Burnt Worlds (26 page)

He suddenly noticed that he didn’t have a pen to chew on, and this distracted him more than he expected.
 
He desperately needed to fidget, to do something with the tension building inside him, but forced himself to remain calm.
 
“Okay,” he said carefully and evenly.
 
“I don’t know what, but we’ll come up with something.
 
But first, didn’t you have more news for us, Mister Cho?”

“Yes, sir.” nodded the young officer, looking back down at his datapad.
 
He hastily poked at it, eliciting a chirp from the device.
 
Muttering a curse, Cho slid his fingers sideways across it, then tapped again.
 
A map appeared on his console’s small display.
 
“Here it is, sir.
 
I’ve mapped out a few planets that look good for us.”
 
Another tap, and the same image appeared on everyone else’s pads.
 
Dillon saw a speckling of stars, some of them highlighted.
 
A line was traced from their current location to a few of the nearest highlighted stars.

“So,” continued Cho, “we’ve been looking at the light from distant stars.
 
The stars here, the ones I’ve marked in yellow, we’re seeing signs of liveable environments on them.
 
Nitrogen-oxygen atmospheres, most with a little methane, some with a great big list of complex organic molecules.
 
Very high probability of biology going on.
 
The nearest one
 
— I’m calling it ‘Planet One’ - is a thousand light years away.
 
We could be there tomorrow, and see if there’s anything we can use.”

“Planet One,” said Dillon.
 
“Catchy.
 
These other ones,” he pointed at the highlighted stars on the datapad, “Planets Two through whatever, all good candidates for biologic material?”

“Yes, sir.
 
All of them, and only a day or two travel between each.
 
I’m setting the bar a bit low, sir.
 
I figure we don’t need a planet with a civilisation and a full catering service, we just need some biologic material we can stuff into the food fabricator.
 
Slime will do.”

The Captain tapped at the stars on the datapad display, reading the information windows that popped up.
 
“Okay, good.
 
Good work, Cho.
 
Lay a course for Planet One, and let’s get started.
 
We’ll hop to them one at a time, like you’ve got laid out here.
 
More or less pointed in the direction of home.”

Sap grunted.
 
“Or where home should be, if we’re still in the right galaxy.”

“Yeah,” said Dillon, leaning back in his chair.
 
He ran his fingers through his hair, ending with his hand on the back of his neck.
 
“Look, everyone.
 
Hopefully the pulsar thing has an explanation other than ‘we’re in the wrong galaxy’, and we’ll start coming into neighbourhoods we recognise.
 
We’ll map everything we come across — gas clouds, dark energy, everything — and hopefully it’ll be interesting to people when we get home.”

“Is that realistic, sir?” asked Cho.

The Captain ignored the question.
 
“But,” he said slowly, putting his hands down to grasp the edge of the table top, “let’s also plan for the possibility that we’re in the wrong place.”
 
He looked at Sap.
 
“Maybe we can build a bunch of capacitors, and figure out a way to jump all the way home.”
 
His eyes moved sideways to Atwell, “Or, maybe we’ll need to think about finding a world where we could…” he shrugged, “settle.”

Atwell raised one hand slightly.
 
“If I may, sir?”

“Yes?
 
Go ahead.”

“I propose half rations for everyone, for the time being.
 
Just until we get some stores built up.”

“Done.
 
What else?”

“I’ve been working with Head Mechanic Vish here; since we only have one food fabricator, I propose we use the last of our repair supplies to make spare parts for it.
 
We can’t afford to lose the thing.”

Dillon looked back and forth from Atwell to Sap.
 
“Done.
 
And pragmatic, which we’ll need.”
 
He looked around the table.
 
“Anyone else?”

The Chief quietly raised a hand.

“Yes, Chief?”

“Sir, our cylindrical friend is still out here somewhere.
 
I know the galaxy’s a big place, but, you know, with the luck we’ve been having…,” she trailed off, spreading her hands wide in resignation.

“Yeah.
 
Good thinking.
 
So, everyone keep any eye out for that thing, or anything like it.”

“Or its friends,” suggested the Chief.
 
“Maybe we’re in its neighbourhood now.”

Dillon stopped, his finger mid-waggle, and looked at the Chief.
 
He hadn’t thought of that.
 
“Chief?”

“Aye, sir?”

“Stop that.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

God commanded the Seven Siblings to create the universe.
 
Each took one day to do their part, to add their contribution to the Creation.
 
Night and day, sea and land, the world above and the world below; every plant and tree and every thing that crawled or walked or flew, all things were created by the Seven Siblings, given shape, given purpose.

When Inas and Tellithal conspired against God, they were cast out by their brothers and sisters.
 
The remaining Five Divines were then commanded to work together in one final masterpiece of creation, as near to perfection as their vision could conceive.

And so, the last and most precious creation, made from the most perfect blue blood, were the Palani, the first people.
 
Forever beloved of all the Five Divines and forever tormented by the temptations and corruption of Inas and Tellithal.
 
Were it not for the two outcast Siblings, the Palani would have achieved perfection; clean and holy and incorruptible.
 
Instead, due to the treachery of the outcasts, the blue-blooded race were to forever strive after perfection, forever falling short.
 
Forever chasing that which they would never catch, not until the
Horlana
, the final day.
 
The day when the Palani would achieve spiritual perfection and thus summon the
Horlan
, the embodiment of sin, against which they would fight the final battle for the fate of Creation.

But nowhere in the tale, in all the three thousand verses of the
Erwa
, was there a single mention of other worlds or other people.
 
The holy text, written — according to custom — by the Five Divines, spoke of the stars as the spirits of the departed, shining forever in the sky to provide hope and comfort in the dark of night.
 
Not mentioned as stars in their own right.
 
Stars with their own planets and, as it turned out, their own people.

Tassali Yenaara sat on her bed, back against the headboard, her knees up to her chest.
 
Around her on the bed lay her datapads, opened to passages in the
Erwa
, the Proclamations of the Pentarchs, and several commentaries and concordances.

Pushing her hands against her knees, she leaned her head back, stretching her shoulders and neck until her head tapped against the wall, her eyes looking up at the ceiling.

The bed is called a rack or bunk.
 
The wall: bulkhead.
 
Floor: deck.
 
Toilet: bathroom, washroom, lavatory, shithouse, crapper, bog, john, loo, head.
 
Their language says more about them than they think.

And yet, because the
Erwa
made no mention of them — because they were not Palani —
 
they were unclean.
 
Unholy.
 
Corrupt.
 
Savages, primitive and violent and lustful, not to be trusted.
 
Not to be touched, lest their corruption rub off.
 
Somehow
.
 
Such was the Nine Thousand and Seventh Proclamation of the Most Holy Pentarch, and it was not to be debated or discussed.

And it was most certainly not to be loudly denounced in the Grand Hall of the Transcendent Will.
 
No sane person would even consider referring to such a Proclamation as outdated, ignorant nonsense.
 
No one would suggest that such obsolete ideas were used only to ‘justify the arrogance of racist idiots’.
 
Racist idiots like the Third Vice-Pentarch.
 
And, most assuredly, no one would dare suggest that the Palani were guilty of greater corruption than the humans could imagine; crimes so vast that it would deny their holiness.
 
Make them unholy, like the humans themselves.

Now, months later, the echoes of her voice still rang in her ears, as did the unforgettable moment of shocked silence that had followed.

The Tassali sighed, rolling her head forward to look at the room around her.
 
Cabin
.
 
Her hands on her knees, her white feet on the bed, sticking out from under the hem of her loose robe.
 
She wiggled her toes, and a small grin crept across her face.
 
She would never forget the look on the Vice-Pentarch’s face.
 
Surprise, followed by triumph, as he knew he’d goaded her into destroying her own career.
 
Followed by uncertainty and doubt, as he began to realise that she didn’t care, that she wasn’t going to back down.
 
A trace of fear, perhaps, as he understood how dangerous she had become.

The same fear, she supposed, that had motivated the Church’s reaction.
 
Loud denunciations of her and her disrespect.
 
Demands that she renounce any suggestion of Palani crimes.
 
Days spent confined to the family compound, the only words spoken being angry, accusing, disappointed, resigned.

The smile faded as she remembered the look on her father’s face, as he told her she couldn’t stay.
 
Not in the family compound, not on the homeworld.
 
Not among her people, not any more.
 
The hurt in his eyes, as he asked her not to use the Yenaara name any more, knowing that she wouldn’t listen to that either.
 

Then came Orlahal’s urgent message, that the church had decided to arrest her, to silence her before she could spread the hidden truth of Palani history.
 
She remembered the windswept darkness, late at night.
 
The last look over her shoulder as she boarded the shuttle taking her off the homeworld.
 
No one was there to see her go.

And now, through a swirl of events so fast it made her dizzy, she sat on a
rack
in a
cabin
aboard an alien warship.
 
At the far end of the galaxy, chased by an unknown menace that had killed thousands of her people.
 
Not least her sweet cousin Orlahal; her last link to her family, to everyone she loved.
 
Now she sat among the savage, primitive humans.
 

They were distracting, confounding.
 
Neither subtlety nor inhibition among them.
 
Their every thought, their every emotion, prominently displayed on their faces and in their behaviour, if not actually spoken out loud.
 
Not the feral caricatures she had been told about, but
people
.
 
Imperfect people, capable of kindness, wisdom and civility.
 
So infuriatingly disarming.
 

So capable of getting to her, she realised.
 
Like the Captain; how had he put her so at ease?
 
She had called him
Feda
, had touched him.
 
Had trusted him.
 
What am I doing?
 
Do the humans have the Calming Voice as well?
 
Some chemical in their breath?
 
Why would she care what he thought, what he wanted?
 
So long as he took her home again, and…
 

She remembered the last look back at the empty landing pad.
 
The closing of the shuttle door as she left her homeworld for the last time.
 

As the humans say, ‘so much for that’.
 
I keep forgetting.
 
No home to go to.

She leaned forward, wrapping her arms around her knees and putting her head down on her arms.
 
Being right, she thought, was expensive.
 
And, were it not for a few aliens, lonely.

Chief Black slowly climbed the ladder up to the top deck, yawning loudly as she reached the top.
 
Eyes half open, she plodded along the corridor, past the wardroom, toward the hatchway to the bridge.
 
She scratched the back of her head while trying to sip at her coffee.
 
Half the crew has given the Dosh their coffee rations; good for them.
 
But this is mine.
 
All mine.

As she stepped carefully through the hatch, the Captain looked up from his datapad.
 
The pen in his mouth twitched as he smiled.
 
“Good morning, Chief.”

Smoothly transferring the mug to her left hand, she offered a decent facsimile of a salute.
 
“Good morning, sir.
 
You’re up early; our watch doesn’t start for another half hour.”