《Sublime Elision》 Fistful of Sand Lambent floats. His skin is titanium white. His shape is familiar - two arms, two legs, and a face tensed with concentration. Iridescent hair whips about him. He listens. He listens, and Jupiter sings. Oh! But the song is a violent one! Vibrato winds hurl ammonia crystals in razor-studded harmony. Hydrogen clouds surge in multicolored streams. Red and white and brown weave in turbulent tapestry. The percussive crash of ice crystals shattering against each other, torn apart by wind and driving rain. Lambent flings his arms wide and lets it wash over him. Tumbling wildly through the rosy storm, catching lightning as it stabs at pearlescent skin. He whoops. He screams. He laughs. Jupiter laughs with him in deep rumbling thunder, a sonorous laugh ninety thousand miles wide. A dark shape sweeps by, a shimmering bioluminescence among stormclouds. It¡¯s a strange, pillowy thing about six feet across. Glimmering light refracts within the translucent depths. A smile splits Lambent¡¯s face; a meeting with a jovian jelly is a rare delight indeed. The jelly sparkles and flickers in sympathetic joy. It twirls and dances between streaming eddies and swirling turbulence. It glitters in the face of driving rain. Lambent tilts his arms and twirls like a top. He whoops again to the faraway jelly, and its answering glow is a pulsing green and pink. The creature splays wide, undulating like an enormous membranous pancake. ¡°Not yet,¡± Lambent screams against the storm. For the feel of it. For the sting of cold helium through a raw throat. For the electric jolt of adrenaline. The wind shifts, and static electricity fills the air. The jelly twirls closer, bobbing in agreement. Streams of gold and crimson upend it, but it does not tumble away. The jelly lengthens top to bottom, arcing gracefully through hydrogen wavelets. ¡°Not yet.¡± The storm gathers itself, spinning restlessly to and fro. The hairs on Lambent¡¯s exposed arms rise with the energy and the wind. Faster and faster. The jelly slithers opposite him, circling the center of the storm. Closer. Faster. Electricity ripples between fingers, from limb to limb. Sparks jump across the turbulent flow. The pressure builds, the tide rises, the air thickens - ¡°Now!¡± Thunder pulses. Lightning heralds his scream. The updraft starts with no other warning. Like a pellet in an airgun, Lambent shoots upwards. His stomach drops and his heart soars. He is a streak of lightning, a human bullet. Helium bubbles pop. Ammonia crystals shatter against him, but still he moves. Lambent crashes through surface tension barrier after surface tension barrier. He curls into a ball and squeezes his eyes shut, spinning end over end as he ascends the layers of Jupiter. Focusing on the feel, the adrenaline, the fight of gravity against shearing winds. Such speed! The sheer violent joy of being alive! He slows gradually. The winds still and the air is thin here. The upper reaches of Jupiter are calm, cold and clear if you know to look in the right light spectrum. Lambent lands gently on a soft surface facedown. He opens his eyes to dizzying blue sparkles and a soft glittering sheen. The jelly has not abandoned him. It had flattened into a wide disc and caught the ballistic humanoid. Lambent pats it in gratitude. The jelly tucks its top into a dip perfect for reclining on. It twinkles red and pink in greeting. Lambent gives it an answering smile. ¡°Hey, buddy, was that fun?¡± The jelly pulses gold in agreement. They float together, looking at the rippling horizon, the confetti of stars above, the sweep of Jupiter¡¯s single sparse ring. At the faintly glowing star, just brighter than the others, a dull red color. Sol. Home, he muses. It had swallowed Earth millennia ago, expanding as it aged and consuming the inner system. It hadn¡¯t mattered, of course. Everything of value had long since left the planet. Those who had cared to stay watched the thunderous end of their billion-year cradle. And then they¡¯d left. The galaxy beckoned. Swirling nebulae awaited. Scintillating star clusters and strange new worlds. He¡¯d gone too. Of course he had. But for some reason he¡¯d returned. Maybe nostalgia. Maybe some vague sorrow that he¡¯d never experienced everything the dead Earth had to offer before it¡¯d gone. Doubtful. Perhaps the longing everyone has for the golden days of their childhood. An old friend once said he¡¯d dove for it, searching for the earth beneath the surface of the aged sun. He chuckles. A funny fantasy. He almost wishes it¡¯d been true. But everyone knows the planet was torn apart before it even hit the plasma.
Lambent picks a more buoyant form. Touches down on Titan with pale golden toes, in a skin more suited for the thin atmosphere. The hydrocarbon lakes glisten with oily rainbows under the light of pale Saturn. Calla is humanoid today, gleaming skin so dark it¡¯s near purple, freckled with gold like stars against the void. Her eyes are the twinkle of stars through an atmosphere, laughing and dancing as she moves. Her limbs are liquid poetry. The arcs and curves she cut through space are pure mathematical perfection. Her hair, a probability cloud that follows in a hazy, weightless stream. He sees this in an instant, catching glimpses of her among the water streams. It¡¯s a kind of dance today. She drifts lazily over rock and dune until he¡¯s almost upon her. And then off! A shocking burst of speed only slightly breaking physics. She zips to the horizon, winks, and dives into the oil. He stretches shimmering gold legs and takes off after her, splashing through viscous black. He doesn¡¯t want it on his skin, so it slides off as easily as lakewater off oiled paper. She surfaces when he¡¯s almost on her. ¡°Hey!¡± she screeches. ¡°No fair!¡± It isn¡¯t. He always knows where she is. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. They laugh, splashing through the iridescent waves, and he dives against her side. Brings her down. Inky black and a craze of rainbow. The gloop of impact. Her hands, shoving him playfully away. He laughs through the goo, because he loves it all. She squirms free. That, too, isn¡¯t fair. Calla is frictionless when she likes. As frictionless as the unreal. He grabs for her, but she shimmies away. ¡°I scoot!¡± she declares giggling, and scoots off through the muck of the shore. Scuttling on hands-and-butt like a silly Titanoid crab. Lambent can¡¯t follow for a moment. He¡¯s wheezing with laughter. At the affronted look on her face. At the scoot. At the ¡°no no no¡± giggling as she locomotes away. When he does catch her Saturn is low in the sky, and the shimmering ring a wide band of blues and yellows twinkling in the planetset glow, teary-eyed with laughter. They catch their breath there on that shore. ¡°How''s Jupiter?¡± she asks. ¡°I made a friend!¡± He summons the jelly - or a shimmering imaginary facsimile. Jovian jellies do not live well in the low gravity and strange chemistries of Titan. But Lambent remembers with perfect fidelity, so perfect he can imagine his strange friend here with them. Calla is delighted. ¡°Hello!¡± she chirps, earlier exhaustion forgotten. The jelly shimmers in greeting. ¡°What¡¯s it saying?¡± she turns to him. Lambent laughs. ¡°I¡¯m not sure. It¡¯s alien enough that I can remember it but I still can¡¯t understand it. Isn¡¯t that great?¡± ¡°If you don¡¯t by now, you never will.¡± Lambent lays back, basking in the evening glow. ¡°Maybe that¡¯s okay, for some things to be so strange you can never understand them.¡± He perks up onto an elbow. ¡°How''s your project going?¡± She grins. ¡°Wanna see?¡±
They¡¯re dancing. They had danced, on old Earth. Nothing really lasts forever, nothing but Calla and Lambent and the other descendants of Humanity. He¡¯d learned to waltz for her. She¡¯d learned some horrid headbang thing for him. Today, their dance has no name and no pattern. No set style but for what they like. There are no smushed toes. No missteps. They sweep across the crystalline floor of a near-frictionless ballroom. Calla¡¯s project is a crystalline castle. Some of it is diamond. The refracted starlight throws rainbow shimmers everywhere, turning the structure into a psychedelic swirl. Carefully carved minarets act as reflecting glass. Asteroids shimmer and ripple through swooping buttresses. It¡¯s lovely, Lambent thinks. Looking at her. Looking at the glorious eternity ahead of them. She smiles sunny, gloriously joyful in return. It¡¯s almost real. He holds her against him and they look out the grand windows together. ¡°Where do you think I am now?¡± she wonders silently. He knows she¡¯s thinking it, because he knows her with perfect fidelity. So perfect that he can imagine her with him forever. So perfect it¡¯s like they¡¯d never actually parted. ¡°Maybe Andromeda,¡± he guesses. ¡°Big black hole there.¡± She has a perfect-fidelity memory of him, too. She¡¯d wanted to explore, and he had wanted to stay. He wonders briefly if he¡¯s still keeping her company out there in the beyond. Shakes his head. What a silly thought. ¡°You could have been there too,¡± she laughs in a voice like tinkling bells. ¡°If you weren¡¯t so intent on your old cemetery.¡± He wonders too if the ¡°real¡± Calla also used to needle him this badly. "Go on, then,¡± he grumbles. ¡°We both know I already have,¡± she skips backwards for a moment, and then yanks him into a warm, tight hug. ¡°I wonder what you¡¯re saying to me, out there.¡± ¡°Probably bothering you about Sol,¡± he squirms away. Puts a smile on his face, swallows something down. He¡¯s not quite sure what. She chases him and he skips back, ready for another game of tag. But suddenly, his heart¡¯s not in it. She catches him, tumbling end over end through the shining crystal. Refracted starshine glints off her body. He knows exactly how the starshine would glint off her body, and it does. The emulation¡¯s just the same as the real. He feels something tugging at his throat again, and again swallows it back down. Silly thoughts, like his silly nostalgia. ¡°Why so sad?¡± she asks. ¡°Not sad.¡± They sit together on that cool, frictionless floor. He feels her head - the imagined simulacrum of her head - tilt against his shoulder. So perfectly visualized he can even feel it. Warm. The fluff of her hair. The smell of flowers. Every flower in existence is gone, but Calla smells like them. The weight of her head lifts for a moment. ¡°Want to see something cool?¡± ¡°Yea-¡± Crash! A horrible sound of shattering crystal from not far away. Lambent starts. ¡°What was that?¡± Her eyes are topaz, brilliant, almost luminous. Her gaze is clear and there¡¯s a small smile on her lips, both happy and sad, and for once he doesn¡¯t know what emotion he¡¯s emulating for her. She grabs his hand tight. Grips it. Grips it between both palms. Smash! Spider-web cracks crawl up the sides of the ballroom, as another tower collapses in on itself. ¡°Calla,¡± Lambent says. Her thoughts- he doesn¡¯t understand them. He can feel something pricking at his eyelids, the same thing pulling her lips into that strange, sad smile. Crack! An enormous line mars the perfect crystalline floor. Breaks in the rainbows that she¡¯d spent centuries carefully positioning. Still she is silent. ¡°What have you done?¡± he begs. Towers collapse, drifting away under no gravity. The glorious buttresses snap under their weight. The structure groans. ¡°Did you make this just to see it die?¡± The thought feels right somehow, but Lambent doesn¡¯t know why. Calla whispers something. ¡°What?¡± he asks, even though he knows. He knows and he doesn¡¯t want to. ¡°It¡¯s the end,¡± she says, no louder the second time than the first. The gold on her skin moves, first slowly and then with greater speed. Speckles turn and twist as she moves. Like one transparent and filled with stars. ¡°I,¡± he tries, ¡°We¡¯re immortal, Calla. There¡¯s no end, there¡¯s never been an end.¡± Light shimmers and shifts beneath her skin. ¡°You¡¯ll have to remember me the old way.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t!¡± He lunges for her, but she burst suddenly, a searing golden blast that rips through the remainder of the crystal. Pulverizing what¡¯s left of her beautiful creation, ending a thousand years of work and carving. He floats unmoved by it all, looking horrified at the spot where she¡¯d been. Calla is gone. ¡°Calla,¡± he murmured. ¡°Calla, what - why - ?¡± Gone. Calla is gone. He can¡¯t remember why she¡¯d done that. What she had been thinking. Calla is gone. Lambent sags. What is left? Shimmering debris sparkles around him. The air is gone. The world is gone. Calla is gone. Numbly, he wonders how she was able to do that. An emulation in his own brain. She¡¯d always been a genius, Calla is¡­ Gone. Calla is gone. ¡°Calla.¡± Her name is a flower on his lips. Her eyes, a hazy memory of shining topaz. Her voice, a gentle chime. Fuzzy. Everything is fuzzy. There¡¯s no exactness. He can¡¯t imagine what she¡¯d do if she was here. She¡¯d, she¡¯d destroyed her own emulation. ¡°Why?¡± he murmurs. But there¡¯s nothing in the entire Sol system that can hear him. He looks for a moment at far off Andromeda. At the sun, the star that had swallowed his home. At the distant horizons his people had wanted so badly. He looks around, at his own strange vigil. At the sand that remained of their time together. No. Not together. The remnants of a tower drifts through his fingertips. She¡¯d never been here to begin with. Only a memory. In A Way That Matters Jupiter rages. It froths and boils and howls and shrieks. Lightning arcs from the poles, shattering through the irregular crystal formations torn from the depths. Currents crash, warring for control over the flow of the world. Lambent dives. He dives down to the heart of it, past polyp colonies and armored cruciform fliers, through a world that shifts from gas to solid without any stable transition points. He dives. A shape snakes beside him. Lambent does not understand the jellies of this place. Perhaps he never will. They have strange senses beyond the scope of other pre-singularity creatures, or else coincidence has brought him his skydiving friend once more. The jelly has lengthened to eellike proportions. It slithers gracefully through the turbulence and neatly dodges the bursts of Jovian lightning. But it is slow, too slow, its glitter fading quickly. It pulses infrared, just once. Pauses. Wanting to come with, unable to follow. It has aged, Lambent sees. Nothing lasts forever. He leaves it at the depth it can tolerate. It shimmers slightly, exhausted, and folds itself into an oblate sphere to circle patiently. He spares it no further glance. Where he goes it cannot follow; this is as it has always been. The stuff of Jupiter is opaque here. It grows thick and hot and luminescent, the Jovian core steeped in the energy of a thousand thousand tons of planet above. Lambent swims until he is weightless. The very center point of the planet, no world beneath him. He curls into a ball, roiling tight. Jupiter rages. It burns with injustice. It simmers in fury, a million square kilometers of heat packed tight, of screaming winds. The planet screams, and Lambent screams with it. In his fury, fountains of gas erupt from the world. Pressurized formations shudder and quake, grinding crystalline fragments into the hydrogen sea above. As swiftly as the storm comes, it passes. Lambent drifts, feeling nothing, being nothing. He stays there for some time, and the jelly does not come when at last he ascends.
He knows when she enters the system. They always know each other, within a few light-minutes. Otherwise, in this wide universe, how could they ever meet again? Boudicca is gold-eyed and covered with rippling luminous swirls that shimmer across iridescent inky skin. They meet in Lambent¡¯s guest rooms overlooking watery Pluto. Oversized Charon floats dreamily overhead, creamy-white and near the right size. Pluto had surprised him, when the sun expanded. It melted just right. Millenia ago he had worked hard on the Plutonian atmosphere. A field about the planet keeps the air thick and boosts the meager dull-red sunlight to a warm yellow. The atmosphere, he¡¯s tweaked until it shines the right shade of blue. Lay back in the warm sun, close your eyes, ignore the faint ammonia scent¡­ The guest house is an ethereal structure hovering above the waves. Glass-bottomed pools and polished white edged in copper. He¡¯s no architect, so it¡¯s a strangely proportioned thing, but it¡¯s filled with warm ivory colors and thick shaggy carpet and soft pillows and clean lines. They lounge in the low gravity. They lounge on pale cushions in the Plutonian summer, with a circular table between them done in some approximation of wood or wicker. He didn¡¯t bother to differentiate when he made it. He remembers a warm mint tea from old Earth, and shares this with her. The sunlight filter gives a kick of warmth, and they relax in that bone-deep contentment to the sound of distant crashing waves, enjoying the aroma of perfectly-emulated extinct tea. ¡°I traveled for maybe four million years,¡± she tells him. ¡°Hard to tell in deep space.¡± He stretches. Folds pale arms behind his head. ¡°Tell me about it.¡± She does. She shares memories of core-diving stars, of gently-rippling red grass under butterscotch skies, of massive ice crystals jutting from harsh landscapes of eternal cold. Of skiing on frozen clouds and surfing cryovolcanoes and carving beautiful, lonely statues into stone. It¡¯s almost like living it. In turn he introduces her to the Jovian jellies he¡¯d befriended over the years. Shows her the sulfur rivers of Venus and the lakes of Mercury, before the sun had consumed them. Brings in all the visitors that had come back to Sol - though there are few. ¡°You¡¯re a committee,¡± she exclaims, delighted. ¡°Dinner parties every night.¡± ¡°It¡¯s good not to get lonely,¡± he smiles. ¡°Where¡¯s Calla these days? Did you finally get bored with her?¡± It¡¯s an innocent question asked in an innocent way. She meant nothing by it, and what she describes is hardly uncommon. He sips. Swallows. Looks at his hands. She understands instantly. ¡°You can¡¯t just bring her back?¡± He shakes his head mutely and she sets her imaginary tea down. ¡°Lam.¡± The methane breeze ruffles fluttering lacy curtains; the air here is dead. Like the sea. There is no life in it. Boudicca does not leave him to his musings. She folds gold-and-black striped hands and sits forward insistently. ¡°Lam, she left.¡± ¡°I know,¡± he says roughly. ¡°You made her stay.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t.¡± Boudicca exhales. She doesn''t even need to breathe. A long, hissing stream escapes her teeth. ¡°She left. And you imagined that she stayed. Lam, come on, what did she want?¡± Lambent thinks about this for a moment. The wind is cold, a horrible carbon monoxide mixture. It cuts to the bone. ¡°No,¡± he decides. ¡°She wanted to stay, too. She left because she knew that I¡¯d remember her, and she left remembering me.¡± ¡°What did she want?¡± ¡°She - she wanted to build. She¡¯s an artist. And to, to be with me.¡± Lambent snaps his wrists irritably. ¡°She wanted to¡­¡± Boudicca nods with infuriating patience. ¡°What¡¯s she built?¡± ¡°Wh-?¡± Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. Lambent¡¯s throat closes. He swallows methanol air. They sit for a while under false sunlight. The curtain flutters. It had fluttered over Calla, she¡¯d designed the pattern. No, she hadn¡¯t. ¡°Did,¡± Boudicca pauses, ¡°did you imagine her happy?¡± ¡°She was.¡± He knows in his heart she was. Knew her inside and out. ¡°She¡­¡± Then she wasn¡¯t Calla. The idea slams into his brain like an asteroid. Calla didn¡¯t find death beautiful. She would never have made something only to watch it shatter. She would never have stayed. He pushes past that. She would never have been content, had she stayed. And somewhere in the wide universe, the real thing. Perfect. Un-glitched with whatever suicide flaw his bad copy had had. ¡°Where¡¯d she go?¡± he asks desperately. Boudicca frowns. ¡°West spiral arm of Andromeda? I met her a couple billion years ago. You want to find her? She¡¯s probably not still there.¡± ¡°Find her, yes.¡± He bounces to his feet. He tugs at the imperfect curtain, made by a glitched copy. ¡°Mine must have been broken. Wrong. I was so careful with the emulation, but maybe my subconscious affected the imagination. Or maybe there was a gravitational anomaly, we were leaving the galactic plane then. Or maybe radiation, or-¡± ¡°Lam.¡± He flutters into the air, light as a curtain, sweet as the breeze. ¡°She was wrong. If I find her I can make her anew. Or-¡± ideas flood into his brain, a burst of light bright as his false Calla when she went. ¡°Or maybe the mistake was emulating her at all! Have we really resolved the data compression? It shouldn¡¯t have been possible to begin with, according to classical information theory.¡± ¡°Lam.¡± He hops into the air, laughing. ¡°We could travel. The whole universe, like she¡¯d wanted. See everything. Make whatever beautiful things she wants. Oh, I would. I would, for her.¡± ¡°Lam.¡± He feels a gentle hand on his shoulder. He comes down from it for a moment. Feet touch the shaggy white rug. ¡°What?¡± She looks like she wants to say something. Like she¡¯s struggling with it. Opens her mouth. Closes it. Instead she says, ¡°Say goodbye to it all. The Sol system won¡¯t be alive by the time you¡¯re done looking.¡±
They surf Pluto. There¡¯s something about the interaction of the sea and the low gravity and the artificially thickened atmosphere. Pluto has high, thin waves stretching immeasurably towards the sky. Especially when Charon hovers overhead. Lambent is lightweight, optimized for surfing. Short, with a nice low center of gravity. Boudicca is imperious, tall and perfectly balanced. Her board is an extension of her feet, and thin membranes form a sail between impossibly long arms. The two immortals arc together gracefully to and fro, trails of froth in their wake. Pluto is a calmer planet than Jupiter. Her wavelets are mere ripples to the fury of the gas-giant king. The atmospheric shield traps enough heat that it¡¯s warm, hot to contrast the froth and spray. ¡°So why¡¯d you come?¡± Lambent asks. There¡¯s no need to shout over the spray; Boudicca can hear with perfect fidelity. But he does it anyway. Savors the salts and the alcohol spray ruffling his hair. ¡°Can¡¯t visit the place I was born?¡± She doesn¡¯t shout back. ¡°Dicca.¡± She laughs. It¡¯s lower than Calla¡¯s, huskier, and the thought tears a hole in his heart for a moment. Before it¡¯s washed away by the rush of foam. ¡°I¡¯ve been making a study of death.¡± He laughs. Vibrant against the sun and sky. ¡°Really.¡± Boudicca doesn¡¯t respond for a bit. She stops surfing. Just hovers. Drifts above the sea, and settles cross-legged on her board. Her arms fold back inwards, until they¡¯re humanoid once more. She drifts gently after him in the low-gravity, legs dangling over the side of the board. ¡°I¡¯ve been a god, Lam. I¡¯ve built civilizations up. I¡¯ve crushed them.¡± Lambent frowns. ¡°Crushed them?¡± He floats up to join her, hovering gently above the waves on a shining board of his own. Boudicca¡¯s skin ripples with unease. ¡°It¡¯s not uncommon for us.¡± He frowns. ¡°That¡¯s horrible.¡± ¡°Yes. But it¡¯s not uncommon.¡± He looks down over the edge of his board. The sea is a glassy green-black, rushing upwards in swells and crashing back down. ¡°Everything happens to us eventually,¡± Boudicca says after a while. ¡°Every mood. Every whim. That¡¯s what infinity means.¡± ¡°I never-¡± ¡°You had her.¡± She wraps her arms around herself. ¡°And now you don¡¯t.¡± Charon passes. It¡¯s not visible anymore, but he can feel the gravity of it shifting over the horizon. Can see the miniscule pull it has on the water level. The tide passes. Death¡¯s ferryman floats away. ¡°You were talking about dying,¡± he tries. ¡°We don¡¯t.¡± She laughs humorlessly. ¡°Die, I mean.¡± ¡°I, I guess not.¡± ¡°What¡¯s that mean to you?¡± He thinks for a bit. ¡°We were a people of ruin and pain and war. Now we don¡¯t have to be afraid or hurt.¡± She drifts to face him. Leans forward. ¡°You¡¯re not hurt?¡± He grins. ¡°Not now that I¡¯m going to find Calla.¡± She doesn¡¯t react. ¡°We were a people of ruin and pain and sacrifice and love and honor and bravery in the face of horror.¡± Lambent laughs uncertainly. ¡°We¡¯re not¡­ we¡¯re not defined by our deaths, Dicca.¡± ¡°Of course not. Can¡¯t die well. We don¡¯t die at all.¡± ¡°Doesn¡¯t mean we can¡¯t love or sacrifice.¡± She laughs bitterly. ¡°I don¡¯t think there¡¯s any such thing as forever, after all. It¡¯s just one day, and then the next, and then the next, and the next.¡± ¡°That sounds horrible.¡± She grunts a hopeless little grunt, wraps her arms even tighter around her middle. She looks small. Worn-out. Tired. Lambent doesn¡¯t understand this. He¡¯s not sure he can. An eternity of fun had never lessened the experience for him. Centuries of skiing just made him want to ski more. He did the entire Himalayan range, Olympus Mons. The peaks of Europa. He¡¯s skied uphill on slopes made of diamond. That was always what forever had meant to him. He can¡¯t imagine losing interest in the things that bring him joy. Surely there¡¯s a way out for her. He starts to ask. Boudicca could give him a taste of traveling together, truly together. Maybe they¡¯ll find Calla. And the three of them could discover what it means to live well, in a way that makes everyone happy. ¡°Come wi-¡± ¡°I came to destroy the sun,¡± she interrupts. The invitation dies in his throat. ¡°What?¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to destroy it.¡± ¡°Wh-¡± He flounders. Nearly falls off his board. ¡°Why? What? The hell you will!¡± She sets her teeth. Tightens her hands around her chest. ¡°You¡¯re going to stay and stop me? What about her?¡± Lambent flings his arms wide. "What about her? You can''t just kill the sun!" Her eyes soften. "By the time you''re done looking for her it''d have long died anyway." ¡°That doesn''t - that''s not -" He sputters for a moment, incoherent. "Dicca, why?¡± She shifts. Shoulders hunch. Something seems wrong. He takes a breath. Takes another, moves past the incredulous shock. And suddenly he sees her, really sees her. He knows her enough to see the thoughts swirling above her shoulder blades, the reasons tensing at her arms. Boudicca isn''t dying, but she''s approaching something like it. What better gravesite? What better legacy than apocalyptic fire? What better mark on the universe? Why, indeed? Because maybe she¡¯d feel something. Because it matters- very little, to be sure, but more than any other dying star. As a strike against a humanity that failed her. Because it ate the Earth, which had abandoned them all. Because nobody had ever visited, and nobody would ever care. She doesn¡¯t say any of this. Instead she looks at him with wounded golden eyes. But when she speaks, it sounds more defeated than angry. ¡°Because I can.¡± Wake Me When The New Day Dawns The patient is not terminal, but cannot be cured. ¡°Regenerative techniques don¡¯t work,¡± they¡¯d said. ¡°Her brain is rewriting itself.¡± This hospital is bright and sunny and open-air. Lush, too. Vines creep up the pillars and hang from the overarching trellis. Lilies bloom in defiance of the season, and the air is always warm and fresh. Leaves spill from hanging pots and creep along the floor. She floats there in the middle of the room. Smiling, brown in loose-fitting, silky wellness wear. Her hair is a cloud about her head. ¡°Calla,¡± Lambent checks her name readout. ¡°How are we feeling today?¡±
It¡¯s said in the old time when worlds first coalesced Jupiter reached into the far beyond and brought water-ice to a hot, young Earth. That the world-king¡¯s gravity defended the rocky inner planets from asteroidal violence and other horrors. Earth was rare even among goldilocks water-worlds. The development of thinking entities is a fragile thing. Countless factors in perfect balance, countless cataclysms could shatter that perfect, tenuous growth. Across a sea of stars, across billions of years Lambent has been there to see it only once. Sol entered its final phase of life, consuming the inner worlds and spewing radiation and plasma. Something strange happened then, an interaction between Sol¡¯s swansong and the Jovian magnetosphere. Some matter permutation within the metallic hydrogen core of the world. Odd entities formed from exotic states of matter rose, born from fire and plasma and lightning. Life beyond the wildest human imaginings. It is here, in the upper reaches of the old gas giant, that Lambent keeps vigil.
Calla smiles, sunny as the mid-morning. ¡°You must be Lambent!¡± At a thought she rotates to see him. She is in control of her face, her voicebox, and little else. Her arms are twisted in an odd configuration. Strange angles at her joints, and her legs are twined tightly around each other. Hips tilted, shoulders tensed. At intervals she twists and shudders, folded up in some strange monument to musculoskeletal pain. Neurodegenerative, they said. Her muscles locked as tightly as the bone. ¡°Yeah.¡± He hesitates. ¡°How¡¯s the pain?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know what they have me on,¡± she circles the medical field. ¡°Wheeeeew!¡± ¡°Are you still good to be interviewed?¡± He takes a seat. She laughed. Like tinkling bells. Like windchimes or the upper reaches of a xylophone. ¡°We¡¯re fine. Ask your questions. Get your slice-of-life feel-good article.¡± Her wrist twists. It takes him a moment to understand that, bent up behind her back as it is, that this is an invitation to start. He will need to get used to her body language. He clears his throat and begins.
His gelatinous friend does not come. For a long time nothing does. The upper reaches of Jupiter are colder than below. Calmer. Sol pulses a dull ruby-red. Just once. Sunspots swirl across its surface, and its magnetic field contracts slightly. He watches unblinking. Not wanting to miss a single moment. So focused is his attention that he does not notice the jelly¡¯s approach. It¡¯s small. Young. Glittering. Its membranes are still pink around the edges, and it sparkles a pale orange with curiosity. He looks away from the dying star and holds an arm out invitingly. The jelly hesitates, contracts. Dims hesitantly. And then it drops back into the Jovian depths. Lambent turns his attention back to Sol.
¡°How are your legs?¡± he asks. She chuckles. ¡°They move as one.¡± To demonstrate, she tilts them side to side. Her calves are folded back against her thighs. ¡°It¡¯s my tail, I guess.¡± ¡°Like a mermaid.¡± ¡°A mermaid!¡± The idea seems to delight her. She twists awkwardly, circling the medical field again. ¡°Siren of the seas! Hear me sing! Watch out or I¡¯ll lure you to your death!¡± The shape of her is twisted, contorted, uncomfortable. But there¡¯s an odd grace to the way she moves, courtesy of the medical field. He can almost see it. Lambent laughs. ¡°You¡¯re luring me, for sure.¡± He walks up under the field, looking at the light sparkle in topaz eyes. Opens his mouth, and forgets what he¡¯s about to ask. She¡¯s grinning, she¡¯s going to live the next hundred years disabled and in pain and she¡¯s grinning like the sun itself. ¡°So uh,¡± the mermaid says, ¡°how do we start?¡±
The jelly returns with a few others. Lambent has never been sure how social they are. He¡¯s seen them in groups of only one or two. There¡¯s a lot he doesn¡¯t know about them. There¡¯s a lot he will never know. It¡¯s near imperceptible but the poles of the sun seem to squeeze together for a bit. Just for a moment. The magnetic field shudders, vibrates like a massive blob of gel. ¡°Wake me when the new day dawns,¡± Lambent sings quietly to himself. ¡°Together we will ride the sun.¡± Somewhere far below, he can hear the thunder. The song of Jupiter continues, unknowing. Unthinking. The storm churns as it always has. A few more jellies approach, rising on the scant updrafts. The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. He hums the next line - he can never quite remember what it is. An old song from when he was human. No - he¡¯s still human, in every way that matters. A song from when he could die. Sol shudders again, and then once more. It squeezes down, like a child bearing down on a tangerine. Dims slightly, widens about the middle. And then it bursts. Plasma spews out in all directions. He sees it before the shockwave comes. It takes ten minutes for light to reach the planet, give or take a few. The bright, casting the world into a sharp, violent relief. His body, a blot across the daytime sky. The jellies surrounding him, pale shadows against the clouds. And then it¡¯s gone, for the moment. He knows what¡¯s just happened, even if it hasn¡¯t reached them yet. The jellies surround him, by now. Everywhere, timid red-brown little speckles. They huddle together, membranes tight. Browning old jellies, at the edge of their reproductive cycle. Young pinkish jellies. Strong, young clear jellies, sick cloudy ones, all still, floating around him in the upper atmosphere of Jupiter. ¡°We,¡± Lambent sings, ¡°fly into them one by one. One by one.¡±
Lambent is in a great mood. Calla is a great interview subject. She¡¯s fun, she¡¯s funny, she¡¯s witty and positive. ¡°To cap off this interview,¡± he says, ¡°the medical calculations have finished. Doc¡¯s ready to deliver prognosis and treatment.¡± ¡°Can¡¯t be cured, they tell me,¡± she says. ¡°I¡¯d shrug, but I¡¯d get stuck like that.¡± ¡°Maybe it¡¯s got something for you. I know some like it to be a private moment-¡± She surprises him. ¡°Wake me when the new day dawns! Together we will ride the sun.¡± He laughs. ¡°What, what¡¯s that?¡± This time she does shrug. ¡°It¡¯s a really old song. About how we¡¯ll get there someday. She floats up on her back, and somehow though it¡¯s day he knows she¡¯s looking at distant stars. ¡°There¡¯s nothing we can¡¯t figure out, with enough time.¡± ¡°We?¡± ¡°Humanity,¡± she swims back to face him. ¡°Oh no!¡± He reaches up to help her unclench her shoulders, but it doesn¡¯t quite work. The muscles are locked together, tight as a cramp. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it,¡± she shakes him away. ¡°Let¡¯s see what doc has for me.¡± She shakes her head for a moment, as if to shake away any shadow of fear. On a hunch, he reaches up and grabs her hand, and she squeezes it as only someone with her disability can. It¡¯s turning his metacarpals into paste, but he doesn¡¯t pull away. ¡°Doc, what¡¯s going to happen to me?¡±
The shockwave hits Jupiter¡¯s upper atmosphere. A thousand thousand tons of superheated plasma crashes into the planet. The sound alone is enough to nearly shatter Lambent¡¯s physical form. Sol screams as it dies. The planet howls. Jupiter fights the oncoming radiation with the fury of an angry god. It¡¯s shielded by the strongest planetary magnetosphere in the system. Aurorae flood, blinding bright, from the poles. Blinding flares of rainbow light, blue and purple and ultraviolet streak across the sky. Visible even against the dying sun. The worst of it deflects off into space, but even what¡¯s come through blasts him backwards. Boiling hydrogen shoots past in streams, geysers forming out of the pressurized fluid morass far below. In this instant Lambent feels a good fifth of the Jovian biosphere die. The armored crystalline feeders shatter. All of them, on the daylight side of the planet. The polyp colonies won¡¯t be far behind, clinging to bare fragments of pulverized ice. Floater balloons shred instantly in all but the deepest layers of the planet. The jellies were made for storms. They survive. Shaken, but alive. There¡¯s more, now. He hadn¡¯t noticed, but they¡¯ve come to watch together, huddling close. As far as the eye can see, glittering speckles like a field of infinite stars. And then the day fades. The sun grows redder and redder. The sky shifts to void, the galaxy appears under the dimming midday sun. It¡¯s a spark, barely a candle-flame in the sky. The sea of jellies ripplies with the wind, with the churning Jovian morass. And then it¡¯s gone. ¡°Wake me when the new day dawns¡­¡±
The doc-unit lights up beside Calla¡¯s nameplate. ¡°Regenerative therapy has been unsuccessful,¡± it says. ¡°Your motor cortex continues to strengthen the aberrant connections, even once they¡¯ve been corrected.¡± ¡°I know,¡± Calla says. Her voice is strong and clear, but she squeezes Lambent¡¯s hand nonetheless, maybe subconsciously. Bears down on it. He does not gasp with the pain. ¡°Self-guided therapy has also been ineffective. There are no new treatments.¡± The doc-unit¡¯s voice softens. ¡°I¡¯ll selectively sever your spine. Surgically remove the muscular connections. The pain and the spasms will be gone.¡± ¡°She¡¯ll never move again,¡± Lambent says. Maybe in protest, maybe as clarification. He¡¯s not sure. The hand around his tightens further still. ¡°We¡¯re going to release you,¡± the doc says gently. ¡°There¡¯s nothing more this facility can do for you.¡± There¡¯s a pause, and it flashes a soft green. ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡± Calla doesn¡¯t respond at first. Lambent looks up, not sure what to say. Her face is a dull ruddy-red. It¡¯s visible even with her complexion. She lets out a quiet, strangled sound, crushes his hand a little more. And then she releases him. ¡°Calla, I,¡± he tries. She turns away. Lets out a sound like a long, drawn out grunt. Like she¡¯s been punched in the solar plexus. Like she¡¯s too twisted up to breathe. Like someone too broken to cry. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I, uh,¡± There¡¯s no further response. ¡°I, um, if you need anything, you have my contact information.¡± Lambent feels lame. Like he¡¯s giving out his resume. ¡°I know we don¡¯t know each other all that well, it¡¯s just¡­¡± He realizes he¡¯s spoiling the silence. Blathering like an idiot. Lambent shuts up. He backs away. Before he leaves he hears it. It¡¯s quiet, in a voice that sounds like shattered windchimes and squashed xylophone keys. ¡°Together we¡¯ll ride the sun¡­¡±
It¡¯s dark. It¡¯s said that at the birth of this star system, at the formation of planets Jupiter¡¯s gravity shielded the newborn Earth from rogue planetoids and impacts. That the enormous guardian-world allowed a fledgling water-and-carbon biosphere to thrive. Life finds a way. Even without the sun, Jupiter¡¯s poles are lit with lightning and captured ions. One last gift from the dead star. One that will feed the Jovian denizens for possibly decades more. The internal temperature of the planet is over thirty thousand degrees centigrade. The heat will radiate, and eventually the planet will freeze. But it will take time. The jellies dissipate soberly. Their luminescence is dimmed. Their tendrils curled up. They drift lower, to live off the energy of the storms, until even those cool and slow. He summons his old friend to watch beside him. The emulated jelly understands what¡¯s happened, because he understands it. But beyond that, its thoughts are opaque, and its emotions are strange and alien. It speckles purple, and then green. They watch together until the aurora fades. ¡°...fly into them one by one¡­¡± Seasons Dont Fear The stars blur in prismatic patterns, shifting crazily as rainbows on the void. They flutter, shift, tighten, brighten, contract. Every shade of light, blinding against an infinite deepness. Lambent is a tachyon stream flooding across the cosmos at several times the speed of light. Even at such a breathtaking rate, it will take millennia to reach Andromeda, and he dare not fly faster. Drink too deep of the relativistic world past c and you may never return. Even at such a pace everything is still. Peaceful. There is no violence to his passing, as there would be in an atmosphere. The prismatic haze of each faraway star passes at a ponderous rate. There is no air here to disturb, no matter, nearly no radiation at all. The abyss between galaxies is serene and unchanging. In such a state Lambent cannot really think. He cannot emulate. Thoughts take years to fizzle across his mind, such as it is. He is a quantum haze watching a psychedelic lightshow a million years long. In this place he is content to drift, mind near emptied. If he had a face he would have smiled dreamily. He could spend eternity like this, watching the universe flow backwards from one end to the other. But then he remembers Calla. The way she smiles. It¡¯s hard to summon up much memory of her at all, but he knows how he feels when she smiles. How she nuzzles up to his chest. How silly she can get. He wants to smile even more, with his non-face. That¡¯s true happiness. He could spend eternity with her, just listening to the sound of her laugh. Maybe they could fly together. Drift too far past the speed of light, float in the cosmic light, and never return. Just the two of them.
He comes back to himself in the western spiral arm of Andromeda, filled once more with human impatience and human frustrations. The first system he searches is a tiny bright-yellow star so achingly familiar that he feels sure she has been there. No signs of life, no self-replicating structures, not even a stray bacterium. Fifteen planets, some quite large, and plenty of moons. He takes a break to float on polymerous mats on the fourth world. Banishes the irritation and the impatience, purges the anger from his mind. On a whim he summons - not Boudicca; his feelings are mixed after what she did to Sol. Not Calla, she¡¯s gone. A few other friends come to mind. Instead he brings to mind the jelly, hovering serenely beside him. ¡°You don''t seem like you¡¯re capable of annoyance, my friend,¡± he tells it. It glitters serenely, flattening down into a wide disc and settling in on the mat beside him. He tilts his head back. ¡°Didn¡¯t think we¡¯d find her right away, no. That would be a thing, wouldn¡¯t it? Finding her in the first system we looked.¡± It shifts. He can sense some level of¡­ well he can sense that it knows what his concerns are. The jelly understands hope and loss. ¡°Sorry about your planet,¡± he says. It glitters blue for a moment in loss. And then red. It¡¯s expressing something. Lambent squints, trying to bridge the gap. Unease - no. Maybe some sort of resolve. ¡°Your people lived, maybe they¡¯ll find a way to persist.¡± But that¡¯s not quite it. It shifts down the spectrum and wobbles its upper surface. Lambent hikes himself up on one elbow, thinking. Brow furrowed. ¡°I could¡¯ve stopped it?¡± he tries. There¡¯s an odd satisfaction from the jelly. He hasn¡¯t quite gotten it, but close enough. ¡°I could have stopped it,¡± he repeats. Then he lays back. ¡°I don¡¯t know. Maybe right then, sure. We can¡¯t kill each other, and we can¡¯t die. She¡¯d have gotten it eventually.¡± The jelly scrunches back up, luminescence dimmed. Hesitating. And then reaches out with a pseudopod and gently pokes Lambent in the forehead. He pokes it back. ¡°Boop.¡± And then flops back down, polymerous mat undulating with the motion. ¡°Sorry. I am.¡± He sighs, lets out a long, long, long breath. More than any lung capacity he¡¯d ever had. Ends it by hissing through his teeth. ¡°Wish we could split up.¡± The jelly shimmies in a small circle. He laughs. ¡°I don¡¯t know what that means.¡± The sky above beckons. It¡¯s murky, a weird ink-purple color from down here, with streaks of brown condensate churning through the mix. ¡°Back to it, I guess.¡±
She¡¯s not in that system. She¡¯s not in the next or the next or any of the adjacent ones to the next, and Lambent knew, he knew that this wouldn¡¯t be a fast search, but there¡¯s so many stars, they¡¯re all so far apart, and the human mind wasn¡¯t really built with the patience to do something with no hint of success for eternity. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. World after world. Some breathtaking, most of them rocky, airless places filled with noxious chemicals and desolate skies. He takes a break to ski down an uninspired slope under low gravity, but it¡¯s really not doing anything for him. After that the breaks get longer and more frequent. He moves slower, he skips gas giants altogether, reasoning after a while that nothing she¡¯d built inside one would last. He¡¯s floating lazily through the sky of a bleak frozen rock when he realizes that even if she¡¯d been here he won¡¯t notice. ¡°What is the point¡± he wails in despair. The jelly doesn¡¯t respond. It¡¯s been distant with him lately, and he¡¯s starting to suspect that it¡¯s on purpose. ¡°And you,¡± he lights on a monolithic outcropping. ¡°What¡¯s eating you?¡± The jelly ignores him, tendrils curled up. Glittering an indifferent green. The winds that sweep this place are cold and cruel. They cut right down to the bone. Lambent¡¯s booted feet crunch through crystalized nitrogen and jagged exotic ice formations. The wind tears at his pale hair and sand-blasts him with sleet. The jelly hovers nearby indifferently. He doesn¡¯t know if it cared about him, if it ever cared about him. Certainly it¡¯s too alien to care about Calla. He¡¯s been dragging it along on this stupid intergalactic needle-chase, and it¡¯s tolerated him in its own serene manner. ¡°There¡¯s nobody else I cared to talk to, or else they¡¯d be here instead of you,¡± he tells it. ¡°They¡¯d be telling me that this is stupid. That you can¡¯t find one person in the universe. Should have gone with. Stupid.¡± He smacks a fist against the rocky cliff face. ¡°Stupid.¡± The jelly glimmers sullenly. It drifts lower, closer to the ice and rock. The top of it begins to frost over; that¡¯s definitely on purpose. As a figment of his imagination, it¡¯s completely indifferent to temperature. ¡°You¡¯re here just as long as I am, and I¡¯m here forever,¡± he snaps at it. ¡°Could have been traveling the galaxy with Calla. Could have stayed together. It¡¯s not fair!¡± A burst of heat and light explodes out from him. The ground hisses and flashes to steam. He sinks down the side of the cliff face, into the slush and muck and sediment. ¡°Can¡¯t do this,¡± he mumbles into his arm. ¡°Can¡¯t keep going forever.¡± He looks helplessly at the sky. He can. He knows he can. That¡¯s the worst part. He has eternity. There¡¯s no problem that can¡¯t be solved by throwing yourself at it forever and ever. Lambent hasn¡¯t faced the impossible since before he became more than human. ¡°Can¡¯t stop,¡± he moans. He wants to. He wants to, but if he lets go now, what does he have left? ¡°There¡¯s always you,¡± he mumbles spitefully. The jelly draws closer and raises a single tendril. It hesitates, fluttering infrared for a moment. It shivers for a moment, glowing a steady green. It¡¯s concentrating? Determined? It boops him on the forehead once more, and he sees it. For a moment. A shared memory, a young little jelly, still pink around the edges. Cautious in its approach. Curious. Afraid. He¡¯d left it behind. In a way they both had. Lambent screws up his eyes again. Grabs the jelly about its bulk and buries his face in an imagined membrane. Gold glitters through his eyelids, and he can sense some weird analogue to satisfaction from it. Hope. And maybe loss, too. ¡°You know,¡± he presses his face into it. ¡°You lost someone, too.¡± It curls around him, envelops him. He can tell this isn¡¯t something it really understands - jellies probably didn¡¯t touch each other much. But it¡¯s copying him, it¡¯s trying to bridge the communication gap. He shivers, and it shivers with him. The wind howls. Nitrogen snow pelts them together, and he grips his friend. The sun goes down, a distant pinprick in the day-starred sky. And still he sits there. He¡¯s not sure what to do next. Back to it, probably. He can¡¯t quite bring himself to, but it¡¯s cold and he¡¯s stiff and he doesn¡¯t want to sit here forever. The jelly pulls back. It¡¯s glittering pink and yellow, and the sight fills him with an awful melancholy. Calla would have loved meeting it. She would have- It boops him on the face again, and he grunts. Not quite in surprise. He doesn¡¯t really feel capable of feeling anything just now. There¡¯s no image, no shared memory, and he gets the sense that it¡¯s not trying for one. The jelly bops him again. ¡°Hey,¡± he tells it dully. ¡°Knock it off.¡± It¡¯s glittering brighter, a vibrant gold-flecked pink, shimmering light moving just beneath the surface. It bops him one last time. ¡°Hey,¡± he says, ¡°what?¡± It takes off, floating upwards, undulating with some kind of incomprehensible jelly emotion. Rises into the air, a few hundred feet away from the rocky monolith they¡¯ve been sitting on. ¡°What?¡± he asks again. Gets to his feet. He¡¯s been letting the temperature rise in his immediate vicinity. When he rises he¡¯s knee-deep in nitrogen slush. It undulates, flashes red for a moment. And then blue. ¡°Okay, are you good?¡± he asks. Floats after it into the howling winds. ¡°Something else is wrong? I¡¯m sorry for the-¡± It boops him again, shoves him backwards. ¡°Are you¡­ playing?¡± It spins up, and when it impacts him the force twists him around. ¡°Come on, buddy. What¡¯s going-¡± Then he sees it. ¡°-on,¡± Lambent finishes quietly. He takes a moment to digest the sight. Howling winds and snow had covered the rocky outcropping in a millennium of frozen media, but his tantrum had boiled away the nitrogen and carbon dioxide, had melted the cliff face down to rock layers, shining marbled white. The monolith is humanoid. A hundred miles tall, hands outstretched, smiling. Weathered and worn, but unmistakably, incontrovertibly him. He swallows and the visage blurs until he blinks a few times. His carved face is smiling. Carefree. There¡¯s a softness to him that he doesn¡¯t remember when he looks at his own reflection. He can¡¯t remember the last time he smiled. He lets out a wordless sound. Something like a sigh, something like a laugh. Something like a sob. The jelly glitters gold and green beside him. Triumphant. ¡°Alright,¡± he croaks. ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡±