Arkroid eyed the entrance to the elevator or lift suspiciously.
»You talk about the Myzel like it’s an independent living being. Is it another species that lives with you in the ocean?«
»You will understand when you see the Myzel with your own eyes,« Gnorrbarrt explained, and directed Arkroid into the planetary lift.
Immediately, the entrance closed and both passengers were enveloped within a large water bubble. They descended to the moon at high speed. Arkroid could feel the acceleration, but it was not at all unpleasant. He tried to imagine that he was traveling inside an oversized water droplet, which in turn was flowing through a big hose toward the moon. He had to pull himself together, he needed to trust this alien technology – hoping that everything was working right!
His skepticism was unfounded. After about ten minutes they had reached the ocean on Coip-Pertyl. The new scenery flatly amazed him. He would have never dared to dream about what he saw.
Neither passenger looked back to the elevator to see the dark shadow that had followed them from Lottruun.
We’re not leaving
»… didn’t know, you had a brother, Scorge!« Pi remarked. »You should be burying your feud. Brothers need to stand up for each other! I’m not so lucky, I don’t have a brother or a sister.«
»What horrible planet did you discover?« bickered Smorge. »These naked duopeds must have lost their minds! It’s a miracle that their culture hasn’t vanished from the face of the universe yet!«
»It is stronger than your potency, you sand eating torpel!«
Again, the Shwakans began to argue loudly.
Pi, usually a laid back character, had had it.
»Enough with this nonsense!« he yelled at the two.
Both Shwakans froze. Pi’s loud words must have impressed them.
»Arkroid disappeared with the Myzellan, Vasina is nowhere to be found and you two are bickering over small change! Can you at least explain to me who that octopus is who was following us around, asking questions?«
»What octopus?« both Shwakans asked at the same time. Pi explained the encounters and tried to describe Shug-har as best he could.
»An Octavian!« Scorge yelled out.
»That sounds like that slimy, rotten, soft creature, Shug-har!« Smorge added quickly.
»You know him?«
»No, but we’ve heard of him. He represents the Guild on Lottruun. He’s a shady character, egoistic, only looking after himself. Be careful around that crook!«
»He tried to find out what we said in our interview and told us that the Myzellans have been acting strange ever since,« Pi said in a worried voice.
Scorge pondered for a moment.
»We should ready the Yax K’uk’Mo’ and steal us away from here. I think the Octavian was trying to spy on us, which means that somebody is interested in us.«
»We’re not leaving without Arkroid and Vasina!« Pi exploded.
»Then I only hope for all of us that they come back soon!« Scorge rebutted sternly.
The Myzel
Arkroid estimated them to be at least 50 meters below sea level. He felt almost weightless, and mesmerized by his surroundings. The ocean opened up before his eyes and became darker and darker with increasing depth. Everywhere reef-like, flat structures were floating in the ocean at different depth levels. All manner of different underwater species were swimming in and around the reefs. Some of those structures were gigantic, several kilometers in length. Arkroid assumed those to be artificial cities; he noticed that many Myzellans swam toward the reefs and disappeared into them. A thick layer of a net-like, woven fiber floated thirty meters above the reefs. It almost looked like an algae carpet. At some points in the net, Arkroid saw large knots from which stronger fibers grew, connecting to other carpets. The thicker fibers were about two or three meters in diameter. The carpet, which appeared organic, was not locally restricted but spread across the entire depth, reaching in some areas to fifteen meters below sea level. Arkroid could not see an end from his position. The net fibers emitted a florescent bright-green light that shined down on the Myzellan underwater abodes.
»Welcome to Coip-Pertyl!« Gnorrbarrt said with a festive voice and swam with Arkroid toward a nearby reef city. »This is Beauty-Blue, my home reef, and also the place where your female companion is located.«
Arkroid looked perplexed at the florescent netting.
»This is fascinating! What is it? A large colony of underwater plants?«
»That is the Myzel,« Gnorrbarrt explained without hesitation. »It’s an alliance of millions of different lifeforms, living together in symbiosis and forming a super-organism. The Myzel is the true intelligence of this world. It covers the entire ocean at this depth. It contains our civilization, provides us with light and nutrition and is our collective memory. It stores the information of millions of individuals who have visited us. Even your information can be found in it.«
»The Myzel is intelligent then?« Arkroid asked, awed.
»The individual single organisms aren’t; but all the organisms combined form an intelligent being. Like a neuronal network, the Myzel has developed memory knots or neuronal interfaces that function like biological cells. Over time these knots interconnected, creating a consciousness,« Gnorrbarrt explained in depth. »Even my forefathers once belonged to this network but separated to develop independently. This occurred many hundreds of thousands of years ago. Today, we know that the Myzel wanted us to separate, because it had a special purpose for us. We were to become its knowledge gatherers.«
Arkroid had trouble following Gnorrbarrt’s explanation.
»As soon as the Myzel’s consciousness came into being for the first time, the newly established super-organism reached quickly a consensus. It realized that it would never be able to leave this moon and that it would forever be part of the ocean. It longed for the cosmos and a better understanding of the universe surrounding its habitat. So the Myzel instructed us to gather knowledge and furthered our civilization in return.
»The establishment of the orbital market places was a welcome opportunity for us to profit from the stream of visitors. That’s why we agreed to the platforms being built. At first we only received fragmentary knowledge from visitors, mostly personal accounts and experiences, and highly subjective. The more visitors came, however, the better the picture developed of what was happening around us, and the Myzel was able to create a history of our galaxy.«
»How long have you been collecting information?« Arkroid asked in wonder.
»For over four-hundred-thousand years,« Gnorrbarrt replied with pride.
Arkroid’s head was spinning.
The Myzel is an intelligent and organic memory bank, collecting information over a vast period of time. It assembles the pieces like a puzzle to form a bigger picture. Unbelievable!
Gnorrbarrt pulled Arkroid with him and they arrived at Beauty-Blue. Myzellans who met them on their way to the city gave way respectfully. Arkroid was unable to take in and digest everything he saw so quickly. The impressions were overwhelming!
Suddenly, they swam into a large cave inside the reef where Arkroid found Vasina. The Progonaut queen was surrounded by a fine weave of light-emitting fibers, and over twenty Myzellans had positioned themselves around her in deep meditation, watching over her it seemed.
»I hope she’s all right,« Arkroid whispered. He had no clue what was going on around him.
»The Myzel is communicating with her, Arkroid. Your partner is a much longed for source of information.«
Two Myzellans approached Gnorrbarrt and Arkroid. Gnorrbarrt swam closer to Arkroid and touched him cautiously with his head fin. Arkroid’s personal energy shield didn’t react defensively and Arkroid could feel the touch through the field.
»You may join Vasina if you wish and participate in the information exchange. It will serve the Myzel as well as it’ll serve you, trust me!«
At first Arkroid had his reservations, but then he changed his mi
nd.
»How can I be sure that the information you collect won’t fall into the wrong hands?« he asked uncertainly.
Gnorrbarrt folded his head fins.
»Nobody else but the Myzel has access to the information. It decides whom it wants to communicate with and what it surrenders in return. The Myzel will accept your conditions. It has never disappointed us in the past.«
Arkroid glanced over to Vasina.
»Is she conscious?«
»She’s actively involved in the communication, as will you be,« Gnorrbarrt assured him.
»Well then, let’s do it!« Arkroid said.
Two Myzellans brought a fine-woven cocoon and placed Arkroid in a horizontal position in it and stabilized him in the soft water current. He felt awkward, but he didn’t dare move if he didn’t want to damage the cocoon in which he was enveloped.
A soft voice entered his mind suddenly, and he recognized Vasina.
»Toiber, you’re here! I can feel your presence through the Myzel,« she said surprised. »It is unbelievable, we can become one with the Myzel because of these cocoons. This being is incredibly wise and very vast, but also very weak and helpless.«
Arkroid listened to the voice and opened himself.
Unbelievable is right, I can feel Vasina’s presence too! he thought, mesmerized.
He sensed Vasina at a level of perception he had never experienced before.
Tell me, Human, another voice entered his mind. How does it feel to travel through the cosmos, see the stars and be one with the wonders of creation?
Arkroid sensed that the Myzel was talking to him, and he closed his eyes to be able to concentrate on the mental impulses he received. He felt a certain strangeness but also knew the wisdom of this being … and decided to fully open his mind to the Myzel.
The universe is filled with wonders. We Humans would have never guessed that it holds so many lives and riddles. Until recently, our solar system was sealed to the outside by an unknown power. The energy field sealing us from the rest of the universe is still in place, a technology we don’t yet understand. We’re still very ignorant and insecure about the universe, and have just begun to explore it.
We have found many traces of the power you mention, the Myzel replied slowly. It seems that it influences many people, but it is not clear to me why. We know from Vasina that you call this power the Dark Brotherhood. At first glance their actions seem brutal and cruel, but how can we judge their actions if we don’t understand their motives?
Arkroid disagreed vehemently.
The Brotherhood’s allies attacked my home-world – many people lost their lives, and we know that other people are also being used against their wills. I can’t see any good in the Brotherhood’s plans. There’s only one answer: we have to rise against them together!
If the Brotherhood is powerful enough to defeat the Progonauts and influence all the people in this cosmic region, why are they not openly revealing their might? the Myzel countered.
We don’t know that, Arkroid admitted. It seems to be part of their strategy to work in the dark. I don’t know their leaders or their mentality. Infiltration and manipulation are sometimes preferable to open warfare. The Dark Brotherhood is weaving its net according to a plan unknown to us, in a way that the people affected don’t understand what’s going on. We Humans cannot explain why our development was controlled and disrupted. We don’t know – not yet!
The Myzel needed a couple of seconds before it responded.
Vasina told us about the fate of her people. She told us about her culture, the rise to power and the fall of the five Progonaut Houses. This is important to us because we received a first person account at that time. The demise of the Progonaut people was a tragic event, but it still leaves many unanswered questions. Why were Progonauts of different houses deported to your world, Arkroid? Why was the reservation established? Did the deportees mix with the aboriginal inhabitants of your planet? Why was there a separate Human genealogy even before the Progonauts came to your home-world?
Two races or people can only amalgamate and merge if their gene pool is alike and almost identical. The Progonauts of Vasina’s time must have had a relationship to your early people already. If that is true then the deportation of so many Progonauts to your world makes sense, and there must have been a special reason.
Arkroid felt uncomfortable. The Myzel wasn’t telling him anything new, it just repeated the facts. The scientists on Earth had already pulled out their hair trying to explain the relationship between Humans and Progonauts. So far they had never arrived at a reasonable explanation.
What’s the connection between the second Jamal-Comb and the Progonauts? Arkroid injected a new twist to the mental conversation. It wasn’t just by chance that the Myzellans offered it at the auction in our presence. The comb is more than a piece of jewelry, we learned back on Earth that it reacts to certain mental emissions.
The Jamal-Comb we found on Coip-Pertyl is a relic from the past and before I came into being. It was deposited much earlier. Many clues I have collected connect the comb with the Progonauts, but the combs didn’t originate with them. They have a much older history. Even the Genorantans, who established the tachyon portal network throughout the galaxy, spoke of the Jamal-Combs. Even they had never possessed one of the combs. There were five Jamal-Combs, one for each house. They were lost during the Progonaut defeat. Two have resurfaced in the meantime, but the fate of the others is still a riddle.
Arkroid tried to understand the information and to make connections. He needed time, so he directed the discussion to a different subject.
You know the Progonaut history and about the Genorantans, people we know only by name. Do you have any indications that there are still Progonauts living in the galaxy? Vasina won’t rest until she’s found an answer to that question.
The Myzel replied almost immediately.
Vasina asked me a similar question, and I answered it as best as I could. I’m certain that there are still Progonauts or their descendants out there. As devastating as the Progonaut defeat might seem, there were survivors! I’m thinking especially of the Progonauts of Atlantika, who could still be around … Spaceship crews and settlers who evaded the enemy, people at remote colonies or space stations …
Arkroid breathed faster. He knew how important this was to Vasina; an acknowledgement of her wishes and hopes.
Not knowing the true reasons behind the Progonaut demise, it seems clear that the Humans are more involved in events than it might seem. Search for the Tachyon Portal in your home system! That gate enables the Dark Brotherhood to control your people and influence your future! the Myzel warned.
Arkroid twitched.
We found such a portal in the Vega System, but it was destroyed. I have no knowledge of a Tachyon Portal in our system, Arkroid replied, shocked.
Nevertheless, there must be one! the Myzel reaffirmed. Other people reported to have found them at hidden or remote places. Inside sun coronas, on the bottom of very deep oceans, in the atmospheres of gigantic gas planets or in the center of asteroid clusters. Search for the portal, Arkroid, when you return to your home system!
Arkroid had a bad taste in his mouth. Humans thought they knew their own solar system, even if they had not visited the remotest locations yet. A portal could exist in the solar system that nobody knew about.
Arkroid swallowed hard.
Can you tell me where these portals lead? Do they lead to the Brotherhood’s main system? Can we find out who’s behind all this?
The Myzel’s answer was mysterious.
We heard rumors about a central portal planet. Several visitors reported that some of their people vanished in the vicinity of such a portal. Those unfortunate ones never returned. Some claim to know the location of this planet, but they don’t dare fly to it. It is an inconspicuous planet at a remote location of the galaxy in an insignificant solar system. It is however, heavily guarded! The Habsbians, masters of tachyon technology, tell us th
at they have been able to detect tachyon transport spikes leading to a certain cosmic region. It follows that the Tachyon Portal network seems to connect to a portal center.
Arkroid was getting impatient.
We need to find this planet and investigate it!
Your determination speaks for you, but don’t forget the dangers involved. There is one more piece of information connected to the Progonauts, the Jamal-Combs and the Genorantans, the Myzel continued.
Arkroid didn’t feel well. He sensed another uncomfortable revelation.
Age old reports, myths and histories from different peoples tell about a devastating catastrophe which occurred on the other side of the galaxy. This catastrophe led to an unprecedented migration of galactic peoples and it is directly connected with the disappearance of the Genorantans and the creators of the Techno-Clerics. If we see the Progonaut history in the same context then it is likely that the Dark Brotherhood is carrying out a long term plan directly connected to the catastrophe …
The Myzel’s mental voice ended abruptly.
Arkroid listened inwardly, heard only silence, then he asked, Uh … what’s going on? Please, continue.
There was no answer. Instead the Myzellans freed Arkroid and Vasina from their cocoons and pushed them out of the reef.
»Something has happened, something very bad!« Gnorrbarrt told Arkroid nervously.
Arkroid was alarmed.
»What happened?« he quickly inquired.
»The Myzel is in a state of shock, and it’s lost parts of its memory. It appears that some of its neuronal interfaces were destroyed. Now, sections of the Myzel no longer have contact to each other and can no longer be stimulated! This can cause the death of more neuronal interfaces - invaluable knowledge will be lost!«
Arkroid felt a knot in his stomach.
»How did that happen? Was it an accident?« he asked perplexed.
»We must assume it was caused by outside intervention,« Gnorrbarrt replied sadly. »Somebody attacked and destroyed the neuronal interfaces on purpose!«
NEBULAR Collection 2 - The Expedition: NEBULAR Episodes 6 - 11 Page 38