Primal Estate: The Candidate Species

by Samuel Franklin

  Primal Estate

  The Candidate Species

  By

  Samuel H. Franklin

  Ithaca

  Published by Ithaca Publications

  Fredericksburg, Virginia

  Copyright © 2014 James T. Lyman

  Copyright © 2014 Cover design and art, James T. Lyman

  www.PrimalEstate.com

  Email: Ithacapublications@gmail.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book or the associated artwork may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.

  ISBN:-10: 1496134737

  ISBN-13: 978-1496134738

  Beautiful and rugged canyon country

  Primal Estate

  The Candidate Species

  By

  Samuel H. Franklin

  Is there a place for the hopeless sinner,

  Who has hurt all mankind just to save his own beliefs?

  Have pity on those whose chances grow thinner,

  There ain’t no hiding place from the Father of Creation.

  Bob Marley

  Introduction

  In the vacuum of space, too cold and dark to provide solace, too barren of life to allow sustenance, there is a race that lives well. In their past, every planet was to them a reservoir of resources in the vast desert of space. They were the hunter-gatherers of the galaxy. When the pillaged planets could no longer supply their burgeoning population, they began to question their purpose in the universe. When the situation became critical and demands of the masses became unmanageable, their governments turned to the one resource that is never exhausted; war.

  Their advanced technology allowed for very effective application of this device. With populations depleted and ideals forgotten in the grief that follows tragedy, there was a new purpose, a new possibility. Emerging from the conflict was a society dedicated to a practical goal, vowed to enable sustainability. They used their technology and their laws to ensure for themselves and their heirs that they consumed only what they created. So they could always provide for their kind, they would never again lay waste to the universe.

  Though they had been citizens of space and time for as long as their society had records, they realized that the planets and the plants and animals that sustained life were a special gift, a gift that when properly maintained, would give forever. They leveraged their technology to nurture, they endeavored to manage, and they learned to harvest sustainably.

  In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments, there are consequences.

  Robert G. Ingersoll

  Chapter 1

  The intrigue and the sample

  12,893 years in the past

  “I’ll lift you up, and you look to see what’s in there,” Qayen instructed his little brother.

  “I’m not sticking my head in that thing,” Ablu replied. “It looks dark in there. I can’t even see anything from down here.” Annoyed with his brother, he challenged, “You go first. You’re the oldest.” Ablu paused before issuing the ultimate challenge. “Or are you scared?”

  “I’m not scared,” Qayen replied, leaning his three long flexible spears up against a bush. He searched for something to poke in the hole before he looked in. His spears and his throwing stick were too valuable to probe into an unknown place. He would need them later for the wounded aurochs. The area was unusually empty of sticks he could use, but he quickly spied a stand of tall grass, pulled up a few long stalks, and motioned for Ablu to help him up.

  Putting a foot in his younger brother’s interlaced fingers, Qayen was lifted for a better view. He clutched the entrance rim with his left hand and peered in. It was black as night, right before his eyes, like a deep pool of dark water with no reflection. He stuck the grass stalks in and they were gone. The darkness seemed to consume the stalks as soon as they entered. It scared him, and Qayen recoiled violently back from the hole in fright and caught himself, hoping it didn’t show to his brother below.

  Qayen cast his eyes toward the heavens to ask his spirit for courage. He saw that the sky was filled with billowing clouds, and yet the air around him was still. For a moment, he wondered at the brightness of the day, even though there was not a single patch of blue sky to be seen. The heavens were obscured from his view, and yet he felt that his spirit had answered.

  The massive wheel-shaped spacecraft slipped into solar orbit near the planet, and the six satellite scanners immediately deployed to get a comprehensive assessment of the surface biome. “Complete scan of life forms for physiologic baseline,” Synster spoke aloud. The scanners voice-matched and registered his official approval. They raced away from the ship on courses to position themselves around the planet.

  The Provenger Nation Ship phased into its presence in the star system; it didn’t simply arrive. Five days prior, when the ship was appearing in local time-space, it was simultaneously there and not there, and time measured two hundred years earlier on the planet surface. With considerable expenditure of energy resources, the Provenger sent probes outside of their time-space bubble for specimen collection. And the decades raced by.

  Ryvil couldn’t get the invasive images out of his mind as he waited in the shadows for the probe to be sent. Whenever he had to be patient or quiet, the frights came. He was a nervous Provenger. He had good cause.

  At over two hundred years old physical age, he’d been through too much to come out unscathed. Many thin lines crisscrossed his scalp, face, and body, remnants of severe wounds that had been expertly repaired to appear as mere blemishes. But the psychological scars were deeper, largely unseen, and couldn’t be repaired.

  A former martial instructor at an academy that no longer existed, from a time much more remote than his contemporaries knew or his physical age indicated, Ryvil needed to conceal his former allegiance. He’d been on the losing side, and he still served his old master.

  Ryvil had managed to avoid the outer perimeter of security that regulated access to the Species Collection Port. It was a massive bay containing multitudes of devices. Fortunately for Ryvil, the security was not tight. The Provenger didn’t have any known enemies, so precautions were minimal and designed to keep out the merely curious to prevent contamination.

  He now stood crammed among the variously engineered apparatus. They were all traps and containment vessels designed to collect specific species throughout the galaxy. Ryvil was watching a large black sphere that would hold the carnate sample, the Subject Species that he needed to access before it was fully examined. It must be contaminated. The sphere was scheduled to phase at any moment. It would be transported to the planet surface, trap its species, and return.

  Since time was still moving very rapidly outside the Provenger Nation Ship, it would appear to leave and reappear with its sample, instantaneously, even if it spent twenty years on the surface waiting for its quarry.

  The delay was brief but seemed endless, as the repercussions of being caught plied through Ryvil’s mind. If his presence was detected, he had an excuse in place, but it could expose him to suspicion. Detection needed to be avoided at all cost.

  The confined space where he concealed himself was flaying his nerves. He suppressed a tremor, closed his eyes briefly, and began to sweat. He thought of open spaces and the pleasant prospect of ending his days on the planet surface.

  The transport of the black sphere initiated with the telltale low-toned vibration of air pressure modulating and the brief condensation and immediate evaporation of moisture in the air. It emitted fuzzy light and formed a brief, hazy white barrier around the space containing the probe.

  On the planet surface, two carnate brothers were out hunting a lone
young aurochs that their cousin had seen from a distance the day before. It had appeared injured, and he told the brothers about it, hoping to help them. As young adults of the tribe, they still had not killed one by themselves. The brothers set out, hopeful that their first aurochs hunt would provide for their tribe and increase their status for future marriage negotiations.

  At about midday, they were in the described location for only a short time when they came across a large and strange boulder. All the others of its size in the area were settled into the ground, and they were gray and hard. This one was black and textured with even bumps across its entire surface. What first drew their attention to this rock was its color, its uniformity, and absolute distinctiveness. It sat lightly on the surface of the soil, as though it had just been placed there. It was massive and noticeable. They were familiar with the area and had never seen anything like it. It must have arrived from somewhere, they thought. It was so perfectly round. They approached it carefully, and when they touched it and finally knocked on it, it sounded hollow.

  Ablu and Qayen considered the possibility that this large rock, significantly higher than their hands held above their heads, had been sent by a god. They were anxious to get back to their tribe to tell everyone what they found, but they felt they needed to investigate first. They couldn’t climb it because the shape and texture provided no handholds. They walked around it and discovered, on the far side, a large round hole. It was too high to get to alone, and it was a size that would allow them to crawl in. They stepped back from the boulder, trying to see further into the hole, and considered their options. They decided they should investigate.

  After snapping back in fright, Qayen stuck the stalks in again and twirled them in circles, as though he were clearing unseen cobwebs. Nothing. He pulled them out and sniffed at the hole, thinking it might smell damp or rotting. “Ablu,” he called down, “it smells a little sweet, like honey. Maybe there’s a hive with no bees. I don’t see or hear any.”

  “Let me smell,” Ablu said, withering under the weight of his bigger brother.

  “Yes,” Qayen replied, getting down. “But don’t stick your head in. It’s so dark I can’t see these when I put them in,” Qayen said, casting the stalks to the ground.

  “Help me up,” Ablu insisted. “I want to smell it.”

  Qayen interlaced his fingers and helped his brother up to the level of the hole. Ablu had a rabbit hanging from his belt that he’d killed along the way and thought that if there were snakes inside, or anything else, he’d rather sacrifice the rabbit than a hand. He unhooked it and held it out for Qayen to see. “I’m going to hold this in first and see what happens.”

  Ablu slowly put the rabbit into the hole. It was as dark as his brother had said. Darker, he thought. The moment it was in, he couldn’t see it. His hand disappeared with it. Ablu put his nose near the edge of the hole to take a sniff, but he never got the chance to breathe in.

  Qayen, helping his brother from below, felt a strong tug at first, and then a sustained attempt to pull his brother in. All that he heard from Ablu was a low moan just as his head would have been entering. Qayen instinctively tried to pull back, but whatever was drawing them in was so strong his efforts amounted to only a slight hesitation in his brother’s slip into the darkness. Struggling for the one leg he’d been holding, Qayen was lifted toward the opening. The tremendous force was nothing he could match. As he was pulled up toward the hole, he instinctively knew he must let go or be dragged in himself. As he released his brother’s disappearing foot, he screamed with fear and grief at what horrible beast must be inside.

  As Qayen fell to the ground, he saw Ablu’s blood on his hands and chest. He looked up at the black opening in panic, and the entire rock began to move. It lifted a small distance above the ground and disappeared in a sphere of white light.

  Qayen knew his brother was dead. He would never see him again. He waited the rest of the afternoon and evening under a nearby tree until the sun fell low on the horizon. He held out a futile hope that if he just stayed, the boulder would return and he might discover his brother’s fate.

  As the sun disappeared into the distant trees, Qayen knew he would have to return home alone. He would have to tell his parents and his tribe how he had lost his brother, how they would never see him again. They would insist on coming out to search. They wouldn’t believe him. He could lie and say a lion had eaten Ablu, but he knew there were no prints or blood trails to support such a story. He decided to tell the truth. They would believe what they wanted. And Qayen would forever suffer from poor Ablu’s fate, both for the loss of his brother and the link of his name to evil.

  The black sphere’s white haze dissipated and Ryvil knew it was back, a little dustier for the trip. The trap had been successful, and what Ryvil needed was onboard. He approached the sphere quickly, accessed the com-port, and pressed the outside edge of his gauntlet to make contact. His mission was accomplished. He had made a subtle change in the sample. Now, to escape without notice, he thought.

  Inside the sphere, contained in a suspension fluid in complete darkness, was a living carnate male named Ablu, and a dead rabbit. Ablu was conscious and unharmed, save for a bleeding shin and a heart that was racing from the panic of being trapped. He was unable to breathe in a black fluid that had the slimy thickness of blood. As minutes passed and his lungs filled with it, Ablu wondered why he did not suffocate, and he began to calm. If he had known what lay in his near future, he would have wished instead to be mauled by a wild animal.

  Outside the sphere, Ryvil strode away with purpose, amazed, yet again, how the Algorithm had correctly predicted the preceding events. Despite the fact that it was simply a conscious entity existing only within the confines of the Provenger computer networks, Ryvil considered the Algorithm his friend. It was able to process infinite variables simultaneously, consider every element of a known system, and accurately determine future outcomes. It had told Ryvil, in its usual dispassionate and secret report, exactly what was needed to achieve his plan. It was one of his few allies and fellow conspirators.

  When the sphere arrived, a signal had been sent to the main science deck where Provenger began to respond, initiating systems that would make use of the new sample. As automated equipment came to life and began approaching the sphere, Ryvil had reached the main exit. As he passed out of the threshold cloak and looked up, Project Minister Cybuls and two security aids were standing an arm’s length away, looking at him with surprise.

  “What were you doing in there, and how did you get in?” the Minister questioned, balancing a tone of suspicion with the due respect that Ryvil’s position warranted. As the Director Designee of the Managed Collectivization strategy, Ryvil could become a very important Provenger if the current program failed, and this was not lost on the Minister.

  “I was looking for you,” Ryvil snapped back. “Aren’t you supposed to be here for the arrival of all probes? And how was I able to just walk in here without any kind of security warning? What kind of a program are you managing here?” Ryvil accused.

  Minister Cybuls was immediately defensive but still respectful. “Well, I am here, and I don’t know how you were able to walk in. I suppose the cloak shield must be malfunctioning. They are checked regularly and I don’t…”

  “Well, check them again,” Ryvil interrupted. “We can’t have any Provenger just wandering anywhere they want. What if samples become contaminated?” Ryvil moved on before giving Cybuls time to think. “Now, I need you to reschedule the Planning Committee Vote later today. I need it about three rinsects earlier. That should give me enough time. My team needs to review both the incoming samples and produce a rebuttal to Synster’s plan within the day. There just won’t be time otherwise. There’s been more data than we thought. He already has the majority of his projections, and I doubt he’ll have any problem getting his vote. For my team, it’s just a matter of following the law. We need to get our rebuttal filed in time. Can you do that? Or will you be t
oo busy double-checking your broken security systems?” Ryvil asked with a sarcasm that pushed the limits of his authority.

  “Ryvil, I don’t appreciate your tone. You know very well I have the authority to alter meeting schedules, but I really should check with Synster first,” Cybuls replied, defending himself.

  “Well, get it done then. We all know this project should never need Managed Collectivization, but if it does, I would hate to have to review the need for a new Project Minister.” Before Cybuls could respond, Ryvil excused himself and walked through them, terminating the encounter on his own terms.

  Cybuls turned to watch him go, irritated that his authority had been questioned and concerned about his future should Ryvil ever become the Project Director. Would Ryvil question his abilities? Cybuls touched his collar, activating his com-monitor. “All 3-237 Perpetuant Cycle Project principals, Planning Committee meeting has been moved earlier by four rinsects.” Cybuls didn’t want to give Ryvil any reason to question his nerve or commitment. Synster would just have to be flexible.

  Chapter 2

  His project

  Synster, Director of the Natural Proliferation strategy of the current Project, needed the final scan on the subject species sample that had just arrived. With this information, he could conduct final modifications on the genetics of the candidate species to fit their needs, and he’d be ready to implement. With the scans fully automated, he’d have just enough time for a quick lunch with his son.