Paper review could be a fun time. Camellia came for two reasons. The first was to catch a promising paper about space-age artifacts. She hoped it would come up in the day’s rotation. The second was to glimpse the shining pinnacle of manhood: Florian Adalhard, current head of the Anthropological, Archaeological, and Historical Society (AAH for short).
She waited. Other anthropologists engaged in conversation. Their words created a soft hum throughout the room. Camellia spoke to no one. She looked up. Through windows set high in the tall room, light streamed in. It revealed particles of dust in the air. Camellia found the dust fitting for the AAH headquarters. In her time as an anthropologist, she had not gone a day without brushing dust off some artifact or old book.
At last he entered the room and took his seat. Adalhard – in all his gothic glory – reposed, dark-haired and pale-skinned. Camellia had to avert her eyes for just a moment. Otherwise, she would be caught staring.
The AAH boasted five-hundred and forty-seven members. Most of those members worked in museums and libraries, spread across Iruedim’s northern hemisphere. Others traveled. The AAH was still new, and most of its members moved fluidly from one sub-discipline to the next. Camellia found herself bounced between the roles of ethnographer, archaeologist, and restorationist – though not recently.
The room hushed, and the meeting began.
Adalhard read: “Marriage Customs of Groaza’s Supernatural Sub-Cultures.” He shifted in his seat. “And, yes, Finn, before you ask, it covers vampires, dhampirs, werewolves, dark sorcerers, any nocturnal group. All of them in one paper.” Adalhard shot a glance at Camellia, their resident dhampir.
She averted her eyes.
While Finn objected to the lumping together of those groups, Camellia tried to control her racing heart.
He had merely looked at her. It meant nothing in the context. Her heart began to slow.
“Yes, there are sub-sections,” Adalhard said in answer to another objection. “Have you read the paper? I think it’s thorough work.”
Another anthropologist spoke up, “I agree. Intermarriage between supernatural individuals has given rise to many shared customs, but the paper details individual traditions as well. In any case, why don’t we just ask for a knowledgeable opinion. Camellia?”
Camellia froze. “I’ve been to a lot of weddings…but, I’m hardly an objective observer.”
Adalhard held up a hand. “She’s been back a week. She hasn’t read the work. We’ve had it reviewed by other community members. Camellia, don’t feel you have to stand in for them now.”
Camellia nodded. She felt just as awkward as she had before her leave. It seemed three months away hadn’t done a thing for her.
She watched Adalhard with gratitude. He’d saved her from having to represent the entirety of Groaza’s monsters. Something she would be loathe to do, even on a good day. She might look like them. She had the common dark hair, almost black. And, she had the same almost colorless skin. She had a vampire’s eyes – pupils that retreated from the sun, until they were a tight oval at a center of grey. But, Camellia did not think she thought like a vampire.
The group voted the marriage paper ready for publication, and Adalhard moved on to the next paper: a revision of history to be printed in a new edition of children’s textbooks.
Camellia tuned it out. She knew Iruedim’s history well enough. She could see the source of that history painted on the domed ceiling above. Camellia put her chin in her hand and studied the painting.
She recognized Iruedim, their green-blue planet. Clouds covered the southern hemisphere, hiding what the painter did not know, but the northern hemisphere showed its land masses down to the equator. In the background, Iruedim’s sun took up watch, and three other planets revolved around it, painted small and insignificant. The moon sat at Iruedim’s side. Few stars peppered the map. Instead, depictions of whole, distant galaxies surrounded the Iruedian solar system. Largest and foremost, Iruedim’s wormhole dominated the painter’s sky.
Without the wormhole, Iruedim would be without civilization. The wormhole shifted its exit every few centuries, which was signaled by new scout ships and eventually colonists.
Each group traveled through the wormhole and settled in a new area of Iruedim, until the planet’s available space filled up. From then on, new colonists immigrated to already existent countries or took land from an old group. In rare cases, a group would pack up their Iruedian lives and leave through the wormhole to a place different from their origins.
For five thousand years, peoples had come to Iruedim, growing, changing, and sharing their existence with other far flung groups, until the last colonists came.
Known as Lurriens, these colonists fled a disaster in their own space and unknowingly brought a piece of it with them. They sent Iruedim into a dark age, and since that time, no one had entered or exited the wormhole.
Three thousand years later, the wormhole remained quiet, and Iruedians were just starting to recover their technology and rediscover their neighbors. As contact between cultures grew, the AAH formed and began to remap their world.
A noble effort, Camellia supposed.
“I think this one needs more work,” Adalhard said. “The Ponk empire and its cultural relationship to energy.” Adalhard shook his head.
Other anthropologists seconded his opinion and began to offer ideas for the work’s improvement. Camellia hadn’t read the paper, so she didn’t speak.
Adalhard rubbed his forehead. “Alright. This one might be ready. Tagtrum’s Vanishing Dwarven Population.” Adalhard tossed the paper on to the table. “Let’s a take a vote.”
Again, Camellia hadn’t read the paper, but she could guess the contents. They would be depressing. Tagtrum, known for its pro-travel and pro-migration stances, tended to swallow sub-cultures whole. Camellia couldn’t decide if it was a good or bad thing.
The paper passed with a unanimous vote, in which Camellia did not participate.
Adalhard moved on to another work and another.
Finally, he seemed to come to the last paper. He picked it up and, to the anthropologist next to him, quietly remarked on a name Camellia recognized – Ridvan.
Camellia perked up. Ridvan had found a strange object on a northern island in Tagrum, where the ancient Eudoron civilization once thrived. Ridvan dated the artifact at one-hundred years, and like Ridvan, Camellia was hopeful it was space age technology.
Space age technology, dated at one-hundred years, suggested that a new scout ship had come through the wormhole. There was less room on Iruedim for new colonists, but several nations would gladly make space, even if Groaza was not one of them. Better yet, new colonists would have spacecraft, and Camellia fantasized ways to earn or charm her way onto one.
Camellia sat up straight and drew in her breath as she anticipated Ridvan’s paper. She waited and watched. Adalhard spoke to the anthropologists on either side of him. They seemed to be arguing, and when Adalhard shook his head and put the paper away, the other anthropologists ceased to speak.
“Meeting adjourned,” Adalhad called to the room, tossing his file shut. The other anthropologists started to shuffle their things and push back their chairs. Adalhard packed his things as well.
Oh no. I’m going to have to say something.
“Excuse me,” Camellia began.
No one heard her, and the exit progressed.
Camellia stood up and said louder, “Wait.”
Everyone stopped and stared. Camellia stared back.
“Yes, Camellia?” Adalhard asked.
“I beg your pardon, but I believe you forgot a paper.”
“And which would that be?” he said.
“The one about the space age artifact.” Camellia looked him in the eyes. “Ridvan’s work.”
“Ah, I see,” Adalhard said. “No, we haven’t forgotten. It’s not up for review. I’m guessing you read it. Though, I’m wondering when you had the time.”
Camellia grew warm. “Well, I’ve had nothing but time.”
“True,” Adalhard nodded. “And, this research would catch anyone’s interest. Too bad it isn’t good work.”
Camellia said, “It seemed ready for publishing.” She glanced at the other anthropologists.
Most of them looked down and avoided her eyes.
Adalhard shook his head. “No, it’s not. The writing is solid, but the underlying research is shoddy.”
Camellia frowned. “Oh?”
“The conclusion that the device is only one-hundred years old is highly suspect.” Adalhard paused and spread his hands. “We can’t publish a paper like that until we have more concrete evidence and test results. But, we can’t test the artifact because Ridvan hasn’t turned it in to a museum. You can imagine what it would do to our standing with other guilds and the Groazan government if we published a sensationalist paper about a new scout ship.”
“Right,” Camellia agreed with a nod, but she also countered his argument. “What about contacting the astronomer’s guild? They might have observed some activity around the wormhole.”
“I have, and they haven’t.” Adalhard sighed. “Please, Camellia, I know you’ve had a lot of time on your hands, but this meeting is adjourned.”
“But…” Camellia paused as she felt all eyes turn to her. “But, what about the symbols on the artifact? Ridvan took detailed sketches and notes. Hasn’t anyone checked on the symbols’ origins?”
An anthropologist got up from his chair. “That’s a good point.”
“There are no matches,” Adalhard said.
“What did the symbols look like again?” A second anthropologist started to page through his copy of the paper.
A third anthropologist already had it open. “One of the symbols is a triangle. It’s separated into segments. A line plus some other shape: a leaf, a fire, and the last no one has identified.”
Camellia did not have her copy of the paper, so she couldn’t check the symbol for herself. She was surprised to find how easily it came into her head.
Other anthropologists ruffled through their pages.
“We should check on this again, Adalhard. There’s no way we could have looked through all our notes,” someone said.
“Oh, you want to check?” Adalhard spread his hands. “Be my guest, but the paper still isn’t publishable.
Voices started to rise around Camellia, but she got lost in a thought. She knew the symbol so well. She could draw it in her mind’s eye. The first side of the triangle ended in a leaf. The second in a fire. The third in some odd shape, reminiscent of a container.
Camellia took in a sharp breath. She could imagine it so well because she had sketched it before.
Cernunnos, her teacher, had led a small team to a dig site set around a crashed space vessel. The team excavated what little of the spaceship had not melted into the rock. They dated it at four-thousand-five-hundred years. Camellia, the youngest member of the team, had been appointed scribe. She sketched the dig site, the ship, and all of the ship’s markings in detail. Among her sketches was that symbol. It waited somewhere in a file in the AAH’s library.
Camellia clapped a hand to her cheek and came back to the scene around her.
The men shouted.
Adalhard could not get his voice over theirs.
Among other protestations, Camellia caught the words: “Discovery of the century.”
It might be.
Camellia opened her mouth to share what she knew, but she would never get her voice above the more experienced members of the AAH. For one, she didn’t have a powerful voice. For two, she wasn’t confident she had anything of real value to say. She should check her work before she said anything.
Camellia closed her mouth.
The mousier members in the crowd slunk towards the door: men and women alike. Camellia saw her kind fleeing the scene and followed suit. She hunched her shoulders and started around the table.
Adalhard stood quiet, in the middle of a storm of voices. He shook his head and stared her way.
Camellia picked up someone’s copy of the inflammatory paper and put it in front of her face. She trotted out with the rest of her kind.
Camellia thought she might fix her jittering nerves and fraying soul with a nap. It was a dhampir tradition.
