Anaiis had responded to this decree as only a Cherubian could: She had ordered Lot evacuated, and while the evacuation was still far from complete, and while in South Uhm City there were still tens of thousands registered citizens who remained unevacuated and many times that number of Dammons, Anaiis had ordered an all-out military strike against South Uhm and Ga Moor. South Uhm and Ga Moor were hit with such an excess of thermonuclear power that it was clear that nothing was left to chance. Nothing could have survived the blast.
Next she ordered the total obliteration of Scayune. Her military attaché, Michael, carried out both attacks. Uhm was now a dead planet, after the nuclear fallout it became even more of an inferno than it had been before. And with the remnant carbon deposits in Ga Moor having been completely oxidized by the thermonuclear attack, Raphaël had explained to her, the greenhouse effect would soon kick in. The poles won't ever again support colonization, Michael had made sure of that. And Scayune? Scayune was gone, obliterated. All that remained of Scayune was an outstretched belt of debris between Orus-4 and Orus-6 where Scayune's orbit used to be. And to add insult to injury, the military attaché who carried out these brutal attacks was the very same Michael on his way to the dome, the Michael who was to chair the newly-formed council. Sure this was still Raphaël’s mission, but sending in Michael as chair did make one thing very clear to all the Council: this was now also very much a military mission.
As climate engineer, Raphaël was put in charge of sustainably saving as many of the species of Woldera, Mara and Maarsoli as possible. But only within the confines of the military mission’s goals.
Four trade ships had been stolen and steered to Woldera by Dammons during the South Uhm City crisis.
As it turned out, one of the departing ships had been infested by ant-monkeys, so while Anaiis could care less about a Dammon colony on Woldera, an ant-monkey infestation in the forest world fell under her direct mandate. These ant-monkeys had to be annihilated, end of discussion. And judging from what she had heard about Michael, even if she could convince him that ant-monkeys may not be as dangerous as the Senate has been made to believe, there was little chance that such knowledge would influence his determination to carry out the mission’s military component to the exact letter.
Maybe if she got Uriëlla on her side. Uriëlla seemed to have a great interest in what she had worked out about the ant-monkeys’ dual puberty phase, and seemed to possess interesting theories regarding the ant-monkey potential if their RELI-gene were disabled. If she didn't know how devoted bios were about their ideas of bioengineering security and their four laws of equilibrium, she would almost have believed that these were more than just theories. Even though their RELI-gene has proved to be defective, the idea of a Bio creating a geno-virus to disable it was just too far-fetched. The ideas Uriëlla was entertaining were intriguing though. Would it be possible for Orussians to peacefully work with 'free' ant-monkeys ? If so, releasing such a virus on the Wolderian ant-monkey population may be a good alternative to Raphaël's idea of a great flood.
Chapter 8
*Probabilities*
Being the gifted general that he was, Michael had anticipated Lucius's attack on the Mara base and had delivered a decisive blow to the Dammon army. Most Dammons accepted Michael’s offer of evacuation, but Lucius did not. A little under seven hundred Dammons apparently remained on the surface when Mara's large water-mass had hit Woldera's surface. While Mara’s water-mass wasn't sufficient to turn Woldera into a real sea-planet, the tidal wave that resulted from the impact of the ball of water swept the whole globe several times, removing any hope of survival for any fauna living on the surface.
Although Michael had anticipated Lucius’ strike, Lucius has impressed him quite a bit. It was a bold attack and one that would have caught any general other than Michael by complete surprise. The attack had been more elaborate than any he had seen in the decades he had been serving as a general. Had Lucius had the reflexes of a younger man, his pod could very well have stopped the flood from happening, and could even have destroyed the Mara-based drone control hub in the process.
Michael had granted Lucius clemency, but Lucius had returned to the surface of the forest planet in his severely damaged pod, apparently preferring certain death to the prospect of evacuation to a different system.
Everything was proceeding as Raphaël had designed. After the devastating flood, the water settled into large seas that covered about two-thirds of the planet’s surface. While some woods stood strong, others had been swept away, leaving great plains where Raphaël assured all that grasslands would soon emerge.
Looking at the devastation caused by the flood, it was hard to imagine the newly-created plains would recover in time for the arrival of the Marsolian IRCs later that week. First the Woldarian pods would return to what was left of the forests. Drones were on the planet working hard on the salinity levels in the forests. The trees may have survived the great flood, but they could still die from the salt left behind in the soil and surface waters if the drones did not clean it up quickly.
After the Wolderian IRCs, the Maran IRCs would repopulate the Maran Sea which now covered much of Woldera. The final step would be the arrival of the Maarsolian IRCs. Michael felt some remorse for the needless Dammon deaths. There was no way the Dammons had survived the flood, or was there? Lucius showed incredible boldness and ingenuity in his attack on the Mara station. A military mind of that kind of stature would surely have a backup plan. Michael knew he had to report the possible survival of a small Dammon colony on Woldera to the Senate. The Archan Council had to remain at the Mara science station for quite some time as watchers.
They needed to monitor the creatures hatched from the IRCs. Their survival and health had to be monitored for a number of generations. If needed, fine-tuning should at least create a fighting chance for competing species from the different ecosystems. But as much as these ecosystems concerned his fellow Archans, Michael was a general first.
His main concern as a watcher would be to watch out for signs of the unlikely possibility that any ant-monkeys survived the flood, and secondly, if he was right about the Senate’s priorities, as much as he hated the idea he would need to watch out for all possible signs of a surviving Dammon colony. Michael knew that if Lucius survived, Lucius would realize the Senate was having the planet watched and he and his company would move only in the shadows. For generations if needed. He and any military attaché appointed to the Council after him would need to remain incredibly watchful. Lucius had survived the flood, Michael was almost certain of that now. And a great military mind like Lucius always had a backup plan.
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 pro
vided 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 Repub
lic could go bankrupt from royalty claims alone. Raphaël knew the Senate would not allow that to happen.
Epilogue
It had been just 10 hybrid generations since her father Michael Junior had died. Gabriëlla was named after her grandmother, who, like her grandfather, was one of the four original Archan Council members. Since her father had died, and first Machiel and then Leto had been sent by the Senate to take up his role, Dammons had started getting the upper hand. The Dammons had taken advantage of the fact that the Senate has proved unable to provide the Council with as sharp a military mind as those of her grandfather and her father.
Ugh, now Leto's assistant that had been flown in in a hurry after hybrids managed to put a tiny manned vessel on Mara, or as hybrids referred to it 'the' moon. As if Woldera was the only planet with a moon. One of the telltale signs that hybrid culture and hybrid technology were out of sync. The hybrid's industrial revolution was not supposed to have happened for at least two more millennia. Two standard years after her father died and Machiel took his place in the Council, Dammons managed to get a hybrid industrial revolution started prematurely.
Machiel was soon replaced by Leto, but only once the industrial revolution was already doing its thing. Hybrid population spiked and there were only so many drones a four-man team could deploy. As all the hybrids couldn’t be kept under drone surveillance, Dammons were able to push even more technology to the hybrids.
Gabriëlla had been asking the Interstellar Senate for reinforcements for centuries. Only after the hybrid moon landing did the Senate send 'reinforcements' in the form of a single, level 1 assistant for Leto.