The inhabitants called it a city. A few millenia into the future and it would barely be called a town. But it was as large as towns got in the area and so it was called a city. It was made up of houses of clay, baked hard by the constant heat of the sun. The land around it was good and if the inhabitants did not have the terrible reputation they did it would have been a major trade centre. Beyond the valley it stood in the land turned to dust and hard soil that made for poor farming. It was a beautiful place that hid its dark heart in a harsh and rocky land that some would call God’s chosen country.
The two strangers who walked its dusty streets looking around at every person who passed them by with wary glances had seen larger places than this city but they were far travelled and had seen many wonders. The inhabitants of the town on the other hand were a suspicious insular lot and according to all that the strangers had heard were run by corrupt rulers who led a vicious sadistic people. That the strangers had willingly entered the town showed either confidence or recklessness. The strangers seemed not to notice the black looks they were being given. They simply looked at each person they passed, as if trying to see something which they might have, but which none of them did.
As they crossed the town square, the largest open space between the clay buildings that made up the city, passing street traders who tried to sell them cheap pottery wares and camels and donkeys that looked as if they would collapse should just one straw be placed on their skinny backs, the strangers continued to scan their surroundings. They still could not see anything. They stood by the well that formed the centre of the city and looked at each other. Nobody heard a thing but a message that was more song, memory and thought than any human method of communication passed both ways between them. Translating it to something a human could understand would be hard. You could not get the complete understanding they possessed of each others thoughts in human speech. The closest translation was something similar to this.
//Here?//
//Feel him. Near.//
//He is hidden. How do we find that which we seek?//
//As I said once before.//
//There is much to risk, so little to gain.//
//We must. We can mask from the blind. Only those that see will see.//
//So much to risk.//
//Life has much to risk.//
The first stranger nodded and for a second a street trader thought he saw a light surround them. It passed and he decided it must be the sun. He meandered across the street to the house of his neighbours. A woman was sitting near the doorway, just inside. The trader leaned on the wall by the entrance and nodded to the woman.
“Good morning Rebecca,” he said. Rebecca looked up from her weaving and smiled.
“How are you Jacob?” she asked. He ignored the question.
“Do you see those strangers?” he asked, pointing at the two men by the well. Rebecca looked and nodded. “For a minute I thought I saw one of them glowing,” Jacob said. Rebecca looked at him puzzled for a few seconds and then disappeared into the back of her house. A few seconds later she appeared with her husband. He was wiping his eyes, obviously just having woken, despite it being half way through the morning already. But then Rebecca’s husband was a weird man in many ways.
He finished wiping his eyes and looked at the men his wife and Jacob were pointing at. At least they saw men. He at first saw light and then at the centre of the radiance he saw them. Figures of light, glowing men who rode through the air on wings of white power. Without a word Rebecca’s husband dropped to his knees and uttered one word.
“Angels.”
* * *
Rebecca could see nothing angelic about the men her husband had invited in. They ate nothing, said even less and acted as if she did not exist. With all their interest focussed on her husband Rebecca had time to study them. They were both bald and pale skinned and wore loose robes made of a material that looked like her own clothes but she had brushed her hand on it and it had not felt like anything she had ever touched before. The angel had glared at her when she did that, the only time it had noticed she was there.
Her husband was getting frantic now, telling them his strange stories of devils walking beside the leaders of the city. Rebecca despaired of him at times and wondered whether she should make him stop before he embarrassed himself or got him into trouble. She had stopped him from telling anyone this before and though the city folk knew he had strange visions of spiders in the sky occasionally she knew he would be lynched if he accused the city’s leaders of being in league with Satan. The angels looked interested however and one opened its mouth, ready to say something when her daughters, Sarah and Rachel burst in.
“Mother,” Sarah gasped. “The whole city is coming here.” Her husband got to his feet. “It’s the strangers,” Sarah continued. “They want to kill them. After they’ve...” She grimaced. “You know. What they do to strangers.” Rebecca grimaced as well. She had never quite got used to the bizarre sexual practices of this city. She noticed the strangers looking at her daughters with an odd look on their faces. She wondered what they were thinking. Beyond her range of perception song, thought and memory danced between them.
//They have the potential.//
//It would be best if they bred with another who may see.//
The first stranger concentrated for a few seconds before replying.
//It is done//
//Will they suspect?//
//They will make it their own choice. The line will continue.//
The second stranger nodded and they turned to see what was happening outside. They heard Rebecca’s husband shouting at the mob, trying to pacify them. Rebecca gasped as he offered them his daughters rather than let them get at the strangers. The strangers looked at each other.
//Beyond the blind.//
//I see.//
//It is truth. They are here.//
//Truth.//
//They are not ready to stare us, eye to eye.//
//We can use their pawns against them.//
As the two strangers concentrated the lynch mob swarmed forwards. Rebecca’s husband ran inside the house as fast as he could and put his back to the door to hold it closed. To his surprise the mob did not try to push it open. His frightened gaze passed from his wife to his two daughters to the strangers. One of them nodded and he relaxed.
“H-h-how?” he gasped. One of them held up a small box. Concentrated his gaze on it for a few seconds before the box started to buzz with a million tiny voices. Then above the multitude of noise a clear voice spoke.
“They cannot open that they cannot see,” it said.
“You blinded them?” asked Sarah. One of the strangers nodded. They notice my daughters thought Rebecca. What do my husband and daughters have that warrents the interest of angels?
The angel concentrated again and the tiny voices spoke again. Then the clear voice spoke once more and said “This city will be destroyed at dawn.” Rebecca held in a gasp but her her daughters could not. “Gather your relatives and leave.”
"What will happen?" asked her husband. "How will it be destroyed?"
"In fire."
As the box said that last word a glow surrounded the angels and the family closed their eyes. When the light died down Rebecca opened her eyes. The strangers were gone.
* * *
It was almost dawn and Rebecca was getting worried. Though much of the city was blind it was still dangerous for her husband to be out on the streets but he had insisted on going. Rebecca hoped they would not have to leave without him. Then it came. Two knocks, then a pause, then two knocks again, another pause and then a final three knocks. She opened the door and her husband slipped through. He was out of breath and panicking slightly.
“They wouldn’t come,” he said between pants. “I told them the Lord would destroy the sinfulness but they didn’t believe me. They wouldn’t come.” He looked at his wife, tears streaming from his eyes. “We have to go,” he said. Sarah came from the other room. She saw her father alone and lowered her head.
“He didn’t come did he.” It was a statement, not a question. “It’s nearly dawn, we ought to get going.” Rebecca looked proudly at her daughter. The Lord may be about to destroy the only home she had ever known along with her fiancee but her daughter was not panicking. Rachel joined them and the family began to cautiously make their way out out. They could see the pre-dawn glow over the hills as they slipped through the gates of the city and sat slumped by the walls. Rebecca sighed. They were outside the city and they were safe.
There was a flash of light. Rebecca was blinded, unable to see anything but white. After a few seconds spots began to blink in front of her and finally she could see again. As she looked up to see what had blinded her she gasped. Floating there in front of her, white wings of light fluttering slightly and shining like the mid-day sun were the two strangers, the two angels.
This must have been what my husband saw, she thought.
My god, she thought. They’re so beautiful...
One of them held up the box.
“We told you to leave,” it said. Rebecca got to her feet.
“We did,” she said. “We’re outside the city.” The two angels looked at each other. The box spoke again.
“You should be far away,” it said. “Those hills are right.” One of the angels pointed off into the distance. Rebecca gasped.
“But we’ll never...” The box interrupted her.
“Take my hand.” One of the angels was reaching out his hand to her as she heard beautiful music in her head. She reached out and touched it. Part of her said it was the smoothest most beautiful thing she had ever fealed. Part of her said the music she heard made her think that, and that it was a different texture altogether...
The angel had offered his other hand to Sarah. Once he held them both his wings began to ripple and he slowly lifted them aloft. As they got further and further from the ground the faster they went. The other angel brought Rachel and her husband with him and they flew across the dawn sky. They were set down near the hills and the angel that had carried her husband took off again. The other held out the box again and it gave one last message.
“Run,” it said. “Do not look back.”
* * *
Space is fifty miles up. Not exactly of course but anything that can make it that high is considered a spacecraft. Some races made great steel dreadnaughts that fly by harnessing the atom. Some used diamond-hard carbon and the radiation of the sun to propel them between planets and through hyperspace. And some bred or found animals to whom the void was home. The huge spider shaped creatures that flew around the small blue-green planet were of the last breed. They were creatures of fearsome power. The neophyte space-farers of small planets on the Rim were in awe of the creatures but the two spider-ships knew they were in trouble. Their associates down on the planet had reported the presence of two Vorlons. Which meant more were probably on their way. The Shadows were retreating rather than face the coming attackers and were waiting for their few comrades still at the landing site on Earth when the flickers of a jump point began to manifest themselves.
In almost perfect formation three jump points appeared simultaneously and disgorged three Vorlon cruisers. Without hesitation they launched a bombardment of biological weapons at the spider-ships which did likewise. There was no audible noise as the weapons struck home but the psychic space around Earth was home to the most gut-wrenching shrieks ever heard as both sides ships screamed out in agony.
The spider-ships turned, ready to make a swift retreat rather than face this onslaught when space once more bubbled and twisted. Two more jump points disgorged two more Vorlon cruisers. The Shadows realised this was more than just cleansing an outpost. The Vorlons had some interest in this world. One of the ships tried to psionically pass this information to its fellows back home. Before it did a Vorlon ship fired a missile from one of its orifices. It exploded four kilometres from its traget expanding into a sticky net like substance. Upon contact it dulled the senses of the spider-ship, dragging the living spacecraft into unconciousness. As it did so the craft began to drop from its orbit plummeting towards the planet below. It crashed into the water a continent away from the landing site.
The other spider-ship tried to shift from real space to hyperspace but as it did so one of the Vorlon ships triggered a series of missiles that flew from its starboard side. The missiles flickered as they flew, dropping from real space into hyperspace and back again. They were in real space when they should have hit the spider-ship. They flickered into hyperspace and blew up inside the spider-ship. Four of the Vorlon craft took off away from the planet, looking for a safe place to shift back into hyperspace. The fifth hovered above the Shadow’s landing site. And then it began the demolition.
* * *
From the ground Urail and Zrel, the names the Vorlons had adopted upon Earth, watched and guided the incoming barrage. The city, its neighbours and all the flat land being used by the Shadows to land their craft was being systematically destroyed. Theirs was to be the final task in the destruction of the Shadow outpost.
In the centre of the city there was a zone unaffected by the bombardment. In the centre of it was a field projector, another piece of bio-technology created by the Shadows. And being bio-technology it was vulnerable to psionic attack...
//They are resisting.// said Urail.
//We can stop them. Concentrate harder.// Zrel answered.
//It would help to drop the facade.//
//Do it.//
The light, the glowing wings and beautiful visage altered. They appeared as they truly were. Without the pressure of having to maintain the illusion of human faces they burst their psionic attack through the Shadows defence and the protective field flickered and disappeared.
//It is done.// said Urail.
Zrel was gazing over at the hills where they had sent the family with psionic potential. The father and the two daughters were obediantly running for all they were worth. But the mother was staring back. She was looking directly at them in their true form. She could not be allowed to pass on what she had seen to the racial memory. They must only be remembered as human-like angels. With a thought Zrel brought a beam of energy down from the orbiting ship. It fried Rebecca leaving nothing but a pile of ash and salt. Urail and Zrel flickered for a few seconds before re-assuming their human faces. When the father and daughters turned to see what had happened to their wife and mother they only saw angels.
//Now it is done.// replied Zrel.
Suddenly the Lord rained burning sulphur on the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and destroyed them and the whole valley along with all the people there and everything that grew on the land.
