Once landing, Gesile the thirteen year old called up Alex and asked if Triolux North was going to invade Zellhigh. Alex replied that he couldn’t for security reasons give a timeline but he thought it was common knowledge that yes, the people of Triolux North were planning a large contingent of spaceships to go to Zellhigh. When asked what the purpose of the trip would be, Alex replied, “To dissuade the Zellhigh from their aggressive behavior and turn it toward a system of improvement for all.” This information was recorded and sent to the Zellhigh elite.
Gesile and Reina, the computer scientist, had undergone a series of medical procedures to lower their repulsion and triggered aggression toward others who had not been exposed to the gas of Zellhigh. This would help them maintain a low profile until their mission was complete and they could return. They walked in silence as they took in the sights and sounds of Triolux North. For Reina, this was her first time off her home planet and her curiosity was unnatural and muted by the teachings and chemical assaults on Zellhigh. Gesile was experiencing a totally different set of responses. The face of her father as he lay dead in the hallway outside their apartment and the way he had focused on her face as the last thing he saw before the Zellhigh stomped and crushed his skull visited her with each step.
Because of the teachings and the chemicals the visions did not hold a reasonable set of reactions, but something, something infinitesimal was stirring inside the mind of the girl and it wasn’t allegiance to the Zellhigh. With each step and the twin moons shining down on her, she was reminded her of free and innocent times. Gesile realized with an ounce of sobriety that she was plotting the destruction of her home planet. If her mother and grandmother were still alive she would be culpable in their demise. These thoughts moved into her stomach and she began to feel a tightening discomfort and ache. She looked to Reina, who was moving with a purpose and concentrating on the path ahead.
As they neared the entrance to the tunnel that held both the hardware and software of the planet’s computerized communications they could see in the distance, outside the faraway apartment buildings that reached into the clouds, the six story hulk of one of the Zellhigh spaceships. It was at a slight angle and the bottom of the belly was shining a rectangle of light. In the portholes they could see the shadows of people inside. Reina thought they’re most likely reverse engineering all the technology of the Zellhigh, which had one of the most advanced propulsion systems in the Universe. It struck her like a slap and she stopped walking and stared in disbelief. It’s hard to align being told you are people that are invincible because of Adim and seeing the destroyed craft being pillaged.
Then there came a wave of suppressed anger that got her moving even faster. How dare these backward, nonbelieving heathens think themselves superior to the one and only truth. They will surely suffer more than most. And Reina rededicated herself to confusing the enemy and sending them false information that would change their priorities. This assignment was passed down from Adim’s mouth to Rueel’s ear and so she was walking in the footsteps of the holy. The all-knowing has shared a mote of his power with us and we can’t fail when we are walking in the cradled arms of Adim, the eye of time, the observer that stepped in when most of his beloved humans had shunned his glory. “Be with me,” she prayed. “Protect us in your warmth.”
They slipped into the tunnel and a dim light showed them the scars of war. The walls were damaged and there were openings driven into the sides of the tunnel as if some mad mole had crashed into the side and driven blindly into the ground. They stopped and listened in the early morning and all they heard was the soft hum of distant equipment. Reina hurried Gesile along as they scurried in deeper and searched for the mind of Alex.
Gesile glanced left and then right searching for a weapon. It was not to defend against the Triolux North, it was to render Reina unable to complete whatever destructive mission she had been charged with. After a hundred meters into the tunnel she found a pipe of substantial weight. She was shorter than Reina and much younger. Her commitment wavered at the last minute. She raised the pipe up and over the back of the scientist’s head. When she did that a shadow warned Reina and she moved slightly which made the pipe land on her shoulder and missed her head. She spun around in an instant in raging agitation and hit Gesile in the nose with a practiced butt from her forehead. The girl grabbed her face and stumbled backward. Her eyes were turning into saucers.
“You stupid slave girl,” Reina snarled. She continued to back Gesile into a dark space behind a piece of humming equipment. Gesile, feeling the trap of a corned animal, lunged at Reina and tackled her, sending both to the ground. Reina rolled from her back to a complete reversal and had Gisile underneath her. She clasped the thirteen year old by her throat and began strangling her. Gisile lifted her legs and wrapped them around Reina’s head. She pulled with all her strength and Reina let go of her throat as she was pulled backward and her head slammed the bottom of the tunnel. Gisile stared at the ceiling absent Reina strangling her.
With deep and gasping breaths Gisele struggled to her feet and raised a boot over Reina’s head to stomp and Reina grabbed her foot and twisted it. Gisile let out a scream as her ankle sent her body falling back to the hard floor of the tunnel. Reina rolled onto all fours and jumped to her feet and kicked Gisile in the stomach, the chest, her head, her arms and her legs. She swung with mechanical efficiency and didn’t slow up as Gisile tightened into a ball, her hands over her head trying to deflect the manic attack. She felt each blow and they were doing more than creating bruises. She felt bones cracking and the pain was on a scale she’d never known.
Gisile rallied herself with the threat of death coming with each kick. She grabbed the ankle of Reina from the next swing and bit into the pants and clamped down hard on the shin bone. She wouldn’t let go and was doing all she could to mate the top teeth with the bottom. Reina screamed and tried to shake the girl now latched onto her leg with her mouth and both arms. She pummeled the girl’s back with mad, unbalanced swings and she struggled to stay upright. Reina turned to find something to hold onto with her arms and she toppled over onto her back.
Gisile sprang from the leg to Reina’s stomach and began hitting Reina’s face with a flurry of tight fisted swings. As she pulled back with her right arm Reina grabbed the arm and with her hand. She was stronger than Gisile and the arm couldn’t descend but was held high and swung left to right. Gisile took her left hand in between her index finger and thumb dug into Reina’s throat. She pressed her thumb into the esophagus. Reina began choking and spit flew from her lips. She managed to grasp the wrist of Gisile and force it off her throat. She was gasping when Gisile brought her forehead down and into Reina’s face.
Reina didn’t let go of the girl’s arms and Gisile prepared for another head butt. Reina rolled left and Gisile slid off of Reina and found her arms were free and Reina was now climbing on her back. She grabbed the girl’s hair and raised her head and slammed it into the hard tunnel floor. There was first a thud as bone met unmovable floor. But as Reina continued to raise the girl’s head and smash it into the hard surface the thud became a different sound, one with a liquid quality to it. All resistance soon stopped as Gisile’s connection from her thoughts and brain signals to her body were severed. The girl soon let out her last breath and Reina rolled off her and stared at the ceiling.
On her back she took stock of her body. Her nose felt broken and blood was streaming down her face. She tilted her head and tried to draw air into her lungs with her mouth closed. The passage was still open although slightly restricted. She rubbed her throat and moaned from the bruising pain. Slowly she got to her feet and dug in her pockets until she found some rejuvenation cream. She also took three pills that would help with the pain and the repair. She bent over with her face dripping blood and clasped the girl’s ankles. She dragged Gisile’s lifeless body behind a massive rectangle of metal. She wouldn’t have immediate feedback from the computer system to alert her if anything was wrong.
/> “That’s ok,” she muttered in the dim tunnel. “I have confidence.”
Reina found the brainbox, the hub of Alex and the control center for the planet’s water management, food distribution, energy grid, hall of records, weather manipulation, health and welfare maintenance logs, flight scheduling, inter - planet treaties and agreements, ad infinitum. She finagled the outside cover, giving her access to the ring of Theophrastus Quartz, each the size of a berry. From her left front she withdrew a device the size of a small coin; she licked the back of it and stuck it on the outside top of the cover’s frame. It immediately sprang to life and she pulled it toward her as it expanded into a flexible tube and she aimed it so that it illuminated the entire insides of the control box.
From her right pocket she withdrew a small handheld reader and aimed it at the ring of quartz. As she moved it from stone to stone she was able to read what the function of each was. One that was slightly larger than the others was the one that held Alex and his communication with each and every member of the Triolux Society. To the left was the stone that sent out messages from Alex, to the right was the stone that received incoming messages. In the middle was Alex, where the messages were processed.
From her right top pocket she withdrew a small quartz stone the size of a pea. She held it with a non-conducting pair of tweezers up to the light, making sure it was not damaged in the fight with the girl. Without thinking she glanced to where she had stuffed the child to make sure she was dead, even though she knew the 13 year old was gone. It satisfied some unnamed craving in her that the girl would never breathe again. This made Reina pause and suck in the cool air of the tunnel. It was gratifying to her to know that the will of Adim was being carried out – “All knowing and time without end share with us your power.”
She placed the stone in between the processor and the outgoing communications quartz. It fit snuggly in a receptacle on what is commonly known as the mind ring that held stones inside the box. The device was made to hold an additional stone as the only thing that is deemed permanent is change. Therefore updates and new sources of information were sometimes placed in the ring. Reina with her colleagues had designed a delay into the system to give her time to make her escape before the first bit of false information began to be distributed. She smiled at the panic that would eventually erupt from that little stone placed in the ring. She reinstalled the cover and began making her way back to the ship. Adim was surely with her as everything went as planned. The only exception was the captured girl who seemed to have second thoughts once she was back among the nonbelievers and her nostrils filled with air of those who strived for peace at all cost. “What a bunch of fools these lovers of life have tried to achieve. Murderers and rapists hid among them and they accepted this as the price of peace.”
Outside the tunnel the sun was bright and she heard children playing outside the tall buildings. For one half of a split second a wisp of guilt at the suffering they would feel passed through her thought process and just as easily disappeared. She was with Zellhigh from birth and would be with them until her time was no more. She was born on the planet that had many newcomers and watched as the strength of Adim poured into their hearts and minds and they joined the rest in the knowledge of truth. If nothing else, this had convinced her of the strength of the belief. They came from the lost tribes and once found and nurtured in the way of Adim she watched the transformation.
It began as a calming and slowing reflective effect that swelled inside them manifesting itself in a tranquil existence. They no longer rebuffed the Zellhigh way and eventually embraced the multiple wives and the supremacy of men. The boys offered themselves for the journey in their sky hunts and thus became proven men. All was serene and wealth and fortune showered the believers. With the plankton they will live longer than ever and once they’ve secured this planet and rid it of these infested creatures and their misplaced zeal for improvement, this too will be another utopia. “Peace be upon the faithful, all knowing and time without end share with us your power.”
Chapter 15
Optimism was fading in regard to the Zellhigh prisoners becoming compassionate humans. They had a sarcastic and condescending view of the other planets. It was enforced by their crowd mentality and peer pressure with group think. It made it seem like they weren’t ever going to be won over with the passive effect of magnetic mind manipulation and social acceptance. They were so deeply entrenched in their view of the cosmos that any alternative view never penetrated deep enough for serious thought.
The walls were too high and their belief absolutely solidified. No matter how small in scale or how well presented with the gentle argument using the Socratic method of debate, nothing was heard by their inner ear. “They might as well be deaf,” Tee said after reading the latest report. He was somewhat disgusted by these Zellhigh believers and their arrogant outlook. How, he mused, can reasonable people break the Zellhigh superior shell? In his mind the Triolux had smothered them in kindness. They had shown them the history of how they had evolved as a social order that was peaceful enlightened. They had shown that other planets that had emulated the Triolux techniques had enjoyed a harmonious existence as well.
He looked at Lain across the table as they ate. “There’s got to be a method short of punishment and reward to strip these people of their false faith. Their inability to grasp improvement and destruction over improvement is mind - boggling.”
Lain said, “You have to attack Adim and show them he is a paper tiger and his doctrine failed in the old world as it has failed them in the new. Point out to them they are held prisoners on foreign soil and they are abandoned by their society because that planet has depleted all its aggressive resources. What sort of god marches its faithful into failure?” Lain gave Tee a stern look, letting him know this wasn’t a soft debate in a mock trial. She went on, “This is the future of all the Zellhigh, if the prisoners are the example of many. Their conversion is a lost cause they must be destroyed.”
It seemed to dawn on Tee, as if he had been in some kind of early morning fog that was now clearing, that if Lain was correct, this had implications planet wide. Convert the few or lose the many. The rest of the meal the two parents spent discussing Lacy and her day and her progress in all things one year olds accomplish. It was becoming apparent that Lacy was intelligent and a quick study. Her vocabulary was at that stage where she was beginning to group words. Not quite full sentences, but it was only a matter of time. Her parents gloated over her abilities and thought, as most first time parents do, that she may be above average.
Surrounded by the committee the next morning Tee proposed that a program be developed to knock down this mythical Adim. If he can’t be destroyed then Zellhigh must be eliminated. At first his harsh language and glum face shocked some of the others, but then they began to understand that if these Zellhigh remained rabid then the only choice left was utter destruction. Better a few die so many can live. And so a group of sociologists along with psychiatrists and their bag of medicine was formed to strip the prisoners of their life long faith.
They were at a disadvantage since they knew so little about Adim. Their first stage of action involved interviewing the prisoners one at a time and discussing with them what Adim meant to them. The thinking was that if they could hone in on who the believers perceived Adim to be on an individual basis and link those results in a collective way they could design a series of counter punches that would knock down their god with a flurry of fast combinations. These men were, after all, pawns and if they ended up mentally damaged or steadfast in their evil ways, so be it. They held the fate of a nation, not the scientific community, which was only a fact - finding professional group of concerned citizens.
It was at about this time that a trickle of information began to seep into the consciousness of the citizens of Triolux North from Alex that the Zellhigh may be planning on firing a weapon that could destroy Talium Nine, the closest and largest of the nine moon cluster over the southern hemis
phere. This would disrupt the gravitational balance of Triolux North, possibly causing it to spin uncontrollably on its axis as well as dislodge it from its solar orbit. The solar day would change with the shifting of the fixed latitude and there could be a radiation increase and a gravitational migration of the planet’s magnetic fields. The planet could settle into a new and improved orbit with a rapid increase in the day to night cycle. It could also risk a molten tick and shift into a death spiral. The size of the debris field of the shattered moon would determine a lot of unknowns.
There was also the risk of moon rock bombardment from pieces too small to resist the attraction of the Triolux North gravity. This hail of speeding debris could bring on a catastrophe of nuclear proportions. As of yet Alex was only hinting at a looming set of circumstances possibly being planned by the Zellhigh from gathering communication interceptions. Yet this was a predictable move considering the occupants of Zellhigh were a blood thirsty crowd. They were an elite, pompous bunch of zealots, bulging with righteous indignation, that had been stirred into dramatic and anger driven action. They would be doing what comes to them as a natural response when one must consider they can’t see that all the anger should be rightly and justly placed at their feet.
New meetings were hastily arranged inside the workings of Wind Mountain. Meanwhile the prisoner interviews and Adim information extraction began in a different part of the city and the first ten prisoners were chosen from a cross section of the captives. There were two officers, one considered a major prize - he was known to be a general. This meant he was familiar with quantum physics and his intellect placed him in the top tier. The other officer was a skilled mechanic and represented someone with a general knowledge that could prove useful in his take on Adim. The others were closer to the ground, soldiers and minions of the war machine.
Ths Sacking of Triolux North Page 10