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The Dagger of Heaven at the End of Time - 18
🕑 Added 2024-10-27 19:38:00 +0000 UTCBy SammyC
©2024 SammyC
“I am Percival Randall, the man who sent your ancestors to the stars.”
But that was more than 500 years ago. My lips moved but it took me two tries to ask what seemed an important question.
“Am…am I dead?”
“No, my child, you are very much alive…and well. Look,” he pointed to an image that suddenly appeared in the distance between us.
I saw myself strapped into a chair in Dr. Princeton’s laboratory in The City, along with my comrades and fellow travelers. Standing behind us, hands on dials and knobs in a wall of machinery, were several men and women, all dressed in the uniform coveralls of the Underground People.
“But how is that possible? I’m here…with you.”
“Here? This is a space where our minds can meet and interact. It is not a physical location.”
“Also, the image is still. No one and nothing has moved since it first appeared. Not even a blink of an eye,” I noted, confused by my circumstances.
“Our conversation is taking place at a speed many thousands of times faster than normal speech. I could explain why that is but…it’s not important. Let me explain instead who I am and why I have arrived at your planet, which you have named after me. Of that, I feel profoundly honored.
“Finish your water. I made it especially for you. Now, let me see. Yes. 500 years ago, my corporation sent a colony of 100 men and women to the third planet in the Proxima Centauri system, to mine it for precious and rare metals that would make unlimited nuclear fusion energy possible and lift human civilization to another level. Unfortunately, that colony ship was lost. At least, as far as we knew. Well, not me personally. I died midway through the 100 years that it was supposed to take to reach its destination. Before I passed away, as was the fashion at the eve of the 23rd Century, I uploaded my consciousness and had my mind digitally stored. At the time, like the earlier attempts at cryogenic preservation, there was nothing to download it into whenever the opportunity finally arose.”
“You are speaking in riddles, Mr. Randall—”
“Bear with me. Eventually, if my plans come to fruition, you will comprehend everything I’m telling you. Ten years ago, my 10 times granddaughter, Lesley Randall Moncrieff, a Professor Emeritus in 23rd Century History, was doing research on early space colony missions. She decided to converse with my uploaded mind to gather details on what is widely known as ‘The Lost Colony of Proxima Centauri.’
During our discussions, she mentioned it was now possible to download a neural image into a cyborg, something I rejected out of hand. That would be life without living, existence without humanity, being without meaning. She cracked a joke about downloading me into the operating system of a spaceship so I could go looking for my lost colony. The next time she accessed me, I asked her to do just that – download my mind into a superluminal spaceship. A spaceship that uses a warp drive allowing it to travel at multiples of the speed of light.
So, you see, Rani, I am The Dagger of Heaven. But I was not sent by the Gods. I was launched from a spaceport sitting in a Lagrange Point some 1,500,000 kilometers from Earth. It took me these ten years to finally locate you, going from star system to star system in a locus of 8 light years. I had originally planned to rescue you all or what remained of the colony. But I have exhausted nearly all of my fuel reserves. I cannot even leave this system, much less return to Earth. However, as I am responsible for your predicament, I want to help your society attain the technological level it was never able to reach.”
“So what I am seeing is not real? You are not alive?”
“No, the ship is my body, so to speak. Currently, my ‘body’ is submerged in the ocean off your West Coast. It’s fine. I was on the swim team at university. I suppose it would be disconcerting having to converse with a hulking, metallic machine. I trimmed my beard especially for this meeting. Did I do a good job? It’s been centuries since I’ve shaved.”
“How do you propose to help my people?”
“As I approached your planet, I was able to learn the history of the colony from the time of its landing from the digital records kept by the founders of The City. They believed in posterity, despite the dire circumstances of what they presumed was the dissolution of the colony due to internecine conflict. There were also video records kept by what you believe to be a second moon orbiting the planet. In reality, it’s a satellite left by the alien race that originally mined the planet many thousands of years ago. It still functions, monitoring various locations, filing reports to who knows where and whom.”
“I wonder what the alien miners looked like,” I mused.
“I can show you pictures. But, back to my plan. The splintering of the colony into warring factions and the concomitant decline into a medieval state of existence, save for the small group who essentially hide from you all in The City, must be reversed. You are one people, meant to thrive as a united entity. I had envisioned you as pioneers, avatars in a new space age for humanity. But, here you are, mired in a static, feudal civilization, with fading memories of your home planet and its cumulative knowledge.”
“By sundown today, your vision of a united people will be smeared with the blood of a thousand or more partisans from three different kingdoms…”
“I can and will prevent that,” Percival Randall’s image vowed, stroking his well-manicured beard.
“Again, I ask, how?”
“First of all, I can prevent Dr. Princeton’s machines from erasing your memories. A simple electromagnetic pulse aimed at his apparatus will disable it. Then, I ask for your patience. When the forces from the two kingdoms converge upon The City tonight, go along with Lydia’s scheme. Up until the moment The Dagger of Heaven makes its formal entrance.”
“But why are you telling me this? Me. Why did you need to speak to me?”
“Rani, you are my 11 times granddaughter. Your DNA tells me you are the 10 times granddaughter of my eldest daughter, Dr. Rachel Randall Kline, who was the leader of the colony.”
“But I am your grandson, not your granddaughter!” My eyes teared up as my voice died away.
“Yes, I’m aware of that, Rani. Do you want to be a boy or a girl? What is it you really want?”
I did not hesitate in my answer. “A girl, sir. I’d prefer being a girl.”
“We’ll see to that in time, Rani. First, we must ‘form a more perfect union,’ as the preamble to the American Constitution proposes, in this place, on this planet, at this time.”
“Are you telling me I can become a real –”
I opened my eyes to find myself strapped in a chair in Dr. Princeton’s laboratory. My initial confusion passed quickly as I recalled my conversation with Percival Randall that happened…just now. In less than a blink of an eye, my mind had returned to my physical body. I never got to hear Mr. Randall’s answer to my question.
“What’s wrong?” asked Dr. Princeton in a raised voice.
“I don’t know. The controls went dead. Did we have a power outage?” One of the Doctor’s assistants rushed over to the panel and nodded his head.
“That’s strange. Everything else is working. Just this machine.”
“We’ll have to check it out and see if it’ll need a simple repair,” Dr. Princeton announced as Lydia walked into the room.
After Dr. Princeton explained the problem to Lydia, she ordered us returned to the courthouse to await the successful repair of the memory-erasing machine. The eight of us were released from our chairs and two men carrying blasters shepherded us out.
***
“They won’t be able to repair the memory-erasing machine,” I told Alvin, almost giggling.
We were seated in the gallery of the courtroom, a quartet of armed guards watching our every move.
“Rani, it’s not a laughing matter. They’ll repair the machine in plenty of time before the armies arrive tonight. Then no one will be able to refute Lydia’s lies as she executes my mother in front of them. No one.”
“Do you think she was lying about being your real mother?”
“I can’t even imagine that my mother isn’t my real mother. Or that…that madwoman is.”
“I have a strong feeling that everything’s going to work out in the end, Alvin. I can’t tell you how. You wouldn’t believe me if I did.”
“Whatever happens, even if Lydia succeeds, I have a contingency plan. There are tunnels, even another train that very few people in The City know about. Lydia will never find me.” He turned to look intently in my eyes. “Rani, if it comes to that, will you come with me? We can make it on our own. Remember what I told you about the other tribes out in the wilds? I’ve made friends with some of them. No, not The Two Moons Tribe. Others. Farmers. Cattle herders. We could have a good life on this blasted planet, away from all the madness and hatred.” Alvin grabbed my shoulders. One of the guards looked our way. I shushed Alvin.
“Are you proposing to me, Alvin? Have you forgotten my secret? Did Georgia have your memories erased after last night?” I placed my index finger on his lips. “It will all work out, Alvin. Just be patient. You’ll see.”
“But Rani—”
“And my answer is…yes. I accept. But I don’t intend on being a farmer’s wife. It would be terrible on my nails!”
***
“I love a bloodless revolution!” Lydia crowed, as she ushered us to the entrance of the dome. Two armed guards grabbed Georgia by her arms and pushed her to the front of the group behind Lydia. Two other guards trained their blasters on the rest of us: Alvin, Amos, Merlyn, Daisy, Edward, Malcolm, Luna, Eric, and me. In a wheelchair sat Kelvin. The little fellow was barely awake, still recovering after having a sword run through him. The pain-killers in his system made him seem slightly inebriated.
“Of course, a little blood will necessarily have to be spilled. Yours, dear sister,” Lydia said with fake regret. “Justice must be served, after all. At least, it’ll be your own blood relative doing the deed and not some anonymous stranger with a crossbow.”
Georgia struggled vainly against the gag in her mouth but her eyes blazed with anger and reproach at her younger sister.
The communicator in Lydia’s hand emitted a buzzing sound and she held it in front of her face.
“Armies approaching from both sides, Lydia. Two minutes away. Right on schedule.”
Lydia replaced the communicator in her pants pocket and ordered the doors to the entrance to be opened. The night streamed in as the iris-like door bloomed. In the near distance, hundreds of hobnobs, their riders holding crossbows in one hand, reins in the other, came galloping toward us. There were banners and torches held aloft and war yelps grew in volume as they approached.
With Georgia held by the guards at her side, Lydia stepped out into the dim light of evening. She raised her hand and shouted above the din of hobnob hooves and battle exhortations.
“Halt! I am Lydia of the Western Kingdom! I have rescued Princess Rani and her entourage and Prince Kelvin from the clutches of our mutual enemy, the diabolical Underground People. This is their leader, the mastermind behind these abductions, Georgia! In the name of justice and on behalf of the good people of both kingdoms, I shall summarily execute Georgia here and now. May the Gods have mercy on your soul!”
Georgia was pushed to her knees before Lydia, who raised the blaster in her right hand and aimed it right between her eyes.
Suddenly a huge dagger-shaped object, its angular sides glinting in the dying light of early evening, settled above our heads, filling the sky. What resembled the sound of a thunder crack accompanied its appearance.
“Look! It’s the Dagger of Heaven!,” cried Merlyn. The thousand or more souls on that plain turned their heads up toward the object and the only sounds I could hear were the wails of terror and awe coming from the warriors on their steeds.
What followed drew more gasps and wails. It was an image of Percival Randall, dressed as I had seen in my dream-like encounter earlier in the day, floating in mid-air, perhaps a hundred times the size of an actual human being. He seemed to look down on all of us as he spoke in a thunderous voice.
“I am Percival Randall, the man who sent your ancestors to the stars five centuries ago. I have come in peace, crossing the vast distances between the stars to guide you, my veritable children, back onto the right path. Lay down your arms. You must learn to live together. Again.”
“No!” Lydia howled at the giant floating image. “This is sorcery! It is your doing, isn’t it, Merlyn?”
A sizzling sound ripped through the air and the blasters held in the hands of Lydia’s guards glowed red-hot. Crying out in pain, they dropped the blasters in unison. Lydia held her empty right hand in front of her eyes and dropped to her knees, looking up at the impassive face of Percival Randall.
The End of Chapter Eighteen
Comments
Eric Naftaly
Nice of Randall to choose Rani as an eleventh-generation heir, so to speak, but he must have dozens of tenth- and eleventh-generation descendants among the colonists, including (by definition) at least one of Rani's parents. If just about everyone in the kingdoms had been expecting divine intercession of some sort -- I'm not sure how widely the dire predictions about the Dagger had circulated -- then there may not be too much cause for concern about resistance, even with the major changes that seem to be coming. But except for the Undergrounders, none of them have electronic weapons that Randall can short-circuit, which could limit his ability to make unpopular changes. I don't know whether we'll be seeing more of the follow-up here; seems to me most stories of this type just jump ahead to the happy ending (Rani and Alvin's wedding?) with a brief summary of how they got there from here. Guess we'll see...
Melanie Brown
Dramatic image. I like the sky.
Eric Naftaly
They're not in the system where they were supposed to find the fusion precursors. On the other hand, the aliens were mining the planet, so there was something there that justified the trip -- though since they were gone by the time humans arrived, there may not be much left.
Melanie Brown
You’d think they could get the yokels to make fuel for the ship.
The Goddess
Interesting and informative chapter Looks like Rani will eventually become a real female We finally find out what the dagger really is Nice image
Sammy C
Julia, the colony ship missed its original target in the Proxima Centauri system while everyone was in suspended animation. Luckily the ship’s AI recalibrated and found another habitable planet in a nearby system. Meanwhile, events on Earth prevented any serious search for the lost colonists… until Randall’s uploaded mind was consulted several centuries later.
Julia Miller
The narrative is great telling us of the history from the first expedition to their planet. The only thing I don’t understand is why he had to search all the other planets nearby. Didn’t they know where the original colony ship landed? Or was the original expedition like the Interstellar movie where they simultaneously explored many planets looking for a suitable planet? (But were unsuccessful)
