Tales of Midbar: Secret Priest

“Well that makes no sense,” said Egrindreth.

We were standing in the desert in Rocru, 800 years in the past, breathing heavily in the thin air. We’d been teleporting back and forth in time, remote viewing the biosphere in Evuvednin, or, in some cases, the place where it was going to be.

“It just appears!” said Rilletteecket. “And then people appear in it. No spaceship!”

“I doesn’t materialize,” I said, “it grows.”

“Or it’s built,” said Dwendra.

“It starts small and gets bigger. The people grow as well. I think I know how this happened but we should consult an expert.”

“I thought this was supposed to be a team building exercise,” said Vrenloa.

“I think it’s more important to help Hubril,” I said.

A robot was moving around the room, which seemed to be some sort of temple or court, apparently without having noticed us. It was a rather primitive looking one with a cylinder shaped body on wheels and one arm. The room itself had a number of kneeling stools in concentric circles around a dais, which had a couple more stools on it and a screen behind it.

Rilletteecket entered with Hubril who was looking shocked and confused.

“Where is everybody?” asked Hubril, looking at us, and particularly Nilha, with very obvious concern.

“I told you,” said Rilletteecket, “this is eight hundred years ago. I’m taking you to see the first humans who lived here.”

As well as Rilleteecket, Hubril and myself; Dwendra, Egrindreth, Vrenloa and Tom were there.

“That door shouldn’t be there!” said Hubril, pointing to a door beside the screen.

We went up to the door. It must have had a motion detector or something because it slid open when we got near. We went into the dark room and activated mage lights. Vrenloa sent Nilha flapping into the room, shining brightly. Hubril looked around, and at the familiar with obvious fear and confusion. The hot air hit us as we went inside. The room was full of tanks about 2.5m long, 1m wide and 1m high. Each had white walls and a transparent top, with some electrical equipment. They were in pairs, in rows close together with enough space for somebody to get between the rows and inspect each one.

“They’re still in their cryogenic pods,” said Hubril. “They don’t look good.”

He was looking into the closest tanks. As far as I could see, each tank was filled with transparent, orange liquid. There was a human body in each but the skin was strangely transparent and they had no hair. There was a tube coming from the mouth and disappearing into the wall of the tank. There were also wires coming from their heads, which also connected to the tanks’ walls.

“Feel these things!” said Tom, patting the top of the nearest tank.

We all did likewise. The tank I touched felt warm.

“They’re warm,” said Tom, “these aren’t cryogenic pods, they’re incubators! I want you to particularly note the wires connected to their heads. Now, I suggest we go back in time four days.”

We all held hands and Nilha flew back and perched on Vrenloa’s shoulder. I felt myself teleport and the mage lights flickered but the destination, at first, looked like the place and time I’d just come from. Vrenloa sent Nilha to light the far end of the room again.

“No!” gasped Hubril. “What’s happened to them!”

Looking into the nearby tanks, I could see their occupants were now far less recognizable as human. Their heads were about normal size but their bodies and limbs were small with lots of parts missing. There was no skin and lots of white, yellow or pale orange (we couldn’t really tell because of the color of the liquid) slime, like some sort of microbial growth. There were more tubes leading from the bodies and some mechanical devices hanging in the liquid. There were still a lot of wires attached to the heads but it was now clear they went into the brains.

“Remember we’ve gone back in time,” said Tom. “They’re not deteriorating, they’re improving. These people weren’t brought in a spaceship, they were constructed here by nanites, those are microscopic ...”

“I know what nanites are!” said Hubril.

Rilletteecket was hanging onto him, clearly trying to comfort him. We’d realized this would be hard for him but he’d thank us later.

“Then you should know they can make anything,” said Tom, “including living organisms. Including humans.”

“But my ancestors came in a spaceship!”

“I want you to particularly note the wires from the brains,” said Tom. “Those are for downloading false memories into them. You have to do that with human constructs or they won’t be able to do anything; talk, walk, eat, control when they relieve themselves. If you’re constructing them as adults, as in this case, you also need things like writing, social skills, moral values, courtship, culture, general knowledge, child rearing; all the things people normally learn in their first twenty years or so of life. If you’re growing an entire colony of constructed humans, as in this case, some of them will need things like surgery, farming, engineering and nanotechnology. I’m sure the stuff about having to stay here because of hostages is part of the false memories.”

“But why?” asked Hubril.

“I suspect the humans were concerned about territorial conflicts with XT’s," said Tom, "so they put this colony here so they could claim Midbar was theirs. However they also feared the XT’s might think they were taking too many planets and use that as an excuse for war, so they arranged for the colony to stay small, not grow huge, terraform the planet and launch spacecraft so it would be glaringly obvious. Therefore the other humans could have it both ways, human presence on Midbar or not depending on what was convenient.”

“Like a hider,” I said.

“A what?” asked Hubril.

“It’s a thing in a board game. You can hide it on a planet or asteroid and then reveal it when it’s presence would cause problems for your opponents.”

Hubril was looking very unhappy with sweat dripping down his face. “What does this mean? This can’t be right! What am I if these are my ancestors?”

“I’ve checked,” said Rilletteecket, “you’re human: L-amino acids, DNA, forty six chromosomes, the works. You can give me a good time, get me pregnant and our children could have children who could have children and so on.”

“But you’re not human!”

“Yes I am. I never actually told you I was a dark reaper, you just assumed that. We’re anavim, powerful human psychics who can teleport in space and time and to other universes, just like you.”

“I don’t understand!”

“It’s always a shock when you find out these things,” I said.

“Not for me,” said Egrindreth. “I was raised by Haprihagfen since I was eight.”

“I got my familiar when I was six and after that being an anavah doesn’t seem so big,” said Vrenloa.

“Well for me,” said Rilletteecket, “being hated by hairies for not having hair and being hated by nakeds for being a hairy and hated by non-hairy hairies for being an anavah, it was kind of a relief to find out I had people I belonged with who didn’t care if I was a hairy or not. Why don’t we go somewhere more pleasant?”