Chapter 4.

 

Azuri/Zai

 

 

By the time she was eight, Gina understood a little more about the Alliance and Alliance space, because there were stories in readers for bigger kids, and Willis was always willing to answer her questions.

But although the heads of Azuri/zai encouraged fiction and vids about the project, there were a great many things going on they did not necessarily share with the public.

The central command of Project Azuri/zai, all species represented on the committee, was located on Haivran, the intellectual capital of the Alliance, where knowledge and research from all four species came together. The initial survey ships were launched from Haivran, and the initial reports were received and analyzed there.

With the Zamuaon inner-space drive and the Earthian folded-space theories and the D'ubian discovery of power sources (widely in use now even for domestic purposes – aircars and home temperature controllers and food keepers and vid players and toy land trains), space travel was often easier than surface travel; if viable planets were discovered, reaching them would be relatively simple. Earthian and Bahtan terraforming techniques could expand the definition of "viable". Success was a given.

The survey ships explored and sent back reports; the command committee discussed, selected, and sent out ships with specialized personnel to make more detailed studies of areas of interest; these would be followed by the experts chosen to make the practical plans and begin the actual work of opening these new worlds to Alliance use.

Several new mining planets were opened for the semi-settlement of domed communities; these provided materials needed for Project Azuri/zai and were considered to be an excellent investment. Planets for future colonization turned out to be a little more difficult to find in this area, and it took a discouraging amount of time to terraform the hostile environments encountered out here.

And there was still the press of burgeoning populations, inquiring about the waste of Our Tax Credits on uninhabitable worlds. So the discovery of two fertile green planets with breathable atmospheres in a single solar system was hailed with delight, justifying all those tax credits at last. The biological team was dispatched at once with instructions to study the current flora and fauna, confirm the apparent lack of an intelligent native species to claim these worlds, determine what steps were required to make these planets optimal for Alliance use, and start the work.

 

Dr. Margo Lindstrom, an Earthian, was the head of the Microbio Tech team.

Dr. Lindstrom had headed the Microbio Tech team since the beginning of Project Azuri/zai, which was by now over twenty Haivran years ago. She had, with Zamuaon biologist Dr. Saizy p'Anotta, overseen the design of biodomes on all three of the new mining planets, and had launched the terraforming of four borderline-inhabitable worlds, two of which had taken hold and might be usable in another generation, one of which was still struggling, and one of which had failed, greatly to her disgust.

She left that one in the capable hands of Dr. p'Anotta and took command of the group headed to the two newly-discovered planets, designated, at present, Or2-n73-4 and Or3-n73-5.

Dr. Lindstrom was at that time a woman in her sixties; time had not been kind to Dr. Lindstrom, but then, Dr. Lindstrom had not been kind to time. She neither expected nor extended mercy. Her science was her life; she had time and interest for nothing else, and patience for no one unwary enough to get in her way. She had essentially cast off her only relative, a daughter, when the girl declared her major at the Alliance University of the Arts on Haivran; the idiot was bright enough to get into the university at the age of 16, but she had chosen to study language arts and Alliance literature, of all useless subjects. Dr. Lindstrom had made sure Cara would not get her hands on any of her mother's credits to pursue this time-wasting enterprise; unluckily the girl had inherited credits from her grandmother, and was at present, in her early 20's, pursuing a doctorate in ancient Alliance literature and mythology.

It was particularly upsetting to Dr. Lindstrom because she had paid perfectly good credits for the conception of this idiot, expecting to pass on her own superior genetic heritage without the time-wasting bother and emotion of a relationship. Obviously she should have taken advantage of the new cloning techniques, and thus controlled the results, but she had instead traveled all the way to old Earth, to the ancient city of Berlin, to find the ideal sperm provider – and paid premium prices for it, too. It looked foolproof; the provider was certified healthy, highly intelligent, a scientific prodigy like Dr. Lindstrom herself, working his way through a second doctorate in the biological sciences and selling his reproductive cells for high prices in furtherance of this goal.

Conception had taken place under her personal supervision at the Alliance Institute for Genetic Improvement in Bridgeton, on Haivran, where the best scientific and medical facilities were located, and Dr. Lindstrom had personally selected the strongest resulting fetus for the prebirth tanks, having all others destroyed. She would only need one offspring to inherit her knowledge and her place in the scientific community.

The subsequent delivery, from the prebirth tank at the Department of Fetal Management, of a healthy but small infant had somewhat surprised her; she herself was a large woman. But this could be the result of some unnoticed gene on the paternal side, and the blond hair and blue eyes would darken in a few years. Dr. Lindstrom's mother named the infant Cara Marie, and Dr. Lindstrom spared no expense in the hiring of a baby nurse, having no time for or interest in the handling of infants herself.

She at this time was head of the Microbio department at the United Alliance Institute of Science in Bridgeton; within a year she had been tapped to head the Microbio Tech section for Project Azuri/zai, and thus spent the majority of her time off-planet. She left Cara on Haivran, relying upon the outstanding educational system there and the convenience of trained child care specialists, not to mention the somewhat dubious help of her own mother, living in a suburb of Nature’s Park, near the second largest ocean. Dr. Lindstrom could not feel that her mother, prone to sentimental softness, was a desirable influence.

Cara Marie retained her small size, her pale blond hair, her clear blue eyes; it became apparent, as the years passed, that the girl was intelligent beyond doubt but with no sign of her mother’s scientific mind or the abilities Dr. Lindstrom had selected from the profile of the male progenitor. It was a life-long disappointment to Dr. Lindstrom. The science of genetic selection had failed her.

She was intolerant of any further failures.

The larger of the two fertile planets, Or2, was selected as the base for their operations, and leaving the research ship in orbit, Dr. Lindstrom descended with a select team to set up the bioresearch facility in a central area and begin work. A second, smaller research survey ship went into orbit around Or3, sending down small exploratory groups to sample and send information to Or2.

No one could be more aware than Dr. Lindstrom of the pressure to make this mission work after all the years of no more than qualified success elsewhere. Her colleagues, Drs. Louise and Ned Wood, co-chairing the command committee back on Haivran, had confided that they were worried about the continuation of funding unless something came up pretty soon to justify the project.

So she was gratified to discover a livable atmosphere, soil compatible with Alliance agriculture, and few animal species beyond aquatic creatures – and several aquatic species tested as edible for Alliance members. So also did some of the plant life, two or three showing high levels of desirable nutrients. It did not appear that any major changes were needed on Or2; Or3 was a little thinner of atmosphere, sparser of life, but would not require more than minor tweaking, she felt.

She was, in fact, in the process of putting together a glowing report on these two planets when word came from the orbiting ship that something unusual had been seen in the mountainous northern regions of the temperate zone, something strangely resembling artificial structures.

No one from the Alliance had ever been near Or2, and no other species had been stumbled upon since the Bahtans, a century ago. And there was no sign of current occupation on Or2, but if these structures were indeed artificial, someone certainly had been there in the past.

Dr. Lindstrom collected three of her associates and one of the survey vehicles and went to see for herself.

The initial vids, made by one of Dr. Lindstrom's party, showed the structures in all their enigmatic simplicity. There were, it developed, ten of them in all, set in small folds of rock and screened by the native vegetation; they did not appear to be dwellings, to have ever had roofs or walls; they were simply arches, like open doors into non-existent buildings, leading to nothing more than weeds and blown autumn leaves and dead falls of branches. It was possible to walk through them but there didn't seem to be much point to doing so. The vids recorded the smooth stone-like material, weathered, and a line of something like glyphs appearing around the outside of the arch, possibly some form of a "No Trespassing" warning – or just as likely a welcome to all other eight-legged beings, or a request to bend antennae or fold wings from this point onwards, or perhaps a recommendation to abandon hope all ye who enter here.

The team made an attempt to estimate the age of the arches. The material from which they were made proved impervious to sampling techniques, but the team felt that the arches were extremely old. Plants had grown up around them; centuries-old trees had taken root at their feet.

There were no other signs of habitation on the planet. Dr. Lindstrom, returning to the bioresearch facility in the equatorial zone, bent her energies to ascertaining this. No one, it was generally agreed, had ever actually lived here; the arches might have a ceremonial or religious significance for some unknown race, but there was no sign of a walkway, a passage, an arena, a meeting area, the landing of space-going vehicles. It looked as if the arches had been erected and abandoned in the far reaches of time past.

In which case, thought Dr. Lindstrom, there was no reason to retreat from unoccupied and highly desirable planets just because some ancient race had once built something here. The Alliance wanted the territory; Project Azuri/zai needed to justify its existence.

Dr. Lindstrom was not in the mood to give up any more of her plans for trivialities.

"Fuck 'em," she said to her associates, and gave orders to the ship to direct laser fire at the most visible of the arches and get them out of the way

The time line at this point became somewhat confused. Certainly the orbiting research ship sustained considerable damage as the rays, augmented, bounced back, and it was believed that the two small land survey vehicles parked by the bioresearch facility on the planet exploded at approximately the same time; the exploration team on Or3 may or may not have disappeared at that moment also, but the orbiting ship there was occupied with the distress calls from Or2 and may not have taken note of the exact time.

It was generally agreed by the survivors at the biotech facility on Or2 that Dr. Lindstrom fell to the floor with a great scream just as the com lines went – the larger share of the gear melted on the wall, as a matter of fact. So advanced medical help for Dr. Lindstrom was delayed until the situation on the orbiting ship was stabilized and a smaller shuttle craft could be sent down to the surface of the planet.

In the end, the smaller ship in orbit around Or3 conveyed casualties to the nearest planet with medical facilities – two wounded, burns and flying debris, three dead, and Dr. Lindstrom, diagnosed as having had one or more major cerebral vascular incidents. Healthy survivors made repairs to the damaged buildings and systems and a search was begun for the vanished four-member exploration team on Or3. It would not be successful.

The advisers to the command committee on Haivran concluded that Dr. Lindstrom's decision to destroy the arches was a mistake, but in consideration of her outstanding reputation and her years of unstinting service to Project Azuri/zai, the committee chose to overlook her single error. Besides, the poor woman, lacking proper attention, had suffered irreversible brain damage. She could speak, and appeared to retain a good part of her intellectual powers, but her body could no longer cooperate; both legs and one arm were paralyzed; various organs could only operate with artificial support, surgically placed, requiring outside monitoring. Fortunately her daughter Cara, despite the disagreements between them, was willing to take on the responsibility of her care.

 

As for Project Azuri/zai, development of Or2 and Or3 was put on hold while the mysterious arches, which had sustained no damage whatsoever, were investigated. An alien force field of some sort (one not discernible to Alliance technology) might well have reflected the rays back to the orbiting ship; but what had caused the damage to the bioresearch facility, and where had the team on Or3 gone, at roughly the same moment? The arches with their unknown purpose appeared to be abandoned, but suppose someone somewhere was still keeping track of them. This someone might be curious about the species which had attacked them. This someone might harbor some resentment, in fact.

It might be a very useful thing to find out who had built the arches, for what purpose, before proceeding further into that area or investing, for that matter, in any neighboring area.

The command committee felt that it would serve no useful purpose to inform the populace in general of the details of the situation; it could do little but create panic. They released vids and general information about the appearance of the arches on Or2, and tended to treat the casualties as an unrelated issue. When they had more information, and solutions to the enigma, they would release the full story, they agreed.

The disappearance of a three-man exploratory group on Or2 a year later was also downplayed, and when the bioresearch facility was leveled by a fire of mysterious origin half a year after that, with no sign of the five scientists in residence, it was reported as an unfortunate accident. The loss (all hands, no trace left) over a year later of a small survey ship arriving at Or2 was attributed to space pirates, a concern on the established trade routes of the core planets.

The committee authorized new studies, with Alliance Defense forces providing backup support in small ships, well armed. And, there being nothing else to study, the survey ships specialized in detailed holos of the arches, holos that could be made from a high orbit, using all analytical modes available, all technology possible. These could be studied back on Haivran.

Perhaps if they could understand the arches or translate the glyphs, they could come to know what forces prevented the Alliance expansion and, knowing, find a way to combat them.

In the meantime, exploration ceased, and time passed.