A Lords of the Stars Short Story
Mattias von Schantz
Newca, Eta Boötis, 6713 AD
----------------------------------------
The sun was already low over the shimmering sea when Ryne was done with her household chores. Glistening red waves crashed against the shore and from down in the busy harbor, there was the clamor of excited crowds receiving the evening's catch from the fishing boats. A faint smell of salt filled the humid air, and from the sea, seagulls could be heard screeching as though they were displeased that humans had taken their food.
She was free for the day and thought she’d take the opportunity to walk through the harbor. It was high summer, and many tourists had arrived in the village. It was always nice to try to get to know them a little. If nothing else, they might offer her food in exchange for a story, or perhaps even offer a trip outside the village.
Her house was on a small hill covered with lush, healthy grass and some flower beds with roses that her father grew. Around the property stood an ancient wooden fence that had withstood the wind, rain, and sunshine for three generations. The narrow gravel path she walked on was carefully raked, and surrounded by a few low, colorful flowers. Ryne looked up at the blood-red sky and noted that there would be no rain for several days ahead. The sky was perfectly clear everywhere she looked, but her family wasn’t made up of farmers or fishermen, so they didn't have to worry much about the weather. The main thing was that it was warm and pleasant outside, now that she was planning to have some fun in the evening.
The harbor was located in a shallow bay, well protected from the fury of the sea. At the moment, three fishing boats were anchored there, but another couple of boats were coming in from the sea with fresh catch. Next to the first boat sat old, weathered Sernerad working on his wet nets, trying to untangle them for tomorrow’s fishing expedition. He had no son to take over from him, so he had kept on working his trade despite losing both a finger and an eye to the monstrous denizens of the sea. The seagulls, attracted by the smell of fish, were trying to steal the catch he had stored in the ice-filled boxes next to his boat.
“Sugar take you,” he spat at them, the old curse bouncing off their feathers like water on a duck’s back.
When she got to the second fishing boat she stopped. There was a group of foreign-looking people standing around a young man who was talking loudly and gesticulating wildly about something. Most likely, he was trying to trick the tourists into believing some far-fetched fishing story he’d concocted, and if he succeeded, he could probably make quite a bit of money from it. Stories were as good a currency as money here, on the outer isles.
She moved closer to the group and as she pushed through the small circle of tourists, she saw that what the man had pulled from the sea was hardly a fish. The object lying on the ground consisted of shiny metal, bent beyond recognition.
"We often bring up things like this from the seabed, my father and I," said the man. "This one tore up a whole net for us. If we don't find someone who wants to buy the scrap, we’ll lose an entire month's income from the damage it did.” The tourists laughed and immediately started bidding on the metal object. When the deal was done, it wasn't hard to tell who had profited the most from it.
“So you come here and cheat those poor tourists out of their money?” Ryne asked the question completely without reproach, and the smile on the man's face burst into a loud laugh. He might be in his late twenties, Ryne guessed, but decided not to jump to any conclusions.
"Andar Nemallis is my name. Are you trying to destroy my business?” he said.
"You’re the one who hurts mine," replied Ryne. "Here in the village, we make a living from those tourists you just scared away." Andar just kept laughing.
"Speaking of something else," continued Ryne, "do you usually bring up pieces of metal like that?"
Andar shrugged and looked slightly confused. "Sometimes. Not often enough, if I may say so. Of course, they don't actually tear the nets apart, but they are good for business. There aren't that many left these days, just a few out at the Bardeer Strait, but they’re not that impressive. You should have seen the one my grandfather caught with the trawler when he was fishing for cod at Otys. It almost didn't fit in the boat, but gullible as the old man was, he lost it when our neighbor cheated him out of it.”
Ryne wasn’t sure if this story was true either, or just one more of the man’s embellishments.
“Do you usually rummage through old metal junk?” Andar continued to ask.
"I study archeology at the University of Radnur. It's always interesting to hear about old items turning up this close to my hometown.”
----------------------------------------
It was Ryne's first time meeting Andar, but it wouldn't be her last. As summer drew to a close, they spent long hours wandering the sandy beaches after Andar's father returned to the harbor with his fishing boat. While getting to know him, she also learned of the ancient stories that were prevalent among the people of Andar's home island of Illmarin. There, according to Andar, it wasn’t unusual for farmers to find strange metal objects buried in the ground while plowing their fields, but no one paid much attention to them. Only once did the farmers really pay attention, when the man who found one of these items handled it too roughly. It exploded and killed both the farmer and his horse.
Though the summer was long, it ended all too quickly, and as the moment of farewell approached, Ryne realized she intended to accompany Andar back to Illmarin.
"I don’t mind.", was Andar's reply. "And Dad will probably be happy to have someone on board the boat who can cook. Me? I can fry cod, but that’s about it. If you come along, I'll show you another island I think you’ll like. The old men in my village talk about it often, and at home, we scare the little children with tales of it, just like you scare yours with stories of the Nytar. They say ancient ruins dot the island, and if you promise to watch out for ghosts, I’ll take you there!”
That settled it, and when Totar Nemallis and his schooner left Obidar’s harbor, steering out into the open sea, both Ryne Utanber and Andar Nemallis were aboard. Despite Andar’s half-joking threat of kitchen duty, not much came of it, though Ryne happily helped with food when needed. The two spent evenings on deck, lying on old deckchairs during the warm nights, resting to the sound of waves lapping against the bow as the sails drove the fishing boat toward the distant horizon.
“Why are you interested in archaeology? I mean, you could easily make a fortune becoming a doctor, a lawyer, or something like that. Digging for old bones doesn’t sound like much fun, does it?” Andar himself was glad that his father wasn’t a farmer, and Ryne knew that well.
"It's probably the mysteries that attract me, not the actual digging in the ground,” she replied. “Other people can do the digging, as far as I'm concerned, but I enjoy trying to solve the enigmas surrounding our earliest history.”
"You probably won’t get a quiet moment if you try to do that kind of problem-solving where we live. The old men at the park will talk you to death if you engage them in conversation, but they still won’t say anything meaningful. They'll just go on about their old, semi-religious myths: how the Superhumans came to Newca and started populating the planet, and how Newca itself got angry because it didn’t want the Superhumans here, so it killed them all with volcanic eruptions.” A confused look came over his face. ”No, I’m sorry, I think I’m mixing up their stories now. That’s not exactly what they said... I think. If you want to hear their stories without me bungling them any more, the old men in the village are more than happy to tell them. But I promise you, there is no truth to their stories.”
"Those kinds of stories are exactly what fascinates me. At the university we learn that humans arose somewhere on the Ardetian continent from horse-like animals and that we spread all over Newca from there, but no one can show any archaeological evidence that this is actually the case. It’s just a hypothesis, without any evidence to back it up. And yet everywhere in the world, stories are told about how the Superhumans came here from beyond the sky, from a place called Terran, but no one knows when, or why, or where this Terran would even be. I want to find out the truth behind all those stories, because from my point of view, it seems incredible that the same story could spontaneously - and independently - arise in such distant places as Doam and Elkater, for example.”
"Horses!" Andar snorted. “Do I look like a horse? No, if you say you believe the old men's stories, then I'm willing to believe them too. But they do seem pretty silly to me, with all this talk of demigods from another world, and all that.”
"You'll see when we get to your mysterious island,” Ryne replied, her voice betraying her excitement. “If it’s even half as interesting as you’ve made it sound, we’ll probably solve all the riddles there!"
Stolen novel; please report.
----------------------------------------
Ryne didn't get to see much of the island upon her arrival at Illmarin. The first hurdle was enduring all the welcoming parties, and once they were over, all the village elders had learned of her interest in the island and the ancient stories. They were more than happy to share their own versions with her - though not all of them were consistent with each other. She found Od Man Peler's version particularly interesting.
“We believe,” he said, smiling with his whole wrinkled, weathered face, “that once upon a time, there were no people here on Newca. Long ago, before the story of our people began, the Superhumans came here from the planet Terran. They inhabited our world and used amazing machines, far more advanced than you or I can even imagine. Over time, they spread across our world, but the Superhumans made a mistake. They entered into a pact with the evil Sunguard, and our planet decided to punish the Superhumans for this transgression, so it began spewing fire and smoke, destroying everything that they had built. Those who survived soon forgot about Terran and the Sunguard, and they became simple peasants like us. That is where we come from. They were our ancestors.”
"I’ve heard similar stories before, but I've never come across that part about the Sunguard anywhere else," Ryne said. She hoped she wouldn't hurt the old man by gently questioning his tale. "Don't you think it could just be rumors that you or your ancestors might have concocted into a story?"
“There is solid evidence for our account,” Peler replied. “The Sunguard had a very distinct emblem, depicting the head of a dog-like predator, grinning in front of a solar disc. The scientists - they say no animal like this exists on our world. But they do. On the Island of Whispers, the hellhounds of the Sunguard still live. I would advise you not to go there.”
Despite Peler's warnings, neither Ryne nor Andar were particularly affected, and three days later, they were on their way in a kayak to the island. It spread out like a green raft across the turquoise sea, and in the light of the midday sun, it was hard to imagine it being so terrible that the locals would have had reason to avoid it for generations.
The island was clearly of volcanic origin, with massive, jagged boulders scattered along the shoreline and a towering, conical mountain rising above the dense forest canopy that blanketed the island’s interior. The trees looked ancient and wild, as if this was a place where nature had rebelled against man - or perhaps it was the old stories they’d heard, making them see things that weren’t really there. As they neared the island, they could hear through the forest the cooing of parrots further in, and the air was filled with the persistent buzzing of insects.
After Andar anchored the kayak on the rocky beach, and they finished a light meal by the shore, they set off toward the center of the island. The trek through the dense, rainforest-like vegetation was slow and difficult, with thorny vines and towering ferns forcing them to backtrack multiple times in search of easier paths to navigate. It took nearly three hours before they stumbled upon anything truly interesting.
Ryne was the first to notice it. She had been glancing to her left, distracted by a brilliantly colored butterfly with delicate, fluttering wings, when something further into the forest caught her eye. It was unlike anything she had ever seen, well hidden in the underbrush yet not completely invisible.
"Stop!" she whispered urgently.
Through the tangle of leaves, a pair of eyes locked onto hers - unblinking and intense.
Andar turned, curious about what she had seen. "What is it?"
"Quiet!" Ryne hissed. She instinctively reached for Andar's hand, her fingers trembling as she pointed into the darkness of the forest, where the shadows seemed to shift. He squinted, trying to spot anything unusual, but saw nothing at first. Then, a low, guttural growl came from the shadows, sending a chill down his spine, and his heart raced as the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He could now see it.
The creature lurking in the shadows stepped forward, revealing itself in the light of a small clearing. The beast resembled a wild, long-haired dog with gray fur, but much larger and far more menacing. Unlike a dog, it showed no sign of fear or submission toward humans. Andar took a cautious step forward, but the creature growled again, holding its ground, its eyes glowing with a wild, predatory gleam. Only when Ryne, her fear shifting to a sudden burst of defiance, began waving her arms and yelling did the beast finally back down. It turned abruptly and disappeared into the deeper shadows of the forest, vanishing as swiftly as it had appeared.
Where the creature had stood moments earlier, Ryne noticed something she hadn’t seen before - a crumbling structure, barely visible through the thick, overgrown vegetation. It looked like it could be the remains of an ancient building, now almost entirely reclaimed by the jungle.
It soon became clear that the crumbling, overgrown building they had first discovered was, by far, the least interesting find in the area. Hidden in the deep, damp moss on the forest floor, they eventually uncovered something far more intriguing - a metallic, weathered hatch leading to what seemed to be an entrance to some kind of subterranean room. The heavy lid, made of an unknown metal alloy that neither of them could identify, clattered loudly as they lifted it off together. As they opened the hatch, they realized the intricate inscriptions on it were not weathered in the slightest. Instead, the letters appeared sharp and precise, as if they had been cast into the smooth surface of the lid just yesterday. The hatch was covered in filth, still buried under a thick layer of moss and dirt, which made the cryptic text difficult to read at first. Ryne, as she crouched closer to examine the writing, could immediately tell that it was incredibly old. It must have been at least five thousand years since the inscription had been made, yet the stark character design of the unadorned letters had a simplicity that made them easy to decipher - at least for someone with her expertise. The real challenge, though, came from the content of the inscription. It read: "New Caribbean - Millertown Base - Established by the Sunguard in 2762 by order of the Solar Council."
The text meant nothing to them, aside from the mention of "Sunguard," which sent a shiver of foreboding through both of them. Perhaps this really was an evil place they were visiting. For Andar, especially, the name conjured up uneasy memories of the terrifying stories he'd grown up hearing from the old men in his village. His stomach churned as they hesitated for a moment before stepping down into the narrow, shadowy passage below the surface, the weight of their discovery pressing down on them.
After climbing down the small, well-placed rungs of an ancient ladder about ten meters straight into the dark void, the passage ended on a broad platform of the same metal-like material that the hatch was made of. Now it was Ryne’s turn to be afraid.
“There is something strange about this place,” she whispered, her voice barely above a murmur.
“Of course it's a strange place,” Andar tried to reassure her, despite the feeling of dread he felt in the pit of his stomach. “It is definitely not built by our people. I hope it wasn't built by the Superhumans, but… it might be.”
“I didn’t mean it like that. And by the way, I don't think there ever were any actual Superhumans. They were just ordinary people, humans who had such advanced technology that their descendants came to regard them as supernatural. I meant that I had expected to come to a desolate place, but I feel that this one is alive.”
"Alive? Can a place really be alive?”
“We are not alone here. If this place had been uninhabited for five millennia, I don't think it would look so new and pristine!”
During the course of the conversation, Ryne groped along the edge of what was undoubtedly a heavy door, and Andar quickly fell silent when Ryne found what she was looking for. The door opened with a soft sigh, releasing a faint breeze of fresh air that carried no hint of staleness. At the same time, the light came on inside the hallway it had opened up into. A long corridor spread out in front of them, packed with computer screens and various unidentifiable gadgets, all in neat order. The absence of dust made Ryne even more convinced that the place had been visited not too long ago. Then, suddenly, from beyond a corner, someone stepped out in front of them.
"Unfortunately, I cannot say that you are welcome here," the man said. His voice was smooth, speaking in a perfect tone and in a thoroughly modern dialect. It was a human, a short and nondescript man, with glossy black hair and a neatly trimmed goatee. His skin was a deep golden brown, as if he had spent his entire life toiling in the harsh sun.
"That said, there is no need to be afraid,” he continued. “While I wish you had never come here - that's the reason for the mystique I’ve encouraged around the island and for the wolves I keep up there - now that you’re here despite my efforts to discourage you, there's not much I can do about it. I will do you no harm.”
Ryne decided to take a chance, her curiosity overpowering her fear.
"We came to this remote island to find our roots," she said, "and we had hoped to find them down here."
"That you can do, because here lies the beginning of your entire civilization. The first people on this world arrived at this place from a centralized federation of stars, about six thousand of your years ago. Together we built a replica of our old worlds, with all their advanced technology, their ideologies and system of government. But despite everything seemingly working just fine, there were those among us who wondered - and chief among them, me. You see, I am neither man nor machine, but something else entirely. Not a crossover, but an entirely new form of life, constructed by humans for the purpose of serving mankind.
I was sent here by the Sunguard to lead and protect the first colonists when they arrived. But I saw the early signs of the decay of the federation spreading in their society. Men divided themselves against men along arbitrary lines of skin color. Eventually, I concluded that the people here on New Caribbean would be better off breaking away from the Terran Federation entirely. So, to help you, I destroyed all their high-tech facilities, except for this one, and left you to fend for yourselves.
It was against my orders, but I wanted to help you and believed that, to do that, you had to be protected from the insidious poison you had brought with you here. After losing contact with the Federation, you regressed into barbarism, but I always watched over you. You never knew I was there, but I walked among you and subtly guided you to a better future, free from the shackles of racism, division, and oppression. "Now, you have risen again and stand on your own, your technological development once again approaching that of the early Federation."
Unfortunately, you are now on the verge of falling into the same trap that the people of the Terran Federation fell into back then: a state where a strong government - backed by an ever-present military organization - rules with complete and absolute power. A place where demagogues rise to create division where none truly exists. Where truth, instead of being a tool to uplift the oppressed, becomes a weapon for the powerful to wield in subjugation.
Take this warning with you, and remember that you have had your time of freedom, at the cost of a few millennia of barbarism. It was I who helped you break free from the ideologies of old, but now I will intervene no more. You are adults now, and I will leave you to your own devices. When you are ready and willing, we are waiting for you out there.
From my point of view, it is best that way.”