The Soul Star ⭐️ The Great Void

Antiny & the Wizard Ship of Albinon 

Haiku in the Void 

From the port bow of the Albion, the commander of the Wizard Ship Albinon saw the blip disappear. He thought of LGB 822’s little joke. Mythic poetry! How he loved it when 822 diced a galaxy into existence and then transmitted some poetic image, like a bouquet of flowers or a groundhog popping its head from a field in the early spring. At first he thought the serpent and the egg must be an obscure mythic reference, the inference of which would be grimly humorous if he thought about it long enough. But 822 didn't give him any time to think about it. When 822's ship disappeared, the Wizard concluded that it was a distress signal instead. 

The Wizard wheeled the Albinon from a star shelf in Egg 23 and headed starboard in the direction of Egg 108: Kraslika. The journey of 83 sextillion exosparsecs cubed usually took 15 minutes, but the Wizard put on maximum thrust, reaching Kraslika in under three minutes. 

The Wizard surveyed the quadrant of The Great Void from where 822 had transmitted his fateful poetry fragment. The ship was far out indeed: 571 trillion parsecs from the nordoostern edges of Kraslika. The Wizard had seldom seen a darkness so complete. He wondered what God might be doing in this endless space, where vast tracks of nothingness lay next to vast tracks of nothingness, all of which beckoned the soul to what? Better not to think about that; there was enough in the 216 Cosmic Eggs to keep him busy for sextillions of years, cubed, and then cubed again. Besides, where in the Great Egg was 822?

He wondered if 822 was playing games with some new cloaking device. Or, the whole thing was an elaborate hoax: after luring the Wizard into the middle of nowhere, 822 would send obscure poems to the other Looking-Glass Beings: a gently mocking sonnet about Love in the Middle of Nowhere, or a punning haiku about the great Grey Mantle that the Wizard wrapped over star-shelves and which finally rapt him into the Oblivion of which he was so enamoured. There would be misty clouds, craggy mountain peaks, and peach blossoms. 

The Wizard had warned 822 about his fascination with the Great Void on numerous occasions. He even wrote him a cautionary poem:

Stare long enough at Medusa
and you’ll turn into stone
whatever that stone might mean
it might at least mean something
or take some form
that you might touch, see, smell
feel or hear

Stare long enough into the Void
and you’ll disappear

The Wizard beamed an “All Urgent Reply Request” to every LGB starship in the Great Egg: Have you seen or heard from 822? He received the 3,290 responses in less than a minute. All of them simply wrote: NO.

There was no indication whatsoever that 822 had ever visited this place so far from light. The only thing he could make out was the tiniest speck, floating estward toward the Middlebelt.

In seconds the tiny craft was in Cargo Bay 1, which was insulated with irridium plates six feet thick and which accommodated atmospheres of any type, from near vacuity to viscous poisoned lava flows that were spiked unpredictably with inacular fusion pockets. 

⭐️

The Passenger 

Antiny was all of a sudden inside a large gleaming room. The walls were chromium grey, yet to Antiny they were so bright that they threatened to evaporate his eye sockets. For millions of years he yearned for light, yet now he yearned for dark. He beamed a request on all frequencies: For the sake of the Cobalt Pulse please turn the lights down!

The Wizard had never seen or heard this language before, nor could he find it in the data banks of the Albinon. He checked with the Grand Nexus for more information, and received the following: Language unknown. Closest possible correlation: Finnish. Proceed with caution. The Wizard applied the Finnish translator, and to his surprise received the following: Please for God Bleeping diminish nuclear device!

 The Wizard assumed correctly that the alien was accustomed to the darkness of the Great Void and needed time to adapt to the brightness of Cargo Bay 1. He lowered the lights and then inquired what sort of atmosphere the alien might require. Antiny responded, What are meanings atmosphere? The Finns may have a word for it, but that doesn't mean that Antiguans resembled the Finns in any way. Antiny added: I am Antiguilainen, and do not understand what is meant by atmosphere.