Earth Star(31)
I looked up at him. ‘I was born into the Tell clan. It’s a Betan Military clan, and the rectangular thing Drago was wearing above his medals was a miniature of the clan banner. I thought it looked a bit like the Thetis. Well, of course it did. The Tell clan have it for their banner, because we’re all descendants of the clan founder, Tellon Blaze, first holder of the Thetis medal.’
My voice shook as I said the unbelievable words. ‘I’m a descendant of Tellon Blaze!’
8
‘Jarra,’ said Fian. ‘We really have to talk.’
I groaned and buried my face in my hands for a long moment before looking up at him again. ‘I know you want to discuss the rings and the Betan clan thing, but I can’t do this right now, Fian, I really can’t. The Betan clan, and Tellon Blaze, that’s a huge shock, and talking about my parents was …’
‘I appreciate how difficult that was for you,’ said Fian, ‘and we obviously can’t talk right now because you’ve got to meet the History team. I meant later.’
‘History team! Nuke it!’ I checked the time on my lookup. ‘We’d better go.’
We hurried out of the dining hall, and through the maze of the Military base. I was calling myself an idiot all the way. I’d been so wound up in my private concerns that I’d forgotten about the History team.
‘I’m a dumb ape,’ I muttered. ‘I’m not fit to go out alone.’
Fian laughed. ‘You’re always incredibly focused on whatever you’re currently doing. That makes you brilliant in some ways, but …’
‘But a complete nardle in others.’ We reached the door of the History team office, and I checked my lookup again. ‘A whole ten seconds to spare.’
I counted to ten while I got my breath back, opened the door at exactly 09:00 hours, and went inside with Fian a step behind me. Eight leading pre-history experts were standing watching a wall vid, but they turned to look at me as I came in, and one of them froze the vid sequence. Their massed frowns showed their annoyance at a couple of 18-year-olds strolling into the room and interrupting their important work.
No, I mustn’t think of myself as an 18-year-old kid who had no right to be here. I was a Major in the Military and a descendant of the incredible Tellon Blaze. He’d been a cadet on a field trip from the Military Academy, when he got caught on Thetis at the start of the chaos year. He hadn’t wailed he was only an 18-year-old kid, he hadn’t screamed and run from the chimera like everyone else, he stepped forward to do the job no one else could handle. At the end of it, he issued the order that destroyed Thetis and gave humanity a new swear word. ‘Nuke it to cinders!’
By that time, Tellon Blaze had been given field promotions all the way up to Colonel; he was a living legend, and humanity worshipped the ground he walked on. I was no Tellon Blaze, but if my ancestor could defeat the chimera then I sure as chaos could cope with a bunch of history professors. I spoke in my best formal Military manner.
‘I’m your new team leader, Major Jarra Tell Morrath. This is my deputy, Captain Fian Eklund. I’ll begin by establishing your specialist areas of pre-history, so I can create a work plan to systematically cover Earth’s historical records looking for evidence of prior contact with aliens.’
‘Work plan?’ said an elderly man. ‘We’ve already been working for a day and a half.’
‘Covering which areas?’ I asked.
‘The obvious place was the flying saucer scares of the twentieth century. Of course, you won’t know about those.’
I’d worked out who I was talking to now. Professor Lee from University Osiris. He’d picked up a History Nobel thirty years ago, but done little since.
‘You mean around 1950, some years before the launch of the first satellite, Sputnik,’ I said. ‘UFOs and the Roswell incident. Extensively debunked, though there were claims of a cover-up. Did you find anything relevant?’
He seemed disconcerted, but rallied bravely. ‘We passed some interesting things on to Colonel Torrek.’
‘He didn’t find them helpful. That’s all you’ve achieved so far?’
The others were still staying quiet and leaving their self-appointed representative to do the talking. ‘Yes,’ he said.
‘We need to progress much faster and more methodically. I’ve just had breakfast with people who are up in space right now, and will be the first to die if that sphere is hostile. Anything we can find out to indicate whether it’s likely to be friendly, or suddenly open fire, is vitally important, and we may have very limited time before something drastic happens. Now I need to know not just your specialist periods of history, but other areas you can cover as well.’