Starborne

That surprises her. She says that she would not have believed that it was possible for angels to die, and her angel tells her calmly that it is, it is not only possible but necessary. If angels can be born, angels must also die. Everything dies, even angels; and everything is born again. The only thing that has neither a beginning nor an end, it says, is the universe itself, which was there at the beginning and before, and will be there at the end and afterward.

Look. Here.

They have reached the dying angel, in a region apart from the others. Its light is very dim, though there still is warmth coming from it, the midday warmth of a winter day, perhaps. There is no brilliance to this angel. Its face is dull and dark, as though it is covered by an ocean of heavy mud, or thick lava, perhaps, sultry in color, a deep purple streaked with occasional widely separated regions of crimson and scarlet. Across the cooling surface of the dying angel there still is some sparse sign of sluggish activity, the slow, difficult movement of lumpy masses of matter sliding forward in the mud, some of them black or gray, some glowing dull red like metal ingots that have fallen from the forge but are not yet cold.

There is no roaring here, no hissing, no crackling, no sizzling. There is only the deep muffled sound of titanic forces grinding to a halt, of colossal energies winding down. Even as Noelle watches, the painful movements of the traveling masses grow even more slow and the bright streaks of crimson and scarlet give up much of the richness of their hue. Everything here will stop, soon. There will be nothing left but cinders and ash. But when she looks up, beyond the place where the dying angel hangs in the firmament, she sees dust already coalescing in the distance, the first glimmers of brightness taking form. This angel is going; a new one will soon be arriving. And so it has been, Noelle understands, since the beginning of time. And before the beginning.

And now see this one, Noelle’s angel tells her.

They travel onward, and come to a golden angel, a small one in a region of the void that has very few other angels around it. It pays no heed to them, but goes on turning steadily on its axis like a child amusing itself in a playground. Noelle understands that this is a young angel, not a newborn one by any means, but not yet mature — an adolescent one, perhaps. They remain in its vicinity for a time, watching its self-absorbed antics. There is something extremely pleasant about being near this charming young angel, Noelle thinks. Watching it, she feels almost as though she has returned to her own childhood. Yvonne seems very near, closer than she has been in a long while. They are girls again together, giggling, running, colliding, giggling again as they tumble down in a heap.

There is more to see. There is so much to see that Noelle is dazzled and dazed by it all, here in this universe of angels, this infinity of godlike beings, beings who were old when the sky was young, beings who have seen the before and will see the after. After a time she can absorb nothing more of it. Her guide seems to comprehend that; for the tour is brought to an end, and Noelle returns to the bosom of her own angel, and glides downward and inward, to that hidden zone of serenity that lies beneath the roiling tongues of fire, and there she rests, there she sleeps.

Sleeps. Sleeps.

How long has she been in the coma now?” the year-captain asks. “Is it a week yet?”

“This is the eighth day,” Leon says.

“The eighth day. Do you think she’ll come out of it at all?”

Leon shrugs. “How can I say? What do I know? Am I an expert on things of this sort? Is anybody?”

“I understand,” says the year-captain softly.

She has been wandering in delirium most of the time since losing consciousness. Troubled, fearful, the year-captain has kept a somber vigil at her bedside, losing track of the time himself as the days slide by and there is no change in her condition.

Sometimes it seems to him that she is rising toward consciousness; intelligible words, even whole sentences, bubble dreamily from her lips. The dreaming Noelle talks of light, of a brilliant unbearable white glow, of arcs of energy, of intense solar eruptions. A star holds me, she mutters. She tells him that she has been conversing with a star.

How poetic, the year-captain thinks: what a lovely metaphor. Conversing with a star.