by Yronwode
“What’s that, some kind of empire?” Keeler asked.
“I will tell you. Do you wish to hear.”
“I have a passing interest in Post-Commonwealth History,” Keeler told her.
“Nine star-systems united under a single authority, about 600 years after the end of the Ninth Crusade,” she told them.
“Yronwode being one of the nine?” Keeler asked.
“No, no,” she chuckled. “Yronwode was a prison planet of the Old Commonwealth. It was a mission-world, one of many that Starcross Redeemers were sent to.”
“Do you still have contact with the Empire?” Keeler asked.
“Oh, heavens no. Our ancestors knew Yronwode was a one-way trip. To prevent escape, all contact with the outside galaxy was forbidden.”
“Surely, they didn’t intend to imprison their descendants as well,” Keeler said.
“How did you know my name was Shirley?” Steadfast said.
A man in a gray suit inserted himself into their conversation. “Excuse me, but if I could insert myself into your conversation. Julius Fair, Warden of Externalities… which is to say, for dealing with the Xirong.”
He gripped and pumped Keeler’s hand as he continued. “I believe the Commonwealth thought they were acting compassionately. They gave the prisoners a world they could build on, albeit a harsh one, while protecting the galaxy from their predations.”
“I can sort of see that,” Keeler conceded.
“Our ancestors came, partly, because they thought they could help,” Fair continued, “We continue that tradition through trade with some of the less hostile tribes.
They provide us with lumber, various foods, minerals, and coal for our carbon-fusion plants.”
Steadfast interrupted, “Which works remarkably well, by the way. The Xirong provide us the coal that powers our cities. Then, we trade the diamonds produced by the fusion process for raw materials, like timber, food, minerals, and additional coal.”
“It has gotten harder,” Fair conceded. “The larger and most violent tribes have begun attacking any tribes known to trade with us. We have to work increasingly through intermediaries, covert transactions.”
Steadfast’s hand fluttered into the air. “Bother,” it said. Keeler asked whether it would be possible to meet with the Xirong.
Fair answered him, with a sort of angry regret. “An Isolationist Group came to power in our High Council a few years ago. They were not in power long, only three years, but they expelled all of the unconverted Xirong who had come to settle in Midian, and many of the converted who were suspected of carrying out violence.” He paused.
“Did you let them back in later?” Keeler asked.
“No, we thought it would be unwise,” Steadfast said, nearly blushing with embarrassment, which Keeler found odd.
Fair added. “It was a very dark period in our history, we’re not proud of it. The Xirong outside the Shield have never forgiven us. Still, it may be possible to arrange to speak to … ”
Suddenly the room grew quiet. Keeler turned to see a man and two women, dressed in elaborate red, purple, and white robes, standing in the open double doors to the hall. They wore incredibly elaborate hats in the shape of birds.
The man spoke, “A message from the Pontifex, Her Serene Holiness, Solace No. 23, which of you is called Eddie Roebuck?” he asked.
Keeler and the rest of his landing party spontaneously pointed. Eddie was standing at the buffet with the remains of a sandwich dribbling down his chin and a drink in each hand.
The messenger spoke again, “Eddie Roebuck, you have been sent for by the Pontifex. She chooses you. You must come.”
“Whatever it is, I didn’t do it.” Eddie insisted.
CHAPTER: 04
Yronwode – Xenthe
The alarms began a short time after Eddie Roebuck was led away, and just as the food on the banquet table was being replaced with an array of pastries and glazed fruit. Above the doors in the room, long bars of light went from white to red. The lights in the room dimmed, and several aides quickly closed the internal shutters over the large window.
“What’s going on?” Keeler asked, nervously.
A member of the High Council Security Service, who had been introduced to Keeler as Lydia Diligent, took a small device from a holster on her belt. She studied the readout on its screen. She announced to the room that they were under “Level 1 attack, western vector.”
Diligent turned her eyes back toward Keeler and his landing team. “We will escort you to a shelter if you wish, but the danger is not substantial. Normally, I would walk out onto the balcony and observe.”
“Then, we will do the same,” Keeler told her.
“Good, I think you ought to enjoy the light show,” she rose, taking her drink with her. She appeared to be in her thirties, thin as a willow branch, with dark hair brushed away from her face and olive green eyes; a fair sight prettier than Lydia Strong had been.
Once outside, the first thing Keeler observed was that the lights of the city had mostly gone out, even the land vehicles on the streets had pulled to the side and dimmed their lights. As though reading his thoughts, Diligent offered an explanation.
“Their missiles target sources of light.”
A few seconds later, a bright yellow stab of laser light pierced the sky. Where it terminated, a bright flash and explosion followed.
Several more such displays followed. “Our city is protected by several layers of defenses known collectively as ‘The Shield,” Diligent told him.
“Based on Kariad technology?” David Alkema asked. He had followed the rest of the party onto the great stone balcony at the back of the hall.
“I am afraid that information is classified,” Diligent demurred.
A laser stabbed the sky again, but this time it connected with nothing, but simply disappeared into the night sky, which Keeler noted that, although clear, was quite devoid of stars. A few seconds later, there was an explosion on the ground. It seemed to Keeler that it was on one of the rocky hills on the north side of the city.
“I am afraid our defenses are not 100% effective,” Diligent said. “Perhaps, with some of your technological expertise, we could improve them.”
“Sure,” Keeler replied. “I hope no one was hurt.”
“It looks like the pilot steered it into some of the decoy lights in the Moabian Hills.
Those areas are sparsely inhabited.”
Alkema nearly choked on his water. “Pilot?” he sputtered.
“The Xirong believe people are more expendable than technology,” Diligent said.
“Their missiles are guided by human pilots. Also, the willingness of pilots to sacrifice themselves is believed to inspire others to take up arms.”
“They kill themselves just to strike at you?” Keeler asked, because this seemed totally wrong to him.
“They hate us genocidally,” Diligent told him. “Some of them, the more militant ones.”
“It’s more complicated than that,” interrupted Julius Fair, the Warden for Externalities, approaching with one hand over the top of his wineglass as though to protect it from dust or falling debris. “What do they have to live for? The conditions in the Wilderness of Howling Zeal are very harsh. And the Chieftains that run the tribes are brutal and corrupt. There is no meaningful work to be had among the Xirong. I’ve been telling the Warden of Economics that we should work on mutual development plans, but she’s only concerned with getting more Xirong approved as Bonded Laborers to work in Midian, which the Security Warden, of course, opposes … “
A few more explosions lit the night sky. “How long will this go on?” Keeler asked.
“Not long,” Diligent assured him. “There was a time when they would launch thousands of unguided missiles into our cities, in hopes of hitting something. The shield rendered such attacks pointless. Eventually, they gave up and reverted to using piloted missiles.”
“The attacks serve a strong symbolic purpose to the Xirong,
” Fair went on. “The leadership can not afford to appear weak. By striking against us regularly, they create the perception of strength.” He sighed, “I just wish we could persuade them to direct their energy into more productive activities.”
Another explosion flashed in the sky. Diligent was studying Keeler’s expression.
“I hope you’re not thinking of trying to help negotiate a peace accord. Are you?”
“Heavens neg,” Keeler exclaimed. “We’ve stayed out of the internal affairs of the planets we’ve contacted.”
Alkema cleared his throat.
“Mostly,” Keeler clarified. “We may have fomented a revolution on one or two planets, created an insurgency on an Aurelian-occupied world, wiped out an alien invasion, helped recolonize a failed planet with genetically-engineered super-androids
… but we’ve definitely never tried to negotiate a Peace Settlement.”
“Good,” Diligent said. “Because the Xirong have violated every accord we’ve ever made with them…”
“And we, more often than not, have done the same,” Fair added.
“… and used their provisions to better position themselves to attack us,” Diligent finished. She gestured toward the west, toward the direction of the incoming missiles.
“Those piloted missiles are derived from technology the Kariad obligated us to share with them.”
“I like to think we just have not found the key to peaceful coexistence, yet,” Fair countered. “The Kariad refused our suggestion to terraform this continent into something more fertile and life-giving. I think if they had done so, it would have given the Xirong something to do other than wage war.”
“You don’t need alien technology to terraform a desert,” Diligent argued. “Look at Midian. Our ancestors chose it because it was the most desolate waste of the whole world, and they transformed it through their own hard work and sweat.” Keeler felt a hand on his shoulder. It belonged to Councillor Steadfast. “You may be interested to know that the trees that line our streets and fill our valleys were grown from cuttings brought from Earth itself.”
This was far more interesting than planetary geo-politics. “Really? Do you have any other artifacts from Earth?”
“There may be some books or video-dramas in the archives,” Steadfast told him. “In the morning, I will put you in touch with one of our archivists. Which reminds me, someone should be seeing to your accommodations for the evening.” Several minutes went by with no further explosions. In the distance, the wails of emergency vehicles dispatched to impact sights could be heard. Keeler saw flashing lights appear in the distance as traffic resumed its flow through the streets of the city.
“The attack is probably over,” Diligent told them. “This might be a good time to go to chambers. Commander Keeler, we’ll find some accommodations for you and your people in the Leadership Center.”
Yronwode – Xiyyon - Emissarial Complex of the Starcross Eddie Roebuck followed a tall man and woman in large elaborat hats through the halls of a beautiful temple. The ceiling was covered with a kind of gold filagree. The walls were lined with murals done in stained glass. Eddie could only presume they depicted scenes from scripture, although they were not from any religious tome Eddie was familiar with¹. Eddie didn’t know a lot about religion, but he didn’t think spaceships figured prominently in any of them. Most all of the scenes in the temple murals showed spaceships and angels, except for one that depicted Satan and what appeared to be sprigs of broccoli.
After a walk up five flights of stairs, they led him down a hallway lit with thousands of candles. He first assumed they were holograms, but feeling the heat they gave off, he realized they were the real deal. He knew the planet had better technology than this. “What’s with the candles,” he asked.
“They make the place feel more sacred,” the man answered. “Her holiness likes them.”
“Her Holiness?” Eddie asked.
“The current Pontifex is a woman,” said the woman who was leading him. “So the next must be a man, so it has been ordained to maintain the balance of innate forces.”
“She is quite old,” the man confirmed.
“Do you know why she wants to see me?” Eddie asked.
“She will tell you in her time,” the woman said. “Behold, these are her chambers.”
The paused before a pair of doors carved in some kind of blood-red wood. The woman stood aside. The man pulled some kind of velvet curtain-pull. In the distance, a bell rang. Soon, a young man appeared at the door, dressed like the man and the woman, except that his hat was flattened at the top like a fez.
“We have brought the one Her Holiness required,” spoke Eddie’s male escort.
Slag, Eddie thought. He had heard a few things about these kind of religious leaders, their gross sexual appetites. She wants me to have intercourse with her, he thought.
“You know,” he said. “I’m flattered by he attention, but I just remembered …
um… I have to write a letter… to a cat… about some … things… in my… pants.”
“You will come,” said the young man, gesturing forcefully for Eddie to come into the room.
Eddie sighed, and followed the young man into the chamber. It wasn’t all that large, about the size of one of the smaller suits in Pegasus’s living quarters.
Furnishings were spare. Globes set into the walls provided a faint yellowish light.
There was a large bed in the center of the room. An old woman with long white hair was sitting up in it. Her body was old and withered, but her eyes blazed brightly, one blue, one green. “Greetings, child,” she said in a strong but raspy voice. “You are as I had always pictured you would be. Come and sit by me.” She gestured toward a spot on the bed.
“Did I mention that I received a serious war wound battling the Aurelians at…
um… Bodacious Three?” Eddie said desperately.
“Sit, child,” she told him. Something undeniable in the voice made him sit, but he was still worried. “I understand the Starcross Empire never reached the Perseus Quadrant. You have never head of Brian Kingman?”
“Brian who?”
Eddie was startled as a woman standing in the shadows, whom Eddie had not previously noted, began speaking. “Brian Kingman was born on the Old Line Colony of Ceres Beta in the Solar Year 4265. As a young man, he became fascinated with legends of a Lost Colony of Atlanton, where near-miraculous technologies existed…
technologies that would make men immortal, make it possible to cross the space between stars and galaxies in moments. In time, he secured a powerful ship, the Tracor Nestor, and set off to pursue the legend.”
“Who is that?” Eddie whispered to the Pontifex.
“A vocal scribe,” the Pontifex answered. “Since you know nothing of our church, and because my voice would not survive speaking the whole of the story, I arranged to have her brought from her chamber. You will attend her words.” The vocal scribe continued. “Believing the lost world to be hidden round a blue giant sun in the center of the galaxy, then did the Prophet Brian Kingman travel there.
“Finding no crew willing to travel with him, he took only a robot companion named 12XU for companionship and an artificial intelligence named Zarss to pilot his ship.
“However, before he reached even the Norma Quadrant, his ship became trapped within a region of dust and dark matter, such that his instruments failed him. He became lost in the dustcloud, and no matter where he turned his ship, he could hold no course. He began to feel as though he was being held there for some reason.
“On the 81st solar day of his captivity, he spied a bright light out the of his spaceship, in the shape of an angel beckoning him.
“The angel was called Threll.
“Though his robot companion and the AI Zarss detected nothing, he insisted the light was there and bayed them follow it. The angel led him for nine more days, until he reached a planet, which was called Taramayara. And the Angel told him he should go down to it.
<
br /> “He left the Tracor Nestor in a shuttlecraft called Starfly, and went down. The surface of Taramayara was devastated and rent by storms of such ferocity that Starfly was almost bashed upon the rocks, but after a while came upon a place of calm, the one spot on all the planet’s surface where no storms raged. Here, he found the ruins of a great city.
“In the center of the city was a temple, and within the temple was an altar, and within the altar, protected by a forcefield, was The Fifth Holy Testament of the Allbeing.
It had, on its frontispiece, the symbol of the Starcross, and that symbol was also on the altar of the temple where he found it. The angel Threll reappeared to Brian Kingman and told him that he, and only he, as the chosen prophet of God, could remove the Testament.
“And he saw, around the altar, the dried up bones of those who had tried to take it before him.
“Brian Kingman put his hand into the forcefield, and it felt like being stung by a thousand hornets a thousand times. But he pushed through the barrier and withdrew the Testament. He thought his arm would be burned and withered, but it was fine.
“There, the Prophet was given vast and extraordinary powers.
“And the Lord spoke to him, and said, ‘Brian Kingman, you will return to your world, keep my word and your world and others who join it will prosper greatly in my sight.’ For this Testament was greater than all the treasures of Atlanton.”
“First Compendium, Chapter 1,” the Vocal Scribe intoned. Then, she began another.
“The Testament was written in an alien language, the language of Taramayaran.
Even Zarss, the Artificial Intelligence on his ship, could not make sense of it. But because of the power that had come upon him in the Temple, he was able to read and translate it. He occupied himself with its translation as the ship returned to Ceres Beta.
“When word of his discovery became known, those who still had the faith sought him out. He preached from the Fifth testament, which told of the Rise and Fall of a Great People, a lost human colony that had once found favor with God, but then was destroyed when they turned away.”