Sure, sure. There were primaries and caucusi tonight, and that’s kind of important, too. But I need your help. Right now. Seriously.
The book, this book, On Whetsday? It’s ready to go to press. There’s just one thing… the back matter.
Back matter may not be a familiar phrase to you, but it’s the name for that little bit of text that sits on the back cover a paperback, luring you into picking up a copy and consider making a purchase. It’s a summary, it’s a sales pitch, it’s… something I’m really, really bad at writing.
Look, if I could get everything I want to say into a hundred words, I’d be a poet. But I’m not. I’m a novelist. This “squeeze it down to a little sliver and make it interesting” bit? I just suck at that.
So here’s the deal. Help me with this. If you’ve read this far, you have a pretty good sense of the book, because we’re really on the home stretch, and since the biggest complaints against the copy I’ve submitted for the back matter is that it gives too much away, knowing how this ultimately comes out really isn’t necessary.
You give me a paragraph that sums up this book. Maybe two. Something I can slap on the cover. I’ll give you a big thanks in the acknowledgements.
Then we can get this puppy off to press where next week this space will contain a link where you can actually buy it. Sound like a deal?
Good. Now come on in. Where did we leave Denny…
30
Skimsday
On Skimsday, Denny led an escape. He stood on the sidewalk outside the spaceport, near the place where he had danced so many times, and waited for the others to arrive. The low Skimsday suns made the spaceport seem like a different place, full of shadows and slowly shifting colors. There was also very little activity at the port today, only two shuttles coming in, and none scheduled to depart. Denny hoped they could change that schedule. One shuttle, headed out.
Down along the dotted line on the road, one ground transport arrived, and then another. The first of the day's scheduled shuttles descended on a tail of lightning and thunder. A few minutes later, Denny had to step aside so a crowd of cithians and a single tall, crested klickik could get from the doors of the port to the transport. He worried that the pods from the quarter might arrive while there were so many people there. Even one human drew a lot of attention out of the quarter. It would be hard to explain what seven of them were doing at the port together. But the next set of pods were also empty, and the cithians and the klickik left quickly. For several minutes after that, Denny worried that the transport from the quarter was taking too long to arrive, and that they would miss their chance.
Finally, the doors of two transport pods opened and humans poured out. Auntie Talla and Cousin Sirah were in the first pod with Auntie Flash. Auntie Talla was wearing the long robe Denny had seen her put on for trips to the market and carried a large rucksack in each hand. Cousin Sirah had her dark hair wrapped in a cloth, and a pack slung across her back. Auntie Flash seemed to be having trouble walking. Whatever sickness it was that caused her to tremble was worse than ever, and it seemed that both her arms and legs wanted to twist around instead of move straight.
The second pod let out Cousin Yulia. Like Sirah, she also had a large pack slung across her back and another rucksack that was so heavy she held onto it with both hands. After a wait of several seconds, Cousin Haw appeared with his big arms holding a large box that made even Haw struggle under its weight.
Auntie Talla led the group across the path to where Denny was standing. “Are we ready?”
“Kettle isn't out yet,” said Denny, “but he should be soon. Why did you bring so much stuff? I thought we agreed that we were going to leave all our things behind?”
The low suns sent purple shadows chasing across Auntie Talla's face. “This shuttle of yours, how long does it take to get to another world?”
Denny thought about it. There was signboards inside the spaceport that told about arrival and departures of shuttles, but he couldn't remember any of them actually telling how long the trips would be. “I don't know,” he admitted.
“And how much food is on each shuttle–food that humans can eat?”
“I don't...” “What about water? Do they have water?” Denny slumped. “I don't know.” Auntie Talla held out one of the sacks she was carrying. “Here. Take this. You'll be happy we have it if it turns out the shuttle only serves up food fit for skynx.” The moisture-clouded door of the port hissed open and Kettle stepped out. Even from a distance Denny could see that Kettle was nervous, and as he hurried over to them, Denny could see that he was actually sweating.
“Is this everybody?” asked Kettle. “Everybody that's coming,” said Denny. Disappointment flashed over Kettle’s face, but after a moment he went on. “We need to go fast. All the dasiks are down at loading area five. I'm supposed to be there too, helping to load a shuttle for the chugs. But there's another shuttle waiting at the very first area–loading area one. It's not supposed to fly until Dimsday, but when we get inside, that's where we’re going.”
“What if the dasiks see us?” asked Yulia.
“If they do...” Kettle shrugged. “I don't know. Come on. Let's just hurry.”
They went up the ramp with Kettle in the lead. Despite the urgency, there was only so fast they could move, laden down with bags and boxes of food. Even if they hadn't been carrying a thing, Auntie Flash was still having trouble moving at more than a slow walk.
“It stinks in here,” Cousin Haw loudly as they entered the port.
“It always does,” said Kettle. “You kind of get used to it.”
They went up the ramp inside the door. Kettle stood beside his mother, letting Auntie Flash lean on him as they moved toward the first area. Despite his size, Haw staggered along under the weight of the box, leaning back and holding it against his chest. Denny wondered just how many mummions and poppers, and how many blocks of chez, Auntie Talla had packed inside.
To Denny it seemed as if the spaceport had stretched out. The distance from the door to the first loading area wasn't a few dozen steps, it was more like a few thousand, and during every one of them he expected a dasik to appear, its long fingers clutching a weapon. The curve of the hall inside the port was great enough that they couldn't see past loading area three, but Denny thought he could spot shadows of motion around the curve and hear the dasiks at their work.
Kettle helped Auntie Flash to a space near the door. “We're going right through here,” he said, speaking quietly. “When we get outside, go straight to the shuttle. The loading door is open, so we should be able to go right inside.”
Everyone nodded. Kettle raised his hand and laid it against a pad beside the door. Nothing happened. He raised his hand, and then pressed it back again. The door remained closed.
“What's wrong?” asked Auntie Flash.
Kettle waved his hand at the plate a third time. “I don't know. It should open.”
Denny took a few steps down the hall, craning his neck to be sure the dasiks weren't approaching. “Is there another way? Maybe if we go down to area three...”
“No. If we go that far, we'll be seen. Besides, there are walls outside between the landing areas.”
Yulia stepped up beside Kettle. “This is the lock?”
Kettle nodded. His face was fixed in concentration as he slowly raised his hand to it again. “It opens when I put my palm to it. Or when the dasiks touch it with their claws.”
“Only not this time.” Yulia leaned in closer. She dropped the rucksack she was carrying, then put a finger on the glass next to the pad, tracing an almost invisible line beneath the surface. “I think I see,” she said. Everyone tried to lean in closer as Yulia followed the line up and away.
“What did you find?” asked Denny.
Yulia looked around at Kettle. “Have you ever tried to get to a shuttle on a day it wasn't scheduled before?”
“Sure,” said Kettle. Then his expression changed. “I mean...I think so. Except, well, maybe no.” He shrugged. “I guess I never had a reason to try.”
“Right.” Yulia nodded. She looked around at them all. “I think this pad is connected to some kind of central control. Probably some kind of maton. It not only knows who is supposed to be here, it knows which areas are active.”
“So we can't get in?” said Auntie Talla.
“No. Except.” Yulia ran one hand through the tangled mass of her curls. “I think there might be a way.” She reached into the pocket of her oversized jacket.
Before Yulia even had her hand free of her pocket, Denny realized what she was doing. He dashed toward her. “No, Yulia. You can't.”
Yulia's hand reappeared. In it was the cloth-wrapped form of the silver maton. “Athena talked to other matons before. She can probably talk to this one, too.”
Denny reached out toward her, but hesitated. “You can't.”
Sirah appeared at his elbow. “Yulia, please don't. You saw what it did to Poppa Jam.”
For a moment, Yulia only stared at the object in her hand. Slowly, she nodded. “You're right. It is dangerous.”
Denny started to relax. “If we leave now–”
Before he could finished the sentence, Yulia ripped off the cloth covering and took a firm hold on the silver ball. For one terrible second, her body convulsed. Her chin went up, and the muscles of her neck and face grew so tight that she bared her teeth in a horrible grin of pain. Then Yulia relaxed.
“Yulia?”
“It's okay,” she said. “I'm okay.” It was clear that Athena was once again visible to
Yulia, as she quickly began explaining the situation and asked the woman from the maton if she could open the door. “Yes, right now.” Yulia looked around, taking her eyes from the place in space where Athena was standing. “She's talking to the port maton. It should take just a second.”
No sooner has she said this, than a tone sounded from the lock plate. The door to loading area one slid open.
“Everyone out,” said Kettle. “Hurry.”
Denny grabbed the bag that Yulia had been carrying and followed Kettle and Auntie Flash through the door. Outside, the tarmac of the shuttle area was crisscrossed with shadows, but as Kettle had said, the massive form of the shuttle itself was directly in front of the door. He could have run faster, but with Auntie Flash at the front of the line and Cousin Haw weighted with a huge box at the other end, it seemed to take the little line of humans a good slice of forever just to cross the few dozen steps to the bottom of the shuttle.
The biting smell of ammonia followed them through the door, but there was another, even stronger smell here. A heavy, burnt smell tinged with ozone. The tarmac crunched slightly with every footstep, as if the whole place had been baked hard as a cracker. Even just walking across the space seemed to release more of that burnt smell.
When Denny finally stumbled up the bronze metal of the shuttle ramp, he felt both relief and awe. The machine was as large as the one he had helped Kettle load before. The room at the base of the shuttle was easily as large as the gather room where Auntie Talla held Restaurant, and the ceiling was twice as high. At the moment, all that space was empty. When they dropped their few bags and boxes into the space, it seemed like a few crumbs in a huge empty closet.
Denny tossed the bag he was carrying in with the rest and turned around. Down the ramp, he could see back across the tarmac to the door of the port. There was still no sign of the dasiks, but he couldn't imagine that would last much longer. If nothing else, the dasiks were sure to notice that Kettle hadn't returned. “Close the ramp.”
“Right.” Kettle walked over to the side of the big space. On the wall of the empty storage bay was a group of panels, similar to the one that Kettle had touched when trying to open the door. But this time, he hadn't even raised his hand before a deep frown cross his face. “This isn't the way it's supposed to be.”
“What's wrong?”
“I...” He stopped, turned around, and waved to Yulia. “Over here,” he called.
Yulia seemed to be slow as she approached them, moving as if she was half asleep. Denny saw that the maton was still in her hand. Before Kettle could even explain the problem, she looked at them and said, “It's broken.”
“Fix it,” said Denny. “Like you did the door.”
Yulia was silent for a moment, then she shook her head. “It's not like that,” she said. “This shuttle came in early because it has problems. Athena says it's scheduled to be serviced later today, and it can't work right now. There's no power. None at all.”
Kettle looked as if he'd been kicked. “I didn't know,” he said. He turned around until he was facing his mother. “I didn't know,” he repeated.
“Of...course...you didn't,” said Auntie Flash.
Denny went to the top of the ramp and looked around. As Kettle had said, there were walls all around the space where the shuttle was sitting. There were gates in the walls, but they were all closed. “What do we do now?”
“We leave,” said Auntie Talla. “It was a good try, but it didn't work. We leave.”
Cousin Haw started to pick up the heavy box, but Auntie Talla waved him off. “Leave it. Let’s just go.”
Denny clenched his fists in frustration. He knew Talla was right. If the shuttle didn't work, they weren't likely to fix it, and if they stayed too long, the dasiks would come. But it seemed wrong. Badly wrong. Getting away from the planet was their only chance.
Sirah came up beside him. “Denny? What are we...” Before she could finish, an alarm began to sound.
31
For a time that seemed like both an instant and an eternity, Denny was in compete panic. He wanted to run for the door. He wanted to hide among the bags. He wanted to pound on the controls of the shuttle until the huge machine decided it wasn't broken after all. It wasn't until Sirah grabbed his arm that he came back to himself and began to think.
“Can we still go back into the port?” Sirah asked above the rising and falling sound of the alarm.
“I think... No.” Denny took a few steps down the ramp and quickly scanned the fences. On one side, the side behind the shuttle, he saw that there was one gate set back from the wall, surrounded by short walls on each side. “Kettle,” he called. “Where does that gate go?”
Kettle turned to look where Denny was pointing. “Outside.”
“Can you open it?
A quick shake of the head. “No.”
“Yulia.” Denny ran back to where the girl was standing against the wall, took her by the hand and led her to the bottom of the ramp. Her face was drawn, and she seemed to sway on her feet, but her right hand was still clutching firmly to the silver ball.
Before he could say more, Auntie Talla saw what he was doing. “Sirah,” she said. “Get over to that gate. Haw, go with her.” She looked at Denny. “Do you have her?”
Denny nodded. With Denny on one arm and Kettle on the other side, they guided Yulia over to the walled gate.
“Can Athena open it?” Denny asked.
There was a terrible moment in which Yulia gave no answer, then at last her face relaxed. “She can, but it's going to take a second. She's negotiating with the base maton.”
It took more than a second. It took thirty seconds. A minute. “Yulia...”
She held up her left hand. “Athena's working on it. Almost there.”
Then two things happened at once. The lock on the gate made a metallic tonk, and the gate began to slowly slide open. In the same moment, there was a tone behind them, a tone that Denny recognized as the door from the loading area being opened. He turned, trying to make sure that everyone was hidden from view behind the short walls that flanked the gate to the outside... and saw Auntie Flash.
Auntie Flash was walking–slowly, but with steadier steps than Denny had seen her make in months–straight toward the opening door. She was already more than a dozen steps away, halfway across the space from the shuttle to the spaceport. A pair of dasiks appeared. They were not merely touching the stunstiks, they were carrying them raised in long-fingered hands. The blue- gray metal of the stiks flashed in the air. The dasiks came toward her at a run, their long legs eating up the space between them in just a few strides.
There was a sound from Denny's left. Not a word, just a kind of “mumph.” He turned his head, and saw that Kettle was standing there. Or not standing. Kettle was actually leaning forward, his feet scuffling against the ground. Holding him was Cousin Haw. One of Haw's thick arms was clamped across Kettle's chest. Haw's other hand was pressed hard against Cousin Kettle's mouth. Above Haw's blunt fingers, Kettle's eyes were full of shock and desperation.
“You caught me,” said Auntie Flash loudly. Like her steps, her voice was surprisingly steady. “I just wanted to see a shuttle before I was consigned.”
The dasiks closed on her in a scramble of movement. They didn't press any buttons. They didn't say anything. The pair of stunstiks came down on Auntie Flash with such force that Denny could hear the solid thunk from across the tarmac. Could feel it in his stomach. The blows didn't so much knock Auntie Flash from her feet as drive her into the scorched ground. She crumpled straight down on herself, her legs folding beneath her. Her head and shoulders twisted around at an angle to the rest of her, as if, in the middle of falling, she had tried to turn back for a final glimpse of the others. Of Kettle.
A hand took Denny by the arm. “Let's go,” said Sirah in an urgent whisper.
Denny turned and saw that the door was open. Cousin Haw had already pulled a struggling Kettle through the opening. Yulia was through, though she looked as if she was about to fall. Auntie Talla was holding Yulia by one arm, guiding her. The door began to close. Denny followed Sirah through the gap before it could disappear. He turned his head at the last moment.
Out on the tarmac, the dasiks were carrying Auntie Flash away.
32
As soon as Cousin Haw put him down, Kettle started running. It took both Denny and Sirah to tackle Kettle long enough for Haw to grab him again.
“I have to get in there,” said Kettle. “I can talk to them. They know me.”
“They know you,” said Auntie Talla. “And if you go back in there, you won't come out. They have to know that you're the one who let your mother in. They're probably looking for you right now.”
Kettle's face fell in on itself in a way that reminded Denny of the way Auntie Flash had fallen in front of the dasiks. With Haw's hand still on his shoulder, Kettle walked with the rest of them down to the ground transport.
Denny wished that there was some other way to get away from the spaceport. They could walk—it was a long trip back to the quarter, though he'd done it several times—but seven humans...no, six. Now they were six. Six humans walking together down any street in Jukal Plex would attract a lot of attention. A lot of anger from cithians. But transport pods seemed a ridiculous way to make an escape. To go only a hundred steps away from the front of the building they'd just left, then queue up politely, waiting for the pods to arrive. It was like part of an awful joke. If the dasiks realized that Auntie Flash wasn't alone–and they had to, had to be looking for Cousin Kettle at least–then all they had to do was step outside to find them.
Meanwhile, Kettle was still arguing that he needed to go back in, while both Auntie Talla and Sirah tried to convince him that the dasiks would bring his mother back to the quarter. Denny didn't think anyone else had seen the way the dasiks struck Auntie Flash. He wasn't sure that they were going to take her anywhere at all.
A ground transport appeared in the distance and started down the last sweeping curve to the port. Every second of its approach increased the tension in Denny's mind. Not only did he expect the dasiks to come charging toward them out of the port, he was suddenly convinced that the transport was going to arrive filled with cithians. He could already see them waving their forelimbs. Hear the rapid-fire trill of clangers signaling anger.
The transport pulled up to the stop, the doors of the two pods opened. Empty. A moment later everyone was aboard, Cousin Haw still dragging a struggling Kettle,
and the transport was gliding smoothly away, back toward the heart of the plex. Without all the bags of supplies they had carried out to the port–and of course, without Auntie Flash–they all fit into a single pod. There was a strange silence in the pod. Auntie Talla spoke softly to Kettle, who said nothing in reply. Denny was relieved to see that Yulia had finally released her hold on the maton, but the effect of using the device again had left her looking ashen, like she had been sick for a week.
Denny pressed his face up against the clear side of the pod and watched the plex slide past. He had made this trip many times, but this was probably the last. Everything was the last. He'd made his last trip to the Porium. He'd eaten his last Restaurant. Made his last trip to the port. He'd seen Loma for the last time. Seen Poppa Jam for the last time. And maybe seen Auntie Flash for the last time.
He stared out across Jukal Plex, with its circles of supply domes, sleeping stadiums, and work blocks. On the far side of the plex, the tall white spike of the Cataclysm cast twin shadows across the nearest buildings. The low blue sun spread its shadows so far that for a moment, the train passed through that near darkness. Maybe this would also be the last time Denny saw the plex. Or anything.
The ground transport reached the stop nearest the human quarter and they all filed off. Now even Kettle seemed quiet. There was no longer a need for Haw to hold onto him, but Kettle walked along with his shoulders hunched and an expression on his face that seemed to be half sorrow, half rage. Denny couldn't blame him. He stared down at the worn toes of his shoes. They'd had just one chance to get away, and instead they had lost one of their own. Or maybe there had never been a chance at all.
Denny suddenly bumped into someone. He looked up and saw Sirah looking away from him, down the street. “What's wrong?” he asked. It seemed like a stupid question. Everything was wrong.
“Look,” replied Sirah. She raised her head, pointing with her chin past the old gate markers into the quarter. Between the compartment buildings and the low buildings of the stores, a dozen cithians were in motion. There were dasiks, too. These dasiks weren't carrying stunstiks. They were holding... something else. None of the cithians or dasiks in the quarter seemed to have spotted the group of humans standing at the gates, but that was surely a matter of seconds.
“Over here,” Denny said. “Hurry.”
He led them through the broken side door into one of the buildings just on the other side of the gate. It was the same building where Denny had put on the moltling costume. That had been only four days before, though it seemed like years. The chemical smell in the building seemed to be stronger than Denny remember it. When everyone was inside, he closed the door.
“What are they doing here?” asked Sirah. Her voice was barely a whisper. “Is it because we were at the spaceport? Do they know we were all there?”
“Maybe,” said Auntie Talla, also speaking softly, though the cithians were a hundred steps away. “Or maybe they are here because it's their day to be here. Maybe this is the day we are all to be consigned.”
Whatever the reason, no one seemed anxious to try and talk with the cithians. They milled around the front room of the building, past the old benches and tables. There was only a single small window in the building that faced back into the quarter. Haw and Kettle stood beside it, staring back down the cracked pavement of the street.
“I don't see–” started Kettle. “No. There's a dasik. Two more. They're carrying something.” He watched a few seconds more, then turned away and slumped against the wall.
“What?” asked Sirah. “What is it?” Kettle looked down at the floor. “Poppa Gow's chair.” After that, Cousin Haw kept up the watch, but the rest of them spread out around the room. Yulia, who had said little since leaving the port, rested on one of the benches with her back against the wall. As far as Denny could tell, she was asleep. Sirah sat down beside her, folding her arms on a table and resting her head. The heavy braid of her hair had pulled loose from her head- cloth, and it brushed a path through thick dust. Denny found that, tired as he was, he could not sit still. He paced around the room, his hands opening and closing. There had to be something. There had to be something.
Auntie Talla simply stood in the center of the room, stiffly upright, with her arms folded across her chest. Her head turned slightly to follow Denny. “What now?”
“I don't know.” Denny stopped in his tracks and looked at her. “Thank you,” he said.
“For what?”
“For believing me. For listening to me. For fixing such good things to eat at Restaurant and never making me pay more than I had.”
A quick bark of laughter escaped Auntie Talla. “That seems like a small thing to think about now.”
“Believe me,” said Denny. “It isn't. It never was to me.”
The hard expression on Auntie Talla's face faltered. She turned away from him and put her hands to her face. Her back shook softly.
Denny wandered out of the big room into the long room with the stains on the wall. There were no windows here. Just the low benches against one wall and the row of pipes and nozzles. He was about to walk back to the other room when he saw something on the floor. At first he thought it was just a rag, maybe something left over from assembling his moltling disguise. But when he stepped closer, he saw a stripe of color, a band of yellow barely visible in the faint skimsday light that filtered in from the other room.
He reached down to pick it up and found that the cloth was actually wrapped around something else, something solid and dense. Denny carefully unfolded the layers and found that what was inside was a book. Not a picture book, but a word book. A book like the one that Loma had given him.
It was a slim volume, with only a single word for a title. It was one of those words that Denny didn't know, but he knew the book. He knew it was one of Loma’s. She had been here sometime in the last few days.
Denny opened the cover of the book. He had only read one book before, and he hadn't even really read that one. Just picked at it, reading the words he could read, trying to make some sense of the story from what little he could make out. This book was much harder in a way. There seemed to be so many words that he didn't know. From what he could tell, it was about some people, many people, who were being held prisoner by some other people. But the book was full of names for places and for things and for people that didn't mean anything to Denny. In the middle of one page, a line had been drawn under a single sentence. Denny guessed it was Loma who had drawn the line. Or maybe someone who had owned the book before Loma. Even in this one line, he couldn't make out all the words. But he could make out enough.
To forget the dead would be...killing them a second time.
33
He walked back into the other room and went straight to Yulia. He thought she was asleep, but as Denny got closer, her eyes opened.
“I want to talk to her,” he said.
Yulia didn't ask who Denny meant. She only tugged open the pocket of her big jacket and stretched it out toward Denny. Inside, he could see the glimmer of metal.
Sirah raised her head from the table. “No. Denny, don't.”
Denny reached into the pocket and took the maton firmly in hand. The pain ripped through him. It seemed worse than before, but then it was hard to remember pain. It was just...pain.
Athena was there. Only she was no longer the stone woman Denny had met in the storage dome. She was one of them. Athena had Yulia's weight of heavy dark curls. She had bare arms that looked both slender and strong,
like Sirah's. She had deep brown eyes that Denny didn't recognize, but which she had surely stolen from some other human. Even her clothes looked like theirs– raggedy, old, and bleached down to just the ghost of colors.
Denny wasn't fooled. No matter what she looked like, Athena wasn't really a human. She was a thing. A machine. “Tell me why,” he said to her.
Athena cocked her head to the side. That faint smile was on her lips again. “Why?”
“Tell me why they hate us so much.” He shook his fist toward he small window at the far end of the room. “Tell me why they kill us.”
Athena nodded. “I have pertinent information regarding that question,” she said. A light appeared in the middle of the room.
Auntie Talla whipped around. “What's that?”
Sirah scrambled to her feet as the light began to form shapes. “Denny? Are you doing that?”
“She's doing it,” he said. He turned to Athena. “I thought you could only show things to the person holding the maton?”
“I am only visible to the user in interface,” she said. “However, other materials are less limited.”
The light in the middle of the room resolved into images. A voice began to speak.
34
Tranquility
The planet Rask lies in a stable orbit around the gravitation center of the binary star system, Andersen- Ikirii 204. Rask is nearly tidally locked at a position near the white dwarf, though the actual position is offset slightly toward the gravitational center of the system. The result is that one side of the planet enjoys fairly equitable conditions, with the white dwarf star visible continuously for most of the central land mass. The opposite side of the planet is cold, and has very little plant life.
The species commonly referred to as cithian evolved 1.6 million years ago on the second largest of Rask's continents. Over the next million years, they reached all areas of the planet, survived a period of usually high stellar output, and successfully established communities on the colder, less habitable side of the planet as well as establishing large settlements on every part of the star- facing side of the planet.
A strongly structured civilization was established. Large scale architecture developed. A series of wars were fought, which led a gradual consolidation of the planetary government. Significant advancements were made in mathematics. Engineering. Logistics. For 348,000 years, cithians built on this foundation. They learned to predict the weather despite variations in their planet's path through the binary star system. They learned to make wheels. They learned to make both bronze and iron. They developed, and discarded, several philosophies about the nature of existence. They built an elaborate social system, a language rich in both syntax and symbol, and art forms that were both subtle and meaningful.
In the 186,542nd year since the cithians achieved a unified government, the leaders of the government were gathered at a place then called Palakajukal to evaluate the completion of a wide scale irrigation project which would reduce flooding and provide more reliable resources for agriculture. On the day now regarded as the first day of the first year on the cithian calendar, a light appeared in the sky. The light grew brighter until it rivaled the glow of the sun. Of both suns. Finally, the light came to hover over Palakajukal. With great peels of thunder that sent many cithians running in panic, the light descended. It was an alien starship.
The aliens within the starship came out to meet the cithian leaders, bringing with them the fundamentals of electricity, electronics, and the richness of information
A strongly structured civilization was established. Large scale architecture developed. A series of wars were fought, which led a gradual consolidation of the planetary government. Significant advancements were made in mathematics. Engineering. Logistics. For 348,000 years, cithians built on this foundation. They learned to predict the weather despite variations in their planet's path through the binary star system. They learned to make wheels. They learned to make both bronze and iron. They developed, and discarded, several philosophies about the nature of existence. They built an elaborate social system, a language rich in both syntax and symbol, and art forms that were both subtle and meaningful.
In the 186,542nd year since the cithians achieved a unified government, the leaders of the government were gathered at a place then called Palakajukal to evaluate the completion of a wide scale irrigation project which would reduce flooding and provide more reliable resources for agriculture. On the day now regarded as the first day of the first year on the cithian calendar, a light appeared in the sky. The light grew brighter until it rivaled the glow of the sun. Of both suns. Finally, the light came to hover over Palakajukal. With great peels of thunder that sent many cithians running in panic, the light descended. It was an alien starship.
The aliens within the starship came out to meet the cithian leaders, bringing with them the fundamentals of electricity, electronics, and the richness of information
theory. They brought advanced optics, astronomy, and the history of the universe. They brought a deep understanding of biology, evolution, and a cure for many diseases. They brought the theory of gravitation, of relativity, of quantum states and multiverses. They brought the ability to harness fundamental forces, to transform the planet, and to sail among the stars.
The aliens onboard the ship came in a spirit of friendship. And generosity.
The cithians found that, while the alien technology was radically advanced compared to their own, it was nothing they could not learn with study. So they studied. They found that the alien art and the alien philosophies had aspects that they had never considered. They considered them. The many alien breakthroughs were puzzling when you didn't understand the basics, but if you applied yourself to a few fundamental points, they became obvious. The cithians applied themselves.
Within a generation, the cithians had incorporated almost all the knowledge that the aliens had brought them. And within a generation, almost nothing remained of the cithian civilization. The achievements of their greatest minds were revealed as primitive. The most important events of their past were cataloged and recorded in one, rather slim, volume. Their artworks were digitized. Their philosophies duly noted. The thoughts and lives and the stories that had sustained their people since the beginning, became quaint.
The aliens–the humans–who came in the starship and brought this change to the cithians, were part of a culture that was a bit less than 13,000 years old.
35
Denny watched the last images of the story Athena showed them fade into darkness. He had watched it three times, though holding onto the maton so long had made him ache with tiredness that went down to his bones. During the second showing, he had to sit down. During the third, Sirah put an arm around him to keep him from slumping over on the bench. Denny found it hard to stop even then. Long after the images had disappeared from the air, they were still playing in his mind. The long ramp descending. The humans in their bulky white suits coming down to greet the baffled cithians.
“We found them,” said Sirah. Then again, her voice thick with sad wonder. “We found them.”
On the other side of Denny, across from Sirah, sat Athena. She seemed to be watching the images along with everyone else, though her smile never faltered.
Denny turned toward her. His neck felt hot and stiff. “How did things go so wrong after that?” he asked the artificial woman. “How did Earth end up so polluted we could never go home?”
“It didn't,” Athena said.
Denny felt like he should not be surprised. Everything he thought he knew about the past was turning out to be wrong. “Then, if we could get a shuttle, we could go to Earth?”
Athena nodded. “You could. However, Earth's biosphere was badly damaged by bombing in the thirteenth year of the war. Though recent records are not available to me, it is unlikely that current conditions on that planet are favorable for complex life.”
“Earth...is dead?” It shouldn't hurt to lose a home he'd never visited, a planet he'd always thought was lost anyway. It hurt. “In a war?”
“The war to destroy Earth and all human colonies,” said Athena. “I'm sorry. I do not have presentation materials on this subject.”
Denny guessed that meant there would be no more moving pictures. Or at least, none about this war. He knew the word. There was war in some of his picture books, with missiles and bombs and rays of fire lashing out at evil space ships. “How could they? If the cithians were so far behind humans, how could they beat us?”
Athena stood and appeared to slowly pace around the room. It was a movement Denny had seen before. He wondered if it was built into the memory—designed to make her seem more like a real person. “They didn't,” she said. “Not alone. It was a coalition of several races, working together, that was successful in defeating humanity.”
Denny found that he was actually crying, And he found that he was right back to the question he had asked before. “But why? Why did they do it?”
“Because you were too quick,” said Athena. “Because you were too unpredictable. Because you spread so far, so fast. Because you would not stop looking in the next system, and the next, to see what was there. Because you could not stop confusing kindness and interference. Because you always thought you were right.” She stopped her pacing and turned to face him. “Because you destroyed them first, by trying to make them like you. And because you expected them to be grateful.”
Denny let go of the maton, and Athena disappeared in a blink.
As always, darn keen artwork courtesy Amy Jones. Thanks, Amy.
See? You could get an acknowledgement just like that… and all I need is a few little words.
Oh, and can I say I’m disappointed that no one has sent me a picture of themselves wearing Brian Zick’s infinitely cool cithian mask?
Want to hear the audio version of the book? Check it out on SoundCloud.
Missed some previous episodes? They’re all right here.
Now, about that back matter...