God

22:12:30 GMT TUESDAY 14 JUNE 2050

God came to the cheela slowly. For many, many, many generations, the cheela had no God. The sky was empty except for a few tiny pinpricks of light scattered across the cold, black dome. Then God had become lonely and made the great volcano grow, driving the cheela from their home in the north to a new home in the south. There the god Bright had welcomed his chosen people into the Heaven he had prepared for them.

Bright had been good to the cheela. Bright never rose or set like the other spots of light, but stayed up in the sky, keeping watch over all the cheela. Life was good, and the cheela let Bright know that they were happy by their prayers that they faithfully gave every turn of Bright’s throne.

Then one turn, when the eyes of the cheela were lifted to the skies in prayer, one of the supplicants saw a new speck rise over the horizon. As soon as the prayers were finished, he brought it to the attention of the Holy Ones that interpreted Bright’s wishes.

The Holy Ones were puzzled, but did not let it show. As masters of their profession, they had learned to say little and do even less until they were sure of themselves.

“Yes—we expected something like that, but let us wait and we will study it further,” they reassured the excited discoverer.

They did study it. It was still a speck in the sky, not much different from all the other specks, but it soon became brighter than any of the others. Fortunately, it was not nearly as brilliant as the god Bright, as it would have been difficult to explain two gods to a people that had been brought up to believe in the omnipotence and uniqueness of the One God—Bright.

The new speck grew and grew in brilliance with each passing turn, and although the common cheela noticed the increase in brightness, it was only the Holy Ones who noticed that the speck was also slowly moving with respect to the other stars in the sky. A moving star! This was unheard of in cheela astrology, where the pattern of lights, dominated by the glaring red-yellow presence of Bright, had always remained fixed in relative position while rotating slowly about Bright’s throne in the sky.

“If the stars are not fixed, but move around, how can one make any kind of predictions from them? The future would be constantly changing,” complained Bright’s-Second, the Chief Astrologer and next in line for the position of High Priest.

“I am sure Bright has a reason for this change in the sky,” Bright’s-First said. “It is up to us to use our intelligence in the service of Bright and interpret its meaning.”

The High Priest turned her eyes toward the young novice.

“Are you sure of the motion?” she asked.

“Yes, O Bright’s-First,” said Sky-Seeker. “In my training in astrology I have been learning how to estimate the angles between the star specks with the astrologer sticks and have memorized almost all my number tables. I had tried to add the new star to my memory but, still being a novice, I had failed to get all the numbers correctly. I realized my mistake many turns later when I was trying to cast a fortune. I then went back to the astrologer sticks to get the numbers correctly and I found that some of the old numbers that I had memorized did not agree with the new ones for that star.”

“Unfortunately, he is correct,” the Chief Astrologer said. “At first I thought his memory was faulty or that someone had disturbed the astrologer sticks. However, when I checked the numbers against the ones that I had committed to memory on the fateful turn when that star blossomed in the sky, I found out that my old numbers were even further off than the novice’s, yet none of the other stars in the sky have changed their numbers at all.”

“A moving star…” the High Priest murmured. “One that moves. It must be that Bright has sent us a messenger! Perhaps Bright will speak directly to us now.”

Soon the religion of the cheela was broadened to include the new phenomenon, a star that not only grew brighter and brighter until it rivaled Bright in its brilliance, but which swept majestically across the skies. There was some consternation when Bright’s Messenger reached perihelion and its brilliance started to fade, but all the cheela were relieved when after a few greats of turns, it retraced its path in the sky.

The new star set the small cadre of novices talking among themselves. Having been picked primarily because of their interest in numbers and their eidetic memory, so necessary for the position of an astrologer in a civilization without writing, they soon began to puzzle over the strange behavior of the motion of Bright’s Messenger.

“If it were a circle, then it would make more sense,” said one of the novices. “We could say that Bright and the other stars are perched on a large crystal egg that rotates once a turn, and Bright’s Messenger would then be on a smaller crystal egg, turning at a slightly faster rate.”

“But not only is it not a circle,” another said, “it does not even move evenly along its path.”

“Another way of looking at it is that Bright and the stars do not move in the sky,” said a third, “but that Egg turns once on its axis every turn, and that Bright’s Messenger rotates about Egg in an elongated path.”

The others looked at her as if she had spoken heresy (which she had come close to doing), and one quickly put her down with one of the first lessons in Holy School.

“All stars rotate about the unique brilliance of Bright, worshiping the God of the Universe as all cheela do,” one of them said. “Your picture would have the stars standing still, when we all know that only Bright, the center of the universe, stands still, while all else must revolve.”

Knowing she was treading on unstable crust, Sky-Seeker did not bother to reply, although she knew as well as the others, that Bright did not really stand still but moved in a tiny circle about an invisible point in the sky. This lack of perfection of Bright had been a nagging splinter in the tread of the philosophers of theology since it was first discovered by the use of the astrologer sticks. The High Priest had assured them that they would understand this in time, but it had been a long time and a dozen High Priests had come and gone and Bright still carried out the tiny motion, without bothering to explain.

01:15:33 GMT WEDNESDAY 15 JUNE 2050

The Chief Astrologer had been wrong. The variable motion of Bright’s Messenger across the sky did not doom the science of astrology. Indeed, by adding some complexity to the sky it gave the astrologers much more to work with than a single set of memorized numbers that gave the relative position of the stars in the sky. Soon, the old technique of casting horoscopes by the star that was appearing over the horizon at the propitious time became obsolete. The position of Bright’s Messenger among the fixed positions of the rest of the stars became the dominant factor in predicting the future.

It soon became evident that the technique of memorizing the numbers taken with the astrologer sticks was not going to work. Even the best memories of the novices could not cope with the flood of numbers that Bright’s Messenger produced every turn. The ancient accounting technique of the business merchants, who monitored their inventory with pod seeds in bins, was adapted by the astrologers. After an awkward time of trying to work directly with seeds, one of the novices discovered the device of scratching pictures of seeds on flat plates of rock, then shortly after that, because of the hardness of the rock and the laziness of the novices, a shorthand written number system was invented. Not only astrology, but business and science were soon revolutionized by the discovery of written numbers. Then, shortly after having gotten used to writing numbers on a tablet, the merchant scribes (as lazy as the astrologer scribes) found that they didn’t have to draw a complete picture of the object that was being counted for an inventory or delivery record, but only enough so that another scribe (presumably equally loath to make complete drawings) would be able to recognize what it was.

Thus, although none of the High Priests ever realized it, the cheela were soon using the gift that Bright had sent by its Messenger—the gift of writing.

01:33:23 GMT FRIDAY 17 JUNE 2050

For greats of greats of turns, the life of the cheela was smooth. Bright kept watch over Heaven and blessed the cheela in their growth and in their conquests of the north and east. Small, savage bands of leathery-skinned barbarians would often leave their smoky lands to the north and attempt raids on the croplands in the northern part of Heaven, but the cheela farmers in the north were well protected by roving squads of needle troopers.

The needle troopers carried the dreaded weapon, the dragon tooth. A very long needle of melted dragon crystal, it was made by the forgers, who used fires of dried pod seeds blown to a blue white heat with bellows from Flow Slow skin to melt otherwise useless pieces of dragon crystal until they had a liquid melt. The glowing melt was poured into a groove cut into the crust along the easy direction. The long fibrous strings in the liquid became aligned by the strong magnetic field of the star. The liquid then recrystallized about the fibers, forming a two-component matrix material that was as strong as the original dragon crystal, except that now it was longer than any dragon crystal had ever been. A cheela trooper could envelop the blunt end of the needle and get enough leverage so he or she could extend the light, strong needle of crystal out a full body diameter without letting the point either touch the crust or rise too high in the air.

The barbarians, not having the secrets of the forge, were limited to broken shards of dragon crystal for their weapons and were no match for a well-trained squad of needle troopers, who moved in disciplined circles, their dragon tooth needles bristling across the tops of their interlocked Flow Slow plate shields.

19:24:11 GMT FRIDAY 17 JUNE 2050

Commander Carole Swenson was floating above the console, watching over Pierre’s shoulder as the outward-going asteroid met the first of the compensator masses still waiting far out in the asteroid belt. In the same manner as it had dropped the deorbiter mass toward the neutron star, the large asteroid overtook the first of the smaller masses and dropped it inward toward the star. It then went on to the next one. After watching the first two, Carole went back to the bridge. Nothing was more boring than the inevitability of the Newtonian law of gravitational attraction.

One after another, the six glowing compensator masses were dropped from their far-flung orbits to a spot near St. George, where they were met by the deorbiter mass, which stopped them in their tracks and left them dancing randomly about each other in a 100,000-kilometer circular orbit not too far from St. George. Their huge bulk dwarfed the long, thin mother ship, and the heat generated during their formation made them glow like new stars in the black sky.

10:15:02 GMT SATURDAY 18 JUNE 2050

One after the other, new stars began to blossom in the sky. The cheela in Bright’s Heaven continued to multiply and prosper, but their very numbers began to strain the ability of the crust to support them. Decadence set in and soon the needle trooper commanders despaired of ever adequately defending the expanding frontier with the flabby, ill-fed recruits they were sent to use.

A fifth new light grew in the sky during the time the barbarians made inroads from the east. Alarmed, by both the losses and the new stars, the cheela rose under the leadership of a self-proclaimed General of the Clans and drove the barbarians back. The spasm of energy subsided—the General abandoned his post and went off to hatch eggs—and the cheela slipped back into their slow decline.

Yet another star blazed in the heavens, and this time the flurry of worry and religious concern was brief. Bright’s-First still worshiped daily in Bright’s Temple, but few came to worship with him. Those who were still in need of a god had found six of them in a new religion—a popular pantheistic religion that had a little bit of everything for everybody, including religiously inspired orgies that took place every time Bright’s Messenger passed near “The Six”—which represented East, West, Sky, Crust, Food, and Sex.

04:02:02 GMT SUNDAY 19 JUNE 2050

Most of the crew of the interstellar ark were floating in front of the viewports on the bridge as St. George approached the site of the compressed asteroid collection. The rest were at various observation posts where the telescopes and scanners gave them a better view.

Pierre looked up from the screen and rotated to face the Commander of the expedition.

“I know it’s safe, but I still don’t like it, Carole,” he said. “Those red-hot asteroids are not only too hot to touch, but they would crush us with their gravity tides if we ever got too close. And we are going to live within 200 meters of six of them for over a week!”

Carole smiled reassuringly and replied, “You know perfectly well that, if it were not for the toasty embrace of those friendly asteroids, the gravity tides of Dragon’s Egg would crush you instead! Let’s get them down there where they will do you some good.”

08:00:13 GMT SUNDAY 19 JUNE 2050

Bright’s-Second had been keeping a careful watch on the collection of six lights ever since he had been a novice. Having entered the priesthood because he was withdrawn and unpopular, he had submerged himself in the astrologer sticks and had invented new tools to measure more accurately the minute motions of the many lights piercing the darkness. He was the first to notice that the tiny circle that Bright made in the sky had become measurably smaller. He took the news to Bright’s-First, who was delighted.

“That must mean that the imperfection in Bright, miniscule as it has been, is becoming smaller,” she said. “When will be the time that Bright is perfect? Oh that I might live to see the turn!”

“I am afraid that when that turn comes, we will both be meat, O High Priest of Bright,” the Chief Astrologer said. “Entire clans will have come and gone before Bright reaches its perfection.”

The High Priest was disappointed, but she didn’t let it show. “Well, we must maintain our stewardship and keep Bright’s Temple going until that turn comes and the people once again return to their One True God.”

The Chief Astrologer listened politely, but was bursting to tell the High Priest the other news that he had.

“My new sticks have also informed me that something else is happening,” he said. “The Six… I mean, the six newer lights are slightly shifting in position and are drawing closer and closer to the point where Bright’s Messenger reaches its farthest distance from Egg. Also, if you watch The Six and Bright’s Messenger as often as I do, you will see that they do not stay at the same brightness from turn to turn, but occasionally flare up slightly, then return to their original level.”

“What can that mean?” Bright’s-First asked.

“I don’t know, but in about a great of turns, Bright’s Messenger will reach its maximum distance from Egg, and it seems as if all six of the other lights will be there at the same time. If so, something interesting may happen.”

08:00:43 GMT SUNDAY 19 JUNE 2050

When the deorbiter came up this time, there was going to be a spectacular show. Commander Swenson was again in the port science blister, watching the action on the console screens.

“Check position of compensator masses!” Pierre called out.

Six confirmations flashed instantly on his screen and were echoed by voices floating through the air from six nearby consoles, where each compensator mass was being monitored by a crew member.

Pierre looked up at Carole as he shrugged and lifted his finger from the abort toggle. “I really don’t know why we insist on monitoring the computer on these close encounters. Things are going so fast I doubt we could do anything about it even if something did go wrong with the computer.”

“Still,” Carole said, “it lets us get in on the fun.” She watched as a tiny speck in one corner of the screen slowly grew bigger and approached the six glowing spheres in the center of the screen. Then, in a complex wiggle and flash, the deorbiter mass pulled its disappearing act. The six glowing compensator masses were gone, and the screen was empty.

08:00:44 GMT SUNDAY 19 JUNE 2050

Bright’s-Second had his suspicions verified. For when Bright’s Messenger reached its point of maximum distance from Egg, it did not just pass in front of the Six, but instead grabbed East, Sex, Crust, West, Food, then finally Sky, and flung them down at Egg.

The dozen turns in which the sky was torn asunder by Bright’s Messenger throwing down the false gods from the sky was a busy time for Bright’s Temple. At first, the cheela were sure that the Six were going to fall and hit Egg, destroying the wicked cheela that had abandoned Bright and had turned to false gods. For a while, even Bright’s-Second was worried about that possibility. But a few dozen turns staring through the astrologer sticks assured him that although the falling stars would come close to Egg, they would only come as close as Bright’s Messenger did. When the High Priest passed Bright’s-Second’s assurance of salvation on to the cheela, the crowds flocked to Bright’s Temple.

Near the end of the fourth great of turns after their fall, the six star-specks and Bright’s Messenger drew closer, and moved more rapidly through the black heavens. Bright’s-Second spent almost his entire time out at the astrologer sticks, writing down the numbers as fast as he could determine them. After he was certain of the orbits, he could spend some time carefully drawing them out and trying to understand them, but right now his full time was spent collecting the numbers as the seven bright objects moved through the heavens. He determined that Bright’s Messenger had been affected by the interaction—not much, but an easily measurable change had been made in its highly elliptical orbit. He hated to do it, but he put a novice in charge of taking the numbers, and went off to draw up the new orbits of the fallen Six.

“Strange,” thought Bright’s-Second, “they all seem to be heading for the same place above Egg. Perhaps they will hit each other and destroy themselves, as an example to the cheela not to worship false gods.”

Suddenly he had another thought, and shortly he was staring at still another egg-shaped orbit—that of Bright’s Messenger with its new numbers used.

“Bright’s Messenger is going to be at the same point at the same time,” he said to himself. “What is going to happen? It would be to Bright’s glory if I could predict the outcome for the people, so they could be properly prepared.”

Bright’s-Second tried as hard as he could to extract the most from the inadequate numbers that came from the crude astrologer sticks, but all he could tell was that Bright’s Messenger and the six fallen ones were going to be near the same place at the same time.

“They look as if they will all collide and be destroyed,” Bright’s-Second reported to the High Priest. “But it could be that Bright’s Messenger will toss the other six off into different directions again, perhaps back up to where they were. I simply don’t know what to predict.”

“It would be so much better if we knew,” she replied, “but perhaps Bright is testing us again.”

Bright’s-First was wise in the ways of religious leaders and only told her people that they were all to be praying, with their eyes to the eastern skies, when the time came for the stars to meet.

Inexorably the seven spots in the sky drew closer together, and now everyone could see the irregular flaring in intensity as if they were glaring at each other. Bright’s-Second was busy at the astrologer sticks. He had the novices working in teams, one for each of the seven lights. They often got in each other’s way and a number or two was lost or misread, but he could take care of those later. He himself, with his practiced eyes, was estimating the relative distance between the points of light, while the novices were measuring with respect to the background stars. It was now obvious that they were not all going to meet at exactly the same place. Then, as the cheela watched, they saw Bright’s Messenger swing by Sex, West, Food, East, Crust, and finally Sky, then continue on its accustomed path back into the blackness, leaving the six standing still in the sky!

A keening vibration shook the crust as a great of greats of cheela treads chattered in fear and awe at the amazing sight. Where before, the six stars had risen and set in the skies each turn as the other stars and Bright’s Messenger had done, they now were stationary. They neither rose nor set, but slowly rotated once a turn around a point above the east magnetic pole.

The High Priest took full advantage of the extraordinary sight, and at the next turn proclaimed that the new formation was composed of six of Bright’s eyes, brought down to Egg by Bright’s Messenger to vigilantly watch over the cheela to see if they were daring to worship false gods again. The proclamation was accepted by the cheela, and the pantheistic temples were reduced to rubble by frightened mobs cowering under the constant glare of the Six Eyes of Bright.

The new formation in the sky bothered Bright’s-Second. It was counter to everything he had ever known about the behavior of the many lights in the sky. Having been a trooper chaplain during the last northern campaign against the barbarians, he had marched with the troopers across the equator to destroy a barbarian town. There, through breaks in the smoke cover, he had seen some tiny stars that rotated in small circles over the north pole, as Bright did over the south pole. He could understand a star being motionless in the sky if it were near a pole in the sky, but this was the first time an east or west magnetic pole had acted like the north and south poles.

08:03:10 GMT SUNDAY 19 JUNE 2050

“The compensator masses are down,” Carole said, turning to Pierre. “Now it is Dragon Slayer’s turn.”

Pierre, ignoring the small screen pager on his wrist, reached over to a nearby console. “Page crew of Dragon Slayer!”

The console blinked.

PAGING CESAR RAMIREZ WONG
PAGING JEAN KELLY THOMAS
PAGING AMALITA SHAKHASHIRI DRAKE
PAGING SEIKO KAUFFMANN TAKAHASHI
PAGING ABDUL NKOMI FAROUK

Pierre watched as the “Page acknowledged” mark appeared in front of each name. The computer had found them all busy at one task or another onboard the Dragon Slayer. He leaned forward and asked, “Does everything look good for a departure at 0930?” He reached down and flicked the audio output panel to avoid the screen clutter from a multiple response. The computer fed him the positive confirmations one at a time. Dragon Slayer was ready to go.

Kicking off from the console, Pierre floated across the bridge of St. George, then pulled his way down the tunnels to the launching hangar that contained the seven meter sphere that would be his home for the next eight days.

09:10:15 GMT SUNDAY 19 JUNE 2050

It was twenty minutes to separation and the crew of Dragon Slayer gathered in the small lounge at the base of the ship. Pierre looked over the crew who were to share the next eight days of danger, drudgery, and excitement with him. He couldn’t have picked a better group. All had at least double-doctorates despite their youthful ages. Jean, Amalita, and Abdul each had a Ph.D. in astrophysics and a doctorate in one aspect or another of electrical engineering. “Doc” Cesar Wong (the only “real” doctor on Dragon Slayer) had the unusual combination of an M.D. in aerospace medicine and a Ph.D. in supermagnetics. Pierre himself had a Ph.D. in high-density nucleonic theory, and doctorates in gravitational engineering and journalism. Seiko, at 32, had them all beat. At last count she had four doctorates and expected to earn another as the result of their trip. Although each was a specialist in one aspect or another of neutron star physics, they had cross-trained so that each one of them could carry out any portion of the detailed science schedule that Dragon Slayer’s crew was on. Pierre spoke.

“After separation we will be on ten-hour interlocking duty shifts. There will be a two-hour overlap so the new person coming on duty can be debriefed on the status of the experiments before taking over. It is now 0912 so Abdul, Seiko and Doc are on duty, with Doc on his mid-shift meal break and Seiko to go off duty at 1000. We had better get into the routine, so the rest of us should relax now. I know we aren’t going to quarters during breakaway, but our shift will be coming up soon, so make sure that you get some sleep, and don’t spend your off hours just watching the others work.”

The time for separation approached, and they all went up to the main deck where each would have a viewport. The breakaway was quiet and uneventful. The procedure consisted of opening the hatch doors of the huge mother ship, unlocking the attachment fittings, and slowly backing the larger ship away from the freely falling sphere. Pierre had been right—no one went to quarters as the small sphere floated away from the immense side of the interstellar ark.

Cesar spoke. “It is always awe-inspiring to be outside, and up this close. The last time for me was when I came on board two years ago.”

“I’ve been out a dozen times on antenna maintenance,” Amalita said. “But you’re right—no matter how often you see it, it is still impressive.”

Pierre spoke into the communications console. “You look good, St. George. See you in a week.”

“Good hunting, Dragon Slayer,” came Carole’s throaty reply.

They drifted away from the ark. As it grew smaller and smaller in the distance, the crew members gathered around the port facing the retreating mother ship. Finally Pierre went to one of the consoles and rotated the sphere so that the port faced the neutron star that they would soon be orbiting at close quarters.

“The deorbiter will arrive in six hours,” Pierre said to the crew. “Everyone into the high-gravity protection tanks.” He closed the metal shields over the viewport windows, turned off the console, and started opening the hatches in the six spherical tanks clustered around the exact mass center of Dragon Slayer.

The crew went to suit lockers, where they stripped down to briefs and put on tight-fitting wet suits with a complex array of hydraulic tubing, pressure bladders, and a full underwater breathing apparatus. They then climbed, one by one, into the spherical tanks. Abdul was ready first and climbed into the tank with the hatch that opened downward into the lounge. Pierre helped him in, closed the lid, checked the breathing air once more, got a final nod from Abdul and then purged all the air out of the tank, filling it completely with nearly incompressible water. He then checked out all the ultrasonic driver circuits that would send powerful currents to the piezoelectric drivers that would produce rapidly varying pressure waves from different sides of the tank to counteract the differential gravity fields that the water alone did not take care of.

Once he had Abdul safely in the tank, he turned and visited the rest of the crew. Amalita had checked out her equipment and was climbing into her tank, while Seiko Kauffmann Takahashi, with her typical Germanic thoroughness, was still checking out her air system. Jean was already in her tank and Doc had carried out the final checkout with her. Pierre floated by Seiko, and double checked Jean’s tank for good measure. He took no chances, for if Jean’s tank failed during the de-orbiting maneuver and any of the water leaked out, then the beautiful body of Jean Kelly Thomas would be literally torn to shreds by the powerful tidal forces from the deorbiter that would yank at head and feet with a pull of 10,000 gees, while simultaneously compressing her about her waistline with 5000 gees.

“We would have to bottle her and pour her into the crematorium when we got back to St. George,” he thought to himself. Pierre shook his head at the grisly thought and proceeded to climb into his own tank.

Pierre looked through his faceplate at the miniature control console built into the side of his tank. One viewing screen was divided into six sections. Each section held a picture of the inside of one of the tanks. He waited patiently as Seiko finished her methodical check of each one of her pressure bladders, closed her hatch cover, purged her remaining air, then turned to face her console pickup.

“Seiko Kauffmann Takahashi secured,” intoned the stolid image, the short efficient oriental bob outlining the determined round face.

Pierre flashed a smile at all the screens. “I’ll push the button for the down elevator,” he said, touching a panel and flicking the screen controls to bring in a view of a large, rapidly spinning star in one corner and a glowing speck in another. The speck flashed occasionally as powerful rocket motors trimmed its course.

Through the long wait they could feel vibrations and slight accelerations that leaked through their water shields and pressure suits. These were vibrations from the ship’s rockets, as the computer brought the spacecraft and the ultradense asteroid closer together.

“Down we go!” Pierre whispered into his throat mike, but he was only part way through the first phoneme when the asteroid passed by them. In a blink, they whirled half way around the massive sphere and found themselves falling down toward the neutron star, the ship’s engines firing at full blast to remove the angular momentum that had been imparted by the gravity whip.

The drop down into the fierce gravity well of Dragon’s Egg only took two and a quarter minutes. All was quiet for most of the fall, but in the last few seconds—as they began to approach the neutron star—Pierre could feel the differential pressures of the tidal forces on the water in the tank. Then in a last instantaneous burst of feeling, Pierre’s head was jerked about by a fierce acceleration. His ears ached and his hands and legs were jerked about by the second and third order tidal effects, as the piezoelectric drivers sang their ultrasonic cloak of protection into the water that surrounded him.

His eyes failed to see the glow of the deorbiter mass as it flashed again across his screen, leaving Dragon Slayer motionless in the center of the six compensator masses that were whirling about the neutron star and the spacecraft five times a second. “What a ride!” a female voice said over the intercom, masked by the excitement and the breathing mask.

“Time to get out of your swimming pools and get to work!” Pierre said to the faces on his screen. He fingered the pump control switch and felt the pressure drop inside his tank.

09:45:00 GMT SUNDAY 19 JUNE 2050

Not many saw the faint star as Bright’s Messenger left it at the center of Six Eyes. It had been too faint to see when it was in its high orbit above the star, since it did not have a glow of its own like the other stars in the sky. But once it was basking in the glow of Six Eyes, the speck reflected their radiance and could be seen by those worshipers of Bright with the best eyesight or the most faith.

“The new star in the center of Six Eyes does not move,” the Chief Astrologer reported to Bright’s-First, the High Priest. “The Six Eyes are almost motionless—however, they do rotate once every turn about the east pole. The new inner star is at the exact center of Six Eyes and does not move at all.”

The High Priest was pleased with the news. Finally something logical was happening in the skies above Bright’s Heaven.

“If the new star does not move in the sky, then it is like Bright—who also does not move. Many generations ago Bright sent down six of his eyes to keep careful watch on the unfaithful cheela of that time. It seems that Bright has approved of what he has been seeing, and he has sent down his inner eye of faith to look upon those who have been worshiping him for so long. This new eye is the Inner Eye of Bright.”

09:50:34 GMT SUNDAY 19 JUNE 2050

After exiting the tanks, the crew of Dragon Slayer gathered on the main console deck. The outside metallic micrometeorite shields had been pulled back from the six darkened viewing ports and they stared out. It was a dizzying sight, although they could feel no motion.

They were in a synchronous orbit 400 km out from the neutron star. To counteract the 41-million-gee gravitational pull from the nearby star, their spacecraft had to orbit about the star at five revolutions per second. Yet despite the rapid rotation they felt nothing because Dragon Slayer was stabilized to inertial space and did not try to keep a port facing the neutron star. It was good that it did not, for the centrifugal force in a spacecraft spinning around at five revolutions per second would have been enough to crush their bodies to a pulp against the outer bulkhead.

Since the spacecraft was orbiting but not spinning, this meant that the large, brilliant image of the neutron star flashed by each of the viewing ports five times a second, shining a flickering white glow on the walls of the central deck. Also visible through the ports was a ring of six, large, red ultra-dense asteroids only 200 meters away. They too whirled about the spacecraft five times a second, their glow alternating with the flashes from the distant neutron star.

Seiko took in the scene at one view port with a quick professional glance. She then shut her eyes and went limp in the air. Her arms and legs were stretched out in all directions.

“What’s the matter!” Cesar exclaimed, looking over at her with concern.

Seiko slowly opened one eye. “Don’t be concerned, Doctor Wong, I was merely checking the tidal compensation,” she said, slightly annoyed at being interrupted. “At 406 kilometers from the neutron star, the tidal gravity gradient should be 101 gees per meter. Even though my middle is in free-fall, my arms, legs and head try to go in different orbits. My feet are one meter closer to the star and should feel a pull of 202 gees. My head is one meter further than my middle and should also feel a pull of 202 gees, while my arms should feel a push of 101 gees.

“The six compensator masses also make tidal forces of the same magnitude, only they make tides of the opposite sign. I was just trying to see how accurately the two tides were compensating by using my hands and feet as crude accelerometers. I am surprised at how small the residual tide is. Only very near the hull can I sense any forces on my arms as the ship rotates.” She closed her eyes again and continued to feel the play of the minute gravitational tugs coming twenty times a second on her hands and feet as the compensator masses and the neutron star whirled about the ship five times a second, rotating their four-lobed gravity pattern about the nonspinning ship.

After watching for some minutes, the crew began to be bothered by the flickering of the lights. By common consent, the metal shields were activated and slid back over the viewing ports, returning the main console room to its steady internal illumination. The crew then turned to their job, which was to examine the neutron star with instruments a lot more sophisticated than a naked human eye.

06:26:30 GMT MONDAY 20 JUNE 2050

The Old One watched attentively as Sharp-Slicer carefully opened her laying orifice and deposited her egg at the entrance to the egg-pen. “That egg does not look right,” the Old One said with a combination of concern and disapproval.

Sharp-Slicer looked at the egg-sac with her dozen dark red eyes. The egg was much smaller than normal, and very pale. “It didn’t feel right while it was growing, either,” she replied. “I hope it will be all right after it hatches.”

“Don’t worry, I and the other Old Ones will take good care of it,” Loud-Talker said. “Perhaps it will grow bigger after it hatches and can get more food.”

Relieved of her burden, Sharp-Slicer left the egg pen and returned to her duties as Leader of the Clan. The egg would be well taken care of by the devoted Old Ones. Within a few turns, she had forgotten all about the incident. After all, when one was as old as she was, with a half-dozen eggs contributed to the egg-pen, they all seemed to blend into one another.

The pale egg got lots of attention, for all the Old Ones were very concerned about every one of the eggs entrusted to them. Loud-Talker took extra care to keep the pale little egg-sac sheltered at all times under the flared edge of skin that he used as a hatching mantle. He never forgot to roll the flattened oval sac over a full dozen times each turn, to keep the eggling inside properly exercised.

Loud-Talker was at first concerned when the time for hatching came and went, but soon thereafter he could feel the eggling stir inside the sac. It was with relief that he finally felt the warm flush of fluid under his mantle as the egg sac burst and the eggling squirmed out.

Loud-Talker carefully rolled the other egg-sacs away from the new hatchling while still keeping them all under his hatching mantle. He maneuvered the hatchling to the edge of his mantle and let it come out.

“Pink eyes!” Loud-Talker exclaimed in amazement, his cool dark red eyes staring down at the small pale cheela. The dozen tiny pink eyes surrounding the white body of the new hatchling waved unsteadily as they stared up at the cold, dark sky.

His t’trum of amazement brought another Old One, who had been helping in the hatchling pen. The two Old Ones looked the new hatchling over with great concern. There was obviously something wrong with it, with its small size, pink eyes, and feverishly hot pale body.

“I have never seen a little one like this before,” said the other Old One.

“I have not either,” Loud-Talker said. “But when I was Leader of the Combined Clans, I heard from my advisors about hatchlings similar to this one. They are called Bright’s Afflicted.”

Loud-Talker flared another section of his skin and slowly passed it up and over the little one. “Why don’t you take over the eggs for a while,” he asked the other, “while I take this little hatchling out to the hatchling pen and give him something to eat?” Carefully prodding the little one along, he went out the entrance of the egg-pen to the feeding trough of the hatchling pen. There, Loud-Talker helped the hatchling put a tiny piece of pod into an intake orifice. Soon the little one was successfully finding and stuffing himself with more food, with almost no help from the Old One.

Loud-Talker watched the hatchling eat. He was clumsy, but then most hatchlings were clumsy until they had practiced eating for a few turns. However, this one seemed worse than the others. Loud-Talker formed a slender tendril and moved it close to one of the hot tiny pink eyes, but the eye did not withdraw into its protective fold until the tendril was almost upon it.

“Poor hatchling,” Loud-Talker said. “I am afraid those pink eyes of yours do not serve you well.” His protective instincts swelled, and from then on, the little hatchling became the special project of Loud-Talker.

Pink-Eyes ate and grew, but always stayed much smaller than the other hatchlings his age. He had courage, and tried to play in the rough-and-tumble games that hatchlings play, but his poor eyesight put him at a considerable disadvantage. The part of life in the hatchling pen that he liked best was listening to the stories of the clan storyteller.

Loud-Talker was the storyteller, for he had had many more experiences than the other Old Ones. After each storytelling session, the other hatchlings would rumble noisily away, pushing and shoving each other, while Pink-Eyes would stay and ask questions about life outside the hatchling pen. He questioned Loud-Talker about what it was like to be Leader of the Combined Clans and talk to a dozen greats of cheela at one time, and have them all listen quietly to the words.

“It must have been wonderful to have been so important, Old One Loud-Talker,” Pink-Eyes said. “Why did you stop being Leader?”

“Well,” Loud-Talker rumbled in wry humor, “I didn’t really stop. It was just that someone bigger and stronger wanted to be Leader, and after discussing it with him for a while, I decided that I didn’t want to be Leader of the Combined Clans any longer.” He unconsciously formed a tendril and brushed it over a scar on his hide as he went on. “Besides, I was getting tired of being Leader. More and more I wanted to come and tend eggs and play with you hatchlings and tell you stories and do nothing else until I flow.” Loud-Talker flared his protective mantle and brushed it over the feverish body of the eager little pale one while Pink-Eyes reflexively shrank to minimum area and reveled in the cool caress.

06:30:00 GMT MONDAY 20 JUNE 2050

Abdul Nkomi Farouk’s nimble brain woke up softly, ready for anything. He slowly opened his eyes and grinned inwardly at the sight of his brown arms floating aimlessly in front of him. He was awake, but they were still asleep.

“Get busy arms!” he thought to them. “You have a lot of button pushing to do today if we are ever going to get that neutron star mapped.”

However, the first thing that the arms did was their now automatic twist and curl of the tips of Abdul’s fierce black moustache. Abdul’s eyes watched the arms in amusement. He then gave them his first direct command. Instantly his body dropped from its dreamlike trance and became one with his mind. He unsealed the sleeping cocoon and pushed off to the head.

06:32:24 GMT MONDAY 20 JUNE 2050

It was nearly time for Pink-Eyes to leave the hatchling pen when Loud-Talker died. Loud-Talker was in the midst of his favorite activity; telling stories to the hatchlings. He was recounting the tale of the time he had led the forces of the Combined Clans in a punitive raid to drive back the barbarians in the north. He was just getting to the good part, where he personally hacked up a dozen barbarians at one time (the number of barbarians seemed to increase with each telling), when a fluid pump to his brain-knot failed. The constant muscular tension in his skin relaxed, and his body spread into a large, limp circle that flowed out and in between the hatchlings.

Pink-Eyes was shocked. This was not the first Old One that he had seen die, but the loss of his special friend and mentor was a great blow. He stayed rooted to the spot, not even moving when the butchering crew came to get the body. He was still there when the hatchlings returned from watching Loud-Talker converted into meat for the food bins.

While the others were busy eating, Pink-Eyes wandered out the opening of the hatchling pen and went slowly off to climb a small mound just outside the clan camp.

As a leader of a clan that inhabited the eastern border of Bright’s Empire, Sharp-Slicer always kept half her tread listening to the constant murmurs in the crust. Her clan was subject to many attacks by the barbarians, and although she had good warriors out on watch duty, she never relaxed. She paused now as something unusual rippled through the crust under her tread. It was very faint, and very high-pitched. It was not a sentry alarm, but it definitely didn’t sound like the usual busy noises of the clan camp.

The strange ripple sounded like a voice from a hatchling pen, but her trained directional senses placed it well outside the camp boundaries. She moved to the edge of the camp where the high-pitched ripple now came more clearly. She then saw the source, a faint pale spot on top of a nearby rise. Sharp-Slicer moved toward it; as she got closer, she realized that the pale spot was the Bright’s Afflicted hatchling, Pink-Something-or-Other.

She was annoyed that the hatchling had been allowed to wander off this far from the camp, but then again, there had been some confusion at the hatchling pen when Loud-Talker had flowed. Besides, the hatchling was probably old enough by now to be given some work, although Sharp-Slicer had a hard time thinking of what such a small, poorly-sighted one could do.

As Sharp-Slicer approached the base of the rise, she could hear the high-pitched voice through the crust. She was surprised at how well the tiny ripples seemed to travel. She stopped to listen.

“O Bright One in the sky. Why do you punish me so, for I have done nothing wrong. I have always worshiped you as I should,” Pink-Eyes said. “You have inflicted this miserable pale body upon me—and now you have taken my only friend. Why? Oh why?”

Sharp-Slicer was a little bewildered that the youngster seemed so attached to the Old One. She had respected Loud-Talker herself. After all, anyone would respect an ex-Leader of the Combined Clans. But he was meat now—there was nothing left to respect. She supposed that this unseemly sorrow over a hunk of meat was just one of the many strange things that was wrong with the poor youngster. She rumbled a call in his direction.

“You—come down at once, and return to the compound!” she said. “You know there are barbarians not far away.”

Pink-Eyes was startled at the voice booming through the crust, for his eyes had been busy trying to make out the blur that was all he could see of Bright, and he had not noticed the Clan Leader’s approach. He was awed at being addressed personally by the Leader of the Clan, and quickly flowed down the hill and started back to the camp, but a command from Sharp-Slicer brought him to a stop.

“Wait!” Sharp-Slicer said. “Since you now feel that you can just wander out of the hatchling pen whenever you want to, perhaps you are too big for the hatchery. What is your name and age, youngster?”

“My name is Pink-Eyes and I have aged a dozen greats of turns, O Leader of the Clan,” Pink-Eyes responded respectfully.

Sharp-Slicer flowed over and looked at him closely. He was small, much too small for training as a warrior or hunter, and even too small for tending crops. She was going to have a hard time finding something useful for this one to do. She finally had an idea.

“You are to go to the clan astrologer and tell him that the Leader of the Clan said that you are to train to be an apprentice astrologer,” she ordered.

Pink-Eyes was delighted that he had finally been given something useful to do, and immediately flowed off toward the astrologers’ compound.

Sharp-Slicer watched the eager youngster flow off, and then returned to more important business, having never connected the pale youngster with the pale egg that she had left at the egg-pen so long ago.

06:32:30 GMT MONDAY 20 JUNE 2050

Cesar was busy at the science experiments console. Now that they had settled in over the east magnetic pole, it was time to start the survey instruments. The IR and UV scanners were busy, and the high resolution visible camera was taking shot after shot of small regions in the mountainous territory in the east pole region. Even the neutrino and gravitational radiation detectors were operational on the possibility that a crustquake might occur, although the chances of that happening were not high.

Cesar now readied the laser radar mapper. He first set it in the short pulse mode to get the best resolution on the mountains directly below Dragon Slayer. He checked over the laser parameters as they appeared on the screen.

LASER RADAR MAPPER:
WAVELENGTH 0.3 MICROMETERS
PULSE WIDTH 1.0 PICOSEC (0.6 MM RESOLUTION)
PEAK PULSE POWER 1 GW
PULSE REP RATE 1,000,000 PULSES/SEC
SPOT SIZE 60 CM DIAMETER.

Satisfied with the setup, Cesar leaned forward. “Proceed with laser radar mapper scan!” he said. “Circular scan from sub-surface point out to five kilometers radius!”

Cesar watched as the screen blanked and the image of Dragon’s Egg appeared on the screen. He then saw a track of tiny little circles, each one representing a spot where the laser radar had reflected its beam off the crust of the neutron star, slowly winding its way outward in an ever expanding spiral.

“The spiral scan will take about eight minutes,” he murmured to himself. He watched for a few seconds and then his fingers flickered over the keyboard as he moved on to set up the next experiment.

06:39:55 GMT MONDAY 20 JUNE 2050

“I don’t want to complain, but I don’t want him around,” the clan astrologer complained to Sharp-Slicer. “When you first sent Pink-Eyes to apprentice with me, I was willing to give him a try, even if he does look strange. He was eager, and tried very hard, but when we found out that his eyes are so poor that Bright and the Eyes are only blurs, and that he cannot even see most of the other stars in the sky, it was obvious that he could never be an astrologer. If you cannot see the stars, then how can you make astrological predictions?

“Despite that,” the clan astrologer went on, “I did find him useful in helping me with the worship services. His voice is high, but the ripples carry well. I use him for all the chants, and have him take care of the worship symbols. But now, I am afraid that I will have to get rid of him. He’s blasphemous.”

“What!” exclaimed Sharp-Slicer.

“Yes,” the clan astrologer said. “For a long time, as an apprentice, he kept saying that the Inner Eye of Bright was flashing on and off. We finally convinced him that it was just his poor eyesight tricking him, but recently he has been saying that every dozen turns or so, the flashes get brighter and brighter, and then fade away again. The last time occurred a few turns ago. He even dragged me up to the top of his silly hill and kept saying to me, ‘Look at them! Look at those brilliant flashes! Are you blind, Old One!’

“I don’t mind being called an Old One, for it is not long before I will get to play with the hatchlings,” the clan astrologer went on. “But to be called blind by that nearly sightless freak is more than I can stand. Besides, he is going around telling everyone that Bright’s Inner Eye is signaling to him—him alone!”

Sharp-Slicer looked at the seven points of light hanging nearly motionless over the east pole. She did not often look at the sky, as she was too preoccupied with running the clan here on the crust. However, if there had been bright flashes from the Inner Eye, she certainly would have noticed them. She normally did not pay much attention to religion, but, as Leader of the Clan, she was automatically Chief Worshiper of Bright at holy times, and it wouldn’t do to let things be disrupted by an obviously deranged individual.

“I guess the Bright’s Afflicted has other problems besides paleness and poor eye sight,” she said. “However, times are good, so we will just let him get by without having to do any work.”

Pink-Eyes was not happy with his new status. He felt worthless, and spent most of his time off away from the clan camp, gazing at the blurry shapes of Bright and the Eyes, talking to the spots of light and himself, and dreaming that he was Leader of the Combined Clans, speaking to the multitudes that gathered around him to hear his words of wisdom.

06:40:35 GMT MONDAY 20 JUNE 2050

The console screen flashed, and Cesar looked up. Across the top of the screen appeared the words:

LASER RADAR MAPPER SCAN COMPLETE.

Cesar struck a few keys and the IR image that he had been examining disappeared and was replaced with the command setup for the laser radar mapping experiment.

For the next segment of the scan, the laser beam would be shooting obliquely across the curved surface of Dragon’s Egg, and the equipment could now obtain both high resolution height and surface position information if it were set up to use a chirped pulse. Soon the laser was chirping in frequency from the visible up to the ultraviolet region, while the pulse repetition rate was lowered to 100,000 pulses per second.

Cesar set up the laser mapper to scan a one radian sector, starting from the edge of the five-kilometer circle that he had already mapped and extending out for another five kilometers—well over the curve of Dragon’s Egg. He then watched as the sector scan started, the narrow fan beam taking about one second per sweep as it slowly crept outward toward the west.

06:40:46 GMT MONDAY 20 JUNE 2050

Pink-Eyes made his way up the slight rise just outside the clan camp. He had been so sure that Bright had been talking to him through Bright’s Inner Eye, but no one would believe him.

“Yet—it was so bright!” Pink-Eyes said to himself. “Such dazzling, brilliant flashes of pure light. It was Bright incarnate! Yet Bright would not let them see! Why? Why?? Why???”

Pink-Eyes rested once again on the low rise. Using the prayers and chants that he had so faithfully rippled into the crust every worship time, he again sought comfort from one who seemed to have inflicted nearly every indignity upon him—except death.

Pink-Eyes felt his small sharp knife in his personal weapons pouch, and drew it out. He looked at it for a long while, considering… He dropped the knife to the crust, where it lay, its tiny point shattered by the fall.

Pink-Eyes knew that his clan would not allow him to starve, even though they refused to let him share in the work, but he resolved never to return. Without looking back, he set forth toward the east, directly into the wilderness—the territory of the barbarians. The sentry guards, used to the wanderings of this strange pale one of the clan, let him pass outward without challenge.

Pink-Eyes had no plan. Having been rejected by the clan, his only thought was to leave. He knew he was in danger from the barbarians, but the thought of meeting death at the points of their spears held no terror for him. He traveled onward, drawn toward the pattern of lights over the east pole that slowly rotated, once a turn.

Pink-Eyes found some partially ripe pods on an isolated wild plant, and was slowly savoring the first food he had had in many turns when he stopped, struck with awe. The Inner Eye had sent out a brilliant, long-lasting, multicolored beam of light down ahead of him. The beam was unlike the others that he had seen previously. Those had been short flashes of light, so fast and so intense that there was no color to them. These were like silent words of rolling crustquakes. They started in the deep red and slowly—taking their time—swept through strange colors into a radiating brilliance. Pink-Eyes waited, and shortly was rewarded by another dazzling display. As if in a trance, he put the pods into a storage pouch and moved off toward the beam of light. It came again and again, and soon he began to depend upon its regularity.

As Pink-Eyes moved forward to intercept the beam, he noticed that it was slowly moving off to the north. A short while later, he saw that it had stopped its northward movement. It now seemed to be coming closer and closer with every lengthy blink. He moved to intercept its southward path, and finally stopped and waited for it to come to him. As the turn passed he watched the brilliant, multicolored display get brighter and brighter.

Then suddenly it was on him. His eyes ducked reflexively under their flaps while the crust around him sparkled with multicolored glints, but the strangest feeling of all was the warmth on his topside. It tingled and felt good, so good it was like having sex with a god. Pink-Eyes writhed in pleasure under the beaming ray, his pale body automatically thinning out to absorb the delightful feeling. Then almost as suddenly as it had come, the feeling stopped.

Bewildered, Pink-Eyes drew himself into shape and waited. A short while later the beam came down again, this time off to the south. His eyes could now stand the glare, while his topside only felt a slight tingle of the intense feeling that it had experienced just a few moments ago. Pink-Eyes tried to keep up, but the blinking light moved too rapidly for him, and left him behind in its progress across the crust.

Pink-Eyes waited, his eyes gazing upward, as the beautiful beam slowly blinked its way southward. He was sure it would return, so he waited, only moving to find some food to sustain him, until he saw the beam come closer again. When it finally arrived, he was ready, his small, pale body thinned out to its maximum to receive the warm caress of the light. The beam struck him, and he reveled in sexual pleasure, his tread kneading the crust in a paroxysm of prayer. “Bright! O Bright!! Pour down your blessing of love on me. Thank you! O thank you for rewarding your faithful servant!”

For dozens of turns, Pink-Eyes existed in the wilderness, communing with the Inner Eye of Bright as its beam of love and pleasure swept by every half-dozen turns. His slow wandering path took him steadily back toward his old clan camp as his pace over the crust matched the steady motion of the scanning beam. As Pink-Eyes moved along, he became more and more convinced that he—and he alone—had been called to bring the Word of Bright to the cheela.

Fortified spiritually, Pink-Eyes finally broke away from his addiction to the intense sexual pleasure of the beam. He now moved more swiftly, and left the beam behind him. The beam was still making its north and south movement over the crust while slowly creeping westward. Pink-Eyes went directly toward the clan camp. He made his way slowly up to the top of the mound near the camp where he had previously communed with Bright. He began to preach, his high-pitched voice, now strong with undoubting assurance, rippling through the crust.

“Prepare! Prepare, all people! For the Blessing of Bright will soon be on you!” sounded Pink-Eyes’ voice.

At first, only the perimeter guards came to investigate the source of the voice. When they saw who it was and heard his strange speech, they jeered and moved back to their posts. After a few guard shifts, most of the clan knew of the strange rantings of the Bright’s Afflicted. The news finally reached the clan astrologer, who went immediately to Sharp-Slicer.

“We must do something,” the clan astrologer said.

Sharp-Slicer agreed. “You are right. Let us go and try to get him to be sensible and stop.”

Sharp-Slicer, the clan astrologer, and a group of warriors went out to the mound. As they approached, they could hear Pink-Eyes preaching to a small group of heckling warriors and older hatchlings.

“Repent and pray!” Pink-Eyes was saying. “Repent! For soon the Blessing of Bright will be upon you!”

Sharp-Slicer thudded her tread against the crust, “Pink-Eyes! Stop that nonsense and come down here!”

“No!” Pink-Eyes said. “I now obey a higher leader than you!” Pink-Eyes reached a tendril into a pouch that had been closed since he left the hatchling pens, and pulled out his clan totem.

“I am no longer of this clan,” Pink-Eyes said, holding the clan totem up so that all could see. He dropped the totem and it shattered on the crust, sending a little shock wave through the disturbed treads of all around.

“I have been called by Bright,” Pink-Eyes said, “to lead all the people of all the clans to greater worship of him.

“This is enough,” the clan astrologer whispered to Sharp-Slicer, “Stop his ranting!”

Sharp-Slicer took command of the situation, although unwillingly. It was a distasteful duty to punish someone who was obviously mentally sick, but by destroying his clan totem, Pink-Eyes had lost the protection of the clan.

“Since you have destroyed your totem,” Sharp-Slicer said in a loud voice, “you yourself have left the clan. Therefore, I command you to leave clan territory.”

Her dozen eyes shifted to pick out three warriors who were nearby. “I want you three to escort this self-proclaimed barbarian to the border. Do not let him return. If he does not leave, turn him into meat!”

The three warriors moved slowly up the hill, none of them even bothering to pull a slicer or pricker from a weapons pouch, for any one of them was more than a match for the frail body of Pink-Eyes.

“Halt!” Pink-Eyes said to the warriors, and they hesitated, slightly bewildered at the strange behavior. Looking north, Pink-Eyes saw the beam approaching the mound. He turned all of his eyes upward toward the Eyes and started to pray, ignoring the warriors.

“O Great Bright! Show these wicked unbelievers the love that you can give to them if they become your true followers.” The warriors continued to hesitate, uneasy over interrupting a prayer—yet their treads were rippling lightly with suppressed humor.

Sharp-Slicer was in the midst of stamping a sharp command to the hesitating warriors when suddenly she felt herself flattening in a frenzy of glowing sexual pleasure. Her eyes, writhing on extended eye-stubs, could see others also flowing and thinning out around her. She felt the edge of the nearby clan astrologer flowing over one side of her, partially blocking the intense warmth. A male tread on her topside—normally a pleasurable feeling—did not feel good enough, and she contracted and withdrew herself to bask her entire topside in the more sublime pleasure that poured down from the sky.

As she wiggled in enjoyment, she could hear Pink-Eyes’ high pitched voice coming through the crust. “Come—all of you—receive the Blessing of Bright that I bring to you.”

The pleasure grew more and more intense, then it stopped. Slowly Sharp-Slicer, the clan astrologer and the others regained their normal shape. Exhausted, they waited motionless while Pink-Eyes spoke.

“I have brought you the Blessing of Bright,” he said. “It will be yours again if you will believe in Bright and will worship him.”

“I believe!” one of the warriors cried. “Bring down the Blessing of Bright on me again!”

“First we must worship Bright properly,” Pink-Eyes said. “To do that, we must all go into the clan camp and pray. In a half-dozen turns I want all the clan to be gathered and worshiping Bright in the temple area.”

Sharp-Slicer said nothing as the others hastened off to tell the rest of the clan about the miracle and the commands of Pink-Eyes. She did not like losing authority to this pale excuse for a cheela, but with Bright seeming to back him, she had little choice.

Six turns later, the whole clan was gathered in the temple area and listening to Pink-Eyes as he preached. Their bodies filled the temple to overflowing. Pink-Eyes had allowed the clan astrologer to start the worship service, but he soon took over with a lengthy, hypnotic sermon.

Sharp-Slicer listened to the worship service from the fringes of the crowd. She had not neglected her duties as Leader of the Clan, despite the interruption caused by Pink-Eyes. Since Pink-Eyes had insisted that even the perimeter guards attend the worship services, she made sure that she and the other good warriors were on the periphery of the crowd, in case of a barbarian attack. Also, despite their protests, she made the Old Ones stay outside the egg and hatchling pens.

“When the Blessing of Bright comes on you, it will be just as if you were having sex,” she tried to explain to Hard-Rock, the Old One in charge of the eggs. “You will lose control of your body, and may damage an egg while you are thrashing around.”

“What do you mean!” Hard-Rock protested. “I am too old for sex. All I want to do is tend my eggs.”

However, when Pink-Eyes brought down the Blessing of Bright on the worshiping clan, Hard-Rock felt a sexual surge that was more intense than the best experience of his youth. His body thinned and his eyes stared out from extended stems as his topside was bathed in the warming beam. Then—just at the end of the Blessing—Hard-Rock, his eyes gazing upward at the Eyes in pleasure, saw a faint glimmering beam of deep-colored light pouring down upon him.

“I see it! I see it!!” Hard-Rock shouted. “I believe! I believe!!”

Hard-Rock, instantly converted, left his precious eggs without another glance and moved through the recovering crowd. As he made his way he kept repeating, “I saw! I believe! I want to follow you, bringer of the Word of Bright!”

Pink-Eyes questioned Hard-Rock carefully, and finally was convinced that Hard-Rock had seen a dim version of the dazzling, multicolored display that was so obvious to him. When the next beam came down to the north of them, Pink-Eyes had Hard-Rock look up at the Eyes, but the beam, not being directly on him, was just barely visible to Hard-Rock.

Any remaining thought that he had been imagining things left Pink-Eyes completely, now that his visions of light from the Eyes had been confirmed. He again turned his eyes to the crowd and spoke. “I am Bright’s chosen one,” he announced. “I give you the glowing love of Bright, and I bring to you his Word.”

“Yes!” Hard-Rock broke in, “Listen to the Chosen of God, and obey!”

Pink-Eyes turned his eyes toward Hard-Rock. He formed a pale tendril and curled it around one of Hard-Rock’s eye-stubs. “You are one of Bright’s chosen ones too, Hard-Rock,” he said. “I want you to come with me on my mission.”

“I obey, God’s-Chosen,” Hard-Rock said; and without hesitation, the hardened veteran reached into a pouch that had not been opened for five dozen greats of turns. He removed his clan totem, raised it high, and let it crash to the crust.

Pink-Eyes called Sharp-Slicer to him and announced, “I will travel to the west to bring the Word of Bright to the rest of the clans. I will need food, and warriors for protection.”

“Yes, O God’s-Chosen,” Sharp-Slicer said, relieved that this perplexing individual would soon leave and allow the life of the clan to resume its normal pattern. “We will obey.”

At the next turn Pink-Eyes, now reverently addressed as God’s-Chosen, moved off to the west with a large party of followers, Hard-Rock the foremost among them, and surrounded by a small contingent of worshipful warriors. Sharp-Slicer had a hard time keeping more of her people from leaving. Fortunately, God’s-Chosen had helped by preaching that Bright wanted them to stay to take care of the eggs and hatchlings, and protect Bright’s Empire from the barbarians.

The procession moved slowly across the crust toward the next clan. A small group led by Hard-Rock was sent ahead with the message that God’s-Chosen was coming to bring down the Blessing of Bright upon them all. Although Hard-Rock was well known in the next clan, it was an incredulous group that gathered around God’s-Chosen as he stopped at the edge of the Clan compound to meet with No-Fear, the Leader of the Clan, and his clan astrologer.

“Why are you bothering our people, clanless one?” spoke No-Fear sharply.

“I only wish to bring them the Word and Blessing of Bright, O Leader of the Clan,” God’s-Chosen said politely. “I know that you have a hard time believing me, but I tell you that I am Bright’s chosen one. Believe in me and you shall receive his Blessing.”

“I don’t like him,” the clan astrologer whispered to No-Fear.

“I am suspicious myself,” No-Fear said. “But Hard-Rock has fought beside me in many battles with the barbarians, and he is not only convinced that this funny pale one tells the truth, but he insists that he can see the Blessing beam himself.”

“I still don’t like it,” the clan astrologer complained again.

“All he asks is to be allowed to use the temple to pray to Bright,” No-Fear said. “That is what the temple is for, so what harm can there be in that?”

“Yet…” complained the clan astrologer, perturbed over possibly losing some of his authority in the clan, “it is the words that he will preach that bother me. He insists that he is the chosen one of Bright. That cannot be. If Bright were to choose a cheela to send his word by, it would be a strong, heroic person, not that insignificant caricature of a cheela.”

“Still,” No-Fear protested, “he may be right, and I would not want to risk a curse from Bright for ignoring the bringer of his Word.” No-Fear turned his eyes toward the pale one.

“We will let you use the clan temple, God’s-Chosen,” said No-Fear, “if you will be sure to bring down the Blessing of Bright upon us.”

Pink-Eyes turned a few of his eyes to the south, where he saw the multicolored beam off in the distance.

“We will rest this turn,” he replied. “But on the next turn I want the entire clan in the temple, and I shall bring the Blessing of Bright upon you all, for I feel that you believe.”

“Well! I don’t believe,” whispered the clan astrologer to No-Fear. “No one can order the God Bright around. If he fails in the coming turn, I want you to order the clanless one turned into meat for speaking such outrageous blasphemy.”

“I had already made that decision,” No-Fear said quietly. “He may be able to fool his own clan, but he will not fool us.”

The bringer of Bright’s Word was not fooling. With the next turn, the following of God’s-Chosen grew. On the succeeding turn God’s-Chosen left the newly converted clan and a puzzled but convinced clan astrologer. The astrologer had asked for and received a special prayer that he could use, for he was going to change his temple worship services to thank Bright for having sent the Bringer of the Word during his lifetime.

As the caravan of the followers of God’s-Chosen moved slowly west, bringing the Blessing of Bright down upon clan after clan, the word of the strange happenings on the eastern border reached Hungry-Swift, the Leader of the Combined Clans. It sounded serious enough to cause him to investigate personally. Taking a squad of needle troopers with him, he moved quickly along the pathways of Bright’s Empire, his troopers clearing the often-crowded way for him. Finally, Hungry-Swift cautiously arranged a meeting with God’s-Chosen and his followers.

Hungry-Swift was too much of a politician to use his power ostentatiously. He left his troopers and came alone to visit with the holy one. He had heard descriptions of the miracle worker, but still was not prepared for the tiny pale body, and especially the pink eyes. Feeling no fear from the little one, he went forward to meet him.

“Greeting, God’s-Chosen,” he said. “I hear strange tales about your work.”

“They are not tales, Hungry-Swift,” God’s-Chosen said. “They are the true Word of Bright.”

“Tell me more,” Hungry-Swift asked. “For what I have heard has come through many treads and has been distorted in the telling.”

God’s-Chosen had been keeping his traveling band well ahead of the sweeping beam. He found it better to keep the number of blessings to his followers down, so they would not get too used to it. Besides, if any of them ever figured out that the Blessing of Bright came every half-dozen turns, whether he called for it or not, they would soon be able to receive the Blessing without having the Word of Bright preached to them. His practised eyes found the beam in the north, and he gauged its motion.

“I could tell you much, Hungry-Swift, but you still would find it hard to believe,” God’s-Chosen said. “Come with me for a journey alone into the wilderness. Together we will pray and you shall have the Blessing of Bright come upon you alone. Gather food for three turns and come with me.”

“Why wait three turns?” Hungry-Swift complained. “Why not now?”

God’s-Chosen looked at him severely. “Because you do not believe,” he said. “And it will take three turns before I can get you to believe enough to receive the Blessing of Bright.”

Hungry-Swift could only agree that God’s-Chosen had judged the level of his disbelief correctly. He did not believe in this charlatan at all, and he doubted that three turns of preaching would change him a bit. However, the stories that he had heard of this strange one were not distorted, but often came from some of his best trooper commanders, who naturally had investigated anything that could perturb the security of the far-flung borders of Bright’s Empire.

Hungry-Swift hated to waste three turns, but if that was what it would take to clear up this mystery, he was willing to do it. If it turned out that there was no mystery, he personally would make sure that there would not be enough left of the pale body to bother collecting for the meat bins. Still, the miracle worker did seem to be very confident and unafraid.

“I will go with you, God’s-Chosen,” Hungry-Swift said. “Lead the way.”

The two loaded their pouches with a small amount of food and then God’s-Chosen took them to the northeast to meet the beam sweeping down from the north. The trooper squad leader had protested the idea of Hungry-Swift traveling without protection in the wilderness between clan camps, but Hungry-Swift brushed off his protests.

“We are well within the outer borders and there are no barbarians in this region,” he said. “And I hope you don’t think that I can’t handle that pale priest by myself. If I were just to tread on him lightly I would burst him like an egg-sac.”

As they journeyed into the wilderness, God’s-Chosen tried to preach continuously, but Hungry-Swift would take the opportunity during pauses to ask personal questions about the earlier times when God’s-Chosen had been called Pink-Eyes. After hearing of what Pink-Eyes had gone through as a hatchling and youngster, and about his conversion in the wilderness, Hungry-Swift gained a grudging admiration for the courage that seemed to fill the tiny body. Soon, Hungry-Swift stopped noticing that the personality that was God’s-Chosen/ Pink-Eyes inhabited anything less than a normal body. He was continually being surprised that Pink-Eyes was not of normal size, as, for example, when he had to ask for help to pick a pod high up on the side of a petal plant.

As their line of travel came closer and closer to intersecting the path of the beam from the Inner Eye, the preaching of God’s-Chosen became more and more intense. Hungry-Swift listened intently, for he now respected God’s-Chosen, but he had to admit that despite all the preaching, he still did not believe that his companion was Bright’s chosen one, and that he could bring the Blessing of Bright down upon him.

“I listen, God’s-Chosen,” Hungry-Swift said. “But I still have trouble with my belief.”

“Even the act of confessing your disbelief is a motion in the right direction,” God’s-Chosen said. Then turning all of his eyes upward, and slowly counting off the moments since the previous flash of the beam just to the north of him, he chanted.

“Help, O Bright! Help this unbeliever find faith! Bring down the Blessing of Bright upon Hungry-Swift.”

Hungry-Swift’s eyes followed those of God’s-Chosen up to the strange formation of seven lights that hung overhead in the sky. He was calmly wondering how they managed to stay in one place while the rest of the stars in the sky moved from east to west—when suddenly his body seemed to explode with pleasure.

For what seemed like an eternity, Hungry-Swift reveled in the heaven-sent pleasure of Bright’s love. His eye-stubs reached out toward the Eyes in an attempt to copulate with the stars. They writhed back and forth, stretching to their limit—then suddenly they froze as they saw the beam coming down from the Inner Eye of Bright.

“I see! I see!!” he shouted. Then as quickly as it had come, the warmth stopped.

Hungry-Swift composed himself and self-consciously wiped the dribbles of yellow-white mating fluid from the orifice under each eye-stub. As he gathered his senses, he could hear God’s-Chosen praying.

“Thank you, O Bright, for bringing the Vision as well as the Blessing to the Leader of the Combined Clans. I pray that you will guide him to lead all the clans into greater worship of you.”

Completely convinced, Hungry-Swift also prayed. As Leader of the Combined Clans, he was automatically the head worshiper of Bright. However, the ritual chants that he had learned to use in the worship services now seemed completely inadequate, and he clumsily made up his own prayers.

“Lead me, O Bright,” he said. “Give me your Word, and I will follow it with all that I command.”

“I will give you Bright’s Word,” God’s-Chosen said. “For too long Bright has been neglected. Bright has been good to his people. They have grown in numbers and have prospered. What used to be a small clan gathered in the city of Bright’s Heaven is now many clans that are spread out over Bright’s Empire—so powerful that the barbarians shrink from angering them. Yet what have the ungrateful cheela done for Bright in return?”

“We worship him often,” Hungry-Swift protested.

“Yes, but where?” God’s-Chosen asked. “In tiny temple areas. What Bright deserves is a temple appropriate to his greatness.”

“Tell me what is needed,” pleaded Hungry-Swift.

“You shall build a Holy Temple. It shall be in the shape of Bright, in whose likeness we are but imperfect copies. The outer walls shall be a perfect circle, and a dozen greats of cheela shall be able to line up from one side of the circle to the other without crowding their edges.”

Hungry-Swift was appalled. “That will be almost as big as the city of Bright’s Heaven!”

“Yes,” God’s-Chosen went on, unperturbed. “For it must hold all who live in Bright’s Heaven, plus many others. At one dozen places about the circle there shall be placed walls representing the eye-stubs of a cheela at full alert. At the ends of each eye-stub shall be a round mound representing the eyes. Between each pair of eye-stubs there shall be an opening in the Temple walls, representing the orifices that allow things to enter and leave the inner mysteries of Bright’s body. Finally, at the very center of the inner area, there shall be a circular mound representing Bright’s Inner Eye.”

“I will obey, God’s-Chosen,” Hungry-Swift said. “The Holy Temple to Bright will be built as you say.”

Still dazed, Hungry-Swift followed God’s-Chosen back to the two encampments. When the squad leader came out to greet them, it was obvious from Hungry-Swift’s demeanor that the Leader of the Combined Clans had felt the Blessing of Bright. He was even more awed when he learned that the Leader had also seen the Blessing, since very few had been allowed by Bright to receive this indication of being one of his chosen ones. The journey into the wilderness over, Hungry-Swift automatically resumed command.

“Call the troopers to alert,” he ordered. “We return to Bright’s Heaven at once, for there is much to do.”

Before he left, Hungry-Swift returned for one last visit to his friend and teacher.

“Are you God?” he asked.

“No,” God’s-Chosen said. “Bright is God. I am merely Bright’s vehicle by which he sends his Word and his Blessing. You have received the Word. Go and carry it out. Yours will not be an easy task, for it will take a dozen greats of turns to create a temple of that size. But do not worry about the time, for Bright is patient. I will stay here and bring the Blessing of Bright to all the clans. That too will take time, but by the time you have the Holy Temple built, I will have brought the Blessing of Bright to all here in the east and will come to Bright’s Heaven to bring the Blessing down on all who live there—on the Holy Temple itself.”

“Bright give me strength that I might live to see the time,” said Hungry-Swift.

“Your work will keep you strong,” God’s-Chosen said. “Now go!”

At first Hungry-Swift experienced resistance to the project of building the Holy Temple. There were even rumors that some of the underleaders, or even one of the nearby clan leaders, might attempt a formal challenge to his leadership.

Hungry-Swift quickly eliminated all objections to the building of the Temple by insisting that everyone with any power or authority take a journey to the east to be initiated by God’s-Chosen into the mysteries of the Blessing of Bright. As the converts returned, the enthusiasm for the project grew.

Fortunately the barbarians were quiet during these times, and the crops grew well without excessive tending, for soon nearly one-third of the population of Bright’s Heaven and surrounding areas was engaged in hauling rocks and loose crustal material to form the outline of a cheela at perfect alert, with twelve round eyes perched out on extended eye-stubs. The first thing built was a round mound at the center that represented the Inner Eye of Bright. Then as the outline of the Holy Temple grew, the old worship area was abandoned and services were held inside the growing Temple, with the High Priest speaking from the Inner Eye mound.

As the greats of turns passed, God’s-Chosen moved slowly west, pausing to make sure that each clan camp was given the Blessing of Bright. As they moved nearer and nearer to Bright’s Heaven, the clan camps became closer and closer together. They also began to spread more widely to the north and south, because the population pressure had overcome the natural reluctance to engage in travel in the hard direction. It soon became impossible for God’s-Chosen to bring the Blessing to each camp himself. There also came rumors of small groups of cheela who had received the Blessing out in the wilderness without God’s-Chosen being anywhere near. God’s-Chosen then decided that the time had come to give to others the power to bring the Blessing. Since some could see the beam if it were near, he made them his disciples. He sent them off in the hard directions, north and south, with instructions to take the Word to the clans there. They were to watch the Inner Eye carefully and, as the beam approached, time their worship services with the receiving of the Blessing of Bright. The results were not as satisfactory as the well-preached services that God’s-Chosen conducted, but more and more of the cheela in the great Empire felt the miracle of the Blessing of Bright.

As the greats of turns passed, the Holy Temple neared completion. Nearly all who worked on it had taken time off now to complete a pilgrimage to the east to receive the blessing from God’s-Chosen, and all returned to work with renewed vigor. When God’s-Chosen reached the outskirts of the sprawling city of Bright’s Heaven, he left his preaching to Hard-Rock and went ahead to see the Holy Temple.

When Hungry-Swift heard of the approach of God’s-Chosen to the city, he came out with an honor guard of troopers to greet him. As they moved along the pathway to the city, the troopers would move ahead, lining the pathway and keeping the curious multitudes from bothering God’s-Chosen and the Leader of the Combined Clans as they moved leisurely along, their pace limited by the small tread of God’s-Chosen.

The crowds that gathered along the pathway were well behaved. The troopers would suffer hatchlings to ooze between them, or allow an eye-stub to be rested on their topsides (especially if the eye-stub belonged to a nubile one of the opposite sex). The onlookers were treated to an unusual sight: a huge battle-scarred warrior with an obvious air of command, who carried the highest rank in Bright’s Empire, maintaining pace and speaking deferentially to a tiny, pale, pink-eyed, clanless one. Yet the pale one had an air of assurance about him that caused the crowd to murmur as he passed. Occasional cheers radiated outward from small groups as the two made their way into the city.

“How is the Holy Temple proceeding?” God’s-Chosen asked.

“The basic foundation is done, O God’s-Chosen,” Hungry-Swift said. “And the finishing work is well under way. We should have it completed well before the Blessing of Bright is due to come down upon the Temple grounds.”

“Good,” God’s-Chosen said. “I would like to see it.”

As the two took the path to the south to visit the Temple, a squad of troopers formed a chevron in front of them and pushed their way into the hard direction. The two leaders moved comfortably along behind the pathbreakers. As they came closer to the Holy Temple, even God’s-Chosen was impressed, for the outer walls of the Temple seemed to extend almost to the horizon in both directions.

“It is a fitting monument to the honor of Bright,” he said with obvious satisfaction.

“Yes,” Hungry-Swift said. “All of us who worked on it are extremely proud that we were allowed to contribute to such an impressive edifice. As you commanded, a dozen greats of cheela can fit between the outer walls. One of the astrologers calculated that the Holy Temple can hold a great of greats of greats of cheela within its walls.”

“May we bring down the Blessing of Bright upon them all,” said God’s-Chosen.

The two, together with their honor guard, approached the walls of the Temple. They passed between two of the circular mounds that represented two of the outer eyes of Bright, and moved between the narrowing walls that represented the eye-stubs, until they came to a break in the wall between the two eye-stubs that was one of the entrances to the inner portion of the Temple of Holies.

As they passed through the Temple orifice and entered the inner yard, God’s-Chosen knew that he had been right. This was the Word of Bright! Ahead he could see the Inner Eye mound, but all around him was a horizon of wall that blocked off the view of the city, leading the eyes naturally upward to look at Bright toward the south and the Eyes of Bright to the east.

As they entered the Temple, they could see a small crowd around the base of the Inner Eye mound.

“We have come just at the end of a worship service,” Hungry-Swift said. “Bright’s-First, the High Priest, is on the Inner Eye mound now. Let us go to meet him.”

They made their way to the rear of the crowd around the mound as the service ended. God’s-Chosen was then bewildered to see a line of cheela, each dragging a sled piled with food, slowly making its way up the mound. At the top, the supplicants left their sleds, where they were taken by apprentice astrologers, while the supplicant went up to the High Priest and slowly rotated around once, while the High Priest touched each eye, one after the other, murmuring as he did so.

“What is going on?” God’s-Chosen asked of one of the cheela slowly pulling his heavy burden up the slope of the mound.

“I am bringing my dozeth, and have come to get my blessing,” the cheela said.

The tread of God’s-Chosen rippled sharply on the crust, “What dozeth, and what blessing?”

The cheela’s eye-stubs wavered randomly in bewilderment, and Hungry-Swift’s voice broke in from the side.

“The High Priest has said that those who would divide up their harvest and kill into twelve parts, and give one-twelfth to the Keepers of the Temple, will receive a special blessing from Bright, given by the High Priest himself. He holds a worship service every turn, and these people come from all over Bright’s Empire to give their dozeth and receive Bright’s Blessing.”

God’s-Chosen was shocked. His tread exploded in a furious shout.

“No!” he shouted, and scurried up the mound as all eyes turned toward him. “The Blessing of Bright belongs to all, and is freely given. You cannot bribe Bright with gifts!” He moved across the top of the mound to where the apprentice astrologers were taking the sleds of food. With a strength borne of fury, he pushed a load of pods and meat off a sled down the slope. The pods rolled downward, gathering speed and disappearing, to reappear as they came to a stop against the shocked edges of the cheela at the bottom of the mound.

God’s-Chosen moved back to the center of the mound and repeated in his high-pitched voice, “I will bring you the Blessing of Bright. You do not have to give a dozeth to receive it, but only what you wish to give!”

God’s-Chosen turned his small pink eyes from the crowd, stared hard at the motionless High Priest, and said, “I do not want my people coerced into worshiping Bright. If the astrologers cannot live on free will offerings, let them work in the fields!”

A murmur of approval started in the crowd of supplicants, and then grew to a continuous cheer as the crowd began to realize who the pale figure was—and what he had been saying. As the crowd started up the mound to gather around God’s-Chosen, the High Priest moved away down the other side, his apprentices abandoning the sleds and following after him.

Later in the astrologers’ compound, the High Priest was conferring with Bright’s-Second, the Chief Astrologer.

“He has no idea what he is doing,” Bright’s-First said.

“The people are behind him,” Bright’s-Second warned. “Not to mention the Leader of the Combined Clans and all of his underleaders.”

“But he does not understand the importance of our work,” the High Priest said. “You cannot have apprentice astrologers out tending crops in the fields like common laborers. They will never learn their numbers or how to cast horoscopes with the astrologer sticks.”

“You are right,” Bright’s-Second said. “He ought to be dealt with in some way. He is disrupting the important duties of the people that work in God’s service.”

“Unfortunately,” Bright’s-First said, “only Hungry-Swift, the Leader of the Combined Clans, has the authority to do anything about this rabble-rouser, and he is under his spell.”

The Chief Astrologer hesitated, then said, “His Blessing is a powerful one. You should have come with us when we went east to experience it.”

The High Priest answered with a sharp ripple, “I have no need of any blessing from the pale one.”

The turns passed; it was now less than half a great of turns until the Blessing would be on the Temple. As the time grew near, great crowds began to come into Bright’s Heaven, in order to be in the Temple at the time of the dedication. It seemed as if half of the Empire thronged into the city.

Finally, God’s-Chosen held a gathering outside the eastern orifice of the now completed Temple. As the Blessing of Bright came down upon them once again, God’s-Chosen announced that the next Blessing would come upon the Temple, and that in preparation for that turn, the next half-dozen turns were to be Holy ones. All should stop their labor and prepare for the occasion by prayer. Then at the appointed time, all should be inside the Temple to receive the Blessing.

06:48:47 GMT MONDAY 20 JUNE 2050

The science experiments console screen blinked.

EAST SECTOR LASER RADAR SCAN COMPLETED.
NORTH SECTOR SCAN STARTED.

Cesar looked up at the words at the top of the screen, and went on with his analysis of the IR scanner data.

06:48:48 GMT MONDAY 20 JUNE 2050

Three turns before the dedication of the Holy Temple, God’s-Chosen knew there was a problem. He had seen the pulsating, multicolored beam go south. But then it had stopped. The time came near, and he looked in vain at the Inner Eye. He could see no beams—no light of any kind.

“Bright is testing my faith,” he said to himself. “For many greats of turns the people have had to accept my word that the Blessing of Bright was coming. Now I am as blind as they are. I must have faith.”

God’s-Chosen asked that the Temple be cleared, and when the crowds and astrologers were all outside the orifices, he went in alone and climbed up on the Inner Eye mound to pray.

God’s-Chosen looked out from the central mound across the empty inner court toward the outer walls in the distance. There was no doubt in his mind. This was what Bright had wanted. He turned his eyes to the sky, and looking south toward Bright, began to pray.

“O Bright. Give me the faith that the others have, and if my belief falters, help me to overcome my weakness so that I may believe in you and your Blessing.”

God’s-Chosen slowly moved down the inner mound and went out the western orifice toward the astrologers’ compound. As he left, the troopers, who had been keeping the people out, finally let the crowds pour in, for the dedication was only a turn away. For fully half a turn cheela poured through the orifices and gathered around the inner mound. Soon the inner courtyard of the Temple was full, with little groups gathered around outside each of the twelve entrances. Some climbed laboriously up to watch from the top of the walls when they found they could not get inside.

As the time grew near, the High Priest went to fetch God’s-Chosen, who had isolated himself in the old temple. As Bright’s-First approached the old temple area, he could hear God’s-Chosen in a whispered prayer to Bright, and even he was stirred by the genuineness of the supplication.

“Bright. Give me the strength to do as you will have me do.”

The prayer stopped, for God’s-Chosen had felt the tread of the High Priest through the crust. As Bright’s-First came nearer, God’s-Chosen appeared at the entrance.

“Let us go and receive the Blessing of Bright,” he said, leading the way to the Holy Temple.

Together the High Priest and God’s-Chosen moved through the throngs gathered in front of the western orifice. They were followed by a large group of astrologers, all experienced in speaking to crowds. Slowly the procession made its way through the packed inner courtyard and up the slopes of the Inner Eye mound.

At the top, God’s-Chosen and the High Priest took up a position at the center of the mound while the other astrologers formed a circle around them. God’s-Chosen looked out at the multitude, whose every eye seemed to be upon him. He would have liked to have talked to them all directly, but there was no way that even his far-carrying, high-pitched voice could reach them all. Fortunately, most of the throng had been to one of the previous services where he had called down the Blessing of Bright, so they knew the ritual.

God’s-Chosen scanned the Eyes. It had been many turns since he had last seen the beam from the Inner Eye, and he was now unsure exactly when to expect the Blessing to come.

God’s-Chosen began the service as they had planned it. He would chant the prayers, which would carry out and down the mound to the nearest ranks of cheela. The chant would then be repeated by the High Priest and the rest of the astrologers, the combined treading of the chorus carrying through the crust even to those at the farthest walls. The prayers would then be echoed by the rumbling treads of the multitude.

“Bright the glorious!

“We believe!

“Bring your Blessing!”

God’s-Chosen paused, but nothing happened. He went on.

“Bring your Blessing!

“Down upon us!”

He paused again, waiting in vain for the Blessing to come down upon them all. In desperation he continued.

“We are waiting.

“In your Temple!

“Bring Your Blessing!”

For the first time in many greats of turns, God’s-Chosen felt his faith falter. There was a subdued murmur from the crowd. There was nothing hostile, just bewilderment, for God’s-Chosen had never failed before.

God’s-Chosen gazed upward at the Eyes, longing for the sight of the Blessing. None came.

Without further word, God’s-Chosen moved his pale body through the ring of astrologers, down the mound and out into the multitude, heading for the eastern orifice.

Some of the crowd whispered as he passed, others reached out to touch his hot pale body with a slender tendril. The High Priest, still up on the mound, tried to salvage things by proceeding with the regular worship chants, but no one paid him heed—not even the chorus.

As God’s-Chosen left the Temple, the multitude of worshipers broke up into bewildered groups. Many had gone without food for a full turn, and they now went out to find something to eat in the overcrowded city.

By the next turn, food had run short and the crowds became nasty. Some recalled the original clan name of God’s-Chosen, and from then on, whenever he was mentioned, it was by his old name of Pink-Eyes.

The High Priest went to discuss the previous turn’s events with Hungry-Swift, the Leader of the Combined Clans. Hungry-Swift was completely demoralized by the experience.

“I am sorry that you too were taken in by that charlatan,” Bright’s-First said.

“But I saw! I saw the Blessing coming down!” protested Hungry-Swift.

“Yes—you may have seen the Blessing of Bright, but this Pink-Eyes person was using the Blessing of Bright to his own advantage,” the High Priest replied. “He said that he gave the Word of Bright, and that he was God’s-Chosen. But was he? No! Bright chose this way to say that he was a false prophet, for Bright withheld his Blessing before all the multitude.”

“You seem to be right,” Hungry-Swift agreed.

“I am right,” the High Priest said. “I have served Bright longer than this pink-eyed hatchling. You must do something about this fraudulent impostor.”

Hungry-Swift was too dejected to do anything. Bright’s-First took advantage of his hesitancy and gave a command to a squad of troopers nearby.

“Bring Pink-Eyes to the Temple!” he commanded.

The troopers hesitated, looking at Hungry-Swift, who remained silent. Finally the troopers moved off to carry out the High Priest’s command. They found Pink-Eyes in the wilderness to the east of Bright’s Heaven. He had been going back toward the Eyes, constantly looking upward for the missing beams of light.

The troopers had no problem with Pink-Eyes, and they treated him gently. Most of them had experienced the Blessing of Bright and were still in awe of the personality in the tiny pale body.

“You are to come with us,” the squad leader stated. Without a word, Pink-Eyes reversed his direction of travel and went back along the pathway, with the troopers surrounding him.

As they slowly made their way back west, paced by the small tread of Pink-Eyes, the crowds gathered again. As they passed, most of them stared, their treads silent. Other groups, hungry and angry, muttered into the crust, and a few rolled sharp fragments of crust into the pathway in front of Pink-Eyes. He did not swerve but moved steadily onward, often leaving a sharp fragment wet with his warm white juices after his tread had passed over it. The squad leader saw what was happening, and put two troopers on either side to keep the pathway clear.

As they passed through the outskirts of Bright’s Heaven and headed for the Temple, the crowds following them grew. As they entered the eastern orifice of the Temple, Pink-Eyes saw that the inner courtyard was partially full.

The troopers led Pink-Eyes up the inner mound where the High Priest and the Leader of the Combined Clans waited. Bright’s-First led the interrogation.

“Are you God’s-Chosen?” the High Priest asked.

“If you believe it, then I am,” was the reply.

“Well, I don’t believe it,” the High Priest said angrily. “Admit you are a fraud!”

Pink-Eyes made no reply.

Bright’s-First turned his eyes to Hungry-Swift and said firmly, “I say we should turn him into meat!”

Hungry-Swift hesitated. “He did bring us the Blessing,” he said.

“Maybe,” countered the High Priest. “But where is it now? He has caused us to lose it.”

As the two leaders talked, Pink-Eyes had been gazing alternately at Bright and the Eyes for guidance. Suddenly he saw a beam from the Inner Eye!

“I can see it again!” he called out.

“What?” the startled Hungry-Swift asked. The High Priest was worried. Could it be that this creature had arranged all this in order to bring down Bright’s curse upon him, to destroy him, and take over as High Priest?

“I can see the Blessing of Bright,” Pink-Eyes said, but then in despair he saw that the beam was no longer coming toward them, but instead was pointing toward the north.

Hungry-Swift looked up at the Inner Eye, searching in vain for the faint flicker that he had longed to see these many turns. “I don’t see anything,” he said.

“I am afraid that you cannot,” Pink-Eyes said. “The beam is now going off to the north.”

“The north!” the High Priest exclaimed in relief. “That is the territory of the barbarians! By your own admission you have caused Bright to avert his Blessing from us and give it to the barbarians.”

There were angry murmurs from the crowd at the base of the mound.

“Away with him!” the High Priest shouted, and Hungry-Swift and his troopers stood by helplessly while an angry crowd flowed up the mound and pushed and rolled the helpless pale body down the slope.

Sharp prickers were pulled from weapons pouches; they prodded at Pink-Eyes’ edges, forcing him out the eastern orifice of the Temple. A storage bin at a nearby needle trooper compound was raided and two dozen long dragon tooth spears were brought and laid out on the ground. Pink-Eyes was then forced onto the row of spear shafts. The ends of the shafts were raised by burly warriors. As Pink-Eyes felt his tread leave the crust, he went into a hysterical panic. The small pale body was easily carried to a nearby field.

The crust in the field had recently been plowed and seeded, but it would be a long time before the petal plants would grow. Now, however, a more vicious crop was springing up, as warrior after warrior planted a slicer or pricker in the crumbled crust, point upwards.

Pink-Eyes’ tread trembled in pain as his body was lowered down over the points. He tried to support his body on the narrow shafts of the spears, while lifting the rest of his tread away from the tormenting pricks. Then the spear shafts were pulled out from underneath his trembling tread. His tortured body fell helplessly onto the crust, the slicers and prickers glinting up through his topside, wet points glowing white with his juices.

In agony, Pink-Eyes attempted to lift his pale body off the agonizing shards of dragon crystal, but with each heave he only sliced his body further. He gave up trying, and slowly spread out as his juices flowed into the crust.

“O Bright,” his tortured tread cried in muffled agony, “Bring down your Blessing—even on these—for they want you too much.”

It was half a turn before the butchering crew was called. There was not much meat on that tiny carcass, and the meat had the same sickly paleness that the skin had. One of the butcher crew sucked at a hunk of meat. “It does not even taste right,” she said. “I wouldn’t eat this stuff.”

“You are right,” another said after taking a small taste. So by common consent, the body was left in the field to dry on the glowing crust, the shrinking skin pricked through with sharp shards of dragon crystal abandoned by their former owners.

06:49:32 GMT MONDAY 20 JUNE 2050

Seiko Kauffmann Takahashi looked up as her shift relief drifted in from his breakfast—early as usual. Abdul, still sipping a squeezer full of sweet mint tea, pulled himself to the vacant communications console. With a few practiced flips of his left hand, he soon had a copy of Seiko’s screen on his console.

“Anything exciting?” he said as his unbuckled body floated slowly up out of the console seat. He was surprised at the reply—for nothing ever excited Seiko.

“Yes,” she replied firmly, reaching out to finger a panel. A picture from the star image telescope flashed on both their screens. She did not say another word-she did not have to.

06:50:12 GMT MONDAY 20 JUNE 2050

Pierre Carnot Niven, having finished his ten-hour shift and a leisurely dinner, was relaxing. He sat buckled into a seat in front of a console down in the library, his finger flicking over the screen.

“Fatter!”

“More!”

“Fine!”

His finger traced another line. “Now—the other arm-same as the first!

“Good!”

He stretched back and surveyed his handiwork on the screen with pride. The image of the child on the screen now looked the way it should, although the baby-fat pudginess made it an unlikely candidate for what he would make it do next. However, that image was just what he had been striving for. The audience for his scan-book needed to identify—even if they couldn’t copy. He leaned over to the screen and touched the right hand of the image.

“Put a ball in this hand!” A ball was instantly there, with the fingers of the hand opened to grasp it.

“Now comes the difficult part,” he thought. “We’ll see how good the body action subroutine is.”

He spoke again. “Throw ball from here—along hereto here. Use Earth gravity!” While he spoke, his finger scribed a curve leading from the hand along a high arc down into the background area of the picture.

He watched as the body in the image leaned back in a slightly jerky movement and launched the ball into the air. The ball rose and then fell back to the ground-stopping abruptly without a bounce. The computer handled the perspective very nicely; the ball grew smaller and smaller as it sailed into the distance.

“Good—repeat with Lunar gravity!”

The scene was repeated with the words LUNAR GRAVITY in the upper corner of the screen. The ball now rose much more slowly, with a significantly flatter trajectory.

Pierre spoke again, “Repeat both!”

The two scenes repeated their actions. First EARTH GRAVITY, then LUNAR GRAVITY. Pierre watched, checking them carefully. They would look much better after they were fleshed out with the publisher’s curved surface software routine. He then generated another one using Mars gravity. There weren’t many of his readers on Mars yet, but he suspected there would be by the time he returned to earth.

Pierre leaned toward the screen. “Earth gravity picture—rotate 45 degrees to right!

“Display action!”

He watched as the action repeated, this time as seen from the side. The ball rose in a nice parabolic trajectory. He smiled and thought, “The kids have had their fun imagining that their bodies are strong enough to throw a ball fifty meters. Now they will have to get to work and learn some science, which—after all—is why they are scanning the book.” He spoke aloud:

“Shrink ball by two!

“Shrink child by five!

“Put in graph axes—vertical here!” His hand reached out and scribed a line from the top of the screen down to the miniature figure now tossing a baseball as big as its head.

Pierre was halfway through getting the coordinate axes numbered and the parabolic equation placed in the picture where it would be out of the way of the trajectory, when he was interrupted by a message that flashed on the upper part of the screen.

LINK FROM BRIDGE CONSOLE

Pierre looked up. “Accept link!” he said.

HI PIERRE,
COULD YOU COME UP TO THE MAIN DECK?
THERE IS SOMETHING HAPPENING ON DRAGON'S EGG.
WE WANT YOU TO CONFIRM OUR SUSPICIONS.
# # # # CESAR

“Sure Doc,” Pierre said. “Be right there.

“Break link!”

“Store under Trajectory Graph!

“Detach job!”

He unbuckled from the console chair and pushed himself quickly up the passageway leading to the main deck as the computer obediently flashed confirmation after confirmation toward his disappearing feet.

LINK BROKEN
SAVED TRAJECTORY GRAPH: EARTH GRAVITY
DETACH JOB 3; PIERRE. ACCT: GOLDEN SCIENCE PRESS
TIME 06:52:30 20 JUNE 2050. USED 0:01:26 IN 1:36:33

Pierre swung onto the bridge and over to the group looking at some fresh printouts. As he floated over he could see that they were pictures from the high resolution star image telescope.

Cesar spoke up as he approached. “Sorry to drag you up on your break, Pierre, but these printouts are really bewildering. Since you are our resident expert on neutron star crustal activity, we figured you could make a better evaluation than we could.”

Seiko handed him a sheet. “I took these off the star image telescope this shift. This one was taken at 0645 hours. Notice the pattern here near the west limb.”

Pierre looked briefly at the printout. The chaotic hash of the west limb region was almost familiar by now. But there was something new there, a short arc-like pattern. Seiko was right. As of yesterday there had been no such structure at that place on Dragon’s Egg. “It looks like wrinkle ridges that you could get on any crusted object with a liquid core. In fact, there are many similarities between those patterns and the ones near the Caloric pole of Mercury. But wait… the directions in the pattern are all wrong. From what I know about the behavior of neutron star crustal material under the influence of high magnetic fields, the ridges should all be aligned along the magnetic field lines.”

“So far, we have all come to the same conclusion,” Seiko said. “This pattern is not a wrinkle ridge from a collapse of the surface. Besides, we have been monitoring the spin speed of the star, and if there had been a slump of that magnitude in the past day, it would have shown up as a glitch in the rotation period, and there has been none.”

“Now,” Abdul said, “show him the kicker.”

Seiko pulled out another sheet from beneath the first.

“This was taken at 0648 hours, just before Dr. Wong finished a laser scan of that region.”

She passed it over without further comment.

Pierre saw an elongated oval shape, with ten oval dots around it and one in the middle. The dots on the outside were connected to the large oval with short exponentially tapered horns. There were slight traces of two more dots that would complete the symmetric pattern.

“The direction of the oval looks generally east-west,” he said.

“It is,” Seiko stated, with the calm assurance of someone who had taken the trouble to check. “The semimajor axis is within less than a milliradian of magnetic east, so the pattern is dominated by magnetic effects and not rotational effects. But the lines that make up the oval are not straight magnetic east-west as are all the other cliffs and wrinkle ridges in that area.”

“It looks like something that is stretched,” Pierre said, holding the printout up to his eye. “In fact, from this angle it looks exactly like a Sheriff’s star in an old western movie, complete with a bullet hole in the center. However, it isn’t complete, there are only ten points.”

He looked up and the others watched his expression change from initial surprise to suspicion.

“You’re kidding me,” he said.

“No,” Cesar said. “We are deadly serious. I knew you would have a tough time accepting this without better proof, so I had Seiko fix up the star image telescope with the filters for direct viewing.”

Pierre knew from the tone that Cesar was serious and that the image print was real—but he still found himself diving up the passageway toward the star image telescope control post. He floated in, quickly checked the filter settings, then flicked the switch that opened the direct view port. The light beamed in from overhead and down onto the white frosted table top in the center of the room. He drifted over and hung above the glaring image and adjusted the strobe controls until the spinning image in the center of the table slowed down and finally stopped rotating. He found the symmetric flowerlike diagram.

Pierre looked up as the others came up the passageway. “The diagram is now complete,” he said.

They gathered around the table and looked down at the image as Pierre whispered softly, “It is not only complete, there are no extra lines. There can be no other logical explanation. Whatever that is, it was made by intelligent beings!”

“Intelligent beings!” Seiko exclaimed. “That is impossible! The surface gravity of that star is 67-billion gees and the temperature is 8200 degrees! Any being that existed on that star would be a flat glowing pancake of solid neutrons.”

“They wouldn’t be made of neutrons,” Pierre replied. “My measurements show that although the interior of the star is made of neutrons, the outer crust has a density more like that of a white dwarf star, and its composition is quite complex, with most of the same atomic nuclei that we have in the Earth’s crust, only much more neutron-rich and without the electron clouds around them.”

Pierre was perplexed. They had a mission here at Dragon’s Egg. The mission was to get as much scientific data as possible from their vantage point only 400 km from the neutron star. His problem was that the magic gravitational elevator that had put them down into this orbit a few days ago would soon finish its complicated interlaced orbital pattern and would be returning to take them away again. They had only a limited amount of time—what should they do?

Abdul spoke. “I don’t really come onto shift for over an hour. Why don’t I try to generate some kind of signal to send down in case there really is some form of intelligent life there, while the rest of you keep up with the science time line.”

“Fine,” Pierre said. “We have finished with the laser radar mapper on this hemisphere, so you can use that. If you need anything else, let me know. I am sure we can reschedule an experiment for later on in the program.”

Abdul pushed his way to the communications console. Soon a simple one-two-three… dot-dash number series was beaming down to the surface, followed by a crude diagram of Dragon Slayer inside the six tidal compensator masses over the sphere that was Dragon’s Egg. It was a dot-dash pattern, 53 by 71 dots on a side.