5. Carter

FIVE

CARTER

T he three moons lit our path better than a torch or flashlight could have hoped to. The central moon, the largest, had a blood red hue. The smallest blue moon was also the brightest, while the middle yellow moon had a patina of black craters marring its surface.

"I usually wriggle through a hole over there, but no way will you fit." Lo gestured to our right. "I know you can make it through this way, though we may not get very far."

"Why not?"

"There is a rectangle on one of the walls I suspect might be a door, but I've never been able to get it open."

We picked our way over a field of shattered stone and loose gravel. My tail moved instinctively, helping to keep my balance. If I'd have attempted to scale the crumbling patch of turf in my human body, I'd have broken an ankle or worse. But Lo and I made it to the top with ease.

"Here it is. Watch out for Suckerbats."

"Suckerbats?"

He formed a circle with his hands and caged his lips.

"Yes, they attack themselves and then they suck your blood. One or two isn't' dangerous but they can swarm you pretty quick. It's how I lost my eye."

I flinched, and then looked at the cave entrance with more respect.

I had to duck my way under the stone arch. I felt up above me and touched smooth metal between the rough rock. The cave had grown up around the crashed ship. It had been there for an astonishingly long period of time.

It was nearly pitch black inside, but Lo put his hand on the wall and energy pulsed through the hitherto hidden circuitry, providing illumination.

"The power works in here, but that door won't open."

I could not see the door he spoke of at first, because it was only visible as a thin rectangular seam on the wall. I ran my fingers over its surface until I discovered a slight depression. I felt about and discovered a small stud I depressed with my finger.

A squarish, foot wide section of wall slid back, revealing a circular input panel. I had no idea what the characters meant, but they were probably alphanumeric.

"Whoa, how did you do that?"

"I just got lucky."

I punched a sequence on the keys, soon discerning a pattern.

No matter the species, there is nearly always one key for finalizing the code input, and one button to delete entries. And they are usually a different size or shape than the rest…

I fiddled with it for a while. This was the heart of Xeno technology. Finding out the function with little to no context. I fell into a kind of trance as I played with the door.

I didn't have any sort of notepad or compad, but I did have a soft mineral rock and a large wall. I wrote my notes down, using it as a virtual blackboard in an old style schoolhouse.

At last, I figured out the pattern and how to circumvent the code. I pushed the depression again, and this time the door recessed and slid open.

Lo stirred, having fallen asleep in the corner. He stood bolt upright when he saw the open door.

"How did you do that? And don't say you got lucky. I can see your scribblings on the wall."

"It's not magic or a trick, Lo. It's just a simple matter of trial and error, and building context upon your failures as much as your successes."

Lo stared at me for a long time.

"You know, I think the Backlash may have stolen your memories, but it made you a lot smarter in the process."

"What is Backlash, Lo? Everyone keeps talking about it."

Lo shook his head.

"You can't even remember that? It's when you try to imbue too much power into a weapon or a shield and it explodes. Most everyone thought you were going to die for sure."

"Why did I do that? Put too much power into something, I mean."

"You were fighting Grhoma Jark's Mouth, Daervish. You were losing, and got desperate. I saw the whole thing."

"Who is Grhoma Jark…never mind."

It didn't matter. I would find a way to return myself to my own body inside of the ancient vessel. I did not need to know the ins and outs of Masari people.

Lo either didn't hear me or didn't listen if he did.

"Grhoma Jark is the Chieftain of the Overtaken tribe. He's been gobbling up City States like a starving beast. His Mouth came to us in an attempt to convince the Starlost to join his growing empire."

Lo chuckled.

"But you said Starlost bows to no one, and neither do I, and you challenged the Mouth to single combat. You lost, bad, and then the Mouth butchered the rest of your hunting party just to send a message."

I stiffened up in alarm.

"Wait, this happened recently?"

"A matter of days ago."

No wonder the hospital was full of badly injured men.

"Wait, what is this Jark going to do now?"

"Now? Most likely, his Mouth is going to return, with an army at his back, and we're going to join the Overtaken or we're going to perish. I kind of don't care either way. Not like my life will get better or worse, you know?"

I cared a lot. It would no doubt take time for me to investigate the ancient ship, let alone discern the purpose of the technology I would find inside. And then it might take months, or even years, to figure out how to get myself back into my own body.

If this Jark invaded, it would disrupt my research. Or more likely, I would be killed along with the other warriors who dared defy him.

I shook my head and gritted my teeth. I entered the ship, and immediately bent over with wracking coughs.

"Yeah, I should have warned you. The air inside is bad. You have to wait for it to clear out."

I am an idiot! Why did I expect the ancient aliens to have breathed the same atmospheric gasses as the Masari? I just made a mockery of Xeno technology as a discipline and myself in particular.

I worked on the alien language while waiting for the air to cycle out. Lo watched, rapt with every new scribble. I stepped back from the wall and grunted in disgust.

"What's wrong?"

"These characters represent numbers and arithmetic symbols, not the spoken or written language of the ancients. Useful, but not what's needed to fully unlock the secrets of these ruins."

Lo shook his head.

"You sound like a Sage, now."

"A Sage?"

He nodded.

"Yes, they gather, preserve, and generate knowledge. At least, that's what they're always saying. They know how to draw up plans for new buildings, and when the best time to plant is, and whether or not it's going to rain…all sorts of things."

"How do the sages preserve their knowledge?"

"Preserve?"

I sighed.

"If I wanted to gain this knowledge for myself, how would I go about it?"

"Oh. You would have to be accepted by the Sages, and then you would have access to the computer archives. But they're very picky about who they accept. You have to prove you're going to add to the knowledge."

"How do you know so much about them?"

He hung his head and sighed.

"I tried to join their ranks several times. Sages do not take lifemates or raise families, but the Academy provides everything they need."

I understood. For someone in his wretched state, even a cloistered, monkish existence would seem like an improvement.

"Perhaps you could introduce me to these sages?"

"Of course. Ah, whenever I do something for you, that is, before you lost your memories, you would always buy me grilled satchna."

"Very well."

"And a loaf of Kitmus bread," he added.

"That is acceptable…what do we use for currency?"

"You seriously don't even remember that?"

He got a sad, pitying look.

"I could take advantage of you right now, but if you happen to turn back into the old Gro you'll rip my lungs out through my nostrils." He sighed. "All right, let me explain…"

He showed me the currency, which I had some of in my belt pouch and didn't even realize. Glazed ceramic discs emblazoned with the symbol of the Starlost tribe. The discs were designed to be snapped into ten sections apiece.

A whole ceramic coin was a Yez, while the fragments were Yez bits, though most people just called them Bits.

Apparently, Gro had accumulated a great deal of these discs due to his skills in combat. From what I gleaned out of Lo, it seemed that combat was primarily a one-on-one affair with clear cut rituals and rules.

Gro, however, was known to bend or break the rules in order to win. This led to his lack of respect from his tribemates.

On occasion, battles would be fought en masse, tribe versus tribe, winner take all. There were naturally different tactics and strategies involved in the mass battles. Gro, however, did not work well with others.

According to Lo, who had no motivation to lie to me, Gro would either ignore his teammates or worse, use them as fodder or distractions to further his own survival.

"No one shed any tears when you were Backlashed, Gro. And I suspect that they will shed a few once new travels that you have survived."

Wonderful. I'm inhabiting the body of the most hated man in town.

I checked the air quality, missing my compad more than ever. Once it was obvious the air tasted stale but breathable, I entered the hallway beyond.

The floor tilted at a twenty degree angle, forcing me to put my hands on the walls to keep myself upright. Rubble blocked my passage through the first two portals I passed.

A third portal revealed a chamber roughly the size of a large lavatory, with a raised rectangular island in the middle. Piles of dust on the island probably used to be equipment made of more perishable materials than the ship itself.

I cleared away the dust and found outlet ports of some kind. Obviously equipment could be plugged into this spot, but I had no way of knowing what the nature of that equipment was or what its function could have been.

I continued down the passage, only to have my way blocked by a cave in. I thought it could be cleared, but it would take time, and at least a board for leveraging. But Gro's body could pull it off.

For the time being, however, I thought I could learn something from the Sages the boy had mentioned.

We exited the ship ruins, and walked to the top of the rise.

"This is going to be hilarious. I bet none of the Sages predicted the day when Gro of all people petitioned them for membership."

"Do you think they can be convinced to let me in?"

I turned around to face Lo, but what lay beyond stole my breath. I hadn't been able to see last night, but with the rising of the golden sun new details emerged on the landscape.

Beyond the ruins lay a cliff, which looked down on a lush, verdant valley nearly a mile beneath us.

The village had been built into the ruins of a ship, that much was clear. But the ship had crashed into one of the floating mountains I'd seen earlier. We drifted slowly, casting a big shadow on the land below.

"What are you gawking at? It's only the Valley of Quanji, we pass over it every few days or so."

"We're flying."

"Uh, yes, we're a Sky tribe. It's one of the few reasons why Jank hasn't already conquered us, to be honest."

"How do you get down?"

"With a Skyrigger harness. Or a glider, or one of those new hovercrafts the Engineers have managed to build."

"There's Engineers, too? I need you to make the introductions with them as well. I, too, am an engineer."

Lo laughed, his slender form shaking with mirth.

"Now I've heard everything. Well, I don't have an in with them, I'm afraid. You should talk to your pretty little wife, though. Her grandfather is an engineer, or was until he got too old."

I started. I hadn't known any such thing about Arael.

"I suppose we should concentrate on the Sages for the time being. One thing at a time."

"All right, but we need to get the grilled satchna first."

I realized how famished I truly felt.

"Very well."

Lo led me to an open air stall where an alien stoked the fires of a wide grill. He laid strips of a dark red meat onto the grill, issuing a hissing cloud of delectable smoke. We watched as he sprinkled what looked like dried bits of moss and leaves onto the meat before stoking the fires a little more.

He turned and nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw us.

"G-Gro…I had heard you were in the hospital."

I shook my head, and looked down at Lo. It took him mere seconds to understand I wanted him to do the ordering.

The vendor almost fell over when I paid him. I counted out bits into his hand until Lo nodded that I had paid enough. As we sat down on rounded stone stools to enjoy our repast, I looked to Lo.

"Why was he acting so strangely when I paid him?"

"Oh, Gro usually doesn't pay for his grilled satchna. He just comes up and grabs whatever he wants right off the grill and stuffs it in his mouth."

"It sounds like Gro was an asshole."

Lo laughed heartily, spewing bits of meat out of his mouth.

"Yes, he was. But just so we're clear, I like you a lot better than the real Gro. You're not going to get your memories back, are you?"

"The physicker said that is very unlikely."

"Oh, good. In that case, Gro owed me some money."

I laughed, and he sighed.

"I actually wasn't kidding."