Instruction in the New World

by J.R. Blackwell
February 14th, 2006

The teacher tapped her wrist twice, and the drugs started streaming from the plastic tubes embedded in the students’ desk into their soft little arms. Within moments, she had their undivided attention. The yellow design on her dress to moved in a soothing pattern, giving her students a visual point to focus on.

“Today,” she said slowly, “we are going to learn about the sentient species that are currently known to mankind.” She tapped her eyelid three times, initiating the Note Taker program, which would stream an abbreviated version of her lecture into the students’ memory chips.

“Who can, without network, identify the five known sentient species in the universe?” She shut down the network connection to the classroom by touching the back of her neck. Someone in the room sighed.

“Humans.” said Bei, in the front row.

“Humans are one.” said the teacher. She looked around the bright classroom, where licensed educational cartoons frolicked along the walls, displaying friendly attentiveness towards the teacher.

Purple-eyed Mary raised her hand. “Yannoi, G’tharn, The Ones Without Names, and the Silicates.” Teacher had long suspected Mary of having a pirate network connection through some kind of organic implant. Her parents wouldn’t say.

“That is correct Mary. Recently in the news, the Yannoi have initiated hostile actions toward Humans, trying to use their transmissions to break into our computer systems. They have yet to cause any damage, as communication across that much space is very slow. Our scientists say that they have recently launched a fleet towards our home worlds.”

“Why haven’t we taken action?” asked little Mary

Teacher opened the network connection again. Immediately she could sense the downloads and searches begin. Children were only allowed classroom related searches during school hours. “Although the Yannoi seem intent on harming humanity, our scientists predict that they only have a four percent chance of surviving the journey. Although we can bend sensitive areas of space to transmit small messages, larger areas carrying a heavy matter burden are impossible to transmit. Only light can be transported in this way, the light we use to carry messages. The Yannoi fleet, if they are successful, will take seven thousand years to reach earth.”

“We could all be dead by then,” said little Mary.

“Only if you don’t take your medication,” said teacher, tapping her wrist once. In unison, the whole class smiled.