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Authors: Lea Tassie
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to what they would
someday become, and they moved mechanically, like a wind-up toy.
Their 'brains' clicked and beeped and they had big 'eyes,' which
were actually windows for sensors. Their arms ended in primitive
pincers.
A few days later the Tasker landed on a
windless desert plateau in Peru, near a village which looked
deserted. It emerged from the ship and began moving toward the
huts. However, the village of Nazca was not deserted.
People began running out of the huts, picking
up stones as they raced toward the Tasker. The Tasker had no
commands to deal with this kind of movement, but when people began
attacking and the first stone struck its chest, the robot simply
turned around, got back into the spaceship and left.
The natives stared at the silvery bullet
shape of the spaceship rising into the blue sky. As it disappeared
over the horizon, the shaman fell to his knees and shouted, "It was
a god! We have offended a god! We must atone and make offering so
he will come back and bless us."
They atoned for a good long time. Over
hundreds of years, they drew pictures in the desert by removing the
red pebbles and uncovering the whitish ground beneath. These
hundreds of shallow lines ranged in complexity from simple
geometric designs to figures of hummingbirds, spiders, fish,
lizards, flowers, and trees. The artists worked in an area that
encompassed a hundred and ninety square miles, and the largest
figures were eight hundred feet tall.
In spite of this impressive effort, the god
did not come back. Instead it flew north to pre-Olmec territory in
south central Mexico and landed at the edge of a village. This
time, however, its appearance did not result in an attack.
The Tasker walked into the middle of a fight
between two clans over the ownership of a heavy rubber ball, a new
artifact to the area. The robot picked up the ball and examined it,
while the terrified fighters knelt or lay on the ground, some of
them covering their eyes.
When the Tasker finished his inspection, he
tossed the heavy ball to a kneeling fighter. It fell through the
man's paralyzed fingers. The Tasker picked it up again and threw it
to the opposing group, trying to discover what use they made of the
peculiar object. This man also dropped the ball. Because nothing
interesting was happening, the Tasker's programming caused it to
move on to the next task.
But the actions of this sky god resulted, as
the years passed, in the practice of having ball games to settle
disputes, which eventually became a sport that was popular well
into the twenty-first century. The god's appearance also resulted
in the practice of carving giant heads wearing what looked like
helmets, a flawed representation of the Tasker head.
Soon the spaceship rose skyward again and the
Tasker went on with his visits to various parts of Earth and the
collection of plants and artifacts. Unfortunately, on its last
visit, to the pyramids of Egypt, it did not leave quickly enough to
escape the angry attacks of a local tribe. Their spears and clubs
damaged the mechanism in its chest so that some programming was
destroyed.
The Tasker managed to pilot the ship out into
space but the commands for steering to Mahoud were lost. The
spaceship wandered the solar system for nearly four thousand years
before smashing into Alcazaba, killing many, many hundreds of its
inhabitants.
Such was the beginning and end for humanity
on Earth. The people of Alcazaba had lost all their records of
space travel in a fire shortly after the ship headed for Earth and
thus they had long forgotten the mission on which they had sent Si
Shim. The ship appeared to them only as a representative from
Earth, a missile of destruction, fired upon them with no
justification.
>>>
Dart speaks to Reader:
Yes, we've talked about myths before and this
is how such stories began, for the Peruvians and the Olmec, as well
as for other areas in the world where this one solitary Tasker
landed. The myths passed down through time in
someday become, and they moved mechanically, like a wind-up toy.
Their 'brains' clicked and beeped and they had big 'eyes,' which
were actually windows for sensors. Their arms ended in primitive
pincers.
A few days later the Tasker landed on a
windless desert plateau in Peru, near a village which looked
deserted. It emerged from the ship and began moving toward the
huts. However, the village of Nazca was not deserted.
People began running out of the huts, picking
up stones as they raced toward the Tasker. The Tasker had no
commands to deal with this kind of movement, but when people began
attacking and the first stone struck its chest, the robot simply
turned around, got back into the spaceship and left.
The natives stared at the silvery bullet
shape of the spaceship rising into the blue sky. As it disappeared
over the horizon, the shaman fell to his knees and shouted, "It was
a god! We have offended a god! We must atone and make offering so
he will come back and bless us."
They atoned for a good long time. Over
hundreds of years, they drew pictures in the desert by removing the
red pebbles and uncovering the whitish ground beneath. These
hundreds of shallow lines ranged in complexity from simple
geometric designs to figures of hummingbirds, spiders, fish,
lizards, flowers, and trees. The artists worked in an area that
encompassed a hundred and ninety square miles, and the largest
figures were eight hundred feet tall.
In spite of this impressive effort, the god
did not come back. Instead it flew north to pre-Olmec territory in
south central Mexico and landed at the edge of a village. This
time, however, its appearance did not result in an attack.
The Tasker walked into the middle of a fight
between two clans over the ownership of a heavy rubber ball, a new
artifact to the area. The robot picked up the ball and examined it,
while the terrified fighters knelt or lay on the ground, some of
them covering their eyes.
When the Tasker finished his inspection, he
tossed the heavy ball to a kneeling fighter. It fell through the
man's paralyzed fingers. The Tasker picked it up again and threw it
to the opposing group, trying to discover what use they made of the
peculiar object. This man also dropped the ball. Because nothing
interesting was happening, the Tasker's programming caused it to
move on to the next task.
But the actions of this sky god resulted, as
the years passed, in the practice of having ball games to settle
disputes, which eventually became a sport that was popular well
into the twenty-first century. The god's appearance also resulted
in the practice of carving giant heads wearing what looked like
helmets, a flawed representation of the Tasker head.
Soon the spaceship rose skyward again and the
Tasker went on with his visits to various parts of Earth and the
collection of plants and artifacts. Unfortunately, on its last
visit, to the pyramids of Egypt, it did not leave quickly enough to
escape the angry attacks of a local tribe. Their spears and clubs
damaged the mechanism in its chest so that some programming was
destroyed.
The Tasker managed to pilot the ship out into
space but the commands for steering to Mahoud were lost. The
spaceship wandered the solar system for nearly four thousand years
before smashing into Alcazaba, killing many, many hundreds of its
inhabitants.
Such was the beginning and end for humanity
on Earth. The people of Alcazaba had lost all their records of
space travel in a fire shortly after the ship headed for Earth and
thus they had long forgotten the mission on which they had sent Si
Shim. The ship appeared to them only as a representative from
Earth, a missile of destruction, fired upon them with no
justification.
>>>
Dart speaks to Reader:
Yes, we've talked about myths before and this
is how such stories began, for the Peruvians and the Olmec, as well
as for other areas in the world where this one solitary Tasker
landed. The myths passed down through time in
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