pdf file - Notes from An Alien

out of immediate danger. She alerted the hospital staff and Verluin and, before they could arrive, she said:
"Delva, what you did was spiritual."
Delva murmured something.
Morna began a complex and well-remembered pattern of cogitation—the attempt to find a rationale for
actions performed solely for the benefit of others. This time there was a path to add to the pattern—performing
actions that will protect the lives of your enemies.
In the months it took for Delva to return to full health, the Worlds' Council had approved the exploratory
flight of ShipFour to Angla-Palli. The research and development centers had installed sophisticated sensors on
ShipFour, the crew had conducted a full suite of orbital test runs of critical equipment, and the laser that would
power them home had been safely tethered to the ship. Launch would happen when Delva, Verluin, and Morna
were on board.
Delva had deputized a team of four Aklans to continue her scheduled visits to Local Councils. If the
voyage to and from Angla-Palli, plus the time spent exploring, didn't exceed two years, she would only miss
visiting twenty-four Local Councils. She'd made sure the visitation team was clear about keeping their activities
focused on social and economic issues and keeping their religious practices private. She knew she could trust
them.
Morna had found the Aklans rationality and equity interesting. Delva thought it was nearly a miracle.
She attributed the uplifting sanity and common sense of her husband to his training as a doctor, not his religion.
She had made many mental notes to have a deep and long discussion about science and religion with Verluin and
Morna. The slow voyage of ShipFour to a new World seemed like what others called a gift from God.
There was a nearly constant news feed coming from ShipFour. Delva had been right—the mission,
beyond being of value in itself, had become a cultural bonding experience. It also was spawning the birth of a few
more radical groups. The Worlds' Protective Force was always ready for intervention but, more and more, Local
and Regional Councils were devising methods of self-defense. The Territory of Aklana had begun sending
representatives to the Regional Councils to help them implement social and economic initiatives that might serve
to draw the somewhat reasonable members of divisive groups toward more productive endeavors. It worked in
some regions and caused dangerous flare-ups of violence in others.
Most people realized that the exploration of Angla-Palli was going to introduce fundamental change in
the Worlds' culture. Fear of change needed more education in principles that some saw as rational and scientific
and others saw as moral and ethical. The radical groups saw this change as evil.
Morna was content to let the ship's systems analyze and store the data from the exploration. She was
busy collating and refashioning her conversations with Delva and Verluin into a detailed set of recommendations
for the Worlds' Council. She would call it, Reasonable Faith vs Faith-Filled Reasons - Where Is The Balance?.
Semul Zel, lead scientist for the voyage of ShipFour, sat at his console and wondered at the streams of
color emanating from one of the oceans of Angla-Palli. He studied the previously observed plasma patterns that
Angla-Palli danced within as it circled the Mother planet, Beli-Pallos. He found no mention of the activity he was
seeing in the past month's records. They had just entered orbit and were close enough now for him to watch the
plasma disturbance undulating, back and forth, across the nearly thousand-mile ocean, subtle and elusive but
beautiful.
The next five days were spent in further analysis and the potentially risky dispatch of a transfer pod for
in situ measurements. The crew of the transfer pod reported color and temperature changes on a scale too small
for the ship's sensors to register. A small vial of the water, along with samples of dirt and rock, was brought back
by the crew and subjected to three more days of careful testing. Over that time the water sample had become
infused with nearly invisible strands of colored material. They were not bacterial or viral. The strands were, if
anything, molecular and seemed to be in complete symbiosis with the water's microscopic plants and animals.
The Worlds' Council decided that the release of the finding to the news feed would be postponed until
further tests could be conducted on the planet's surface. A place was chosen—a peninsula that protruded a few