Ancient Birthright (13 page)

“Thank you Major.” Striker disconnected and called a number in his office. “Captain Bethel, I hate to do this to you on short notice but I’ll be delayed getting to Washington. Cover the budget meetings until I arrive. You prepared the materials and would have presented them in any case. Do the best you can and give my apologies to the committee.” Striker closed his phone and returned it to his belt clip.

“Okay, Mr. Wilkins, let’s try to find out who and where these people are. Have you used the VLA to try to locate the vessel sending the signals?”

“No, the Director wouldn’t authorize the use of the spare antennas without a purchase order to charge the time against.”

“Don’t you have to test the transmitters during your normal maintenance activities?” Striker asked.

“Yes, sir, we do.”

“Then I would suggest you need to do an extended transmitter test of the spare antennas. If you happen to locate an unknown object during those tests it would be very serendipitous don’t you think? If that should happen, please give me a call immediately. Here’s my cell number.” Striker handed Wilkins a business card.

Wilkins winked. “I think you’re right. Those transmitters do need some maintenance testing.”

Striker clapped Wilkins on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about having to justify using the antennas. I get the feeling there may soon be a change in upper management.”

Chapter-14

Universe Explorer
: Transjump plus 4 years, 183 days:

“All souls, all souls, prepare for deceleration.” A truebeat later. “Main engine thrust in five, four, three, two, one, thrust,” echoed throughout the ship. Saigg felt a little strange having the direction of down shift slightly off kilter toward the front of the ship as the engines came up to full power. It had been almost a year and a half since they had stopped the ship’s acceleration to conserve the aluminum fuel catalyst they had left.

Saigg addressed the team from the head of the conference room table. “Okay, team let’s get started. We have a little less than four years to refine our knowledge of the English language and get started on a few others that seem to be prevalent in the transmissions we’re receiving. Command Prime has also tasked us with learning everything we can about Earth’s current society and how it evolved from the one we left behind over two hundred and thirty million years ago.”

“Team Leader Garuu,” called a voice from part way down the left side of the conference table.

“You have a question, Tano?”

“Why expend the effort to learn about the current society? All we really need to do is establish orbit. Negotiate for the supplies we need, load them and get started back to Danuaa 3.”

“Command Prime has given me permission to share several problems with the team. Problems we hope to solve with your help.” Saigg swept his gaze around the room. The eyes of every soul in the room locked to his.

“The first problem was discovered just truebeats after transjump. We had a dropout, a fairly significant drop out. Almost seventeen percent of our aluminum supply didn’t rematerialize. For those of you familiar with the ships engine chemistry, you know what this means. The laymen’s version of the problem is that the ship does not have enough fuel to establish a stable orbit around Earth. You may have noticed that we have been coasting for the past eighteen thirty-cycles. Command Prime ordered the engines shut down as a partial solution to the fuel problem. It added time to our trip to Earth, but it was the only way to ensure we had enough fuel for the final maneuvers to ensure we do not impact Earth or its moon. We, and by ‘we’ I mean this research team, have been tasked by Command Prime Garuu to find out if there is some way Earth can send us a supply of aluminum before we reach the maneuver point.”

“You said problems, is there more?” asked Tano.

With a deep sigh, “Yes, the second problem has an immediate effect on all of us.” Saigg looked at Renna seated on one of the side chairs along the wall. She was heavy with eggs and about to lay their first clutch. “Shortly after the ship went into active recycle mode where we no longer drew a portion of our supplies from those shipped from Treterra, our doctors noted a drop in the fertility rate of every species on board. Their theory is that some trace element is missing from our diet. The current fertility rate has slipped from the normal eighty-nine percent to thirty-four percent.” Saigg glanced at Renna. She sat ridge against the chair back, slowly stroking her distended egg pouch. She would clutch later that day.

The question is, will any of the eggs hatch? If the entire clutch turns up infertile, it will be one more detail Domm Feuua will use to emphasize his opinion that the match Renna made by becoming my mate was a poor one.

When the meeting was over, Saigg took Renna’s arm and helped her from the room. This close to clutching she should have been in their quarters resting. Their species normally laid three leathery soft-shelled eggs. Renna would stay with the clutch for the first seven-cycle as Saigg occasionally offered her food and water. A hormone release at laying would cause Renna to become blindly and viciously protective of her nest. Even Saigg would need to tread carefully for the first seven cycle. Once Renna’s hormone levels dropped off, and Saigg could approach the nest, they would take turns keeping the eggs warm, moisturized, and rotated. If fertile, the embryos would fully develop in seventy-three cycles but they would know within the first seven cycle if fertilization had taken place. Renna’s heightened sense of smell, caused by the hormonal changes, would tell her if their babies lived. The female expelled unfertilized eggs from the nest, and it was the male’s duty to dispose of them.

When they walked into their quarters, one cabin further along the same passageway where his parents and Davvie lived, they found Caraa and Jamz as well as Renna’s mother Marra already there weaving a dense nest screen. The nesting area was in a corner of the main cabin and would be shielded by the screen.

“The screen will keep everyone safe from Renna attacking them since the defense response is triggered by sight and movement,” Marra said. “It’s an instinct from our earliest years of evolution.”

They could talk and exchange verbal caresses only during the first seven cycle. Renna cuddled up to Saigg and stroked his face then went directly to the nest and began arranging every object and piece of nesting material to her satisfaction.

Saigg joined his parents and helped complete the screen, and then mount it to the supporting walls. They wove Flaps into the bottom of the screen in strategic locations so that food and water could be pushed through using long push poles. Renna had a similar pole near the nest to return the vessels.

Karonna and her mate Kaas would have been there to help with the nest screen since the effort of weaving it was shared by all mated pairs in an extended family, but Karonna was currently in her first seven cycle of sitting her own clutch.

It caught Saigg by surprise when Karonna and his former buddy Kaas informed his parents they were mating. Karonna had completely ignored aggressive advances by Jerr and Rnggo and taken the quiet and inventive Kaas as her chosen mate.

“Have you talked with Karonna?” Saigg asked his parents, quietly so Renna wouldn’t hear.

“I talked to her just before we came over to start the screen,” answered Caraa in the same lowered level of voice. “Today is the sixth day of her first seven cycle. She’s down to one egg, and Kaas is frantic they will lose the last one, too.”

Saigg’s hands shook at the possibility of Karonna and Kaas losing their entire first clutch.
What if we’re in the same position in a seven cycle?

Marra took Saigg’s hands in hers. “Don’t borrow trouble. Problems are prevalent enough without using your imagination to create ones that don’t exist.” Marra and Caraa had become the best of friends when Saigg and Renna mated. They delighted in “helping” with every aspect of their mated children’s lives, especially, it seemed, if that help was unwanted.

A groan issued from behind the screen. “It’s starting.”

Saigg knew it would take several hours for Renna to lay their first clutch. By the end of that time, the hormonal changes would be complete, and she would be the avenging apparition of death if another soul invaded her nesting space.

The entry hatch slid open, and Domm Feuua stomped in. “I want to see my daughter.”

“Your too late Domm, she’s started the cycle,” Marra explained.

“Nonsense, she’s my daughter and I want to see her before the consequence of what this...male has done to her goes any further.”

“Maybe you should have gotten over your snit fit earlier and come then. Now, it’s too late.”

“Daddy, I’m fine. Every luzzon female since the beginning has gone through this. So take it down a little and play nice with everyone,” came from behind the screen. Renna emitted a growl rising in volume followed by a groan.

Saigg thrust out of his chair and started pacing the cabin.

“Saigg, you’re making me nervous, go check on the progress the team is making on those problems you presented,” Renna said. “Our parents will be here to listen to my complaints. Besides, I might call you some names you don’t want to hear.”

Saigg slowly left the room, the entry hatch closing behind him cut off a prolonged moan.

Rather than go to the team offices, Saigg continued down the passageway to the growth-bays holding the young Petuuas or as Beldon called them Pteros, short for pterodactyl. They developed as a flock in a single hatchling unit until their bodies grew so large they had to be separated to give them enough room to develop their flying skills. Then they moved to a growthbay, the largest open spaces on the
Explorer
.

As Saigg entered the bay, six young three-foot tall pteros surrounded him. Several took his hands in the short fingers located on the leading edge of their wings. They led him to the classroom area and proudly displayed the course work they’d just completed. Two of the more adventurous climbed the stack of cliff blocks mounted to the wall and showed off their flying abilities by circling the bay and calling “Watch me, watch me,” to get his attention.

This is what I need, the exuberance of youngsters showing me that not everything is a life threating problem.

Saigg sat on a large circular mat. “Let’s form a circle and you can tell me what you’ve learned about the Earth language English. In just a few short years, you will be the first from the ship to set foot on Earth, so you will need to be able to speak the language to communicate with the souls you find there.”

Saigg returned to his quarters three hours later. His stop at the growthbay and his evaluation of the ptero’s English skills surprised and pleased him. He’d asked that English be added to the school syllabus so that the pteros would be able to communicate once they landed on Earth and took up permanent residence there.

Saigg found Caraa and Marra comfortably settled on opposite ends of the couch quietly talking with Renna. “Can I come in?”

“Of course you can come in, Saigg,” his mother said.

“How’s Renna?”

“I’m right here Saigg. You can talk to me. I won’t bite,” Renna said with a nervous giggle. “I will admit the hormones have me hyped up to the point that every one of my nerve endings is vibrating. I’ve never experienced this level of awareness of my environment before. A little while ago, a skink had the bad luck of trying to use the screen as its new home. All I could see was the tip of its tail flick in the weave. Do you know skink is really tasty, and they’re not that hard to catch when you are on a hormone high.”

“Do you want me to trap a few dozen of the little pests? I could release them in here, so you don’t get bored.”

“No that’s okay, I like our quarters as skink free as possible.”

The little three inch lizards boarded the ship shortly after it first sprouted and was in its initial growth phase on Earth. Later when it was lifted into orbit and grew to its present size, they had been beneficial to the process by eliminating all vestiges of insect infestation. Saigg had no idea what they found to feed on, but from the number that had run around his room when he was fifteen, he guessed they scavenged dropped food crumbs.

Saigg dropped into a chair. “Have you finished clutching?”

“Yes, we have three perfect, wonderful, glorious eggs.” Renna’s happy description faded as she released a low moan.

Saigg jumped from the chair. “Renna, what’s wrong?”

“I...I don’t think anything’s wrong but, I feel like there’s another egg coming.”

Four eggs in a clutch were not unheard of. It just wasn’t the norm.

A few truebeats later. “Make that four perfect, wonderful, glorious eggs, except this last one is so small.”

“Four,” Saigg started for the screen wanting to see for himself.

Caraa and Marra tackled him before he could touch the screen. “Saigg, get a hold of yourself. These youngsters will need their father. You touch that screen now, and Renna will turn
you
into skink chow,” Caraa explained to him.

They let him up once he promised not to approach the screen. His mother kept one hand on his arm as she led him back to the couch.

“Renna, do you think you’re done now?” Saigg asked.

“Yes, I feel totally empty. I am getting a little hungry and thirsty.”

Marra swerved toward the food unit and pressed the actipads to have water and several kinds of cakes dispensed. The food unit, a bioengineered plant, used the byproducts of the waste-recy system to manufacture the desired food materials on demand. It had specialized cells that excreted a polymer enzyme that hardened on contact with air and formed either drink cups or dry food containers.

Saigg watched as Marra placed the food containers into a deep flat-bottomed bowl and then used one of the long handled pushers to slide the bowl through a screen flap.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome dear,” Marra answered as she returned to the couch.

The hatch retracted, and Kaas ran in panting as if he’d run the length of the ship.