Slone realized that the Saltic told their priest only half of the reality. “Yes, they will spend eternity in bright light with great power, but they will do that as a tortured brain in control of a Saltic machine. They use our brains to control their sky ships and their machines.”
The High Priest’s face became clouded and livid with rage as he virtually shouted, “Liars. You are here to destroy our beliefs and turn us against our gods. The Saltic have been good to us. This world cannot produce food for us and the Saltic feed us in return for the sacrifices we make to them. The families that are sacrificed are drawn by lot within the temple, so their fate is chosen by the god Navigator.”
“Your guards tell us that we are to be sacrifices. When was our lot drawn? If you think your sacrifices go to such a paradise, why would you open that to strangers whom you consider a threat? Why not just kill us then?”
“The Navigator will not allow us to kill, only to sacrifice. If this,” and the priest pointed to Julia Hammond, “is the god Navigator, then she would know what was required of us. Yet I have not heard her say a word.”
Slone continued, “That is because she is not a god but only a human who did not know what she was doing when she sent you here eight centuries ago.”
The High Priest paced up and down a bit, “We have believed in the Navigator for sixteen generations and now you want to tell us that it was all a lie? That is not what the book says.”
This time Julia Hammond spoke, much to the shock of the High Priest. “Show me this book that says I am a god?”
The priest looked at her and then showed a slight bit of fear in his face. “This is a test is it not, great Navigator? You are our god and you test us with the book. Let me show you what it says, though none here can read it. Our father before us told us what it said.”
The High Priest brought out an old book and laid it open. “This is the book of the Navigator and it is sacred to us. If you are truly the Navigator, you will know what it says.”
Julia Hammond went over to the book and looked at it. It was the log of the freighter BB Tortoise. This was one of the freighters she sent here. The log was routine and covered the events befalling the ship before its arrival here. “This is a ship’s log and not a religious work. This is a catalogue of what happened during the ship’s voyages. You have put your faith in a false book.”
The High Priest looked shocked. In his raspy voice he defiantly looked at the Romani, “You cannot read that book any more than we can. It is a divine writing that only those of great faith can interpret.” Eugen Ebner looked at the god he called the Navigator and his eyes were filled with the hatred of a leader whose entire position had just been challenged. Such a challenge could not go unpunished, but he was powerless to harm Julia Hammond, lest the Saltic should punish him for killing a sacrifice. All sacrifices must be delivered alive.
Slone walked over, looked at the sacred book, and saw only routine star references as each system was logged that the freighter passed through. There was nothing sacred or religious about the book and Slone was not sure, if the High Priest and his people knew this or if they were just as duped as the general populous was. Either way, this abomination of a society had to end. Slone looked over to the High Priest and said, “When the Saltic arrive we will show you that they are not divine and we are more powerful than they are.”
“Liars, you are committing blasphemy and will be punished for that by the Saltic.” Eugen Ebner then signaled the guards to take the Romani and lead them into the temple to await the arrival of the Saltic.
Chapter 6 – The Saltic
The ship came out of the wormhole on a routine collection mission. They left the wormhole open, knowing there was no danger in the area. The wormhole connected the current system, with a system on the galactic edge used by the Saltic to travel between the present galaxy and their home galaxy. The few humans who had contact with them in the Andromeda galaxy and thought they came from there, were mistaken. They actually originated in a very old star cluster that was located just outside of the Andromeda galaxy. What the humans believed was of no consequence to the Saltic. The Saltic were spread throughout that galaxy. What all of them knew was that human brains made the best computer control nodes ever discovered.
The Saltic presence in the Milky Way galaxy was minimal. They were aware of a large human colonization of a wedge of the galaxy on the other side of the central core, but it was too powerful for the Saltic to invade. They would need the Saltic fleets from Andromeda to conquer that area and there was no certainty they could hold on to it. The Humans were very difficult to govern and did not take kindly to being raised for their brains. Each group of Saltic was always trying to get the best of other sentient races, and there had been various attempts to acquire human brains. The group controlling the Heimat system had developed an ingenious method of acquiring brains that guaranteed a steady, though small supply. Human brains were used for all forms of computer applications. They were simply faster than any other sentient brains discovered thus far and they were faster than the fastest non-biological computer. The Saltic knew humans were very curious and that allowed them to hatch a plan for capturing a small number of humans. They theorized that if they could bring a small colony of humans to a marginal planet, they could feed them and nurture them to produce a supply of humans for brains. Many generations ago, the ancestors of the present Saltic sent a wormhole drive into human space and waited. The drive was designed to open only a wormhole to this system and it did just that as three ships came through with enough humans to start a colony. For some reason, no others came through and there was some debate about what happened to the drive. When the ancestral Saltic checked on the drive’s location, it was gone and they decided not to place another one. As it turned out, the humans who came through set up a colony and over time lost their technology. It only required the Saltic to mix themselves into the humans’ developing religion and they could collect a certain amount periodically for the computers. They were now on just such a collecting trip. Morality did not enter into the equation, since that was a human concept and the only morality the Saltic had was that they were the superior sentient race in the universe and all others were there for their benefit.
After the ship exited the wormhole, the graviton engines turned on and the ship moved towards the planet that the human colony called Heimat. The transit would take several time units and that allowed the crew to relax. The bridge held ten Saltic at various stations. Engineering was the main station with four crewmembers. Navigation was next. The wormhole drive was important, but the graviton engines required constant balance. The Saltic had changed to them two generations ago and loved the idea of an engine that used the subatomic gravitational Graviton particle that had no mass and thus added no weight to the ship. The only problem was, acceleration was abysmally slow since the Graviton particles only generated very weak gravitational fields, therefore, the Saltic used a booster engine, and that increased the weight, but also doubled for orbital, combat and landing maneuvers. The entire front half of the bridge was taken up by a holographic projection of the system, which allowed all levels of magnification. There were no windows to the outside. The captain leaned into his reclining brace. Due to the Saltic anatomy, they could not sit the way humans did. They had an elongated body with eight limbs in two sets of four with a large gap in their midsection. They looked vaguely like a caterpillar or an inchworm. The posterior set of appendages functioned as feet and when they were upright, they bent in their middle to form an ‘L’ shape with the anterior appendages functioning as arms with worm-like fingers at their ends. There was no neck and the face was pig-like with eyes at the end of stalks arising from the top of the anterior end of the body. The skin was leathery with a pale green hue covered in clothing of some type. The skin color was due to their pale green, copper-based blood. When they were in their reclining brace, they maintained their curvature but the bottom of the brace supported the lower portion of the ‘L’ with the
lower extremities on either side of the tongue of the brace. The front of the body then leaned into the higher upright portion of the brace with the top extremities free to move around the upper tongue forming the upright of the ‘L’. If they had what could be called a chest, it was supported by leaning into the upright part of the brace. The face protruded over the top of the upright.
As the ship moved away from the wormhole, they left it open for a quick trip back to their base, many parsecs away. The base of operations was in the Northwest quadrant of the galaxy, between the Scutum-Centaurus and the Norma arms of the galaxy. From there they had a wormhole open back to the Andromeda galaxy, though it was a tenuous connection and took a lot of energy to maintain, their ship wormhole drives did not have the range of the planetary ones.
“Captain, there is a wormhole trace on the opposite side of the system,” The Saltic navigator said. Had there been a human aboard they would have only heard some squeaky noises similar to a rusty hinge coming from the alien. The Saltic language was made up of very high-pitched sounds.
“How recent?” The captain asked.
“Within the last few cycles.”
“Identify the origin,” the captain asked.
The navigator moved his fingers over his console and conferred with the sensor tech. “The origin is human space and the identifier is over five hundred revolutions old. The computer identifies it as wormhole drive Re5520031. That is the drive we placed in human space to bring us the human colony.”
The potential danger dawned on the Saltic captain. “Scan the system for any ships.”
The Saltic may be masters when it came to using wormholes, but they could no more violate the laws of physics than any other species could. A thorough scan of the system would require time as the sensors probed outward and the results came back. The lag time was such that the farthest parts of the system would not be scanned before the ship reached the planet. They could just stop and await the results, but that would be inefficient. By the time they were half way to the planet, the scan results were back for the area around the planet and no ships were present. If the captain could breath, he would have breathed a sigh of relief. The Saltic did not have lungs, they breathed through their skin in an atmosphere a bit higher in oxygen than old Earth was. The sound used for language was created by rubbing parts of their mouth apparatus together.
When the Saltic ship entered the system, it sent a recognition code out into space. Normally that would have allowed a colony to know the ship was in system, but the Saltic had been careful to devolve the humans into a low-tech civilization. To counter this, they gave the High Priest a special staff with built in electronics. Whenever a Saltic collection ship entered the system, the top of the staff would glow and the glow would continue until the ship left. The glow at the top of the staff told the High Priest that it was time to bring the sacrifices to the temple.
The NR Tempestas was in a synchronous orbit away from the colony. Since they had no idea, how the Saltic ship would enter orbit or land, it was decided to move the Romani ship away from the colony itself. Since the ship was invisible, there was always the risk of an accidental collision. Paul McMann was sitting in the captain’s chair and was tracking the Saltic ship. The wormhole drives of the Saltic were a true innovation, since they were independent of sails and could jump large distances. As a navigator the concept pleased Paul McMann, though he wished engineering could figure out how to get the one on their flight deck to work so they could get out of here. Paul turned to Tom Gardner, “Tom, send tight beam transmissions to Captain Slone letting him know the Saltic ship will soon reach orbit, if that is their intention.”
“Yes, sir.”
The com implant in Slone’s ear activated and he received the message. He then turned to the group and said, “The Saltic ship will be here in less than an hour.”
The High Priest overheard this and looked at Slone. “How could you possibly know this?”
Slone looked back at him, “Perhaps you are not the all knowing High Priest you fancy yourself.”
Eugen Ebner was not used to having his authority questioned and raised his staff to hit Slone, but thought better of it when he saw the intensity in Slone’s eyes and the way the three with Slone looked at him. Even the temple guards were fearful of the outsiders who came in their own sky ship. Not everyone thought sacrificing them a good idea. They also wondered what happened to the sky ship that brought the strangers.
Something was wrong and the Saltic captain knew it, but he did not know what the findings meant. If the old drive from the past propelled a new group of humans to the system, that would be a desirable outcome, since they needed a steadier supply of humans than the small colony could offer. The wormhole drive from the past was supposed to bring many more humans than eventually came through. The Saltic had thought it failed somehow, until they had picked up the trace in this system. However, if it brought more humans, where are they and where is their ship? They were very close to the planet now, the sensor scans of the other side of the system were back, and it was free of ships. That should have relieved the Saltic captain, but for some reason it didn’t. He now wished he had come with a harvester ship. They were better armed and had the Saltic EMP weapon that captures enemy ships and knocks out their crews. However, he had his orders and he had to deliver the food or the human colony would starve. He also needed the new crop of sacrifices. The Captain had to admit, this was a good way to deal with the humans without having to wage war on them. Take the new sacrifices, harvest their brains for the computers, and convert the bodies into food that is returned to feed the colony. Even if the humans would know they were eating their sacrifices, what could they do? The planet chosen for them had no food and no way to grow any. Pity was not felt by the Saltic, since that was a human concept. The god worshiped by the Saltic made all life in the universe to serve the Saltic. They were all that mattered.
As the captain was contemplating these thoughts, his navigator informed him that they had reached orbital insertion above the colony. The captain left his recliner and moved to the front of the bridge for a close look at the real-time projection of the colony. “Do the sensors show the presence of any alien vessels on the surface near the colony? Go out for a distance of 15 measures.”
“Yes Captain.”
“Call the ground commander to the bridge.” The communications tech did as ordered and shortly the bridge door slid open and the ground commander entered. He had his uniform on as well as the translation device that allowed him to converse with the humans. This device hung around his neck. Since the Saltic walked on four legs with worm-like digits, they appeared to glide more than walk. He glided swiftly over to the captain of the ship.
“Your orders, captain?”
The Saltic captain glided over to his ground commander, “Commander, rather than the usual escort of yourself and four troops, I would like you to increase the number to eight.”
The commander looked at his captain and moved his eyestalks to look right into his face. “Are you expecting problems with the humans?”
The Saltic captain explained the problem and the fact that there was no ship in the system, yet the old wormhole drive had been activated. “It is possible, commander, that nothing came through, but I want to make sure we are covered in case something did.”
“Understood, captain. I will alert the troops,” the commander said as he glided off the bridge. He went down to the area of the ship where the troops were billeted. The collecting ship had a ship crew of ten and another ten ground troops. There was also a large hold for the humans that would be transported back to the harvester ship at their base.
On the bridge, all sensor scans were negative for human or other ships of any kind. The only vessel, if one could call it that, was the cobbled together freighter used by the humans as a temple. The High Priest was very pliable. He served the Saltic as long as his family was safe from sacrifice. The captain hoped for his sake the Saltic never decided to clear out
the colony, but the arrangement with the High Priests over the years had served the Saltic well. The captain now turned to his navigator, “Land us in the plaza.”
“Yes, captain.”
The Saltic ship broke orbit and moved down to the planet, landing in the plaza. The humans feared the Saltic as minions of the god they worshipped, and that suited the Saltic just fine. They knew the humans would stay hidden, unless they were to be sacrificed. Once the ship was down, a ramp came out of the bottom of the ship, which was held high by the landing gear that put the lower surface of the ship about three meters off the ground. The Saltic troop commander left the ship with eight of his ten troopers. They were all armed with electrical guns that were strong enough to stun the human sacrifices if they should put up a fight. After leaving the ship, the Saltic squad glided over to the ramp leading up to the freighter shell. The temple guards were standing on either side of the ramp and that was normal. The commander thought the captain was getting a bit paranoid. After all, there were no other ships in the system, especially not human ships. The commander told two of his men to guard the foot of the ramp, while he took the remaining six up the ramp and into the human’s temple. The Saltic entered the freighter shell, the High Priest and temple guards, along with the human sacrifices bowed their heads, all but four standing apart from the other sacrifices. The commander looked at the four and saw right away they were different. There was no fear in their eyes and they were wearing body armor over what looked like clothing he had never seen in the colony. There was one human male and three human females in the group, and the females looked at the Saltic with the same malice as the males. Saltic females were for breeding only and never allowed to have any say in Saltic activities. Yet here were females who did not know their place. The human females of the colony always hid their faces from the Saltic, yet these looked right at them. Something was wrong here.
The Sakkara Page 10