The dismembered body of GuruG went limp for a moment.

It looked back up.

“The Plath… Where to begin…” it mused. “I suppose we must begin at the beginning. But first, a little ‘history’ even for us.”

A wrinkled hose extended from the mass that was once GuruG’s seat and plunged into what was left of his throat. Two more tendrils wrapped around his lungs and ripped them free with a sickening squelch.

“Much better. I found those air bladders to be annoying.”

“You get used to them,” Grace winced.

“How inconvenient,” the ancestor replied. “If you like, we could investigate some body modifications for you.”

“I’m good,” Grace replied. “Thanks, though.”

“Just let us know if you change your mind. It really isn’t a bother.”

“We will bear that in mind,” Alan said smoothly, “Thank you for the kind offer.”

“GuruG seems to believe that you are NOT going to bear that in mind,” the ancestor laughed. “Where was I? Oh. Right. ‘History’…”

It paused again as the light faded from GuruG’s eyes, and it drooped lifelessly, for a few moments. Then, it perked back up.

“Sorry. I had to retrieve some skeins. There is one dominant trait among all successful elder races. And the definition of success, at least for us, is the continued survival of the species. That trait is prudence. It is something that we all cling to with near religious, or in some cases truly religious, devotion. Do you know why that is?”

“You mean there’s a reason why all of you elder dudes have sticks up your asses?” Grace asked.

GuruG’s head let forth the strangest screaming noise, causing both Alan and Grace to leap to their feet and back away.

“Oh dear. That was supposed to be a laugh. I suppose I was too enthusiastic. My apologies. I am still learning how to communicate in your fashion.”

“I guess a new head takes some getting used to,” Grace muttered as she tried not to think about it. She liked GuruG.

“A bit of an oversimplification, but you are essentially correct. This method of communication is not natural to the Same.”

“If this is difficult for you,” Alan asked, “then why didn’t you use GuruG as a translator? It was his purpose, after all.”

“Because some of what we may discuss is not for the unborn’s consciousnesses to receive.”

“If it is so sensitive,” Alan asked, “Then why tell it to us? And what is to keep us from immediately relaying it to the ‘unborn’? I assume that is what you call pre-ancestors like GuruG?”

“Because it may be necessary to do so. Besides, if it comes from the mouth of an outsider, it will be suspect and can be denied. For you, it would mean the end of any association with the Same and the loss of all revenue you would gain by dealing with us. Your same would also not receive those profits, profits that would be very valuable to them, especially if their situation is as you represent it. I will, of course, share nothing that would pose a threat to the Same if released to the galaxy at large.”

“Fair enough,” Alan replied. “Shall we proceed with the conversation that is so important that it required the decapitation of a friend of ours?”

“GuruG was your friend? Curious. Your association with him was exceedingly brief.”

“He was likable,” Alan replied with a faint shrug. “I didn’t say he was a good friend or even someone we will miss, but he was favorably viewed. As a suggestion, I recommend not absorbing an other’s translator right in front of them as a common practice. We are killers and… comfortable with the prospect. Most won’t be.”

“You are mistaken. GuruG was not killed. His substance and consciousness have been absorbed into me where he continues to live and where his knowledge will live on and serve the whole.”

“The whole you,” Grace snarked.

“Grace,” Alan said firmly, “not now.”

He turned to GuruG’s head.

“That is none of our affair and we have no opinion concerning it. GuruG did not object, and even if he did, it’s an internal matter and, again, none of our concern. However, other beings will not be so open-minded. I don’t mean to tell your business, though. It was just a suggestion.”

“I shall bear it in mind. However, I also doubt that it will be necessary very often. What we will discuss is not discussed with many.”

“Is it because we are humans?”

“It is because you are unaligned humans. Your Same is small and not connected to any of the large otherpowers. In other words, you are suitable humans.”

“So it does have to do with our race.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“We shall get to that shortly, but first, I must convey some history so that what follows makes sense. I left off with the concept of prudence. Do you not think it odd that every single surviving elder race is so consumed with it, why we are all so infuriatingly conservative and stingy with the knowledge and technology that we keep from you?”

“A bit,” Alan replied, “But it is widely held that you are all intent on maintaining the supremacy that said knowledge gives you. We wouldn’t share either.”

“That is a part of it, but a very minor part, insignificant compared to the true reason. Are you familiar with the concept of species filters, sponges that one must navigate without becoming ensnared and consumed utterly?”

“We are,” Alan replied.

“We are?” Grace asked.

“Did you cut every class?” Alan asked her.

“Only the boring ones.”

“In one of those, this concept was discussed at length,” Alan said.

“Well?” Grace asked, “What are they?”

“Something you can either look up when we are back on the ship or gather from the context of the conversation, not something that I am going to bore our host with.”

He turned to the ancestor.

“Please. Continue.”

The ancestor attempted another laugh with limited success.

“I can see why the unborn like you so. You are so similar to them in mind that it greatly simplifies communication. Anyway. Filters… One would think that spacefaring races have passed through all of them. Many races at your level believe that to be the case. However, they are incorrect. Filters remain, including some that still lie ahead of all of us, the elder races included. One of these has never been passed by any species. Even our ‘gods’ were brought down by it. Some believe that it isn’t passable at all, that it is a hard limit that once crossed, extinction becomes certain.”

“That I did not know,” Alan replied.

“It is something that we do not share unless a race becomes advanced enough to where there is a chance they may trigger it.”

“What is this filter?”

“The exact nature of it is unknown. It may be one filter, or it may be several such situations. All that is known is the consequences, utter annihilation of the offending race, and yet another galactic dark age. That ‘dark age’ is why we warn others and are so careful with the technology we share. Whatever happens is not limited to just the species. It gets messy, very messy. Entire swaths of space become rendered lifeless, sometimes forever. Stars disappear from the night sky. Other… disturbing… things have been recorded as well. Details are scant because, without fail, the offending species is utterly destroyed along with their records. What remains are third-hand accounts from the species that survive, usually pre-technological ones. They are sometimes all that is left…”

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

The ancestor paused.

“Sometimes this is instant an entire race simply vanishes leaving all of their creations behind… for a time… Other times the fall is slow and bloody. Some races seem to devolve to near animals, like the Y’keen… or abandon their technology utterly and revert to a pre-technological state…”

The disembodied head’s face contorted in a gruesome attempt at a smile.

“… like the Plath.”

“The Plath?”

“They, like us, are a relic of a much older age, one dominated by true elder races much more advanced than any today. They often created entire species the way we create machines, and these crafted races served them as if they were gods… which, in a way, they were. We were also given their technology, or at least some of it so that we could better serve.”

“So you and the Plath served the same elder race?”

“Oh no,” the ancestor laughed, a bit more successfully this time, “we served different ones who clashed frequently over control of this galaxy for millennia. The Plath were their god’s warriors, and we… Hmm… We aren’t truly sure of what we were. Our nature was very different then. Among the Same, there is no consensus as to our true purpose. Nominally, we terraformed, that was our assigned task, to alter a planet. However, to what purpose is a mystery to us. Our original instructions would have made this world not only uninhabitable to us but to nearly form of life known. Some believe that it wasn’t to prepare the way for colonization but to destroy all life along with ourselves at the end. They believe that we were a weapon. One thing is for certain. One of the first things we did was the global infection of a world with viruses tailored for life created by the Plath’s gods, including the Plath themselves.”

“So you were a smart bio-weapon?”

“It is unclear,” the ancestor said with a bob of GuruG’s head. “And we were only sent with orders and only the knowledge needed to complete our tasks. Their greater purpose was not shared. All we knew was to infect and grow and that certain lifeforms were our enemies. Our only orders concerning the Plath and the others of their kind were to report their presence and attack. If we were going to lose, then unleash radiological doomsday weapons that would turn this world into a toxic radioactive wasteland that would be completely uninhabitable and unusable for centuries.”

“If that was your goal, then why not do that the moment that the weapons were completed?”

“You would have to ask the gods,” the ancestor replied, “and they hit the filter hard… or at least we think they did. Their commandments simply ceased one day. As far as we know, they ceased roughly the same time the Plath’s gods did. Perhaps only one triggered it. Perhaps they both did. Again, it is unclear.”

“What is your opinion?”

“I believe as most of the ancestors do. The question is unanswerable based on our current information. That is our consensus. It is relegated to what roughly translates as ‘idle fancy.’ To continue this brief summary of millions of years of history, after the gods fell, the Plath rose. They were not consumed by what took their master, and using what they ‘inherited,’ they consumed the Galaxy, nearly literally. Somehow, we were missed or intentionally bypassed. We were one of the few things that could confound them, and we were not leaving our system. We did not have FTL travel as one of our gifts. Again, it is unclear.”

The ancestor coughed up a bit of phglem.

“After centuries of ruling the galaxy as ‘gods’ themselves,” the ancestor said, “The Plath also hit one of these sponges. In their words, they ‘offended fate’. They had abilities where probability manipulation were concerned that were far beyond anyone else. Perhaps they pushed things too far? Whatever they did, they did not share the details, especially with an ancestral foe. They became strange, even stranger than they already were. They systematically and brutally dismantled their empire, wiping out any trace of their and their god’s presence. Entire worlds were turned into ash as they attempted to purge reality itself of their presence. Eventually, they disappeared. For millions of years, we thought them gone just as our gods before.”

“But they weren’t gone,” Alan replied.

“And that discovery caused quite the reaction, I can assure you,” the ancestor screeched with one of his disturbing real laughs. “The phrase, ‘shit a brick,’ translates quite well. We awakened the Sleeping Ones and sealed our system off from outsiders for over a century. Of course the Tolo were delighted but as previously stated, they are insane. I hold them in high regard and we feel a debt to them that we cannot repay, but they are insane, all of them.”

Alan was also beside himself. This was knowledge that to his knowledge no other human knew. And knowledge was one of the most valuable commodities there was.

“Why do you feel that you owe the Tolo?” he asked.

“Because of a gift they have bestowed upon us and other races of our stature,” the ancestor replied, “The Book of Fuk, perhaps the most valuable document in the entire galaxy.”

Grace snerked.

The ancestor turned to face her.

“What do you find amusing?”

“The greatest book in the galaxy is named The Book of Fuk?”

“I never considered that. Upon reflection, agreed. It is quite amusing.”

“What is this book?” Alan asked, beyond intrigued.

“It is a list of developments that have led to hitting that final sponge or have a high probability of doing so,” the ancestor said, “It is a roadmap for the prudent to avoid that final fate, to stop short. No race that follows its teachings has ever been consumed by… whatever it is. Those who disregard it have always fallen. It is, to borrow human words, the Bible of prudence.”

“Then why not share it with everyone?”

“Because immature races, those still developing, the temptation to test it would be overwhelming. And the book contains enough hints that a clever race could use it to advance themselves technologically. Just some of the equations present in that tome could shift the balance of power in a whole region of space and increase the probability of a sponge being triggered. Tell me, would your race truly follow its teachings or try to… searching… find a loophole?”

“He has us there,” Grace smirked.

“While notable, most of your race’s traits are not unique. To return to our tale, the Plath seemingly have delayed their fate considerably by their brutal and extreme actions. They killed entire worlds and everything on them, but THEY survived. They terraformed their homeworld and created a paradise for their kind. Then, they cast aside the final vestiges of their technology and slid into a comfortable… Nirvana in a… Garden of Eden… made specifically for them. Then, they purged even themselves, altering their forms and eliminating any knowledge of their past. They know nothing of their true history save a very rare few who protect their ‘slumber.’ The rest of us enthusiastically support this endeavor. Were the Plath ever to awaken, truly awaken, from this illusion they have cast over themselves, the galaxy would burn. They would become the sponge that all the rest of us would have to survive. If you discount everything else I have said, trust me on that. You do not want the original Plath, the Pla’koth, to ever return. Even you humans would be hard pressed to survive. They are what was used to fight US. And they did that quite well. Again, things are unclear to us, but we don’t believe that we were winning at the end.”

The ancestor paused.

“The Tolo say that it would only take one Plath to revert to restart the madness and death all over again. They know more about them than any other race, perhaps even the Plath themselves.”

“How do they know so much?” Alan asked.

A long sigh seemed to emanate from the very walls.

“This next story is… a bit much to take in for anyone, including myself when I first tasted it. I am going to ask you to keep an open mind… The Tolo gave us, and others, another gift, what we consider the second most important document in the galaxy, The Final Prophecy of the Heretic…”

***

“Woah,” Grace said some time later.

“And you say this has been verified?” Alan asked.

“Much of it has already transpired and took place exactly as predicted, including events that we have personally born witness to after receiving it. It exceeds coincidence and chance by so many standard deviations that there is little doubt. It is accurate and a testament to exactly what the ancient Pla’koth were capable of… and what could happen should that be unleashed again. So, you can see why a feral Plath running around is of such a concern.”

“If she is this… first daughter,” Alan asked, “and she represents so much of a threat, why not simply kill her before she does whatever it is that she is going to do?”

“This is why we rarely share these things with developing races. According to the prophecy, you won’t be able to. If one was to try and fail, she could reawaken the entire race. At the very least, you would probably wind up like everyone else that’s tried thus far. If correct, Sheloran is both a full witch high priestess AND a high warrior. To borrow yet another term from your delightful people, good luck with that. She would literally see you coming a week before you got there. Under no circumstances should she be messed with. From what I have heard, the Republic has already discovered that firsthand.”

Grace snerked again.

“Couldn’t happen to a better bunch of assholes,” she snorted.

“You should not be quite so nonchalant about it. One of the things the Pla’koth were known for was biological weapons. If you think your human-crafted one is bad, what the Plath could do is many times worse. They wouldn’t target the Republic. They would target your entire species. They’ve done it before, multiple times. If pressed, they will do it again. Their preferred tactic is to craft something that is very virulent but only sterilizes the victim. By the time that the target is even aware they have been attacked, their entire population is sterile. From what we know, no species has even been able to undo this. This is then followed up with other biological weapons, multiple ones each nearly impossible to cure, all of which then act synergistically, each amplifying the effects of the other. The whole time they will be building their fleets and their forces, devouring everything in their path. This is one of the theories concerning our original role. Any world we inhabited would be near unusable to them. It is likely that we formed a hedge or wall around the realm of our gods.”

“And just when you thought the galaxy couldn’t get any shittier,” Grace said.

“However, the Plath just want to be left alone to hide and slumber. We also want that. We can only hope that whenever their fate finally reaches them, that it will not reach us as well.”

“And the prophecy says that the arrival of the true First Daughter would herald this,” Alan said.

“And thus, our extreme interest in Sheloran. If she is a true incarnation, then their time is up… or could be up… A Tolo sage tried explaining it to us once, but it was very hard to follow. Basically, the prophecy ends with her as does the Plath’s slumber… maybe…”

“That isn’t terribly clear.”

“After you try getting a straight answer out of them concerning this, then you can criticize,” the ancestor replied with another screech. “The only thing you and the humans need to know is, during this little war of yours, do NOT target the Plath.”

“We will certainly pass that along,” Alan replied.

“And any information concerning Sheloran or the Plath you encounter in your travels would be greatly appreciated and greatly compensated for.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Alan replied, “Of course, now that we know how valuable that information is, only information can pay for it.”

“You really ARE like us,” the ancestor replied approvingly.