The Thrice Born Read online

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  It was the same dream Professor Bill Norwood had been having for years. It didn’t matter if he was home or on a research vessel like the Sea Pilgrim, as he was now; the dreams found him.

  Always it began with violent earthquakes, lava spouting high into the air, ash raining on everyone and everything. Always the surreal, futuristic buildings tumbling and falling into each other.

  Never any answers, however.

  Never did Norwood get his answers.

  He was close a few times, but never with any definite certainty.

  The dreams left him ill at ease, sometimes horrified, as if he were witnessing the Earth remake itself, or correct itself after Mankind had finished its supremacy. The dreams left him weak, drained, and with a new sense of his own deficiencies. Being in the presence of higher intelligence did that to even the most brilliant minds.

  The dream wound down, eventually, leaving him exhausted, and drenched in perspiration in his cot. He kept his eyes closed to the dark of his tiny room aboard the Sea Pilgrim. He let his breathing return to normal, finding comfort in the tranquil sounds of the sea lapping against the boat’s hull.

  They were close. He could feel it.

  And, it seemed, the island could sense him, too.

  Chapter Six

  EVOLUTIONARY PROTOCOLS

  Centuries before the El tesoro del cielo had sunk with her crew and left Rufio Catalán and an Englishman named Albert in a small escape boat, the island in the Dragon’s Teeth had been home to a higher breed of nature. They had investigated the island and found it to their liking, and so, with meticulous attention to what nature now offered them, they approached the tropical paradise to replace the one they had previously left.

  The beach stretched wide around the cove, the white sand warm and inviting, shells shining like earthy gemstones in the shallow blue waters of the shore. The view of palm trees bending gracefully over the sand to catch the mild breeze was interrupted from the sky by the small points of creatures nearing the island. A handful of winged men and women ascended to touch down.

  They were tall, their skin holding a delicate silver glint, their movements both elegant and powerful. They could have stepped off a Doric column of an ancient temple, dressed as they were in white tunics, but their wide belts were hung with tools and jewel-encrusted devices whose technology passed far beyond the pristine shores of the era.

  As colonists, they were the advance party to secure the island, if need be, and arrange for it to become their new habitation; their new paradise. They were a handsome breed, beautiful and strong, intelligent, with the confidence that came with that intellect.

  They were armed with sword blasters, and on each of their white tunics was the emblem of a gem-studded serpent, a sort of heraldic device. The women arrived first, stepping onto the soft sand, smiling a bit as they did, adding a gentler tone to their elongated facial features.

  Of the two females, Commander Maya was darker in complexion with black hair, a strikingly beautiful woman whose grasp at her authority matched her looks. Equally attractive in a much softer, fairer manner was her second in command, Vice-Commander Astara. As blonde and light-skinned as Maya was dark, Astara resembled the future Estelle, and for good reason.

  Astara smiled up at the sky. “It was a beautiful descent,” she said. “The arms of the Manifold spread apart and let us gracefully glide to our new home.” She looked to the otherworldly spacecraft, the Ascender, that hovered further out over the ocean, within sight of the island. Its lights pulsated rhythmically ten miles out. “Look at the Ascender. She resonates wonderfully in this world.”

  Astara took a deep breath, smiling as her wings opened and ruffled in the gentle warm breeze scented with coconut and pineapples. She stretched her arms high, as if to embrace the very air, letting her wings flare, enjoying the day’s warmth. “Have you ever felt such vibrancy in stretching your wings in a strange atmosphere?”

  Maya shook her head, and turned to watch the males approach.

  The winged men from the spacecraft joined their company and touched down. Between them they carried a purple cloth like a hammock, weighted with a body inside.

  “Ah, there’s the Pilot now,” Astara said as Maya nodded to the men. “And Lord Zahve.”

  Maya watched the men. “What are they carrying?”

  “Perhaps the saplings,” Astara said. “I have always said Samyaza has the soul of a farmer.”

  Maya nodded knowingly. “Ah, Astara, if anyone should know, it should be you.”

  “I have foresworn Samyaza,” she said with a different smile. “He is like a drug.”

  The Pilot, Samyaza, was occasionally referred to by his title, as they all were. Zahve was Chief Scientist of the Expedition, and they met the women and wordlessly laid the cloth between them gently down on the beach. They stepped back, folding their wings behind them. Samyaza looked to each of the women. He was shorter than most of the colonists, his movements abrupt, almost angry at times, but he was a militant and precise. He was also third in line for the chain of command, something that at times made itself known.

  Zahve was older than the other three, often addressed more formerly by his title of Lord Zahve, and generally had the respect due his office from the other colonists. He and Samyaza looked to the commander.

  “It was a fine journey, Captain Samyaza,” Maya told the shorter man. “You’re to be commended.”

  “Appearances are deceiving, Commander,” he said tightly, eyes going to the purple cloth that still covered the frail shape below it. “Although the descent seemed smooth, the ship was damaged in making entry. Many systems are damaged.”

  Maya frowned at him. “Have we at least landed on the Target World?”

  Zahve answered. “I don’t know, Commander.”

  Samyaza didn’t mince words. “We don’t have good news for you.”

  He and Zahve unfolded the purple cloth to reveal an older woman. She was their oracle, and badly injured. She was unconscious, twitching, almost convulsing in her sleep, soft mumbles coming from her accompanied by winces of pain.

  Maya knelt. “My God, it’s the oracle! She has aged!” She looked to Zahve. “How is that possible?”

  Samyaza answered her. “She went into a trance before we descended. This is not unexpected, for she had her orders, but of course, she had to be isolated. Whatever happened, happened on descent, in her cabin when she was alone.”

  Zahve bent down besides her, unfolding the woman’s tunic at her arms to reveal bruising and abrasions. “There are contusions. It must have been more turbulent in the rear cabin than at the helm.”

  Astara stepped closer as Maya rose. “She is injured then and not healing,” the first woman said. “I see.”

  Maya looked to Zahve. “How is this possible?”

  He took a hand-held scanner from his utility belt and held it over the oracle, moving it slightly to take readings. He then held it higher to take a reading from the immediate air supply. “The geologicals are right,” he said. “Not much else. The foliage looks weak,” he added, pointing to the trees and long grass fringing the sand. “Not the Paradise suggested in our orders.” He looked back to the oracle as he holstered the scanner. “No, this isn’t what we expected.”

  Maya studied the trees and thick foliage she could see further into the island. She turned to Zahve. “The Manifold?”

  He looked down and rechecked the last reading on his scanner. “The biologicals possess a kind of immortality, but at a severely downgraded resonance level,” he said. “Lower than anything I’ve ever seen.”

  Maya nodded. “What does that mean for us?”

  Zahve stood up. “It means that their Manifold won’t support us.” He looked to the oracle as a convulsion shook her for a moment. “It means that she has serious, possibly lethal injuries.”

  Astara’s expression softened as she watched the older woman in the cloth. “Fatal injuries?”

  Zahve nodded. “Yes, she could d
ie. This world is under the Law of Accident,” he explained. “Although our life reserves can protect us from the aging process, it cannot if we sustain injuries like these.”

  The oracle opened her eyes slowly, and then wider as she took in her surroundings. She lifted one hand, a finger extended. “The Pilot...”

  Samyaza immediately knelt beside her, nodding.

  “I have dreamed,” she began in a weakened tone.

  “Yes, milady,” he said almost tenderly. “We know.”

  She made an effort, spreading her arms to encompass the beach before her. “We have landed... Yes?”

  “Yes, we have,” he said, his eagerness sounding foreign to those that new his mannerisms well. “What was your dream?”

  “Patience.” She coughed, the effort taking her breath for a moment. “You all know that I am dying; one of those strange twists of life.” She gave them each a thorough study. “Do you think I am afraid of dying? Do you think I think that the end of the form is the end of life?”

  The other colonists shook their heads.

  “You have grown too attached to your immortality,” the oracle said. “You have grown complacent.”

  “Is that why we’re here?” Maya asked. “As punishment?”

  “No, it was a personal comment.” The oracle caught her breath slowly. “I don’t know.”

  Samyaza inched closer, his tone pressing. “You have dreamed?”

  “Yes, Pilot,” the oracle said to him. “And it is to you I speak now.”

  He leaned back a little, knowing the chain of command and the results of breaking it. “Do you not want to speak to Maya? She is in the High Command.”

  “No; you, Samyaza.” The oracle waited out a fit of coughing again before continuing. “You play a treacherous game with yourself, Pilot. You play with...” This time the coughing was longer, taxing her weakening strength. She wheezed as she took a careful breath. “You should guard yourself,” she told him. “You should guard the sacred fire. If you do not, no one can help you, and no one can protect this world. Do you understand, Samyaza?”

  “I am just a Pilot, Oracle,” he said. “I have no power.”

  She laughed, a gravelly sound that coupled with her wheezing. “This is no game, Samyaza. Not to me. Not to them.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Do not give in to the primal, Samyaza,” she cautioned, “or you will face the Thrice-born. Do not...” Her words broke off as a convulsion overtook her and sent on another coughing jag. She attempted to speak again, but her words failed, and she exhaled her last sigh, eyes closing.

  Zahve moved closer, kneeling beside her to put a hand to her heart. For a moment all remained silent, and then he nodded, looking to the rest.

  “There is no heartbeat,” he said. “She has expired.”

  Maya watched the old woman slump into the purple cloth, seeming thinner than ever. “How long do we have before our own life reserves run out?”

  “Five years or so,” Zahve said. “Then the aging process will begin and mortal symptoms will appear. Unless...”

  Maya waited for him to continue. When he did not, she prompted. “Unless?”

  “Unless we sustain injuries.” Zahve pulled the cloth over the oracle and stood up.

  Maya motioned them all to step away from the body, but Samyaza lingered, contemplating what she’d told him. “What did she mean, the Thrice-born?”

  Maya nodded for him to join them. “How should I know? She is an oracle.” She turned to the other man. “How long for harvest, Lord Zahve?”

  “Two weeks with the accelerators.”

  Maya looked to Samyaza as he joined them. “Have the seeds held out?”

  Samyaza took a scanner from his belt and used it to scan a few small pouches he took from another section of the belt. He nodded at the readings. “Yes, we can plant tomorrow.”

  “Let it be so, Samyaza,” she said. “Make ready for the seeding. Go now!”

  He nodded and replaced the scanner and pouches, and then leaped into the air with a swift flap of his wings. Within moments he was nearly out of sight, heading for the spacecraft still offshore.

  Zahve turned to Maya. “We must construct biogenerators if we are to prolong our bodies’ life force indefinitely.”

  Maya nearly laughed. “Create artificial prolongation of life? Synthetic immortality?”

  It was exactly what he’d meant. He pulled the scanner from his belt and took readings of both of them. He nodded to Astara. “All except yours, my dear. You are from the Levandra, are you not?”

  She nodded. “It is well-known, yes.”

  “Your race, if I may call it that, thrives quite nicely on this level of resonance,” he said, returning the scanner to his belt. “You don’t need biogeneration.”

  “It is not an accident, Lord Zahve,” she said.

  “Be that as it may,” he said, dismissing the fact, “as for the rest of us, we must find Vidral to fuel the biogenerators, or we’ll die on this godforsaken world.”

  A crispness came to Maya’s tone. “No world is godforsaken, Lord Zahve. Let us pray.”

  She, Astara, and Zahve knelt in the sand of the sunny afternoon and bowed their heads reverently. “Oh, powerful and good Creator,” Maya began, “we have not foreseen the problems in this journey. Guide us lovingly, Father. Bring us hope in this wilderness. Nurture us now with Thy immortal light and power.”

  A soft light that had nothing to do with the sun overhead shone on them, washing over them in a welcome and encouraging glow. They rose as the light faded.

  “We’re blessed,” Maya concluded, watching the light dissolve back into mere daylight, “even in this place.”

  Astara looked around at the tropical trees and foliage. Some of the birds were now returning to song after the disturbance of the colonists’ descent onto the shore. Or, Astara thought, perhaps the birds now sang again in response to the Creator’s light. She took a deep breath. It was a lovely island, full of scents and sounds, color and textures.

  She looked to the cloth shrouded oracle’s form on the sand. And death.

  She turned to Samyaza. “Is there a way to contact the Home World?”

  “No, Vice-Commander,” he said. “This world is beyond the seven known galactic thresholds. We’ve lost our capacity for dimensional navigation or communication.”

  “So we are, in effect,” Maya surmised, “stranded.”

  He nodded slowly.

  The island offered both beauty and the curiosity of the unknown. It was raw materials to the colonists. Very raw.

  To make it into a place to live, to even create it into an environment they could dwell while attending the necessary details of mining, it had to be exclusively theirs. That meant no intruders, and no interruptions.

  They set about making camp, a collection of tents erected on one of the flatter, inner areas of the island where the volcanic mountains overlooked the palms and brushes. Not all of the work was physical, and Zahve occupied himself rerunning the preliminary scans and tests he’d initially taken. He didn’t like the results, and knew no one else would, either. He decided to run a third batch of tests and scans. Their new world was volatile in atmosphere fluctuations, more so when the volcanic and seismic activity was higher; perhaps his readings were off.

  He certainly hoped so.

  Astara and Samyaza flew over the beach as the afternoon sun lent a glimmer to the aquamarine waters below. Even at their height they could see the white, gray, and pinkish pebbles that made up the cove’s bottom, occasionally interrupted by a shell of fish swimming in the warm waters.

  Samyaza reached for Astara’s hand at his side, but she moved away, barely out of touch, her arm recoiling slightly, but distinctly.

  It wasn’t her first such reaction he’d noticed lately, even before coming to their new home. “What?” he asked, frustration evident in his tone. “Why did you do that?”

  “Ever since you became Pilot you have become hard and cold, Samy
aza.” She glanced to him, a mixture of hurt and guardedness in her eyes.

  He shrugged, edging closer to her as they made a swoop past a clump of palm trees. “You’re a notch above me in command, Astara. I’m not complaining.”

  “Not in words,” she said, keeping the distance between them. “But I feel your complaining within me. You hate anyone above and you scorn everyone below. Unlike the others, perhaps, I listened to the oracle.”

  “That’s not true, Astara.”

  She saw through his thin veneer of carefully constructed logic. “I am Levandra, of the same tribe as the oracle. Do you think you can hide any truth from me?”

  He flew in front of her, blocking her path and making her stop, hovering. “But I love you, Astara,” he said, this time his tone gentler, as she recalled it from times past. “I have given my life to you.”

  “Give your life to the Creator first,” she said, letting herself lower until they were just above the palms. He followed, keeping her eyelevel with him. “You do that, and then speak with me.” She sighed, glancing to the beach front where they had last seen the first casualty of their new world. “She was one of our greatest oracles.”

  “She was great,” he agreed, annoyance rising. “But she died.”

  Astara’s irritation returned with his callousness. “With her last breath, she spoke to you, Samyaza. Remember it!”

  She dodged past him and flew off speedily.

  Samyaza didn’t follow; he watched her go, appreciating the flow of white linen tunic around her, smiling despite himself at the elegant movements of her wings. She couldn’t stay upset with him for long.

  Astara’s affections would come around to him again.

  There was little time for Samyaza to contemplate Astara’s change in attitude. Commander Maya assembled the colonists to the beach that afternoon to address them about Zahve’s most recent findings.

  The group of off-worlders was both male and female, a few dozen in all, bringing to their new home a collection of skills and determination, but united in beliefs. While the mining of Vidral, a necessary ore to their existence, was foremost, the needs of daily life were also important.