Daimones

Of Gods and Men

The weather changed over the next few days, and it rained a light but persistent rain. I gave up my forced schedule of visiting technology sites as the hope to meet with the entities there was slim. After all, nothing supported the hypothesis that they favored those places rather than others. In the end, the plan was just a wild shot in the dark. It could—or it could not—bring any results. Mary and Laura agreed that, if everything was as I told them, it was more probable for the entities to get back in touch with me rather than the opposite.

Spending those nights at home was good for the morale, especially when daily visits to CERN and checking for contacts via email or via the Facebook ad campaign had produced nothing. Life at home had a pleasant and regular flow made up of looking after daily chores, caring for the vegetable garden, and maintaining our efforts and commitment to create occasions for whoever could still be alive in the region to get in touch with us. And staying together. Pure and simple.

Laura's pregnancy had been uneventful so far, and she was able to keep up with the regular pace of our scouting activities. Sometimes, it was a casual outing, just to stay together. We visited places we didn’t know before and took lunch with us to spend the day outside. The world was magnificent that summer. Daylight at our latitude lasted quite long; bed time came when it was still bright outside.

We didn’t mention the entities at all those days. The grief and the sadness were almost forgotten: We had all we needed, and more than anything else, we had each other.

It was only after the end of June that I resolved to go to Lausanne and visit the EPFL. Maybe it was simply due to a full recovery of my moral strength. Everyone kind of agreed with the decision: In everyone’s mind, the belief that the entities were not a danger had grown somewhat stronger.

On the evening chosen for the plan, I left home around 9:30 p.m. so as to arrive about an hour later at the laboratories when the lazy night had yet to fall and I would still have a bit of lingering twilight before dusk. I drove toward the highway, not knowing what I would find there; so far, we had only traveled on local roads from one village to the other. Yet, I didn’t expect the Lausanne area to be any different from that around Geneva.

Five months of urban and road management neglect had started to leave a trace. On the highway, the vegetation separating the lanes invaded part of the asphalt, and the shoulder had become a growing culture of weeds, low plants, and shrubs. Untreated asphalt cracks widened, and green timidly spotted an otherwise dark gray cut in the countryside scenery.

There weren’t so many vehicle wrecks on the highway, which I welcomed. I got almost halfway through my journey when, in the distance, the lanes seemed to be entirely blocked by what soon appeared to be a rolled over double-trailer truck. Slowing down, I couldn’t help but realize that there was no way to go any further. I stopped the car and got out cautiously to have a closer look.

Around me, everything was calm. I switched off the engine. The world of silence made every natural sound prominent. Not a noise interrupted the monotonous song of the crickets and the gentle breeze among the branches. The foliage had never been so chatty...before.

The trailer was loaded with what at first seemed to be large bags or casings jammed and piled onto each other. After a few more steps, though, I clearly saw the contents and stepped back from the sad scene. It was a cattle transport and all had died in the accident, or soon after. The decaying process of the bodies had taken place thoroughly and their skeletons were covered with mere rawhide and skin, hung on bones like an old coat. The pain for those animals must have been excruciating and surviving the accident made them suffer further, only to meet an even more terrible death. It was a good thing I was alone as this wasn’t a scene for my ladies, no matter their age.

The cabin smashed in the accident, crumpled when the truck rolled over, and was now stuck against the guardrail. I realized then that we would never be able to get rid of obstacles such as that one without proper machines. Whenever and if ever we were to move somewhere else, we had to be ready to travel on alternative routes and be able to take those at any moment and from any location. Probably that also meant avoiding any route that didn’t provide us with multiple options to reach a destination, any destination.

I returned to the car, made a U-turn and drove on the highway in the opposite direction—extremely dangerous in another world, but not the one in which I lived. Dusk came, and the highway was dark. The countryside was deserted and there was no sign of human life. As expected, of course, but disturbing as ever.

After driving a few miles on the highway, a faint light appeared in the distance. It meant only one thing. I slowed down and unknowingly held my breath until I gasped for air. Getting closer, the distant glowing came from separate sources.

I stopped the car and got out. At that moment, I had a brief glimpse of a luminescent circular shape with spokes similar to a wheel quickly disappearing into the starry sky. But even today I could not be sure of what I saw in that brief moment.

I hesitated and took a deep breath. Back in the car, I kept driving slowly until I clearly distinguished five entities standing in the middle of the lane as if they always had been there.

The tinnitus again rumbled in my head but, as before, it started to get less chaotic. I prepared myself to hear something, though I didn’t know what “prepare” meant. They did not move. Maybe they had all the time in the world. I didn’t. My head felt like it was burning and buzzing inside, not just from the strong tinnitus but from the many questions, too...all ending with a big “Why?”

I advanced the car until I got about fifty yards away from the standing figures. Stopping, I turned off the engine and stepped out of the car. The night was upon us by then. A clear night with bright stars, brighter than ever in a world where mankind no longer spewed pollution into the air, where no man was present but me.

This time it has to be different, I thought. I was resolved not to be chased away. I did not receive any negative feeling as I approached. On the contrary, I felt I was being encouraged. Again, an unnatural serenity captured me, more imposingly than ever before. As if they had desensitized me to any fear and anxiety when in their presence.

The tinnitus became a multi-toned, randomly fluctuating pitch sound, and the hissing white noise totally disappeared. I slowly walked forward until I was no more than ten yards from them. There, I stopped. They were distinguishable after all. Similar, but different. One in particular was shorter and thinner than the others.

The tinnitus changed now into a reduced group of pure notes, their pitch fluctuating high and low in unison. In my head, I heard, “It is time.” I didn’t or couldn’t react physically but—emotionally—it was if the eye of the storm had finally reached me, revealing the sun and the blue sky when all around was dark devastation. The wind roared furiously. It was like one of those vivid dreams of mine, in the transitional phase just before falling asleep. It was happening for real, though, and it felt perfectly natural.

The five entities approached. I had time to look at them carefully while they slowly advanced toward me. They seemed to be wearing tunic dresses that blended into the ground and hid their legs and feet. The glow was rather intense, forcing me to squint my eyes. Their faces were old. Nope, scratch that: They were wise, not old. They kept approaching until they encircled me and I was then flooded with light from all directions. I could not see anything but them now, and barely that. Beyond, pitch black. I had the impression they were smiling. They each raised one arm to the level of my head and kept advancing.

I was in a trance-like state that I knew had to be induced. I did not move; on the contrary, I longed for their touch. If it has to be the end, so be it, I thought. Did everyone actually die this way?

“No, Dan.” The voice was clear and loud in my head and it startled me.

Their hands fused together, clasping onto each other around my head and face. In that instant, I lost consciousness of my own body. My everlasting tinnitus turned into one long melodic note. At the same time, it was all possible notes even though the sensation was of perfect unity. The purest note which had the potential of all sounds, pitch and frequencies. The mother of all sounds.

My eyelids were shut and I saw myriad of colors, vast plains stretching to the horizon. I was standing on the highway, and I was somewhere else at the same time. My vision didn't change whether I kept my eyes open or closed. Around me, the five entities stood like the spokes of a wheel and I was its hub. I could swear they were smiling. The pervasive calm allowed me to keep my rationality intact, unless that was a sign that I had actually lost my mind.

“Greetings, Dan.”

“Where am I? And who are you?”

“First, you are safe. You have no fear, have you?” But it wasn’t really a question. They lowered their arms.

“We are known as Moîrai, but we have had other names in your past. Krataimenês, Daimones….” I recognized that name. “No, that is not 'demons' in your language although some judged our actions as evil on certain occasions. So, in those cases, we could have been demons, too. Those are names from the times when humans were aware of our presence. Not anymore. Apart from a few like you, no one is aware anymore.”

“Is that your name, Mourrais?”

“Moîrai? That is how we are known. No, what you call names…I am known as Alaston, and here with me are Mênis, Algea, Akhos and Kratos. I met you before. In your past.”

“Alaston? Would you be the one I saw when I was a child? Why? Why everything?”

“You will be told, human, in due time,” a different voice interjected. I turned around toward the direction from which it came.

“Algea,” the entity introduced herself. I didn’t have any reason or any specific knowledge about it but I knew I had to refer to the entity Algea as a “she.” It was the thinner and shorter of the entities I had previously noticed. The voices were melodic but they were not truly vocal. I didn’t hear them in the physical sense, rather it was more than in just the physical sense.

“We know of your questions. You, as others are now, will start to be instructed this time, and made aware, so the same will not happen again.”

“Others?”

“Indeed. There are others of your species, as you have discovered. In the course of these events, special others have been selected, as you have been selected.”

“Selected? And why do you say you had other names in my past? I never…which past?” I realized suddenly they weren’t talking about me and this lifetime.

“The past of your race, as you are guessing correctly. After the First Loss, we decided to take a more proactive role rather than simply limiting ourselves to observation. It seemed to bear fruit. Nevertheless, we could not avoid the Second Loss. It has since been decided not to allow a Third Loss to ever happen.”

“I can’t follow you. Which losses? The second one? And what third loss has been avoided?” I turned back to the first entity. “Alaston? I’m afraid I am at a loss.”

“It is time, indeed, for you to start knowing of your past before you understand your present and can walk toward your future.”

I was in for a cosmic lesson and felt my questions had no more place then. I had to wait.

“Your race is young. And your race is not from the planet you call Earth. Your star system is young, formed not even five billion of your years ago, the way you count them now. There are civilizations in the Universe whose recorded history goes beyond that. In your time, your system is known to be composed of eight major planets and five dwarfs. These small ones were given names in your language: Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake and Eris. Your star is known to your people as Sun. There is still another planet beyond Pluto with a large elliptical orbit that your race has yet to discover. We call it Uribi.”

Alaston continued. “In the beginning, your race was prosperous on a planet that is no more but was once home to your race. Its name was Tiamat, the watery planet. Another planet, Eridu—or Earth, in your language—resembled Tiamat in that it was primarily covered with water. But Tiamat was much larger and richer that Eridu.

“Tiamat is still there in part, occupying its fifth position from your star, between the planets known to you as Mars and Jupiter. Its ancient position is still vaguely remembered, even after the Second Loss, in some later civilization's numerology where the number five has a central position and a unifying role. It all comes from a once-existing planet, closing the first inner circle of four companions.

“What remains of it forms what you call the Great Belt, also known as the Asteroids Belt, occupied by millions of irregularly shaped bodies. The loss of Tiamat, and the lives which also were lost, constitute what we call the First Loss. This event took place around 65 million years in the past of your time. Your race caused that loss and all subsequent events. Tiamat exploded, and the shock disrupted the stability of the solar system. Some from your race left Tiamat in time and survived. Eridu was their destination, a home away from home.

“The mystery of the great rift on Mars comes from the impact of a Tiamat fragment. The moons of Neptune still show evidence of that violent disruption. In the gravity tidal waves that derived, planets were disturbed in their orbits. Mercury, which we call Nebu, played with Venus for a while, traveling with her in a quasi-dual-planet system.

“The gravitational disturbances affected all planetary orbits for millions of years. Saturn lost part of its mass in a massive struggle with Jupiter in the modified orbit while gaining its rings in the process. Mars once had many more moons.

“Pluto and Charon are moons of Neptune that escaped in the aftermath of the cataclysm. The planetary system filled with debris, rocks, boulders and icy dust. Many collided with other bodies, others coalesced to become additional moons or displaced existing ones, some got lost in the interstellar space, others became comets, and the rings around Jupiter, Uranus, Saturn, Neptune, Pluto and Rhea started to take shape. For ages, much debris struck with violence causing massive destruction on larger planets.

“At the time of the Second Loss, your race started to have the suspicion you were not the only civilization in the Universe, even though you occupied only a marginal and peripheral position in the Galaxy. Still, you soon began—again—on a path of self-destruction and havoc. This knowledge you have lost because of your pride. Your race believed it was the only one in the Universe; if not, then certainly the most advanced one.

“Your pride and rage caused the loss of more than 16 billion lives on Tiamat alone. Your entire civilization almost got wiped out in your self-destructive foolishness. The First Loss was the largest any civilization in the Galaxy had ever endured and it rapidly plunged its survivors into a struggle for life on virgin Eridu. Not one race, except yours, has ever destroyed its own planet.

“Your race hovered near Eridu for as long as was possible, then landed on the inhospitable planet. They completed the extinction of the large animals. Your race almost succumbed as it scattered in small and hostile groups, because the old rage and hatred had not yet vanished from your minds. You chose the path of isolation, instead of the one of cooperation. Even in your most dire days.

“Your wisdom, advanced technology, and scientific achievements were all forgotten. Eventually, your race grew again in number, and regained some of its knowledge. You fully populated Eridu and indulged in your old, arrogant ways. Ultimately, your race discovered the power of fission and fusion of atoms and beyond. Its might grew again for thousands of years. Thousands of years ago. We all watched in amazement at the rebirth of a race and a civilization given up for lost, but your old nemeses—pride and rage—again unleashed destructive powers that nearly generated another planetary destruction. Eridu was shocked with powerful blasts and mighty blows.

“Powerful continents and nations had been annihilated, vaporized by the nuclear heat, consumed by your folly. Their remains still exist on Eridu as large areas of vitrified remnants of cities, fused green glass slabs where the rocks and the sand melted. Fission and fusion fire, much more powerful than the ones you know, ravaged once flourishing planes and cities in what you call the Euphrates Valley, and in what then became the Sahara Desert and the Gobi Desert. The entire known world had been defaced by the nuclear fire unleashed again by your race. Blackened and shattered stones now cover western Arabia, once a lush and fruitful land. The Sinai Peninsula bears its scars.

“Some of those memories remain narrated in your most ancient scripts. Ancient memories transcribed when their knowledge was long gone. Events we refer to as the Second Loss, events your race ignores and calls pre-history.“We revealed those events to those who had forgotten. The ancient sages lived in a frightened state of mind, fear justified by the events we revealed, events their ancestors witnessed and suffered, or perished from. Only very recently has your race begun to find inexplicable traces of modern artifacts, from times when humans were not supposed to have seen yet the light of day on this planet. And those were artifacts from the ages of the Second Loss. They might have given rise to questions for your wise ones to answer. It does not matter much now, does it?

“Following the Second Loss, we thought we could help your race avoid reenacting your doom by letting the new civilizations know about the ancient disasters. Lore of realms from the ancient Sumerian, the people of Babylon, the Indian epic, the glyphs of the Olmec, of the Aztecs and the Mayans are the remaining fruits of those revelations. Those events were remembered in some of the books you know.

“A scribe, when trying to cover those times, recites: ‘Then the Lord rained down fire and tar from heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah, and utterly destroyed them.’ It was nothing but the old memories of what your race had endured. Another says: ‘Nor is this world inhabited by man the first of things earthly created by God. He made several worlds before ours, but he destroyed them all.’

“Six times, your race was reborn and almost annihilated itself because of cataclysms originated from the First Loss. The repercussions from the destruction of Tiamat persisted for ages before the planets, as they are known to you, settled down. Even after the Second Loss, at about the time Eridu captured its Moon, over six thousand years ago.

“The repercussions from the violence of the Second Loss persisted in Eridu for thousands of years. Powerful earthquakes and unimaginable tidal waves caused repeated vast destruction in Asia Minor, in Persia, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Palestine, in the Caucasus and Cyprus. Several times, during the third and second millennia before the present era, the ancient East was ravaged by stupendous catastrophes.

“The ancient West went through massive natural paroxysms. At least five great upheavals put a sudden halt to flourishing new civilizations. The course of life was disturbed, and the flow of history interrupted, lost in oblivion. Earthquakes, flooding, and climate change did not spare a single land. These changes moved entire nations to endure large and vast migrations.

“Eridu acquired, then lost, a highly inclined ring of meteors and dust about four thousand years ago. Many fell on its surface and over the oceans, causing massive destructions. The ancients described these events, but they were considered tales for the entertainment of the mighty and powerful by those who came after them. These tales are present in all cultures, and in the entire world. We made sure those events were not to be forgotten. To no avail, though. The blind did not want to see.

“Only those who forget, and do not want to know, dismiss them as myths, as if myths were just the invention of poets. Those scars, Dan, are painful even today, for those who do not forget. Those powerful cataclysms caused the interruption of cultural continuity, which the scholars of your time acknowledged but never explained, while the answer was always in front of their eyes.

“One of your race, Plato, warned you: '…All this, though told in mythic guise, is true, inasmuch as a deviation of the celestial bodies moving past the earth does, at long intervals, cause destruction of earthly things through burning heat…'

“We walked among men, thousands of years ago, and many of the myths and tales of gods were thus born in the epics of all men on Eridu. Poets could not invent them, unless they had been told or had seen them.

“Your race is far more dangerous than you might understand now. Ever since the First Loss, you have been under careful watch. What your race caused recurred like a plague and brought down upon you a celestial current, each time leaving uncivilized remnants. Wherefore, you had to begin all over again, like children, without knowledge of what had taken place in older times on Eridu.

“For the last thousand years, we and others have been uncertain about your fate, fearing the day when the son of man would reach his might again and emerge corrupted. A million years have passed after the First Loss before the conditions for the Second Loss were met. Now, only a few thousand years since that second great calamity, your race had again become capable of causing inevitably a Third Loss.

“What would happen if, one day, your race should break this cycle and impose another Loss not onto itself but onto others? Who would then be blamed the most? Those who have forgotten, or those who still remember and know well?

“For thousands of years, the struggle continued between those who wanted your race to be tested and possibly forgotten in a Final Loss, and those who despised this eventuality. This time, your race would have probably vanished forever, and those who forget would have been forgotten.

“The Cycle of Losses had to be broken, and we had to take action so that those who always forget could never forget again. Eridu is not to be disturbed again. So, we decided to start the Selection.”

I was overwhelmed. Alaston didn’t have a single moment of pause, I wanted to reject those accusations, put in a word for the beauties the human race produced. Rationally, I couldn’t believe or accept anything of what Alaston had said. It clashed with all I knew and studied. Emotionally, though, it fit. Moreover, why lie? I was too insignificant in all that I heard to imagine I could be of such an importance for Alaston to need to invent it all. There was only one option: that he had spoken the truth, an unimaginable truth that explained everything. He described horror and anguish, and I knew we were capable of perpetrating all he said. Even in my lifetime, we had been able to accomplish the worst toward each other. Alaston had just given me the Unifying Theory of Human Evolution on Earth.

“Yes, human, there are no reasons for us to invent anything of what your own race has sown and reaped.”

I turned toward the new voice and wondered whether he’d read my mind.

“Mênis,” the entity introduced himself. “What is happening now is the harvest of the actions sown in the past. Today's actions are seeds being sown for a future harvest.

“Whoever sows sparingly, will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows bountifully, will also reap bountifully. It is time for your race to sow bountifully. Alas, it has proved time and again it cannot do so by itself. The readiness is now here, and it has been deemed acceptable. We want the Selected ones to know,” he paused, “in one last severe test.” Mênis took a solemn tone.

“They will be given according to their means for the favor of taking part in the relief of their own race, and the breaking of the Cycle of Losses. And they will be given without having to endure the wraths of the past. Those wraths will be repressed and a new civilization will have the chance for rebirth.”

I was humbled, uncertain of my role here. “I think I’ve heard those words before…”

Mênis looked at me intensely and showed an expression of fanatical zeal and determination.

Looking deep inside me, he addressed me again. “Others were told those words before. If they resonate in you now, then the Selection has a chance to bring success. Those same words didn’t resonate at all on so many of your race for thousands of years. It is sane and healthy for you to be humble before you start the walk toward your future. No sane race could do something as horrible as what yours has perpetrated—twice!”

That “twice!” slashed like a whip. It felt like a sharp and quick slap on the face to the human race. After all I had heard, an even more hurtful judgment came from the entity I subsequently came to know as Akhos and it caused distress, both in my body and mind.

“Your race scorns everything around it, and its gaze goes beyond in search of that which is fickle, with vain hopes. Never have you used your talents to do good, or to benefit others. You enjoyed your arrogance and leveraged your strength for brutal actions and wild deeds, subduing, mistreating and exterminating those who fell in your hands or crossed your paths.

“For your race, respect, justice, fairness, and magnanimity are virtues only appreciated by those who lack the courage to hurt and are afraid of suffering, not worthy of those who have the power to impose themselves with such traits.

“Your race learned well that possessions can be stolen, lands and kingdoms can be conquered by destruction. But the life of a sentient being is not found, human, nor can you buy or steal or gain it from the time when it left the cloister of his teeth in a last breath. Always you have been in search of that which is fickle and worthless.”

The last entity, Kratos, approached. “Akhos, I think the human has been lectured enough. Although our words did not hide anything, it is time to move on with his process. He heard from where the nemesis comes, and why his race had to suffer the inevitable consequences of the original offense it perpetrated. He needs to reach his own aidos, and feel now the reverence and the shame which will restrain men from doing wrong in their future. Only then, can the Cycle of Losses be broken.”

Kratos advanced holding a disc with both hands. In its center shone a four-pointed star turning into an eight-pointed star. Wavy lines emanated between the points toward the outer ring.

“Dan,” resumed Alaston and he startled me. “Words can only reach you up to a point. What you are receiving now is the Palladium, our gift to the sons of man. Everywhere on Eridu, the ones who were selected will receive one as they will be ready. It will be a source of protection, and the safeguard we are imposing on your race to ensure the avoidance of a Third Loss. It will change you, as it will change all the others.

“At first you will feel more than hear things. The Palladium will ensure a permanent communication with us and will be your access to the memory, achievements, and knowledge of your race. Memories will not be erased this time. When connected to the Palladium, the Selected ones will be connected to and with each other. You will receive answers, if you learn how to formulate questions.

“The Palladium will give you according to your means—and beyond your means—of your own accord if you can endure it. And it will not be without sufferance. The Palladium will be deaf and silent when you will be deaf and silent within yourself. You will come to know. Expiating a sin does not mean doing something opposite to wallow in guilt, but to use that same guilt to achieve full knowledge of the sin. The fault lies more not in having committed certain acts, rather in having carried them out without reaching their intimate knowledge. This leads to committing a wrong again and again. When you have intimate knowledge of your acts before you commit them, then you will be able to avoid those wrongs as if they were being done to you.” He paused. “Now, Dan, endure the Palladium.”

At this, Kratos raised the disc on top of my head then slowly lowered it. An almost unbearable heat assaulted me as the disc molded around my head, shaping into a sort of a crown. The star shapes and the wavy lines started to pulsate and glued to my skin, while my mind was being sucked into the Palladium, fusing with it. Or was the Palladium to be sucked into my mind?

The burning heat invaded my entire body, flowing down like lava from my head to my torso, to my limbs. I wanted to scream but no sound came out of my wide-open mouth.

I have memory of the pain. I fully remember it as intense, excruciating. Still, my brain did not urge me to flee. It wasn’t associated with the fight-or-flight instinct. I believe I was being helped to endure it. I did not feel the urge to withdraw from the Palladium, to protect my body from it. My instincts were not triggered.

Algea later told me they imposed their hands onto me and talked to me while the Palladium was going through me. I have no recollection of the entities around me nor do I have a conscious memory of their words. Then, amid the pain, I started to see and feel.

I felt the disruptions of Tiamat, felt it! I saw a different world, magnificent structures, and I suffered the torment of the lives lost. I saw continents break up, and shores sink, and heard the desperate cries of billions. I felt mountains crumbling down, flattening entire cities with their boulders. I saw oceans boiling, rushing toward a sky which tore like a corrupt canvas. I felt the agony of my ancestors of a million years ago. I felt their amazement at seeing those near them vaporized, just a moment before disappearing themselves.

I felt the desperation and the panic, heard the screams of mothers and fathers and children. Of lovers, holding each other until the last deadly moment before being engulfed by fire, by water, by mud, by falling rocks, by roaring blasts, by the air burning their flesh and lungs.

I felt all their languages crying “Mom,” “Dad,” and “I love you” the moment death grabbed them with its crooked, fleshless fingers. I heard their last attachment to life spoken in anguish: “Oh, God, if only I had one more day, one more hour,” or “If only I could hold her, him, them, again.”

And I saw this race rise again on Earth, its struggles and forgotten sins repeated, new destructions and new devastations on familiar lands. Flying rods of adverse nations spreading death from above. Depressions on Earth created by immense blasts as if giants were pounding their fists on helpless cities. And the same cries, the same panic and terror...the ancient anguish repeating itself. Again.

I felt all that in waves, crushing over my very essence and purifying it, voiding me of all strength while removing all remaining debris of consciousness: How could we have forgotten all that? How could we have the right to another chance? How did we dare? What have we done? Damn, damn, damn.

What remained in the end was their love, so painfully real. All their last moments of desperate love that gripped my throat and clutched it so tightly that I could hardly breathe anymore. And in doing this, the Palladium had been merciful: I was left with the enduring sensation of a tremendous flood of love, desperate and anguished but nonetheless infinite. An unguent poured over my tormented spirit. The purest love of all for everything that was gone, for everything that could never be, for everyone who'd been lost. And it planted the seeds for the love of everything that will be.

I was exhausted and fell on my knees. The burning pain was gone, though its memory still lingered, vivid. The Palladium had changed me in the process, but in ways that I wasn’t yet aware of. Kratos moved forward and touched the outer ring of the Palladium. It expanded, the wavy lines detached from my head, and its shape flattened to resume that of a disk with its two pronged stars in their perennial ballet of change. He took it off my head and gravely handed it to me. I stood up.

“The Palladium is now in you and you are in it. This is happening with all the Selected ones who will share the experience you just had. You will never be the same, human, and the Selected ones will help us in our daunting task.”

I looked at them. “I have seen destruction and devastation, and I felt the aches and the afflictions. The madness and the sickness. It is still tormenting and torturing me, it has lacerated me deeply. But there was tremendous love as well, Kratos, at each time…” I stumbled over the words.

The Moîrai all looked at me, and I realized then that I could discern their traits perfectly, which I could not do before the Palladium. They were no longer indistinguishable from each other; I saw that Algea was obviously a beautiful female. Neither was their glow hiding them from sight as before.

“In all these destructions we have caused, an additional one is missing.” The Moîrai were all attentive and listened carefully to my words.

“I saw nothing of the Third Loss.” I could see clearly from their expressions that my remark was not entirely expected.

Algea lowered her eyes. Still looking at the ground, she spoke. “Dan, we have a great burden on our shoulders and an onus, too. We will be judged on how your race will be reborn. We have not been alone in this decision, but we have the full burden of obligation upon us. The responsibility is ours. If your race had gone through another massive destruction of Eridu, it would not have survived. Leaving you all to your destiny was not an option, and we have been guardians and companions of your race for eons as has happened with other young races. The way you can see us clearly now… It was that way, too, for the son of men in other places, in other times.” Algea raised her head and looked straight at me.

“Dîos. During the last few thousand years, that word only meant divine. For your race, it means ‘pertaining to the gods.’ Before, dîos referred instead to those who were shining, glittering, glowing. Do you understand? When the ancients used dîos to describe someone, the term primarily referred to their glowing, to the emanation of their inner light, the splendor that accompanied them and on which stood their shape. We have been judged to be interfering too much with another race, your race, and thus to have disturbed its evolution.

“Even in light of the First Loss, and of the Second Loss, there were those who pushed for us to step back, which we did. We were compliant. We stopped walking together with men and retreated. Yet we kept watching and observing your evolution, mostly unseen. As Alaston already told you, your race acts, waiting for the judgments to drastically change.”

I couldn’t help but hold my breath as the enormity of what Algea was revealing went beyond any possible imagination.

“Yes, it was decided then to enforce another Loss—this time controlled, without the risk of massive planetary destruction your race has demonstrated itself to be fully capable of. We did so without the tremendous suffering of the past, inflicted on all Eridu life forms, and allowing the remnants of yours to start afresh without enduring millenniums of dark ages. All sentient races have participated in the decision, and the Selection process started thus about fifty of your years ago.”

I understood better the origins of the mythical gods of the Golden Age, when the people of light, the watu wa mwanga—where did that come from in my mind?—walked with the son of man. My lips were tense when I asked, “Without suffering, Algea?”

“Without the agony and torments they would have suffered otherwise.” Then Algea paused and her tone changed. “We bent the space and exposed all humans to a sudden vacuum. We tested sudden exposure to extremely low pressure on other life forms and we have been able to be highly selective in the process. The rapid decompression we provoked around those life forms, in the worst cases, produced only the rupture of eardrums and sinuses with bruising and blood seepage into soft tissues. The shock caused an immediate sharp increase in oxygen consumption that subsequently led to hypoxia.

“Any oxygen dissolved in the blood emptied into the lungs trying to equalize the partial pressure gradient. The lungs emptied. Once the deoxygenated blood arrived at the brain, animals lost consciousness within a couple of seconds and died of hypoxia. We created a rapid decompression not taking more than a few tenths of a second, allowing the lungs to decompress rapidly while avoiding the pulmonary barotrauma. It was very natural and clement. The pain was minimal and sudden. Unconsciousness was extremely rapid, as was death.”

I gasped. “You bent the space…and killed billions of people?”

Algea's tone changed again. This time, her voice was full of sadness and much compassion. “We gave your race another chance, Dan. The Selected ones will play a crucial role. If you do not see this, and do not see that your race can build a different, better future, then the interruption of the Cycle of Losses will be in vain. You will live the equivalent of many past generations because of the changes you received from the Palladium. Your direct offspring will carry your gene modifications and live long, about two hundred of your years at first, and in good health. Descendants generated via this first generation will live even longer, in the end matching your life span and that of the other Selected Ones.”

With a vanishing hope, I asked, “You mean Annah, my daughter, and the baby Laura still carries?” But I knew the answer, and a needle of pure pain pierced my throat.

“No, Dan. We mean the ones you will generate from now on, and from other Selected ones and their descendants.” Algea lowered her eyes again.

I wasn’t surprised Algea knew about my family and I smiled; a sour, bitter smile. I wanted to swallow but couldn’t. The enormity of what I had been exposed to was overwhelming. We had been culled, and selected specimens chosen for controlled reproduction. We were going to be bred for a better race, something we humans used to do with animals, selecting specific traits and behavioral characteristics. And in the process, our habitat and environment had been preserved to enhance the chance of success. It was a surgical process.

I shook my head. “What if I or other Selected ones refuse to cooperate?”