LiTTLE CHERiNE Book 02 - post032

arthur.grafo (69)in #sfandf-fiction • 6 years ago

^{“Trust one of you to spoil it for me.” I responded with a rueful grin as Cherine put her hands above her head in victory.}

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Practical Marian offered, “Annabelle, you have to start school. I will go with you Keith, and introduce you and your daughter to the principal. At least she will have good company with so many of Roberts girls being there.”

Alki asked, “Robert, you are moving to my old home tomorrow?”

“Soon as Socrati shows up.”

“There is plenty of room there, why not have Keith and his lovely Annabelle stay with you until he gets his first salary and his own home?”

I was overjoyed at the idea. I recalled our evenings, after the work at his farm, of his easy companionship, and I looked forward to a number of pleasant hours with him. I saw the girls stare at me, so I turned to Annabelle.

“It would be wonderful, but I have to impose one condition. Do not allow my girls to love you.”

Those who understood laughed, while poor Annabelle sat blushing and trying to work out what I meant.

The Sparklers

I have learnt quite a bit about the Sparklers and am embarrassed by the foolishness of some of my earlier presumptions. They had not originated on any planet. They had started life in a cloud which had swirled around in space, heating up over a very long time, getting denser and beginning to form a nucleus that would become a sun - or suns. They had migrated to the outer limits when a sudden catastrophe killed billions of them in one flash. Since they do not know, I can only assume the creation of a solar system must have been the catastrophe that killed them.

They found themselves in the void as a different type of energy form, with only traces of matter buried deep within themselves. Having started out originally as mostly an energy form, they adapted quickly and learnt to feed off the currents of energy that flow throughout the void. They then drifted for millions of years.

They had, in their original form, grown up as a race in an area rich in turbulence and therefore energy. They had no concept of possessions. They were forced to develop a certain degree of intelligence to avoid the constant dangers. Once evolution started them on that course it continued until they were able themselves to assist evolution. They did not develop any of the traits mankind has. There were no wars, no killing, but there was a certain degree of communal intelligence that oversaw the direction they took in their growth and maturity.

At some point during their aimless drifting, they came across a solar system that kept on sending out life-forms into the void. As they watched, they realised that this life-form has no ability to survive in the void and they are being torn asunder by the vortexes of the void and their energy is consumed. They were distressed. These were creatures such as they, of energy, but they were like infants, unable to protect themselves and feed.

The first big cultural change happened to the Sparklers.

They decided to stay and help. They found they could take in the life-forms, as they took in their own infants for feeding and nurturing. It took them a long time to understand that the life-forms they were taking in were damaged. As they studied the problem, it was finally realised these creatures had originated as beings on the planet below. The theory gained ground that some calamity below was killing this matter based race, releasing the energy part of their being to the void.

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They actually saw the process as a malevolent process (κακόβουλες διαδικασία) of matter, deliberately creating energy forms to be sacrificed to the void. They decided they should not stand by and let them suffer. At great risk to themselves and some loss of life, they managed to help release the energy part from all the matter forms on planet. In triumph they carried off this helpless new form of life, careful to nurture and feed them. They learnt over time that sending certain impulses helped to calm them, though they could not heal them.

With time they began to wonder what to do with this burden they carried, due to their impulse to save and nurture. As they were questioning themselves, they came across another solar system which was releasing a multitude of energy forms to the void, where they were being consumed as the other race had been.

They saved those they could and increased their own birth rate until there were enough of them to undertake the mammoth undertaking of saving those still locked in their matter forms.

This was repeated over a great period a number of times. They came across an area of the void that was extremely rich in energy and they concluded they could at last stop their aimless drifting.

With time an unease seemed to take a grip of many of the Sparklers. Their Thinkers considered it, debated and had many arguments. It was finally decided the problem was that they now had no purpose any longer. While they had been drifting, they had found and saved a great number of races. This had translated itself into a sense of purpose.

The Thinkers decided the race of Sparklers had been created for the purpose of searching the universe and rescuing the victims of evolution, which had trapped their energy forms within matter that decays, and feeds them to the void. It was accepted, gladly by all, that they now have a mission.

So much time passed that even their long memories grew dim, only the sense of their mission still pushing them on. Each race they saved was a cause for celebration and joy. It became their only satisfaction and they multiplied into the trillions.

They came to a solar system that was sending out another race to become victims of the void. Here though the race had begun to develop some form of instinct that led them to unite and form into great energy replicas of themselves, helping them to not only fight off the vicious energy vortexes of the void, but to also harness and use those energies. As they watched and debated the potential, perhaps for themselves also, one such energy World dissolved. They reacted instinctively and gathered in the survivors. The Thinkers again watched and debated. It was decided that since this race were not advanced enough to have learnt how to establish their safety in the void, their Worlds of energy being inefficient, it was their responsibility, a part of their mission, to gather not only those still trapped within their matter forms, but also those doomed within their unstable energy Worlds. They saved them all and continued their search.

They had grown to such vast numbers that they no longer could stop for more time than it took for a sun to die within one area. They lost all sense of time and their own history. All that remained were the instincts developed by their mission. At the core of their multitude lay the Thinkers who now were carried, dormant and protected, for a time when they might be needed again.

When they found energy Worlds that tried to elude them, the still half dormant Thinkers assured the Sparklers that the poor creatures are frightened and must be saved in spite of themselves. The search became a desperate hunt to save these deluded creatures before their Worlds collapse and the void consumes them.

At the end of all this, billions of years later, they came across us. The Sparklers reacted as they had for all of time and found themselves attacked, one of them killed. They decided they should first assist those in energy Worlds (the Akiards) who more urgently need them and return later. But then hundreds of millions of them were attacked and killed, some of them carriers of other energy beings. Distressed, they finally had to awaken the Thinkers.

The Thinkers watched and saw our dance, saw us form a world of energy and then abandon it, behind a white wall of energy they saw the tiny energy creatures were not being consumed by the void while others arriving in the void were consumed. They watched the one group who were returning to their matter forms and then later returning to dance with each other, exchanging communication as do the Sparklers. This awoke a wonder in them. They decided to let the more distant energy Worlds depart; they can find them later. They had to study and find a way to communicate with this new race. So was Solomon born, the essence and spirit of their Thinkers, brought into one apparent being to enable this strange race of Terrans to communicate with them.

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