In the early days of man's climb into space, he sent ships crawling across the cosmos far below the speed of light, their voyages taking generations upon generations before seeding the stars with humanity. Then, after many advances in technology and understanding, mankind finally exceeded the bounds of light.
Thus, the scattered colonies of mankind were brought into both communication and trade — those which were found, that is. There were many, many colonization efforts which were never found: many ships had failed to reach their destinations, many colonies were destroyed by war, disease, or the stresses and living-conditions of their new planet… and still others had sent their own colonization efforts into the stars before some disaster happened and obliterated the colonizing planets.
That more of humanity would be discovered in some previously unknown star-system was an event that lasted well until the rebellion of the Men of Iron which heralded the Age of Strife; and perhaps seeded onto still more previously unknown worlds — it is on one such world that our story begins.
— — — — — — —
Dimaru Maxwell smiled as the first sun rose over the mountains to the East, glad for the sight as the light burst over the ragged mountain range. It was the perfect way to start the first day of his vacation: a hike down into the valley where he would spend the next fortnight fishing it's lakes and camping on their shores.
The two suns, red and 'green' were familiar to Dimaru and seemed to be normal, despite the intellectual knowledge that they weren't — Aelrth's suns hade been compared to many of its stellar neighbors and found to be a rather distinct pair — and some of the academicians claimed that the strange disparity of material content was indicative of manipulation on a laterally cosmic scale, evidence like the ancient ruins on the shores of Yunni and Warsmith Isles that mankind was not alone in the universe.
Dimaru was unconvinced that such ancient manipulations were indeed the work of ancient aliens, but rather thought that they might be the work of their forebears who had apparently traversed the stars from a place called Earth. That journey was the stuff of legends: Captain Brown leading the ship during the first revolt, the crew's veto of the Secondary Site; Captain Nakumura's attempt to expel the True Faith from the ship, and how despite the loss of nearly a quarter of the crew and half the Cultural Archives (for which the academicians still cursed his name to this day) the faith of Jesus the Christ survived; and how, finally, Captain-Bishop Martin had landed the ship on Aelrth four thousand years prior.
Some of the tales were of dubious veracity, like the tale of the First Landing wherein the colonists started to colonize a planet which was already inhabited and the first landers were destroyed by an alien civilization, and the Great Wandering — which was obviously just a modernized retelling of the tales of the Israelites in the wilderness.
Dimaru sighed, shaking the thoughts from his head, and turned to the classic, almost antique by now, vehicle parked next to his cabin — a Steam-powered Automotive Vehicle (SAV) — which would carry him back to town when his fortnight on the land was finished and he had to return to his duties.
Hoisting his pack onto his shoulders he started on his hike, amazed (as always) about the wonders this world provided: from the broad purple leaved trees to the scaled birds to the Foxmoles in their holes the natural beauty of Aelrth shone forth, showing the Creator's clever hand and generous spirit in even the smallest things.
The hike took hours, simply following the dry streambed that intermittently fed the lakes, and it was nearly noon before the shores burst into view, just as he rounded the break in Kubishi's Cliff. The vista was majestic, as always, with the lake surrounded by the trees with the wind rustling their leaves and for a moment it was as if he was back with his father, years ago, being brought to the lake to fish with his son on in the interim spaces between teaching and research at Dosatsu, the finest Research University on the Western continent.
The happy memories were quickly tainted by the later memories, how his own efforts in academia had been mediocre and uninspired compared to the great legacy of Ashton Maxwell, the rouge inventor of both the compression-ignition engine and the alternating-current electrical generator in use across all of Azen Ippon…
No! All that was behind him. He'd joined the church leadership after his father's death, if he was honest, to try to get the impossible approval of his dead father… it wasn't pure, or noble, or an embrace of the church's ideals so much as desperately wanting the approval of a father he could never satisfy. — Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and prayed, asking God to right his heart and lead him… it was always tough in the early spring, at the anniversary of his father's death.
After some time, he felt his spirit calm and opened his eyes, ready to start again on his hike, and set up camp near the shores. The small chores of making camp temporarily forced his melancholy thoughts away: gathering wood, setting up the tent, and gathering bait worms from under the rotting logs in the forest. It worked until the fishing started, where Dimaru was alone with his thoughts and memories, waiting for the fish to bite.
That evening, as the fish cooked on the campfire and the stars came out, there was a tremendous crack like thunder and a flash like lightning an instant before there was a crash into the lake and a steam-explosion causing violent waves to beat upon the shore; something had struck the lake with such heat and violence that it killed all the fish in the lake.
A wave of intense curiosity swept over Dimaru, even as the steam-explosion terrified him, causing the scares on his leg — one he was exceedingly fortunate to still possess — to pulse in pain… still, he had to see what had happened and dove into the lake after several minutes warring with himself.
While submerged he tried to open his eyes and see what had happened, but a plume of muddy water mate it impossible to see what had impacted, even as it showed clearly where the impact was.
Returning to the surface, Dimaru swam for shore and proceeded to run to the oversized shed where the 'riverboat' was docked, his father's masterwork proving the combustion-ignition engine worked even at such large scales.
Quickly checking the machinery and ensuring everything was in order, Dimaru fed the oil into the fuel-reservoir that had once held the coal-powder that had fueled the engine before the oil was developed, keyed the starting-unit, and the engine coughed to life.
Navigating the shallow-hulled boat onto the lake above the impact spot, Dimaru set to work preparing the crane/pulley system for use and not even a half-hour after the impact Dimaru was diving back into the water, the weighted belt attached to his waist and to the retrieval-line and the crane's line. As he struggled to peer into the waters, given time enough to settle somewhat, he saw the outline of a cylinder — a breath of air from the old "airskin" — and he set to work attaching the crane's line to the cylinder.
When he finally hauled the mysterious cylinder onboard the 'riverboat' he stood shivering in anticipation, well, mostly anticipation — the wind had turned distinctly chilly and rekindling the campfire sounded like a good idea — examining the retrieved item for clues as to its purpose. The 'IX' looked like it could be part of the sacred script, but the letters I and X were not exactly complex glyphs like ancient Ganje, which were supposedly ideographs, nor the stylized Hana syllabary with its curvy upper-case and sharply angular lower-case symbols.
On the underside there appeared to be some sort of lights, though they were quite small and colorful compared to the ones that he'd seen, and they were flush with the surface, as if they were inset. Moreover, they were cold! — the normal warmth of an electric light was completely absent…
~~~~~~~
The next morning, the cylinder still had not yielded its secrets, even after depositing it on the shore and examining it in the morning light. Turning the pod upside-down, or perhaps upside-right considering, had reveled a glass-like portal or window in the cylinder which showed the form of a human child inside, yet still could not discern a means of opening it despite an ever growing sense of urgency until, finally, by half-accident the prodding at one of the lights opened the canister allowing access to the boy inside.
And that was how Dimaru found the boy and took him home.
— — — — — — —
"Dad!" Jaix, the boy that Dimaru had liberated from the pod, yelled as he burst in the front door, holding aloft a Dret from outside, "Look what I got!"
The poor six-legged mammal struggled in vain against the boy's grip, surprisingly strong for their size it was amazing that Jaix, now about four, was able to hold onto it. Still, as surprising as a Dret's strength was Jaix's was even more astounding… though whether that was inborn or an extra helping of grace for the child Dimaru didn't know.
"Ah, I see. He's rather big, so be careful with him." Dimaru said, looking up from his work-desk to inspect the semi-feral creature, before addressing the boy. "It'll be lunch-time soon, so get cleaned up."
"Ok dad!" Jaix said, running into his room to put the Dret into a temporary cage according to the 'one day' policy for keeping animals that Dimaru had to institute — the speedy patter of feet reminded Dimaru of two years prior, when the apparent two year-old had come into his life and
proved to be more than a handful: seemingly possessed of infinite energy and curiosity, even for his apparent two years of age, and wearing Dimaru down to the bone.
Fortunately the boy learned as quickly as he grew, and the prior foray Dimaru had made into academia was serving him well for providing a fun but broad introduction to the sciences, he seemed always happy to learn something more but particularly loved Theology, as small and simple and undeveloped as a small boy's would be, his love for the Queen of the Sciences was obvious — though Dimaru was often surprised by how much Jaix did understand.
Someday, Dimaru thought, Jaix would change the world.
Notes:
- 'IX' is read with the pod being upside-down.
- Aelrth was colonized by a joint Japanese / US (Protestant) sublight generation-ship that left Earth between 2200 and 3200 AD.
- The first several stars they intended to colonize were unsuitable, before even landing a shuttle; and on one where they did the crew of said shuttle was killed by Orks.
- The colonists spent about 25k years in space; having landed on Aelrth about 5k years ago.
- There were wars and lost tech with 'modernity' being a steampunk-ish tech-base [Diesels and A/C having only been invented in the prior generation] at about a mid- to late-1800's level overall.
