Chapter 2
Live the Dream
Eddy's feet began to feel heavy as he followed a gentle winding road through a hillside neighborhood close to the sea. As he approached Walker's house the hill seemed to stretch larger with his growing weariness, he found himself concentrating on each upward step. When he finally reached the house he watched his own hand grasp the door knob in dreamlike slow motion.
Sleep was in charge when Eddy opened the door and stepped inside. He glanced back toward the sea as he turned to shut the door and saw the last of Walker's wild ride with Spring, the two were fast approaching the gigantic delfinian spaceship floating in the deep water shelter of the far harbor. Swimming and jumping delfinians had playfully surrounded them. He smiled as he lay down on the guest bed and then fell into almost immediate sleep; deep, comfortable sleep, where a dream began to grow in the very center of warm rest. A golden spark wavered between almost visible and invisible, it teased him with thoughts that it had already been there, in his mind, before sleep carried him away.
The almost invisible spark flickered on and off for a long time. Then, very slowly, the dream spot quit blinking and began to grow. It brightened and took on a solid appearance as it approached. "Perhaps it is a sun," Eddy said to himself in his dream, willfully dreaming himself closer, for a better look. Confusion swirled and he forgot what it was he wanted to see. Plummeting, he fell deep into unconscious sleep.
Sudden panic then flashed from the pit of Eddy's stomach, a lingering fear crawled over his skin. He was caught in the gravity sink of a sun and could not stop or turn, in moments he would be nothing but burnt, scattered atoms. Had he mistakenly but actually dreamed himself here and then dozed off? Had he forgotten where he was? "How could I have been so stupid?" He cried as he fell into a hugely brilliantly solar cauldron. He felt his body jerk at the moment of searing impact, then all was quiet.
"It was a dream," said Eddy, opening his eyes, feeling surprise as if he were watching himself feel it.
"Life is sometimes something of a dream," said Star Song, who quickly knelt beside him. "Have I asked too much of you again Young Warrior?"
"No! I'm happy yo see you!" Eddy exclaimed. He sat upright and threw his arms around Star Song's neck, it was a real hug with a real Being.
"Where are we?" Eddy asked, looking past Star Song, at a vast surrounding sphere. This place almost as big as your cavern on Pacifica, but it's empty."
Eddy suddenly averted his eyes, away from Star Song. Did it hurt Star Song to be reminded of the beautiful floating city that had been utterly destroyed in the final battle with Doom Cloud? His glance turned downward and he saw himself still prone, sleeping. Then he raised his eyes, questioningly.
"Let your body sleep." Star Song's voice was gentle. "You are still growing, Young Human. Fate asks so much of you, I worry. Perhaps exploring this technology from the heart of Melodian Civilization will be fun and refresh the part of you not resting.
"Wait a minute!" Eddy wrinkled his face into an exaggerated scowl. "Did I not rush straight to you in my dream?" He feigned a hurt look. "It about scared me to death," he concluded, as an exclamation, before again looking at himself sleeping peacefully at his own feet. "This is a bit weird. What's going on?"
Star Song smiled. "We are traveling far. No one has gone where we are going since its discovery was verified, a long time ago. Your body has plenty of time for sleep, it will wake up soon." He then turned and pointed to a round slab of stone. It was two meters thick and a little more than ten meters across. There was only one step, halfway up, it wasn't difficult to climb. Eddy looked down at Star Song from atop the stone platform, then he turned and walked to the center and straddled a shallow hole. He new he was standing in the exact center of some kind of vast melodian machine. What it was he could not as yet even guess, though the stone platform was a smaller twin to the one he had seen in the melodian observatory, before it was destroyed.
Star Song was tall enough to stand at the base of the slab and place his hands into polished, bowl-like indentations let into the slab's top, at the outer edge. He pressed both his hands into the holes and left them there as he climbed to the midway step and then twisted onto his knees at the top, facing outward.
"Do you remember how to use it?" he asked.
"Like the smaller one you had on Planet Pacifica?"
"Yes," answered Star Song. "You might be interested to know that it alone was saved when our, as you described it, 'floating city', was lost."
Eddy remembered the floating melodian city in a subterranean cavern that was almost a complete world. The cavern was entered from beneath the sea, it had its own small mountains, an ocean bay, a river, and beautiful crystalline flowers. It was a planetary outpost on Planet Pacifica which the Melodians used as a base for their struggle against the malevolent force which had sent Doom Cloud to destroy them. A volcano now marks the spot, like a giant tombstone, where once a floating city had been protected deep in a planet.
"It was a beautiful city," Star Song sighed as he lay down on his back with his head at the edge of the central hole.
Eddy noticed the single central depression was identical to the two Star Song had placed his hands in as he climbed onto the lower stand of stone. Star Song's arms had been crossed as he twisted to his knees, with his hands still in the holes at the top of the stone.
"Pay attention, now." Star Song was speaking as Eddy struggled to remember yet keep up with all the newness around him. "Lay with the top of your head to the center and your feet aimed outward," said Star Song. "Our bodies are spokes in a wheel."
Eddy lay on his back and looked upward into a vast, dome-like sky. What had appeared as glittering points of light transformed before his eyes into rambling rainbow ripples of the gentlest hues. Their crossings described patterns that somehow communicated experience and understanding.
'What exactly am I seeing?' thought Eddy.
Star Song's answer rang through his head almost immediately.
"The journey will take time because we are traveling using old technology. We are traveling just fast enough to actually see the fabric of conscious spacetime. Melodian scientists performed many experiments at this speed. They eventually discovered a way to utilize what we are seeing, without becoming lost. The patterns appear to flicker because we are blasting by billions of galaxies, it is actually we who flicker as we wend our way through woven levels of understanding in the fabric of expanding spacetime."
"Where are we going? And ...," Eddy hesitated with his next thought. "So all this really is technology?"
Star Song chuckled before his telepathic answer sang in Eddy's head.
"Yes, you are learning our technology, quite rapidly. Your progress is pleasing to all melodians."
Though the compliment made Eddy proud, he was still curious about his original question, "Where are we going?"
"Beyond conscious spacetime, to where there is no conscious fabric."
"So is it plain spacetime?"
"Melodian science has studied that exact question for several hundred years without finding an answer. We are traveling into what is simply referred to as, Fertile Field."
"Melodian science doesn't know everything?"
"Oh, no. We still have much to learn about what we have discovered, and what lies as yet undiscovered has realms beyond imagination. We do know that our speed and our living presence leaves a tiny bit of actual conscious spacetime behind. We can move about in the wake of our passage using more modern technology because Fertile Field nurtures the conscious spacetime we have sown behind us."
Eddy had been amazed by melodian technology when he first saw the floating city. He had been particularly intrigued that it generated its own electricity rising and falling with the tide. Now he found himself equally impressed by the sheer intellectual power of Melodian Science. "How could they figure all this out?" He mused in awe.
"Time, Eddy; Melodian Science is old. Have I told you that melodians are not mammals made of hydrogen and carbon? That we are primarily composed of iron, silicates, and sulfur?"
"Cecric told me that, but said she wasn't sure about it, either."
"Well, Cecric was correct. Did she also tell you that Melodians have never known a moment of want because we are minerals living on mineral worlds?"
"No. She said she had only heard bits and pieces of other's conversations. It was back when Delfinians first met you."
"Humans and Delfinians are very different," Star Song continued. "Yet the two of you are are much more similar to each other than you are to Melodians, who are more akin to a rock than a tree."
"But you have flesh. I've felt your hand, and once I leaned against your leg for support; you feel like any other animal I've ever felt."
"That's because we, too, are mostly water. Melodian flesh and bones do feel very much like those of other living things. Our ancestors crawled from the sea just as yours did."
Eddy stayed quiet as his mind raced over all that he had heard in telepathic melodian speech.
"I gather from your story that we should check on the native american braves while our travel vessel progresses. Does that sound like a good idea?" Star Song asked.
"First tell me what you meant when you said melodians had never felt want," said Eddy.
"Life takes root on all young planets when conditions are still in some ways more hostile than deep space," Star Song began. "Life begins as small trickles which flow into streams and then course into grand rivers of evolutionary change. Mammals are all products of a tough and competitive past, survival of the fittest that gradually evolved to share the same being with cooperative love. It is a ferocious history which yields strong and cunning creatures. Mammals carry roots from the past for many thousands of generations, usually far beyond the time when the struggle to exist is so keen."
"Was the beginning easier for Melodians?" Eddy asked.
"Life was far easier for us than survival of the fittest. We did not emerge from a violent past because we are mineral and have always been awash in the basic nutrients of life. Melodian science progresses no more rapidly than yours, the difference is that we had no wars in our history to wipe out our early civilizations. No Melodian has ever felt the need to use guns and an army of young people because we have never felt want, threat, or hunger. Curiosity fueled melodian evolution, just as it has done in the second round for Delfinians. Our scientists are now almost certain that you and your fellow pioneers represent a new branch of the human tree, a branch that has become motivated by curiosity and fun instead of greed. Cooperation is more comfortable for those who have escaped blind instinctual greed."
"Thanks," said Eddy. "I sure do hope your scientists are right. It would be nice if at least some humans have a reasonable, er, reason to live." He then looked perplexed at the great vessel they traveled in. "It still seems very empty in here for me to imagine this as a machine. How do we check on the native american braves from here?"
"The same as we move from Earth to Planet Pacifica," said Star Song. "Simply add the beauty of many galaxies into your song with the suns and planets. Visualize where we are going and and listen for the echo of my melody as it searches out the most immediate concern; that's something new for you to learn."
Eddy then heard the rhythm of uncounted singing spheres as a focused echo from the walls of the gigantic spaceship. He briefly felt passage through the galactic outer edge of conscious spacetime and sang to one unique star, Sol. He visualized Planet Earth and the multicolored north american desert. Eddy listened attentively as Star Songs searching melody joined his own greeting with Sun, Moon, and Earth.
They stepped from a ringing crescendo of singing spheres onto a trail between a small valley and mountains behind them. The valley floor was littered with the wrecks of twisted and broken helicopters.
"NO!" Yelled Star Song as a fresh squadron of low flying helicopters appeared in howling formation. The helicopters viscously attacked a small army of braves, who were hiding as best they could among deep crevices in bluffs edging the valley floor.
"Take cover!" Rang in Eddy's head as Star Song stooped and picked up a load of fist-sized rocks. He then bounded into the valley, toward the helicopters, which swerved like a flock of birds toward his sudden movement. Blood lust blinded the pilots to danger and they flew head-on into a hail of stones. Star Song's body jerked in and out of sight as if lit by a strobe light. He only appeared where helicopter bullets weren't --- sometimes stooping to gather stones, other times standing to throw them. Helicopters with bent or broken blades battered others to the ground as they fell. The few helicopters that remained in the air turned and fled.
Long lines of native american braves filed out of the ravines and up the trail. Each bowed wide-eyed and quickly when passing Star Song. None stopped to ask questions. One brave reached behind the boulder where Eddy was hiding and pulled him into the fast-paced march. They had just passed over a sharp ridge when they heard the distant boom of a HUNTA canon. Everyone dove flat to the ground and covered their heads as a small atomic bomb exploded among the crevasses where they had been hiding, little more than two kilometers behind. The braves jumped to their feet as soon as the ground quit shaking and hurried on.
Eddy jogged up the trail attempting to appear as calm as everyone around him. He watched the ground intently as they did, swinging lightly between each step, as if gliding from rock to rock in a stream bed. He concentrated.
'Do not stumble. Do not fall. Stay with the movement. Do not fall.' His chanting thoughts kept rhythmic tempo with his feet.
The braves, some three hundred strong, were winding up a sandy-bottom, narrowing canyon, the walls became steeper as they climbed higher into the mountains.
"That was the smallest atom bomb they have," said the brave beside Eddy.
Eddy briefly turned his head and saw a young woman wearing a tan shirt and jeans running beside him. She carried a backpack that appeared to be half full of exploding bolo saucers. Her shoes were a flexible cross between running shoes and mountain boots. She was in step with Eddy, at his side. He didn't ask her age, he could see she was his own.
"How do you know it's their smallest atomic bomb" he said, again watching the ground, concentrating on what his eyes were seeing, contemplating all they had just seen.
"Our scouts have watched the tests .... USE still tests the little ones that can't be detected."
"Above ground?"
"Only the small ones .... Like the one they shot at us .... They won't shoot another."
Eddy thought about what she had said, and the way she said it, a few words with each breath.
"Why won't HUNTA shoot another bomb at us?"
"We're running into the wind .... HUNTA will hit itself with its own radioactive fallout."
"What are you doing here?" Eddy asked. "You seem a little young."
"Everybody is in on this, even my younger brother ..... He's in the bigger army, somewhere up ahead .... We were covering their retreat .... Besides, I'm probably as old as you are .... What's your name?"
"Eddy. What's yours?"
"My nom de guerre is Luna," she said glancing sideways at Eddy. "My regular name is Erica."
"What's a nom de guerre?"
"It's my war name .... The name I use if I am captured .... Do you have a war name?"
"Star Song calls me, 'Young Human Warrior'.... the Admiral calls me, 'Earth Fleet Commander'."
Erica jogged along in silence for a moment, thinking over what Eddy had just told her.
"Those are heavy names for someone my same age .... What's an Earth Fleet Commander? How long have you been fighting?"
"It's beginning to seem like forever," Eddy answered with a grimace. "I'm a spaceship pilot, promoted to commander."
"What's the story on that guy you're with?"
"That's Star Song, a Melodian," said Eddy, noticing his own words flow with his breath and realizing they were high in the mountains, where the air is thin. " I'm not sure melodians are male and female .... Star Song isn't a mammal."
Erica glanced at Eddy and saw he was serious. "One doesn't have to be a mammal to be male or female," she said taking another breath. "Whatever Star Song is.... that was some kind of magic .... We'd all be dead if you two hadn't shown up."
"It's technology, not magic," Eddy answered. "Star Song is wearing a shoulder strap with metal buttons on it .... I saw him press one of the buttons when he picked up the first batch of rocks."
"Wait a minute!" Erica exclaimed. "I saw ... um ... that Melodian .... flashing around and yelling at the helicopters .... He knocked them out of the sky hurling rocks the size of my head! .... It looked like magic to me!"
"Yep," Eddy grinned. "Melodians are amazing." He glanced at Erica's head and noticed growing strain on her face. "The rocks weren't as big as your head, though," he commented.
"How tall is Star Song?" she asked.
Eddy thought about her question. He hadn't seen Star Song next to other humans until the braves had filed passed as they left their hiding place; it had been surprising for him to see how tall the melodian was in direct comparison to the braves.
"I'd guess at least three and a half meters."
"What's that in feet?"
"You measure in feet?"
"My people are from the United States side of the border."
"Oh .... Star Song is eleven and a half to twelve feet tall .... That's my guess measuring in feet."
The long line of Braves slowed suddenly, Erica and Eddy almost ran into those directly in font of them before they too slowed to a walk, and then stopped. A small group of braves was hurrying down the canyon and motioning everyone to move from the open canyon bottom, into the protective cover of slightly stunted pine and fir trees on either side.
"We're almost to the tree line," a passing brave told them. "If we go further during daylight we will be above the trees and out in the open. Rest here. We will bring the giant who fights with stones to you."
Erica and Eddy moved under the trees and sat down in a small sandy dell. Erica rummaged through her backpack and pulled out a blanket, which she wrapped around both of them. Eddy gratefully accepted protection from the thin chill air flowing down the canyon, it cut like a knife through sweat dampened hair and clothes the instant they stopped. They felt each others warmth and waited, silently, enjoying warmth, not at all sure what to say, or even if something should be said.