by Olson, Ry
Prowler gave a soft chirrup and started grooming his back leg.
. . .
Briton bolted upright in his chair at Charlie’s Place, forgetting about his conversation with Reese and his beer. He glanced at Reese. “I just received a flash from Martin.” Instantly they were in Briton’s office looking at the displayed message.
“Well, I guess he ain’t dead after all.” Reese rumbled browsing through the massive communication along with Commander Briton.
“Keep skimming through it, Reese.” Briton instructed. “I need to inform Fleet Command about this.”
Reese nodded, continuing to read and note the highlights. “Well, I’ll be danged. That explains that.” He mumbled to himself. “Oh my God. Commander, look at this.” Reese pointed to Star Panther’s sensor data from inside the enclave.
Briton glanced over, did a double take and paled slightly. “Incredible . . . simply incredible.” He went back to contacting his superiors. Admiral Chinn appeared in a vidphone. “Admiral,” he greeted, forwarding the message.
She glanced at a display reading as she talked. “Commander Briton, what can I do . . . this is from Major Morgan!” She smiled, realizing she was stating the obvious.
“The Bozo’s,” Reese rumbled with a laugh. “Oh, sorry.” He glanced at Briton and Chinn.
A second vidphone came to life on Briton’s desk. “Admiral Smyth.” A disheveled Smyth greeted without pre-amble, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
“Commander Briton here, Admiral. Sorry to wake you.” Briton responded as he forwarded the message. “I’m with Admiral Chinn and Major Reese.” He toggled some settings so the Admirals would see each other as well as him in split screens. The two Admirals nodded a greeting.
Smyth was alert instantly when he read the header on the message and realized it was from Martin. “From Major Morgan, we haven’t heard from him for over a month have we?”
“Correct, Sir.” Briton nodded. “He’s deep in Koth territory.” He looked at Reese. “I’ve had Major Reese going through the message while I contacted you. What’s the bottom line Major?”
Reese moved to where the Admirals could see him in their vidphones. “It’s a mixed bag, Sirs. But we’ve got trouble . . . big trouble, and apparently not from the Koth. They’ve pulled back, which explains why we ain’t seen hide nor hair of them for a while. Just like we always suspected, there’s a whole lot going on we didn’t . . .”
. . .
Martin absently scratched Prowler’s ear and fidgeted. “We’ll give them a few more minutes to respond before I do anything on my own.” Blowing up those three Rhome sweepers may not have been the brightest idea I’ve had this week, he groused mentally. “Oh well, what’s done, is done,” he muttered looking into Prowler’s questioning eyes. He sagged back into the command seat to wait and watch the Koth courier ship.
The buzz of the incoming flash message jarred him. He pulled it up on a side display. His eyebrows shot up. “From Briton and countersigned by Chinn and Smyth.” He smiled at Prowler. “I guess it don’t get much bigger than that,” Martin laughed. He read, then re-read the short communication, noting that it too was authenticated, but unencrypted. “Tag, we’re it. They want us to contact the Koth and get things set up for high level diplomatic communication.” He invited Prowler on to his lap. “But I notice they didn’t give me a clue where to start.”
As Martin considered his options he noted a flurry of communications from the Koth courier ship. He eased the silent Star Panther within a few kilometers of the Koth ship while deciding his next move.
“Hail Federation ship Star Panther, this is ****** Command, or Koth Command in human terms.” The voice was clear, friendly and came in on the short range communication system from the courier ship.
Martin shook his head in wonder. The who Command, sounds like a klaxon with a wedgie. “Ok little fella, it’s show time. I want to be in normal space, but in a position to run in an instant.” Martin microjumped the Panther to within a couple hundred meters of the Koth ship.
“Koth Command, this is the Federation Star Panther.” Martin responded, holding his breath in anticipation.
“Welcome Star Panther.” There was a slight pause. “We understand that you are to facilitate us in speaking directly to your leadership.”
“Affirmative, Koth Command.” Martin replied, not really knowing how to respond.
“Very well, Star Panther. We are referring you to an agent aboard the courier ship who will be your counterpart.” The voice was friendly, but to the point. “And good luck, Major Morgan.”
“Copy, Koth Command and thank you.” Martin answered feeling a little awkward.
“Major Morgan,” somehow the voice ‘felt’ younger to Martin. “I will be your liaison. Please call me Burp, my real name and title would be nothing but noise to you.”
“Very well, Burp.” Martin stifled a laugh. Like a burp isn’t a nonsensical noise. “Major or Martin is fine for me.”
“Major, before we can begin you need to know more about our species and our history. Are you familiar with out basic physiology?”
“Yes,” Martin hesitated, “I have seen your deceased after battle and we humans have studied your kind. But never a live being I believe. Otherwise I know nothing about your species.”
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of Major. It’s all part of the learning process.” Burp continued like he was discussing the weather. “And I suspect you are correct about any of my species being studied alive. Our atmosphere is completely different, very complex and toxic compared to yours. And we as a species are simply not as . . . robust as you humans. A product of an entirely different environment, a much more docile one. As for not Knowing anything else about us, that’s how it had to be . . . until now.” The Koth hesitated. “Major, can you record our conversation and data transfers? It would be beneficial if you forwarded them to your people.”
“I already am, Burp.” Martin replied. “Why didn’t you want us to know anything about you? And why didn’t you just contact us openly in the first place?”
“In good time, Major.” Burp wasn’t smug; it was more like a classroom lecture. “First, I’m opening a vid channel so we can see each other.” Burp gave a soft noise that sounded remarkably like a laugh. “Something we’ve never done before with any of your kind. I believe the term is ‘brace yourself’.”
A side display chirped indicating an incoming signal and Martin tapped the receive button. His mouth fell open as he sat mesmerized for a moment. Burp, you’re friggin’ beautiful.
All the Koth Martin had seen were dead, looking like nothing more than an octopus with four long tentacles alternating with four shorter ones and an enlarged sponge like head. The longer tentacles ended in an oval pad he always assumed were its feet and the shorter ones split into three smaller tentacles a few inches from the end he associated with fingers. Spread out, the longer tentacles were six or seven feet from tip to tip with the shorter about a foot less. The ‘head’ was egg shaped about three feet tall with no discernable features in the porous, sponge like surface. Where the ‘head’ met the tentacles there was a base that always reminded Martin of a tulip. Always before the tentacles and base were an olive drab and the ‘head’ a sickly gray tinged with pale yellow. Now the tentacles and base were iridescent, looking to Martin like shimmering mother of pearl. But it was the ‘head’ that took Martin’s breath away. It was a kaleidoscope of constantly shifting patterns and colors.
“Wow, Burp.” Martin sputtered in amazement. “To human eyes you’re incredible.”
As Burp laughed a ring brilliant aqua raced up and down the ‘head’. “What you are seeing is our form of communication, Major. Incidentally, we find the sound of your voices fascinating and beautiful; we have no method of projecting any controlled sonic vibrations. You humans can see, but not project and we can listen, but not speak. A strange irony, isn’t it Major?”
Martin smiled at his alien counterpart. “It’s a big wonderful un
iverse, Burp.” He grew more serious. “How is it you’re suddenly able to communicate with us?”
“It wasn’t sudden, Major. We located your planet well over a hundred of your years ago . . . just before what you call World War Two.”
“What?” Martin felt numbed. “Then why did you wait over a century before contacting us, and why in God’s name did you wait that long just to attack us?” He noted Burp’s colors faded for a moment.
“You humans were an enigma to us. To understand fully I need to tell you a little of our history and the history of the Rhome. It’s a long story, Major.” Burp sounded apologetic.
Martin smiled. “I figured it might be, just go for it. I’ll stop you if I have any questions.”
“We Koth are a very old race compared to yours. We were first venturing into space about the time your Earth was ending its ice age. Our original planet was toward the center of the galaxy. It was a very tectonically stable planet where we evolved in a peaceful world free of predators and environmental stress.” Burp seemed to sag. “We ventured into space travel as innocents, never comprehending the concept of war, or even hate for that matter. We have the equivalent to your emotions of frustration and sorrow, but your human emotion of hate is totally foreign to us.” Burt stopped and looked at Martin’s amazed, disbelieving face. “Back to physiology one-o-one I guess,” the Koth laughed.
Martin smiled. Byron was right, if you close your eyes it is just like talking to a normal Joe. Fascinating. He though, studying the Koth in the display.
“First of all, we Koth don’t have sex.” Burp stopped when he saw Martin’s eyes bulge, recognizing a human trying to keep from laughing and thought for a moment. “You human’s penchant for the double entendre is one of the most difficult things to translate. As your human friends would say in this case I think; Get your mind out of the gutter.” Burp hesitated. “The concept of a single species having two distinct biological forms just to facilitate procreation fascinates us, by the way.” The Koth reached up with a fingered tentacle and removed an egg shaped piece of spongy material from its ‘head’. “This is how we reproduce, but it’s much more complex than that. We don’t have a central cortex like you humans. This is also part of what you would consider my brain. Each of us have six of these that can be removed and replaced at will. I guess for this conversation we’ll just call it an egg.” Burp stopped for a moment. “Major, this is just so bizarre. Having to explain something we see as so simple.” Burp replaced the sponge egg. “Only if an egg is removed and left out will it start to grow in size and senescence, nourishing itself by absorbing nutrients from the atmosphere until it awakens as a mature Koth about ten of your years later. Now here’s the important part of our eggs, we can trade them among us and they will stay as they are as long as they are being carried by a mature host. They never die because they are constantly regenerated by the host, some eggs are hundreds of thousands of your years old, being transferred down from host to host. This is important to our species because, as I said, it is part of our brain. We have the ability to direct a memory to a specific egg, and we can also copy memories from one egg to another.”
Martin stared in open amazement as the ramifications of what Burp was telling him sunk in. No such thing as studying to learn something, you just borrow an egg with the knowledge and you know. “So are your offspring clones of their original host?”
“No, as eggs are regenerated the current host influences how the egg will mature. Much in the same fashion as your RNA combining into DNA, but an egg may have had many hosts, each adding material to the final adult. We all have our original egg in the center of our body. It contains what you would call the personality of the individual and core memories.”
Martin considered what Burp had told him. “You said a hosted egg never matures or dies, but they can be handed down from host to host.” Martin felt a little uncomfortable. “So I assume mature Koth do die.”
“Yes, Major. And it’s ok to ask these questions.” Burp reassured Martin. “You need to learn about my kind if we’re ever going to work together. Once awakened we live about twenty five of your years. But we don’t age as you do, we just fall back asleep and our systems cease to function. At that time any eggs we are hosting fall free to mature, unless they are gathered by another host. We never have anything like your daily sleep cycle for our entire adult life.”
Martin scratched his head. “So you never sleep and you can transfer your knowledge directly.” He shook his head. “Wow, this is a lot to digest in one sitting, Burp.”
“I know . . . if I could just give you an egg it would be so simple.” The Koth laughed and the aqua ring reappeared. “Anyway, that’s why there was so little conflict among our species. We all share many of the same memories and have reasonably close personality profiles, the complete opposite of the diversity of your kind. I’m afraid we were very much an intellectual species shrouded in our own ignorance when we ventured into space.”
Martin smiled. “Then you met the Rhome.”
“No, not for a long, long time. We expanded our sphere of exploration and stumbled across a few senescent life forms that made us realize there was much we didn’t understand, things we had always taken for granted were not the rule of the universe.
Eventually we came across the remnants of another space faring race we simply refer to as the others. Finding them was a shock to our society, they were completely annihilated on a scale we couldn’t fathom. This type of large scale willful killing and destruction was a new concept to our kind, one we were not braced for. It was very unnerving. While studying their society we discovered the existence of the Rhome, and learned a very crucial lesson.”
Martin resettled in his seat fascinated by both Burp’s image and the story. “No concept of war. To us humans, that’s a fairy tale existence.”
Burp gave a very human sigh. “We now understand your point of view; a fairytale crushed by reality.” The koth paused for a second. “Several thousand years ago the others came across a race, the Rhome, that was just emerging into their technological age. And for some reason we could never comprehend, they gave this new race the technology for space travel. Everything was fine for a long time, they co-existed peacefully. The only thorn was they were competing for planets that had the same habitats. Eventually the Rhome started incurring into the other’s space in search of these planets. Things escalated and the Rhome became more and more aggressive in locating and holding planets. The others finally decided they had to drive the Rhome out of their space . . .”
“And the war between them started.” Martin nodded, recognizing the too familiar cycle.
“The first war.” Burp informed Martin. “The others were successful in their effort to drive out the Rhome, but they got greedy. Another new concept for us. They decided to try and put the genie back in the bottle, so to speak, by eliminating the Rhome’s space travel ability. To this end they were reasonably successful. They did destroy almost all of that capability . . . except for some outlying planets they couldn’t locate.”
“So let me guess,” Martin sighed. “Like us humans, the most remote settlements would be their society’s fanatics of one form or another.”
“Hmmm,” Burp, pondered. “You do understand what we Koth couldn’t grasp. These surviving Rhome became extreme isolationists, fanatical in the belief that their very survival depended on them eliminating any other species who could pose a threat to them. They included in that group any senescent being they perceived could eventually master space travel.”
“Which is pretty much everybody in their eyes, I imagine.” Martin shook his head.
“Too correct, unfortunately.” Burp’s colors dimmed for a second. “And for you humans it’s a double whammy in Rhome logic. You have space travel . . . and you share their environment. That’s why we had to keep you apart. If they knew those two things, they would have stopped at nothing to get at your race and there wouldn’t have been a thing we could do to stop them.”
Burp laughed. “Because they have no imagination and little curiosity.” The Koth grew solemn. “In the beginning of our conflict with the Rhome we had over a hundred settled planets spread across this side of the galaxy. Planets that meet our needs are very rare compared to yours. The Rhome have decimated all but four.” Burp fell silent and his colors faded for a few moments. “They probably assume we are guarding one of our planets. And since our planets are useless to them they hold little interest, except in destroying our race. A race which they have always considered an inferior nuisance, unworthy of an all out assault.” The Koth’s attitude lightened. “They would never dream we are shielding another race, that concept would be totally alien to them.”
What do you say to someone who just told you they have been practically exterminated? Martin thought uneasily then shook it off. “I can’t believe they consider you Koth and your technology just a nuisance.”
Burp laughed then grew serious. “Why not? Take you humans for example, how much of a threat have we been over the last few months, really, in all honesty?”
Martin thought about the question from an objective point of view and mentally sagged. Burp’s right. “I guess you have a point, your forces haven’t been exactly overwhelming us lately.”
“No, let’s be frank. We’ve been getting our butts kicked on a regular basis . . . and we know it.” Burp stated as a matter of fact.
Martin had to stifle a laugh. The Koth sounded so human and resigned.
“The fact is, as Lieutenant Byron Lacy so indelicately puts it, we’re lousy fighters. It goes back to our physiology. For all of our perceived intellect, our thought processes take a lot more time than yours, we just can’t react as quickly. Also our physical composition is cumbersome and incapable of moving anywhere near as fast as you.” Burp gave a soft laugh. “Our motor skills really suck for the rigors of combat.” The Koth sighed again. “Once you get past our technology, there’s really nothing much left.” Burp paused, seeming to think for a second. “But it goes deeper than that. If a Koth and a human see a tree branch, they both can appreciate its origin and elemental form and grace. They both would see beautiful things that could be made from it. But only the human would see the possibility that it could be a good club, a Koth would never recognize that potential until it was demonstrated to them.”