Business pt 2

Business… (part 2)

From the Imperial Archives:

Third Year of the Reign of Vejiita First, Founder of the Saiya-jin Empire.

Provisional report and analysis from the zhaneer vessel on R'ren'nkh'ia - brief extracts from the reports from the research team (translated into layman's terms and summarised for presentation before the Council by Jecmen, Marul and Uzum)

Of the ship itself

Almost all of the materials that went into its construction are unknown to us, although we have analogues of some of them. The hull and internal walls are of some kind of ceramic, very light and incredibly strong, resistant to almost any force we can bring to bear upon it. The control mechanisms are unlike anything we've ever seen - as far as we can ascertain, the builders used light as a controlling medium… We intend investigating further, as this technology is superior to any we know [note: - that means they're excited about it! - Marul] but need the High King's permission to remove the vessel from its current resting place and transport it to the nearest enclave. [note: The High King is reluctant to give permission for this to be done. Perhaps the Saiya-jin-no-Ou might be able to persuade him? - Marul]

We have so far been unable to determine the zhaneer homeworld coordinates: despite an extensive search through the - admittedly limited - records we are able to access, there seems to be no record of where they came from.
[note: They've had some of the shr'en'an at the ship, using carefully controlled ki-pulses to operate the mechanisms, since the power supply died however long ago it was. Not sure whose bright idea that was, but they deserve a commendation - one thing the team has discovered is that the devices onboard are very delicate: an influx of anything else would have destroyed them. - Uzum]

Of the zhaneer

Three of the bodies, still in their cryogenic capsules, were taken to Lord Ish'nadris' enclave for examination…
      First, it should be noted that the genetic material recovered from the zhaneer and that of the contemporary zn'hre is very similar. Despite the millennia separating the two, there have been surprisingly few changes. Forced interbreeding with the native R'ren'nkh'ia-jin, and the treatment to which the zn'hre have been subjected, does not seem to have changed their physiology significantly from the original: DNA samples from both are almost identical. [note: The High King was relieved - I'd almost risk saying overjoyed - when he heard this… - Jecmen] This does lead us to speculate why there have been no mutations - and how the zhaneer were able to interbreed with the natives. [Dubon speculates that it may have been the native R'ren'nkh'ia-jin who adapted to the zhaneer rather than the other way around, but the majority of us think that unlikely in the extreme.]
      That being said, there have been a number of notable physical deviations from the original. The zhaneer were hermaphroditic, like the zn'hre, but the barbs lining the chitsu were altogether more rounded and smooth, not really barbs at all: we speculate that they may have originally been a means of stimulation, an aid to ejaculation perhaps. The internal organs - as far as we've been able to ascertain, anyway, which in the absence of a zn'hre body to dissect is not very far at all [note: He's very very annoyed about that, too! - Jecmen] - are similar in both the zhaneer and the zn'hre: as far as the reproductive organs go, the kogan are carried internally, the inkei well developed and supplied with rather more underlying muscle than any other species we've examined. This argues for a far greater measure of control than normal, which - along with the findings on the barbs - has led to tentative speculation that perhaps copulation, for the zhaneer, served other purposes than simply reproduction or pleasure. At this stage we can't say definitively, however. We need more research.
      [note: He's frustrated, too, because the bodies are so old and desiccated they've lost a lot of the 'fine detail' he wants, and he's limited as to how much he can actually do on R'ren'nkh'ia. He's hoping to ship samples back to Feeodore to be examined by some of their more specialised equipment. - Jecmen]
       We have been able to determine that zhaneer teeth were nowhere near as sharp as zn'hre - in fact, we'd speculate that the zhaneer were herbivorous: the conformation of the alimentary canal seems to support this hypothesis. It's notable that the zhaneer tongue was quite different to that of their descendants, too - shorter and much less flexible.
       [note: he goes on to hypothesize that these adaptations were necessary due to the shortage of edible vegetable matter on R'ren'nkh'ia - which leads onto a debate as to whether the planet has always been a desert world. At the moment there's no way of telling, but there might be some information in one of the libraries. The team urges us to get a move on with translating and preserving the records! - Marul]
      One of the bodies we examined was in a particularly good state of preservation - we were able to examine the eyes. [note: he was ecstatic about that! - Jecmen] As far as we can tell from an examination of the strange structures on the retina - we will know more once the organs have been examined in our own labs - the zhaneer were able to perceive far more of the electromagnetic spectrum than either ourselves or the Saiya-jin, both down into the infra red and up into the ultra violet….
       [note: He speculates further that they might have been able to see even more than that, but isn't prepared to commit to it without a lot more research. - Jecmen]
       [note: Ask the lizards what and how they see…. - Vejiita]
      Overall, the zhaneer skeletal, nervous and muscular systems were almost identical to the zn'hre. There are minor differences in structure, and some rather less minor differences in their biochemistry, but we can state with some authority that they are the same species.

      More to follow…

Letter to the Ssii'iin Zha'haabron from Zh'nast, Translator

My Ssii'iin…
      Work continues apace: we now have audio and visual recordings of everything found to date, in the way of written or spoken zhaneer, and are slowly but surely translating it into R'ren'nkh'ia-go and Common for inclusion in the records. We are now back at Ssii'irin Ish'nadris' enclave (which is warmer and rather more comfortable than the encampment at the mountains' foot!), and I have discovered some additional information in a couple of ancient documents in the library here.
      I have no idea why they still exist - I would have thought Gh'grigon would have had them destroyed. Then again, he wasn't the least bit interested in any kind of academia…
      Both are of a kind of thin leather, and have survived by dint of being preserved in an airtight box in one of the older storage compartments, buried under a large pile of crumbling parchments (I cannot, alas, do anything to save these parchments, but from what little I can read they seem to relate simply to workers and servants and their duties. We can only pray that they contained nothing more important! And on that subject, my Ssii'iin, I understand that the Thinkers have had the scientists on Vejiitasei devise a method of encasing delicate documents between two sheets of clear silicate or some other such transparent material - might I beg of you to have a large quantity transported to us here? They will help immeasurably in our attempts to preserve what we can.)
      To the documents…
      While delicate, they are still able to be handled - with great care - and the script upon them can be read quite easily. From our researches, and from something else, which I will come to in a moment, we believe this script is a very early form of written Formal R'ren'nkh'ia-go, which is itself descended - or evolved - from zhaneer. As of yet I have only been able to make out the most meagre details, but I can tell you this…

      The documents tell the story of the blue god who came down to the world when there was yet running water on its surface, whose coming smashed the moon and loosed chaos on the land.

      This raises so many questions, and no doubt will raise even more by the time I've translated the whole thing. I have, in the meantime spoken to the scientists we have here, to ask about the effect of the moon being destroyed, and they have told me that a moon keeps a planet stable on its axis. Having the R'ren'nkh'ian moon destroyed would have resulted in, and I quote, "wildly variable axial tilt, resulting in major physical planetary upheavals, crustal stresses and changes in weather" (there was a lot more, but I didn't understand it… I did think to ask them why the planet is now stable - they said they'd surmised it was because the next planet out in this system, a giant world called Ka'zhin'ay'a, acts to balance R'ren'nkh'ia between itself and the system's sun. But apparently it still has a variable axial tilt, which explains why the whole planet is so arid. At least, that's what they said. I'm just an old brood with a small talent for language and a love of stories - what do I know…?)
      If, as this story seems to suggest, the original Zha'zhasaan was seen as the cause of what must have been a whole series of devastating effects, I can almost understand how he would have been seen as a being of immense power, an angry god from the skies come to visit punishment on the original natives. And I can understand why, when they finally came to realise that he was as mortal as they, they enslaved him…
      They would have discovered that quite quickly, my Ssii'iin. You've now read the transcript of the hologram's speech, but we've also found other records that give some little insight into his character.
      It would seem that the original Zha'zhasaan was a cultured, compassionate being, with a thirst for knowledge and a keen sense of justice. The ship's logs - which my assistants are gradually ploughing through, little by little - cite many instances of his wise decisions and equable treatment of his crew. His shipmates admired and respected him - I think many of them loved him: I have managed to translate just a very little of the personal log of one called Ti'grayen (I would have translated more but he wrote a large part of his diary in a code that's proving difficult to crack) who apparently was some sort of mate or partner. I know they slept together a lot - which presumably means they also had a physical relationship.
      But most important of all, we've found Zha'zhasaan's library! It's held in their analogue of a computer, of course, but we've copied it onto data chips and I'm about to start work on the translations…
      He was widely read, if this selection is representative. There are books in several different languages, some that look as though they might be storybooks, some with what appear to be graphs and scales - history books? Something pertaining to his status as commander? Something to do with a hobby or private interest? Until I've had more time to check I simply cannot say. But most precious of all is what I believe - I hope - to be some sort of memento or keepsake of the zhaneer homeworld. It's full of the most beautiful pictures - strange airy crystal shapes that might be buildings, what look like rivers tumbling over translucent cliffs, vast swathes of delicate turquoise vegetation, fields of what I think is bright blue ice… I'm enclosing a copy of it with this letter for you all to see.
      Unfortunately we're no closer to finding out where the homeworld actually is. There's no record in the craft's logs - which makes me wonder if perhaps they'd come through hostile territory, keeping no record of the homeworld coordinates in case they were captured? Or maybe I'm just giving rein to my overly fertile imagination…
      I have now handed over the translation of the technical material to my assistants Br'inzet and Bri'nar and am concentrating wholly on the ancient documents and the books. I will report back to you as often as I can to let you know my progress, and will send copies of all translations to you as soon as possible.
      My most sincere and grateful thanks for allowing an old brood to participate in such a grand and momentous project. May I assure you of my most strenuous efforts in the unveiling of the origins of your people.
      Zh'nast.

Note from Leteetza to the Thinkers in the library

Have asked the High King to arrange for a translator to come here at their earliest convenience, and acquired his permission to have Lady Mahrayne's involvement: she has already begun to familiarise herself with the Formal R'ren'nkh'ia-go script and no doubt will pick up the language with her usual speed and proficiency. I need a large office with at least twenty terminals, and plenty of storage space, both on the database and for the physical documents themselves. I shall be taking over the project - both the R'ren'nkh'ian document preservation and the zhaneer translation work, at least until the cubs are born.
I need this set up by tomorrow night at the latest!
Leteetza, King's Companion.