Science Fiction Microstory Contest discussion
First time, three-way tied champions, Tom Olbert, Jot Russell and Justin Sewall
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Jun 26, 2019 07:14AM
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By Tom Olbert
The dragon’s eyes blazed red as fire, a thundering roar rising from its fearsome maw.
Arthur’s heart pounded, his blood racing hot as he spurred his steed, Excalibur raised high, gleaming in the noonday sun. The dragon lunged, its monstrous claws red with the blood of its victims. Arthur thrust at the monster’s heart, Excalibur glowing with the shimmering blue light of the enchantment within it. Even as his noble charger died, Arthur skewered the dragon’s heart. The beast roared as Excalibur blazed in heavenly fire, severing the dragon’s head.
Arthur’s knights cheered their king. He took a knee and bowed his head over the hilt of Excalibur, his bloodied fingers clutching it tightly. How much longer could the lie endure?
#
Merlin worked at the neutronic circuity within the hilt of Excalibur, the wires humming and crackling under his laser torch. “The power pack is nearly spent,” the old man muttered, linking in the charger. “I’ll need more parts, Morgaine.” He glanced across the chamber at Arthur’s sister.
She sighed, a look of anxiety crossing her distinguished features as she tossed her long, dark hair. “The crossings are becoming far too dangerous,” she insisted. “I tell you, rumors are spreading. We can’t hide the truth much longer.”
“I tire of the lies!” Arthur shouted, no longer able to contain the guilt and the fear rising in his bosom. “This kingdom was to be a beacon of peace for an embattled world! A better society, a new hope where humanity could begin anew, free of the mistakes of our ancestors!” He pounded his fist into the palm of his hand. “How much longer can the dream of peace stand on a lie?”
Merlin sighed, passing his hand over the spherical glass holo imager of the historical archive, the artificial intelligence responding to his thoughts. Images of the cities of the ancients shimmered in the center of the crystalline sphere. “You really believe the people are ready to hear the truth, Arthur? Look upon the history of the human race!”
The crystal filled with images of flying machines and ships to the moon. “As webs of communication spread across the globe, man trusted less the scientists who created those webs and heeded more and more the lies of artful charlatans. Look...”
The crystal darkened with black clouds rising from smokestacks. “As man’s greed polluted the air and the earth grew warmer, scientists warned the people then of what was coming, but the masses heeded only the lies of self-serving leaders, until the seas swallowed the nations. As orchards withered in scorching drought and the multitudes starved, man slaughtered his brethren over what scraps remained.” Arthur shielded his eyes against the searing light of the fiery golden mushroom clouds filling the crystal. He saw the mutations, the great reptilian beasts spawned over the ensuing centuries…
Merlin deactivated the holo sphere, the images fading. “Science could have saved our ancestors, but they forsook it for fear and illusion. Now, they demonize the memory of science, blaming it for their suffering. You cannot tell them the truth, Arthur. They look only to their god for comfort. They would crucify and burn you if you told them how the ‘magic’ really works.”
Arthur sighed in bitter acceptance even as Pelinor stumbled into the laboratory, his face gleaming in sweat, his breath labored... “My lord…” he stammered, barely able to get the words out. “The masses are in rebellion. They have stormed the gates and will soon overrun the palace! They cry that Merlin and Arthur are frauds! That the devil’s work of science is practiced here!”
“Lancelot and Gwynivere have betrayed us!” Morgaine hissed bitterly, clenching her fists.
“It is time to go,” Merlin said, opening the hidden panel into the elevator. “Come, all of you!”
#
The submarine swept out through the hidden tunnel to the ocean beyond the rising flames of Camelot. Arthur sighed in resignation, his sister’s comforting hand upon his shoulder as the beautiful domed underwater city of Avalon appeared in the viewport.
“Avalon cannot sustain us forever,” Merlin said grimly. “We may seek our fortune among the stars one day.”
“Will they remember us?” Arthur wondered aloud.
Merlin shook his head. “Only as a fairytale.”
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©2019 by Jot Russell
“It was finally clear to me. The question was, how did he know?
The fact is, twelve hundred years before Darwin, one man understood well the mechanism of genetic engineering a race through the simple process of ‘natural’ selection. He obviously knew the science; it was just a manner of wielding the same proficiency at politics. And as the Roman Catholic Church had shown, religion is one of the strongest forms of politics. It was an easy enough path to follow toward his ultimate goal to reach that level of social strength.
And the first requirement of strength, is growth; for politics, that meant population. As like another historical figure, Hitler likely took a page from Muhammad’s testament to create breading camps for newly pubescent children. Back in the seventh century, that man formed his religion with laws geared toward growth. But his idea was not to spread the seed of each evenly throughout the population. No, he gave the most aggressive and ambitious men the right to have four wives. And as the case would be, he had thirteen. Other men were forced to keep up, or see their seed lost to time.
The Chinese had created arranged marriages, to transpose the desire of beauty to one of obligation. Instead, this man disguised all feminine beauty with a shroud, making any one of them a target for attraction, willingly or forced, as long as his goals were met.
Yet population growth was only part of his insight. As with Darwin, he had recognized long before that intelligence and strength were not the greatest attributes in determining the longevity of a species. It was his people’s ability to change, to migrate, to prepare, all based on a calendar that was deliberately broken from the solar cycle. From the words of God, anyone can be forced to fast or celebrate at the time of ‘His’ choosing, regardless if that holy month falls in the middle of the rainy days of Summer, or the cold/dry days of Winter. Brilliant!
But what Muhammad failed to understand, was the keys that unlocked this truth were all around him; yet somehow out of sight beneath thousands and millions of years of sediment. By the twenty-first century, scientists completely recognized evolution as fact, while giving in only to their own merits to fall short of calling it proven. By the first years of the twenty-second, even most traditional religions released their orthodoxical notion of the six days of creation. Instead of it being holy water to cleanse the religion with truth, it drown out the last holdouts of that faith. Yet the Quran was not written by men two to five thousand years before. No, it was still considered the word of God handed off by His prophet to half of the then twenty billion that inhabited the Earth.
Twenty billion people! Are you hearing that class?
It is now 2198, with only ten percent of that number today. Granted the nuclear wars and ravages of nature corrected the balance quite abruptly, but why haven’t the numbers rebounded? Anyone?”
I looked around to see only blank stares from the half virtual images of the adolescence in attendance, until one raised her hand.
“Susan?”
She hesitantly provided her answer. “Because there is no religion?”
“Exactly! We are now a global society without the division of religion and politics. Instead, we have engineered government through the use technology and science to build stability into our world and those we now have our sites on. Starting tomorrow, our seed will spread, without the cost of each other or the animals we share this world with. Tomorrow, we take that small step into the stars. Question, who wishes they were on that star-ship?”
Most of the kids raised their hands. I pointed to one reluctant lad. “Shane, you wouldn’t like to travel to the stars?”
He shook he head lightly. “No, I kinda like it here.”
“Fair enough, fair enough.” With that, the bell rung. “Tomorrow we’ll be discussing the birth of democracy and make sure to complete section seventeen. Dismissed.”
Mod
Justin Sewall © 2019
“Primus, esteemed Delegates, members of the Ecclesiasty, fellow countrymen – hear me. The direction of our people…has always been upwards. Since the founding of our great Republic more than two hundred minuscules ago, ascension has always been our birthright. Nay, our manifest destiny.”
Talbot Fain quietly arranged research papers in his valet as the Chief Delegate for the Committee of Republic Science Security gathered oratory momentum.
“When you were children, you all admired the champion jumper, the tallest climber, the big league ball players, the toughest pugilists. Verdurens love an Ascender and will not tolerate a Descender. Verdurens strive to ascend all the time. Now, I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a Verduren who descended… and laughed. That's why Verdurens have never descended and will never engage in con-descension. Because the very thought of descending is hateful to our people. It is upwards today, tomorrow, always and forever.”
Fain’s daughter Falisia, seated in the witness booth next to him, rolled her eyes in disdain.
“Now, as our buildings reach ever skyward there's one thing that you Verdurens will be able to say when you get back home after these august…proceedings, and you may thank God for it. Thirty minuscules from now when you're sitting around your fireside with your grandson on your knee, and he asks you, ‘What did you do in the great Ascension Crisis?’ You won't have to say, ‘Well, I shoveled arthro dung in the lower levels.’"
Thunderous applause erupted throughout the audience chamber – which itself had ascended ever so slightly during the hearing - building into a tumultuous crescendo that flooded the outer salons. The Chief Delegate resumed his seat with a look of smug satisfaction and crossed his arms defiantly.
A gavel banged, order was restored, and Talbot Fain was invited to move to the Speaker’s Box.
“Thank you, Chief Delegate, and this entire chamber, for hearing me today. I must confess that I bring grave news – quite possibly an existential threat to our entire Republic and ascending way of life.”
The Chief Delegate snorted derisively, much to the delight of several back-benchers. Fain ignored him and pressed on.
“I have discovered during my well-documented research, the ruins of previous ascending societies. The levels of strata stretch back several minuscules,”
“Heresy!” cried someone from the Ecclesiasty.
“My evidence is real,” retorted Fain with quiet confidence. “As real as this chamber and the sky above it.” He placed several desiccated, mangled stalks on the platform before the Speaker’s Box.
“Do you recognize these? They are exactly the same materials that make up every structure of our great Republic. None of them ascended any higher than twelve to fourteen cubits – and they all exhibit the same signs of destruction at that time. Verdurens! My countrymen! This very structure is now fourteen cubits from its base. I’m telling you, the end is near! We must evacuate now to the lower levels if we wish to survive as a people. Yes, it is loathsome, but we must descend – or leave entirely for the coast!!”
The audience chamber again erupted with noise, only this time, it was full of anger. Documents and debris of every kind rained down in full force from the upper levels, preventing Fain from continuing.
“Father!” cried Falisia. “We must leave!” She held up the tremometer so he could see it. Its small stylus was moving back and forth violently across the scrolling parchment. Fain needed no urging. He snatched up his valet and quickly ran out of the Speaker’s Box, Falisia following close behind.
“The fools!” swore Fain. “They’ve sealed their own destruction!!” They exited the rancorous audience chamber, its sound and fury diminishing rapidly behind them.
“I made sure the ‘thopter is packed and ready for us Father. We can leave for the coast immediately.”
“Excellent my child. You are your father’s daughter.” Fain quickly kissed her forehead.
“What I didn’t tell you is I already sent word to my brother at Castle Granules – we’re expected, and we’ll finally be safe.”
***
“Johnny!”
“Yes Mom?” Johnny cringed inwardly.
“Remember you have to cut the grass today before you go to the beach with your friends!”
“Aw Mom, can’t I cut it after I go?”
“No young man. Grass first, then beach.”
“Yes Mom.”
Johnny sullenly headed for the garage to gas up the mower. His fists balled up in frustration.
He was SO going to smash any sandcastles he found.
The mower roared to life, then rolled inexorably forward over the ascending grass…
Mod
Your hive minds story idea is getting a lot of buzz!
