Chapter 05 - The Atala

After my conversation with Proxima Centauri, I started missing Cala and returned to Earth.  As I said before, she was the youngest daughter of the High King and Queen.  Their kingdom consisted of their children, grandchildren, and further descendants.  Atal and Anta lived on an island in the middle of the ocean.  That is where they were first brought to life by the creator and modified by Gaia.  They called their island Atalantas.  No, they were not the most creative when it came to giving names.  They spent many years together, exploring the world around them.  Beginning their life on an island meant they became mariners early on.  The Atala were always legendary seafarers, and eventually they even built dwellings under the ocean due to their great love for that realm.

As they moved out into the world, they discovered seven large continents.  These were much different than the continents as they are today.  There were three in the northern hemisphere, three in the southern, and one straddling the equator.  Each continent was far larger as well.  Instead of the globe being two thirds water and one third land, it was more like sixty percent land and forty percent water.  Much of the Earth’s water was locked up in huge underground aquifers and encircling the earth like a gigantic cloudy blanket, making the planet look far larger from outer space.  The sun could not even be seen – there was just a soft hazy light during the day.  Due to these dramatic differences, the planet could support far more land creatures than it can now.  As the Atala had more children and grandchildren, the king and queen decided to give one continent to each son to rule.

One interesting trait about the Atala is that they can control how many children they have.  The king’s and queen’s decision to have fourteen – seven daughters and seven sons – was based on the number of continents.  When they later had an eighth daughter, I began to wonder what they were thinking.

Once they had settled the seven continents, they expanded rapidly.  On the one hand, the amount of time it took for an Atala to reach adulthood was about three times as long as a human took.  This, added to another thirty to fifty years of advanced training and exploration, meant they did not start having families of their own until they were about a century old.  On the other hand, since they did not die of old age; they could continue having as many children as they wished.  The population expanded rapidly.

An Atalan pregnancy lasted about eight months, and the birth was not at all difficult for the mothers.  The babies were very small and helpless, and children took longer to grow up, but this served only to make the family bonds that much stronger.  I’d estimate that the Atala families had between ten and twenty children each.  They reached a population of around ten billion after a little more than eight centuries, at which time the creator told them to stop reproducing.

The king’s youngest daughter Cala, whom I mentioned before, spent as much time with me as she could.  Even as a youngster she would dash over to me, take my hand, and drag me around her home as fast as she could run, showing me this and that, hardly letting me out of her sight until I had to leave.  As she got older, she continued to show interest in me.  She trained to be a mariner, as did most of her people, and also as a medic, which among a race of beings that never grew old or got sick and who healed rapidly was limited to the occasional serious injury resulting from an accident.  It was strictly a part-time job.  She’d accompany me on trips I’d take to the various continents to visit her brothers and sisters, and we’d explore the oceans and wildernesses.  Back on Atalantas she almost ignored her parents whenever I was there.  Then on her hundredth birthday, when she was fully an adult, we were going for a walk in their garden, and suddenly we just kissed.

“All my brothers and sisters are married and having families of their own.  Have you ever considered doing that yourself, Malkin?  I know who would be perfect for you,” she said.

“Who could that be?” I asked smiling, looking around me.

“Me, silly!” she answered, pulling me back to her.  “Don’t you want a family?”

“Yes, but I’ve been rather busy, and I have to travel around a lot,” I explained lamely.  “I do want to marry you, but it may have to wait a bit.  There could be some problems in the universe soon, and I want to make sure you and your people will be safe.”  I again avoided the issue of reproduction.

“What kind of problems?”

“I’m not quite sure at this point, so that’s why I’m gone so much.  I’m trying to gather as much information as I can so that we’ll be prepared.”

“I’ve never heard that there were problems anywhere in the universe,” said Cala.  “I know some of the agents had an argument a really long time ago, but I also heard the creator set them straight and there has been nothing but peace since then.”

“I was there that day.  I saw the perpetrators of that unrest and how they reacted, and I know in my heart they were not happy with their reprimand.  They are plotting to overthrow the creator and take over his universe.”

“That’s impossible!” she said, laughing.  “If they think they are that powerful, then why don’t they just create their own universe and live there?  Since that’s impossible, why do they seriously think they could overthrow the creator in his own realm?”

“In that, you prove that you are wiser than they are,” I told her.  “Unfortunately, their arrogance blinds them to reality sometimes.  Phos doesn’t believe he ever was created.  He was not conscious until he and all the other agents were fully formed, so neither he nor any of his colleagues were eyewitnesses to the act.  I was there – witnessed the whole thing in fact – but they’re not likely to believe me.  I am weaker and less intelligent than they are and have no authority over anything.  They treat me as if I were the creator’s pet dog.  Meanwhile Phos tells all his followers that they and the creator all came into being simultaneously, that the only reason the creator has more power than they is because he stepped into that position first and therefore has more power than the rest.  The creator has occasionally promoted or demoted spirits based on their ability or inability to do their jobs.  Plus if some don’t want to be in their current positions, the creator will trade them out with others, causing them to gain power and the others to lose theirs.  Phos thinks if he can just depose the creator and take his place, he will become almighty.”

“Supposing they even could depose the creator,” she answered, “they could never hope to create something out of nothing, nor could they possibly rule the universe well, could they?  In the absence of the creator, his creation would eventually waste away to nothing.  He not only made everything, but he sustains it as well.”

“You ought to be an agent, Cala,” I said smiling.  “Well, it would be wise if your people started learning the art of combat,” I concluded.  “I can help you.  We can make it look like a sport so as not to arouse too much suspicion.  I need to talk to your father about this, but if he’s reluctant, could you try to get him to agree with me?  I know he listens to you more than most fathers listen to their children.”

“If he doesn’t agree to your plan,” she said with a confident smile, “I guarantee he will change his mind after talking to me.  If that happens, you’ll have to spend a lot more time with us, right?  You and I could get married.”

“Well, yes,” I admitted, grinning at her cleverness.  “If your father agrees to let me train his people for war, I’ll stay here and marry you.  I’d have to be insane not to marry the most beautiful creature in the entire universe.  If I wait longer, I’ll have to beat away your other suitors with a stick.”

Cala, nearly bursting with joy, gave me a big hug and kissed me again with more passion.  “I’ll let them know they can stop trying.”

“Great,” I said.  I suddenly didn’t like the thought of other people trying to woo her.  “I better get started on your father.  I don’t know how I’m going to prepare so many of you for war though.”

We slowly walked back to the palace, and I said goodbye to Cala, promising to spend more time with her later.  I then went straight to the king and queen to explain my plan.  Queen Anta was overjoyed when I told her Cala and I would get married, and Atal gave his wife a knowing look when he heard.  Seeing that exchange of body language confirmed in my mind why they had had a fifteenth child.  They wanted me to have a companion too.

The high king was a bit reluctant, as I suspected, to train his ten billion descendants for war.  He said, “This ‘combat’ you talk of means every single Atala must spend twenty years learning how to injure, dismember, and kill other creatures.  We have to learn how to do this not only with our bare hands, but also with dangerous weapons, large animals, and our ships.  The foe you mentioned does not even exist yet, but based on the rumors of a few agents a long way away; you recommend we do this anyway.  Finally, we have to make it look like a game so as not to arouse suspicion.  Have I understood you correctly?”

When he put it that way, I felt foolish.  He was absolutely right.  It was stupid to waste so much time and energy on this pointless war-mongering.

However, I knew what planet Earth would be like many ages later.  The planet as it now existed was a pristine utopia, and it was worth defending that against what I strongly suspected was coming.  Phos was capable of making an entire galaxy explode with almost no effort.  He had thousands of dark matter agents, millions of galaxy agents, billions of stellar agents, trillions of planetary agents, and an uncountable number of lower spirit beings at his command.  Plus, with the universe steadily expanding, he would receive even more subordinates as the need arose.  Any one of the stellar agents or their superiors, alone and unaided, could have also destroyed the entire planet.  The Atala on the other hand were peaceful beings bound to the laws of physics who had literally never even hurt a fly.  Their existence could be eradicated in a millisecond.

“Yes, King Atal, that is what I am saying your Atala have to do in order to survive,” I answered after a long pause.

We talked some more about the dangers he would face and what sort of supernatural assistance he could expect.  In the end I won him over without having to use his daughter to twist his arm.  He told me I could start training in a month, once he could send messengers to his children to have them return to the palace.  His plan was that I train the first three generations of Atala, namely himself, his wife, their fifteen children, and their nearly two hundred grandchildren.  Once that first group of warriors had been trained, each warrior could return to his or her continent and train 50 to 100 subjects while I went out and periodically supervised their progress.

I did not know how much time I would have, but I figured it would take a good 20 years to train the first group on all I knew.  They’d have to learn unarmed combat, train against multiple assailants, learn how to wield various weapons, including swords, spears, daggers, lasers, and more.  We’d have to train some of them to ride animals so we’d have a good cavalry.  Then, we’d pick the best of the best and teach them how to organize their fighters into large units capable of coordinated actions.

Each subsequent group would also take 20 years to train.  I could only hope that my initial 200 would be able to pass on their knowledge effectively.  Since the Atala population was ten billion, I did some calculations and came up with the following plan:

No. of Trainees | Training Time | Total Warriors At End

200                      20 years            200 \ 20 yrs.

x 100                   20 yrs.              20,000 \ 40 yrs.

x 100                   20 yrs.              2,000,000 \ 60 yrs.

x 100                   20 yrs.              200,000,000 \ 80 yrs.

x 50                     20 yrs.              10,000,000,000 \ 100 yrs.

I started training the very next month on Atalantas with the two hundred eldest Atala, the kings and queens, princes and princesses of their civilization.  It was far easier than I expected.  It only took ten years to train the first group of two hundred – they learned much more rapidly than I expected.  However, they all felt that they could train a maximum of fifty in a class.  I did some quick calculations and figured out we could complete the training of ten billion at that rate in sixty years.  Faster than I thought!

We needed the speed, however.  The creator himself visited me after the second iteration was finished training with some advice for me.  He said, “You and the Atala are doing a good job.  Do not grow weary.  While you are doing this, go to the creatures of Venus and Mars that are visiting this planet and include them in your preparations.  They are ahead of the Atala in some ways.”

Of course!  I thanked the creator for his advice and started planning what to do next.  We would need a way to transport enormous loads between planets.  Unfortunately, this might mean talking to Helios and Gaia.

Meanwhile, the first Atala warriors passed on what they learned with faithful accuracy.  I designed the whole system to look like a sport and be fun.  We had archery, fencing contests, boxing matches, even team-based events where the Atala had to work together as small units to accomplish goals.  At first only the king and queen and their fifteen children knew the real purpose behind the training, but they made sure the sport-like aspect of the training never watered down its applicability in armed conflict.

After they all had been trained, we started developing massive space transports.  The Atala had to learn this from Helios and Gaia, with whom they maintained close contact, hiding their true intentions.  Older space vehicles were small, used only to explore and trade small amounts of cargo.  I knew enormous space transports would become necessary should we have to fight.  I also wanted them to visit the little Martians as soon as possible so they could start learning the art of weapon making.  Owing to their extensive travel, they had long ago suspected that a conflict was brewing and had started preparing for it in secret.  Once I told the Venusians, their High King Verelion took another route, breeding and training the enormous beasts on their planet.  I wish I had been able to train them all in combat as I did the Atala, but Proxima Centauri assured me he and Michael would have their agents secretly preparing them.  The native agents on the three planets preparing for war left the inhabitants alone and suspected nothing, thinking they would support Phos and were preparing for the rebellion instead of the exact opposite.

Once the first gigantic Atalan space transports set off to visit their neighbors, I started thinking we just might be able to survive an onslaught.  The Martians were more than prepared, and they gladly started constructing vast armaments for the Earthlings.  They sent contingents of Martians to live in Earth’s mountains where they worked tirelessly to build up the planetary defenses and construct weapons.

We hired contingents of Venusians to breed and domesticate some gigantic animals living on their planet and then send them to Earth so that we would have a suitable cavalry as well.  These were the dinosaurs paleontologists would later discover.  One type we liked using was the triceratops, a large plant-eating beast resembling a rhinoceros with a beak, two additional long horns protruding forward out of its skull, and a huge plate, or frill, that served to protect the neck.  This conveniently shielded an Atalan rider as well.  The triceratops also had a large reptilian tail which it could swing with incredible speed and force at any enemy behind it.

We also trained allosaurs – a smaller, more tamable version of the legendary Tyrannosaurus rex – to drive into an enemy’s flank at an incredible speed and tear apart their formations.  A brave Atala might ride one of these lightning-fast steeds and carry his own weapons, but most preferred training their allosaurs to attack, kill, and ‘fetch’ the enemy corpse for them.  I tried riding one once and realized why few chose this technique.  Only someone with fast reflexes and an iron stomach could hope to stay in the saddle much less kill as many enemies as the beast he rode.

For the air we had pteranodons, which looked like gargantuan bats with pelican-like heads, razor sharp teeth, and a long protrusion from the back of their skulls.  Two brave Atala, strapped firmly in place and armed with heavy crossbows would ride each one.

I’ve taken part in many battles over earth’s history, but nothing can compare to lines of heavy cavalry riding on triceratops, spearing and trampling everything in their paths.  Or what could withstand a pack of allosaurs, unleashed upon enemy infantry like a pack of hungry dogs?  Those two, combined with a vicious aerial attack from pteranodons and phalanx after phalanx of highly trained Atalan shock infantry would have been able to destroy anything, I believed.  Elephants and horses of later wars were nothing in comparison.  The later machinery of modern warfare that I had grown up with would probably have held its own against these battle trained dinosaurs and the incomparably elite Atala warriors, but who knows?  An Atalan archer or crossbowman, armed with Martian-made arrows and crossbow bolts, could hit targets like a modern day sniper.  Later on, they even had laser weapons which could hit things at incredible distances, leaving no trace as to the direction it came from.  Pteranodons could fly faster and maneuver better than any helicopter.  They were ready at a moment’s notice, not needing a lengthy pre-flight check or hours and hours of regular maintenance.  Plus, I’ve never seen a tank that could have outrun an allosaur.  I’m pretty sure one of those could have quickly outflanked a tank, flipped it over with a good kick or a flick of its tail, and eaten the crewmembers as they attempted to flee.

Yes, modern fighter planes and bombers would have dominated our meager air forces, but since such aircraft are designed primarily for invasions and assault, I did not want to focus on them.  Other than the pteranodons, we pretty much only had space transporters for traveling to distant planets and some mobile force field generators which would destroy incoming missiles, meteors, or low-flying aircraft.  On the ground we also built anti-aircraft artillery that would fire lasers, defensive missiles, or beams of dark matter at incoming objects.

I was hesitant to start developing firearms and bombs, lest we create a war machine destructive enough to annihilate the entire planet, as modern humans had created before I was born.  I was quite sure our army was capable of defending Earth from an invasion, however.  We got the help of Proxima Centauri and Michael in developing the missile shields, force fields, and anti-aircraft weapons, but we did not focus much on weaponry designed for assault and invasion.

Many generations later, the Venusians with the help of Proxima somehow managed to breed pyrokinetic beasts.  These “dragons” were difficult to train and very quick-tempered.  A well-trained one was virtually unstoppable in war, but some were untamable, feral monsters and equally unstoppable.  Most lay somewhere in between wild and obedient.

The legendary war-dragons of myth did not come into play until much later.  There were many variants.  Some looked like a classic dragon, with or without wings.  Others were like turtles, which could be used as intelligent landmines.  Others, snake-like and swift, could infiltrate and sabotage enemy positions.  Our most reliable were the fire-breathing triceratops – extremely dangerous cavalry beasts!

When the rebellion started, however, they had only managed to breed pyrokinetic rats, which were more of a danger to themselves than to others.  They kept igniting their own fur!  We later focused exclusively on hairless reptiles.  For now, all we could do was set a bunch of these crazy rats free in an enemy encampment and watch the place catch fire.

Along with my tireless preparations for war, I also spent as much of my free time as possible with Cala.  I helped her with some of the wedding planning, but something was bothering me.  She picked up on it instantly and asked me about it one day.

“Cala, I need to tell you something about myself.  I should not have kept it from you this long.”

“What is it?” she asked.  “It can’t be worse than this invasion you think is going to happen soon.”

“No, it’s not, but you won’t like it either.  I can’t produce children with you.  You’ve known all along that I am not an Atala, plus the creator specifically told me I would never be able to have children.  I’m truly sorry I did not tell you sooner, but the subject just did not come up.  You Atala just assume making children is like making dinner, and I never found a good opportunity to tell you we wouldn’t be able to.”

She looked downcast as I broke this news to her, but she took it well.  The Atala are remarkably good at expressing emotions at healthy levels.  “Well, I half suspected we wouldn’t be able to have babies, owing to your mysterious origin.  I wish you had told me sooner, but you’re right, we never really talked about it much.  Besides, if having children were more important to me than you are, I would have married someone else long ago and given up on you.”

“I don’t want us to wait any longer.  Let’s get married as soon as possible,” I said.

Within a week, the planning was complete, and we got married in her parents’ palace on the island of Atalantas.  The celebration seemed to be larger than the other weddings for Atal’s and Anta’s children, but I guess they had waited long enough for this one.  They gave us a small island partway between the continents which would later become Europe and Africa.  They had had a small palace built for us there, so we spent our honeymoon exploring that island, enjoying each other’s love uninterrupted from the affairs of the outside world and universe.  I was never happier than I was during those weeks and months.  We later traveled together to supervise the final preparations for the invasion, but during those first months of matrimony, we let nothing distract us from each other.  No, we never had any children, but it certainly was not for lack of trying.  I think she secretly hoped I was mistaken at first, but after years and years of no children, we resigned ourselves to a childless marriage.  Nonetheless we were always happy together, never had a serious argument, and had plenty of other things to do together.

At that time I wondered what the shepherd had meant so long ago when he said I’d experience an extreme amount of tragedy.  Until now everything I had experienced had started out amazing and just kept getting better.  I was sure the impending war would change that though.