The Voyage of the Joyous Venture
Part
12
How to amuse yourself in space; Father Ruiz
– Space Bishop; the trail of the Ancients
The very secret diary of Dr Robert Smith-M'Butu:
It's very strange having Christmas in space. Do people always give presents like this? I'm very pleased with my Ganesha and I hope my DNA illustrations were appreciated. I'm not sure if anyone really appreciated the significance of them. I wonder if Ms Jones knew all along?
We're heading off to Xiuning today and then it's a short pause before we leave for Delta Pavonis which is our next stop - although from what I hear there's not much there to get excited about. I've been spending my time trying to find out more about these microbots. I'm convinced that under the right conditions they might self organise; there's a detailed crystalline nanostructure and with the right medium and energy conditions it ought to be able to repair itself. However I've tried all the options I can manage on-board ship. I may have to ask someone and I'm guessing that Felix Holsten might be just the person. We should be able to meet up with him when we get to Asterion.
Dr Takamura is busy studying Bheekhu mythology now that Ms Moran has sorted out the interface to the Bheekhu portacomp. I'm helping with translation but Ms Moran is also working on a translation program that should make things a bit quicker. I get the impression that Dr Takamura is not all that impressed with xenoanthropology: she keeps moaning about how it is all speculation and no one has any real data. It seems we have as much real information on alien religion as anyone. She also says the impression she gets from the commentaries is that the Bheekhu don't actually worship the Ancients, although they come close to worshipping the heroes who 'acquire' things from them. That doesn't seem to match up with how ancient human peoples would react.
Ms Moran spends a lot of time hooked up to her portacomp. She seems quite fascinated by the primitiveness of the Bheekhu system She keeps muttering something about source code. I expect it's some sort of abstraction that doesn't translate well between species.
Antonio has been made up ever since he got the latest football games downloaded at the last OTS. He keeps pretending to be practicing 'space weapons' and gives it away by shouting 'goal' periodically. Still I imagine there isn't much for a pilot to do in hyperspace and it's better than taking pot-shots.
Ms Jones seems to be keeping herself to herself a lot. I think the affair with Bernard Singh really upset her. She only seems to come out of herself when Dr Takamura gets excited about some new Bheekhu legend about the Ancients. I wonder what she really expects to find?
December 27th: Arrive Xiuning
system
December 28th: Depart Xiuning
system
December 31st
Well we've got to Delta Pavonis at last. Apparently we've got 40 hours to unload gravitons. Once again I can't get down to the planet's surface which is a real shame. What's the point of coming all this way and not having a good look around? There's bound to be all sorts of really interesting creatures down there. I've heard there are some quite large, warm-blooded reptiloids. Not as impressive as the Tau Ceti dinosaurs but still quite a sight.
I've just returned from a brief visit to the OTS. I found the most marvellous claw and Ms Moran agreed to lend me the money to buy it. We also met a rather strange Jesuit priest named Father Ruiz Sanchez; he wants a lift to Eberhavn. Given Ms Jones' enthusiasm for all things religious I imagine she'll be keen to chat to him during the jump. He seems quite harmless otherwise though it is suspicious that he has been hanging around at the OTS for so long. I suppose there is a fair amount of prejudice about.
Bernard Singh was here too, but it sounds like he behaved much the same way as he did in Tau Ceti. Still claiming that the devil is walking around incarnate - except that they put him on the next ship out rather than executing him.
There are a few ex-Eberhavn settlers around too. It seems that quite a lot of people find it a very difficult place to settle in. They just don't like it and get depressed. Odd because by all accounts it's rather a beautiful place and the Eber are friendly. Apparently the xenobiologists have been looking for some sort of pathogen that might be causing the problem but with no success. Father Sanchez has a Papal commission to sort out any spiritual problem but he really doesn't look like he's keen to be going back. According to Dr Moran's research he was part of the original survey team and was one of the first people to realise that the Eber were sentient. I shall have to talk to him about that when I get the chance. This language faculty of theirs is very interesting. The other rumours are that there are shamanic witchdoctors among the Eber who have been causing the colonists to get depressed. Once you've been out in space for a while you'll obviously believe anything.
Anyway the crew have had a bit of chat with Father Sanchez and decided to let him come along. He looks harmless; we have the space; it'll be someone else to talk to; and I can nab a DNA sample off him and see what his Ancient DNA fingerprint looks like.
Well we've left Delta Pavonis at long last. Really not a terribly interesting place when you are stuck up in the OTS all the time. It looks like we've got quite a lot of travelling to do now though. A couple of possible Ancients' sites to look at and then on to Eberhavn. I'm really looking forward to that. I've read all about the Eber but I never thought I'd actually get to meet them. I must ask Father Sanchez about his time there when we are in hyperspace. I hope he's the talkative sort. Most religious people I've met never stop but he seems a bit quiet especially when you want him to talk about his time on Eberhavn. I wonder if he's got something to hide or if he's just suffering from this depression that seems to afflict most of the people who stay there for any length of time.
Everyone is very busy. Dr Takamura is writing a paper on Bheekhu religion. I'm not sure she's quite got the gist of it. Her writing is all very analytical and I think you need someone with a more poetic soul to really capture the strength of belief felt by most of the Bheekhu I've ever encountered. I think Ms Jones might do a better job since she seems oddly spiritual for someone who is supposed to be a hard-nosed executive.
Father Sanchez (or Ruiz as he likes to be called) was the original xeno-anthropologist who surveyed the place. Can you believe that? He was the first person to seriously study the Eber. Amazing! Apparently he's recently written a paper on the Eber from a Jesuit perspective that caused something of a minor storm. Apparently they are too happy. Trust a religious person to think of that as a problem. Something about them being a threat to the Catholic Church because they can be happy without god. Just like the rest of us. Welcome to the 24th century Mr Sanchez!
Anyway I've nabbed a sample of Ruiz' DNA for my collection. He's only got a double insert where the rest of us (barring Sangiv) have a triple. I've still no idea what that means but it's interesting all the same. He's also become a bit more talkative about his time on Eberhavn too which I'm sure is therapeutic if nothing else. He's also offering Catholic mass too. I don't think I've ever seen Antonio look so guilty. It looks like Ms Jones is going along too. I thought she was the spiritual type although I don't think there's going to be a shipboard conversion.
Well Beta Hydri 6 isn't much to look at. It's an ice ball with twice Earth normal gravity. We wouldn't be going down even if we had a space plane. However there are clear signs of habitation (and eventual destruction) even from space. The radiation signature shows silicon carbide with a possible metallic matrix so it's a good candidate for an Ancients' site. There are several indications of structures that were subject to intense radiation in the fairly recent past - in geological terms. We can't say much more from up here, but it does suggest that if the Ancients were here they were either physiologically much more tolerant of high gravity than us, or they had some technological method for dealing with it: perhaps the 'gravitic technology' that Felix Holsten mentions. All the signs are of deliberate devastation but whether this was as a result of warfare or just an extreme clean-up operation is impossible to tell. My best guess is some sort of beam weapon a few thousand years ago but to be honest it could just as easily be a fusion reactor that went wrong. Anyway no point spending much more time here.
So this is Rho Eridani. This is a bit more like it. It's a binary system with one half-way interesting planet. Not great but at least there's life down there. Not much above the lichen and proto-amphibian stage but give it time. I bet they have some interesting chemical tricks if nothing else. There's always something to learn from how different planetary life-forms manage the basics of biochemistry. Still we can't visit without a space plane.
Still we didn't come to see the surface. What's interesting to our boss is the ring system. It's described as an 'Ancients' meteor swarm' and there certainly something odd about it. It was clearly a small moon that has been blown apart and preliminary analysis suggests it's all chunks of silicon carbide. The OTS has given us permission to fire some analysis lasers so we can get a better idea.
That was fun. Rock can't fire back and no one gets hurt! We've taken lots of pot shots and it looks like about 1 in 1000 samples show silicon carbide. It's not a natural substance to find on a moon so that suggests there was an absolutely enormous structure built onto the moon that somehow came to grief. There are some bigger chunks too so Ms Moran has bravely volunteered to go out and bring one in for further analysis. She's certainly the most qualified. I wish Antonio took it a bit more seriously - I'm sure we didn't need to match velocities quite so rapidly.
Anyway it's an amazing lump of rock. About 2m across and shows signs of intense external heat. It's got plenty of shards of silicon carbide embedded too. These have angular surfaces like broken bricks so that confirms that it once was part of a structure. I'm keeping a couple of fist-sized lumps for further analysis. We've also estimated the overall mass of debris and it seems like this was a 500 mile diameter moonlet. That was one hell of a bang.
Under the microscope the silicon carbide is similar to the other samples. It possesses a microstructure reminiscent of Gantz fabrication. I bet this was laid down with an organic matrix although there's no trace of that. I can't get a date but it could have happened quite a long time ago - again I'm guessing thousands of years. The flat side is far too flat to be natural. It looks deliberately finished just like Holsten's reports from Asterion. The isotopic ratio and residual radiation suggests a violent heating process. It's really quite similar to the Bheekhu samples: the silicon is mineral based but the carbon is biologically processed. However it's not as clear as before because of the radiation signal.
It's all very exciting. I can't wait to meet my first Eber. Apparently they are completely pacifistic. Good for them.