Viva Temierra!

         The mark of my grandfather, Calinat Temierra, is upon me. It is not at all like a small, discrete tattoo that any sleeve, or cape, or scarf could conceal. It is diffused throughout my every cell. It flavors my thoughts as much as determines my color. There is never anything to be surprised about, when I look in the imager and behold yet another facet of the mark of Calinat I had not noted before, even though I am well past middle age. What is more surprising to find, here in the sixth century of my life, are traits of my grandmother, Ba’ashti Panos Temierra, emerging in my face as well.

         My iridescent facial scales were always so faint and gray, like those of the Temierras. Now they are beginning to take on deeper color and sparkle. My forehead crest has grown longer and more tapered, darkening from Temierra beige to almost a Panos burgundy. This is evidence of my grandmother's genes. This is my grandmother Ba’ashti’s genotype, tapping ever so lightly for attention on my phenotypic screen. At this late date!

         The irony of this is not lost upon me. Not at all.

         It was from Calinat’s side of my family that the strong traits came, rolling like boulders down the genetic line, crushing the more delicate contributions of those who joined the clan by marriage or tryst. But the domination of the Temierra “look” would have been the only triumph of Temierra, had I not come along and searched out the old records. Calinat might have pressed his distinctive seal upon all of his descendants, and the seal may have all but buried the evidence of others’ genes being involved…but this had done nothing to preserve Temierra history. That was history that someone had to work hard to find.

         Had I not done that work, Ba’ashti would have remained unchallenged in suppressing information about her husband’s ancestors. And not only unchallenged, but aided and abetted by Temierras of the past, who had practiced that suppression for generations.

         Now, of those Temierras…of course I never met with them, or lived with them, so perhaps I should not venture to speculate upon their character. But I have made an exhaustive study of the times in which they lived, and based upon that, I believe that their motives were very different from those of Ba’ashti.

         I can forgive the ancient Temierras for wanting to survive the series of ferocious Balkarat Wars that despoiled so many planets and annihilated whole races. I can understand concealing one’s planetary and cultural identity to avoid enslavement and death. My grandmother’s reasons were another matter.

         Ba’ashti’s motives were very difficult to understand. What could she have stood to gain from obliterating the historical data on her husband’s family? Thousands of years ago, Calinat’s heritage might have been an obstacle to someone aspiring to high political office, for many held the Temierra home planet responsible for starting the apocalyptic jihads. But the Balkarat Devastations were almost six thousand years in the past when Ba’ashti married Calinat, and no one but history professors at the Great Library were thinking much about who was to blame for the wars. There was no segregation of, nor restrictions upon, any people who could trace their lineage back to that planet. In the year of my grandparents’ wedding, Calinat’s ancestry would not even have been so much as a social embarrassment.

         What could she possibly have stood to gain?

         Of course, I knew the unspoken explanation that was lacquered over the deeper issues. It lay over Ba’ashti like a royal robe, justifying her every action, protecting her from every challenge. My grandmother was a high priestess in the temple of the Wainshe’pla, and an oracle in the Unswa as well. Ba’ashti could be expected to protect her immediate family, of course, against any false prophets or foreign gods she might find lurking in their genetic unconscious. Calinat’s distant ancestors had not been ignorant of the Wainshe’pla; they had rejected this set of deities, half a million years ago. Concern for our afterlife was driving Ba’ashti’s actions.

         There was quite a problem with that explanation, however. While layman Wains were encouraged to recruit converts, the priesthood and oracles were believed to be capable of affecting conversions with the direct assistance of the gods and goddesses. Wains considered the priests and sybils to be in divine favor. What did Ba’ashti, high priestess and oracle both, have to fear from false gods and prophets?

         It was pure arrogance, as far as I have ever been able to tell. Ba’ashti seemed to have been intoxicated by the power she had discovered, by accident, when Calinat chose her for his bride. Not only could she crown herself queen of the family by virtue of her extreme religiosity--hugely intimidating all by itself--but she could also tap into a vast reservoir of ancient fears and prejudices, which lay beneath our society’s peaceful surface.

         Probably I would have been content to leave things exactly as they were, and never stir up any controversy by doing my genealogic research, had it not been for an incident in my childhood involving Calinat’s sister, my Great Aunt Esranata.

         Adults do not always think before they speak in the presence of small children. Ba’ashti did not. As I played beneath an antique table in Great Aunt’s receiving room, I heard everything.

         Ba’ashti was lecturing Esranata, preaching religion. Her sharp voice echoed off the cool marble walls and floor. Wainshe’pla, Wainshe’pla! Never will you cross the River Simli, not without Wainshe’pla! (Great Aunt did not believe in the Wainshe’pla? I thought everybody knew that only the gods and goddesses could take you across the River to Paradise, after you died. Simple matter; just make your prescribed sacrifices and believe. Why was Grandmother shouting?) It’s simple, Great Aunt, I wanted to say to Esranata. I’ll take you to the temple tomorrow and show you. Simple. Don’t be afraid.

         But it was not so simple. As my grandmother’s diatribe soared over my head in complexity, its tone waxed uglier. And the uglier it became, the less Esranata spoke.

         I might not have understood much of what I heard that day, but unto the end of my life I shall understand that it was malignant and cruel.

         I might have been so small that I could play tier-pebbles underneath a table, but I was not so small that I could not recognize a bully, or an untouchable figure of dignity staring back into a bully’s eye.

         Throughout my childhood, my grandfather Calinat always told Ba’ashti what she wanted to hear. And his son, my father, always told Ba’ashti what she wanted to hear. Great Aunt would do no such thing. Esranata went to her grave without giving Ba’ashti the satisfaction of an argument.

         I believe it was on the same day that my father asked my rebellious young self, “…would it kill you to just tell Ba’ashti what she wants to hear?” that I first walked off to the Great Library and began my research. Of course it would not kill me, not in a literal sense, any more than it had killed him or his father. But I thought that his choice of words was rather revealing. Somewhere in his heart, he knew that there was killing being done.

         And so it was that the seeds of my determination were sown. Determination to find out who Esranata’s people had been, what they had believed, and what they had been like.

         It took years to find and collect the records…hundreds of records copied into the crystalline lattice of created gemstones. Before the Devastations, this technology was just in its infancy, but the Great Library has equipment that can read even the oldest encryptions within jewels. The technique has been improved upon, but the basic principles have never yet been replaced by anything better. Theoretically, an infinite amount of data can fit into a little sparkling stone, and theoretically, the stone can last forever.

         About the time that the jihads began to gather momentum, it was the height of status and fashion to own “gen” bracelets…one’s entire genealogical research results encrypted in created diamonds, one diamond to a charm on the chain. With the help of the Great Library, I was able to verify that one of these bracelets had been made for every one of the chief officers of the corporation that had first developed the technology. The company was a major one, and flourished for eighty years before the Wars. The executives kept the bracelets in the secure vaults of the corporate offices, bringing them out only to be worn for important social gatherings. Today these vaults are museums, and the bracelets on display can be decrypted and read by anyone with the interest and patience to do so.

         Everything my father ever told me about Calinat’s forebears had to do with their profession. They were a long line of chemists and other scientists, going back very far into the past. They worked in the top levels of research and development, inventing and designing the products of huge technology companies. I found my grandfather’s surname--changed in spelling only a little--listed as having a bracelet in the museums.

         At great expense of time and money, I had the decryptions sent from the museums to our Great Library. Transmissions were slow, and the quality of the copy poor; for although the ancestral planet is not primitive, it is not vital and flourishing like ours. The Great Library has far superior equipment to receive data than the ancestral planet has to send it.

         I used the inheritance that Esranata bequeathed to me, to make this search and to retrieve these records.

         Thus did the ancestors of Calinat and Estranata triumph over the ravages of time and war, and speak to their descendants far removed. Thus did Estranata, in her own natural time, rescue the memory of her people from extinction.

         The changes in my face as I grow old, reflecting the genetic contributions of Ba’ashti...I take them as a reminder. I tell you about them to give you warning. Never take for granted that you can find the whole history of your people. Exercise your right to discover from whence you came. Has anyone decided to take this right away from you? Are you sure you would know, if they had?