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grossly and monstrously morbid to him. The dangerous idea of a disaster to start a war was bad enough, but then the idea of profiting from it also, was sickening to him. But Eldon was about to hear the most disturbing and even frightening comments yet.

  Eldon made his way back to the Singsord conference room feeling somewhat depressed. As he neared the door, a hooded ibee came out of the room and passed him quickly. Eldon entered and approached the table. He looked up to see five of his colleagues at the table. Two were sitting, 3 standing, and all with a somber perturbation over their faces like the storm clouds of Cloudworld One in the winter.

  After a brief moment Eldon asked, "What is wrong?"

  Thomfair answered, "We just spoke with a seeker. We could not help him. He just left. You must have seen him."

  "The one with the hood?"

  "Yes Eldon," from Millstell, "and what he said to us was shocking. He is in grave danger. Perhaps you could—"

  "I will find him," Eldon blurted, turned and darted out the door. He peered down the long hall and saw the hooded one turn to the left. Eldon followed as quickly as he could. He thought that he probably should have got more information from his friends in the conference room, but he felt an urgent need to speak with this person as soon as possible. He turned where the seeker turned and saw an upward escalator. At the top, the seeker in the hood was just getting off. Eldon ran up the escalator for several steps but had to stop because of others standing there. When he got to the top, he let out a sigh because it was a large open area with hundreds of ibees all around. The hooded seeker he sought, was nowhere in sight.

  In this common area, where there were benches, workstations and refreshment islands, Eldon could talk to a diverse cross-section of ibees. But he was he was only concerned now with the hooded seeker that got away. He must have had a unique perspective. 'What shocking thing did he tell the others?', 'What danger is he in?', 'Could I help him?', Eldon thought. He knew he must return to his colleagues to ask them, but not yet. He continued scanning the area.

  Finally he sat down and began to meditate on the opinions he had heard in this early aftermath of the disaster. He thought about where he would go if he was very troubled and confused like that seeker might be. Looking out a port window at the stars had always helped him to consider the deeper, bigger questions. So he walked toward the edge of Galaga, which was not far. Once there, the huge out-view windows dominated the scene from left to right as far as you could see. The open view of space was made available on every side and practically every deck of Galaga Alpha. Quite a number of ibees were there just looking out into space. Off to one side was the faintly glowing ring of what was once Okron.

  Within the hour, Eldon noticed that more ibees were gathering at the view windows. There was a buzz among the crowd as if they were anticipating something to happen outside. Gradually, pieces of debris could be seen floating by from Okron. The pieces were now getting bigger – the debris from Murbon and Wotowon. The majority of it was from Wotowon since it was the outer planet. Galaga's shielding deflected any that came too close. If some came close enough, or if a teleview device was used, details could be seen.

  What came into view was a new horror that was beyond these words to describe it. It could be seen that the debris included ibees frozen in time. There were bodies of many trying to escape or just running in panic. Their faces showed the terror of their world collapsing. Some at the windows gasped in horror at seeing the last moments of the victims of the disaster preserved so clearly. It was explained later that this could be seen because of the way the destruction happened. When the heat from the explosion reached the outer planet, the dark side which was facing away from Okron, was not vaporized. The atmosphere on the far side was seared and every-thing was encased in ash. Then it fragmented into space and quickly cooled. Since the planet was not 100% incinerated, the debris detailing the terrible end was released into space and time as an eternal witness.

  The debris was getting uglier by the minute, so Eldon turned away. He began to look at the viewers next to him. Fear and bewilderment shown in every face of whatever ibee species, just as the atmosphere filled the space of the room. Then, in the crowd, someone caught his attention. It was the hooded seeker he had been looking for.

  Eldon slowly approached him and could see in his face that the scene outside was very distressing to this ibee. He was mumbling to himself, so Eldon hesitated. Then he noticed Eldon, stopped mumbling and looked at the floor. "It is hard to watch. I can not look anymore," was spoken from behind the hood.

  "Nor can I. The sight is gruesomely strange. I am Eldon of Earth. Were you at the Singsord room earlier?"

  He looked up at Eldon and replied, "Yes. I think I saw you. I am Sarvekki 4 of Kliterroncci 3. Are you a Singsord?"

  "I am, for most of my life now. I am gathering various ibee opinions about the Okron disaster. What say you, Sarvekki 4?"

  I am stunned. I don't know what to say." He pulled back the hood to reveal the transparent skull covering the quivering grayish green matter inside. Eldon realized this ibee was a composite – a genderless species artificially created in the Spawnrise Initiative of Kliterron. Sarvekki continued,

  "I am a seeker of the Source also. I admire the Singsords. Your accomplishments, your bravery, the Domes – it is legendary to us. So I went to your room here to ask why."

  "To ask why?" Eldon repeated.

  "Why did the Creator let this happen? You say the Source is a Creator, a benevolent Personage that cares for his intelligent creation. Is that not so?" Eldon motioned in the affirmative.

  "You have no answer. The same as the others. Even Singsords cannot say why this happened."

  "We do not understand many things. But there must be a reason why the Creator allowed this disaster," Eldon began.

  Sarvekki looked out the window again and said, "Not simply allowed, but caused." The green matter in his head began to change to a blue then violet as he continued, "Perhaps the Creator causes things, to see what we will do, how we will react."Eldon shook his head negatively, saying,

  "I cannot believe that. Why would he destroy his creation? No, the Creator does not intervene in everything that threatens our ..."

  Sarvekki cut in with, "No, he does not intervene or care when ... he spills a few drops of cleanser chemical on the floor and ... and," becoming visibly frustrated and angry, gesturing toward the outside view, "the microorganisms that happen to be under those drops die in two seconds of writhing agony." Eldon just stared at Sarvekki's transformation from calm and controled to a very disturbed violet brain with some bright red spots, producing a face contorted in anguish. He continued, "That matters not on the floor, they don't matter."

  Eldon raised a hand and began to say something when Sarvekki said with finality, "No, Eldon, not a Creator but only a force. A force from the Source that creates and destroys, at a whim, or a chance, or a spin of the galaxy wheel." He now pulled the hood over his changed head and walked away. "Sarvekki please – " Eldon's call was ignored and the hooded one was gone, out of sight.

  This, being the most poignant of his interviews, affected Eldon deeply. Seeing how the disaster affected Sarvekki, the change that came over him, made an indellible impression. That seeker's belief in the Creator had been assailed and reduced to a mere acknowledgement of an impersonal force that has no purpose. What Sarvekki had expressed to him was similar to the Joltans belief on Kematis where Lin was lost. Eldon wondered if this disaster was affecting other seekers in a similar negative way. He also felt guilty (an unusual Hearthite quality) because of not being able to give a good reason for the Creator's allowing this to happen, and thereby providing some solace, some peace of mind. As for Eldon himself, his belief or faith, as he was beginning to call it, was still solid in a benevolent Creator. But like everyone else, the nagging question of why still lingered. He just could not understand why the Creator would allow such a tremend
ous hole to be blown in the universe.

  Eldon's later discussions with the members of his Singsord delegation did not provide much insight, and left more questions. They agreed to begin a study of past disasters and what came out of them. However, the scale of Okron tended to put it in a class of its own.

  Eldon finally retired to his rest cubicle. He turned on some soft music. It did nothing for him. He kept hearing the desperate words of Sarvekki in his mind. He tried to source-speak in the hope of getting an answer, con-solation, or something. He began, 'Great Creator, you are all-knowing and all-seeing. Help us please that seek you, to understand, to find an answer in this disaster of the galaxy. You must care for your ibee creation. You are benevolent, you must be. Please reveal more to us . . . . ' His words trailed off as sleep overtook him.

  A very base sounding rumble along with definite vibrations roused him up. He got up, but the room was not level. Then an alarm sounded outside. Something was dreadfully wrong. Eldon stumbled on the tilted floor toward the door of his cubicle. In the halls, people of every ibee species were running in confusion. He could not understand what they were saying. The gibberish of all the native tongues spilled out as tropicali water from a