Amos Bright rushed to the council anteroom to meet with the five Brigade commanders before the council convened. He had briefly greeted the Greens and Perlmans when they had arrived the day before yesterday, but he had not yet seen Ruth Charnofsky.
“You look radiant,” he told the feisty, red-haired commander as he entered the anteroom. Her smooth, high cheek bones and doe-like eyes now seemed unearthly to him. Her trim, athletic body belied her age — eighty-six Earth years. Ruth’s pigmentation showed traces of pale blue, indicating that she was somehow adapting to the ultraviolet energy sources from Rigal, and becoming more Subaxian. It made Amos Bright uneasy to see this Earth-human adaptability.
Ruth Charnofsky greeted the tall Antarean with a genuine hug. Her strong arms fit easily around Bright’s narrow torso. He accepted her embrace gracefully, although this kind of display always made him nervous. It was very un-Antarean. They were a race known for deferential manners and minimum physical contact.
“And you, Amos Bright, are still a charming liar,” Ruth told him. She smiled broadly and released his stiffened body from her clutches. “It’s so good to see you! Imagine...a High Council member!”
“Yes. But one who aches to travel.” He paused for a moment as a touch of melancholy moved across his smooth, hairless iridescent face and brow. Then he grinned. “Ahhhh... But it is so good to see you all together. How long has it been?”
“Almost seven years since Mary and I last saw you,” Ben Green said.
“Nine for us,” Art Perlman chimed in.
“More than five for Panatoy and me,” Ruth added. Many in the Brigade had not yet completely accepted the projected longevity the Antarean deep-space processing had given them. Five or nine years still felt like a long time. But to Antareans, whose life span was indefinite, these time-measurements were insignificant. Bright shrugged and smiled.
“How is that little girl of yours, Ruth? How is dear Autumn?”
“Totally her father’s daughter, thank you. From the moment she was born. And not so little, as you may recall.” They all remembered how Autumn had grown quite large in Ruth’s womb, especially as she approached term. The baby’s long Subaxian arms and legs had extended to the point where they were a threat to Ruth’s spine. Delicate in-utero surgery had been performed to ease the pressure. Shortly afterwards, Autumn arrived via cesarean section. She was the last of the Brigade children to be born on Earth. Autumn, and two other male children of mixed mating were genetically more like their non-Earth-humanoid fathers and so were taken to that parent’s home planet.
One mother was Ellie-Mae Boyd, a Black retired nurse from Charlotte, North Carolina, who had been working at the nursing home where Betty Franklin, Bess Perlman’s sister, had been vegetating before being whisked away and processed for space travel. Ellie-Mae’s baby’s father, Dr. Manterid, was a Hillet from the planet Betch. He was a master chemist with a galactic reputation. Physically, their son looked Earth-humanoid. He bore none of his father’s striated markings or thick layered skin. But at birth, doctors discovered that this newborn required the nearly one hundred percent nitrogen atmosphere of Dr. Manterid’s home planet.
The other baby was the son of Brigade member Karen Moreno, and a farmer named Tommachkikla, who hailed from the planet Destero - a huge, hot, oxygen rich planet in Orion. Tom, as he was called, was pure humanoid. Destero’s sun, the middle star in Orion’s belt, is similar to the Earth’s sun in size and age. The planet’s age and distance from its sun is also similar to Earth. But because of its size, Destero’s gravity is nearly ten times stronger. Humanoid inhabitants there have evolved into a race of short, squat, powerful beings with small lung capacity. The Desterian’s main occupations in the planet’s harsh environment are farming and mining. The child needed an oxygen rich environment. He had difficulty breathing Earth’s mixed oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere so he was brought to Destero.
Although there was fear that these three babies might not survive the trip from Earth to Antares, and then on to Subax, Betch and Destero, the risk was far outweighed by the certainty that they could not survive on Earth without constructing elaborate isolation chambers to provide controlled atmospherics, pressures and temperatures. Building habitats that complex would have surely increased the risk of someone discovering the secret of Butterfly House.
The Antareans insisted they would not chance deep-space travel for these babies without some form of processing. They had applied one fifth of Panatoy’s processing regimen to his daughter, and the same for Dr. Manterid’s son. The Desteran child was given more because of his bulk, dense muscle and bone structure. Autumn, Ruth and Panatoy’s daughter took the processing well, as did the Desteran. But it affected Dr. Manterid’s son adversely, and he nearly died. Fortunately, they were able to make adjustments before the processing did permanent damage to the infant. In the end, the three children survived the trip beautifully — a positive foreshadowing for the children left behind on Cayman Brac. Since that time, the three had not left their fathers’ home planets. However, these children were in telepathic contact with the children of Butterfly House.
“Autumn nearly killed me in my womb and now she drives me crazy outside of it,” Ruth Charnofsky told Amos Bright.
“The young are mostly the same everywhere,” Amos commented.
“But not on Antares,” Ben Green piped in. “Your kids are extremely well behaved.” Ben, a tall heavyset man, now in his late seventies, looked no older than forty. The manifestations of age and aging among Brigade members could no longer be described in Earth years. They were vigorous and seemingly ageless. Ben was muscular; with a deep tan he’d gotten on Turmoline during a recent Penditan trade mission. His once gray hair had reverted to its original sandy blonde. He styled it in a buzz cut. His pale blue eyes were keenly alert — a commander through and through.
“That is because we choose to raise them institutionally,” Amos Bright answered. “No parents to distract them or blame for their shortcomings.” Antareans had long ago become asexual. Eventually they lost their reproductive drive and, finally, most of the function of their reproductive organs. But they kept the male-female distinction for tradition’s sake. They had no sense of family, in the Earth-human way. They now reproduced via cloning techniques developed millennia ago. Only when an Antarean was accidentally killed, or chose to die, was another cloned in his, or her, image. They were brought to term in vitro. The young were exact genetic replicas of the parent, with improvements added as their genetic sciences progressed. They retained a base amount of their parent’s imprinted memory, but most of their brain capacity was a clean slate upon which the Antarean State inscribed their life-plan. Antareans raised and nourished the young, then trained them for their careers. Many were devoted space travelers, explorers and traders. Basic to the plan was the inculcation that Antareans were a chosen race; their mission - to serve The Master and his Grand Plan.
“But being a part of a child’s discovering life’s possibilities,” Mary Green chimed in, “seeing their growth, is one of the great joys of parenthood.” She and Ben had left their son, Scott, behind at Butterfly House. He was named for their first-born son who had been killed in the Viet Nam War. They also had two grown living children, and grandchildren, from their previous life on Earth. Like the rest of the Brigade, they took a wait-and-see attitude about having more children.
At first, doubts about the viability of commanders’ offspring came into question when Bess and Arthur Perlman’s child was stillborn. That had occurred aboard the Mothership before it reached Earth on the last mission there. This tragedy had given pause to all Brigade members, particularly the other commanders. But subsequent births had been normal; Commander Mary Green had Scott, and Chief Commander Ruth Charnofsky had Autumn. If the space travel status of the children of Butterfly House was positive, then the Greens, along with other commanders and Brigade members, planned to expand their families.
Babies and raising children was something Amos Bright preferred no
t to discuss. There were many methods of reproduction in the Universe. Some were quite dispassionate, like the Antareans. Others, like Earth-humanoids, were filled with sensual contact and, to Antareans, an elusive, troubling emotion called love. Although love seemed to have much to do with loyalty, an important Antarean trait, it was more than that. Quite confusing, Amos thought. And distracting. Secretly, he wondered which The Master’s preferred way was. The lack of a physical reproduction process did not bother Amos Bright. However, the emotional love-making, and then love for and from a child, pulled at a place from deep inside his cloned body. Trying to comprehend this sensation exposed an inexplicable void within – a dark and empty place. The Brigade’s gift for ingratiating themselves with strangers seemed to have something to do with the love characteristic. That phenomenon also piqued his curiosity, and fear that he was somehow incomplete.
“Well,” Bright continued politely, as he felt compelled to answer Mary Green, “you’ve all observed that the drive to bear and raise young is quite different among the species of our galaxy. It is a phenomenon as varied as the number of planets.” Then, before the commanders had a chance to reply, he changed the subject. “But please, dear friends, tell me what do you hear from the others?”
“The other commanders?” Art Perlman asked.
“Yes.”
“They are all well and busy. The Finley’s are onto something quite special, I hear.”
“On Klane,” Bright said, smiling. “Yes. We hope to have a message from them soon.” Bright wondered if one of these commanders might have already received one. “And the children? Tell me. How are they?”
“Bernie says the kids are great!” Art answered quickly. “We can’t wait to see them.”
“Then you know about the mission?”
“Know about it?” Ben Green said. “Hell, Amos, we requested it!”
“I see.” Amos was curious. He knew about the impending mission. The High Council had discussed it. But he had not been told where, or how, it had originated. He had assumed it was a subject still open to discussion. Now, according to these commanders, the Earth mission was approved. He wondered, in light of the communication need for a Brigade commander to be aboard the inter-galactic probes being planned, how these five commanders could all be allowed to travel to Earth.
“It’s the children,” Bess Perlman informed the Antarean. “They communicate that they are ready to leave their sanctuary.”
“Ready to leave?” Amos was surprised. “But this is not their choice.”
“Well, uh... yes. You’re right,” Bess said awkwardly, realizing that Amos was not informed about the children’s insistence.
“Of course, they will be evaluated first,” Art continued, hoping to blunt Bright’s growing unease.
“But they refuse to allow that to happen without our being there,” Ben Green added.
Amos Bright absorbed this new information. He also sensed that his Brigade friends were not telling him everything about events at Butterfly House. There was an awkward silence. None of the commanders wanted to stay on the subject. Amos sensed that too. They were thinking of him as an old friend, but as an Antarean High Council member as well.
“Gideon Mersky is here,” Amos announced, changing the subject once again, thinking to keep the commanders off balance. He felt their surprise as they reacted and recalled how resistant the ex-Defense Secretary had been to their leaving Earth after the children were born. He had gone behind the back of President Teller, with a plan to hold them by force, a plan that had been foiled. Although Mersky finally came around to accepting the necessity for the children to depart, and he still believed they had, the Brigade commanders did not trust him. That is why he was never told that the children had remained on Earth.
“Mersky here, you say? Now what’s that all about, Amos?” Ben Green asked.
“I promised him that when he came of age, if... if he wished, he could join the Brigade.”
“Things have changed,” Mary Green said. Amos Bright sensed rapid communication between the commanders in the room, but they blocked him from its content.
“He may even become a commander,” Bright told them, stirring the pot.
“Shouldn’t we have been consulted?” Art Perlman asked. His voice had an unfriendly edge to it.
“Well, yes... and you will be, if it is to happen. Perhaps it will be discussed in today’s meeting. But please, dear friends, remember it was also we...I who invited you to leave Earth,” Bright reminded them. The commanders were suddenly wary of Bright’s heavy-handed reference.
“As a reward, I recall, for helping you out of a rather difficult situation,” Ben Green told Bright.
“Yes. Of course. And we are eternally grateful to you all for helping to save our cocooned army.” Bright bowed to them all. “In any event, it was I who made the promise to Mr. Mersky.”
“You might have said something,” Ben Green continued.
“Well...there happened to be a Shar-Bakart transport passing close to Earth. And I knew it was time to keep my promise, so I contacted Jack Fischer... you know...”
“Yes,” Ruth answered for all of them. “He is sensitive to telepathy.”
“I taught him, you’ll recall,” Amos said.
“We remember,” Ben Green said, impatient to get past Bright’s diplomatic tap dance.
“Of course. Well, I had Mr. Fischer approach Mr. Mersky, who immediately accepted. He was shuttled to the transport and processed. And he has adapted beautifully.”
“He would,” Art Perlman said sarcastically. “He was always a bit of a chameleon.” The reference went beyond Bright’s understanding of Earth-human sarcasm.
“I’m told he even took a...well, he was said to have spent sexual time with a Brigade member during the trip here,” Bright continued. “A woman named Annabella Costa. Do you know her?”
“I know her,” Mary Green answered. “I know her...”
“A very nice woman, I understand,” Bright said, smiling. “A dancer of some sort?” Now Bright was exercising his own sarcasm.
“She was a stripper. Lived in Tampa, as I recall,” Mary said somewhat disdainfully. “A real Southern Belle.”
“Is that not honorable?” Bright asked tongue in cheek. He had heard and seen enough about Earthly mores to know what a stripper was. The commanders knew his question was disingenuous. Bright was playing them.
“It’s a living,” Mary Green replied. “But maybe a little, uh, tacky... By Antarean standards, that is.” Her joke broke the tension in the room. They all laughed.
“Well, yes,” Amos said softly with a patronizing nod. “But I do think that Mr. Mersky has the potential to command and...” Suddenly, a gentle drone, sounding like a Buddhist chant, filled the air. “Ahhhh,” Bright announced, “the call to High Council. I must leave you, dear friends. Let’s have a chat about this after you’ve all seen Mr. Mersky. I think you’ll be surprised at how he’s, what’s the word? Oh yes, mellowed.” He bowed graciously. “I will see you in council.” He bowed again and left the five commanders wondering. They would now wait until the High Council called them.
“Imagine,” Ben Green said, after Amos Bright closed the door to the anteroom behind him, “Gideon Mersky as one of us!”
They all understood how making Gideon Mersky a Brigade commander might serve the Antareans. The newly discovered commanders’ ability to message across deep-space instantly was critical to Antarean inter-galactic exploration. This new reliance on the Brigade commanders made their hosts uneasy. That, and the strong bond that Earth-humans had built with the Parmans and other beings caused additional Antarean concern. Perhaps, unknown to the Brigade, others on Earth were being considered for commands as well?
“Mersky was a born-again zealot,” Arthur Perlman said aloud, suspecting that the High Council had recording devices in the anteroom. He wanted to go on record.
“Maybe he’s changed,” Bess suggested. “What do you think, Mary?” Mary Green did not answer
. She raised her hand for the others to clear their minds as she concentrated on a message coming from afar.
“Listen,” Mary said softly, “and join with me.” The others ended the discussion about Mersky and pooled their telepathic resources. “I don’t think it is for us,” Mary said as they connected to the message.
“You’re right,” Ben Green whispered. “It’s from Joe Finley for Bernie Lewis.” For a reason not yet known, Ben Green’s message reception was better than the others, even better than that of Brigade Chief Commander Ruth Charnofsky. “He’s worried about something... The children... Our Earth mission...” Their concentration was interrupted by the hiss of the door opening. An Antarean guardian, a soldier, stepped into the anteroom and summoned them to appear before the High Council.
CHAPTER FIVE - MESSAGES FROM AFAR
On Earth, 169 light years across the galaxy from Antares, a cloudless night and waning moon over Cayman Brac allowed a brilliant display in the heavens. Here, south of The Tropic of Cancer and north of the Tropic of Capricorn, the densest part of the Milky Way spreads directly above and across the night sky. Beyond this familiar spectacle were millions more galaxies, containing billions upon billions of stars, planets, moons and asteroids. The Universe was filled with life that was growing, becoming, changing and interacting. Depending on one’s point of view, it could appear chaotic, haphazard or harmonious...or all three combined. But one fact was clear - all that exists in the cosmos is of a common origin; from wispy, swirling gas clouds to the hardest diamonds; all matter; all life — everything derives and is formed from stardust.
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