Itirilmis

~Chapter 2~

A streak of fire lit up the sky, landing in a field not far from the shabby farmhouse I now call home. The others in my group didn't want to take the time to examine it. So, the following night, when it was my watch, I ventured out into the fields, alone.

There was no noise, none at all. My mother had once told me that in her life, insects of all sorts roamed fields such as these, letting off chirps, buzzes, beeps. I'd heard recordings. But by then, both the insects and the recordings were long gone.

I found a crater. And in that crater, I found a small device, in the shape of an egg, roughly half a meter in diameter. I did not know its function, but it was of a grey metal, still neat and glimmering under the starlight despite the tremendous energy of its atmospheric entry and impact.

I used to be an engineer. I worked on aerodynamics, improving the efficiency of ships and planes. My unpublished doctorate paper discussed the feasibility of sending something past the dome of our sky, into the unknown. Maybe I was influenced by the science fiction shows that ran in my youth, but I used to dream, to fantasize, that our great nation ran a program to send ships to the stars, and that I was at its head, calling out the countdown to launch. T-Minus three. Two. One.

…Writing that, I just had a flashback. Arashu protect me, it was terrifying. But it's a tale for another time.

I was giddy with excitement. I took the alien pod into my arms and set out back towards our camp. But before I reached it, there were shots. Cracks, piercing the still of the night air.

My companions had been slaughtered. By whom, to this day I do not know. Their bodies were scattered, some still in their beds. It had been my watch. I'd been greedy, selfish. I had failed them. About half our supplies had been taken; the rest, strewn about, left to rot. I collected up what I could.

I took refuge in the farmhouse. For a few days, I couldn't bring myself to look at my prize. My dreams were haunted by the faces of my friends, my brothers and sisters, who had died because of my curiosity and carelessness. Who I had killed.

But time heals all wounds, it seems. Repressing the memory of that night has been… difficult, but somehow, after a week, I managed to refocus.

The pod took some careful examination to open. After running my hands over it many times, I discovered a tiny seam, barely visible to the naked eye.

From the rotting wood walls of the building, I pulled a rusty nail, and with it, pried the casing open. It snapped in half cleanly along the seam with a satisfying pop.

Inside, nestled in some sort of foam padding, was a more fragile-looking box, colored black. Before I even touched it, a panel of some sort slid open on its top, and brilliant blue light shot forth-and stopped, hanging in the air, a foot above my head.

I was shocked. We'd had flashlights, and displays, and computers. But no law of physics I knew of permitted light to just stop in midair.

The light began to shift, eventually forming some sort of symbols, symbols that I did not recognize. I waited for something else to happen, but nothing did. Those symbols, those words, stayed.

I was not a linguist. I had no idea what they meant, or why they had appeared. I didn't dare tamper with the box, for fear that something would break and this alien technology be lost forever.

I cleaned up the place. Leaned old panels against the walls where boards were missing, gathered dead grasses from the field outside and arranged them as bedding. I made sure the glow could not be seen from outside. Hours turned into days, days into weeks. Those alien words simply remained, glowing, taunting me with their defiance of physics.

Despite their ever-presence, I felt more secure than I had since my party had been attacked. Eventually, at night, I let myself drop into old memories: memories of work, of family, of a time not so long ago. I said things aloud, like many drell did, as I reminisced.

I did not expect to hear a response.

It was the late evening. I lay on my makeshift sleeping area, my eyes closed, waiting for the silence to bore me to sleep.

And the box began to speak.

"Linguistic profile compiled," it said, in an accent perfectly mirroring my own. "Language registered in internal storage. This unit is now ready to process vocal input."

I bolted upright. The blue light shifted, the alien characters rearranged themselves. I still couldn't read those, but I had understood what had been said clearly enough.

"Hello?" I asked, experimentally.

"Hello," it spat back almost instantly.

I was fascinated. I recognized a difficult engineering problem when I saw one, and this was a brilliant solution to a problem far beyond my understanding. I marveled at the hours it would take to devise a program like this.

Then I remembered that it had dropped out of the sky in a fireball, had no apparent power source, and was currently suspending light stationary in the air in defiance of multiple principles that my engineering academy had drilled into my heart.

It was truly alien. Real, technological, not magic, but far more advanced than anything our planet had ever known. Our computers, compared to this device, would have seemed like toaster ovens.

"Can… can I ask a question?" I asked the box, tentatively.

"This unit is prepared to respond to the best of its ability to any queries," the box replied.

I took a breath. "Where did you… this unit… come from? How did it get here? Why is it here?"

"This unit was designed as a mixed historical archive and first contact protocol device. The manufacture of approximately one thousand of these units was approved and financed by Matriarch Benezia T'Soni, who cited 'preservation of galactic knowledge in the event of a universal extinction event' as a reason. This unit's linguistic analysis and dynamic response protocols were developed to aid in the dissemination of this knowledge. The data contained is historical in nature only and has no references to scientific advancement of any type. The reason for this is cited as 'prevention of counter-productive premature technological uplift.' Data is organized in chronological entries. You may access entries by their enumeration or by enquiries on specific topics. Ready to process input."

By the time it finished talking, my initial surprise had faded somewhat. Sleep, however, was long forgotten. I crossed my legs and spoke again.

"Access the first entry."

"Acknowledged. Beginning auditory playback of contents of entry zero-zero-one."