Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 3

Children of the Makers

"We give them so little time, especially when time is a thing we transcend. We d0 ot measure it in the arbitrary rotations of celestial bodies, for we have seen the universe come into being, and then watch as the stars passed away, but even we know that 100 arbitrary rotations around an arbitrary celestial body is not enough. Not enough to make a soldier, but the war grows long, and we must fight. It greaves us to say, but our children, our little ones must fight as well, and they must do it while they are still children. We have tried to protect them for as long as we can, tried to hide them away in their vulnerable state, to give them protection, but it is not enough. The darkness grows ever thicker, and the war rages on, sometimes that darkness seeps through the cracks, there is nothing we can do to stop it, it simply is. The Corruption takes them before they even know what they truly are......

....

...

I weep for our little ones, who know war before their own glory. They are so susceptible to the dark, that I fear we are only adding to the ranks of darkness rather than the ranks of light. The darkness is getting harder and harder for them to resist. My only hope is that the Architect knows, the architect knows and he has assured me, that though the children that fall away are legion.... Those who rise are stronger than those that have come before blessed in power and in courage to fight in the Foreverwar... and maybe somehow, to give it an end."

The recording shut off with a subtle snick, and the small silver ball fell into the Palm of Adam's hand.

The group of humans stood in a tight circ le, one human to every alien delegate who could not understand the words. It didn't take long for them to find people who could understand the strange language being spoken. Admiral Kelly had postponed a political rally to be here, and somehow, it did not surprise Adam that she was able to understand the words. Oddly enough, she was the only politician they had tried so far who HAD been able to understand. Thus far, the others had been anything from generals to ship captains, right down to a lowly airman who had been sworn to secrecy, and promptly swore on his granny mawmaw's grave that he would make sure he never spoke a word of it.

How honest the man was, would have to be determined later, but they hoped the threat of intergalactic assembly prison would be enough to scare anyone here into compliance.

Adam turned to look at Admiral Kelly.

The two of them locked eyes and the entire room remained silent.

"We have linguists, and stenographers working around the clock to both translate and record all the information we have here," Adam was saying, "As far as we are concerned the technology represented here is like nothing we have ever seen before. Originally some of our historical experts indicated a similarity in the structure of the architecture, to the way that humans tend to build, however we have come to determine that that, is only the most obvious marker. Based on closer observation we have found similarities in, runes, language and architecture to ALL the major species in the GA. Not just humans."

The men and women that sat around this table had heard most of the major recordings.

It was required of them.

"Thus far we have been unable to rove that the recordings are faked. We thought that perhaps we were simply looking at someone else's science fiction, as crazy as that sounds, but they clearly know too much for it to be the case. Greater examination of the structure around Proxima Ab indicates that the structure was used to amplify soemthing. Now theories have sprung up, based on the recordings, that that structure was used originally to..."

"Kickstart protein synthesis in the primordial soup." Captain Kelly offered

The room was silent. Adam looked down at his feet.