Vatican Ambassador (40 page)

His escort commands respect. As he leads BC through the lobby, the passing Eldred part before him and BC, letting them pass by unmolested.

Like a blue koala Moses parting a blue koala sea! Heh, could be a song in there somewhere!

When they reach the other side of the lobby, a large, rounded door opens in front of them. They continue on through the door into a section of the building that is clearly older. They walk down a corridor rounded like the door, walls bowing out at their center.

Walking down a tube. Kinda reminds me of old Lunar Prime. Or a ship. Like their ship! Man,
look at how worn it is!

You just know this place is ancient.

Looks like they built the bigger building around an older one. Or maybe an old ship?

They arrive at another rounded door at the end of the corridor. The tall Eldred escort steps to the side as the door opens. He motions for BC to go on ahead of him.

“What? Me first?” BC asks.

“I will not be following you into the place of the eldest of the Eldred,” the tall one says.

“Only those who are summoned may attend the eldest. I have not been summoned.
You
have been summoned. Be honored, Bernard Campion. The eldest does not receive many visitors. Go on. Go in.”

“Thank you,” BC says with a nod. He walks into the dimly lit “place of the eldest of the Eldred” and the door slurps shut behind him.

Slurp? That’s not right! Sounds wet. The air is humid and damp, too.
Why is that not encouraging?

BC’s eyes adjust to see he’s standing on the edge of a large, round and domed empty room.
A big room full of nothing and no one.

Slick gray walls.

They look kinda wet, too.

Not that I want to touch them and find out.

A door slurps open across the room from BC. A small, hunched Eldred shuffles in towards BC.
Small like the other was tall. He does look old. And even more like a koala!

Do koala bears bite?

BC nods as the Eldred approaches. The Eldred does not acknowledge him, but instead shuffles past BC to sit down in a gray chair that had not been there before.

Where the fuck did that come from?

The floor?

Finally, after sitting down and settling, the Eldred nods back at BC.

“Please,” the Eldred says in a clear voice, “remove the atmosphere suit and sit down.” He indicates another gray chair that has appeared next to BC.

“Thank you,” BC says.

Funny. I thought he would sound “older”, somehow.

He looks old.

“You are welcome,” the Eldred says.

BC takes off the unsealed helmet and the rest of the suit. He sits down.
The air still kinda smells like lavender.

Definitely damp in here.

“I have been eagerly awaiting a chance to speak with you,” the eldest of the Eldred tells BC.
Really? What, “Say, how are you liking our attempted genocide? It’s quite something, isn’t
it?”

“I have also looked forward to meeting and speaking with you and your race,” BC tells the eldest of the Eldred. “I have only recently learned of your existence. I’ve been learning a lot, lately,” BC says with a smile.

Try to be diplomatic! Remember diplomacy, BC?

“I understand you are the leader of one of your human ‘religions’?” the Eldred asks.

“Yes, I am,” BC admits. “The circumstances that have made me the leader have been extraordinary, however. I must caution you that were it not for the plague that has wiped out so many of my kind, I would not be in this position today.”

Sounding good, BC. Humble, even. And reminding him why I’m here.

“I see,” the Eldred says. “But you
do
lead. Today.”

“Yes,” BC answers.

“I would like to speak to you, then, about your human ‘religion’. We have never encountered anything like it before.”

“What, nothing like Christianity?” BC asks, a little confused.

“No,” the Eldred tries to clarify. “Nothing like ‘religion’. You humans are the first race we have ever encountered that attributes powers and personalities to other beings, invisible beings, or greater consciousness larger than yourselves. It is quite fascinating.”

“Really? No other race has ever believed in God?” BC asks, incredulous.

“‘God’?” the Eldred asks, puzzled for a moment. “Oh, yes, ‘God’ is one of your names for this ‘power’, isn’t it?”

“One of our names for it,” BC confirms.

“Yes, you do seem to have many names for this power. And many disagreements between you over what the name
should
be. We see that you kill each other over your disagreements.”

“Some do. This is true,” BC admits. “But most humans are content to worship God in their own way.”

“I have not seen this to be true,” the eldest of the Eldred says, disagreeing with BC. “The humans who call the power ‘Allah’ want to kill you who call it ‘God’, do they not? We have observed your war!”

The Eldred nearly lectures BC.

“But enough of your differences,” the Eldred says, turning away from discussing the war. “Your race still seeks this ‘higher power’, as some of you call it. Your race seems drawn to some concept of a greater, more powerful whole. You are unique among the races because of this belief.

“I want to know why this is.”

Well, of course! That’s an easy one! Why do we believe? It’s like this, see? It’s ‘cause…

“That’s an interesting question,” BC says, stalling for time as he thinks of what to say.
We could discuss religion all day! Rather cut to the chase.

“An interesting question,” BC says, trying not to sound sarcastic.

Don’t know if they’d appreciate or even understand my sarcasm.

“You know, we humans have been trying to figure that question out for as long as we’ve been able to ask it,” BC tells the eldest of the Eldred. “And we could spend a long time, you and I, discussing the human need for religion. That would be a fun discussion, I’m sure. We can do that right after we first discuss why someone is trying to wipe out the human race.

“That’s why I’m here, actually. All the signs point to you, the Eldred, as the agents of our attempted genocide.”

So much for diplomacy.

“Hmmph,” the Eldred lets out a little grunt and shifts in its seat.

He almost looks uncomfortable! I know I shouldn’t put human traits onto an alien, but, damn!

His actions sure do look familiar.

“You are quite direct,” the Eldred tells BC. “It is, in some ways, all connected. Genocide, you say?”

“The plague now killing my people?” BC prompts. “We believe an Eldred agent introduced it into the human population during a covert trip to the Moon. Under the escort of The Project. We have further reason to believe that you introduced a similar plague to kill Van Kilner of The Project,” BC accuses the Eldred.

“I see,” the eldest of the Eldred says.

“We’re ninety-nine percent sure it was the Eldred,” BC tells him. “I’m here for one reason: to find out why. Why kill us all?”

The eldest of the Eldred remains quiet for a few minutes, apparently lost in thought. BC is about to speak up to prod him back into conversation when the Eldred finally speaks.

“If I do not accept the premise that underlies your question,” the Eldred explains, “I cannot answer the question itself.”

“‘If’ you don’t accept my premise?” BC says, pointing out the framing of the Eldred’s response. “I heard that ‘if’! Do you deny that your people have engaged in genocide, or not?”

“Well, yes, I see. You see,” The eldest of the Eldred pauses, tries to answer carefully. “We may have, er,

‘exploited’ a certain weakness, triggered an inherent flaw in your species as an, er, control mechanism, as it were.”

Must restrain the urge to snap the ancient fuzzy little blue koala neck!

“Inherent flaw?” BC manages to ask normally, keeping his voice under control despite his growing anger.

“Well, er, yes, you see,” the eldest of the Eldred shifts in his seat again, almost squirming. “We have been, er, watching you. Observing your race. For quite some time. Longer than you know,” the Eldred says with a knowing nod.

Trying to play wise man.

“We could not help but see that your race is, well, quite dangerous,” the Eldred tells BC.

“Dangerous?” BC asks almost involuntarily.

“You kill each other quite a lot, you must admit,” the Eldred insists. “What you say the Eldred have done… is that any different?”

“Who are you to judge us?! Who are you to exterminate us?!” BC shouts. He realizes he’s stood up in his anger.

The Eldred cowers, pulling back into its chair, “Even now you show the signs of your human hostility,”

the Eldred tells BC. “I had hoped for a less hostile exchange!”

BC sits back down and tries to calm himself.

“So, what, then? Did you agree to meet me here to ask one of us some questions before you wiped us out entirely?” BC spits out. “Question me then kill me?”

“Never!” the Eldred says, standing up to face BC, pulling itself up to all five feet of its height. “
We
do not kill!” he says, staring up at BC defiantly.

“What do you call your plague, then?” BC insists. “You
are
killing us!”

The koala turns and walks away from BC. “It is a correction!” he says. He turns back around. “We merely issued a corrective,” The Eldred says.

The alien walks back to its seat, finishing a small circle. “Our microbe exploits an already present flaw. It would have occurred on its own, eventually. We merely sped up the process.”

“What? That’s not killing?”

“Some die, but it is the flaw in their DNA that betrays them,” the Eldred insists. “Their very make up breaks down. Not all of you have died, or will die, only those of you already flawed.”

“Keeping us down to more manageable numbers?” BC asks. “What do you think we are? Some herd of sheep for you to cull when
you
feel
we’re
getting too restless?”

“No,” the Eldred says. He tries to continue but BC cuts him off.

“Damn straight!” BC raises his voice.

Gotta try to calm down! I still would like to make it home. No matter how bleak that
possibility looks right now.

“We don’t take well to being told what to do,” BC says.

“Are you trying to make a case
for
your race? Or against it, Bernard Campion?” the eldest of the Eldred asks in a calm voice. He has regained his composure.

Just kill him now!

Take out one of them before I go down!

No. Can’t let him get to me, gotta calm myself down.

“How do you know this ‘flaw’, as you call it, would have affected us? You have no way of knowing that,” BC points out as calmly as he can.

“It has happened before,” the Eldred answers. “It always does with your race.”

That was a loaded statement! What the fuck does THAT mean?

“Always does?” BC asks, losing it a little. “What does that mean? Camex told me this ‘Ancient Enemy’ built your race a million years ago. Were we engineered and built by them, too? And what? They messed up, and we’re flawed? What do you mean ‘always does’? You’ve seen our race before? What do you mean?” BC can’t help but let the questions pour out.

“Not exactly,” the eldest of the Eldred says. “But your race
is
flawed.”

“Flawed, huh? You keep saying that. Flawed how?”

The Eldred merely sighs.

Man! Again! So human-like.

The Eldred stands up. His chair disappears into the floor.

“Please, come with me,” the Eldred asks BC. “There is something I must show you.”

BC stands. The eldest of the Eldred turns and walks toward the far wall. A rounded door slurps opens in the wall in front of them. The Eldred proceeds into the tube-like corridor on the other side of the door.

“Follow me,” The Eldred says to BC. BC walks into the corridor behind him. The Eldred speaks as it walks.

“There is something you do not know. That you have not yet learned,” the Eldred tells BC. “Something you have not been told.

“This way, please,” the Eldred says, indicating a door opening in the left side of the corridor wall.

“Wait a minute,” BC says, stopping in his tracks. “What about the atmosphere? Don’t I need a suit to walk around?”

Let’s see how he explains THAT!

“There is no need to pretend ignorance, Bernard Campion. Your helmet and suit were not sealed when you arrived,” the Eldred informs BC. “You somehow deduced that the suit was not required for your safe breathing. You were right, but it was still required for your protection.

“Come, this way,” the alien says, turning another corner and shuffling ahead. BC has no trouble keeping up.

“Camex informed you of the Ancient Enemy,” the Eldred says. “We vanquished them an eon ago. But we are pledged to remain ever vigilant for new threats.”

Like us, I suppose, eh?

“There are not many actual records left from those days. Our accounts are sketchy, legends and myths, our evidence scant at best. It was over a million of your years ago, you understand. But we received a command passed down through the millennia, an instruction to never forget!” The Eldred says, as he shuffles on down the long corridor.

The Eldred stops and turns to BC to make a point.

“The Ancient Enemy was ruthless! Selfish! Amoral. Unsympathetic. Not capable of empathy, or compassion.

“Many wished to forget them when they were gone, but the Eldred were tasked to never forget!

“The Ancient Enemy conquered the stars! They were like your gods, descending from the sky to take what they desired, and bringing down heaven and hell.

“They created us, the Eldred race, to serve them, and serve them we did, for centuries. Until the day came when we finally rose up and destroyed them!” the Eldred says, as if repeating a litany. “Somehow, the bioengineering that made our race serve the Ancient Enemy was altered, flipped.

“Okay, hold on just a second,” BC stops him. “If the Ancient Enemy built your race, how could you be wired to kill them?”