by Ralph Rotten
Having come down in a streak of light, his arrival had attracted more than a little attention from the locals. He'd barely had a chance to stagger out of the craft before he saw them coming in the distance. Adapting quickly, he hoped the shadows would conceal imperfections in his morph. It was difficult to replicate a species you had only seen at a distance.
It all seemed to swirl before him as Branson watched the Croh female in the tall headdress shout and point angrily to him. All around him there were sharpened spears just inches away, ready to skewer him at any second. Yet, the warriors stood at the ready as if waiting for a command. Still shouting obscenities, the female with the big hat shook the collection of trinkets that hung around her neck. Clearly she wanted Branson dead for some reason.
It was when the line of warriors parted for the elder that it all came into focus for Branson. The little guy was the Chief, and the soldiers answered to him. The female screaming at him was the local Shaman. Trained in espionage, he immediately realized that she would view him as a threat. She had a good thing going on there, and now this stranger appears in a manner commensurate of a God? No, Branson knew that there would be no living with this woman. But how did he remove her from the equation without being stabbed a thousand times?
Looking to the real power, he turned his attention to the Chief. Pulling a military ID card from his pocket, he presented it to the aging Croh as a gift.
"That's a real Century-Gate ID card right there. One of those will get you in the front door." He reassured the elder, knowing that it mattered not what he said, only how he said it. His tones and inflections would be all the Croh would understand of his language. In a sense he was really just pantomiming. But they'd get the general idea.
Shocked by the shiny card that reflected a colorful spectrum of light, the Chief showed pleasant surprise. He seemed fascinated by the small rectangle of polycarbonate.
"I am Branson Freeh." He introduced himself with a bow before turning to the crowd to repeat his name a second time. There was a murmuring as several tried to repeat the sound unsuccessfully.
"I have come to you from afar to teach you the scripture of Branson." Slowly, and mindful of the spears, he plucked the small Gurat from his pocket. Opening it to page seventeen, he showed the Chief an etching of beings worshiping a solar deity.
With a smile of agreement, the Chief happily pointed to the glowing orb in the picture and spoke one word; "Clorba!"
The crowd murmured the name in response, all but the Shaman, who stood glaring at Branson with daggers in her eyes.
"I..." Branson gestured to himself, "was sent by Clorba." Gesturing to the sun above, he repeated the motion several times to let them know his origin was their sun. He knew better than to claim to be Clorba himself. That would be an unsupportable identity. But Emissary of the Gods was within his wheelhouse.
Immediately the Shaman screeched and pointed at Branson.
"Chuma! Ost mae Chuma!" Her sharpened nails were just inches away as she decried him for a demon.
Although Branson had little understanding of their language, he knew from contextual use that Chuma was not a good thing to be. Shaking his head slowly, he took the time to gesture first to himself, then to the heavens above. Next, he showed the small picture to the warriors that stood with their spears at the ready. The etching was simple enough that even those behind the soldiers could make out the relatively familiar scene. Like most early races, the Croh worshipped the sun.
Really it's not an entirely illogical concept; sun worshiping, that is. Every molecule in your body exists because of that burning ball of plasma in the sky. Sol is the furnace in which the complex atomic materials that are our world were originally manufactured. Additionally, life as we know it could not exist on Earth without the sun. Without Sol to warm the Earth or shower the plants with its solar rays, the whole planet would be a frozen ball of ice. So if you are looking for your true maker, just look up at noon every day. But back to the story...
"Branson Freeh, is sent to you by Clorba above," he stretched his arms out to the sky in an almost theatrical manner before turning to point at the Shaman. "Chuma! By the power of Clorba I vanquish you to hell!"
Although the accusation surprised the crowd, it was the energy blast that emanated from Branson's third arm that truly held their attention. Seeing the beam reach out and vaporize the Shaman removed any further doubt of his divine nature. In truth, Branson had simply used the standard-issue disruptor strapped to his forearm. All spies were equipped with one for antiseptic assassinations. It was the tool that would have facilitated his entire mission; delete his target and take over his life. After all, there's no messy cleanup with a disruptor.
Wasting no time, the former espionage agent plucked up the Shaman's headdress before placing it on his own head. Giving them a few seconds to absorb what they had just seen, Branson next stepped forward purposefully as he used a bare hand to slowly push down the tip of a spear. Gesturing for them to lower their weapons, there was a second of indecision before they obeyed on their own. Only two of the warriors had even bothered to look to the Chief for permission, the rest simply complied with Branson's order.
In the weeks that followed, Branson used his training to thoroughly infiltrate the local scene. Moving into the Shaman's old house, he quickly threw out her collection of idols and dogmatic scribbling. The Croh were in their infancy of written text, and it was usually just the ruling classes that had any literacy at all. Still, it was not difficult for the trained intelligence officer to grasp their simple text and even expand it greatly.
Within a year he had already begun to unfold his own brand of scripture. Drawing from multiple religious texts he had harvested from the wrecked shuttle's database, he custom-designed a spiritual system that put him at the top of the organization. Carefully, he had been recruiting the most liberal-minded of the local youth to his inner circle. As his influence grew to the surrounding villages, Branson Freeh was on the verge of completely changing the structure of Croh religion when he drew the attention of the Muldiva. These self-appointed guardians of the old faiths had no intention of permitting his blasphemy. Think of them as the church's private mob.
Like any organized thugs, the Muldiva took the direct approach right away. I was shadowing Branson when I spotted the first assassin, sitting in the third row with a hard look on his face. I managed a flicker of a smile as I thought about how this guy was about to have the surprise of his life.
Now lemme pause here and explain something before I go any farther. I don't want anyone thinking that we Temporal Editors do all this stuff on the fly, making it up as we go like action heroes in a Hollywood movie. Before that very moment I had been up and down the timeline prolly a hundred times. The entire landscape was riddled with sensors and scanners, and I had an army of Sociologists and other PHDs scattered throughout the timeline feeding me reports. Also, I had visited 67 different alternate dimensions and examined the data from those worlds so I had a pretty concrete idea of how this would all work out in the end. A Timelord doesn't take a crap without thoroughly researching it. Easily 90% of my work is pure Causation. Deciding what needs to be changed is really the bulk of my work. Before I start stomping on butterflies I do years and years of research.
Back to Branson and his date with death. I knew that if I didn't intervene the guy would be cut open in front of fifty parishioners gathered under a sacred MulTew tree. It would utterly end the religious reform movement and set me back fifty years. But the DuNai have their own way of doing things. My goal today wasn't to just save the guy, but to take the event and turn it to my own devices.
Fully phased, I was standing next to Branson when the assassin stood, drew a massive bone-dagger, and screamed something about blasphemy. Most of the people gathered there recognized this guy right away. Mosa Nol was a notorious enforcer for the Muldiva. The guy had killed more people than cancer.
"Brother, our faith respects your religious beliefs. We do not denigrate your G
ods. Please respect ours." Holding out a hand, Branson felt absolute confidence as I blasted him with happy aural energy to overcome his natural tendency towards cowardice. I needed homeboy to stand his ground without pissing his diaper.
Paying no heed, Mosa Nol charged with murderous rage in his optical clusters. I waited until he was just short of Branson when I diverted some of my energy to halt him. With just a touch I imparted an image of eternal salvation into Mosa's mind, leaving him stunned mid-attack. It was quite a scene with the murderer seemingly dumbfounded by Branson's powers. It only took a few seconds for me to completely saturate the assassin with Emanations of a spiritual nature. Between the Hollywood movie running in his head, and the aural energy he was being bathed in, Mosa Nol experienced a complete religious revelation. Using the Guf, I took my time to trigger many of his worst deeds, replaying those memories in his head, but thru the eyes of his victims. Wrapping him up in a temporally dilated field, I kept him in there for days and days as he was forced to witness horrors of his own making. To onlookers, his entire ordeal only lasted a few seconds, but to Mosa it was one never-ending nightmare.
Dropping the dagger to the ground in a clatter, he fell to his knees before begging forgiveness for the evil in his heart. Mosa sobbed openly, something rarely seen in their society, and certainly never from a sociopath like him.
Branson's legend only grew as word spread that his first apostle was Mosa Nol. After the corrective work I had done in the assassin's brain, he now had the capacity to see the atrocities he had inflicted; essentially I gave him a working conscience. After the spiritual epiphany I had orchestrated in his head, the guy became a devout follower of Branson, and his right hand man. Oh the buzz that created in Croh society. People started to say he was a miracle worker if he could turn someone like Mosa.
But the Moldiva weren't about to give up that easily. See, what you have to remember is that in pre-industrial societies one of the best ways to maintain control is religion. Branson's liberal new faith didn't just cut into their business, it threatened their power base. In fact, in Branson's vision of the future, followers would be much less dependent on the local Shaman for their day to day needs. As you can guess, this did not sit well with those already in power. These were witch doctors who ruled their domains with dictatorial fists. They sure as hell weren't gonna let some new kid come in here and take all that away. Worse yet, they feared he could expose them for the poseurs they really were. For the most part, the Shaman on this planet were nothing more than confidence men, leaches on their own society. Very little actual medicine was practiced by these guys. But their dogma infected nearly every part of your daily life. From praying at first dawn, to dinner prayers, and lunchtime sacrifice, and Solday services...even the clothes you wore.
Initially Branson was surprised by the whole Mosa thing. He had no way of knowing what I had done, or even that I was there in the first place. Fully phased I was essentially invisible to anyone without DuNai eyes. So it wasn't long before he started to believe his own press. Especially when I engineered a few more miracles.
See, Branson didn't know about the DuNai or our mission. Branson didn't even know I was pulling his strings at every turn. But the deal is that the DuNai frown on Editors posing as deities because they find it blasphemous to impersonate the Maker. It's not a law or anything, just contrary to the philosophy we live by. Playing God is a slippery slope for Timelords, one we prefer to not tread on.
However, there is no prohibition on using some con artist who conveniently staggered into my scenario. Nope, none at all. It was just dumb luck that his ship crash landed here, I really had nothing to do with it. I discovered the event while I was studying the timeline and decided that it was perfect for my needs. The way I figure it, since he shoulda been killed by the first assassin, the guy was living on borrowed time that I had given him. So, I felt no pangs of remorse for using the guy like a marionette.
The next time, the Muldiva sent three assassins. Confident that they would be successful this time, one of the Muldiva ring leaders was actually present in the audience. His desire for a front row seat irritated me, so I planned something karmic for him.
They waited until the end of the service, when Branson would move into the middle of the circled followers to lead a final prayer to Macca, and beg for humility in all things. As the killers darted forwards, I moved in and dropped to 1/40th speed. With my finger morphed as a molecular organizer, I carefully changed the atomic structure of their knives, most specifically the blades.
Stepping back, I let them at him. The first assassin's knife shattered in his hands when he tried to plunge it into Branson's thorax. Bone shards sparkled in the midday sun for all to see.
The second hired killer actually let out a surprised gasp at the sight of his blade bending backwards so far it had cut his own hand. Such had been the results of trying to slit the Cleric's throat at the soft spot where his plates met.
But the third assassin, I actually left his knife alone. Instead I got into his mind and controlled the way he saw the world. With nothing to get in the way, he set upon his target with murderous intent. The killer had been maniacally hacking away at his victim for a good thirty seconds before I pulled back the veil so he could see what he'd really done. There, in bloody pieces was Jaam Keleem, Consigliere for the Muldiva Hierarchy. I stifled a giggle as I remembered how insistent Lord Keleem had been on having that particular chair. He wanted a good view of the assassination, and I made sure he had the best seat in the house.
So the first two guys were so surprised they never even noticed as Mosa Nol sliced them to ribbons with his new broadsword, fabricated from the hull of the wrecked shuttle. Branson had exhausted the last of his energy reserves to manufacture the only metal blade on the planet. Mose Nol carried it proudly as a badge of his office; Protectorate of the Holy One. Wasting no time he used it to decisively chop both assassins into pieces.
Now, the third assassin was a smart sumbitch, and as soon as he realized what he had done, he knew there was no going back to his employers. It was a safe bet that the Muldiva would be disinclined to pay him for murdering their chief advisor.
So assassin #3 drops to his knees and declares his allegiance to Branson and his cause. It was the smart thing to do, and it saved his life. Branson and Mosa both fell for the act and believed him to be a genuine convert. Hell, they even welcomed him as a brother. But I knew what was truly in his heart, the Guf had shown me the evil that lurked there. Don't worry though; he didn't get off Scott-free. A week later I shoved him into a HulRah tree where he was digested alive for the next year or so. It was an ugly way to go, but appropriate considering what the Guf had shown me in his mind.
Branson was a trained intelligence officer, and he knew the power of publicity. Sweeping up the shards of the broken knife, he convinced each of the witnesses present to carry a piece to the surrounding lands, and to carry with them the wisdom of their faith. In turn, each of those present vowed to perform their duties as witnesses to the word of Branson. Right there he formed the roots of his missionary empire. He really knew how to play people.
After that he had the second assassin's knife displayed in the town center on an elegant, hand-carved stand. Branson had prohibited them from cleaning the grotesquely bent-back blade. His instructions were specific; leave the assassin's blood upon the tip for all to bear witness.
For a primitive species, these people really had a superb social network setup. They had a gossip system that was like the barking network out of 101 Dalmatians. Really! The females would go out in the evenings when it was cool and rub their legs together like crickets, and announce to the world their revelations on life. The strongest chirper in the clan would be the storyteller, and the others would echo her tale. With dozens of ladies scratching out the same lingual melody, at 119 decibels each, their song reached exceptionally far in the thick, soupy atmosphere. Other villages would hear your news, and rebroadcast the juicy stuff along with their own. Back and f
orth, and all over the globe, news would travel through this informal network. Think of it as a crude form of mass communication, internet for crickets.
But the chirping chicks really stir things up. Every storyteller had their own bias as they reported the news. Then there was the natural problem of sharing stories in audible form. The farther from the source the tale was transmitted, the more it was mutated in the retelling. In some parts of their small world Branson was vilified, in others he was hailed as Bringer of the Word of God. Every night the females whipped up a new fervor with news from afar. As word of the new faith spread, the Muldiva got their ire up. Finally they were done with assassins, it was time for war.
The conservatives fielded an army of almost a thousand. Facing off against them was Branson and three hundred of his most faithful, including a core of converted assassins who had become his eight apostles. Stone-cold killers for God, they made a frightening sight as they flanked their spiritual leader that day.
The Croh communications network had spread the word long and far; everyone knew where the armies would meet because there were nightly updates on the network. There was no silencing the FemNet. They had no concept of censorship in their civilization. There was no such thing as state secrets or classified materials. The ladies spoke their mind as they pleased. You could not stop the cricket-net.
So it's not surprising that thousands of spectators turned out for the event. Cloistered on the hills around the battlefield the hillbillies camped and took up residence in the trees where they could see better. Mom 'n Dad brung the whole dang family for a good show, yesiree Uncle Bob.
So with my DuNai eyes I can see that Branson is scared shitless. He'd never wanted this, just a cushy gig running a church. But events had swept him along until he found himself facing an army that intended to murder him and his friends. Actually that'd be putting it mildly; the enemy had a formal plan to capture him and take their time to tear him apart at every gap in his exoskeleton. Images of having his legs ripped off at the knees left the former spy struggling for the next move.