Vatican Ambassador

by Mike Luoma

  “What do you call your plague, then?” BC insists. “You are killing us!”

  The koala turns and walks away from BC. “It is a correction!” he says. He turns back around. “We merely issued a corrective,” The Eldred says.

  The alien walks back to its seat, finishing a small circle. “Our microbe exploits an already present flaw. It would have occurred on its own, eventually. We merely sped up the process.”

  “What? That’s not killing?”

  “Some die, but it is the flaw in their DNA that betrays them,” the Eldred insists. “Their very make up breaks down. Not all of you have died, or will die, only those of you already flawed.”

  “Keeping us down to more manageable numbers?” BC asks. “What do you think we are? Some herd of sheep for you to cull when you feel we’re getting too restless?”

  “No,” the Eldred says. He tries to continue but BC cuts him off.

  “Damn straight!” BC raises his voice.

  Gotta try to calm down! I still would like to make it home. No matter how bleak that possibility looks right now.

  “We don’t take well to being told what to do,” BC says.

  “Are you trying to make a case for your race? Or against it, Bernard Campion?” the eldest of the Eldred asks in a calm voice. He has regained his composure.

  Just kill him now!

  Take out one of them before I go down!

  No. Can’t let him get to me, gotta calm myself down.

  “How do you know this ‘flaw’, as you call it, would have affected us? You have no way of knowing that,” BC points out as calmly as he can.

  “It has happened before,” the Eldred answers. “It always does with your race.”

  That was a loaded statement! What the fuck does THAT mean?

  “Always does?” BC asks, losing it a little. “What does that mean? Camex told me this ‘Ancient Enemy’ built your race a million years ago. Were we engineered and built by them, too? And what? They messed up, and we’re flawed? What do you mean ‘always does’? You’ve seen our race before? What do you mean?” BC can’t help but let the questions pour out.

  “Not exactly,” the eldest of the Eldred says. “But your race is flawed.”

  “Flawed, huh? You keep saying that. Flawed how?”

  The Eldred merely sighs.

  Man! Again! So human-like.

  The Eldred stands up. His chair disappears into the floor.

  “Please, come with me,” the Eldred asks BC. “There is something I must show you.”

  BC stands. The eldest of the Eldred turns and walks toward the far wall. A rounded door slurps opens in the wall in front of them. The Eldred proceeds into the tube-like corridor on the other side of the door.

  “Follow me,” The Eldred says to BC. BC walks into the corridor behind him. The Eldred speaks as it walks.

  “There is something you do not know. That you have not yet learned,” the Eldred tells BC. “Something you have not been told.

  “This way, please,” the Eldred says, indicating a door opening in the left side of the corridor wall.

  “Wait a minute,” BC says, stopping in his tracks. “What about the atmosphere? Don’t I need a suit to walk around?”

  Let’s see how he explains THAT!

  “There is no need to pretend ignorance, Bernard Campion. Your helmet and suit were not sealed when you arrived,” the Eldred informs BC. “You somehow deduced that the suit was not required for your safe breathing. You were right, but it was still required for your protection.

  “Come, this way,” the alien says, turning another corner and shuffling ahead. BC has no trouble keeping up.

  “Camex informed you of the Ancient Enemy,” the Eldred says. “We vanquished them an eon ago. But we are pledged to remain ever vigilant for new threats.”

  Like us, I suppose, eh?

  “There are not many actual records left from those days. Our accounts are sketchy, legends and myths, our evidence scant at best. It was over a million of your years ago, you understand. But we received a command passed down through the millennia, an instruction to never forget!” The Eldred says, as he shuffles on down the long corridor.

  The Eldred stops and turns to BC to make a point.

  “The Ancient Enemy was ruthless! Selfish! Amoral. Unsympathetic. Not capable of empathy, or compassion.

  “Many wished to forget them when they were gone, but the Eldred were tasked to never forget!

  “The Ancient Enemy conquered the stars! They were like your gods, descending from the sky to take what they desired, and bringing down heaven and hell.

  “They created us, the Eldred race, to serve them, and serve them we did, for centuries. Until the day came when we finally rose up and destroyed them!” the Eldred says, as if repeating a litany. “Somehow, the bioengineering that made our race serve the Ancient Enemy was altered, flipped.

  “Okay, hold on just a second,” BC stops him. “If the Ancient Enemy built your race, how could you be wired to kill them?”

  The eldest of the Eldred sighs.

  “We were built to serve the Ancient Enemy,” the Eldred explains, “they called our race the Servants, and we had been constructed with the inability to hurt them built right in. It was biologically impossible for us to turn on them.”

  “So what happened?” BC asks.

  “We are told there were some scientists among the Ancient Enemy who felt their race grew stagnant, who felt they were in retreat from progress. They felt their race grew soft because of my race’s servitude.

  “Some of the Ancient Enemy’s own scientists altered the DNA of the Eldred to allow us to break from our servitude. Those changes eventually allowed us to oppose them. Instead of desiring to serve them, we desired to destroy them!

  “We destroyed their world. We wiped them out and destroyed them! Or so we thought. But the Ancient Enemy was as cunning as it was cruel.

  “Here!” the Eldred says, stopping in the middle of the corridor to let a door open on their right. “We have come to the end. Or the beginning, I suppose. Go on ahead,” the Eldred says. The room on the right is dark, some dim light just barely illuminating the confines of a smallish room. Is this it? Am I walking in to my death here? Like I really want to walk in first, alone!

  “I’ll, uh, follow you in,” BC tells the Eldred leader.

  “Very well, then,” the Eldred says. He walks into the room ahead of BC. Okay, then.

  BC walks through the door into the dim room. It’s another domed, round room, although half the size of their earlier meeting room. The door closes behind him and the room grows even darker. BC can just barely make out a pedestal in the shadows across the room.

  “We cannot forget the Ancient Enemy. They must not be allowed to rise again,” the eldest of the Eldred says in the darkness, again almost chanting the words, as if in ritual.

  “We keep this room, this likeness of the Ancient Enemy, as our reminder. It is one of the ways we remember the Ancient Enemy.”

  The room’s lights come on.

  “This is what you have not been told,” the Eldred says to BC as he points at the pedestal. There is a statue on the pedestal. BC’s eyes adjust.

  There’s no mistaking the figure on the pedestal in front of him.

  It’s a statue of a human being.

  What?

  We’re the Ancient Enemy?!

  “You’re trying to tell me humans are the Ancient Enemy? But Camex said they never came near the Earth?!” BC protests.

  This has got to be some sort of trick they’ve cooked up for my benefit.

  “Now you understand why we kept you in the suit,” the eldest of the Eldred explains. “Although our people know we’ve encountered a new race, they do not yet know who you really are. If you had been seen in public it would have caused great fear and provoked an unknown reaction.

  “We are biologically wired to hunt you down and destroy you. And so the suit was indeed for your protection.”

  “So. What?” B
C asks, trying to wrap his head around the concept, “You think we’re the Ancient Enemy reborn? Is that what you’re trying to convince me of here? Because I’m not sure I believe you,” BC tells the Eldred.

  The eldest of the Eldred only looks at him, and then looks back at the statue. They really do believe this, don’t they?

  “So that’s why you’re trying to kill us?”

  “You are closer to the truth, now,” the Eldred says. “It is not your fault,” the Eldred tells BC, sounding almost reassuring. “Your race was manipulated and betrayed by others, not by us. But we have the task of issuing the corrective.”

  “You really haven’t explained,” BC says, pointing at the statue, “This!”

  The Eldred looks pensive, furrowed brow and all.

  I think I’m beginning to understand the reason why they seem so human!

  “The Eldred and the united planets finally defeated and destroyed the Ancient Enemy. When we blew up their home world, the Ancient Enemy sent off ‘star seeds’ during the resulting explosion. These star seeds were protected packets of their DNA designed to take root and evolve on other distant, suitable worlds.

  “The same scientists who altered the Eldred developed the star seeds that started your race,” the eldest of the Eldred tells him. “They undermined their own race by turning their servants against them, but then they tried to ensure their race’s future by seeding the stars with their race’s DNA.

  “We could not stop the star seeds. We did not know, at first, of their dispersion. But upon their discovery we set out to destroy them. We hunted them down and saw to it that they did not create new life. We found many of these star seeds, but some eluded us. And others were… hidden, concealed from us.”

  The eldest of the Eldred pauses, looks up at BC to look him in the eye. “You know of the race some call the ‘Domo’?” the Eldred asks him.

  BC nods. “I know of them. I don’t know them myself.”

  “The Domo are at primary fault in the concealment, from us, of your race’s existence, you ‘humans’ of Earth. The others known as the ‘Flaze’ have been their accomplices.

  “By the time your existence became known to us, it was too late to merely exterminate you. So we have been observing you.

  “Now you know the true story,” the eldest of the Eldred tells BC.

  “I know something,” BC says to the Eldred. “I now know your story, anyway. This is your justification for genocide?”

  “As I have already tried to explain, we did not…”

  “Don’t tell me about exploiting a flaw again or I’ll…” BC stops, takes a deep breath. “Well, just don’t tell me, okay? I know what you were gonna say,” BC explains. “What is this flaw, anyway?”

  “Your natural tendency towards violence, aggression, self-destruction,” the Eldred says. BC shakes his head. “Wait a minute. You said you were exploiting some genetic, biological flaw!”

  “We are,” the Eldred insists, “Your biological imperative to self destruct.”

  “That doesn’t really compute, cause and effect-wise, for me,” BC says. “It’s not good enough. Plus, you said we humans of Earth were different, unique, because we have religion, you know, the ‘higher power’? We have religion, but the Ancient Enemy didn’t, did they?”

  “They worshipped only themselves,” the Eldred says. “You are different in this way. But never having seen any other star seeds fully develop, we have no precedents by which to measure your race’s development.

  “This ‘higher power’ could well be the result of the racial memory of your race’s own former power and domination.

  “Your race often looks back to a golden age that never existed on your Earth, another unconscious, collective racial memory, we believe, perhaps deliberately implanted by the scientists who programmed and launched the star seeds.

  “That is why I wish to speak with you of your religion, to see what lies beneath it,” the eldest of the Eldred explains to BC. “That is why I asked you here, to speak to you of religion.”

  “That’s fine,” BC says. “But have you considered the fact that your race’s biological imperatives might make it impossible for you to accept that we, the human race, are actually different from the Ancient Enemy?” BC questions him.

  The Eldred’s brow furrows. “We have considered that. The older we get, the easier it is for us to defeat those biological imperatives to gain more objective neutrality. As the oldest of my race, I can defeat my biology to consider that your race may be savable.”

  “Then you must grant that my race can ‘defeat’ our ‘biology’ as well, and indeed be different than those from millions of years ago!”

  “You have a point,” the Eldred concedes. “You are frailer creatures than they were. You lack some of their… abilities, as well. And you have your human religions.”

  “Wait a sec… What ‘abilities’,” BC asks.

  “They were much, er, stronger than you,” The Eldred says.

  “Really?” BC asks. “Did the Domo do something to change us?”

  “The Domo?” the Eldred repeats back at BC, sounding surprised. The alien makes a high-pitched snorting sound.

  “You made me laugh, Bernard Campion! The Domo are not capable of such things! They found you well after your race had developed into its present state. They do not possess the skills or the subtlety to make any significant alterations. The Domo are as they always have been: parasites! They merely took advantage of a situation they discovered.

  “Many minor races sought out the star seeds of the Ancient Enemy, those that knew of their existence, thinking to create their own versions of the ancient race somehow beholden to them. Fools!

  “Most just made it easier for us to find the star seeds through their suspect activities,” the eldest of the Eldred says, nearly chuckling.

  “Could the Flaze have altered us?” BC asks the eldest of the Eldred.

  “No! They are also incapable of such things!

  “No, you are what you are because of the world on which you developed. You are humans because you come from your Earth.”

  BC tries another tack: “If the Ancient Enemy were so bad, why do these other races want to bring them back?”

  The eldest of the Eldred sighs. “We have dedicated our rule to keeping the star seeds from developing. We have kept the peace and preserved the status quo for a million years. Some find it… boring. Some desire violent change!

  “They think breeding their own version of the Ancient Enemy will help them get their way.

  “We Eldred live a very long time, Bernard Campion, and we have very long memories. Shorter-lived races often find our sense of scale far too long term for their tastes. It occasionally breeds… discontent.”

  “How old are you?” BC has to ask.

  “I am just over ten thousand of your years old.

  “I have watched your race grow up as I have grown old,” the Eldred tells BC.

  “Wow,” BC exclaims. “Okay. How long can you live?”

  “The oldest eldest of the Eldred is said to have lived to be one hundred thousand years old.”

  “Really? Our oldest are usually around one hundred twenty five.”

  “Thousand?” the Eldred asks, raising his brow.

  “You have a sense of humor,” BC notes.

  “You have shorter life spans than the Ancient Enemy,” the Eldred tells BC. “But not by much. They lived to two hundred of your years, on average. They created us to last, though.

  “A well-trained servant is invaluable, you see. The ancient Servants were often passed down within a family, from generation to generation among the Ancient Enemy.”

  “So, did the Domo and the Flaze get any benefit from hiding us?” BC asks the Eldred.

  “None at all, not really,” the Eldred tells him. “Although the Domo did feed on your race for some time.”

  “They fed on us? They were the vampires, then?”

  “Indeed. Yes. We found them living among you a
nd collecting their tribute, as they saw it. The Domo are an adaptive species. They adapt to planets by ingesting the local flora and fauna and feeding on life energy.

  “They thought your blood, a bountiful food for them, was their means not only of adapting to Earth, but also of becoming more like the Ancient Enemy.”

  “Did that work for them?” BC asks.

  “It did, perhaps, make them more cunning, for a while. Able to hide their activities here, and your existence, for example. But the adaptations of the Domo fade over time. These are not lasting transformations.”

  “What gave them away?” BC asks his now talkative host.

  “Ultimately, the involvement of the Flaze brought about the Domo’s downfall,” the Eldred tells BC.

  “These two races do not usually work together. The Domo’s approach is immersion, adaptation. The Flaze favor unseen observation, and experimentation. They like to stay out of sight behind the scenes, as it were. Yet here they were with the Domo! Quite suspicious!

  “And then we found you.”

  “When was this?”

  “About three hundred years ago. We chased off the Domo and Flaze and began to observe you ourselves. We caught the Flaze back on Earth again about one hundred and twenty years ago, and we chased them off again.

  “Both the Flaze and the Domo were prohibited from entering within Mars orbit. When those among The Project reached the old Domo base in the asteroids, the Domo took advantage and reintroduced themselves, soon followed by the Flaze. We were then forced to introduce ourselves.”

  “We’ve come full circle, then,” BC observes, “as you then felt forced to kill us all, right?”

  The Eldred sighs again. “We do not kill. We correct. And we did not engineer a plague deadly to all of you, just those with a randomly chosen recessive gene. The gene itself is immaterial, and can be changed.

  “There will be millions left alive,” the Eldred says, making his case with BC.

  “How refreshing,” BC says with sarcasm. “Why is it you get to decide who gets wiped out?”

  “We have maintained peace for millennia,” The Eldred says.

  “This puts you in charge of, what? Everything?”

  “We keep the peace.”

  “You assumed command a million years ago and have been in charge ever since, deciding who lives and who dies. How are you any different than the Ancient Enemy? You commit genocide!”