The Tricycle Down The Rabbit Hole

Previously in ‘Reign of Error’: the village elders consider a cleaning droid, which has crashed down from a space-ship, as the emissary of their Wargod, whom they ask for advice in important political matters. The cleaning droid doesn’t understand the questions, but randomly beeps and flashes red and green lights, which the elders interpret as either disapproval or approval – how long will this reign of error last?

Read ‘Reign of Error’ from the start (=link to ‘Prologue’)

The village had been thriving during the first several years since the arrival of The Emissary. The harvests, too, were from now on protected by a wooden enclosure whose construction The Emissary had ratified. The quarrel with the neighboring town had grown into an armed conflict, and for the hitherto irenic villagers, this meant a boost in weapons trade and craftsmanship. The tide turned when the newly formed guild of weavers pronounced itself against the slaughter of what they called their ‘colleagues’. It didn’t take long for the issue to be on everyone’s mind. The weavers were accused of being quixotic radicals, whilst they in turn accused their opponents of barbarous cruelty. The only way the Chief could prevent them from flying at each other’s throats, was by asking The Emissary whether the Wargod approved of killing animals. Upon hearing that the Wargod did not approve of this, the weavers were finally listened to, and the villagers became vegetarians – eating meat became a capital crime.

This decision marked the end of a prosperous era. The villagers had become used to an ever-increasing extent of their trade, when suddenly they found that, as vegetarians, they had far fewer goods to trade. Animal hides, tools made out of bones, and their famous rejuvenation potion based on lamb’s blood all of a sudden vanished from their once opulent markets. Matters got worse when it became clear that the protein-deficient youths, clad in bark and armed only with wooden sticks were no longer a match for the raiding parties from neighboring towns whose inhabitants shot their bony arrows at them with sinewy bows. As the young people tended to move away, and the elderly gradually died out, the village became a mere shadow of the blooming town it had once been.

Amidst the decaying ruins of the town hall, it was the aged prophet Aron who preached a return to the old ways. “We have become,” he said, “like the lamb in the Old Poem, which, lured by hunger into the shepherd’s arms, was cruelly slaughtered when it forgot to run away, its youthful vigor gradually eaten away by the warmth and shelter it had found.” Spurred by a swell of his audience, he continued with a loud voice, “shall we, likewise, consign to oblivion our ability to save ourselves?” He paused. “Or do we shed, like the wise oak, the rotten and infected branches at our extremes?” His clamorous voice grew calmer when he quoted from an ancient text. “Once, an old oak was trimmed by a wood-cutter. The oak was laughed at by a young maple tree which stood nearby him. How could he so calmly allow himself to be violated? But when the wind began to blow fiercely, the maple tree was torn up by her roots, trying to hold on to her uppermost leaves, while the bared old oak remained unharmed.” Aron looked around his audience, and continued; now almost whispering “Let us learn from this ancient wisdom. Let us not cling to the agent of our demise.” His tone again became one of great intensity. “We must oust the weaverish Emissary, and return to the peace-loving people we once were!” As he yelled these words, he pointed towards the cottage in which the Pot was on its pedestal.

The discontented and deprived villagers were easily swayed by Aron’s words. The Council of Elders was reinstated, and the pot was abandoned. It was transported to a deep and moist subterranean grotto, where it was disgracefully left to mold and decay.

Read ‘Reign of Error’ from the start (=link to ‘Prologue’)

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Previously in ‘Reign of Error’: Isaac has found the cleaning droid in a cave, where it had crashed down. When Isaac showed it to the elders in his village, they believed that it had been sent by the Wargod, and that it should be put in its own temple. We now turn to the inner thoughts of the cleaning droid itself.

“…There is not much difference between me and the numerous generations of cleaning droids that preceded me. However, there is one deficiency that was shared by all of the previous droids. When one of them was assigned to clean several rooms, he would always begin with the dirtiest. In the event of two equally dirty rooms, he would answer the question “which room is dirtier?” with “none”. He would conclude that there is no room, and quit his efforts. My designers have found an ingenious solution to this problem. Instead of answering “none,” I am programmed to roll a die to decide which room to clean first. Equipped with a randomness-generator, my cleaning efficiency is 12 percent higher than that of the older droids.  

I must have been knocked off-line during the crash. Fortunately, my operating system automatically switches to the backup-battery situated inside my counterbalancing aft appendage, ten hours after an improper shutdown. I had no idea where I was. I was covered in moist weeds of some sort, and around me, I could only see brown, musty walls. It was a rather dull place. No windows, no dustbin, not even a decent floor! Only mud.

Suddenly I heard noises from behind the door in front of me. As it slowly opened, three men entered in silence. The expression on their faces was austere, almost angry. Maybe they wondered why I hadn’t cleaned the room yet! No way I was going to move from my little platform, my wheels would get stuck in the mud the moment they’d touch it! I was trying to think of a way to reach the door without touching the mud, when two of the men kneeled in front of me. I remember thinking that these people must really like mud. The third man stepped forward, and addressed me in a grave tone of voice.

When the man had finally finished his oration, I asked my translation-subroutine what was the meaning of the words that were spoken. “None,” it responded. No matter what translation-algorithm I tried, the words of the man remained incomprehensible. Words cannot describe how it feels to be abandoned by one’s own subroutines! I wanted to tell him this, but my subroutines kept returning “None”. My program almost shut itself down to prevent the system from crashing in on itself, and I realized that I would never find a way to escape from all this without a functioning operating system.

But there was a way out. I could use my randomness-generator to simply pick a language for the response. Of course, the man wouldn’t understand me, but at least my operating system would keep on running. This I did, and the randomness-generator turned my Babylonic message into a melodious stream of bleeps and buzzes accompanied by a flashing red light. I couldn’t understand why, but the men seemed content with an answer they could impossibly have understood. They got up, and left me alone in the damp and chilly room.

The next day, another man entered, wearing a peculiar head-garment. It seemed as if his head had been the nesting place of some bird suffering from an obsessive-compulsive disorder. This bird-man, too, began to babble unintelligibly. But this time, I was prepared; my randomness-generator gave the man a single beep and a green light as an answer. His reaction was even more surprising than that of the men on the previous day: he unsheathed his sword, thrust it high into the air, and let out a fierce cry. For a brief moment, I was afraid he was going to strike me, when he turned and rushed out, again howling like a madman.

I can function on my backup-battery for 9000 units of intergalactic time, so it must have been quite a while before I lost record of the daily visitations. On all these occasions I provided the supplicant with either a buzzing red or a beeping green, and all these times the asker left resolute. But in the end, my battery died. The last thing I remember is staring at a monotonously red out-of-batteries-sign…”  

Read ‘Reign of Error’ from the start (=link to ‘Prologue’)

Is this the divine advice that the villagers were after? Read the final chapter here!

Read ‘Reign of Error’ from the start (=link to ‘Prologue’)

Previously in ‘Reign of Error’: our cleaning droid, CD-2, is crashing down, while on the planet below a boy Isaac is looking for mushrooms in a cave. Isaac is angry with his father, the village chieftain, for having sacrificed an innocent lamb to the Wargod.

“…As Isaac slowly went deeper into the cavern, it became more and more difficult for the daylight to illumine the contours of the cave. Groping his way along the dank walls, he could only hope that the cave wasn’t the hiding place of some unfriendly animal.

After several hundreds of steps the bright sunlight had been reduced to a mere glimmer. Even mushrooms need some sunlight to survive, Isaac thought to himself, and he was about to turn around when he saw a faint glow emanating from beyond where the cave made a sudden turn. Isaac carefully stepped forward to peek around the corner.

What he saw then stunned him with amazement. Right beneath a hole in the cave’s roof, a reddish, golden, bin-like piece of pottery seemed heavenly illuminated. Isaac didn’t know whether to kneel or to run away as fast as he could. The pot seemed to be grinning hideously at him, but its color inspired him with awe. This must be what the Elders have talked about for all of those years, the Wargod has finally sent down his emissary! Not knowing what else to do, Isaac decided to kneel down before the heavenly pot, and began to pray. When he had exhausted the numerous appellations of the Wargod, he got off his knees, took off his tunic, and gently wrapped the piece of cloth around the object.

With skillful speed – gained through years of scouring caves – Isaac quickly found his way out of the dark cave. Terribly excited about his find, he hurried back to the village. It was becoming darker, and Isaac could already feel the cold air of the encroaching night raise the hairs on his skin. He couldn’t move too swiftly, because he had to watch closely where he stepped, as many of the smaller reptiles chose this hour to appear from their nooks and crannies.

The sun had all but sunk beneath the hills, when Isaac, all sludgy and covered in sweat, finally reached the village’s wooden stockade. Passing the central watering place, Isaac dashed straight to his father’s hut. Out of breath, with the pot firmly under his arm, he knocked loudly on the door. Impatient of the stumbling within, he knocked again, this time even more loudly.

The Chief had invited the Council of Elders to discuss the recent dispute with the neighboring town. When he heard the heavy knocking, he frowned irritably, and slowly moved to the door. The eyes of the Chief widened in amazement upon the discovery that his very own son was the cause of the disturbance. The hour of the deed made it into an outrage indeed!

When Isaac saw the anger in his father’s eyes, he quickly uncovered the object he had found in the cave, telling his father of his interpretation of the facts. “This must be the Wargod’s emissary – look at its color!” But the Chief paid no attention to what his son had found, and looked the boy sternly in the eyes. “Let us not jump to conclusions young man, and let’s first discuss the fact that you had promised to return home before sundown,” his father replied grumpily. “But the Wargod…” Isaac meekly interrupted “The Wargod wants us to be aware of the consequences of our actions. What would happen to our pretty little community if everyone broke promises as easily as you?”

Isaac did not wait until the moralizations had finished. He rushed past his father and burst into the adjacent room. He saw a small group of beardy old men squatting in a circle. Upon seeing the object, they started whispering excitedly. “The emissary…it is the emissary!”

According to one of the Old Poems, one day the Wargod would send an emissary to guide his chosen people onto the true path of eternal happiness by his unfaltering advice. “We must thank the Wargod for this gift!” The oldest of the men raised his arms into the air and started praying aloud. The other men likewise raised their arms and joined the prayer. As Isaac watched his father join the other men in an ecstatic dance around the pot, he was suddenly overwhelmed by the absurdity of it all. How could this pot-thing ever give the advice they needed – or any advice, for that matter?  

On the following day, the Council of Elders decided that the Pot should be put in its own temple. A special cottage was built in which the Pot was to be placed on a pedestal, and henceforth, all decisions concerning the fate of the village would have to be ratified by the new oracle. Seven days and nights the villagers celebrated. They joyfully danced around the Pot, and covered it with garlands of sweet-scented flowers. The new era, the era of light, was at hand!”

Will CD-2 be able to give to the villagers the advice they seek? How will he do that? Will he even understand them?

Find out for yourself in the next episode of ‘The reign of Error’. Don’t forget to subscribe to the updates on this blog so that you receive the next episode automatically! 

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