The Fold Ship - Finale

Posted on Wed Aug 26th, 2020 @ 2:02pm by Lieutenant Alekela illm Meaho'ōla

1,576 words; about a 8 minute read

“Computer open log The Fold Ship”

[Log is open]

“We stayed only a short time before the Guild Mother beckoned me to head back down the steps. As we returned to the chamber, she carefully said something in a sing song way with words I could not quite understand. It sounded like my language but different. Perhaps it was the way Akkadian was in a more distant time.

We returned through the now quite house to the kitchens and there waiting was the Nectar tea and some fruit. It steamed and she poured me a mug and indicated to take a seat and waited while I downed the warm very sweet tea feeling my body relax and awake as the warmth and sugar course through.

The Guild Mother watched a moment and then spoke. “Once, a long time ago it was discovered that certain individuals developed an ability to make great intuitive leaps. Each group, began to breed for the talent as it appeared to be able to be passed on. These individuals as they appeared in our society made great leaps in technology. It was not long before we began to turn our eyes on the heavens. The neighboring world of Kyllindra was our first goal and we went there. A world cold, and locked in permanent ice, too cold for us even colder than these mountains we now occupy. It was not the world though that yielded a treasure, it was one of the moons. On that moon were living things, foreign to anything we knew. It was found that these entities had unusual properties, they could do things with space and time.

The Guild Mother smiled at the blank look on my face which indicated I did not understand. "Think of space as a sheet of paper. A pencil dot on corner is our world, on the other corner another star, the distance between them imaginably long, so long it would take a hundred lifetimes to cross. How would you cross that distance in something reasonable?" Svylena prompted as one would a student.

I had seen the Guild Mother of Warraquim do the same thing. I suppose one could crumple the paper or," I said or one could fold the paper." I remember making the leap in my mind's eye and made a motion with my hands as though taking an invisible piece of paper and folding it in pantomime corner to corner.

The Guild Mother eyed me carefully for a moment perhaps she wondered if I had the gift.

“The Guild Mother of Warraquim, showed me the same.”

“Ah, I am surprised she shared but then again….” She trailed off. “Alekelia, you must by now know that all that has happened is because it is suspected, that you carry the trait, that gift we bred for and but also lead to our near destruction.”

“A’ksu,” I said meekly.

“Yes, that is what we called now. It has a bad connotation, meaning dangerous. Oh, how much, we have lost!” she almost spat the words out.
“No, my dear, you carry the trait of the A'burab'atu. That was the old name.” she said.

I puzzled through the name, it was not familiar enough but I said, “Like something fast?”

The Guild Mother smiled, “Indeed, it means to do things quickly.”

Svylena, the Guild Mother sighed suddenly all the joy draining out of her voice. "Unfortunately, things happened, too long to tell now, but suffice to say yes we almost destroyed this world and ourselves. Thus, most turned their backs on what we had achieved and hid history. It was from then that the Houses were formed in such a way that each was dependent on the other. However, not everyone agreed with the majority, the ones that did not though were forced to accept, but a few, a tiny few decided to pretend to accept and try to preserve what once had been in the hopes that one day what we once had would be needed again." Svylena paused and then reverently said, "We hide the past in order to preserve the future." She then went silent.

As the Guild Mother uttered the phrase I froze. It was exactly the same phrase as what had been written on the wall of the cave. There was a long silence but after a point I ventured, "I thought the House Warraquim was the preserver of knowledge?"

Svylena's face went from remorse and sadness to anger in a flash. "Warraquim! That House was the prime mover in destroying what we had. Knowledge buried in some dusty archive perhaps, but forgotten. Things like that ship and the things within it are our real legacy and one that needs to held and nurtured carefully until needed again. Thus, our little order, the Wussuru.” She turned and looked at me directly in the eyes.

"I am sorry, I do not mean to insult that House and things have changed over time. The current Guild Mother of that House believes that though we have made alliances, soon those alliances will be tested and we may be alone against great powers. That is why you are here. She wishes you and that others younger will learn. She is near her end and she fears that those that follow her, well may not see as clearly as she did."

The Guild Mother’s voice dropped low. "Others have come, come here from the stars when we used to go to them and now, we are all but defenseless. There are not many left like this ship and the marvels within it, and even fewer that know how to work them, you will have to be one that learns." The Guild Mother went silent again and she searched my face and then after a long pause, "And those with the Gift, the A'burab'atu gene while diminished have not died out. We need to be prepared and you will be taught all those secrets and knowledge forgotten elsewhere but preserved here.”

Again, there was a silence and then the Guild Mother released me and made a motion with one hand to depart. "Enough for now, go get your well-deserved rest Alekelia, for your training starts the day after the morrow. You now know secrets that have consequences and I pray that the breezes blow gently and fair winds guide you. Now go on!" The Guild Mother again waved a hand.

I curtsied clumsily and then turned to walk back to my room. I had been given admission to a great secret and would be taught deeply. I remember smiling, and my feet going from feeling like lead to almost on wings again. That ship, I thought and the marvels in it would be mine to learn and yet the words the Guild Mother had said at the end as though the ship and its marvels from the past were not the ultimate weapon if need be, but that old odd word. A'burab'atu, the Guild Mother had said. I now knew what that word meant, it meant to one who could do things quickly. The Guild Mother had talked about great intuitive leaps of the mind. I nodded as I thought it over, intellect was the greatest weapon.

Well I learned the real history of my people, I learned what marvels we had and what and where they were hidden and preserved. I learned how they worked over the course of my years, and I came to want to scream to the roofs and shake the foundations of what fools we had been. However, Guild Mother Svylena of the Wusuru had been correct, there were others more conservative and still worried. We are children of our world, though we traveled far and tried to establish new places it was not to be. Even the intellects of the far past had not managed to attune our bodies to a new world. Children of the tides of the oceans, the movements of the stars, the salinity of our ocean, we could not reproduce ourselves on those faraway worlds. We became too many and those worlds we could not sustain ourselves and turned home again and inevitably the conflict started over resources. That is how the things that we had developed came to be turned against ourselves and our own world. It is why when on the brink, we finally decided for a different way. A way of moving more in harmony with our world. One day, I know that this world will end and so will we, but how will we be remembered I wondered, like those others, that they called the demons of air and darkness or will be angles of air and light?
I can only hope it will be the later.

I cannot help now but wonder if this path I have had to tread has given me a better perspective than I could have ever had if things had not happened the way they did.

Well the ships are well hidden, as are the weapons from the time of the A'burab'atu are the same well hidden, but ready just in case. I take comfort in that and also knowing that I am not the only one that knows these secrets. For now, though one day perhaps the epitaph will be different: 'We hide our past in order to preserve the future, until we have learned more wisdom.”

“Computer close log”

[Log is closed]

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