Among what fuelled these fanciful scenarios was that, in the three decades since he had made himself known, the Nomad had not aged a day. He still looked as youthful and handsome as ever, his features classically flawless, his body perfectly toned. He seemed entirely impervious to harm or decay. Some even claimed that they had witnessed him float off the ground and fly into the sky. (I had never seen him perform such a feat.)
The date 1914 was stamped over a map of Europe. The future! The music swelled to melodramatic heights. The narrator described a war of horrific proportions, a conflict he called “la Grande Guerre.” Political unrest within the Austro-Hungarian Empire somehow escalated beyond its borders, igniting long-unaddressed international tensions between the great nations of Europe. The conflict grew to involve Russia, the Ottoman Empire, parts of the Near East, Japan, and the United States. As I wondered what this had to do with the Nomad, I could only hope that the whole thing was mere speculation.
The scene shifted: the Nomad was piloting a strange winged vehicle outfitted with propellers and firearms. The view expanded to show an entire squadron of such manned machines. One by one, the vehicles started rolling, faster and faster, until they took to the skies! Would flying machines become so common two decades from now? I was informed that in 1915 the Nomad offered his services as an air pilot to the United Kingdom against Germany.
The Great War ended in 1918, to the staggering cost of ten million lives. The political map of Europe and the Near East was completely redrawn as, by then, among other changes, Russia had been swept by revolution and the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires collapsed and fractured into smaller independent states or protectorates of the surviving powers. I was especially disturbed when the narrator called the conflict by yet another name: “la Première Guerre Mondiale” — the First World War. Were there yet more such horrific conflicts to come?
The moving image now showed two older women. They sat outside, at a small café table. In Paris? The French Riviera? Rome? Venice? But soon my eyes picked out peculiarities such as the erotic demonic carvings next to the door behind them and the reddish veins pulsing on the ground. This was Venera. From beyond the image a male voice asked them questions in Veneran, and they answered in the same language. I did not recognize them at first, but as they spoke and moved I realized I was looking upon Eule-Königin and Sweet Honey in their elder years. Although from the lines on their faces I guessed them at around the age of sixty or seventy years, they moved and spoke with the poise and vitality of much younger women. Was I now seeing the even more distant future of the 1920s or even the 1930s?
I did not speak Veneran, but the Owl-Queen occasionally peppered her answers with a bit of German. That, combined with those Veneran words and expressions that closely resembled Italian or French, enabled me to understand that the subject of the interview was Le Nomade des Étoiles and that his two former companions now seethed with loathing for him. I noticed that Eule-Königin, whether expressing herself in Veneran or in German, was always careful to use the German version of the nomad’s name: der Nomade der Sterne. In my memory of our previous encounters, regardless of the language we spoke, she had always used his more common original French appellation. The reasons for the two women’s estrangement from him escaped me, and soon the scene again changed.
The image now showed a city that it identified as Berlin, but it was much changed from the Berlin that I knew. The accompanying music took on the air of a military march, but with a pretentious operatic grandeur. The year was 1933. In the back of a motorized carriage stood a dark-haired man with a tiny moustache. He was dressed in military garb and saluted the thousands of people lined in the streets to see him with a rigid gesture, his right arm extended in front of him.
Sitting next to him, also in militaristic garb, was Le Nomade des Étoiles. I could no longer follow the narration. Previously it had been in French, but now the voice spoke in Veneran and I struggled to make sense of the words, even with the images as a guide.
The music took on tenebrous tones as what looked like a flag took up the entire image. Its body was red, and in the middle was a white circle with a black swastika in the centre. On top of that image the date of 1939 was superimposed, and the background image shifted to a massive rally, with the dark-haired moustached leader speaking to a crowd of thousands. The swastika logo was reproduced both behind him on a giant flag and on banners hanging from every possible vantage. A little behind him stood Le Nomade des Étoiles in a garish uniform that echoed the design of the swastika flag: heavy black leather boots and gloves; a skintight red bodysuit; a white circle with the black swastika in the middle of his chest; a black cape fastened over his shoulders with gold stars.
Although I understood German, I could only make out a few words that were in equal parts spat and barked by the moustached leader. Partly because of his oratorical style, partly because the sound was faint, as if coming from a great distance, partly because of static distortion that garbled some of the words, and partly because of the Veneran commentary that sporadically drowned out the leader’s speech. The words reich, übermensch, and der Nomade der Sterne were often repeated during his oration. Finally he gave that stiff salute, which was echoed by the crowd as they chanted “Heil Hitler!” Behind the leader, der Nomade der Sterne rose off the stage. Higher and higher he floated, with his arm extended in salute and a severe gaze fixed on his face.
The crowd exploded in applause and cheers. A wide smile spread across the face of the moustached leader.
There followed, again with Veneran commentary I could not quite understand, a montage of images showing monstrous, fantastical warfare, with armoured mechanical behemoths spewing destruction from long cannons that jutted out from their tops, sleek airships dropping explosive shells on civilian and military targets, soldiers equipped with guns far more deadly and efficient than the soldiers of my era. There were images of gaunt prisoners, including women and children, being tortured and executed in prison camps. Was this the future of warfare? The future of international relations? Was this another of the “World Wars” of which “the Great War” had been — or, rather, would be — the first?
Then, under the gaze of the flying Nomade der Sterne, who directed the operation, troops bearing the swastika symbol invaded Venera, with the insular state surrounded on all sides by a naval armada. Rapid-fire guns thundered through the metropolis — a gory massacre that left at least hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Venerans dead in the streets of their city.
The image faded to black and then showed 1945. There followed an aerial view of a city; it was identified as Berlin as letters replaced digits. The city was in ruins, many of the buildings having caved in on themselves, with rubble littering the streets everywhere. Armed footsoldiers and armoured mechanical behemoths advanced through the devastated city facing no resistance. The music was still sombre, although in a cloying, syrupy manner.
The narrator, now speaking English with a Canadian accent, described how the European front of “the Second World War” was drawing to a close, with “Nazi Germany” (I remembered now that the Veneran narration had used the word Nazi, too, but I still did not understand exactly what it meant) having been defeated by the “Allied Forces.” But one important conflict remained. The view rose into the sky above Berlin and it came closer and closer to two flying figures fighting each other: the Nomad of the Stars and … the Nomad of the Stars! There were two of him!
One of them was stark naked, his perfect body reminiscent of the idealized sculptures of Classical Greece. The other bore the uniform that I had come to identify with the Nomad’s German appellation, der Nomade der Sterne.
The two Nomads struggled with unbridled ferocity. But they seemed equally matched, unable to cause any visible damage to the other. Yet every punch, kick, strike, and collision caused a burst of sound and light. The harder they came at each other, the bigger the bursts became.
There was no music, no narration. Only the furious struggle between the two
airborne Nomads. I was glued to the scene, observing every manoeuvre of the fight between the superhuman doppelgangers.
There came a point when the unnatural light caused by the Nomads’ conflict covered the sky, the sound growing so loud that the tunnel from which I was viewing the scene seemed to tremble. The two Nomads were indefatigable. Der Nomade der Sterne’s uniform had gone from pristine to tatters to nothing. The two Nomads were now both naked and thus indistinguishable from each other. And then there was a burst of almost blinding and deafening intensity. When the image of the sky was restored, neither Nomad was visible.
The view descended back to the ground. Below there was a crater of gigantic proportions, the aftermath of a devastating explosion. The narration resumed, explaining that, in the aftermath of the fight between the Nomad of the Stars and der Nomade der Sterne in the skies over Berlin, the German capital was completely obliterated, presumably killing “Adolf Hitler” (whom I assumed to be the moustached German leader), along with all Germans and Allied Forces occupying the city at that moment.
1961. The planet Earth as seen from space once more appears in the background. Then the words The Great Disasters replaced the year.
“In 1961,” the narrator explained as the background music took on a mechanistic quality, characterized by drone-like repetition and eruptions of discordant cacophony, “the world suffered three subsequent global disasters whose causes have never been fully explained or understood. First, as March drew to a close, an ice age swept the entire planet. Continents blanketed by snow storms. Cities beset by devastating ice storms. Waterways frozen over. Glaciers advancing from both poles at the rate of dozens of metres per day.” Moving images supported these pronouncements, depicting a wintery world where civilization and life itself were supplanted by endless frozen wastelands. “The sudden ice age lasted three weeks, retreating as mysteriously as it had blanketed the world. It was soon followed, in mid-June, by a drought of unprecedented severity, as global temperatures rose to nearly ten degrees centigrade higher than peak of summer averages in both north and south hemispheres with no precipitation to relieve the arid heat. Desertification advanced with alarming rapidity. Crops failed worldwide. Water reserves dried up. Diseases spread.” Again, gruesome images accompanied the narration, as did more of the alienating mechanistic music. “The drought lasted twice as long as the ice age, finally breaking after six weeks, but the cure was perhaps worse than the affliction. The rainwaters finally came, but they would not stop. Water levels rose by several centimetres a day. Rivers overflowed, cities flooded, some becoming entirely submerged. The whole world was covered in rainclouds so thick that day and night became meaningless abstractions. After a full month of this onslaught, average water levels had risen by more than two metres. One of the few signs of hope during this watery apocalypse was the re-emergence of the mysterious man known as the Nomad of the Stars. He now sported a skintight black uniform upon which a panoramic starscape was in constant motion. It covered his entire body, except for his head.” The Nomad’s flying form was shown. “A white cape fastened to his uniform by red metallic stars completed his new attire.”
I was shown scenes of the Nomad rescuing people from flooded buildings, bringing food to starving families, igniting fires to keep huddled survivors warm.
“Without explanation, the rains finally stopped in early September. The clouds parted. And water levels dropped precipitously, returning to their normal state. Around the world, people braced themselves for the next disaster, but as 1961 rolled into 1962 and then a normal cycle of winter, spring, summer, and autumn followed, people everywhere warily came to believe that the Great Disasters had come to an end. During this period, the Nomad of the Stars continued to provide relief and rescue to those in danger. Even more, the Nomad healed the sick and the infirm everywhere he went.” There was a scene of the Nomad among a refugee camp. He raised his palms toward the sick and an unearthly light enveloped them, after which they were restored, healed.
“By early 1963, the entire world was embarked on a collective reconstruction project. It was around that time that the Nomad once again vanished from the public eye. There was no event to mark his departure. But after a while it was noticed that he was no longer active. In part fuelled by his disappearance, the Nomad became a pop culture icon and an international sensation. He was the subject of comic books, movies, and television shows. Replicas of his uniform were top-selling novelty items. Department stores could not keep up with the demand for toys and dolls bearing his likeness.” Although the language was English, there were many words and notions I could not understand, and even the images, cascading far too quickly for me to analyse, were too alien to fully grasp. It was less than a century into the future, and I could no longer recognize or understand the world.
“By the early 1970s, the Great Disasters were almost forgotten, as if they had been nothing more than a collective nightmare, and interest in the Nomad of the Stars died completely. He was not seen again for more than a century. When he finally returned, as ageless as ever, some hailed him as a returning hero, but others saw him as a villain.” 2084. “In the 2080s, the world was visited by another strange costumed character with superhuman abilities. His name was the Ultimate.” There was an image of another flying man; he, too, wore a skintight uniform. Its colours were various shades of gold, from near-white to deep yellow; on the chest was a bizarre crest with a somewhat mystical aspect. His face was strangely anonymous, more like the idea of a human face rather than the real thing. “And his stated mission was to bring utopia to the Earth. Not everyone shared his vision of what utopia meant. Many colourful adversaries opposed him.” The moving images showed strangely costumed characters with equally bizarre names, among them: Captain Thunderflash, Gameboy and the Legion of Boytoys, the Laser Leech, the Radioactive Heart, Submarineman, the Supremacist of Love, the Anti-Ultimate League. “But the only one who nearly defeated the Ultimate was the Nomad of the Stars. For more than a year, they were trapped in a stalemate, neither being able to gain the upper hand, as one or the other thwarted the other’s plans, as every battle ended in a draw, as every strategy failed to resolve their conflict. Unlike the Ultimate’s other enemies, the Nomad of the Stars did not merely combat him, but he also faced him in the arena of public opinion, campaigning against the Ultimate’s utopian agenda, claiming that the Ultimate’s plan was not a solution to humanity’s problems and warning the global populace to be wary of anyone claiming to be a prophet of utopia. Both the Ultimate and the Nomad of the Stars were charismatic figures, and the odds were even as to which of these two would eventually prevail and fully capture the collective imagination of the public. But the Nomad’s past as der Nomade der Sterne — as a super-soldier for the Third Reich — was used against him, shattering his credibility. And so the Ultimate defeated the Nomad of the Stars, who once again vanished, this time for nearly a thousand years.”
By then I had entirely given up being able to fully understand what was being related. Too many words, too many concepts were completely unknown to me, and the narrator assumed a familiarity with cultural and historical information that was entirely foreign and incomprehensible.
3057. In the background, a map of the world. Although I recognized the shape of the continents, the political boundaries were unfamiliar, which was not surprising given the amount of time that had now elapsed since my own era. The narration continued, still in English.
“When the Nomad of the Stars resurfaced, humanity was once again on the brink of global conflict. The world was divided into four spheres of influence. The Americas, along with most of the small islands in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, were ruled by the High Aztec Empire. Africa was under the aegis of the Dynasty of the Pharaoh of the New Sun. Western, Northern, and Central Europe, as well as the islands of the Mediterranean, were now called the Community of Venera. Most of Asia, along with Russia, the Arabian Peninsula, the Antipodes, and the archipelagos of the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Coast, and
parts of Eastern Europe fell under the dominion of the Caliphate of the Trimurti Buddha, the largest and most populous of the four superpowers. Although the Dynasty, the Aztecs, and Venera were not formal allies, they had no designs on each other’s territories. The Caliphate, however, was an empire predicated on religious conversion to Zen Islam, and there were tensions along many of its borders. The Aztecs had ceded the circumpolar territories from Alaska to Greenland to the Caliphate at the end of the Northern Wars of the 2880s, and there had been global peace ever since. But there was a feeling that under the new caliph, Vladimir XI, the Eastern superpower would now once again seek to expand its borders and political and religious influence. The Caliphate fortified its military presence in the Circumpolar Territories of North America, under the wary gaze of the High Aztec emperor, Ernesto Águila. The stretch of Egyptian land that once linked Africa to the Arabian Peninsula had been destroyed in the Jihad Wars of the 23rd century, but the Caliphate eyed Egypt and Sudan greedily across the expanded Red Sea. However, the borders the Caliphate shared with the Community of Venera were in more heavily populated areas and were more contentiously defined. The Veneran province of Turkey was surrounded to the East by the Buddhist provinces of Greater Persia and Russia. The province of Scandinavia jutted against the Russian north. The Veneran provinces of Deutschlandia, Hungary, and Romania shared uneasy borders with the Buddhist provinces of Poland, United Czechoslovakia, and Greater Ukraine. The Avatar of Venera wanted to avoid war and feared she would be the caliph’s first target should armed conflict erupt.”
Venera Dreams Page 15
