This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/ApertiV on 2024-12-26 09:47:03+00:00.
The shop smelled like decay and ambition, a nauseating blend of rusted metals, ancient oils, and something vaguely biological. It was tucked into the bowels of Graviton Spire Six, a city-station orbiting a dying star, the kind of place where desperation went to fester. Dim light from phosphorescent fungi crawled along the walls, casting unsettling shadows over rows of shelves crammed with forgotten relics of a dozen dead civilizations.
Behind the counter stood Resh Gk’lurr, an arthropod-like Kynaric with segmented limbs and a voice like grinding metal. Resh had survived countless cycles by peddling the detritus of other species’ pasts; artifacts, tools, and baubles whose significance was often as alien to him as his appearance was to the occasional avian customer. His most loyal patrons were scavengers and younglings drawn to the mystery of antiquities, hoping to find treasures in the trash.
Today’s customer was a lanky Poryk youth, its blue-tinged flesh shimmering faintly in the spire’s humidity. The youngling’s tendrils twitched with barely contained excitement as it rifled through a pile of “ornamentals,” trinkets of dubious value Resh had thrown together for gullible tourists.
"Ah, this one!” the Poryk exclaimed, pulling free a small metal object, conical, with peeling red paint and a faded Cyrillic label: СCСР. The letters were foreign to the Poryk, but they glimmered with the promise of forgotten significance.
“What is it worth, Keeper of Histories?” the youth asked, holding the artifact with reverence.
Resh leaned forward, his mandibles clicking as he inspected the item. “Hmm. Primitive propulsion toy. Likely ceremonial or religious. Humans were known for such trivialities before they… diminished.”
“Hum-ans?” The word came out as a croak of curiosity, barely pronounceable in the Poryk’s language.
“Ah, yes. A species from… well, before. Few of them remain now. Scattered. But this…” Resh’s claw gestured to the relic. “This is ancient. Aerth. That’s what they call their homeworld. What you hold is a fragment of their arrogance.”
The Poryk tilted its head. “Arrogance?”
Resh chittered, a sound akin to laughter. “Oh, yes. They once believed they could conquer the void with sticks and fire. This ‘СCСР’ as their language, Cyrillic was their attempt to brand even the stars. A symbol of a world, as I think. An old relic of warlike tendencies and fragile unity.”
The Poryk gazed at the object, its tendrils brushing over the peeling paint. It imagined a place that was, in every sense, alien to the cold, metallic confines of the spire.
“What became of them?” the Poryk asked, its voice quiet now.
Resh’s compound eyes glinted. “Destroyed themselves, probably. Likely from constant reunification wars, but mostly resource greed. They were the quarrelsome lot. They thought their cleverness made them gods, but cleverness is nothing without wisdom. The few who survived abandoned their homeworld as it fragmented from their own hubris."
The youth shivered, it’s tendrils bristling in the light. The relic felt much heavier in its grasp.
Resh, noticing the shift in the Poryk’s demeanor, leaned back and let out a low hum. “That piece,” he began, “isn’t just a trinket. It’s a story. It’s what they hoped to be—bold, daring, reckless. That rocket didn’t carry mammalians; it carried an idea. An idea that maybe, just maybe, the void wouldn’t swallow them whole.”
The Poryk’s tendrils stiffened. “Then it is… sacred?”
Resh clicked his mandibles in what might have been a shrug. “Sacred? Pfft. To some, perhaps. To me, it’s just merchandise.”
“How much?”
“Fifty-two Plexa. Discounted just for you."
The Poryk hesitated, then handed over a gleaming chit. Resh’s claw swiped it, and the transaction was done with a ding.
As the Poryk walked away clutching its treasure, in the dying light of the spire, the shopkeeper chuckled to himself, already planning how he’d spin the next tale for the next wide-eyed fool to walk through his door.