Phantasm 1: For the Light of the Stars (three)

All the stars represented the same uncertainty, the same life ahead of her. It hardly seemed to matter which she chose — she’d always be on the run and she’d always be alone. That was the trade-off, that was the price of her freedom. That was what she could never escape, no matter how far she ran.

Laura finally selected a mercenary world where she trusted she would be able to sell the shuttle on the black market and procure a more modest vessel. She set the course and the shuttle returned to hyperlight a few moments later. She sat watching the vibrancy of the outside shown on the viewscreen, lost within her own thoughts. She felt the need to express herself, to express what had happened to her, to express her feelings, and Laura decided to return to where it had all begun for her.

Confident that the shuttle was travelling safely, Laura unbuckled her restraints and rebounded out of the cockpit to her quarters, pulled out her template and settled in to begin write.

——————————

Laura slept a little later on, exhausted from her trials and exertions. She was greeted with a final vision — but it was not of duplicates and past prophecy as it had been before. Instead, she again saw the phantasms and their relationships, how they saw each other and everything around them. She saw how they were chained, and how a few were beginning to escape.

Many thousands, many millions of phantasms remained captive to the Chosen, but a few had been set free, a few were again truly alive through her, living inside her body, inside the bodies of the children of her mind. The dream of freedom was becoming a reality. And it was a dream to savour.

That dream was its own reward for Laura. If nothing else she had made an impact, hope was beginning to spread, more of those phantasms which had yet to be bonded were finding their way to her to be free. She was giving them that hope and it was as powerful a tool as any. For now it was all she could give them.

But it was enough.

It had to be.

End of Phantasm 1: For the Light of the Stars

Originally Completed September 2001

Sydney, Australia

For the Light of the Stars existed for about a year and a half or longer in some form or other before the story was written, but its very first form was different to this final version. It (the original, then under a different title) started out with just the idea of a woman being taught to fight a war for an alien race, adjusting to new concepts of thinking as well as acting. That project was completed but abandoned later on, the result unsuccessful.

About eight months ago, For the Light of the Stars was completed, a completely different story with the same title to this one, revolving around the premise of a healer from another realm who was thought of as a mutant and hated by everyone around him. The mutant idea revolved around evolution as a kind of transcendence and the use of mental telepathy. This had some good ideas and was the desired length, but it didn’t quite work and so that too was abandoned.

In June the two main ideas formed together into this version, with a few changes. Some other changes were made during the actual writing process; originally Light of the Stars was the story of Lara Wilcox, who became Laura Wilcox, and her abilities were more powerful and more developed than the ones mentioned here. It was originally to be two stories, and that has now stretched to a five-volume saga.

How this version compares to the original ones had they been written (or in some cases rewritten) properly, is hard to know. This Light of the Stars has a different feel to it than they did, at least, and is probably better developed.

This is but the first tale in the arc of stories about the phantasms. And, similarly, Laura Wilcox is but one of the characters who will be involved in the struggle for them to gain their freedom from their oppressors. Having said that, her story is not yet complete, she will return in the first sequel. Some of the other ideas from earlier versions will be included in that sequel, and in the others. In the Shadow of Iniquity will be the first sequel to Light of the Stars and should be written in the early-middle part of the new year.

Christopher J. Levinson

For the Light of the Stars was written in an A4 notebook with a Parker Pen over a duration of six weeks. It was typed over another two on an IBM computer. The monitor was an IBM 2124 monitor. The keyboard was a standard 101/102 model. When completed it was 393,188 characters and 69,140 words long. The head-title-graphic is of the NGC 1977 nebula with Times New Roman text overlayed inside the graphic.