In the Empire (3)
Chapter Summary: Gratian's recollections of the early days of the Galactic Empire. A land in the wilderness, believers and great deeds.
"We will eventually build the Tower of Babel that reaches to the heavens, stand on it, and slay the gods."
I parted the stones covering the spring in the cave, and water seeped from the cracks in the rock. Digging deeper, I found spores; the water was 'growing' from these tiny particles, somewhere between plant seeds and animal embryos. Incredible! These particles were probably some kind of bacteria, but I lacked the equipment to test them. I could only observe them with the naked eye—patchy, white colonies. Squeezing a handful, I felt a fine powder on my fingertips. Transparent, colorless, odorless, and cool, the water flowed beneath the floating white powder. The ground had been dried out by the 'Titan,' but a vast amount of water remained buried deep underground. That was the only thing that allowed the living things here to face the power of the 'Titan' directly.
I asked the little boy if there were any materials that could explode and create a sustained burning effect, such as sulfur, saltpeter, charcoal, or dry fibers. He shook his head violently, horrified. 'No. No. A fire? That's terrifying!'
Coward. I glanced at him. The people of this land fear fire, light, and heat. But I am not.
I spent the next few nights searching in the desert, eventually making a crude fuse and a small explosive charge. I returned to the cave, and the little boy asked me what I'd been doing lately. He was terrified, saying that another group of people had their eyes on the water. 'Shall we run?'
"It's almost time. Could you please call everyone nearby over?" I said.
'But what if, what if one of them tries to do that to you again? Even though you killed them last time, you were indeed...' The little boy shrank back.
I smiled. 'How do you know I didn't enjoy it? To be honest, it was my first time. Not bad.'
"Huh?" the little boy asked, confused. "...that can feel pretty good?"
"It was really quite enjoyable on the □□. Individual differences exist in these things." I laughed heartily.
The little boy stopped talking and climbed onto the top of the cave. There stood an old radio; one of the junk salvaged from some ancient aircraft. The boy tuned the channel, looking much like a kitten cautiously testing the waters at the riverbank. 'They might not come,' he said.
'Um, by the way, how should I tell everyone?'
The announcement reads, "Tonight, a beautiful fairy is distributing water by the sacred spring on the holy mountain. Please come quickly and bring your own buckets."
I stretched out my leg and slid out of the cave. Outside, the fuse stretched deep into the earth. Across the vast desert, the wind blew, dissipating the heat accumulated on the surface. I unloaded the explosive charge and placed it on the ground. I bent down, my ear pressed to the ground, and heard the roaring and crashing of lava and boiling water; a dense array of stars shone overhead. I struck a match. Kneeling on the sand, I watched as more and more people gathered before me.
'Little beauty, I heard you killed all the men who slept with you? Tsk tsk, what, they couldn't satisfy you? Looks like those men weren't good enough, serves them right! Little beauty, what's your name? Want to change lovers a few times?'
I saw Caligula, a little surprised. I thought he was still on Earth; I hadn't expected him to be in exile like me. The reason became clear after a moment's thought. Meeting his scorching gaze, I said, 'Why are you in that group of people? Come here.'
'Gratian, I love you.'
My fingers, which were holding the matches, froze in the night wind.
"Damn, who's this kid?"
"You've got guts! You confessed your feelings directly to our little beauty. Too bad, she's not interested in a pretty boy like you. Clearly, she prefers the muscular type, the one who's good in bed!"
'Exactly, exactly, look, he's not even looking at you anymore...'
A burst of laughter erupted. Suddenly, the laughter was shattered by a tremor, and the crowd began to scream, like birds being chased by a hunter's gun. The earth and sky trembled. My ears left the ground, and I stood upright, seeing a massive, dawn-like red light burst open at the horizon, as if the Earth Mother had awakened, her five beautiful, alluring fingers outstretched towards the pale sky. Those red fingers suddenly clenched and grasped. The sky changed abruptly; the scarlet 'Titan' grinned menacingly with its fiery red eyes. The air heated rapidly, and the earth cracked open with countless crisscrossing gashes. The sand turned like molten gold, each grain flying with each frantic step of the fleeing people.
'I'm going to die! I'm going to die!'
'Help--! '
I'd observed the stars; tonight was the closest Titan would ever come to this land. It's pathetic that these idiots have lived here for generations, yet they can't even calculate the orbits of stars; no, they probably don't even know that Titan is a red giant, already middle-aged and in its collapsing phase, expanding in size, with unstable heat and extremely high radiation. The flame gnawed at the fuse of the explosive charge. I threw away the match, and a raging fire erupted where it landed. The explosive charge was propelled into the sky by the heat wave and exploded mid-air. I squinted, the intense light piercing my eyes.
The little boy crawled over and desperately pulled me from the shade of the cave, 'What have you been doing? Come in, come in! The Father of the Gods is angry!'
The red light of 'Titan' was more dazzling than ever before.
"Today, the Titans will fall." I stared at the boy who thought I had gone mad. "I killed the father of the gods."
He was convinced I had gone mad. The boy didn't run away, he didn't scream; he knelt down beside the clear spring and begged the gods to calm their anger.
I looked back. Caligula was still standing there, motionless. This guy's usually so smart, how could he be so stupid today? I can't stand it.
I rushed out of the cave, bracing myself against the 'Titan', and struggled to keep my footing. When he saw me coming, his face lit up with ecstatic joy.
Give me your hand.
He grabbed my fingers without hesitation.
I laughed. 'Caligula, do you really trust me that much? Aren't you afraid I'll bury you and those thugs together?'
'If you want to kill me, Gratian.'
For a fleeting moment, I did consider pushing him down, forward, with a gentle push from my palm. But I didn't. I pulled Caligula back up. Small rocks bounced around in the cave, and ripples spread rapidly in the spring water.
The Titan was so close it seemed to be bending down to kiss the earth below. Suddenly, the soil crumbled, like the surface of a shattered eggshell. A tremendous force had broken the shell from within, but what emerged wasn't a chick covered in roe, but water. Vast quantities, billions of tons of water, crystal clear and transparent liquid, evaporated rapidly under the Titan's heat. Yet, water continued to gush forth from the rocks, the earth, and the depths. From underground, even more black currents rose to the surface, violently impacting the Titan's terrifying heat and radiation. A light mist rose into the air, torn and ripped apart by the light; layer after layer. Finally, a light yet sturdy film of water vapor formed above the earth, blurring the Titan's red silhouette, transforming it into a gentle gold.
Many people were swept away by the raging torrent. On the few remaining high ridges of land, people stood, looking at me in terror and silence. The 'Titan' could no longer harm them; they should have been cheering, if it weren't for the numerous bloated, white, fleshy corpses floating around them.
They knelt before me. The boy, too, crawled trembling to my feet. 'God, please protect us,' they said.
The people crawling in front of me were like leaves swept away by the autumn wind, like sand in the sea.
When Titan was closest to the ground, its gravitational pull was at its strongest, much like the tides on Earth's oceans are strongest on a full moon, because the moon exerts a tremendous pull on the water on Earth. Titan's gravity shattered the already unstable surface. At that moment, a perfectly timed explosive I placed detonated at the perfect time and place. The mountains that buried the sacred springs exploded, one after another, causing flash floods. Water rose into the air, and for the first time, people discovered that they could live under the gaze of Titan.
To me, it was nothing more than the result of precise human calculations and operations; to them, it was a miracle.
The little red-haired boy asked me to give him a name. I casually said, "Octavian. That's your name."
Later, I waged countless wars on this land. Weapons evolved from the spears, iron lances, wooden arrows, and bows used by primitive humans, to swords, heavy shields, armor, and chariots. People learned to forge alloy killing blades, to use gunpowder and battering rams, and finally, to airplanes, cars, and warships that flew into space. I helped them build a water vapor shield capable of withstanding the intense radiation of the 'Titan,' slowing their aging process considerably, extending their lifespan from seven days, seven weeks, seven months, to seven years. Each generation lived longer than the last. I planted white bacterial spores collected from the ground in the temples they built for me. Liquid water secreted and dripped from the spores, which I collected and distributed as rewards to my loyal subjects. The more water there was, the weaker the 'Titan' radiation became. I spent my days in a place where countless white bacteria grew, surrounded by deep pools of water. To my subjects, I seemed immortal. I knew the secrets of radiation and water, but they did not; they only knew that whenever Emperor Gratian bestowed upon them the clear, crystalline liquid, and they drank it, they would live an extra week, a few months. There were no longer any independent, scattered tribes on earth; all human settlements (if these radiation-damaged, short-lived mutants could still be considered human) were united under my banner. I declared to them, 'Now, we shall build the Tower of Babel to the heavens.' The reward is immortality.
They didn't understand what I meant.
I said, "We'll use warships to imprison 'Titan' in space, drive the star away, limit its heat emissions, and use it as a giant furnace to power us." "Like a power plant, you know what electricity is?"
They were met with blank, lifeless faces. They used many advanced devices, such as electric lights, firearms, and AI-controlled warships, but they didn't know what electricity was. They simply enjoyed its benefits under my grace, using it blindly. I promised to grant everyone eternal life. They understood this, and they roared excitedly, 'Long live Gratian! Long live His Majesty the Emperor!'
There is no so-called 'immortality' reward. After the heat radiation of 'Titan' is utilized, people on the ground naturally do not need to worry about the length of their lives. They will live to the lifespan that they are meant to live according to the genes inherited from their ancestors on Earth.
Of course, the pie in the sky still needs to be drawn big enough. To them, being able to age slowly like me is 'immortality'.
The Tower of Babel, built near the equator, is a towering launch site for spaceships. Tens of thousands of smaller warships are conceived, launched, and soar from the Tower of Babel's matrix, piercing space under the command of the control center. The warships are arranged in a mathematical matrix, warping space and inserting hundreds of thousands of gravitational anchors into the vacuum. A vast and intricate gravitational net locks the red giant Titan, violently pulling it off its orbit and greatly increasing its distance from the ground. On the ground, I stand atop the Tower of Babel's launch site and see that the dazzling light has dimmed considerably. The sky is no longer the sickly crimson or pale color; it has turned grayish-blue, and it's raining. Thick, dark blue clouds appear. People cheer and sing on the ground; some weep.
Titan was pulled into its predetermined mode. Hundreds of millions of generators operated simultaneously, pumping heat into the upper atmosphere and converting it into wind energy. The wind powered the giant fans that generated electricity, which in turn powered numerous cities across the land. Countless cities shone with dazzling lights, burning like a sea of fire. The hearts of the cities began to beat. The previously vacant equipment clusters in the cities started operating at once, and people shouted as they rushed towards the cities, towards their warm homes and newly occupied land.
"Your Majesty," Octavian exclaimed joyfully, "Excellent! You have conquered the world!"
"Yes. The next step is to conquer the universe," I said.
"So, we've solved the problems of short lifespan and water scarcity caused by that damned 'Titan,' and now we have a stellar-scale super energy reservoir at our disposal. Are we really going to build a cosmic army and expand outwards?" Caligula jumped off the returning warship. His face was revealed behind the heavy protective helmet. "It's definitely a behemoth. If the engineers on the warship had miscalculated even one parameter, I and the others would have been roasted alive."
"Don't worry about that. If he couldn't even handle this simple matter, he should be with those ignorant commoners, not serving in my palace and wasting so much of my water trying to keep him alive. By the way, it's time to build a real palace; this temple is too gloomy and cold."
Caligula chuckled, "Your Majesty, you're finally not worried about aging from heat radiation anymore?"
I ignored him. Everyone was in a good mood, and the engineer came down too. When he saw me, his fear far outweighed his respect. I told him not to be so afraid; if the job was done, he didn't need to worry about being chopped up and dried on the sand.
"Besides, my dear minister, there are no 'Titans' left to roast you now," I said.
Caligula laughed heartily. The engineer said he had some work to attend to and had to take his leave.
That night, however, I started having a fever again. For the next two weeks, I had a persistent, fluctuating fever that was sometimes better and sometimes worse, and I was often delirious. Octavian was very worried. To take care of me, he enrolled in a medical school to learn nursing. I felt it was unnecessary; it was just a fever, and I thought I would be fine after some rest. Besides, I could take care of myself perfectly well.
One night, the heat became unbearable. I woke up with a headache and couldn't fall back asleep. I thought I was hallucinating; I heard myself talking to someone. I said, 'In this world, there should only be one law, one civilization, and one system. We must build the Tower of Babel so that human history can be eternal.'
'Nothing is permanent. Not even the universe itself.' A gentle voice. My heart trembled: Caesar.
My Caesar.
"I knew the Tower of Babel would collapse! You don't need to lecture me!" I heard myself say fiercely. "God punished the arrogance of the mad king by making people unable to understand each other's languages, leading to constant fighting and nation-states vying for supremacy. Humanity became obsessed with killing and plundering, and thus the Tower of Babel collapsed. Humanity no longer had the power to challenge God's authority. So what? Generation after generation will continue to build the tower!"
I am referring to the original story of the Tower of Babel, which is recorded in the Bible.
"Yes," the man said with a melancholy look, "your tower isn't even finished yet, and I'm already locked inside."
'That's exactly what I wanted, Caesar.'
That way you'll never leave me; and I can always watch over you.
'You're too self-centered, Gratian. Even in your dreams, you're trying to stifle my freedom.'
I saw myself smiling in the darkness, and heard myself answer: 'Exactly. Caesar.'
'I don't object to your building the tower, Gratian, but you should know that what you see of the Tower of Babel might just be a reflection in the water.'
'What's the meaning? '
The man shook his head. 'There is no tower. A real tower doesn't exist. And even if it did, it would have nothing to do with humanity.'
"Caesar!" I shouted, merging with the other self I was speaking to. "And you? Are you nonexistent too? Nonsense! The day I hold the universe in my hands, you will be mine. I will conquer you, I will possess you, Caesar!"
Caesar's shadow faded, gradually disappearing into the deep black background. Then came another voice, clear and pure, somewhat like Caesar's, except that Caesar might have had such a voice if he were younger; the voice seemed to come from the depths of the universe.
He said, 'Controlling the universe, building a towering tower, gaining a person—it's all just different ways of saying the same thing. What's the difference? One day the tower collapses, you lose that person, but what's the difference between that and losing the entire universe?'
The man's body glowed; his limbs, muscles, and bones were gradually sculpted, his hunched back straightening as he stood before me. He was completely naked, his long, golden hair cascading down like a waterfall, and something about him lay limply at his groin. The man had a face strikingly similar to mine. We shared a similar air, but my features were far more beautiful than his. His face was rough, like a hastily crafted mold, like the faces of many ancient humans.
'Who are you?' he asked.
"Were you saying those things to me? Then, don't you know who I am?"
'Who are you? '
'I know you. You're Caesar's brother, Phaethon. Hello, you short-lived devil. I am Gratian.' I stared warily at the man who was glowing all over.
'Gratian. Where do you come from? Where are you going?'
A philosophical question. I was speechless. 'I thought that once people are dead, they wouldn't have to think about these things anymore.'
'I am not dead. I live on in your spirit and [redacted], and in the hatred you feel for me because of Caesar.'
'Don't worry. I'll force myself to ignore you. Whenever I want to.'
The man who called himself Phaethon fell silent. His pupils were dark and bright, set in pearly white eye sockets, with a pale blue hue floating in the center. I remembered Caesar always praising my eyes; now I saw the genetic makeup of my eyes. The man extended his right hand, and I extended mine; I raised my left hand, and he mimicked me. He held up his index finger in a shushing gesture, and I held up my index finger too. I didn't know who was imitating whom, and I found it a little funny. 'I don't want to see you. You look a lot like me, but you're so clumsy, so vulgar, so incredibly stupid. In the mirror, I don't see myself, I see you! Disgusting. I know this is a dream. I don't want to see you. Where's Caesar? Did you take his place? I want to see him. Get out of my way!'
Phaethon's face was shattered. Like a mosaic stained-glass window in a church smashed by violence. Kaleidoscope colors swirled before my eyes, and I saw the face gradually distort, but its underlying essence remained unchanged. Sometimes it became me, the great Emperor Gratian; sometimes it became that impetuous young researcher named Phaethon; sometimes it became Caesar. Sometimes it became many, many people I had never seen or heard of before, some with healthy features, some mentally ill or disabled, some simply statues with broken faces, or faded murals in ancient caves. I saw a strangely shaped primitive man drawn on the rock with black charcoal and iron ore, with eyes as large as wildebeest, arms and legs as thick as his, and a few black and red lines outlining his body. He wore a grass skirt and hunted a running wild lion; an ash spear plunged deep into the lion's throat. His face was nothing like mine, but I knew that was me. Me, running across the primordial earth billions of years ago. A common ancestor of humankind.
Later, I met you again on Odysseus. I had defeated the alliance, and you negotiated with me on their behalf. I said to you, 'Caesar, sleep with me. I will give your alliance the peace terms you want: autonomy, judicial independence, and your favorite democratic voting.'
I was just joking. You were skeptical, but didn't refuse, asking, 'Really? Your Majesty, are you swearing?'
Your smile then was one of surprise and shyness. You love me, after all these years, you still love me, yet you still dare not admit it.
You stubbornly insisted I was threatening you, that it was shameful and damaging to the empire's reputation, while simultaneously refusing to believe your own body could wield such influence. Whatever, I wanted you that day, and so did you; you were clearly more eager than I was.
——tbc——
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