Koban: Rise of the Kobani (58 page)

He made the telling comment. “It looked very large in the mental image when the sharp object struck, but you showed the flower as smaller first.”

“Yes, this time I did. For Coldar, I only used the mental image I had when we used a miniature camera, to watch this in a recording. It looked huge to him, and I closed my eyes to keep the image sharp and clear so he could see how effective this form of communication can be.”

Marlyn understood. “They all thought they had been pierced. Wow. How do we fix this?”

Hakeem had an idea. “If they will ever talk with us again, I can put that recording on my tissue sample computer. Kap can send it to me if we need the proof. It must be in his library.”

“Do that Hakeem. In the meantime, Brad, open the hatch again please.” Maggi owed some apologies, and already felt the bruising she decided she deserved for the miscalculation.

Coldar was standing thirty feet away again, and this time he and all the other Torki had claw arms elevated, with the pinchers rotated down, tips on the ground. To Maggi it vaguely reminded her of the positions of linemen in the now defunct sport of twentieth century American football, ready to charge forward.

Wister was helpful without being asked. “That is a position of shame. Not of you, but of themselves. They know their reaction was wrong.”

Maggi stepped out, and knowing she looked ridiculous, bent over and placed her fists on the ground in as close an approximation to the Torki posture as she could manage, and held that pose for ten seconds.

Standing up, she called out. “I am sorry. The fault is mine. You have never experienced a mind-to-mind image before.”

Coldar, holding his distance, replied. “I failed to detect the proper scale of the event, to see that it was on a very small size, as when seen very close. I have harmed you. In my fear I made all of those connected through my Olt react the same way.

“This has
never
happened with the Olt in this way, to share our thoughts so clearly, what one of us is seeing so sharply. My emotions became those of all the others, not just the sense of all of our feelings on average. It connected us more strongly than we have ever experienced. When we checked our memories for what we each saw, we discovered a new section of the library within the Olts, which has opened to us for the first time. We will start to explore that information now. This opening of a new part of the library has happened in times past, when we reached a new threshold of development.

“When we were ready for fusion power, and created it ourselves, the Olts of those involved in the work revealed new information on how to use the new knowledge. It happened again when we first reached space, also when we discovered how to draw energy from the Universe where all matter moves faster than light.

“The Olt’kitapi, through the Olt, has continued to help us each time we were ready. This mind sharing today opened another part of the library. We owe you a great debt for this wonder, and I nearly killed you in my panic.”

“Coldar, it was a clumsy accident on my part. Consider it a gift if it proves to be good for your people. You may not have reached a new stage in development on your own, so you may not be as ready as you believe for the new knowledge. We humans have also leaped ahead in development, and may not be ready for where this ability will lead us. However, we know the ability will help us oppose the Krall, and perhaps save our species.”

“You may be able to do what you say against the Krall. For a small creature, you almost broke my shell when you threw me into the air and turned me on my back.” There was a general scraping sound all around them that raised the hairs on the human’s arms and necks.

Maggi winced. “Wister, what is that sound?”

“I have only heard it described, I never heard the sound myself. You have amused the Torki. I think I can wait a very long time to hear this unpleasant laughter again.” From a Prada, with an indefinite life span, that was saying a lot.

****

A day later, the Torki were at ease with the Mind Tap images from Maggi, and their Olts had considerable information concerning how to use the devices for electronic mind sharing between the crabs. Tellingly, the Kobani learned that the range of the Olt device’s communication between Torki was 121 feet. The same range as for the Olt’kitapi made Katusha and the Raspani made Rolperry tools, which was a sign that this was also some short-range quantum effect. Coldar told them that there had never been any electromagnetic signals detected from the Olts, and that they appeared to require no power source. The Torki on the other side of the bay, being out of Olt linkage range, had not experienced the panic of those clustered around the shuttle.

Maggi posed a question. “Coldar, why do you think the Olt’kitapi built those complex devices to migrate to your brains when consumed, and then provide a connection and a source of information between your people? It would have seemed less invasive to simply teach you themselves.”

“Our species was not a true community when we were found by the Olt’kitapi. We lived in groupings, but had no society, no cooperation. We believe the devices were how they helped us slowly to become a people, to share group feelings. They did not fill our minds with knowledge we were not ready to use before we had discovered the science ourselves. Then the information to use the new technology safely was revealed to us. They did not have to be present for those thousands of years as we developed a civilization.”

“That was quite an involved invention, for a newly discovered species.”

“The Olt wasn’t invented for us. The Olt’kitapi already had more advanced versions in their own bodies. There was another version for the Raspani, and one for the Krall.”

“What?” Maggi was startled. “The Krall have something like that inside them? I’ve seen scans of their bodies, and I never saw the objects I can see inside the translucent shells of your Torkedia.”

“The Krall you have met, the same ones the Prada call Rulers, do not have them. They were only given to some of the early Krall that were working to become more civilized. Those Krall that first went to the stars to live and work with the Olt’kitapi. They are the ones that the Krall you have met now refer to as the ‘Soft Krall.’ We believe it was the offer to help them develop mentally, with the guidance of an Olt device custom designed for their race, which pushed the barbarian majority of the original Krall to stage the surprise rebellion.”

“Where is the so-called Soft Krall now?”

“I assume the barbarian warrior Krall destroyed them, along with the Olt’kitapi. Both were gone from the stars thousands of years before the Krall found us. We have no direct memories of either of them.”

“How do you know about this if it all happened before you encountered the Krall?”

“There are references to them in old Olt libraries. When we achieved Jump travel, as you call it, we found we could access limited information about alien races near us that we might meet. The only species in our internal library that we knew of and which still survived when the Krall enslaved us was the Prada and the Raspani.”

“If the Raspani have an Olt-like device inside them, why did they lose their intelligence? You have retained your knowledge after the Krall defeated you.”

“We Torki have examined Raspani remains after the Krall have slaughtered them for food, here and on other worlds. We found no signs of Olts in any of their bodies. Without resources, tools, and knowledge contained in an Olt, they cannot make new ones, as we make ours, so they may all have been lost long ago when the original owners were killed and eaten.”

“Wister hoped you might be able to help the Raspani recover their intelligence. As I explained, we will bring some here to live a more comfortable life than on Koban. We all should try to help them recover their mental capacity if we can.”

Coldar made a tossing move with his smaller left claw. The humans had learned this was a Torki shrug, indicating he didn’t know the answer. “If they still had the implanted devices it might be possible to do so. I think the Krall killed or ate all of the Raspani with Olt implanted devices, and force bred them to keep the species alive. Without the Olts to preserve their knowledge, they would soon lose civilization under the Krall. We know the Prada believe the Raspani hid their minds, and if they were nearly as advanced as the Olt’kitapi was technologically, they possibly could have used their Olts to record their minds in one of the libraries. However, there have been no new Raspani Olts made for many thousands of years, and the minds would have been lost anyway.”

Maggi nodded, in basic agreement. “Nevertheless, with human, Prada, and Torki assistance, they may have the capacity to recover some of what was taken from their minds. I thank you for your offer to help us. We will be bringing the first of them here within a week. Wister has returned to speak with his sister, to activate a part of one of the underground factories to make fencing material.”

“Your mental images must have been very convincing.” Coldar complemented. “We have never known the Prada to do anything that was outside of what their Krall Rulers ordered them to do. The accomplishments of your species, despite your youth, may have sparked the Prada into their first independent thoughts in ten thousand years. You have certainly sparked thoughts of hope in our own minds. With the freedom to ask for materials from the factories, we can make some interesting things for your people. The Krall have never made use of all that we learned from other species. Perhaps we can put that knowledge to good use on your behalf. We wish there were more of you. The Krall have many more warriors than your small population, and can hatch many more in a short while. Even feral Krall are dangerous if they chose to turn them loose on your worlds.”

Marlyn, who had been simply listening to the discussion until now, butted in. “What are feral Krall?”

“Like those on our smallest continent on this planet, which you call Haven. That place will not be suitable for habitation unless they all eat each other.”

With a sigh, Maggi asked. “You mean there are Krall on Haven? When were you going to reveal this to us?”

“There is no danger, so long as they can’t get to any of the other continents. They are surrounded by an ocean they cannot cross, which is filled with creatures that will eat them if they try. Our Torkada, bred for living in the sea are eaten in their millions by ocean life before they return here, and if they land on that continent to escape the predators in the sea, the feral Krall will eat them. They will also eat any Torkedia that land to molt. Except to hunt, breed and lay eggs that is almost all the feral Krall are capable of doing. They have no language, learning, or tools. They fight each other, and eat the losers. They have animal cunning, but never develop high intelligence or technology.”

“How did they get there? Why did the Krall leave them?”

“That place was a nursery continent for several finger clans, with natural geographical boundaries to keep the clan populations separate. The Krall do not nurture or raise their cubs until the survivors reach age five to eight orbits old. Those feral Krall were left there by their parent clans as not worth the salvage of their bloodlines. Had the adult Krall remained there, the feral Krall would have eventually been killed and eaten by the clever and cooperating pre-novice cubs they select for initial training.”

“How dangerous are they?”

“They killed a small Torki colony there many orbits ago. We don’t know if there was a Prada village, but it would be gone by now even if it went underground. There may still be large animals that survive there, and large predators. Eventually the feral Krall eat most animals but themselves, growing weak and starving as their own population is unable to feed the dwindling survivors. There are abandoned worlds where this has happened.”

Maggi wasn’t particularly surprised. “Humans can’t survive without adults to raise and instruct children, but it appears the Krall have also bred to the level where they require adults to intervene to select those cubs that are able to accept training. If all adult Krall were eliminated, or lost all of their technology, the species would not be able to make wars on any but themselves. This is a strategy we have considered, but was not sure if it could work. We want to leave the Krall without the means to use Jump travel, or make war equipment.”

“You will have to eliminate their forced labor, or they will make more weapons.” Coldar didn’t sound any different in tone, but there was an obvious inference here. He surely wanted to know how the Kobani were planning to do this. Was killing the slave workers part of their plan?

“Coldar, did Captain Greeves, Marlyn who is here with me, explain what the name Haven means in our language? That is the name we will use for this world when we speak of it to others of our race.”

“I only heard the sound of the word in your language. You did not use a low Krall word. Does it have a meaning in your language, or is it only a sound that represents this place?”

“It has a meaning. The equivalent meaning in low Krall is a refuge, or a place of safety. We want to bring as many of the forced labor survivors here to this planet as is possible. If the populations on production worlds are not much larger than they were here on Haven when we arrived, that may be possible. However, we don’t have ships larger than clanships in our possession now, and we only have three of those. We considered trying to capture the larger Krall ships we have heard about for that purpose, or find some in Human Space we can buy. To buy them will take more time, and raise questions we don’t want to answer in Human Space. However, we will try to find such transports somehow. We intend to save as many of your people as we can.”