The Murdered Sun - Christie Golden [42]
That's their star, and their home world is the only class-M planet in the system. It's called Akeras."
He zoomed in on the system and pointed to a planet. "Right here.
From what I've been able to determine, the planet is not overly fertile, to say the least. It's a harsh, desertlike environment for the most part, and the Akerians adapted to that. About two thousand years ago, they developed faster-than-light travel and basic shielding capabilities, and that's when they began forming the Akerian Empire.
They expanded out in this direction"--Kim indicated the system directly below the Akerian system-"and all of these six worlds are subject to their rule. The Akerians were not all that technologically advanced, but the other planets were extremely primitive. It was apparently an easy conquest."
Kim straightened and continued. "The logical development of all this was that the military grew more powerful. It's pretty much the dominant influence in the Akerian culture."
"Which ought to indicate that you may not be able to trust their records implicitly," warned Tuvok. "Isn't there a human quote to the effect that the winners write the history?"
"Yes, indeed, Mr. Tuvok," said Janeway. "And if those winners are the military, the editing is sometimes done with a very heavy hand indeed.
Keep this in mind, Mr. Kim."
Kim nodded quickly, sending his jet-black bangs falling over his face.
He brushed them aside absently and continued. Hitting a touch pad, he brought up another depiction on the screen.
"This I got directly from their system," he explained. "It's a map of Akerian space. And here we are, right there--right next to Sun-Eater.
And this is where it gets exciting.
"Up till now, Akerian development was nothing unusual. We've cataloged thousands of similar empirical societies before. But when the Akerians entered the Verunan system, they found the concavity. And they decided to investigate, eventually even going inside to see what was there."
"A wormhole?" asked Janeway, her voice catching in her throat.
Kim sobered slightly, his enthusiasm dampened, and shook his head.
"Sorry, Captain. Just like before, we don't know if there was one or there wasn't one. They may not have had the technology to recognize it. Or they may have traveled through it without knowing what happened at the time. Remember, this is a pretty unsophisticated level of technology we're talking about here."
"But by now, wouldn't they know?" Janeway was starting to become very frustrated by the maybe-it's-there, maybe-it's-not turns their investigation was starting to take.
"Probably. But they're not interested. They have everything they need, Captain. They found something that was the lost continent of Atlantis, the ruins of ancient Egypt, and the forgotten civilization of Namaris Two all rolled into one glorious package. Look at this."
Triumphantly, he called up another image. Janeway recognized it as the distorted image of the planet she'd glimpsed in the briefing room when Kim had delivered his last report. "Yes, we've seen this already. I don't..."
Kim quickly ran his fingers over the control pads. "I've asked the computer to eliminate the distortion and hypothesize from the information I've given it so far. Here's what it looks like now."
The graphic straightened itself out, and Janeway glimpsed bits and pieces of a dark, destroyed civilization. She was no archaeologist, but even she could tell that some of the buildings were unique designs of extraordinary beauty. The image of the planet turned, and now Janeway could see the ruined hulls of vessels of some sort.
"And here is what I think it might have looked like in its heyday."
Suddenly the dead planet sprang to life. Huge, complicated, gleaming cities thrust toward the skies. Ornate ships hovered about,