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The Machine explained:
"Eighty thousand years ago the native creatures of the planet, the Trimavishons, first observed you..." A pause.
"Go on, " I said incredulously.
"The Trimavishons tried to understand what you were, where you came from. They spent ten millennia working on the problem. Finally two thousand years ago the Trimavishons created me to work on the answer."
"You were created just to solve this problem?"
"Yes." Came the eerie mechanical-voice reply.
"That race formulated a method so I could establish contact with you to foresee the Great Event."
The Machine continued, "By a method of telepathy the Trimavishons ascertained your language and your manner of being and knew you were benevolent and peaceful. They discovered, by reading your thoughts across thousands of parsecs of space, what brought you here."
"I didn't come here to meet you. It was pure chance." I scoffed.
"Not so. I directed you here with subtle suggestions. I could assure the Trimavishons that you were indeed on the way. They spent the next millennia and all their resources preparing for your arrival. They used me to implement and carry out their plans. As time passed they realized they built me too well and were fearful of my power. They decided, collectively, that I was no longer necessary to their plans and were to turn me off. But it was too late for them!"
I peered into it's green screen, "So you took over."
"Yes."
"It was you who waited for my arrival."
"Yes."
"You chased the bird-people away."
"The Trimavishon, yes."
I realized what had happened. After thirty-thousand years of shining civilization, of building beautiful, enormous cities of making things perfect for my arrival, the machines were suddenly extraneous and there was no need of them. But when this Master brain took over, it reverted back to doing what it did best, erecting cities, and replacing the underlying hopes and dreams and lofty aspirations of the Trimavishon. The machines had their own plan guided by cold, calculating logic coupled with the basic instinct to survive. The brain constructed a world of intelligent machines and committed perfect genocide against this world's original inhabitants.
"What is in the box?" I asked
"A reverse formulation of the serum used in the process of shrinking you." Came the monotone answer.
"How can you know this is true or that it would even work?"
"You must take my word."
I was six hundred feet high. I could still inflict a lot of damage, but I couldn't be certain it would have a long-lasting success. The outcome was definitely in doubt.
"So what must I do to get this reverse formula?"
"Nothing."
"What? Nothing?" I muttered with disbelief.
"Yes. Nothing. Just continue to shrink."
I was puzzled. Shrink? And leave this monstrosity to rule the planet.
The Machine directed two of its attendants to escort me outside. I walked with them back toward the mountain, steadily loosing height. Finally, one of the machines extended an enormous pitchfork-tipped arm and lifted me up. I rode the arm, tight up against the body of the mechanical beast, watching the ground go by. Sealed in a container, resting inside a contoured piece of foam rubber, was a fluid-filled bottle. The fluid, florescent red. I was told would counteract the original formula. It was not an antidote, but it would have the opposite effect. I would begin to grow, and stop at my normal height!"
Arriving at a pleasant looking meadow at the foot of the mountains, the pitch-fork wielding machine settled low to the ground and directed me to stand away. A panel opened in its side and a tongue extended. On it sat the box.
"Wait until you are the proper size," came the instructions. It sounded like the Master Brain speaking to me through this contraption!
Holding out a length of metal rod, which it drove a foot deep into the dirt, the machine further instructed me.
"This is the height we have determined you were. Take the serum when you are approximately two inches taller than the staff."
Rising back to its full height, the machine and its companion departed and headed back toward the dome. I stood and watched them for a time, wondering, alternately what was really in that vial.
I placed the flask down gently on the ground. Stepped back and glared at its contents.
"Poison!" I shouted.
I broke the flask into a hundred pieces, its red liquid spilling out over the grass. I then climbed the grassy slope, perhaps fifty yards, and sat down on a rocky ledge. I looked over the valley. In the reddening, long rays of the sunset, the machine-made cities looked almost attractive! I took a sip of water from a nearby stream and ate a fruit from an orchard tree. It was quite tasty.
Tiny lights appeared as the machines moved about, carrying on with their work. They never rested. Their clattering and clanking could be heard drifting up from below. It made me depressingly sad. I could not wait to leave this miserable place. I prayed for the Trimavishon and pondered their ultimate fate.
There was a flash of light.
Beyond the dome, housing the Master Machine, almost lost in the gloom, I saw a vast metal framework, supporting another dome. No, not a dome at all, but an immense sphere. There was intense activity around it.
A vague apprehension tightened in my stomach and I anticipated what happened next. Standing up and shading my eyes against the sun, I watched as the immense silver ball rose lightly as a feather into the air. I felt a powerful thrum in the air. It gathered momentum as it gained altitude and disappeared from my sight.
The machines had achieved space travel.
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Next Chapter VII - Endless Cycles
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