Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

Pollocona County was dry for a decade after Mississippi repealed statewide prohibition in 1966, but folks always seemed to find their way over the county line to pick up some beer in “wet” Cahawba County. But even when Pollocona went “moist” in 1976, it included a set of rules that the First Baptist Church in Davis had demanded in exchange for their acquiescence. Chief among them was that alcohol had to be sold at room temperature, and could not be offered on Sundays.

That’s where the Beer Barn came into its own.

Located on a blind corner off of Division St, the Beer Barn was cannily designed as a drive-through in the familiar red-sided slope-roof style. It was, essentially, a giant walk-in freezer, with employees showing up to work in gloves and parkas. But since the beer was being served at “room temperature” it was within the latter of the law, if not the spirit. Old-timers well remember the old Beer Barn drive-thru line spilling out onto Division on days when there was a football game, and it changed hands several times commanding an increased price each time.

And then, in 2009, Pollocona County bowed to the inevitable and legalized chilled alcohol sales as well as Sunday sales. Davis First Baptist had since changed its tune, being the church of choice for wealthy restaurant and bar owners who wanted the booze money and had long looked upon the Beer Barn with envious eyes. Within a year, the Barn’s sales had dropped by 95% and it had shuttered. But that was only the beginning of its odyssey.

Perhaps remembering the long lines and thinking the location right on Division to be ideal, it was soon snapped up. But it turned out that making a difficult right turn and an even tougher left was something most were unwilling to do when they could get beer just about anyplace. So when the new incarnation, the BBQ Barn, failed within a year, it began a revolving door of tenants. The Butter Barn, a boutique for local butters and milks. The Blizzard Barn, an ice creamery. By some estimates, the property changed place every 18 months, and locals began to regard it as being cursed.

Six months ago, it re-re-re-re opened as the Daquiri Drive-Thru, dropping the “barn” name and painting the edifice a matte black. Offering powerful mixed drinks at a drive-thru didn’t seem wise–or legal–but, mysteriously, it has remained in business despite few customers ever being seen nearby.

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My research has been quite clear.

Everyone knows the world-ending prophecies found in the Holy Theonomicon; their stories are taught to us from a young age. Even those that no longer believe in the Flock of the First Deity can recite the poetic descriptions of oceans boiling away and the like.

But I feel that this description of the apocalypse describes a real, and imminent, event. And my research backs me up.

Looking at the information available, it is clear to me that the phlogiston power that has been driving our society’s prosperity for the last two hundred years is also flooding the atmosphere with heat energy, and draining the land of its ability to produce food.

My first thought was that perhaps, by stopping phlogiston extraction immediately, we might avert catastrophe. But the latest findings have led me to despair of even that end. The process is beyond any human means of control; it is a runaway cycle now.

Curiously, the Theonomicon’s tales of apocalypse fall in line with what I foresee. The oceans may not boil per se, but they will heat up and act as a giant thermal battery. Famines will sweep the land as our most productive farmlands fail, just like the Hungry Devourer in the book. And, of course, as resources and climate fail, people will begin to fight over the remaining, dwindling resources. If that is not the Lastwar written of by the prophets, I do not know what is.

Sitting here, in my laboratory, I am not sure if this notion gives me comfort or fills me with terror and fear. Is the First Deity real, ignoring our sufferings? Or were the Prophets somehow interpreting through poetry a future they saw but could not comprehend?

In either case, it seems that whatever mysterious force is behind these coincidences has given us a roadmap to our own extinction.

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Consider the example of the R’de.

Upon first contact with the Vyeah, the R’de were not numerous but their technology was considerably more advanced in many areas, particularly in propulsion, anti-entropic fields, and macro-scale engineering. Apparently, the Vyaeh had been monitoring their communications network for some time before receiving orders to attack.

The Orphaned Court had made its decision, and the pheromone-stamped orders were unambiguous. Rather than placing them under imperial domination, or even giving them the option, the R’de were to be exterminated. The technologically-advanced R’de were able to defeat the Vyaeh in several smaller-scale encounters, but they were ultimately scattered and their home world occupied.

Even now, millennia after the last living R’de was killed attempting to flee a pursuing Vyaeh naval detachment, standing orders remain to kill them and smash their technology wherever it may be found.

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The real thing that keeps Vyaeh policymakers awake at night is the thought of meeting a species that is technologically advanced and numerous enough to put them at a disadvantage. To this end, they ruthlessly exterminate species with technology or even theoretical knowledge that they consider to be uncontrollable or threatening.

Vyaeh reasoning and decision-making at the highest levels are notoriously opaque, as the Orphaned Court communicates only through intermediaries, and only in a limited and archaic register. What a particular species has done to merit extinction is rarely clear and seldom discussed.

The maintenance of a status quo in which the Vyaeh are ascendant is the ultimate goal of the Orphaned Court, and while they are likely not so foolish as to think that status quo can remain forever in a finite universe, they are nevertheless committed to its maintenance.

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Vyaeh imperial policy is best defined as “economic domination.” Lower-technology worlds are simply blockaded and made to grant the Vyaeh monopolies on off-world travel and trade, which are strictly controlled and taxed. By trickling advanced technologies into the populace, usually as upgrades of existing, native, devices, the Vyeah can further concentrate power into the hands of a local elite, through which they prefer to rule. If such a species develops its own advanced technologies or spaceflight as a result, the Vyaeh simply tax it, or require an allotment of troops or ships to bolster their own forces.

More advanced species, able to meet Vyaeh fleets on more or less equal terms, are generally unable to match the numerical superiority that Vyaeh imperial policy grants. Supplemented with numerous, if not entirely reliable, conscripted troops from client worlds, a Vyaeh fleet will often enjoy a ten to one supremacy over foes. Generally, a series of short, sharp defeats are enough to bring foes to the negotiating table.

However, in the face of protracted resistance, the Vyaeh will not hesitate to make an example of the offender and drive them into extinction. The imperial policy, after all, is less about creating a functioning galactic economy than it is enforcing control with a minimum of military expenditure. If an occasional extinction of an intelligent species is necessary to reach that goal, the Vyaeh are all too willing.

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We know little about them, now. Only a few fragmentary bits of data survive, and even those are degraded.

We know they took many photographs, capturing many brief instances of life, often with short captions. We have many short captions that do not accompany photographs, perhaps because the photographs were lost.

There are short videos that have been reconstructed, frame by frame, each capturing a bare few moments of the lives they lived. There is much that can be gleaned, of course, but much that is now lost with the failure of the systems that once housed everything.

Based on what is available, we can only estimate how much data has been lost, how many moments were once recorded but are now lost. It is incalculable.

Because of what remains, and what was lost, we know this time as the Age of Instants.

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“Sir, please step aside, sir,” the agent said, waving Simon aside.

“Wait, what?” Simon said. “I already went through security. Full body scan, three-ounce liquids, all that.”

“I understand that, sir, but this additional screening is newly mandated by the ESA, and you’ve been randomly selected for additional checks.”

“Uh, okay,” Simon said, nervously eying the taser at the agent’s side. “What’s the ESA?”

“The Emotional Security Administration, sir,” said the agent. “Sir, before you get on the plane, we’re going to have to screen your emotional baggage.”

Simon thought back to his emotionally distant father, crippling intimacy issues, and the whole recent nasty breakup with Cindy. “Well, crap,” he said.

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“What about the Drake Equation?” I said. “Why isn’t there extraterrestrial life out there?”

“The Drake equation in correct,” the Oracle said. “Intelligent life is very common in the universe. However, they almost all drive themselves to extinction before they are able to make themselves known. It is like a great filter. Environments are so fragile that the intelligent life will destroy its own native world. The distances between planets, let alone solar systems, are so vast that the amount of energy needed to travel between them exceeds what can be safely generated on a planetary scale. Extinction is all but inevitable before interstellar travel.”

I let this sink in a moment before grasping at a crumb of hope: “You said ‘almost’ and ‘all but inevitable’ just now,” I said. “Does that imply that this is not always the case?”

“Of course. But the changes to biology, energy requirements, and outlook required mean that even those vanishingly few civilizations that are not driven to extinction must evolve into forms that are inherently unlike any life we are prepared to witness.”

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“Your contact is a man, a White Russian emigre, named Ivor Mechtin. Don’t get him angry. Our last courier made that mistake and came home in the same box as his shipment.”

“And what am I giving him?”

“3500 Mauser rifles and 35,000 rounds of 8mm Mauser ammunition.”

“Are we starting a war or something?”

“Frankly, yes. If the deal goes well, we have 500 MG08/15 heavy machine guns ready to sell as well. If it doesn’t, well, you’ll be dead so it’ll hardly matter.”

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“I am looking for the village hidden in the east.”

Ito fell as silent as the people in the Amuramaro inn, though he did not regard Takenaka with the same mixture of fear and hostility. “You are not a stupid man, Takenaka-san,” he said. “Surely you know by now we do not speak of it here.”

“Surely you know by now one of my maxims: uncooked vegetables and uncut fish fester. It is hard work, but sometimes these things must be confronted.”

Considering this, Ito looked to the east. “We have never been there, never seen it,” he whispered. “They come into town for supplies, and they only ask once. We are warned not to speak of them, and some gossips have been killed.”

“Have you not brought this to the attention of the authorities?” Takenaka said.

“They killed a man sent to investigate in a rockslide.”

Takenaka stroked his chin. “It seems if I am to have my answers, I have but one choice.”

“To be as an avenging spirit, and cut them down?” said Ito hopefully.

“So many legends about the men I have cut up, and so few about the vegetables that met the same fate, even though one causes far more weeping than the other,” Takenaka said. “Except onions, of course,” he added with an impish grin.

“No, Ito-san, it is clear to me that if the village hidden in the east is stealing your food, they are in need of a genius chef. I suppose that I will have to do until such a genius arises.”

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