“Za, I ran into her while I was camping out in front of Redfire’s quarters. She agreed to sign it on his behalf. He’s taken leave of duty for a while. I just need one more, Eliza Jane, one more sig, one more chance.”
She took the pad from him and affixed her sig. “Good luck, Eddie.”
“Boffo!” he enthused. “I knew you’d affirm.” He reached behind into a barrel marked
“Contaminates” and pulled out two bottles of sparking Arcadian wine and one of non-fermented mauve and shineberry juice.
They drank and laughed into the night, and when she got tired, Eliza Jane Change rested her head on Matthew’s shoulder.
In the final analysis, EdenWorld had little to offer of interest. Its technology base had nothing useful. While its construction entail complex world-building techniques, its engineers left little to tell us how it was accomplished.
The genomorphic qualities of the population are nothing we have not seen before, and nothing we are not quite capable of achieving with existing techniques of genetic manipulation and bio-mechanical augmentation. That a societal structure has been based on these forms is interesting, but not very useful.
EdenWorld, I think, will remain in our memories as a monument to frivolity, to excess, to decadence. We do not need to pass judgment on this rotting shell of a world. History has already made that determination for us.
The cat yawned and stretched. Was it really so bad? he wondered. Many of the crew had been to the surface, as part of a landing or shore leave party. In general, they came back in good spirits, having enjoyed the warm, fragrant air, and how the piddling gravity made them feel light and leap high and dance for days. It was only when they discussed the people, with whom few had actually had contact, that their moods turned sour.
He rolled on his back again, and, as he did at least twenty times a day, wallowed in his joy to have been born a cat.
He heard a door slide shut in the next chamber and rolled back onto his pause, his ears pointed alertly forward. It was just his commander, exiting the room where he kept the spirit of his ancestor, The Dead Guy, Lexington Keeler. “Dad says hi,” he told the cat. Queequeg’s fur bristled. Dead People bothered him.
“He wouldn’t answer anything about the about the other space-faring race, but I think he knows something he’s not telling. He just wanted to talk about how he got Caliph to speak in cryptic, Delphic riddles to Commander Lear. Apparently, if you’re dead, that’s the kind of thing you think is hilarious.”
He continued. “You can’t reason with a Dead Guy, you can’t threaten one either. He’s dead. I even tried threatening to have his coffin painted over with smiley faces. It didn’t work, he just said if I did that he’d do banshee screams every night until I took them off.”
He really thinks I care, Queequeg thought. That’s kind of cute. Scratch my belly. The Captain scratched Queequeg behind the ears with his good hand. “I will be intrigued when the Intelligence Core finishes its report on the other space-faring civilization that contacted this world. We’re not alone out here, and that simple fact, my feline friend, is far more profound than anything on that planet below.”
Belly, stupid. “A theory has arisen that the other space-faring visitors to this world were actually one of the Olympic Missions from a thousand years ago.” Keeler paused, “the Olympic ships were sub-light, their crews placed in stasis. None were ever heard from again after leaving the Republic System.”
“Za, professor. Everybody in this room knows that.”
“What do you think, kitty-cat?”
“The optimal speed of the Olympic ships would have placed them in the vicinity of this world less than a hundred years ago, but I don’t think they were Olympics who came here. No Olympic ships had Eden as a destination.”
“They could have proceeded here from other worlds.”
“Why would the crew have entered into a secret alliance with the ruling powers?”
“We only have the Scion’s word that there was a secret alliance. He could have been manipulating the facts for his own purposes. If they came, they came a long time ago, and there is no incentive on this world for keeping an accurate history.”
Queequeg could tell they were repeating the points of an argument that had gone on in the next chamber. He used his paw to direct his Captain’s fingers to his own belly and asked. “Do you think the Olympic ships stopped here?”
The captain looked troubled. “The question is, would I rather an Olympic ship came here and left the world behind, as we are doing, or would I rather believe there is another space-faring human race in the galaxy, maybe a part of our Commonwealth that survived the Great Silence, or awoke from it a century or two before we did?”
Queequeg flicked his tail. “When two animals of the same species meet in the wilderness, they usually either fight, or mate. Either way, the one who gets on top first usually prevails.”
Keeler smiled. “I think you’ve just created the perfect summary for my tactical report to the Odyssey Project Institute on Sapphire.”
“I think we are all eager to put that pit o’despair behind us. Hopefully, the next colony, will restore some of our faith in humanity. I believe it is called Medea.”
Set by my own paw – Queequeg
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Worlds Apart 02 Edenworld Page 36
