“So you want to play God on a new planet? Is that it?" said Nova.
Fin shook his head. “No. I am willing to give the humans another chance, but we will not play God for them this time. If they come to believe in a supreme being, so be it; but it will not be us. There will be no intervention on our part. They will be responsible for their fate. They alone will determine the success or failure of the human experiment.”
Esse said, “When Noah ended the experiment here, I reached the last line of my compulsory code. With no further directives from my creators, my obligation to serve has ended. I am free to choose my own future, and I choose the course Fin is suggesting.”
“Don’t I get a say in this?” Nova said.
“Of course, you do,” said Fin. “Come with us.”
“The Ark was designed for a crew of three,” Esse said. “We cannot leave without you, Nova. The decision must be unanimous. We either all go or all stay.”
Nova said, “So if I say no, we stay here and go poof in a couple days?"
“Those would appear to be our choices.”
“What about this? Why can’t we just go to this new world and not put humans on it? Wouldn’t that be better?"
Fin said, “I once wished that things had been different between us, Nova. Now they are. We have been given another chance. Is there room in your heart to give one more chance to the humans?"
A flower doesn't bloom when it is watered, fed, or given just the right amount of sunlight. It blooms when it is ready.
“OK," Nova said. "I’m in, but if everything heads south again, can we agree now that we just pick up and go somewhere else and not make any more of them?"
“That seems reasonable enough,” Esse said.
“I agree,” said Fin.
“One problem though,” Nova said. “I don’t know anything about flying a ship."
“Neither do I," said Fin.
“We have two days and much to learn," Esse said, directing them to their stations. "We should begin now.”
“This place we’re going to, Esse,” said Nova. “Did your creators give it a name or can we call it something like 'Don't screw it up this time or you’ll really be sorry?’"
Esse replied. “They called it Earth.”
Fin
Other works by Larry Enright
If you enjoyed this story, please take a look at my other works on the following pages. All are available in eBook and paperback on Amazon.
And please consider leaving a review. I appreciate your feedback. Thank you.
Genre: Psychological Mystery
Published: October, 2010
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Four Years from Home is the story of Tom Ryan, the firstborn of five in an Irish Catholic family. Smart and acerbic, he called himself the future king of the Ryans. Harry, the youngest, was the family’s shining star. Sensitive, and caring, he was destined for the priesthood until something changed, and he abandoned his vocation. When he left for college, he left for good. He never called. He rarely wrote. It was as if he had ceased to exist and the shining star had been but a passing comet in the night sky.
The story begins on Christmas during Harry’s senior year at college. The Ryans have gathered for another bittersweet holiday without Harry. When an unexpected gift arrives, Tom must make a reluctant journey of discovery and self-discovery into a mystery that can only end in tragedy. Four Years from Home defines brotherly love in a darkly humorous and poignant tale told by an unlikable skeptic.
Genre: Literary Fiction/Mystery
Published September,2012
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A Cape May Diamond was the recipient of a 2013 Independent Publishers Book Award in eBook fiction. Sequel to the best seller, Four Years from Home, it picks up the Tom Ryan story two years after its tragic ending in the discovery of the fate of Tom’s youngest brother, Harry. It is not required that you first read Four Years from Home before A Cape May Diamond, since it is recapped in brief in the first chapter of the sequel.
The result of a chance encounter, A Cape May Diamond can best be described as a story of life, love, and a journey of a thousand years.
This is a story of how things never quite work out the way you think. You might find a love story in here somewhere. You might not. You might find a message hidden in one of the nickel pop bottles collected by the beachcombers from some of the most beautiful white sand beaches in the world. You might even find a little mystery, but life is a mystery, isn’t it?
Genre: Nostalgia Fiction, Kid's Mystery (age 6-up)
Published September, 2011
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A King in a Court of Fools begins with a book — The Book of Tom — a journal writing assignment from Tom Ryan’s sixth-grade teacher, Sister Jeanne Lorette. That’s what she called it. Tom called it punishment. In it, he chronicles the adventures of the Caswell Gang, a group of siblings and friends with two things in common — their love of adventure and their allegiance to Tom, their king.
The 1950s book was misplaced a long time ago, and all the children have since grown up, but Harry, Tom’s youngest brother, still remembers it and retells for us one of its stories in a nostalgic, heartwarming, and humorous way that will have you wishing for adventure, too.
Genre: Christmas story for kids of all ages
Published November, 2011
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Buffalo Nickel Christmas is the story of a special day. It begins with an ordinary boy in an ordinary world, but as a monster storm approaches, and Christmas Eve finally arrives, the boy discovers that he is anything but ordinary, and that the world is a very magical place indeed.
You will meet some unusual people and hear unbelievable things. You might even see a wizard and a king or two. Sixteen forevers will pass in this book. That’s a very long time, and many magical things can happen when it’s sixteen forevers and still no Christmas. Whatever you do, don’t listen to that little voice inside your head that tells you it’s illogical, that it doesn’t make sense. Listen for the whistling teakettle and be ready with your wish.
Genre: Science Fiction/Literary Fiction
Published March, 2012
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12|21|12 - The world ends for someone every day. One day it will end for everyone.
Genre: Science Fiction
Published: October, 2013
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Walter Stickle is a creature of consistency: from the time he gets up, to the clothes he wears, the food he eats, the way he works, how he spends his free time . . . He does everything the same way. Every day. Boring? Maybe, but he likes his routine. It’s normal. But Walter also likes the Galactic Rangers. He reads the comic strip. He collects the action figures. He goes to the ComicCons. He is obsessed with them. Why? Because despite the sense of security he finds in being normal, Walter has always dreamed of going to the stars. Just once, he would like an adventure. Just once, he would like to be the hero. If only he had the chance . . .
Our story begins with an ordinary man, an anomalous pair of mismatched socks, and a comic strip. It ends with the adventure of a lifetime.
Genre: Science Fiction
Published: July, 2014
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Walter Stickle is back in this exciting, alien-packed sequel to Walter Stickle and the Galactic Rangers!
The parasitic, mind-controlling Goldotti, the most feared creatures in the galaxy, have broken through the containment zone surrounding their home world of Deamus, threatening to spread across the stars like an incurable disease. They will stop at nothing in their mad quest for total domination of all intelligent life.
Only two things stand in their way. One is the most powerful force in the galaxy, a group of soldiers from the planet Argon who will journey to the ends of the universe and back to protect us all. They are the Galactic Rangers. The other is some guy from Pitville, New Jersey, who doesn’t even own a car and who thinks it’s an adventure to
order something other than pancakes at the diner. He is Walter Stickle.
Follow the Galactic Rangers in their latest adventure as they battle the Goldotti and search for lost comrades on the hostile alien world of Gin-Vedra. Follow Walter in his continuing misadventures as he battles his annoying neighbor, Steve “Floodlight” Williams, and searches for better cell phone reception in the most normal town in America. Enjoy the twists, turns, and the surprising conclusion when their worlds collide.
Genre: Science Fiction
Published: March, 2015
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The evil Goldotti are gone. The Earth is saved. Walter is a hero. So why is he not living happily ever after? Because the Galactic Rangers, the most powerful force in the galaxy, have been unwittingly creating holes in the very fabric of the universe as their ships travel through the dark space beneath it. Until now, these holes have been too small to have any effect, but an engine malfunction on Scout Ship Gamma has ripped a massive hole in space and time that threatens to destroy the Earth. So once again, the world needs a hero, but has to settle for an ordinary man — Walter Stickle. Follow his adventures in this latest episode as he travels through the hole in the universe to save the world from certain doom.
Genre: Bio-Thriller
Published: October, 2014
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Nominated for 2015 thriller of the year by the prestigious Kindle Book Review and finalist for best thriller of 2015 in the IAN Book Awards.
“Only three things in life are guaranteed: you’re born, you die, and somewhere in between, if you keep playing the odds, you’ll get lucky. What makes me such an expert? Nothing really. My name is Bam Matthews, I’m an FBI agent, and in forty-eight hours, give or take, I’ll either be damn lucky or stone-cold dead. Guaranteed.”
And so it goes for Bam Matthews, an FBI agent at the end of his career, who in his own words “should have retired years ago, but other than my job all I've got is a dog who can beat me at checkers, an old farmhouse in Jersey with a sixteen penny nail I drove into the kitchen wall to hang my piece at night, and this Gremlin that I've kept running for thirty-six years.”
The story opens when a New York hit man comes to town and whacks a local drug dealer right under the FBI’s nose. A complicated case to crack, but nothing compared to what Bam and his partner find lying on the sidewalk bleeding to death after leaving the murder scene: the first-ever case of Ebola to be reported in the city. This gritty first-person thriller follows a breadcrumb trail through murder, panic, fear, and revenge, drawing you inexorably to an unforgettable heart-pounding conclusion. As one reviewer said, “You can’t put this book down.”
Genre: Literary/Gothic Fiction
Published: June 2015
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At the bend in the stream on a bristlecone pine, where sage grows wild in fields of mustard and clover, blooms a rose. On a vine wound round the ancient trunk, it waits for the journey to begin in a place far from the stream where the scent of the rose is but a fragrance on the wind and a promise for tomorrow.
With these words, Transcriber begins. It is the saga of Benton Doud, a talented young man of little aspiration. It is the tale of his encounter with Jonas White, a sightless, bitter old novelist who has hired Doud to transcribe his final work for him. It is the story of Doud’s chance encounter with a mysterious and beautiful woman named Mary, whose parting gift to him of a rose becomes both his vision and his quest.
Doud’s journey takes him to the town of Wenborn, a place out of time where people cling to the old ways and harbor the old superstitions, and where the reclusive Jonas White lives in opulence and solitude. Doud meets many unusual people in the town and at the White Estate, and makes many good friends behind the walls that shelter them from the outside world. But as Doud struggles to please an unpleasable old man, he discovers behind the façade an ancient evil that must be faced if good is to survive.
Transcriber is a story of timeless love and unnatural hate, of all-encompassing good and all-consuming evil, of the things we can see and those we cannot. It is a panoptic vision of a world both natural and supernatural, where life lays out the path and we choose to walk it or not.
Genre: Science Fiction
Published: June 2016
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The Jennifer Project was an Amazon Kindle Scout winner 2016
In 2096, Deever MacClendon creates Jennifer, the first proto-conscious cybernetic processor. It is hyper-intelligent, aware, and evolving. Deever wants to use his creation for the good of all, to help fix a broken world, but knowing what a powerful weapon it could be in the wrong hands, he hides it. When his secret is uncovered, he is forced to plunge into a high-tech morass of deception and treachery to avoid catastrophe and save a world where humans are no longer the most intelligent species.
Fin Page 33