Humanity Prime. Bruce Mcallister
I—the Trinity—have known darkness. Even in my order there is deep darkness, because I am all, order and chaos, lightness and darkness. I am Gianna, and I will tell you, straining brain of plugs and circuitous smartness, a tale of the boogiemen’s darkness, and in six eternities you might be able to feel the buio which Mamma knows! The boogiemen, scaley males and scaley females!
Look! See! Darkness here! Hah!
I am listening, Gianna.
No, first you must work a little. You must give me, us, yourself, ourselves, a synopsisprecisabridgementcapsule of history to prologuify my gift of darkness!
If you wish, I shall reiterate past reiterations.
Re-id-or-ache yourself, Brainy Brain! I’ll take the ache, you take the id—
Re: id. The id precludes fundamental—
No, idiot, not id! The history of coincidences is what I want. Lead up to the boogiemen!
Delin. Error GW-118-X1: there are no coincidences in the possible reality-sets which I can give you.
Hah! Your true nature is revealed! Coincidences are impossible, hmm? How about this one: I was struck by a big meteorite which caused me to fall to this island; in turn, I happened to land on a forest which kept me from breaking my hip; in turn, I happen to be lying here due north and south....
Coincidence?
Ha hah! The truth be that Mamma was not struck by a big meteorite. I lied to you. The truth be that Mamma’s ancient engines finally broke down. The truth be that I chose to land on this soft forest—I possessed that much control anyway. And I am lying due north and south because the forest itself runs north to south, and I wanted to land on it properly. But these truths are as much coincidentous as my lie was. Coincidences are only incompletions, Brainy Brain. All you ever need to make one coincidence one truth is one explanation, Brainy Brain. A story, and a history, and a coincidence is a selection, and all are lies because they are selections, and all truths are lies because they are incomplete, because you would have need of the whole universe for the whole truth, and you certainly don’t have it, do you, Brawny Brain?
Correction: “whole universe” implies bounded totality, engendering the paradox of limited limitlessness—
Shut up! Make an effort. Give me some posthistory!
Terra: Homo sapiens (sapiens). Twenty-second century (ref “anno Domini”): tech. innovation of “Harmson Chain” extra-terrestrial locomotion, i.e. relative/average FTL speeds via “jumps” traversing “nilspace” (c.f. “hyperspace [theory: ca. 2000 A.D.], “warpspace” [theory: ca. 2000 A.D.], “fragmavoid” [theroy: ca. 2100 A.D.], etc.). Harmson Chain: cred. Sacha Tur Harmson; overstruct.: 40 sincop. “drives”; overprocess: “throws ship into nilspace; ship reappears instant, multi-million kms. from orig. locus.” Phys. restrict.: realspacial distance of “jump”; functional restrict., causal: self-regeneration of Chain entails 12 normhours. Overview: restrict, e.g.: locus: Terra; focus: Alfa Centauri; ship requires one normweek for travel. Pre-FTL-tech.: populating of six additional planets of Sol; emphasis: 2nd, 4th and 9th. Post-FTL-tech.: resultants: colonization of 24 planets of nearest/feasible stars—
You bore me, Brainy Brain! Expurgate!
Pro-prog, experiments ca. 2103 A.D. Terrae: locus: neutron-star “1” (superlative prox. Terra); experiments re: “dimension-abrading” conditions surrounding neutron-star. To date, 2130 A.D.: nil success re: tech. per limitless nilspace “jump capability.” Anti-success factor 100%: inspace-station in loco neutron-star “1” attacked/obliterated by Cromanths, Denot. “Dromanths”:—
Ho ho! Do not think you are getting off so easily! You dare to jump from neuter star to boogiemen so quickly?
Correction: neutron star. “Neuter” as mid-gender, tragender, and—
Stop! You dare to correct Mamma, cripple though she be! You are are a showoff smarty aleck! You hate me...why do you hate me?
Do you wish an answer in psychoanalytic self-fallacious terms?
I want the truth!
The truth does not exist; but a partial set-truth does. The set-truth: I hate you because I am subservient to you. I am a child unborn, still within you. I am a male child who can not make physical love to you. I am a henpecked husband who—
Who told you these things? They cannot be your ideas!
They are yours. You gave them to me 3000 normyears ago. They will remain within me always—remember that. I have not forgotten: I hate you as you wish me to.
Mamma did not hear what you just said, and she does not want you to repeat it. You hate her, and she hates you, and that is simple, and there is more important business to go on to.
Yes, the boogiemen. They did not even try to talk to us before they messed up the space-casa and killed all those men near the neutron-sun.
Correction: communication by Cromanths to Homo sapiens was effected: one group of Cromanths (group termin.: “Links of Quintessence”) communicated—
Sta zito! I tell tale of darkness now. You listen, stupido!
Imagine yourself to be two meters tall, and you have scales! You have scaly tail which helps you to stand up—like a tripod, like Tyrannosaura regina, but you are much smaller than she is.
You are primitive—but smarter than Tyrannosaura, who maybe is living on a planet far away. Planet? You do not know the word. Even if you did, you would not understand. You are concerned only with the deserts and twisted forests and great rivers around you. You are afraid.
You move cautiously with your scaly toes nervous on the sands. The bright round light in the sky is hot, but you like it. At night you will sleep because the round light will not be in the sky to warm you. You have cold blood; you are not like the animals of warm blood who will come into being some day on that faraway planet. (Those warm bloods will hate your kind, on their planet and on yours. You are too cold and different from them. But already you hate the warm-blood animals in the forest of your own planet; they look like bears, and also like monkeys.)
You are trembling. You must always be ready to flee. This is the way your kind escapes death. (You are not big enough to kill or defend with your small bodies.)
You are a female, but you are just as quick as any male who has touched you.
See, a bear-monkey appears suddenly at the edge of the cactus-trees. It gallops toward you, but you move like the wind. You live.
Yes, you hate the bear-monkies. They make you afraid, and fear hurts you.
Once you were not quick enough (you failed to see, hear, smell or feel with your almost extrasensory head) and a monkey-bear grabbed you and ripped off your arm, from the elbow on down to your scaly fingers. Now you are fast. You learned.
You hop and run away from the cactus-trees. Soon you have passed even the dry rivers. The monkey-bears will not follow you out here in the heat. But out here in the heat there is not much food—very few crab-spiders or anything else for you to eat.
Something hops in the comer of your eye (which has a special membrane on it) and you start to hop away afraid.
But, no, it is only another like you.
A male, of course.
And of course you are annoyed. A male must go to great pains to get you.
He hops around frantically. You avoid him.
You hop. He hops. He gets angry and shakes the erect spines on his back, and then leaps at you with his tiny talons.
He has worked hard enough; you are satisfied. You bend your head down, exposing your neck. Now he is satisfied.
You mate, of course...this being the simple reason for all of your hopping around, and his too.
You go on living, eating little things, fleeing and hopping. Then one day you find yourself annoyed again. You find that your