The TriCouncil
by Sarajane Roberts

The ship hung over the planet - just hung there, as the grayish sphere slowly rotated below it. Maybe the ship was hostile, maybe not. In the end, it simply didn't matter. A ball of light shot up from the planet and encompassed the ship. Swiftly, the ball shrunk until it disappeared. At the same time, light-years away, a speck of light appeared and grew rapidly until it was the size of a small transport. Then, the light faded, revealing the ship. It scanned its surroundings; then it began the long journey home.

Light-years away, the girl smiled.

***

The planet was empty. There was nothing there. Massive wars had scarred the planet forever. Plants no longer waved the breeze. Birds no longer filled the air with their sweet song. The planet was as silent as a tomb save the empty howl of the wind as it whipped across the desolate plains.

Although the planet was incapable of supporting life, that did not mean that no one lived there. On the contrary, millions of people inhabited the barren planet, living under habitation domes. Only under these domes was the air not poisonous, the water safe for drinking, and the temperature warm enough to support life. They had to pay the price for their ancestors' folly by living beneath a fragile dome for all eternity.

Ariana turned away from the window in her apartment. The view from her window was exactly like that from every other window in Teroba. When she gazed out of it, she could see mile after mile of scarred land, stretching all the way to the horizon. She found the sight thoroughly depressing. From pictures of Pallasia taken centuries ago, she had first seen the lush forests, fertile plains, and azure waters that had once covered her world.

But all of that was before the war.

She tried to preoccupy her mind, unwilling to dwell on the past for another moment. She wandered through her apartment on one of the upper levels of Teroba Central Station. The rooms were large but Spartan, as if they were inhabited only temporarily and would soon be as empty as the plains outside. In fact, Ariana had been commander of the station for almost five years, and she did not plan to vacate her position in the near future. Despite her long residence, however, the apartment remained little more than a storage room. Certainly it was not a home. In her twenty-five years of life, she had yet to find a home, and she yearned for one even more than she yearned for life to once more flourish on Pallasia.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a buzz at the door. She walked over and pressed a small button embedded in the wall. A camera revealed the visitor to be a tall man with brown hair, brown eyes, and a thin, serious face. With a sigh, she unlocked the door and ushered him inside. "Come in, Ian."

Once the door was closed, he immediately turned his worried gaze upon her. "Commander," he nodded to her. "Are you all right?"

"All right?" she echoed distractedly. "Why would you ask that?"

"Well, you've been rather...withdrawn lately. The staff and I have not seen you in days. We were concerned about your current condition." He seemed rather nervous; his eyes darted around the room and his pale skin seemed even whiter than normal.

"You can assure the staff that I am in a satisfactory condition," she said coolly. "You, on the other hand..."

He looked surprised, although as he moved his eyes to meet hers, he caught his reflection in a large mirror behind her. The pale, nervous face staring back startled him. "Yes, Commander - I mean, no, Commander, I am fine."

"Really?" Her dry, sarcastic tone clearly conveyed her skepticism. "Tell me honestly why you came to see me."

"But Commander..."

She waved off his words of protest with a dismissive gesture. "Please do not insult my intelligence. You obviously did not come here to merely inquire about my health. There is something else on your mind. Why else would you be so nervous?"

"Well, I thought you should know..." He gulped nervously. There - there is a ship heading this way."

Her mind immediately snapped to attention. All other thoughts fell away. Her mind buzzed with anticipation. "Let's go."

Commander Andrew Parker tapped his forefinger impatiently against the arm of his chair on the command center of the Argo. 35 years of life had taught him much, but he had yet to master the art of patience. "When will we be finished with our survey?"

"Two hours, 37 minutes."

He gritted his teeth. "I hate waiting."

He stared ahead at the viewscreen, watching idly as the results of the sensor sweep flashed across the screen. The planet over which they rotated was completely barren. It was no different from any of dozens of planets his ship had surveyed. However, something was out of place. As he stared at the screen, he saw something flash before his eyes. "What was that?"

Confused, the technical officer looked up from his station. "What was what, sir?"

"That." He pointed at a spot on the planet. As he spoke, a small spot flickered slightly. Where there had once been simply another plain of barren earth there now appeared to be some sort of structure. The image was pale and vague, flickering in and out of existence. "Scan every square centimeter of that area."

The tech officer keyed in the controls and frowned. "The readings are sketchy at best, sir. There must be some sort of energy field that is disrupting our sensors. However, it appears to be some sort of biosphere."

"Alert the officers to man their posts. Continue scanning the planet for other spheres."

A jolt interrupted his orders. "What the hell was that?"

***

"Fire again. Do not destroy the vessel yet; try to cripple it first," Ariana directed. Her eyes blazed with an inner, blue fire. This was what she loved about command - the thrill, the excitement, the rush.

"But Commander," the weapons officer said, "why don't we simply activate the displacement beam?"

She whirled around to face the young officer, casting her fiery glare on him. "They scanned us. They saw us. They know we are here, and they now can never return to their home planet."

***

"What's our status?" Parker barked.

"Sir, we've lost the primary and secondary engines. Life support is down to 32%."

Parker set his mouth into a hard line. "Activate the communications system."

"Affirmative, sir. Adjusting our communication frequency." A pause, and then the screen at the tech station revealed the face of a small, slight girl, maybe 23 or 24. She was very attractive, with bright, blazing blue-gray eyes and dark brown hair. "I am Commander Parker from the planet Earth. My crew and I are a scientific vessel surveying this territory. We did not mean to trespass." Her fiery stare unnerved him, sending shivers up and down his spine; nevertheless, he plunged forward. "If you will simply disengage your attack, we will be more than happy to be on our way."

There was a long pause before she spoke. "You have my congratulations, Commander."

"Excuse me?" He stared at her incredulously. "I am very impressed with your technology, Commander. You have the distinction of being the first vessel in hundreds of years to be able to pierce the energy shield surrounding the planet. However, I am afraid that I cannot allow you to return to your home planet with information about our existence."

She turned to terminate the transmission. However, Parker spoke first. "Wait!" He paused for a moment to compose himself before replying once more, "Wait. This is not necessary."

"Oh?" She cocked her head to one side. "And why is it not?"

"Earth is a powerful planet. We could form an alliance between our planets."

She offered him a patronizing smile. "Now why would we want to do that? Your race is a clever one, but we have greatly surpassed you in every field."

"You can't just kill us!"

"Why not?" she asked.

"What would that serve? Your race can't hide from the galaxy forever."

His words reverberated through her head. 'You can't hide forever...' Abruptly she changed her course of action. "Very well then. I will transmit coordinates to your ship. Land your vessel there in one hour, and we will meet with you." Before he could respond, the communication frequency went dead.

Commander Parker turned to his crew. "Lieutenant, locate the coordinates."

"I am scanning the surface now." There was a brief pause as he tried to interpret the alien information. "It appears that the coordinates are outside the main sphere, Commander."

"Pinpoint the location, Lieutenant, and prepare to land there in one hour."

"Affirmative, sir."

He turned his attention to the rest of the crew. "I want everyone else to spend that time gathering all of the information about this race that you can. I want an analysis of everything - radio and digital broadcasts, the geography, and the demography. I want to know exactly what we are dealing with."

"Commander, may I speak with you in private, sir?"

He turned towards the speaker, his first officer, Lieutenant Alison Cameron. "Of course, Lieutenant." He motioned for her to follow him into the hallway outside of the command center.

Once outside, she folded her arms across her chest defiantly. "What do you think you are doing, Commander?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that you should at least talk to someone on Earth and inform the ISO of this event."

"Why? I can handle this situation myself."

"Commander, you know regulations as well as I do, and regulations state..."

"Lieutenant, regulations do not always have to be followed literally."

Cameron continued undaunted. "Regulations state that commanders must contact the ISO in the event of confrontation with hostile forces."

"Regulations also state, Lieutenant, that in the event of an emergency, the commander has full autonomous authority."

"True, but this is no longer an emergency situation."

"This is also no longer a hostile situation."

"Commander! You can't make peace with an alien race without the support of the ISO. This is an historic occasion, and you can't march in there pretending to represent the entirety of Earth if you haven't even bothered to consult the ISO."

He threw up his hands in surrender. "Fine, Lieutenant. Contact the ISO and inform them of the situation."

"Affirmative, sir," she replied coolly. As she walked back onto the command center, however, she wondered why she felt so hollow after that small victory.

***

At the appointed time, the Argo landed at the coordinates just outside of the main dome on a flat, desolate plain. Dust whirled about as the ship slowly descended like some primitive beast on the ravaged terrain. Even without the data from the sensors, one could easily tell that the land could never support life.

A long, transparent tube attached to the dome extended and locked onto the outside of the ship. From inside it looked like an umbilical cord, linking the ship to the only source of breathable air in the vicinity. The crew of the Argo opened the escape hatch around which the tube had attached, and the commander, the first officer, a medical officer, and a science officer proceeded to traverse the fragile connection between the ship and the city.

Once inside the dome, the young girl greeted them. "Welcome to the city of Teroba, capital of the planet of Pallasia. I am Ariana, the commander of Teroba Central Station. This," she explained, pointing to the tall man standing beside her, "is my second-in-command, Ian."

Commander Parker also introduced his crew. "I am Commander Parker. This is my first officer, Lieutenant Alison Cameron; Dr. Elena Lucas, a member of our medical staff; and Lieutenant James Jefferson, a science officer."

She took a brief moment to acknowledge the introduction before continuing. "I have spoken with members of the high council of Pallasia. They have agreed to a meeting with members of your government. In fact, they have contacted Earth, and a delegation will be arriving here in several weeks. Until then, you and the rest of your crew are welcome to stay at Teroba Central Station. Before the conference takes place, the high council has ordered me to gather as much information as possible about your race."

Commander Parker nodded. "I have received similar orders from my government."

"Well, then, it appears that we will be spending the next few days familiarizing ourselves with each other, doesn't it?"

"If I might ask, I am a bit curious as to how you speak such perfect Standard."

"I expected that you would ask that. We monitor events all over the galaxy with various probes. We have been receiving broadcasts from your planet for hundreds of years. It was quite simple to analyze your language. Once we had done so, we programmed it into the instantaneous translator which all Pallasians wear to facilitate communication." She paused to allow them to digest that information. "Now, if there are no more questions..." She nodded towards Ian, and he stepped forward.

"I will show you to Teroba Central Station now. Please follow me." As they filed off, he paused next to Ariana and hissed, "I hope you know what you're doing." She smiled at him.

"Trust me. The council did approve this project."

"But they only did so with your recommendation. You really went out on a limb for these people. If this alliance falls through, you're chances of being on the council are gone."

***

Commander Andrew Parker spent the week exploring Teroba. It soon became obvious that the Pallasians were a highly advanced society. They had made unbelievable technological breakthroughs...in the past. He noticed that their society seemed to be somewhat stagnant. Few scientific, technological, or medical discoveries had been made for several hundred years. Similarly, the population of Pallasia also seemed static. The population growth was practically nonexistent. It was almost as if the entire planet was holding its breath, waiting for some sort of trigger for change.

He mentioned that the next time he saw Ariana. After that initial week of exploration, she came to see him almost every day, asking hundreds of questions about Earth, the International Federation, and the International Space Organization. In exchange, she was supposed to answer all of his questions about the TriCouncil, the intergalactic governing body that ruled Pallasia and its allies. However, he soon learned that questioning Ariana was normally a fruitless task. She tended to evade all of his questions, leaving him with more questions than answers. Whether this was because she had received instructions not to tell him much or because she enjoyed having the upper hand in their daily confrontations he did not know. All he knew was that it frustrated him intensely.

However, she did answer his first question straightforwardly. "Pallasia and the other worlds in the TriCouncil have been under a self-imposed exile from the galaxy for hundreds of years. That is why there is the "stagnation" in our society that you noticed. We continue to conduct trade with the other planets in the TriCouncil. In fact, our society has changed little since the exile took place. However, we no longer explore the galaxy. We have removed ourselves from intergalactic politics and instead focus our concentration on our own government." She changed the subject abruptly. "How does your society function? The information I have received from your government and your ship's computers has answered many questions, but I have many more."

And so the days passed. Every day Parker prepared himself to ask her all of the questions that percolated in his mind. However, every day he managed to ask only one or two questions before she would deftly turn the conversation the other way. After almost two weeks, she had told him almost nothing about her society, whereas he had described in detail almost every element of Earth society.

"You are a very evasive person," he remarked with frustration one evening. He had realized that morning that he had very little information to send to the IF. He could only imagine the volumes of data she had extracted from him.

She looked at him. "How so?" she asked innocently. "I've answered every one of your questions."

"Mmm, yes - and then you quickly change the subject before I can ask any others."

She shrugged slightly. "I find your race fascinating. For example, take your emphasis on entertainment. Now..."

He held up one hand to stop her. "Look, I think I've answered enough of your questions. Now it's your turn to answer mine."

She leaned back in her chair. The two of them were sitting in the dining hall for the station. Outside Parker could see only kilometer after kilometer of lifeless soil. "What happened to the land out there?" he asked, allowing the scenery to be his inspiration for his first question.

Her mouth hardened into a thin line. "Massive wars scarred the land millennia ago. Nuclear bombs, hydrogen bombs, clean sweeps - our ancestors did not care what they used as long as they succeeded in obliterating each other. By the time the fighting ended, Pallasia was little more than a desolate hunk of rock drifting through space."

"How did your people survive?"

"A group of scientists, engineers, and other citizens banded together and built Teroba. Little by little people joined until the population was so big that they had to build a new dome. Finally, the planet was covered once more with people, all living underneath the habitation domes."

He sensed that she was about to bombard him with more questions, so he hastily continued. "What about the other races in the TriCouncil? How many are there?"

"There are nine different races. The first three to join - the Pallasians, the Gemini, and the Zanaxans - founded the TriCouncil after the end of hostilities between those three species. The others joined at various times."

"What about this shield? Why did it go up?"

She rolled her eyes upward and sighed. "I was hoping that you wouldn't ask that." She paused for a moment, allowing her fiery gaze to rest on him while she seemed to vacillate between telling him and ignoring his question. "The TriCouncil monitors the activities of all races in the galaxy," she finally said, "and hundreds of years ago, we discovered a race whose weapons had grown faster than its wisdom. We watched that race very closely, worried that it would disrupt the delicate peace in the galaxy. When we saw that it had learned how to travel among the stars, we did not know what to do."

Again she paused before continuing. "The First Minister of the TriCouncil, Arian, did the only thing she could do. She decided that we would have to remove ourselves from the galaxy. She feared that if this race discovered all of these other races, intergalactic war would once more break out."

Parker frowned. "But what race was it?" She looked deep into his eyes.

"The humans."

He laughed. "That's absurd!"

"Is it? You know how violent your history has been. Can you honestly tell me with certainty that humans would not have initiated hostilities?"

"Well...no, I suppose not," he admitted.

"Arian developed the shield and the displacement beam. It uses energy to create a ripple in the fabric of space and pull whatever it hits into a random point in space light-years away."

"What prompted you to end this exile?" he asked her. "I overheard Ian say that you had to use considerable influence in order to arrange the meeting."

She hesitated before replying. "When I spoke with you...I have been fighting with others for years. I have argued that we must not continue our exile from the galaxy. Such a things is only detrimental to the races of the TriCouncil. As you noticed, the TriCouncil has grown stagnant from disuse."

"On Earth," he spoke up, "we have a saying: 'Necessity is the mother of invention.'"

She nodded. "We have no need anymore. We have frozen our society for hundreds of years. Also, the threat is gone." Once more her eyes pierced into his soul. "That is why I fought for the meeting. When you spoke, those words made me realize that the time had come. I knew that I had to make others see that we must no longer live separate from the galaxy. I also knew that I at last had the means to refute an old argument: what about the humans?" There was an even longer pause than before. When she finally spoke, it was in a whisper. "There was one more reason. I could sense in you a kindred spirit. I had a feeling...about us..."

After that there were no more words between them. However, when she awoke, he was beside her. And somehow she knew that they would be apart no more.

***

"I don't understand."

Commander Cameron looked up from her computer. She had been putting the finishing touches on her report for the ISO. After three weeks of being in Teroba, they would be leaving for Earth. The peace talks had taken place, and now the two groups would be parting - not enemies, not allies, but friends. "What?"

The new first officer, Stephen Lowell, stood before her. "In the report, it says the commander is 'missing in action.'"

"So?"

"How can you just abandon him? You know where he is."

She sighed. "Andy is missing - he has been for years." She looked at Lowell. "Did you know that we grew up together?" After Lowell shook his head, she continued. "We did. We grew up next door to each other."

"We always..." He cleared his throat uncomfortably. "That is to say, the crew and I were under the impression that you two didn't really get along very well."

She sighed sadly. "No, we didn't. When we were in school together, we were very different. I always followed the rules but Andy never wanted to do things 'by-the-book.' But then...well, when I took this position with him, I realized that the Andy I knew was gone. The fleet seemed to drain him somehow. He loves the adventure, the mystery, the thrill, but the rules and orders...I don't know." She faced him. "I'm probably not making a lot of sense."

Lowell shook his head.

"You see," she continued, "Andy had so much potential, so much promise. When he were at the Academy, he was the smartest student there. All of the teachers told us that he'd make commander in only a few years - and he did. And then he looked around, and there was no place left to go. He flew to the top, but when he got there, he didn't like the view. Those years when he climbed the ranks destroyed him. His daring and courage always set him apart, but somewhere along the way, all of his spirit got trampled down." She looked her new first officer straight in the eye. "I'm happy for him. He's found someone to love. He's finally happy. You should be, too."

Lowell nodded, as if he understood. "So for now, we just...lie?" She nodded. "For now. But someday..."

***

Light-years away, the girl smiled.