Eric Olafson Series Boxed Set: Books 1 - 6 (The Galactic Chronicles Series)

by Vanessa Ravencroft

  A group of men and women tended the plants, looked up from their work and waved. It was warm and moist down here. The woman picked a red fruit from a green vine plant and handed it to me." Try that, Eric. Our tomatoes are at least as good as those from other worlds. I knew tomatoes to be part of the ingredients that went on top of a Pizza, but I had never seen a real one before. It was juicy, tangy and of a taste that compared to nothing I knew.

  She kept walking till we reached a long wooden table with two benches on each side. Women in traditional dresses and white aprons and men, some dressed like me others in the work clothing of Low Men sat there, eating, laughing and talking, but I immediately noticed there were no children another indicator that my theory was right. Gods did not procreate like mortals; they came to be fully grown.

  The woman who had had not given me her name; of course Valkyries had no names; made an inviting gesture. "Sit down Eric, that spot next to the ancient is reserved for you. "

  The thin old man I had met now twice before was sitting at the head of the table, holding a tankard and nodded towards me."You do look more presentable now."

  While I felt like bursting and wanted to shower the old man with questions, I restrained myself. He was most likely Odin himself. Not that he looked the part, but then perhaps Mortals could not see the real form of gods and they appeared to us in whatever shape they choose.

  I declined my head and said." Is it permitted for me to sit on the table of adults?"

  "Yes Eric, keeping a seat reserved for you would make no sense otherwise."

  I wanted to educate the Old Man how things were on Nilfeheim but I stopped myself. He knew every detail about me and so he surely knew about everything else. Odin was all seeing.

  A woman placed a plate before me the moment I sat down and it was filled with brown fried meat pieces and French fries just like they served the day before Union Week in the School cafeteria. A man filled a cup with water. The old man motioned me to eat.

  "Go ahead and eat. Most of us have progressed to desert, so you need to catch up." He then looked at his empty plate and waved towards the woman that had served me. "Gilda be a good girl and get me another plate of the chicken, but no breast. Just thighs this time."

  She laughed and said."Of course Ancient One! I am always amazed and wonder where you put it all."

  His face lit up as he received his plate, bit into a piece of chicken and then chewed looking at me."You don't like chicken? I know you are used to fish and fang snapper, but this is good I promise."

  "I know chicken from the School cafeteria. They serve it once a month and do like it."

  "You eat as if it is made of poison." He took a drink, burped and started on the next piece." Are you not hungry?"

  "Yes Sir I am hungry!"

  He sighed." Eric I am no ghost I assure you. I wanted to test you and see how you handle yourself."

  "I understand and realize that you are indeed no Ghost, sir!"

  His hand sank with the piece of chicken he was gnawing on and he looked at me from his piercing eyes and I knew I looked into eyes that were far older than he even appeared. "I promise you I will explain. Not all of it but as much as I think you need to know. Now eat!"

  They had cleared the table and he was nursing a glass with a golden liquid. Most of the others were gone. The red haired woman with the curly mess had remained; she also drank of the same golden colored clear liquid.

  He raised his."It is Mead, Eric, while I think it would not hurt you. I don't think it should be me who introduces you to the taste, especially not since you sorted out your life. Many men seek their salvation at the bottom of a glass or tankard."

  I glared at him."I hate mead. I will never touch it. To this day I can smell it on the breath of my father when he came into the rooms of my mother! "Then I caught myself and said."I did not mean to offend you, Mighty one!"

  His eyes shimmered and he said." A child should never see what you had to see, Eric. I hear there are methods to remove memories."

  "Yes the doctor said there is psycho surgery and they can remove and replace memories, but it would not change the fact that it happened and cheat my mother out of the only witness she had. I rather die and I fight anyone trying to do it against my will!"

  "I said it before Eric. Sometimes you speak with great wisdom; I am saddened for you that this wisdom however is born out of such an event."

  Then he smirked."Mighty one? That is surely a change of adjective!" He raised his head looked towards the woman." When I closed the door on him, he called me a Rotting fish liver stinking, dried out old bastard! And that was the nicest, the other ones I dare not to repeat!"

  She laughed." He certainly found a very colorful description I would say."

  I felt the blood rushing to my ears and lowered my head. "I am sorry Mighty one. At that point I had no idea who you are, even though you clearly hinted it. I did not know you could hear me through this thick door!"

  "So you know who I am?"

  "Yes I do I added it all up and it makes sense to me now and I apologize for any offense, and maybe you can talk to Hel and let her release my mother."

  His face became hard."Eric I am not Odin. I am no god. I am a very old man. Do you remember when I told you that the Keepers are not Elders even though most of them meet every requirement?"

  "Yes I do, but I was told to be here would be a sure way to become one."

  He sighed."You seen the boys and young men in the Hall, they are usually the second or third born of a clan and their fathers send them here to service the gods. They sleep in those cold chambers and eat simple food made the old way. They do that, report home and have proven to be mindful of the gods and rooted in the traditions. Should then a seat in the circle of Elders become available those who served the gods once or twice in their life use that in their election bid and yes those who served are always picked over those who have not. A few of them however show to us that they are not simply following some Clan politics but think for themselves and either really believe and want to serve the gods as the many Keepers up there do, it is the closest thing we have to a priest class. Others simply stay as because they have no stand at home and rather stay here than being second to a brother they don't get along with.

  The red haired woman took over. "To make you really understand all this is. I think I need to tell you about the beginnings of our culture on this world."

  She made a gesture that encompassed the cave and perhaps the world.

  "When the settlers came to Nilfeheim it was just at the beginning of Short Summer and they landed right here, next to Mount Muspelheim, Below the ice around this mountain is a far greater piece of land than on Bifrost, the Island where Halstaad Fjord is now. Land almost as big a continent of sacred Earth.

  The surveyors who cleared this planet for settlement did know or did not tell the colonists about our elongated orbit that causes these long winters. As you know there is a so called Failed Sun, a brown dwarf companion to Solken causing it.

  During the first Short Summer and with the easily available geothermal heat this was not a bad place to start a colony. Most of the settlers were people who rejected science and technology in general and many of them had little knowledge and even less interest in scientific facts, but when long Night came they realized that their new home was a harsh mistress indeed.

  The Arks disassembled, they could not leave. To add to their predicaments, Leif Erikson the leader everyone agreed with had died from wounds received by a Fangsnapper in the first year.

  He was revered as leader and the settlers listened to him. Without him, men and women squabbled for the leadership position and each of them had a certain amount of followers and supporters. Not a very good point in the history of a small colony starting out on a new world.

  She paused to take a sip of her mead and smiled."It is a long story Eric but it will make you understand all this, why we are here and why there is a difference in opinion about traditions."

  I s
imply nodded. I found the subject quite interesting and I was not tired.

  The Old man said."She has a nicer voice than me, so I let her tell it, besides her memory is far better than mine."

  "You just want to eat some more deserts, you are the skinniest Tyranno Fin on this planet but your appetite is equal to the biggest!"

  He agreed with a wave of his hand and summoned the pretty woman with the white apron, while the Red haired woman continued:

  "Each of these groups had a different idea just what the traditions meant. Some wanted to use the Arks power units to create heat. Others rejected it and claimed that upholding the traditions were even more important than survival.

  One of these groups found these caves inside the Mountain. Eternally warm, rich volcanic lava ground that could be turned into soil, warm water and a large supply of natural gas, ideal conditions to survive the cold winters.

  To harness the gas, bring light in those caves however meant the use of technology. How could they prevent one group from trying to destroy all technology and the other from taking it for themselves?

  People in desperate times are more inclined to ask for divine intervention. A pact was made and this place was built. Not all at once but especially devoted men were selected as the keepers of all the technology that came with the ships and it would be stored here and until a new common leader and a common solution acceptable to all could be made."

  "This is why we are called keepers," the old man said. "It originated in that time. Its original meaning and what we are actually keeping is forgotten today of course."

  She nodded and went to the next part of her story.

  "Just about that time a contact ship from earth arrived to check on us and see if we might reconsider and accept help. The group under Nils Fisken, the ones that advocated the use of technology, seized the ship. Killed its crew and used that ship to raid the Colony on Helgoland, seven light years away. The raid was tremendously successful. They came back with riches, food, weapons and slaves. I am sure no one ever told yo where the Low men actually came from, right?"

  I shook my head. "I never thought about it much, but my social standing at home is below the Nubhir Wolfs."

  She nodded. "After almost 3000 years this part of Nilfeheim history is suppressed and shrouded with stories of other arks or simply ignored to be forgotten,"

  She sipped from her glass and said. "Another group completely rejected technology of course protested. Nils Fisken and the clans that supported him frankly gave a hoot about the others and for a period of about 80 years Nilfeheim became synonymous with pirates, terror and raids. At that time Terra fought the war against the Freons and as a new and small civilization on the Galactic stage could not divert any resources to curb Nilfeheim's reign of terror."

  Again the Old man interrupted." The other colonies around us lived in fear, and it was them who coined the term Neo Vikings for us by the way. "

  She nodded."After the Freons were defeated and the Union was founded, the new Union fleet had the resources to restore order. Union battleships had no trouble to destroy the small Pirate fleet and then appeared in our orbit and all of Nilfeheim was given a choice.

  "Quit all piracy and join the Union and if this choice was made, all previous crimes would be pardoned. The other choice was the summary hanging of all involved in the pirate raids and the rest to remain isolated for ever after the Union had taken everything of value to compensate the victims."

  The Clans around Nils Fisken of course immediately agreed to the first choice. Fisken's Clan and those who did the pirating however were suddenly not only out of a job, but since they lived of the food and supplies they had stolen and never learned how to carve a living from this world.

  A Union Outpost made sure they would not carry their violence into space, nothing prevented them from taking what they wanted from other Clans."

  The Old man said. "That almost forgotten time is called the Period of Oppression. The Fisken Clan and their allies still had weapons, the modern blaster and shooting kind and used them to create a dictatorship of sorts.

  Holger Ragnarsson a distant ancestor of yours Eric took a sail boat and sailed half across the ocean to Bifrost to ask the Union Outpost for help. Arguing that the Fisken Clans did not speak for the entire planet and that it was only them who did the pirating and now using energy weapons and fliers to raid, kill and steal from the Clans who had rejected technology.

  "The case was heard by an Union Court. The Judge agreed with Ragnarsson.

  Union representatives called together all remaining Clan Chiefs of all Clans and wanted to know what is to be done. Everyone agreed that they could not survive completely cut off from all technology and the Union. So the first Circle of Elders was put together and they deliberated for some time and came up with a Book of Traditions. In it was clearly outlined what technology would be acceptable and what was deemed prohibited. Only parts of the original philosophy that led us here remained, the rest was made up in a few month of deliberation.

  This event prompted the Assembly of the Union to come up with the so called Potential Union Member Assessment, that is still used today and the still young and developing United Stars of the Galaxy agreed to the Nilfeheim Exception."

  I still listened. The Old man shoved a plate under my nose and whispered. "Try some of this strawberry cobbler. It is delicious, my eyes were bigger than my appetite after all and it would be a shame to waste it. There is not much more to the story so you can eat and listen."

  I wasn't hungry but dutiful spooned a load into my mouth and it was sweet and fruity and oh so good!

  The Woman raised one of her eyebrows and smiled. "It appears you do like Strawberries."

  "I never had any before. They taste a little like Sparklebright but much better."

  She rolled her eyes. "Sparklebright?" Then she shrugged. "Anyway Eric, to finish my story try to imagine a group of older men, all from ruling clans sitting together making the rules the entire planet would have to follow.

  There were no women present and no one of the so called Freemen families. Not even your formidable ancestor had any objection to slaves or a class of Low Men. Serfs and lackeys weren't technology after all and did make life easier for those holding the whip.

  Now those men of the ruling Clans interpreted and made up those so called traditions as they saw fit and made sure the Clan Chiefs got the best deals.

  They were all the same in that regard. No matter from what clan or group they considered themselves to be associated with. This is when the rights of the First born were codified and raised above his other siblings. This is why men decided that women should not inherit, and that they alone have the right to decide everything.

  In all this they did not forget the Keepers and reminded us of our old contract, we would be allowed to worship and decide in questions of religion, but since the old agreements prohibited us from forming clans and taking sides, we had no say in the Circle of Elders and they made sure we were slowly but certainly pushed to the sidelines."

  I had seen them, the Elders and knew of their power and I could almost see them before my eyes as they sat around that table, making rules that benefited them alone.

  The woman was still taking . "Muspelheim kept cooling down and the ice kept getting thicker, the Settlement of Hasvik was abandoned and moved to Bifrost where the Union Outpost was and Halstaad Burg, a small house kept growing into Halstaad Fjord." She folded her hands."Now you know most of it Eric. We are a small community down here, always have been, too small to maintain a healthy gene pool over the normal flow of generations. So we used the old knowledge and technology we still guard to genetically extend our life span and only reproduce in very small numbers. We are not immortals, but some of us are more than a thousand years old, and your old friend with the great appetite is called the Ancient one because somehow the life extending Gene treatment worked especially well on him, he is here since we started. So yes he is the first Keeper. The very first."


  The Old man giggled. "See I am no ghost I just forgot how to die, but death can be cheated only so long and it is catching up on me Eric, my body is now deteriorating and while my aging genes are turned off, my cells are too tired to be renewed again. I am not planning to die anytime soon but I know my days are numbered. I am saying this to assure you I am not a god either."

  I simply had to ask. "But what was this show with the soak stones all about? Why did you disappear in the morning and no one knew about you and how do you know so much about me?"

  "Because we keep all this a secret, Eric. You know all about your traditions. Tell me what would the Circle of Elders do if they found out? If they heard about us, using Gene technology to survive and having a fusion sun to heat and light our cave?"

  I suddenly understood."It would give them all the excuse they need to accuse you of hypocrisy and put you out of business so to speak. I somehow understand that you are a very old institution and a thorn in their side. You know things they do not want to come into the open."

  "Indeed you are quick to pick up between the lines. They always fear we might become more active and interfere with their way of running things and we were tempted to do just that a few times."

  I squinted my eyes."If you are indeed that old." I shivered involuntarily realizing just how old he really was." You are perhaps not a Citizen of the Union?"

  He shook his head." Again, you do amaze me young Olafson. Indeed, none of us have gone to Union School and we would not be protected under their laws indeed."

  "Don't get me wrong, but what are you still keeping? I mean the technology from the Ark ship must be more than outdated and even the most traditional families, keep a GalNet terminal in the house, even if it is hidden and locked away as in our Burg. And any adult can buy a space bus ticket and leave. You included, and seek citizenship."

  He sighed deeply. "You are more like your grandfather than you realize, Young Olafson." His observation was perhaps the greatest compliment he could find.

  The old man said."One of the groups that joined Erikson's movement back then was a similar one called the Church of Odin."