«Racot?» The novice was right. The planet had suffered a drastic transformation. Its inhabitants were dressed in light color robes and walked completely straight. The hair that used to cover great part of their bodies had now partially disappeared; only some areas such as the head and the face were still covered. Their facial expression had changed from fear and ignorance to confidence and bravery. Some of them were wandering around across the large area of the wasteland. Others were harvesting crops in small orchards and a few of them were walking accompanied by animals that they now looked after instead of using them as food. Paradoxes of evolution. An evolution deeply signed by the needs of each period.
The quietness of the inhabitants was momentarily interrupted by a strong noise coming from the sky. A small light dot was approaching the settlement. A few seconds later, it started to descend in the middle of the crowd, raising great columns of sand and creating chaos among the people of the area.
Yewut walked to the craft to receive the responsible ones of such a sudden anarchy. The hatch opened and three midarians came out from it.
“Where did I ask you to land?” He shouted.
“I don’t remember, sir.” The first one apologized.
He started to gaze at the second and the third one. Both shook their heads without knowing what to answer.
“The only thing I asked you was you to land in an area away from the civilization. The crafts bring a lot of drawbacks to the settlement. The animals run away looking for shelter and the orchards are buried under tons of sand.”
“I promise this won’t happen again,” the first one said.
“You can’t imagine what is at risk. This racots are becoming more rational every time and so they don’t believe in us as much as they used to. If we continue wrecking their wellbeing, it wouldn’t be surprising that they rebelled against us.”
None of the three said anything.
“Discretion,” he continued, “has to be our best weapon, as it was in some of our most triumphal battles of our history. I think the right thing is to go back to Mida.”
Telepathically, he asked Beiler about the location. Obviously Palac did not hear the dialogue both men had. The only thing he saw was his grandfather’s body moving towards an urban area. «Where’s he going?»
Most of the houses were made of adobe. They formed an entangled labyrinth of alleys, corridors and squares. Some of them had terraces where their guests could freshen up on the hottest days. The wealthiest ones lived in big residences with huge and exuberant gardens extremely cared.
Yewut jutted out in one of the alleys. The pedestrians, who did not even reached his waist, looked at him with astonishment and admiration.
“Where’s my partner?” A racot walking against the current asked.
He palpated Yewut’s body in order to avoid it and continued walking. The midarian leader did not like the received rebuff at all. He quickly turned around and blocked his way.
“Why was your rebuff?” He recriminated.
The other natives that were circulating down the alley looked astonished at the confrontation. The racot remained in silence for some seconds, trying to find the best answer.
“Your presence distresses me,” he finally said without raising his eyes.
“What’s the reason of your anger?”
“You… your helpers. Our people worship you as if you were gods. They think you’re the creation fathers.”
“That’s right. And what’s wrong with that?”
A tear rolled down his cheek.
“What kind of god allows that a son be to the world without the capacity of seeing the world?”
“Are you blind, my son?”
The racot nodded.
“I’ve never seen neither my family members’ faces nor a sunrise. I can’t imagine what color or shape is the food I eat. Do you understand now how distressful your presence is to me?”
Yewut remained in silence for a while. He raised his hand and covered the racot’s head with it.
“What are you doing?” He asked terrified.
“Trust in me.”
Several seconds of contact were enough to heal and turn functional his useless eyes.
“Every great creation is exposed to small failures. Our presence on your planet is to remedy them. Under no circumstances should we intend to distress you.”
“I can see!” He shouted. “I can see!”
«I don’t understand anything. Why does he help them if he’s going to kill them later?» The villager ran away observing every single detail around him. Everything was new to him. He could not believe what it had just happened. The god everyone worshipped had healed his blindness.
Yewut retraced his steps and continued walking. In a small square at the end of the narrow alley, he spotted Beiler. He was sitting on the floor along with half a dozen of natives.
“What are you doing?” The midarian leader asked.
“We’re playing Senet,” one of the racots answered.
They were playing on a board with thirty boxes. Three rows by ten. There were twelve pieces placed on it, five with the shape of a cylinder and seven with the shape of a cone. They moved forward depending on the number obtained when throwing a couple of small crosiers. The player who arrived at the goal before the rest won the game.
“We have to talk,” Yewut said with a firm voice.
Beiler looked up and then he got up from the floor. Both of them started to walk towards the esplanade situated outside the city.
“What happens?”
“I have to go back to Mida.”
The captain of the midarian army stopped at a few meters from his craft.
“I’ll go with you. It’s dangerous for you to travel alone.”
“It’s not necessary.”
“Can I ask you the reason?” According to plan, you were going to stay on this planet for a hundred years more.
“Yes, that was the plan, but things aren’t working as I’d like them to. Every time we land, our crafts destroy the reigning harmony and quietness. If someone can solve this problem, that person is Grias.”
“I insist in going with you”
“I’m grateful for your concern, but I repeat you that it’s not necessary. Besides, someone will have to supervise the mission.”
Yewut went to the craft and got into it. He sat in front of the commands and selected MIDA. As the niolar only stores the important or far-reaching memories, Palac did not see the control panel anymore to start seeing a terribly dull volcanic scenery. He had reached Mida. The vision immediately jutted out inside the Sinz Palace. Finally, he reached a room which was unknown by the novice.
His eyes looked in all directions, avoiding countless chess-board pieces. The room was packed with surprising objects and instruments: large test tubes with liquids of unimaginable colors and plenty of impossible to understand gadgets that embellished big work tables.
“Welcome, sir,” a high-pitched voice said.
The head moved to one side and then to the other again.
“Where are you, old friend?”
“Just in front of you. Actually, I’m not alone.”
«Grias’ lab!»
Palac searched his grandfather’s elusive scientists’ hiding place through his grandfather’s eyes. A few seconds later, a total of eight assistants started to appear at less than a meter from his spot. It took some minutes for Grias to appear.
“Where did you come from?” He asked uneasy.
“It’s the last project we’re carrying out,” Grias answered.
His voice was paused and tremendously high-pitched. Physically, he was quite different from any other midarian. Although having been wearing the same outfit than they, his origins as a silotacan made him have a very different appearance. He was a bit taller than one and a half meters and weighed seventy kilos. His body was extremely disproportionate. Below the waist, where he had two fat and short legs, contrasted with the part above the waist, formed by two thin and lon
g arms attached to a skinny cylindrical torso. The head was totally round and slightly asymmetrical with respect to the upper part.
«What an ogre!»
“What is such project about?” Yewut asked.
“We’re developing a liquid that at being spread on our body, it makes it invisible.”
“How much does its effect last?”
“The first tests have been quite pessimist,” the scientist answered a bit embarrassed. “We’ve been able to hide for two minutes so far.”
“What applications will this project have?”
“Mainly, I’m developing this technology to hide my body and go back to Silotac. I’d like to see in which conditions my planet is and to recover some belongings.”
“I think it’s a wonderful idea…”
For an instant, Yewut remained in silence. He knew how important it was for Grias to go back to his planet. The attack suffered in Silotac was totally unexpected. He could do nothing to help his peers. All his memories were buried under a destruction mantle; a destruction produced by themselves. The leader wondered if it was the right moment to ask him for help to solve the problem in Racot.
“I’ve known him for such a long time and I’ve got the feeling that he’s come to ask me something,” Grias said taking one of the test tubes.
The vision moved forward.
“Tell me what it is about. This project can wait…”
“I need you to find the way to improve our crafts. When we land in Racot, we produce some air currents that alter the environment considerably. Apart from that, I’d like to travel faster.”
Grias took one of his hands to his chin.
“About propulsion, I don’t rule out making some modification that reduces the excessive currents when landing. However, I’m sorry to tell you that it’s impossible for us to travel faster,” the silotacan answered. “Electrodiamantic technology allows us to travel at three hundred kilometer a second. No one in the galaxy travels so fast! I don’t understand why, time is something you never cared about.”
“Racot is evolving extremely fast,” Yewut said. “Every time I go back to Mida, I need a hundred years to cover the distance that separates us from the game. For us, something insignificant; for them, several generations over time.”
“I can assure you I’ll do everything I can to satisfy your request, but as I’ve told you, I don’t think it will be possible.”
Some of the scientists that were with him whispered uneasily before the midarian leader’s request. They knew that accepting that task meant that they would never finish the tests to become invisible so that Grias could return to his planet, which was something with which he had dreamt about for so long.
“If there’s someone who can, that’s you.”
“I’ll try.”
“Thank you. Let me know as soon as you’ve got news,” he concluded.
He got out of there to walk along the vast corridors of the Sinz. He turned right and started walking in another one that seemed familiar to Palac. His father had taken him along that endless corridor that led to the control room some hours ago. Just when he was about to cross the threshold, the vision disappeared.
«What is my father doing?» Completely mad, there it was Cabolun in front of one of the monitors, pressing with rage several areas of Racot. He raised his hand again towards the monitor and just before he pressed another region, Yewut entered the room to prevent him from doing so.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
Cabolun was startled at seeing him and he stood up.
“I was checking that everything was alright.”
“You’re lying!”
His son bowed down his head. He didn’t know what to answer.
“This is not the first time I found you here. Every time you press the monitor, you destroy a region of the planet. Why do you enjoy that so much?” He asked raising his son’s head with his hand.
Once more, silence was the only answer.
“From now on, I forbid you to enter this room. I’ll already find the way to keep you entertained…”
«But what’s going on here?» He thought, shocked by the last events experienced in his grandfather’s niolar.
Chapter 16
Chapter 4. What is the hereafter?
Reading such a confusing question gave goosebumps to Margaret.
Over history, human beings have considered that death is a step to the hereafter. The different religions hold the theory that the spiritual world is as real and tangible as the material one. Some testimonies state having died and conscientiously come back to maternal womb. Tibetan yogis claim that the living ones come from the dead ones.
Egyptian belief.
The Egyptians described the world of the dead as a desert divided by a long river very similar to the Nile, place where they lived. They represented the soul with the shape of a bird with the face of the dead. Such flying soul left the body deprived from its life momentarily and went back to visit its relatives settled in the gardens, by the river shores. Its existence was possible thanks to its relatives’ attentions and to the mercy offered by the living ones since that traveler soul, eligible to be happy, had to be nurtured and given plenty of gifts. If the living ones forgot the dead ones, these would transform into Bennu, a bird from the ponds that would return to its earthly house to frighten those who should have fed it.
Hindu belief.
Hindus thought that after death the soul goes through the astral dimension from the temporal one to later form part of another body that may be of a human being, an animal, an insect or a plant. Each one’s karma will determine the body in which the soul will materialize. The good and bad deeds done over our lives will determine the karma. That is why that, if during life we have followed the path of evil, the soul will reincarnate in an inferior being to be punished. On the contrary, if one led a virtuous life, the soul will reincarnate in a noble and perfected being. According to Hindus, the souls will reincarnate as many times as it is necessary before the karma is completely liberated. Then, the soul will be dissolved in nirvana or it will join Brahma. Another belief is that it will come the day on which humans will not exist on the Earth anymore, as it happened when long time ago when they did not exist on the planet. The human being is influenced by cosmic forces and it is a period of full evolution. Such forces will change the actual nature of humans, and it will remain nothing human in that soul that emerged at the beginning of times.
Tibetan belief
Tibetans believe that after death they remain in a state of trance that lasts for three or four days. During that time, the body is detached from the human dimension. That first state is known as Chikkai Bardo, transitory state of the decease period. During that period, it appears the Light Clear, which is perceived by the soul in karmic shape, without it being capable of recognizing it. In the second period, the soul starts perceiving and recognizing its new environment. This state is known as Chönyid Bardo, a transitory state of reality. The last Bardo is Sidpai Bardo or transitory rebirth state, which finishes when the principle of consciousness is reborn in the human world, in some other world or in one of the celestial paradisiac reigns. The great liberation doctrine through vision and audition is called Bardo Thödol, which is the suggested and typical state of all experiences after death. After dying, the human being becomes the only observer of a scene full of hallucinatory visions. The dead one, unless being an initiated, thinks that he is still a carnal dead. When it understands that it has no longer a body, it desperately starts looking for one. When the disembodied one turns into flesh, it begins the rebirth state. The most illuminated yogis are the only ones that go directly to heaven or reincarnate in this world in a conscious way and uninterruptedly.
Western religions
Western religions have a very different conception of death. They consider that life in the hereafter is spiritual and that it is eternally based on the actions carried out during earthly life. Those who lead a life based on greed, hate and resentme
nt will be relegated to the twilight world. Otherwise, those who had led a fair, honest and good-natured life will deserve heaven.
“Surprising Tibetan ideology,” Margaret muttered.
There are many who after being declared clinically dead have discovered the spiritual limit of life and death. Most of them are studied by psychologists and scientists that end up confirming such testimonies without finding the way of explaining them. One of the most surprising cases is the one of Bindu Kappor, a ten-year-old girl who lives in India. When she was very little, she started telling her parents memories of her previous life. She was the youngest of ten siblings. She lived in Irak and the last thing she could remember was having heard a loud buzz followed by an explosion. Over the years, the details became more and more accurate.
The story came to light when an investigator validated her testimony after contrasting the information given by the girl. Another case is the one of David Garcia, a teenager living in Spain. Since he was a child, he found himself immerse in a series of nightmares that impeded him to sleep fluently. Every night he saw himself flying an American combat plane which had caught fire after having been shot by Japanese troops. His parents, worried, decided to make him undergo hypnosis sessions to find the origin of such a dreadful nightmare. The results were shocking. During one of his regressions, here remembered his name had been Jack Rapson and that he was shot down while piloting a Corsair plane. A deep investigation revealed the name given by the boy belonged to an American pilot died during the Second World War and whose body had never been found. David said that just after crashing against the water, he appeared in an unknown place where some of his partners who had already died were waiting for him.
“What a perturbing memory,” Josef said.
“Definitely,” Margaret added turning the page.
The most significant case of reincarnation, according to experts, is Pie Zhao’s, a middle-aged woman from a small village in China. One day, as she was riding her bike down the street, she was run over by a lorry. The injuries suffered were extremely serious and, after two years in comma, she woke up. Her husband and her son, totally ecstatic, showed their happiness for such terrific event. The particularity of the case appeared when she started talking. Everyone there remained speechless. She was talking in a perfect Spanish with a Cuban accent. She claimed her name was Yurisei Delgado and that she lived in San Cristobal, Cuba. She remembered having been playing near the balcony of her house and suddenly she fell down. Despite the efforts of the psychologists to find a reasonable explanation, that could never be achieved. Pie Zhao lost all the memories lived with her husband and son, and substituted them by little Yurisei’s. A certain time after her recovery, she went back to Cuba to meet her family.
The World's Game Page 11