The Bridge

Book III: The Starhell Mutiny

by euhal allen

Table of Contents
Chapter 4, part 2 appears
in this issue.

part 3 of 3

Jo’Eya searched in her mind and, finding the stored memories of Jonkil, searched them for knowledge of the Earth people. When she found them, she began to read them to the Family Heads.

“It is sad that I am not here today to speak to you, Heads of our Family, but it is in my honor that my granddaughter does this for me. Remember, please, that though the voice is that of youth, the words are my own.

“I have watched this people for so many years and I believe, as I am sure that you have come to believe, that these people could be the ones we have searched for. There is energy and bravery here. That is common enough. But there is a twist of mind that promises much, should they be able to control it.

“I had thought that when those few were rescued and given Dreamers’ World, they would show the promise that I saw in them. It did not happen, for what was given them was too tame and did not arouse their passion, did not demand their courage. Most of them became users and not builders. Those who felt the loss of that passion began to turn against their new Society.

“These are a passionate people, and that is a dangerous thing, for passion does not always think before it acts. To save these people and give them a place where they could have and learn to control their passion, the Shapirov Project was started. A place that was unknown and safe from Galactic Council influence was searched out. And it — Starhell — was found. It was a place that would demand all of their passion to conquer it.

“I have not lived to see what they have accomplished, but I do believe that they are a surprise to you. They will continue to surprise you. Do not help them too much, for they must find of themselves and in themselves, in their own strength and in their own wisdom, the qualities that will let them become the hoped-for ones.”

“Jo’Eya, continue. We would hear more of Jonkil’s words of this people.”

“I am sorry, First Head, there is no more that I can find. At least, no more that makes sense to me.”

“Jo’Eya, this thing that makes no sense, tell it to us.”

“It is from the Manuals. It is found in the book 3, phrase 40, but it makes no sense here. It says only: argument often claws the face of the question.”

“Ah,” replied the First Head, “as always, Jonkil showed understanding for our quandary.

“So be it, Jo’Eya. You will continue to observe and, only when necessary, work with these people. Time will reveal their promise.”

* * *

The Oversight Committee, facing an angry crowd, gave the only answer they knew.

“First, the Earth is, for the most part, blocked off from us. There is no way that we could go back with the Doors. The Doors can’t penetrate the englobement. Only in the area of the sabotaged force modules can we get through. And, even there we have to have a Door very close in on each side to use that opening. Everything would have to go on by ship.

“We can send crews in at variable spaced intervals, but to move everyone there by ship would alert the Galactic Council to our activities and, probably give them clues as to the fact that we have any opening at all.

“Second, we know that the Galactic Council has englobed systems before, and when the force globe has been removed there were never any survivors of the people who had been there. We don’t know why those people evidently died off, and until we do, we can’t let you go back there to stay.

“Third, this world — Starhell — is not known by the Galactic Council and being here — almost across the galaxy from Galactic Council space — will give us time to find ways to prevent our being englobed again, and, just possibly, might give us time to work on how to gain strength enough to stand up to the Galactic Council. Perhaps we can even find a way to remove the englobement from around Earth and take it back. That is one of our goals.

“Your accusations of us abandoning our home planet are wrong. But going there now is also wrong. If we are to save Earth for our far children, we have to have skills we are only just now gaining.

“However, we are planning a number of trips to Earth in the near future. Those trips will be to get life forms that we need to continue to build the ecosystem here. The basics of the project, the oceans, and the atmosphere, are nearing completion of their early stages.

“Now the complicated parts will be beginning. Our soils must be brought to a living condition. Our mountains must be forested; our seas must be brought to greater variety in its life forms.

“Somehow we have to find grasses that will live here so that livestock can be introduced. We are in a project that will make Starhell Earth’s little sister. All of this will take years of research and work. We will need every hand and every heart. We can’t go back to Earth; at least not for many, many years. But, we can do our best to make Earth move here.”

Charlie had been sitting in the corner and listening to all of the talk. Now, in his own nonchalant way, he stood up and then, leaning against a handy wall, said, “I always thought that life was best when it was a little hard. Gives a man problems to solve, things to think about.

“Some of you people have asked me how it was that I have hung around so long. Well I’ll tell you. I have always had so many problems to solve that I never had time to even think of dying. And I like it that way.

“Now the Committee here has given us a brief outline of the problems we have to work to solve on Starhell. There is enough here to keep a man interested and living for decades. Those problems are not going to go away or be solved with us standing around here feeling sorry for ourselves.

“Instead, we ought to feel sorry for those problems and go out there and put them out of their misery.”

* * *

The Galactic Council ship La Scena — a long range exploration vessel on a twenty-year mission to expand the Council’s knowledge of the galaxy and identify any intelligent life that might be present — came into a system with a G-type star, a large number of planets and what looked like one that could be inhabitable, should Galactic Council space ever reach this far out.

Alarms rang all over the system. Those in the Oort cloud retreated to safe hideaways. Those working in the inner-system planets and planetoids did the same. On Starhell the population initiated camouflage programs at each project station and used their Doors to go to the underwater sanctuaries.

At the Headquarters caverns main power units were shut down, and that population also used Doors to exit to the underwater sanctuaries. The area, cleared long before the ship came near enough to detect life, took on the appearance of, because of the warmth of the caverns, an area of geothermal activity.

The ship’s crew kept busy at cataloguing just another system, until they, in surveying the fourth planet’s moon, found that there was a great amount of heat in that particular satellite.

Slowing down, they did a little longer survey of the satellite and came to the conclusion that it had been the recipient of several recent collisions with smaller planetoids and the heat had not yet dissipated. That problem solved, and the rest of the system noted in quick surveys, then — after first sending a report drone detailing the system and noting the fourth planet’s characteristics, with sparse vegetation, to the Council’s Space Science base — the ship headed out towards the next star system at all possible speed.

The crew, hoping that the extra speed might get them through their journey’s programmed path a little sooner, dreamt that they might shorten the scheduled five years remaining of their mission.

* * *

Katia inquiring as to why Jo’Eya seemed to know so much of Jonkil’s affairs over the past few years was surprised to learn that being the Remembrancer for Jonkil was not just the name of an assignment to keep Jonkil’s accomplishment in front of the family.

“Katia, I can tell you, for you have become Qwell’Na. You should know. To be the Remembrancer of one such as Jonkil is to actually carry that one’s memories in your mind.

“When my grandfather began his Jo Dan I entered into a Jo Dan receiving chamber that was connected to his Final Chamber. In his last few seconds those memories that he chose to share were captured and sent to my mind. They are the last gift a Qwell’Na can give to a chosen grandchild.”

“Then,” said Katia hopefully, “you are Jonkil and Jo’Eya.”

“No, I am only Jo’Eya. The memories do not carry the mind or heart of my grandfather. They are only a mental book that I may look at when I need to solve a problem, just as Jonkil searched the memories of his grandfather for answers to his problems.”

“Then you have the memories of Jonkil’s grandfather, also?”

“I carry the shared memories of grandfathers and grandmothers many generations back, but I can only distinguish those for a very few generations. The rest have merged together into the memories of those nearer to me.”

“All this happened to you as Jonkil completed his Jo Dan. All this happened through the Force Englobement? Your people, the Qwell’Na, can operate through the Force Englobement?”

“The Jo Dan is a thing of the mind not the body, Katia,” replied the girl as she stepped through her Door, “My people have a proverb that says, ‘Life is many questions, unanswered.’ This is one of them.”

* * *

The Minister from New Earth was angry. For months now, ever since she had initiated the englobement of the Blue Planet, she had warned the Galactic Council of the danger of allowing escapees to colonize another world. The respect for the rule of the Galactic Council would be shattered if they did not find this Starhell soon and dispose of it.

It would seem now that the other Ministers were getting tired of hearing it. Huge areas of the Cernon Sector had been searched and nothing but a few pieces of paper alluding to a Starhell had been found. The systems near the englobed Blue Planet in that area that centered the search for this Starhell, not even papers had been found. Everywhere the search went, the results were negative. The Ministers had a Galaxy to run and were tired of wasting their time on speculations.

The BGS found itself, much to its surprise, with a new ally in the Council. Me’Avi, newest member of the committee that oversaw its work and its budget, was constantly seeking ways to increase that budget and give the BGS more latitude.

The credibility of the agency in this search for Starhell weighed heavily on both parties. The evidence of Starhell’s existence was undeniable to the intelligence community as well as to the Minister from New Earth. The BGS was losing its credibility to many in the Council as Minister after Minister sought to set the problem aside in order to gain time to work on pet projects of their own.

Many found that the financial burden of the search was eating into funds they had hoped to use in other areas. Only those planets in the Cernon Sector which were getting a financial boost from the servicing of so many ships and crews seemed to be willing to back the continued search for the renegade planet. In fact, since the search, while not finding Starhell, had found several planets that could be colonized and bring profits to the Sector, they rather happily encouraged a greater search.

Now that Me’Avi Shapirov, granddaughter of Grand Minister Shapirov, who had initiated the settling of the Cernon Sector, was Minister from New Earth, they had found a champion for their cause. There was even talk among their representatives that indicated that, with a little more experience in the Council, the Minister from New Earth might make as great a Grand Minister as had her grandmother.

* * *

In the valley that Natasha Borisovna Tinker had found, the rock-crushing machines were working day and night turning fields of rock into fields of fine sand. Behind them came soil mixers that inserted bacteria-laden garbage into that sand in hopes that soil could be made to live as did that of Earth.

On the slowly inclined rocky hillside of the valley foundations were being laid for the village that was to follow. Standing in what would soon be the community square, Natasha Borisovna watched as the new head of her old village, Katrina, conferred, comforted and cajoled everyone working on the project.

Up in the mountains in back of the village, rain clouds dropped their bounty and the dry basins up there were filling fast. Soon, lakes would be filled and the overflow from them would create a stream that would be cascading down those very mountains to run through the valley, in the gully down below the village. Already, the reservoir that had been dug above the village was starting to fill from the rain that had come to this very place.

Katrina came over to Natasha and spoke, “This is a good place you have found for us. When the soil is living we shall grow many things like those that we had in our old home. I have seed from the best of those plants here in my bag. I shall count the days until I can put them into the living ground.

“Our people will be happy here. They will have their homes again. They will have land to work with. And there will be no barbarians to steal what we produce. It is good.

“Over there, you see where the rock has a whitish vein? That is where we will build a home for you and your husband. When you are old it will be there for you. There are rooms in it for the family you will have.

“Just next to it, below the white rock is where we build the house for Olga. We have told her and she says that it is a waste of effort since she will be elsewhere. We do not think of it as a waste, for even if it is not used it will be hers. And we will be able to point to it and talk of Olga, just as we will be able to look at your house and talk of you.

“As long as we can speak of you and point to something of yours you will still be among us. It is never a waste to remember friends.”

* * *

A Door appeared in the control room of Alexei’s Pride and Jo’Eya stepped out and bowed slightly to the holos of Katia and Cyr. “Cyr,” she said, “are you ever going to find an image you like? You ought to go back to the one with the funny ears. He had character.”

“You, too,” Cyr replied, “it seems that I can show myself nowhere but that someone asks that same question and then tries to steer me to their favorite image.

“I will tell you, Jo’Eya, the same thing that I tell the others. When I find one that I feel truly represents me, I shall adopt it!”

Katia, laughing, managed to say, “You have not hit the most desirable subject with Cyr, my dear. He has become quite touchy about it lately. That is because he keeps getting requests to return as something from an old film called an Ewok and he thinks his dignity has been insulted in some way.

“So, young lady, there is purpose in your face and that makes me wonder what it is that brings you here today.”

“The Family Heads have decided that since you are both now Qwell’Na adopted by the family of da Laich, it is time that you were given the Qwom Sor Manuals of Duelism.” Jo’Eya said as she retrieved two small packages from her bag. “I have brought them here on data packs, one for each of you.”

Katia eyed the packages and then said, gently, “We are not sure that your adopting us as Qwell’Na can really make us into Qwell’Na. Certainly, since we are computer beings, there is little or no use for us to have religion.”

“You were Qwell’Na before you were adopted. One does not make someone Qwell’Na by adopting them. Adopting you is only a recognition of what you have already become. And the Qwom Sor Manuals are not a religion. They are the proverbs, the folk wisdom, of our people. As you study them you will come to see what we Qwell’Na are and that you are, indeed, of us. It has been translated into Galactic for you.

“The data pack,” she explained, “will erase itself as it downloads so you may keep it for something else.”

With that, Jo’Eya inserted the first data pack in the receptacle for it in Cyr’s control panel triggering an automatic download. Then she stepped through her Door and into the control room of Harrigan’s Whelp to do the same thing.

Then she, again, went through her Door, only this time, closing it after her.

Soon both Cyr and Katia were engrossed in the start of the Qwom-Sor Manuals of Duelism.

Consult the Qwom-Sor Manuals of Duelism...

To be continued...

Proceed to the Table of Contents...