Less than two hours after our landing, Oz himself turned up with as close to a smile as his hard little face could show. He stared at Blurg, who stared back with equal curiosity. There were some differences in the appearance of the Vortlepeg and the Lembroz; Vortlepeg being about a head shorter and a slightly shorter snout. The Fenninz and the Drolpeg were different mostly in their color; the Fenninz being much darker purple. They could see each other as alien and yet as brothers all at the same time. Oz bowed deeply and began chattering rapidly, asking, I think, where we’d found these people, and were they also friends. That was as close as I could get from the gestures; though Blurg recognized some of the words as having been derived from the same base language thousands of years before. I found that to be incredible, but he pointed several of the words out to me and he was absolutely right. In three thousand years there were still similarities in some of their speech.
On Earth, according to our histories, our languages had maintained almost no resemblances from one continent to another. On the other hand, these people had the sea people who communicated with both coasts so perhaps that was the reason they had some parts of their language the same. We would probably never know for sure; but it was something to think about.
Gerbz came out of the forest and greeted us, while staring at Blurg. He could tell they were the same but different in a number of ways. It took only a moment or two for the two of them to fall into an abbreviated sort of conversation. Blurg seemed ecstatic at having reconnected with his long lost kin; and if there’s anything in appearances, I’d say Gerbz felt the same way.
Oz was fascinated by their reactions to each other, when he noticed two of the Drolpeg standing in the lock of the ship. Although their color was much lighter he could make no mistake; these were his relatives. Remarkably, they too understood each other well enough to start answering each other’s questions. I stood and listened and discovered that I could understand a good portion of what was said; that being as the result of learning so much from Hero.
I listened as Blurg and Fini, our own Drolpeg; told of the wonders on the other continent and of the Reeshians and of our being sort of related to the Reeshians, even though we came from so far away. I realized that our universe was becoming a united front, hopefully for the benefit of all.
It didn’t take long to establish that whatever was happening in the rest of that world; Oz felt his people would have to be part of it or one day the technology would over run them; he was absolutely right.
I told him what a great job they’d done with the statue, and he told me that they’d thought we wouldn’t be back and that it was so they would remember us. It was nice to know that they had felt it would be a loss to forget us; and I thanked him on behalf of the Human race.
The strangest thing that I learned during our stay there with Oz was the fact that they considered us, and referred to us as split beings because it took the two halves to make another one of our kind. I guess if you see it from the perspective of a mono-sexual being, it made sense to view it that way. We had found no native life forms on the whole planet that weren’t mono-sexual. We knew no reason for it except that it was, from the very first cells that divided on the planet; it never ventured to mess with its success. The only exceptions were of course, the Reeshians; and they weren’t really native.
Our stay there for two days was interesting scientifically, and it was pleasant to spend time with Oz; but otherwise the visit was not much to tell about. We shared some information to start the Fenninz on the way toward what we hoped would be a better life; or at least an easier life, after a fashion. We left them some implements to improve their farming and books of pictograms showing how to process metals and almost anything else they could want. It would take them a long time to absorb it all, but they would get what they wanted as they wanted it. That seemed the best way to handle it. The cooking apparatus they loved and the matches were easy to use, and they were making their own before we left their land. We knew that it wouldn’t be long before the Reeshians (those that remained at their original colony) had flying machines capable of coming to see them probably in the very near future, and I was sure they would.
Blurg was hard to drag away from his new found relatives but when the time to depart arrived he bid a fond farewell to them and promised to come visit again and hopefully take some of them to visit his home. They, being a head taller and fifty pounds heavier on an average, looked on him like a little brother. I think they really wanted to come with him right now, but the ship wasn’t coming back for a long while so they figured they’d best stay until the next trip. We were going to help the Zorpeg build their first flying ship as soon as possible, but that would be done with the aid of the colonists from the Andromeda.
Oz told us of a tribe of Fenninz that lived two months’ journey to the west that traveled to their region from time to time to trade and sometimes stayed for a while in the area. He’d never gone there but they claimed to have a much larger village than Oz’s. He said to watch for it as we flew over; it should be just beyond the mountains to the west. He said also that they had some skill with metals, and made very fancy jewelry and knives, though of a softer metal than the steel knives we’d brought. By his description it sounded like they were entering the Bronze Age, and might be worth checking out. If it were true, they’d probably be good candidates for teaching basic metallurgy since they already had the concepts. I didn’t feel this trip was going to be the right time for us to visit, but the Andromeda could fly here anytime and start things going when they were finally settled at the Reeshians settlement. I told Oz to convey to his neighbors that some of us would come to see them in the near future, hoping by doing so to reduce the risk of panic when we showed up. Oz said that he would, and with that we bid farewell to them and boarded our ship.
We lifted off and started at a leisurely pace due west, bound for the interior of the continent and the other sea about eight thousand miles away. We could circle the planet in ten minutes if we wanted, but our trip wasn’t aimed for speed; we needed to know what else this world held that might be useful or at least of interest. We also needed to know what potential threats lay ahead for our people as they spread out across the surface of that world.
Deceptions
After only about two thousand miles we reached the far side of the mountains and there we saw the village just a few miles off our path of travel. It wasn’t large by our standards but the one thing that stood out was a bridge over a river that was about two hundred feet across. The bridge was made of three stone arches and had a hard packed gravel road from the village and continued across the land under the trees for about thirty miles to another village almost as big as the first one. On the outer edge of the village was what appeared to be a smoking gray mound; it didn’t take long to realize it was a kiln or a foundry. These people were most certainly the ones Oz had told us about and were in fact the most advanced native culture we’d seen on the planet. Both Fenninz and Lembroz could be seen traveling the road pulling small wheeled carts to carry their belongings or whatever they needed to move. We took vids of them so that we could show what we’d seen and also to study later to see how their carts were built and exactly what they were carrying. There was an area of deforested ground where fire wood was being cut to fuel the foundry. Some of the travelers looked up at us trying to decide what they were seeing, but we were too high for them to make any real clear image. All they knew was there was something noisy somewhere overhead. That will keep them busy with UFO tales for a while, I thought to myself.
After another thousand or so miles we came to the second mountain range with mountains four to five miles high. Snow and glaciers were thick through the region and fast-moving rivers and streams were abundant. Right at the edge of the mountains was a waterfall with its primary drop more than two thousand feet. It was fed by a glacier and was the most spectacular drop you could imagine; its equal couldn’t be found on any other planet that I knew of, including Earth.
We saw no signs of sentient life in that region but with all the trees, who knows for sure. The trees there were more of an evergreen variety though not a green like Earth trees but rather an almost iridescent green as if they could glow in the dark. There was a herd of a variety of mountain goat not previously seen in any of the other parts of the planet so far. Blurg hadn’t seen or heard of them either, but Meeza seemed to think they were something from their home planet. We spotted a dog or wolf-type creature roaming the valleys. Our own dog population had died out from a disease that hit them many years before I was born, so I hoped that this was a sign we would be able to eventually replace them as well.
“I’ve seen ancient drawings of something very similar to what you just called a goat in our artifacts collection. Could there possibly be another colony on this part of the planet?” Meeza queried.
“It’s a big planet,” I said. “There were references to several colonies in the data we retrieved from the base on that little moon; I’ll get them to see if they can pinpoint a location for future expeditions to check out,” I promised. “On a world this size it’s a nearly impossible task to spot a small settlement without some clue where to look. We found your colony completely by accident when we came to capture and study one of Blurg’s people, believing him to be one of the savage groups that attacked our colonists to the south of your land.”
“I’m glad you found us,” she said, snuggling against me; I had to agree.
I had Brad take us higher again to get a broader view of the terrain as we came out of the mountains and passed over rolling lands for many miles, all the way to the coast. We saw no signs of civilization whatsoever from the mountains to the coast. That didn’t mean there were no people; just that there were forests that were enough to hide anything less than a metropolis. It was back to purple trees all the way to the coast.
I had Brad cruise the coast for a few hundred miles looking for signs of civilization there as on the other coast, but saw nothing even hinting at intelligent life. No structures, roads, obvious paths or even animals of any size. The plants were the same but that part of the planet seemed to be devoid of any significant development other than the natural type of growth and erosion. One could but wonder why that part of the planet would be so devoid of life when the rest of the planet teemed with it. Perhaps it was the height of the mountains themselves that prevented larger life forms from migrating to that part of the planet. It was the best guess I could come up with; yet we would have to see what the opposing coast of the other continent was like. Perhaps there was a barrier there as well.
We headed out over the sea at about ten thousand feet elevation to get view of a larger area, without getting so high that we couldn’t see details. It was completely different than the eastern ocean. There were only a few islands during the entire crossing; that being thousands of miles. The only significant island we saw was completely bare and for that matter it seemed to be nothing but a very big clump of volcanoes; one of which was smoking even then. Sure enough as we approached the eastern coast of the smaller continent we could see that the coast was almost all high cliffs with little accessibility from the sea or land. We felt we had our answers at least sufficient to explain why the native life had never expanded in that direction.
Now we set our craft down for a while to await a sunrise, so as to be able to see more of what was to the south along the coast. We’d gotten ahead of the sun by a bit and didn’t want to miss anything in the dark, though it was far from absolute dark with both moons up and shining brightly on the terrain below. We slept, with a scanner alarm set to wake us if anything of significant size moved anywhere near the ship. The night was uneventful and the sun was shining brightly when we awoke.
We radioed in all of the data we could before going outside to have a look around. The view from the cliff was beautiful with the sun still low on the horizon. The sound of the surf was relaxing enough to make me want to stay a while, but we still had much to do, so we got back aboard and headed south.
As we traveled down the coast we saw a battle below us, between two tribes of Vortlepeg. It was a bloody affair to witness, and Blurg thought we might break it up if we flew low over it. We went down to one thousand feet and flew slowly over them several times until we had their attention. It was almost funny to watch both sides scrambling for the hills together. Blurg was amused by it as well. “Look how they’re helping each other to climb up into the hills, as if they weren’t in the middle of trying to kill each other,” he chortled.
I wondered if some of these were in the battle we’d had during our earlier mission. We were only a few hundred miles from it now; no way to know at the moment, but that was to be part of the trip, eventually.
As we approached the South Polar Region, no more than a thousand miles from the magnetic pole, we saw what at first we took to be a low cliff face. On closer examination it turned out to be a stone wall about twelve feet high, and six feet thick. It surrounded a cluster of low structures of a fashion to match those of the Reeshian houses.
As we got closer it became clear that the fortified city was no longer occupied; the buildings were without roofs and the walls had large sections collapsed or knocked down. It was another tomb. I felt that we should go down and see if we could gather clues as to what happened to the people and see if there were survivors nearby. There was a large area near the center of the town; probably had been a park; where we were able to set the ship down. We set a cannon up by the entrance to the ship just in case there were barbarians around, and Blurg agreed to be ready to try and communicate with them if perchance they did stop in for a visit.
There was a platform that had probably held a statue of some sort near the ship, and it was high enough to give us a pretty good watch post while a small group of us went exploring. Though I didn’t want Meeza and Tava to come with us, the city was probably full of their history so I really couldn’t justify leaving them behind. I was sure I would have had a revolt on my hands if I had tried.
I felt uncomfortable leaving the ship behind, mostly because I had a distinct feeling that the fort hadn’t been abandoned lightly, but had come to a bad end; it looked like it had been battered to pieces. It didn’t take long to find out that I was correct. We came to the largest building in the city without finding anything conclusive, but as we entered that building we could see bones scattered throughout. There were no relics or weapons; just pieces of disjointed bone, and they’d been there a very long time. Although we didn’t know how long until we had a piece of bone scanned on the ship. The settlement had survived until about eight hundred years ago, at which time there had been some sort of disaster. By the look of things, a war with the Dragons of the area; the reason for that conclusion was that the only Dragon bones found were heaped together in one area, and had been laid out carefully as opposed to the way the Reeshian bodies had been strewn about and mixed in with bone of the Drolpeg as well. Even Blurg was concerned by the way the town had been brutalized.
“These Creatures are pure barbarians,” he said. “I hate to admit that they are of the same race as I am.”
“Humans have done the same to each other throughout the history of our world.” I told him. “All it takes is greed, or bad leadership to cause things like that to happen. Hopefully some of the people got away to some other place.”
“It is not likely that a tribe of these creatures let any escape. It’s not their way when dealing with an enemy,” Blurg said sorrowfully.
Tava suggested softly, “This happened so very long ago; perhaps it is a sad bit of history now regretted by the dragons. After all, as Eric’s indication of violence on his ancestral world suggests, we don’t want to be judged solely on the ancient history of our people.”
Blurg looked thoughtful, then made a negating gesture with his hand. “No, I don’t think so. I regret that it is probably still not safe here for anybody not of the barbarians’ tribe. This was more of an extermination than a war. We would be wise
to leave this area before they decide to remove us from their territory.”
I could tell that he was genuinely concerned for our welfare when he said it, and ordered an immediate withdrawal from the city. I did not want another run in with an army of angry Dragons; we’d barely escaped the last time.
These people had died before Humans had even begun their industrial revolution, and yet we still mourned for those who had died so unnecessarily, and so long ago.
“It’s too bad the colony didn’t last long enough for us to arrive; it would have been nice for more survivors of your planet to have been reunited.” I told Meeza. “They must have been here for many generations.”
“We were lucky to have had Blurg’s people up in our area; we wouldn’t have survived without them,” she said wistfully. “The world can be merciless, but they had a long existence beyond the destruction of our planet; so I guess they did alright at that.” She smiled up at me. “They would have been happy, if they knew that some of us survived long enough to be rescued and returned to a more civilized life. I feel lucky to be here, and at least their story can be told now.”
I saw her point and had to love her all the more for it. Blurg interrupted me at that moment.
“The storm clouds are gathering,” he said gruffly, pointing toward a hill nearby.
There on the crest of the hill were about thirty or forty Vortlepeg looking down on us. I was glad we were at the ship, and would be happy to get far away from that place. We lifted off and flew toward the unwelcoming committee. They scattered as we hovered over them.
“One day we’ll have to attempt to deal with them,” said Blurg. “But I think we need to wait a while and increase your numbers before taking the risk.”
I agreed; and had to admire his logic in the matter. To risk a confrontation while we were so few would have been too big a risk for our future.
The Log as recorded.
Starborn Odyssey (The Starborn Odyssey Trilogy Book 1) Page 24