Ruins, planets
Ruins
From the report of the second expedition of Brother Shezhat Fachetson to the ruins of Fe'e Kho'arkh, west of the Ferchu mountains, in 1414 CY.
The river runs over a rapids of growstone, and the valley upstream has a thick growth of forest inhabited by runners and human tribes. Above the forest, the walls of the valley are terraced with growstone, heavily cracked and pitted, and the remains of a city which encircled the valley-forest.
Prominent in the city ruins was Structure 24, a complex of large halls on the west end of the growstone rapids. The halls were originally underground, lit by large clerestory windows, and later seem to have flooded and filled with debris which preserved rows of large machines similar to looms...
...in Structure 112, a storage container was found containing cylinders of a material similar to impact-diamond. These are covered with minute designs visible solely under a large lens. It isn't clear what they may be, as with so much else of the ancients.
Report of the first expedition of Sister Afav to the ruins atop Mount Khirarashir, in 1395CY:
...the ice had retreated according to the plans of Brother KholKhol and we camped by the glacier stream. Seventeen durrick of the Ratama agreed to hunt for the expedition, move stones and do general labor in return for the medication we brought with us. We were able to make progress in excavating what seemed to be the basement of a joined series of buildings which had silted in and frozen before the glaciers came. Contrary to the notes which we had used as a guide, they are not atop the mountain, but 21km away in the valley where the glacier turned.
I attach drawings of the devices found in the fourth section of the basement under a series of metal slabs.
Two of the expedition and one durrick died when opening a sealed area in the ruins, from what looked, to observers, like blue light. After secondday the light died down and we sent a student in to examine the bodies and the material. He also died.
From the second expedition of Professor Chen Baramson of Thwe Thechchiat to the Long Ruin at Vejcho Vejchi'ar, in the hills southwest of the Thanat mountains, above the Seligan hunting grounds where the termite-men dwell.
The ruin has been excavated at great length since the draining of the swamp above it made this practical. My work over two seasons cleared a huge mass of mud and filth from the entrance of the tunnel and worked two hundred meters in each direction down the length. In the process, we found that the tunnel dates from an extremely early cycle in the history of the world. The expedition would have been impossible without the wizard Achelag, who protected us from the local tigermen and termite-men with potions and fire-weapons, which he showed the junior students how to use. Only two of my crew were killed.
The tunnel itself runs at least from the location of a large swamp which was formerly a lake, we conjecture, down to a huge field of growstone ruins where the Tahan joins the Ngat!akok. (We are grateful to Khorqo Yetalason, of the Shelath tribespeople, for local geography; a set of maps is attached.) We were able to excavate as far as we did because of the plentiful runner and Rhuthuok labor and because the water table has dropped a great deal.
The walls of the tunnel are made of a growstone which repairs itself when cut or hacked. We were unable to judge its age. It has a very slight downhill slope toward the old swamp and then towards the Tahan River hills. Bulgu Barahatson, my assistant, believe that the entrance we found must be newer: made of an unrusting metal which resembles the winged machines of the ancients, it was inserted into the growstone to provide an entrance. The tunnel was then used as a fortress, and we found remains of fire weapons of an unknown type. The fire-matter has decomposed, and as such, they are not usable. There were also remains of food sealed into jars which were crumbled with age, and of documents written on paper and sealed in steel cases. The game-board we found was ceramic, and the writing on it intact.
I send to you by courier the vials of medicine and surgical tools for the examination of our physicians: they are unlike any I've seen, but pictorial directions suggest their use. The knife blades we found were intact and deadly sharp: the enclosed sketch shows Bavath using one to skive hides for shoemaking. These items suggest the era known as the taChahamarat, whose crafts were highly advanced. The blades have a glitter like rubies or diamonds, and are unbreakable by the tools we have. The small pellets of the same material may be ammunition. It seems that the fortress-era passed and the tunnel may have been used as a storage area: we found tally-sticks of polymer and sealed packets of artificial cloth, below a layer of very crude growstone made from brick rubble and lime-and-gypsum plaster.
The last and uppermost layer of material below the rubble and mud fill was a series of coffins made of the unrusting metal, cut and soldered together with lead solder and used for burials. The fortress, then, became a cellar and then a tomb. We were able to remove seventy-nine burials, and Bulgu recited the Holy Words over them before and after we examined the bones and ornaments. These included swords and crossbows of unrusting metal, pole-slings and atlatls of wood, and necklaces which had small optic sights of carborundum, compasses and sun-and-Butros-dials. The necklaces were beautifully made and may be from the era of the Na, says Tsep Sthiavahatsdaughter, our historian. She was able to match some measurement units on them to units found on the Heat Tachathavthf. We reburied the bodies, replacing the funerary offerings with goods of our own, recited the Charen over the new graves, removed the protections provided by the wizard, and rode home by way of the Southwest passes before the Batharkhs were blocked by snow.
Outline of Solar System
(I wasn't sure where to put this, so it's here- JC)
The system of Davis' Star has fourteen major planets; five are naked-eye visible from Pendleton's, a moon of Butros' World. Named by popular vote on old Earth from probe photos, they are:
Lyman: a cinder in a vulcanoid “roaster” orbit, its surface shaped by Davis' glare more than by impacts, effectively invisible from Pendleton's. Orbit: 39 days
Basha: (Farash:Theno'oltk) the morning star of Pendleton's, the “Empress” in several mythologies (symbolizing power and stability), an ocean-covered 'super-earth' with an unbreathable atmosphere and a hydrosphere hundreds of km deep. Its white clouds caused the scientists to liken it to Venus, but the two planets are quite different. From Pendleton's it is a brilliant white star rising some time before Davis' Star; owing to the slow spin of Pendleton's, Basha appears hours before the Sun or lingers long after. Orbit: 211 days.
Butros' World: (Farash: Tingat) the watercloud gas giant, the 'warm Jupiter' which has multiple planet-sized moons. Butros is similar in size to Jupiter but slightly less massive owing to more of its mass being warm clouds and less being ice and frozen liquid. Its water clouds contain both oxygen layers and aerial plankton. Its famous Green Spot is a sign of the presence of (native) life.
Its trojan asteroids are invisible (save upon rediscovery of the telescope) and numerous. Orbit: 350 days
Its planet-sized moons, all tidally locked, are:
Ngobi: (Farash: Khus Bava, or Khus Baram) a fire moon, covered with erupting volcanos and boiling regions of metal and stone. It trades lightning bolts with its primary, Butros, and its huge geysers of flame are visible from Pendleton's surface. Its atmosphere is a mess of nitrogen, water vapor, and byproducts of volcanism. In moon-astrology, Ngobi means the cycle of destruction-creation. Orbit: 30 hrs
Pendleton's: (Farash: Huthama) an ocean moon with both native and introduced life, and the scene of the stories. At its L4 and L5 points are ramscoop hulks from past voyages to the stars. In addition, three more such vessels, the “moving stars” (Ekarvethas), orbit Butros in eccentric paths. All are visible (they're covered with reflective shielding, after all) from Pendleton's. They symbolize mystery and creation in many mythologies, and names for them are often drawn from kinship terms: “Grandmother”, “Auntie”, “Old Worldmaker”, and so on and on. Pendleton's has had numerous “temporary moons” over the past two megayears, both natural and artificial, but the perturbations of the Butros' system prevent any such object from entering a stable orbit. Orbit: 140 hrs
Urmston:(Farash: Baharanathsch) a great ice moon, a super-earth with a layer of ice hundreds of km thick and a wispy atmosphere derived from ice volcanoes and steam vents, in astrology (Kheshchuven) the “poet's moon” and inspirer of song. The fate of several waves of human colonization which have reached it are unknown. At its L5 point is a Ceres-sized minor planet called Maria Elena. Diviners seek mysteries to be understood by the patterns of clouds around Urmston, and its rising is an occasion for naming ceremonies, weddings and funerals. Maria Elena symbolizes the proper movement of the dancer. Orbit: 210 hrs.
Toner: (Farash: Ferchukhev) a red world of dust with an unbreathable atmosphere, a “mars” in this system. It is the moon of logic, the bringer of numbers. A common prayer to it consists of a series of prime numbers. Its surface, covered with odd blotches of moving light and dark, hosts primitive sun-using life, simple sand-algae and the like, and dust storms move across it. Orbit, 340 hrs.
Glebe: (Farash: Thuskhev) a blotched world of deep ice covered in craters, which show as white sparks on a greyish glacier surface. In mythology, Glebe usually stands for friendship and caring. Clubs and social societies often meet when it is in the sky, and to quarrel beneath it is bad manners. Orbit: 500fpro hrs.
Previte: (Farash: Elthishak) a world covered in volcanic ice and dust, its huge mass (super-earth sized) causing it to retain internal heat and vomit huge masses of ice, salt, dust and vapor, which redeposit from a gas torus onto its leading edge. It thus has one face which is six times brighter than the other. It stands for change, conflict, having more than one opinion, “many-mindedness” and magic. Magicians pray when it rises or sets, and messengers are said to do their job better in its light. Orbit: 700 hrs
Kinney: (Farash: Chethenag) a small world of cratered stone and polar caps of ice, less bright than the great ice moons. Kinney's surface was explored by the spacefarers of the taChaharamat and the Kwons, of the 150th and 191st cycles. In mythology, it represents age, bitterly bought knowledge, and the final journey. Orbit, 905 hrs.
The fifty-one other moons of Butros' are no more than bright stars at best to Pendleton's.
Outside Butros' orbit are:
Marin (Farash: Sthivahat) an ice world whose black ocean harbors layers of life separated by their varying biochemical needs, and whose surface is smooth and brilliant owing to being repeatedly resurfaced by cryovulcanism. It represents wisdom and it is called “the Scholar” or “the Scribe” in many languages. Orbit: 490 days.
Jordan (Farash: Vemetthk): a small gas giant with a cold atmosphere of carbon compounds and dust, richly layered. It has several moons. To Pendleton's peoples it often represents faithfulness and loyalty and is called “The Spouse” in several languages. Orbit: 985 days
Dupree (Khus Klatlekt): a world of brilliant carbon-dioxide ice, and a war god to almost all the Pendleton's mythoi. Orbit: 1309 days.
Bozonelos (Fer Chushat) : a world in a long elliptical orbit which is visible to Pendleton's about one decade each century, and thus represents, in mythology, the foreign, the mystic, and the unknown. Ambassadors and translators ask its aid and it is said to give power to the outsider. Orbit: 97 yrs.
The outer planets are, as one might expect, ice balls and gas giants invisible without the telescopes which some cycles of civilization develop (and some don't).
Solis: a gas giant with many moons and a large asteroid and comet family.
Golliher: a snowy terrestrial
Adell: an ice giant
Kaiser, Ng, Pezza, Elgin: Kuiper/Mgana Belt objects far from the sun.
From the report of the second expedition of Brother Shezhat Fachetson to the ruins of Fe'e Kho'arkh, west of the Ferchu mountains, in 1414 CY.
The river runs over a rapids of growstone, and the valley upstream has a thick growth of forest inhabited by runners and human tribes. Above the forest, the walls of the valley are terraced with growstone, heavily cracked and pitted, and the remains of a city which encircled the valley-forest.
Prominent in the city ruins was Structure 24, a complex of large halls on the west end of the growstone rapids. The halls were originally underground, lit by large clerestory windows, and later seem to have flooded and filled with debris which preserved rows of large machines similar to looms...
...in Structure 112, a storage container was found containing cylinders of a material similar to impact-diamond. These are covered with minute designs visible solely under a large lens. It isn't clear what they may be, as with so much else of the ancients.
Report of the first expedition of Sister Afav to the ruins atop Mount Khirarashir, in 1395CY:
...the ice had retreated according to the plans of Brother KholKhol and we camped by the glacier stream. Seventeen durrick of the Ratama agreed to hunt for the expedition, move stones and do general labor in return for the medication we brought with us. We were able to make progress in excavating what seemed to be the basement of a joined series of buildings which had silted in and frozen before the glaciers came. Contrary to the notes which we had used as a guide, they are not atop the mountain, but 21km away in the valley where the glacier turned.
I attach drawings of the devices found in the fourth section of the basement under a series of metal slabs.
Two of the expedition and one durrick died when opening a sealed area in the ruins, from what looked, to observers, like blue light. After secondday the light died down and we sent a student in to examine the bodies and the material. He also died.
From the second expedition of Professor Chen Baramson of Thwe Thechchiat to the Long Ruin at Vejcho Vejchi'ar, in the hills southwest of the Thanat mountains, above the Seligan hunting grounds where the termite-men dwell.
The ruin has been excavated at great length since the draining of the swamp above it made this practical. My work over two seasons cleared a huge mass of mud and filth from the entrance of the tunnel and worked two hundred meters in each direction down the length. In the process, we found that the tunnel dates from an extremely early cycle in the history of the world. The expedition would have been impossible without the wizard Achelag, who protected us from the local tigermen and termite-men with potions and fire-weapons, which he showed the junior students how to use. Only two of my crew were killed.
The tunnel itself runs at least from the location of a large swamp which was formerly a lake, we conjecture, down to a huge field of growstone ruins where the Tahan joins the Ngat!akok. (We are grateful to Khorqo Yetalason, of the Shelath tribespeople, for local geography; a set of maps is attached.) We were able to excavate as far as we did because of the plentiful runner and Rhuthuok labor and because the water table has dropped a great deal.
The walls of the tunnel are made of a growstone which repairs itself when cut or hacked. We were unable to judge its age. It has a very slight downhill slope toward the old swamp and then towards the Tahan River hills. Bulgu Barahatson, my assistant, believe that the entrance we found must be newer: made of an unrusting metal which resembles the winged machines of the ancients, it was inserted into the growstone to provide an entrance. The tunnel was then used as a fortress, and we found remains of fire weapons of an unknown type. The fire-matter has decomposed, and as such, they are not usable. There were also remains of food sealed into jars which were crumbled with age, and of documents written on paper and sealed in steel cases. The game-board we found was ceramic, and the writing on it intact.
I send to you by courier the vials of medicine and surgical tools for the examination of our physicians: they are unlike any I've seen, but pictorial directions suggest their use. The knife blades we found were intact and deadly sharp: the enclosed sketch shows Bavath using one to skive hides for shoemaking. These items suggest the era known as the taChahamarat, whose crafts were highly advanced. The blades have a glitter like rubies or diamonds, and are unbreakable by the tools we have. The small pellets of the same material may be ammunition. It seems that the fortress-era passed and the tunnel may have been used as a storage area: we found tally-sticks of polymer and sealed packets of artificial cloth, below a layer of very crude growstone made from brick rubble and lime-and-gypsum plaster.
The last and uppermost layer of material below the rubble and mud fill was a series of coffins made of the unrusting metal, cut and soldered together with lead solder and used for burials. The fortress, then, became a cellar and then a tomb. We were able to remove seventy-nine burials, and Bulgu recited the Holy Words over them before and after we examined the bones and ornaments. These included swords and crossbows of unrusting metal, pole-slings and atlatls of wood, and necklaces which had small optic sights of carborundum, compasses and sun-and-Butros-dials. The necklaces were beautifully made and may be from the era of the Na, says Tsep Sthiavahatsdaughter, our historian. She was able to match some measurement units on them to units found on the Heat Tachathavthf. We reburied the bodies, replacing the funerary offerings with goods of our own, recited the Charen over the new graves, removed the protections provided by the wizard, and rode home by way of the Southwest passes before the Batharkhs were blocked by snow.
Outline of Solar System
(I wasn't sure where to put this, so it's here- JC)
The system of Davis' Star has fourteen major planets; five are naked-eye visible from Pendleton's, a moon of Butros' World. Named by popular vote on old Earth from probe photos, they are:
Lyman: a cinder in a vulcanoid “roaster” orbit, its surface shaped by Davis' glare more than by impacts, effectively invisible from Pendleton's. Orbit: 39 days
Basha: (Farash:Theno'oltk) the morning star of Pendleton's, the “Empress” in several mythologies (symbolizing power and stability), an ocean-covered 'super-earth' with an unbreathable atmosphere and a hydrosphere hundreds of km deep. Its white clouds caused the scientists to liken it to Venus, but the two planets are quite different. From Pendleton's it is a brilliant white star rising some time before Davis' Star; owing to the slow spin of Pendleton's, Basha appears hours before the Sun or lingers long after. Orbit: 211 days.
Butros' World: (Farash: Tingat) the watercloud gas giant, the 'warm Jupiter' which has multiple planet-sized moons. Butros is similar in size to Jupiter but slightly less massive owing to more of its mass being warm clouds and less being ice and frozen liquid. Its water clouds contain both oxygen layers and aerial plankton. Its famous Green Spot is a sign of the presence of (native) life.
Its trojan asteroids are invisible (save upon rediscovery of the telescope) and numerous. Orbit: 350 days
Its planet-sized moons, all tidally locked, are:
Ngobi: (Farash: Khus Bava, or Khus Baram) a fire moon, covered with erupting volcanos and boiling regions of metal and stone. It trades lightning bolts with its primary, Butros, and its huge geysers of flame are visible from Pendleton's surface. Its atmosphere is a mess of nitrogen, water vapor, and byproducts of volcanism. In moon-astrology, Ngobi means the cycle of destruction-creation. Orbit: 30 hrs
Pendleton's: (Farash: Huthama) an ocean moon with both native and introduced life, and the scene of the stories. At its L4 and L5 points are ramscoop hulks from past voyages to the stars. In addition, three more such vessels, the “moving stars” (Ekarvethas), orbit Butros in eccentric paths. All are visible (they're covered with reflective shielding, after all) from Pendleton's. They symbolize mystery and creation in many mythologies, and names for them are often drawn from kinship terms: “Grandmother”, “Auntie”, “Old Worldmaker”, and so on and on. Pendleton's has had numerous “temporary moons” over the past two megayears, both natural and artificial, but the perturbations of the Butros' system prevent any such object from entering a stable orbit. Orbit: 140 hrs
Urmston:(Farash: Baharanathsch) a great ice moon, a super-earth with a layer of ice hundreds of km thick and a wispy atmosphere derived from ice volcanoes and steam vents, in astrology (Kheshchuven) the “poet's moon” and inspirer of song. The fate of several waves of human colonization which have reached it are unknown. At its L5 point is a Ceres-sized minor planet called Maria Elena. Diviners seek mysteries to be understood by the patterns of clouds around Urmston, and its rising is an occasion for naming ceremonies, weddings and funerals. Maria Elena symbolizes the proper movement of the dancer. Orbit: 210 hrs.
Toner: (Farash: Ferchukhev) a red world of dust with an unbreathable atmosphere, a “mars” in this system. It is the moon of logic, the bringer of numbers. A common prayer to it consists of a series of prime numbers. Its surface, covered with odd blotches of moving light and dark, hosts primitive sun-using life, simple sand-algae and the like, and dust storms move across it. Orbit, 340 hrs.
Glebe: (Farash: Thuskhev) a blotched world of deep ice covered in craters, which show as white sparks on a greyish glacier surface. In mythology, Glebe usually stands for friendship and caring. Clubs and social societies often meet when it is in the sky, and to quarrel beneath it is bad manners. Orbit: 500fpro hrs.
Previte: (Farash: Elthishak) a world covered in volcanic ice and dust, its huge mass (super-earth sized) causing it to retain internal heat and vomit huge masses of ice, salt, dust and vapor, which redeposit from a gas torus onto its leading edge. It thus has one face which is six times brighter than the other. It stands for change, conflict, having more than one opinion, “many-mindedness” and magic. Magicians pray when it rises or sets, and messengers are said to do their job better in its light. Orbit: 700 hrs
Kinney: (Farash: Chethenag) a small world of cratered stone and polar caps of ice, less bright than the great ice moons. Kinney's surface was explored by the spacefarers of the taChaharamat and the Kwons, of the 150th and 191st cycles. In mythology, it represents age, bitterly bought knowledge, and the final journey. Orbit, 905 hrs.
The fifty-one other moons of Butros' are no more than bright stars at best to Pendleton's.
Outside Butros' orbit are:
Marin (Farash: Sthivahat) an ice world whose black ocean harbors layers of life separated by their varying biochemical needs, and whose surface is smooth and brilliant owing to being repeatedly resurfaced by cryovulcanism. It represents wisdom and it is called “the Scholar” or “the Scribe” in many languages. Orbit: 490 days.
Jordan (Farash: Vemetthk): a small gas giant with a cold atmosphere of carbon compounds and dust, richly layered. It has several moons. To Pendleton's peoples it often represents faithfulness and loyalty and is called “The Spouse” in several languages. Orbit: 985 days
Dupree (Khus Klatlekt): a world of brilliant carbon-dioxide ice, and a war god to almost all the Pendleton's mythoi. Orbit: 1309 days.
Bozonelos (Fer Chushat) : a world in a long elliptical orbit which is visible to Pendleton's about one decade each century, and thus represents, in mythology, the foreign, the mystic, and the unknown. Ambassadors and translators ask its aid and it is said to give power to the outsider. Orbit: 97 yrs.
The outer planets are, as one might expect, ice balls and gas giants invisible without the telescopes which some cycles of civilization develop (and some don't).
Solis: a gas giant with many moons and a large asteroid and comet family.
Golliher: a snowy terrestrial
Adell: an ice giant
Kaiser, Ng, Pezza, Elgin: Kuiper/Mgana Belt objects far from the sun.