Daros, page 33
“We need to open the door. We need access to the hillside. To Homitta.”
“Why?” That was perhaps a dangerous question, but Brecca needed to figure out what they were up to. Friend or foe. So far, it could be either. Although the threat to hunt her down and kill her and her family had not been tops on the list of positive friendly gestures.
Koro looked down at Brecca. “This site is holy. It is Homitta. It served my people in the old days, when we teemed among the stars. When we were strong, and fearless. It could serve that way again. As a weapon. It wakes now, when we thought none would again.”
Not good. Tally a few points in the Kenthar-want-to-restore-their-evil-empire column. A lot of points, actually. “Is that what you want? Why you’re here?”
Koro gave Brecca a long look. “No. It is why the Zeelin are here. And likely why the humans value this place. If they even understand it.” She took another look at the sky. “When we were strong, we were proud. And we were evil. We destroyed countless planets, countless races. Hundreds of billions of sentient beings, murdered at our hands. All fell to our lust for conquest. For expansion. Even when we had enough. More than enough. More than we even could manage or use. Our sins were uncountable. And unforgivable.”
Koro waved a hand in a broad arc at the sky. “At last, we fell. In a manner which we earned and deserved. One of the races we murdered gained vengeance against us. Long after their passing, they reached out, through a sickness they had placed in our bodies, without our knowing. An assassin in the night. Just as we had murdered whole worlds, so it was done to us. All of us. Our empire crumbled, then fell. We were no more.”
That matched what Frim had said about the Mara Shi. Almost. “But you are here. The Kenthar did not die out.”
Koro made a honking noise. Brecca could not tell if it was sorrow or laughter. “We did not. But only through an accident. Before the disease spread, one of our ships was damaged. A small ship, a scouting vessel, with a small crew. The ship was the Kinikkotol. The crew, the Thirty-Four. The ship struck something as it flew through the underspace. It was heavily damaged, and it began to lose its grip on the underthread. In a panic, the crew found a system they could reach before the thread failed, one with a world that could support them. They fell out of the underspace nearby and landed the ship, but the ship was not intended for atmospheric travel, and it suffered more damage on the way down. The communications, the engines, life systems, all were destroyed in the landing.”
Koro’s voice grew quieter. “The Thirty-Four took what they could from the ship. Food, weapons, supplies. But they were not a colony ship. They were on a harsh, unforgiving world. They had to learn to plant, to hunt, to farm, to craft supplies. They were thrown millennia backward in technology, with no way to contact the rest of the Kenthar. And no Kenthar knew where the Kinikkotol had set aground, or even that the ship had survived.”
Koro paused. Brecca wanted to know more. “So, you were spared the sickness? Because you were isolated?”
Koro honked again. “I was not yet born. But yes, the Thirty-Four, and their descendants, were spared by their isolation. The Thirty-Four settled their new world, built new lives, farmed, loved, lived, and died. For many generations, until a passing ship finally stopped to observe. The Visitors. Thirty-Four had become hundreds, by then, with villages spread around and a small city grown up next to the crash site. Memory of our warlike past had faded, as well, although we still had the histories from the ship’s libraries. Some dreamed of rejoining an empire they had never known, but most accepted the world they’d been born into and gave little thought to the past. A prophet arose, and steered us toward peace, and away from the violence of our predecessors. Tools of stone and wood had replaced our fearsome weapons, hides and rough weaves our battle armor, simple beasts our grand armada. We focused on survival, and survival required community, and cooperation. We gave up war, that we might merely live, but beyond that, we embraced peace. Our holiest ones taught us that we had been borne of wickedness, but that if we condemned it, and lived well, we might have a chance to escape its legacy. To atone.
“It was fortunate for us that the Visitors did not summon a fleet to purge us from the universe. We surely had earned such a fate. But they observed us, spoke to us, walked among us. They saw that we had changed our ways, at first through necessity, but then through a new set of laws, a new faith and moral code, and a dedication to simple living. They told us of the death of all our people, of the collapse of our empire. We had been without them so long, separate, that it had almost no impact. It was merely as if an old legend finally had an ending.
“The news did have one effect. It strengthened our faith in our new ways, and in our new gods. We recognized the disease as punishment for the evil our people had wrought, and we saw our escape as a chance, offered to us by the Deity to test us. If we could reject our past, we could earn our future.”
This all sounded good. Maybe too good. Brecca had questions. “If you’re pacifists now, how do you explain that you just attacked the Zeelin, with heavy weaponry? Not to mention when you threatened to hunt down me and my family.”
Koro bowed her head. “Our faith teaches peace. We don’t all live up to that ideal. Tuvo and I are Arakk Kai, a sect that investigates old Kenthar sites and tries to keep them from being used for evil. Sometimes that calls for destroying the site. Sometimes it calls for violence against those who are intent on doing the evil we once did. Such is the path of our atonement, to prevent our sins from being revisited on others. The Arakk Kai are held in contempt by some of our people, but we see our work as part of our people’s redemption, and the violence we wreak as righteous punishment on those who would follow our wicked path.”
“But I wasn’t evil. You had to know that. And you still threatened to kill me.”
Koro gave a shorter honk. “And you were scared, and you acted the way we wanted. And we didn’t have to kill you. We just needed to seem like we would. Our goals were met.”
Brecca’s cheeks went red. A credible threat of violence was still violence, it seemed to her. She wanted to argue the point further, but she realized it was probably moot. If the Kenthar were going to help, it didn’t matter if their moral code was seriously inconsistent. And their behavior deeply inefficient. And annoying.
Brecca took a deep breath. “So, you’re telling me, you’re here to stop the Zeelin from using this place, this weapon.”
Koro stood tall and proud and beat her chest with several fists. “We will stop them, and we will stop the humans. None must use Homitta for evil.”
“Not even you?”
Koro gave a loud honk. “We would never. That would condemn us to the sin of our ancestors, and it would be all the greater a sin now, given what we have witnessed of our history, and given the Light and Salvation now revealed to us. Preventing the return of this sin is our only redemption. You must believe this.” She gestured to Tuvo with two of her hands. “That is why we have come all this way. It is our only goal. It is all that we now are, all that our lives can mean.”
It sounded convincing, if zealous, and Koro seemed sincere. But all of this was also maybe what a deceptive, evil person might say to win favor, to get access to what they wanted. Brecca didn’t know what to think.
A voice called out from behind them. “Brecca.”
Brecca turned. She knew that voice. Knew it better than any other. “Dad!”
71
Road’s End
Nellen leaned against the door to the infirmary. He was pale, and he had obvious trouble standing. He’d managed to close his shirt up, at least.
Brecca ran to him. “You shouldn’t have gotten up.”
“The medbay there. It filled me with surgical nanites. I’m feeling a little better.” His voice was weak, strained. “What’s an Interlocutor?” He was looking at her suit.
“That’s good! They’re fixing you?” Brecca felt a wave of relief.
“Not exactly.” Nellen put his hand on the doorway and pushed himself to a full standing position. He eyed the Kenthar, then continued. “They’re holding me together. I couldn’t understand everything the medbay reported, but it sounds like I’m in a bad way.” He looked at Brecca, right into her eyes. “Really bad.”
“But the nanites can fix it?”
“I don’t think so. They can do a little, and the drugs it gave me are helping. But I think it’s temporary. They’re postponing. That’s what the machine said. It gave me all the nanites it had, but it said they’ll only be good for an hour, maybe two.”
Brecca’s joy crumbled. “Dad…” A lump grew in her throat. “We can get you to a better doctor.”
Nellen shook his head. “That’s not going to work, I think. You wouldn’t be here if there were a better doctor. I’m guessing the main cities are all occupied by whoever attacked the planet.” He looked at the Kenthar as if he thought it might be them.
“There’s one city that isn’t occupied. It’s been holding off the attacks. Shielded. With weapons.”
“I’m sure it’s under siege. There’s no way we’d make it. And that would put you at risk, which I won’t do. Regardless, there’s not time.”
He wasn’t wrong. Argument is valid, as Lyra would say. Brecca’s breath caught in her throat. She studied his face. She’d been terrified when he took the ship down alone. Scared when she saw the wreckage over the drone’s camera, and again when she saw Tuvo carry him out. More scared yet when she’d found him with Corax. She’d been running on hope, running from fear. But now it had caught up. Instead of an immediate, terrible threat, there was just an inevitability. And it was strangely calm, but somehow the scariest of all.
Nellen looked back at her, and she could see his eyes getting wet. She’d never seen that before. He took a breath, forced his voice to take on a steady tone. “What is this place? Who are these people? How did you find me? Why are we both wearing yellow clothes now? You’ve got a story, I’ll bet.”
Brecca’s first impulse was to refuse. She felt like she should spend this time some other way, reminiscing, or hugging him, or thinking up another plan, or something. But this was what he’d asked for. And maybe it would give him comfort, hearing about all her adventures, knowing that she had friends, and a mission. She gave him a whirlwind version of the last four days, from her landing in the pod, meeting Evon, her time in the cave with the security team, Lyra’s arrival, finding the Envy’s Price, meeting the Kenthar, and then rescuing Nellen from Corax. Her father’s eyes grew wide, but he smiled, and she could see pride in his smile. He asked a few questions, but mostly he let her talk. Koro and Tuvo went over to examine the big door while they talked, then tried to get into the Operations center, but it looked like they weren’t having much luck.
“That’s some story, Brec.” A twinge of discomfort crossed his face, but he smiled through it. “I’m so proud of you. You took a terrible situation and made the best of it. Better than best. You’ve found allies, and you’re helping. This is big.”
“I don’t totally know what I’m doing. I mean, I really don’t. But I think this place is what the Zeelin want, and I think the piece of metal you wanted to sell here is the key to it. The Kenthar want to shut the whole thing down, and that sounds like a good idea. Lyra and Guzma want that, too. And Frim. Maybe if we can do that, the Zeelin will give up and go away.”
“Well, then, you should go help out. Back to the mission.” He looked around the enclosure, and his eyes settled on a bench. “I’ll be all right here. I’ve got some letters to write, and some thinking to do.”
Brecca’s throat closed up again. She didn’t know how she could just leave him here. But she owed it to Lyra, to Frim, to the others, to see if there was a way to help, anything she could do. She helped her father over to the bench, toggled her con to guest access, and gave it to him. “Put whatever you want on here. Record vids, or write, or whatever. I’ll get all of it to whoever you want.” Her voice was hoarse.
“Good girl.” Nellen took the con, then grabbed her hand. “Thanks, Brec. You’re a marvel. Much more than I ever was. You always have been.” He smiled. “I did good with you, at least.”
Brecca threw her arms around his shoulders. She couldn’t hold back a sob. Didn’t want to. She clung to him. “I love you, Daddy.”
He didn’t cry, but she could hear his breath becoming uneven, and he held her tight. “I love you too.” He patted her back. “Now go help save the world.”
72
Of Course There’s a Scene with a Ventilation Shaft
Frim pushed her tail through the handle of Guzma’s box, up as far as it would go, until her tail got broader and the handle stuck. She rolled onto her front, held the box up with her tail, and then slid backward out of the shaft’s opening. The stone of the floor was not too far down, visible in the shadows cast by the mining lights. She hung for a moment, stabilizing herself, then dropped. She pulled Guzma’s box off her tail, then placed him on the floor.
The chamber here was quite large, larger than the bridge of Ship 807332 several times over. A series of thick metal struts braced the chamber’s ceiling, as high as ten meters up at the tallest section. Powerful work lights illuminated a number of the rock faces around the chamber and gave the room a harsh appearance, full of contrasting brightness and shadow. As Frim turned, taking in the view, she saw a rough-cut tunnel leading to a large metal door. That had to be the door to the outside. From that entrance, the chamber spread out. There were deep cuts into the rock to either side of the entrance, and she could see an intermittent but thick vein of red crystals. That seemed to be what the miners were after. Where the vein was present, they’d cut deep into the walls, scraping it out of its rocky cradle. There were cylindrical holes in the crystal veins in some places, perhaps evidence of recent drilling. None of the rock around the vein was cut as deep, save for a few narrow exploratory holes. Most of the cavern was only carved out to the extent necessary to get to the red veins, or to provide space to move equipment around. There were a few vehicles here, a loading machine with a large scoop on the front, and a set of ore carts linked together with jointed arms. Some of them were full of a jumble of red crystals and rocks, while others awaited more ore. And there were stacks of supplies, boxes, myriad metal parts, instruments. All of that seemed orderly and arranged with purpose, although the function of the human technology was not very familiar to her.
This mining operation was mundane, but the rear of the chamber was not. The excavation had exposed a wall of iridescent green, shot through with bright yellow patterns too intricate and regular to be natural. There were rows and rows of symbols of different heights and construction, some repeating, others apparently unique. The rows of symbols were at an angle to the floor, emerging from the stone below and vanishing into the ceiling above. Frim had no idea what the symbols meant. It looked as though the humans had dug along the wall in all directions upon encountering it. The floor got lower near it and the ceiling higher, but they had not yet exposed the limits of the bands of symbols. If they had limits.
Many of the work lights were focused on this wall. In the center, the wall had been dug through, and an opening cut to a chamber beyond. Frim could not see much through the hole, but the area beyond was also lit, and the color inside was a more muted blue. It was a shame the humans had cut through the symbols. It was likely they had meaning, perhaps centuries old, now lost. She hoped the humans had at least recorded images of what they had destroyed. She picked up Guzma again and moved toward the hole to get a better look inside. She noticed that there were a series of boxes set against the sides of the cavern near the green wall. They were labeled, and she could read the human words. Danger! High-yield Terabix 7 mining explosive. Use extreme caution. Wires linked each of the boxes. This was good. It gave her an option to destroy the artifact, or at least to bury it. If she could figure out how to trigger the explosives.
As she approached the green wall, the ambient feeling of peace and contentment, which she had felt from her first arrival on the surface, grew stronger. Whatever it was, she was near to the source. It was a little hard to read over the shifting and disquieting flavors coming from Guzma, but it was there, and it was strong. It was vast, too, she came to realize. It came from the whole length of the green wall, and it extended beyond that into the rock, far beyond, past her ability to perceive its ending. This was fascinating. It was rock, surely, but it gave off an emotional projection as if it were a living being.
She reached the hole in the green wall. There was a passage behind it that ran both left and right, disappearing out of sight in both directions. She paused to put a hand on the wall, to trace the symbols. Their intricacy was even more apparent when close up. They seemed to be carved into the rock, but they were filled in with a yellow mineral, and their edges were full of symmetric ornaments and serifs. Each limb of a carving branched into smaller limbs and whorls. It was beautiful in its complexity, but she could make no sense of it.
Skin.
“What?” Frim paused, looking down at the box. “This is skin?”
Homitta.
“Homitta is a creature? A living being?”
Engineered.
Servant.
Alive.
That made her next move seem both invasive and more dangerous. Frim stepped through the hole in the wall. The stone she touched was cool, rigid, hard. She figured Guzma would protest if she were making an error, but he stayed silent. She emerged into a round passage lined with blue stone, even and smooth, with stripes running along its length. This must be the tunnel from the plans she’d seen. It ran downhill, following the slope of the carvings on the green wall outside. To the left, the way went uphill for maybe fifteen meters and ended at a flat wall of blue stone. There were indications that the humans had begun digging into it – small holes for samples, some larger, probably exploratory. But the way to the right was open, and the blue walls were smooth. This passage hadn’t been dug. It must predate the humans’ arrival. It had a slope gentle enough to walk down, and she followed it downward to where the floor flattened out and the tunnel expanded into a chamber.
