Classic science fiction. Stories and tales. Version in English

– Perfect! – Alavur patted him on the shoulder. Their position on the sidelines, outside the powerful assembly, was quite understandable. As junior specialists, they lacked the regalia of the Council members. But due to their position and His Holiness’ special regard for the creative department, they acted as advisors and chief developers at the Council. They understood the duality of their position, and it reflected on the Council members, who were forced to share the space with the conditionally admitted. The attitude toward the creatives was not exactly cold, but it was tense. The elite did not want someone in their ranks who… But they were compelled. And their hidden irritation manifested in small mischiefs directed at the creatives.

The room, in one of the tallest buildings, a glass penthouse with a stunning view of the surrounding Paradise, the horizon veiled by clouds of smoke rising from the infamous Hell below, filled with the presence of His Holiness. No one could claim to have ever seen His Holiness with their own eyes, but the presence was immediately felt. The instantly virtuous and forgiving aura caused awe in everyone; all present, abandoning their tasks and concerns, hastened to take their seats at the oval table. To anger His Holiness was too costly, as the criteria for evaluation and logic of the Almighty were fundamentally different from any known and often simply incomprehensible.

– I suggest we begin, – His Holiness proposed. Of course, no one heard a single sound; the words formed directly in their minds. This was one of the reasons the Council members disliked Zalibvang and Alavur – His Holiness could address selectively those he deemed competent on a given issue, without informing the others. Naturally, everyone immediately suspected the worst and felt slighted. To anger or reproach His Holiness was pointless – you might just be expelled from the Council, but taking out their frustration on the creatives? That was always allowed.

– The reason for our meeting is no secret. But for everyone to understand the subject and to leave no doubts about the necessity of radical measures, I ask the head of the Analytics Department to read a brief report on the state of affairs on Earth and the level of control over ongoing processes. – His Holiness spoke.

– Good day, esteemed colleagues! – Cyphiron, a thin, self-absorbed holy man, rose. His calculations threatened to spill over his old-fashioned spectacles. – Our department’s analysis involved collecting information both in the field and by surveying souls who have ascended to the heavens…

– Thank you for describing the methodology, – His Holiness interrupted. – Please read the conclusions.

– Yes, of course, – Cyphiron choked, his halo immediately turning red from nervousness. Analysts, like several other divisions, were entirely composed of nimbused beings, for His Light had little trust in the treacherous demons. Not that he distrusted them completely – they were specialists in their own fields, nimbused ones in theirs. Everyone had their place, everyone had their tasks.

– The integral indicators of Human virtue and loyalty in worship have long failed to rise above the red level, which indicates…

– Your evaluation methods are flawed! – objected a corpulent demon, who had overseen alternative religions and ideologies for a hundred years. Once a warrior by vocation, and through the machinations of the one whose name may not be spoken, he became an administrator, but retained the martial grip and inherent cunning of a demon. The creatives, who had developed countless religions and dozens of ideologies over the past century, saw the outcomes among human masses solely as the idiosyncrasies of the overseer and his methods. The overseer rejected all attacks against him outright, being authoritarian and intolerant of objections, attributing everything to human material, planning errors, or the intrigues of other departments. He confidently claimed he made no mistakes – could make none – and that all failures were the work of his enemies.

– The methods have been developed and tested over millennia, – Cyphiron countered, eyes never leaving his sheet. – Tensions over the past years have increased by one and a half times, the probability of full-scale war has risen to seventy-five percent, religiosity and piety levels have fallen to twenty-five percent. The majority of believers belong to traditional religions of tribes in the Stone Age, remote from civilization. Across civilizational groups, piety and willingness to sacrifice oneself for His Holiness decrease year by year… The correlation coefficient between the development of existing civilizations and the decline of faith is ninety-eight percent…

– All very well, – interrupted one of the demons, having understood nothing of the report. – But what does it mean?

– It’s very simple! – answered nimbused Simon. – The world is going to hell! – the joke drew laughter from those present, though His Holiness, as always expressionless, kept the room from fully erupting.

– Clear enough, – Gidivul, the overseer of some fifty projects, interjected. His total incompetence in human matters was compensated by aggressive temperament and absolute loyalty to the one whose name may not be spoken. – Who is to blame? And what shall we do? – he said arrogantly.

– The situation is at an impasse, – the spectacled Cyphiron continued. – All our recent measures were cosmetic, with effectiveness below any criticism, – all eyes immediately turned to the creatives, squirming in their seats.

– I wouldn’t be so critical of the creative bureau, – Morghul, curator of their projects and now Jarin’s new husband, spoke. – These guys have repeatedly helped us, generating ideas that have significantly changed the world and spirituality… I’m sure they have something now as well… Right, Zalibvang? Am I correct, Alavur?

– I must insist, – Gidivul stood, – that we are at an impasse, and any attempt to solve this differently than by full cleansing will only prolong the agony. His voice was so unlike the clumsy words he normally used that the eyes of the assembly widened, jaws dropping. Zalibvang felt instinctively that the one speaking was not a foolish, corrupt demon, but the One, whose name… The transformation of Gidivul was so complete that even His Holiness tensed, studying the speaker for familiar features.

– Any delay is akin to death, – the demon continued. – I insist on a reboot, cleansing the Earth of civilization, casting humanity into primal chaos, and from this building a new society, free of the vices…

– Painfully familiar notions! – His Holiness finally spoke. Everyone tensed. The room filled with the scent of ozone and burning. – I suppose the next proposal will involve changing the structure of existing institutions, granting demons significant power, and splitting authority with you-know-who?!

– I mean something else! – Gidivul slouched, shaking his head. The presence that had controlled him vanished, and he did not understand why all eyes were on him, radiating disapproval.

Lightning flashed, thunder roared through the hall, and Gidivul’s lush mane became a scorched tangle of straw.

– I… I… – he stammered, confused. – I was only… – he sank into his seat, not even touching his smoking hair.

– Henceforth, any such behavior will be met with expulsion from the Council and exile to Earth! – explained the fair Thunderlord, without elaborating, as was customary, the reasoning behind his action. Being possessed before His Eyes had happened before, but the threat of exile to Earth – to humans, to their god-forgotten world, to filth, to the struggle for survival, to the squabbling insignificant creatures – could frighten anyone. And since it was a threat from His Holiness, it was neither open to discussion nor appeal.

– I propose we finish the situational review, – Morgul hastened to change the direction of the meeting. – It’s already clear we are at an impasse. Humanity has slipped out of the Almighty’s control and, as a consequence, morality is collapsing: pride, violation of all commandments, norms, and decencies. There are therefore two opinions – to carry out a purge as the last resort, or to resort to a more subtle and оперативное intervention, which our specialists from the Creative Department will now describe. As you remember, hundreds of the ideas that raised humanity to unprecedented levels belonged to them. We will not let the labors of our millennia simply sink into the Underworld! I propose we use something alternative and effective that, as Alavur and Zalibvang assured me, is in their arsenal. I ask you to give them the floor.

Rhetoric was Morgul’s forte, the very skill that had raised him so high – the same skill that had so easily bound Zharin to him, the same skill that ushered her onto the Council and the same skill that had repeatedly helped Zalibvang and Alavur come out unscathed from sticky, dirty affairs. But, alas, this time they had nothing effective in their arsenal, so Zalibvang took the floor.

– Esteemed Council members, worship of His Holiness, – Zalibvang cleared his throat. Zharin rewarded him with a burning look from her fiery eyes, licked her lips with her forked tongue, and pushed her ample bosom forward, doing it all so naturally and unobtrusively that Zalibvang flushed. Although they had long parted, Zharin would sometimes drop by him, as she did with ten or twenty others. Nothing to be done – the female demonic nature. And if things go well, Zalibvang already had plans for tonight and tomorrow morning.

– The situation is undoubtedly critical, – he fought the redness and heavy breathing. – I am somewhat anxious because using something new, creative, and untested might yield the necessary result, but most likely will have unpredictable far-reaching consequences. – He reached for a glass of water, and the glass itself, obeying the will of His Holiness, leapt into Zalibvang’s hand. The attendees exchanged glances. It was an honor granted to few. The balance of power was clearly shifting, and each assessed their place and actions in the near future.

Sensing the change, Zharin repeated her seductive maneuvers, which most present immediately noticed – everyone except, perhaps, Morgul.

– I propose we resort to a classic, repeatedly proven multi-stage activity, – all eyes fixed on Zalibvang, making him even more uneasy. – A cultural shock and the retreat of civilization by several steps, perhaps even decades. To a state from which we could change the vector of development! – he finished.

– Is that roughly like the fall of the Roman Empire and the Dark Ages in Europe? – an analyst asked.

– Something like that, – Zalibvang nodded, catching the wave. – Roughly the same as what happened to the Chinese world, to the ancient Nile civilizations, to South and Central America. – The remark about the Americas was a slip; there the outcome had been the destruction of civilizations as such. But that’s what creatives and PR friends do: present failure as a grand success. Many disagreed.

– Come on! – Gidivul objected. – This has already happened! – he waved his hand, seeking allies. – It’s all been done. We’re only delaying the denouement.

– You demons would erase humanity from the face of the Earth and remain the Almighty’s sole beloved creations, – Morgul retorted, himself displeased with the proposal but unwilling to oppose it given that His Holiness had just handed a glass of water to the creative.

His Holiness himself was stunned. He expected anything but an old tale about the fall of the Roman Empire, millions dead, the rise of some of the most odious religions hoarded for a rainy day, centuries of darkness and murders in his name… Yet he remained silent, awaiting continuation.

– The essence of the project, – Zalibvang continued, – is to arrange a planetary-level social explosion. And we will do this if allowed. We will raise all the negative, expose all unhealed wounds, proclaim vice as virtue, put desecration of chastity and kindness on a pedestal, motivate murder, lust, gluttony, hatred, and other deadly sins. We will exalt human pride and stir up a wave so vast that it will sweep away all established civilizational centers, cover them with filth and human excrement. Only after humanity has rolled back several centuries, only after that, will we launch reverse processes. From the manure that forms, sprouts will grow that will lead future civilizations to prosperity and to reverence for His Holiness as the one who allowed them to become such. – the creative finished his speech.

Silence hung in the hall.

– And how is this different from total cleansing? – asked the security forces’ curator, sensing a lot of work for his departments.

– In many ways! – Zalibvang answered. – We do not destroy humanity and do not erase the memory of the previous civilization. We merely reboot it. We break the dead-end branch, demolish the walls and props that have grown around today’s world, clear space for new construction, but we do not kill the memory in people, do not exterminate them down to a small group as has often happened before. We preserve their civilization, but we ruin their world…

– Or the other way around, – Alavur corrected him.

If you think about it, the proposal wasn’t as radical as it had been presented. Nothing new – only the scale effect: now the whole world would be involved, not just separate, albeit significant, territories; otherwise – classics. But the way it was presented carried a certain flight of thought, a creative spark and something that appealed to romanticizing the enterprise.

His Holiness pondered, the demons flared up, sensing opening prospects, while the nimbused ones, on the contrary, felt the impending mass of work – they would rather cleanse the world and wait until everything developed anew. The creatives sighed with a certain relief – they had managed to wriggle out. If the proposal were rejected, they’d be given time to prepare a new one, and then we’ll see how it goes…

His Holiness expressed certain doubts. He said nothing aloud, but something in the plan disturbed him. He didn’t voice what exactly, but as soon as the first symptoms of doubt appeared, the assembled brotherhood immediately rushed to criticize the plan, which its ideologists and authors – Alavur and Zalibvang – promptly defended. They were accused of grandiosity, to which they answered that the problem was large-scale and the operation had to match.

The security curator complained that last time he had lost more than fifty elite agents on Earth in asylums or to nervous breakdowns and therefore… To this they replied that, on the one hand, proper conclusions about preparing fighters should be drawn, and on the other hand, war losses are inevitable.

They spoke of the danger of the situation slipping out of control, which was countered by the argument that a purge could be launched at any moment, but trying to save the situation was the primary task.

– I am generally satisfied with the proposal, – His Holiness finally intervened after a couple dozen objections, and all objections immediately vanished. – How do you see the implementation mechanism?

But the mechanism turned out to be the weak spot. The idea itself, as His Holiness noted, was not bad, but the implementation… In fact, the implementation of all “not bad ideas” had suffered these last couple thousand years.

– We were thinking that maybe… – Zalibvang stalled for time, hoping the decision would come by itself. And it came, though not from where they expected, and not the sort of thing one would brag about:

– We will launch saints! – Alavur seized the initiative.

– Saints are an already tried stage, – Cyphiron reasonably noted. – Their effectiveness… – he began to rattle off numbers that no one planned to dispute, nor indeed to listen to. Using saints in a world that no longer believed in them had long been deemed ineffective.

– This is something new! – Alavur’s halo glowed. – Hear me out, then decide.

– Let’s give them the floor, – His Holiness suggested, and everyone not just fell silent, but stopped fidgeting.

– We will launch not one saint or prophet – that’s up for discussion – but two at once! – he paused, expecting a reaction; none came, so he continued. – Two prophets at once. And neither will be extremes, as we have done before. No pure-good or pure-evil. No saintly or wholly depraved. Each will include sanctity and vice, kindness and cruelty, because people are many-faced and the demand for both goodness and cruelty often dwells in a single skull. Two warrior-prophets, consolidating people around themselves, neither hostile nor friendly to each other, sometimes clashing, sometimes acting in concert – a kind of stew of base human feelings that they are called to lead, to raise the wave and ride it…

– But how will they do this? – His Holiness couldn’t contain himself.

– We won’t limit them, – Alavur explained. – We will give them the right to choose, the right to sin and not be bound by commandments and instructions – complete freedom. All the failures of our Prophets and Saints lie in their being constrained from doing evil! – he concluded.

– Hm, – His Holiness considered. – I had not thought of that… – he fell silent again. – On the other hand, I would have expected such an approach from demons or possessed, cursed Gidivul, but from the creative department of the nimbused! – he was surprised and embarrassed.

– We’ve even worked out their appearance, – Alavur improvised on the spot. – A large gathering of people, say some protest demonstrations, and at the crucial moment a pillar of fire descends from the sky and in that pillar our Prophet appears, bearing the message that the world has rotted. That God is displeased with people, displeased that a small part has usurped earthly wealth and prevents the rest from developing. Therefore He sent His chosen warrior… But hearing of the same thing, the one whose name is not spoken sent his demon. He will resemble the first, speak the same, and even do the same things, but he is evil… Thus we will split the protesters and create controlled chaos among them…

– Interesting, interesting, – His Holiness still did not make a decision. – I need to consult my advisors… – and His Holiness moved to confer with the Council, effectively excluding the invited experts from the conversation, practically casting them out. Alavur exhaled – he hadn’t expected such an impromptu and met the disapproving look of his colleague. The idea of two prophets did not please him at all, as it promised uncontrollability and a mass of administrative headaches.

The Council consultation lasted about half an hour. Not a word nor a sound reached the ears of the specialists, among whom, for some reason, the analyst was included. He sat all that time rigid, with glassy eyes, staring toward the hellish smoke curling on the horizon.

– We have concluded the meeting, – finally His Holiness and the Council returned to them. The decision had clearly been made, but the sight of how eagerly the demons present rubbed their hands and paws, how greedily they eyed the creatives, and how the nimbused cast sideways looks with a smirk at the corner of their mouths made Zalibvang uneasy.

– We accept this decision as the basis, – His Holiness continued to pronounce the verdict. – It takes effect this very minute, – he enumerated points that were immediately entered into the protocol as immutable truth and a directive for action. – You have ten minutes to prepare. – His Holiness finished.

– Prepare for what? – Alavur did not understand.

– What? – Zalibvang asked again.

– I believe in you, my dear! – Jarin whispered to him, pushing her sumptuous bosom forward. – Return as heroes!

– But we are ideologists… – Zalibvang cried, cursing Alavur and his two Prophets in his heart. – We are not soldiers! Everyone must do their own work… – they were already being swept through the corridors of reality, being equipped and given survival instructions. You will be provided with every possible assistance! – they heard His Holiness’s retreating voice. I will also be forever near you! – hissed the one whose name is not spoken aloud. – Great times await us!!! – he added.

– Yes, truly great! – flashed through Zalibvang’s mind; he already saw that very pillar of fire, which had struck the sinful Earth not long ago. And he was being drawn toward it.