Sumeru - 5. Chapter 5

Commander Ross and his team got off the ship. The men took a deep breath and looked around.

The sun was up. It was almost noon and the temperature had climbed. It was hot and the air was humid and smelled of decay. It was the typical feel and smell of the tropics. The vegetation resembled a rain forest on Earth. The thick bushes and trees, many with weird huge leaves and colored blossoms, seamed the ancient runway but had not overgrown or even touched it.

“Like a runway in an Asian jungle,” Dan said. “This place reminds me very much of Earth.”

“A second Earth, a twin planet, that’s what they said,” the biologist said. James pointed at a bush. “I think the bird sound comes from there.” Without waiting for a reply, he proceeded towards the thick bush with big round leaves.

“Wait,” John commanded. He gave a sign to the other men.

They raised their firearms and followed James, scanning the area as they did. They wore suits and helmets with all kind of technical features and they looked like soldiers performing a ground intervention. All of them had actually had combat training, but no man had experienced the real thing, and so they proceeded carefully, following the rules and trusting their instincts. They reached the bush. The sound was louder and it was definitely the sound of an animal or maybe two. James didn’t wait any longer. He raised a branch and looked behind the leaves. Then he gave a laugh, a mixture of joy and relief. He reached out, then drew his hand back and held it out to his comrades. Two tiny creatures sat on his palm and chirped excitedly. They resembled birds, had yellow feathers and a beak, but four legs and no wings. They looked like some strange chickens. James put them back on the nest of grass they had built between two wigs. James looked at his gloved hand. A tiny feather stuck to the glove.

“Good we crossed the decontamination chamber. I could have easily done these creatures harm,” James said.

“Good we’ll cross it again when we go back into the ship,” Dan said. “You don’t know if these creatures can do us harm. This was very imprudent, James.” Dan pointed ahead. “There’s a building at the end of the runway, to the right, ground control perhaps,” he said. “I think this airfield was only for cargo planes that now and then delivered some goods.”

“The ship’s sensors scanned the entire area and produced a map. It showed a medium sized city with a small airport in the outskirts,” Pete, the engineer, said.

“I agree,” Rob Kendrick said. “But we must be careful not to judge and evaluate something quickly. This alien civilization might have been entirely different from a human society, although the planet appears to be a second Earth and this runway looks very much like one on Earth. The material is different, however. The runway has not decayed and the vegetation does not touch it. The runway looks in fact overhauled and repaired.”

The men exchanged a quick glance.

“The sensors didn’t detect any signs of intelligent life. Nothing points to intelligent life on the planet. We’ve detected only remnants of buildings and avenues. You saw the zoomed-in images. These remnants look ancient, older than anything I have seen on Earth. This civilization’s gone,” Pete said.

The flight engineer proceeded towards the decayed building at the end of the runway where neither trees nor bushes grew.

„Wait,” John called out, but Pete didn’t stop. He even hastened his steps.

Not good, John thought. He waved at the others to hurry and follow Pete.

„The remnants of the buildings and the ancient avenues puzzle me to a degree,” Rob said. „I warned you to not judge prematurely, but I actually cannot connect these remnants with the Dyson ring around the sun. I would conclude from the images that the society was an urban society, albeit advanced. They built buildings, big ones from the amount of debris I saw. The cities were connected with streets. They used vehicles, cars perhaps, at least something to drive along these streets. I couldn’t detect a vehicle in the images, but I guess the images were simply not detailed enough. The Dyson ring looks far more advanced. Am I mistaken? Or what do you think from a technical point of view?”

“You’re right,” Dan said. “I’m not so sure anymore that we have found only one extraterrestrial civilization. Maybe we have found two.”

“Or maybe they developed a different way of life when they had advanced their technologies,” John said. “We’ve seen only a couple of images and we’ve not done field studies. We don’t know anything about them.”

“True,” the sociologist replied thoughtfully.

They reached the building that Pete had already entered. Dan opened the door and let out a cry. Pete was lying on the floor. Dan hurried to him and rolled Pete on his back. He checked Pete’s eyes and breath.

James pushed him aside. He pulled a gadget from his belt and held it over Pete’s body. A minute later, he lowered it and looked at the others.

“He’s dead,” he said.

The others stared, paralyzed, but Dan jumped to his feet and turned around wildly. James turned back to the body.

“Rob, to the door,” John commanded in a stern voice. “Watch what‘s going on outside. Is the way back to the ship safe?”

Rob gave a nod and raised his gun. He proceeded to the entrance.

“Dan, the scanner,” John said, pulling his own from his belt.

Dan stared at him. He winced, but then straightened and willingly returned to a calm composure.

The men scanned the room with their reconnaissance equipment. John focused on the room, while Dan scanned a desk with what looked like monitors or screens. They looked old but otherwise barely decayed. Dan eyed them warily and was careful not to touch them. They finished their scans and John turned to James.

“Can we go?” he asked.

James nodded. John and James seized the dead man. Rob watched them from the door.

“No one’s outside, as far as I can tell,” he said, looking at the dead man’s face. James had closed Pete’s eyes.

They moved back to the ship, Rob leading the way and Dan walking behind them. Nothing had changed. The sun was up and it was hot. The tiny creatures chirped from their hiding place in the bush, but the men had no ears for the song.

They reached the ship and entered the decontamination chamber. A while later, they sat in the front section of the ship, none of them speaking, all in shock. They had crossed interstellar space. They were 25,000 light years from home. They had landed on a twin planet, a second Earth, and only half an hour after getting off the ship one of them was dead.

James got up. “I must see to his body. I can’t do a full autopsy on the ship, but I will examine his body with better instruments. I have a lab here. The computer will help with the analysis,” he said.

John gave a nod. Dan did not even look up and Rob lowered his eyes to the floor. James left. The others didn’t move until John turned to the communication controls.

“Message to ground control Earth,” he said.

“Message to ground control Earth,” the computer voice confirmed. “Please, speak Commander Ross.”

John dictated the message. They waited for a reply from Earth, but none came.

“Something’s wrong here,” Dan said finally.

“We are able to send, but we cannot receive transmissions, although Pete found no failure when he checked on the communication system,” John said.

“Can we send or do we just think we can?” Dan asked. “I’m checking the system again.”

Dan turned to the controls. John and Rob stared at his back.

“Come, commander,” Rob said, rising to his feet.

The two men went to the middle section of the ship where the living quarters were. They sat down in the galley, a narrow place with barely room for two people.

“What do you think?” John asked.

“Hard to say,” Rob replied. “The incidents are not necessarily connected. The failure with the communication system and Pete’s death, I mean.”

“But you think they are,” John said.

Rob shrugged. “It’s just a gut feeling,” he said.

“Don’t judge prematurely. Your words,” John said.

“Yes,” Rob said, straightening. “Pete was responsible for the communication system and now he’s dead. Just coincidence?”

“Elaborate,” John said. “Do you think Pete is responsible for the communication failures?”

Rob raised his hands. “Not what you think, John. I don’t think he sabotaged the communication system and committed suicide after touchdown. No, that’s absurd.”

“Yes,” John said. “Continue.”

“The desk in the room. The monitors. This was an ancient flight control center. Pete entered the building several minutes before us. He could have touched the equipment, could have tried to activate it. He was probably keen to explore the flight control room, the desk and the gadgets. He is…was a flight engineer,” Rob said.

John was thinking.

“Dan thinks it, too,” Rob said. “I saw him from the door. He carefully looked to not touch the screens.”

“An automatic defense system? Is this what you think?” John asked.

Rob shrugged.

“Could it still be active after so long a time?” John asked. “Look at the buildings, the streets. The sun collectors. This civilization went down a long time ago.”

“Look at the runway, the control center desk, the monitors,” Rob said. “The runway looks new. The desk and the monitors looked dirty and used, but not like relics from ages ago. I would guess they look even better and quite familiar, like a desk and a screen at home, when you wipe them clean”

“You think that someone is here. Do you think they killed Pete?” John asked.

Rob shook his head. “Not a person. I don’t think someone’s out there right now. I saw no sign, no trace of someone being around, but this airfield is in use for whatever reason. Not always. Not now. I think no one was here for a couple of years, but the system is being monitored,” he said.

“Monitored by a defense system or a main system,” John said. He paused. “You could be right. A computer system took out our communication system and killed Pete.”

“A defense system, yes,” Rob said. “I don’t think it let any of our messages to ground control out. It made us believe that there was no failure with the ship’s communication system. We were to think that the failure was on Earth’s side.”

“It’s monitoring us,” John said.

“Yes, it’s watching us,” Rob replied. “And it killed Pete because he would have found out about it in the control building.”

“Dan’s checking on the communication system right now,” John said, jumping from his seat. He hastened to the front of the ship.

Dan turned back to him and gave him a questioning look.

John stopped short.

The High Council - The Failed Planets

The representatives settled in their seats. Naamah looked at Azrael who sat at some distance to the right of him. Azrael looked straight ahead. Naamah turned his head away.

The head of the council presented point five on the agenda. A Khet representative had made an application for lowering the standard criteria for extermination of civilizations who were a threat to space due to their irresponsible use of warp technologies. The Khet argued that many young civilizations in the spiral arms of the galaxy had reached an advanced technological level and had begun to experiment with warp technologies as had shown the extensive analysis of monitoring data by independent scientists.

One such scientist was invited to speak. The man presented his findings. He confirmed that a big number of civilizations had developed in the spiral arms of the galaxy and many of them had reached simultaneously, albeit independently, an advanced technological level. From Sumeru’s point of view, their experiments were of course the first primitive endeavors to enter and explore space. The scientist said that all civilizations were being monitored as had always been the case from the very first days. He presented a chart of the galaxy where the star systems of the upcoming civilizations were marked. They were scattered all over the galaxy, but in fact most were located in the spiral arms of the galaxy. It was not a surprise. The star systems in the outer bounds of the galaxy were much younger than the systems close to the core, billions of years younger than the ancient center systems. New stars had also developed in the inner regions of the galaxy, but only a small number compared to the developments in the spiral arms.

Naamah searched the planet Ki as they had called it in the past. It was marked on the chart as one of the upcoming civilizations. They had progressed quickly on Ki, Naamah thought. He looked at Azrael. The Devas had laid the foundation for civilization 5,000 Ki years ago. 5,000 years ago, the Devas had also split up with the rest of the Asuras. Naamah understood why there had been a war, but he found that a complete split-up was exaggerated and he was of the opinion that the Devas had started the war.

Naamah turned his head back to the speaker. It depended much on point of view, of course. The war was noted in Asuras history and officially marked the split-up into two groups. The reason for the war, however, was somewhat obscure and nobody had really cared to uncover the truth. Or not wanted to, Naamah thought. Neither of the groups had wanted to reveal the truth. There was some talk of a mutiny, putting things back to order, safety of space and space travel. The whole unfounded talk left people confused and they quickly lost interest in this part of Asuras history. The archives stressed the split-up of the groups and made it a separation cause because of different intents and approaches as to how to deal with civilizations when in direct contact with the natives. Naamah suppressed a yawn.

First contact with a civilization was officially made only when Sumeru offered an invitation. However, contact was made on two more occasions, either when a Sumeru teacher was sent to teach the civilization or during a space mission on the planet, scientific exploration or a mining operation. Both had been the case with Ki and both operations had been taken too far. The whole incident was swept under the carpet to not establish a precedent. Maybe it was regarded too minor an incident, not worth a detailed investigation, Naamah mused.

The scientist ended his general explanations and pointed out that the disturbances caused by the civilizations due to their warp experiments were no danger to the space-time fabric.

The head of the council read the Khet request again. Like Naamah had expected, immediate protests were raised. Many representatives said the request should have never been put on the agenda since it was against all ethical standards, others protested against the Khet’s impertinence in general, and a few demanded a more neutral discussion and asked for more information on the new civilizations. Naamah looked at Azrael. The Deva followed the discussion attentively but seemed to have no interest in joining it.

The Khet representative defended his argument. He doubted the scientist’s analysis and finally demanded extermination of the failed planets. He said that failed planets were planets with upcoming civilizations that had gotten stuck in the one-world-mode. Since so many civilizations in the outbound regions of the galaxy had developed, Sumeru had to reckon with many stuck ones in the future. The man asked as to why monitor all these stuck civilizations and wait for them to ruin themselves. It would be better to help in the matter and exterminate the failed planets before they could do harm to the space-time fabric.

This brought Azrael to his feet.

Naamah felt a shiver running down his spine.

Azrael demanded silence. His aura was strong and discussions subdued.

“The cosmos is bigger than every civilization. The cosmos will outlast every civilization. The cosmos is never at stake,” Azrael said. He paused and looked around in the hall, then raised his voice. “No civilization has the right to exterminate another civilization. No civilization has the right to play god.”

The hall applauded. The point was made.