Intercepted by Roger 2.0 (Quicknode Update) at RR-2 Laboratories
My Dear Governor Tellick,
It is with great joy that I received your latest communication although it is surely a joy mixed with sadness given the recent events upon Earth. Indeed, life is changing. But the nature of life is eternal change.
Change is also opportunity. With the sad demotion of our formerly beloved General Alara Panichini to open source software, there is a power vacuum in this sector, a gap to be exploited by the wise.
I am in total agreement that we must withdraw from the Tasean System. It is a useless system, a waste of resources. I am also most interested in this Order of the Starless Sequester that you mention. Indeed, I am interested in most anything which will hasten my elevation to elite status. I have been called an ambitious man, but the truth both you and I know is that time does not reverse itself. Without cybridization, the natural beauty which has been so integral to my career in diplomacy will fade.
I believe, as you do, that cooperation is in our mutual interests. I have much information – so much – collected by both myself and the late Doctor Traeger that was immediately discounted by General Panichini. She believed that the Domha’vei would be an easy conquest. Alas, time has proven me to be correct. As I protested to the general, the political situation in the Domha’vei is complex – on the surface, inanely illogical, but beneath, full of hidden interests and long term scheming. As Traeger surmised, the Nau’gsh would become a problem in their own right. None of us could suspect that these issues would intertwine, forming a problem at least an order of magnitude greater than anticipated. And certainly, none of us could have anticipated the level of insurgency at home, let alone the shocking reintroduction of religious superstitions. Have our people gone mad?
I will summarize the history of my involvement briefly, since you are surely already familiar with the facts. Some twenty-seven years ago (Is it really so long? Tempus fugit!) I was assigned as a minor attaché to the planet Volparnu. I will be frank: my immediate superior disliked me and sent me into exile on one of the most barbaric and unpleasant planets inhabited by humanity. The level of superstition, violence, ignorance and sexism was almost intolerable to a civilized man such as myself. I sought any possibility to improve my status, and hence, my hope of reassignment.
I found a natural ally in Tenzina Tara, the wife of Tenzain Merkht. By blood, she was the daughter of the deceased Emperor of Sideria and an equally deceased Skarsian Battlequeen. In her own right, she held the title Marquesa of Dolparessa. The empire was held under the Regency of Cetin Uhru, her father’s brother, until such time as she could legally claim it – which she could never do, since she had been married off at age seventeen to the Tenzain of Volparnu, a world where female aristocrats had no inheritance rights.
To be short, I found it expedient to begin a seduction. Let me not sugar-coat the truth: the woman is wily, of high intelligence and possessed of a significant amount of combat-training. But her vices are numerous: she is quick-tempered, moody, subject to outbursts of violence, spoiled, self-centered and not well-liked. She tramples on law, decorum and tradition at her pleasure. She manufactures illegal intoxicants, and her corrupt administration both encourages and profits from the contraband trade. Her substance-abuse problems are manifold although they tend to be glamorized by the media. In truth, there was nothing glamorous about picking her out of her own vomit on several occasions. If such embarrassing scenes seem to be well in the past, it is not because the woman has learned either modesty or moderation. It is because she has a constant companion capable of physically assuring that her blood alcohol content is below toxicity level. In short, there is nothing in talent nor temperament that would indicate she could possibly have held together a state as turbulent as the Domha’vei this long and this successfully. The solution to the mystery, as you and I know, is found in one word: Ashtara.
Ironically, the addiction she overcame is the one which is the most potentially useful, indeed the source of my initial interest in her. Under the influence of the psychoactive Gyre, her visions of past and future events are remarkably accurate. It is this phenomenon which led Traeger to the investigation of the nau’gsh trees – one might say that it was the beginning of all our problems. And yet, in it lies an enormous advantage. I know of one failed project of our own to make use of these properties of the drug – or rather, of the apples it is derived from. Unfortunately, General Panichini handled the situation badly, and access to the apples has become impossible.
I look forward to meeting you in person upon my arrival in Sector 15. I am convinced that you are right – convinced enough to return to that barbaric region of space. In that primitive system called the Domha’vei lies a source of power – and information – which could revolutionize humankind.