Of the Poisoned Rose of Praksa
3
3
Skies above Praksa, Dominion of Praksa-Prima-et-Secunda, Taraskovyan Empire
“We can therefore conclude that ten thousand Earth years ago, the civilization of Prior aedificantes Praksaorum carried out a well organized operation to evacuate the system and destroy vital and critical data and infrastructure that could fall into the wrong hands,” the Professor continued his exposé. “It is comparable to how we would disengage from an operation and destroy critical components as we left. ”
“Professor, what was the reason for this disengagement?” an avatar for a TNDF officer queried.
“You would have to ask them once you find them,” the Professor answered calmly, as would a teacher to a very unintelligent pupil. “Their bombardment of the planet happened after they removed themselves from the surface. We do have observation data collected from observatories in the general far away distance,” the Professor waved his hand dismissively as if to say that it was really far away. “But what is more so important, this is shown by how very thoroughly they cleaned up after them. In fact, we’ve only been able to recover security recordings from one of their facilities, which are how we got to know how they look like.”
The visualization screen reproduced several recordings showing large technologically armoured praying mantises strolling about some corridors in silence. That information was already available to the Taraskovyans for a long time now, as it was recovered a while ago and was no news.
“We can conclude that such… artifacts were clearly forgotten during the disengagement process,” the officer nodded.
“Correct,” the Professor nodded in turn and continued on. “Furthermore, the Prior aedificantes Praksaorum were only present on the surface of Praksa for seventy nine Earth years before disengaging. Whilst the Criceta harenae Praksaorum, as well as the flora and fauna, are dated back a hundred thousand years."
The Professor made a dramatic pause in his speech and grinned at the raised eyebrows on the faces of the avatars of military and intelligence services officers, while the scientific community present physically and virtually were not surprised.
“The Builders did not create the hamsters?” came a rather straightforward question from one of the other officers.
“Correct. In fact, their disengagement coincided with a cycle in the life of the Criceta harenae Praksaorum that can be extrapolated to about four hundred years for the first observable cycle,” the Professor continued, as more and more information flooded the room. “The criceta praksaorum seem to suffer from civilization extermination events on a regular basis. You will see here the population graphs we extrapolated from their reproduction cycles applied to the data collected from archeologic scans. At certain stages in the demographics, an extermination event would eliminate about ninety to ninety-five percent of their demographics, leaving the remaining five-to-ten percent to continue their race.”
“So there is a self-destruct mechanism built into the hamsters?” yet again a question form the military.
“No,” the Professor retorted. “There is a self-improvement mechanism built into the… hamsters. Analysis indicates that every cycle yields more robust and healthier specimens by eliminating the larger and weaker part of the demographic. But the Ladies and Gentlemen from the Defence Forces and the Intelligence Community shall most likely be more interested in how exactly this happens. According to facts collected and data extrapolated and analyzed, after a trigger event, which we currently have yet to shed light on for we only have theories, populations start turning in on each other. We’ve seen and collected proof of heightened aggression and fanatical murder sprees, augmentation of the body mass and subsiding of the nervous system to cut off pain receptors and a necrosis of brain tissues, leaving specimens with only limited instincts. In this heightened state of aggression, the criceta praksaorum is capable of inflicting outstanding amounts of damage, while also taking just as outstanding a level of damage to its own organism.”
“Professor, please be brief. What exactly is it and how often does it happen?” one of the military avatars raised his virtual hand.
“As our esteemed friends from the Defence Forces wish,” the Professor nodded. “What exactly this is: hamsters become zombies.” He spoke it out as clearly as a kindergarten nanny would do it to toddlers. A rather stiff and humorless kindergarten nanny, of course. “And how often is a more complex question, as the events do not happen on regular intervals. However, given the technical analysis and the meantime necessary to happen, we can estimate that the event could have happened as far away as ninety-seven Earth years ago and may happen within the next one hundred and thirty-five Earth years.”
A silence fell on the room as the Professor smiled triumphantly and gave a look around the attendance, both physical and virtual.
“We only came to Praksa thirty-nine years ago, but I would not be surprised that the event miraculously did not happen before we arrived, thus putting the timeframe into the future and present?” one of TNDF officers finally broke the silence.
“Correct,” the Professor nodded triumphantly. “We’re working on narrowing the possibilities down and we should have firmer estimations soon. Until that point, Ladies and Gentlemen, it would be wise to consider that we have several dozens civilian Praksans off-world and a classified number of Knights off-world as well.”
Everybody in the room knew that the Praksans off-world were subject to a very specific therapy, or a “decontamination procedure” as it was politically correctly called among the Taraskovyans, to render Praksans going off-world completely safe to all and any. They were no longer vectors for disease propagation and were just nice guys. The decontamination procedure was of course artificial, so at the “source genetic code” the Praksans were still as capable of quickly becoming disease bearers as ever, but this was not a threat to those that were part of the program. The program covered a very limited number of civilian Praksans and several thousand “Milites Praksaorum”, as they were officially called, or “Hamster Space Marines”, as they were called by the Solntseskhod. It also served as a good observation and scientific program to collect further information on Praksans outside of their homeworld.
Yet, as the scientific community representatives gave somewhat panicked glances around, already imagining zombified Praksan space marines ravaging through the planets and stars, the faces of the military avatars remained composed and somewhat indifferent.
“The Ladies and Gentlemen from the Military and Intelligence Communities do not seem to be surprised by our findings,” the Professor said in a somewhat annoyed tone. “May I enquire as to the reason?”
“Professor, you will understand that as ‘decontaminated’ as the off-world hamsters are, there is a reason why every civilian is always accompanied by a PMPA, and why every single knight is in a power armour suit,” an avatar of one of the representatives from the intelligence community answered. “We of course did not foresee the issue of zombie hamsters running amok, but our contingency plans will be sufficient. And I shall remind all in attendance that you are all sworn to secrecy, including our Solntseskhod friends.”
“The real issue, Professor,” one of the military avatars continued, “ is not off-world. The real issue is that we have hundreds of millions hamsters under the Imperial Mantle that can go ravaging their own selves at any moment.”
The Professor looked baffled by the exchange but regained his composure quite quickly. That the military and the intelligence higher ups would conceal contingency plans from him was a personal affront, for did he not have the required clearances? Or what kind of clearance would he need to have to be let in on everything, and he would really mean everything, concerning Praksa.
However, he had to accept the fact that the military people were right. The number of Praksans off-world was limited. The real nightmare would be on Praksa with massive casualties among Praksans.
“We will also have to draw up reflected light observations from about this hundred thousand years back and see who else has been to this planet,” the intelligence services officer said pensively. “At any rate, Ladies and Gentlemen, we shall take this offline. Professor, the Empire thanks you and your team for your excellent past and present service and expects even more from your team in the future. We need to ascertain the exactness of your predictions in having as narrow a window on a timeline as possible, plus we need you to ascertain the exact trigger mechanism. Is this something built into the hamsters or is it something in the planet itself. I understand from this meeting that this required further clarification. You shall be allocated the resources you need and may requisition hastily.”
The Professor made a slight nod of his head to acknowledge the praise as the meeting pretty much drew to a close with the relevant final words, final good-byes, the actionable items for future work and all the other issues necessary to the good flow of regular processes.