Genesis

by Lawrence P White

  The Alliance

  Book Three

  GENESIS

  by

  Lawrence P. White

  www.spiritofempire.com

  GENESIS

  (The Alliance, Book Three)

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

  Copyright © 2019 by Lawrence P. White

  Published by Lawrence P. White

  First Edition May 2019

  Cover design by Creative Publishing Book Design

  www.creativepublishingdesign.com

  For more information, email Lawrence P. White at

  larry@spiritofempire.com

  or visit

  www.spiritofempire.com

  The Alliance series

  Ship’s Log

  Conception

  Genesis

  Other books by Lawrence P. White

  The Spirit of Empire series

  Last of the Chosen

  Knights of the Chosen

  Voice of the Chosen

  Sky Knights

  Wisdom of the Chosen

  Havlock

  Farside (coming someday)

  Chapter One

  The An’Atee prime ship Orion completed its jump into the new system and immediately activated its cloaking device. The crew was initially blind within the cloaking field. First one, then many antennae extended from ports on the skin of the ship to poke imperceptibly through the boundary of the cloaking device. Screens began refreshing slowly, an unwelcome rate imposed by the physics of the cloaking device.

  Captain Angie Tolland watched anxiously. This was the fourth Harbok world she had visited, and she hated not knowing what awaited them, what might be lurking in their vicinity. She breathed a little easier as her screens filled in, but then her brow creased with a new concern—the screens did not show any Harbok ships, and radio chatter was almost non-existent. How could that be?

  Her mind sorted through possibilities as the screens continued adding information slowly. The Alliance was studying a number of Harbok worlds, worlds that propagated significant amounts of radio noise. Radio signals traveled at the speed of light, which meant, in the case of this particular system, that the signals had been traveling for one hundred fifty years when they reached the Alliance survey ship. One hundred fifty years was not much in the lifetime of a world or a civilization, so things should not have changed very much. The earlier signals had hinted at a vibrant society. What had happened here to change that?

  Prior to her assignment to the Alliance, encountering the unexpected had filled her with excitement. She was an explorer to the bone, had been for many, many years, and explorers craved new discoveries. This new twist to her career—spying—had changed all that. Now she cowered, hiding behind the cloaking device to avoid discovery as she sought answers for Alliance planners.

  Her new assignment carried the onerous title of “intelligence gathering.” Agreeing to the changes had not been an option—the choice was to take it or leave it. If she wanted to continue the exploration work that she so loved, and if she wanted to retain command of her wonderful ship, she had to accept the new ground rules. She had acquiesced and joined the Alliance rather than give up her command.

  She abhorred the cowering. Spying through the cloaking device was not her way. Worse, she had been forced to accept degrading modifications to her ship as part of the agreement—a refit with heavy armaments and new weapons control stations. In light of the ultimatum issued by the Harbok that required the An’Atee to cease all space exploration, she understood that part even if she did not like it.

  Chairman Greg Hamilton had personally interviewed her. He fully expected her to defend her command if necessary, and she would do so, but in her heart, she knew her methods would begin and end with one simple tactic: running away. That suited him, provided she did whatever it took to prevent exposing Ariall. She could not allow the Harbok to discover the nature of her mission. Discovery by the Harbok would jeopardize the future of her civilization, the An’Atee.

  Neither she nor Orion would let her people down.

  An hour later, sensors still displayed a system devoid of spaceborne traffic, though radio signals emanated from the third planet. Orion moved carefully and sedately toward the outermost planet of the system. There, shielded from the primary world by the bulk of the planet, Tolland deactivated her cloaking device just long enough to permit her five scout ships to exit. Everyone re-cloaked, then all but one of the scouts headed inbound to their assigned stations.

  She always left one ship behind in a position from which it could jump away from the system immediately if necessary.

  Weeks later, she brought Orion into a close orbit about the third world, the only settled world within the system. Her cloaking device was fully deployed. By the time she reached orbit, her scientists were already scratching their heads over abnormalities coming to light. Communications were not coded, a first in their experience with Harbok worlds. Conversations, all of them in the Harbok language, seemed lethargic, without inflection, and they found no entertainment systems in operation.

  At first glance, the Harbok society seemed otherwise normal. Vehicles, some on the ground and some airborne, followed seemingly routine patterns. Production from farms and fields seemed normal, with tractors and haulers operating routinely, and factory workers flowed in and out of plants on normal work schedules.

  But discrepancies arose. Her scientists observed several vehicle collisions, the remains of which were simply pushed off to the sides of roadways for later cleanup. Bodies and all.

  Clothing appeared to be optional and based more on weather conditions than style. They observed occasional copulating in public, though passersby paid it little attention.

  There appeared to be no social interaction among individuals or groups of Harbok, and in general, the Harbok exhibited little energy, moving from place to place like automatons.

  Then they discovered the holding pens. A steady trickle of Harbok joined hundreds of others in open-walled pens. From those pens, a steady trickle of Harbok moved on their own into a nearby cone-shaped spire. The spire, a lustrous blue color, stood some 50 feet high and 20 feet across at the base. Similar spires and holding pens dotted the landscape of every continent.

  Tolland had not observed any of these structures, nor any of the behaviors, during her three previous visits to Harbok worlds. Her scientists continued observing while they sought answers. Everything in this system was exposed to them, not encoded, a behavior that was so unlike the Harbok. Their understanding of the Harbok language improved dramatically, a surprising but welcome change from previous encounters.

  After a week, she dispatched a scout ship back to Ariall with her findings, chief among them detailed recordings of the Harbok language. She dispatched two other scouts to explore the other planets and moons of the system, though she had not observed any interplanetary commerce, which made no sense. Surely some of the other worlds offered resources useful to the planet below. Could this be a brand-new world? Were the Harbok not well established here yet?

  She took her thoughts to the chief scientist, Professor Niing.

  “Sorry to disagree, Captain,” he responded to her query, “but this world is not new to the Harbok. Some of the buildings down below are ancient, and the amount of land settled or under cultivation points to a long-term relationship with the planet. But some things don’t make sense. We always assumed, for example, that the Harbok wore clothing. The Harbok always wore clothes on th
e other worlds we studied.”

  “Yes, it disturbs me as well.”

  “And no one seems to care about anything. Buildings are deteriorating, buildings that look like they were once well maintained. In my estimation, this civilization is not capable of star travel.”

  Tolland had been thinking the same thing. Then she had a thought. “Could this be a penal colony? A place the Harbok send their undesirables?”

  “An excellent thought, Captain. We’ll look into it.”

  More weeks passed. They studied Harbok farming and mining operations in detail, producing yet more contradictory results. In most areas, the Harbok used machinery to assist them in their work, but in some locations, they accomplished the work the old-fashioned way, by hand and with the help of animals. The concept of a penal colony gained more acceptance.

  Another month passed as data streamed into Orion. With limited capabilities inside the cloaking device, data came in slowly and tediously, but it came. Her biologists and sociologists became disgruntled. This level of civilization could never have made it into space, though contrary to all expectations, occasional spaceships rolled out of production facilities to sit idly on the tarmac.

  Then several ships arrived, but they were not Harbok. Pandemonium broke loose on the bridge until calmer heads prevailed. Captain Tolland reached the bridge on the run to confront new ship symbols on her screens. The symbols were white, indicating the computer could not label them as Harbok or An’Atee. Who were they?

  Weeks passed as the ships approached. When they landed, every appropriate sensor aboard Orion focused on them. Doors opened on the visiting ships, ramps extended, and a new breed of alien stepped forth. Rat-like, including a tail, but walking upright, the creatures went right to work unloading. No one greeted them. Harbok came out from facilities to move the cargo inside, but little, if any, discussion ensued between the races. Again, it was as if no one cared.

  Meanwhile, large numbers of the rat-like people dispersed to the parked Harbok ships. The unloading ended, a small quantity of Harbok goods went into the visiting ships, then those ships departed the port at low altitude. They spent the next few days traveling from holding pen to holding pen. They never landed. They hovered for minutes above each pen, then moved onto another pen. When all the pens had been visited, the ships lifted for space where the new Harbok ships joined them. The ships, now a small fleet, headed out-system.

  How much stranger could the interaction between two alien races be? Clearly, they knew one another. Lots of discussion took place concerning the issue, but meaningful conclusions evaded her scientists. Tolland shuddered to think what it would be like to live down below.

  Then a young exobiologist, Dr. Blisk, made a discovery—a simple thing they had all missed. Every bare-shouldered Harbok and each of the visiting rat-like aliens had an amoebae-like patch across their upper back and shoulders. The patch seemed to be part of their bodies, its color matching the underlying skin. Dr. Blisk asked himself why different creatures would all have the same patch?

  He presented a theory that the patch was itself a living organism, possibly a parasite that had attached itself to unlucky hosts.

  Shudders passed through the room as he spoke. His words upset several staff members enough that they had to leave the room. The rest sat transfixed, staring at the enlarged display of the hideous patch on the back of a laborer.

  Had they found the Fourth Race?

  Tolland lifted a shaking hand to her forehead, wiping at perspiration that had sprung into place. The knowledge hit her like a blow. Not only did she feel queasy, she felt numb. Her thoughts tumbled over each other, ending up focused on despair for the people on the planet below.

  She rose unsteadily to her feet to speak, but Dr. Blisk held up a hand, requesting the floor for another moment. “Captain, you’ve only had a few minutes to consider this, but I’ve been examining possibilities for two days. I owe it to you and to this group to share my suspicions, all of them supposition. I suspect that creature,” he said turning to point to the patch across the shoulders of the naked Harbok, “is not only controlling the body of the Harbok. I believe it is also controlling its mind. In fact, I hope it controls the host’s mind. Anything less would create an unthinkable existence for that poor person.”

  He looked around the room and, with some hesitation, added, “We might be dealing with a hive mind here. The Harbok in the holding pens appear to be old or sick. We see them entering the nearby spires, but none of them come back out. I suspect—and this is purely supposition—that the parasites and their hosts return to the spire as food for a master.”

  He frowned, clearly struggling internally, before adding, “Again, in the category of pure supposition, I’ve considered this through the lens of evolution. What evolutionary traits would such behavior support? I believe these parasites transfer whatever knowledge they sucked from their hosts’ minds to this hive master. I see no other way they could have developed space travel. The ships we just saw that visited the holding pens might actually have been visiting the spires to harvest the knowledge of each local master. They might be returning now to some higher-level master on their home world to impart what they learned here.”

  Finally, things began making sense. This planet had lost its battle against the Fourth Race. Suddenly, and for the first time ever, Tolland empathized with the Harbok and their plight. She tasted their horror, their shame and humiliation, and she felt their sorrow. No one could remain an idle bystander while this abomination persisted. In a broader sense, she intuitively grasped the necessity for the Harbok being such hard, unforgiving fighters. She felt and shared their hatred for this Fourth Race, she who had never before in her life hated anyone or anything.

  Something inside her changed, forever. Chairman Hamilton had guessed right. The Harbok were fighting a desperate war for their continued existence. Extrapolating just a little, a shudder ran through her body. The An’Atee might be next in line. The definition of war she and the An’Atee held had never conceived of such an abomination. Mentally inventorying her ship, she silently thanked Chairman Hamilton for his insistence that her ship be armed.

  She stared hard at Dr. Blisk and asked, “Anything else?”

  “Yes, Ma’am. More speculation, I’m afraid. The visiting ships did not land when they visited the mounds. If the rest of my theory has any basis in reality, these creatures might share information telepathically, certainly at the master level and possibly at the individual level.”

  Dr. Blisk sat down with his head hanging low. Everyone empathized with him, though clearly, everyone was struggling internally as well.

  Most eyes ended up on her. She looked around the table and made eye contact with each person before adding, “I believe we now know what the Fourth Race is—and I say ‘what,’ not ‘who.’ I confess that I joined the Alliance reluctantly, but I am suddenly proud to be a part of an organization so sorely needed. As usual, the Atee chose wisely. Study Dr. Blisk’s findings. Try to disprove them.”

  She paused, then added, “If we have, indeed, discovered the Fourth Race, you have the honor of being the first An’Atee to begin working on a solution for the Harbok. We are not leaving here until we find answers.”

  Chapter Two

  Three years after establishing the Alliance, Greg was on his way to becoming an executive rather than a manager, mostly the result of a lot of patient coaching from Arlynn, Kannick, and a few others. Kannick always seemed to appear at just the right times, somehow sensing Greg’s needs despite a very full schedule of his own as Greg’s second-in-command. He was a rock, always unflappable, always full of energy, always positive.

  Arlynn so rarely left his side that people did not think about him without thinking of her. She knew Greg Hamilton’s strengths and weaknesses, she lived through his triumphs and failures, she helped him and coached him, and he knew she accepted the package.

  Frequent social engagements went with the position of Chairman, and invitations always include
d the two of them. Speculation ran rampant concerning their relationship, though no one really knew the details. How could they? Though their story had been told over and over again, the An’Atee could not truly fathom the terrible events that had brought them together.

  Now Greg could look back on those years with a degree of fondness. He remembered the conversation they had when Arlynn moved him out of Kannick and Danaria’s home a couple of months after his selection as Chairman. She had acquired the huge estate next door for Greg, a home that was much more than Greg wanted. His needs were simple, and he did not have the time to devote to home ownership. Arlynn completed the purchase for him before he even knew about it. That had been quite a discussion.

  “I don’t need it, and I don’t want it,” Greg had said in a way that brooked no argument. “Just find me an apartment or something.”

  Arlynn did not give in. “I won’t hear of it,” she replied with a hint of indignance. “Because you’re from Earth, you have special needs. You can’t be surrounded by masses of people the way most An’Atee are. I consulted Doctor Llambry on this, you know. You need room, you need a quiet neighborhood, you need a place to work in private, and you need a place where you can entertain. You’re a public figure, in case you didn’t know.”

  “I can’t pay for it. I don’t have any money,” he argued. “And I certainly don’t want to have to take care of it.”

  “It’s all taken care of, Greg. Just accept it. And you should look at the plans I’ve drawn up for your office before construction gets started in case you want to change things.”

  “Construction! There goes the neighborhood. How am I going to pay for this?”

  “Grandmother took care of it. If she can’t take care of this as head of the An’Atee, this is all for naught.”

  “We never discussed a salary, Arlynn.”

  “Nor will we, at least not for the foreseeable future. She was very specific about this: you are not to concern yourself with personal funds. Alliance budgets are, of course, your concern and your duty to manage.”