He placed the transmitter back on its mount on the control panel, flicking a switch to see that it was in working order. An LED window displayed the message: RECEIVING STATION BEYOND RANGE LIMIT. “Beyond range limit!?” He tampered with the COM link some more, somewhat frantically, and to no avail. The same disconcerting message displayed. “Beyond range limit? How long was I out for?” There was no way of telling. He looked at his watch to find it flashing zeroes. “Where am I?” Breathing rapidly now, Joden peered out of a cabin window. A brief study of the sky and a cold energy flushed through his body: he could not identify a single star constellation.

He ate the vibrant fruits until he was no longer hungry, then he rose from his seat to step down a nearby series of naturally-set stones leading into the water. His feet came to rest on a stone a few inches below the surface, and he crouched down to penetrate the mirror-like aspect of the stream with his eyes, wondering if any fish might come to play with him this day. As he was peering dreamily into the water, the reflection of the morning sun therein became obscured, and in its place appeared the shimmering image of a man. “Hhh!” Joden drew in his breath and looked up in fright at the reflection’s source. But the figure calmly standing on the other side of the stream was smiling benevolently, his eyes emanating a warmth and a glow that competed with the radiance of the sun that shone behind. An arm was held out, palm toward Joden, in a gesture of friendly greeting.

“Why must I go?” Ajna could feel the pain in the heart of the young man from Earth. “I am sorry,” he said. Joden was looking intensely at him, waiting for an explanation. “You have a lot of life yet to live, Joden. Alansia is a world for those whose lives are over—who have resolved all endeavour. There are no dramas to be enacted here. There are no problems to solve, no goals to attain; nothing to fight for, nothing to fight against. What would you do here? Alansians require nothing more than what this world has provided.” Ajna gestured toward the fruit-laden trees nearby: “See, we have not even to work the land or go to the market.” Joden recalled images of his problem-abounding planet. Already it seemed remote and alien in contrast to this one. “But I don’t want dramas and problems, and fighting, and working the land,” he said, knowing subconsciously that it was useless challenging Ajna. “There is more to the matter than you perceive,” said the Alansian, steadily. “Your being here will disturb the equilibrium; upset the balance. You have debts of action still to pay; troubles must yet come to you, are owed to you. They must not pursue you here, here where trouble is owed to no soul. Already your people are plotting the means to follow the path of your ship; already your being here has placed the perfect peace and pristine beauty of our world in jeopardy.” Joden was amazed. Ajna’s words had revealed a perception that penetrated deep and far.

“I must go now; and you must begin the refuelling of your ship. We will meet again later.” Joden was disappointed that Ajna did not continue. He waited for him to rise and take his leave. Curiously though, Ajna did not move from his seat; he only shifted his posture very slightly and remained where he was, his form becoming motionless, even rigid, like a statue. Joden observed that his eyes, only half open, were vacant and still and not focused upon anything. The Alansian gave the impression of not being present. It did not even seem that he was breathing. “Ajna?” He did not respond. Joden stayed with him, staring; wondering what had happened, wondering what to do, and wondering what the man might do. Ajna had said he was going. Why was he still there? Gradually Joden resigned himself to the fact that the Alansian was not going to leave his seat. It was yet another strange occurrence for the one from Earth to try and come to terms with. Ajna had said he would meet him later. He had to get back to the ship and begin the process of recharging the fuel-cells. He would return to the bridge thereafter.

Ajna had not finished: “The reason why we have no problems in this world is because no one here creates them. Why do you think we do not want your people to follow you to Alansia? Because we are selfish?” Ajna shook his head. “Because we know that within a moment of the arrival of a single colony from your Earth, this world and all that it upholds would be desecrated, its perfect peace shattered. Alansia’s lands claimed and divided; its abundance robbed, mined and ravaged; bought and sold in the marketplace; rivers dammed; trees felled; animals penned and slaughtered; fishes caught in nets and gutted. Every last bane and blight that now afflicts your Earth would be transported here. No! Alansia is to be reserved for those who are worthy of the privilege of its Eden; who have overcome Visias; who have reunited their souls with the Tasharan; who have no desire but for the preservation of this harmony and peace.”

Hmm, yes, but you are asking, what do I care about in the world? You are wanting to know if I concern myself with the events that may unfold in the Leiha, in the play. Listen. “From Void it comes, this world, and into Void it returns—profiting nothing, establishing nothing, changing nothing. Having before it that Void, having after it that Void; the same as it was.” The sage let out another peel of laughter. “The universe a grand display of meaninglessness! Yet how significant it all appears. An extravagant facade of pretend purport; a gaudy parade of glittering spheres whirling aimlessly in the vacuum of the empyrean, spawning bewildered puppet creatures from planet dust and vapour. Bearing meadows of pasture, forests of trees; gardens of flowers, blue lakes and streams; wastelands and ice-lands, lands furrowed with ploughs; hamlets and castles, cities and towns. All this from the Great Nothing comes, and into Nothing returns, having achieved— nothing.

“Sir, what exactly is magic—not pretend magic, but real magic?” “Alright, listen; it can do no harm to tell you this much: first to know magic one must know that the world is but the Tasharan’s magic, and that nothing is at all how it appears as being—that everything is one thing, and nothing different to any other thing.” The sage plucked a blade of grass by its root from the ground where he was seated. “You see,” he continued, “the magician—like the Great Magi - cian —must know that a blade of grass is no different than the earth from which it was sprung.” Upon saying this, a small clod of rich deep-brown soil replaced the suddenly vanished blade of grass between his thumb and fingers. Joden gasped. “And the magician must know that earth is no different than water.” Again an instant metamorphosis: the soil suddenly a pool of water held in the sage’s cupped palm. “Water, in its essence, as fire.” A dancing flame issued from his upturned hand, its radiant heat every bit authentic to Joden’s senses. “And fire, as air.” The flame disappeared as mysteriously as it had appeared. “Now, where went that little blade of grass?” Joden watched in awe as the sage made the original strand of grass manifest again between his thumb and fingers, and tenderly place it back to the spot from which he had pulled it. “The display of these powers,” he went on, in a more serious tone, “has no real value other than to confirm the illusory nature of matter. No more shall I tell—ask of me not.”

Sari pointed her finger to the hills in the distance beyond the meadow. “See,” she said, in her soft voice, “there is Joden’s spaceship.” Sure enough, down the way nestled amongst the hills, standing tall, was the Centaurus 1, quietly awaiting the return of its pilot. Joden recalled his doubting that he would ever find it again. Sari knew. As he gazed intently at the abstract image of his spaceship in the midst of Alansia’s heavenly garden, he sensed a certain vibration from Sari, one that he easily recognized: the time for parting had come. A powerful wave of sorrow broke high upon the shores of his soul, engulfing him. He turned toward her, wondering what scene the Great Dramatist had prepared as the way that they would part. He suddenly imagined Sari dis - appearing before him into thin air without a word. This he could not bear; he embraced her quickly. “Ajna is waiting for you,” she whispered. “Soon brave Joden must fly again amongst the stars.”

As the two craft steadily closed the gap that separated them, a vigilant crew at Mission Control looked on with grave concern. There was no misreading what their long-range monitors were telling them: at the fringe of the solar system were two of their spacecraft on a pinpoint-accuracy collision course.

The Centaurus’s trajectory had assumed the extreme. When it finally exceeded 90 degrees, Leidman called out in sudden realization: “He’s flipping the bird— he’s turning it around! ” Indeed, Joden had considered it his only chance. The two bodies were moving so fast that attacking from any point head on, or directly from the side against the AR47’s flight path, would be like trying to hit a bullet from a gun. The only way to conquer the elusive swiftness of the target was to travel in the same direction at the same speed. The Centaurus’s turnaround manoeuvre was complete. Joden was closing in; coming up from behind and a way to the port side. His tactics augmented the confusion of the ground crew audience. “He must be pretty keen on getting a good photograph,” said Ashley, dryly. “Yeah,” said Leidman. “You know what? I gave up the Centaurus as lost a month ago, and I’m ready to give it up again now. Three degrees starboard and that 47’s going to blow it out of the sky.” The same thought was in Joden’s mind. But shifting his pitch angle three degrees starboard was exactly what he was going to do. The AR47 was in range and visible now through the cabin window-array. It was a peculiar looking craft, a copper coloured rocket-dwarf with a flat nose and gadgets protruding from it that didn’t seem at all aerodynamic. Joden possessed substantial knowledge of the AR series’ avionics, and had seen this one on the ground in storage. But he hadn’t known then that the eye of the future was beholding him chasing its tail through space with the unauthorized intention to destroy it. “Tasharan be with me,” he said through clenched teeth, his right hand firmly, and as steadily as his over-stimulated adrenalin would allow, clasping the attitude-control stick. He lined up. . .