Fundamental Problems Read online



  Fundamental Problems

  A Handful of Fables

  By Michael J. Tobias

  Text copyright © 2013 Michael J. Tobias

  All rights reserved

  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Fundamental Problems

  Literary Snob

  The Muse

  Gradual Epiphany

  The Crossing

  The Minstrel's Tale

  About The Author

  Acknowledgements

  The following people provided valuable feedback along with generous encouragement: Molly West, Mary Beth Tiblier, Deb Corbin, Jennifer Langford, John G. Hartley, Jeane Walker.

  Fundamental Problems

  Ralic Hanwuir loved his job. He loved the fact that he got to see places that otherwise he'd never see. He loved his supervisor, Safid Spallinor, because he had learned so much from him and Supervisor Safid Spallinor treated him like a son. He loved to travel, and while there were often downtimes, he frequently spent large portions of those downtimes thinking about how he could be doing a multitude of other jobs and why he was grateful that he wasn't. But most of all, he loved his job because he truly and whole-heartedly believed he was doing the work of the Creator.

  “What is our last assignment?” Supervisor Safid Spallinor asked.

  Ralic waved at the screen and words and numbers appeared. He flicked his wrist to the left and new words and numbers appeared on the screen. After several more flicks, Ralic said, “The only inhabited planet in the Peridak galaxy.”

  “Is that in the Lepisate region?” Supervisor Safid Spallinor asked.

  “Yes sir,” said Ralic.

  Supervisor Safid Spallinor waved his fingers in the air above his console in a series of specific gestures and then said, “Prepare for hyper jump.”

  Ralic frowned and gave his head little shakes because his supervisor always said this, though the idea of preparing for hyper jump was antiquated. Ralic had never had to prepare for hyper jump, though he was years younger than Supervisor Safid Spallinor, so perhaps it was an old habit, formed in the days when their interstellar craft were far shakier traveling through wormholes. Odd, though, since they were encouraged to drop old, particularly useless habits.

  In a matter of moments, they emerged near the target planet and assumed orbit. Ralic had prepared the standard communique and as they circled the watery orb, he broadcast the message in several languages on several channels. The message was concise and explicit:

  Greetings, citizens, we are from the planet Extronalon 5 in the galaxy Harputlia, located some 800 trillion light years from here. We are representatives of the Interstellar Federation of Planets and we have been tracking your progress. You are about to enter the stage of interstellar travel and we have some grave concerns. Unfortunately, your knowledge has apparently outpaced your psychological and spiritual evolution and we cannot allow you to progress further. You have access to the Creator's rules, but you clearly do not follow them. We therefore have no choice but to allow you one rotation of your planet before exterminating you. We regret that this is the case, and we can only assure you that this is the best course of action for the future of life in this universe. You will have that period of time to make one final defense of your existence. Unless we find your intention particularly compelling, you will be exterminated. Please consider this carefully, as we will not accept any responses other than this plea. A small, self-propelled probe containing several communications options has been sent to the office of the President of the United States of America for the specific purpose of stating your case. Any attempts to attack us will automatically render this offer null and void and will be met with the immediate annihilation of your planet. Your grace period of one solar day begins in one solar hour. Make peace with your gods.

  In the interim, Ralic asked, “So what are the numbers for this planet?”

  Supervisor Safid Spallinor flicked his wrist a few times and then recited, “CPE (Current Population Estimate) 8.1 billion. ECP (Estimated Compliance Percentage) less than one percent.”

  Ralic whistled. “That is pathetic. Age?”

  “Two-hundred thousand of their solar years.”

  “Conversion?”

  “Two-hundred, seventy-two turjeons.”

  The turjeon was the oft-debated universal measurement of time, while the ECP represented the estimated percentage of the population who actually complied with the rules of the Creator. The “age” Ralic asked about referred to the age of the current stage of evolved bipeds on the planet known as “homo sapiens sapiens.”

  “Well, they seem quite young,” Ralic commented, “But that's still no excuse for that pitiful ECP.” Then after a moment of thought, he asked, “How long have they been aware of the rules?”

  “Globally, approximately two-hundred of their solar years,” Supervisor Safid Spallinor replied.

  “Hmmm...that is less than half a turjeon,” Ralic pointed out.

  “Immaterial,” responded Supervisor Safid Spallinor. “One-tenth of a turjeon is plenty of time to assure a majority compliance percentage. Less than one percent is unacceptable.”

  Meanwhile, on earth, panic had set in; riots raged, crime and destruction ran amok, fires burned out of control. Nearly every government had set about attempts to control the mayhem with military intervention, which, unfortunately only seemed to make matters worse, which meant more violent and bloody. The President had called an emergency meeting of the G8 leaders and they were currently debating what to include in their response. What they were actually doing was a more civilized form of what was going on in the world at large. Ideas were thrown back and forth, with criticisms following like contrails. Much shouting and irrationality could be heard to emanate from within the small conference room in the White House.

  Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, especially when they pointed out that the proverbial doomsday clock was ticking in a decidedly unproverbial, disturbingly literal fashion. While the bulk of the argument regarded precisely what to say, few had considered how to say it, until an enterprising advisor to the President mentioned teleconferencing.

  “None of the options they provided can be used for teleconferencing,” the President indicated.

  “That's true,” agreed his advisor, “But you can return the flash drive with a URL link on it. The URL link can be to a site on our intranet that we use for internal teleconferencing. That way, you can have a dialogue with them.”

  “That is brilliant,” said the President, “Son, if we don't get completely destroyed, you're going places in this government.” The young man beamed, and then scrambled out of the office to assemble a tech team to set it up.

  The aliens were surprised at the ingenuity of the response, and clearly unprepared to deal with it. At least Ralic was. He lunged into full panic mode when the prospect of actually speaking with one of the inhabitants of the planet arose.

  “Calm yourself,” Supervisor Safid Spallinor said. “I'll speak with them.”

  In his entire time as a UAI (Universal Anti-Idolatry) agent, Ralic had never laid eyes on any of the inhabitants of any of the targets of extermination, much less spoken to one. The mere thought of it nearly caused him to fall into a jittery conniption. Exterminating entire worlds was quite tidy and convenient when done from a distance. He had never before had to deal with any messy emotional baggage such as interacting with them. Once again, his hero, Supervisor Safid Spallinor had come to his rescue.

  At the indicated time, the two beings began their conference with each of them introducing themselves before Supervisor Safid Spallinor stated, “Mr. President, this is highly irregular.”

  “Are you referring to the teleconference or the fact that you've ironi
cally claimed the moral high ground while simultaneously stating your intention to exterminate an entire planet?”

  “There is no irony,” Supervisor Safid Spallinor intoned. “Your compliance rate with the Universal rules is less than one percent. This is unacceptable. We cannot allow you to venture further into the Universe with such a paltry rate.”

  “What rules?”

  “The rules of the Creator.”

  “We aren't aware of any set of rules,” the President pointed out.

  Supervisor Safid Spallinor gestured with his hand and a list appeared on the President's screen.

  You must serve only the Creator.

  You must not have any images of the Creator.

  You must not claim to serve the Creator without an acceptable compliance rate.

  You must dedicate one time period for rest and remembrance of the Creator.

  You must honor those who provide for and educate you.

  You must not murder.

  You must be faithful to your oaths.

  You must not steal.

  You must testify truthfully and honestly, without selfish motives.

  You must never covet or envy.

  The President's heart nearly stopped as he scanned through the list.

  “These are the ten commandments,” he said to the screen.

  “They are the Universal Rules of the Creator,” Supervisor Safid Spallinor corrected.

  The President scrambled for an argument. Fortunately, he had been reared in the Bible belt and had a fairly good working memory of his Sunday school lessons.

  “Mr. Spallinor, we believe in these, but we also believe in a higher principle. We believe in grace. Because we have trusted in Jesus, the Creator's only son, and believe in his sacrifice for our si...er...low compliance rate...we believe we are forgiven by the Creator.”

  Supervisor Safid Spallinor tilted his head and narrowed his considerably large eyes. “That,” he said, “Is the silliest thing I've ever heard.” He then pressed a button and a narrow beam of red light descended toward the earth. In an instant, the planet was vaporized, leaving the moon like a strange, lonely marker of what once was.

  Ralic entered the compartment, having been alerted by flashing lights that Supervisor Safid Spallinor had engaged the BUJ (Beam of Universal Justice).

  “That didn't take long,” Ralic said.

  “You expected a rational argument from an under-evolved creature?” asked Supervisor Safid Spallinor.

  Ralic chuckled, partly out of relief at being spared the task of actually engaging the creature. He busied himself with filing reports on their completed caseload as Supervisor Safid Spallinor prepared the craft for the voyage home. Ralic watched the view screen as the space to their left warped into a swirling, blurry mass and as they turned to enter it, he thought, another day in service to the Creator, and grinned.

  Moments later they emerged and immediately noticed that instead of their large home planet, a tiny, revolving, flashing beacon floated.

  Ralic turned to his supervisor and nervously inquired, “Sir, did you input the correct coordinates?”

  “Of course,” Supervisor Safid Spallinor snapped. He engaged a beam, guided it toward the beacon, and zapped the beacon inside the spacecraft. It was a strange looking device, unfamiliar to both of them. It had ceased to rotate and flash, though now they noticed a large button on one side with a label just above it which read, “Push Me.” So, Supervisor Safid Spallinor did just that.

  A hologram of an unrecognized being popped up and the being began to address them in their native tongue.

  Greetings, citizens, from the planet Fhirenix in the galaxy Xhoenx, located in Dimension K6. We are representatives of the Interdimensional Federation of Planets and we have been tracking your progress. You were about to enter the stage of interdimensional travel and we had some grave concerns. Unfortunately, your knowledge had apparently outpaced your psychological and spiritual evolution and we could not allow you to progress further. We must inform you that we were forced to annihilate your planet. We regret that this is the case, and we can only assure you that this is the best course of action for the future of life in each Dimension. We hope that if you happened to be away from your planet and discovered this message beacon, you will be successful in your attempts to find a hospitable planet to serve as your new home.

  Literary Snob