Flight of the Maita Supercollection 3: Solving Galactic Problems Collector's Edition Page 39

  "Well, philosophy time is over," Z mumbled to himself. "I'll probably keep changing and growing – at least, I hope so – and will probably always have that empty space somewhere deep in the soul I know I don't have.

  "All in all, it's a pretty good life I lead! My decisions have real meaning at times.

  "I wonder, what should I have Maita serve for dinner?"

  Well, not always.

  Flight of the Maita

  Book 21

  After the Old Gods

  © 1987 by C. D. Moulton

  Kroon (Book two) is experiencing a plague that could destroy the entire population – and they can’t contact the empire.

  This was not meant as a part of the Flight of the Maita series, but was added by request of several readers.

  Critic comment:

  I was one who asked Moulton to place this into the Flight of the Maita series. It is a very realistic tale of an AIDS-like plague, and the solution is not beyond belief. It is a good character study.

  – KL Rating *****

  Superb!!! ***** PA

  Contents

  Foreword

  Questions

  Bad News

  First Meeting

  Starting the Plan

  Intense Research

  The Horror Grows

  Constitutional Protections

  Stabbing at Shadows

  Other Avenues

  Cling to Hope

  Announcement

  Solutions

  After the Old Gods

  Foreword

  After the Old Gods was an idea that occurred to me after rereading an old story of mine that was an insensitive treatment of the AIDS question. That "old" story was written three years ago. I called it Well.... and in it I treated the subject in a comedic manner.

  I don't regret the story in its own place, a compendium of things including comedy/horror.

  I have since studied this virus and learned there is nothing whatever humorous about it. When certain facets of the problem are extrapolated in a "Worst possible case" scenario it's enough to scare pure hell out of me. When taken in a lesser case scenario – it STILL scares hell out of me – and I'm personally not in any of the socalled "High risk groups."

  The thing that seems to me to be glossed over far too often is the fact that viruses mutate.

  There's another point or two that went into this story. One is there are any number of things that could be tried, but probably won't.

  Another point is something that happened a few years ago in the area where I make my home.

  Young people were dying from an incurable cranial amoebic infection that was contracted while swimming in certain stillwater ponds and lakes. The symptoms were, so far as I could ascertain, identical with what is called "Brain fever" in parts of Malaysia. Brain fever is also contracted by swimming in warm stillwater ponds. I have seen the affliction cured with some regularity there by having the victim drink a decoction made from the stems, leaves and flowers of an orchid, Dendrobium crumenatum.

  Upon reading about the disease I immediately contacted researchers at a nearby university who asked, before anything else, what my degree was in.

  Not in a related field. They ignored me completely. I am not "qualified" to suggest a possible cure. I am ignored as a "Nutcase" to this day by those people.

  How many people have died of amoebic brain infection since that time?

  I don't pretend to claim the treatment would work or that it is even the same disease. I merely believe that, as some similar affliction IS cured by the method, someone should at least ask if it is POSSIBLE the orchid could offer relief – and TRY IT! There’s NOTHING to lose!

  There is another odd thing that suggested part of the solution in this story. It happened to two friends of mine who had severe head colds and were in a certain place at a certain time. Their colds were gone in a couple of hours.

  I can't say anymore here or I will give away too much of the story but, suffice it to suggest the REASON for the solution in the story is the explanation those two received for the curing of the cold.

  Head colds are caused by rhinoviruses of several types. I know better than to suggest conducting research with this method on AIDS and other viruses. I will be totally ignored because I am not "qualified" to make those kinds of suggestions.

  I AM a nutcase in certain things. I work at it. There is no better way to get privacy from certain types of people than if they find me opinionated. My only hope is that someone will ask, "COULD something like that work?"

  The Kroon, the race who is in the grip of this medical crisis, were introduced in book two of the Flight of the Maita series, Settling In, and appear in other of the books. I will undoubtably use them again.

  I tend to like some of my characters and to dislike others. I find I have mixed reactions to the Kroon. Perhaps they are too much like the human race in certain ways. Some of them are “good” and some aren't. Most fall somewhere between.

  However: If you like the modern style of writing with a lot of unnecessary vulgarity, with muddled morality, with obscurity or with badly flawed "Heroes" designed to make the reader feel he isn't so terribly bad after all. If you don't like bigger-than-life heroes such as in Star Wars, then put this book down right now! You're going to hate it!

  If you long for a good old-fashioned straight-adventure story with clearly defined rules of action and morality, read on!

  C. D. Moulton

  Hudson, Florida – 4/15/88

  After the Old Gods

  Questions

  Are the gods really dead? Are the Ithians right?

  It's a thing which will require study. I'll have to read all I can and will have to run the television show that brought this mess to a head to see what really transpired. As is usual in this type of thing there are far too many wild stories and far too many versions of what really happened. There are, as always, as many versions as there are people, but as a historian I can't allow anything so vague to affect my thinking or my decisions. The best thing I can do is to interview those directly involved with the alien craft and review the television recordings which appear at this point to be rather complete.

  I never accepted the old gods as they were presented. That I must admit – and further, the Ithians were the only religion that could have attracted me had I been forced to a choice. There's something automatically repulsive to me about one who would tell me I must accept a belief or I'm damned. Some of them would even directly try to kill those who were of another religion – even a different cult of the branch they supposedly represented.

  Who were those strange aliens who had come to Kroon to disrupt the society and to destroy the beliefs of so many? What right did they have to instruct us how to run our world? Hadn't Kroon done quite well without interference? Were the aliens truly a positive thing?

  These questions must be answered from the perspective of a historian and not that of a priest, fanatic or even one who was directly involved at the time. Personal involvement must suggest emotional response, which is never objective.

  That the aliens were real couldn't be denied. They weren't a trick of one or another church. All churches – exclusive of Ith – were as much as destroyed by the fact there were any aliens to come here. Ithianism, by its very nature, simply wouldn't care.

  The aliens brought some small being with tentacles who was supposedly from a planet called Menta. It always seemed to be far the most intelligent among them when everything was later considered if only because it kept its mouth (figuratively. It didn't speak, or I should say, "vocalize," directly) shut and merely observed, inserting comments at rare times and with rare insight.

  There was the huge hairy one they called a Vendan and the one who was almost like a Kroon except that his skin was one-colored – and that an ordinary pinkish off-white. He was supposed to be from a world called Terra.

  That ship! It was enormous and reportedly was made of pure platinum.

  To be quite honest, Kr
oon WASN'T doing well at all so I must suppose they had the right to attempt to save us from ourselves. Everyone who was NOT from a church, plus the Ithians, seemed to like them. That fellow who had been employed by the television station as a cameraman wrote some things far more telling than anything those politicians and priests ever wrote.

  Brother! The representatives of the churches didn't like them! Not at all! They’re still crying about it, even though their churches are gone. It seems there are always a few who will cling to an idea no matter how dead it is.

  It's more than the halfyear since they left and things are still not settled in any way, though the small wars have become much less. As they were mostly fighting among different sects that was to be expected. Like it or not, the Mentan was right when it said the only thing we ever got from our churches was war, intolerance and blind hatred.

  I've tried to be honest in researching the history of Kroon through the history of its various religions and find it to be unjustifiable from any position. It really is a sad and bloody heritage those churches have given us. Enn Far, from the Ithian church, has worked very long and hard to try to straighten the sordid mess out and will certainly be elected representative to the council. That's foregone. He was the only Kroon who made any sense through the contact, which was quite an accomplishment in itself. Almost everyone else involved had been nothing less than an embarrassment to the Kroon race. That their actions and statements were more reprehensible than responsible is another of those undeniable facts.

  I'm called Hal Korr and am a historian. I was in the jungles of Frite with the anthropological team who earlier discovered the ancient ruins of the Kitronchitlan race. Our "dig" returned less than ten days ago so I didn't know of any of this mess until I stepped on the ground from our ship. It was my first knowledge anything had happened in my short absence. I seldom listened to the newscasts on shipboard as there was no reception in the Jeurne Valley where I spent the past year so perhaps I can be somewhat more analytical about it, my having lived through the time in rather extreme isolation from the whole thing.

  That's the sworn duty of a historian. I must make no judgments in what I record, but must write the facts. That is ALL!

  As I understand, these aliens landed in their spaceship saying they were merely on vacation from some empire and had happened on Kroon so stopped to look around. There were a number of small wars in the desert over those silly scrolls. (Sorry, I'll try not to make judgments. I MUST not make judgments! Only a moment ago I said I would stop doing that.) The aliens flew over to demand the wars stop, then flew over all the major cities on the world where the various militaries fired every type of our weapons with no effect on them whatever. They came to ground near the capital where they met with the politicians from the old churches to set up a worldwide television show where that idiot, Gu Verdeen, (Sorry – I DID PROMISE not to do that!) and those others made absolute fools of themselves. The priests and religio-politicians were seemingly easily manipulated into making claims that were demonstrably untrue by dint of the fact of the aliens' BEING here. The Great Vision of Soolinn was shown to be totally false, causing the end to that ... to one arm of the most powerful church on the world of Kroon.

  When the teachings of Soolinn fell the rest of the branches growing from his worship were dragged along with the Church of the Vision. Gui Veltree was soon manipulated into acting like some kind of idiot – but then she always had acted that way. (Again! I MUST show NO bias! I'm going to have to rewrite this whole thing! Note: re-transcribe this before printing.)

  I have to study those tapes. I've been told all the aliens did was to point out exactly how ridiculous the ideas were when the priesthood contradicted themselves so completely and so often.

  I'm assuming manipulation through rhetoric. These churches have had more than a thousand years to learn how to slip out from under tight spots by THEMSELVES manipulating language. That was only poetic justice.

  Perhaps I'm wrong. I'll gladly admit that if it's true. Now the Ithians are in power, but they had by advice from the aliens made a world council bid. They set up a form of government to be run by council, not by the churches, so the religions are denied any voice in the government. I suppose that will last but awhile. Kroon doesn't have a history of keeping a thing that's good – not for very long. Some new religion will arise to take power and we'll be as bad off as ever. It won't be the Ithians as that kind of "religion" has no base for power. They believe there may or may not be a god or gods but if there are gods it's irrelevant. These gods, should they even exist, certainly don't care what we do.

  If one studies history one tenth as much as I have he can't fail to see their point. There are no strongly religious members in the historical studies guild. The results of earlier points about what heritage we have from the churches ensures this will persevere. I am, however, somewhat less than pleased with the demands being made upon my time as these people insist I make speeches. I'm a recording historian, not an orator. I'm able enough when it comes to that. I simply feel it an imposition on time better spent elsewhere. I AM primarily a teacher. I would personally much prefer that I be left alone to pursue my studies. I'm not certain this society's worth the trouble or that it'll last. As I say, we have a history of doing the wrong thing at precisely the wrong time. History is NOT going to treat kindly what we had and it isn't at alllikely it'll be any more kindly disposed to what's replacing it.

  One thing Enn Far did that WILL be a positive point in history is his disarmament pact. This is the first time in our existence we haven't been armed to our ears and in some kind of war with, as the Mentan is supposed to have said, "our own kind." It seems we would be better disposed to get along with aliens than with others of the Kroon race.

  Is that true elsewhere? If so how would I research it? I think I would very greatly have enjoyed conversation with the Mentan. Like all the aliens it was bluntly truthful to us about ourselves. Its statement, including the above, is reported as, "You have the effrontery to ask us to allow you congress with the Maitan Empire? There are several thousands of worlds already a part of the empire who are vastly different from you and even from any of us on this ship. They get along very well with one another as you can see from this little group. No two of us even slightly resemble one another. You seem unable to get along with your own kind. To think of you coexisting among the peoples of the empire is ludicrous!"

  I'm ashamed to have to admit I fully agree with that painful but true assessment. We CAN'T get along with our own kind. We have NEVER gotten along with others on Kroon and, if history is truly the best prophet, we never will.

  The fall of the old churches is also a good thing in another perspective: They had become purely political organizations vying for power among themselves. There was no freedom or choice left to the people. Ithianism will end that for a time.

  When I think of it I'm not surprised these three aliens and their intelligent machine were able to topple the old church system. The priesthoods had become so deeply ingrained in their sniping at one another all the aliens had to do was give them powder enough and they would blow THEMSELVES into the hell they so very loudly and long decried.

  I was contemplating many such random things, audiblizing them into my portable recorder as I unlocked and entered my office at the University of Zeneye, the Capital City of Klarstenland of Kroon. I threw my records and notes onto the desk, read my mail, checked over my incoming assignment sheets and called records for copies of all they had on the aliens. I would have to spend a few hours on it to be able to deduce what had really happened and what was rumor or direct untruth from the dispossessed.

  Damn it all! I needed this time to correlate my work of the past year and to write my book about it! We've made some major advances in the digs in Jeurne Valley Rift about the ancient Fricke civilization of the Kitronchitlan race. It shouldn't have to wait just because I was asked to make speeches about the effects on our sad history of contact with the aliens! We wouldn't KNOW the eff
ects for a minimum period of hundreds of years! It will probably mean the later leaders will be perhaps a slight bit more clever and careful in their scheming, but nothing else will change.

  Why me, damn it?!

  No sense in getting upset. If I want to be a professor I'll have to act like the bureaucrats think a professor should act, but damn!

  I picked up the printed-out transcription of that worldwide television broadcast, but it wasn't good enough in written transcript, though this "Z" character, the Terran, seemed very sharp to me. It needed intonation and facial expressions, I decided, then decided that intonation may be important, but facial expressions may mean nothing in a being from a different society. There are even vast regional differences in the area where I was recently working that are almost directly opposite to those of this area.

  I located the cubes of the broadcast, placed them into the player on the television monitor and sat back with the controls. I could then stop, rewind, slow, speed up – whatever. Might as well enjoy the show – and from what I've heard it was REALLY a show! After a full halfyear it's still all the people talk about!

  Erl Flann, that insipid wimpish newsman from the old Vision Church, was introducing the people. He said this one was the Terran, Z, who would answer all the questions.

  I studied the Terran very carefully on action stop. He was but a few centimeters shorter than Flann, had brownish hair on his head, an unusual trait, but was otherwise very much like us. He was an even light whitish/tan color where we have many patterns of color, but was bipedal, had ten fingers as we do, had brownish eyes where ours tend more to greens, reds and blues – very close, really. He seemed confident rather than arrogant as the priests later claimed and not at all like what the priests said previous to the show if the papers I read were accurate.