Star Matters

by David John West

  “What’s done is done,” Amily said bluntly. “In some ways it just brings our project on Earth to a head right on time. Zarnha agents are all over the planet right now pushing for Spargar political and computing leadership. We three in particular have worked on the enlightenment project for more generations than I care to remember. When we get back there it’s time that we get a result before we lose out to Spargar and Omeyn MuneMei gets them for good. That would be a waste of all our time and the ruination of the whole human race on Earth! Against that Kyra’s kidnap is our personal tragedy but nothing we can do about that for now.”

  “Amily is right, Keeran. You did your best and it nearly worked; you nearly got her out of there between you. Nobody could have tried harder. Now it’s back to official channels and the Worders have to make a plan to retrieve Kyra’s body or soul. Meanwhile, it looks like Kyra will be asynchronous9 to us for the next generation and nothing we can do about that for now.” Alron observed carefully.

  Amily was more relaxed now, after she had had her say, she too had wanted to mount the ill-fated rescue with Keeran after all, “I agree with Alron, saving Kyra is out of our hands for now. Looking at our primary objective when we get back to planet Earth it’s time to push on for a result for enlightenment against Spargar. If we don’t pull it off soon then things will move towards Spargar if they can get control of the population through the internet and their technology.”

  “Well, let’s agree on that at least,” said Keeran. He was pleased that Amily and Alron had grasped the situation and moved on to a positive conclusion that drove the next stage. “We get this short time here to recharge and we should make the most of that for sure; we know it will be all too brief depending on what the Worders are planning for us right now.” Keeran’s resolve had returned, his hesitancy had dispelled, bolstered by the confident attitude of his two colleagues and friends. “Omeyn MuneMei must be confident she has taken us out on Spargan and Earth and has a clear run to dominate the planet. But we will be going back and next time we are going to make a big difference!”

  “Well, right now I for one am going to enjoy some of this fine cuisine,” said Amily, “and we all know we will soon get the chance to get back into it on Earth. Shame next time round we will have to grow up all over again but that’s the price you pay for losing those last lives. Plus I will probably have to wait a couple of years for you two to catch up, being male and less mature of course”.10 Amily grinned at the two men. She may have been smiling but they each knew the serious cost in time delays while they grew to maturity all over again back on Earth.

  “I will drink to that,” announced Alron sombrely and they each raised their glasses to chink and declare that next time around would be the significant step in bonding Earth to Gaya. They gripped hands in a manner customary to Pointers of Dawn, like a three-handed arm-wrestling fight, and bent their heads together in a silent union, committing themselves to each other and their future success.

  The evening and indeed their spirits lengthened out after that and they caught up on all the little conversations they had been too busy to air for the last few months. This was an ideal place and the time to relax properly ahead of their coming jejeune period of regeneration before they could reunite as Gayan humans on Earth at the height of their adult powers. Many conversations later, they decided it was time to turn in. There was no actual bodily weariness to contend with in their solely-soul state but even the spirit needs recharging too.

  Thus they came to be skiing, or something very much like skiing, the following day. Not quite skiing, as physical skis were not required. Instead they wore virtual boots with antigravity fields extending front and back that flowed within the contours of the snow, thereby moulding the skier to the precise ground and not requiring any special preparation of the runs into pistes. Their antigravity boots allowed skiers to tackle any terrain, to truly dance with the mountain.

  Amily, Alron and Keeran skimmed through the powder snow spraying plume wakes into the diamond-bright mountain air. They had dived into a narrow gulch off the even snow terrain and now plotted curves round the cornices and domes formed by the heavy snowfalls in recent days. The narrow gully they had entered would have been littered with rocks and small trees in summer but now lay under an undulating cloth of very deep snow voluptuously wrapped around features the details of which were lost under several metres of snow layers. This leisure time was one of the infrequent sabbatical vacations awarded by the Worder administrators, seen as a reward in itself by the colleagues, but the Worders recognised too that in this line of work it was particularly important to separate their stressful missions with positive soul-enhancing experiences.

  The three colleagues had manifested themselves in their prime condition and favoured physique, at the peak of physical prowess but mature enough to be trusted to navigate difficult choices when working outside of close Worder attention in running high-risk project assignments. Keeran, most senior of the colleagues, was trailing behind Alron, whose tall figure exploded into the side of a large drift in an immediate white-out. Amily and Keeran took a moment’s pause to see if all was fine, which was followed by Alron’s guffaws of throaty laughter.

  “Hey, you dived in there deliberately, you ass,” Keeran called out as he carved on by – it was clear that Alron had just dived in for the sheer joy of it, the very act raising their spirits and driving them on.

  Alron raised his head and shook off excess snow, “Catch you further on,” he called as he lay there partly submerged in powder snow. Easy laughter rang out loud from all three, amplified by the crisp surface of the snow. Easy to fully enjoy yourself committed to complete physical exertion like this, totally engaging for the mind and without any mundane thought processes between working missions.

  Amily was forging a route close by but different to the men as was often her way. She was heading generally in the same direction as Keeran and Alron but certainly not following. It was more interesting to take the best route, not the trickiest, but the most efficient way through was the most satisfying – and more enjoyable to Amily for all of that. Especially if she beat them to the next stopping place. The boys were just out of control and not taking the ideal way. Amily and Keeran shot out the end of the gully on to the wider hillside just about together and swerved to a halt waiting for Alron to follow. He arrived shortly after completely covered in dry white but it was flying off him rather than sticking to his slick snow suit. All three colleagues had selected form-fitting comfortable ski suits for today’s exertions, Keeran and Alron wearing mostly dark metallic fabric with coloured expansion strips providing active support to the major joints, Amily’s suit was styled more in reverse with silver joint supports and lime and purple themes for the main body panels flexing athletically over her limbs.

  Alron pulled up beside them and brushed more snow away while declaring that he was now feeling great despite struggling out of bed that morning after their late night yesterday. The colleagues set off again and continued on together, swooping down more open terrain until they reached the next bank of lifts. Being hoisted high on the lifts was Keeran’s least favourite part and he believed Alron and Amily were unaware of his anxiety and of course they smiled to each other at his discomfort as they sat together on the lift. Chamarel design demanded that the lift was an exciting part of the leisure experience so the high-speed seats for up to four people were of minimal form, skeletal seats and lower back pads held together by thin metal struts which in turn were suspended from gossamer wires that flew the seats swiftly upwards and sometimes switched right or left depending on the final destination of the skiers.

  Alron and Amily wanted to get to the top station as quickly as possible so the journey up was a roller-coaster ride entirely upwards but passing intermediate stations where the suspending wires changed support gantries and swerved up the most efficient route irrespective of terrain. Their seat raced up cliffs, between stunted fir trees and out over
deep crevasses. It was as if they had planned to fly him up the dizziest ride over the steepest cliffs and deepest drops if Keeran’s suspicions were correct. Despite the wild ride the final gantry set high against the crooked granite peak of the top station eventually approached, sticking out and over the mountain with a single articulation point, slender and shaped like a giant grasshopper’s leg.

  The flying seat slowed to a crawl as it crested the rise that formed the exit point for the lift and the colleagues slipped off and away to a flat area that afforded spectacular views plunging down steep slopes of the mountain to the broader slopes some thousand metres below. Dramatic long views presented themselves, of minor peaks stepping down from their high eyrie. All were snow-capped but craggy enough for granite rocky faces to be exposed where they were too steep for snow to gather. A few other skiers could be seen across the slopes but all were so far away so as to appear like comical line dance performers in a wintry flea circus.

  A snow road of medium grade descended from the lift landing area, and the colleagues set off single file. After several switchbacks the skiing opened out and they could fly along many miles of easy terrain to a mountain hostelry where they enjoyed a hot beverage and lunch. The restaurant had views to the rear across a broad valley to the next ridge of mountains, and on the sunny side more open terrain invited them to press on towards where Keeran knew the coast to be. The sun was a warming buttery yellow, highlighting the bright side of the snow mounds and hollows with gold and leaving the reverse in silvery blue.

  When the colleagues felt refreshed they set off with renewed vigour and pressed on for many miles, so far that the granite mountain peaks rounded down to become the domes of large hills all around. It was soon possible to see the snow line petering out into the ochre and rust stems of frozen winter pastures. The sun remained high to their left side as they raced along and over a long ridge and the sea came into view in the far distance. The sea appeared calm and a line of horizon haze merged the deeper aqua of the sea with the cerulean blue of the sky. A few powerful stars pierced the blue sky but otherwise the sky was unblemished and cloudless.

  The colleagues reached terminal velocity on the gentle slopes now and could swerve with and across each other with great control. The snow remained powdery but was now so thin they could feel the texture of the grassy tufts through the soles of the antigravity boots. As the snow petered out into tendrils a few centimetres deep between the tough tussocks, Keeran felt his spirit spread and lighten like an albatross running downslope to gain lift. He felt the impulsion to first of all change to a skating step to make the most of the petering strips of snow and then to lift his feet into a long-limbed running stride using the momentum of his downhill ride. His strides were implausibly long as if he no longer required contact with the ground and he was completely beyond the snow line and over the flattened tundra. He found he could keep up the same speed now racing down the empty slope of hibernating pastureland. The ground cambered away and down into deeper brown valleys to either side, the sea beckoning him on, down and ahead. He could sense at both sides Amily and Alron also transitioning to loping strides, occasionally touching the ground with effortless grace.

  In the sky out to sea a tiny but dense cloud had appeared, incongruous against the clear blue that chased the other clouds away. The popcorn of cloud started to billow and inflate, still small but showing grey-green bulges on the flatter underside and white domes rising above.

  Keeran ran on and started to take to the air. He had the strong impression he was possessed of wide gliding wings stretching out from his broad shoulders, the imminence of lift-off was intoxicating to a being normally incapable of flight. He needed to touch down every so often but the purchase to the ground was fleeting and increasingly unnecessary. The thought of transition from running to flight was overwhelming; how was it happening and what did it mean?

  Meanwhile the small cloud had grown to become the most obvious feature of the sky over the sea. Indeed a second cloud seed had started close to the first and was also proceeding to bulge and grow. The writhing underside of the first cloud started to reach down in a slender tendril that twisted gently at first towards the sea. The tendril lengthened and undulated in various directions before turning towards the three colleagues racing over the hills fast approaching the sea.

  Briefly before reaching the colleagues the tendril split into two distinct branches and one speared towards Keeran, the other snapped at Amily. Keeran saw the narrow tube coming at him and allowed himself to be enveloped head first, lifted up slowly at first then sucked faster up the spiralling tube. Keeran recognised the spirit transport used by Worder administration to transfer souls individually across space to start new lives and missions. It required much more resource to transport living people that needed spacecraft affording life support and the associated logistics operations. These physical needs expended huge energies compared to sending a message or soul by Gayan warpwave.11 Other than that both systems used the same technique: hoist the soul or whole spacecraft into dark matter in near space then warp to the remote destination for re-entry into normal space.

  The process was well known and Keeran had travelled this way several times and increasingly failed to enjoy the experience. The theory was one thing, the experience quite another. After he was picked up close to the ground he accelerated to astonishing speed through near space. Having no corporeal entity at this time Keeran was untroubled by physical forces but perfectly capable of experiencing sight and sound. To begin, he could feel the rotation inside the twister, milder than the walls of the twister itself but with a distant high-pitched howl. He was rising in the quiet spot of a tiny tornado. The walls inside started as spirals of light blue and cloud, darkening as he rose into low space and then brightening again with long diagonal flashes of light as stars came out and formed the sides of the white tube as his sheer acceleration turned point stars into a luminous tube through which Keeran was speeding. After a short period the light increased approaching the warp node. A burst of energy manifesting as a momentary blaze of light denoted the warp connection to the edge of dark matter near the Solar System of planet Earth. The sound of popping drums was followed by the musical identifier of the arrival tube to the destination of his new life on Earth. Keeran felt the transition from near-Gayan space to near-Earth space after the warp and transposed to feet-first descent, nervously observing that feet-first hurtling through space was not his ideal mode of transport. Keeran knew that he should not dwell on the physics required to connect his journey, accepted wisdom was just to enjoy the ride.

  Back at Snowscape, Alron stood alone watching the twin twisters swallow his colleagues and pull them up and away towards the cloud out over the sea.

  “Well, that’s just great!” he said out loud to himself as he slowed to a standstill, disconsolate and suddenly alone, momentarily separated from his friends and colleagues. He spread his arms and laid his head back to take in the vast blue orbit of the heavens. As he did he saw the smaller cloud continuing to grow and start to form its own slender tendril pointing to the ground. Looking round he saw he was the only person visible across the bare hillsides approaching the sea as the tendril reached out towards him.

  PART THREE

  UNITED KINGDOM,

  from 1993

  SEVEN

  In a birthing room in a hospital in a medium-sized town in the north of England, a baby boy had been born that instant. It had been a difficult first birth for new mother Margaret. It was her first child and she had been hopeful it would be a purely wonderful experience but it had taken several hours of increasing worry before she insisted on an epidural against the pain spasms as she was urged to push. The epidural had worked well in removing the pain but at the same time reduced the feeling and thereby interfered with the contractions to expel the baby. It was good that the baby had turned and the head was engaged but Doctor Forbert had to resort to forceps to complete the birth.

&nb
sp; Charles Mason, the new father, had found himself jamming his foot against the front offside leg of the bed as Doctor Forbert had strained with forceps to help the baby out. Charles was hoping this was how things were supposed to go; it wasn’t what he had expected in advance but he had been waiting with Margaret for many hours and had gradually acclimatised to the increasing urgency of the situation. Now the baby had popped out in a rush and was taken swiftly to the side of the room by a midwife. Doctor Forbert started working on post-birth stitches, and the two midwives present had taken the baby away to what looked like a sink in the corner of the room to clean him up, and Charles was relieved when he heard a first tremulous wailing that was the first sign of life from the baby.

  At the border of deep-space dark matter off the planetary system of the Sun, Keeran emerged on the descent tube from the warpwave and headed feet first towards the Sun, which was growing in size dramatically below him as Keeran approached. He was very familiar with this stellar neighbourhood having visited many times before. There were many fewer stars than in his home system in the Pleiades star cluster so the sides of the warp tube were dimmer with fewer passing stars than had been the case in his bright ascent tube brimming with the multitude of the Pleiades.

  There were many Sol-class stars and Earth-class planets in the hundred billion star systems in the Milky Way galaxy. Keeran’s home planet was Gaya class, larger but lighter than Earth with a smaller molten iron core and less surface water. There were such multitudes of similar stars and associated planets that individual stars and planets had to be named by star or planet class attached to a unique musical identifier. The musical identifier is infinitely variable so the combined class and identifier can pick out and name precisely a particular star and planet within its orbital system. These musical identifiers in many cases became anthems for the peoples of that particular world as they became technologically aware of their position in the Universe.