Disclaimer: The usual.
Archiving: Permission granted by author.
LA FAMILLEBy Silvercrone
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 one 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 end 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.