Etude to War (Earth Song Cycle Book 4)

by Mark Wandrey

  “Right,” she said and forced a smile. The man beamed and offered his hand, which she took as warmly as she could.

  “What the hell is this?” Aaron asked, coming up behind her.

  “My husband, Aaron Groves. Aaron, this is Dr. Engles from the hysterical society.”

  The well dress man cocked an eyebrow, and Minu didn’t realize her Freudian slip. Aaron caught it and beamed at the guy, winking at him before shaking his hand.

  Minu quickly organized them and managed to keep them from completely obliterating her garden. The island was less than two square kilometers and the cabin was way too small to host the two dozen researchers Dr. Engles brought with him. He cut off her complaints as the workers began setting up ingenious little floating docks just off the shore. By the time noon rolled around, they had assembled an impressive offshore facility, complete with living quarters and research labs. That was when Director Porter arrived.

  The two researchers were almost opposites. Where Engles was thin and effete, Porter was massively fat and masculine almost to a fault. He bowed over Minu’s hand and winked at her as he introduced himself.

  “Alexander Porter, Director of Founder Studies, Plateau Historical Society. Honored to meet you, Chosen Groves.”

  “The honor is all mine,” she said as she offered her hand and glanced at Aaron who stood by the cabin door, observing the kloth-and-pony show. His eyes narrowed dangerously as Porter brushed the back of her hand with his lips. Minu winked at her husband, but to no effect. Aaron had never been forgiving of any flirtatious behavior. Luckily for them, she was not that sort of girl.

  “We intend to disrupt as little as possible. The society is grateful you let us have this opportunity.”

  “Can you give me a better idea about what you are here for?”

  “Of course. We’ve long known most of your ancestors are buried on this island. Billy and Mindy Harper had five children, only one of whom survived to have children. Near the end of the colonial days, about a hundred years after the foundation of Plateau, some records were lost. The colonists endeavored to switch to indigenous record keeping as quickly as possible.”

  “Meaning paper instead of data?”

  “Exactly. The problem with paper is that it is susceptible to environmental conditions. A storm damaged a roof and destroyed several boxes of records. Ironically, if they’d saved the water damaged files, we’d have been able to restore them with Concordian technology. But that is neither here nor there.

  “You see, the mystery is the fate of Mindy Harper. Shortly after her husband’s death, she left on an expedition to the southern continent with several towns’ members. The outcome of that expedition is unknown.”

  “Mindy came back and died of old age,” Minu said, reciting what her father had taught her many years earlier. “She’s buried here with the rest of her family.”

  “We’d like to verify that. With your permission, of course.”

  * * *

  The research team was composed of professional archaeologists and scientists. But beyond that they also were members of a historical society and were cautious about whose hallowed ground they trod upon. They deployed laser grid scanners and mapped the island down to the millimeter.

  Then they went to work on the burial plot. Minu had always known the general location of the graves, but not the exact one. They were down past the cabin, along the shore, at the highest point of the island, her father had explained. So, it was there she took the researchers and left them to their work.

  It was the morning of the next day, Sunday, before one of the researchers disturbed the couple. Minu and Aaron were playing a game of chess and chatting about her idea of a human-built starship.

  Aaron liked what he heard, but she hadn’t gotten to her thoughts on humanity leading a new expansion into space, perhaps to uncolonized worlds, new virgin planets that had not evolved to the point of habitability when The Lost fell from the stage. Who knew, maybe there were other spacefaring species in the galaxy. It might behoove them to remain quiet, to not attract anyone’s attention. The neighbors had itchy trigger fingers.

  A knock on the door surprised them. The researchers had been so quiet they’d honestly forgotten their island teamed with visitors. They looked at each other and laughed as Minu hopped up to answer the door. Halfway there, she looked quickly over her shoulder. “And don’t touch my bishop!” she snapped. Aaron jerked his hand back but wasn’t quite quick enough to pull it off. Smiling, she opened the door.

  “Chosen Groves,” the young researcher said nervously.

  “What can I do for you? Almost finished?”

  “Not quite. Director Porter wanted to show you something...significant.”

  Minu glanced at Aaron who looked up from studying the chess board and shrugged. “Be right back. Think about how you’re going to save that rook.”

  Outside, the young researcher led Minu to the area she’d told them to search for the graves. They’d settled on the far side, more inland than she’d expected her ancestor’s remains to be. There, they’d deployed a series of Concordia-built sensor devices on human-manufactured tripods.

  As she approached, she realized the sensors were each placed over a grave, seven in total. Porter’s massive frame was bent over a table holding a dozen compact holographic display tanks; he was scratching his chin. As she approached, he noticed her. He looked up, smiled, and motioned her over.

  “You needed me?”

  “Yes, I think it is important that you see this. Obviously, we have located the graves. They have small markers, carved from local stone.” He pointed to one display where a three-dimensional image of a grave marker hovered:

  Billy Harper

  1981 AD—023 AE

  Beloved husband, best father, good friend

  The carving was simple, but legible.

  “We found them under about five centimeters of loam and decaying plant matter. They were not vertical markers like those you see in most cemeteries on Plateau.” He touched a control and another display became larger, drawing her attention.

  It was a scan of the ground under the grave and reminded her of a wire drawn image used by some imagers on the Kaatan spacecraft. Hints of wood from a casket, rocks, other parts of the ground, and a clearly definable skeleton nestled in the center. Its skull face stared out at her, arms folded across the chest.

  “If this is too much for you, I can skip this part.”

  “Director Porter, I am a two-star Chosen. I’ve seen enough death that this representation is hardly of any emotional concern.”

  “I apologize. Still, this is your family, and I only wish to be considerate of your feelings.” She nodded, and he proceeded. The scanned image moved over the skeleton’s torso, and she could see broken ribs. She pointed at the anomaly. “Exactly. This conforms to the historical account of how Billy Harper died, massive blunt force trauma to the abdomen. He was trampled by a kloth.”

  Better than mauled by one, Minu thought, unconsciously making a fist with her right hand.

  “Next is the grave of their oldest daughter, Alice.”

  For an hour he went through the graves, one at a time. Some he was more interested in than others. Mindy and Billy’s youngest child, a boy named Adam, had been born only two years before his father’s death. He’d died during an outbreak of influenza carried by a traveler from the newly discovered Summit tribe. Two dozen other young colonists succumbed to the same plague.

  As the examination continued, Minu realized just how tragic her storied ancestor’s life was. Mindy was the one most responsible for saving those around the American gate and defeating a government plot that would have seen only rich, powerful, greedy people come over, carrying lots of worthless equipment. Then she spent the rest of her life raising children who died one after another, with only one girl surviving, before her husband was killed.

  “What about Mindy?” Minu heard herself asking amid a discussion by the director and several of his older scientist
s.

  “That’s the reason I asked you to come out,” he explained as he typed instructions into the computer. Despite her own assurances, she felt herself getting nervous as the display changed. Was she really ready to look at the remains of her ancestor?

  She raised her hand unconsciously to stroke the sapphire hanging on its dualloy chain around her neck. No one had said anything for a minute before she realized there was silence.

  On the display was the same coffin shape she’d seen several times before, with rocks and other debris surrounding the shape. It was completely normal, except there was no skeleton. “Where is the body?”

  “That’s exactly what we are wondering,” said the thin Dr. Engles. “And based on some of the accounts we have from other records, this is not unexpected.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  Director Porter spoke up again. “You see, there was an account by a daughter of one of Mindy Harper’s friends, written shortly before her death. It recounted a conversation she had with Mindy before she left on her expedition. She was instructed to place this grave.”

  “But Mindy isn’t in there?”

  “No. The friend’s daughter was instructed to place an empty coffin and this marker here.” He touched a control and the image of the marker appeared. “Mindy Harper” was all it said. There were no dates or other information. And unlike the others, this one was crude. It looked no better than she believed it would have if she’d done it herself.

  “You mean to say you think Mindy Harper went off on her expedition and never returned?”

  He simply gestured at the empty coffin, then motioned to another researcher who wore a lab coat and carried a Concordia-made biological sampling device. “We’d like to perform the test on you we requested earlier.”

  Minu suddenly felt a little dizzy with concern, the cold hand of fear clenching at her heart. She recalled Chriso Alma, all those years ago, upset by the then-director of the Historical Society requesting Minu be genetically tested. Her first instinct was to refuse. How dare they question who she was? What were they suggesting?

  “Why is this necessary?”

  Porter cocked an eyebrow, then looked around at all the other expectant faces.

  “Can you give me and the Chosen some privacy please?”

  A moment later, she was alone with him and Engles. “I completely understand your trepidation in this situation.”

  “With all due respect, Mr. Porter, I don’t believe you do.”

  He sighed and shook his head indifferently, then shrugged. “I can see your point of view. But I would hope you can see ours as well. It now seems possible that one of our most famous bloodlines is in question. I don’t see how knowing for sure could affect you in any real way.”

  “The Harper family line is a huge part of our family history.”

  “I know that, Chosen, but you have brought almost as much fame to your name as any that came from being related to the ancient family of Mindy and Billy Harper. Tens of thousands are alive and living better lives because of your inventions and exploits. You’ve saved the planet from alien aggression at least twice. Are you seriously concerned that, should you be not related to the Harper line in a way you believed, it would somehow—”

  “A name is a greater part of your identity than you realize,” she cut in, more defensively than she’d intended.

  She almost mentioned the sapphire she wore around her neck. Her father said the stone came from Mindy, a gift given by Billy Harper on their anniversary in Tranquility. The first natives mined rare gems.

  Porter looked at her for a long moment, as did Engles. Minu felt her cheeks flush, and she quickly became angry. Porter eventually nodded. “Okay, I see your point of view. Perhaps we have as little to gain by determining you are not directly descended from Mindy Harper as you have to lose from finding out the same. However, history is important to our people.

  “Humanity is an orphan, Mrs. Groves. As a people we have little faith. My ancestors were Catholic. I’ve read a lot of history on religions on Earth. Aside from the Jews in New Jerusalem and a small, but vocal, core of Shinto followers in Peninsula, there aren’t many people we would call religious on Bellatrix.

  “I would even hazard to say that the pageantry surrounding the Chosen is more of a religion than any sort of deity worship. But, without that faith in our lives, what remains? Our history, for the most part. Look at the following of old Earth movies in theaters. Sales for five-hundred-year-old movies outpace the sales of our own at a rate of five to one. We’ve named our cities after Earth cities. Our burgeoning sports leagues are copies of those from Earth. What do we have except our history?”

  Minu wanted to disagree with at least some of what he said but couldn’t. As a fan of history, she knew he was telling the truth. The Rangers wouldn’t exist if she hadn’t studied the history of Earth’s military units. Earth military weapons inspired the shock rifles, as well as Aaron’s and Gregg’s Enforcers. Her entire drive to move humanity from obscurity to prominence in the galaxy came from her feeling that mankind should have a better history than it was experiencing. We must be meant for something more!

  “Do it,” she agreed finally.

  * * *

  Aaron looked up when the cabin door opened four hours later. He was about to look away when he saw tears in her eyes, and he instantly stood and moved toward her. “What happened?”

  Minu shook her head, wiping tears from her eyes, as she deftly dodged her husband and made her way to the liquor cabinet. Aaron stopped and watched, as his nearly tee totaling wife poured a rare shot of whiskey, neat, and slugged it back.

  After putting the glass down, she held out her hands, more tears leaking from her eyes. Aaron picked up where he left off and came to her. She folded herself into his powerful arms. He was only a few centimeters taller than she, so her head fit comfortably on his shoulder. “Are they finished out there?”

  “Yeah,” she said quietly, “the last transport was taking off as I came back in.”

  “So, can you tell me now why Darth Vader is crying?”

  Minu coughed and laughed lightly, taking her head off his shoulder and looking him in the eye. All the things he’d seen her go through in their time together, including the horrendous hours together on the Kaatan after finding out she was pregnant, then losing it, and finally finding out Lilith was that child, didn’t compare to the look of loss and confusion on her face.

  “They did the genetic test on me.”

  “So? Why did that affect you like this?”

  She reached up to her neck and felt the sapphire hanging there. “Chriso isn’t my father.”

  * * * * *

  Interlude

  March 2nd, 534 AE

  Leasehold Office Comptroller, Government Complex, Nexus

  Having a position at the Office of Leaseholds on Nexus was considered a select job among the bureaucratic class of civil servants that thronged the capital world of the Concordia. Many of the millions of jobs were political by nature. As species gained prominence or lost favor, those positions came and went. Depending on a species’ place within the galactic hierarchy, one office or another was assigned to them for control. All except two offices, those of War and Leaseholds. Those two were reserved for the Higher-order species.

  Those beings who snuck in through favors or subterfuge or were just skilled enough to be assigned to the Office of Leaseholds were lucky, because they were easy assignments that never turned over. If you did your job and didn’t piss off any powerful Higher-order species, you got to serve until retirement. And, unlike the War Office assignments, few members of the Higher Orders liked the Leaseholds assignments. They were just too dull.

  Ataalan, a member of the Traaga species, explained his average day to a nestmate once, after a trip home to Coorson. “I sit and stare at data updates on uninhabited, but claimed, worlds all day.”

  The other Traaga had stared at him with wide, amazed eyes. Most would sell one of t
heir extra limbs for such a wonderfully boring job. He was the only Traaga that worked in the office, and one of only a few hundred employed on Nexus. It was an unfortunate fact that many of the Higher-order species found his people…distasteful.

  Ataalan took no notice of the prejudice his kind lived under every day. His apartment on Nexus was larger than the space his entire family shared on Coorson, and it was part of his pay. By eating only food he brought with him and taking public transports, he was able to bring home nearly 90% of his income. On Coorson, that was a lot.

  It had been at least a year since Ataalan had seen a supervisor, and that was fine with him. He wasn’t even sure who his current supervisor was, and it didn’t really matter. As a survey monitor, his duties required that he scan data before approving it for archiving. The computers had more discretion in decision making than he did, and that was also fine with him.

  Two months earlier, three of his nest mates had been working on an Hgog contract, something to do with their energy harvesting station in a distant corner of the galaxy. Something went wrong, and they’d died. The energy backlash had incinerated their bodies instantly. Boring was good.

  The only downside of Ataalan’s job was the unpredictable nature of the workload. If he’d had the same amount of data to review every day, he could have settled into a routine he could happily do for the rest of his boring life. They’d find his desiccated, bored, smiling corpse sitting in front of the same computer terminal fifty or so years from now, only becoming curious about him when they discovered his queue full of uncompleted tasks,

  It was because of the unpredictable nature of the workload that he was behind on his assignments, and he was annoyed. He’d been in one of those comfortable periods for a month where the data load was light, and the days blurred into one another. Then, suddenly, there was more data than he could handle in a day, and he was struggling.