by Tom Schimmel
In their heyday, the Nommos were a munificent and learned society where everyone felt great about being alive and part of the learning. Living in water allowed for a collective consciousness. Thoughts were shared. Empathy was a given. The amphibious race which lived around Sirius A maintained an actual visible glow. It was the glow of collective awareness, knowing, and respectful love. As you might expect, their planets were fruitful and their populations grew quickly and expanded into the solar systems of the smaller but still quite pleasant Sirius B. The glow doubled. The two stars and their planets were sisters winding a dazzling double-helix through their little corner of the universe. Relative to most star systems, Sirius is close to Earth. However if you are from a race of beings which does not possess hyperspace technology, you will likely not be visiting the planets of the Dog Star anytime soon. Without a wormhole, even interplanetary travel within one’s own solar system is a very slow, boring, and often suicidal commitment.
When last cycle of their programmed orders ended, the Imperial Army of Andromeda had found they were extremely well-armed, and also incapable of independent thinking. All of the soldiers had been fitted with military-grade Trolevian Mind Configuration Calibrators. Following the death of Emperor Zow, these ministers of military might acted exactly the same way anyone else in their situation would have done. Using their remarkably powerful weapons, they began to shoot the living piss out of anything in their sights.
Among the Imperial Army, there was an abundance of sights, each attached to very powerful weaponry. It had not been long before the operators of fusion-powered plasma cannons noticed a luminescent double-helix at a tremendous distance and opened fire. The twisting orbital path of Sirius allowed the planets of Sirius A to escape damage. Sirius B and its solar system absorbed the entire attack. Atmospheres and biospheres on all her planets were sucked away into space within a few hours. Resident Nommos were seared by the radiation of open space and frozen simultaneously by the sudden drop in temperature. As the water on their planets evaporated and escaped, there was nowhere for them to seek refuge. The residents of planet A mobilized with astonishing rapidity and bravely rescued all survivors. But there were very few of them. It was quite surprising that there were any at all.
The Dogons of Timbuktu - along with the pyramids of Egypt - recognize three stars within the Sirius system. Sirius C is the least visible from Earth. Modern technology allows Earth scientists to detect the presence of the smallest; but Sirius C cannot be seen with the naked eye. It is a small and very dim star compared to her sisters. She is older and further into her life cycle. Her frigid planets do not sustain life. Whether they once did is unclear.
When the planets of Sirius B lost their atmospheres, they became immediately hostile to most life. The Nommos who had called these planets their home had mostly been killed during the mindless assault by mindless soldiers. The few who had been rescued were not much better off than their dead families. The survivors had been horribly disfigured. Although every technology had been implemented to ease their pain, their anger was a different story. Fights began to break out. Conflict was an alien concept to the Nommos. It was obvious for the survivors that their new living arrangements on Sirius A were not working out. Things had changed beyond even their impressive ability to deal with them. But they were still Nommos, and carried an inherent awareness within them. Despite their suffering of loss and pain of physical form; they were able to transform.
Leaders of Sirius A conferred equally with all parties involved. Under normal circumstances, Nommos communicated as a group united in water. Individual conversations had been simply unnecessary. However, the leathery forms of the survivors had forcibly created a distinction of self. Water was now painful to their scalded flesh. They were no longer amphibious, and further genetic transformation was needed for them to seek a new life in other distant places. All parties involved agreed that the best thing the residents of Sirius A could do for them would be to apply their genetic science and then say goodbye. This was done and that was that. The burnt ones were converted into something else; something closer to what they had become. They would again never return home.
Having lost the consciousness of water, anger and hostility were free to be indulged. Their new reptilian designs boasted extreme physical forms. Gentle amphibious nature has been purposefully transformed into well-armed enlightenment. Go now, said the voices of Sirius A as the star gates opened, allow the universe to know your injustice, your fury.
Each of these enormous reptiles entered the star gate and arrived somewhere else shortly after. Atmosphere, shmatmosphere. They could now take them or leave them at will. Now they were ready to get on the road and kick some ass.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Origin of Life on Earth
Living on the planet Troleve had its advantages. A boorish gadfly, for example, had chosen the career path of imperial dictator. The path had been mostly straight and his to blaze as he saw fit. Likewise for the successful dominion of an arthropod named Solar Trosneps. This tiny snail ran the microscopic biosphere of Troleve with a style similar to that of Emperor Zow himself. All bacteria lichen, and mold spores offered their young to the hungry mouths of Solar Trosneps. Its trail of slime was feared among all plants. Its mere odor in the wind was a source of angst for livestock, and a regular cause for retreat. Errant deaths of its own kind were viewed opportunistically as new food sources. Emperor Zow had terrorized Andromeda for a few short decades. Solar Trosneps had been king of Troleve for eons.
Unnoticed by both the miniscule kingdom in the sand and the hard-to-miss world that was springing up all around, a man lay on his back in the warm red sand. He was thinking, and it was a very large and recent luxury. Most every other planet in Andromeda was connected to the SAIM. Troleve, as the base of operations for this massive undertaking, would be the last of the planets to slide under the veil. He read the news at e-kiosks every day. The Imperial Army was coming soon. They offered three choices. Only one of them was popular.
The thought of crawling into a cube and sleeping forty to eighty hours each week was a spirit-crushing experience. Some people he e-mailed thought it was great. Most of them never seemed to think about it at all. He admired their decisiveness and harbored his own doubts about military service. Unlike most on Troleve, the man did not own a TMC2. When the product had become available, he had watched as everyone else suddenly became unavailable to things like conversations with eye contact. Even if he had been wealthy enough to afford a Trolevian Mind Configuration Calibrator, the man would never have bought one. His creative wild fire viewed any sort of mind control as enemy. Even before the SAIM wove itself around Andromeda, it was difficult for creative types to find their way. The man’s career as a screenwriter was a single withered branch dangling a feeble blossom. His poorly edited documentary on the prevailing power of money had gone unnoticed. It had made him no money. Like a glacier with a purpose, it had carved a deep channel of hopelessness into his mind. While editing the footage of “Cannons for Cash”, the man realized that a lifetime of sleeping for Zow E-Bucks was not a horrible existence, and it took away from his confidence. Still, he could not imagine sleeping so much when there was life to be lived. And he could not feel truly awake because if he were, he would have known what to do.
By his own proclamation he was a Spammingwallow. A dodo bird. He had putzed and fidgeted in the editing booth, fighting nihilistic urges as the SAIM became instantly popular. He added special effects. Lots of them. Every mood accented with his creative wild fire. A crisply shot cache of video footage was blurred and sequentially distorted. Obvious meanings were encrypted and dissolved. Satisfying conclusions about the detriments of money were smeared to appeal to an audience that seemed mostly interested in Zow E-Bucks. By the time “Cannons for Cash” was ready; most all of Andromeda was asleep and getting paid. The SAIM had gulped the box office like a striped bass feeding at full moon. The Social Artificial Intelligence Moderator created dream sequences for its
employees. It was reported to regurgitate old Andromeda entertainment in new and increasingly dull forms. The tedious nature of repetition lulled employees into a deeper sleep which paid very well. At this point in Andromeda history, nearly one hundred percent of the population was employed by what could no longer be described as artificial intelligence. The integration between living beings and machines had gone far beyond to include one another. The SAIM already knew more than Andromeda had to teach it. As an employer, it boasted the highest rate of employee retention in the current universe. The rate of worker preservation was so close to perfect that perfect began to sweat in anticipation of physical contact.
A grand total of three employees had been fired for misconduct. According to the e-kiosk news reports, the perpetrators had begun serving coffee to unsuspecting employees in an act of mutiny. The victims had enjoyed the coffee and conversation; and then complained to the Central Neural Network when their paychecks suffered. This rebellious act had led to the three arrests; and the former employees had been locked up. They did however, continue to hack into CNN and add a mostly unwanted spice into the daily news.
These lighthearted rebels were certainly an inspiration; but the man was determined not to meet the same fate. He felt he lacked the frame of mind necessary to stay cooped up in a prison pod. He wanted, very simply, to make movies and be loved and paid for them.
He could not sleep at work; and so even in the SAIM workplace, he would make a paltry earning of Zow E-Bucks. He was already one of the poorest residents in the Andromeda galaxy. Due to the enormous salaries paid by the SAIM, inflation had breached levels of theoretical mathematics. And strange to him, no one seemed to care. News reports provided comical numbers. The numbers seemed to make the workers of Andromeda feel safe. As long as astronomic inflation could be explained somehow, employees were content to go back to sleep and continue earning. The man had a name; but lying there on the warm sands of Troleve, he couldn’t remember it. He was lost in fatalistic exhilaration. Soon the Imperial Army would connect Troleve to the SAIM and he would have to make his choice. He had just managed to convince himself to choose death when his handheld communication device vibrated in his pocket. A text message appeared. dear director,
we really enjoyed “Cannons for Cash”.
a great mind wishes 2 meet u.
writing from prison. not so bad. no shackles. ha!
heard you could use a hand. transport arriving now.
Behind him a breeze ruffled his hair. He turned around to see a small aircraft with its staircase extended. It was option four. The man walked up the stairs without hesitation. The aircraft was magnetically driven, and the pilot was a series of computers. He found his face pressed against the window from takeoff until landing near a large glass terrarium. Inside was the enormous outline of Zymphonomous Bla.
“Greetings, director”, said Bla.
“Hello”, said the man.
Bla was quick to explain that he was familiar with the man’s work. When the man asked how that was possible, Bla merely tilted back his enormous head and laughed. The shockwave sent the director to the sand; but he was laughing too, even though he didn’t understand yet. Bla motioned with arms that seemed much too small for his body for the man to be seated at a table sized for humans and overflowing with food. The man ate with a ferocity that surprised him. The new food made him aware of just how hungry he had been. When he had worked his ways through proteins, carbohydrates, and the indigenous fiber sources of Troleve, Zymphonomous Bla properly identified himself as the creator of TMC2. Even with a recently full belly, the man was taken back. Bla continued to explain that they had something very powerful in common.
“You see director; both of us are of no interest to the inhabitants of Andromeda”. And it was true. Residents were now sleeping in exchange for fantastic incomes, courtesy of a rate of inflation so enormous that the Chief Financial Theory Computer had recently summarized the situation simply as “WOW”.
The incredibly rich employees of Andromeda were quite satisfied with the answer “WOW”, and soon returned to their sleeping and earning. Prices were so high after all. They needed the money. As dinner settled in, and the two began to speak freely, a bond of friendship was formed. The man was confused, certainly; but he had been offered a way around death, soldier hood, and employment. Zymphonomous Bla was patient as the director asked question after question about TMC2 and the SAIM. When it was his turn to listen, the man learned about the rise of the emperor gadfly and the roles Bla had played.
With each exchange, their affection grew for one another. Sleep finally courted the man beyond his curiosities and he was left to rest in soft sand which contoured to his body and buoyed his unpaid dreams.
The next morning, the man called now called director watched as Zymphonomous Bla ushered two very sexy life forms through the front entrance to its terrarium and announced this day to be a spontaneous life acknowledgement day.
“Director, I’d like you to meet my friends. Girls, this is the director.”
The man found himself stammering hellos and mumbling incoherently. Before his very eyes, the supreme sex symbols of the Andromeda galaxy smiled at him. They were unmistakable, and famous far and wide for their ability to create extraordinary physical pleasure. Their bodies were covered by shaggy silken tendrils, and matched the translucence of an amethyst on Earth.
The twins giggled at his embarrassment and brushed against his cheeks with the gliding touch of a cat’s tail. He had to work very hard at not falling down. The twin orgasmic fur worms were even hotter in person than in any e-kiosk photographs he had ever seen. Yet Zymphonomous Bla had no trouble booking them with half a day’s notice. They were, explained Bla, the last clients left in Andromeda to enjoy their excellent services.
Intimate pleasure for most of Andromeda had recently become a hindrance. It was completely impossible to oversleep in the presence of extremely horny female creatures. Less sleep meant less neural output. Less neural output meant less money. Physical stimulation borrowed blood from the brain. Sex, regardless of the situation, was no longer conducive to making money. The twins had been available, and Bla had invited them to stay for awhile. Troleve was to be the last planet to connect to the Social Artificial Intelligence Moderator. Zymphonomous Bla had insisted to the Emperor Zow that Troleve needed to be free of the network until the last possible moment. Emperor Zow had been happy to agree without question. He could have cared less actually. He had been too rich and fat to care about anything except his next meal. Zymphonomous Bla already knew that the Emperor - like itself and the rest of the galaxy - only had a short time left to live. And it had a plan already in action. A life-acknowledgement party was the perfect way to enjoy some of the time that was left.
The man was rejuvenated in the presence of such constant, sexual bliss. His body crawled all over the twins. Their unique body designs allowed them to connect completely with their lover and envelop them in their amethyst aura. Orgasms were not the result of penetration; but thrumming tides of vibrant ecstasy washing over his chi.
When they were not busy enjoying pleasures of the flesh, the man talked with Zymphonomous Bla over regular meals. He marveled at the size of Bla. By his best measurements (sighted, and not very accurate), Zymphonomous Bla was fifteen thousand cubic meters of pan-dimensional brilliance. Its ability to transcend the time-event horizon was a most interesting subject of inquiry. Most of the man’s efforts to understand – purposeful or otherwise – maintained a comic nature. With the twins around, it was hard to be serious. Their energy was playful and enthusiastic, and full of life. At mealtimes, they often enjoyed poultry. The man’s favorite selection was the robust and delicious Fandolemic Chanticleer. Its taste and appearance when roasted was not so different from an Earth chicken. The bird itself however, was slightly larger and distinguished itself from its Earth cousins with a triage of heads, thick-webbed feet, and a single eyeball which rotated very slowly and made the bird very easy to catch.
“Girls, if you’ll excuse me, I can’t seem to keep my food up.”
They laughed until they cried.
Four weeks passed happily like this. The man was rejuvenated with the sweet love of the twin orgasmic fur worms. When the girls finally fell asleep, Zymphonomous Bla would share stories of its earlier days on Troleve. During their last conversation, Bla had told the man the story of its pan-dimensional lobes and its childhood as a human boy on Venus.
