No Man's Land

The Message

The Message

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When Father read me scripture, there was a passage about those who haven’t seen and yet believed being blessed. In which case, I was the opposite of blessed, because I saw or at least heard, and still couldn’t believe.

Let me put things clearly: humans are not machines. More particularly, and despite a lot of bad metaphors throughout the centuries, humans are not computers.

So a gem that’s been encoded with information shouldn’t be able to be opened by a mere human, even if the human came from a culture that slung around “magic’ like a promise of free candy.

More importantly, even if a human could make a gem disgorge information that had been recorded into it by use of a code sequence that caused it to record, what would the gem speak through? They are minimal. They are kept minimal so they are light enough to carry and to encode a lot of information.

This means they have no speakers, and no means to make a sound.

Suppose a human could – as Eerlen Troz did – make a strange gesture towards the gem, as though picking something up with a pincer movement, and then pull, and…

What? Even if what he grasped as the recording, and he could make it speak, what would it speak through. Logically it would be the human, right?

No. The words just came from the gem itself, sounding clear and perfect, in a variant of English that made Mother seem like she’d learned to speak in a slum. An accent so high bred that it had to carry at least three genetic defects and one bespoke inherited disease.

“To whom it may concern, this is Lowell St. John, Earl of Allridge, an officer in the Scouts and Investigators Corps. If you are receiving this message, which means you had the code to access the gem without its self destroying, you are here on a mission from Her Majesty of Britannia on High.

If you are meant to be my support for this mission, I must ask where you have been. Iw as told you’d been in this world ahead of my being sent to Dragha, and that if I needed you I could find you here, but I have been able to find any of you, no matter how many attempts at contacting you I’ve made.”  St. John sounded extremely not happy with his presumed support, apparently with reason, but my brain was ticking and turning over.

They’d sent the SIC in, years before my own mission? How could it be.

“If you are someone looking for me, and presumably my support, or just my support, I’ll presume we are all missing. And I must give you an account of what happened to us, so maybe you can still find us and rescue us, though if it’s more than a year I’d rate the possibility poorly.

I was sent to Dragha on suspicion of both forbidden activity – slavery – in a world that was applying for protectorate status with Britannia on High and on suspicion of illegal activity by Britannia on High citizens. I found evidence, but also things I hesitate to even mention, because if you just arrived on this world, and have no contact with the natives, you might not believe me.

However, on the off chance that you are ignorant of what the empire just stepped into, as far as I can tell, there is a strange melding of genetics and for lack of a better term micro cybernetics in Elly. Also in Dragha, though the percentage of those being able to deploy it is much lower in Dragha.

I don’t know how any of this is possible, nor will I pretend to understand how such capabilities can be transmitted, seemingly genetically and with garbled knowledge over ten thousand year. But I will tell you that it is true and that if we can tap into the power here, we will be unstoppable. Oh, the power in Dragha too, I suppose, which has blinded a faction in our government to the obvious tendencies and evil of the Draghal empire.

Dragha has attempted to and sometimes invaded Elly for centuries, which could be the sort of thing that’s part of any lost colony’s history, however, Dragha is still doing it to the present, and part of the reason for it is the acquisition of Ellyan slaves.”

St. John continued, describing that the Ellyans were hermaphrodites, but their DNA seemed to be both compatible with and Earth origins and reproduction with other Earth derived races. In fact, as St. John pointed out, so far in human explorations, there was no indication there was any sentient not of Earth origin in the universe.

“The conspiracy,” he continued. “Is by a cabal of citizens of Britannia on High to seize and traffic citizens of Elly for immoral purposes throughout the Empire, and possibly breed them as part of an underclass of sex slaves.

They are in league with the ruling class of Dragha to defraud the empire and get Dragha admitted as a protectorate, all the while denying the existence of Elly, and use the ability to trade with Britannia on High to acquire weapons to finally invade and subdue Elly permanently.

Their plan is far advanced, and I was identified as a threat to it. I managed to make it to Elly through one of the portals between worlds that the enhanced – let’s call them what both sides do – magicians of Dragha and Elly can do. In this case I managed to come through a portal on the war zone, escape the destruction, and fetch in Brinar.

For months I’ve been hiding in the palace of Kalal AdLeed, Lord of Brinar.

I have, however, been discovered, and I don’t wish to bring danger onto Ad Leed. He does not deserve that. I will leave this gem behind, and change my place of hiding.

If you are in the service of her Majesty, you will have the code for my tracker, and you will be able to find me.

But you must call in aid for Elly, and stop the admission of Dragha as a protectorate. Too many lives are riding on this.

I’d like to invoke Her Majesty’s special protection to Kalal Ad Leed, both for the help rendered to me and because he is meaningful to me. Whether I can be saved or not, I wish this world, these people, this person to be saved.

Save Elly, then come find me.

Lowell St. John, Earl of Allridge.”

As the message ended, I was speechless. I empathized wholly with St. John’s words.