They were silent for several moments, as both fully submerged themselves. At length, Sixteenth Day of Storm rolled over to face Kwed. "The taint of the inferior recedes. This one no longer feels mired in the mud of lower orders."
"It is good," Kwed agreed. "Taste of the alien is submerged, memories of homeworld are released to joyful embrace."
"Embrace, yes. It is good." Sixteenth Day of Storm's whip arms swam gracefully through the cleansing solution toward Kwed's own.
They touched.
A current raced between them, a primal connection that resonated in every corner of Kwed's mind.
Kwed could only watch in amazement as the female primary's body drifted closer. Kwed's visual segment locked onto the cues given off by this companion, subtle gestures that were at once exciting and deeply disturbing.
Kwed found his responses being ripped involuntarily from somewhere deep within. The sail segment along the female-primary's back shivered briefly. No spores were released, but Kwed's own sail segment recognized the motion and automatically answered in kind.
Kwed still felt a sense of disbelief as all four segments of his body responded to the call of the female primary. With a growing urgency, their whip arms coiled, their sail segments shimmered and flashed with alternating colors. The stalk segments moved together into a position nearly forgotten by Kwed. Vestigial wings spread from the sides of the visual segments, the start of a mating ritual as old as the homeworld itself. Kwed knew, intellectually, that the rarity of all four segments of the two Otrid being perfectly aligned in male-female harmony shouldn't matter, should not affect the functioning of his mind, and was merely a random reflection of ancient priorities already discarded.
This feeble intellectual barrier was swept aside as if it had never existed.
They met in an embrace that Kwed had not thought possible—segment to segment, all eight parts locked in a ritual as ancient as the pool of life itself. Once joined in the perfect union of four, each segment's glands of sexual reproduction withered, rendered unnecessary by the creation of the higher being. But the old forms remained, and the memories, buried deeply inside Kwed, roared up from the darkness—demanding, fierce, hungry.
As the joining moved to completion, Kwed felt a division in his thoughts. A sliver of panic momentarily cut through the stampede of primal urges.
For an instant, they were not Kwed. They were North Wind Following and Silent Shadow. They were a visual segment on a lonely flight, and a rock-hugging limb segment that still smelled of sea air.
Four dim individuals, reaching out to four other lowly singletons, in blind obedience to primitive instincts.
Small again! Lesser beings!
The thought horrified Kwed.
He abruptly withdrew his embrace of Sixteenth Day of Storm. The cleansing solution churned as Kwed's stumpy legs and whip arms kicked spastically, driving his body to the opposite end of the pool.
Kwed observed that the female-primary must have felt it too, this division of thought and awareness. Her expressions were not unified. Sixteenth Day of Storm looked like four lost individuals haphazardly stacked atop one another. Kwed knew that his own appearance must mirror that of the female-primary.
They were silent for several moments as both struggled with harmonizing their disjointed segments.
At length, Sixteenth Day of Storm signaled a message, a faint communication toward Kwed. "How is it that our natural inclinations pull us in one direction and then fling us apart at the same time?"
Kwed could not immediately reply. With enormous effort, he smothered the four chattering voices from his past until he once again felt his true self regaining control. One voice. One mind.
"Instincts and animal passions are for lesser beings," Kwed said. "We are no longer those lonely, small creatures. The mightiest of homeworld beasts, the majestic Volcano Glider, once born, cannot crawl back inside its shattered egg."
"It appears this one has much yet to learn," Sixteenth Day of Storm said. The smaller Otrid drifted out of the small pool they shared. The currents of cleansing solution carried the female-primary down the tributary and back to the main pool.
With clouded thoughts, Kwed watched this strange companion drift away.
Chapter 9
To Name a Thing
Archived—Level 2 access
Cache: 29415
Source: Acolyte Talia, essay requirement, year 3, for promotion to Radiant status. Rejected scholarship. Reason: Excessive speculation.
During my years as an acolyte in Tower’s temple, I have often been asked how the gods were named, and what those names signify. For it is true that some of the gods are named after earlier deities worshipped on Earth by ancient peoples, and others have names that seem merely symbolic, almost informal.
The pantheon of The Seven truly pulls from many eras of human history. This was a tremendously controversial issue at the time of the elevation, but with the perspective that time affords, I believe it fitting that the old and the new were united for the defense of the human race. Indeed, what are we but the accumulation of all that has come before? To leave all the old beliefs behind would have sealed a final victory for the aliens who tried to exterminate us.
As the sacred data archives reveal, the gods chose their names themselves upon their elevation. The Benefactors and the human leadership after the fall of Earth mapped out what attributes were necessary for these new super-beings in order to protect the surviving four thousand and twenty people, and matched these needs against the talents of The Seven.
Once created, the gods claimed what titles suited them.
It is unquestionably true that there was a certain arrogance in some of the new Seven adopting the names of elder gods. But the desperate times required arrogance. Only boldness and force of will could save our ancestors, these scattered and frightened survivors, newly evicted from humanity’s homeworld.
I should insert here that people’s attitudes toward their gods in these olden times were very complex and in no way uniform. Unlike we of The City, reduced in population and unified in our reverence for The Seven, the ancients worshipped many deities, although with varying levels of seriousness. In some nations, the entirety of society was structured around the dominant religion. But that influence might end at an arbitrary border. Some cultures bowed before gods that went completely unknown in other lands.
So when The Seven debated the subject of adopting names, there were disagreements, as there always are whenever more than two people endeavor to plan something of importance.
The man who would become the stellar shepherd Apollo (Ref: Deep archive record 198.2, year 5 After Establishment of The City) even argued that taking this venerable name was actually a sign of respect for the ancient deities, in that it kept a piece of man’s heritage intact during a time when all else was lost. Who better to bear the names than the most powerful humans who ever lived?
Other gods were unconvinced by this argument (Ref: Deep archive record 201.6, year 5 After Establishment of The City). Grey Wolf believed it disrespectful, if not blasphemous. Her ancestors worshipped a pantheon of gods from the icy north and, even though she apparently did not subscribe to these beliefs, she insisted they were not to be mocked. The gods of earlier times were not puffed-up mortals, she argued. These ancient gods represented a facet of humanity that still held great mysteries. Whatever hardships we might be enduring were irrelevant. If the gods of earlier times existed then, they might yet still exist in some form, and guide our affairs once more, whether on Earth or among the stars. No man should treat their legacy so casually and adopt their names.
She chose for her totem an Earth mammal known for its ferocity and cunning.
Faraway’s view was far more harsh. She maintained that the names were not worth preserving (Ref: A Journey Through Faraway’s Godship, by Acolyte Pressius the First, year 67 AETC.) If these old gods would not help us in our greatest hour of need, what good were they? Why honor them with immortality when they ha
d so clearly failed us? Obviously, Faraway had no patience for tradition when she chose her name.
Triton followed in Apollo’s footsteps in this matter. His name hails from the pantheon of an ancient people known as the Greeks. In mythology, Triton was portrayed as being half man-shaped and half fish, which apparently struck a chord with our Triton. As the god who would seek out and investigate alien species, the idea of merged forms amused him, and he revealed no concern for committing inadvertent blasphemies. (Ref: The First Discoveries of Triton, by Acolyte Li Jing, 322 AETC.)
Tower’s name, of course, was symbolic in nature. He chose his name to portray strength—a mighty watchtower, a citadel to stand against all external threats.
Apex, as near as can be ascertained, never publicly revealed his reasons for adopting the name. The symbolism can be deduced from the definition of the word, but it is still just speculation. The ways in which the world-builder differs from the other gods would fill a volume of its own. He is called the builder, the shaper of worlds, but there is a minor sect of his worshippers that calls him “the reluctant god”, based on oral histories from the immediate aftermath of Earth’s destruction.
In any event, Apex has not visited The City since shortly after its founding. His quest to locate and transform a world for humanity is all-consuming, and none know his true state of mind.
Maelstrom, as the most daring of the gods, adopted a name that sounds exotic to modern ears. By definition, a Maelstrom is a type of whirlpool in an ocean, which, for residents of The City, is a difficult concept to visualize. No living human has ever gazed upon so vast a body of water, let alone observed an ocean’s violent currents. The closest analogy may be the vortices we can see in the cloud-storms of great Lodias during the northern winter.
It may be that Maelstrom took his name to convey the raw power of such natural forces, but that is only my conjecture. Maelstrom wields far greater powers than the other gods. When he was elevated he left his body behind, becoming a being of pure thought and energy—an event that had never happened in human history. All the other gods remained grounded in physical bodies and/or godships, to greater or lesser degrees.
Mighty though these bodies are, the perspective that comes from drifting through the cosmos untethered to flesh-and-blood concerns must give Maelstrom a wisdom that no human can fully grasp, and even the other gods must have difficulty imagining the universe through Maelstrom’s eyes.
Chapter 10
From the Fire
Apollo’s Aspect emerged from the photosphere of the star, reaching and grasping for life like a newborn. He lingered a moment, recalibrating his sensorium and reveling in the transition between boundaries. After such a lengthy time inside the star it was difficult to leave, but at last he forced his Aspect on its homeward path.
The radiation storm fell away behind him, and once again he was inside his array, one of the many artificial constructs that contained his essence. This array was designed to project his Aspect inside stars so he could undertake his research. He knew he’d stayed longer than absolutely necessary. These last several cycles he’d stayed simply for the pleasure of it, lost in the creation of his great art project. The star was an intriguing one, to say the least.
The array built up speed on its way to a rendezvous with his godship.
His “great art project” was complete, a symphony inspired by the fury of the blue star’s convective zone. He’d weaved together ten thousand strands of light and sound into one cohesive song for the ages, a stellar aria of beauty to accompany him in his travels through the galaxy. Surrounded by the vastness of space and with so much time stretched out before him, great projects like this one were crucial for his sanity.
Only a small part of Apollo wondered if his latest project was a mere decadent pursuit. He’d certainly been accused of that more than once in his pre-elevation, fully human life.
Amusing how those slights remain, when all else has been stripped away.
But such ephemeral concerns drifted away almost as soon as they coalesced. Apollo had been doing his job, even if he’d taken his sweet time about it. He’d cataloging the star, breaking down its life cycle, evaluating any possibility that a nova event or gamma ray burst could endanger the human presence only a few light years away. He’d even undertaken a cursory examination of the system’s planets, looking for potential threats, even though that was more Triton’s line of work.
Now he had his answers. This volatile star did have an unusually violent death ahead of it. The star’s destiny was foretold in its internal structure, which Apollo had roamed lo these many cycles.
When the time came, that death spasm would shower nearby systems with life-ending hard radiation, but he’d calculated that event as being far enough into the future that The City would have long since crumbled to dust. Eleven million years was a short span in cosmic time scales, but plenty long enough for humanity to have moved on to its next destination.
Such was his duty, and the long years of research and art suited him just fine. It had been a productive few centuries. Apollo had a nearly complete catalog of every star within a forty-three light year sphere around the fragile human outpost.
Now he was looking forward to resting.
The blue star fell behind as his projection array structure sped outward, building to twenty percent of the speed of light. His godship drew ever closer, and he was surprised to discover an actual yearning within himself to reconnect with it, to reunite the halves of his consciousness.
Like most of the other gods, he had his own vessel—his godship—to contain and maintain his physical form and his memory core. When he swam the depths of stars for his research, he used an Aspect that carried his thoughts and perceptions. This projected form consisted largely of organized patterns of plasma that could withstand the gales of stellar environments, even offering him physical sensations that he could translate into human-analog equivalents.
That had been the hard part of designing the Aspect, because what human concepts could explain the sensations encountered while walking across the surface of a star? The Beh’neefazor had invested more time and resources on his elevation than any of the other gods, and even those advanced aliens viewed his transformation as an experiment with a slim chance of success.
He had been happy to prove them wrong.
As Apollo neared his godship he could sense his body responding to its impending reunification with his entire consciousness. While his Aspect labored, it was easy to forget the flesh, blood and circuitry of his body. Automated systems kept him alive while his mind roamed, but after so great a time it was no easy process to become whole again.
The array began its deceleration. His was no boring sphere like that of Faraway’s ship, but a majestic habitation of golden spires and arches, as aesthetically pleasing as it was functional. Great wings spread from its center to aid in gathering energy from close encounters with stellar bodies. Feathery masts trailed from the shadows behind to aid in dissipating the accumulated heat.
Much of the interior was empty space, of course, as each godship had been designed to transport a large human population in the event of an emergency. But his vessel had remained empty in recent centuries as he roamed the starways, save for the robotic companions he’d created to amuse himself.
The array nestled into its hangar. A small fleet of maintenance bots emerged and descended on the structure. Communication cables snaked into the array’s external ports, and Apollo began the uncoupling that would see him complete once more.
****
Apollo closed his eyes, enjoying the mundane yet soothing feel of cool tiles beneath his feet.
Reintegration had been a slow process, even for one such as he. Apollo was altered far beyond the constraints of standard human physiology, but a physical body had its own imperatives and rhythms, and could not be rushed.
Once he was whole again, he slept with the deepness of a hibernating animal. His mind drifted into conventional dreams, a lux
ury that never happened during the long cycles he swam through thermonuclear oceans of hydrogen and helium.
Each time he returned to his godship he typically spent a standard day or two familiarizing himself with his body and his vessel. Even simple things, like the cool tiles, brought a smile to his lips.
Life was a performance, and he was happy to play along.
The first thing Apollo had done upon awakening was transmit the symphony he’d created into the godship’s systems. Apollo imagined the memory core groaning under the load like some overstuffed pickup truck.
Trucks. I remember pickup trucks, came a small voice from deep within his memory. They had been antiques, mere hobby vehicles, when he was a boy, but still the memories pushed their way past a thousand years of interstellar voyages, alien enemies, and walking on the surfaces of stars.
Perhaps the distant image of the past had been stirred by his symphony. The act of creation always affected him that way. As he strolled the avenues of his godship, his music drifted through the air like snowfall, and the lights pulsed languidly in unison.
Glorious!
This he had to share. Triton would appreciate it, and surely Faraway would enjoy a diversion to accompany her on her outward voyages. He was also curious about what news was bouncing around CitySpace. He’d been away a very long time during this last exploration.
In fact, he hadn’t paid much attention to the passage of time recently. Wading through the heart of a star and composing his symphony had commanded nearly all of his attention.
Apollo checked the ship’s chronometers…and frowned.
He’d been immersed inside the star for longer than he’d realized.
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