GENTLEMEN, WE HAVE COMPANY
Tom Mazanec
 
Tuesday June 12, 2012 press release

NASA today announced that the Hubble Space Telescope has
detected a satellite of the dwarf planet Ceres. The
satellite, provisionally named S/2012 (1) 1, appears to be
highly elongated, approximately 30 kilometers long, and
revolves around Ceres once every 3.12 hours.

From the Bad Astronomy and Universe Today forum June 12, 2012

WTF!? Ceres could not have a satellite even 1 km in diameter
and not have it be discovered years ago. What in the name of
Galileo Galilei is going on here?
 
Friday June 15, 2012

Message delivered in eastern Liberia over every radio on all
frequencies in local languages:
"This area has been chosen for ur-species collection of
Liberiictis kuhni for uplift. Any attempt to interfer with
collection process will be met with lethal force."
Message is repeated every minute throughout day.
 
************************************************************
 
Saturday June 16, 2012

A 7 meter tall cone enters the Earth's atmosphere over
eastern Liberia, but veers off towards the Atlantic. It
flies over the ocean, trailing a blinding blue-white flame
and a sonic boom as the hypersonic rocket streaks toward the
northwest. Approaching Miami, Florida, it turns around and
lands on the beach, making a round patch of mucus colored
glass under it when the flame goes out.
A cluster of police cars soon arrive, as they try to hold
back the crowd of curiosity seekers already gathering. Out
of the cone comes a voice repeating over and over "We seek
political asylum."
 
*********************************************************
  
Officer Ted Lucas came out of the police car and walked up
to the cone. "What is that thing? Who the hell are you?" he
said into the bullhorn.
"We are time travelers from 3007 AD. We seek political
asylum in the United States. We have critical information
for your nation."
"What are you here for? What critical information do you
mean?"
"We came to Earth from an O'Neill Cylinder in orbit about
the asteroid Ceres. Our mission was to find and take several
Liberian mongooses from Liberia to Ritchtikcyl, the
cylinder, for genetic engineering. I am Kappa Janrin 3939
Crossarchus, the pilot of this craft. Lambda Gabmor 871
Crossarchus is a guard on this vessel and, like me, is a
member of the Beneist Underground. He shot the other guard
in the leg with his laser and we took over this shuttle and
landed here.
Will you grant us asylum?"
Lucas did not understand half of what he had heard, and he
did not like the half he did understand. "You shot someone?
You took over the UFO? You're aliens or something?"
"We are from the future. No, we are not extraterrestrials,
but we are not human either. We are Mammaloids, specifically
cusimanses. Our cylinder contains almost 3 million Mammaloid
mongooses of 12 genera, half Crossarchus. It is here to
colonise and develop your solar system. We two are here in
America to help your species have a position in the future
of the solar system."
"You're here to take people into space, you say, Mr.
Crossarchus?"
"Do not refer to me by my genus name. To refer to a
Mammaloid soley by his genus name is insulting, like calling
him a toon. Call me Kappa Janrin. And me and Lamda Gabmor
are here to help humanity have a place in the future better
than what our government has in mind. They intend to leave
humanity trapped on Earth as a reservation, while they grow
our population into the quintillions and become a Kardeshev
2 civilization. As Beneists we wish a solar system of
thousands of uplifted animal genera, both mammal and
otherwise, with your species on an equal footing. Do we have
sanctuary?"
"I'll have to take you to the station. They will have to
straighten this out."
"Very well." A few moments later an opening irised in the
side of the cone, and a ramp flowed down to the ground. Down
came three creatures, the ones on the side holding up the
middle one. They were dressed in silvery iridescent
uniforms, with a helmet globing their heads. Those heads
were covered by dark fur, with long snouts.
Ted Lucas thought "Shit! This is going to be a mountain of
paperwork!"
 
************************************************************
 
"I am detective Armstrong. What is your, ah, name?"
"Call me Kappa Janrin. Are you related to Neil Armstrong?"
"No. And I ask the questions. First, what the hell are you?"
"I am a time traveler from the 31st Century. I am also a
genetically engineered Mammaloid."
"Mammaloid? What is a Mammaloid?"
"We were created to be slave soldiers in World War Three.
The first Mammaloids were conceived in 2019, the last year
of the war. We fought another war with humanity in the
2090s, when a theocracy in America tried to exterminate us.
Humanity lost. Hard. We fought yet another war in the 2160s,
which humanity lost again, even harder. We lived in space
and mankind lived under the Earth's surface after this war.
We developed the solar system and kept humanity trapped on
Earth. Meanwhile, an anonymous poster placed 365 poems in
Esperanto on the Web, one each day, in 2039. The poster
claimed to be channeling God. I believe this. I am a
Beneist...a Sky Beneist."
"Sky Beneist?"
"Lalibro 157 speaks of punishment after death for sins. I
believe this is temporary. Star Beneists believe it is
permanent. By this time we had turned Mercury into two Dyson
Hemispheres around the sun as an ultimate power source...and
weapon, controlled from Mars. In the 23rd Century there was
a 12 year civil war on Mars, over what to use the weapon
for, mere deterence or destruction of Homo sapiens. The
deterence side, who respected humanity as our creators,
won."
Detective Armstrong shook his head. "You mean,
we...made...things like you? Big, talking dogs or
something?"
"I am a cusimanse Mammaloid. There are no dog 
Mammaloids...genus Canis is represented by Canis latrans,
the coyote. Others are beavers, kangaroos, aardvarks,
pangolins, deer...hundreds of species. But all the
Mammaloids who have traveled to this century, into this
particular timebranch, are members of the mongoose family."
"Hoax. This has to be a hoax."
Janrin reached up and removed his helmet. He bent over the
table and opened his mouth in Armstrong's face. He closed
his mouth and said "Feel." The mouth just twitched, and the
voice came from an object on a collar ound Janrin's neck,
Armstrong could tell with the thing so close to him. Again
the mouth opened. Armstrong felt the sharp fangs and soft,
moist tongue.
Janrin sat back down and closed his mouth. "The Third World
War, in the previous timebranch, began in 2013, after the
Islamist Summer led to the Second Oil Boycott and the
Hyperdepression. The war saw 20 mushroom clouds in that
timebranch. In this one, it might see 20,000."
"War? You're going to attack us?"
"The authorities on Ritchtikcyl do not intend to actually
attack you unless you attempt to expand into space on a more
determaned course than you are taking now. But they intend
to take biological samples of the 99% of present species
that were exterminated in the Second Human-Mammaloid War to
place in the Bishop Rings and McKendree Cylinders they
intend to build. Any interference will be met by lethal
force"
"Then what war are you talking about next year?"
"In the original timebranch China and the Muslim nations
cooperated in trying to put the West 'in its place.' The war
that resulted killed 100 million humans, and gave birth to
my people. In this timebranch, it could start tomorrow,
since we have traveled here and introduced alterations in
the situation..."
"And you want to kill or enslave us or something? Or what?"
"I do not want to harm you. I am a member of the Beneist
Underground...although some of us are Christians. Both
religions are proscribed on Ritchtikcyl. Our government is
not exactly at war with your world, but it is not exactly at
peace either. It wants humans restricted to Earth, while us
mongooses colonize the Solar System, the Galaxy and
ultimately, the Universe. On the other hand, I want to
uplift the hundreds of mammal genera on this world into
Mammaloids, as well as thousands of non-mammals. I want a
chorus of voices spanning the Cosmos, with yours as one,
instead of the twelve on the Ritchtikcyl and the two which
became extinct before they could be uplifted."
"And how do you propose to accomplish this?"
"I must speak to someone in authority, in your federal
government. As soon as possible. I do not know what is
happenning on Ritchtikcyl. I only knew of the few members of
the underground in my cell. But me and another were on that
shuttle to Earth, and we succeeded in taking control. With
this disruption in their plans, the government on
Ritchtikcyl will try to react, while the underground tries
to take control. The cylinder may be destroyed in the
struggle, or one side or the other may win. In case the
authorities win, I must try to help your race advance as
fast as possible. The shuttle contains a nanofab to create
artifacts. Me and Lambda Gabmor will try to help you use it
to advance your technology. It is your best slim hope."
"I'll be glad to hand this hot potato over to the Feds."
Armstrong picked up the phone and began pressing keys.
 
************************************************************
  
Monday June 18, 2012

Lambda Gabmor looked at the FBI agent across the desk. "I
will give you all the assistance I can. Kappa Janrin is
more experienced with the nanofab than I am, but I can help.
Your government has possession of our laser pistols...you
can try reverse engineering it. The nanofab will not produce
one, or any other military grade weapons."
"Was that what happened to the other one? His leg was nearly
blown off."
"Yes. Steam explosion, from boiling blood. A laser pistol
will leave a finger sized fulgarite in sand. The power cells
in that big handle will give 9 shots."
"Can you reload it?"
"It is easier to change the handle. Soldiers also have
backpack power cells with power cords to larger 2 handed
lasers, that can fire 99 shots or 9 high-power ones."
"How do we know your guns are not booby-trapped?"
"They are not, to my knowledge. That is a good question. I
know the larger ones are. You may want to study them
by volunteers in an isolated laboratory."
"And you are here to invade Earth? Nuke us?"
"We are not here to invade Earth, but we are here to invade
the rest of the Solar System. We used nearly 100,000 cobalt
bombs in the Second War, but we would not use such weapons
here...we value Earth's biosphere too much. If your species
proves too troublesome, we will likely use replicative
nanobots...inorganic viruses. There are four we have that I
know of...Golgotha, Gehenna, Gomorrah and Gotterdamerung.
There may be more. Computer simulations project they would
kill eight or even nine out of every ten humans in four to
six weeks."
"You hate humans that much?"
"I do not hate humans. Edward Langley and Justin Marino were
humans. But the government of Ritchtikcyl has no love of
humans. They will only tolerate them as long as they stay in
their place."
"Who were Langley and Marino?"
"Langley was the geneticist who devised the Z chromosome
that turns mammals into Mammaloids. Marino was the biologist
who developed the method of gestating the very first
Mammaloids in wombs of other species...cows, at first. Later
we were grown in artificial wombs, then by normal sexual
reproduction among ourselves."
"What do you intend for us?"
"I want a Solar System Civilization of thousands of terragen
species, of which Homo sapiens is one in equality, numbering
a quintillion. The Alpha and Betas of Ritchtikcyl want
fourteen mongoose genera to number a quintillion, with
cusimanses more equal than others, and humans in their few
billions trapped on Earth."
"Cusimanses? What are those? And what do you mean 'more
equal'?"
"Since Alpha Baldab 84 Helogale and his disasterous New
Economic System, all Alphas and Betas have been cusimanses.
That is my species. We make up just over half the population
of Ritchtikcyl and just about all important positions. Some
of us call other mongooses 'stubnoses'. The others call us
'flutesnoots' when they can get away with it."
"You are going to enforce some new economic system on us?"
"Not even the Alpha would do that to you. When it was
instituted, we issued money in denominations of 1 to 500
munits. Ten months later, we issued kilomunits. In 14 months
megamunits. In 17 months gigamunits. A month more and we had
teramunits. Two weeks later petamunits. After nine days
examunits and five days zettamunits and three days
yottamunits. The following day he was impeached and deposed."
"You know that in some detail."
"I was taught that in some detail. Probably to convince me
how stupid other mongoose species are. Of course, most
cusimanses were stupid enough to vote for him as well."
"But I am supposed to believe that you two are different?'
"We are. I do not know how to prove that to you, except our
gifts of technology we have given you. If me and Kappa
Janrin wished to harm you, we would not tell you of the
antipathy of our rulers. Do you have any other proposed
method to assure our cooperation?"
"No. And we have to do something fast...we tried to cover
you up, but the videos of your ship have gone viral, and
conflicting cover stories have only fanned the flames. We
will have to trust you, I am afraid."

The DJIA dropped 1293.42 points that day, forcing the
closure of the Exchange.
 
************************************************************
 
Tuesday June 19, 2012

"At this rate, I should meet the President in a few more
days."
The representative from the State Department smiled
slightly. "Perhaps." he said. "But what we have to cover now
is this war you said will start next year. You say 20 nukes
will be used?"
"I don't know when or even if the war will start in this
altered timebranch, but in the original one, North Korea
destroyed Seoul and America destroyed Pyongyang, Israel used
two nukes on its own territory to stop Muslim Coalition
forces, Pakistan used seven nukes in Kashmir, followed by
seven nukes by India, and China cynically took out Guam, at
which the United States nuked Xiamen only although China had
already established Fuzhou as a backup base. The Coalition
also created an enhanced smallpox virus using interleukin-4,
but the result was so virulent it killed before it could
become contagious."
"And you fought two wars with Mankind?"
"America had a second space age in the mid-21st century...a
couple asteroid missions, a Mars expedition and, most
important, a Moon base. But a defect in the recycling system
poisoned the Base's air. Instead of recrewing the base with
humans, the United States used "disposable" Mammaloids.
Later, America was taken over by a Theocracy which tried to
kill all Mammaloids. It even attacked other nations that did
not turn over any Mammaloids in their territory. All except
Israel, which they held specially blessed by the Bible. On
Earth, only those Mammaloids who made it to Israel, or were
successfully hidden in other nations, survived. But when
America attacked the Moon, a gamma ray laser destroyed the
invaders. Then a tesla cannon, a giant mass driver,
bombarded American cities until the country collapsed. It
would be as if the Warsaw Ghetto invented nuclear bombs and
ICBMs and destroyed the Third Reich."
"And the other war?"
"Some of us loved humans, those who survived on Earth
through the heroism of humans who protected us especially.
But many lunar Mammaloids hated humanity, and vowed to
destroy it. The leader of the moon was a female hyena named
Meega-13 Crocuta. She became increasingly vicious as the
decades passed, even as the remaining Mammaloid population
of Earth was evacuated to the Moon. We began secretly
colonizing asteroids, tricking humanity into thinking we
were colonizing the dwarf planet Ceres. Tensions rose. Many
humans sought safety underground. Then war broke out when a
giant meteorite took out Sydney, Australia, and we were
blamed for it. In fact, we were responsible...a secret
project had diverted the meteoroid toward Earth. A team of
Mammaloid astronomers discovered this, and announced this.
Meega killed them, and a riot broke out. Alpha Meega called
out for killing all Mammaloids from Earth, and shooting any
within reach with her laser, until her bodyguard shot her.
But the war was on. We killed the 60% of humanity on the
Earth's surface, as well as any animal bigger than a rat.
"Mad Meega" so shocked the population that we almost called
off the genocide, but a human battleship found one of our
colonies and destroyed it, radicalizing us again. Over
several decades we had turned Mercury into a Dyson sphere
around the Sun, with an equatorial gap for the planets. We
used this as a laser to vaporize Pluto, then demanded Earth
surrender or be destroyed, using the same language as our
ultimatum that the Theocracy rejected. But this time, Earth
surrendered. The next century the population of Mars was
reduced from 50 million to 5 million in twelve years in a
Civil War over whether to end humanity, but the Quilt of
Life won over the Exterminators. Then over several
centuries, we converted Venus into a trillion O'Neill
Cylinders and populated them with a quintillion Mammaloids.
We had planned to transform humanity into Mammaloids at one
time, but when we had the ability we forbore, no longer
afraid of a species we outnumbered 100 million to one."
"Quilt of Life?"
"The pro-human faction, although even that faction, at the
time, kept humanity "contained" on a planet made a
Protectorate.. But it was a close thing. The Quilt of Life
only won the critical battle of Pavonis Mons, with its
control of the Dyson Sphere, because of the superiority of
the Exterminators weapons. If the base had fallen for even a
few hours, Earth would have been turned into a giant comet."
"You mean superiority of the Quilt's weapons, don't you?"
"There is an old story about a space war won through the
superiority of the losing side's weapons. As one example
from the Martian Civil War, the Quilt of Life used bullets
guided by infrared, which tended to hit the target in the
torso. The Exterminators used radar and computerized pattern
recognition in their bullets, targeting the head. Brain
impact was more damaging to the soldier than body impact.
But the bullets were fragile and expensive. The
Exterminators did not have nearly as many as did the Quilt
of Life, and most of those malfunctioned when they were
fired in real field conditions."
"And one of those cylinders traveled to the past?"
"Billions of cylinders have traveld to neighboring stars.
Millions have traveled into the past, some as far as the
time of Christ. We intended to come about 1950, but for some
reason arrived in 2010, and spent two years 'catching up'
with the sun's motion."
"But we have never seen any other cylinders. They must have
failed, been destroyed."
"Each cylinder traveling into the past creates a unique
alternate timebranch. You would not see any of the earlier,
or later, arrivals. Any timeships coming now, if there ever
are any, would be from our altered future."
"Dear God. Well, I'll warn the President about-"
A man walked in the room "Sir" he said, handing over a
paper, "I have urgent news. Three spacecraft have just taken
up geosynchronous orbit around Earth from the direction of
Ceres."
 
************************************************************
 
Kappa Janrin, Lambda Gabmor, a human General and several
human guards entered the radio room. The technician said
"They have been broadcasting to every radio in the Florida
peninsula for over an hour, demanding to talk to you two and
someone named Lambda Balrog 69 Crossarchus. We have modified
a satellite dish to transmit to the vessel above the United
States."
Kappa Janrin took the microphone. "This is Kappa Janrin. Me
and Lambda Gabmor took over the shuttle and took it to
America. Lambda Balrog was injured in the takeover. We have
sought political asylum in the United States."
"This is Kappa Vortek 211 Crossarchus. You are to return to
the Ritchtikcyl in your shuttle."
"Kappa Vortek, look. We will return Lambda Balrog in the
shuttle. He will lose his leg if he does not get placed into
a chrysalis machine for regeneration. But what do we face in
Ritchtikcyl? Death?"
"Alpha Negnor is not Mad Meega. He does not intend to kill
anyone who opposes him. Besides, he was surprised by the
scale of the uprising. Over a tenth of the cusimanses on
Ritchtikcyl turned out to be Beneists or Christians, and
over a third of the other genera. To kill that many means
civil war, and on a cylinder that means death for
everybody."
"Do you still intend to keep humanity trapped on Earth?"
"For now. Janrin, we cannot let them off planet now anyway.
They are less than a year before the Black Easter attack on
South Korea that started the Genesis War in the original
timebranch. Yes, things will be different this timebranch,
but this is still a species on the edge of war. We will not
allow them into space for now. If that shuttle is not
returned, I am authorised to destroy it with a nuclear
missile."
"General Masterson, you will have to allow Balrog to take
the shuttle back to Ritchtikcyl. They do not want you to
reverse engineer its propulsion, which would open up the
Solar System to humanity. If you don't, they will take out
half of Florida. And Balrog needs his leg regenerated."
Janrin clicked the microphone again. "The shuttle and Lambda
Balrog will be returned. Me and Lambda Gabmor will remain on
Earth."
"You have one hour to comply."
Janrin turned to General Masterson. "You must see to it
immediately. He is not bluffing about wanting that shuttle
back. Have you succeeded in replicating the nanofab?"
"We just completed assembling the components when I came to
get you." said General Masterson.
"You can replicate the nanofab as I showed you. Then you can
double the number each day, if you obtain the chemical
feedstock. You need the 12 elements I listed, but they can
be in any chemical compound form. Theoretically you could
give each family on Earth a nanofab in a month. It will take
longer in practice, but still far faster than in the
original timebranch, when it took most of the century to
develop the nanofab. Then the families can nanofacture
anything in the nanofab's catalog out of common materials.
You will have to be careful introducing this
technology...the social and economic stress of nanofacture
was a contributing factor in the rise of the Theocracy in
your nation."
"Will your people tolerate us having nanofab?" asked General
Masterson.
"I believe so. They are really just concerned with keeping
you out of space. They also do not want you to start a
global war, at least until they have obtained specimens of
genus Dologale and Liberiictis to gengineer into Mammaloids,
since such a war could result in their extinction earlier
than before. Nanofabs will make your civilization solar
powered, lowering the oil boycott power of the Arabs, making
war a little less likely. But you will have to abandon space
beyond the Moon's orbit for at least awhile. The government
does not want a human Koshmarego, especially after so many
citizens turned out to belong to the Underground, but they
will not stop at plagues killing six billion instead of
seven billion if they feel threatened by the Human Race. And
remember that this is the same century as the Theocracy.
There are religious fanatics in Christianity and Islam now,
whose grandchildren tried to annihilate the Mammaloids.
Maybe, if me and Gabmor can help you avoid our Genesis War,
your World War Three, humanity will have a future in the
Milky Way. Then maybe the future of the galaxy will be a
chorus of 15,000 sapient genera, instead of 15. But for now,
let's try to stop World War Three."
General Masterson nodded. "Yes, let's try." he said.
 

DRIZZLE DRAZZLE DRUZZLE DROME
TIME FOR THIS ONE TO COME HOME