Beneath Strange Stars

by Ralph E. Vaughan

  “But I must know this, is it a sin?” Darsenny asked, his voice hushed. “A sin not to die?”

  “Yes,” Bishop Frajeaun whispered. “Yes, it is.”

  IV

  Bishop Frajeaun gazed at the single glittering wafer of Tiempo-plus, which Darsenny had left with him. Not a day had gone by since that meeting that he did not take out the wafer and look at it. Three standard months had passed.

  Since then, the secret of eternal life had been revealed. Tiempo-plus was already available on many planets and would soon become ubiquitous. No one knew the part Bishop Frajeaun had played in its introduction. Life was revolutionized, and it was plain that things would never be the same again. Some things did not change. People still squabbled and still scrabbled to gain credits and the little bits of material that set one person’s position in society above another’s. People still died as people always will. The drug did not erase accidents or violence, and there would always be those who would not, or could not, take Tiempo-plus for one reason or another. The issue was even now being debated in the ancient halls of the Vatican, light-years away.

  He turned the wafer over in his fingers.

  Whenever his hands shook and the oxygen clips seemed to do the least good, those were the times he was tempted most by the wafer. He had given Communion on Easter, but attendance was sparse. People had a new Eucharist, one which guaranteed what the other only promised.

  “Bishop Frajeaun?”

  He pocketed the wafer. “What is it, Fra Mori?”

  “A transport is waiting outside.”

  “A transport? I summoned no transport.”

  “It was sent by the Saragons at the monastery,” she said. “From Bartalomae, your friend. The robot driver said he needs you.”

  “He needs me?”

  “That was the message, sir.

  Bishop Frajeaun went out into the balmy afternoon and stepped into the waiting transport. It immediately lifted into the sapphire air.

  It was amazing to the bishop that such a small wafer could be responsible for so many profound changes. It was not the Tiempo-plus, of course. People brought flux into their own lives. In the end, people had to be responsible for everything that happened in a socio-mechanical universe, especially one where technological control on many planets was nearing what many people considered an apex. Was there room for God in such a universe? The bishop smiled wanly. That was a question people – humanoid and not – had asked since the rolling of the first wheel, the striking of the first spark to dispel the shadows. All his life, Maric Frajeaun had worked for what he believed, ever since he had wandered into that church in Cerberopolis, tired, hungry, and lost. The priest had pointed him in the right direction. He had no regrets about the life he had led, about the ideal he served, but now that he was approaching the end, he was filled with doubt. Could death become as meaningful as life? If there was no death, could life have any meaning?

  Bishop Frajeaun looked at the ground passing below.

  “Take me down to the road,” he said. “Immediately!”

  When the robot-controlled craft touched down and the door lifted, the bishop rushed out. He called after the figure walking unaided along the road.

  “How is it possible, Manaetaff?” he demanded. “Your legs were shattered from the fall, and now you’re not even using the crutches.”

  “I am healed.”

  “Damage like that does not heal without the intervention of medical technology, not in just a few months, and your race eschews such technology,” he said. “It can only be a miracle.”

  “No, Bishop, not a miracle…unfortunately.”

  And Manaetaff walked away, not looking back, heading toward Nova Petra. After a few moments, Bishop Frajeaun returned to his transport and continued his journey to the monastery. He was met at the gate by Bartalomae.

  “Why have you sent for me now, Bartalomae?” Bishop Frajeaun asked. “You seem to avoid my company these days.”

  “I need you,” Bartalomae said. “We all need you.”

  Bishop Frajeaun was conducted into the depths of the monastery, into areas he had never seen before. He had the distinct impression of being watched. Bartalomae and the bishop entered a vaulted chamber of shadows, vague shafts of light streaming through high-up windows of cut crystal. In the center of the chamber was a raised carved dais. The dais flowed upward into something that was throne-like and upon it sat a Saragon who seemed familiar.

  “Limnat?”

  She raised her massive head. “Yes, Bishop. You are here at my request.”

  “Why?” he asked. “What do you want?”

  “We want your death,” Limnat replied.

  V

  “We Saragons are not a prolific race,” Limnat said. “There are few female members. You may have noticed.”

  “Yes.”

  “The females are the elite,” she explained, “the controllers and the soul of the race. We limit our numbers to preserve the quality of our lives. We are a questing race, Bishop Frajeaun. We seek to understand the Universe around us, but, more than that, we seek to understand ourselves.”

  “What does that have to do with my death?”

  “To answer that, I must fight ages of conditioning against revealing ourselves to outsiders,” she said. “It is difficult, even after we all made the unanimous decision to grant to you the knowledge of our mystery of mysteries.”

  The bishop waited. The trembling hand in the pocket of his robe clutched the wafer of Tiempo-plus, refusing to let go of the blasted thing. Just a little more time, he thought, and I can find the faith to accept what I have always believed. His mind came back to the situation at hand.

  “We do not die,” Limnat finally said. “There has not been a death among us, except by design or accident, for several billions of years. For all intents, we are immortal.”

  “By chemical means?”

  “There are none who remember,” she replied. “We once were as mortal as you, but now we do not die except by our own design or catastrophic accident, but enough time has passed that our race has been purged of those who had a full understanding of how this came to be. We believe that at first there were only a few immortals who supplanted those who lived normal lifespans. The genesis of the change is a mystery, but the how of it is through regeneration. Our bodies are constantly and automatically renewing themselves.”

  “You say there are still deaths.”

  “Suicide usually,” she said. “But when that choice is made it is accomplished only in secret.”

  “Why in secret?”

  “Despite the weight which eternal life places on us, we still value life above everything else,” she explained. “If suicidal tendencies are discovered, we try to cure the malady of the mind. It is a war, of sorts, which we wage silently. When the urge grips us we toil to die in secret. By your standards, we are a paranoid race.”

  “Some must die by accident,” the bishop said.

  “There are accidents,” Limnat admitted, “but almost all injuries heal. If the slightest flicker of cellular activity remains, the whole body will be regenerated eventually, no matter how long that takes.”

  “Then how…”

  “Throwing one’s self into a volcano used to be the favored method, though explosives, nuclear immolation, and drowning in the deepest trenches of the sea are also used by the desperate,” she said. “Desperation and our passion for secrecy drove us to invent novel ways of total death. Many among us consider the greatest gift brought to us by the Confederation is the disintegration device.”

  “I wish I could help you and your race, Limnat.”

  “You can. That is why you have been brought here.”

  “And the reason I first became acquainted with you more than a hundred years ago,” Bartalomae added. “It has taken that long to convince ourselves to trust you.”

  “How will my death help you?”

  “As I said, we are a questing race,” Limnat pointed out. “We seek to understand th
e universe and ourselves. Our investigations have led us to believe that physical life is but one of many planes of existence, that beyond life there is something else other than darkness and oblivion.”

  “I have always believed that,” Bishop Frajeaun said. “It is the end to which I have lived my life.” Then why do you hesitate now that the end is near? he demanded of himself. “It is an article of faith among those who believe as I do.”

  “Immortality stripped belief and faith from us,” Limnat said. “We can only believe in what we have investigated and proved. We can have endless theories, but true belief only with proof, only rarely. So, as a race, we have stagnated, not believing that anything survives the body, afraid to venture onward into what may be a totally new universe.”

  “You want to study me as I die?”

  “No, Bishop Frajeaun, we wish to accompany you, the whole of our race.”

  “How can that be?” he asked. “How is that possible?”

  “We have developed mental faculties which allow us to mind-share, to form something like a group mind while still retaining our sense of individuality,” Limnat explained. “If you agree to our proposal, we will join you mentally when death approaches, experience what you experience, see what you see, understand what you understand.”

  “One of the ancient poets of Earth called death an undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveler returns,” Bishop Frajeaun mused. “What if on the other side of death this is naught but the darkness that makes cowards of us all?”

  “Then we will finally know.”

  “Why is my cooperation necessary?” the human asked. “Why not just ‘read’ my mind?”

  “As I told you, we are a paranoid race,” she said. “Our mania for privacy has made us so. Our demand for it compels us to extend it to others. We cannot mind-share with you without your consent. It is impossible. Our own minds rebel even at the thought of it.”

  “I understand,” Bishop Frajeaun said. “Yet…” He paused. “You know what is happening within the Confederation now?”

  Limnat nodded. “We usually know what is happening in the Confederation, though we take no part in it.”

  “We know other races face the prospect of life without death,” Bartalomae said. “They do not understand. What about you?”

  “It is not a decision I have made yet.”

  “You will soon,” Limnat said. “The limitations of your body will force it.”

  “And if I opt for life?”

  “We will continue to seek understanding, without you,” Limnat told him. “We will not…cannot compel you.”

  “One thing you must truly understand, Bishop Frajeaun…my friend…my old friend,” Bartalomae said. “If you consent to this, it must be for your own reasons, not ours. Our peculiarities require it. Do you understand?”

  “I think so.”

  “Can you decide now?” Limnat asked. “Do you need time?”

  Do I have the faith to decide now? Bishop Frajeaun asked himself. Faith is what it comes down to. Do I believe? Faith had always been the watchword of his life, ever since he had discovered true faith as a Cerberopolis urchin. It was faith that had sustained him through all the trials he had suffered in service to God. Faith had buoyed him, faith which had come from within himself, in his belief in a just and caring God, not from any doctrine taught by the Church. His faith had never deserted him, but with this crisis, he had come close to abandoning it. The Saragons now offered him a chance to reside in the faith that had resided in him..

  He made his decision.

  VI

  Bishop Frajeaun and Bartalomae paused at the gateway of the monastery. The Saragon reached out and touched the human’s thin shoulder.

  Bartalomae said, “You are so very young, my good and ancient friend, I will never forget you. Thank you for being our guide.”

  Bishop Frajeaun turned and wiped a tear from his cheek. He did not know if he and Bartalomae would ever meet again, but now he had the faith to hope. He turned back to Bartalomae.

  “Shall I summon a transport for you?” the Saragon asked.

  Maric Frajeaun smiled. The sapphire and purplish suns were both visible, and the Three Daughters were rising palely over the domed hills. It was a wonderful day to be alive.

  “No,” he said. “I think I’ll walk. I don’t think it’s far at all.”

  The bishop started to walk down the long and winding path, the wind snapping at his robe.

  “Remember,” Bartalomae called after him, “we are always with you. All of us. You are no longer alone in the night.”

  Bishop Frajeaun waved.

  Soon the monastery was far behind his measured steps. The smear of Nova Petra lay on the horizon. He fancied he could make out the sweeping spires of the church, but it might have been a trick of distance. He paused along the trail, among those rounded hills of shifting colors.

  With trembling hand, Bishop Frajeaun reached up and yanked the oxygen clips out. He did it quickly, lest he have time to change his mind. It was a long way to Nova Petra, and without the pneumo-catalytic devices to aid him it was a journey that could take forever.

  Forever was a very long time.

  He reached into his pocket and withdrew the glittering wafer Darsenny had left with him. How could anything so innocuous possess the potential to change the entire fabric of society? It would, he knew, and very quickly. No one wanted to die.

  Everyone was afraid of the dark.

  Few possessed real faith.

  The bishop cocked back his arm. It was his intention to send the disc of Tiempo-plus sailing, to watch it vanish into the shadowed valley below him. His muscles refused to cooperate. The wafer finally dropped from his fingers and fell into the dust.

  With a great effort, Bishop Frajeaun resumed his long journey to Nova Petra.

  Starting in the late 1960s I wrote stories I termed “Tales of Lost Earth.” No continuing characters, no reoccurring ships, no repeated locations, nothing to link them except the idea that these people left Earth a long time ago. Depending upon at what point during the timeline the story is set, Earth is their ancestral planet which some oldsters might recall vaguely, a planet “out there” in space, a mythic idea, or just a meaningless word. Much of Immanuel Velikovsky’s work goes counter to establishment version of history, but he was spot on when he wrote, “Mankind suffers from amnesia.” When I wrote this story, I included two images which impressed me strongly in my youth. The first was from a painting by Kelly Freas, of a spaceship wrapped with vines, as if it had been there for aeons. The other was a planet where the Galaxy filled the sky, from Poul Anderson’s “World Without Stars.” Certain aspects of the plot reflect Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, which I was motivated to read as a wee lad when it made an unexpected appearance in the sit-com Leave It to Beaver, but any inadequacies must be attributed to me, not Sir Walter or The Beaver.

  Beneath the Eye of God

  A Tale of Earth’s Lost Children

  Ujjain, fallen Vaishnava and cast out son of a First Lander family, lay off the trade road, dying, a cakra thrown by a traitor deep in his side. He had lain there since early post-meridian, at first hiding from searchers, then too weak to move. He still wore his battle-mask and shattered body armor.

  As the emerald sun settled toward the horizon, the sapphire stain of its smaller companion spread across the sky. The spiral arms of the God rose above the crimson forest greeting the night.

  He stared upward into the darkening sky and uttered a fragile chuckle. As the day’s light was passing from the world, so too would the light of life pass from his eyes.

  To the end of the world and back, he thought, only to die by my cousin’s hand.

  “Father,” called a girl’s voice, “stop.”

  Animal hooves and the grinding of wooden wheels came to a halt on the distant road.

  “Stay, Daughter.”

  “I saw someone…I think…”

  “This is not…”

  “Father, there i
s… It is a human,” said the girl’s voice, now quite close.

  “Come away, Daughter,” commanded the older, gruffer voice. “Let him be.”

  “He is hurt, Father,” she rejoined. “I feel the pain coursing through him, feel the darkness that grips his mind.”

  “None of that is any of our concern, Bryll.”

  “But, Father, he is dying.”

  “He is human,” spat the old man. “Let him die—they would do the same for us.”

  A Tholotant moved into Ujjain’s darkening vision with the pleasant fluidity of her race. She was of small stature with golden skin, with tear-shaped eyes and slitted pupils glittering in the twilight. She was very slender. She stroked the surface of his battle-mask, and Ujjain thought he could almost feel her touch through the leather and metal.

  “My name is Bryll,” she murmured. “My father, Ibrham, and I mean you no harm, sir.”

  “Leave the human!” Ibrham called to his daughter from the road. “Even I can see from here that he has been injured while battling another human. Let them kill each other off!”

  Bryll loosened the man’s battle-mask. She was careful not to touch the wicked throwing disc penetrating the man’s armor; blood still trickled from that point, but, more than that, the disc itself seemed discolored, as if from the application of some venom. She lifted the mask away and sucked her breath in sharply.