Ancient (Earth 50,000 BC Book 1) Read online

  © 2021 Copyright David Lady

  Imprint: Independently published, Ocala Florida, USA

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Author's Note

  Sci-Fi should be lean and to the point, with something to say about how we live today as an important element, but an aside. Enough introspection to have you think, but not too much to get in the way of the adventure.

  Ancient does this, and it is the kind of science fiction I like to read. A good story with characters that must work hard to succeed against all odds.

  There must be real stakes. Events must be true to the rules of the world as established.

  Here, the characters are challenged and three dimensional. Motivations are presented. You as the reader can agree or disagree with the choices made by the characters and how what they do affects their individual arcs.

  Ancient is an easy quick read. This is the first book of nine that I have planned for the Earth 50,000 BC series.

  The story is a fun pulp serial.

  A new book every three or four months.

  When I write I create a dictionary for the world. It contains the story I am telling and any unique terms or ideas that are part of the story. It is just my notes, but it serves as a persistent reference so I can keep continuity. I have included a short version of my dictionary with many of the unique terms I created for Ancient at the end of the book. I do not know that it is necessary for the enjoyment of the story, the terms are used and I think clear, but, having them to look at may be beneficial, so they are included.

  I hope you enjoy reading Ancient.

  - D. Edward

  Alethia

  50,000 years ago…

  Spending time on one of the inner planets came with a price. It also offered worthwhile rewards.

  Logan’s mind jumped to the structure of his small scout ship, the Thorik, as it entered the atmosphere when there was a small bump in its trajectory. The thought caught the attention of the ether. It inloaded that the ship was functioning within specifications and predicted no problems based upon what it knew about the mission parameters.

  Odessa, Logan’s sister and second-in-command, looked over at him and smiled after quickly crossloading the report from her internal message queue. “See, I told you it would be a smooth trip,” she said, knowing her brother often worried about the little issues.

  That was one of the things that made him a good leader. That’s why she was comfortable with his advancement to the head of the clan even though she was his senior in age.

  Everything about this inner planet was repulsive. It was the farthest in of the dominant circle. Common wisdom was that it should be recategorized as the farthest out of the lesser circle.

  The large monstrosity glowed blue at the edges, and its surface was over three-quarters unfrozen water.

  A massive heavy behemoth lumbering through the dominant circle at a slow pace.

  Logan rejected an inload from the ether providing the exact makeup of planet Alethia and the exact percentage that was covered in water.

  Sometimes it seemed the system had an outload quota and would just not shut up. To prove his point, he had to reject a briefing on the geopolitical undercurrents and the political state of several proposals to reclassify the planet.

  What a waste of time.

  The ether reminded him that his sister had offered an interlocal audible speak contract as an attempt to calm her own nerves during planet entry and that any further delay in responding would violate the agreement with the result of a negative emotional outload by her.

  Logan looked over at Odessa. “The onboard agrees with you. I still like to watch close just in case.”

  He activated his heads-up display, which showed the small craft against the bright blue water and atmosphere of Alethia. Not anticipating anything of interest, minimal scans were being used as it moved quickly, its outer shell glowing from the friction with the air as it descended into the higher atmosphere.

  Logan shared the display with Odessa so she could watch also.

  They sat in comfortable silence through the descent, letting the display fill the cycles.

  Once the ship had decelerated, it switched over to its magnetic drives. This meant they were past any planet entry danger.

  Logan outloaded a requisition for the missions briefing to the ether.

  Both he and Odessa were suddenly in a large room with a holographic map with one of the nondominant landmasses in front of them. Throughout their lives, ever since the ritual of transition, they had grown used to quick changes brought about by the ether when it decided an immersive alterreal approach would allow for quicker inloading of data. They knew they were actually still seated in the command chamber of the craft.

  A fat, tall, pregnant female truth-teller stood in the room with them.

  She was an etherholo, one of the many forms the ether would assume in the alterreal. It was supposed to be a comforting sight, but since neither Logan nor Odessa aspired for ascension, they found it amusing instead.

  Logan had failed the ascension once. Most failed the first time, which seemed to be part of the test. He refused a second trial. After learning what the test was about, he felt apathy—maybe even disdain—for those that succeeded at it.

  Odessa had refused to even take the test.

  The cogitate circle had tried several times to persuade her. The last attempt resulted in the emissary being injured by falling down the same flight of stairs several times in succession.

  They both smiled at each other as their thoughts crossloaded on their private frequency, safe from the ever-present eavesdropping of the ether.

  The holographic display in the center of the room showed Alethia as it wobbled across its orbit.

  Unlike other planets in the dominant circle, this one had drastic climate changes largely due to it not having a stable rotation, making it even more repulsive.

  The thing could not present a pure circle on its best day.

  “Alethia is rich in mineral resources,” the fat etherholo said to them.

  They each would feel they were the one being spoken to in their personal version of the alterreal briefing as she continued, “As you know, your clan is behind in physical outloads to the cogitate circle. You risk downgrade if you cannot equalize economic production with the other clans.”

  Logan instantly felt irritation and argued, knowing it was pointless, “We have been decimated. It is just my sister and I as guardians now, both of us forced out of professional careers to take up guiding our clan in mining outloads. We have a small group of diggers and a small cadre of etherreals. We cannot keep up with the larger clans. It’s not fair.”

  Odessa rolled her eyes at the further waste of time.

  She knew the whole discussion was pointless.

  She also respected her brother for taking the time to lodge the complaint. Pointless or not, this was yet another example of his willingness to speak for the clan—dealing with the little issues she found trite.

  The etherholo responded with the teachings, “To be equal, each clan must provide equally. Each circle stands with the others. No circle is more or less perfect than the next.”

  “Compatch. Go live,” Logan quickly commanded the etherholo.

  Odessa had been waiting for the exchange to take its normal course.

  She was caught off guard when Logan issued the statement and yelled, “No! Logan! No! We do not need this! Let’s just serve our cycle like we agreed.” She raced over to him in the hologram and put her hand over his mouth so he could not issue the authorization command.
/>   Ether commands consisted of three parts: the recipient, the action, and the authorization. He had only issued the first two. There could, of course, be multiple actions, but only one recipient and one authorization source.

  Logan made eye contact with Odessa and calmly waited for her to remove her hand.

  The etherholo was on pause, waiting for the authority to go live or the command to cancel.

  “Promise we’ll talk about this before you do it,” Odessa said very seriously.

  Logan nodded his head in agreement. She cautiously removed her hand, ready to replace it if he broke their agreement.

  When it was clear he was honoring it, she ordered, “Compatch. Go dark. Thirty-cycle reset. Thought box. Authorize.”

  Before she had finished saying the last word, they were back in the small command center of the ship, the etherholo gone.

  The thought box command, along with go dark, would give them thirty micro cycles to talk without an interface to the ether.

  Logan smiled at his sister. “We have to address this with them. It is ridiculous that what is left of us must pull the same weight as a five hundred unity clan. There are only a couple dozen of us left and a handful of etherreals.”

  An etherreal was a physical, electronic entity. It was programmable and could operate on a set of instructions or within a set of operating parameters. They looked just like guardians in shape and size but did not belong to a circle, just to the clan they worked for. Once bonded to a clan, they were part of that clan just as if they had been born into it.

  Etherreals could operate attached to the ether, a localhub, or independently.

  This ensured local control and limited interference by the cogitate circle when desired. Or unnecessary reporting when needed.

  Odessa had purchased two of the newest models, 7, to complement their thirty-one E2 units and existing X4 prime. The newer 7 model’s programming was exceptionally good and quite different from the other models.

  The circle required these new 7 models to be reset every fifth major cycle as they tended to adopt viewpoints and try to analyze moral issues—that they were not capable of understanding—if they collected too many non-ether experiences. The current batch was just over four major cycles old, so they would need to be recycled upon the completion of the Alethia mission.

  Both Logan and Odessa noticed the disconnect from the ether.

  As always, they enjoyed the freedom of free thought but felt anxiety with the loss of easy information access and the deep connection to the physical world around them that the ether brought.

  Odessa did not want to call attention to themselves by complaining to the cogitate circle, especially after she had worked so hard to get this permit in the first place.

  She scolded Logan. “I do not disagree with you, but the time for that argument with the circle has passed. You know what I had to do to get approval for this mission. You know what it cost both of us. You know what it means if they pull the permit and recall us.

  “Arguing with an irrelevant etherholo while on assignment, about the assignment, is stupid and counterproductive!” she was yelling.

  Logan was calm in his response, knowing his sister respected him and that she had a better sense of strategy than he did when it came to the cogitate. She was one of only a few that had managed to completely avoid the test of ascension, after all. He was particularly good at administrative work, a key to running a clan, but not everything was micro.

  He answered, “The only chance we have for a live connection is during our mission briefing. Once it concludes, I will not get another chance to lodge a complaint until we return—and only then if we exceed quota by a good amount.”

  “Logan, if we can do a two hundred percent run, we will be caught back up on our quotas. That will buy us three more major cycles before the matter comes up again,” Odessa said earnestly.

  “The system is broken. If we are contributing more per guardian, we should be allowed to keep more per guardian. It is not fair that we have to work harder and keep less. That is basic logic.” Logan calmly laid out his case to her.

  “You don’t think that when we are attached, do you?” Odessa was legitimately worried Logan could slip up and crossload a negative datagram that would tie them up in administration for the foreseeable future.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he snorted back, showing just a hint of emotion for the first time. “I am not an uninitiated youngling. I know how to use my private frequency. And I am not stupid enough to think about the teachings, other than blind acceptance, when I am attached.

  “However, we are allowed to bring up matters of fairness. It is not a challenge to the teaching to negotiate your load volumes.” This was a loophole everyone was aware of, and internally, Odessa agreed he had a point, if a dangerous one.

  She responded calmly, “I know that’s true. But I remain steadfast. Now is not the time. Even if your complaint is inloaded, the best outcome would be they recall us. We need this run.”

  The thirty cycles were nearly up.

  Logan thought for a few moments. “Okay, I accept. But we both agree we will bring this up when we return, correct?”

  “Yes,” Odessa said, meaning it. She concurred that the present situation was unfair, that a small clan that was competent and could produce should not be forced to work harder than a large clan—even a unity clan—that took so much more from the circle.

  Logan did not want to wait for the few remaining cycles. “Compatch. End thought box. Brighten. Command.”

  They both felt the adrenaline rush of reattaching to the ether and had to spend several micro cycles each clearing out their personal queues and rejecting a series of inloads that came in while they were in the thought box and dark.

  Once that was taken care of, the briefing resumed just as it was the moment they had paused it.

  The etherholo continued, finishing its prior statement from the teachings. “The cogitate circle is the first of equals. As such, whatever quotas assigned by it are fair by definition.”

  Then moving on to its original briefing, the etherholo stated, “As a benevolent gift to assist you in returning to economic equilibrium, you have been granted a three-one-four opportunity.”

  Odessa inhaled quickly, not expecting this.

  A three-one-four was a chance to gain enough economic outload to take them beyond equilibrium.

  It could potentially be the last mission they would ever need to undertake.

  Her thoughts quickly flashed to why they would be given this opportunity. She tried to switch to her private frequency, but the thoughts crossloaded in the wrong order, and the fat etherholo quickly snapped its look over to her in both Odessa and Logan’s versions of the etherreal.

  It was a quick move and was startling for both guardians, perhaps even a bit scary as they sensed rage underneath the move.

  “Children do not doubt the wisdom of the cogitate circle!” the etherholo spoke louder than needed. “Each to the circle as you are able. Each by your needs. You have been given an opportunity. Follow it!”

  It seemed the pep talk was over, and the rest of the etherreal session was a fairly dull overview of their assigned mining site and the quantities expected to be delivered at the conclusion of their two full Machi cycles mission (a complete orbit of the Machi moon of TTayo).

  The only other interesting moment was when they were told that the Machi circle had independently authorized Etherreal Armed Defense Status Level Two.

  Machi was their home moon and one of five that orbited the large, round ice planet TTayo, the prime of the dominant circle. TTayo had as moons all the original homes for each of the five races.

  Since the great resolution was accepted to end all hostilities between the races, a central administrative circle for each moon controlled the ready state of all weapons in the entire luminary.

  This was to make sure the peace agreements were honored.

  While it was not unheard of to pre-authorize armaments, t
his was still a show of confidence from both ruling circles that sent a positive message to Logan and Odessa.

  A positive message in normal times, anyway.

  Odessa quickly switched to her private frequency and shared a crossload with Logan. “We can have a little fun once we switch to the localhub. They just unlocked our entire arsenal.” It was sent with a bright purple header indicating excitement and playfulness.

  The fat etherholo had looked suspiciously at them during the exchange but was none the wiser given the private frequency protections.

  They were also given a range of coordinates to work in that had been pre-scanned and, in addition, given a second range of coordinates that were prohibited.

  The prohibited range was geographically close to their worksite—so close they would have to adopt altered flight patterns to avoid the geography in the datagrams.

  The higher three-one-four opportunity seemed to have been decided upon after Odessa secured the permit. The original permit was for a low yield and simple mining operation.

  Still, on their private frequency, Odessa outloaded to Logan, “Maybe your complaint worked? I think they just made this switch while we were in the thought box!”

  Logan frowned at Odessa, then addressed the etherholo. “Thank the circle for their generosity. Is there any more information on the prohibited zone and the need for security?”

  They were told there was none and that the luminary would shine on them for fulfilling their mission.

  Etherreals

  X7 looked at his etherreals in the large cargo hold of the Thorik. There were thirty-four etherreals total, counting himself. E7 constantly asserted that X7 needed to reduce the number to thirty-one or increase it to thirty-seven.

  E7 had many suggestions for X7, but X7 was prime.

  The thirty-one E2s were highly competent but did not have advanced processing capabilities. This left only E7 and X4 as candidates for prime along with X7.