Cluster

Epilogue

Flint the Hermit or King of Gas of Planet Outworld of Sphere Sol of Galaxy Milky Way made beautiful music with the Queen of Energy, agent of Sphere / of the Concurrence of Galaxy Andromeda. Their melodious union budded a completely normal neuter sapient sentient of Sphere Mintaka; there was no transfer of high-intensity Kirlian aura to the offspring. Melody was raised by both parent entities, who never played the tunes of distant stars they no longer remembered, but remained deeply in love until mutual expiration. Melody grew and made music and budded according to the Mintakan cycle of life, and her offspring did likewise. All were normal.

Meanwhile, the single facet of Ancient technology was conveyed by Sphere Canopus to the galactic coalition of Spheres. They methodically routed out the Andromedans among them, eliminating the threat to the Milky Way. Andromeda, deprived of its exterior sources of energy, stagnated, slowly breaking up into lesser Spheres, yet remaining at a high overall level of civilization. Sphere Sol’s influence expanded in the Milky Way until it was the hub of a confederation extending from Mintaka to Sador, almost five thousand light-years in diameter.

But crowded, resource-depleted Earth could not handle this huge para-empire. The limitations of inadequate energy remained prohibitive. For a time the nexus of power shifted to Sphere Polaris but it also proved inadequate. At last, after a century-long economic and social revolution, the power lodged in the newest and brashest of the worlds: Planet Outworld.

Outworld, in the course of these six centuries, had progressed from the tribal leadership of Honeyflint in the Old Stone Age to the neo-transfer or modern Super-Spherical Age. Its population was small, its planetary and system resources great, and its dual Solarian/Polarian species vigorous. It now possessed the most modern technology combined with its primitive vitality. Representatives from many Spheres transferred to the small army of host-bodies in order to bring their problems to the attention of Imperial Outworld. Action was generally rapid and decisive, in the human manner, or circuitous and satisfying, in the Polarian manner. It became fashionable to employ Solarian or Polarian hosts for all official functions.

In the next three centuries, Sphere Etamin extended its influence well beyond the old Solarian perimeter, until at last it bordered the demesnes of Knyfh, a Sphere that had undergone similar growth. Finally, Spherical expansion was no longer feasible, and in any event the sophisticated mechanisms of transfer made this unnecessary. Growth became irregular, but always with the vital nerves of communication leading back to Outworld. It finally stabilized as a Segment of the galactic disk, ten thousand light-years from edge to edge.

There was slow progress in Kirlian transfer technology. By utilizing inhabited hosts in voluntary transfer, the period a given entity could occupy a foreign host was finally extended to ten times what it was formerly. Thus only one Kirlian unit was lost in ten days of transfer. This enabled high-Kirlian administrators to undertake months-long transfer tours of duty, facilitating organized uniformity of government suggestive of that of the Ancients. The Society of Hosts protected host rights.

Then Galaxy Andromeda, chafing for a thousand years under the frustrations of parity, achieved another breakthrough. It learned how to initiate involuntary hosting. That meant high-Kirlian auras could take over alien bodies, suppressing the original personalities against their will. This was called possession; the body taken over was a hostage. In this manner Andromeda infiltrated key elements of Milky Way Segment governments and wreaked havoc. There was war between the galaxies, and the Milky Way was in serious trouble.

During this period of crisis the most intense Kirlian auras had to be marshaled for action. By an anomaly of transfer and regressive mutation that transcended ordinary genetics, the greatest aura intensity ever measured in the modern galactic cluster imbued the person of a lineal descendant of Flint and Andromeda, with no prior manifestation in the intervening line. It was 223, and the entity’s name was Melody of Mintaka, and she was ten Mintakan years old, a reader of Tarot, with a mind as fiercely individual as her amazing aura. Chaining the lady would be quite a task!