Chapter 5
The rains that came were gentle. His habitat was plastic, transparent, an inflatable dome that held its shape, providing shelter from the weather and yet allowed the beauty of his surroundings always available. It was clear this place was chosen because it would appeal to him. It was the best of both worlds, with access to the ocean, and a reasonable size mountain further inland to explore. It didn’t appear to be volcanic. It was big enough that sometimes there was snow on the top. He had information on the planet itself- that this was a co-op colony. They were terraforming utilizing time travel to introduce each species. The future knew exactly what worked and what didn’t because they would see instantaneous change. There were sentient species here, just not human. Except for him. And maybe on Enterprise if it was nearby. And humans in the future if they were participating. If he ever had a need, he only need speak it and caretakers of this world would hear him, or Bliss herself would hear him.
Garcia was silent for a long time. There was minimal, internal dialogue with Sophia.
At night he sometimes forgot the dome was there, as he studied the stars that were not his stars. None of it was familiar. He wanted for nothing, as Sophia could manifest anything. She was the tent. She was his clothes. She was his companion. He walked in nature, discovered critters that were not compatible with him and quickly learned to avoid them. He found eatable plants. Fruits. Vegetables. He caught fish. If there were dolphins, they hadn’t come to visit his beach. Perhaps they were too busy helping the caretakers construct this world. There was one octopus that lived in the lagoon that he encountered on his dives. They met frequently enough that there was the hint of silent dialogue. Bliss visited from time to time.
“Do you come by transporter?” he asked.
“Portals. The equivalent of Iconian gateways from Trek, or if you prefer SG1- Stargates are the standard of travel for individuals and ships,” Bliss offered. “We use transporters for extracting people from the timeline, or for making clones, enabling souls to have divergent pathways.” Apparently this super space force fleet had access to multiple timelines and could make copies to do catch and release into the wilds of unexplored territory. Sometimes they captured soul just for a respite, or to educate an individual to see how that change the direction of a society. They had no problems subtly interfering. She explained that the ‘Captain’s Bar,’ book episode of Trek was something they established in real life.
“You make it sound like the body is nothing more than a container for a fluidic substance,” Garcia said.
“Light, not fluid,” Bliss said. “Bodies are more akin to crystals, fiber optic cables that transmit soul energy. That’s one perspective. The other perspective is that the body is actually an entity in and of itself. It’s a host to soul, and we share symbiotic lives with them. That takes as much time getting use to as the idea we don’t have conscious awareness of decisions until after the fact. Most people don’t like hearing we are not who we appear to be. Hell, you can’t exist as you are without being host to a variety of flora and fauna. Reality isn’t something any one person can grasp in an entirety at any one perspective. We need all of our perspectives together to get a complete picture. We are a synergistic, symbiotic multiplicity with the entire Universal structure, not individuated units. But, paradoxically, we are also individuals, and even one particle contains the entirety within itself. It’s all in you, as well. As above, so below. We are one.”
“With the Borg!” Garcia said.
“Cyborgs are an inescapable path of any developing society,” Bliss said. “They are not like you remember them. They’re not like Trek. They changed because of humanity’s encounter.
Because of you.”
“Yeah, yeah, I am the greatest American hero,” Garcia said, sarcastically.
“Now, if only you would learn to fly,” Bliss said, not perturbed by his sarcasm. He was clearly still angry, but it was also evident that he appreciated the fact she knew his references.
“You should do some reading. You have access to everything we do, with a small caveat; you will find some things can only unlock on reading a particular order of things.” “So, you’re railroading me into a philosophy,” Garcia said.
“Perhaps,” Bliss said. “I can appreciate that perspective. I find love a better perspective. Fight, flight, or love. What do you prefer, victim or survivor?” “Bitch,” Garcia said.
“I love you, too,” Bliss said. And disappeared.
After a late dinner, he started a camp fire and sat by it, in a beach chair Sophia provided just for the occasion. He prodded the fire with a bamboo staff he had collected from the wilds. On the ground were assortment of lengths of bamboo that he had tried to shape into flutes. None of them held the tonality he had wanted. One by one he threw them into the fire.
“No more music, then?” Sophia said.
“For now,” Garcia said.
“I could make you a piano,” Sophia offered.
“And a concert hall?”
“Just on the beach?”
“I don’t want to be Holly Hunter.”
“You want me to be Holly Hunter?”
“No. Can I have a concert hall?”
“It would take a moment,” Sophia said, laughing. “It would have to be a permanent structure to meet your requirements.”
“I don’t intend to be here forever,” Garcia said. “You could give me wings to get me off this rock.”
“Pocket starship is presently disabled,” Sophia said.
“You could override it,” Garcia said.
“I am not going to,” Sophia said.
He prodded the fire, shifting pieces. He threw another bamboo flute in, along with another log. It popped. Sparks tried to escape, but died on a beach still wet. Freda, the octopus, watched. Its head and eyes sometimes came up out of the water to watch the stranger on the beach. It was really an interesting creature, and would come up as far as the tide would allow. This felt like more than curiosity. There was a stone with a hollow in that kept water and it would sometimes stay there as the tide withdrew, always escaping just before the water had receded too far from the stone. Laying in the shallow tides it emitted the perfect glow, mirroring the starlight, and moons-light when it was there. It was practically invisible. The predators that would eat it- they didn’t see her at night, but Garcia had discerned it. He had nearly stepped on it. Or perhaps Freda had allowed him to see her. The glow was the product of luminescent bacteria that lived in its gut. During the day, it built up the bacteria and by night it had sufficient mass that it could distribute the bacteria throughout its system and produce just enough light to mirror the ambient light of stars and or moons. And then, when daylight broke over the lagoon, it expelled almost all the bacteria from its body, and would burry itself in the sand. Throughout the day, the bacteria would re-populate its gut and by night it would have the critical mass needed to come back to light. Garcia could set a clock to its biorhythm matching the day light cycle. He remembered seeing video about an octopus dreaming, and its body projected the images and textures of dream content. He remembered reading somewhere that scientist believed that Octopoda were actually aliens species, probably delivered by panspermia. It was the first credible paper promoting the idea of alien creatures that made peer review and published in scholarly magazines. He had lived through the age of man where no one believed there were aliens, meanwhile, he was out there in space, fighting and fucking aliens on a weekly basis. His own private little war. No coming home to Earth to be celebrated. If anything, he was likely to come home to an asylum. Kind of like here. Was that the lament? He was technically free, just not socially free.
Apparently there was a species of octopoda on Earth that did exactly what this creature did, with the symbiotic bacteria that was bioluminescent. Interestingly about the bacteria, they would not shine until there was a certain number of peer bacteria in their immediate area. They communicated with each other. At a certain threshold, that communication signal told them to make light. Freda regulated their numbers in her body, most likely unconsciously. The bacteria lived in her, in the tissues, but she could expel them, or hold them allowing them to build up numbers to go light. She would know when to she needed to glow. She would know just how much of a glow she needed to match the starlight. This was sophisticated interaction. ‘This education moment brought to you by Sophia, the Star trek-tricorder.’ Garcia laughed. He was amused by her spin.
Garcia reconsidered Freda. Did she know more? Was she making overtures to communicate with him? Did she have a passenger? A soul? If we are all one and we all come from source, is this not just simple recognition? There were stories, not just stories but video evidence of people who had helped animals in the wild- an octopus was one of these videos- it was stranded on a beach and human put it back into the ocean. The next day, the creature came into the shallow and greeted the human, and touched it as if to communicate gratitude. All beings have more going on than what is first assumed.
“Who was your greatest love?” Sophia asked.
“I hate that question,” Garcia said. “If I had a dozen kids, would I love one more than the others?”
“Some people have favorites, even among kids,” Sophia said.
Garcia acknowledge that as apparent truth with a nod. “The thing is, every relationship brought me something. Viola taught me love, truly deep compassion for self and others.
Susannah, she gave me music. Kitara, the Ute Goddess warrior, she helped me with discipline and perseverance. She was strength. Viola was strength, too, but different. Georgia was strength, tempered with knowledge, light…” There was the pang of loss again. He could talk to her, and he knew here well enough that he suspected his internal response would be indistinguishable from her actual response, but he didn’t trust it to be anything other than fooling himself. “They gave you these things or they echoed a part of spirit you already held?” Sophia asked.
“I suppose they enhanced what was there,” Garcia agreed. “Different personalities in different context. Context seems to be everything. Context unlocks meaning, creates meaning, changes meaning…”
“Do you want to visit Viola?”
“Story board book?” Garcia asked. “My timeline?”
Sophia took him there before he had committed to an answer. Her planet was a paradise, and protected by a Guardian. These humans had culled from humanity while still hunter and gathers, and they represented every race of humans, living in a direct, peaceful way. They never knew hardship. This was literally Eden revisited. Space Force actually called this place Eden, and the Guardian limited their interaction with the ‘children.’ He had a direct, personal connection to this place, calling it an episode of Trek. Everything in Trek is real. Why the slow leak of true alien knowledge to humans? Last episode of TOS, Kirk’s soul is swapped out by a turnabout intruder. ‘Freaky Friday’ the original movie, came out in 1976, but was based on a 1972 book. Garcia had actually lived this. Souls could swap bodies. ‘Quantum Leap’ was a real thing. The world was so much more complicated than fiction could ever capture. Maybe they needed fiction. There was scary stuff here, so maybe they needed Black Mirror to remind them of the true dangers they navigated. Was he the Captain of the USS Callister? Season Four, episode one struck him so hard, he had actually wondered if his own internal fantasy life was problematic for soul evolution, fun, or part of how people grow. One didn’t need virtual reality machines to discover evil- it lurks in our hearts all the time.
“Focus with me,” Sophia called him back.
He became aware of Viola. There manner of dress aroused him. Seeing Viola aroused him. They reminded him of the Eloi, one of two future races of humanity proposed by HG Wells in the Time Machine. They were dressed like the Eloi as envisioned in the original movie. In fact, on finding these people, it was this very book that made Garcia skeptical of the Guardian of Eden. He had wanted to blow up ‘God.’ Viola had convinced him otherwise, and the Guardian requested that she travel with him for a spell, and bring back knowledge and understanding so that her people could understand why they had been brought here so long ago.
After a season with Garcia, Viola had returned home. She had stayed just long enough that he was there to deliver their child. Technically, there was time there where he had time-reset so often he had birthed that damn baby a dozen times, held it a dozen times, but only one ‘time’ was his to actually hold forever. Now, she was home with friends and family sharing food and laughter. She was happy to be home. Their baby was with her, in a forward papoose, a simple folding of cloth that held it close to her body. This child would know love. It would be adored and protected. Viola was a leader, here. A teacher. She taught them about the worlds beyond and shared stories of her life and of one love.
“Just one love?” They didn’t understand that. They were polyamorous.
“Is this something we should practice?”
Viola was silent on hearing that for a long moment. “There are advantages to such an arrangement. Intimacy is unparalleled. It requires a greater level of discipline and strength. It makes it more difficult for the community to help each other because individuals must be more self-reliant on managing their wants and needs. Too much burden, in my opinion. The illusion of not being cherished by a community increases discord. However, it offers opportunity to practice forgiveness, because interestingly most people fail to love perfectly because they horde love and release it conditionally. I don’t see how it’s sustainable over a lifetime, especially if you live as long as we do. People mature, they change. We change because of our relationships. Childhood relationships are different than adolescent relationships. Adolescent relationships are different than adult relationships. In adulthood, we have a variety of relationship needs that changes over our lives. What I gathered from their literature, no one that lives past a hundred remains monogamous. The down sides of their path is there drama, jealousy, and fighting, all because they have expectations. When they limit their expression for love, they forget they are free souls.
They forget how to love without judgment.”
“But you said it increases the opportunity for forgiveness. How can you have forgiveness without a concept of judgment?” This was from Cadence. One of the males that had pursued relationship with his counselor, and had been emotionally injured by her ‘rejection.’ He had never before experienced rejection. It was not there way to reject each other.
“Oh, my wise friend, there is that,” Viola said. “I am still a student. The man I loved, he wanted to be like us and love freely, and yet his social paradigm blocked that. He had many secret affairs- some of them had to remain secret, as they were part of a game called espionage. They use people’s affection against each other. Sometimes secrecy helped the partner as much as the player. He held serially monogamy. He had overlapping relationships. He had a core group of friends, peers, that knew and accepted the multiplicity of relationships, but that was a very small group. He had so much internal conflict inside him- this social path is hard to navigate. The only freedom would be direct honesty, which was denied socially. He hated himself because of his expansive wanting to love and be loved. He would suppress it, which only meant he would give into it. Interestingly, they are very open to different types of relationships. Men with men, females with females, people with gender and without, or coupling with alien species. They’re open to all sorts of combinations, but they severely restrict plurality, or probably more precisely a polyamorous lifestyle.”
“But it’s the best environment for raising children, as there as always an adult present…” “Choir speech,” Viola said.
“Did he allow you to have other love interest?” someone asked.
Baby made a noise and she hugged it and spoke to it before answering. She adjusted herself and baby in order to nurse. She nodded and continued: “He denied me nothing. He encouraged other relationships. I tried to restrict myself, because that is their custom. But I met so many people who wanted love. That made it tough, because there was no way I could address the great I need I witness for physical intimacy. Denying physical intimacy leads to emotional angst. Denying emotional intimacy leads to soul despondency. If a soul spends too much time just getting its needs met, it becomes more challenging to meet it’s life’s mission. They are starved for love on many levels of their being.”
“Maybe that’s why they feel so compelled to go beyond the stars. If they can’t find love at home, I mean, they got to somewhere,” someone added.
“They could come here. I would love them?”
“Are you crazy, we can’t service their need,” another complained. “They have too much wanting. And they would only impose their beliefs and have service the individual, not the community.”
“But if love is what they need, and we don’t try and meet that need, how do we raise them to where we are?”
A small debate ensued, but was interrupted by Cadence. In some ways, he still suffered from the first rejection. He knew fear. He had missed Viola in her absence, because now he recognized how much he had actually depended on her emotionally for support. He was now jealous of her life path’s experience.
“You speak so much of this one, the Garcia man,” Cadence said. “Tell of us someone else.”
“There was someone I liked who was not right. I had to avoid him to avoid injury,” Viola said.
“The others didn’t rally around you, to teach him restraint and mutuality?”
“It is not like here, where we love openly, and we all know everyone,” Viola said.
“Was there anyone else?”
“One of the strongest women I have ever met- she identified herself as Native American, and she made me a sister-wife. I shared Thomas with her. Never together, intimately, but she accepted the arrangement. She accepted me. She accepted my relationship with him. Maybe because the ways of her people in the past were more open to plurality. There was time when her people saw sex as a form of magic, and chiefs and warriors would share their females to gain the magic of the enemy and become more powerful. I think their way could have led to a sustainable peace had the other parties not been so fierce. Oh, and I had a female friend, Tomoko,” Viola said. “She was human, and she had the loveliest eyes, and a shade of skin I have not seen here on Edo. She was so smart, yet refined, not subdued, refined. I don’t think anyone realize just how smart she was. She was aware of everything, she tracked everything. She was kind, quiet in public, but privately she was very passionate. She taught me to make these little animals with paper. Origami. I will teach you all this. Tomorrow! That is all for tonight. Go enjoy the evening.
I will rest soon.”
“It’s only dusk,” Cadence said.
“Yeah, well, I am still in another time zone.”
Cadence nodded and encouraged everyone to leave. He lingered.
“Do you need anything?” Cadence asked. “Not tonight. Perhaps a good massage tomorrow?”
“Of course,” Cadence said.
Viola was alone with their son. She spoke it to softly telling it a fond memory she held of the other place. She spoke of the father. She created a custom; “Let’s send him love and strength.
Just push little heart symbols. He’ll catch them. If you forget this, or if I forget this, just sing. He will hear the love.”
Viola stood and paced, patting the baby’s back as she did so. She sang quietly. Garcia heard: ‘Son, son, son,” Until she sang the next, “Here it comes.”
A song exploded into his. “Here comes the sun,” by the Beatles, only sung by Susanah
Hoff, of the Bangles. The first time he had heard the Bangles was before they were actually the Bangles. They were performing clubs as High School students, and he had been there and they had sang this very song, spinning it with a 60’s feel reminiscent of the Beach Boys. “Here comes the sun…” The three notes that had been haunting him- the notes had been stuck in his head for the last year, never coming to fruition, never allowing him peace, never allowing him to close the melodic loop so he could get it out of his head. How could he have not remembered this! “Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting. Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear…” Isis slowly melting. He laughed at his own misinterpretation. He wanted to hug Viola but he shot throw the roof of her hut and into the sky. He was not afraid. He had a song in his heart. He was in orbit, riding through the night, and then sun sparked the horizon.
He found himself in a different space. A cloud in space. The cloud was illuminated. Tipsy the Jinn was there. She was not pregnant. He struggled to remember. Had she actually been pregnant with their child, or had that been a game she had conjured to try and trap him into a relationship.
“Hello, Thomas. Ready to get back to work?”
“Am I still in the Imaginal Realm?” “You’re always in the Realm, you’re always in the physical universe, somewhere, gallivanting about,” Tipsy said. “Go back.”
“I want to stay. I want to stay here with you…”
“Well, that’s a first. We’ll meet again soon, I promise,” Tipsy said. “Go back. They need you. It’s all different now. They just don’t know how different.”
Tipsy kissed him and he was gone. He was back in his chair. He stood up. A moon on the horizon. He was on the beach and the moon was bigger than life. ‘Joe Vrs the Volcano!’ He was Tom Hanks. He felt like Joe in the ocean and the moon was everything, and yet, impossibly away. He quoted Joe, because, they were the right words. “I forgot how big. Thank you for my life.”
Sophia made herself visible and he embraced her.
“You’re ready to go back?”
“Not yet,” he said. He took her hand and drew her inside his bubble habitat. They made love, technically on a beach, but without the sand, and the moon light lensing through the tent to bathe them in silver light. Freda in the ocean shimmered and sparkled brightly.
Chapter 6
Returning to this new USSF Enterprise was as easy as stepping through a doorway. An invisible doorway. They had gateway/portal tech. There was likely a gate room somewhere that could spin a million gates to a million worlds. If they had a full size star contained in the core of their ships, they could do some ‘magic.’ There was no other way to spin it. They were like tens of thousands of years more advanced than where he came from. There were aliens millions of years more advanced than they were. It boggled the mind. Magic was the only appropriate word. They could place gates in front of people unexpectedly and move people in the blink of an eye. They could o