The Bat Folk of Betelgeuse

Across the galaxy, some six-hundred and forty light years from our own blue planet, sits a small, rust-and-green world as populous and strange as our own. As we zoom in on this planet, we pass through its red-tinted atmosphere, to a range of gray mountains surrounding a steaming, green swamp. 

Notice how many creatures fill the sky. A great host of birds, many of them as smart as you and I, coast from one mountaintop city to another. They have built a civilization comparable to our classical era, though if you go by their social media, far more advanced.

They are not who we're here to see.

Instead, we zoom in further, to deep caves within the gray mountains where no bird would ever willingly fly. In these caves, the air is often bitter with particulate. And if you listen closely you can hear high-pitched cries somewhere in the tunnels, the cries of the denizens that live there.

At the center of one of these mountains lies an amphitheater of sorts; a huge, high-ceilinged dome curved precisely to amplify the voice of a centralized orator. At the highest point within this great dome lies a small alcove with a podium and a strong wire loop, such that a speaker might hang upside down and address an audience hanging from their own wires all around the vast space.

This is the largest such amphitheater on the planet, and the principal place in which the Bat Folk of Betelgeuse meet in conclave. And on this day, just before sunrise, five consecutive speakers are scheduled: to explain, educate, and hopefully pacify the crowd. For a couple days earlier, a celestial event so unmistakable and rare rocked their society and sent them hiding deep within their mountain homes… until it passed mere minutes later. I speak, of course, of a total solar eclipse.

As we arrive, the conclave has already begun, and the first of five speakers is well into his oration. 

He's the local mayor equivalent: distinguished, gray around the ears, his fur clean and brushed with professional precision. He’s been in a position of authority for most of his life, and is used to it, though he doesn’t revel in command. His name is Earo (pronounced a little like “tomorrow.”)

Earo speaks about the basic details of the situation: when they knew about the eclipse, how they monitored it from shadowy perches, why they called for everyone to stay in their roosts for two full cycles of sun and moons afterwards.

As we approach, he's just now introducing the other speakers: “to help explain and assure you about the details, about what it all means, about who's to blame... if anyone is to blame, we have a few knowledgeable bats here to assist us. You'll hear from a historian who’s spent many decades studying these sorts of things. You'll hear from a veteran listening agent with a report on what the birds are up to. And you'll hear from an astronomer- ah, yes, an astronomer.” For when he mentioned this most mysterious of professions, a great murmur went through the crowd.

“But before that, the comic styling of Isha-ah Tariaaa!” And with that, he hopped away from the podium and coasted to a spot among the VIP perches. Within moments, he was replaced by a smaller bat with darker fur and bearing a mandolin. She flapped her short wings with gusto as she claimed the central spot, situating herself upside-down on the wire, making a show of adjusting her grip a few times as if this hallowed perch were somehow uncomfortable. Then she hung the mandolin on a nearby peg before spreading her arms and screeching at the crowd:

“I just rode in from the Tamshir Colony, and boy are my boyfriend's legs tired!” 

Moderate laughter from the audience.

“That joke means a couple things, but for the kids out there, just assume he carried me because we couldn't afford the mole service… What an audience we have here tonight! You all sound great. And not too afraid considering what happened with that sneaky sun hiding from us. Back in Tamshir everyone freaked out. You’d have thought vision was their primary sense with how they pined for that great fiery ball of light. There was more guano on the communal cave floor than normal if you know what I mean.”

The crowd tittered at their sister colony’s expense. Plus it helped them find comfort in their own fears thinking others had known worse anxiety.

“But anyway, anyway. What does everyone think happened with the sun? The old scorching Eye of Ivet. The stare that burns hotter than my mother’s after I told her I couldn’t make the family reunion… but hey, don’t worry, I love my mom! And I love my extended family, even if there are three-hundred of them and I’m expected to remember all their names.

“Now where was I? Oh right, our impending doom. You’d think we’d all be happy with a couple of extra minutes of darkness, right? But what does it mean? Why did the sun go dark? Is Ivet angry? Is she plotting against us? Is she saving up scorching light to unleash it at us all at once? We didn’t know! But hey, on the day of the event, we all thought we were going to die, and we didn’t. And who doesn’t love having their expectations dashed?”

Isha-ah told several more jokes, about half of which would make sense outside the cultural context. But then a soft whistle floated through the scattered laughter from the direction of the VIP box.

“That’s my cue to wrap things up. We’ve got actual educated bats to hear from. But I brought this rambler here so I’m obligated to sing one little tune.”

Then Isha-ah took up her mandolin, played and sang:

There once was a light in the sky

That thought that we all should just die

So it blocked itself off

Then returned with a scoff

To find all our deaths were a lie

Then she darted off, not to any seating area but straight out of the whole amphitheater. As she flew she played one more verse:

I hope you all enjoyed this show

To help you to get in the know

So if you survive

You should catch my act live

But for now, here’s the scholar, Braro

(Pronounced like “arrow” if that wasn’t clear.)

Many moments later, another bat flew up to take his place at the podium. This bat was larger, slower, with thick brown fur tough as a wire brush. He took large, careful flaps with his wide wings and stumbled just a hair as he settled upside down by the podium. 

“One moment,” he said as he fumbled with something hidden in his fur, before producing a clawful of note cards, which he promptly dropped. Many moments passed as everyone watched the notes float and tumble, gliding slowly to the cavernous floor, cast in the glow of the luminescent lichen used to light the chamber.

“Well… I suppose it’s a good thing I know what I’m talking about.”

The crowd erupted in laughter, as loud as any of Isha-ah’s jokes. Braro found himself smiling broadly. He was no natural comedian, and hadn’t meant to be funny here, but he basked in the warmth of his fellow bats sharing a joke.

“Now. Now. Let’s get serious, if we may. I’m here to tell you the story of The Eye of Ivet. Of the mythology surrounding those times when it… closes. Our ancestors believed quite a few different things about the sun, and their views changed over the centuries. Did you know that, ten thousand years ago, our ancestors regularly went out during the day. It’s true! The Eye was our friend, our ally who led us from the dark and helped us find fruit and insects.

“And so our ancestors became haughty with their speed of flight and keen senses. They took Ivet’s eye for granted, and thought their superiority over the creatures of the ground a result of their moral clarity.

“So when Ivet’s great red Eye blinked, in what professionals now call an ‘eclipse,’  it was considered a bad omen, that Ivet was turning her back on society. There are only three detailed mentions of this in our records going back five thousand years, so you know it was always a big event.

“In some stories, Ivet bestowed superior eyesight on the birds as a punishment for our hubris, and so the birds were able to drive us underground, forcing us to live at night and use our voice and ears to find our way.”

Braro spoke for quite a while, the better part of an hour. He went over all three times eclipses were mentioned in the texts, and what the people at the time thought they meant. Had Ivet winked at them playfully? Was it a signal to put long delayed plans into action? Was it a signal to go to war?

In all three cases, those older bat societies had acted quite rashly in response: burning books, rolling back personal freedoms and retreating deeper within the mountains. In the oldest case, the bat nation had taken it as a signal to air out their grievances with the birds, which directly precipitated the disastrous Great Flyer War.

Finally, Braro brought his lecture to a close:

“Basically, what I’m saying is… what I’m trying to say is… we can blame our ancestors for our problems!”

The crowd was silent. They’d been so immersed in Braro’s storytelling, they weren’t prepared for a joke, certainly not one with his cadence.

“No? Nothing? Not one chuckle. Guess I shouldn’t quit my night job.” And with that, Braro took off and glided slowly to a perch among the important persons, though he initially set off in the wrong direction and had to turn about awkwardly.

Minutes passed. The crowd grew restless and started conversing among themselves. Hadn’t they said there would be two more speakers? How long should we wait? Would-

Then suddenly, from behind the podium sprung up a small, slender bat with large eyes.

“Ha!” He shouted. “None of you heard me, for I am a master of stealth.”

He moved his hand in a mysterious arc below his head.

“I am Ivix. And I am a flyer in the royal intelligence service. I am here to tell you what the birds are up to.”

Ominous silence. Ivix held his chin up (down) in a show of pride and command.

“And I will be quick about it, for time is precious. The birds trust the sun, and in their trust they sow the seeds of their own destruction.” He closed his fist, clacking his nails together for effect.

“For, while they grew terrified that their precious fiery eye would leave them, they gained confidence in it returned so quickly. They’re taking no precautions to ensure that it will never happen again. Their worries are already allayed. Their daily sing-song is as joyous and consonant as it was before.

“And the few that are suspicious… They think we did it! Can you believe that? They think we'd shut down the evil eye without any sort of followup plan!

“Birds hardly even mind us listening. They sing what they think of us. And what do they sing? They look upon us with pity! We’re the sad, little cave dwellers with big, fuzzy ears! Even the minority who are suspicious of us don’t want to take action.”

As Ivix’s screed grew evermore strident, a low, peeling screech rose in intensity from the VIP box. The signal that the intelligence agent had overstepped his bounds.

“Alright! Alright! I’ve said my peace. But don’t say I didn’t tell you how they look down upon us!” Then he ducked down behind the podium and dropped a small bag of clacker rocks, which struck the ground and made an awful racket to the sensitive ears of the listeners. Ivix used the distraction to scramble away unnoticed down a long seam of shadow, and thus build his reputation as a master of stealth.

So as you might imagine, the crowd was growing agitated by this point and were not feeling at all mollified. Add to that that the final speaker was an astronomer, the mysterious profession that deals in light and optics, that studies celestial objects so far away they produce no sound, so far away your screams can never reach them.

The astronomer approached the podium in the most stately manner. Her wings appeared to barely flap at all, like she was riding some unfelt air current to the top of the amphitheater. She was a moderate-sized member of her kind with small, shining eyes. She wore stylish pink cups on her shock-white ears to assist her navigation in old age. 

She remained silent for a long time after taking the podium. Now and then she adjusted her ear-cups, waiting until the crowd grew completely silent before she began. By the time this happened, the audience was in awe. At last she spoke: 

“Good evening to you. My name is Aldenen. I’m here to explain about the mechanics of the eclipse we witnessed the other day. Of course, we know the path of the firmament. We calculate the movement of stars and planets. They appear insidious because we can't hear them. Fortunately, they are consistent in their movements, month to month and year to year.

“And we know too why eclipses happen, and why they are so rare. Our star is far larger than normal, indeed, the largest sort known anywhere in the galaxy. And so, it is only blocked from sight when the larger of our two moons, and our sister planet Kachet, align in perfect conjunction, and even then, the eclipse is not as perfect as it might be on a planet orbiting a smaller star.

“This perfect conjunction occurs only once every hundred years or so, and is viewable from our mountain range only once in a millennia. But I hope to impress upon you that this phenomenon is completely normal, in the astrological sense. Allow me to elucidate.”

Then, with the help of three assistants, she produced a physical aid: three smooth chrome spheres with sizes somewhat proportional to the heavenly bodies at play in the eclipse (though their star, Betelgeuse, being a red giant, could not be produced anywhere near to scale) Over the course of the next fifteen minutes, they flew these spheres around the amphitheater and welcomed the audience to screech at them and listen for the echoes, to witness how the smaller spheres could block and reflect sound with surprising totality if they were in just the right places. That the larger sphere could hide completely from their primary means of detection.

Not everyone fully understood the demonstration, but all grew more comfortable with the idea. For the bat folk, thinking of celestial bodies as physical things that could block one another was much easier if they could hear them.

And so, when the meeting adjourned and all the bats returned to their homes to hang upside down in their beds, they slept a little more soundly than they had the previous night. And many dreamed of stars and planets; imagined listening to their voices. They pictured themselves flying to those far-off stars and envisioned what sort of people they might meet.

Best to let them sleep. And so we zoom back out, through the network of tunnels, out into the red-tinted sky, past the empire of the birds, and into the depths of space. Maybe one day the sonic calls of the Bat Folk of Betelgeuse will sail across space and find us, then bounce back to them and report on the peculiar beings that live on the other side of the galaxy.