This post is the 9th plus the 10th and last (regular) chapters of the speculative fiction scifi story Orussian Quarantine. If you havn't read the first 8 chapters yet, the first is available here. Later today I'll be posting the epilogue that concludes this story.
Chapter 9
Complications
Uriëlla realized what had happened the minute she saw their faces. Maarsolian apes were plains-dwellers. Hunter-gatherers that slept in solitary trees on the Maarsolian planes. But these apes had built themselves a primitive agricultural village. She was on patrol with Gabriëlla when they discovered the village. There was no denying it, these were hybrids. Gabriëlla of all people would be the last one that could ever be convinced otherwise. It had been just twenty standard years since the flood. Four generations of Maarsolian apes at most. Michael with his limited knowledge of biology might be fooled by the theory that this had occurred naturally as a response to adaptation to another planet, but fooling Michael would take a much better liar than Uriëlla knew herself to be. Gabriëlla, well there was no chance she would be fooled for even one second by such a ludicrous hypothesis.
These were hybrids, both Uriëlla and Gabriëlla knew that the moment they spotted a village of Maarsolian apes. But what Gabriëlla could not have realized was what Uriëlla spotted immediately. These apes were clearly descended from her old friend Inoatar. Uriëlla had informed Inoatar of the original geoengineering plans, but she had been on Mara from the time the Council was first assembled up until after the great flood. She had not had any opportunity to warn Inoatar about his impending doom, nor had she provided him with an Advanced Relocation Unit (ARC). Inoatar knew how to build an IRC, but as Uriëlla knew for sure, Inoatar could not have extracted his own DNA and have operated the incubation unit by himself.
While DNA extraction was a skill that was easily acquired, operating the biological parts of an incubator was a delicate task which took even the most gifted Orussians decades to master. Inoatar must have figured out how to build an ARC all by himself. It would have been hard to spot an ARC among all those thousands of IRCs even if someone had been specifically looking for it. And nobody had been.
Inoatar must have found himself a Maarsolian ape female and must have mated with her. This meant that Gabriëlla had been wrong about the males--they, too, apparently went through a second puberty apparently at a rather ripe age. No other explanation was possible for the striking resemblance: These were clearly Inoatar’s descendants.
It was hard to predict how Raphaël and Michael would react to the existence of hybrids. Especially Michael. An agricultural community, even if it consisted of a single, small village, constituted a primitive civilization under the revised guidelines for intercivilisational relations. The guideline explicitly forbade any direct contact between interstellar civilizations and primitive ones. On the other hand, these hybrids were part ant-monkey and she and the other Archans were under direct order to eradicate “every trace of” ant-monkeys. Uriëlla was never that good at keeping up with interstellar law. Guild rules were so much simpler. But did the revised guidelines for intercivilisational contact overrule direct orders from the Senate, or was it the other way around? Uriëlla felt an undeniable urge to defend this village.
Decimating a village in order to adhere to some order from a senate light-years from here went against everything Uriëlla believed in. And some of these apes were so much akin to her old friend Inoatar that the village almost felt like her own family. No, this village could not be decimated. Uriëlla would defend it at all costs. Even if it meant going against Michael. Michael still scared Uriëlla. He was always so sure of the law and so dedicated to the chain of command. How would Michael react? Should she come clean about her friend and about her use of the geno-virus? Yes, she would have to tell everyone what she had done and what she knew. If needed, she would die defending this village. That much she owed her old friend.
Chapter 10
Duty
Raphaël felt puzzled by the Senate’s ruling. Hybrids were allowed to live on Orus-3, but only in the unlikely event that these creatures had managed to develop into an advanced society; the post-evacuation quarantine was still intact.
After the last evacuation ship had passed what was now a great Orussian asteroid belt, the quarantine port size had been reduced to pod size and only Michael had a clearance level sufficient enough to learn the exact coordinates of the port. What this boiled down to was that no carbon-based lifeforms could pass the barrier, indicated roughly by the newly-created asteroid belt, without being evaporated by quarantine droids.
What this also meant was that the Senate had factually created a declaration of war against any future advanced civilization that either the hybrids or the pre-civs could evolve to. The hybrids and the aquatic pre-civs might not learn they were caged animals for ten or twenty standard millennia, but if there was one foolproof way to make a dangerous beast like these hybrids even more dangerous, it would be to cage it and poke at it, and that was exactly what the Senate had set to doing. Quarantine drones were not built to defend against warships. Sure, they would stop an emerging interstellar society for about half a millennium, but after that all bets were off. But then these were all long-term concerns. There would be many centuries left for Raphaël in which to try and convince the Senate that the quarantine had best be lifted.
Raphaël had been surprised by Uriëlla's confession and the discovery of the hybrid’s village. A geno-virus to introduce free will into a pet! As a climate engineer, Raphaël was often told his proposals were too bold, but this was something even he would never have dared to propose, let alone execute. Raphaël realized he had misjudged Uriëlla for all these decades. He and Uriëlla were much more alike than he had ever realized. Uriëlla was not the typical conservative Bio he had made her out to be. Uriel’s confession had rejuvenated the Archan Council. Raphaël could always relate best to Michael. Like him, Michael was bold, intelligent and sometimes frighteningly uncompromising.
The two female Archan Council members, however, had never fully gotten past Michael’s role in the destruction of Orus-2 and Orus-5. Uhm was Gabriëlla's home planet and Uriëlla had lived on Scayune from the moment she joined the guild as a junior apprentice until the start of her first Woldera mission. It’s impossible to live on a planet that long without becoming emotionally attached to it. For Raphaël, planets were simply the raw material he used in his work as a climate engineer. Uriëlla and Gabriëlla had both been visibly surprised when Michael showed sincere understanding for Uriëlla's attachment to the hybrids. At the time of their first meeting on the then-still sea-moon Mara, Michael had sensed that Uriëlla had been withholding essential information from him. Later Michael often silently questioned Uriëlla's commitment to the military aspect of their mission. All and all it was not until Uriëlla's confession that Michael’s distrust regarding Uriëlla diminished. Michael immediately offered to defend Uriëlla's case with Anaiis and, if need be, before the Senate.
But the hybrid village was not the only issue that ended up being brought up before the Senate. Michael, after keeping close tabs on the hybrid’s village, had found and captured a Dammon. The Dammons had survived the flood and now they were violating not one but two interstellar guidelines. Interrogation of the Dammon had revealed Lucius’ plan. Lucius, too, had discovered the hybrid’s settlement, and Lucius knew his interstellar law. As soon as a Wolderian species developed means of interstellar travel, they would be considered an advanced civilization, a civilization that could offer asylum to Dammons, legalizing their presence on Woldera. Normally it would take many hundreds of generations for a limited-intelligence species like these hybrids to develop into an advanced civilization. Lucius, however, could not wait 'that' long. Lucius and his Dammons were exploiting the fact that one in four of Inoatar’s decedents had inherited Inoatar’s RELI-gene, still imprinted on Orussians, but not his free will gene. Naturally the Dammons did not and could not know about the free will gene, but that didn't really matter.
The captured Dammon had presented himself as a technology god to one of the active-RELI-gene females. Bringing in new technology, this 'priestess' was respected and revered by the entire village. Lucius was patient in his plan. Fifty generations patient, the captured Dammon revealed after being questioned by Michael for 3 days. Fifty generations of hybrids, almost one third of the average Orussian’s lifespan! Lucius was an old man himself. The chances of him living another five hundred standard years were pretty slim. Lucius was planning for his sons to one day roam free on this paradise planet.
And while Michael had sympathy for Lucius’ intentions, his duty came first: Report to the Senate and let them rule.
The senate’s decree regarding the Dammons was relentless when compared to their relative leniency towards the hybrids. The guidelines for intercivilisational contact were not to be tempered with by outlaws. The hybrids had to be monitored 24/7 and any contact between Dammons and hybrids was to be prevented at any cost, even if that meant the Archans had to bend the guidelines themselves, and even if it meant killing Dammons. A new rule was decreed by the Senate. Archans were granted dispensation from the rules for intercivilisational contact on Woldera under the explicit condition that Archans were to identify themselves as members of the Archan Council. Under no circumstances were hybrids to deify members of the Archan Council. Lucius may be playing the RELI-gene card; that gene still officially was owned by the bio-guild. If the Archans as a governmental body accidentally became deified and hybrid society grew to the capacity of this planet, the Senate and with it the Republic could go bankrupt from royalty claims alone. Raphaël knew the Senate would not allow that to happen.
Continue to the Epilogue.