The Chrysalis of Eternity

Tomorrow cheats us all. Why dost thou stay,

And leave undone what should be done today?

Begin – the present minute’s in thy power;

But still t’adjourn, and wait a fitter hour,

Is like the clown, who at some river’s side

Expecting stands, in hopes the running tide

Will all ere long be past. Fool! not to know

It has flow’d the same, and will forever flow.

- Hughes

“What did you make of him then – Twinkletoes I mean? The Herre Ingolfur took you into his den, didn’t he?” John asked as they strolled across the plaza. He’d changed from his working clothes into shorts and a thin, flowing shirt with heavy sandals. The sun was directly overhead and the screened rays fell vertically onto the cobbled area. It could have been anywhere on Earth – typical European twenty first century architecture had been faithfully reproduced, down to the fountain in the centre of the square.

“I was a bit startled at first, but he’s quite something, isn’t he?” John continued when Brad hesitated.

“He is that,” Brad managed.

“I’ve only seen him a couple of times, you know. He’s very reclusive – an enigmatic legend here. You probably know more about him than I do, and I’ve lived here all my life,” he said with a touch of envy.

They entered a building leading off the main square and John led the way up a flight of stairs. At the landing, he opened a door and showed Brad in.

The apartment was small, but adequate. It looked out over the plaza and contained a bedroom, shower and toilet and a small living room.

“Any meals you require will be provided in the restaurants. Just hand them this,” he said, giving Brad a small metal card. It was featureless, grey in colour and very light.

“Mentally imprinted by the Herre,” John explained. “All expenses go to his official account – don’t worry, it’s all on the house. Phoenix is solvent,” he laughed. “We’ve had an electronic monetary system in place for about twenty years now and it works,” he laughed again, a slightly nervous sound.

“John, join me for lunch then?” Brad suggested. “Looking at the sun’s rays, it must be about that time, no?”

“Well, thank you, Brad. I’ll take you up on that. There’s a little bistro just around-” the rest was lost as he bounded down the stairs.

Brad sat outside under an umbrella, watching the passing pedestrians. It was indeed lunch time, and a steady stream of people exited the office block and scattered out among the cafes and restaurants lining the square.

Telepathic conversational flow was everywhere – he’d never experienced such a plethora of mental traffic, but seeing as how everyone here had come via the network and had to be telepathic, or at least be accompanied by a telepath to activate a Gateway, it wasn’t really strange.

He was surprised at how little attention they paid him. He was a stranger, in an unfamiliar uniform, and yet hardly anyone noticed him. Their thoughts were centred on their own problems and he felt he could have passed them by unnoticed even if he’d been walking across the square instead of sitting watching it.

He’d eaten a meal of vegetables, bread and what was listed as fish, but he wasn’t so sure of that description. His presentation of the metal card opened a world of deferential treatment by the owner and his waiter, a short, dark skinned female Thalakian. He was served beer, brewed by John’s department, and the woman hovered unobtrusively close by so that if he even considered some request, she was instantly alert.

On one occasion, when he dropped an eating utensil and she dashed forward to remove it, he asked her to sit down for a moment.

“You’re Thalakian, a world in the English sphere of influence. How long have you been here?” he asked her when she declined to sit, but stood patiently at his side.

John watched with mild amusement as he learned her background – a refugee from an English sub-colony that was in dire straits as a result of successive crop failures. She mentioned that there was more success back home due to the help this planet was giving in the form of modified plants and better water conservation planning. A team of workers from another colony was attending to it.

“Twinkletoes organises that sort of assistance to any planet that needs it,” John assured him. “It’s his forte – organising relief and rescue operations on a planetary scale.”

John made his excuses early and departed for work after wolfing down a plate of pasta and a sauce made basically from spiced, recycled grass and ornamental plant cuttings from his engineering department, so he informed Brad. It looked and smelled appetising.

“We try not to waste anything at all,” John told him. “If it really is inedible, it’s composted.”

“Amazing what good spices can do, isn’t it?” Linda observed.

“Got to agree with you. What do you make of this place now?”

“I’m very interested in what Tin-kelto has to say when we go back there, my love. I have a feeling he has something big for you – for us.”

“Yeah, I feel it too. Can’t read him though – he’s in a class of his own mentally.”

He sat, finishing his second flagon of beer while the rest of the population went back to work, until he was almost alone at the bistro.

He dozed pleasantly in the shade, the soporific effect of the beer relaxing him, until he slowly became aware that he had company. He felt their presence and scanned the source, discovering instantly that he was the subject of an erotic investigation by at least two female minds. He opened his eyes, as the first one spoke.

“We haven’t seen you before, have we? When did you arrive, beautiful uniformed man from which distant world?”

He looked up at two tall, willowy females dressed in flowing white garments. They were both pale, slender but well formed blondes and their eyes were dark, as dark as Kahana’s inky pools of blackness. Their thin, almost colourless hair hung down their backs to below the waist.

“Good afternoon, ladies. When were you last on Nimba then?” he asked, recognising the typical features and demeanour of the gentle, ethereal people from that ancient Celtic planet near the centre of Sector Twenty Four.

“Ah, you know our world, Peacemaker?” The accent was soft, almost lisping.

“I’ve not had the pleasure of visiting it yet, and I’m not a Peacemaker. I’ve been mistaken for one a few times now – the uniform’s not the same at all. Besides, Peacemakers don’t travel, do they?”

“Ah, but one never knows who might turn up here, does one? Why are you here then, whoever you are?”

Brad sat up straight and invited them to sit. They very obviously wore nothing under their filmy robes and the lowering sun was backlighting them as they stood in front of him, making him feel uncomfortably aroused. He could feel Linda’s mild confusion at her husband being confronted by two obviously sexy females from a species noted for being completely amoral at the best of times.

“I’m Brad Coulson, from Misra. I’m here on business with the Herre. Why are you two here?” he countered.

“We are Mela and Hilva, twins. We came here five years ago by accident – we were trying to get to another world called Cerrunos. Our ancestors were from the same area – a place on Earth known as Eire in later times apparently. We didn’t know how to use the travel worms properly – we’d heard about them, and saw one being conjured up by a wizard we’d never seen, so we ran after him, and then we were here.” The woman speaking sat back and let her twin take up the conversation.

“They’re good to us here – not so much at first though. John Smith said he wanted to make sure we weren’t bad women and he kept us apart from the rest for a long time, until he was told by somebody up there,” she pointed at the office block where the Herre and Tin were located, “that we were good. We want to stay here – there are so many interesting men, like you Brad Coulson.” They smiled at him disarmingly, both leaning across the table and studying him.

“I wonder what they could possibly be after?” Linda’s sarcasm came through very clearly.

“You know very well, Lin. Nimbians are pretty well known as probably the easiest going society in the universe. They just want a good time.”

Linda didn’t respond for a while. When she did, she was petulant. “I don’t expect you to live a monk’s life, Brad,” she declared. “You’re a more than healthy red-blooded male, and I should know. If that’s what you want, you go for it.”

“Lin, how would we cope with something like that? How would you react if I was making love to another woman – in this case I would imagine two women?”

He could feel Linda’s wild confusion. On one hand, she was feeling the jealous wife’s emotions, just as she had when they were separate entities. On the other, an awakening curiosity tinged with excitement was growing, giving him some amazing visions of a side to her sensual nature he hadn’t known about. He nipped that one in the bud.

“It wouldn’t work, Lin.” It was a flat statement, and Linda remained silent.

The sisters were looking at him with wide eyes. Mila spoke after a few seconds of puzzled staring.

“Are you a warlock then? There are two spirits inside you, Brad Coulson. How is that so?”

“My wife Linda and I are one – ever since she died two years ago. It’s not an unusual thing to happen, apparently, or so I’ve been told.”

“I’ve heard of such a thing. It isn’t common though, not where we come from. Such intriguing possibilities. Fascinating, isn’t it?” she asked, turning to her sister. Brad could feel their thoughts taking a distinctly erotic turn again, and he shut them out. He felt Linda’s mild annoyance, which she corrected quickly.

“It’s all right, my love,” she agreed. “It probably wouldn’t work,” but her thoughts lingered on the scenes she’d been conjuring up. He shifted uncomfortably and lifted his beer bottle, draining it.

“So, Brad Coulson, would you and your wife like to come with us? Shall we go somewhere more private? Where are you staying, in this complex?” Hilva asked.

Brad shook his head politely. “Sorry ladies, but I have a lot of work to do. Maybe some other time,” he said as he stood up. They stood too, and he noticed they were both taller than him, and he was almost two metres. They both looked disappointed, which was a mild emotion compared with what was flooding through their minds – almost identical thoughts that he hoped Linda wasn’t paying too much attention to.

“Some other time then, Brad Coulson,” Mila said, taking hold of his hand and squeezing it. He felt her passion race through the connection, and instinctively backed away.

“Good-bye, wife Linda,” they sent out together as they moved slowly away, gliding off in their gossamer veils, seeming to float along the walkways. Brad breathed a sigh of relief. This was getting weird – it wasn’t the first time he’d encountered a potentially embarrassing encounter with the opposite sex since Linda had died, but this one was definitely different.

“What are we going to do, Brad? Like I said, I can’t expect you to be celibate. I’d like to think you’d be the same in my position. I’m sure I could handle it.”

“Some other time,” he answered gruffly. Making love to another woman while his wife was right there inside him was too weird to contemplate. He put the thoughts that had been tumbling about in his mind right out of it. Linda didn’t pursue it.

After a late afternoon spent idly watching the thinly scattered human traffic, tuning in to the thoughts and conversations whispering through his mind, Brad was strolling around the plaza. The evening shadows, hazy due to the strongly filtered dome were darkening by the minute, and he looked around at the commercial buildings fronting the square.

There were now many more people parading around the perimeter – he guessed it was a pleasant evening ritual, to promenade like this. The number of obviously different races and the varied styles of dress were fascinating, and he spent a lot of time stopping people and asking their origins.

Nobody seemed to take offence – on the contrary, they willingly and openly answered any question he threw their way, sometimes vocally and at other times telepathically. He grew more intrigued by the minute, and eventually, sitting alone at a table with a glass of wine, he thought about how he and Linda had felt when told they were to start a colony on Misra.

“We felt so special then, didn’t we Lin?”

“Like some kind of latter day Adam and Eve. We were special, weren’t we?”

“We thought we were. The Section Master made us feel like we were among the most important people that Planet Earth had ever exported. The last two years have been an education. Now, again, we see this incredible human diaspora that’s obviously been going on for millennia. Makes one feel very small, doesn’t it, my love?”

“I don’t know about small – maybe just proud to be a part of the human race, when I see some of the products of that diaspora.”

“With whom are you communicating, Sir?” The thought came from a small man standing next to Brad’s table, staring at him quizzically. Brad identified him as Aramistan, the short, tough product of an English world with six moons not too far from Phoenix. The inhabitants were originally from sixteenth century England, supplemented in the twentieth century. He’d visited the planet briefly a year ago and was impressed with the order and progress they’d made subsequent to a civil war that fizzled out without too much bloodshed or destruction.

“My wife, actually, squire,” Brad answered vocally, with a smile. He used the common informal address in use on the man’s planet.

The Aramistan turned on his heel and walked slowly off, shaking his head. Brad could feel his worried concern – the man was convinced he was schizophrenic and wanted to get help for him. He smiled and sat back. This place was growing on him, and the feeling of bonhomie surrounding him, the general ambience created by the architecture and the mild temperature all combined to put him in an extremely good mood.

“This place is special, Lin. Look what they’ve done with such an uninviting planet – when we arrived this morning, I was horrified. I wanted to get back in the Gateway and leave, but I’m so glad I didn’t.”

“It is special. Life would be good here, no?”

“Interesting to see so many very different kinds of people, and they all seem to get along pretty well.”

“What worries me, Lin, is that all these people appear to be moving about the universe without GSA’s knowledge. We’re supposed to be on top of all this, but it seems to me we’re rather a waste of time. We’re not really serving a purpose any more. Perhaps when the galaxy was being terraformed and colonies were being started, it was worthwhile, but there seems to be gathering chaos now, with the network open to anyone with telepathic capability, and that’s apparently becoming the norm. So where do we go from here?”

“Maybe Tin-kelto will throw some light on it tomorrow, Brad.”

They sat in close harmony as the darkness gathered, and the street lamps brightened accordingly until the area began to fill up again, and he contemplated calling it a day. In site of being tired, he remained there for a few more hours, eating a meal of pizza and salad, and eventually, when he noticed the Nimbian twins appear on the far side of the plaza, he departed for his apartment and fell into a deep sleep within minutes, to dream, with his wife, of the blue-green fields and pink shell beaches of his adopted home world Misra.

As he rested peacefully in his comfortable bed, he had no inkling that the next day would herald the biggest changes mankind had seen in millennia. After tomorrow, things couldn’t possibly be the same again.