Beneath Strange Stars: A Collection of Tales

by Ralph E. Vaughan

  The being was not so easy to explain.

  Mikhial saw the being emerge from the tree break about twenty rods distant from the entrance of his cave. A traveler, he thought, for the being walked as a man, was about the size of a man and wore clothing, though of an odd cut. The skin was very dark, such as the heathen Greek philosophers predicted would be possessed by inhabitants in the torrid regions of their spherical Earth.

  The being (whom Mikhial still viewed as a man, though a man far from home) moved with an uncertain, staggering gait, falling several times. Mikhial clambered down the grassy path, intent on rendering aide.

  Drawing nigh, however, he saw this stranger was surely no son of Adam.

  Though its form was generally manlike, its face was like those of the great cats yet prowling the hinterlands. The jaws were massive. Its pained grimace revealed rows of wickedly sharp teeth. Its ears were long, pointed, and set flat against the elongated skull. The dark skin, upon closer examination, was short, black fur which glinted not only from gloss but with the wetness of spilled blood.

  It fell at Mikhial's feet.

  A heathen gazing upon its savage feline features would have recalled the ancient tales of were‑beasts inimical to men and slew it from fear. A true Defender of the Church would have seen a demon, crushed its feline skull with a stone and sent it back to the hell‑circle from which it was spawned. Mikhial, however, saw only the pain evident in its cats‑eye gaze.

  Bending down, he lifted the stranger into his arms and carried it to his cave halfway up the face of the butte.

  For the next several days, the stranger remained in the grip of fiery dreams, and Mikhial remained at the stranger's side. He dressed the grievous wounds, applying poultices of herbs, mosses and fungi, such as he had learned from his own investigations and by listening to the wood lore of the Wandering Ones.

  That his charge was an intelligent being and not an animal was evident from the trappings—a leather harness and belt, several enigmatic devices crafted of unknown metals, a sable cloak and cowl, a tunic of soft dark cloth so finely spun no weave could be seen, pliable leather boots, ornate jewels, and a dagger of intricate design and craftsmanship. He yearned to know from what realm, heavenly, terrestrial or infernal, this unique individual could have come, but his wonderings were met only with silence.

  On the fifth day, however, the cat‑man (or so Mikhial had come to think of him) opened his eyes, regarding his human caretaker with a luminous green gaze. Those eyes flashed vividly. Mikhial realized, with no small measure of surprise, that the cat‑man, whom others would have gazed upon with fear, had just looked upon him with that same flash of terror. Then the cat‑man's lips pulled back, revealing deadly teeth.

  "Thank you," the cat‑man sighed, then fell asleep.

  When the cat‑man next awoke, he was able to take some of the soup Mikhial had prepared from medicinal herbs and berries. He did however, seem rather perplexed by the wooden spoon Mikhial handed him. After an awkward moment he lifted the bowl and lapped the broth after the fashion of a cat, with a pink tongue that shot outward, turned down, curved inward and pulled swiftly back.

  Mikhial laughed, and the cat‑man shot him a sharp quizzical glance.

  "I'm sorry," Mikhial said softly. "It's just that, for a moment, you reminded me of a cat owned by a friend of mine, a priest in Budapest." His smile vanished and he sighed sadly. "He's dead now, the priest, not the cat. He held that the stars were not the lanterns of God in the crystalline heavens, but distant suns. He also believed our Earth orbits the sun, not vice versa. He envisioned beings upon far words, orbiting their own suns, to whom our sun would appear as a distant sun." Mikhial brushed a tear from his withered cheek. "For holding such unorthodox ideas, he was burned at the stake."

  Mikhial, moved by a sadness he thought long buried, quickly stepped outside the cave and sat with his back against the rocky wall of the towering butte. The dense forest stretching eastward was mired with darkness, revealed only faintly in the wash of starlight. The stars seemed to swirl like glistening jewels.

  The cat‑man stepped from the cave and sat beside Mikhial.

  Neither spoke for a very long time.

  "My name," the cat‑man finally said, "is Thrassa. I am a sailor."

  "Upon what sea do you sail, Thrassa?" Mikhial asked.

  Thrassa gestured toward the wash of stars with a long sweep of his arm. "I sail upon the sea of stars."

  "Distant suns," Mikhail breathed.

  Under Mikhial's care, Thrassa recovered quickly from his wounds, wounds he had suffered, he told Mikhial, when his sky‑ship had crashed in the forest. Mikhial remembered the fiery lance he had seen the night before encountering Thrassa.

  "I was in orbit, surveying your world, when there developed an imbalance in my..." Here he lapsed into terminology quite incomprehensible to his human host. Seeing the baffled expression on Mikhial's face, he said: "The machinery of my sky‑ship broke and I fell to the ground. Yes, I was your fiery lance. Tomorrow I must return to my ship and see if it can be repaired. It is my only hope to return home."

  Mikhial looked to the heavens. "You live on a world orbiting a distant sun."

  "Yes, that one there," Thrassa replied pointing. "Our name for it is Khriassassasosa, but the scholars of your world call it Mintaka."

  "You seem to know much about my world," Mikhial noted.

  "It is my life’s work, Mikhial," Thrassa replied, "studying the worlds of people who do not yet sail the sea of stars."

  "Primitive peoples," Mikhial murmured, a little sadly.

  "It will not always be so," Thrassa pointed out. "Yours is an inventive, curious race. Eventually you will discover sources of energy as yet unguessed. If you survive your savagery, you will sail upon the sea of stars. When you do we will greet you as brothers."

  Mikhial shook his head, but said nothing. How could a people reach for the stars when they did not believe in the stars, when they burned at the stake anyone who did believe? How could man ever hope to sail among the stars when he yet lived in fear of sailing over the edge of the flat Earth? To Mikhial, such fear and ignorance seemed insurmountable.

  On the morrow, Thrassa and Mikhial trekked through the forest to where the sky‑ship had crashed. Long before they attained it, however, they heard voices and knew something was amiss. Continuing under cover, they came upon an army of men, many garbed in cavalry uniforms, clearing trees in the direction of the road leading to Belgrade on the River Danube. Others were assembling a huge wheeled cart. Block and tackle, the ropes pulled by strong draught horses, had been used to lift a sleek metal object above the cart.

  "My sky‑ship," Thrassa hissed.

  "It appears they intend to take it into the city," Mikhial said. "The man throwing holy water onto your ship and shouting exhortations is Janos Pryezda, the Bishop of Belgrade."

  "It would not be wise to reveal ourselves to these men," Thrassa said. "Perhaps we could approach your Bishop alone, ask for his assistance."

  Mikhial shook his head. "No. It was Bishop Pryezda who ordered the execution of a priest for believing in distant suns...and banished another for speaking privately in his defense."

  "I must get inside my ship," Thrassa insisted. "I must assess the damage. It's the only way I can hope for a homecoming."

  "Under the cover of darkness." Mikhial said. "Even with their best efforts, they will not be ready to start for the road till morning. We'll return tonight."

  "I cannot allow you to endanger yourself." Thrassa said. "You have already helped me so much, more than any other of your kind would have. If you are discovered, given the apparent temperament of your Bishop, you would also be killed. I will return alone."

  Mikhial patted Thrassa on the arm. "I once failed a friend, but I will not fail another."

  They retreated to a safe distance and waited till after sunset. When they returned, they discovered the sky‑ship watched over by a trio of young soldiers who did not stray far from their watchfire and a
ppeared uneasy about being so close to the sky‑ship. The craft now actually rested on the straining back of the cart. The rest of the soldiers and officials were encamped as far as possible from what they considered a hellish device.

  Thrassa and Mikhial circled around the clearing created by the sky‑ship's crash and the army's subsequent tree chopping, Thrassa moving with the speed and agility of a being to whom starshine was as revealing as sunlight; Mikhial did his best to keep up. They approached from the side that was blind to the watchfire‑bound sentries. Thrassa leaped onto the cart, then helped up Mikhial.

  Mikhial thought Thrassa might use a key of some sort, but when he saw naught but unseamed metal he wondered if his friend might not utter some magickal word, as would the heroes of the enchantment tales so popular among the Arabs. He was surprised, then, when a section of the metal hull spiraled soundlessly open at Thrassa's mere approach. Thrassa stepped into the darkness beyond and, after a moment's hesitation, Mikhial followed. The opening instantly spiraled shut and a gentle greenish light, emanating from nowhere in particular, filled the chamber.

  And what a chamber of wonders it was! Rows of colorful lights gleamed without flicker or heat. Glistening metals curved around them in strange patterns. Mikhial sat in a proffered chair and cried in alarm as the chair conformed to his contours, moving as if it were itself a living being. Then he clamped a hand over his mouth.

  Thrassa smiled toothily. "They cannot hear you from without."

  "All these things which are commonplace to you seem as miracles to me," Mikhial said. "But they are not miracles, are they? No more than a ship from distant suns is a miracle.”

  "Miraculous effects, perhaps, but not miracles," Thrassa admitted. "The effects are the manifestations of machines."

  "Do miracles exist?"

  "Most assuredly,” Thrassa said. "We're the miracles --- life."

  "Do we share a God then?” Mikhial asked.

  "It is possible," Thrassa replied. "Perhaps the God of my people would not be recognizable as the God of yours, but I have always thought that if there is a Supreme Being in the universe it must be viewed as wearing a mask we can understand. How else can we possibly consider ourselves part of the whole of creation?"

  Thrassa busied himself inspecting his craft's instrumentation. After just a few moments, he growled.

  "What is the matter?" Mikhial asked.

  Thrassa lifted from a metal housing an assembly of intricately crafted lenses, several of which were cracked. Even damaged, it was a wonder to behold.

  "This assembly helps to focus the motive energies of my ship," Thrassa explained. "Some are broken and all are out of alignment."

  "It seems so small a thing," Mikhial observed.

  Thrassa nodded. "But vital.”

  "Can it be repaired?" Mikhial asked.

  Again Thrassa nodded. "If I had access to…”

  There suddenly sounded a noise like an angry cat, and Mikhial realized it was some kind of alarm. The cat‑man put the precious lens assembly down and sprang to a panel. He made some motions with his hands and the air before them shimmered, coalescing into an exact reproduction of the clearing around the sky-ship, like a painting, but one in which the simulacra of the men moved with the semblance of life. Mikhial sprang back as well as he could in the confines of the ship.

  "It is merely a trick of light, nothing more than a reflection from a kind of sophisticated mirror," Thrassa explained.

  "They cannot see us?"

  Thrassa shook his head.

  The three guardians were being berated by two men on horseback, one being Bishop Pryezda, the other a cavalry captain. Immediately the sentries moved away from the watchfire, stationing themselves around the ship.

  "This is not good," Thrassa commented.

  "Can you blind them to our passage?" Mikhial asked.

  "They might be distracted away, but only for a moment." A huge sigh escaped Thrassa's black lips.

  "Something, Thrassa?"

  "Even if we get away with the lens assembly in our possession, what could be done? I would need access to an optics laboratory with precision fabrication equipment, and, even then, the material might be too coarse for my needs. Oh, this primitive world!"

  "The Bishop wears eye glasses," Mikhial said.

  Thrassa gazed closely at the image of the human. "So he does. There must be an optics laboratory of some kind in Belgrade."

  "Too bad you did not fall near London or Paris," Mikhial commented. "You might not find the inhabitants of those places nearly as primitive as you do the people of Serbia."

  "I'm sorry, Mikhial," Thrassa said after a moment.

  "I do believe the lenses of Bishop Pryezda were made in Belgrade." Mikhial said. "The King has of late become a patron of the sciences, though it has brought him into some conflict with the Church. But how to reach Belgrade?"

  "If we stay where we are," Thrassa observed, "shall we not be taken to Belgrade?"

  Mikhial smiled. “Indeed we shall, my friend.”

  Shortly after dawn, a team of twenty draught horses was harnessed to the cart bearing the sky‑ship. The animals strained against the great weight. Shouts and curses of draymen filled the air. The cart moved slowly but steadily toward the Belgrade road. Within the sky‑ship, Thrassa and Mikhial used the simulacrum viewer to observe journey. Mikhial marveled that no sense of motion was conveyed through the silvery hull of the ship.

  "Feelings of motion are suppressed by the machinery of the ship," Thrassa explained. "Whether crawling over rough ground as we are, or traveling at velocities in excess of that of light and time, none of the deleterious effects of acceleration affect anyone within"

  "The speed of light and time?" Mikhial mused. "The current theory is that light is a subtle emanation of our eyes, thus enabling sight, but it is my observation that light stems from a multitude of external sources and is somehow transmogrified into a coherent vision by faculties unknown, but as to a speed, it must be instantaneous, for it is acknowledged by all philosophies that light is a manifestation of God, and being thus must be co‑existent with God, God being in all places at all times."

  Thrassa nodded and turned his attention to the viewer.

  "I guess we are primitive," Mikhial murmured.

  “It is relative," Thrassa said. "Not all advancements must be of a technological nature. Merely crafting better machines does not improve the moral or ethical nature of a society. My own race does not have much of a philosophical bent. We explore other worlds of space because we are curious, and for little else. It might not be sufficient motivation for others, but it is for us. In many ways, Mikhial, your race has a greater potential than my own. Had one of your kind come to my planet when we were in a similar state of development, such hospitality and comradeship as you have shown would have been highly unlikely."

  "I live alone because I am not as others," Mikhial said.

  "But that a person like you exists at all points to the potential in all of you," Thrassa said.

  After a long while, Mikhial asked, “What are they like? The worlds among the distant suns? Tell me. Please."

  Thrassa grinned fangily. He moved his hands about the ship's lighted instrumentality and the scene shimmered. The simulacra of men and horses moving across a virtual land was replaced by an unearthly landscape, a vast expanse of pink and amber grasslands beneath a teal sky in which two pale suns hung suspended.

  Mikhial sucked in his breath. Eventually, the world of the two suns was replaced by a dark world beneath a moon of three rings. In time, this was replaced by a world of towering gold clouds and herds of centauri, then replaced by a sky of pastel moons and flocks of pegasi. And so it went, all the way to Belgrade, Mikhial presented with one vista after another, each as wonderful and marvelous as it was blasphemous.

  After a long while, though seemingly little more than the drawing of a breath, Mikhial was presented with an image of a night‑shrouded city with watchfires upon its stone walls, overlooked by a high ca
stle. Gradually Mikhial came to realize the alien city was Belgrade and the beings that walked the walls were men like himself, or nearly so.

  During the confusion that attended the entry of the sky‑ship into Belgrade, and its subsequent transport into a city square, it was a relatively easy matter for Mikhial and Thrassa to slip out and away unnoticed, the lens assembly under Thrassa's cloak.

  They made their way through unlit streets. Thrassa was garbed as he had been at their first encounter. With his cowl pulled low, his feline features were effectively concealed, but they stayed clear of fellow night‑travelers, especially the soldiers that seemed to be everywhere to control the curious crowds.

  They found the shop of the lensmaker in a low section of Belgrade. A royal patronage was not enough to dispel the general suspicions of diabolical workings by the God‑fearing. Two broken windows bespoke past disputes. The name upon the shingle was Goyezdanka. The street was empty, and they quietly forced their way into the untenanted shop. While Mikhial stood watch, Thrassa examined the materials and instruments at hand.

  "Yes," he whispered. "I think it's just possible. The material is unexpectedly pure."

  The sounds made by the hand‑motivated grinders and shapers were slight but they seemed thunderous. Such was the guilt of the burglar, Mikhial thought resignedly. Though he told himself this was all in a good cause, he did not stop seeking God's forgiveness.

  Suddenly a soft noise sounded from the shadowy upstairs area. Thrassa instantly ceased his work and grabbed his knife. Mikhial deserted his post by the front window and stood before Thrassa. A small flickering of a candle came down the stairs, held aloft by a shaking hand.

  "Who's there?" a voice called tremulously. "I have no silver or gold, nothing that you desire."

  Thrassa started to move forward but Mikhial held him back.