Chapter Three
That was the beginning of a series of events, which completely changed life on Hool. It seems like a long time ago when the priests of the Shrine-of-the-Mother asked me, Kot-Nih, to write the history of our encounter with the Others. I am a priest and not a very good one at that. You see, I spend too much time in the archives, which may be the reason this assignment was given to me. It was not an easy task, for it required I travel to other worlds and pore over alien records to find the truth. Though their archives were most fascinating, I was thankful to return home and be among my own kind again. Yet I have been told I have a talent for teasing out the truth.
There are those who will not like what is written here, for they would like to assign blame for what happened. The investigation lasted many years—yes, it took that long for the truth to reveal itself.
The truth is strange because it showed there were no real villains in this encounter, contrary to what may have been passed down. You see, once the actions of all parties are examined closely, it becomes clear that most acted in what they believed to be a logical and reasonable way. Perhaps some of the actions taken were self-serving, but who doesn’t look to protecting one’s own kind first? Some say I am too forgiving to think this way, but look at the consequences of doing otherwise.
Certainly, mistakes were made and the motives of many may be called into question. It is now quite clear no one set out with a deliberate and preconceived plan to destroy a world. It was a situation that got out of control. The subsequent events brought us together for a fateful meeting, a meeting that was both a horrible nightmare and an impossible dream.
Many things have happened since then, but that’s another story for someone else to tell. My assignment is to relate the events up to the encounter with the Others.
Where and when did it all start?
Since Suh-Joh played a major role in these events—she was a catalyst, you see—it should start with her. To understand her role, you must also understand her origins. How she too, was shaped by history. You must forgive me if I include some history; it is one of my weaknesses.
The events of several hundred years ago, on our dry and dusty world, where in spite of the great technological achievements of our golden age, had reduced us to a hardscrabble existence. It was out of those difficult circumstances a dream was born, a dream of a most unlikely individual, a Chosen-Male warrior by the name of Zak-Joh, consort of the Hive-Mother Lok-Nih.
So, with a few exceptions, I’ll let Suh-Joh and her Chosen-Male warrior tell their own stories about those fateful events and what came to pass.
Later, Suh-Joh learned Lok-Nih gave birth to only three tiny babies instead of the normal eight from mating with the eight newly ripened males.
So few, Suh-Joh thought. Her time draws near.
Suh-Joh watched and said naught. She knew Lok-Nih loved her babies, but she would keep them only a short while before transferring them to a partially ripened female who served as brood-mother. Demands of ruling the Hive eclipsed her desires and duties as a biological mother.
Suh-Joh knew custom required Lok-Nih to ripen a female from a different Hive to maintain the diversity of their gene pool. Hive history had the account of how Lok-Nih killed the Hive-Mother who ripened her. It is the Way-of-the-Mother, she thought. It will happen here, soon, in this Hive.
Suh-Joh recalled the legends of ancient Hool when it was beautiful and verdant before fusion weapons and bio-engineered plagues poisoned its surface. Details kept in the archives that lay beneath the Shrine-of-the-Mother told of a nuclear winter that drove the survivors underground and away from the surface radiation. They also contained technological secrets of the once-used weapons, but the horrors of the high technology war led to a prohibition on bioweapons. These bans prevented even the use of genetic engineering to strengthen the gene pool.
Suh-Joh watched Lok-Nih drop two of her newborns into the pit. Even in the dim light of the cavern, she could see the seething mass of voracious white grubs tear into the soft, pink bodies of the two deformed offspring. Out of her litter of eight, she’d dropped just three, two of which were only good as food for the insects.
Lok-Nih crooned a fragment of verse from the Song of Summer over and over while clutching her pouch where the last one of her litter suckled on a teat.
Declining fertility has caught up with her, Suh-Joh thought. This means change. She knew Lok-Nih, as a devoted defender of the Way-of-the-Mother, would put duty to the Hive above all else. Where will she get a successor? Who will it be? She’d heard whispered stories of new Hive-Mothers, young and erratic, who killed randomly and without mercy until they dropped their first litter.
Especially those who carry the odor of the previous Hive-Mother. Like me, Suh-Joh thought.
Suh-Joh shivered as she followed Lok-Nih back to the great hall through narrow rocky passages. And it will mean no chance of another Hive seeking me to be its Hive-Mother.
Ovals of amber light from the overhead sunshafts illuminated the rich brown floor coverings decorated with the Hive’s motif of stylized crossed quills. Glow globes on the yellow sandstone walls of the cave focused on the decorated and colored quills that had been plucked from defeated enemies as battle trophies. They were proof of the Hive’s proud history, of its fight to preserve the Way-of-the-Mother even as war had weakened every Hive on Hool.
Lok-Nih remembered Zak-Joh, her favorite Chosen-Male who had died a generation ago. So wise and patient, he was my savior when the Disobedient rose to challenge the Spirit-of-the-Mother and the rule of the Hive-Mothers.
She remembered more.
In four thousand nine hundred and ninety-two, year of the Mother, Wod-Jur preached the heresy of “Disobedience.” He infected many of the vast underclass of the May-be-Chosen who became Disobedient. Expelled from their Hives, they set up decadent communities dedicated to the selfish, wanton pleasure of illicit breeding in violation of the Way-of-the-Mother. It outraged the Hive-Mothers that so much juvenile hormone was lost to casual sex. That was a threat to their longevity.
Zak-Joh used his considerable diplomatic skills to change the Council of Hive-Mothers from a forum of useless bickering into a real alliance. He led the Council’s Chosen-Male warriors in battle against the Disobedient. Even after several victories, Zak-Joh realized Wod-Jur’s Disobedient had grown strong. Zak-Joh recognized the need for compromise.
Zak-Joh persuaded the Hive-Mothers to retrieve technology from the archives under the Shrine-of-the-Mother on how to build a ship with the capability to enter the portals that led to distant stars. He offered a treaty to the Disobedient with a home on the long ago discovered but never inhabited planet of Chud-Loo in the “Daughter” star system.
Wod-Jur accepted the treaty along with a commitment from the Hive-Mothers to provide resources to settle on the new planet. It took a great effort by the Disobedient to build an orbital space station and years later, two interstellar ships. These ships had the long-forgotten technology that opened the strange cubical gate leading to a gravity string that crossed the gulf of space-time to Chud-Loo.
Lok-Nih remembered with a trace of amusement when the Disobedient discovered upon their arrival, the vast plains of Chud-Loo on its single continent weren’t vegetation like they’d assumed, but an endless expanse of windswept sand and rock, colored by a thin coating of a slow-growing lichen. The icy polar oceans, bounded by huge, barren sand dunes, teemed with marine life that competed for survival with a vicious ferocity.
The Disobedient settled on the equatorial mountain range, which reared up out of the desert-like continent. Within the frigid mountains, they found three circular valleys that had water and plants. A complex of narrow canyons joined the basin-like valleys through which small streams drained, to finally disappear into the sand sea on the leeward side of the mountains.
Once the Disobedient settled on Chud-Loo, the Hive-Mothers found it a convenient place to send those who fell from favor. Chud-Loo’s unrelenting harshness convinced its colonists they’d made a mistake. However, when they petitioned the Hive-Mothers on Hool to return, they found they had taken a one-way trip.
A partially ripened female, seeking metals in a tiny spaceship among the outer asteroids of the Hool system, discovered another portal through space-time. When opened, it led to an inhabitable planet orbiting the dimmer of the two stars in the “Sister” binary system. It was a warm, watery world with three large islands. This world, called Kamah, quickly became the privileged destination for newly ripened females sponsored by Hive-Mothers. Too soon, its best living areas became filled.
Having promised to supply the Disobedient on Chud-Loo for a generation as part of the treaty, the Hive-Mothers found the commitment was a weighty load. The need to send a ship once a year to Chud-Loo cost them dearly. This too contributed to the Hool’s privation. Shortages came from the supplies needed for the Disobedient’s settlement on Chud-Loo.
It was worth it, Lok-Nih thought. For it had eliminated the threat to our way of life.
It amused Lok-Nih to learn Di-Nah, Af-Gih’s beloved daughter, had accepted exile in Kamah. As a new Hive-Mother, she would have to eke out a living in a marginal area on the planet Kamah. The economic burden on Af-Gih’s Hive to send out colonists would bring it one step closer to ruin.
Lok-Nih cared not.