Seeds of Memory

by J. Richard Jacobs

  “Rammix is working on it, Shaul. A few more seconds and..."

  * * * *

  Fourteen shuttles streaked unseen and unheard across the Pazian sky, high above the crystalline clouds of ice enshrouding the planet below. Over the Sherman Volcano Field, past the glassy obsidian slabs and ancient lava floes, over the sterile sands of the Northern Desert, and, as they passed over the line where the sea slammed huge blocks of ice against the edge of the Continent, they gracefully swung into a long, opening spiral that would take them southward to the equator for their rendezvous with a cylinder named La Paz, waiting four thousand kilometers above.

  Inside, the passengers lined up for a turn at the windows to see what no Pazian had ever seen. Above them in the deep purple darkness of space was the blazing ball of Vegamwun, and when they looked the other way there they saw thousands of intense points of light of various colors punctuating the silent darkness. Almug, no longer dull orange, appeared as a ruddy brown crescent. Patches of bright blue and white dotted what was visible of the surface, and its lighted side was bordered in a hazy, pale blue line, mingling with white areas that seemed to have been stroked in lightly with a soft brush—wisps of clouds. Below, as far as the eye could see, lay a shimmering carpet of frozen cloud that faded off into an indistinct curved line.

  Niki and Pasha stood, wrapped around each other in the stillness of the navigation compartment's clear dome, taking in the panorama of a sky so long hidden from them.

  “Niki,” she said, pressing her body into his. “I'm ... I'm frightened."

  “And who isn't, my love? Just look at all this. It's too much for me to comprehend. I knew what it would be like, my dreams—"

  “No, Niki. Not this—this is ... beautiful. It's frightening, too, but it's wonderful. I'm talking about Paz."

  “Paz?"

  “Uh-huh. What's going to happen down there? It's our home—our people, Niki."

  “I know, Pasha. I know. But they'll work it out for themselves. It may take some time, but the new order of things will settle in."

  “How can you be so sure? Tazh may be insane, but he's strong, and he's smart. And he has a loyal following. What if ... what if he wins? Where would that leave us—them?"

  “He won't win. He can't."

  “Oh? And why not?"

  “Because there are too many people like Harko and Trak—and that man of his ... Wills, I believe is his name—to let that happen."

  “I wish I could believe that as much as you seem to."

  “You've forgotten that the Fathers have returned. It could be that they're here to make sure their plan is being followed. Everything we know of them from the Ancient Record and the Guardians tells me that Paz will be a much better place very soon. Their arrival tells me, too, that Earth still exists, and that, for some reason, is comforting to me."

  “I hope you're right."

  “I am. If there's any fighting at all, it will be the shortest battle in the history of the universe. They'll dismantle the mating scheme, restructure the justice system, and settle down in a warm new dawn with a new civilization. It can't go any other way."

  “We'll never know, will we?"

  “You mean what actually happens here?"

  “Uh-huh."

  “No, I don't suppose we will. All this will be ancient history. It will be just yesterday for us, but a thousand years or more for them."

  “My stomach churns when I think about that. Um—Niki, can you tell me now why there's only one of you?"

  “There's only one of each of us."

  “No, silly,” she said with her wonderful giggle. “One Delta."

  “Oh, that. Sure. It wasn't supposed to be that way."

  “No?"

  “No. The Fathers expected there would be thousands, so there would be a few at least who had the memories they needed to carry out this part of the plan. There was only one seed, but that was because of the limited breeding possibilities for the Delta line."

  “That part I can understand. But why are you the only one with a direct line?"

  “Luck. An accident. The Guardians told me about how worried they were when they realized what was happening to the Delta line. See, part of the Delta genetic program is a strong tendency toward independent decision and action. It's sort of funny, when you think about it, but my line may well be responsible for the first untracs, and there are thousands of splinter Deltas around, too."

  “Are you telling me that one of the traits required in the Deltas to accomplish what we're doing could just as easily have been a cause for the failure of everything the Fathers wanted to happen? Your father could have paired all this all out of existence?"

  “That's right, Pasha. Or his father, or his father's father. Anyone, anywhere in my line. All the other lines termed long ago for lots of different reasons."

  * * * *

  “Have you decided how you're going to begin?"

  “Yeah. How does this sound? ‘On the third day of the Halfyear festival honoring the landing of the Fathers and our Ancients, five hundred eighty-six brave and resolute souls vaulted into the heavens above Paz. Paz, in the clutches of the coldest Minor Tides in its brief human history, was perched on the brink of civil war...’ What do you think, Bo?"

  “A couple of things."

  “What ... things?"

  “Number one, I thought the title Niki bestowed on you was Chief Historian, not Head Hack."

  “Hack? What's hack?"

  “Second, Niki doesn't want any mention of the Fathers, Ancients, seed lots, or any of that stuff. He wants a history of the flight, where we came from, and how we managed to get to wherever we get to."

  “Sounds pretty dull, to me."

  “Not as boring as Sax Facts, my friend."

  “You read it? All of it?"

  “Pretty boring. Just remember, this is a history of how we left Paz to expand the human galactic horizon, nothing more."

  “I like that. It has a certain sound to it. Expand the human galactic horizon. Can I use it?"

  “Use whatever you want, Filo. Just remember, I'm the appointed editor."

  “Right. What's a hack?"

  “Never mind. Help me get this stuff stored. They're going to be calling us to the chambers pretty soon."

  “You know, I've heard a couple say they think we're bound for self-termination. What do you think, Bo?"

  “Negative crap."

  A soft electronic chime cut their conversation short. Shan, thankful for the interruption, moved carefully—twenty percent Pazian gravity provided by the ship's spin made any kind of movement uncertain—to the door and slid it open. Niki stood in the passage, looking content for the first time since they'd met back in the Flag Quarter.

  “Evening, Bo. Filo. It's time, my friends."

  “Good,” Shan said, casting an obvious glance at Sax. “Niki, how does the law read regarding breaking literary contracts?"

  “I don't know. We haven't written one about making them, yet."

  “Niki, do you know what a hack is?” Sax asked.

  “No, you'll have to ask Bo about that."

  “Do we know where we're going now?” Shan said, and sealed the compartment door behind them.

  “A place called Delta Trianguli Australis. Adjusted for our reckoning, it's going to take a little more than eight hundred and seventy-five years for us to get there."

  Ascending the ladder to the core tunnel was an unnerving experience. Each rung scaled brought with it a more acute sense of falling. Niki was already accustomed, but most were not. He floated in the passage, one hand resting comfortably on the rod that ran the length of the core tube, and waited patiently for the two men who cautiously followed.

  “I don't know, Niki,” Shan said when he reached for the rod, missed, and bounced off the tube on the other side. “It figures, doesn't it?"

  “What figures?"

  “Our destination's a Delta."

  “I hadn't given that any thought, Bo, but you'll be happy to hear
it's a single G4 class. It's a little more energetic than Vegamwun, but its potential planets may not be subjected to such extreme orbits as Paz."

  “Right—if it has any,” Sax quipped, repeating Shan's miserable performance with the rod.

  * * *

  Chapter XXXI

  Lavan stood quietly in the small entry to the navigator's compartment, watching Pax and Miller fuss over a large, horizontal monitor. She tried clicking her nails against the bulkhead but got no response. Clearing her throat netted the same lack of recognition.

  “Feels good to have genuine gravity, even if it is too much,” she said loudly enough to be heard over the rumble of the shuttle's powerful engines, which held them suspended above the planet.

  “Don't sneak, Marta ... and the gravity's just a little less than ten percent over standard,” Pax replied, not taking her eyes from the monitor.

  “I didn't sneak,” Lavan said, rocking up on the balls of her feet, then back over her heels. “And ten percent counts up to six extra kilos I have to lug around."

  “Braggart. Come over here and take a look at this."

  “I didn't say anything about you gaining mass on the fall in,” Lavan said as she approached the monitor. “Why have we stopped?"

  “Mapping for detail."

  “Mmm, looks like a busy place for being so damned cold. What are these?” she asked, pointing to several dots moving across the screen.

  “Small surface vehicles. A few minutes ago there were a couple hundred of them. Most of them are now in this little town—it looks like a town, anyway—where the fires are."

  “Some fires. Know what they're for?"

  “Central heating?” Miller said with a laugh.

  “We don't know, but they were deliberately set and controlled. They're organized around some sort of raised platform. Put the picture up on the main viewer for her, Sam."

  Miller punched at the keyboard without looking, and a large screen lighted with surrealistic images of twenty-four roaring fires that surrounded a circular structure, its image writhing in the heat, while several hundred indistinct shapes moved around the area.

  “And these shapes? What are they?"

  “The locals. I called them blobs, but Rammix insists they're ‘biological entities.’ Speaking of biological, Rammix also says the smoke from those fires is carrying large quantities of what he says is of animal origin—fatty acids and stuff."

  “Sacrifices?"

  “Either that or we're missing out on one terrific cook-out,” Miller quipped.

  “Whatever they were for, there are the natives we were looking for, Marta."

  “Uh-huh. What are these?” she said, indicating two lines of dots on the mapping monitor. They were stationary, with numbers flashing beside each.

  “More vehicles, but much larger. These—the ones closest to the town—are huge. During entry Rammix recorded them moving from a place along this ridge in the south. The others—back here—were originally on the ground with them, but they just moved to an altitude of five thousand meters and spread out along the line you see now."

  “You know, Alex, if I didn't think it impossible, I'd say that looks like a classic lineup for a frontal assault on that town."

  “That was our thinking, too. Why don't you think it possible?"

  “I can't say, Alex. Maybe because I assumed they'd be too busy building and surviving to waste their time in such pursuits. What happened to the ISCU shuttles that were down there?"

  “They moved out early and docked with ISCU-9 more than an hour ago."

  “Do we know why?"

  “Not a clue."

  “But the ISCU was outside the system before and—"

  “And we don't have any answers for that, either."

  “With all this going on, are you still planning to make the landing there?"

  “No. I think the risk is too great—there's no sense in dropping into the middle of what may be someone's argument and making their problems our problem. I think we're going to look for another, more isolated spot to set down in."

  “Where?"

  “Somewhere near the equator. Hermes is relocating now, and I think we had better get out of here before we're seen."

  “Warmth?"

  “Better than here,” Miller said as he put up the planet's most recent meteorological conditions on the large screen. “See? Less wind, less snow, and a lot more cloud. Probably absolutely dismal on the ground, but at least it's not frozen solid and covered with snow."

  “Wonderful."

  “Alex, we are being swept,” the Rammix announced.

  “Source?"

  “The elevated vehicles."

  “Purpose?"

  “Unknown. Signal type indicates high-energy radar."

  “They know we're here,” Lavan said, then looked inquisitively at Pax.

  “Don't worry, Marta, I'm not going to play with them. Not now. We're going to the tropics, like I said."

  “Then, let's go before they have a chance to force things."

  “Marta, they're not going to—"

  “Multiple missile launch,” the Rammix reported.

  “How many and what is their target?"

  “Eight. We are the target."

  “Sound the alert, Rammix—and advise the others in the flight."

  “Sit down and strap in, Marta, we're going for a ride."

  “South?"

  “South. Rammix, destroy the incoming missiles but don't cause any damage to the vehicles below, then activate the alignment program."

  “Yes, Alex."

  “I thought you said you weren't going to play."

  “This isn't play. I don't want them—whoever they are—to get the idea we can be pushed or intimidated. This is a simple defensive action on our part and a good object lesson for them, without causing any damage to them directly."

  “Maybe."

  “All right, what's that supposed to mean?"

  “Only that we may have taken up the gauntlet they threw down—if that's what it was."

  “She could be right,” Miller added. “If they're not the human colonists, we don't know how they think or how they react to stimuli. Alien means alien reasoning, you know?"

  * * * *

  Site One was constructed in sixteen frustratingly short, cold, and depressingly gray days. It was located on the eastern side of the planet's largest land mass at a place just north of the equator, where the land bulged out into the sea, taking a not quite peninsular stab into the water, water colored gray-green by its shallowness and the reflection of a monotonous silver-gray, crystalline overcast. A faint outline of a yellowish disk wrapped in a gossamer halo marked the location of Gamma One.

  During the first few days, the absence of shadow to gauge time and place shortened tempers already riding a thin line and hindered progress. On the sixteenth day of construction, two things happened that reached down and dredged morale up from consuming, crushing boredom—even prompted something of a celebration. The final gleaming panel of durastan was secured to Site One's dome, causing a minor stir. But the first break in the overcast occasioned a boisterous pandemonium as witnesses to the event bounced, jumped, and danced at the sight of their shadows not yet bold. They cavorted with them, and their shadows followed their every move, just as shadows are supposed to do.

  The location for Site One, renamed Reese Station, was chosen for its isolation and natural defenses. In most respects it wasn't unlike the rest of what they had seen of the planet. Rugged. New. There seemed to be no truly old formations anywhere. What had been originally taken as rolling hills, evidence of mountains worn by time, the Rammix declared to be merely a wrinkling of the lithosphere not yet severe enough to have broken it.

  West of Reese Station, a line of mountains sprang abruptly from the terrain, its loftier, snow-covered peaks scratching the sky at five thousand meters, well above the daily dappled overcast. In the north, the mountains curved eastward, saw-toothing their way into the ocean, where they dwind
led into an incredibly steep-sided archipelago, finally disappearing in a staggered line of rocky pinnacles beneath the water. South of Reese Station, a kilometer-wide rift cut a tortuously broken path from the sea to the unyielding face of the mountains. The nearest known inhabited region was a comfortable eight hundred kilometers west, in a desert plain riddled with deep fissures.

  On the thirty-first day, the laser rail was activated and Reese Station was deemed technically viable. Then the discussions began. Should they continue the SESC brand of militaristic organization, consider a more democratic state, or resort to a communal style of government for an interim structure, until their presence and future became more secure? There ensued considerable debate, somewhat heated argument, a few fist fights, but, in the end, it was unanimously determined that they would stay with the familiar until their security was no longer in question.

  “What are you going to do, Alex?” Lavan asked as she slowly traced circular patterns on the table and stared into her cup, her body fatigued from another day of excess gravity.

  “First thing is to build a secure infrastructure, including a supply of raw materials and food to supplement what we have and what can be grown here. Otherwise we run the risk of our technology collapsing. With what we know about conditions here, it won't take more than six or seven years before we start losing ground to this place if we don't act now."

  “That's not exactly what I had in mind, Alex. What about contact with the colonists who occupied this place before we got here? They may be able to help us."

  “We don't know yet that what we saw were the colonists, and, after the welcome we got, I'd say it's best to avoid them until we're sure of our independent survival."

  “But we have an obligation to—"

  “What obligation? You were the one who said our contract with—"

  “The contract has nothing to do with this."

  “Oh, then what does?"

  “If we could make contact with just one of them, we might get all the answers we need to ensure our survival and a lot more."

  “Aha! Now I know what's on your mind."

  “What?"

  “You can't wait to dig into their DNA. Yes, that's it. You want one of them under your microscope."