SUN DOWN

“That Jarret Carter is a good kid.” Aricel said to no one in particular. His armor snorted and rolled over. Aricel reached down and scratched behind both ears on the massive maned head. “I know you like him too. And I know you like pretending not to like him because you like how he’s nervous around you – that’s okay too. There is value in learning proper fear and respect at a young age.”

Aricel turned, sat on the floor and leaned back into the soft fur. “We love them so much that we tend to want to protect them from everything. There is no better formula for ruining a child.”

He opened a window in the space above him. In it he could look at dozens of things at once, hundreds if he chose but that was unnecessary clutter. An assortment of scenes played out before his eyes; children at play in one spot, a herd of animals in another, jellyfish rising to the moonlight in yet another, and a comet speeding through the dark away from a star next to that.

“You know, I’m thinking about going home.” He said. The armor didn’t respond. “I like being on this ship and enjoy every mission we go on—I go on, yeah—I’m sorry if I don’t always take you with me. There are just times when fear and intimidation are counterproductive, okay?” That warranted a flick of the ears. “Next time we go home, what say you join me on the Dog Run with the boys? I know they’d like that.”

That did it! The armor bucked hard enough to straighten Aricel in a seated position. It stood up on four massive paws, talons flexing, shook its entire body from shaggy mane to long tawny tail. It walked away to curl up in a ball again in its personal cubby hole. Aricel didn’t notice all of that, he was too busy laughing. Aricel knew that whenever the armor was around the dogs it became their favorite plaything. It detested the way the dogs chased it continuously whenever it moved, climbed on its back when it didn’t and never stopped barking. How is a cat to get any rest in that kind of noise?

Aricel started to close the screen when a star caught his eye. He looked at it and noticed a marker in the corner. That red flag meant something worthy of investigation was happening in that region of the universe. He tagged his name to the flag letting all of Eternity know he was on the case. That didn’t prevent anyone else from getting involved; it simply gave them the option to bypass the notice knowing someone was already involved.

“I’ve found something interesting if you want to follow along.” No movement from the corner and no sound, “Suit yourself, buddy; I’ll call you if I need you.” Aricel stepped into the bridge from his spacious cabin. A low growl leaked past the closing door. Aricel laughed. He enjoyed having armor with a personality. It made life more interesting every day.

Life on the bridge remained busy as well. The regular crew monitored communications and handled a great deal of information related to anything their captain might take an interest in. In the process they learned a great deal about how people viewed the world. The concept of questioning reality was foreign to their kind before the birth of Man. From the beginning there was only the Creator who knew everything and made everything and those who served the Creator.

The one time any of their kind questioned the order of existence resulted in a great war in which one in three of their number had fallen. Those who remained swore to be ever loyal. They ministered to Man all through the unfolding of his story—that is what “History” means—because that was their duty. Since man had ascended through the sacrifice of the Son of Man everything has changed. As soon as Aricel tagged the red flag his crew began looking into the situation around the star.

“Deck officer, report.” Aricel took his seat so he could look over all the screens at once.

“All we have now is a decrease in stellar luminosity about seven hours ago. There are eleven planets orbiting the star, four are gas giants, four are ice balls and one is a scorcher. We set course for the system and will arrive early in the morning.”

That was standard for his ship. Aricel could be anywhere in the Universe anytime he wanted. He just preferred to arrive early tomorrow morning; whether Earth to the Moon or Milky Way Galaxy to the Kirill Nebula, 7 trillion lightyears away. Since time is irrelevant in Eternity they never arrive “late.” More precisely, they are always a bit earlier than they need to be – better to assess the situation properly.

“Sir,” the Host watching their particular star spoke up. “The star has dimmed 1.8%.”

“That’s another 0.9% in a matter of hours.” Aricel began to calculate the change curve in his head.

“No sir that is an additional 1.8%.”

Aricel did not need to finish his plot, “Increase speed to flank. I want this ship in close orbit of that star in 30 minutes.” Aricel stepped off the bridge into his cabin to prepare for his investigation. The deck beneath his feet rumbled as the engines strained to meet the new demand.

None of that was necessary. Aricel didn’t need a ship and he didn’t need engines—he actually didn’t have engines. He didn’t need any of the trappings of his office – he just preferred it this way. His life in Eternity suits him. His existence is endless and could easily be stressless – and boring. Living in this fashion, with a purpose, with companions, and with consequences is really everything he ever wanted. Even though he didn’t know it, he was born for this.

His fierce armor was another part of his personal flair. All the abilities in the mound of fur came from him. Aricel simply externalized some of his aspects, concentrated them in a location, and gave it an appearance and a basic personality.  He is not the only one in Eternity to have an independent companion. Mortals called them “spirit animals.” In reality, the Eternal were simply expressing an unconscious affinity for a particular species.

“I’m going down to look at a star, do you want to come?” He asked the mound of fur. He opened a closet door and selected a few gadgets he also didn’t need but liked to have. Each one fit neatly into a pocket of his tunic without adding bulk or weight to it. “If you’d prefer, I can just go down in a bubble and leave you here to get some much needed beauty rest.”

As he turned to find something else on his desk a massive weight fell on him. Flat on the floor, face to face with a snarling face, he smiled. “I guess this is your way of volunteering to go along?” He hugged the massive neck, feeling the soft fur against his face. “I wouldn’t want to be without you buddy.” When a lion purrs it is a deep, frightening reverberation. And it feels pretty good.

***1***

Walking on the surface of a star in an experience like no other in the universe. It is both exhilarating and frightening and most of all the closest thing to being in the presence of the LORD you can imagine. One should take that walk at the earliest possible opportunity. Aricel had walked on the surface of several stars before. Thanks to those experiences he could see the problem immediately. This star was dying.

He could estimate the life remaining to the star and from there predict the effect on the surrounding system. He didn’t have to do that, though. “Bridge, ask for the services of a Creation Engineer, if you please.”

A brief moment later the form of a giant mechanical humanoid approached from Aricel’s right side. It did not walk on the two legs but thrust forward on four bright jets of plasma-white flame. Its sudden stop created a wave in the star that vanished in the distance beyond Aricel before running out. Aricel recognized the blue, red and yellow suit as belonging to an old friend going all the way back to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.

Aricel did not need to explain the situation to the Engineer. Being another Eternal he had access to the same source of Infinite knowledge that Aricel accessed at will. Engineers had a different bent, a different perspective on Creation that they analyzed. Where Aricel was more interested in things that affected the lives of creatures, the Engineer was more interested in the evolving nature of Creation and the underpinning mechanics.

The Engineer Tamas planted a long slender probe into the roiling surface of the star. No doubt it extended to the deepest core in no time. Raising two arms created a translucent display screen that should not be visible in the presence of so much light, but there it was.

“Well, Aric, what do you need me for?” Tamas said without turning around. “This star is well past dying on its own. I’ve got iron in the core already and it’s accelerating.”

“That’s big trouble Tam because I’ve got an inhabited planet over there.” Aric indicated a region above them invisible from their current position. Immediately a swirling, blue-green sphere appeared on the display. Data flags in dozens of colors covered the planet in the next instant.

Tam’s armor stroked its slender chin. “That’s a whopping load of beasties. Not to mention the sentients. What do you want to do? Let ’em fry or move them?”

“Letting them die is not an option.” Tamas nodded in agreement as Aric looked into stellar chart still floating in the background. “I was hoping you could reset the core back about a few thousand years. Give these creatures a chance to develop space drive and evacuate themselves.”

Tamas pulled out a scroll from a pocket of his suit. He set up a desk below the display on the probe. In no time he was scanning tangle of equations intently. Aricel stood speechless, not willing to believe his eyes.

He finally said, “Hey Tam is that paper?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You know where we are, right?”

“Uh-huh, right – about – here.” Tamas pointed to a series of squiggles on the scroll.

“I just wanted to remind you of one other little detail, not very important right now, but paper is flammable.”

Tam checked some more figures before answering. “You’re right there Aric; it’s not important. The main issue we have is the star has got to go on time. There is a gravitational alignment passing through here in a matter of hours. If I delay this star by as much as a day it could throw the entire galaxy off balance, threatening a billion times more lives over the next 50,000 years. No this star has got to give up its energy soon.”

“So that means Plan B – we move the population to a new world.” Aricel logged in to his ship’s records. They had several candidates for resettlement worlds capable of absorbing an established biosphere with minimal adjustment. Aricel rejected two that would need Moons placed in orbit. One had too many radionuclides in the soil. The best candidate only needed adjustment to its magnetosphere plus a few minor changes.

The distance from this star was no problem. Moving a sentient population numbering over 100 million can be a daunting task. You can’t just drop out of the sky one day and yell, “Everybody get on the ship right now or you’re dead!” They had to be prepared well in advance.

Tam offered a solution. “Do you work with any Comforters?” Aricel nodded; he knew quite a few. “You could have them go back a thousand years ago and plant a legend.”

Aric paused before breaking into a wide grin. “That usually works with people who respect the past. We can foretell of a day when ‘space arks’ would descend from the heavens to rescue the people from their dying Sun. All they have to do is look for signs in the sky to know this time was coming.”

“No doubt they have seen the flare-ups and the death of the inner planets. That alone would be enough to make the population think they are going to need outside help.” Tam produced another scroll with script and sketches on it. “We’ll suggest the size and shape of the ships and tell them where to gather on their world. Not everyone will want to go, however.”

Aric shrugged. “Choice is always a factor in important issues. Some are going to reject our help out of fear or suspicion. Some will blame us for messing with their star. Some are simply skeptical of our type of life existing at all. That can’t be helped. There has never been 100% consensus among sentients on even the most obvious situation. We’ll only save those willing to go, plus enough of the biosphere to quickly reboot the environment.”

Tam pulled up his probe and tucked it away on the back of his suit. “He said, “I’ll get started on prepping their new home. By the time they arrive it will look like a paradisiacal version of their homeworld.”

Aric said, “Thanks for the scroll, Tam. I’ll get together with an old friend and get this planted in their past. The script might need adjusting, though.”

“Tam checked his suit over out of habit. “No it won’t. It’s written in Protoscript. It will fix in an old but translatable language for whatever region you plant it in. Just keep it dry.”

“Yeah, we wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to the paper we created on the Sun.”

“Is that sarcasm, laddie? Because it sounds an awful lot like sarcasm to me.”

“No way, Tam. I just had gas from something I ate . . . last year. Um, bye!”

The two Eternal blasted from the star. Hundreds of thousands of miles from their launch point below their feet the core finally collapsed. A wave of energy surged in all directions bringing doom to most of the worlds in the system.

***2***

The Day of Deliverance arrived exactly as foretold in the ancient Scroll of the Elden Valley. The name derived from the location where the scroll was found among other documents from a past civilization. The modern people had argued about the accuracy of the scroll for nearly 150 years after it came to light. The debate intensified when a radical archeologist unearthed the first “landing pad.”

The scroll predicted the locations of the gathering points more than a thousand years ago. Incredibly, it had calculated the precise location of the all of the world’s major population centers. Over 90% of the population lived less than a day away from a pad; yes, there was more than one.

After the first one emerged from the soil the rest were easy to find. If one followed the Golden Mean in either direction from the first lead to the second. Knowing the distance to the second lead invariably to two more. Soon all twelve were cleared off and ready for use—by whatever “others” who dropped by, in giant space ships.

Not everyone agreed with the prophesies as interpreted. Some opposed clearing the launch pads without proper scientific study. Others simply objected to spending significant funds preparing for an event told in old fables that may not have been properly translated. Less than half of the population expressed even moderate beliefs in the scroll.

That number shifted sharply higher as the foretold signs in the sky began to occur on schedule. As many as 3 in 4 sincerely hoped the scroll was true once official palace ministry admitted their sun had entered a terminal phase. None of their available technology could save even a token percentage of the population. Even if they could get a hundred or a dozen into space, where would they go? Their entire species and all the life they knew would soon burn and the ashes carried away on a solar wind.

Four days before the End of Days, three days before the Day of Deliverance a new star appeared in the night sky. The next day telescopes the world over determined there were several large vessels in a line, possibly more. The following day they were visible to the naked eye.

Most of the population streamed to the launch pads. Governments emptied the hospitals and jails; no one deserved to be left behind. Low levels of chaos broke out as some took advantage of the emptying and unguarded treasures of civilization. Others refused to leave their homes while still more fled to the mountains determined not to be “abducted by aliens.”

Twelve massive space arks settled on the launch pads. Despite their size they could never hold more than one in twelve. Before the populace could panic a voice full of hope and authority calmed them as if by magic.

“Dear children, fear not,” it said as if it were speaking to each one in their own language. “By means beyond your understanding we will carry all of you away from that which is to come. The ramps on either side and to the rear all lead to different levels. They are wide and can handle many people at once.

“Gather together in families or whatever groups you desire. This is important; if you get separated from anyone just tell your host on the ramp their name and a brief description. We will reunite you to them. Do not worry or fear; we will help you.

“Now as the ramps descend walk in an orderly fashion, don’t rush, we have enough time and room for everyone here and more.”

Despite the admonition more than a few fairly sprinted up the ramp the moment it neared the ground. Every person attempting such action stopped as if by some magical force and carried to the ground, kept aside from the rest. People quickly realized haste would avail them nothing. Nervous panic dissipated before it could spread into a dangerous stampede. The feeble and infirm went up together followed by families with small children.

Atop each ramp a line of very tall, oddly “foreign” men moved the groups through ten doors. Once inside people found themselves in a room of reasonable size for the number of people present. There were drinks provided, large comfortable seats, and several comfort rooms. A large screen displayed the nearly endless lines of worried faces waiting to board, skeptical they’d ever find room.

Hour upon hour the people flowed into the twelve ships. Radios broadcast pleas for the holdouts to come and join the rescue. By midnight in their capital city it was

clear that possibly six percent of the population would never come in. By dawn the ramps retreated into their recesses.

A few desperate stragglers veered into each of the landing pads. Odd flying pods took those people aboard. Everyone who wanted to go could still make it – until the sun flashed.

***3***

Aricel stood on the pad below his ship. It appeared to be 700 meters long, 220 meters wide, and 95 meters from the ground to the upper deck. He could have made it bigger but he had orders to “make it look like a miracle” that so many people fit inside. Against all common sense more than nine million people sat in comfortable compartments that in total should hold no more than ten percent of that number packed in tight.

“These people don’t even realize how many animals occupy the lower two levels.” Aricel permitted himself to smile. “This is truly an ‘Ark’ experience that will become legend before long – especially when no one will ever find evidence of our presence in their new home.”

Above the sky flashed then became dim as the sun collapsed. The Host looked around and saw more vehicles approaching at dangerous speed. “Do we wait for them to arrive, Captain?”

Aricel could hear the engines laboring to go faster. “No, my friend; decisions have consequences. Give the order.”

The host blew his shofar. The sound carried on the aether to all of the ships at the same time. Flaring bright cyan flames twelve space arks rose as one. Aricel could speak to any of the twelve ship commanders, all Eternal like himself, but they already had clear instructions. They will travel for six days to their new world many light years away.

On the seventh day their spiritual leaders will consecrate the new world. The next day the animals will be released. On the next day the able bodied people will begin constructing shelters for their people from the kits the Eternal provided. Plus they will all land on the same large continent near plentiful fresh water and fertile fields.

Tamas made sure to engineer the planet to support their life quite well and to have numerous sources of food to give the people a good start.

Back on a dying world Aricel stood vigil with the dozens or hundreds who gathered too late. Some wailed, some cried, others prayed. The shock wave started small when the ships rose up in the blazing sky. It filled half the sky when the ships disappeared. Minutes later the first moon burned. The second moon exploded. Then the air began to burn. The screams of the hopeless did not last long.

Aricel looked around at the once vibrant planet, now bare and toxic to life. The Host walked with him in silence. “I wonder,” Aricel said more to himself, “I wonder if the Engineers have any plans to salvage this world?”

The Host answered anyway looking at the red dwarf sun swelling above. “Possibly, the Engineer said this world had to die – or more precisely the star had to die. They have now a sterile system to work with again. I’m sure they will enjoy the challenge of restarting the world.”

Aricel kicked something hard from a crack in the ground. Against all odds a

child’s toy survived the scorching heat. Aricel decided to bring it along as he prepared to rejoin his ship in flight. “It’s possible; with Hope all things seem possible. Shall leave the dead and join the living?”

Two bright lights burst out of the smoke shrouded orb heading off into deep space.

**END**