A Sailor on the Endless Sea of Stars

“I was a sailor. I sailed the endless sea of stars, hopping from galaxy to galaxy, from star cluster to star cluster, from star system to star system, even from Universe to Universe, looking for that rarest of phenomena, self-organised matter. Matter with the capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction. In short, life. And specifically, the type of life termed ‘intelligent’ life. The sort that creates civilizations and which builds cities and collects knowledge.”

Nessa looked at him. She’d simply introduced herself and asked where he was from.

“So, do you have a name, sir?” asked Nessa.

“Name? I do not know if I had one when my story started, but many people have given me names. A name is but a label, but sometimes there is an essence, a meaning that attaches to a name and to the person who is given or adopts it, or vice versa. On this very planet, one man to whom I talked called me Azathoth. But I’m no ruler, and I’m no god. Please call me Aza.”

Nessa reflected that if you gave him a sentence, you would get a paragraph back, but the man was not pompous.

“Would you like a toffee apple, Aza? The fete is in support of the local chapel.”

Nessa was selling toffee apples at the fair on the local green. She’d seen the young man enter the village along the road to the next town, and had decided to chat to him.

“Yes, please.”

“Are you religious, Aza?”

Azathoth stared into space. “Not conventionally. My viewpoint is holistic. I see the smallest electron exploding the biggest star. I see the smallest wish moving the biggest mountains. I see a dream inspiring a talented child who will change the world. I see the wave of a hand or a flipper or a tentacle or a tapping beak expressing emotion and affecting the future.”

“Why are you looking for intelligent life, Aza? Why are you ‘sailing the endless sea of stars’?”

She wasn’t sure of him yet. He seemed a little odd, but harmless.

“I don’t know,” sighed Azathoth. “I seek out the interesting people, the people of power and wisdom. Those who feel the undercurrents of the Universes. Though in some cases ‘people’ is not a good word. I’ve communed with colonies of bacteria, in some sort of limited Universe. Maybe what this world would call a Petri dish. I’ve shared gusts of elements with clouds of gas and stars and received their replies in the form of streams of plasma of their own. I’ve performed more exotic exchanges with dark matter beings at the very edge of science and magic, at the very edge of being and communication, at the very edge of life and non-life.”

Somehow she believed him, or set her disbelief aside for now. “Maybe you are assembling parts of the answer, like a sort of jigsaw puzzle. Maybe when you learn enough, it will all make sense.”

Azathoth laughed. “Maybe. I’m gaining knowledge all the time, it’s true. But is that progress or merely an illusion of progress? And I only have the lifetime of the Universes to work with. Maybe there is not enough time. The Big Bang to the heat death or the Big Crunch. Or whatever happens at the end. Sometimes I think that, somehow, I must transcend time in some way to determine my purpose, whatever it might be.”

“You said ‘I was a sailor’. Have you stopped then, Aza?”

“I’m still a sailor of the stars, and places where there are no stars. I step from place to place, at random. Or as random as I can make it. A drunkard’s walk, except that I am little affected by alcohol and what humans term drugs! I’ve stepped into atoms and sub-atomic particles, and I’ve stepped out to the wild spaces where the Universes perform something like the function of those unimaginably small particles, and to realms even further out, where those wild spaces are mere particles. I am using terms which apply in this set of Universes of course, but the analogy is pretty good. I thought that I had come across something significant when I found a Universe or space where there were dragons. There’s something special about dragons. But I was mistaken.

Azathoth looked into the distance. “I have seen many places. I’ve consulted many sages. I’ve talked to the common folk. I’ve talked with gods. I’ve talked to midwives, doctors, priests, soldiers, mathematicians, and potion makers. Kings and paupers. I’ve looked under stones and in babies’ smiles. I’ve looked at the whorls on the thumbs or the equivalent of thumbs on the hands or appendages of many creatures. I’ve looked at evil and good, and found little difference between them in the long run. I still don’t know what I am looking for. I don’t even know if I am looking in the right places.”

He sighed.

Nessa decided to tease him. “Maybe, like the man in the legend who rolled a rock up a mountain only for it to roll down again, you are destined not to succeed. Had you thought of that?”

“Yes, I’ve often thought of that. I’ve been travelling for a long time.” He scratched his ear. “Maybe forever, whatever that means. I’ve not come close to even guessing what it is that I am looking for. I was with a tribe of ants one time. I was part of the tribe or nest, and I, as part of the nest, asked the rest of the nest for their opinion. It was quite divisive, disrupting for the nest, actually. What was I looking for? The consensus was that it was impossible to know. The question didn’t really make sense. Did it not make sense in the context of the tribe, I wonder, or did it just not make sense?”

He contemplated the small village fair. His eyes were dark, very dark brown, she discovered, but then he smiled and his smile warmed her heart. She handed him a toffee apple and he paid her for it.

“What’s it for?” he asked, gesturing with his apple at the fair. “The chapel, I think you said.”

“Books for the school. Repairs to the chapel. That sort of thing.”

They wandered through the small fête, the girl selling her apples as they went. She laughed at his attempts to snare a prize with a quoit and he laughed with her. She was slim, with light brown hair and hazel eyes. She was never far away from a smile, and her smile drew smiles from everyone around her.

They met the Pastor.

“Yes, the fair is mainly to buy books for the school. It’s a pity that the schoolmistress is leaving to look after her ailing mother,” sighed the Pastor.

“Perhaps I could teach the school for a while?” said Azathoth. “Would that help?”

“Could you? That would be marvellous,” said the Pastor.

So, instead of moving on, as he was so used to doing, Azathoth became the schoolmaster. The Pastor had some reservations at first, because Azathoth would not attend the services at the chapel, but over time, her concerns evaporated. Azathoth was an excellent teacher, and good with the children. He listened quietly at the back whenever the Pastor taught religion to the kids. He didn’t try to influence them one way or the other.

Nessa was a believer, and she asked Azathoth what he believed in.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “I’ve read the Holy Book. I’ve thought about it a lot, and it is a good guide to how to behave in your own life and in your relations with others. But something inside me won’t let me believe in it completely. I’ve had some interesting discussions with the Pastor, and she understands my position. She’s of the opinion that I will come to believe it, but I’m not so sure.”

“I know that you are a deep thinker, Aza, my dear. I know that you are a good man. It would be nice if you did come to believe it, of course. But it doesn’t matter.”

***

“I’m going to have a baby, Aza, my dear,” said Nessa one day.

“That’s great news!” replied Azathoth. “Shall we get married? I love you, dear Nessa. Will you marry me?”

Nessa laughed and hugged him. “We’d better, I suppose.”

The convention was that babies came after marriage, but it wasn’t considered to be a hard and fast rule.

So Azathoth and Vanessa got married and Nessa’s Mum looked after baby Marigold while Nessa and Aza earned a living. Soon Mari was joined by a brother and later by a sister.

The years passed. The village grew into a small town, and a bus service now ran twice daily to a large town to the north. The tiny school had been extended twice and all three of Aza and Nessa’s children had attended it, grown up, and gone on to University. Azathoth had to employ two more teachers.

Mari came home unexpectedly one day.

“Mum, Dad, I’m going to have a baby.”

Nessa was overjoyed. “So, when do we meet the father?”

Mari scowled. “He’s no longer around. The minute we found out, he left me and ran back to his Mum. Can I come back home?”

Aza experienced a burst of anger at the boy, which surprised him.

“Of course you can. Erm, this boy…”

“Please, Dad. Let it go. I’m better off without him.”

“OK, dear. OK. If you are sure.”

So Mari came home, and got a job in a nearby town. She left baby Kerigwyn with her grandparents during the day, and they loved it.

“Happy?” asked Aza as they sat on the sofa, with Keri asleep in her grandmother’s arms.

“Yes, of course. And you?” She was aware that Azathoth was sometimes restless.

“Yes, Nessa, my dear. Very happy. Isn’t she beautiful?”

Gradually their little family grew. Their other children married and had babies, Mari met a man who loved little Keri as much as she did and married him. She had two more babies. There were also cousins and nephews and nieces, uncles and aunts, and more distant relatives on Nessa’s side, but none on Aza’s side. He explained this by saying that he was an orphan and had been brought up in an orphanage. Only Nessa knew the truth, which was that he remembered nothing before happening on the village fair.

***

Nessa became ill. At first she just felt unwell in the mornings, so she and Aza consulted the doctor. His face was grim when he gave them his diagnosis.

Aza held her on the sofa where she sobbed for a long, long time. Eventually she dropped off and he carried her up to their bed and laid her down gently. As he moved to go downstairs again she drowsily said “Sorry, my love. I’ll be better in the morning.”

The next day the doctor’s medicines had kicked in and she was much better. Aza had to push down what he knew was doomed hope. Several of their friends and relations dropped in to see Nessa, but soon Nessa became tired. Aza was terrified that the strain would harm her, so Mari stepped in and sent them off to their bedroom.

Aza helped Nessa up the stairs and onto the bed.

“I love you, Nessa,” he whispered.

“I know. I love you too. Don’t be sad, my dear. We’ve had a good life. We’ve had marvellous kids and grand-kids. Haven’t we?”

“Yes, dear. Yes. I’m not sure that I can go on without you!”

“You can. You will. You have no choice, my love.”

Aza looked at his wife and saw again the young girl with the toffee apples. He stroked her hair as she dropped off to sleep and he lay down beside her. He was as tired as she was and quickly dropped off to sleep as well.

Nessa slowly faded away. Her family gathered around her bed, and she dozed, the oxygen mask obscuring her face. Aza was holding her hand, but seemed confused and distressed. The rest of her family talked quietly about nothing very much.

Nessa roused slightly, mumbling into the mask. Aza removed it. “Nessa, my love!”

“I’ve always known... that you were special, Aza. I hope you… enjoyed… our life… together. I’ve been privileged… to know you. I’ll rest now. I’ll see you again… sometime.”

Her eyes had closed and she struggled to breath for a few seconds, then her breathing stopped. Aza stood up and pushed back his chair, his head in his hands. He walked out of the room and staggered into the garden. Mari appeared at his elbow.

“Oh! Oh! Mari, I feel so alone! I feel that she left me, but I know that she didn’t!”

Aza drank the sleeping potion from the apothecary, even though he didn’t want to sleep. In the morning he felt hollow. He talked to Nessa constantly, and people talked and nodded behind his back. But over the days, the months, the years, it got a little easier.

From time to time he had mental flashes of strange realms. Gas people. Sea people. Underground people. People and realms too strange to describe. In all those flashes, Nessa was always there by his side.

“What does it all mean, Nessa?”

She just smiled at him.

***

He came to, lying by the side of the road. Someone had put a coat over him. He tried to sit up. Someone was talking on a radio somewhere, and something was bleeping regularly.

“Please stay there for now, sir. Relax,” said an authoritative voice.

“What?” he said.

“I’m a paramedic, sir. You collapsed by the side of the road and someone called the Ambulance Service. Stay still, please.”

He was confused. Things happened around him, not really affecting him. Then Nessa appeared.

“Nessa!”

She smiled at him. “Not long now, my love.”

Then she was gone.

His daughter Marigold arrived at the hospital.

“Mari! What’s happening? Why am I here?”

“Hush, Dad. You collapsed. You’ve had a heart attack they think.”

“I saw your Mum.”

Mari looked concerned. “But Dad…”

“Yes, I know. She’s been dead for years. But she’s always close to my thoughts. I sometimes see her for a second, in the corner of my eye. When someone walks like her.”

He didn’t mention what she had said. Later that night he had another heart attack and the doctors were unable to save him.

“I told you that it wouldn’t be long,” Nessa laughed.

“Yes, my dear. It’s been so long without you!”

“What about those moments before you went to sleep and you felt me beside you. When a stranger talked or laughed like me.”

They were quiet, just being happy together again.

“You’ve made me immortal, Aza. By loving me. Well, I will go on as long as you will, anyway.”

“Are you real? Is this just a dying dream? Oh, my love!”

“Is this real?” She gestured at the glowing star scape, stars from dwarfs to super-giants. Clouds of brilliant gas, and small rocky planets and large gas giants, and life everywhere.

He nodded. “I have to return to my search.”

“Yes, I know. But I will be…”

“… just a thought away. I know.”

Azathoth sighed “I was so happy. I somehow forgot or repressed my urge to look for I know not what. I aged as people normally do. I think that I was one of you. Then you died. I grieved for you. I became ill, I died, and then, without a break, I was with you again. I enjoyed it all!”

“What would happen if you did find what you are looking for, Aza? If you did find out what it is that you are looking for, and you found it? What then?”

“Eh?” It was one of Azathoth’s shortest utterances. He looked at Nessa in bemusement, and thought for a moment.

“That’s something I’ve never been asked! In all these years and what passes for years elsewhere, I’ve never been asked that, but now it seems like an obvious question! This terrible longing would be ended. I would no longer need to be a sailor on the tides of time and space. I’d be a searcher no longer. I could… What would I do? What would be my purpose? My purpose would be fulfilled, completed. I would have no reason to be. I could end. I could stop.”

“In the terms of this space or Universe, you could die. This time for ever.”

“I could, couldn’t I? I could cease to exist. For ever. I could dissipate over the spaces. I could dissolve into space and time! Bliss! Sheer bliss!”

“We would end, Aza, my dear. We would just let go. Together.”

“Yes. Together. Am I destined to travel for ever, Nessa?” he asked as they walked down the lane and turned the corner.

“In one way, yes, perhaps.”

“And in another way?”

“Maybe you are the essence of seeking and not a real person and yet…”

“And yet… ?”

“And yet, I love you. That makes you a person.”

“I love you too.”

They kissed and the lane was empty.

***