Chapter 1

Life is warm. Life is heat. First was the darkness, then came Life. Heat brought the Light. The darkness ran from the light on silent swift limbs. After a time, the heat and light brought the signs of Life. First were the plants and water who would use the light and heat to grow. Then Life brought the animals who would feed on the plants and water. When it was ready, Life brought the Sel who would feed on the plants and the water and the animals. The Sel were Life made manifest.

- first quotation from The Way of Life.

Liuani knew that the Ostogot, the only pre-light avians yet discovered, had only developed the industrialized presses 100 cycles ago, but occasionally she wished they used a better medium to write on originally than pressed plant skin. Some of the documents that had been brought back from their planet were almost impossible to read, even with the level of computer enhancement that she used.

She was fairly sure that she was eventually going to find confirmation that this batch of texts, was proof of the third revision, of the religious texts of the largest religion practiced by the Ostogot. This revision was responsible, she was sure, for the change in emphasis in their concepts of creation and evolution of their people.

She was sure that this would correlate well with the analysis she had performed on the Seralli texts. They at least wrote in a more enduring medium, so the older texts were still very legible. It made sense that, living in the water all the time, it would be a necessity to find some way to store information that could resist the eroding effects of the environment.

Either way, this revision by the Ostogot is very close to the Epiphany of W’ys, which was directly responsible for the Seralli to accept the evolution argument that caused the seventh...or was it ninth, succession war within their only religion. She would have to make sure that she had that fact nailed down before she presented this project.

Liuani was taller than the average Sel. That was unusual, even for others from her birth group. Some of her colleagues had speculated before that this difference was probably one of the reasons she excelled so well in her field. Liuani has always felt, a compulsion to learn more, do more, understand more. She found her competitive streak at a relatively young age and while she was not outstanding in sports or physical competitions, she reliably did well.

She stood 1.55m and had a distinctive colouration to her scales that also helped to make her stand out from her peers. Her peers had the more common blend of soft brown and yellow streaking to their scales with patches of dark brown or black on the back. Her full adult colouring did not come in until late in her development. Liuani had a more uniform base colouring of rich dark brown, but she had bright yellow, some would describe them as golden, streaking on her back with a single spot on the back of her head of the same yellow/gold colour.

She had been born in this city, one of the oldest on the Sel homeworld. You would not know from looking at it that this city dates back some 11,000 cycles. It had been updated as the technology advanced and had been lucky in its placement with no environmental issues to have to adjust to. The city identified it’s age in its name. Modern cities use a more reasonable naming convention, usually being named after someone who had become distinguished in their field that year. But this city had been named when such things were still done with the whimsical mindset of the early stages of Sel development. It was called Ootha Nasoo, that meant ’Shifting Wind’ in one of the older languages.

She had managed to get a break of half a cycle after her last research project, which was a good analysis of the potential of the Rotali. They were the most likely pre-light race to overcome the FTL barrier next. There was a lot of excitement when it was realized that they were experimenting with manipulating quantum entanglement. Their history showed that, for a while, they were focusing on the merits of ion propulsion systems, and they did use that method to send drones throughout their own star system. But it was common knowledge that ion propulsion will not generate the necessary speeds for any useful interstellar movement.

However, about 40 cycles ago, one of their scientists had a breakthrough, and the results were so significant that the majority of research for translight travel refocused. It did not take much more time before they were able to see the connection to quantum mechanics and the potential there. Currently, they have several competing groups working on putting together a successful test vehicle to try and prove the theory. Judging on how other cultures moved from this point, and on how the Rotali have been evolving in this field, they will achieve this soon.

Current speculation has them no more than 10 cycles before they launch their first fold space test drone. That will certainly make life more interesting for them. The Rotali believe there is only a slight chance of life existing elsewhere in the universe. They are not elitist precisely, just sure that no other race that might exist elsewhere could have endured the trials they had to, just to evolve to this point. Add to that the fact that there are only 5 planets in their whole system. There are signs that at least 3 asteroid belts in the system are the remains of planets, the cause of destruction unknown.

The homeworld of the Rotali has a slightly erratic vacillation to it which results in occasional seasons of extreme cold, or heat and means the planet has more active volcanism than any other habitable planet on record. The 2 moons that orbit the planet would not be a problem normally...except that they are locked in sync with each other and orbit the homeworld almost like a single body, one ’behind’ the other. This has resulted in a phenomenon that has not been completely understood yet, but none can deny that the planet has survived so far.

Liuani was a little concerned that this would be the fourth project she would present that dealt with a religious issue. She did have to admit that she had always found the mystery of the issue compelling. There was the innate connection between all the discovered races that hinted to some kind of connection between all of them. She knew that there was a large faction in the government that did not like to hear that comment, and that trying to prove something like that would be a quick way to end her career in Cultural Sciences.

It was commonly accepted that the concepts of the various religions of the different races that they studied were nothing more than ignorant attempts to rationalize the things that they did not yet understand. It was a common element to all the civilized races. Some of the races would move past this stage of development sooner than others, but all of the races that had developed faster than light travel had done so.

It was widely accepted that religion served an important function in different societies to allow them to cope with the vast unknown that became more apparent as their sciences opened up the world to them. Most of her colleagues were adherents to the Foloran theory that, the purpose of religion was a necessary social construct. It provided a structure that the ignorant races could use to identify and control elements of their environment that they did not otherwise understand.

But Liuani liked her job, and had no interest in seeing it come to an end to pursue a personal opinion. She knew that her position gave her access to a lot of information that would not otherwise be available to her. She recognized that being sensitive to the opinions of the government was a necessary price to pay to work for them. In return though, getting access to the information that the research and reconnaissance missions brought back was easily worth it. She loved the opportunity to learn about these different societies. There had never been a time when there were 6 different pre-light races being monitored simultaneously. This was an unparalleled opportunity for her studies to examine multiple independent societies while they were ignorant of other cultures.

Enough sand gathering, she needed to focus to get the compilation finished on the Ostogot before she would be able to continue. Food would be good at this point. She put together a search and recovery protocol for her AI to retrieve all the information on file for the Ostogot first to fourth revisions, with all information on known political and religious leaders of the same times as the revisions. She decided to include any documentation on known dissident groups or activities that were happening at the same time. Now it was time to get over to the dining section for something sweet. It would take time for that to run and compile the necessary information anyway.

The dining facility was in another building, she figured this would be a good stretch of her legs. She could tell from the stiffness that she was not getting enough activity, but she would just get so busy on the research that time would just slip away. Of course, that also explained why she was currently single while living in one of the largest cities on the planet...sigh. She never intentionally missed social engagements and appointments, she just got...busy.

Though if she was going to be completely honest with herself, she would have to admit that intimacy was not high on her list of social activities at this time. The time that she spent on the Molir team provided a lot of the socializing that she felt she needed to prevent becoming a complete recluse. But she also knew that if she did not spend some time with her team, the VR matrix would pick up her stiffness and they would be paying for it with her decreased agility. They had managed to get to twelfth in their group of fifty. They were all excited, if they could just get into the top 10 for their group, they would earn a slot in the city tournament.

“Another body was found in the lower sewage tunnels today. This is the fourth victim since Vociim died in custody 5 cycles ago. The victim showed the same signs of mutilation and violent attack as the previous victims. The assailant obviously used a sharp, edged weapon of some kind. The authorities believe it to be a weapon with a blade length of between .25 and .4 meters. The victim had been reported missing after not coming home to his mate several weeks ago.”

The report continued on as she passed the information terminal in the main antechamber before leaving the building. That was more than a little scary as far as she was concerned. Society had basically gotten past all forms of violent crime as the average level of education increased and poverty decreased. It had become blatantly obvious to all that those 2 categories were responsible for more social ills than had ever been suspected.

The authorities would eventually catch the criminal and the assaults would stop. She hoped it would be sooner rather than later.

Stepping outside let her forget about the news broadcast, as it was a gorgeous day. The sun was high and there was no dust in the air. The sky was that rich blue that only occurred on the absolutely clear days. She could smell the plants, bushes and grasses in the courtyard, the Occrim blossoms were brilliant splashes of purple against the white-grey sandy soil. The scent of them moved with the breeze, giving the whole courtyard the tangy, sweet smell. The dining hall was in a shallow recess, slightly lower than the surrounding area. Today she had plans for eating at the indoor courtyard.

Midday meal was Liuani’s favourite. She had always been a slow starter in the day, so she never cared about what she had for her morning meal, normally as long as it was hot and savoury, she was satisfied. But for midday, she enjoyed this meal the most, and today was Loa’tall soup and spiced Serath for the daily special. Today had been a productive day and so she figured she could reward herself with a treat afterward.

She sent a message to Rysal’s com, Rysal was supposed to meet her today to share the meal but her superiors would often assign her to complicated analysis due to her almost ’natural’ touch at them. A response came back almost immediately letting her know that Rysal was on her way too. She had met up with Surot, and he had decided to come with her.

She liked Surot, he was always willing to let her know whenever the Reconnaissance and Research teams came back with new information from one of the pre-lights. Surot came from this city as well, he was a cycle younger than Liuani. He had never showed the same interest in academic pursuits that Liuani, and especially Rysal had. Surot had told her when they were first getting to know one another that he had always been fascinated by space and discovery. He had been an avid fan of the many specials on the entertainment broadcasts, that had to do with space travel and exploration when he was quite young. As he got older that fascination had turned into a powerful drive toward getting involved in any of the agencies that were involved in space exploration. He was one of the youngest to ever be assigned to the position he holds. Liuani was sure that he would not be staying there too long, it was one of the paths that would allow interested individuals to take part in the actual reconnaissance missions.

Surot was very average in body colour, his body was almost a uniform brown, with faded yellow spots, each no more than 4 or 5 centimeters across, down his back and sides. He was the same height as Liuani at 1.55 meters.

He had been hinting at a possible big announcement last time they had got together, she had hopes that maybe it had to do with the Brrllk. Their civilization lived below the surface of their homeworld and was incredibly hard to get access to. The information on that culture was very limited and the only information she had come across in the archives regarding the established religious practices was that there were some.

She found an empty table that had enough space to allow for displaying information without getting in the way of their eating. She took a seat and placed her order with the network. As she was waiting for the others to show, and for her food to be prepared, she opened a com channel and connected to the city grid.

It was only a minute later when, as she was halfway through her favourite news site, she heard Rysal speaking. She looked up and found the pair almost immediately, they must have seen where she was seated as they were headed straight toward her. Rysal was moving her hands in very small, but quick, chopping motions as she chatted with Surot.

“You can put the idea to Liuani and see if she has the same thoughts about it. I have already told you what it means to me, sorry if that is not what you were expecting.” Surot was saying.

Uh-oh, looks like Rysal was going to be bringing a bit of work to the meal and it was obviously something that had her attention.

“I don’t suppose either of you would consider ordering before we get into whatever this is?”

They both took seats and put in their requests with the food service. Rysal got the Tellith with greens and Surot must have been having a stressful day, he ordered the Sush spectrum. Liuani was grateful she was not going to be working in the same office as him after lunch.

“Rysal has a..a theory.” Surot stated. Liuani could tell he was suppressing a smile.

“It is not a theory precisely. I am considering what to choose for a topic for my next research project and I was speculating about a possible topic with Surot.” Rysal was quick to state. “I was thinking that now that the filters are installed, would it be possible to determine someone’s exact level of..of..ethical balance, for lack of a better description.”

I was stuck for a second, not sure what she was referring to. Then I recalled she had mentioned a few weeks ago that they were going to install some filtering algorithms to the scanners that dominated her section. Something to do with being able to differentiate even more precisely the different string frequencies that make up the quantum particles. Having remembered that, I was not so sure that I wanted to know if they could set the device up to be able to tell how ’ethical’ someone had been.

“Have you given this any real thought? I mean, what you are suggesting is that there is some objective standard that ethics can be compared to. You are suggesting that there is a way to measure...someone’s intent, versus their actions? I mean essentially, what you are wanting to do is identify how closely people abide by their ’publicly’ stated ideals, right?”

I could tell that Rysal could see what I was saying but she was stuck on this idea and was hoping that I would back her up on this. I had to admit that on the surface that idea of something like this sounded amazing and would lead to a whole new world of theories about cause and effect, to say the least. I knew that Rysal could get caught up in her projects and I was hoping that we had caught her early enough in it that she had not already been swallowed by the idea.

“Come on Liuani, just being able to get these kinds of readings is not so bad. At the very least it would certainly stimulate a lot of discussion on the research institutes funding decisions, and from a practical standpoint, if it were possible to demonstrate that someone was not capable of committing a specific crime, wouldn’t that be a good thing?”

Uh-oh, sounds like we are too late to stop this from happening.

“Rysal, have you actually started doing any research on this?”

“What do you mean?”

“I think you know what I mean. Have you actually performed any experiments or put in any documentation to your supervisors on getting this project started?” Please say no I thought.

“Well, I have not submitted any requests for time on the scanners, if that is what you mean.”

That sounded a bit evasive to me. You can always tell when she is not being completely truthful, she suddenly has a fascination with being very specific. Sometimes she is a bit too smart I think.

“Why do I get the impression that you have done something though. Let’s see if I am just imagining things, or if I can guess what might have happened. You say you did not submit any project requests or research statements then, right?”

“Liuani, what are you getting at? I told you that I have not submitted anything of the sort.” Rysal sounded quite indignant at the suggestion. “I just wanted to run the idea by the two of you before I put anything in, to get some response to what you thought of the idea.”

“Now I know that you have done something. If you get this interested in an idea, you don’t stop to think if you have a goal in front of you. The first time you will stop to think is when you have gotten started and maybe bumped into something unexpected. So tell me, how far along in your little project here are you?”

“I told you I don’t have any project submitted yet.” Rysal refused to look in my direction.

“Yes, I heard you quite clearly say to me and Surot that you did not have any project submitted or requested at this time. We are both willing to sign declarations to that effect if that is what you want us to do. But, that is not what I am asking, is it? I am asking what have you done already? I am wanting to know how big of a hole have you dug already?”

Rysal would not look me in the eye. Sometimes I think that need she seems to have, to poke into things and the complete lack of awareness of caution is going to either get her killed or worse, re-assigned.

“Ok, before this gets too far, how about a little clarification. How about you let us in on what you would hope to achieve in establishing this fact? I mean as far as I understand what you have said, you want to see if the scanners can identify...what, the existence of a field in a non-Sel?”

“Exactly! But more precise than that. We know that there are no 2 identical Wysallean fields, the sample size we have to work with has demonstrated the statistical impossibility of that. Yes Surot, before you say anything, I know that statistics can be mistaken, but even you have to agree that having more than 60% of the population on record is pretty convincing evidence that this is the case.”

Surot did look ready to dispute the point but her last argument obviously was enough of a concession to his point, so he did not say anything, Liuani could still see the objection in his body language. He sat back to let Rysal continue.

Rysal was not put off by his argument, “I don’t KNOW what the Wysallean field is. No one KNOWS what the field is. What we know is that there is no known way to directly manipulate or modify the field. It is impervious to any techniques we have. However, seeing as how the existence of the field was discovered shortly after the Tilulan event, and that led researchers to the second stage FTL drive, it is not unreasonable to consider that the field would have properties similar to other quantum particles, effects and string frequencies that had been discovered at the same time. Of course, the problem is that the field has not responded to any stimulus that has been proven to work on the other objects in the same apparent energy state.”

Rysal gave us both a look, mixed kind of ’you following me still’ and ’I am not done yet’. I gave her a small nod to continue.

“I would like to use the scanners, with the new filters set to maximum sensitivity, and put some of the members of the security services through the scans again. Preferably the same ones that were done first so there is even more time difference between their scans. I figure that if anyone is going to show the kind of changes I am looking for, it will be someone that has to be violent occasionally toward another being. If nothing else I would suspect that having to view other people in a suspicious manner every day would affect you on the emotional and mental level. This makes security the perfect subjects to look for those kinds of changes. I suggest that there will be the greatest change in the states of their Wysallean fields.”

“Ok I understand your position, but I hope you will also agree with me that there could be many other reasons for that to happen other than the one you are trying to examine, right?” I felt I needed to get her to acknowledge other possibilities.

“Yes, I know that there could be other reasons. But in my opinion, based on the information that I have seen so far, I think this is the more likely reason.” She had to be able to see the doubts that Surot and I must have felt at this.

“Well, I don’t know if I want to wish you good fortune in this but either way you will have an answer, assuming you get the chance to do any actual scans.”

“With so many people still to get scanned I can’t see them setting aside time on the scanners for this kind of pure theoretical project.” That was Surot’s view of the issue.

I grimaced at the tone in Surot’s rebuttal. Trust Surot to be the voice of calm and reasoned instigation.

“That does not make any sense to me Surot. The stated goal of researching quantum particles is to better understand the state of existence all around us. We find this unique event that has no apparent basis but obviously exists. I can’t see how these scanners are really meant more appropriately for anything else.” Rysal was always very sure of herself when it came to her chosen field of study, but I guess that when you have achieved what she has in the time she has been in this field, there might be some justification for your perspective.

“Okay okay, I will cede the argument to you. I don’t know what you can do, but it is your section.” Surot recognized the stubbornness behind that position as well as I did.

“I wish it was my section. But you know how it is, if you mention anything outside of the measurable results, you get tagged as a regressive. I just don’t understand how anyone can deny an option when all other efforts have yielded nothing. At least with the new filters installed, I was able to convince Dyrssean to re-test the non-Sel subjects again.”

This was news to me and to Surot as well apparently as, he was looking a little shocked.

“How many times are they going to be tested before it is recognized that they do not have Wysallean fields? I mean, there has been no sign on any previous scan, right? And this is at sensitivities far beyond what is needed to easily detect the fields in Sel. It seems like a waste of effort, I would say we are finished with most of them and they should be released back on their home worlds.”

“I am almost at that point as well, but I just get the feeling that we are missing something. These scanner’s new filters are a direct result of the recent breakthroughs in the main metallurgy lab in KongonFlow. Someone over there had the brilliant idea to utilize harmonic keys as a way to emphasize the frequencies of the strings. The new filters are rated as an increase of up to 24% more range of monitor-able frequency.”

“That sounds great, but 24% more of nothing is still going to be nothing.” Surot was not going to change his opinion that easily. He was always more impressed with practical applications than the advances in theoretical research.

“That is an accepted truth. But you have...”

“Okay, okay. Personally, I was hoping for a slightly less weighty topic for a midday meal.” Liuani said in a mollifying tone. “How about we just wish good fortune to your efforts and leave it at that? Acceptable accommodation?”

“Fine with me. Look Rysal, I don’t mean to come off as offensive, but what you are saying is pretty extreme, even for your history of unorthodox methodology, you have to admit?” That was about as close as Surot could come to an outright apology.

“Fine. I don’t expect you to accept my theory without proof. You could help me though Surot. When are the Manavala subjects set to be returned to their homeworld?”

“They are scheduled to be returned in 10 days. No changes yet. Why?”

“I am hoping to be able to get the subjects through the scanners again.”

“Well if you are going to do it, you better get your request in soon. Once they are processed for the return you know that they have to go through isolation to recondition the bodies to their native environment.”

“Here is an odd fact from the Manavala.” Liuani interjected, “You know that all the societies have some version of a ’great’ evil that had been overcome in the far past. Well, the Manavala version is the only one so far that did not have a form. It was called the ’Living Lie’...loosely translated. According to myth, anyone could become its victim by merely hearing it, then it would exist within them, moving from the previous host.”

“I don’t see how a single...entity, could be a great evil if it was affecting one being at a time.” Rysal tended to dismiss the different myths, she placed them somewhere in the category of lessons for children and not relevant to adult considerations.

“Well, apparently as long as it was in the victim, they told very convincing lies and people that heard them tended to lie more than normal. Even after it left the victim, the old victim would still be compelled to tell lies.” Liuani replied.

Surot was unimpressed, “When you consider that their homeworld is viewed as one of the most balanced and least challenging one on record, I am not surprised that their version of Great Evil is someone who lies too much.” He gave a gasp of humour at the idea.

“Well Manavala culture is not big on fiction or storytelling, I sometimes wonder if this myth had a greater impact on secondary cultural characteristics, maybe involving creativity. This might be one of the reasons that their culture took so long to evolve to where it has. Granted the very mild climatic conditions on their world certainly does not encourage the need to survive through growth, but from what I can tell of the documents that we have from them, the lack of written or performed fiction is pretty significant.”

“They are an alien culture. I mean how much like us would you expect them to be? Granted there are some things in the universe that need to be similar if specific cultural and scientific growth are to happen, but those are a process of elimination. So regardless of where society starts, they will have to achieve certain standards to get anywhere.” Rysal tended to break everything down to the scientific level, and marginalize whatever did not fit in that category.

“I know they are an alien culture, give me a break. I merely point out that it is interesting that they have developed this evil myth around a concept not seen in any other known culture.” Liuani stated, with a hint of exasperation.

“Speaking of known cultures, you might be in for a pleasant surprise fairly soon.” Surot felt compelled to take a look around and drop his voice before passing on that rather vague hint. The dining hall had gotten considerably emptier while we were eating and chatting, so not too much chance of someone overhearing him even if they could have had any idea what he was talking about.

“Okay...so you are saying that the Research and Reconnaissance section is expecting a ’return’ in the near future I assume?”

“Not just a ’return’. Rumour has it that a possible 7th pre-light was the mission and they have samples, possibly even a subject.”

This was news. The possible opportunities to expand her research made Liuani pause for a second. But Surot wasn’t finished.

“There is something weird here though. There has not been any official statement to get ready to receive anything. But there has been a lot of preparations in the containment unit and mobile environmental unit. Experts have been going over them very finely, ensuring that there are multiple backups and fail-safes to prevent any kind of failure. They are always careful when they have a subject but it just seems like someone is trying to remove any possibility that this won’t be less than perfect.”

“What reason did they give for the work being done on the units? If they said nothing, they must know that it would look odd or even just curious?” This wouldn’t necessarily mean much to Rysal but it was right up Liuani’s area of interest.

“Like I said, nothing official has been stated, but we are all scheduled for a briefing in 3 days. I expect they will give us an update then.”

“Okay well, I need to get back to my desk. I have to have a presentation on my research for Manassyr soon or he will remove the scales on my tail, one at a time.” Liuani said.

They said their goodbyes and agreed to meet back here for tomorrows meal as well. Liuani couldn’t help wondering what was going to happen with the returning ship. Surot had been vague, but it definitely sounded interesting. She was not sure if there would be anything that would interest her, even if they were bringing back a subject. If the subject was from a society that was as far from pre-light as the Ostogot had been when they were first discovered, then there would not be much hope for much documentation. Oh well, she had better things to think about for now. The comparison that she had asked for should be ready and that would promise to take a while for her to sift through the results to look for any patterns or supporting facts.

The next day Liuani was back at her desk, ready to start fresh on the presentation. She brought up her terminal to check on her results and was confused to get an error stating results removed. She entered a command to get the results refreshed but got an access error almost immediately. This was a little weird as there were no issues with the database yesterday.

She activated the com in her desk and brought up the directory. It did not take too long to locate the number she needed.

“How may I assist?” The voice on the other end of the call inquired politely.

“Hello, my name is Liuani and I am located in the cultural research annex. I had some search results running from the archives for the Ostogot and now I am unable to access the results I had generated, nor am I able to perform a new search. Can you tell me what is happening?”

“You say the problem started this morning as far as you can tell? That would be related to the systems update that we are doing this morning. We have an unscheduled systems upgrade that had to be started today to allow for increased storage, it will result in an increase of almost 30%. But this has meant that we have had to take some of the existing storage units offline to allow for the infrastructure changes. The updates should be finished sometime after midday today. Apologies for the interruption, and I hope this did not cause you to lose any data. Normally we would have given users some notice that this kind of outage was going to happen but the notice to do the upgrade was high priority and needed to be carried out immediately.”

“Well, that flakes my morning. I know there is nothing you can do. You are sure that it should be done by midday? I have a lot of work to do and I need access to those archives.”

“To the best of my knowledge that is the expected time to have all work finished.”

“Thank you.”

Well, so much for starting the day early and productively. She did have some files stored locally that she could work on so the morning was not a total loss, but it was not what she had been hoping to get done. She was wondering at the suddenness of the interruption though. It might have something to do with the returning mission and that sounded promising if they were installing more storage to deal with what sounded like a lot of data. She was still hoping it was the Brrrlk, they had advanced enough to have reliable media to record news, stories, and entertainment on. Though it would be interesting if it was the Rotali, maybe they had made a breakthrough and were in the process of testing an FTL drive. That would certainly provoke some kind of response from the Conglomerate. The Sel may have been one of the more established races in the Conglomerate but it was easily the Mlassyn or Brek that were more...active in conducting meetings with new FTL societies.

Either way, she knew that the only thing she would be able to do for now was the background work that she had been postponing indefinitely. Looked like today would be the day to start the exciting task of correlating the Ostogot constitutional changes with their theological evolutions...oh joy. The Ostogot seemed to consider religious evolutions as a requirement every so many years, almost like they were changing their fashions.

By the time the midday meal arrived, Liuani was ready for a break. She had spent the previous 3 hours trying to untangle the references to ’the quintanin evolution’, as she had taken to calling it. It seemed to refer to an apparently insignificant change to the creation myth that resulted in the originator being summarily removed from office. Now seeing as how the change was proposed and installed but then removed from the texts within a few years, she was uncertain if it should really be considered an ’evolution’ or an aberration? But right now she knew that she needed to take a break and get something to eat.

Rysal had sounded excited earlier when she had left a voice message for Liuani. It would be a nice break from her frustrating morning to hear some good news. Surot wouldn’t be able to join them today, he had messaged her to let her know he had been assigned to some impromptu prep training, he did not specify for what.

Rysal was already at the dining hall when Liuani arrived, she was eating with distracted attention that would have looked robotic to anyone that did not know her. Liuani sat down and placed an order for her food. Rysal did not seem aware that she had arrived but that was fine with Liuani until she got her lunch ordered.

“Hey Rysal...”

“Do you think that narrow-mindedness is a prerequisite for most government administrators? Or is it just possible that they are treated as a resource and assigned to locations where they can be the most effective in slowing down the advance of a given science? I mean what are the odds that my immediate supervisor, his manager, the section head and the division advisor all have the same opinion?”

Ok, not sounding like the good news she hinted at earlier.

“What happened? You messaged me earlier and it sounded like you had been having a good day. I take it that something else has happened since then?”

“ I was able to arrange access to the Manavala subjects quicker than I had hoped and I was able to run 2 of them through the upgraded scanners. Now, the results of the scan are certainly more detailed than ever before and I have to say that nothing had changed in any obvious way.”

Liuani could tell from the pause that there was more to the story than just what had been said, but Rysal had always had an unconscious flair for dramatics.

“Yes, nothing obvious, ok. There is no way that would have inspired you to message me earlier though.”

“Obviously no, what I found intriguing was in the interference.”

She says this like she is expecting Liuani to immediately grasp the importance of her ’revelation’. Liuani waits for a couple seconds then can’t help gesturing to Rysal to continue.

“The Interference!”

This time Liuani can almost hear the capitalization in the sentence and knows that Rysal is so focused on whatever it is she is thinking about that she has forgotten that not everyone has the same background as her.

“Rysal, no matter how many times you say that word, it will not change the fact that I don’t understand how it applies to your, apparently grand, discovery.”

“Oh” This seemed to deflate her a little, but of course this would not last long. “Well, I will give you a concise explanation of what I am referring to then. Whenever we measure a Wysallean field, whatever the frequency range it is operating in, there are always traces of...of...partial responses is the best description. These occur on the upper and lower end of the frequencies, not too unexpected. These disturbances usually quickly degrade into completely random ’noise’ with no discernible pattern”

She paused here, giving Liuani a look to check that she was still with her in the discussion. Liuani was just taking a bite from her meal, but was able to nod her head in a ’please continue’ manner, or at least that is how Rysal decided to take it anyway.

“Well I was able to get the Manavala into the scanners and as we have seen before, there were no signs of the Wysallean field in any frequency that we were able to cover. It was not until I was going over all of the scans on the larger screen that I noticed the intriguing part.”

Rysal leaned forward and did a quick look around as if she was checking to make sure no one was listening.

“On a whim, I overlapped the results of the 2 scans and put the display to maximum to show the whole scan on one screen. You will never guess what I saw! I am positive that the distortion that is normally displayed, was this time showing me a partial tonal node! Somehow overlapping the 2 scans allowed what should have been random sequencing to display what I am sure was a partial tonal node! Don’t you get it? This would mean that at least the Manavala also displayed something like the Wysallean field! This is incredible if I can find a way to change the monitoring frequency..or maybe it is the scan rate...maybe the resolution filters, they could be auto-filtering results that is leading to the apparent distortion...”

“Whoa just hold on here, are you saying that the Manavala have the same Wysallean field that we do?”

“Yes! Uh...no...kinda. Look, it is not that simple. What I am saying is that for the first time we have a result on the scans that indicates the existence of ’something’.”

“Ok, obviously this would have huge ramifications and the scientist that could demonstrate this would have their names written into history...so what are you not telling me?”

“The idiots in my section insist that it is nothing but random data! After I point it out to them, after I show how it becomes clear after additional processing is done, they insist that I am looking at an instance where random data had created what appeared to be a coherent response but obviously could not be.”

Liuani could see that Rysal was absolutely insulted to be accused of such a basic mistake. Obviously, she was sure that she was not looking at random actions.

“Ok, so you just arrange to do the scans a number of times and compare the results like you did this time. I would expect that would work.”

“You would think that would be a good reason to have the Manavala subjects stay too, but no! Whatever this upgrade that is going in has taken the scanner’s upgrade offline for the next 3 days! By the time they are back online, the Manavala will be in the middle of the preparation for return to their homeworld!”

“The upgrade affected you too? What do you know about it? I heard nothing, until this morning when I come in and my databases are not available.”

“I don’t know anything about the upgrade. I just know that until they are done, the scanners are not only unable to utilize the improved filters, but their performance will be reduced a further 12%. We are stuck doing analysis of existing scans until this is over. But that doesn’t matter! I find something that could redefine our perceptions of ourselves, of the universe and it is written off as unimportant ... accidental!”

“Now come on, are you telling me that you are absolutely confident that what you saw was a...a what did you call it...a partial tonal node? That it could not be anything else? That it is impossible that the people above you could not possibly be correct?”

“Of course it is possible that they are correct. It is possible that it is just random ’noise’ happening to align in what appears to be a significant pattern.”

Liuani is surprised to hear Rysal being so open about that.

“But it isn’t.”

Of course not thought Liuani. She knew that Rysal could be the most stubborn Sel she had ever met when she got a thought in her head.

“Ok, what reasons do you have for being so sure that they are wrong, and you are right?”

“I don’t have any more proof than what I have already shown, that should be enough.”

“But you know that it isn’t. So, what is the basis for your conclusion? I mean, the others that you have shown it to are respected members in your section, right? You would not have shown it to them if you did not respect their opinions, and acknowledged their ability. So why are you so sure that when all of them say it is nothing, you keep saying it is something?”

“I can’t tell you why I keep saying it is something other than that is what my mind tells me I am seeing. My mind tells me that what is appearing is not random...’noise’, but something we need to look into, to resolve...to discover.”

Rysal looked distinctly frustrated at this point and Liuani was sympathetic to her problem. As much as Liuani did not see how Rysal could still believe her position after all of her superiors told her it was nothing, she also knew that Rysal was gifted when it came to this field. She seemed to have a touch of something that saw more than just what was showing from results. More than once had Liuani heard how a difficult analysis of a scan had been resolved merely by handing it over to Rysal for a second opinion. She was talented in identifying the patterns that others would miss. So in the end, Liuani had to admit to herself, she was inclined to accept that if Rysal said there was something there, then it was likely that there was something there.

“Well, what do you have in mind to do now then?”

“I am going to have to convince them that this is important enough to delay returning the Manavala subjects. I don’t know if I will get anything like this with any of the other subjects and it makes no sense to me to take the risk while they are still here.”

The rest of the midday meal was unproductive, neither of them had any idea how to convince the administration to allow the Manavala to stay longer. Rysal was determined to find an argument that would work as she would not give up on this opportunity.

Liuani did not see either Rysal or Surot for the next couple of days. Rysal had said that she was too busy to go to the dining hall during the midday meal, she was speculating that her supervisors were punishing her for pushing for rescanning the Manavala so forcefully. She had been assigned the task of reviewing the scans conducted for the last half year to ensure the protocols were all followed. This was a legitimate task but Rysal was also responsible to see she kept the schedule for the other testing that was being done. So unless she wanted to be at the facility for half of the night, she would have to take the time from other parts of her day. It still meant that Rysal was not leaving the facility until long after full dark had settled.

Surot turned out to be even harder to contact. Liuani could not reach him the next day. It was not until the morning after that she received a text saying he had been moved to a later schedule to ensure that everything is in place before the arrival of the recon ship.

With her main databases being unavailable, Liuani focused on the information that she had managed to move to her system on the Ostogot. Aside from the aberration that was the ’quintanin evolution’ (she had decided that it fit the criteria for an aberration rather than a representative evolution of the society), there were no big surprises in the stretch of history she had access to for her research on the Ostogot. She had about 1500 years of history to examine and it showed the similar pattern regarding religious dogma and institutionalization of belief; the more the society moved from the agrarian toward industrial and then scientific focus, the more the society evolved interpretations of the dogma that presented it as moral lessons and all symbolic.

The most useful development from the forced focus on the Ostogot information that she had, was to allow her to finally get an idea of what form the great evil took with the Ostogot. For them, it revolved around the image of a whirlwind on a calm day. The story has that the whirlwind hides in the eddies of the upper skies and would descend on those that flew too low in gathering giliwog seed pods. Originally the giliwog seed pods were considered to be sacred and the food for Weia, the All Sky. Originally the whirlwind was the guardian of the giliwog seed pods. The legends say that the Whirlwind started luring Ostogot down to the pods on calm days, just so it could drive them into the vegetation and onto the rocks, killing them. The legend goes on to show that Weia caught the Whirlwind doing this one day and was saddened by the betrayal, so Weia banished the Whirlwind to a faraway prison. The Whirlwind guardian had been named, Telt.

Now the literature and custom advance the idea that it is a warning against taking things for granted especially when in a sensitive or dangerous environment and it is used to advise caution in all unknown endeavors. So the Ostogot were following a similar philosophical path as the majority of known societies in the universe. Not a lot new to include in the thesis from this, that is for sure. Liuani was sure that saying the same thing that other researchers had stated would not endear her to the board and would not likely lead to more independent research. She really needed to find something original in this study.

In total, the upgrade took just under 3 days to finish. When Liuani came in one morning she had a system statement message to all users that the upgrade had been finished and full access had been restored. There was another message for her from the head of cultural research studies. He was asking her to be free to meet with him after midday meal for an assignment. She could not understand what he was trying to do. He had to know that she had been working on this for weeks now and would be doing an initial presentation of her thesis in the near future.

She had no idea what he was going to say, but she figured she would prepare her thesis as well as possible for now and take a copy with her to demonstrate that she had a task already that was occupying all of her available time. Granted he could just assign this task to her and that would be that. But it had always been understood that when someone had a project, they were not assigned another to run simultaneously as it always results in rushed work and confused analysis.

Liuani was rushed through her midday meal, she did not remember what she had eaten as she was focused on arranging her arguments on why she could not be given this new assignment. She was outside the administrator’s office about 10 minutes early. The receptionist let the administrator know she was there and she was passed straight into the office almost immediately. He did not waste any time.

“Hello Liuani, a pleasure to see you. Before you start let me say that, yes you may turn down this assignment if you choose, but I think you should hear me out before you start listing the reasons that you just can’t do it.”

He paused to let what he said register and gestured for her to take a seat. Liuani gave him a contemplative look and an acknowledging nod then sat where indicated. She did make a point of putting her com-pad on her lap, screen up, as she was sure that he noticed.

“Thank you for coming this afternoon. I have a strange situation coming up and I thought that you might be the best person to deal with it. You are aware of the returning reconnaissance mission?”

He waited for her to nod in understanding before continuing.

“Well, what is not widely known is that this mission was tried about 400 years ago, and went horribly wrong. Because of that, reference to the mission were restricted access only and no official files were entered into the archive.”

Liuani was definitely confused now and it showed in her bearing. This was definitely not what she had expected from this meeting.

“So what happened? Did we try to obtain a more significant person from one of the pre-lights?”

“No, not quite. First I want you to know that this involves a completely new pre-light civilization.”

The administrator waited to see her reaction to this piece of news.

“A new pre-light?? That would make them the what, the seventh! This is incredible! You are saying that we had a previous mission 400 years ago, that they were known to exist that long ago and no mention was ever made, but why not? This is an amazing discovery. Seven pre-light sentient races identified at the same time! There is no record of anything like this. Why I imagine that the biosciences are ecstatic with the possibilities regarding developmental rates.”

It took Liuani a couple of seconds to recover from her surprise, she gave the administrator a slightly embarrassed look.

“Sorry, please continue.”

“Thank you. You will have a better idea of why these steps were taken this way when you hear what happened 400 years ago. Basically, mistakes were made and the subject died in containment. Somehow, the records are not clear on this, at least not the ones that I have been given access to. The subject came out of stasis and became aware of his environment. Within moments he suffered some form of systemic failure and died, apparently in some form of shock. A medical evaluation indicated that likely a moderately sized organ, about in the middle of the center body mass, failed, resulting in death.”

Liuani was shocked to hear this. She knew that the protocols for containment are strictly adhered to and couldn’t imagine what could have allowed that to happen. She was saddened to hear of the death of the subject, she knew that all efforts were made to return subjects to their home environments with as little disruption to them as possible.

“It was because of this that it was decided to delay any form of interaction with this sentient life until more understanding of them could be determined. Well, the mission coming back has another subject and apparently massive amounts of data about them too. They have not been able to conduct any kind of substantial analysis of the data, but what they have passed back regarding the amount is impressive. I assume you have had problems from the spontaneous upgrade we just went through? The one that was required to upgrade the storage capacity of our archives?”

“Yes, it took away all of my access to the archives for the last 4 days.” Liuani’s mind was racing, so her reply was more an automatic response than an attempt to convey information.

“Because of the previous event, the government has decided that a stricter set of protocols will be enforced, and there will be additional personnel involved to ensure no other incidents. What I do know is that the reconnaissance group will be coming back with a very large quantity of physical as well as electronic data and one subject.”

“So you want me to lead the cultural analysis of the data? What does this mean for the Ostogot analysis? I have already invested a lot of time in that.” Liuani didn’t want to mention the Ostogot project in case he decided it was more important for her to finish that. But she was too professional to just dismiss her current project, and she HAD put in a lot of hours on the analysis and research.

“The reconnaissance team is not expected to arrive for another couple days, I want you to prepare all the data that you have been working on and anything you have put together and transfer the files to the main archives. I will get another researcher to pick it up and carry on, or it can wait for you to finish this. I am not putting just you on the task of analyzing the data, I will be speaking with 4 more analysts over the next day. I will forward a list of contact information to all of you for each other so you can coordinate whatever processes are to be used to examine the data.”

“Five analysts on the cultural data alone? That is a little unusual isn’t it?”

“Because this is a second contact event, the first having failed so completely, there is a higher priority to try and understand this race. Apparently, the society at that time was very agrarian and had little to no formal industrial capacity. There was very little in the way of texts and since the initial subject died at the beginning they never had the opportunity to analyze the language, which meant that the documentation they had gotten, was indecipherable. There was no electromagnetic activity at all on their planet.”

Liuani found herself nodding in sympathy to what the administrator was saying, she was very aware of the difficulty of interpreting the documents of another culture, and that was with the assistance of a living subject.

“So I don’t expect to find anything too incredible, it is just a bit more caution being used.”

Liuani was ecstatic at this opportunity as she had never been in on the initial analysis of a society. The whole mysterious nature of this group, and what appears to be historical drama around them, just whetted her appetite all the more.

“That is what I wanted to discuss with you today. As soon as I have briefed the other analysts as well, I will include what we have for a briefing package with the contact information. Do you have any questions that you would like to ask me at this time?”

“Uh...nothing too much comes to mind...oh, one question, do we know what they call themselves?”

“Yes, that was provided in the initial report. They call themselves, Human.”

Next Chapter: