Koban: Rise of the Kobani (54 page)

“The Krall said the Raspani were helped by the Olt’kitapi. Did the Raspani learn their quantum level control of physics from the Olt’kitapi?”

The Prada wiggled uncomfortably, and his head made back and forth sideways motions several times. Maggi, as usual when they talked, was touching one of his hands. She sensed his mind was confused. She also concluded that his sideways head motion signified that mental state.

“Do you know the Krall say that they destroyed the Olt’kitapi?” she asked him.

A head dart, followed by a sideways movement came in succession. However, he did not speak and she received no mental images at all. His face was very still, not even the usual nose or whisker twitches. The little Prada had gradually learned how to hold back thoughts he did not want to share, and this appeared to be one of those times. He was apparently straining to keep his thoughts private.

Nevertheless, the combination signal of affirmation, followed by a probable sign of confusion was a clue. She had planned to bring the subject up later, but this seemed like a good opportunity now.

She prodded him gently. “The Prada respect the Krall as Rulers, because their species has been in space since ancient times, because they are older than your own race. You accept that these Rulers have the right to decide the fate of the Prada, the Torki, and the Raspani, by virtue of having existed longer, and being an older species. What of the Olt’kitapi?” A sideways head wobble was his only sign.

“The Krall told us, and I heard this myself, that the Olt’kitapi was older than the Krall. That this species wanted to help the Krall to change, but they thought they were making them weak. How do you
know
which are the older species? The Olt’kitapi also helped the Raspani become great, and that species learned a science that even you and the Torki do not fully understand.”

The sense of confusion increased, as Wister’s head moved side to side more sharply. He spoke, with no mental pictures to reinforce his words. “The Olt’kitapi species is gone, and are not able to speak. If they were older and had greater science, the Rulers could not have, would not have been able to defeat them. The Rulers defeated the Raspani, so they must have also been older than that species to overcome them. The Rulers say they are destined to rule the galaxy, and they have vanquished all they have met.”

Maggi stared at him a moment. “There is an expression in my language. It says that after a war, the winner writes the history. That means that only the winner’s version of the reasons for the war is heard later, and the other side of the story is lost.

“The Krall are undoubtedly, undeniably, mighty warriors. Yet one of our own young Kobani can fight any individual Krall warrior, unarmed, and probably defeat that warrior. Are we then right to claim that we Kobani are destined to rule the galaxy, if the Krall cannot defeat us? If we somehow defeat the Krall in war, and say we deserve to rule the galaxy, you Prada will know that is false. Obviously, you know that strength and victory does not make us deserve the right to rule older species. I say it does not grant us the right to rule any species, younger or older.”

Speaking hesitantly, Wister strove to explain. “There are none to speak for the Olt’kitapi or the Raspani. There have been doubts spoken in the past, but it is wrong to disobey an elder you know is senior to yourself.” That appeared to be the crux of their subservience to the Krall. That and the fact that to oppose them would lead to extinction.

She questioned him. “If an elder species became the eldest by removing those that were older, more mature, do they deserve the respect of a younger species as being wiser, as deserving to rule them?”

“Diplomat Maggi, the Prada understand this principle, as even a very young species such as yours is able to perceive. Yet the truth that the Krall are older than us is supported by all evidence. We believe that makes them better suited to rule the galaxy than ourselves, or the now mindless Raspani. However, a practical matter remains if we rejected our long held beliefs. The Krall are, as you stated, ‘undoubtedly, undeniably, a mighty race’ which has defeated all others.”

Maggi was as surprised by his pragmatism as she was his first use of “Krall” to describe the Rulers. He was largely successful at blocking his thoughts, but his lack of experience at mind sharing, and innate honesty, made it difficult to hold back all that he felt.

She shifted away from this uncomfortable subject for him, to one she expected to be better received. “Wister, on Koban we have been protecting over three thousand Raspani, which were kept in a covered compound by the largest dome, located by the ocean. Do you know of that dome?”

“Yes. I directed the early construction of that dome, the only one by the sea. My sister was present when it was completed under her direction, and I had returned here to rest. She described the Raspani protective structure. That completely covered enclosure is the only such we know of that was ever built. Other worlds were not so dangerous that a tough transparent roof was required, as well as sides for a compound. The Raspani were left behind to die?” He sounded surprised.

“Just as we were left to die, when the Krall left in their eagerness to make war with our other worlds. Had we not discovered the Raspani, and helped with their health needs and food requirements, they would have died in a hand of orbits, I think. We have a school where we are trying to teach them how to help themselves. However, the high gravity on Koban shortens their lives. We wish to bring them to Haven to live. Do you think they can survive here in the open?”

“Wild marsh dogs and their cousins would hunt them, and the larger ones that we also fear. The ones you have called werewolves. The large black gundolor is another hunter that would kill some of them. I heard the young Kobani named Bradley call a gundolor that entered the forest two days ago a giant wolverine.  The skathers, the long legless water predators, will also try to eat them when they come to drink at the rivers. The Raspani will be able to eat the vegetation here safely, because they did that before, when the Rulers lived here for more than ten hands of orbits. A strong high fence will protect them, to keep most predators away, as was done then.”

“Do you agree that your people think the Raspani are an elder race to the Prada?”

“Yes, of course.” The thoughts she detected from him suggested he suspected this was a leading question. He was right.

“If the Raspani retained their intelligence, would they wish to be protected from the predators?”

“You ask questions that have only one answer from me. If they retained their
intelligence, they would protect themselves. Say what you really mean.”

“Will the Prada build the fences, and help protect that elder species if we bring them here, and try to restore their intelligence?”

“You Kobani want to give up the responsibility for protecting them?”

He’s becoming a perceptive little devil,
she thought.

“We do not have the materials to make a fence large enough, and we believe the other people here should share the responsibility to help this unfortunate elder species.”

“Diplomat Maggi, you have a way to identify what motivates those you negotiate with, and make them do what their beliefs require them to do, as you intended.”

“If that means you will help, then I was a successful diplomat and negotiator.”

“The people of this village will help. However, you told me that there were several thousand Raspani. That will require a great deal of open land for them to browse, and the other two Prada villages should accept part of the work and responsibility. I believe even the Torki would wish to contribute in some way, but not in the same manner as your people and mine do. They do not have open land suitable for Raspani, and building a fence is not the best skill they could offer.”

“What skills can they offer?”

“You were trying to teach them, and wanted to awaken their minds. We were told by the Torki that the Raspani deliberately submerged their minds. If they know this much, they may know how that was done, and how to reverse the process. The Torki may be better teachers than your people.”

“How will I make contact with your other two villages, and with the Torki? I don’t want the next village elder to send his dogs after me. If I’m forced to kill them, I may have a problem becoming friends with them.” She smiled, trying to keep her teeth less exposed. Flashing your teeth was a Prada gesture of anger, since they showed their sharp little teeth when mad. The blunt teeth of humans were less threatening, but it was the gesture that was significant, not the potential bite.

“If you will provide transportation in a shuttle, I will send representatives to the other two villages, to explain who you are, and what we must do for the Raspani. After the way is prepared, you or another of your people can meet with them. I will go with you to meet the Torki at the one place I know they used to live, on the western shore of this land. They will not be very far from there, even if they have moved in the orbits that have passed. They do not regulate their population as we do, and move to avoid late arriving young. The young that the sea creatures did not consume.”

“They expand their population indefinitely?”

“No. They eat many of their young when they return home too early from the sea to molt on land. The adolescents return to the waters where the millions of eggs were released. If they are late to return to the birth beach, after many molts elsewhere, they appear too much like a mature Torki to eat. However, they will never develop the intelligent mind of an adult. Therefore they move their tunnels and caves to avoid that problem.”

“Uh…, OK.” There wasn’t much to say to that.

****

When Maggi parked at the base of the Beagle, Marlyn was waiting to meet her, as Kobalt ran to her to deliver a wet raspy-tongued lick, and a brief frill. “I heard what was said. Were Wister’s thoughts as sincere as he sounded? Will they help watch after the Raspani?”

“Yes. It is an obligation they will meet, partially as a form of retribution for past neglect of a species they have known was senior to theirs. I believe Wister was concealing thoughts he has privately held that the Krall have been ‘less than moral’ in dealings with older species.”

“Gee. Do you think so?” Marlyn responded sarcastically.

“I don’t know how the extreme youthfulness of humanity will play out with the Prada in general. They don’t exactly have ancestor worship, since some of those ‘ancestors’ have avoided accidents and still live with them, like Wister and his older sister, Nawella. But they took the pragmatic view that it was necessary to accept the rule of the Krall because they couldn’t stop them, and the Krall apparently
are
an older species.” 

“I don’t know about you, but human history seems pretty long to me. I’ve read about the fossils that link us back a few million years.”

“Fossil lineage isn’t the measure used for a species maturity, at least not by the Prada, and it appears not by the Torki either, if Wister described their viewpoint accurately. The birth of a mature species seems to be when they achieve space flight, and start to leave their home system. I frankly don’t think I was believed, when I said we launched our first humans into low orbits just barely six hundred years ago, yet we have settled on more than seven hundred planets, in a slightly flattened sphere within a nearly five hundred light-years radius of our birth world, and extensively explored another twenty beyond that.”

“What’s so odd about that? That is far less volume than the older species we’ve heard about has controlled. The Olt’kitapi supposedly had colonized ten times that much in radius, except along the Galactic north-south axis, because of the thinness of the disk. The Raspani held sway over a small volume of space for an advanced species, assuming the Krall translators were accurate on the Flight of Fancy recordings I have heard. They settled only a four hands of worlds, it sounded like.
That’s only sixteen worlds.”

“Apparently it isn’t the territory you
own
that measures your maturity, it’s how long you have owned it, or have been colonizing other stars. The Raspani were originally pastoral in nature, not much different than they are forced to live now. They were thinkers and philosophers, and had no drive to expand or overpopulate. Until the Olt’kitapi helped them advance farther, they were only in two star systems. That expanded to about sixteen before the Krall came along. Even if they were slow to expand, they gained maturity ‘credits,’ which I suppose is a term we could use. I can’t find out exactly how long the Raspani took to get that far, because the Prada themselves don’t know. They suspect it was even longer than they took.” Maggi raised her eyebrows, as if to say you won’t believe this.

“How long was it for the Prada?”

“All they have remaining is anecdotal evidence, since they don’t even know where their home world is any longer. Not since the Krall took them along for the conquering ride. They believe they had been in space perhaps seventy thousand ‘orbits’ of their forgotten home world. The length of time for that mythical orbit is no longer remembered. They suspect they lived in a close planet to a red dwarf star, because of their dim light adapted yellow eyes, and liking for the nighttime. A cooler star with a closer orbit could make for a much shorter year than we measure for Earth. Haven’s gravity is a bit higher than their preference, so that fits with most habitable red dwarf rocky worlds being smaller. The Prada were once sociable with other races. Those races are gone now so they have no other reference.”