Luggalor's Lenses

by W. S. Fuller

  Eventually he came to the conclusion that he must become involved in something else meaningful, another honorable cause, if he was to lose his despondency, and so he set out to become an environmental journalist. He traveled, researched and wrote in relative obscurity for years, rarely getting his angry articles published in well-known or widely read publications. That changed with recognition for an article he wrote chronicling the clubbing deaths of harp seal pups in the Arctic, and a huge commercial hunt using the same method on gray seal pups in Africa - a practice widely thought to have ended years before. Writing with less venom than in his previous narratives, he emphasized reasons and solutions. The recognition also led to a position as a regular contributor to the magazine ‘The Environmentalist’. Over the recent years, as environmental abuses and problems received more and more attention, he became increasingly dedicated to what he was doing. China was once again making real progress on a number of fronts…but still had serious problems related to political and human rights and corruption. He would go back someday and help with the necessary changes to the system that he knew had only been delayed, but for now he knew nothing was as important to as many people as the environment and protecting it.

  This assignment would fill the month he had free before his next assignment He had signed on as a deckhand aboard an unmarked vessel out of Taiwan suspected of salmon poaching and indiscriminate drift net fishing for squid in protected waters south of the Aleutians. Drift net methods had received a lot of criticism in the early part of the eighties, and some countries had outlawed them or boycotted the products they produced. But, as with anything that involves large profits, it was hard to control completely and for long. Rumors were numerous that the abuses had become serious again.

  The alarm on his wristwatch began its high-pitched beep, and he rolled off his berth. Pulling on the heavy, yellow oilskins, Li walked toward the galley for a cup of tea before going on deck.

  After inhaling one cup and most of another, he grabbed the rails, pulled himself up the metal, grated stairway, and entered the cold, wet world on deck. The morning’s first, faint light was enough to show that the gray, rainy skies of the past two days were still above them. The rain was light at the moment, practically a mist, but the wind was blowing much harder than it had on his previous watch. A damned unpleasant environment, and the thought of working in these conditions for the next six hours was not helping his tired, irritable mood. He heard an unusual number of voices through the wind as he walked forward, and as he reached the deck he realized why. Squid ink was everywhere, and a mass of quivering fish filled the deck. There were hundreds of squid but also salmon, tuna, and a large shape in the corner that he knew instinctively was a Right Whale. Li glanced quickly around to be sure no one had seen him, and they had not...they were far too busy. Moving quickly aft and back down the stairway, he headed for his bunk. Again he looked to see if anyone was watching. From a bag under the thin mattress he removed the tiny video camera, then fed the four-foot long flexible shutter trigger that he had fashioned through the arm of his jacket. Slipping the camera into a bracket sewn into the inside of the large pocket on the side of his coat, he attached it to the trigger, then reached up his left sleeve with his right hand and pulled the cable until the end was at his cuff. Straightening his arm, he assumed a relaxed, nonchalant stance and depressed the knob on the end of the trigger cable with only a very slight movement of the three fingers of his left hand. He glanced at the camera in his pocket...and saw the green light was on. A smile crossed Li’s face as he closed the pocket of his jacket, turned, and again headed for the deck.

  Any pleasure or excitement he felt about his ingenuity and the promise of what the camera would document was quickly erased by the sight that slammed into his eyes as he stepped back into the howling maelstrom. The lights were still on, and through the gloom they cast a garish, milky yellow illumination on a sickening scene. Two dolphins were caught in the net and one of the crew was cutting off the beak of one to remove it. Li pushed open the slit in his pocket and activated the trigger. Stiffening, he watched the sleek, light gray body writhe, the spurt of bright scarlet, and heard its scream rise in pitch until it was almost imperceptible. The beak fell away and the dolphin, blood covering its head, was tossed to the deck. Scanning the writhing mass, Li was horrified. There were eight or ten other dolphins on the deck and two babies. The Right Whale was young, and there was an even smaller calf next to it. There were three seals, two sea turtles, and a number of forked-tail sea petrels. And literally hundreds of sockeye and Coho salmon. He panned the deck, forcing himself to take more time than he wanted to. When he was convinced he had recorded the whole wretched scene, he closed the slit, released the trigger, jumped down onto the deck and ran for the baby dolphins. Throwing the first one overboard, he knew that its chances of survival without its mother were nonexistent, so he grabbed the arm of a crewman and motioned for him to help lift the mother dolphin over the side.

  The man turned and yelled to be heard over the wrenching screech of the huge power blocks as they pulled the net in. “There is no time now. There is too much in the nets. We will do it later.”

  Desperately looking around for other help, Li realized it was futile. The mammals would die soon...they had been out of the water for some time. He knew he must work or he would cause suspicion. Moving to his station, he began to pull fish from the thin, monofilament mesh of the gigantic, 30 mile long net as it was winched aboard. The full meaning of the term ‘walls of death’ was clear to him now. Any creature that swims into these invisible nets or is ensnared by them is doomed. It is so indiscriminate, so wasteful. All that is sold are the squid and the illegal salmon...everything else is an innocent casualty of this ghastly, prolific harvester of sea life. But the owners of this catch are going to pay a heavy price. Li tried to numb his mind for the hours of brutal, illegal work ahead.

  This photographer has a sense of the harmony among all life in the universe necessary to sustain life…life that evolves to fit into the grand scheme.

  I had received an urgent message from the Council that I must return by the end of this day on Planet 1003. There was an issue that could not be ignored on Planet 3683, and after a short stop I would be on my way there. I had not found the Wise One, and the only consolation was that I would likely need to return in order to complete that crucially important aspect of my missions to Planet 1003. I stayed in my human form so that I could feel the intense sorrow that came over me as I thought about leaving. Sorrow wasn’t a pleasant human emotion, but I reveled in the intense feelings that coursed through me with any of their emotions. Even those that were unpleasant. Along with the Bach Fugues, I would miss the emotions as much as any of the fascinating mysteries of the humans’ behavior, and the magnificent beauty of their planet. I, Luggalor.

  2012

  IRAN

  Saleh was terrified, but knew he must show no fear as he sat in the front room of the small, concrete house. Safia, his eighteen year old sister, cried hysterically and pleaded with their father.

  “Come with me now.” Dahab, his father, spoke to her in a stern voice.

  “Please, not that, not that. I beg you. Strangle me, I beg you.”

  “Have you no shame at all. You knew it would be done. Come, it is time.”

  His father, mother and older sister led the sobbing Safia to a back room. Saleh wanted to run outside but knew he would be seen. Pressing his hands over his ears, he squeezed tightly. He closed his eyes. His palms glistened with sweat, and he could feel his heart beating wildly inside his chest. Then he realized he could not be seen like this, cowering like a dog, so he opened his eyes and put his hands down…and waited...paralyzed with fear, not moving, not thinking...just waiting. Finally he heard the door open and watched his father walk out of the room and towards him....blood pouring from the severed head of Safia as he carried it in his hands. And then he saw her eyes...ghastly, wide open.

  Dahab went outside and Saleh could hear him
bellow out to the villagers, “I have killed her. I have washed the stain from my family.”

  The villagers came into their house for the next few hours and went to the back room to view Safia’s body. The women filed in slowly, with heads bowed. The men shook Dahab’s hand and congratulated him, speaking in soft voices. His father wore a look of great relief.

  Saleh was awake each moment of the night. His mind raced, his thoughts jumped, but continued to return to the terrifying image of the severed head of his sister, and with the image an electric current of a shudder ran through him again and again. He tried not to think about never seeing his sister alive again, but he understood why.

  The teachings started in early childhood. His family was part of a Bedouin tribe that lived by a strict code of honor and blood revenge for anyone bringing shame on the family or tribe. They were also fundamentalist Sunni Muslims, and believed in obeying the word of the Imams, and the laws of Sharia, to the letter, and at all times. The more militant Imams encouraged swift revenge for any loss of honor on the family, tribe, or nation…and the bloodier the revenge the more cleansed were the disgraced. Thus he had known what would happen from the minute Safia and their mother returned from the doctor with the news that she was with child. There was no greater stain that can be brought on a family than to have an unwed daughter with child. His father did the only thing he could to restore their honor and the honor of the tribe.

  The next day Saleh went with his family to bury Safia. Her corpse was not washed or shrouded as is normally required by Islamic law, and no one said prayers over her body during the burial. Everything she owned and all the pictures of her had been burned. There was nothing left to remind the village, or her family, of Safia.

  As the body was dumped into the unmarked grave, Saleh felt tears fill his eyes. But he knew he must be strong and act like a man. In one week he would be sixteen and go to Damascus to join Hezbollah. After training he would go to fight the Zionists in the Jihad and avenge the shame and suffering they have brought to the Arab people and all Muslims. His father was proud of him and would be very upset if he saw him crying. Saleh thought how different their deaths would be...his and his sister’s...if he was fortunate enough to die a martyr for such a noble and holy cause.

  How incredibly distorted the reasoning ability of humans can become through evil influences. Their perspectives can be so fragile, so easily corrupted, particularly when they are young…or if they are less than well educated. I, Luggalor.

  2012

  TEL AVIV, ISRAEL

  General Mark Engen anticipated the worst as he waited with the two other generals, the chief of staff, and the defense minister. They were awaiting the arrival of the chief of the Mossad. The head of the elite intelligence agency didn’t usually give briefings directly to field officers. The information was normally given to those up the line and then disbursed, but this was an exception, and he knew that the exception was as good a testament as any to the gravity of the situation. He had been told that a Katsa, or case officer, had just sent the latest dispatch on planned troop strengths and movements, and the deployment of artillery and missiles. Time was too critical for it to filter through the usual chain, and he presumed they wanted some immediate feedback from those in the room.

  Engen tried to recall when he first knew it would come to this. The fundamentalist uprisings and political changes among the Arab nations that intensified after the millennium and the attacks of 9/11 shifted the attention away from Israel’s security. Afghanistan eventually fell again to the fundamentalist Taliban because the U.S. didn’t finish them off when they could have in the initial post 9/11 campaign, and this emboldened fundamentalists in other countries in the region. The Saudi’s began to look weak. The world was so anxious to stabilize the area and the oil fields that the legitimate concerns of Israel were subverted for the expediency of finding a quick fix to the situation. The lines of a Palestinian state were drawn, and we could no longer closely control the territory adjacent to Israel. Compared with the radical Islamic threat, Palestinian rule probably looked good to the West. America’s failed war replaced the menace of a secular Saddam with an eventual Islamic leadership in Iraq that Iran and Syria could dominate. Pakistan’s victorious fundamentalist regime, laced with the Taliban and Qaida sympathizers, supplied the missing link for the nuclear component, and the final piece of the puzzle fell into place with the coup in Saudi Arabia and enemy confiscation of the huge cachet of high-tech weaponry Washington had recently shipped. The suddenness of the situation caught everyone off guard, except the Mossad. The Americans, with a hotly debated, mostly reactionary policy, and pressure from the Arab world to pull back, would not listen. From that point on it was just a matter of time until Israel’s worst nightmare came true a united Arab front moving against us with enormous troop strength, a direct route in, substantial and sophisticated air, artillery and missile capability, chemical and biological weapons, and verified nuclear warheads.

  He considered the grim choices. A preemptive strike will be much more difficult than it had been in 67’, or on the reactor at Osirak. Losses are guaranteed to be much heavier, if, indeed, it is at all successful. If the birds do get through and threaten to take out a lot of their capability it will tempt them to immediately trigger the chemicals, bios or even the nukes rather than lose them on the ground. We can wait and hope the Americans get off their asses, their President has the balls to act, and they get some more people over here in time to do some good. More F22’s, 16’s, and Stealths would also help, particularly if a lot are lost at the beginning, but what we really need are tanks and troops to keep the bastards from overrunning the place if we can’t stop them early. And then there is the other move, a nuclear first strike. He still shuddered when he could bring himself to actually contemplate it.

  Simon Meloman, chief of the Mossad, entered the room and Minister of Defense Isaiah Perlman and Lieutenant General Yosi Perin rose to greet him. Everyone was acknowledged, Meloman opened his attaché case, removed some papers, and began to speak.

  “Gentlemen, the news is not promising. There are plans to move two more divisions from Iran just to the west of Manhattat Unayzah, another from Syria and one from Iraq to just north of Tyre. That will put 200,000 men and 1200 tanks and all the usual support to our southwest, 250,000 and 1,500 to the west, and 100,000 and eight hundred to our north. There will be additional 122 mm’s and 152’s moved in and the usual compliment of SA 13’s 14’s, SCUDS and SS 21’s and 23’s. There is no indication that this is the end, either. There should be more SCUD batteries moving into southwestern Syria but the information on where and when is sketchy. And there is still a lot of troop movement within Iran and Iraq, but nothing detailed on any more deployments.”

  General Perin, Chief of Staff, spoke first. “That’s going to stretch us unless we can kill a lot of their equipment up front. If we mobilize everybody we can just stay with them now. We have superiority in the tanks, but the numbers are getting closer and we know they’ve got another 3,000 or more they can bring in. Mark, what do you think?”

  “I agree we still have a good chance to stop them if the planes and artillery can get a good jump, but if they bring up much more armor and troops we could have real problems. In any case it’s going to be messy.”

  “Benjamin, how about you?” Perin turned to the head of the air force.

  “We can still mortally wound them with a first strike, but we need to move now, before they have any more SAMS and guns in place. And I would concur with Mark. It’s going to be a mess.”

  “Martin?”

  “I don’t see how we can just sit and wait for them to keep deploying and overpower us,” Martin Sharar, chief of naval operations, answered without any hesitation.

  “Well, gentlemen, the reason we are waiting, of course, is the U.S. They still think they can pressure the U.N. to do something other than continue to issue warnings. We keep telling them there isn’t any reason to think the U.N. is going to act before
the fact and until it’s too late. They keep telling us to wait one more day. For all the U.N.’s recent history of movement in the right direction, there are new problems caused by their more active involvement that could be catastrophic in our case. The U.S. hesitates to act unilaterally any more without giving them a good long chance to do something. And since Russia’s determined to join the U.S. in defusing every major crisis, they also have to wait the hell to let them play their part and get in on the glory. The way things are now may be better for their image and politics back home, but a couple of years ago they could have acted and given us what we needed without having to wait and risk seeing this whole region go up. Simon, do you have any more on where the nukes are, and the chemicals and bios?”

  “Same information as yesterday. There are chemicals and bios scattered throughout, but more around Tyre. The nukes we just don’t know. We hope to have something soon. God, would that help.”

  “Thank you, Simon.” Perin and Perlman stood and shook Meloman’s hand, and the Mossad chief walked quickly from the room.

  Benjamin Gaifen spoke up. “Yosi, if we can locate theirs, it seems like we’ve got to go ahead and send ours. I mean, it looks like we might be left to go this thing alone. If that’s the case, the hell with everyone else. We have to do what we know will give us the best chance to survive, as we’ve always done. We know they have nukes and we know of three or four scenarios where they will probably use them. In fact, it seems there isn’t much of a chance they won’t. If they start losing they are going to use them. If they start winning, they will think we are going to send ours so they will send theirs. And if they have too much time to think that we might launch a first strike, they might send them to keep from losing them along with everything else. We know there won’t be any reluctance on their part from a moral standpoint...they believe anything is justifiable for the purpose of destroying us, they know this is their best shot and that they better not blow it. We need to end this as quickly as we can, and a first strike is the way to do it.”