by Barry Kirwan
Mannekhi – human-looking alien race except for their all-black eyes. Level Five. They sided with Qorall in the ongoing galactic war, due to millennia of oppression under Grid rule.
Nganks – full name Ngankfushtora – squid-like Level Twelve cosmetic surgeons whose services are usually reserved for higher-level species.
Ossyrians – dog-like Level Eight medical race, charged as humanity’s custodians after the trial, their eighteen-year long stay on Esperia led by Chahat-Me.
Qorall [kwo-rahl] – ancient enemy of the Kalarash, and invader of the galaxy.
Q’Roth [kyu-roth] – Level Six nomadic warrior race who culled Earth as part of the maturation process for its hatchlings, in a deal with the Alicians. Currently engaged as soldiers trying to stop the progress of Qorall’s forces across the galaxy. The Q’Roth are formal Patrons of the Alicians.
Rangers – Level Fifteen taciturn reptilian creatures working for the Tla Beth. Ranger Shatrall crash-landed in Tibet in the early part of the twelfth century and realized the Q’Roth had targeted humanity for culling. He was unsure the Level Three assessment of humanity was correct, and so unofficially warned a local warrior tribe who became the Alicians’ principal adversary, the Sentinels.
Resident – internal alien-designed symbiote implanted in Micah’s head prior to the Trial of humanity, which acts as a semi-intelligent Level Five translator, with various additional survival-oriented functions.
Savange – new home planet of the Alicians, ruled by Sister Esma.
Scintarelli – Level Twelve legendary master shipbuilders, whose shipyards dwell in gas giants. Their star-ship designs include the Starpiercer and the Scythe.
Sclarese [skla-ray-zee] Nova Stormers – Level Nine semi-intelligent stealth missiles based on energy amplification technology, aimed at turning stars nova. Built by the Sclarese.
Sentinels – blood enemies of the Alicians, involved in a silent war over a period of nine centuries. Last remaining Sentinel alive is Ramires. Sentinels were famous for their nano-swords, able to slice through a Q’Roth warrior’s armoured flesh.
Shrell – Level Nine matriarchal ray-like creatures who live in deep space, guardians and ‘gardeners’ of the space-environment, invisible to most other species. As well as protecting and ‘fixing’ spatial tears, they can also ‘poison’ space. They work for the Tla Beth.
Spiders – Level Four race harvested by the Q’Roth one thousand years prior to the culling on Earth. Homeworld called Ourshiwann, renamed Esperia. Visually-oriented race, otherwise deaf and mute. Now live in Shimsha, near Esperantia, humanity’s last city.
Steaders – the ‘non-genned’ human population on Esperia, so called because of the preponderance of farms and homesteads surrounding Esperantia.
Tla Beth – Level Seventeen energy creatures, rulers of the Grid in the absence of the Kalarash. Homeworld location unknown.
Transpar – Blake’s pilot Zack was transformed by the Tla Beth into a glass-like transparent living witness, unable to lie, and devoid (mostly) of his original personality, as part of the judicial procedure during the trial of mankind. Zack’s wife Sonja decided to keep the Transpar rather than let it be returned to the Tla Beth after the trial and be destroyed. The Transpar’s longevity and capabilities are unknown.
Wagramanians – Level Seven forest-dwelling tripeds famed for art, but also employed by the Tla Beth as shock troops during times of interstellar war.
Abbreviated Galactic Historical Timeline
Ossyrian School Notes for Genners
TIME (past)
EVENT
~2 billion years
War between Kalarash and Qorall in Jannahi Galaxy. Qorall believed dead. Galaxy destroyed. Seven Kalarash escape to Silverback Galaxy (human name: “Milky Way”).
Dark Age
Various civilisations rise and fall. Five Kalarash leave Galaxy.
10 million years
Grid Society founded under Kalarash guidance. Grid is a transport hub traversing a third of the galaxy. Grid Society strongly hierarchical based on Levels of intelligence. Kalarash are Level 19. [Humanity graded Level 3].
2 million years
Kalarash disappear. Level 17 Tla Beth (energy beings) left in charge, supported by Level 15 Rangers (reptilian).
50000 years
Anxorian (Level Sixteen) Rebellion threatens Grid. Tla Beth genetically alter Grid species 195 [Q’Roth] to become galactic foot-soldiers. Rebellion quashed. Anxorian species extinguished.
40000 years
Ossyrian (Level 8) race patronised by Tla Beth, become Medical race for the galaxy.
Every 1000 years
Due to genetic alteration, Q’Roth newborns must feed on life energy of unsponsored species Level 3 or below, occasionally (where sanctioned by the Tla Beth) Leven 4. Such species are becoming rarer.
~1000 years
Q’Roth harvest pacifist spider race on Ourshiwann (renamed Esperia), but fail to discover egg nests.
~1000 years
Q’Roth scouts land on Earth and broker a deal with the future Alician sect. In exchange for upgrading Alicians to Level 5 and promised sponsorship by Q’Roth, Alicians must keep humanity from collective social advancement and from maintaining weapons harmful to Q’Roth (nuclear/nanotech)
~900 years
Ranger Shattrall crash-lands on Earth. Realises humanity targeted for culling, despite early signs of Level 4 evolution. Warns local Tibetan tribe who become Sentinels. Sentinels engage in silent war with Alicians.
~500 years
Q’Roth terraform Eden, plant egg nests, then enter hibernation period.
40 years
Alicians secretly release nanoplague on Earth. 50 million people die. Nannite technology banned.
30 years
Third World War on Earth. Environment sent into irrecoverable global warming. Nuclear weapon stockpiles dismantled. Alicians gain widespread power via the religious sect known as Fundies.
20 years
Eden discovered. Blake and crew arrive and find Q’Roth eggs hatching, and Hohash artifact, whereby they discover Q’Roth intent. Micah uncovers Alician plot on Earth. Battle ensues. Earth decimated, refugees flee to Esperia. Alicians escape.
19 years
Alician known as Louise hunts down and destroys one refugee ship, killing 2000. Attacks Esperia. Humanity prevails.
19 years
Qorall and his forces attack, break through the galactic barrier, and bring dark worms inside the galaxy.
18 years
Micah and crew enter the Grid. After the self-defence killing of a Q’Roth ambassador, humanity is put on trial by the Tla Beth. Humanity acquitted but placed in protective Quarantine for one generation. All children to be genetically upgraded by Ossyrians.
18 years
Kalarash presence detected on Esperia along with spider egg nests. Kalarash ship disappears with three humans onboard. Believed to have left galaxy, reason unknown.
Today
The Tla Beth, aided by the Q’Roth and other races, have lost half the galaxy to Qorall’s armies. The eldest human ‘genned’ child is now eighteen. The spider eggs have long-since hatched and the spiders now live in Shimsha, near Esperantia.
In one week
Quarantine will come down. Ossyrians are scheduled to leave soon afterwards. Humanity will have to fend for itself.
Petra’s notes on the Galactic Timeline
1. The last Kalarash (apparently) was hiding on Esperia, and left just before Quarantine, along with three people: Jennifer, Dimitri and Rashid. Why was it here? Maybe they’ll come back.
2. The Ossyrians have been kind to us, especially my godmother, Chahat-Me.
3. Micah is just about holding things together between Steaders and Genners on Esperia. Tensions will spike as Quarantine down-date approaches. Good luck, Uncle.
4. Blake is now a recluse, lives in Shimsha with the spiders. No one goes there, except Micah, though not in a long while. Zack’s Transpar sometimes goes
to see Blake.
5. Mom1 (Kat) disappeared two years ago, after she went looking in caves where the Kalarash ship was last seen. Someone abducted her, but who, and why? Mom2 (Antonia) devastated. Buries herself in work for the Council.
6. Father (Pierre – never met him) disappeared with a Ranger known as Ukrull just before Quarantine. He’s never coming back.
7. Gabriel, beautiful as ever, still intent on revenge against the Alicians as soon as Quarantine comes down. Micah is trying to keep him in check, but that won’t work for much longer.
8. We’ve become farmers. People don’t want to face the prospect of another war or battle, hoping instead that the Alicians and Q’Roth have lost interest. But Gabriel and his Youngbloods might be right: the old enemies may be waiting just outside Quarantine, in which case we’d better be prepared.
9. Being Level Four isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. We’ve gained a lot, but we may have lost something along the way; most Steaders certainly think so. No turning back now, though.
10. We are defenceless and blind, unknowing of what is out there. The Quarantine has been an eighteen-year stay of execution. If only there was someone out there, an ally who gave a damn about us, especially with the ongoing Galactic War. We are on our own, perhaps about to be written out of history. But we’ll go down fighting, as long as we get the chance.
PART ONE
QUARANTINE
Chapter One
Duel
Micah stood on Hazzard’s Ridge surveying Esperantia, the last human city, wondering if it would still exist in a week’s time. He glanced upwards to the clear blue sky where the invisible quarantine barrier hung, protecting them these past eighteen years from alien invaders. One more week and the barrier would come down. Then they would see if anyone was out there waiting for them.
Esperantia’s zinc-coated buildings gleamed in the late afternoon sun, laid out like the eight points of a compass star. As his eyes swept across the city he’d helped build, his vision stalled on the blood orange blister at the southern perimeter – the dome – where the duel awaited him. People were already gathering. Micah’s resident, an alien gift lodged in the software of his mind, dating back to his brief time travelling in the Grid, reminded him of the hour, flashing a subtle countdown in his left eye’s visual field. It was getting late, but Micah was in no hurry to arrive, especially given how he intended to try and win the match.
He gazed beyond the outlying farms – a patchwork quilt of corn, rapeseed and astrasa – to the Ossyrian crystal pyramid, three kilometers away at the far end of the valley. The three hundred metre tall vessel glistened, reflecting tangerine rays as Esperia’s sun dipped towards the Acarian Mountains. The giant space ship housed humanity’s guardians, a hundred and fifteen Ossyrians, who rarely ventured outside these days. Micah could barely imagine how it had been for the upright, dog-like aliens, enduring all these years as mankind’s caretakers, trapped with them in the quarantine placed around the planet. Still, under Ossyrian husbandry, crops had prospered and humanity’s surviving ranks had doubled to twenty thousand and, thanks to Ossyrian medical wizadry, mankind was disease-free for the first time in its history.
Yet Esperantia was a divided community, and Micah had been instrumental in that social division. Facing annihilation, he’d negotiated protection for mankind in exchange for an agreement that all future human children would undergo genetic manipulation, to advance them from what the ruling pan-galactic alien Grid Society called Level Three, to Level Four, a kind of basic entry point to avoid future culling. It had seemed a good idea at the time, in fact the only non-terminal solution on the table.
The resulting Genner children, the eldest just eighteen, had been incredibly resourceful with the basic materials available on Esperia, whether in agriculture, developing more efficient crop strains and irrigation methods, or energy, creating new solar cell systems that boosted lighting and heating for the entire city. Even if parents couldn’t always relate to their kids, they were proud of them. But it had been a high price to pay. One father had summed it up neatly a month ago at a Council meeting, addressing Micah, who was, after all, President.
“They’re unemotional… cold. No other word for it, though few parents will say it aloud. I… I watch my son, but I can’t reach him. He’s way smarter than me, has been since he was twelve.” The man paced before Micah and other Council members, who could offer little solace. He continued, wringing his hands. “And what have we created? Our old enemies, our ‘cousins’ the Alicians, were genned to Level Five by the Q’Roth, and they damned near exterminated us. You, Micah, you and Blake, you fought so hard to save us so that humanity would survive. But now we’re doing the same thing to ourselves. Don’t you see?”
Micah did see. If he could turn back time…
His train of thought was interrupted by the sound of the young Genners’ polyphonous chant carried along the breeze, their adolescent voices sharp and clear. He paused to watch their procession along the main street leading to the dome. Most ungenned people – all, if they were honest – could not really appreciate the mathematical music. But many of the parents trooped behind, trying to follow a rhythmic melody that Micah knew was too fractal for ungenned tastes. His resident supplied subtle harmonics and he heard how clever it was, brilliant by normal human standards, but also how clinical, lacking emotional resonance. That about sums it up.
Zooming in, courtesy of his other secret ‘gift’, a bunch of overactive nannites his former friend Pierre had injected him with just before Quarantine, he picked out tall and wiry Gabriel, his opponent in the upcoming duel. Next to him, Sandy oozed pride for her son. Micah hadn’t seen her for two years. Squatting, he hefted a large stone in his hands, to keep his balance. Down below, Ramires came up to Gabriel and Sandy, and Sandy kissed her partner full on the lips. The stone snapped in Micah’s palms with a loud crack. A line of blood appeared on his right palm, fizzed grey, and withdrew, healing in seconds, courtesy of the nannites. His resident began to intrude, telling him to get going. Micah ignored it, and spoke to the wind. “Pierre, wherever the hell you are out there, couldn’t you have given me something more useful?”
But Pierre had left him something far more precious. Micah tried to pick his adopted niece, Pierre’s daughter Petra, out of the crowd, but couldn’t find her. Micah had never married, though he’d had offers he largely attributed to his being President; he’d never had children, and now figured it was too late. But he cherished Petra as if she were his own daughter. He kept his fondness for her hidden, though; in the past, every time he’d let his feelings for someone be known, it had always backfired, and he couldn’t stand to lose anyone else.
His mind returned to the end of Quarantine, the Alician/Q’Roth potential threat, and the Genner issue. Genners were faster, stronger, more intelligent, able to truly multi-task, and adept with languages and art. Most of them weren’t children anymore, and like all adolescents they wanted to be treated as equals. But while most Genners were pacifist in outlook, and some even apologetic for their enhanced abilities, the Youngbloods were a breed apart. They held a strong lust for vengeance against the Alicians who had almost eradicated humanity.
Micah never quite understood why the Youngbloods were more angry with mankind’s mortal enemy than their parents were, who after all had suffered near-annihilation first-hand. He wished the psychologist Carlson was still around to try and explain it. Eight years ago, Petra, who wasn’t tattooed but nevertheless spent all her time hanging out with this warrior caste, told Micah he must ask Gabriel himself. Instead, a year later, he’d asked Ramires, the last Sentinel, and the Youngbloods’ trainer in the arts of war. Ramires had been indignant…
“Don’t you want the Alicians dead, too, Micah? Sister Esma? Louise? Seven billion people slaughtered, their voices silenced forever. Don’t you feel them waiting, watching, demanding justice? Do you sleep well, Micah, knowing the Alicians and the Q’Roth are still out there, probably plotting out demise?”
Micah didn’t sleep well. But he’d argued with Ramires, pressing him as to why the Genners should take up the cause so fervently. Then Sandy came out. He’d not seen her in ages, and the sight of her stilled him in an instant. She spoke with that same cutting edge he’d once loved to hear. Hell, he still did, but she belonged to Ramires now.
“It’s not so hard to grasp, Micah. Genners may be less emotional, but they’re not blind. They see the sacrifice their parents made, the one to which you bound us all.”
Ramires’ eyes widened. “Darling, that’s not fair. Even our son, Gabriel –”
Sandy’s eyes remained fixed on Micah, ignoring her husband. “They think relativistically, Micah, long term, causes stretching backwards, effects rushing forwards; one of the gifts you handed them. The way they see it, the Alicians have exterminated humanity, because in fifty years time, even if they do nothing, all that will be left will be Genners. Our children –” her voice quavered “– my son Gabriel, and others like him, wish to avenge us, their parents, while we still breathe. You have denied us all so much already, do you deny them that right as well?” She turned and headed back inside Ramires’ cottage, not waiting for an answer.