“It's just not every day that an admiral has to go rein in an ambassador.”
“Well, Benjamin, if there is anyone who can do it, you can.”
The issue: the consortium had sent out an ambassador at last to Sultruviam, and he had made this remark semi-publicly: “Well, we need to negotiate with the top people on the planet – on Earth we humans clearly are, but I suppose the humanoids of Sultruviam just don't have it like that.”
The Solar System does not have any known plasma-based creatures with whom humanity has developed a beneficial relationship – Earth is perfectly habitable as it is, a rarity among rarities in the galaxy.
Because of human nature, there will always be a tension between recognizing things for which humanity should be grateful, and seeing things as a reason to feel unjustly arrogant.
The carbon-based, sentient, human-like Sultruviamin run all the affairs of their world – they were the appropriate sentient beings to negotiate with.
But because the ambassador in question saw the Guardians who keep Sultruviam habitable as more powerful, he naturally assumed that the humanoid Sultruviamin were weaker, and in some way inferior to humanity.
Far more dangerous than that, of course, for humanity, was the assumption that humanity and the Guardians are anywhere near the same level in power.
“One Sultruviamin Guardian could rip a hole through Earth's atmosphere the size of North America in half a second,” Adm. Benjamin Banneker said. “It does not pay to be insulting the ones they guard, or to come thinking we can get away with that!”
“And if anyone in the galaxy can get across the bigger issues than just the Sultruviamin joining the Earth-led consortium, you can,” the admiral's fiancee, Capt. Almira Jackson said. “Because you know if I go do it, I'm just going to tell him to go sit down and take Ambassadoring 101 again, because what he said ain't it, and you know that if Adm. Chulalaangkorn has to go do it, there won't be enough left of that man beside a whining, sniveling mess to actually do the job.”
I was present to assist my uncle for his pre-meeting research; since I was a captain on active duty in the middle of my career (unlike Capt. Jackson, who was just out of retirement for this one mission), he was not going to let me be anywhere around this confrontation.
However, the confrontation was never going to happen, and the ambassador was going to get the check he so desperately needed, because the meeting he wanted was going to happen, though not when he expected it.
“We all forgot the Guardians are telepathic,” my uncle said when he discussed what happened. “They knew already what was going on, and were not about to have it – they sent their ambassador to set the record straight!
If ever anything like the being pictured above comes to set you straight, best believe you will be set straight – it was beautifully and yet firmly done, for all time, by the gorgeous creature you see above. Her voice was as impressive a contralto as you would expect of such a queenly, powerful creature.
“She started out by reciting humanity's space history back to the 20th century and reminded the ambassador that the best his ancestors did after getting to the moon and Mars in the mid-21st century was to put so much space junk up that it became impossible to achieve even low earth orbit. The Vulcans had to come get us out and give us warp drive so we could get out of the Solar System – so humanity is actually far behind most civilizations in the galaxy.
“ 'Just because we who know your history let you lead something in the galaxy doesn't mean we don't know how you really are,' she said. 'We are letting you have the responsibility it will take so that when the Redeemer comes, you are actually ready to be stewards of the universe. Someday, under the Redeemer, you will indeed be righteous stewards, but that day clearly is not yet. You are a bipedal made of the dust of your planet even as our charges are, except that you are dust stuck on yourself, and therefore, your name is mud in the universe and your fate is to become dust lost in space when you forget your limits. Be content to negotiate with beings on your own level, and stop pretending you are higher than you are, human. You are a steward. You are not running anything you are not being allowed to run. Beware, as Adm. Banneker does, lest we of the galaxy change our minds on your allowance.' ”
“Ouch,” I said.
“She said it loud, too,” my uncle said, “so then an inquiry was started – the ambassador has been recalled, and is on his way back to Earth to pick up on those Ambassadoring 101 lessons.”
“I told y'all!” Capt. Jackson said.
“In the meantime,” Uncle Benjamin said, “the inevitable has occurred. I have been serving in the capacity and now it is official: I will be serving as interim ambassador, since both sentient Sultruviamin species now refuse to work with anyone else.”
“That means we have two weeks to get all this worked out before we have to get back to the other side of making sure humanity's license isn't revoked,” I said.
“I see what you mean now, Benjamin,” my future Aunt Almira said. “It's not something you ever think about, but we do have to be careful on a whole different level, because there are beings out here ready to put us in park in the Solar System permanently and they can do it! But like I said, you are the man for the job, all the way around.”
Uncle Benjamin smiled.
“I'm glad I'm blessed to have the women around me for the job, too,” he said. “Humanity needs all the help it can get – and speaking of which, Captain Niece, if you can ask Captain Nephew to pull together a business prospectus of the advantages for Sultruviam for joining the consortium so I can compare it the planetary department's documents, I'd appreciate it.”
“On it,” I said.
“So this is how the consortium gets its first embassy staffed,” Capt. Jackson said with a shake of the head.
“Well, you know how it is, Almira,” Uncle Benjamin said. “We humans do the best we can, as we can.”
"Well, Ambassador, you're the best humanity has to offer, and that's no jive at any time," she said.
"I love you too, Almira."