Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 3

The Specimen

I was approached in the early days of first contact before we really understood what humans were, and what they were capable of. The galactic assembly sought me out on the pretext that I was the premiere expert in xenoarchaeology and linguistics. I have ventured to some of the most dangerous places in the galaxy to examine and catalogue long lost civilizations and historical records to compile into comprehensive books. I have been working back and forth between Drev historical documents, which have taken me to visit some of the most hostile inland tribes along the fertile belt, and up into the frigid mountains of the north to talk to clan members and holy Drev sitting high in their cave, but my other project has been ongoing, an examination and comprehensive summery of the human historical record.

I would not advise a reading of this type to anyone who wishes to maintain an appetite, as human history is one war crime after another stacked on top of each other until there is naught left but the occasional glimmer of hope peering out from you like Dimond mired in mud.

You know what I find Funny.

Humans have a phrase that I have always found rather baffling.

"have a little humanity." They say, "Be Humane, they repeat. Despite the history of their world humans are convinced that to have humanity or to be human embodies some of the most admiral traits that can be sought in the galaxy. Honor, compassion, and mercy.

Have a little humanity.

It makes me laugh every time, though it is certainly not funny.

If humanity are those things, than I certainly don't consider them human, not most of them anyway,.

Call me cynical, but I have read their histories and their documentation, and I know above all others what they are capable of. I have never actually met a human in person, as I openly refuse to be involved in such things, but their history says enough about them to broach no argument.

I don't think we should ever have agreed to a truce with the humans.

Or perhaps we should have just to save our own skin.

Either way this document is not about my particular opinions on humans, this is about something I found.

Last months, when I was preparing to release my compiled documentation on Drev historical lore, I received a letter from the chairwoman of the galactic assembly asking me for help. The letter sent me to the coordinates of a planet with a classified name, which she said had been abandoned. I was to enter it with a small team of scientists, and dig through the rubble of a lost civilization. Apparently they had already sent in a human team who had managed to cause the city wide collapse of just one such civilization, leaving behind something that might be useful.

Along with her note came a startling script of strange alien characters, and a translation from which some linguistics genius had managed to piece together.

The first thing I noticed, was the grammatical similarity to old Sumerian, supposedly the oldest written language every conceived by humans as far as is known. The similarities were so shocking that it was not simply a project that I could turn down. Out of sheer curiosity, I was driven to determine what these symbols meant and retrieve , what the charwoman described as partial sentient and organic matter that was supposedly discovered at the heart of the strange civilization.

I took up my team and went down to the planet not expecting the dense, toxic red fog that covered the planet from end to end. It roiled in billowed in great sweeping arcs allowing only sweeping beams of light to pass through at a moment, only do vanish moments later. The navigation was difficult, and our journey was fraught with difficulties from the beginning. Many of my team quit on the first day and had to be transported back to the orbiting station, while I waited for more reinforcements, listening to the distant and mournful echo of the monoliths.