The comet diligently traces its predestined path, nudged along by the gravity wells of a thousand suns, worshiped by near-sentient denizens of a fraction of those--none for the reason they should. It has again returned to the cluster that birthed it all those eons ago. At the Beginning. A three hundred million year circuit, proudly repeated hundreds of thousands of times. Within the icecrusted shell, a rite as old as the stars is beginning as the overlapping radiance of the motherstars greets the Traveler once again. The vault in the comet's heart stirs. In that preciously-held chamber, the voidblack vacuum is broken by the dappling glow of thousands of yellowgold orbs--an uninterrupted lining of pulsing fingerous villi--leaning almost imperceptibly toward the quicking pull of the motherstars. From one, the first, a thin pseudopod forms within the mucosa, merges with the translucent skin of the birthsack, creating a small protuberance in the otherwise smooth exterior of the gently pulsing ovule. The filmy outer layer coagulates around the protrusion, growing more opaque, more solid, as faint crackles of silvery electric current ripple outward from the milky core. Cell growth explodes in the primordial amniotic fluid, the small protrusion elongates outward into a delicate stalk at its base that thins as it lengthens, forming a whispy tendril toward its end, reaching for the center of the heart chamber, microgravity content to leave it gently swaying in syncrony with the rhythmic pulsing of the birthsack. As exponential cellgrowth slows, nerve clusters begin to trace their way along the thread, weaving an overlapping lattice that eventually forms into a dense knot of sensory fibers at what has now become the terminus. The first is not the only. In time, thousands of tendrils from thousands of sacks join the first's in the center of the vault. As they bump gently among themselves in the vacuum, they begin to tangle and merge into into an interwoven commune of nerve and tissue. By the time the last finally joins, the communal mass has swollen to fill the heart chamber, pulsing with the collective energy of the once-glowing multitude that lined the inner walls, now dark and flacidly drifting, having served their role for now. The central mass remains tethered by now-dormant whispy umbilicals, exterior growth replaced by a less visible metamorphasis. Bursts of interior light illuminate the thick skin from within as synapses form and fire. It slowly becomes They. They wait, patiently. The universes turn. The motherstars draw Them inward. The largest most insistently, ultraviolet light from her swollen red form slowly melting the Traveler's icy casing to reveal a deepblack crystaline exterior of sharp geometric lines broken only by a small circular orface. The tug of the red mother calls to Them. They answer, pressing against the lonely opening in the vaultwall--much too substantial now to risk becoming the Traveler's jetsam. Red mother's radiation burns away a layer outer skin sealed against the orface, revealing a dense mass of optic receptors. They see, basking in the mother's rustred light for nanoseconds before her angry flaring embrace burns away nerve endings too--returning Them to the dark. The ephemeral glimpse is enough, though. It is not Time. As the mothers sling the Traveler back to their everdistant cousins, the cycle begins anew. The cold dark welcomes the Traveler back. They slowly retreat along umbilical tetherings, devolving back to Their comfortable stasis. Just as cognition leaves Them, there is a tinge of something. Sadness perhaps. They will wait, though. It is Their purpose. The Traveler carries what was once Them outward, past a dazzling array of worlds lit by suns They might oneday see. When it is Time.
Shadows of the Empire
LOTPWII
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