The Lost Colony
Copyright© 2026 by D M Arnold
Chapter 2: Briefing
Nyk gazed out the viewport as the interstellar packet drew near the transport platform -- a village-sized space station in permanent orbit around his indigo homeworld. The packet had picked him up from the comm relay station his people had installed near Earth.
Post-9/11 his travel to his homeworld had become more complicated. He and Seymor had decided to retire the bubble shuttle, and being stationed in New York meant the lack of quiet country roads for launching a shuttle car. Now he had to fly to Milwaukee or Kansas City and use shuttle cars assigned to Dyppa or Grynnya.
This change also meant fewer opportunities to visit Sukiko. He was eagerly anticipating spending some time together on this visit.
The packet made its approach and docked with one of the tunnels with which the platform bristled. He filed through the tunnel and into the arrivals lounge. A middle-aged man wearing official insignia approached him. “Nykkyo!”
“Illya -- what are you doing here?”
“It’s been a while, Nyk. I thought I should meet your flight. Come -- we can fly my private shuttle to the surface. Do you have accommodations?”
“No -- I’ll find a room at the hostel.”
“You will do nothing of the sort. You will stay as my guest. Come.”
Nyk followed Kronta to a bullet car that carried them through the platform to the diplomatic terminal. They boarded a small shuttle. It pulled away from the platform and headed toward the surface.
Nyk felt Kronta’s palm against his in a traditional Floran gesture of friendship. He spread his fingers and the two men held hands. “Nyk,” Illya said, “over the years I have developed a deep respect for your abilities. In a way, it’s too bad you’re stationed on Earth. You could have a bright future here on the homeworld.”
“Thanks, Illya. It’s important work I’m doing on Earth.”
“I know it is. I wish we could clone you.”
The shuttle touched down and taxied to the private terminal at the Floran City shuttleport. Kronta motioned Nyk to an awaiting skimmer that carried them to a platform on the 100th floor of an apartment tower.
Nyk glanced toward Illya. “Why all the ceremony, Illya? I could’ve just as easily taken one of the regular shuttles and a tubecar here.”
“I have a surprise for you.” Kronta approached a door and pressed his wrist to a doorscan. The device read the microchip in his wrist and the door slid open. Nyk stepped into the apartment. “This is my humble abode.”
Nyk looked around. “Very nice, Illya.” He noticed motion from the back of the apartment and a middle-aged woman stepped into the room. His eyes met hers. “Daphne! Daphne Wallace...”
“Nick Kane ... Nykkyo Kyhana,” the woman replied in flawless <>Lingwa.
“How long have you been here?”
“About half a year.” She held up her right wrist. “I have a personal ID chip ... I’m now a Floran.”
“How?”
“Illya and I have been corresponding since that day in Seymor’s office.”
“And, since your wife has been onworld, I’ve been pleading with her to come, too.”
“Then, I was let go from my teaching job. After eighteen years on the job -- they said they wanted fresher blood. What they really wanted was cheaper, not fresher. I have no family, so I took Illya up on his offer.”
“I sent one of our enforcers to fetch her,” Kronta replied.
“This very nice young man escorted me here. I stepped into the shuttleport and saw Illya standing, waiting for me ... and the decades melted away. I was a young American student in Paris again.”
“And I was a young ExoAgent on assignment.”
“It’s been wonderful. We’re both so happy.”
“It’s a debt I owe you, Nykkyo,” Kronta added. “I only wish Daphne and I could marry.”
“We can’t,” said Daphne, “because I have no line here. I so envy you and Suki.”
“We were married in an Earth ceremony,” Nyk replied. “It has no legal standing here.”
“Speaking as a woman, Nykkyo -- it wouldn’t matter to me whether it did or didn’t. I remember watching you two, standing before that judge and proclaiming your love for each other. It was the most beautiful moment I had ever witnessed.”
“Then -- why not do just that? Invite friends, stand before them and proclaim your love for each other. Afterward you can have a party.”
Kronta looked at Daphne. “That is an excellent idea.”
“I’ll bring the champagne,” Nyk added, “assuming I won’t get into trouble for bringing alcohol onworld.”
“One of the side benefits of being in the ExoAgency,” Kronta replied.
“Since you’ve been here, have you seen Suki?”
“No. We’ve talked on the vidphone but we haven’t got together. We will someday, soon. Your wife is a very busy woman. She’s the most important Earth person living on Floran.”
“Until half a year ago, she was the ONLY Earth person living here.”
“Now,” Daphne replied, “she is without a doubt the most important. Come -- we’ll dine and talk about the old days. I’ll show you to your room.”
Daphne heated packaged dinners in the apartment’s small kitchen and set them on the table. She produced a bottle and a corkscrew. Illya struggled to extract the cork, then poured rounds into polymer tumblers.
Nyk examined the label. “Chateneuf-du-Pape,” he said. “This was Suki’s dad’s favorite.”
“I brought a few bottles with me,” Daphne replied, “and a corkscrew.”
“It’s a good thing she remembered that,” Illya replied.
“I brought it to celebrate our reunion. Illya said we had to save the last bottle to share with you.”
“I feel honored,” Nyk replied. He lifted his glass. “Then, here’s to reunions.” He sipped the wine. “If there are Earth products you’d like -- feel free to give me a list. I’m always sending cans of tuna for Suki. I can certainly manage for a few bottles of wine...”
“Or, perhaps a tin of foie gras,” Daphne suggested.
“Or some chocolates,” Illya added.
“How are you finding Floran?” Nyk asked.
“It’s beautiful -- more beautiful than my wildest imagination.”
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” Nyk replied.
“Thank goodness for beholders. Without them there would be no beauty at all.”
Nyk smiled. “Suki told me how crucial you were to forming her. She told me over and over how Miss Wallace was her favorite teacher. I can see your influence -- that last remark could’ve come from her own lips.”
“I love your wife, Nykkyo. She was without a doubt, in all my years teaching, my favorite. Teachers aren’t supposed to form favorites, but she was mine. The day she graduated I was so happy for her -- knowing she had gotten her life on track. I was sad to see her leave, but I knew great things were in store for her.”
“You just didn’t know where,” Illya added.
Nyk walked with Illya into an empty conference room at ExoService headquarters.
“Illya,” he asked, “what is this about? Where’s our special envoy?”
“She’ll be conferencing in from Gamma-5. I should warn you, Nyk -- she’s someone we’ve locked horns with before.”
“Who might that be?” Nyk chuckled. “Tomyka Wells?”
“None other.”
“Impossible...” He pondered. “Tomyka has been ... rehabilitated?”
“Tomyka spent the first two years of her confinement being such a model citizen, she convinced a magistrate to cut short her sentence. She has been working with the latest Secretary of Agriculture on Gamma. The rumor is their relationship extends beyond professional.”
“Hmmph,” Nyk snorted. “I wonder what sort of man would appreciate Tomyka’s ... unique charms.”
Kronta smiled. “He’d need to be a very strong one.”
“Or, a very weak one,” Nyk replied. “Latest Ag Secretary? How many have there been?”
“They’ve installed a revolving door on the Gamman Ag ministry. This is the fourth in three years.”
“Why the turnover?”
“We can blame THAT on the Altian-Lexalese rapprochement. Mykko Wygann has been opening large tracts of land, and the Altians have been sending unemployed ore-workers to be field hands.”
“What grows on Lexal except for inkroot?”
“They have discovered the Lexalese southern tier has a climate nearly ideal for growing winter wheat.”
Nyk nodded. “Let me guess -- The resulting wheat surplus has hit the Gammans hard.”
“The first Lexalese-Altian wheat came on line two seasons ago. For centuries, the Gammans have been accustomed to a monopoly on being the Hegemony’s breadbasket.”
“Now, they know what competition feels like. Hence the turnover at the Ag Ministry.”
“Right, Nyk. They’re scrambling to figure out how to deal with it. They’ve even petitioned the High Legislature for subsidies.”
“I can imagine how well that went over.”
“They called the situation a crisis impacting every colony. It fell on more or less deaf ears. Do you see what happens when you spend a year and a half cooped up in your little Earthbound hole? You get cut out of the loop.”
Nyk smiled. “It’s a loop I’d just as soon remain out of. How does this lead to Tomyka’s assignment as envoy?”
“This diplomatic initiative has been going on, quietly in the background for some time. Now, both parties are ready to move it up a notch. Once word circulated, Tomyka called in a few of her remaining favors among the ExoService brass and got herself appointed.”
“It seems out of her character,” Nyk replied. “I never envisioned her as a diplomat. As an enforcer, yes -- a diplomat, no.”
“She wanted it bad. We could tell she wanted it -- so bad she could taste it.”
“I still can’t believe she’d make such a fuss over this sort of an assignment. What are they planning? A treaty between the Abo and the Gammans patterned after the Lexalese-Altian one?”
“The Abo? What makes you think this has anything to do with the Abo?”
“Your note to Seymor referred to a lost colony. I assumed...”
“You assumed wrong. The colony in question is Varada.”
“Varada...” Nyk rolled the word around in his mouth for a few moments. “The lost colony of Varada...”
“Misplaced would be more appropriate ... It’s time for Tomyka to conference in. She can fill you in with the rest.”
Nyk turned his chair to face a wall-mounted vidisplay. Kronta activated it and the image of a late-middle-aged woman appeared. “Nykkyo Kyhana,” she said. “Well, well, well ... I didn’t know YOU were to be our interpreter.”
“I didn’t know YOU were to be the envoy,” Nyk replied.
“Please, Nykkyo -- let’s not start on the wrong foot. Let’s let bygones be bygones. I hold no hard feelings and neither should you. After all -- you were the victor.”
“Agreed ... Tell me, Ms Wells...”
“Tomyka,” she replied. “We are on the same team.”
“Tomyka -- tell me how I can help negotiating with Varada. Tell me why we’re negotiating with them at all.”
“Some background, Nykkyo ... What do you recall of your school history lessons regarding Varada?”
He looked at the ceiling. “Varada -- second or third colony discovered ... Earth-like planet ... for some reason they were excluded from the Floran Hegemony.”
“Varada,” Wells replied. “Current planetary population about two billion. The planet is situated such that interstellar navigation in and out is very dangerous. More of our scouts were lost in the Varada approach than to all other colonies, combined. As a result, the High Legislature decided the colony was too dangerous and was to be abandoned. However, the settlers who were there liked the place and preferred to sever ties and become independent rather than pack up and ship out.
“The Varadans attempted, about a thousand years ago, to normalize relations. An exploratory expedition there revealed something very troubling about how their society had evolved.”
“Which was?” Nyk asked.
“They had evolved into a rigid, stratified society, comprising a leadership class at the top, and with professional, merchant and worker classes in the middle.”
“We have societies like that on Earth,” Nyk replied. “What of the lower class?”
“That is where the difficulties arose. The lowest rung on their ladder was a slave class.”
“Slavery? The Varadans practice slavery?”
“What is even worse,” Tomyka added, “is that they enslaved their own people.”
“Please explain to me why it’s preferable to enslave someone else’s people.”
Wells ignored his remark and continued, “As you know, the Floran Compact forbids involuntary servitude, the HL constitution forbids it and each and every colonial charter forbids it. The Varadans were told to abolish slavery as a condition for normalization. They walked away from the table.”
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.