Star Matters

by David John West

  Daniel paused as Charlotte knocked and entered with Christopher. Daniel paused owlishly in his story, as he was talking about Christopher. “Er, hi guys,” he said. “I am just bringing the professor up to speed.”

  Professor Kitteridge acted the host to engage the whole group. “Come in, take a seat,” he said invitingly to Charlotte and Christopher. “What a fascinating story Daniel has been telling me. Well, fascinating for me at least. It must have been terrifying for you, Christopher?”

  “Yes it was, Professor,” Christopher agreed readily. “I have never been so overwhelmed by anything in my entire life. And so relieved once it dawned on me that we were winning. Now it seems like a crazy dream, except here we are all talking about it.”

  Professor Kitteridge continued, “Well, I am pleased that there is somebody else now who knows what is going on and in the confidence of our friends from Gaya. However it must be a totally different experience for you, Christopher. With me it was an act of faith in Charlotte and the people with her, and she had to bring me round with her words and knowledge. For you, all the proof was there in the action you were part of, like it or not, and the explanations had to catch up later. That must have been much harder on you, but at least you had the evidence right there before your eyes. I wish I had seen the encounter too, but I fear I would have been a liability in a skirmish like that… ” Professor Kitteridge looked down at his emaciated body for emphasis.

  Christopher rose boldly in support of Professor Kitteridge, “I was no more use than you would have been, Professor,” he said. “The situation was well beyond anything I could handle. Just keeping myself huddled up and inconspicuous was all I could think about. The noise, the dust, the nightmarish activity. I was thinking there was little chance I could get out of it all alive. Then just as it seemed to be going on forever it started to calm down and I dared to hope I might survive it. I couldn’t see the Cavallos were coming to our aid very well from my position on the ground.”

  “But you actually saw all the Gayans and then their ships leaving afterwards! That must have been really marvellous. I dearly wish I could have seen all that.” Professor Kitteridge spoke in earnest. He had always been fascinated by thoughts of alien encounters in his imagination. How he would love to witness such marvels in reality!

  “Even watching was not so easy, Professor. Stephen Hadley was waiting for me in the trees and he was petrified too. He didn’t even know who had won the battle and what was happening until the Cavallos’ ships had left.”

  “And does Stephen know now?” Professor Kitteridge asked mildly.

  “He knows the rough facts of who the protagonists were,” Charlotte answered. “But he knows nothing of the background and the precise nature of what is happening here. Logically we will develop Stephen towards Enlightenment if he wishes it but he has a lot of work to do to catch up with you, and now Christopher as well. I will handle that but he can have little involvement in the immediate actions we need to take. We have decisively won this battle and Joe has given us the time we need by removing our local enemies but we must move swiftly now to protect the people here from falling under the rule of Omeyn MuneMei and her Zarnha armies.”

  “Well, we are ready to publish the first theoretical papers on the nature of dark matter and how that could be used to build a warp drive,” said Professor Kitteridge. “That was always in our plan anyway. Even so, that paper will just seed a lot of academic effort to develop the theory towards something testable. We would still be a very long time away from building a prototype DMF drive. I don’t see how that can provide any results short term, certainly not before these Zarnha people get the chance to regroup.”

  “That is true, Professor,” said Charlotte. “But there does come a point when Gayan – or Spargar – operations cease being covert and become overt. After all you can’t have a political alliance between a human race and a bunch of ghosts.”

  “Do you mean what I think you mean? Real overt contact?” Professor Kitteridge breathed in wonder. “Daniel, you must keep me alive to see this!” He turned to the tall medical student and insisted.

  Daniel laughed, “You will see this come to pass before, or after, you pass through this body, Professor. But I feel sure we will keep you going for the next year or so. That’s all you will need to see things come to a conclusion.”

  “We forecast that this year is the time that our help here will come to fruition,” Charlotte added. “You see in the media that there is a 2012 movement and that apocalyptic events are expected. We seeded those ideas when we first arrived 13 Baktuns ago, more than five thousand Earth years.”

  “And you were there, Charlotte?”

  “It’s rude to ask a lady her age like that, Professor!” Charlotte replied with a smile. “In fact that was not me, I was soulborn later into the group leading campaign Earth. You have met my soul father, Keeran, you know him as our colleague Joe. My soul mother, Kyra, is still incarcerated in The Spyre on Spargan, captive of Omeyn MuneMei and her Mind control system. Keeran and I tried once before to free her, and we still plan to get her released shortly.”

  “You continue to be full of surprises, my dear,” observed Professor Kitteridge. “I presume that’s why Joe is not with us today then.”

  “That is partly correct. Freeing Kyra is a mission for us with great personal significance. Officially Joe is laying the ground in our home worlds for the conclusion of our mission here – contact between Earth peoples and those on Gaya. All is ready, just one thing remains – the actual method of making contact. This is where we come in with our work together here in Cambridge. Just like we take individuals through a five-stage Enlightenment process as we did with you, Professor, and you too, Chris, we do the same with new human races as they emerge over many generations on a developing planet. In this way the whole race of human beings on Earth has been in a five-thousand-year Development phase where we have been helping cultural and moral development as well as the more obvious scientific and technological advances delivered at just the right moments. We believe you, as Earth people, are now ready for the critical fourth stage Revelation in totality, rather than just selected individuals to move the process along as we have been doing up to now. In fact we are now at a profoundly critical juncture when we must move forward or our whole enterprise will fall back into decline. Right now there is an even worse threat than merely falling back into chaos, and that is overt control over this planet from the Spargan empire. Their progress too is at a critical moment and it is likely that if we fail then Omeyn MuneMei can take over the internet here from the Spargan Mind control system and install locally developed dictators to rule this planet under her control.”

  Charlotte paused for breath. Christopher and Professor Kitteridge were processing all these facts and issues. Say something supportive, Daniel, Duncan pushed Daniel solely-soul. Daniel said, “I know this all sounds so overwhelming… and of course it is, but if you think about it dispassionately, all new races of humans have to go through this change to be part of human races across the stars, and they mostly do it with our help. That’s why we are Pointers of Dawn – we manage new races to this critical point and then through it. We want it to be a revolution of Enlightenment, not a revolution of integration into a computer system run by the biggest dictator in your galactic neighbourhood.”

  Charlotte continued, “So that is the ‘Why’ we have to get moving. You will be pleased to know that the ‘How’ is already well advanced. We know it is not a good thing to show up out of the blue and introduce ourselves. It leads to hysteria among the authorities and peoples here on Earth, attracts Spargan to do exactly the same and leads to confusion and violence, not from your alien visitors who are constrained from using violence, but among yourselves as you manage the surprising situation in the context of existing politics here on Earth. What we need is for you to call us, you to initiate contact and then we can respond. This is a much more effective resol
ution and allows careful management of the process by enlightened scientists from here and your political masters.”

  Professor Kitteridge was beginning to see the light, “So the work we are doing on theoretical warp drive systems requires a guidance system. The work Christopher is doing, a kind of galactic satnav system for an advanced craft, also provides the means to target a message only to a targeted region of space, or indeed a series of planets that could be the home worlds of Gaya?”

  “Precisely, Professor,” Charlotte confirmed. “Once you have developed a guidance system it would need to be able to point to a target planet using that planet’s star system to get through warped space. If you knew the target’s name and melodic identifier, that would give you the precise destination of, say, our home world Gaya. You would then need to develop the method to use our warpwave system that sends our messages near instantaneously to Gaya. That saves the four hundred plus years it would take to send such a message at light speeds. So the critical discoveries we need to make now are the warp transmission and message target method to send a message to an ideal advanced alien race. Such a target would likely be found in a star cluster like the Pleiades so it would be logical you would target there. Once we receive that message then we can return it and make first contact in person.”

  “I see,” said Professor Kitteridge his mind racing ahead, unfettered by the frailty of his wasting body. “The work so far has elements of the warp interface and targeting for physical ships through warped space, it’s a more straightforward proposition to strip out the problems of moving physical mass and focus on the core protocols for messaging only. I suggest that from now on, Christopher focuses on this part entirely with Gayan help to interface to your messaging systems. I will work on it as much as I can without raising suspicion with the rest of the team. Of course, Chris will take the lead but Charlotte will manage the plan and make sure the message is sent.”

  “That is good as far as it goes, Professor,” said Charlotte. “The marketing is equally important. The media is accustomed to your team delivering cosmology advances in digestible form to the public. If we are to lift public perception to the levels we need to reveal alien contact then we need to up the pace of publishing discoveries leading up to it and publicise these much more widely than the highbrow programmes we have used in the past.”

  “I can see that we need to do this as a team, Christopher,” Professor Kitteridge observed thoughtfully. “This project needs to emerge from my work and reputation but needs someone new and youthful to become the figurehead for the major revelations to come. That has to be you, Chris.”

  “With me and the others helping you of course, Chris, as well as protecting you from any malicious interference as it arises,” added Charlotte.

  Christopher assimilated the conversation and resolved in his mind that this had to be done and that he was indeed the only choice to lead the mission. There were doubts but he had the protection of the Gayans and he had learned they were immensely more capable than he had previously known, plus they had the knowledge to ensure this process would be fruitful and would actually work. He smiled at Charlotte, “I feel trapped into doing the most important job in human history, but the course is set – so let’s do it!” Christopher was relaxed now the decision was made. Like many savants before him, once the timing was utterly perfect for proclaiming the next step in human advancement, they had the singular ability to deliver that discovery. Ultimately, the strong would step up to take this lead in the face of the perils and the personal struggles that would beset them.

  Christopher was destined, had always been destined since birth, to be the next scientific genius to reveal the biggest leap in human enlightenment on Earth. That we are not alone in the Universe; that we can communicate and commune with advanced human races in existence across the vault of stars in the heavens previously so little understood. Mankind would never stare into the stars in wonderment the same way ever again.

  Across the Master’s Lawn from Chapel Court to the River Cam, a dark shade was watching the building containing the meeting in Professor Kitteridge’s rooms. The Ghola flitted in the shadows beneath the spreading tree overhanging the narrow, deep waters between the Bridge of Sighs and Magdalene Bridge. The Ghola continued to spy on the movements of Professor Kitteridge’s contacts as ordered, but now his desolate soul was afflicted by new trauma: he was lonely and abandoned. There had been no recalls and orders from Omeyn MuneMei since early the day before. His exalted mistress and all her agents had just disappeared.

  GLOSSARY

  BRAGANZA – Capital city of race Spargar on planet Spargan.

  CAVALLOS of Dawn – Warrior caste tasked with providing martial support to Travellers of Dawn across worlds of Gayan influence. Prohibited from first use of lethal force weaponry, preferring staves (Vorarms) that they grow themselves from Ivory Vine. Rafaello and Umberto Pantucci are Cavallos in this episode.

  CHAMAREL – Adopted planetary headquarters of Worders of Dawn, wisest intellectuals and highest caste of race Dawn, responsible for policy determination and execution of policy throughout planets of influence. Adjacent to planet Gaya in the Pleiades star cluster.

  CORINTH CITY – Capital city of race Dawn on planet Gaya. Grown from Ivory Vine, largest single known organism in the galaxy.

  DARK MATTER FUSION (DMF) DRIVES – Warp space for spacecraft to travel between distant points – allows intragalactic travel for embodied human beings and material at speed practical to human colonization. Locations of destinations are determined by a place name and a musical identifier to allow for huge numbers of place names across space. Spacecraft travel from origin to nearby dark matter, then warp to destination locale dark matter, then travel on to destination.

  DAWN – Spiritually advanced race of humans from Planet Gaya in Pleiades star cluster. Have quests to deliver Enlightenment, enabling fast and true development of emerging human races on other worlds.

  EITHER WAY – Gayan term, jocular, often used by Cavallo warrior caste referring to travel or escape from combat, either embodied if Cavallo wins battle, or soul only if they lose their life and exit combat by passing through death and leaving ‘solely-soul’.

  ENLIGHTENMENT (from Dawn of Gaya) – Five-stage process to teach cultural and technological advances to local intellectuals in emerging human cultures on other planets. Five-stage process is: Selection, Evaluation, Development, Revelation, Integration. Five-stage process has pass/fail assessment at each phase and requires time to assimilate to avoid overwhelming subject and causing chaos in wider population. Enlightenment is core to the development to the highest cultural goal of Dawn, called Esprit.

  EPSILON treaties – Prohibit large-scale interplanetary kidnap and murder between human races, notably Dawn and Spargar. Enacted after a rival human race was annihilated by the Spargan Empire using a targeted meteor strike on their planet that reduced it to space rubble.

  ESPRIT – Gayan term for highest form of cultural nirvana achieved in the worlds of human beings influenced by Dawn through many generations of Enlightenment.

  GAYA – Home world of race Gaya, capital city Corinth City. Gayan home star is Rama, 450 Light years from Earth.

  GUIDES of Dawn – Teachers and protectors who provide Enlightenment to selected intellectuals in emerging human races on other worlds. Duncan (named Doctor McGregor in Cambridge) and Waylon (named Bill Hannigan, teacher at school) are Guides of Dawn in this episode.

  HYADES Star Cluster – Nearest open star cluster to planet Earth 150 light years distant in the constellation Taurus. Home range of the Spargar Empire.

  JEJEUNE – 1) Name for Gayan immature person not yet aware of past lives’ history or 2) Term for period of time between birth of a human baby inspired by Gayan soulfire to the moment at maturity when the embodied Gayan regains complete memory, knowledge and skills of all its lives to its soul birth.

  MAL – Insidious influence of
Spargar culture on peoples of a developing world infiltrated by the Spargar Empire. Mal is clandestinely propagated by Spargar agents called Zarnha within tyrannical, technological cultures that are fertile breeding ground for Mal, prior to overt invasion by Spargar forces.

  MIND – the Spargar computer control system. Originally formed to fuse the first Omeyn MuneMei to the earliest version of Spargan biological control computer to allow Omeyn MuneMei to rule for ever. Mind storage, transaction processing and networking is biological, analogous to human brain structure rather than primitive Earthly silicon-based computers. Controls all Spargar culture across the Spargar empire in conjunction with Omeyn replicants. Needs to be fused with abductees to capture cultures from emerging planets like Earth, and with all Spargar peoples on death to cater for system growth. Pervasive in all Spargar territories, its central nexus is located in the Spyre in the Spargar capital city Braganza.