The Triple Goddess (130 page)

When it was confirmed that everyone who RSVPd that they were coming had signed the register, and was seated at an enormous round table, the official part of the meeting began. The Alliance’s Blender Chairperson welcomed each participant in turn, made some brief introductory comments of a general nature, and mooted that there should be no formal Agenda, in that there would only be one thing on it: What To Do?.

This was unanimously agreed. As the meeting proper was about to begin, a Black Hole broke in with an offer to solve the problem once and for all by swallowing Planet Earth, so that they could all take a few days off, sightseeing and enjoying themselves around it before it got digested. He had a personal hankering, he said, to visit the Black Hole of Calcutta, about which there had long been speculation amongst the Holes as to whether it might be a relative of theirs.

After the assembly was polled, the suggestion was declined from the Chair, with thanks on behalf of everyone, and a minute was made for the record by the Secretary.

The Blender Chairperson then turned matters over to a group of Blender experts, who outlined Lightyear’s concerns regarding Earth’s corruptive practices, and its conviction that they could not but have deleterious consequences affecting them all, if something were not done soon.

A further presentation was made regarding the potentially devastating effect upon them all, in the event that no action was taken, were the current situation to be extrapolated according to a series of incrementally exponential formulae projected to the
n
th degree of worst-case scenario.

It was quickly agreed amongst the Alliance representatives that an Executive Committee of All Nations should be formed, based on Lightyear, which would be empowered to plan, authorize, and implement a strategy to deal with the problem. The only debate was over whether the manner of achieving this should be peaceable or not; but the Blenders prevailed in arguing that no force should be used. If it were ever to be contemplated, Lightyear on principle would resign its chairmanship of the federation, and take a neutrally consultative role only.

A proposal was then made and seconded, that a Blender crew should visit Earth for the purpose of conducting an exploratory exercise, evaluating the situation at close quarters, and reporting back to the Executive Committee with its findings. A vote was taken
nemine dissentiente
. Willingly acquiescing to the will of the majority, and accepting the task of acting as the Alliance’s envoy under the direction of the Executive Committee, Lightyear undertook to send a Blender task force to Earth with the objective of making a covert survey, and “ascertaining the extent of Mankind’s negative intentions and destructive capability beyond its unacknowledged boundaries”.

Before the convention broke up and the Alliance’s members departed, they agreed upon who was to remain on Lightyear to serve in the common interest on the Executive Committee, and the language and codes by which they would communicate with the diaspora of the Alliance’s representative nations.

Using both their own technological resources and those that their partners shared with them, the Blenders set about designing and constructing a mobile space station that would be operational within Earth’s atmosphere, and self-sufficient in everything it needed for the maintenance of its crew and equipment. It would be able to manoeuvre under water, on land, and in the air with equal facility under any conditions. It would house laboratories staffed by a community of scientists and doctors who would be proficient in performing whatever tests and analyses might be necessary in the field, in the course of acquiring and processing information concerning the planet and its occupants, and discerning what the Humans’ psychological motivations were and what their objectives consisted of.

In order to guard against any attacks, challenges or resistance that it might encounter, the station would be provided with protective, evasive, and repulsive—but not offensive—means.

When it was ready, the Blenders named the great station “Water-Sky”. Water-Sky was dispatched to Earth, where it invisibly and undetectably...a couple of dogfish, an electric eel, and a giant squid were able to pick up a faint signal, but the glitch was soon fixed...established a submarine base in a deep ravine at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

As soon as it was
in situ
, by a series of remote procedures Water-Sky began a pre-planned programme of collecting samples of water, air, and chemical and mineral deposits from around the world. The cells, tissues, fibres and bone-matter, the blood and bodily fluids; the bacteria, viruses, and diseases of every species of mammal, bird, reptile, fish, insect, and every form of vegetation, were radioscopically extracted and collected and isolated, and subjected to a battery of cultural and molecular analyses and tests. Also, millions of examples of Human thought processes, both as individuals and groups, around the planet were recorded and interpreted, with the object of trying to increase understanding of Mankind’s instincts and behavioural patterns.

As mandated by the Executive Committee, cloned copies of every piece of collated matter were transmitted back to the Mission Control centre on Lightyear for distribution to the Alliance’s members, so that they might do their own research and have the opportunity to reach their own conclusions.

But the best laid schemes gang aft a-gley, wrote Robert Burns, and the situation took a catastrophic turn…thereby proving that Earth was not the only heavenly body to be affected by Sod’s, or Murphy’s, Law. Water-Sky’s Captain received an urgent request from his Chief Scientist for an emergency consultation; which of course the Captain agreed to, knowing that this individual would not ask for anything without good reason, because, taking intelligence and a certain intuitiveness for granted, a Chief Scientist’s reasoning skills were his prime qualification for the job.

The Chief ran so fast to the bridge that his legs could not keep up with him, and he tripped so many times that he would have arrived faster had he walked. When he did get there, he had a similar problem with his tongue, and valuable moments were wasted while he downed two and one-third pints of iced green tea brought to him by a petty officer.

When the Chief Scientist had calmed down sufficiently to speak, the Captain asked him how he was doing and how things were going.

Terrible, said the Chief Scientist, on both counts: now that all the pieces of the puzzle that his team had been putting together, while Water-Sky lay doggo on the floor of the Pacific Ocean, were in place, the picture that emerged was…the Chief Scientist used a bad word, in fact several bad words, more of a phrase, really, from the Human language that he had just learned, but did not understand.

To which the Captain replied that he was sorry the Chief Scientist had reason to be upset. And he asked the petty officer to pour him another pint of tea.

No, thanks, said the Chief Scientist, I’ll be peeing all day and up half the night.

We wouldn’t want that, said the Captain.

But that was not the reason for his coming, said the Chief Scientist: you know, to complain.

Really, said the Captain.

No, said the Chief Scientist, it wasn’t.

Then what was the reason, said the Captain.

Ah, said the Scientist: the reason that he had asked for this interview was that he had just picked up signals from Lightyear’s unmanned outposts, which were located far beyond the perimeters patrolled by its regular sentries, that were indicative of a rapidly approaching, Earthbound, force of huge dimensions. So large was this force that the monitoring stations’ systems were almost overwhelmed by the frequency and severity of the reports.

It had not taken long for the sketchy details to materialize into the startling news that an armada of Oriented Pallasites, commonly known as meteorites, was approaching the Milky Way. It had been determined that these meteorites were so broadly massed and massive that, if they continued in their path, they would encounter the planetary and astral bodies that comprised the Alliance. It was suspected, from the loss of contact with some uninhabited clusters on which Lightyear had communications towers positioned, that they had already been taken out, plus a number of remotely piloted aircraft, or drones, and self-operational unmanned aerial reconnaissance and spy vehicles, as the invaders cut a swathe through space.

Is that so, said the Captain.

Yes, said the Scientist. And that was not all.

No? said the Captain.

That’s right, said the Scientist: when this information was added to the data that he and his team had collated, he said, it was clear that the origin of the fell force was not spontaneous. Lightyear’s concerns about Earth’s nocent activities, and their potential to damage and infect the rest of the universe, which had prompted the convening of the First Intergalactic Convention of the Alliance of Planets and Stars, Suns and Moons, Novas and Nebulae, Giants, and Red and White Dwarfs, were most justified.

In the language of Mankind, it was the Sodom and Gomorrah of the Human race that was responsible for generating the humongous hailstones that were hurtling towards not just Earth but all of the Alliance’s community of civilizations.

What had happened was that the natural antibodies present in Earth’s solar system had become ineffective over the centuries, as Humanity squandered its gift of Free Will by using it to advance its greedy and selfish interests. The pure and positive waves of energy that once pulsated earthwards from Infinity had metastasized into huge cancerous tumours. The sinful piece of grit in the oyster of Creation, instead of being coated with the nacre of forgiveness, had grown and grown and grown, and divided and divided and divided, into many impulsive rocks of destruction. And now, as if being drawn by the strongest magnetic force, these multiple missiles were homing in on the source of their corruption, Earth, in order to eliminate it.

En passant
, the mineral bane would cause, not just minor collateral damage, or even major collateral damage. It would also obliterate the blameless parties of all the other stars and planets. Nations that had followed the paths of righteousness…the compliance of the Black Holes could not be certified, because no one had ever audited their behaviour; or, if they had, a report had not been filed…were going to pay the ultimate penalty for the actions of the tiny minority.
Homo sapiens
, by its persistent flouting of universal laws, taunting of a theoretical Deity, refusal to desist at the behest of saints, prophets, and seers; and despite the intervention of an alleged Scion of Divinity in human form, had not only brought retribution upon itself, but disaster to everyone else.

Consequent upon this earth-shattering news was that the supposition that forgiveness and absolution of sins was endlessly renewable had been proven to be an unwarranted assumption. Everything was going to be smashed to smithereens; and, unlike in the mythic Flood, there would be no Ark of survivors to repopulate a world that no longer existed.

Everything would be gone, that was, except for one celestial body that was located so far beyond the others as to be outside or beyond the meteoritic path: the star Lightyear itself, which was many times farther removed from Earth than the most distant object in Mankind’s cosmic ken, and far farther away from it than any of the other members of the Alliance were.

But this was of no consolation to the Blenders, either for their own sakes or those of the rest of the others comprising the intergalactic league, because Lightyear was not a big star. With the best will in the world, which Blenders manifested more than any other nation, it could not accommodate even a small fraction of so many refugees.

Water-Sky’s Captain had no reason to doubt the truth of all of this, and a lot more besides that his Chief Scientist conveyed to him in more than a few words; and, then, because he had not got to be Captain by not deserving to be Captain, he told the Chief Scientist to stick around while he got on the blower to Mission Control on Lightstar, so that he could repeat what he had just told him.

When the stark and incontrovertible facts were relayed to the Alliance’s Executive Committee, the pair was informed that Lightyear was simultaneously receiving the same information, albeit in less comprehensive and detailed form, from its various outposts, and that the Blender Chairman had already ordered the transmission of Red Alerts to the recently departed members of the Alliance’s ruling councils, recalling them to the conference table to discuss the crisis.

The Captain was instructed to put Water-Sky’s on-site operation on hold, and to stand by and await further instructions.

As soon as the members of the Intergalactic Alliance were reconvened, they knew that their current strategy would have to be drastically revised. If the Human problem had not already brought all nations together in a cooperative effort, receipt of this information would have instantly united them in an utter community of purpose.

The first thing that the majority of the federation agreed upon, was that Water-Sky’s fact-finding exercise must be enlarged into a full-scale diplomatic and humanitarian mission. The time for caution and concealment was over. Water-Sky must declare its presence on Earth, and assure the honchos at Central that it was no Trojan horse; that its occupants were peaceful ambassadors from a universal coalition of well-wishers, come to alert them to a lethal state of affairs, and enjoin them to combine forces with them against a common, inanimate, foe.

The almost unanimous opinion of those on Executive Committee was that, surely, when the terrible truth was confirmed by Earth’s own scientists, as it surely would be despite their much less sophisticated equipment and knowledge, the Central government would agree, if not to trust, then at least to attempt to verify—
doveryay, no proveryay
, as per the old Russian proverb—what was happening, and be open to persuasion that the Blenders had not come in a 1066 AD-style invasion.