DAVE GEORGE
THE SLAVE
My name is Herbert. I am a slave. I didn’t used to be one. I had my own family, my home, my friends... My status changes the day They arrived. They came for me. Even today I do not know I was their random choice, without predetermined action plan. It’s possible I was, but I could not swear it was so. And it’s possible that a chain of events influenced my current status which is utterly humiliating.
There used to be wars on Earth. It was a long time ago, we studied that in school from the textbooks in the subject called history. Slaves were mostly black colored people, brought from the colonies established during wars of conquest. Former great forces, wealthy countries, strived to expand their sphere of influence. And they succeeded. The attacked countries were too weak to offer serious resistance to the conquerers. The slaves were taken to large estates of the powerful people and there they did the hardest works. They had no rights, including the basic right to live. They were like things – walking apparitions of washed brains.
That is what I am now. The difference is that they slaved in one period of the history of Earth and I in another. The ancient one, from one point of view, although it is very hard to explain. Sometimes I have a feeling that I don’t care about anything. I have the impression that I have been here for a long time, although, if I wanted to, I could calculated exactly how long I have been in this forced slavery.
And it all started like this.
It was a cold winter night, in 1998, December 12 at 02:30 local time. I was starting the night rounds of the area I knew well in the patrol police car.
- Herbi, is everything all right? – they asked me from the central police station in Vaku.
- I think so. It’s 02:20 now. Outdoor thermometer reads 5 degrees below zero – I answered.
- The important thing is that it is warm in the car – said Robert, deputy chief of police station. – Don't go out – he added with a smile.
- I wouldn't think of it – I answered. – I'm not a big fan of winter.
- That's your job – Robert reminded me. – We are not keen on winter either.
- I'm continuing the rounds towards roads 6 and 63 – I informed them.
- O.K. Call back in another ten minutes.
- Agreed – I said.
Agains all my expectations the bottom of the object opened and three humanoid apparitions headed towards me. I could watch them sliding slowly down the ploughed up field. I concluded that they were much much smaller than me, although from that distance I couldn’t tell precisely how tall they were. Their heads were unusually big, flattened at the ends of the skull. They were hairless and they had something in their hands. I panicked. I was helpless and the only thing I could do was to expect what would happen next.
Multitude of quick thoughts ran through my brain. Who are they and what are their intentions? My chances of defense, if they were enemies, were slim and the weapon I had was totally useless. If I wanted to or not, I had to surrender to faith whatever it was.
They came real close. They were about 1.40 m tall with huge skulls and black spiral eyes. They had thin openings for mouths which as far as I could tell was of no use whatsoever.
A ray of intense light came over me and I fell into complete darkness against my will.
Body, all in sweat, irritates my mind. I’m humble, obedient to my own uselessness. I am surrounded by immeasurable multitude of people working hard, whose strained muscles push huge stone blocks wasting energy necessary for survival. White sun is high in the sky and have the impression that it is suffocating. My consciousness struggles against my weary sight. The sun is not white, it is merely a part of my visions and my internal state of mind. Somewhere near one of the slaves has tripped and fell. With a quick look I see that his strength is ebbing, that he is finished in the true meaning of the word. He is beyond saving, Herbert, some inner voice is telling me. Will it be the same with me? I’m afraid of such thoughts. Hang on, hang on, the inner voices are boosting me. Oh, God, no, no, no! – I scream. No one can hear me, no one understands. The languages of other slaves I know are different from mine, although on rare occasions of rest we manage to communicate somehow. Mostly by gestures. I am under the impression that we are doomed. Doomed in time. Doomed in the terrifying fate that has befallen us. Who are They that have brought us here? Why are we building those enormous building of stone blocks? Who will use them and for what? And why me? Questions which remain unanswered. Pointless, disturbing questions. I turn aside the thoughs that are tearing up my being and continue with my work...
I met Politea two months ago although we see each other rarely. She is a slave who belongs to another group doing less hard work. She is pretty, with dark hair and green eyes. She is about thirty, frail and quiet. She likes my company and sees me as some kind of divinity. Our hands sometimes touch restlessly, her pulses wash like waves with her softness my most delicate feelings. There is something between us, something called bliss. I have another name for it – love. I love her, and I know she loves me too, although all this is wierd. She is two thousand years younger than me. I can’t believe myself this is happening. My lips on hers, her body over mine. We enjoy sensual pleasures hidden from the view of others under the clear sky covered with Milky way stars which are so far away, and yet so close to me. Our tongues entwine, our bodies unite in rhythmic motions of the oncoming orgasm.
Years are passing carried by the whirlpool of time. Years of hope for the better, hope that something will change and that some miracle will put us in a more privilaged position. The body is used to work, love between me and Politea brought Aaron, our son, to the world. Now I now where I am, what kind of building we are making. I am in ancient Egypt, and the huge pyramids rise to the sky in their magnificence. The sphynx is nearing its end, the works on it are entering its final stages. Should I be glad or sad about it?
Enormous door of the room are opened and the ones who brought us here speak to us in telepathy. It’s a universal language of symbols which all of us slaves can understand, something like movie showing, only much more complex.
- We come from the far future of our parent world, Earth for all of you who worked on building the sanctuary. In the course of these centuries we have developed a high degree of technological development. We terraformed Jupiter’s satelite Europe by activating Jupiter and transforming it into a star. The heat of the star melted the ice on Europe. But we managed something else. Something unimaginable for all of you from whichever epoch you have been brought here. We’ve mastered the powers of controlling continuum space-time and that time dilatation, related to the twin paradox can, but does not have to exist. In the year 2458 there will be an atomic war on the Earth and everything will be destroyed. We are not able to save everything. For centuries we monitored and selected the most perfect people from different epochs which continue where are race ceases to exist. We are your distant descendants. Give birth and multiply. Life is a wonderful gift, don’t waste it.
They are showing us the pictures of rooms they call treasury.
- The treasury saves all data we managed to collect and bring here from the beginning of the civilization until 2485. They will enable you to build build ships which will transfer you to the nearest sun-like stars and containing Earth-like planets suitable for living. And now you will all be put in the state of hibernation. Your dream will last a few thousand years.
They are putting us in cacoons and we accept obediently.
We wake up from the dream which lasted for eons and silently watch one another. The cacoons open and we get out of them in a hypnotically slow motion. The mechanism activates the entrance to pyramids and we can see tha sand in front of us has some odd dark blue nuance of the sky. We go out in front of the huge stone buildings, our millenium fallout shelters. Politea and Aaron come to me.
Holding hands we set for the nearby hill. Other couples come following us to continue the existance of the human race and take us to the distant earth-like planets, to our future colonies.
I look at my dear Politea, my son Aaron and two suns watching us blisfully from our star system.
THE SLAVE
My name is Herbert. I am a slave. I didn’t used to be one. I had my own family, my home, my friends... My status changes the day They arrived. They came for me. Even today I do not know I was their random choice, without predetermined action plan. It’s possible I was, but I could not swear it was so. And it’s possible that a chain of events influenced my current status which is utterly humiliating.
There used to be wars on Earth. It was a long time ago, we studied that in school from the textbooks in the subject called history. Slaves were mostly black colored people, brought from the colonies established during wars of conquest. Former great forces, wealthy countries, strived to expand their sphere of influence. And they succeeded. The attacked countries were too weak to offer serious resistance to the conquerers. The slaves were taken to large estates of the powerful people and there they did the hardest works. They had no rights, including the basic right to live. They were like things – walking apparitions of washed brains.
That is what I am now. The difference is that they slaved in one period of the history of Earth and I in another. The ancient one, from one point of view, although it is very hard to explain. Sometimes I have a feeling that I don’t care about anything. I have the impression that I have been here for a long time, although, if I wanted to, I could calculated exactly how long I have been in this forced slavery.
And it all started like this.
It was a cold winter night, in 1998, December 12 at 02:30 local time. I was starting the night rounds of the area I knew well in the patrol police car.
- Herbi, is everything all right? – they asked me from the central police station in Vaku.
- I think so. It’s 02:20 now. Outdoor thermometer reads 5 degrees below zero – I answered.
- The important thing is that it is warm in the car – said Robert, deputy chief of police station. – Don't go out – he added with a smile.
- I wouldn't think of it – I answered. – I'm not a big fan of winter.
- That's your job – Robert reminded me. – We are not keen on winter either.
- I'm continuing the rounds towards roads 6 and 63 – I informed them.
- O.K. Call back in another ten minutes.
- Agreed – I said.
Agains all my expectations the bottom of the object opened and three humanoid apparitions headed towards me. I could watch them sliding slowly down the ploughed up field. I concluded that they were much much smaller than me, although from that distance I couldn’t tell precisely how tall they were. Their heads were unusually big, flattened at the ends of the skull. They were hairless and they had something in their hands. I panicked. I was helpless and the only thing I could do was to expect what would happen next.
Multitude of quick thoughts ran through my brain. Who are they and what are their intentions? My chances of defense, if they were enemies, were slim and the weapon I had was totally useless. If I wanted to or not, I had to surrender to faith whatever it was.
They came real close. They were about 1.40 m tall with huge skulls and black spiral eyes. They had thin openings for mouths which as far as I could tell was of no use whatsoever.
A ray of intense light came over me and I fell into complete darkness against my will.
Body, all in sweat, irritates my mind. I’m humble, obedient to my own uselessness. I am surrounded by immeasurable multitude of people working hard, whose strained muscles push huge stone blocks wasting energy necessary for survival. White sun is high in the sky and have the impression that it is suffocating. My consciousness struggles against my weary sight. The sun is not white, it is merely a part of my visions and my internal state of mind. Somewhere near one of the slaves has tripped and fell. With a quick look I see that his strength is ebbing, that he is finished in the true meaning of the word. He is beyond saving, Herbert, some inner voice is telling me. Will it be the same with me? I’m afraid of such thoughts. Hang on, hang on, the inner voices are boosting me. Oh, God, no, no, no! – I scream. No one can hear me, no one understands. The languages of other slaves I know are different from mine, although on rare occasions of rest we manage to communicate somehow. Mostly by gestures. I am under the impression that we are doomed. Doomed in time. Doomed in the terrifying fate that has befallen us. Who are They that have brought us here? Why are we building those enormous building of stone blocks? Who will use them and for what? And why me? Questions which remain unanswered. Pointless, disturbing questions. I turn aside the thoughs that are tearing up my being and continue with my work...
I met Politea two months ago although we see each other rarely. She is a slave who belongs to another group doing less hard work. She is pretty, with dark hair and green eyes. She is about thirty, frail and quiet. She likes my company and sees me as some kind of divinity. Our hands sometimes touch restlessly, her pulses wash like waves with her softness my most delicate feelings. There is something between us, something called bliss. I have another name for it – love. I love her, and I know she loves me too, although all this is wierd. She is two thousand years younger than me. I can’t believe myself this is happening. My lips on hers, her body over mine. We enjoy sensual pleasures hidden from the view of others under the clear sky covered with Milky way stars which are so far away, and yet so close to me. Our tongues entwine, our bodies unite in rhythmic motions of the oncoming orgasm.
Years are passing carried by the whirlpool of time. Years of hope for the better, hope that something will change and that some miracle will put us in a more privilaged position. The body is used to work, love between me and Politea brought Aaron, our son, to the world. Now I now where I am, what kind of building we are making. I am in ancient Egypt, and the huge pyramids rise to the sky in their magnificence. The sphynx is nearing its end, the works on it are entering its final stages. Should I be glad or sad about it?
Enormous door of the room are opened and the ones who brought us here speak to us in telepathy. It’s a universal language of symbols which all of us slaves can understand, something like movie showing, only much more complex.
- We come from the far future of our parent world, Earth for all of you who worked on building the sanctuary. In the course of these centuries we have developed a high degree of technological development. We terraformed Jupiter’s satelite Europe by activating Jupiter and transforming it into a star. The heat of the star melted the ice on Europe. But we managed something else. Something unimaginable for all of you from whichever epoch you have been brought here. We’ve mastered the powers of controlling continuum space-time and that time dilatation, related to the twin paradox can, but does not have to exist. In the year 2458 there will be an atomic war on the Earth and everything will be destroyed. We are not able to save everything. For centuries we monitored and selected the most perfect people from different epochs which continue where are race ceases to exist. We are your distant descendants. Give birth and multiply. Life is a wonderful gift, don’t waste it.
They are showing us the pictures of rooms they call treasury.
- The treasury saves all data we managed to collect and bring here from the beginning of the civilization until 2485. They will enable you to build build ships which will transfer you to the nearest sun-like stars and containing Earth-like planets suitable for living. And now you will all be put in the state of hibernation. Your dream will last a few thousand years.
They are putting us in cacoons and we accept obediently.
We wake up from the dream which lasted for eons and silently watch one another. The cacoons open and we get out of them in a hypnotically slow motion. The mechanism activates the entrance to pyramids and we can see tha sand in front of us has some odd dark blue nuance of the sky. We go out in front of the huge stone buildings, our millenium fallout shelters. Politea and Aaron come to me.
Holding hands we set for the nearby hill. Other couples come following us to continue the existance of the human race and take us to the distant earth-like planets, to our future colonies.
I look at my dear Politea, my son Aaron and two suns watching us blisfully from our star system.
