by S A Pavli
The Saraya commander nodded and the screen went blank. There was an outbreak of clapping and cheering and shouts of ‘well done Hamo’. Commra went over and gave the Captain a shoulder hug.
“Excellently done Captain,” he said. “You made a very convincing Dansai military commander.”
Hamolatonen laughed.
“Do you know, I enjoyed it. It’s not every day one can re-write history.”
“Re-write history and perhaps change the future for two species,” I said shaking the Captain’s hand. “Let us hope they make the sensible decision.” I had not intended to remind everyone of the Saraya’s capacity for truculence and aggression, but it had that effect and there were some sober nods of agreement from the others.
“The Saraya seem to have a totalitarian dictatorship of some sort. That character in the white robe was definitely the party representative,” I mused. Everyone looked at me blankly.
“What is a totality…titty.. thing that you said?” asked Manera. There were grins from the other humans in the room.
“Go on Paul, tell us!” laughed one of them.
“Aw, it’s very boring,” I protested. “I was just thinking out loud.”
Manera gave me a demanding look and I shrugged in resignation.
“Okay, okay. It means, a dictatorship in which there is only one political party. The people can vote for different candidates, but they all belong to the same party and represent only one political … um … outlook. Okay?”
“How can you know that?” asked Manera. “I mean, because the Saraya had a political representative on their starship?”
“We have political representatives on our starship,” pointed out Commra.
I was beginning to feel a bit exposed and to wish I had kept my mouth shut.
“Agreed agreed,” I said. “Perhaps it was an unjustified assumption. It’s because the Saraya political representative was laying the law down on the Saraya commander in a dictatorial way. Not something you would do Guardian.”
“I think the Captain may have a point,” said Hamolatonen thoughtfully. “We would not normally allow a politician to overrule a military commander. It may explain why the Saraya are so dogmatic and inflexible?” He turned to me questioningly.
“Hey guys, I’m not a political analyst. But, since you ask….. Yes. From Earth history, and I’m going back a few hundred years, totalitarian dictatorships demanded rigid adherence to the Party line and fanatical nationalism. The two were linked. To go against the party line was to be a traitor.”
“How do states like that change?” asked Hamolatonen.
“I can only speak about our own experience,” I said. “Either through irresistible external forces or military coup. Or both.”
“Hmm, interesting,” said Hamolatonen. “Well, let’s see what they do.”
It wasn’t long before we saw the result. The Saraya warships started disappearing from our detectors until they were all gone. Our Dansai friends were ecstatic and promised us a huge celebration. Ironically it was also announced that a force of warships from other Dansai worlds was on it’s way to liberate Leffra.
Our arrival in orbit around Leffra was the greatest media event ever seen on the planet. All work stopped, all citizens being given the day off. There were celebratory events everywhere with flags, parades and street parties. Video of our four warships was broadcast across the planet. There had been a lottery on board our ships to select who should go on planet and who should stay behind. Sadly, Manera and I were not included. We watched proceedings on the giant 3D in the Settang control room with a skeleton crew.
President Tara also brought another small matter to our attention.
“Friends, can I ask about the other three starships that are now with you? They appear to be of a different design to the first one that contacted us.”
“Ah, the time has come to tell you the whole truth,” said Commra. He proceeded to explain to the Dansai that we were two species, and introduce Humans to them. This caused more amazement and disbelief on the part of the Dansai. They could not believe that there was another humanoid species, and that we had already met each other! And, touchingly, they reacted with great emotion. We are part of a new brotherhood said Tara.
Tara Con Sata and her ministers met them at the airport as their shuttles came in. The lucky thirty two individuals selected were feted with speeches and garlands before being taken away to be housed in the most luxurious hotel in town which had been taken over to accommodate the heroic aliens.
Commander Pariso was in command of the Settang, Captain Hamolatonen pulling rank and putting himself on the list as one of the thirty two. The plan was that most of the thirty two would be rotated in a few days, allowing all crew members to get some ‘shore’ leave. Our ships were on the alert for the return of the Saraya. The Dansai were convinced that they could not be trusted and had stationed warships on the Hyperspace margins, three million miles from the planet. However, I was certain this was paranoia on their part.
Over the next few days a good time was had by all. It seemed that the Dansai had been liberated from a great burden. Dansai maidens vied with each other to entertain the handsome visitors from across the stars. Media stars and politicians fought to be seen with them. Admiral Deshi gave strict orders to his crew to behave with appropriate dignity otherwise he would order them all back to their ships. I suspected that, like all sailors throughout history, that would have been received by them with a metaphorical raspberry!
A few days into the first ‘shore leave’, four ships from the other four planets of the Dansai Federation hove to in orbit around the planet. They kept well away from us at first, perhaps making sure they would not be mistaken for Saraya. I thought that one ship from each planet of the Federation to liberate their home planet was a pitiful effort. Each ship carried a delegation from it’s home planet, representing its Ram-Tela or ruling council. It was obvious that the ships had been dispatched after the Saraya blockade had been broken, otherwise, I was sure, the politicians would not have been included.
On the Settang we were able to watch video transmitted to us by our colleagues on the planet as well as video from the Dansai news and entertainment service, with translations supplied by our AI. We watched the Dansai leaders disembark their starships and land on the planet, to be greeted by Tara Con Sata and her new government. Greetings were perfunctory and Tara was sarcastic about their arrival to ‘liberate our planet’ as she put it.
It soon became obvious that relations between the different Dansai planets varied between cool to cold. It was no wonder that the Dansai were losing the war against the Saraya. Each of their families was ruled by an undemocratic and arrogant elite who were more concerned with preserving their power at all cost than cooperating for the common good. In that context, it wasn’t too long before the leaders from the other Dansai planets requested separate hearings and interviews with the Hianja/Earth expeditionary force. It was clear that they wanted to establish their own contacts and gain influence.
We had descended into a morass of political infighting. It seemed to me that we were being diverted from the original purpose of the expedition: to make contact with the Makers. We had no authority to interfere or establish relationships with these alien species. I was impatient and bored with the political junketing and felt it was time to move on.
Manera on the other hand, was fascinated by the situation. Her scientific instincts were aroused. She wanted to investigate the history and culture of both civilisations, which was clearly a huge task and well beyond our current remit. But that did not stop her trying. She contacted other academics on the planet and had numerous video conferences with her enthusiastic opposite numbers. She could not wait to get back on planet to meet up with these worthies. I suspected that scientists throughout the Universe would get on like long lost brothers on first acquaintance.
When the next ‘shore leave’ list was made up, Manera and a trio of her scientists were included, as was Command
er Pariso, and I was left as Captain of the Settang. This was an honour that I grudgingly acceded to. I bullied Commander Pariso into looking after Manera and her science team, and he agreed willingly.
I bid my beloved girl a fond au revoir and spent a moody few hours with my second in command, Lieutenant Salmar, familiarising myself with the Settang’s systems, with the additional help of my mate Alfred. Truth was, the Settang’s AI did everything technical, and given that we were going nowhere, an eight year old could have been made Captain.
But I was a professional starship Captain and pilot and I was not about to miss the opportunity to learn about an alien starship. Nevertheless the next few days dragged and I was happy when Manera and her colleagues returned. We had a full crew again and preparations began for our departure.
But before we could leave, we were asked by President Tara to help put their military forces on a better basis to resist any further attacks by the enemy. Specifically, she asked for the computer systems and software to decode the Saraya comms protocols and encryption. This was a problem for us since we had no permission to give away what was militarily sensitive technology.
The solution was suggested by Colrania. We could leave the technology in the care of a one or two of her technicians on board a Peacekeeper fighter with appropriate defences. Given the previous duplicity of the Dansai this was a bit of a risk. But it was clear that they needed our assistance and the stakes for them were very high. Making an enemy out of the very people who had rescued them would surely be the height of madness. So we reasoned. The Peacekeeper would also be a useful addition to their defences, as it had already demonstrated.
However, this was contingent on the technicians volunteering, and it transpired that they were loath to do so. Did we need the technicians I asked. Could we not just leave the Peacekeeper with all the AI technology installed inside the Peacekeeper without any physical access by the Dansai. They would have to physically attack and almost destroy the fighter to get at the technology within. To deter any such foolishness, we could build in self destruct defences.
My suggestion was investigated and found to be technically feasible. It was put to the Dansai and they accepted immediately. President Tara diffidently asked if we could leave another Peacekeeper fighters as backup and after some discussion we agreed. Our ships AIs were sufficiently advanced to take care of themselves and we would in any case be in constant communications via Hyperspace Comms. Alfred also suggested some strategic and tactical improvements to their defence network which were also gratefully accepted.
We were leaving our new friends in a much better position than the one we had found them. Departure found us all quite sentimentally emotional. We would of course stop by on our return in order to collect the Peacekeeper fighters, and to also cement ties with the Dansai and make arrangements for further visits. The mysterious centre of the cluster, beckoned. Was it the home of the Makers, or did further mysteries and surprises await us?
Chapter 16
The jump to the centre of the cluster took just a few hours. It was not the dead centre - that was occupied by the massive black hole around which all the stars of the cluster circulated. We were actually billions of miles from the centre, safely away from the deadly gravitational pull of the singularity. The stars clustered incredibly closely, so close that the distance could be measured in light minutes in some cases.
The problem was, where to look in this forest of stars? We replayed the HCD message sent from the Maker satellite and with some careful electronic co-ordinate tracking the best we could do was to get within an area which encompassed a few hundred stars. We started a radio search of the area, hoping we would find some activity to narrow down the search. At the same time we proceeded by a series of small Hyperspace jumps into each star system, scanning the planets of each system briefly for life, before jumping to the next. On the face of it, it seemed a hopeless task. But we reasoned that the Maker civilization would have spread over hundreds of stars. We should therefore see something reasonably quickly.
We picked up nothing. No signs of life whatsoever. No radio transmissions of any type. No Hyperspace comms. All the systems we visited were devoid of life. No Earth type planets. Had we made a mistake we asked ourselves. We re-checked our calculations with the same result.
After jumping through a dozen or so star systems we found one with an Earth like planet. But barely. The climate was very extreme because of the planet’s orbit and inclination. The poles were locked in ice, the temperature well below zero all the year around. The icecaps covered most of the northern and southern areas with only a small habitable band around the equator. There was vegetation and even stunted forests. And in orbit around the planet were a number of artificial satellites. We also found widespread evidence of the remains of an advanced civilization. Scanning the countryside from orbit we found evidence of artificial structures buried deep under ice, soil and forest. The linear patterns of cities and roads were all over the planet.
I talked to Alfred about it.
“How long would it take for cites to disappear like that?” I asked.
“We have never come across anything like this before,” he pointed out. “But if weather, plate tectonics and other factors are similar to Earth, it would have to be hundreds of thousands of years. At ground level there is mostly little visual evidence, most of it obscured by ice. We can only map it from orbit by seeing the linear disturbances of the ground.”
“Can we tell how extensive or advanced the civilization was?”
“It was very extensive. It covered the whole planet and was clearly very advanced. I would say not too dissimilar to present day Earth.”
“Can we examine any of it?”
“We are doing a detailed analysis to locate the most likely spot.”
“All right Alfred thanks.” The question was of course, whether this was or had been at some time a Maker world, and if so, what happened to it. Preparations were made for us to land at a likely spot and indulge in a little archaeological excavation. Manera and her team of scientists were the leaders. In addition, the Earth expedition had organised their own science team to land at a different site. The race was on to solve the puzzle!
But our first task was to examine the orbital ‘junkyard’. There was dozens of small and large satellites in orbit to investigate. Most, we discovered, were the usual mix of navigation and communications satellites, all now defunct, and technically un-original. The most interesting was a large Space station and we sent a small team across to have a look at it. It did not have artificial gravity, which meant that it must be very ancient, if it was of ‘Maker’ origin.
A team from the Atlantis went across and managed to gain entry by forcing open an airlock door. We did not expect to make any technological discoveries since the station was pre-artificial gravity. But they did find what appeared to be a large drum connected to electronics and cooling systems. It looked exactly like an AI module, very similar in fact to the one that housed Alfreds electronics. There was no power of course, but the engineers opened up the drum and had a look at the circuitry inside. They discovered a type of computer substrate that was unknown to them and so the whole drum was carefully removed and transported back to the Atlantis for further examination. The engineers were excited that they may have found a computer technology more advanced than our own. We promised to make the results known to the Hianja engineers as well.
At the same time, preparations were going ahead to explore the planetary surface. I busied myself putting together a small team to support our scientists. Lieutenant Salmar volunteered as did a couple of the astronaut team. I also wanted Cora along. Her abilities were unique and I felt with her we could cope with any contingency. We equipped ourselves with sturdy boots and tough explorer outfits and assisted the scientists in loading up their instruments and equipment. A couple of robots were included to do the heavy lifting and digging.
Alfred eventually selected a site for us. It was in a spectacular locat
ion in the planet’s temperate zone. Roughly where northern California would be in the Americas or the northern Mediterranean in Europe. But there were massive mountain ranges in that area. The city was located on a plateau between the mountains and the sea. It was lightly forested over but the plateau was a huge granite ‘ledge’ jutting out from the continent into the sea. The city had been built on this granite base and had not subsided significantly. Enough of it was still above ground to give us lots of area to explore.
The Earth exploration team had bagged an even more promising site. Located deep inside a desert area close on the equator, the city was still exposed. It was the only substantial city still above ground and not covered by jungle. They were jubilant about their find and had prepared three expeditions, one from each ship, to explore the area.
We congratulated them on their find and prepared to leave, all out kit loaded up on one Peacekeeper fighter. I sat next to Manera in the cabin of the ship, wishing it had a cockpit and that I could fly it.
“We should modify these fighters,” I said. “Build a cockpit and manual controls. Can’t trust everything to bloody AI systems.”
She gave me an amused smile.
“Boys and their toys, I think I heard you say once.”
“Quite right to,” I chuckled. “And talking about toys, I think you scientific types have your fair share.” I nodded towards the mountain of equipment piled up and strapped down in the corner of the cabin.
“Essential equipment in the pursuit of our jobs,” she said.
“Ditto.” I leaned over and stole a kiss.
“You’ve been too busy recently. Miss you.” I put my arm around her shoulders and she snuggled over.
“I know. Too many interesting things to do.,” she said.
I gave a ’Mmm’ of agreement. The ship lurched as it disconnected from its gantry and began to manoeuvre out of the bay. The huge blue green and white planet appeared beneath us as we exited the bay and floated away from the Settang.