A Cluster of Stars (Draft Chapter)

 If you ever find yourself an undercover cosmic entity, I should tell you now that Spacetime doesn’t exactly lend itself to travelling under night’s cover. But the Clusters had their own way of carrying out clandestine ventures. We were travelling through the asteroid belt concourse. (ABC to the locals.) I thought it was a little conspicuous considering everybody had to route through ABC on a daily basis but Selena insisted that the longer we could remain conspicuously inconspicuous the easier it would be for us to go rogue when the time came. So right now we were conspicuously stagnating behind an eight-wheeler. I’d spent the first half hour glancing around nervously worried we were being followed but if this didn’t inch forward soon I was ready to throw the sun up in the air and become a Brobdingnagian magnet. Better to die a colossal klutz than a slave to boredom.

Somehow a comet whizzed passed us AND eight wheeler which set the whole belt off on a rampage of colourful language.

“I hate rush hour.” Selena sighed.

“I hate having to play babysitter for a fireball.” I countered. “Well didn’t the Astro-Seer tell you she could undo your destiny?” “Yeah, but what am I supposed to say? Oh great, thanks! just send me back to Earth with a peanut butter milkshake!?” Selena rolled her eyes. “Look, it’s a whole different set of problems down there, you wouldn’t understand.”

“You know, Alastair the Clusters and I aren’t exactly supernovas either. You’re not the only misfit in the Etherland you know.”

I flushed. There was that word again. Misfit. “So this Bro-diggy guy,” I ventured, wanting to change the subject. “Brobdingnagian.” “Yeah, him. So he just wants to snuff out all of existence just to try to build a better one?” 

“Well I guess when you’ve been trapped in a black hole for a few millennia you’re ready to make a few changes.”

“Crushing the entire Universe hardly seems like a few changes.”

“Yeah well Brobdingnagian likes to think big.”

“You’re telling me. -What the, where are we?”

We must have gotten that inch I’d been asking for because now instead of the backside of the 18-wheeler we were outside what for all purposes appeared to be a chain link fence.

“A dead end and a doomsday prophecy.

This week just gets better and better doesn’t it?”

Selena parked the cruiser and we got out.

I realised the gate was made of- wait “Flowers?”

They were reminiscent of daisies and yet something told me I wouldn’t find these growing in any gardens back home. Or anywhere for that matter. They radiated power. Stars of all sizes danced between every gap in the gate. Some fast; some slow, each crevice seemed to contain its own little Universe. “Actually that’s exactly what it contains,” said Selena as though she could read my mind. I stuck my fingers between a couple of the spaces. It was a strange but not unpleasant sensation, a bit like the way it feels when you have your hand over draining water and can feel the  soft suction tugging at you. I tugged on the daisy chains but they held fast. “Tougher than it looks.” I muttered.

“Yeah well, if we were looking for the Gate That Bridged the Gaps I’d say we’ve found it.”