Universal Code

by William Songy

  “You were taken from Econ?” Ovtave asked.

  “We were on a transport that was attacked by raiders. I was taken and sold.”

  “What about your family?” she asked reluctantly.

  “My mother was not on the transport, but everyone else was killed. My mother is traveling here to collect me.” The girl was no longer upbeat and began to cry. Ovtave leaned over and wrapped her arms around the girl as she wept. After three years of captivity and seeing her travel companions murdered, Layna seemed to be a strong girl, but even the strongest lost to their emotions sometimes.

  “I need to hire you as an interpreter. You are good at understanding Duncan,” Ovtave said wanting to give the girl confidence and change the subject.

  The girl looked up, walked over to a dispenser and retrieved several tissues. She returned, “I would like to help if I can.”

  There was a dull beep that usually served as a notification of an incoming message. A holographic image of Art rose up from the center of the table facing Ovtave.

  “Good morning,” he said upon seeing her. “I just received some information. First, any news on the young lad—”

  “Duncan. His name is Duncan now,” the girl interrupted.

  The holographic image turned to the girl on the other side of the table, “It is?” he replied.

  “This is Layna. She seems to be the only person in the Universe that can understand Duncan. She is helping me interpret what he was trying to tell me,” Ovtave said with a smile.

  The hologram turned back to the girl, “Very well. We thank you for your assistance.”

  The girl gave a slight smile and nod of the head then looked back at Ovtave, “Can I tell him about Duncan, or do you want to.”

  Ovtave looked back at her uncertain of to what she was referring, then realized, “According to the DNA sample taken from Duncan, it appears that he is of a mixed race from Earth. The tests also revealed very odd genetic markers that have puzzled the geneticist. They have seen it before, on very rare occasions, but they have no idea what it means.” Ovtave then told the Director about the interpretation of Duncan’s message given to her by Layna.

  Art suddenly appeared to be in deep thought. “This is actually why I contacted you. Can you meet me in my office? We need to discuss this.”

  When Ovtave entered between the parting pair of metal doors, Art stood to greet her then paused when noticing two short people following her. The girl with the shaven head walked directly behind Ovtave and was followed by a clean little boy he hardly recognized as Duncan, “You brought assistants I see. Duncan, I like your new haircut,” he replied gesturing with his right hand and leaning over as the two walked up to his desk.

  “I’m sorry that you are not happy about us being here, but we just want to help,” the girl blurted out. “We have information and then we will go.”

  Ovtave looked up at Art, “She can read minds or something.”

  Duncan seemed nervous and unsettled. He unexpectantly blurted out something that no one understood. He carried on for a minute using his hands and a broken language then stopped and looked around to see if anyone had understood him.

  Layna intervened, “I told him that you wanted to know more about Joseph and he has more information for you that is very important. He said that the Tisht fear Joseph. They are afraid of him and others that are like him. They can’t control them. They tried to starve them but they would steal food through the etutu anyway. They tried to punish them, and they would just disappear. But when they tried to kill them, Joseph made them pay. It was a disaster for the Redum soldiers that were sent to carry out the murders. He did something to their minds and they killed each other. They began to fear them and refer to the children as ‘Anziellu’, which means abomination.”

  “Well, that’s kind of ironic considering the things the Tisht do,” Ovtave said with a wrinkled brow.

  “By the way, I do not mind that you are here. What happened to them? Are they still there?” Art asked sitting down to look them face to face.

  The girl looked at Duncan and spoke into his mind. She turned, “He said some are here on this planet. But most left through the tamtu etutu. Except for Joseph. He stayed.”

  “Why?” Ovtave asked.

  “He said that he was waiting on his mother…the woman who was brought here. The Earth woman. He wanted her to come and get him,” she said.

  Layna sat up and glared at Art squinting her gray eyes as if reading the Director, “You already knew about Joseph. You’ve known for a while. You sent the woman to get him.” With that she took Duncan by the hand, “I don’t think they need us anymore,” and abruptly led him out of the office.

  Ovtave waited for the doors to shut, “Is that true? Didn’t she escape from that place? How could she go back? She was a slave. She killed Tilhar. If she returns and gets caught, it would be a horrible situation for her.” A horrified look came over Ovtave’s face, “Is this why you wanted the Earth woman to take the ship? We just watched as the transport left the hanger. Did we allow her to go on a suicide mission?”

  Art became more somber and expressed a bit of guilt for what he had allowed, “We need this boy. We need his help. We have people close that can protect her if Joseph can’t. To send our agents or military to get him would be seen as an act of war. We still need to have some order on the Council and to take such action will be seen in an unfavorable light. Despite the violations of the Tisht. We can’t risk war until we know more about this threat. This could be the key to everything,” Art replied.

  “Well, what if the woman is recaptured or killed? Will we share in the responsibility?”

  “The boy Joseph has been in communication with her. We know this. If he cannot arrange for his escape and keep Sonia safe, then he is not as powerful an asset as we had hoped, or as Duncan has seemed to back up with what he has told us. Besides, she left on her own, we didn’t ask her, and we didn’t make her go. We simply did not stop her. It was her decision,” he sat back in the chair and looked up for a second.

  “It seems that we’re risking the life of this poor woman,” she said in a somber tone.

  “The ability of the Roo’kall is real. You experienced it firsthand. The threat is real…do you deny it?” Art asked calmly.

  “No,” Ovtave responded.

  “What if they develop, if they haven’t already, the ability to move large numbers of troops in such a manner? How will we defend against that? We need to know more, and we need to find all these kids and try to convince them to help us. We are not their enemy, the members of the Kasadu are.”

  The door to Art’s office slid open and a SINSTER agent entered the room. He was tall, even for the people of Viennin. On the left side of his chest and sleeve, he wore an oval pin with nine rings, one inside another representing the expanse of his authority and rank. The look on his face was solemn, which was nothing unusual as he was one who had taken his job and responsibilities very seriously.

  “Well, it appears that your husband has joined us,” Art said in a receptive tone.

  Cyperien Lejon passed through the open door, leaned down and kissed Ovtave on the cheek. When he pulled back from her and paused for a second looking into her eyes, it was at that point she knew something was horribly wrong. He was about as easy to read as a stone in a field. She had never seen him afraid, overwhelmed, or intimidated by anything. Cyperien was a mountain of a man physically and psychologically, always even keeled in his emotions. This time, however, for the first time since she had known her husband, she could see that he was deeply troubled.

  “There has been an incident at the Baraza Zima,” he said before sliding a holographer to the center of a round wooden table. He gave the command, “Baraza Zima.”

  Each backed away from the table giving room to the expanding dimensional image of the planet of Aigi. From Ovtave’s right, three Gabari came out of celerity and stopped just out of Aigi’s gravitational pull. The gunships positioned themselves with the port s
ide facing Aigi as three metal doors broke their air-tight seal and swung slowly open. Three Enkara cannons moved into place within the openings. “Tisht craft…of course, you knew that. Notice if we advance the grapher, you never see anything coming or going. The armed Gabari just seem to sit there with no transport coming or going.” Cyperien snapped his fingers and the image zoomed in on the planet settling on an overview shot of the Baraza Zima building. “Look at the Huru landing.” A line of Redum soldiers appeared to walk through an invisible door. They were fully armored with plasma rifles in hand. Ten rows of ten stepped onto the stone parkway moving toward the offices of the Huru delegation. On the side of the Kuna delegation, a second line of soldiers appeared.”

  “Two hundred soldiers? Appearing out of thin air,” Ovtave asked in confusion.

  After the last line of soldiers took a foothold in the Kuna landing area, something caught their eye. A small face peeked out of the portal and seemed to look around and survey the area for a second before pulling back and disappearing.

  “Was that a child’s face?” Ovtave asked squinting to get a better look.

  “Yes. We have no idea who the boy is or why he is with them,” Cyperien said gesturing with his hands.

  “We were just discussing the possibility of the Kasadu having this ability. Who was that boy and where did he go?” Art wondered aloud.

  Cyperien froze the image and pulled the boy’s face out to the edge of the display so that Art and Ovtave could see him better. He looked as malnourished as Duncan at the time of his rescue.

  “You don’t think that that is the boy Joseph?” Ovtave asked looking at Art.

  Cyperien looked back and forth at them having already been told the story of Duncan and the assassins on the transport but had no knowledge of Joseph. She repeated the claims made by Duncan to them about a boy with incredible abilities to transport people through dimensions and time. He then asked the obvious question, “I thought you said he killed Redum soldiers. Does he hate and kill them, or does he help them? Can this possibly be Joseph?”

  “We don’t know. But it doesn’t seem likely. Only Duncan has seen him. I will take the image to him and ask,” Ovtave said.

  The hologram returned to life and the boy pulled his face back behind the invisible barrier and disappeared. The edited video flashed to the council chamber and the assassination of Senator Krico and other members of the Jamhuri delegation. The scene horrified Art as members he had a personal relationship with were murdered. Overwhelmed by the carnage, the Director decided to sit down and take in all that was on display. Bodies fell as those attempting to escape piled up blocking the doors as shots rang out from an invisible assailant above the chamber. Hysteria and chaos took over resulting in other injuries at the realization that there was no escape. Some managed to exit the chamber only to find the Redum soldiers in the hallways gunning them down while desperately attempting to flee for their lives. Bodies fell upon each other as streams of blood met, pooled together and flowed into the hallway.

  “So, all of them were in on it…the Kuna and Huru delegations. It looks like their intention wasn’t about sending a message, but on murder…the assassination of the UC leaders. Were there any survivors?” Art asked leaning on the table in shock.

  “We don’t know how many may have escaped. We only know of two. We received a message from an emergency beacon from Einar Akre,” Cyperien said.

  “Yes, I deployed him there to follow several leads on Asger Ulven,” Art noted.

  “It appears that he and Senator Krico’s executive assistant Eerika Volden were able to escape. In the video message, they are clearly on a planet with no gear on,” Cyperien gave a command to the holographer, “Show coordinates,” the holographic image of Aigi grew smaller then moved to the right and faded away. A small green, blue and red planet came into view. “We do have some records of the planet, but our information is very vague. I really don’t have a lot to go off. It is orbiting the same star as Aigi, apparently, the air is not toxic, but that is really just about all I can find.”

  “The planet’s name is RA. It was named after the god of the Egyptians from Earth,” Art replied.

  “Egyptians, RA…okay. He noted that they landed on this planet and that the ship was damaged beyond his ability to repair it.” The hologram morphed and began to show a view taken from the back side of the beacon after it had been launched and was heading toward the atmosphere. Einar could be seen looking up at it as it ascended. Trees and large rock formations came into view and quickly began to reduce in size. Cyperien paused the image. “If you look, you can see an entire city on the right. Pyramids, palm trees, small structures, and a river.”

  “That really does look like the ancient Egyptians from Earth,” Ovtave said with a perplexed expression.

  “I assume that these people were taken from Earth and put here for reasons that may not be beneficial to them. This wasn’t about saving their race or anything like that…right?” Cyperien asked looking over at Art.

  “The Mayans, Incas, and Aztecs from Earth were settled on the planet about four or five hundred years ago. The Egyptians were there much longer and we have no way of proving how or when they ended up on the planet. Their presence predates the slave trade, so we don’t know the motivation for bringing them there. They had already renamed it RA before the others were settled. Obviously, after the arrival of the other tribes, it became a breeding ground for the slave trade.

  “A hundred years after the code was established the members of the council sought to correct the injustice perpetrated on these peoples of Earth. It started the first Baraza Zima era war. The allies had a resounding and quick victory and punished the Yeze and the Tavoy, who were ultimately responsible. Since the planet’s atmosphere, gravity and topography were so similar to that of Earth, the inhabitants seemed to flourish and grew into large numbers. Initially, they voted to return the people back to Earth. With the size of the population of each tribe, doing so could not be done by simply returning them to their place of origin. They couldn’t dump millions of people in the middle of what used to be their native lands. The dynamics of life on Earth had changed enough and to the point that these people would not have been able to live as they once had,” Art noted. “The death of so many for the sake of slavery…providing labor for everything under the sun, and other horrific uses that we shall not discuss in Mrs. Octave’s presence. This was even before telenium was discovered and its use perfected. Before the great prospecting race had even begun.”

  “At least there was some justice,” Cyperien noted.

  Art turned to face him, “The further we get from events like this that created the need for such intervention, which led to the Code, each generation has been increasingly desensitized to the reasons for its existence. There is very little respect or even tolerance for the Code anymore. Bit by bit support has been eroded. Opinions have changed and, in some cases, are in direct conflict with that of our predecessors. Love for the prospect of riches and power has once again infected some of those who used to be our closest allies. Who can we trust in this matter? This, we need to know. Even some of our own voting members are wary of the time, energy and resources it requires to uphold the Code. As time passes, it is inevitable that it will fall. It will be choked out of existence.”

  Cyperien gave a subtle nod of agreement, “Well, the coded message was broadcasted just before the beacon was destroyed. I assume it was the Redum possibly tracking Einar and whoever this Volden person is. They certainly know that they are on RA and will go to look for them.”

  “This will not go unanswered and the Kasadu knows it. We need to get Einar, and Ms. Volden off of RA. They are critical eyewitnesses in the assassinations. We cannot let anything happen to them. Perhaps this will open some eyes, change some minds and unify our support on the Council. It would appear that we are at war,” Art said solemnly.

  The hair on the back of Ovtave’s neck stood up giving her the sense that someone was watching her. Ins
tinctively Ovtave turned to the right and appearing out of the shadows like a ghost was Duncan. He looked at her and Layna’s voice spoke into her mind, “Joseph is coming,” the boy vanished.

  “Director,” a uniformed man approached. Art looked up at him and waited for the man to continue.

  “It appears the transport has left Isfahan, but we do not yet know where it is heading.”

  Art let out an extended breath and nodded, “Thank you.”

  Ovtave looked at him, “The boy Joseph? He is coming here.”

  “How can you be certain?” Art asked staring forward deep in thought.

  “Duncan…he told me that Joseph was coming,” she replied.

  Art and Cyperien looked at her oddly, “Are you sure. I didn’t see him come back into the room,” Cyperien said.

  “These kids truly have uncanny abilities,” Art noted.

  “Yes, Layna whispered into my mind. I guess part of your plan may have worked. But what if he is everything Duncan said, but he doesn’t want to help us? What if he realizes what he can do with his ability and no one can control him?” Cyperien asked.

  “I don’t want to control him; I just want him to understand that we are not his enemy and need his help. We have a common enemy and if he wants to stop those who have hurt him and the others he has known, we need to work together. That will be left up to you. You seem to have a way with these kids. There are others, we need to find them as well.”

  Chapter 19

  Initially, Ann set a course for Econ intending to follow instructions to get off Isfahan as quickly as the transport could do so without crashing into a building, satellite or space debris. Just as the transport was clear of the bay door, she seemed to lose control of the craft. The confused android tapped on the controls and looked back and forth attempting to figure out what was happening.

  The transport banked to the port and flew in an arching pattern as it ascended. Sonia looked upon the structure and wished that she could have saved all of the innocent within the walls and bring the building to the ground. They were unexpectedly faced with a different situation, Ann was no longer able to control the transport. Sonia looked over at the girl. Her clothing was ripped from the assault in the ginn, her hair was a mess like a madman. But, by her hand and body movements, it was obvious that she had taken control of the craft and seemed to be on a suicide mission.