by Ashly Graham
The purpose of these experiments was to see whether it might be possible to form any new compounds that held promise as a defensive material, to be used as either a solid or elastic barrier; or generate a combustion powerful enough to launch a planetary body into hyperspace out of harm’s way.
To the Blenders’ great disappointment every result came back negative, and all that happened was that a very unpleasant smell came from the cylinder valves, not dissimilar to that being exuded by the As, Bs, and Cs. It took the conditioning filters—Lightyear had a similar mix of air to that of Earth, but with a much higher proportion of oxygen to nitrogen and carbon dioxide, plus particles of something akin to vanilla—several hours to remove the fumes so that Water-Sky’s occupants could again breathe through their noses.
The reasons for failure were depressingly clear. Although it was known that the atmosphere on Earth, thousands of years ago when it was pristine, would have been sufficiently pure to be of use, it had long been too contaminated, the waters were too polluted, and the rock deposits were too depleted of essential minerals for any formula to be therapeutic.
At Central’s headquarters the A, B, and C Class executives, having restored order amongst themselves, and had the Zs do the same to the working of the Saniflush systems in the washrooms, caucused swiftly. Filled with Imodium and indignation, they vied with each other in the rhetorical vehemence of their expressions of resolve to have no truck with any so-called ambassadors who might emerge from the spaceship to try and gull the leadership with overtures of friendship and common interest.
For Central’s hierarchy was convinced that the Blenders were not a people at all, but the mutant offspring of DNA that had been introduced into the latest generation of computers; which, having gained access to State’s secret governmental databases and moved offshore, had massed against them with the intent of wresting control of the world away from the As, Bs, and Cs, and either destroying them, or taking them home as slaves or trophies to put in their zoos.
Central’s supreme command ground its teeth as the preposterous transport continued to sit upon the briny like a discarded child’s toy. This was a lot more ominous than the old days of UFO sightings, and quaint cabalistic crop circles around the countryside: it was a declaration of war. Any alien body that was guilty of usurping Central’s authority by sneaking a fortress-like vehicle into the Pacific Ocean, thereby posing a threat and hazard to aircraft and shipping, and damaging the fibre-optic cables on the ocean floor, was inviting the severest of retributive actions.
Having imposed a one-hundred mile off-limits siege zone around Water-Sky, so as to empty it of oil tankers, fishing trawlers, and its own pleasure craft, Central sent the Pacific Arm of the Neptune Naval Force, which was equipped with every latest type of military weapon, into the area with orders to commence a full-scale assault upon the superb carapace. As soon as the fleet was in position it did so; but to the shock of those at HQ and to the awe of General Sherman Schockenauer 9990A…who, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, prided himself on being shock-and-awe-proof…a dozen submarine-launched Shark torpedoes with homing devices detoured around the target, splayed into the ocean and eventually petered out and sank to sleep with the lesser fish for lack of anything to sink their teeth into.
Over the next several hours failure followed failure: ammunition from the guns of battleships, destroyers, and cruisers rebounded off Water-Sky’s skin without even denting or scratching it. Mines skirted around it without making the contact necessary to detonate themselves. The engines of Air Force bombers and helicopters lost power on approach, and their controls went haywire, so that they had to head back to base without firing their air-to-surface rockets and rocket-propelled grenades.
When the Army aimed ballistic missiles at the smug station from its Indonesian base, they converged upon and collided with each other in mid air and exploded, showering the ships with fragments of metal.
Powerful lasers, beamed at the shiny shell and reflecting off it, came close to inflicting terminal sunburn on the off-duty Central officers at a luxuriously-appointed nearby atoll resort, Shakei-Tabout. Some of them, incensed and waving their inadequately SPF’d arms, were on the beach in their swimming trunks and swimsuits, or less, jumping up and down with rage, unable to make contact with or return to Headquarters owing to digital-wave communications interference, and the malfunctioning of their Smogcutter air-booster backpacks that would have got them to the ships.
Even when a nuclear bomb was dropped on Water-Sky it exploded but caused no damage, except to initiate a tsunami that proved surprisingly weak, barely discombobulating the warships before it subsided. The apparently defective nuclear device, which had been made at a factory in the former Iran, created no mushroom cloud, and the recorders registered no evidence of beta and neutron-induced gamma radiation, or residual fallout.
The Blenders, who were green of mind but not of body like the stereotypical Martian, except when they were in the mood to be so in their choice of clothes, had no difficulty in diverting or neutralizing the weaponry that was deployed against Water-Sky; in fact there was nothing to be done, for its automatic systems and temper defended and protected it against everything that was brought to bear. The only effect of the attacks was to make the denizens of Lightyear concerned that, like a swarm of bees, the meteorites might become further enraged by such unpacific activity in that supposedly Pacific region, and increase their doom-laden pace.
Although the radar stations registered no sign that this was the case, expressions of relief within Water-Sky were few and muted.
While the station continued to sit, giant and invulnerable, and Central’s military strategists scratched their heads, unable to decide what to do next, the airwaves went dead and their computer screens blank, as Water-Sky complied with the order, relayed from the Alliance’s Executive Committee on Lightyear, to cease transmission while its representatives deliberated what, if anything, might be done next.
The As, Bs, and Cs were divided as to what the interruption in the broadcast of propaganda might mean: whether it was the lull before the storm of a retaliatory action, or a token of willingness on the part of the invaders to parley or surrender. But no white flag was raised from the spaceship; it did not sink back into the ocean, or take off, nor did any portal open in its side from which the chastened Blenders, acknowledging the futility of proceeding against such dedicated opposition, might file with their heads, or whatever it was they had on their shoulders, if they had shoulders—perhaps, as Othello told Desdemona, they were such men whose heads did grow beneath them—hanging to surrender.
If they did, Central’s torturers and interrogators, under the able leadership of Doris Dungeness 2984B, would soon be ready to entertain them in the mobile chamber of horrors that they were, even as they spoke, setting up in the sauna block on Shakei-Tabout, sharpening the kitchen and dining utensils, and collecting together the sport-fishing harpoons and hooks, and connecting extension cords to as many assembled electrical appliances as current could be supplied to by the generators without overloading the system. There could be a lot of fish to fry.
Humiliating though it was, Central elected to resort to primitive means. Squads scoured the region for every available sailing ship, rowing boat, and dinghy, for use as Dunkirk-style landing craft, many of them leaking and encrusted with barnacles and barely seaworthy. One vessel was removed from where it was mounted on blocks in a maritime museum, and hastily patched up.
Manned by naval crews stiff in gleaming whites, this unlikely flotilla was dispatched to attach limpet mines to its crustacean cousin so that it might be cracked open; or, failing that, to wrap steel hawsers around its supports, in order that the two aircraft carriers anchored a mile away, acting as tugs, could tow it into harbour for the contents to be winkled out and the whole dismantled.
But before they could reach their destination, the hulls of these wooden and fibreglass vessels ran up against an invisible barrier, and many were stove in, le
aving the crews floundering in the water getting entangled in the grappling lines, and fighting over the lifebelts. There was nothing to be done except pile aboard whatever nearest boat was most likely to stay afloat, and paddle away.
During the hiatus in hostilities, even as Central’s chemists under Peggy Knouse 0072C were completing their preparations to surround the spaceship with a deadly heavy gas, in the hope that there might be some open air intake or ventilation valves, the Alliance Executive Committee members on Lightyear—with the exception of the Blenders themselves, who remained sceptical about the possibility of rapprochement—continued to hope that a refusal to meet weapon with weapon…not that Water-Sky had any, but the Earthlings did not know that…might result in Central offering a truce. This would give the out-of-towners an opportunity to apologize for not applying for permission to enter Earth’s airspace and land, as common courtesy as well as international law would under normal circumstances dictate, and to reaffirm their good intentions and explain the situation in more detail.
Were this to happen even the Blenders might have cause for optimism, owing to the favourable first impression that they were likely to make upon some of those who beheld them—for their looks were by Human standards transcendentally, ethereally, beautiful—when they were seen either on a screen or in person, from outside the transparent membrane that would be necessary to protect the Blenders in their controlled environment within Water-Sky, if and when it might be possible for panels of its outer shell to be slid aside.
On Lightyear no standards of physical appearance and dress were considered superior to or more desirable than others, or required deliberation or decision-making, or consideration of elective artificial alteration. Everything about the Blenders was a natural emanation of their dispositions. Blenders did not strive for any particular image, out of vanity, because their miens of themselves went through a constantly changing spectrum of colouring and tone and shade, from restful dark through rainbow hues to opalescent brightness, as manifestations of the unconscious expressions of delight that they took in the manifold pleasures of their lives.
Blenders were graceful and unselfconscious in the light and flowing fashionless robes that they wore, which did not distinguish any individual from another; nor were they designed to any specification; according to whether on or at any day or time of day they were tall and noble, small and delicate, light- or dark-skinned, fine- or plain-featured, smooth- or coarse-complexioned; or even by Human standards “ugly”, for which condition—having no perception or conception of such subjective definition of appearance or manner—the Blender language contained no word.
Lightyear’s natives were kind and gentle, and filled with qualities that did not have to be practised because they were, like Portia’s definition of mercy, not strained but ingrained within them. Neither good and evil, nor right and wrong existed amongst them, because there were no opposites between which distinctions could be drawn. They could be grave, gay, sportive, scientific, mathematical, practical, artistic, literary, musical…no one was consistent in the type of person that he or she was; rather, no one was a type of anything, because each was a combination of everything.
Although they had different specialities and areas of expertise, Blenders’ intelligences and intellects were equal and polymathic, with no individual having greater mental capacity or ability than another. They were not guided by priorities, but proceeded in accordance with what came to them, in the words of the poet Keats, as naturally as leaves to a tree. They were passive rather than operative by nature, inspired by the music of the spheres rather than the rule of law.
Being a sociable race, interested in other people, the Blenders were not limited in their ability to understand the nature of the peoples of other civilizations and nationalities, nor were they deluded as to the reasons why others behaved differently from them. However, they made no judgements upon the diverse philosophies and politics and beliefs and practices and priorities of others, and were tolerant of all of them.
Although they had no enemies and were as mortal as any Human being, Blenders had no instinct of self-preservation. Dying was of no consequence to them: their ends when they came were not attended by sadness, and there was no mourning by each person’s family and friends; only a celebration of what had gone before and the honour and benefit that it had contributed to Lightyear’s culture and history.
It was not cowardice that prevented the Blenders from emerging from Water-Sky; nor was it owing to an inability to communicate in person with the Humans; nor was it primarily because the planet’s atmosphere was to them an alien density, in which their brain processes would slow and become confused, and their speech falter, and their limbs fail, and their colours fade—though that is what would begin to happen if they remained in it too long.
The reason that Lightyear’s Blenders would be unable to quit their spaceship for any length of time concerned the lack on Earth of a Fourth Dimension…at least a fourth dimension that was present in sufficient strength of concentration to enable them to survive.
The essence of each Blender comprised equal proportions of four dimensions—this was why they were called Blenders. On Lightyear the four dimensions worked together in harmony to create a unique state of being: the four dimensions within which the Blenders existed were the same as comprised the four elements of which their bodies were composed and lived in, and constituted the principles that they lived their lives in accordance with; which meant that it was impossible for them to live in any different or lesser environment or condition.
The other three dimensions that co-existed with the fourth were not the same as the simple tertiary spatial range that the majority of Humans associated with the housings of their bodies and minds, and the world that surrounded them: those of height, depth, and width. On Lightyear the First Dimension was that in which volition or will took shape preparatory to being realized and enacted; the Second Dimension was the medium and conduit of communication and intuition; in the Third Dimension were manifested the consequences of one’s actions; and the Fourth Dimension was that in which the mind occupied a Oneness with the Creative Force that had originated and maintained in equilibrium all of the four dimensions together.
On Earth, the Fourth Dimension was like the obscurest of incomprehensible languages, or an undiscoverable cavern in a cliff or mountain, or a fathomless deep. It was the medium of faith and hope and prayer. It was the channel occupied by halfway beings and entities whom most Humans, lacking empathy in the absence of the willingness to practise it, were unable to detect, unless it were subliminally; or did not wish to share their space with, or admit that such things could exist: ghosts and spirits and super-naturals—the Blenders were none of these—and the parts or portions of those mortal beings who strove to live on and within more than one plane of existence, subordinating themselves to them, such as saints and mystics.
Animals and birds often exhibited a fourth-dimensional trait, as a dog or cat can detect good or evil in a person, or sense an earthquake before it happens, or see a ghost.
As if they were listening to poor reception on a radio, some Human people were able to receive intermittent signals from the fourth dimension, and even transmit messages in return, or retrieve time-recorded items from the past. But these were only fragments of a much greater whole, which represented the vestigial susceptibility of the human brain to stimuli from a genesitic world that, for the most part, Mankind denied or preferred not to enter or admit the existence of, because it was believed to be one that led to death and negation of all that had gone before, instead of being concerned with the enrichment and fulfilment of a material life that had a beginning, a middle, and an end.
Because on Earth the fourth dimension was generally shunned in favour of what was on offer in the other three, and rarely entered, when Man did so it was only briefly, as a tourist visits a foreign country and views its shrines and palaces, and is glad to get home when the experience is over and describe it and comment upo
n it in retrospect.
It was of course fully possible to live in three of the four dimensions without feeling the lack of the fourth; but the complexity and depth of sensation that the fourth dimension afforded, once it had been experienced at full strength, would always be missed like a semi-conquered addiction. It was like hearing a piece of recorded music in monophonic, single-channel, sound after experiencing stereo-, quadraphonic, or surround-sound. Though each dimension was fully compatible with the other three, the unkiltering three-quarter weight of imperfection and imbalance and disproportion that “Strike flat the thick rotundity o’ the world!”, to employ King Lear’s cry (“Crack nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once |That make ingrateful man!”), was a burden—maybe—that the majority of shallow Mankind was willing to bear because to keep the ball inflated and aloft was too much effort.
The Captain of Water-Sky was again instructed by the Executive Committee to “go live”, by sending Central an electronic dossier explicating the moral and physical process by which the meteorites had evolved and formed, and been directed and set in motion. A prefatory statement outlined Mankind’s role in instigating the crisis, though without the recriminatory tone of the filmic line written by Arthur Stanley Jefferson, a.k.a. Stan Laurel, and spoken by Oliver Hardy: “Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into.”
Simultaneously…ignoring Central’s ideological affirmation that, since all men and women were not created analphabetically equal, only those in power Needed to Know… a DVD entitled “The Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth” was sent directly, un-D-Noticed and uncensored, to the covert and illegal and underground, but still in existence, BBC World Service; National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered”; CNN; Al Jazeera; and all other networks except for Central’s Fox News—in all countries and languages, for global rediffusion.