Sometimes the most worthwhile short stories aren't particularly short, so I am sure that you won't mind that this issue again features two serialisations (as will next month's issue). Our serials this month are the conclusion of the two-part story The Jesus Gambit by Olaf Berndt, and our regular serial Land of the Ancestors which continues with part 5. You will also find a short story Darkness at Avalon by one of our longest-standing contributors Frederick Rustam. Completing the lighter tail-end of issue 57, Deborah Kolodji returns with another SF poem.
A feature of both Darkness at Avalon and The Jesus Gambit are their fabulous illustrations, created exclusively for Ibn Qirtaiba by talented student artist Sam Crowe. Sam chose to illustrate these stories from IQ's stock of contributions because they were two of those he most enjoyed reading. He plans to illustrate more stories for publication in future issues of Ibn Qirtaiba. As usual, the illustrations are hyperlinked to Sam's gallery (which includes larger versions of the illustrations in this issue).
With Sam Crowe shaping up to be IQ's "staff illustrator", and Fred Noweck as our staff reviewer, I hope this will set a precedent for other readers with an editorial, authorial or artistic streak to come forward offering to assist in the publication of one of the Web's oldest-established and longest-running zines. Contact me if you would like to do so on an ongoing basis. Trust me, it can be fun!
Story:
Darkness at Avalon by Frederick Rustam
Serial: The Jesus Gambit, part 2 by Berndt Olafsen
The two monks from a distant planet stared unblinkingly at the headlighted roadside sign their groundcar had stopped before:
MONASTERY OF ST. JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA
1.6 kilometers -->
"We're here." declared Brother Faganus with obvious satisfaction. "Avalon, the place of many legends."
"Ynys Witrin - the apple orchard - the abode of Avallach. Choose one legend, or all," burbled Brother Deruvianus with academic precision. "It's the Holy Isle, restored to its ancient glory."
In the moonless darkness of a summer night, the Brother Assassins exulted. Their goal was almost achieved. They could just make out the eerie Tor against the starry sky. A few weak lights at ground level marked the New Monastery. They maneuvered their small, quiet groundcar forward down the macadamized side road and across the causeway bridging Avalon's restored surrounding waters until the monastery church loomed ahead.
The monks were gratified that the current tyrant, King Henry IX of United England, had reversed his namesake's actions: he had ruralized the town of Glastonbury and had refounded Glastonbury Abbey under the name of its legendary apostolic founder.
"We'll leave the car here and walk."
Following proper escape procedure, Brother Faganus turned the vehicle around
and parked it pointing toward the main road. There was little vehicle traffic to
be seen there at this late hour.
"I don't expect a response from these Avalonian tourist monks, but it's best to be prepared for an emergency."
Their names were not really Faganus and Deruvianus. These were their operational names, taken from ancient Britonic history. The monks were members-regular of the Holy Order of Assassins. They were well-trained and experienced. This was not their first mission. As the True Church expanded with humankind into the immensity of the Milky Way galaxy, it acquired many unconventional orders of monastics and a diverse body of near-heretical belief among its adherents on the far-scattered worlds. No knowledgeable prelate in Rome was troubled, though, by the Church's secret order of killers. Monks had always spearheaded the Holy Faith, and the worlds beyond Earth were very dangerous places. The Church's mortal enemies were to be found on nearly every one.
"That new age rabble should be well-asleep after their big supper, Brother. The Holy Data classifies them as a self-indulgent order. They don't arise to chant Matins and Lauds, you know."
Brother Deruvianus, the junior assassin, had been assigned to this mission because of his large photographic memory of useful facts. He was also skilled at knifework. With his trusty Swiss multitooled pocketknife, he gathered much useful intelligence: techint and humint.
The monks were here to procure a very valuable thing for their Order. That this object was believed to be in the possession of another order of monks was irrelevant. The Holy Assassins took what they desired, and Rome looked the other way. Their unusual service to the Church accorded them special privileges.
They stole through the night to the monastery's gate. As they guessed, the lazy gatekeeper was asleep. On the gate's massive wooden door was posted a helpful sign:
SHRINE OF THE HOLY GRAIL
Footpath -->
The two assassins proceeded boldly along the finely-gravelled hiking trail to
the base of the Tor. Where the trail turned upward, they hesitated not but
plunged ahead, using their spylamps sparingly. The climb to the top of the Tor
was a fatiguing one, but both were too excited to tire. Soon enough, the tower
of the Shrine appeared ahead, silhouetted against the spangled firmament, which
now showed some dark clouds.
"Where do you suppose King Arthur is really buried?" asked Deruvianus. "This information is missing from the Holy Database."
"I don't know, but I'm certain that the relics in the pilgrim church, below, aren't his... Forget about Arthur's bones. Keep focused on our mission."
The trail leveled out. They had finally reached the top of the Tor.
"There it is: the Shrine - formerly the Chapel of St. Michael," supplied Deruvianus. "Nicely restored, and illuminated inside, it seems."
"Quiet now. There may be a night-guard," cautioned Faganus.
They reached the ornate, doorless entrance. One at each side, they snapped quick looks within. NO GUARD, signalled Faganus with handtalk.
The two assassins stepped into the ground-floor interior and found themselves in a strange kind of place. The room was bare and devoid of furnishings. The stonework was minimally-decorative and the floor a functional surface of red tiles. The ceiling was high but plain. The chamber was cast as stark and, one might say unreligious, by its institutional fluorescent lighting. Stairs to the overlook at the top of the tower were in one corner.
"It looks like the lobby of an office building," commented Faganus. "Or an ancient bus station waiting room without the seats," added Deruvianus from his mindstore of historical knowledge. "Not a holy shrine."
Against the far wall was a large, blue metal box. "Gracious Father!" A window in the box displayed what they sought. "It's the Grail!"
The two assassins rushed forward and stood, staring at the object within the box. Printed above the window were these incredible words:
HOLY GRAIL
Manual Included
99 credits
InterGalacta Cards Only
"It's a v-v-vending machine," interpreted Deruvianus, haltingly. His senior, struck speechless with shock, ground his teeth.
Behind the machine's display window was a simple bronze chalice. Under it was a colorful pamphlet. Faganus attempted to read its title, but that was covered by the chalice's base. His face became a mask of angry frustration, and he finally found his words.
"This is an outrage! An absolute outrage!... This can't be the Holy Grail. It's a cruel joke of some kind. Those tourist monks must have the real one hidden somewhere in the monastery."
"What do we do then, Brother?"
"Give me your InterGalacta Card."
As the two monk-assassins trudged down the footpath from the Shrine of the Holy Grail, Brother Deruvianus used his spylamp to read to Brother Faganus the preface of the pamphlet:
"The so-called Holy Grail has been the spurious subject of many legends. These legends are a farrago of ancient Celtic folktales, Christian apocrypha, heretic cult-wisdom, and the fantasy fiction of ancient and modern writers. Oddly, the Grail legend continues to grow as humankind advances among the stars. New cults, distorted interpretations of historical Christianity, and the absurd creations of media writers have both expanded the lore of the Holy Grail and collapsed it into a black hole of human belief which pulls into its dark interior those who wish to believe it and who futilely seek it in various places beyond its natal land. Yet these deluded souls achieve only abject failure. In the following pages, the history of the Grail legend is related and a serious attempt is made to demystify it.
"Those who have purchased the Monastery's facsimile of the putative Holy Grail will find in Appendix A of this pamphlet instructions for 'antiquing' this genuine bronze chalice to create for it a realistic, ancient appearance."
Brother Faganus attempted a comment. "This is... is..."
"A disaster, Brother," completed Deruvianus. "Why do these
tourist monks seek to demolish the Grail legend?"
Brother Faganus was now resigned to the inevitable. "Administrative reasons, probably. They have to sustain the legend of the Isle of Avalon - and Glastonbury-as-Avalon. They have to pander to the manifold King Arthur legend. And of course, they have to pretend that Joseph of Arimathea founded their original house. The Holy Grail is just one-too-many legends for them to handle. They gave up trying to explain the Grail and decided to vend it, instead. Early tomorrow, a monk will climb the Tor and replace the chalice we bought with another one for the next gullible visitor."
"But we can't take this tourist bauble back to our Order and represent it as the Holy Grail. Can we?"
"We can't tell our Grand Master there isn't a Holy Grail, either. Like so many other people, he's certain it exists somewhere here. He'll just send us out again and again until we die of... grailitis."
"What'll we do?"
The senior assassin pondered the problem as they stumbled down the Tor's steep trail in a pitch blackness. The stars had disappeared. As was typical for Avalon's climate, rain was now imminent. The dark clouds above betokened the mood of the two monks. Their mission had seemingly failed, abjectly. But all was not lost. Holy Assassins are nothing if not resourceful
"Read me Appendix A."
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Chase nervously lit a cigar and watched the monitors. The generals, in their underwear, kneeled in prayer on the empty side of the room. Several of the technicians were praying out loud. Chase mused that at least they were no longer contriving to overthrow him - they were too preoccupied.
Watching the masses in Jerusalem oddly made Chase think back to his childhood - how he would rush to effuse love to his father returning home from work. The same huge father who drunkenly beat him and his mother many a time.
Chase took a long, slow, shakey drag on that Cuban cigar. It was a momento from his last trip to Mexico. "Alright people, it's show time..." One of the techies rebuked him in the name of Jesus.
"You love Jesus? How many people here love Jesus?" Chase asked. To a man and woman, they all raised their hands - even the generals. "Well I love Him too. But He doesn't love me. No, no, he doesn't. He gave me the job of proving His greatness.
Someone started singing "Rock of Ages" and everyone else began joining in. Chase fired a burst into the floor. "People. I must use you against your will. I'm going to be doing the unthinkable. And you people, what is your role?" Chase walked in front of the inner-most ring of consoles. "Your job is to let God defend Himself. You will be tempted to help Him, but He does not want that. The world must see His glory - He must do it all. Do you understand?"
Chase walked back to the farthest curved row, where the inert body of the old technician lay curled. "People, your fate will be worse than that if you don't do as I say. He died quickly, you will die from being gut-shot."
A woman in the front row could not take it any longer. She leaped to her feet. "You're the Anti-Christ!" she exclaimed. "You are no match for Jesus, you... Satan!" she sputtered hysterically.
"Perhaps..." Chase motioned with the pistol for her to sit down. "People, one could conclude that I could not break into the control center of Cheyenne Mountain unless it was preordained? Perhaps God wants you to know He understands that I forced you to do something that shall only prove how great He truly is. I take full and complete responsibility for what I am about to make you do. I alone shall bear this heinous burden. Do as I say and no one else need die. This is ordained and you must do your part. If that is Jesus, you will be forgiven. I... probably would not be.
"I know what you plan to do," General Artiken muttered. He stood up and dramatically walked dangerously close to Chase. "But it is not going to happen. We are NOT precipitating an attack on Jesus. You can shoot every man and woman in this room but it will not happen."
"General..." Chase admonished gently. "Let's think this through. Certainly, IF I were a terrorist trying to bomb New York city, I would expect everyone of you to die refusing my demands. You would be national heroes and doing the right thing." Chase walked in front of the inner ring and let his gaze roll across the faces of all the people.
"This is different. Your charter is to defend the United States of America from any and all outside forces. The White House has effectively been destroyed. Oh, not literally...but in the sense that we cannot contact them. Our nation is in a state of chaos. People are dying by the scores. Our world is in chaos. General, I have a question for you."
"What if this is not really Jesus?" he said slowly, with measured coolness.
Chase continued with the argument, and did not give the general time to respond. "On the one hand, we could be turning over the world to an imposter of some sort. Without even trying to defend ourselves. You would be failing this country-indeed, the whole planet. On the other hand, if this is Jesus then surely He can defend Himself from our pitiful missiles. Do you see what I mean?"
"We cannot launch without presidential authority," the general hissed.
"That is what we are told, isn't it?" Chase said grinning. "But you know what? I don't believe it. That would mean another nation could entirely disable our nuclear strike capability by merely first blowing up the White House with one missile-killing the entire chain of command possessing launch authority, in one strike. No, you are buried in this mountain so you can wage nuclear war long after the President and the others are gone."
The Asian techie near the front eyed General Artiken; how would Artiken handle checkmate? Artiken said nothing and looked over the faces of his people.
"As you know, God is great," Chase continued without waiting for a reply. "I have no choice but to attack Him, even if He shall defeat me. I want to know if this is the real Jesus. I am going to fire ten ICBMs. You will target them for the GPS coordinates of that radiant halo structure above the head. Perhaps he is going to neutralize them and destroy me. Then certainly the world will know His power." Chase felt like fainting, in fact he did so momentarily - but came to as he was slumping down.
Chase walked over to the wall map of the globe. "Five will come from the continental U.S. and five more will come from these submarines... here. Make your calculations so that they strike two at a time. Each pair shall have one from Montana, and one from the submarine. As one pair arrives, the next pair will be one hundred miles away. Is that clear?" Chase was counting on the men in the submarines and the men in the missile silos not yet knowing the news of Jesus' return.
The same woman techie blurted out, "The radiation will kill millions of innocent people, Satan!" Chase ignored her.
Within an hour five missiles launched and proceeded on target. Five missiles had refused to launch. Chase had expected this and only needed five for his strategy. Any other time and Chase would have marveled at the engineering feat. The sheer volume of math and other logistics to get these huge weapons of mass destruction into the air and heading toward a specific spot on the Earth thousands of miles away, was enough to boggle the mind.
Only moments after the three land-based missiles had launched, Jesus began speaking for the first time. Everyone, even Chase, gazed awestruck at the monitors.
"My children," came the booming voice. People pressed away from Jesus now, from the pain of His voice.
"The fulfillment of time has come. I stand among my faithful, many dying or suffering in this world, for the honor to sit beside me in the kingdom that now is forming. Your joy warms my heart for I know that what I have prepared for you is not in vain."
"A few among you, my enemies, shall now be destroyed so that the faithful shall see my power. Their weapons shall be made to fall at my feet."
"My lambs, my cherished children, I ask that you control your joy, and love one another at this time of great transition. Show your love for me by showing your love to your neighbor."
With that, Jesus closed His eyes. A beatific smile played across His magnificent face.
General Artiken locked his steely gaze on Chase, then looked to his people, trying to get a feel for their state of mind.
"Ok people," Chase shouted. Who has the power to remote detonate these missiles?"
General Considene gestured to himself and General Artiken.
"No, I mean who seated at the consoles can actually do it." The man seated in the elevated console chair looked first to the generals, then nodded slightly.
"I want you to set things up so that I can give you an order to detonate any one or all of those birds and you can make it happen within one second. Can you do that?"
The man did not reply. "What is your name?" Chase asked. No reply.
"I don't care about your military secrets or rank. Or even your soul. Just give me your damn first name."
"My name is Jason Fleet," came the crisp response.
"Well Jason, my name is Chase. Do you know how to do what I am telling you to do?"
"Yes."
"Then set it up, and await my commands. Do that now. You need to be ready to go by the time the birds are one-hundred miles from Jesus. According to the watch points set on the wall display, that gives you three minutes."
People sat stupefied.
"Well go, people!" Chase shouted, waving the gun convincingly like a madman. That seemed to bump the bubble off dead-center and suddenly the room filled with frantic activity.
The first two missiles came in from opposite sides, reaching the one-hundred mile mark within seconds of each other. "Not bad for hasty computations," marveled Chase.
Suddenly a strange phenomena could be seen emanating from the region of the halo of Jesus, courtesy of the television reporter. A powerful particle beam razed the air, slicing through the clouds. It was eerie to watch from the missile's own video feed, as the beam zeroed in using a figure-eight pattern.
"You see the missile He is targeting? I want you to prepare to detonate
the other missile. I will command you to detonate it shortly. Got it,
Jason?"
"Yes sir," Jason replied, cursing himself under his breath for the respectful response.
The beam made an ever-tightening pattern and finally zeroed in on the missile. In a moment, the missile sheared in half and disintegrated into pieces. An otherwise inert ball of fire fell Earthward.
Chase watched as the beam began tracking toward the second missile. The missile reached within forty miles of the target.
"Detonate, Jason! Detonate!"
Jason executed a scripted series of steps and the second inbound missile exploded twenty-three miles from Jesus. A 20-megaton high-altitude nuclear EMF pulse devastated any electronics within a fifty-mile radius.
All the monitors filled with fuzzy static for the better part of a minute. Most of them never returned, in fact. A few telescope-mounted cameras and some satellite imagery did return.
Jesus stood with arms extended, and a stern expression on His magnificent face. He stood solid as a rock within the maelstrom caused from a nuclear blast.
The clouds and the crowds were gone. Low-res non-military satellite imagery displayed a huge, roiling fireball and dark mushroom cloud.
The second wave of missiles now crossed the twenty-mile mark. The particle beam restarted but seemed to sputter or pulse erratically; even so it deftly destroyed one missile at close range. The second missile detonated on impact with the halo.
No video came back.
Painfully, Chase gave the order to disable the last missile and let it hit the ground inertly.
Chase ordered the techies to get an enhanced close-up of the site using a shielded spy satellite. That took a full half hour. Millions of people surely died-no one lived to report from the target.
The Asian techie displayed it to the monitor wall as soon as it came in.
A gasp went through the entire room. The devastation. The horror. Infrared imagery indicated a white-hot crater and zone of total annihilation perhaps twenty miles in diameter, at the former site of Jerusalem.
Jesus was gone.
Minutes went by. A couple of "Disaster Experts" on CNN speculated about the sudden loss of all communication from the area and the huge fireballs visible from anywhere in Europe in the night sky. Back at Cheyenne Mountain, everyone expected the wrath of God to be unleashed on Mankind any moment.
Even Chase.
"People, this is not over yet. Generals - put some damn clothes on. We're going to need all of you. You need to find some people over at NASA, if there are any. Have them watch the moon for an invasion fleet coming from its far side. It will probably be small. Interstellar travel has to be... damn expensive." Chase collapsed wearily into a chair.
General Artiken suddenly stood up and bellowed, "Oh my dear God!" He walked forward toward Chase numbly, his mouth moving but no more words coming out. Then he repeated the phrase. Chase looked up at him and nodded - the man finally understood. Chase had so much more to say, but physically could not make his mouth work.
"Oh my God! People! People!" The general pulled on his pants and with every step filled with renewed life. "Dear God in Heaven!" He was having an epiphany of sorts. He looked at Chase, and shouted, "How far back does this go?"
Chase could not speak at all. His eyes were half-closed and his lips quivered.
"Tico, give this man your wireless keyboard and pipe it to the display!" Artiken bellowed.
Chase's fingers moved slowly over the board. Words appeared: "All the way. They impregnated Mary. Their ship was the star of Bethlehem. Their technology was the magic behind Jesus' healings. Interstellar travel is too expensive to allow an invasion fleet."
"They used time and brains - perhaps they unlocked a way to live for thousands of years. Would make sense for interstellar travel. They programmed us over the millennia to give up at first site of an icon. Even better than that, to be their joyful slaves under fear of eternal torment. It takes a lot of time to get a global consensus of that depth - but for a whole planet it must be worth it. Maybe the advance scouts set up the Jesus Gambit, and they have been waiting for other ships to arrive while we propagate the consensus among ourselves."
Someone let out a loud whoop, and then others started to join in. Chase found the energy to wave for them to stop.
"Not yet," he continued to type. "It isn't over. General, you know they have a contingency plan. Probably 'bomb them back to stone-age, take slaves to work the land, build more ships, take over planet little by little'. They're shocked that we figured them out, but they aren't done."
Chase motioned to Artiken. He was able to croak out a few last words.
"The world needs a strong general right now. Use your nukes in space to blow their electronics..."
"I need your undivided attention," the General commanded. "Millions have died today in the name of freedom. Jason, find some warm bodies at NASA. Call people at home if you have to. I need visuals on the Earth-Moon corridor now."
"People! Do let's send these charlatans back to hell, shall we? I have some hellfire for them. Yesterday we were the shining sword of the United States. Today we defend the entire Earth."
General Considene? This god bleeds. We're going to need to prep the Sapphire Group of ICBM's for near-launch. The chemical-pumped laser satellite payloads need ten minutes to initialize, but hold off on that until we get NASA online and know what is going on. Get on that now! Prep them for launch but await my launch orders."
"Sir, I have NASA!" Jason shouted. "Getting the information... Hold on... There's only a handful of them online. Others are being Priority 1 Paged or tracked down by military police. We should have a lot more at station in a half hour."
"Can they see anything happening around the moon?", Artiken asked.
"Yes! They are showing fifteen craft. They are computing mass now based on their dead-stick trajectories. No, give us weight-we don't care about mass. Ok... It looks like they are averaging... 240 metric tons. They are dead-stick at about 140,000kph General.
General Artiken motioned to the others to join him in the War Room.
One advisor was babbling, "Send up the Diamond Group too! Make a vertical wall of the nuclear-pumped lasers. That wall can stay in orbit for days before gravity pulls it down. If they climb up over the wall, they burn unexpected fuel. If they drift near a satellite, use the explosion like a landmine, but have the laser terra-pulse targeting a second ship!"
"They are dead-sticking it," Considene noted. "That tells me they were catapulted from a base on the far side. Also tells me their power is limited. They are saving it up for attack runs."
"Probably bomb us from high orbit," another advisor added.
"I'm going to say these are bombers. Slow-speed bombers. That is what their slow speed is like," added the airforce technical advisor.
The other brass was coming around to the magnitude of what had just been accomplished. They were pulling themselves together. Military communication lines still functioned and a dozen people manned phones to alert the nation's mostly-deserted military bases.
Chase's body cooled while slumped in the chair.
Armageddon had indeed arrived.
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800 years after the Age of Brigda, global consciousness was ripped apart by nuclear war...
The Golden Age of the Earth, helped along by the great sorceress, Brigda of Clare, was over...
The Family of Von Strauven, who had risen to power from the nuclear ashes of a devastated Europe, led a political move to grab the largely peaceful North American continent, vulnerable because of the geologic cataclysms that had ravaged the continent. These cataclysms of nature were called the Tribulations, and they destroyed the only rival power that could have stopped the Von Strauven takeover, and creation, of the world-state.
This rival power was the all-woman Seattle Contingency, and its destruction by the eruption of nearby Mt. Rainier, had happened in the same year as the final earthquakes had finished the rift sea in the interior of California, and completed the million year sinking of Atlantean California.
The year was 2882.
The family of Von Strauven, with the support of what would later be called the 'Octopi Incorporated' seduced the 'reformed' United States of America.
They manipulated the communist bureaucracy of the USA to set up their nascent global imperium.
Only three rival powers stood in the way of there being a Von Strauven emperor, head of a world-state.
These rivals, were opponents to the idea of a global imperium because of their adherence to the Codes of Community, as created by the vanished Commonrealm of Nations. These rivals were; the Taigan Philosophers of Holartic, the Toltec Nasach, and the Peoples King of the Chin.
At 12:05 a.m. 2882 common Brigda Era, the family of Von Strauven launched preemptive nuclear missile strikes against these rivals. At 12:15 am, sanity prevailed.
The Limited Nuclear Exchange was over.
A global conference was held, the first in almost 800 years.
Global consciousness was dead. The devastated rival societies arrived at a mutual decision.
The Great Partition.
The nations of Asia, angry and humiliated that yet, another atomic slagging had been visited upon their homes by so-called "western civilization," had only one condition for the Von Strauven-led world-state, and his nascent imperium.
All of the celestial bodies in the Solar System, planets and worlds and "others" would be allotted to the nations of Asia, and whomever else dissented to a proclamation of a Von Strauven emperor. The Asian-led exodus into outer space would merely follow the lead of one of their own, the space explorer Zhenghe the Awesome, and no nations knew the value of the Outer Planets better than the nations of Asia. If anyone could make a civilization in the harsh wilderness of outer space, it was the descendants of the brave space explorer, Zhenghe.
The Von Strauvens agreed. They could gladly head their feudal imperium on the planet Earth. Consequently, the Moon was thrown in like a poker chip. Anything past the orbit of the Moon would be considered a violation of the Great Partition, and vice versa.
It hardly mattered to the nations of Asia, as they left on their mass exodus into outer space. They were glad to leave behind the pain and misery of Wicked Old Earth. It was they who would profit from the Great Partition.
They would adapt to their new worlds
They would not make these worlds adapt to them.
They would be One with Nature, in whatever forms it showed appeared.
The first wicked lights of the morning sun cut through the frost born of the cold Montana night In a dark room full of all-night beer drinkers and hell raisers, the first rays of light helped touch-up the drunken features of this congregation. Plates of hot bread were passed around, with compliments of homemade butter. It was washed down with strong, dark coffee.
Anacreon Oregenamen thanked the Forever.
Janus Southcross took a position of respect for the Sephiroth.
The Monkey Messiah was his own god. He lustily ate the body of his father, the cronial god that he was, and washed him down with hot coffee.
He returned to his story.
"The Astronaut-Who-Fell-To-Earth recriminated Western Civilization for its repeated nuclear attacks on the nations of Eastern Civilization. Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Emperor Maximillians strikes against the Chinese Empire during the Crisis-and of course, the Limited Nuclear Exchange in 2882..."
"She said the West's continued disagreements with the East was the same reason that the Asian-led exodus of their civilizations into harsh outer space had been so successful... She said it had to do with knowing that humanity is dwarfed before the grandeur of Nature..."
At this point Janus, the soldier of the pagani people known as the Engineers, spoke aloud.
It sounded like a call to arms.
"The monstrosity of our civilization is the tumor called Christianity. It has manifested this demonocracy into our national psyche to be nothing but happy with leading a stoic world-state. Speaking as a past victim of a Teutonic Knight deathcamp, I have condemned Christianity to be a criminal religion, whose very converts don't act as if they've been saved"
Anacreon agreed with the empirical facts of what she said, minus the pagan zealotry. The creation of the 'stoic world-state' Janus was referring to had begun a thousand years ago, during the time of the Emperor Maximillian's failed attempt at ruling the world, born at the same time when the Commonrealm of Nations had been created.
The Von Strauven Imperium was just another rung in the ladder.
To hell.
One thousand years later, and America was left at the reins of this crazed mission, first attempted by its own ancestors: Europe.
Now, all that America could show for its squandered inheritance was a feudal nightmare, a backwater land that had inherited Western Civilization, and its quest for the stoic world-state, at the cost of its peoples soul.
Far removed from the realm of Janus's zealous hatred for Christianity's legacy, and Anacreon's silent musings on the state of the land of his ancestors, a strange channeling of spirits entered the Monkey Messiah, and excited his body. He became the Astronaut-Who-Fell-To-Earth, brought back from the great sleep of the dead.
Only she would speak now.
The Monkey Messiah successfully became a child of the Asian people who had left during the Great Partition. Some of those colonists of outer space had ventured all the way to the icy fringes of the Solar System, where the home sun of the Solar System was just another star in the infinite firmament of the Universe. This was the same location from where the Astronaut-Who-Fell-To-Earth had come from.
The double-planet world of Pluto-Charon.
Her voice overtook all other voices in the room of listeners.
The Astronaut-Who-Fell-To-Earth had returned.
"My name is Serpina Pro Lu Hoc Lin, no matter if I was blasted out of Earth orbit, and if I might add, the only planet that has ever fired at me, and been unfriendly…"
"In your language, my name is Pere-Sephon..."
"I am from the cold planet Pluto-Charon. I am a child raised on the cometary dust of primordial origins, on the fringe, born to gaze into the gales of Deep Heaven. I am nothing more than a part, just another speck in the tail of the Dragon..."
"This is the lair of the Ice Dragon, and I have marveled at it..."
"I was born to be a great space traveler, and raised to be a beckon of light from the cold, infinite dusk of the edge of the solar plane. I was a messenger from Deep Heaven, who rode one of the fastest spaceships of its time; a tachyon ramcollider, a sleek hull of elegant electron-gravity-weld neutrinos. It was all held together in fractions, against the constant molecular destruction. Increased mass with velocity was pulverized constantly again and again..."
"There was an infinite of me alive for every infinite of me dead. The speeds of my ship warped my time, and I lived half a second in oblivion..."
"If you understand oblivion, at least for one terrifying second of your worst nightmare, then you will understand the name of my ship as the Agamennon, and the curse of Deep Heaven upon my ship..."
The channeling continued, as the Voice of Tales brought her back from the sleeping land of the dead, where the Asian astronaut from the double world of Pluto-Charon now dwelled in Stygian slumber.
The deceased Pere-Sephon, retold the first successes of her Asian ancestors large scale colonization of the Outer Planets, as decreed by the Great Partition. She went on to explain the first step of their exodus into outer space.
This first step had been Mars, the Red Planet, locked into a global ice age, where not a drop of rain had fallen upon its deserts in a million years. It had already been home to the human settlements of the Buren Expedition colonists, who had stayed behind to become the First Martians.
The scale of the Great Partition was immense. The First Martians were soon dwarfed by the size and preparation of humanity's second migration to Mars.
The first colony ships from Earth began to arrive into Mars space. In a matter of weeks the fleets of deep space rockets, crammed with hopeful, industrious people, outnumbered the few thousand original settlers of Mars. They had arrived, one after another, and then assembled into orbital formation, to make preparations for landing on the planet.
Every Martian day, another overloaded lander, full of the families of Greater East Asia , had begunn to descend onto the hardscrabble land of Mars, and set up homes in the canyon walls and dusty plains, to live off what the land gave them:
The chance for a "real" peace that would last.
Mars had become the Middle Kingdom in a matter of hurried months.
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Since Great-grandfather tested Windows
Tradition demanded I'd beta Doors
I installed it, following neon arrows
Clicking novelty realms an upgrade explores.
Opening up screen portals for me to step inside
True e-rail commuting, instant Dublin or Bombay
Perhaps a notorious outpost on the Moon's dark side?
Programming myself some currency just to gamble it away.
After discarding manuals & warnings I had left unread
Deciding to menu through the years to a recent past
Told I resembled a certain Microsoft tester now dead
Excited for the chance to meet my ancestor at last!
It worked. I'm living proof. I programmed my way through time
Though my forebear has yet to be found or even seen
I tried to return home but just got wild static on the line
But managed to teleconference to the future on the screen.
I punched up tech support who said "Sir, we're very sorry
There's a bug in the ether/timer-net, time travel is one-way
There is nothing we can do, so why not enjoy your fantasy
If we resolve the problem, we may dial you back someday."
So, I guess I have no choice but to wait & take a wife
Although I wish my first beta test had been to visit Rome
Now I know why Great-grandfather tested software his whole life
It seems that he was only me, just trying to get back home.