Destroyer from the Lost Planet, page 5
“No?” asked Inanna with relief.
“No. I knew Sharon too well to believe she would have obeyed your command to abandon me. She would have attacked you … physically, even without hope of success.”
Inanna’s sobs turned to nervous laughter. As she wiped her eyes, she said, “Good for her! I wish I had known her while she lived.”
David grew misty-eyed. “I wish she had lived to meet you.”
If the mood in the little tent had not been entirely morose earlier, it certainly was now. David resumed his seat. Inanna possessed herself again and pushed away her food as though her appetite had now left her entirely.
David brought her back to the main topic (or what seemed to be the main topic, as in truth she hadn’t yet identified it). “You mentioned the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah,” he said. “The Bible tells us that the Lord and two angels appeared before the tent of Avram and confided that they would destroy Sodom and Gomorrah—”
Inanna interrupted. “Those ‘angels’ would certainly have been Ninurta and Nergal.”
Inanna seemed once again to be attributing to the Anunnaki acts that the Bible attributes to God. David pressed her on the question. “But the Third One,” said David, “was referred to (and addressed) as the Lord.”
Inanna merely shrugged. “Is the third the one who predicted that the agèd Sarai would bear Avram a child?” (Here, she used the Sumerian names for Abraham and Sarah.)
“Yes.”
“I’m forbidden to discuss Him with you, David.”
David suspected that Inanna believed the one referred to as ‘the Lord’ to be either Enlil, Enki, or even Anu. But he shied away from further inquiry. “In the Bible, the Lord never specifies the great sin rampant in Sodom and Gomorrah that brought on His wrath, though it’s long been believed the sin was engaging in deviant sexual practices.”
Inanna shook her head. “No. It was much more serious. The sin was worshiping the god Marduk who, along with his son, had transgressed by converting those Enlilite cities to his own worship. The Seven Deadly Weapons had never before been used on Earth, so Ninurta and Nergal had no experience using them. When the Council granted its consent to use of the weapons, Ninurta and Nergal had no idea that detonating them would result in a huge poisonous cloud that would drift over Sumeria and kill everyone there. But that’s what happened. Even Ninurta’s wife Bau was killed—and he has mourned her death and kept to himself ever since that day.”
David shook his head. “Is that the same Ninurta who’d defeated Anzû in aerial combat?”
She smiled wanly. “The same.”
David sighed. “Eternity is a long time to mourn,” he said. “Too much time, perhaps. Ninurta is much to be pitied, as is everyone who loves him.”
“Indeed,” said Inanna, “I myself miss him greatly. As I look back on my long life, I realize Ninurta is one of the very few who fulfilled his promises to me, who helped me in my hour of need. It is far too long. In fact, none of us has heard from him for four thousand Earth years.”
She tapped the folded message on the table, and said:
“Until today.”
Chapter 4
As Inanna unfolded the message, the room brightened.
At first David thought the change was solely in his own imagination but, looking around, he realized that the light was indeed growing brighter and more like sunshine, the thunder had ceased entirely, as had the sound of rain on the tent roof, and the room was becoming noticeably warmer and less humid by the second.
Realizing that the change wasn’t merely imaginary, he wondered whether Inanna had thrown some unseen switch to change the mood in the room. But then he realized the truth of it.
The room itself had detected the change in Inanna’s mood and begun the process of conforming to it. David didn’t know whether the process was technological (which he strongly suspected) or some form of divine magic (perhaps akin to Enki’s transmission of his warning message to Catharine), but it amazed him that the gods had brought to life in their personal quarters a phenomenon that writers of fiction had long called the pathetic fallacy.
“This message came as a rare addendum to a lengthy message from the royal pyramidion,” said Inanna.
“Is that unusual?” asked David.
“Quite,” Inanna assured him. “The royal pyramidion is reserved as a place of quiet pilgrimage. Communications to and from that point are restricted to essential royal business. Only a few great personages may avail themselves of the privilege of sending a private message from that place or receiving one there.”
“And the message you’ve received is from such a personage?”
“It is from Ninurta himself,” she said with a note of awe in her voice, “authenticated by a signature consisting of a combination of characters known only to him and me. Even the transcriber doesn’t know from whom it came. Only I know.” She smiled wanly. “And now you know, too, but you can’t tell anyone.”
David bowed and tried to speak, but found himself too humbled to utter a word.
“It is written in intimate Nibirune,” continued Inanna, “the mutual language of our birth. I will translate it for you. ‘To my dearest Queen of Heaven, Beloved of Anu, and beloved of all who know that only such beauty as hers can confer meaning upon the vastness of time and space …’” She paused, obviously overcome by Ninurta’s opening words.
David could barely believe what he was hearing. Unless he was sorely mistaken, these were words of love, penned by a god who’d lost his beloved wife four thousand years before. David asked gingerly, “Is this a formulaic form of address to Your Majesty?”
She shook her head pensively.
“Then it’s encouraging indeed,” said David.
Inanna shrugged. “Perhaps,” she said, having (no doubt) had every possible variation on such sentiment poured into her ear since time immemorial. She continued translating Ninurta’s message. “‘Of late, I have found myself fretting for your welfare, sensing that your personal well-being is threatened by an approaching cataclysm. I have also sensed in your midst a son of Joseph of Egypt, upon whom you have conferred Elijah’s mantle.
“‘So portentous are these signs that I find myself impelled to end the long atonement for my past sins, so that I may avoid compounding such sins by failing to avert tragedies yet to come. If you can find it in your heart, my sweet Inanna, please confirm that you will suffer my assistance, freely given with no expectation of recompense. And, if this new Joseph is with you, I bid you dispatch him to me as soon as possible, so that I may consult with him face to face.’”
Inanna refolded the message, placed it in a ceramic plate and set it aflame with a candle. She looked at David as it burned to ash.
“What do you say to this message, Mister Ambassador?” she asked. “Would you travel to Ninurta at my request?”
“In truth, Your Majesty, I can think of nowhere I would not travel at your request. I understood you to say that Ninurta is with His Majesty. As it happens, I am already scheduled to leave for King Enlil’s pyramidion in the Martian system in three days’ time.”
Inanna’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Surely, there is some Providence in this coincidence.”
David shrugged. “Though I find it difficult to believe that Providence is unable to identify a more promising vessel than I to fulfill its purpose, if Your Majesty will give me your blessing, I will meet with Ninurta there. I’m told that the journey to the King’s pyramidion will take a fortnight.”
“Kneel before me, Mister Ambassador, and I shall bless you on your journey.”
David rose and knelt before the Queen of Heaven, who placed her hand on his forehead and recited a blessing in a vaguely familiar language he couldn’t understand.
David was in his temporary chamber on Enki’s pyramidion, reading about virtual reality, when he received a call from Doctor Zia.
“You asked to be notified when your antimatter craft docked,” said Zia. “It’s here. Come up to my chambers, if you like. My window looks out on the docking bay.”
As David entered Zia’s chamber, he was awestruck by the sheer size of Zia’s picture window, which commanded a full portside view of an antimatter craft docked at one of the pyramidion’s external ports. He surmised that the craft was too large to fit into any of the internal bays.
The perimeter of the craft was outlined by blinking operating lights, its sleek white airframe brightly lit by floodlight beaming from the pyramidion. Though the craft was larger and more cylindrical than David would have expected, in truth he had no right to any expectation about its shape, since neither he nor any other earthling had ever seen such a craft before (unless one were to count Zia).
Regardless that the craft was designed primarily for interplanetary travel through airless space, the designers had masterfully avoided any non-essential protuberances that might have interrupted its aerodynamic contours. From this, David surmised that there were circumstances under which the craft would operate in-atmosphere.
Hugging the airframe immediately behind the rearmost of three portside windows was a sweptback wing with two reverse thrusters. (Slowing the craft down from its cruising speed must be quite a feat in itself, he realized.) To David’s eye, the wing at first appeared entirely fixed, but a momentary squint revealed a few joints near its rear that could signify the presence of aileron-like flaps.
Through the craft’s windows, David could see that its interior was brightly illuminated by cheery lights, much like a modern airliner, so the cozy-looking cabin contrasted starkly with the blackness of space surrounding it. He could also see several interior exit signs, making him wonder how one might gracefully exit a craft traveling at nearly 100,000 miles per hour. The exit signs had been conveniently translated into English (presumably for the upcoming Martian journey). There were a few instructional signs, as well. While David hoped that these had likewise been translated into English, he couldn’t make out the language from this distance.
Estimating the size of the craft was difficult in the absence of some familiar object to provide scale. Assuming that the interior exit signs were approximately the size of those seen in auditoriums, however, David estimated that the craft would be approximately two hundred feet long, plus a segmented rear appendage containing the positron-powered antimatter engine and its physically small fuel supply.
Behind the nose of the craft, where one would expect to see its name painted, was a word in an alphabet unfamiliar to David.
David smiled at Zia. “What’s the craft’s name?”
“Vessels of any importance are named (or, as in the case of this craft, renamed) at the whim of Queen Inanna.”
“I would have expected that prerogative to be reserved either to the king or Lord Enki,” said David.
“The king leaves such administrative matters to Lord Enki, and it’s always been Enki’s choice to leave ship-naming to Inanna.”
“Why?” asked David.
Zia shrugged. “Enki finds Inanna’s thinking impossible to fathom, but—despite his public insistence to the contrary—he has a good deal of faith in her choices when it comes to matters of the heart. Her Majesty has said she was moved by a recent dream to rename this craft Yi-ud.”
“Yi-ud,” echoed David. “How would that be translated into English?”
Zia smiled with chagrin, as he often did when asked to translate from the old tongue. “You might say it means destiny.”
“As in His Majesty’s Ship Destiny?”
Zia nodded equivocally.
“Sounds ominous,” remarked David apprehensively.
“I was sure you’d interpret my translation that way, given the imprecision inherent in all translation. But yi-ud does not at all mean what you would call fate. It’s rather more optimistic.”
David arched an eyebrow. “Perhaps it could mean the way forward? As in His Majesty’s Ship The Way Forward?”
Zia seemed satisfied. “Let’s call it that. Though the translation is less literal, the tone is more accurate. Perhaps you should have been an interpreter.”
David scoffed. “I think that would require me to speak more languages than I do.”
Zia shrugged and looked out at the craft. “This will be quite a journey for someone accustomed to the subway trains of New York.”
David nodded. “It certainly will. I’ll bet some U.S. pilots would give their eyeteeth just to tour this craft.”
“His lordship just approved the admiral’s request to send up a U.S. pilot on the shuttle with Weldon,” said Zia.
David turned to Zia. “Oh? Is it the pilot you once met?”
“No, this one’s named Gary Sullivan.”
“But surely they don’t expect him to pilot a craft he’s only toured,” said David skeptically.
“No,” Zia chuckled, “for this turn, he and his assistant will just be tourists on this pyramidion—although they’ll be permitted onto the antimatter craft during preparatory maintenance. Then they’ll remain here on the pyramidion until you and Weldon return.”
“Gary’s bringing an assistant?” asked David, wondering if perhaps that meant Buck Buchanan.
“He’s been given a choice whether to bring one or not,” said Zia. “As for whom he might bring, we’ll have to wait and see whom he turns up with. His lordship’s only requirement was that any assistant has been vetted by the U.S. Government.”
“By the way,” asked David, “who will be piloting the craft?”
Zia smiled. “Your favorite Trans-African driver.”
David had to ponder that for a moment. “Enkidu?”
“None other,” said Zia. “Besides Enkidu’s being an excellent companion, his feature set and databases are state of the art and include the most current Tablets of Destinies. He’ll be assisting in maintenance of the craft, as well, so your Lieutenant Sullivan will have an opportunity to meet him. I trust you’ll find Enkidu a good conversationalist on your voyage.”
“But he’ll be piloting the craft,” protested David. “How many things can he do at once?”
Zia searched his memory, as though the question was serious. “As many as 640,000, depending upon complexity.”
“So … he can chew gum and walk at the same time?” asked David.
Zia responded archly. “Depends on the flavor.”
David regarded Zia skeptically. “But it’s such an imposition to take your man’s man away from you for a whole month. Wouldn’t you rather send someone else to serve as our pilot?”
Zia folded his arms as though considering how much to say. He shook his head. “These artificial beings may look alike to you, but they’ve each had different teachers and different life experiences. There’s no substitute for ethics and experience, and Enkidu has an abundance of both. Do you remember once asking me about Gilgamesh?”
David nodded.
“Well,” said Zia, “the original Enkidu’s experiences are contained in this Enkidu’s databanks.”
David scowled incredulously. “Do you mean to say that this is the same Enkidu who fought beside Gilgamesh?”
Zia shook his head. “No. As the Sumerians recorded, the original Enkidu was put down like an old horse at the end of his useful life—ostensibly as punishment for Gilgamesh’s transgressions in destroying the Guardian of the Cedars and slaying the Bull of Heaven. But Lord Enki saved his databanks, and they form a part of this Enkidu’s mind, if you will.”
“They were transferred?”
Zia nodded sagely. “What is an android, after all, but a bucket of bolts with a memory? In fact, the same thing could be said of an Anunnaki body … or a human one. What each individual has that’s worth saving and imparting to others comes from his or her unique experiences. This Enkidu can literally recall what it felt like to grapple with Gilgamesh, to defeat the Guardian of the Cedars in Lebanon, and destroy the Bull of Heaven. In a reflective moment, he can remember the anguish on Inanna’s face when Gilgamesh boorishly denounced her love.” He leaned into David confidentially. “I wouldn’t entrust your care—or Weldon’s—to anyone else. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be just fine.”
Twelve hours later, Zia and Enkidu met at David’s chambers, and the three sauntered together to the elevator bank where Catharine and Gary would come aboard the pyramidion. From the banter en route, David could see that Enkidu had learned both Zia’s ethical sense and his understated sense of humor.
As the three were not equipped for airless conditions (though David expected air was purely optional for Enkidu), they waited by the elevator while the shuttle docked at an internal port. In a few minutes, the swoosh of the elevator car became audible and, in another few seconds, the doors opened and Catharine, in uniform, literally ran out of the elevator car and embraced David.
God, he loved her.
“A vacation at last!” she said with a laugh, taking his hands and dancing about him as though he were a maypole. Her shiny blonde locks bounced about her shoulders.
“Whoa, lieutenant commander!” said David. “Aren’t you required to wear a ponytail?”
She stood stiffly at attention while everyone looked on. “Mister Ambassador,” she said formally, “my commanding officer has expressly authorized me to wear my hair below the lower edge of the collar of my blouse, jacket, or coat.” She added in less formal tones, “He also authorized me to dress out of uniform until such time as I return to Earth.”
“Quite an understanding fellow,” said David, smiling at Catharine along with everyone looking on.
David had barely noticed the two men who’d stepped off the elevator behind Catharine. Each was carrying some baggage and both looked familiar.
David extended his hand to Gary. “Hey, y’old air pirate,” said David with a smile and a little nod.
“Good to see ya, chief,” Gary replied, “or should I say Mister Ambassador?”
David couldn’t help but smile. “Chief is fine under the circumstances, Gary. Or should I say lieutenant?” Without awaiting an answer, David extended his hand to the quiet African fellow at Gary’s side. “Have you and I met before?”
