Star Matters

by David John West

  Duncan splashed down to enjoy swimming with and around them, jumping into the air and crashing down into the aqua blue swells with them. He dodged the giant slaps of the great flukes as they whacked them flat on the water after holding them precariously at vertical as they wallowed in fun on the surface. Like the whales themselves Duncan found that his feet together now acted like and had the power of the giant tail flukes of the whales. They still looked like feet together but felt like great planes driving him through the water. He could porpoise along and flip down into the water leaving his great feet flukes up in the air and then thrust down as he submerged and found purchase for downforce from his feet flukes. The whales were fully aware of him in a way that human beings in corporeal form could not be aware of a free soul in motion. He had no doubt this was due to their greater spiritual development very different from human’s development technologically. The whales sensitively protected him from accidental damage in their play, seemingly as if he still had bodily form that could be injured by their very bulk. In their world, injury often meant death if they were unable to forage and fight the giant squid, or even fend off smaller carnivores seeking out any weakness in their family pods.

  McGregor marvelled at the complex dances of the sperm whales’ family groups over many miles of ocean. This one visit, unencumbered with the paraphernalia of equipment required for bodily life support, provided massively more involvement than a lifetime’s worth of submersibles, scuba and drogue pursuit of these whale families. Also freed from the strictions of human auditory range, his senses were assailed by the vast spectrum and complexity of their conversations. He still did not understand it but he wondered at the cacophony and it was clear that they were calling and responding to each other in the most complex manner and involving him too like some dumb jester at the court of an advanced and indulgent monarch.

  This merriment continued on for some time but McGregor was specifically here to observe a particular ritual he was aware of from his research on Earth and also from his discussions with the higher Guides of his own race Dawn. He was convinced these physically huge mammals with their massive intellects were capable of communications around this globe and then out into space.

  They had travelled out from the barrier reef towards the deeps of the Pacific to the north east of Australia’s Queensland. The sea floor had shelved away gradually and then abruptly disappeared down to the marine abyss a mile below. These were the fighting and feeding grounds where the sperm whales prepared for very deep dives to grapple the giant squid that could grow as large as themselves and fight with tooth and sucker. This was an uneven struggle between predator whale teeth and prey giant squid tentacles and beak. These contests were no walkover though. A young sperm whale on its first deepwater hunt could be assailed by multiple giant squid and then the battle could be equivocal to the point the whale became exhausted and unable to return to the surface for its next long breath.

  These whales were not here to pursue the squid at this moment. This was time for their ritual ceremony of connection to brethren at home and across the universe. The lead giant whale took several huge breaths and then nose-dived vertically down, tail flukes in perfect symmetry in the air briefly over the wave’s surface then in the water and driving, plunging down. His body and blubber compressed like a layer of thick tortured ropes along his flanks with the huge forces as he thrust on down and down, the light sky of the surface darkening through navy into midnight before turning entirely dark. Duncan took the long road down in the slipstream of tiny bubbles off the plummeting whale, a rush of water streaming downwards following behind the pumping tail. At a preordained depth the whale started to relax and coast into position, still in head-down aspect, and Duncan moved down alongside the great flanks to stop at the same place as the whale, both head down, both gathering for the performance.

  The whale’s vocalisation started like an orchestra tuning up, just a few individual instruments to begin with but gradually adding more harmonics, testing out ranges of pitch, volume and modulations. Then started the coordinated song, booming out, deep and complex. Duncan had heard recordings like this before but like live music compared to a weak recording, there was thunderous emotion in the real delivery that was totally lost in the recording. As the whale song started in earnest, luminescent sea creatures great and small started assembling in the vicinity giving the aura of massed candlelight in a cathedral vault. Then the other whales of the pod started to arrive, also head down, nosing into the brighter light of the luminescence, bodies narrowed by the monstrous pressure of the depths. And they began to sing alongside. They sang similar songs to their leader but with descants and riffs augmenting the already complex song as a choir of soaring sound.

  This depth and this location were key to the global ritual. Around the globe at other key locations pods of sperm whales were engaging in the same performance, their song amplifying the Australian pod and bouncing round the ocean in the thermocline and specific density of that depth and location. Like a tuning fork pitched to the resonance of a crystal wine glass, the water layer reinforced the sound force until, like the tuning fork smashing the glass, the whalesong broke free from the oceans in a pulse extending either end of the Earth and out into space.

  Like a pulsar star emitting its energy across the universe in two opposing jets, the whalesong carried far across the universe, much further than Dawn of Gaya capability to transport either souls or physical forms, and as each beam struck very distant solar systems, remote whale groups added their own melodies and staged the song further out into space. In this way the whales communicated with their relatives not only across the galaxy but out into other galaxies across deepest space; a feat of communications beyond that of human technologies. In this way whales could discover their brethren across the vast vault of the heavens and even transport occasional whale souls through the channels to spread their knowledge and wisdom across marine planets with whale form, analogous to Dawn of Gaya transmitting occasional human souls across the spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy to enhance the culture and gene pool of other Earth-type planets.

  Duncan immersed himself totally in the performance he had waited to experience for so long. Time held no meaning, he understood no detail and at the same time wondered at everything. He soaked up the entirety of it knowing that he would need to report back to Worders of Dawn and be the repository of this knowledge that could extend Dawn of Gaya reach beyond the galaxy into the wide chasms of the universe. Duncan committed it all to memory until the music faded and the bioluminescent creatures gradually dispersed. The hallowed halls of the abyss grew dark until the next such gathering.

  Duncan accompanied the subdued whales back to the surface where their young awaited excitedly and then he continued up to the skies towards planet Chamarel in the Pleiades star cluster where his next incarnation would be determined.

  The giant squid had fled in terror in all directions from the gathering of their bitterest enemy and there were none remaining in an area of the Pacific Ocean covering twelve square miles.

  NINETEEN

  Three elegant Worders of Dawn were seated in simple yet most comfortable chairs around a broad, short-legged table of ebony black wood polished to a high shine. Several small bowls were placed in the centre containing a variety of sweetmeats and sauces. The Worders occasionally selected one and dipped it into a complementary sauce before savouring the classical combinations. Small crystal glasses of sweet and dry white wines were provided to enhance the experience. Two of the Worders were women, one a young Latin woman, Chiara, with flowing dark curls. The other woman was a Scandinavian, Lykke, of indeterminate age. The young man was of continental Asian appearance and was called Ghazan. All three Worders were tall and lithe and wore elegant flowing garments that allowed free movement and emphasised their easy, limber bearing. Only Chiara was present in completely solid embodied form, Lykke and Ghazan were manifested partly ethereally, as ‘solely-soul’.
r />   A worn, smooth wooden floor extended several yards to the cabin walls on three sides and a panoramic window proclaimed the view along one long wall of the room. The window provided protection from weather and wind but in other respects seemed invisibly open to the outside world. The chalet sat atop long slopes of flower meadows that streamed down to an alpine lake a mile long reflecting the mountains opposite. Beyond these low mountains with cedar and fir woods cascading down to the lake were much higher mountains, vertical rocky ridges faded to smoky blue by distance and with runnels of snow appearing light blue with distance smeared from the jagged tips. The geology of planet Chamarel was relatively new so the mountains could be many miles high and largely unweathered providing conical peaks connected by long razor ridges or swooping vistas to other lakes hidden from view.

  Worders are the most ancient, highly developed race of Dawn that had emerged with respect over many hundreds of generations such that their experience now guided operations of the Travellers of Dawn across the galaxy. With great experience came some dispassion, though passion could be found aplenty in the current travellers engaged in missions on planets of interest to Dawn of Gaya. Where a single Worder was eminently capable of directing operations across several worlds they actually managed operations in small groups providing mutual counselling and resilience. Worders were not known for intemperance. Their goal was to advance the cause of Dawn a little everywhere on every single day. That was the way to Enlightenment on a massive scale across the whole universe as the aeons unfolded. On this particular day they were meeting with the guide Duncan from planet Earth and this was a moment for anticipated pleasure at communicating first hand the latest news of their mission.

  The guide Duncan had been known as Doctor McGregor in his most recent incarnation as an academic at the University the Worders had selected as the prime locale for their operations on Earth. By the nature of their missions on other worlds Gayan travellers’ visits to planet Chamarel were routinely a lifetime apart. Travellers of Dawn were reborn on different planets according to their latest assignments and they would typically not return except in emergencies. There was certainty that these travellers would return one day, but seldom any knowledge of precisely when that would occur. Some Gayans claimed that certainty of returning eventually is better in some ways than the everyday farewells of humans on Earth often unaware of whether they would ever meet again. As Gayans would see it, ‘You always know the first occasion you do something; you seldom know the last time you do it.’ So to Travellers of Dawn, the notion of ‘Au Revoir’ is a powerful bond between those leaving and those remaining behind. There is almost complete certainty that those separating will meet again but that could well be in some distant future time. At least there was no headlong rush to complete everything in haste in a single lifetime as in human races that are unaware of their ability to pass through one lifetime into the next. An individual must care for an eternal soul in a much different way than if he thinks it is for one lifetime only.

  Reunions were therefore occasions of great joy and Travellers of Dawn could always look forward to their return both to enjoy the company of old friends and relatives in the idyllic surroundings of their home worlds as well as catching up with the knowledge that Dawn of Gaya had accumulated in their absences. Chiara had laid out the traditional welcome for Duncan’s returning soul of a porcelain tray on the deck outside their room facing across the lake. The ceremonial tray was exquisitely decorated with glazed peach blossom and fruit entwined on gnarled branches. It contained scented water with floating flower petals that marked the point of arrival of the returning soul. The welcome tray was both a token of the pleasures of life on Chamarel and something of a target for the soul transport of the inbound Traveller of Dawn. Duncan was piercing through the Pleiades right now and the walls of his warpwave tube were so much brighter than that when he left Earth due to the larger numbers and brightness of stars local to planet Chamarel that blurred together to form the walls of his warpwave transport. Unlike Keeran, Duncan had learned to enjoy this tearing about the galaxy and was whooping with elation as he plunged Chamarelwards through an atmosphere of cotton bud clouds in an azure sky and then deeper down towards the cabin by the lake nestling between high peaks.

  The three Worders glanced out, one instant all was calm long views, the next a weaving thread of light pierced the skies to deliver Duncan and instantaneously he was there crouching on flexed knees on arrival in the welcome tray, fingers of his right hand splayed against the wood of the deck floor, bare feet immersed in the water that barely rippled out from his insubstantial feet. He was wearing the loose pants and blouson he favoured, which fitted his piratical appearance, and he pulled his shoulder-length hair away from the left side of his face with his free hand to reveal his beaming expression, full complement of teeth restored. He rose, slowly transformed back to the Gayan Duncan, and stepped out of the tray leaving no wet footprint on the wooden deck. He took a turn to soak in the view, scents and airs of the high-mountain pasture then joined the Worders who had risen to greet him. All were hugging and speaking at once. Not about the serious issues of his mission but the trivia of his journey and pleasures of the locale and its outlook. Eventually Duncan joined them at the table and he described the events leading to his demise on Earth and subsequent travels home.

  The Worders conjured a three-dimensional display of Earth above the coffee table that allowed McGregor to copy his mind map of his earthly knowledge on to the slowly rotating globe. They paused for the minute or so that allowed him to complete the copy and then the detail of his prior lifetime augmented the knowledge existent in the globe. Chiara turned the globe with a palm movement so the United Kingdom was on top. Placing a fingertip above London and turning it clockwise she could drill down as lighter blue ripples spread across the surface to see McGregor’s new information as well as the other Travellers’ locations and missions and the results from those that had returned. Gayan operatives were visible as occasional bright blue lights in key locations. Zarnha operations were shown in red and were broadly spread across all population areas and military locations on planet Earth. Some Gayan missions were political to develop an opportunity to promote Gayan enlightenment; others were security operations to deal with Zarnha or other threats. Many missions were developmental with respect to local academics, such as revealing the true nature of the heavens, or the true nature of death and rebirth, body and soul. Some missions were ecological, preventing destruction of planet Earth by its inhabitants and learning of any special knowledge or resources on Earth that could be assimilated by the wider galaxy.

  The globe showed geographical regions of influence for Gaya in blue and for Spargan in red. The blue areas tended to be liberal democracies with well-developed Gayan values. Some of these were under threat from dark web technology and terrorist incursions led by Zarnha activists. The red areas tended to be dictatorships supported by Spargar. These too could also be under threat from uprisings of their own people seeking freedoms available in the enlightened areas. It was the Worders’ task to monitor the flux of their influence and to allocate their resources to ideal effect.

  The globe was also available in its native mode that showed Earth as it could be viewed ‘today’ from Chamarel which actually showed Earth as it was four hundred and forty four years ago; the distance between the two planets in light years. Native mode was populated by passive observatories that operated at light speed between Earth and Chamarel. The globe could display any historical period between the Worders’ first analysis of planet Earth and ‘today’ (four hundred and forty years ago on Earth). From four hundred and forty four years ago to today, the up-to-date news came in from warpwave communications from Travellers of Dawn on Earth or those like Duncan returning from Earth that patched on top of the native mode information and provided a near real-time view of the political situation on planet Earth. The success or otherwise of the various Travellers of Dawn could be compared with their
rivals from Spargar. The Worders with oversight of Earth could then plot their future missions and track the success or otherwise of those currently deployed against history. This meant that Worders tasked with making progress for enlightenment on planet Earth had little ability to direct matters in real time. They required Travellers in the planet Earth theatre of operations to handle day-to-day matters on their own initiative. Those Travellers had to be trained over many generations and trusted to make decisions on the spot as there was no practical way to communicate with them as events occurred. Each Worder team could typically give oversight to around ten campaigns arising on different worlds at the same time depending on the intensity of the progress and competition from Spargar. Across planet Chamarel many similar Worder groups were simultaneously giving oversight to Travellers of Dawn on thousands of currently active planets of interest to Dawn across the Milky Way galaxy.