Tail of the Dragon

by Timothy Reihm

  Chapter 38

  At the prime moment, the singularity that initiated the universe, the Kings spoke and the ripple of creation spread out through the chaos. This ripple produced the material and laws, which form and govern new galaxies, solar systems, and worlds. Matter was dispersed through the void in an expanding cloud that was the foundation of the universe. Atoms combined to form elements. Elements combined to form compounds. Compounds combined to form systems. Gravity pulled together the messy soup of cosmic dust and dissipated matter, forming masses that became stars and planets. The prime moment of creation was the first link in a chain of ongoing development and organization.

  But organization is not life, it merely allows for a place for life to exist. Life itself requires a specific order ‘to be.’ And each new order ‘to be’ is not just an act, but rather a chain of action, which can be traced back to its source. Much as the universe can be traced back to the prime moment, a species can be traced back to the first of its kind, created by the word, spoken by the Kings. This word forms a new link which, through replication or procreation, expands, like the growing universe, a new species into a chain of ongoing creation.

  Except for the arella, who are brought into existence only by the word of the Kings. Other creations owe their lineage to their parents, or replication, or mutation; but arella are born directly from a single word, the word of creation. And while all the created universe can be traced back, through the chain of creation, to the Kings; for arella the chain is always one single link.

  As Ariel looked at the swirling cloud which hung millions of light years away, he was overwhelmed with the knowledge of his own weakness and gratitude that the same power which gave birth to that mass of energy and matter, composed of over 200 billion stars and the myriad systems, planets and vast clouds of yet unformed material, had directly created him.

  And now he had the opportunity to serve in the creation of a new world. As a starherder, it was his job to seed a new planet. He and Araton would insure this new planet would have all of the ingredients necessary for the Kings to speak the atmosphere, the land, and the creatures that would be its inhabitants, into existence.

  He thought back to the day when he and his friends had taken a last meal together. He was unable to take credit for the savory flavors directly, but he had played a small role in the endeavor. Much as he had worked to make sure Raphael had all of the ingredients he needed to create the feast, he would now do the prep work for the Kings in creating a new planet. And he knew his role would be a minor one in bringing this new planet, Gaia, into existence, but he looked forward to the enjoyment he was sure to feel when he witnessed the completed world and knew he played a role in its creation.

  The galaxy he and Araton were observing was relatively new, in celestial terms. It was of modest size, stretching some 120,000 light years across and was of the barred spiral variety. A would be star, located about 27,000 light years from the nebula center, was orbited by eight planet-sized masses and numerous smaller bodies, and would serve as the center of the solar system. Two planets had been chosen within this particular grouping for habitation, Gaia and a red, sister planet that would be seeded later.

  His job was actually quite simple. Assisted by a pair of Seraphim, he and Araton were traveling to the black mass standing at the center of the massive swirling vortex that rotated, mysterious and beautiful, before him. As the galaxy spun round, loose material was pulled into the dense center due its incredible gravitational pull, a force so strong even light could not escape. This gave the illusion of a giant dark hole situated at its midpoint.

  ‘Do you see the bright shaft of light ejected from around the center?’ Araton asked, pointing to the opaque middle. ‘That is the quasar that we will mine for the necessary materials.’

  Ariel knew from his studies that quasars emitted incredible amounts of energy and material that would flow out and be reabsorbed back into the galaxy or would eventually get pulled into a new one. Starherders took a small amount of this material, and, by creating temporary pathways between the quasar and the fetal system, would transport all the ingredients that the Kings would need in developing the star, planets, planetary ecosystems and the numerous species that would inhabit them.

  It would require just a brief millisecond to mine enough material to add the needed mass to the star and seed the small planet. After the initial transport, the real work of the starherder could begin.

  Araton gave Gamel and Alugat, their Seraphim escorts, the necessary instructions and the portal opened near the quasar’s apex. Although in real time this opening would exist for the smallest fraction of a second; inside the portal, time ceased to exert its influence and the pair of starherders were able to methodically measure the amounts of raw material and energy that were transported, via the temporary pathway, to the system.

  Unlike a normal pathway that utilized two posts to create an instant opening between a point in the universe and the grove in the city, a transport pathway utilized eight different contact points in creating the circuit. Two of the posts created a passage from the Kingdom to the quasar, four more added path extensions to the dormant star and to Gaia itself. Two additional posts acted to create a small bubble at the quasar, where Araton and Ariel were able to work, outside of the supercharged torrent of matter and energy.

  The two worked with a sophisticated array which spewed an incredible amount of data related to the transfer. They talked quietly, analyzing the deluge of numbers running through the air before them. Occasionally, Araton would touch a small control and everything would freeze. Data would suddenly arrest in mid-air and the maelstrom of energy and matter flowing into the pathway would stop, the vibration would cease, and the fury of sound would be replaced by a silence, both deep and vast.

  ‘We can start to bleed off some of the excess energy. If we allow this flow to continue, uninterrupted, the star’s surface becomes destabilized and we have to take a number of unnecessary steps in order to get things back to where we need them. This allows us to handle this process,’ he said and touched a sequence of buttons.

  ‘I understand the need, but what, exactly, is involved here?’ Ariel asked.

  ‘The beauty of the pathways is you can’t overload them. Energy added to the circuit is just harnessed. By opening this channel, we allow the pathway itself to absorb any excess energy and divert it back to the kingdom, protecting our new planet. This can also work in the opposite fashion. If we have a circumstance requiring more energy than we have present, we can reverse the polarity and utilize the pathway to funnel energy from the Kingdom to be utilized in whatever we are working on. However, this is a rarity at this stage of the process. You would be working on an extremely energy hungry environment to eclipse the capabilities of a quasar.’

  Araton completed the command sequence and there was a visible shift in the light spectrum of the tumult, as energy was leeched off the flow and absorbed into the pathway. A slight tremor, that Ariel hadn’t previously noted, reverberated in the field surrounding them as the membrane absorbed the energy equivalent of thousands of stars. They continued to monitor the levels. Occasionally, they would switch one of the vectors off to various elements that were no longer needed. Soon, the amount of material flowing though the pathway had subsided and just a handful of the rarest trace elements were passing through the portal.

  ‘We should run a final check before we wrap this up,’ Araton said.

  The pair began an accounting of the two hundred elements and the levels that had passed through the pathway. The process took some time, or would have had they been outside of the pathway, but when they were finished they confirmed the new planet, Gaia, and its star now had all the ingredients necessary for its creation cycle.

  The flow inside the portal stopped and silence reigned within their bubble. Both arella stood peering below them at the spinning mass of texture and light. It looked milky and peaceful, as if some cosmic painter had left his masterpiece behind.

 
; ‘It’s hard to believe that it is rotating,’ Ariel remarked.

  ‘Given the fact we are within the pathway, technically, it’s not. You are seeing the galaxy frozen in a moment of time. Although even if we were to venture outside, you would perceive very little movement from this distance. Astronomical distances do a great job of masking activity. In reality, the event horizon, just outside the black area, is moving so fast that if you were there, you would need to travel at the speed of light in the opposite direction of its rotation, just to stay in the same location,’ Araton explained.

  The picture might have been frozen in time, but it was spectacular nonetheless. Ariel  saw what appeared to be four, swirling bands of slowly dissipating light spread in long arches away from the center. It reminded him of the whirlpools that he had seen formed over deep pools in the Rainbow River. He thought about swimming with Gadreel, laughing and soaking wet. If his friend could see this sight, he was sure it would change his priorities. Would those ridiculous meetings seem so important after standing five thousand light years above the massive splendor of a spiraling galaxy?

  He thought about the debates he had engaged in with Gadreel. Questions about the origin of the Kings, about what happened before the creation of the universe, about the nature of life itself had always bothered Gadreel in a way he didn’t understand. Beings that could create the incredible system he was looking at, to his mind, were beyond comprehension. Yet Gadreel seemed to need an explanation for everything. He was, from their very first days together, incapable of accepting anything he couldn’t fathom. But how could anyone, who looked out from this distance, at something so vast, really comprehend any of it? How could any being be arrogant enough to think themselves capable of understanding that which gave them, and everything else, life? If only he were able to show this to his friend.

  The pair closed out the sequence on the array and stepped out from the pathway onto the the planet. The normal visual spectrum was useless in the thick fog that hung around the planet in a choking haze. It was such a shocking transition, from the open vastness of space, to the surface of a planet, bathed in the murky gloom of elemental amalgam. A sulfuric stench filled the air and his tongue tasted the entire metallic sequence. The air crackled and hissed with the vibrant hum of the great clouds of supercharged particles hanging above them for a thousand kilocubits.

  Although it was difficult to imagine any type of orderly world coming from the chaotic environment that enveloped them, they had been trained well and began their work according to plan. They started with the gravity, which was registering extremely low. Ariel, sensing the myriad heavy metals around him, began pulling groups together; allowing the bonds to solidify, take mass and fall. As he roamed the uniform surface, plasma began to fall onto the land with a thick muddy sound. As the metallic rain fell, the ground swelled with accumulation. Eventually, the increase in mass would cause the gravitational pull to rise dramatically, causing the initial surface to compress, creating an incredibly dense sphere that would become the planet's core.

  While the work at the quasar took a fraction of a second, their efforts on the dormant star and planetary surface stretched into weeks and months. Although the star was much bigger, it took less time to prepare. After funneling the needed material from the quasar, gravity would do the rest. The planet took longer, but over time, and with guidance from the two starherders, the atmospheric stew settled and stratified. Where a random collection of elements had hung like the vapor over a lava field, the air gradually cleared of heavier elements. The land became striated with great swathes of mineral fields, pooled into deposits. Heat swelled in the interior, causing the material to form a plasmatic sea of molten rock.

  Further from the center, the temperature of the planet was frigid, allowing a cold metallic coat to form. This outer layer of deposited minerals, cooled into various types of rock, surrounded by great seas of silica.

  The crust formed into a great plate covering the ductile sea of irradiated material. This  would eventually serve as the foundation that would be used to create the landmass which would be home to the terrestrial species of the planet, while also serving as the oceanic floor of the great bodies of water that would dominate the surface.

  The angry torrent of energy dissipated as the arella pulled from this source to fuel their labors. Given its lack of atmosphere, the planet was bombarded by a constant assault of cosmic radiation, but as the starherders’ work progressed, a magnetic field developed at the planet’s poles, which diverted a large amount of this energy away from the surface, allowing the outer crust to stabilize.

  Seventy-five percent of the new planet would eventually be covered with water, and huge ice fields formed across the planet’s surface. From space it looked like a mottled mass of blacks and browns, separated by continental swathes of a dirty white.

  Once the Kings ignited the star and caused the orb to rotate, much of the ice would melt and be pulled into the lowest reaches of the planets topography, effectively covering most of the planet’s surface to form the great seas that would be home to the largest percentage of the world’s life.

  As the months stretched and the landscape took shape, Ariel became increasingly enamored with the work. Araton carefully explained every step of the process and the two grew very close as they worked together to prepare the various threads needed for the weaving, awaiting the hand of the Kings in rendering a beautiful new tapestry of life.

  Ariel was an attentive student. While Araton was in charge of this operation, Ariel himself would serve in the lead role in seeding the sister planet, when the time came. The process he now participated in as a subordinate would be his during his next assignment.

  There had been several opportunities to return to the kingdom. The last had been to receive his wings. His preceptorship had officially ended. It was a simple ceremony, with just he and Araton in a private audience with the Kings. He was given a blessing and a new power welled up within him. As he stood, he noticed a new sensation. He looked over his shoulder and saw the beautiful white wings that he had so long awaited. He smiled as they spread naturally. Although it lacked the grandeur of the elaborate graduation ceremonies he had gone through in each of his previous years, it was a perfect culmination of his tenure at the academy. He was commended for his hard work, and within the hour, was back on the planet to finish the preparations for the new world.

  Toward the end of the process, the two angels toured the planet together. It was exhilarating to fly above the surface of this great satellite and see the results of their labors. The giant dense cloud that had blanketed the surface was gone, absorbed into the rocky plain below. The surface had completely cooled and the flow of lava was visible only at areas where the fissures would be left open, turning the crust in a continual sequence of rejuvenation. Although there was no pathway yet, Ariel knew that soon the King’s would plant the twin trees which would link this world to Mount Kol and thus provide the lifeline able to recycle the dark energy and return the lifeblood which would hold this planet firm, against the ever encroaching power of chaos.

  It was so satisfying, to Ariel, to see the principles he had studied at the academy enacted before his very eyes. The formulas that dictated the way in which particular elements would react were so much more gratifying than the numbers that symbolized the process in an academic exercise. As he observed how the planet reacted and evolved under their angelic touch, he knew he had chosen his specialization wisely.

  He hoped the same was true of Gadreel.