The Names of the Stars

by Christopher Kempke

copyright (c) 1990

I selected male, grey haired and distinguished. I didn't want this to be my whole makeup though, so I countered it with jeans. A featureless white shirt and grey tie completed the outfit, and a pair of silver-rimmed glasses completed the image. Looking at myself, I allowed a small smile. Perfect. I left the room by a door which wasn't a door, and stood on a busy city street corner. Dozens of people were around, but none of them noticed my strange and sudden appearance, because I didn't want them to.

I looked down the street and up to where the Channel 8 building stood, a secure, modest 14-story office building, and smiled again. It was 6:00 in the evening, and the sun would be gone in a few minutes. Everything was perfect for what I had to do. There was nothing left now but to wait and look around this world into which I had so recently returned. I spent some time in careful examination of my surroundings.

A few minutes later almost no one else was on the street, and those that were moved quickly and precisely, since each of them had a meeting he or she could not miss.

It was exactly 6:15 when I reached Channel 8, and found the lobby empty. I walked slowly toward the elevator, to give everyone a few more moments to get home. Time was something I had more of than others. Once I started the ball rolling, it would go quickly enough. Even more quickly than the last time: three days. It hardly seemed enough, but there was another more knowledgeable than I calling my shots, and I could not question that intelligence.

The elevator opened immediately when I pushed the button, probably by chance, although little enough was in this venture. I entered, and rose to the studio level. A man met me as I stepped out, and asked if I wanted to have the curtains open. He seemed to accept my presence quietly, though he had never met me before. "No," I responded. There was nothing to see; I had gained faith, if nothing else, in two millenia. Mankind, perhaps, didn't have even that.

6:20. I walked to the studio, to the anchorman reading the six o'clock news. As I approached, he stopped reading in the middle of a sentence and offered me his seat. This was too easy. I wished briefly that it could remain this way. However, men needed free will for both good and evil. Only through free will could I be once again betrayed; that betrayal was the primary reason I was here. The secondary one was the reason I had to speak to the world.

I took the seat at 6:25, and gave the other stations enough time to loop the broadcast to their own viewers before I spoke. My language was a strangely enhanced speech that spoke directly to my listener's minds, saving me the effort of speaking in several languages. The recordings of these words would probably thoroughly befuddle later analysts.

After waiting for almost two thousand years for this moment, the speech was easy. I raised my arms and brought them down heavily on the table. The tension pulled tight all over the world. My protection was wearing thin, and would vanish altogether when I finished speaking. Thinking this, I spoke.

"People of the world, with this gesture I take the stars from your night sky. Those which you have looked up upon for your lives are gone."

Without looking out the window, I knew it was true.

"There is only blackness there, and this is the way it shall remain until you can convince me to put the stars back. The first rule of my game is simple---there are five words which you must speak to me. It doesn't matter who speaks them, so long as it is in my presence, but don't bother to come read me a dictionary, for the other rule is this: To speak a word, you must know why it is one of the five. For each of the words you speak correctly, I shall put back a fifth of the stars in the sky. Nothing else save my death can cause them to reappear, and that death can come only at the hands of one who holds my trust."

The obligation upon the minds of the world began to unravel.

"I will remain here, alone except for those I take to teach. Come to me with your answers."

I stopped speaking, and the compulsion snapped. Those people around me looked dazed for a moment. I took the opportunity.

"Leave this place at once."

They knew my power---none of them questioned me. The broadcast ended, and a few minutes later, I was alone.

I took the elevator to the ground floor to see what had transpired there. The walls of the building shone with a soft shimmering light, save for a silver gate which stood where the doorway had been. In a room behind I found a bed.

Kneeling beside it, I folded my hands and spoke to the air. "It has begun again. Peace be with you." I cut my prayer to that, and lay down on the bed to wait. Closing my eyes, I dreamed of Judas, so long ago.

Seven hours later there came a knock at the gate. I sat up, and knew the first had arrived. No one else in the world could have knocked. Looking out, I saw television cameras pointing toward the gate. Apparently, no one but those chosen could even get to the gate, held back by some force no mortal power could ignore. It wasn't important to me though. What was important was the woman who stood at the door.

A woman. My mind left me for a moment, then calmed. I had not expected a woman; there had been no women before. Apparently I, too, had something left to learn; I wondered how much. I opened the gate for her.

She stood her distance undecidedly.

"Speak your word!" I made the command harsh. There would be time for understanding later. It was the command she had been waiting for.

"Power," she said softly, then waited expectantly.

"That is incorrect," I said. "If you follow me, I can teach you why."

She did not hesitate. The gate closed silently behind us, and my apprehension calmed. I knew exactly when the one I was waiting for would be arriving, but even so I was glad that he was not the first. However, I had another task to attend to here, and so I led the woman to a back room. Within, I began to teach her what all mankind needed to know. She was named Mary, an interesting coincidence---if anything could be considered coincidence.

It was only an hour before the second one arrived. The crowd outside hushed as he approached, so Mary and I knew even before the knock came. She remained behind, while I opened the gate again. This time, it was a man, and he calmly spoke even before I prompted him.

"Life," he said.

I turned away. "Wrong. Follow me if you would learn why."

The answer was not all that far off, but I didn't explain it to Jose until we were inside. There I began my teachings again, in earnest.

Slowly, time passed, and daytime approached. I knew, as none of the people outside did, that there would be no sun this day. Night was eternal, until the game was finished. Still, I counted this day as one of my three. The ending was still inevitable. I only wished that I knew it.

The knock came again, and I knew who stood there. "Get back in there," I commanded Mary and Jose, directing them to a back room. They complied with full understanding. I had explained some of what was to come, so much of it as I knew.

I opened the gates. Five men stood outside with automatic rifles pointed at me. They could not pass the gates, but it didn't stop their bullets. One looked at me with something like a sneer.

"Die, thief," he commented as he pulled the trigger. The others followed suit, and I bent forward as the bullets struck me one after another for a long time.

When the guns were empty, I stood up, showing myself to be unharmed. Their faces were pictures of terror, except for the one I wanted, in back. His name was Greg, and his eyes showed sudden understanding. "Love," he said.

I nodded. "Yes. Follow me to hear more." Even as he followed me in, a few stars twinkled again in the night sky that should not have been there.

Scott arrived an hour later, incorrectly guessing "Honesty." Linda did not appear for almost six thereafter, but her word of "Peace" was correct. Samuel guessed "Faith" incorrectly, and was admitted as well. At the hour that would have been nightfall had night ever lifted, I returned to the gate. The people outside were silent as I spoke. "Peace and Love. Tell me more." The time approached, and suddenly I knew it had come.

One man materialized in the back of the crowd, but no one noticed. I did not smile---I had been waiting for him. For almost two thousand years, I had been waiting for this one man. I only knew it in that instant.

"Trust," he shouted. I opened my gate for him with a feeling akin to fear. Although I had known he was coming, and had prepared for him, seeing his face again after two thousand years was still a shock. The word he had chosen bit me, but it was one of those I was looking for. Something the world needed more of.

"Correct," I said, and together Judas and I closed the gate. He looked at me suspiciously, but I kept my gaze even. He finally avoided my eyes altogether. Still, he knew the lessons I was teaching well, and helped in the instruction. I could not fault him there. Those things which were new, he listened to attentively.

Later, as I lay down to sleep, I shivered. Judas was the reason for the game, and I was uncertain of the result.

Six more people arrived over the next day and a half, none of them guessing correct words. It would not have mattered if they had; the board was now set and all that remained was for the game to end. Mary, Greg, Scott, Linda, Samuel, Judas, Jose, Judith, Sarah, Thomas, Peter and Paul. The Peter, Paul, Mary, and Judas I wondered about, but coincidence or lack of same was not my most pressing concern.

On the third day, I showed them how to open the gate, and went to lay down.

Judas left, as I knew he would. He spoke with another man outside. I knew the terms too well by this point. Thirty small ingots of silver to do me in, as had thirty coins before. It was a strange bargain in these days, but one which Judas would understand; he was not fully aware of the progress of two thousand years. After a while, he returned, and joined the rest of the disciples. He was carrying two small pouches, and one jingled with silver. I nearly wept. It had been so long. And to still betray my teachings, even now.

I set a table, and on it appeared many foods. I left the disciples to their meal as I took the elevator to the top of the building.

From above, I could see the people milling about in throngs below, and felt my time running low. An hour was all I had left, but my time had been enough. Those who sat at my table below held the knowledge that would save mankind for another thousand years or so, if the world was smart enough to use it. My innate faith in man was that they would.

I was glad that one of my purposes had been fulfilled. The other would cost me my life, and perhaps the last chance at peace I had. Thinking of Judas, I returned to my table.

"Trust, love, peace, hope, evil." With each word, a portion of the stars in the night sky glowed once again where they belonged. "Remember these words, and the ideas that they are keys to. My time here is nearly up, but when I am dead your task begins. Humanity will need your teaching as you needed mine. I shall not return for a thousand years---use the intervening time well." Each of them at last realized who I truly was, and together we raised a toast to humanity.

As I brought the wine glass to my lips, I saw Judas move. The motion was lightning quick, as he raised his own glass and hurled it. The shouted "No!" still hung in the air as the two glasses collided. Mine fell to the table, somehow still upright.

I looked at him, and the rest fell into silence.

"Poison in the glass," Judas said, then got up and went to the gate. Opening it, he opened the bag of silver and scattered it to the crowd with a gesture, then dropped the bag and returned. He stood before me, and would not meet my glance.

I smiled. "God forgives you," I said.

He shifted uncomfortably, waiting. I poured the poisoned wine onto the floor, and tossed away the glass. It shattered musically in the corner, and the silence with it. My time was over, but this time I had my peace.

"I forgive you," I said quietly.

Christopher Kempke is a dangerous, psychopathic Computer Science graduate student with too much time on his hands. Attempts to lock him up have resulted only in a temporary confinement at Oregon State University, where he can be reached as kempkec@mist.cs.orst.edu on good days, and not at all on bad.