Note: Some improper grammar may be during dialogue to ad realism to Characters
The Descoladores
By Justinian
Based Upon: Children of the Mind by Orson Scott Card
Chapter 1: Genome
"It is only acceptable to go to war if those you are going to war cannot or will be reasoned with diplomatically, or is not a sentient race."
-Demosthenes
Miro, Quara, and Val/Jane sat in the box they called a starship in orbit around the planet of the Descoladores waiting for the signal to be received by the Descoladores. The terminal started blinking. Suddenly, Fire Quencher appeared in the center of the starship.
"This might be it." Said Jane, "I thought I'd bring him in."
"No argument here" said Miro, who had grown to like the pequenino in their month of attempted contact with the Descoladores.
"Look at this." Said Fire Quencher. The holographic display showed another genetic molecule. A quick scan showed it triggered the speech centers of the brain.
"I just don't get it!" shouted Quara, what the hell are we supposed to do with this!?"
"We don't know, settle down Quara" said Miro.
"If they communicated with anything but genetics," said Jane. Something about the way Jane said genetics mad Quara realize something.
"Quick!" shouted Quara, "Sequence the genome of the molecule! I can't believe we didn't see it before!" Fire quencher brought up the gene sequence. It wasn't the usual pattern of life, very clearly engineered. Instead of having the normal sequence of randomly switched on and switched off genes, the genes were in a geometric pattern.
"That almost looks like binary sequence." Said Jane
"What does it say?" asked Quara.
"Well, it's not really a word, it's a series of sounds that can be produced by the vocal cords." Said Jane
"Well tell us what it says!" said Quara, more excited than irritated. A sequence of numbers appeared on the holoscreen.
01110000 01100101 01100001 01100011 01100101
"Its equivalent to P-E-A-C-E." said Jane.
"How could they know how to speak our language? Asked Quara, confused.
"Well, they were advanced enough seven thousand years ago to create what we can't now, it seems logical that they could pick up a language system." Said Miro
"They could be listening to us right now." Said Jane. The terminal flashed again. This time, for the first time, it wasn't a molecule. It was a straight line of binary saying:
01000011 01001111 01001101 01000101
Jane translate it to COME.
"They want us to come to the surface" said Jane
"Let's go." Said Miro.
"We can't just go to the surface." Said Quara, "What if they blow up the ship the second we land? Or kill us the moment we come out?"
"Good point." Said Miro, too tired for another argument. "Let's try to send our own message." Jane and Fire Quencher began to formulate a genetic sequence.
Jane got a message from Peter and was talking to him for a couple minutes. Suddenly the Descoladores sent back a message that read, in perfect Stark; Come to our planet, we want peace.
"How the hell did they know how to do that!?" asked Quara
"I told them," said Jane.
"How?" asked Quara.
"That was the message we sent in the genetic code." Jane replied. "The entire Stark language"
"Now how the—" Quara was cut off by Miro. "She herself traveled along the message and told the computers how to decode Stark."
"Ok then…" said Quara.
Jane pulled the starship outside, and then back in. They were on the planet.
Chapter 2: Earth
"I find that not all gods are good, but they all seem to have good intentions. If not, everything turns out good in the end."
From The God Whispers of Han Qing-Jao
Wang-Mu (Wang Woo) was surrounded by flat land in all directions. Peter was nowhere to be seen. "Jane!" she shouted. No response. Wang-Mu was completely alone, nothing in sight in any direction, she didn't even know what planet she was on, perhaps back on path, but she doubted it. It couldn't be Lusitania, the ground was a salt flat, not a plain.
"Where am I!?" she shouted. Her voice echoed slightly, but with nothing to echo off of, the sound faded quickly. Wang-Mu noticed something, the sky was a deep blue. Not as deep a blue as Trondheim, whose sky was almost black. No planet that Wang-Mu knew of had a blue sky. Most of the planets in the hundred worlds had skies that were either black, or the color of the star they orbited.
No planet had a blue sky…except…Earth. But she couldn't be on Earth, the planet they were heading to was hundreds of years away from Earth. How could Jane have made such a mistake?
Peter stood on the planet Trondheim. He looked around, a bit disoriented. Where was Wang-Mu? Peter wondered what planet he was on. He looked to his right, he saw a small structure and a road leading to a small city, no, not a small city, a large city, he say a few buildings in the far distance, and just on the horizon, a gray shifted line of tall buildings.
"Trondheim' breathed Peter, it was obvious. He was on the Sagittarius glacier. Tall snowcapped mountains were on his far left, and in front of them was an ice covered lake that ended about a half kilometer before it reached Peter. Three faded out moons were visible in one corner of the sky, and in the far north a bright blue star.
How had peter arrived on Trondheim? Jane hadn't brought him there.
"Jane." He said.
"Not now," she responded, "We're doing something."
"This is important." Persisted Peter.
"What is it?" she asked.
"I'm on Trondheim and Wang-Mu isn't here."
"No, you're on…" she sounded confused "Well I don't know where you are."
"What do you mean you don't know?" asked Peter, "How do you not know?"
"Well, according to myself, you're inside of the Ansible network, or at least, your jewel is." Said Jane.
"Of course my jewel is connected to the Ansibles." Said Peter
"No, I don't mean connected, I mean inside, like me."
"That's impossible, I'm on Trondheim." Said Peter.
"Wait." Said Jane, "Where is Wong-Mu?"
"I don't know." Said Peter.
"I'll come back in a minute, we're about to make contact." Said Jane, and with that, she left.
"Get back here Jane!" Peter shouted "I'm not done with you!"
There was no reply
Si Wang-Mu stood on Earth, in some kind of salt desert, walking. She had chosen a random direction and had walked in that direction for about three miles, and a hill was beginning to emerge on the skyline.
She had no idea of where she was. Luckily, it was winter so it was only around 14 degrees in whatever desert she was in at the time. She was convinced she was somewhere in the United States, that was where the salt flats were. She called out for help once more. Her thought was dry and she needed water.
Peter had been walking for two hours, and he had finally reached the city. The name of the city was Moscow, in honor of the city on earth. Strangely enough, the colonizers weren't from Russia, but Idaho in the United States. The city was one of the first on Trondheim.
Peter had arrived at the city at around fifteen hundred hours. He walked over to a small shop and asked the owner where the nearest Ansible was.
"You have a jewel in your ear don't you?" asked the man.
"I need a computer terminal, this one's broken." Peter lied.
"Over at the coffee house they have free computer access. Hope you got some money on ya though. They don't let ya just sit in." said the man, his accent revealing that he was obviously from one of the poles.
"Thanks" said Peter.
To Be Continued