Aquari

by DD White

  * * *

  After the return of Begalius to Goag Ralus from its star-door virus hunting adventure, the Eigalli went back to sampling genetic products from the Dol star-door databanks along with other star-door wonders. There were all kinds of empty cities, virtual cities, and wonders to explore in the 100-mile diameter star-door sphere. Some Incapricans from Dol also lived within this star-door. They kept mostly to themselves until they eventually contacted Begalius to arrange to come out to explore the wonders of Goag Ralus. After the return of Begalius, once again the warehouses in the virtual reality city of Doldoor were again full of compiled DNA programs that were discovered and compiled originally by the legendary Nephapricans.

  Deliadre sat on her patio one day appreciating the effects of the colder weather on the view of Occuitah, which had been caused by Goag Ralus entering molecular clouds that marked the end of a tek. A tek had been a Goag Ralus year lasting about 311 Earth years. Goag Ralus used this time in the molecular clouds to gather molecular materials and also to cool down His surface in what amounted to a winter season that lasted for several Earth decades. Atmospheric effects on Goag Ralus caused this, which happened as molecular particles suppressed the solar winds of His seven stars. The billions of years of Goag Ralus orbiting this way had led to a tek being an almost universal measurement of time in modern day galactic cultures across the known galaxy called Magphoreus.

  Goag Ralus, in the form of a Golimechoid avatar, had began visiting the Golimechoids of the star-door planet Poa-3 in the Carina arm of Magphoreus. Deliadre still impatiently awaited the star-door connection with Tze-Doldus by Aquari who she calculated should be getting there soon. She wanted that connection to the Orion arm so she could finally meet, in person, her life-long friend Beagud the Eagolim. Many Eigalli wanted to take to the stars from the easier-to-navigate outer arms of the galaxy, which the Dol star-door now led to. Golimechoids at Poa-3 had already constructed spacecraft that awaited adventure-seeking Eigalli from the much harsher and treacherous core environment of Goag Ralus. This had been an exciting time in the third age of Magphoreus.

  Deliadre talked to Beagud earlier through their quanta-communication link as they often did. When Beagud left the Ti system after being frightened by the Devasura, he had diverted his Eagolim space fleet in the direction Deliadre had given him for the newly discovered location of Tze-Doldus. That species of Eagolim had been cut off from star-door planets ever since the stars Fedor and Gralga went nova in the second age of Magphoreus. Those star-doors must have survived the novas, but they never could find them with quanta-communicators or anything else afterwards. The Eagolim still search for those long lost star-doors in the Orion arm to this day. Deliadre and Beagud had arranged to finally meet through the Tze-Doldus/Dol star-door connection soon. Beagud should be at Tze-Doldus in a little over a tek, or 352 Earth years. That had not been an excruciatingly long time for longer-living galactic beings like Beagud and Deliadre.

  Between Beagud and Deliadre, the two of them had figured out about the existence of the Devasuras who followed them with giant protoplanets that were probably made out of the seven long lost star-door stars of the great disappearance legend, which disappeared along with the last of the Nephaprican race.

  A notification sounded from inside, and it interrupted Deliadre’s enjoyment of the snowy city scene. She got up to respond to the message on the star-door monitoring equipment that she had been maintaining. It indicated to her that Goag Ralus had Begalius create five disconnected wormholes with the Dol star-door. She had not been told about this, and the experiment would be monumental. She left the apartment to get over to the star-door, and see what went on.

  The Grulmagof commander of the newly built fifth pyramid ship proudly flew that ship in formation with the other four pyramid ships on course to Poa-3, the last known stronghold of Golimechoid life forms in the Carina arm of Magphoreus. Most of this area of the galactic arm named Carina had been rich in star systems; more than are even known. Yet none of those stars were to be shared with the Golimechoids according to the Grulmagof who were sworn to their eradication from the galaxy. The Grulmagof have hunted Golimechoid through the ages; ever since the Grulmagof’s brief rule over the crumbling galactic empire of Nephapricus had been toppled from their galactic civilization’s greatest moment. That had been the moment they once ruled the legendary post-Nephaprican Nephapricus. Grulmagof were raised to see the Golimechoid as an unnatural mechanical technology left behind by the Eagolim, which had also been a technology that had become a galactic pollutant. Now the ancestors of Turgis-Riva, the last Emperor of Nephapricus, have hunted and eradicated the Golimechoid all the way back to their last refuge, the ancient star-door planet Poa-3 where the star-door had been still fueled by giant Golimechoid-invented fusion powered phantom matter generators.

  Commander Stobb had been in charge of the fifth pyramid ship that would be going immediately into action as the last piece of a mission to eradicate Poa-3 of its entire Golimechoid population with powerful particle accelerator cannons, which were perched on the top point of each pyramid ship. Five pyramid ships were calculated to be capable of the task. Extremely advanced aliens called Asuras had assisted the Grulmagof in constructing these gigantic ships. Asuras seemed to be also concerned about the spread of Golimechoid life in the galaxy, and eradicating Golimechoids would be their penance for the pollution species their careless ancestors had created and left behind. The unnatural quanta-nanocode constructed life forms had already replaced all life on Poa-3 with unnatural electronic DNA based plant life being cultivated in fields across the planet under the blinking pulsar of the dead star Poa. So this eradication mission had been even more important because the galactic pollution created by Eagolim was in the process of creating more pollution. The five mason cannons of these pyramid ships were designed to destroy all of this electric DNA-based life on Poa-3 along with the Golimechoids.

  Commander Stobb hurried to his command center to be ready for the attack about to ensue. Grulmagof were much shorter in height since the days of Turgis-Riva at the end of the second age of Magphoreus. Grulmagof now no longer had any fur or even hair, which exposed a pink skin. They also no longer displayed the claws of their ancestors that could dig into solid rock. They did still walk with an extra knee that gave them a distinctive spring in their step, which had been on display as commander Stobb entered the command center.

  Outside on the view screen were two other majestic pyramid ships on parallel course toward the blinking nebula now under a light year’s distance from the warp fusion powered virtual particle driven ships. At .998 times the speed of light, it took Commander Stobb a little over 8 Earth years to traverse the 8 light-years distance from the new construction facility to rendezvous with the other four ships already in siege positions around Poa-3. The Grulmagof built the last ship further within the Grulmagof galactic empire in order to keep it further from the Golimechoid’s awareness.

  The five monolithic ships approached the blinking nebula, and Golimechoid attack ships were approaching in response. The battle was about to begin once the ships had turned off the fusion warp fields that defined them as beyond this universe of relativity physics. Commander Spuktar, the commander in charge of the entire mission, contacted Commander Stobb.

  “Your ship is new to combat, but I understand you’ve been seasoned by the Delta Straights Golimechoid rebellion, and you came up the ranks as the operator of a single pilot fighter for several space carriers. I trust you can move your ship toward the approaching attacker’s right flank in the battle about to occur.”

  “Yes sir, instructions understood.” He switched off communications to shout orders into a loud speaker. “All gunners man your guns to remain on alert. Shoot when targets identified. Navigation! Accelerate to outer right flank of approaching fighters!”

  Commander Stobb would have switched the communications back on to get more information from Commander
Spuktar, but that had been the instant it all became up to him. Instead he started shouting tactical evasive maneuver commands to the main navigator when he saw the approaching Golimechoids on the view screen. Gunners had already shown initiative and began carving up distant fighters with deadly fusion lasers that shot out of the pyramid ship in multiple bright red lines of light.

  The other pyramid ships seemed to surround and close in on the fleet of large and small Golimechoid ships that may have been their dying galactic civilization’s last defense. The giant pyramids dwarfed anything flown by the Golimechoid, and thousands of sharp red lines of lasers shot out from the pyramid monoliths, and carved the entire Golimechoid fleet up. A little time had been wasted to determine that none of the Golimechoids escaped before the five pyramid ships continued on course for Poa-3.

  Deliadre entered a central control area of the star-door complex to find the Eigalli-looking Begalius next to a giant snake-like Goag Ralus in Golimechoid avatar form. There were holograms of Golimechoids from Poa-3 that were also in the room to observe. She approached Begalius and Goag Ralus who were hunched over star-door wormhole controls.

  “What’s going on? Why is an enormous amount of energy creating wormholes between here and the Carina arm with disconnected coordinates?”

  The Golimechoid Goag Ralus avatar turned around and raised an audible appendage. “Sounds like you’ve figured out what is going on already. I guess you want to know why.” Another appendage gestured to the Golimechoid holograms as if that had been the answer.

  A hologram spoke up after the usual long pause of quanta-communication. “We have asked the great Goag Ralus to help us in our most dire moment. Five pyramid ships of Nephaprican design that are armed with giant mason cannons, are approaching our home world with the intent of genocide.”

  Deliadre turned back to Goag Ralus. “What do you intend to do to help them?”

  The Golimechoid Goag Ralus turned again to respond to Deliadre. He had been very active lately in His new Golimechoid form, and Deliadre would be the last to admit that she had been more comfortable confronting Goag Ralus in His Eigalli form, but that had been what she thought beyond psionic perception. Deliadre thought Goag Ralus obviously loved how the Golimechoid admired Him like a rock star. She had still been left in the dark about His intention to procreate with them. Deliadre became surprised that she could still tell that Goag Ralus smiled even though Golimechoids have no way of smiling. His audible appendage said, “I’m going to bring those five pyramid ships over here.”

  “But … but … what will those ships do to you?”

  It took awhile for Deliadre to figure out that the long silence had actually been Goag Ralus laughing. Golimechoids don’t really laugh audibly either. “Begalius is working with Bejulitiah of the Poa star-door to work out the positions of the pyramid ships. They won’t know what hit them.”

  Goag Ralus had returned to the side of Begalius. The Golimechoid holograms just watched while anxiously hoping that whatever they were doing would work. The pyramid ships were effortlessly carving up the entire Golimechoid defense fleets at that very moment. They were soon to pummel the planet with accelerated particle blasts that would irradiate away all life regardless what the DNA had been made of.

  “You haven’t explained what you are going to do when they are here with deadly planet destroying ships?” Deliadre began to fear the worse was about to be unleashed on her home.

  Goag Ralus remained turned away with His back to her, ignoring her.

  “Goag Ralus, what about when they arrive here?”

  Goag Ralus finally turned around as if to audibly address both Deliadre and the holograms. First the audible appendage said something to the holograms, which after the standard pause, sent them into obvious celebration. Then the audible appendage said to Deliadre in Eigalli, “They are now here my dear, and what I intend to do is greet them. I designated some rocky areas under the star Rychesee that are prepared with atmosphere that should suit their species. I’ve programmed the terrain with quanta-nanocode so I will always know what they are up to, and can respond to them if they speak to me just like most other areas of my surface. I already have a Grulmagof avatar that is living there to greet them.”

  Commander Stobb had just received the damage report. The three hits from Golimechoid fighters had done only minimal structural damage that required no hull decompressions. These pyramid ships could actually take direct hits with no real damage. He became impressed. The five ships were approaching Poa-3 where they would finally launch the fighters that were boarded on the pyramid ships to assist in the final assault. So far they had carved their way to the planet with just the pyramid’s own gunner defenses. Now the ships where regrouping for the final assault on the planet. Commander Spuktar contacted again. “Great fighting back there. I commend your leadership and courageous crew. No significant damages to any pyramid ships have been reported. Prepare the final plan. I believe you will begin westward along the south pole continent to rendezvous with Thleba’s pyramid ship. Let’s get the oceans too. Bomb every inch of that fortune forsaken planet.”

  “Understood,” Commander Stobb responded. The orders had already been given. He only had to watch his ship and crew carry out the operation. Soon he could give the order to launch the fighters, but he decided they would get a bit closer to the doomed planet first.

  He saw Poa-3 start to grow into a dingy brown ball against a colorful nebula backdrop that blinked into bright colors every 3 seconds. There would be no hiding how Golimechoids had just totally ruined the place. The blinking pulsar remnant, right there, of the exploded star Poa, which Poa-3 had been miraculously saved from thanks to the Golimechoids gets no credit for the current brown lifeless state of Poa-3 in the Grulmagof mind.

  As he watched the brown circle of the planet grow while they approached, five glowing tornado-like funnels sprung out of the planet’s atmosphere. “The star-door!” the Commander screamed in the face of his worse fear about this mission. “Evasive maneuver navigation!” Then each of the five pyramid ships became swallowed by a separate tornado-like disconnected wormhole. This had been the latest development of the physics of star-door wormhole technology. In fact it had only recently been figured out by the genius of Goag Ralus Himself.

  The communications all exploded with chatter from all the other pyramid commanders that were asking for, or giving current status. The view screens all exploded with light after the surreal inter-dimensional, glowing, time/space folding funnel ride was finally over. There were now so many stars on the view screens that night, or even darkness became almost unimaginable. “Where are we?” Everyone had been asking that. Even some of the communication chatter repeated those words over and over.

  Then some of the Commander chatter identified the super massive black hole that could only exist in the galactic core. At first all the ships focused the data inputs on that object, but then something more amazing came into view. It had been so enormous that it was in view the whole time. Portions of it in the view would be dismissed as dust cloud or nebula until it became clear that it actually had been a planet and atmosphere for as far as could be seen. Some looked upon the impossible sight of Goag Ralus, and wondered if they had died.

  The chatter returned to noise wondering what they were seeing. Whatever it was they were evidently in orbit around it, or more accurately in orbit around part of it. It presented land and atmosphere that the input data indicated extended for at least two-thirds of a light year. Nobody had ever seen anything like it, and it defied the imagination to describe. The mass calculations were causing the ships to adjust for a gravitational force that wasn’t there. The navigator had to manually hold the pyramids still. Then a hologram image of a well-dressed Grulmagof appeared on the bridge of each of the pyramid ships. Suddenly the Grulmagof avatar of Goag Ralus appeared in the presence of the Commanders. He spoke fluent Grulmagof.

  “Greetings Grulma
gof warriors, your war is now over. I am called Goag Ralus. I am an embodiment of the being you now orbit. You dare not wage war on Me for I offer you no hostility, but welcome you to My habitable surface. I am the only habitable world you will find in this hostile radioactive galactic core environment where you all now find yourselves in. Come, and I will show you where to land your ships. I await you in this form with facilities that can accommodate Grulmagof living. You may arrange a wormhole home, but disconnected wormhole coordinates to a Grulmagof world might still be nearly impossible, and the innovation of disconnected wormholes is fairly new. The only safe wormhole route is to Poa-3 and they are currently not up to being reasoned with about that, and will probably at least want to imprison you. I think we can eventually negotiate something, but understand this, unless you want to fly your pyramid ships home, which you are free to do, those ships are staying right here.” Everyone in the room knew they were now over 19,130 light-years away from home, and would not make it anywhere near home in a thousand Grulmagof lifetimes.

  Goag Ralus saved the Golimechoid civilization from certain doom with the wormhole powers of His Dol star-door. The Grulmagof were instantly reformed into new citizens of Goag Ralus. Goag Ralus had been unimaginably good at the diplomacy of welcoming new residents to Goag Ralus. Deliadre couldn’t believe it worked, but she always lived on Goag Ralus, and maybe took His unimaginable immensity for granted along with the fact that the five solar system masses of Goag Ralus were actually a highly intelligent, probably immortal, living being.

  Not even five pyramid ships were any match for Goag Ralus, and in fact, hundreds of ships like that existed already in different areas of Goag Ralus. Those five pyramid ships would have faced highly advanced galactic civilizations that were living all over Goag Ralus as individuals that numbered into the trillions. The pyramid ships of Goag Ralus were also capable of 2 times the speed of light while the Asuras only entrusted the Grulmagof with .998 times the speed of light, (not even phase II FTL.) A couple dozen of the Phase III pyramid ships on Goag Ralus that were actually flown by the Eagolim who made Goag Ralus still existed and worked fine, were billions of Earth years old, and only a couple of those were out of commission these days as museum relics.

  Goag Ralus became often primarily focused on being His Golimechoid avatar after adopting the new Grulmagof citizens against their will, and He made frequent journeys through the new wormhole connection to the Poa-3 planet in the Carina arm of Magphoreus. This left the Eigalli avatar to work in a robotic way through His ambitions that were prescribed to Himself before He became so immersed in being the Golimechoid Goag Ralus.

  All the Goag Ralus avatars continued their lives and were the physical embodiments of Goag Ralus at the same time. Any Goag Ralus avatar however, could tell you that there were times when that’s obviously true, and there were other times when the life of an avatar became a hollow routine, disconnected from the higher mind of Goag Ralus. It wasn’t unbearably bad, and the Eigalli avatar could snap out of it in an instant by reconnecting consciousness, but it would just be like barging in on His new Golimechoid sex life.

  The Eigalli avatar sat around pondering this all too familiar disconnected torment when the quanta-communication device suddenly came on. Someone contacted Him with a message from somewhere else in the galaxy. At first the Eigalli Goag Ralus avatar thought maybe Aquari had finally reached the Tze-Doldus star-door, and a quanta-communicator had been there to use to contact Him.

  The quanta-communicator projected a hologram of the Devasura who had been following Goag Ralus for almost a hundred teks. He had an orange skin tone with white hair, and clothing that flowed around him like vapor. He appeared to be a multi-dimensional being that evolved beyond the effects of phantom matter. His Devasura mouth, unlike an Asura’s, moved and spoke just like a human. “Hello Goag Ralus, I am Innanomesh, a being who lives upon the planet you recently found out, has been synchronized with your orbit from above the galactic plain. I am contacting you to congratulate you on your victory of saving the Poa Golimechoid from extinction.”

  “I suspect I have been victorious over your kind, and it is you who intend to eradicate the Golimechoid,” said Goag Ralus in response.

  The Devasura had already paused in anticipation of that outburst from Goag Ralus who waited now for the Devasura’s response. “The ancient Eagolim of Doldorian descent traveled to the core in order to fix the unstable super massive black hole, Ralus Xnoga. They created the Golimechoids on their way to accomplish this, which turned out to just be a mistake. They also created a Young Brain program that became their religious guide over the millennia. The Young Brain program led them to reach the core. That Young Brain program became You. Do not foolishly procreate with technology You do not understand Goag Ralus.”

  Goag Ralus became ready to interrupt. “Who do you think you are deciding the fate of whole species, be they natural or unnatural technology? What is natural, or unnatural anymore? What quanta-nanocode technology are you really made of here before Me? You are obviously evolved with quanta-nanocode into an unnatural mixture of varying mass?” He decided to pause, and let the Devasura respond at that moment. So He waited the ten seconds of quanta-communicator lag time.

  “I am a descendent of the beings that created You, and You are just a large gravity generator used to stabilize the poles of Ralus Xnoga. I contact You to reason with You about the Young Brain project You intend to carry out. We regret that You have already stopped us from keeping You away from the genetic databanks in the Dol star-door. There are god-like powers in those DNA programs that were figured out by the great Nephapricans. You were not intended to ever procreate Goag Ralus. There is supposed to be only one of You”

  Goag Ralus became mad and wanted to insult this arrogant being in the presence of Goag Ralus who has been filling Magphoreus with new solar system creating nebulae since long before this being was probably ever born. Then He reasoned that He shouldn’t say anything to provoke this enemy. So He figured out a way to do both. He politely said, “I will take into consideration what you have told Me.” Then He just turned off the quanta-communication device.

  “Conversation over. How dare they? They think they are some kind of galactic overseers up there in their glowing planets that they evidently fly like spaceships. Why had he talked to Him, the Eigalli avatar, anyway? It had been the Golimechoid Goag Ralus having all that sex life for the Young Brain experiment that this being should have contacted.” Goag Ralus figured that must be because of some kind of non-evolved primitive bigotry in these Devasuras. It evidently had been below these arrogant beings to negotiate with a Golimechoid avatar. Goag Ralus was not a machine, but a living being, and so were the Golimechoids.

  The Golimechoid avatar of Goag Ralus became made immediately aware of the meeting with the Devasura hologram. He obviously also became angry at the arrogance of this Innanumesh. They must be trying to stop this procreation from moving forward. This happened at a bad time since Goag Ralus in Golimechoid form had Zlooptoo over from Poa-3 of the Carina arm for dinner and entertainment. She had been the female who took messages to Young Brain, and she obviously cared about the newly evolving intelligence.

  Goag Ralus had been indirectly courting Golimechoid women from Poa-3 in search of a good mother for the first 150 or so Earth years of the child’s life. He had then recently met Zlooptoo on one of His wormhole crossings when visiting the secret Young Brain facility in deep orbit above Poa-3. She had actually tried to qualify as a mother candidate before becoming a courier for Young Brain, but she failed to pass the chromosome screening, which had been setup by the Golimechoids in charge. Goag Ralus however, liked her, and they were really getting along until that Devasura hologram thing happened. The Golimechoid avatar of Goag Ralus tried to force the bad memories away in order to continue with His evening with Zlooptoo. After all, it wasn’t really He that had been visited by the Devasura.