Chapter 12: Let the Proceedings Proceed!

One of the online meeting screens started to show a rather odd assortment of ducks.

“What you know as ‘A Duck’ is merely a tiny scratch on the surface of what the essence of duckness really incorporates.” the speakers droned in a rather quack-ish voice. “As an organisation, the Dedicated Universal Common Knowledge institute has been able to monitor the state of humanity derived from the matrix of the proverbial piece of old bread. This makes us the most suitable entity to act as Supreme Justice for the Solarian High Court for this case. Suffice to say that we are not happy with the current state of humanity. What happened to the humble, home baked loaf devoid of artificial flavouring and preserving agents? It pains us… Well, at least the French have their baguettes to share with us… We especially savour the central bit with the salty armpit seasoning. But let’s not have our collective minds wander.”

After a suitable amount of dignified silence, in which Ava saw several of the duck images ruffle their feathers, change places, disappear altogether or take up a more comfortable position for what was about to come next. Some jubilant organ music started playing while the Duck continued:

“Dearly beloved. We are gathered here today… to witness the joining in holy matrimony of Baer from Vega and Ava Pearez from Earth…. Ehhhhrm“

After violently strangling the organ music, the screen went black abruptly. A text message popped up in the chat section, stating “We sincerely apologise. Wrong speech on the teleprompter. Hang on while we try to correct the collect one. Or something like that, you knot what I meal. $@#$!! Autocorrect!! I wonder who approved the use of those bills ?!!!”

Eddy chose this moment to take a running jump on Ava’s lap, sending the office chair rolling backwards at speed and spinning, brother and sister piled up on it. An expensive looking and towering piece of lab equipment managed to bring them to a halt, scattering intricate helical and Moebius shaped pieces of glassware to crash into even more pieces across the floor, releasing a bright green fluid that started to eat the shiny marble tiles.

Seeing this, the Medusa sent a stony glare across the screen, which had apparently been equipped with the right filters to negate any adverse effects.

When all tinkling noises had subsided and the green frothing mass started to turn into a cheaper shade of pale pink, the duck (minus clerical toga) came back on screen to resume the court proceedings as if nothing had happened.

Ava managed to manoeuvre the office chair out of the war zone before the Supreme Justice scraped its vocal chords to start the reading of the charges.

“We are now opening the case of the explorers from Vega, represented by the entity called Baer, versus Humanity, represented by brother and sister Pearez. The plaintiff will now clarify the nature of its complaint ”

The lights momentarily dimmed as the electron microscope started drawing more power before the Explorer spoke in a clear, though somewhat metallic voice.

“Thank you, Your Honour. As a representative of my race, which has been peacefully living on this planet for the last 541.531.761 years, I wish to claim our rights of seniority over Humanity. Until pretty recently, we did not deem this necessary, given that Humanity was oblivious of our existence anyway, but recent developments have changed this stance. It seems like only yesterday that large numbers of our kind were first being enslaved for their “experiments”. We already filed interference complaints at The Duck office as early as the year 1731 in your counting. So far, your race has been disregarding the resulting restraint order on a massive scale. Even the forced house arrest imposed on you during the 2019-2022 period didn’t help. We admit that we had to re-evaluate the enforcement after the police brutality in the first stages. We will apologise for that after the issues at hand are resolved. This is not the case however, since our kin is CURRENTLY being “harvested” for humanity’s quest to obtain longevity like we do have. THAT IS SPECIECIDE AND MUST BE STOPPED AT ONCE!”

The sheer volume of this last statement slapped Ava’s hair back horizontally and left her ears ringing for a full two minutes. Eddy hid his head in her lap moaning “Bad bug, bad bug…”

The image on the screen had turned into an angry bright red colour before gradually fading to silver again.

“Objection” the spirit Elyizaahhrg said in a cool voice.

“Please state the nature of your objection”, the Supreme Justice interjected.

“Oh, just a general objection, Your Honour, I’ll fill in the details later on when the meeting minutes are made. Probably something to do with how the chosen representatives cannot be personally held accountable. I’ll work on that. Please continue.” the spirit stated in a sweet voice with an obsidian edge.

“We propose guilt by association!” crackled through the speaker system that connected to the microscope.

“Order, please! This session will be momentarily adjourned to give the Humans time to discuss their defense strategy.”

The screen with the ducks had morphed into an image of a rustic pond, flies zooming around, bubbles surfacing, large Victoria Amazonica water lily leaves with the letters S H and C bouncing around like a nineties screen saver. This was all accompanied by a suitable piece of the cheapest oriental MIDI elevator music Ava had ever heard. (Even worse than what they had in the hardware store around the corner, which says a lot).

Eddy gravely looked Ava deep into the eyes before they both exploded into a fit of laughter. When this eventually subsided, they heard a suppressed giggle from the computer that showed their spirit guide investigator.

Caiman Raptor Elk