//------------------------------// // Rescue Party // Story: Luna's Return Trajectory // by Stainless Steel Fox //------------------------------// Richard Nixon looked around the room, assessing the various scientists, engineers and other personnel seated around the big table. A round table conference wasn't his usual way of doing things, but he needed knowledge more than an ego boost. “Well, gentlemen, it appears the Luna situation is getting more and more out of control. On the one hand, that demonstration of those gadgets Apollo 11 brought back from the moon have convinced most of the world that Luna exists, and is not some fantasy dreamed up by NASA to get more grant money. I know that private showing I had convinced me! “But that brings its own problems. Luna has quickly become a bigger hot button topic than the war. We have some who think she's the first sign of the apocalypse, some who want us to bomb the moon out of existence, while others are ready to start worshipping her, and everything in between! I have crazy people of every stripe yelling their opinions at anyone who'll listen, and some of them are in Congress. And that's just domestically; the situation overseas is even worse.” He was too smooth a politician to show how the strain had affected him; dealing with the increasingly demanding attitude of the Soviets and various other nations, both ally and otherwise, who were beating on The White House door for answers he wasn't yet ready to give was taking its toll. Which was what this meeting was about in a way. “However, the buck stops here, at my desk, and I have to decide on a policy. One, do we bring Luna back to Earth? Two, what will it take, and how long? Three, what will we do with her if and when she gets here? To do that, I need information. Dr Paine? As NASA Administrator, I assume you have those answers?" The bespectacled man who the president questioned indicated the people around the table as he spoke. "Yes sir, my people have been working around the clock on finding out more, and working out possible options. As you know, Doctor Sagan has been brought in full time to head the team in contact with Luna. Director Gilruth is the director of the Manned Spacecraft Centre where the Lunar Receiving Lab is. That is, where the artifacts and the biological samples brought back are being held and tested. "From there we also have Doctor Schopf. His field is paleobiology, and he's the principal investigator for lunar samples; he put together the team of biologists that did the examination. Finally, we have Owen Maynard, Mission Operations Division. He was a Project Engineer on Project Mercury and is one of the primary designers on the Lunar Module. His team has been looking at ways of getting Luna to Earth, if the decision is made to bring her back." "That, as the Bard said, is the question." Nixon quipped, subtly reinforcing the impression of quiet confidence he was projecting. "Let's start with Luna's intentions. I'd assume that's being handled by Doctor Sagan's team?" "Yes, Mr President." Dr Paine replied. "Doctor Sagan, what are your conclusions? You have a reliable link?” Carl Sagan was sitting near the head of the conference table. “Yes, Mr President. Though we're having to share time with that English broadcast, and several others that have sprung up. Not to mention the ones that are just listening.” Nixon frowned. “Can't we do anything about that?” “Not for the most part. Pointing a radio receiver at the moon isn't illegal. Transmitting at the sort of power needed to reach Luna's communicator is, at least without a licence, but the frequency band is right in the middle of the amateur radio bands, so a lot of people do have licences. Maybe you could do something through the FCC, but a lot of the transmitters are overseas. Fortunately, Luna was happy to agree to reserve her time only for us when the moon is in the sky over the US.” “Hmmm.” Nixon made a note on a pad to get someone to find out exactly what the FCC could do. “So, you've been talking to her for ten hours a day?” “For the last two weeks. She's recently put herself to sleep for a week to rest through the coldest part of the lunar night, and recover some of the power she used.” “So, what have you learned? “ Nixon asked. “About her, rather than this Equestria. I need to understand how she thinks most of all.” “Remarkably human-like. She shows a similar emotional spectrum, has many of the same behaviours and traits as us. This isn't just my opinion, we've brought in several expert psychologists to analyse all our communications with her, as well as a specialist in witness interrogation from the FBI to help guide the questions. “She's been willing to discuss almost any topic we've put to her, and her answers are consistent, and too detailed to be improvisations unless she's a far better dissembler than she showed herself to be when talking to the astronauts. She's also eager to learn about Earth, our sciences and literature especially. She hasn't pushed the possibility of us providing a passage here, but it's clear that it's on her mind constantly. She's crafted a more powerful receiver than her headset, and can now tune in to regular broadcasts rather than just things directly beamed at the moon when the ionosphere permits." Doctor Sagan picked up one of a number of files that were on the table in front of him and checked the contents. “Part of the dialogue was aimed at finding out her attitudes and beliefs, especially considering the 'Nightmare Moon' revelation. The full report is here, but the short answer is, she is suffering from a significant guilt complex, and the effects of isolation and sensory deprivation over several years. Everything points to genuine, even excessive remorse. “One of the team suggested that spilling out her history the way she did was in part a catharsis, a confession, and in part an unconscious effort at sabotaging herself, driving away her new friends because she didn't feel worthy of that friendship. She's a mess, but there's nothing to suggest she's the slightest danger to anyone but herself. ”However, it could have been much worse. Any human in her position, assuming they could survive, would most likely have been driven insane from loneliness if nothing else. As far as she knew the only sapient beings anywhere were in the next universe over, and she wouldn't be able to return there for a thousand years.” “Wait, what was that?” Nixon asked curiously. “The thousand years? Apparently around that time there's going to be some sort of quadruple conjunction of minor astrolites with her moon. All of them are charged with mana, magical energy, and the effect will be like aligning a set of lenses. There will be a massive surge of power focussed on that moon, enough to release the other part of her, this Nightmare Moon. Luna was hoping by that time to have gathered enough power to form some sort of connection and use that same power to return there to stop her. That's Equis years of course, and only a rough estimate, but Earth years are similar enough for it not to matter for the foreseeable future." The president frowned. "Interesting, but we've got more urgent matters to decide. What is your team's best guess on her reactions if we did recover her?" "Best guess? She will live up to her promises to teach us whatever we want to know, both about Equestria and about magic. And that is a lot. This is an unparalleled opportunity. If she were an ordinary member of her society we'd still be able to learn a lot about her culture, society, xenobiology, a dozen other fields. But not only was she a ruling high status member, with all the privileges in education and access to information that implies, she's also a scholar, the equivalent of a polymath with wide understanding of an entirely new field of knowledge. “An example is the sample of silvery material she gave us, the English translation is moonsilver, though some of the team working on it call it mithril. Mechanically, it’s similar to titanium, though more ductile, very light, mechanically strong, but capable of being shaped and machined. Chemically, however, it’s utterly inert. It’s a total insulator for both electricity and electromagnetic rays, including gamma radiation, and reflects everything from alpha particles to neutrons with equal ease. It doesn’t conduct heat, and appears to have whatever the ambient temperature is on that surface, though that's a result of the perfect reflectivity, rather than an actual temperature. It also doesn't melt or even soften at any temperature we can apply. “Our best guess at the reason for these properties is that it’s not atomic matter, but something else. All matter as we understand it is made up of fermions; quarks that combine into protons, neutrons and leptons such as electrons, which combine to form atoms. All processes such as radioactivity, thermal transfer, electrical conductivity are down to the properties of atoms and sub-atomic particles. However there is another class of particles, bosons, which include photons and neutrinos. It’s been postulated that we might be able to trap photons in a lattice structure, forming something analogous to a solid, and according to Luna that’s exactly what this is. “She made it to use in creating the artefacts she crafted because it is a highly efficient conductor of magical energy. According to her it’s made from moonlight stabilised and ‘condensed’ with magic. However it’s made, it has properties that are repeatedly demonstrable and incredibly useful. "No atoms means no heat conduction, no electrons means no electrical conduction, and being made up of a continuous phase rather than discrete atoms means it's an absolute reflector of electromagnetic radiation, including gamma rays. It could be used for everything from a dielectric for super-capacitors that could store massive amounts of energy to a casing for a zero radiation nuclear power source you could fit in a briefcase. And that’s just an off-shoot of her abilities, something she included because she had some left over and thought we might find it interesting.” “This power she uses, magic is as good a term as any, is more than just a new technology, it’s a modality like fire or electricity. It has a whole host of potential applications, not only new technologies, but new tools to understand things about the universe our sciences have barely touched. She is both an expert practicioner, a combination of top bracket scientist and master engineer, and an incredibly powerful one, or will be once she’s no longer spending most of her energy surviving and can devote some of it to restoring her reserves. And she’s willing, no eager, to share all of it freely with us!" Sagan's voice rose at the end, showing his enthusiasm. "How certain are you of your analysis of her thought processes?" Nixon picked up his pen and tapped it on the notepad in front of him. "She's a completely different species!" "It's not too surprising, we often see simpler versions of human behaviour in primates and mammals in general. And she is a mammal, more specifically an equine, the tests on the biological samples prove that, but she's also definitely not from Earth or any star system in the local cluster.” “How can you possibly know that? For that matter, how can that possibly be? I may be a lawyer, but even I know that evolution doesn't work that way!” "That's where Doctor Schopf comes in. His team managed to deduce it from the biological samples." Dr Schopf was a young man with glasses and an enthusiastic manner. “The determination of Luna's genus came more from close examination of the photographs and movies. Equine paleobiology has been well studied, and her form shows a number of features that are unique to modern equines, rather than her just having a close similarity. My team's estimate, she has a common ancestor with terrestrial horses within the last ten million years, maybe far less. She's certainly a closer relative of terrestrial horses than zebras or even donkeys. Apparently there are intelligent versions of those in Equestria too. The structure of the feather was identical to modern terrestrial birds, most closely matching raptors. Once again there are several features that have to have come from a common ancestor. “The various serum tests and chemical processing we did on the blood sample confirmed it, her biochemistry is terrestrial, as near as makes no odds, and several blood factors match those in equine blood. It does mean that when and if she gets to Earth, she'll have no problem eating our food. She could even theoretically accept a blood transfusion from a properly matched terrestrial horse, much as humans could potentially from great apes. Either it's part of this correspondence she's talked about, or when the entities she calls the Makers terraformed... bioformed Equis, they cribbed their designs from Earth. Doctor Sagan also has corroborating evidence that Equis has terrestrial derived lifeforms." “It has been suggested from the conversations we've had, she refers to terrestrial species from apples to zebras.” Doctor Sagan interjected. “It could be an artefact of the translation 'spell', but the descriptions match. And translations of proper nouns tend to either be overly literal or render as some sort of bad pun. Place names like Trottingham, Cloudsdale and Baltimare. Not to mention country names like Saddle Arabia, Zebrica and the Griffish Isles.“ "So she's a horse from a world of bad puns. How do you know that world isn't Earth?" "Isotope ratios." Dr Schopf replied. "We ashed part of the feather and did extensive mass spectrometry tests. Every element is made up of various isotopes, similar numbers of protons and electrons, different number of neutrons. They all have the same number of electrons, they're chemically identical. The ratios between these isotopes in certain elements shows minimal variation, as all the material that makes up our solar system and nearby ones, is thought to have come from a common supernova event." "Luna's feather shows ratios orders of magnitude different to terrestrial ones. Calcium, carbon, even nitrogen ratios that could not have come from Earth, and judging by analyses of meteors that have fallen to Earth, nowhere in the solar system either. Taken at face value, it can only mean she's from somewhere else. Admittedly, she could have used her micro-telekinetic power to adjust the ratios, but why bother? Until Apollo 11 landed, she never had experience with any scientific instrument more advanced than a microscope." “You’re saying her story checks out?” Nixon summarised. “Yes, Mr President.” Dr Schopf replied. “Of course, we’ve been running disease and microbial tests in parallel. We’ve exposed lab animals to sera formed from Luna’s blood samples, attempted to culture any bacteria we could, and so far she checks out clean. We even have a horse in quarantine as one of the test subjects. As I've said, her blood and tissue is remarkably clean, and nor does it show any of the degredation that we’d expect from exposure to the radiation environment on the moon. “In fact, I suspect the same ability that’s keeping her alive, the regenerative ability that she’s talked about in her discussions with Dr Sagan, normally fuctions as a super-immune system and anti-gerone... something that slows or stops aging that is. Which opens up whole other medical possibilities, as I’m sure you can imagine. But the most important result right now is that Luna won’t get ill from our germs either. We’ll have a more complete report in a month’s time, but for now there’s no biological reason she couldn’t be brought to Earth safely.” “Which doesn’t address the political and social reasons as to whether we do it or not.” Nixon commented. "Sorry, Mr President, that's not my field of expertise." “Uh... sir!” The man who spoke wore a neat suit and tie, the perfect picture of a young executive. “Sorry to interrupt, Owen Maynard sir, Mission Operations Division. My team has been looking at ways of getting Luna to Earth, and it’s not so much a matter of whether we do it as who will do it and when.” "The Russians?" Nixon asked, mouth tightening. "That's one possibility. They have managed to soft land vehicles on the moon. And if Doctor Sagan's right, they don't need anything as complex as a full Apollo mission to recover her." Seeing Nixon look his way, Sagan took over. "She can survive unaided in space for as long as necessary, so no need for a pressurised cabin or life support system. And according to her, if she can get far enough from the moon, say a few thousand miles, it will break the geas that restricts her from using her magic to fly, at which point she's her own transfer vehicle. She's flown in space before back over her homeworld, and she doesn't need to worry about a heat shield for re-entry, because she can slow herself down before hitting atmosphere. The only reason Apollo doesn't is because it would take a lot of fuel, more than the Service Module can carry." Maynard continued. "So, as you can see sir, all you'd really need to land is an engine with fuel tanks and saddle on top, controlled by a basic flight computer, with enough delta V to put it on a lunar escape trajectory. Luna's own weight is reckoned to be under 180 pounds, the weight of an empty A7L space suit. Based around existing hardware we estimate an ascent vehicle weight of around 1200 pounds, fully fuelled. While that's several times heavier than anything Russia has soft landed on the moon, it's a lot less than the 5 ton ascent stage of the Lunar module. "But descent might not be a problem, Luna has already demonstrated that she can adjust the orbit of the discarded Eagle ascent stage in a 70 mile high orbit. Use a transfer vehicle to put the Ascent vehicle into a low orbit, or even a close flyby, and she'd be able to handle capture and lowering it to the surface herself. Which means they could do it with their existing launch vehicles, as they've already launched lunar orbiters in that sort of mass range. But it's not just the Russians, the Europeans are developing their own launch vehicles, and while they're nowhere near being able to launch a lunar mission right now, a crash priority R and D project could change things." "Do the Russians know that she can capture orbiting vehicles?" "We don't believe so sir, we asked Luna to keep quiet about the experiment." Sagan said. "But she said as much in that initial broadcast, so it's possible." "How truly good!" the president exclaimed with a growl. "Any more bad news?" "I wouldn't put it that way, but it might be possible for Luna to build something herself, using the discarded hardware that's already on the moon, especially if she had instructions from Earth. She probably never considered it before Apollo 11, because her own society is at the stage of the gunpowder firework as far as rocketry goes. But she saw the Apollo 11 in action, and she's been asking questions. Her powers would allow her to disassemble and reshape components, the only things she's missing is a source of fuel, and a carbonaceous chondrite meteorite or exavating it from a crater would give her a source of nitrogen and carbon, which she could refine into hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide. She might even be able to conjure it and have it last long enough to work." "I thought this magic spell, this geas prevented her from using her magic to escape the moon?" Sagan fielded this. "We suspect it's much like a computer program. As long as it remains within its specified parameters, it's fine, but throw in something it wasn't programmed for and it breaks. It will stop her teleporting or using self levitation, but it apparently doesn't consider her telekinesis or other powers a threat. She's used alchemy, molecular level manipulation, already. If she builds a non-magical escape vehicle, even by magical means, the geas won't see that as a threat. After all, whoever set the conditions for the geas, probably her sister, almost certainly believed that the only way to escape the moon was by using magic directly. Equestria can only just build fireworks." "Wait, she can teleport too? Just wonderful. Any limitations, range, walls?" "From what she's said, as long as she knows where she's going, or has seen a picture, she can get there with a range of several thousand miles." "So, to sumarize: this Luna provides a wealth of knowledge that could provide economic and strategic advantages, not to mention her personal abilities which make her sound like a comic book superhero. She will be willing to share those advantages with us if we get her off the moon, but we have to assume that if someone else did so she'd be just as grateful to them. We can't allow that to happen, which means we have no other choice but to try and bring her back ourselves." That got a lot of cheerful expressions and grins, but he wasn't finished. "However, those same powers make her a major threat if she ever went rogue again, or if despite appearances she's bluffing now. So we also need to be ready to find a way to contain or kill her if something goes wrong." That got almost universal expressions and exclamations of shock and dismay. Nixon shut them up with a glare and a shouted "Silence!" He relaxed his expression into a friendlier mein. "Look boys, it's not something I like the idea of any more than you do. You're all focussed on the advantages, the possibilities, and that's okay, that's your job as scientists and engineers. My job as president of these United States is to protect the citizens of these same United States, whether by diplomacy, intimidation or military force. That means considering the unpleasant possibilities, and making the hard decisions. "You have to admit there's a possibility that she could go crazy again, as she's admitted to doing once before. It may be an absolute last resort, but it has to be considered, for the sake of the nation. Plus, there are other nations who will be far less restrained if they see those advantages come to us, so we also need to know what she's vulnerable to so we can protect her. So, is it possible to kill or contain her?" He also wanted a similar fall-back position in case some other country beat them to the prize, but he had no intention of telling these guys that. In that case it would have to be utterly black, he didn't need his press secretary to tell him what kind of backlash there'd be if it came out. After a long, tense pause, Sagan said, "From what we know, it seems any mundane containment system would be ineffective as long as she has her magic, and we know of no way to remove it. Physiologically, she's a mammal and should theoretically be affected by the same things that would kill a human. However, once again there's her magic to contend with. It almost certainly has an autonomic component, operating as automatically as breathing, that protects her. Doctor Schopf?" "Doctor Wilberforce can give you more detail on that." Doctor Wilberforce was a greying, bespectacled man in his early 50's with a rumpled looking shirt. "Ah, yes, yes. My group was assigned to experiment with a blood sample and tissue from the base of the feather, to test its structure compared to terrestrial blood and discover its ability to resist damage. Even after being decanted from the vial, Luna's blood remained viable for far longer than most mammals, and showed an impressive ability to counter destroy a number of pathogens we introduced. It's practically a panacea. "We also cultured tissue from the wing root, and exposed it to everything from acids to radiation. It took far more damage than anything short of specialised microorganisms could before dying. Tissue separated from the growth medium also proved far more vital than it should. Biochemically there is no explanation. Some other factor makes it far tougher than it has any right to be. Microscopic examination showed some structures within the cells that have no parallel in terrestrial mammals. It's possible that these structures relate to Luna's 'magic', and the unusual vitality of the cells. Facinating! To summarise, biological or chemical methods are not likely to be effective at any reasonable concentration." Maynard was discussing something with his fellows, head down over a note pad that was rapidly filling with numbers and equations as he used a slide rule. Nixon coughed. "You've thought of something, Mr Maynard?" After a second, Maynard looked up. "Yes, sir. We've done some quick calculations of the mundane energy equivalents required to perform the effects we know Luna's capable of, and applied it to pure kinetic energy. It's a rough ballpark, I don't have exact figures on me, but we can work out the sort of effects needed to overcome Luna if her existing powers were focussed on stopping a projectile. A force shield so to speak. Bullets would bounce, even from a heavy machine gun. Likewise RPGs or pretty much any man portable rocket launcher. We're looking at a main battle tank gun or even a naval shell to do anything. An anti-tank mine might do the job, as with that you might have a chance of sneaking it up on her, but more likely you'd need a block buster." 'Not something you could take to the moon, or use here on Earth without someone noticing. Plus,' he thought to himself, 'We definitely can't afford to attempt it and fail, as that would certainly turn her hostile.' "Very well, it looks like the only option is to bring her to Earth ourselves, and make every effort to ensure she feels wanted and useful, both to bind her more closely to us and to ensure she doesn't end up in the same mindset that set off her last psychotic break. However, I want to talk to her directly before I make my final decision. So. Mr Maynard, I assume you do have a way to bring her back safely? And what is it going to cost the U.S. taxpayer?" "Actually, sir, we do." Maynard brought out some papers from a folder. "Our initial decision was to use Apollo hardware as much as possible. Creating new hardware and testing it, as I mentioned before, would take several years and cost a great deal. At first we thought we'd have to wait for Apollo 15, the first J type extended mission. The upgraded LM has fuel to bring back a much heavier sample payload. However, that would be two years away, which is definitely sub-optimal. "With that in mind, we've been working on a near term plan. With some operational changes and minor modifications to the CSM and LM, we should be able to bring Luna back safely on Apollo 12. The timeline would be tight, but we can do it if we have the go ahead right now. It means pretty much dedicating Apollo 12 to the recovery mission, though we have some ideas on alternate ways and means of fixing that." He passed the papers around. "The critical component is the Lunar Module ascent stage. We're looking at replacing the fuel tanks with the expanded versions designed for the extended missions. We'll also fit a set of straps on the floor over the centre of balance to hold Luna down during ascent. It's going to be tight, making any kind of mechanical change at this stage of the game is no easy task, but Grumman have confirmed they can make the necessary changes within the stated timeline. It helps that the components are already designed and we have test articles to work with. We have another team working with Dr Schopf's to design a lightweight isolation suit for Luna to put on while still on the lunar surface. "The descent stage is where it gets tricky. We can't replace the fuel tanks there with J type components without structural changes to the space frame. We'd pretty much have to build a J type descent stage, minus the extended life support package. But we have an alternative, additional tankage in the equipment bays and an extended engine bell for improved efficiency. It means we can't carry the ALSEP, but that would just add to the descent payload mass which we want to reduce. It won't look pretty, but it will work. Once again the Grumman team, led by Thomas Kelly, has verified they can do it in time. "To provide a little extra leeway, the CSM will put the Lunar Module into a descent transfer orbital track before separation, then boost back to orbit afterwards. While it may not have the fuel to slow down before re-entry, it has sufficient delta v for this manouvre. It was originally designed for the Direct Ascent option, after all. The only other modification will be to the Command Module to provide Luna with a place to rest during re-entry, an additional camp-bed style frame that can be set up in the space between the crew couches and the aft bulkhead. On the journey to the moon, the space will have consumables in it, but by the return trip, there will be enough space to deploy it." He looked over to Doctor Schopf and said, "From splashdown it's a matter for the Lunar Recieving Laboratory." "Hm, yes, the plan is to have a second Mobile Quarantine Facility on board the Hornet dedicated to Luna. She will be transferred to the Lunar Recieving Lab and held in quarantine separately from the returing astronauts. That way we will be able to perform extended tests on her biology to confirm that she won't come to harm here, and vice versa. We'll also need a discretionary budget for teaching materials and staff to educate her about Earth. From what Doctor Sagan says, she's very interested in our technology and culture." Carl Sagan took over the conversation. "Yes she is. After the quarantine period, she could remain on site at Johnson Space Centre, where we can provide housing and protection. I expect we'll need an entire research facility to build up around her. We'll teach her and she'll teach us in return. I have people working on a preliminary proposal for the facility, but it's not ready yet as we're still finding out new things she could teach us." "Very well, prepare your budget plans and proposals. You have the go ahead from me to start preliminary work on it. Now I just have to talk to her directly, and get Congress to agree to it." As the meeting broke up, Nixon returned to the Oval office, where his Chief of Staff waited. "Well, it's done, they have their marching orders." "You've given them the go ahead?" "I more or less had to." Nixon rubbed his forehead, and dropped into the plush chair behind his desk. "Once they made it clear that Luna is going to end up on Earth somehow, and there's nothing we can do to stop her, I had no choice but to make sure we're the ones who control her. From what they're saying, she's the key to a whole host of new technologies, and that's ultimately going to mean both power and money. And with the ecomomy in the shape it is, and the war, this country can do with both. Between them, they seem to have the technical side covered. Now it's up to us to handle the political side." "It's going to be rough sir," Haldeman opined. "Tell me something I don't know. Get Ehrlichman and Butterfield in for a meeting. Let's get the ball rolling. I'm going to need publicity, good publicity. Get on to Zeigler, I want the benefits of us rescuing this Luna pushed. Play the 'noble knights rescuing a damsel' angle too. I'm going to need all the leverage I've got to drive this through Congress. Sagan is arranging for me to talk to this Luna directly, I'm going to need a list of talking points. If we work it right, the recording could be useful." "Anything else?" "Yes, get Colson to brief me on the legal position of an intelligent non-human. Are they considered a person? De facto, obviously, but legally, every law assumes that person is synonymous with human. I can see some of the angles myself, but we need to work out what legal hoops we'd have to go through to get her legally declared a person, and whether she could become a citizen." "That's very generous of you, sir." Unspoken was the question of what advantages it would bring, as doing so would make some of the anti-Luna factions explode. "I know, I'm practically Santa Claus. Championing her personhood should provide an additional incentive for her to feel gratitude, and generate a lot of positive publicity with the Lunatic faction, which if the latest polls are right is dominant right now. As a citizen she'd be under our laws, which would provide additional constraints, and also make it far harder for any other country to try and claim she should be shared as an invaluable scientific specimen." Nixon paused for thought, then added, "Speaking of legal matters, it might be a good idea to suggest that she retain some corporate law firm, such as Wingert and Bewley. With all the publicity, people are going to start merchandising her, so having her likeness and identity protected against unauthorised use is only sensible. I suspect that there will be plenty of companies willing to pay well for licences. Do it as a corporation acting on her behalf, and they wouldn't even have to wait for her personhood to be resolved. "By the time she gets down here, there'd be a nice chunk of change waiting for her, allowing her to buy some luxuries, and not costing the government one red cent. The fact that it would also be another way to control her image the way we want it is just icing on the cake. We may well end up paying her a salary, but for the short term this will have to do." Nixon sighed. "This could all still go horribly wrong, but since we're on its back, all we can do is ride the tiger, or alicorn rather, and hope we don't end up on its horn."