THE DAKHASERI
“Look, up there! Each of those lights is a soul! Some are your ancestors, rewarded for their virtue and allowed to watch us down here. Some are your unborn children, learning from our example how to live. Teach your children-to-be well; make your ancestors proud. They watch us constantly and regret the errors they made in life.”
Dakhaseri. Literally, The Audience of Stars [Vilani]. The ancient story of meritorious souls allowed to watch the unfolding events of the world. Their discussions (and their futile attempts to intervene) are the basis of many Vilani myths and legends.
I stood with my eyes closed, drinking in what was around me: strangeness, a slight breeze, and a murmuring of voices. I spoke, “Who here is senior?”
And I was startled with a hand at my elbow. “Jonathan, come on! The seats will all be taken!” I opened my eyes.
To my left, and to my right, as far as I could see, were rows and rows of spectators, talking, looking, chatting, watching, gesturing, commenting on a vast field below. Our sky was steel grey and the crowd itself extended far into the surrounding mist.
My mother, youthful as I remembered her, bounced with excitement. She grabbed my hand and led me to some vacant seats. “Arlene is having her baby today!”
The young man seated to my left interjected, “I can hardly wait!” then touched my arm and said, “Hi, I’m Jonathan too!”
I saw, more in my mind’s eye than before us, my greatgranddaughter Arlene surrounded by her husband, two midwives, and their pre-teen two children. The excitement was infectious, for them, and for us watching. The objective part of me noticed that other small groups seemed to be watching other scenes, each oblivious to all else.
Abruptly, the baby appeared; my mother let out a peep of excitement; my peripheral vision noticed that the seat to my left was now vacant.
They gave the newborn to Arlene and she held him in the first moments of mother-son bonding. “We’ll call him Jonathan.”
302-410
Aboard CB Stalwart Above
Empt 2230 Daruka C574648-5 Ag Ni
I awoke to a chatter of voices: sensops journaling their readings aloud, a pilot narrating his control actions, a spacer repeating readings from the maneuver drives; all the common verbalizations of a functioning starship bridge.
“Silence!” came from an authoritative voice, and there was silence. I opened my eyes.
“Who here is senior?”
“I am Commander Avila. Commanding INS Stalwart.” I could see him in the Captain’s chair.
“And who is my briefer?”
“I am as well. There is no prepared briefing. I’ll just tell you.
“Captain Usuti, not present, returned from a planetside call on the local Baron an hour ago ranting about this world and insisting that it be scrubbed. He was communicating from the gig as soon as it lifted, giving preparatory directives, he expected us to start when he arrived. I countermanded the instructions and had the captain tranqed on arrival. It took two shots.”
“Then I activated you.” And dodged the responsibility. I had questions.
“Where is Usuti now?”
“In his quarters, sedated.”
I turned to the Marine sergeant standing off to the side. “Bring me a flight jacket. Mark the back with Agent above the Imperial symbol . . . and a lethal sidearm.
“Send two marines to the Captain’s quarters to ensure that he continues to be restrained.”
To the command staff in general, “Who else was aboard the gig from the surface? Where are they now?”
“Yes, sir. Wait one.” I didn’t want to wait at all, so I moved on to my next question.
“Tell me about this world.”
Avila pointed to an officer who rattled off what his screen told him, “Daruka, 2230 in the Empty Quarter. C574648-5.”
I didn’t have the tables memorized. I know that a six in that position meant millions of people. The seven meant breathable atmosphere. The final five meant relatively low tech. That was enough. “Thank you.”
A Marine reentered the bridge, kind of nodded to the Captain’s chair and headed toward me with a jacket and weapons belt. At the same time, an alert sounded in one of the consoles. Two seconds later, a second alert sounded at a different console. I spent the time donning the jacket and buckling the weapons belt. By the time I was ready, there were competing voices reporting.
“The Captain is not in his . . .”
“The gig crew was a pilot and three spacers: they are . . .”
Another alarm sounded. “Drives reports a power fault in three, two . . .”
It was my turn, “Silence!” and there was quiet. Then the lights went out.
For a moment, we were lit only by the glow of Daruka through the transpex. Then the emergency backups brought up a standard level of illumination.
I always have trouble just observing, so I started asking the questions to which I needed answers.
“Where is the Captain?
A spacer at a console spoke up tentatively, “Agent?”
“Just tell us; don’t stand on protocol.”
“He is not in his suite. The Marines checked and reported.”
“Find out where he is. Interrupt me when you know.
“What happened with the power? Who narrated that report?”
A rating spoke, “I did, sir. The second engineer was reporting status when the telltales went wild.”
“Find out why. Tell me when you know.
“You, what’s your name?”
“Lieutenant Nuzhint, sir.”
“Yes. Find out where the gig pilot and crew are.
“Lock us down at the bulkheads. Let’s find out what’s going on.”
“Agent, the Captain is in the Drive Room. He just told the Engineer to shut down power.”
“Can you override him?”
The deck started to hum beneath my feet. The grav plates quit. Those quick enough grabbed handholds to steady themselves; a few started to float, only to be steadied by their companions.
I pulled myself toward a console pair and its crew persons.
To the first, “Prepare to transfer total control to this console.” He objected that it would need authorizations; I waved him silent.
I looked at the console for today’s date and made some mental adjustments. “Calculate five-two-one to the four-one-third power. Show me the first ten digits.”
The first interrupted, “It’s locked; it needs an override.”
I reached over and touched numbers quickly. “There. Now lock down everywhere. Disable all consoles until they get the clear from me here. Start with your neighbors. And get gravity back. But warn us first.”
I swam toward the Captain’s chair. “Commander, I now have command.” He was out of it before I arrived.
It was uncomfortable. Wider than I expected, deeper. My expectations had misled me. “Commander?”
“Agent?”
“Is Captain Usuti Human?”
Non-Human crew was not unusual; I had just assumed there were none, or that they had marginal positions.
The Captain, the gig crew, and the pilot were all Plexxans. Near enough to Human, two legs, two arms, a head, but with a strange metabolism, and an added awareness sense that saw fields and auras that Humans can’t.
“Who else is Plexxan?”
Commander Avila volunteered, “Half the drive techs. A few gunners. Maybe twenty total.”
“Who else is non-Human?”
“One of the Gunners is a Vargr. No one else.”
I wanted to think, but there didn’t seem to be time. Console operators began verbalizing their reports as their panels reawakened. I was missing something that I needed to know.
“You,” I pointed to a sensop, “Tell me the second screen details of this world.”
He started listing seemingly random details: An Agricultural World with some cultural inefficiencies that tamped down technology, an anomalous rating on the cultural strangeness scale, a Plexxan noble and a significant Plexxan population.
“Find out what happened with the Captain when he was down below.
I wanted to see for myself. I instructed a tech to give me passage through locked bulkheads. Then I gave the bridge back to Avila and told two marines to follow me. Actually, I had one lead to the drive compartment.
They insisted on advancing with drawn weapons and seemed to work efficiently together. In less than five minutes we were before the massive blast doors that separated the main corridor from the complex of drive mechanisms.
The first marine moved me aside, out of any line of fire, and then cautiously touched a panel to force it open. The large doors slid aside. Ten bodies, Plexxans, lay before us. From shelter, I called out: “Weapons down. Come out!”
From within, “I am unarmed. Drive Tech Jickson. I am coming.”
“Me too! Spacer Voss.”
As they exited, the marines made them lay on the deck to be searched. “Is there anyone else?”
“No, sir. Just the Captain there and those techs.” He pointed to the bodies.
I moved closer, and as I did, one of them moved. The marine on my left shot it twice and it stopped moving. Carefully, my companions poked the remaining bodies, but they failed to react.
I addressed the drive tech, “Where are the other Plexxans?”
“These are them. All of them.”
“What happened?”
Voss gave a brief narrative, telling how the Captain appeared and gestured wildly as the Plexxans in the compartment gathered around him. They all gestured back and then scattered to their consoles and started shutting power down.
In the middle of it all I stopped. This all made no sense. It was like a detective story without any clues. I had no understanding at all of what was happening. Voss’s narrative continued in the background until I interrupted.
To the lead marine, “Take us back to the bridge.” I had been violating Rule 4. It was not my task to investigate; there were others to handle that.
As I re-entered the bridge, I was greeted by a cacophony as several spacers each spoke with vital information; it was impossible to understand them all at once. I raised an arm for silence.
“We don’t have a complete understanding of events here.”
I looked at the clerk closest to me, “What is my surname?”
“Noranda. Lieutenant Inch Noranda. Sir.”
“I am Agent Noranda of the Quarantine. My authority is Imperial Edict 97. I speak with the voice of the Emperor himself.
“This system is provisionally Zone Red. No one leaves the world below. Ultimate priority. Implement that now.”
“Full communications lockdown. Confirm everything through me first.”
“Tell me immediately of any activity below.”
In the days that followed, reports and sensors confirmed that Plexxans on the world below now behaved in a range from peculiar to insane. We dedicated almost all our resources to determining why, and we were universally unsuccessful. We eliminated contagion and environmental elements almost immediately. The crew worked tirelessly to find answers, and they came up empty.
Shortly before my time expired, the first reinforcement ships arrived; their resources were also insufficient to puzzle out the cause of this crisis. In time, perhaps someone would know root causes and perhaps general cures. Then again, there are some questions for which we can never find answers.