Koban 5: A Federation Forged in Fire

by Stephen W Bennett

  Alyson landed Mother’s Pride near the outskirts of the better preserved dead city, and watched with pleasure the excited reactions of Coldar and the other nineteen Torki, as they caught the first scent of the sea air, and felt the high humidity, low gravity and air pressure of a place they had never been, but which felt like home. They skittered around on multiple legs almost like the immature children, the Torkedia, that Alyson had seen return to Torki colonies after years of independent development in the seas of Haven.

  Coldar was eager to move closer to the shore at the base of the buildings that rose from the water itself. Alyson had a question. “Coldar, have the seas risen? The water is up into the lower levels of all the structures. Waves may have eroded the bases, aren’t you worried they’ve been weakened? They might collapse if disturbed.”

  “These buildings are a form of coral reef. The coral is still alive at the bases, and it has maintained its support. We can see this from the pinker color and thickness at the bases, that they have supported the pale, almost white dry structures above them. The tops may have weakened, but the basses are stronger than when they were abandoned.”

  Alyson craned her neck to look up. “A Fifty story coral reef? Really? You didn’t just stack coral sections to build this?”

  “Each building was grown in place, with fresh seawater pumped up with special nutrients added for a strong interlocking crystalline structure, and we kept the coral growing. When a level was complete, we raised the flow of water, and allowed the lower levels to die and harden into a strong base. For the tallest structures, there was a scaffolding-like metal structure to provide support. These building took hundreds of years to grow and as you see, could last thousands of years if maintained. The maximum safe height was around seventy levels, and those top levels did not bear great weight. They were often sleeping quarters with water sprays to make them comfortable.

  He gestured in a spiral motion with his smaller left claw, an inclusive gesture that took in the entire cityscape. “This coral isn’t natural; it was selectively bred for this purpose over thousands of years of study. It doesn’t thrive on other planets, so we had to use other means to build structures on colonies, or used seaside caves and artificial tunnels, as we often did on Krall controlled worlds. With the Krall moving and controlling us, and our lack of control of our environment, we simply relocated our small colonies when too many Torkada returned to overuse our resources. In a city like this, we would have recovered most of our returning Torkedia to help them become adults, with Olts waiting for them. We had smooth sided seawalls with entry locks, to prevent the misplaced, overly mature Torkada from entering the city. Our oceans here have many more natural predators of our larvae than found on Haven, helping to regulate our population. There are too many water predators on some of our smaller colonies, where expansion proceeded slower.”

  Alyson was watching what the other Torki were unloading. “Those carrying bags contain Olts. What will you do with them today? I assumed you would be looking over the structures to see if any are usable, or where to build new ones.”

  Coldar made a carapace bob, which was their adapted gesture to mimic the human head nod. “We will do that, but some of that work will be done by the population already here.”

  “I thought the Torkada were incapable of advanced learning and higher thought.”

  “The Olts are for the few Torkedia we saw wandering along the water’s edge. If they haven’t started forming their first color molt, we can feed them an Olt. There will be many dead or dying Torkada to furnish the meat for this. They have a high mortality rate.

  “After that, the young will have Olts with all the libraries our children always have to aid them in their learning. A few of us will remain to guide their thinking. One Torki can influence and guide a hundred new minds. There are thousands of Torkedia on Ocean now. If we can reach most of them before the next season of molt, in two of your months, our ability to populate this world again will go swiftly.

  “This world is our species birthplace, and we know its seasons. We chose to come here now, to recover the peak number of this cycle’s returning young. Perhaps six thousand to seven thousand Torkedia. Next orbit, that number will repeat, and join the thousands that wish to immigrate here. Those of us here on this trip will spawn eggs and sperm at shores of cities where we want Torkedia to return in future years, and more of us will visit here in weeks ahead to do the same.

  “In five years, we should have more people and cities being built here than you will have on Koban. Initially we will populate our world faster than Kobani or other humans can reproduce, but that will taper greatly when our reproduction rate slows. That’s because the population of small native predators that evolved along with us will increase, to eat more of our larvae. Our home has a natural population growth limiter, which prior to our evolving sentience, prevented us from consuming more food that was available to sustain our population. We will then establish managed sea chandle and trinda farms for feeding our growing population. I long to taste trinda growing on a long strand of fresh wild chandle weed before the day is done.” His trembling palps around his mouth caused his translated words in Standard to slur, as he thought of the experience.

  “Coldar, how long has it been since you ate this dish? You were born on Haven, and I haven’t heard any mention of that seaweed, and whatever a trinda is.”

  “None of us on Haven have experienced the dish, although it was grown on our colony worlds in farms long ago. Our Olts retain memory of the flavor. Samples will return with us to Haven, but it will not be released into the environment there. The Prada and Raspani will help us build pens well inland, far from the seas, to grow them in limited quantity as a specialty food treat. A trinda is a small crustacean that attaches to chandle floating in seawater, and they form a symbiotic relationship. Neither tastes as well alone, but their combined flavor is modified when living together, as the plant absorbs the wastes from the trinda, which eats contaminates and parasites from the weed to keep the plant healthy. You should try this marvelous flavor.”

  “Uh. Thank you, perhaps I may.” Alyson was not about to commit herself, to eat these small crustaceans attached to seaweed, and their absorbed waste byproducts contained within that floating seaweed. She changed subjects from crab food delicacies.

  “I understand your ten females are going to expel eggs at the shore, and you males will release clouds of sperm, and let them both mingle and drift out on the receding tide to open waters. Then leave here knowing the vast majority of fertilized eggs will be eaten? After a few years many of the Torkedia return to the wrong place or arrive too late to receive an Olt, and must become Torkada.”

  “Of course. We feel no loss at the deaths of millions of our offspring that we never knew, and we will never know if a survivor is ours. A DNA test is possible, but the concept of knowing who the parents are is abhorrent to us. Someday a great, great, grandchild may eat us, and they should feel no guilt later if they learn who provided them the meat with their Olt. In that respect, we are uncomfortably like the Krall, who do not care for their young in early years. With us, this system evolved naturally and anonymously, in step with this planet’s ecology. With the Krall, it was a callous and deliberate decision to only pick the meanest most vicious and deadly cubs for survival, encouraging the stronger cubs to kill and eat their siblings or other nest mates.”

  Alyson suppressed a shiver, concerned that the Torki might detect her feelings and be offended. Eating your grandparents, or leaving your children to be eaten in a vast hostile ocean, didn’t seem a reasonable reproductive option for a nurturing intelligent species. Human reproduction and how it was achieved; with endless practice she thought wryly, were a source of humor for all of their alien allies, and not a well-hidden subject for their jokes.

  She felt the human advantage was the long term nurturing of their offspring, which in modern society approached a one hundred percent survival rate, and their long lives, good health, and extended fer
tility permitted more offspring.

  Later that day, as the Torki roamed the old city for dying or recently dead Torkada, as suitable flesh sources for the frequent encounters with Torkedia, she overheard some Olt conversations that also went to the Kobani Comtaps, which appeared to reflect some great sorrow and an unexpected personal loss.

  “Richard, let’s go see what it is they found that seems to have them so distressed. Standing watch here is boring. We’re safe here, since there’s no sign of a Krall presence in this system since it was abandoned.” Torki sometimes displayed jubilation and excitement, but very rarely acted depressed or sad. Stoic was as close to unhappy as she had noticed from any of them.

  She and Richard left Kid, the AI recently installed on Mother’s Pride, in charge of monitoring the space around Ocean, with several Kobani crew within closer hailing distance if a human hand were suddenly needed. They made their way to where their mental aerial map of the city indicated was an open space, like a plaza around a hill within the city, behind some old buildings along the shore.

  They passed a number of Torkada, which skittered away from them in apparent fear of the unknown animals. Up close, they were paler and slightly smaller versions of the Torki they knew. Coldar said this form rarely lived as long as a Torki with an Olt, because they didn’t have the knowledge needed for healing from injury or illness, of preserving food for times of scarcity, and the inability to make tools, shelter, food traps, or to farm, which could make their life easier and safer. They had partly forgotten the lessons of past years, and didn’t live to molt as many times as a Torki, to gain their larger size and deeper shell color.

  They saw one Torkedia eating scraps from the nearly empty husk of a dead Torkada. It showed less fear of them, but demonstrated no signs of any greater intelligence. The translucent young carapace and bright sunlight revealed the small dark blotch of an Olt within its stomach, which would gradually migrate to the youngster’s brain over the following few weeks. After the Olt was in place, the pair’s familiarity with seeing the same process advance on Haven told them they would note gradual self-awareness and curiosity appearing in the young crab, as it became a Torki. Until then, it would mostly avoid adult Torki, and other large “animals” such as humans, Raspani, and Prada. Although smaller than an adult, they possessed fearsome claws, which would only come into play if attacked, or approached too close when they had no avenue of escape.

  As they neared the area where the Torki were gathering, they had to deviate a few times around streets full of old debris, or perhaps better described as passageways than streets. Earlier, near the tallest structures, the avenues had been broad and wide, where the city appeared to have been more technologically advanced. Here the impression, aside from decay, was of a region of far older and more rudimentary construction. As if a primitive village had been surrounded by a growing metropolis, back when Ocean was a thriving vibrant Torki home.

  Humans would normally have torn down and renovated a rundown old section of a city, rather than keep it intact at the center of new development. The old buildings were lower in height, but more closely spaced, so it was a surprise when they turned a corner of a meandering old street to find a wide-open vista of undeveloped ground. There was a ridge of high ground, which ran parallel to the sea, which they knew was nearby from the surf sounds. They heard Torki clicking and shell scrapes from the seaward side of the worn looking cliffs, and they circled around the down slope of the nearest side.

  As the steep front of the cliff became visible, they saw it was riddled with cave or tunnel openings, and eroded terraces ran at different levels in front of the mouths of the openings. It was a more primitive looking site than Torki colonies they had seen on Krall worlds, where the Torki forced labor helped build the technological marvels for the Krall war effort.

  At the base of the half-mile long cliff, within a crumbled semi-circular wall that appeared to have been of considerably newer construction, they could hear the echoes of reflected Torki native speech, and saw their movements through crumbled gaps in the curved wall.

  “Richard doesn’t this wall look different from the age and weather related decay of the other newer coral construction to you? This is the only sample of newer building material in this entire plot of what looks like an old Torki village. As if a more modern city grew up around this area, but they didn’t touch the old section. The new wall looks as if parts of it were blown outward. I can see what looks like an ornate opening, located at the center of the arc that runs around the cliff base.”

  Richard saw it in slightly different, less flattering terms. “This is an old piss hole in the middle of an eleven thousand year old dump.”

  Exasperated with his lack of perception, she said, “This is a preserved historic section, obviously of importance to the Torki, a species that I haven’t noted as previously displaying a great deal of nostalgia. That cliff face had a protective wall that has been destroyed, and our friends are inside and behaving as if distressed. Please don’t reveal your real feelings around them, and drop the “piss-hole in a dump” remarks.”

  “Sure. Who in hell do you think I am? Some insensitive prick that will hurt the feelings of our crab allies? Who inexplicably revere an ancient treasure they’ve preserved throughout their history, for longer than we humans have even been out of our caves? This old piss hole is precious to them.”

  “Good. So happy your sensitive side has been activated.”

  “How could it not? I came here on the frigging Mother’s Pride.” He quipped.

  “Named after the birth of my son occurred, and who isn’t here to see his mommy act out of character by leaving her thickheaded jerk of a first officer behind, to see if he can discover how to Comtap his sorry ass home through thousands of light years of vacuum.”

  “A lovely tender name for a warship it is.” He wore a lopsided grin.

  “It was a hollow threat anyway.” She admitted. “You owe me nine credits from our last poker game.”

  “Take it out of my salary.”

  “Hmm. We didn’t set one before we left, did we? This new Federation credit situation needs to be worked out. All I know to do with the credits in my new account is to bet with them, and I don't think I should have to pay you on this official trip, since nobody is paying me. I don’t think.”

  They had been walking while they exchanged their banter, and reached an opening in the damaged wall. The Torki were all gathered within, forming a small arc, like the one the shattered outer wall had once formed. They were each bent down with their front carapace touching the ground. A shattered cave or tunnel opening was in the base of the cliff, at the middle point of their arc. It appeared to have been the epicenter of a powerful explosion from just inside the cave mouth.

  Alyson looked behind the crab arc at the wall, and saw an elaborately carved hard stone entryway with the ubiquitous artificial coral wall joining it at the sides. There was no sign of an old gate, and it appeared the courtyard thus formed had been open to visitors. That implied trust and reverence for whatever was being preserved here, and that it had not required protection, merely some level of privacy.

  That promptly sparked a thought. Perhaps she and Richard were intruding. The Torki, like the other aliens they had met, had long ago given up any belief in a supreme being in their long and slow expansion, but this historical site may have predated that social change. They certainly appeared to be positioned in a reverent pose.

  She spoke softly, “Ah…, Richard, let’s step outside and wait for them to finish.”

  Before they could turn away, one form lifted and Coldar’s speech pattern issued from his synthesizer. “Captain, I have expressed as much grief and loss as I need for now. I will join you. I wish to explain what we have discovered, and have lost.”

  Passing through the main entry, which up close appeared to be sculpted from weathered pink and gray granite, Coldar stopped outside.

  “It appears that the Krall, before they left our world, chose to d
estroy our most prized and oldest example of our past and origins. What we called in our language Olt 1, which was the last surviving original Olt. One of the original ones directly given to us by the Olt’kitapi.”

  “You mean from your prehistory? Before your species was fully sentient? How tragic for your history.” Alyson placed a hand on one of his sensitive manipulator palps, to convey the sincerity of her mental sympathy via Mind Tap.

  Richard asked a skeptical question, suggesting he still wasn’t fully in touch with his sensitive side. “This old cliff village doesn’t look all that primitive, and it isn’t even located by the sea. How could you be sure it was that old?”

  Coldar, far from taking offense, seemed to appreciate the opportunity to explain how they knew. “The land here has uplifted, and the sea levels have slightly receded in those millennia, but once long ago the tides entered the lowest of the natural caves of this level. These caves did not form our first village, and they are not the reason we preserved this patch of land. Those early villages were distributed over the entire planet, and they have all been lost to the tides of history. The Olt’kitapi clearly did not distribute all their Olts in a single region, to preclude their loss in a mass die-off from disease, or a natural catastrophe that might ruin their social engineering.”

  “So…,” Richard was cut off by a claw wave. Coldar hadn’t finished.

  “This place wasn’t representative of where or how we lived in our beginnings. You of course know we recycle Olts when one of us dies. Obviously, an Olt isn’t indestructible, and it can be lost along with the body. They were made very durable, because they needed to last until we developed the technology to reproduce them.

  “We must have begun with millions of them, but after a few thousand years, the population of sentient Torki was perhaps a quarter of the original numbers before we were able to replace the lost Olts with new ones. In subsequent centuries, our sentient Torki population grew greatly, and new Olt libraries opened to us to help us cope with what we needed to learn of forming a stable large society. Gradually, the original surviving Olts became a small fraction of those in existence, and eventually the last ones known were finally lost to accidents.”