A thousand years after a thousand years after now..
...When time is not an issue and when death is understood and is no more, where there is no disease or poverty. Every day was a Beatles tune. People pushed out into the stars and found them empty of other life. System after system they visited without finding even green grass. They found planets that could hold life, if properly prepared. It is a fairly straightforward thing to make a planet into a world for life, it just takes a very long time.
You start with microbes and single cell life forms to build the atmosphere and soil. Then plants and the microscopic animals, both plant eaters and predators. Then larger plant life, trees and flowering plants can be introduced along with insect life, then the larger animals, plant eaters first for a few years, then predators. If you don't have a living example of the animal or plant at hand, then becomes a simple process to spool the DNA chain from a database, copy it into an appropriate cell, then gestate according to instructions long ago set down in writing. Finally, after the life systems have had a while to balance themselves, that world is ready to be a home.
All it takes if a dozen or so centuries. Easy, if time is not an issue and life lasts forever.
At first, preparing a world was an immense project, requiring millions, then thousands, then a small hundreds and finally a few who ran the great ships, known as the Archipelagoes, the islands of life that did the work. There was at one time a small, dedicated group of pilots, who did their work better than anyone expected. If there was one thing they shared, it was a core of loneliness, a pain so deep that it drove then out into the stars away from others. The work demanded this quality, and some wondered if this trait did not demand this work. Inventive, thorough and stubborn, they worked together for so long that soon it was believed that they were the only ones who ever were the pilots.
One of them was Christopher Bazalel. This is his story.
First off, he had been an uncomfortable wedding guest. Out on the wings of the night as the party danced he quietly stared at the stars on a verandah. His friend, his oldest friend, came out into the border between silence and joyful noise.
"Chris, I'm sorry, I know that you loved her.."
"Did I tell you that I felt their first kiss, Joshua. From miles away. I could just look up at the stars and I knew what was happening."
"Then you loved her, that was true. But she married another, and she's
his wife now."
"Chris, I know you fought well for her heart, but you fought circumstance
as well and it won."
In the morning he said his goodbyes to no one in particular and went to The Stellar Archipelago, His vessel, and was gone.
It is the missing who become legends, and it was true with him as well.
From a memory to a retold story to a mispronounced name to a legend to
endure as such. They imagined he was out there, twice beyond reach, caretaker
of worlds upon worlds, a planter and builder on a grand scale.
For the most part the work kept him busy. Intricate details that required
a tight focus to decisions that would affect a entire world for all eternity.
Only a few times would he pause for a moment. Staring up at a blue gem
from his vessel. All of this seemed empty without someone to do this work
for and perhaps build with. It was then that being alone became being lonely.
Again, walking along a new mire, seeing the rising sun reflect off a seaweed
plain, he spoke aloud to himself, then reflected, wishing he had spoken
to someone else, such a sight as it was.
He had done what he could to remove any reminders of any other humans from his sight. No sculpture, no song, no books to speak to him. He tried, but still the odd moment would strike him deep. Repairing a piece of machinery brought back the time when it was new and the hallways of the great vessel were busy with work to do. Every time he released deep water bacteria he would remember arguments over a certain snowy weekend. He had hold himself from sending out the clearing announcements. Usually others had handled that anyway. "IIII DECLARE THIS WORLD CCCLLEAAAREED FOR LAAAANNNDDINNG." It echoed in the sight of quiet glory. A green jewel slowly spinning from horizon to horizon, sunlight setting ocean on fire, white mountains leaving shadow across miles in relief, shallows a paler blue edging continental forests. The silence was deafeningly loud.
It was in dreams that humanity began to haunt him. In dreams he would be working the line on a early railroad. Waking he would turn to the window and see a sphere of water and cloud yet remember clearly working under a blistering hot sun with a hundred other dust covered men hammering away at rock and rail.
In dreams he walked the steps up a light house on Cape Hatteras carrying a cup of hot chocolate. He could smell the spray and feel the lighthouse shake with the wind and spray. Standing on the rocks beneath the house he watched sea froth as the waters slapped the land in protest of their limits. He heard the crack of a closing door as he watched the moving sea gray green into far still dark clouds and he heard a woman speak "I can tell by your mood that you've had a strong dream again." He felt himself reply "Yes, about a ship that traveled from star to star building up worlds form life" He could not turn to see her just enough "Was I in it?" "Yes.." he said turning to her, facing her, but not seeing her face "as the love of my life."
His dreams had taken on such intensity that he began to wonder which part was real, which was the dream? Something nagged at him, as if something had been... what? While digging out sick plants on a lower level he could have heard the voices of the rail gang in their singsong rhythm. And then during a meal, as Debussy rang through the great ship, he seemed to catch a whiff of the salty sea mist. The taste of hot chocolate lingered in his mind. But what did it all mean?
One night He dreamt of a house, complete in every detail, from flooring to ceiling, every small piece of woodwork, and the land and the valley that it lay in.
This time, He knew the valley where the house was, or would be.
It was on a world sitting on the edge of the galaxy, on the border between starlight and the vast emptiness. There was a heavily wooded valley that he had visited too many times and stayed too long too be coincidental. He went there, and went to building the house, literally of his dreams. It was to a good degree complete and he was setting aside lumber for the rest when he saw telltale streaks in the sky.
Ships, and not a Pilot's vessel. It was colonists who had reached him. He wondered how they knew that he, and this world would be here.
The work of the pilots had become the work of the adventurers. A generational work that the young and full of themselves could do until grew tired of the life. Long days and years betrayed the adventure. They were sold on the story of grand building but the process had long ago been worked out, the rest was just following through. Coming up on a gray dustball or soggy mist covered sphere for the first time to mark the possible sites was often the lone excitement.
One day then a pair of young pilots came tightly into orbit and saw for the first time past a moon a green blue gem shining in the velvet. And then another and then another. It caused a great stir, complete and coming from nowhere. Some people thought it was the work of God, others opinioned that these worlds might have created themselves by slow self evolution. Silly thought.
He watched the ships circle then come to rest outside his valley, on his world. They would be invited upon certain restrictions. He had old plans and hopes to follow through at last.
He asked that they finished building his house and to care for it until his return. They agreed and that was that.
As Christopher Bazalel set to leave he watch the settlers as they began to build their new life and homes. He watched as the men prepared the grounds for building, and begin putting up framework and walls and the women looked over the progress and begin to decide where they wanted everything to go and the children played and danced about.
His was the fastest of ships yet he found himself wishing it was faster. More than a few thousand years on his own and now the months were too long. Finally he saw a faded blue dot, then a marble, then the wonder drove him to his knees as frosted blue seas filled his vision. He was here home again at last.
Can legends endure as men? His was an extraordinary tale. It seemed though as if he functioned better as a legend than as a man. His vessel would have needed to be the size of the moon to live up what had been said about it. His return was celebrated, but he did not know all the details of the stories that had build up over his absence.
He looked up old friends, along with their children and great-grandchildren and their great-grandchildren. It was at a wedding that he began to feel infinitely old and out of touch. A guest off handily mentioned that the wife was four generations down from the last wedding he was at.
He knew enough that what was important was who you were, not what you did, but he also realized how much he was shaped by his life. He was a celebrity and a nine day wonder, but the man went unseen behind it all. .
Girl to girl to girl danced past, smiled and was off. They had never walked on one of the worlds that he had formed. They had never seen the stripes of shadow that were tied to trees as they poked through thick fog on early mornings. The never saw a particular sea of grass that flowed as far as the eye could see, dancing with you with the will of the wind. They had never watched a flock of golden yellow butterflies hoard the air for a moment, then scatter in seconds, and know that they had placed them there.
It was in an early summer that he was invited to the temple that was Jerusalem. Centuries after all the fighting the city was one temple for one god. He approached the gates with a caution. He had been here once, but that was a long time ago and he felt unworthy of it's inner halls. He walked along the benches of the outer hall, lost in thought. The outer rooms were a place of reflection, it's quiet giving you a chance to consider past mistakes and the losses that could not be retrieved.
He looked down to see a very intent set of eyes looking at him. It was a young girl, no more that three or four years old, with curls. She looked at him and asked "What are you thinking about?" He said "I'm just remembering" She gave him a hug. More accurately, she gave his knees a hug, and then ran off to her mother.
He shot a confused look to a student nearby. The student, in reply, said "This is a place of mercy, after all."
The noise of a party drifted through the quiet hall. He begun to stare off into space. This had been home so long, Yet, so long ago. And to think of the house he had started so far away. There was work to do, worlds yet unfinished. His work and life here was lost among a sea of great achievements and exotic invention. In a strange way, even here, in the middle of crowds and of humanity, he was separated by uncountable miles.
The party began to break up in pieces as parties do. The members, some laughing, some caring leftovers went on there way out to home. Some shot through, perhaps with a good grab on a child's reluctant hand. Others would meander, until they spotted him. Some, to give them credit, tried to talk, but if they had any conversation left in them it would have helped. For most it was four words past hello then gone. Finally he himself left into the thick green noise of early evening. The sun was an orange glow behind some of the trees, if you bothered to search for it, as the party's host found him and apologized for not inviting him. If this, and If that, If he had only know, If he had let it be know he has in the building...
Christopher Bazalel took this all in, holding a stern face. Then something of a smile flashed in his face "Joshua, these are beautiful people, but I don't really belong here. My home is out there." he said with a sweep of his hands to the stars.
Then he left. He did not hear his friend say with sadness "Boy... you've carried that load a long time."
He did not see the next sunrise. Before then his vessel left on it's way back into the deepest parts of starlight, back to the home he had built.
He delayed before returning. To return meant a finality of purpose it seemed. So he wandered among the dark night between stars. Then he could delay no longer for he was there.
His senses told him something was wrong before the instruments of his ship did. He returned to the valley. Quietly, slowly his vessel arced orange through a summer sky, giving the setting sun competition as birds squawked in green shadow. He saw as he approached lights flicker on to match coming starlight. He set down near his house, at least where he had build. it was night now and he was looking things over by the lights of his scout ship.
The ground where the house had stood was soggy and barely stood above the water that surrounded it. The walls were gone as well as the materials he had set aside to build on to what had been completed before. He had to kick over reeds to find the foundation. The logbooks were gone. All the personal possessions set aside for this new home.
He noticed a group of people coming to meet him. Those who had years before, had came uninvited to colonize this world and had been asked to care for his home while he was gone.
The first man to him began to chat up a storm "My friend! We are quite glad you've returned! You've noticed your house is gone no doubt. You've caught us between projects. We've been converting this valley into a basin for a dam and there are plans to rebuild your house on the shore of the lake that will come of it. Everybody wants a lake shore don't they? A nice cottage with a view, Good for inviting the relatives over for and letting them drool. But come and see what has been done since you left."
And as he was hauled from place to place he could not help but say " Yes, they are quite beautiful buildings but,... Yes, that is a very interesting arrangement but,... Yes, I see it is quite exotic but,... But is there anything left of what I left? This stopped the parade for a moment. But only a moment unfortunately. His host cried out "Of course! We have stored and saved all that you left and we will go see it in good time.
When late afternoon began to approach they made their way to a lonely spot on a slight hill. As they walked up to it the pilot reminded them of the bargain they had made to stay here. It was to make his house complete, to maintain a resting place and a haven for not just himself, but also his dreams. To that his host replied "Yes, yes we have done all that. You will be pleased with what You will find." and he opened the doors to the storage barn.
His last word echoed in the empty building. He should have been angry. He should have been ready to destroy heaven and earth and then himself but something held his hand, a calm superawareness of the moment governed his mind.
The pilot walked into the bare room. It was large in the dark. He heard a rustling as his feet walked across something. As they were walking on a sea of paper sheets his host began making many shocked apologies "We left a young lady in charge of your things, an Annabeth Roane, She obviously has been amiss in her duty." The pilot raised a piece paper and read the one word on it.
"North."
"What is north of here?" He turned, asking. "I'm not sure. We are as
far to the north as anyone normally goes. We will gather up and go in the
morning." "We will go now." The pilot made this clear. "But there is a
banquet planned in your honor." His self appointed host protested weakly.
He then looked at the pilot's stern face, dropped his eyes and admitted
"We will be going now."
They traveled into the night, a small army of stars fanning through the forest, their lanterns twinkling as they passed under the bare branches of early spring growth. At last they came to his house. Rebuilt as memory preserved it. They slowly formed a circle around it as he broke through the line and saw it for the first time, this time, again. There was not one among them that was not surprised to see this displaced structure. He walked in. The lanterns threw light inside, orange and half shadow in a band encircling the room leaving an off key echo of a hundred different sketches and one still strong dream.
He looked wondering if this was his. And considering for a moment, he said strongly "Lights." and the lights of the house obediently came on until the inside of the house shone like noontime.
It was an eerie feeling, walking inside a memory. It was his, yet this more than his. The walls, the furnishings, the small details were all as he designed. The things he had left, his logbooks, other pieces sat as he had sketched out. Yet there was a touch to it all, a care taken in its rebuilding that was unexpected.
"My friend, It's here! Isn't this all that you left?"
His reverie broke as his host, today followed by townsman after townsman came in to examine this miracle. Oohs and Aahs and "Now that's quite something" began to come through in a wave of chattering.
He looked again at the logbooks, opening one to check it's contents. His private journals for over a thousands years of flight sat here. "Oh You've got the second volume there, that's a good one, about your days in school." a pokey nose volunteered in. "You've seen these before?" he asked. "Oh yes, there required reading in school." He passed his finger over them and he came to a spot where he expected one more. "One's missing" He said out loud. "Where? Which one is missing?" It was only the one with his deepest, blackest days and his record of miseries and "Nothing that you need to worry about"
His eyes scanned around the room, as if looking through the walls into rooms past and examining each room for the location of the missing book. "My sister has a complete set, this set looks complete. I've always liked the fifth book." The pokey nose person keep speaking, trailing off as the Pilot walked away.
Up the stairwell, and now past a group, down the hall and over it was, what was to be his bed room. It was really never more to him than a square laid out on plans, never home. But to the side, next to the bed, was a small table, and hidden under the ledge,...
... it wasn't there.
Perhaps the empty room, the one he could never decide what to do with. Going down the hall and turning to the side there it was.
It was obvious, She had put it to use. She had left the walls bare, perhaps being ready to move out at a moments notice. The things she had were small, light, no doubt for ease of movement. On a desk, plans for her own place, for after she no longer was needed here, along with schedules for maintenance and planting. Beside her bed, it looked like one of his logbooks but it wasn't. It was something she had kept her own writings in. He picked it up.
"Tell me." He said "about this Annabeth,.. Roane".
He heard his host speak but somehow never saw him.
"She's quite a good girl. Inventive, curious, odd at times. She can here with her parents on the first vessel, she was about ten about then, and she stayed when they left to return home after a couple of decades. Not all colonist make on a new place you know. I hope you appreciate the difficulties that we face starting..."
He started reading.
"...This is the book of Annabeth Roane, daughter of the stars, begun at the start of my decision to search out what my life will be. I have managed by experience to observe some of how people live a life. A brilliant life from a distance becomes drudgery up close. Most seem to meander slowly downstream until a fast running current drags them to fame or infamy. Some stubbornly tramp along on in an obsolete path they set for themselves as infants even when a better way presents itself.
I will have to be careful, or someone more clever will come after me and ridicule the way I find to go as I ridicule those from before. I would be a good guess that the more one jests at the past the better example one should make of themselves for the future and the more the jest more the risk. So perhaps it is best to hold my tongue but still be careful."
"Clever girl" the pilot muttered to himself as the host kept on "...When we decided to put in a lake where you built your house, she was one of the ones who volunteered to take in down for storage and rebuilding later, although she seems to have taken care of that, we really did set a schedule for that if you had just waited a while before..."
He turned the pages and read more.
"I have come to believe that we are independent islands of thought isolated at birth from the warm confines of total contact with another. From then on we live our lives in our skulls. Everything we see, we see inside and everything we feel we feel inside our skulls for certain. No man can crawl into the skull of another to see things as he see them. Perhaps the one man sees as red what the other has always seen as blue. But because people had always spoken of a blue sky he had only know this label, this perception of frequency of light, this color, as blue. We are limited by bone, everything else, skin and ears and eyes are wired devices, interpreting for us from the outside world.
I stare sometimes at a strangers face, wondering if there could be some link between us that would open up all of a lifetimes information between us.
It is quiet here, where I have begun to rebuilt the pilot's house. Being alone all that time he may seek the company of others but he could not survive too much, I believe. He would be too unused to human company after so many years to be dumped amid many. Here there is only the orchestra of the meadow. When the rain comes playing drums and the trees brush the wind and whistle in imitation of the viola is it just happenstance or is it music that I hear?"
He became aware of her smell, lightly left in the room. A perfume like an ocean breeze. He could barely make it out at first. Her things were not extravagant but well designed and beautiful.
He picked up her book and parsed through briefly, careful of her privacy. Her writings revealed someone who asked questions of herself. A portrait of an intelligent and observant woman. Someone to whom knowing was more important than owning.
He began to wonder where she was. He went from room to room examining the faces of his guests. None returned his stare with knowing eyes. Not the eyes of the author. Those would be hungry.
He made his way to the rotunda, the upper room. From this room he could see in the distance the first rays of morning painting the upper edges of The Stellar Archipelago orange against a cloudless baby blue morning.
He open her book to the last page and read "..I wonder if christopher
will ever read my words. He was only legend, the Pilot, a myth to tell
children when I was only a child. He's become a man somehow, Christopher,
...Dear Christopher. What can you tell from what one builds? What
will it tell you of their temper or courage? What does it tell you? Can
you fall in love with someone you've never met?
I have read his thoughts, even the hidden book, the Book of His Heart. Is this enough to know? And what will happen when he returns?"
He looked up again and saw the Stellar Archipelago dominate the sky. He knew where she was.
He wasted no time bolting out the front door. He had left no horses here but an appaloosa stood in the meadow, saddled and ready. He was surprised to see a horse. The thought occurred to him as he mounted that they sometimes brought the necessary things with them.
As he approached the base of the ship he could see a crowd around it. Looking in the windows of his vessel he could see no one peering down at him but he wondered if they had gone in it as well.
As he dismounted the crowd parted, spreading as he closed in, until he reached his ship and the last one of the crowd stayed in place. She looked up and he knew. "Are you the pilot, Christopher Bazalel?" she asked.
"Yes, Annabeth.., is it Miss?"
Mercy had been shown to him and now it was time for him to show mercy. Christopher opened his coat and took out her journal. "And I believe this is yours." And he held it out to her.
Annabeth asked him "Have you read it?"
The reply was simply "Enough."
She took hold of it, lost for a moment and them fearing the answer she asked "Pilot, sir, tell me if you can, is it possible to fall in love with someone you've never met?"
Christopher, inches away from Annabeth now and looking in her eyes, spoke with a quietness but a solidness as he said, "Perhaps," a smile began to broaden brightly across her face "perhaps you can start."
And he kissed her.
It was the beginning of his life (as he saw it), and the end of this
story (as we see it). If you must know they married and settled for a while
(somewhere far from there) until they returned at last to the Stellar Archipelago
and the stars.