Chapter 60

Third Mission, in system RKO-289 aboard the FUP Shuttle Royal Yacht in orbit around the planet called Thessaly, 2401 CE

I returned to the galley table with my mug full of black steaming coffee held in my right hand, a small teapot full of fresh tea for Juliet held in my left hand, and a utilitarian-looking black trivet in the right chest pocket of my duty blues. By the insubstantial heft of the trivet, I knew small plate with five short legs, which would hold the hot bottom of the teapot 10 millimeters off the table surface, was made of some lightweight resin that would be almost indestructible. The thing probably could absorb higher temperatures than the heat shields used on the earliest manned reentry vehicles back on Old Earth.

I was happy that RY told us he wanted Juliet and me to think about his revelations about our new neighbors on both sides of the river for 24 hours before we discussed his findings any further. The time we spent with RY inside the XL-5 left me feeling a little spent, a good bit more excited, and definitely shaken. Through my connection with Juliet I knew she was mentally tired and was experiencing even more emotional turmoil than me—thanks to her strict Neo-Catholic upbringing. But what we needed now was a nap. What we did was find our feet walking us back toward the galley. I thought back to how we arrived—

Juliet walked up as I slowly climbed down to the cargo deck from the fluorescent red XL-5 I like to think of as mine.

“So, that was certainly something,” said Juliet, her hands pushed down into the deep front pockets of her blue overalls. She took a deep breath, expanding her fine chest while slightly raising the shoulders of her F-2 uniform. As she exhaled through her elegant nose, I looked down slightly and met her gaze. My first wife gave me a knowing grin and a shake of her blonde head.

“Ah—” I said, unsure how I wanted to express what I was thinking; and what, though my connection to my wife, I knew we both were thinking, “—sure was. “Definitely more informative than I was expecting; did you notice how RY’s compelling presentation, supported by all those video images and scanning data, brought us to suspect, if not conclude, what he never came out and said?”

Juliet, hands still in pockets, leaned against my chest. I put my arms around her upper back and gently held her to me.

“Yes,” my first wife said into my chest, “truth told, I sure did. My God, as early as I can remember, my school posted what they called Blasphemy Reports. Showing us kids that the forces of the Ungodly were alive and active in the Federation, but not anywhere on Proxima Secunda. I think that was just another way the administration got some of the girls into missionary service after final graduation. But none of those Reports ever dealt with anything this big.”

We didn’t say anything else until we sat down beside each other at the galley table and decided caffeine might help.

Now, Juliet was almost finished with her first cup of post-revelation tea and I’d just returned from the dispenser with my second mug of coffee; thinking I should’ve filled an insulated carafe. I sat down, turned my chair slightly toward her and looked into her beautiful green eyes.

“Are you going to say it,” Juliet asked with a faint grin at the edges of her mouth, “or are you going to make me say it?”

“Well—” I said, and then lifted my mug to my lips and took a little slurping sip, enjoying that the coffee was hot, rich, and reassuring as I swallowed. “—You are Commander of this shuttle, and RY is our friend and shipmate. Besides, I’ve always thought that quote, ‘Lead by Example,’ is important. So I guess it’s time you learn that being in command sometimes takes intestinal fortitude and just buck up.”

“Fuck you, cowardly husband,” Juliet told me with a snort before she tipped up her teacup, swallowing until it was empty. “Thanks for the teapot, by the way. Since I am an Away Team member as well as your shuttle Commander, I’ll say it out loud first, you pussy.” She put her cup down on the saucer, carefully picked up the teapot by the handle, and poured her next cup of post-revelation tea. The teapot went back on the trivet, and she turned her head back toward me, gazing into my eyes as little swirls of steam lifted up from the dainty cup she held by the slim handle using her left middle and index fingers on one side and her left thumb on the other.

By the Gods, snickered my paranoid ass-wipe, I’m still surprised she doesn’t cock her little finger up in the air—like some dog liftin’ its hind leg to mark its territory!

A thought suddenly struck me, With Juliet and Anika as my wives, what are our kids going to be like?

Don’t forget, my PAW said with a chuckle, Bea’s gonna wanna push out at least three ah your sprog, I’m bettin!’

I managed to hold in my snort.

“RY certainly does present an interesting, well reasoned argument, Jaym,” said my Blonde Bombshell. “As I’ve come to expect. And, you know all about my upbringing; I hate to think how the hardliners in the Church are going to react to this. I’d almost like to see the kids’ reaction whenever my old school gets around to putting up a Blasphemy Report about this!

“Part of me,” Juliet said, looking down at her cup of tea, “doesn’t want to believe it because of those things in my past; but the Centaurs of Thessaly are the results of genetic engineering—” As she took a sip of her refreshed teacup, I saw the hint of a grimace passed across her face as if she tasted something slightly bitter. As she lowered the cup down to the saucer on the table Juliet said, “—Even if RY never came out and said so. How can men be so frustrating at times?”

Well, my inner geek said from down in my lizard brain, he did pick a dashing male actor’s face and his deep voice to show the world. I bet Juliet’s fascination with that guy was the reason RY picked him! You might have competition, Jaym!

I’d never thought of that; well, part of me had. I gave my head a little shake to clear my mind of those images and got back to the topic of my conversation with my loving, first wife.

“By the Big Black, of all the other improbable events I’ve experienced on this trip, the Centaurs take the cake,” I told Juliet while letting myself get excited again, the mix of other warring emotions and thoughts down in my lizard brain still buffeting my inner geek and my PAW around. “I can’t wait to meet one, face to face. I hope we can communicate somehow; well, I’m sure we can eventually—but, damn, I want immediate gratification on this one, Mindy. And, hell, how are they going to react to us, coming down from the stars and all. Do you think they even know their origins?”

“Oh, I think they must,” Juliet told me. “Tell me how else could the image placement on that frickin’ fantastic fresco come about otherwise?” She watched my face as I considered her words; but, by my balls, I agreed with her.

My mind’s eye flashed on what I’d seen in the holographic scene showing the city square, and the artwork arranged on that field of brilliant grass-green mosaic tiles creating the huge sundial. It would be an easy argument that each of those 12 Centaurs have their eyes focused on the old geezer in his jolting purple toga. Depending on just how good the artists were who did the work, I might even be able to see the adoration on the Centaurs’ faces. I’d have to have RY pull up the video for me later. We could see how well he could enlarge the images.

“So they probably know how they came to be; but I can’t begin to imagine all the expertise needed to pull that off,” I told Juliet as I made a sweeping gesture over the galley table with my right arm. I ended with a hand flourish as I warmed up to the rant I felt brewing in the back of my brain with the help of both my inner geek and my paranoid ass-wipe. “But I can guess; and it had to take a lot of highly trained people. We could do some quick research and get an estimate on how many technicians and support staff that had to be involved. The people who brewed up the Centaurs were able to produce enough viable live births each time they decanted a new group—not just two or three every try. One crazy biogenetics engineer all by himself could not have started what’s down on Thessaly now.

“I bet,” I said, while daring Juliet with my eyes to contradict me even though she was nodding her head, “each time a group embryos matured, those foals became the first ancestors of another new tribe, with enough genetic diversity to ensure a healthy gene pool. Those twelve nearly identically fenced in sections around that circular lake sure looked to me like horse breeding farms I’ve seen in pictures of Old Earth and from other worlds.”

“Hey,” said Juliet, looking indignant, “I agree, Jaym. RY estimates the Set Aside lands were established around two hundred fifty years ago, perhaps longer. That far back, the people of Old Earth were still recovering from the Second GM War—that ended in twenty-one twenty-one EAD. Heck, at the beginning of the First GM War, being a practicing genetic engineer, and getting caught, resulted in an immediate death sentence.” Taking her comp of her belt, she flipped the clamshell open and starting tapping menu items.

“Yep,” I said as my inner geek started feeding me information, “during and after the First GM War, the people of Old Earth treated genetic engineers as worse, and sometimes much worse, than their ancestors six hundred and fifty years before treated witches. And fifty years before that, the King of a nation called France persecuted a big organization called the Knights Templar in similar ways. But his motivation was greed, because he wanted their fabulous wealth, not because the gifts of some screwed up GM got loose and decimated the planet’s population.”

“That would mean the first colonists left Old Earth as late as twenty-one fifty-one and, say for argument sake,” Juliet told me with her eyes focused on her comp screen, “as early as twenty-one twenty-five. The First Earth Diaspora, according to the history files, occurred from twenty-one hundred to twenty-one thirty-four EAD. Over that span of time, eighteen different countries or organizations sent out enough early starships to discover over seventy systems with Earth-Norm planets that they colonized. I remember my Human History teacher couldn’t tell me how many solar systems they had to explore to find all those viable planets. I think that was when part of me wanted to grow up and become an Away Team member in ExServ.

“With all those ships leaving the solar system back then,” my first wife said, looking at me, “it’s possible Thessaly’s ancestors could have left Old Earth without being noticed. It would have taken an amazing amount of effort, bribes, and probably luck, but...”

“Yeah, but; but how long did it take,” I asked, “to gather up all the material, educated people, supplies, scads of equipment, then make sure they had everything they needed in at least quadruplicate, certainly more, let alone acquire at least two space ships that fit their needs without any government agencies around Old Earth taking notice—”

“—Make the plans, greasing the wheels with cash,” Juliet spoke up, and I could see her eyes getting bright with excitement. “And how many fortunes did it take? By the Big Black, who was behind all this?”

“Damned if I know,” I told her, thinking of the image of the old Caucasian guy in the gaudy-looking purple toga. “But if we find a time machine down there, truth told, I’d love to go back and ask him some questions.”

“I am thinking,” Anika said, as the entire crew sat around the galley table eating dinner together, “on first attaining altitude in Thessaly’s atmosphere, the guidance system of my XL-5 will most possibly be developing intermittent power fluctuations. Such fluctuations causing navigation system errors resulting in the immediate need to be finding place suitable for landing, yes? And once successfully on ground due to exceptional piloting skills, surprise, I am finding myself somehow across big river and now surrounded by Centaur stallions; all of them very interested in who is being inside this bright red thing dropping out of sky. Such a situation only being better if this rogue biogenetic engineer had been nine-year-old girl genius; then I happily would be finding myself surrounded by unicorns!”

Female laughter burst out around the table. Beatrice, Jodie Jane Cazinska, Melvina Bimini, and PFC Corry Groves must have enjoyed my second wife’s fantasy because they were all cackling.

It was then I found out my PAW was happy that none of us had seen Melvina’s mysterious communications gear since our militias’ last tactical exercise. And that he’d been thinking of her as the Hunchback while we were back on the Glenndeavor.

“Oooww—” Jodie said, bringing me out of my internal dialog in time to see her putting her left hand under the table, causing Lieutenant Straperlo sitting next to her to momentarily flinch and look around to see who noticed. Then a small grin formed on his face. I was still amazed how the shadow of his shaved beard gave the pale skin on his cheeks, jaw line, and his neck such a bluish tinge.

“No unicorns for me. I’d want two-meter tall teddy bears,” laughed Jodie as her left arm started making tentative, short movements forward and back, “with enhanced genitalia ... and really rough tongues!”

Earlier in the day, Juliet asked RY to repeat his presentation, this time in the galley, for the crew to see. She wanted everyone aboard informed about what RY discovered concerning our neighbors on both sides of the Great Eastern River. She told RY and me that the rest of our friends should form their own opinions about his analysis of the information still being gathered by the Royal Yacht, AAS-8, and AAS-9.

RY seemed—was—pleased to agree; my first wife and I both took the opportunity to sit in. I was happy I did, because RY replaced about 30 percent of the video clips with more recent scenes, according to their time stamps. The fresco sundial wasn’t left out; it couldn’t be replaced. I knew the revealing image arrangement was the lynchpin supporting his entire line of reasoning concerning the origin of the Centaur people, at least until we could get our boots on the ground and perhaps find a way to get some genetic information. Perhaps a small drone the size of a big bee that could get some fresh Centaur blood without getting smashed.

After his presentation was over and everyone was done asking questions, I wasn’t a bit surprised that RY still hadn’t shared his conclusion about the Centaur as a people, or their origins. At that point, Juliet thanked him for his time and effort as a member of her crew, and for being our truth-told friend. RY’s voice through the galley emitters actually sounded humble when he thanked us all for our attention, then he told everyone to have a good day, and announced that he’d not discuss anything concerning his presentation with any of us for another 24 hours. He wanted to give each of us time to thoroughly think about everything we saw and learned.

As the holographic field faded from a light blue glow into nothing, my crewmates sitting around the galley table started talking together in groups of twos and threes. Almost immediately, it was clear that everyone came to the same conclusion that Juliet and I did: the Centaurs were genetically designed beings!

From small groups discussing what they’d just seen and learned, a table-wide debate developed about how the Federation, with its laws against gene modification and design, would treat the Centaurs. Lieutenant Straperlo soon had his comp out, saying he was looking up previous legal precedents. After eight minutes he got everyone’s attention and announced that there wasn’t one precedent he could find that fit the situation down on Thessaly. Any other GM precedents, which were even close to what we’d discovered, involved either some kind of animal or non-sentient clones grown for body parts. Straperlo said most offenses involved practicing illegal gene therapies of one kind or another.

Our lawyer said it seemed there was a self-imposed ban among the biogenetic engineering outlaws in Federation Space against bringing a fully sentient GM human into existence. Or, he told us, if one of the outlaws had done it, their security was tight enough that there weren’t even rumors circulating about what they’d done.

“I’m starting to understand,” said Corporal Ron Aisins as he sat back in his chair across the table from me, “why the people down there are so paranoid about being detected from space. Their ancestors definitely knew what would happen to them if a spacecraft from Old Earth showed up someday and discovered they’d actually created an entire race of GM Centaurs. For their safety, that information could not be reported back to Tera.” The rest of the crew nodded while contemplating what he said.

My paranoid ass-wipe hoped everybody below got the word, even if it wasn’t true right now, that we’d already sent reports back to the Federation about what we’ve found. That way, some paranoid, misguide fool, or group of fools, would know it was too late to try and shut up all of us somehow just to keep their ancestors’ secret safe.

“Okay,” G4 Melvina Bimini said from the other end of the table, “as a communications specialist, I can appreciate the need for taking proactive safety measures when deploying communications assets. But just think about what the first colonists, being involved in some aspect of GM, must have lived through back on Old Earth. They all might’ve been from the first generation after the last GM War, or maybe lived through the end of it,” she said, her copper-colored eyebrows flexing down as she frowned a moment. I thought the resulting look, with her receding chin, was strikingly sexy.

“I can’t imagine what some of them might’ve seen; or what happened to people they knew,” Melvina told us, “people in their business using hidden little labs to do illegal gene manipulation work and research—making whatever commanded the most money on the black market. Then one day, from their point of view, some genius with access to lots of capital, and a big dream, began getting the word around offering people a way to escape their pending death sentences, so they could start again on some planet far away, where they’d be free to do whatever it was they wanted to do. Some livable planet somewhere they could create a home and community where they’d feel safe from the threat of Old Earth.”

“Yeah—” PFC Corry Groves spoke up from between Ron on her left and Bea on her left, “—But like in most communities, there’s always some dickwad who makes it their mission to go shoutin’ around about how the sky will fall someday; if the community doesn’t take precautions.

“I’m sure a good number of the original colonists,” said the Marine in her basic camo uniform, “after hearing continual warnings of possible doom, would eventually let their old fears perk up and sway their opinions. When it finally came to a vote, on some level they’d still be feeling guilty or afraid. I mean ‘cause of what they did, not back on Old Earth especially, but here on Thessaly. So they’d want to go all snail mode; put as much shell between them and the outside world as possible. Then, surprise, the vote tallies come in—and now, we’re seein’ the results two hundred years later of the infrastructure model they implemented so long ago to try and hide.”

“Let’s face it, fear and guilt,” said Dan Straperlo as he put his closed comp on the table in front of him and then put his right arm across the back of Jodie’s shoulders, “not counting greed and desire, are two of the biggest motivators in the history of mankind. Once the original colonists came here, they did help create the first groups of Centaurs—if not directly, they still must have know what was happening.

“Think of some of the political and cultural forces that played out back before the Pre-Cosmonautical Era of Old Earth,” he told us. “There are more than a few instances when citizens of one country or another directly knew about, or at least heard the rumors of, country-wide pogroms and mass murders carried out with their help or in their name by their military in some war—doesn’t mater if they’re guilty or not, after their country lost, they’re guilty at least by association. Crimes against humanity—that’s still the legal term used by the Old Earth governments when they talked about GM. Lots of member worlds in the Federation use it as well.”

“Exactly,” Ron said. “But after the colonists created the Centaurs down on Thessaly, for whatever reasons, they left the Centaurs to develop their own culture with, it seems, only the Maori staying in contact with them. Then those people went on to make their lives beyond the Purple Mountains. I say, since we haven’t seen any Tyrannosaurus Rex, or mastodons and wooly mammoths, and there are no dragons anywhere, the entire original colony stopped big GM projects after achieving the dream of one individual by helping in the creation of living, viable Centaurs.”

“And,” said Kyle Kyler from his seat beside his girlfriend, G2 Helen Xazan, “I bet the guy created the Centaurs just because he knew he could, no matter what the other reasons he told everyone else.”

“So, we’re all sort ah saying is this:” our beautiful Beatrice said, looking around at each of us, “they knew what they did; they knew if Earth found out most likely they’d get fried. So they only use radios for dire emergencies, they bury and shield all their transmission lines, their fiber optics, and other stuff, so there’s almost no large industrial strength electromagnetic signatures coming from the surface for passing spaceships to notice without getting close.

“They developed all that neat thermal signage as well,” said our Green-Thumb Princess, “after making the decision long ago to build most of their cities and towns and any big buildings and factories underground. Because they’re worried any ship, especially our Task Force, that makes orbit is going to find out sooner or later they’ve got a huge passel of Centaurs down there. And that is going to make anybody up here in orbit want to know, what the fuck? Some of those people down their have to be scared shitless, wondering when the hammer is going to drop, so to speak.”

“Don’t overlook that one or more times in their history,” said Helen Xazan from her seat on my left, “they still might have experienced pirate raids as well, which would only reinforced their feeling that they were right to minimize their electromagnetic signature.” She looked around at us, noting the expression on each face. Then Helen shrugged the shoulders of her duty blues. “What can I say, I got something for the whole space pirate fantasy—not the reality mind you. Just the sexy parts we see in the vids.” She blushed and then gave us a what the hell grin. “Now, somebody else say something.”

“Of course,” I said before I really considered what I was going to say, “going along with your idea Helen; you guys all realized we’ve almost certainly discovered the source of the All Alone legend known as the Beast of Caprahircus, also known as the Beast of Sagittarius.”

“Both legends say,” Kyle Kyler said, “that the Beast is a Centaur.”

“Jameson,” said RY as the rest of the crew sat around the galley table 24 hours after his presentation, “I am impressed that you made the association between legends of the All Alone and the Centaurs of Thessaly. As historical records tend to show, most legends have some element of truth to them. Until evidence to the contrary is discovered, I believe it is entirely probable that at some time in the past, space pirates raiding Thessaly on at least one occasion captured one or more Centaurs, taking them off world. Since Centaurs existed only in Old Earth mythology; such real, living, exotic beings would be priceless.

“Who knows what exactly happened to them,” RY said, his voice sounding almost contemplative to my ears, “but as the seed of both legends, at least one individual became what is know as a sideshow attraction in some traveling circus presented by a wandering band of space gypsies. Going from one out-of-the-way world to the next, imagine the impression their living Centaur made; as well as how much money they made. According to my limited ability to research the subject, the circus and the band of gypsies managed to remain nameless while the legend was born. But the space gypsies were not the attraction that spawned the legend.”

“Those gypsies were probably members of the pirate group that originally took the Centaur or Centaurs,” Ron told us. “What better cover for a group of pirate intelligence operatives to use as a front while they’d assess a potential target’s available wealth; research existing security arrangements for strengths, weaknesses, coverage areas, and response times; identify dependents of prominent families as time permitted. Important dependents most likely to be captured easily during a well planned raid, and then held for later ransom.”

“Yes, Corporal, I mean, Ron,” RY said. “I appreciate, and agree with, your tactical and strategic assessment. However, to change the subject, I am happy to tell all of you that Captain Bertram and his advisors have finally picked our primary and secondary landing sites.”

“Where, RY?” Beatrice asked.

“Of more importance,” Juliet spoke up, “when?”

“Just by sharing this information, I’ve already overstepped Captain Bertram’s prerogative,” RY told Juliet and all of us, “but, I have it on good authority, his notification to the commanders in our Task Force will be sent out in the next 15 minutes. For our Marine element aboard, let me inform you this operation, from EDL to security force deployment and objectives, will follow Joint Publication three dash-zero-five point-nine-one, titled Joint Special Operations Task Force Operations. Published two-six April, twenty-three eighty-eight.

“Commander Mindenhall-Sitwell,” RY’s deep voice continued to talk, “in addition to providing the coordinates of both landing sites, Task Force Command will issue orders to each ship in the Task Force indicating order of descent and responsibilities during EDL. Your orders will include landing zone assignment, immediate objectives once your vehicle is safely landed, and all necessary passwords to identify friend or foe once your crew is feet-on-the-ground. You know your primary mission was and continues to be the support of Commander Arrbra Die Florrie’s shuttle, Bee Hive. You, and everyone aboard the Royal Yacht, will take direction and orders from Commander Die Florrie, or her XO. While all the communications between your two shuttles have been of, what I will call, a social nature, I would suggest that once you read your orders, Commander Mindenhall-Sitwell, that you contact Commander Die Florrie and coordinate your actions to best meet her expectations and immediate needs once both shuttles are landed.”

“Thank you, RY,” our shuttle Commander said. “That is sound advice, and I will follow your thoughtful suggestions. Since I am not aware, at this time, when this next part of our mission is to commence, I will immediately contact Commander Die Florrie as soon as I read my orders from Task Force Command. Truth told, I hope we begin our EDLs as soon as possible. I love the Royal Yacht, but in our present situation, I’ll like blue sky overhead more. At least, for a while.”

I was back in the right hand seat on the Flight Deck, and not surprisingly I was nervous. From time to time I worked a piece of hard candy with my back teeth. Anika found at least one bag of this particular Neuholm’s World confection in her seemingly unending supply of stuff stored back in the four bays of her cargo hold. At first I didn’t like this particular kind, and the taste was hard to describe. The one in my mouth today had a taste somewhere between a nice mixture of anise and black cherry with a slight hint of kumquat at the end. The hard candy kept my mind off of everything that was out of my control; right now, and over the next—well, I didn’t know, and I wasn’t going to ask.

Trying to keep myself distracted, part of me was running through everything I learned from RY’s two presentations. For the most part, the revelation that the Centaurs had to be products of genetic design and manipulation overwhelmed any other facts that I’d learned about our neighbors on both sides of the river. A corollary of that revelation was all of the crewmember’s discussions and speculation about the roots of the paranoid motivations that gripped the first colonists, with good cause from their point of view. It was those paranoid motivations which most of their descendants and their present governments down on Thessaly inherited. Along with all their unique infrastructure, and some of their cultural quirks, which we felt were the direct result of different pro-active approaches the colonists adopted over time to protect themselves, their families, their homes, and their goods from threats coming from outside their solar system.