“Speak out if you've got something to say,” Tonka urged them. “This silence won't help Vatima or any of us.”
Aloft on guard at the fringe of the lounge's connecting door, Tullami, a gorgeous male of the inner circle, braced himself from his rather cool watch of the unfolding drama. “I crave your indulgence, Manu,” he began.
If hangmen were needed to knot the noose around Vatima's neck, Tonka would use the discerning rod of his station to decide who, not me. I’ll speak the truth as I know it – a balm on my conscience, Tullami thought.
“Speak,” Tonka said when he noticed Tullami’s hesitation.
“I'd kept this experience to myself,” Tullami said, heaving a sigh of relief, “for a fairly long time. I’d considered it run-of-the-mill kind of...spiritual adventure. But from what you told us and the rumors making the rounds, I'll like to comment on the issue at stake. I made up my mind to speak because my conscience pricks me. I don't know what it will sound like but there's no shying away from this matter. After all, it ought to have been said a fortnight ago. That’s the precise timing of the experience I'm about to share. Perhaps, if I had said it earlier, the Manu would’ve curbed the insurgence of the Locci before it got to this stage. My heart bleeds knowing what wrong the delay has caused."
Tullami bowed and clasped his hands to his chest in contemplation. When he gained the needed confidence, he raised his face and said in a tremulous voice, “I recall it was a gathering of some past Manus. I was lucky to be in their midst, as I didn’t, of course, belong among those great souls. They called me into their circle as witness because they felt it necessary to intimate me with the rebellious side of things in this civilization. They mentioned three names as the problem with our great society. Em...em...em...Vatima and the Locci were mentioned as rebels to watch. The two other names in the list are also leaders of other rival subversive groups.”
With an audience too willing to jump at the sound of his voice, Tullami threw caution to the wind now.
“As the Manus explained, these three names, each representing a rebel faction, are perhaps the only obstacles to Atlantis’ stable growth. They said more baffling things than these,” Tullami said and then stalled for a moment to impact on his audience.
Tonka lips parted into a brief smile, a sign that the speaker’s revelations pleased him.
Vatima trembled on the inside with a hazy, crest-fallen stare as she listened to Tullami.
“The Manus said Atlantis is gliding down the cliff because of groups such as the Locci,” Tullami said. “I figure the Manus were displeased that we’re encouraging the growth of these rebellious instincts in uncountable ways. They said this cankerworm must be uprooted with utmost dispatch.” Tullami’s lips now creased into a pout. “The Manus showed me a special film. I believe you’d want to know its details,” he continued. It had a plot similar to the encounter Tonka Manu narrated a while ago. Vatima played a lead role in the film. The props were of the same weird nature and you wouldn't miss out the actors and actresses as the same people we’re talking about here.”
If Vatima Hansi thought she had a chance to appeal for a fair trial in the Manu’s court, she got it wrong. Tullami had just confirmed the verdict: she was guilty. This heightened her confusion.
Are the gods so thirsty they need to spill innocent blood to propitiate their altars? Lord, plead my cause. Don't let me walk this tight rope anymore!
“I’d better not drag this experience farther than this, Manu,” Tullami said, cutting the reel of Vatima’s thoughts. “We’ve put the frames in place already, it's easy to fix in the right pictures. Long live Tonka! Long live the Manu!”
Tullami’s head tipped forward, a calculated bow, a subtle prompt Tonka acknowledged in a less banal sense.
“It's good you spoke about the revelation, Tullami,” Tonka said. “It seems to me you’ve used a sponge on Vatima and she's getting cleaner and cleaner by the hour.”
The situation demanded a firm stand, but Tonka felt he had to wait till the end. In the interim, the carrot and stick diplomacy sufficed. Let Vatima go for the carrot then he would use the stick when necessary.
Vatima lost control of herself, sprang to her feet, and charged in delirium towards Tonka. Daya who, in the nick of time, saw the fury afoot made to block her but she dodged him and moved toward her target. Tullami dashed at her out of instinct but failed short of a grip.
“Leave her alone, both of you!” Tonka barked, holding up a hand. Tullami and Daya froze at the order.
Vatima reached Tonka's side howling, like a wounded vixen. Anger, bitterness, and the pain of humiliation seared through her as she stood gasping. She would reclaim her lost esteem at whatever cost. In spite of her rage, she could still distinguish between the opposing paths all humans must choose, either by fate or circumstance – the path of winners or the path of losers. Losing was one thing, a gallant loser was yet another. She would rather be the latter.
“What’s the matter with you now, Vatima?” Tonka asked, sensing an omen in the air. “What has come over you? Please, get hold of yourself.”
Like a shamed child, Vatima buried her head in her palms. Strange bouts of spasms wrestled with her resolve to be calm and coherent. She managed to stammer a reply. “All I know – all I know is that I'm sick and tired of all the mudslinging...”
Moved, Daya stepped forward to steady her, but Tonka stuck out his golden sceptre. “Don't touch her.” Daya recoiled. “Let her be. I smell danger offshore.”
“I can't hold on any longer,” Vatima snarled, trembling. I'm tired, simply tired.” By sleight of hand she found the neckline of her blouse and pulled at the fine silk. With a crisp, shrill, hissing, the blouse tore in two, revealing turgid breasts held in place by a black brassiere.
The lounge resonated with gasps of astonishment. This did not deter Vatima. She rather tugged at the torn halves of the blouse and they came off like plucked wings, fluttering on her quaking body. Tonka looked away from her daring, repulsive act. Inertia swept through the lounge as no one seemed poised to stop Vatima's maniacal theatrics. Indeed, none could stop her now. She had reached the pinnacle of her revolt.
In another deft move, Vatima pulled at both the torn blouse and brassiere, peeling them over her shoulder. Gibbering, she hurled the shreds onto the floor.
Tullami and Daya arose like activated twin robots and advanced toward her. To watch this woman swing their fate to a point of endless reprisal without requisite action would be unpardonable. Next, Vatima tore off her loin cloth and underwear before the duo got near. The men stopped dead on their tracks when they saw Vatima stark naked in front of Tonka Manu. A sacrilege never before witnessed in the history of Atlantis.
Tonka uttered no word. He looked demure on his seat, doodling invisible forms on the table cover with his scepter. This in itself was an omen. Now, everything came to a standstill. Vatima also stopped her yammering. The gaping men and women in the lounge could almost hear one another’s heartbeats in the tense and surreal atmosphere, which did not last long. Soon enough, some people began to stir.
Tonka walked quietly out of the reception lounge. Daya and Tullami hurried after him in the obsequious way of inner circle members, but he waved them aside.
“Go and attend to Vatima and the others,” he instructed under his breath and swung through the door leading to his private chambers.
Daya, Tullami, and the others were aware that the conscience of Atlantis had been tainted and a sinister web had entrapped their kind. Just then, Tullami recalled what the previous Manus told him in a chance spiritual meeting. A time like this would come, Tullami had learnt, which would herald a new era. Though not privy to the details of the prophecy of the Manus, he was certain of one fact: that Vatima had rocked the great ship of Atlantis with her sacrilege.
# # #
Tonka Manu hopped up the main staircase in suppressed fury to the penthouse.
He would have preferred the patio between the horizontal, heart-like structure at the southern end of the mansion to the rare view of the northern end in normal situations. In his present mood, the ideal place was the penthouse, a vintage for admiring the elegance of northern Songhai. He needed the spectacular panorama to begin to ward off Vatima's intolerable show of shame. Even then, he did not underrate the harm the occurrence had wreaked on Atlantis.
The whole encounter he had with the Locci in his trance flight presaged nothing but doom. Atlanteans drifted toward the absurd in their ego trips. The situation had drawn them now to the end of a long tether. Tonka allowed himself to acknowledge this aspect of things as he veered in a sharp turn onto the left on the landing of the second floor of the mansion. In a weird sense he felt delighted. The plugs of the civilization were on his palms to pull, perhaps, right away.
A door along the passage swung open to the near right of Tonka. A trolley screeched to a stop and rolled out of the door. Behind it was Pullama, a young, exuberant lad with curious brown eyes. Half-blind from his upset, Tonka would have bumped in it but for the lad's skilfulness.
Pullama adroitly wheeled the trolley back to a corner. “Long live Tonka! Long live the Manu!” he hailed, with an apologetic bow. “Forgive my impudence. I didn't mean to startle you."
Tonka plodded on, indignant, responding to Pullama's salutation with a slight nod. Though salutary, the gesture sent some chill into Pullama who shrugged in disbelief. He had never seen the ever-cautious and courteous Tonka Manu so indifferent. Tonka must have been in a strange, unusual state of mind, Pullama reasoned.
A resident of the mansion and one of the few privileged inner-circle members permitted in that core, Pullama had enjoyed absolute peace there, but recognized the diverse shades of trouble whenever he saw one. He pushed the trolley back on course, pondered what could be troubling the Manu so early in the day. He glanced at the receding figure, shrugged again, and wheeled the trolley forward consoled by the fact that Daya and Tullami would soon reveal to him what had taken place in the reception lounge.
Tonka’s sense of urgency as to what step to take made him impatient even with the gliding sleek glass door of the penthouse. It barely parted before he hauled himself in, as if at this moment contemptuous of the enchanting luxury within. He had left the lounge to the penthouse for a mission, but now within its tranquil and posh confines, the exact idea of what he would do eluded him.
I must act, no matter what. Otherwise, it would appear a sign of weakness. Now I’ll have to show that the center’s strength had never been weakened.
Tonka stood in deep thought close to the door. He had many decisions to take. This affair with the Atlanteans was an experimental idea of the Guardians. He sighed wistfully. The Guardians cannot always have all the fun watching his failure or success from those intangible realms while anxiety made a mess of him in Atlantis. They had better anticipate his move, a return of the burden they had placed on his shoulders.
After a pensive moment, Tonka rushed to the penthouse window, his favorite observation spot in the mansion. This time, the usual scenic sights looked grim. Atlantis vanished from his gaze, leaving an empty space where exotic Songhai once featured.
I’ve been groomed all these years to oversee this emptiness, the debris of a civilization. So be it, then.
Tonka drew back the drapes, turned from the window, and hastened to his sanctuary to envision what would come upon Atlantis after he had pulled the last of the plugs.
# # #
Hemse often thought the vista of the cosmos on the Disk Center’s monitors conformed to the logic of orderliness. To him, it was a ceaseless motion of expansion and condensation of specks of energy jostling for creative relevance in a turbulent vastness. These interwoven strands of creation, to someone unfamiliar to the Blackhole, showed on the Command Module screens as a remarkable work of perfection, despite their chaotic display.
As a Guardian, Hemse was accustomed enough to the intrigues of creation not to be moved beyond a casual viewing of the screens. The recurrent explosion and cooling of photons, the tangled webs of light points, the colossal dissolution of stars as well as the re-bonding of energies, were cheerless cosmic scenes to Hemse. He would have loved instead an excursion on the Tamed Star around the galaxies, which often soothed his ego and stirred his sense of adventure.
On his first galactic trip with Numa, they had visited Starealm, the farthest galaxy, with a stopover at Shiru, the twentieth. His experience of life had been less boring outside the Blackhole. He did not always feel the ennui of being glued to all those screens and the dreariness of the whole galactic chaos. He often looked forward to a shuttle in the Tamed Star or Blackhole saucers around the cosmic sea. Just when he began to yearn for another opportunity to soon leave the Blackhole a male voice echoed with urgency on the Command Module.
“Starealm calling Blackhole, Starealm to Blackhole. Over.” Hemse dithered, almost to the point of altogether ignoring it. “Starealm calling Blackhole.” The voice came over again more firmly. “Come in, Blackhole. Over.”
A strident hint to the voice cut short Hemse’s daydream. He acknowledged the name Starealm with exhilaration. The voice had to be a Guardian’s.
“Blackhole to Starealm. Over.”
“Guardian Urnsa from Starealm. Over.”
“I know,” Hemse said. “Hemse. Disk Centre, Blackhole. Over.”
“The flight of the Tamed Star is due Blackhole in less than five swirls,” Urnsa replied. “Father of Blackhole, Numa, on board.”
“Copied.” Hemse studied the handsome figure of the Guardian from Starealm on the Command Module. He envied the Guardian’s mental calmness. “Is that all?”
“No. A meeting of Guardians is necessary.”
“Really? Why this proposition?”
"Numa's idea,” Urnsa said, exonerating himself of blame. “You are in a better position to know. I thought you–”
“You are right, of course,” Hemse interjected, conceding without grasping Urnsa’s insinuation. "That's if I know what you mean."
Urnsa’s fine face creased in disbelief. Hemse must be a joker. "You don’t see what’s going on down there?"
"Cut out the riddles. Where?"
"There's a whole new ball game in Atlantis,” Urnsa explained. “I suppose you are aware of the details of how Tonka is pulling the reins and not–"
"What about it?” Hemse protested. “We are on guard, I should say. Over.”
On guard, indeed. Urnsa knew more than that. Hemse could not have meant what he had said else he would not have asked all those questions. "I suppose then you know Tonka’s last resort is to apply his hidden rod on stubborn Atlanteans?"
"Hold on. Let me put fellow Guardians on alert," Hemse said, as a way of evading his usual flight of mind, which often cast him as indolent. He transmitted the arrival time of the Tamed Star on the Command Module, wasted time on trifle details, and turned his attention to Urnsa. “When is this urgent meeting scheduled to take place?"
"Soon as Father Numa arrives," Urnsa replied.
"All right, we’ll be ready. I’ll relay accordingly. All parties to converge, pronto. Over."
"I’m right on the track of the Tamed Star. Over."
"Till then. Over." Hemse transmitted the call-up signal to the Guardians in the various galaxies.
I’ll get acquainted with what Urnsa had discerned that I had not, he told himself.
He rested half his weight on the edge of the Command Module panel for a close-up view of Atlantis on some select screens. The ominous beat of his heart laced with an excitement. Could this be a sort of danger for Atlantis?
# # #
Tonka Manu paced into his sanctuary, delighted by the seeming graveyard silence in the large room of sparse décor. He experienced an unusual peace due to the decision he had taken – more of a final contact with his destiny.
This new feeling erased his prior anxiety resulting from Vatima's sordid act.
At last he was face-to-face with the moment he had waited for all his life, to oversee the end of a heightened civilization. Once he had made up his mind on what to do, in spite of anger, he needed no preamble to bring it to fruition.
Tonka approached his wool-laid seat placed on a square rug, a seat that appealed to him as an obedient mule, ready to service his whim.
Tonka's eyes sparkled with wanton brilliance and strange excitement as he sat on the seat. Pre-empting an invocation, he screwed shut his eyes and with a deep breath and inward gaze, propelled his soul out of his body.
Tonka’s mind flowed in line with his intention: control the streaming force of the sun upon Atlantis, the invaluable power of the supporting stars and the presence of the moon...eliminate the thin envelope of air and stop the steady ooze of water in the depths and on the Atlantis’ surface wrought by the magnetic streak of sun-stars; and eliminate the innocuous power of fire in thunder by tilting the giant ball a little out of orbit upwards or downwards....What would be left of Atlantis? An endangered globe in the cosmic scheme due to the abrupt displacement...
Tonka knew this well: if the moving wheel of Atlantis were to be pulled with less pressure and the forces in random play were to even slightly impact on the globe, the outcome would be the depolarization of Atlantis’ axis, or the extinction of life in the displaced parts. Other parts of the landmass would, however, survive the sharp tectonic jolt and still bear the seed of new vegetation, animals, and the human species. This knowledge pleased him.
His mission in Atlantis could not be confused with the role of the mind behind creation, but he had the less exercised prerogative of being an incarnate Guardian of the Universe. Now he had been forced to exercise it, by choosing the option of depolarization.
Spare the globe, re-channel the scam on its surface, and let life again awaken to a new dance - an option long taken by the Guardians. He saw in himself a vicarious interpreter of their script.
Titan Race Page 16
