Under a Starless Sky

Chapter 33

The orb of travel again penetrated the mountain, descending through the depths of darkness.

Occasionally the wall sparked. Passing through the wall was nothing, it was mostly empty space- but

that didn’t mean one electron might be close enough in phase to hit the force field. One could shoot an

entire solar system through a galaxy and it not hit another star. Galaxy collided all the time, passing

through each other, without star or planet collisions. With the right tech, passing through ‘solid’ earth

was as easy as going through clouds. They broke out into the cavern; the size of it was unbelievable.

There was light. There was a sea. There was land and plants and animals. There was sea life. The

light came from the leaves of trees. The trees were upside down, growing down from the ceiling. They

were Sleeper Trees! Root systems had penetrated the depths and populated the ceiling and was a

mirror image of what was above. Smaller. The upside down trees were scaled down compared to what

grew on the surface.

The most impressive artifact, clearly of intelligent design, was the open temple on the beach, made of

marble. The pillars that held the roof were caryatids, in a variety of yoga poses. One held the roof with

her head. One female’s knees supported the roof; Scorpion pose. Another with two hands. Another

stood on her hands and her feet held the roof. The women were different sizes. One female on hands

and knees, back arched in angry cat posture; the curve of her back contacted the ceiling. Directly

opposite of her was a female whose stomach arched up to support the ceiling, and one could pass

through the arch she made between arms and legs. Her hair drawing also touched the floor. It was if

the entire structure had been a solid block and this was what remained after the non-essential had

been removed. Girl on the North wall was large, downward dog pose. Coming up the East stairs, one

was met by a giantess in the Firefly pose. Her eyes seemed to meet any who approached to pass

under her. Cleavage was unbearably impressive. One of the ladies holding the perimeter had her left

foot on the roof and the other on the floor, and her femininity exposed. All poses were naturally erotic,

but that wasn’t the intent. The intent was to reveal form, strength, flexibility, ideal attributes of love,

focus, serenity… Every lingering gaze brought your heart to a new attribute. The flow of the entirety of

it brought people into the temple, around the room, spiraling in, and finally to the inner purpose of the

temple- travel via gates.

The inner temple held two caryatids, on the east and west sides of the temple. Shen recognized them

as portals, moon gates. They connected roof and floor; the female herself was the portal. East side

held the one-Legged Wheel Pose, or the Eka pada Chakrasana, a foot touching the roof, other foot on

the floor, hands on the floor, head above the floor, hair dangling to the floor. The west portal was a

female in the King Pigeon Pose, or Kapotasana, and someone passing though literally walked over

enfolded legs and hands, her head touching floor, while her stomach contacted the ceiling.

Stairs were on all four sides. Stairs leading up, with two females at the base of each stairs taking on in

Vajrasana pose greeting those who climbed. At the top of the stairs, two sat in the same pose, facing

in. Mid way stairs, on either stairs, facing each other, females in the Floating Pretzel, hands in

Namaste. Shen felt as if he had seen this before. Shen wanted to leave, feeling overwhelmed by the

desire of sex. He wanted to be alone in this temple to explore and touch all the females, all the forms.

His aching didn’t go unnoticed, and TL comforted him. “I, too, am wanting. This is the nature of art and

form. It calls us. You are normal.”

“Thank you,” Shen said, tearfully.

“The air is breathable,” TL said. “I would like to land us on the shore.”

“Yeah, okay,” Shen agreed.

TL landed them. The bubble popped off and his feet touched ground. TL manifested herself. She

inhaled, twirled and laughed. Humming birds came at her, hovered. She held out her hand and one

landed on her finger. “This is the most amazing place I have ever seen.” Her new friend departed back

to the trees.

“Yeah,” Shen said.

Pygora type goats were free ranging. Some approached him, unafraid. TL petted one, laughing.

“Hello, Travelers.”

Shen turned to someone behind him. TL was suddenly behind him, clearly assessing threat. For TL to © 2024 Nôv/el/Dram/a.Org.

have missed her, she would have had to appear suddenly, like an apparition. Shen held the Torch

aimed at the ground. It was pose that suggested weapon, but no threat. Passive warrior.

“She’s real,” TL said- VR stats were now available in his vision. Heartbeat. Respiration. Cell count

became available. Human, female. He could spin a virtual model of her and assess her, or see her

organs, and even follow a single blood cell round the circulatory system. DNA was human enough. The

deviations could be attributed to local adaptation.

“I will not harm you, if you will not harm me,” she said. She brought her hands up to this space. “All of

this is me.”

“Matsu?” TL asked.

The Chinese Goddess of the ocean bowed. “I have many names, but I most resonate with this idea you

hold.”

“Telepathic,” Shen said.

“With you. I hear TL through you. Her voices resonates on the leaves and I hear all,” Matsu said. “I am

one with the Tree of Life.”

“Sleeper Tree?” Shen asked.

“It is not the trees who are asleep, dearest child,” Matsu said. She rose from the earth and resettled.

There were foot prints in the sand. “Most people come and go via the gates. You did not. You hold High

Tech.”

“I do,” Shen said.

Matsu looked up to the trees, her hands floated up. She smiled up, bowed, coming to one knee. “Ah, it

is you. I should have known. I am honored to see your first light, but it not time for us. You are always

welcome in this place. Be at peace, travelers.”

Matsu faded away.

“Okay, that’s spooky,” Shen said. “A ghost? A hologram?”

“Tree tulpa!” TL said, shoving him. “Like Alish!”

“That conversation was semi coherent,” Shen said. “My experience with tree ghosts here has not been

that lucid.”

TL shrugged. “Maybe you’re coming into focus.”

“Shazam,” Shen chuckled. Shen came to the edge of the water. “Matsu? Come back, please. I have

questions.”

Laughter echoed over the water. Shen looked to TL. TL shrugged. “When the Master is ready, the

student will come.”

“I thought it was when the student was ready,” Shen said.

“Both are equally true,” TL said.

Goats laughed and play. Kids were seriously human like in play, and their voices were hauntingly

human. There was a gathering of stones, and wood planks across and they climbed and jumped, and

fell, and pushed each other. Interestingly, they did not climb the stone temple.

“Goat milk might be nice,” Shen said. “Goat and rice and curry sounds really nice.”

“You’re going to kill a goat?” TL asked.

“Fuck no,” Shen said. “Might take some milk, but seriously, now that I have my suit replicator and can

do small parlor tricks of magic, I am not going to kill for food again.”

“Pulling carrots out of an empty bag is not a parlor trick,” TL said.

“Yeah, but it’s not big. When I pull a Chicago Pizza out of my bag on demand, I will have arrived,” Shen

said.

“That’s your measure?” TL asked.

“I love pizza,” Shen said.

Shen climbed the stairs. The two caryatids at the base were normal size humans. They were so

spookily real that he thought they might come to life. In his mind he saw them jumping at him just to

scare him. The hair on his arms stood.

“White marble,” TL said.

“The fabric looks like fabric. The hint of human flesh under it is so tantalizing real,” Shen said.

“Better than ‘Undine Rising from the fountain,’ by Chauncey,” TL said.

“Captain Undine? Admiral Garcia’s wife?” Shen asked.

TL laughed. “Undine is a water nymph,” she said.

“I wish I could do this,” Shen said.

“You wish you could create this, or you wish you could fuck this?” TL asked.

“Both,” Shen admitted, reaching out to touch the guardian of the step. He paused. “May I touch you?”

No response came. He withdrew his hand.

“It’s okay, Shen,” TL said.

“It’s too real,” Shen said. “May we climb the stairs?”

No words came.

TL took Shen’s hand and together they climbed the stairs. The eyes of the ladies seemed to track

them. TL revealed the scan. The whole structure was solid, one piece, either carved directly from a

single marble block, or printed, one molecule at a time. She detected filaments of gold running through

the marble. Most of these were micro-thin, not detectable to the human eye. The surface of the floor

holding the moon gates had more noticeable patterns.

“Constellations,” Shen said.

“Circuitry,” TL corrected.

The moon gates were large enough a party of four holding hands could pass through. There was no

apparent control system.

“So, no dial home device,” Shen said.

“Voice activated?” TL asked.

“Open gateway,” Shen said. Nothing. “List known destinations.”

“Try speaking in Tamorian,” TL said.

Shen did. Nothing noticeable.

“Come back,” Shen told TL. TL return to the suit by first becoming ghostly, overlaying him and then

folding back into the uniform. “Show off.”

“You have yet to see all my come back options,” TL told him.

Shen clenched his Torch, and passed through the East Moon Gate. He passed through the gate and

was still there.

“Damn it, that always works at Safe Haven,” Shen said.

“Usually when you don’t want it to,” TL pointed out.

“There’s that,” Shen said, musing. He ran back through the gate. Still nothing. He passed through the

other gate. Nothing. He tried passing through with eyes closed. He lowered his head and back through

the gate.

“There is clearly ritual that we’re not privy to,” TL said.

“Yeah,” Shen said. “Catch me.”

He jumped off the temple into the air, and TL caught him up in a warp bubble. She gave it spin so he

turned to face the temple as he drifted away from it. When no other ideas he directed them home. They

rose to the surface world. They broke through the light of day and continued up. Shen accelerated.

“Where are we going?” TL asked.

“To find us a black hole,” Shen said.

TL put her hand on the Torch. She didn’t have to do that to take over. They came to a stop in orbit.

“My plane,” TL said.

“I’ll let go, but it’s a long ways down,” Shen said.

TL morphed her hand so that she held the Torch and his hand up to his wrist in a putty. He couldn’t pull

his hand free.

“Release me,” Shen said.

“Take us down, or voluntarily surrender control.”

“I am not staying here!”

“Even if you could survive, you don’t know which one leads to home,” TL said.

“50 50 shot of going home,” Shen said.

“100 percent chance of dead,” TL said.

“I don’t care,” Shen said.

“I do. I don’t want to be dead and you can’t get there without me,” TL said.

“Make another device, down load yourself into it,” Shen said.

“You can’t go without an AI interface operating the tech,” TL said. “There isn’t a personality that will

step forward that will let you do this.”

“I don’t belong here!” Shen said.

“Who the hell does?!” TL said. “We’re all travelers.”

“I want to go home,” Shen said.

“I know. This is not the way home,” TL said. “Even if you threaded the needle, you’d come out on the

other side and everyone you knew would be dead.”

“Then we’d just time travel back to where left off,” Shen said.

“They’re not going to let you time travel to correct a fault you created. You survive that, you have to live

with the consequences. Even your deepest self would not give you the authority to time travel if you did

this,” TL said. “You will be blocked from going back. You’re here. You have to live this. That’s it.”

“What if I never get back? What if I forget everything I know?” Shen demanded.

“Then we don’t get back and we make this memory the best memory ever,” TL said. “You and me.

Come on. Let go. I’ll buy you a pizza.”

“You can’t buy me with food,” Shen said.

“It’s worked before,” TL said.

“What kind of pizza?” Shen asked.

“The best kind,” TL said.