Chapter 5
At the time of The Beyonder’s legendary journey Nephapricus had been busy establishing colonies on the first couple stars beyond the home stars Ea and Poa. After the Great War, reaching other stars became a supreme effort that cost both Nephrican and Pripican cultures longer than it should have taken before the galactic economy finally became able to reach out to the stars Oa and Holdus. The star Oa still exclusively remained in the Nephrican domain where there existed a water world already inhabited by life. The star Holdus on the other hand had been closer to the Pripican’s home star Poa, and so both Nephrican and Pripican shared the two habitable planets with life that orbited Holdus.
As space travel began to evolve into the hyper-acceleration age, the galactic reach of Nephapricus extended to the stars Yat for the Nephricans, and Paz for the Pripicans. At the time of this story that reach still hyper-accelerated from place to place. The nuclear fusion propulsion system used by the ship The Beyonder required that the fusion plume be ejected at the mid-point of the journey. Then the fusion plume would be recreated when the propulsion system correctly positioned to bring the ship on a constantly decelerating course in order to stop at the intended destination. Captain Mynervood and his Pripican Navigator Strek were controlling this critical ship maneuver from the bridge.
“Navigation Officer Strek you for plume ejection ready are?”
Strek the perfectionist calculated the time to the exact mid-point of the journey, which still remained a few seconds away. He paused, which started to look like he ignored the Captain, but Captain Mynervood knew Strek better than that.
“We should eject the plume about …” Then a strained period of silence lingered. “ … now.”
The captain worked a control on the panel to contact the engine reactor section. “Chief Engineer Ulusu, the plume ejection begin.”
Meanwhile in the engine section Ulusu had been doing the work of two engineers since Adma had been dismissed to go see the ship physician. This had been easy enough for Ulusu who had the experience of a dozen ship journeys, and had himself been a second-generation Eagolim humanoid capable of outworking three normal looking Nephricans. There had been little doubt amongst space travelers that the humanoid form, being produced by space travel’s effect upon DNA gene switches, had been a product of refined evolution.
Ulusu had been working instruments, which controlled robot arms that moved the reactor rods into position. This had been done to cool down the fusion plume to reduce the constant acceleration effect. Ulusu had been preoccupied with this task when he responded to the Captain’s command. He reached over to some other instruments and pulled a lever halfway in response saying, “Fusion plume Captain ejecting.” That had been when the ship spit out the ball of energy that made up its fusion plume.
Then the reactor section of the ship began moving above the ship itself, guided by the side passenger bays that surrounded the central bridge of The Beyonder. The Beyonder central bridge section looked like a virtual particle driven flying saucer that had been placed in the center of the ship design. Now Strek became free to position the propulsion system in front of the ship for the deceleration process. The whole process of constant deceleration is the mathematical reverse of the process that got them up to this crazy speed, and it will take about an Earth year until they finally stop. The fusion core will drift for a period before finally exhausting its fuel like a miniature star that evaporates under its own lack of gravity.
The reactor section of The Beyonder finally positioned itself in front of the ship where the warp avoidance mechanism would provide a debris shield. Ulusu then rushed to the centrifuges, which were needed to activate the nuclear fuel for the explosion required to turn another tank of hydrogen into a fusion plume for the deceleration power to stop the ship. Normally Adma would be doing this while he filled the reactor tank with the hydrogen fuel that the ship had on reserve.
Ulusu turned on the centrifuges and made sure they were accelerating correctly for the process of uranium enrichment. The centrifuges would gyro-oscillate the neutralized uranium into its active radioactive state.
Gyro-oscillate refers to an advanced quanta-nanocoded centrifuge technology that created effects similar to the expensive particle accelerators of Earth. This technology however had been much smaller and used the patterns of gyro-oscillating particles to collide at near light speed with enriched uranium material in order to turn off its radioactive state until the nuclear material needed to be turned on again in a similar way for a fission reaction. This technology had many applications, which ranged from turning back on the fusion reaction of a warp-fusion hyper-acceleration propulsion system to neutralizing nuclear waste and of course making nuclear bombs.
Ulusu made sure the centrifuges he had earlier prepared with uranium were all working correct. The monitors were reporting that everything oscillated with no problems. He studied the readings, and could find no fault with the data. Then he ran off to the hydrogen tank in order to fill the reactor core.
*
Thelem had been the ship physician on The Beyonder, and she had not had much to do up till now except comfort Trunlio over his hyper-acceleration induced growing pains. The version of their species known as Eagolim, who evolve the DNA with hyper-acceleration, were remarkably healthy, which tended to make the job of physician an uneventful experience. That had been Thelem’s problem only before Adma came to see her.
She took some extra time with introductory questions to discuss Adma’s medical history. She actually dug for interesting information about the Captain whom she worked for. She knew Captain Mynervood from way back a long time on the planet Nephrica at the star Ea. Captain Mynervood had been impressed with her intelligence and wit so he tried to add her to his many wives. Thelem however, never really had been interested in that so Captain Mynervood made her the ship’s physician instead.
She had Adma lay down in order to use the full body medical scanner on him to begin to discern the cause of his reported blackouts. That had been when the Captain’s Assistant Tyallor Nudeowan stopped by. In addition to being the Captain’s on-world chauffeur, and making sure the Captain had been in want for nothing, Tyallor also made it his job to always know what had been going on.
“Physician Thelem hello. I you with Adma who in engineering now should be are see. Adma! Ulusu alone in the reactor section is?”
Adma looked up from the scanner bed. “Ulusu me to here come dismissed, but I you who he me with not replaced can tell.”
Thelem became a bit annoyed by the interruption as she returned to her scan after Tyallor then left. The screen showed Adma’s body under many forms of observation that were summarized into quanta-nanocoded MRI-like diagrams.
She watched the body from feet to neck, unimpressed by another perfectly healthy specimen of the much studied and documented Eagolim anatomy. After the neck however, many mind control device anomalies stood out in the diagrams that were parading by her eye. She had wanted something to do on this journey to the star Holdus on a ship with a whole crew of tourist passengers, but now she looked at the son of the Captain thinking she now had more work than she bargained for. She kept her eye and snout expressions in check as Adma looked over at her wondering what she looked at on the monitor.
*
An Agent of Ea had been on board The Beyonder on his way to the sickbay to deal with the now out of control Adma. Before he got to the sickbay a call came in on his communication device. “We back at the room need.”
He reluctantly stopped his waddling towards the sickbay to reply. “I the subject to neutralize was going.”
“It for that too late is. Already we him from to the physician not going could stop. We must abort.”
The Nephrican Agent of Ea struggled with the demand to change his direction. This had been a very hard thing for a Nephrican to do. Nevertheless the Agent eventually started waddling in the other direction.
As he waddled past one of The Beyonder’s many unused corridor
s, the shadows pulled away to reveal the adolescent form of Trunlio who watched the Agent waddle by.
Trunlio had recognized the Agent earlier from the encounter with the Captain, and he had decided to follow him. He had barely ducked inside this corridor in time when the Agent started the struggle to change directions. He then started following the agent in the other direction.
The agent led Trunlio back to a room in one of the ship’s passenger bays. It had been a more exclusive section of the extensive bays of this luxury spacecraft. Trunlio cautiously approached the door that the agent had just gone into.
Trunlio watched the door close, making a note of the identification number for the room. It had a lock calibrated to the particular tentacle biometrics of the occupants. Trunlio had been about to turn around and leave when a tentacle from behind pressed the lock mechanism on the door and swung it open. Trunlio then had been pushed into the room.
“We a new change of plan from this kid that us was following like looks may have.”
The room turned out to be full of Nephricans who all turned their single eyes to the boy in the room. Suddenly Trunlio struggled with five grown Nephricans holding him down.
“A strap for that stool get! We him there up will tie.”
Trunlio just had not been strong enough to stop them from tying him to a stool. He sat helplessly tied up near a table displaying the surveillance equipment of an aborted mind control mission. Trunlio had now become a prisoner of the nefarious Agents of Ea.
*
Other problems lurked on the molecular level of The Beyonder where a program that had been the fraction of the size of most microscopic life traveled in between the electrons along the ship’s computer network. The analysis of the ship told this quanta-nanocode virus that it doesn’t have much time to fulfill its function of causing the centrifuges to malfunction. The virus analyzed everything about the ship like a monkey that proverbially manages to type the works of Shakespeare because it types really really fast. Then after it figured out its reality the virus located the engine room and traveled there.
Ulusu ran away from the centrifuges that he had just turned on when the quanta-nanocoded virus located them. Then the function at the core of the virus began doing what it had been made to do. Even if Ulusu had still been at the controls he only would have had a second to notice the anomalies in the readouts before they all went back to reporting normal behavior as usual.
Then the quanta-nanocode virus indulged the only gratification it knew, which had been to disrupt the gyro-oscillating centrifuges of warp-fusion drive ships so that the nuclear fuel explodes. The nuclear fusion hyper-acceleration propulsion system used nuclear explosions along with virtual particle driven structures of highly concentrated electromagnetic fields that concentrated enough pressure on a tank of hydrogen in order to create fusion by crushing hydrogen into helium. Ulusu still filled up the reactor core with the hydrogen on reserve when the centrifuges that were activating the nuclear fuel began to noticeably rattle because they were incorrectly calibrated.
* * *
The planet Doldoria spun its orbit around the star Dol, still just barely beyond the expanding reach of the budding galactic empire of Nephapricus. Life on Doldoria thrived below the typical oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere, the most common atmospheric composition of most habitable zone planets with life. Below, the Doldorians forged their civilizations of wood and stone, where technologies of modern physics were still being newly evolved, and the old ways of superstition had yet to really be challenged by the still infant philosophies of rationality. The monotheistic approach to religion that had been also recently introduced to Doldorian culture, probably to speed this along. Young children that were orphaned by misfortune were taken into the Sanctuary of Ei to be brought up in the ways of truth regardless of what honesty had to say. The new religion of Ei also dominated the newly invented television technologies, and therefore the population became persuaded into acceptance of Ei because there had been really nothing else on.
Alldegallo walked the halls of the Sanctuary of Ei where orphans were given an upbringing. He had been on the way to his room when some friends crossed his path.
“Beseech you Alldegallo. Tis your good friends myself, Chad, and Vamadan. We also bringeth Tejas and Lellaro here with us to hear from you that hath mastered skills for obtaining the understanding of morning dreams that do wash upon the shores of waking.”
Alldegallo became more annoyed by how loud his friend Chad had said that than what he said. Alldegallo gestured for a lower volume and demonstrated the preferred decibel by quietly replying. “Do not with such reckless enthusiasm speak of the forbidden in the halls of this Sanctuary of ears. Know you not that the decree went forth from the High Priest that my mandibles are tied on this subject. The High Priest grew angry as I’ve never seen him, and did speak unto me with a horrifying fury, thus swearing in my presence verbally that myself he would destroy.”
Mandibles tied is a Doldorian way of saying “shut-up!” Doldorians had mandibles that extruded from the sides of the mouth like little mouth arms. Tying them together wouldn’t really make a Doldorian unable to speak, but they are smart enough to get the analogy.
Vamadan started to speak in a quieter volume. “Beseech you sir, be of patient ear for we have cause to hear of your dream. We … “
Alldegallo interrupted. “Speak no more in this hallway. Thus to my room for this confrontation.”
The gang quietly walked to Alldegallo’s room to continue the conversation the moment Alldegallo closed the door, just before Panga the pet foodon dashed inside the room with them.
One of the other friends, Tejas spoke. “It is not a rare thing that your nights requireth of you to tread the land of dreams in the company of profoundly vivid visions. Many of this place on many of these nights doth dream the dream of the chariot of strange forms when they too dwell at night in dwellings not of the flesh.”
Lellaro spoke up. “I too have experienced this dream. In silence I sought council of the Priest who did accuse me that I was poisoned by you Alldegallo and your wicked magic. Ye Alldegallo shall receive of me much gratitude should you show me your dream and perhaps an interpretation thereof.”
Alldegallo gave in and told them of the dream he had just that morning, which he dutifully still wrote about in his morning journal. In that dream one of the coming gods that had a single eye came down to teach the Doldorians many things. The whole gang of friends became spellbound by Alldegallo’s description of the dream of a being with one eye and three tentacles for legs, which looked like a Nephrican.
Then Chad spoke up to break the silence. “Hark, what liberty doth a god know through the world presented to a single eye?”
The others laughed. Then Alldegallo said. “The secret hath not been revealed unto me in this night vision where my spirit in the dream became all bound up. I do in my day’s mind speculate that even a gergo sees a completely different world than you or I through its gergo eyes.”
Then Tejas said, “Oh what gods do come hither into view where the shores of night wash visions upon the shore of waking. Perhaps the Lake Lady doth dance yet again on the rivers.”
The Lake Lady who dances on the rivers had been from an older Doldorian water cult that had been squeezed out of existence by the true religion of Ei. In earlier times she had been named Athedonie, a very popular goddess of music and fertility. The goddess Teyoo is a later version of this same goddess with a greater association to music and song. For that reason the Lake Lady had still been viewed affectionately by even devout followers of Ei. Still what Tejas said had been a dangerous blasphemy.
As the conversation in Alldegallo’s room continued into further speculations about dreams and forbidden goddesses, the fur covered six-legged foodon sat quietly on the floor. On the underside of the foodon a microphone had been implanted beneath the fur of one of its legs. The microphone continued to listen to the forbidden conversion.
*
The next mo
rning Alldegallo woke from frightening nightmares that lacked the vividness to allow a morning recollection. He mentioned fearful nightmares in his morning notebook writing, and then rushed off to class. In the hallway before getting to class Alldegallo found himself suddenly halted in front of the ghosts of his dead father and mother. His dead father spoke. “Lo, child of the living we your ancestor parents bid you farewell for finality. The folly of this living world hath caught up to break us apart and subdue all and the last solid part that was your parents.”
Alldegallo started to say, “But father, what is this that you doth speak?”, but instead Alldegallo just knew immediately.
His parents faded away, and Alldegallo ran outside to the crypt. When Alldegallo arrived at the Crypt of Ancestors a construction crew had been there taking apart his parent’s tomb with a rude malice. An angry High Priest got in the way of Alldegallo from intercepting the demolition of his parent’s graves.
“Wherefore at this time should I come near to thee that thou should be cast into the midst of burning fire like your parents. Lest I be done with thee!”
“For what do I … “ Alldegallo was cut short.
“Tell not me. When removed from this Sanctuary thou then at that time wilt speak, but not before. To the cold outer world with you now. For you are no more welcome in this world than your parents.”