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[Nova]

—NOTHING—

[KrisNord]

To:- Foreign Minister Therz

Our nation has always welcomed others to participate in our space programmes. Most recently we had representatives from Himeyama come and witness the launch of one of our test vehicles being readied for launching a probe to explore our Universe. We will be more than happy to welcome you to Claith in order to tour our facility which is seeking to later this month launch our Spásárthach Mini Lander to Luna. This will be part of a programme to launch the full sized Lander to Nergal within the next year. Following this tour I would be thrilled to discuss further projects we have in mind that would be open to scientists from your nation. I hope this is acceptable and look forward to showing you our on going work.

Seamus O'Lachlan
Head of the Cenneg Space Agency.

[KrisNord]

Seamus was joined by one of his technicians for the meet and greet, a woman by the name of Cassandra, a 40 year old women in charge of one of the electro-telescope projects. "Foreign Minister, welcome to Ui Cenneslaig and to Claith" the Head of the Cenneg Space Agency said as they shook hands, "This is Cassie Northwood, leading up the  Extremely Large Telescope project" Cassie leaned forward shaking the man's hand.

"We're due switch on in a few weeks, then hopefully the Morelanders a month later, then the Lodjains" she spoke happily, "Who knows, maybe 18 months from now we could even have a Heyran one." she added merrily.

"Well I guess that depends how today goes doesn't it." Seamus directed them towards a car which was waiting to take them to the agencies HQ. "So before we arrive I have to warn you about some of the things you'll see today. We'll be going to see the  Spásárthach Mini Lander which is being packaged up ready to head to Lunar, before your permitted in you'll have to comply with our safety protocol, that means surrendering all electronic devices, giving a bacteria swab, and wearing protective gear. It's part of procedure for everyone who enters the room its being worked on in. You'll even have to wear shoe covers, its a bit of a pain but it'll be worth it." Seamus said eagerly.

"The shoe covers do come in white or yellow, so at least you can be fashionable" Cassandra added, "After that we'll pop into the ELT control room where they're checking a few things. Then we can have some lunch before we work out what projects your interested in and how we can help each other." The car had left the city and was heading out down the coast, limestone causeways lead out to the sea and fishing boat bobbed merrily close to shore catching crab which lurked between the cracks. After about fifteen minutes the launch tower of CSA HQ could be seen, a tall building stood about three football pitches away. "That's the Nursury" Cassie explained, "Rockets are prepared inside, then manoeuvred to the tower 48 hours before launch." she explained as the car was waved through security.

They signed their guest in giving him two badges, "The first just lets people know your a visitor" Seamus said as he placed a green lanyard around the Minister's neck, "This one" he held up a seemingly plain white piece of paper attached to a red lanyard, "Is a radiation monitor, I'm still on my first" he smiled holding up a pure white piece of paper, "Been that way 18 months, the idea is the more radiation it comes into contact with the darker it gets, once it turns black you get six months off and a trip to the doctors once a week......never happened though, just a mindless health and safety thing" he placed that one around their guests neck and motioned for him to follow. "So what exactly does Heyra do involving space at the moment?" he asked keen to gauge where their potential new contributor stood.

[KrisNord]

Seamus listened to the Vice-President speak, "Well the frontiers of space exploration are open to all, you've got national initatives like ours, but the Morelanders have got some private companies supporting the work of their national agency. Its a balance that could work, but sadly to get involved your going to need money one way or another." He asked as they stood behind a glass screen watching the teams putting the finishing touches to the probe known as the  Spásárthach Mini Lander. It was a half size version of something they hoped to send to Nergal, however before they took that gamble they were sending the smaller one to the moon. "Take this for example, its costing about $500million to put these two probes together and get this one to the moon, now idea what it'll be when the full size ones costs of flight are added in, but we've developed so many new engineering patents that we can now licence that we'll make some money back, not the full price of course" he smiled. "So is that the kind of thing you were considering?"

[KrisNord]

"We tend to not use private companies to build our rockets, the components yes, but the actual assembly is done here, now if you're looking for a satellite being put into orbit we can probably accomodate you either with a single launch or as part of a multiple satellite launch, for a price of course" the Celt smiled, "As for taking your experiments and probes on our missions thats something we can do, however you have to remember that we've got the next several years planned in terms of missions, as long as you don't mind waiting we can find an agreement. We can of course include some Heyran educated flight engineers and the like should they come up to our mark. What we would like to do however is on one of your island put a large telescope, it would be funded and staffed by our teams, made readily avaliable to scientists from your nation. In return we agree to include a Heyran as one of the members of a crew within our next four astronauts. How does that sound?"

[KrisNord]

"Well in that case then how about we make this agreement." O'Lachlan took out his tablet and tapped away.

"Essentially we agree to take two Heyran experiments conforming to weight restrictions into space with us within the next five years. The data of those experiments will be shared between us but UC may not use them for anything making a profit for at least five years. Additionally a Heyran will be included as a candidate on the selection panel for the next five manned flights which feature at least two astronauts. In return we would like the land for the telescope given to the CSA in perpetuity, we will fund the construction and operation, we will also ensure 15% of the permanent staff there are from Heyra, and for 30 days a year will allow an appointed Heyra University to select the targets for the telescope." He scribbled these points down, "So that meet your liking?"

[KrisNord]

"This agreement is more than fitting" Seamus smiled as he handed back the device, "Now as for getting the deal done this comes as a matter of foreign policy, and while King Finley has granted me the authority to make agreements between us here it is only his signature that will make this official from our end. If you can send a copy of that to my e-mail." he wrote it down on a piece of paper and handed it over, "Then I can set the wheels in motion." He waited for the e-mail to be sent and then forwarded it on to the King's PA.

Up at the Palace Adeen had been warned that such a document may be coming and so printed off two copies and knocked on the King's door, as she was called in Finley was chatting away on some matters with one of his Ministers, Adeen simply strode over put the documents on the King's desk and waited silently.

Back at the CSA HQ Seamus knew they'd have to wait so gave his guests a tour of some of the other facilities they had here, control rooms monitoring some satellites already in space, the giant swimming pool where they could give astronauts a taste of working in zero gravity. A team of three divers were keeping an eye on an "Astronaut" rehearsing carrying out repairs on a module his space suit acting as his air supply. They watched for a while, one of the back up astronauts giving them a commentary on what was happening via the TV screen, he would be in the pool in the next exercise and so was watching his comrade to gauge what they had done.

"Come on we shall finish the tour with a drink and a bite to eat, maybe even some Astronaut ice cream yes?" Seamus lead the way to one of the facilities dining rooms, most where more like cafeterias at a school but this one was at least blessed with wooden furniture not plastic seats and was reserved for senior leadership. As Seamus pushed the door open he saw a figure already sat at the set table and was rather surprised.

"Seamus" King Finley stood and walked over, "Ms. Therz" he extended a hand, "I would like to thank you for this" he held up a leather bound document which he placed into her hand, "A fine little deal all round, you get to blast some stuff into space and we expand the Cenneg Empire" he gave a mischievious wink as he pulled out a chair for her. "Now I know you Heyran's like a glass of wine or three, but here in Ui Cenneslaig its in short supply." He instead pulled out a bottle, "At least in the sense of what your used to" he poured a small measure of a dark red liquid, much denser than traditional wine, "Barley Wine is an old traditional drink used for toasts" Finley poured everyone a glass including his PA Adeen, "Here let us drink to the stars, so much more so that one day we may be among them." he raised a glass and took a seat opposite his guest. "So what you blasting up there first." he asked as he casually swirled the dark drink around the glass.

[KrisNord]

Finley was slightly concerned by Therz talk, after all it was HIS space agency, it bore his nations name and that made it his, but the last thing he wanted was to be some kind of stumbling block. "Well I am one of the official patrons of the CSA....I'm even an honourary astronaut you know" The King said proudly, while it had been only an honourary rank he had attended a few days of astronaut training but mostly as a PR event. "I'll leave the signing to Seamus then, I'm sure among his many skills he can put pen to paper." The King slid the documents and a pen towards the leader of his space agency.

As they made their way to grab the ice cream Seamus was amused as the tone of their guest, it sounded rather more cool than it was. "All food on space missions has to be carefully produced, its essentially freeze dried, makes it light and can be stored for extremely long times. Once in space the astronauts essentially just add water to it or can eat it dried, like fruit. The ice-cream is rather popular though." They reached a room where several boxes of freeze dried packets of food were stored and Seamus found one labelled "Mint Choc Chip" he tore one corner of the packet and poured in some water before giving the thing a squeeze. He then used scissors to cut the top of the packet fully open and using a spoon took some out. It looked like a more runny version of ice cream, as though it had been out in the sun a few minutes. "I'll be honest its not that popular and on longer missions where weight isn't as critical we can use real ice cream. But feel free to try anything you want" Seamus laid out packets of various freeze dried food on the tables.

Talk began to turn to Heyran missions, it sounded like they had a decent partner lined up, "Well once you know what you'd like to take up we'll begin helping you adapt it to the vehicles we'll be using."

[KrisNord]

Here was a nation with no space programme of their own and talking of colonising other planets, it just didn't sit well with Seamus. "With respect your talking about something several decades away with hundreds more missions needed before that becomes anything other than a theoretical problem. You're talking of like step 100 in a programme and we're only on like step 30. You can't realistically consider beyond something like Step 60 as what we discover in those 30 steps changes massively what happens in Step 61. Now clearly your experiments may fit in to help shape that knowledge we'd need but that obviously depends on who is making them and what they are. So do you have anything in mind?"

[KrisNord]

"We'll be happy to offer advice about experiments and if needed building appropriate modules." Seamus began. "The sooner you tell us what you want the sooner we can consider a launch." It seemed the meting was coming to an end. "Is there anything more we need to discuss or should we just await your decisoon."