Kirlian Quest (3 page)

The King of Arms of Sphere Ast had gotten away with murder. One day he would have to settle for that crime.

 

 

 

Chapter 2:

Child of Grief

 

 

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Research units drift by for assignment.
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Drifting by.
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Research Command make assignments.
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Assignments as follows: one unit per local cultural division. Units lettered, cultures symbolized.
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Milky Way: B< E" F> K
o
o
L
^.
[] N
^.
σ Q
^.
T::: W@ Z¿

Andromeda: A* C
o
o
D— P:: S/

Pinwheel: R^ U
^.

Other: G$ J= M¢ V# Y§

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Action units drift by for assignments as invoiced.
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0
Drifting by.
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Take samples of life and verify for aura and sapience.
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* * *

 

Herald's next host was a creature of treads and powerful hammering chisels, adapted for life within the rock wedged between the frozen ammonia of the surface and the superheated lava of the depths. This creature moved by drilling the stone ahead, and ate by sifting nutrients from the crushings. It was a pleasant enough livelihood when the region being mined was good. This was a planet in Sphere Quadpoint, halfway across the Galaxy. Herald went where his business took him.

He explained his mission to his host, and was conveyed with surprising speed through the rock. The material pounded from the front was cast back to block the passage behind; it was bad form to leave an open tunnel. A predator could come up from an exposed rear, or the hole could interrupt the rhythm of another sapient entity. Of course, one of the planetary shifts would soon collapse everything and make way for a new cycle, but still, a self-sufficient creature cut and filled his own way. Soon he arrived at the territory of his client, Bore of Metamorphic.

Like most of Herald's clients this was a wealthy and powerful representative of his sphere. It was not that Herald sought riches; rather, he could not afford to travel the universe for a pittance. He sought some way to serve the most needy, but at present it was necessary to serve the rich needy first. Once he had developed a retirement fund, he would do what he could to improve the lot of the downtrodden masses of Sphere Slash, struggling under what was ironically termed the "Curse of Llume."

Or was he, like so many he dealt with, merely a hypocrite? He thought he was storing up wealth in order to promote good, yet he had seen how easy it was to forget the latter part once the first had been accomplished. He hoped his life, in its entirety, would benefit his sphere and his Cluster, but he could not be sure of that, yet.

Bore came right to the point, as was characteristic of his kind. ::My offspring will die. It is a malady of mineral insufficiency, incurable. For your fee you will enable her to knock out with grace, without pain. We are informed you have done this before, with other immature entities.::

/I have, and with mature entities, too. However, each case differs./

The Lady Bore was more evocative. ::It is said that you interviewed a dying little bird of Sphere Dash, and that before you came the chick was in such depression he would not flap at all, but that afterward he glowed and consoled his parents with all three wings and then died in simple peace and comfort. And when they asked him what the Healer had done all he said was—He touched me!—and so it was never explained, but they were satisfied more than they could convey.::

/True,/ Herald agreed.

::If you do not do this for ours, we shall revoke your exorbitant fee,:: Bore said gruffly. ::I permit your intrusion in this hour of our bereavement only at the muddlebrained behest of the Lady. We have no use for your kind here.::

::Bore!:: the Lady protested. ::We have no prejudice against the Slash, even if they did betray the Galaxy. We are enlightened sapients.::

Prejudice? No, not much!
thought Herald. The Curse of Llume marked his kind indelibly, as it had for a thousand years.

/You are assured of her condition?/

::Assured, Healer. Do your job.::

So blunt about the incipient demise of his young! But Herald knew better than to react to the seeming inadequacies of his client's manner; his profession required understanding and tolerance. He knew that often a gruff manner masked a tender sentiment. Creatures accustomed to smashing through hard rock all their lives might be forgiven their hard-hitting personalities.

/Convey me to Smallbore./ All Quadpoint immature used the diminutive of their parents' titles. /And then leave us alone, please./

Both adult Quadpoints seemed a bit taken aback at the expletive "please," but honored the request. The child rested in her small cave, too weak to carve her own tunnels anymore.

/Hello, Smallbore,/ Herald said. The child did not respond. /I have come to bring you peace./

::Then you are Death or the Devil,:: she said, evoking an image from his host-memory. Death was simple oblivion, but the Devil was a lithic monster who gleefully collapsed crushing layers of rock on trapped entities, or opened cracks to let ammonia snow pour in on the innocent. Smallbore sounded much like her father.

/Perhaps. Will you play a game with me?/

::I don't feel like playing 'Spaceship,' and if I did I wouldn't play it with a Slash!::

Herald produced a stack of thin stone panels. He had specified that his Quadpoint host carry these in his reserve hopper. /A game of guesses, Smallbore./

Despite herself, the child evinced interest. ::Guesses?::

/I shall lay down a card, and you shall guess its meaning. If you succeed, you keep the card./

::What the crush do I want with a crushing card? I am dying!::

Herald ignored the cursing. He moved close, and the potent fringe of his aura touched her. /To die is unfortunate, Smallbore. To die without meaning is tragedy./

She made a sandy sigh. ::Oh, lay down your card!::

He shook the deck in his front tongs, shuffling it, and flipped out a random card. The mica-thin leaf landed face up on the floor between them.

Smallbore considered it. ::A picture of three entities rising from a deep pit, beneath a representation of Galaxy Andromeda,:: she said. ::Oh, I know what that means! It is the Andromedan Council of Spheres summoning the Slash for judgment. See, the creatures don't want to come!:: There was a certain malice in her tone.

But Herald accepted the slur against his sphere without rancor, having had a great deal of practice in this sort of thing. These cards had pictures, true, but the pictures served to evoke suppressed reactions, to dredge up interpretations that reflected the most fundamental concerns of those who considered them. The animus against Sphere Slash was very strong in Sphere Quadpoint, which was natural. The Bores of Metamorphic had performed an act bordering on ignominy when they summoned a Slash to heal their child.

/You have guessed it, Smallbore. The card is yours. But do you know why the Slash are so poorly regarded?/

::They committed a crime against our Galaxy. They betrayed us to the enemy.::

/Yes. That crime is known as the Curse of Llume. May I tell you our side of it?/

::Slash has a side?:: she asked incredulously.

/Strange as it may seem, it does./

::Oh, all right,:: she said, pleased at her success in winning the card she didn't want ::We Quadpoints are enlightened sapients, after all.::

Uh-huh. /In the time of the Second Energy War, a thousand years ago, there was an agent from Sphere Slash who, on the verge of success in her mission, renounced it and defected to the enemy galaxy, Milky Way, thereby enabling Melody of Mintaka to reverse the course of the war. The situation was very nearly saved by the fine general Hammer of Quadpoint.

::Hammer!:: she cried, recognizing the hero instantly. ::
Admiral
Hammer!::

/This Slash agent was called 'Llume' because that was the local identifier of the Milky Way host she first took in Transfer. It was a Spican Undulant of Segment Etamin. Llume became enamored of Melody of Mintaka, whose aura was very like hers but almost as strong as mine. Thus she was the arch-traitor of Sphere Slash, just as another female Slash, whose name history has refused even to record, had been in the First War of Energy a thousand years before that. The sphere did not endorse the treachery of either female, but it nevertheless suffered the stigma of it, and the idea developed that the sapients of Slash were somehow traitorous by nature. Ever since, we have labored under that onus. The irony was, both females thought they were doing right, granting parity to the Milky Way so that it would not be destroyed. Llume prayed to the God of Hosts that Sphere Slash might one year redeem itself in honor./

::Didn't Andromeda seek to destroy the whole Milky Way?:: Smallbore seemed unaware that the thrust of her question had changed.

/Andromeda merely sought to harvest the energy of the enemy galaxy for better purposes. That energy was needed to promote the level of civilization itself./

::At the price of sapiencide? I do not see that Llume was such a criminal, or that the sphere she represents is necessarily cursed. She sought a
blessing!
::

/Thank you, Smallbore./

Startled, she sputtered sand for a moment ::You—I—you
are
from Sphere Slash?::

/Yes./

::Is your aura like Llume's?::

/Perceptive of you to guess that! Perhaps I shall have to give you my aura, like the card! Yes, it is like Llume's, and like Melody of Mintaka's, and perhaps like Flint of Outworld's too, at least in intensity./

::Then you must be the one to abate the Kirlian Curse!::

/All things are possible, if unlikely. Would you like to trade places with me?/

::Never!::

Herald reshuffled the deck, preparing to flip out another card. The first had done very well. But Smallbore stopped him.

::What is this set of pictures that you use?::

He hadn't intended to go into that yet, but decided to answer honestly.

/It is called the Cluster Tarot. The roots of it date back some three thousand Sol years (as you know, we use this alien measurement of time because the conquerors imposed it on our whole galaxy, along with much of the rest of their dubious system of measurements) to educational pictures made by an obscure cult. Sibling Paul of Sol revised the deck and popularized it among Galactic species. The cards have changed many times in form and meaning, but have persisted to this day, owing largely to the continuing influence of the Temples of Tarot, which in certain periods have been very pervasive. Normally a Tarot cube is used, showing images on each of six faces, but individual cards have been used as emblems for many cultures. Spaceships are still designed along these lines, falling into five broad types after the five suits, resembling Wands, Cups, Swords, Disks, and Atoms. The Milky Way Society of Hosts used the card of Temperance, an entity transferring fluid from one vessel to another—/

::Transfer!::

/Yes. They used to supervise matters relating to it, caring for both hosts and the vacant bodies of Transferees. Because they used to use only Kirlian-vacant bodies as hosts, you see./

::Zombies! Ugh!::

/It certainly seems primitive today! But Kirlian science, like other sciences, had to progress from primitive origins. After control of the body passed to the host, regardless of the strength of the visiting aura, the Society's power faded. There is no longer any such thing as involuntary hosting, so no creature need worry. This Quad-point host of mine can assume control any time, but since he earns his living by serving as host, he would not do so unless extreme circumstances warranted. But that is off the point. Other Tarot images occur elsewhere. The Queen of Energy—the Thirteen of Wands—remains the symbol for Galaxy Andromeda. That is the chained lady, about to be consumed by a monster of the sea. Since she is of the Suit of Fire, this is a hideous fate indeed./

::I've seen that! I did not know it derived from Tarot!::

/Actually it derives from pre-Tarot Solarian mythology. It—/

::Show me another card.:: She was a child; her attention-span was short.

This time Herald sorted through the pack and selected a particular card. Sometimes Tarot worked best by seemingly random examples, but in the critical areas he preferred to choose his symbols. He flipped it down. It showed a Quadpoint male doing tricks with colored rocks.

::A magician!:: A picture instantly recognizable to any child of the Cluster, whatever species might be represented.

/You are correct again, chip of Metamorphic!/

::I may be young, but I'm not stupid. I know I don't know enough about this image. Who is this magician? Is he you? Are you going to do a trick?::

Very intelligent child! Such a pity she could not survive. /I am the magician, at the moment, and I am going to do my trick. This is how I earn my fee./ Herald extended his tong and touched her nearest tread.

The child reacted. ::What is this? Suddenly I feel so good!::

/I have lent you my aura, Smallbore. I am Herald the Healer, and this is the way I heal./

::Oh, I... I never knew this... this... what
is
this aura? I feel it, yet I do not comprehend it.::

/The nature of the aura is cumbersome to explain, Smallbore./

::No more cumbersome than knocking out in ignorance, Healer!::

How eager the young mind was, once given the taste of health and knowledge! /Perhaps, not. The aura, according to Zlqx of ¢, who authored the earliest surviving study, is a composite para-electronic complex that—/

::You confuse me already!::

He had been afraid of that. She was a bright child, but nevertheless a child, lacking the background for technicalities beyond her immediate experience. /Well, in my own flashes, it is an aspect of bio-pseudo-luminescent energy that manifests in all living—/