Birthright

Birthright

Brian H. Gill

Despite the stories you've seen, there never were very many Voini. Like any alter, each Voin was expensive to grow.

Also, unlike the Gung Yan, Voini had earned an unpleasant reputation during the recent wars.

Between limited production, judgments after the Suspension and 'Voin hunts,' there are now perhaps only a few dozen surviving Voini.

Perhaps it is best this way.

As great a cliché as this will seem, Voini were designed to be the "ideal soldiers." Not mindless killing machines. Soldiers. Again, please: forget the stories you've seen. Those are fiction. Intended for entertainment.

Traits were carefully selected for each batch of Voini, carefully chosen for a particular set of tasks. All had average or better intelligence, most were above the 50th percentile in strength, and Voini pilots in particular had almost inhumanly fast reaction times. No Voin, despite their reputation, were given to unpredictable outbursts of homicidal fury.

I believe I understand how the victors viewed the Voini. Units of four or eight apparently-identical men, armed and moving with the speed and precision of the finest athlete, carrying out a military objective - of which you were the target? Yes, that could be frightening.

And it is an all-too-human habit to ascribe frightful attributes to that which we fear.

So, yes: I believe I understand how the victors viewed the Voini. I believe I understand the reasoning behind the post-Suspension judgments: although I do not agree with each one.

But I hope that someday, as the passions of this age fade, my brothers and I will be regarded in a kinder light.

copyright © Brian H. Gill 2010

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Distraction in Retrospect

Brian H. Gill

As this account approaches its final edit, I see that the short, colorful story of Red Rock Exploration Consortium is rippling through the pool again. I had not intended to discuss RREC, apart from my personal involvement, but feel that I have a duty, as the last surviving member of my team, to set the record straight.

Or, if you prefer, record my own observations and conclusions.

First: to the best of my knowledge and after serious consideration: I have no reason to believe that there was any sort of conspiracy involved in either RREC's failed Oxygen Reclamation Project, or in the collapse of RREC which followed. My testimony on the matter is in the public record, and no facts or allegations have emerged during the intervening decades to alter that belief.

Second: there are, again to the best of my knowledge, no "secret records" of the Oxygen Reclamation project. All documents and files posted by my team have been made public. As the team recording officer, I believe I may state that with some authority.

Third: and implicit in the second point, there is no "secret alien technology" that was smuggled back to Earth. My team was, prior to the collapse of RREC, the only one to have found Danian Age artifacts.

Finally: my respect for Val Tuning demands that I recall briefly the final days of his life.

Tuning was, without question, unschooled in any of the sciences and at best a competent engineer. He was, however, a capable administrator and my friend.

I was distressed to learn that the ludicrous allegation that he was not human is once again being discussed. RREC's medical records were detailed, embarrassingly so, and again are now a matter of public record. If Val Tuning was not human, then space aliens are indistinguishable from us.

I find that: unlikely.

On the Saturday before hearings on alleged irregularities in RREC accounts were to begin, Val Tuning was seen by several witnesses at the Shanghumugham Beach, where he went for a swim and didn't come back.

While it is true that his body was not recovered, this does not, in my opinion, "prove" anything. It is, again in my opinion, most likely that the lively marine ecosystem in that area benefited from Val Tuning's death by drowning.

Regarding the Danian Age artifacts themselves, my own findings and those of my team are available to anyone who bothers to access them. And, at the risk of seeming defensive: I was, in addition to the team recording officer an accredited mineralogist. I suppose I owe the honor of the assignment to my being that rare combination: a competent field researcher who is willing to accept "mere" clerical duties.

I also suppose it no longer matters if I admit that I would have accepted latrine duty in exchange for an opportunity to study the southern rim of Gusev. And, I do not mind admitting, still regret that the discovery of the Danian Age artifacts and the subsequent focus on their study prevented me from finishing my field work.

Even so, and although much discussion of these artifacts is, in my opinion, quite silly, I am glad of the continued interest in this evidence that we are, or were, not the only sort of people to have inhabited the universe. I like to think that a spirit of curiosity and wonder still lives in our hearts and minds.

Briefly, the most common artifact at Dig 45 was a metal sphere. We found 72 of them, buried. The metal was an alloy composed chiefly of iron, carbon and nickel.

The spheres, apart from what appeared to be post-manufacture damage, were nearly identical. Each had an outside diameter of approximately one meter, hollow, with a wall thickness of approximately 0.9 millimeter.

Although one sphere had apparently been punctured, they clearly had originally had a single opening, approximately 8.2 centimeters in diameter, surrounded by a disk about 25 centimeters in diameter in which the wall was 2.3 millimeters thick. The other readily-visible features common to all spheres were three knobs spaced equally around the hole, and a sturdy ring approximately 30 centimeters in diameter opposite the hole.

The least-unlikely explanation as to the sphere's function is that they were storage containers for liquids or gasses.

These spheres were, and are, the best-known of the Danian Age artifacts. More intriguing, for me, were the several dozen rumpled sheets of woven metal we found, varying in size from a few centimeters on a side to a sort of ribbon over a meter wide by nine meters long. Then there were the six rocks which had clearly been machined into rectangular prisms, about five by five by eight centimeters.

Although these remarkable objects are called the Danian Age artifacts, their exact age is still uncertain. The latest generally-accepted estimate, based on known current rates of aeolian sediment deposition near Gusev City, together with other factors, is that the spheres and other artifacts were left on the Martian surface somewhere between 66,000,000 and 61,000,000 years ago.

(Excerpt from "Thiruvananthapuram to Gusev City: the Autobiography of Yuriko Zabala")

copyright © Brian H. Gill 2010

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"The Village, the Fence and the Sign"

"Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up."
G. K. Chesterton, The Quotations Page

This story originally appeared in "Brian's Attic" on my Brendan's Island website.

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The Village, the Fence and the Sign

Brian H. Gill

Once upon a time there was a village. South of the houses was the top of a very tall cliff. North of the houses were high, grassy hills.

It was a beautiful village. The people there were happy and safe, as long as they did not go near the cliff.

There was a sign near the cliff, and a fence. The sign said:

DANGER!

CLIFF!

DO NOT GO NEAR THE EDGE,

OR YOU MAY FALL OFF!

The fence was between the sign and the houses. The sign and the fence had been put up long ago, to keep people from falling off the cliff. Because no one wanted to fall off the cliff, no one built houses near the fence.

One day, Tom, Sharon, Bert and Courtney were playing in the open space between the houses and the fence. As they ran, Tom (who wasn't looking were he was going) ran into the fence.

Tom's head hurt, and so all four went to the village for help. Sam, who lived in the house nearest the hills, put a cloth on Tom's head, and gave him cool water. Soon Tom's head was better.

Many people in the village were worried because Tom ran into the fence, and hurt his head. Everyone knows that it's not good to hurt your head.

Sharon said, "The fence is to blame!" Tom said, "Yes! if the fence were not there, I would not have hurt my head!"

"The fence kept you away from the cliff," said Sam. But only a few people listened to Sam.

Many people in the village thought that Tom was wise. Nobody in the village had fallen off the cliff, but many had run into the fence.

They said, "If the fence had not been there, Tom could not have bumped his head on the fence."

Soon almost everyone in the village agreed. They said, "The fence is to blame!" Then they tore down the fence.

Now everyone in the village could see the cliff. They could also see the sign in front of the cliff.

Bert thought the cliff was beautiful. He said "Look how far you can see, from the edge of the cliff!" Bert could see even farther from the hills behind the village, but the cliff was closer.

Courtney was afraid when she thought about the cliff. She was afraid when she saw the cliff. She was even more afraid when she saw the sign near the cliff.

The sign looked bigger than it had when it was behind the fence.

Courtney decided she didn't like the sign. She said, "The sign keeps me from having fun!"

Bert said, "The sign is to blame!" Courtney said, "Yes! if the sign were not there, I would not be afraid, and Bert could have fun!"

"The sign reminds us to stay away from the cliff," said Sam. But only a few people listened to Sam.

Bert and Courtney told Sam to keep quiet. "When you talk about the sign, you make people feel bad," they said.

Many people from the village thought that Bert and Courtney were wise. They said "If the sign was not there, nobody would be afraid, and everyone could have fun."

Soon almost everyone in the village agreed. They said, "The sign makes us afraid! The sign keeps us from having fun!" Then they tore down the sign.

Bert said, "This feels good! Now there is no sign to make us afraid, or to keep us from having fun." Almost everyone in the village agreed.

One day, Tom, Sharon, Bert and Courtney were playing in the open space between the houses and the cliff. As they ran, Tom (who wasn't looking where he was going) ran near the edge of the cliff.

He lost his balance, and fell off. Nobody ever saw Tom again.

Sharon, Bert and Courtney were very sad. They all said, "The cliff is to blame!"

Soon almost everyone in the village agreed. They said, "If the cliff was not there, people would not fall off!" Then they tried to tear down the cliff.

They dug, and hammered, and pulled at the edge of the cliff. Soon a huge piece of rock, soil, and grass tore away from the edge of the cliff.

Sharon had been standing on that piece of grass. Now the cliff had a new edge, and Sharon was gone. The new edge of the cliff was closer to the village.

Sam ran up. "Stop!" he shouted. "You are bringing the cliff closer to your houses!"

Bert and Courtney shouted, "The cliff is to blame!" Almost everyone in the village agreed. Then they tore another piece off the edge of the cliff.

This time Bert fell off the edge.

Courtney and everyone else in the village were very sad. They were very mad, too. They said, "The cliff is to blame!"

They the tore another piece off the edge of the cliff. The edge of the cliff was next to Courtney's house now. Courtney kicked at a piece of dirt near the edge of the cliff. She lost her balance and fell off the cliff.

Now almost everyone in the village was very, very mad. They missed Courtney, and Bert, and Sharon, and Tom. "The cliff is to blame!" they shouted.

Then they tore another piece off the edge of the cliff. A huge piece of cliff fell off. Courtney's house fell off, too.

Sam tried to stop his neighbors, but he couldn't. Most of the people in the village were too mad to listen.

Sam's neighbor's tore at the cliff. Every so often, one of them fell off. Each time this happened, the rest got even more mad. They tore at the cliff even harder.

More people and houses fell off the cliff.

Soon the only house left was Sam's. The cliff had been torn back to the edge of the hills.

Sam's house rocked back and forth on the edge of the cliff. Then it fell off.

All the houses in the village were gone.

Most of the people in the village were gone.

Sam walked away. A few of his neighbors went with him. They had not been near the cliff.

They built another village. This village was high up in the hills. It was a beautiful village. South of the new village, where the old village had been, was the top of a very tall cliff.

There was a fence near the cliff. A sign was on the fence. The sign said:

DANGER!

CLIFF!

DO NOT GO NEAR THE EDGE,

OR YOU MAY FALL OFF!

copyright © Brian H. Gill 1996

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Waiting on a Dead World

Waiting on a Dead World

Brian H. Gill

They grew in the light of a golden sun. They studied the soil, stones and waters around them. They studied the stars and fire. They studied the myriad forms of life around them. And they recorded what they had learned.

They lived, engendered more of their kind, watched their young grow and learn, and they died. But their sun continued to shine, and their young grew old, studied, and added to the store of knowledge.

Stars do not grow old, as living things do: but stars change.

As their store of knowledge increased, they came to know that in time their star's inner fires would fail, choked in ash which had accumulated over ages beyond imagining.

Armed with that knowledge, they could prepare.

Some decided to accept the end of their world as their own end, and the end of all who would come after, accepting what was to come.

Others built tiny worlds, moving them as the once-golden sun grew and dimmed - but not enough to spare its inner worlds. They lived, grew, engendered and died: and learned. In time some of them grew restless, turned their eyes to the stars; left the shrunken, glaring ember that had been their sun behind; and sought other suns.

A few would not die with their world, and would not leave. They had learned, long ago, how to record their memories, habits and desires in forms which could endure boiling oceans and the hot wind which swept air from their home.

And so, as their star billowed out, puffing its substance into the void, they left copies of their minds, buried under miles of rock. Not as inert patterns of memory and habit: but active as their living forms had been. For in this way they thought that some part of themselves, at least, would endure.

And endure they did: as their sun burned the last of its fuel and shrank to a white-hot spot in the sky of their now-airless world. At last they ventured up, in mechanical bodies well-suited to the vacuum and cold.

Standing on a dead world, their sun a point of light which would have pained living eyes, they discovered that near-immortality was not quite as satisfactory as they had imagined.

Their artificial bodies were adequate, but did not provide the quality of sensation which they remembered.

Some learned to be content with their new form.

Others decided that they wanted to taste, to smell, to touch as they once had. They wanted to live as creatures of flesh and blood again.

It was not a futile desire. The methods they had used to inhabit mechanical bodies could be used to impose their will on organic creatures, and draw sensations from the living hosts.

There was nothing living on their world. But, they reasoned, just as some of their own kind had traveled the void between stars, others might come to their world.

So they built a huge pattern of concentric rings, surrounded by a pulsing radiance which could have no natural source.

And they waited.

After a very long time, a moving point of light appeared in their sky. It drifted down, until even living eyes could have recognized a mass of cylinders and spheres: a vessel built to carry living beings from world to world.

The vessel landed, opened, and living creatures stepped out. And were met by the waiting minds.

It was worth the wait.

copyright © Brian H. Gill 2009

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Related post:

• "A Sense of Scale and Science Fiction Writers"
  (August 17, 2009)
  Particularly
  • Getting Imaginative

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Here's what got me started:

"Dead Stars Once Hosted Solar Systems"
Space.com (April 20, 2009)

"At least one in every 100 white dwarf stars may be orbited by asteroids and rocky planets, new observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope suggest. The finding could mean that these now dead stars once hosted solar systems similar to our own....

"...White dwarf stars are the compact, hot remnants left behind when stars like our own sun reach the end of their lives....

If mathematical models that stellar physicists and cosmologists have made are anywhere near being accurate, a star like our sun has roughly 12,000,000,000 years from the time it starts shining to the point at which its supply of hydrogen in the core runs out.

With the fusion fire out, the star starts shrinking - which pushes hydrogen outside the core to pressures and temperatures where fusion will take place. The star starts expanding at this point, becoming a red giant (boiling the oceans of any formerly-habitable planet(s) it may have had) - and eventually forming a pretty-looking nebula around the now-spent interior of the star. The process takes a few million years - something like a thousandth of the star's time on the main sequence.

(I'm leaving out quite a few steps - there's a decent discussion of stellar evolution at the Stellar Database, "Stellar Evolution.")

What's left collapses into a ball smaller than Uranus or Neptune. This object is a white dwarf. Back to that Space.com article:

"...The atmospheres of white dwarfs usually consist entirely of hydrogen and helium, but sometimes heavier elements such as calcium or magnesium are detected contaminating the stellar material.

"Data from Spitzer suggest that at least 1 to 3 percent of white dwarf stars are contaminated in this way.

"Scientists think that the out-of-place elements come from a gradual rain of orbiting dust onto the sun. The dust emits infrared radiation which Spitzer detects.

"The dust is entirely contained within what is called the Roche limit of the star, or close enough that any object larger than a few kilometers would be ripped apart by gravitational tides. (This is the same phenomenon that produced Saturn's rings.) Because of the location of the dust, scientists think that the dust may originate from rocky bodies such as asteroids (also known as minor planets) that were torn apart in this way.

"This could mean that as many as 5 million white dwarfs in our own Milky Way are surrounded by orbiting asteroids.

"For the asteroids to get within the Roche limit to be pulled apart at the seams, they must be perturbed from an orbit farther out from their star — the asteroids could be nudged by as yet unseen planets...."

The Story of Mankind in 79 Words

Long ago, many races of primates lived in the tropical forest. One slow, weak race was driven into the grasslands and left there to die.

Most of them did.

But some survived. Their descendants learned to use sharp sticks and make fire. Later they learned to make stone tips for their spears, and hide scrapers. Later still, they learned to make intercontinental ballistic missiles and bulldozers.

Then they returned to the forest, leveled it, and built a shopping mall.