Vimana

As he spoke, he banged his fist against his right leg. Tanya caught his hand and looked him in the eye. 'Aadi, you're a better man than you give yourself credit for. Now, if you really want to stay, I imagine Brahma will want to talk to you soon.'

An hour later, Aaditya was back in the conference room, except this time there was nobody else other than him and Brahma. The old man asked him to sit down on one of the chairs and sat down next to him.

'We are forced to keep our existence a closely guarded secret. But if someone chances upon us, we believe in giving nothing but the full truth. Do you know why?'

Aaditya shook his head.

'Because the day is coming when we may have to reveal ourselves. And the last thing I want is for your people to mistake our secrecy for hostile intent. Are you really ready to hear the truth? I ask you one last time, because once they hear it, many people wish they had not.'

'I'm ready.'

Brahma motioned towards the centre of the room, where a holographic display materialized. It showed the Earth as viewed from space. It filled the screen rapidly, growing from a distant blue dot to a blue and green sphere ringed by clouds, where Aaditya could begin to make out features of the continents.

'What a beautiful sight. Aadi, do you know what that is?' Brahma asked.

'The Earth of course.'

'Yes, of course it is. But this is more than just a video of the Earth from space. It is a recording that I cherish dearly.'

Aaditya saw the wistful look in the old man's eyes and wondered where he was going with this.

'This, Aadi, is a recording of the first time I saw your planet.'

Aaditya's head swiveled towards Brahma in shock.

What did he mean?

'Yes, Aaditya. This was when I and my crew first came to your planet.'

A million questions were racing through Aaditya's mind, and not knowing where to start, he blurted out, 'So you're aliens?'

Brahma smiled.

'So many people say that. What a curious word: Alien. Considering how long we've been here, one would have hoped for more hospitality.'

He laughed at his own joke, and Aaditya stared at him, wondering if the old man was crazy or trying to tell him a tall tale. Oblivious to Aaditya's incredulity, Brahma continued.

'What you choose to believe is of course up to you. I can but share the truth. This, Aadi is a recording of our first descent to Earth.'

Aaditya turned to the image again. It showed what seemed to be North America, but as the ground loomed even closer, Aaditya was mystified by one thing.

'I see no lights, no cities, just barren earth. Why is that?'

Brahma turned towards Aaditya with a smile.

'You see none of those, my son, because this recording was made 15,000 years ago.'

***

Aaditya sat in stunned silence as Brahma continued with his tale.

'We are part of an alliance that seeks out planets that can harbour intelligent life, and we nudge them along till they develop to a level of self-awareness where we can ask them to join our alliance.'

'An alliance. Like a military alliance?'

Brahma shook his head. 'No, far from it. It is an alliance that shares knowledge and resources; that seeks to nurture that most precious thing in our universe-life.'

A map of the Indian subcontinent came into view.

'We first landed near what you today know as India, then set up bases across the world.'

Red dots emerged across multiple locations on the map-Egypt, South America, India and Europe.

'At that time, we found that your people were barely entering the phase of what you consider civilization today. It was far too early for us to make contact. We debated that last point, but the question for me was sealed when some of your people chanced upon us and began to think of us as gods.'

Realization dawned on Aaditya.

'That explains your names. Those are all names of Hindu gods.'

'People in other regions gave us other names, but having landed here first, we adopted these names over time. You know, Aadi, we should have never stayed. What we should have done was go back, and report that it was still too early to visit Earth.'

'Then why did you stay?'

'Because some of us broke our faith.'

The angry response had come from Indra, who had walked into the room flanked by Shiva and Vishnu.

'One of us got greedy. Seeing the primitive stage of development here, he decided to enslave your people and rule as a false God. He built monuments to his vanity and caused untold suffering. He began to corrupt others in our crew with promises of power.'

The holographic image now showed slaves pulling huge stone blocks towards a giant half-finished pyramid. Vishnu took up the tale.

'We tied to reason with him, pleaded with him to not go down this path, but he was beyond reasoning. When we threatened force, he took his many followers and set up a base here.'

A dot glowed in the Mediterranean Sea.

'We knew him and his crew as Ashwins. Indian mythology calls them Asuras and we became known as the Devas. The land they hid in is known to your people as Atlantis.'

Aaditya's eyes began to roll over, and noticing his reaction, Brahma stopped.

'So you don't believe me?'

'I'm sorry but you expect me to believe that you're 15,000-year-old aliens? That sounds too far out for me.'

Brahma wiped his hand and the holographic display disappeared.

'That is your choice. But what I can tell you is that if you do not believe us, I really don't see any point in you staying here. How can you help us when you don't even believe in us?'

Indra now spoke. 'As Tanya may have told you, we initially welcomed people who stumbled upon us, since we hoped they could act as a bridge to your people when the time comes to reveal ourselves. But nobody really stayed. If you want to stay, we would be happy to try again, but as Brahma said, you need to fully understand what you're involved in.'

Aaditya pleaded with him, 'Look, I would love to believe you, but this is so weird that I'd rather believe you're some kind of secret government organization that's saying this to prevent me from knowing the truth.'

Vishnu asked the others to step back. 'Aadi's stakes in this are much more personal than for anyone before him, and let us not forget that Kartik lives today because of him. So, let me take him on a trip and try and show him some of our history at close quarters.'

Five minutes later, Aaditya was in the hangar, in front of a large vimana that had a beak like a hawk and wings drawn on either side along with sharp talons. Vishnu asked Aaditya to get into the cockpit. 'This, Aadi, is my vimana, the Garuda. Put one of these on as well.'

He handed Aaditya an earpiece similar to the one he had taken from Kartik. In an instant, they were out of the hangar doors and Aaditya felt himself flattened against the seat as the vimana accelerated nearly vertically. When it stabilized in level flight, Aaditya saw the holographic display showing the vimana at an altitude of 100,000 feet and a speed of more than five thousand kilometres per hour. Vishnu looked at his expression and smiled.

'Garuda is not even being stretched here, but I thought for starters, I'd lay your doubts to rest about this being an aircraft from Earth. You know your planes, so tell me, is there any craft you can think of that could do this. Or this?'

Aaditya shook his head mutely as the vimana accelerated to six thousand kilometres per hour and climbed to the very edge of space. Aaditya found his breath being taken away by the sight he saw-pitch black space above,