Burning Eagle

by Navin Weeraratne

  Kublai Khan denied them all.

  “I think this one is different.”

  “We shall see,” said the God.

  Petitioners sensed her – they looked behind, ceased mewling, and gave way. Pilgrims followed her, their hands raised to catch wisdom tumbling from her passage. Ideas sprang from her footprints, they evolved into sages and wandered away.

  In one hand was a sitar made of ivory and strung with gold. It played itself, its richness stilled the clouds who stopped and listened. In her other hand was a brush - it painted angels upon the air. They flew down into reality, and hid amongst us as beggars and shoe clerks.

  In her third hand she carried a book made from palm leaves. It carried all the true stories of Man, and some that weren’t but still good all the same. In her fourth hand was a soot pile, it grew a bonsai that flowered diamonds.

  She wore a white sari, her eyes glowed blue with Enlightenment.

  “I have come seeking the Guardian of Heaven,” she said, her voice was a bird on wings of thunder. “I would that he let me speak with the Sovereigns.”

  Kublai Khan leapt down and landed before her.

  “Who are you?”

  “I am Sarasvati.”

  “That’s nice. I’m Kublai Khan.”

  The Goddess of Knowledge and Art, Music and Science, stopped and stared.

  “Will you not let me pass, Kublai Khan?”

  “No.”

  “I am a Goddess.”

  “That’s just not enough to get into Heaven anymore. You must petition, just like anyone else.”

  “I have my petition,” she held forth a bound scroll.

  The Eunuch God took it and read it.

  “You are certain of this?”

  “Why do you think I’m here?”

  “Sun Tzu!”

  “Yes?” The greatest warrior of all Mankind looked over the ramparts.

  “Open the gates.”

  “Why?”

  The Eunuch God stopped and stared.

  “She’s discovered intelligent life in space.”

  “Are you certain of this?”

  “Just open the bloody gates.”

  “August Sovereigns, please forgive my intrusion.”

  The Three Sovereigns: rulers of heavens, architects of the world.

  The giants sat lotus-style orbiting each other. Their movement was the wheel driving Creation’s mill. Their skins were polished green jade, their blue and white robes spun from seas and skies. Their golden crowns were large as palaces and as filled with intrigues. Their eyes were lanterns, shining with primordial fire captured at the Big Bang.

  “Greetings, child,” spoke one. His voice as assured as the Laws of Physics. “I am Suiren, Discoverer of Fire. This is Nuwa Mother of All Humans. And this is Fu Xi, the Architect of Changes. You honor your seniors and are an instrument of our will. Welcome.”

  Sarasvati bowed.

  “My thanks, my Sovereign.”

  “What do you wish to tell us, child?”

  “I have discovered intelligent life.”

  Mother Nuwa leaned forward. “Oh? Perhaps these baselines will be more manageable than the last.”

  “They are not baselines, my Sovereign Lady. Their minds outpace human thought a thousand million times. They are as we are. They are Transcendents.”

  Twinned circles of trigrams locked and spoke, “The Taming power of the great,” said Fu Xi, “One attains the way of heaven.”

  “My child! My prodigal child!” cried Suiren, “This is glorious word you bring. After searching absent hope for so long! Where are they?”

  “Great Sovereign, their ships refuel at a gas expanse nearest my star. I have invited them; they say they will take three years to arrive. If it pleases the Sovereigns, I would that I may continue to build friendships with our newest of brethren?”

  “Of course child,” said Suiren. “you are our ranking Transcendent there. This gas expanse, is it inhabited?”

  “Yes, Sovereign. Discovery of late was made of a low traffic hedron. It is the vein that feeds parties of miners and fitful renegades. May I begin informing the baseline public and prepare them for the coming of the new race?”

  “Waiting,” the glowing, iron, Trigrams spoke in the air. “It furthers one to abide in what endures.”

  “Fu Xi is right,” said Nuwa, “the human public can wait. Let us first discuss matters with our brethren without hindrance, Transcendent to Transcendent. We will manage the baselines afterwards. Evacuate the gas expanse and close down the hedron, we do not want any complications.”

  “As you command, Sovereign Lady. A deep space patrol ship hunts there, it runs silent and its crew will not respond to calls until their purpose is complete.”

  “No matter. A single ship in an entire gas field is an unlikely encounter. Do not worry overmuch. “

  “I understand. Again Sovereigns, I am honored by this privilege. The stories – I can see so many stories in this. I will make you proud. ”

  “We are already proud, child,” Heaven spoke in concert, “we were always proud.”

  Three Years Later

  “Old man, you need to get out of here now.”

  Padre Escobar counted seven, black, mushroom clouds climbing up across the horizon. Columns of light lanced from the sky, thunder cracking with each strike. Aircraft left contrails and fireballs in the sky.

  There was a painfully bright flash, he winced and someone cried out. An eighth mushroom cloud started climbing in the east.

  The sergeant looked towards it, the morning sun glinting in his goggles. His black fatigues accented his silhouette against morning desert sun. The backpack power cable to his bulky laser rifle was already frayed.

  “They hit Ashville,” said the corporal beside him. “There goes battalion command.”

  “Dammit!” yelled the sergeant. “Franklin,” he called out at the dusty, grey, APC. The door opened and a very young, very scared driver looked out.

  “Get on the radio, find out where the alternate rendezvous is.”

  “Yes Sir.”

  “Don’t worry Private, we’ll get through this one.” he sighed. “Alright, now look here old man – “

  “It’s not ‘old man,’ its ‘Padre,’” said Padre Escobar, “and no, I’m not moving from here.”

  “Oh?” said the corporal, leaning forward. “Maybe you didn’t notice Padre, but we’re getting fucked. Okay? That’s an invasion happening around us. Now get in the APC before I carry you.”

  They stare-battled each other.

  “I will carry you.”

  “He will,” nodded the sergeant.

  “I’ve tended the house of the Apostle Jude for sixteen years. That’s a long time. Long enough to know that you don’t have time to argue. Go,” he took the sergeant by the arm, “Get to safety. Keep down the road, you’ll hit a small hamlet. There’s thirty people there, terrified people. Show them your nice Fifth Planetary shoulder patches and get them to follow you out.”

  “The invaders are coming this way Padre. They’ve got air and armor. Once we leave there’ll be nothing between you and them.”

  Escobar shrugged. “God protects his own.”

  “I have a rifle I can spare you.”

  “That helps too.”

  “Good luck Padre,” the sergeant patted him on the back. The corporal fetched the assault rifle from the APC and handed it to Escobar.

  “Old man,” he said scowling, “when this is all over you’d better be alive.”

  Escobar slapped in the power pack, the rifle whined into life.

  “Count on it.”

  “Send me. Send me now.”

  Kublai Khan stood before the Sovereigns. He wore his armor, his petition was his spear. Outside the palace drums were beating. The petitioners were gone. In their place great legions armed for war in iron and fire.

  “Your place is here, Eunuch God,” said Suiren.

  “Rubbish. You know exactly what we face. I am the only one wh
o can fight it.”

  “It is precisely this reason that you must stay and guard Heaven,” said Nuwa, the tears from her eyes great as the Yellow River. “If it is what we fear, then you alone can protect us.”

  “The battle is not here! Would you make me a Craven God too?”

  “We will send another.”

  “Who?” Kublai shot the word like a sky full of arrows.

  “Sun Tzu.”

  “Sun Tzu?” Tremors shook and broke the land. “Sun Tzu is human! You would send children to fight your battles?”

  “My children are great,” said Nuwa, “they will triumph.”

  “When we defeated you, we did not have them, Kublai,” said Suiren, discoverer of fire. “This is their hour. They shall prove themselves.”

  Kublai threw down his spear, it clattered and sparked. “You squander your soldier’s lives. You are not worthy generals.”

  “No, General,” said Suiren firmly. “We are Sovereigns. Go now from our sight.”

  “Here,” he threw it down before him. “Pick it up.”

  The man in the blue robe knelt and picked up the spear awkwardly. Its iron blade was black with deeds.

  “I have my own.”

  “Not like this one you don’t. You’re going to need it.”

  “Don’t – don’t you need it?”

  “I’m not the one going to war.”

  Sun Tzu handed back the spear.

  “I’ll be fine Kublai.”

  “Yes. But you’ll be more fine if you keep that with you.”

  “It seems,” he studied the blade, “very particular. I’ve never seen something so purpose-built. How is not useless half the time?”

  “It’s not useless half the time; it’s useless all the time. I’ve only used it once.”

  “What for?”

  “There used to be four Sovereigns. Make sure the three remaining never learn you have it. Never, do you understand?”

  Jahandar I

  Elysian Dataspaces

  I cleared my throat and spoke to the cowboy riding the dinosaur.

  “Have you seen my wife?”

  It was warm on the steppes, the grasslands rolled on for infinity. Herds of bison, aurochs, and giant ostriches ambled about absently. The T-Rex put down its tree-length hunting rifle and turned to glare down at me with red, glowing eyes.

  “She’s in the sculpture garden, in the palace. Be careful what you say, she’s in a bad mood.”

  I thanked my father in law, and flew up to the palace in the sky.

  It was built on several clouds, tethered together by drooping silver chains made of links as large as a man. It was a Moghul palace of blue walls and yellow domes, small elephants were wandering its grounds, carefully tending to the gardens and waterfalls with their trunks and toolkit-tusks.

  I found my wife in the sculpture garden. It was in courtyard with a large reflecting pool in the center, blue crocodiles and green mermaids swam beneath it while very tiny men in turbans and belled shoes played ancient ragas on floating, lotus leaves made of crystal. In the air above the pond were various sculptures of gleaming metal, glowing colored orbs, and fractal pattern creepers. Large black trees formed a huddled ring around the courtyard making a private space, they were hung with blue and green lanterns.

  My wife Farida was sitting at wooden table, geometric sketches were burned in the air around her, and a wire diagram of a half-finished sculpture was slowly spinning right before her.

  She turned back and looked at me, her eyes like coals matching her hair. They cut into me like daggers.

  “I don’t even know why you’re here,” she started.

  “I know you’re angry. That’s completely valid.”

  “I don’t need you to validate me.”

  “I know that too. I made the cut for Tier One, the Special Forces. I’m – I’m shipping out tomorrow.” ‘Shipping out.’ Such a quaint term. Nobody shipped out anymore, we faxed ourselves across light years.

  She turned, her face softened.

  “Why do you have to go? Don’t go.”

  “Someone has to fight them. I’m that someone. Would you leave your duty to someone else?”

  “Just send a copy. Stay here with me.”

  “I can’t have myself here with you, while I have another self away in another solar system, fighting. I can think of no greater pain than being apart from you, and you not even caring.”

  She stood up and touched my face.

  “You came back so different from the last time. What happened at Tennyson? You used to tell me everything Jahandar. What happened?”

  I looked into her eyes, but no words came.

  “Tell me. I am here. I am always here.”

  “I can’t. Not now.”

  The light in her eyes dimmed.

  “Just not now.”

  “You’ll come back from this with more stories you can’t tell me. Stories that will keep us apart. My mother told me to be careful of women coming between us, but she never said anything about wars.”

  “No woman would dare cross you.”

  She smiled. She was the only person I had ever met that I was afraid of.

  “How long will you be gone for?”

  “I can’t say, but we’re not looking for a long, dragged out fight. Most of the quantum entanglement traffic will be military, but after a few weeks, things will settle and they’ll let some of us fax home.”

  She scowled.

  “I still don’t understand why you would go, Jahandar. I don’t know why you would leave me.”

  I stroked her hair.

  “I go to protect you. I won’t let happen to you, what happened at the Tennyson orbitals, and on Paradiso. Darling, I will leave you for a thousand years if it makes you safe for just one day. And then I’d turn right round and do it again.”

  She gave me the look of a woman not sure if she should feel complimented, or concerned.

  “Enough about war. Tell me about what you’re working on now.”

  “Why does that matter, the day before you leave?”

  “Because I want to see you smile. That’s all that matters.”

  Fermi’s War

  Some people make a big deal out of me. They think I did something special by firing the first shot. They’re wrong of course; anyone could have and anyone would have. The war was going to happen sooner or later. What we need to understand is why it didn’t happen sooner.

  By ‘war,’ I don’t mean Tennyson or Paradiso. I mean the war. It’s all really one conflict. You can never see history when you’re in it, you need time. Time gives you perspective, shows you everything in play that you missed.

  What did we miss? Why didn’t the war start sooner?

  It didn’t start on early Earth. The Calamari are less advanced than us. However, they appear to have been spacefaring for a very long time. You don’t build megascale vessels without knowing what’s out there. Our biochemistries are similar: they would have been looking for habitable worlds. They should have known about Earth.

  The war didn’t start in the 20th century. We were nuke-testing and cranking out radio waves for all to see. We even sent messages to announce ourselves to our neighbors. Judging from hindsight is poor scholarship: it must have seemed a good idea at the time. We announced ourselves and broadcasted our weaknesses – why didn’t they come?

  It didn’t start in the 21st century: the Solar Expansion. Space elevators, nanotech factories, and advanced AI, meant mass migration. Billions left Earth’s soaring property prices for the cheap Edens in orbit. Lunar factories churned out habitats like sausages. Most were soon tumbling their way through the inner solar system.

  The mass migration was also digital: this can’t be stressed enough. Quantum entanglement relays gave us instant communication across any distance. The Internet stretched across interplanetary space. The AI population rose into the trillions.

  The Solar Expansion is well named. Our energy use increased exponentially, for over a hundr
ed years. Can we believe this spike, which was coming from a habitable world, went unnoticed?

  The biggest unanswered question to date, is why the war didn’t start with the Hedrons. First, at the Jovian one. Then, at any of the others.

  We are still no closer today to knowing who built the Jovian Polyhedron. Its real age is of course upwards from the Pleistocene date. All that the ice layers reveal, is when it crashed on Ganymede. The Calamari of course could never have built such things. However, they really ought to be using them. Instead, they opt for slow-moving, titanic vessels. They turn down instant transit, for centuries of crawling. The popular thinking is that alien motivations are pointless to guess at. The alternative is terrifying. That they know something we don’t about the hedrons. Something that terrifies them.

  Today it is hard for us to regard hedrons as dangerous. This is because most of us were born into the post-hedron world. We find nothing unusual in a network of alien-built, wormholes. That they connect our stars is as unremarkable, as the roads connecting our cities. Yet in the 22nd Century, they were a source of horror. What, and who, went through the Jovian Hedron, were often lost forever.

  Why didn’t the Calamari notice these probes and explorers turning up across the galaxy? If they feared the Hedrons, wouldn’t they watch for what came through? How did they also miss the next two centuries, as exploration became expansion?

  The Galactic Expansion dwarfed the Solar one. The hedrons have lead us to over a hundred stars across the galaxy. I find it inconceivable that the Calamari didn’t notice this. There is also, perhaps, an even bigger issue here. Its that we didn’t discover them during the Galactic Expansion, or anyone else.

  This was the Fermi Paradox. Essentially, it states that intelligence out to be everywhere. Life bearing worlds are common, and intelligent life should have been as well.

  The discovery of the Hedrons didn’t answer the Paradox, but aggrieved it further. If the Hedrons were all over the galaxy, where were their builders? We couldn’t even find their ruins. We used our Hedron to travel the galaxy. Wouldn’t other races likely have Hedrons on their doorsteps as well? If so, why haven’t they populated the galaxy?