Koban: Rise of the Kobani

by Stephen W Bennett

  Much as the Olt did for the Torki, the Raspani device had biomechanical structures that were expected to infiltrate the neural connections, and establish their own contacts. The amount of data storage, from what Coldar explained, was staggering to the human technicians and scientists. The entire vast human library of an AI like Jakob’s would fit in this device a million times over. Jakob’s memory unit was ten times physically larger than these compact items.

  Looking to see that Rafe had the skull imager active, and the brain scanner ready, she took a deep breath behind her face shield, and gently inserted the device, exactly as she’d practiced with a dummy sample, on a mockup of a Raspani head.

  The imager showed the lower edge of the device was slightly above the surface of the brain, and the translucent sheath that surrounded the brain. Then she shoved the top end down slowly until it was below the top of the thickened skull by a quarter of an inch. Soon, that opening would have a sliver of bone placed over it, and the skin edges glued together.

  First, however, they watched for the movement the Torki said should happen, as filaments extruded from the bottom edge of the device and sought the appropriate neural junctions in a Raspani brain. The Torki said it happened inside them, once the Olt migrated to the correct location, and in only a few seconds. The half-sentient young Torki recipient usually responded almost immediately, and had access to data that it didn’t quite know how to process or understand. At least for a day or two.

  There were two other empty devices with slightly modified biomechanical neural connections if this one didn’t work that they could test and remove. On the expanded imager, hair-like fibers grew from the bottom edge, and reached the sac around the brain. They penetrated into the brain tissue, followed some chemical or neural cues and made links that the brain activity monitor showed was doing something. The high-level brain functions were climbing rapidly.

  Even though the Raspani’s head was clamped motionless, the creature jerked, and tried to move, the eyes looking around in panic, until it saw a Torki off to the side. It kept looking that way, and the crab moved to where it could see him fully. It visibly relaxed.

  It spoke a string of lisping, whistling, lip smacking words of what was either fluent Raspani speech, or the drooling blabber of a mindless idiot. It was hard to say, since none there, or the AI listening, knew any version of Raspani that matched the sounds.

  Coldar, off to the other side, asked Rafe in Standard if the brain activity seemed abnormal. The Raspani immediately turned its eyes in that direction and Coldar moved to the front of the creature to be seen easier. The Raspani then tried Torki speech, which was clearer than it had used previously, but fell short of fluency, since its soft mouthparts were never going to sound like a shell scrape.

  The Torki used its voice synthesizer to speak in low Krall. “We do not understand the language you used at first, and my language is difficult for you to make the words. Do you understand this Krall language?”

  There was a pause, then, “I do, but we have no wish to speak it if we can find another common language. Do you know any of the Olt’kitapi language? It may be stored in the mind enhancer they made for you.”

  The humans in the room, all of them standing behind and out of the sight of the Raspani now, were hugely excited, but Aldry had already warned them not to speak at first. The Raspani had prior knowledge of the Torki, and it was thought best to let them interact with them, provided the device actually worked.

  Coldar and the other two Torki appeared to pause for a time, probably seeking inside the memory storage of their Olts for a language that could be Olt’kitapi, or even of Raspani origin.

  The Torki had linked to the Olts of all other Torki on Haven, to ask them to conduct simultaneous searches. After a minute, Coldar resumed speaking in low Krall. “I regret that we have not yet located a reference to the old ones language, or of the one you first used. The Olt’kitapi had all been killed before our mind enhancers lifted us to intelligence. We call them an Olt in honor of the makers, and they elevated our minds so we achieved star travel. The Raspani had met the Krall well before that happened, and were defeated. How do you know of us, and of our own language?”

  The connections were obviously improving as the device continued to consolidate itself in the Raspani’s brain. It spoke more certainly, smoother. “As a client species that the Olt’kitapi helped long before you, we assisted them in distributing your first mind enhancers, the Olts as you call them now, and monitored you without interference as your species made its first advances. The Olts helped you to think, but the Olt’kitapi never controlled how or what you would think. That was also our choice when they helped us, as it was yours.

  “Most of the Krall did not want this gift, or want it offered to the few Krall that saw its benefit. Even though it was helping those that had their version of an enhancer to think past the bounds of their race’s evolutionary dead end. Within less than a thousand years, the old Krall would have destroyed themselves on their one planet, with unlimited breeding and constant wars. To allow time for them to learn to accept the mind enhancers, and decide for themselves the direction their race should take, the Olt’kitapi gave them ships to reach the stars and room to expand.

  “That was a mistake of kindness, which they paid for, and other races pay still. We believe this, because you chose to speak low Krall, as if it were an obvious choice to use with us.”

  Coldar answered. “There are other races that have lost wars with the Krall and are now gone. My people have been forced into slavery for the Krall, as has those called the Prada.”

  The restrained Raspani tried to gesture, but could only twitch. “We know only a little of the Prada. They were a young star traveling species when we were conquered by the Krall. Previously, the Olt’kitapi saw no need to step in to help them develop, because they were advancing on their own. They preferred to leave a species alone if they could. Our own people were not on a path towards high technology or star travel. The Olt’kitapi saw our potential, and helped us become more than semi-intelligent grazing creatures.”

  “The Krall continue to make war. Another young star traveling race has been attacked by them. They are the species that rescued your people from the Krall. They call themselves humans. They could lose the war and be extinguished. Some of them are here with us, behind you, because they were uncertain how you would react to a species you did not know. We knew you remembered my people, because long ago one of you gave us a mind enhancer for safe keeping.”

  Another twitch. “We do not remember who brought us here, only that we awoke, secured in place. We first assumed it was to force feed our new body with spices to make us taste better to the Krall, before our slaughter.”

  That was a gruesome and reasonable thought none of them had considered.

  “The presence of a Torki then led us to believe it was to install our enhancer recording into the brain of one of our people. I regret if we have taken the mind away from one of us, but it is a sacrifice of one for the greater good. May we meet the other species that has helped us?”

  Mirikami had noted the recurrent use of “we” and “us” from the Raspani, and the regret that they had damaged the mind of one of them. It could be like the royal “we,” of third person self-address. He walked around to the front to be seen, but didn’t speak.

  “You have less hair and no tail, but your body is shaped much like what we recall of the Prada.”

  “There is some small resemblance,” he acknowledged, in low Krall. He realized that compared to a Torki or a Raspani that would seem true.

  “We call ourselves human, and as the Torki named Coldar told you, we are at war with the Krall. We removed some of your people from captivity on Krall worlds. My name is Tetsuo Mirikami, or a short version of my name is simply Tet. That is what I prefer to be called by friends. I hope humans and Raspani will be friends. May I know your name?”

  “I have no knowledge of the name of the individual who gave himself to us,
to let us awaken. We have too many names to speak in half a lifetime here, but as the original speaker for us all, when we were transcribed, I am….” Then followed some slobbery sounding lip smacks and a short descending pitch nasal whistle.

  “This is in the Raspani dialect I spoke when my mind was transcribed here, but I now know all of our many dialects. A meaning of my name that you will understand, in this hated low Krall language you must use, is Blue Flower Eater. As your culture apparently expects, I may be called the short version of that name, or simply Blue.”

  Mirikami executed a slight bow. “I am pleased to meet you, Blue. We have your body and head secured because the process of insertion of the mind enhancer you now contain appeared to be a fragile and risky procedure. When we cover the opening for protection and sanitation, we will remove the restraints to permit you to move freely.”

  “We would all like that. It felt like we were being held for force-feeding. To make us taste better for a Krall slaughter.”

  The repetition of that fear brought a fresh awareness that the newly awakened mind of this Raspani knew how its race had been used by the Krall. With good intentions, they had held it captive as if it was to be fed the pepper spice fern before being slaughtered for more flavorful meat.

  Aldry quickly completed the head bandage, covering the incision, as Rafe, rushing and clumsy, removed the restraint clamps as quickly as he could. His face was deeply red at what this unfortunate creature had initially though must be its fate.

  It stood, on somewhat shaky four legs, over the short padded bench that had supported its low but long torso. It backed away in an awkward straddling movement until its short legs were clear. It raised its arms, to touch the top of its head, feeling the bandage. It was impossible for Mirikami to avoid thinking of its body style as other than a small hippo-like centaur.

  “Blue, we know the body you inhabit was fed and had consumed water before it volunteered for the installation of the device. However, do you wish any food or drink, or need anything at all?”

  The Raspani seemed to consider for a moment, then said confusingly, “Not all of you at once, and we were just told our new body does not require food or water.”

  Mirikami pulled briefly at a lip, and asked, “Blue, am I right in assuming there are other personalities with you inside that mind enhancer?”

  “Yes, there are very many, and your offer of food made many of us crave tastes we have not experienced since the Krall made us their preferred food. We only were fed what made us taste better to them.”

  Mirikami, his supposition confirmed asked, “How many of your minds are in there, and how did they become stored?”

  “There are millions of us in this one quantum storage system, and there were once many of these systems to preserve the minds of many more of our people. I hope they are not lost. We altered the linkage we had between our many devices, so that some of unique designs we created could receive and store the contents of the minds of those that chose to be transcribed and sent into storage. Few were willing to face the experience of being killed for food. We hoped that we might each be restored to a living body if our race survived extinction.”

  “So now that you have a living body, it’s better?” Aldry asked.

  The reply convinced Mirikami that humans would understand and like the Raspani.

  “It’s a bit crowded, don't you think? We can’t hear ourselves fart.”

  The digestive track of the herbivore Raspani was prone to produce methane in generous quantities. The remark made at least the humans laugh, but the Torki, left completely fartless by nature, didn’t understand the joke.

  “Blue, if the Torki make additional devices for you now, I assume you can transfer individual minds into them. However, if the transfer replaces the mind of the host body, how did you plan to do this? I can tell you we have recovered several thousand Raspani from Krall captivity. It’s true that most of them do not display significant signs of intelligence, not after so many thousands of years of inbreeding. However there are not very many bodies for all of you.”

  Blue made an elbow squeeze to his sides that seemed like a shrug. “If we can determine that those you described as having lost the power of intelligent thought can host more of the mass storage devices like this one, we can reduce the congestion of our group thinking. I am an individual, but I require the cooperation of all the other minds to stay focused and silent, in order for me to speak with you.

  “We have the instructions within each device to teach us how to make others. We will spend years recreating the levels of tools and technology we need, but we will one day make devices for a single mind at a time.” He hesitated as a though came from within.

  “One of us rudely asked me if the Torki make their own enhancers, or if they are limited to those that are inherited. If they make new ones, they may already have the tools and technology we need.”

  Coldar played speaker for the Torki once again. “We used our own tools to repair the damage age had done to your storage device. This knowledge is stored on our Olts for us to do this. Without our help it would not have linked to your brain otherwise.”

  “Age damage? I heard the Tet human say some of our race had no minds after thousands of years. What measure of time is a year for humans?”

  Coldar had a simple solution. “Our Olts have a time keeping function, and so does the device where your minds are stored. Yours was inactive and shut down for a long period. If I grant you access to link to my Olt, you will be able to synchronize the time. The master time is set by our galaxy’s rotation compared to the location of the central black hole of a galaxy two million light-years away.”

  There was a moment of quiet, and the hushed reply from Blue Flower Eater sounded sad. “We have lost over eighteen thousand years. Coldar has translated the human measure of your race’s home planet orbit for us, Tet. It has been far longer than we thought.”

  Before the day was out, the other two empty storage devices the Torki had built were placed in the skulls of two Raspani from Koban that were determined to be effectively mindless and hardly aware. The task of transmitting a third of the minds stored in Blue’s new body to each of the two empty receptacles would occupy weeks of time. Blue assured them that the Raspani had the knowledge of how to produce more of the mind enhancers, and do it faster than the Torki were able to do now. There were thousands of Raspani herd animal candidates for the devices, but there were several million hopefuls for a new body to host them.

  The only long-term solution seemed to be to wait for the birth of a Raspani calf, and before it developed as another mindless replica of a Krall-bred meat animal, insert a device in the skull of the infant. An adult mind would have to endure the growth of its new body, but a singular life was worth the trouble.

  The group minds in Blue’s skull proved an interesting source of information about the early Krall. Mind Taps had been a dismal failure, with more than a stadium’s volume of thoughts to try to sift through, even when they made a concerted effort to stay quiet.

  The reverse process worked well, however. The Kobani mind pictures sent from a single individual was like a night at the movies, for minds locked too long together with little new external input.

  Their initial fear of the rippers was finally overcome, at least as far as not running from them any longer. Something the Koban raised Raspani never were able to do, even after the rippers abstained from deliberately scaring them so they could frill them.

  The newly aware versions were intensely curious about the ripper’s natural mental ability and the Koban nervous systems in general. They had no collective records of any life with similar abilities or nervous systems. The cats refused to receive from them as a group, for the same reasons the TG2s did. The Raspani, as a former prey category, didn’t care for most ripper “conversations.”

  Mirikami was probing for more about the soft Krall, and the minds that had anything to say knew only that they once had a “chip” at the base of their neck that
linked to the nerves there. They had been Krall that the typical warrior, with fighting on their mind, would have challenged as weak. They had been removed from the crowded Krall home planet as hatchlings, and some, with early training, were smarter than the pure, warrior-bred Krall, and had less of the adrenaline in their systems to drive them towards violence.

  They stayed isolated from the standard population, but their example and privileges of off planet travel convinced the clan leaders that there was some advantage to finding room to expand. There was less fighting when the same clan had ample room to take what they wanted on habitable worlds of their own. The reduced fighting convinced the Olt’kitapi they were slowly “taming” the entire race. The conflict was only being postponed.

  It was the mind-altering effects of the “chips” that helped organize the soft Krall into a new small subset of Krall society. Their aggression was being curtailed, to make them suitable galactic neighbors. The access to knowledge and technology made the other Krall resentful. The advancing Krall were able to do things with the mechanical “gifts” of the Olt’kitapi that a warrior Krall could not do. Even to use what gifts, such as clanships and weapons they were permitted, a standard Krall had to change their normal tattoo of status for one the Olt’kitapi provided. With that, they could operate the ships they were given, and use the weapons made available. There were other hostile races in the galaxy, and the gentle Olt’kitapi wanted capable bodyguards. If they could make them smarter, and with less of a hair trigger, they could become ideal.

  No one knew how long the joint clan council had existed, but it was the body that coordinated the cooperation of the major clans, and kept them in line as they insinuated themselves into Olt’kitapi trust at every level.