Children of the Old Stars

by David Lee Summers

  "Whales know not the ways of space, young Ellis,” said Richard. “Tell me of this Cluster."

  "It is a great ball of silver spheres, bigger than you, bigger than your dead brothers, the blue whales. They move through space. Even as we speak, my people and the other peoples of the stars, the Titans, Rd'dyggians, Zahari, all are fighting them."

  Richard spouted and clicked, just short of angry. “Why do you fight? Always the same with the tool builders. The art is the death."

  Kneeling down by the railing, Ellis swished the water lazily with his left hand. “We tried to talk to the Cluster, peacefully. They began killing all our people."

  "Now you know how we feel,” said Richard. “Maybe now the tool builders begin to understand.” Another great spray came from the whale's spout.

  "Maybe I begin to understand at least.” Ellis pondered the whale's words. “We see the Cluster as evil, but maybe they're not."

  "But maybe they are,” Richard clicked. “Whales know not the ways of space."

  "I don't think the Cluster's evil.” Ellis shook his head. “I think one of them has spoken to me."

  The whale swished its tail lazily back and forth. “What did it say?"

  "I don't know.” Looking toward the bright blue sky, Ellis formed his words. “It seemed to speak in emotional metaphor."

  "Like the humpbacks,” mused Richard. “The art is the song."

  Mark Ellis looked at the whale, stunned. “Yes,” he said slowly with a newfound understanding. “Just like the humpbacks. The art is the song.” As Richard dove under the boat again, Ellis stood and ambled back to the other side. Stroking his beard, he pondered the clouds. When Richard rose again, spouting, Ellis looked at him. “Do you think the humpbacks could help me understand?"

  "The art is the song, nothing more.” Richard's wrinkled form undulated slightly. “They know no more of the ways of space than do I. Besides, young Ellis, to them, man merely chatters. The art is the death."

  Ellis sighed. “Can you help me?"

  The whale spouted twice, loudly. “I doubt it, the art is the hunt."

  "I think the art might be the hunt for the Cluster.” Ellis tugged at his auburn beard.

  "The art is also the song, you said."

  "The art might also be death.” Again, Ellis let his eyes wander to the clouds. “They don't leave much behind."

  "Then you must find those who understand all three, to understand this Cluster.” Richard raised his massive head completely out of the water, bobbing it up and down. “The cycle resumes.” With that Richard once again dove below the waves.

  Rapping his fingers on the railing, Ellis stood. He walked back to the wheel and retrieved his pipe, tamping the ash into the ocean. He grinned, reminded of the Native American legend that told that Nantucket had been created when god had emptied his pipe into the ocean. Retrieving a deck chair, Ellis tamped a fresh patch of tobacco into his pipe, lighted it and settled in for the wait. The cycle resumed; Richard had gone down to hunt more squid. Using his tongue, he would bait the animals. When he felt them hit, he would clang loudly, stunning them and close the trap. When ready for more air, he would rise to the surface; the cycle continued.

  After nearly fifteen minutes, Richard again rose to the surface, less flamboyantly than before. “The cycle continues,” he said. Richard let his whole body float to the top. Ellis couldn't help but gasp when he saw the entire 62-foot long scarred and wrinkled body.

  "The cycle continues, old friend,” said Ellis, nodding appreciatively. “Who would understand the three arts; the hunt, the death and the song?"

  Clicking, Richard rolled slightly to his side. “The Rd'dyggians."

  "I thought whales knew not the ways of space.” Ellis smirked.

  Richard turned on his belly again, blowing a waterspout. The water came down in a shower, drenching the smoldering pipe. “Whales know not the ways of space. Whales do know some of the people. Only the Rd'dyggians speak to the humpbacks, the spermaceti, and man. From them you can learn."

  Ellis removed the sopping pipe from his mouth. “I only really know one Rd'dyggian,” he said, remembering the mission to Sufiro. “A warrior named Arepno."

  "Arepno, I know not.” Richard was silent for a moment. “Seek the philosopher, not the warrior."

  "I don't know any Rd'dyggian philosophers,” shrugged Ellis. He put the drenched pipe in his pocket.

  "I do,” clicked the whale. “Seek G'Liat. He knows the song, the hunt, and the death."

  "How would I find him?” asked Ellis, excitedly.

  "Whales know not the ways of space,” said Richard. “You must use your knowledge to find him."

  "Thank you, old friend.” Ellis noticed that the sun was approaching the tops of the clouds on the horizon. “It's about time for me to be going."

  "For me as well,” said Richard. “I hope to see you again. The cycle resumes.” With that, Richard sunk below the water. Ellis returned to the controls and lowered the boat to the ocean's surface. Just as he did, he heard a great crash of water. Again, Richard rose from the waves, leaping higher than Ellis had ever seen before. The water cascaded off his body and onto the boat's deck. In the air, the whale performed a miraculous spin and turn and returned to the sea forehead first, his tail waving goodbye. Laughing, Ellis turned his boat to starboard and made for Nantucket.

  REVEREND CLYDE'S OLD TIME CLUSTER REVIVAL

  Clyde McClintlock had never considered himself a very religious man. It was true that his parents like many civic-minded Iowans from Earth, went to the mosque and followed the way of Islam. Clyde was familiar with the ways of Allah and his prophet Mohammed. However, his parents seemed to attend the services more out of fashion than out of any actual belief. That seemed true of most people Clyde knew, whether Moslem, Jewish, or Christian. As a citizen of the American Sector, it only mattered that you belonged to one of the sanctioned religions. When Clyde's parents moved to Sufiro, they kept their morality but pretty well dropped the religious trappings. Clyde had been ten years old when that happened.

  At the tender age of ten, Clyde was not all that comfortable with the apparent change of belief his parents had undergone. It had confused him and made him wonder about many things adults said. Seven years later, Clyde moved to Earth, to find his roots, figure out just who he was and what he did believe in. Clyde found the Gaean Navy.

  In the Navy, Clyde discovered discipline and a world order like none he had ever known before. In the academy, his professors gave him a defined and straightforward sense of what was right and wrong. Quite simply, what his superior officers said was right. Anything else was wrong. This was a world Clyde could understand and, for a time, he was happy.

  The first time Clyde's faith in the military was thrown into question was when he was aboard a Gaean destroyer, hunting privateers. His ship, the Beacon, was in pursuit of a pirate vessel. The captain had given explicit orders not to fire on the pirate ship. However, the Beacon's gunner had scanned a rear-mounted weapon's rack disguised as a thruster pack. Without informing the captain, the gunner had fired, destroying the weapon's mounting as well as the pirate ship. Clyde, who had been piloting the ship, had been shocked at the loss of life and the callous action. However, the sensor logs bore out the gunner's story. The gunner, who had violated the sacred principle of following orders, had been granted a promotion. Meanwhile, Clyde remained pilot of the tiny destroyer for another five years, continuing to follow orders, never coming to notice.

  The second time Clyde's faith in the Navy had been hurt had to do with his good friend, John Wong. Clyde knew that Lieutenant Wong was the son of an admiral, but never thought much of it. Clyde, like John, was a lieutenant. Unlike John, Clyde had more years of service. He also knew that Lieutenant Wong had never particularly distinguished himself in the line of duty. Thus, it was clear to Clyde that he would be promoted well ahead of his friend. Instead, John's mother called in some favors. Within four years, John Wong was captain of his own ship while Clyde still s
erved as a lieutenant. That was when Clyde decided he would resign his commission and return home to Sufiro.

  On Sufiro, Clyde's faith took a third blow. His childhood friend, Rocky Hill, was lieutenant governor of the continent of Tejo. Rocky was looking for a leader of a new Tejo military. His choice was Clyde McClintlock. It was then that Clyde, who had never risen beyond the rank of lieutenant, who had never particularly distinguished himself in the line of duty, suddenly found himself leading the army of an entire continent. Quite frankly, Clyde didn't feel that he deserved the honor.

  Clyde's faith was utterly demolished when he led a military coup and took over the Tejan continent. To do that went against everything he had been taught. It went against every instinct, except for one. That instinct was the basic morality his parents had raised him with.

  In essence, when Clyde arrived in Roanoke, a freed political prisoner, he had come full circle. He was a reborn man, looking for something, anything actually, to believe in.

  The people of Roanoke believed in a religion that Clyde knew only slightly. Rather than believing that the carpenter of Nazareth, called Jesus, was a mere prophet, these people believed he was, in fact, the Messiah. What made them different from the Christians Clyde had known on Earth was their devotion to their faith.

  Clyde McClintlock found the religion and the faith of these people attractive. The structure of the faith was casual. There were few rituals. They had a strong sense of discipline and they spoke to God all the time, whenever they wanted.

  There was only one problem Clyde saw with the faith of the people of Roanoke. They claimed that God spoke to them. In the weeks that Clyde had been in Roanoke, learning the ways of the people, learning to pray, never once had God seemed to speak to him. The way these people felt about God was more akin to the way he felt about the Cluster than anything else was.

  Clyde McClintlock had written down the impressions he had received from the Cluster. Those impressions had given him a moral certainty like none that he had ever felt in his life. The Cluster had put images directly in his mind. What he saw from the Cluster was far more real to Clyde than what he felt from the God of Roanoke.

  On the day of his rescue from prison, Suki Firebrandt had asked whether or not the Cluster had communicated with Clyde. This shook him. “You see,” she had said, “the Cluster seems to have communicated with John Mark.” Clyde thought back to the conversation with Fire.

  * * * *

  "It what?” asked Clyde, almost falling out of the austere, wooden chair in the little inn.

  "Mark says he saw what amounted to visions.” Fire leaned across the table. Her brown eyes glistened with moisture, but she kept the rest of her face rock steady. “I have to know, Clyde, did the Cluster communicate with you as well?"

  Clyde told about his visions. He told Suki how they had led him to the decision to lead the military coup against the leaders of Tejo. “The experience was almost, religious,” said Clyde, a gleam in his blue eyes.

  Fire put her head down. Manuel Raton reached out a rough hand and took hers. “You see,” said Manuel softly. “Mark has been kicked out of the Gaean Navy because he suggested they try communicating with the Cluster rather than destroy it."

  Clyde's cynicism about the Gaean Navy ran so deep by that point that the news did not surprise him in the least. Still, the fact that he was not the only one who had seen the visions reassured him. For the first time since he had led the military coup, Clyde began to feel at peace.

  "I just had to know,” said Fire looking up at last, “whether or not the communication was real. I had to know that if Mark had been kicked out of the fleet, it was not for something imaginary."

  "Not only was it real,” said Clyde, “it was something noble."

  For the first time in her life, Fire saw why her father had believed so strongly in the McClintlock family. “Thank you,” she said. She and Manuel stood. Clyde stood as well. All three embraced.

  "What is Mark going to do now?” Clyde asked.

  "I think he's going to try to find the Cluster,” said Fire. “He wants to talk to it."

  "If anyone can succeed,” said Clyde. “It's Mark Ellis."

  * * * *

  On that particular Sunday, Clyde was sitting in the tiny white, wooden church in Roanoke. Reverend Burroughs was preaching from the Revised Dead Sea Version of the Old Testament book of Ezekiel. He spoke dramatically, gesturing wildly with his hands. Clyde was not too fond of the Old Testament. In it, God seemed far too vengeful; more someone to be feared rather than loved and confided in. However, something in the words the Reverend read caught Clyde's attention.

  "This is the vision that Ezekiel saw: There came the likeness of a chariot with wheel inside wheel and the wheels did not turn as they approached. When the being rose, the wheels rose like a bird with two wings.” As Burroughs read, his voice rose to a crescendo. Clyde listened to the description of the vision and his mind's eye worked on wheels inside wheels that did not turn. He imagined spheres hanging close together. The Reverend continued to speak about how the wheels were attached to each other and something about faces.

  The preacher's voice dropped to a near reverential whisper. “And wheel joined to wheel when they moved. And their appearance and their working were as if it were a wheel in the middle of a wheel. As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire and like the appearance of lamps.” This caused Clyde to sit upright, listening intently, now. He thought about the silver orbs of the Cluster, brightly reflecting the light of Sufiro's sun as it had orbited the planet.

  "Now there was over their heads an expanse, like an awesome gleam of crystal and a voice came from above the expanse...” Clyde wiped sweat from his brow. The spheres spoke to Ezekiel.

  Ezekiel was speaking of a vision of God. Clyde retrieved the notepaper with a sketch of the Cluster. Next to the sketch, he drew wheels within wheels. To Clyde McClintlock, it was clear that Ezekiel had described the Cluster in beautiful, poetic language.

  Images of the Cluster visiting Earth in ancient times came to Clyde's mind. Many of Earth's religions were based on various portions of the Old Testament. Could it be that everyone had it wrong? Clyde began writing feverishly on his pad of paper. What if the Cluster was not really an alien intelligence? What if it was the one great Intelligence? Clyde stopped for a moment, afraid of where his thoughts were leading. However, the conclusions he was reaching were inevitable to him. Quite simply, Clyde McClintlock began to see the Cluster as God incarnate.

  Not only that, but the Cluster had spoken to him. That made Clyde, the prophet of the Cluster, just as Ezekiel was the prophet of God. Clyde put his trembling hand to his mouth. The Cluster had also spoken to John Mark Ellis. Ellis, like many prophets, had been persecuted for trying to spread the word.

  Sitting there in the church, Clyde's hands shook violently. He felt like throwing up. No matter what, he needed air. He stood, and nearly tripping over the feet of one of his fellow parishioners, he stumbled out of the church and into the open air.

  Clyde McClintlock stood outside, blinking at Sufiro's blue-green sky. He was both exhilarated and terrified. He was not sure what to do. Feeling his knees go weak, he simply dropped to a crouch on the cool stone steps in front of the church. Half an hour later, Reverend Burroughs appeared at the door to greet the parishioners as they prepared to leave the building.

  "I've had people fall asleep on my sermons,” said the minister with a gleam in his eye. “But I've never had any run out in a cold sweat, before."

  "I'm sorry.” Clyde unfolded aching limbs and looked around a little nervously. “I'm afraid I got a good close-up look at God Himself.” He stopped himself from saying more as the first of the people began to pour out of the tiny white church building. The former colonel slumped into the shadows as people shook hands with the minister. He stood there, a cool breeze playing across his face, trying to figure out what to do. He looked to the sky and realized that the first thing
he should do was find John Mark Ellis. Ellis would have a good idea of what to do.

  Clyde ducked around behind the church and made his way back to the tiny house the people of Roanoke loaned him. Green shrubbery and a beautifully manicured lawn surrounded the house. In many ways, it was the nicest house Clyde had ever lived in.

  Stepping inside, he dialed up a shipping schedule on the computer terminal. There would be a ship going from Roanoke to the minor continent of Little Sonora in a couple of days. From Little Sonora, he could catch a ship to Earth.

  Using the Gaean Navy Veteran's index, it took no time to find out that Ellis lived on Nantucket Island. Clyde's jaw hung open as he read that. For Ellis to be able to afford even a shack on the island would have to make him rich beyond belief. What was he doing as a commander of a destroyer?

  A knock on the door caused Clyde to jump. He stood, walking across the soft beige carpet, and opened the door. Reverend Burroughs stood, wearing a concerned frown. “Sorry to impose, Colonel McClintlock, but I was worried about you after the service."

  Clyde took a deep breath and held his hand open, inviting the Reverend inside. Burroughs stepped in and sat down at a simple square Formica-topped table. Clyde offered the minister a cup of coffee. Burroughs politely declined, but Clyde poured some in a fine porcelain cup and sat down at the table with the minister. “I'm sorry if I gave you a start.” Tentatively, Clyde sipped the dark, thick coffee. “It's just the words you read from the book of Ezekiel.” Taking a deep breath, he ran his fingers through gray hair. “It just began to sound like you were describing the Cluster."

  "It was a vision,” said Burroughs reassuringly. “It was God's way of showing himself to the prophet, Ezekiel."

  "Is it possible that the Cluster is God's way of showing himself to us in this century?” Clyde looked where the cream-colored wall met the gently curving white ceiling. “Perhaps as a prelude to something. Maybe even the Second Coming of Christ."