When he could take no more, he pressed a button on his desk and a loud tone cut through the noise. “Enough,” he said. “Everyone sit down now and be quiet.” No one moved for a moment and he said louder, “Right now!” Everyone moved to a chair and he waited for them to be seated. “Do not speak unless I recognize you or ask you a question. I want to make sure I understand what I’ve heard here. It’s my understanding that we have detected Alfont tones and traced its origin. Headman Dgzh, is that accurate?” Several started speaking but grew silent when Sten looked at them.
“Yes leader, you’re partially right.”
“What part is missing or I have wrong, Headman?”
“There were two Alfont tones within one drag of each other, with the second being much stronger than the first. They both had the same lines of origin, we think.”
“You think? Why don’t you know? What’s the problem here?”
“Well, when the second stronger tone happened, we recalibrated the receivers to go after it because it was several degrees of magnitude greater than the first. While that recalibration was being done, our instruments were barraged by more than five hundred tones simultaneously, which appeared to originate from five hundred different directions. Our system cannot track that many. Truth be told, our system can’t track more than one at a time.”
“So what are you trying to say?”
“Leader, the receivers had not been locked on that second tone, so when the five hundred tones hit, nine of the ten receivers lost the line of origin. Only one receiver kept its original line of origin.”
“Is that enough to determine where it originated?”
The headman looked at the people assembled in the room and said, “Probably not.”
“What do you mean probably not, Headman?”
“Leader, I’m going to use your screen to see if I can explain it clearly, because this is a complicated process. Please notice that the planet Ganopur in the central hegemony is the only one that had a locked signal. It’s important to understand that these Alfont tones travel the entire universe almost instantaneously. It’s the ‘almost’ part that allows us to track a line of origin. Now I’m going to draw a line through Ganopur and have it go in both directions through Alliance territory, and then out toward both edges of the universe. The problem with these tones is that we get the line of origin but not distance. We know the tone traveled on this line, but we do not know from which side of the planet it originated. We need other locations to give other lines of origin, and where they intersect we have the location of the tone. With only one line of origin we know that it happened somewhere along that line; we have no idea if it was at the edge of the universe or right here in the Alliance.”
State leader Sten said, “I see. So you’re telling me that it happened somewhere on that line running out toward the Canith Empire or the other direction toward the Glod Union.”
“Yes, Leader.”
“Well, we can eliminate a lot of races from being the source, can we not? If you’re not located on that line, you weren’t the source.”
“That’s true, Leader. But more that fifty races fall on that line, and even more if you include those outside of the Alliance; further, it may not have even originated inside Alliance territory.”
“It’s going to be hard to justify destroying all those races without being able to prove they were actually responsible. It still might be the best course of action. What do you think?”
“Leader, three of the races on that projected line have the largest fleets of warships in the Alliance. Their total amounts to almost 20 percent of all Alliance warships. If we start to systematically destroy every race on that line, what’s to stop them from uniting to stop us? The resulting civil war would probably destroy our civilization. Destroying one race is one thing, fifty or more is quite another.”
“So what’s our best course of action? Do you have any suggestions, Headman?”
“That’s what we were yelling about. I think you have to go and look at all the races to see if they have new Alfont technology and you spend a stellar rotation with them making sure. If you have to send an occupation fleet, then you do so. The innocent will grumble but will understand. The guilty will fight, and then you’ll know where it originated. If nothing shows up, then it was probably toward the edge of the universe and won’t be a threat anyway.”
“Why did we only have ten receivers, Headman?”
“Leader, when we defeated the Alfont 2,200 cycles ago after they had discovered advanced alien technology and were subjugating all the worlds around them, the worlds that had partnered together to defeat them decided that only the ten systems involved in that war that knew the terrible price that had to be paid to defeat Alfont technology would be allowed to track it. No one else could be trusted not to go after it for selfish reasons. Those ten systems were the original founders of the Alliance. Our current civilization is a direct result of that war, and we’ve been able to maintain it by ensuring no one had technological superiority in weapons. We named the race that created that ancient technology Alfont to remind us of what it could cause.”
“Is our current technology still so far behind the Alfont as to be endangered by it now?”
“Probably. The last research done on an Alfont artifact was 190 stellar rotations ago and was the result of the Minmst race uncovering it and then notifying us of its existence and requesting its removal. We brought it here to our labs and touched it generating the tone.”
“They were wise to call us.”
“That’s why they are still alive today, Leader. However, our current instant communications system comes from that artifact. We shared it with all member and subject races in the Alliance. We still don’t completely understand how it works, andt it’s still far ahead of our current technological development. It seems to work at the speed of the Alfont tone. Our biggest fear is that someone will someday uncover an Alfont weapon. That’s why there is no delay in destroying any race that stumbles on this technology. We just can’t take the risk of them hiding it and developing superior weapon technology.”
“You also mentioned races outside the Alliance were located on that line.”
“Yes leader, the Grendap is beyond the Glod Union and has just developed star travel within the last forty cycles. The other is beyond the Cainth Empire and has been overseen by us for over two hundred cycles. We call them humans; originally they were a very peaceful race that possessed no weapons. After the Cainth sent a fleet to destroy them, we intervened and set up restrictions for their continued existence. According to the Cainth, they have started to build warships.”
“How could they not, with the Cainth having destroyed some of their settlements and ships coupled with continuously trying to find a reason to attack them?” Sten asked.
“They are entitled to defend themselves,” the headman responded, “but we are all of a different opinion concerning what we’re to do about these two new races falling on the line of origin we traced. Some of us think that we should go ahead and destroy them. Others feel differently.”
“The Alliance has grown from ten members to more than eight hundred,” Sten said. “If we destroyed every new race we discovered then we would have never grown.”
“Yes, Leader, and I personally agree with you, but these two happen to fall on the line of origin.”
“So do fifty of our members.”
“That’s what’s causing the arguments you were hearing earlier. We have always reacted strongly when a tone occurred; now we have hundreds of tones and we have no plan on how to respond to them. We recognize that for the first time we don’t have a clear target, but to do nothing sends the wrong kind of message.”
“Can you positively identify where the tone originated, Headman?”
“No, Leader, we can’t.”
“I want everyone on the response team to remain in here. Headman, contact all ten members on the safety prime council and have them available for conference immediately.”
“Yes, Leader.” The safety prime council was composed of one member from each of the ten planets that originally formed the Alliance. This council had complete authority to take any action they deemed necessary without having to consult the general assembly. Everyone waited in the room, getting nervous about what was going to happen.
“Leader, may I ask what you intend to do?”
“I’m going to explain the situation to the council and suggest that we destroy the two civilizations that are on the line of origin that are not currently members of the Alliance.”
While the state leader was answering, the headman put his hand to his ear and mumbled something into his com. Then he said, “Leader, your office has just received a communication from the humans concerning the
