Absolute Magnitude by Milo James Fowler

“Tell me a story,” Ophylia whispers, bleeding red light from every pore. She lies curled inward on a bed of golden silk and shivers in spasms.

I cannot deny her. I have watched her all my life, and I flew a hundred thousand miles to be with her right now. As her mind fails, memories slip from her grasp.

“Our sun is dying…waxing as it wanes, brighter than ever before. A stellar swan song.”

She closes her crimson eyes, and the makings of a smile play with the corners of her lips. The soft pillow engulfs most of her emaciated face. “Yes. This one.”

“Crews on the lunar shipyards are working double shifts, scrambling to finish the last dozen star cruisers before abandoning this system forever. It will not exist much longer. A few days, no more, before the supernova ends in a massive shockwave that will annihilate everything in its path. Planets have already been evacuated, populations piling into giant generation ships that will transport them to the next habitable system.”

“If there are such great ships already, why build those cruisers?”

“The shipyards belong to a certain unpopular faction. The Clenched Fist, they are called in the Aerulysian tongue. Some call them terrorists. Two-thirds of the aforementioned generation ships do not carry any Aerulysians on board. Instead they are crowded with humans.”

“And why is that?”

“When the humans first came to this system—before they reproduced like tharrabs, their numbers exploding exponentially year after year—we Aerulysians welcomed them. The human homeworld had died, according to its emigrants. There had been no way to save it in the end. Its people needed a world to live on that was similar to their own; otherwise, they would die out as a species within a single generation.”

“Like tharrabs, yes,” Ophylia echoes. “Nasty creatures…”

“The planet Foorstra became the humans’ home. And at the beginning, it was more than enough for them. The lush, forested lands provided all they needed for food and shelter. But as the years passed, the humans outgrew Foorstra and spread to other worlds: Declayna, Pirren, even Aegiss—the Aerulysian homeworld. Like a plague that could not be contained, the humans overwhelmed this system until they dominated every planet’s population demographic.”

“And nothing was done to halt their encroachment,” she murmurs into her pillow.

“The Clenched Fist arose at that time. Aerulysian governors tended to be pacifists, arguing in favor of The Open Hand posture, giving the humans what they needed in order for both species to live in peace. The Clenched Fist argued that enough was enough. It was time to hold onto what was truly Aerulysian and to segregate the humans to the planet Foorstra alone, where they had originally immigrated.

“Flying their star cruisers, The Clenched Fist set about forcibly relocating every human they could find to Foorstra, ignoring the small planet’s overcrowding and diminishing resources. The Open Hand dispatched cruisers to stop The Clenched Fist, and the first civil war in the history of our people erupted. Aerulysian fought Aerulysian over what was to be done with the human problem.”

“You all could have lived in peace,” Ophylia says wistfully.

This gives me pause. For a moment, I wonder what it might have been like if we had not become so entrenched in our disparate ideologies. If we had not made so many irreparable mistakes.

“The impending supernova solved this problem,” I continue at length. “No one could remain in this system, neither human nor Aerulysian. They had to work together to build generation ships that would take them light-years away to safety. And while they prepared for this mass exodus, The Clenched Fist continued to build their private fleet of heavily armed star cruisers on a secret moon at the farthest edge of the system, the last planetary body that would be crushed into an explosion of dust by the star’s shockwave.”

I watch her for a moment. Hoping she is at peace, that she will soon find rest.

But not too soon.

“There is more to this story.” She cracks an eyelid open to look at me with affection.

I clear my throat quietly and continue. “Soon, these cruisers will be ready. They will cull the herd of generation ships, ensuring that those filled to capacity with humans will find themselves separated from the Aerulysian ships. The humans will be offered an ultimatum: find their own star system, or be destroyed. The Open Hand will not interfere; they no longer possess any warships, as all their efforts have been focused for over a decade on building generation vessels. They signed the treaty ending the war with their own blood.”

“The Clenched Fist also signed with their blood,” she reminds me.

“And while they promised at the time to dismantle what remained of their armada…they also promised their faction that we would never again be infected by the human blight.”

Ophylia sighs, the slight smile remaining. “And when this star dies…” She already knows the ending to this story.

And the beginning.

“When this sun dies, annihilating Aegiss, Foorstra, Declayna, Pirren, and every moon in between, it will mark a new beginning for Aerulysians. A holy day of cleansing to be remembered. We and the humans will go our separate ways, and never again will our paths be allowed to cross.”

“When this star dies…” Her frail form glows against the sheets. Burning brighter than ever before. I cannot bear to look, but I cannot bring myself to look away. “Thank you for remaining with me until the end. It will not be long now.”

I nod, but I cannot let her go. Not yet. The cruisers must be built. We need more time.

What should I say? I want to tell her that she is glorious. That she will never be forgotten. That her death will result in rebirth for our people. Perhaps she knows this already.

Her luminosity floods the celestial bedchamber.

“Tell me our story,” she whispers. “Again.”

—

Milo James Fowler is a teacher by day and a speculative fictioneer by night. When he’s not grading papers, he’s imagining what life might be like in a dozen alternate realities. Stop by anytime: www.milojamesfowler.com