The stage the Court had chosen for my trial was a delightful small planet, with all the features any intelligent human would have loved: forests, lakes, beaches of immaculate white sand, a pale blue sky peppered with little clouds, birds and small mammals who reminded me of the farming parks I used to take our grand children to visit. My abode, for the duration of the Trial, was a small cottage in the woods, not very far from the Court’s building, with all practical amenities in a simple setting.
I arrived, by a transport arranged by the Court, in what looked like a perpetual autumn. My attorney, herself a five dimensional Arcturian, of evident great culture and knowledge of the human psyche, was there to welcome me, and prepare me for the first hearing to take place in a couple of Earth’s days. She was charming, in fact she could have been a sister to Melissa, her compatriot, whose relationship with me was the subject of the Trial. We took a walk to the Court’s building, that looked like a village hall, as yet not equipped with the paraphernalia of cross-dimensional devices that would be required by the proceedings. We sat on the terrace of the building, facing a small pond, in comfortable armchairs and drinking coffee, which had mysteriously materialised on a small table between us. She said her name was Inga, and her job was to explain to me the way the Court worked, the steps in the process, and, during the hearings, to defend my case against the Prosecutor and the Coven’s attorney.
At this point I have to say a few words about myself, and about my tender love, Melissa. I am a historian by training and profession. For many years I have been teaching psychohistory, the science first envisaged by Isaac Asimov and the mathematician Hari Seldon, the American geniuses, who, in the twentieth century, anticipated many developments that revolutionised the life of mankind in the following two centuries. I was born in AD 3065, the year the Earthlings colonised Aurora. As most readers will know, this was a couple decades before we, human beings, met visitors from Arcturus. Those taught us about the multi-dimensional universe, and although five-dimensional themselves, and thus impossible to communicate with at first, they could easily adopt a four dimensional form, and speak to us in our language. In the following decades, we learnt from them the secrets of fusion, and the rudiments of space travel as well as number of technologies hitherto unknown to mankind.
For me, as psychohistorian, these years were a period of incredible discoveries and learning, even trained as I was at the Seldon University on Europa. The Arcturians taught us their rules of behaviour, that from then on, applied to all inter-species relationships. It is under their laws that I was about to be trialled, and possibly convicted, as Inga was explaining.
It became known after a few years from our first meeting with them, that Arcturians could easily adopt a human shape, and that, mostly, this would be a female form, that of an attractive woman, of an age matching their interlocutors. In my daily research and teaching work, I often interacting with their own scientists, and learnt much about other species of multidimensional beings. For us, it would have been impossible to communicate with one or two dimensions beings, those beings having only a form that could be apprehended through mathematics. Similarly three dimensional only beings, that is without the fourth, time, dimension, were static, immovable objects, closer to stones than to living creatures. Arcturians are, among other things, experts at space travel, for which their five dimensional form is very well adapted. Melissa had explained to me that the fifth dimension mediated between the first three and the time dimension, in order to mitigate the effect of entropy. They know about higher order beings, such as their six dimensional cousins, who are best described as “celestial bodies”.
But, first of all, let me tell you about Melissa. We met as I was celebrating my ninetieth birthday, thus in 3155, which is for us, the onset of adulthood. She was the leader of a visiting group to our university, and it is there that we met, first as a group, then one to one. To say that the person Melissa was exquisite would be an understatement. I was first captivated by her intelligence and sense of humour – those who are familiar with conversing with Arcturians know how sharp their humour often is – and then by her charm. Melissa is irresistibly attractive. We became colleagues and friends. Melissa came from a remote outpost of Arcturus, and increasingly, after we first met, chose to keep close to our system, often visiting me on Europa. We spoke about her “childhood”, she told me about her Coven, the extended family, perhaps counting thousands of elder Arcturians, who had brought her up, taught and educated her. All the time she kept to her human form, we spoke in English or Russian, and gradually I fell in love with her. Falling in love is a shortcut for a range of feelings and discoveries that changed my life, and soon, our lives.
Inga was explaining the proceedings. I would have to answer many questions, from a panel that included humans and Arcturians, as well as a mysterious representative of the “celestial bodies”. The Prosecutor, representing the Arcturian authority in our galaxy, would present the accusation, which centered on a case of emotional blackmail, as I will explain. The panel would consider, request clarifications from the prosecutor and myself, and then hand over to Melissa’s Coven and their attorney, for further questions. Melissa herself could not attend, but was allowed to follow the proceedings from her place of residence, without intervening in the debate. Inga said that she, Inga, would then speak to present the case from my viewpoint, and that before she could speak, I had to decide whether I was pleading guilty, or otherwise. I could not chose Melissa as witness.
We then talked about the accusation. Melissa had decided to opt for retaining the human form, until her death. She had decided this on her own volition, and I was astonished when she did. There were several consequences to that decision, should she be successful. First of all, she would have to give up space travel, on the scale commonly practised by her species. Then she would become relatively dependent on me, as a native of Earth and its colonies. She would also lose her voting rights in her Coven. I had tried to dissuade her, but her argument was that she wanted to live with me, here, in my human world, and that necessitated her to be human. There were plenty of questions we could not answer. Would I be allowed to marry her?
The reaction of her Coven was calm, but very clear: there had been very few cases of Arcturians “going native” anywhere, and none with Earthlings, or so they said. They would not allow Melissa to commit that form of suicide, and would stop her through legal means. I did not understand what it meant at first. Human laws also protected unvoluntary interference between humans and other species, and we had long learnt that any hint of violence led swiftly to annihilation. However in this case, Melissa and me were close friends, had become lovers, and there had never be any pressure from one of us to the other.
Inga said that I had to appreciate, as psychohistorian, and human being, the complexity of the case. The sacrifice Melissa would make, if allowed, would condemn her to an early death by her species’ standards. The equilibrium achieved through patient negotiations, for over a century, between humans and Arcturians, may be put into question, on moral grounds. Inga asked me if Melissa and I had talked about having a child.
Image: By E. Weiß – E. Weiß: “Bilderatlas der Sternenwelt” This file was derived from: Bilder-Atlas der Sternenwelt – eine Astronomie fur jedermann 1888 (128495337).jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=254647
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