by Anne Rice
"In fact, Amel destroyed so many of these important bases that we could no longer track him or view him or hear him or discover what other things he was doing. But it came to pass that he was using every bit of knowledge we'd given him to gain power with the savage human mammals of Earth.
"Of course, Amel never released the plague. And we have come to understand that he used the very plague itself somehow to inoculate the species of Earth so that they would never be susceptible to it or to any number of other plagues that we might send.
"Thus began his rise among the beings of the planet, the rise of the Great One, Amel, the ruler who sought others to do his will, not our will, to make of Earth what he would have it be, and not what the 'Realm of Worlds' would have it be.
"Of course we sent Replimoids to destroy him. We thought they would overwhelm him easily by their sheer numbers, but no such thing happened, and communication fell off with every Replimoid ever dispatched to stop him. From the bits and pieces of information that did survive these attempts, we saw that he had sent legions of violent human mammals to destroy these Replimoids, and in some cases cut them up into pieces, saving the pieces and harvesting them for cell material for his own experiments. And he is a great maker of unusual things, this Amel.
"There is infinitely more we could tell you of Amel's rebellion, of his adventures, of his scorn for us, the Parents who had made him, for the 'Realm of Worlds.' It is enough to say that we vowed never again to send any Replimoid to Earth who would be equipped with the kind of knowledge we had given Amel. And we would never send against him any Replimoid who was clearly recognizable to him. These Replimoids were all instructed to repair and create new transmitting stations for us before they moved against Amel. But you will not have to do this. We have become impatient with Amel and his destruction is your only real purpose.
"In the meantime he became a builder of cities, an organizer of human mammals, teaching them better ways of hunting, and finally even of extracting metal from the earth and working in metal, and all manner of other things which helped them to multiply and advance, and to prosper. Through many old and new transmitting stations, we saw a great deal of what he did and what failed and what did not fail, and with horror, we realized that the evolutionary story of Earth had been fatefully marred by Amel's will and intellect.
"Eventually he built small settlements which he covered with thick roofs to block our vision, and finally he perfected the great city of Atalantaya, which is a legend to all the human beings of the planet, Atalantaya with its population of brilliant human mammals, schooled by Amel, and fostered by Amel, to dominate the entire world around them, to live in merciless indifference to the misery of the savage tribes of the planet, and on their backs, so to speak, as they labored to supply his great city with the earth's riches.
"It is now our decision that only Replimoids such as yourselves can succeed against him, Replimoids of such intellect and perfection that you can distinguish yourselves as clever and resourceful so as to gain access to the Great One himself, tell him who you are, whence you've come, and why. Tell him how angry we are with his disobedience.
"Then, you must surround him and you must detonate and blow up the city of Atalantaya and Amel.
"When you detonate the explosives in your bodies, the power stores beneath Atalantaya will surely blow, and the explosion will be sufficient to transform the world; other explosions will soon follow; raging fires will take over the forests and the plains. Volcanoes will erupt, and eventually as the smoke rises from these great conflagrations, the world will darken, and grow cold as it has many times in the past, and life will die out, and that life which does not die out will be weakened and mutated and destroyed by the toxin that will spread from your disintegrating bodies, the toxin that will poison the dark and cold planet."
The Parents then went quiet for a few minutes, until one of them told us that this was all we needed to know for now, and that we should go rest, and enjoy the transmissions from Earth as we had done before.
"But what if we cannot get into the city?" I asked. I knew I was the leader. And I also sensed I was speaking for the others. "What if we don't succeed in ever getting into Atalantaya?"
"You must," said the Parents. "As we have explained, Atalantaya has beneath it vast power stores, stores from which energy is drawn to create its lighting, its heat, its chemical laboratories and places of invention and manufacture. We do not know what these power stores are, but they are almost certainly inflammable, if not explosive by their very nature.
"And you must be in Atalantaya when you detonate so that you ignite those power stores. If you are not inside, the explosion will not be as destructive as it must be. And the dissemination of the plague inside you will not be as far reaching. If you cannot get inside the city, we will communicate with you and advise you as to what to do next to gain access. All you have to do to communicate with us is be within the vicinity of the transmitting stations. Now these are hidden and with reason. If Amel knew of them, they'd be disrupted, but there is one quite close to the main launching station for the boats to Atalantaya. It is in the remains of a small pyramid around which tribes gather constantly. It contains a Chamber of Suffering. Ask to go into the Chamber of Suffering. And when you do you will pray and in your prayers you will tell us in so many words, words not easily understood by others suffering around you, that you cannot get into Atalantaya. We will see you and hear you and you will hear us because you are configured to hear our transmissions."
"I have another question," I said. "What if we can persuade Amel to leave the protection of the dome and come out where you can talk to him and he can talk to you? Is it possible that some resolution could be achieved so that the planet does not have to suffer the cataclysm and the toxin?"
"Yes, that is possible," said the Parents, "but we are certain he will never take the risk. Remember, Amel has betrayed us and he has gone against our laws, our most sacred and important laws."
"But what if he does come out," I insisted. "What if he does want to explain to you what he has done and why? Is it possible that you will not go ahead with your plan?"
"It is possible," said the Parents. "And it is possible there could be a change of plan."
"And if there were a change of plan, perhaps we would not have to die?" I asked.
The Parents went silent for a few minutes before they answered. "There could be a change of plan," they said, "but again it is not likely. However, I think that you might have a great incentive of course to persuade Amel to come out of the dome. Yes. You could even tell him that you yourselves will not have to die if he is willing to come out. He might be moved by that. He does not like death. We could bring you back here with Amel. And then decide the fate of the planet in some other way which is not so dependent on the death of Amel along with Atalantaya.
"But do understand," said the Parents. "We must destroy Atalantaya and take the planet back to its earlier stage of development. This must be done. And if our plans through you do not work, we will use other means."
"Well, this would give us great incentive," I said. "The hope that we might return here with Amel."
Again they were quiet. Then: "Kapetria, you have been made for one purpose. Your desire to keep living should not enter into what you do."
"But you do want to talk to Amel yourselves, don't you?" I asked.
"Yes, it is true. We do," they answered. "There are things we want to know from him."
They went quiet.
"What sort of things?" I asked.
"Isn't it obvious?" asked the Parents. "We want to know what the dome of Atalantaya is made of. We want to know why it blocks our transmitting stations. We have questions about life inside of Atalantaya. And if this gives you incentive to take this approach with Amel, this is good. But we do not believe he will come out. And we believe that our plan, the explosion of Atalantaya and its power stores, and the dissemination of the toxin, is the best way to bring about a reversal of the life proces
ses on the planet. This is our chosen plan, it is the plan that we are providing to do this. This is our plan."
"But there might be another plan," I said, "that does not involve so much suffering?"
They considered this for a long time. "Kapetria," they said. "We know that you are a Replimoid and we understand your concerns. But this is the plan we have provided for the salvation of Earth. However, if you do succeed in persuading Amel to come out and we are able to remove you and him from the planet, we will consider another way of doing this."
"I'm profoundly grateful for this," I said. Welf and Garekyn also said they were grateful. Derek, however, said nothing. He was staring at them with reddened and glazed eyes.
That was all they had to say to us now. Tomorrow, they told us, after we had rested, they would go over the stories we would tell to the natives, and they would bring to the fore in our minds the knowledge they'd given us about plants and animals and their healing properties, the knowledge we would use to gain access to Atalantaya. Amel was always in search of those of the savage tribes that had special knowledge, and when our fame grew as healers Amel would inevitably send for us.
"Now, go watch the film streams as you have before," said the Parents. "Watch with new eyes, now that you know the purpose. Feast and rest."
We did as we were told. And we didn't dare to speak to one another about what we now knew. We knew that we couldn't risk this. But I know now that all of us were deeply troubled. It was not only the thought of our own deaths that disturbed us, it was the purpose to destroy all of life on Earth down to a lower level. It was the horrid and grisly descriptions of raging fires, of volcanic eruptions, and the thought of humans running in panic trying to save themselves; it was the horror of so much death! It was the horror of so much natural violence.
And why the Parents thought it would be restful to us to go on watching the transmissions again, these vivid streams of the complex forests and jungles and fields that we were going to destroy, these vivid streams of men and women living, working, loving, and dying, these vivid transmissions of magnificent animals struggling to survive--why the Parents thought we should watch all this, knowing we were to destroy it, we could not imagine.
I can't say I felt a great deal of emotion over this. I knew I had been made to lead the party and that I was colder in temperament than the others, but I was not only deeply disturbed, I had lost respect for and trust in the Parents in some vital way. I did not entirely believe them when they said they would consider changing their plan. Their utter indifference to our personal fate was obvious. And not believing some of what they said, I came to question everything they said. I wanted really only one thing and that was to get away from them. As it turned out Welf was feeling something similar and so was Garekyn. As for Derek, he was as miserable as any dying human mammal on Earth, and said little or nothing as the next few days passed.
Finally our orientation was complete and we were shown a small craft that would take us to Earth. This would have to be done in the far north, and under cover of night so that Amel's powerful sensors could not detect our coming. But we would be only a few days away from the south country, the great country around the sea in which Atalantaya was built, and we were well dressed in animal skin and woven cloth, and we had primitive weapons, knives, spears, hatchets, to defend ourselves on our short journey.
"Go to the friendly tribes," the Parents had instructed us. "Tell them that long ago your parents came out of Atalantaya to work in the Wilderness lands and that they died in a dreadful mishap. You be the teller of this, Kapetria. Tell how you and your brothers were orphaned young, and that you lost all connection with your parents and your home and are hoping to be accepted once again in Atalantaya. The savages of the Wilderness lands will treat you with respect. You have gold and silver to give them, and they will eventually take you to the landing to go to Atalantaya. You have abundant gold to carry you into Atalantaya. If this fails, use your healing skills. Use your intellect. Distinguish yourself until word of you and your achievements reaches Atalantaya. Actually none of this will be hard for you."
At last came the moment for departure.
III
The Parents saw us strapped into the craft, at which point they spoke to me again about persuading Amel to come out of the dome.
"We are of the mind that this might work after all," they said. "Please do all that you can to gain his personal trust, to stay in close proximity to him, and to persuade him to come out of the dome and to the nearest of the transmitting bases. And you must all come with him. You see, we do very much want to recover Amel, and it would be of great value to us to have Amel here once more on Bravenna where we can study him and question him and learn from him."
"I will do my very best to persuade him," I said. "I'm grateful. I am hoping that you will be so pleased that you will find some other use for us somewhere as we so much want to go on living."
The Parents indicated they understood.
Off we went for a journey of several hours to Earth. We knew that the craft would disintegrate after we were out of it. And that we would see Bravenna, or Home, in the night sky. We would see it as a bright star shining above. And that all the people of Earth knew this star was Bravenna, and they all knew the old legend that the Great One had come, aeons ago, from Bravenna.
Our landing was uneventful. We easily got free of the craft, and indeed it did disintegrate. We then set out, as it was still night, to make our first campfire and eat our first meal on the planet. We found ourselves submerged in the beautiful world that we had studied through the film streams, and our immersion in it was a sensuous experience far exceeding our life on beautiful Bravenna. This was, after all, an open and varied world, filled with night breezes, the songs of night birds, and fragrances of grass and flowers and woodland and even the smell of the sea coming to us on the wind; and in the clear night sky we saw the great sweep of the stars in a way that had not been possible from the portals of Home. But we did not dare to share our thoughts. We were too well aware of the fact that the Parents might easily enough see and hear us through a hidden transmission station, or that there might be devices built into our bodies which enabled them to hear anything that we said, and even to see one another through hidden eyes that we could not detect on our own skin. In fact, we knew, positively knew, that only inside the dome of Atalantaya would we be able, perhaps, to talk honestly with one another, and become ourselves with one another. Nevertheless there was a shared sadness, a shared seriousness that united us. We might have been born in innocence, but we were not innocent now.
We were among the tribes of the Wilderness lands for about three months. But I wish to collapse this part of the story. I could talk for a long time about our adventures with the tribes, what we learned, and what we saw. But I will only summarize this.
Essentially, we were surprised by the tribes. We were surprised that we discovered traits among the humans we encountered which had not been fairly represented in our orientation by the Parents. We were surprised by the daily lives of the tribes, whether they were hunter-gatherers, or communities of miners working under overseers from Atalantaya, or whether they were bound together in larger groups to maintain orchards or flocks or beehives.
What surprised us more than anything was the openness they displayed, the hospitality they offered us, the huge feasts to which they invited us, and what we saw of their family life. True, we had watched endless streaming on Bravenna, but little of it had revealed the way that humans loved and nurtured their children, or the sheer dependence on love that seemed a part of their everyday life. Admittedly, there were quarrels, there was casual cruelty, yes, and there were times when we saw eruptions and disputes that frightened us and caused us to move on; but the larger fabric of human mammalian life struck us as vastly more complex than the Parents had acknowledged.
We had gained little sense on Bravenna as to how much feasting was part of daily life, and how much these tribes enjoyed the intoxicating
beverages they made from grapes, or wild grains, or fermented honey, and how many hours they lavished on preparation of the roast meats, and the thick sauces and the crude breads that they baked. We were not prepared for the hours of singing and talking at these feasts and how much a part of ordinary life this had become. It was an easy thing to spend our days at such family or village feasts, and to drink to excess, and sleep it off in some garden here or there or on the floor of a village hut while a woman drowsing in a corner cheerfully waved the flies away from us with a palm-leaf fan.
Resources were obviously abundant. The woodland and the southerly jungles were filled with game. Rich tuberous vegetables, similar to potatoes or yams, were a staple which people grew in their village streets or in their backyards. Bread made from grain cost, but people had plenty to barter for it. Honey cost, but they had plenty enough of this too. I don't remember butter, but there must have been butter. What I mostly remember is that there was no want, no hunger, no struggle. Some who welcomed us were obviously richer than others, but this advantage showed itself in ornamentation more than anything else, or the size of a dwelling.
We studied these people.
And we saw everywhere we went an inveterate obsession with "fairness," whether it was a group of gold miners arguing with the overbosses, or members of a small hunting band arguing with the headman over the distribution of food, or whether it was two daughters arguing with a mother about the chores or benefits offered by the parent. Fairness, fairness, fairness. The species had an instinctive understanding of fairness, and this extended to displaying what I would now call altruism in many areas of life. In other words, humans were willing to sacrifice for other humans; humans were willing to fight at the risk of their safety and lives against those whom they felt were oppressing them or threatening them; humans were willing to stand up for what they believed, even if this meant they would be attacked. When a human suffered a broken ankle or leg or worse, others pitched in to work for him and provide for his family, and fierce arguments sprang up if someone did attempt to hoard or cheat or get away with doing nothing.
