Dialogues with South Asian SF Writers-4: Navin Weeraratne

Tarun K. Saint with Navin Weeraratne

Prelude

This session features Navin Weeraratne, who is well-known to writers and readers from South Asia and abroad. He is a writer who writes speculative fiction and military SF with a dose of hard science living in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

**

Tarun K. Saint–Welcome to this session of South Asian SF Dialogues, Navin! Let us begin by reflecting on the beginnings of SF in Sri Lanka, after the advent of modernity in the context of and in the aftermath of colonial rule. Is there a long history of writing in the speculative vein in Sri Lanka, whether inspired by the epic traditions or modern (especially Golden Age) SF? Or is SF and speculative fiction a more recent phenomenon?

Navin Weeraratne— It’s hard to talk about the history of Sri Lankan speculative fiction. So little of it is known to anyone. 

There is a cultural divide between Sinhala (and Tamil) speakers and English speakers in Sri Lanka. I feel it goes back to colonialism. The result is that Sinhala and Tamil speculative fiction does not get translated into English. Likewise, Sri Lankan fiction written in English is rarely translated into Sinhala.

This divide has hampered the development of speculative fiction in Sri Lanka. There are loads more Sinhala readers, and the English readers tend to have more resources. Yet, they rarely connect.

One side effect of this is that a lot of older speculative writing has disappeared from the collective memory. One uncovers writers and their work often by accident.

Things are better now with the Internet and social media. The language barrier problem remains, however.

TKS— Arthur C. Clarke was a major presence in the global SF scene, as well as in Sri Lanka, where he resided. What impact did Clarke’s oeuvre and work have on the SF culture in your country, as you see it?

NW— It is impossible to talk about Sri Lankan science fiction and not to talk about Arthur C Clarke. When I was a teenager, I visited him once to ask if he could be a patron of our science fiction club. He said yes, and loaned us most of his library in response! Everywhere he could, he encouraged Sri Lankans to study and learn about space, science, and Nature. It was like having Gandalf settle down in the Shire. In many ways, he was a father to our writing. He certainly was to mine.

His cultural impact out here was both in science fiction and in science. Many of his books were translated into Sinhala and did quite well. His greater impact I think was in inspiring Sri Lankans to go into STEM. From what I’ve seen, he is even near and dearer to our astrophysicists than he is to our readers.

TKS— SF writing in the subcontinent has often been seen as a way of promoting science education. Has this been the case in Sri Lanka as well? Is SF now reaching a wider audience with the nomination of Sri Lankan authors for major SF awards and the role played by Sri Lankan editors/writers at Strange Horizons?

NW–A teacher once read out an SF story I’d written in the school magazine, just to make fun of me! Science fiction was not seen by my teachers, or my peers’ teachers, as a tool for teaching or inspiring students. If anything it was not taken seriously. I think this speaks more for the often charmless nature of Sri Lankan education. I hope its better than it was! 

There is indeed more interest and recognition for Sri Lankan science fiction writers, now. It ranges from casual interest, to loyal fans who will buy everything we write and will email and talk to us about our books. 

Will it last? 

That’s hard to say. When I was 12 years old, I tried to join a group called the Young Astronomers Association. They were a large group with hundreds of members. They organized stargazing nights and astronomy outings. I was too young to join though. Just six years later, my fellow Sri Lankan science fiction writer, Vajra Chandrasekara, handed me a huge stack of folders and said “here, you are now the Young Astronomers Association.” It was like reading through the cuneiform boasts of dead kings who thought they’d live forever. All that was left of their ‘scene’ were those papers. 

Fandoms here are like astrophysicist David Kipping’s take on alien civilizations. They emerge, thrive, and die, and no one knows if they ever existed. 

In ten years I’ll be able to better answer this question. 

TKS— Which SF writers were key influences as you began writing and publishing SF? Were writers in the Anglo-American tradition crucial, or did you also come across writing from the South Asian region in translation or in English? 

NW— Sri Lankan booksellers are a miserable, cowardly race of hunchbacks with no passion for reading and taking risks on new authors. They knew people would read Arthur C Clarke because he lived here, and so they stocked their shelves with related writers. So, as a teenager in the 90s, I’d spend my lunch money on writers like Asimov, Bradbury, and Heinlein rather than Nancy Kress, Walter Jon Williams, or even William Gibson. It was only foreign bookshops that allowed me to expand my reading range. 

However, it wasn’t a science-fiction, or even the fiction writers, in general who inspired my work. It was the science writers. Gregory Stock. Ray Kurzweil. Eric Drexler. I was less interested in what my peers were writing. I wanted to know what researchers in the field were discovering. It shaped my writing; My earlier work is more conventional. Moving forward, it became more unusual.

TKS— You have been a key figure at Comic Con events, and your novel, The Hundred Gram Mission (2016), was released in a Comic Con edition. Have you made a conscious effort to bridge the gap between action/adventure style SF and more serious reflections on science, technology and their effects, especially manifested in climate change, as in speculative fiction?

NW— Yes. I have always combined action-adventure with serious material. If you want people to read about climate change, give them a fun story. Paolo Bacigalupi does this so well. The action-adventure does nothing to take away from the serious subject matter. Instead, it helps bring the reader along. It gets them to think about issues they may not otherwise want to. I find the more light-hearted the genre the easier it is to use to explore serious subject matter. I’m currently running a Victorian science-fiction role-playing game. My players play as British diplomats-on Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Mars. The game deals with themes like colonialism, xenophobia, and jingoism. Yet, it has steam-powered computers and masked assassins driving tunneling machines. With the right medium, you can get people to examine anything. Mine is action-adventure. I ask readers to consider the future by promising someone will get shot.

TKS— The Hundred Gram Mission (2016) features intricate world building, almost space opera style, as you extrapolate from trends in geopolitics (including the likelihood of Chinese dominance of Sri Lankan spaces) as well as scientific research in nanotechnology and other forms of high tech to construct a pacy thriller about future conflicts about resources and outer space domains. What was the genesis for this hard SF novel?

NW—I suspect that today, every new science fiction writer, has one big cyberpunk/dystopian story they have to tell. Lavanya Lakshminarayan has done it. Yudhanjaya Wijeratne wrote Numbercaste. I did it with The Hundred Gram Mission. I speak only for myself but suspect our reasons were similar. In my case, it was so I could sleep at night. 

Our cyberpunk future is a ghastly one. We are already getting a good taste of that, now. Our children will think it all normal, like Dark Age peasants who know towns only as overgrown sites to take bricks from. How does anyone face this? 

I faced it in my writing. I am a hard science fiction writer. That means I write fiction where the science has to be correct. For me, that makes the difference between reading a story and thinking “well, that was nice!” And “oh dear… that could happen.” Part of the hard science fiction writer’s approach is to look to science and technology for solutions to our problems (even the ones we could choose to stop creating). As such, I wanted to write a story where science and technology could get us out of the horrendous mess that is the 21st century, before it became too terrible. Could we ‘science our way out’ and still keep the world as we know it, intact?

Nothing drives science and technology like a difficult technological goal. Often, it is killing other people who also have science and technology. Otherwise, going to space will do. 

The Hundred Gram Mission is about just that; a charmless billionaire attempts the difficult technological goal of colonizing another world, while there is so much going on on Earth that could do with his resources. Yet, the technologies developed by his program can be used to address the much bigger problems we have on earth. The book is Golden Age science-fiction optimism, meets shit-under-it’s-nails Cyberpunk. The Golden Age wins; it will, every time. Why? Because you cannot find solutions if you have a pessimistic mindset. You must always try to believe there is a way forward. Otherwise, if it exists, it will be closed off to you because you’ve pre-decided. 

We are in for century of carnage – but also wonder. As long as we are open to solutions, what wonder there is, will be ours. 

TKS— You describe your forthcoming story ‘The Diamond Library’ (in the second Gollancz Volume of South Asian SF) as a ricepunk cli-fi story. Do elaborate on the concept/definition of ricepunk (as distinct from cyberpunk) and let us know more about the intersection point with climate change fiction, with reference to your story. ‘The Diamond Library’ seems to allude to varied sources such as Borges, film noir and the film The Matrix, besides being a ripping yarn. Is the use of intertextuality and metafiction a deliberate strategy?

NW— Thank you! I would love to claim brilliance, but there’s been none. That was completely accidental. There was no deliberate decision to do this. 

One draws from many sources, consciously or not. The world and all the trappings of the Diamond Library came together in an hour or two of brainstorming. 

I am not well-read. Editors curse my grammar. My craft is clunky compared to my skillful comrades. However, I have a strange ability I can pull out at any time. Whether drunk at a party, locked in a bathroom, or on the way to work in a noisy tuktuk. That ability is that I can see an entire world in a moment. Its trappings. Its deep problems. The larger universe it finds itself in. That’s what I did in ‘the Diamond Library’. The story assumes that climate change isn’t stopped, and most of the world’s surface becomes too hot for human life. How much would that transform civilization? In the diamond library, even the very nature of civilization is changed. The library is a sequestered carbon reserve that has become a nation state. The story is an exploration of what life might be like in such a place. And yes, people get shot. I don’t break promises to my readers. 

TKS— Let us know a bit about work in progress, including forthcoming books and stories. Is hard SF/speculative fiction/rice-punk/cli-fi likely to be your preferred mode of expression? 

NW–The book I’m working on now is set in the very deep future. There is no faster than light travel or communication. How does one govern a state when it takes years for directives to reach its borders? what if takes centuries? Government becomes a farcical, blinkered act that must be made in the dark. A planner doesn’t just assume distant regions will do as they are told. A planner has to assume they still exist. 

The main character is a relic from a long dead empire. He understands it will never rise again. He must come to terms with this, and reinvent himself. His task is to live a life that is an example of his values, yet also be relevant to a world he did everything he could to prevent. It is a story about loss and coming to terms. It’s okay: many people get shot. That’s a promise. 

TKS–Have you begun to consider solarpunk as a possible model, as in the case of your recent story ‘The New Migrants’ (forthcoming in Kalicalypse), which, besides featuring sinister gene-bashers and bioengineers, explores the possibility of climate change refugees using edge-of-Space platforms to settle near the asteroid belt?

NW— I am glad I was asked to write ‘The New Migrants’. It might be my best story. It was also one I would never have otherwise written. Yudhanjaya Wijeratne and I are good friends, and at some point, your good friends will sit down with you and tell you what you’re doing wrong. When it was my turn, Yudhanjaya told me that I was intellectually conservative. Not politically conservative, that something entirely different. An intellectually conservative person has pre-decided what he wants to read and engage. In doing so, they blanket themselves to knowledge and lessons they would otherwise gain if they were not so choosy.

My preferred genre is hard science fiction. Yet, it’s when I tried different modes that I progress as a writer. There’s more to learn by working with the constraints of different modes. This happened with ‘The New Migrants’, which is Solarpunk. 

I respect and agree with the mission of Solarpunk. However, I am suspicious of it. Is it about how we can leverage our way out of hell, and into somewhere much more pleasant? Or, are these just stories we need to tell ourselves so we can sleep, even though the vampires are waiting outside the door? Aiming for the one, cannot help but attract the other. 

This is why I opted to make the ‘The New Migrants’ such a dark story. It looks at an optimistic solution that could transform civilization. A solution everyday people can come together and work towards. However, it is still very much embedded in a car crash of a world. 

TKS/AB— In the subcontinent, ghost stories about the superstitious past have had a conservative dimension, perhaps due to fear of change. Has contemporary speculative fiction, including your work, become a vehicle for making more sharply critical statements about present day dilemmas, whether in the domain of religion, ecology, gender relations or politics, eluding the traps of informal and formal censorship in the process?

NW— I think Sri Lankan writers are starting to discover that they can speak quite freely about our problems through speculative fiction.

Two years ago, Shakthika Sathkumara wrote a short story about a woman being sexually assaulted by a Buddhist monk. He was jailed for it. It is not illegal to write such material – and yet, the man was jailed. It took 2 years before he was released. 

A few years ago, I wrote a Zeelam, a zombie apocalypse story set in Sri Lanka. Zeelam examines government corruption and incompetence. In it, I argue this force is so great in our country, it cripples Sri Lanka from dealing with even clear and immediate threats. About a year later, the Easter Bombings happened. The parallels with the story were uncanny. 

Professor Rohan Samarajiva is known for saying “in Sri Lanka we have freedom of speech. You just may not have freedom after speech.” It is naïve to think anything otherwise. Speculative fiction has allowed writers across the world to slip stories past censors and still connect with the bitter and cheated zeitgeist of their nations. For all of us here in the Subcontinent, it will be no different for us. Our world is very much a car crash. People are going to get shot. Yet, our enemies cannot stop us from finding – and sharing – the wonder.

***

The Kuiper Belt Warden 

 “It is not a comet, but a ship,” said the Freshman Astronomer, grave as carved statue. “From the inner solar system. It is centuries old and badly damaged. It is coming right towards us.”

I beheld him. Freshman Astronomer Hans Baylor was not the most promising of his class. He enjoyed drink and women a bit more than being on time for lectures. His unassisted mathematics was poor. And, there had been the incident with the drinking fountain; the fuel cell; and the Provost’s gavel.  

“Cedrik, has this been corroborated?” 

The Dean of Astronomy nodded, a portly man in blue tenure robes. His brass oculus hung from his neck. The diamond optics gleamed. “I checked myself, Chancellor. Professor Felps also confirms it, from the South Garden telescope. It is not a cometary fragment as first classified, but a ship.”

“And this wreck is coming towards us? Is it going to hit the College?”

“It will be a near miss, Chancellor,” said Freshman Baylor, out of turn. I gave him a dirty look, he looked down.  

“It will pass just within two million kilometers,” said the Dean. “Too close to be a chance flyby. Not out here. It will reach us in three weeks.”

“Mr. Baylor?”

“Sir?” he looked up from his feet. 

“You may graduate an astronomer, yet.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

“But first, you will be assisting myself and Professor Klenzer.”

“Klenzer, Sir? The archeologist?”

“Yes. We’re going to catch that ship, Mr. Baylor. We’re going to bring it back for the College.”

I am Chancellor Aryabhata, and I am a telescope. 

The gravity of the Sun bends light coming from distant objects. It focuses at a point 550 astronomical units out, ten times the distance of Pluto. Centuries ago, I was sent here to capture this light. With the sun itself as my lens, I have seen forests on distant planets. I have made maps of the Universe’s dark matter. I peer inside the birthing of galaxies. 

I have also looked inwards, back into the solar system. There have been wars between it worlds, sometimes snaring most of them. Over the centuries new states have birthed, even system governments. They would ask me about the outside. Some wanted knowledge, and to learn more about the Universe. Others wanted to know what enemies were out there. More and more, they asked just this. In grander times, it was concerns about close by stars. Later, it became only about the Oort peoples.  

Sometimes there would be a golden age. They might explore, sending ships past me to reach other stars. Those ships are still travelling. When they arrive, only I may remember that they had been sent. Other times they expanded, founding colonies further and further out. Once they came even to Neptune. The Neptuners were powerful; their colony was a fortress to guard their empire.  The Oort peoples destroyed it, long ago.  None have reached for Neptune again, since. 

Every few hundred years, the Oort peoples invade. They send their comet gardens inwards, teeming with tribes. The worlds flare up with war. Each time, there are more and new Oort peoples, their weapons more powerful. The inner solar system grows dimmer and quieter. I do not know what goes on there now. 

In the middle centuries, I had little to do. I had answered the biggest questions, but had no one to share my work with. So, I founded a college.  The College was a home to scholars and educators. The scientists researched and published. The artists drew and sculpted. It was for the solar system, but after a time, all islands look inwards.  Science and art were ends in and of themselves. I made myself a body, and lived among my peers. 

 “It’s a warship,” the hull rang with Professor Klenzer steps. Her white space suit walked carefully through the underbrush of torn and twisted deck plating.  “It was fleeing.”

I bent down, my gloves tracing a cut. The seam glittered with jagged diamond. “This was a Neptuner ship. It must been destroyed in the last invasion.”

“Amazing. We have to get inside.”

“What for? Can’t it wait till we get back to the College?”

“There might be survivors. They were hardy.”

I stared at her. “Hardy?”

“If the ship survived, then so could they.”

“It’s been three hundred years.”

She shook her head. “Let’s go inside.”

We found him, the one and only crewman. His body was frozen in his seat. His eyes wide open.

“He doesn’t seem to have any injuries,” Klenzer passed a Geiger counter across the body. “We best keep him frozen till we get him back to the College.”

I followed his line of frozen sight. 

“What do you think he was looking at?”

“Hope.”

We returned a week later, in time for the Presentation Festival. 

The Festival was a full week of scholars and artists sharing their work in the park.  Red sweets fried on griddles. Drinks cooled on slabs of water ice. The streets were packed with chatter, performers, and applause. 

“Where am I?”

The Neptuner sat up. His skin was light blue, but this was its normal tone. He wore a dark uniform studded with metal fixtures. 

“You are safe,” said a dark haired woman with a warm smile. “You are at the College. Do you know where that is?”

“The College,” his accent was clear but strange. “So it does exist. We’ve heard rumors and stories.”

She laughed. “Yes, we’re quite real. I’m Professor Sara Klenzer. I’m an archeologist.”

“Jerem of Triton, Warden,” he saluted. “I was of Neptune Gate. I fought for six years after it fell. It was hopeless, I had no safe harbor. There was nowhere to go. At my last, I thought to try the Aryabhata station.”

“No one has used that name in a very long time.”

“How long?” his face looked pained. “How long have I been traveling?”

“I’m sorry, Jerem of Triton. We found you frozen; your ship was a wreck. It has been three centuries since you departed.”

His eyes became wide. 

“What of my people? Do you know?”

“The Neptuners?” 

“No, the Empire. Have our emissaries reached here?”

“The inner solar system is silent. You are the first contact we’ve had with them, since the last invasion.”

He said nothing for a few moments. Then he laughed suddenly, a quick, snorted laugh.

“It’s funny,” he laughed again. “You think Neptune is the inner solar system. It must all be inner to you, living out here.”

 Klenzer put her hand on his arm. He gently pushed it away.

“I brought you some food,” she stepped to a tray and removed the cover. His eyes lit up. “It’s all a bit bland, sorry. We didn’t want to overtax your system.”

He took the tray and ate like a starving animal. Klenzer watched him for a few moments, then looked away. She tried watching again, but couldn’t. 

“You should eat and get some rest. I’ll be in the next room. If you need anything, just ask.” 

He didn’t look up, and kept on eating.  She looked over her shoulder, then stepped out and shut the door. 

I watched him through the cameras. He ate as much as he could, easily enough for three people. Then, he removed his pillowcase, and stuffed the remaining food in. 

Then, he began looking around the examination room, opening drawers and panels. Finally he lifted up his mattress, and twisted a metal bar off the frame. He strapped it on his back, like a sword. Then he pulled off the mattress and wedged the frame against the door. 

Finally, he studied the mattress, his hands sinking into it. He pushed it aside and curled up on the cold metal floor. He hugged his pillowcase of food, and immediately fell asleep. 

“What is he doing?” Klenzer kept shaking her head. Her arms were folded. “What’s wrong with him?” 

“He’s from a darker time. Be careful when he wakes up.” 

“Ladies and gentlemen, black holes are not permanent structures,” said Feyzel, the red haired Associate Professor from the Department of Physics.  “They bleed energy into space in the form of radiation. The old Earth astronomer Hawking first noted this, just a few centuries after the telescope.  Starve a black hole long enough and it will evaporate completely.”

The silent crowd leaned forward, rapt. Astrophysics followers were like that. Just say “double planet” or “gamma ray burster” and they’ll stop and listen to you, for hours. The stone seats of the amphitheater didn’t deter them, though veterans brought cushions. It was a classical design, taken from one outside a place named Athens. Iron Age scholars taught there, using only the acoustics of curved stone as their aid. 

“Put simply, the larger the black hole, the longer it will evaporate and the greater the wavelength it emits. The largest ones give out long radio waves, thousand of kilometers in wavelength. The smallest ones will die in seconds, blasting hard gamma rays.”

Two rows down from me, Jerem sat up straight. Professor Klenzer sat beside him. He was her burden to manage as far as I was concerned.  He tapped his temple, which (I learned) was how his optics started recording. He was recording everything he saw. It didn’t seem to me, the interest of a tourist. 

“There are all kinds of uses for an evaporating black hole. One would be the quick accelerating of light-sailing vessels out of the solar system. We’ve been working on this problem, and lately we’ve had some success.”

Above Professor Feyzel, a spinning globe of light appeared. It spun faster and faster, and shrank to a point suddenly. Then it flared, so bright that some flinched. 

“This was taken at the High Energy Physics Lab. You are looking at Apollo, named after the ancient sun god. Apollo is a subatomic black hole we created.”The crowd murmured and gasped. The researcher paused to smile and read their faces. “This progress was quite recent, just two weeks ago. We thought it best to confirm our findings and wait till the Festival to present. Apollo’s event horizon,” he tapped at the hologram, “Is just one attometer. Even smaller than a quark. Yet, it masses half a million tons – the bulk of a fully loaded ore freighter.  It is emitting 160 petawatts and will last for four years. We hope to test Apollo with a specially designed, solar sail next quarter. Apollo should accelerate it to a tenth the speed of light, in just twenty days.”

More gasps from the audience. Someone started clapping. Soon, everyone else joined. Feyzel smiled and bowed. It was, I thought, well earned-praise. 

“Will you use it as a weapon?”

Feyzel’s smiled disappeared. Everyone looked at the audience member who had stood up. 

“I said, will you use it as a weapon?” asked Jerem. “To destroy the Oort invaders?”

Feyzel’s jaw dropped. People gasped. 

“Apollo is not a weapon, it is an experimental power source!” the physicist turned red. 

“160 petawatts is almost what the Earth receives from the Sun. That power for four years, could bleach whole worlds,” Klenzer tried to pull him down but he would not budge. “It has been three centuries. Another horde will be coming now, from the Oort cloud. With Apollo you can stop them.”

“Jerem of Triton,” I got to my feet. “I admire your tireless spirit and purpose against the eternal foe of your people, and many others,” I said carefully. “But this is not the venue for such discussion, nor is Professor Feyzel obliged to put his work towards a military purpose. I urge you not to speak of this here.”

He raised an eyebrow at me. “He is not obliged? These barbarians are coming again, and by your own observations there are none who can stop them. Yet, you talk of obligation?” his smile was of many things, and not one was humor. 

“This is not the place,” I persisted. 

“This is exactly the place. You create truly wondrous weapons, but treat them as carnival fare. You do this because you are safe, too far from the worlds to feel the ripples. Chancellor, you have a responsibility. All your people do, as well.” 

“For what?” some fool asked. 

“To practice civilization, you must protect it elsewhere.”

Some people booed him.

“My people struggle against a Dark Age, unable to defend themselves. You have the power to protect them. A great disaster is coming. Whether you prevent or allow it, you are responsible for what happens.”

More booing. 

“You do not truly think that you live apart from us. You transmit to the worlds though no one listens. You teach your children about our great, shared, past. You do not want this place to be a fortress, but you must accept that it is not an ivory tower.  You cannot sit by. You cannot live only for yourselves. If you do, then what value is your own civilization?”

The booing died down. 

“You cannot escape this. Your power has made you responsible. All that matters is what you do with it.” With that, he turned and left the amphitheater. 

The Neptuner stepped echoing through the hall. 

Flanking him like an honor guard were replica diorite statues. They had the bodies of men and the heads of extinct beasts. He touched a glass case, his breath fogging the surface. Dissected inside was a Martian hauler’s engine, dating back to the Ice Rush. He looked up at a shattered brick mural. In crushed gem pigments, Europan fisherman cast their nets and prayed to Jupiter.

“Hello?”

He turned suddenly. 

“Professor Klenzer! I’m sorry I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“That’s alright,” Klenzer raised her lighted headband and put down her brush. She sat at a work table beside an open glass case. Before her were strips of stained linen. “I lose myself in my work sometimes.”

“What is this place? They said I could find you here.”

She smiled. “It’s a museum. My museum, I suppose. It’s where I do most of my work. These are art treasures from the inner system, mostly Earth.”

“You brought them here?”

“Most are replicas, but some have trickled this way over time. Gifts from universities at their cultures’ apex. Barter from comet merchants on thousand year trading routes.  Salvage and trash. I would have put you here in a glass case, if you hadn’t revived.”

He laughed. “You sound disappointed.”

“Only the collector in me. You are living history, Jerem. You are more valuable to me than every other exhibit in this hall.”

He seemed taken aback.  

“Why – thank you, Professor. That’s very kind of you. I – I came here to apologize.”

“Apologize? Jerem, what for?”

“I embarrassed you at the amphitheater. You have lost face with your colleagues because of me.”

“You did nothing of the sort. I do not care for any who would think less of me, because of the passion with which you spoke. Please,” she touched his arm. “Don’t feel any shame. You are a soldier. It is how you think. There is no shame in what you do.”

He nodded, but seemed to give in more than to agree.  He looked down at linen strips on the table. They were dense with runes. 

“What is that?”

“Something I’m trying to preserve. It’s called the Liber Linteus, a book made by a pre-Spaceflight people called the Etruscans. No one ever deciphered it, though it seems to be a ritual calendar.”

He bent down and peered. 

“It is a replica?”

“No. This is real, Jerem.”

His eyes became wide and his mouth parted. 

“From Earth!” 

She studied him. “I thought you would find that less remarkable, coming from the inner system.”

“I was born on Triton. But for Neptune, I have never seen another world. We had no relics of Earth.” His eyes never left the linen strips. “It’s incredible.”

Slowly, he got down on his knees. His hands came together, and he looked down. He muttered to himself quietly. 

“Jerem of Triton,” I called out. They turned their heads and saw me. 

“Chancellor,” he got to his feet. 

“I have spoken with the Dean of Engineering. She says your ship, the Patrician, is now repaired. You can leave now.” 

Emotions competed. “Thank you,” he said finally. He walked past me, and out of the museum.

“Professor Klenzer, are you alright?”

“Yes, yes, I’m fine,” she wiped a tear. “Must be the preservative.”

“You have feelings for Jerem?”

“No. It’s a just a shame for him to go.”

“He cannot stay, Klenzer. You know this.”

“Yes,” she carefully lifted the linen book back into its case. 

“I have not been here in a while,” I looked about. “You’ve made quite a few additions.”

“Just some art pieces,” She got up and went to a fig-leafed statue. “There’s so much I could put here. I think their art captures our ancestors best.”

“Not their weapons?”

“Their weapons need no museums. This, this is how we should remember them.” She ran her fingers along the statue’s outstretched arm. “They knew such beauty. It would be nice to see the originals, those that still survive.” She would not look at me.  She could only blame the preservatives, so far. 

“I will take my leave. I have a question, first. What was it that he was doing? On his knees? I have never seen that done.”

“No one here does it. He was praying.”  

The court of the Over Tyrant, Trajik the Golden.

Men with knotted beards and shaved heads, sat on garish silk cushions, cheering. Concubines wearing only gems and leashes fed them grilled meat and wriggling worms. Sitars, drums, and flutes filled the air. Acrobats sprouting colored insect wings danced beneath the vaulted dome.  Through it, I could see the tiny dot that was the Sun.  

“You should drink more, Chancellor.” Trajik the Golden’s arm was like a tree trunk around my shoulder. “Drink and eat! You are so thin from all your scribe’s work!” 

He laughed and his lieutenants laughed with him. It wasn’t sycophancy: anything is funny to the drunk.  I beheld Trajik. He was large, even for an Oorter. He wore a bright sarong festooned with charms of gems and bone. Tattoos curled up his arms, colors changing with his mood.  Crude implant sockets were bored into his forehead and neck. They were edged in pure gold. 

“Your visit does my court great honor. The first Oort lord to receive the Great Sage!”

He was the third, but I did not seek to correct him. 

“I thank you for your hospitality, Golden One. News of your greatness precedes you. I had to come and see your fleet for myself.”

He grinned and stood, tumbling a four-armed girl from his lap. He gestured towards the stars beyond the diamond dome.  

“Ten thousand comets, the greatest horde ever assembled. In the last war, Not even Shakval the Black mustered so many. Many of the chiefs are of his bloodlines, but they bow to me. Look around you,” he took in the banquet hall. “These are the greatest lords Humankind has ever known.”

Someone farted loudly. 

“The inner system has still not recovered from Shakval’s blow,” I turned to face him. “What will do you when you get there?”

“What we always do. We will take metal.”

“Metal is what you want, most of all?”

“This is the Oort cloud, Great Sage. Man cannot live on ice alone. Iron, Lead, Tin. They have so much of these precious metals, they let them rot in the air. Out here is Humankind’s future, not those dead inner worlds. If we would live, we need what they have.”

“They cannot keep you out, Golden One. So what if you trade with them? Ices, for metal?”

“Trade?” he laughed. “Trade? Why should be trade when can take everything?” he licked his lips. “We will take their metal. Their wonders. Their people. Those we spare, we will put to mines. Anything and anyone we do not want, we will destroy.”

A white, grilled, caterpillar the size of a dog was brought forth on a platter. His eyes lit up. 

“Enough talk,” he drew a diamond dagger. “This is a delicacy of my clan. Let us eat it together!”

 

In the skies over Neptune, a flock of comets appeared. 

“Wake him,” the blue-skinned tech stood before the guards, panting. They glared at him through golden helmets, boarding halberds at their sides. Their armor was as aged as statues. They made no movement, and asked what the tech thought his business was.  

The tech’s eyes became slits. “The barbarians have come, you fool. Wake the First Warden, now.” 

 

Battle group Patrician left on its last flight. Its core was a warship over three centuries old. Supporting the Patrician were twelve patrol craft, mostly converted gas miners. They were all that was left of the largest empire Humanity had ever known. 

“First Warden,” a blue-skinned officer turned in his chair. “We have the enemy flotilla in weapons range. Shall we begin?”

On the command throne, an old man slowly got to his feet. He held the edge of the throne to steady himself. 

“First, send this message. ‘Oorter fleet, we are the Imperial Wardens. Cease your approach and return whence you came. I will not ask you again. I am Jerem Lasker, and I fought and killed your ancestors. Come closer, and I will show you how.’” 

The officer nodded, and turned back to his instruments. Just a handful of crew, they looked up at the screen displaying a hundred approaching vessels. 

“First Warden, they are requesting two-way communication!”

The First Warden raised a white eyebrow. “On screen.”

The display changed.  

“This is Professor-Captain Klenzer of the Inspiration, in command of a College humanitarian fleet. Jerem Lasker, it is a delight to hear from you again.”

“Klenzer?” his eyes were wide. “You have not aged! It is good to see you, friend. When did the College build a fleet? Do you have news of the invasion?”

“The Oort fleet is defeated. They will not journey inwards again, except in peace and trade.”

On the deck of the Patrician, cheering broke out. Someone started crying.

“The College has sent me to deliver aid and supplies to the inner worlds,” she continued. “Will you join me Jerem? Will you come with me to Earth?”

The old man got down on his knees, put his hands together, and bowed his head. 

*******

Neil deGrasse Tyson and Dan Abnett had a baby, and that ugly baby is Navin Weeraratne. He writes action adventure and military science fiction with a very strong dose of hard and cutting-edge science. If you read his writing and you haven’t learned some new science, you are either an astrophysicist, or he has failed you. He also looks at big picture transhumanism, and what it’s going to be like living in a world with beings far cleverer – and more dangerous – than Homo sapiens have ever been. Navin lives in Colombo with his wife and some very spoilt cats. For updates and information on his new books, you can subscribe to his newsletter, https://www. scifinavin.com/newsletter/. 

Also read in The Beacon:
Dialogues with South Asian SF Writers-1: Bina Shah
Dialogues with South Asian SF Writers-2: Anil Menon
Dialogues with South Asian SF Writers-3: M.G.Vassanji