Young Tales of the Old Cosmos (4 page)

“Of course,” muttered Europa. “I don’t know why I said that.”

“Don’t worry about it,” smiled Ganymede, “because we all know you were just trying to be helpful. But it’s clear that a vast clown
is
sitting on the moon. So why can’t we see him? If he’s that big he ought to be visible from any point in the solar system. He must be invisible! That’s the only reasonable answer.”

“And the moon says she doesn’t feel heavier, so he must also be massless,” added Titan.

“What if we’re all overrun with giant invisible massless clowns?” shrieked Io. “After all, how would we know?!”

Her statement triggered a surge of alarm in all of them. They looked at each other in horror. No expression provided reassurance. The alarm turned to panic and suddenly they were all shouting simultaneously, bawling as loudly as they could, trying to exorcise their intangible burdens through this mindless communal scream.

The planets winced at the din.

“What are they fussing about now?” grumbled Jupiter.

“Who knows? It’s the call of the wild.”

“I’m sure it is, dear Saturn, but that doesn’t really explain much. When they all howl together like this, they can keep it up all night. And in outer space night is a long time indeed! Howling, just howling. But why?”

Only Earth attempted to answer this question.

“Must be a fool moon,” she said.

“What’s your star sign?” asked Libra.

“My name is Gemini but I was born under the sign of Slurp,” replied Gemini. “Are you aware of it?”

Libra shook his head. “Nope.”

“The influence it exerts is creamy and profound. Slurpians can expect a prosperous life with lashings of liquid assets and generous handfuls of the croutons of achievement.”

“I still don’t know it,” said Libra.

“Because there’s no such sign,” sneered Orion.

“Of course there is. I can see it from where I’m sitting. Between those two quasars,” insisted Gemini.

“Don’t be absurd. I know all the constellations of the sky in detail and Slurp most certainly isn’t one of them. The region you are referring to is a sector of Draco. You’re a liar.”

“Slurpians never lie. That’s one quality that…”

“Orion doesn’t have a sense of humour,” whispered Cygnus urgently but his remark was overheard.

“Jokes are amusing. Lies aren’t,” snapped Orion.

“Often there’s no difference between the two,” suggested Cygnus but in reply Orion snorted and glared at him while Gemini stifled a laugh and Libra scratched his bewildered head.

“Let’s not bicker,” soothed Cassiopeia.

“Even I wouldn’t care to bicker with Orion,” said Taurus.

The others nodded solemnly at this.

The mightiest constellation of all, Orion was a formidable presence in the heavens, his upraised club inspiring respect throughout the galaxy and his broad shoulders pushing aside lesser suns, hydrogen clouds and other celestial phenomena that lacked the self-assurance to stand up to him. Not that he was a bully or tyrant, merely a musclebound hulking hothead, admired and feared in equal measure.

“The art of astrology has always confused me,” admitted Leo, “and I’m not convinced it works anyway.”

“Sure it does. The empirical evidence is overwhelming, and it’s not an art but a science!” stressed Gemini.

“I agree with that. I was born under the sign of Scorpio and have all the qualities associated with that sign,” said Virgo. “I’m mysterious and alluring but also slightly sinister.”

“Wishful thinking!” chortled Pegasus.

“I always wanted to be born under Scorpio,” said Aquarius.

“Me too!” muttered Scorpio.

Libra frowned. “Has any constellation ever been born under its own sign? That’s what I want to know!”

Capricorn nodded. “My sun sign is Capricorn and my ascendant is also Capricorn. So I am what I am.”

But this left Libra more confused. “You mean the other constellations
aren’t
what they are? That doesn’t make sense. If Sagittarius, for example, was born under the sign of Pisces, then do the beings born under the sign of Sagittarius also possess second-hand Piscean characteristics? But what if Pisces was born under the sign of Cancer or Leo and those second-hand characteristics had third-hand characteristics of their own? The system is bound to get muddled very fast.”

“But I was born under Aries,” corrected Sagittarius.

“Signs within signs within signs!”

“That’s why it’s such an interesting subject,” said Cancer.

“No, it’s not,” groaned Eridanus. “Astrology is a pseudoscience, utterly worthless and beneath our dignity.”

And Orion roared his approval of that opinion.

“I’m offended by your cynicism and think you ought to be ashamed of yourselves for showing disrespect to an ancient belief system. I bet you are just jealous,” sniffed Gemini.

“Why should we be jealous?” frowned Eridanus.

“Yes, kindly explain!” added Orion.

“Because neither of you are members of the zodiac. You’re just normal constellations and the planets never travel through you. I understand your dismay at missing out, of course.”

“Why, you pompous little charlatan!” thundered Orion.

“That’s a bit harsh,” said Cygnus.

“No, it’s entirely justified!” fumed Eridanus.

“I know Orion is famous for his bad moods but something’s different about him today. He’s even more grouchy than usual. What has made him like this, I wonder? It must be a secret he doesn’t want revealed, a tender spot in his psychology,” said Pegasus.

“How dare you?” spluttered Orion.

“Easy, that’s how. I just speak the simple truth…”

“Why, you hornless flying unicorn!”

“Calm down everyone,” pleaded Cassiopeia.

“Stay out of it!” shouted Orion.

It was clear a savage quarrel was brewing and maybe a physical fight was inevitable, and if that happened it was probable Orion would emerge victorious. Then fresh blood would stain the shimmering ribbon of the Milky Way. But before the exchange of insults turned into more serious threats or challenges, an obscure constellation by the name of Ophiuchus spoke up. He was a sign that hardly said anything, so when he did allow his tongue to form words everybody listened, even the most impetuous of the patterns, even the furious Orion.

“There’s an issue of parallax here,” he said.

“Paradox, did he say?” asked Leo.

“I think it was ‘parallax’, whatever that is,” replied Ursa Major.

Ophiuchus stretched his limbs and gazed around the galaxy. “We keep getting stuck in petty concerns, but life and the universe demand attention from us on a far grander scale. I’m talking about the fundamental nature of who we are and what we do.”

Orion raised an eyebrow. “Oh yes?”

“There are too many unanswered questions, as far as I’m concerned. I often find myself wondering about the solidity of our identities and why that basic issue hasn’t been settled to anyone’s satisfaction. What exactly are we? Our bodies consist of stars, that’s an undeniable fact, but beyond this nothing can be said with certainty. From different parts of the galaxy we have different shapes. From some vantage points we don’t even exist anymore. It’s highly troubling.”

“Is he alluding to the legend of Sol?” wondered Cygnus.

Pisces nodded. “Maybe he is.”

“In a sense, I am,” confirmed Ophiuchus.

For a few moments they all pondered in silence that old story that was also a philosophical conundrum. Somewhere in the galaxy existed a fairly normal star with an unremarkable family of planets. The name of this star was Sol and one of its planets, a bluish orb called Earth, was infested with fleas. Incredible as it sounds, according to the tale, without those fleas the constellations wouldn’t have been defined in their present configurations. It was the fleas that had ordained and named the sky patterns. Those fleas were true creators, because it was only from their perspective that the star signs attained their ideal shapes.

“They call themselves ‘humans’,” said Ophiuchus.

“The fleas, you mean?” said Leo.

Ophiuchus nodded. “It’s my conclusion that the term ‘constellation’ has no real meaning, no intrinsic basis in the realm of facts, because the stars are not at equal distances from Earth. They are only patterns that happen to lie in the same direction as seen from that planet. Do you understand? There is no real connection between any of the stars in our bodies. Thus those fleas preserve our lives.”

“So we are all optical illusions?” mumbled Libra.

“Yes, that’s the gist of it.”

“That’s extremely intriguing, but we were arguing about astrology, not metaphysics,” pointed out Orion.

“In that case, let me tell you a story,” offered Ophiuchus.

“Be our guest,” said Gemini.

“I know a story too,” interrupted Virgo, “and it’s about a space giraffe that lived on one planet but had a neck so long he could stretch it across the vacuum of outer space to thrust his head deep into the atmosphere of a different planet and nibble the leaves from the tops of the trees. He had to hold his breath each time his head made the hazardous crossing from one world to another and one day he got a crick in his neck and couldn’t move his head and he had to exist with his body on one planet and his head on another until the orbits of the…”

Taurus cleared his throat. Virgo looked up and saw that everyone was frowning at her and she fell silent.

“My story is about some of those ‘humans’ influenced by being born under my sign,” added Ophiuchus.

Gemini gasped in astonishment. “What did you say? Born under
your
sign? But you’re not a member of the zodiac! There are precisely twelve zodiac signs and you’re not one of them. I don’t mean to sound rude, but that’s a simple observation. Only the zodiac constellations emit mystical rays that can affect individual fates.”

Ophiuchus held up a hand. “I have news for you. I
do
intrude into the zodiac. Check a star atlas if you don’t believe me. In fact I’m the forgotten thirteenth constellation. My extreme southern point lies between Scorpio and Sagittarius and the ecliptic passes midway between my stars Theta and Xi Ophiuchi. I’m most definitely a zodiacal constellation. I suppose you want to know what dates lie under my jurisdiction? That’s a complex question because we must first be aware of two incompatible astrological schools, the Western and Jyotish. In the former, Scorpio’s reign comes to a climax on November 22
^nd
each year and Sagittarius begins his rule the following day, but in the latter system the respective dates are December 15
^th
and 16
^th
, so my own secret rule is subject to the same ambiguity. The systems should both be reformed.”

“Is he talking gibberish?” whispered Leo.

“It’s highfalutin,” said Gemini.

“Ah, a foreign language!” exclaimed Leo.

“How boring,” muttered Aries.

“It’s mathematical, that’s why,” explained Cygnus.

Cassiopeia lifted a finger to her lips for silence, but Ophiuchus was so engrossed in his own lecture he hadn’t noticed any discord in his audience at all and he blithely kept going:

“The sun actually takes eighteen days to travel through me, but thanks to the jostling from my ‘official’ neighbours, and because most astrologers don’t even acknowledge my presence, my influence has become restricted to a single day and night, either that of November 23
^rd
or December 16
^th
, I don’t know which. That question can’t be settled here, so let me instead take you in your imaginations across time and space to the surface of that bluish orb where the humans have established a rather unique civilisation of their own bizarre devising…”