SWEET HOME ALLE BAMMA (SOLBIDYUM WARS SAGA) (30 page)

Life on the
ALI
didn’t differ a lot from life aboard a patrol ship.  It was smaller and more compact but like any deployed patrol ship, at least one person was always expected to be at the control console.  Though the computer did most of the flying, a discerning pair of eyes was needed to monitor the screens and make sure all was going well.

We were about a week’s travel from Plosaxen and I was taking my turn monitoring the instruments.  Kerabac and Hotyona were taking a break in the small dining area
, when I felt the call of nature and a need to visit the facilities.  It was neither uncommon nor forbidden for one on duty in the control room of a small ship that was navigating on autopilot to take a ‘quick bio break’; so I left the control room and proceeded to the small toilet near the galley.  As I passed by the dining area, I glanced in and saw Kerabac and Hotyona playing a game on a vid screen that looked remarkably like chess.  I took a closer look and found that, while the pieces were differed in shape, it was obvious from their configuration and movements that the game was not
like
chess, it
was
chess, just as I knew it back on Earth.

“Excuse me, but… that game you’re playing… where did you get it?” I asked, somewhat shaken by the unmistakable fact that what they were playing was the very same game.

“From the computer,” Kerabac said, “there are lots of games in the computer.”

“That’s not exactly what I meant to ask.  I mean where did the game originate?”

Both Kerabac and Hotyona shrugged.  Kerabac punched something into the computer and it brought up a page of information and rules of the game.  There was a brief paragraph in the description that stated the game was found on most planets and cultures throughout the galaxy and that it was in existence before recorded history; but its origin had never been found.  It was said that, even on planets that seemingly never had any outside contact with other worlds, the first explorers often found the locals playing the game.  For this reason, it was often used to promote positive cultural relations with the natives, as it was a tangible representation of the commonality of their peoples.  The game and play pieces have gone by as many names as there are planets, but the moves of the pieces are the same and follow the same rankings on every world where it has been discovered.

“This is amazing,” I said.  “This exact game also exists on Earth.  Its origin there is a mystery too, though it was believed by some to have originated on one continent anywhere from 2,000 to 6,000
 years ago, from which point it spread around the planet.  Today it’s played universally on Earth, where it’s called
chess
.”

“It says here that it appeared on the planet Reyes roughly 8,000 years ago and on Pakaras nearly 10,000 years ago,” stated Kerabac, as he delved further into his research on the vid screen.  “There doesn’t seem to be any pattern as to where it first appeared or when.  There are about ten worlds where the game seems to have originated at the same time.  The interesting thing about all of them is that the game was known and played long before the people achieved space flight or contact with outside worlds; and all of them were in about the same stage of development and technology when the game appeared on their planets.”

I had nearly forgotten my need for the toilet until Kerabac said, “Is that what you came back here to ask us?”

“Ahh, actually I need to use the toilet, but I was distracted by your game.” I said and quickly made my way into the facilities.  When I came out, Kerabac and Hotyona had resumed their game.  I watched them a few seconds and then, shaking my head at how this game remarkably emerged independently on so many worlds, I returned to the bridge to ponder th
e mystery.

Hotyona turned out to be an encyclopedia of information.  Whether he was an expert on the peoples and wildlife of Alle Bamma before he joined this mission or if he was constantly studying during our journey and regurgitating the information didn’t matter; it just gushed forth
from him like a giant waterfall.

”You’ll be interested to know that there are no insects on Alle Bamma like those known on other planets.  They are replaced in the ecology by new family of creatures we call rubloids.  Like insects, they have no internal skeleton; but unlike insects, they have no exoskeleton either,” he said.  “Instead they have a network of microstructures in their skin that allow the various segments of their anatomy to harden and soften as required, at times serving as a skeletal frame and other times becoming soft and pliable.  In their flexible state, rubloids are capable of moving through very small holes; hence, using screens as a barrier from them is completely useless.”

“That sounds like a serious problem.  How do you get around that issue?” I asked.

“There are several ways.  For instance, the use of a kind of ultrasonic device seems to scramble their insides if they get too close.  Applying the saps of certain plants to your skin will also repel the rubloids.”

“We tried double-weave electric-net screen on the expedition when I was here,” said Kerabac, “but it didn’t work well, as the rain and moisture kept shorting out the circuits.  In the end we just gave up and bathed our skin with foccee before we went out, which was rather effective.  It seems the little buggers don’t like foccee very much either.”

“Hmmm, I’ll have to try that and make a note of it for my reports if it works.  Foc
cee hasn’t been reported as a remedy in any documentation I’ve seen thus far,” remarked Hotyona.

So it went, every few minutes some new fact on the flora and fauna would emerge.  I had asked for it and I was getting it.  Kerabac, on the other hand, tended to present more information on the natives and their customs and lifestyles that he gleaned from his past excursions to the surface.

“This culture has strange mating habits,” he said.  “Women play the primary role in the mating rituals.  They woo and select their mates instead of men taking the lead in romance.  Men may flirt with women, but it is the woman who makes the selection and asks the man to be her mate.  When a woman is looking for a mate, she and a chosen male go off to her sleeping and living area, where she fixes him a meal.  If he eats it, they might then have sex.  If she finds him satisfactory, she invites him back again, until she is sure she wants him.  Once she has made her decision, an announcement is made before the tribe that he is her man, which means he is no longer available to any women in the tribe.  Should he stray and have a sexual relationship with another woman while he is claimed, he is castrated and banished from the tribe and the woman who seduced him is put to death.  However, should his partner decide she no longer desires him as a mate, she makes an announcement to the tribe that he is not wanted, in which case he must then leave the tribe and find a new one to join.”

“So the women run the tribes,” I said.

“No, not at all.  Rule is by tribal council under an elected leader.  There are both males and females on the council, all of whom are chosen by the members of the tribe.  Once elected to their posts, they serve for life or until voted off the council by the tribal members.  The council elects one person among them to serve as the leader; but his or her power is limited by the council and it is not absolute.  The leader can make decisions for the tribe in daily matters; however, if the council doesn’t agree with a decision or if they are displeased with the outcome, they have the collective power to revoke the decision in favor of another solution.  Too many repealed decisions and the leader is removed from their role and replaced by another member of the council.”

“What are the people and their villages like?”

“Well, as far as anyone knows, there is one race of people who are mostly about A’Lappe’s height but much thinner.  Their eyes and irises are pointed at both the medial and lateral ends, more sharply than with most humanoids, and the iris is oval and not round.  You won’t see any overweight Allebammians; they’re mostly arboreal, though they do come down to the ground in their search for some food items.  They’re also good swimmers and don’t hesitate to go into the water to spear fish.  It’s a good practice to watch where they swim, as they will not enter water where a drodoceal is present.  How they know exactly when a drodoceal is present is a question I would like to have answered; but if you ask, all they will say is
Drodoceal is not where drodoceal is not
.

While Hotyona was providing this back
ground, Kerabac retrieved a vid pic of an Allebammian native male.  The first thing that struck me were the patterns on his skin that looked much like patterns used on camouflage fabrics back on Earth.  Kerabac said that these were natural pigmentations and that no two natives had the same patterns.  When standing against a jungle background, they were nearly invisible.  They had no eyebrows or facial hair and, except for the dark brown hair that hung roughly to the shoulders, they appeared to be devoid of hair anywhere else on their bodies.

My thoughts shifted back to the alligator-like drodoceal, which seemed like it would be a rather formidable opponent for these rather small people.  “Are drodoceals herding animals?” I asked as I laughed to myself.  I knew that a group of lizards was called a
lounge
, but I always found that term awkward.  Besides, I didn’t know how to ask precisely in Federation language whether drodoceals were “lounging” animals.  The right term seemed to be absent from the vocabulary.

“Hardly, said Hotyona.  “They can’t seem to stand each other and will fight off or kill any drodoceal that enters their territory.  They are notorious for eating their own young, as well, which accounts for their relatively low numbers.  And unlike amphibians or reptiles on most planets, they give live birth to their young.  The young are born while the female sleeps, after which they quickly scurry off into the jungle before she awakens.  The only time they are receptive to company is during breeding season, during which the female will travel miles to find a male.  Males put out a very pungent odor that females seem to be able to detect at great distances, despite the persistent wet and rainy environment.  Only when fertile do females emit an odor, though it is less pungent and more comparable to a spice-like scent.  Again, that’s only when they’re fertile; the males stink all the time.”

“So if I smell something spicy, I should run; and if I smell something really pungent, I should run?” I said jokingly.

Hotyona grinned and continued, “I would suggest you climb a tree.  Drodoceals are surprisingly fast runners and can easily catch you, but they cannot climb.  You’re safe once you get about two meters off the ground.”

“They can be killed, I assume?” I asked.

“Yes, a good shot between the eyes usually does the trick.  Body shots don’t seem to stop them however.  The natives use a spear to stab them between the eyes.  They carefully sneak up on them while they’re asleep and kill them with a quick and hard thrust.  They use the hides and eat the meat of the legs, tongue and tails.  The meat in the rest of the body is too gristly to eat.

“But back to the natives… the tribes all seem to believe universally in the same deity, a god they call
Thumumba
, a word which also means
thunder
in their language.  They believe that Thumumba is in everything, including themselves, like a
life force
that they believe also has intelligence and control over all things.  Thumumba is not a personal god that responds to the prayers or voices of individuals; rather, many must join together to implore the favor of this god in hope their prayers will be answered.

“
In their belief system Thumumba is neither a just god nor an unjust god; Thumumba cares only about the survival of the world in general; and the needs of a single individual are insignificant in that regard.  Thumumba is neither male nor female.  The natives believe that all things are part of Thumumba, who created all things out of Thumumba’s own being.  They do not give sacrifices to Thumumba, but they do celebrate their god in dances and rituals meant to show respect and reverence.”

And so it went daily as we traveled to Alle Bamma.  I learned that the natives seldom wore clothing other than a belt or a shoulder bag to carry items for daily use, both of which were made from drodoceal hide or woven plant fibers.  I found that the natives were in many ways similar to tribal
jungle-dwelling tribes on Earth, such as those in the rainforests of New Guinea and the Amazon.  Like the Earth tribes, the Allebammians hunted their food using bow and arrow, spears, and short blow guns.

We
had been traveling approximately three and a half weeks when Kerabac woke me to say that Alle Bamma was in sight and that he had turned on our cloaking device.  Kerabac thought it best that we try landing at the location where he had been years earlier.  He entered the coordinates into the computer but didn’t activate them immediately.  We decided we would circle the planet a few times to see whether we could identify any sign of the Brotherhood, but we didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.  Nevertheless, we decided to remain cloaked and hide the ship once we had landed.  Landing was not as easy as we thought it would be.  In the years since Kerabac’s visit the jungle had advanced to claim the landing site that had been cleared for the ship at that time.  Instead we were forced to move on to a nearby lake that had a wide, gravel-covered shore that was relatively flat and free of vegetation.  I was impressed with the size of the trees in the surrounding jungle, many of them reaching heights in the hundreds of meters and diameters of up to 75 meters.  Where the jungle met the gravel bed was a grove of very large trees spaced many meters apart.  The broad space between trees at the ground level and the extremely dense canopy overhead provided ideal cover, at least to conceal the
ALI
from aerial view.  Hotyona explained these were
I’aban trees
, a species that leached large amounts of minerals from the rich soil and deposited these metallic compounds in the leaves.  Hence, a canopy of such trees not only concealed the ground visually, it also shielded anything beneath it from aerial scanners or space detection instrumentation.  So unless a craft flew down to the surface level and over the lake where they could peer under this canopy, it was unlikely the ALI would be detected.