The Legacy of Velraisil Selet-Alathemanay

Comrade,

This will likely be my last and most candid message to you.

Our forces are alive and well – indeed, we have never been more powerful. Setbacks we have suffered, certainly. But the attack on the Guild Station, ill-fated as it was, lost us little in material terms.

You need not know my location. It is enough that you coordinate with the network on Kallimar itself. Those who understand the full strategic position of the Unlost World should necessarily be few.

Tell any who are in doubt to take heart. No great power, when consumed by pride and avarice, can last forever. So it is with the People’s Army. Its great haughty dominion, however weighty in its material force, shall be its own downfall. A towering structure that takes into its absolute control all beings and objects within its supposed jurisdiction is an aberration – a deviation from the natural order. This is a maxim we all know quite well, yet it would not be remiss of you to impress upon others its importance – and this should be also the thrust of our message when we come to spread the word to others on our planet.

I should say a little more on the conversion of others to our cause. Begin with old songs and tales, particularly those mournful verses on the valour of old cities, now lost. Soften their hearts to an idea, an ancient memory, of a world where the great, overbearing force of arrogant minds did not reach so far as to cover the whole planet and violate the sacred independence of its cities and property. So it was with me - and I think many of our people need only a small push before embarking upon my path. Then will come the precepts, and the aphorisms – political literature we must spread swiftly, though quietly. But the beginning of conversion must be formed by blandishments of the heart.

I must stress that the infiltration of the Kallimari military should be continued with haste and force. Use any means that you have to – blackmail where necessary, conversion where possible. The sole limit shall be your capacity for secrecy.

I need hardly emphasise the importance of destroying this message. Do so swiftly.

‘Till the cities of Kallimar are free,

A son of Alathemanay

Written by Pine B.

Velraisil lounged backwards in his chair, cautiously flicking his talons at the hand of cards he held. He hadn't played cards much back on Kallimar or Do-Loris – hell, even on the moon of ARCOR-B-006 IV he'd managed to keep himself busy enough with administrative work or plans for the future that he'd never found himself consigned to the card-tables with the rank-and-file of the Unlost World.

Then, the government of Kallimar had come down like a hammer on the moon. They had had to flee, taking whatever equipment they could with them and making an emergency jump that was all but into the unknown. Life hadn't been easy, and then…

And then…

And then…

And then…

And now, they were here. A small base in a hollowed-out asteroid, crews working round the clock to gather whatever resources they needed to survive, with smugglers bringing the fuel, and food, and machine parts to keep everything operational. It was the Unlost World's new home, from where they plotted out their future – crushed, perhaps, but never eradicated.

Or, at least, it had been. Such a place naturally drew in anyone who wasn't welcome in the surface galaxy, and it benefitted the Unlost World to get along with them. After all, more hands meant more smugglers, more people to trade with for more things, and more potential allies in the future.

Velraisil looked up from his cards. Across from him were a large, bulky alien with a star pinned to his chest that showed his allegiance to the communist movement of his world, a slender, serpentine figure in purple finery that marked her as a disenfranchised aristocrat, and – as ever – a Rissi of the Unlost World.

He picked a card out from his hand and played it. Much had changed, and much would change yet. He was not about to give up.

“Let me tell you a story, young ones. One my grandmother used to tell me. A story from before the Great War.”

The children gathered around the elder Rissi and sat down, letting her take a perch atop a stool from where she could see out over her small herd.

“A farmer wanted to lay a new field, but there was a single tree stood in the way. It was an old tree, that had been there for quite a long time. She got out her axe and cut it down, tearing up the stump and its roots to make way for her field.

She thought she'd killed the tree. But she was wrong. A Xhu ate one of the nuts the tree produced, and ran as fast as his little legs could carry him. Later, a new tree started growing from where that Xhu left the nut behind. The farmer didn't know what had happened, but the new tree was angry. One day, a ferocious gust of wind blew a thousand seeds from the tree all over the farmer's field, and ruined her crop.

Now, children. What does this story tell us? A great tree might be reduced to the tiniest seed, but the tiniest seed can bloom into a full forest. That doesn't mean it will, children – but it reminds us that we can never know for certain which way the winds will blow in days yet to come.”