The Tomb World Ch14

Fezzen stood next to watch captain Foric, as they waited in front of the yunyon spaceship. The council had grown tired of waiting and had ordered his uncle to assemble a force outside their ship.

It wasn’t a threat per say, but the implied promise of threat. Or at least that was how the council representative had phrased it. Leave to a politician to needlessly overcomplicate things.

Even with the assembled force the yunyon people didn’t leave their strange blocky ship. The hyoomahn ships, even the blocky Loree, had elements of their design that implied some concern for air resistance. The yunyonship had no such concern, the whole thing looked like a metal brick with thrusters, antennas, and other oddly shaped components tack welded to the side. Stranger were the color’s they decided to paint it, magenta with gold trim!

Maybe aliens saw colors differently then they did? Did the hyoomahns see more or less colors than a Gotari? A part of Fezzen hoped it was less, just because the strange aliens had bested them in almost every other metric.

There was a shuffling of feet, and Fezzen turned to see the hyoomahnz approaching them. Dan-yalz was at their head, he seemed to be squinting his eyes a lot. Some of the soldiers around Fezzen stiffened their tails, an obvious sign of hostility. Apparently, the news of Dan-yalz trying to doom these yunyon people to the swarm had spread.

If Dan-yalz noticed he didn’t react. “Captain Foric.” He said in greeting, still keeping his distance.

“Captain Dan-yalz, what brings you here?” Foric asked suspiciously.

“We figured you might need some help, seeing as we have already made contact, we thought it would be prudent to offer our services. As recompense for yesterday.” Dan-yalz said slowly.

Foric bristled. “Do your people hold a person’s life in such low regard to think that a little aid is equal to repay what could have happened?”

Dan-yalz jaw muscles clenched. “No, the aid is for the disrespect I showed you on that day.”

What Dan-yalz didn’t say was whether or not he cared that his actions almost got these people killed. And Fezzen couldn’t tell if that was intentional or just alien strangeness.

Foric lowered his tail, and forced it to sway back and forth. “I see, I will call upon you if your assistance is needed then.” Foric gestured with an empty claw towards a space at his side for Dan-yalz to stand, but just Dan-yalz and not his people.

A path opened up and Dan-yalz stepped forward. He joined them at Foric’s side and stood there wordlessly.

The minutes ticked by. “Our people detected some number of messages being sent to your ship.” Foric said casually.

“Yes. The captain of this ship, explorer ship 406 was demanding that we answer his questions about why we’re here and what we’ve done so far.” Dan-yalz answered.

“We never detected any messages sent from your ships to theirs.” Foric said pointedly.

“Of course not, we didn’t see any reason to respond.” Dan-yalz said.

“Why not?” Fezzen asked.

Dan-yalz looked down, though he had to do that with all the Gotari so Fezzen guessed it wasn’t demeaning. But there was something hard in his eyes, it was htgy esame look in his eyes when he found out the yunyon ship was in trouble. “Because they’re a science and exploration ship. They have zero authority over me and my crew as privately funded explorers.”

“You refused to talk to them because they didn’t have the authority to make you. Do humans need a strong social hierarchy of rules to function?” Fezzen asked.

Dan-yalz did something with his lips that made a long trilling sound. “That is one hehll of a loaded question. Simple answer, no we are not robots we can think for ourselves. Long answer is yes, on the same level that all societies need rules for behavior and compliance to function. And to actually answer your question, I didn’t refuse because they didn’t have the right to ask. I refused to talk to them because they didn’t have the right to demand it and I didn’t care for their attitude.”

Foric hooted in amusement. “Its good to see that some things are constant.”

“Hyoomahnz are nothing if not spiteful.” Dan-yalz responded evenly.

“Sounds interesting.” Fezzen said.

He was about to ask another question, but a hiss came from the yunyon ship as a ramp descended from the bottom of the ship. From the ramp emerged a group of behemoths.

The hyoomahnz were big, giant even, but these creatures were colossal.

“The tallest three are Zxx’thi, willowy, not too strong, and they speak in a slow tone. Don’t be fooled, they have some of the logical and patient minds in the galaxy.” Dan-yalz reported.

Fezzen wondered about the ‘not too strong’ part. Was that by hyoomahnstandards, or did he use Gotari strength as a baseline, or was he speaking on a galactic sense?

“The fuzzy ones are Drohodrons, pretty fast by Union standards, but also incredibly timid, don’t make direct eye contact it scraes them, and speak softly because their ears are sensitive.” He said gesturing to the two of the medium sized aliens with brown puffy looking hair.

“The shortest are also the most important to watch out for if things go sideways, they are called Kalisians. They are insectoid in nature, fiercely devoted to the Union, and have the strangest minds by galactic standards. While every species is a little different there is a general trend of common behavior, not the Kalisians. Its impossible to tell what will set them off, and they have no concern for their individual lives. Often used as disposable soldiers.”

Foric bristled. “That seems callous.”

“I agree, but from what I’m told its not some callous choice. Kalisians are innate pragmatists, with little concern for the individual when the safety of the group is at risk. They will defy orders to retreat if they see sacrificing themselves a logically better command. Don’t expect them to try and protect themselves or shelter from gunfire, they can take lethal hits and still charge.” He paused, thinking, “they’re also supposed to have a venomous stinger, but the venom doesn’t work on hyoomahnz. I’m not sure if you’ll fair better or worse.”

“Why doesn’t it work on you?” Fezzen asked.

“Our immune system is good at eliminating foreign invaders, their venom isn’t potent enough to kill us. In fact by some accounts it acts as a sort of stimulate, like methamphetamine or caffeine.” Dan-yalz shrugged.

The group finished their slow walk procession forward, and Fezzen noted the odd way they walked. Like they had boulders on their shoulders. It was odd, Dan-yalz said that the City-world had a lower surface gravity than his world did.

The tall one, with a species name that was more buzzing than word, stepped forward and began to speak. Its slow voice droned on, and on, and on. It gestured to itself, and its companions, but Fezzen didn’t understand a single word it said. And the translation thing Dan-yalz had given them seemed at a loss as well.

They stood, and waited until it was done talking. When it finally stopped speaking Foric stepped forward, looked it right in the eyes, and said “What?” in eenglish.

~~~*~~~

Daniels could have stopped the Zxx’this droning speech at any point. But like he had told Foric and Fezzen, humans were nothing if not spiteful.

Besides, the Gotari weren’t really missing much. The Zxx’thi was giving them the textbook first contact speech the Union rolled out to every new species. It was bland, pointlessly long, and complete BS. Strength, peace, and prosperity, but only for the Union as a whole. The independence and growth of individual species was seen as either a secondary concern, or a threat as was the case with Earth.

Daniels began to snicker when Foric said “What?” in English. The dumbfounded look on the Zxx’this face was just too priceless.

The Willowy alien turned and fixed its eyes on him. The Zxx’thi were some of the rare union species  with binocular vision, but for them direct eye contact was always a sign of hostility. “You, Hellworlder, explain.” It commanded in Union common.

Daniels felt his face stiffen, he crossed his arms and looked up at the Zxx’thi, his neck craned to look up so high. “My name is Captain Jackson Daniels of the Staff of Lore, and you’ll address me as such.” He barked out stiffly.

The Zxx’thi looked incensed. “After everything you’ve done I would think you’d be more concerned about placating our anger.”

Daniels quirked an eyebrow. “You seem to have come to some conclusions without proper evidence. Me and my crew are a lawfully licensed exploratory ship under the charter of the Martian prime minister.”

A vein on the Zxx’thi’s neck throbbed. “Be that as it may, you do not have the right to open diplomatic channels with an uncontacted primitive society.”

Daniels felt his eye twitch, technically he had made first contact with a primitive society without alerting the Union, but that was with the Kunan’ai and the Union didn’t know about them. “Did you not see those monsters out there? We came here out of duress and made contact out of necessity. There’s no court in the galaxy that wouldn’t recognize that extenuating circumstances forced our hands.” Especially with the kinds of lawyers they had. “Secondly by the Union metric of development the Gotari count as space born since they colonized this planet before their homeworld was destroyed.”

The Union made a lot of noise about the preservation of native cultures and their natural development, and a lot of that Daniels agreed with. But even they realized that a species couldn’t be ignored forever, once they left their homeworld for the stars it was inevitable that they would cross paths with the Union. Once a species had spatial warping technology with the potential of FTL then they were considered advanced enough to contact.

The Zxx’thi looked upset by what Daniels had said. “So this is not their homeworld?” he asked.

“No, they were from another planet in this system, once they had warp they began to colonize this planet. One of the colonies somehow released the space monsters from their containment, they call them the swarm. The Swarm then attacked and eradicated their homeworld. Stripping it of all biological material to fuel their growth.”

The Zxx’thi looked dissatisfied with that, but before Daniels could question it a clawed hand tugged on Daniels hakama.

“Dan-yalz.” Foric said “While we appreciate you might have some things you would like to say, we should be the ones to engage these strangers.”

Daniels had been speaking in common for the Union scientists’ benefit, so none of what he said translated. “Right, sorry.” Daniels looked to the Union representatives. “Turn your translators to English, our hosts would like to speak with you.”

The Zxx’thi blinked rapidly, a sign of anger in their species. “You have been teaching them your language.” He said pointedly.

“Of course, we didn’t see a point in teaching them a language that we’re not all fluent in.” Daniels lied. Everyone on his crew could speak common, but in one of the many hypothetical procedures Astarte had given him upon taking his current posting, it had said to speak English as much as possible to create a link between Terrans and whatever new species he discovered.

The Zxx’thi looked like it had much it wanted to say, but instead it just took off the translator it had been using and reprogramed it to translate Union common to English, which the Gotari translators would then translate to their language. The added complication had the benefit of creating communication issues between the Gotari and the Union. Astarte really was a scary person with how thoroughly thought out her procedures were.

When the Zxx’thi captain was done he turned to Foric. “Greetings, I am Noskin of the Union Science ship 406.” He said, listing the ships serial number like it was the ships actual name. Did they just call it the 406?

Foric stepped forward. “I am Foric, captain of the Watchers, welcome to this world that is now our tomb.”

The Zxx’thi looked confused. “What is a Coffin world?”