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There comes a time in the reign of every conqueror when the euphoria of victory dies away and curiosity sets in. When the destruction and devastation ends and the rebuilding begins. When the need to know more about the people one has vanquished seems greater than the need to wipe out their race. And vague questions about their lives, their aspirations, their ways, begin to gnaw at one’s conscience… Were they a proud people with decadent ways? Were they strong and glorious and beautiful? Should one take pride in defeating them? Will we too one day end up the same way - defeated by a greater power?
Sixty years after the final conquest, the Ahdemis first began asking these questions. It was a novel step for this warrior race. They had never before been known to care about the past of their vanquished enemies. Their only talent was battle, and their only concern was victory. No one even remembered hearing of a war the Ahdemis had ever lost. In fact they were nearly invincible. But in a strange paradox, they were deeply religious, and sought before each major campaign a sign in the stars and through prayer, that the Gods were on their side.
The Ahdemi’s came to earth in the latter half of the 21st century. They came with gestures of friendship. The world leaders hobnobbed with them and signed a dozen treaties. But having lulled earth into complacency through these sweet treaties and mineral, trade and exploration rights, their nature turned on a dime and the Ahdemis began their invasion. It took the Earth totally by surprise - poor, trusting fools, we Homo sapiens. They stormed in with the true representatives of their race – wave after wave of trans-stellar, transgenic, ruthlessly efficient warriors that cared little about life, neither theirs nor ours.
Our soldiers put up a brave fight but to no avail. They were far, far too strong - hardened, especially bred warriors drawn from a hundred militant planets, with the experience of a thousand victorious campaigns running strong in their veins. By 2098 they had the entire earth in their arms and by 2100 the human species had lost its dominance. They were now found in little pockets all over the globe, reduced to scratching and ekeing out a bare, survival existence. There was much resentment, but no unity and little will to fight back…..
…..For sixty years it had been this way. Besides suppressing a few minor uprisings and adjusting to the new climate of the planet, the Ahdemis had nothing more to do. It was not in their nature to get close to the natives. However, now the ruling tribes were growing restive and the Leader feared the resurgence of the brutal inter-tribal clashes that had marked the development of their warlike way of life back in Ahdem. The Ahdem hoi polloi were getting restive, bored. Not even elaborate religious festivals to propitiate the Ahdem gods, could stem this restlessness.
And so they turned to history. The leader started sanctioning extensive research into the lives and times of the suppressed race. A slew of professional historians and archaeologists were transported over from Empire and suddenly the weapons began to take a back seat to the books. A huge movement began - 'Understand the Enemy!'
But Human books were few and records even fewer. At the height of the conquest, the Ahdemis had wiped out whole nations with their Activebombs and Viralhunters. Communication systems were killed and libraries torched because they served as places for people to meet and plot against the conquerors. What little remained had to be dug out through heaps of rubble and stone - the dead and rotting cities. And with the clumsy paw-like grooved hands of the Ahdemis, it was even worse. Many a priceless Ming vase from antiquity shattered to pieces under their care. It was back-breaking work, but in their defence, the Ahdemi masses were used to pain and hardship and were relieved to have something other than intertribal hatred to occupy their time. They couldn’t expect any help from the humans anyway. The older generation preferred death to cooperation with the conquerors. And the newer lot knew little more of their own past than the Ahdemis.
And so it came to be that the Ahdemis learnt about our past, about the three world wars, the colonial period, the Renaissance, Mughal architecture, the Dark Ages and the pinnacles of human development achieved during the Golden Age of Freedom. They read and assimilated much of our mythology, religion and wisdom. And somewhere along the way they began trying to assimilate our customs. There are many humorous accounts from their human slaves of how the Ahdemis, hitherto used to roaming wild, free and naked, tried to fit themselves into skirts and tuxedos, and clumsily gripped knives and forks to eat, in a sad parody of what Humankind had done before. But they also tried out monogamy and the elaborate death rituals endemic to our species. And many liked to believe that they began to value life more, since they started to bury or cremate their corpses instead of leaving them for nature or their Gods to consume, as had been their earlier custom….But there were massive gaps in their understanding of what had been, at one time, a proud and independent species.
One day the Chief Historian stormed into the Leader’s inner chamber. He wore a harried look on his scaly face and whatever little brow he had was lined and furrowed. “ I give up”, he yelled, “I give up!” “ I’m sorry to fail you sire, but for the past two months my men have been poring over this code. We’ve tried every language, every dialect, every musical note and it doesn’t fit in anywhere. And those miserably few books we have, say nothing about it either. By the Great God Perebus, we have no clue to what these symbols mean!”
The Leader looked up slowly from the papers piled in front of him. He tried to straighten the purple human tie he had taken to wearing over his naked, scaly torso, and glanced at the symbol the historian held in front of him. It was a simple thing. A grid of sorts, with the some symbols inside it. There was nothing intricate in it. Even a child could draw a thing like that. “ Have you no idea what this crude structure means, Historian?” asked the Leader, shaking the paper, his voice disdainful. The Historian shook his head. “It's baffling sire. Terribly strange. We’ve found it all over the planet. It’s on the books on some pages. It’s on plain sheets of writing material - paper they used to call it; it’s etched in sand on beaches; it’s carved in the bark of trees. And we just can’t make out what it means or what it stands for. My men are stumped. They’re literally tearing their scales out over the whole affair. And I fear that the very ubiquity of this code holds some grim significance that we must understand.”
The Leader was now very interested. Here was a rare challenge, far away from the dreary monotony of day to day peacetime ruling. He took the paper again and studied it closely. He turned it upside down and sideways. Then he took the next sheet and saw the variation. The mystery was getting to him too. “Is there some progression to these two drawings? Is there a significance there?? Are they part of a series???" he thought out loud, as his lizard-brow grew furrowed and thoughtful…
"What do you suggest we do?" He eventually asked the Historian.
The Historian was lost for words. He looked extremely nervous, squirmed uneasily, clasping and unclasping his grotesque paws in front of him. He avoided eye-contact with the leader. “Sire we…we….we need help. We c-cannot do this all on our own. W-w-w-w-we need help.”
“What are you saying Historian, I do not get your meaning?!” The question was almost a shout.
“S-s-s…s-s-sire if only we got the help of the humans, if we could ask them…” the Historian's voice dropped almost to a whisper, tailed off as he said this.
The leader half rose out of his chair, his sparse, reddish body hair visibly bristling and his eyes bulging out from his flat cranium like those of a frog. The huge KillingClaws had come unsheathed on both of his paws. They were extending further and further… 7 inches of razor-sharp keratinous blade!
The historian shrank back from his anger and the palpable danger.
“Are you crazy, Historian?" bellowed the Leader. "What are you saying? Have you no concern at all for Ahdem honour and prestige? You know how badly those measly creatures treat us! Especially the older generation. You know how one of them launched a huge gobbet of spittle into my face during my last courtesy visit! Throwing digestive fluid - I had to decapitate the human! You know they will hound you out of their remaining colonies! How can you even ask such a question? This is ridiculous!"
He made a strenuous, visible effort to control his temper, his KillingClaws shaking and jittering together noisily with the force of his emotion. "Leave this room NOW! Never ask for such things again!!”
The terrified Historian meekly left the room, circulatory fluid throbbing unevenly in his shaking veins. He knew he was very lucky to have survived this encounter. In the old days on Ahdem, such an outburst would have surely lead to a fight to the Death and his eventual, assured dismemberment.
But the Leader could not forget the Grid. Now that he had no wars to plan and conquests to work out, the Leader’s mind lay idle. His concubines took up part of his time, as for the rest… The strange grid kept appearing before his eyes, mocking at his intelligence. It seemed to jeer at him, pointing out the mental superiority of the humans before the dumb Ahdemis. It came into his dreams and laughed in his sleep. It haunted his waking hours and robbed him of his concentration. Till at last he knew that he could not rest until he had found an answer.
A week later the Historian once more stood before the Leader’s desk. It was now his turn to look at a haggard face and sleepless brow. “I have thought over your words, Historian”, said the leader. “And I find your idea worth a try. We must find an answer to the grid. When we search for knowledge, there is no depth to which we shall not dig, no lengths to which we shall not go.”
The Historian smiled inwardly as he recalled the human book from which he had picked up the line. Aah, the leader does seem wiser!
"I spoke to the foreign minister," said the Leader. "He has found a camp somewhere in the Indian subcontinent where most of the people are from the new generation. They do not despise us as much as their elders did. There may be one or two older humans still alive. If this symbol is as universal as you say, I believe they will be able to provide us with answers. I hope to see off the expedition next week. The foreign minister is going - do you wish to be part of it?”
Two weeks later the Historian and six other Ahdem saw the human colony approaching in the distance. They had trudged a long and weary route all through the night - the mountain-bound hamlet was not approachable from the air, not even by Flittercar - probably one reason why it had escaped destruction by Ahdem Activebombing during the War. The sun had risen above the horizon and now beat down upon their backs with unexpected ferocity despite the relatively early hour. As they came closer, a tall young, brown-skinned human of almost regal bearing came forward and held out his hand silently. The Historian proffered his ungainly paw reluctantly and rather nervously - he had never been this close to a Human before. He introduced himself in the broken language that he had tried to pick up from the books. They were welcomed into the colony with the cold and distant cordiality of unsure hatred; they were not shooed away, but they knew they were not wanted either. Not that it made much of a difference to the Historian. For him, it was almost a live History lesson. The people he had read about in the books, their customs that he had tried to copy, their foods and savoury spices - that dizzy melange in the air … all seemed to have walked right out of his records.
After the formal welcomes and token feast were over, the Ahdemis brought up the real issue. They asked the young man and several of his colleagues if they knew someone who could answer their queries. When they showed the humans the samples of the symbols they had brought, they looked at them strangely…. but the Ahdemis lacked the sensitivity or experience to fully interpret human facial expressions. The humans huddled together in a small group, there was some quiet consultation among them, the words too low and quick for the Historian to understand.
Then the tall young man returned to the alien group, and said "We have consulted amongst ourselves. Though it is an immensely complicated process, we will help you to understand the meaning of this ancient structure. A meeting has been arranged for this evening, with one of our revered elders. Meanwhile, you may take rest in this chamber." He indicated a nearby mud-hut that appeared to be made of straw and bovine excreta.
After the Ahdemis had rested for most of the day, at the appointed time, they were lead to an old hut in the center of the village by a group of the humans. The regal young man knocked on the door and entered. The aliens behind him heard the sound of low voices waft out into the evening air. Then there was a cackle of witch-like laughter and the youth came out. “ I will introduce you to the oldest lady in the village”, he said. “Maai must be over a hundred years old. She has been living in this colony ever since anyone can remember. But she tells us that she has seen the world and knew life before the invasion. Maybe she can help you.”
The Ahdemis bowed their heads to avoid the low doorframe and entered the hut. Just before he entered, the Historian glanced up into the sky above. The sun had set and night was rapidly approaching. The first few stars were beginning to show, and a cool breeze was beginning to blow. Overhead, some thin, wispy cloud still retained the red of the recent sunset. He took a deep breath - he had been here so many Cycles that this planet now felt almost like home. He stepped through the portal.
The hut was very sparsely furnished, with a few pots and pans stacked untidily in one corner. The old woman sat on a low stool near the stove, in which burned a yellow fire of constant flame. The sparkle in her eye and the laugh lines around her mouth gave her an aura of youthfulness, which her humped back and tortuously wrinkled skin could not totally dispel. Her long hair was dead white and flowed gloriously over and behind her shoulders. She looked wise. Wise! She beckoned to them and indicated that they should sit on some low stools facing her. The Historian cleared his throat and began. “ I wish to present you, madam, with the gracious greetings of the Ahdem Leader of Earth….”
The old lady said nothing, but nodded her head to show she had understood.
She raised her hand, palm outwards, motioning the Historian gently to silence. And she began to speak…
"You have come to me from far away." Her voice was strong and powerful, with an undercurrent of….. something…. unnerving. It struck at the Historian's ears and sent a shiver up his spine.
"You have come to ask a question. I have been told by Ranjan" she indicated the young human seated next to them. "I will attempt to answer your question. Give me the scroll."
The Historian unrolled the sheet of paper he had brought with him. He stretched towards the woman and placed it in her wrinkled hands and watched her face change gradually, grow more serious. He noticed that her eyes were strangely blue! Blue eyes in a dark complexion!
“We need to know what this means," said the Historian. "It seems to be a universal symbol of your species that we have unearthed all over the conquered lands. Can you tell us?”
“Do you mean to tell me”, said the woman, voice rising in incredulity, “ that you do not know what this means?”
The Historian shook his head.
“Aah, my son, then your species can never be the rightful rulers of this planet!”
“These”, she continued, “Were the messages from the most powerful of our Gods. They were the means by which the Gods communicated with us. At the height of our glory, every single person could read these messages. That’s why you found them everywhere, on books, trees, sand, paper. The Gods spoke to us whenever they wanted to, wherever they wanted to. And each one of us could read those messages. Each symbol can mean different things to different people. It was a private message to each person, a personal communication with the Gods. Only a few symbols were common. For instance, if three crosses placed in a row had a line drawn through them, it means the Gods are very angry. Similarly three circles in a row with a line through them shows the extreme pleasure of the Gods. ”
“For centuries, 'Gridding' was an innate ability we were born with. We believe the dominant species of this planet is somehow tuned in to this ability. Only those who can read these codes can control the planet. We firmly believe that we lost our supremacy because suddenly we lost the ability to understand the codes. The new generation just couldn’t decipher their meaning, however much we tried to teach them. The Gods seemed to be angry with us. All we received were messages with the three crosses. And we knew our time had come. It was at that time that your species arrived. But you say you have NEVER been able to read these signals? It surprises me immensely Ahdemi. It is a well-known fact that during our Third World War, the Arab nations stopped receiving the grids, as had the Germans in the Second World War. The grids only appear to those whom the Gods favour.”
The Historian laughed out loud. It was a dry, raspy sort of sound, not unlike the rubbing of sandpaper on an old wall. His scales shook violently; it was obvious that he was overcome by mirth. "Have you finished, old woman?!You expect us - US! The rulers of this planet and a hundred others to believe this utter hogwash?! You must be mad!" He was about to get up from the floor and leave the room, when something about the woman's posture stopped him from doing so.
Maai sat stock still for a few seconds. Then she drew a deep, deep breath, so deep that everyone in the small room could hear the rattling of her old lungs as they filled with the stale and rancid air of the hut. Her tiny form vibrated with the force of her inspiration.
"So." It was almost a sigh. "So," she said again, this time louder, a powerful resonance entering her voice. "So you do not believe me…. Observe!" The last word cut through the room like the crack of a whip. She raised her right hand. Suddenly the light of the fire - dimmed. And the colour changed from yellow to red. Ghostly shadows and highlights surrounded the small party in the room, flickering along the rough mud of the walls.
The Historian looked around him at the faces of the other Ahdem, and found the same air of expectancy/fear in their expressions. They were transfixed, staring intently at the woman. His own circulatory pumps were beating faster, and he could feel a metallic taste of something - was it also fear? - in his raspy mouth…
The woman began to speak. Her voice was now much deeper than before, and a twist of cruelty and scorn ran through it - "What I said is correct, Aliens, and you will now know the Truth! This is what you came here to learn, and now you will meet our Gods!"
Her mouth opened wide and her voice rose in strength and pitch, until it was a continuous wail. The fire in the room was now almost out, the air darkened, but the woman's eyes were blazing with an incredible internal light, a bright blue haze that crudely illuminated the small gathering in front of her. The Historian had difficulty turning his head now - his alien muscles were strapped into position, a strange pressure building up in his head, keeping his gaze fixed on the woman. He had a sense of rigid immobility next to him - the other Ahdem had been similarly affected… there was an unfamiliar, spicy, intoxicating smell in the air…
The woman's wail continued - it was high pitched now and almost continuous - how could she have filled her lungs so completely to produce this unending sound he wondered? But his thoughts were slow - so much slower than usual, and a misty fug was beginning to pervade his senses as her amazing shout filled and rebounded through every crevice of his brain … It just wasn’t possible!
Now the blue light in the room that was emanating from the woman's eyes, was coalescing in front of her - a ghostly shape was increasingly visible in the middle of it…. Dark, foreboding - crouching - the image of the figure was bipedal and impossibly large…
The wailing stopped. Switched off, just like that! The fire had now totally died out, and the only sound was a strange, liquid, swishing sound that was coming from the blue lighted area, and the quiet and inconstant sussuration of the rising night wind from outside the thin mud walls.
Between The Ahdem and the old woman, now crouched - the Being! It was now far clearer. It was…. Non-Human, impossibly large for this tiny hut - it looked a hundred feet tall, as if the Historian were looking at it from a huge distance… and it - it had eyes - bright red beacons of light, of infinite depth! And it … it was looking …. looking at the Historian! At him!
"These are the invaders, then." The voice of the Being was like the roar of a hundred thunderstorms. The clap of Hell. The Historians ears were ringing, as the voice echoed within his cranium.
"They are such strange creatures - such an advanced civilisation, and yet so violent. So ruthlessly expansionist! No compassion at all!" The Being was now so close to the Historian that he could actually feel its searingly hot and moist, spicy breath upon his face; its head looked bigger than the entire hut… He had lost the power to move - even to blink. He was totally immobile.
"This one is not well. I will ease him of his pain." So saying the Being turned within the blue mist to the next Ahdem….. appeared to touch it with one of his huge hands…. And the Historian felt his immobile and petrified comrade jerk once convulsively and heard the sighing, final gasp of Death leave his throat! Death at a touch!
The Being now turned to the Historian, as if detecting, correctly, that he was the leader of this small alien group, and its voice was again like a Thunderclap from Hell itself!
"You should never have come to this Planet! How dare you rape and pillage it!! Know this - Earth is directly under my protection! Wherever you see my sign, quake and shiver, for you will know that I am watching… I was waiting for this moment …. Now none of you will leave this planet alive! But you will find peace nowhere - your Galactic Empire is doomed! DOOMED!" Now the Being held a Grid in its right hand, and the grid was glowing fierce purple - PURPLE! The exact Ahdem hue of Death…. And it had three crosses with a line drawn through it…
Saying this the Being touched the Historian on the shoulder…… and it was like the Hammer of Death - Cold, cold, so colddd, penetrating in a second to the innermost fire of his being, quenching, extinguishing, freezing - it felt as though half his body had died in that one touch………….. he was limp, bereft of all feeling, utterly numb… he fell forward…. Non-seeing, only bright purple images rushing in and in and in on his brain…… images of the whirling purple grid with three Death crosses with a line through them…… whirling, whirling, and coming closer and closer ever inward … closer! Closer!
It was still dark. The surviving Ahdem had departed from the village some time before in a tearing hurry. Once out of the hut, they had fallen to the ground, shrieking their raucous lizard cries, attempting to bury their heads in the soft, dark, cold earth and whimpering at what they had just seen. The comatose Historian was half-carried, half-dragged on an improvised stretcher…. It had been a good nights work.
The village council had assembled in Maais hut. She was seated on the same low stool she had favoured the previous night.
Everyone was talking at the same time, excited!
"The very FIRST time humans have been close enough to THEM to use hypnosis and hallucinogens…..!!!"
"Did you SEE the blue laser diffusion lenses Maai was wearing……..!"
"And the God Holoprojection…….!"
"What about the DolbyVoice Generator!! The volume was INCREDIBLE!!…."
"I got a whiff of that hallucinogen they were using through my nostril airfilters! Boy! Was it powerful…!!"
Now Maai spoke, and her hypnotic voice cut through the hubbub as it had done the previous night.
"It was too good an opportunity to miss! And we succeeded beyond our wildest dreams!" Her voice was strong as it had been last night, but without the contemptuous edge. Instead there was a feeling of exultation. Of infinite possibilities opening up.
"The spice-trance worked beyond our wildest dreams! I managed to deeply implant in every alien consciousness, a fanatical reverence for the Being! They will quake at the very sight of a Grid! And they will spread this message throughout the Planet!
"But what about the Leader? He won't allow this!"
"The Leader? Within hours he will be dead - slain by the Ahdem destined to be the next Alien ruler of Earth. The Historian will awaken within a few hours of returning to the Capital, and he will kill the Leader!"
"Are you sure that’s going to happen?"
"He is hypnotically programmed to do so!" Maais blue eyes were now flashing with the force of her amazing power. "He will feel the full force of Fear of the Being when he meets the Leader, and the Leader rubbishes his experience of last night! They will duel, and he will triumph! Hypnotically implanted fear is the motivational equal of a hundred injections of amphetamine - he will have the strength of twenty Ahdem. The Leader is already dead, Long Live the new Leader!!" She cackled.
"But the Ahdem will continue to rule the Earth" said Ranjan.
"No! The Historians only implanted task is to spread the message of the Being throughout the Galaxy - respect for its protectorate, Humanity, and fear of the 'dreaded Purple Grid'! Colleagues, get ready for the dawn of a new religion! Already we are signalling the other Human encampments around the globe to massively mobilize purple grids. The Ahdem colonies are next. With the Ahdem's immensely strong religious tradition, this will be mass hysteria. For their Empire, this is the beginning of the end…
"And what then?" one of the younger members of the Council this time.
Maai raised her old face towards the ceiling. Her eyes were shining bright, her body shook with the strength of her triumphant vision….
"Then…. Then We - Humans - will be ready to take over! But as Democrats!! Fellow Humans, prepare for an enduring federation of one hundred planets!! One hundred species!!!
There was silence in the room as the enormity of the future began to make itself felt. There was so much, so much to plan for, so much to look forward to. It was such an impossibly large change in fortunes for the human race …..
Maai turned her eyes to the open door of the hut. The stove's old flame had begun to burn low. But that didn’t matter anymore. For the first early streaks of a new dawn were visible in the ignorant night sky outside, tendrils of light that would soon multiply and dispel the age-old darkness of the mud hut, and herald the advent of a new day for Humanity…
And it wouldn’t have happened had it not been for the human childhood game of noughts and crosses.
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