Chapter 353 (1/2)

TWO MONTHS AFTER CASE OMAHA

MONTH THREE OF THE BATTLE FOR HESSTLA

Bo'okdu'ust stared at the data on his holotank. He was staring at what the Terrans called the ”Cygnus-Orion Galactic Spur”, watching the various stars change color according to the data he had input. It started at the Silent Filter (When his people started history, a few centuries after the Precursor War) and ran until current day at approximately ten thousand years per second, slowing down for any major expansion or contraction events.

What bothered him the most was the beginning. Over a thousand systems were what the Lanaktallan started with, every time. The same thousand systems in a wide streak a good distance from the Great Empty/Long Dark. The Lanaktallan spread out at the same time that the Mantid had a single system. The Lanaktallan spread out rapidly at first, moving from a thousand worlds to nearly ten thousand in less than fifteen hundred years, the lifespan of 3 generations of Lanaktallan, although Lanaktallan generations were measured every fifty years by his computing software. So within thirty generations the Lanaktallan had taken nearly ten thousand worlds.

The Mantid had taken ten.

The Terrans were nothing more than little primates, most likely lemurs, existing in a world full of giant reptiles. It would be forty million years until an asteroid strike would end the reign of the superfauna reptilian avians and make room for the lemurs to develop into the primates that everyone knew and loved.

The Treana'ad were unintelligent insects at the time. Multiple warring subspecies fighting for dominance, a few million years before the rise of intelligence.

The rest of the systems were marked with icons indicating damage or destruction at the hands of the Precursors.

Then the Lanaktallan controlled area shrunk, had empty spaces appear in the controlled area. He had always been unable to find a reason for the shrinkage and gaps, at least an official reason. It was long enough ago that most historians were not interested the data.

Which always struck Bo'okdu'ust as strange, that an epoch made of an irregularity would be ignored by his fellow researchers.

His simulation put out the data as it paused, flashing icons that there was in irregularity in the data.

Again, there were only three reasons for that contraction and the internal systems dropping from Lanaktallan control.

Rapid spread pandemic

Internal Warfare

Agricultural and Industrial Collapse with Material Transportation Failure

He had examined those systems, looking at what records he was privy too. The problem was, plain and simple, that a hundred million years meant that even geological records could have been wiped away.

However Bo'okdu'ust had added new data to his sociomathematic formulae. By working to understand the Terrans and ensure his system worked in regards to them, he had begun to look at his own species in a slightly different light.

Terrans knew and admitted that at one point there were genetically unique species of Terrans, called homo in their scientific parlance. Apparently, far before recorded history, the different types of Terrans performed genocidal purges. The longest was between the Neanderthals and modern human, a primitive savage war that went on for quiet some time.

Bo'okdu'ust had to admit that he had not considered sub-species and parallel evolutionary branches of the same species. None of the species in Lanaktallan space contained such a thing.

But then, the species in Lanaktallan space had been gentled repeatedly, their history and culture destroyed.

So he had built formula to account for the possible rise of sub-species.

His fellow Lanaktallan researchers would have undoubtably told him that it was ridiculous, if there was distinct sub-species of Lanaktallan it would have been recorded. That there would be records pertaining to this sub-species somewhere in the vast archives.

Bo'okdu'ust had his doubts.

According to his simulations, especially once he had included data for the Treana'ad and the Mantid, the only way the common Lanaktallan could have withstood the Mantid and the mythical lost Precursor race, is if there had been a sub-species.

It also had a bizarre symmetry to it.

The Lanaktallan people had much in common with both the Mantid and the Treana'ad. Hexapod creatures made somewhat in the shame method if you ignored that one was a mammal and the other two were insects.

Bo'okdu'ust looked at his visitors: Several Terran officers, including the Digital Sentient ”Day”.

”As you can see, my sociomathematical model has severe deficiencies using my previous available data, logic, and intellectual theories as well as current Lanaktallan belief,” Bo'okdu'ust said.

Everyone present nodded.

Bo'okdu'ust started the simulation again, this time with the evolutionary data he had gleaned from working with the Terrans.

He had included 'castes' into the system. A leader caste, a warrior caste. Evolutionary pressures would ensure that they would be larger than the other Lanaktallan, and because of such, would undoubtably consume more resources, meaning that they would be far fewer in number than the rank and file Lanaktallan.

This time when the contraction and missing planets started, his simulation put up signals. Each system that went black was centrally located to the others, each of them having a sphere of control that slightly overlapped but included roughly twenty-five systems each time.

”There,” Bo'okdu'ust said. ”A period of steady expansion, each radiating out from central hubs. It is analogous to how the Mantid spread out.”

”And has parallels to the 'Filter of Too Many Hives' that plagued my people,” a russet mantid said.

A greenie looked up, flashing rapid icons.

**the software is solid** 7.4.A stated, his voice synthesized.

”Thank you, Professor,” Bo'okdu'ust said. He knew many of his colleagues would have taken offense that another was examining his software and data, but he knew that Professor 7.4.A was a professor of advanced mathematical theory as well as a cutting edge software designer.

”Now the fall,” Bo'okdu'ust stated. ”Elimination of control by the central hubs, loss of system control.”

Everyone watched patiently. This time the simulation did not stop but rather continued on.

”Here I have added the data from the defector researchers regarding when the Lanaktallan met each species and began the process of revolving gentling,” Bo'okdu'ust stated. ”Before this, it was just assumed that they took millions of years to recover due to the Precursor War.”

”Yeah,” the russet mantid said. ”Food species,” she sounded somewhat embarrassed.

”Indeed. My people escaped the Precursors by hiding within the remains of your people's larder,” Bo'okdu'ust said, the dry joke bringing several uncomfortable chuckles.

”Now, if you look here, the Telkan people are, at this time, little more than a trinary sex creatures roughly analogous to a Terran weasel or meerkat,” Bo'okdu'ust said. He held up his hand toward the sole Telkan present. ”No offense.”