Bernie Lewis shadowed Freedom and communicated with the commanders on board the shuttles as well as the Mothership.
Five hours after the launch of Brotherhood, the three shuttles converged at the apogee of their polar orbit. They presented a large radar target. The world was watching. The Mothership aligned with Earth, keeping the shuttles between it and the magnetic north pole. It closed in on the shuttles as they orbited in formation, emitting powerful radar blocking of the Mothership.
Bernie Lewis departed from the trio and flew up to the fast-approaching Mothership. He entered the huge craft through a cargo membrane and parked. He then proceeded to the flight deck where he greeted and embraced many old friends.
At the predetermined point, Liberty opened its cargo bay doors and released its red cargo container into space. Moments later Freedom did the same. Its blue container floated in a tumbling orbit, slowly drawing away from the shuttle formation. Finally, with what was the most precious cargo of all, Brotherhood released the children in their white container. For the first time in months the members of the Geriatric Brigade and their offspring were free home-planet Earth’s gravity.
The Mothership descended rapidly toward the floating, tumbling cargo containers and gently plucked each from the void into the Mothership through its cargo membrane. Within a few minutes, the containers were safely aboard.
Speaking from the flight deck, Bernie Lewis thanked the American shuttle crews for their excellent work. Then the Antarean Mothership slowly turned away from the trio of shuttles. The Parman guides were set in place above the flight deck. The membranes were sealed, and the Mothership sped away toward deep space, leaving the empty shuttles behind like a huge bumblebee deserting flowers from which it has drunk all the nectar.
Those back on Earth, aware of what was happening, felt a deep sense of loss. Yet they knew they had experienced something truly wonderful. They had met beings from other worlds, and had, for a brief moment, a glimpse of what their own race might someday become.
EPILOGUE
The shuttles remained in orbit for three more hours, then separated and commenced their individual descents to Earth.
As Liberty, the first shuttle, approached its landing strip at the Kennedy Space Center on Cape Canaveral, the Mothership slowed down and eventually came to a dead stop in the orbit of Venus. The cargo membrane opened and the Probeship, piloted by Bernie Lewis, sped out and away from the huge host vessel.
As Freedom glided safely onto the runway at the White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico, something that appeared to be a meteor streaked across the darkening Caribbean skies. Bernie Lewis, with Bess in the co-pilot seat, guided the Probeship through the Earth’s atmospheric envelope in a fiery descent.
As Brotherhood, the last of the shuttles launched that morning came to halt on the five-mile runway in the dry, hot desert of Edwards AFB in California, the Antarean Probeship plunged into the water of the Caribbean Sea, five hundred miles south of Miami.
A few hours before dawn, the powdery white sands of Cayman Brac glistened like silver ribbons below Jack Fischer’s renovated hotel. On the balcony overlooking Sea Feather Bay, the newlyweds, Alicia Sanchez and Phillip Margolin, held hands and breathed in the sweet predawn air. Peter Martindale and Tern joined them as the sky to the east lightened.
In the lush rain forest below the hotel, Jack Fischer, Phil Doyle and Madman Mazuski carefully covered the Probeship with camouflage netting as the sun rose in a clear pink and blue sky.
On the top floor of the hotel, now renamed Butterfly House, Bess and Bernie Lewis tucked the last of the Brigade infants into their cribs. The Lewis’s, Martindale’s, Margolin’s, Jack Fischer and his two friends would all share in the care and upbringing of these very special Geriatric Brigade children on their mother’s home-planet. Through the commanders, their education would be universal in scope while their secret home on Earth nurtured and protected them. Time would tell what they would become.
The children lay quietly with their eyes open toward the heavens above. They all heard the same message beamed from the Mothership as it left our solar system in Quad 3 of the Milky Way Galaxy.
“Serve the Master as we do.
We are joined to you forever.
Grow in peace.
We love you.”
BUTTERFLY
TOMORROW’S CHILDREN
Book III of the COCOON trilogy
A novel
by
David Saperstein
BUTTERFLY
TOMORROW’S CHILDREN
Book III of The COCOON Trilogy
All Rights Reserved © 2006 by David Saperstein
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.
Published by Ebbets Field Productions, Ltd.
Cover Design by John Jay Moore
Cover art by Alexandra Rutsch
DEDICATION
For Ivan, Elizabeth, Ilena, Chaim, Shai, Noa, Eve, Ari, Larry, Sue, Brianna, Rebecca, Ethan, Craig, Gabi, Blake, Chloe, Cori, Barry, Jacob, Zachary, Jonah, Joshua, Eric B., Andrea, Rayna, Benjamin, Eric H., Amy, Dominic, Joseph, Scott, Joanne, Emma, Benjamin, Shana and Joey.
And all my family of butterflies yet to come
A peaceful, safe and wondrous journey to all
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Michael Hertzberg
David Field
Melinda Jason
Susan Schulman
Sara Camilli
John Silbersack
Rachel Mosner
Ivan Saperstein
Elizabeth Saperstein
Ellen Saperstein
John Jay Moore
Alexandra Rutsch
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE: IN THE GREAT HALL OF KINNEAR
CHAPTER TWO: LEFT BEHIND
CHAPTER THREE: THE SLOOR OF KLANE
CHAPTER FOUR: BEFORE THE HIGH COUNCIL CALLS
CHAPTER FIVE: MESSAGES FROM AFAR
CHAPTER SIX: THE SLOOR EMERGE
CHAPTER SEVEN: THE CHILDREN’S JOURNEY
CHAPTER EIGHT: THE HIGH COUNCIL
CHAPTER NINE: A SECRET EXPOSED
CHAPTER TEN: THE GATHERING
CHAPTER ELEVEN: GOOD TO GO
CHAPTER TWELVE: OUTREACH
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: BEZZOLENTINE AND MANIGRA
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: AN ANCIENT CODE BROKEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: ARRIVAL ON LIAST
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: THE GATHERING CONCLUDES
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: GREETINGS ON PACCUM IN MANIGRA
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: TWO MISSIONS LAUNCH
CHAPTER NINETEEN: REUNITED
CHAPTER TWENTY: A WELCOME ON LIAST
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: FIRST VISITORS TO PACCUM
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: A DIRECT ORDER
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: AN URGENT MESSAGE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: REVELATION AND PROJECTION
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: CONFRONTATION ON ANTARES
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: IN THE GENES
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: A VISIT TO KLANE
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: VISITORS AND DEPARTURE
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: COSMIC CONSIDERATIONS
CHAPTER THIRTY: WHAT WE ARE
EPILOGUE
COCOON
In Book I of the Cocoon Trilogy they left Earth and traveled across our galaxy to a new life.
METAMORPHOSIS: The Cocoon Story Continues
In Book II of the Cocoon Trilogy they returned to Earth on a secret mission to fulfill their destiny – a new race in the galactic family.
BUTTERFLY - TOMORROW’S CHILDREN
Now, in Book III of the Cocoon Trilogy their progeny reach out to share their wonderful secret with the Universe!
BUTTERFLIES WILL EMERGE FROM THEIR COCOONS AND
WITH A BRILLIANT AWAKENING, SCATTER AMONG
THE STARS.
THEY WILL SHARE THEIR WISDOM AND POWERS WITH ALL LIFE.
A GLORIOUS TIME OF TRUTH.
A GLORIOUS TIME OF LOVE.
A GLORIOUS TIME OF BEAUTY.
Ancient Antarean Prophecy
PROLOGUE
On Earth, our journey into space has been called the final frontier. The adventure began with man observing, and then envying, the bird’s ability to fly. From the legend of Icarus; the fertile mind of Leonardo da Vinci; the Wright Brothers first flight at Kitty Hawk; the German V-2 rocket; the Soviet Union’s Sputnik circling the Earth; America’s Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon; the space shuttle; the international space station; unmanned trips to mars and beyond - humans have been reaching ever upward into space. But the journey has been an agonizingly slow and expensive hit or miss process. The farther we reach the more it requires our will to expend resources and treasure. Many feel we must solve our earthly problems before we aim for the stars, while others think the process of space exploration, and eventual space travel and commerce, will forever unite our planet’s human inhabitants. Others believe it is simply our destiny to travel in the universe.
As the Third Christian millennium began, we had taken precious few steps into space since first landing men on the moon. International cooperation was growing, but great leaps forward were held back by our lack of developing new inter-planetary capability, and the frailty of human cargo. Someday, it was hoped, better propulsion systems would be designed to better increase our speed and range. A yet unknown form of suspended animation might enable humans to travel these great distances without aging. All this might take 50, 100, perhaps 200 years. Maybe more. But most believed we would inexorably move out into space. The debate as to whether this was folly, arrogance, extravagance or human destiny rages on.
Optimistic projections put humans on the nearby planets of Mars and Venus by the mid-21st century. Visits to nearby stars, and the solar systems of our own Milky Way Galaxy, might be a reality by the next millennium. But proportionally, these are tiny baby steps into a vast universe whose size and limits are still beyond most understanding.
There is another school of thought that suggests we will go into space as guests of established “alien” space travelers. The hope is that they will share their technology and knowledge altruistically, bringing Earth-humans into space where we would join a vast inter-planetary community of space travelers. Many believe we have already been visited.
But parochial fears and ignorance prefer to portray these alien visits in dark, ominous scenarios. Unearthly space travelers are usually portrayed as aggressive, blood-thirsty aliens, intent on colonization, enslaving us, dining upon our flesh or mindlessly destroying Earth and its population.
Countless books and movies depict violent and pitiless attacks of technically advanced outer-space creatures on an impotent mankind. They show us a universe of gross, fierce, omnipotent non-human creatures filled with blood lust and savage intent.
Those Earth-humans who report they have experienced real-life visitations by beings from outer space consistently maintain they were abducted and then “examined” by grotesque creatures that poked and probed their bodies and minds. The visitors are always labeled as cruel and dangerous. The Geriatric Brigade, and the children of Butterfly House, knew these portrayals were superstitious fantasies conjured out of ignorance, religious fanaticism and fear. Beings from other worlds do not travel through deep-space, across enormous distances, to perform intrusive medical examinations on other species. It was all the nonsense of primitive minds, myths and ignorance.
The Brigade and their offspring understood that the Universe is alive, ordered and functioning - not a place of boogiemen and unfettered evil. There are millions of galaxies, billions of stars, and trillions of planets. Though different in form and substance, life abounds everywhere. Specific existence depends on the physical properties of an environment and the nature of a particular evolutionary process.
The ability to live, function and reproduce is universal. No life is “alien”, and of life in the known universe is similar enough to suspect there is a commonality; a genetic link; a universal beginning common to many – perhaps all. Most life is enduring and conscious. To see life across a broad spectrum, as the Antareans and other deep-space travelers do, leads rational thinkers to believe that there exists a grand and intricate plan at work in the Universe. They see a growing, evolving, expanding dynamic process toward an end not yet understood.
To the Brigade, deep-space travel occurred by chance. An accident. The seniors happened to be living in Florida, as retirees, when the Antareans arrived and eventually needed their help. They were in the right place at the right time.
“But was it an accident?” the Brigade’s commanders had questioned as they began to assert themselves among many beings and cultures, emerging as leaders.
The Antareans answer was simple. “Nothing in the Master’s Plan is accidental.”
Earth-humans were now out in space long before their own evolutionary development and technology might have taken them there. They were traveling, working and breeding among the stars. Their children were very different from other earthly children, evolved far beyond the norm. Their powers were awesome yet their future was uncertain.
If the children of Butterfly House were to leave their home planet, and if they had no contact with Earth again, what might future Earth-human space travelers find in space millennia from now? Would the Brigade still exist? Would their offspring, and generations beyond, have joined the Brigade? Would they be recognizable as Earth-humanoid, or would they have evolved so much that their own species might label them “alien”? And perhaps, as some in the inner circle of the Antarean High Council wondered, might Earth-human space travelers in the distant future find the Universe densely populated with the descendants of Butterfly House?
CHAPTER ONE - IN THE GREAT HALL OF KINNEAR
“Please, you must tell me about the children,” Gideon Mersky begged his host, Amos Bright, as they were scanned at the entrance portal to the fabled Antarean Library/Museum. Security had been heightened with the arrival of so many off-planet guests. Clearance for this private, unofficial tour of the facility was cleared at the last minute, after Bright had taken his request to three Secretariats: Arts and Antiquities, Education, and Internal Security. The latter had overriding authority. The other two were involved in the bureaucratic formality that the ex-commander found difficult to abide since his reassignment to Antares.
Amos Bright had been away from his home-planet, Antares, for nearly one Earth millennium. During that time, he had served aboard a variety of Antarean spaceships, rising through the ranks from rookie Astral Navigator/3rd class to Mothership Commander. He was a confident, self-made Antarean, used to making decisions and issuing orders, unfettered. Adjusting to politics and protocol was a classic difficulty faced by deep-space officers returning to home-planet service.
In his new position, as a member of the Antarean Central Council, it appeared that Bright’s days of deep-space exploration had ended. He was now officially titled, Lawmaker-Judge and, as such, his life moved at a much slower and more controlled, deliberate pace.
“I’m told that the children are excellent,” Bright told Gideon Mersky, as the security scan was completed. The portal seal hummed and began to disengage. “They are prospering far beyond what any of us imagined. It is rumored that when they put their collective minds together they are capable of wondrous things.”
“What does that mean?” Mersky asked, intrigued.
“They seem to be a force unto themselves,” Bright mused. “I’ve heard tell, in council chambers, that some of their parents are disturbed by this phenomenon.”
“So when you say ‘a force’, how do you mean?” Mersky asked, fighting to mask his overwhelming curiosity from his host.
“Oh...certain capabilities they exhibit individually, and as a group,” Bright said vaguely. Mersky was frustrated by the lack of specific in
formation.
“Have they expressed a desire to visit Earth yet?” Mersky asked, looking up at the tall, slender Antarean who towered more than three feet above him. Amos Bright’s pale blue robes trimmed with gold thread, signifying his lofty position, were draped loosely across his narrow shoulders and reached down to the floor, accenting his height.
The children in question were the residents of Butterfly House, on the tiny island of Cayman Brac, in the Caribbean Sea, on Earth, 140 light-years from Antares. Gideon Mersky was one of the few Earth-humans who knew about their existence. He was under the impression that they had left Earth with their parents, who were members of the now famed Geriatric Brigade. That information had been withheld on a need-to-know basis. Gideon Mersky had some insight into the children’s powers, having been involved with their secret births on Earth, more than fifteen years ago. From the time he saw the children’s telepathic powers and their amazing auto-immune systems, he had schemed how he might exploit them for profit.
“No,” Bright answered smoothly. He knew where the children were, and he knew Mersky didn’t. “To my knowledge they have not asked to visit their home-planet.” Bright’s answer was glib, giving Mersky the sense that the Antarean was hiding something.
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