"I think you may have finally overcome it," Melinda observed dryly.
While the march to asininity progressed towards its logical conclusion - a suggestion by yukawa3 that he should adopt his penguin disguise once more, infiltrate one of the chillok colonies and spy on them like he failed to do at the previous opportunity - Melinda hatched a plan to summon all the Muqu chilloks on the planet to a peace summit at the palace to pave the way for power-sharing negotiations. The real objective would involve poisoning them with a toxic methane vapour while they were all assembled in the Grand Hall. Convinced that this was a reasonably sound strategy (actually she thought of it as an epiphany moment), she rushed off to find nipkow4.
She found him in conference with the planetary leader in a small room adjacent to the newly designated War Council chamber.
"No, they wouldn't come to a peace summit," nipkow4 asserted. He was alarmed by the very thought of brokering a power-sharing deal.
"Why not?" Melinda looked genuinely surprised.
"There are things about the chilloks you don't understand," nipkow4 advised, wearing an expression of passive indifference. "For one thing, they worship a supreme deity and they believe this God requires the blood of their enemies to be spilled."
"Well, I'm not religious, literally, but I'm kind of spiritual. And I like to think I respect other people's faiths. But still, why does their religion make any difference? I don't see why they wouldn't want to talk peace."
Nipkow4 scrutinised her. "Don't you see? They believe that those who kill their enemies will be honoured by their God." Suspecting that he was not getting through to her, he simplified the message. "That's us. We're now their enemies. They think their God will reward them if they kill us."
"Yeah, okay, I get that." Melinda's voice was tinged with irritation and mounting anger. "Are you saying they wouldn't want peace on any terms? That's outrageous! Ridiculous and obnoxious and immoral! Who do they think they are, really? It's like totally unacceptable to refuse to negotiate! No civilised society would act like this!"
"I hardly think we're in a position to take the moral high ground," nipkow4 pointed out. "May I remind you, honoured deputy leader, that you were intending to double-cross them and annihilate them with poison gas."
"Yes, but I was going to propose a ceasefire first."
At this point, the planetary leader intervened. Sitting back, puffing at a cigar made of dried seaweed, he coughed and intoned pompously, "The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting."
Melinda nodded. "You see?" she said, in a self-righteous tone. "Subdue them. That's exactly what I was going to do!"
"Anyway," said nipkow4, massaging his head with his fingertips. "Even if you destroyed all the Muqus on the planet, it wouldn't achieve anything. They'd simply send for reinforcements from Oov."
"But how could they send for reinforcements if they're dead?"
"The chilloks on Oov would detect the outage in their network and send investigators."
The planetary leader, who had been listening intently while chomping vigorously at his cigar, drummed his fingers on a table and said, "When you're arguing with a fool, make sure the fool isn't doing the same thing."
Melinda and nipkow4 both assumed he was having a pop at the other and both said, "Exactly!" Then they both thought about it a little more and the room fell into an embarrassed silence. Eventually, Melinda, who no longer bothered to seek approval from the leader, told them she intended to go ahead with her plan. Nipkow4, brimming over with frustration and anger, left to arrange a briefing with the senior chillok ambassador.
The myrmecam was not only a sophisticated voice-translation device designed to facilitate real-time communication between humans and chilloks, but it also incorporated a hotline to the ambassador. So it did not take nipkow4 very long to arrange the meeting. Melinda barely had time to visit the bathroom before everything was ready and the ambassador, having appeared as if out of thin air, was twitching his antennae impatiently.
Much to nipkow4's surprise and consternation, the ambassador responded positively to the idea of a peace summit and agreed to an immediate ceasefire, subject to a few pre-conditions relating to the agenda. Melinda, who should have known better, sought clarification that the ceasefire would include the cessation of any "sneaky brain-fiddling tricks" associated with polkingbeal67's flaky mental state. Predictably, the ambassador denied any knowledge of "this unfortunate calamity". The summit was scheduled for the following day.
. . .
Nipkow4 branded the twenty four hour timescale as "completely ludicrous". Certainly, neither he nor Melinda had time to sleep, eat or do anything that did not involve setting up the Grand Hall or drafting a plausible power-sharing proposal.
Melinda, in particular, was in her element amid all the frantic preparations. Directing the palace minions, instructing the androids, arguing with nipkow4 about logistics and politics and answering the questions which were showered upon her by all and sundry, she was as animated and excited as a jumping bean on a pinball table. She was determined to create a lavish event of ostentatious magnificence, offering something for every palate and every disposition. "Well, there should at least be vol-au-vents and dips, aphids for the chilloks and, uh, paper flowers," she told the palace staff. "Oh, and, uh, a string quartet?"
"At what point do you intend to gas them?" asked nipkow4, weary with constantly having to point out flaws in the plan.
Racing across the hall to supervise the ribbon arrangements above the top table, Melinda shouted over her shoulder, "At the end of the meeting, I think. Or right at the start, when they've all arrived. Like a pre-emptive strike. Wait, no, yes, literally, right at the start."
"So what's the point of drawing up proposals if we're never going to get as far as presenting them?"
"Okay, you're right," Melinda conceded. "We'll do the peace negotiation stuff and then kill them straight afterwards. Tell me, do you think we should dress formally or..."
"Are we going to offer them shared residence of the palace?"
Melinda was totally engrossed in the business of avoiding breaches of sartorial protocol. "Black dress suits and evening gowns, do you think? What about name badges?"
"I'm going to assume that responsibility for programming the androids will still lie with us."
"Themed sweatshirts?"
Nipkow4 shook his head in exasperation. "We usually insist on both parties signing an agreement document. Do we make an exception in the case of the chilloks? Or do we get the ambassador to paddle around in some ink? Wait, do you mean the hoodies with the goopmutts waving peace signs? I love those!" Never distracted for long, he quizzed Melinda further about the power-sharing negotiations and recommended setting up a joint arbitration tribunal.
Now absorbed in finding a location for the myrmecam so that it would not detract from the sweeping arrangement of the paper floral garland, Melinda scoffed at the idea. "Let's just keep it simple," she said. "I'm sure we all believe in democracy. We'll put it to a straightforward vote."
"May I remind you, deputy leader, there are approximately one million chilloks for every humanoid on the planet."
"Okay, cancel democracy and do the other thing then."
Time got swallowed up like a minnow in the path of a great blue whale. As the scheduled hour for the summit drew near, canisters of poison gas arrived from nefeshchaya accompanied by the chemist's scrawled message explaining that the noxious fumes, released through the ventilation system, would mix with the air in the hall and, as soon as the methane concentration approached fifty per cent, the chilloks would asphyxiate and die.
Nipkow4 and Melinda exchanged glances. "Right," said Melinda, suddenly getting cold feet. "I wonder if... I don't suppose... Well, we've exhausted every possible means of resolving things peacefully, haven't we? Tell me, what would the Intergalactic Court say about all this?"
"According to the Court, all members shall refrain in their intergalactic relations from the threat o
r use of force against the territorial integrity or political or cultural independence of any people or species as defined within paragraph F of subsection 114C. In short, what you're contemplating will shock the moral conscience of humankind across the universe."
"They wouldn't approve then." Melinda chewed her lip. She was now racked with doubt and self-distrust. "But what if it's the only way to stop the triumph of evil?" she asked. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe I'm just not cut out for a life as a genocidal murderer."
Nipkow4, aware that Melinda had instructed the earthling prisoners to trample on the chilloks floundering on the prison camp kitchen floor, pursed his lips and tutted. "That ship has sailed, my friend."
"Oh God," said Melinda. "You must think I'm some kind of ruthless chillok-crunching exterminator person. Literally."
"I'm not sure that's a thing," said nipkow4, "but if it is, you shouldn't take it personally. Your species is notorious for it."
"What! That's a bit harsh, isn't it?"
"No, not at all. While we've been trying to unravel the secrets of the universe in a reciprocal, collaborative and harmonious way, you earthling humans have been staying at home exploiting, slaughtering and consuming most of the other species on your planet."
Melinda thought about it and decided to concede. "Okay, curse you, I suppose you're right."
The appointed time arrived and the entire population of Mortians, all thirty of them, including polkingbeal67, were greeted by androids bearing trays containing decanters of liquid vitalmados. After a few minutes' conversation, they took their seats and waited for the chilloks to show up. Tense and edgy already, Melinda began to fret about being duped by the ambassador - it looked as if nipkow4 had been right and the chilloks were going to boycott the summit after all. Worse than that, she suspected that they might be looking to exploit the situation - all the Mortians being assembled in one place - for some heinous design of their own. One of the Mortians called out, "Look! Over there!" All heads turned to see three or four chilloks scurrying along one of the magma borders. By the time they turned back, the entire hall was filled with the diminutive creatures, hordes of wingless workers obscuring every scrap of furniture that was not occupied by Mortians. They blanketed the floor and scuttled along the ribbons; winged kings and queens were arranged like thousands of tiny torch beams along the windowsills, preening and displaying, while the ambassador flexed his antennae behind the myrmecam on the small stage at the far end.
Melinda, standing in a pool of light to the left of the myrmecam, got the proceedings underway with a short presentation, welcoming the attendees and setting out the agenda for the meeting. As she was about to introduce nipkow4, polkingbeal67 stepped up on to the stage and a spotlight moved across and settled around him. "Sorry," he said. "Is it okay for me to say a few words?" Melinda and nipkow4 exchanged flustered looks but nodded in assent. After clearing his throat, bowing to the ambassador and blinking a few times in the light, polkingbeal67 spoke very slowly, as if his thoughts were wrestling with the cerebrum ambulans implanted in his brain. "I'm painfully aware that I'm in no small part responsible for the hostilities between our peoples and I am therefore grateful to have this opportunity to speak to you all. And I intend to try my utmost to bring us closer together in peace and harmony."
He was squeezing the words out like each one was the final glob of toothpaste in an empty tube. Melinda was convinced that foreign interference was responsible for this and was in two minds whether or not to intervene. She glanced again at nipkow4 who shrugged his shoulders in confusion.
Polkingbeal67 went on: "What happened to the great city of Niffis was a tragic event and it grieves me to speak of it. You may or may not believe that it was part of some systematic pattern of cause and effect, contingent on the actions and intentions of cognisant beings and therefore punishable under intergalactic law. You may or may not consider it a consequence of the vagaries of fate or the whim of a god. You may or may not dismiss it as a pure accident - one of the terrible effects of living in a universe where people attempt to impose their free will on the savage forces of nature, and fail. Whatever you believe, I implore you to accept that if I was a perpetrator, I was an unwitting one; one who has wrestled ever since with the enormity of what happened; one who is chastened and filled with sorrow at the loss of so much life." His delivery still very studied, slow and deliberate, he paused for a moment and then continued. "We believe we are the masters of our fate. And, indeed, to a degree, we are equipped with the tools to mould our lives. We can decide what to do with our time and what to spend our energy on. We can choose what we eat and drink and when to sleep and who to speak to. We can control what we say and what we think..."
On hearing this, Melinda immediately wondered if he was being intentionally ironic. Was he trying to issue some kind of cryptic warning? Was it a paradoxical reference to being mind-controlled? One thing was sure, she had never heard him string together such articulate words and phrases. This was not the polkingbeal67 she had come to know so well. When she finally managed to focus back on what he was saying, he was speaking a little more fluently. "... we try to understand these things but we are mere fish trying to get on with our lives in total ignorance of tides and currents and floods and droughts. For we are all at the mercy of something greater than ourselves, something beyond our comprehension, something that does not respect our efforts to be the architects of our fate. And yet," he said, leaving the words hanging for a moment, "and yet we must act as if we are in total control, for it is the only way to nurture and respect the wonderful gift of life. Like the gardener who will not allow his garden to become overrun with weeds, we must bring order out of chaos by applying the constraints of a universally accepted rule of law, a social contract established among ourselves as societies of cognisant beings. I bow before the judgement of the Intergalactic Court and I make no plea for special consideration. What concerns me is not my personal case but the conflict between us that my actions have triggered. And that is where I think the law must be improved. The law speaks of 'just cause' as a pretext for waging war. Friends, there is no such thing as ‘just cause’ for war."
Melinda shuffled imperceptibly towards nipkow4 and the pair talked in hushed, frenzied whispers, while the disposition of the chilloks slowly changed from bored indifference to thoughtful interest. Polkingbeal67 went on: "We have never looked beyond the eye-for-an-eye paradigm that has shaped our law for eons. But if we care to look, there is another paradigm. Instead of committing ourselves to the judicial equivalent of a black hole - cognisant society collapsing in on itself as we punish each other to the point of mutual destruction - we should stand together and look towards the light of the ever-expanding universe and aspire to enrich ourselves with the treasure it offers. Let us all revel in that light! Friends, we must reject punishment and welcome reconciliation! No more shall we counter violence with yet more violence! Together we shall strive to underpin the intergalactic community with laws and principles we all believe in, for, without a set of common values to glue it together, civilisation is always liable to disintegrate. And now, as I look into your eyes, and into the eyes of all my friends across the galaxies, I say to you, 'I will not hate you. I would rather die than hate you.' Earthlings, Mortians and chilloks, we must join together and spread the word! And the word is life! We must honour and celebrate the sanctity of life in all its diverse forms!"
"What the devil is he talking about?" Melinda whispered hoarsely. "Has he gone totally mad? Have they taken his mind completely? What shall we do?" The chilloks, meanwhile, were enraptured. The kings and queens were rubbing their wings against their bodies to produce a hum of approval (which Melinda misconstrued as an expression of angry protest). Waving her arms to attract polkingbeal67's attention, she hissed, "Shut up! Literally. Get off the stage!"
But there was no stopping polkingbeal67 now. He was punching the air in time with his words: "And where we find empty minds we will fill them. And where we find closed minds we will open them
. And where we find minds that are full of poison we will cure them with antidotes. Be assured we will find those who oppose and confront our values, those who will stand in our way and refuse to let us pass, those who will beat us and knock us to the ground. But we will take those beatings and fight back, not with weapons of destruction or the deployment of armies, but with the most powerful weapons at the disposal of cognisant beings - knowledge, understanding and education. Armed to the teeth with the tools of learning, we will prevail upon our enemies to change. And though it will seem onerous to devote so much time and effort on those who would destroy us, still we will consider it worth the investment. We will emerge as friends. We will emerge wiser, better and stronger. The world is our mirror! You are my reflection and I am yours! We are one and the same and we will never strike at the mirror again!" Just before Melinda careered across the stage and tackled him to the floor, he managed one more exultant entreaty: "Behold the mirror and smile!"
The chilloks hummed ecstatically. Some of the kings and queens flew around the hall in joyful abandon, while the ambassador yelled into the myrmecam: "Behold the mirror and smile! Behold the mirror and smile!"
“It is spoken," said yukawa3, nodding his head in fervent approval. As the Mortian equivalent of applause took the form of headbutting the nearest wall, all thirty of them turned around and gently beat their heads against the unforgiving magma while Melinda and polkingbeal67 dragged themselves to their feet. It now occurred to Melinda that it made no difference whether polkingbeal67 or the chilloks were behind this ridiculous charade - it had served the purpose, albeit bizarrely, of uniting the two factions and averting the need for her to inflict an act of genocide on her unsuspecting guests. Polkingbeal67 brushed himself down with shaking hands and crossed the stage to the right, only to find the steps were on the opposite side. As he turned back again towards Melinda, the chillok ambassador headbutted the myrmecam. "He may not be your leader," he said to Melinda, straightening his crumpled antennae, "but you should not let him pass without honouring him."
Through The Wormhole, Literally Page 33