AERIE: Book 01 Part 01

The Arkhaven Project.

Officially, the Arkhaven Project is recognised as the endeavours by the world governments of Earth in the year 3122 to investigate suitable interstellar environments for population, trade and resource gathering. It has been compared by academics to the exploration of earth in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by European economic powers wishing to extend their influence with the aid of better navigation and seafaring vessels.

It was in early 3120 that exploratory research into the deeper parts of the world's oceans was made possible by the identification of an element in meteor fragments that could withstand far greater pressures than any other known element native to earth, Serpentium. So-called because of its discovery in a large crater in central Australia and local indigenous myths surrounding the rainbow serpent who was allegedly responsible for carving the multicoloured walls of the crater from the nearby desert. Not only did this fantastic new element resist pressure it was found to reflect pressure. A curious property indeed.

When it came to naming the element, it helped that in crystal form Serpentium refracts light when viewed by the human eye, making its own rainbow. In any case, small vessels powered by smaller engines that operated more efficiently thanks to this new discovery transported intrepid research scientists into dark places that men had never been able to explore previously. One of those was the Mariana trench in the Pacific Ocean.

It had of course previously been explored by autonomous drone vehicles, but with human eyes and intellects responding to visual stimuli, inquiring minds scoured every anomalous detail and made a disquieting discovery. At over eleven thousand metres deep, they found a hatch. A small round hatch with a pad of unknown technological purpose adjacent to it; presumably to open the hatch. It was built into a smooth arced surface that had been claimed by movements of the tectonics plates over millennia.

In late 3121, the hatch was breached and the technology that now allows the intergalactic commerce that we all enjoy, was discovered. We've all heard the story of the massive alien craft and seen scientific drawings of it. The technology discovered within the vessel exists in almost every simple part of our everyday lives.

In 3122, the first autonomous exploration drones built with that alien technology were dispatched to the corners of the galaxy with a mission parameter to locate habitable environments in which to search for new resources and perhaps, just perhaps, to find life among the vast starry depths of space. Any year six student will be able to name the thirty-two Arkhaven outreach centres on the sixteen different planets, moons and asteroid belts upon which intelligent life has been found. By year eight or ten they should be able to tell you about the countless resource deposits that enable us to keep our 'very past its use by date', earth from falling into a barren replica of Mars.

The science, the history and the facts are all very well documented and available at the merest inclination to engage our chip implants and conduct a search. What is not so well documented are the stories of the people who have made great differences in our interaction with and enjoyment of the many alien life-forms we have since encountered.

Certainly, there exist texts; anthropology texts, biological, sociological, technological and every other 'ology' you could list but the simple accounts of human experience are fading from our history with the passing of those persons. These were normal people encountering fantastic opportunities to experience the diversity of our new intergalactic community, who leave legacies which we all enjoy.

The Arkhaven Project Books are a simple anthology of their stories. A catalogue of the human experience of inhuman circumstance. They may contain technical errors, historical errors, all sorts of minor discrepancies. These books do not seek to be scientifically correct, only to convey the stories of the people I have been lucky enough to interview over my advanced years.

I hope you enjoy them and come away with a little more understanding about our ancestors and the fragile times in which they did some very great things for us.

Bronson Nelli.

Amateur anthropologist, Lover, Dreamer, Author.

~*~

Book One. AERIE.

A tale of Ambassador Todd Parker; Human envoy to the Arcadian nation at Arkhaven Twelve, source of the rare reactor element, Scantium and home to outrageous beauty, steeped in a culture of simplicity. As told to me over several weeks at his lovely estate on Arcadia, wherein his aesthetically inimitable wife plied us with much flower essence and fed us like kings.

It begins on earth in the year 3468.

~~~~*~~~~

"You're hairy." Her long eyelash feathers told me she was female. Her little dark blue eyes looked nervously up at me.

I smiled. "You're kind of feathery."

She giggled, but it sounded more like a happy chirp.

"Thank you."

I shrugged. "Some kids are mean."

"Your hand is bleeding."

It was. I was starting to calm down and the pain was starting to surface through the red mist.

"Is it very hurt?" She asked; her dark eyes still frightened beneath her little feathered eyebrows.

"No, little birdy girl." I flexed my fingers. Nothing felt broken. Just some split skin.

"Thank you."

"Stop thanking me. They were being mean." They were too. When I arrived, the new girl was backed into a corner near the school cafeteria and several girls, and two boys were taunting her about her tail and snatching at her clothes.

She was a tiny thing. Not the first Avian I had seen, but definitely the prettiest. She had dark hair and deep blue eyes. Tourism brought a lot of them here. The beaches were teeming with them. Study attracted them too. There was a moment when her eyes held mine for far too long and then she rubbed her head on my chest.

"Thank you." She chirped. It was a strangely intimate gesture that made me forget how angry I had just been.

"Come on. That was the bell." Her fingers laced into mine and we walked to assembly. I hadn't really paid attention until now, but she had three fingers and a thumb, and they each terminated in talons that could have torn those kids to bits.

"My name is Eris."

"I'm Todd." I tell her. "If you have any more trouble with mean kids, you come and find me okay?"

"Thank you."

"Bye Eris."

"Bye Todd." She looked like she was going to tear up again.

"Mr Franks! My office now, boy." Principal Justins called in his deep booming voice.

"I'm sorry Todd."

"Shh, little birdy."

And that was how I earned suspension. Three days at home playing computer games and snacking instead of doing dumb schoolwork. When my parents and I exited the principal's office, they drove me straight to McDuckles and made sure that I knew that I'd done the right thing but sometimes it carries consequences.

All I worried about was whether those twerps were going to hassle Eris again while I wasn't at school. I've never had a sibling. I didn't know where this protective streak had come from. All I knew is that the moment her six-year-old eyes looked in my nine-year-old ones and she rubbed her head on my chest, I... I felt this thing. An overwhelming responsibility for her. A connection.

She's smiling at me now across the counter in the garage I work in. She's come to pick up her scooter. The batteries needed a deep discharge and one had to be replaced. It needed some recalibration of its gyros as well. Her almost black hair is done in pigtails like she wore to the Heavy Water metal festival last weekend. She wanted to show me all the merchandising she'd designed for the promotors. It was part of her final year tech and design assessment.

We've been hanging out again a lot since I split with April. It's like when I was still at school again. We see each other every other day and hang out most weekends.

"Are you still coming over tonight, Toddy?" I never tire of her chirpy voice.

"Your Dad wants help with his bus, so yeah. Your Mum will want me to stay for tea, I imagine."

"Haha. She has a crush on you." The reverse is probably truer. Mrs Vogel is absolutely stunning. She is just a little taller than Eris and has such a beautiful face. Her hair is the same dark black as Erry's and at home, now that they're comfortable with me, the Vogel's don't wear pants. They have no external sex organs, and their privates are covered with feathers, so it's redundant. Mr Vogel and I have a joke about that. Why don't avian wear pants? Because they're pointless. Boom tish...

Erry's cheeky comment embarrasses me a little and I know I blush. Mrs Vogel has the most beautiful tail. The rest of her is black feathers that shine with blue and green tints, but her tail is fiery red like my hair. Red and gold with two tall lyre shaped feathers that curl and glint like moonlight on water. Sometimes when Mr Vogel is being cheeky to her, they tint a little pinkly. I imagine it's like humans blushing.

Mick, the boss laughs and says, "Hurry up lady killer, you're still on the clock."

"So, how much do I owe you, Toddy?"

"On the house, pretty birdy." Mick yells from beneath the car he's working on. "Todd can put an extra hour in to cover the new battery and you can work out some way to thank him for his time."

It's Erry's turn to blush now. "Thanks Mr Barnes. See you this afternoon, Todd."

After work, I don't bother going home. If I'm going to help Eris's father with his bus, then I'll just get dirty again. I keep a change of clothes at work in case of major spills. I learned that one when I emptied an entire gearbox on my overalls once. So, I grab the clean clothes, put them in my backpack and do up my helmet.

My bike is new. Well, new for me. It's one of those long-range adventure bikes. It weighs only a hundred and twenty kilos and makes two hundred Nm of torque. It's speed limited as everything is now to two-hundred kilometres an hour. Mr Barnes helped me bypass the rider assist functions and it's exhilarating to ride. The reactor is good for more than a human lifetime and most of the cost of the bike was the up-front disposal cost for the fission rods. It's fast too, so I carefully watch my speed on the way over to the Vogel's.

Mr Vogel is sitting in his garage when I pull up and signals me over. The bonnet is up on the old motorhome bus that he loves and there is a spare seat beside him.

"Sit Todd. First, we talk. Then we put the hood down. There is nothing wrong with it."

"Ok Mr Vogel." I must look a little quizzical.

"Here," He hands me a light beer. "Eris turned eighteen a couple of months ago, son."

"The twenty-third." I smile. She'd been excited for months. "I remember. Is she still-"

"The party..." He interrupts me. "Yes. They are still talking about the party. Her and her mother. Giggly like little girls."

He's frowning and smiling at the same time. The party had been a roaring success. All of her friends from school had attended and there was a petting zoo and a clown. Like a six-year-old's birthday but mostly seventeen and eighteen-year-old girls forgetting to be grown up for an afternoon. I bought her some charms for her bracelet. An '18', a pair of wings with the words, 'let your dreams fly' and a small, knotted heart. It was an antique Pandora bracelet that I gave her years ago, when she fell in love with the centuries old Harry Potter books.

Mr Vogel is tall for an Avian. Almost five foot and deceptively strong despite his slight stature. I've seen him lift things that would challenge me. His plain wheat-coloured feathers match his short sandy hair. We sit in silence for an awkward moment while he studies his beer.

"Teela wanted to talk with you, but she figured it would be easier for me. Silly woman." He laughs. "Avian are a little different to you. I need to talk about some of those things."

"Alright."

"Eris is growing up. This is true. It is good. I, we, are proud. For Avian women... Ha! This is not easy or comfortable."

We sit a moment longer and it is not comfortable for me either.

"So, at around this age, an Avian girl's hormones change rapidly. Eris has been laying for a long while now. This is not something we speak of, but it is true. When her hormones change, she will have instinctual urges that are new and frightening and quite overwhelming for her."

"She has said small things about instincts; about how hard is for her to resist doing some things."

He smiled and nodded to himself. "You need to know these things. I don't know how it will work, but she has imprinted."

"Imprinted?"

"Chosen. But stronger. Like being in love at a cellular level. It is hard to explain but to her it just makes perfect sense and is just a matter of fact."

"Oh." I'm a little saddened. I know that her parents have been introducing her to many Avian boys lately, hoping she finds one she likes. I've been jealous and it has made me aware that I like her more than I thought I did. My sadness at this loss is all the evidence I need to show me that I had much greater feelings for her than I let myself admit. It's pointless anyway, she's avian.

Just a few weeks before Erry's birthday party, I'd broken up with my girlfriend April. Eris hated her. I'd been with April since high-school, and I couldn't count the number of times I had to intervene between them.

Strangely, when April announced she was going to university and we needed to break up, I wasn't that hurt. Not as hurt as you probably should be if you're serious about a girl. I was going to miss her, but I was not as broken up about it as I expected. She did not seem to share any emotion about it. To her it was simply time.

"Well, I'm happy for her." I tell Mr Vogel truthfully. In school we studied alien sociology and I know that avian mate for life. For her to have imprinted is akin to being betrothed.

"We will see." He hands me another light beer and sips at his own.

"So, her fledging approaches. I don't know what you know of this." He looked seriously at me.

"We learned a bit in school about growing feathers being part of becoming an adult."

"Yes, I read Eris's textbooks. They teach nothing of the emotions or danger. This is a time of great trouble for many Avian women. Boys not so much. They fight and dance and chase girls. But for women they can lose themselves. She will be mated soon."

"Mated..." It sounds like something that happens in a barn yard.

"Married, if you prefer. The same but very different for us. Marriage is cultural. Mating is physical and permanent on an instinctual level. Women have died when they have lost their mates, simply because of grief alone. It is part of why slavery was so cruel on my people."

"I am sorry for my part in history." It's a throwaway line and feels like it. "I've read a lot on slavery and the horrors."

"That was long before our generation. Do not apologise for other's sins. But we speak of Eris. This will be hard on her. She may even lose her mind."

"Really?"

"See this is what is not in the books. The books talk about growing breasts and getting feathers but not about the consequences. An avian who is not imprinted has no one to offer the wild power they come into as they feather. A lot of crazy energy that is difficult to control comes with their wings. Teela and I fear greatly for Eris."

"Are you afraid because of who she has chosen." A dark violence stirs in me. I will not have her harmed. It has always been like this.

Mr Vogel can sense my anger. He is keen at reading emotion. His hand on my arm beckons me to calm. "Yes. It is because of who she has chosen. Tell me, has she seemed normal to you lately?"

"Yes. Happy... Not so much about all the 'dates'. But she seems happy."

"Has she behaved strangely to you at all?"

"No." I shook my head trying to think. "Oh..."

I laugh at the only truly odd thing she's done recently. "Not long after I broke up with April and we started hanging out again like old times..."

"She said that was hard on you. She did not like that girl."

"No. Not a bit. That's quite the understatement."

"Perhaps you know why?" He smiles at his beer.

"I believe she was jealous?" Maybe I am being a little vain.

He nods. "So how was she strange?"

"Well, she gave me an egg."

At that he became very agitated and placed down his beer while making a series of 'tch' and twitters that I knew meant he was very bothered. "Then it is done. We have no time. Arrangements... A portal... Tch tchat."

"I don't understand."

"No, you do not. What have you done with this egg?"

"I wasn't sure what to do. I was embarrassed. It was still... er warm when she handed it to me. She just smiled and did that hug thing with her head. Then she left the shop. I took it home. I was so worried I'd drop it. It was beautiful; a lighter blue, but the same shade as her eyes and spotted with brown freckles like her nose. I took it home and put it in my room in a box with lots of shredded paper. I still worry about it getting knocked over or something. I check it all the time."

When I finish talking, he is wiping tears from his eyes. "Then it is done. Go. Go home. I have to speak with my Teela and make many plans."

"Um. Ok. I'm sorry if I have-"

"You have done nothing incorrectly. You have acted with more intuition than to be expected of any human. I am not angry. I am fearful. Go. Go change and bring back your egg when you join us for dinner. I must talk with Teela." He flicks me with the feathers of his right arm in a gesture I have learned over time is his form of a friendly greeting like a handshake.

The ride home is busy with thoughts and over before I realise. In my room, I check on the egg and find clothes. I grab the Heavy Water t-shirt Eris gave me, with its big gothic "HW" on the front. I shower and Mum catches me in the hallway.

"What are you doing home? It's the weekend... Shouldn't you be at your little birdy's house?"

"I had to come home and get something. Hey, can I borrow your car tonight?"

"Sure. Say hi to Teela for me, we must get together for dinner again soon. Will you be home?"

I've stayed over before so it's an innocent question. "Um... I don't know Mum. Mr Vogel seemed quite agitated this afternoon. We had a weird conversation and well, it might take some sorting out."

"Your father and I are spending the night in. If you need us for anything, just call. Love you Toddles."

"Muuum..."

"Hahaha." She giggles off down the hall, amused by her baby name for me. I change and nervously pick up the egg. I don't know why I'm so worried about it. It's just an egg. I know for a fact that avian eat their eggs the same as we eat chicken eggs. Every meal at the Vogel's has egg in it.

On the drive over, I'm nervously checking the egg on the seat beside me with every bump. I remember all of our anatomy and reproduction studies on the avian people. The same lessons that had me beating up yet another school yard bully for asking insanely inappropriate things of Erry.

Michael Avery and some of his mates had Eris circled outside the girl's toilets. Avery was trying to insist she take her top off and to show them all the bits we'd been studying. He'd popped a number of her buttons off with his tugging and she stood frightened, clutching her blouse to herself. Most of them scattered at my challenged roar but Avery was stupid enough to think he should fight me.

I was on the wrestling team back then and helped coach teach the girl's self-defence classes as well. A few times I made interstate competitions. Avery needed help to sick bay for a strained shoulder. Eris needed my jacket for the rest of the day to cover her torn blouse and popped buttons. It was a small gesture but one that April hated. Wearing a boy's lettered jacket had all sorts of implications. I just remember Erry being very grateful as she zipped up the green jacket with the logo from state. As she walked away every one of her friends was insanely jealous at the sight of the QLDWT gold letters on her back.