by Horia Hulea
Chapter 17
"Pssst!"
The wounded kitty shows no response.
"Pssst! You lazy, stupid cat!"
It isn't enough that she has to save this incompetent individual of a soon-to-be-extinct race, but she has to drag him by his tail all the way down to the backyard.
Nonetheless, she does enjoy seeing his head thumping on each and every step of the stairs.
The kitty's left ear jumps up and turns toward the source of noise.
"Not there, stupid! I'm in your head! Telepath, remember?”
The kitty wakes up lazily and stretches every joint in his body.
Sometimes life is so good, and then rats come and spoil it for you.
"I found out why the humanoids went extinct," says the rat, shoving in the cat's face the screen with the floating graphics. The cat stares and stares at the strange things written in the rat language and realizes he doesn't have to understand them anyway since the pictures are so nice.
But he has to look smart.
"So, we was right!"
"I was right! I, not we!"
"We would has missed it and landed after extinshun."
"You would have missed it, not me!"
But the cat can't be bothered with ownership rights for ideas. He is looking at the colored pictures: forests were gone, oceans were filled with floating islands of garbage the size of continents, cute-looking species were going extinct, and humans were having a wonderful time watching reality shows.
"Do the monkeys have no brains?"
"Oh, look who's talking! You went extinct, and we didn't even know if you were sentient at all. We thought you disappeared because there were too many dogs around!"
The kitty squints at the rat.
But the rat doesn't give a rat's ass.
One hour later, all the images and data start settling one layer after another like snow compressing into ice, until they reach the full size of a pebble—the last shiny pebble with the final conclusions of the monkeys' civilization. The last message crystallized for the future species to come.
And as the kitty looks sighing at the pebble, a raven up in the tree watches, also sighing but in amusement.
"Well, well, well, if it isn't the amazing cat and its pebbles…."
Both the cat and the rat look up at the curious raven.
Yes, it seems that, apart from a cat and a telepath rat, the story also has a talking raven.
"So it was you, not the humans who made the pebbles…."
The cat looks puzzled at the rat while the rat, being smart as she is, realizes that the raven must be another traveler from the future. But, if there was no trace of smart ravens discovered in the fossil layer, that means … the raven comes from an even further time in the future. Which leads her to the next step in the inevitable logic: ratkind is dead! Kaput! You know, nothing left for posterity except bones and claws and all that.
"Ok, not claws, but incisive teeth, since we're rodents" she couldn't help correcting herself.
The rat throws a shocked look at the raven, while the bird shrugs a "What can you do?" (as much as a raven can shrug).
Since we can't let the raven pop out of nowhere just like that, let's give him the chance to introduce himself—and what better way to do that than with a monologue?
So, back in the backyard, mister raven clears his throat and starts pacing left and right on his branch, telling the long story of the mysterious pebbles:
"Long, long time ago, in ravenkind time, a time that is yet to come, the greatest of our ancestors, the Raven King discovered one day a shiny special pebble. And since ravens love both shinies and pebbles, he named it the Stone of Wisdom and made it the one true stone to be held by his line of kings and revered (don't ask why he named it that, because that's an even longer story). And so it happens that the pebble was passed down religiously from one generation to another until modern raven times, when they realized that the holiest of the holy, the sacredest of the sacred, the Stone of Wisdom was no regular pebble.
"For one, it could withstand millions of years without a scratch.
"For two, no natural process could have made it.
"For three, a great discovery left everyone cawless when a second pebble was brought to the surface. And it looked like the first.
"Ages have passed, and more pebbles followed as ravenkind held its breath, watching the hunt of the blue stones of wisdom across the whole globe. And what do you know, twelve pebbles were found in the end, and no more!
"Each one full of magic and mystery.
"All of them made and put in the ground precisely—precisely—seventy-three-million years ago. And what happened precisely, precisely at that time? The great human extinction!
"Mystery, mystery, mystery!
"But mystery no more since after some time another great discovery was made; the pebbles sang when enchanted magnets danced around them. Not only that, but they were all found in these special places as if someone took great care to put them there for the future generations to be found.
But the strangest thing of all? It was not that they were flowing with oh, so detailed stories of planet climate and snapshots of the biosphere and many more things, but they had recordings of a stupid-looking cat meowing and meowing for hours and hours in what seemed to be a language.
"Who or why would humans record the stupid-looking, one-eared, spotted cat? And most of all, how could the humans record this very peculiar cat, when its species appeared on the evolutionary scale … ten-million years later?
"And since ravens don't believe in coincidences, they thought of the only explanation that made perfect sense: the humans, at the peak of their civilization, had tested the wonders of time leaping … into the future. And who else should be fit enough to test the ship other than lowly, stupid mammals? And what such mammal do we know who just happens to be uselessly lying around?
"You guessed it!
"The cats!
"All ravenkind knows that the cats had no other purpose to begin with.
"However, the humans couldn't use the normal ones they had in their time. Not if they wanted to succeed in time travel. So they specially bred and fed a brave new species of genetically modified smart cats who had the brains to operate a ship. Smart enough to operate it, but stupid enough to take the risk of testing it!
"Pebbles were recorded before the ship was launched into the future, and great celebrations were done to mark the event.
"And the cats were off.
"Off to the unknown!"
"Wow," the rat says, mystified by the story," and I thought the cow theory was idiotic."
The raven continues, undisturbed:
"Imagine the surprise that the crew of super-intelligent cats had when they opened the hatch and the humans were not waiting to give them their promised reward of milk and cookies. Ten-million years into the future, and nobody around to pet them and scratch them. And right there, right then the cats decided to give birth to a new dominant species."
"Yea, yea, all very nice and rosy … but what about ratkind? What happened to ratkind! We weren't supposed to go extinct! We are TECHNOCRATS! We are TELEPATHS! You know what that is? No other species in the history of the planet had the genes for it! You know why? Because we designed it! You understand the height of the level that we have achieved? We designed the genes for TELEPATHY!"
"Oh, you mean you WERE telepaths?" said the raven. "Funny that you mention ratkind. To be honest, when we dug up the fifty-million-year-old fossils of big-headed rats, telepathy wasn't even on the list. We thought it was just a cavity filled up with air so you could make mating noises."
The rat is so furious that she's choking for air. "Mating noises?!? US?!?"
She takes one deep breath and resumes her dignified posture, the posture of the only telepath species to bless the history of the planet.
"No, no, NO! WE are the paramount of the sentient species! OUR civilization surpassed anything known to
rat! WE don't think we are the most intelligent of all species that ever walked the Earth, WE KNOW WE ARE!!"
But the kitty is laughing out loud, rolling belly up. "Cavity for mating noises. Hahaha!"
The rat is all tensed and ready to burst. There has to be some explanation. Ratkind couldn't just go extinct like that. Ratkind couldn't just disappear from history like the two stupid species before them. It was impossible! Not ratkind!
"Unbelievable! So, you would rather assume that rats had a skull filled with air rather than a skull filled with brain?"
"Well, not as unbelievable as thinking the cats had big heads to keep all the extra fat for hibernation. So, no reason to be surprised there, miss rat," continues the raven, resuming his story.
"Ravenkind thought the humans were the only sentient species that truly had the most advanced technology compared with the cat and the rat—"
"Let me guess! Because of the tooth fillings, right?" the angry rat snaps again.
"Actually, no!"
"No?"
"Ravenkind, being a flight species—as you surely have noticed—we weren't by nature afraid of heights. And this culminated one day with the great, great achievement of reaching the moon. And there we found the strangest things a raven could imagine: a flying device from seventy-three-million years ago, untouched and unmoved by anything before. It simply stood there with the moon as a museum, waiting patiently for its ravenkind visit. The great raven achievement was doubled by the great raven discovery of the human machine, a machine that told us the exact, precise time when it was made, and when it had landed, and how the lost humankind had achieved it."
"The stupid monkeys went to the moon?!" cry both the rat and the cat in outrage.
"They did, my little friends. And this is how we knew when to go in the past. And while other ravens more lucky then I were sent back to see how the true wonders of technology were achieved, I was sent to sit here and wait in this boring spot where the last of the twelve pebbles was buried. So, I waited and waited and waited some more … and behold! A cat and a rat eventually showed up. This is truly marvelous."
"But this doesn't make sense. If this is the last pebble you ravens discover, that means no other pebble was made…," the rat observes, "which is curious, since knowing what we know now, the moron next to me should have definitely made another pebble with warnings to his catkind. And if he failed to do that, which is no surprise, then most definitely I should have traveled back and warned my species that they will go extinct."
"Well, well, well, just look at you intelligent species making all intelligent deductions. Then let me continue it for you … there is only one conclusion: you both die before you get to send anything."
The cat and the rat look at each other as they both understand that the raven is right. And as if on a signal, they both try to dash, but the strangest thing keeps them pinned down.
"Oh, don't bother! Don't you see? Even if you do return home, nothing will change," the raven explains. "The history has already been written. No more and no less than twelve pebbles are found … and nothing close to a smart rat is living in ravenkind times."
The raven jumps down from his branch and stretches its wings in a wondering fashion.
"Who knows how many sentient species will come and go on the face of the Earth? Who knows what would have happened if this and that extinction would not have happened? Human extinction, dinosaur extinction, catkind extinction … all part of the nature of life, am I right? Did you ever wonder what would have happened if there were no extinctions? What would have happened if we all just went back to the primordial times when all those trilobites were lurking happily holding claws and stopped all extinctions that are to come?
"Remember the trilobites? The funny-looking, mud-munching guys that were so successful that roamed all the oceans and ruled the early planet? Have you ever wondered what happened to them and where all those nice fellows have gone? They were so many and had such a good run. But after that? Poof! Extinction! And then they were nicely replaced by this and that species.
"What if, let's presume for a moment, there was no more Poof! Extinction! and the trilobites would have made it.
"They would have eventually populated the dry land, and all the nice lines of amphibians and reptiles and dinosaurs would have never happened. The trilobites, or better said the species derived from them, would have easily ruled the Earth simply because there was no event to wipe them. Just because they weren't prepared for one nasty Poof! that didn't mean they were bad at everything else. They actually had better protection than amphibians, better eye structure, better digestive system … but Poof! Extinction … and all those advantages counted for nothing.
"And if that extinction had never happened, then nature wouldn't have lost all those millions of years of setback. No need for mommy nature to start all over again with some bottom-of-the-food-chain organism and push them to a brighter future. It would be just the trilobites evolving without obstacles. And by the time the dinosaur asteroid would have come, maybe they would have had their chance at sentience.
"But we know that never happened, right? We know they went Poof! And after them the dinosaurs came along spreading to all the corners of the Earth until Poof again! The asteroid hit, and then the empty land was taken over by the mammals and birds, and the history continued with more and more Poof!
"Did you ever wonder how would the Earth would have looked like if that asteroid had missed the Earth by just sixty minutes? Just sixty minutes later, and this planet would have been millions of miles further away from crossing the crash orbit, spinning merrily along.
"Then nothing would have stopped the dinosaurs.
"And they had plenty of candidates! They had so many smart raptors and so many intelligent and social herbivores. Give them thirty-million years more and an extra pound of brain might have proved more useful than any sharper claw or other thicker hide. Then the world would have been different indeed. Instead of human artificial caves called houses and buildings, we would have had artificial sand burrows and nests. And instead of technology made and used by hands with opposable thumbs, we would have had stuff made for fine claws.
"But it didn't.
"They all died with nobody crying at their grave. Nobody shed a tear for the trilobites or the dinosaurs or the big-headed monkeys.
"Just like the cats. And also the rats.
"Species come and go, my dearest, and every time another undeniable triumph of evolution comes along, it will find soon its proper place in the Hall of Extinction.
"Every time another peak of sentience arises, it starts singing the same song: 'We are the paramount of species, and this time will be different! The laws of nature will not apply to us. We are too smart and too advanced to disappear without a trace. Nothing will rise to prove too challenging for us, for we are truly the most amazing ones.''
The raven seems to like monologuing too much. Which, if you sit and ask yourself, is more than obvious since he waited so much time on that branch, all alone, day and night, summer and winter, sun and rain … preparing his speech and running it over and over again in his head, until finally someone came and put that damn pebble in the ground (so much for the excitement and adventure promised when he joined the Temporal Division).
But right now, he is looking happily at the two frozen buddies, because he is serving them the dessert of any monologue: the ultimate fatal conclusion!
"You probably realized by now that you didn't send the message because I didn't let you. You see, I can't let you stop what has already happened.
"If the humans warn their future selves, they will prevent their extinction, and there won't be any smart cats.
"If the cats prevent their extinction, there won't be any smart rats.
"If the rats prevent their extinction, there won't be any smart ravens.
"Ravenkind has to make sure that nothing comes in the way of its existence, and thus each of your kind has to go. Just like we ha
d to make sure the trilobites were gone and the asteroid wasn't delayed sixty minutes…."
As the raven concludes with a voice full of drama, the frozen little kitty is thinking that Professor Purrocious was right all along. Aliens did cause the extinction … by simply allowing it to run its course.
But those aliens were not from another planet.
They are just from another time.
Epilogue
"The truth has revealed itself, and the Holy Spirit Cat showed me the way! The one and only thing left is … to start my own religion!" cries Arthur the Redeemed, with the sudden revelation striking at his head.
After all, he has been in the presence of the Holy Spirit Cat!
Quickly, quickly! He needs to grow a serious and important face! You can't start a religion without having a serious face and a low, deep voice.
He heard that if you chew a lot of rubber then your jaw will grow square and everyone will look at you with envy and will say, "This man knows what he wants! He has a square jaw!"
Imagine! Just imagine! All the people will come flocking from distant lands to follow his prophecies, and young acolyte girls will beg him to share his secrets in alchemy.
"I can be a prophet!" Another sudden realization makes its way through the same head.
Quickly, quickly! He needs to grow a beard! Because all the prophets have a beard. A beard makes the words feel heavy, and it loads ideas with importance.
And it makes you a real man!
And he needs a staff! And a robe! Because all the prophets have a robe.
With the same furious dedication, he starts digging again through the piles and piles of stuff to finally pull something that he saved for a long, long time: a robe with purple bunnies! He wanted a robe with shiny stars for more grandeur and importance, but apparently that was too expensive and Mom didn't agree with paying so much money without him doing the dishes … and doing the dishes is very hard work; everyone knows that! I mean, Arthur the Robe Seeker is willing to make sacrifices, but any real man has a hardcore limit! So instead, he'd compromised for a robe with cute purple bunnies.
And so it happens, that one hour later, on the platform of metro line 8 in front of all the busy people, a fat, grown man in worn-out pajamas that definitely looked unwashed for months (not that the owner was cleaner himself) is pacing up and down wrapped in a robe, with a clumsy painted beard and chewing what seems to be a piece of bicycle tire.
"Obey, you slaves! For I am the prophet of the Holy Spirit Cat!"
Other books by the same author
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