A pure fractal made in Apophysis 2.09
While my uncle did his diplomatic work on Sultruviam to great result, the full fleet admiral who had pulled him into an ambassador's role continued in the thankless task he had on the Ventanan frontier – since Acting Ambassador Benjamin Banneker forever was justifying the new honors given him and this could not be gainsaid, Admiral Chenggis Chulalaangkorn always ended up receiving the blowback for all this and everything else that upside the settled order of how powerful interests expected things to go.
On top of all that, Chenggis Chulalaangkorn had “an attitude problem.”
“As many humans do, I enjoy a cup of coffee with breakfast,” he said once in an interview. “I personally love the salt tears of my loud but powerless enemies as a condiment. I cannot be outranked in my fleet, and my word is law on the Ventanan frontier. I can be recalled by the high command of the consortium then, if that was going to happen, it would have, and it won't, because people who can do the job and people my age who would not retire outright upon being asked and enjoy the biggest pension in the fleet are few. There are only eight full fleet admirals available. Of course, I do not have any expectation that the people complaining have any understanding of how things in the galaxy and the consortium actually work – but I appreciate how they keep my coffee from ever being bitter.”
“With all due respect, sir,” my uncle said to the senior officer in rank, “that was a perhaps just a little mean.”
“I know,” the full fleet admiral said, with a cold smile. “That's why I have you making the lateral move to diplomat while I keep that worth doing for humanity out here.”
The other thing was, Adm. Chulalaangkorn was actually fabulous in what he did, as illustrated by a spectacular rescue he pulled off of some consortium members kidnapped by a frontier crime syndicate before the syndicate even thought to present their ransom demands.
“Oh, you want the consortium to pay you ransom for these people here?” he said and then showed them all on screen. “I don't think so – but thank you for your exact coordinates. We already have you triangulated, but this way, we don't have to wreck any more planets than necessary. Prepare to meet thy gods.”
He let ten seconds of preparation hang in the air, and then called all his ships and had them fire at will, ridding the Ventanan frontier of a scourge for which the consortium would be thanked and joined by many planets.
The admiral's enemies were dumbfounded by this, and looked for something to criticize, but he in his public statements did not even bother to explain – “That's all classified, not for the public to know,” he said to the press. “We got done what we needed to get done, and if that doesn't impress you, that's your problem, not ours.”
But to my uncle, he explained, beginning with handing him a card with the image above.
“This is the legitimate image of one of the rulers of Thraournsibee,” he said. “One has to put on one's wading boots to wade into His Majesty's presence, and they have to be thick rubber because otherwise one will be electrocuted by his personal charge in the fluid emanating from him.
“In the region of space around Thraournsibee, to about a parsec, the rulers of that planet are represented in art to stand for many things that must be prepared for and cannot be changed. It also so happens that in that parsec, many have suffered much from that crime syndicate that we have now destroyed, and there was great fear there.
“However, the reason I have had the matter classified is because I am not assailable by the few survivors of the consortium who want revenge, but the artist who is among their own families would be murdered had it been known what he had done to give me a human clue – a clue that would not mean anything to his own race of being unless they knew what this would suggest in the human mind.”
He showed the artwork to my uncle, who considered it carefully.
A composite image of the same pure fractal made in four different palettes in Apophysis 2.09
“A ruling quartet of Thraournsibeen majesty, to the local eye, of course, seated as they can because they sort of flow over each other,” Uncle Benjamin said.
“Yet it is a very human clue,” Adm. Chulalaangkorn said, and then said nothing as my uncle looked at the other portrait. “I'll give you the same clue that was given to me; we are in ourselves the fifth of four. The young artist has done his study of human philosophy.”
“The four elements: earth, wind, water, and fire,” my uncle said, “and man, being composed of all four and possessing the ability to reason, is the quintessence in that manner of thinking.”
“Yes,” Adm. Chulalaangkorn said. “And so, as reason continues along the line of what I was trying to do … .”
Uncle Benjamin considered the two pictures a little more, and then pulled up a map of the known planets of the Ventanan frontier.
“Earth over wind … water over fire … the moon of Ghulium, a windy desert moon orbiting the great ocean planet with its thousands of volcanoes that someday will give it continents … dust in the wind … oceans over volcanoes.”
Adm. Chulalaangkorn smiled.
“Exactly right,” he said. “That's how I was able to do that rescue so soon, and also determine the headquarters of the syndicate so quickly.”
“I imagine you know this region of space so well you were able to figure it out even faster,” Uncle Benjamin said.
“You are very kind, my friend,” Adm. Chulalaangkorn said with a chuckle. “I got lost on the fifth of four because you know how I hate bad number work – it took me a little while to work that back into Mongolian and Thai in my mind as quintessence, going through the concepts of the qi or dao more common in Asian thought.”
“The disadvantage of Standard for universal translation favoring languages affected more by Latin than the Asian family of languages,” my uncle said.
“The advantage,” Adm. Chulalaangkorn said, “of being born well past the end of Earth's foolishness around certain knowledge only being for people who are in one region and one language group.”
“Indeed,” the man of mahogany hue said to the man in golden bronze hue, “and so everyone got home safely except the syndicate.”
“Oh, they did too,” the senior officer said grimly. “I gave them ten seconds to confess and repent to whoever they needed to, and then, they went to whatever home their cosmology allowed for them. As you know, I always do a thorough job – everyone is exactly where they are supposed to be!”
“Remind me,” Uncle Benjamin, “to stay on the good side of your thoroughness, Chenggis.”
“Oh, you're stuck, Benjamin,” Adm. Chulalaangkorn said. “You are set in your excellent ways, and so, you're stuck on the sunny side, a fact for which we both have cause to be very glad!”