by T. R. Harris
That is our belief as well. So we will help you, and everything will be ready when you arrive. Your people will have to have their units tuned, and then implanted. After that will come the training, which you are well-aware is the hardest and most-time consuming aspect of the entire procedure.
I understand, yet with the timetable for the Human invasion of Elision, we’ll only have a month to train, so it will have to be mission-focused at first. And besides, the longer we delay the mission, the more suffering Riyad will experience. He may even die.
The Kracori said they will keep him alive until the fleet’s arrival.
That will be drug-induced by then, and even if we do rescue him at that point, there wouldn’t be much left. No, we really must hurry.
Then do what you can to prepare your colleagues ahead of time. Having a detailed knowledge of the functioning of the Gift will help build their foundation for when the real training begins. It is all I can suggest.
That’s a great idea, Arieel, Adam thought, and again, I am so incredibly grateful for all you’re doing for us. Hopefully someday, when all this bloodshed and turmoil in the galaxy has past, our two races can have more interaction with each other. Adam felt a strange emotional wave flow through his body, but then it quick dissipated.
That would be most welcome, Adam Cain. I will go now to begin the preparations. Have a safe journey – and then after a hesitation – my friend.
As the link with the alien faded into the ether, Adam was once more left feeling empty and alone. This emotion was becoming more pronounced with each new conversation he had with the Formilian Speaker. Someday he would take the time to figure out why.
Chapter 47
Twenty-eight days later, the Pegasus entered the Formilian stellar system. Adam hadn’t been to Formil in almost a year, not since he’d been fitting with the artificial telepathy device by the less-than-enthusiastic Formilians.
There were no other words to describe it: Adam had blackmailed the Formilian Order of Light and Life to fit him with the device – the first male to ever have the procedure in the two-thousand year history of telepathy manipulation by the Order. What lasting damage his actions would have on the Formilians, he had no way of knowing. He just knew change was coming, and he felt responsible.
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The Formilians were an interesting study in galactic politics and the unique merging of science with religion. Simply put, the Formilians were the foremost manufacturers of electronic devices in the galaxy, with nearly every computer and microprocessor found on thousands of planets originating on one of the seven productions worlds within the thirty-nine-member Formilian Coalition.
Since long before the time of Juirean domination of the galaxy, the Formilians had worshiped one thing above all else – electricity. And even though their scientists and engineers fully understood the origin and principals of the electromagnetic force, they chose to take this understanding one step further and assign a pair of deities to its ultimate creation and manipulation. Just as countless other species throughout the galaxy understand the biological and evolutionary process of life – yet still place a supernatural power above it all – the Formilians did the same with electricity. Their gods, Mislin and Sufor, represented the polar opposites of positive and negative which allow for the existence of the electromagnetism, one of the four basic forces found throughout the universe. Through the millennia, their religion became based on the science of electrical creation and the construction of devices to utilize that force.
The Formilian interaction with the galaxy at-large began over two-thousand years before when the planet encountered the Juirean First Empire. At that time, the Juireans were a more-belligerent race, obsessed with the manic rush to bring the entire galaxy under their domination. What the Juireans found in the Formilians and their advanced electronic technology was a means of acquiring another kind of domination over the worlds they encountered – technological, rather than simply military superiority.
The Juireans and the Formilians soon entered into a completely unique affiliation, especially for the Juireans, who until then controlled worlds and societies exclusively by overwhelming force. In the case of the Formilians, they allowed the society to exist completely autonomous of the Juirean Empire and their subsequent Expansion. In return the Formilians would grant the Juireans exclusive right to all Formilian devices. In very short order, the Juireans not only controlled the most-powerful military force in the galaxy, but also the most-advanced technology. Without this special arrangement, the Juireans would never have attained the ultimate status they achieved.
The rather insidious infiltration of the galaxy through technology begun innocently enough, though, and involved the development of the universal translation devices so ubiquitous now that it’s hard to imagine a time without them.
Two thousand years ago, the Juireans were incorporating hundreds of new worlds into their empire on a yearly basis. This caused an almost insurmountable problem with communications, not only because each planet had its own language, but on the vast majority, hundreds – if not thousands – of separate dialects were spoken.
In a few tragic cases, misunderstanding in translations even brought about interstellar wars which cost billions of lives, including the complete extermination of two whole races by the Juireans.
As it turned out, something as simple as spoken language almost brought a galactic empire crashing down.
Desperate for a solution, the Juireans turned to the Formilians. At the time, they were working on a miniature translation device that held the promise of saving the Empire from collapse. It was a bio-mechanical ‘bug’ that would embed itself under the skin behind the ear of the host and would sync with the brainwaves of the being to provide accurate language translations.
But simply having a device that could translate was only the tip of the iceberg. With the sheer number of languages involved, this meant that no single device could contain enough memory resources to store them all. So the Formilians were the first to develop the Library, the galactic internet that was originally designed to store myriad languages found throughout the Juirean Empire.
As it evolved, once a new language was encountered, the individual device would begin assimilating all the various words and phrases possible – which is an on-going process even to this day for nearly every known language. Then once a bug came in contact with another bug, it would pass along its database for the new language, until finally access to the Library was reached. At this point the new language was stored in the vast memory of the Library before being disseminated to all bugs requiring access. Each individual translation bug only stored in its memory the few languages its host was in contact with at the time – and yet in a micro-second, any new language encountered could be downloaded to the device through the Library.
From this singular purpose, the Library grew to become a complete resource for all knowledge throughout the galaxy. The servers for the Library are Formilian-designed and located on the planet Formil herself.
The Formilian translation bug revolutionized communications between species and was one of the driving forces behind the success of the Juirean domination of the galaxy. This tiny, flat, triangular-shape ‘bug’ essentially brought all the races of the galaxy together as one.
This small device was also the impetuous for an entire religion, and led to a dominant bloodline that has ruled the Formilian people and their Coalition of planets for two-thousand years.
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As the translation bug was in development, one of the lead scientists on the team was a Formilian female named Lorilie Bol. Her area of expertise dealt with the interface between the device and the brain, and she was genius at what she did.
Early on, Bol saw the potential for more than just translation interface with the living brain, believing that a more-advanced module could provide a link between the brain and other electronic devices, and not only translation bugs. Eighteen years after the perfection of the tra
nslation bug, Lorilie Bol had her first working prototype of the artificial telepathy device.
Yet unlike the translation bug, which was distributed by the trillions throughout the galaxy, Bol chose to construct only one such telepathy device at a time – and with herself as its only recipient.
Unknown to but a select few in the galaxy, it was actually the Juireans who suggested the module be exclusive to only Bol and her descendants, and fully supported the development of the religion that grew from its invention. The Juireans knew it would be much easier to control one person with a telepathy device than it would billions of creatures all having such abilities.
Lorilie Bol was presented to the Formilian people as the living embodiment of their religion, serving as a direct link with their gods, Mislin and Sufor. Through dazzling and mind-boggling displays of her miraculous powers, Lorilie mesmerized the masses with her manipulation of electricity and electronic devices, apparently with only the power of her mind … as well as the support of the gods. She could ‘speak’ with Mislin and Sufor directly, and soon the title of Speaker was assigned to Lorilie Bol and her descendants, and the Order of Light and Life was created to administer to her every need – and to keep the secret of the telepathy device from the masses.
As her myth grew, the Formilians began a frenetic drive to produce more and more electronic devices which would serve as conduits to the gods for their Speaker. The Juireans reveled in this new surge of invention, as they soon had even more wondrous gadgets with which to introduce to the galaxy. And as the population of the galaxy grew more dependent and wanting of these new inventions, the power and the influence of the Juireans grew with it.
In the end Formilian society prospered and became united under one authority, that of the Speaker Lorilie Bol, while the Juireans were free to expand their empire in a more peaceful, yet surreptitious manner. If it wasn’t for Lorilie Bol and the Formilian telepathy device, the Juirean Expansion would never have come into existence.
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Yet in order to maintain the myth of the supernatural nature of Bol’s powers, it was decided that only female offspring directly descended from Lorilie Bol would ever be fitted with the device and hold the title of Speaker. After all, it was the being Lorilie Bol who possessed the power, as would her offspring as well throughout the generations.
Only the very top echelon of the Order would ever know the truth, and as the millennia passed, even the Speakers themselves began to believe in the supernatural nature of the powers. The device – while being constructed by mortal beings – was a product of the gods who passed their knowledge on to the technicians tasked with the construction. And so without the guidance of the Gods, the ‘device’ could never be constructed. This helped to resolve the glaring contradiction of divine creation of an electronic device.
Soon the tradition evolved that when the current Speaker reached thirty-five years of age, she would produce a single female offspring, who five years later would be given the Gift from the Gods. She would then spend the next ten years learning how to attain harmony and unity with the Gods until she was made the new Speaker, replacing the current one.
For two thousand years, and through fifty-seven Speakers, the tradition had been followed – until Adam Cain threatened to reveal the Order’s secret to the galaxy. Unless he was also fitted with one of the telepathy devices, he would show the Formilian people and their supporting Coalition that all they had worshiped for two thousand years had been a fraud, and the ‘powers’ of the Speaker were artificial in nature and could be available to anyone with such a device.
With no other choice, the current Speaker and the leaders of the Order had agreed to Adam’s demand, and now over the few months that he had carried the ATD within him, he had proven to Speaker Arieel Bol and the High Celebrants of the Order that he was no threat to them. That threat came instead from the impending collapse of the Expansion and the chaos that would result.
With Formil as one of the last remaining economic and technological superpowers in the galaxy, it would soon become a target of the new forces springing up nearly everywhere, and all would seek dominion over the Formilians.
Adam was glad to hear that the Formilians were beginning to take a more active role in the affairs of the Expansion. Prior to this, they had retained their autonomy and detachment, living within the bubble that was their own myopic view of the galaxy.
But now the Juireans were gone from the Expansion, and Kroekus and his failing government was in no position to offer the protection that had always kept the evil forces at bay. It was now up to the Formilians to provide for their own defense.
In a relatively brief time, the attitude of the Formilians had changed. Now they offered no resistance when Adam requested that not only another female be fitted with the ATD, but also three other males, and all aliens as well.
The very thought of this happening even a year ago on Formil would have been beyond anyone’s imagination. Now they had offered absolutely no resistance.
Chapter 48
On Formil…
Adam landed the Pegasus at the Order’s exclusive spaceport outside the white stone walls of the Temple Complex located at the northern edge of the sprawling metropolis of the capital city of Vull. The city itself was one of the most-modern in the entire galaxy, yet the ancient Temple Complex was a study in contrasts. It was constructed of primarily large stone blocks and with architecture reminiscent of a time of castles and knights if it had been located on Earth.
As the large open-air transport brought the Humans within the walls of the Complex, Adam’s companions were awed by the spectacle of it all. Adam had been here before, so he knew it was all for show, designed to evoke just the response it was generating from the Humans.
In a way, Adam felt sorry for the Formilians. Soon their entire society would change, as outside influences began to take over. Eventually the veil of the Speaker would be pulled back and then things would really change. Whether they could survive once the truth was known remained a mystery. He knew the myth of the Speaker had not been created simply to deceive for the sake of power. It was a unifying influence, and once it was gone, would the whole society collapse, and with it all the wondrous contributions the race has made to the peoples of the galaxy? Adam certainly hoped it wouldn’t. Besides all the other consequences that it would bring about, it would also break the heart of Arieel Bol.
********
Their escorts led the Humans to the Temple of Light and Life, the most-sacred building in Formilian society. It was within these walls that Adam and Arieel had rushed to the Throne Room to keep the bomb within Arieel’s body from exploding only a short year before. In the end he had succeeded in saving the Speaker’s life, and since that time, Arieel and he had been linked in some inexplicable way that went beyond the ATD’s they both carried. And as he approached the smiling Formilian Speaker, he felt that same uneasiness he refused to analyze any deeper. Not now; maybe never.
As always happened when in the presence of one of the most-beautiful humanoid females in the galaxy, Adam felt strangely uncomfortable, especially having Sherri with him. He always felt guilty in his thoughts, and he was sure that Sherri – even without an ATD – could read them with clarity.
Adam and his entourage stopped just below the elevated throne where Arieel sat, as the High Celebrant Convor Ton’al Ona stepped forward.
“Welcome Adam Cain, and the rest of his companions,” Convor said with graciousness and sincerity. “I am pleased to see you again, yet regret the circumstances that have brought you to Formil. Although I only met Mr. Riyad Tarazi briefly on Pyrum-3, I could tell he was friend and a valued asset to your organization.”
“Thank you, Celebrant Convor,” Adam said, genuinely happy to see the Formilian. It was always good to have a Formilian male in the room when Arieel was present; they tended to distract Sherri from her insecurities surrounding the Speaker. The males – every damn one of them – were tanned, buffed and barrel-chested, an
d exuded such a strong sense of viral pheromones that Sherri often felt like a fourteen-year-old girl attending her first rock concert. Adam could sense her self-control holding back her urge to scream, pant and maybe even faint in the presence of such masculine perfection – even though Convor would be the equivalent to sixty-five in Earth years. Still, the dude was a hunk.
Adam addressed both Convor and Arieel with his next statement. “I know the tremendous sacrifice the two of you are making just so we can attempt a rescue of our friend. And once our mission is complete, I assure you we will only use the ATD’s – the Gifts – you give us for good. You have mentioned that your society is changing, and the Formilians will be taking a more active role in the galaxy. Personally, I welcome this. There’s a darkness coming, and we will need the light provided by the Formilian’s to help us through.”
Adam felt Sherri nudge him; he glanced at her and saw the quizzical frown on her face. He knew her well enough to know what she was thinking: What the hell is all this Lord of the Rings-type bullshit?
He shrugged, knowing that as soon as his team got him in private the hazing would be classic.
Arieel stood and stepped down from the Throne platform to stand before Adam and his group. Adam now smiled, not so much at Arieel, but at the uncomfortable shuffling he could hear coming from the three men behind him. This was the first time any of them had seen Arieel and he knew exactly what they were going through. From that day on, they would never be able to get the image of Arieel Bol out of their minds – or their fantasies.
Arieel’s expression suddenly turned very serious. “My friend Adam Cain, and all his brave companions, I too welcome you. As I have promised, all the arrangements have been made for your procedures, although I do not envy the mission you have set for yourselves. The Kracori homeworld will not welcome your actions, and I fear for your success.”
