Stardate: November 1, 3999
My Dearest Magdalene,
Your voluminous words are a delight to me. Never stop. And now, it is my turn.
I've had the luxury and good fortune to be able to dock my ship with a star cruiser and travel through the dangerous Istical path, one of the great wormholes attached to the Delta stargate so my journey has been cut in half! I am now staying at the Golden Horn Station. There isn't much to see here as far as views but it is teeming with an inner world of Turkish culture and Turkish delights to the senses. The dominant population here is, of course, Turkish. I have had the best tea with each delicious meal here as well as many other delicacies. One of my favorites is the rice pudding. And the stuffed mussels. Istanbul of the stars.
But that is merely a minor distraction to other things. The cyborgs that came to the station. It is probably well that I wasn't there. I detest them! I am glad they did not trouble you. If they had, I would have had to vow and get my revenge and that would destroy my precarious link with the Divine that I've been trying to strengthen. But enough of them!
Even in my gloominess, it delights me that you have found the sacred book right there on the station library! Who would have known a copy would be there? One of my men had learned and memorized the entire text and he often put many sacred texts to song on the lute during our times of rest or camping out at night on various planets and stations. He would recite prayers and other texts to strengthen us when it was needed on the hunt. All in all, we'd made it to the sixth clue. Just one short of that sacred number of Seven, where we would have found what we all sought, the Way to the Starry Lathe.
I am tired. I am always tired, lately. Speaking of dreams, I went to sleep last night and when I dreamed I dreamed of a painting. It was so clear in my mind that it seemed real even in the painterly colors and surroundings. It was the Murillo Madonna. Except it was you and you held a little baby in your arms. Does this mean something, love? I don't not know. It seems your dream you spoke of last was perceptive of my precarious emotional and metal state. A place on the edge of great Light and great darkness. I feel so despondent because of my failure that I grasp at anything, no matter how tenuous. I re-think my life over and over and as I do, I feel that perhaps the chase and the journey really is the start of wisdom and understanding of the Sacred Things and not the end. Keep the great book for as long as you can. Upon my return we can read it and pray together. I feel it is a precious prize of consolation for me after the failed hunt. We'd reached the sixth clue in the second ring of planet Oterra, the symbol for healing which is also the symbol for strength, the symbol of Antaeus. We reached all that way without incident, defeating one of his schemes, and felt buoyed by this, having not too long passed the fifth clue and sigil, Aurora of the dawn, all in light. We had thought that our triumph had dawned. Then Kristoff had cut off our path to the last place completely. I think he even destroyed the seventh clue, from reports we heard from others in the area, but we cannot pin it on him directly. What a diabolical blasphemy! He left a false clue that would have had us entering the black world of Nyx, really the most dangerous place in the universe, the Great Darkness from which no light escapes but from which evil seeps into the universe. As is always the case with him. It was then that we all wondered if he was merely a human agent of wickedness or if he is really something more.
It is hard to pin anything on him, yet he looms over disasters and wickedness like a shadow. I wonder.
But the dream with your beautiful face as the Lady with the Child, ensconced in warm red against the gray and dark of the air of dream. I must say that I first had a fragment of this dream, like a holy vision between Aurora and Antaeus, and never said a word of it, not understanding what it meant. It could not be madness, it has the proof of earthliness and tenderness about it. But I don't know for sure. After my small travails of the Golden Horn I stay in my ship until another path is plotted through the next gate I must jump through. I nearly forgot to mention, but a kind gentleman allowed me passage with his train of ships which is why I made it here so quickly. A very long and arduous jump to this system, but any danger is worth braving to get closer to you, love. Until I see you, I raise a glass of exquisite tea.
Love,
R. Vaughn
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Sunday, February 8, 2015
Light in the Darkness
Stardate: October 1, 3999
Ralph,
I went only to the station library this week love, and only there. Mostly, I stayed home as you advised. It was in the morning. I have lots of news, some marvelous and some, not so marvelous. There was quite a hullabaloo at the station for a few days, I must say. Several large space cruisers docked at the station at the beginning of the week. Everyone was wondering. I'd hardly noticed until I ventured out to the library. It was the ridiculous Star Crest corp, the super-precious cyborg community from the Naspar system. They always seem so aloof and haughty, those ones. The "new" men or the "new" race, as they say. Humanity is in even more trouble if this is so.
There were more than a few fights that broke out on the station while they were here. Brawling follows these brutes where ever they go and I'm none too impressed by the abilities they crow about. They seem to think they are superior to ordinary humans because of their enhancements. Why, just the other morning as I was on my way to the library I saw one of them in a row with one of the regular denizens of the station. Shameful! The commander really should do something about these beastly people!
As for the old librarian, he'd said that trouble began as soon as their ship docked. One young crass tough had demanded as soon as he'd slithered down the walk-way to speak to the commander of the station because the station was old, decrepit and poorly designed, as he put it, and that it wasn't up to his standards when he travels. The nerve! Of course, the commander himself never showed up, having better things to do and sent a lieutenant instead but he started a fight right there in the main corridor. This is not to mention the lewd nonsense from some of them in the cantina from what the librarian told me.
Anyway, I told him that I wanted a book on the Starry Lathe of Heaven and any legends surrounding it. He had one old battered copy of the actual sacred book! He was surprised when I'd asked for it, I think, it nearly made the dear old man weep. He'd said that no one had checked it out in at least thirty years and that the digital copies they keep had become corrupted and mysteriously he cannot get more copies in any form. He'd taken the book and hid it and kept it well protected from others looking for it to steal it with dark motives. he told me that he'd also began making a hand written copy of the book. I was happy to hear this. People had thought it lost and he could have it to himself in peace but he said that he knew of you and your knighthood and gladly lent it to me, for which I was greatly appreciative.
It is so good to find familiar souls of light and love in this vast darkness of space we sail through. We were two bright candles in the dark together in that dusty library. I bid him be blessed and he did me as I left and felt my soul fed a little bit.
Again, I read the beginning of the Book where it says: "If you read this, then you exist. . ." Words that began the wide world and the universe that hold it.
I dreamed last night and saw you. You were leaving the light house station on the edge of the Milky Way. Beyond as a tiny spark I could see the first web wall of the universe, the first Great Work of the Lathe from His Hand. I feel like a light, when I am of a mood of dream, hope and contentment, in tune with the Light of the universe. But there is the other, dark side of that woman's mood, when the edge of that vast night you stand on is really the edge of oblivion. The only string that holds us together is my love for you and yours for me and the hope that you will return home safely.
Please return my love, safely. My mood grows desolate, suddenly. I shall read while you are away for. . . comfort? But what comfort is there but love? And what is love if it is nothing of the flesh? I know that is short-sighted. I grow weary and talk wild. Forgive me.
Dearest,
Magdalene
Ralph,
I went only to the station library this week love, and only there. Mostly, I stayed home as you advised. It was in the morning. I have lots of news, some marvelous and some, not so marvelous. There was quite a hullabaloo at the station for a few days, I must say. Several large space cruisers docked at the station at the beginning of the week. Everyone was wondering. I'd hardly noticed until I ventured out to the library. It was the ridiculous Star Crest corp, the super-precious cyborg community from the Naspar system. They always seem so aloof and haughty, those ones. The "new" men or the "new" race, as they say. Humanity is in even more trouble if this is so.
There were more than a few fights that broke out on the station while they were here. Brawling follows these brutes where ever they go and I'm none too impressed by the abilities they crow about. They seem to think they are superior to ordinary humans because of their enhancements. Why, just the other morning as I was on my way to the library I saw one of them in a row with one of the regular denizens of the station. Shameful! The commander really should do something about these beastly people!
As for the old librarian, he'd said that trouble began as soon as their ship docked. One young crass tough had demanded as soon as he'd slithered down the walk-way to speak to the commander of the station because the station was old, decrepit and poorly designed, as he put it, and that it wasn't up to his standards when he travels. The nerve! Of course, the commander himself never showed up, having better things to do and sent a lieutenant instead but he started a fight right there in the main corridor. This is not to mention the lewd nonsense from some of them in the cantina from what the librarian told me.
Anyway, I told him that I wanted a book on the Starry Lathe of Heaven and any legends surrounding it. He had one old battered copy of the actual sacred book! He was surprised when I'd asked for it, I think, it nearly made the dear old man weep. He'd said that no one had checked it out in at least thirty years and that the digital copies they keep had become corrupted and mysteriously he cannot get more copies in any form. He'd taken the book and hid it and kept it well protected from others looking for it to steal it with dark motives. he told me that he'd also began making a hand written copy of the book. I was happy to hear this. People had thought it lost and he could have it to himself in peace but he said that he knew of you and your knighthood and gladly lent it to me, for which I was greatly appreciative.
It is so good to find familiar souls of light and love in this vast darkness of space we sail through. We were two bright candles in the dark together in that dusty library. I bid him be blessed and he did me as I left and felt my soul fed a little bit.
Again, I read the beginning of the Book where it says: "If you read this, then you exist. . ." Words that began the wide world and the universe that hold it.
I dreamed last night and saw you. You were leaving the light house station on the edge of the Milky Way. Beyond as a tiny spark I could see the first web wall of the universe, the first Great Work of the Lathe from His Hand. I feel like a light, when I am of a mood of dream, hope and contentment, in tune with the Light of the universe. But there is the other, dark side of that woman's mood, when the edge of that vast night you stand on is really the edge of oblivion. The only string that holds us together is my love for you and yours for me and the hope that you will return home safely.
Please return my love, safely. My mood grows desolate, suddenly. I shall read while you are away for. . . comfort? But what comfort is there but love? And what is love if it is nothing of the flesh? I know that is short-sighted. I grow weary and talk wild. Forgive me.
Dearest,
Magdalene
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