Echoes of Esharam

by Robert Davies

  “As we waited for your arrival, Lieutenant, we reviewed again the briefing document Governor Li sent a few days ago. The information was, I can say with confidence, life-changing for us all. We realize also how difficult it must’ve been for you to bring this technology to us, since we know so little about one another.”

  Rantara nodded and said, “I understand, Mr. President; the events that brought us here have certainly interfered with the normal process of first contact, but we have been forced to this by events neither of us could avoid.”

  “Lieutenant, I know you can appreciate how this must have seemed to us when you and Mr. Norris arrived, but let me offer my most sincere gratitude to you both for undertaking so serious a journey. Now, it is time for us to consider our options; what does your Ambassador require of humanity?”

  Rantara stood and activated a holo-image that grew before them into the shape of the Transceptor.

  “This is the device that is used to transfer or store memories. I can’t tell you how it functions because I don’t know, but within it, the memories of a lost people remain. They died, some of them centuries ago, but an identical machine copied and saved their thoughts and experiences in the final days of their existence. Our task is to bring you with us when we return, so that your ministers can access these memories directly. When you do, you will understand.”

  The room fell silent as each regarded the strange shape and considered her words. Norris smiled as he watched Rantara’s sudden and engaging skill as a diplomat emerge and he wondered with a silent smirk what they would think if they could see her darker side. After an awkward moment, Anne White spoke from the far wall.

  “Lieutenant, I hope you won’t take offense, but you are asking us to risk our lives, traveling farther than any human has ever been. Beyond your assurances, how can we know if such a trip will ensure a safe return?”

  Again Rantara manipulated the reader’s controls until a near constant data stream flickered past, moving page after page in rapid order.

  “This is a complete engineering and manufacturing process diagram, Minister White. You were given excerpts of it earlier to establish its authenticity, but here is the entire document. Within it are the plans and construction processes you will need to modify one of your Plexus-ready vessels for hypervelocity flight. If, after you have seen the memories, you decline to help us, your own ship will return you to Earth unharmed.”

  White was cautious.

  “That is certainly generous of you, Lieutenant, but alone, our ship would be badly outmatched against your navy; if you chose to do so, we could be easily destroyed before we leave your systems. Forgive me, but that is no guarantee.”

  Fernandez only watched as the discussion narrowed quickly to a negotiation exercise between Rantara and White.

  “There are no guarantees, Minister; could you have made such a promise to me? Also, you will not be the first humans to travel across the gulf of space to my worlds; one other has, and he’s sitting beside me.”

  White could feel her face go red, but she held firm.

  “I appreciate your candor, Lieutenant, but how should Mr. Norris’ adventure make us feel any more secure about the risk you are asking us to take?”

  Norris could feel the hair standing on the back of his neck. Would this be the moment their mission unraveled? He eyed Rantara closely as she stood and walked to the end of the table, stopping where White leaned back in her chair.

  “Darrien’s adventure, as you call it, brought him first to the Anash a very long time ago. He was alone and farther from his home than any human before. They protected and cared for him, returning him safely to Earth space to prevent others from hurting him in ways I can’t describe. Please remember, Minister, for five centuries, my people and the Anash have been locked in a war so endless, we no longer have a precise count of the dead.”

  She strolled slowly behind each chair where the dignitaries could only look on in silence.

  “Almost two of your years ago, the device that sent him across space reactivated when his shuttle passed by once more, but this time, it malfunctioned and brought him along a strange, unlikely path that led him to me.”

  White stood, too, turning to face Rantara head-on.

  “Where you tortured him inside that prison until his opportunity to escape became a suitable distraction for your own; we read the brief, Lieutenant.”

  The air had become suddenly heavy and still. Norris turned slowly in his seat to intercept Rantara before she could kill Anne White but she was already moving. Beyond his reach to ease her down, Rantara leaned close.

  “Yes, I did, Minister—I beat him bloody and I stood by while a maniac poured currents of energy through Darrien’s body that should’ve killed him. Each time they brought him to my chamber, I tried to break him—to destroy his will. I hurt his body and his mind and it didn’t matter to me if he lived or died.”

  Her voice was soft and even, as though describing a dream no others could imagine, yet still troubled by its meaning. Norris stepped carefully toward her and whispered, “Go slow, Onallin,” but she held up a hand and moved closer still.

  “I wish I could take you there right now, Minister White; I’d love to have you in my interrogation chair for just a little while so you could see and feel the agony we put him through. I would like very much for you to experience what pain and suffering really means so you will understand the torment of guilt and regret I carry inside every day. It should’ve killed him—what I did to Darrien should’ve left him a corpse waiting to be dumped into the burners, but it didn’t. He’s better than that and his strength changed me in ways you could never know.”

  The room was silent and no one moved, but in a profound and contradictory moment, she reached gently for White’s hands. Norris was sure the brutal end had arrived, but Rantara held them softly and looked down.

  “My superiors were more than willing to destroy his mind in order to discover its secrets,” she said at a near whisper; “they wanted to drain the life from his body to satisfy their suspicions, but they failed and they sent him to us. He was locked in a chair, unable to move or defend himself. For weeks, I mistreated and abused him so badly, but something changed. I can’t explain it to you because I don’t understand myself, but late on an ordinary night in that place, I looked across the filthy expanse from my guard tower to where I knew he slept in a cave made of stone. I could see him there, Minister White, alone and scarred from injuries I had given him. I looked at Darrien and in that moment, I promised myself no one would ever hurt him again. It would’ve seemed impossible then, and the reasons are my own, but he had become dear to me.”

  Norris swallowed hard and fought against the water gathering in his eyes as she continued.

  “When the door to his escape opened a pathway deep through caverns beneath the prison, I handed him my rifle. He could easily have killed me then and there, but instead, he let me join them. After everything I did to him, still he behaved with honor and kindness to the very person who had tortured him.”

  She walked slowly toward Norris and every eye remained riveted as she finished her speech.

  “I don’t need to be reminded of what we were to each other inside Bera Nima, Minister; it is painful for me and adds no benefit here. In the days and nights since, he has become the reason and the purpose for my life. Darrien came back to Earth for his people—I came here for him. May we continue the meeting, now?”

  White’s deliberate, combative style had been aimed at provoking a confrontation; a mechanism of behavior made to reveal a deception, but the plan had gone awry. She looked again and saw a stranger to Earth, isolated and alone. Rantara stood as far from her home as Norris had been from his, yet she was unafraid.

  “Please continue, Lieutenant.”

  Rantara returned to where Norris sat and the tension in the air eased at last.

  “There is a temporary truce between the Khorra Nu and the Anash,” she continued, “made only for the purpose of stoppi
ng the Namadi. Doing so has produced a condition for my people and theirs so contrary to our way of life, many would call for our arrest and execution for having played a part in what you would call ‘high treason.’ Darrien was the catalyst for that cease-fire; he has won the respect and affection of my people and the Anash, even as he was the only one of his kind among them. He is also my Choice Mate, Minister White—the one I will stay with until I die. My love for him is permanent and it is absolute. How could I ever face him if I had not given my best to help his family and his people survive this nightmare?”

  She turned to him and drew her palm gently along his face as she spoke again to Anne White.

  “My own risk in coming here was no less compelling than yours will be, yet I am here. Those memories, kept forever inside a strange and powerful machine, are the only remnants of lost civilizations murdered without provocation or reason. By carrying them to the Transceptor for you to see, Darrien risked everything he is or will ever be and he did so willingly. In the simplest of terms, those memories are the last chance for our future; they are voices of a place where the dead call out from a distant past. When you go and hear them—see and feel them—your decision will be effortless.”

  She sat again, looking only at Norris. Fernandez nodded and said, “Thank you, Lieutenant; I think I can speak for the rest when I say we have heard you. If you will excuse us now, we will apply our full attention to this dilemma.”

  AFTER THREE WEEKS of round-the-clock work in the docks, the modifications were nearly complete. The Colonial Navy corvette St. Mawgan had been fitted with harmonics engines, making it almost overnight the swiftest vessel in human history. The engineers and technicians had been briefed to maintain absolute secrecy, sequestered in a remote, orbital ship repair facility high above the turbulent clouds of Neptune, but a chance to touch the future had been well worth their temporary isolation.

  Rantara stood with Norris at a wide view port, watching the swarm of workers moving slowly in their EV suits, puffing along by unseen thrusters from each engine nacelle to the next. Far below, another planet-wide tempest swirled and raced through the pale blue atmosphere, but no one noticed. After laying siege to Rantara for days, Underhill and White had taken to a four-seat pod so they could inspect the work’s progress more closely and her relief was immediate.

  “They’re like greedy children, Darrien! No matter the questions I answer, it only encourages them to ask more! Gerald Underhill was so excited, he told Anne White the re-fit of this ship was ‘like handing the Wright Brothers a jet engine.’ I’m sure that meant something important, but I’ll be a lot happier when we’re finally on our way; I’m not an engineer!”

  Norris laughed at the image and said, “They were scientists long before they became politicians; this re-fit was bound to stir their interest.”

  “I suppose so, but there will be plenty of time for a full technology exchange; we have to stop the Namadi first, or none of this will matter.”

  “Be patient, Onallin, they’re almost finished.”

  AFTER ELEVEN HOURS aboard St. Mawgan as it dashed in and out of the Hyperthreads on a shakedown run to fulfill the necessary test and verification requirements, Underhill and White were satisfied at last. Norris and Rantara returned to their scout ship and loitered at ten kilometers as Captain Amelie Villiers eased St. Mawgan slowly out of the docks and took up a position directly aft. In minutes, the two ships accelerated toward the Hyperthread’s gate, disappearing from steady space in a silent explosion of light.

  When they settled, Norris looked over Rantara’s shoulder at the navigation display.

  “Are they in?”

  “Yes,” she replied with a nod, “their ship is twelve kilometers behind us, steady and clean.”

  At last, and with the full authority of Earth’s government close behind, they were outbound for Fells Moll. Throughout the first day, they tested communications links between the scout ship and St. Mawgan, and again to the array above Neptune. Rantara reclined with a smile, bathing in the silence that seemed elusive in the bustling compartments inside the shipyard’s modules and passageways, but deep in the third night cycle, a single tone sounded in the forward console. Norris was busy drying himself after luxuriating in the shower when she called to him.

  “Darrien, a comm pod inside this thread just relayed a message from the lab; Qural and Tindas have changed our exit point.”

  Norris tossed the towel aside and reached for his flight suit.

  “What the hell for?”

  “The Premier wanted a neutral site—he wouldn’t budge on this condition.”

  “What did the Anashi Chancellor say about it?”

  “Oddly enough, he agreed.”

  “How about the Revallans and Porseth?”

  “They won’t interfere. This is a Khorran, human, Anashi conversation and everyone knows it. Revallan leadership is usually more reasonable about complex diplomatic issues and the Porseth will do as they’re told.”

  “Where?”

  She pointed to a display where images scrolled.

  “Qural suggested Tevem; it’s out of the way, with plenty of facilities for security and comfort. More importantly, Sannaris is a diverse and multicultural world by design; they won’t favor one race or government over another.”

  “It’s a nice place,” Norris smiled; “I liked it there.”

  “I hope you do,” she replied. “If we have time, I want to look for an apartment, or maybe a house near the seashore.”

  Norris sat next to her and watched an aerial video made by a real estate firm as it lingered over lavish estates on a wide beach to entice prospective buyers.

  “You don’t want to settle on Belex?”

  “Someday, maybe. Right now, I want to stay as far from the noise as we can get. My parents won’t like it and Ellimox will regard it as another insult, but Tevem is perfect.”

  “It’s a white-collar town, but I guess that’s the point; not a lot of rowdy assholes to screw it up for everybody.”

  “As uncomfortable as it makes me to admit this,” she said with a smirk, “I now understand the ridiculous slang you’re so fond of, but you’re correct; Sannaris is very modern, but it is also remote, comfortably underpopulated and no one there knows who or what we are.”

  Norris only nodded his agreement, but he heard another reason for Rantara’s sudden interest in Sannaran real estate. Across the whole of Tevem, no one knew who—or what—she had been.

  They looked at the readout describing a banking facility on the city’s west side, only a kilometer from the hotel where they stayed in their first hours of freedom. Within its walls, a heavily shielded, secure conference complex would serve as the meeting place for Qural’s summit. It was opulent and well-equipped, but also maintained by those who understood the value of discretion ensuring the historic event would be suitably protected and hidden from prying eyes. Once more, Norris thought of the easy style and welcoming nature of Tevem’s people.

  “Sannaris probably is the best choice for a planet they could’ve made, now that I think about it. We looked like shit when we came in from Kalarive, but no one seemed to notice.”

  Rantara smiled and gave him a sidelong glance.

  “You looked like shit, Darrien; I was just tired.”

  “So noted,” he smiled and said. “I guess we should let our reluctant, fellow travelers know about the course change?”

  Rantara keyed in the comm’s access code to alert St. Mawgan.

  WHEN THEY STARTED the braking maneuver, Underhill and White stood in awe at the forward view port as the ship followed through wispy clouds high above the northern mountains. Two kilometers ahead, Norris watched Rantara complete the approach request procedure, inputting landing coordinates for both vessels. Beyond, the shimmering towers and skyscrapers of Tevem glinted in the midday sun, holding the ministers in delighted wonder.

  On the fringes of a splendid, green park that followed a meandering river, the bank facility’s landing p
ad appeared near a stylish building of dramatic, glass domes over contoured walls that seemed organic—a design of nature. Following Qural’s instructions, St. Mawgan would deliver the ministers and then withdraw immediately to wait in high orbit until summoned; the Sannarans agreed to host the event on the condition visiting warships would not remain on the surface longer than necessary. Rantara and Norris would be allowed to leave their scout ship, as it posed a lesser threat.

  The moment was profound and when the ministers stepped slowly from St. Mawgan where it warmed in the rush of an afternoon breeze, Nishikawa looked at the others.

  “This is incredible. Aside from Mr. Norris, we are standing farther from Earth than any human in history.”

  At once, Captain Villiers ordered the hatchway sealed and her ship lifted slowly to a hover before accelerating on a climb toward the north where it would loiter in orbit above the planet’s pole. Rantara and Norris walked quickly across the ramp to meet them, but Sannaran Customs agents reached the Earth delegation first. Until they could be fitted with translation nodes coded to Earth English, the Ministers were effectively deaf and mute.

  Rantara called out to the officials, both towering Khorran males, but the matter had been concluded before their arrival.

  “Lieutenant Rantara?”

  “Yes, officer, these three are…”

  “We know; your landing fees have been paid by the Anashi Ambassador.

  “Thank you,” she replied.