As the afternoon sun begins its slow descent, Tavis points to a thin green line on the horizon: the Great T’Kala Sea, the northern border of the Forge. Another hour of walking and our journey is over. The highest frequency sonic shower cannot have been more rejuvenating than those green, brackish waves. My parched skin rejoices.
A hovercraft picks us up the next morning. Tavis and I exchange the Vulcan salute as he returns to his cavern home. “Live long and prosper,” he wishes me, and I wish him the same, knowing full well he already has. As the hovercraft returns me to the shuttleport at ShariKahr, I begin to understand the degree to which the Vulcan landscape and climate shaped the Vulcan psyche.
On a gentler, less severe world, Vulcans would never have become so reckless or so bloody. But had they not been seized by violent passions, they would have never felt the need to master them.
The logic, it seems to me, is inescapable.
CARDASSIA
THE GLORIES OF THE HEBITIANS
A reliquary of this type was believed to have been buried with every monarch. This one is a magnificent example of the height of Hebitian engraving techniques. Standing over two meters tall, it is topped with a depiction of the ancient god of the underworld and a slumbering toj’lath. The fatted toj'lath symbolizes the monarch, and the god is seeking to wake the ruler for his journey to the next life.
Everywhere I walk in the curved, low-ceilinged expanse of the ancient, stone burial vault, its contents illuminated by a series of humble tripod lamps, I’m dazzled by the kind of material splendor most sentient beings can only dream about.
On one hand, a four-legged predator with a narrow, scaled head stands over the carcass of a fat, horned herd animal—both beasts rendered in solid latinum. Elsewhere, a polished silver funerary mask, expressing a joyous serenity, lies face-up on a ceremonial table of dark s’fajanah wood inlaid with strips of bright red jevonite. In a third place, a vase carved from blue-veined volcanic rock imitates the generous blossom of the kegopi bush, which grows only on the highest peaks of the Opuuya Mountain Range.
A shrine-chest made of intricately carved white mastafh bone overlaid with red gold is surmounted by a canopy of entwined ebony serpents. Jevonite statues of the four ancient death spirits surround the chest—each one an elegant female figure with outstretched arms, so fervent and devoted in their postures and their expressions that I almost feel the need to avert my eyes.
Oil-burning lamps made of gold are piled together, traces of oil still lingering in them. Silver belt buckles depict bountiful hunts and harvests that took place thousands of years ago. On an intricately carved chair, latinum-plated panels represent sleek, long-maned zabos drinking at a lake. A jevonite boat with a curved prow—the size of a child’s toy—sails the waters of a bygone age.
And there’s more. A good deal more.
Heaps of gem-encrusted armbands sprawl haphazardly, sparkling like dragon scales in the lamplight. Glittering necklaces and dramatic pectorals adorn almost every inch of the walls. Finely worked finger-rings that could each buy a year’s supply of regova eggs are displayed in the rotting remains of round wooden boxes.
The chamber describes a continuous loop, beginning and ending at the same vestibular passageway. I’m told this is the first time this sort of layout has been discovered. I can’t say from personal experience, however, because it’s my first time in such a tomb.
As I admire these ancient treasures, I find it difficult to believe that I’m on Cardassia Prime. This trove of magnificent, jeweled artifacts seems out of place, not the handiwork of the austere Cardassians. Of course, they didn’t call themselves Cardassians at the time of this chamber’s construction.
In those days, they called themselves Hebitians.
The Hebitian Age, also known as the Age of the Five Kingdoms, was a golden one on Cardassia Prime. It was a time of peace and plenty that began some six thousand years ago and didn’t break its stride for nearly four millennia.
But there’s a good deal more than the passage of time separating modern Cardassians from their ancient antecedents. Where Cardassians are ascetic to the point of obsession, the Hebitians were in love with excess. Where Cardassian art is relentlessly didactic, Hebitian murals and sculptures were designed only to stimulate the senses. Where Cardassians pride themselves on precision and formality, the Hebitians were almost perversely spontaneous.
Though events have conspired to level the greater part of the Hebitians’ once-proud cities, there’s still enough of them left intact to give us an idea of what they looked like. The Hebitian capitals were undeniably glorious and exalted places, with bright, expansive plazas and graceful towers nearly thirty meters high, home to vibrant marketplaces and bustling seaports and one sprawling holiday revel after another.
It’s no wonder that Cardassians look back at their Hebitian forebears with a sense of longing … and loss.
The air in the chamber is close and musty, with a faint metallic tang to it. But then, it was sealed until just a few weeks ago, when a Dominion energy blast uncovered its vestibule quite by accident.
The irony was instantly palpable to everyone who learned of the incident—that an act of aggression designed to crush the Cardassians should have revealed a prime relic of the Hebitian Age. The Federation suggested a joint effort to excavate the site.
So here I am, one of the first Terran archaeologists to set foot in a Hebitian tomb. However, it’s not just the wealth of a bygone age I’ve come to examine. Of equal interest to me is the long, unadorned stone slab that serves as the focal point of the burial chamber.
I recognize it as the royal pallet. Unfortunately, all that’s left of the Hebitian monarch who was laid to rest there is a scattering of bone fragments and a layer of dust. Foolishly, I place my hand over my mouth as I approach them, even though a forcefield now stabilizes the remains, determined not to stir anything.
Simple as it is, the pallet seems terribly out of place in the midst of so much glitter and extravagance. Of everything here, it seems more like the work of the spartan Cardassians than the prodigal Hebitians.
But then, from the Hebitian point of view, there was no more reason to adorn the burial slab than the body laid to rest on it.
The Hebitians didn’t have much regard for a corpse once the life within it had expired. All they cared about was the soul of the deceased and how it would fare on the glorious landscape of the afterlife.
A great many other cultures have shared essentially the same view over the ages, the Klingons, the Anyorrites, and the Ebinda’sar of Xhonos Prime among them. However, it is difficult to imagine an afterlife as rich and bacchanalian as the one contemplated by the Hebitians.
All manner of earthly pleasures were thought to be available there in abundant supply, not to mention magnificent abodes and armies of tireless servants. There was only one catch—the spirit of the deceased had to pay for these perquisites, bribing the celestial spirits with cunningly wrought gifts of jewels and precious metals.
Hence, the prodigious quantities of wealth entombed with the king, so he could obtain whatever he craved in the life after death.
Was this the true first face of the Galor warrior from which Cardassian society takes so many of its forms? Seen beside the dig-project supervisor, the mask evokes many of the distinctive details that are part of traditional Cardassian art.
I have only one regret as I stand in the great stone chamber, surrounded by ancient riches—that I’m not likely to learn the name of the monarch who was buried here. Unlike the other Hebitian tombs that have been unearthed on Cardassia Prime, which seem to be substantially younger, this one doesn’t bear any hieroglyphs to identify its occupant.
Suddenly, a second shadow joins my own, heralding the arrival of someone else in the stone vault. I turn and see that it’s a Cardassian who has come in, but not one of the functionaries who brought me down here. For a moment, I’m at a bit of a loss.
Then I recognize the long-featured visage and the milky
cataract over the Cardassian’s left eye. This is my colleague, Chato Yuqar, with whom I’ve only corresponded by subspace until now.
“Glin Yuqar,” I say, employing his title in the Cardassian militia, where he served as a young man.
Yuqar seems on the verge of smiling at my use of the honorific, which shows I’ve taken the trouble to learn about his accomplishments. But instead, he heaves a sigh.
“I’m glad you’re here,” he tells me, his voice taut with concern about something. Then he takes me by the arm as if we’re old friends and guides me across the burial chamber.
There was no single event in Cardassian history to which one can point and say, “That’s when the Hebitians fell.” More accurately, the civilization of the five kingdoms faded over the course of long centuries.
Still, there were reasons for its decline. One was the depletion of the planet’s resources, which had supported a growing population of aesthetes for thousands of years. Another was the rise of a world-wide ascetic movement.
This new variety of stoics called themselves Cardassians, which meant “people of discipline.” Ignoring the ancient boundaries of the Hebitian kingdoms, their society came to revolve around extended families, where respect for one’s elders superceded respect for one’s monarch.
Cardassian historians have argued for some time over whether the ascetic movement came about independently or as a way of coping with their planet’s worsening impoverishment. It doesn’t seem that argument will be resolved definitively any time soon.
However, one point is indisputable: The Cardassians had a great many centuries of misery ahead of them.
“There is something here you must see,” Yuqar tells me. On the inner wall of the burial chamber, the Hebitians have stored a series of bejeweled shoulder ornaments, some bearing smooth, red chunks of jevonite and others faceted green gems that look a lot like emeralds. Slender links of chain dangle from each pale silver ornament, allowing them to be fastened to the wearer.
At first, I think Yuqar only wants to give me a closer look at the ancient epaulets. Then, glancing over his shoulder at the chamber entrance, he kneels at the base of the wall and uses his hands to apply pressure to one of the ponderous-looking stones there. To my surprise, it yields to my colleague’s touch, sliding away over the smooth, flat stones of the floor until I can’t see it any longer.
As my colleague turns to me, I try to understand what just happened. “There’s an inner chamber?” I ask.
Yuqar nods grimly. “Come,” he says, “I’ll show you.”
Then he snakes his way through the opening, moving with admirable agility for a fellow his age, and is lost to my sight just like the stone.
In 2167, a Cardassian farmer stumbled onto a Hebitian tomb in what was once the kingdom of Klu’haa. Before the discovery was a day old, the burial chamber had been looted by the farmer and his starving neighbors and its treasures exchanged for food on the black market.
Unfortunately, it didn’t do them much good. They all died within weeks from a vicious strain of “viper’s eye”—one of several deadly diseases that had ravaged their world off and on for several centuries.
The nearly bankrupt Cardassian world government began to excavate the surrounding countryside in the hope of finding additional tombs and artifacts. When a second burial chamber was uncovered, its riches wound up in the hands of the then-humble Cardassian Central Command, which used them to finance a foray against the people of a neighboring world.
The venture was a success. The defeated civilization’s resources were seized and brought back to Cardassia Prime. More importantly, Central Command had captured the people’s imagination, giving them something to take their minds off their troubles.
The excavations continued. And with each burial chamber that came to light, the military’s power grew. In time, it had the wherewithal to pursue a course of aggression among the stars.
The stone, it turns out, is hollow. I can see that as I slither into the darkness of the chamber beyond.
Suddenly, a palmlight ignites in Yuqar’s hand, illuminating the space around us. It’s a smaller room than the one we’ve just left, its rounded walls bare of jeweled ornaments but remarkably full of the vignettes and hieroglyphs that have been discovered in other Hebitian tombs.
There isn’t any treasure here. But there’s another stone pallet, smaller than the first one, with bits of bone and dust on it. I wonder … is this the burial place of the king’s wife? His child? Some favored servant?
My colleague beckons me and I follow him to the wall opposite our clandestine entrance. There are several scenes depicted there in the favorite Hebitian colors of blue and orange, their vibrance preserved by millennia of unrelieved darkness.
One vignette shows a trio of Hebitians throwing bits of paper into what looks like a ceremonial fire. Another shows a woman in childbirth, surrounded by midwives of both sexes.
“You see?” asks Yuqar.
Obviously, he’s referring to something other than the pictures themselves, some significance I seem to be missing. “I don’t think so,” I reply.
Sighing audibly, my colleague points to one of the midwives. I look more closely … and I begin to understand.
For some time, the Cardassians had had their eyes on a world with a pronounced abundance of natural resources and a dearth of planetary defenses. In 2328, the Cardassian Union “annexed” this world—which was called Bajor—and began purposefully and methodically to ravage her.
Many of the planet’s inhabitants were forced to flee. Those who resisted Cardassian occupation were killed or sent to labor camps.
Central Command remained a presence on Bajor for several decades, lording it over the Bajorans. And as the supply of Hebitian wealth ran out, Cardassians came to rely more and more on Bajor for their daily bread.
But of course, Bajor’s resources weren’t unlimited either. And the Bajoran underground, with its relentless terrorist tactics, became a thorn in the Cardassians’ side. Finally, after stripping Bajor of every benefit they could find there, the Cardassians withdrew from the planet in 2369.
Almost immediately, they found themselves with a homeworld rebellion on their hands. The evaporation of both Bajoran and Hebitian resources had thrown the Cardassian economy into disarray.
But as observers have been quick to point out, it wasn’t just the Cardassian economy that suffered when the Cardassians left Bajor. It was the Cardassians’ self-respect. After all, they had neither the Bajorans to look down on nor the Hebitians to look up to.
Without those familiar points of reference, it was easy for them to forget who and what they were.
Standing in the small inner chamber and staring at the vignette that Yuqar has pointed out, I try to absorb the significance of it. It isn’t easy.
“That figure is wearing an earring,” I note. “The kind the Bajorans wear.”
“Indeed,” my companion says. He points to the picture again. “This is a birthing ceremony. Cardassians don’t do such things. You see the instruments the midwives are playing? They look like Bajoran lyres.”
I find that my mouth has gone dry. “So they do.”
Yuqar moves to the next Vignette—the one in which people are throwing papers into a fire. “This representation is very like the Bajoran Gratitude Festival. These papers could be renewal scrolls.”
I take a breath, then let it out. It smells even mustier here than in the outer chamber. “If that’s so,” I say, “then the Hebitians …”
“… could have been Bajorans. I know,” Yuqar responds.
A few years ago, a Starfleet captain built a solar sailing vessel and took it from Bajor to Cardassia—whereupon the Cardassians admitted that they had discovered the wreck of a similar vessel.
Bajoran civilization is half a million years old. If the ancient Bajorans could have reached Cardassia, they could also have helped populate it. They could have made significant contributions to its most glorious era. Certainly, that’s what t
hese vignettes suggest.
“Who said this would be an ‘easy peace’?” asks Yuqar. “My people are demoralized already. If this tomb indicates what it seems to …” His voice trails off miserably.
I nod. “It’s a problem, all right.”
The self-assurance of the Hebitian society is evident even in their wall decorations, as seen in this depiction of one of the many ministers who served this monarch. This was the agricultural minister; the chains to the worlds symbolize the close ties that the bounty of the earth had to his position.
BERSALLIS III
ASHES, ASHES
It was discovered that shield power was down by twenty percent. Considering the projected strength of the next firestorm, this power drop could have triggered a system wide failure. Evacuation was considered, but the nearest starship was two days away at maximum warp. It fell to these volunteers to find out the causes and fix the problem.
Julianna Bass, the redheaded administrator of the Bersallis III research colony, glances at her wrist-chronometer and wonders where her son Anton is. “He was supposed to be back here nine minutes ago,” she says, her freckled forehead creased with concern.
Twenty-year-old Anton Bass was dispatched to position a thermal deflector unit on a sandy ridge two kilometers north of the colony. Along with five other deflectors set up in a cross-connected, overlapping scheme, it’s supposed to create a protective firewall against the grotesquely destructive firestorms headed this way.
We’re in the outpost’s gray-carpeted operations rotunda, which houses a series of curved, black control consoles: sensors, electromagnetic shields, life supports, communications. The overhead lights have been dimmed and the air is close and dense, small sacrifices that allow us to deploy more power to protective measures.
Star Trek: New Worlds, New Civilizations Page 2