Kirlian Quest Read online

  ::Transfer!::

  /Yes. They used to supervise matters relating to it, caring for both hosts and the vacant bodies of Transferees. Because they used to use only Kirlian-vacant bodies as hosts, you see./

  ::Zombies! Ugh!::

  /It certainly seems primitive today! But Kirlian science, like other sciences, had to progress from primitive origins. After control of the body passed to the host, regardless of the strength of the visiting aura, the Society's power faded. There is no longer any such thing as involuntary hosting, so no creature need worry. This Quad-point host of mine can assume control any time, but since he earns his living by serving as host, he would not do so unless extreme circumstances warranted. But that is off the point. Other Tarot images occur elsewhere. The Queen of Energy—the Thirteen of Wands—remains the symbol for Galaxy Andromeda. That is the chained lady, about to be consumed by a monster of the sea. Since she is of the Suit of Fire, this is a hideous fate indeed./

  ::I've seen that! I did not know it derived from Tarot!::

  /Actually it derives from pre-Tarot Solarian mythology. It—/

  ::Show me another card.:: She was a child; her attention-span was short.

  This time Herald sorted through the pack and selected a particular card. Sometimes Tarot worked best by seemingly random examples, but in the critical areas he preferred to choose his symbols. He flipped it down. It showed a Quadpoint male doing tricks with colored rocks.

  ::A magician!:: A picture instantly recognizable to any child of the Cluster, whatever species might be represented.

  /You are correct again, chip of Metamorphic!/

  ::I may be young, but I'm not stupid. I know I don't know enough about this image. Who is this magician? Is he you? Are you going to do a trick?::

  Very intelligent child! Such a pity she could not survive. /I am the magician, at the moment, and I am going to do my trick. This is how I earn my fee./ Herald extended his long and touched her nearest tread.

  The child reacted. ::What is this? Suddenly I feel so good!::

  /I have lent you my aura, Smallbore. I am Herald the Healer, and this is the way I heal./

  ::Oh, I... I never knew this... this... what is this aura? I feel it, yet I do not comprehend it.::

  /The nature of the aura is cumbersome to explain, Smallbore./

  ::No more cumbersome than knocking out in ignorance, Healer!::

  How eager the young mind was, once given the taste of health and knowledge! /Perhaps, not. The aura, according to Zlqx of ¢, who authored the earliest surviving study, is a composite para-electronic complex that—/

  ::You confuse me already!::

  He had been afraid of that. She was a bright child, but nevertheless a child, lacking the background for technicalities beyond her immediate experience. /Well, in my own flashes, it is an aspect of bio-pseudo-luminescent energy that manifests in all living—/

  ::I am just a little Quad, Herald.::

  Herald made a beam of good-natured resignation that translated into a rattle in his host's treads. /I hesitate to offend you by flashing below your level./

  ::Oh, please offend me, Healer!::

  Her attitude had been transformed by his aura, but he knew it would not last unless he reached her inner belief. Aura combined with intelligence: that was the key.

  /In that case I shall tell how the simplest and most recent of the great Cluster species discovered and named the aura. That would be the—/

  ::I know! The Solarians!::

  Herald had actually been thinking of Segment Thousandstar, in neighboring Milky Way Galaxy. But he was also conversant with the similarly brash Solarians of Segment Etamin, so he obliged her by orienting on that instead.

  /Yes, the infamous Solarians, who somehow obliged the rest of the Cluster to employ their nonsensical system of measurements. Two and a half of their millennia ago—that would be about thirty-five Quadpointers—before they strayed from their small dense homeplanet, there was a man named Kilner of London. He was a special kind of healer called a 'doctor' who worked with primitive radiation called 'X rays.' He became interested in stories of a nimbus or invisible aura around living creatures that he thought reflected their states of health./ Herald paused. /This is not insultingly simple?/

  ::It is somewhat simple. But I like stories about primitive cultures.::

  /So do I, Smallbore! Kilner made colored lenses through which he was able to perceive this aura. He found that it consisted of three or four layers, a very narrow band that exactly followed the contours of the body, that he called the 'Etheric Double,' and a deeper layer beyond it he called the 'Inner Aura,' and a more diffuse and irregular layer outside that called the 'Outer Aura,' and sometimes an extremely tenuous outer band that faded away indefinitely. These bands tended to be broader and clearer in healthy individuals, and distorted or intermittent in unhealthy ones. He catalogued and described all variations and published a text on the subject, but other doctors did not believe him, and he died without recognition for his fundamental research./

  ::I knew Solarians were stupid, but not that stupid! No wonder they were so late to master Transfer!::

  /They were ignorant, not stupid, Smallbore. They did not like to change their ways of thinking, which is why they were so late to achieve space. So in essence you are correct. Thirty years after Kilner's observations, another man named Kirlian of Krasnodar managed to photograph the aura, that is, to make a sort of two-dimensional holograph of it, very crude. Then the Solarians began to believe. As they put it, 'Seeing is believing.' So they named it the 'Kirlian Aura,' in this manner managing to avoid advertising their mistake about Kilner's work, and now that term is known throughout the Cluster./

  ::Funny how the terms of the primitives displace those of advanced cultures such as Quadpoint.::

  /It is one of the anomalies of nomenclature. A Solarian maxim covers the situation, perhaps: 'Bad money drives out good.'/

  Her mirth rattled the full length of her treads. ::Bad terminology drives out good! Bad maxims drive out good! Bad cultures drive out good! Bad life—:: She broke off.

  Herald continued hastily, to interrupt that thought before it undid all that he had accomplished so far. /The Solarians developed more sophisticated methods of analysis in due course, and soon learned what others in the Cluster knew: that the aura is not merely a force that permeates and surrounds living creatures, but that it is the very essence of those creatures. If the aura is moved to another host, it induces its typical patterns in that host, much as a magnetic field induces its current in the output coil of a transformer. That host becomes the original entity, in mind and memory and emotion. In this manner, instantaneous travel across galactic distances becomes possible, for the Transfer of an aura requires much less energy than the mattermission of the entire host. But since the aura fades slowly in an alien host, only those personalities with auras more intense than the norm can travel this way. A normal aura would very soon fade out; in effect, death. Intensity of aura thus becomes an advantage—/

  ::And you have the most intense aura of all!::

  /Yes. The stronger auras fill out, until at my level they become perfect spheres, except when specially focused. But it is intensity and type that count, rather than size or outline. There are many families of auras, distinct from species associations, and close aural affinity is regarded as more significant than genetic relationship. Thus I can claim relationship to Melody of Mintaka and to Flint of Outworld, though neither entity was of my species. The very strong auras also can help strengthen weaker auras, and a strengthened aura improves health and outlook. Thus we become healers. Anyone can heal somewhat; those with very high auras heal much more dramatically. And this is the power I have, Smallbore. I cannot make you live longer, for your malady is of the physical body, not the aura. No amount of faith can make you well. But I can enable you to accept your fate with grace./

  ::You have done so, Healer! Death is no specter, now.::

  /Unfortunately, there is much we do not
know about the aura. We can measure it by color, type, intensity—a complex science of aural analysis has been developed—yet this has never approached the level the Ancients possessed. They alone knew the ultimate secrets of aura./

  ::The Ancients! I know about them! They died out three million Sol years ago.::

  /And that is about as much as anyone does know, Smallbore. I cannot answer the next question you will ask. I don't know how it was that the greatest healers of all could not save themselves from extinction./

  She made a tread-clacking chuckle. ::No, I was going to ask about the other part of your name. Why are you called Herald, if what you do is Healing?::

  /I am called Herald because I also practice the art and science of heraldry. This is a Cluster convention of increasing popularity as divergent sapient species mix. There are so many types of sapience, in so many forms, in so many alternate Transfer hosts, that it becomes difficult to find common reference points. Heraldry satisfies a certain part of that need./

  ::But isn't it just drawing little pictures, like those Tarot cards?::

  /Ah, but they are very special pictures my dear! They are symbols, representing most specific identities, and are fundamental to the unification of the Cluster./

  ::Herald, I don't understand.::

  /Do you really want to, Smallbore?/

  ::Yes! I have so little time, I want to know all I can before I know nothing at all. I mean—::

  /I understand. We must do in life, and learn in life, and feel in life, for in death it is over./

  ::Yes, Herald! You understand so well!::

  In a moment she was back on the subject. ::How did heraldry start?::

  /Many species, in their pretechnical phases, wore special apparel to protect them from the attacks of physical weapons. This apparel was called 'armor,' and it was so encompassing that it became impossible to recognize the individual entity within it, the 'knight,' which figure is also represented in the Tarot deck. Therefore it became necessary to decorate his shield with some characteristic design, typical of his household and affiliation, so that friend could be distinguished from enemy. This eliminated the awkwardness of a knight lining up behind the formation of his enemy, supposing he was among friends. Or even attacking his friends, thinking they were enemies. The markings on the shield made everything instantly clear, even when the knights were not personally known to each other. This was the origin of heraldry. Today, all great families of all species in the Cluster have their registered Shields of Arms, even though they may never engage in combat./

  ::My family has a Shield! I never knew what it meant.::

  /Come, I will explain what it means./ Following her directions, Herald located the Metamorphic Shield and placed it against the wall where both could view it. /Note that the shape of this Shield is elliptical, a kind of angled oval that signifies Galaxy Andromeda./

  ::But Andromeda is a spiral!::

  /So it is. But from Milky Way it appears elliptical. (Since Andromeda lost the Wars of Energy, we suffer the additional humiliation of the ellipse. The Milky Way Shield is the fundamental shape, flat across the top, round or partly pointed across the bottom. Other Galaxies have other shapes.) Within this is the band of prints, the little four-point patterns, signifying Sphere Quadpoint. In Milky Way there are two bands, since that Galaxy is organized into segments and Spheres, but it is the same idea. Then the main design, the symbol of Family Metamorphic: a lump of edible rock superimposed on the geologic flowchart of its derivation. A distinctive Achievement—that is what the complete affair is called—recognizable anywhere in the Cluster./

  ::Can you recognize any Shield of Arms in the whole Cluster?:: she asked, a bit awed.

  /Within certain broad categories, yes. It is my business. And this is true generally. Two completely alien sapients could meet on a barren planetoid, perhaps shipwrecked from different vessels, possessing no common language, form or status, and they could recognize each other by their Shields of Arms. That would provide their common experience. Each would know the other was sapient and civilized, and where he was from, and that he honored Cluster conventions of behavior./

  ::How wonderful! Both would be like modern knights in armor, only one might be from Quadpoint, and the other from Thousandstar. Are there still knights in armor today?::

  /Indeed there are! It happens that my next client resides in a genuine medieval-Solarian-reconstruction society. No modern weapons, only swords and bows. No motorized transport. He needs me to exorcise a ghost in his castle./

  ::Oh, I wish I could go with you! Are there such things as ghosts? I mean, really?::

  /Perhaps. I would lose business if there were not. This seems to be a Kirlian ghost, a manifesting aura of strong intensity. At any rate, I shall soon find out./

  Smallbore paused, concentrating. ::Oh, be careful, Herald. I just got an awful feeling about this ghost. I perceive terrible pain for you, worse than that of death itself. You cannot save my life, but you can save—:: She halted, unable to grasp the full concept. ::Three million years,:: she finished. ::Does that make any sense at all, Herald?::

  /That sounds like the Ancients,/ he said, uncertain what to make of this. Was it his future or her own she had glimpsed? /Of course, I am searching for the legendary 'Kirlian Crest,' or the Shield of Arms of the Ancients themselves—there is a distinction between shield and crest, but that does not matter in this context—that will reveal at last their actual nature. But of course this is chimerical./

  ::No, not that, exactly. Oh, I have lost it! Something about the ghost host, old, old, that will destroy you—Herald, my mind blanks it off, it is too horrible. Do not go—but no, you must go—oh, I can't face it!::

  What could be too horrible for a dying child to face, when death itself no longer frightened her? Herald had a premonition that this was no idle warning, but he had no way to grasp its nature.

  Smallbore changed the subject. ::May I deal a card now?::

  Herald presented her with the cards. Here he had come to heal her, and she was trying to heal him! Yet such interactions happened on occasion. It was one of the mysteries of aura. Some entities placed a religious interpretation on such things; Herald did not, but it left him without adequate explanations.

  Smallbore mixed the cards inexpertly and flipped one down. ::What is this?::

  /The Universe./

  ::I don't understand.::

  /Certainly you do, Smallbore! There is a whole geography of stars and planets and galaxies and clusters in space out beyond these tunnels. That is the Universe. Everything. More than we can even imagine./

  ::You mean the Milky Way is not just another tunnel?:: she inquired facetiously. ::Have you traveled the Universe, Herald?::

  /The Universe, no. The Cluster, yes, but the Cluster is merely a rough ellipsoid in space, a sort of flattened ball, with Andromeda at one end and Milky Way at the other, each with its satellites or associated lesser galaxies. Andromeda has a couple of cute little spiral galaxies in attendance, and Milky Way has a couple of irregular blobs./

  Smallbore's laughter rattled her treads again. ::You're making that up!::

  /No, it is really true. The larger blob is ten parsecs through. And that's about thirty-three light-years—oops, multiply those figures by a thousand; I'm trying to make dwarfs of giants—over thirty thousand light-years through, called Cloud Nine. The sapients of Sphere $ reside there. The smaller one is Cloud Six, and it contains Sphere ¢. Both cultures are very sensitive about their status. They point out that superficial regularity has nothing to do with cultural merit, and that there are many remarkable constellations within their clouds, some quite beautiful. They say that if Milky Way had not thrown its weight about for the past few billion years, distorting its satellites, they would by now have formed into perfect elliptical galaxies, and not the smallest ones in the Cluster, either. I think they have a case./

  ::I'm sorry. When I knock out, I will Transfer over there and apologize to the two irregular blobs.::


  /That would be nice,/ Herald agreed gravely. /It is merely a matter of rotation. All galaxies start as blobs; those that have sufficient rotation evolve into more orderly disks in due course. Andromeda is one of the most scenic galaxies in the Universe, but we have our shame, too./

  ::I know. We lost the energy wars.::

  /Our shame is not that we lost, but that we instigated the wars. We tried to destroy our sister galaxy, the Milky Way./

  Now she argued the other side again, as he had thought she might. This was a good, positive, juvenile reaction. ::But we needed their energy to promote our civilization!::

  /Civilization promoted by such means would not be worthwhile. We must never again consider the horror of galacticide./

  ::You know, if we had tried it against a smaller galaxy, we might have won. There would still have been plenty of energy.::

  /Which galaxy? Pinwheel? It has two major sapient species, Sphere Pin and Sphere Wheel./

  ::Pin and Wheel!:: she exclaimed in delight ::No, we couldn't destroy that galaxy; it's too cute.::

  /Well, what about one of the dwarf ellipsoids or irregulars that fill in the volume of the Cluster? There is Sculp with its Sphere §, or Furnace with its Sphere #.../ he trailed off.

  ::Why are you silent, Herald? Have you traveled there? What do you know about them?::

  /Oh, Sculp and Furnace are very special in their way. They resemble globular clusters, which are little balls of stars perhaps eighty parsecs in diameter, very tightly packed with about a hundred thousand old red stars. But Sculp is two thousand parsecs in diameter, and Furnace four or five thousand parsecs. They are grossly oversized for globs, yet too small to be galaxies. They actually represent the 'missing link,' the intermediate stage between—/