LiTTLE CHERiNE Book 02 - post197

arthur.grafo (69)in #sfandf-fiction • 6 years ago

^{...the coming together of Cherine and I seems to be the coming together of two souls who are one in every way and we must be destined to love each other in every possible world.}

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1204

The only one who is active and fully alive with purpose is Alki. Selling most of his businesses has given him a new flow of energy as he drives himself to find new ways to grow their wealth beyond any figures that would make sense to me.

Cherine is spending more and more hours studying. She says not having the girls around has helped her concentrate on learning and she shows a truly voracious appetite for knowledge. If the other girls follow her example I am going to end up the dunce of the family. It would make me very proud.

Enough of this. I see the sun is shining and I would like to take Cherine and Alki to sit in the square and enjoy the hustle and bustle of the café society while we have our coffee or sweet.

What a weird feeling!

We were enjoying ourselves and our teasing of each other, when my protector made me notice a young man sitting a few tables away from us. I tried to sense his mind, but there was nothing. I was getting concerned when he got up and came over to us. His introduction of himself stunned us and brought everything to a new realisation, making real what we had only known.

“You are Robert and you are Cherine? I apologise, it took a while to recognise you, I am not used to the differences of human shapes in this material world. I am of the Anadir come here for you.”

“Welcome then. It is always good to meet those of your worlds. You have a name?”

He laughed. “Ordinx has warned us to choose names suitable to this world. I tried to speak my name but this body is not made for such sounds. You would forgive me if I give a shortened name? I think you would appreciate the humour of it’s sound. Abratt.”

“A brat?”

“No Cherine, Abratt. I knew it would give rise to amusement.”

He sat with us a short while and then moved on to sit amongst different crowds. Meeting him had made it all suddenly too real and our mood changed. We returned home, chastened by the thought of millions like him tirelessly walking the cities searching out our enemies. What a lucky people we Cherinians are to have such friends.

“Cherine, it is about time we visit Mama Josephine. Then I want just the two of us to dance. A long slow dance so that I am filled with your motes.” We lay on our bed, our bodies against each other, so that the first thing either of us would see on opening our eyes would be the other.

“Before we dance Robert, can you take me with you where you become the void? I want to feel how it is being the size of a universe.”

“I’ll take you my love, but you will not get to feel it. I think our minds are incapable of sensing something so vast. The only way to get a feel for the size is to transfer my point of view from where I am to the edge of what I can sense, then keep on repeating my moves to the farthest edge. I have not tried it to any great extent - I’m afraid of losing my home point.”

“How far can you sense, further than our own solar system?”

“Much further. My home point of view includes the total galaxy and a couple of other galaxies in all directions.”

“That is not far!! I want to feel it.”

1205

I smiled. “Your wish is my command.”

“Is it possible…”

“Ask me love.”

“Is it possible to go to other solar systems, to see other planets?”

“That is a strange question for you to be asking, you’ve been to the void and seen our own planet. What do you see?”

“Oh!” She was disappointed. “All we can see from there is the energy of the souls and the planet.”

“Also the effects of the gravity. Didn’t you notice the moon and our sun and other planets?”

“I never really thought about it.” She thought about it, so I waited. Her eyes widened. “Robert, you are not telling me all the truth, why? Don’t you want to take me to other planets?”

“Now what are you talking about?”

“Since you can, as the void, come to Earth?”

I sat up, shocked at my own stupidity. “I didn’t think of it! Cherine if I had, I would have gone to Mars and a couple of our own planets, the idea has always fascinated me.”

“Because of your science fiction?”

“The other way around love, because I was fascinated, bewitched (μαγεμένος) you might say, by the concept of a multitude of civilisations out there, of finding life and ideas alien to us, I read science fiction. My girl, how about we visit Jupiter. It is a fascinating planet. Scientists still do not understand it and I doubt that mankind will find a way to go beneath or deeply into the gas cover. Just to go into the red spot would be amazing. It is huge, you could lose our planet in it. The forces of energy tearing around in there should be quite a sight!”

“Do you think there is any life there?”

“I still find it difficult to tell what are the energies of a planet and those of life. One storm with lightning is more powerful than all the life on Earth, in energy.”

“Can’t we ask a Sparkler to come with us? They can tell when there is life.”

“Another bright idea! You are certainly growing into a clever girl. Hold it, I think we both forgot one thing. We can’t take a Sparkler with us, I do not want to lose Aganthi and Irene.”

“What do you mean? Oh Robert, you promised to never show them how to become the void!! I’m sorry, I didn’t think of that.” She had flushed with pleasure when I’d been impressed by her thinking and was now chagrined at her forgetting something so important.

“I forgot too my love. I’m not trying to play the adult with you, but I have to say this. However brilliant you grow up to be, always remember that you cannot know everything, nor can you help forgetting things. You know how I always refuse to make fixed plans, I have found time after time that my plan would have been wrong because of information I already had. It is not only the unknown that is dangerous, it is our own fallibility that is more dangerous.”

“What a pity Sparklers don’t have eyes, then we could tell it to close it’s eyes.” I laughed at the delightful childishness of her remark. Of one thing I am certain of in my life. For however long I live, I will always want to be surrounded by children.

“You know that Solomon likes you more than Ordinx does. He even made you a Sparkler, Ordinx did not.”

“I don’t think Ordinx has the right to make me an honorary Sparkler, love.” She tapped me on the chest in exasperation. “Ordinx I think feels more strongly attached to Sam. I don’t blame him, she dotes on him.”

1206

“If he could know they will be friends and come to us when she was born, why couldn’t he warn us about the spider?”

“Maybe their friendship is something so special to him that he could foresee it. Just like I can foresee something and make a prediction.”

“What?”

“That I am certain the way we are carrying on, the sun will rise before we get to the void.”

“Oh that! We can go whenever we want. Talking is also important Robert.”

“Spoken like a wife. Sorry, don’t hit me, I agree with you.”

She made a face. “When you are in this kind of mood it may be better we don’t talk. Let’s go.”

“I said I’m sorry love. We have so much to worry about all the time we tend to forget about laughing. You haven’t teased me for so long, I miss it.”

“I don’t know why, you always lose out.”

“It also helps to stop me from getting a swollen head. I think we should make it a rule, every time I am successful or right about something, you have to tease me.”

“I don’t need an excuse, just an opportunity. How can I tease you when you are worrying about us.”

“Tease me. Cherine, I have a feeling I have forgotten something and it could cause us huge problems.”

She suddenly laughed, delighted. “I just realised, you are not fighting a battle with the spider! You are just teasing him. That is why you treat it like a game so often.”

“I suppose that must be what infuriates him. People hate not being taken seriously.”

“You don’t.”

“You are very wrong love. Many of the things others take seriously I don’t. I do have things that I do take seriously about myself - most of them have to do with what kind of person I am. My greatest fear is that one day you, the girls and maybe the other Cherinians, will turn around and say, how could we love that kind of man?”

“I’ll always love you, whatever kind you are.”

“You keep my heart swollen with love all the time love; don’t also help to swell my ego. Come, we better go now.”

We arrived and this time I stopped, giving us time to admire and enjoy the view. When we had only had our Kaleidoscope World, it had seemed a thing of impossible beauty, a miracle that drew the eye to it. The colours, the vibrant quality of life in what we had thought of as a place of death had made it overwhelming. Now beyond it were what seemed to us countless other Worlds, mostly those of the Anadir, and some of the magic in our eyes, in the way we saw our World, was lost. Still, the sight of that multitude of Worlds is in beauty far above anything that can be imagined on Earth.

Like a pretty girl going to a party may put on sparkling makeup (it was popular a while ago), the beauty of all the Worlds is brought to life by the glow and magic of the Sparklers. To see what looks like tiny green and yellow suns and know that each one of them is a sentient being would be like seeing the whole population of Earth in the incandescent glow of their souls.

Perhaps, because we did not dance nor go to our World, Solomon came to see if we were in need. Cherine explained to him why we were staying without movement, the way she put it across to him made it sound as if the greatest beauty was the sight of the galaxy of Sparklers. He was silent for a while.

*You are right, all this, even in the way I perceive it, is truly beautiful. We are pleased that the sight of us fills you with such a sense of pleasure and that you are able to see beauty in us. For too long has the sight of us only filled others with a sickening dread.*

*The day will come Solomon, when the sight of your people will be welcomed as a source of hope and life. You are already on the road to attaining that.*

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