The Reality Assertion

by Paul Anlee

  “Maybe it’s all moot, anyway,” Darya said. “No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.”

  Darak dug deep into archived memory.

  “Aren’t you the wise one,” he laughed. “Quoting Moltke now, are we?”

  “I have you to thank for that,” she pointed out. “Not too long ago, I wouldn’t have remembered who that was. Thank you for restoring my lost memories. I’m sorry I gave you so much grief over it.”

  “Thanks for letting me,” Darak said. “I know it wasn’t an easy decision for you. It took a lot of trust. But enough of that. Now, if we’re going to quote great military strategists, how about Dwight D. Eisenhower?”

  Darya did her own search.

  “That goes back a bit, too. Let’s see. My guess is you’re referring to this gem: ‘In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.’”

  “That’s the one. Still fitting after all this time, isn’t it?”

  They floated for a while, silently contemplating the local battlefield. Powerful energy blasts occasionally speared toward them. They casually shunted the beams into alternative, virtual universes where they could do no harm.

  “Earth was a violent place in those days,” Darya observed. “I’m afraid we’re bringing war back into a Realm that has known peace for over twenty million years.”

  “Me, too,” Darak agreed. “But there would’ve been no need for this war without Alum’s Divine Plan. He didn’t leave us much choice.”

  “It’s lucky that the one civilization that threatens the entire universe happened to give rise to more than one active God,” Darya said. “Imagine, if we weren’t here to challenge Alum’s ambition and power, the universe would be reconfigured without a whimper.”

  Darak grimaced. “It still might be. We humans have always had to reign in our leaders, whether those leaders were Kings, or Emperors, or Presidents, or Gods like Alum.”

  “Yeah, you’ve got that right,” Darya replied, “We bring it on ourselves, though. We keep clinging to some magical hope that someone better than us, some omnipotent Supreme Being, will come along and rescue us from ourselves. It makes us easy prey for charismatic leaders who can claim any sort of connection to that Supreme Being or, in Alum’s case, to set Himself up as that Supreme Being.”

  “That’s because we have a hard time embracing maturity,” Darak said. “You know, things like responsibility, accountability, and consequence. Religious belief—unquestioning faith in any leader, really—banks on our desire to offload responsibility for our actions, good or bad.

  “I firmly believe that rejection of mature responsibility was one of the things that got Darian killed. He kept pushing humanity to grow up, to take responsibility for its choices and development. Some people don’t take kindly to that kind of thing.”

  “What do you mean, he pushed humanity to grow up?”

  “I remember him saying something in his last lecture. ‘If as a society—as a species—we can learn to become aware of the behaviors that are good for our species over the long term, we can begin to take steps to select good behaviors from bad ones without needing the threat of eternal punishment. We no longer need the idea of a God or gods to choose good behaviors.’ A lot of people, powerful people, took exception to that.”

  “Considering Alum’s Divine Plan, I’m not sure that part about making good decisions and not needing guidance will ever be true,” Darya replied. “Who does Alum look to for guidance and judgment?”

  “Ha, well, you’ll love this! Like all Gods, Alum is an atheist. He assumes full responsibility for what He does. As far as He’s concerned, there’s no God above Him to judge His actions, unless He still holds some faded concept of the Abrahamic God He modeled Himself after.”

  “Yov, the Creator-God.”

  “That’s the most recent name they gave Him, yes,” Darak said. “Even though, we now know Yov is nothing more than a human fabrication. A story. A stubbornly persistent myth. Our present universe has no need of such concepts.”

  “If there is no ultimate God, who will judge us?” Darya asked quietly.

  Darak considered his answer carefully. “As I told Alum, nature is everywhere and always the arbiter of truth. I meant it. Reality judges. The universe, or the multiverse if you prefer, judges us all. And continued existence is its only criterion.”

  “I hear echoes of Darian in that.”

  “I’ve created universes,” Darak replied. “I’ve watched them develop and watched them sputter back into the Chaos, and I can say with confidence that continued existence—the continued chance for something surprising or interesting to develop—is all that matters. As much as we’d like to have other criteria to judge good and bad, I’ve never found any.”

  “Not even love?”

  “Love is powerful, I’ll give you that, but it’s not always a clear measure of ‘good’. If we’re not careful, if we let it get out of balance, it can become a destructive force. Over my various lifetimes, versions of me have done many crazy things for love.”

  “Did you find love again? After me, I mean?” she asked.

  Darak overlaid an image of Greg Mahajani onto his physical body that was floating in space with Darya, then transitioned it slowly back to the appearance he’d worn for the past millions of years.

  “For many years in this form, I didn’t dare allow myself to love without reservation. I was always too close to Alum to let down my guard or be caught in an open and vulnerable state.”

  He swapped bodies, bringing his Cybrid-self forward from another dimension.

  Darya transmitted a gasp of surprise.

  “DAR-G!”

  “Yeah, surprise! Through the ages, I’ve been…I am Darak, Greg, and DAR-G. And then there are my Angel and Aelu identities. But all of my personas—those with human origins—loved you, first as Kathy and then again as DAR-K. I never stopped.”

  “So many lifetimes ago,” Darya whispered.

  “Too many, and yet still not enough. That’s the problem with perfect memory. I can recall every moment of our lives together. I can remember losing you. Twice. I still have to dampen the pain when I think about it.”

  “Greg...Darak, I’m so sorry.”

  Darak changed back into his human form. He shrugged and tried to grin.

  “That’s okay. I found you again. Even though we may not survive our confrontation with Alum, I’ve found you again and that makes me happy.”

  Darya transmitted an image of her human avatar, smiling.

  “We could try again. We could run away from all of this.”

  Darak shook his head.

  “I don’t know how long we’d survive,” he said. “Not long, I imagine. Alum’s Deplosion Array is going to alter the multiverse to its core. He’s going to rip apart the fabric of reality and make His Heaven the only possible universe. I don’t think any of us could survive for long.”

  “Probably longer than we’re going to survive by taking the fight to Him.”

  Darak stared at his feet, floating on nothing. For a microsecond, he felt torn.

  An instinctive reflex. I thought I’d edited those out. In that moment, he realized what Darya had been doing. He burst out laughing.

  “What?” she said.

  “You always were a good foil,” he said. “You know me well enough to know my weaknesses.”

  She sent an image of innocence.

  “I had to know for sure,” she said. “Can you fight as hard for the love of a universe as you once did for the love of a woman?”

  “‘The universe’ seems like such a nebulous concept,” he said.

  “Nothing could be less nebulous than the universe. No pun intended.”

  “True,” he agreed. “I see now why you chose a warrior as your avatar.”

  Darya conjured an image of her warrior self, standing with her sword in hand at the edge of a city in ruins.

  “The persona suited me when I didn’t really know who I
was. I drew strength from it. Now that I know who I am again, it still fits. Just in a different way.”

  “Maybe more than ever,” Darak agreed. “I’m glad you’re here with me. I couldn’t imagine anyone else I’d rather have by my side when I confront Alum.”

  “I’ll be out here, though, not at your side.”

  “There will come a point when this battle, the one out here, will no longer matter. The final battle will be finished in Alum’s Hall or in Heaven.”

  “I’ll come to you when you call.”

  “I know,” Darak said, his transmitted voice barely a murmur. “That’s why I’m going to spend the next two days with you.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. It’s time you practiced fighting as a God.”

  37

  The demanding week was taking a heavy toll on the Good Brother. Bouts of tedious waiting were punctuated by sheer panic every time he contemplated delivering his first lecture at the Alumita. The task was testing Stralasi’s fortitude in ways he’d never experienced.

  Darian Leigh, as if in intentional contrast, remained the picture of deep internal tranquility and perfect contentment. He was infuriatingly unconcerned by the drawn out days, filling his hours by strolling around the campus, exploring the habitat, and hacking into its InterLat databases. He was unperturbed by Stralasi’s wild dashing about in all directions at all hours, frantically compiling research that might be in any way remotely relevant to the course he’d proposed. Indeed, by all outward appearance, Darian seemed impervious to the monk’s caterwauling about being “in no way prepared” to lecture to a group of senior students.

  “What was I thinking?” the poor Brother wailed from his desk.

  Darian pulled his attention from whatever deep internal research he’d been pursuing and cracked open one eye.

  Stralasi pushed away from his work and strode over to the window.

  “There’s so much to cover in a course like this. So many things the Alumit would want me to teach.”

  “What’s the problem, my friend?” Darian asked. “You only have to give one class.”

  “The material I would have selected a year ago is all Standard theological pedagogy,” the Good Brother answered.

  “With which I assume you are well acquainted,” Darian replied.

  “But which I now know to be full of lies!”

  “Then adjust the material to fit the truth,” Darian suggested.

  “Obviously,” Stralasi said. “But if I do that, we’d be hauled before the Proctor after the first class.”

  “Hmm. That could be a problem. Perhaps you could compromise your principles.”

  Stralasi twisted in his seat and peered over his shoulder. “You do know that we take vows of honesty?”

  “I believe we passed that ethical point some time ago,” Darian pointed out.

  Stralasi turned from the window. The peaceful scenery was distracting. “Any untruths we’ve told have been necessary to our infiltration; they were needed to save the universe. That greater goal supersedes the obligation to be truthful in all things. Anyway, no one was directly hurt by our tiny lies. But I cannot bring myself to propagate the deceit of the Realm to future generations.”

  “I’m not suggesting you be deceitful,” Darian said, “just choose who you want to be true to.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “For our purposes, that means perhaps it would be better when you lecture on Thursday to be true to the Brother Stralasi you were one year ago, than to the Brother Stralasi you are today.”

  Stralasi shook his head. “Try again?”

  “Deliver the lecture you would have given a year ago. None of this will be relevant a year from now, anyway.”

  “There is no time limit on the truth,” the monk intoned.

  Darian laughed. “Normally, I’d agree with you. But, for now, it’s much more important that we make it to Friday than you assuage your guilt. It’s ironic you chose to teach a course in pragmatics. At the moment, pragmatics would dictate we say whatever we must in order to survive.”

  Stralasi frowned and returned to his work.

  Thursday morning arrived, and the Good Brother stood at the front of a class of two-hundred and fifty senior students feeling utterly terrified and inadequate.

  How do I make sure I say only what is safe?—he wondered.

  The conflict between the truth he wanted to shout and the lies he had to tell made his stomach hurt.

  We are invaders not colonists!—he wanted to say.

  We need to respect local life, not adapt everywhere to our needs.

  We could build more ringworlds, better suited to our natural biology, and leave other planets to develop as they will. They’re not for us anyway.

  We pray to a false God to fulfill our needs, when it is actually His Cybrid slaves that do all the work.

  He jams us into foreign bodies so we can tolerate environments that would otherwise kill us.

  All in the name of growing His Realm.

  The treasonous—blasphemous!—thoughts ran through his brain in an uncontrolled torrent. Galaxies away, his Familiar self waved its tentacle manipulators in nervous agitation.

  Brother Stralasi tried to calm his jumbled mind by reviewing his notes and class roster while he waited for the bell to sound the start of class.

  The resonating bong finally sounded directly within their lattices and the class turned their attention to their lecturer.

  The Good Brother closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He opened them and put on a confident smile.

  “Welcome to Spiritual Pragmatics, 315—Foundations of New Colonizations,” Stralasi began.

  “This is the first time I’ve taught this course, so the syllabus might be a bit different from prior years. We’re going to cover a lot of material, everything from social dynamics in a Founding Alumston to ecological testing and management. As the course title implies, we will pay as much attention to pragmatic issues as to spiritual—”

  A hand shot up in the back of the class. Stralasi’s lattice brought up the student’s name.

  “Yes, Mr. Armundsen,” he invited.

  Please, please, don’t ask if this will be on the test—he thought.

  “Professor Stralasi,” the young novitiate began.

  “Brother Stralasi,” the monk interrupted. “I am but a simple Brother in the Alumit. I have no Doctorate degree, simply decades of experience on the front lines, so to speak.”

  “Uh..okay. Brother Stralasi,” the student acknowledged.

  Stralasi cringed at the smirks and sneers on some of the faces at the back of the class.

  “Aren’t we going to begin with a prayer?” someone called out.

  By the Angels! Stralasi blushed at his rookie mistake. He’d been so focused on the lecture, he’d overlooked basic protocol.

  A wave of snickers reached his ears.

  He cleared his throat loudly to hide his embarrassment.

  “Yes, of course. Of course. Prayer is one of the most essential duties of the Head Brother. Perhaps one day you will be granted the privilege of welcoming a new world into Alum’s Realm. It will be your job to ensure the proper litanies make their way into the regular social fabric of the colony. After all, we wouldn’t want our worlds to become disconnected from the Lord out of laziness, would we? Or, worse yet, fall into rebellion.”

  He thought he heard a collective gasp at the notion that new colonies might volunteer to break away from the loving embrace of the Realm. Had he heard it or imagined it? He chided himself for bringing up such a controversial idea on the first day.

  More caution in your babblings, Brother!—he reminded himself.

  He scrambled to cover his error and bring the class back under control.

  “Okay, so what are the most essential prayers for a young Founding Alumston, then?” he asked. “Which shall we recite to open our class, today?”

  “The Invocation of Connection, obviously,” one of the young men volunteered.


  “The Plea for Divine Guidance is more important,” suggested another.

  “Without the Entreaty for Power, though, a colony would go dark and become disconnected from both the Realm and from Alum,” a third pointed out.

  The class grew silent as they weighed the choices and wondered if there were any other possibilities.

  Stralasi surveyed the room. His silence hinted that they had not yet hit upon the answer he was seeking.

  “Any others?” he asked. “Any?”

  One hand reached up tentatively from near the front.

  Stralasi consulted his class list.

  “Yes, Mr. Mathers,” he said.

  “Um, the Benediction of Gratitude?”

  “Why?”

  The young man looked uncertain.

  “Your answer may be a poor one, Mr. Mathers, or it may be a good one. It may even be the correct one, the one I’m looking for. But if you don’t know why it is correct, if you have no confidence in its appropriateness, how is one to have any faith in it? How is one to discern it comes from authority and not a lucky guess?”

  Mathers slumped further into his seat.

  “I…. Uh.... That is,....”

  “Because everything is a blessing from Alum,” another voice interjected.

  Stralasi’s attention spun to the other side of the classroom.

  “Ah, Mr. Peters. Yes, that’s true. The entire Realm is a blessing from Alum. So why would the Benediction of Gratitude be among the most essential prayers for a Founding Alumston?”

  Peters sat up straight, emboldened by having had part of the answer.

  “Because, how can Alum know if a new world has been seeded properly if that world doesn’t think to express its thanks to Him every day?”

  Stralasi frowned.

  “Are you suggesting that the Living God is limited in His knowledge of His People?” he challenged. “Is Alum not all-knowing and all-powerful?”

  Peters sat back, subdued.

  Mathers cleared his throat and tried again.

  “Our Lord knows all, and sees all,” he said. “Alum is perfection, embodied, but we are sinners. We are weak and fallible.”

  Stralasi smiled encouragingly. “Ah! Now, we are getting somewhere. We humans are sinners, and so…?”