DP Tool Club 26/CD_ASCQ_26_1295.iso/vrac/df9511g.zip/4R

Text File | 1995-11-01 | 14KB | 285 lines

 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 CAUSE AND EFFECT
   by John M. Chenoweth
 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


   The stars, planets, and nebulas all swirled around them. It
 looked like a kaleidoscope of color, but it was matter. Matter,
 antimatter, things that haven't even been dreamt of yet, all,
 spun together into rings of infinite regression, bending off to
 the beginning of time.

   They existed in the middle of all this, where there was no
 matter or anti-matter. Behind them was the past, and ahead was
 the future. Where they were, nothing existed, there was no matter,
 no space, even time was no longer a constant.

   Antir and Tasad looked out on this sight in awe. Each tried to
 put into reasonable terms where they were, and what they were
 doing, but neither could. It was beyond reason. Their mission,
 this place, their very existence no longer dealt with fact. All
 was but conjecture, guesses, and random happenings.

   When the swirling stopped and space again returned to normal,
 Antir found himself again looking at the same mundane stars he
 had seen for all his long life, but now those stars were five
 thousand years younger.

   It had worked!

   The two had returned to before the war, before the enemy had
 even started to travel in space. The humans were nothing more
 than advanced chimpanzees, still believing their planet was flat.
 Still living in grass huts and devoting their lives to strange
 demi-gods of earth and fire. Whatever they believed was just an
 illusion, their dreams as well as actions were still simplistic.

   Antir turned to his companion, Tasad. *We are here.*

   *Yes,* Tasad communicated.

   They continued to move towards the destination. Their Great Act
 was at hand, and they were ready. They would become what everybody,
 except the humans, wanted. The Great Act would raise them far above
 what anybody else could dream. At the same time they could end the
 war, destroy those humans, who understood nothing. Who were nothing.

   Antir tried to imagine what it would be like returning to his
 time. He tried, but couldn't envision life without the war, the
 war had been all. Their society had devoted itself to winning it
 for hundreds of years. And it had consumed them; they had lost
 and won, lost and won a thousand times over. Yet, the war
 dragged on.

   It seemed to simple to end it with such a small act. He wondered
 if it would be possible, or was it all a dream? Could it all be so
 easy, a leap through time to build the Great Place, and leap back
 to peace. So simple.

   Earth will be empty, and ready to colonize. No humans, no
 destruction, nothing to re-build. The Humans will have been gone
 for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years by then. Killed themselves
 for greed, turning upon each other. And there would be peace,
 finally, peace.

   The great ship crested the line of mountains and then hovered
 for a moment over the lush green field below, which was still
 shrouded in shadows. This was where they decided the Place should
 be built. Its feelings, its powers would do the most good here,
 near the most influential forces in this world's past: places They
 called Egypt, Greece, and Rome. The names were so strange to the
 two travelers, but they were not there to pass judgement on them.
 The judgement was already in, and they were guilty. Guilty of peace,
 guilty of harmony, guilty of wanting to talk. And they must be
 punished. Antir and Tasad had been given the roles of executioner.
 But neither completely understood why their leaders had chosen to
 do what they did. But, again, it was not their decision.

   The gigantic stone swayed beneath the ship, in the high winds,
 but remained attached to the hull. Antir fought the wind and
 maneuvered the ship well, even with their cargo. They descended
 towards the ground.

   Besides, Antir thought, they were so close to the completion of
 their mission. The rocks from the planet had already been placed
 and arranged, only the final piece, the special one which they had
 brought with them, remained. It was this piece that was the key,
 unlocking all the power. Once placed it would complete the circle.
 The changes would begin.

   Tasad stood below. He watched the stone and ship descend and
 waited to maneuver the stone into the right place. By now he had
 to look almost straight up to see its bulk, but it was worth a
 cramp in the neck. He loved the designs from the New Order, so
 much more sleek and beautiful than the older ships from the
 twentieth sect. They had taken no pleasure from their creations.

   A ship was a hunk of metal, intended to get its passengers from
 point A to point B, weather it was just thought space, or through
 time. But now things had again changed. Tasad knew the leadership
 and designs would continue to change, and so he enjoyed them while
 he could.

   Their world had become so volatile because of the war. The
 people were divided, the government had been changed twenty
 times in that last fifteen rotations. And now this could all end.

   Peace, calm, conquered peace.

   Like ripples on the ocean the forces of the Place would reach
 out. More of them would be created by those who lived on the
 planet, each contributing to their own destruction.

   The ship formed a triangular patch of darkness in the evening
 sky, pierced by the thousands of multi-colored lights shining
 down from the ship's view ports. It continued to descend toward
 Tasad. All he could think was that it was so big! But then it had
 to be, as it was home for Antir and he for thousands of rotations
 at a time. It had to hold all the equipment needed to bring them
 through time.

   The ship blocked some of the young planet's wide array of
 stars, but at the same time created an entirely new cascade. It
 gave the foreign countryside an eerie glow and changed all the
 light around them into something that almost seemed alive with the
 power that the Place possessed.

   Tasad stood in the iridescent circle and looked into the darkly
 shadowed night where They stood, watching. He turned his eyes
 upwards again and scanned the remaining stars for his home. He
 just caught a glimpse of it before it was hidden by the mass of
 the still descending ship. He had seen it, though, the bright
 one, known by the inhabitants of this small planet as Polaris,
 the North Star.

   Tasad mused, for thousands of years the humans had stared up
 at his home, had used it to guide the way to theirs. And never
 knowing there was other life there, life which stared back at
 them. And never knowing of the future. That their death would
 come from that same star.

   These, he could see, were a simple and inoffensive people.
 Non-violent until forced to strike back. They had lived with
 their planet, lovingly, caringly. Preoccupied only with peace and
 keeping their world as it was, natural and clean. This tendency
 towards peace had drawn out the war for hundreds of years. They
 simply wanted peace, Antir and Tasad and their race wanted conquest.
 They wanted the planet, they needed the planet. But the humans --
 refused to be conquered.

   Now he found himself wondering, thinking about them and about
 peace. Why? He kept asking why things were as they were. Peace, real
 peace, not conquest, could bring so much. Why was it so evil. He had
 been taught that it was, all his life. They all had. Never questioned
 it, never thought for himself, but gone along with the others,
 blinded.

   The ship had now come to a standstill overhead and was beginning
 its descent. The stone protruded out from the hull, forming an
 irregular and mismatched area amid the smoothly crafted structures
 on the ship. The humans looked up as well, to where Tasad had been
 staring for almost a minor rotation. He turned to them, admiring
 their childlike wonder at the everyday scene. He found it hard to
 believe than in slightly less than 4000 of their "years" they would
 master space travel. They so innocently accepted their death. That
 was what the Place would be to them, death.

   But there was something more, something not quite right. It
 gnawed at him: he knew there was some tiny oversight, or mistake.
 But as in many other decisions, they had no further say in what
 was to be done with these beings. They could not turn back now,
 but must carry out their jobs and not look back. The Great Act
 of Kraden would not be denied.

   The Place would add to the humans, change them. Their very nature,
 the root of the problems, would turn completely around. Tasad watched
 as the adults pulled back from the bright light and heat of the
 ship's emitters. Some of the younger ones ran and hid in the bushes
 around the field, but the old ones moved no farther than a few steps
 back and none of them went far.

   Mesmerized they stood, and stared up into the hull of the massive
 ship, not less than a hundred units above, and already completely
 blocking out the night sky. It was clear that they were frightened.
 A small group of them even threw sharpened sticks and rocks up at
 the ship in a futile attempt to drive it away. Most fell away before
 reaching the ship, those that hit it bounced off the polytethlean
 coating and fell back upon their throwers. This showed their fear?
 -- if they were willing to fight back so soon . . .  or was it the
 Power of the Place, already acting upon them?

   Their innocence would turn to fault, their peace to war, their
 love would be personified and changed to destruction. Their violence,
 bred out of them so long ago, would again be cultivated. Evil would
 return and overpower them. And they would destroy themselves.

   Antir turned his thoughts back to the matter at hand. Tasad did
 the same, below, waiting for the final piece. He watched the ship
 above him pause, then continue it's decent until it was just ten units
 off the ground of this strange land, and the stone: perhaps five. Now
 the great stone was almost touching the ring of nearly identical
 pieces already standing. Tasad aimed his gravaton intruder at the free
 end of the massive stone.

   The beam connected and the end of the stone was raised until it
 was entirely horizontal. The controlling beam from the hull of the
 ship, which had held the stone for its long journey, disengaged.
 Tasad maneuvered the gravaton intruder so that the stone lay evenly
 on top of two similar stones that came from this planet and were
 embedded deep in the packed clay. The stone hit hard. For a moment
 Tasad was afraid it would break under the stress. But soon he knew
 his fears were unwarranted. The stone had survived travel in time
 and space and would not break now.

   It was finished.

   The humans still looked on in wonder at the seemingly pointless
 construction. Antir wondered if they would ever learn the truth
 about The Place, but he doubted it. They would see it and pass
 buy it for many years, thousands, and never destroy it, nor hurt
 it, nor build over it. And it would never disappear from their
 culture, but, their culture and finally the creators of it would
 disappear, as they destroyed themselves. That would have to come,
 in the end.

   Antir and Tasad both knew the power of the place. They did not
 like the manner in which the leaders had decided to end the war.
 It involved such unknown powers. And there was still something
 wrong. It was growing in Tasad, and Antir felt it too. They did
 not understand how any of their mission worked, this made them feel
 uneasy. But they just wanted to carry it out, and return home, to
 the resultant peace. Finally, completely, all conquered -- peace.

   But Antir still looked at the children standing just outside
 the ring of light under the ship, he couldn't help thinking there
 might be hope after all. A glimmer, a pittance, perhaps, but it was
 there. He wondered if he was doing the right thing, he began to care
 and almost hope they could rise above the power of the Place. But he
 knew it was pointless, its power was too strong.

   *It is done,* felt Tasad.

   Antir knew. *Wait.*  And Tasad looked around this world that was
 so soon to be theirs. Soon to them, four thousand years to all
 others. *Now,* and Tasad returned to the ship. They slowly moved
 off. Out the viewing port, Tasad and Antir admired their work. The
 Place was finally complete, the fate of these humans was sealed in
 violence and death, and defeat in the long, drawn out war.

   Buildings would fall to ashes, people to dust. And nothing would
 remain of this culture after a few thousand years.

   They moved off, away from the planet, and left these people to
 act out their fate, until -- the last of these people had destroyed
 themselves.

                              {DREAM}

 Copyright 1995 John M. Chenoweth, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
 -------------------------------------------------------------------
 John is a Junior at Germantown Friends School, in Philadelphia, PA.
 He's been writing almost his whole life, and in the last few years
 has taken it seriously. He has half a dozen publications, mainly
 horror and science fiction. He likes baseball and does a lot of
 work with computers. He states his brother and sisters, friends
 and especially his parents have given him inspiration and support.
 Email: [e-mail]
 ===================================================================