Ancient Birthright (7 page)

Why couldn’t it be a nice simple asteroid or comet? No, it has to be aliens!

Bel dropped his head to his hands and groaned, “I can’t tell Mom and Dad. They’ll go ape shit if they find out I’ve been using the VLA. I can’t tell the government. They’ll toss me in prison and weld the door shut. All I wanted was to find a nice normal chunk of rock so I could win that scholarship and get out of this town. Now what do I do?”

Chapter-7

Universe Explorer
: Transjump plus 0 years, 90 days:

“Passenger Saigg Garuu reporting as requested, Command Prime,” Saigg said as he stepped onto the bridge dressed in clean, pressed uniform shorts, work shoes, and a tool harness.

“Passenger Garuu you have completed your punishment period with Department Lead Vadd Remoo,” Prime Garuu said as he turned away from the data showing current fuel consumption. “He reports satisfactory progress in your attitude and work. You’re relieved of waste-recy detail and may resume your normal activities,” Command Prime settled onto his command couch and waved Saigg to stand in front of him.

Just say thank you and get out. Don’t do it, you idiot.

“Sir, I have a request.” Saigg nervously twitched his tail. His inner self slapped him on the back of the head.

You had to open your mouth. Now think of something silly to say and get out of here.

“State your request Passenger Garuu,” Prime Garuu ordered, adjusting his position to give Saigg more of his attention.

“I request permission to assist the crew of the
Universe Explorer
in an area other than waste-recy. With your permission and the permission of the division lead, I would like to assist the team studying the transmissions and languages of Treterra. I feel that by my taking over some of the more mundane tasks of the research team, they would be able to complete their mission more quickly.”

Oh, great piles of Petuua shit. Now I’ve done it. I’ll never have time to myself again.

“Why would you voluntarily give up your free time to assist the research team?” His dad leaned forward on his command couch and rattled his dorsal spines. The mottled gold-green of his father’s face shifted to bands of blue fading to orange indicating interest in his reply.

“I feel that what they’re doing is essential, and the research topic fascinates me.”

I want to live, and if I can do that by offering my time, it seems like a small sacrifice.

“All right, I’ll check with the division’s prime, Domm Feuua, and find out if they could use some untrained help. I’ll send his answer with Ops Prime Garuu when her shift ends. You are dismissed.”

Saigg returned to his room and grabbed his thrustboard. At least tonight was his to do as he wanted. Now, to find his friends and try out that new course they’d laid out over the past three thirty-cycles. He thought he saw a dodging shadow follow him, but when he turned to check it was gone.

Saigg pushed open the small hatch inset into the wall of the vast growthbay. He touched the actiplate that powered the glow strips in the bays ceiling and walls.

He scanned the gigantic open space. The bioengineered petuua’s hatched and matured in this bay once the ship neared its colony planet, and it was huge to accommodate them.

A memory of his Dad bringing a younger version of himself to a room like this filled his mind, the one-hundred-forty foot shadow of a petuua flashing overhead causing him to jump with glee. In his mind, he saw the majestic souls using the growthbay for school, exercise, and physical training. As a youngster, some of his best friends, were maturing petuua hatchlings who now called Danuaa 3 home. He’d watched hundreds of cargo loads delivered to Danuaa 3 by the petuua’s acting as the reentry and guidance system for the load-pods used to offload the ship.

What’s going on? Where is the course with the jump the guys talked about?

Saigg hopped on his thrustboard and cruised around the room. Nothing.

A clatter of metal on metal came from the corner nearest the entry hatch and alerted him that he was not alone.

Time to leave
.
All I need is to get caught in an off-limits portion of the ship.
I can just imagine what will happen to me if I come before Command Prime on the same day I complete my previous punishment.

He pushed off and built up speed as he aimed for the entry. Skimming through the hatch, he caught a glimpse of a familiar figure crawling from behind a crate in the corner.
Davvie. The little beetle turd followed me
.
I need to find my gang and find out why they lied to me about the growthbay.

Picking up speed, he raced down the passageway to the first crossing. Saigg slammed on full reverse thrust, jumped off his board and using one foot bounced it up into his hands. He turned into the left passageway and lay on the floor waiting for Davvie to pass. He could hear Davvie’s footsteps pounding closer. Davvie raced past without a glance, permitting Saigg to hop on his thrustboard and silently follow him.

“Looking for something, turd breath?”

Davvie jumped so high Saigg thought he’d hit the overhead. When Davvie landed, his dorsal spines snapped out in a defensive threat display. His coloration transformed to bands of red and orange, an indication of his flight or fight instinct.

“How’d you get behind me?”

“Easy when you know the passageways as well as I do. Now, why are you following me?”

“I wanted to see if you could find the morons you used to hang with,” Davvie said taking an insolent stance as his dorsal spines slowly retracted.

“What do you know about them? Where are they?” Saigg stepped toward Davvie in an effort to intimidate him.

“What’s it worth to ya?” taunted Davvie, not impressed with his brother’s attempt at dominance.

“How about you tell me, and I let you live.”

Backing up a step. “I’ll tell you if you let me come along,” countered Davvie.

“Okay, just this one time. But, if I catch you following me again I know a waste-recy bin where they’ll never find your body before it’s processed.”

“It’s a deal. But you’ll never catch me again. You wouldn’t have this time if someone hadn’t left that latch-bar sitting on the crate.”

“Let’s go, I want to find out what the guys are up to,” Saigg gave Davvie a shove down the passageway.

“I can tell you what they’re up to. They’ve built a nest above the female’s refresh room at the gym. They spend hours up there watching. Then when they leave, all they talk about is the great tail on this one and the fantastic legs on that one. I don’t see what the attraction is. Karonna’s the main one they discuss. If I wanted to see her, all I have to do is watch the vid feeds I’ve installed in her room.”

Saigg could see, from Davvie’s coloration change the moment the last sentence left his mouth that he realized he’d revealed too much. He dodged down a narrow side hall and disappeared before Saigg could get his hands on him.

No one should have their space invaded like that, not even a dweeb like Karonna.

Wait a truebeat, if that little chunk of bat droppings had vids in Karonna’s room, where else does he have them? I hope not in the main cabin by Dad’s desk.

If Davvie knows about the fertility report because of one of his vid cameras then the entire social structure of the ship could be in jeopardy.

I need to clue Karonna in about the vids and do some serious searching of the rest of the family quarters. But first, I’m going to find the guys and find out what the hell is going on with my guys.

Saigg propelled his thrustboard to a sweet drink bar near the gym. He and his friends would sometimes hang there waiting for the females to walk by after their exercise classes. Saigg spotted Togg and tipped off his thrustboard with a smooth athletic hop.
I still have it. I’d like to see
anyone else in the gang do a dismount as smooth as that.

“Togg, I’ve been looking for guys. Where are the others?”

Togg finished collecting four drinks and loading them in a carry-tray before he turned to Saigg. “Wondered when you’d come looking for us. Today was your release wasn’t it?” Togg asked with a dismissive glance.

“Yeah, I’m free and wanted to catch up with everyone.”

“Sorry Saigg, with you gone so long Jerr took over as leader. Thrustboard’s are so yesterday. We kind of lost interest with you out of the picture. We’ve moved on to more mature pursuits.”

“Moved on to what?”

Ignoring the question Togg turned to leave. “Been nice seeing you again Saigg. We should find some time and talk. Got to run, the guys are waiting on these drinks.”

“I’ve heard rumors about your new mature pursuits. Stay away from Karonna and disassemble the nest or my punishment will seem like a stroll in the hydroponic garden compared to what happens when the ship’s crew finds out about your activities. Togg, give Jerr a message from me. Tell him it’s time to grow-up. We’re not little kids anymore.”

Listen to me, the most mature fifteen-star-cycle-old on a ship bound for extinction. Why should I even care if they have some fun before the end? Because...she’s my sister and for some dumb reason, I do care how she’s treated

Saigg stood up straighter. He knew he was doing this for the right reasons.

Well okay, my pride is hurt that the gang ousted me and took Jerr as their leader
. His
posture slumped back to its normal bad-boy slouch.
It’s time to head for home and see if Mom has word on my request to help the research team.

Chapter-8

Universe Explorer
: Transjump plus 0 years, 180 days:

“Saigg Garuu, what have you done?” growled a voice from behind him. Saigg jumped and banged his legs on the data entry shelf of his desk as he recognized the speaker as his team leader Domm Feuua.

“Nothing, Team Leader Feuua. I’ve been going over these reports as ordered.”

“I can see that you’ve done nothing. That’s the same report and the same page you were reviewing when I left two hours ago. If you feel the work assigned is beneath your position, I can tell Command Prime to assign you other duties. I had misgivings about the team taking on an unskilled troublemaker. I saw that vid and the mess you made during transjump. However, Command Prime asked me to add you to the team as a personal favor to him.

“I gave you the simple assignment of reviewing ten very critical progress reports and in two hours you haven’t even gotten through one of them. You should have finished an hour ago.”

“But Sir, these reports are identical to the ones submitted last thirty-cycle and the thirty-cycle before that. They even have the same grammatical mistakes in the same sentences. They must be copies of the previous reports.” The report he had on his screen was in perfectly clear and concise scientific terms.

His assignment to the research team was to have been his salvation, his way to help solve their problems. However, he hadn’t realized how boring and uninteresting his offer of assistance would become.Hi Emptying waste receptacles or sitting in front of a VH screen for hour after endless hour, checking scientific reports for sentence structure and grammatical correctness, was not what he had in mind when he offered to help the team. Not one of the scientists or linguists was any closer to an answer than when they’d started.

“Are you accusing the team of not doing its duty?” Domm Feuua asked, puffing up with indignation.

“No, sir. I believe the reports are being copied because nothing has changed. No progress has been made, and it’s easier to copy an old report than to try to come up with something new that says the same thing.”

“You insolent hatchling. Do you think you could do a better job? This team consists of the top linguistic scholars on this ship. We will crack the language barrier when we have enough information. Until that time, we need to continue recording and analyzing every signal we receive. We just need to find the one transmission with a recognizable reference to one of our words. The spoken languages on Treterra could not have evolved to the extent that we have lost all common word root origins.”

“I understand the working theory, sir. I just don’t think we’re getting anywhere with it. I think we need to attack the problem from a different direction.” Saigg spun in his chair to face Domm Feuua.

“Please enlighten me. With all of your star cycles of study and knowledge, how do you think we should approach the problem?” asked Domm Feuua as he paced the room his tail lashing.

“I think we should be looking at all the received signals not just the ones that are obviously verbal communications. I believe I can develop programs that will analyze the other transmissions and eventually give us useable data,” insisted Saigg, holding out a hand almost begging for a chance.

“And how do you think that will help decode the vocal languages?” Feuua said skeptically as he pointed a finger at Saigg.

“If we can learn how their machines communicate, it will give us a starting point for understanding the language of those souls controlling the machines. I suppose you’d call it a machine language dictionary.”

“Those are big words from an unschooled troublemaker. Very well, I don’t want you running to your father saying I never gave you a chance. We are receiving a strong signal every day. You will find the data in file ‘Unknown-65883’. You will use this signal and only this signal to develop your theories and programs and present your conclusions to the team in one thirty-cycle. I’m sure that your results, this machine language dictionary.” Feuua gave a dismissive wave, “will provide the insight necessary for the rest of us to complete our work. The results you present are to be yours and only yours. You will not ask for assistance from anyone else on the team. We all have important work to do and will not have time to assist you with your pet theory.”

“Thank you Sir, I’ll do my best.” Saigg tried to ignore the sarcasm and focused on the opportunity as he gave Domm Feuua a slight bow of thanks.

#

I’m going to quit. I’ve been looking at the same signal for a seven cycle, and nothing has changed. I don’t care if Team Lead Feuua feels this proves I’m worthless. This signal just doesn’t have any usable information in it. There’s no way I can even begin to develop a machine language dictionary without at least a small amount of information. This signal is nothing more than a series of pulses that are all the same strength and duration. The only thing that even remotely could be construed as communication is a final bi-level binary pulse sequence that is doing nothing more than incrementing by one on each successive reception. It’s so predictable; all I have to do is add one to the sequence and I know what the next sequence will be
.