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, 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.'