by Mark Jacobs
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He crept along the landscape’s fringe under moonlight intensified by a cloudless sky. The stars blazed brightly across the arc from mountain to valley and lake to jungle. Reckoning had disappeared from view; never again to show its face, so the Scholars predicted; we would feel its fury when it joined the earth many horizons distant. Tabernacle stood before him, shining like a gem from the earth, teaming with sisters and brothers and mothers and priests.
He entered through a triangular entranceway and waddled down a hallway of polished alloy. A cavernous room lay before him, bathed in soft glow-light. To either side and down its center, great canals of orange gel ran from end to end. Mothers and nurses scurried amongst the canals. He stood puzzled of what motivated their frantic actions. He contemplated querying Teacher.
“Mothers of the inconsolable,” a mature voice spoke before him.
He sensed an elder and stood mute in respect.
“They require your help in the nursery. The time for congregation is upon us.” The elder waved his hand, moving abruptly away.
He approached the nearest canal with great trepidation. One of a multitude of mothers clambered through the gel covered eggs. She grasped an oval orb in her webbed hands and held it aloft, and a after a moment of reflection, dropped it offhandedly, shattering it upon the stone below. She moved hurriedly to the next, and then the next, and the next. In his mind he could sense her anxiety, laced with sorrow and grief.
The mother held one of the eggs for a few moments longer. She caressed its off-yellow shell, appearing to gaze into the embryo’s life-force. Suddenly, she held the egg high in the air. She moaned loudly, but a subdued blissful noise. The other mothers halted briefly to join in a melancholy chorus, before hurriedly returning to their somber tasks.
The mother stepped carefully to him and held forth the egg. “A fledgling,” she said, her voice trembling with dread. “Take it upon the Tabernacle with the others. It will be born to see the world before the conflagration. Take it!”
He grasped the egg firmly as the mother turned away. In its shell, he could feel its life preparing to burst forth. He shuffled away and through the crowded nursery, and up a wide stairway.
Before him, the once bustling city lay cool and inhospitable. The vast fountains and moats, usually flushed with torrent, lay vacant and tranquil—a testament to a passing age, he mused. The habitats stood open and powerless, the majority of power-givers only recently disengaged and disassembled; this following the elder’s collective will, deeming the planet returned to its most rudimentary form— before the rise of intelligent beings who could manipulate and engineer vast elements of nature upon their beckon will. Now, even Protector’s ring was deactivated, leaving all vulnerable to predatory creatures waiting patiently beyond. Only a few of the great computing machines remained powered; but those also would fall silent upon the sun collector’s eventual failure. He gurgled with glee, imagining Teacher lecturing only to himself. Yet alas, even Teacher will cease to exist, dissolving to nothingness, he reasoned quite sadly.
He strode along with the solemn masses, emerging on Tabernacle’s court. Many amongst him also bore eggs, and they placed their burdens gently on the stone before them. He selected a spot, doing the same. Although several had already cracked forth, squirming with tiny webbed feet and hands and almond shaped heads.
Above his head, the moon had now disappeared, and the stars blazed gloriously above the jungles and swamps. The eyes of gathered thousands gazed upward in awe and trepidation.
The time is near... The priest’s voice swept through his conscience, clearly as if spoken aloud.
He inhaled deeply and leaned back to stone. “Teacher,” he asked, settling in comfortably. “Will we be the last to ponder our destiny on this earth?”
“There are many variables to your query, young student.”
“Another conundrum?”
“No, not such. Your kind evolved from the tiniest squiggling creatures. Why could it not, again?”
“But in such an inhospitable place?”
“That will pass, young pupil. Eventually, the air will clear and the jungles will re-grow and flourish, and the small and durable will seek the sun’s warmth, and rise again to eat and mate, and use whatever small intelligence to ponder and create—”
“Only to be destroyed, again?”
“Most probably...”
He gurgled merrily at Teacher’s most predictable response.
Suddenly, the far horizon glowed like the rising of the morning sun. He could feel intense shock and dismay sweep across the collective minds of all before him. He, himself, felt panic and confusion.
Reckoning’s time has arrived... he heard the unified voices of the priests chant. Slowly and assuredly, all were drawn inward and back into the collective— an apex of thoughts, peaceful and tranquil. He too felt eerily calm once again. Gazing upward, he observed half the night sky glowing orange, red, and yellow. All was terrifyingly and uncomfortably silent.
A sharp tremor struck the Tabernacle’s base. The stone shook violently, tossing him asunder. He steadied himself while the ground roared and grated. Before him, he witnessed great structures toppling upon hundreds where they stood. Very few of the first victimized ran from their fate— most simply accepted their doom, he reasoned.
“Teacher,” he said, in a faint voice daring not disturb the other’s incantations. “Of the long-necks, you asked?”
“Yes.”
“Of sentience... is your point, are we better off then they?”
Teacher’s response came after but a moment of synthetic reflection. “Does foreknowledge of your fate fare better than blissful ignorance? To answer that question, you must reflect deeply within yourself, young student— you will ascertain it, nowhere else.”
Suddenly a screaming projectile burst forth from the sky. He watched with awe as it flew over his head, disappearing over the jungle just beyond. Moments later, a cluster of fireballs rained downward from the roiling sky.
In his thoughts, he felt calm reassurance. At least I had Teacher; it would never leave me. Not ever, not now.”