Flidoring The Early Wars

by Hayes, Roger W.

  “Oh my, yes indeed I would very much like that!” said Slabriel, although it sounded more like, “Trill tick click tick tick! Click trill tick click click tick, Tick trill click click trill tick trill click tick.”

  To which Bellmus quickly responded, “It is a good thing that I am starting to understand your language. Lyemad, run a level two diagnostics on the ships translators,” he barked as they were leaving the bridge.

  “Yes sir!” shouted back Lyemad.

  Bellmus spent most of the rest of the trip to Simnius in his lab showing off his Tasley Elite plants to the steady stream of curious Ambassadors. He had laid out dozens of flats full of small genetically altered plants that were able to produce leaves in just two days after planting. He had certainly gained the respect of everyone, especially from the other Electerians. They not only said that they felt healthier shortly after drinking the tea, but also, that it tasted great. Many of them apologized privately to Bellmus for grumbling about his being absent from so many events while he had been working on the plants. Bellmus knew now, more than ever, that he had secured his family’s name in history forever.

  Bellmus was in his lab a couple of days later when the Navigator announced over the COM, “Sir Bellmus, we are coming into Simnius space now.”

  “Thank you, drop out of warp and I will be right up,” he replied.

  Once on the bridge, Bellmus ordered, “Put us in orbit around Playzorus prime. Lyemad, start scanning the planet and find out all you can about it.”

  “Yes sir!” he snapped back in excitement. “I read no life signs; an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere; high levels of Chlorine in the 80 degree water; and I do not seem to be able to scan through the bedrock under the water. The water averages twenty feet deep, but there is some kind of dense element in the deeper rock that our sensor cannot penetrate.”

  “Very interesting,” mused Bellmus, “Lyemad, do the sensors show any place where the water is deep enough that we could get a sample of that dense rock?”

  “Well, the heavy saturations of ore seem to be deep underground, but there is an impact crater that is deep enough to get a sample.” Lyemad replied. “It will be a small dispersion of the ore, but it should be enough to analyze it.”

  Bellmus looked over at the pilot’s seat and asked, “Tessslan, can you maneuver us over the water and hold it steady enough for a diver to go down and retrieve a piece of that ore bonded rock?”

  “I can sssit usss down in the water. The ssstarboard-docking hatch isss twenty-five feet above the landing padsss. That givesss usss five feet above the water sssurfaccce,” answered Tessslan.

  “Good, take us down,” Bellmus ordered. “Now, who do we have onboard to use as a diver?”

  “I would very much like the opportunity to be the first one from our star system to step fin onto a world from another star system,” said Slabriel eagerly. “The high concentration of chlorine in the water will limit my ability to stay on the bottom, but I should have plenty of time to dig out a nice sample of ore. The water temperature is quite warm compared to Angelus. It will feel like a nice hot bath for me.”

  With that, Tessslan landed the ship on a good flat section of bottom and they opened the hatch. Slabriel looked out at the beautiful, pale blue-green water and started ticking and clicking as he leaped headfirst into the clear water. The ship’s translator did not work once his head was outside the door, but Bellmus thought he said something about ‘one big splash for our kind’ or something like that. Once in the water, Slabriel headed straight for the bottom holding a rock-pick in his tentacles. When he made it to the bottom, he found a thick layer of white sand covering it. Using his fins and webbed legs, he moved swiftly across the bottom until he came to the edge of the impact crater that dropped down about two hundred feet. There he was able to chip off a large piece of the ore and head back to the ship. He was just about back to the hatch when his gills started to burn from the chlorine. He popped up out of the water and gasped for air through his mouth while tightly pinching his arms over his gills—trying desperately to keep any more chlorine from getting in them as he cringed from the pain.

  Bellmus had lowered a rope ladder from the hatch but Slabriel was struggling to climb up it. His finned feet made it nearly impossible. He finally had to go up backwards and use his heels on the ladder. As soon as he was in the hatch, he said, “I need some fresh water to rinse out my gills. They feel like they are on fire.”

  Tucked down in the crotch of his tentacles was the piece of ore, which he handed to Bellmus. Carefully examining it, Bellmus replied, “Thank you Slabriel, this might prove to be very useful someday. I will take it to my lab and study it later. Why don’t you go down to the exercise room and use the showers, that should help rinse out the chlorine from your gills.”

  Immediately Lyemad called down from the bridge yelling, “Father! There is a big chunk of rock from the planet’s debris rings headed right for us!”

  After closing the hatch, Bellmus pushed a button on the COM panel and said, “Tessslan, get us back into orbit, now!”

  Right after they left the surface of the water a rock about the size of a Graznosian child slammed into the water right where they had landed. The force of the impact sent sand and water hurling into the air and bouncing off the bottom of the ship. Again Lyemad yelled over the COM, “More incoming debris. Tessslan is taking evasive maneuvers. Hang on!”

  Timsssack and Bellmus arrived back at the bridge only moments later, and Bellmus ordered, “Status report!”

  “The debris rings around the planet are unstable. We suffered no damage, but we might need to stop at a “Ship-wash” to clean the sand off the bottom,” Lyemad said lightheartedly, trying to alleviate the stress of the situation.

  “That wasss a clossse one, the Creator isss watching over usss,” said Timsssack.

  “That may be,” Lyemad rebutted, “but I thought that I was the one that spotted that rock. I did not hear the Creator call down to warn you.”

  With that almost blasphemous response, Tessslan jumped in with, “It wasss the Creator who causssed you to sssee that rock, you could have been busssy doing sssomething elssse.”

  “You are welcome.” Replied Lyemad sarcastically.

  “All right now, lets just be thankful that we did not get hit and leave it at that,” interrupted Bellmus. “Set in a course for the Paylee star system. I think we have seen all there is to see here. Engage.”

  Upon saying that Bellmus noticed Timsssack’s tail pointed toward the front of the ship. “Interesssting,” Timsssack muttered, while most of the bridge crew looked at him with smiles.

  Tessslan and Lyemad were not smiling, they were both feeling slighted by the other. While they were stewing over the whole Creator issue, Slabriel entered back onto the bridge. Returning to his seat, he told everyone of his victorious mission to the bottom of an alien world. Angelians can be quite good storytellers, especially when it involves something in which they played an important part. The event only took him ten minutes to complete, but his story lasted for over an hour. It was so entertaining that about half way through it, even Tessslan and Lyemad had forgotten their differences and were engrossed in the narrative.

  At the conclusion of Slabriel’s story, the ship was already well on its way to the Paylee system. Paylee is a Red Giant star with two planets: Noteorius Minor and Noteorius Major. Noteorius Major is a gaseous giant with thick clouds of poisonous gases. It circles very close to Paylee, which causes the dense clouds to churn violently from the heat and gravitational pull. It is an extremely inhospitable place and is of no interest to Bellmus or his colleagues. Noteorius Minor, on the other hand, is of great interest. Even though there has been no communications, Electerus had picked up some signals that they figured only intelligent life could make. The anticipation on the ship was intense. They would soon meet their first beings from another star system on Noteorius Minor.

  During the four-day trip, excitement filled the air as the three worlds swapped different
stories and legends. At one point in the voyage, Lyemad realized that the Warp-ship needed a name that was worthy of its mission. After much deliberation and debate, they settled on “Volkran”—the name of an Electerian explorer who made the first flight into space. He stayed in orbit around Electerus for thirty minutes in a ship that he built himself. He had a dream of one day meeting aliens from another world, but he died before ever realizing his dream. However, his historic achievement was the starting point on the path that was now about to culminate with meeting aliens from other worlds. Everyone agreed that it was an appropriate tribute to his vision.

  Coming out of warp close to Paylee, Bellmus ordered, “Sensor report!”

  Lyemad, studying his instruments and screens carefully, responded, “I read an atmosphere similar to Graznos,” he paused slightly while rechecking another screen, “I have life forms!” he said with a crack in his voice. “They are concentrated in small cities spread out across the countryside. There is one large city that is central to the smaller ones.”

  “Send a broadcast on all frequencies of a repeating tone sequence of the first six prime numbers. Two-second delay between numbers, five seconds between repeats. Shine a laser beacon at the main city synchronized to the tone. Run it for thirty minutes.” Bellmus commanded.

  “I hope no one starts shooting at us before they figure out what you are doing,” said Lyemad sarcastically.

  “If they built elaborate cities then they have some form of measurement with sub-divisions. They would have figured out that they could not divide certain values into equal parts. No matter what language they speak, those values will always be the same,” answered Bellmus in a reassuring voice.

  “I know what you are doing, I just hope that whoever is down there understands it before they hit us with some unknown weapon,” said Lyemad, genuinely concerned.

  About twenty-five minutes passed when Bichael (pronounced like Michael with a B), the Communications Officer and an Angelian, cried out with a high pitch voice, “Oh! Sir Bellmus, I…We…They are responding! It is the same sequence with one more prime number added to it.”

  “I guess we have your answer Lyemad. We were not vaporized by any super weapon,” Bellmus said, returning a little of his sarcasm. “Tessslan, take us down slowly—just to the east of the big city by that large clearing.”

  It was about mid-day when the Volkran entered the atmosphere of Noteorius Minor. The planet orbits Paylee at a great enough distance that the climate ranges from tropical to frozen, depending on location and time of year. It was a warm summer day with clear skies, except for a few scattered green clouds in the upper atmosphere. Just as Tessslan was about to cut through one of the clouds, Lyemad yelled, “Go around that cloud! Quick!”

  Tessslan veered off sharply and sent everyone who was standing, flying to the starboard side. Somewhat confused he said, “What wasss that about?”

  “That green stuff is a very strong acidic gas. It could eat through our hull plating,” replied Lyemad, relieved he had analyzed it in time.

  Slabriel had been standing at the time Tessslan veered, and he clumsily staggered around until he tripped over his fins. Finally standing up again he said, “Wow, that was not very dignified was it?”

  Tessslan apologized profusely to him and so did Lyemad, while Bellmus and Timsssack reassured him that everything was ok. Bichael, with as much sincerity as he could work up said, “You handled yourself much better than I would have in that situation.”

  In the mean time, Tessslan had lowered the ship down to the clearing and they could see many of the city’s inhabitants gathering around it. They were humanoid, but the first thing the crew recognized was that their heads were twice the size of the Electerian or Angelian’s heads. They wore loose fitting, colorful clothing in layers. They averaged about six feet tall and moved slow and methodically as they walked with their hands folded in front of them. They did not appear to be afraid—just curious about the ship and its occupants. Their skin was golden brown, offset by long flaming red hair that curled in big locks around their faces as it flowed down to their waists.

  Perplexed by the size of their heads, Bellmus mumbled, “Maybe we had better not drink the water, there may be something in it.”

  Lyemad was looking out the front window while the Warp-cells were folding together for landing when he sarcastically said, “And they say that I have a big head.”

  By the time the Volkran touched down, more than a hundred beings had surrounded them. They all just stood staring at the ship not saying a word. Bellmus, Timsssack, Slabriel, Lyemad, Tessslan, and Bichael all went to the front hatch to make first contact. The rest of the Ambassadors would join them once everything appeared to be safe.

  Bellmus, with his hand on the open button said, “When we get to the bottom of the ramp, I will hold out the translator and introduce myself. I hope that one of them will say something that the translator will be able to decipher. If anything goes wrong, I want everyone to kneel as a sign of non-aggression. Otherwise, remember that we are representatives of the “Styner Alliance of Planets” and must conduct ourselves accordingly.”

  Opening the hatch and extending the narrow steel ramp, Bellmus stepped out and once again experienced the shortness of breath that he always felt when visiting Graznos. He noticed that even though it was a clear sunny day the light was not very bright. The reddish-orange light from Paylee tinted the sky and surrounding landscape. It reminded him of a famous painting, on Electerus, of a mythological world full of dragons and brave warriors. Then glancing down at the foot of the ramp he observed an exceptionally large headed being—even for this race—move front and center of the rest.

  At the bottom of the ramp, Bellmus held out the translator about waist high and said, “I am Sir Bellmus of the house of Tomolack, we come in peace from the Styner star system.”

  Without hesitation, the being responded with a string of sounds something like this; “Cluck click Irp Op, Ip stick mip Stir. Blick mat vind mot, vick low da tee Stin Grut.” After a brief moment of nervous silence, the Translator started squeaking and squawking until out came, “I am Irpis, Keeper of the Truth. Who are you, and why have you come to Noteorius Minor?” That, of course, being the Electerian translation of their world’s name.

  Repeating his first greeting, Bellmus added, “I would like to present this Universal Translator to you as a token of our friendship,” as he handed it to Irpis.

  “I thank you for this gift, but no one has said we are friends,” Irpis replied in a matter of fact way. “We are a quiet race and we like our solitude. I am curious however, about this Styner star. We have mapped out the stars quite well, but I do not recognize that name. Perhaps you could show us exactly where it is.”

  “Yes, I believe I can,” answered Bellmus, “with your daytime sky being so dimly lit, you should be able to see it right… There it is… that little bright one right there. It is a White Dwarf,” as he pointed two index fingers at it.

  “I see,” Said Irpis, “we call that ‘Vinderblick’,” he paused seeming to be in deep thought. “We will extend our hospitality to you for an exchange of information, but then you must leave our world and respect our privacy.”

  Bellmus made brief introductions of all the Ambassadors, and Irpis introduced some city officials then escorted their guests into the large municipality. Docuville, as the Noteorians called it, was set up in the shape of a wheel, with the City Hall as the hub and streets going out from it in all directions—like spokes. Progressively larger circular streets formed rings that connected the spokes together every couple-hundred feet. The streets were wide and busy with venders of all kinds set up in them. At the center of each street, which ran in and out from the City Hall, there were small carts that moved on a cable system. Carts could enter or exit the main cable line at various points along the way, allowing fast and easy access without disrupting the flow of other carts. Each cable system continued out of the city and connected with the smaller towns. Most of the bu
ildings were only two or three stories tall, except for the City Hall, which stood twelve stories high and had a golden dome topped with a pointed pinnacle.

  Lyemad was wondering why Irpis and the other Noteorians did not speak during the walk from the clearing to the City Hall. It made him very nervous, and he guessed that the other Ambassadors were nervous also—based on the amount of chattering they were doing. Irpis never even answered any of the questions the Ambassadors asked him, but maybe it was because everyone was talking at the same time. In any case, Lyemad was glad when they made it in to the City Hall and Irpis told them all to sit down.

  Once everyone was seated inside the City Hall, Irpis asked Bellmus, “Why have you traveled so far from your home world?”

  “We are on a peaceful mission to explore other worlds in order to make new friends and learn more about our great galaxy,” answered Bellmus. “Now, permit me to ask you a question. Why are you called the ‘Keeper of the Truth’, and how do you keep the truth, or for that matter what truth are you keeping?”

  “I will answer all three of your questions at one time by saying that I am responsible for making sure that any history that is rewritten or copied from old text has to conform to all previous texts on the matter. I reject any discrepancies from public records until corrected. This protects the truth of our history,” said Irpis.

  “How do you cross reference every book ever written on a particular topic to make sure there are no mistakes?” asked Bellmus.

  “That is easy and instantaneous. I have every book ever entered into public record memorized,” answered Irpis.

  “How many books is that?” inquired Bellmus.

  “There are fifty two thousand one hundred and thirty eight,” rattled off Irpis, “and there are three that I am currently proofing.”

  “Wow! I must say that is amazing. I do not know anyone who has memorized even one book,” marveled Bellmus.

  “Most Noteorians can memorize up to forty thousand books—a few of us can go as high as sixty thousand. The council chose us to protect our history. There are three of us at any given time and two must agree before accepting or rejecting a new book,” said Irpis.