Nopileos: A novel from the X-Universe: (X4: Foundations Edition 2018) (X Series)

by Helge T. Kautz

  The Borons excitedly waived their four main tentacles. “Listen to me and use your fun, hairy ears, oh Elena Na, starwarrior!” Nola Hi sang. “There will be horrible fights and appalling battles!” Bala Gi cried. “The crazy Three-eyes and the Split are forming together at this moment and will soon threaten, assail, and attack the second-to-last Xenon CPU!”

  “I know—I just attended Somancklitansvt’s announcement on Hewa, have you forgotten already? And now the Queendom would like to do something against it?”

  “Yes—and yes,” the minster affirmed.

  “Will Argon Prime support you?”

  There was a small pause, as if the two Borons had to think about the question first. Argon Prime and the Queendom had been close allies for a long time; but whether the Argon government would put the current state of peace on the line to save the Xenon was more than questionable. After all, until recently the Argon had bitterly fought the Xenon. Elena blinked; it seemed as if the hitherto clear water in which the Borons swam had suddenly clouded. A gossamer, purple halo spread around Bala Gi and Nola Hi.

  “No, negative,” the minister answered sadly. “Argon Prime will not officially support us in this matter and also will not be of help to us. But we have a plan! Taste and hear!”

  The Boron Royal House, which was only nominally a matriarchal monarchy, had already agreed before the meeting to Nola Hi’s proposal to declare two of the “New Sectors” assigned to the Queendom as a refuge for the remaining Xenon. After the two Central Processing Units and their escort ships had passed the jumpgate, they wanted to send a research ship after them and deactivate the jump gate from the outside after its passage.

  But herein lay the exact problem: nobody could so easily deactivate a jumpgate! Sure, with the strongest weapons you could destroy it. But turning it on and off again when needed was simply impossible. Nobody knew how the technology of the ancient gates worked, and so far they had withstood every investigation.

  “We are certain and firmly believe,” concluded the scientific ethicist, “that the key to the technology of the world portals lies in the data of the funny Ancient Ones, is hidden and coded therein.”

  Elena’s head buzzed. She slowly realized what this had to do with Nopileos—and so ultimately with her. She stroked her hair and exhaled deeply. “So somebody has to fly to Nif-Nakh to find Nopileos and the Nyana’s Fortune there.”

  “Yes—and yes!”

  “And then download the Ancient One’s data from the onboard computer,” Elena continued,” and hope that they, along with the data that you already have, will produce some kind of operating manual for stargates…”

  “We would happily hope so, if we did not already know and were certain!”

  “And then someone has to fly to your Xenon refuge and pull the plug out of the gate after the mindship is through and before the Paranids can follow it.”

  Nola Hi’s trunk pulled into a kind of grim. “Hai!”

  “Insanity!”

  A long silence followed. CEO Isemados and Gaseli Hort gave Elena a breathless look, as if expecting something in particular from her. The purple cloud in the Borons’ environmental area visibly condensed, the little tentacles of the aquatic creatures fluttered hectically. Gradually it downed on Elena what they wanted from her. Actually, it was obvious—one thing led to another and everything fit.

  “Therefore I should do it?”

  “Oh, Ele Na, aesthetic starwarrior, fluffy Earth inhabitant, we are so happy, thrilled, and glad that you will help us, work with us, and volunteer and offer your valued, precious, and irreplaceable participation!” Bala Gi hastily cried. She almost swam through the water’s edge in her exuberance, but Nola Hi reached out a tentacle at the last moment and stopped her.

  Elena sighed. It made no sense to argue—the most important thing was to find Nopileos, now that she knew he was still alive. “I’ll need help,” she said instead, and glanced back and forth between the exited Borons and the Teladi.

  “Your dear acquaintance, friend, and business partner Ferd Harling, the infobroker from Ringo’s Moon, is already informed and knows what he needs to know—but not more! He will be on your side and help you with the planning.”

  So it seemed they had already thought of everything. And that, of course, meant that Elena’s meeting with the Borons was not quite as random as they wanted her to believe. The game was now clear: the Borons wanted to recover the message of the Ancient Ones and also protect the Xenon. The CEO of the Teladi also wanted the message, and in addition he wanted his grandson Nopileos back. And neither one nor the other wanted to get their tentacles or claws dirty.

  Funny little people, thought Elena.

  Chapter 8

  It is almost a bit embarrassing to me, but it must be said once: there are no space flies! Like so many modern myths, this legend also comes from the mythical creatures of the world view of the Split. In fact, the ‘space fly myth’ is based on an aggressive, gigantic insect from the planet Nif-Nakh: the ghok.

  Myths 19:09: Grzimek,

  Book of Truth

  The jungle beast on the shore looked up and stared out across the water, as if it could pierce the darkness with only its own glow. Then it let go of the tree and let loose a mighty fanfare. Nopileos immediately made himself heavy and let himself sink below the surface of the water. Better to go down to this unknown thing that didn’t fluoresce than to be gobbled up by the jungle dragon!

  The lake was deep and dark. As many light-insects whirred around in the nighttime jungle, there was just as little light here in the water. Nopileos shuddered at the thought of what exactly might be looking up at him from the depths of the cool water at that moment, with a lust for murder in its eyes. But his thoughts quickly turned to other—although not necessarily more enjoyable—concerns, for after a few sezuras a wavering spot of light approached above the water’s surface. The jungle beast had decided to more closely examine the noise that had distracted it from its destructive work. Nopileos let himself sink deeper and began to paddle backwards, further out into the open lake. The dragon’s halo of light followed him, but made no attempt to dive into the water. Egg be praised, thought Nopileos. If the animal could also dive, it would’ve been all over for him. As agile as the Teladi might be in the water, they didn’t master the element with the deadly precision of highly specialized creatures. The jungle dragon, however, lost interest after a short time. The green spot of light above the water’s surface went away, became smaller, and returned to the shore. Maybe the nasty beast couldn’t cope with water. Perhaps they couldn’t keep their massive bodies in the air long enough to cross a large lake. And potentially, one could hope, it was for just that reason that they didn’t exist on the giant island that Nopileos had earlier seen the contours of near the middle of the gigantic lake. He hissed with renewed courage. A few bubbles left his muzzle and started their upward, tumbling climb.

  He thrust these thoughts aside for now, because the shadow of the island in front of him rapidly grew to looming proportions and the water’s depth fell noticeably. In the immediate vicinity of the shore, he met another of the large creatures of the lake. The creatures were harmless; at least they hadn’t approached him with threatening intent. Or maybe they just had a good sense for the kind of nourishment that was good for them. Teladi saurians were definitely not on their menu!

  Shortly thereafter, his clawed feet met the ground. He waded up the last few lengths until the water lay behind him. The bank was made of fine, light-colored sand, which felt velvety under his claws and tickled pleasantly between his toes.

  In the meantime, the moons had risen again and plunged everything in a wan light. Nopileos suspected that the satellites were actually much closer than they seemed, and therefore circled the planet quickly and appeared in the sky several times in the same night. At the same time, they seemed to have a strange declension to the ecliptic plane, which might account for their extraordinary phases. Nopileos turned his claws up. He looked around. Vegeta
tion began a few lengths from the beach. At first it seemed as though it was no different from the mainland, but then he noticed that it was not the usual, thin jungle giants that rose aloft, but smaller trees with thick trunks, low-hanging branches, and large, teardrop-shaped leaves. In between were masses of ferns, tall grasses, and bushes. The island was completely quiet. There were no trumpeting beasts or other noises except for the soft gurgling of the water behind him and the whisper of a calm breeze that blew to and fro through the treetops. When Nopileos listened intently, he could hear the sounds of the jungle sounding in the far distance across the lake. He didn’t know what to expect here, but whatever it was, it couldn’t get any worse than over there on the mainland. He searched for a spot near the beginning vegetation, pawing the soft sand with his claws, and broke off some fronds which he laid over it. Then he pulled himself into the slight hollow, exhausted, adjusted the fern fronds over himself, closed his eyes, and immediately fell asleep.

  A steady stream of runny mud slid down to the blinking Teladi. His makeshift sleeping niche was already full of water, and more and more fell down from above in long threads and tapped on the thin roof of fern fronds. It was pouring rain, and it was daylight and warm. Nopileos wiped his claws over his muzzle, which had lain in the mud sideways. Water and mud made little difference to him, even if civilized saurians in this modern age were seldom at the mercy of the forces of nature. He thought for a moment whether or not he should close his eyes and doze a while longer. But a sound that penetrated the clapping of the raindrops opened his eyes wide. There was a voice nearby! No jungle beast, no animal, no hallucination, but a harsh voice that spoke in a strange dialect.

  “Yadmanthrat!” cried someone Nopileos couldn’t see from the shallow depression of his sleeping hollow. He didn’t dare move. The Teladi did not know what the word meant, but the sound and color of the voice could only mean one thing: whoever was speaking had to be a Split! What, by yolk, were the Split doing here on this insignificant island on the breeding canal of the world? As the footstep sounds splashed away from him, he dared to shift position to get a better angle.

  There were paired up. The one, a squat-looking Split, about the size of an average Argon and probably male, held in his right hand a wooden spear on which an odd-looking fish wriggled. Apparently the animal had just been impaled. Nopileos’s forehead paled. The second Split was bigger, but much lankier than the other. A female? The one with the spear made a gesture with his free hand and spread a few fingers at a strange angle. While Nopileos know that the Split used a sign language with hundreds of signs to emphasize their spoken speech, he could not of course interpret the hand signals. The Split woman made a croaking noise that Nopileos would have interpreted as a laugh had he not known better. Split never laughed. Their humor didn’t go beyond cruel schadenfreude!

  Nopileos was sure that something was not entirely right with the two Split. There was something about them that bothered him, but could couldn’t make out what it was. He waited. Shortly thereafter, the two disappeared between the bushes and disappeared from his sight. Nopileos remained still for a while, but when the Split did not reappear even after half an inzura, he pushed the dripping wet ferns he had used to cover himself through the previous night and cautiously rose from the mud pit his sleeping hollow had transformed into. He padded over to where he had seen the Split stand. A few half-faded footprints were the only thing that confirmed their presence, but it was proof enough that he wasn’t hallucinating. Nopileos stopped down and smoothed the pits flat with a claw. His claws left a pattern of parallel stripes, which were immediately smoothed again by the rain and running water.

  Something moved at the edge of his peripheral vision. He turned around jerkily, but was relieved to find that it was merely a palm-sized creature with shiny scales which was working its way out of the red lake water and onto the beach. It had short, stubby legs and looked like a deformed tank fish. It crawled clumsily after a small crab that came out of the water on eight legs and nimbly crawled up onto the sandy beach. The stubby legs of its pursuer were unsuited for land movement, and after some sezuras the tank animal turned around and slipped back into the water. Nopileos wondered how the lungfish had intended to capture his nimble prey. He straightened up again. The Split showing up had upset him, but he was strangely happy over their appearance rather than appalled. Of course he didn’t want to be found by them and locked up. But he was curious. What were they looking for here? And what was it that bothered him so much about the two? He came to the decision to get to the bottom of things.

  He quickly found the spot where the Split had entered the forest. Bent and cleared shrubs led to a well-trodden path which was either used often, or used less often but for many jazuras. The path was just so wide that you could walk along it without touching the vegetation on either side. The subsoil, the rainslick clay, was almost free of plants and leaves, as if it were cleared regularly. While Nopileos explored carefully, always keeping an eye on his surroundings to be ready to dive into the bushes if need necessary, the path widened by an eight of a length with every step. In several places, smaller, seemingly more seldom-used side trails branched off the main path, which he ignored and continued along the wide, cut path.

  After a few mizuras, the intensity of the rain slowed until it finally stopped completely. The canopy above Nopileos continued to drip for a while, becoming rarer and rarer, until at last there remained only the occasional splashes of water here and there, recognizable by concentric rings in small puddles on the muddy dirt trail. It was quiet around the Teladi; the ground was steaming and the leaves were moist. In contrast to the mainland jungle, the vegetation of this forest appeared denser, greener, and more alive in a haunting way—and that even though no animals were to be seen so far. Whether the lack of fauna was related to the intense rainfall that had died down in the last moments, or whether it represented the normal state of affairs on this island, Nopileos couldn’t say. But if there were living things here, it was certain that they wouldn’t be luminescent insects or acid-spewing dragonflies.

  The path executed a long, drawn-out curve, then finally widened and ended in a roughly circular space that permitted a view of the deep blue sky. Nopileos snorted in surprise when he saw the little hut that had been built out of the felled trees of the clearing. Was this the dwelling place of the Split he had seen on the shore? As a precaution, he stepped to one side and crouched behind one of the thick bushes along the way so he could watch the wooden shed for a while. When nothing happened even after an inzura, and the forest remained silent, the nervous saurian descendant overcame his fear and began to work his way to the little house as carefully as he could in the protection of the undergrowth alongside the path. He realized with surprise that he had probably only seen the back of the hutch, because the other side was perhaps not closed, but fifty percent open. He circled the structure on the tips of his claws and looked into the dim interior. No one was inside, but a few rows of irregular strips of an indeterminate nature dangled from the ceiling. Since he couldn’t determine what they were and his curiosity drove him forward, he ventured closer. Finally, the Teladi stood directly in front of the open side of the cabin and looked with wide eyes. Through the cracks of the trunks that lay on top of each other, a little light fell into the semi-darkness, just enough that Nopileos could make out the purpose of the building; his forehead ridges involuntarily turned a shade paler. Over the entire length of the hut, which was about two and a half lengths, stretched thin threads or wires from which strips of dried meat hung down. This hut was used by the Split for hanging and drying their food! But… Nopileos stopped short. That would mean they lived here! Here, on this island!

  He couldn’t continue that thought, for footsteps and voices sounded from outside the clearing. Nopileos looked around, frightened to death. Where? The Split approached on the very same path he had recently taken, and at that moment they rounded the long curve that eventually leaded to the cabin. He quickly dived into the hu
t and under the hanging strips of drying meat. On the side facing away from the entrance stood a low, rough-hewn workbench with dark spots on the work surface. In front of the bench was a worn-out transport container made out of synthetic metal which had once been light gray, but had becomes greasy and mottled due to jazuras of use. Nopileos crept under the workbench on all fours and squatted behind the transport crate with his legs drawn pulled up. Not a sezura too soon, because at that moment the loudly lamenting Split entered the little hut. Nopileos trembled all over.

  The Split conversed in their own language; occasionally the Teladi caught an isolated word in the universal trading language as he crouched under the workbench, which was concise and curiously out of place in the room. Nopileos flinched as he heard the rustle of dried meat being pushed aside. A moment later he was looking at the bulky feet of a Split who stepped in front of the workbench and threw something on the work surface with a dull thud. On the basis of the subsequent sounds, Nopileos guessed that up above, an animal was being gutted and prepared for drying. The Split took a long while to complete his work. He obviously worked with great care and meticulousness, but that came as no surprise. Nopileos would bet that like any Split, he derived great pleasure in exploring the innards of other creatures in the bloodiest manner possible.

  Apparently no one planned to push the transport container aside or look under the workbench. When Nopileos realized this, he calmed down a little. He found it strange that the Split’s feet were covered by leather moccasins that did not give the impression of industrial production. The pant legs, which first looked yellowy-white and artificially made turned out on second glance to be the neatly cleaned and tanned skin of a large animal, and tidily stitched on the sides. Nopileos’s thoughts turned to confusion. On this planet, apart from the Palace of the Patriarch of Chin in the other hemisphere, there shouldn’t be any Split ! Nif-Nakh, which meant “Festering Wound,” had been used for decazuras exclusively as the seat of government by the current ruling families. So what in the world were these “wild” Split looking for here? He had no answer for that.