This story placed in the top ten of the  2004 Science Fiction Writers of Earth annual short story competition.

BLIND JUSTICE

by

J.H. Lamb

                A thick layer of caustic smoke, ammoniac and pungent, stung my eyes, leaving me blind.  I heard sounds of rushing feet.  I dared not raise my head, for I feared those footfalls were of the enemy and not of an ally. 

The resonant echo of firearms, the distant bass rumble of explosions, the ground vibrations of war machinery, they had all ceased.  However, the pained screams of the wounded, the frightened cries of the innocents caught in the crossfire of battle, the calls for loved ones, they sang out with apprehension and rapt terror.

“Get up off that cannon deck recruit, and fight.  This isn’t over yet,” a graveled voice said from above me. 

I felt the hot air and spittle from his demanding voice on my uncovered cheek where my face armor had been torn apart.  I smelled the carendil stone we ingested to stave off sleep for weeks at a time.  The scent was similar to rancid meat mingled with burnt rubber.  The man above me was also tainted with the skunk-ripe stench of an unclean body.

“I can’t see anything sir.  My eyes, they’re...” I said.

The humming zip of a projectile passed over the top of my head, I heard the punching impact on the officer, his body slumped on top of me, unresponsive, hot fluid pumped from his wound morbidly warming my chilled body.

I listened once again and realized the calls for help were actually pleas, soldiers begging to be spared, though the enemy we fought was not known for its moral demeanor. 

  With this defeat, the war wouldn’t last much longer.  There’ll be no recourse but to retreat into the deep inland areas and fight a gorilla war, and keep hope that one day we’ll be strong enough to fight back.

I heard approaching steps and remained as still as possible, though attempts to hold my breath caused me to choke, and on my second cough I was yanked upright.

“Tesk mal, na pepti, croll Seti?  Tesk mal, na pepti, croll Seti?” a voice said, though the words sounded like a child speaking through a straw submerged in a cup of milk.

“Jonathan Masters, third level recruit, Earth Global Defense, North American artillery division, serial num--”

Out of the cold iron darkness a quick jolt stunned my abdomen.  The pain was excruciating and every muscle in my body contracted, becoming cramped, tensed, knotted, they refused to relax.  I fell, quivering on the ground like a child’s vibrating toy before they started dragging me.  I felt both the cold of the steel and the pulsation of a vehicle’s engine beneath me --I was a prisoner.  Eventually, the pain grew to a level where I was unable to remain conscious.

The next few days were elusive butterflies, formed of mental images, sound and scent, each beyond my grasp, but close enough to hear a word, maybe two, or capture a wisp of familiar odor.

“It lives,” said a woman’s voice from beyond the shimmering grey cloak of my damaged eyesight.  I felt a hand on my face, “Fever’s broken too.”

“Where are we?” I asked, trying to clear my eyes.

“I don’t know how to answer that,” she said.  “I’ve been here a long time.  Feels odd just to speak out loud.”

“You don’t sound very old.”

“And what’s old supposed to sound like?”

“I mean--”

“Who attacked us?” she asked, “I never really understood who they were.  Who do you think they were?  I’m curious.”

She took me off guard, I wasn’t sure how to answer, and then I realized why.  She asked who, and not what.

“We call them Aquadians, though I have a few different things I call them,” I said.  I tried to be humorous, but there was nothing comical about the destruction of war.

“What are you talking about?” she asked.

“Exactly,” I said.  “Just what in the hell are they?  It’s a question I never heard answered, not once.  The first attack came fast, without warning, and all of us were taken off-guard.  Their ships, if you can call them that, came out of the ocean and attacked our coastlines all over the world.  They seemed to be limited to a few miles inland, well for the first year of the war at least.”

“How long now?”

“Ten years.”

She let out a defeated sigh, “That long now?  My God.”

“You may as well know.  The death toll estimate is over four billion.  Some countries fell quickly--they just didn’t have the defenses.”

“You’re virtually saying most of mankind is dead?”  Her footsteps moved away from me.

“I don’t want to believe it either, but it’s true.  I’ve been fighting with Earth Global Defense for five years now, ever since I was twelve.  Both my brothers and my dad were killed during year two, my mom on year one.  Not much of the world is the same anymore.”

My eyes felt like someone was pouring acid over them in a constant stream.  No matter how I tried to comfort them ... well, let’s just say nothing worked.  Just attempting to brush them with a fingertip would cause them to re-ignite.

The chilled air of my prison was bearable, though, it carried upon it a stale, filtered smell reminiscent of festered jungle boots.  There was also a different aroma, one of a hospital, disinfectants and rubbing alcohol were the most prominent, with other more subtle scents that reminded me of doctors, nurses and operating rooms.

Distant sounds of hurried people, footsteps, muffled conversation, clangs of metal equipment, tinny and hollow, not the deep clunk of heavy metal, and the monotonous drone of fans somewhere below.

Apprehension leached into my stomach and chest, I felt lost, alone, for the first time in eight years.  The military had become my new family, we cared deeply for each other and that helped the pain of losing my family.  We all shared loss in one way or another.

“Are you still there?” I asked.

“Why do you think they did it, these people, these people you call Aquadians?”

“Well first,” I said, “they are far from being people.  They kind of have a human-like body, but two huge fins on their back like wings, and they’re all white, and in places you can see though their skin, like a jellyfish.”

“Sounds like you’re describing an angel.”  She moved closer and I felt her sit next to me on the cushioned surface.

“Angels?” I said with sarcasm.  “Believe me, these things are no angels.  They attacked us first remember?  For no reason.”

I felt a warm, wet cloth on my face.  She was washing the wound.  It stung at first, but the fluid began to take the pain away.  Even my eyes began to settle, though my vision had grown darker.

I reached for her hand.  I needed to touch another human, erase, if only for a short while, the crippling feeling of being alone.  My head spun, dizzy with exhaustion.  The carendil stone had begun to wear off and I would be paying the price for using it.  Soldiers used the ore to remain awake for weeks at a time, but the damage came later, a debilitating week of nightmarish sleep, speckled with delusion and uncontrolled terror.

She retracted immediately upon my touch.

“Thank you,” I said.

“For what?”

“Taking care of me.  Is it bad?  I can’t see anything?”

She paused before answering.  I heard her swallow hard and take a deep breath. 

She then spoke bluntly, “Your eyes are gone.”

I wasn’t certain if the cause was her cutting words, the shock of their meaning or merely the withdrawal of the stone catching up to me, but I collapsed onto the bed behind me.  Her hands lowered me back softly, and I sensed a gentle kiss on my forehead, directly above the empty sockets where two jade green eyes used to rest.

In my hallucinations, I walked the sandy Cape Cod beach of my childhood.  The ocean rose and dipped with a rhythmic silent beat.  Waves broke with a slap on the saturated crest of the tidal line, leaving kelp, driftwood, and debris deposited just out of reach of the water’s engulfing grasp.  Gulls and terns danced, issuing high pitched squawks and shrill complaints to each new rising wave.  The birds rummaged for morsels of snails, fish or other aquatic cuisine.

The sun burned brightly, rising high on the summer sky, washing out the deep denim blue into a light pasty tint etched with yellow highlights.  A cool ocean breeze, laden with a moist salty mist, defied the scorching rays, leaving a crusty almost stiff feeling on my skin.

Fishing trawlers sounded their air horns as they rounded the outer markers of the channel, followed by a cloud of white beating wings eager to snatch a scrap.  The ruddy scent of diesel engines carried on the breeze, the oily carbon exhaust should’ve offended, yet it had an odd appeal mixed with the ocean bouquet.

“Do you hate them?” she whispered through the ocean haze.

I whispered back that I did.  But for the first time I began to think about the word, hate.  I guess I didn’t hate them, but more the circumstance that stole my family.  Hate?  I guess I needed more time to think about that one, about a lifetime may work.

I stood naked on a ruined city street.  Explosions had piled rubble where buildings once stood; corpses of both friend and foe carpeted the ground; their two dissimilar bloods, crimson and emerald, blended into pools of ebon death.  Blank stares looked up at me in question.  The eyes of the dead, they always asked the same thing, no matter if human, if Aquadian, if animal, they asked why, why was I dead, why was I no longer alive?  Had the answer came as easily as the question.

“What’s your name?” I heard from beyond the cloaking darkness.

“Jonathan Masters,” I managed, before the shimmering delirium stole me off once again.

Sometime later, another question reached me, actually more of a comment--a disturbing one.  “For no reason?  You want me to believe you were attacked for no reason?  There’s always a reason, there has to be a reason, it may not be a good one, but a reason nonetheless, perhaps the reason is...”

Back into the mind-rending void of withdrawal.  My head felt like an overripe plum under the foot of an unaware hiker at the point just before the taunt purple skin began to split and the soft fleshy tissue inside erupted out.

Radio traffic called out from the shortwave set of my father’s ocean-view study.  Ships were being taken out one after the other.  The surreal feeling of the initial attack.  The first words of warning.  I saw fear on my father’s face that day, even though neither of us could’ve imagined the magnitude of the assault.  I watched his eyes darken and glisten with emotion as he listened to sea captains call out mayday, and his throat clenched, no less than if a hand had wrapped it threatening to steal away his breath.  He heard an American Battleship, the name eluded me, advise anyone listening that the United States was under full attack.  It felt like a bone fingered hand had grabbed the bulk of my stomach and attempted to pull it down and out of my groin.  The words made me vomit with fear, but more out of my father’s reaction than from the dying Captain’s words.

Once again, I felt a wet cloth on my face.  I reached out.  This time her hand didn’t retract.  Her skin was uniquely smooth and soft, not what I would expect from a prisoner of ten years.  Though any expectation was a fabrication of my own shadowed mind and not based in reality.

“Have you thought about the reason?” she said, gently stroking my forehead with the cooling cloth.  As her hand passed my eyes it seemed as if I saw the shadow of her arm pass over me, or where they used to reside, for I had allowed my fingers to probe the empty holes of flesh, proving to me they were truly missing.

“I think I just saw your arm, just a shadow, but something.”

“I don’t think that’s possible, do you?”  She slowed her hand on my face, letting it linger on my neck.  I held her hand to my cheek.  It felt comforting to just exist, no fighting, no war, no screams, no blood.

I reached to touch her face but she stopped me.  How I wished to see her face.  “I just wish this whole damn thing was over.  I’m so tired of the fighting; you can’t believe how bad it is.”

“Tell me,” she said, propping pillows behind me, “did you kill any of the Aquadians?”

Her question didn’t make sense to me.  I had told her I was a soldier, and that I fought for five years.  Did she think I was waving back to their weapons with a smile and a thank you very much?  I wanted to return an equally sarcastic remark, but her tone didn’t have a shred of cynicism. 

“Yes,” was all I said. 

I waited for her response for a longer time than felt comfortable, and when I reached out, she was not there.

“What’s your name?” I asked, as my head swam with a blending of feelings and images.  I tried to ask her name because I had lost track of any other thought or question.  Concentration had given way to withdrawal-triggered wandering.

I was six years old and grasped the steel railing of a seaborne ship--a whale watch out of Provincetown.  My mother held me close, nervous about losing me into the pounding ocean swells.

“Looks to be about twelve foot seas,” Dad told her, before he whispered in her ear something about twelve inches.

Mom’s eyes opened wide and turned to him with a shocked grin.  He smiled back, and went to kiss her, but she pulled away, mocking anger.  Though she had only toyed with him, and she giggled, amused, and when he gave up, she wrapped her arms around him and they kissed like new lovers.  Dad always had that gleam in his eye for her, and just the mention of her name would etch his face with a grin.  I saw that light replaced with searing darkness when a strafing raid upon the inland home, to which we fled, took her life away.

Had I killed Aquadians?  Hell yes and I would again if I could.

“Serena, my name is Serena,” I heard.  Her voice came somewhere from beyond the oily veil of blindness.

“Strange name, what is it?” I asked.

“Mine,” she said, before I floated off again.

Memory and images became non-existent.  I just...was...no thoughts, no emotions, only the weighty pressure of my body lying on the bed.

“Lift your head, you need to drink this.”  She held my head up.  “If you don’t, you’re going to die.”

“Just let me die,” I said, without conscious thought.

“No!” she demanded.  “There’s been way too much of that already.  It has to stop somewhere, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” I agreed.  I tried to open my eyes before realizing my folly.  “It stops when the last one of them dies.”

“You can’t mean that,” she muttered, sounding more hurt than angry.  “How can you really believe genocide is the answer to anything?”

“I miss my family,” I responded, not wanting to contemplate her question.

“So killing will bring them back?”

“That’s not the point.”  I attempted to stand.

“Sure it is,” she said, then began to sigh audibly.  Had I seen her, I knew she was shaking her head with disdain.

I took a swallow of her drink and nearly vomited.  My stomach convulsed with gripped aversion to the liquid.  Before I could stop her, she was pouring a second mouthful.  I tried to spit it out, but she cupped my mouth forcing me to swallow.

“Believe me,” she assured me, “it will help you heal.”  She wiped away the sweat on my face with the heel of her palm.

“Sure it will.  That is if the taste doesn’t kill me first.”

“Have you thought about the reason they attacked?  Or the reason they are fighting?” she asked.

Once again, she took me off-guard with her question.  Had I thought about a reason?  Truthfully it never mattered, the real reason that is.  I guessed I always assumed it was because they wanted to take over the land, but that couldn’t be totally right.  Everywhere they drove humans out, or killed them all off, they still left.  They never stayed on the land; they couldn’t, because they lived underwater, or in it actually. 

Then why, what was the reason? 

I wondered... 

I wondered why in the hell, she was making me ask myself why, because the only thing that ever mattered to me before was that they attacked us first.

“At least I got you thinking about it,” she added.  Her cool cloth brushed more sweat from my brow.

“No, not really.  But you do have me wondering why the reason even matters, not what it was.”

“Really?” she mused.  “What’s the difference?”

“Where are you from?” I asked, trying to change the conversation.

“You figure out the reason, and I’ll tell you all about myself.  I promise.”

“What was in that stuff?  I don’t feel very well.  I feel like I can’t open my eyes.”

“That’s because you don’t have any silly.  Don’t worry; it’s going to help you heal.  It’ll make you tired for a bit, so sleep, you need it.”

Once again, I found myself wandering in the grey-scale emptiness of the world, somewhere between sleep and consciousness.  I swam within a liquid darkness that held me, wrapped in warmth and undulating waves of sensation.  I wondered if death had found me on the battlefield, and the room with the faceless woman was nothing but a dying man’s illusion, a last vestige of thought, a final trace of reality, before leaving the body along with the heated vapor of life.

“You spoke of whales in your sleep,” she said.  I felt her hand test my cheek and then my forehead.  “Have you seen whales, real ones?”

“Once, yes, when I was very young,” I replied.

“I never got to see one, not even one.  Now I never will.  They’re gone forever and that bothers me deeply,” she declared.

She tried to hide her sniffle, but I could sense her pained emotion.

“Why would that bother you?  With everything else that’s going on, why would you let something like that get to you?  It makes no sense at all.”

She ran a moist towel over my forehead, soothing the sting of my damaged face.

“Doesn’t it?” she said, as if I was missing something.  “Did you ever wonder if that had anything to do with the attack?  The fact that they killed off every last whale on the planet without ever learning anything about them, their purpose, their history, their right to live.  You ever think that maybe that was the reason, or maybe a piece of the reason?”

“Truthfully ... no.”

I thought about the whale I saw, and how the biologist aboard lectured how our children would never see the sight we had just witnessed.  The last of the whales could never recover from the reduction in their numbers.  Mankind had eradicated them from the Earth and it was only a matter of a few years.  He warned us on that day.  He said we would pay a price because of our actions, and the cost would be high.  Had humanity paid the price for our childish insolence?

“Maybe you should,” she added.  She seemed to know more than she was saying and I began to wonder about who she really was.

“You’re not a prisoner here, are you?”

She answered with a chuckle, “We are all prisoners of sorts.  Are we not?”

“Are you here against your will?” I asked, hoping to glean a better answer.

“Better,” she said, “you’re figuring me out.  No, the answer to your question is no, I’m here because I wish to be.”

She let her fingers trace down my arm arousing the sensitive nerves of the tiny hairs.  Her hand took mine and squeezed before urging me to my feet.

“Come with me,” she said softly.  She guided me forward.  “I will be your eyes.”

I followed her blindly, not knowing my fate, and in a way, she made me not care about it.  I put my trust in her and allowed my feelings to guide me.

A wispy breeze surrounded us and the air smelled pure, clean, like the oxygen rich atmosphere of a forest without the musky earthen scents of fallen leaves or the sweet acidic smell of hemlock or pine.

“Are we outside?  What do you see?” I asked.

“We’re outside of the compound, but you know we’re not outside.  I know you are smarter than that.”

I knew the answer; I just didn’t want to accept it.

“We’re in their place, somewhere under the ocean, aren’t we?”  My voice quavered.

“I see what your kind calls a graveyard.  It goes on for as far as I can see.  The ocean floor is serene and dark, but I can see it like they do.  The way things sway and move as if in an endless dance.  They bury and honor their dead with no less reverence, with no less emotion than--”  She paused and enticed me forward, using a second hand on my arm.

Your kind?  Her words appalled me.  Was she one of them?  The enemy?

“My first error,” she said, releasing my hand.

“You’re one of them?  But, how?” I said.  Disgust mingled with my words.

“I’m as human as you are,” she urged.  “Just not a human from where you are.”

“You lied to me.  You made it sound like you didn’t know who attacked us, but you knew who it was all along, because you’re one of them.  Get...away from me.”  I yanked my hand free and backed away.  Just her touch made me ill.

“I have no reason to lie,” she said.  The hurt in her voice emanated from each of her words like milky smell of an infant, and with just as much innocence.  “First, I’m not one of them, as you so eloquently put it, though I used to wish I could be.  Second, I asked who it was that attacked us, and I meant us.  The people from out there, your people, well at least your kind, they attacked here way before the Seti, that’s what they call themselves, left to stop the attacks.”

“The reason you kept speaking of?  You think we attacked first?  Here?”

“I don’t just think they did--I know your people did.  My mother died too you see.  The Seti wanted badly to stop the killing of the ocean life that your people eradicated one by one, and many of them wanted to stop it by force.  But, they couldn’t--actually, no--they wouldn’t, kill your people.”

“Yet they did.  Didn’t they?” I said in response.

“I know a lot about the world out there, probably more than most of your people do.  There was a book, a very sad book, by Mary Shelley.  Victor Frankenstein had to kill his creation, and with no less apprehension or sadness than the Seti had to endure.”

“You’re not trying to say we’re their creation?”  Bile rose in my throat.

“There used to be a grove of giant kelp and wondrous buildings just beyond where that graveyard is now.  The explosion was tremendous, and that structure, where most of my people lived....  I survived, but just barely.  Too many Seti died that first day, and their city, at least the part you could see from here, was gone.  You can’t imagine or describe the extent emotions play in their lives or what the finality of death means to them.  They were not violent before that first attack, never once in their existence had they lashed out in anger.  I know you said they killed so many people, but it’s hard for me to believe they killed that many knowing them as I do.  I can’t even imagine what the killing has done to them mentally or how they endure it.  The constant death may be consuming them and that would be a greater shame than you could ever know.”

A chilling breeze struck my face.  It reminded me of an October afternoon breeze, whirlpools of fallen oak leaves, rustling autumn dirt devils, flocks of squawking geese flying at treetop level beneath graying clouds.  The scent was the same, and the crisp air carried the same premonition of icy days to come.

“Tesk mal, na pepti, croll Seti, or close to that, what does it mean?  They said that to me over and over again when they took me.”

She began to cry.  I wanted to reach out and comfort her, but my scarred mind wouldn’t allow me to.  My heart ached to cry with her and the disgust I felt only moments ago had subsided to yearning.

“Get up,” she ordered.  “Get up now.  We’ve been seen.  They’ll punish us for being out here.  I should never have taken you out this far, especially here, this place is very sacred to them.  I just wanted so much to describe this place to you.  It used to be so beautiful.”

I heard the familiar gurgled sounds of the Aquadians, a language I never understood and never tried to, though a handful of our officers had.  I didn’t hesitate.  I jumped up and allowed her to lead me.  My feet trod apprehensively, expecting to stumble or falter with each step.  The faster they moved the more they began to trust, and I was able to keep up.

I heard her scream, and at the same time, I felt the wrenching jolt render my muscles useless.  I tumbled blindly forward and her hand ripped free of my shock-tensed grasp.  I felt searing pain in my side, though I wasn’t certain what struck me.

I awoke and couldn’t move.  They had strapped me onto a hard cold surface and nothing covered my bare skin.  I heard movement around me and all of a sudden, something forced my head down onto my left cheek.  Something entered my ear.  Gut-wrenching pain twisted my body as something punctured my eardrum.  Sounds became muffled and distant and the pain grew.  I attempted to scream, but a moist, gelatinous, hand covered my mouth.  Within the squirming jelly, I discerned four fingers on one cheek and a digging thumb on the opposite cheek.  I hadn’t known they had hands like ours.

“Tesk mal, na pepti, croll Seti,” it said to me, directly into my undamaged ear, just before it turned my head and repeated the assault.

It pulled something from my ear, long and metallic.  The damaging sharp object dragged hesitantly through my ear canal, leaving warm blood to flow over my jaw.

The reaction to whatever they removed was loud and wracked with commotion.  They pulled me from the bed and tried to get me onto my feet, but my body collapsed, still weak from pain.  I attempted to struggle free, but they threw me forward as if I were a play toy and they a playful dog.

I went to move, but they dragged me instead.  My arm ached where the pressure tore at the muscles. 

We stopped. 

I dropped onto a wet floor, the salt-laden water splashed over my face and body--ocean water.

“Come with me,” Serena’s voice whispered.  Her words were both comforting and alarming, though sound resonated as if we existed within a sheet-metal tunnel.

“What’s going on?” I asked.  I winced at the sound of my own voice.

“We don’t have any time,” she ordered.  “Quickly, come with me.”

Explosions shook the floor and alarms began to sound--low thrumming alarms that vibrated the building.  Voices of other people, other humans, cried out in fear and confusion.  I felt as if something had transported me back onto the battlefield, coming full circle within this dream of a dying man, and I prayed that were the case, for the alternative of my reality threatened my sanity.  Instead, the urging voice of Serena kept me moving.  Her voice kept reality and fantasy apart, forcing me to accept this fate.

We stopped after several minutes and I heard a door close behind us.  Detonations, closer and louder, knocked me off my feet, and we both rolled against the wall, arms wrapped in embraced fear.  Her heart beat rapidly against my naked skin, her chest heaved with each breath, short and frightened.  With that single embrace, the world around me became much too real.

“They told me to take you here if anything happened.  I don’t know why things went this way.”  She started to cry.  Her voice trembled, no longer certain, the edge of mystery shaved into reality.

“What’s going on here Serena?”

“Everything went wrong, that’s what.”  She choked back tears.

“What were they doing to my ears?” I asked, still in severe pain.

“You were carrying a device your people could find you with.”

“A tracking device you mean?”

“You were a sacrifice.  Your people left you there purposely, but how they knew...”

“Knew what?” I asked.

The room shook and rocked.  Screams of terror filled the air outside the door.  Banging and knocking, begging entrance.

“What are you doing?  Let them in,” I pleaded.

“They knew you were him, the one the Seti had sent, or thought they sent.  A man made to look exactly like you, sent to replace you, to end the war.  I knew him; he was a brave man, a lot like you, but without hate.  At first, I believed you were him.”

“Replace me?  How?” I questioned.  “Why me?  I’m just a recruit; I have no authority or influence to end a war.  And are you saying this--”  I pointed toward my eyes.  “This was done purposely to me?  By my friends?  My own family?”

“I can’t answer any of that.  I heard the Seti saying they found out too late that you were the wrong one and that you were planted here to purposely...”  She paused emotionally.  “The words they said when they found you, they were asking you a question.  They asked if you were the one to bring justice for the Seti.  They thought you were him, the one they sent.  Maybe you, well he, was sent to gather information.  We’ll never know.  I do know that they wanted him back badly, and somehow your people must’ve known that, so they gave you to them instead.”

“You’re saying I led our forces here?  But our forces were defeated, there’s no one left to attack.  Weren’t you listening when I said almost everyone was dead?”  I shook my head in frustration.

“No,” she whispered.  Her voice trembled with emotion.  “You didn’t lead your people here, you led their bombs here, and the Seti found out too late to stop them.  You brought them justice, just not the justice they expected.”

Intense pounding came from beyond and I moved toward the door.  If she chose to ignore them, I wasn’t going to.  If I was going to die, I wanted contact with as many humans as I could get.

“Stop.”  Her hand grasped my shoulder.  “It’s no use.  There’s no way to open it.  We’ll be on the surface soon, and safe.  I was chosen to be the one, though the man, the one sent to replace you, he was to be the one to re-populate the world with me.  I carry the genetic diversity of a million women inside me.  We were going to be the new beginning.  The Seti created mankind a long time ago, in a hope that one day they may live on the land as well as within the oceans, but they lost dominion over them.”

“You don’t expect me to believe that those bastards were our real God?”

“You described them as angels,” she said.  “Every myth has a root planted in truth.  Does it not?”

“So you are saying we tried to kill God?”  I found it hard to believe her.

“It’s amusing how your scientists thought we evolved from apes, but that was far from reality.  Human’s came from the Seti, as an infant from a womb, as did the whales, and the mighty dolphin.  The three races were brothers.  The Seti created the three to extend the diversity and ability of their kind.  Two races succeeded and one failed.  And the failure, like Frankenstein’s monster, turned on its maker, on its own father.”

“How can you be so calm about this?  How can you be so callous about what’s going on?  What about the fate of your own people, you don’t want them all to die, do you?  And I thought you admired the Aquadians?”

“The Seti,” she shouted in anger.  “And don’t you ever question my emotions again.  I’ll never live long enough to mourn the loss I’m feeling right now, not if I lived one hundred thousand years.”

The next several hours were lonely and quiet.  The distant explosions became just an echo in our memories.  We sat together on a silent beach.  The vessel had deposited us safely, like a seedpod from the ancient tree of life. 

She described the stars to me, stars she had only read about, and we talked into the night.  The outside world enthralled her and the smallest detail excited her.  She had learned much of what humans were, and it seemed strange for her to know so much, but to have never experienced it, to have never felt it.... 

She would become my eyes and I her teacher.  There are some roads that we should never travel again, roads of evil, roads of despair.  I knew them well, because I had traversed those roads more than half my life.  However, there were also those roads of beauty and wonder--those we would explore together.  There were also those unknown roads, and as long as we were careful, the rewards would be waiting. 

Knowing we may be the only two sentient beings remaining on the Earth was both disheartening and cleansing at the same time. 

There is no civility in war, and the ultimate civil war had stolen away everything, both good and bad, from the world.  Now it’s up to us to determine the future, and that is as optimistically uncertain as my next blind footstep.