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11-10-10

12M

p11

God’s Hammer

by

Gianni Pezzano

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    The skyline was dominated by the pyramid, no, not a pyramid, he realized. It was a ziggurat with a large flat area at its peak. Without any idea of the distances involved he could not guess at its true size, but it was big, very big.
    After he finished examining the scene from his window he went back to the table, picked up the pen and continued his letter.
(continuation of the letter)
    ‘I’ve just looked out my window, Rita. I looked at what must be a residential area of the capital and I remembered a History lesson at the Academy.  Captain Keenan asked us to imagine the Ayin’s what the Ayin lifestyle must be like when it is totally dominated by devotion to its God. I cannot.

    I looked at the houses and it seemed to me that I could have been looking at an Earth city. The only strange aspect is the ziggurat I see in the midst of the buildings and even this might be normal in Mexico, or some out of the way South American city.

    I find the lack of tall buildings strange, but there must be a reason for this, although I have no doubt that I will never know it, at least in this life

    I saw vehicles moving along the roads and red dressed people walking along pathways, but I struggle to understand why we find ourselves at war with a people that are so outwardly similar to ourselves.

    Yes, Earth had its period of religious conflicts, but surely two populations that have managed to reach for the stars should have been able to resolve any differences we may have had. Now I think of each step of the crisis that began with the lynchings of the Ayin missionaries that led first to the destruction of our Holy Cites and we (I?) answered with the attack and destruction of their Eye and I wonder whether or not we will be able to resolve our differences.

    I feel the three chains around my neck and they remind me of the centuries upon centuries of murders and destruction each has undertaken against the others in the name of one or other of the Gods. It took us a long time to overcome these
hatreds. Have these ten or so years of war with the Ayin sown the seeds of other millennia of war between religions?

    I am at the last days of my life and will never know the answers to this doubt. I hope you will live to see Humans and Ayin live in peace.’

Part Three   SACRIFICE

AYIN HOME WORLD DAY 2

(continuation of the letter)

    ‘Oh Rita, what have I done?

    The Ayin do not mourn only their God, they mourn themselves.

    Their civilization is dead and I did it.’

Three lines, it had taken Paolo nearly twenty minutes to write three lines, even though his mind was full to overflowing from what he had experienced during that long, long night. He told himself he would write everything he saw, but he could only write the briefest words to describe what that experience had taught him.

    He looked again at those three lines and saw that, for the first time, his hand was trembling and not smooth, as was his habit, even during the extreme isolation on board the remains of the Charles Martel.
    Paolo could have used the excuse of the long march to and from the temple to excuse the shaky hand, but he owed it to Rita, to himself and, above all and strangest of all, to the Ayin, to tell the truth of what he had experienced.

(continuation of the letter)

    ‘I must write all I remember now before I forget any details. The night has been long and my legs ache from the hours of walking and standing I have endured in the course of this strange and incredible night. I saw things I doubt any other human has seen and these sights have made me realize how mistaken we were about the Ayin.

    We thought we knew them because they are so like us. Now I know we misunderstood their devotion to their God. I do not know if we ever could have understood each other and avoided this war. History is full of these what ifs? and they only serve to make us regret even more our tragedies. I do not look back when I write this I look to the future.

    Do not doubt my words. No matter what happens in the future, we have destroyed the Ayin civilization.

    What price will we pay for this destruction?

    Yesterday afternoon I was resting after having written my last note to you. I had thought that I would not be called to the ceremony until the next day, but I heard movement outside my door and wondered what was about to happen.’

    Paolo looked at these words, took a deep breath and steeled himself against the emotions and fears that the night had raised in him. He held the pen as though it were a weapon and charged into the pain he saw that night.

(continuation of the letter)

    ‘I only had the time of get up from my bunk when an Ayin officer walked into my cell. My first shock was seeing how he was dressed. He did no wear a standard uniform, but an obviously antique style of uniform. It seemed his red robe covered a
form of chain mail. A long sword hung on one side of a wide belt and a dagger from the other side. He wore a conical helmet that covered almost the whole of his head. If his unmistakeable eyes had not been exposed he looked like a warrior come from medieval European history. I was almost too astonished to realize that he was indicating I should follow him out of the cell.

    As I walked out the door I could that there were modern looking multistorey buildings in the distance. Once more I found questions being raised in my mind about the incongruity of these modern edifices as opposed to the almost old fashioned single storey dwellings I had seen from the window in my cell.

    When I walked out into the open I found a squad of Ayin soldiers waiting for me. They wore uniforms similar to the officer’s, but they were armed with long, javelin like spears that had a wicked looking barbed head. They shone in the sunlight
and the ease with which I saw these soldiers handle these weapons as we proceeded on our long march gave me no doubts that they knew how to use these them. They too had swords, but they were shorter and slung across their backs, but in recompense the daggers hanging off their belts were longer.

    At the head of the squad was a row of six musicians. Four were drummers and two held a strange sort of horn that looked like they had been wrapped around their possessors.

    Once assured that I was safely placed in the middle of the waiting soldiers the officer placed himself carefully in front of the musicians. He raised his hand in a signal and the drummers began a slow even beat that they would maintain for the
duration of our march.

    At no stage of that long procession was a word spoken by the officer, or any of the soldiers.

    As we began our march I saw that the road we would travel was lined with many, many Ayin. They seemed to form a red corridor through which we proceeded to our destination. After a while and a number of turns I saw we were approaching a
gate. The armed guards standing at attention as we approached made me realize that this was the main entrance to the spaceport.

    We exited the base and took began marching in the middle of the road. When I raised my eyes I saw the ziggurat in the distance. In that moment I realized that we were heading to their main place of worship.

    Luckily for me the measured pace of the marked by the drummers allowed me to easily keep pace with my long limbed escort. Seen from outside they must have been keeping what our drill manual would call a ceremonial pace. It was measured and precise.

    At first the road was clear. So clear in fact that I wondered at the lack of vehicles. On an Earth city it would have been impossible for an armed escort to walk in that manner along a major thoroughfare without disrupting traffic. Yet the road
was not totally clear of any form of vehicle.

    Along every inch of the route Ayin formed a silent wall of witnesses to our progress. I saw Ayin males and females, children and what I assumed were senior members of their population. Not a sound escaped their lips. They watched out walk
by without a comment, with no sign of whatever emotions they may have felt at my presence.

    I have often seen crowds during my life. At the football matches I attended, at the protests I witnessed, at the many religious festivals and ceremonies I saw at Rome, never, ever, have I experienced such silence amongst a group of people. They stood along the sides of that road watching us, like red stone statues.’...


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