Zee Kerub Fwai-chi

1980 - cover art by Stephen Fabian

The page at the Internet Science Fiction Database for Jack Vance's Alastor Cluster series now includes an entry from 2019. How can this be when Vance published the three Alastor Cluster stories back in the 1970s?

Phaedra: Alastor 824
Spatterlight Press authorized the publication of a 4th Alastor Cluster novel. There is some discussion of Phaedra by the author here.

Back in 2014, I began imagining a previous Reality in which Vance had written more than just 3 Alastor Cluster novels. At that time, I imagined that Alastor 1083 was a planet named Yerophet. For his novel Marune, Vance had imagined a native species that he called the Fwai-chi. I populated Yerophet with telepathic natives who are known as the Kerub.

The Elders of Alastor Cluster

From 2014: An Alternate Vance

Like the Fwai-chi, the Kerub have para-psychic powers. Vance never tried to provide readers with any account of how it was possible for the Fwai-chi to be walking around with a bottle that contained Kang Efraim's lost memories. I like to imagine that the seemingly primitive Fwai-chi were actually users of advanced nanotechnology and Efraim's memories were in the form of infites.

For the Exode Saga, I depict Alastor Cluster is an artificial stellar structure that had been slowly assembled by the Phari during the past several billion years. In the case of Phaedra, we are told that "The Elder Race once ruled the entire Alastor cluster." I've never read Phaedra, but I would not mind if you called the Phari an "elder race". They were the first technologically advanced species to arise in our galaxy and they constructed Alastor Cluster, one star at a time.

Fwai-chi: original art
by Darrell Sweet

I like to imagine that each planet of Alastor Cluster has its own native species that was, in the past, a space-faring, humanoid species quite similar to we humans. However, through time, all of them have been altered by the Phari. The goal of the Phari was to shift technology-wielding biological species from the Hadronic Domain into an artificial life existence within the Hierion Domain. However, on many worlds of the Cluster, that shifting process left behind in the Hadronic Domain a remnant species such as the Fwai-chi.

Zeck, Alastor 503
In the case of Zeck, Alastor 503, the home of Jantiff Ravensroke, the original native species is called the Zee, but they have no remaining visible physical manifestation in the Hadronic Domain. Some humans with telepathic abilities can make weak telepathic contact to the Zee, who only remain on their home planet as an artificial life remnant composed of femtobots. Thus, Jantiff grows up with a minimal sensitivity to the so-called "sea-voices" of Zeck. In contrast, Glisten, with her better developed telepathic ability, has a better communications link to the Zee.

Glisten

Alastor Cluster is ruled by the Connatic. Each successive Connatic is part of an hereditary dynasty. The Connatic's authority is built upon the military, an organization known as the Whelm. The current Connatic, Oman Ursht, is reluctant to use military force to solve problems. Oman is part of the Idite dynasty and he enjoys traveling around the Cluster disguised as a wondering journalist named Ryl Shermatz.

Glisten on Zeck. source: The Power of Pause

As described in Vance's novel, Wyst, Jantiff not only saves the life of poor Glisten, but also the life of the Connatic himself. Out of gratitude, Ryl Shermatz (who has revealed to Jantiff that he is more than a journalist and can exert authority as an "Over-inspector in the Whelm") has offered Jantiff a permanent position on the staff of the Connatic.

Thus, back in 2012, I began a fanfiction story in which Jantiff, now an agent for the Connatic, visits the planet Marune (see Assignment: Marune). After an 8 year delay, I'm now writing the next chapter in Assignment: Marune in which Glisten reaches Marune and is able to make progress in learning about the Phari from the Fwai-chi because she is part of a mind clone network.

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In 2019, in The Power of Pause, the still skinny Glisten was depicted as being in the early part of her first pregnancy while preparing to visit Yerophet.

Here in 2020, I wrote an account of a visit to Yerophet by Azynov and Yōd (see Frost Hills to Bailisbury). In The Yerophet Experiment, Zynov and Yōd not only meet a Kerub (named lo'Whots), but also an Iidi from the planet Dreavero.

I first wrote about the Iidi back in 2016 when I began The League of Yrinna, a kind of sequel to Vance's novel Trullion. The telepathic Iidi have long assisted the Idite clan and the various Idite Connatics. In The Yerophet Experiment, an Iidi provides assistance to Azynov and Yōd and is aware that they are inside a Simulation.

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The Idite clan is in conflict with the Gensifer clan, who as part of The League of Yrinna have long relied on "space pirates" (the Starmenters of Alastor Cluster) to find and capture the best telepaths, bringing them from the various worlds of the Cluster to Yrinna. I began my account of the the Gensifers at the end of 2015, but I am only now writing an account of events after Duissane reaches Yrinna and uses her telepathic ability to contact the Phari.

August 2020
Before Glisten's visit to Yerophet, Azynov and Yōd visit Ottengla, a world where most of the resident humans are blind. The people of Ottengla live on widely scattered "ranches" where they have a symbiotic relationship with a native species (called the Plesypy) that resembles the horses of Earth (see The Gensifer Clan).

Interior story illustration from the August 1980 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine.

blue Plesypy foal

In Vance's novel The Book of Dreams, he imagined a population of humans (the Feeks) who devolved into a quadrupedal human form of grazers.

I imagine that the Phari originally had blue-tinted skin and having developed under their influence, many of the remnant species of Alastor Cluster are also blue. The image above by Frank Borth is black and white, but I'm imagining that the telepathic Plesypy of Ottengla are similar in structure to the alien creatures depicted by Borth and pigmented as shown to the right.

Related Reading: Assignment Nor'Dyren by Sydney Van Scyoc

Next: Asimov's Foundation on TV?

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