Uranus Unity

Chapter 01

URANUS UNITY

CHAPTER 01

“Please, tell me more.”

The man at the computer console stared into the large, floor-to-ceiling window on the far side of the room and considered his response. He rubbed his chin.

Turning to the computer, his fingers fluttered over the keyboard. He brought up a few articles on Taoism and Buddhism to refresh his memory. His eyes darted back and forth over the key points in the discussion. He looked up from the monitor. He brushed back his hair.

The man was alone. Well, alone, if you meant in the room, the observation deck of what the captain now called, Uranus Colonial One, but not so alone, if you included what was just outside the window—a blue world, an ocean, an expanse without edge. Within this world outside, teemed life. Now a school of fish-like organisms swimming this way, now a larger group of rocks that resembled sea turtles zooming by over that way.

Over in the distance to the left, some two hundred yards away, was a cliff face with dwellings of different sizes dotted all over it, and lights. Strange creatures were now making their way to and from this area, going about their business, sometimes stopping to communicate with each other, and then zipping away all at once. A little like ants on an anthill, the man smiled and thought to himself.

One of these creatures was now situated right up against the glass of the observation deck, floating without effort in the clear, crystalline water beyond. It was a thin-layered thing, an opaque pocket of no specific form, measuring a diameter of about ten feet across. A giant soap bubble, like a jellyfish but without any of its dangerous tentacles. It had vital organs as confused shapes beneath the skin, including a gas bladder that kept the creature afloat at a certain depth. On the outside of its body, two long appendages like arms now hung quietly by its sides as it wavered up and down in the water. Upon one of these arms, clung a shiny metallic badge, a square circuit board, no bigger than your hand, that glowed when the creature went to speak. All along the surface of the non-humanoid, multiple trails of blue electricity ran faintly from here to there, like the arcs that would flash from the nodes on a taser, or lightning.

The badge on the creature’s arm flashed, indicating speech. “Ensign Chang?” The translated voice spoke via the speakers in the room.

“Yes, Chancellor…”

“Please go on. You were saying that wise men of your world had once thought the same thing…”

“Yes, that’s right.” Chang cleared his throat. “Just as you had mentioned before, the same idea had also occurred to us—that the world is one. And it is in balance, in harmony with all other aspects within and of itself, even though sometimes, on cursory inspection, there is motion, and actions and conflicting reactions, at times even violent ones, that seem to denote non-harmony or dissonance…”

The Chancellor interrupted. “…but on more intimate study, they are but the natural ebbing and flowing of the energies within a single world that rests at perfect peace with itself.”

“Yes. That’s it. That’s it exactly.” Chang eased back in his chair. “Then to find the direction of that flow in the energies, and to channel one’s own efforts and strivings so to run in line with that flow, is to find the true meaning of life.”

“Well put, Ensign! I believe what you have stated right there is nearly exactly what our ancient sage, B’lor’btt had proclaimed in one of his dissertations some five thousand years ago…though with much finer words, of course.”

Chang smiled. “Of course, sir.”

“And who upon your world was so wise as to come to such enlightenment?”