by DD White
Chapter 2: Ploabot and Hanson
Aquari travels faster than any other object in the galaxy however; this writing is capable of traveling even faster. For example the story now leaps over 60 Earth years into the future from the time Aquari at last arrived at Goag Ralus in the center of the galaxy. This writing arrives at the planet Tze-Doldus-2 over 40,000 light years away in the Orion arm of the galaxy. The star Tze-Doldus still shined 25,000 light years up the Orion arm of Magphoreus from the now long gone nova remnant of the star Tze, very similar to a nova remnant known to Earthlings as the Helix Nebula. Four billion Earth years ago the white dwarf star Tze-Doldus orbited the red giant star Tze after they formed amongst the original 15 star cluster that birthed the Nephaprican Galactic Empire. Because of this distinguished origin of the Tze/Tze-Doldus binary star systems, both stars had an orbiting planet that housed one of the 15 fabled Nephaprican star-doors.
None of the planets that orbited these stars were habitable when the ancestors of the Nephapricans first ventured in nuclear-drive star ships to land on them. All that changed relatively fast by galactic standards as the Pripicans terra-formed the rocky worlds to their liking. The Tze/Tze-Doldus system happened to be the most remote area of the original 15 star cluster, and making it an oasis of life in a harsh galactic reality would be hard won. The planet Tze-6 flourished in the budding galactic empire by attracting the inquiring minds of more technologically advanced Nephrican and Pripican scientific researchers that desired to study a 60 solar mass red giant star close up. In the early sub-light speed days of Nephapricus, the study of this remote red giant star would have to be a lifetime career decision. The key to the Nephaprican star-doors became unlocked by the knowledge gained from these studies of the 15 stars in the original cluster empire. The planet Tze-Doldus-2 prospered by attracting rich galactic colonists who were drawn to its ideally incubated environment, and the most amazingly picturesque sky in the whole cluster of 15 stars. The white dwarf Sun would fill almost half the sky during the 14 earth-hour long day on Tze-Doldus-2. The feint red circle of Tze always would pose in different places at different sizes somewhere in the then blue and clear skies of Tze-Doldus-2. Then the sky also included the ringed gas giant planet Tze-Doldus-1. Tze-Doldus-1 orbited Tze-Doldus every seven days of the 69-day Tze-Doldus-2 year, and displayed in the Tze-Doldus-2 sky like a ringed moon. Later on in the evolution of the galactic empire, when the star-doors were created, the planet Tze-Doldus-2 became a thriving tourist attraction, which drove away many of the original upper class families of colonists.
Stars, just like terrestrial beings, are born, they live, grow old, and die. Near the end of a seven hundred million Earth year galactic civilization the old red giant star Tze died. The planets Tze-2, Tze-5 (along with 6 of its moons,) and the legendary star-door planet Tze-6 were all evaporated in the explosive event as Tze threw off its thick red coat of spent star plasma fuel. It is well documented in the archives of existing galactic civilizations, (which in a way are mostly offspring of the legendary Nephapricus,) that the star-doors were made of indestructible substances. Therefore it would be said that the star-door built on Tze-6 still existed out there somewhere after the planet below it evaporated. For some unknown reason the Nephapricans were never able to contact these star-doors ever again. The indestructible star-door still floats out there somewhere, disabled because it had been cut off from its solar power source, but it is still pretty much as good as new, a treasure only for the most ambitious of galactic treasure seekers, and one of the great mysteries of Magphoreus to this very day.
The fate of the binary companion white dwarf Tze-Doldus was more fortunate than Tze. The star kept three of its planets when the white dwarf companion of Tze spit out into space like a glowing cannon ball. The effects of the red giant expelling a white dwarf companion caused a unique helix tube shape for the remaining nova remnant as debris spiraled around the resulting hole in phantom matter. That is the same thing that gives the Helix Nebula its name “Helix” by Earth astronomers, although the red giant Tze nova event took place in the last age of Magphoreus, billions of Earth years before the Helix Nebulae even happened. The Tze nova left behind a still shining star core on the verge of becoming a pulsar in the very center of the circling helix of gas and debris, and its white dwarf companion Tze-Doldus became lost amongst all the larger brighter stars of the great galaxy Magphoreus. Many still believed that Tze-Doldus probably exists out there still with the virtues of a white dwarf star’s much longer life. Tze-Doldus existed still out there somewhere, a dimly-lit, unassuming, miniature star-system hiding in the labyrinth of stars with one of the greatest accomplishments of advanced technology ever devised by intelligent life perched upon one of its still existing planets.
Of the Tze half of the original binary system, nothing remains that isn’t now long lost in the last age of Magphoreus. It has long been known however, that a dimly lit white dwarf probably still exists out there somewhere, perhaps with the fabled star-door planet Tze-Doldus-2 still in orbit. The star-door technology controlled the phantom matter particles of the planet’s orbit, and terra-forming programs would have been capable of saving the planet’s environment and life, a star-door generated magnetic field would keep the atmosphere intact, although the challenge would be unfathomable. It had long been the stuff of speculation that the explosion would have surely flooded the planet with star debris, sure to wipe out all existing life, however now we know that the planet Tze-Doldus-2 still orbits Tze-Doldus every 69 fourteen Earth hour days under a glowing green sky. The planet measured a bit smaller than the planet Mars with no moons, although in moments when the greenish sky became clear, the planet Tze-Doldus-1 could be seen still visible like a moon, now no longer with a ring around it. The ground of Tze-Doldus-2 glowed with a luster from gold dust that pelted the planet during the Tze nova event billions of years in the past, creating whole deserts with unimaginably vast Earth fortunes of gold dust. What would be seen as a fortune on planet Earth could be easily melted out of the Tze-Doldus-2 dirt with enough heat, but usually it would just be swept off the dusty floors by the inhabitants of Tze-Doldus-2 only to be tossed out unwanted into the trash. Gold dust, called coaglium in this translation of the Uranian chirping language, does have value on the equivalent of the Tze-Doldus-2 commodities market for its uses in industry however; it’s a very cheap commodity.
The planet Tze-Doldus-2 had intelligent inhabitants these days that lived in societies much like present day Earth. They called this planet Urania, and were proud of their accomplishments, blessed by the planet’s near perfect climate, and so much of the valuable element of gold that it qualifies as dirt. They utilized the benefits of this gold dust, which could be easily synthesized from the ground and formed into whole cities only to have the golden luster painted over in dull brownish colors that Uranians found more pleasing to the eye.
Uranians had large eyes with pupils stretching the length of the eye from top to bottom like that of a cat, which evolved for the dimness of night with sensitivities to motion. The hair of the Uranian formed into thick follicles that used to cover the body with waterproof protection, but at this point of their evolution hair mainly formed a mane on the top of their heads. Their necks were longer than a human neck, and were perched on a body that looked more like a bird than a human. The skin of Uranians looked porcelain white, which tended to yellow with old age. They had bird-like feet and legs with three long toes in front and one around the heel in back. They had no use for shoes with their thickly callused legs, tail, and feet. The long bird-like toes also made shoes impractical, but Uranian vanity knew no bounds when a fashion statement became the inspiration. Their hands also featured three fingers with an opposable thumb. They were like birds mutated by a switched on pentanthropomorphic gene-switch, with mouths that resembled a beak that had lips growing over it. They had 4 front teeth resembling a beak split in a straight line from top to bottom down the middle. The four tee
th in front extended and retracted to open and close the mouth. That made them look like they had a cross on their chins that widened and narrowed as they opened and closed this mouth. The lips only closed completely over this tooth arrangement with conscious effort, which gave Uranians a buck-toothed appearance to the Earth-eye, and the lips appeared to snarl as they breathed through nostrils that were located under the upper lip as a hole in each top front tooth. Four similar beak-like teeth in back chewed independently with the jaw while front teeth retracted by independent muscles from the temple and chin. That made their ears further down and behind the head. The eyes were larger than a human’s, and close together with no place for a nose, although nostrils appeared under the upper lip when they flared open to breath. Behind the bird-like Uranian body protruded a mouse-like tail on the males, while females only featured a stub for a tail and a slightly shorter arm reach.
Ploabot served as a Uranian on the local council of the capital city named Keshdesh. This council in the capital city would be regarded as a special appointment from regional councils that served also as a kind of federal council over the whole planet’s only real country. Society functioned as a mixture of local councils that managed budgets of society’s value, food production, and infrastructure management. Yards were mostly gardens, and transportation had always been electric through all of recorded history. The Uranians barely grasped the concept of electricity, and that only by the most intelligent scientists because it had long been regarded as a magic energy given to the Aungtalli priests by the gods who intervened hundreds of thousands of Tze-Doldus years ago to save the Uranians from destroying themselves. Local councils answered to the King of the planet who served as a pawn of the Aungtalli priests in the present day and age. The one-continent planet has orbited under ideal conditions for billions of years, which reflected in the fact that the current Uranian society had been stable way longer than all of human history on Earth. Society would be presided over by Kings appointed from three royal families and a class of Aungtalli priests so exclusive that they were a different species with larger hairless bodies and larger craniums.
Ploabot breathed in the cool evening air, watching the last of the Sun’s dim light set into a shrinking line of light across the sunset horizon under misty green and blue skies. He approached the house of his old friend from childhood days who went by the name Hanson. Ploabot felt uneasy about his meeting since it happened because of a request by the local Aungtalli bishop for Ploabot to go and try to talk some sense into his friend, the science rebel. He needed Hanson to end his protest over closing the Ministry of Science so he could come back to inclusion in the community, which become less and less democratic and more and more a theocracy thanks to Aungtalli priest influence on the King. Only then could Hanson have his energy turned back on, which he had been doing scientific experiments with to the ire of the priests who control that mysterious sacred power.
Hanson had become a thorn in the local counsel’s side since the Ministry of Science had been de-funded and disbanded by recent monarch decree. The Ministry closure had no doubt been at the behest of Aungtalli priest influence. Aungtalli priests controlled society with their undisputed control of the magical energy that made all the world’s wheels turn to the contentment of civilization. The priests lifted the world out of a dark age left in the wake of a brief fossil fuel age over 200,120 years ago. A Uranian day is 14 Earth hours long, and they have a 69 day year so 200,120 Uranian years is actually about 20,455 Earth years. According to recorded history those fuels poisoned the food supply in the atmosphere, provided on Urania by the green sky rains.
Ploabot pondered that very ancient history while looking at Hanson’s pod pollen tree in his front yard, which had become a remnant of those ancient times. Even the Science Ministry agreed with priest stories that before anything grew in the soil of Urania, pod pollen trees were planted from the sky. Old myths speak of the sky god Beataphoriah himself planting these old pod pollen trees. That came from ancient legends that even pre-dated the rise of the Aungtalli, but they still echo in present Uranian society. Pod pollen trees routinely shoot a cloud of pollen gas into the air. That gas rises up to cultivate vegetation that grew in the upper atmosphere skies. That pod pollen tree activity gives the skies of Urania a misty emerald green hue. In ages before recorded history, animals of the planet were nourished by seedpods that still fall from the skies with the rains. These pods are different shapes, colors, and tastes, but they were all eatable. Ploabot used to eat them all the time as a kid. Now as a distinguished member of the world council he preferred prepared restaurant foods.
Ploabot stopped to watch the pod pollen tree as it started making its familiar creaking sound. The creaking of a pod pollen tree warned all around that it was about to shoot its pollen gas out of one of its horn-like branches. The branches mostly pointed straight up in the air with ends that opened to the sky like trumpets. The branch’s pointing-upward tendencies were good because you didn’t want to be in the way of the gas cloud of pollen from a pod pollen tree, which shot out in a puff of cloud to rise up afterwards. These pod pollen trees were regarded as sacred dinosaurs from the time of the planet’s origins, which originally cultivated all the vegetation that now flourished on Urania. Almost every one these days maintained a pod pollen tree in their gardens. Pods still fell from the sky and many animals still ate them. Ploabot could even still be caught enjoying a pod from the sky now and then, depending on the color. Uranians also enjoyed the eggs of haffaffats as well as milk provided by waffs, and breads made from fields of wheat-like laffastocks.
The ecosystem only entertained a couple hundred kinds of major animals with bird and insect life always aspiring toward the gas forests of the upper atmosphere. The upper atmosphere still teemed with the result of ancient terra-forming programs instigated by the star-door technology, which still chugged away somewhere on this planet, probably buried under the Great Glacial Mountain under nova bombardments and billions of years of shifting golden dirt. The star-door out there somewhere still looked over the planet for as long as the white dwarf star’s fusion power fed it the phantom matter for its creation power. That terra-forming routine seemed to be stuck in the first phase of the terra-forming program; stuck in a seemingly infinite loop, as if waiting billions of years for someone to come along and press a button.
Ploabot instinctively leaped backwards when the tree shot its cloud of greenish-yellow gas that floated gently upward like a helium balloon. Ploabot straightened out his upper garb that resembled a cowboy or fisherman’s vest with a shoulder strapped purse that he adjusted back to his side. Below his waist he wore a granny skirt, or kilt, which pretty much made up the pants in this society of bird bodies. Some Uranians sometimes wore stylish wide pant-like leg garments, but the males mostly found them too feminine for their tastes, and preferred skirts. Ploabot’s tail protruded out of a hole in the back of his kilt as he continued to the door of his friend Hanson. Aungtalli priests say the pollen tree is proof of the existence of the creator god, while the Ministry of Science always argued that life “evolved” this way naturally. The Ministry put forward writings by his friend Hanson that were proposing a theory that Uranians were once fish or a species of bird that became too big to fly so the wings evolved into arms, and these wonderful hands.
That word probably got the Ministry of Science shut down; “evolve.” Hanson had made the word up in an anthropological study he conducted while he traveled the Archipelago Seas. Hanson’s observations led him to a whole new hypothesis on life and where we came from. The Ministry of Science, for all its contributions to civilization and society, had crossed the line with the Aungtalli priests. Where we came from happened to be the priest’s own sacred area of expertise, although the scientists of the Ministry had been winning their arguments in recent years over the age of things.
Ploabot approached the door of his good friend Hanson. He knocked on the wood door, which gave of
f an echo sound. Hanson’s female companion Veldada slid the door open while her face brightened at the site of Ploabot. “Hello Ploabot. Sorry, Hanson’s not here.
I can’t tell you when back here he will steer.
You’re welcome to wait here till he comes by.
He’s at the House of Records. So that’s why.”
Ploabot always had been attracted to Veldada since their early childhood days, but the less shy Hanson claimed her hand before Ploabot could even muster the nerve to ask her out, but his heart still leapt at the look of her face brightening when she saw him. “He’ll stay there long after the day is dim.
Thank you, but I’ll just go there to find him.” Veldada looked disappointed by this decision. Ploabot’s heart leapt again when he noticed that.
“Well you’re still welcome to wait over here.
I’ll see you again when you come back dear.
That partner of mine is recently felled,
Hanson the scientist now just expelled.”
Ploabot at the Door of the House of Hanson
Ploabot giggled at Veldada’s rhyme, and smiled as he departed the house of Hanson. Hanson made a point of living conveniently within walking distance of the House of Records. The House of Records basically served as a library for all intents and purposes. He felt sorry for Veldada, who seemed in good spirits even though she must also endure in that house with all the energy turned off. He marveled at his friend Hanson’s unquenchable thirst for knowledge, but Hanson didn’t know when to stop defending it in a society ran by priests who served also as the secret police.
He didn’t even know when to take a break from it all to just help Veldada with her goal in life, to possess her own egg, not Hanson’s crusade of achieving perfect knowledge, and justice in the world. Uranians nursed their young just like mammals, but they lay eggs after an incubation process that follows conception. The eggs hatched in a couple months, but most women donated their eggs to nurseries that were ran by Aungtalli priests. He knew Veldada, and knew she wouldn’t do that. He knew that she really wanted a child now more than ever. A glaring point of hypocrisy that Aungtalli priests preached family values on the one hand, and then applied the other hand to encourage females to give up their fertilized eggs to their Aungtalli baby business could not be lost on the critical thinking Uranian.
A nudist approached Ploabot as he came up on the House of Records building. The House of Records stood warehouse sized with an arched roof made of gold brick painted a deep greenish brown. Clothing could be arguably arbitrary on a tropical planet like Urania, but the Aungtalli imposed the practice of wearing clothes, only rejected by the most deranged enemies of civilized society. Ploabot thought about the facilities provided to house the nutcases of society who were, never the less, still free to wander the street should they choose. The King maintained his place securely in the present society by not always caving in to the conspicuously powerful autocratic control of Aungtalli priests. The King defended and championed of the rights and freedoms of individuals, which kept him immune from revolution as long as everybody stayed happy with their comfortable lives. The King mediated between the local councils and the priests who mysteriously controlled all the strings of society like a religious oligarchy.
The ramblings of the passing naked crazy Uranian began singing its way into Ploabot’s ears, causing him to stop and hear the guy out, which is customary for Uranians who all strive to sing the language, and are suckers for a well crafted song. The naked bird-man fired his crazed gaze on Ploabot’s eyes while turning up the volume of his schizophrenic drivel, having noticed a willing audience to his incomprehensible sermon.
Uranians speak a chirping language that is even written on 4 music-like stanza lines, similar to Earth music. That empowers the language with a melodic emotional dimension that makes them sound like birds that have a sense of melody, who can keep musical time, and unlike actual birds, hold notes. This writing conveys the rhythm and pentameter of the language as it slips into the Uranian tendency to be carried away in song with linguistic expression.
The crazy naked Uranian stopped in front of Ploabot and sang his song, which broke most of the rhyming pentameter rules of the language, and mostly lacked coherence.
“Of this sight
taken on of my might.
For my dream has awakened
to rhythm forsaken.
I try to control
every thought that is spoken
so that this long threading
can be long when broken.
I have seen such a vision,
a horror incision
of what can now be
at this end of Uranian vision.
A light cast on darkness,
a madness within,
I feel so awakened
though I slept not a wink.
Now the sun shines on night time,
together a link.
So upon me a mystery
now does invade
that makes me now wonder
what shall we be paid.
An amazing kind of judgment
like the last prophet said,
so now it has slain me
though I am not dead,
though it may now know
every thought in my head.
No, what can I do
in this paradox day?
I find there’s no way out
except for the way.
It hears now I’m sure,
like a mind mirror rival.
Before just the devil
challenged my survival.”
Now Ploabot became annoyed as the crazy man drew closer into Ploabot’s face, grabbing his vest.
“But now like before Ei
I stand here, and say
that the night was far easier
then the Sun’s dawning day.”
Ploabot pushed the Uranian away having finally had enough of his drivel. “Stop sir! Go get help! You smell of dry heaves.
It’s time you stopped smoking troopaloo leaves.”
The dejected naked crazy Uranian just stood and yelled at Ploabot’s back as Ploabot continued on the path to the House of Records.
“For surely this knowledge
only feigns its normality
for this new program
shines upon my mortality
with something eternal,
yes, even divine.
A moment when the dream being
did but stop by to dine,
and showed me the virtual reality sign!”
Ploabot found Hanson at the House of Records mulling over scrolls and virtual screens in deep study of ancient records and archaeological finds. “I have found you at last. Hello old friend.
To this place it was Veldada did send.” Ploabot brushed Hanson’s tail as he approached his table of scrolls.
Hanson looked up at his old friend a bit surprised that he didn’t stay with Veldada to wait for his return. He knew Ploabot would have wanted to, and he was sure Veldada offered. “Hello Ploabot. I’ve heard advice and taunts.
I’ve just stubbornness reserved for response.”
Ploabot said, “Oh Hanson, think of the goals to achieve
regardless of what it is you believe.
You have to work with the world as it is.
Your theories are unproven about this.”
Hanson went on. “Our gene research started the solution
to prove my theory of evolution.
But we’ve always argued that against priest.
Of reasons for the closing, that one’s least.
We’ve always preferred critical thinking
to diving into dogma then sinking.
It wasn’t evolution that shut down
the Science Ministry with its renown.”
Ploabot became intrigued. “I don’t know what it was the priests called crime.
Tell me Hanson, what did you do this time?�
��
Hanson answered. “Well it all began with this scope you see
scanning this ancient data disk for me.
It came from our archaeology gang,
and under this scanner the data sang.”
Ploabot spoke up in order to fast forward the expected history Hanson prepared to dictate since he already knew it. “I know of this found in deserts down south.
I have learned of this disk by word of mouth.
It’s made by a culture not on the list
of history so it cannot exist.
The world’s just three hundred thousand years old.
That disk’s older than that I have been told.
Aungtalli say the world’s made by Ei.
If your find is real then we don’t know why.
You challenge known history at great risk.
So what did you find on this laser disk?”
“Extraordinary information”, began Hanson,
“was being translated for the nation.
We found in ruins of an ancient town,
but then the Aungtalli shut us down.
We deciphered a strange language on it,
and numeric data also was writ
that included radio frequencies
to find things in the sky above the breeze,
orbiting satellites still in their place
can now be contacted in outer space
with knowledge from this disk of secret codes
to make them send me their image downloads.”
Hanson paused for Ploabot to say something, but Ploabot remained speechless with his mouth protruded open, and his jaw dropped down only as if he wanted to say something. “To shrink this narrative otherwise long
years of hard work made this disk sing its song.
We toyed with a theory to find out why
that it’s to contact objects in the sky.
We tested the theory with radio,
and it worked showing us what we now know.
Ancient Uranians launched satellites
To observe the Sun, and many more sights.
Long before our Aungtalli reliance
we were already masters of science.
The Aungtalli came to steal that away
for the same reason I’m shut down today.”
Ploabot started to get his speech back. “You tell me ancient fossil fuel burners
were really great Uranian learners?
Their tragic end was by primitive rage.
We’re above that in this enlightened age.
You call them advanced beyond where I sit.
You say they even put things in orbit?
That makes the ancients not seem so tragic
to gain much without Aungtalli magic.”
This stretched Ploabot’s own belief limits regarding his reality. Nobody who really considered intellectual studies actually believed the Aungtalli priest stories of creation, but it’s universally accepted that the Aungtalli priests saved Uranians from a savage dark age. That dark age had ensued after a more ancient civilization foolishly almost poisoned the planet to total extinction with energy sources that destroyed whole ecosystems. The idea that such a primitive and savage society could be advanced enough to put satellites in space became a blow to his paradigm of living in the most advanced Uranian civilization of all Uranian history.
Hanson continued. “They had fossil fueled rockets. We’ve been blind.
That’s not all we’ve learned from this ancient find.
We’ve learned much watching this laser disk play
to control satellites there to this day.
Smythan was to announce this, then he died
by a tree in a wrist-slit suicide.
He was found in a field early this year.
He was really murdered. That’s what I fear.
The Ministry of Science was shut down
soon after against my protest and frown.
Now I’m banished from almost everything
just because I lodged protests with the King.”
Ploabot started thinking he suffered an information overload when suddenly all the lights in the House of Records went out, shrouding everything in black, which only slowly became illuminated again by a faint glow from the setting white dwarf star that glowed just under the dusk horizon. Ploabot looked out the window where night covered the landscape with dark silhouettes of once lit-up buildings. It turned out the whole city had just suffered a total blackout of the sacred energy given to Aungtalli priests. That energy, according to popular legend, had been given by the very gods themselves to save Uranian civilization from the folly of cruder hydrocarbon energy sources. Energy blackouts were something else that seemed to be happening a lot lately. The Aungtalli priests said it is because society began to forsake the Aungtalli ways, beginning to break eggs, engage in same-sex sexual behavior, or other sins defined by the morality agenda of the pompous Aungtalli priest class. They kept the secrets of invisible energy yet seemed as baffled as everyone else about why this power kept blacking out for several minutes at a time, all over the planet. As far as Aungtalli priests were concerned it was always because Uranians were making the gods mad. Ploabot did the math in his head, and concluded that this had been the eighth power blackout this year.
Hanson nudged his friend. “The cause of these blackouts isn’t what you read.
Truth is revealed by the satellite feed.” His voice lowered next to Ploabot’s ear to mask the heresy he now would reveal. “These blackouts are caused by fires from the Sun
that engulf this planet when they are done.
This energy is so intense and strong
that energy circuits can’t play along.
It puts Aungtalli energy grids out.
Its gotten worse again. What’s that about?”
At that moment the lights of the whole city flickered back on, and the information scope began to boot back up. Ploabot became distracted for a moment from the question stuck in his head. “These blackouts I know as a recent curse.
What do you mean by ‘again’ it’s got worse?”
Hanson said, “Archeological archives have shown
that they were brilliant from what they had known.
They recorded solar flares from the Sun
that made power blackouts when they were done.
The Sun goes through phases through history.
It sets the sky on fire when blustery.
The last time that happened was the Dark Age,
before this new age of Aungtalli sage.
Its story today is in Medaloom
who persecuted the priests to his doom.
Fifty thousand years before what we know
Was the true history from which myths now flow.”
The event Hanson spoke of actually happened –53,240 years ago, at the start of known history. It inspired the myth of King Medaloom who was punished after the Aungtalli prayed to their gods.
Ploabot found himself finishing the legend in his mind as he remembered the old church story from childhood. “…So all greatly fear where gods have now been.
the sky caught fire for a single king’s sin.
Gods bring suffering when they must resolve.
Blessed is one who’s own problems they solve.”
Hanson noticed Ploabot’s head turn to observe a digital surveillance mechanism that buzzed as it turned its Aungtalli energy powered eye toward the table they were conversing at. “Yes the walls are always interested
In what I now dig through, and what I did.
If they weren’t so obsessed with what I find
I’d be banished here too. They’d be less kind.
Perhaps I’d even suffer like my friend
Smythan who did not deserve his sad end.”
Ploabot comforted his friend. “A petition for audience I’d send
if banned from the House of Records, my friend.”
“I
appreciate that. It calms my fears,
though petitions are heard by hostile ears.
Come with me, I’m now done here for the night.
I’ve got something to show your amazed sight.”
As they departed the watchful surveillance of the House of Records to the open air outside, Hanson began to speak audibly louder, and in more detail about ancient advanced civilizations that existed before all recorded history. Stories from Ploabot’s childhood church days seemed to jump out of the depths of his mind into consciousness, as if in defiance to the blasphemous information Hanson suddenly felt so free to ramble on about. The problem with this crazy Uranian who now rambled on and on at him was that he made perfect sense, and church really did just teach him silly tales of untruth.
Upon entering the House of Hanson to the circular inner doorway where the floor dipped into a shallow pool of water, Ploabot dipped his feet, and then circled his bird-like torso around to stand on the towel provided by a floor appliance that they used to dry wet feet. Uranians didn’t wear shoes on their bird-like feet, and custom dictated that they wash the feet upon entering from outside. As Ploabot entered the main room something suddenly occurred to him while he habitually pressed a button to advance the towel apparatus that he just dried his feet upon. Ploabot exclaimed, “The lights still work, and your appliances!?
Priests turned this off with all alliances!” Hanson explained.
“The power still works and all that I do
is use knowledge from that disk I showed you.
How much extra work, and chores do-or-die,
Do you do for your energy supply?”
Ploabot apologized for his political favors. “We all pay a fair share in this nation
to the Bishop for civilization.”
Hanson stopped him. “But what if this power, or energy
came from the ground like nature, and was free?”
The question struck Ploabot as rhetorical while he changed between the two channels on the virtual entertainment device that still worked. Ploabot became baffled at how Hanson could even keep the channels turning on at all. “You steal from the Aungtalli power grid,
or something just like that is what you did.
Coaglium wire through a neighbor’s door
restores this power. It’s been done before.
Stealing energy is punished severe.
They can trace the drainage to your neighbor.”
Ploabot heard Veldada giggle from the food preparation room where she washed dishes within earshot of their conversation. Hanson made his defense. “This was discovered by scientists toil.
My energy comes right out of the soil.
I don’t say I’ll not see trouble you fear.
They get this the same way I do right here.
Come now, I’ll show you what it is I do.
You’ll see what it is that I’ve tapped into.
I want a council member to regard,
I’m entitled to what’s in my backyard.”
Hanson led Ploabot out the back door to the backyard garden, just like hundreds of gardens featured behind most Uranian homes. In the backyard Ploabot observed a wire from the house that connected to another wire that connected between two metal posts that stuck out of the ground like a ‘T’ shaped wire clothesline.
“I got this from an ancient data disk
three hundred thousand years old. All I risk
is the crime of sticking poles in the ground,
twenty klepts deep is the secret I found.
They’re angled to the magnetic effect
of the planet, and they must be perfect.
This sends me the unlimited power
to my house so to them I won’t cower.
The Aungtalli priests can forget their fines,
and their Energy Temple power lines.
This was how ancient cultures then did it.
The Great Temple does this, but they hid it.
This is how all our energy goes forth
from their great Energy Temple up north.”
Ploabot once again became speechless. His first reaction was to not believe him. His good friend since childhood, Hanson, had always given his personal paradigm a workout, but this night had been particularly amazing. Hanson continued informing Ploabot about why Aungtalli priests in power felt intimidated by his research along with research by his inquiring friends at the Ministry of Science. “The Aungtalli priests control you and I
with claim to the energy of Ei,
but their central energy plant up north
is useless if from the backyard comes forth
the energy of Ei free for all.
I need you to know this before I fall.”
Ploabot became overwhelmed. “This is all just too amazing Hanson,
power from the ground to light a mansion?
The blessing of Ei comes from the few.
What you are now showing me can’t be true.
The Aungtalli Bishop sent me here to
warn you of god’s anger at what you do.”
Hanson laughed an evil chirping sound upon hearing that. A reddish glow seemed to also light up his face as he laughed, adding to the devilish effect. “You know as I do, and do not lack it
that the Aungtalli priests are a racket.
Growing up we both joked about that till
you got your job at the nation’s council.”
Ploabot said, “I know old friend. I work with them. Get it?
They’re mostly good. You don’t give them credit.” Ploabot became fixated on the red-orange glow flickering on his friend and now the house behind him. “You just see evil in the priests. I tire.
I must change the subject. Something’s on fire!”
Ploabot lost his train of thought as both Hanson and Ploabot stood in the backyard garden watching bright orange glowing lines appear above in the darkness of the night sky above Urania, like slow burning lightning that split up the sky into orange glowing cracks in the night. A solar flare erupted with such direct force that the upper atmosphere vegetation began to catch fire above the whole world. The sky of Urania had actually remained this flammable because of an agricultural terra-forming program that thus far had failed to turn itself off from a sky vegetation strategy implemented maybe billions of Earth years before. The sky should have been turned back to blue once the pH balance of the planet’s golden soil had finally returned to something that could support plant life. Millions of Uranians across the planet watched the night sky catch fire, and most simultaneously thought that the gods had become angry, and then they all unanimously remembered an old story told in childhood by the Aungtalli church.
Listen children. Heed the story I turn
Listen careful so you will grow and learn
of the evil reign of King Medaloom.
To avoid folly you can’t learn too soon.
King Medaloom was evil it is true.
He killed the priests and would kill me and you.
So the Aungtalli priests bowed down to pray
for the gods to save them from that sad day.
So the gods intervened like they will do
and they killed the King so his reign was through.
The gods set the sky on fire to then say
don’t ask of the gods what your role must play.
So greatly fear the ground where gods have been.
The sky caught on fire for just one King’s sin.
Gods bring suffering when they do resolve.
Blessed is one who’s own problems they solve.