Прохор Озорнин - On the Wings of Hope - Prose

Among all them, there were those, who have destroyed themselves and own native worlds in civil wars. There were also those, who during uncontrolled processes of hyper-consumption completely exhausted resources of their native world, making it unsuitable for living. There were those, who were ruined by the science, worshipped by them and artificially imbued with qualities of infallibility – whether it was the destruction of microorganisms, necessary for the biosphere, or a creation attempt of inanimate clones of their own representatives, that was the greatest violation of the Third Commandment of the Highest World. Also listed as dead were those ones, who tried to improve their physical shapes with different mechanical implants or violent genetic changes of own population. There were those races, who were subdued and then destroyed by artificially thinking sentient machines, for they failed to designate a correct border and limits of artificial intelligence techs that were developed by them. There were those being bewitched by opening perspectives of management of existential points for the commission of interstellar spaceships jumps, who didn’t manage to build steadily working portals and were absorbed by artificially created analogs of galactic “black holes”. Among untimely died ones there were those who tried to operate the fourth and fifth dimensions and to fully transfer own kin there, but as a result, they were absorbed by rifts of spatial matter that were created during these scientific experiments. Finally, there were those, whose planets were just subjected to sterilization during interstellar wars by a more technologically advanced and aggressive opponent… In a word, no matter how high was the technological level of observed during eons civilizations, but arrogance, cruelty, and stupidity of their citizens were always going hand in hand with a sad fate.

For this reason several eons ago the Council of Observers has made a decision on creation of a group of the most advanced peaceful civilizations, that were following a strict internal ethics code and were capable to enlighten representatives of other races in case of compliance of their spiritual level to those technical miracles, which these civilizations possessed. To give too much tech to aggressive civilization was inadmissible, as it meant either almost guaranteed self-destruction of lower civilization in a short-term or an attempt to cause harm to one of the members of Intergalactic League. To give to a barbaric by the standards of League civilization any scientific discovery, that greatly exceeds their technological level, was meant to betray both a League and its ethics, and at best such an action from any of its members was punished by its exclusion from the League for eternity.

For a long time Observers have been studying tendencies of young civilizations development and their potential readiness for a meeting with representatives of the League – because such a meeting for primitive civilizations of physical world symbolized the end of habitual to them history, destruction of a set of scientific and social theories, a revolution in consciousness and understanding of own place in the universe, meaning of life and death.

Images in the mirror sphere, that were reflecting star systems, slid and smoothly replaced each other. Following Observer’s passes, this sphere rotated from one side to another, allowing to analyze a state of civilizations in adjacent galactic sectors. Today his attention was directed to one from several tens of primitive civilizations that were located in the same sector, whose inhabitants were calling their world as the “Earth”. A strange name for the world, covered with so many seas and oceans.

By all canons of intergalactic League, this civilization was absolutely barbaric, and the greatest dangers to its existence lied in attempts to violate the Third Commandment together with continuous inner planetary wars, raging throughout centuries. How many attempts of its rescue have been made, how many adjustment evolutionary scenarios were considered, and how much more has to be done in order to correct its self-destructive course. Even the question of the compulsory intervention of the League was brought up and then postponed. Yet not the question of this civilization’s fate disturbed the Observer today – during his immortal life he has seen a lot of most different fates – but the question of the fate of his Coordinator, who was living there at this very moment, in this small, inconspicuous for the detached onlooker, yet beautiful world.

The Observer inclined over the sphere, calculating and verifying scenarios and adjustments. He knew firsthand how hard the way of the evolution of consciousness is.

23.08.2017

Disaster came – and you were standing apart. This position was convenient for its ambiguity and, as you secretly called it, flexibility. Neither cold nor hot – just as nothing.

The country was ripped apart with the greatest distemper, which has even tormented it for the duration of its entire history. A distemper behind which there was Darkness standing, and its feet have been stepping over once alive people day after day, milling characters, crashing fates. And not only bodies were swallowed inside it.

People summoned it by themselves and willingly invited to share this bloody dinner. They were ready to pay for “changes”, demanded by their hearts, with the lives of others. Why others? Certainly not with their own!

You didn't travel in the vanguard of those, – men in black hoods with a color of blood, with hands and souls of which distemper was forged, – you were standing apart, dreaming that it won't touch you with its bony fingers, won't ever reach. So many think that way shortly before their own demise.

It was some sort of calming – yes, you constantly kept reading that your fellows were still perishing nearby, you saw in the glass TV box bodies of tortured and killed – ripped by a machine of death – but it, as it appeared, was so far and uncommon for your own illusionary tiny world, which you valued so much and out of which you didn't want to crawl. Yes, others kept dying every day – but it was them, not you!

Somewhere hundreds of kilometers away bombs were falling on once peaceful cities and tanks were squashing defenders of peace, who have dared to oppose a distemper. Somewhere hundreds of kilometers away from you retaliatory groups were shooting in cold blood groups of refugees who were struggling to break through blockades. Somewhere hundreds of kilometers between you and them, hungry children were crying and old men and women were quietly sobbing. Somewhere hundreds of kilometers from here a funnel to hell opened itself. So close – and somehow so far from you at the same time…

You were away from all of this. Soared over the turmoil of life, so to speak. And over time pictures from your glass TV box ceased to frighten you any longer. They became natural.

And when the hand of dark and red color finally reached your dwelling as well, – it was too late for you already. Vanguards of darkness poured into the streets of your town, bringing their own orders, methodically and openly killing those who were still resisting – not such as you. There was certainly nothing for you to fear!

“Let them die, let them!” you have been whispering to yourself more and more often when images of surrounding cruelty made your mind scream from pain. “They are guilty, didn't submit! Themselves, themselves! Not you, not like you! Let them all die, but you will survive – that's all that matters!”

And when chasteners have left, having taken away with themselves wives of someone's former husbands, – a fiery tornado has fallen upon the city. And it was a blessing – to die instantly.