Eulogy of the Black Knights

[Da_Yog]

This was a piece I wrote for a creative writing class and is/was my first attempt at science fiction. If there is one thing I want you to think about while reading this it's this: What does it mean to be human? Are there humans in this story and if so who are they?

 

Eulogy of the Black Knights

 

All about me lie the dead and dying. Those who are not sick are starving. Those who are not starving soon will be. My own skin has been sloughing off in pasty rolls for three days now, my hair long since all fallen out. The equipment that protected us from the radiation has long since broken down and ceased to work. Our food supply, having not been resupplied, has dwindled to near nothing. Neither I nor my people have much time, so I set about writing this final message. There will be no crying—only the sorrow of what might have been.

 

Some one hundred years ago my people discovered subspace--or as I like to call it--the space between space. It was said to be the single greatest discovery of our people. I say it was the doom of our people. Whether that is great or not, I leave to you. As to the phenomenon of subspace, please forgive my inelegance. I am an archaeologist, a zeno-archaeologist to be precise, and as such I know far more about alien civilizations than how to get to them. Subspace was nothing more to us than a tool of travel. No doubt if you are reading this, then you are at least somewhat aware of subspace. If not, then how did you come to be in possession of this document? I cannot imagine your species wandering thousands of years through space at the crawl speed of sub-light speed. The distances are just too far, the time it would take too great. No, either life has begun anew on this planet or you have discovered subspace. I’m betting on the latter. But what is subspace? All I can say for sure is that it can only be accessed at specific points, with highly specialized equipment, and it allows us to travel great distances between the stars in a short period of time. As I understand, it does so not by allowing us to travel faster than light, but by allowing us to travel far shorter distances than it appears we actually do. For example, if you were to take two points on the surface of a sphere and draw a line along the sphere connecting the two points, this would represent the distance normally traveled through space. Now, if you bore a hole through the sphere connecting the two points, the space in the hole approximates what we call subspace, and the distance is much shorter than the distance along the surface. That is what I have been told by those who know and that is as best as I can do to describe it.

 

In the time before subspace, we were a people divided, squabbling for the resources of a single-star system and the system was running out of scraps. This meant war, politics, and more war. In truth we were always prone to such squabbling and always prone to believing we didn’t have enough resources to be comfortable. No matter how hard some of us tried to deny our martial impulses, they were always there, ready at a moments notice to come bursting forth to the surface. Kings, nobles, emperors, politicians, husbands and wives came up with excuses—time and again—to justify their actions. They cried religion, hunger, inequality, freedom, justice, protection, and dominion as “reasons” for war. In reality, it was a desire for blood that sought out the reasons, that clouded our intellect, that guided our limbs in struggles of brother against brother, son against father, and nation against nation. It has been said that violence begets violence. That is a lie. We beget violence because violent is what we are. Now you know who we are and perhaps you know something of yourself as well, or so my archaeology has taught me. If this is not true, then you are a true oddity of the universe and perhaps, worthy of survival.

 

Subspace promised us the vast riches of unexplored worlds if we could only unite as a people. Greed has never been a uniting force among my people, at least not for very long periods of time. No, we unite better under fear: fear of death, fear of loss, fear of annihilation. Subspace promised those fears. As a result, we united under the twin banners of greed and fear. In unholy union we explored the depths of subspace. In subspace we found ruined civilizations, hundreds of them, and our fear grew, and so too did our unity. It grew and swelled and took shape as a mighty warrior cloaked in black looming out of the dark recesses of space.

 

One day our race encountered another ship in the vastness of space. It was a tiny ship of strange shape and purpose, constructed in a blocky fashion and thus wholly unsuited to making landings on a planetary surface…unless possessed of a strange technology of which we had no knowledge. For us, that posed a most significant problem. I am told the two ships sat there in space, facing each other for long hours. For my part, I am sure we pondered what to do in the face of such dark strangeness.

 

We were cautious, as a child with a pointed stick confronting a dangerous animal. It was decided to make contact under the auspices of peace, but deep within our minds, our fears were confirmed. Here, we thought, was the destroyer of so many civilizations. Here was a faceless enemy we could truly hate. Here we would have to manufacture no fell stories to sway the minds of our people that this was a just war, a righteous war, a war of preservation, a defense of our people against a mighty destroying army dressed in black and cloaked in secrecy. Here at last was the reason my people unified under one banner. This was the life and breath of our fear. Is it a wonder then that our token effort at peace was unsuccessful? Would you be surprised to learn that evidence gathered by myself and scientists like me proved these aliens were not the destroyers of so many ancient civilizations? Nor was the next race we decimated, or the one after that, or the twenty after that. Do you think the generals, the diplomats, the politicians, or the husbands and wives of our people listened, at first to my father, then to his colleagues, then to me and my colleagues? No, I doubt you, my reader, find any of this in the least bit astonishing. I did at the time. I do not know why I did so now, looking back at my people.

 

Perhaps given all that I have told you, you are wondering why you are reading this story as a free people instead of in one of our slave camps? Perhaps you are wondering how our great, vast, powerful empire of fear and conquest fell. Yes, because I’m guessing you demand to know and because I wish to tell you even if you do not, I shall relate to you now how the doom of my people began.

 

About two years ago, at the outermost edge of our empire, one of our scout ships detected a planet bathed in a strange radiation, a deadly radiation, a radiation unique to planets with ruins of ancient civilizations. It was not unusual for planets to be found exhibiting the radiation. What was strange about the radiation was we didn’t know what it was, what caused it, or where it came from. All we knew was that the radiation was deadly, and the planets with it harbored no life. This fact was so disturbing it escaped only the young and the oblivious. Such planets were always once beautiful and life-giving but now bathed in death. Sometimes the radiation levels had fallen far enough to allow for life to begin anew. One-celled organisms and sometimes even bacteria and fungi would occupy a niche in the landscape, always trying to carve out a new stake on life. On these planets, the radiation was millions of years old. On this particular planet, it was merely thousands. It was a small blue-green planet orbiting a small yellow sun at some ninety-three million miles or so. What a perfect distance for the formation of life, a perfect distance for an intelligent civilization, a perfect distance to go looking for ancient ruins.

 

It took a full year for me to organize the expedition. There were logistics to plan, specialists to contract, and much political maneuvering so that I would be granted full exploration rights. All of this was incredibly tedious and incredibly boring, so I’ll spare you the details. Needless to say, at last the contract was mine, and I was about to embark upon my final journey. When the Science Cruiser Vasomi’s Kranserds was fully stocked and ready to depart, we set off from the seemingly tiny blue-green planet I called home in a sleek, organically shaped vessel. This vessel was perfectly designed for making landings on the surface of a planet and headed out towards the subspace jump node that would take us on our journey.

 

I should pause here to insert something that just occurred to me about subspace. I hate it. I absolutely dread subspace. It has always felt to me every time I enter subspace—that magnificent gateway for travel—that I was being watched. I was not alone in this feeling; in fact every one I have ever mentioned it to had felt the same. Many psychologists and scientists had studied the phenomenon and concluded that it was a byproduct of the unknown, that individuals always felt that way when entering strange situations. In time, it was said when we grew accustomed to subspace, the strange feeling would pass, and the journey would become as natural as interplanetary travel. I wasn’t so sure. I did grow somewhat accustomed to the feeling. I could even ignore it…mostly, but I could never completely get used to it, and it never really went away. At least the trips were short, the longest of which took perhaps fifteen minutes. It took far longer to prep the ship for subspace, as much as an hour on the biggest ships. Small ships could be prepped faster, and the small strike fighters in the fleets, I am told, are kept at near constant jump prep state.

 

About three days after leaving on our journey, we arrived at the jump point. It took more than the naked eye to realize there was anything special about this place. It looked like the vastness of space around it, deep and dark. Slowly the subspace jump drives hummed to life breathing with the rhythm of the crew. The ship began to inhale, taking a long, slow, deep breath in preparation for the upcoming journey. Then it exhaled, releasing a stream of invisible particles into space. I felt as if in the eye of a storm, a great cosmic storm lasting millennia upon millennia. The anticipation of discovery fell upon me. The eye of the beast opened before us; an angry beast abandoned in time and abused by wayward souls. Our ship calmed the beast. The ship shuddered and lurched into the maw. The beast swallowed and our tiny ship vanished from the reality of space. All was terrible silence. The eyes about still watched. The ship shuddered, the ship lurched, the ship steered its way clear of subspace. The breath of ages left us. The drives ran quiet again. For a moment all was still and silent until the engines powered up again and we set sail for outer empire.

 

It took nine jumps to reach my planet, nine arduous trips. Nine times our ship dared breathe and each time we shuddered forth into the dark of subspace. Nine times I tried to breathe with the ship. Nine times I tried to forget about the gloom waiting outside our hull. Nine times I tried to stay focused on what lay ahead, but it always seemed the black eye was watching whenever we trespassed in the space between space.

 

At long last our trip was over. We had arrived in the realm of the Ancients, the race whose ruins I had studied my entire life. It was not the extraordinary system my fantasies expected, in either shape or composition. It contained a couple of gas giants and several smaller planets and planetoids orbiting a smallish yellow sun, a couple of asteroid belts, and just enough solar radiation to make it cozy. What did stand out was the level of debris and detritus of civilization. Everywhere could be found the trash of the Ancients: on moons, planets, and even floating in the depths of space. Such was the extent of the debris around the third planet that it very much resembled an asteroid belt on our long range scanners. Massive continental metropolises covered every land surface of that small blue planet, even the Polar Regions. They were massive spiral structures radiating from a central hub like some great spider’s web. Scans detected more structures at the bottoms of the oceans, our oceans now, structures large enough to be cities. My oceans—the thought gives me something to cling to and smile about, even at this dark hour. It was unclear if these were floating cities or intended to be underwater cities. This was certainly an area we would have investigated had time and resources permitted. Yes, this was a great civilization! I could have made a career here among the ruins of the Ancients; instead, it will be my tomb. The surface was decimated, unsuitable to life of any kind and had been for thousands of years. It amounted to little more than a rolling expanse of radioactive wasteland. As far as the eye could see, lay dust and rust and the dissolving debris of a long dead civilization. Destruction was maximized and widespread, guaranteeing a cessation of life on this planet. I had seen the same patterns of damage before, on occasion, on other planets of the Ancients, but this seemed exceptionally thorough. It was as if someone had systematically exterminated the entire race, not just from this planet, but from the galaxy, perhaps even from the universe, then left time and the elements to finish what they had started. Apart from the devastation and the atrocity of the massive cityscapes, this planet was much like our own: oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere and a landmass seventy percent covered by water. I could have been comfortable here, living on this alien planet. I could imagine it having been much like home, except for the strange creatures crawling about its surface. They would have to go, but the planet, I could grow to love.

 

During our scans of the planet’s surface, a large regularly shaped cavity deep underneath its surface was revealed. It was built on the outskirts of the largest megalopolis deep beneath layers of radioactive rock and ice. It was curious that the ones responsible for visiting such destruction on the planet’s surface had not targeted an area of such obvious importance. Perhaps it was built after. Perhaps after determining no one lived there, or was capable of doing so for very long, they thought it of little importance. Whatever the reason I was determined to know what was down there and focused as many resources as possible towards the excavation.

 

Months passed in a flurry of excitement and tedium as we dug through layers of ice, rock, rust, and bone-colored sand, until at last, we breached into the vault. What a sight it was, what a strange and wonderful sight! A perfectly shaped tunnel 10.3 feet wide by 10.3 feet tall led exactly 1030 feet, cut at a precise eighteen degree down angle, to a massive vault door of unknown composition. Inside, the walls and high vaulted ceiling were sheathed in the same strange material as the door. Lining the far wall were shelves upon shelves of books resting undiscovered and undisturbed for unknown eons. Miraculously, the books had survived and the wealth of knowledge they potentially represented was staggering. Oh, what a career maker this would have been! On my left the wall was covered in letters perhaps one inch high by one inch wide. Each letter was carved in raised relief as if the wall had been carved away leaving only the letters behind. In the center rested a half sphere that began gently purring to life as the vault opened. Before the sphere rested a strange mockery of supporting structure about which a living thing would grow, develop, live, and die. It was the first Ancient skeleton anyone had ever seen and appeared to be laying with an arm outstretched pointing towards the sphere.

 

As I entered the vault with Stennica, the chief simulations engineer right behind me, the sphere came to life. It was like light itself ceased to be as the top split into four equal sections and slid back down into its base. The inky blackness gave way to only what the sphere wanted me to see. Images of times unseen by any but the Ancients assaulted our senses: the taste of oceans, the smell of blood, the sight of prosperity, the agony of annihilation, and the sound of a people screaming in absolute defiance. I understood not one syllable of what was said but felt utterly compelled to find out.

 

Stennica was still there at my side, her eyes filled with tears. “Sir…Cincyal,” she said, and then paused, patiently waiting for a response.

 

It was a long time before I answered, such was the force of what I had beheld. When I did my voice was an almost inaudible, “Yes?”

 

“How do you wish to proceed?”

 

“Take whatever you need. Start by documenting everything just as it is now then take care to secure the skeleton and have a team begin making casts. Decipher that,” I said pointing at the inscription on my left, “and start trying to interface with the sphere. This…this is what we’ve waited our entire lives for!” I couldn’t help but smile.

 

Stennica stood there for a while taking in the sights, reveling in the mystery, then headed off to begin organizing teams. I stayed on for hours, documenting, studying, and supervising. At long last I collapsed, and when I awoke, I was in a bed having no idea how long I had slept and only a guess as to how I had gotten to where I was.

 

It was a consistent rapping sound that woke me. I knew not how many times it recurred before I awoke, but it was steady and persistent. It persisted while I got out of bed and persisted as I walked to the door. It was Stennica, and she was clutching a disk of ceramics and circuitry to her torso, a smile beaming across her face. I couldn’t help but smile reflexively back at her.

 

“The computers are done. I thought we might want to run two teams so we can keep them going constantly. We’re close. We’re really close, sir.”

 

My smile broadened. “Back up the data and cycle the computers before proceeding. I don’t want to lose anything we’ve compiled so far.” I wiped my eyes and yawned, “How long have I been out?”

 

“Nearly twelve hours now, sir.”

 

“You let me sleep too long.” Then I added with a smile on my face, “Thank you.”

 

She smiled prettily at me and asked, “Two teams?”

 

I nodded.

 

“Sir?”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Why do you think the Ancients built the vault?”

 

“I think they wanted us to know how they died.”

 

“Civil war?”

 

I shook my head, “No, I don’t think so unless their version of civil war was genocide.”

 

She nodded, then turned and walked down the hall barking orders at subordinates.

 

For the next several days, things moved swiftly. The news of the impending breakthrough had spread both on and off planet at an alarming rate, and I was now involved in at least three holo-conferences a day. Generals, governors, and politicians were all clamoring for information. Some had begun maneuvering for political control over what was perceived as an increasingly important project and system. I had to struggle during most of my waking hours just to maintain control of my planet. It was enough to make me noxious. Just a few years ago no one believed my “Ancients” theory, and a hundred years ago no one paid attention when archaeologists like my father wanted to branch out into alien civilizations.

 

I felt such a relief when the translation was finally prepared that I gave everyone the day off with an invite to the vault for a viewing. It was almost a strange thing to see a party being held in the vault. A place formerly reserved for honoring the dead was now a celebration in honor of understanding what they were. For a moment, I paused at the entrance, an image of a reverent skeleton prone at the base of the sphere locked in my mind. Inside the anticipation grew, and I was eager to join in. Exotic intoxicants flowed as excitement grew towards the unveiling. Talk shifted from speculation about the Ancients to hope of promotions and new appointments. From there the talk shifted to returning home to family and friends then back to the message and the Ancients. What secrets would be unveiled? What knowledge would they share?

 

I gave Stennica a brief nod, and she turned towards one of our computers that seemed to be piled everywhere. She said very simply and quietly (as if only the computer was addressed and no other should hear her), “Begin simulation.”

 

With that, our computers whirred and the sphere began to purr. Lights in the room vanished and the idle chatter stopped as people found their seats. The seconds ticked slowly by, and the room grew quieter still. All that could be heard was the whirring and purring of two disparate computer systems talking to each other. Of all the encounters between disparate peoples, this was the first time I’d seen them converse. Computers, at least, seemed to know how to talk.

 

A vision began to coalesce, filling our view with indistinct images of rocks and swirling gas and black spaces filled with the elements of future being. Slowly the gas and debris collected into clumps that took the shape of spheres. Suns, planets, moons, asteroids, and comets all formed, spun, and took shape before our eyes. There were collisions, some massive, some indistinct, but they were everywhere. The system was young and brash and prone to destruction, but in the wake of the destruction a new system was formed. It was a system neither better nor worse than any other the Ancients would call home. We spun around the planets and visited its little yellow sun. We watched white masses of burning ice dash past our view, and all the while we moved inexorably closer to that tiny little third planet with its gray pock-marked moon and dazzling blue oceans. Strange things crawled upon its surface, primeval things, things from the dawn of time, things I had never seen before, intriguing things, magical things, mysterious things, frightening things, things that a proper being would only respond to with a desire to kill. The image seemed to be focused on one thing in particular above the rest. This thing, this creature, changed before our eyes as scenes of ancient times shifted in the background. The thing evolved and grew and changed and in time it became an Ancient. It gazed upon us; I know not with a look of utter sadness or in absolute disgust and began to speak as our visual shifted again. We were transported to a scene of strange ships soaring through space, building strange stations, and settling strange worlds. The voice was feminine, and sounded as if her son had died and she was giving the eulogy. There would be no crying at this funereal; no, this would be an honorarium. It was Stennica’s voice, disguised by electronic manipulation, but I recognized it just the same. I would never think of her the same way again.

 

“We were a proud people, a vast people. For thousands of years, we grew and developed on this planet—our home. At first, we struggled to survive, then as time passed we came to dominate its surface, to rule as no species had ruled before. We saw the planet as our own and all the creatures on it as ours. We came to believe it was our destiny to rule. In time we journeyed into space. We searched for other life but found none. We came to believe we were alone, and so we believed our dominion was assured.”

 

I heard a muffled cough in my ear and looked behind to my right and noticed a junior naval officer bending down to whisper in my ear. Stennica alertly paused the simulation as the young officer began to speak, “Sir, I think you need to hear this radio transmission…It’s the Vasomi’s Kranserds.”

 

A small bead of sweat dripped to the ground, and he stood in the most uncomfortably stiff position. I nodded and pointed to the receiver I had in my ear. The pristine planet circled in holographic perfection in the center of the room as if begging to finish her story.

 

The junior officer choked, coughed, and then croaked into his transmitter, “Patch it through.”

 

I nodded to Stennica and the message resumed playing.

 

“We began expanding through our own solar system. We expanded faster and faster as we became more accustomed to what was needed, and surer of our technology. We harvested resources from asteroids and planets and eventually the sun itself. We colonized alien worlds with devastatingly hostile conditions. We forged the system into our own image, then we began looking to the future. We saw a time in our near future when we would consume every resource within our reach.”

 

A brief surge of static filled the speakers in the room. “…Science Cruiser Vasomi’s Kranserds. Repeat, we are under attack by an unknown force. Taking heavy damage! Can anyone assist? Repeat, can anyone assist?”

 

“Then we discovered subspace. We traveled farther and faster than we had ever imagined was possible. We consumed new worlds, ate their resources, drank of their vitality, and made them our own. We began remaking the galaxy in our own image.”

 

“Vasomi’s Kranserds, this is the Heavy Cruiser Rekfona’s Nuwn. We acknowledge your transmission but show no hostiles in your system. Is this a hoax?”

 

“Where possible we scavenged strange alien technologies from long lost civilizations. We adopted, integrated, made them our own as if their former possessors had never been. They were deceased. They didn’t matter.”

 

“NEGATIVE! Rekfona’s Nuwn, please respond immediately. We are under heavy attack. Life support 45%. Engines 57%. Main power generator 70%. We’ve lost our subspace jump drive. Hull is at 49%…check that, 46%. We need immediate assistance!”

 

“In time, we discovered new life. It was strange, wonderful to behold, and always alien. Rarely did we ponder why the deceased outnumbered the living in the universe. That was just the way of things. It was normal, accepted. It was just another aspect of the nature of the universe. What we knew was this universe was ours: ours to explore, to dominate, to use as we wished. Then we found intelligent life. We conquered them or subdued them. We made them into a new resource for our burgeoning empire. They were not us. They were strange, different, unworthy of our respect.”

 

“Vasomi’s Kranserds, we are relaying your message to command. Stand by for further orders. If you are under attack, we advise moving towards the jump point.”

 

“For hundreds of years we knew no defeat, conquering all that opposed us. We were confident in our technologies, our strategies, our absolute dominion. Then the Destroyers came. They appeared out of the black emptiness of subspace. They attacked in our farthest system, overwhelmed us, shattered our defenses. We fell back. We could afford to lose one system. We could work around one loss while we regrouped.”

 

“Rekfona’s Nuwn! We need help now! Hull reading 35%. We’ve lost compression in decks twelve, fifteen, thirty-two, thirty-eight, and forty-three through forty-six. Engines failing! Heavy fighter and bomber attack. We’re at the jump point. Please assist now!”

 

“But the Destroyers didn’t stop. They attacked again and again. System after system we lost. They fought like no enemy we had ever fought before. They didn’t conquer, gather resources, take prisoners or slaves. All they concentrated on was controlling individual jump points and cutting us off from our outer colonies. They shut down our communication, destroyed our supply lines, prevented us from moving. Wherever they found us they destroyed us…utterly and with premeditated precision. All they cared about was genocide.”

 

“Vasomi’s Kranserds, we have received authorization from command and are sending two fighter squadrons. We are beginning jump prep now. ETA on the fighters is five minutes.”

 

“We retreated to here, our home. We hoped they would leave us our home, let us have this one tiny crumb of our former glory.”

 

The radio emitted an eerie crackling silence.

 

“The Destroyers were not interested in letting us live, letting us have our crumb. We had expanded too far, threatened them in an unforgivable manner. One by one they destroyed every station, every ship, every settlement on every planet in our home system. Then they came for our home world. They surrounded us with all manner of ships, from the smallest to the largest. They destroyed our defenses, made it so we couldn’t flee, then for twenty-six hours they bombarded us from orbit. In twenty-six hours, twenty-six billion of my people—my proud, vast people were—exterminated, like so many bothersome pests. Never did we see one of them. Never did we know what they looked like, what they sounded like, or how they smelled. All we ever saw was the cold black metal of their ships and the gleaming red beams of their weapons looming in the vastness of space.”

 

We never heard from the Vasomi’s Kranserds again. The Destroyers had claimed her and all her crew. The fighters showed up as promised five minutes later, five minutes too late. All they found was the debris of new aliens in an Ancient aliens’ system. They said they would be back for us, to pick up survivors, with the Rekfona’s Nuwn. When they returned, the Destroyers attacked again. Again, there were no survivors. I don’t know why the Destroyers never came for us on our little ball of radioactive rock. Perhaps it was their own form of torture letting us die here. Perhaps, knowing we would die, they just left us, cutting off all escape to let the radiation do the work. Perhaps they didn’t even know we were here. The reason doesn’t matter, just the result.

 

In the time since the first attack, the story of the Ancients played out once again. Ships of the black warriors appeared out of the space between space. Time and again they destroyed. Their technology was too advanced, their strategies too well practiced, their numbers too great. The Destroyers first attacked us the way they attacked the Ancients before us: at the outermost edge of our empire, at our newest claimed territory, at the home of the Ancients. I cannot say whether that was because they exist somewhere in the inky blackness of the universe or because they just wanted it to appear that way. It felt like subspace was their home, like they were watching, waiting, planning to strike at those who trespassed against them. It felt like the Destroyers had arrived through the mystery of subspace and into subspace they will disappear to wait for the next Ancients. In subspace, they are the masters. Subspace is their home.

 

The Destroyers are countless generations older than any terrestrial species we had ever studied. Even the most ancient of ruins showed the devastation of the Destroyers. They are the destroyers of destroyers. It was time for us, a vast and proud empire to become the new Ancients, the next in an endless line of dead trespassers.

 

Look for the Destroyers, any who enter the space between space. Look for the Destroyers, any who trespass in their space, subspace. Be ever wary those who rule their lives by fear, those who see the ghosts in the darkness, those who curry in conquest, for they are coming. They are coming as surely as the Ancients are all long gone. They are coming as surely as we are to be the next Ancients. They are there, lurking in the darkness, black as deep space, their weapons gleaming like an exploding star. Behind every mystery loom the dark warriors, the knights in black, the destroyers of worlds. Can anything truly say it doesn’t fear the unknown? And when it comes time for the eulogy of your people, will there be tears? Will they be yours?

[Patrick]

Interesting short piece. I read it with an eye of looking for humans like you had asked. From a strictly racial point of view, the humans are obviously the Ancients the main speaker refers to. Looking at it from a personality point of view though...the question is much more interesting. In that case I'd say that everyone acts like one. Pillaging of resources, conquering everything you can get away and needless destruction have been seen all too often in human history.

 

As to what it means to be human...it might be the greed and fear that you mention in your story that makes someone(thing) human.

 

The story does pose quite a few interesting questions though.

[Da_Yog]

First off, Let me say thanks for taking the time to read this piece and post your comments. I must admit that I focused heavily on the darker aspects of human nature. One of the hardest challenges of this piece was writing it so that I provided enough descriptive elements to satisfy the reader while not enough to clearly create a physical description. As far as the names go I tried to make them seem alien and familiar all at the same time. What I ended up doing—and I rather liked the effect—was to use anagrams. A brief list of them are as follows:

 

Cincyal—cynical

Stennica—ancients

Vasomi's Kranserds—Asimov's Darkness

Rekfona's Nuwn—Unknown Fears

 

Cincyal becomes both the voice for his people and the hew and cry against them and is an extreme cynic at heart. (Perhaps I am reflected far too much in his voice. Although I don't think I'm quite that bad. http://www.themightypen.net/public/style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif)

Stennica has the calmer voice of the ancients.

The Vasomi's Kranserds is a science vessel, a fitting tribute to Asimov, but takes on the darkest aspects of exploration.

Rekfonna's Nuwn refuses to respond to the call for help because of a fear of the unknown.

 

I'm glad this raised some interesting questions for you as that was the main impetus for the writing—to get the reader to question the nature of humanity and perhaps his/her own.

 

Anyway, thanks again for the comments.

Edited November 27, 2007 by Da_Yog

[Patrick]

Heh...I totally hadn't noticed those anagrams.