Introduction

On a distant world, a world filled with poets, artisans, and scientists, a world filled with as much sensibility as ours, the watchers of the sky used powerful devices to search the heavens. These devices were powerful enough to probe galaxies trazillions (their unit of math, not mine) of anomalies distant (one anomaly is the distance light must travel before it becomes bored and changes to something else out of the utter monotony, henceforth the name). One such device operator looked at his device, then rubbed all four of his eyes and looked again. He saw what is best described as a testudine, a reptile with a bony shell that covers its body, a turtle. This particular turtle appeared to have something on its back as it swam through space. “Chief!” he called out to the shift supervisor, “You gotta see this!”

The shift supervisor stood from his desk, hitched up his trousers and sauntered over to the shocked observer and recited the universal managerial inquiry, “All right, whadeya got?”

The observer pointed to the object on the screen with a shaking pollex, “this!”

The shift supervisor bent over the observer’s shoulders and squinted at the screen. Then he took off his glasses (both pairs) rubbed his eyes (all four) and looked again. After a long, watery look, the shift supervisor sighed as he slowly straightened up. Shaking his heads, he realized what he had just seen. He reached into his wallet and pulled out a monetary note of significant value and stuffed it in a gaily decorated can that advertised the need to collect funds for a baby shower gift for Brenda and Mark. He called out to the entire shift, “All right guys, you got me, I get it ... I pitched in ... now enough antics. Let’s get back to work.” Convinced that it was a joke to get him to donate to the office pool, he handled the situation by the book. He looked at the operator and said, “Sid, send that image over to the theology department and let’s get back to work people! We have a universe to map!”

Sid turned back to his monitor but the rend in the space/time continuum had rippled closed and the vision of the turtle was gone from sight. He shrugged and sent the saved image to the theology department and resumed mapping his section of the universe and the turtle was eventually forgotten. The supervisor sat down and made a note in his log ... giant turtle. Last month, it was a giant winged snake. Maybe his wife was right, maybe it was time to retire...

But had they tried ... had they looked beyond the veil, or maybe the vale, or even the Vail, they would have seen her more clearly and they would have trembled in fear. Or they would have laughed it off, had a drink, fired Sid, erased the tapes, and re-scanned the universe until they got the answer they wanted. Either way, the turtle would remain.

Sadly, they were scanning the universe when they should have been scanning the multiverse.

Look into the multiverse and you will see what they missed. Watch as she swims into view, Great A’Tuin, the Giant Star Turtle (Chelys galactica), massive and glorious, the Queen of the Interstellar Pathways. She swims through the multiverse following whatever migratory paths were written into her genome by the greatest prankster of all, The Creator. Her eyes, each the size of a sea, look forward to a destination known only to her. She possesses a brain the size of a continent that moves at a speed that makes glaciers look downright spry. Her immense flippers propel her through the nothingness that is open space with massive strokes that take generations to complete. Her carapace is frosted with frozen methane, scarred with meteor craters, and coated with the intergalactic dust of eons of travel.

On her back stand four tremendous elephants, Berilia, Tubul, Great T’Phon, and Jerakeen, the World Elephants (Elephantidae Kosmosea). Tail to tail, they stand patiently watching the stars drift by as they bear the weight of the world on their shoulders ... really; they do. This isn’t a figurative exclamation; they’re actually carrying the entire world on their shoulders. They wouldn’t know a metaphor if one played Begin the Beguine using their trunk as a clarinet. The entire world and all who live there is their burden. Ten thousand miles in diameter, the discworld rests on their backs. Around the circumference of the disk is the eternal waterfall that is the Rimfall. At the center of the discworld is the hub, a mountain that stands ten miles in height. The name of the peak is Cori Celesti, which at the top is the palace complex named Dunmanifestin, the home of the Disc’s many gods. Most of them are completely mad.