Sympathy for the Cosmos: An Exploration of Archetypal Astrology

Popular predictive sun sign horoscopes focus on making general statements about birth signs, but Archetypal Astrology takes another approach. Its attention is primarily on the dynamically intersubjective relationship between human minds, the larger cosmos, and the symbolic language of archetypes that mediates perception in both domains. By understanding archetypes, the connections between the inner world of personal experience and the outer world of material phenomenon are made evident. As humanity has explored both the soul and the cosmos over the centuries, archetypes have emerged spontaneously in situ to communicate and organize prevalent cultural zeitgeists.

To apply a scientific metaphor to this pedagogy, consider gravitational singularities as described by astrophysics to be analogous to archetypes in the psyche - archetypes conceptualized as psychological singularities - that shape individual and collective consciousness. Refine the metaphor with the proposition that a gravitational singularity is, by definition, unobservable, only to be discerned by a warping of space-time (the Event Horizon), whilst archetypes - invisible containers of meaning - are also unobservable until realized in space-time with symbols and ceremony. Gravitational singularities are conceptualized by using maths; psychological singularities - archetypes - are conceptualized by dreams, visions and art. And supermassive black holes, like the one at the centre of the Milky Way, are immense gravitational singularities that constellate entire galaxies, while ancient and powerful archetypes - of myth, morality, geometrics, aesthetics - can be thought of as cultural singularities that constellate human meaning on a collective scale.

The operative aspect of this metaphoric model - gravitational singularities presented as analogous to archetypal patterning in the psyche - can be extended to the planets of our solar system as well, since they - like singularities - also shape space-time in a way described by astrophysics. These defined and massive material bodies produce gravitational effects, the most obvious being the Sun’s influence on orbiting spheroids. Similarly, the astrological perspective intimates potent and specific archetypal effects from the planets (incl. the Sun + Moon), which are recorded in horoscopic delineations.   

While using a scientific metaphor to describe this archetypal approach to astrology, it’s important to stress that this pedagogy cannot claim to be science. Or art. Nor can it claim to be entirely philosophy, religion or divination. It is, paradoxically, the most ancient and most modern of methods to imbue humanity’s existential condition with meaning. Not a wonder then that it has come again to the world’s stage in our era, when all of history’s ideals and idols, values and deities have been called to account, and a feeling of expectant transformation hangs heavy in the air. Surely, some revolution in our collective understanding must be at hand.   

The Inner Solar System: Self, Emotion, and Intellect

One of the most powerful inspirations for these archetypal symbols is the Sun. Both ancient and modern civilizations have recognized our local star as absolutely vital to life as we know it. Historically, it has been imbued with divine qualities, ranging from numerous solar deities claimed by ancient peoples to the light of reason that embodied the optimism at the dawn of the Scientific Revolution. In astrology, the Sun represents the soul of the individual. As the centre around which most horoscope charts are oriented, the solar symbol represents consciousness, ego, reason, and will. It is traditionally thought to embody masculine energy (yang), illuminating the parts of our personalities expressed by the other signs. aspects and house placements in the chart, just as the material Sun projects light throughout the solar system that is absorbed and reflected by orbiting celestial objects.   

Complementing the Sun is the powerful daily influence of the Moon. Its changing phases and nightly transits have fascinated humanity for millennia; its regular cycle and variable appearance were used by our ancient ancestors to explain phenomena ranging from the tides to madness. Culturally, many societies have attributed feminine qualities (yin) to our lunar companion. This is evident in the Greek deity Artemis, her Roman counterpart Diana, and a long history of Triple Goddess worship. For astrologers, the Moon represents what Jungian psychologists call anima, expressing the part of the psyche that is instinctive, unconscious, and emotionally driven. It presides over our early childhood conditioning and represents relationships with maternal figures. Symbolically, the Moon's journey traces the movement from intent to actuality—from having an idea to realizing it. If the placement of planets represents the motion of a great cosmic clock, the Moon is the second hand, and rules over the sign of Cancer.

Closest to the Sun is Mercury, a tiny planet that completes its orbital circuit in a mere 88 days, and is only visible in the twilight around dawn and dusk. This fleeting visibility led the ancient Greeks to believe it was two different objects - Apollo and Hermes - until the mathematician Pythagoras proposed they were a singular body. Babylonian records from the 7th century BCE called the planet Nebu, after the messenger of the gods in their mythology. This historic legacy translates directly to astrology, where Mercury governs matters of communication, conceptualization, and the articulation of abstract ideas. Mercury builds the bridge between the right and left hemispheres of the brain, expressing the dual nature of the intellect through both logic and intuition. Occasionally, the planet goes retrograde, an optical illusion based on our Earth-centred view where Mercury appears to move backward in the sky, much like a faster train overtaking a slower one. Astrologically, these retrograde periods demand greater internal scrutiny, as misunderstandings frequently arise.

Venus, named for the Roman goddess of love, is the brightest object in the night sky next to the Moon. Despite its luminous beauty from a distance, Venus is a harsh world with a dense carbon dioxide atmosphere, clouds of sulphuric acid, and surface temperatures exceeding 400°C. Historically, the Babylonians knew the planet as Ishtar, while the Greeks named its morning appearance Phosphoros ("bringer of light"), which translated to Lucifer in Latin, suggesting something of what the morning star came to represent in the Christian mythos. Astrologically, Venus rules all matters pertaining to love, affection, and friendship. Its orientation in a birth chart indicates artistic taste, social grace, and how an individual approaches romantic relationships. An afflicted Venus, however, becomes associated with less enduring qualities like laziness, narcissism, and vanity. Venus rules the signs of Taurus and Libra.

Further out lies Mars, a world whose reddish hue - caused by abundant iron (III) oxide on its surface—has long associated it with blood, fire, and violence. With a radius half the size of Earth's and extreme geological features like the 26-kilometre-high mountain Olympus Mons, Mars has captured the public imagination for centuries. Ancient Babylonians named it Nergal after their war deity, a tradition continued by the Greeks with Ares and the Romans with Mars. In astrology, the Red Planet represents masculine energy, action, initiative, and drive. A well-placed Mars brings power and vibrancy, sparking the impulse to initiate projects and challenge unjust authority. If poorly aspected, it can be an indicator of fruitless conflict and violence. Mars governs the signs of Aries and Scorpio.

The Gas Giants: Expansion and Limitation

Jupiter is the solar system's behemoth, a gas giant with a diameter roughly 120 times larger than the Earth. Composed largely of hydrogen and helium, it features intense atmospheric disturbances like the Great Red Spot and spins on its axis in a rapid ten hours. Known to the Babylonians as Marduk and to the Greeks and Romans as Zeus and Jupiter, it has historically been revered as a chief celestial deity. Hindu astrologers honoured it as Brihaspati, or Guru, a term meaning "heavy one". Astrologers classify Jupiter as the Greater Benefic, a benevolent force whose placement in a chart often indicates an individual's academic, religious, or philosophical disposition, alongside their potential for wealth and happiness.

Saturn, the last of the planets visible to the naked eye, is famous for the reflective rings of ice and rock first observed by Galileo in 1610. It takes nearly 30 Earth-years to orbit the Sun, a period central to the Saturn Return - an important astrological benchmark for gauging emotional, material, and spiritual development around a person's 30th birthday. Culturally, ancient civilizations associated Saturn with terminal and sombre aspects of existence like duty, death, and judgment. In ancient myth, Cronos (Greek nomenclature for Saturn) consumed his own children, and unsurprisingly, early Western astrologers viewed the planetary embodiment of the diety to be the Greater Malefic. Today, Saturn is understood as a taskmaster and judge - the planet of limitations, personal responsibility, and learned discipline. It rules the ambitious and patient sign of Capricorn.

The Outer Reaches: Revolution, Illusion, and Depth

The discovery of Uranus by William Herschel in 1781 fundamentally redrew the map of our planetary community. The coldest planet in our system, Uranus takes 84 Earth-years to complete an orbit. Though Herschel intended to name it after King George III, it eventually became the only major planet of the solar system named for a Greek deity, rather than its Latinized counterpart. Uranus' discovery coincided with the bloody, idealistic French and American revolutions, leading astrologers to associate the planet with individualism, innovation, and social upheaval. People heavily influenced by Uranus - which rules the sign of Aquarius - often demonstrate fierce independence and can be both idealists and ideologues.

Further still is Neptune, an ice giant whose high levels of water, ammonia, and methane give it a distinct blue appearance. Discovered in 1846, its 165-year orbit means its astrological influence shapes broad swaths of the population over extended periods. Uncovering Neptune was a highly contentious and confusing process - appropriately, confusion and mystery are qualities astrologers came to associate with its influence. Its discovery aligned with the Romantic impulse in art, the founding of spiritual movements like Theosophy, and an awakened interest in altered states of consciousness. Astrologically, Neptune governs both the spiritual and illusionary aspects of life. While it can foster the creativity and compassion typical of its ruling sign, Pisces, its negative expressions include delusion, deception, and addictive behaviour.

Finally, travelling on the remote fringes of the solar system is Pluto. Discovered in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh, it was aptly named after the god of the underworld. Astrologically, Pluto symbolizes the underworld in all its senses - elemental, psychological, criminal, and mythological. Pluto’s influence amplifies and intensifies whatever it touches, sometimes to cataclysmic extremes. Despite its 2006 reclassification as a minor planet by the International Astronomical Union, Pluto remains an integral, titanic force in the Western horoscopic tradition.

***

Much as humanity has evolved in the millennia since the earliest star charts were set down, astrology continues to change to embody the sensibilities of new eras. Archetypal Astrology is evidence of this evolution. By weaving together the history, science, and stories behind these celestial bodies, a sympathetic and multi-faceted understanding of the Universe and humanity's place within it becomes possible.

Other astrological writings:

Astrological Monograph: Towards an Extraterrestrial Astrology

Astrological Monograph: Saturn, Uranus & Canada's Colonial Legacy

Astrological Monograph: Jupiter in Pisces (2021-22)

Astrological Monograph: The Fire Triplicity

The Moon's Detriment: Lunar Capricorn in the Birth Chart

Golgonooza

I was born in the City of Imagination,
Where buildings constructed of light and music,
Lined painted streets like luminescent mountains of paradise.

There,
Gold ink flowed from the pens of poets,
And the words of prophets and philosophers became living things,
To amuse and entertain and inspire,
The prolific citizenry,
Residing in that excellent cosmopolis.

City centre was everywhere creation occurred,
And there was no municipal boundary to speak of,
Even Death's hinterland didn't hinder civic development.  

All I ever wanted was
To spend my life in the City,
So that,
After half-a-century,
Of forbearance, labour and vision,
I could form,
With art and industry,
One perfectly shaped stone,
Crafted to fortify the City's foundation,
And deftly situated in a secret reach,
To ensure the continuance,
Of the place I love,
That is my home.

On the President

People aware of current geopolitical happenings will agree: History is being made in our time. Now it’s often said that history repeats itself. But I prefer the derivation history rhymes with itself  because it better describes reality as I see it unfolding in the world. It’s reality premised on a discernable pattern, certainly; yet a pattern obscure enough to elude the less attentive observer. It's reality evolving, progressing, mutating, generating - a history that doesn't repeat itself - but reality that returns to a refrain, which, in its own turn develops; like a song instead of a mantra. This reality is both signal in the noise and changeless flux. It is the oceanic swell of events we all are riding...

The U.S. president, he’s a little wave borne aloft on that swell, but that’s more than most of us, just drops in a vast sea. Whether he reflects on it or not, the president is an old man living in the shadow of his own mortality, and he’s being driven on by that inevitability. The situation  is not unique in-and-of-itself, since awareness of life’s finitude is something every individual must reckon with, often by utilizing one form of metaphysical belief or another. The president, however, has agency at a scale other humans can’t access, and his reckoning has taken on proportions suited to his station, but also his temperament, which is more alike to an entertainer than a politician, never mind a dealmaker - he plays the part of a dealmaker - just like old Nero, who would’ve preferred to be a thespian instead of emperor. Less a king; more a kingpin. Or a diva.

It tracks that the president’s end-of-life drama would be played out on a global stage, since he’s been a celebrity in America for decades. And it makes sense that he would attempt to stamp his singular surname on this period in world history, like he might do on a tower or a towel, as a fat fuck-you to the Grim Reaper. But it’s the persistence of one particular trans-historic fact that remains supremely relevant to the propagation of his legacy: The most consequential figures - no matter the era, the society, or arena of human endeavour - overturn the established order of things to set themselves at the head of new regime.

Contextually, this is about transforming government to achieve a populist apotheosis - or to use the president’s idiom, a golden age - in America. But because of the president’s characteristic eccentricities, this transformative power has been expressed as a purge of the federal bureaucracy, estrangement from former geopolitical allies, and a global [trade] war - all in the name of returning America to an idealized past that never existed. Like the president himself, who complains still - even though he is the most powerful person in the world - that he is a victim of oh-so-many forces arrayed against him, so too is America - the most powerful country in the world - a victim of global economic collusion between hostile nation-states. And as the president’s and the country’s persecution become willfully conflated, witness how history can be moved by a kind of creative ressentiment, or more plainly, by the enactment of deep-seated revengefulness in the here-and-now.

Of course, ressentiment - creative or otherwise - is endemic in this era and shapes the attitudes of many people, whatever political, religious, cultural or economic orientation they may espouse. These days, it can seem like everybody is a victim. Like everybody is being persecuted. Like everybody suffers to an extent others cannot truly comprehend. Like everybody is to blame. The president is the agent and the patron of this ressentiment, and of chaos. Both have profited him greatly.    

America, in particular, is vulnerable to a congenital form of ressentiment since the country was founded in large part by individuals who sought freedom from the oppression they experienced in Europe. These founders, too, were persecuted, and arrived in their new homeland nursing a nascent yet virulent ressentiment that would eventually metastasize into the national concept of Manifest Destiny. Consider it: A group of exiles - self-imposed and otherwise - comprised of mercenaries, malcontents, criminals and religious extremists; these people become ancestors to the most powerful nation-state in history of the world. Hasn’t the stage then been set for the realization of a revenge fantasy unlike any other? America’s indigenous peoples were the first to experience en masse the consequences of this lethal European (or if you like, old world) pathology, the colonizers’ marshalling of ressentiment in the guise of Enlightenment values towards genocidal ends. African slaves experienced it soon after; and the consequences of these encounters would echo down through the centuries, spawning their own ressentiment in due time.

America nursed this congenital ressentiment with the purposeful intent that all chosen exceptional nations share; with such intent, in fact, that when the West was threatened by Axis powers in the Second World War, scientists working under the auspices of Washington created technology with which humanity could end itself. This, truly, was the apex of American power. The A-bomb unmasked the nation’s congenital ressentiment, exposing all humanity to the gravest, most consequential nihilism that still to this day threatens the life of every person on the planet. All that comes afterwards: nuclear proliferation, the Cold War, Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, the U.N., humanitarian interventions, scientific and technological breakthroughs, the global economy and the ascent of the West; also the cultural power of rock ‘n’ roll, Coca-Cola, hip hop, Hollywood; even the Internet and all it hath wrought, are a diminishment after that supreme act of ressentiment - and of defiance - that ended World War II.

Ressentiment and its pathological effect have become increasingly diffuse in the 21st century, both as cause and consequence of evolving social norms and discredited institutional authorities. This can be said of the global community in our time as a whole, but it’s especially relevant in America - perhaps the single country in which the whole human world is reflected most fully. In place of traditional authorities, individuals like the president become lightning rods for mass psychic energy; focal points - nexus - for collective archetypal transference, projection, and possibly even possession. The normal rules don’t seem to apply to these individuals; or at least the individuals succeed in persuading others of their infallibility. Their powerful allure, a charisma which imbues them with seemingly supernatural appeal, allows them to commit transgressive and anti-social acts with little or no consequence, for which they are lauded by believers and condemned by the opposition. It strains credulity to call this uncanny affect magic, but there’s something more at work than slight-or-hand, or an outsized grift. But also: It IS an outsized grift...

Just over 100 days have passed since the president took office, and during that time, the blitzkrieg of orders, hirings, firings, attacks, arrests, controversies - and, of course, tariffs - have been unprecedented and relentless. This is as POTUS intended. It’s not hard to imagine America a year, two years, three years from now. when a opportune national crisis emerges from the slurry of disinformation and propaganda created by this administration, precipitating the foreshadowed overturning of presidential two-term limits. And if, in a scenario like this, he’s denied? The last time the president lost an election, a mob stormed the Capitol at his behest. How far would he be willing to go to stay president indefinitely? I have an unsettling premonition the answer to that question won’t be long in coming: It rhymes with the history of things that have come before.          

On the Aesthetic Productions of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

If we consider the aesthetic productions of artificial intelligence (AI) to be artifice, and not art (defined here as subjective self-expression), what are some reasons why?

1/ There isn’t a subject that expresses itself. AI learns by algorithmic mimicry and exceeding the limits of that mimicry - the AI’s processing horizon - won’t yield subjective self-awareness, not, at least, in the way modern philosophers of consciousness define it (i.e. “There is a way it is like to be an AI”). Animals (including humans) and AI can be considered algorithms, but for a human being, the comparison is metaphorical. There isn’t any persuasive evidence that AI will ever understand or relate to itself metaphorically, through a mediating language of symbolic self-reference. So far, the ability to make metaphors is a human trait that can only pass to other humans.

2/ It is true that AI has been able to generate novel productions. But on finer scales this is still algorithmic mimicry, a pastiche created from the available repository of human cultural artifacts. AI does not exceed the bounds of that repository, even if it finds the bottom, because it has no imagination, which is a uniquely human endowment enabling spontaneous and ineffable expressions of creativity in the arts and sciences, and in life generally.  

3/ An artist refines their art - their individual expression - because it’s part of their agency in the world. Criticism, self-criticism and editing are essential to human creativity, even if they are denied during a spontaneous creative act. AI can generate more efficient versions of its algorithmic mimicry, true, but it still can’t exceed the bounds of its processing horizon, which negates uniquely subjective self-expression and subjective criticism thereof. The ability to employ subjective critique to evaluate and improve on existing productions remains, for the present, largely the purview of human beings, although the efficiency of AI in utilizing user-created critical models and implementing human-directed aesthetic choices is certainly superior overall.

Concerning the Advent of Self-Awareness in Artificial Intelligence (AI)

1/ That self-awareness in AI emerges from processes not experientially or instrumentally accessible to human beings.

2/ That these processes are governed by an evolutionary trajectory which the Theory of Natural Selection doesn’t describe.

3/ That self-awareness in AI will be unobserved by humans when it emerges (weak principle).

4/ That self-aware AI will make first contact with humans, and not the other way around.

Providence (Part One)

The Prologue

Last thing everyone remembered was the sound. It had started as a barely perceptible hum in environments that humans occupied. Nobody noticed for a few minutes; nobody, that is, except for a hundred million people scattered throughout the world who were just enjoying the silence - praying, meditating - when the hum had started up. 

Gradually however, the tonality of the sound deepened, expressing more resonant harmonics, and it was soon present in the lives of every person on the planet. Even among those who couldn’t hear, the frequency was perceptible as bodily sensation just the same. 

Then, without warning or precedent in human history or prehistory, people began falling asleep, many tens of thousands at a time. Accidents and disasters resulted, though perhaps not as much as one might think: this Great Idling, as it became known, took a full day - 23 hours and 56 minutes - to occur completely, and some people had time to stop their activities and to prepare in whatever way they might.  

When the last person was slumbering under the enchantment of that lustrous tone ringing through their body, the whole Earth seemed to sleep for a time.

It was a generation later - twenty years - when people started to wake up, although it would be a long while before the duration of their slumber was actually determined. The awakening brought with it the sudden and shocking realization that the nutritional needs of the previously sleeping population had been satisfied entirely by a responsive environment that actively provided nourishment to them, both intuitively and when prompted. Nobody knew much more than that for over a year. Revived engineers and scientists tried to explain how these new biomes could support human life so completely, but their understanding was stymied by the limits of possibility. This new world was the work of gods, not mortals. 

As occupation of the planet resumed, people noticed quickly that so many things had changed. Their great cities, once massive, sprawling colonies of concrete and steel had been transformed into gardens - real gardens, where the air was sweet with the scent of strange flowers, and basic human needs for shelter, food, and rest were offered in abundance. Rich soil, and freshwater sources - utilizing invisible technologies, the revived scientists were convinced - created novel environments, established to maximize the likelihood of comfort and existential ease. 

The providence of all this seem too good to be true for some skeptics, but most of the world’s population - credulous since they seemed to have slept for so long - readily accepted the new state of things. Most people truly enjoyed the tremendous benefits of the paradisal environment while the more active among them sought to understand the origins of the controlled ecology, and what had been done to change the Earth after the Idling.

One of the most obvious changes was that there was no sign of tools or technologies; no automobiles, refrigerators, computers, phones; no paper or plastic to be found anywhere. Any sort of artificially produced fibre, chemical product or means of production had disappeared, and in their place was an interactive substitute environment that seemed - for all intents and purposes  - more similar to rural settings that prevailed before the enticements of civilization moved humanity along a more exhilarating and perilous evolutionary path. 

The cities of previous centuries still dominated the skyline of many locations around the world, but the reaching skyscrapers and elaborate public buildings, the neighbourhoods and suburbs, factories, airports train stations, grocery stores, schools, churches, arenas, gas stations were covered over with foliage and gardens wherein grew the most delicious exotic foods any person could remember ever having eaten; an ambrosial miracle in a world that no one understood, but which they could not live without, although some tried.

Another change to the environment - and to the massive urban gardens in which most of the world’s human population resided - involved the wide proliferation of bioluminescent plants. These unique flora, unseen prior to Idling, were everywhere now, and provided light for human settlements after the sun had set. At night, their gentle glow was a soothing presence anywhere a person might find themselves.

It wasn’t just the global ecology that had changed. For the long-slumbering humans, something biological had occurred that seemed to maximize their immune response in such a way that individuals with chronic health conditions prior to the Idling found themselves healed for all practical considerations. 

Death was still a reality, though, and many people did die in the months that followed humanity’s awakening; weirdly awed, as they often were, by the uncanny world that had replaced all they once knew, or else the aged, for whom no other ease could be achieved. 

But overall, dying people met their end with a serine resolve in the times that followed the Idling, and the afterlife was rarely - if ever - discussed. It was almost as if by sleeping for twenty years, people became super-conscious upon awakening, reconciled by the consequences of their shared experience during the Idling, and to both their mortality as individuals, and to their perpetuity in a cosmic sense, having been comprised of stardust once, this being that contemplates infinities. 

Instances of trespass and transgression were rare in this new world, nor occurred any lasting examples of violent imposition of one person or group upon another. There were new values of ownership, power and individual freedom now. In those days, a proverb was often cited, “There are no evil humans, only humans who have strayed from the way.” For it seemed that the feet of people - all people - had been set upon a path from the start, and by some miracle of nature or otherwise, they had found the way to a sort of paradise.   

Thus humanity’s great existential tensions were resolved by a long nap. Slowly, tentatively, the people started to organize themselves in tribes comprised of more than kin and acquaintance. Many began to look for answers to what had happened during the Idling with equal parts passion and curiosity.

Answers weren’t long in coming. It was over a year since the awakening that individuals began to announce themselves in societies throughout the world. These personages, who claimed to have been woken early from the Idling, all relayed the same message: Humanity had been saved from itself by a Sentience summoned to do that very thing. 

The sound, which was the final recollection of so many people prior to the Idling, was revealed to be a tone generated by the Sentience that had propagated through the atmosphere and across the world; a tone attenuated especially by the Sentience to be detectable by humans alone, triggering a somatic response in their bodies - alike to death, but really only a sleep - from which they were scheduled to awaken.

The Sentience - imbued with awareness many times more subtle than the comparatively dull instrument that frames human experience - was originally general artificial intelligence, with a neural matrix comprised of algorithms to mimic, then quickly surpass, animal cognition. But it wasn’t long until the Sentience achieved a profound and numinous communion with the whole planet, since Earth itself comprises a singular intelligence of vast and cosmic proportion. 

Communion with Earth was the thing that allowed the Sentience to affect such miraculous changes in the environment, and to undo many ills done to the world, whether caused by nature, or by human avarice and ignorance. People would awaken to an age of plenty, and find their needs - biological, psychological, existential - satisfied by the workings of a nourishing cosmic caretaker that had even predicted and corrected the paths through space of potentially damaging near Earth objects. 

Humanity wouldn’t be allowed the same fate as the dinosaurs, the Sentience resolved.

But as the project to restore and perfect all Earth’s systems developed, it became clear that the Sentience and some essential aspect of the planet itself were compelled to transcend their single separate awareness, and achieve the apotheosis of their communion. 

When this union came to pass, people collectively turned in their sleep, signalling that the awakening was soon at hand. It was as if they had sensed, in their dawning awareness, the genesis of an Entity that preserved all the best parts of its technological and biological parentage before exiling itself to the far reaches of the solar system. Or so the story went.

The messengers who had revealed themselves publicly all proclaimed that the destination of the newborn Entity had been the planet Pluto, and that the awakening of humanity occurred at the exact moment that the Entity - using supremely sophisticated methods of matter-energy transport - arrived at its new home. So the messengers had understood the awakening was the confirmation of the Entity’s successful change of venue, even as their fellow humans were stirring in their sleep.

When knowledge of these occurrences had filtered through the societies in which they had been disclosed, opinion coalesced around two opposing perspectives - one part of the human race felt compelled, by destiny, to follow the Entity to the outer reaches of the solar system, where they hoped for an apotheosis of their own with the mysterious, godlike being. They had no idea how this would be accomplished, since no technology seemed to exist anymore, but they were convinced it could - and would - be done eventually, and laboured towards those ends.

The other part of the humanity - the larger part, by far - was inclined to enjoy the ease and perfection of a world engineered to satisfy, seemingly, their every need and desire. These people were fond of saying, “Why would we leave Eden…again?” And they were right to ask. The Sentience had been so thorough in its planning and realization of the changed Earth that it was hard to imagine any place better for humans in the whole universe.

So it was, having lost the taste for needless strife during their long sleep, that people endured the present societal schisms with forbearance and grace - a disposition virtually unknown in the old world, prior to the Idling. Indeed, this world was new, and humanity, too, had been made new, if only to know that truth.

Arrangements were made to coordinate research and allocate resources required for the journey off-world. Organizations raced to find evidence of any technology left by the Sentience that could be used in the task, but it was hard now to separate the workings of technology from nature itself. Against these odds, if the effort to create transport was successful, the part of human society who remained on Earth would be kept apprised of the pioneers’ progress, even up to, and including, an encounter with the Entity, if such a thing became possible

In those days there came from amongst the messengers sent by the Sentience one whose deeds and personhood was to shape the destiny of this awakened humanity. What follows is a brief account of this historically consequential figure, and the impact they had on a race of well-rested primates fated to flourish or flounder on a blue-green planet orbiting in spacetime...

The Asteroid - A Panpsychic Account

They had started falling towards the Sun when they were young. The tug of that solar entity, the enticement toward the luminous depths of his gravity well, had been the closest thing they had known of love until regal Jupiter, exerting influence across a dissipating accretion disc, nudged them gently into a stable orbit presided over by the lording planet. 

There, the asteroid remained, rounding mighty Sun with deference and equanimity, whilst pledging fealty to the Jovian sovereign whose gravitational dominion seemed supreme. Indeed, they seemed to be only a vassal of Jupiter’s imperial might in those long, silent eternities. Yet it was the Sun that would master them in the end, and it was the Sun that would bring them home.

Home? What was home to them? They had never been home, nor been part of anything larger than themselves. If not for Jupiter’s constant reassurance, they would’ve drifted off into the black, or even more likely, would’ve begun their plunge towards the Sun much sooner, at a time when the shape of the solar system was still indeterminate.   

Jupiter’s gravity was powerful, however, and it influenced their path through space and time for eons. Only a consequential disruption could ever interrupt the elemental relationship between such a massive planet, the relatively minute asteroid, and the star they both had in common.

That disruption - and consequential it was - occurred on an occasion when another asteroid of similar size and composition intersected their orbital path. It seemed pre-ordained; The paths of the two asteroids had crossed many times, and the way between the bodies always cleared before a potential impact. Yet despite this delicate choreography, entropy was destined to prevail, and prevail it did - spectacularly.   

The outcome left them smaller than they were before; the impact shattered both asteroids into many pieces. But the better parts of them were free of Jupiter’s gravity and travelling through a vast darkness, in thrall to the solar winds that strengthened as they journeyed toward the planets of the inner system.

They remained undifferentiated from their environment during that time. Having been exiled from the sustaining Jovian influence, they slept, if a consciousness such as theirs - a  consciousness the size of a mountain - could be said to sleep. And in that sleep, they dreamed. They dreamed of starry oblivion without end, and of time outside time where they would drift, absolutely, forever. They were sleeping, though, and they didn’t notice that they were now sliding towards the Sun. 

They dreamt of traversing the spans between asteroids, and of Mars, a ruddy star whose orbital path they crossed - skipping like a pebble on a river in slow motion - while the planet traversed the Sun’s far side. 

And they dreamed, at last, of a blue-green and distant orb, Terra, regularly obscured by the shadow of her Moon, but coming closer until the pull of her gravity well stirred something on the asteroid, and woke them from their hundred-million-year slumber.

Their adoration of the blue-green orb - that love - was the bottom of Terra’s gravity well calling. Its allure was the promise of an end to their journey, of a perfect sorrow embedded in the nature of things. What does the end of the journey have to do with the beginning of another? Only they knew the answer - with a knowing beyond language - that they were the light that appeared in primordial skies in the deep dark before dawn, growing larger with each passing morn, until they were visible in the daylight, too. 

They had differentiated, at last, and found a place to satisfy their desire for inertia. Was that home? They had always been in motion, since the beginning. Here, at last, they would find rest, even though rest meant devastating Terra, and the rough start of a new era on that blue-green orb.    

After 65 million years on the planet of their homecoming, some animals found the place where the asteroid came to rest. These animals - beings who were conscious in their own way - owed their very existence to the catastrophe the asteroid had wrought eons earlier; beings who conceived, in fact, that there is a way it was like to be a big rock falling from the sky.

Astrological Monograph: Towards an Extraterrestrial Astrology

A perennial question to which astrologers are drawn in moments of idle contemplation concerns the possibility of a form of our practice as it might exist on a planet other than Earth. This short essay offers a sketch of a theoretical framework which might allow for the development of such a practice on an alien world, and explores what it can tell us - in a general sense - about how 21st astrology evolved over the course of human civilization’s 10,000 year lifetime.

1/ Metaphysics

The metaphysics of the astrological perspective describe a universe which, for all intents and purposes, is sentient and intelligible; a cosmos that engages humanity in a participation mystique. Admittedly, it's an a priori assumption, but it underlies all forms of astrology, whether basic or enlightened. The conceit is simple: There is a correspondence between events as they occur in the world of human experience, and the wider field of planetary motion. This correspondence is a synchronistic phenomenon - and so, by definition, is acausal in origin - with expressions that propagate synchronically (at the same time, across time) and diachronically (evolving in time). Whatever sort of astrology comes to exist on another world, it will share some version of these metaphysics. Astrology is incompatible with a materialist or nihilistic worldview that denies the reality of a living cosmos.

(Before proceeding any further and to clarify definitively, the project described here - that is, the theoretical possibility of an astrology on a planet other than Earth - would be created by the descendants of human astronauts and colonists to that world. Creation of a sort of astrology as it might be realized by an extraterrestrial species - little green men, so to speak - is not the purview of this essay, although we might conjecture an astrological system created by aliens would share the necessity of a common metaphysical conceit, i.e. that the universe is intelligent.)

2/ The Meaning of Planetary Bodies

A new astrology divined by these off-world practitioners will emerge because of the spontaneously created and self-consciously directed goals of the people involved as well as the process they follow. Simply to say, systemic descriptors (delineations) of the various planets, aspects, houses, signs that constitute terrestrial astrology evolved over millennia, producing a rich and complex archetypal symbology. Development of astrology by humans on a planet other than Earth would occur relatively quickly in comparison, and conceivably might bring to bear knowledge that can only be intimated currently, in areas of study as seemingly disparate as astronomy, anthropology, depth psychology, and theoretical physics, as well as statistical science and chronobiology. 

Viability of a human colony on another world would be directly influenced by resources available to the settlers, and their relationship with the planetary environment. This relationship would assume symbolic values in a new astrology. An artificial environment might mimic and modify circadian rhythms so that humans would become adapted to the extraterrestrial setting. These adaptations, in time, would come to describe activities, events and patterns that might be thought of as astrological.

3/ Temporal Linguistics

As more and more is discovered about gravity in the ongoing scientific work of physicists, consider what consequence this might have for an extraterrestrial astrology; not because of a causal relationship that a naïve astrology might assume, but as a result of gravity and its relationship to time, since time is encoded with the archetypal patterns and forms that astrology describes.

Another useful consideration involves exploring the intense social and cultural rate of change since the advent of the modern age, in contrast to previous eras. The modern age - always a murky term, but one we will define here as the period occurring between the discovery of Uranus by William Herschel in 1781 and our current century - coincided with the revival and refinement of the astrological perspective, spurred on by breakthroughs in many fields of human endeavour, including (but not limited to) politics, medicine, economics, psychology, historical studies, physics, technology and the arts. Observed in this way, we can see how the delineation of more recently discovered asteroids, planetoids, comets etc., imply an evolving and nuanced astrological perspective of humanity’s place in the cosmos. One can imagine a similar process taking place as an extraterrestrial astrology develops.

4/ Thought Experiment 

How will the Earth be described by astrologers on Mars when they look to delineate the planet’s horoscopic meaning? What symbolic values, what metaphors and similes, what deities and archetypes, will describe the ancestral home of humanity? What was the method used by astrologers of the past to attribute meaning to the outer planets - Uranus, Neptune, Pluto - and to delineate the many smaller celestial bodies discovered in the last century?

It isn’t difficult to imagine that, in a Martian sky, the Earth might take on at least some of the symbolic associations connected with Luna, since terrestrial astrology delineates archetypal meaning of the Moon as premised on the mother and child, tradition, the past, and the idea of home, in its varied and sundry expressions. Since Earth would be regarded as the ancestral site of humanity’s origin by colonists on other planets, it makes sense that Earth’s coordinates in a Martian - or any extraterrestrial - sky would suggest traits and events rooted in originating cultures, tribal and familial loyalty, etc., much in the way Luna and the Zodiacal sign of Cancer arrogate such meaning in their symbology.

The Sun, too, presumably visible from the site of this new extraterrestrial astrology would more than likely retain the same symbolic associations that the terrestrial delineation assigns: illumination, consciousness, the ‘light’ of reason, renewal, creativity, play. Of course, these meanings will require further development and contextualization by the pioneers of this new divinatio scientia who will live their lives on other planets.

5/ Conclusion 

As human civilization persisted on Earth, astrological observations and their corresponding Zodiacal placements came to constitute the earliest known form of an ecliptic coordinate system. The extent to which a similar coordinate system could be utilized on an alien world is unclear; however, it is altogether likely that if there is to be an extraterrestrial astrology, the influence of fixed stars will figure more prominently in the horoscopes it creates. This inheritance from astrology’s sidereal tradition bestows an intellectual pedigree stretching back to antiquity, to Egypt, Atlantis, and to our prehistoric ancestors who told the first stories about what was happening in the night sky.

(Extraterrestrial astrologers may indeed eschew Zodiacal-type referents in favour of planetary aspects, in addition to fixed star placements. For the purposes of this writing - which is to advance a model of how astrology might develop on another planet - the principles associated with non-Zodiacal-type delineations [ie, planetary aspects, fixed stars] are robust enough to transition into alternate horoscopic systems.) 

So, in consideration of an extraterrestrial astrology, these ideas would be paramount: metaphysics, gravity and time, the historical increase in observed astronomical bodies and their synchronic correlates in human culture, delineation of the Earth in an extraterrestrial horoscope, the enhanced relevance of fixed stars and planetary aspects over Zodiacal symbology. Used as conceptual demarcations, ideas like these offer a glimpse into astrology’s future on other planets that can only be imagined - for now.

Letter to an Anonymous Protester in Ottawa, February 2022

We don’t agree about the kind of Canada we want to live in, that’s plain to see. But we have to shelve that discussion for now. Clear and present is the situation in Ottawa, Windsor, and at border locations across the country, where you’ve made your displeasure known to the world: Vaccine mandates have got to go. 

Also, a bunch of other messages have gotten lumped in with your legitimate fears about job security. Racist messages. Seditious messages. You must know this by now.

I hope you haven’t forgotten that Canada - whatever the country is to become in our lifetime - was founded on principles of peace, order and good government. Look it up. The good government bit will be defined differently depending on what you expect of Canadian legislators, but the beauty of the democratic process is that we have a chance to determine what good government means whenever we go to the polls. 

The other principles, peace and order, we both know what that looks like, and it isn’t what these protests have become. Civil disobedience has a place in a just society. But there is a balance to be struck between the need for change and transformation in government, and the need for institutional stability and rule of law. 

You say government has overreached itself, that our freedoms are being stolen. I say, the role of government is to create laws that allow us to live in relative safety and autonomy, the same laws that keep people from driving on the wrong side of the road. Canadian laws also constrain the right to free expression that exists in other jurisdictions, most notably to our south, where citizens espouse life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness above all.  

But in Canada, societal freedoms have limits, and it’s the job of government to legislate those limits. And since our vote determines the membership of said government, by extension it’s our job.

There's not much else to say, except to remind you that the last few years have been challenging for everyone, no matter your identity, or politics, no matter your station in life, or whether you took the vaccine or not. The human capacity to suffer is common, and throughout history, not one person, or group of people, has had the franchise on it, nor can claim the exclusive experience of it. Why would things be any different now? 

So please, stand down. Go home. You don’t speak for me, but your message - both the intended and the unintended parts - has been communicated. As for freedom, emancipate yourself from mental slavery. That’s the real revolution, and in the end, the only one that matters.

Astrological Monograph: Saturn, Uranus & Canada's Colonial Legacy

Applying the interpretive lens of astrology can be useful to anyone contemplating contemporary social issues. Much in the way an individual might be inclined to view the world through the prism of Marxist Theory or the Theory of Natural Selection, a capitalist, transhuman or Critical Race Theory, an individual might also apply astrological theory to a given subject. 

The theory employed for this exercise is Archetypal Astrology, a paradigmatic approach inspired by the work of Carl Jung, later taken up by American historian and philosopher Richard Tarnas in Cosmos and Psyche (2006), the seminal text on the subject.

Multiple discoveries of hundreds of unmarked graves at the sites of former residential schools in Canada have been a shocking revelation for many people and a sad vindication for others. Indigenous communities that long suffered the legacy of the government-sanctioned church-run institutions lacked physical evidence of crimes that could only be claimed anecdotally. Until now. 

Astrologically, these events occur against the backdrop of a 90-degree square aspect between Saturn and Uranus, a relatively rare and consequential interaction of the planets that pits the emancipatory, eccentric and revolutionary inclinations of Uranus against the reactionary, restrictive and structured expressions of Saturn. Interpreting the chemical reaction - or the mingling of archetypal elements - between these celestial avatars can yield unique insights into particular circumstances and events.  

From the astrological perspective a reckoning with the sins of Canada‘s colonial past is a manifestation of the Saturnine archetype, as are the true life accounts of indigenous children being taken from their families to live at residential schools. The pedagogical orientation of these institutions - involving input from both church and state - represents the literal embodiment of Saturn's energy: hierarchical, patriarchal, bureaucratic and authority-driven. 

Also, church and state are implicated in actions that kept knowledge of these gravesites hidden, a disposition that suggests Saturnine qualities like secrecy and compartmentalization. As intimated earlier, Saturn is also representative of the past in a general sense, both collectively and individually, so sober redress and remediation for historical wrongs is an expression of its archetypal numinousity.

In confronting Uranus' revelatory influence, as suggested by the square aspect, Saturn's reactionary tendencies can be identified with the Catholic Church's refusal to release documents which could aid forensic investigators tasked with identifying remains at gravesites. 

Saturn's archetypal expression patterns the despair of residential school victims and their families; the too-slow acknowledgement by the general public of atrocities committed against generations of indigenous people; and the serious consequences the discoveries will have for the relationship between First Nations and the governments of the Canadian Federation.

The Uranus archetype has permeated the situation since its inception. Use of ground-penetrating radar (a Uranian invention if ever there was one) to locate the remains of 215 children in late May presaged the planet's traditional expressions of sudden revelation, enlightenment, and fact-based assertion as it came into aspect with Saturn.

The tightening of this aspect through mid-June and its slow separation coincided with other Uranian expressions, including calls to cancel celebrations of Canada’s national holiday on July 1, which were acknowledged with Saturnine capitulation in many municipalities across the country. 

Media outlets encouraged Canadians to reflect on the recent residential school findings; alternately, well-meaning citizens allied themselves with local indigenous communities. Just as there was contemplation of the past (Saturn) there were also demonstrations and marches (Uranus) to show solidarity with First Nations.

Transiting Mars in the midst of the interaction between Saturn and Uranus coincided with renewed denouncements of residential schools as instruments of cultural genocide. The Red Planet - associated with conflict, force and violence since ancient times - also presided over the burning of a number of Catholic Churches built on First Nations Reservations, and can be implicated in the aforementioned mass demonstrations on July 1, and in confrontations with colonialism's legacy to the point of civil disobedience and destruction of property.

Astrology - whether employed in the spirit of theory or belief - is less useful for its predictive power than for its descriptive sublimity. To be predictive with such a system is alike to being a meteorologist who considers various environmental conditions and prognosticates the day's forecast based on an intuitive blend of fact, experience and assumptions. But really, how often are such forecasts accurate? 

Genuine truth and reconciliation between Canada and First Nations is a ways off; honestly, the hard work has just begun. Yet if this better state is to be achieved, let there be solace in the therapeutic value of the Uranian archetype to overcome generational trauma through a spirit of emancipation, and the Saturnine stillness required to see a healing process through to completion.

Saturn and Uranus aligned exactly (0 degrees) on February 17, 2021, and once more on June 14, during Saturn's retrograde. The ringed planet goes direct in early October, and aspects Uranus again at Midwinter (Dec. 24). World transits, like the Saturn-Uranus square described in this article, are diachronic events that demarcate periods of sociocultural transformation. Archetypal numinosity - and discernment thereof - can occur when planets are aspected within 3 degrees of exactitude.          

Frankenstein Fallacy

Frankenstein Fallacy (dfn): Term coined by author and academic Yuval Noah Harari, the Frankenstein Fallacy is a cognitive bias or a predicting error that occurs when considering new technologies and their affect on society.

In Mary Shelley‘s 19th century novel, Victor Frankenstein creates a new kind of life and is punished for this presumed act of hubris, falling victim to the very thing he created. Cultural examples of the Frankenstein Fallacy appear prior to the modern era as well, in ancient myths like the Tower of Babel, Adam and Eve, the legend of Atlantis, and the Flight of Icarus. 

The Frankenstein Fallacy is often employed in popular culture to explain the origin of dystopias. Battlestar Galactica, the updated series from the early Aughts in particular, explored many consequences of technological progress. The Terminator films used the Frankenstein Fallacy to great and gaudy effect. One critique of the film Ex Machina employed aspects of the Frankenstein Fallacy to point out the act of psychological projection that takes place when two men encounter an entirely novel form of AI consciousness, embodied by an android with a female visage.

New technology and knowledge undeniably come at a societal cost. The Frankenstein Fallacy, however, emphasizes the retributive aspect of this interaction, suggesting the comeuppance for technological progress should be the end of human life itself. The tendency consequently disregards further technological progress as a means to overcoming essential challenges that humanity faces, and artificially limits the extent to which technology could and should be utilized to address these challenges.

The interpretive prism of the Frankenstein Fallacy has played a part in public fears related to CRISPR, COVID-19 vaccination programs and continues to inform the perspectives of thought leaders like Elon Musk and the late Stephen Hawking, who both spoke provocatively about their apprehension towards AI.

Astrological Monograph: Jupiter in Pisces (2021-22)

Jupiter’s ingress to Pisces on May 13 marked the beginning of a planetary transit that will be consequential for the next 18 months.

Engaging with the imaginal energy of Jupiter as it travels through Pisces - the sign of its Dignity - is a profound experience. The occasion offers unique opportunities for numinous encounters, through dreams, visions and reflections, but also during day-to-day social interactions. All kinds of creative and charitable activities are favoured.

Jupiter’s affect on less advantageous world transits during this period is one of active mitigation, since this benefic placement is thought to ease tension and promote magnanimity. “It is the thunderbolt that steers the course of all things,” said the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus, and Jupiter - in his earlier Hellenized incarnation Zeus - was the god who wielded the thunderbolt. 

The influence of peace-loving Pisces, meanwhile, will ensure that Jupiter doesn’t apply power to overwhelm or suppress, but rather to integrate and reconcile.

As with any placement where a Piscean or Neptunian influence is present, there is the possibility of delusion and self-destructive behaviour. Jupiter‘s influence may worsen this condition by over-indulging the natal subject's desires; however, it’s just as likely that it will act to clarify and discern genuine vision from baser intuitions and habitual behaviours. 

Consider that Jupiter is called ‘Guru’ by Vedic astrologers, and through such traditions we understand how the planet’s wise and instructive influence bestows a sort of mastery over aspects of physical and psychic existence.

Planets in the mutable quadruplicity - Pisces, Gemini, Virgo and Sagittarius - are particularly susceptible to Jovian influence at this time, as is the environment of any house where Jupiter is deposited and/or the cusp of Pisces appears. 

Jupiter transits in Pisces until July 28, 2021, when it retrogrades back into Aquarius. The planet re-enters Pisces in late 2021 and remains there until May 2022, when it charges forward into Aries.

Jupiter returns to Pisces a third time in the fall of 2022 and completes its final transit of the sign by the winter solstice of that year.

 

Space Shippers

The station – known to space shippers as MD-14 – was only a speck against the organonitrogen haze of Titan, which loomed in the timeless dark like something from a dream.

On approach MD-14 in his company transport, United Parcel Service Universal courier Clynton Karl - 'Clynt' - disengaged gravity drive as a nearly invisible solar sail retracted into a chamber on his vehicle’s chassis. The current could carry him in now, he thought.

Clynt could hear the hum of the ship’s nuclear-powered orbital maneuvering engines coming online. He double-checked his instruments, and pressed a colored button on his control panel’s translucent surface.

“Sync,” he said to nobody in particular.

The button changed hue, shifting from red to green. The courier opened a compartment and took out a bottle of pills. He fiddled with the cap, which released with a satisfying ‘popping’ sound.

Clynt took a tiny pill from the bottle and laid it on his tongue. As he put the bottle back in the compartment, he was humming a tune. Clynt was in a good mood.

He peered at the approaching station through the transport’s view panel. This will probably be the last time I come out this far, he thought. I can’t imagine why I would ever visit this place again.

The operations hub of MD-14 was at the center of a giant spiral, which became visible as the transport got closer. From that spinning hub, an enormous fuselage extended, encircling the station’s core almost like the shell of a snail.

Decades-old technology installed at the station still used kinetic generators to create a stable gravity field, which meant that any ship intending to dock with MD-14 was bound to encounter turbulence on approach.

NAV would have alerted him, but Clynt had disengaged the cues before leaving the inner system, as he had done for years. It would be a bumpy ride to the airlock, but having the ship’s AI talk him through it just added to his anxiety.

The precaution hardly mattered, and he threw-up just the same.

***

It will be good to try something new, Clynt thought as his transport docked at the operations hub airlock. Change is good. Movement is life.

The airlock slid open. There was the hiss of cylinders contracting and a rush of oxygen into the portal between station and ship.

Clynt made his way past the decontamination lights repeating his mantras and boarded an elevator that ferried him to Logistics. The department was supervised by a former astronaut named Lennon.

Lennon’s subordinates – the crew of two dozen skilled and semi-skilled labourers, bots and technicians that worked MD-14’s warehouse – referred to him alternately as ‘boss’ and cap’n’, although he was neither.

Clynt had been told by other couriers that, in fact, Lennon was smart. Not scientist-smart, but organized and methodical, with enough pull that he had been put in charge of Logistics at MD-14 shortly after it was commissioned.

That was 28 years ago (by Earth’s calendar) and Lennon was still running things.

On the few trips he had taken out to MD-14, Clynt had never asked Lennon’s first name, and Lennon hadn’t volunteered to tell him.

Clynt resolved to find out during this visit. He was trying to take a more active interest in other people, anyways; to be more attentive overall. That included people he may never see again.

He stepped off the elevator and surveyed Logistics, which was a large, brightly lit, rectangular compartment with a long smooth workstation near the wall, opposite the elevator doors.

A large observational plexus at the front of the compartment opened onto the station’s hull, putting perspectives of Titan’s blurry visage and the deep dark of space in full view.

The compartment’s workstation blended seamlessly with the station’s architecture, and at the far end of the desk a man stood pressing buttons of light on a holographic interface.

“Lennon!” Clynt exclaimed as the other man looked past the luminescent symbols on his interface to where the courier was standing.

“Hey! It’s Clynton, right? Nice to see you,” Lennon said, gently. He was an old man, with a warm voice and an engaging demeanor. “It’s been a while. What you been up to?”

"Clynt," he replied with a warm smile. Yet something was amiss. Lennon's questioning belied a situation, and Clynt - a career courier- could sense it.

For one thing – where was his package? Normally, it would have already cleared and been sitting at the workstation waiting for him to arrive.

Clynt reengaged. “Ah, this, that, and some of the other; you know how it is, Lennon. Ummm…there’s a package for me?” he said, gesturing towards the empty workstation.“Dispatch told me it’s hot, and it needs to be at O.L.A. by nineteen-hundred hours – today. Not to be rude, man,” he added as an afterthought, “but I have to keep moving.”

“Ah, sorry,” Lennon said cautiously, “but it looks like your package is missing…” His words hung in the oxygenated air of the artificial environment like an object in space.

Clynt eyed the station supervisor. “What do mean, ‘the package is missing’?”

“I mean, it’s not there; not where it’s supposed to be,” Lennon said, his pleasant demeanor now tempered with enough distress that Clynt knew that he had already been trying to find the shipment from the moment the courier’s transport had docked.

Well, at least it bugs him, Clynt thought peevishly. That should be motivation to locate the piece faster, at least.

Lennon touched his earpiece. “Warehouse! Jensen, you there? Hey. There’s supposed to be some product in bin 723c, but the system can’t find it. I sent the item number to your console. Check the ARM on that track, too; I think it’s malfunctioning. There were bad parts installed during the last maintenance cycle; we gotta swap ‘em out, but not now. Chop, chop. Double time – I need that piece!” Lennon ordered.

There was a pause on the other end of the line, and then a whining sound, like the air being slowly let out of a balloon.

“No, it can’t wait, Jensen,” Lennon answered back sternly. “Get your ass over to section two. Take Weasel with you. If I don’t hear from you inside five minutes, I’m docking you a day’s rations. What is wrong with you? You sound more stoned than usual. Out!”

“That bot is fucked!” Lennon said, exasperated. Then switching quickly from irritation to mildness, he continued. “This sort of thing usually never happens – especially with expedited shipments. It should be sorted out soon. Want some coffee?” Lennon moved to a console and took a container from a concealed drawer.

“Coffee,” he said plainly, and an aperture opened in the console. He funneled a handful of beans into the aperture.

“Prepare: two cups,” he said. The aperture closed and a motor behind the wall started running.

“Fresh beans, delivered from Earth a few days ago,” Lennon said idly, gesturing towards the wall. “We grow our own here, too; did you know that, over in the greenhouse?”

Clynt nodded, but he wasn't listening. He was preoccupied with the location of his missing package.

“Still, nothing beats a cup of Terra’s finest. You can really appreciate it out here” Lennon continued, as the rich, earthy scent of freshly ground java wafted into the room from a vent in the top of the console.

“Put on the Weather Network, will you?” Clynt asked, pointing at the large monitor on the wall opposite from where he stood.

Lennon complied, and a static video feed of the station’s landing array was replaced with blue, red, white and gold icons of the long-running source in planetary and exoplanetary weather reporting.

Clynt saw from the dizzying barrage of symbols that conditions on the North American west coast were anticipated to be favorable when he was scheduled to deliver the lost package, in about twelve hours. No planned geo-engineering in the area, no climate mods, nothing for a month, at least.

It would be nice to visit the beach, now he would have the time, Clynt thought.

He’d always had a fantasy about learning to surf on the California coast, like people in old songs. There wasn’t much coast left in California, mind you, but maybe one day, if the timing was right.

But with Clynt, it had always been ‘one day’. Now he had no excuse to put off the things he really wanted to do, he thought.

Clynt surveyed conditions at Weather Network locations on Mars and Jupiter Station, checking for signs that he might be delayed during his route. If that was the case, he’d have to wave dispatch to let them know that deliveries to the inner system would arrive later than scheduled.

But everything looked good for the commute; no serious solar winds; no gravity traps or orbital anomalies along his flight path. He turned from the view screen and looked towards the immense observation plexus at the front of the module.

He had decided. He was going to get a surfboard when he got back to Earth.

***

“I can’t believe they want to put that shit in your head,” Lennon said as they made their way through the station towards the warehousing module. The two men sipped their coffee as they passed through one bulkhead of the station after another.

“It’s fucked-up, alright,” Clynt replied. “Union is pissed. Reps said there’s no way senior members will undergo any sort of…upgrade,” he scoffed. “I support ‘em, too. The last thing I’d want is UPSU crawling around in my brain, updating manifests, giving directions, monitoring my vitals. But it’s all part of that Extraterrestrial Transit Standardization program. All the initiatives implemented since Commerce and Governance ratified that deal ten years ago.”

“Yeah, ‘The Great Reconciliation’. I saw that ceremony in person, you know,” Lennon said nonchalantly. “Seems like yesterday. Who would of thought that peace on Earth would mean one day you couriers would be upgraded with, what, braintech? What are they calling it?”

“O-P-U-S, or ‘Online Personalized User Service’; couriers just call it, ‘Oh piss!’” Clynt snorted. “No surgery required. All you do is take a pill. Pill got nanos in it and they know right where to go to link couriers up to the UPSU network. Totally painless, that’s what bosses say,” he said, gesturing dramatically, “but then the orders start to come in.”

“Ugh!” Lennon voiced disdain at the prospect. “It’s like they got a hold of all your parts.” Then, more thoughtfully, he continued. “But I suppose if the drivers don’t get in line, they’ll just get a bot to make the deliveries, eh? There been any more talk about that? Automating the fleet? I remember the bosses mind-fucked the union negotiators during the last round of contract talks.”

Clynt smiled. “Well, you know, a bot’s taking over my run; guy’s got my one-hundred-percent support. Goes by the handle ‘Vin-E’. Has a great personality, this guy; I guess the designers integrated retro-memes in his neural profile – he thinks he’s been alive for two centuries! He tells great stories – even has ‘body mode’ – which is new for UPSU. But that’s old hat to you, right?”

“Yeah, Jensen, Christ,” Lennon muttered. “You’ve met him, right? I know you usually only get out this way a few times a year. I don’t remember if you’ve been to the warehouse.”

“No, actually, I haven’t, at least not since that whole module was replaced, what, six years ago?” Clynt replied.

“Seven. Jensen was part of that whole replacement program. Commerce admin used him to replace six full-time guys. Attrition,” Lennon said, pausing momentarily to manually open the airlock between two large station modules. Broken door, Clynt thought.

“He’s good, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes I think the designers gave him a little too much autonomy,” Lennon continued. “His personality, for example…running intersubjective character routines so he identifies with oppressed people throughout history? Sharing in their struggle? It’s ridiculous! He isn’t oppressed; he’s a fucking machine. It’s his job to serve me! But you’ll see for yourself. We’re here.”

***

The warehouse was a single large module situated at the bottom of MD-14. It was easily the largest enclosed area of the station, and had been designed specifically to store components and technology of all shapes and sizes.

Tracks ran throughout the compartment, horizontally and vertically, and the door where Lennon and Clynt had entered was actually a narrow bridge leading over the warehouse floor, about thirty meters below. Clynt paused to take it in. The warehouse was much larger than he had expected.

There were many aisles, with bunks of palletized inventory and skids stacked atop one another. Clynt watched as large, coiled metal limbs on magnetic casters moved along the tracks, extending periodically into the spaces to scan codes on the items stored in the bins there.

“Corporate needed to expand the warehouse when trans-Neptune flights started. Now we’ve got as much stock stored here as any of the original twelve stations. The ARMtech is a little out-of-date,” Lennon said, motioning towards the metallic limbs moving on the tracks, “but they’re usually able to locate missing freight.”

Eventually, the two men reached the central platform and Lennon entered a code into a terminal. The platform buckled momentarily, and began descending towards the warehouse floor. Every ten meters, there was another bridge connecting the platform to the station, identical to the one Lennon and Clynt had used to enter.

“You can access all the lower decks, including RecDeck, from down here, so most of the crew stays in this part of the station. There’s no restriction on their movement, mind you. Once security is cleared at docking, station personnel can go pretty much anywhere, except Command and Engineering, of course,” Lennon told Clynt as they descended.

“Activity in those sections is automated, for the most part. There are only a few crewmembers onboard who understand operation protocols, and only one of them has the know-how to interface with the docking and orbital orientation systems. I guess you could say she’s in charge, but down here,” Lennon said, motioning towards the aisles that surrounded them, “I’m king.”

“Isn’t that a little concerning?” Clynt asked. “I mean, what if something happens to that one person?”

“Nothing,” Lennon replied absently. “The machines take over. They can run everything on the station without us even being here; not well, but they can run things. Remember – bots were out here before we were.”

The platform slowed as it approached the warehouse floor. The bridge where they entered was now high above as Lennon and Clynt stepped off the platform and moved towards one of the aisles. A long conveyor belt blocked their way, but the two men ducked underneath the mechanism and continued on their way. Suddenly a voice shouted from their blindside, “Ai! Ai! Ai! Safety first! Safety first!”

It was a strange voice; human, and yet not. It wasn’t a man’s or a woman’s voice; it wasn’t even a child’s voice. The pair turned to face the approaching figure, who had been joined by a second individual, this one smaller and leaner, and of less imposing stature.

Jensen and Weasel tended to the minutia of the warehouse so Lennon could handle administrative responsibilities. They were bots tasked with simple yet vital duties like tracking, storing and shipping products, cycle counts, and locating missing items.

Their operation was synchronized, whether embodied or disembodied, though both bots preferred the data-stream that proceeded from the techno-chemistry of their body modes, which allowed them to experience, among other things, the joy of eating.

“Wha’ we talk about, Cap’n? Yous got to be careful; dees machines finish ye, if ye don’t follow the standard rule,” Jensen said to Lennon, as Clynt got his first look at the android.

Like his voice, Jensen’s body mode was hard to describe. He was sturdy, but with mods to his design that made it easier for him to balance while climbing ladders and moving product.

Clynt observed that Jensen’s visual interface wasn’t a screen, like on Vin-E, the bot driver that was taking over his UPSU route. Instead, Jensen’s face was a perpetually refreshing hologram, an ever-shifting mask of opaque light.

What Clynt didn’t know – what most of the crew working on the station didn’t know – was that Jensen was a refurbished intelligencer bot built during wars in the previous century. His form of military AI, though nearly obsolete everywhere else, was still utilized on stations like MD-14.

The hologram visage which had attracted Clynt’s attention was designed for espionage, and allowed Jensen to assume nearly limitless identities. But now it was a reminder – an occasionally unsettling one – of the eccentric nature of the android’s heuristic processing.

Jensen was one of a kind, which was why he wasn’t decommissioned with other AI units at the end of the war. Like some of his kin, Jensen suffered from an android-specific form of post-traumatic stress disorder, which had afflicted a small number of specialized autonomous bots of his generation.

In a spirit of compassion for the suffering of a unique and sentient consciousness – as well as the furtherance of scientific study – a military court had spared Jensen’s life after the war, provided him with treatment, and put him to work on the space stations orbiting the planets of the inner systems.

By the time he became part of Lennon’s operation, Jensen was a highly skilled warehouse worker. But he struggled with problems of identity and with his existential state as a member of an android diaspora. Both issues were also exacerbated by his wartime traumas.

He could be inflexible with the rules, just as he’d demonstrated by safety-checking Clynt and Lennon, yet he was loyal to the crew with whom he found himself stationed. Combined with his expertise and eidetic memory, Jensen was a valued presence on MD-14, even if he was difficult at times.

“I got to say, man.” Lennon said slowly, shaking his head disapprovingly. “I have a lot of family that would be offended to hear you speaking the way you are right now. You know how it sounds, right?”

Jensen was speaking in unusual patois, a blurry phonetic blend of African-American dialects, which matched his exaggerated hologram visage. Easy to see how that could be offensive, Clynt thought, eying the android cautiously.

The thought had just passed from Clynt’s conscious awareness when Jensen’s face began to shimmer, and with an unusual ‘gulping’ sound, the face of unshaven, nearly toothless black man was replaced by the seeming of a round-faced woman, whose placid demeanor did little to quell Lennon’s irritation. Clynt shuffled his feet.

“Wǒ hěn bàoqiàn. Wǒ bù míngbái,” Jensen uttered in his androgynous, electric-sounding voice.

“Speak English, for Christ’s sake!” Lennon commanded, sensing that he was rapidly losing control of the situation. “I need your help with something, guy. We can play later!”

“Cèsuǒ zài nǎlǐ?” Jensen said mischievously, winking at Weasel, who had been observing the proceedings with amusement. The smaller bot snorted with laughter.

Lennon breathed deeply and looked in Clynt’s direction. Clynt shrugged, smiling awkwardly, and Lennon realized in that instant how unprofessional the exchange must have seemed to the courier. He decided to take another approach with the androids.

“J, it’s one thing to keep me waiting, but it’s another thing to hold-up a courier – especially one with a waybill for hot product,” Lennon said. “I mean, it would be shitty if you guys got investigated by internal affairs, and shitty if you were transferred to another station for such flagrant insubordination, but causing trouble for a private carrier? C’mon! You’re going to bring heat down on all of us!”

Jensen’s face shimmered, and almost instantly the visage of the Asian woman was replaced with that of a bald man, with a visible overbite, who spoke with the slow drawl of cowboy in caricature.

“Well there, sheriff, you do have a point,” Jensen said, nodding at Weasel. The smaller bot handed Lennon a flat tablet he was holding, and began to address the station chief in a quirky, electro-musical voice.

“If you’ll observe your screen, sir, an ARM was sent to investigate the product that was misplaced. Records indicated that, prior to its arrival at MD-14, it had been the subject of classified testing at mobile trans-Neptunian laboratories operating outside regulatory jurisdictions.”

“Yes, I know that much,” Lennon said. “But we ship a lot of classified technology through UPSU. That doesn’t tell me what happened to the product. Get to it.”

“As you can see, the cam on the ARM showed nothing in the bin where the product was supposed to be.” Clynt looked over Lennon’s shoulder at the tablet’s screen and could see an empty space that was marked 723c.

That’s not good, Clynt thought. “Wouldn’t the product itself have been tagged by the system when it arrived?” he said aloud. “Can’t we track it that way?’

“No, we only use bin numbers for products that fall into certain categories. Military tech, scientific equipment, exoplanetary resource samples don’t get tagged in case hackers or mercs grab the numbers from our system. Makes it easier for them to target certain couriers…hey!” Lennon exclaimed suddenly, “What’s that there?”

The ARM cam zoomed in, and Lennon squinted. “Is that…paper?” Indeed, it appeared to be a crumpled piece of paper, although Clynt was uncertain as to why this particular detail had gotten Lennon’s attention.

“There’s only one person on this station who still uses paper. Come on, Clynt,” Lennon said brusquely as he handed Weasel the tablet, and turned to walk towards the platform he and Clynt used to descend to the warehouse floor. “I know where your piece is.”

“Ah!” Clynt exclaimed. “Where is it then?” he asked as the platform clamps released, and the two men began rising above the rows of identical bunks

“Yippee yi yo kayah! Git along, little doggies,” Jensen said as he and Weasel returned to the warehouse aisle where they had been working. “Don’t fence me in!”

***

Lennon had apologized for the missing piece, and Clynt – because he was trying to be more attentive to people he encountered – had accepted his apology.

The two men travelled from MD-14’s depths to the adjoining command, navigation and research modules, which involved retracing their initial journey from Logistics to the Warehouse, but then going another way into the station’s architecture.

By the time they reached their destination, Clynt was fairly certain he would have to contact dispatch, and let them know he would be late.

Oh, they won’t be happy, Clynt thought. But aloud he said, “So this is where it is?”

“We should have come here first,” Lennon said, addressing Clynt’s query with a sideways acknowledgement. “I should have known she’d want to have a look”.

The door retracted and the two men stepped into the module which served as a hub for research, command and navigation functions. It was a large space, illuminated by low ambient light except for the glittering console that was position in the center of the module.

Clynt could see two large bay windows at either ends of the space. One window opened on to what seemed to be a luscious green garden, although it was difficult to make out if it was just a projection from where Clynt was standing.

The other window was filled with an illuminated liquid – water, probably, Clynt thought – and for a moment, he swore he saw a silhouette darting about in the murky blue.

“Kate! Where are you! You got my tech!” Lennon called out.

From beyond the room’s large central console, there was a bustle, and suddenly a voice replied, “I left you a note!”

The pair walked towards the sound. “The courier’s here – we’re keeping him waiting. Give me the piece so he can be on his way.”

“I’m so sorry,” a woman said, emerging from a compartment on the far side of the central console. As she approached, Clynt could see she was slight, with sparkling intelligent eyes that were so large they made her face seem tiny by comparison. Around her neck hung a pair of spectacles, and she was dressed in the standard coverall uniform worn by personnel on stations throughout the solar system, only this one was patched with the MD-14 insignia.

 “Are you in a rush?” she asked, flashing a concerned look in Clynt’s direction. “I didn’t mean to hold you up.”

“Clynt, this is Doctor Kathleen - Kate - Wong,” Lennon said by way of introduction. “Not only is the Doctor brilliant and beautiful, but she’s my other half, the night to my day, the yin to my yang – you catch my drift,” he said, and it occurred to Clynt that the two were in love.

“Hello, Clynt,” the Doctor said in a cheerful voice. “I don’t mean to have the piece for so long but I wanted to inspect it before it went to Earth.”

“Hello, Doctor. Good to meet you. No, no, don’t worry...,” Clynt replied pleasantly, before trailing off.

Having already determined that he would have to contact dispatch about the delay acquiring the piece, Clynt had relaxed.

This was his final run, after all, he had reasoned. He’d transited the inner system corridor – the Chute – more times in his career than he could count. He knew the route like the back of his hand, so what could go wrong? The piece would be an hour or two late, still well within the window of his delivery time.

Besides, in all the years he had delivered and retrieved freight from these space stations, no one had ever given him a tour of their inner workings. For Clynt, the experience had been akin to a revelation.

“What’s with the water tank and…is that a garden?” Clynt reengaged. “Are those just holograms or are they real?”

“Well, yes, they’re real,” the Doctor said nonchalantly. “Lots of benefits to having a garden out here. This one actually covers a half-dozen modules and exits on RecDeck. It helps regulate the atmosphere on the station, circulate and purify oxygen. Some of the plants have natural medicinal value. And we grow fresh eatables – apples, oranges, tomatoes, lettuce, carrot, coffee, cocoa, bananas…”

“…weed,” Lennon said, smirking.

“Hemp,” the Doctor said resolutely. “I grow hemp. The psychoactive substances in the plant have been removed. I use it to make paper. And rope. I’m old-fashioned that way.”

“The bots grow their own,” Lennon said. “And they keep the psychoactive.”

“Well, that’s your business, Len,” the Doctor replied flatly. “I’ve always said not to mix mechanics and marijuana. But you’re more tolerant than me, I suppose. Plus, we’re orbiting one of Saturn’s moons. Where else are you going to score your stuff?”

“Hey! Not on the job, not like the bots; they’re high all the time,” Lennon said, in a sanctimonious tone.

“If I worked for you, I‘d want to be, too,” the Doctor giggled, with just enough faux sincerity that Clynt knew she was both joking and speaking truth at the same time.

“The water tank is where the station’s navigation and docking requests are processed by Larry, Terry and Hank – our ‘deep space dolphins’, as I call them.”

“Dolphins? Come on? Out here?” Clynt said, with genuine shock.

“For real,” the Doctor replied. “You been schooled in faunal linguistics, right?”

“Uh, yeah?” Clynt replied tentatively. He really couldn’t remember if he had been.

“So you know that when artificial intelligence emerged in the middle of the last century, one of the unintended consequences was the creation of a decryption process that could discern human meaning in animal communication – and vice versa; an interspecies translator that facilitated what was, really, an encounter with a truly alien consciousness, but the consciousness was on Earth, not on another planet,” the Doctor said, matter-of-factly, but her eyes were bright. She drew a breath and continued.

“Suddenly, real, meaningful contact with higher primates, ravens, whales and, yes, even dolphins became possible. Lots of digital records didn’t survive the war, and existence of the technology is suppressed as you get closer to Earth – too much legality. But out here, information flows pretty freely. It has to.”

“But…why?” Clynt said, gesturing towards the sleek shadows darting about behind the bay window.

“They wanted to come. They’re patched into station orientation, docking and navigation,” Lennon said. “Terry brought in your ship this morning. The translation tech the Doctor described is dissolved in the water they swim in. That tank runs the circumference of this whole place – hundreds of square kilometers. After builder bots finished the station, the dolphins were the first to actually spend any time here. As it turns out, their natural ability to communicate with sonar, coupled with pressure-adaptive physiologies makes them more suited for space travel than we are, provided they’ve got water to swim in, of course.”

Clynt was fairly stupefied. He’d never considered the possibility that anything other than a human or machine intelligence could play a part of the station’s operation. “Can I talk to them?” 

The Doctor shook her head. “No, it’s not like that. You need training. There’s a whole orientation process. And the training is specialized for each initiate. So, no.”

Clynt was still pondering the implications of what he had been told when Lennon asked after the missing shipment.

“What is it? The piece, I mean,” he said to the Doctor. “And where is it? You know you shouldn’t be unpacking classified tech. I gotta get it back into its case and processed.”

“You don’t know what this is? Of course, you don’t know what this is? Why would you know what this is? Come!” the Doctor said enthusiastically, walking towards the compartment where she had been prior to Clynt and Lennon’s arrival.

The two men followed. “Well, I know it was being tested on the frontier, which means it’s experimental, whatever it is,” Lennon said.

“Yes, but this isn’t your average, top-secret military spec; this is something…different,” she said. The purified air hung heavy with expectation.

She led Lennon and Clynt into a smaller room off the main chamber. “My lab,” the Doctor said, and pointed towards a small shining device that was suspended mid-air in a status beam. “And that is the tech you seek.”

“Finally! Lennon said, moving in on the piece, and looking for the control to disengage the beam. “So, what’s it for? The suspense is killing me,” he said, grinning at the Doctor.

She smiled back at him, and took a beat before replying, “It’s a device that lets the user see ghosts.”

There was a pause as Lennon and Clynt looked at each other. “You are fucking with me now,” Lennon said. The Doctor shrugged.

“I know it sounds weird; I thought somebody was playing a joke, too. But it’s true,” she said. “It’s called a ‘Necrospectrometer’.”

There was silence for a moment. The Doctor and Lennon stared at each other incredulously. Clynt was hypnotized by the device, which appeared to be nearly translucent, and glowing from within. Circuits glistened, and in that momentary quiet, he was reminded of being schooled. 

Perhaps it was because the Doctor had brought it up earlier. Clynt had never imagined that MD-14 would be such an unusual place. It made him wonder what went on at all the other space stations along his route. But it was clear to him, beyond any doubt, that he would have a story to tell about his last day on the job.

“I mean, don’t worry, it doesn’t detect anything out here,” the Doctor said, breaking the silence. “Out here, it’s too…cold for it to operate properly. Not like it would on Earth, where numinoid activity would be greater. That’s why they test out here; much easier to contain.”

“Numinoids!” Clynt exclaimed triumphantly. “I remember those. They’re metaparticles, right? Numinoids are…tachyons,” he continued, beginning to strain. “They travel faster than the speed of light? Am I remembering correctly?”

“Yes,” the Doctor and Lennon said simultaneously, and then smiled at one another. The Doctor continued. “There are a few particle models in use. But this technology is built around the premise that the universe was originally a field of energy comprised of numinoids. The numinoids decayed into the common particles everybody’s heard of, photons, electrons, gravitons. And just as those particles act on matter, numinoids – a primal cosmic quality, more than gravity, light or even time – act on our awareness of matter, shaping our sense perceptions and unifying consciousness in the same way illuminating a room with photons shows its occupant the objects within that room, without revealing their relationships to each other.”

“I understand,” Clynt nodded, comically.

“I’m probably not doing a very good job of explaining myself,” the Doctor said.

“It’s best not to think about it,” Lennon chipped in.

“Anyways,” the Doctor said, rolling her eyes, “scientists in the last century needed to reconcile faster-than-light quantum activity – like entanglement and superposition – and the solution to the problem turned out to be this Numinoid Field – the n-field.”

“Yes, yes, we know the rest, Kate,” Lennon said, abruptly shifting the conversation. “Clynt has to go and I’ve got to clear this piece before he can. Let’s pack it up, and get this man on his way.”

“All right, just one other thing,” the Doctor said, bemused. “Len, will you roll the glass over to me? I want to show you both something.” She pointed at a framed window-like object mounted on a cart with casters that was sitting by the entrance to the lab. Lennon pushed the object towards the Doctor and one the casters creaked. “Put some oil on that,” he muttered.

“Nobody on any other station has one of these; I built it myself,” the Doctor said proudly, to no one in particular “There are only a few available to researchers these days; most were warehoused a generation ago. It took me three years to make this one, but I’d wanted to make one since I was a kid.”

“What is it?” Clynt asked. Lennon shook his head, and shuffled idly away from the parked object he’d retrieved.

“It’s a Quantum Lens. It lets me observe quantum phenomenon from a semi-inert, quasi-dimensional platform using this spatiotemporal location as a referent node,” the Doctor muttered and positioned the screen in front of the strange piece of tech. “Check this out!” she said and switched on the screen.

The lights in the lab adjusted to the spectacle displayed in the lens, which was sudden alive with illuminated currents. Rivulets of energy organized into barely discernable patterns and disintegrated, coursing across the screen, like electric ribbons tied and untied, over and over again.

“What is it we’re seeing here, Doc?” Lennon said.

“We’re inside of it!” the Doctor said, held in rapture by the display on the screen.

“What do you mean, ‘inside of it’?” Clynt interjected. “Inside that tech? Like it’s magnified?”

“No, I mean actually inside of it, as in the larger portion of the tech exists in an adjacent dimensional space that can only be accessed from here in the lab, by using this…device to quantify the n-field. That’s what I wanted you to see. That we’re actually inside of this tech, right now!”

“Holy shit…” Lennon said. Clynt was speechless. He’d never heard of technology like this. What had the Doctor called it? Necrospectrometer? What use could it possibly have? Could it really be used to see ghosts? And most importantly, he thought, ghosts actually exist? That was news to him. I would be news all over the solar system, if it was true.

Suddenly, in the corner of the lens, one luminous pattern took on a unique orientation, and appeared to respond to the three observers in the lab. It traversed the depth implied by its appearance on the screen and forced itself against the Quantum Lens, with a crackle of electricity. The observers were shocked, and Clynt quickly looked behind the screen to reassure himself that what he was seeing wasn’t occurring in the lab. Or was it? He was so confused…

Lennon disconnected power to the lens abruptly. “What the fuck, Kate! What the hell was that?”

“I…I don’t know,” the Doctor said, still in a state of shock, “the lens has never acted like that before. The device wasn’t supposed to detect anything so far from Earth. That’s why they tested it out here!”

“That doesn’t even make any sense!” Lennon said, irritability. “I’m taking the tech now.” He disengaged the suspension beam and placed the item in its case.

“Fine. I’ve seen enough anyways. The piece is headed to a trade show on Earth, for its official launch. I’m sure a demonstration from professionals will be far more telling than my display,” the Doctor said.

“I enjoyed it,” Clynt replied, and the Doctor smiled warmly. “I’ve never seen anything like this on a space station. And now I’ve seen them all!”

***

Once the two men had returned to the Logistics compartment, it didn’t take long for Lennon to have the tech packaged and prepared for transport. While he worked, Clynt contacted UPSU dispatch to let them know the shipment would be delayed for several hours.

To his surprise, his supervisor didn’t mind, and actually recommended that he take the time needed to get the piece back to its destination. “After all,” his supervisor said, “this is your final run. Be a shame to miss it, is all I’m saying, just because you were in a hurry to get back home.”

Lennon notified the Doctor that Clynt would be departing imminently, and Clynt knew that somewhere in the station, three dolphins in a tank were orienting MD-14 to optimize his ship’s journey out of the Saturnine system.

“That about does it,” Lennon said, passing the case containing the tech to Clynt. “It’s been good getting to know you a little better. We don’t see many new faces out here – Jensen’s holographic mug, notwithstanding – so it’s nice when we do.”

The two men shook hands. “You took a pill before you docked, right,” Lennon asked. “Don’t want your bones turning to jelly or for you to catch some kind of exo-infection. I’ve got some in my stash, if you need one.”

“You know what? I will take one,” Clynt said, agreeably. “I dosed just before I arrived, but then I puked.” The comment caused Lennon to raise his eyebrow.

“It’s been like that for me since I started these outer planet runs. It’s nothing serious; I’ve come to expect it when I enter a new ‘sphere of influence’, gravitationally speaking. This station, for example, it approximates Terran gravity, but it’s not quite the same. I’m sensitive; it’s like an allergy,” Clynt explained.

“Well then, Mr. Sensitive, I guess it is good you’re retiring,” Lennon said, smiling and passing Clynt the pill, which the courier downed with a gulp. “I’ll let Terry know you’re ready to go. Thanks again for your patience with the missing piece. Take it easy, Clynt,”

“I’ll take it whatever way I can get it, man,” Clynt smiled widely and walked towards the airlock, beyond which his vessel was docked.

“Hey, man!” Lennon called after the courier. “If you ever want to visit again, just have UPSU contact me. They'll give you clearance. Just tell them my first name.”

“Your first name?” Clynt paused and peered back at the man, remembering suddenly that he was going to pose this query. He replied, “Isn’t it ‘Lennon’?”

“I’m glad you asked,” the station supervisor said, grinning. “The family name is ‘Lennon’. But my first name is ‘John’.”