by Dan Worth
‘Hmm I’m not sure whether we hired the boat or bought it to be honest,’ said Rekkid.
‘I thought you were the language expert. Trust you to forget your translator pendant too,’ said Katherine. ‘All that pointing and pulling faces!’ she laughed. ‘Rekkid where have you been all this time?’ she said, now more serious. ‘Can you tell me now?’
Rekkid told her, about his random trips around space to throw Intelligence off the scent whilst the log remained on Earth, about how on the advice of a colleague he had finally managed to get the thing decoded by the AI known as Quickchild aboard Riianto bubble city and how with the aid of a portion of the entity he had made his daring escape before coming to Maranos. He then listened intently as Katherine related her story of the past few months and her journey here.
‘So when you contacted the University and asked to come here you didn’t know you were off to meet an AI?’ she said.
‘No, not at all. I’d planned to come here and tell you that some dusty old professor of cybernetics had found a way to decode the data and that we could expect to begin translating it in a few months. It was quite a stroke of luck really. By the way, mine isn’t the only copy of the log. There’s one aboard my ship and the original is back on Riianto for safe keeping. Ormintu will have kept it well hidden from those Secret Service types.’
‘So, what does the log contain Rekkid?’ said Katherine excitedly. ‘Why have people been chasing us all over the galaxy?’
‘Well, I’ve referenced the interesting parts from what I’ve managed to read so far. Most of it is pretty routine stuff; life aboard ship and whatnot. I’ve included a few as an example. Here have a look.’
He pulled his slim portable computer from his satchel opened it, pressed a few keys and placed it on Katherine’s knees to face her. She began to read, shielding her eyes and the flat screen from the sun.
11.98/4/6879
Proceeded as planned to the Ukanthi cluster. Began patrol. Chief Engineer reports minor problems with engine performance, nothing serious. He is conducting tests to determine the faulty component. Weapons Adept Koloris reports success in today’s drill.
‘See?’ said Rekkid. ‘Pretty standard stuff, apart from the unknown date used. This kind of thing could have come from any vessel. But read this entry here, it starts to get more interesting.
43.98/4/6879
The crew have expressed doubts about the current turmoil within the government and the chain of command. Twice we have received orders that have contradicted one another. I have contacted command but I have received no adequate explanation for what is going on.
48.98/4/6879
Sky General Vostick contacted me personally today. A great honour. He demanded to know which side our vessel will take in the dispute. I said I did not know, since I had not been fully briefed on the nature of the schism in our government. I explained to him that we had been travelling beyond our borders for some years now and that we had only recently returned. He asked me whom we served. I replied that the Khostun and its crew were loyal to the Empire and the people. The Sky General then explained to me about those corrupt or weak officials within the government that had allowed malign influences to weaken the Empire and allowed some of our colonies to revert back to the control of barbarous races. This troubled me greatly. I told him I would consult with my officers and give him an answer tomorrow.
49.98/4/6879
After consulting with my most trusted officers we have decided to obey Sky General Vostick. It seems that this is the best course of action for now. We wish to show our loyalty to the Empire and to maintaining the supremacy of the Arkari race over all. I contacted a number of other warship captains with whom I am familiar. They verified the Sky General’s story and also told me of witch-hunts among the crews of other vessels, including the flagship, and also that a number of senior navy staff have been removed from their posts. Thankfully my crew are all loyal, and we wish to display this by our gesture of allegiance.
53.98/4/6879
It seems not all amongst the Navy feel the same as us. I spoke to my old friend Captain Urtiss. He has declared for the rebel faction. He said to me: ‘Cortill, can you not see that the faction you have joined is deeply speciesist? There are thugs and brutes in the Empire and you have sided with them. They will cause the death of the Imperium not us.’ I fear he is gravely mistaken, Arkari are superior. We bring light where there was once darkness, squalor and ignorance. Were the empire to fall into the hands of barbarians it would be the end of all that is good and pure and civilised. What we do, we do ultimately for their own good and they must be taught this lesson.
Yet I fear what is to come. The Navy is split cleanly in two. I had no idea that so many of my fellow servicemen were such traitors. We hear reports of Arkari fighting Arkari by the western reaches. It is a dark day indeed.
23.4/8/6879
Today at last we went into battle against the traitors around the planet of Udros to seize the military assets in orbit there. We had our doubts about firing upon fellow Arkari, but I am pleased to report that my crew excelled itself. We added two corvettes and two dozen fighter craft to our tally whilst suffering little damage ourselves. The battle for the Udros facilities went well and victory was achieved rapidly. We successfully landed troops on the station and captured it intact as per our orders. I congratulated the crew on their performance today. If this is the sort of resistance we can expect from the rebels then this war should be mercifully brief.
‘Bloody hell Rekkid,’ said Katherine. ‘A civil war? An Arkari Empire? There’s no record of any of this anywhere else.’
‘Indeed. It gets better too. Read this entry, it’s quite a bit later on.’
47.9/03/6781
Today marks the end of the Ytrnu as a species. An unfortunate necessity. This is what I tell myself and the crew after the act. They sided with the rebellion and they would not lay down their arms. It is lesser life forms such as they that have weakened the Empire and brought us to this state of affairs in the first place. Sky General Vostick was harsh but fair in his treatment of them. He is a wise leader but they simply would not listen to him even though I believe his demands were reasonable.
We began the antimatter bombardment of their cities at 1.9.3 this morning, ship-time. Total annihilation was achieved by mid-day. Execution of the prisoners from the rebel ship Tumiku proceeded as planned at 7.2.12.
‘This is as far as I’ve got I’m afraid.’ said Rekkid. ‘I’ll give you a copy so you can read the whole thing for yourself.’
‘God, no wonder they didn’t want this to get out. I had no idea that the Arkari were capable of such things. Whole planet surfaces devastated?’
‘Me too. It makes you wonder why no-one else knows doesn’t it?’
‘Well, I mean it was such a long time ago, maybe people have found evidence but they misinterpreted it? It’s happened before you know.’
‘Indeed. In your own history for example, there are several instance of global cataclysms being ignored in the archaeological and geological records for quite some time and they were largely cases of not being able to see the wood for the trees.’
‘Yes of course, the ancient of eruptions of Krakatoa for one, and the reasons for the extinction of the dinosaurs is another.’
‘Quite, and the former was quite well documented at the time. There were worldwide crop failures as I recall.’
‘But surely an interstellar society would document something like a war in great detail? There should be much more evidence, even if it was a million years ago. How the hell did anyone manage to miss over nine-hundred thousand years of Arkari history? Also, what happened to all the Arkari who had left the home world? Why weren’t they encountered when your species spread into space for a second time?’
‘There is more evidence, there has to be,’ said Rekkid. ‘Somebody knows something, and my bet is it’s not the Commonwealth. I think our government really did tell them it was a top secret new star ship th
at we found. I wouldn’t be surprised if the higher echelons of the Arkari government or military know and that they’ve been keeping it quiet all along. As for the descendents of earlier colonists -who knows? Maybe they all died out or were wiped out by their imperial subjects?’
‘This would be tremendously embarrassing to your government if it came out Rekkid. They always take a holier than thou approach to other species. Their entire diplomatic strategy is based on maintaining the moral high ground. Something as awful as this would make them look just as bad as the K’Soth, even if it is ancient history.’
‘Quite. If this is all true it’s one hell of a cover-up, or one hell of a historical oversight, or both. Now you know why I insisted on coming all the way out here to talk. This knowledge is dangerous.’
‘We have to publish this though Rekkid. This could make our careers.’
‘It could also kill us. Our military is something of a law unto itself, you know. They govern entire systems almost independently and you hear all sorts of conspiracy theories about them. Maybe some of them are true. Didn’t it strike you as odd that the second in command of our entire navy should turn up to deal with “pirates”?’
‘Now that you mention it, yes it did.’
‘So I’d keep this quiet for the time being.’
‘I’m inclined to agree Rekkid.’ said Katherine. She felt a chill of fear, despite the blazing sunshine.
‘Right, that’s that out of the way,’ said Rekkid changing the subject briskly. ‘I’ll row us back to the shore then we’ll walk along the promenade and get some lunch. It should be about noon Mean Time by the time we get there. I’m buying, well, someone is anyway,’ he said and waved the ambassador’s card at her, then took up the oars and began to row.
They sat at a table on the café’s terrace in the shade of a large rubbery looking plant. The eatery seemed quite upmarket by local standards and was situated right at the point where the Rais River flowed sluggishly into the bay. There were a few other customers, all Dendratha. A number of boats moved on the river, and several more were tied up at the dockside whilst their crews unloaded the day’s catch. Katherine focused on what she believed to be a salad and tried to ignore the powerful stench that occasionally wafted on the breeze from the docks.
Rekkid had ordered by pointing at the menu and holding up two fingers, which Katherine had found immensely funny. His guesswork had paid off however. He had managed to order two salad like dishes composed of brightly coloured leaves, something that approximated cheese, a pile of sweet juicy fruits and a cured meat of some kind that had slightly gamey taste. The food was rather nice all in all, thought Katherine, relieved to have found something to eat that she liked. It was just a shame about the smells coming from the water’s edge.
Rekkid was looking thoughtful.
‘I was just thinking,’ he said in a hushed voice. ‘We have loads of artefacts catalogued from around a million years ago, and there’ll be a lot more at other institutions as well as lots of ancient Arkari artefacts catalogued under different periods. We should have a look at them again in the light of this new evidence to see if we can uncover something.’
‘It still makes you wonder why no-one else has come to this conclusion,’ said Katherine.
‘Well why would they?’ said Rekkid. ‘If the official histories say that the Arkari space faring civilisation is fifty thousand years old in human terms, any find that appears to be older is going to be catalogued as something else isn’t it? Besides, if anyone did start to suspect, how hard would it be for the intelligence services to lean on them like they’ve leaned on us?’
‘That’s true, and if Arkari civilisation did collapse entirely then re-emerge it wouldn’t be too hard for the truth to be covered up when it was re-discovered. People would have forgotten everything about their ancestors over such a long period of time.’
‘Exactly, I am aware that certain members of your own species are of the opinion that they were created only six and a half thousand years ago or thereabouts, and that once this was a widely held belief. People have always been making up their own versions of history, whatever their species.’
‘True. The collapse must have been total though, I mean they must have regressed to at least a medieval level, if not further,’ said Katherine.
‘Yes I agree. It would account for the lack of documentary evidence if our society returned to an age free of intellectual rationale and widespread literacy for an extended period. Records would be lost or even intentionally destroyed. You know, this scenario was often peddled on your world and my own in the past as what could happen in the aftermath of a nuclear war or a similar disaster. I’m just wondering how destructive this war became. I hope the log gives us some sort of clue if we read more of it.’
‘It would also account for what happened to the off world colonists. If the heart of the Empire was ripped out they might die off from lack of supplies, or maybe they returned to their home world in desperation. Possibly the locals revolted and drove out their imperial masters?’
‘Perhaps. I just wonder where our official history ties in with the one in this log. Where does one end and the other begin?’
‘Your people began moving away from a religion and superstition dominated society just over fifty-one thousand five hundred years ago didn’t they?’ said Katherine. ‘That was when they started exploring science in a rational manner. My bet is that the period preceding that lasted a lot longer than is officially recorded. The status quo of despotic societies could have remained in place for thousands of years given the right conditions and a suitable level of religious oppression.’
‘Yes, it’s no secret even in the official accounts that several of our religions were pretty fanatical in the past. The punishing of heretics who sought to disprove their scriptures was fairly common. It is possible that they could have put a stranglehold on our civilisation’s development for quite some time.’
‘This is all speculation though of course.’
‘Yes of course.’
Rekkid picked at his food, Katherine looked thoughtful.
‘It just seems strange to me though,’ she said. ‘Even if the Arkari did do all these terrible things, it seems a little odd to care whether someone finds out a million years after the event. It’s not as if the current government was responsible.’
‘You have a point there,’ he replied. ‘Maybe we’ll uncover the reason why as we read more of the log.’
‘Back to the present, Rekkid,’ said Katherine. ‘What can you tell me about this religious site we’re supposed to be helping the Dendratha excavate? I read what notes I could find on Earth but there wasn’t much. I couldn’t even find out what their religion is about.’
‘Well, as I understand it, the Dendratha have only one religion, due to their small numbers and relatively uniform society. You know that only the northern hemisphere was extensively settled for quite some time, don’t you? The desert is sparsely populated with nomadic tribes but their numbers are very small.’
Katherine nodded, Rekkid continued.
‘It’s basically an advanced form of animism. It seems that they have three principal gods, represented by the two stars in the system and the planet we’re standing on. The western star they call Irrin, which means light, and the eastern is called Irrinil, which means life. The third god, their chief deity is called Maran, which means earth and he is represented by the planet. Hence the name Maranos, meaning “Kingdom of Maran.” They believe that he lives inside the planet, that he gives life from below to living things and that he is sustained in his efforts by his two siblings who help him in his labours with their holy light. Fulan roughly translates as home of the gods, the heavenly sphere within which they dwell.’
‘So what’s with the temple in the desert?’
‘It’s not just a temple; it’s an entire holy city. Marantis is right on the equator and its position is such that both stars are visible at opposite points in the sky. The Dendratha believe
it to be a most sacred location and the centre of the world.’
‘Umm the surface of a sphere doesn’t have a centre.’
‘Yes I know, but don’t offend them by pointing that out will you? They also believe that the gods once manifested themselves there, and that when Maran emerges from the earth at the end of time he will do it from a secret cave hidden under the site. Apparently the principal prophet of the Maranist religion declared so after he claimed to have been in the cave himself and talked to the god. Usual case of heatstroke or too much time in the wilderness I imagine. That usually explains why so many religions get started in desert regions, I mean look at the K’Soth.’
‘And the temple itself?’
‘It’s situated right in the middle of the city that grew up around it from the original tent cities of the nomads who first came to worship Maran. It’s supposed to be very impressive as well as being around ten thousand years old. We’re excavating in the grounds. The former high priests from the time of the temple’s initial construction are all supposed to be buried there along with a good number of the workers. The Dendratha want to unearth the priests and rebury them in a spectacular new tomb inside the temple. They’re also quite interested in the bodies of the workers; archaeology has only just really taken off here as a science. Interest in the past is quite fashionable at the moment and so for the first time they want to know what the lives of the people who lived in ancient times were like.’
‘So what do they need us for?’
‘Well, they lack experience with this sort of thing. The current priesthood want to make sure that this is done properly and with suitable respect. The Monastic University of Marantis are leading the dig but they asked for our help and our experience.