The Gemstone of the Cabataaloo

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Earth of course has its story of cursed gems, like the Hope Diamond, and when you understand the stories of how diamonds became desirable in the 19th and 20th century through the multiple levels of cruelty of the colonization of Africa, you can also understand how evil tended to follow those obsessed with riches made by such means. Trouble is inevitable from a bad start not accounted for or repented of.

The same principle applies across the galaxy, with a few twists.

The Gemstone of the Cabataaloo had been a famous and much sought-after item for nine centuries before humanity reached its section of the galaxy, torn from its home planet in a conquest, but lost by the conquerors with their entire civilization, discovered in ruins and passed from person to person who had not long survived their attempt to add it to their personal or cultural collections.

I had first heard about this as an ensign, and it had been apparent to me and my fiance then what needed to be done. He had been killed in the line of duty not long after that, but I held him up as the standard in my mind as I talked with gentlemen interested in me who – if they had done their research – knew that in addition of getting from ensign to full fleet admiral in 33 years, I loved gemstones and jewelry.

It took me 35 years to get married, but I married the first man who I met who met the standard.

“It's a beautiful gem, of course, but the only place that gemstone needs to go is back home to Cabataaloo.”

That was Captain Marcus Aurelius Kirk Jr., my husband, and a commercial captain at that. Being in space for money is his entire business with his business partner, Captain Rufus Dixon, but they both have not sold out to evil for money in the entire history of their business.

Captain Dixon added on the right idea when he and I spoke about it sometime after my marriage to his business partner:

“It is perfectly clear what is going on – that thing is trying to find its way home, although it is odd to say that about a mere rock, but you know, Mark's Cousin J.T. has just discovered silicon-based life, so beryllium-based life or corundum-based life or even a crystalline order of carbon-based life is possible.”

Captain Dixon, the master engineer, was on to something. What he didn't know was how right he was, and that the word had been out ever since he and my husband had rescued and taken a captured baby Beamerling back home.

Somehow, the plasma-based life in the universe was talking to others not on the humanoid plane of existence about who to locate for help.

My husband and Captain Dixon rarely did runs together, but they did when they were going to check out a new section of the galaxy for shipping. It paid for both of them to go because they complemented each other's perceptions so well, and as their business matured, it was more necessary from them to assess new regions than to perform shipping runs.

Mark called me on this particular run.

“We've got to make a detour, Vlarian – a ship has a distress call, and it is in a bad way.”

“Please be careful,” I said. “The Altaire and Akkedu are not far away.”

I kept up with all the professional fleet ships in the areas where my husband was working … if the word of a full fleet admiral had anything to do with him getting help if he needed it from my colleagues, I always made sure he would have it.

My husband flashed his big smile.

“Already made contact, Admiral,” he said, “and they are in route.”

The ship had lost its cargo hold – a commercial vessel that for whatever reason had just blown out its entire cargo hold, badly damaging the rest of the ship.

Come to find out, some well-known jewelry thieves were among the passengers, but of course, any evidence of any crimes they may have committed was lost in space, and besides, they had nothing to do with the blowout.

Or did they?

About two hours after the first call, my husband called back, pale in his face.

“Vlarian, we've got to make another detour,” he said. “The Altaire and Akkedu missed one guest.”

“Oh, no – how could they!”

“Scanners weren't set up for corundum-based life, but it found us.”

The entire star map of the region came to mind – it was a long straight line, but a straight line to Cabataaloo.

Captain Dixon came with an equally tense expression in his deeply bronzed face, and something on a pillow – and, there it was, the Gemstone of the Cabataloo. The way he placed it in front of the screen allowed me to be the third person in 900 years to notice something … that thing taken as the perfectly formed gem was actually a faceted head and face.

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“It attached itself to our warp core,” Captain Dixon said, “and I found it in checking for why the engine was fluctuating.”

“It could have destroyed us,” my husband said, wiping the sweat from his brow, “but somehow it knows that we know what it is and what we need to do with it.”

“Indeed,” I said, sitting down to settle the pounding of my heart.

“We think it is trying to communicate with us,” Captain Dixon said, “but our little universal translator here can't pick it up – it's like earthquake waves, infrasonic.”

I adjusted my system to try to compensate, and sure enough …

“The Beamerling told the truth … the Beamerling told the truth … there are some bipedals still in tune with the Creator, with justice and truth … .”

After nine centuries of being stolen by one group of bipedals after another, one might expect any corundum-based being to be overwhelmed with the thought.

It was nine hours to Cabataaloo, in which time I introduced myself to the stone and invited it to tell its story, and it did, out of its memory etched in stone – literally, nothing had been forgotten since it had been taken from the core of its home planet and had begun working its way back home. About all the thieves it had destroyed, it had enough to say to identify them throughout all that history, but its main concern was for Cabataaloo, whose magnetic field had been thrown out of balance without its full compliment of Keepers there.

“You mean, there are more than one?” I said.

“All but one is back at home,” the Keeper said, “because I was the most beautiful to bipedal eyes, but there were many taken.”

I later searched the history … indeed, it had been the gemstones, plural, for that was the only way to account for the sheer number of disasters given the legends in the early centuries.

It had also been thought that the damage to Cabataaloo had been made in the conquest, but the Keeper had said that it and its fellow Keepers had been working to get home because they maintained the fields, and when all of them were back at home, the planet would be healed.

That took place six hours later; the Keeper led my husband and Captain Dixon to the very place it had been taken from.

“You could see where the others had reformed with the rock over the centuries, and the one place still left for our new friend,” Captain Dixon said. “We put it in place, and there it was. Then, we did as we had been told, and how – once they were all back in place, they started resonating and the ground started shaking. They were all hard at work, because by the time we broke orbit, the magnetic field and the atmosphere were being adjusted. After nine centuries, that's got to be a rough piece of engineering, but I think they'll do it!”

“There's just one more thing,” my husband said with a smile. “Our friend indicated an interest in some marbles I have in a vase in my quarters. These are his gifts to set the record straight, and to you, personally.”

I never met the Keeper in person, but it had made me two glass replicas, in perfect detail, to remember it by, and one of those is what is now in the appropriate museum, while the other is in my personal collection.

This is the same plant-producing fractal I have been working with in Apophysis 2.09, but I have been working with it this week in the along the crystal and glassine line of combining linear and sinusoidal elements in the composition of the fractal, and with a darker palette.

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