"And who are these people?"
"Laikans, not a friendly race to anyone. They are the spawn of a dog the Russians sent into space."
"They look like Werewolves from the movies," Milk added after swallowing his mouthful of lemonade. "Kinda half man and half dog, y'know?"
"Of course. That wouldn't be strange or anything."
"Oh you're gonna see a lot stranger before we're finished, you can bet on that," Milk said and laughed. "Oh boy, you're in for a shock."
"Thanks, Milk, thanks a lot."
"Sorry, man. It'll be fun, trust me."
"What exactly will be fun in all this?" Jason asked a little crossly.
"Well," Sir Eric came back in, "you need to get out and about; you need to get your memory back. Shouldn't take too much, just needs a good jog. Plenty of wondrous things to see in the Universe. But of course, you need to avoid the Laikans at the same time," he coughed slightly embarrassedly.
"Great, is that all?"
"Well?"
"What?" he was getting more alarmed by the second.
"Well," said Milk grabbing the last biscuit, "you agreed to this job because they paid you a lot of money, but also because the amount of people who wanted to kill you for various reasons had got to the point where you couldn't get out much."
"Wonderful," he let his forehead rest on the table.
Like any good Brit, Sir Eric was more than a trifle awkward in the presence of emotion. "Er? quite," was all he said.
"How?" Jason asked from the tabletop.
"How what?" Sir Eric asked, still a touch awkward.
Jason lifted his head up.
"How am I supposed to find something I don't know anything about in a whole Universe?"
"Well, you're have Milk here."
"Listen, Jase, there's the Known Universe and the Unknown Universe, the Universe beyond the galaxies with star-gates. Then there's the Known Universe and the known Universe."
"Oh, well that helps," Jason said glumly.
"We talk about galaxies, but in reality each one only has one or two inhabited solar systems and sometimes only one or two inhabited planets in each. The star-gates will take us to those."
"Yes, quite," Sir Eric took back a little composure. "So, yes it's big, but it's not that big."
Jason just put his forehead back on the table.
***
Sir Jeffery insisted on being taken straight to the Queen and while such a request was not normally granted, these people had come from outer space. When someone travels over a certain distance it's hard to deny them anything. Like someone coming from Luton to Newcastle. But then you partly can't deny them out of feeling sorry that they come from Luton. And the Queen felt good for the first time in ages about meeting people. These were aliens and they wanted to see her! Her, not the President of the USA. Maybe she was still important somewhere.
When Sir Jeffery and entourage entered they bowed deeply and the Queen just felt better and better.
"You look awfully Human for aliens," she commented.
Sir Jeffery straightened. "No, ma'am, we are not aliens, we are the descendants of the British Empire who were taken into space."
"Oh really?"
"Yes, where we revolutionised the Universe as we did this fair planet." Sir Jeffery beamed.
"You mean with guns?" asked the US President who was disgruntled at having no one bow to him. That was the problem with being a president and not a monarch. A distinct lack of bowing.
"Well you're a fine one to talk," replied Sir Jeffery and the colour rose in the President's cheeks.
"Yes, well let's all be friends and get on with it," said the Queen in what can only be described as a Queen-like manner.
***
So it turns out that space is really quite, well, spacious, and there's not a lot in most of it. And it all looks the same. Chances of getting lost are high. Therefore all over space there are floating beacons that relay to a ships computer where you are and where you should be if you're not where you should be. This, even at lightspeed is still a pain, and so star-gates were created outside of all the largest galaxies. Just pop into the ship's computer where you want to go and fly through a vortex. It saves fuel and means you can get around even in smaller craft. This is what Jason and Milk were about to do.
"So where are we going again?"
"Lancaster, the nearest Human galaxy. Thought it would ease you in a bit," replied Milk as they wandered down a corridor. "The solar system of Blackpool was the first ever colonised by the Victorians."
"And where are we going now?"
"Quarters to get washed up and that. Then we better go down to the range and hope we can jog your memory with a gun."
"You what?" Jason exclaimed.
"Yeah, that came out wrong," Milk apologised. "I meant using a gun and hoping you can remember how."
"I'm kinda hoping I won't have to," Jason said.
"So am I," Milk agreed. Hope was nice.
***
Laying in a hot bath Jason thought over everything that had recently happened. Well, he tried to think about it, but it was all a bit too incredible for his mind to handle. Better, his mind assured him, just to accept it and get on with whatever he would be doing. But he tried to push against his mind, tried to remember a life beyond five years ago. He quite rightly reasoned that the faster he could remember where this Trimedian thingy was, the faster he could get it back and so cut down his chances of being dead.
But it was impossible, there were five years of memories and then just a wall, on which someone had graphitised "Chase woz 'ere". He got out of the bath and wandered into the living room in his towel. As he wandered to the bedroom there was a knock on the door.
Assuming it to be just Milk he opened the door in the towel. On the other side was not Milk, but the serious looking woman who had led them to see Sir Eric.
"Are you going to let me in?" she asked or commanded, Jason couldn't quite tell.
"Er, yeah, sorry, come in."
She did and shut the door. She looked at him seriously, he looked at her in the way a boy does showing his Dad a D graded homework. Then she simultaneously whipped off her glasses and unleashed her pony tail.
Later it would take a cleaner more than fifteen minutes to locate the towel.
So, you're probably wondering about the whole return to Queen Victoria stuff, why it never happened and indeed why it's happening now.
Well, you see most planets, when they discovered they weren't alone in the Universe, realised that bickering and warring amongst their own world was kinda pointless. Better to form a union of one race in order to face the other races out there. And you know, fighting for control of your planet seems a bit silly when there is a whole universe of peoples and planets to explore.
In fact very few of the planets were still stuck within their own stratosphere, most were flying to local moons doing a bit of trading with nearby planets etc. It was just inter-galactic travel that was touch tricky, but when the Greys came and showed them how to get further, most of them slapped their metaphorical foreheads in a wow-that's-so-obvious-why-didn't-I-think-of-it? kind of way.
I say metaphorical foreheads as a lot of them don't have foreheads, though the Adjuvitics from a galaxy simply known in English as Pug, actually do have metaphorical foreheads which they use to great skill (and annoyance of others) in football matches. It's tricky to make rules against metaphors.
Point is, they were more than happy to join the Universe and share their knowledge and culture with everyone else.
From: A Brief Guide to the Universe for Earthens
THE MEETING OF JULIANNA
"It was a pleasure meeting you, ma'am," Sir Jeffery said.
Turned out The Queen was surprisingly open minded and took it all in her stride. She also wisely decided not only to let the PM and President handle things, but also graciously pointed out that the Americans were more on the ball with both space and war and should be the ones to talk to.
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Despite all the things said and thought about Americans across the Universe, Sir Jeffery found the President and all the Americans he met to be thoroughly bloody good people. Yes, they could be arrogant, but they had the will, intelligence and courage to back up their claims. These were, Sir Jeffery realised, people that the Universe could do with. A bit of pep and spirit to spice things up.
The three of them sat in Number 10 Downing Street with tea for the British and coffee for the American.
"Let's get down to business then," the President said.
"Well, quite, yes. Yes, let's," Sir Jeffery said, though he wasn't quite sure where to start.
I could tell you what Sir Jeffery said, but if you haven't got the gist yet, this book is only going to get more confusing.
"So," the President reflected, "the gist of it is that these Laikans are amassing for WAR in order to, what? Take more control for themselves?"
"Basically that seems to be the play. We don't really have any direct contact with the Laikans, so we are getting things second hand and piecing things together."
"So what needs to be the next move?" the President asked.
"Well, I guess we need to get you two and the other leaders of the world into space, have a bit of a gander."
"Space?" the PM asked palely.
"Indeed."
"Oh," the PM decided this wasn't the time to run out of the room and throw up. That didn't stop him though.
Of course before anyone could go into space, the world had to get itself together. You know you can't just join a Universe until your house is in order; you've got to make friends, you've got to put on a united front and for the governments of Earth that was no mean feat.
The fact is that if it was an easy job then they would have done it by now and they haven't. But then they were all squabbling over just one planet, now there was a whole Universe to squabble over.
It took them an hour of squabbling over the Universe before they realise that the whole thing was already sorted. They weren't going out to conquer, they weren't in any kind of position of power. They had to, if they were to get anywhere, get in on the trading. They had to put on a united front and put the Earth and it's solar system on the map as an important place. Which was difficult as they had no real idea what their solar system held, let alone the rest of the galaxy. They were happy to find out that none of the nearby solar systems held life, but unhappy to find out they were on the edge of the known Universe. That their galaxy was somewhat of a backwater.
The problem was that the leaders of countries were still small minded about the Universe and thought only in going down in Earthen history as the man or woman who led Earth into Space, without realising that history didn't matter that much anymore. Who on the small ice planet of Blimey (as in 'Blimey, it's cold here') cared who led the Earth into the Universal Trading Network? Actually, bad example, they don't care about much more than how to get warm. Anyway, it was quickly sorted out that the welcoming committee wouldn't accept much of anything if it didn't come from the Queen of England. So then it was a case of trying to point out that she didn't really do anything and was not really the person to do this kind of thing, but I am, so pick me.
Actually, Sir Jeffery was no fool and knew this, but he knew that he had to help them unify and as quickly as possible. And in doing so would have to quell arguments and fights for power. He couldn't be taking anyone into space until he knew that while key leaders were in space others would not try bids for power and generally mess things up. It was a vicious circle; they needed to be united to join the rest of the Universe, but couldn't really unite until they had seen the rest of the Universe. Make the whole thing real and also help them realise how small they were at this time.
Before anyone could go into space there needed to be communication lines set up; space-lanes that had been used by tourists needed to be upgraded; Earthens taught new technology etc. Before that could happen successfully they needed to hash out the old woes, the recriminations and generally bury all the skeletons in the closets. Bury them in the ground, not the closet. Take them out of the closet and, well, never mind. The point is you can see now why Sir Jeffery dreaded the job in the first place.
And so there were meetings in which Sir Jeffery had stated that The Queen would be in charge of bringing the Earth into the Universal Trading Network and that the President of the USA would be her chief advisor or he would take his ball and go home. They just weren't going to listen to anyone but their Sovereign and they still thought like that, did the Victorians.
So, everyone sat about drafting a peace treaty. No one was really happy about it, but all were smart enough to realise they weren't going to get what they really wanted until Earth had joined the UTN. At least half off all the World leaders there had ideas of what would come later and all of them had ideas about becoming the First President of Earth and none of them considered that they could be the First President of the Milky Way because they were all still thinking small.
So the world turned around a lot as is it's want and after the shock wore off people got on with retuning their businesses to be intergalactic. Not easy considering people didn't know what other races would need or want, which was basically not a lot from Earth. They were immensely more advanced. More ships came and spokespeople came on the television to explain a bit about the Universal Trading Network, about other planets and races and what the people of Earth could offer the rest of the Universe. The Brief Guide to the Universe for Earthens (known as GUFE) was distributed for free at all leading bookshops, or at least those countries that still had bookshops. Other ships came and unloaded new technologies and began teaching people how to use them. Oil prices hit an all-time low as new fuels and the such were introduced. The oil rich countries were none too pleased by this until they found out that to some races oil was like a very expensive fine wine. They began to buy spaceships and work out how to export and in doing so, the Arabs would be the first to join the Universal Trading Network.
***
Jason Wellgood and Milk were not on one of these planets, they were in a truck stop just inside the Lancaster galaxy. It looked much like one of those silver trailers you see in USA trailer parks, but a hell of a lot bigger. The bottom of the building was a parking area with a force field covering the open entrance/exit and keeping the air in and the rest of space out. It should be noted that this is how all hangers in all ships work, just in case you wonder later.
Jason and Milk were sitting at a table and feeling nervous. This was their first time out in five years and you never knew if or when someone was going to attack you. Well, Jason was nervous about 'if', Milk was nervous about 'when'.
Turned out he didn't have to wait long. A large, hairy, Human space trucker wandered in and sat at the counter, he ordered a Ventrwistian coffee and looked around. He looked back as his coffee was placed in front of him and then slowly, slowly turned his head back to look at Jason.
"Oh dear," stated Milk.
The trucker was walking over to them, his face disbelieving and curious at the same time.
"Chase Darkstaar," he said before punching Jason in the face.
Well not quite, Jason grabbed the large hairy trucker's large hairy fist and twisted so hard that he flipped the trucker onto his back without even getting up.
"Can I help you?" Chase asked and then sipped from his tea.
The trucker pulled himself up in front of Chase and Milk and an audience of the rest of the restaurant.
"Thought you were dead. Gonna make you wish you were," the trucker grunted.
He lunged again and found Chase's laser pistol pushing into his stomach. The trucker decided to stop lunging and eased back to a vertical position.
"So tell me," Chase said vaguely aiming his gun at the trucker, "what have I done to tick you off?"
"You don't remember?" the trucker spluttered.
"Well, I've done so much bad stuff, it's hard to keep track, you know?"
"Er
m, yes. Yes, I guess it would be kinda hard."
"Indeed, but anyway I'm a new man now, a nice man. You think I'm nice don't you Milk?"
"Er? while you have a gun I'm not inclined to disagree," Milk eyed the gun nervously; he had known Darkstaar to shoot people because the conversation was boring.
"No, well, quite so. Quite so," Chase mused and turned back to the trucker. "So you see it seems foolish to have a five year old beef with a changed man, doesn't it?"
"I, er, yes, yes, I suppose you're right," the trucker eyed the gun. "I'll go back to my coffee, then. Shall I?" he almost pleaded.
"I'd get it to go if I were you," Milk commented.
"A fine idea," exclaimed Chase.
"Yes, a fine idea," the trucker stumbled.
He backed toward the counter as the waitress poured his coffee into a take away cup before making a quick exit, spilling most of his coffee down his front.
"Well that was weird," said Jason. He looked down at the gun; Milk looked at the gun and then at Jason. "Oh, right," he said and put the gun away.
"Maybe we should go."
Jason looked at the people looking at him looking at them. They seemed a trifle nervous.
"Yeah, perhaps we should," he was starting to feel nervous himself now.
***
In the dimly lit room with the pointless lighting the figures sat in silence in their dark circle.
Finally Mark, the Oncolutian, sighed and shrugged. Well, considering he had no shoulders it was more of a stretch. "So it begins, the journey will be a long one for them."
"Yes," said the Albertine, George. "How are things coming along, Hikcet?"
The Grey alien looked over at the monkey-like Albertine, who was dressed rather dandily in a blue suit and ruffled shirt. One thing about Albertines is that they have great style and fashion sense.
"Faster than we predicted, the Earthens are taking it rather well. We are about to start installing, what is to them, new technologies and schooling them on the Universe. Soon a party of my kind will go down and then we will gradually introduce other races."
"And what of the Laikans?" Hopkirk, the Enthusian in Human form asked.
Fong-gan, the octopus-like Carute spoke. "Our spies say that they continue to build up arms and seem to be having meetings with other races, there are many who are unhappy with the Universal Trading Network. They keep their cards close, but when war begins I fear others will openly join them."