The Suliibruum Scream

A pure fractal made in Apophysis 2.09 in one of three overlays to be seen theis week ... also read to the end -- or scroll down if you are short on time -- to hear the scream!

When I was an angry teenager after the loss of both my parents, then-Captain Benjamin Banneker declined a promotion to commodore and retired.

“I love the fleet, but my niece needs me more.”

Uncle Benjamin became my guardian, and raised me to adulthood. Later I found out about all the things that meant he should have already been a commodore by then, perhaps even an admiral … he could have been a very angry man too. He also had lost both legs, and even without that being the pretext for the delay in his promotions, that might make a man mad by itself.

I understood, however, why he wasn't, for he had helped me get through my grief and into adulthood as a stable individual with this profound wisdom.

“Khadijah, you are not owed anything to compensate you for anything. You have been living all these years in a universe you didn't make and aren't running, and while of course you need to be brought up, there is no rule that says who has to do it. That's just a fact. You were graced with wonderful parents, and I miss them every day, but you are not entitled, and so you do not get to live in my house and treat me like a downgrade. You are graced with me, too, just like I am graced to have you as my niece still alive, and to have the sense to choose to let my career go and focus on you. You are graced that I have resources so that you live well here. We are graced. We are entitled to nothing in this universe, but we can learn how to live as people graced with everything, and be thankful. We can expect, hope for, and demand anything we want. We do not know if we are getting a next breath and heartbeat – so if we get them, be grateful, and keep moving.”

I had screamed and cried, and he had stood like a mighty obsidian cliff, not unmoved or uncaring, but firm. He was not even finished.

“I didn't say you have to like it, Khadijah. Sometimes I hate it too. But we can't change it. It is the truth. There is one person who owes you something: that's you, and you owe yourself to walk in the truth, and discover the grace of life in that light. Nothing will bring your parents back. You can be mad at me, the universe, God, whoever you want, and destroy yourself, or you can recognize and discover the grace of life in all circumstances, and live well, as your parents would have wanted you to – and for which you were spared. It is your choice. You actually do have a choice.”

I didn't fully understand him at age 15, but in my heart I knew he loved me and was telling me the truth. He modeled for me how to discover the grace of life, and showed me the way, for the old captain -- I thought him very old then, though we laugh now, 42 years later, about that -- proved less obsidian and more human than I expected. He let me see him choosing to be grateful for all good things in our lives, but also let me see him grieving, and so let me know that the grace of life included having room to deal without pretense with the pain of grief and loss as part of living well.

Uncle Benjamin saved the lives and careers of many, many people from themselves with his wisdom – “and no one ever needed it as much as I did, because living long enough to see people figure out that I was right when they are in the trouble I warned them about decades ago is a different kind of test. So nowadays, I have to remind myself: I was not entitled to be listened to, and the people who wouldn't listen were not entitled to be spared the messes they are in.”

Hence, the disaster known as the Confirmation of the Suliibruum Scream, and how he as delayed-but-not-denied admiral out of retirement and I as captain of the Amanirenas were able to handle the complete rearrangement of our deployment plans.

“See, that's why Ben is an admiral, and I'm right here as captain and going nowhere higher out of retirement,” Aunt Almira said about this. “I would have been in there screaming about 'I've BEEN telling y'all' – we learned at the Academy that you never discount any culture's belief system as mere myth because every story about extra-natural events from our perspective is that culture's description of its own reality, and when out in the galaxy, that might been the only clue you have to not die!”

“I married you late in life not least because I enjoy hearing you say the things I can't say at the meetings when I gotta pull up these 50-year-old records for people … .”

A really long story short: the Thakesian civilization, long dead but with extensive records left behind in remote areas of their planets, had noted the cause of their own death. Their history terminated just five years after they mockingly recorded a warning by their neighbors in the Suliibruum system: “Don't come over here. Our gods are louder than yours.” At first this had been assumed to be a problem in translating Thakesian – one figured 'mightier,' 'greater,' 'more powerful' might have been the intent. But no: the Vulcans had older translation banks to work with than the human contribution, and it would later be checked by the rediscovery of the Uppaaimarn banks that were even more ancient. The Suliibru peoples had said exactly what they meant to say: “Our gods are louder than yours.”

Yet even the Vulcan checking was late. All that anyone had to do was take the warning seriously, and there was a science officer who did: Lieutenant Commander Benjamin Banneker, aboard a ship surveying another system adjacent to the Suliibruum system for human settlement. Everything looked good in the Balhoanaweigh System at that time, and he was in the flotilla doing last checks for potential problems. There were none in the system being examined, but he could not get the regional known extinction event off his mind, and so began digging into the data about what had happened to the Thakesians. That data had startled him.

First of all, it was known that Thakesi 4-9 were in their star's comfortable habitable zone, and Thakesi 3 and 10-12 were habitable enough for an emergency. So, assuming that some kind of stellar event had occurred to wipe all of the heavily inhabited planets out, one would have expected the greatest damage on Thakesi 3, and that the system's surviving inhabitants would have taken refuge on Thakesi 10, 11, or 12.

The exact opposite had happened – the geological data had showed that Thakesi 3 was not damaged, and that the survivors had found refuge there. Thakesi 11 and 12 were not damaged either, and the damage to Thakesi 10 had been minor. Thakesi 4-9 had been destroyed, their atmospheres and topsoil blasted off save in its higher-latitude mountain ranges sunward of the blasts – not one blast from starward, but six distinct blasts, though similar, all from the direction of the Suliibruum system. The waveforms too, frozen as the melted crusts cooled, were not consistent with the kinds of damage one saw from stellar blasts that came through the atmosphere.

Upon further examination of that data, Lt. Cmdr. Banneker had found something truly disturbing: the Suliibru had meant exactly what they said. Hearing anything requires air for sound waves to move through. The blasts that had destroyed each of the comfortably habitable Thakesian worlds had come from inside the atmosphere, and blasted those atmospheres straight off. Literally, the last thing the vast majority of Thakesians would have heard would have been whatever had caused that.

The Thakesians in the higher-latitude mountain valleys would have survived a little longer, and all the survivors were from those regions – at the edge of the damage to the planet's crust, that was where separation of the sound waves could be detected, across the spectrum relative to the humanoid ear from hypersonic sound through the audible range down to the infrasonic range. All the highs, and all the lows, at an unthinkable volume – even if surviving, that still would have been the last thing anyone would ever hear.

Lt. Cmdr. Banneker had consulted the Vulcan records, the oldest available at that time of space-going civilizations, and found out that the survivors of the Thakesians had been rescued by the Trtullurians, who just happened to notice the strange readings going on in the Thakesi System on their long-range sensors. The Trtullurian record was quite interesting about the Thakesian survivors: all deaf, more than half of them mad, all attempting “to make a sound no strings of flesh could properly make.” However, it was, in fact, a scream, always going from high to low and back again.

The Trtullurian record extended more than one generation; the Thakesian survivors' descendants born after that could hear, but there had been damage to that part of their DNA that controlled hearing. Their grandchildren were hearing-impaired as well, and it took four generations for the majority of that community to be able to hear well.

Lt. Cmdr. Banneker had followed up: it turned out that the Thakesian survivors had eventually intermarried with their rescuers, and those families had settled Trtulluri 4, a bit too warm for pure-blooded Trtullurian tastes, but Thakesians apparently like it hot. Over the following millennia, the Thakesian genome had been fully absorbed, but artifacts from the Thakesian survivors and their immediate descendants had been retained on Trtulluri 4.

The intrepid lieutenant commander had gotten permission to go look around, and what he had found had explained another chilling thing: the absence of any evidence of organic material decomposing around the planets. Some the survivors had written down what they had seen, and with the ability to translate Thakesian, Lt. Cmdr. Banneker had read what some of them had also drawn: the organic material had been eaten – “out of the vanishing air, out of space, in the mountain valley traps.” The art showed a stunning collection of diners as well, none of which were native to that system.

What stood in the way of all these clues having been pulled together 50 years earlier for the fleet at large was that the existence of silicon-based and plasma-based life had not even been seriously considered – so, the tools to locate the reality of the creatures necessary were not even calibrated correctly. There was no way for humanity to officially realize the creatures necessary were not the figments of the traumatized Thakesian imagination yet.

However, Lt. Cmdr. Banneker knew, because the Suliibru, the Thakesians, and the Trtullurians all had recorded the same things. At that time, Suliibruum languages both modern and ancient were not well understood, so communication with modern Suliibru peoples was difficult. However, Lt. Cmdr. Banneker formulated an approach for the specialists to ask about: the greatness and loudness of their gods. Word came back that some records of the pious existed as deliverance hymns of praise from about 3,000 years earlier. That time period roughly agreed with the time of the Thakesian civilization disappearance and the arrival of settlers on Trtulluri 4. Also contemporaneous with that time period was one figure in art with an eerily similar resemblance to a prominent figure in the drawings on Trtulluri 4. Computer analysis suggested that there could be similarity in dozens of them because of the symmetries of the figures.

And now came the uniquely human problem. Lt. Cmdr. Banneker's immediate superiors tended to believe his more extensive findings because they knew him and his daily work … but in this case he now was annoying experts in multiple fields up to twice and three times his age. In terms of the fleet, although everything in the Balhoanaweigh System was all go, they really did not want at this point to accept the idea of a regional threat that literally could not be seen, and had not been seen except in two systems' “ancient myth.” That was the tragedy. Star systems are not as close together as human civilizations are on earth, and inhabited civilizations with space traveling capacities are quite rare. So: as the Vulcans noted about it, logically, if two civilizations in space light-years apart recorded the same thing about other life, there was a high probability that what they recorded existed. Lt. Cmdr. Banneker had found evidence from three civilizations, spanning 150 light-years.

So: Lt. Cmdr. Banneker's report had gone no further than being made, save that his captain made a note that did end up in the record: while it was not known why the Thakesians had invaded the Suliibruum system, there were resources in the Suliibruum System that were attractive to humans, but the Suliibru had not given any permission for humans to enter their system for any reason but communication. The inquiry of going beyond that was made, and the response was a firm no for a reason that should have gotten much more attention than it did: “We the mortals cannot guarantee your safety for any other activity. No one has even attempted to come here since the Thakesians.”

But human nature being what it is, no was not likely to be taken for an answer for long when humans are slow to believe what they can't see. In fairness, even today when plasma-based and silicon-based life is known, and the sheer power of plasma-based life is also known because of the Ring Admirals and Beamerlings, it is not easy to detect either one. No one, 70 years ago, could have scanned for it, not even then-Lt. Cmdr. Banneker. He knew then, but could not prove it.

So, time passed … five decades … Hortas, Crystal Jellies, Ring Admirals, Beamerlings, and more had been discovered. Admral Vlarian Triefield, my uncle's own protege who outranked him as a full fleet admiral, had made a note at 45 years out that the theoretical underpinning for his work had been discovered, and she quietly prepared an evacuation plan at 48 years out when she learned the Suliibru had filed their first formal complaint about human activities: illegal mining activity on Suliibru 18, a world of frozen gold. Admiral Triefield also had the ability to make a big show of force and did so in finding the illegal miners, bringing them to justice, and returning the gold to the Suliibru.

Vlarian Triefield knew my uncle, and she also was a quarter-Vulcan – mildly telepathic. She went out to the Suliibruum system for herself, and then came back and did a press conference.

“Not a word of the wisdom given to Benjamin Banneker has ever fallen to the ground,” she said about it on the record. “The next time humanity does something it's not supposed to do in the Suliibruum system, I'm pulling everybody's permits to operate in the whole region. I know that every interest in Balhoanaweigh System will fight the fleet in court for the right to stay, but I'm going to put it on the record for everyone there – for all of you, your families, your research, and your companies. If I ever pull those permits, just know: you better run.”

Privately, she had confided to my uncle: “You were right. Your recommendations bought us 48 years of time, and I've bought us maybe a year or two more – and I still can't prove it any more than you can – but I'm ordering a full-Vulcan team out there. They will sense even more than I could. You were right, Benjamin. You were right.”

49 years out, the Vulcan team confirmed what Uncle Benjamin had deduced and Adm. Triefield had sensed telepathically … there were sentient beings of immense power living somewhere in and out the Suliibruum system, but our sensors could not pick anything up, even looking for plasma-based life, because Suliibr, their star, was always in an active flare state, and the nearer one came, the harder it was to tell one type of plasma from another.

Before the end of that year, commercial captains Rufus Dixon and Marcus Aurelius Kirk Jr – my husband and Adm. Triefield's husband, respectively – let it be known to their respective wives (and uncle, in my husband's case) what the word on the galactic streets was: telepathy and ancient myth were not as real as all that gold, platinum, cadmium, dilithium, and other resources the Suliibru were not exploiting on their outer worlds.

“Well,” my uncle said about it, “I really will hate to be right, but we will know in a matter of time.”

Adm. Triefield had quietly republished my uncle's original work in the region, letting it be known that there were some humans who understood the situation. The Suliibru, impressed with this, had made a statement: “If our ancestors said that happened, it happened.”

Full Fleet Admiral Elian Bodega had taken over the line of command for that region of space before the end of that year, and he also was convinced that my uncle, his peer in rank Adm. Triefield, and the Vulcans were right. He updated the evacuation plans, and confirmed the permit pulling threat Adm. Triefield had made. But Adm. Triefield has a reputation for just blowing folks and beings away that is comparable to a Suliibruum Scream. Adm. Bodega does not, to this day.

“Well,” he said about it, “my job is more keeping you from getting blown away by everything else in this galaxy that doesn't know or care that our fragile humanity exists, or actively does not even want us out here. Like my colleague Adm. Chenggis Chulalaangkorn has been saying for decades: you can do whatever you want, but I decide who to rescue. Adm. Triefield will blow you away for becoming a threat not severe enough to destroy yourself before you become a real bother to human advancement. Me? I'm OK with nature taking its course if you are, and nature out here doesn't like you.”

But people thought they were entitled to whatever they wanted, and furthermore thought they were in control of every circumstance, trillions and trillions and trillions of kilometers (or miles, depending on where you were from on Earth) from home. If they wanted it to be myth, to their mind it would be.

50 years out, Adm. Bodega called Adm. Triefield.

“I know Adm. Banneker and the Amanirenas crew are in your command line, but I'm going to need you to attach them to mine when they re-deploy. I've just found another illegal mining operation out here on Suliibru 19 – dilithium for years, and already sold off. It can't be returned. I've pulled every permit and I'm doing mandatory evacuations of the whole Balhoanaweigh system, but as you predicted, everybody with a financial interest is up in arms and getting ready to take you and me and the consortium to court. From what the Vulcan officers I have out here are telling me, however, that's not something they or we are going to need to worry about. As soon as I get everybody who wants to leave out of here, and who I can yank out of here legally … .”

Adm. Bodega is a practical man who believes in human freedom as well as law and order. A planet is a very big place to evacuate people from that really don't want to leave; try six of them, and a few dozen moons, and you realize your limitations. So, he set down how long he was going to be evacuating moving inward toward the system's star, yanked as many bad actors as his transporter crews could have fun tracking down, and then extended additional evacuation time on the fleet's way out of the system for those who had a change of heart about staying.

Not five minutes after he and his fleet cleared the system, the Sullibruum Scream was “heard” again, for the first time in 3,000 years! Compressed to human auditory range, we captured this, seen and heard with the screamer closing in on Baloanaweigh 3 – it echoes down the memory, and if this had been the last thing you ever heard –

– and it was, for some. Elian Bodega did not turn his fleet right around and go back. I know because I was one of the captains in it, my ship loaded with evacuees that we had to get to Star Base 5 before we could go back and observe the rest. We also were giving cover to the thousands of commercial vessels in the system and that had come to help us from outside.

Uncle Benjamin, in all his immense, sad dignity and professionalism, presented to both the evacuees and the galaxy what he and the high command thought best to present of what the sensors had picked up as going on behind us compared with the information he had unearthed 50 years earlier. But he did not say that last part to the public. He did not vindicate himself. He did not present five decades of consortium targets to the millions of angry people who had just lost everything. He presented the whole thing as, “This is how we found out we had to come get you,” and let them be as grateful as they could be that anyone had figured anything out at all.

Very late that first night, since I could not sleep, I went to my conference room and found that the admiral aboard had already evoked the privilege – Uncle Benjamin was still in uniform, looking out of the windows, his reflection calm, but sad.

“Admiral,” I said softly.

“Captain,” he responded.

“Tomorrow is another long day, Admiral,” I said. “You know as captain of the vessel, and responsible for everyone on it, it's my duty to suggest you go to bed.”

He smiled.

“I could just order you to go back to your quarters and leave me alone, Captain, but neither of us operate like that.”

I stepped up close to him, and we looked out. There was nothing but the stars, for the carnage was still going on behind us.

“It is just beginning, if the old information holds,” he said. “We will have occasion to go back and find out.”

“I'm sorry, Uncle,” I said. “If only … .”

“No, Khadijah,” he said. “First of all, you are not responsible at 36 years old for any of this except getting your crew prepared now for what we are going to face. Second of all, remember what I taught you. Nobody owes me anything. My job was to present the fleet with the best information I could as a science officer fifty years ago – but I was just a lieutenant commander of 32 years of age. I was graced with a captain who listened, and then a protege who listened, and so we saved the better part of 900 million people who wanted to be saved. It is enough. Nobody owes me or anyone a different outcome.”

“But does it hurt, Uncle?” I said.

“Of course it does, Khadijah. The blessing of being gifted to see patterns and connections almost to the point of being a human telepath – the price for listening to the Creator of the Universe such that He lets you see as much as you can that will be of help to humanity is very high. But the price I pay at 82 is not as high as it would have been had I let my resentments get the better of me in the last 60 years – the price is not as high for me or anyone, beginning with you, Captain Khadijah Biles-Dixon. The last thing you needed, 21 years ago, was for me to be a bitter old man of 61 when you needed me the most.

“I already knew I was right, Khadijah. But everyone else in the universe who is sentient also had the right to discover that at their own pace, and everybody gets to deal with their own consequences. My only task was to discover the truth and make it available. It is enough. It has to be enough for then and now and for the future in which we will eventually turn around to document the rest of what the evidence I uncovered 50 years ago said has to happen.”