Lost History

Efeuresa was a student of history. Her parents were influential, so she got to study under one of the most prominent historians of the time, Charis Phren. He was a good-natured, portly man, not one of the typical sullen scientists with social skills as dusty as the archives they constantly perused; and his teaching methods did not consist of having Efeuresa burn midnight oil reading some old tomes in order to find a snippet of information he needed for his own research, like some other historians were said to do. Instead, he would brew tea in his sunny terrace, occasionally even putting out some cookies, and have discussions with her about events long past and how they helped form the present.

“I agree that renewing the aqueducts was necessary at this point, but King Archontes should have known that it may cause a rebellion with all the tension that was around already,” said Efeuresa during one of their usual afternoon discussions.

“You are confusing correlation with causation again, Effie. The spring of tension was already wound up and would have broken no matter what he did. Even if he did nothing for fear of criticism, his very inaction would have set people off just the same. At least by choosing to repair the devastated infrastructure he laid an important foundation for the future welfare of the healing country. It takes a great man to know he is doomed and still care about the future, even though it will not be his to enjoy.”

She sighed and said nothing, gazing into the horizon. The Shield made the sky shimmer like the sea does on a windless sunny day.

“Do not beat yourself up, child, the human mind is wired to look for the easiest way out. Thinking about the complexities and uncertainties of life makes us tense and frightful, the mind is just trying to protect itself. It takes years of study to overcome this primal impulse.”

“What about the Conspiracists then, they weaved such intricate webs, created such complex stories, yet most of them rejected education. How did their brains work?”

“It is not complexity if it does not make sense, Effie, it’s just a mess. And uneducated minds are often messy. Their stories were contradictory, their beliefs - cobbled together from separate hearsay pieces of ancient legends. They did not care for the truth. It is easy for the brain to live in such a state, because anything you don’t understand or don’t know, you just invent an answer for. No matter if it is true, no matter if it fits with the other answers you invented. A good writer will make his story make sense, even though it is complete fiction, yet these people constructed what they then believed to be reality with less care. They were dangerous.”

“It’s a good thing they left, then.” Effie sighed, gazing out to sea.

“One may say so, but it is a good thing they existed as well. They serve as a cautionary tale, deterring anyone else who may wish to turn away from logic and reason and, most important of all, education.”

“Do you think the Conspiracists found them?”

“I am not sure who they were meant to find.” Charis shrugged. “In the end, they could not even agree who it was they were going to look for even among themselves. Some said the Grecos built a utopian civilisation they were going to join, others spoke of countless nations emerging, yet others—of the world beyond our Shield, suffering great wars and famines, and leaving a world unclaimed and unruled, theirs for the taking.”

“Do you think they found anything, or anyone at all?”

“Whoever now knows, child. I think any of their theories is as good as the other. It has been more than a couple of millennia since the Shield was erected when they left. Though I’d venture to guess that the utopian Greco society is the least likely outcome.”

“Aren’t you just saying that because you don’t like them?” said Effie with a crooked smile on her face.

“Might be. I am old and not without my predispositions,” Charis agreed with a chuckle, “But a nation that attacks unprovoked does not seem like one in possession of virtues necessary to build a utopia. It does not seem like one very likely to survive at all, to be honest.”

“How so?” asked Effie, plucking a cookie from the plate and tucking her legs underneath her in the wide soft chair to get comfortable.

“Okay, you got away long enough with this, young lady.” Charis suddenly frowned his bushy brows, but there was still a kindly, amused gleam in his eye. “I, as the teacher, should be asking you questions, not the other way around. You have time to think while you munch on your cookie, and then you can try and answer your own question.”

Silence fell on the terrace and both of them turned their faces upwards to bathe in the midday sun. Bees were buzzing in the many blossoms around them, and a flock of seagulls was communicating something seemingly important to them in their incessant loud screeches in the distance. The Sky rippled as the Shield was working. Looking at it gave Effie a sense of calm and safety. She was deliberately slow in her chewing of the cookie, giving herself time to think.

“Because if Grecos later attacked someone other than us, they may have fought back and won?” she ventured half-heartedly.

“Oh, come now, you can do much better than that. You know perfectly well that it was their attack that set in motion events, which resulted in us figuring out that all the other nations and tribes around were no less violent, maybe even more. So then…?”

“So then they may be attacked for no reason, too?” Effie saw Charis make a hand gesture showing her to go on and concentrated very hard. Comprehension struck suddenly. “Oh, so by attacking for no reason they waste resources and then get weaker for when someone else attacks them.”

“Yes, my dear, but that’s the very least of their problems. Attacking unprovoked, in addition to not being a very good strategy for use of resources, also shows greed, which is not a feature a utopia can prosper on. And the lack of even an attempt to make contact and form an alliance means poor vision of the future, which, again, not a highly utopic trait, don’t you think?”

“Would we have become their allies if they had come to us?”

“I am done answering questions. I am teaching now, so you answer that as well.”

“What kind of teaching is it where you ask things we never actually learnt or discussed?” bristled Effie, whose head felt ready to burst at the seams with all this thinking.

“The best kind.” Charis chuckled. “I am teaching you critical thinking, and that will always be useful. You have all the general knowledge to make an educated assumption and then draw conclusions from it. It is not easy, but it is rewarding and, most importantly, a teachable moment. Hence, teaching.” He laced his fingers over his large belly and waited while Effie was working this all out in her head.

“Sure, we would,” she said after a brief pause. “I mean, why not, we were open to the world at that time and curious, and we did send people over to them first, to study and get to know them.”

“A very general conclusion, not taking into account any of the hard truths of the time, like that none of our envoys ever returned, and that whatever messages did reach us, were disturbing. But I won’t torment you with this any more. You posed an answer and gave me your reasons, it is good enough for now.”

A silence fell again, this time slightly heavier than before. Effie's jaw was moving, which meant, Charis knew, that she had a question, which she wasn’t sure she wanted answered.

“Why do you think they did all that stuff to Hodos?”

This time Charis did not press her to answer her own question. Instead, he sighed and let himself feel very old for a moment. After all, a hundred and fifty-seven years was not the peak of youth anymore.

“I think they were scared of him.”

“You don’t usually attack someone you are scared of. You just run away from them.”

“Yes, but he was alone, and they were many. And they were scared that he’d bring some more scary people along if he is not stopped. It’s the same reason as why they attacked us. It was their very illogical and ineffective way of trying to defend themselves from the dangers that have not yet come to pass, but which they imagined and feared.”

“Do you think the Shield will ever come down?” Finally, Effie seemed to come to the question she really wanted answered. The question brought a smile to Charis’ lips. He remembered being a youth himself, dreaming of adventure beyond the shimmering horizon.

“I am not privy to the exact information the pilots bring back from their missions, and I suppose that the answer would very much depend on what they see there.”

“But they release general informational reports, have done so for the last five hundred years, almost since the very first mission. You have all the general knowledge to make an educated assumption and then draw conclusions from it. It is not easy, but it is rewarding.” Effie laughed with that devilish gleam in her eye that she got every time she believed she’d done something terribly clever. Charis could not help but giggle too. Even though Effie often doubted her deservedness to be his apprentice, having gotten the position thanks to the influence of her parents, she really was one of the brightest students to ever grace his sunny terrace.

“The reports are not very detailed, so my speculation may not be that accurate, I’m afraid. But if pressed to answer, I would say, no.” He saw Effie's face fall at this.

“Not in my entire lifetime? I’ve still got at least good 300 years to go!”

“Well, maybe in your twilight years.” He smiled. “They are not giving us much, Effie, but in what they are giving us, they’re being careful not to lie. Since the Conspiracists left and met an unknown and likely unenviable fate, they’re always careful to be truthful and not conceal anything. Because where there’s concealment, there’s room for fantasy and speculation. But they do guard the information and tell us little. They tell of unfavourable developments and wasted technological potential, but if you read between the lines you clearly can hear war and weaponized nuclear power. So no, if I were them, I would not lower the shield. Not while things are like this anyway.”

“Well, we could teach them. We could show them how it’s done. All we did was run and hide.”

“It’s not our job to show them. We’ve come to observe and establish a connection, if possible. The connection failed with Hodos, and it is not deemed safe to try and reestablish it, let alone to lower the shield. But we have veered quite far from our intended topic, into the opposite direction. We are supposed to study history, not ponder about the future.”

Just then a bright blue-ish light spilled from the doorway of Charis’ balcony. Effie stood up and smiled, but without the usual joyfulness.

“Thanks, Charis, this was good. Really hard though. My head is buzzing,” she said and went inside. Charis could see her disappear into the teleport, heading home for lunch. He sighed and turned back towards the ocean. The sun was already below the zenith point and was on the way to another descent over the island of Atlantis.

Photo by Thomas Vimare on Unsplash

* A HUGE thanks to J. B. Ezar for making this text more coherent and fixing my hopeless punctuation. If you like amazingly original sci-fi stories, you can find loads of them on her website https://jbezar.com/