Human anatomy was similar to Thaf’ell in some ways. The long pinkish shaft was like his thicker, longer blue one. He had no nest of curls like Jace did around the base of that cock. He considered whether Jace’s cock would change, as his did, when aroused. He tilted his head to the side as he noted the furry balls that were nestled up against Jace’s body. He wondered what they would feel like, what the whole of it would feel like. Soft? Scaly? Turgid?
Khoth shifted again as surprising heat bloomed in him. Blood coursed to his cheeks and he looked down at the journal instead of at Jace’s naked body. It was one thing to take an interest in another species. It was something else entirely to be aroused by them. He spun around so that his back was to the pool and that tempting body.
He blindly paged through his sister’s journal, noting the familiar, neat handwriting in violet ink. His heart ached just seeing it and knowing that she would never write another word again. His sadness erased the arousal quickly.
He ran his fingers over the pages and leaned down to sniff them, trying to find yet another trace of her there. The Thaf’ell believed that to write was to pull a piece of one’s Xi out of oneself forever so that others could experience it. He had never really believed that. But he was in the minority. Thaf’ell artists were not held to the same social strictures as everyone else in order for them to freely share their Xi without regard to Xa. They were thought to be special. He just thought them strange.
But, in that moment, he knew that though his sister’s words would not be lyrical like one of their poets or writers, these words were part of her. They were words he had never read before and, once he read them for this first time, they would not be new any longer. There would forever be less of her to know even as his understanding of her would grow. His throat tightened and his heart grew heavy in his chest.
His eyes were still simply scanning the lines, not reading the words when he suddenly caught the name “Osiris”. He slowed down his paging and started to focus. What had his sister known about this ship? What was her reason for wanting to come to the Osiris? What secrets could he discover for her here? What questions of hers could he answer? He needed to know. He began to read.
… heard from Dr. Lafrei about her work on Thausia…
Khoth frowned. He had heard of Dr. Kantor Lafrei and his impression was not good. She was a Neenda, a mostly aquatic species that claimed to be able to read the memories of the person who created an object through simply touching that object. While the Neenda had been able to prove that their reading ability worked on objects created by many of the species in the Alliance, their readings of Precursors had been less satisfactory.
The Neenda produced countless papers supposedly about Precursor thought and history after touching their technology but they were so vague as to be useless. There were theories as to why. Such as that the Neenda were simply too distant a Seed Species from the Altaeth to be able to understand their thoughts. The Thaf’ell believed that the Neenda were simply too empathetic to understand the cold logic of the Precursors and, therefore, shied away from it. Some had even accused the Neenda of lying about their readings to hide Precursor beliefs that varied from their own.
Dr. Lafrei was the most prolific of these readers and, not inconsequentially, the most distrusted. Yet because of that--and so as not to offend the Neenda as their work in reading Khul objects had been invaluable--she had been allowed to continue this practice on Thausia, an abandoned Precursor world that had few, if unusual, artifacts.
… most of Thausia’s laboratories and manufacturing centers were obliterated seemingly by the Precursors themselves. Yet, despite the destruction, Dr. Lafrei has been able to read many of the structures--
Khoth was frowning again. Dr. Lafrei contended that the Precursors had destroyed some of their own buildings and technology? Why think of them instead of the Khul? All Precursor worlds had been found to be mostly intact with full defenses online that kept the Khul at bay. The Precursors had taken an almost fanatic care to ensure that, at least the remnants of their civilization would not be lost to the sands of time. It was theorized that they had understood that their weaponry and technology were the only thing stopping the Khul from destroying the Seeded Species, including the Thaf’ell. Yet here was his sister and Dr. Lafrei contending that the Precursors had attempted to obliterate this part of themselves.
She believes that there is a connection between the Osiris and Thausia, namely that the Osiris was built there, along with other technology the likes of which we have not seen on any of the other Precursor worlds. And there is a reason for that...
Khoth’s eyebrows lifted. These were not the vague almost poetic ramblings that the Neenda usually gave regarding the Precursors. There was normally a reverential tone to those honest gibberings. But Dr. Lafrei’s understanding here was full of definiteness.
His forehead furrowed further. He knew that he had not heard of any of this in the Neenda papers. Yet he did not really look at them unless he wished to fall asleep or perform mind puzzles. But surely such clear readings would have gone beyond those dense papers and made it into the military’s recommended review list! Yet they had not. He continued on.
… Dr. Lafrei’s readings have indicated that the Precursors on Thausia were a splinter group with a radical agenda.
That brought him up short. Not that he had thought that any species would all agree on everything. But the Precursors had seemed pretty united in their fight against the Khul. All of their society, their technology, was invested in protecting themselves and the Seeded Species from Khul destruction and assimilation.
After countless cycles of war and a stalemate between them, the majority of the Precursors had come to believe that it was better to simply defend themselves and not attack.
Another frown drew his lips down at the corners. This was mostly what the Alliance’s tactics had been. Despite their best efforts, they had not been able to find the Khul’s homeworld or the bulk of their civilization. It was thought that they were a nomadic species, arranged into groups of ships of various sizes called a Swarm. The more Hives in a Swarm, the more Khul. It was impossible to stomp every Swarm out, because the Alliance did not truly know how many there were or where they were or when they would show up. Space was large, to say the least.
Even with the Alliance concentrating on defense, the Khul had still managed inroads into Alliance territory. The Khul seemed to have endless amounts of Swarms. But still it was thought better to remain in Alliance space then thin their defenses by seeking out these Swarms blind. The Alliance had pulled back to patrol the space that they controlled and no farther. His sister had not been the architect of this strategy, but he had thought her in agreement with it.
Yet there was something in the tone of the writing which suggested he was wrong about that. Her following words confirmed it.
The splinter group believed that the basis of the Khuls' very identity was to destroy and assimilate all life. The Khul viewed the Precursors as a threat to that core belief-system and, therefore, the Khul would do everything they could to obliterate the Precursors and they would never stop. A strategy of defense was simply slow death.
Khoth’s hands tightened on the journal. His own sister’s life had been lost in a similar patrol. The Xols that had caused his sister’s suspicions to raise had no secrets. Or rather, it had, but those were about a personal matter that had made it come across as suspicious. Simply put, it was cheating on its mate when it had discovered the Khul ships and feared reporting it would reveal the affair.
I have come to believe that this splinter group within the Precursors was right. We are currently following the majority of the Precursor’s lead and we are failing. We are being chipped away, planet by planet. We cede space at every turn. We are not more safe now than when I took over command. We are less…
Khoth re-read those words again and again. He had no idea that she had felt this. He wanted to push her words away as simply private fears, not basic facts. He did not want her to be right. And yet… truth. Truth was what mattered. He knew of half a dozen worlds that they had abandoned. Worlds where scientific, mining, agricultural and other activities were taking place. The reason given was that the cost to keep these far-flung worlds safe was too expensive in terms of people power, fuel and other resources. Now, only if a world had Precursor technology at a certain level and density would they protect that new world. His sister… was right. He kept reading.
Dr. Lafrei believes her readings show that the Osiris was built with the intention of offensive action against the Khul. She believes that the Osiris has the key to defeating the Khul. And I believe her. I will find a way to resurrect the Osiris and I will use that vessel to destroy the Khul, once and for all...
Khoth drew in a deep breath. He thought of Jace, Gehenna, and the strangeness of the Osiris’ outer structure, among countless other things. The Osiris was definitely built with another purpose than any other ship they had discovered.
And yet it was used as a prison. What if it was simply a prison ship sent to take this splinter faction to another world for trial and judgment and not a ship of war as my sister thought?
He did not dismiss this idea. It could be right, after all. Gehenna’s actions had not exactly been above board. She seemed almost sneaky and, most definitely, secretive. He had been able to piece together much of what she had done by reading her one-sided conversation with Jace. She had tried to create a Pilot by tricking one of the human scientists into Osiris’ Core, but then things had gone very wrong. She believed that the Osiris had tricked her to gain access to Jace…
There was a sound--a soft splashing--from the pool. Khoth spun around, tucking his sister’s last journal into his inner pocket as he did so. He hoped to see Jace, freed of the lines, climbing out of the pool. But no, Jace was still seemingly unconscious, but he had thrashed.
