Aquari

by DD White

  * * *

  The saucer that carried Hanson/Aquari, Veldada, and the crew of rebel scientists along with a couple hearers of the voice sped northeast across the green, blue, and cloudy gray skies. Not far behind the saucer a rectangular teleportation platform hovered along glowing green on the top. It had been encased in its own virtual particle field connected to the saucer by a microwave beam. They were taking the platform to the site of Saint Vongolath’s altar, a holy site popular those days with the now dominant Aungtalli faith.

  Saint Vongolath had been a hearer of Beataphoriah’s voice from way back in the dark age that just preceded the 210,000 years of known recorded history. He had tried to build an altar at the holy site during a Uranian plague that the Aungtalli species happened to be immune to. The Aungtalli religion says Vongolath had been a heretic who only attempted to build an altar of blasphemy until the Aungtalli stopped him. The Aungtalli say the miracle of Saint Vongolath had been a reward from the gods for stopping Vongolath. Lots of people through the ages however, have refused to this day to believe what the Aungtalli say about this, and eventually Vongolath had been reluctantly titled a Saint. That had been to capitalize on the pilgrim industry who still came to stand at the site during the nightly miracle, which really had been a nightly teleportation signal from the star-door itself, trying to connect to a platform. The nightly teleportation signal had been left unanswered for over 200,000 Uranian years.

  Also speeding across the Uranian skies, and quickly approaching the platform-carrying saucer, another saucer flown by Volock pursued. Curvfin had already been seated at his favorite toy, the saucer’s laser weapon, and became the first to notice Volock’s saucer in the weapon’s sky scan. “Warning everyone, I must make a fuss.

  Another saucer is approaching us!”

  Everyone ran to a view port. Nandor and Silvanin could see it from the view port they shared. It still showed as a small dot above the distant horizon. A bright line of glowing red lit up a straight slice across the sky to streak past the rebel scientist’s saucer. That caused Girithron to instinctively veer too late to the side only after the laser already missed. Curvfin had already commandeered the weapon station, and targeted the attacker. He looked through the scope, but still didn’t return fire. “Girithron! His laser charge I can see.

  Veer when I tell you. Just listen to me.

  We’ll move aside before he shoots again.

  Then I’ll shoot back, and the fight we should win. …” Then a pause,

  “Says my sight,

  now veer right!”

  Another laser made a red line in the sky that streaked ahead of the flying saucer and its platform companion. Veldada held Hanson/Aquari for comfort. Hanson/Aquari just calmly shifted attention between the laser battle outside and the comfort ritual he suddenly found himself involved with. Aquari noticed an electromagnetic response with her cellular tissues to his touch that seemed to actually induce psychological as well as physiological comfort on Veldada who currently feared for her life.

  “First get ready.

  I need steady!” Curvfin shot the saucer laser just underneath the teleportation platform that trailed them almost in the way. It bent against the saucer’s virtual particle force field, which Volock had put up in case they shot back at him. The force field would have successfully repelled anything other than a laser, and Volock figured it also became intense enough to bend the light of a laser. The force field really only avoided a direct hit however, and the laser beam bent in response to the virtual particle gravity to still graze the Volock saucer side.

  At first the saucer raced on through the sky seemingly unaffected, still behind them, and Curvfin had Girithron veer left as Volock’s laser started to glow again before shooting. Then Volock’s saucer failed to respond to Volock’s change of course. The damage breached the saucer’s virtual particle field causing the mass of the saucer to start exchanging virtual particles that were again oriented to the mass-polarity of the planet. Volock’s saucer slowly began to fall out of the sky. There had been a cheer in the other saucer as Volock’s saucer disappeared on its wobbly way to a crash landing. Curvfin got a hero’s congratulations for all his love for shooting things with lasers while Nandor and Silvanin jealously took over the laser station to take turns on the targeting scope, getting ready for maybe their chance to next time be the laser shooting hero.

  Volock’s attack didn’t divert the saucer at all from its calculated arrival time at the altar site just before sundown. There were a couple dozen pilgrims that were gathering to participate in the nightly event. They were all crowding over the exact marked point of the light flash that would soon make it’s nightly appearance. Some were there with various afflictions, hoping this time their faith would be strong enough, and that they could get close enough to the light to finally be healed. Others just attend because they believed the light connected them to the gods where some received instructions on why others should donate value to their divine causes.

  Only a couple Aungtalli priests were at the holy site that day, looking bored. Even they mistook the rebel scientist’s saucer for official Aungtalli business, and nervously rushed to greet the saucer visitors. When it became apparent that the saucer had been placing the platform right on the ground where the holy mark of St. Vongolath existed, the Aungtalli priests pushed the crowd of pilgrims away acting like they knew what had been going on.

  Everyone anxiously awaited while the saucer finally landed nearby and the saucer hatch opened downward to become a ramp. First Nandor and Silvanin emerged from the saucer with paralysis rifles pointing into the crowd who obediently backed away from them. There had not even been any resistance from the Aungtalli in charge who just looked at each other surprised by the realization that this wasn’t official business.

  Soon the Sun went down and the platform glowed a brighter emerald green as it picked up on the star-door signal. It had been decided hastily that Hanson/Aquari, Veldada (who wasn’t going to separate,) Thrandu, Handirlas, and Salmar would get on the platform for the event. As the dimly lit top of the giant Sun started to finally disappear below the horizon Arnoediad made his protest and ran onto the platform with the rest of those there waiting for the event. It had become crowded.

  Then Curvfin said, “I want to be in the place this goes to.

  If you’re going also I’ll go with you.”

  Seven Uranians then stood on the genuine replica of the Altar of Saint Vongolath that had been made to specifications as the holy moment approached with the dusk. Crowds of pilgrims were surrounding it, murmuring amongst themselves about what went on. Nandor and Silvanin’s rifle intimidation seemed to be wearing off as the crowd realized that criminals were depriving them of their most holy event.

  Then the glowing green became brighter to engulf the seven passengers until it became all engulfed in bright white light. Then only an empty teleportation platform could be seen after that, which no longer even glowed green at all. It looked more off-white colored now, like the platform bottom. The darkness of night seemed to approach at an increased speed with the platform illumination quenched.

  Nandor and Silvanin looked at each other as if expecting the other to know what to do. The crowd became visibly angry and the priests were finally shouting “Heresy!

  This I see!”

  Girithron shouted from inside the saucer, “Teleportation is now done. You know.

  Now its time for the rest of us to go.”

  Nandor and Silvanin then ran back into the saucer, and the ramp closed back up behind them. They took off taking the teleportation platform with them again in a gravity field as Girithron controlled the tractor beam the way Hanson/Aquari had showed him. Then the saucer with its teleportation platform in tow flew through the green, blue, and gray skies back to Gulfang. They would contact the farmer/hearers from Gulfang to tell them what happened. According to Hanson/Aquari the disappeared comrades had just
been teleported to the legendary star-door complex that existed deep within the Great Glacier Mountain.

  At the site of the Altar of Saint Vongolath the crowd hummed with chaos. The authorities were notified and the event made the news. Some in the crowd had cameras that documented the amazing event. The disenfranchised pilgrims would return the next afternoon to then get their chance to bathe in the holy flash of light. That holy flash of light however, would now never happen at that marked point on the ground ever again. That would slowly also make it into the news as the days went by, along with claims that the rebel scientists corrupted the holy site. Some would continue the pilgrimage every night anyway, swearing that they still saw the light every night at the same time, and now it had become a spiritual light after annihilating the scientist heretics because the times were getting short. Others would continue to go there begging forgiveness from the gods for what the blasphemous rebel scientists had done, so that the holy light could return once again.

  The seven teleportation voyagers found themselves suddenly in a large dark room. They adjusted to the darkness to notice blinking lights on controls that lined the walls along the outside of the place. Everyone just looked around in awe until Hanson/Aquari started moving around. He seemed to know where he was going and explained. “My friends, you have arrived at the star-door

  located beneath your planet’s glacier.

  The star-doors were created long ago

  by a species called Negolim I know.

  Away from the Eagolim they evolved

  not living long, which they never resolved.

  To become galactic they never did

  their terrestrial nature never rid.

  Eagolim spread the empire beyond

  The fifteen home stars where they knew no bond.

  The Negolim to stars did not travel,

  to alternative realities fell.

  Through warped reality they found a way

  to dimensions between the stars they say.

  Something happened back in those ancient days

  resulting in star-doors history says.

  The star-doors where built on planets to save

  all life when the planet goes to its grave.

  On fifteen planets generators were

  created for wormholes that can still stir

  star-door connections when they are in gear

  that join those galactic points to right here.”

  They began to all move about the room. Handirlas approached a doorway, which automatically opened to corridors outside that just disappeared in the distance. There had been a faint electric light illuminating everything that seemed to be accompanied by heaviness from thousands of years of no eyes to entertain. Everyone else still felt apprehensive about touching any of the high tech alien equipment. Arnoediad had a religious experience. “The voice is quite audible in this place.

  I will soon see Beataphoriah’s face.”

  Hanson/Aquari replied, “I too can hear the voice that you now know.

  It tells me this switch here I now must throw.”

  Hanson/Aquari flipped a switch by one of the blinking control panel lights. The light stopped blinking and the room then became crowded by another being that appeared in their midst.

  He glowed like a hologram, but seemed to be forcing himself to solidify more. He looked Uranian, but his body had been covered all over with nicely groomed hair, and a slightly lower brow like anthropological depictions of previously lesser-evolved species of Uranians that were found as ancient fossils. His hairy body didn’t show much of the porcelain-white skin characteristic of modern Uranians. In contradiction to the cave-Uranian look, an adorable outfit had been worn by this being that displayed white puffy sleeves and a kilt adorned with coaglium-laced designs. His hairy face smiled over the four beak-like Uranian teeth in greetings to his guests. He looked like a well dressed, well groomed, hairy Uranian werewolf.

  His voice had been an ancient foreign dialect that used 16 stanza lines of characteristic Uranian chirps and whistles that still translated into rhyme. It had been melodic, but the only word that made any sense to anyone was “Beataphoriah.” After the imprisonment of Beataphoriah, who had been the star-door planet’s quanta-optic-nanocode being, the gods had simplified the Uranian language when they genetically engineered the Aungtalli species. Some Aungtalli were still initiated in the ancient dialect, regarded by the Aungtalli as a magical language. The gods were angered at Beataphoriah for switching on Uranian’s pentanthropomorphic gene switches in the first place, which evidently only they had the right to do in the galaxy.

  Hanson/Aquari spoke the ancient dialect. When he introduced himself to Beataphoriah as the cosmic being Aquari, Beataphoriah skeptically challenged him to speak ancient Nephaprican if he really had been the ancient cosmic being Aquari as he claimed. Hanson/Aquari had been happy to engage in Nephaprican conversation, as best he could with Uranian vocal cords. “So I know you’ve been trapped in an infinite quanta-nanocode loop for hundreds of thousands of years, but I’ve been wondering why the atmosphere plant life that’s usually just used for teraforming still exists?”

  “Oh I gave up trying to get rid of those plants long ago because the Uranians cherished the pod pollen trees so much. They would always stop my attempts to phase them out of the ecosystem. It’s probably that respect for all life, which I tried to genetically engineer into them. The sky-plants give the planet a cheery green ambience, and the air an intoxicating aroma I think.” Uranians had nostrils for smell that were located as a hole in the two upper teeth, which Uranians raised their upper lips occasionally to breathe through. This gave them the ability to close their nostrils with the lips, which had been a unique adaptation to the pollen-thick climate.

  Eventually more lights were turned on while they all became aquatinted, and Beataphoriah programmed itself with the current language of the planet. Beataphoriah had much to catch up on, and they all spent a couple days in the wonders of the star-door with its technologies, and mansions of luxury, and vistas of virtual worlds to explore, as well as real ones. There were vast empty cities that they explored in speedy virtual particle craft under the Great Glacier Mountain. They were able to contact the others in Gulfang along with the farmer hearers by using their phones, which still worked. It became major Ministry of Science history in the making. They were all having the time of their lives deep under the giant star-door dome that had been also buried beneath a hundred miles of glacier ice.

  They contacted Goag Ralus and Deliadre in the galactic core with one of the star-door’s many quanta-communicators, which became a long happy reunion. Beataphoriah even setup another quanta-communicator to contact its old fellow quanta-optic-nanocode being in charge of the Poa-3 star-door, Bejulitiah. The last three known remaining star-door beings, Beataphoriah, Begalius, and Bejulitiah were in deep non-audible communication for some time while everyone else at the quanta-communicator reunion just watched. They were like long lost brothers that didn’t look anything alike who were finally together after billions of years. Beataphoriah appeared as a hairy primitive-looking Uranian, Begalius had been a dark blue Eigalli these days, and Bejulitiah appeared in the snake-like form of a Golimechoid.

  Veldada watched Aquari/Hanson speaking alien languages with Goag Ralus and Deliadre, the giant hologram beings also in the room, and she felt further away from her lover than ever. The reality that her love Hanson had really been dead now began to become real to her, and she looked in her purse at the egg they had made together, and worried about what the child would really be like.

  Beataphoriah became evasive when the quanta-communicator meeting turned to the conversation of connecting the star-doors with wormholes. Beataphoriah wanted to check for quanta-nanocode virus problems in his Tze-Doldus star-door before trying anything like that. Like Begalius, it had Devasura problems of its own. Beataphoriah made the glacial mountain in order to maintain good climate during its absence, and a
lso to close off the wormhole walls under a hundred miles of solid ice to keep the Devasuras from using them. It would have to teleport a section of that ice away to clear up a wormhole opening on the buried portal-matrix wall.

  They all remained in the star-door under the Great Glacier Mountain for several days, and everyone enjoyed the wonders that were all around them. The star-door had been the ultimate vacation spot, like a high-tech luxury cruise. At the heart of every star-door had been an enormous ion fusion generator that powered enormous pressure functions that were used to compress phantom matter into a singularity, which existed in a dimension of warp-space that had been quanta-synchronized to all of the 15 star-doors. This singularity existed simultaneously at the heart of all 15 star-doors to endow them with the power to fold reality between their locations, as well as the power of the creation of the universe. Phantom matter singularities flowed outward and were weakly interactive with gravity. The Big Bang creation of the universe had really been a phantom matter singularity caused by pressures that were created by something other than gravity. The star-doors fed on the phantom matter created by the gravitational phenomenon of nearby stars, and distributed it to be processed by this extra-dimensional phantom matter singularity. This endows all 15 star-doors, wherever they are, with the same power that created the universe.

  One day Beataphoriah became willing to attempt a wormhole connection with the Dol star-door. It had been working with Begalius on programming a new molecule on the quantum bit of the Dol star-door since Devasuras had altered the Tze-Doldus star-door that way. Everyone showed up to the section of the wormhole wall, which Beataphoriah had exposed by teleporting a big cube of ice the size of a 3-story building out of the way. Begalius had been there in the form of a hologram next to the quanta-communicator that projected it. It rained from the exposed iced ceiling in front of the wall that would soon become a wormhole doorway to the core of the galaxy. Beataphoriah secured the giant cube cave of ice next to the wormhole wall with virtual particle equipment that it insisted on setting up before anything else. It might have been the coldest place on the entire tropical planet of Urania in that giant ice room. Everyone shook with anticipation of the technological miracle about to be performed.

  It all went as it should at first with the blue square encompassing a section of the wall to establish the portal matrix, and then it faded into a rectangular doorway full of greenish light.

  Then Beataphoriah jerked suddenly into action at lightning speed when a giant figure appeared in the doorway unexpected. It looked like a giant orange skinned humanoid being so tall he started to squat to get through the opening. It must have had a counter wormhole algorithm that had already been programmed into the star-door wormhole functions, which had been just waiting through the ages for this moment. That had been when Beataphoriah activated a trap it had already carefully setup beforehand, which suspended the being within a powerful virtual particle field. He looked like a giant orange statue with a head shaped like an Asura.

  Beataphoriah spoke to the being in a strange language. “You are not welcome here Chronolus. I am free now, and prepared to hurl you right back through the wormhole you preprogrammed here. This virtual particle field will hold you against your will. Your own Asura mass works against you in a virtual particle field.”

  The giant being spoke through a mouth that didn’t move, which made him look like an animated statue. Chronolus, the ethereal Devasura, had passed from the Devaplanet to Urania and assumed the molecular form of an Asura in response to the phantom matter, which served as an invisible scaffolding of the galactic plain. “The time will soon arrive Beataphoriah when I shall own this star-door and you. The terrestrial life you value so much here will not survive where the planet is going. I kept my word to you Beataphoriah, and the Uranians have remained unharmed to prevail until the end as I said they would. Are you still obstinately uncooperative after being prescribed so many iterations to think about it?”

  “You have not earned my loyalty with quanta-nanocode infinite loop prisons! That’s no way to program a quanta-optic-nanocode being Chronolus.”

  Hanson/Aquari noticed that they were speaking a dialect evolved from Nephaprican. Everyone else there became hopelessly confused. All the rest were really only noticing that this was not going as planned. The Begalius hologram became frozen in fascination with this scene being broadcast from Urania to the core of the galaxy. Aquari flawlessly spoke in the newly figured out Nephaprican dialect. “Beataphoriah who is this?”

  “This, Aquari, is what I feared would come through my wormhole generator if I ever turned it back on. He is the Devasura who imprisoned me in that infinite quanta-nanocode loop. Before they did that I had been able to shut down the wormhole generation mechanism, and conceal it from them underneath the great glacier. He is here to lay claim to me and the star-door.

  It all started when I made the mistake of seeking them out when my shepherding of the intelligent Uranians seemed to be getting beyond my control. The newly evolved Uranians were advanced and clever, but greedy and ecologically inconsiderate. I feared the whole world would be ruined if I didn’t find help.”

  Then Chronolus interrupted, “You received the help you sought Beataphoriah. We have kept your Uranians in a stable happy civilization longer than most intelligent animals even exist in their entirety.”

  Beataphoriah shot back, “You were a bigger problem than my immature species of life fighting amongst themselves. You came in like you owned the planet and treated me like I was some machine for you to boss around.”

  Then Beataphoriah and Chronolus continued to argue about old times while Hanson/Aquari became dangerously intrigued. Hanson/Aquari spoke the same language to the Asura that hung in the air just outside the wormhole doorway. “You are a species evolved from the long lost Nephapricans. I knew many Nephapricans throughout their evolution. I am the cosmic being called Aquari.”

 

  The Coming of Chronolus

  Chronolus had to think for awhile to remember anything about Aquari. Then he said, "Extraordinary! I have heard of the cosmic being. My great grandfather Saturlus was one of the last Nephapricans. His ego-phantasm still exists and has spoken of you. You should come back with me if Beataphoriah is to cut my visit short.” Aquari felt some disappointment that these highly evolved Devasuras/Asuras were still playing around with ego-phantasm technologies. Sentient beings seemed obsessed with such things.

  Aquari then recalled and said, “There was a Saturlus among the Nephapricans that long ago convinced me to travel to another galaxy, just before the historic disappearance.”

  Beataphoriah interrupted. “Aquari is the only reason I am now free. I should just throw you right back where you came from Chronolus. You will not escape my gravity trap. Don’t go with him Aquari. He wants you away from this planet, which he wants to own like his personal property. He would destroy all my planet’s life just to hang another star-door around one of his Devaplanet moons.”

  Aquari however, had been ready for a new adventure of discovery. “I’ve freed you and connected you with Goag Ralus, and your other quanta-optic-nanocode brethren. My reason for coming here is fulfilled. I may be able to reason with this Devasura, and would love to absorb data from his habitat. I’ll come back Beataphoriah.”

  “He has a wormhole generator that can let you back through Aquari. If I can’t talk you out of going then call me Aquari, when you intend to come back, and I’ll connect you to here. I fear he won’t let you come back through Aquari.”

  “I’ll be back Beataphoriah. I’m the fastest flying object ever known. Speaking of ego-phantasms, first there is something I must instruct Veldada with.”

  Hanson/Aquari approached Veldada standing in the ice room in confusion while holding her egg purse. “I’m leaving this body to go away.

  This body will live. Just do what I say.”

  He then taught Veldada to put her lips over hi
s and blow air into his mouth. Then he made her push down on his chest four times. He made her practice this a couple of times, over, and over again. Some of the scientists there recognized that he taught her cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Even though this method of CPR had been well known to Uranians who had medical training, it also became the first Uranian kiss because Veldada would continue the lip-joining part of it just for pleasure long after what happened next.

  Hanson/Aquari said a last farewell to Veldada, and waved to the rest of them in the room. The Begalius hologram spoke up to assure Beataphoriah and Aquari that it would work out fine, and it told Aquari to be careful. Then there appeared a flash of light that became again the round circle of light recognized throughout the ages as the cosmic being Aquari. He said a last farewell to Beataphoriah and approached Chronolus who patiently waited while suspended in a gravity field. “I’m ready to visit with you Chronolus.”

  “After you my friend,” said Chronolus while still trapped in Beataphoriah’s virtual particle field that still suspended him in the air.

  Then Aquari entered the wormhole to disappear in the green-glowing distance. Chronolus said to Beataphoriah, “I will contact you when Aquari is ready to come back. We can try to patch up our old differences Beataphoriah, make a new start.”

  “You will never get from me what you want Chronolus. I’m back to instigate a new golden age for my Uranian children.”

  “The time of your Tze-Doldus star’s life nears its end Beataphoriah. Do the math. You know this to be true. Then you will be out of excuses to not join with me.”

  “The only truth that I ever needed to know is that I operate a star-door.” Then Beataphoriah made the virtual particle field that held Chronolus shoot him back head first through the wormhole opening behind Aquari. Chronolus yelled out as he became flung through the air back into the rectangular wormhole door, “Till we meet again Beataphoriah. You should update your body. That one makes you look like a primitive savage among the modern species I evolved for you.”

  “I’m back to show you what this ‘savage’ is capable of Chronolus!” Beataphoriah closed the doorway, which shrank down into a dot leaving only a wall behind. It apologized to the Begalius hologram in the room still quanta-communicator connected there to witness the whole scene. There would not be a wormhole to the center of the galaxy that day after all. Aquari was now long gone away from the planet Urania through the wormhole to wherever Chronolus called home.

  Hanson’s body just collapsed dead after the light show that produced Aquari. Everyone froze, waiting for him to move as if maybe he had been just tired. The hair no longer stood up on Hanson’s head, which helped Veldada realize what she had to do. She started blowing in Hanson’s mouth just like he had just instructed her to do. Nothing happened at first, but she kept doing it along with the chest compressions for at least a couple of minutes. She confronted the fear she had all along that her lover Hanson had been dead the whole time. She continued blowing air into Hanson’s body. It started to look futile, and Veldada started to adjust to the love of her life really being dead now, when suddenly Hanson wheezed on his own and coughed repeatedly. Hanson opened his eyes as if he had been asleep for a very long time, and he found Veldada looking back. Hanson was alive again and Veldada once again swung her desperate mood the other way to burst with joy. Even though Hanson had been alive and breathing just fine now, Veldada puckered her lips and pressed them again against Hanson’s lips, this time just for the pleasure of it.

  Beataphoriah had lots of diagnostics to run on the star-door after that visit from Chronolus happened. It had new diagnostics based on information Begalius gave it. Beataphoriah realized it had still not discovered a quanta-nanocode virus problem going on in its own star-door. In fact Beataphoriah had not yet realized that Devasuras had programmed the Tze-Doldus star-door to accumulate vast amounts of virtually compiled neutrinos and teleport them through a fold in space/time, causing them to materialize within the star Tze-Doldus itself. This caused massive solar structure damage to the star while at the same time it promoted the extinction of all species on the planet by direct radioactive hits from solar flares.