by Lea Tassie
The prime minister was not amused when Tegra explained why he was once again in the building he had long ago vacated. She sat, stern and upright, bristling at the very notion that the great Tegra-Duran was demanding she relinquish authority to him.
"What you're asking is not going to happen," Prime Minister Chilton stated, as if the topic were not even open for debate.
"I understand the difficulty, but you have no authority to stop me," Tegra said, as he took from his pocket the small device that had always occupied his desk at home. It had stopped beeping earlier and now only occasionally chirped, as if it still needed attention. Tegra held the device up for Miss Chilton to see. He flicked a switch on the device and the action plan he'd long ago created started executing. "I'm sorry, but I have implemented a strategy decided on many, many years ago. You see, the Prime Taskoid somehow managed to reactivate a programming subroutine. How this could have been done, I have no idea. But it's happened, and now we humans have no option."
"You’re making no sense, and your pocket computer does not give you the authority you say you need!" Prime Minister Chilton was calling for security to enter the room when Tegra’s device suddenly went quiet.
"It's done." Tegra-Duran, the most hated and yet most loved leader that New Eden had ever known, stood up to leave. Turning back, he said, "The world ship's engines are spooling up, and soon the ship will leave, carrying the many people who live there. I suggest you start emergency procedures now if you want to save lives. If you won't relinquish power, you must take responsibility for the results of that decision. The imbalance our world is about to experience will certainly be catastrophic. You must realize that I have no choice, that this moment was decided long before either of us existed."
Security rushed into the room. Prime Minister Chilton was beside herself with rage, shouting for them to arrest Tegra. The security staff stood frozen, unable to comply, for they respected the authority of Tegra-Duran far more than anyone else in power.
Tegra's shoulders slumped as if he were losing the will to live and, rather than leaving, said to the prime minister, "Sit down and I will try to explain. It makes little difference now whether you know the truth or whether you don't." He took a deep breath and went on. "Years back, when we were returning from the Grays' home world and before he went on trial, the Prime and I had time to sit alone and talk. He told me of this single program written into the Taskoids' code, a snip of code radically different from the standard code used for Taskoids." Tegra had reseated himself. Miss Chilton, looking reluctant, waved the security guards away and sat down.
"You see, he found a data burst in the code. It took time to decipher, but finally we both understood the relevance of the code. It was not only the spark of life that gave the Taskoids sentient thought and the power of decision, but it was also a message in a bottle. The Prime had at first thought the code was written by members of the First Ones, for it was technologically beyond comprehension."
Tegra placed the device on the minister's desk. He continued explaining. "It was not written by the First Ones." This admission brought relief that the great burden he had been bearing for so long had now been shared.
"I remember reading the reports of that time period," Miss Chilton said. "If you were wrong about the First Ones, then who wrote the code?"
"Okay, let me try again. The code itself isn't what's important here; it was what the data burst told. The message in the bottle told us that a black sphere was coming, intending to destroy New Eden and all life dwelling here, but did not reveal when it would arrive. It also told us what we had to do to stop it from destroying all life." Tegra stopped talking for a bit, lost in the past.
"But that's impossible! What you're saying is that you had knowledge of the future?" Miss Chilton was starting to understand the relevance of this conversation.
"Not just of that one point, but of our future for some time to come," Tegra responded as he leaned back in his chair and ran his fingers through his gray hair. Miss Chilton looked as if she were going to speak, but Tegra cut her off. "The Prime knew this time would come, and so we planned together to change the future. I am sending the world ship off to a distant point in space. It must be done, so that the events about to happen will not be the destruction of all humanity, just some."
"Who wrote the data burst?" Miss Chilton finally asked.
"This is the second black sphere we have dealt with, but it is one that we humans have already met. It was the god of the Old Testament, the vengeful god, and it means to do us all harm," Tegra responded slowly.
Miss Chilton sat silent for a moment, looking down at her desk. She never liked feeling helpless and found the lack of control difficult to face. "Wait!" Miss Chilton said, as a thought struck her. "If you know the future, then why wait until now to launch the world ship? I mean, if you knew all this would happen, then why wait?"
"The Prime and I understood that the data burst told of a time to come, but it did not tell us the date. We could have had a thousand years or ten thousand years. As it happens, it was today. I had hoped to avoid the destruction I knew would be the result of this action."
A deep and insistent rumbling emanated from deep beneath the surface of the planet, building in intensity. As the world ship bolted from the sky, the planet it had found companionship with for so long began to erupt with earthquakes and volcanos. Tegra-Duran felt a deep sadness; the casualties would be staggering.
***
As it turned out, what seemed to be a miracle happened. Perhaps, with all the advancements in medical science and the determined, dedicated people of the genetics longevity program, the miracle should have been expected. But science, as always, dealt in facts, not in hopes.
Buildings crumbled and infrastructure disintegrated as tremendous floods engulfed lands, and torrential rains thundered down. The planet was being torn apart.
But people weren't dying.
At first, nobody realized what was happening, for the trauma of disasters all over the planet took precedence. But slowly, as the pace of destruction slowed, people started to notice there were no casualties.
A long time had passed since people were concerned about death. It wasn't a topic most tended to dwell on, anyway. But, as humanity consistently gained years of life-span at the hands of the geneticists, death seemed further and further away. To be sure, there were casualties from the disaster but, as terrible as the trauma might be, their bodies simply continued living while the wounds healed.
Medical science was just as baffled as the layman, unsure of which process had succeeded in creating humans with apparent immortality. It certainly looked like immortality, for human bodies weren't aging and weren't decaying. Now, they appeared not to be dying.
The riotous explosion of emotion that followed the devastation caused by the black sphere made the chaos of that event look mild by comparison. The cities and towns of New Eden were in ruins. After five hundred years of peace and prosperity, people could not believe how their lives had been disrupted.
On the other hand, this devastating event had proved that humans were immortal. Many had hoped for it, but no one had believed it could happen.
Young people were the most vulnerable to this heady knowledge and made a game of trying to kill themselves or each other. All over the planet, wild parties of teens played 'chicken,' desperately trying to top the stunts of their friends in ridiculous attempts to destroy one another. People learned that if they cut a limb off, it might be off for good, but they would continue to live. Madness gripped the planet in that first year, until humanity came to terms with this amazing new phenomenon.
People quickly realized that war must now be absolutely a thing of the past. What was the point of battering each other to pieces if nobody died?
Then came the downside. It had been coming for hundreds of years anyway, simply because people weren't dying. The government had already begun taking steps to counteract over-population. The results of the attack on New Eden by the black
sphere spurred the enactment of new laws.
Pregnancy was no longer allowed. Children were genetically grown, styled to suit the needs of society and some few discriminating individuals. The children were allowed to age naturally through medical process to the age of eighteen, then they could choose to continue the drug regimen and age to whatever point they desired. Incredible advancements in every field, including sports and art, became the norm as humans with immense intellects were brought into the world.
Chapter 16 Terrorist onslaught
Dart speaks to Reader:
What do I do when I'm not telling you the history of humanity? Well, there are no people on Earth except you and me, so no party-time, either.
I've built a simple shelter nearby and, to begin my day, I venture out to see if it's still true that there are no humans around. There never are, but don't feel sad for me. I enjoy my own company. The sky is still a most delightful blue, and the sun still warms me.
Sometimes I blink to the shores of what was once known as western Canada, with its rocky outcrops and brisk air, its massive forests. Then I blink again and find myself standing in the great city of New York, where the wind off the sea whistles down the empty streets. I blink again and I'm sitting on a bench beside a peaceful lake.
Yes, I can go anywhere I choose by blinking there. No, I don't have the power to go back in time. That’s just silly. Science has shown repeatedly that time is linear. That told us we had to stop messing things up because we have no back button. Yes, I know Charger R/T bounces around to different times, but that's him. He has powers nobody else has.
With nobody left on Earth except you and me, of course I will take care of you until it's time for you to leave. Besides, I couldn't walk away from Earth after all the hard work we did to make it a beautiful and thriving planet again. If the giants find this planet and wreck it, like the Grays did with the Night of the Black Rain, I just couldn't live with that.
You're right, it's an Eden. Humanity may not deserve to survive and, frankly, I don't think it does, but that's no reason to destroy a lovely fertile planet.
The other day, I blinked to an open field; it was covered with the most incredible yellow daisies and red poppies. The place seemed to need some birds to sing, so I created a few robins. Yes, I can do that, too.
Now I'll explain why everybody left.
Yes, you guessed right. You've been paying attention. The giants are on their way to this solar system and they intend to completely obliterate humanity. Everyone is terrified.
You want to know more about the war with the black sphere? Let me try to condense the background into something that won't take much time.
You remember Abarth, and his belief that humanity had wronged him over the death of his wife and three daughters? Of course, he was a bit insane in the first place. Anyway, Abarth wanted to destroy the entire human race and tried to trick my dad into killing everyone.
When Charger R/T refused to help, Abarth stirred up trouble with those Grays I told you about. That got all the Grays killed and, with my dad on his tail, Abarth fled back through time. My dad finally tracked him to planet Crest and killed him.
That didn't solve the problem either. In the other time line, when Abarth was in prison, he met a guy called Spyder, who became his disciple and who is causing nearly as much trouble as Abarth ever did.
What does Spyder want? What do people like him ever want? Power. And then more power.
So Spyder went to the black sphere which rules Crenel, the planet of the giants, and coaxed it to attack New Eden. It caused immense damage with earthquakes, storms, volcanos, and floods, which destroyed almost every building. But no humans died.
Yes, that's when we found out we really are immortal. But the black sphere was enraged when it realized it hadn't succeeded in wiping out humanity. Then it decided to send out packs of giants on suicide missions.
Absolutely correct, Reader. Gods are vengeful.
Right now, as I speak, an army of giants is on its way to Earth and they will very likely find and kill me. But not you. You have a task.
Charger R/T will dispatch the giants soon. I know that, because he told me it happened in his past. Just trust me, it will all make sense someday.
Now let me tell you about the problem I face. We want to give you Earth and all the information you will ever need about the human race. We want you to have the history and what we've discovered through our science, and most important, the real reason we keep turning to religion.
I will send you and Earth on a trip across the great void of space and have you holed up in a place so remote that no one will ever find you. That's right, now you get it, you're our message in a bottle, Reader. You will make sure that humanity survives once again and thrives, but only because of a gift I'll give you. That gift means you will be humanity's best hope for a future.
We pooled our talents and created for you the most powerful weapon ever conceived. Don't be too quick to accept this gift, for it comes with a weighty responsibility. If you accept it, you will be the most powerful being in existence, and that's saying a lot. You won't at first understand the gift, but the more I explain, the better you will realize the awesome responsibility you bear.
Simply put, you will have the power to read minds and to change them.
If an army attacks, you can send them home by changing their minds, or if an evil entity attacks you, no matter its biology, you can send it away by changing its mind. This means you could control governments, or entire planets and their destiny. You could even control the entire universe and have it bend to your will, simply by changing the mind of any being so that it will do what you want. Without killing a single living thing, you can decide what everyone will do and how they will do it. So I hope you see, Reader, the incredible responsibility you would have.
The unanswered question is this: what gives you the right to decide for others their destiny? Think hard about that one.
No, you cannot save me by using this gift to send the giants back home. Sad to say, it will take some time before you fully control this talent. I will probably be dead by the time you master it and, besides, you can only change the future, not the past, Reader.
What about all the people who ran away? It's not their fault that they ran away. You see, Reader, as we humans discovered more of how the universe really functions and what it is made of, we grew less and less reliant on violence to solve our problems.
People no longer had to fight for food and they never needed money because it was easy to make enough things for everyone. Work became almost a thing of the past since we were free to develop and explore as we chose. We stayed active with learning, creating, doing the impossible, and destroying the things that stopped progress. Oh, yes, we still destroyed, because that's part of our nature, but we never killed.
Destroyed what? Organized religion for one. Politics for another.
We had no use for the problems that had once kept us down, things like debt, hatred, envy, greed. The list of things we put behind us was long, but the one thing that we should have kept was our willingness to fight. In this regard, I think Abarth was right; we became sheep, too willing to rely on science to resolve everything. Sometimes a problem just needs a good punch in the face to resolve it, and this is probably what we should have done with the giants.
You're still confused about the giants? As I said, they're coming to Earth and the other three planets, planning to destroy every human. Charger R/T has told me this is what will happen. He says he can't stop the giants from coming, but when they get here, he will destroy all of them.
Ah, I see. You think he is like us, and I just told you that we don't kill anymore. That's why you’re confused.
Well, Reader, be assured, Charger R/T is nothing like us. Charger R/T is the most malevolent and powerful being ever to exist. Humanity is sickened by my dad's existence, but still dependent on him for survival. In our long and checkered human history, my father stands out as the master of al
l that is repugnant and evil. He is the most abhorrent being ever to exist and ultimately responsible for an inconceivable number of deaths.
Now I must continue with the story.
***
A lone giant had been sent from the planet ruled by the black sphere on a singular quest. It completed its mission of landing in a crowded market place and detonating itself. The explosion was inward, an implosion. The effect was to erase supposedly immortal humans from existence by simply pulling all their mass into a singularity, then using that force to provide transport for the next giant on its holy quest.
Again, and yet again, the giants traveled alone on random, unpredictable courses to the four populated planets circling the sun. Their arrivals were only announced by the destruction and chaos they left behind. People had no protection, for they had long since abandoned a military force. Nor did they have the support of a police force, for crimes had become the acts of only the unintelligent and few of those remained.
Humans had become, as Abarth predicted, sheep. And the black sphere was Spyder's unthinking and willing accomplice. Spyder reveled in his power, and in the torment the followers of the black sphere god brought down upon the heads of the innocent. He often cited his insane justification, that no one but he was intelligent enough to rule the solar system.
The Elves, Dwarves and Earthers had been warned by Dart, Brick and Della, and now the Techno-creeps scrambled to find methods to plug up the leaks in their sinking lives. Then came the explosion of two giants at once. This was a new tactic, sweeping through humanity before it could find a way to defend itself. With twin explosions in separate locations, these giants carried out the wishes of their god.
Spyder found a safe hole deep underground to preach from, and ranted to humanity through the news agencies. They willingly gave him plenty of coverage. Like the news media of old, they seemed to love giving voice to the insane. He made speeches from hiding, claiming the god's acts were just and righteous. The black sphere watched, from his own deep cave, the murderous acts against a people that once worshiped him.