by Abhishek .
“Turn. Slowly,” a mechanical voice commanded.
Ram and I obeyed, now standing face-to-face with a regiment of white-clad troops. Their vambraces were trained on us, strange devices that seemed almost alive. Miniscule grain- like objects shifted ever so slightly; that was where that sound must have come from. Each soldier frowned identically with a spirit of protection but sprinkled by a sliver of caution and doubt.
“You stand accused of trespassing, entering Valhalla without authorisation, and retaliating to security measures taken against you.” A man standing in the centre of the group spoke. His lips didn’t seem in sync with his voice though which seemed to get emanated from a small button near his collar that glowed red, almost like a translator.
“We are here to meet Odin, that’s all,” I said and turned. I knocked on the door, “Umm, Mr Odin! We’re....” Suddenly Ram and I yelled in pain and fell down, holding our feet. We didn’t hear any shots being fired but our ankles burned with unimaginable pain. I lifted my pant and noticed a circular red spot with white blisters now appearing. I looked at the faint blue glow of the nozzle of two vambraces.
“It’s radiation! They fired radioactive beams at our feet!” I shouted out to Ram who writhed in pain on the floor next to me. The next second, I felt a ring clasp around both my wrists and my arm paralysed, becoming as stiff as a wooden stick. The two of us were lifted and dragged away from the door. Although the troops looked ungainly, they outnumbered us. Our plan had failed miserably. All this for nothing.
I swung my rigid arm at the soldier holding me. I smacked his ear and he let go of me instantly. I crawled helplessly towards the door, but two other soldiers grabbed my feet and dragged me away.
“No! Leave me!” I kicked one of them, but four other soldiers replaced him relentlessly. There was no escape.
At that moment, the massive door trembled, followed by a rumble from within, which resounded like a thunderclap. It slid into a niche in the wall and a gust of musty wind buffeted my cheeks. Everyone stopped. An old man with flowing white hair emerged. I could see the terrain of his old face—skin riddled with crevasses, white beard flowing in waves, a blunt nose and a shiny metal cone on his right eye with its tip glowing red. His face was bent in a frown, an air of sadness surrounding him. His lips stretched in a small smile.
“Ah, my grandson! I wasn’t sure that you were going to arrive,” he said in crisp, cultured English, with a mix of British and American accent.
He looked at the soldiers behind me and they let me go, unfastening the wristbands so my arms were mobile again. Falling into order, they neatly marched away with their heads bowed.
The man, my grandfather, stood up shakily, his frail frame hidden behind thick layers of clothes. Funnily enough, his clothes were not sticking to his body as we saw with others. They were layers of flowing robes, quite like old-fashioned terrestrial clothing.
“Forgive my personal guard. We live in times of distress. Paranoia has clutched us all, you know. Security is very very important. I’m sorry for all that trouble. Come in, come in!” He ushered us in. As we walked inside, our eyes adjusted to the dim light of the large room. Except for some decorations, all we saw were books of all shapes and sizes, digital and holographic displays on one side and a small laboratory of sorts arranged in another part of the room, leaving hardly any space for the table.
He motioned towards a tome lying in front of him, “I was just finishing the last few pages of my diary. I reckon you have already read my father’s diary. I don’t want the last pages of my life to be blank, you see. If you were in my place, you would have understood how sometimes inanimate things become your closest friends. I hope someday,” his eyes quickly scanned me, “you will write a diary too.” Ram and I exchanged nervous glances, as we were quite dumbfounded. We weren’t sure how to react as this is not what we expected at all.
Standing in front of Odin, right inside Valhalla, everything was surreal and we had run out of imagination as to what to expect.
Kapittel 79
Mathias’s story
Asr-Gawa
March 17, 2017, Friday, 1930 hours EET
“Doesn’t he seem awfully familiar, Mathias? Look at his face,” Ram whispered in my ear. As our eyes adjusted to the dim conditions, his face did appear quite like someone I had seen before. Did I remember him faintly from a memory that had been locked away in some recess of my mind? But why did he seem familiar to Ram? “Welcome to my humble abode!” He said in a deep but raspy voice. “I am Odin-nu, Mathias, your grandfather. I believe it is our first official meeting, though I remember seeing you when you were just a new born. I have been tracking you from Mandagaar and also been following your progress in Asr-Gawa from the time you went through the process of assimilation. And you, Ram. I have been an admirer of how much of the past you seem to know and have a perspective of. I wish your father had not insisted on you remaining with him in Mandagaar. Your mother’s death was most painful for me and my younger son’s wife.”
I wasn’t sure what to make of his character. If I had been abandoned on Earth because I wasn’t accepted in this society, why was he so warm, so fatherly with me? After Ram and I took a seat in front of his study table, my grandfather sat down on his earlier seat.
“Yes, it is the first time we meet... grandfather. It wouldn’t have been this way if I wasn’t left on Earth. Ram and I have come here to find some essential answers, and since you seem to be expecting us I think you know what we seek.”
“Do I? The question is, do you know what you seek? Or rather, haven’t you figured out the answers already, my boy? I know how smart you are, Mathias. I think you already know, but to set you thinking correctly, yes, I will tell you everything.
Not knowing what how to begin, I said, “We have come a long way and uncovered many secrets to reach here, to meet you.”
“I am sure you have. I knew that when the time was right, you would follow the clues left behind for you to come back to Asr-Gawa. You were grown smart, Mathias.” His last words kept ringing in my head, almost as if I had been bred to be like this. I looked at the old man, wondering what kind of a sinister creature could lie behind his sheep’s clothing.
“You mean the Makto plants were signs for me too? You know what fate you are carving out for our planet by shipping all the silicon to your planet, don’t you?” I raised my right eyebrow.
“Mathias, you should learn that there is always a different perspective. Conditions here in Asr-Gawa are really bad and I am sure you would have noticed that too....”
“I know all that grandfather! But what I don’t understand is why you would sacrifice another planet to save yours! There must be a way; there must be another source of energy which you are not trying to harness. The ferocious oceans are an abundant source of renewable energy. Why aren’t you doing anything with that?”
“You don’t know everything, Mathias,” a menacing calm was seeping out of his voice now. “Time! Time is not renewable! We do not have the time required to develop any such technology. Nor do we have the general intelligence required for any scientific breakthrough after the Pandemic. We made amazing technological advancements, the main reason why the Mandaas called us Gods. In biology class, have you studied about the population curve of a species? They start of with linear growth which soon turns into exponential growth. We had reached the pinnacle of our time, doing things in the fields of science, politics, economics, and mathematics that no one could dream of. Then, well we reached our carrying capacity as you call it. We started making mistakes, errors, irreparable damage. The Pandemic wasn’t the sole reason of our decline. It simply symbolises it, the final blow that sent our civilisation tumbling towards a dark, stinky death. We’re rotting, Mathias. We need to do our best to sustain ourselves, keep the candle glowing for as long as we can. We cannot do anything else other than borrow it from Midgard.”
“Why not any other dimension?” Ram barged in.
“Because all the other dimension
s do not have native elements that contain Makto. They have been manufacturing it in small quantities and taking it from us. That trade kept us on top of all the dimensions including Jargantaam. They are also advanced enough to detect our transfer if we were to smuggle their elements in a clandestine manner. Besides, silicon, indigenous to the dimension of Midgard, has the most profitable concentration of Makto.”
I could now lay my fingers on Odin’s dilemma, though a complete grasp was still out of reach.
“But in doing so, Earth will perish! Are you so selfish, that you are ready to destroy one planet for the survival of yours?”
Odin was shaking his head. His voice suddenly grew louder, like a younger and stronger him still resided in his old body, “The survival of Asr-Gawa is more important than the survival of Earth! We are the leading body in this multiverse of dimensions! There, I said it. We are the ones preventing conflict and imposing our authority and power over the others, even if you Mandaas aren’t aware of our existence. If any of you were ever in my position and seen what I have, felt and experienced this society like I have, you would know that it is imperative that we emerge from this rubble of a city to something better! If we die, the Jargantaans will assume power! Soon the dark days will come back and Earth may be destined for another deluge, and this time, there will be no Bor or Noah or Manu or Gilgamesh to save you.”
A long pause ensued after the crescendo had reached the peak. Ram and I were reminded of what we had read in Noah’s—my great grandfather’s—diary. We were finally able to understand the game.
“So there is no way in which both Earth and Asr-Gawa can be saved?” Ram asked.
“None. We have tried to manage an equal mass transfer exchange but we cannot pinpoint the location. The net mass of Earth will decrease and it will spin out of orbit into the cold of space... I am sorry.”
“All that has been created by us, and partly by you too, will be destroyed. Can you not find any other way to conserve Earth? Even though I understand your position, don’t you think it is morally completely incorrect to do what you are doing?”
“Mathias. Do not tell me about what I am doing. Most of what you are seeing today is because of me. In every technological and scientific surge in your history, I was the core. Earth is even closer to me than it had been to my father. I noticed how you scrutinise and examined my face, especially your friend.”
Ram opened his mouth and shook his head, scared and taken aback.
“Don’t be scared, Ram... that’s your name, right? Ram? Good. No need to be afraid. In fact, I urge you to look at me and think harder. You already know how I came to Earth about one thousand five hundred years ago, with the alias of Bodhidharma, as you would have surely attained the sign I left for you: the Kofun period Mirror. I helped thicken the pillars of Zen Buddhism and meditation in Eastern Asia so as to give those people a code of conduct to follow and emerge from anarchy into an era of prosperity. Look at me closely and tell me more,” said the old man twirling his coarse beard playfully.
At that instant, a number of events clicked everything into place like jigsaw puzzles. The singular window in his room, above his bed, allowed the sunshine to illuminate the contours of his face, giving his smile a certain mystical quality. It seemed like the most enigmatic, yet familiar smile I had ever seen. I followed the source of the light and spotted the scenery outside his window. Being right at the top of Valhalla, we were able to see just over the boundary of the curved city. I could make out a thin dirt track winding through a small hilly range. The track ended at a bay, the left of which was flanked by jagged mountains and the right extended into an elevated plateau.
“You are Mona Lisa!” I exclaimed and jumped like I would reach the roof. My chair toppled backwards and I rolled on the floor before shooting back up to my feet. I felt like a truck had hit me in three seconds.
My grandfather laughed softly, shaking his head from side to side. Ram looked at me and then at Odin, then at me and again at Odin, like a pigeon.
“Yes, Mathias. I am what you earthlings call....”
“La Gioconda!” Ram sprang from his seat up onto his feet when he was able to see the resemblance as well.
“Partly,” Odin chuckled and waited for us to settle down again. “Apart from being Bodhidharma, I came to Earth and became one of the most influential men of the Renaissance period, the polymath who drove the entire cultural and academic movement, Leonardo da Vinci,” Odin paused for the theatrical effect. “Whenever the society on your planet was not advancing fast enough, whenever there was a need for something that would alter the course of history, I was there. After being Bodhidharma, I travelled back about 500 Mandaa years and fuelled the entire Renaissance through my designs of planes, helicopters, tanks, bridges, dams, what not. Tell me, does anybody know much about Da Vinci’s early life?”
“Just that he was born in Florence and that he had two significant moments of realisation in his early life, two portents. Other than that, I am not much aware of his childhood,” Ram replied.
“That is because there was no real Leonardo. The pieces of his childhood memories had been my fabrications. Pray tell me, how can a boy growing up in a village with simple informal education develop such ingenuity and intellect to think so much ahead of his time with such lucidity if he wasn’t completely sure about what was going to happen! I helped revolutionise engineering, anatomy, biology and geometry to boost the development of the human civilisation.”
“So this is the mystery of the Mona Lisa! You made a self portrait in the foreground. In the background, you painted what the Asurian landscape that you saw from outside your window!” Ram blurted out in a frenzied voice.
“Which is precisely why the painting remains a mystery. Because nobody on earth would be able to locate the background as it does not exist on earth!” The old man guffawed, the raspy quality of his voice disappearing when he grew louder. “I aided the revival of new thinking in art and painting, bringing about sophistication and new thought into culture. Deliberately was I quiet and remote so that the people did not get to know much about me, so that I remained a mysterious man but a lender of ideas. I kept all my designs of aircrafts and ships and everything else as a means for others to build on my ideas. However, I now realise that it was too early. The people of that time were, perhaps, not completely ready for the bulk of my ideas. Nevertheless, I attempted to bring down ideas about architecture and almost all other spheres of life from the future. Seeing that some more reformation was needed at a later time, I decided to return.”
“You came back again... as someone equally influential?” I asked him and my grandfather nodded.
“As another polymath, Mathias. Consider this a thinking exercise to allow you to discern the answers of the other questions that are more fundamental to you. I came back at a time when the ideas would be more acceptable and implementation would be possible. So who was I next?”
A pause ensued when Ram and I gazed at his face even harder, looking into every nook and cranny, every strand of hair and the strange glimmer in his left eye.
“Another old man who altered the course of our knowledge? Einstein?”
“Negative!”
“What about Shakespeare?” asked Ram.
Odin still shook his head.
“Must be Benjamin Franklin?” I guessed.
“Perfect!”
“Did I just hear you say ‘perfect’?” Ram looked shocked.
“Yes! Absolutely! I was Benjamin Franklin! I understood that the Mandaas’ world needed a greater advancement, a kick at the right time in history that was right when the Americans were fighting for independence. In your history, Benjamin Franklin’s schooling was done when he was 10 years old. Then how in the nine dimensions would someone like that become a statesman, an inventor, pioneer of electricity and refrigeration, physicist, scientist and one of the most influential Americans who have ever lived? How do you think a man can write the whole foreign policy of a country in a simple exchan
ge of letters overnight? I was Franklin, and I worked carefully, creating long-term changes such as building George Washington to rise and finally take over as the leader of America. Like when I was Da Vinci, I wanted to stay a little back, allowing you Mandaas to carry on what I had created and the reach the heights of power and creativity!” “But... Benjamin Franklin’s legacy, his whole life has been charted. It is not as unclear as Da Vinci. How can you say that we never even understood an Asurian working amongst us?” Ram inquired, scratching his head under the load of the sudden revelations.
“Is it? Franklin’s first son, William Franklin, was declared illegitimate as his mother’s identity was unknown. Similarly, William’s son, William Temple Franklin, was also illegitimate as his mother’s identity was not known. What do you make out of that?” Odin asked Ram who stared at him plaintively. “When I had been working there, I needed some partners who could do some of the work for me. Both of them were Asurians whom I had summoned at different time periods to finish some of my work and, at the same time, appear to fall in my lineage.
“But this is not all, my boys. There is yet another instance when I had come to Earth as somebody else. My fourth and last mission was becoming the most prominent naturalist—Charles Darwin.”
Ram and I felt another jolt, as if his words were lightning. Every name he took belonged to an individual who had truly revolutionised the way mandaas thought and the world we now live in.
“You can now imagine how,” he continued. “For one thing, it is practically impossible for any human on Mandagaar to conduct such a humoungous amount of research unless every hypothesis and analysis after any experiment a man conducted was correct and irrefutable. I had to use centuries of research in Asr-Gawa as well as groundbreaking work by my grandfather in creating and sorting different species.