A replica of the original Golden Hind
captained by Sir Francis Drake
7
DAYDREAMS
My father, a commodore, had told me that one of our ancestors, a Sheila Talbot, had been a crew member on the Golden Hind. She had been a doctor in the infirmary, so I scrutinized the first forty-one pages of Log of Captain Christopher Hennessey of the Golden Hind to see if she was mentioned. Once on page 18, Hennessey wrote that one of his staff had cut her hand with a knife and had to be sutured and bandaged in the infirmary, but the doctor was not named. On page 25, another of his staff had tumbled down a vertical passageway and broken several bones and was hospitalized with a serious concussion. On page 28, that same person died, and on page 30 his body was incinerated. The doctor was never mentioned.
However, on page 38, hundreds of crew and soldiers had come down with a mysterious illness. Admiral Yakimoto thought the source might have been food poisoning, so she sent a team of doctors to inspect the mess area. They found nothing suspicious. Captain Hennessey had discussed the disease with one of the doctors, and in parentheses in the margin he had written “(Mjr. T.)” I remembered that in parentheses on day 43 he had mentioned the 16 stowaways, “Including Mjr. T,” who had escaped the mother ship aboard Martian Moons. Was the “T” for Talbot? A doctor could have easily been a major, although I couldn’t remember if that had been Sheila’s rank. The result of the inspection and blood tests on all victims had been inconclusive.
A favorite tale of conspiracy theorists on Earth and Mars has been that the Golden Hind had been sabotaged. That theory states that a band of malcontents (usually “Sol Separatists”) had gotten aboard and, once the ship was out of the solar system, had sabotaged it to discourage space exploration. That no group ever took credit for such a thing and that no evidence of sabotage was ever found did not stop the conspiracy theorists from talking and writing books and making documentaries. Now I had to ask: Had the mysterious disease been a form of sabotage?
I had another question? What had happened to the other forty-eight crew members of the Golden Hind who had abandoned ship aboard the freighter Martian Moons?
I perused pages 43 to 51 and found part of the answer on page 51.
08/12/2348 CE, 24:55 Zulu
Yesterday I volunteered for an inspection detail and boarded the lighter attached to Martian Moons. Because of recent events, I cautiously took all of my personal gear with me. Lieutenant Dom was the pilot and Sergeant Paktil, boat mechanic/engineer. Our mission was to inspect for damage from a meteor shower that we had passed through. We have entered the system of the red dwarf, and it has planets with atmosphere. The commander of Martian Moons wanted to be sure that the ship was intact enough to enter the atmosphere of one of the nearby planets and land safely.
Unfortunately, no sooner had we begun our inspection than we realized another meteor shower was imminent. We had no time to return the lighter to its berth. Dom put the lighter into a hard right turn and fired the engine full force. As we slipped out of danger, I looked back and saw Martian Moons surging forward and turning left. Once the meteors had passed (twenty minutes?), we looked around but could not see Martian Moons.
Dom tried to radio, but got no answer. He thought the meteor shower was between us and the other ship and interfering with communications. He told us that the lighter carried only a 24-hour supply of oxygen, so he had no choice but to head for the closest planet. We couldn’t argue with that, so we are heading toward a large brown and blue planet. ETA: 4 hrs.
“Major T” had been aboard the Martian Moons when it separated from the lighter. Had that crew also survived and made a landing, or had they drifted through the Za system until all oxygen was gone and the ship became their mausoleum? I would find out what had happened to the three in the lighter by reading the next page (52).
08/13/2348 CE, 24:23 Zulu
It is past midnight according to my watch, so I must have been unconscious for at least 18 hours. Everything is pitch black and I can hear no sound. I am writing by the light of a flashlight. Dom and Paktil are dead, killed by the force of the impact when we hit a mountain. I survived because I had strapped myself into the robot-stevedore, which absorbed most of the impact for me. I think the lighter has buried itself in the mountain because there is no light at all. I’m beat up pretty badly with bruises and scratches over almost every area of my body.
Tomorrow I will try to get out of the lighter because I know I will die in it if I don’t, but first I am going to eat the remainder of my rations, drink and rest.
Page 53:
08/14/2348 CE, 12:55 Zulu
This planet has an oxygen atmosphere!
I had to pry open a hatch to create a space large enough for me to squeeze out and then pull my personal items after me. Then I had to dig away rocks at the tail of the lighter and squeeze through that opening. Hundreds of meters farther I saw light and moved toward it. The lighter had actually entered a cave and had buried its nose at the rear of the cave. Dom must have been guiding it to the end.
From the mouth of the cave, I have a view of the planet below me. The mountain is covered with black conifers and dark alpine plants. It seems to be part of a ridge of mountains, but it is the tallest. The air is frigid, so my first task was to make a fire. I gathered wood and made a fire at the mouth of the cave behind a rock outcropping to break the cold wind. Below the mountain toward the east (the point at which the planet’s sun rises), is a vast brown plain with small rivers running through it. Below to the south is a purple plateau. North looks icy and forbidding. The sky is a light gray, but looks bluer south.
I went into the conifer forest to find something to eat and came upon a furry four-footed creature that seemed to be rooting plants from the ground. Seeing that it was evidently a herbivore, I shot it with my pistol, the shot ringing out and echoing around the mountain. I dragged the carcass back to the cave, gutted it, skinned it and cooked it by making a barbecue spit with some tree branches. The meat of this animal was red and its consistency was like goat or lamb, but wild, perhaps like venison. I stuffed myself and fell asleep after building up the fire.
I am still very sore and scratched, but the good meal helped. When I woke, the fire had burned down to embers. I got the skin of the animal and cleaned it. The fur is long and thick, so I am making a cape-blanket out of it, something to wrap around me or throw over me to keep me warm.
Page 54 had a meeting that I was anticipating:
08/15/2348 CE, 9:03 Zulu
Today I met an inhabitant of this planet!
Occasionally, I have heard a creature scream. The scream is not always the same and comes from different points. I think it is some kind of predatory animal that lives in the mountains.
In the morning, I drank some water from a small icy pool below the cave, refilled my canteen and had more of the meat from the animal I had killed. While I was eating, I heard something coming up the mountain. I heard footsteps, rocks falling and brush crunching. Not knowing what it could be, perhaps the predator, I tested my force field and readied my weapons and stepped into the darkness of the cave.
Suddenly, I heard a voice saying something, but I understood nothing, but I thought that whoever it was, was hallooing. He would have seen the barbecue, the skin hung to dry, and the fire. He probably thought one of his own kind was here.
Then it stepped into the mouth of the cave. The creature was vaguely reptilian because it had scales over its body and two yellow eyes, but it wore warm clothing, boots and a fur hat. It was carrying something that resembled an ax. It was obviously a form of intelligent life.
I turned on the force field and stepped forward. I had forgotten the force field’s ridiculous green glow. When the creature saw me, it gasped, and fell on its knees and said, “Za-con!” over and over. Then it fainted and fell down prostrate.
I got some water and sat, waiting for the creature to come around. I, of course, meant it no harm, and I was not afraid. Although larger than I, the creature had inferior weapons that could not penetrate the force field, and I knew I could kill it with either my laser or pistol if it acted aggressively.
When the creature regained consciousness, it opened its eyes, saw me glimmering greenly and standing before it and murmured something. It slowly rose until it stopped while its folded legs remained on the ground and it sat. Then it opened its arms in a supplicating gesture.
I said, touching myself, “Chris.” Then I pointed at it.
It got the idea and touched itself and said, “Envak.”
I had the ax because I had wanted to examine it. The head is made of iron honed to a sharp edge; the handle is polished wood. The top of the handle had been whittled down to fit the head hole, which had been hammered down over the haft and the top hammered down to create a ridge to capture the head. Leather straps had then been wound tightly around the head and shaft to make it even more secure. Good basic work.
I pointed to the ax. It said, “Muk.”
You get the idea. We wanted to communicate with each other. I got out a notebook and began jotting down each new word, its sound and meaning. He wasn’t literate enough to do the same and was amazed by my writing and my quickly learning the basics of his language.
I knew Envak (I am sure he is male) was an intelligent life form with a lesser technology, literacy and understanding of science than I had. I soon realized that he thought I was some kind of god that had come to live on this mountain. Evidently, no other humans were on the planet; at least not anywhere near where I was.
His name for me, Zacon, means “king of the world.”
I read the next thirty pages, during which Envak stayed at the cave, helping Hennessey get water, fuel and food, and teaching him Putkeen, which was being written down for the first time by Hennessey.
After thirty days, Envak left the cave and went down the mountain to his village. There he told a wondrous story of meeting Zacon in the cave and how Zacon was teaching him to read and write. The villagers thought he was crazy, but a week later when Envak went up the mountain with a load of supplies on a furry arbez, some of the other villagers followed him.
Hennessey had been watching and waiting for Envak, so he saw the half dozen villagers behind him. He turned on his force field, stood up, and using an amplifier said clearly in Putkeen in a stentorian voice, “[Envak, come to the mountain. Nobody but Envak.]” The villagers looked up, already shaken, and saw Hennessey glowing greenly on a precipice, and heard his voice echoing around the valley. He repeated, “[Envak, come to the mountain. Nobody but Envak.]” To enhance the godly image, Hennessey fired his laser into the top of one tree and set it afire; then he fired his pistol into another which shook, a branch fell, followed by a loud crack echoing around the mountain. The villagers, now agog and in shock, tumbled back down the mountain as fast as they could go, their minds filled with fear and wonder at the god that could command thunder and lightning and speak with the voice of multitudes. (pp. 84-85)
Next Hennessey undertook to write laws that all Putkurs should follow and wrote them in a notebook that he had found in the lighter. He invented letters for Putkeen sounds and taught them to Envak, who understood that Zacon had taken a special interest in him. Then he asked Envak to read the laws that he had written. Sounding the lines out, Envak read the laws about not killing, not stealing, not coveting what others had, etc. He liked them and told Zacon he was very wise. Hennessey told him that when the time was right, Envak should take the written words down the mountain and read them to his people. (pp. 86-185)
I recognized some of what Hennessey had used to build his body of laws: ideas from the Quran, from the Gospels about Jesus, from the teachings of Buddha, from the way of Lao Tzu, and from the writings of Gandhi and other reformers. One passage that I knew by heart was directly from Gandhi:
The seven sins are
Wealth without works,
Pleasure without conscience,
Knowledge without character,
Commerce without morality,
Science without humanity,
Worship without sacrifice, and
Politics without principle.
There were other events in the log, but I wanted to know why Hennessey had done what he did: invented a religion and gave laws to an alien people. On page 266 he attempted to explain himself.
“I can carry out this deception only as long as the force field holds out. I scavenged Dom’s and Paktil’s force-field belts. I know the user’s manual says ’90 days before recharging,’ but I don’t use one when Envak is gone or if I’m in the cave alone. I’m hoping to milk an extra ten or twenty days from each one. That means that I can last about nine or ten months as a ‘god.’
By then I want Envak to have the capacity to read, write and spread the laws that I am giving him, based on the most popular of Earth’s religions—as far as I remember them. When the last force field begins to fail, I will end my life and disappear.”
Hennessey had wanted to pass on the idea of a written language and of written laws that could be used by Putkurs to advance their civilization—a risky endeavor, for the consequences would have been uncertain. However, he had had more success than he would have wished; he had created a god and a religion based on his writings, but like all intelligent beings, some Putkurs got it, some didn’t, and some could not care less.
I skipped to page 304 in order to read his final words.
“The end has come. I know some might say that I was foolish to try to bring law and language to the Putkurs, but I wanted to do some good before I left the universe.
Yesterday, I sent Envak down the mountain with all the writings and told him to copy the writings, to teach other trusted Putkurs to learn to read them, and send those trusted followers to all the corners of the planet, so there would be a brotherhood of teachers and ministers to keep the laws and help their people.
I know he will do it because he feels that Zacon has told him to do it, and he believes Zacon has called him. I told him that I was not Zacon, but he could call me Ghandi, the messenger of Zacon.
I told him that only he should come up the mountain again or enter the cave. No one else should come up the mountain. When he returned, I would be gone and would not return, but I would leave him my book inside the cave.
I will do so tomorrow. Then I will go to the rear of the cave and cause an explosion that will seal me and the lighter inside the rear of the cave. There I will shoot myself in the head.”
That night I told Mawgri all I had learned. The story made us both solemn and a little sentimental. He held me in his arms until I fell asleep.
End of Chapter 7
Below are some items related to this blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment