Kirlian Quest (31 page)

/What?/ Herald flashed.

"See for yourself." Brother Paul waved one arm, and the vision formed about them, emerging from a dreamlike background of chaos. "There is the sun high in the easttern sky," he said, his right hand pointing up. Sure enough, the bright orb became manifest, yellowish in the manner of Sol as spied from Earth. Herald had a private vision of that yellow entering the genetic makeup of the creatures of that system, and emerging as the hue of the hair of Psyche. "Reaching toward it up on the hill, is the Tower of Truth." And the magnificent tower formed, like the central column of Kastle Kade—what truth lay beneath that edifice, had he but known in time!—its highest turrets illuminated by a direct beam of light. "Beneath it in the deep valley, is the Dungeon of Wrong." Brother Paul's left hand pointed down toward it, that crevasse whose horrors were half concealed by deep shadow. "Euphemisms for Heaven and Hell, of course. And between these extremes, the Fair Field Full of Folk, or the living people of the world, going about their business of making money, oblivious to all else. Only a few even look up to glimpse the prospect of Truth, or down to gain some hint of the abyss toward which they drift." And the teeming field of Solarians coalesced. "That's the setting for
The Vision of Piers Plowman
, an epic poem dating from the time of the origin of Tarot, written in several versions between the years 1362 and 1395 by William Langland of England."

Herald studied the animation, impressed. /This is much the manner of the Cluster. The myriad species of the Spheres go about their pursuits heedless of the threat of extinction that looms so near./

"Threat of extinction?"

/The Amoeba. Without the science of the Ancients, we cannot hope to stand against it. The alien fleet will conquer the Cluster, and it shall be—hell./

"So that was what brought you here! Concern for the peril to your society. This is the highest ethic."

/No. I only want my Solarian bride back./ Herald flashed. Then he considered, shocked in another fashion.
/Me
—I am one of those self-centered sapients of the Field of Folk. I put my personal concern before the welfare of my Cluster!/

"You have, indeed, been granted a vision," Brother Paul agreed.

Herald spun his disks and writhed his sinuous torso thoughtfully. /My personal case is lost—but that of the Cluster is not. It behooves me to do whatever I can to salvage our civilization from the Amoeba./

"And therein may lie also your personal salvation," Brother Paul murmured.

/I doubt it. I think your Jesus Christ himself would have trouble restoring my Lady of Kade to life./

"Yet He might do so, even now, were it part of God's design. I regret I do not know that design." Brother Paul looked at the layout again. "Here is the Present—the influences affecting your current situation. The Two of Aura, signifying..." He trailed off, staring at the card.

/The Deuce of Aura signifies Aura,/ Herald flashed. /Two Atom ships, a magnetic formation, a minor space fleet./ The Tower and Valley receded, the Field of Folk dropping down to give the sky prominence, showing the fleet. /I am Aura, and so was my love, and so are the Ancients. All that I am is bound to Aura./

The Solarian nodded his human head. "How well you comprehend. And here is the card of the Future, the Ten of Swords." Ten little blades rose out of the picture, flying up into the sky to join the Atom ships. "Signifying survival."

/With science we can survive,/ Herald agreed. /Without it, we have no future./

"And the final card, Destiny—this is the Ghost." And from the card swirled its image, expanding holographically to fill the scene: the vast mystery of deep space, the stars and the dust clouds, a pattern like that of primeval chaos.

/The Great Unknown,/ Herald flashed. /The spread of Tarot has defined the problem very nicely, but it offers no solution./

"What is that tentacular shape in the distance?" Brother Paul asked. He gestured, and a section of the animation expanded as though they were traveling at high multiples of the speed of light toward it.

/Merely an extra-Galactic nebula,/ Herald said. /They are not uncommon, and they come in all configurations. There are specialists who study them, like my friend of Segment Weew—/ He froze, staring at the growing shape rushing toward them from the background of the Ghost animation. Its pseudopods reached forward three-dimensionally as though to grasp him personally. /The Amoeba!/

"The Cluster threat?"

/The enemy fleet, radiating out from its mattermission nucleus beyond Furnace, coming to destroy our civilization. That sent its ship to ray me down on Mars, and now comes for me again, even in my animations—
Stop it!/

Brother Paul put his hand over the card, and the looming image vanished. "Surely the reading need not end here, without solution," he protested. "Perhaps we have not posed the right question. Or we may need another reading. This one was from the pile of Thought, and it has certainly made us think; but if we—"

/The spread can be augmented,/ Herald flashed. /That is what makes it versatile. Any aspect that is unclear can be subdefined by a satellite spread./

"Oh, very nice! I did not realize this. Which card do you wish to subdefine?"

/The Ghost, naturally. In the Amoeba lies our problem, and if we could only comprehend it, know its vulnerabilities.../ He let it trail away. /But that must be done last. Any satellites have to be launched in chronologic order. The background must be understood before the solution comes./

"Yes, that makes sense. I think I like this mode; it guides the querent well. The basic spread provides the essence; then it is refined as the needs of the querent dictate. For you, which card?"

/The Past. Vision. Your Field of Folk is a pretty analogy, and it helps my perspective, but I am not sure we correctly read its import. Lay a definition card across it./

Brother Paul crossed Vision with the next card from the pile. "Temperance," he said. And the full-bodied, bare-breasted Solarian female appeared before the starry background, pouring fluid from one cup to another. “The pouring of the waters of life from one vessel to another—or the transfer of the soul after death to the spectral realms."

/Or the Transfer of Aura from one body to another, in life,/ Herald added, intrigued by the quaint historical interpretations. /This is what enables contemporary Cluster civilization to exist. Without Transfer, inter-Spherical government would be impractical. Temperance was the emblem of the erstwhile Society of Hosts, before involuntary hosting was rendered passé./

"Aura, again. This certainly figures strongly in your background."

/Yes. Without the science and art of Aura, I would be nothing. The Tarot has defined me well. Vision crossed by Aura, Herald the Healer./

"Yet I am not certain I fathom the full implication. Is it permissible to subdefine further?"

/Certainly. This is normally done. Lay down three more cards, clockwise in relation to the main spread. These define Past, Present, and Future of the subconcept, completing the satellite. A satellite, of course, has no separate destiny; the whole is merely a definition of an aspect of the primary reading./

Brother Paul nodded appreciatively and laid down the three cards. “The King of Cups, King of Swords, and Queen of Aura," he announced. "But two of them depict alien creatures."

/Yes, this is the Solarian edition, mainly humanoid,/ Herald flashed. /The suit face cards are the principal region of other-sapient representations. The Tarot editions of other Spheres often have Solarians in their suit cards, as a matter of complementary courtesy. But it is possible to find anything, in any deck—and
all
decks are valid aspects of the complete Cluster Tarot./

"I can appreciate that. But it does make it a bit more difficult for me to interpret the cards."

Herald considered the first card of the satellite, and its figure moved into full animation, hovering in the air between them as if floating—or swimming. It had a diffuse, bubbly torso with projecting flippers and eye-stalks. /This is a Spican Impact,/ he explained. /A creature of a water world in a Sphere adjacent to Sphere Sol, Galaxy Milky Way. As the Cluster Tarot found acceptance among other species, they identified with it in appropriate ways. The Spicans are sapient water creatures, so of course—/

"Ah, I see. The King of Cups—a male water-sapient. Most appropriate."

/Actually, the Spicans are triple-gendered, though their sexual roles are somewhat interchangeable depending on the circumstance of their encounters. But the generally more forceful nature of the Impact gender led to this identification as a basically male image./

"But what have Spicans, regardless of sex or circumstance, to do with your situation?"

Herald flashed with humor. /I thought you understood, Brother. This card is you./

Brother Paul did a human doubletake. "
Me?
I am no Spican water-sapient creature with eye-stalks!"

/But you
are
the King of Cups. Therefore this is your Significator in the Cluster deck. The image is merely a convenience for identification of the particular card; its inherent meaning is quite apart from this. You, as the founder of the Cluster Tarot, the discoverer of the phenomenon of animation, as the first of the great Cluster-historical auras, are very much a part of my situation, as your presence here demonstrates. There is no other figure this card could represent in this context./

Brother Paul shook his head. "It must be so, if that is the way you see it. But it is something of a shock for me. I never thought of myself as a submerged sapient."

/Oh, I find the likeness excellent./

Brother Paul accepted the jibe with singular grace. "I suppose in the sense that I was submerged in your subconscious, manifesting only in this your hour of need, and will return to that watery limbo when your problem is liquidated—"

/You tease me, Patriarch!/

"Well, some levity befits the occasion, if we are to maintain equilibrium." He considered the spread again. "I might have been inclined to suspect this next card, the King of Swords. This is after all a human figure. Except that the man is naked and muscular and green, while I am clothed and a bit fat and brown." The big green savage strode out from the card to achieve his full stature in animation, glancing at them warily.

/The Swords are the suit of Solarians, the violent, troublesome, yet intelligent species. That is Flint of Outworld, whose aura was about two hundred. Their measurements were comparatively imprecise in those years. He founded the nucleus of Segment Etamin, the larger cluster of Spheres that now embraces Sol./

"You seem to know all about me," the Flint figure said. As he spoke, his background filled in about him: giant vinetrees, juiceberry flowers, primitive huts, dinosaur creatures whose faces resembled those of the dominant sapients of Segment Qaval. "But I don't know about you. I see one brown-surface Solarian and one Slash monster. Speak fast." And he raised one beautifully muscled green arm, whose hand now held an efficient-looking rock-barbed spear.

"A pleasure to meet a genuine Stone Age savage," Brother Paul said. "Most of us are savages inside, so to that extent the veneer of civilization makes us hypocrites. I am Brother Paul of the Holy Order of Vision. I am harmless, I assure you."

"You work for the Tarotist Temple?" the savage demanded.

"This creature, Herald the Healer of circa A.D. 4500, suggests that I founded it," Brother Paul said with a tolerant smile. "But that is plainly beyond my intent or means. I am loyal to my own modest order, with no need to dabble in politics or religion. I am just a humble seeker."

"I recognize you now," Flint said. "Harmless? Like a carnosaur! You're a martial artist, aren't you?"

"I... dabble on occasion."

Flint made a snort of humor. "You
are
a hypocrite, just as you claim! I'd like to try your strength, but I think I would lose, barehanded. You
did
found the Temple; that is historical. And that is no bad thing. The Temple helped me in Sphere Polaris. The Tarot showed me what I had not known I knew, before I progressed into complete disaster." He turned to Herald, his smile fading. "But you, Slash—did Andromeda win the war despite my efforts?"

/Andromeda lost—twice,/ Herald flashed. /Now we are part of the Cluster culture—Andromeda, Milky Way, Pinwheel, and assorted lesser formations—without war, except for the present threat of alien invasion by the Amoeba. The Tarot has animated you, my distant ancestor via your aural family, to illustrate part of the background of this problem. Have you any advice?/

"Recover the Ancient science," Flint said simply.

/Yes, we are trying to do that. But we have not learned how, and we have very little time./

"So he, too, is fundamental to your situation," Brother Paul remarked to Herald. "And the third figure?"

It emerged from the card via animation: a tripart construction of wires and diaphragms and tubing. It had nine little clapper-feet, three to each segment. "I am Melody of Mintaka," it played, its meaning conveyed musically. Herald knew he would not have comprehended this language, had this not been his own animation scene. "I saved the Milky Way from Andromeda in the Second War of Energy. But you have animated me with all my feet!"

/Mintakans mate at the expense of their feet,/ Herald flashed privately to the others. /Their gender changes as the number of their feet decreases. The card portrays her in her female stage./

"Isn't it enough that I have lived my full life," Melody played tersely, "without being brought back—incorrectly!—long after it is over?"

"Well..." Brother Paul began.

"Such might be expected of an Andromedan," she continued. "Or even of my barbarian green-giant Solarian ancestor. But you, Paul of Tarot, how can you be part of such impertinence?"

"You're a descendant of mine?" Flint inquired, surprised but not dismayed.

"Practically the whole sapient Galaxy is descended from your free-flowing seed," she said. "It is a wonder you had time to save the Milky Way from Andromeda."