History:  First printed in KNIGHTBEAT X, published
1997, by Fenris House, a division of SPECIAL SERVICES,
UNLIMITED.
Disclaimer:  The usual.
Archiving:  Permission granted by author.
 

        The nebula was aglow with a scintillating array of
reds, yellows and purples.  In its heart, twin beams
of intense light, rotating around a single point,
appeared to disturb the quiet but dazzling panorama.
        Lucien LaCroix watched on the viewing screen in the
cabin of his star cruiser, this remnant of a star that
went nova over a billion years ago as it continued its
steady devouring of the scattered dust surrounding it.
 Dust was all that remained of the planets, which had
once been nurtured by its light.
        Turning away his eyes from the screen, LaCroix
glanced down.  Checking again the numbers glowing on
the console before him, he smiled.  “Yes, four
thousand light years exactly.”
        Looking up at the screen, he continued, “Do you know
that a beam of your light takes just as long a time to
travel to Earth as I have lived.  Four thousand years.
 That’s a long time to exist for a being whose life
was only to be counted in a few short decades.
        “I’ve seen civilizations, worlds, rise and fall.
I’ve seen life in thousands upon thousands of
different forms.  Each on trying to make its pitiful
way through what little time it has of existence.
        “I’ve seen death.  Death of nameless multitudes,
deaths of friends, lovers…family.  No parent should
outlive his children--but I did!  I outlived them
all!!”  LaCroix paused as the flow of memories carried
him back to times long past.  Only the soft murmurings
of the life support system could be heard through the
all-but-for-one empty ship.
        “Only you stars are truly eternal,” he began, softly.
 “Untouched by sadness, grief or loneliness.  Always
defying the darkness with your burning light.  Never
tiring.  Never wearying.
        “I have grown tired of immortality and I want to
finally rest in the light and the warmth I have been
so long denied.”
        As LaCroix’s fingers tapped out the new commands for
the ship’s computer on the console, he chuckled to
himself.  “I wonder, when the light from my shattered
atoms finally reaches the Earth, thousands of years
from now, who or what will be there to see it?”
        “Father.”
        LaCroix stopped, startled by the sound.
        “Father.”  It came again.
        “Diva?” he questioned, recognizing but unbelieving.
        “Yes, Father.  It’s me.”
        “That’s impossible!” he yelled at first, then softly.
 “Where are you?”
        “I’m here.  Come to me, Father.  There’s so much
here.  We can be, do, whatever we wish.  We can
start…”
        “No!”
        “Why not!  Come to me, please!  Father!”
        “No! No! No!”
        As the ship quickly responded to the new set of
coordinates, LaCroix watched as the star receded on
the screen.  “No Divia, I can’t.  Not again.”
        A blood-red light filed the cabin.  It added to
LaCroix’s pale features a tint that had long been
absent.  The star this time was a red giant floating
alone in the vast ocean of space.
        “Hearing voices of the long dead.  I rather think of
it as the weariness of continued time, then senility.
Well, no matter.  All will be taken care of soon
enough.”
        Speaking this time to the ruddy radiance shining on
the screen before him, he implored, “Oh mighty one,
will you bless me with your flame and…”
        “Lucien, it’s you!  I’m so glad you have come!”
Another voice from the past, this time its silken
tones titillated, invoking mad memories of pleasure
and pain.
        “Francesca?”
        “Yes, Lucien.  You must come!  You must savor the
delights.  Drink to the fullness of what is to be…!
Lucien, don’t go!  Lucien!  Lucien!”
        The voice became a slowly fading echo as the ship
sped away.
        A blue-white star, blazing in glory in its first
billion years of life, spoke to him next.  The voices
were of two artists, a wife and husband.
        “LaCroix, we remember you!”
        “Yes, we do!”  First one, the wife, and then the
other, the husband, spoke. “You often told us how you
loved our work.”
        “In the portraits we did, you told us you could see
the light of the soul shining through the eyes of the
subjects.”
        “You offered us support.  You offered us patronage
and in the en you offered us the gift of immortality.”
        “We accepted it all.  Totally unaware of the price
until too late.”
        “We lost the light and no matter what we did, we
could never get it back.”
        “We owe you!”
        “We owe you!”
        The words echoed again and again in his ears.  Loops
of searing brilliance flared from the star’s surface.
LaCroix’s ship just barely escaped the scorching gases
as it flew away.
        The whispering voices LaCroix heard as he watched the
timeless dance of two stars as they waltzed around
each other were those of two writers.  They had amused
him with their tales of dark things and the mortals
who insisted on pestering them.  For a joke he had
given them the taste of eternal darkness.  Now he was
grateful that they were absorbed in their
conversation, unaware of his presence.  He eased his
craft quickly by them.
        “Is there no rest for me?”  LaCroix said as he stared
at the blanked screen.  “I should have known.  There’s
no rest for the wicked.  Some joke, don’t you think?”
LaCroix’s bitter laughter filled the cabin, then
faded.  “I never thought I would grow so tired.  All I
want is a place to finally rest.  Is that asking too
much?”
        “You can rest with us.  If you want.”  In response to
the woman’s voice, LaCroix touched the control and the
screen sprang to life.
        A yellow sun poured its golden fight into the room,
warm and soothing as the familiar and beloved voice he
just heard.
        “We understand.  We were tired, too.”  Another voice,
male and equally beloved.
        “You don’t know how much I have missed you!  Why did
you leave me all alone!  You didn’t have…!”  The words
caught in LaCroix’s throat.
        “It doesn’t matter now.”  The man’s voice continued,
“You’re home.”
        “Yes, I’m home.”  LaCroix replied in full
understanding.
        As it kissed the outer surface of the sun, the ship
exploded into white incandescence.  The light of that
explosion took only eight minutes to reach the Earth.