Written in Light

by Jeff Young

  Walking into one of the concourses, Kendell stopped to look up through the overhead dome. The halo of inhabited asteroids arced over the station. Spidery webs of elevators and transport links glistened like reflective wire. “But those galactics didn’t just shoot down seventeen unarmed scouts.”

  Bran thought for a moment and then replied, “There are species that refuse to supply their back history. You can’t tell me that there isn’t a good reason for that. There could be atrocities that would shock anyone among the histories of the Community.”

  Kendell looked directly at the image, staring down Bran, “But this is us. Our standing is still fragile. It still stirs up the public that we gave up nineteen worlds that we were in the process of terraforming to the Community for their Diversiform Dispute. The whole idea of competing for worlds by creating the best biospheres for them is something humanity is only beginning to understand. We’re a very young species in an old galaxy full of inhabitants who use an established system to determine who has the right to develop discovered worlds. Even after the Diaspora gave us so many worlds, sometimes it still feels like we’re spread too thin. If the galactics sanction us, things could explode.”

  “Kendell, you’re treating this as if we have a choice. We don’t. Given your location on Novya, you are the closest representative. You need to be prepared. Wait, there’s more news. Word just came down that the inquest is accepting our recovery of the wreckage. The avoy are actually apologizing for the incursion into what could be conceived as our space. But there’s a catch, the inquest is sending an observer, an imesht.”

  “Damn.”

  “Tomorrow at ten local; the observer will expect a meeting. Kendell, I won’t waste my breath telling you how important it is that this is handled well.”

  “Thanks for the spotlight, Bran. I’ll get an area set aside to receive the wreckage.”

  “Keep in touch, Kendell, and don’t forget, I made sure you got this post for just such emergencies.”

  ~*~

  Hoping his brisk pace would move the stimulant he’d just drank through his system, Kendell walked through the hangar bay, serving as a temporary mortuary and investigation area. Mentally, he had prepared himself for a number of things except for the smell, a strange mixture of pepper and rust. An hour before his scheduled meeting with the imesht, things were pretty well wrapped up.

  The avoy corpses were a surprise. Kendell expected them to make the white polyon body bags look like tents due to their ‘V’ shaped flight surfaces, which were perpetually canted at an angle. But in most cases, the bags resided in tubs, which bespoke horrific damage to the bodies. The plunge through the atmosphere and subsequent impact made it difficult to separate the pilot from the ship. Since three ships’ integrity failed, their wreckage ended up scattering over an area too wide to easily recover. The closer he looked, the more nauseous he became. Fourteen recovered bodies from an incident that should have never occurred. That thought would certainly not occur to Bran. The helanx, Tunegura, one of the investigative technicians, recognizing him, rolled over. Kendell took a brief look around, assuring himself there was nothing else to be seen. “Let’s go outside. You can give me the details there.”

  Kendell walked alongside the alien until they reached one of the lounge areas. He led the helanx over to the fountain that took up a corner of the room, knowing that Tunegura would appreciate the water. Splashing briefly in the shallow end of the pool, the helanx spun on its axis to point one side of its circular body toward Kendell. Kendell briefly considered pulling over a seat for the alien but realized it was happier in the pool. The water the helanx ingested and pumped through the hard round surface allowed the body to use magnetic fields to spin the wheel, providing motion. An improvement over the old days where Tunegura would have pushed himself along with the three thin arms that grew around the rim on each side. Thin fingers and keen eyesight made Tunegura an excellent technician and mechanic.

  “What did you find?” Kendell asked, leaning against the backrest.

  The center eye on this side of Tunegura bobbled briefly on its stalk and then came back to point at him. From the voice box slung under the eyestalk came the words, “The equipment survived the impact fairly well. The pilots did not. Too much force applied too quickly to delicate bodies. The ships, disabled by the laser strikes, unable to compensate, were pulled down by gravity. Avoy flyers are not designed for use in atmosphere.”

  Kendell steepled his hands in front of his mouth. “Were you able to find out if this was the actual destination or an accident?”

  Rolling forward slightly and rocking from side to side, Tunegura replied, “The information in the system is fairly specific. The transition brought the group out within a reasonable margin of error from where they arrived.”

  Kendell noticed the eye no longer looking directly looked at him. “Was there anything else?”

  “It is possible that the coordinates were in a message. The communication equipment recovered suffered considerable damage, but information in a buffer bears a transmission mark. It could be a message containing the coordinates.”

  “But you can’t verify that?”

  “No. There... ” the helanx hesitated. Spinning backward to the lip of the pool, Tunegura wavered from side to side. Suddenly, Kendell realized there was a presence behind him. Turning slowly and forcing himself not to flinch, he discovered the imesht representative looming over the back of his chair. The scant description of the species left Kendell unprepared for meeting the imesht. Resting on six multi-jointed legs, its long, thin body curved three meters upward into the air. At its upper end were three pairs of what he assumed were arms. Two pairs were folded behind the imesht’s back in a very human fashion, and one of the remaining limbs extended toward him. Putting out his hand, Kendall very gently shook the extremity. It felt as smooth as glass on the top and ridged on the bottom. The whole body was no thicker than his thigh and covered in a short, black coat of fur, with two reddish-brown circular areas at either end.

  “Please excuse my entrance. I am told we are much quieter than most other species. Some find it disturbing.”

  Kendell had no idea where the sound emanated from, so it was likely artificial. He shrugged off the distraction.

  “Representative, I am glad you were able to come so soon. I just finished getting a preliminary report from the investigative team. Perhaps you have some questions for the technician?” Kendall said, pointing toward the Tunegura

  In the intervening moment, the helanx took the opportunity to leave the fountain and rolled around to come to a stop before them both. Before it could say anything, the imesht interrupted.

  “I will consider the report when it is complete. That would be the wisest course. After all, we have determined that this is an accident. We are merely performing due diligence here. Thank you, technician. That will be all.”

  The Tunegura rotated slightly toward Kendell, its eyestalk swiveling in his direction. While tempted to ask the helanx to continue its conversation, Kendall found something in the imesht’s tone that made him hesitate. Instead, Kendall nodded to the small alien. Accepting his dismissal, Tunegura rolled back toward the hangar area.

  “Perhaps we can adjourn to the ambassadorial suite and continue our discussion more privately,” suggested the imesht, tipping backward to rest on the six limbs at its opposite end. Kendell suddenly struggled with the possibility that he didn’t know which end was the head. Did the alien have a head, per se? The statement convinced Kendell that more went on here than a simple resolution to the incident. As he got to his feet to lead the imesht down the corridor, he sent a request through one of his communications implants asking that Tunegura wait until he was free. Something in that last interrupted statement might clear up the nature of the unease growing in his mind.

  The lighting flickering briefly as the alien adjusted the room’s settings, Kendell followed the imesht into the ambassadorial suite. The door slid shut behind him, and he flinched as th
e lights went out. Standing in the dark, with a nearly silent alien, in a room now under imesht sovereignty… Could it get any worse? he thought. The familiar vista of Novya came into view as the imesht used the projection units in the suite. The hazy globe hung above them, garlanded in a ring of asteroid satellites and a filmy web of junctions. Kendell could see the alien silhouetted against the Novya shine. With a long limb, it reached up, indicating a star. The projection warped, the starfield bending as the viewpoint rushed closer to this sun with its series of planets—the system where the accident occurred.

  Kendell called to mind everything he could remember about the imesht. The aliens were reclusive, never involving themselves in the Community unless it was beneficial to them. They were neighbors to human space. The projection narrowed in on the planet in question. Kendall advanced on the imesht. In the reflected light, its body fur rapidly shifted color through a series of flashing ripples Kendell found difficult to look at. He stood there a moment, fists clenching, as a pristine Moon looped gracefully about a green Earth. An image that no one outside of Governance should ever see. A dark secret come back to haunt him and now in the hands of another. The notations indicated the same Obsidian-listed world, the site of the avoy accident. 350 years ago, the location of Earth was lost, and the general populace believed that story. The story of the disaster that brought about the Diaspora remained more a deliberate legend than history.

  “We heard you.”

  That was all the imesht said for the moment. Pushing the tension out of his body, Kendell dropped his hands to his sides. The alien obviously read human reactions. Telegraphing his did him no favors. “We can be noisy.”

  Moving around again so that it became once again visible, the imesht continued, “We heard the many broadcasts from your former home. We know where you came from. We’ve had concerns about your introduction to the Galactic Community.”

  Behind its tall form, the spinning Earth slowly grew darker as reddish stains appeared in the atmosphere. Flickering lights lit up the cloud cover from below. Bright pinpoints of yellow seared through the red stains. Then the Moon came apart on its next rotation. Calving like a great iceberg into pieces, it rained down on the formerly verdant Earth.

  “Even after your bombardment, the eaters that you made blindly ingested your world. You destroyed your homeworld in an act of barbarism. Perhaps that is why you have become so good at creating new homes.”

  At the heart of the dissolving Moon, other shapes formed. Rugged and angular, the great ships of the Diaspora were born from the bones of the Moon. One of the limbs of the imesht rose, the image changing again, pulling back to the Novya solar system. Ten light-years whipped by in the wave of a limb. The world now rotating in the center of the ambassadorial suite revealed a dull black and gray globe with thin wisps of clouds. As a Diaspora ship fell into orbit about it, the planet lit with impact after impact, water-bearing comets falling downward. Time shifted in the presentation. Years whirring by in seconds. Novya rapidly grew green, and the web of the asteroids spun into existence. The projection ended abruptly, and Kendell found the imesht looming over him once again.

  He forced himself not to backpedal away from it. Now he understood the alien’s intentions. The imesht wanted humanity’s improved terra-forming technology, or else they would reveal the nature of the destruction of Earth to the Galactic Community. In a culture based on the competitive development of ecospheres, such a stain on humanity’s past would be a massive loss of face. What could he do about its unspoken demand? As the representative on world, he couldn’t implement policy on such broad terms. Perhaps a delaying tactic remained the best answer.

  “I will have to speak to Governance concerning this.”

  The imesht drew back slightly. “You do not claim to represent Governance?”

  “Of course, I represent them. But I do not speak for all of Governance. Governance is an agreement of all the representatives of the settled worlds. In matters with wide-ranging effects such as this, it is necessary to gain the consensus of the whole.”

  The imesht shook itself briefly and stepped to one side daintily. “I represent the entirety of the imesht interests here. There is no reason why you should not be able to do the same.”

  Kendal now advanced, pointing a finger at the imesht. “You’ve made an assumption. That does not make it a truth.”

  Once again, the alien pulled itself up to its full height. “You have twenty hours to make a decision. Otherwise, we will share the information about your past with the rest of the Community. It is regrettable that you cannot make this decision yourself, but we will wait only so long for your consensus.”

  The imesht turned abruptly and moving to the far side of the room. Kendell stood there for a moment. Apparently, he was dismissed.

  Outside of the ambassadorial suite, leaning against the wall, Kendall thought furiously. There were things here that didn’t make sense. He queried his data-stores about the imesht once again. Amid reading the information, Kendell came to a stop. He made another query, one he should have before. As he read, Kendell pulled up the report concerning the avoy wreckage. His concern deepened. His pace increasing, Kendell sent out a request for the technician, followed by a request for a ship from the Governance port.

  ~*~

  “What can we find here that we did not find out before?” Tunegura asked as reentry buffeted the small shuttle.

  Kendell looked over at the helanx strapped into its concave depression. “How many avoy were recovered?”

  “Fourteen out of the seventeen ships that were observed.”

  “And how badly damaged were those ships in consideration of the avoy design and the situation?”

  Hesitating a moment, Tunegura answered, “They were in very poor shape. The landing party indicated that the remaining ships were completely destroyed and unrecoverable.”

  Kendell met the helanx’s gaze for a moment and nodded. “Have a look at this information as well. I had a second autopsy performed on the avoy.”

  He shunted a file across to the alien concerning the physical makeup of the bodies.

  All six of the small alien’s arms slapped against the surface of its wheel. “This makes no sense. It is not reasonable. You are saying that all the avoy in the scouting party were nymphs? There were no adults in the swarm?”

  Kendell turned back to monitor their descent toward the surface of what had once been Earth. “Yes. More importantly, do you recall how avoy regard their young?”

  “Avoy consider the nymphs to be unintelligent things until they reach their final molt and assume adulthood. Due to their breeding practices, they will occasionally even sell ... ” The helanx trailed off. “The signal, you think that this is all a construction. No, that is not the phrase. You mean a ‘set up.’”

  “Yes, and I expect that the remaining three ships were probably in better shape and could still be down here. I’m starting a search pattern now. If we can establish the origin of the signal that guided the ships, I may be able to tie this all back to one source.”

  Tunegura stood silent for a moment. “What made you think in such a convoluted fashion?”

  “I remembered your comment about the signal. Someone else made a statement about listening, and I guess the two brought things together.”

  The helanx turned to the controls mounted on either side of its body, its tiny hands flickering over the surfaces. “Here, this is a more efficient search pattern. Look, already the system has found one of the scout ships.”

  “I’m sending a probe down,” Kendell replied, pointing the shuttle in the direction Tunegura indicated.

  The helanx remained silent when the information from the probe reached the shuttle. Kendell waited as long as he dared and then asked slowly, “Well?”

  “The pilot is definitely a nymph at the last stage of its development. At this point, they are intelligent enough to fall into the Community’s definition of sapience.”

  “That’s not exactly the inform
ation I asked about,” Kendell said with a sigh.

  Tunegura fell silent once more, although Kendell could see the information filling its control screens.

  “Tunegura, please…”

  “Perhaps it is not as important as you believe.”

  “What?”

  “Kendell, you should look at this.”

  Their ship was destroyed. He was looking at the debris cloud of all that remained. Their ride was gone. All twelve members of its crew were dead, leaving them stranded on this dead world. Suddenly, his mind raced once more. Who would benefit from what occurred? Initially, it appeared that the imesht were the prime benefactors in this situation. But this latest development spoke of deeper involvement. Kendell couldn’t account for how swiftly Bran knew of the incident and the imesht observer’s appointment. At the same time, thoughts of the shuttle’s fuel and supply limitations wrestled with the inevitable result of landing on the damaged world.

  “Kendell. Kendell!”

  The helanx repeated his name. He shook his head to clear it and turned to look at Tunegura.

  “What do you know about the Diversiform Disputes?”

  The question seemed so off-topic, it brought all his colliding worries to a halt. “Just the basics,” he stammered.

  “Available worlds are competed for in contests where the species involved in the Disputes develop a complete ecosystem for the world. The environment must sustain at least five other galactic species. The most effective system is awarded the world for development.”

  “What does that have to do with all of this?” he cried and then grew silent as the elements of the puzzle came into focus. “The imesht. The imesht are poor participants in this system, aren’t they? Not only that, but they could sell humanity’s improved terra-forming methods to other galactics and then have them ensure the environments created are hospitable to the imesht. They must have bought out Bran. They put this whole thing together. You have it, don’t you? Proof of the signal?”