been closely monitoring you telepathically.”
“Telepathy?” Santiago said skeptically.
“Yes,” Eloyis thought loudly to everyone. We could not help but notice that her mouth was completely shut and not moving when she answered Santiago. There was no doubting that she was thinking at us and not speaking.
Unlike the television shows and movies, in real life, people who can telepath don’t make funny expressions and their mental voices sound just like someone speaking. There is no echo or hearing words inside one’s head, one “hears” thoughts with their ears. It is just the way the brain perceives telepathy. The receivers also sense feelings and emotions ‘pathed to them almost as if it were their own.
Ian spoke in his unremarkable baritone, “We watched you because you were a potential threat and we needed to know what you intentions were.”
Santiago nodded with understanding. He and his companions obviously did not like the First Clanner’s method of spying on his people. Yet they seemed to except their motives were reasonable enough.
“Thanks to the First Clanners, we have learned that your intentions are peaceful.” Shardan said in her pleasant and sexually neutral voice.
“And we know you only wish to exchange knowledge and trade with us,” Ian added.
“We will allow this once it is established that making contact with what you call ‘the known universe’ will cause no great harm to our world,” Red said as she regarded the off-worlders with her emerald eyes.
“We are especially wary of off-world humans,” Eloyis said. “Our history is strange and intimately intertwined with Earth’s history. Some of our history is rather unpleasant and frightening. Mostly it’s our power and physical needs that tend to frighten people the most. Many have rejected us before, often violently.”
“Like the ability to spy on us telepathically,” Santiago said suggested.
“That is one reason,” Eloyis agreed, “though I can promise you that it is not our usual habit to spy on others minds.”
“I am glad to hear that,” Santiago replied.
“Is it your people that are responsible for the presence of humans on this planet?” Zillga asked. “Or is it the other Clans that are responsible?”
“It is we Shining Ones that is responsible for the presence of everything on this planet, including humans,” Eloyis answered.
“You mean your people terra formed this planet?” Zillga said with impressed amazement. “Not many races can do that, and rarely can they do it as well as we have seen so far.”
“Thank you,” Eloyis said graciously.
“You also mentioned something about your physical needs as well as your powers may cause our people to reject Eden,” George said with wary curiosity. “What do you mean by that? How is Earth’s history and Eden’s history connected?”
This is a potential can of worms, I thought. Then I prayed that things would be all right.
“Amen to that,” Eloyis thought back to me privately. Then out loud she spoke the off-worlders, “Those are some good questions, and it will take time to fully explain.”
“We got time,” Celeste piped up. “And nobody’s perfect. I for one am willing to keep an open mind. So I see no reason to fear you.”
Eloyis sighed grimly. “You may yet find reason, even though we have no intent in causing you to fear us.” Then she continued, “The beginning of Eden’s history is a strange and tragically violent one…”
Eloyis recounted Eden’s history from the passage of the colonial ships to present day Eden. She had always been a good story teller and she was bluntly candid and completely honest in her recount.
The off-world visitors were alternatively fascinated and horrified by the violent beginnings of the Shining Ones.
Eloyis concluded, “We have not completely discontinued contact from Earth, even though we have all moved away. None had the heart to cut the Second Clanners off completely from their home world. Many had left family and friends behind, especially in the beginning, so small and strictly regulated visits by tourists and journalists are permitted to go to Earth in secret. We are kept informed on the goings on at Earth as a distance.
