Earth on Target (Survival Amidst the Stars)

by Angel Bright

  Nolen and I came to our senses almost simultaneously, apparently because of somebody’s signal, and headed to the illuminated figure of Hasterazis, who led us back down inside the palace. At one of the floors, he held me back and pointed to Nolen to continue his descent. Hasterazis and I headed down a long corridor branching like a labyrinth. But according to my notions, we were headed toward the universal magical power: Vigor. My expectations came true when a dark mass rose in front, above, and below us. We went to the left and through a narrow passage and faced a dark tunnel whose entrance was illuminated with ghostly light from invisible sources. It cast no shadows of our bodies. After a turn, we stood in front of a wall with six monograms cut into it, with hieroglyphic relief letters in the middle.

  In reply to my questioning look, Hasterazis nodded.

  “Yes. The access symbol of my associates, whom I presented to you. These medallions are their keys for access to other worlds to which I have admitted them, no more. Let’s go on.”

  We took a few steps toward the massive wall to the right, and a portal was opened there, followed by a long corridor that led us to a room, which illuminated upon our entry. There was no furniture. There was nothing but three medallions engraved on the opposite wall. Two of them emitted red light. The one in the center was dark. I heard a sigh of relief from my father.

  “He has admitted you. Despite your attack, he has accepted you. So, you really carry the genes of the Gods! Well, now we are two. And we know the way to become more. The new beginning is already underway. This sign to your left is yours. Look at it, and remember it. It is your key to accessing Vigor’s capabilities. If there were any inconsistencies, Vigor would have burned you immediately the door was opened. No one can come in freely here. There are controls and safety systems in the tunnel through which we came here.”

  “Was that why we were scanned while meditating on the roof?”

  “Really? I do not know anything about such actions.”

  “Yes, they scanned us, and then we were drugged and immobilized. That, I remember.”

  “There seem to be things I do not know—secrets of a higher order. Vigor will remain unknowable to us. Maybe that is right. We are dangerous even to ourselves.”

  My sign was a stylized image of the capital letter T against a background of a shield covering half of Earth’s globe. Terra means “Earth,” and I was an Earthman. Why not?

  But I did not feel like a defender of a whole planet. Alone against someone of the all-powerful Gods? Hardly! Rather, the solution was to make the attacker’s losses so large that the undertaking was pointless. It would be possible even if I found my death as hunted or pursuer. But to achieve such a goal, I had to create options for tactical attacks and retreats. And for this purpose, I needed to get an idea of the offensive weapons and capabilities of the triad of archangels who would be depopulating Earth. I needed to be somewhere else, such as in an unknown range where I could be an observer or a peripheral participant.

  The wall in front of us retreated. We took a step forward and entered a huge empty space in the midst of darkness broken by colorful arcs.

  For a moment, twists formed into tornadoes, with each one topped by a bright ball that sparkled. Cascades of lightning took off from them and spilled out into the surrounding space, which in turn induced a sense of some materiality in which my mind was looking for some support to grasp. We, the observers became targets directed by light swarms, and the contact proved quite painful. Vigor probably did not accept some of my qualities or flaws and was burning me. Nearby, my father was surrounded by a bluish sphere that received most of the light streams. He shuddered under their strikes and appeared surprised.

  I had already reached my limit of tolerance, and my body began to relax under the merciless streams of semi-material rays. My skin looked black and cracking in front of my eyes. It was obviously not an illusion because I felt the heat of burning, but somehow it was to the side of me, as if I were not in my body. I became indifferent and then sank into the darkness of a deep fainting spell.

  Awareness came suddenly. I felt cool and light and as if I were wrapped in swaddling. Silence and darkness pervaded. I sent a command to my toes and moved them as before. My hands were also free, and with their help I found and rubbed my eyes. And they were also in their place, but my eyelids did not move. There was probably no light because I could feel the light through my closed eyelids before. I moved my eyes. No way. Silence and darkness continued.

  Had I been buried alive?

  Was I breathing? I didn’t think I was.

  How come I was able to think?

  I could not judge how long this absolute isolation lasted. Time as a coordinate had lost its essence. The greatest traps of my mind were my own feelings and sensations. After a whole eternity in the dark, I began to find lighter spots that seemed to move, always from left to right. It was as if I were spinning on the axis of my body. I squeezed my eyes and spread my arms but did not feel inertial forces. Then, the sounds appeared. I heard a shriek, a snap, and then a soft, muffled thump. A bright hole opened rapidly, and I fell into it. I was wrapped in the light of a long corridor whose floor moved forward along with me and took me to a room, where my father sat by the wall. He looked at me with understanding and helped me stand up. I staggered, but with surprise, I held upright on my rubber feet.

  “Let’s go. The unpleasant part is over. I see you are whole, and that calms me; this time, it has worked well. That was the setting. Now, you’re in resonance with Vigor’s systems, and the Cosmic Energy will obey you. You are the first to pass the procedure successfully.”

  “What procedure?” I turned my tongue with difficulty. “What was that nightmare?”

  “They simply decomposed you, copied, and gathered you again. If you had a problem or a defect, it was removed.”

  “Am I a prototype for serial production? Army made of one and the same soldier?”

  “It could happen, and I do not know how it can be done. Now you have new abilities built, and you will discover them yourself. I cannot reveal to you how this will happen because it’s hardly the same as it was with me. Such is Vigor’s program, and my experience began with me and ends with you. Even today, my setting was different from the first time, but Vigor called me, too. He also evolves. He has added something new to me.”

  This setting did not have a good effect on me. I felt disassembled and could hardly coordinate the movement of my limbs. My pulse was uneven, and the forgotten headache returned. My father said he did not have the same problems after the first time and had just a slight upset stomach after the second time.

  I let him lead me as I focused on my senses, intending to restore my inner balance. I had been doing this balancing constantly since my childhood and, until now, had achieved good results. I began to check my energy channels and harmonize the work of my chakras with energy meridians. It was precise and risky work, especially considering the unknown power of the energies I could involuntarily activate. I found that this recovery process would take a long time with careful and consistent release and activation of the channels, and so I started with restoring the equilibrium and moving organs. I would deal with the rest of the necessary procedures later, and some of them would self-regulate without my intervention.

  My father placed me in a comfortable relaxation room and set about organizing some kind of food and drinks. I fell into stupor. Some forces started working on restoring the full function of the cells of my organs where I felt problems. I also perceived the active intervention of my father’s skills. Then, I perceived my movement back to the spaces in Vigor’s devices, and once again I sank into the familiar darkness.

  I came to in the relaxation room with the strange feeling that I was somehow upgraded. The unpleasant sensations were missing. I moved my arms and legs freely. I felt a tide of power and a desire to do miracles. My father was looking at me with tense eyes and body. I took a deep breath and stood upright, and my father rushed to support me. I stood
cautiously and made two or three uncertain steps ahead. Everything was normal. I felt like before. I had the desire to eat food and drink a glass of wine, which I could do immediately.

  “Was any mistake made in my assembling?” I asked.

  “Not really. It turned out that you can activate your extra abilities only in a precise form that is both good and bad. It is good that you increase your energy capacity, which also increases your energy impact almost twofold. The bad thing is that you had to go through Vigor again to get the full set of qualities you will be able to control, and that should be done as soon as possible, as we do not know when we will need to use all our skills to protect ourselves and our work environment. The emergence of Thornkeract against you is not a good sign. Thornkeract appeared only once in several millennia, followed by the collapse of two powerful advanced civilizations. Today, if you are in good shape, we will deal with two of your most needed skills. You will learn how to stay undetected by energy-sensitive receptors and how to move freely from one world to another.”

  Again, I began training. This time, I was learning the skills of the Gods.

  8 The Story of the Greats

  A million years ago, a group of dissidents with special skills were thrown out of this spaceship society and deprived of their divine abilities. They received the scornful name of “Fallen Angels.”

  There were twelve good specialists, and they had similar ideas that united them. Detached from their habitual high-tech environment, they were condemned to exile, but their immortality remained. They literally started from scratch to create their culture and knowledge base. They had enough time and succeeded in building sophisticated machines and technologies to create artificial intelligence that took care of most of their everyday needs. They also built a prototype of an energy center equipped with a perfect AI with built-in evolving capabilities that, triggered by later events, gained a kind of controlled autonomy and a variety of defense systems. Most importantly, they took concepts from the world they were used to and placed them into a parallel world created especially for that purpose. The new world was practically undetectable and untouchable for everyone who had not passed the special setting for interaction and compatibility. This was how Vigor was created, similarly to the Gods’ facility called Vortex. Vigor was similar in function and purpose but not a duplicate because of Vortex’s unusual complexity of technical repetition. Vigor was present everywhere where someone was set up to him.

  The Fallen Angels began cultivating planets and creating evolving life-giving systems that, with a bit of help, would develop intelligence fit for dissemination according to their doctrine. However, their former compatriots discovered them and attacked. The three most senior Fallen Angels decided to start talks to resolve the disputes between them and the Gods and went as envoys to the Gods’ camp but were captured, tortured, and burned with “divine purifying fire.” From the images they received before their arrest, the group of the Fallen saw their home planet devastated by internecine wars, divided into feudal territories by the Eighteen Full Gods, their former compatriots and part of the 118-astronaut crew of the Discoverer intergalactic ship.

  On its last flight, the Discoverer came to an unknown zone. Three scientists went into a room inside the working machine and attempted to study a malfunctioning machine, but they acquired unusual skills. The rest of the crew wished to go through the unusual procedure, too. Yet probably because of everyone overcrowding the room, the machine overloaded, and nearly fifty people died. This did not deter the rest of the crew. The skills that the first three had received were too great. Everyone divided into groups of three and started the machine procedures to change them.

  For various reasons—physical incompatibility, increased irradiation duration, internal damage resulting from improper handling of the unknown equipment, or simply maliciousness—only thirty-seven fully passed the setting. Seven people later died of an unknown disease. Thirty people with extraordinary abilities remained, and they called themselves “Gods.” The Discoverer returned to its home planet, and the location of the planet with the miraculous machine, which was known only to the commander and the navigators, was forgotten or deliberately erased. The machine itself was transported with great difficulty to their native planet and placed on a special pedestal in the crater of an extinct volcano. It was called Vortex.

  The age of the fortunate survivors remained the same for millennia. They had received the priceless gift of immortality.

  That’s where the problems started. The Gods did not tolerate rivals. The striving for absolute power began. In the first years, they found they could not have offspring, but that did not shock them. Children would grow up and turn into rivals, and who needed heirs when people were immortal? The former crew members alienated each other. The mere existence of immortality coupled with magical power created the understanding of divine predestination, and the annoying presence of former colleagues with similar abilities hung above them as a threat to their existence. Very quickly, they realized their abilities were related to the machine, and passing through the complicated tangle of connected passes and energy barriers fixed their connection forever.

  At some point, the contradictions in the philosophy of their divine predestination arose. One of their scientists, a biologist named Toro, thought they were chosen to populate the countless planetary systems with intelligent creatures and were therefore honored with the power of Guardians of Intelligence. They were powerful teacher-guides converting dead, stony celestial bodies into living nuclei and spreading the sparks of life into the fiery, starry skies. Toro convinced some of his colleagues to devote themselves to this activity that adorned the pointless days of their endless existence. The group united twelve followers, but soon a dispute arose with the others, and the dispute grew into open opposition. The two camps unswervingly relied on their arguments but ceased hearing each other. One night, the group of Eighteen Conservatives disappeared, causing concern and organized searches among the rest. When they reappeared, they were even more powerful and more adamant. At the general meeting immediately after that, the Group of Twelve was arrested, loaded on a small ship, and fired into space. They were derisively called the Fallen Angels.

  Their voyage lasted as long as the charge of the ship’s power sector allowed. When the last engine impulses ended, the steering jets were released for maneuvering.

  The ship of the exiles managed to get close to a smoky little planet where the wretched crew landed at the cost of fatal damage to the starship’s hull and its engines. The ship became their permanent home, as well as their support and production base on the lifeless planet. They covered their base with an energy shield, under which they created conditions suitable for their lives and set about creating machines to transform the planet’s overall atmosphere to sow the first plant complexes. They did not lack experience. Work went slowly, but in the lakes with water ejected from the active volcanoes, the first proteins were sown to prepare the primordial soup.

  A group of three engineers started to create a likeness of the Vortex, because the energy they needed from the planet began to become insufficient. They succeeded in their undertaking, and Vigor’s first prototype was built. The leader of these engineers was Betelus, a scientist who knew best the construction of the Vortex and its abilities. He therefore became the head and guardian of Vigor and dedicated all his knowledge to creating and activating a program for self-maintenance and intellectual and constructive evolution. He created independent channels for everyone’s individual connection to Vigor and revealed to them many of the secrets of its masterful use. Their divine abilities changed for the better. Their common idea became an achievable possibility. The cohesive team concentrated their efforts in the laboratories to create prototypes of future biological forms to settle in more distant waters. The planet was transforming before their eyes. It was divided into twelve sectors where various experiments were carried out according to their common evolutionary purpose. They did not start from scratc
h because they had at their disposal cells from their own bodies, cells from frozen and canned foods, and even cells from certain natural materials used for lining, furniture, and creating coziness.

  They had thousands of years of experience in various fields of science, and each one of them was a fully established specialist in several scientific fields. They had enough time to develop specialized professional tools and instruments, so their efforts to settle the New World had a solid base of specialists and technique for the purpose. Their work was fascinating, and contests to create creatures of exceptional beauty began. Everybody unleashed their fantasy!

  Combinations of colors, lights, and shapes abounded until one day they realized the world they had created was extremely defenseless. They had to return to animal and plant species for correction, for establishment of defensive and offensive systems, for protection of territories, and for protection of families and descendants. They gave plants opportunities for changes and production of poisons and aromas. Again, their enthusiasm reached perfection, combined with the unity of flora and fauna in their general protection against local and external invaders. They created a wonderful and grateful world in which the Gods started loving in safety and were accepted as creators of all. They began creating atmospheres on the nearest surrounding planets to settle the ready-made plant and animal species from the primary planet. But one day, it all collapsed. The invasion of machines began, burning and destroying every living thing on the planet. A hunt for the Fallen Angels began. Scientists could not believe this was actually happening. They had knowledge but no time to create protection. Against the numerous machines, they were helpless. They created energy barriers that emitted electromagnetic impulses to block thousands of the machines and created whole mountains of ruins but were unable to cope with the surprise. Five of them died. Six were captured and, to their great surprise, were brought before the leader of the armada invaders: Pancreon, their former commander on the intergalactic starship Discoverer. He read to them a decree: a death sentence for the Fallen Angels, issued by him in advance. He burned them mercilessly, and their dust was thrown with a special probe into the fire of the white star, the local luminary. Only Hasterazis stayed alive, thanks to quickly activating Vigor for an immediate subspace jump followed by a series of jumps for final deletion of the traces. Vigor was positioned as a microscopic satellite on a planet on the periphery of a planetary system around a hot white star but remained constantly in its surrounding subspace to become virtually undetectable. This convenient location gave him access to the star’s inexhaustible energy resource, and he remained connected to Vigor no matter where he was—an appendage of the gigantic intelligent machine.