Chapter One: Helix
“Words are expressions of light in the mind.
Matter is light cast in form.
Starlight holds messages to be divined.
Lightning reveals the storm.”
(A litany of the Tatimi)
Standing before her classroom of young students, the teacher said, “As I am certain you know, everyone upon our world, Xim, speaks Glymish. But it wasn’t always that way. Although our people, the Tatimi, were once at war with the inhabitants of Xel, who refer to themselves as the Obůron, our age-old treaty successfully brought that conflict to an end. There’s no longer a common language between us. Being situated between our two planets, the shared moon we both call Nethyr Wůrld too easily served as a gateway for launching assaults on each other. It was started by the Obůron, who are a much more mechanized society. They do not recognize the preeminence of nature as we do. Their irresponsible consumption of their natural resources made them desperate to find some way of extending their provisions, so they tried to take them from us. And thus began a series of attacks and counterattacks that went on for many millennia.”
“Did anyone lay claim to the moon?” Femme asked, after raising her hand and being called upon.
“At various times we both did,” the teacher patiently replied. “The Obůron wanted to use it as a staging area from which to launch their assaults upon us. We wanted to use it as a defensive position from which to deter their attacks and ultimately to launch our own attacks against their planet. It was because of the importance of its position that it finally was seen as the ultimate means of curtailing the conflict.”
“Could we go back to planets and stars and the unusual arrangement you described concerning our world?” one of the young boys, Crescov, asked.
“The other planets in our system appear uninhabited and orbit in a plane around the central star,” she answered. “We call that plane the ecliptic. Nethyr Wůrld orbits that way as well. But Xim and Xel, which form a double-planet system, orbit at right angles to that ecliptic. They essentially pinwheel around their shared moon. Because they are rotating, they both experience cycles of day and night. Therefore the peoples of both planets are descended from the same star, made of the same light. And yet, it seems as if no peace is possible between us.”
“But we cooperated with the Obůron when it came to the making of the dragons, did we not?” Femme asked.
“We agreed to the solution, but each race created their own version of the monsters that now inhabit the moon and efficiently prevent any further passage between our once-warring worlds. They are the Lore Wards. The two races are as different from each other as we are from the Obůron. And we really only know about the ones we created. Even at that, it was all so long ago that much about their inception has been forgotten. There are indications that they successfully cohabit Nethyr Wůrld, but we also believe they occupy different parts of the satellite. For obvious reasons such a determination is impossible to make. The treaty forbids the launching of even probes toward Nethyr Wůrld, because it could be a prelude to a resumption of the war.”
“And the double-planet system we form with Xel is called Helix?” Crescov inquired.
“That’s correct,” the teacher smilingly replied. “And we know of its like nowhere else. But then again, we know almost nothing of other solar systems although we assume that they exist.”
“But we know something about the dragons we created, don’t we?” Femme insisted. “Surely it hasn’t all been lost to time.”
“We call those we created the Mystic,” the teacher wistfully replied. “No creature we know of has the ability to truly teleport. But some of you may know of the Shynda. It can dissolve into a constituent cloud of particles to escape from a predator while maintaining enough cohesion to reassemble in safety. This ability was bred into the Mystic. Because of their fiery nature, their translocations reportedly appear more like lightning bolts. They have not been observed for millennia. But because of their buoyant nature, it is assumed that they primarily inhabit the upper atmosphere of Nethyr Wůrld.”
“Where did the last part of the name come from?” Crescov inquired. “I can’t find it in the dictionary.”
“It’s what the Obůron call the moon. Our name for it is Nethyr. The term we now use is a compound of the two words.”
“Do we know nothing of the dragons they created?” Crescov pressed.
“They had to be equipped to cohabitate an inhospitable environment. Nethyr Wůrld is after all a volcanic moon. They call their contribution the Cyborn. We are not certain if they are completely mechanical or simply cybernetic. But we collectively refer to the two draconic races as the Lore Wards.”
“To prevent the reemergence of the dreaded war lords of old?” Femme couldn’t help but giggle as she asked.
“Precisely. They’re ultimately tasked with the purpose of protecting our two cultures, our lore. And I do believe the play on words was intentional. Somebody in our deep past apparently had quite a sense of humor. Crescov, you’ll be able to find it if you look up the term in its entirety. Our language is of course Glymish. To find Wůrld listed by itself you’d need a Glyphyc dictionary. That’s the word the Obůron use for their own language. You can find one in the reference library. Now if you’ll will please get out your math books, we can move on to the next subject.”
A brief murmur of discontent swept through the classroom, but everybody eventually complied. The teacher marked the names of the students who didn’t seem displeased by her instruction. One of them was Femme Gelesco, who seemed instead to be excited by the development. The teacher had determined that an important part of expanding one’s knowledge lay in a genuine desire to learn. She’d sensed this in Femme. It was the other students who represented her challenge, and exposition and repetition seemed to be her greatest tools for instilling lessons in those who were somewhat less receptive. She was relieved when the session on mathematics came to a close. But before she could move on, Femme raised her hand again.
“I have a question about what we were discussing before,” the girl began. “You said we’ve had no more communication with the Obůron since the signing of the treaty. And I understand that a circumnavigation of Nethyr Wůrld would probably be prevented by the dragons. That’s what they’re for. But we haven’t lost our capacity for space travel. We’ve sent probes to the outer planets, and we used to wage interplanetary war. Why could we not send a ship around the sun and intercept Xel in its solar orbit? The treaty only forbids travel around the moon, not the sun.”
“For what possible purpose?” Crescov interjected before the teacher could answer.
“We’ve now learned to exist peacefully,” Femme fumingly answered, as if the query was ridiculous. “Perhaps we can do better. But we’d have to at least start talking before we could make that determination.”
“The next logical move would be the establishment of trade,” the teacher was quick to reply. “And I’m afraid the Lore Wards would prevent that just as quickly as they would a war. The stopgap that was installed leaves no alternative but for the continuation of the cold war. And the route you’re suggesting, while maybe feasible, would make an attempt at trade far less economical.”
“Trade would obviously have to wait. I was thinking more about the establishment of embassies. I meant we’d literally have to start by talking to each other. That would have to happen before any determination of trade possibilities could take place.”
“Perhaps you should eventually consider running for public office,” the teacher said in circumspect reply. When several of the other students laughed as if they thought she was joking, she continued, “I was being completely serious. Some of our future leaders might very well be sitting in this classroom. It’s not too early to start thinking about your futures.”
“I’d vote for you,” Crescov boisterously volunteered, smiling suggestively at Femme, which only induced more laughter from the rest of the class.
Crescov came alongside Femme as they were exiting the classroom, after the day’s sessions had ended. There was a movie that was soon to open, and he asked her if she would like to be his guest. She recognized his request for a date. They had always been friends, but his intentions toward seemed to have changed. Nevertheless, she agreed to see the movie with him. He took his leave and then left to be picked up by a parent.
Femme lived within walking distance of the school. And there was a sanctuary along the route. She decided to stop in and meditate for a while about her teacher’s suggestion and her now upcoming date with Crescov. The Great Spirit seemed to her to affirm her suggested choice of career. She felt no such optimism when it came to Crescov. She then headed home.
When the awaited day came, she and Crescov were each taken to the theater by a respective parent. They were dropped off and left to see the movie. Afterward, they were picked up the same way and taken home. Femme was picked up by her mother.
“So, how did it go?” her mother asked.
“The movie was okay. It was a science fiction film, probably much more appealing to Crescov than to me.”
Her mother glanced sidelong at her as she jovially rejoined, “No, I was attempting to find out how your date went.”
“I wasn’t quite comfortable with his friskiness during the first part of the film. But then there was an intermission, and I got a chance to actually talk to him. I recently selected a career path, and it will require us reporting to separate campuses. Aside from friendship, I therefore see no future for us. He seemed to be somewhat disappointed, but I believe he understood.”
“What’s this?”
“The more I consider it, the more certain I become. I believe I’m destined to become a social engineer and eventually an ambassador.”
“Ambassador to whom?”
“The Obůron.”
Upon arriving home she shared her decision with her father. Seeing that she’d made up her mind, neither of her parents challenged her choice. Having discharged her duty to her parents, Femme then went out into the backyard to do some stargazing. The shared moon, Nethyr Wůrld, proceeded prominently through the night sky. It seemed to demand every bit of her attention, until her father came out to tell her that it was probably time for her to call it a night.
His attention was only on her, and hers was only upon the moon. He didn’t see what she saw, although he heard her gasp.
“What just happened?” he earnestly inquired.
“I just saw lightening on Nethyr Wůrld.”
“I’ve heard a rumor that the translocations of the Mystics resemble lightning. Maybe that’s what you just saw.”
“It didn’t go side-to-side. It seemed to come right up out of the ground and reach up into the sky.”
“Nethyr Wůrld is, after all, a volcanic moon. And volcanic plumes even on our planet have been known to produce lightning bolts. Maybe that’s what you just witnessed. Just because it’s a moon doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen there, although I’ve never heard of such a thing ever occurring before.”
Neither had she ever heard of such a phenomenon before. It concerned her to think changes might be taking place someplace on the shared satellite, especially beneath the surface where they would easily be impossible to observe. She continued to look on the now-troubling globe for several seconds, waiting breathlessly for the disturbing display to be repeated. It was not.
But her father failed to notice Femme’s frown as she doubtfully replied, “Perhaps.”
***
The campus of higher education to which Femme went was far across the country in which she lived. She could’ve traveled by air, but she enjoyed taking the journey by land. The flowing vistas were verdant with flowering flora, which the Tatimi all took exceptional pride in looking after. Although it took some time for her to get used to being so far away from family, her extremely eclectic curriculum had soon forced her to focus her attention on her studies. Her choice of campuses had been necessitated by her desire to learn the language of the Obůron, Glyphyc. Her native tongue, Glymish, was quite dissimilar. And her interest in law, particularly as it related to treaties, meant spending many long hours with her books. Other much more electronic options were available, but she’d found she preferred the printed word long ago. It seemed to make memorization much easier. This meant she was actually pursuing a double major, but she saw no other way for achieving her objective. There was no single course to prepare her for being an ambassador to the Obůron.
Flashes of lightning, like the one she’d observed in her youth, were becoming much more common. Since they obviously originated somewhere beneath the moon’s surface, their source was exceedingly mysterious. It seemed as if almost everyone had some sort of suggestion for what was causing them. One of the more imaginative, and of which she was the most enamored, was that the Lore Wards had created some type of technology of which it was a side effect. This to her would indicate that the two types of dragons had been able to learn to cooperate. If true, she hoped it was an example their creators could ultimately emulate.
Although they never spoke openly about it, she suspected that Crescov had found a love interest on campus. When they saw each other while at home on breaks, they really only talked about collegiate matters. The leaders of the scientific community, to which he hoped to ascend, were floating the idea of sending a probe to Nethyr Wůrld. His concern was that this might constitute a violation of the treaty. Femme was studying the language of just such documents, so he wondered if she might be able to offer any insights on the subject.
Although she was becoming fluent in the language of legalese, she had yet to tackle the minutia of that particular treaty. She was still adjusting to the realization that he quite clearly no longer held romantic intentions toward her. Although she’d never reciprocated, it seemed strange to no longer have to rebuff his advances, and she didn’t like it.
Being a bookworm had not resulted in the cultivation of any romantic relationships at the campus. Unlike some of her previous female classmates, most of whom had already been weeded out by the process, she had not pursued a higher education in search of a suitor. Even though she wasn’t opposed to the development of a love life, her scholastic objectives were of paramount importance to her. But Crescov had always been there in the background before. She felt a sense of loss about his altered attitude. And from the manner in which he shied away from any discussion about social relationships at school, she began to suspect that he was trying not to make her jealous. It was however having the opposite outcome. It felt as if their friendship had gone backward, but she gradually acclimated to the new arrangement. He clearly respected both her and her opinion.
At the start of what was essentially the equivalent of post-graduate work, she gained access to a new professor and guidance counselor, one who was also fluent in Glyphyc. In addition, he was also very knowledgeable in what little was known about the culture of the Obůron. The office time she scheduled with him proved to be very instructive.
“I can both read and speak the language of the Obůron,” she began by saying, “but I have no idea what one even looks like.”
“You’re anticipating an encounter?” Professor Cwon Orimony insightfully asked. ’I’ve examined your transcript in preparation for this meeting. Unless I’m misinterpreting your intentions, you appear to be pursuing an ambassadorial position.”
“I have a friend who is studying engineering. He’s hoping to join a team that plans to send a probe to Nethyr Wůrld. Given the evidently underground origin of the electrostatic discharges, I am not at all certain the probe will yield useful information. It might even be destroyed by the dragons before it has a chance. The next step would be to contact the Obůron. If a manned mission to the moon were required, they’d obviously have to be in agreement and probably even need to participate.”
“They are bipedal like us and approximately the same size as an adult Tatimi. There the similarities end. Back during the war our scientists had the opportunity and examined some of their deceased soldiers. They came to the conclusion that the Obůron probably descended from an insectoid species of their planet and might have even had something like exoskeletons. As a result they each have an unusually thick epidermis, which makes them particularly resilient in battle. We, on the contrary, evolved from the plant life on our planet and are able to incorporate photosynthesis into our digestive system, which gives us the ability to abstain from other sorts of sustenance for extended durations. Of course it also causes our skin to have a greener complexion that many of the other mammalian animals on Xim.”
“Is anything known about their culture?”
“Very highly industrialized. Most of this is from probes sent there during the war, and it might therefore be outdated. But the massive corporations seem to supply every need of their work force; groceries, entertainment, medical facilities, and accommodations. It’s assumed that one of the Obůron would have to move in order to change jobs, unless the alternate employment happened to be in one of these associated industries. They seem to mimic the life forms on their world when it comes to mechanization. All their machines look very similar to animals that perform the same functions. They therefore demonstrate their own kind of respect for nature. But that didn’t make us diplomatically compatible.”
“Do we know anything about their political systems or how their leadership might be arranged?
“Probably to protect it, we were never able to ascertain anything about their social structure. Our forays would almost certainly have been more effective if only we‘d been able to understand their leadership structures. And given the substantial amount of time that has elapsed, that information might no longer be relevant. We can’t even be certain if their political structure and their military structure were the same thing.”
“So they’re bipedal and about the same size as one of us. But do they look like us?”
“Not so much. Being of ostensibly insectoid origins, they have more eyes. They also inherited bioluminescence from the sea creatures they were in the past. It is conjectured that they can communicate by using it. They’re stronger than we are, but that advantage is nullified by that fact that they have only two arms. While we also only have two actual arms, they are of course augmented on each side by our pair of vine-like appendages on either side. It has been suggested that they are more like tentacles, or leftovers from our oceanic origins. And while we are somewhat green in appearance, they are slightly blue. Therefore, they are more sapphire and we are more emerald.”
“Thank you, professor. Is there anything else I need to know?”
“There is the matter of diction. From some of the communiques we intercepted, it is clear that people from different parts of their planet have distinctive accents that seem to identify their places of origin. I doubt if it’s something that would impede your capacity for communicating with any of them. But it might throw you off a bit on your initial encounter. It’s just something to keep in mind.”
“I notice you haven’t tried to talk me out of my ambition,” Femme daintily observed.
“With no background in astronomy, you’re probably unaware that the more volcanic side of Nethyr Wůrld is tidal-locked to face Xel. It’s therefore completely possible that the Obůron have some insight into what’s causing these electrostatic discharges that eludes us. After all the time we’ve spent evading it, I think some form of space travel will now be required for us to gain any understanding of what’s really happening beneath the surface of our shared moon. And maybe it’s time for this extended cold war to end, anyway.”
“I’ve been thinking that very same thing for quite a while now, sir. Thank you so very much for your time.”
***
Because of the way the double-planet system of Helix rotated, the moon could only be seen in a darkened sky when day was approaching dusk. But both the frequency and the intensity of the electrostatic discharges had increased so much that they could also be seen in daylight. It had become practically a planetary pastime to sit out of doors and watch them, timing their arrival. This is what Femme and Crescov were doing when they got together over the next scholastic break.
She knew the moon probe had been launched and that he probably had news of its outcome. His attitude however was guarded, and not simply by the shadows that spilled across his shaded face. She finally decided to press him on the matter. He spoke quietly as he replied.
“It’ll be on the news waves any moment now, so I don’t suppose I’m giving away any big secret. We knew the discharges were random. Not even the openings, through which they erupted, occurred in any predictable order. But our principal apprehension was that the probe might be destroyed by the dragons. We didn’t anticipate the possibility that the probe might be destroyed by a discharge; and yet, that is exactly what happened. All the planning and the expense were for nothing. And the scientific community has no backup plan of which I’m aware.”
“Except the one I’ve been pursuing throughout all the years of my education.”
“I’m going to be brutally honest with you. We’ve been friends for a long time. I think I owe you my honesty. When you first started talking about contacting the Obůron, I really thought your cheese had slid off its cracker. It didn’t bother me because I had a different agenda for you at the time. Then I recognized that this weird ambition you harbored had led you to sustain knowledge that was only being maintained by a very few people. Now, I think you might represent our only hope of finding out what’s wrong with Nethyr Wůrld.”
“I appreciate your candor, I think,” she impishly replied as she playfully punched him in the shoulder. “But are you really all out of ideas?”
“I think I can maybe help you with yours, and in a couple of ways. As I’m sure you’re aware, our space fleet has been mothballed for centuries. It would’ve been better if only we’d parked it in orbit. Things don’t rust in space. I’ll have to carefully inspect every ship, run systems’ checks, and ultimately remove the weapon systems from whichever vessel I believe to be worthy of the trip. And you don’t have to fly all the way around the central star in order to reach Xel. We can simply fly ahead of the orbit of Helix and wait for Xel to catch up with us.”
“We? Us? Won’t you be leaving somebody behind?”
“I haven’t talked to you about Crys. She’s the greatest. She already has a license to fly. And while I’m getting our vessel in shipshape, she’ll be learning its operations. You’ll need a pilot to fly you there. And you will need an engineer aboard just in case anything goes wrong. I hope the Obůron honor the fact that we’re coming to them unarmed, since we’ll be coming with you.”
