Earth Liberation
Audiobook · Earth Liberation: The Novel (Part I)
Chapter 2
The Ark of Faithful Brood, Periphery of Ancestral Home Retinue
1905 of Second Return to the Nest
Kestesh ta Sherrish, the supreme attendant of the Ark, isn't feeling well. He won’t get away with only half of the recommended 1296 years of cryogenic sleep. The biological and mechanical subsystems of his elderly body haven’t completely rehabilitated yet. Kestesh is shivering and feeling sick, seeing digital ripples in his vision. But he's the chairman of the Attendant Host and ccan'tt afford weakness. Ten chrasters were sitting in front of Kestesh in the Dodecahedral Hall, with their tails spread out stiffly. He knew that if he showed the slightest lack of determination, they'd challenge him.
The Ark was slowing down. And this created the illusion of gravity within it. In the middle of the circle of adherents a hologram was hanging: the blue globe of the planet with white lines of clouds; the yellow continents showed through them. The picture made from the distance of 50 astronomical units was of poor quality. But it was the best image of Mother Earth for the last 66 million years - since the chrasters have left it for the sake of escape from inevitable catastrophe.
Performing the ritual, the supreme attendant reached forth his arms to the hologram, lit the blue indicators in the tail and toughened the occipital crest.
"Mother Earth!" He exclaimed. And the attendants caught up the prayer in their deep voices.
"Our progenitors left You, and You disgraced them. The new planet, Zesheck, denied itself to us and never became our homeland. Innumerable generations of chrasters have been leading a wretched existence on Zesheck, bitter and full of regrets for You, oh Mother Earth! But the time has come, and the Zesheck Retinue, roaming the galactic tracks, joined the Ancestral Home Retinue over again. And we, the Faithful Brood, keeping the testaments of Prophets, have fitted out this Ark to come back to you, oh Mother Earth! Adopt us, oh Mother Earth! Own us as Your brood! Give us back Your mothering, inspire us with new life, revive our dying generation! Amen!"
"Amen!" repeated the adherents simultaneously.
The supreme attendant lowered the crest, switched off the indicators and stepped down. The ceremony was over. It was time to get down to work.
"Trusty Scerex!" he appealed to the astronomer general. "Is there any news about the state of Mother Earth? Last time you broke the news about deserts and ice-cold continents..."
"Indeed, great adherent, Mother Earth is withered and wasted away, the same as we are without her." The astronomer general gnashed his teeth in sign of sorrow. "A considerable part of the land became inadequate for living, but what's even worse - a new kind of reasonable beings has appeared on her. The strange thermal spots turned out to be cities. And those are not chrasters of the First Ark. We’ve intercepted plenty of broadcastings. All the communication protocols are totally unknown. They are transmitted to the Ark’s Nerve Centre. In the near future it will finish decoding". Scerex pointed to the empty place of main information scientist.
Kestesh anxiously rolled and rolled out his long tail.
"What’s the level of their technological development? Have they reached outer space?"
"They’ve got plenty of satellites around the Earth, but we haven’t registered any signal exchange with the Moon or Mars."
"So, there’s a chance that our energy pyramids on Mars are safe and sound?"
Kestesh turned his head to the chief operator. "Trusty Acheshti, have you managed to get in contact with them?"
"No, great trusty. But we are too far for stable connection. The pyramids can be activated only during a flyover Mars…" Acheshti wanted to say something else, but at that moment the senior information scientist ran into the hall with the kind of haste that was undignified. His spinal crest stood on end.
"Trusty Ichtrish! Have you got news from the Ark’s Nerve Centre?"
"Yes, great trusty!" The senior information scientist was holding the flashing egg of memory in his three-fingered hand. "The Nerve Centre has decrypted their dialogues their protocol of image transfer. Now we know what they look like. Trustees, you're welcome to take a look!".
Without waiting for permission, Ichtrish inserted the egg into the plug of the optical projector. A multifaceted prism, faced to all the adherents, appeared in the place of the image of Mother Earth. The same two-dimensional image appeared on all planes: a two-footed, tailless creature with a vertically set body and plain face. Its disproportionately long five-fingered hands were reaching down almost to the knees, and the knees were bent to the opposite side.
Hisses were heard around the room: Chrasters couldn’t control their disgust at the sight of such a monster. The images were changing, and new obscure scenes of life of plain-faced tailless creatures flashed before their eyes.
"Oh well, the trustees! We were ready for Mother Earth to reproduce a new brood and put them at her mercy," the supreme attendant said."But these tail-less lot are evidently an unsuccessful laying. It’s obvious that their dirty and noisy civilization is harmful for Mother Earth". The hall maliciously hissed once again. ''And we don’t see any traces of our brothers, chrasters of the First Ark. In all appearances, the tail-less have destroyed them. There are no doubts - we should wipe out these spoilers!"
"But, I dare to add, great trusty, that we mustn’t do harm to Mother Earth in the process," said the supreme military leader.
"Yes, that goes without saying, trusty Shihitz. We should avoid nuclear weapon
employment. Coming closer to the planet, we’ll deliver a precision-guided attack, and then we’ll start a land mopping-up operation. Trusty Shihitz, is there enough ammunition? The enemy is smart enough."
"For the present we don’t realize well their power, great trusty. But, in any case, we’ll make new ammunition when we activate the energy pyramids of Mars."
Kestesh turned to the astronomer general. "Trusty Scerex! Do you consider that the tail-less have already noticed us?"
"If those mirrors on the images are the largest of their telescopes, it’s entirely possible, great trusty."
"Perhaps, we should put them off their guard? We can send a message telling
about our peaceful intentions..."
The main information scientist negatively knocked his claws. "We still don’t know their language. The Nerve Centre is working at it. Perhaps, by the time of revelation we’ll be able to send such message."
The necklace of indicators of the supreme military leader began to shine green.
"In the name of Mother Earth, trusty Ichtrish! Can we profane the shine of our deed with these cheap tricks? Let’s challenge them and have a straight fight!" The great adherent clawed in an accommodating spirit.
"Trustees, we're jumping the gun arguing about it now. We lack knowledge about
the tail-less. Let’s take a closer look at them and appreciate their power. Maybe we won’t need devious means at all. Then we’ll challenge them, and Mother Earth herself will decide who are the worthy brood - the chrasters or the tailless".
Kestesh ta Sherrish bowed and lit the solemn halo of red indicators on his scaled forehead.