(Looks like I missed a day… oh well, can’t always be at the grindstone. Sorry it’s taken so long to get through this dialogue between the Fighter and the Doctor, but this should be the last post on that… for now. Going back to the fighters’ compound next.)
[begin blog post #32]
‘Indeed doctor’, I think to myself as I release Deirdre so he can remove my gown to inspect the auto-medic’s work. He is pleased at how well my internal wounds have been repaired.
As I wrap myself up again I ask, “What about King Tassard, doctor? Who is he, really? Another member of your network masquerading as King of Elbre?”
He smiles broadly at my words, obviously pleased with something. “Perceptive! He’s a pure clone, not combined artificial intelligence. We made the switch very recently, at great risk. His brother suspected the existence of our network and was suspicious of my close relationship with the king. He worked for years to expose me before his brother only to be foiled by my spies. Even had an assassination attempt done on me, foiled by XBA6, my best guard in disguise. The assassin was quietly dispatched, the blame foisted upon the city’s riff-raff. Investigations came to nothing.”
“Where is the real king now?”
“Having the time of his life learning to be human on Koron. I am joking, of course. He’s not happy at all, so I’m told, but doesn’t remember much of his previous life as king. I’m afraid we had to do some drastic re-programming on that one, or our women would have made short shrift of his priapic leanings and unwanted attentions. Our world is heavily defined by intellect and gender has little to do with how power is shared on it. I would say that men and women are by and large on par in our social interactions; definitely so in our laws which make no exceptions for gender, or gender preferences. Lesbian relationships as you have here among the fighters and homosexual companions are common and completely recognized, accepted and legal, even in our religious institutions. By the way Antierra, do you have any idea how many Cydroids we have here?” he adds with a sly smile.
“Well sir, I’ve only seen two. Why?”
“It’s important that you realize you’ve seen much more than two! They keep changing. All the males look the same, as do all the females, except when they are in disguise. Naked it is impossible to tell them apart. Some of your handlers and trainers can be Cydroids. They program themselves to fit into the Malefactus mindset as per instructions. One of them was involved in the death flogging of that poor girl you witnessed so long ago. He did not perform the flogging, but he observed it. Thus they avoid detection and serve me (and the group I’m connected to on Koron) as spies. There is always at least one watching you – and your little lover friend. We have female Cydroids in key positions, but because women do not wear clothes, we cannot have more than one in any place at any one time. There is one in the kitchen. She rotates with another every two days or when safe to do so.”
“Quite an organization. To what end, doctor?”
“I believe basically the same as yours from what you’ve told me. We feel Malefactus is in trouble internally. Maybe a mini-black hole at the core, like a cancer, beginning to eat the planet. Or something else. Weather patterns indicate all is not well. The seas are withdrawing, as if sucked into a bottomless crack. The desert is expanding exponentially to the north and the south is cooling. Snow, a complete anomaly on this world, has been reported at the south pole. Much loss of indigenous life noted as well as increasing planetary changes that have no natural explanation and to our minds, threaten the life of this world, not just that of its denizens. If it involved only the people themselves, we could possibly ignore the problem. In the end, even if the people destroyed themselves the planet would remain to provide balance in the system. Our research indicates that may not be all. We fear the planet itself is disintegrating from within as from a malignant tumour and we are no closer to discovering the cause of it.”
“So Koron’s concern is that the death of Malefactus would cause a serious problem in what you call your constellation of twelve worlds?”
“It’s a matter of balance, isn’t it?”
He stabs me with a deep probing look. I stare back, overcoming my natural fear of him.
“Yes sir, it is a matter of balance, always. But balance is more than physical, I can attest to that. It is also of mind and of spirit. Without balance of mind doctor, no other type of balance can be achieved. But there is another thing that is threatening the balance of these worlds, and that is Koron’s ability to travel through space now. Do you know if any other of my so-called stack worlds also possess space travel, or may be in the process of developing space programs?”
“We have not investigated any other world but this one. Our probes indicate we are currently the only world in this sector with space flight capability. This could change at a moment’s notice, since our technology was plucked from our space, so could any world who developed basic space travel to reach, say, a moon, encounter a lost jump scout ship or perhaps even an x-ram drive, huh?
Assuming his questions are not rhetorical, but that he is seeking answers, I reply as candidly as I know how. “All very good questions to which there is no answer as yet. As Antierra, I feel such a possibility is not only likely, but imminent. However as an Avatari I say that the Supremacy is not going to discover this dimension under its current agenda. There are greater forces than stack worlds, Supremacies and Melkiars or United Space Commands overseeing the greater movements of worlds and their lifeforms. Earth is important in the greater scheme of things and she needs her stack worlds to maintain a sense of purpose and directions as regards her evolving pseudo-humans.
“Despite the efforts of the many residents of these worlds, Earth and adjunct “stacks” are being protected from outside interference and remain hidden, at least for the time being. As Avatari we do not constitute “outside” influence since we are bona fide residents of these worlds and our full intent is to protect them by teaching and example to help them evolve beyond their crass selfish understanding. Our purpose is to demonstrate to them the necessity of seeing life beyond simply the bagging of cheap resources and energy by preying upon the natural environment, including the defenceless elements of society to provide instant gratification. Our purposes on these worlds is primarily to move them from their current predator-prey conditioned reflex action to an increasing awareness of the sacredness of life. Ultimately doctor, changing the mindset of a stack world changes the mindset of the primary world. That is why I’m here.
“The greater need for balance is in the transfer of mind and spirit energies. Stacked worlds provide support for a base world’s developing ISSA population. The people who die on base worlds need a place to go, a proper home. They cannot be let loose upon open space for two very good reasons. One, they’d be enslaved or destroyed by alien forces their minds would encounter and not be able to deal with. Two, if they found a settled human world and were able to be re-born there in a child, they would be carriers of all the evils they have experienced and for many, quite enjoyed, while living on Earth. Billions of entities would be let loose upon unsuspecting galactic worlds and beyond. So the stack worlds were developed to house these Earthian minds, according to their belief systems and their basic nature. Every inhabitant of a stack world bar none was once an Earthian and most, if not evolved enough mentally will be one again. With mind unchanged, there is but one way out of a stack world, doctor, and that is to return to your base world. On Earth they call it karma. There you are once more given freedom of choice, something not so easily found in the stacks; in these absolutist worlds.
“I hope that my explanations, though unacceptable to you, do make some sense?”
“You have given me much to think about Antierra. I can see why we have crossed paths here. A part of me wants to accept what you say because there is a kind of strange logic to it all my mind can appreciate. Overall, however, your understanding of this part of the universe is, to me, quite off the wall if you know what I mean. You are saying that even I, however long I may live, must ultimately leave everything I’ve done on Koron and here on T’Sing Tarleyn and “return” to a world I come from which I don’t remember at all; which according to our probes does not exist; and there be born a child, not remembering any of this past? I fail to see the point of all that.”
“I know it sounds fantastic and not just a little ridiculous, but that’s the set-up we are all a part of, for better or worse. The part about not remembering, doctor, is not quite true. Anyone can remember, it’s but a matter of overcoming the old programming and get past the reticence to engage the “unthinkable” and opening oneself to the greater forces at play in our cosmos. We are all so much more than we allow ourselves to believe, doctor.
“There is also this to consider when you think about all of this: that all of us ISSA’s in the making are potential Avatari. Any spirit-mind involved in the betterment of life for others gravitates, or better said, evolves both spiritually and mentally to that place of greater knowing. I can tell you this, that some who have been of the Avatari long eons of time are now ready to move into the next higher dimension of living expression. While I have only an inkling of an idea what that means, or what it entails, it is there for all of us. We are, as living entities, in a fascinating event, doctor. We are not stuck in some questionable concept of life to just make the best of it. Every place where we land is but a launching pad to another.”
“Ah, you make it sound so simple… uh, Altarian! I wish I had the propensity to just draw a line across all that I believe and accept your words at face value. But I cannot. Maybe in time. As you said earlier, believe all things, believe in nothing.”
“Yes, in time and beyond time. You will remember this conversation and you will know.”
[end blog post #32
~Burning Woman~ 