May 16, 2440 3:00 PM
“This is the University of Missouri at Columbia,” Matt said, with a note of pride as they approached campus. “Before the collapse, Missouri had around twenty large public universities. Now there are two. The other is a smaller technical college up in St. Joseph, about ninety minutes northwest of home.”
He slowed as they passed the edge of campus.
“This place used to be enormous. More liberal arts, more research, more of just about everything. Student population peaked well over a hundred twenty-five thousand about four hundred years ago. A lot of that is gone now, but the libraries and museums are still top-notch. The ag school is still strong, and it has one of the last serious journalism and communications programs anywhere. I hope we have time for you to look around while we’re here. I think you’d like it.”
“Angelina said you graduated from the agriculture program?” T’mari asked.
“My undergrad was botany and agribusiness management. I minored in agricultural engineering, picked up a machinist certification, and got certified in aircraft maintenance while I was at it.”
T’mari looked over at him. “While you were at it?”
“I had trouble sitting still.” He smiled. “Later I came back for master’s degrees in agricultural engineering and logistics management. I’ve got a commercial pilot’s license too, although I haven’t flown in years.”
The smile faded.
“Last time I flew was just after Annette died. I put the plane into a steep climb, cut the oxygen, and blacked out. Came to in a dive maybe a thousand feet above the ground. Managed to dead-stick it onto a county road three counties over.”
He glanced at her.
“Controlled crash, if you’re feeling generous.”
T’mari said nothing for several seconds. She watched his face, not because she expected him to explain further, but because she was beginning to understand how many pieces of himself he had survived by simply refusing to examine too closely.
“Angelina said you and I have similar levels of education,” she said gently.
“More or less. The systems don’t translate perfectly, but from what K’rem and the others have explained, your communications and linguistics education is roughly equivalent to a human master’s. Electrical engineering too.”
“That sounds strange when you say it that way.”
“Why?”
“Because it makes it sound impressive.”
Matt laughed. “T’mari, it is impressive.”
She looked back toward the campus.
“And Angelina?”
“She finished high school. That’s the end of her formal academic education.”
T’mari glanced at him, surprised.
“Her parents would only pay for university if she went to medical school. She didn’t want to be a doctor, so they put her to work managing the family restaurant, paid her almost nothing, then blamed her for not moving out or getting a degree.”
His jaw tightened slightly.
“I love her parents. I always will. They were still cruel to her in ways I don’t think they ever understood.”
“She told me a little about her childhood.”
“Then she probably left out half of it.”
“V’ren families can be complicated too,” T’mari said. “My mother was quietly disappointed that I didn’t follow her path. She’s proud of me, but there is grief there too. Her mother was a renowned obstetrician. My mother became a physician, but not a specialist. In her family, even that could be seen as falling short.”
Matt nodded toward the university buildings passing outside.
“One thing you should understand about humans, especially somewhere like this, is that academic credentials don’t define intelligence. They prove you completed a particular kind of education. That matters, but people around universities can sometimes forget the difference.”
T’mari listened.
“Angelina doesn’t have a university degree. She is a trained paramedic. She speaks several languages. She can troubleshoot technology better than half the people who claim it as a profession, and she is one of the sharpest project managers I’ve ever worked with. She can also outshoot more than a few veterans.”
T’mari smiled. “That last qualification seems less relevant to project management.”
“You’d be surprised.”
“If there’s time, I would enjoy learning from her.”
“Precision shooting is a good competitive skill,” Matt said. “Preferably one you never need for anything else.”
They had barely started across the campus when Matt reached across her and nudged her sideways.
A frisbee sailed past where her head had been.
Matt caught it one-handed.
“Sorry!” a young woman shouted, jogging toward them.
She was halfway there before her expression changed.
“Wait. You’re one of the aliens, right?”
Matt handed her the frisbee.
“What gave it away?”
T’mari stared at him.
The young woman laughed. “Can I get a picture with you? And maybe your autograph on the frisbee?”
Matt reached into his pocket and produced a Sharpie.
T’mari looked at it, then at him.
“You carry that?”
“I planned ahead.”
The young woman handed T’mari the frisbee.
Matt stepped back.
“This is Officer T’mari of House Th’ron,” he told her. “Save that for your children someday. She’s going to be important to humanity.”
T’mari turned her head sharply toward him.
Matt ignored the look and took several pictures for the student, then one on his own device before returning it to his pocket.
The young woman hurried off clutching the frisbee like she had just acquired a family heirloom.
“Told you,” Matt murmured as they continued walking. “Celebrity.”
“You could have warned me.”
“I did.”
“You did not.”
“I told you people were going to recognize you.”
“That is not the same as telling me strangers would ask me to sign flying plastic.”
“You’ll adapt.”
Inside the Communications Building, Matt led her up a flight of cracked terrazzo stairs.
“Try not to be overwhelmed by the smell of old coffee, damp carpet, and ambition. This building has probably seen more drama than a daytime soap.”
T’mari paused and sniffed cautiously.
“Reminds me of crew decks on long-haul freighters.”
“Really?”
“Less antiseptic.”
She sniffed again.
“More desperation.”
Matt chuckled.
“That’s journalism, all right.”
May 16, 2440 | University of Missouri, Columbia
Eleven days after first contact became a permanent condition of human life, Officer T’mari Th’ron was sitting in a University of Missouri television studio explaining why some of the most advanced technology ever seen on Earth was, by V’ren standards, old and dependable.
That distinction matters.
Th’ron is not merely a diplomatic representative. She is an electrical engineer and communications specialist with advanced training in both fields, a veteran of V’ren merchant and naval service, and one of the people coordinating the technical working groups now pairing V’ren specialists with human engineers.
Matthew Marmaduke, High Lord of the V’ren in Sol and interim CEO of the V’ren Trust, sat off-camera for most of the interview. He had already approved several of the projects Th’ron helped bring forward.
Tom Anderson, a former systems designer before moving into technical journalism, began with the obvious question.
Tom Anderson: You’ve spent most of your life aboard ships that can cross interstellar distances. What has surprised you most about human engineering?
T’mari Th’ron: How familiar it feels.
Anderson: That was not the answer I expected.
Th’ron: I have visited more than a hundred ports and encountered thousands of species. Many technologically advanced societies become very specialized. If a system fails, the proper specialist repairs it with the proper equipment.
Humans seem much more comfortable asking, “What do we have, and how can we make it work?”
Anderson: We usually call that being broke.
Th’ron laughed.
Th’ron: Scarcity can be an excellent instructor.
Your engineers repair, adapt, substitute, and improvise. They do not always wait for ideal materials or ideal conditions. Sometimes the result is ugly, but it works. That reminds me very much of V’ren merchant crews.
Anderson: You’ve called that dangerous.
Th’ron: In a complimentary sense. Give someone advanced technology and they can use advanced technology. Give someone limited technology and teach them how the advanced system works, and they may invent something neither of you expected.
That is more interesting.
Connecting Two Technological Civilizations
Anderson: You specialize in electrical engineering and communications. How difficult is it to make human and V’ren systems talk to each other?
Th’ron: Less difficult than people assume.
The physical interfaces are different. Encoding is different. Network architecture is different. Security is very different. But the underlying problems are recognizable.
One of the first things I did here was study the schematics for a human portable computer. Once I understood what the machine expected electrically and logically, building an interface was mostly an engineering problem.
Anderson: “Mostly an engineering problem” is doing considerable work there.
Th’ron: Yes.
Anderson: Could an average V’ren communications technician do it?
Th’ron: A properly trained one, yes.
Anderson: That is slightly terrifying.
Th’ron: You should meet our senior engineers.
Anderson paused before continuing.
Anderson: Human technicians and V’ren specialists are already working on interfaces with Progenitor communications technology. What does that actually buy us?
Th’ron: Distance without the delays you currently accept.
Your communications infrastructure across the solar system is built around the speed of light. Once the Progenitor interface is operational, that limitation becomes much less relevant for connected locations.
Anderson: Meaning real-time communication between Earth and Mars?
Th’ron: That is one of the obvious applications.
Anderson: Europa?
Th’ron: Yes.
Anderson: Ships operating elsewhere in the system?
Th’ron: Provided they have compatible equipment and authorization.
Anderson: That last word sounded deliberate.
Th’ron: It was.
She smiled.
Th’ron: Connecting systems is one problem. Deciding who should be connected to them is another.
The Arc Cell Is Not a Science Experiment
The most immediately disruptive V’ren-derived technology may be considerably less glamorous than faster communications.
It looks like a large black appliance.
Anderson: Let’s talk about the arc cell.
Th’ron: I expected you would.
Anderson: I’m told the production unit is roughly the size of a chest freezer and can supply about a hundred homes for three weeks.
Th’ron: Under the reference load we are using, yes.
Anderson: And five days ago the prototype was rated much lower.
Th’ron: The prototype was built to prove that the adaptation worked. Production engineering is about improving what happens after that.
The underlying V’ren energy-storage technology is approximately five centuries old. We are not discovering new physics. We are adapting a mature system to human loads, human maintenance practices, human connectors, and a form factor that can be moved without specialized equipment.
Anderson: So this isn’t alien experimental technology.
Th’ron: Not remotely.
Anderson: That’s almost more unsettling.
Th’ron: Humans continue saying that.
Anderson: What does replacement look like in the field?
Th’ron: Trailer, winch, disconnect, swap, scan, reconnect. The design goal is that one trained person can exchange a unit in minutes rather than requiring a utility crew.
Anderson: And recharge it with what?
Th’ron: Whatever useful source is available. Solar. Wind. Existing electrical grids. Fusion. Shipboard power.
The storage system does not particularly care where the energy originated.
Anderson: Your working group is already putting these on farms?
Th’ron: Yes. We began with controlled loads, then deliberately moved to less controlled ones. Farms are useful because they are terrible laboratory environments.
Anderson: Dirt, motors, bad wiring and people doing things the manual specifically told them not to do?
Th’ron: Precisely.
The Real Bottleneck Is Production
Anderson: If the design is mature and the units work, why aren’t you making ten thousand of them tomorrow?
That earned a longer pause.
Th’ron: Because technology is never only a design.
We need fabrication capacity. We need trained technicians. We need diagnostics. We need replacement parts. Some of our fabrication equipment was damaged during arrival. Some of the people who knew how to maintain that equipment were killed.
We also need humans trained to service these systems without requiring a V’ren technician standing beside them forever.
Anderson: So the bottleneck isn’t the battery.
Th’ron: Correct.
Anderson: It’s people and machines.
Th’ron: Usually is.
Anderson: How quickly can humans learn enough to maintain one?
Th’ron: That depends upon what level of maintenance you mean.
Replacing a field unit is simple by design. Diagnosing internal failures is more difficult. Manufacturing every component independently is another problem entirely.
I do not want Earth dependent upon us for basic infrastructure twenty years from now.
Anderson: That’s an interesting thing for a refugee from another star system to say.
Th’ron: We need a home. Dependency is not the same thing as partnership.
What Happens to the Power Grid?
Anderson: If these units scale, why maintain a conventional rural electrical grid at all?
Th’ron: In some places, perhaps you should not.
Dense cities are a different engineering problem. Heavy industry is another. But isolated homes, farms, villages, emergency facilities, construction sites, temporary settlements, those are obvious applications.
Anderson: It could make a lot of existing infrastructure obsolete.
Th’ron: Some of it.
Anderson: And some utilities.
Th’ron smiled, but did not immediately answer.
Th’ron: You said that, not me.
Anderson: Fair enough. But you’ve suggested this has political consequences too.
Th’ron: Of course.
If a community can produce or acquire energy locally, store it locally, and replace its power source with one person and a trailer, then losing a transmission line no longer means losing the community.
That changes disaster planning. It changes rural settlement. It changes what governments must provide. It changes what communities can provide for themselves.
Anderson: That’s basically the Freehold model already.
For the first time in several minutes, Th’ron glanced toward Marmaduke.
He nodded once.
Th’ron: Yes. We are adapting technology to a social structure that already favors local resilience.
“I Don’t Want to Be a Figurehead”
Anderson: You’re involved in communications, power storage, technical integration and now strategic communications for the Freehold. What exactly is your job?
Th’ron: Today?
Anderson: Fair point.
Th’ron: I am still figuring that out.
I am an engineer. I am a communications officer. I translate between technical systems and, increasingly, between people. I help identify V’ren specialists who can work with human teams. I bring projects forward when I think they solve real problems.
Mr. Marmaduke approves most of them.
From behind the cameras came Marmaduke’s voice.
Matt Marmaduke: She keeps bringing me good ones.
Th’ron looked toward him.
Th’ron: He is very easy to persuade when the prototype already works.
Marmaduke: That’s called knowing your audience.
Anderson laughed.
Anderson: Are you worried that you’re becoming a symbol instead of an engineer?
Th’ron: Constantly.
Anderson: How do you avoid it?
Th’ron: By continuing to do the work.
I don’t want to stand beside machines other people built and smile for cameras. I want human and V’ren engineers working beside each other until nobody thinks it remarkable anymore.
Earth does not need one V’ren engineer everyone recognizes.
It needs thousands of people who know how to keep the lights on after she leaves the room.
That was where Anderson ended the formal interview.
The recording light went dark.
Marmaduke crossed the studio and squeezed T’mari’s hand.
“Brilliantly done.”
Anderson smiled. “I agree.”
Then his expression changed.
“Mr. Marmaduke, I don’t know if you remember me. We overlapped here. I’m married to Kira Kovshevnikova. Leslie Anderson is my sister. She was in your year.”
Matt studied him for another second.
“Kira’s hard to forget.”
Anderson nodded.
“I knew Annette too. I just wanted to tell you, even after all these years, she was special. She always made us laugh.”
For a moment, the room lost its machinery, its alien technology, and the future everyone had spent the afternoon discussing.
Matt nodded.
“Thank you. It’s good to be reminded of the joy she gave other people.”
Nobody hurried to fill the silence.
The Accidental Sovereign
Matthew Marmaduke Has a Logistics Problem. It Also Happens to Be the Future of Earth.
May 16, 2440
University of Missouri, Columbia
Eleven days into humanity’s first sustained relationship with an extraterrestrial civilization, Matthew Marmaduke has acquired more titles than he appears comfortable explaining.
He is one of Missouri’s largest private landowners, a farmer and businessman whose companies conducted more than a billion dollars in trade last year. He is a former military logistics officer and veteran of the Prophet’s War. Since the arrival of the V’ren refugee fleet, he has also become their High Lord in Sol, interim chief executive of the newly formed V’ren Trust, one of the central architects of the proposed Sol Defense Fleet, and the man whose land has absorbed a substantial share of an alien refugee population numbering more than a million.
Marmaduke insists these developments are less dramatic than they sound.
That is difficult to believe.
Officer T’mari Th’ron sat beside him in a small studio at the University of Missouri, where Marmaduke once studied agriculture. Th’ron, until recently a communications officer in V’ren service, has become one of his closest technical and political advisers. He has offered her the position of Director of Strategic Communications for the Freehold.
The arrangement is professionally defensible. It is also politically fascinating.
We began with the simpler question.
The Atlantic: You’ve been described repeatedly as a farmer who unexpectedly found himself at the center of first contact. Does that description annoy you?
Matthew Marmaduke: The “unexpectedly” part is accurate.
The farmer part is usually being used to suggest I wandered in from a cornfield yesterday. I have degrees in botany and agricultural engineering. I have graduate degrees in agricultural engineering and logistics management. I was a captain in Amazon’s military logistics division. I fought in the Prophet’s War.
Last year, I did more than a billion dollars in business across three continents.
So yes, I farm. I’m also reasonably familiar with organizations larger than a feed store.
The Atlantic: You sounded prepared to defend yourself before I finished the question.
Marmaduke: People hear Missouri and farmer and make assumptions.
The Atlantic: What does farming actually contribute to the way you govern?
Marmaduke considered the word.
Marmaduke: Govern is still strange.
Farming teaches you that reality does not negotiate with you. The rain comes when it comes. Equipment breaks when you need it. A crop doesn’t care how persuasive you are.
You learn patience, contingency planning, maintenance, and when to stop arguing with the situation and solve the problem in front of you.
The Atlantic: You’ve been called a warlord, a feudal lord, a billionaire landlord, a folk hero, and, increasingly, a sovereign. What do you call yourself?
Marmaduke: Right now?
A guy with a logistics problem.
Luckily, logistics is my specialty.
T’mari smiled beside him. She had apparently heard some version of the line before.
Who Can Tell Matthew Marmaduke No?
The Atlantic: You describe this as logistics. Other people see a remarkable concentration of authority.
You control enormous amounts of land. The V’ren recognize you as High Lord. You are interim CEO of the V’ren Trust. You are helping organize the Sol Defense Fleet. Your Freehold is hosting tens of thousands of V’ren. Your organization is already participating in technology-transfer projects.
Who can tell you no?
Marmaduke stopped tapping his fingers against the chair.
Marmaduke: Plenty of people.
The Atlantic: Name the institution.
He smiled slightly.
Marmaduke: That wasn’t the same question.
The Atlantic: No. It was the harder version.
Marmaduke: Fair.
My authority is not one thing.
The Freehold has its own governance and contractual structure. The Trust has its own obligations. High Lord is a V’ren title with V’ren responsibilities. The Sol Defense Fleet is being built with other people, not handed to me as a private navy.
Those jurisdictions overlap right now because everything happened at once.
They cannot stay that way forever.
The Atlantic: But today they do overlap.
Marmaduke: Yes.
The Atlantic: And today, if you decide that the V’ren Trust will assign resources to a project, you can simply make that decision.
Marmaduke: As interim CEO, within my authority, yes.
That is what a chief executive is supposed to do.
The Atlantic: You were not elected to that position.
Marmaduke: No.
The Atlantic: You weren’t elected High Lord either.
Marmaduke: Definitely not.
The Atlantic: Does that trouble you?
For the first time, the humor disappeared completely.
Marmaduke: It would trouble me more if it didn’t.
But a million people arrived here with ships damaged, leadership dead or incapacitated, children who needed somewhere to sleep, and governments that were still trying to decide which committee should answer the phone.
Someone had to make decisions.
That does not mean the emergency structure should become permanent simply because it worked.
The Atlantic: Yet emergencies have a way of making temporary power permanent.
Marmaduke: Then keep asking me that question.
The Woman Beside Him
A significant amount of Marmaduke’s new authority is exercised through people who knew him before first contact.
Others are new.
T’mari Th’ron is both more unusual and more consequential.
She is V’ren highborn, merchant-naval trained, an electrical engineer and communications specialist with advanced education in both engineering and communications and linguistics. In the days since arrival, she has participated in technical integration projects, helped identify personnel for human-V’ren working groups, advised Marmaduke on V’ren politics, and become increasingly visible in Earth media.
That morning, Marmaduke formally offered her a senior civilian communications position.
The Atlantic: Why T’mari?
Marmaduke: Because she’s exceptionally qualified.
The Atlantic: That sounded rehearsed.
Marmaduke: It wasn’t.
She understands V’ren communications systems. She understands human media better than almost any V’ren I’ve met. She has formal training in communications and linguistics, advanced electrical engineering education, naval experience, merchant experience, and enough sense to tell me when an idea is stupid.
I need all of those things.
The Atlantic: She is also rapidly becoming one of the most recognizable V’ren on Earth.
Marmaduke: That wasn’t the qualification.
The Atlantic: But it is now part of the job.
Marmaduke: Unfortunately for her, yes.
The Atlantic: There is also considerable public speculation about the nature of your relationship.
T’mari’s expression changed almost imperceptibly.
Marmaduke looked at the interviewer for a moment.
Marmaduke: There has been speculation about my relationship with almost every attractive V’ren woman who has stood within ten feet of me.
I think the internet is coping with first contact in its own way.
The Atlantic: That doesn’t answer the question.
Marmaduke: You didn’t actually ask one.
The interviewer smiled.
The Atlantic: Fair enough.
Officer Th’ron, does personal visibility complicate your ability to advise him?
T’mari Th’ron: Sometimes.
The Atlantic: How?
Th’ron: V’ren status is complicated. Human status is complicated in different ways.
People may assume I have influence because I stand near him. Sometimes I do have influence, because he asked for my advice and I gave him a good answer.
Those are not the same thing.
The Atlantic: How do you prove the difference?
Th’ron: Work.
If an engineering project functions, it does not care whether someone thought I received favoritism.
If my recommendation fails, my social position will not make the machine work.
The Atlantic: Marmaduke has said you are becoming a symbol of integration.
Do you want that?
Th’ron: No.
That does not mean I can refuse to understand that it is happening.
I was trained to solve systems problems. I would rather be judged by whether the system works.
Symbols are useful until people begin confusing them with results.
The Problem With Meritocracy
Th’ron speaks admiringly of human improvisation. She is less sentimental about her own civilization.
The Atlantic: You have compared Earth’s divisions with an earlier period in V’ren history.
Th’ron: There are similarities.
Not exact ones.
The Atlantic: What are we getting wrong?
Th’ron: Humans often imagine advanced societies become socially advanced at the same rate as their technology.
That is not true.
We achieved faster-than-light travel while still carrying social structures much older than the technology itself.
Then the Hs’Sing invaded us.
Survival forced changes that argument had failed to produce.
The Atlantic: Including weakening the caste system?
Th’ron: Weakening is not the word I would use.
We still have caste.
But war created situations where competence could not be ignored simply because the competent person had the wrong ancestors.
You can insist that one person outranks another socially. A damaged reactor is less interested in genealogy.
The Atlantic: Do you think Earth is approaching the same kind of reckoning?
Th’ron: Earth has already had several.
You still keep rebuilding hierarchies afterward.
The Atlantic: So do the V’ren.
Th’ron smiled.
Th’ron: Yes.
That is why I said we are alike.
“The Size of the Fire”
The Atlantic: Mr. Marmaduke, you said earlier that farming teaches you to deal with the problem in front of you.
There is a line you’ve used before. If the barn is burning, grab a bucket.
Marmaduke: Sounds like me.
The Atlantic: The complication is that you now own a considerable portion of the barn, control many of the buckets, and are helping organize the fire department.
Marmaduke laughed.
Marmaduke: That’s better than most of the criticism I’ve heard this week.
The Atlantic: But is it wrong?
He thought about it.
Marmaduke: No.
That’s why the structures matter.
Right now, speed matters too.
If somebody brings me a working solution to a problem affecting ten thousand people, I’m not going to make them spend six months proving they filled out the correct procurement form.
I will ask whether it works, whether it’s safe, whether we can support it, and what happens when it breaks.
Then I’ll make a decision.
The Atlantic: Your critics would call that benevolent autocracy.
Marmaduke: My critics are welcome to come manage refugee housing tomorrow morning.
The Atlantic: That is also not an answer.
Marmaduke: No, it isn’t.
He leaned forward.
Marmaduke: Here is the answer.
Competence is not legitimacy.
But legitimacy without competence gets people killed.
Right now I have more authority than I want because the systems around us have not caught up with the emergency.
My responsibility is to use it well and build something that does not require Matthew Marmaduke to personally approve every important decision five years from now.
If I fail at the second part, then you should worry about the first.
The Personal Cost of Clarity
Near the end of the interview, the conversation returned to the eleven days since the V’ren arrived.
The Atlantic: What is the hardest thing you’ve learned since first contact?
Marmaduke did not answer immediately.
T’mari turned slightly toward him.
Marmaduke: That sometimes doing what you believe is right looks exactly like betrayal to someone you care about.
And that waiting for perfect clarity can become an excuse for never acting.
The Atlantic: You sound as though you’re talking about more than government.
Marmaduke: I probably am.
The Atlantic: Care to elaborate?
Marmaduke: No.
T’mari looked down, smiling despite herself.
The interviewer let the silence remain for several seconds.
The Atlantic: Officer Th’ron, same question.
Th’ron: That humans are much better at hiding what they feel than V’ren are.
Marmaduke turned toward her.
Marmaduke: Really?
Th’ron: Apparently not all humans.
The first unmistakably private exchange of the interview lasted perhaps two seconds.
It was enough.
The Atlantic: I suspect I’m going to regret not following that.
Marmaduke: Probably.
The Atlantic: Thank you both.
Th’ron: Thank you.
Marmaduke: Anytime.
He reconsidered.
“Actually, no. That’s how I keep ending up in these things.”
The recording light went dark.
For the moment, Matthew Marmaduke remained what he claimed to be: a man trying to solve a logistics problem.
The difficulty was that the problem now included a million refugees, alien technology, military power, political legitimacy, and the beginnings of a new society.
And increasingly, the solution seemed to include him.
Cartoons, Cowboy Boots and the Alien Family Next Door
May 16, 2440
University of Missouri, Columbia
T’mari Th’ron had been on Earth for less than two weeks when she discovered deviled eggs.
She was still deciding what she thought of them when People senior correspondent Shelly Davenport joined her and Matthew Marmaduke in a University of Missouri studio Friday afternoon.
“They are much better than they look,” T’mari said after another cautious bite.
Marmaduke looked offended.
“That may be the most insulting thing anyone has said about a deviled egg.”
It was that kind of interview.
The V’ren communications officer, engineer and newly appointed Director of Strategic Communications has spent most of the past eleven days helping manage a refugee crisis, translating between two civilizations and becoming one of the most recognizable alien faces on Earth.
She has also, apparently, been watching our television for years.
And her family has already discovered dogs.
Shelly Davenport: Before we get to you, I have to ask about the photograph everybody is sharing. E’aki riding Fred.
T’mari covered her eyes for a moment.
T’mari: I knew you were going to ask about that.
Shelly: Your younger relative rode a husky through what was supposed to be a formal departure photo.
T’mari: That is a reasonably accurate description.
Matt: Fred has accepted a promotion.
Shelly: From dog to horse?
Matt: Interplanetary pony, apparently.
Fred, a large husky belonging to Samantha Reyes’ family, became an accidental first-contact celebrity after E’aki climbed aboard during departure photos on the V’ren flagship.
The photograph quickly overtook the carefully posed images of Samantha and two V’ren girls in coordinated Western clothes, boots and jewelry.
One widely shared post declared: “First contact is over. We have achieved civilization.”
Another simply summarized the moment as: “Dog is horse.”
Shelly: Were you aboard when that happened?
T’mari: No. I saw the pictures later. I laughed until my mother told me to stop.
Matt: The important thing is that nobody planned it.
Shelly: People online are debating exactly that.
Matt: Of course they are.
Shelly: There were professional cameras, coordinated clothes, jewelry, Samantha making a very polished speech, two important V’ren families coming planetside. Then the photograph everybody loves is a little green child riding a dog.
Matt: That is why you cannot manufacture everything.
We planned the clothes. We planned the photographs. We wanted the girls to look like they belonged together without pretending the V’ren girls were little human dolls.
Nobody told E’aki to use Fred as public transportation.
T’mari: You could not have told him not to.
Matt: Also true.
Earth Has Had Alien Fans for Decades
Shelly: T’mari, you studied English before first contact. Why?
T’mari: Human media.
Shelly: That’s the entire answer?
T’mari: Do you want the embarrassing answer?
Matt: Yes.
Shelly: Absolutely.
T’mari sighed.
T’mari: Cartoons. Anime. Cooking programs. Some older films. Your game shows are very strange, especially the Japanese ones.
I also wanted to understand jokes that did not translate properly.
Shelly: Memes?
T’mari: Unfortunately.
Matt: She’s an Earthaboo.
T’mari: He learned that word and has been abusing it ever since.
Shelly: Is “Earthaboo” actually a thing?
T’mari: It is now.
Humans have been a cultural curiosity in parts of the wider galactic community for decades. Earth transmissions, archived media and material circulating beyond Sol created an audience long before anyone here knew it existed.
Shelly: Matt told us you can quote Star Trek.
T’mari gave him a wounded look.
T’mari: Betrayal.
Matt: Tell her.
T’mari: I know rather more of it than I should.
Shelly: Favorite series?
T’mari: I am not answering that. I have learned enough about humans to know it will start a fight.
Matt: She’s adapting beautifully.
“Families Arrived, Not Just Ships”
Shelly: You’ve said people reacted differently to the V’ren than they did to the old Progenitor Beacons. Why?
T’mari: Because the Beacons were objects.
We arrived with children.
That changes everything.
You can discuss an artifact for eighty years. It can become abstract.
It is harder to keep another civilization abstract when their children are eating your food, playing with your dogs and asking where they will sleep tonight.
Shelly: Do you think that’s part of why the photographs of the children have mattered so much?
T’mari: Yes.
People see families before they see politics.
Shelly: Some critics would say Matthew Marmaduke understands that extremely well.
Matt grinned.
Matt: They’re right.
Shelly: That’s unusually direct.
Matt: Why pretend otherwise?
If people see one million aliens as a security problem, integration becomes harder.
If they see a little boy riding a dog, a mother worrying about her children, somebody’s grandmother learning how to use a kitchen appliance, suddenly we’re talking about people.
That isn’t manipulation. That’s reality people can understand.
Shelly: But you do think about the image.
Matt: Constantly.
I’m not going to apologize for being competent at communications.
T’mari: He has people for that.
Matt: Increasingly, one of them is sitting next to me.
What Does “Family” Mean Now?
Shelly: T’mari, you’ve used the word family several times. How different is a V’ren family from a human one?
T’mari: There is no single human family structure, and there is no single V’ren one.
But generally, we place more emphasis on extended household obligations. Children may have several adults who take active responsibility for them. Marriage and parenthood do not always overlap in the ways humans expect.
Shelly: Could a human and V’ren genuinely build a family together?
T’mari hesitated just long enough for Matt to notice.
T’mari: Yes.
More easily than I would have believed eleven days ago.
Shelly: That’s a fairly confident answer.
T’mari: I have seen humans take V’ren children into their homes without hesitation. I have seen V’ren adults become protective of human children they barely knew.
People keep asking whether our biology is compatible.
I think the more important question may be whether our lives are.
So far, the answer is often yes.
Matt: Although sometimes your new relatives get taller when they’re angry and start humming.
T’mari: That is not a universal V’ren family problem.
Matt: It has been one of mine.
About Those Rumors
Davenport waited until both of them had stopped laughing.
Shelly:
“Last question. There’s been a lot of speculation about the two of you. Rumor has it there’s something between you and Matt. Would you like to discuss it?”
T’mari blinked, clearly not expecting the question.
T’mari:
“No.”
Matt burst out laughing and nearly choked on his water.
Shelly laughed with him.
Shelly:
“Well, that was refreshingly direct.”
T’mari looked from her to Matt, only now realizing why he found it so funny.
T’mari:
“Was I supposed to say more?”
Matt:
“Not if you don’t want to. That may be the best interview answer I’ve heard all week.”
Shelly:
“How about you, Matt?”
Matt:
“That rumor started about twelve hours after her ship crash-landed in my yard. I suppose I should be flattered. I’m still not sure what it says about humanity that one of our first reactions to extraterrestrial life was to speculate about who was sleeping with whom.”
And Then There’s Her Sister
Shelly:
“One last bonus question. There’s a rumor you’ve already slept with her little sister.”
Matt did a full spit take.
T’mari jerked back from the spray, staring at him.
Matt:
“Jesus Christ.”
Shelly was already laughing.
Shelly:
“I’m taking that as a reaction.”
Matt grabbed a napkin and wiped his mouth.
Matt:
“I’ve heard the rumors. I was not expecting you to phrase it quite like that.”
Shelly:
“Would you prefer ‘spent the night with’?”
Matt:
“Somehow, no.”
T’mari covered her mouth, trying not to laugh.
Shelly:
“So?”
Matt looked at T’mari, then back at Shelly.
Matt:
“All I’ll say is that L’tani is someone I care about. She’s smart, accomplished, interesting, and very beautiful. I enjoyed her company, and I’m not ashamed of that. She shouldn’t be either.”
Shelly’s eyebrows rose.
Shelly:
“That is considerably less of a denial than I expected.”
Matt:
“I’m not going to lie to you just because the truth is inconvenient.”
Shelly:
“And T’mari?”
Matt glanced at her again.
Matt:
“I’d be lucky to have either of them in my life. Beyond that, the internet is already writing stories faster than I can live them. The internet probably already has a subreddit about the barely legal alien princesses and me, and another for the older sister. Maybe even one where I’m in relationships with both and their mother. God only knows what’s on 4Chan.
T’mari slowly turned toward him.
T’mari:
“Their mother?”
Matt:
“I have seen the internet.”
Shelly:
“I think I just got my headline.”
T’mari sighed.
T’mari:
“I think I just lost plausible deniability with my entire family.”
Matt:
“And I need a better publicist.”
The recording light went dark.
