The Imperialists: The Complete Trilogy

by H. T. Kofruk

  “Open it” he ordered to Colonel Ma.

  “Your Highness, I am afraid it is no longer safe. The changes we made were drastic with some… unexpected results…”

  “Open it” he repeated.

  Colonel Ma hid his anxiety and approached the control panel. He pushed a button and the transparent glass suddenly darkened. “The light is now almost blinding, Your Highness. And some of the waves seem...dangerous” he explained.

  Another button activated a titanium claw that reached down and then depressurized and unscrewed the lid of the container. Light flooded out, not pink but purple.

  “Take it out” Xiao ordered again.

  A second claw reached inside the container. It came out grabbing a large oblong mass of purple light, pulsating as it glowed. Several cords were attached to it as if it were the heart of a purple giant on life support. The room was flooded with purple despite the darkened glass. It gave Xiao a sudden headache. It no longer felt warm as it had before but heavy and stifling. The whispers in his ear were now soft screeches like the sound of threatened cats.

  The effect of the exposed object seemed to be stronger in Xiao than in Colonel Ma who seemed relatively calm with only a crease in his forehead indicating that he was also feeling something unpleasant.

  Soon Xiao was grabbing his ears. His head was pounding and he felt like vomiting. He wanted to tell the colonel to put the lid back on but had somehow lost his voice. The world was spinning around him while making obscene sounds. He didn’t know if the sound of a beating heart was coming from his chest or from the thing.

  It all stopped suddenly. He had fallen to the ground and Colonel Ma was helping him up. The accursed purple light and sound had ceased. “Are you alright, Your Highness?” inquired Ma.

  He still felt a slight nausea and could still hear a faint sound in his ear but managed to reply “I’m okay.” After shaking the effects out of his head, he turned to the Colonel and said “What changes have exactly been made, colonel?”

  Ma cleared his throat. “We have probed the thing for three months, trying to understand how it functions. The first thing is how it seems to give off light continuously. We think we may have discovered a power source inside but still can’t determine how it works. We’ve calculated how much energy it needs to give off light, sound and self-sustain and it’s about the same as a pulse glider uses to move at high speed. Given the size, that means the manner it generates energy is almost a thousand times more efficient compared to our most efficient fusion generators in proportion to mass.

  “A more startling discovery came a few weeks later. We saw vast amounts of activity that were similar to brain synapse activity. This is not overly surprising but ninety nine per cent of the activity was not linked to sustaining itself.”

  “What do you mean ‘sustaining itself’?” asked Xiao.

  “It means that it uses less than one per cent of its neural function to stay alive, such as for breathing, circulation and so on” he replied sounding like a motivated professor. “The other ninety nine per cent is for active thinking, calculating, sensing, hypothesizing, imagining. The thing is a sentient being.”

  Xiao wrinkled his brows in incomprehension and shock. He stood up and approached the giant purple heart in the glass cylinder. “Why do I feel it is trying to communicate with me?”

  “Well, Your Highness, in every practical way, it is. The light it emits contains a communication frequency wave that is completely out of our technological capabilities. The same waves are used internally, sort of like synapses between neurons.”

  The young emperor still had a dissatisfied look of incomprehension on his face. “I don’t understand half the things you are saying, colonel” he said.

  After pondering a few seconds on how to dumb down his language, the colonel finally said “It uses a specific kind of wave to send you visions, sounds and thoughts. It can also translate your brain’s beta waves, that is, your higher cognitive brain waves, enabling you to send thoughts and visions. The most interesting thing we’ve discovered is the time-manipulative qualities this wave seems to have.”

  “What? You mean it can travel through time?” asked Xiao in bewilderment.

  “It can’t, but its waves can” replied Ma.

  “You need to start making sense. I’m getting impatient, colonel.”

  “It means that physical distance doesn’t matter to this life form when it wants to communicate. Our communications waves are still electromagnetic, which means they can only travel as fast as light. The waves emitted by the thing are also limited to the speed of light in a three dimensional universe. But they also travel in a fourth dimension, time. So when it decides to share something with someone two light years away, it emits these waves so that the receiver appears to get them right away.” The colonel’s tone had little of the motivational professor in it and more of an anxious subordinate. “This could revolutionize the way we communicate since physical distance would no longer be a factor. We could open a holograph line with Earth from here without a communications wormhole.”

  “Will it do as we command, colonel. Have we mastered it?”

  “As I said, Your Highness, the thing is highly sentient, even more so than us. At first we thought of it more of a biological computer and simply connecting to its circuit algorithms would do the job. But it resisted. It even overloaded our mainframe and fried it with a sudden boost of data transmission” explained the scientist-soldier. “But”, he continued after seeing the emperor’s frown, “we have been able to induce it to perform certain actions and refrain from others with carrot and stick methods.”

  “What kind of carrots and sticks?”

  “Let me show you, Your Highness.” The colonel activated a projector and started searching for specific footage. “Here we are.”

  The holograph showed the same room with two scientists, a droid assistant and two Nikruk aliens. The Treasure was out of the container and spilling light into every corner. The two scientists were wearing black overalls with matching hoods and masks, perhaps trying to stay unaffected by the light.

  ‘Okay, send it the footage’ said one of the scientists in Ma’s voice.

  Something evidently occurred after the other scientist punched some commands into the control panel because the thing started to writhe and alternate different shades of purple and pink light.

  “What’s happening?” asked Xiao.

  “We sent an image of it being slowly burned” replied the colonel.

  After a few moments, the Treasure stopped twitching and gave out a much stronger shade of purple. ‘The Treasure has acknowledged, sir’ said the scientist at the control panel. ‘It is sending us signs of acquiescence.”

  ‘Send commands’ ordered the Colonel Ma in the holograph.

  The other scientist again tapped the control panel. Suddenly the two Nikruk aliens turned left and started walking forward, only to stop after ten paces.

  “That was our first success in commanding the Treasure to control the aliens, Your Highness. Since then we have been able to communicate some very complicated orders” said the colonel after putting the holograph on pause. “We have also learned what it likes and dislikes, giving us more ways to bend its will.”

  “Interesting, colonel. I must admit I am impressed” said Xiao.

  “Only one thing, Your Highness. Its current area of influence is still relatively small. It only has the energy to command Nikruk in the immediate area.”

  “And do you know how to increase its power?”

  “Well, Your Highness, the Treasure is a seed. We have to plant it and grow it into a tree.”

  Chapter 9: The Hummers

  ‘How did we think that we could understand the thoughts, beliefs, creeds and passions of extra-terrestrials when after eight thousands years of civilization, we can barely understand our own?’ – Phuong Tran, fifty-sixth President of the Pacific Federation, year 2909

  The visualization of sound showed a pattern of green dots s
piralling around a red circle which morphed into a red square. The green dots then stopped spinning and moved outward in a radial manner. Finally, a blue triangle appeared in the middle of the red square and pulsated a few seconds before the visualization disappeared. Haseeb observed intently the geometric shape movements that came from the several pitches of humming sounds.

  Haseeb used his own humming device to communicate to the elder. “The people from another world are still not well. They will not harm you in any way.”

  The elder hummed and showed him a black circle from which a blue smaller circle appeared. “We are afraid. Too many outsiders.”

  Haseeb reassured the elderly Hummer and left the grotto. The outside air was dry as usual with the eternal twilight keeping the grey desert lit. A young Hummer came to him and pulled on his trouser leg. “Why do you not play with us?”

  “I am still taking care of the people not from this world. I will play with you once they are gone.” He regretted lying to the youngster who he affectionately called Shorty. His real name was a complex combination of a purple octagon, three horizontal white lines and eight interlocking orange rings circling the octagon. It roughly translated into Deep Learner among Twilight Stars. Shorty was catchier and easier to remember.

  Adolescent Hummers were tending the crops in the fields while young adults were tending to the giant slugs that yielded the mucus-like substance used as a condiment and in tea. Yuk! Still can’t acquire that taste.

  The village humming horn sounded. Haseeb put on his goggles again and saw the shifting shapes that informed of the arrival of the water bearers. He turned his head to the icy darkness. The habitable ribbon of the planet was roughly thirty kilometres across. Going too far beyond the ribbon towards the sun and the heat would quickly become unbearable. Ten kilometres into the darkness of the other side and a human would freeze to death in minutes.

  During the eight years he had spent on this planet named I-9983 by Rendens and a black and white circle by the Hummers, he had logged the positions of the celestial bodies meticulously. He had found out that one complete orbit around the sun and one complete revolution of i-9983 weren’t exactly the same; one year on the planet was roughly three per cent longer than one day. That meant the habitable ribbon changed slightly every year. Wow, almost a decade and that’s some discovery.

  Haseeb had come to the planet as an independent planetologist working for the Worlds for All Foundation, a non-profit organization that sponsored the study of habitable planets neglected by the Six Empires. His original mission lasted two years and he had hated every minute of them. That was because he had thought the local intelligent aliens, who he called the Hummers, were unintelligible and well, stupid. As a young graduate student, he had spent a year on Mata Khinlu, an Atlantic Alliance planet, to study the relationship between the natural environment and the culture of the local dominant species. But it turned out that the native Bahalar had been so rendenized over the centuries that they had lost the majority of whatever had made their culture unique. In short, it didn’t equip him at all for what the Hummers had in store for him.

  The water bearers were soon visible on the horizon, emerging from the dark with their wagons piled high with ice. These Hummers were adults in their prime of life, each one measuring seven feet tall and more than three hundred pounds of muscle. Six of them pulled one wagon which must have weighed at least three tons across gravel and sand. The young adults who had been tending to the slugs put down their tools and started running to their older companions to help with the wagons.

  Haseeb watched, with wonder as always, the strength and efficiency of these strange aliens as they unloaded the great blocks of ice and started sawing them immediately into more manageable sizes. The adults stank of male hormones as they heaved like rutting bulls, each one trying to look bigger and stronger than the others. He knew that when the orbit of I-9983 reached the closest point to the sun, which happened roughly once every two and a half Earth years, the rutting season would begin and the male adults would pick their mates from the younger adults, all of whom would be female and receptive. Males who failed to claim a younger mate, often the older ones, would soon lose their male hormones, shrink and join the ranks of the ‘sexless’ elders. Some of the mature females would then go through a morphing period and become males, bringing back the balance.

  The cubes of ice, each about a foot in width, were already melting. Each young adult took home a few cubes of fresh ice. Some adolescents, still sexually immature, snooped around the pile of cold ice but were discouraged by the growls of the fearsome males. Elders, however, were treated with respect and given cubes as they approached. Haseeb was almost sure that the respect for the elders was a cultural and not an evolutionary trait. After all, the elders had no biological function and hardly contributed to any production. Building culture and passing on knowledge was their main contribution.

  Weirdo, an exceptionally curious male, approached Haseeb with an ice cube. The four humming organs in his thick neck started vibrating. Haseeb saw a blue square being enveloped by a red and black circle. “I give the man from the sky some ice.”

  “Thank you” replied Haseeb with his own humming device.

  Weirdo, or Seeker of Morning Truth, was the only male to take interest in the scientist. He was bigger than most of the others, but also demonstrated sensitivity and curiosity that were not clouded by his hormones. Haseeb had identified a few individuals like Weirdo who had certain characteristics that were not evolutionarily novel such as curiosity and intellect. He had originally thought that the change in the Hummers over their lifetimes, from sexless drone to submissive female to aggressive male to wise elder, and the adaptability required was probably a determining factor in their evolution of intelligence. But then he decided that was overly simplistic; after all, several species on Earth also morphed into the opposite sex but didn’t develop intelligence. Haseeb’s conclusion to the evolution of intelligence was simple: an accident. He had seen too many creatures that seemed to have the right physical and environmental traits to evolve into intelligent beings but had failed.

  The Hummers were in the opposite camp; how they evolved into one of the most intelligent species that Haseeb had yet encountered was still a mystery. Though their harsh natural environment and lack of surplus natural resources had prevented them from creating a civilization, Haseeb had been chilled by their almost natural gift for mathematics and geometry.

  He could clearly see the four humming organs vibrate again at different pitches to create a complex orchestra of sound. “The hard-backed alien is sleeping?” asked Weirdo.

  Haseeb spoke into the mouth piece of his humming device that would translate his words into a similar pattern of humming sounds. The alien would ‘see’ the sound in the form of morphing geometric shapes and patterns. “He is at the edge of the village, looking at the sun.”

  “I would like to wrestle with him again” said Weirdo.

  Haseeb smiled. “I’m not sure if he is willing today. He seemed sad.”

  “Come, we will ask him” insisted Weirdo.

  The two walked side by side towards the sun. Weirdo’s upper-body bulk forced him to walk partially on his knuckles like a gorilla. Haseeb imagined what the jolly Hummer would have been like as a slender female. One of the elders, he couldn’t remember which one, claimed to have been one of Weirdo’s mates when he was still a young female and remarked how ugly he had been. Weirdo maintained that he didn’t remember mating with the elder and, therefore, remarked that he must have been an unmemorable lover.

  The unusual pair stayed silent as they walked since Haseeb couldn’t read the geometric shapes and walk straight at the same time. The village, with its bubble-shaped mud huts and gravel paths, looked dull and dry as it passed by. It took about half an hour to reach the edge of the village where large polished white rocks and metal reflectors stood imposingly to deflect as much light and heat as possible. A gap in the wall of boulders was filled by a hunched figur
e sitting on the ground. The odd pair paused a few paces from the figure but no indication was given that he acknowledged their presence. After a few seconds, Haseeb walked around and saw that the brown alien was meditating with his eyes closed.

  “Bin’ja?” he called out carefully.

  The alien opened his yellow eyes. “Good evening Haseeb” he replied with a smile in Chinese.

  Weirdo hummed his four vibrators but stopped when Haseeb signalled to him to wait. The planetologist hastily put on his goggles and gestured to the Hummer to continue. “He thinks you miss someone” he translated after reading the geometric shape shifts.

  “I miss someone, I miss everyone” replied Bin’ja.

  Haseeb recalled the morning when the village was turned upside down by the sighting of a fallen meteorite. He was rudely awoken by Weirdo who basically lifted him out of his bed. He was still half asleep when he was flung on the large Hummer’s grey furry back as he galloped towards the fallen rock. He soon realized how lucky he actually was; a meteorite large enough to penetrate the atmosphere was a rare phenomenon on any inhabitable planet with a dense atmosphere. Weirdo had been humming along to him for at least fifteen minutes before he put on his goggles and humming device.

  The journey had taken about an hour and Haseeb was stiff but fully awake. The crash had created a crater about fifty yards in diameter and several feet deep. The Hummers didn’t dare climb down the edge of the crater and they all seemed to be expecting him to do so. Shaking his head, he climbed down with only Weirdo daring to follow. He soon realized that the charred oblong ‘meteorite’ was a synthetic structure. He touched and was surprised to find it was cold. When the door of the evacuation capsule opened with the hissing of released pressure, Bin’ja had walked out with a serene look.

  “This one wants to test his strength on you again” said Haseeb.

  Understanding what Haseeb had said by his hand gestures and the context, Weirdo hurriedly intervened. “No, I think another time would be more suitable.” He sensed a profound melancholy in Bin’ja.