Koban 5: A Federation Forged in Fire (45 page)

Allison had a more pertinent question. “What do you think happened here so long ago?”

Coldar didn’t need to speculate. “We found the corroded metal missile fragments. The Krall destroyed this site, even though we had fled to the sea and surrendered before this city was reduced to rubble in the fighting, as others were destroyed. It must have been done after our surviving population was relocated on our own migration ships, or else we would have some Olt memory of this pointless desecration of our history.”

He pondered a moment. “I wonder if this revelation would have altered our group decision to permit some Krall to survive the war, living imprisoned on a planet within the boundary of our Federation. They had beaten us in war when this happened, and won our agreement to provide them with technological assistance in exchange for our survival, and agreed to cease the destruction of our people and planet. Our help was a trade we knowingly made with them. This particular act represents a deep violation of that agreement that will affect the group mind of all Torki. Now that it is known to me, I personally would have supported the desires of the Krall’tapi, to spare none of the evil deviant Krall. They cannot be trusted, or forgiven. This Olt is irreplaceable, and offered them no threat.”

“I think I understand,” Alyson offered. “However, you know that Captain Mirikami is promoting the use of T-cubed ships to examine stars beyond the borders of the space the navigation systems indicate are the limits of the volume of Krall controlled territory. It’s possible that some of the defeated races fled this region and still survive somewhere. The Olt’kitapi could be one of those species. Would meeting an Olt’kitapi be better than finding another original Olt?”

“Possibly. We would have to reserve judgement until after we met them. The Olts were a marvelous gift, but we do not automatically equate the gift with the givers. They inadvertently released the Krall scourge on the peoples around them. They were not infallible, and they may have made other mistakes.”

Alyson agreed. “We all make mistakes, and they paid for theirs first and hardest. They were a well-meaning people. Perhaps we’ll know if any of them survived someday.”

****

Nawella was willing to defer to Rithal as the eldest. She was a Prada claiming to be older than Nawella by ten to a hundred orbits, as measured by the three star systems where Rithal had lived, when she ran underground factories for a Krall clan. Conversion to a single fixed length of time was no longer possible for the Prada, due to the differing star systems the elders often occupied throughout long lives, and moves which had been dictated by the Krall’s needs.

Although, humans had found that the habitability zones of many suitable stars provided a crude time measure by the orbits of living planets. The length of an orbit of most habitable planets ranged from under two years at hotter starts with a zone farther out, down to barely six months at cool red dwarfs with close-in living planets. A larger count of orbits offered a rough measure of greater Prada age.

Nawella wanted to hear the opinion of Rithal, so she posed her comment and question. “The star is red enough and this world has huge tall trees. Could they be the Temple trees of our legends?”

Rithal moved her head from side to side in indecision. “The majority of stars are redder than at Haven, which is too hot and white for proper living. These trees are also taller than the trees your villages call Temple trees on Haven. That extra height could be due to the lighter gravity here. They do match our oldest stories, but many low gravity worlds have tall trees. We need more evidence this was our home world than the trees and star color. All of our former colony worlds were in the Krall navigation systems, and were mixed with other low gravity worlds of every species the Krall met. Many of our own colonies had tall trees because we liked them, and they lived a long time.

Rithal came as close to criticism of the Krall that Nawella had heard from her. “The Krall had the technical ability, provided by the Olt’kitapi, to make notes about planets, but they never differentiated in their navigation systems which worlds belonged to which animal species of their enemies. Although, using their mental battlefield maps, they always knew which planets had a current enemy living on them. After a conquest, all they cared to retain was which clans kept some worlds for nesting, or for weapons manufacture. This world was not retained for such use.”

Nawella darted her head forward. “The human, named Mirikami, whom you met when you arrived on Haven, thinks the Krall normally killed all inhabitants of a species home world, or removed them if they were allowed to live. From Mind Taps of Krall leaders, he says they did that for all three races they kept alive, to leave them feeling isolated and helpless. The first orbital survey here shows that this world, which is near the center point of the worlds we think were our colonies, had no clan domes ever built here, but our colonies did have them. That leads Mirikami to suggest this world may have been our home.”

“He thinks the absence of evidence is evidence?” Rithal sounded skeptical.

“My brother Wister, and I, have come to trust his thinking. If before he speaks, you observe him pull at his flat and hairless bottom lip, it is a sign that he has applied much thought to what he is about to say. He is usually correct in those cases.”

In an amused vertical head bob on her slender long neck, Rithal confessed a bias. “I fear that if I looked at a human engaged in such thought, and they touched their wide flat mouth, all I would see above their fat hairless hands would be the ridiculous plump and pink nose, which is placed too close to their wrong colored eyes, and has almost no detectable or emotive movement. To me, that nose conveys the absence of thoughts in their overly wide heads, because the nose is so still.” Her head bobbed faster, in a quiet Prada chuckle.

“I have been around humans longer than you have, Rithal, and I urge you not to apply Prada facial or body language cues to them when in a discussion. Our species are both bipedal, but so were the Krall, and remember how little we understood them. Besides, what can you deduce from a bipedal creature without a moving tail when it speaks? We will misunderstand humans more than we do Torki and Raspani, because we do not attempt to interpret body cues from shapes so different from ours. Listen to the words of humans, and do not watch their movements and gestures so much, until you learn the important ones. What is worse for us is that many physical gestures differ between different humans.”

“How did you learn to trust them at all? They are such an immature species.”

“Because their acts and words actually agree with how they treat us. The Mind Tap, if you would permit its use, would explain them more quickly.”

“I do not want my mind opened to any of them. Too much can be revealed.”

“I can teach you how to shield any thoughts you do not wish to share. It is as easy as you refusing to say you wish to mate with my brother.”

“How do you know that? The humans told you with a secret Mind Tap of my thoughts.” She accused.

“No. I am a Prada elder, and I can and I do understand our head, tail, and nose movements from long practice. When Wister is not looking at you, I can see what you stop hiding. You have just revealed the truth of my observations, yet you never spoke them. The same way you do not speak what you want kept private, your thoughts are not revealed to a Mind Tap. The key is in knowing your open unguarded thoughts can be sensed, and you do not make physical contact with a Kobani without that awareness. It is easy. Wister was the first of us to learn to do this, with Maggi Fisher, Mirikami’s mate. She taught him how.”

Thought blocking a Kobani wasn’t at the top of Rithal’s current concern. “Does Wister know how I feel? Did you tell him?” She was moving her tail in a nervous manner.

“Wister isn’t quite as old as we are, but he is an elder and even more observant than I am. What do you think?”

“Oh my. Oh my. I’m not going to be able to meet his gaze again. I’m too old to feel this way. I must be feeling the influence of excessive human reproductive urges.”

Nawella concealed the laughing twitch of her tail tip behind her back, “It is not an infection one can catch, and you only met the first human a short time ago. I doubt you have seen any of them try to reproduce where you could watch. I have never seen them do that, although they do what they call flirting in public, to indicate an interest in a member of the other gender.”

“That sounds scandalous. We would never do that.”

“Rithal, what I saw you do that hinted at your feelings for my brother is flirting, in principle. And I think he knows.”

“Oh my. Oh my.” Her agitated tail twitches grew in strength. Until she managed to force her mind to return to their original, much safer subject.

“This ship is using deep radar scans, so our lost cities will appear beneath the forests, assuming this was our home planet. If the experience of the other species is an accurate guide, the smells and feel of our native gravity will seem more natural to us than on other worlds, the sky a natural color, and the bark grubs should be sweeter.”

Happy with the change in subject, Rithal studied the monitor, which was showing the planet passing below them in their extremely low orbit. The chime on Rithal’s handheld device chirped at her waist. Looking at the source of the call, she said, “It’s Captain Sven. What do I do?”

With an annoyed nose twitch, Nawella said, “You press the button to answer. I thought they explained this simple device to you.”

“Not that. I’m not prepared to block my thoughts. She’s calling with her Comtap. I’m told they exchange thoughts with those.”

“Only with other Kobani, and it is not possible with that device. Answer, or pass it to me.”

“Here.” She handed over the long-range communications device, which was being called from a person located the vast distance of two decks above them.

“Nawella speaking, Captain Sven.” She set it for speaker mode.

“Oh. Sorry. I thought I’d selected the ID code of elder Rithal. Should I call her as eldest, or is it acceptable to first speak to you?”

“Ella, you selected the proper device, it was…, out of her reach. Therefore, I answered for her. She can hear us.” She had used the captain’s first name, to indicate Rithal’s more formal mode of address with humans could be relaxed. She asked the question they needed answered.

“Do you have any results from your deep radar search?”

“Yes I do Nawella. This is the Prada home world, for a certainty. The locations of the outlines of twenty of your larger cities match closely with the charts your people hand drew from stories. Even the single planet-girdling continent with two seas almost matches. There are no ice caps now, so sea levels have risen since your people were removed by the Krall, and water has covered one low narrow section of the single continent. That’s why the shorelines were so different as well. The AI says this is One Land.”

Both Sven and the Prada were speaking low Krall, of course. A hope for the Prada was to reconstruct their original lost language, by studying the written version if found in ruins here. It would be harder to reconstruct the pronunciation, but certain sounds were formed more easily with the small pointed Prada mouth and slender tongue, so that would be a guide when the sounds for individual letters were deduced. The Krall had stolen much of Prada culture and heritage from them when they forbid them to retain their old language or records. Obedient to the supposed
elder species,
they did not defiantly try to keep their old language and history alive, as had the Torki. Now they wanted that lost language recovered and to relearn their history.

Nawella and Rithal darted their heads forward for that announcement, even though the gesture wasn’t visible to the captain. There was a small screen on the handheld device and a camera eye, but that wasn’t compatible with a Comtap. They were acknowledging this reasonable explanation for each other, of the observed changes from old oral descriptions of what to expect if they found One Land.

Even with the division of land caused by the encroaching ocean, this was still the single continent that the original, but now forgotten Prada language had said was One Land. This description was being phrased in low Krall, the language the respectful Prada had adopted, when ordered to do so by their former Rulers. Certain descriptions had remained, even when spoken in low Krall, as clues to their original home.

Sven had more news. “The largest ruins were in a long wide valley between two low mountain ranges, in the widest part of the single continent. They line up reasonably close with what your hand chart says was your largest city.”

Rithal spoke the name reverently. “Valley Center.” It was obviously a low Krall description of where the Prada capitol had been located, and not the original Prada name, but it was all they had for now.

Sven described that area, even as she routed the recorded image to their monitor screen. “There are many tall trees growing over the ruins now, but there are numerous areas clear enough to land and explore. If that’s where you wish your party to start work.”

Rithal, feeling jubilant, took the communicator from Nawella. “Our cities always had tall trees integrated into them. Landing near the center of the foundations would be very much appreciated.”

“If you two elders wish to come up to the bridge, you can see the sensor scans of the buildings covered by plant growth. That might guide your decision for landing. I think a warming climate melted the ice caps and promoted a more topical growth here than your descriptions mentioned.”

Rithal, who had asked Nawella to stay with her on this lower deck, darted her head forward once. “We will come up soon. You may now show the recording of Valley Center to our people on the lower decks. They should see the sights of our home world now, and observe where we will make first landfall, after Nawella and I have made that decision.”

It had been Rithal’s discomfort when around the Kobani, which had caused her to avoid them on this journey of discovery. She had been on Haven for only a month, after being rescued from a former Krall production world. She had followed the Prada practice of the elders by conferring in private, before any discussions that might suggest disagreements could reach the younger citizenry. That had put the two elders alone on the third deck down, and farther below them, the other forty or so decks were filled with thousands of the small-bodied Prada, with supplies and equipment stacked around them. A single day’s trip had been of little discomfort.