Vale of Stars

by Sean O'Brien

  “Sit down on the couch, Iede. The monitor will demonstrate how to secure your straps.” The voice seemed to come from the entire cabin simultaneously. Iede was used to the ambivalent gender of the voice—all her contacts with the gods had been the same. She thought she recognized the god who spoke, but that was immaterial. She obeyed and sat down on the couch. The panel lit up, and a stylized image of a person, somewhat elongated but otherwise recognizable, appeared. As Iede watched, the image sat down on its own couch and adjusted the straps. Iede duplicated the movements carefully and found herself securely fastened in when she was done.

  “Good. We will now ascend to Ship. Prepare yourself for acceleration.”

  Iede wasn’t quite sure how she was to prepare herself, but the vehicle rose swiftly and rocketed upwards towards its destination.

  Iede knew about multiple g’s, even if she herself had never experienced them. The craft was not beyond mortal technology, though it did have a polish and sheen to it that was otherwise lacking in Newurth construction. Iede concentrated on breathing—she felt as if she had three people sitting on her chest. She would have to remember this sensation for her congregation, she thought. It could be seen as symbolic of the effort one must put forth in order to truly commune with the gods.

  The acceleration lasted perhaps twenty minutes, then suddenly cut out entirely. Iede felt euphoria for a few seconds before she became acutely aware of a growing nausea. Her stomach, denied the gravity it had become accustomed to, threatened to rise and dislodge its contents.

  Iede swallowed in a moist mouth and closed her eyes. She would not be sick. The gods would not deem her worthy. Iede repeated the thought until it was a litany. Presently, she was able to open her eyes.

  The panel in front of her had lit up again and was flashing the message “DO NOT UNSTRAP” in bold letters. “Iede.” Again, the flat voice. “You must remain secured to the acceleration couch. We will bring you in shortly. Remain where you are.”

  Iede nodded, then wondered why she’d bothered. The gods could not see her here. Or could they? She thought indignantly that surely They could, if They so wished. Iede decided to risk a question.

  “My Lords?”

  “Yes, Iede?” The voice did not sound angry.

  “Where are You?”

  “I am in Ship. So are we all, and so shall you be soon.”

  Iede considered this. “This vessel is but an avatar?”

  “It is controlled by an onboard computer.” Iede thought she heard a wry smile in the answer. She felt chagrin—she should know better than to speak to her gods in the language of a priestess.

  “My Lord, may I know Your name so I might thank You in my prayers?”

  “I’ll tell you, but not for that reason. I am called Groundseer Aywon.” The voice placed the emphasis on the last syllable in the last name.

  “Thank you, my Lord.” Iede smiled, pleased she had not heard the name before. This was a new God, possibly a higher order of God. Soon, she would be with Them.

  She felt a slight sensation of movement and guessed that the craft was maneuvering in orbit. Her pulse quickened as she felt the vessel shudder gently. The panel still flashed the message “DO NOT UNSTRAP,” but as she watched, the words disappeared to be replaced by “UNSTRAP AT WILL.” The panel demonstrated how she was to remove her acceleration straps.

  “You are now docked with Ship,” Groundseer said. “Unstrap yourself, but be careful. You are not used to microgravity. Wait inside the craft and disrobe entirely. Then place the mask securely over your mouth and nose. I will collect you.” Before Iede could ask what mask Groundseer meant, the craft’s data panel slid aside to reveal a small compartment. A clear face mask lay inside.

  Iede unstrapped carefully and took off her clothes, placing them neatly on the acceleration couch. She did not hesitate—she felt a vague sense of pride that her gods would choose to see her naked and alone. Iede took the mask and attached it firmly to her face. Again, she did not hesitate, though she could see no obvious breathing holes. The mask had some kind of adhesive around its edges—Iede did not need to hold it in place once attached. She found without surprise that she could breathe through the mask. The gods would not have placed her in danger. She had no choice in the matter in any case. She was sure the iris valve would not have opened for her until she had complied with Groundseer’s orders. She faced where she remembered the valve to be and floated blissfully, waiting for the arrival of her gods.

  The lighting in the craft changed slightly, taking on a vaguely violet hue, and Iede felt the prickly sensation of heat on her bare skin. The sensation was over before she could grow uncomfortable, and then the light changed back again. The iris valve cycled open and a tall, slender humanoid floated through. Iede could not immediately identify the humanoid’s gender from facial features, and his/her body was so slight as to be almost a mockery of the human form. The humanoid was nude, but a quick, almost involuntary glance at his/her genital region did not help: Iede did not recognize the structure she saw there. She closed her eyes tightly and said with shame, “I beg forgiveness, my Lord.”

  “Call me Groundseer. And you’ll need your eyes to get through the hatch, Iede,” Groundseer said.

  Iede forced here eyes open but kept them pointedly averted. She made an arbitrary decision to think of the humanoid as male until she was presented with facts to the contrary.

  “Through here,” Groundseer said, and launched himself back through the iris valve. Iede followed.

  He led her through a short, immaculately silver-white tunnel that terminated at another iris valve. As in the shuttle, light seemed to simply exist in the tunnel—Iede could not determine its source. Groundseer pressed his slender fingers against a spot on the gleaming wall and the valve spiraled open. He swam effortlessly through, Iede in tow. When she cleared the valve, she gasped at what she saw.

  A vast chamber, so large she could only with difficulty make out the other side, opened up in front of her. The chamber was spherical and must have been at least one hundred meters in diameter. Thin, birdlike Gods swooped through the air, using small wings that Iede had half-glimpsed on Groundseer. Iede did not know if the wings were part of the gods’ bodies or mechanical contrivances of some kind. All the gods were nude, and Iede guiltily stole glances at their genitals in a sort of morbid curiosity. The nearest god was at least thirty meters distant and moving quickly, so her eyes could not quite make out what she saw. She looked away, lest the god see her and grow angry with her. She looked instead at the chamber itself.

  The interior of the sphere was largely empty, save for the occasional god moving from one end of the sphere to another. As she watched, Iede saw a pair of small gods playing what appeared to be tag. She gave a short, shocked laugh when she realized these were children.

  “What do you think?” Groundseer asked, his tone neutral.

  “It is glorious!” The mask muffled her voice slightly.

  Groundseer snorted and said, “Come on. There are some others I want you to meet.” He pushed off the threshold of the iris valve and flew gracefully toward the far wall. Iede pushed off as well and saw immediately that she would miss her target.

  Groundseer looked back at her and said, “When you hit the wall, crawl along it until to get to me. I don’t want to have to bring you in myself.”

  Iede did as she was told, feeling foolish. She had wanted to show her gods that they had chosen well in preserving her life those thirty-five years ago. She was not off to a good start.

  Groundseer was waiting for her at the opening. He dove down the tunnel opening before she was done maneuvering into it. She saw him disappear into a side tunnel that branched off the main one and followed him. He continued in this fashion, staying ahead of her and choosing tunnels without hesitation, until they arrived at another tunnel terminus. Groundseer paused before the blank wall and turned to look at Iede.

  “We’re going to the Groundseer’s hub. There may be many of us in there. It is vita
l you do not touch any of us. When we enter, find a station near the wall immediately and stay there.” He did not wait for a response but opened the valve and entered.

  The room was another sphere, although one considerably less spacious than the last one she had seen. The first features that caught her eye were multicolored holograms floating in various places in the sphere. She recognized some of them as locations from around Newurth: the Assembly Building, the old Valhalla Dome, and a patch of ocean that had to be the location of the Vix Observation Lab. She also saw individuals: governmental figures, scientists, even one of her cardinals. At every holo, a god watched dispassionately.

  “I said to find the wall, Iede,” Groundseer’s voice snapped her away from the scene. She blushed and grabbed hold of a stanchion. Groundseer moved off into the room and hovered near another god to converse. The two gods were oriented oddly to one another—Groundseer was upside down and above the god to which he spoke—but neither of them seemed to care. None of the other gods were looking at Iede or had acknowledged her presence. Iede took the opportunity to take her first good look at the bodies of her gods.

  Each adult god in the chamber was at least two meters tall, and Iede could see elongated bones sheathed in brown skin. All the gods were the same shade of toast-colored tan. All were entirely bald—no hair on even their bodies. The hairless, slender bodies seemed incredibly fragile; Iede wondered if she looked hard enough, would she see their hearts beating in the thin, corrugated chests?

  Iede’s gaze wandered towards the genitals once again. The nearest god was situated in such a way as to afford Iede a clear look. Iede could not suppress a slight shudder as she finally understood what she had been seeing in her furtive glances: the gods were hermaphrodites. A small vagina bisected a dual scrotum in which Iede could make out tiny testicles drawn up against the god’s body. As she watched, the god shifted position slightly, and Iede could see the miniature head of the god’s penis peeking out from within the vagina.

  “Iede.” Groundseer’s voice caused her to start in shame. She looked around to see him motioning her over. She let go of the stanchion and pushed off, careful that her course did not take her too close to any gods. She needn’t have bothered—the gods moved blithely out of her way as she approached until she reached the other side of the chamber where Groundseer and another god waited.

  “This is Groundseer Deefor. She will explain why you were brought here.” He pronounced the pronoun ‘shuh-he.’ Iede mentally assigned the female gender to Deefor.

  Deefor nodded and began in a voice that was almost identical to Groundseer Aywon’s, “We in Ship, and especially those of us in the Groundseer line, believe you are embarking on a path that will lead you to ruin.”

  Iede blinked. “My Lord, I have been trying to bring more and more followers to Your glory. We of Newurth are but vile creatures crawling under Your grace. I thank You for Your wisdom and ask humbly how I might bring more of my fellow creatures to the truth.”

  Deefor and Aywon exchanged unreadable glances. Aywon said, with some gentleness, “No, Iede. We don’t think Newurth is on the wrong path. You yourself are.”

  Iede cast her eyes downward. “Again, I thank You that You should bring me here, to your glorious Above, to correct me in—”

  “Iede! Stop that!” Aywon’s voice had lost what little compassion she had heard earlier and was now clearly annoyed.

  Iede continued to look down. “In what way have I strayed from Your plan? How have I misinterpreted Your words and precepts?”

  “Iede, you must abolish this religion. Immediately.”

  “As my Lord wishes. I am but a humble servant.”

  “Iede—” Aywon said, but Deefor interrupted.

  “Ay, she will not listen. She cannot hear you.” Iede heard the contempt in Deefor’s voice but did not look up. The god continued, “This is what comes of interference. We should never have involved ourselves. Costellan was right.”

  “And I was wrong?”

  Iede looked up at this. It dawned on her with incredulity that she was listening to an argument between two of her gods.

  “I said so sixty years ago. I say so now again.”

  Iede looked at Deefor in astonishment. The god was more than sixty years old? S(he) did not look older than twenty. In the back of her mind, Iede remembered that the gods did not record the years in the same fashion as those on Newurth. She converted the figure according to the information contained in the Verses and was still astonished: Deefor was over thirty-five years old and looked much younger.

  Aywon sighed in a most human fashion. “I’ve thought about that. I’ve tortured myself about it for those sixty years.”

  Deefor said, “You have affection for her.” Iede knew that she was being referred to, although Deefor had made no motion in her direction.

  “I do.”

  “You even feel responsible for her. You personally.” Deefor said it with an air of indictment.

  “Yes. How can I not?” Aywon turned to Iede and spoke directly to her. “Sixty years ago, which is thirty-six years ago to you, your mother and two other people were attacked by people you used to call Domers.”

  “My Lord, I have studied the histories. I know of the miracle You enacted.”

  “Yes. It was me.”

  Iede’s eyes widened. “You, my Lord? You were the god who…my Lord!” She squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her fists. “I cannot…express to You—”

  “Quiet, now,” he said firmly. Iede calmed herself somewhat and heard Deefor mumble something under her breath. Iede could not make out the words, but Deefor’s tone was unmistakably disgusted.

  Aywon looked away and said, “What you don’t know is that I acted without authority. I did not consult with the Arch-Captain. For that, I was assigned control of the Groundseer hub that I might correct my mistake. I have spent the last sixty years trying to do so.”

  “Mistake, My Lord?”

  Aywon turned to Iede again. “I don’t want you dead, Iede. But my superiors believe you should never have been saved. We’re not supposed to meddle with your affairs.”

  Iede nodded and quoted from Costellan’s poetry: “Verse Twelve: ‘Green mist hides those below/ Only birds under the fog/ All as it should be.’”

  Aywon continued as if he had not heard. “But having saved you, I set in motion a chain of events leading to this…religion. It must end.”

  “But My Lord, I only wish to worship You, to thank You for all You have done.”

  Deefor laughed—a short, derisive burst of air. “It’s hopeless. You’ve twisted this creature so far out of shape she is no longer human. And she is twisting others.”

  Aywon moved closer to Iede. “Iede, I am not a god. I am a human, like you. I eat, I bleed, and one day I will die. This place you are in is just a Ship.”

  “My Lord, I have studied all of that. I know what You are. I still worship You—not for what You are, but for what You have done and what You will do.”

  “What will we do?”

  “It is written in Verse Thirty-Nine, the last verse: ‘The globe spins in space/ Night becomes day becomes night/ Life grows forever.’”

  “What does that mean?”

  Iede looked down. “My Lord, my understanding is flawed, being a lowly planetdweller, but in my limited intelligence I understand it to mean the gods will always ensure life. Whatever crisis we may face below, You will act in Your own way to keep life flourishing.”

  Aywon turned to Deefor. “Can you argue with that? She may have twisted Costellan’s words completely out of shape, but she understands our purpose.”

  “Our purpose is to study. We watch, we gather data, we watch more.” Deefor continued to look away from Iede.

  “To what end?” Aywon asked with a sneer.

  “There is no end.”

  Aywon stared at Deefor for a moment, then said, “You are as twisted as she is. Your blind acceptance of doctrine is no less foolish than this poor human’s religion.�
� Aywon looked at Iede, and she saw kindness in his eyes. “I have something to show you.”

  Deefor seized Aywon’s arm. “What are you going to do?”

  “She needs to see what we have discovered.”

  Deefor’s eyes widened. In her peripheral vision, Iede could see the other Groundseers turning from their workstations to stare at Aywon. Deefor whispered, “You can’t! We can’t influence their growth and development in any way! Look what one small act sixty years ago has done! If you reveal any more to her than you have already….”

  “She’s here. We have changed her irrevocably as it is. We may as well complete the process. Unless you had in mind killing her outright rather than returning her to the surface?” Iede hoped she detected sarcasm in his voice.

  Deefor murmured, “It would be the best possible solution.” Then, more loudly, “Failing that, we must keep her here forever. She must not be allowed to return to the surface. Even that will not correct the problem, but it will keep our interference to a minimum.”

  “No. She’ll learn what she needs to know, then go and tell the others below.”

  Deefor locked eyes with Aywon and said slowly. “I’ll tell the Arch-Captain what you are doing. She will not return to the surface, and you will be rendered to the tanks.”

  Iede did not know the meaning of that last remark, but it chilled her nonetheless.

  Aywon paused and licked his lips. “You’d do that? Yes, I see you would.” He lowered his head and sighed. “All right, then. I agree. We’ll keep her here.” He looked at Iede. “I’m sorry, Iede, but you cannot leave. Ever.”

  Iede was overwhelmed with conflicting emotion. She had been assumed into Above where her gods reigned—in her own way, she was to become a god herself! She tried to dismiss the thought as unconscionable hubris, but found she could not entirely. She felt pride swelling in her even as she wept silently for all those she would leave behind and never again see or talk to. She had so much she would have taught them—but how could she question the will of the gods? She looked uneasily at Deefor. But was the will of the gods one will?