Drednanth: A Tale of the Final Fall of Man

by Andrew Hindle

  “Decay.”

  Still, Cratch thought, it was somehow crass, upsetting, to see Thord present herself this way, even though this was an exposure her kind clearly didn’t mind. It was undignified, as if they’d called her a liar before even introducing themselves.

  He noticed that one of her tusks was artfully etched with a spiralling pattern of symbols and figures, while the rest were still smooth and unmarked. These decorations had an assortment of meanings and Glomulus wasn’t certain of them all, although teeth were a passion of his and the aki’Drednanth arguably had the most amazing teeth in the galaxy. Some aki’Drednanth had markings on all of their tusks, some on none -

  “Decay.”

  Glomulus blinked, and at the same time Contro dropped his watch, or more likely missed a catch and tossed it down by accident since it fell a bit faster than the gravity would account for. The screen was momentarily obscured by the pebbled warmium ground. Decay, Cratch realised as Contro picked the watch back up and bounced it in the air, had clearly been caught woolgathering – probably on the very same topics Glomulus himself had been.

  “Aha,” Glomulus gloated theatrically, “but I am all the way over here on the ship, my dancing four-armed friend. I’m allowed to woolgather. You – alert and at attention at all times.”

  “Commander?” the Blaran’s voice said in clearly-attempted briskness, as though he’d been caught ruminating rather than rhapsodising. Glomulus saw Thord raise her hand once again and the helmet folded back into place.

  “Lou was just saying, he sent you the docking history as part of the lost vessels manifest,” Clue said, “regarding the Molran cruiser Thord arrived here on.”

  “It was some weeks before the attack,” Thord said. The lowermost bar of her eye-lamp flickered swiftly – or that was what it looked like to Glomulus, but Contro had chosen this moment to flip the watch over and play with something on the screen, which meant that mostly what Glomulus got to see was Contro smiling in amiable confusion, the tip of Contro’s index finger as he pecked and prodded at the watch, Contro’s gaping nostrils … anyway, Cratch thought back to his brief time with the aki’Drednanth named Fridge – way back – the lower-bar flicker most likely denoted subdued amusement. “We were expecting a connecting flight,” she continued, “which has not materialised.”

  “You don’t have your own craft?” Decay asked, not commenting on the ‘we’ even if he had noticed it over the fanatical ringing in his big old flappy ears. If there was a second aki’Drednanth on The Warm, Cratch thought, Bendis would surely have mentioned it.

  Most aki’Drednanth had their own vessels. There were only a few hundred of them, after all, so giving each one a personal relative-capable cruiser wasn’t considered much of a drain. Not compared to the tangible benefits that came from a free, mobile aki’Drednanth community among the Six Species. Even in the Core, it was said, aki’Drednanth had their own refrigerated vessels.

  “I have chosen to go without,” Thord said, “opting instead to travel in the company of other people of the Six Species. It is a better way to learn, in my opinion, than travelling alone, in one’s own vessel,” Contro flipped his wristwatch again, in time for Glomulus to see another light flicker of her lower display-bar. “It is sometimes inconvenient.”

  Decay was looking at his own pad. “You came here on the Brave Little Child,” he said, “which has been reported destroyed … she shipped out of Ildarheim?”

  Thord smoothly inclined her great helm in acknowledgement. “Following the return of Isaz to the Drednanth, we came here with our burden. I thought to reflect further on The Warm, adding to my knowledge. We spent some time in the libraries, and by lucky chance we were in a deep shaft, close to the filament, when the attack came,” she waved a hand, and Contro conveniently spun around with the watch in hand, furnishing Glomulus with a panoramic view of the bubble space. “As you see, by great fortune this area was not seriously damaged, although it was exposed to space for some hours before the ring-wall could be repaired and the bubble restored.”

  Isaz was a familiar name, and Cratch allowed himself a small wince. Isaz had been around for a very long time. She had, in fact – if you believed the very compelling mythology – been one of the first aki’Drednanth to ever encounter Molren, unspeakable millennia ago back when they had begun to explore the stars. That had been a different life, of course. She had returned to the aki sphere sooner than was apparently usual, and had settled back into a flesh-and-bone life among the Six Species like some hero of folklore reborn. She’d actually been famed as a social commentator and comedian, in her own unique fashion.

  Now, it seemed, she was back in waiting for her next resurrection.

  “Isaz is dead?” Decay asked sadly. The slip – dead as opposed to returned – was not something that upset aki’Drednanth, since as far as they were concerned it was the same thing. Dead only held negative connotations of finality for non-aki’Drednanth species. Still, Glomulus tsked disapprovingly. Classic rookie mistake.

  “Just so,” Thord replied. “This, too, shall pass.”

  “Was it like this?” Clue inquired. “An attack? Was Ildarheim–”

  “No,” Thord said. “Isaz was five hundred and thirty-seven years old and she enjoyed fatty confection and reckless exposure to heat,” the flicker of her lower light-bar was more pronounced this time, continuing for some moments while Contro went back to tossing and bouncing his watch. “Often simultaneously, in the company of incorrigible fire priests,” she swept a long arm to one side, ushering them towards the long tent, and then launched herself smoothly in the same direction. The Blaran, and the gaggle of humans, followed her around to the flow-sealed entrance. Decay entered close on Thord’s heels, and Contro was not far behind. He dropped his watch again, giving Glomulus a close-up look at some sort of big crate lying along one side of the tent as the organiser drifted slowly to the ground, and then he was sweeping it back up into his hand and skipping inside.

  An unfamiliar, Molranoid-choral voice spoke while Contro had the watch in the palm of his hand, blocking the video feed. “Did they agree to take us to – oh.”

  Contro flipped the watch again. The Bonshoon who had just spoken, one of two that Glomulus could make out in the long, frost-rimed enclosure, looked up and fell silent when he saw the new arrivals.

  “Oh good,” Cratch said with a theatrical roll of his eyes, “more Bonshooni. So,” he leaned forward eagerly, “this must be the ‘we’ Thord was talking about. The plot thickens.”

  “Hello,” the second Bonshoon stepped around the end of the great blocky table that ran down the centre of the tent, extended his pudgy lower right hand and started shaking with the humans. Contro, of course, dropped his watch yet again when he went for his handshake, but the Bonshoon caught it before it floated very far and passed it back to the human with one of his free hands. “Hello, hello, I’m Maladin, this is my brother Dunnkirk, Thord you know, hello. We didn’t realise you were all actually coming out here, hello.”

  No, Glomulus thought, as the handover from Bonshoon to human gave him a good long steady look at the craggy blue-white formation, not a table. Ice.

  The Bonshooni were in thermals but no headgear, and so Decay – of course, creature of habit and prejudice that he was – quickly tugged his niqi up. The frailer humans kept theirs in place, though, and even Decay only pulled his far enough to expose his face, leaving it tight around his ears and the top of his head.

  Glomulus became uncomfortably aware, insofar as it was possible at such a disconnect and behind her impassive industrial-looking helmet, that Thord was watching him – or at least directly facing Contro as he played with his watch. Glomulus became further aware, and proportionally uncomfortable, of the fact that Thord was a telepath. And while it was a myth that aki’Drednanth could read thoughts – they could communicate flawlessly between one another, but the species-gap made it all but impossible to form the necessary connection with other life-forms – they were scarily accompl
ished empaths. Their ancient hunting instinct had collided with their telepathy to make them the best readers of mood, attitude, body language and facial expressions in the galaxy, regardless of the species of the face in question. How far that extended into the technological realms of surveillance and observation, Glomulus wouldn’t have cared to lay a wager.

  He couldn’t be sure if it was a result of the video feed and angles warping his perception, or that it had just been a while since he’d been in the presence of an aki’Drednanth, but Thord seemed even bigger than most aki’Drednanth he’d seen pictures of. Her suit was broader, thicker, than most of the Fleet-classic envirosuits, like some sort of tank. Maybe it was a special research-slash-hostile-environment variant, he thought, for use on The Warm and whatever mysterious projects Thord was working on. It wasn’t much bigger, but it was … impressive. Maybe it was just a nomad’s suit, with plenty of pocketspace.

  Cratch was used to seeing aki’Drednanth standing with groups of slender, admiring Molren. At least most of the pictures seemed that way, and wacky-wacky-Drednanth were never far from their faithful flunkies with the ears. Thord was flanked by a pair of massive Bonshoon and she still looked bigger than he remembered Fridge looking. Of course, there was no rule about aki’Drednanth envirosuits all being the same size, as long as they weren’t impractical.

  Clue, meanwhile, had also seen the huge ice object that ran down the centre of the tent, and like Cratch had realised it wasn’t a table or a console.

  “It is seed,” Dunnkirk said eagerly, running a gloved hand reverently over the frost-encrusted surface. “It is kadzûm, ark.”

  Dunnkirk spoke with a thick accent across his harmonic Molranoid voice, and – after listening to him a while – Glomulus decided the Bonshoon didn’t even speak Xidh all that well. The words he scattered into his sentences sounded like New Pinian, but Glomulus didn’t speak New Pinian so he couldn’t say for sure.

  It wasn’t unheard-of for fringe groups, particularly those who had left the Fleet and stagnated planetside, to speak strange languages. Lord knew, every time the Molren thawed out a batch of sleepers there was a protracted period of time where everyone tried to figure out what ancient dialects and racial languages they used and where they fit into the greater lexicon. Fortunately, and by design, Xidh hadn’t changed that much and was relatively simple to learn. The human languages, such as the AstroCorps standard spoken by the crew and The Warmies alike, were almost as easy.

  “My my,” Cratch murmured in puzzled amusement, “where did you find these boys?”

  “It is ark of aki’Dred – ark of Drednanth knowledges,” Dunnkirk was continuing earnestly. “A crafted goshoon, a repository, of the Dreamscape, of somni – slumbering Drednanth mind, wisdoms, history.”

  “Is that what it is, Thord?” Z-Lin asked, polite but with her usual background levels of cynicism and dryness clearly detectable even through the hacked communicator.

  “It is a big block of ice,” Thord said, “that we wish to bring with us as luggage. Intact.”

  “Oh, bravo,” Glomulus enthused. “These two are going to get along fine.”

  “And does your use of the plural refer to the Drednanth in the seed,” Janya spoke up from somewhere in the back of the group behind the ables, “or Maladin and Dunnkirk? Or is it both?” Cratch saw Thord’s lower bar flicker again. “I’m going to assume ‘both’,” Janya concluded, no doubt also seeing the light-based laughter. The Bonshooni nodded firmly.

  “It must be a hundred and fifty feet long,” Clue said, leaning in slightly to look out along the great craggy slab. “We’ll have to repurpose one of our oxygen farms, reducing our output to provide quarters for Thord and storage for this,” she turned her head back again, towards the stout figure that Glomulus recognised – from the unfamiliar design of his thermal if not the unfamiliar body-shape – as Acting Controller Bendis. “Meshes nicely with our headcount reduction,” she added, with just a hint of approving sarcasm.

  “Told you.”

  Glomulus looked at the giant chunk of ice with renewed appreciation. It was in essence an enormous solid-state aki’Drednanth brain – but no, not aki’Drednanth. Dunnkirk and Janya were right. Drednanth, a node of their mass-mind, a sort of consciousness mainframe. Or at least a part of it, physically separated from but perhaps still linked mentally to the vast Drednanth collective in the Great Ice. It was impossible to say how many Drednanth minds were stored here, or if that was even a meaningful question to ask. There may not have been any – just a sort of general gestalt of sentience and information, ready to sync with the greater whole somehow. Cratch’s knowledge and experience only went so far.

  And all this was only if you believed in that sort of thing. In many ways, Thord was exactly right – it was going to be easier to just think of this as a big block of ice, that she wanted moved from point A to point B without breaking it. Like a personal artwork, or some other piece of unfathomable alien luggage.

  Clue got them to the specifics of ‘A’ and ‘B’ with her usual crispness.

  “So, you want to take this all the way in? Into … I mean, you want to deliver it to the Great Ice? Return it to the rest of its kind?” she stepped back, and put her hands on her hips pensively. “We’re in a modular, not a warship. Not a Worldship. If we go that close to the Core … that’s suicide.”

  “Not with aki’Drednanth protection,” Janus said, raising a hesitant hand. “Right?”

  “Maybe,” Clue admitted, turning her masked face towards Thord, then the Bonshooni, then Bendis. Contro, blessedly, had finally been captivated by the conversation and was standing quite still, watch dangling from one hand with the face bobbing lightly in the air at just the right angle. “Maybe. Although records have shown that an aki’Drednanth working alone might not be enough to avoid high concentrations of Damorakind. It would take a group of them, working in concert…” she paused, and looked at the ice. “Do we have a group, Thord?”

  Thord shook her head slowly. “You misunderstand,” she extended a gauntlet towards the ice, thick fingers outstretched. “When an aki’Drednanth returns to the Drednanth, she returns to the Great Ice – but only in a sense. She is also within the living minds of the aki’Drednanth. This ice contains no Dreamscape, no mind as you understand it, capable of defending us from Damorakind. Not even the mind of Isaz, although she returned as the seed was in formation.”

  “So…” Z-Lin spread her hands helplessly. “Understand that this isn’t a refusal, Thord – I would have to get confirmation from our Captain on this in either case – but I don’t understand how you propose we get that close to the Core. And preferably back out alive.”

  “Of course she’s not refusing,” Glomulus scoffed – although he was still troubled. Not only because it really was suicide, but because things might have reached a point where self-preservation overruled the Debt. Which meant he might not get to meet Thord in person. Which would be regrettable.

  Because yes, it was a fact that if you want to stay friends with the Molren, you did what the aki’Drednanth wanted. And if you lived in space, you wanted to stay friends with the Molren. And even if this became irrelevant – had the Artist been right? Was the Fleet, the Six Species, vanishing off the face of the universe? Was that what these attacks were? – it was still a fact that an aki’Drednanth could turn you into a persistent vegetative shell just by thinking a swearword at you.

  But Thord’s laugh-bar was flickering again.

  “You’re not asking for a lift to the Great Ice,” Decay said, his voice suddenly certain.

  “No,” Thord agreed.

  “The Great Ice has no need of this,” Maladin said.

  “Is seed,” his brother repeated, earnestly.

  “Care to explain these cryptic one-liners?” Clue asked.

  “Thord’s not going into the Core,” Decay said, almost bubbling with relief. “She’s going the other way. Out to the edge. She’s seeding,” the Blaran pointed at the slab of ice. “This is an interg
alactic message in a bottle.”

  JANYA

  Well, Janya thought, that explains the Bonshooni at least.

  As she had already known and as she had confirmed in her conversation – fearfully sinful place, The Warm – with Oya, the settler from Bayn Balro, Bonshooni were not just devoted to the aki’Drednanth like all Molranoids. They were also firm believers in the idea that there was nothing outside this galaxy. Although whether that meant they thought it was a literal fact or simply a mythological allegory, it was hard to tell from individual to individual. They did seem to be in agreement, however, that escaping the galaxy was impossible, or at least impractical – that you would just end up becalmed in the void while those left behind watched your signal slowly fade into the background radiation of the universe.

  What better fusion of those two philosophies, then, than a journey with an aki’Drednanth to fling a living Drednanth ice-mind out into the intergalactic gulf?

  She also suspected, however, just looking at the two huge Bonshooni and the gigantic aki’Drednanth, that there was more to it than that. Wasn’t there always?

  She was still thinking about it, though, and wondering how to go about finding out more without immersing herself in a personal conversation she didn’t want to be a part of, when Janus figured it out too, and asked instead. Bless him.

  “Hey, so,” he started with his usual awkward conversational lead-in, “are you guys … do you three … Dreamscape? Is that even a verb?”

  “We Dreamscape,” Maladin said placidly.

  Contro chose this moment to break his uncharacteristically long silence. “But aren’t you Bonshooni?” he asked, turning away from the wall of the tent where he had been cheerfully balloon-bouncing a little chunk of ice in the almost-zero gravity. “Ha ha! Or are you just fat Molren? Aw, but you’re not really fat, just plump! Jolly? Jolly plump?”