Jewel

Chapter 1. Blue Star’s Dream

Once upon a time, Tracy Kirin lived a terrestrial life on Earth tormented by Godriel. A powerful being from another world. After Tracy transferred beyond life, she became Blue Star. A pure force with a mission to destroy her enemy and free Earth from Godriel’s cruel grip. Only during battle did she realize the next step of her evolution—the birth of a universe.

Blue Star’s miraculous victory in battle over Godriel became a faded memory long ago—nearly forgotten. As a fledgling universe, she had a whole new set of problems to overcome.

Blue Star dreamed of recording life in her universe. She dreamed of a beautiful blue-green world with swirling white cloud systems. She imagined continents with high mountain ranges and deep valleys, and of forests and rivers and lakes. She wanted her daughter, Jewel, to live in that beautiful world among the Great Peaceful People—Earth’s Hopi Nation and the driving force which turned the tides of war against an alien invader.

But she was barren.

In the four billion years since her birth, she had recorded only chaos and destruction. Star factories produced stars which exploded within only a few million years. Nothing could coalesce bigger than several kilometers because black holes lurked everywhere, sucking in matter as soon as it formed.

She had begged the fertile universes for help, but they shunned her. They eventually cut off communication and left her to wither.

Nothing can take away my dreams, though.

Hence, Blue Star continued to dream of a beautiful world which teemed with life.

Chapter 2. Kep Builds a Fire

While Blue Star dreamed of life, unknown to her a miracle unfolded on Makka once Kep found a cave and wanted to make sure it was suitable for Esha. In the forest behind, the Esha bird song echoed, his mate’s totem and discerned their approval.

Kep set a rock-filled skin and fur pack at the entrance to the cave.

In his left hand, Kep held a thick wooden stick tall as he, with one end ground on a rock until a sharp tip formed. He lifted three rocks with his right hand and stepped into the dark cave.

Kep sniffed in all directions. A fresh smell. No urine or feces, with only a hint of dampness.

He threw a rock forward, squatted with spear ready and waited for impact. He did this for two reasons: first, to gauge the depth of the cave, and second, to learn if any animals lived within.

The rock hit against the cave wall and without knowing he counted and measured the distance to the back of the cave. No creature moved through the air. Nothing growled or stirred, or ran forward at him.

He repeated the rock-throwing process again in all directions. The cave proved suitable.

Mmm, Kep expressed his pleasure.

Kep retrieved boughs of soft evergreens and laid them to the right of the cave’s entrance. He covered the evergreen with moss and dry lichen. He placed several furs to cover the bed.

Kep stepped back and observed; now perfect and ready for Esha.

A bright flash outside the cave followed by an explosive crack and sizzle caused Kep to flinch. Hmph, Kep huffed and peered out. One of the oaks had been struck, and a limb had fallen. Beyond the tip of the limb, dried lichen caught fire.

Kep looked upward. No water. He had seen fire before. The flashes oftentimes produced the strange spectacle. Not a problem if small. No water from the sky meant fire could grow out of control and often the clan had to flee for their lives.

With this in mind, Kep walked to the flames with intention of stamping it out. Once he stood near, however, Kep felt warmth on his legs and considered small fire good for Esha.

Without reasoning or overthinking this revelation, Kep found a good-size piece of oak bark and dug up the flaming lichen. He carried the flame inside the cave and put it down. Ooh-ha! Light flooded the cave, and he gazed all around. How did fire make him see so clearly in a dark cave? Hmph. The light faded and the lichen fire shrunk. He trotted out of the cave to retrieve more lichen.

Once back in the cave, Kep held out a handful of lichen to the failing flame, and it quickly flared. Ha! Ooh. He felt the sensation of heat rise on his hand and dropped the lichen onto the bark.

Hmmm. Kep began new thought processes as naturally as a fish swimming in water. He gathered rocks and more dry lichen. He knew wood also burned, so he gathered wood from the broken oak. Wet and pulpy. The texture did not feel good and gathered dry sticks instead.

He assembled all these things inside the cave.

The fire burnt lower and Kep added more dried lichen. Ooh-ah! He smiled while the flame grew. He instinctively wanted to contain the fire to keep it from spreading. After observing for a moment, he assembled some of the rocks in a circle directly around and another circle of larger rocks further out, for squatting upon.

Looking at his accomplishment, Kep picked up dry sticks and studied them. He dropped one of the sticks and picked up another having a fork shape at one end and straight on the other. Similar to the stick he had in his hand.

He had to put the sticks aside because the fire needed more lichen.

After the flame was fed, he quickly wedged the straight end of the sticks between the rocks of the inner circle and hooked the forked ends directly over the fire. He gathered several similar sticks, and put them in the same way before adding more lichen.

He steadily fed lichen to the flames, and eventually the wood caught fire.

Kep watched intently until the fire faded. Now he knew how long that particular size of dry stick would burn. With that new information, he gathered more dry wood of a size four times as thick and made several trips, piling the wood a few feet from the fire.

A gust of wind caused the fire to flare. Ha! Kep waited for another gust which did not come. Esha often used evergreen boughs to fan air across her face. Kep retrieved one from the freshly made bed. He fanned it over the flames and the fire flared again.

Uh-ha! Ooh-ha! Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ha! Kep sprang up and down at this achievement.

He added two good-size chunks of wood at an ascending angle and fanned with the evergreen bough. The flame grew. The smoke from the fire billowed to the cave ceiling and gradually disappeared. Unknown to Kep, a crevice crooked its way through rock to the surface on the side of the crag—a natural chimney.

The wood appeared well caught, so Kep added one more chunk and went out to dig up some grubs. Much needed sustenance to make it through the day.

Kep felt exceptionally enterprising now. Instead of eating the wriggling grubs alive, he returned to the fire and pierced two fat grubs with a stick, curious to see what fire would do.

He held the grubs over the fire and smiled while they squirmed wildly. Ooh. The skins crackled, which fascinated him. After a moment, the grubs stopped squirming. Kep brought them out of the fire and touched one. Ah! Hot! He instinctively blew on the grubs. The grubs cooled and he sniffed before popping one into his mouth.

Mmm. Kep smiled wide. The grub’s skin crisped, but inside turned juicy and warm. The flavor had changed too. Much better. The grub had become infused with the flavor of smoke, although Kep could not mentally deduce the correlation.

Kep happily finished his meal. He gathered more grubs to put inside the skin which once held rocks and trotted off to fetch his very pregnant mate.

Chapter 3. I’m Sorry, Little Hominid

Esha ran from the cave into the dark forest with her two-week-old daughter clutched to her chest.

Her mate, Kep, had been killed by something which came from the back of the cave.

In her own way, she knew this should have been impossible. The cave had no rear exit and no crevices to hide in. Exactly why Kep chose that cave.

She heard tree limbs snap behind her and tried to run faster. But the moonless night created a murky forest floor and concealed a treacherous path.

Her lungs seemed ready to burst, and her feet bled from sharp sticks and rocks trampled during the frantic flight for their lives.

She stopped. Her primal senses told her it stood directly behind.

Esha whirled. Ah! She spotted something darker than the rest of her field of vision. Different from the jagged entrance to a cave. It had smooth lines.

Ah! Ooh, ooh, ah! Esha grunted her fear and held her baby tight.

She whimpered while a figure took shape from out of the darkness.

Her eyes widened. It towered over her.

I’m sorry, little hominid.

Chapter 4. Jewel’s Curse

Jewel hovered briefly above her now lifeless body, a newborn of a primitive nature. Her first life as a primate. She had gotten only a blurry glimpse of her attacker, a featureless darkness shaped the same as a man.

Jewel transferred to her cosmic community and came to rest on the sand shelf so familiar to her. She did not have a place to call her own yet. She had not lived on land long enough to have one. She projected the living image of her terrestrial mother, Tracy Kirin, because she knew of no other sentient form to take. Her signature at this stage malleable, able to be changed for the purposes of evolution in the Blue Star universe. Her celestial mother. Nonetheless, she seemed destined to die as an infant for eternity.

While Jewel took form on the planet, she became that creature. She had no knowledge of anything else, only the instincts which drove it. But in this plane of existence, Jewel remembered all her lives—and deaths. An infinite curse.

Blue Star! It’s your daughter, Jewel. Mother! Are you there? Jewel’s voice sad. Please stop this, Mother. I can’t take it anymore.

She recollected her first life in the stromatolite community, happily pumping oxygen and precipitating rock. She even knew where her fossilized remains could be found high in a mountain range.

She recalled her life as a tube worm near a hot smoker deep under the ocean. What a long life! For a full two hundred and fifty years, she synthesized bacteria using the energy derived from inorganic chemical reactions, without a concern in the world.

Jewel knew each one of the myriad aquatic lives she had led, nothing atypical of what to expect. All the bad stuff happened as soon as she crawled out of the water and onto a muddy beach.

Yes, I’m sure that is when it started. No sooner than she took her first gulp of air, snuffed by an unseen weight. Crushed to a bloody pulp, I was. Mother, I know this is not what you want for me. Please, hear me. Please, help me.

Then another lungfish, but much later in the time line and the fish much different-looking. While I crawled up…, squashed. I guess I got lucky when the next lungfish I inhabited washed far inland during a tsunami and marooned inside a swamp before taking the next step onto land. My lungs gulped in air. I found plenty of primordial sustenance in the swamp and lots of others with me. And we multiplied.

Eventually, Jewel inhabited a series of mammals only to be hunted down every time.

Once Jewel transferred back onto the sand self, she never had much of a life upon which to reflect. She also suspected her attacker knew how to conceal itself from the flash event. Always at the moment of death, her entire life flashed in mental imagery. But the murderer remained hidden to her.

She remembered the first time she spotted the shadowman. She hadn’t caught sight of it again until now. This thing excelled at attack from the rear. But while she lived as a ground squirrel, it killed her sister by mistake while she had watched from her burrow.

The shadowman must have learned of his mistake because soon after—well, I never saw it coming. Assassinated every time. Whatever is going on, my mother doesn’t know—yet. I must believe that and when she does, the nightmare will end.

With a long sigh, Jewel held hope she would be freed from this cycle of torment.

Chapter 5. Ten Billion Years Earlier

In the ether of the multiverse, Rivalen anxiously awaited the Creators so he could again state his case for assistance with fertility. In the multiverse, fertile universes known as Creators existed, and so did barren universes. Rivalen was a barren universe. In his previous two encounters with the Creators, he’d been given a few high-level commands which he tried to implement the best he could.

His instructions: collapse a giant cosmic cloud made of cold molecular hydrogen and make sure the infalling material had a certain degree of angular momentum.

Rivalen required a circumstellar disk, and in that disk, he needed living planets.

The creation of complex life-forms, especially sentient life-forms and the energy they produced, gave the Creators exponential mass. That mass gave the Creators all the power in the multiverse.

To Rivalen’s dismay, in the four billion years of his existence, he had been unable to show the Creators the capacity to produce a proper circumstellar disk. The primary benchmark used by the Creators to determine the viability of a fledgling universe.

Rivalen assured himself this latest disk would satisfy their high standards. Perfectly ring-shaped, with the correct amount of gas, dust, and collision fragments to form planets.

At last, Rivalen sensed Agravain’s presence and turned to see he had arrived alone.

Rivalen, we are not to be summoned on a whim. We’re still grieving the loss of our sister, Aris. Or have you forgotten her already?

Certainly not, Agravain, I am trying to honor her by creating. Where are the others? I am sure I have a circumstellar disk which will—

Rivalen, you neglected to continue to feed the central star. Too weak. The disk will dissipate within half a billion years.

All I need is a little assistance with gravity, and I can make this star suitable for—

Rivalen, the other Creators elected me to come here and inform you that by unanimous decision, this is our last communication. Do not attempt further contact. We have done all we can and you have failed. Agravain turned to leave.

You haven’t done anything for me. Wait! Agravain!

Rivalen—you, Pellanor, Carrado, Belakane, will never amount to anything, Agravain said without turning to face Rivalen.

Rivalen heard the finality in Agravain’s words and sadly, knew he had been abandoned. He quickly decided the rejection would not deter his efforts. His unceremonious dismissal by the fertiles made him even more intent on producing life.

Rivalen turned to his creation and coddled it. But 420 million years later, his salvation fell apart.

He cried out in pain but also with resolute determination. Rivalen didn’t care how long it took or if he had to unravel the multiverse to do it. He would create life.

I’ll find a way, Agravain! You’ll see! I’ll find a way!

Chapter 6. The Collective

Tristan, come now while we have a moment alone, Rivalen hailed in an authoritative voice from his virtual command interface.

Rivalen’s command room stood stark white, with a 360-degree view of the dimensional cosmos. He observed electromagnetic force in ultraviolet. He measured the power of gravity between dimensions. He detected the struggle between the pockets of mass energy inverted with the emptiness of the voids. He observed time waves traveling in all directions. He could see the infinite plane of existence.

You want to tell me why we’re meeting in secret? Tristan’s deep, velvety voice responded immediately.

Because they are high-strung.

Tristan streamed in and continued prodding. Are you only now figuring that out? Tristan peered at Rivalen through the two-dimensional holographic display of computations, data packets sent and received, and constant stream of update protocols performed. By the look on your face, I guess I’m stating the obvious?

When is the Agravain event scheduled to trigger? Rivalen continually responded to visual prompts at the console.

About ten millennia. Tristan straightened his posture sensing the seriousness of the inquiry.

Well, good thing our event protocol is plus or minus a hundred thousand years because I had to quell a power surge. Now, I’m getting peculiar data from Agravain. Not correlating to anything known. Don’t know what it means. I need you to take a look.

Have they been up to something?

We need to find out. I won’t let them sabotage a device which took me two billion years to design and build. Unfortunately, you didn’t exist at the time and I couldn’t implement without bringing the other barrens on board. Go now and be stealthy.

Stealth is my middle name, boss. Tristan smiled wryly and departed.

Meanwhile, Belakane monitored her chaotic internal cosmology when her Tristan alarm sounded. Beep, beep, beep—beep. Huh. Tristan’s off the grid and gone into stealth mode. Was he meeting in secret with Rivalen and why would he need to? Belakane’s skeptical nature dominated her action-reaction force pairs.

Belakane, during her terrestrial life, had been pampered, elevated, and exulted by her species. Conception remained a rare occurrence due to a plague two hundred years earlier brought to her world by a comet impact. The few children of her planet were isolated from one another and worshipped as Gods, the saviors of their species and educated continuously in advanced genesis. So, imagine her surprise to find herself a barren universe. She continued ever in denial. Still sure she could make something of nothing, but failed to do so thus far which made her bitter and distrustful.

In life they had all been special, in some way. Rivalen, the most celebrated scientist and inventor on his planet. Pellanor, king of a vast technological empire. Carrado, strongest on a world which coveted such a thing. On the other hand, Tristan, according to everyone except Rivalen, had been a spoiled rich-boy whose escapades were continuously reported in the tabloids.

These traits permeated their new reality as barren universes. As such, Rivalen pioneered a revolutionary device to control the Creators. Pellanor contributed his infinite knowledge to developing technological advances in targeted species. Carrado hailed a master world builder. Everyone but Rivalen agreed Tristan took the role of court jester. Belakane’s gift embodied evolving primates into sentient beings and knew all the world building and tech wasn’t of much use without the sentients. At first, Belakane had been overjoyed to join the Collective. But because of her isolation during life, she lacked team player skills which coupled with bitterness and distrust. The youngest of the Barrens and last in line to reap the rewards of Rivalen’s device. She sought any opportunity to change that ranking.

While Tristan behaved suspiciously, she perceived a favorable time to advance her personal agenda. She would not inform Pellanor and Carrado, and instead set off to pop in on Rivalen unannounced. Belakane wanted information which could be used to her benefit.

Rivalen, how’s the data trade going?

Belakane, you don’t have an appointment.

I wanted to see if I could help, that’s all. Well, can I help? Belakane asked too sweetly.

She knows something. Rivalen steered the dialogue in a new direction. I’m glad you’re here. On the verge of calling a meeting to share a development. No use trying to keep a lid on it now that Belakane is suspicious. No doubt here to cover her complicity and I’m not going to play that game.

They’re busy, Rivalen. I’ll make sure they get the message.

I think they will want to hear this first-hand, if that’s all right with you. Rivalen sent a hail to Pellanor and Carrado to Belakane’s displeasure and once they arrived, gestured for them to sit.

The meeting would go as usual. Belakane loved to chip away at Carrado’s confidence. He lacked political savvy and she took every opportunity to highlight the fact. The victim did his best to defend himself, and Pellanor always had to come to the rescue.

A power surge occurred in Agravain and I sent Tristan to make an observation. I’m sure it’s nothing, but I thought you should know. Rivalen apprised his associates.

What kind of power surge? Carrado asked quickly.

Obviously, Carrado, the kind that needs inspection. Belakane quipped.

Power surges come in different flavors, Belakane. Not all are bad.

Carrado, you wouldn’t know a power surge from a monkey’s ass.

Carrado’s expression soured while Belakane appeared amused.

That’s quite enough, Pellanor interrupted. Do explain, Rivalen.

Yes, well, the event was a relatively short-duration transient which accelerated Agravain’s expansion for several eras. Rivalen believed Tristan would return soon with the identity of whomever had been messing around in Agravain.

Really? That’s interesting. Was it related to our project? Pellanor asked.

Possibly. Rivalen said with a hint of accusation. Pellanor sounded disingenuous; no doubt all three had a hand in the event. Rivalen expected his three coworkers to scatter and surprised once that did not happen.

Well, I think we’ll get comfortable. We wouldn’t want to miss a thing. Would we? Pellanor addressed his colleagues, but eyes remained steadfast on Rivalen.

Rivalen sighed inwardly while Pellanor gestured to the others they would have an extended stay. While awaiting Tristan, Pellanor fell asleep, Carrado huffed more than usual, and Belakane incessantly tapped her foot. Rivalen turned relieved once Tristan returned from his inspection, but also knew he wouldn’t expect the other barrens. Rivalen hurriedly announced, Welcome, Tristan. Please, feel free to speak to the Collective.

Yes, feel free, Tristan. In the three billion years since the formation of the Collective, we shared everything.