— continued from part eleven — (or start with part one here)
“King Vakniit, Your Highness, I assure you, as soon as I discovered the misuse of the mind control I nullified its effects as quickly as possible. I was simply undoing the damage caused—” Kaskahn stopped short, suddenly finding himself unable to speak.
“Humans Kaskahn and Ayalana, my friends, have no fear. You did well. Your intentions were pure. Your motivations noble,” King Vakniit said. “However, this being a repeat violation of the agreement, we are forced to take action once again.”
“Repeat violation?” Ayalana asked. “Your highness, I don’t understand.”
King Vakniit’s flowing arms reached out towards Kaskahn and Ayalana. “Human Monorocco chose you both wisely to represent Earth. Your purity of heart led the Scraarrelli Empire to believe your people were ready for the Greater Knowledge, and potentially a seat with the League of Systems. However, we were deceived.”
“Our intention was never to deceive you. We didn’t know of Doctor Monorocco’s plans,” Kaskahn said, his voice slowly returning. “Had we known, we would never have agreed to accept the Greater Knowledge.”
“Of course, Human Kaskahn. When you visited Planet Scraarrel, we were impressed by your genuine desire to use knowledge for the betterment of your people,” King Vakniit continued. “We found you both to be worthy of the Greater Knowledge. It was not until you left that we discovered you had been deceived by Human Monorocco. We immediately sent an ambassador to Earth but you and Human Ayalana had not yet returned from your travels. Our ambassador assessed the human race, and found the people of Earth had not yet matured to the point of the Greater Knowledge.”
“Not matured?” Ayalana asked.
“Correct,” the king said. “Unfortunately, by then the Greater Knowledge had already been used by Human Monorocco for his own gain. We were forced to initiate the extirpation protocol.”
“You used the extirpation protocol on Earth?” Kaskahn said. “While we were gone?”
“So that explains why no one followed the protocols, or even remembers our civilization at all,” Ayalana said.
General Jenkins stepped forward. “Extirpation protocol? What exactly did you do?”
“Human James Jenkins.” King Vakniit greeted the general. “Be at peace. I mean you no threat.”
“Well, forgive me if something called the extirpation protocol sounds threatening,” Jenkins huffed.
“Human James Jenkins,” the king continued, “you have a responsibility to protect the people of your nation just as we have a responsibility to protect the people of the galaxy. When a planet is exposed to the Greater Knowledge before they are ready, it can be dangerous. Our job is to eradicate the knowledge from that planet. Be assured, we do no harm to the people of the planet.”
“You wiped our memory? The whole planet’s memory? Is that it?” Jenkins asked.
“Correct, Human James Jenkins. I sense that you understand we mean no harm, yet there is still fear in you,” King Vakniit said. “There is nothing to fear. We eradicated knowledge from Planet Earth before it became a danger to your people or the galaxy. You do very similar things in your work, do you not?”
“How long ago was this extirpation?” Jenkins asked.
“Approximately 156,472 Earth years ago.”
“They erased all human knowledge and sent us back to the Stone Age?” Major Wilcox whispered to Officer Patrick. “150 thousand years ago?”
“The Paleolithic Age to be more precise,” Patrick whispered in reply. “And if I’m following, contrary to everything we think we know about history, we were an advanced civilization back then. But the extirpation protocol reduced everyone to hunter-gatherers.”
Wilcox’s shoulders dropped. He shook his head vigorously and he exhaled loudly. “And all evidence of the civilization has been long forgotten…” he trailed off.
“But you didn’t just remove what you call the Greater Knowledge, did you?” Jenkins asked, pointedly. “You removed everything. Even the knowledge we’d already accomplished on our own. The culture. The science. That was our own, legitimate progress! You had no right—”
“Progress is not strictly gained through knowledge, Human James Jenkins. The people of Earth had grown to conflate knowledge with power, and they had come to call the power progress,” King Vakniit replied. “A full reset of Earth’s knowledge was best.”
“So, Your Highness, I’m afraid to ask but what are you here to do this time?” Kaskahn asked.
“I am truly sorry Humans Kaskahn and Ayalana,” King Vakniit said, turning to them again. “But it appears human civilization once again conflates knowledge with power. And that power is once again corrupt. We cannot yet allow the Greater Knowledge to be revealed to the people of Earth. We have reached a decision.”
At the king’s word, all ten of the Scraarreli beings behind him turned and stood at attention. The orb behind them began to glow intensely and pulse rhythmically.
“Initiate the extirpation protocol.”
— to be continued —
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