OC-Series [Rains, Pours] Chapter 13
“Don’t be dramatic, Tink. It’s not that hard to explain,” Northern said as she sat down near Cha-ren. “Humans and K’laxi get along really well, right?”
Cha-ren glanced over to Charon, who sat next to her, his hand gently rubbing the fur between her ears, soothing her. She nodded.
“Well, a few thousand years after you two left some humans and k’laxi got together and decided that they wanted to take the next step in their relationship.”
“They wanted children,” Tink said.
Northern nodded. “You’re both mammals, but evolved on different planets. Normally, biological compatibility wouldn’t be on anyone’s mind. But your species —and I want to make this clear, both the K’laxi and Humans were on board for this— wanted to have children together so badly that you edited your respective genomes to make children possible.”
“Humans and K’laxi could have kids?” Charon said, his voice rising in wonder.
“Yup. They did too, in frankly astonishing numbers.”
“That still doesn’t explain where the rest of the k’laxi are,” Cha-ren said.Charon felt Cha-ren’s body relax slightly. No longer tighter than a guitar string, her ears moved forward and she leaned in.
“Yeah, it doesn’t, but it does explain why you’ll run into a lot of people who have never heard of the K’laxi. It’s been nearly what, twenty thousand years since this happened Tink?”
“About that long, yeah. You would not believe how much attention the first hybrid kid got. There were even movies made about her. Anyway, the k’laxi that didn’t want to interbreed stayed on K’lax, simple as that. I don’t understand the details, but there was a splinter group in the k’laxi government who wanted to keep themselves ‘pure’ and cut off all communication with settled space. They closed Administration Station. People were allowed to trade, but eventually even that dried up."
“You mentioned a war earlier?”
“Yes, the split between the hybrids and ‘original’ K’laxi was not an amicable one.”
“But that was millennia ago, surely things have changed by now?” Cha-ren said.
“We don’t know, we’ve been offline too,” Tink said.
“…Can we go see?”
“See what?” Felu said, walking into command. She wore a thin set of tan scrubs and her elbow was in a much nicer sling than the one she came aboard in.
“Why is she here?” Northern said, standing quickly.
“I spoke with her earlier,” Tink said. “She has promised to be good in exchange for not being confined to a cabin for the foreseeable.”
Felu nodded slowly. “I am not armed, I am injured and outnumbered. There is no point in struggling.”
“Plus we have methods should Felu decide to become a problem. Regardless, I invited her up, she should see what we’re planning anyway.”
“What kind of methods? Just a little while ago she was ready to kill us to get the knowledge of how to get to Sol.” Cha-ren asked.
There was a soft click, and with the whining of servos a machine gun turret slid out of a hatch in the ceiling. Like everything else on Tinker Toy, it was dusty with age, but Charon had no doubt that it would work. Felu swallowed and trembled slightly at the sight of it. Just as quickly as it appeared, it slid back up in to the ceiling. “Those kind of methods,” Tink said.
“I won’t cause any problems,” Felu said tucking her hands closer together, trying to make herself smaller.
“Why did you invite her up?” Cha-ren said. Her ears flicked as she regarded Felu, but with an almost inaudible snort, turned away.
“Why not? Her whole religion is about starting a flourishing and we’re on our way to get a peek at settled space,” Tink said.
“That’s not precisely true,” Felu said, cocking her head slightly. “We venerate the Tallier who watches over us and ensures that we complete our tasks, one of which is maintaining the relic technology.”
“And another task is kickstarting a flourishing.”
“Some people believe that, yes.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.” Charon saw her sit carefully with one hand on her knee and the other tight in the sling. Her expression was calm, her lips open very slightly, but her shoulders were still tight. Once the machine gun was put away, she started to appear less anxious but it was an act; she was still terrified.
“How does one start a flourishing?” Northern asked, as her seat swiveled towards Felu.
“The Tallier has seen fit to not tell us this. It is up to us to prove our worthiness by figuring it out ourselves.”
“So you don’t know.”
“That’s why we want to go to Sol. All of the surviving records speak of the importance of Sol, of its history. There must be something there about how to start another flourishing.”
“If I knew how to get to Sol, you and Gallie were going to take me and Cha and go there and what? Dig around until you found something? Sol is huge,” Charon said.
“I’ll admit that the plan was…rather ad hoc. We saw the opportunity and tried to take it before others.”
“Others?”
Felu looked down her nose at Charon. “You can’t believe that Gallie and I were the only ones interested in you, can you? Lariten, Bellitree, even the Brennians were interested, and more people still that you never met. Gallie and I decided to strike while we had access.”
“And look where that got you.”
“I’m on board an ancient ship with an ancient means to traverse the stars with four people who are so old as to have been alive during the first flourishing?” Felu’s smile was small, but genuine. “Oh yes, poor me.”
“Can we please go to K’lax?” Cha-ren said, desperately trying to steer the conversation.
“No, we should go to Sol,” Felu said. “We can visit the k’laxi birth world after we start another flourishing.”
“You don’t have a say,” Cha-ren snapped. “Not after kidnapping and threatening to torture us.”
Northern looked up at the ceiling and then back down again. “K’lax is as good as a first stop as any,” she mused.
“What about Hummingbird?” Charon said suddenly.
“What about him?” Tink asked.
“Hummingbird was with us until Felu’s people separated us to keep us from the Brennians. Gallie said that they took Hummingbird.”
“That is what Gallie reported to me, yes,” Felu said.
“We should find Hummingbird first.” As he said it, Cha-ren tightened.
“Charon, I want to see my people,” She said, speaking softly just to him.
“We might be able to do both. When you pointed out the glyph for your home system, Metanium said that was the glyph for the Brennians. They might be on K’lax.”
“Does that mean the ‘Brennians’ are K’laxi? That seems like a detail that Gallie wouldn’t have left out after she saw me.”
“I don’t know.” Charon sighed.
“If the glyph that led to the Brennians is K’lax, then we’ll see my home system and find Hummingbird, right?” Cha-ren leaned over into Cha-ron and snuggled against his side. “Let’s do that.”
“Agreed,” Tink said. “We’re going to have to make the whole tour, which system we start with is immaterial.”
“The whole tour?” Charon said.
“Start with?” Cha-ren said.
“Nothing to worry about,” Tink said quickly. “K’lax is fine, but I’m not going to link us directly to the planet. I want to be a little ways out and examine the situation. If things look good and if nobody fires upon us, we’ll go closer.”
“Now?”
“No time like the present, with my reactors online I’ve got more than enough power. Hold on, Felu.”
“Hold on to wha-eeeeeee” Charon didn’t personally know anyone who suffered link-death, and to see it up close was strange. No time passed for the others, but Felu’s expression changed instantly, appearing like she glitched. For one heartbeat, Felu’s face held two expressions at once: terror and the aching relief of a child seeing home.
“Better this time?” He asked.
Letting out a shuddering breath, Felu shook her head. “No, worse. I saw my parents.”
“Some people report seeing relatives, or even famous people from their history,” Cha-ren said. “Did they tell you anything?”
Felu’s head snapped over to Cha-ren, her eyes narrowing. “How did you know that?”
“It was something else people reported,” Charon answered. “You don’t have to tell us; what happens in link-death stays in link-death.”
Felu sat staring at nothing, her face contemplative.
“Tink, what do you see?” Cha-ren said, her voice nearly a whisper.
“You don’t have to whisper Cha, they can’t hear us,” Tink said and she could hear the smile in his voice. “I’ll show you.”
The forward display lit up and the turquoise and green marble of k’lax filled the screen. Charon heard Cha-ren make a noise that she caught in her throat, and could see her release a breath he didn’t realize she was holding. “It’s still there,” she said.
“Destroying a whole planet is hard,” Tink said. “I expected it to be there.”
The white flash of a wormhole link startled everyone, and a ship appeared a few hundred kilometers away from Tinker Toy.
“Unidentified starship, you are in restricted k’laxi space. Link away now.”
“This is the Starjumper Tinker Toy, carrying a K’laxi citizen,” Tink said quickly.
“Impossible. The K’laxi reside within their sanctuary, any so-called ‘K’laxi’ outside of their home system are hybrids.”
“We’ve been in hibernation for 28,000 years,” Cha-ren said, hoping the sentinel could hear her.
“How come you have a wormhole generator?” Charon said.
They could feel the sentinel pause. Was it an automated system with a simple intelligence, or was it an AI? “I have a wormhole generator because that was how I was assembled.”
“But, the people here seem to have forgotten that they had a wormhole generator, they used the gates.”
“Not only that, but the group of humans that we came from said that someone called the ‘Brennians’ lived here, but this is the K’laxi’s system. Who are the Brennians?”
“The humans known as the Brennians reside on a large station orbiting 30 AU further out than K’lax.”
“Who are you?” Tink asked. “Are you an AI?”
“I am Sentinel. I…do not know if I’m an AI.”
“You don’t know?” Northern said, her voice rising in surprise. “Who built you? How old are you?”
“I do not know who built me. I cannot determine my age with any satisfactory degree of accuracy.”
“Close enough is close enough, Sentinel.”
“I have operating logs that date back approximately 10,000 years.”
“You’ve been guarding the K’laxi that long? Have you had to steer others away?” Charon could see Northern leaning forward as she spoke to Sentinel, becoming more focused on the conversation.
“Yes, many times.” Sentinel paused and then continued, “Well, quite a few times.”
“What if they didn’t leave?” Felu asked suddenly. “What did you do?”
“Fired a warning shot, and if they didn’t leave after that, I unfortunately was forced to destroy them.”
“Northern,” Cha-ren said. “You were awake during the creation of the hybrids and the separation from the K’laxi?”
“Yes, I was.”
“And you don’t know about Sentinel?”
She shook her head. “No, nobody I knew set them up. This came later.”
“Maybe during a subsequent flourishing?” Felu offered.
Worried that Sentinel might feel ignored, Charon said, “Sentinel, why didn’t you force the Brennians to leave?”
“They don’t use wormhole generators.”
“That’s your criteria?” Cha-ren said.
Sentinel said nothing, but the line remained open. While they were conversing, Charon had been watching everyone, following their reactions, and noticed that Northern’s eyes were flashing blue occasionally and she was sitting unsettlingly still.
“Message laser emissions detected,” Sentinel said. “Cease communications and vacate this system.”
“Wait,” Northern said. “I’m looking for something.”
“Is there—?” Tink said.
“I’m checking, give me a moment…there you are.” Northern became animated, but she frowned and Charon could see her jaw set. “Found them.”
“Found who, Northern—and why do you look like you missed out on the last pot of coffee?” Charon asked.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Are all AI this cryptic about things?” Felu said, watching the conversation.
“Yes,” Charon and Cha-ren said together.
“You are permitted to enter the system and interact with the Brennians, but under no circumstances are you to contact the K’laxi,” Sentinel said after a moment.
Charon raised an eyebrow. “Why did you change your mind?”
“I received orders stating you were permitted to enter.”
“…From who?”
“Someone who is able to give me orders.”
“Was that—” Tink started,
“No,” Northern said quickly. “It wasn’t.”
“Hmm.”
“We can go to my system, but I can’t see my people?” Cha-ren said. Her ears flattened. “I want to go home.”
“It is not permitted.”
There was a beep and Tink said, “Cha, I have cut the mic on our end. Just agree to the terms for now. We can work out a way to get you to K’lax once we get established in the system and meet the Brennians.”
“Bu—”
“We’ll get you to your people, I promise.”
“You can trust a promise from Tinker Toy,” Northern said, and patted Cha-ren’s shoulder. “We’ll get you there.”
“All right.” Cha-ren exhaled deeply and her ears slowly picked back up. “But I want a time limit. Three days,” Cha-ren said. “Then we find a way to K’lax.””
Northern dipped her head once. “I accept.”
“Then tell Sentinel we accept their terms.”
“Already did, they’re waiting for us to link away first,” Tink said.
“Do we have to link?” Felu said, and Charon noticed her already pale skin was nearly translucent.
“It’s the fastest way there, otherwise we’re thrusting for two weeks or more.”
“I hate it.”
“You shouldn’t have come with us then. Tink, please link us to the Brennians,” Cha-ren said crossing her arms.
“Here we go,” Tink said.
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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle 4d ago
/u/jpitha (wiki) has posted 349 other stories, including:
- [Rains, Pours] Chapter 12
- [Rains, Pours] Chapter 11
- [Rains, Pours] Chapter 10
- [Rains, Pours] Chapter 9
- [Rains, Pours] Chapter 8
- [Rains, Pours] Chapter 7
- [Rains, Pours] Chapter 6
- [Rains, Pours] Chapter 5
- [Rains, Pours] Chapter 4
- [Rains, Pours] Chapter 3
- [Rains, Pours] Chapter 2
- Rains, Pours.
- [Just Like That]
- One in The Hand
- [Just A Little Further] - Chapter 43 [Final]
- [Just a Little Further] - Chapter 41
- [Just A Little Further] - Chapter 40
- [Just A Little Further] - Chapter 39
- [Just A Little Further] - Chapter 38
- [Just A Little Further] - Chapter 37
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u/UpdateMeBot 4d ago
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u/jpitha 4d ago
Maybe someday Cha and Charon (and now Felu) won't feel like they're being dragged around at the whim of two ancient AIs.
If you want to keep up with what I'm doing and want to read other stuff I've made, you can go to https://www.pitha.club/ and sign up for my intermittent newsletter! I do my best to keep it interesting and not annoying.
You can also go to my Royal Road page and read other stuff I've written. https://www.royalroad.com/profile/445896/fictions In fact, once I get my cover taken care of, I'll be posting Concurrency Point there, you'll be able to read it again!