* * *
The Aungtalli Bishop marched into the castle of King Worapor like he owned the place. The Bishop wore full regalia with long orange and white robes, and a pope-like phallic hat. Behind the Aungtalli Bishop his subjects carefully moved a large technological device that hovered in the air on virtual particle drive platforms. The quanta-communications device had been needed for this pre-arranged meeting with the King. On Urania very little separation of church and state existed. In fact this had been to the point of the Bishops of the church actually bringing their gods along to attend political meetings. The Bishop obviously looked his best with his most solemn face on for the occasion. The Bishop marched right into the King’s chamber without even a knock, and fully expected to be welcomed with gushing respect. “Your majesty, it is now the time for
our report of progress King Worapor.
It’s made you unpopular all around,
but the gods insisted we close it down.”
King Worapor had been expecting a rude entrance from the Bishop. “Very well Bishop of the mighty god.
I am but the King, to you I must nod.”
The Bishop said, “Very well King who self-pity resorts
I shall now broadcast what Volock reports.”
At that moment the Bishop held up a rectangular device and from it came the voice of Volock, the menacing agent of the Aungtalli Bishop. “Hail my King and Bishop of the planet.
Pursuit goes on they have not out ran it.
Two I follow will bring me to the door
to all of the others pursuit is for.
I follow Eromot and Morgamor.
I will kill them once they help me find more.”
After the Bishop and Volock exchanged details the next order of business had to do with Hanson, the ex-head of the Ministry of Science. The King became all too aware that he had been brought there to just listen and nod. The Bishop insisted that he be killed next, but the king decided that to be a good moment to exert his authority, and he voiced his reluctance to allow it. The King ended up agreeing after the Bishop presented evidence that Hanson had figured out the secret to their ancient energy racket. The King reluctantly agreed to Hanson’s murder, which became much easier when understood as just good business. He had only been there to condone all of this for political reasons anyway. The King feared what the quanta-communication device had been brought there for and hoped it to be just there to keep the fear of god in him. It didn’t look like that would be the case. The Bishop walked over to the device and said, “I was required to have the gods come on,
this sacred device with which I summon.”
A hum began as the Bishop started the device, which then started to glow with magic energy. Suddenly a glowing life-size Devasura appeared in the room, a good five times taller than the King. His stature stood huge, human shaped, and orange with glowing eyes and cloud-like clothing that looked similar to his white vapor-like hair that covered the face with a beard, and mustache. He looked sort of like an orange image of Zeus with white cloud-like robes and hair. He looked a lot like the Devasura that appeared before Beagud, but it wasn’t the same being. This Devasura wasn’t even from the same giant phosphorescent planet as the one Beagud saw, but he broadcasted from a similar planet that hovered about 100 light years above the galactic plain near the location where the planet Urania was. The Bishop laid down prostrate on the floor before his god, and the King obediently got up to do the same thing right next to the Bishop. All other subjects had been removed from the room after they had placed the quanta communication device in the corner.
Just the King, a Bishop, and a giant god stood in the room. The room had been made with an extra high ceiling in order to accommodate the terrifying size of the Devasuras when they appeared here as they often did. King Worapor stood barely 3 feet tall at the foot of the 15-foot tall giant being. The Devasura spoke to the Bishop requesting a report. The Bishop began relaying the previous information about Eromot, Morgamor, and Hanson. The Devasura spoke fluent Uranian, but had to whistle and chirp it a lot slower than the way a regular Uranian would speak it. That had a menacing effect on his voice. The Uranian language, in its current form actually had been implemented by the Devasuras when they intervened in the affairs of this planet, and established the Aungtalli species to be keepers of the planet’s star-door secrets. Because the language was spoke in rigid stanzas and meter lines, it appealed to the Uranian’s love for song. The Uranian mind had evolved meanings to rhyme and meter along with the thought process. This enhanced the expressive quality of the language, encouraging their evolution however, it had also been a subtle mind control device from the Devasuras because it determined where on a line or stanza to put a word and nobody wanted to sing out of key, or in a dissonant way. Some kids pushed this rigid envelope of language in very dissonant ways mostly to annoy their parents, which created very successful recording artists who sang really badly to admiring auditoriums of rebellious kids. The Devasura became sympathetic to the King’s reluctance to kill Hanson and said, “Hanson need not die for secrets knowing.
He can join Aungtalli and keep growing.
What Morgamor hears is more a concern.
What he has to say science must not learn.
Don’t follow only. They may get away.
Those in that vehicle must die today.
Much can be lost from the words that he’ll say,
words of the devil Beataphoriah.”
At that point the god had spoken and the quanta-communication device just turned itself off. King Worapor became relived and gave his royal approval of all that they had agreed upon. He just wanted the meeting to be over. He had no delusions about the Aungtalli and their Bishop. They both actually barely tolerated each other, but the King did what the Aungtalli wanted because he genuinely believed in and feared their great and terrible gods. After the Devasura disappeared, the Bishop contacted Volock instructing him to kill Eromot and Morgamor before they got to Gulfang. Volock gave a compelling protest, but then became forced to do as ordered by the gods.
About a hundred light years above Urania orbited another giant planet made out of one of the 15 ancient legendary stars that first powered the Nephaprican star-doors. Below on the surface of this world a Devasura who just spoke to King Worapor and the Aungtalli Bishop had now switched off his quanta-communication device. The more he dealt with those stupid bird people the more he looked forward to their inevitable extinction. This Devasura went by the name Chronolus, and he had been the same one who imprisoned Beataphoriah about 50,000 Earth years in the past. At first the Devasuras kept the Uranians from killing themselves and maintained a remarkable civilization, kept in a state of ignorance to the immense power of the star-door on their planet. Chronolus had become disappointed that it worked so well because he had expected Uranians to run their course by now as a minor evolutionary curiosity in the cosmos where such curiosities often came and went. Now the ancient star Tze-Doldus would soon expel its shell in a nova as the core of spent fuel finally collapsed. The existence of the Uranians became a complication that taunted Chronolus with a moral question because he planed to use the star-door to teleport the whole planet of Urania into an orbit around one of his Devaplanet moons. The Devaplanet, which Chronolus lived upon, was so large that some of its moons had moons. This would be similar to the wormhole stunt used by the Eigalli and Goag Ralus when they acquired the Dol star-door by teleporting it to the core of the galaxy from the red giant star named Dol. The problem would be that all life on Urania would perish where his Devaplanet currently resides, considering that the nearest star with a habitable zone to be fifty light years away at the moment. Chronolus figured there may still be time to exterminate the planet with neutrino induced solar flare radiation, which would also speed along the Tze-Doldus nova event. After Chronolus imprisoned Beataphoriah, the star-door had been programmed to use the energy from the death of Tze-Doldus in order
to power the teleportation wormhole event. It became tricky because it had been a one-way wormhole that must use the entrance gate also for the exit gate, which had become the latest evolution of star-door physics and technology that allowed a wormhole generator to move through the wormhole it generated. Because of this Chronolus had kept the Devaplanet in a position 100 light years above Urania to receive that planet, along with its orbit, which would be placed in orbit around one of the Devaplanet’s many moons.
As Chronolus contemplated what to do, a strange light forming in the room that coagulated into an apparition similar to the ego-phantasm of Nieniel, only this being became an ancient Nephaprican, human-like with long dark hair and a well groomed beard. This had been an ego-phantasm of the great grandfather of Chronolus, whose name had been Saturlus. Saturlus had been one of the last Nephapricans that still existed during their deliberate evolution into becoming Devasuras over 4 billion Earth years ago. The 10,000 (or so) Earth year life span of the Nephaprican physiology became transmuted into beings capable of living for more than a couple billion Earth years, several times longer than the longest Incaprican life span. Saturlus however, like many of the first generation of Devasuras, grew weary of life and died after living for barely more than a billion Earth years.
The body of Saturlus had been one of the best preserved to this day. The Devasuras keep ancient ego-phantasms of ancestors by entombing their dead corpses with technology developed from old Doldorian philosophies on science. Only a few ego-phantasms like Saturlus, who actually lived in ancient Nephapricus, still remained in this day and age since decay from over four billion years eventually dismissed an ego-phantasm along with the phantom matter that projected them upon reality. The phantom matter dispelled while the body eventually decomposed into nothing. Of the few remaining ancient ego-phantasms, Saturlus had been one of the oldest still dwelling amongst the Devasuras. His grandson Chronolus had summoned him at this time to provide council with his ancient wisdom.
Chronolus looked up at the (spirit?) of his grandfather. “Thank you grandfather for coming at my evoking. I just got done communicating with the Uranians. Beataphoriah, the star-door quanta-optic-nanocode being gets better and better in his attempts to psionically communicate with those outside. Those clever scientists who dug up some overlooked ancient ruins, are doing research on the phenomenon. Can’t I just replace it with another quanta-optic-nanocode being?”
“The short answer is no, because Beataphoriah isn’t just a quanta-optic-nanocode being. Beataphoriah is the star-door itself. You must learn to get along with Beataphoriah to get it to cooperate. I’m not sure your punishment is working to that end.”
Chronolus did not like having to negotiate with technology. “Primitive Nephaprican technology is obstinate and uncooperative.”
“You fail to understand, Beataphoriah is more than just some technology you can turn on and off. The star-door quanta-optic-nanocode beings were the initial creations of what eventually became the technologies of actual life.”
“I understand. Beataphoriah will soon serve me, and I have kept my word to it that I would spare the bird-species he anthropomorphized till they naturally became extinct at the death of their star. That day fast arrives while Uranians are being made sterile by a few more well focused solar flares.”
Even after death Saturlus still felt compelled to correct young people. “Don’t think Beataphoriah would be simple minded enough to not figure out that you murdered the life it created.”
“I blessed the Uranian species with a stable civilization that compares more to a galactic civilization in duration then the primitive terrestrial one of which it actually is. That more than keeps my side of the ancient bargain. I’m providing a merciful way for them to quietly die off before the star blows up.”
“Your ambition to own the remaining star-doors may indeed succeed.” Saturlus perceived a need for caution. “If anyone is going to cause Beataphoriah to be released prematurely it will be the arrival of Aquari.”
Chronolus had to think for a moment to recall the name. “The strange cosmic energy being? My brethren of the Devaplanet overseeing Goag Ralus mentioned that the Eigalli were sending it to Tze-Doldus, but I expect the star to have exploded before it finally arrives from that journey across the galaxy from the core.”
“You underestimate the fastest object ever known, who speeds through the galaxy toward your star-door planet at over seven hundred times the speed of light. Aquari should be arriving there soon.”
Chronolus realized the folly of his underestimation. “What is this being? You knew this Aquari when you were alive?”
“Yes, Aquari has probably always been. He was there when the Golimechoids took over the Poa gate at the end of the second galactic age. He’s a personal friend of Beataphoriah.”
“So this Aquari being is an ally to the Golimechoids?”
“Aquari is an ally to all terrestrial life, and will surely find virtue in the bird people who you find intolerable. Aquari was probably there when the Eagolim first created those Golimechoids. I always suspected they were Aquari’s idea, created by the Eagolim through Aquari’s influence. The Eagolim were always saving the bodies of their architects for Aquari to inhabit, but Aquari would always choose a more random body when he explored the Eagolim that way.”
“So I will not find an ally in this Aquari?” Chronolus felt his ambition slipping from his grasp. “He helped the Golimechoids acquire the Poa star-door, and now they may soon link the Poa star-door to the Dol star-door on Goag Ralus. It appears that Aquari has been helping Goag Ralus get to these genetically compatible Golimechoids all along.”
“It becomes hard to say what guides the path of Aquari, but that was where Nephapricans disagreed with the cosmic being. The beings we began to create got out of our control. What Nephapricans sought to repent of, Aquari embraced as just another evolutionary expression of the natural order of the cosmos. We wanted to keep those Golimechoids away from Goag Ralus to avoid the possibility that they could join chromosomes with it and produce another Goag Ralus being in the galaxy. Aquari is probably encouraging that.”
Chronolus had just spoken with his kind on a Devaplanet near the Poa star-door. “We Devasuras have kept the Golimechoid civilization around the Poa star-door an insignificantly tiny civilization by supporting what remained of the Grulmagof Galactic Empire near there. Post-Nephaprican Nephapricans who were destroyed by Golimechoids at the end of the second age of Magphoreus have kept expansion of the Golimechoids in check with continued hostilities. With our assistance the Grulmagof are now poised to attack the Poa star-door itself and take it back from them. That should prevent the plans of Goag Ralus and Aquari from succeeding.”
Saturlus became pleased with the Devasura plan. “That is the better destiny for the star-door. Goag Ralus must never be joined with the early Golimechoid creations. The Golimechoid of the Poa star-door must be pushed back to the Norma arm where they came from if not destroyed utterly. They are a run amok technology left behind by us reckless Nephapricans.”
“We Devasuras are already preparing galactic civilizations of life forms all along the Orion arm who are bred for aggression and hostility. Once they attain galactic status they surely will confront any Golimechoid civilization that dares to expand into the Orion arm of Magphoreus. The old planet Ti was destroyed to create a habitat for such a species who, I hear, are so promising that Anlil on that Devaplanet says they might even be inclined to hunt down the Golimechoid to extinction.” The Devasura named Anlil, who Chronolus referred to, actually had been the name of the Devasura who frightened Beagud away.
The conversation continued as Chronolus walked Saturlus back to his tomb. Chronolus wasn’t sure what could be done about Aquari. Massive injections of neutrinos on numerous occasions have still failed to trip that white dwarf star into exploding. He suddenly became in more of a hurry to get Tze-Doldus to explode before this Aquari arrived and defe
ated his own plans with Aquari influence. Aquari’s influence had been notorious for becoming cosmic destiny beyond any mortal’s control. The Uranians had already existed peacefully, for the most part, longer than most terrestrial cultures ever do. Chronolus expected the primitive logic circuits of that nanocode being, Beataphoriah, to be grateful for what Chronolus has done. Chronolus speculated that when fusion generators on his planet finally begin to power that star-door above that will be orbiting one of his planet’s moons, then Beataphoriah will be forced to become his own personal star-door servant.