Echoes Of A Gloried Past (Book 2) (2 page)

Aaron was growing tired, but refused to give in and straightened up when he felt himself start to stoop. Gavril pressed his palm to a panel, and the metallic door quietly hissed open. Colind and Vaughn turned immediately and came over to greet Aaron.

“You should not be up and about yet,” spoke a silky voice behind him. Aaron turned to see a beautiful raven-haired Hythariam reach inside her pocket and pull out a device. She held the device inches away from his head and slowly scanned down his back.

“Aaron,” spoke an older Hythariam, “please forgive my daughter, Roselyn, she is a healer first and person second. Do you remember me? I am Iranus, and I’m most pleased to see you recovering so quickly.”

Aaron remembered Iranus with his long white hair contrasted by his golden eyes. He had been among those on the ship that rescued him when he fell. “I do remember you,” he replied.

“Since you’re here and not resting in your bed where you should be, give me a moment to examine you,” Roselyn ordered and ushered the others away.

The others quickly moved to give the healer room to work, save Verona, who stood rooted in place for once and clearly at a loss for words. Roselyn raised the device to Aaron’s eyes and slowly scanned downward.

“Can you give us a moment please?" she said to Verona, snapping him out of his reverie.

Verona joined the others across the room, giving them some privacy, but he kept glancing back in Roselyn’s direction.

Roselyn focused her attention on Aaron and asked him a few questions about the Ryakul wound on his back.

“You’re a remarkably fast healer, Aaron,” she said sternly. “You don’t realize how close to death you were.”

“You’d be surprised.” Aaron answered quietly, “but thank you.”

“Indeed,” she said and then leaned in so only he could hear what she was about to say. “You have friends here, Heir of Shandara, but be careful, as all is not what it seems, and the answers given may not be complete in their truthfulness. Some would see the return of the Alenzar’seth as a very grave threat.”

Aaron gave a slight nod, and Roselyn moved away.

“He’s recovering well. Do not keep him long,” she said looking sternly at Iranus.

“Thank you, my dear. Won’t you please join us?” Iranus asked, motioning for them to sit in one of the nearby circles of chairs.

Aaron sat down, and after everyone else was seated all eyes drew toward him. “First, I’d like to thank you for your help and for giving us a place to stay.”

Iranus held up his hand, “No thanks are necessary. It was the least we could do.”

Aaron nodded. “Second, where is the Drake, and what did it do to Sarah?”

“We don’t know where the Drake is now,” Iranus said. “As for what it did to your friend, I need to know exactly what you saw.”

“What I saw … ” Aaron began, and the image of the Drake holding Sarah up by her neck invaded his thoughts. “It blew some kind of green vapor into her face, forcing her to breathe it in. Then she began to writhe in pain, and after only a few moments her eyes began to turn yellow like his. When I called to her, she pulled away as if she didn’t recognize me. It was like one moment she knew who I was and the next wanted to kill me. Then the Drake called to her, and she went with it … I could … I could still see … her, but at the same time she was different.” Aaron said. “I know, it doesn’t make much sense, but that’s what I saw.”

“It makes perfect sense,” Roselyn said and then turned to her father. “The Drake is using a biological delivery agent to spread itself. We suspected, but no one could confirm before now.”

“What is it delivering exactly?” Aaron asked.

“A way to control its victims,” Iranus said.

There were a few moments of silence until Colind cleared his throat, “Tell him the rest.”

Aaron divided his gaze between Colind and Iranus, expectantly.

“I had hoped to give you more time to recover before burdening you with this,” Iranus began. “We have observed your world. Where you were raised.”

“Earth,” said Aaron. For a second, he thought of his sister, Tara, and how he would have liked for her to meet Sarah someday.

“Yes, I’ve no doubt you are familiar with machines?” Iranus asked and continued when Aaron nodded. “We’ve developed machines that are smaller than the finest grain of sand. They can live in our bodies and group together to form larger machines to perform any number of tasks.”

“We have something similar. We call it nanotech,” Aaron said. “It deals with manipulation on a molecular level.” His response drew a frown from Verona, but Colind, he noted, didn’t look at all out of sorts.

“Excellent, I suspected you would be familiar with the concept,” Iranus said. “The Drake used a gas to deliver the Nanites into your friend. It was the Nanites and not the gas that caused her to change.”

“But what do the Nanites do exactly?” Aaron asked.

“By themselves not too much, but networked together they can perform complex calculations, including probability, and can adapt to a number of situations. They can form tiny power plants to recharge. Within an organic host, they can use the beating heart to convert the movement of the heart muscle into energy. When they were first developed, they were coded with a prime directive to keep the body healthy. They worked with the brain and the body, observing the body’s reaction to infection. After some analysis, they would help eliminate infections while allowing the body’s natural immune system to still function. This was essential so we didn’t lose our natural immunity to diseases. We also equipped them with the ability to communicate with other nanotech so knowledge and methods were shared. This went a long way, ultimately eliminating the visible signs of sickness altogether.”

“I think I understand. Like a cold, once you start feeling the effects of the cold you’re already sick.” Aaron said.

Iranus smiled slightly, “Correct. So, by all outward appearances we ‘cured’ most diseases entirely, but in truth, the Nanites enabled us to resist them before they were even felt by the body.”

“I understand the concept of Nanites, but it doesn’t explain what happened to Sarah,” Aaron said.

“I’ll need to delve a bit into our history to help you understand better,” Iranus began. “Particularly how we came from our home world of Hytharia to Safanar. The Nanites’ ability to keep the body healthy was only the beginning of their capabilities. We could also use them to manipulate the biological blueprints of a living organism. We learned how to alter the genes for aging, to increase brain function, thus stimulating growth in our ability to calculate, and even increase our bodies durability and strength.” 

Iranus paused, allowing for what he said to sink in. The gravity of such a momentous advance in technology was not lost upon Aaron. 

“The moral implications of those advances must have been profound,” Aaron said after a few moments’ thought.

“That’s putting it mildly,” Roselyn said, speaking up for the first time since she had examined him.

“Aging?” Aaron said, “So, you were able to stop aging entirely? Didn’t that lead to overpopulation on your world?” 

“Much more than that,” Iranus said evenly. “When people live too long, they lose perspective. Organisms such as ourselves were not meant to evade death entirely. So yes, we were able to heal ourselves and delay aging, allowing for the possibility of a fuller life. But some wanted to live forever, believing that since we could, in theory, live forever, that we had a right to do so.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Verona said.

Iranus’s lips curved in a knowing sort of way, “It sounds wonderful, does it not? But imagine this, if you will, a whole society that doesn’t have to fear death or growing old? You would amass a multitude of knowledge, but without wisdom, without the certainty that you were allowed a finite time in this life. People became unmotivated, and their fundamental values changed. Instead of bringing people together into harmony, it drove them apart into chaos. Essentially, we took away the things that made life worth living.”

“What did you do?” Aaron asked.

“We decided not to stop aging altogether, but simply slow it down to acceptable levels,” Iranus answered.

“How did you decide how long one should live?” Aaron asked.

“We voted on a range and agreed on 200 to 225 years, life-style permitting. To prevent constant lobbying in our courts, an agreement was put into place to revisit the age range every 50 years.” Iranus said.

“I can’t imagine deciding as a society how long one should live,” Aaron replied.

Iranus pursed his lips in thought for a moment, “Is it so foreign a concept to you? If you live a healthy lifestyle, you have a better chance to live longer. People, no matter their origin, have this balance, and ours was the next logical step with the resources at our disposal. We were able to manage the genes for aging so that it still took place, but at a much slower rate.”

“Still,” Aaron said, “even with a majority vote, conflict or even outright war must have been inevitable.” 

“Yes,” Iranus replied solemnly. “There are those who worked in secret to thwart the council’s efforts to maintain peace. War, as you said, became inevitable. The precious gift stemming from the Nanites became a weapon. You’ve glimpsed the remnants of Hytharia through the portal. You’ve seen firsthand the result upon our world.”

“Why Safanar?” Aaron asked. “Couldn’t you open a gateway to another world instead?”

“I’m sure they tried, but opening a door doesn’t mean you’re going to like what is on the other side.”

“That’s not really an answer, now is it?” Aaron replied.

Iranus smiled, “No, it’s not. Safanar was the first successful connection to a habitable world we were able to make. But to understand why we came here, I must explain the situation on Hytharia. Our planet was dying,” Iranus began addressing everyone in the room. “In developing our technological prowess, we all but exhausted our natural resources. Something happened to our sun that caused it to age faster than we had originally projected. The lifespan of our star should have ranged in the billions of years, but was eventually reduced to thousands and then hundreds of years. Even then, it should have been enough time for us to find a suitable world to colonize. We utilized every means possible in the search. Sending out probes through space as fast as possible, but these things take time. 

The search for another home became a cycle of destruction for us. Those in power used the impending crisis as a way to justify reckless decisions that eventually put the stability of Hytharia in jeopardy. Super volcanoes killed millions, and a war for the remaining resources necessary for survival reduced our numbers further. Amid all the death and destruction, we found Safanar. Our beacon of hope. A short distance, relatively speaking, but it still took our probe thirty years to find this place. We could never build ships with enough resources to take a significant number of our people here, so we had to find a different solution, but at least we had a target to reach for. This gave us hope and brought the factions of our society back into harmony … for a time. 

The probe continued to send us information and landed on the surface not far from where we are sitting right now. With all the hope that a new home brings, war all but ceased as efforts were focused on viable solutions to get us here. 

The most brilliant scientists of the age were brought together along with a specialized branch of Hytharia’s remaining military factions. They acquired the resources we needed and gave us a place to work.”

“Us?” Aaron asked. “You mean you were one of the scientists?”

“Yes,” Iranus answered, “many of us here, were part of the original group. It wasn’t just scientists, though, but our families as well. We focused on opening a portal between our two worlds. At least that was our end goal. All great things have small beginnings, and we were eventually successful. The calculations involved just to open a portal on the same planet were impressive. Imagine trying to hit a moving target across an enormous expanse of space. What we were able to achieve was startling to say the least, but it did come with its fair share of failure and risk. Now, given the discussion I won’t go into the details of the intricacies of bending space-time. There is simply not enough time for that. So, I will continue,” Iranus paused for a moment. “After our first few successful trips to Safanar, we were happy to report that this world was beyond our wildest expectations. We started to observe the people here and came in contact with one of your ancestors, Aaron, you carry his staff with you here in this very room.”

“Daverim,” Aaron gasped, his mind flashing back to the abandoned temple he had come to when he first arrived on Safanar. He traced his hands along the rune-carved staff, “But that’s … ”

“Eighty years ago, yes,” Iranus said with a small smile, his eyes growing distant, as he remembered his first meeting with Daverim. “Full of life to say the least,” Iranus continued. “He was a good man. We allied with the kingdom of Shandara, because the ideals of that kingdom closely matched our own, before the harshness of survival sapped some of our morality from us. In exchange for their help, we agreed to share our technological advances and knowledge. There was actually quite a bit we learned from one another, and we started bringing our people to this world. Shandara was a buffer for us from the rest of Safanar, but it was always our intent to work with all of the kingdoms here. 

When we brought our proposal to our leadership council, a new general was appointed to oversee the whole effort. His name was General Morag Halcylon.”

Aaron looked around the room and regarded the cold, expressionless looks of the other Hythariam as confirmation of the sinking feeling he felt.

“We proposed what was in our mandate, which was to find a way to bring survivors from our dying world to Safanar. To live and interact with the people of this world. But others had a different plan,” Iranus said bitterly, “They wanted to conquer and rule what they perceived as lesser people. We didn’t realize the extent of the ruthlessness of our leadership and the measures taken to provide the resources we needed. They simply took what was needed from others of our home world. Leaving them exposed and in some cases murdering whole cities. I began researching any information I could find about the new general and cursed my ignorant self. General Halcylon was among the most ruthless of our military who thrived under the guise of survival at the cost of the soul of our people. Most of the council cowered in fear of him, and those that did not were aligned with the means by which he accomplished his goals.”