LORICK OF SIRKLA

Chapter Two.

Zen‑Li watched the honey dissolve slowly into his tea. If only events would move as slowly, he thought, then laughed at himself in the quiet morning.

"I am getting old," he said aloud, as if the tea could receive his confession.

Certainly, he was still capable of enthusiasm. He had shared most of Lorick's enthusiasm about the Magnificent Bronze Dragon's offer. He kept to himself, however, the unsettling premonitions that persisted whenever he reflected upon that most unusual invitation. Why it was, he was unsure, but the undercurrent of foreboding would not leave. It was like a thread of discordant color, woven into the wrong fabric. Certainly, an aspiring young philosopher could have no better teacher than a dragon. And of all the dragons, the Magnificent Bronze Dragon was reputed to be the wisest. Zen‑Li had no doubts concerning Lorick's intellectual capabilities. He was uncertain, however, regarding the young man's emotional development. The emotional needs of dragons are not those of humans. It was one thing for Lorick to learn from dragons, who generate love and power. It was quite another thing, however, for him to learn to live among humans who compete for love and power.

The dragon's unprecedented offer, combined with the news of the most recent activities by the Masters of Light and the Princes of Dark, made it seem probable to Zen‑Li that Lorick was being prepared for a role in the mysterious plans of the dragons that Kadich and Ka'un had mentioned. The probability approached certainty when last night's message arrived, informing him that the dragons had arranged for Lorick and Bari, his two favorite students, to receive deep space training from the dolphin Araua.

Zen‑Li knew the dragons well, and he had observed that whenever they were involved in something, there were sure to be dolphins around, too.

"Ah, well," he thought, "were I in Lorick's place, I would not refuse a destiny guided by dragons, either. Besides, there will be lifetimes enough for happiness."

Apalled at that dismal thought, Zen‑Li decided that the time for thinking was best done with for the moment. He drank the last of his morning tea and put the cup down on a table. He walked out of his house, and down the path to the Learning Center where he worked. There he found Bari and Lorick sitting outside by the river. They were waiting for him beneath the branches of his friendly old nemesis, Nebregdysal.

There must have been a time in his life, though Zen‑Li couldn't recall it, there must have been a time before his game began with the tree people, and with Nebregdysal in particular. Absurd to think that any sentient being could not use words! Everyone else on Sirkla was content to communicate telepathically with the trees, but he was sure they understood words, too. They just didn't let on, for some reason of their own. So he talked to them. He talked to them whenever there was an opportunity, gauging their responses for evidence of words in the deep structure of their communication.

Approaching the tree, Zen‑Li noticed that Lorick held Bari's hand in his as they talked.

Zen‑Li realized, with a start, that his two students were now lovers. This was followed by the thought that not only was he getting older, but he was also aging more rapidly than before. He saw an image of himself limping along the path, with a beard that reached to the ground, and then realized that the picture was sent telepathically from Nebregdysal. He snorted and imagined, as vividly as he could, the oak struck by lightning, then enveloped in flames.

"Good morning, Bari, Lorick," he said.

"Good morning to you, sir." They got quickly to their feet as he approached, another irritating reminder that he was getting older.

"Good morning, Nebregdysal," he muttered. As usual, the only answer he received was the rustle of leaves. Turning to Bari and Lorick, he raised his voice to normal, again.

"Today, I must talk to you both about the 'Seven Backward Planets'. Now ‑‑ "

He was interrupted by Bari's groan.

"Is there a problem, young lady?" he glared at her.

"We're supposed to have a mathematics lesson today, not politics!" she said. "Can't you tell by the lovely weather?"

Mathematics was Bari's favorite subject, and it was a real delight for Zen‑Li to experience the lightning quickness of her mind ‑‑ a counterpoint to the slow, ponderous motion of Lorick's thoughts. He also knew that what she called "politics" was her least favorite subject.

He sighed, patiently. "Bari," he said,"I know very well that this is usually a 'math day' for you both (and the dragons know that Lorick needs it!), but the fact is that Lorick will soon be leaving for the planet of the dragons, and it will be very important that you both be at least conversant with these issues. By the time Kadich and Lor'un return from their mission to the Princes of Light, I want you both to be experts on the Seven Backward Planets. So let's get started."

"Can we at least sit out here with Nebregdysal?"

Zen‑Li cast a furtive glance over his shoulder in the direction of the old oak tree. The silence was total.

"Alright," he said.

"For ages," he began, "sentient beings have waged war upon one another. Sometimes these wars are nonviolent affairs of trade restrictions and other types of collective refusals to communicate and cooperate. More often, they are extremely violent exercises. It is amazing, the sheer number of technologies that have been developed for the express purposes of death and destruction. And always, violent or not, these wars are waged in the names of The Forces of Light and The Forces of Dark."

Bari muttered something under her breath.

"What was that, Bari?"

She looked guiltily up at her teacher, "I said, 'it's just a simple‑minded dual structure'. I'm sorry, Zen‑Li, I was really expecting a math lesson, today. But I'll be good, I promise."

"But your remark is very relevant!" said Zen‑Li. "Don't you see? A mathematical structure ‑‑ any 'structure' ‑‑ is an important restriction. Can you see what it is?"

Bari looked blankly back at him.

He turned to Lorick. "Well?"

Lorick looked thoughtful for a moment, then speaking carefully, he said, "I think that what you're getting at is that any structuring is a rational activity. As such, it must be incomplete. That which finds no place in the structures described by the Masters of Light appears in structures perceived by the Princes of Dark."

Zen‑Li stared at Lorick for a moment. "That's more or less what I am getting at, yes."

Inwardly, Zen‑Li was astounded at this latest evidence of the wisdom of the Magnificent Bronze Dragon, if, indeed, such evidence was needed. He, himself, had been one hundred and fifty years old before he had had the insight that this eighteen year old had just expressed.

"Yes. Hmmm. Yes, well there's another part to that, of course." He looked expectantly to Lorick, but no answer was forthcoming.

"The nasty part is that both the Masters of Light and the Princes of Dark not only fail to understand that their own structures are incomplete, but believe them, instead, to be so complete that the only obstacle preventing the next evolutionary step in consciousness is the failure of others to believe in their particular worm's‑eye view of the universe."

Bari's face brightened. "And that's why they call the Seven Backward Planets 'backward'!"

"Exactly!" Zen‑Li beamed.

"But if that's true," she continued, "why don't they call Sirkla a 'backward' planet, too?"

"Well, Bari, I'm sure that they do, but never very loudly. Sirkla is considered to be a captive satellite ‑‑ politically speaking ‑‑ of the planet of the dragons. Neither Master nor Prince have yet succeeded in deluding any of 'their subjects' that the dragons are anything other than a wise old race. The dragons are held in such high esteem by 'common people' throughout the universe that a direct attack on the dragons would be political suicide at home, if not, indeed, an actual, physical suicide by any 'leader' foolish enough to try."

"Anyway," he continued, "to get back to the Seven Planets. They are, as you say, Bari, considered backwards because they are 'unable' to see, collectively, the Light or the Dark."

He grimaced. "Naturally, then, the Seven Planets have been the target of an intense missionary activity from the warring factions. On Earth this activity has been especially virulent and catastrophic. Of the two main land‑masses, the continent known to its inhabitants as Atlantis has been established as a stronghold for the Forces of Light, while the continent known as Lemuria has come loosely under the control of the Forces of Dark. The inhabitants worship the extraterrestrial missionaries as gods, and over a period of 100,000 years of linear time (an Earth year is just slightly less than a Sirklan year), they have fought many devastating wars with each other in the names of those gods. Most of these wars have merely used nuclear weapons and, after a few centuries of misery and suffering, the hardy local life forms have mutated and found ways to survive the resulting cataclysmic planetary shifts."

"The latest of these wars, however," continued Zen‑Li, "was fought with more advanced technology, as the 'gods' of Light and Dark despaired of ever winning a decisive battle. As a result, the land masses themselves were damaged profoundly. The damage to the planet was so great, in fact, that the stability of the planetary crust itself was destroyed. The crust was shattered into a series of plates, and each imparted with independent motion which will eventually destroy both Lemuria and Atlantis, creating new continents and oceans as gravestones for the two indigenous cultures."

"And now the Forces of Light and Dark are beginning to use this tragic situation as a propaganda tool ‑‑ yes, Lorick?"

"I just now understood a conversation I heard between Kadich and Ka'un. They talked about the 'Save Earth' campaigns that are being used to recruit new starfleets," said Lorick.

"Indeed," said Zen‑Li wryly. "And always with the understanding that the hapless planet is to be 'saved' for one or the other of the warring factions."

"Then there was a word that my father used that I wondered about, and never got the chance to ask its meaning," Lorick added.

"What word?" asked Zen‑Li.

"Asteroids. They feared a new 'ring of asteroids'. What is that?"

Zen‑Li shuddered involuntarily. "A very long time ago, indeed, a Prince of Dark had developed a huge starship that could literally destroy whole planets in a fraction of a second. The dragons conspired to destroy the starship, and it was, in fact destroyed. But not before it was actually used to kill an entire planet. The entire planet was blown apart, and the millions of pieces that were left still orbit the star Sol to this day. Those pieces are called asteroids."

He stared sadly into space. "Sol is the very star around which the planet Earth revolves."