EFFECTS OF OPENNESS / CH. 20:COMMUNITY
EMBASSY OF ATLANTIS, 4PM
As soon as they'd finished unloading the marsmobiles, Ruth called for attention in order to state her decision, After she'd outlined
the charges, she said. “Ursula, in the next week, indeed the next few days would be best, you will talk to Thomas about family trees. Do not make assumptions, I am a relative of Hathellah on her landfolk side, although it is a long way back.”
Ursula glanced at Thomas and blushed, “If that is to be my punishment, maam, I will certainly obey.”
“It might achieve the same end, that he does not think our people are all
barbarians, Ursula.” Ruth pointed out.
“Madam Ambassador, I don't fully understand what's happening, but...” He sounded indignant.
“Do not misjudge us, Thomas. My mother sees truths not visible to most, it is a rare gift of the Lord. On the basis of the pre-existing attraction she saw, and you seeming protective of Ursula earlier, what I have just instructed Ursula to do is work out if the two of you are too closely related to consider being more that friends. That is all. Mer bloodlines are a tangled mess, and we count third cousin marriage to be incestuous. Assuming you can demonstrate that you are not close relatives, whatever happens next is up to the pair of you and where your thoughts and prayers lead you.”
“Oh. Urm. I wasn't actually looking for a girlfriend....”
“No pressure.” Ruth said, “If you don't like the idea at all then we can find some other way to let you know how sorry Ursula is for not speaking up for proper behaviour.”
“I didn't speak up either,” Sathie said.
“True,” Zelda said, “but your highness is technically a child, and not expected to understand the complexities of such things, and also we were all under orders not to reveal your status, so if you had spoken up we'd have had to decide if we obey our princess and risk breaking orders, or ignore the child. I apologise, Thomas, I was thoughtless and uncaring of things I should have counted dear. In my collection of gems at home I have an uncut diamond about this size, and a ruby about twice the weight. I also have an emerald, about the size of the diamond, but cut. The choice is yours.”
“I can't rob you of such treasures!” Thomas objected.
“These are not treasures, her excellency did not ask for a treasure. I found them in the last year or two.”
“You found a cut emerald?” Thomas asked.
“Yes. Possibly it was lost from a cruise ship, or was thrown in the sea deliberately.” Zelda said, “So I do not recommend you accept the emerald, it may have been thrown overboard as the most recognisable gem from a stolen collection.”
“I've no idea know how to get a diamond or ruby cut.”
“Then, choose, and I will have one of them cut and mounted on a silver chain or broach. Gold is something I cannot give.”
“I have no diamonds I have found,” Gizela said, “but I have twin rubies I thought of having cut and mounted for ear-rings. They would go well with Zelda's ruby, I think.”
“Urm, I can't believe this,” Thomas said, “but I accept the ruby necklace and ear-rings, if you're determined to give them to me. And I in turn will give them to my mother.”
“Well done, young man,” Emilia said. “Ruth, you will write a covering letter to accompany them?”
“Yes, I will. Let the partnership that caused the offence ensure they are delivered. Where do your parents live, Thomas?”
“Jersey.”
“Jersey as in Channel Islands?” Ursula asked, looking surprised.
“Yes.”
“St Ouen's bay is a really lovely beach,” she said.
“You know it? I grew up there, but you won't find me disagreeing.”
“Embarrassing question, but I thought you looked familiar when I first saw you. Did you ever take evening walks down the south end?”
“Absolutely, mostly down near the La Rocco tower.”
“Singing 'Great is thy faithfulness'? In the summer, three years ago?”
“You? It was your voice I heard?”
“I guess so.”
“This is impossible!” Thomas exclaimed.
“No it's not. You go singing my favorite hymn on my favourite beach, you'd expect a girl to sing back, wouldn't you?”
“One night,” Thomas said, “it sounded like you were out at sea, the next you were in the dunes.”
“Hiding.”
“Yes. Then I worked out you were in the tower.”
“Hiding in the dunes was a stupid idea. You can't see much from there at all,” Ursula said.
“Next dawn I went back and I found your footprints from the dunes, I think. Straight out to sea.”
“When I was in the tower, you tried to climb after me.” Ursula remembered.
“I heard a big splash.”
“And that was all?”
“And I saw a flicker of a tail and your head come out of the water. I yelled 'that's not funny, mermaids are a myth'”
“Did you find the shell?” Ursula asked, shyly.
“I did.”
“And read the message?”
“'If we meet again, I want to know your ancestry to at least five generations.' and you signed it 'The myth'.”
“Ursula, you didn't!” Ruth exclaimed.
“I was stupid seventeen.”
“You knew exactly what you were doing.”
“Yes, Maam,” Ursula said, hanging her head, “acting just like my great great great grandma.”
“What do you reckon, mum?” Ruth asked.
“Putting the secret of our existence at risk? Actually leaving clues for a landman? Those are pretty serious charges.”
“So... does Ursula do the washing up for two weeks or a month?” Ruth asked.
“Oh, a month. But first she needs to see if her chosen landman was obedient or not.”
“She most certainly does.” Ruth agreed.
“Obedient?” Thomas asked.
“Do you know your ancestry?” Ursula asked, blushing.
“Oh. Yes, well, I did suddenly become interested in family history a few summers ago.”
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MESSAGE TO MR & MRS WHITE, JERSEY.
Dear Mum and Dad,
Everything worked perfectly and I'm here on Mars, having got closer to Venus than I'd have thought possible. I've been very warmly welcomed by the ambassador. You'll remember I spoke about two of the crew members being rather crude on my first day on board? They have been significantly reprimanded and at the meal tonight I had two 'servants' to do everything from topping up my water to tying my shoelaces all without asking. They probably would have cut up my fish for me if I'd wanted them to. About the fish: it makes sense, I suppose, but apparently I was a guest at the very first meal on Mars where fish was served.
The crew member the same age as Elsie who seemed to be doing a lot of the piloting turns out to be their crown princess, so I think Elsie can be absolutely certain that the offer of a visit to Atlantis I passed on yesterday is not going to be stamped on by anyone in authority. You will remember, I'm sure, my sudden fascination with family history a few years ago. Did I show you the shell-message, or only Elsie? I've found out what lay behind it. The Mer don't get romantically involved with anyone they know to be a third cousin, and a forth cousin is considered as risk-taking as we'd consider a cousin. I can only think that God was involved, but the fourth member of the crew, Ursula, who I described I think as quiet and shy, turns out to be the pretty maiden of the mer who wrote it to me.
She tells me that legends of mermen / mermaids luring young women or men to a watery grave are not entirely amiss, but it was marriage rather than a grave that awaited those who were so lured. Although such happenings are not at all unknown, they're very much frowned upon, and Ursula has earned herself a month of washing up for everyone at the embassy as punishment (with no automatic dish washer to help).
We've worked out that her summer holiday two years ago coincided with me being on that mission trip. So, she spent a lot of time playing tourist around the island, and camped on the dunes in the hope of meeting me again, all to no avail. Professor Findhorn-Bunting was also at the embassy, with his family but they were deep in discussion with the ambassador's mother at one end of the room and Ursula and I were swapping genealogies and chatting at the other so I didn't talk to them much at all, apart from them asking if I'd be at church tomorrow, and inviting Ursula and myself over for lunch. It's so great to think that I'm going to be working in a Christian-dominated lab!
Speaking of genealogies... do you remember during my research I found out about one of dad's relatives being a witness in that case where a hundred and fifty years ago a twenty-year old left his clothes on the beach and was last seen swimming out to sea with a girl no one recognised, except they'd been seen together a lot?
Ursula is their great-great-great grand-daughter. In that case, apparently the girl had to scrub clean a large chunk of the dome of Atlantis before they were allowed to marry, so Ursula says she's got off very lightly. Not that we've got that far in our thinking, but since we're not close relatives, we've decided to take the step of 'walking together' as they call going out. I'm not entirely sure what it means, but I've heard myself referred to as 'Ursula's chosen landman', and it's been made very clear that I'm welcome to visit. Apparently the underground dining room we were eating in has only been dug a few days. It's lined and furnished with a strange material the Mer call 'Crystal', which is transparent, insulating and very tough. From the sound of it there's a lot more building work to be done, but the biggest concern of everyone local was the question of food, growing space and compost.
The embassy site has significant piles of excavated rock over it, which the embassy staff will apparently start turning into offices sometime (don't ask me how), but at the moment there's not really the space for an additional 'field dome'.
Apparently, a few friends of the ambassador have planted a field belonging to someone called Henry or Harry, who's now in Atlantis, and will be growing other plants with hydroponics. I knew there wasn't much food imported, but I guess I didn't realise that there's hardly any surplus being grown here at all except for the MarsCorp gloop. People grow what they think they'll need, and the ambassador herself has only been on Mars since the spring and is only just approaching her 'big harvest'. Perhaps I should clarify what was clarified to me: a few tomatoes are a nice supplement to your diet, but they're soon gone. First harvest is when you harvest enough that you've actually got something you could sell. Big harvest is when you've harvested enough that you probably don't ever need to eat gloop again — as an individual. Like most new arrivals I'm going to be living on gloop for a while, but I have the rice, pasta and dried veg. that I brought with me so I don't need that every meal. The idea of bringing herbs and spices to make the gloop more interesting is apparently the ambassador's own and brought cries of 'why didn't I think of that' from the Findhorn-Buntings at other end of the table. Of course, since I didn't have to eat my dried food during two or three months of transit, I'm very well stocked in that area too.
In case you're wondering, I seriously doubt I'll be going back to Luna.
with love,
Thomas.
p.s. Boris, the paraplegic forcefield genius, was spending all his time deep in conversation with a born Martian, called Hathie. Apparently she's part Mer and they've been writing a lot recently. I'm really confused, but the princess greeted her as 'princess', and Hathie complained about Boris using her title as though it was a name. p.p.s, in case you're wondering, the university is an hour's drive from here, so I've been given a newly-built guest room under the embassy. The ambassador said something about it having been finished this morning, but I expect she was joking. Apparently our arrival was kept as a massive surprise, so all us new-arrivals are sleeping on the air-mattresses from the spaceship.
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5AM, SUNSOL, 25TH OCTOBER
“Good morning, Thomas,” Ursula greeted him as he wandered into the kitchen, at five a.m. to get a drink, “Welcome to Mars-lag, forty something minutes per day adds up, doesn't it?”
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“I didn't dream last night, did I?” He asked.
“Which bit?”
“You dived into the sea from La Rocco tower.”
“No, my chosen landman, you didn't.”
“Do I need to know what being your chosen landman means?”
“It means that fed up with every interesting young merman turning out to be a cousin, I took myself off on holiday and spotted an interesting young landman instead, and chose to chase you instead.”
“You could have, you know, talked to me?”
“That's not the way it works,” she said, “we're a pretty traditional people, but the way it has to work is we just about make contact and establish that you're interested and I'm hard to get, and mysterious, then I vanish, and you pine after me, or maybe find out your genealogy, and then a few months or a year afterwards I let you find me again, and we start talking.”
“Oh.”
“And then, assuming it works out OK, I steal you away and we live happily ever after under the waves, once I've done a suitable punishment. Alternatively I let you steal me away, and we need to work out some kind of cover story that explains why I don't show up on anyone's database and don't get locked up as an illegal immigrant or, the nightmare scenario, dissected.”
“Dissected?”
“'What's up with your DNA?' 'Why are your muscles so dark?' etc.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
“In other words, you were my massive massive gamble, which I then sort of walked away from in tears when I didn't find you again.”
“Only sort of?”
“I like Jersey's coast, so I went back, but I'd given up hope of meeting you, But that year I thought: stupid, stupid mermaid, you should have got him to agree something like 'see you here the last week of next August', you don't even know if he lives here. He's probably gone and found a pretty land-girl by now. And so on.”
“God is faithful,” Thomas said.
“He is.”
“And you're beautiful, and I've never been able to sing that song without hoping I'd hear your voice.”
“But you're going to be staying at the university, and I'm going to be working here.”
“What I've noticed is that her excellency has a fiancé in the same department as I work in.”
“Hathellah's brother, yes. But his parents live not so far away.”
“Oh. I'm sure we can work out something.”
“I hope so.”
“If nothing else, I can put in a little claim nearby and pitch my tent on it.”
“If you threaten to do something that stupid, then I'm going at least make sure you've got some rock over your head. I don't want you irradiated.”
“Thank you, Ursula. Can I ask though, why or how is Hathellah a princess, and what was that about her taking up her crown?”
“Hathellah is the hereditary princess of one race of Mer. She has the right to separate the Mer along racial lines, if for instance, the racial prejudice against us gets too great.”
“'Us'?”
“I'm outer Mer, like Boris. We have no webbing between our toes. When I was growing up, people said Hathellah had died, and so the Mer could not be divided. But kids are cruel, and there's always been far fewer outer Mer than inner Mer. You get called names, learn not to stand out.”
“That's not nice.”
“No. That's part of the reason I went looking for a landman. You weren't going to call me names because of my toes. One boy I was going out with when I was sixteen did, he said he meant what he'd said as a term of endearment.”
“So you dumped him?”
“Actually... I darted him, and pointed out there was nothing he could do to stop me cutting his webs off. Or other parts of his anatomy either, for that matter, then he'd learn all about terms of endearment. That rather ended the relationship. It didn't occur to me that while I'd been thinking about his ear lobes — you know end-EAR-ment — he might have missed the pun and had other thoughts.”
“I presume you got in trouble for that?”
“When I'd repeated what he'd said, the council said that he'd been acting as a shark and I'd every right, even a duty, to defend the unity of of the Mer.”
“The council?”
“Atlantis is ruled by a council, a bit like Mars, only with more history. Actually, it was Karella who made that pronouncement.”
“Your queen is on the council?”
“Our queen was on the council. Then they decided 'oh bother, we need a monarch, all in favour of Karella, right, sorry, you're it'. Only it was a quite a bit more complicated,” Ursula said, then yawned.
“Should we try and get more sleep?”
“Probably. Sleep well, my chosen landman.”
“Sleep well my chosen mermaid. If I may call you that?”
“You may but it rather means we're talking engagement, so I guess you don't mean it.”
“Oh, sorry. May I call you my favourite myth?”
“You don't think I'm real?”
“I keep being afraid I'm going to wake up very disappointed.”
“I know that feeling. Thomas? You don't hear thoughts, do you?”
“No. Do you?”
“No. Another point against my genetics, if you're a nasty school kid.”
“I'm glad you don't. I might lie awake afraid some thought-hearer would come along and play the 'don't be unequally yoked' card.”
“You don't worry about some merman doing the same?”
“I hear that some mermaids actually go looking for landmen.”
She laughed, “good reply,”
“Ursula? May I kiss you goodnight?”
“With us both in our night-clothes? Not the best idea, Thomas.”
“Sorry.”
“You can kiss me good morning when we're both properly dressed though.”
“I'm looking forward to it.”
“Sleep well.”
“You too.”
Thomas was surprised to discover he did sleep well, and he woke as he'd fallen asleep; praising God for answering his prayers of the past few years.
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CHURCH HALL, SUNSOL, 25TH OCTOBER
“Ruth?” Robert asked after the service.
“Yes, Robert?”
“Have your parents said anything?”
“Oh, lots, didn't you hear them talking to Simon, Alice and Heather?” she teased.
“Oh. OK.”
“Mum also told me various things I hoped I knew, that you're a good, kind man, and patient, and you love me very much. And that I love you very much too.”
“You doubted that?”
“Not really, but I sometimes wonder if it's loving to say we should wait. But realistically — there's a strange word from me — there are too many changes happening, too many things that I need to concentrate on.”
“Not a good time to marry, you mean?”
“Exactly. But Robert, they approve. So it's just a normal question now: when? When will we both be able to concentrate on each other? I know I've got too many things on my to-do list, and you have that thesis to finish. Four more chapters, you said?”
“Four more to draft, with charts and graphs and drawings. That's a month there. Then I need to check them, and then the whole lot needs to read through again. I doubt I'll be able to submit it before Christmas, but I guess I might.”
“One good thing about living on Mars,” Ruth said, “is there's no better time for a wedding than any other. Except influx, of course. But I have an idea.”
“Yes?”
“I've now got lots of helpers, so you don't need to be manual labour for me, and I don't need to be either. So, you concentrate on thesis, I concentrate on treaty. We plan for Satursols together, and evenings when you're here. Not building building for the embassy, but talking building for us.”
“Sounds good. And set a date?”
“Shall we take a risk and say New Year's day? Or a week into January?”
“How about we say... a week after thesis and treaty are both done?”
“Treaty signing might take ages. Let's say treaty ready and thesis submitted?”
“Did I hear someone mention the dreaded word?” Simon asked.
“Yes, we're just trying to plan wedding dates,” Ruth said, “and trying to get both thesis and treaty out of the way first.”
“If I may desecrate this Lord's day by making a suggestion, Robert?”
“Yes?”
“Your chapters on future applications of the technology and future studies.... I would personally recommend that you conflate the two, include Boris' questionnaire, admit what everyone knows about us playing catch-up and then just include a few pictures. Say, rock-movers, the comet shredder, a rock cutter in action, that flying submarine, and Albatross 1, analyse them as best you can and then make some sensible guesses about what on Boris's questionnaire is definitely worth studying.”
“That.. sounds plausible. Getting the things small would be great too.”
“Absolutely. Then there's just the issue of an external examiner. Ruth, would you have any kind of academic qualification equivalent to a doctorate in Mer society?”
“Oooh, well, urm, lots of differences.”
“You surprise me.”
“Can I ask you,” Ruth said, “or maybe the university's academic dean or whatever to set out a really detailed list of what someone at the various levels off qualification might be expected to do? Then I can pass it on the Atlantis Academy. Hello Heather, what have you got there?” It was a flat disk of rock — Someone had obviously been using their rock-cutter — and some string, from what she could see.
“From Boris!” Heather announced.
“Oh! It's a spinning disk thing!” Ruth said. “I had one of those when I was little. Can you make it work?”
“Show me?” Heather asked.
“OK, well, hold it in both hands like this and wind it up, and then pull like this and it goes round and round that way and then did you see how I relaxed my hands? We need to let go round and round when it wants to to wind up the string, and then when it stops we pull, and it goes the other way, see? But be careful, because if you let the string go too tight it'll stop and if you let the string go too loose... watch!”
“Oh! It all bunched up like a hedgehog!”
“Exactly,” Ruth agreed.
Robert had a sudden insight, “Ruth, what's the smallest hedgehog forcefield you know of?”
“The smallest? I guess you could turn it down to an atom, why?”
He looked at Simon in triumph and said, “Simon, I think we've been doing it wrong.”
“Pardon?”
“We've seen that before you get the forcefield you get the plasma, and then been trying to get the plasma smaller. I'd like to spend a few days trying putting various things that will let electrons go in circles without there being a plasma in the first place.”
“Go ahead, Robert.” Simon said, “Go ahead! That sounds like very original research to me. It might also solve that efficiency issue we had.” The Mer forcefield generator had proven to be significantly more efficient than their version, especially at low powers.
“Robert?” Ruth said.
“Yes, Ruth?”
“Do let me know if you need any raw materials, OK? I'm not giving any hints, but you know, if you want to try gold or silver I've got those trade goods I could cut slivers off for you, and Boris brought the alchemy set. Don't go postponing my wedding for a week waiting for a piece of pure plutonium or whatever. Not that I want you anywhere near plutonium.”
“So I can cross plutonium off the list?”
“OK, I will give you a some hints, don't bother testing radioactive things, impure things, non-conductors, unobtainable exotic things, or any gases. And remember what I've told you about our history.”
“Your history?”
“Don't go wasting your time testing stuff we couldn't get hold of.”
“Ruth, have you just told Robert he's going to find something that'll work?”
“I am sworn not to give away secrets of the deep, Simon. I don't think it's great secret that our attempts at shrinking fusion reactors from the monster that drives Atlantis let us stumble on sea-urchins, or hedgehogs as you call them, around a thousand years ago. It shouldn't be a secret that people have died experimenting with them. The first time someone created a spike, it went through their wife's arm, and almost breached the dome of Atlantis. Research was banned except on remote islands. The first time someone created the disk, it cut almost everyone on the island in half. I can't remember what the first cone did.”
“Cut a tree in half.” Boris said, gliding up, “it just missed the experimenter, but smashed their equipment and that then caused a nasty fire. That sort of thing is why Karella got me to talk to you, Simon.”
“I wondered if I'd find out who it was. Thank you.”
“Thank you for listening. Do you like the disk, Heather?”
“Too heavy.”
“Oh, shall I cut away some bits we don't need then?”
“Yes please!”
“Well done, Heather!” Simon said, “very politely said.”
“Boris is nice. Boris is helping Daddy and Thingumy.”
“Shhh, Heather,” Boris said, “Don't give away secrets, now can you put the disk on the floor and make the string go in a circle underneath it like I'm thinking of?”
“Yes.”
“Well done, now hold your daddy's hand and keep away from the light.”
“Pretty!” Heather said, as Boris cut a series of triangles out of the disk.
When he'd finished, Ruth took one look at the pattern and laughed. “Come on Boris, you rascal! I want to talk to you and Hathie, and we need to leave these two physicists to work out if that's a clue, a map of Atlantis or just pretty. Let it cool down before you touch the stone, Heather, it might be hot. Robert, love, you can find somewhere to put all those nice sharp fragments of stone, can't you?”
“I'm sure I can. You're saying it's a clue?”
“No. I'm saying it's pretty, isn't it Heather?”
“Pretty!” Heather agreed, and laughed.
Robert looked at his beloved leave in high spirits, and back at the pattern. It was certainly a regular pattern, and looked perfectly centred on the disk. He had no idea how Boris had managed to cut it so precisely. Was it something the rock-cutter was pre-programmed to make?
“I think this might just be a big joke, Robert. To me it looks really like that giant cog wheel in Atlantis.”
“I thought it looked familiar. But that cog wheel is like the street plan of Atlantis too, isn't it?” Robert asked.
“Oh great, I didn't know that.” Simon said, “If it were a clue, you know what else it might be?”
“Some kind of lattice structure?”
“I was thinking so.”
“I wonder how significant crystal structures are as part of Atlantis education and culture,” Robert said.
“They do produce some amazing alloys,” Simon pointed out, “and they've got some ridiculously powerful magnets, according to something Alice read.”
“Yes. But it might not be a clue at all.”
“It's pretty!“, Heather insisted.
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MESSAGE TO PROF. FINDHORN BUNTING. MONSOL, 26TH OCTOBER
Dear Simon,
Last night, I thought about what Ruth had told me about their history, and available metals. They've had gold, silver, aluminium and some copper. I remember her saying that pure iron was been something they've prized and used in manufacturing, but never used in construction based on my memory of that conversation. So I decided to try that after Aluminium and silver went airborne and gold just seemed to get hot. I've just observed the attached hedgehog establishing itself, at a diameter of quarter of a millimeter, and drive parameters exactly matching the Atlantis device.
Given the enormous military potential of too much research in this field, and the aid we got from Boris and Ruth, I feel that our present paper in Adv.Space.Res should continue as planned, and that this 'low power modification' should be kept as thesis-only work at the moment. I wonder if you would concur?
I don't actually see it as very useful for research facilities such as ours and publishing it would probably encourage dangerous experimentation in ill-equipped facilities.
Also, of course it would put Mars University ahead in any commercial applications of the technology. Is it wrong to think we should keep this to ourselves?
Robert.
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MESSAGE TO ROBERT YOUNG, MONSOL, 26TH OCTOBER
Dear Robert,
Hindering the research of others into methods of killing people does not seem like a very wrong motive to me, and it is common practice for a research thesis that contains dangerous results to be marked as restricted and only published in an amended form. I am sure the university will be in agreement with me on this matter.
I therefore suggest you write your thesis accordingly, mention the 'low power modification' that the Atlantis scientists have obviously identified, and keep your tentative identification of it to a short chapter on its own. Even if it was found advisable to publish, it's never wise to base a paper on a single result, is it? I feel that the present constraints on your time and funding do not present you with the opportunity to study this matter in the depth required to bring it to the point of publication.
Simon
p.s. If you want another motive beyond the potential commercial and military ones, I am quite sure that Thomas and Ursula would NOT be pleased if we were to publish information that would allow his professors at Luna University to call him back there.
p.p.s. As you know, many universities form spin-off research and development companies. It strikes me that your leaning is very much in this direction, as opposed to pure science (correct me if I'm wrong!) and I would not hesitate in the least to suggest to the relevant department that your work form the basis of such a one. As I understand the concept, this would mean that while becoming a commercial company, with salaries paid etc, there would continue to be a strong link with the university research group, joint publications, etc. There might be strong motivation for such an enterprise to also have representation from Atlantis on the staff, and it be considered some kind of joint venture.
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LETTER TO MRS WHITE, JERSEY. MONSOL, 26TH OCTOBER
Dear Mrs White,
I am sad to say that two members of the crew of the Albatross 3 spacecraft, failed to treat your son Thomas as an honoured guest. More precisely, in reply to your son's natural curiosity about how the craft was constructed and functioned, rather than a polite refusal to divulge what we are forced to consider military secrets, they made various threats if he asked again.
The humiliating nature of the threatened actions were such that I was fully able to expect that your son would form an image of my people as barbarian savages. I publicly reprimanded them, and suggested what I felt was an appropriate level of damages. As what I take as a genuine sign of their contrition at their behaviour, they have gone beyond what I asked and as well as promising to have these rubies (which they collected from the ocean floor a few years ago) delivered, they have also promised to have them cut and mounted as well. Thomas then stated that they should be give to you as a gift.
I write to you this note from Mars, but have every confidence that these young women will not fail to uphold their promise.
I perhaps should point out that it is common knowledge among us where you should go to find such stones, and while the guilty young women won't have made many such trips, once swimming in the right area finding them is only slightly harder than walking on the sea-shore and finding a perfect and undamaged shell; perhaps you will look all day in vain, and then find two in an hour.
Ruth Emilia Matthew,
Ambassador of Atlantis to Mars.
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