Live or Die Trilogy Page 10

  “Alpha Orionis?” Sirio asked.

  “It's the technical name for Betelgeuse,” the Australian explained.

  “So it isn't entirely inexact to say that we came from the aforementioned star.”

  “Explain further,” Tylor urged him.

  “During our journey, the ship bumped into a celestial object that was hidden in deep space. We drifted for a long time, landing on a planetoid that was only a few light years from Betelgeuse. Being one of the largest stars in the galaxy, we saw it shining in the sky, majestic and dazzling. The repairs lasted five Terrestrial years. Fortunately for us, the planetoid was full of precious metals, which were indispensable in recreating some of the damaged parts. Having repaired the ship, we decided to rename it, giving it the moniker of the star that illuminated us for years: Betelgeuse. This all happened in the period before the issues with the artificial planet. Our real star of origin is a thousand light years away and is called Djus. It is now a red giant, which, as I've already said, made it inhospitable to our world.”

  “So at that time you were not in a state of suspended animation?” Mike asked.

  “No,” the Taahrian replied tersely.

  “What made you change your mind?” the American asked, as he struggled to comprehend the story. “Because I just can't understand how anyone could decide to leave their fate at the mercy of events. How is it that none of you remained awake to ensure that everything proceeded correctly?”

  “We were not at the mercy of events,” said Eldgh.“We relied on an AI, as its data processing and decision-making processes are superior to ours, much as ours are to yours.”

  “Yes, I see that!” Sirio exclaimed.

  “I'm not sure that you understand what I'm trying say,” the alien replied.

  “My companion has doubts about the intelligence of your AI, given the tragic series of events that it caused,” Namiko paraphrased.

  “That was a horrible accident which could also have happened to organic beings, like you and me,” the Taahrian replied. “With the difference being that a biological virus can produce irreparable and definitive effects.”

  “Who says that didn't happen on Earth?” Igor responded. “For all we know, all of human kind may be extinct because of your damned machines.”

  “Billions of humans have survived.”

  “And billions died!” Franz yelled.

  “What happened hurts me incredibly. But what I want you to take away from this is our predisposition for peace.”

  “But it was your systems that killed,” Namiko noted.

  “It shouldn’t have reacted like that, but it all came from a legitimate defense plan. It was you humans who tried to annihilate us with an atomic weapon.”

  “It's useless to try to place blame for the sequence of events,” Tylor stated. “What we need to do now is understand the situation in which the survivors of this tragedy find themselves; after which, I would appreciate it if you would help us to recover from this disaster.”

  “You can be sure that we will!” Eldgh said.

  “How can you have learned so much in only four days?” Franz asked, in keeping with his suspicious nature.

  “Our minds have a cybernetic support system which enables us to understand, view and store data much more rapidly than standard organic systems that Terrestrials use.”

  Braggarts! the German thought but refrained from saying.

  “Now please follow me to what will be your accomodations. From here, if you wish, you can watch events on Earth.”

  That seemed like a wonderful, albeit unsettling, idea to all. Without requiring them to nod, the force field at the entrance disappeared, allowing a dozen Taahrians to enter, dressed more like soldiers than a hospitality crew.

  24

  They were accommodated ten floors up, each in his or her own room, which had been specifically set to their exact air composition; no masks were needed.

  “This ship is enormous!” slipped from Tylor who, as a scientist, couldn't contain his enthusiasm.

  “It's about twelve of your kilometers long, three wide and more than a thousand kilometers high. It has areas that are used for agricultural, scenic, scientific, industrial and residential purposes,” Eldgh explained.

  “And military!” Sirio couldn't stop from adding.

  The Taahrian didn't respond to his provocation.

  I don't understand how Tylor can feel any type of excitement, Franz thought. He must be crazy.

  “The C6 units will explain how to operate the food replicator, bathrooms and anything else that might come in handy. I will return shortly to show you the situation on Earth,” the alien announced, lowering his gaze at those last words.

  “I won't stay alone, with those things!” Igor said, raising his voice.

  “All right. I'll leave security agents with you.”

  “Those look like some nice toys,” the Russian said, indicating the strange objects that the Taahrians held menacingly.

  “Aren't we supposed to be your guests?” Namiko asked, highlighting the inconsistency of those drawn weapons with their status.

  “We do it for everyone's safety. Your companion seems very nervous,” Eldgh explained.

  “They were your drones that fried his brain!” Sirio reminded him.

  “We're sorry.”

  “You're always sorry,” the Japanese woman commented sarcastically.

  The alien said nothing more. He turned away and disappeared into the depths of the ship.

  25

  “What you see is the current situation on your planet. The drones are transmitting directly,” Eldgh told them.

  The six companions found themselves in a holographic room, similar to that which had been their cell. Behind them, a whole host of Taahrian agents had been deployed, to allay any potential animosity derived from seeing the images.

  Suddenly, they were projected over New York. They seemed to be inside a noiseless, transparent helicopter. They began to see through the eyes of the the drone, which at that time was flying over the Big Apple, or what was left of it. Mike was shocked. The historic attack of September 11, 2001 seemed to pale in comparison. Much of the island of Manhattan was reduced to rubble. Clouds of smoke rose up from the city, which then disseminated themselves among the desolation and the few buildings still standing. When he was a Navy SEAL, Mike had participated in unconventional conflicts, counter-terrorism actions, and inspected war zones, but he had never before witnessed a catastrophe like this.

  Then the scene changed and they saw destroyed military bases, in places that no one recognized. There wasn't time to ask questions. The images changed again, showing an unmistakable sight: Rome. The city seemed to have suffered serious damage overall. Then the drone focused on the Colosseum and the Imperial Forums that, from above, appeared intact. It was as if even those machines without a soul had understood the inviolable, eternal nature of the ancient monuments. Then the drone went lower, showing them the collapsed roads. In the images they saw, the figure of a child walking alone, emaciated and frightened, stood out. Sirio remembered the orphanage. In all likelihood, that child had lost his parents, like he had. However, there was one big difference: with all the devastation, there would be no structure ready to welcome him. Unlike him, that child would die of hunger before pain.

  Not even Berlin had been spared.

  Franz knew the city well. It wasn't his hometown, but he had spent hundreds of evenings, enjoying the many nightclubs that made up the pulse of the city. Having risen like a Phoenix from the last World War, it was, once again, in ruins.

  Namiko didn't see her Japan, but she didn't need to in order to have a very clear picture of the situation. The Fukushima disaster, earthquakes, tsunamis, and the stories told by her grandfather about an entire sky as bright as the sun over Nagasaki, had been more than enough to pierce her heart and wound her soul over the years.

  Igor, on the other hand, quickly noted that the Kremlin had been replaced by a crater.

&nb
sp; Then, at a point, Namiko shouted: “Enough! I beg you! We get it!” The horror was too much for her soul to bear any longer. Her companions were shocked. She was cursing in Japanese through clenched teeth, with her hands in her hair.

  “There are many places that were spared. Luckily, the drones stopped in time,” Eldgh said.

  They recognized cities and entire regions that appeared to be intact. Oceania, with the exception of poor unlucky Canberra, had been completely spared.

  For Tylor, it was like being stabbed in the heart.

  His home and his beloved family had been reduced to ashes. An uncontrollable rage exploded inside him. He was about to throw himself at Eldgh, but Igor got there before him.

  26

  “The drones stopped in time?” Igor shouted, hurling himself on top of Eldgh. The agents were all over him before he was able to do anything. “They exterminated billions of people!” he screamed, hysterical and red-faced. “You left millions of children orphaned and reduced our civilization to dust! And you, you bastard of an alien, maintain that they stopped in time?”

  The Russian was beside himself.

  “Take him back to his room. He's disturbed,” Eldgh ordered. In an instant, Igor was snatched up and dragged outside.

  The Taahrian sensed the profound disturbance of the Terrestrials before him. How could he blame them. He wasn't ready to handle such drama. None of his people could ever have imagined waking up and being responsible for genocide. Even the assistance of his evolved neural chip was of little use in the face of such a tragedy. What good were honest intentions when they were responsible for the annihilation of an entire world, albeit indirectly? His studies, assisted by an integrated memory unit, memorialized the long, tedious progress of eliminating war from Taahr. They were only able to accomplish this after millions of years. Then, the tragedy of their dying star had caused them to receive their marching orders, which inevitably dragged them to Betelgeuse, then called Sniajk, which in archaic Taahrian meant Light of Hope.

  “But why, why?” Tylor moaned.

  “What doubt continues to bother you?” the alien asked.

  “How you could just give total control to the C6 units? It's illogical.”

  “Blame the tensions that come with living together on a ship which, although enormous, is nothing like a planet: the fears generated by a life without hope, a future in which generations of us would be born, live and die in space; perhaps to find nothing and become extinct in the depths of the cosmos, leaving no trace after millions of years of civilization. We ran the risk of bringing about our own destruction in a form that I sense you can't understand. You should know that we were all obsessively trained to avoid any type of physical or verbal confrontation. When we were fighting against each other, we became caught up by a fear that comes with the unknown. So we decided to cryogenically freeze ourselves. None of us wanted to see the behavior escalate; it threatened to undermine the most important Taahrian mission of its kind. In addition, the prospect of not having to die in the darkness of space, and to, one day, be able to see a colorful sky overhead, convinced even the skeptics among us.”

  “Incredible. The tragedy that befell a people a thousand light years away ends up becoming ours as well,” Mike commented.

  “Or perhaps, improbably, that mysterious artificial planetoid is responsible,” Namiko said.

  “I don't believe it. That could be a story they invented to avoid accepting any responsibility,” Franz added bitterly.

  “That's absolutely untrue!” Eldgh replied. “My people didn’t travel across the galaxy to exterminate entire races.”

  “That's not what I meant,” the German explained. “You could be indirectly responsible for the malfunction of your machines.”

  “Impossible!” the Taahrian exclaimed. “The analyses we carried out left no room for error.”

  “This artificial planetoid is interesting, perhaps much more so than our two civilizations. And maybe one day, we'll know more about it,” said Tylor. “But for now,” he added, changing his tone and gritting his teeth, “the only thing that matters is that you help us rebuild our world. From the images that I've seen, I lost everything: my family, my home, basically everything that I cared...” he had to stop to keep from crying, which he hated. “That made me a human being” he concluded.

  “We...” the alien began to say, before being interrupted by Namiko.

  “You were able to repair this huge ship, a million cubic meters in size, on a lost planet. You can rebuild our world!”

  “And we will. I will undertake this in the name of my commander and all of my people.”

  “I thought that you were the commander,” said Franz.

  “No. I'm only what you would call the first officer, so to speak.”

  “Yes, but the souls,” Sirio whispered.

  “The souls?” Eldgh asked.

  “Who will bring those back? It's fundamentally important to restore houses, streets, bridges, power and other things. But what about all the people who died? Who will bring them back?”

  “The soul... You believe that your being continues to live after your physical body dies?” asked the Taahrian, with an apparently sincere interest.

  “My only belief is that none of us will ever forgive any of you!” Sirio stated.

  “And that is why I will propose to the Council that we leave, as soon as we have insured the rebirth of the Earth. I see a lot of resentment in your eyes.”

  “You expected to see love?” Franz asked sarcastically; but the alien continued his own reasoning as if nothing had happened.

  “During the upcoming reconstruction, we will need to collect some items that are needed for our next voyage, as we scour other parts of the galaxy in search of new worlds. We have already done too much damage to Blue C.”

  “Blue C?” asked Mike.

  “The name assigned to Earth before we arrived.”

  “Couldn't you just continue to live on your intergalactic spaceship?” Franz asked.

  “Would you be willing to live in a giant cage forever?”

  None of the Terrestrials responded.

  “Now,” the Taahrian continued, “we will escort you to your rooms, where you will remain long enough for us to organize the first phase of reconstruction; it'll also give you a chance to recover. It is likely that, from this point forward, we will not interact again and others will take care of you. I wish you all the best.”

  Sirio felt like telling him to go to hell, but limited himself to repeating “the best,” shaking his head with a smile of dramatic hilarity.

  27

  Igor was greatly troubled. Not so much about being rudely tossed into his room, but about the state to which the Earth had been reduced. Sitting down, staring into nothing, the Russian was sure he would feel better, now that he was no longer suffering from the trauma caused by the probe's ray. He would've reacted the same way in any case. He knew himself all too well. Even Tylor, the optimist, was about to explode, he had noticed out of the corner of his eye. On the other hand, who could keep quiet when seeing something like that with that unbearable Taahrian? All of his companions had begun to boil with hatred. The only difference was each's breaking point, where you lose control and all sense of reason. He had reached it first.

  Eldgh had been clear. He had taken them back home, or at least to what was left of it. A few hours after he had been chucked back into his room, some Taahrians had come in, explaining that he could choose the destination where he'd be taken and that he had a few days to think about it. Where to go was the big problem. Although a government agent, he had never really felt like a patriot. He hadn't been brilliant in the Soviet world or in that which followed. But the view of the Kremlin in ruins had touched him deeply. The president and many men in the government had probably died. And, like most nations, the country needed to be rescued and rebuilt. Yes. He would have them bring him to one of the camps set up by the aliens in Russia. The latter was just a guess, but Eldgh had stated that h
is people had already made contact with the Terrestrial governments to begin the reconstruction. In a country as large as Russia, it was logical that they would set up a base of operations and go from there.

  Mike, however, was a true patriot. His heart was all American. His very soul, if he had to imagine it, looked like a sphere with stars and stripes. He had demonstrated his ties to the nation his entire life, and ultimately joined the most elite special forces in the United States: the Navy SEALs.

  If he had felt badly when he saw the Twin Towers in 2001, this time, during the screening in which he'd seen Manhattan razed to the ground, he wanted to die. Instead, his heart continued to beat so that he could bring assistance to millions of his fellow citizens. Fortunately for him, the alien had sworn that they would try to resurrect human civilization. The first place that he would go would be Illinois, his beloved home state, to make sure that his friends, relatives and other citizens were safe. Then he would go to the Big Apple, to help raise it from the ashes and make it bigger and shinier than before.

  Franz's intentions were similar: to return to Berlin and bring assistance. However, isolated in his quarters, his thoughts of solidarity were soon replaced by those of revenge. He fantasized for hours, imagining all kinds of attacks to make those damned Taaharians pay. Since he knew them, he would probably be able to form a terrorist group. He would wait years, if need be. Then, when they least expected it, he'd hit them, showing them the true meaning of suffering and devastation.

  That universe, which Tylor had initially almost admired, now disgusted him. His was not a real hatred; rather a painful consternation from which it would be difficult to recover. For him, science, development and technology had always been synonymous with social development and well-being. Imagine then, his encounter with an alien race. It was as if science and all of his convictions had betrayed him. Or maybe it was the discovery that he had never really believed in them; why else would he have chosen a military career instead of becoming a researcher? He then got carried away with judging himself as selfish and insensitive. If at first, while lamenting the destruction brought by the Taahrians, he had personally felt the need to justify their acts, since it wasn't their fault but that of the infernal virus which had infected them, then, when he had been shown the pictures of Canberra, his whole world had collapsed. He couldn't help but think of his parents and all those happy times they had spent together. He should've been with them, instead of being a restless, passionate globetrotter. He should've taken them away with him and kept them alive. He couldn't even imagine what had happened. From being a rigorous scientist, he understood that this type of reasoning, as if he had some crystal ball, was seriously idiotic. But, being scholarly and informed about the facts before being lowered into the hole, he should've been able to consider the very real possibility of a clash with an alien race. And logic should've told him that the first targets would be the large urban and industrial sites. No one would be interested in a little house lost in the middle of Australia. However, his beloved and stubborn parents would never have agreed to abandon their home. Perhaps, in a world under alien threat, there was no place where they could feel safe.