Koven and Rusa landed almost a kilomaatar from the cave. From the edge of the cave, the valley was stretched out before it. They landed just over the top of the hills at the far end of the valley. While they were cloaked, the bubble ships that brought them were not.
“I have identified four new species of moths on Earth 7. They are mutations from the originals used to seed the planet,” said Rusa.
“And will you log them with the Zoology Department?”
“Done. I send them out via sublight as I find them,” Rusa replied.
“You have sublight comms built in?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“Good to know,” he replied.
“Regrettably, it is a slow method, but for non-critical data it is a sensible choice. Venkat made a wise design choice.”
“And many others,” said Koven with a smile.
“Do you wish to have sexual pleasure again? It has been nearly two hundred tox,” said Rusa with a wide smile. “You still haven’t discovered some of my most unique capabilities.”
“No thank you. Let’s wait until we are done here,” replied Koven too politely.
They continued their walk among the trees in the valley. Finally they came to the mountain on the other side. As they began to climb the steep rock trail to the opening of the cave, Koven reached out to find Rusa’s hand. He steadied himself with her help as he climbed.
The opening to the cave was wide, yet no more than five maatars tall. But then it opened into a huge cavern. It was well lit. Koven and Rusa climbed carefully over the rocks to the lights. They were ion extractors with batteries with liquid catalyst.
Just past the lights they were able to see the crude laboratory. Wooden tables were numerous, and each dedicated to a device. Koven used his remedium to identify them. A macerator pump for grinding up solid human waste before being pumped out into space was the first item identified. It was in pieces and looked like someone had been trying to sketch the blades. Many of the parts were sitting in small containers of water in a manner akin to soaking dishes in a sink.
At the far end of the cave were a man and woman. They were trying unsuccessfully to get a media player to work. Without the holo-controls, Koven realized they didn’t have much chance of getting it to work, except by accident. Accidents were their standard modus operandi.
Other items were equally unimportant with a couple of notable exceptions. The first were Babylon Dots, those small black dots put on earlobes to facilitate translations from all languages in the known universe. Koven had to wear his just inside of his ear.
Modi was born without earlobes. Babylon Dots, or BDs for short, hadn’t hit the market when Koven was in his mother’s womb. People still used ear inserts. Indira was much more concerned with a genetic predisposition towards a weak respiratory sub system, so his parents spent the money at the geneticist getting him a first-class set of lungs.
The last table contained only a book, an old book of paper with a leather cover. Koven recognized it immediately. It was the only book banned in the galaxy. It was not banned for what was written inside. Instead it was banned for the history of what humans had done after reading the book. And it was not even a single story. I was a trilogy laid out in chronological order. The first was a story of a young boy that battled a giant and won. He became king and many people died for it. His name was David. The second was the story of a nice man that was hated by the powerful until he was executed. The third story was about a man who had visions and a goal to bring his message to many people. And again many people died for it.
The stories were not well written and contradicted themselves often in detail. They were made long before the advent of historians. But the problem is not with the words in the book. In fact, it was only three stories from an original book that has since been lost in time. But those who prefer one story to another not only publicly announce their preference, but they also killed those who prefer the other stories.
That is why this is the only book banned in the Galaxy. That also made the book one of the most priceless objects in the universe. Of everything they had found, this was the most dangerous of all.
“It was working yesterev,” complained the man at the far end of the cave.
“I know. Do you think the little piece with the buttons and the strange script is needed?” the woman asked, holding up a remote control.
“No. I’m sure that piece will be of no help,” replied the man.
“OK,” said the woman. “But it started yesterev while I was playing with it.”
“Pure coincidence,” replied the man.
“OK,” said the woman, and then she pressed the button she had pressed previously when it started working. And again the image jumped out in front of them.
“There it is. Got you. I must have pressed a secret button on the box mechanism,” he said as he held up the long, thin box.
“Good for you,” the woman replied with a smile.
Back at the tables, Koven spoke softly. “We need to set explosives and destroy everything.”
“What about the people?”
“Do you have any ideas?” he asked her.
“I cannot help you unless we have a means of ensuring that the man and woman survive,” Rusa replied.
“Let me set the charges in position and then let’s discuss how to get them out of here without letting them know we’re here.”
“Something with fire, perhaps?” Rusa offered.
“Good idea,” Koven replied, and removed the small square charges from his pockets. The tiny little pillow-shaped see-through pouches contained a red liquid and had a very thin digital display covering one side.
Koven walked around the cave for the next few minutes putting his charges under the tables containing the tech. He placed the final four back at the opening to the cave then returned to the table containing the book. He picked up the book and put it inside of his coat. And a moment after he touched the book, it shimmered for a brief moment then disappeared to everyone except Koven. And that was when the shooting started again.
A startled Koven ducked down behind the table as the wild shot hit high on the cave wall behind him.
“We’re under attack,” the man at the far end of the cave yelled, although the weapon had been aimed nowhere near him. He ran to a small desk nearby and took the weapon from on top of it. He ducked down again.
Koven turned his PPS to the maximum setting then stood up.
“Stop this now. You are shooting at an agent of the History—” his words were cut off by a blast that hit right at eye level, momentarily blinding him.
“Shut up,” a voice yelled at him, and shot at him three more times.
But at the far end of the hall, Dubitam had picked up a weapon he was becoming more familiar with. He had aimed it for the last shot. The voice confirmed the position for him. He closed one eye then squeezed the trigger.
From a distance of 24.82 maatars, Dubitam hit his target. There was a grunt and then the sound that a body makes when it hits the ground. A moment later a body became visible on the floor of the cave. An instant later a bubble ship formed an oblong shape and quickly exited the cave.
“Look, I got him,” said Dubitam. “I got him.”
“You saved us,” said MinKey, and quickly kissed him on the lips.
“Behave now,” he said to her with a smile as she pulled away from him.
“We can’t hurt them,” said Rusa down at the other end of the cave.
“Not so loud,” said Koven with a shhh on the end of his words.
“Hello?” said Dubitam at the other end of the cave. “We heard that. We agree completely. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone, but we were under attack.”
“You were not under attack,” replied Koven. “We were under attack.”
“I apologize, then. At the moment of the shooting I didn’t know you were here, or anywhere for that matter. That would explain the very poor aim,” replied Dubitam.
Rusa turned off her cloaking.
“A woman, nice,” said Dubitam. A tix later he felt MinKey hit him in the arm.
“Don’t get jealous,” he said to her.
Then Koven turned off his cloaking.
“Ah, the man in charge,” Dubitam said. And again felt MinKey hit him in the arm. This time harder than before.
“Ouch. Forgive me, but my wonderful assistant, MinKey, is a rare believer in women being treated as equals of men. I mean, logically, I can find no fault with her ideas. Sure, there are differences between us, but that doesn’t imply one is superior to the other. However, as much as we are both free thinkers on this topic, we must keep our opinions to ourselves until a more liberal era comes about. And I will admit that I am the least free of the two thinkers on this topic.”
“I understand,” said Rusa. “This is one of the reasons why your planet only gets a Primitive 3 rating.”
“We’re not as primitive as you think,” said Dubitam. “Not since we have the reader. We’ve moved ahead thousands of revs since I started reading the parts about complimentary crops and micronutrients. There are many things not visible to the naked eye that make all the difference between a good life and a miserable life. I have almost completed a device that will permit me to see them.”
And Dubitam lifted up a device, crude and wooden. But at the top and near the middle two glass lenses were clearly visible at the end of a round tube.
“I believe you call it a microscopic,” replied Dubitam with a satisfied smile.
“A microscope,” replied Koven.
“But a microscopic is as good a word as microscope; with either we understand your meaning,” said Rusa quickly.
“Good,” replied MinKey quickly.
“You need to leave now,” said Koven.
“Why?” asked Dubitam.
“Because there is going to be a very powerful explosion.”