“The Purple trapezium would like to hear your opinion about the "wild" ones.”
It was most unusual to show interest in the opinion of an unauthorized member of a foreign trapezium. Cleaver watched the movement of the fingers, but the Lawmaker’s claws remained in a position of relaxed calm conversation, so it was hard to grasp the nuances. So, he thought it best, to adopt a posture of concern and carefully noted. “I hope all has been decided with the Generation of my trapezium.”
“No,” the Lawmaker shook his head.
“No?”
The Lawmaker adopted a posture of categorical statements.
“But …”
The Law maker interrupted him.
“It's not capricious! You know that our trapezium has the lowest Trust status, but has the greatest influence on the decision of any other trapezium. You recently took the Scarlet and therefore still possess our capabilities of understanding what is happening. At the same time, you are one of those who saw the "wildlings" on the loose.”
Cleaver carefully adopted a posture of doubt. The Lawmaker moved one leg, in a posture of annoyance and said angrily. “Am I to see this as a rejection?”
Cleaver fearfully stretched his wings in a posture of contrition. “I'm ready to share my thoughts, but …”
The Lawmaker turned his ears in a posture of understanding, comforting him.
“This, of course, does not quite match the established traditions, but does not break them. Think about it.”
Cleaver summoned from memory everything that he knew about the subject of thoughts, and was forced to accept the rightness of his companion. He adopted the posture of welcoming submission. “I am ready Lawmaker.”
The Lawmaker moved his claws favorably, and adopted the posture of benevolent attention. Cleaver thought.
“They are wild, rampant, and weak, but their actions are meaningful and often even reasonable. Although they, like many lower castes, allow chemistry to interfere in the process of thinking, and that is why their mind is vulnerable. However, sometimes their passions allow them to do the impossible. I believe that they—”
“The Homloks are capable of enough unbridled passion to destroy the universe,” finished the Lawmaker. He paused, then said meaningfully, “Have you considered any other explanation? The Homloks could occur naturally, or be one of the unlucky creatures of the Originally Expelled, but they retained the history of coming from one parent world. If this is so, and we have no reason to doubt it, then the question is why they went into outer space, and did not destroy their own world? Why did they change and master new worlds? How have they become so powerful? Why did they deny the right to destroy those kinds of "wild" ones which they met on the way?”
Cleaver slowly adopted the posture of bewildered denial. The Lawmaker responded to this with the posture of recommendation.
“You might want to think about it. You had the highest status of Trust among your Generation in our trapezium. Perhaps with new data you can find a more reasonable explanation.”
“I will try to Lawmaker. When I find something that I understand, I will find you.”
“But before you begin, I would like you to become familiar with Relate’s Memorandum.”
Cleaver gently spread the ends of his wings in a posture of confused bewilderment. “I have never heard of him.”
“That is not surprising. He published his Memorandum generations ago, back in the early Conquest, and before the Powerful Ones from the other trapezium managed to read it. The Orange trapezium was in favor of complete mistrust. He was Denied Trust at an Aala of the Turquoise trapezium, and the Memorandum itself was declared non-existent.” He paused, then continued, so softly that Cleaver had to maximize his auditory receptors merely to hear him.
“The Turquoise took him ahead of his time…” He paused again, sighed, and finished off in a quiet whisper, so that for Cleaver to hear him; he needed to bend down to his face in an impolite manner. “I heard that his revival was banned for three generations.”
Cleaver recoiled, instinctively posturing squeamish disgust, but on second thoughts, changed his posture to one of dissatisfaction with the subject under discussion. The Lawmaker immediately changed posture from one of interested conversation to one of concerned extreme importance, and the discussion continued.
“I knew that you would not like it, but otherwise the rest of this conversation will not make sense. You simply will not realize what is at stake.”
Cleaver shook his knee claws, a smooth transition to the posture of cautious of interest.
“What is the essence of this Memorandum?”
“There's a lot of interesting ideas in it, almost all controversial. One of them, which attracted my attention in the first place, is that the "wild" ones are most likely a new species of the servants of the Originally Expelled. Even Tradition says that they can appear not only by the wish of the Originally Expelled, not only by his will and desire, but also because …”
The Lawmaker noticed the glazed look on Cleaver’s face, and adopted the posture of expectations of revelation in a case that was extraordinary, because he had a much greater measure of trust than the one that stood before him. Cleaver contemplated what had been said for a few moments, then looked up into the Lawmaker’s eyes. “But that means …”
“That means that the "wildlings" are without a doubt, a new kind of Powerful Ones.”
Cleaver reared his wings in a posture of fierce denial. “But that cannot be, because if it were so …”
The Lawmaker did not let him finish, and posturing so as to prevent objections in the younger one, ruthlessly finished. “The blame for the damage imposed lies with those who reject peace.” He paused, and without changing his posture, he said, “I want you to read Relate’s Memorandum.”
Turning abruptly, the Lawmaker left the Gallery.
7
The ship approached the Zovros system again. This time they fell into the system from the zenith, just at the point where they crossed into Zovros’s orbit. The system was empty. The Ushkuy ships projected a much greater resolution than any other similar class of ships. Soon the planet swelled on the screen as an ash-black ball covered with huge swirls of dust storms. Even in the few months that had passed since their last visit, terrible changes there were clearly noticeable.
The planet was dying.
Eight Ushkuys rapidly cut through the atmosphere and dropped onto the place they had landed last time. The Ushkuyniks swiftly made camp. By the quick and skillful way in which workshops, warehouses and security systems were put together, it was immediately clear that these guys were accustomed to the camp lifestyle in a foreign land.
Digging machines blocked the entrance to the tunnels, and were densely covered with ash, which even managed to seep between the virtually airtight doors blocking the entrance portal. When they inflated a portable dome, and opened the gate, they found long tongues of ash dragged out for hundreds of feet. Soon the machines were launched. In less than two hours, the Druzhnik troops in combat suits, with sensors set on maximum, started poking around where a few months ago the Noble Dons led by the late Fat Anselm had been excavating.
Lucky asked Stubborn Bull if he could take some time off in the evening, and overcoming hurricane gusts of wind he reached Putyata’s Ushkuy. He greeted him with a smile.
“What are you doing wandering around at this time of night? Or did you just decide to stretch your bones?”
“Oh yer!” Said Yv, using an expression that he had learned on New City.
The boyar laughed and waved his hand. “Come on in, we can down a barrel of mead.”
When the friends had drunk the bottom of the barrel dry, Yv looked at Putyata. Putyata looked back at him with a slightly tipsy, but cunning look in his eyes.
“Come on then, out with it, why have you come.”
“Maybe just to drink mead?”
“Oh yer!” Putyata replied in the same tone, and they both burst out laughing again.
&nb
sp; They threw down another goblet, and Yv began cautiously. “Listen Putyata, God help me, if you have not stripped all the information in the cardinal’s crystals.”
Putyata squinted slyly. “Do you want to join us?”
Yv nodded. The boyar went to the safe, opened it and took out the crystal. “Take it.”
Yv stared at him, without comprehending, and Putyata smiled and explained. “Soon, these crystals will be sold on every street corner. We are not only robbers but also merchants. First, we will sell to the nobility.” He saw that Lucky was staring at him blankly. “To rulers. Those will give us the highest price. Then to rich merchants. After that, to the media networks. They will spread them around without a doubt.”
Yv gasped. “Wow …”
Putyata laughed again. “Look at yourself, your face looks hilarious … Well, consider that you are just the first owner of something that people will soon fill their pockets with.”
***
The next day, having finished his duty shift, Yv fell on the bed in the cabin, and turning to the wall, put the crystal in a recorder. It was, strictly speaking, not a scientific report, but rather a diary. The personal records of Saint Dagmar, a professor of a now almost non-existent science, from a dead University on one of the planets burned by the Enemy.
During the Conquest humanity lost much of what it once owned. Everything that worked for the war, received priority, and the rest was left to the mercy of collectors or died naturally. The University of New Simaron, the third one created by the surviving refugees from the second New Simaron, no longer engaged in such foolishness as anthropology and archeology.
***
“The voice of Saint Dagmar … I cannot imagine that the first contact with such advanced cultures, and that is without a doubt what humanity and the Powerful Ones are, was only possible in the form of warfare. Of course, this is largely due to the cultural tradition of the powerful Ones, which is based not only on a commitment to a caste system of all the communities of intelligent beings known to them, but is intended to include in their system all societies they encounter in the future, with the unconditional primacy of their own.
“If you simplify the wording, then their expansion differs from the expansion of humanity, in that humans are looking for habitable worlds which are uninhabited, and adapting them for their own purposes. Similarly, the Powerful Ones "exploit" intelligent species.
“We should not forget that humans were the first to capture one of the Powerful Ones ships, killing the entire crew. Although I am far from thinking that if the people of Zovros had not done that, then the Powerful Ones would not have started the war.
“One day, after dozens, or what I can hardly believe, hundreds of years, we will arrive at the need to learn to live in peace, as we will inevitably have to. Regardless of the measure of guilt, we must simply accept at least to ourselves, that humans are guilty as well.
“In fact, the structure they have created, although it has analogies in some of its details with Earth’s history as a whole, are a unique phenomenon. The information center of the ship contains a large array of unstructured information, which with proper treatment gives great opportunities for generalizations. That's what it seems to me.
“The society governed by the Powerful Ones, has a three-component structure. Firstly, for the most part, they are quite effective planetary communities, traditional communities of these planetary political-economic systems, which are slightly modified by the Powerful Ones. For the most part they have their analogies in the history of mankind. It is worth noting the fact that the most odious and inefficient systems do not exist, is of course, because of the Powerful Ones. All of them are quite independent enough under the Powerful Ones, but their development continues.
“Secondly, there is the caste structure. All the communities are organized into three main castes determined mainly by chain of command. The higher castes dominate the inferior ones, and subordinate themselves to those above them. I caught some hints that the Powerful Ones modified the genotype of some species to develop and consolidate selected characteristic traits. As an example, the caste Closest to the Ruling caste, which includes the most intellectually developed species, are almost totally devoid of aggressive traits, but among them a certain arrogance in relation to other castes has been cultivated.
“The next caste is the Useful caste and it is the most numerous. They also do not have aggressive traits, and extreme conformity and obedience has been cultivated among them. The species belonging to this caste are characterized by a carefully protected traditionalism. I've seen several references to planetary monarchies, which for thousands of years have been ruled by members of the same cell.
“Moreover, on several planets the Powerful Ones have succeeded in organizing the management structure on a planetary scale based on generic principles. Finally, there are the Lower castes—castes to which species that have barely crossed the line of reasoning belong. Contrary to the others, they are known for extreme aggressiveness. They are the Powerful Ones’ warriors.
“Thirdly, there is the society of the Powerful Ones themselves, who, in turn, are divided into something like castes or clans. This division is more horizontal, based on the main functions being performed by members of different castes. Of greatest interest in this structure, naturally, are the Powerful Ones.”
Yv turned off the recorder and thought to himself.
Beer Keg burst into his cabin. “Lucky, I swear by Saint Pasteur, I thought you'd already crashed out for the evening!” He belched loudly. “Putyata’s Druzhniks have invited us to one of their saint’s days, are you coming?”
Yv shook his head.
“Well, that’s down to you.”
He dragged out the trunk with his belongings, rummaged about choosing a jerkin, then dressed and left, whistling cheerfully. Yv waited until the footsteps in the corridor fell silent, and again turned on the recorder.
"… I know very little about ancient mythology, but if professor Mener is not mistaken, the Powerful Ones are quite accurately described in our medieval revelations about demons. Upon my return, I will need to dig deeply into the Holy Tradition. It seems to me that such detailed descriptions can be explained only by the fact of the presence of representatives of the Powerful Ones on the planet. A brief description of their physiological differences is as follows: a long length of life, extensive ability to regenerate, the ability to hypnotize other species or use some other form of suggestion.
“They are unisexual, and seem to be androgynous or utilize some other method of same-sex reproduction. Finally, they have extremely low levels of emotionality, possibly due to weak hormonal activity. Generally, the question of procreation is very unclear. It is established fact that there are groups that are assigned by definition, translated by us as a "Generation". There is a whole caste, assigned to do what has been translated as "Mind Renewal", but I could not find any other signs (tradition, system of education, system of upbringing, and the like) related to procreation.
“OK, I will not bother about this too much, that will be a problem for Mener, and those are his cards. I am interested most of all in their social organization.
“Roughly, it looks like this. Society is divided into four main castes, called trapezium: Scarlet are the military; Purple are the scientists; Orange are the officials; and Turquoise, as I mentioned above, this caste is mainly engaged in matters of procreation, or something like that. It would appear that in the communities of the Powerful Ones, this is a much more serious matter than in any other community that we are aware of. The names of the trapeziums of power are given by the color of the pigment of the skin produced by the members of these castes. The transition from one caste to another is not subject to any restrictions other than the personal desires of the individual and the lack of an obligation to work within their own caste. With respect to any of the other races under the Powerful Ones, regardless of caste, they are recognized as Masters or even Gods.
“The diff
erences that occur only within the society of the Powerful Ones are just a different attitude to what they define as the "Status of Trust." So, if the castes are only a union of the Powerful Ones, addressing the problems in one area of specialization, inside there is a gradation of castes in the possession of power with the "Status of Trust." Their society seems to me to be the epitome of classical utopias. Sort of a state of equal citizens, who collectively own slaves and property. An interesting concept, it is worth digging deeper into the records…”
Yv turned off the recorder and stretched out on his bed. It was incredible. The small crystal contained dozens, or maybe even a hundred times more pieces of information about the Enemy than he had known before. What do people really know about them? They didn’t know that the Enemy is divided into castes, dominated by the Scarlet Princes. The Lower castes are just warriors. The rest of the castes run everything and procreate. Cooperation is cultivated within each caste, but they are fragmented among themselves. Moreover, they are hostile to each other. Physiology, traditions, intellectual level, and the interests of all castes are so different that any ship is simply divided into four completely autonomous compartments. Everything from design, kitchens, gyms, entertainment venues, and selection of entertainment differ one from another, creating the impression that it is not a warship with a single team of sentient beings, but something like a visual aid showing the degree of differences between the cultures, whose representatives are on board. That was basically all there was.
The rest of the information concerned the fighting characteristics of ships, and weapons and tactics in various battles. Of course, humans would have had unimaginably less experience in understanding an intelligent alien species than the Enemy. During its short path across the Galaxy, humanity had met only three intelligent races, but they were far from being able to explore space, and it did not occur to anyone among humankind to intervene, especially to accelerate the development of these civilizations, or to somehow try to incorporate them into their own.
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