Vimana

and the Earth far below.

Vishnu kept talking, taking up the story where Brahma had left it.

'For some years, the Ashwins were content to live in their land, and rule over their domains in Egypt and South America, and we kept trying for a peaceful solution. But perhaps we waited too long. They mistook our patience for weakness, and began a campaign of conquest. We were always few, perhaps a hundred of us, and a similar number of them, so they needed foot soldiers to occupy and hold land. Know how they did that?'

Aaditya shook his head, as an image came up on the display in front of him. It was that of the kind of men he had encountered at the Old Fort and on his roof-large, dark, and with the ridged forehead.

'Daityas,' Vishnu continued, 'They took some of the early proto-human species and created cloned monsters. Strong, ruthless and obedient, but not very smart. With those demons, they unleashed their reign of terror. They sided with human dictators, promising them power and helping with these demons and their technologies, but in reality making them slaves.'

The display now showed vimanas flying high overhead, as a medieval looking army laid siege to a fort. Aaditya interrupted Vishnu. 'If this is true, and they were interfering in human affairs with these daityas and their vimanas, someone would have noticed it.'

Vishnu smiled.

'They did. In a way, we are lucky that you modern humans have such short memories and that you've come to trust nothing but what you discover for yourselves. Otherwise, our existence would have been no secret.'

He pointed to the display where text emerged in a language Aaditya did not recognize, and then dissolved into its English translation.

Vimanas, decked and equipped according to rule, looked like heavenly structures in the sky. . borne away they looked like highly beautiful flights of birds.

'That's from the Indian epic Mahabharata, written some three thousand years ago.'

Another quote appeared.

The Puspaka Vimana that resembles the sun and belongs to my brother, was brought by the powerful Ravan; that aerial and excellent car, going everywhere at will, is ready for thee. That car, resembling a bright cloud in the sky, is in the city of Lanka.

'That's from your Ramayana, written even earlier. And it isn't just your people who recorded it. Another quote.'

A rushing windy great thundercloud like flying craft flew out of the north. The vehicle had the appearance of brilliant glowing fire all around it and the centre of the illumination the vehicle was polished metal.

'That's Ezekiel speaking, in the Bible.'

Seeing Aaditya's expression, Vishnu added with a smile, 'If you don't believe me, Google it, as you say nowadays.'

'Did you fight these Ashwins then?'

'Oh we had to. We couldn't let them continue. Not after they crossed a threshold we never imagined they would.'

'What did they do?'

In response, Vishnu took the vimana into a gut-wrenching dive and sped towards the Earth.

'Look down. What do you see?'

Aaditya saw a lake…no, as he looked closer, he could see that the water was contained in a depression of some kind.

'Looks like one of those meteorite craters that you see on Discovery Channel.'

Vishnu nodded.

'Looks like one but it isn't. This is in Lonar, just a few hundred kilometres from Mumbai, and the crater you see is over six thousand feet in diameter and was formed over 12,000 years ago. It looks like a meteorite crater but no evidence has been found of an impact. Do you know why?'

Aaditya shrugged his shoulders.

'Because it's not a meteorite crater at all. It is the impact point of the first use of nuclear weapons in the history of Earth.'

***

Aaditya sat wordlessly as Vishnu took his vimana on a trip crisscrossing many continents at speeds well in excess of five thousand kilometres per hour, pausing only to show him a site of interest before moving to the next.

'The Ashwins used the nuclear weapon to support one of their human client states in a war, and then repeated it several times. It emerged that the first use was executed on the orders of one the Ashwin generals, a wonderful specimen called Maya, whom I believe you know well. When we sought to intervene to stop this madness, they used nuclear weapons against us.'

Aaditya involuntarily clenched his fist at the memory of the snake-eyed monster and also the fact that his father's last transmission had mentioned a red-tipped craft like the one Maya piloted.

'So many years later, the traces remain. In Rajasthan, near Jodhpur, there is still a mile wide area of high radioactivity. In the Middle East, there are peaks that seem to have been cleaved off, and their tops still show radioactive traces. Look below you and see the blackened top.'

'And I suppose that this use of nuclear weapons is also recorded?'

Vishnu shook his head, as if in mock despair. 'Ever the skeptic. But don't take my word for it. This is what the Mahabharata says.'

The holographic display glowed with a new set of characters.

A single projectile

Charged with all the power of the Universe.

An incandescent column of smoke and flame

As bright as the thousand suns

Rose in all its splendor…

…it was an unknown weapon,

An iron thunderbolt,

A gigantic messenger of death,

Which reduced to ashes

The entire race of the Vrishnis and the Andhakas.

Aaditya was silent for a while.

'So you didn't retaliate?'

Vishnu began to set a course back to base as he responded.

'Oh we retaliated all right. We obliterated them. First we wiped out their major base in the Middle East-an episode that has gone down in human folklore as Sodom and Gomorrah. They had set up one of their generals in Lanka and we destroyed him, and then unable to break through their defenses, we used nuclear explosions to create giant tidal waves that destroyed their main citadel. And thus the legend of Atlantis was born.'

'And then?'

Aaditya could now see the Himalayan peaks over the horizon, as Vishnu responded.

'And then, we stepped back and looked at what we had unleashed. The Earth was devastated, the nuclear winter brought on a new ice age, and we left, vowing to return when the Earth was indeed more ready in terms of its evolution for us to make contact again.'

'But…'

Vishnu silenced him.

'I cannot give you all the answers in one flight. If you choose to remain, you will get all of them gradually.'

The vimana landed in a few minutes and Aaditya was back in his room, thinking over all that he had seen and heard. There was a knock on the door. It was Tanya.

'I heard about your trip. They must feel for your situation, otherwise I've never seen them take so much