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Mahesh took me aside one day and said that a similar system had once been tried on his planet, but had ended in a dismal failure there.
"Ah, so it's again the mental technology that makes the difference," Olaf replied to Mahesh during that discussion on the bridge.
Still another thing became apparent near the end of the seventh day after our political research began. The planet was unmistakably at war with an interplanetary enemy. A great force, which appeared like a pirate fleet of blundering invaders, was terrorizing the 'O' people though none had ever seen a trace of that fleet. According to information they had decoded from other worlds that their astronomical teams had come across via long-distance communications, the 'O' people became aware that a large fleet of war ships had routinely held other worlds at ransom and had destroyed whatever societies had not bowed to their demands. The demands had been nothing less than submission to the marauder's slavery. Is was said in the communications that the planetary raiders would accept nothing less than absolute control over whomever they had conquered. Some of the long-distance communications were also cries for help, and a warning to others.
In order to deal with the impending threat, a think tank had been in session on planet 'O', apparently for some years already, to come up with ways of dealing with such an attack if it ever came upon them.
Olaf withdrew himself to his planet after we recognized the 'O' people's dilemna, "to puzzle this thing out" as he put it. He told us that he was best able to concentrate on complex issues when sitting in his museum at home. However, as soon as the ship's language translation system was up to speed to provide real time two way translation, he returned to the ship. He explained to Captain Natalia Ostropovitch that in his estimation the ship was at a safe distance were it was, but close enough for a two-way communication if we focused our antennas onto their deep space radio facility that had been discovered as a by-product of the mapping process. He calculated that there would be a six-second-response delay because of the distance between the ship and the planet, which he said, is quite acceptable for initial conversation.
As no one on the bridge could show any reason why this was unfeasible, the captain gave orders to make the preparation. The transmission was scheduled for ten AM the next day.
Olaf returned to the ship in his gold suite for the occasion. He introduced himself into the microphone and half a second later, the computer spewed out a sequence of garbled sounds that was transmitted down to the planet. After the transmission there was silence on the bridge. In fifteen minutes a garbled response came back.
"Hello, people from Earth," our computer translated.
"Hello, people on planet 'O'!" I replied into my microphone that was also connected the language translation system. We all had microphones on the bridge, built into our uniforms.
"We are glad you are able to hear us," Olaf added to my message.
Six seconds of silence went by, seven, eight....
"Can we meet at some place," the monotone voice of the speech synthesizer translated their response.
"We would be glad to meet you on your planet, at any place that you can extend this communications link to. Without our ship's services, in translating your language, we cannot communicate with you," said Olaf into the microphone.
"I would prefer if we could meet on some neutral territory," Natalia added, identifying herself as the captain of the ship, "but this isn't possible, I know."
"We don't understand your meaning of the term 'neutral territory'" their reply came back. "We assume that you mean a place outside of our cities. If this is correct, would an ocean resort suit you?"
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