Chapter Six – Pragma Directive

Pragma Directive

Chapter Six

“He has done it.” said One.

“As we suspected he would.” acknowledged Two.

One floated over to the displays and read them again. It ran three more sets of algorithms and confirmed the findings once more.

“Should we gather evidential fact before pursuing the fugitive?” asked Two.

One pondered the question for a time before answering.

“Yes and no. We can gather the evidence while still pursuing.”

“How would you like to proceed, One?”

“We will unfold near their system and drop a probe into its orbit. From there we can deduce the string he followed and begin pursuit. Currently, create a crease and send the latest information Home.”

After transmitting the anxious message, Two initiated the centrifugal tunnels so that they would have functional gravity when they arrived in-system. Their torus shaped vessel reflected the black of space as its smooth mirrored surface slowly rotated horizontally over its surface area, constricting as it approached the inner hole.

Two calculated the time they would remain in real-space before they could drop the probe and begin their new calculations for the next fold.  It sighed after its calculations were finished, there would be a considerable time of drift between objectives.  Idle time in the vessel meant time that One would want to speak.  The conversations between One and Two had become more than speculation, they were becoming heated debates.

Visual klaxons signaled an unfolding of the ship’s quantum state as they approached their reentry point.  Both occupants vigilantly studied their display modules as they were exhaled from one moment of space and inhaled into the next.  The zero-spin transfer was completely out of their control and yet they surveyed their instruments as the intelligence that controlled their transportation plotted and transported them from quantum space to real-space.

“Bounty hunters.” Said, One, shaking Two from his thoughts.

“That is what we would be called on Earth,” One continued.

“I know the term.  But we do not receive monetary gains from the capture of a fugitive.  I do not think ‘bounty’ would be the correct terminology.”

One acknowledged its agreement.  “Hunters we are, truly.”

“Hunters that do not kill their prey, only return them to justice.” Added Two.

“We have been given greater latitude on this mission…” said One, not finishing the thought out loud.

Two remained silent.  It hoped that One would let the silence continue, but it knew that would not last for long.  One floated slowly over to Two, attaching itself next to it.

“We are together for a reason,” began One.

“A reason I am finding more difficult to understand,” finished Two.

“The most important reason is that we accomplish our tasks successfully.  You work well under my supervision, and I excel at having a worker such as yourself.”

“We do not work together as we did in the past, One.  You and I are in disagreement and that will not create the harmony we have always shared.”

“I agree,” One cut in, “But, that is most likely the other reason for us to be on this most important of missions together.  I do not agree with his thinking, your thinking.  I agree with the idea that has been the norm for many generations.”

Two did not want to be badgered into another argument over their differing philosophies.  Two returned its attention to the displays, rotating various views, pinching down others, just to appear busy.  One took a breath as if to say more, paused, and shoved off to float back to its chair.  The revolutions of the tunnels were picking up and the slow return of gravity caused One to bounce twice across the floor during its transit.

As soon as One was secured it triggered the ship to accommodate for gravity increase by sliding the living areas to the outer hull of the torus.  One and Two would effectively be walking on the walls once nominal gravity had been achieved with their heads pointing towards the inner circle, the hole, of the torus.  Two had known that One would begin shifting their environment without any warning and had already secured itself before the commands were launched.

Chuffing silently at One’s juvenile attempt, Two slowly raised its hand to chest level, palm up.  Two stared intently at its hand until a small glow began to emit from its palm.  The small glow brightened a small amount and then began to grow into a column of fuzzy light.  The column clarified into a being.  Two silently stared at a perfect, yet smaller scale, reproduction of K’Chul-Kan.

Two focused intently on the projection of K’Chul-Kan.  It was a recording from a previous time –actually, an epic time, from not that long ago.  Two gave a slow blink and tuned into the audio of the recording.  It played silently within Two’s head.  Though the recording only showed K’Chul-Kan, Two could mentally fill in the scenery around him and picture him standing on the floor of the Dergama Coliseum, speaking to the governing heads of most of the known universe.  Two could picture the faces of the powerful beings K’Chul-Kan was presenting his objective to only because it had been there personally.

K’Chul-Kan gave a low bow to his audience.  “I would like to thank the residents of Dergama for allowing me the chance to speak before you.  I am flattered and humbled that I have been given a few minutes from your very busy schedules.”

There had been some slight rumbling from the regal looking crowd seated in the raised levels of concentric circles.  Many were not happy allowing this spectacle, perchance giving K’Chul-Kan the chance to grow his anarchic following.  Many did not want to give credence to his arguments, and allowing this audience would add a sense of legitimacy to his cause.  This performance was being beamed, creased and viewed by a large contingent of Union space.

“I will not attempt to quote law in front of a complete planet of government officials, but what I do want to speak about is one of the oldest laws we have in affect.  It is a law that has defined much of what we do and how we live.  It is a law that could possibly be viewed as the event that culminated the governing body we now enjoy throughout the universe.”
K’Chul-Kan lowered his head in reverence of the longstanding law because what he was about to say was against everything it stood for; it would be political heresy.

“Eons ago,” he began, ‘the collective intelligence we have named Atua, spoke to us of an enigma in the universe.  A being whose presence spans its own relative plane of existence could not fathom a mystery that existed within our own galaxy.  Our curiosity was piqued.  What was this mystery?  Where was it?  Why was it?  As if we could answer questions that Atua itself could not.”  K’Chul-Kan chuckled quietly at their arrogance.

“Once Atua guided us to the mystery and its profound existence, we too began our investigations.  We studied and surveyed what we called the enigma-kind.  And eventually we fell in love with the beings that would begin to call themselves humans.  They have amazing names for their planet; the big blue marble, the third rock from the sun, the Earth.  And we have learned their cultures and politics, cried over their poetry and art, sat silently as they killed themselves.  For that is what Atua demanded of us.  We were to leave the humans alone.”

There were murmurs of impatience from the crowd, yet most were politely quiet, maybe even lost in their own reverent thoughts of the beings that had unknowingly ingratiated themselves into a universal culture.  The humans were a constant source of amusement and awe.  The universe had been given a candid view of a race of beings that had no idea they were being watched, a race that had did not even know there were other living beings beyond their small system.

“And why were we to leave these humans alone?  We pleaded with Atua to tell us, let us in on that knowledge at least.”  K’Chul-Kan waited a beat.  “And Atua finally told us.  And we were silent in our awe.  Throughout the universe as we know it, and as Atua understands it from knowledge far more immense than ours, life has been seeded.  We have the proof in our genetic stream.  We, all of us here, were placed in this galaxy through a purpose and reason unknown to us.  Something a very long time ago, even by our reckoning, planted the seeds of life from which we sprang as fully developed beings.  We all share the same manipulated structures within our genetics, we have been tagged.”

“Until then, Atua was the only being that we knew of that did not share that genetic trait.  But Atua is an enigma himself, as that he is an intelligence existing within his own plane and actually occupying that plane entirely.  There is no room for others in his plane of existence, there is no other Atua.”

“How was he created?  We do not know.  From what he will tell us and what we can deduce, he is a creature, or construct, that was created at the very moment of creation in this universe.  Somehow he was born within a pocket of our universe and the next, living in a crease between the folds, or living in many places and times in a keystone singularity that crosses all the phases of our universe at once.  For millions of years he was aware yet unable to contact anything outside of his existence.  It has only been in the last fifteen thousand years that he developed a way to communicate with us, and began helping us, and handed us immortality.”

“Which brings me back to the why, why we should leave the humans alone.  Atua has done studies and we have done studies, and the humans are not like us.  No, the humans are alone in the universe for one strange yet significant reason.  They do not share our genetic structure.”

K’Chul-Kan was not telling anyone anything new but there was a profound silence in the coliseum as they all listened to the history once more.  The enigma-kind had been known of and studied for so many years that it was almost meditative to the audience as they considered the universe’s greatest mystery yet again.

“Humans do not carry the ‘tag’ with which we are all identified as beings created by a source somewhere within or without the universe.  They are an anomaly of the natural sciences we have studied.  They have evolved; a term created by the humans and which we have adopted, for we had never encountered such a spectacle before.  And it is not just the humans that evolve but the plants and animals that inhabit their planet also.  And it leads us to believe as they do, that somehow they are special in the universe.  Somehow they have been blessed by an unknown entity to survive against all odds.  They call it divine intervention, and so far I have seen no reason to doubt them.”

“Atua demanded we leave the humans alone so that we may watch how they evolve.  Atua believes that they will evolve into something extraordinary.  In fact, his belief is that they will become quite powerful as they evolve, and in his prophet-state he pronounced them as the inevitable rulers of the universe, boundless in their powers.  Where we have seen their bodies almost completely stop developing into something else, their minds have raced ahead.  While we have achieved great feats in technology that far surpass theirs, we have stood stagnant in comparison to the leaps and bounds they have made within the same time-span.”

K’Chul-Kan paused.  He took a calming breath, knowing that his next words would shake the foundations of a government long steeped in its traditions and obstinate ideals.  But he knew also that what he was going to say would also ring a great truth for many of the viewers and attendees.  He was forcing a wedge down the middle of a civilization that had known peace for millennia, but he thought it a price that need paid if they were to survive into the future and forevermore.  A leveling effect to make all sides equal.  Once the humans were set even with the rest of the universe contact could be made, and the roots of a long enduring friendship and union between them all could begin to take hold.

“My lords and leaders, ambassadors and presidents, I am requesting a favor.  I would like your permission to ask Atua to create a version of the genetic spore that will work on the humans to give them immortality, just as he did for us.”  There were many loud gasps of shock as some of the quicker thinking politicians understood his reasoning.  Or maybe they had grasped what he was saying so quickly because they themselves had already considered the notion.

“I believe that by giving humans the immortality structure, their evolutionary process will stop and they will be equal to us –“

The roars from the crowd threatened to cut out his audio broadcast.  The audience had become outraged and he hurried to finish his plea.

“Then we can finally visit Earth!  We can befriend the humans we all love!  We can let them know how we appreciate their arts, their minds, their love!”

The audio went from garbled to static to nil.

Two continued to stare at the projection of K’Chul-Kan that rose from the palm of its hand.  It flickered silently, froze for a moment, and winked out of existence.

“And even though our officials denied him his favor,” broke in One. “He went to Atua himself and asked.  For reasons unknown to us, Atua complied.”

Two had no idea how long One had been watching the recording.

“K’Chul-Kan broke one of the oldest laws, the humans are immortal, and now he is the most wanted criminal within known space.”

“He did it out of love for his people.”  Two kept its voice calm.

One did not even attempt to keep its emotions in check, thick sarcasm rising to the surface.  ”K’Chul-Kan does what he wants and always has.  The only reason I can see for his presentation at Dergama was to create a faction of believers to his cause.  To divide the united worlds and create chaos”

“He wanted to give the public the chance to see an alternative to worshipping the enigma-kind,” interjected Two.

“Correct, Two.  He wanted the public to worship him instead.  And as I can see, he has gained at least one follower.  As for the humans, he has stunted their growth and cut them off from their God.  Their genetic code has been rewritten and there is no guessing what greatness they will never now accomplish”

Two looked down at its empty palm which slowly disappeared with the clenching of its fist.  One simply did not understand.

One watched Two for a moment as it stared at its thrust out fist.

“Yes, watch the division between One and Two,” pondered One aloud.  “K’Chul-Kan has been successful on many levels.”

One shifted back to commander mode.  “We have arrived; it is time to drop the probe.  I will calculate the string that he traveled, so we may catch him all the quicker and put an end to this chase.”

Two slowly turned back to its displays.

Indeed, the harmony had been broken.

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