by Jack Colrain
“Let me begin by saying that we don’t know what either the Shaldine themselves or the Gresians called or call this planet, but for operational purposes, we’ve given it the code name Firebird.”
“Firebird?” Daniel echoed.
Wilson nodded. “It’s an opera by Stravinsky based on old Russian folklore. There’s a wizard called Koschei or Katschey who hides his soul inside an egg inside a whole series of other objects—”
“Russian dolls,” Hope mused aloud
“In a manner of speaking. Anyway, this wizard can only be destroyed by breaking that egg. And that’s where your specialist soldiers, and this planet, come in.”
Daniel was intrigued despite himself.
Barnett gave an encouraging nod. “We’ve determined from researching the Shaldine record recovered from LTT-8270 that the gateway network has a central vulnerability which can be exploited from this planet Firebird. Professor Wilson?”
Wilson fell upon the chance to give a lecture with evident relish. “One reason so much of the truth of the Gresians background has remained hidden from even the Mozari is because the Mozari adapted some of their own technology from the Gresians. They reverse-engineered it and, somewhat ironically, in the process rendered themselves unable to access Shaldine records, because the Shaldine had designed their archive to be inaccessible to any Gresian technological or biological influence.”
“That’s why none of us could access their cube?” Daniel asked. “Aside from the blood protein, we were wearing suits using technology that had been back-engineered from the Gresian combat armor?”
“Precisely.” Wilson smiled momentarily. “Fortunately, I, and subsequently a few other trusted technicians, have been able to access the Shaldine information, and back some of it up onto purely human technological storage, which in turn can be accessed by Mozari technology. We can now feed that to you through a Mozari Library computer, and we invited you here to the C-In-C to use this development to explain the mission, which we’re calling—”
“Operation Stravinsky,” Barnett supplied.
“I assume you’re both wearing your suits?” Wilson asked Daniel and Hope. They nodded, Daniel wondering what the hell this was leading up to. “Good.” He wheeled in a Mozari Library cube on a floating trolley. “Oh, one thing,” Wilson added hesitantly. “It’s possible there may be some sensory glitches, due to the file format changes we’ve had to make to allow the Shaldine records to be accessible by other tech.”
Now even more intrigued, Daniel began to wonder what might have been held by the Shaldine computers. Was he about to find out? He hoped so, and he could sense Hope’s eagerness to find out for herself, too. As one, Hope and Daniel reached out and touched the Library cube, and suddenly they were in a misty white haze, surrounded by the passing figures of a species Daniel had never seen before. Wilson was also there with them, somehow. Daniel knew he couldn’t use a Mozari computer, and so realized that this must have been what he meant by using human technology to make the Shaldine and Mozari systems equally accessible. “May I introduce you to the Shaldine?”
The figures moving around them were shorter than most humans, with slightly muzzle-like faces and velvet pelts. They looked to Daniel kind of like humanoid moles, which he supposed explained their liking for tunnels and excavations on Lyonesse and its companion asteroid.
“They can’t see or hear us,” Wilson said. “They’re not interactive like true AI personae such as Lizzie or the Librarian; they are simply recordings.”
As if summoned by her name, Lizzie also materialized next to Daniel and walked over to examine the Shaldine as they moved. They seemed to be conducting tasks of some kind; operating unseen machinery that he could only suppose had been recorded along with them or which hadn’t been able to be converted to the type of imagery he was seeing. “So, these are the Shaldine,” Lizzie said. “They’re not what I expected.”
“How much do you know about them?” Wilson asked her.
“Only what was in the Gresians’ mythology.”
Wilson nodded, and as he did so, the environment around them cleared and darkened, becoming an evening sky under strange star patterns. “The Shaldine were an old and powerful race. They didn’t have the ability to travel faster than light, but they were gifted scientists and engineers, and they did learn to create stable wormholes which allowed them to travel the stars. They created the gate system and shared the technology with several other advanced civilizations at the time.”
Around them, the Shaldine were talking with a variety of other beings, some fairly humanoid and some not. There were creatures made of tentacles and claws and fibrous wings, and more besides, all carrying tools. “Life was peaceful. There were inter-species skirmishes, but the galaxy is a pretty big place. If one race was angry with another, it was an easy enough thing to avoid the other race.” Wilson paused. “I can’t say I disagree with any of their ways on principle, so far.”
“What went wrong?” Hope asked.
“They met those Gresian scuzzbuckets, I guess,” Daniel said.
“The Gresians didn’t exist yet,” Lizzie pointed out.
“That’s correct,” Wilson said with a nod. Around them, fires began to glimmer balefully on the horizon, and several Shaldine ran past, some falling as they were hit by weapons fire. Their killers came to a halt, examining the bodies and looting them. The killers had dyed their pelts with regular geometric patterns. “Unfortunately, the Shaldine weren’t unified amongst themselves. They fought religious and ideological wars. Eventually, a group of Shaldine microbiologists—or the equivalent thereof—created a virus that they planned to use on a rival faction. They believed they could inoculate their own population and eradicate their enemies.”
Now they were walking along through caverns filled with dead and decaying Shaldine, which chilled Daniel to the bone. “It looks like they were right.”
Wilson looked on sadly. “Yes. The virus they created certainly did kill their enemies; unfortunately, the counteragent, the cure they developed, rendered a huge percentage of their population sterile. The species was dying, and there was little they could do about that.”
As they found themselves in a sparsely-populated amphitheater where Shaldine orators were growling at each other, Lizzie took up the story. “According to the Gresians, some Shaldine believed that they deserved their fate. Others, of course, didn’t. And a third bunch—you really don’t want to see the venn diagram of how they were divided up—thought that they could cheat death entirely through science. All they needed was enough workers to look after them, even if they couldn’t breed enough of a population themselves. So, they genetically engineered a new species, also in the hope that this new species could breed with the Shaldine to create offspring—which is just too creepy, you know.”
“Anyway,” Wilson interrupted, “they wanted to create a species that would exemplify those qualities they liked best about the Shaldine, but one that would also not have the same kind of inclinations for internicine warfare.”
Lizzie nodded towards a tall, felinoid shape emerging from a lab. “And maybe they were compensating for something. So, they created the Gresians, a highly intelligent species with an instinctual need and drive to communicate and protect other Gresians. What could possibly go wrong?” They now saw Gresians working in factories and fields, climbing high trees to gather fruits while Shaldine looked on.
“A need to protect,” Hope echoed. “How does that work?”
Lizzie answered, “Well, just imagine you’re walking down the road, and you see a baby on the sidewalk in a basket. She’s crying and there’s no one around for as far as you can see. Your instinct, I believe, is to call emergency services and protect the child until help can arrive, right?” Hope nodded. “The Gresians were designed to feel that way toward all other Gresians of any age or social group. They have an instinctive need to protect the species, no matter what. Like I said, what could possibly go wrong?”
“I guess that dep
end on what you consider a threat,” Daniel said thoughtfully.
“Ding!” Lizzie exclaimed. “And we have a winner.”
“That’s not the whole of it,” Doug Wilson resumed. “What’s more, the Shaldine bred into the Gresians a collective subconsciousness. Each of them is an individual, but they are also part of a whole.”
“Like the Borg in Star Trek?” Daniel asked.
“Not quite. They’re not a gestalt, all thinking as one, or ruled by a single intelligence controlling them all. And they can’t communicate telepathically. What they can do is feel each other’s emotions—especially those of their loved ones. They can also pilot ships by thought and instinct, as their ships have an organic element to them that is shared by the Gresians. So, in that sense, each of them is connected to the Gresian whole, and all of these connections are then run through the gate system. That gate system connects all Gresians.”
“Meaning?” Hope prompted. “So, the Gresians have some weird subconscious connection among them all…. So what? I mean, if it’s not like they have a single mind, so that they don’t all know what one knows, then… what practical difference does it make? Strategically or militarily?”
“To them, none,” Wilson replied. “It doesn’t give them an information or communications advantage, and, to be honest, I’m by no means certain that they themselves are even aware of it. I certainly would be very surprised if they knew it linked them via the gate system. No, this connection was put in place by the Shaldine when they created the Gresian culture, presumably to aid in quickly establishing a standard for their creations’ culture across the various planets the Shaldine held influence over. So that they would know that the Gresians uplifted on one planet would have the same nature and abilities as those raised on another.”
“Nature, abilities, and loyalties and obedience,” Daniel murmured.
“That would be my interpretation.”
Wilson nodded. “The Shaldine believed that this interconnectedness would prevent the internicine warfare that doomed their species. Unfortunately, it had the side effect of making the Gresians xenophobic. By the time the Shaldine realized the mistake they’d made, they already had a large population of Gresians.”
By now, the four of them were on a street under what Daniel felt were disturbingly familiar circumstances. Plasma fire was crackling through the air, and explosions rumbled in the distance. Armored Gresian troops were running and leaping, gunning down small groups of Shaldine civilians and in some cases simply tearing them to pieces with claws and fangs. At the gates of a spaceport, helpless Shaldine tore their fingers in their frantic attempts to get through to shuttles that were taking off.
“The Gresians rose up against the Shaldine and put them in internment camps,” Wilson said, “but that process was clearly going to take too long, so in the end they settled for murdering most of the population. After that, the remaining Shaldine escaped through a gateway to an uninhabited planet.” An emerald globe that Daniel recognized instantly rose in front of them, floating amongst the stars: Lyonesse. “I think we all recognize it,” Wilson added. “They had a couple of shuttle craft with them, but little technology otherwise. They managed to create an outpost on an asteroid nearby, and created a copy of their Library in a cube-shaped computer system. The Library was keyed so that neither the Gresians nor anyone with Gresian DNA could access it. And then you and I, Lieutenant West, stumbled across it, and here we are.”
“So, do you know what happened to the Shaldine on Lyonesse?”
“Yes, I do now. They lived out the rest of their days on the planet regretting their mistakes. The Gresians didn’t bother them again, but they did spread out in the galaxy, and they waged war with every intelligent species they came across.”
As he spoke, huge Gresian cruisers flew past Lyonesse, and then Daniel found himself in a situation in which he had already been, when he’d first accessed a Mozari Library computer: In space, which twisted as if bubbles were forming and then being imploded; leaving behind solid structures roughly the shape of something somewhere between a spider and octopus, but with a wide range of individual variations, as the coral-like surfaces had pushed and pulled and twisted into different forms. Gresian assault craft swooping upon a planet where embers of glowing metal simmered in the paths and streets between some form of buildings. The planet wasn’t the only one. Stars spun around him, throwing up globe after globe—cratered, burning, devasted beyond any ability for life to flourish on any of them.
“That, I can confirm,” Lizzie said. “I’ve done some reading in the long centuries, you know; looked up a few things; remembered stuff. Got a good memory, I have.”
“Surely, Elizabeth—” Hope hesitated, and corrected herself, “I mean, Lizzie, the Gresians must know about all of this.”
Lizzie looked at her curiously for a moment, head tilted to one side. “You’d think, but they have a creation mythology of their own. The Gresians believe they come from a planet that, just through some random strange quirk of evolution, produced two intelligent species. Them, and the Shaldine. They tell each other, in stories that have been intercepted and recorded, that this other intelligent species, the Shaldine, was graceful and athletic….” She paused. “Well, it takes all sorts, I suppose, but also cruel. They believe that they enslaved the early Gresians and forced them to do their bidding. While the Shaldine fought amongst themselves for dominance, the Gresians tell themselves that they developed a culture that emphasized cooperation, mutual understanding, and sacrifice for the greater good. Though they were slaves, they developed works of art, literature, and culture that far surpassed anything the Shaldine created.”
“Demonize the other guy to justify what you do to him,” Daniel said understandingly. “I guess that’s universal, and not just us.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s right,” Hope reminded him. “Go on, Lizzie.”
As the library lobby returned to a neutral gray, Lizzie did just that. “Over time, even some of the Shaldine supposedly recognized the superiority of Gresian culture. Eventually, a movement grew amongst the Shaldine to free their slaves. Then, a countermovement grew that claimed the Gresians should always be subservient. Weird, I know. So, that fight got more tribal and more entrenched, and led to a civil war which left the Shaldine weakened. The Gresians became the most powerful group on the planet and overthrew their former masters. Then they set up their own governments and society.
“Interesting,” Wilson said. “So, both histories agree that there was a Shaldine civil war, but for different reasons.”
“The Gresians now had to invent politics from scratch, and in a crisis. They didn’t know what to do with the surviving Shaldine. Some Gresians said all the Shaldine should be put to death. Others said only those who opposed Gresian freedom should be put to death. Others said they should be enslaved themselves. Lovely people, huh?”
“They must have known there were Shaldine on Lyonesse,” Daniel deduced, “since they set up their Guardian caste there, to watch over the ruins that they now see as sacred.”
“Based on comparison with the Shaldine history Professor Wilson copied for me, yeah, that’s factual. There were no easy answers, and so lots of Gresians got frustrated. Pretty much everyone believed the Shaldine should be punished somehow for their crimes, and to prevent them turning the tables again. Always the pragmatists. But another bunch, who had something more similar to your kind of morality, argued that the surviving Shaldine shouldn’t be punished for the crimes of their ancestors.”
“The old sins of the fathers issue from the Bible,” Daniel commented. “I get that.”
“Right. So, this group thought—and remember, this is according to the Gresians’ own creation mythology, which is a bit propagandist, so might all be bollocks, if you know what I mean—that if one could prove an individual Shaldine committed a specific crime, he or she should be punished, but that society shouldn’t criminalize membership in a particular species because that would make them no better than
the Shaldine who’d enslaved them.”
“Let me guess,” Hope said. “Next, the Gresians managed to have a civil war to protect themselves, and then commit the massacres?”
“That’s a baseless anthropomorphism of an alien species, but, yeah, also pretty much correct. This political fight began tearing the fragile new society apart. Riots, skirmishes, terrorism, you get the idea, and the Shaldine were blamed for the divisions in their new culture. Eventually, a demagogue came up and called on his followers to put an end to the splits the quick way. To protect the Gresians on both sides, and unify them, this demagogue claimed that for the good of the species, the Shaldine should be put to death. The idea being that then it would be over and done with, and there would no longer be a divisive issue, so the society could put it all behind them.
“The Shaldine at this time were living in internment camps?” Hope asked.
“While the Gresians decided what to do with them, yep. In the end, the Gresians figured that the demagogue was right, and poured into these internment camps and murdered every Shaldine they could. Which was basically all of them since they were already being held all together. In one night, tens of thousands of Shaldine were slaughtered, leaving fewer than a thousand alive.”
Daniel was chilled, and shivered, as did Hope. Even Wilson had blanched. “Maybe it’s a curse of free will and ego,” Wilson muttered. “There are always camps, sooner or later....”
“It’s not much consolation for the Shaldine, but the Gresians later went on to view this as the most shameful event in their history.” Lizzie took on a more somber expression. “I think everyone on this planet knows how that goes.”
Wilson was looking intrigued by now, and Daniel couldn’t blame him. He was pretty curious about all this stuff himself, and it wasn’t in his professional purview, whereas it was in Wilson’s. “If you’ll indulge my curiosity,” Daniel began, “what does your record of Gresian creation mythology say about what happened to the last Shaldine, the ones who left their records at Lyonesse?”
