Bardolomy tells the story of a man who travels to the stars in search of happiness and a new home. Earth is flooded, and Europa, his workplace, is a frozen world. After a perilous journey, he finds a world inhabited by intelligent evolved humans who welcome him and his colonists. But the world they inhabit has such a hellish climate as it revolves around two stars that they must hibernate underground to survive the Burn season. Draedon Ekho must either repair his ship and search for a new planet, or modify his genetic structure and transform into a new species. The only individual capable of such an operation is a secretive A.I. that lives inside a mountain. The A.I. came with the original colonists thousands of years ago and helped them to survive, but now it continues its genetic experiments to the detriment of the population. Some want to see an end to the sinister A.I., and they try to enlist the help of Ekho, who has brought weapons to the planet. As Burn approaches, Ekho faces a dilemma: destroy the A.I. and resume a futile search for a home, or undergo a risky operation, the only chance of survival.
Bardolomy tells the story of a man who travels to the stars in search of happiness and a new home. Earth is flooded, and Europa, his workplace, is a frozen world. After a perilous journey, he finds a world inhabited by intelligent evolved humans who welcome him and his colonists. But the world they inhabit has such a hellish climate as it revolves around two stars that they must hibernate underground to survive the Burn season. Draedon Ekho must either repair his ship and search for a new planet, or modify his genetic structure and transform into a new species. The only individual capable of such an operation is a secretive A.I. that lives inside a mountain. The A.I. came with the original colonists thousands of years ago and helped them to survive, but now it continues its genetic experiments to the detriment of the population. Some want to see an end to the sinister A.I., and they try to enlist the help of Ekho, who has brought weapons to the planet. As Burn approaches, Ekho faces a dilemma: destroy the A.I. and resume a futile search for a home, or undergo a risky operation, the only chance of survival.
Space Port
K.E. 4,280
When I gaze through the viewport of my freighter at the millions
and billions of stars, I know there are other worlds. Worlds with peaceful
civilizations, worlds with warm climates and friendly inhabitants. There
must be. I have always wanted to be a space traveler, but never had the
chance, until now, thanks to Gavril Bern. I donât know where I inherited
my adventurous spirit. From parents I hardly knew? No chance.
My name is Draedon Ekho, and I live on Europa, a frozen world. I
will probably never return to Earth. They tell me it was a paradise, once,
but now, with its flooding, storms, and wars, people are desperate to
leave. I came to Europa not by choice, but to escape. A bomb landed on
our house when I was a boy, and my mother packed me on a freighter
bound for Mars, and ultimately Europa, a lawless place ruled by mining
consortiums. But many people clamored to go there, because it had a
space port and starliners.
I met Gavril Bern at school. Well, it was not really a school, but a medical
facility. School lasted one day. They planted a vimmy in our heads, and we
became talking encyclopediums. They say I have a good memory. Thatâs
because I have an older model vimmy, free of spoilage. Still, sometimes
the memories fade out for some odd reason, and I find myself staring into
the blue. They plugged an astronaut module into Gavril, and he joined a
space crew. I failed the visual acuity test, so did not qualify for a post on a
starliner. I became a diver, exploring for silicates on the ocean floor. There
is an ocean on Europa, under twenty kilometers of ice.
But I never gave up hope of venturing to the stars. After a near fatal
accident aboard a subsea rover, where the carbon dioxide scrubbers failed,
and I technically died of asphyxiation, I found myself out of work, but alive.
Luckily, a nearby rover came to the rescue. I must have been unconscious
for twenty minutes, but the medic on the rover said I survived, because
the extreme cold slowed my metabolism, and the oxygen atmosphere in
the rover had enriched my brain cells, so they could still function. I was
offered a post on a freighter, shuttling cargo between Mars and Europa.
Lonely work it was. No one to talk to. I was only a standby pilot. The QM
autopilot controlled everything. In the blackness of space, the tiny sun
was a dim and distant reminder of where I came from.
When I approach bright Jupiter, sometimes Io, the first moon,
comes around the bend, and with my UV glasses, I admire her blue
aurora and yellow sulfur plumes. Io, my darling, this is the last time we
will see each other.
By chance, two remarkable things happened one starry night, as I
was returning from Mars with a cargo of soy and potatoes. Gavril Bern
called me and invited me to join the Rebirth Consortium, and I rolled
infinity on my spin cube. The chances of those two events happening
concurrently were astronomically high. I was elated. I jumped out of my
chair and danced a jig. I believe in chance more than fate. What are the
chances of rolling infinity? The primary rolls are burst (two possible),
double burst, insect eyes, blank, and infinity, so the chances are one in
six. Multiply that by the chance of my friend Gavril, who I had not heard
from in ages, calling me on a freighter run halfway between Mars and
Europa, and the probability approaches luck status. Of course, if the cube
had landed on a side and edge simultaneously, it would have opened a
whole new realm of possibilities. This was a lottery win for me. I knew
I was headed for the unknown. Finally, I could get off this frozen moon
and satisfy my wanderlust. Get rid of my pill cap too. I take an anti-x
whenever I feel an invisible hand grasp me by the neck and memories of
asphyxiation come back. I get queasy just looking at water. I never did
get used to the days and nights and the whole time bit. A Jupiter year
was twelve Earth years. A Jupiter month took a whole year, and a day on
Europa took eighty-five hours. When I was working beneath the sea, I
worked for eighty-five hours and slept for twenty.
I began preparations immediately after landing my freighter, Arawak.
I would have to dispose of my meager possessions. I handed the bill of
lading to the port master, took the cruiser to Station C, and rode the
tube down to my hexpod floating on the iridescent water under the
ice. I turned on the heater to blow out the clammy air and checked my
messages. There was only one, from Royd. Did I know someone named
Royd? Iâd been away so long, Iâd forgotten my friendsâ names. I made a
cup of hot chocosoy, settled into an easy chair, and flipped through the
entertainment channels on the wall screen. I didnât see anything I liked,
so I finished my drink, and drifted off to sleep.
On the second alignment of Io, I left my hexpod, took the tube to the
surface, and rode the ice shuttle to the space port for my interview with
Gavril Bern, commander of the Liberation. The ice shuttle was slower
than the cruisers, but I liked to have time for quiet contemplation. I had
loaded my cat, Snork, onto my belt, loaded my otopod with my music
collection, given my jet sled to my neighbor, and didnât bother to notify
the owner of Arawak that I would not be returning.
The shuttle arrived thirty minutes later, and an amazing sight greeted
me. Jupiter smiled down on four big passenger liners, six freighters, and
twenty or so cruisers. The giant planet seemed so close, I could almost
touch it. Bright lights of the port reflected off the blue ice. I took off the
breather and rode the automated corridor into the port. The artificial
air smelled clean and fresh. I had already passed the psych test, and my
cum rad dosage remained low, so I walked into Bernâs office confident
heâd take me.
Gavril and I were friends at school. We had made some dives together
under the ice, but then gone our separate ways.
âDraedon! Good to see you. How long has it been?â
âMore than half a Juppy.â
He greeted me with a warm handshake. He had aged considerably.
His face looked pale. The cold and lack of sunlight on Europa turned
people into ghosts.
âHow are you doing, Gav? Are you commanding the entire port, now?â
âNot really.â He smiled. âYou look worn.â
âYouâve acquired a few wrinkles yourself.â
I bumped into a wall lamp and almost knocked it over.
âRelax. Sit down. Sit down. Youâre jumpy as a Martian toad.â
âExcited, thatâs all. I want to thank you for this opportunity.â
âHave a bocco brew.â He pointed to the dispenser.
I helped myself and took a seat in front of his desk.
âTastes bitter.â
âProbably sat in storage too long.â
I gave him my resume chip. He inserted it into his tablet and
scrutinized the display.
âI still remember that time we raced jet sleds,â he said.
âYou beat me, but not by much.â
âSo, you really want to go?â
âI do.â
âYou worked as a diver at Extor for three months?â
âThatâs right.â
âLonely work in the deep ocean, eh?â
âYeah.â
He gave me a cold stare. âWhyâd you quit?â
âThey let me go after the accident. Insurance rates went sky rocking
high.â
âI heard about that. You were in the news.â He glanced back at the
resume. âThen you were a freighter pilot for six months.â
âYeah. Did a lot of runs between here and Mars.â
âKnow anything about Rebirth?â
âI only know itâs going to exploit the tunnel beyond Pluto. I got
excited when the news came out that you were going to head the project.
Whatâs the opening?â
He smacked his lips and leaned back in his chair. âMy first officer
quit. He got cold flippers at the last minute.â
âWhat does the job entail?â
âThe usual stuff. Assist me. Manage crew allocations. The QM takes
care of everything now. Iâm just a glorified pilot. The only decisions I have
to make are where do I want to go, and what do I want to do when I get
there. Ha. Ha.â
âYou make it sound easy.â
âWhat model QM did you have on those freighters?â
âSixteen-B.â
âWe have the Twenty-four-D. They added a new module. Plugged in
some new personality types.â
âI didnât like those QMs. I disabled mine, once.â
âHowâd you manage that?â
âHad a good computer hack. We reprogrammed some of the front end.â
âYou always were pretty sharp with the computers.â
âI know I can do the work, and if you find an ocean planet, I have lots
of diving experience. I invented a new type of acoustic sensor. I can help
build the structures.â
âDonât worry. I know you can handle it. A passenger ship is much like
a freighter, only bigger.â
I sipped the hot drink, made from bocco beans imported from Mars.
Those quantum minds made a human feel helpless at times. They had
been perfected around the beginning of the Kepler Era, and controlled all
the systems on starliners. The title of commander was a misnomer. They
had backup systems, too, because a QM was very delicate. But they were
arrogant. The one I had on Arawak kept talking back to me on my runs
to Mars. Why did you do this and why didnât you do this and you did this
wrong. Finally, I sent him down minimal road.
âGot any special skills?â he asked.
âSuch as?â
âAnything. Extra languages. Tools.â
âI work well in the dark.â
âYeah, thatâll come in handy. Space is dark.â He grinned.
He thought I was joking, but I was serious.
âSometimes the lights would fail on my rover, and Iâd work by instinct.â
âOn the ocean floor?â
âYeah.â
He hunched his shoulders. âThat would scare me to death.â
âI can memorize blueprints and control room layouts in no time.â
âNot sure if that will be useful. Your biggest job will be to keep order
with the misfits.â
âMisfits?â
âThe passengers. Iâve got refugees, religious sects, adventurers, excons,
a slice of humanity all yearning to be free.â
âWonât they be asleep most of the time?â
âIt depends how long we have to travel.â
âWhatâs the probability of finding a planet suitable for life?â
âThe astronomers have pinpointed three or four candidates.â
âThatâs good.â
He looked at me, and his expression turned serious. âYou realize we
might never return.â
âI understand.â
He fidgeted with the mug on the desk, then turned his head and
glanced at Jupiterâs orange glow that filled the whole window screen. âIt
took scientists a thousand years to create the pico tunnel, but they canât
guarantee it will remain open.â
âWhy is that?â
âThey have to create enough exotic energy to suppress the fizzââ
âThe fizz?â
âIâm no physicist, but itâs my understanding that particles and
antiparticles come into existence in space. They have to prevent that at
the opening. Thatâs hard to do.â
âThatâs good motivation to find a planet. We better hurry.â
He turned to my resume again. âIt says here you assaulted a synthetic,
once.â
âMinor disagreement.â
âI have synthetics aboard. You donât get along with them?â
âI can get along with anybody. It wonât happen again.â
He seemed satisfied. âHave any questions for me?â
âHow long does the trip to Pluto take?â
âAbout four Earth years. Weâll take the slow boat. The synthetics will
monitor operations while weâre in stasis. Once we exit the tunnel, youâll
be on call around the clock, and if things come undone, wellââ
âI know. Worst job I ever had, I had a boring tool get stuck one time
for 545 hours. I didnât get any sleep.â
âIt shouldnât be that bad.â He put his hands on the desk. âOne last
question. Why do you want to go?â
I ran my thumb across the stubble on my chin. âI love exploring.â It
was a brief answer, but I didnât want to elaborate.
âAll right. Put your stuff in storage, kiss your babe goodbye, and report
to the loading dock of Liberation in eighty-five hours.â He handed me my
chip. âI loaded some documents on to your chip. Read the passenger
manifest and watch the crew introductions. Iâll let you interview some of
the late arrivals to the crew. I brought this girl named Nai Fern aboard,
but I havenât had a chance to talk with her.â
âWhat do you want me to ask her?â
âHer reasons for going. Iâm not sure what her job title would be. She
claims to be an expert linguist and telepath. She could come in handy in
deciphering alien languages.â
âIâll think of a title.â
âThanks.â
As I rode the shuttle back to my pod, Europa grew smaller. I didnât
know what lay out there, but the unknown didnât hold any terrors for
me. I had dived in the oceans of Europa, and reveled in my loneliness at
the bottom of the sea. I had no fortune that owned me, no obligations,
no family, no loved one. After the accident, when I died for thirty
minutes, I became a hero, a celebrity. But I hated the notoriety. I had to
get away from Europa and rediscover myself, if only to prove I was not
manufactured. The empty spaces between the stars did not scare me; the
ghosts following my footsteps scared me. What would I bring with me? I
would bring my music. Music would be my refuge.
I read the passenger manifest. Many of the people were refugees from
a ruined Earth. I memorized the ship schematics in no time and watched
the crew introductions. I was impressed with the ship security systems.
It had fourteen holomodes, micro darts for those unruly passengers, and
telepathic overrides. I knew Royd Dirigong. He was a good engineer. He
and I had worked together at Extor. He had designed the gas mixers on
the diving systems. I also knew Jinntip Nukkadon, Roydâs sweetheart.
She was a research biologist. The name Yevgeny Shiripov caught my eye.
I thought he was still in prison, but evidently Gavril had pardoned him. He
had hacked the QM on Arawak. I owed him, because he had not implicated
me. I wondered if the companies wanted to send him out of the solar
system so he wouldnât be a threat to them. He was such a computer genius.
I rode the tube to the surface. Jupiter, youâre no longer going to rain
your electrons down on me. I didnât envy the people that worked on the
surface. They had to wear extra protection, because Jupiter bombarded
Europa with high energy electrons. Thatâs why the ice glowed. Excited as
a schoolboy who had just won an ice race, I marched to the shuttle, ears
plugged into my favorite tune, and slid across the slick walkway. I boarded
the shuttle and said goodbye to Europa. For a moment, I felt elated. Was
I born for this?
The ship looked like a giant wasp, with spherical head, cylindrical
body, and eight fins at the tail section. I entered the ship and found my
cramped cabin. I called Nai Fern, and she appeared fifteen minutes later.
âWelcome. Iâm Draedon Ekho, Gavrilâs second. Have a seat.â
She pulled the second chair closer and sat down.
Two of her could have fit in the chair. She had a tissue pressed against
her nose.
âWhatâs wrong?â
âOnly a nosebleed.â
She seemed so fragile. She must have special gifts for Gavril to have
accepted her.
âThis shouldnât take long. Gavril wants to know why you want to go
on a trip into the unknown.â
âDo I have to explain? Dois-je expliquer? I want to go to the time
before time, when there was neither existence nor non-existenceââ
She seemed to withdraw within herself. Her voice grew louder, and she
stared into spaceâ âBefore even the gods, or maybe only one godâthe
unknowable, the Only One who breathed breathless in itself. Who knows
the secret whence came this manifest creation? Does He know it, this
Most High seer, whether his will created, or was mute? He knows itâor
perchance, eâen he knows notââ She reappeared, her eyes focused on me.
âYouâre a poet, too.â
âThat was not me. I was only reciting part of the hymn in the Rigveda.â
âAre you looking for God?â
âMaybe the unknown one.â
âI donât follow.â
âThe Greeks had altars to an Unknown God, Agnostos Theos.
Perhaps they were superstitious and didnât want to incur the wrath of
a god they had forgotten to name. Or perhaps he is a god that can never
be known. We may never know the secret of creation, but we can keep
looking.â
âIâm not looking for a god. Peace of mind will do.â
She settled back in her chair and smiled. âIâm sure weâll both find
what weâre looking for.â
âCan we get back to this?â I pointed to the screen.
âOh. You need something for your notebook. Europa bores me. I want
to immerse myself in strange culturesââ
She rattled off half a dozen reasons in a whispery voice. My speech
recorder couldnât keep up.
âI want to leave all the wars behind. There must be something out
there. I heard the astronomers have detected habitable planets.â
âWe might be lucky. Of course, there are no guaranteesââ
I pulled her resume from the computer terminal.
âYou came to Europa about four months ago?â
âYes.â
âFrom where?â
âI came with my family and a group of refugees from the Asiatic Group.â
âStill have wars going on?â
âYes.â
âI come from Alaska Island, but that was a long time ago.â
âYou must like the ice, then.â
âNot really.â
I scanned her resume. She was certainly a woman of great knowledge
and intellect.
âImpressive. You mastered all Southeast Asian dialects by age fifteen.
You have a doctorate in linguistics, you are fluent in symbolic languages,
and youâre a natural telepath.â
How old were you when you left Earth?
âWhat?â
âHow old?â
âOh. Seven.â
âAlone?â
âYes. Letâs get back to you. Gavril doesnât know what job title to give
you, but I think with your skills, Iâd say cultural savant.â
âSounds good.â She squirmed in the chair.
She was probably dying to probe an alien mind.
Alien is an inappropriate word. You should say brothers and sisters in time.
I wiped the perspiration off the back of my neck and took a deep
breath. She was reading me. âSorry.â
âIf natural language fails, we need to be able to communicate in other
ways.â
âHow?â
âMusic. Mathematics. Physical gestures. Electrical waves. Words may
be inadequate where weâre going.â
âI agree. But weâre taking a lot of cultural baggage. Peoplesâ heads
are full.â
âI have no cultural prejudices. I donât belong to any particular
religion.â
âYou assume weâll find intelligent life.â
âThere are millions of habitable planets, arenât there?â
I nodded and closed the terminal screen. âThatâs all I have.â
âIâm looking forward to working with you.â She slid off the chair.
I shook her delicate hand. âTake care of that nosebleed.â
âYes.â She left.
Liberation was going to take 9,000 colonists in search of a home. The
colonists were a bunch of misfits, as Gavril had called them, that didnât fit
in with the rigidly controlled life on Earth and Europa. Earth was at war
even though half the land mass had disappeared as a result of flooding.
The mining consortiums controlled Europa. The choice of occupations
was limited. Either work for a mining operation, and explore the ocean
floor, or join the crew of the passenger ships that left every year to take
colonists somewhere else. Our crowded solar system overflowed with
people. Mars had been terra-formed, and Europaâs cold climate didnât suit
most people, so they naturally tended to search for new planets to own,
or exploit. We were a destructive species. Everywhere we went, we left in
ruins. I hoped that if we found a planet, we would keep it a secret and live
there peacefully, and no one would follow.
When Liberation, a starship carrying 9000 passengers hoping to colonise a new planet, is almost destroyed by a supernova, close to a thousand of the colonists die and many on board suffer from radiation sickness. The main character, Draedon Ecko, one of the few crew members to survive, must take over as Commander and as the shipâs intelligent navigation system is so damaged   (not even Murvan, an almost human robot, can restore it) they head for the closest planet, Baktun. It is in a binary star system with an extremely elongated orbit  encircling  two suns, one a red dwarf, the other a massive star 10 times the size of the small one, a fact which proves to have huge significance later in the tale. Baktun turns out to be inhabited.by a race of evolved humans called Soverins, who are  very similar to Draedon and his companions but are smaller in size and  have five eyes with 3 extra in the forehead. Draedon imagines that they see a different image of the electromagnetic spectrum like bees who have five eyes.  They seem friendly, however, and Draedon and his companions discover they can communicate with them by means of otopods a form of hearing aid similar in function to the Babel fish of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
The Soverins build shelters for those of the Starship who are brought down to the planet and also supply them with food. They are looked after by Professor Tadat, who seems to be a kindly and cultivated man, but he is not the Soverinâs leader and they eventually discover that the planet is controlled by Rychee, an Artificial Intelligence who has many human attributes and who lives in the mountains in a specially designed bubble.   And there is a terrible secret that the Soverins  are reluctant to reveal, referred to as the Burn.
The tale combines philosophical considerations of personal ethics and correct government with thrilling and exciting action sequences.   The descriptions of the planetâs flora and fauna are fascinating, the various characters are strongly drawn, the colonistsâ and Soverinâs reactions are plausible, and the colonistsâ ultimate fate in doubt until the very end. Â
Â
All in all, a gripping and worthwhile read.