Dark Night of the Soul

Chapter 19

The four alien men search every corner of Seamus's cottage, tearing down curtains and knocking down shelves. After a fruitless search they reconvene in the cramped, low-ceilinged kitchen, the tallest one bending his head to fit.

They sit down. The tallest man explodes into a rage. 'What would they think of you in Arinam? You incompetent fools. To think I was given three such useless specimens for this important task.'

The other three hang their heads and look at their hands. The tall man pulls a dog-eared book from an inner pocket. 'I think you three need reminding of our mission and how important it is that we succeed,' he screams. He turns to the first page and begins to read in a clear, cold voice.

In the beginning, there was purity, peace and order. Arinam thrived and all was well.

Arinamists worked hard and slept well. There was no crime.

Peace reigned for blissful millennia. Until the day of the capsule, when civilisation came crashing down.

All ages of our species thrived in harmony until our esteemed scientists deciphered the code of the invaders' Voyager Golden Disc.

So-called 'music' poisoned Arinam. Noises created by Beethoven, Chuck Berry, Blind Willie Johnson meant our children served only themselves, not our community. The noises of Bach were the most powerful of all.

By the work of our esteemed scientists we understand the true purpose of the invaders' action. To corrupt the youth of Arinam and destabilise our society. We must avenge their actions.

For every corrupted child on Arinam we will destroy a child from the invaders' planet. We have scanned the brains of all of our children and catalogued how many have suffered irreversible damage.

'An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth' is the motto that the invaders live by. Their destruction will be our salvation and we will once again live in peace.

Thirteen years ago our esteemed scientists created music to control the invaders' children. This they called 'In The Night Garden Theme'. With this, we can control the children and ultimately lead them to their death.

The invader species, 'human', is weak and motivated only by material things. Three humans can be used to achieve our final solution: Seamus Finnegan, Anna Walker and Dave Joyce.

The time for action is now.

'Do I need to remind you of some words from our glorious leader?' the tall man continues, sternly. Flicking through his book he stops, straightens himself, and continues reading,his bony index finger tracing the text as he speaks.

We are advocates of the abolition of war, we do not want war; but war can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun.

History shows that wars are divided into two kinds, just and unjust. All wars that are progressive are just, and all wars that impede progress are unjust. We Aranamists oppose all unjust wars that impede progress, but we do not oppose progressive, just wars. Not only do we Aranamists not oppose just wars, we actively participate in them.

If anyone attacks us and if the conditions are favourable for battle, we will certainly act in self-defence to wipe him out resolutely, thoroughly, wholly and completely (we do not strike rashly, but when we do strike, we must win). We must never be cowed by the bluster of the invaders.

Wherever there is struggle there is sacrifice, and death is a common occurrence. But we have the interests of our species and the sufferings of the great majority at heart, and when we die for Arinamists, it is a worthy death. Nevertheless, we should do our best to avoid unnecessary sacrifices.

Our duty is to hold ourselves responsible to Arinamists. Every word, every act and every policy must conform to the Arinam's interests, and if mistakes occur, they must be corrected - that is what being responsible to Arinamists means. Arinamists, and Arinamists alone, are the motive force in the making of planetary history.

Arinam's army has always had two policies. First, we must be ruthless to our enemies, we must overpower and annihilate them. Second, we must be kind to our comrades and to our superiors and subordinates, and unite with them.

A war is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A war is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one species overthrows another.

Every Aranamist must grasp the truth, "Interplanetary power grows out of the barrel of a gun."

He closes the book, puts it back into his pocket and fixes the three shorter aliens with his piercing blue eyes. 'I want YOU to report back to Arinam of what you have done. Any one of you.' He throws what looks like a pager at them.

'Yes sir,' they reply as the device hits them and falls to the floor, skittering across the hearth. Crawling over the stone floor the palest alien takes a deep breath and, with tremulous fingers, flicks a switch to extend the antenna.

'Tell me what you're writing as you enter the code,' bellows the tall alien. 'I want to make sure that you give an accurate report.'

With a series of rapid taps followed by a two second pause... 'Exalted leader. Stop.' He continues.. 'Day three. Stop. Five more children dead. Stop. Success. Stop. Errors. Stop. One of human helpers missing. Stop. Will fix. Stop.'

The tallest alien nods, 'We need to find Seamus. He has to be stopped. For that, we need Anna and Dave.' He digs deep into his pocket, retrieves his phone and starts tapping into the keypad. 'OK then.'