18.
“So he says ‘all I want is a pink golf ball, Daddy,’” Diego said, smashing the holographic ball with his holographic racket. The ball sped through the air and smashed into the wall, bouncing back towards Eolai, who caught the
“What is a golf ball?” Eolai asked as he swung his own racket, the holograms smashing and sending the false projectile back at the wall.
“A ball for golf,” Diego said. Smash.
“What is golf?” Smash.
“Something old men do,” Diego answered. Smash.
Eolai missed the ball, and the hologram screeched to show that Diego had scored a point. Eolai laughed. “This is a fun sport! I like it! Is it okay to share with my people?”
“Yeah, sure. Go right ahead,” Diego said, wiping the sweat from his brow. “You mind if we call it here? I’m not used to getting this much exercise after a few months aboard the Seeker . We have exercise machines, but it’s hard not to atrophy when you’re in zero G.”
“I understand,” Eolai agreed. “To be honest that is a consideration that me and my peers are having trouble with. While it is not something we are required to remedy, we fear for the health of your crew due to the length that your mission places you in null gravity. We are certain that you are aware of the effect that will have on your long term health.”
“Yeah, we are,” Diego said. “We’ve actually studied that quite a bit in the last two centuries or so. We haven’t discovered artificial gravity generators yet, but we’re not going to let that stop us.”
“That is admirable,” Eolai said. “Your willingness to risk your own health does not reduce my concern for your well-being however.”
“Yeah, thanks. I appreciate that,” Diego said.
“You have only been able to escape your planet’s gravity for two centuries?” Eolai asked
“A bit short of that, but yeah,” Diego said. “Most of our history while you space-people were blowing up everything and each other was of us running around in hunter-gatherer societies worshiping the sun or wolf-spirits or our own ancestors or something. I’m not a historian, but we were in the stone age until about five thousand years ago. Then it took us almost two thousand years to figure out how to work iron and steel.”
“I would love to learn more about how your ancestors tamed their worlds without anything but their own guile,” Eolai said. “My people began as hunter-gatherers, as you have described that lifestyle. But when the liberation happened, we were elevated past the reliance on bronze or iron. I had not even thought of working those metals as being a bottleneck to technological progression.”
“Really?” Diego asked, taking a drink from a bottle of water that Eolai had brought for them before their exercise. “On earth, we figured that most tool-using sapients would go through a similar process.”
“Perhaps they did,” Eolai said. He sighed. “So much was lost to the liberation. And it is such a difficult thing to study, you must understand. The existence of what you are calling the T-bomb, the weapon which makes your species’ homeworld your greatest liability, means that none of the other sapient species which remember where their homeworld lies are willing to share that information. Often not even with each other.”
“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that,” Diego admitted. “Yeah, I suppose if you start out with technology that’s so advanced it might as well be magic it would be hard to figure out how you got that way in the first place.”
“Indeed. That is one of the reasons why so many of the veterans who declined the Yonohoan’s invitation to become our clansmen left to create their own darkworlds. They vowed to leave their bloody history behind them and raise their children innocent of the bloodshed of their past,” Eolai explained. “They vowed that they would not reach back out to the skies until their sins were forgotten and they could climb into the universe without shame, and by their own power.”
“So it wasn’t just the aliens who made darkworlds for terraforming? We did it too?” Diego asked.
“Indeed we did,” Eolai agreed. “However, most of the darkworlds that were founded in that way were registered and have a monitor or sponsor to ensure that the descendants do not meet with a disaster that they can’t handle.”
“You think that Earth had a sponsor?” Diego asked.
“I’m certain that you did not. Once a Darkworld achieves FTL on their own power, their sponsor would immediately contact the Yonohoah, as well as whatever Empire they are in the territory of. That is one of the reasons we were so astounded by your sudden appearance. The Yonohoan always are the first to know when a darkworld is ready to reach out into the stars. In fact, we often make a point of going to greet them, rather than waiting for them to come to us,” Eolai explained.
“Is that part of Korjakala?” Diego asked.
“No. We do not have a particular name for that.”
“I guess it’s just being neighborly then,” Diego said.
“Yes, I like that phrase.” He paused, touching the device that he wore on his ear. “Oh. Diego, my government has just made a decision, and I hope that you view it in the way that it is intended and do not take offense.”
“Will it affect The Seeker or Earth?” Diego asked.
“Yes and yes,” Eolai said. He sighed. “They have commissioned twenty Toormonda ships and promised them to Earth’s government.”
“Okay. What is a Toormonda ship?” Diego asked.
Eolai waved his hand and the appearance of an egg-shaped spaceship appeared in the air. “That is what it looks like. It is about half the size of your Seeker of New Discoveries . This is the sort of ship on which I first left planet Totola. They are a very common ship throughout the universe, widely recognized. They are extremely safe for humans and many other species, and welcome almost everywhere they would want to go with very, very few exceptions.”
“Okay, all of that sounds good,” Diego said. “I’m certain that the government would be thrilled to get their hands on one. I’m not certain why you’re worried we’d be offended.”
“It is … well, they are like the Rocktala.”
Diego paused. “They’re for children?”
“Yes.” Eolai sighed. “It is meant for three to five adults to supervise a group of twenty to fifty children as they explore the universe and study natural phenomena or visit other planets to engage in cultural exchange. It possesses only a few light weapons and is not very fast. It only reaches approximately three hundred times the speed of light. But they do have a great many different scientific instruments which are extremely powerful and accurate. The children who have journeyed on this sort of ship are often challenged with rediscovering or proving known scientific knowledge, or remapping known areas of space. I hope that you are not offended.”
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Diego considered it for a moment. “I can see why you’d be worried that we’d be offended, but I’m pretty certain that the technological capabilities of your Toormonda ships probably exceed anything that the Seeker is capable of. While the Yonohoan people might think that these things are childish, my people would likely see them as a great gift that is meant to help us elevate our understanding of the universe.”
“I am pleased that you would see it that way. Some of my lawmakers might be confused by the fact that you are using Rocktala frequencies to communicate and believe that these ships are equivalent to the Seeker in function and purpose,” Eolai said.
“They kind of are,” Diego said.
Eolai shook his head. “No. To board a Toormonda is to take a safe and guided step into waters that have been swum through for thousands of years by millions of predecessors. The Seeker is a step into the wild unknown by men and women willing to risk everything to advance their understanding of the universe. There is a gap between the two which is so large that it’s impossible to bridge.”
“I see. When you put it like that, I can see why you’d be worried that I’d be offended. But I do not think that you’re government intended any insult. There’s a saying on my world, ‘don’t look a gift-horse in the mouth.’”
Eolai waited for him to continue, making a motion that implied he wanted an explanation.
“Okay, so a horse is an animal that we used to ride before we invented self-propelled vehicles …”
After Diego had explained the context of the phrase, Eolai nodded. “Yes, I see. I do think that the scientists of your world would greatly benefit from a fleet of Toormonda ships, and I am glad that you do not think that it is an insult that we think so. As I said, I myself flew on a Toormonda and it was one of the happiest memories of my childhood. We spent six weeks hunting for blackholes in nearby space. It was a great joy, and it was a key piece of my decision to leave Totola behind and spend my life in space.”
“Tell me about it,” Diego suggested. “It sounds like a fun field trip.”
“It was. And because we are Yonohoan, we of course pretended that we were Topokans while we were in flight,” Eolai explained.
“Oh? So, different sleeping arrangements every night?”
“Among many other things, yes. It was very fun. We had to learn every station in great detail, and be ready to switch from one of our many ongoing projects to another at a moment’s notice whenever someone moved up or down in the hierarchy,” Eolai explained. “It was very frustrating for our Topokan chaperone.”
“You didn’t have human adults with you?” Diego asked.
“We had three human adults and two Topokans,” Eolai explained.
“Bob is using Topokan to describe Sulivans suddenly,” Diego said. “Is that your word for them?”
“Yes and no,” Eolai said. “Topokans are our Sulivans. The ones who gave us this world, Totola. There are other Sulivans throughout the universe, and some of them are not so closely aligned with the Yonohoans.”
“I see,” Diego said. “Do you guys go everywhere together?”
“Indeed we do,” Eolai said. “It is one of the duties of the Topokans to ensure the lineages of all Yonohoans, so of course they would not allow a Toormonda ship to leave Totola without a representative of their species aboard.”
Diego blinked. “Wait, what?”
Eolai laughed. “My experience on the Toormonda was memorable for more than one reason, Diego. I was thirteen, and she was fourteen. It was very memorable indeed. We were waiting for the Toormonda for our first time, and it was very difficult to hide our first experience from our chaperons.”
Diego blushed. “I guess teenagers are teenagers no matter where you go.”
Eolai laughed harder. “Indeed they are!”
“I think you’re going to have to explain this whole thing a little more. So, the Sulivans spy on you in the bedroom?”
“It is not so much that they spy on us during the act. As we watch them to try to figure out their social structure and how their hierarchy changes from hour to hour and day to day, they watch us to try to understand our romantic relationships,” Eolai explained. “They do not need to watch , because they can smell it on us afterwards. However, they cannot determine who the father of a child is by smell if they have not smelled him before. So they like to have the scent of any potential father memorized. If a Yonohoan woman introduces you to her Topokan, then you know that she is interested in you romantically.”
“Okay, so their nose is a built in paternity test. That’s cool,” Diego said.
“Yes. When every girl-child is born, they are paired up with a Topokan who guards them for the rest of their life. It is a very close relationship between them, but the girls often desire privacy, which is something that the Topokans do not understand. So the girls shout at their guardians ‘go away! Leave me alone! If I see you spying on me I will shave off all of your hair!’ And the Topokans will pretend to leave, but they keep an eye on their charge no matter what the girl says. And if a boy shows too much interest in them they call out ‘leave me alone or I will call my Topokan to fight you!’ It is very very funny. Especially to see a shaved Topokan wandering around and looking sad.”
Diego laughed. “Okay, yeah, I can see why you people would have fun with that. But why do they care?”
Eolai sighed. “Unfortunately, it is another tradition that goes back to the Liberation Wars. You know that the Sulivans are very frightened of humans that they do not know. It truly frightens them to be around humans whose origins they do not know. That is why they fled this ship when you stepped aboard it. They love us Yonohoan, but you must remember that when the wars were ending, we had many, many veterans coming to our worlds and establishing families. According to the laws of my people, any clansman of the Yonohoan is to be treated the same as any other Yonohoan. However, according to the laws of the Topokan, only those who are the children of Yonohoans require their protection. And more than that, until they know a person’s genealogy going back five generations, they will be afraid of that person.”
Diego paused. “Oh. I can see why that would cause tension between your peoples.”
“It is not so bad of a thing nowadays,” Eolai assured him. He shrugged. “Now it is just a fun way to tease our furry friends. If you are Yonohoan, it is just part of our way of life. It makes sense to us because we were raised to it.”
“Yeah, I get that,” Diego said. “Your people have a rich and vibrant culture, and the interplay between yourselves and the Sulivans is an important piece of your history and culture. It’s probably pretty difficult to explain all of the nuances to an outsider who’s never interacted with your culture before.”
Eolai laughed. “It is difficult to explain it to any outsider, my friend. Our people are so closely intertwined that it is difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins. To the humans of the universe, the Yonohoans are eccentric and silly. But we are a very proud people, and we refuse to forget our history.”
“I can see why. If I were Yonohoan, I think that I’d be very proud of my past as well,” Diego agreed.
“Do you take pride in the history of your people, Diego?” Eolai asked.
“Yes. I do,” Diego said. “I am not saying that I wish I was born Yonohoan. I am simply saying that I believe that your people have much to be proud of.”
“Thank you. Those are kind words.”