Here for my contribute to the art section of the session log. another entry from Rodworth's personal logs From
The Logs of Rodworth Shimout
Entry
– The Empire that never was.
I
couldn't think of any other way to shut up the old goat, after four
hours of constant chatter on the flight back about the Tetrarchs, I
was desperate to quite the old explorer.
“You
know Milo, you not the only one that ever found a remarkable
treasure, dealing with the Tetrarch. My Grandfather Spider Shimout,
while scouting the Dixon system found a treasure so mind blowing that
it convince the Clans to settle there.”
Milo
stared at me with one eye, the other was shut as if he was attempting
to use the one eye to peer into the depth of my soul to drill out the
truth. “Boy I think you trying to pull a fast one on old Milo, I
have been to Dixon, and while the ruins are greats, I never found any
thing that was really worth a second look.”
That
because you're a flatlander, you all think that planets are only
place to settle. You all ignore the fact that planets are fragile and
the only real safety for a species is to scatter its numbers across a
solar systems. The Tetrachs knew better. We of the Clan find their
works scatter around solar systems throughout the Frontier.”
“What
proof you got youngster to back them words.” Milo challenged.
I
lifted my Chronocomm between us, “ I got a copy my old granddad's
log entry.”
He
stared at me, there was a look of hunger in his eyes. I went on, “
Do you want to hear it, I shouldn't, no one outside outside of the
clans knows about this, but since you are such an expert in the
field, I know no better person to tell.”
All
Milo could do at this point was nod his head, and I was amazed that
he had gone this long without saying a word. So I pulled up the old
archive file and found Spider's log. As I press the play button, I
reclined back and my grandfather voice began the tale......
“I
was a little disappointed that none of the crew wanted to come along.
I knew that if the Doc was here he would, but he remained behind at
Timeon to trend to his sick mom. Isbella my wife was biting at the
bit to join me, but she was already two months along with our second
child, and was confine to the old water tank of “ Long
dagger ”, with the invention of the new generation of
atomic engines, the massive tank that stored the reaction mass for
the salt water nuclear rocket drive of the ship was no longer needed.
Instead we converted that section of the ship to a spin cage, to
provide a constant one gee gravity to insure proper development of
our unborn child and also for little Scott, at two his growing bones
also were depended on a gravity field.
Instead
I rode over to massive floating sphere with three telobots in the
ship's boat, just in case I needed a hand. This way my cowardly crew
could render assistant at a safe distant. The source of my crews,
anxiety was that damn Timeon's net documentary, “The Tetrarchs and
the Empire that never was”, which detail the existent of this
precursor society and their sudden and mysterious disappearance,
While many theories had been put forward, the one that seem to appeal
to masses was that the Tetrachs had some how engineered their own
doom, and clan men and woman are a superstitious lot. So when our
survey of the Dixon solar system indicated a single structure
nested in the outer Trojan belt that radio dated over 150 million
years, well within the believed time period of Tetrachs civilization,
There were not a lot of volunteers to join me to investigate.
As
the shuttle neared the spherical structure I decided to run a
scan,and was shock that nothing about the composition of sphere
register, but I did detect that the sphere was leaking oxygen. The
leak it self was abnormal, it should have been venting to space,
instead it oxygen seem to linger around the Sphere as if it was being
held in place.
As
I neared it the Black sphere seem to be riddle with huge holes,
several big enough to drive my ship boat through. Never being one to
ignore an easy way in I maneuver my craft toward the largest and made
my way into the interior. I wasn't prepare for what find, on the
interior surface of the sphere was a vast forest.
''
Holli naked singularities, isn't that a forest, why are there trees
here." squealed one of the telobots with the voice of my cousin
Betha. " you got to land Spider and collect samples. Who knows
what down there, there may even be wild life."
"Should have came along cous, I not planning on taken a walk in the woods just to
satisfy your curiosity especially since you decided to stay on the
Dagger and play it safe." I replied my voice dripping with the
tone of my irritation.
"Play
nice my love," the voice of wife came from an adjacent
telobot," not many are as foolhardy as you my bravo."
With
that all i could do was smile, the image of me battling unarmed
through a horde of pirates to win her hand flashed into my mind,
compare to that this was a cake walk. " Tell you what cousin,
i'll do a fly by and if i spot anything moving down here i'll take a
closer look."
From
the telobot that Betha was slave to, came a high pitch squeal and a
chorus of "thank you", and i began my aerial survey.
The
boat's sensor detected no movement in the forest below, but I
spotted a weird radar echo on the repeater unit. My wife Isabella
telobot blared, " you spot something darling?"
"Not
sure, I getting a weird Doppler reading from the radar scope."
When I said that the third bot turned it head and examine the
repeater.
"
that cannot be correct," the bot replied with the voice of Dan,
Bertha's husband. " The ping's Doppler is indicating that it has
traveled at least a distant of several light hours, but interval of
the time the ping is transmitted and its return, indicate only several
hundred kilometers."
"Meaning
?", I asked.
"Not
sure." He replied
It
was then I noticed the light, it came from a section of the sphere
inner surface that spotted a population of young saplings. As I
zoomed in with boat's telescoped I spotted a small cylinder
structure. Like the sphere it bore a series of openings that light
appeared to be coming from.
"Found
something guys." I pointed to telescope view screen.
The
telobots heads moved in order to focus on the screen. In unison they
asked,"what is it ?"
"Not
sure, I answered, I'll fly closer and take a look." As I answered
banking the craft toward the ground structure.
As
I flew toward the black cylinder my craft was buffered by turbulent,
I struggled to maintain control. The telobot controlled by my wife's
barked,
“B......e........c..........a................r.................e..................f................................"
The words sounded like they were being stretched until the bot fell
into silent. From all indications all the bots had lost connection
and no longer were functioning.
I
made the decision to land, there was a small clearing near the
structure, and as I touched down, I spotted a figure, dressed in a
clan's skin suit sitting on a boulder near one of the opening in
structure. I popped the hatched and made my way toward him, he stood
and faced me. I found myself starring into a mirror, one distorted by
scores of decades. The elder me smiled.
"
you have questions, and we have little time." He began to talk
rapidly, " I am you, fifty years from now. In about ten minute
you are suppose to walk into that, he pointed toward the lite opening
in the black structure. Inside is a naked singularity, the builders of
this placed manager to capture a black hole. They charged it and spun
it tilled the horizon disappeared."
"Why
?", I had to ask.
"To
create a gateway to everywhere and every time. I walked into it fifty
years ago, I been places. I seen things and I have spend the rest of
the time trying to make it back to this moment. You got to go back
and convince the clans to relocate to this system. The future of not just
the clans but all the races on the frontier depends on it." As
he spoke the ground started to shake. I looked above me and watched
as inside of the sphere began oscillate."
"
That going to be hard, there not much to attract them here." I
brace myself as I was almost knock from my feet by the quaking earth
beneath me.
"Tell
the heads of the clans, this." And he told me things that I
would only shared with the clans chiefs and my wife. Things I dare
not put down in this log. When he was finished he turn toward the
opening. " you better get going. When I enter the singularity it
going to create one heck of a paradox, not sure how bad it going to
be, but you don't want to be around when it happen."
I
ran back to the boat, as I zoomed away, I watched as the older me
stopped at the entrance of the structure and waved, he seem almost
frozen at the entrance, but remembering his warning I punched it. As
I existed the sphere it collapsed behind me, shrinking until it
became a point and then disappeared.
I
managed to match orbits with Long dagger and docked, surprised at the
lack of any reaction. as I emerged in air lock their was a small
crowd struggling with my wife, she was in a vac suit and looked
intent to make it to the airlock. Every one stop and stared at me.
“Spider!”
they shouted. And rush me...
I
had a heck of a time making out what happen from the cascade of
excited voices, but according to every one, the life boat's and my
transmissions had stopped around five days ago, finally my wife
decided to follow me in the spare life boat, and the crew was in
process of stopping her when I show up. With that I barked order to
prepare the Long Dagger for our return to Timeon. As I escorted my
wife back to our quarters I explained to her what happen, she looked
at me as first as if I was mad, and I proceed to recite the things my
future self told me. When I finished she fell into my arms with tears
in her eyes and all I could think of was that net documentary and I
found myself cursing the “Empire that Never was.”
As
I came to the end of my grandfather log entry, Milo look at me and
uttered.
“Your Grandpa knew how to spin one heck of a yarn, but I'm having none of
it.” with that Milo turned away and was silent.
Eusyl
turn around from her seat in front of me and asked. “That story
ain't true? Is it?”
“What
can I tell you, have you ever wonder how Admiral Morgain was able to
choose the correct system that the Sathar jump to after the battle of
Traid or how the Capella Free merchant knew that the worlds of Laco
and Grand Quivera needed food stuff? One would think some little
birdie tip them off.”
Eusyl
stared at me hard and laughed, “Good one Rod.” and turn away, but
Milo kept staring at me the whole flight, at least he was quite.
