The Great Game 🎲 Kollarum
The Big Four 2
Standing at the window, Farenn looked down at the chute, thinking of the wonders of the Big Four and its Matterhorn. It was a perfect blend of nature and artifice. It also allowed people to challenge each other, to get to know each other, to discover what they were made of. The slopes allowed for a competition that was intimate, and in which no bombs were dropped and no poison was hidden in the drinking water. The Matterhorn, along with the nearby entertainment parlours, lounges, and sports facilities, had probably done as much for cosmic peace as the conferences themselves. No wonder the Big Four was famous throughout the Kraslika.
Because Farenn was the opening speaker at the Assembly, he was offered a forest suite just below the Apex. Most of the suites were 1000 sq. ft., yet his was 2000. It had a bank of tint-controlled windows, a VR room, and a retractable deck. The floor, walls, and ceilings were lined with cedar, which gave the room a wonderful fresh smell. There were plants and small fountains, and many an incense-bearing shrub. Beautiful as the suite was, Farenn was still impatient to get out of it every morning: he was eager to join the intellectual and diplomatic fray one floor above. There, intelligence of every sort met diplomacy or every sort. If there was one place in the cosmos where high-stakes negotiation was conducted, it was the Grand Plaza.
With the second cup of caffè beginning to course through his body, he felt refreshed and alive. Last night he went to sleep early, with the scent of cedar drifting across his brain and with the muted yet fabulous colours of the Kollaran sky swirling above him. He dreamed he was flying above a forest and through banks of blue clouds. Strange birds spoke to him of other worlds. Then he heard a far-off chirping, melodious and enticing, a far-off chiming that got louder as he recalled that he was coursing over a galactic ocean in a big ship, over the rolling sky on a planet where he was going to meet many new friends, who were also listening to this chiming invitation to rise from bed and walk into their mist shower. The warm pulses woke up every cell in his body, and his mind was now coherent enough to put on some clothes and face the world.
He walked up a circular gold staircase and into the Grand Plaza, where he sat down for breakfast. After this, he got a take-out caffè and walked toward the giant windows. He left himself 45 minutes before the Assembly began so that he could organize his thoughts.
Farenn had been coming to the Assembly now for the last couple hundred years, and the interaction among different species before and after the sessions was his favourite part of the day. He loved to be challenged by scholars as they revved up with spiked caffè, or relaxed with martinis the colour of the Kollaran sky. The martinis would often lead to one of the relaxation pods above. Often, he didn’t get back to his room till the next morning, with just enough time for a quick shower and a change of clothes. Last night, however, he made sure to get to bed early, and this morning he stood quietly by himself, collecting his thoughts.
He stood there looking out, riding the slopes of memory, when a Tarnese professor of linguistic history walked up to him. He was a short man, and Farenn recalled having seen him briefly at two previous Assemblies. They had never formally met, yet Farenn could tell that this man was not at home in his own skin. On the two previous occasions, Farenn was so charged up by the convivial atmosphere and lively debate that he didn’t focus on whatever was bothering his Tarnese colleague. As he stepped up to Farenn, the Tarnese had the same anguished look about him and the same intense strain in his eyes, as if he was contending perpetually with the chaos of existence itself. This time Farenn was curious about its cause.
The Tarnese was a nervous man, and it clearly took alot out of him just to approach Farenn. The first thing that surprised Farenn was that he didn’t tap the ensign on his chest to activate his translator. In that fraction of a second, Farenn wondered if he’d mastered Fallarian, which was not an easy task. But then the Tarnese asked him, in perfect English, if he could join him for a moment. This almost knocked Farenn off his feet, metaphorically, of course, since Farenn was anything but unstable. Still shaking from nervousness, the Tarnese offered his hand. “My name is Tarnar Kent. I’m most honoured to finally make your acquaintance.”
Tarner blurted out that he had spent the last three decades in the Milky Way galaxy, on planet Earth, on the island of Sicily. “It’s beautiful there, as we all know.” Tarnar waved off this beauty with his hand, eager to get to his point, before Farenn was due on the podium. “Rome has more history in a square kilometre than most countries have. While hardly any tourists go there, the old city of Syracuse is a crucible of culture and smooth marble. Palermo is a historic blend of Carthage, Athens, Normandy, and Rome. But the Baulians don’t care about any of that, contrary to what they say.”
Farenn was a bit surprised by the abrupt shift to the Baulians, and he wasn’t sure about the connection involved. Farenn asked, also in perfect English, “What exactly about human culture are you interested in? And haven’t the Baulians swore to preserve the cultures they control?"
Tarnar responded, “My interest lies in the preservation of every human culture, from the Mesopotamian to the dying dialects of the forests and hills. My fear is that the Baulian takeover will destroy almost all of these cultures, and replace them with a phoney multicultural patina, spread widely over the real cultures, which constitute a palimpsest beneath. An increasingly thin palimpsest, one that will eventually disappear. The Baulians will save the planet from environmental destruction, but they’ll also eradicate any cultural riches that stand in their way. They won’t hoard these riches; they’ll eradicate them. Whole languages will disappear every month, all under the guise of intercultural understanding, streamlined knowledge, and efficient communication.”
Farenn had heard these arguments before, yet he didn’t interrupt his nervous companion. Besides, there was something in Tarnar’s look that reminded Farenn of his old friend from Ataari Lok. He couldn’t quite say what it was. On the surface, he saw in Tarnar’s flickering eyes a deep instability, whereas the first thing he noticed about Qayam was his steadiness. At first sight he had pegged Qayam for a security agent, commando, or spy. Tarnar on the other hand was shorter and less muscular, and he lacked Qayam’s sureness of manner. Tarnar seemed more like the agents Farenn knew on Fallar Discordia, the ones who dug information like gold in a mine, and hoarded it like misers in a locked den. Yet unlike those Discordian agents, Tarnar’s good will and intelligence was apparent. This, Farenn realized, was what reminded him of Qayam. In Farenn’s opinion, there was nothing as valuable as a combination of good will and intelligence. So he let him go on, curious where all this would lead.
“What people don’t understand is that the disappearance of these things is monstrous. And by monstrous I mean that it destroys the thing that is least monstrous in the thirteen universes. We may have beauty and technology beyond the wildest imagination of human beings. But one thing we don’t have is a monopoly on the power of emotion.”
Farenn looked at him questioningly, yet Tarnar turned his eyes away, and looked out the window. It was as if he was trying to make a connection to that little planet so far away, as if he was about to describe something indescribably alien. His voice too sounded distant. “In the realm of emotion, humans are like gods. Most species in the Kraslika react from instinct and from programming, and from duty, and from the thousands of signals we get from all over the spectrum. But humans ... humans have a core that’s unique. It’s all their own. It’s true that only a tiny percent of them can feel the spectra we feel, but very little of that spectra has to do with the finest of feelings, which revolve in complex patterns around emotional notions such as love, hate, and empathy. Oh, we feel these no doubt, but humans feel them to a degree of anguish and ecstasy that very few of us have experienced.”
Tarner turned from the city view and looked straight at Farenn. “And to the Baulians, these feelings are pretty much unnecessary.”
Tarnar stood still and gave no sign that he was in a hurry to get to the auditorium, so Tarnar attempted to give him a deeper understanding of the problem. “What we call love, humans call responsibility, or interest. What humans call love is extremely complicated, and ranges from the depths — and I mean the absolute depths — of despair, to the rapture of complete happiness. These experiences of happiness and love are so deeply engrained in them that it doesn’t matter whether they’re positive or negative. Of course it matters to the humans experiencing these things, but it doesn’t matter in terms of the depth and in terms of the fact that they all experience them. The human who doesn’t experience them is considered a sociopath. We would call them a Baulian.”
“Much of human history we interpret as barbarism. Especially when they kill in the name of vague concepts like freedom and God. It takes decades for aliens to understand what they call love of God. To most of us God is an abstract thing, an Ideal that no one’s seen. Yet their love of God is so deep and so powerful that they will literally walk into a bonfire for it. This isn’t the type of fire the deluded robot of a soldier walks into. No, it’s the fire of their own passion. They would rather end the only life they know than let others live without their concept of this love.”
“Humans may be blind creatures in all kinds of ways, yet their greatest blindness shows their greatest love. For only when humans die do those around them realize how deeply they loved them, how stupidly they threw away the moments they had together, and how the universe is such a dark place without them. Their emotion is poetic, even exquisite, yet it’s also very real. It’s something that very few of us know much about. This is perhaps why we’re drawn to the tragedies of Shakespeare, to Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, and Hamlet. We know that what Shakespeare’s writing about is full of deep pain, and yet we try to grasp it anyway. It harrows our souls and yet we strive to get at its meaning. How can we gauge the loss of this type of culture? It isn’t just art or philosophy. It lies at the very core of being. How do we gauge the loss of hundreds of cultures, all predicated on the same experience of emotion?”
Neither of them was expecting an answer to this question. Tarnar shuffled his feet, in a moment of pure angst, and looked down at the floor. He looked out the window, down at the ski chute and out over the city, scintillating in its shifting colours that mirrored the marvels of the sky. Then Tarner turned away from the view, using the same hand gesture he used earlier to brush aside the beauty of Syracuse and Rome. He looked up again at Farenn, this time with as much ardour as anguish in his eyes. While Farenn was gauging the emotional state of his colleague, and wondering if too much emotion might not be such a great thing after all, Tarnar was about to take the largest leap of faith he’d ever taken.
Responding to Tarnar’s fears, Farenn said, “Yes, I’ve been following this for some time now. Very closely. The Pax Baulixia isn’t turning out to be quite as harmless as we hoped.”
Tarnar held up his hand as if to stop his colleague. He then looked straight into Farenn’s eyes. “Are you familiar with Rablanar, the Fractal Mystic?”
“Yes,” Farenn answered slowly.
“I believe that Knifestream is in league with three Fractal Masters, all of whom have laboured to keep Rablanar’s theories from the public.”
Farenn didn’t know what to say to this. If this were true, it would open a crevice that could never be sounded. If Knifestream could manipulate the Baulians, the centre of Kraslikan power would shift drastically. Farenn asked his new colleague, whose eyes were bloodshot and rimmed in black circles, “How do you know this?”
“I’ve visited him and met with his friends. They meet in a bar in Queen’s, in New York City. Why do you think he’s moved to Upper State New York?” In an attempt to lighten the conversation somewhat, Tarnar added, “Not for the fishing, that’s for sure.”
Farenn looked at his watch and was glad to see that he still had 20 minutes before he needed to address the Conference. He motioned to Tarnar to join him at a secluded table, out of earshot of those standing at the coffee stands and mini bars.
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Next: Life 2.0
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