Chapter 12
Conversion
Waking slowly, the man began to feel cold. I hate this part, the man thought to himself. Opening his eyes slowly, the man saw the now-familiar irregular pattern fall, then another face of another medical technician came into view.
"Don't try to talk." said the technician. I won't, the man thought, more to himself.
After an hour, the man was taken by gurney to a recovery room, where the man spent the day. After that, the man was taken by wheelchair to a recovery ward occupied by many others. Over the next week, the man saw many patients come and go. Most wouldn't even talk to him. One person said it was because of who he was.
After the week was up, the man was pronounced fit to leave on his own, but was told to wait to be taken somewhere important. After some time, two security officers gathered him and took him to a specialized meeting area.
At the head of the table were three people, two women the man had never met, and Gadwin Kerman.
"Sit down," said Gadwin, "I'll be with you shortly." So he sat and waited.
After a few minutes, Gadwin nodded at one of the women and said, "Good. Take this to the chief science officer." The indicated woman rose and walked out the hatch, and Gadwin stared at the ceiling for a few minutes.
"I'm not sure what you think of me ..." began Gadwin, but the man simply replied, "Heretic."
Gadwin looked at the man sharply for a few moments while the other woman simply shook her head slightly, then Gadwin replied, "It's okay, Athena, I did prompt him for a reply." The man looked at the woman sharply. So this is the crazy witch Athena Kerman, thought the man. The woman looked back at him with equal intensity.
"That's right," she said, "I'm Athena Kerman. I'm the one you and others caused to be tortured in your 'clinics', more like drugged into a stupor for knowing more than most."
"What happened to you was your own fault." the man replied. "You refused to accept the validity of the orthodoxy, and its righteous cause."
"'There is none other than Talia.'" recited Gadwin from rote.
"That's right." replied the man. "Thus, your so-called cause is false. There is no other than Talia. Not even Kerbin. That's a myth."
"What's your name?" asked Athena.
"Mine?" asked the man. "I'm Dagos Kerman, podling brother to one of the higher-echelon tremins. Why do you ask?"
"I like to be on a first name basis with my fellow kerbals." replied Athena. "As to your reference to Kerbin ..." she looked at Gadwin, who nodded. Pressing a button, the display at the head of the conference room lit up and showed an irregular object in space. Red molten lava seas, with white-to-black solid landmasses, it was clear that this object had seen its better times.
"You can see the molten seas of this object." said Athena. "They are actually the exposed core of the object. Glowing red on the objects night side, they show up as bright areas in infrared images. This is what is left of the ancient planet Kerbin, long since abandoned by kerbals billions of years ago. A world once seven hundred kilometers across, it has been reduced to one-tenth that, all because its primary star Kerbol erupted over a billion years ago. That blast destroyed the inner part of the solar system, leaving very little intact, as you can see."
"So you say." Dagos replied.
"We don't make any claims," added Gadwin, "We simply show what is."
"And you claim there is more?" said Dagos.
"A lot more." replied Athena. "I have been to the nearby star system, known as Tempus. There is a world named Rhode, and holds over a billion kerbals itself."
"Hold on. Weren't you claiming to be from Rhode?" asked Dagos.
Athena nodded. "I was born to a small-town man and his wife, then died as a child. The next thing I knew, I was born on Talia." She shuddered. "I still remember telling my first tale of Rhode at three. I was patted on the head, told I was an 'imaginative little girl'. In later years, I made an attempt to tell the tales as fiction, but your religious system had already marked me for the wards, so that is where I wound up. If it weren't for Gadwin's caring approach to the so-called 'Kerbin Phychosis', later identified as including Rhode, I would still be there. And we wouldn't be here."
"Just why are we here?" asked Dagos.
"It stands to reason that if kerbals are known to be in four separate star systems," said Gadwin, "Namely, Kerbin, Tempus, Kaywell, and Suthe, and that old Kerbin was quite busy at launching interstellar probes frequently enough, shouldn't there be more star systems out there that harbor kerbalkind?" Dagos blinked at that.
"So what you are really trying to do here ..." started Dagos.
"... Is find out where the rest are, and reunite all of kerbalkind." finished Athena.
"What for?" said Dagos. "What's the point?"
"Kerbalkind has been divided for too long." replied Gadwin. "Our species is at a crossroads. We must unite, or perish."
"And so this is why you go on this folly of a quest?" asked Dagos. "Your quest is false; like the orthodoxy has said all these years is true: there is no other but Talia. What you must do is accept your judgement by the orthodoxy; it's the only answer."
"And what of that object?" replied Athena, pointing to the display of a wrecked Kerbin.
"Most likely, it's one of the objects our astronomers have missed in the Suthe system. It may be one of the objects in the outermost parts of the Suthe system that you've altered to look truely alien."
Athena looked at Dagos, then at Gadwin. "He can't be serious! He's accusing us of falsifying images and data? Let me handle him!" she said rising, walking over to Dagos, and pulling him to his feet. "You come with me!" she hissed. "I have something to show you!"
Dragging Dagos out by his collar, Athena led Dagos up several levels until they emerged in a dome showing the whole of space. Athena pointed. "Look over there." she said. "Does that look familiar?"
Dagos looked in the indicated direction and gaped. There, hanging in the speckled blackness of space, was a smaller version of the object displayed in the conference room. Dagos just stared for a few moments, then brightened.
"Obviously," said Dagos, "This dome has been brightness-adjusted to make dimmer objects seem brighter."
"If that's the case, then what is that?" replied Athena, pointing in another direction. Dagos looked and swallowed. "Is that Suthe?" he asked.
"Suthe is a red dwarf." replied Athena. "That bright blue-white object seeming so small, is what remains of Kerbol, the ancient star of old Kerbin. The great eruption long ago transformed it from a yellow dwarf star to a white dwarf star much smaller than it was before the great eruption."
Dagos pointed. "So, if that's Kerbin, or what's left of it," he said, then turned and pointed at the stellar object, "And that's what's left of old Kerbol ..."
"... You're in another star system, the original star system where all kerbals began." finished Athena.
"But ... but ..." stammered Dagos. "How can this be? There is no other than Talia."
"And yet, how can you account for all this?" asked Athena, sweeping her hand across the cosmos.
"And that greenish world before?" asked Dagos.
"Was Kerbmun, the fifth moon of Mesbin, the fifth planet of the Kaywell star system. Mesbin was settled by kerbals who, it appears, made an unfortunate crash landing on the planet, which left them with few food sources. They've eked out a meager existence up until now, but with our help, they've begun moving to Kerbmun and colonizing as we have. Kerbalkind is truly entering a new age, one hopefully enlightened by reason, not closed by superstition. Now can you believe us?"
Looking around, Dagos finally said, "This is a projection!"
Shaking her head, Athena replied, "Walk around and search for the projectors. You won't find any."
And that is what Dagos did for ten minutes. Walking around the dome, he poked and prodded for any indication of any visual projecting systems which would betray the illusion. By the time he returned to where he started from, he hadn't found any.
He began to tremble, and Athena knew his understanding had begun.
