Chapter 9: Secret History

The flashlight played across the murals, illuminating the engravings as Lena examined them. Much of the Krell script was phonetic, and so it was fairly easy to piece together what the carved runes were trying to convey. There were some that she just couldn’t get her head around, too complex to be parsed by her, or by the computer’s algorithms. Still, it wasn’t too hard to infer meaning through context.

She had begun beside the entrance, moving clockwise as she walked around the circular room. It was logical to assume that if the Krell wrote up to down and left to right, then the pictograms and reliefs were likely arranged in a similar pattern. She had employed Sleethe’s help in some places, having him lift her up onto his shoulders so that she could reach the higher murals.

She was fairly confident that this was a history of their race, which was immensely exciting, but she had no frame of reference. The Krell didn’t record time in any way that she could understand. They didn’t have a calendar, at least none that she had been able to uncover so far. Whenever she asked Sleethe about it, he was only able to give her very vague measurements that only related to him personally. She could carbon date the wood, but that wouldn’t be of any help if the murals were describing events that had transpired far before the walls that they had been inscribed onto had been erected.

Still, a history was starting to come together, one that grew more unusual the more that she learned about it. By the time that the twin suns were getting low in the sky she had collected detailed pictures of each and every mural, adding to the ones that were already in the computer’s database, and with the help of some photo editing software she had managed to clean them up as best she could. That left her with a catalog of murals, arranged in the correct order, and with a ninety percent accurate translation of the runes.

Lena took a bite of her protein bar, flicking through the images, Sleethe sitting behind her as he looked over her shoulder at the images flashing by on the trio of screens.

“Ok, let’s start from the top. I’m going to read, and you’re going to tell me if it’s right or wrong. Got it?”

He huffed affirmatively, and she brought up the first image, careful to record everything with her wrist device.

This first mural showed a group of Krell going about what she now knew to be their usual business. They built, cultivated plants, lounged on the mud and swam in the lakes. It seemed very peaceful. The best translation that she could come up with, a combination of machine learning and her own interpretation, was displayed to one side.

“So, an indeterminate number of years ago, the Krell were minding their own business and living their lives. Then...”

She scrolled to the next image, this one showing half a dozen Krell who were hiding inside a thicket of mangrove trees, while a trio of cigar-shaped Broker vessels descended from the sky to land in a clearing. The drawings were fairly crude, reminding her of Medieval etchings, but they did a fair enough job. The Krell appeared afraid, confused, their snouts emerging from between the pale trunks as they looked on.

“The Benefactors came, and they landed on your planet.”

Sleethe nodded, and so she moved on to the next picture. This one depicted a closeup of one of the cigar-shaped vessels, a hole opening up in its hull. It looked much the same as the ship that she had arrived on. The Krell were slowly emerging from the forest, taking a few tentative steps towards what looked like a refrigerator with two legs and four tentacles. The thing seemed to be greeting them.

This was where things got a little more abstract, as the runes appeared to record a conversation between the Krell and the Brokers.

“The benefactors sailed from the skies. They had seen the ... purity of the Krell and they ... were envious of your flesh. Do I have that right? What was it that they wanted from you?”

Sleethe pushed his fingers into his bicep and rumbled a reply.

“Strong.”

“They were envious of your strength?”

The story was written from a Krell perspective, and so she had to take everything they said with a pinch of salt. Depending on how long ago this had happened, it could have been warped by retellings, little more than a legend at this point. She scrolled to the next picture. This one showed a circle of very large Krell, and a Broker at their center, waving its tentacle-like arms as if it was giving a speech. It was hard to tell how big everyone was. The Krell didn’t do much for measuring scale, because their heights varied so dramatically. If they were elders then they must be big, they were dwarfing the Broker.

“The elders of tens of ten villages, well that’s a hundred. The elders of a hundred villages convened, and the Benefactors asked for their help. They were a peaceful race of ... what’s this word Sleethe?”

He leaned in close and examined the rune.

“I give, you give,” he rumbled.

“What do you mean?”

He reached over and plucked the half-eaten cereal bar from her hand, then retrieved one of the now sodden flowers from the floor of the temple. He mimed exchanging the items, and Lena snapped her fingers.

“Traders! Thanks Sleethe. So they were a peaceful race of traders, who were threatened by ... well this rune must mean ‘Bugs’. This one must be describing the war with the Betelgeusians.”

Sleethe nodded, slamming his massive fist down into his palm, as if crushing an insect.

“Bugs hurt friends.”

She leaned back and reached up to scratch him under the chin, the giant reptile cooing happily as she ran her fingers across his leathery neck. She sometimes forgot that he had served as a Linebreaker in the UNN, he must have been in many battles against the Bugs.

“The Benefactors had lost their villages one after another, and prophesied that the Bugs would come to the homes of the Krell as well, unless the two races allied to fight them off. In exchange, the Benefactors offered their debt. Sleethe, is this the birth of the Coalition?”

He nodded.

Amazing, she knew that the Coalition had existed long before humanity had become its third member species, but to uncover the events surrounding its founding was of great historical significance. She moved on to the next slide.

“The Benefactors were few, weak of body but strong of mind. The Krell were many, weak of mind but strong of body. The Benefactors bade that they become kin, and in doing so become protected by the ... circle.”

The next picture was a carved relief of a Broker, its blocky body painted with runes and markings. Had it undergone the very same ritual as Lena? It was so hard to make out any features on these depictions, the Brokers did not seem to have eyes or mouths, and they were shaped more like artificial constructs than living things. Were those suits, perhaps? Maybe it was just artistic license by the Krell, expecting a primitive tribal culture to accurately depict an advanced alien was asking a little too much of them.

The next carving in the sequence portrayed many Krell being led onto the cigar-shaped vessels. The perspective was a little off, but it was obviously attempting to convey that a great number of the reptiles had been taken away.

“The Benefactors took the ... strongest of the people away. They taught them ... conflict. This must mean war or fighting, the Brokers taught the Krell how to fight. Not too different from what we’re doing I suppose, teaching the Krell how to use human weapons and then sending them into battle as auxiliaries.”

She was starting to feel a little guilty, but she pressed on.

The next one showed what looked like Krell in strange body armor, wielding weapons that she couldn’t identify and which had probably not been accurately reproduced anyway. This mural was like some grand tapestry depicting a monumental battle, with such care and attention to detail. The Krell were killing scores of Bugs, easy to identify by their six limbs. How had she not put two and two together while she had been taking recordings of the murals? Granted, they were a little crude.