Sci - Fi Short Stories

Work To Do

The strange man grabbed Catalina’s small hand, and led her to the table, and made a gesture for her to sit. A bit numb, she obeyed; curiosity was bigger than her grief at that point.

“Have you ever wondered, my Princess, why did the Moors have such ingenious tools and instruments and your people don’t?”

“Knowledge acquired by unholy means.” She replied the trained answer her mother had taught her.

“Ah, you Spanish Infanta…” he shook his head. “Well, it is a knowledge acquired by a different mean. But why do you call it unholy?”

“It wasn’t sent by God.”

“Says who?”

She thought for a while. “Well, it cannot have been.” Catalina finally replied. “If He was to give any kind of knowledge to someone it would be to us, who worship Him, who are His true children. To my mother, His most devoted daughter, who did His work on Earth and who had the ear of God…”

“Catalina, your mother is dead.” He interrupted her. “Dead by the hands of the Moors. Where was your God then, when she was begging for mercy? Where is your God now?”

Catalina’s bottom lip trembled, and the tears started to pour from her sapphire-colored eyes. The man sighed.

“I know it is hard but I must ask you one thing: Forget all you know about God.”

“My mother…”

“Your mother was a great woman, I do not deny that. She was a great general. We all know she won battles, she built a city out of stones, her name will be forever remembered by her great achievements. But she was wrong.”

Catalina tried to protest, but then the man continued to talk.

“There are things your mother could not understand, Infanta, because she was blinded by her faith. Those things made our people stronger and enabled us to defeat your kingdom.”

“What is it, then?”

He sighed. “Our means are not unholy. They are merely different. We have embraced knowledge and fed our hunger for it, that is why we have been gifted.”

“Gifted, you say? By whom? The devil?”

He laughed. “Oh, no... Forget all about this. I will show you something, Infanta. Something that will change your life forever.”

Catalina could barely breath; “What is it?”

“The Truth.”

The man carefully placed his hand on the Infanta’s forehead, in an attempt of a kind move. He pointed at a strange object placed in the corner of the room.  It looked like a black table without its legs, made of some strange material Catalina had never seen before. It was placed to face them, with its weird dark-mirrored surface staring directly at the Infanta.

“You will see it right before your eyes.”

“What kind of witchcraft object is this?”

“We call it television, and don’t ask what it is for, you will see”

He pressed a small circle on the top of the object, and for Catalina’s surprise, she saw an image appearing on its surface. She would have screamed in shock if it wasn’t by the comforting touch of the boy’s hands, and his calm smile in her direction.

“This holds a message sent by very special beings.”

“By whom?”

“By the ones who watch us from across the skies?”