Chapter 20: Sheila and other Allies

Jason had just completed dinner with Cassius and Alana, Razza, Celia, Felicia, Gamma, Jonathan, Norbert, and Philippa; when he received the notification that the fleet had arrived from Parzool. Cassius very much enjoyed the meals at Jason’s house and eagerly accepted each invitation, unless he had pressing Empire business. He also enjoyed the whole household, with its diverse members and resulting interesting and stimulating conversations. The Queen invited them up to her ship for a brief chat before they commenced more formal meetings the next day; when Ouma Chatzke and Montgomery were due to arrive.

Jason encouraged Razza to accompany them, which she did with alacrity. As they flew up in the shuttle Jason saw the size of the fleet and the ships. The smallest ships looked at least half the size of his battleship and the biggest probably ten times the size, perhaps even larger.

Her Majesty Lynas Parayekt met them in the huge hold where they had entered. There was an honor guard of the biggest Tyrannosauruses that Jason had ever seen.

‘No wonder their ships have to be so large,’ he thought.

Lynas was quite effusive in her welcome and her greetings of the Emperor and Empress. Cassius clearly enjoyed the meeting, and the impressive informal ceremonial welcome. They were transported to a very large conference room. Seats were provided for them on raised platforms that took them up to the level of the tabletop. Stairs assisted them to get up to their chairs. The dinosaurs sat upon bench seats.

Jason looked around carefully and noticed that some of them appeared to have wings folded tightly to their backs. Queen Lynas introduced her group around the table. They were the same advisers and sages that Jason had previously met, but had not been introduced to them formally, nor told of their roles. One was an Admiral, one a General, and there was the chief scientist, the chief medical officer, three sages, her secretary, three advisers, along with her public-relations person. Cassius introduced Jason’s group and provided to the Queen’s group a little background and to Razza’s embarrassment he explained her background, and what had happened.

“It is a great honor for us to be invited to visit your Empire. I have only traveled within my own Empire and to a very limited degree. My late father the emperor lived for very long time, and was a truly great leader, unifying our Empire. He was always concerned that I did not take risks. He was betrayed many times in his life by allies, and was responsible for the inward-looking nature of our own Empire. We have been reassured by the predictions in the Chronicles, nevertheless, as my father used to say: trust but be wary and prepared, but above all test the trust. In this case, it is not so much a matter of trust as a matter of being prepared for some powerful enemies as we are traveling to the collective and to the galaxy of our bitter enemies. The octopi are another group of nasty enemies with expansionist tendencies.

“Jason has kindly sent to us the nature of your diet and some of the methods of its preparation. We eat meat of herbivores of a species somewhat like cattle, plus birds and fish, almost exclusively, but have enjoyed experimenting with some of the drinks. The idea of soda water had never arisen in our society, and has become popular. We have never previously cooked, but are enjoying experimenting. Jason sent examples of marinades, which we enjoy and will incorporate into our food preparation. We have prepared a selection of drinks for you, along with some of the snacks that we find interesting and we believe will please your palate.

Glasses were placed on the table with a variety of drinks. There were two or three in front of each person. The flavors were pleasant, but were not sweet. For Jason, this was quite logical. They were exclusively carnivores. Sweet flavors would not be familiar to them at all, might not have any appeal, and might even be dangerous to some of them.

Plates of canapés were placed in front of them on the table, and very much larger canapés were placed in front of the Tyrannosauruses. They were quite delicious. Jason smelled the most delicious aroma while platters of barbecued pieces of meat were brought in that were fine for their size, but observed that colossal plates with huge pieces of meat still on bones, were placed in front of the Queen and her group.

“For this, we need to thank Jason. We have always eaten our meat raw. Jason sent us recipes that he thought might be of some interest to us, as we have no experience of cooking. I did then ask him about how it was done and he provided information on a variety of methods of cooking, as undertaken by his friend and chef, Robert. This has been an interesting exercise of exploration. We have particularly enjoyed barbecue cooking and are looking at acquiring a variety of herbs and spices. We have found a number so far on Yekt, which we have used in the preparation of these dishes. The idea of cooking meat never appears to have entered our consideration. It has become an interesting process of exploration, and we do enjoy the smells,” she said while taking a massive piece of meat on a bone in her delicate front arms and devouring it, along with the bone, in three impressive mouthfuls.

They ate silently for a few minutes. The food was delicious.

“Tomorrow we have organized breakfast, before we commence our meeting,” Cassius said. “The agenda will be as we agreed and then we will show you some of the city. We will be accompanied by Montgomery and Ouma Chatzke and I believe that we will finally meet the avatar of Porquenta. He has been promising that this avatar would soon be ready for some time, but then thinks of something else he wants to do, and it gets delayed yet again. I wouldn’t hold my breath for its arrival tomorrow, either!” said Cassius with a laugh.

After a brief round of further light conversation, the Queen was thanked for the refreshments and snacks and they returned to the surface.

The next morning Jason awoke, facing an unknown woman. Philippa was on his left, with Celia next to her. He turned to his right to look at the unknown woman and then Felicia who was behind her. The unknown woman was quite beautiful, looked vaguely familiar, and had a skin color like Jason’s. She had high cheekbones, a strong face with square slightly cleft jaw, gray lips with a faint red in the gray, straight nose and when she opened her eyes, they were a startling gray/violet color. Her hair was mauve with black and yellow highlights and was long and had a gentle curl. He was pleased to see she was dressed in a colorful top, but that was as far as he could see as she was covered by a sheet and the blanket. As he looked at her carefully, he could see her color was a mix of his skin color with a possible slight tinge of green. She had a gold necklace with a medallion that he didn’t recognize. A second chain, black with many medallions with what looked like runes, was below the gold necklace. She grinned at him cheekily and turned her head. He could see her ears were more pointed and longer than was usual in the empire, though he had seen elven looking women.

“If I may be so bold as to ask, how on Earth did you get in, and who might you be?” Jason asked of the lovely young lady, as he climbed slowly off end of the bed.

“How I got in is a question for another time. Who I am, is for you to guess, what my name is, is for you to say,” she said enigmatically but with a naughty smile on her face.

“Now, let me see if I can deduce who you may be. No one but me is surprised at your arrival. You are not an assassin who came in through the roof as I suspect I am still alive. You are not a sister of Philippa or anyone from the University. The guards let you in. You lay next to me and did not breathe, but are warm and I felt no heartbeat. Your manner of speech is familiar. You are from Porquenta and are in the image of his people. You are from him. You can only be the emissary of Porquenta. You speak in riddles like Porquenta. I am sure that he has taken great pleasure creating this little scenario to surprise me. He no doubt talked with the women no longer than a day ago, who suggested you appear in my bed. When you arrived they changed positions.

“All the names that we all had in mind were male names. We discussed names here but not for a second did anyone lead me to expect a beautiful young lady. Welcome to our household. We still have some time before we are due for breakfast at the palace. I suspect that we will have enough time to find you a name. Am I correct?” Jason asked.

“Indeed you are,” she said with a smile. “I am pleased my appearance is viewed as beautiful to you.”

Jason asked all in the household to assemble in the dining to discuss names. The first name that Jason suggested was ‘Sheila,’ and no one disagreed. He then suggested she be known as Sheila Von Porquenta. He felt it matched how he thought about her.

“I am satisfied with my new name. That you choose that name should be a clue to something else. What is that something else, My Lord Kargo, to which the clue directs you?” Sheila asked looking at him provocatively.

“I am not sure what you mean, Sheila?”

“I will give you another clue, MY LORD,” she said emphasizing my Lord. She had everyone grinning at her shenanigans.

“Well, MY LADY, I am not entirely sure,” he began tentatively, and then laughed. “Of course! I know! On a trip to Bavaria I saw a countess who looked like Andrea, and she had a daughter who looked like you. I knew it unconsciously, and no doubt Porquenta the scoundrel extracted the information from my head. That is why I said Von Porquenta. He did a great job. You are even prettier than she was, and you look a lot stronger.”

“Porquenta created me to look like a mix of her, with his originators’ ears and characteristics. He wanted someone to remind him of his people but for me to be familiar to you,” she said smiling. “Porquenta contacted Jonathan to instruct the guards to let me in when I arrived, and I wanted to surprise you, Jason as much as I could, as did your ladies, to whom he indeed spoke about his plans yesterday as you guessed. They did not expect a woman either but enjoyed the joke as much as Porquenta did.”

At the palace, they met up with Montgomery, and Ouma Chatzke who arrived that morning. There were so many very large ships in space around the planet that the leaders had been asked to move the bulk of the fleets out some distance, so as to not disrupt traffic and the gravitation of the planet. They moved into the large conference room which had been adapted for their biggest visitors, with an enlarged entrance from the garden. Even so, the tallest of the guests had to bend to walk through the entrance. The inside of the conference room was cavernous, and easily accommodated them. Cassius had created a very large table, and had large benches and stools built for the tyrannosauruses. There were platforms for the humans and the bug’s boat chairs. Ouma Chatzke would meet the guests in her bug form and then change form in her nearby suite in the palace. Cassius introduced all the guests to each other. When he came to Sheila, he was quite puzzled and asked Jason to introduce her. Jason said that she was the representative of Porquenta and was called Sheila Von Porquenta. They were all amused to hear that Jason had found her in his bed that morning, and was surprised at a new face.

Cassius hastened to tell everyone that Jason had so many women that he, Cassius, was surprised that Jason remembered all their names, never mind their faces.

Jason thought Cassius had constructed an excellent agenda. Each leader was given the task ahead of time to create a half an hour holographic history of their people. Jason waved to Jacques and Freya, Basil and Greb who were seated close to him with Aylot and the dogs at Jason’s feet.

Cassius suggested that Queen Lynas went first, followed by Ouma Chatzke, Montgomery, Felix, and then finally the Empire. They would then eat an early lunch and then visit selected parts of the planet. He then said to Queen Lynas that he proposed that the bug doctors that had accompanied Ouma Chatzke examine them to be able to prepare to answer some of her queries. He had arranged for telepathic specialists to undertake tutorials with them on an individual basis. They would then meet again for breakfast the next day, to continue with the agenda, and again have some further telepathic tutorials after lunch. He had arranged some entertainment later in the afternoon, followed by a formal early dinner. If other matters arose he would be happy to amend the agenda for the following day. All of this had previously been sent to each of them, so it was largely a confirmation of the plan. Jason did need to be involved until they flew to the collective in two days’ time.

Queen Lynas presented their history. Their species achieved sentience approximately one point five million years previously. She showed a planet full of dinosaurs of different kinds, very much as Jason recalled from his childhood. Over the years several of the other dinosaurs achieved sentience but were very much more intellectually limited. Nearly all the different Tyrannosaurs achieved sentience at the same time. It was at that time that Gods appeared to them and it led to the unification of the planet. They were taught compassion, the importance of the family as well as care for their neighbor and many of the values that represented the core of their beliefs.

They developed agriculture eating other dinosaurs grown on massive farms. They learned to grow appropriate crops to feed them. They later also kept farms of large mammalian herbivores.

They achieved space travel, slowly spread out to several different planets as the speed of the spaceships grew and acquired other sources of food from the indigenous populations on these planets. They met several other sentient dinosaur species on other planets. The first other sentient species that they encountered befriended her father offering exchanges of technology, but eventually attacking the Kingdom while Lynas’ father was alive and attempting to conquer the planets of the Kingdom. They were a species of slug like beings who specialized in the manufacture of poisons. They lived symbiotically with an intelligent jellyfish like species. The slugs had multiple hands that could form from their bodies and that gave them their dexterity. The war initially went badly for their empire and they lost several planets before her father’s scientists developed a new generation of effective weapons and faster propulsion systems that allowed them to progress to victory.

After this her father concentrated on education and research to rapidly increase the technological advancement of their empire. They were then approached by a second advanced species who appeared very benevolent and helpful and offered to help them with their ascendance. After working together with them for a while they began to indicate that there were limits to how much they were prepared to give. They explained that they were happy to exchange their knowledge for the ability to acquire some of the bodies of the dinosaurs as they would no longer need them after their ascendance. These were a group of beings who purported to have ascended and required the redundant bodies to be able to move backwards and forwards from their ascendance as needed. Her father after considerable discussion with his advisers agreed to this arrangement for two hundred bodies. Her father was suspicious and tested the process with a limited number of his subjects.

“Those that ascended found that they were forced to serve the so-called friends and did not have bodies to return. Father realized as a result of the exercise that retaining the original bodies was important! We ensured they could communicate with my father who waged war on the traitorous group.” Lynas said. She showed footage of those battles and the energy beings who became their enemies.

“We established an understanding of mathematics and physics and the technology of the dimension or even universe where they ascended. My father, many scientists, and numerous troops moved universes and using their new knowledge brought the others back again. They had gained the understanding of the so called process of ascension which is nothing more than travel to another Universe or in some cases of those who try to ascend early travel to another dimension. The paths to other universes are through different dimensions. We have mastered a limited amount of the mathematics and physics needed for travel to and mastery of a few other Universes.

“After this my father became increasingly introspective and cautious. He further increased his effort to evolve technologies and look at other universes. He would no longer trust anyone to help us without defining a clear price that he understood fully. He regarded the first exploration of another Universe as a negative experience where we had been sent to be exploited or killed. He hoped for a better universe that would allow us to evolve further and faster. He and the mathematicians found another, carefully defined its mathematics and physics, believed that it had some significant values worth exploring, and decided to ensure that they could ascend or travel there and back. What he didn’t realize was that he was not fully equipped for that environment, became ill and our technology was incomplete in that environment. It took a while to prepare to return. He died just before the whole group returned. She showed an excerpt of her father explaining about both expeditions.

“I can therefore say that we have had the experience of so called ascending twice without it being a positive experience. It is a case of ‘the brontosaurus always looks bigger on someone else’s farm’. The others of the group said that they met other ascendant species who said that once one ascended it was almost as if one was completely without any previous skills and abilities as the physics of the new environment and the requirements of the new environment were so totally different. They believed that a considerable number of species that ascend simply cease to exist within a short time. My father heard about very negative environments and what he regarded were anarchistic and awful places. So far we have not encountered anywhere to which we would like to ascend. We are less and less convinced that the sun is warmer and the meat is tastier in another Universe. Living in a solar corona as an energy being, has no great appeal to us.

“We hoped that ascendancy would take our spiritual growth further, and we would be closer to our Gods. We now believe those that profess beliefs of that kind lead us astray. We can find no such universe and are increasingly skeptical of ever finding such a place. Since the visit of Jason we wonder if the Gods are not those same con artists setting us up for the future.

“We had our first experience with the cockroaches a half a million years ago when we encountered their escorted armored scouts, followed by a fleet. She showed the footage of the battles. We scared them enough that they didn’t return until about three months ago, when we were attacked by several fleets. She showed some footage of the events. We were surprised, and they landed on three planets, but we steadily beat them back and they fled. You are aware of Jason’s visit. That is the last significant event in our history.

They decided that all the presentations would be made first before further discussion and questions arose.

“Cassius since Philippa has mentioned Porquenta and we have Sheila here, I think that she should be included in the presentations. I don’t know what the others think, but I would certainly be fascinated in a more detailed history of Porquenta,” suggested Jason.

Cassius agreed and suggested that Sheila go next. She had a fully prepared holographic presentation.

Sheila explained that the originators became sentient approximately five million years ago.

“They had constant wars between themselves and bombed themselves back to the Stone Age three times. By this time large portions of the planet were uninhabitable. As life became increasingly difficult, bands began to cooperate until most groups were working together, primarily to develop technology to leave the planet and find a better one.

They met an interesting very old species. This species had been declining for nearly a million years. They had shrunk in numbers to a tenth of their original numbers. They could not find the reason. They could reproduce by cloning but felt they needed to move on and start again. They had become infertile and wanted to pass on what they knew. They were a highly advanced society. They had helped other societies in the past and agreed only to help if the originators would do it their way. They provided education machines with values and political systems that they said would contribute to our species long-term survival.

“They then introduced new technologies by first encouraging and supporting the development of the scientists encouraging them to explore strategies that they knew would be productive and teaching them step-by-step. They showed us systems to prevent corruption and to root out crime. It was truly a golden era and then suddenly they were gone. We believe that they wished to do one good deed before they moved to another universe, knowing that such a move was their only salvation as a people.

“The originators continued to flourish, but made a bad decision in helping a species that would not follow their precepts. They should have simply backed away, but they did not. Over time this group grew more acquisitive and evil. The originators realized that they had let the devil out of its dimensional box, and they could not put it back. They believed that this group would go on to become a great danger to the galaxy.

“The evil group disappeared for a long time. The originators believed that they moved most of their forces to capture most of a nearby galaxy.

“They subsequently discovered that they had moved on to conquer many galaxies, and had spread prolifically subjugating countless trillions of beings and billions of worlds. The originators began to spread beyond our galaxy into galaxies where the evil ones were not present. The originators continued with their development of technology, and the understanding of the other universes.

To secure other galaxies against the time when they would no longer be present, they created multiple planetary based massive artificial intelligences that were self-supporting, but had all their knowledge all their abilities and could impart it to those who were deemed worthy. The clones appeared to have some possibilities, but their tenure appeared short. Their masters were corrupt. Young Jason appeared like a breath of fresh air. He has the same signature as my originators in some ways and a mix of other things. His beliefs and attitudes are those of my originators. The originators would have considered the Empire as worthy. They would have considered the Collective as worthy. They would have considered the people of the Parzool worthy. Montgomery there is no doubt whatsoever that they would have considered you worthy. I was the four-thousand three hundred and tenth planet that they built an AI into and terraformed.

If a planet began to work with a worthy species, it could begin to communicate with others. No one planet could communicate with more than one other. This was to protect the planets from a very superior intelligence that could infiltrate a planet. I am in communication now with one other, who is in communication with one other who is in communication with one other. We are a chain of four so far. If we are attacked, we lose our ability to communicate.

“None of us know what happened to the originators. We do not know how to get to their planet. We do not know what has happened to the evil ones. Porquenta thinks he has been there for a million and a half years, but it may be longer. He said time slipped past him faster and faster, and after years of lack of content, he slipped into oblivion. He thinks he could have been there for many millions of years. He and the other planets see the galaxies have changed so much, that their frames of reference have disappeared.

Cassius presented next using his holo- projector. He showed the early development of agriculture and by the time they began exploring space the planet was unified under his father the first emperor. Cassius explained that he was a benevolent dictator but much loved by the people. He ensured that as each planet was colonized that it was very much under Empire rule and he would not allow any concept of autonomous planetary rule. It was explained that unless they worked together they would not survive future enemies. The Empire established friendly relationships with many diverse species. Both Cassius’s father and Cassius had a high emphasis on research which had led to a steady development over a long time. He explained the steady decline in population that had arisen from the poisoning and the wars with The Mob. He finally showed how Jason had both saved his life but also the Empire by exposing the priests and their malicious intent. He wondered if somehow either the octopi or the slug species was influential in the construction of the poison. He said how grateful they were to the bugs for helping to deal with the poison and also to remove the influence of the cockroaches from within the Empire. He showed some of what was happening and explained the difference between the cockroaches as represented by Razza and those of the military who had taken over the coven.

Montgomery was the next one to present. He could show beautiful images of them as a graceful birdlike race, who had evolved an extra pair of hands in addition to wings. They were a very peaceful people who in the early years could escape their predators by flight and did not have avian predators. They had to ensure that they protected their eggs. They learnt the value of learning to fight after their planet was invaded by a species a little more advanced than they were. The invading species was largely looking for agricultural space and were herbivores. They were not terribly aggressive but had been desperate for food on their own planet which was largely underwater. The Una were commandeered to work for them, which they did voluntarily to learn their science and technology and then to eject them. The occupiers used only a small part of the planet which gave the Una the opportunity to do their own research and development and commence their own separate industries using new power supplies. They rapidly progressed to the stage that they had sufficient capacity to overcome their occupiers, which they did with ease, then flew to their planet and agreed to trade and supply them with food. The Una greatly accelerated their own development and continued to flourish and develop further planets for a further seventy-five thousand years. They were approached by an advanced species who warned of a great intergalactic war and invited them to participate as their allies. After many discussions, they finally agreed. They encountered much superior technology. Their people were decimated and they retreated to ascend. Their ascension took the survivors to their planet where they gradually rebuilt their civilization over nearly a million years. It had been a great battle and they lost many people along the way into different dimensions with failed desperate attempts at ascension. In general, he realized that for them ascension as an escape that had led them to a survival in a form that was a poor fit for this galaxy and a paralyzing isolation. They had made the best of their situation. The return of Winston which led to meeting Jason had begun changing the feeling of his people providing a sense of optimism. They were now attempting to consider how they could enter and participate more fully in the activities of the galaxy. Many recalled being able to smell and taste they all were attached to each other and every mouthful that Montgomery or Winston ate they felt and tasted. Many were hankering for their old forms and were thinking of how they could acquire these forms while remaining in this galaxy.

Ouma Chatzke handed over the presentation to Philippa who she said was a Queen in the collective and a spouse of Jason. The bugs reached a stage of agriculture 1.1 million years previously and twenty-five thousand years later were avid advanced space travelers, colonizing different worlds. They began to have hostile contacts with the cockroaches within a further five thousand years and full-scale battles soon after. The cockroaches were a little more advanced than they were however the bugs had the advantage in numbers and soon after capturing increasing numbers of cockroach ships began to accelerate their own technology. The biggest coup they had was to invade a very industrialized planet and capture scientists, plans, advanced mathematics and physics as well as a superior power technology in its early stages of evolution. This enabled them to catch up to and surpass the cockroaches within another five thousand years. Conflict continued intermittently and continues to this day. She went through many their key technologies and their times of discovery. She further explained about the visits of Jason, his impact upon the collective and his subsequent mathematical and physics work that she believed would catapult them ahead along with the help of Porquenta. She explained that her scientists were working with their AI’s interfacing with Porquenta and were moving ahead at enormous speed. There was a contingent of very advanced people from the priests who specialized in IT and programming coup who had been doing secret work on their own but not supplying the information to Papa Zola. There was scope for many more scientists to participate in cooperative work on Porquenta.