Forbidden The Stars (The Interstellar Age Book 1)

by Valmore Daniels

  Turning my head, I see their rented vehicles. Ten of them, all filled with white men in suits.

  All but one.

  I disregard the white men. They think they are important, but in the greater scheme of life, they are no more important than anyone else.

  The only important one slowly exits the middle car.

  He is short compared to the men from NASA, with jet black hair, and a deeply tanned, round face. He appears young, even younger than my grandson, though he bears himself like a council elder.

  To honor the village, he is wearing the ceremonial dress of a Mayan priest, which is right and good.

  As he approaches, I reach out for my grandson to help me out of my chair and to the ground, where I kneel before the visitor.

  The white men gathered around shuffle uncomfortably. They think I am just an old man who knows nothing.

  It is they who do not know anything, and their confusion only increases when I pay my respects to the visitor.

  I speak in both Mayan and Spanish, so that the villagers can also understand me. One of the white men translates for his fellows.

  “He said: Greetings Colop U Uichkin, welcome to our humble village. Your mercy is our salvation.’

  “—I think this Colop,” the man whispers, though loud enough for me to hear, “is their god of the sky.”

  I laugh deep in my throat at their poor translation. Colop means Sky Traveler in our language.

  Colop ignores them. Their purpose was only in bringing him back to us, and that has been served.

  Smiling, Colop beckons me back to my chair.

  “Please, Grandfather,” the Sky Traveler says respectfully as the white man translates, “rest your old bones. Do not kneel on my account.” It is so with the kindest of men.

  Colop and my grandson help me back to my seat. My knees crack and pop, but I manage to find the chair and fall into it.

  “Everything will be all right now,” Colop tells me. “I am here, and your job is complete, Grandfather. Our people on this world are well prepared for the return of the People of the Stars. Your Cousins will have many stories to tell you when they arrive. They look forward to meeting you.”

  It is then that my grandson speaks out of turn. Alas, I have not taught him as well as I should have. It is obvious that he now believes in my stories; but he is still young, and has doubts.

  My grandson looks down on this visitor from the stars who looks like a boy, and says: “Colop. You must answer me a question. When our people were taken to the stars, why were us few left behind? Did our ancestors displease them?”

  “No, cousin. The People who were left here were chosen because of their loyalty and intelligence. The ones who were taken needed to be shown the mysteries of the universe so that they could understand their role in the great scheme.

  “One day, they would have to return to the world, and their coming would require guides to bridge the gap between the fourth world—the white man’s world—and the People’s culture. That will be your role in the new, fifth, world of this earth, cousin. You will serve as an ambassador between the People of the Earth and the People of the Sky.”

  “I am sorry for my impertinence, great Colop. Forgive me.” Thus my grandson makes me proud.

  “And now,” I say, “we must feast and celebrate your coming, Colop.”

  The Sky Traveler turns to the white men who brought him here, and dismisses them, telling them to return tomorrow when he will discuss the future.

  The white men grumble and argue, and they glance at me with suspicion, all the while reassessing my worth and value in their political minds. It will serve me to keep the peace between our cultures, but for now, it is time for them to go.

  “NASA men,” I say to them. “A great change will come upon us in our future. There will be hundredfold benefits for all the peoples of the world. You need time to think about how you would like that future to be shaped. Perhaps if you went back to your hotels and talked with each other, you could develop a plan and bring it to us, so that both our peoples can talk this over together.”

  The white men are fond of talking, and making plans. Almost eagerly, they bustle into their cars and drive away.

  Colop, the man in a boy’s body who the white men call Alex Manez, remains with us. He must tell us about his time with the People of the Sky, what he has learned from them, and what they expect from us.

  “For a millennium, you and your ancestors have protected the ancient scroll,” he says to me. “It is in that scroll where we will find what we need in order for the People of the Stars to accept us into their cosmic tribe. You are the only one who can read the scroll, grandfather. It is you who must lead us into the next age.”

  My grandson looks at me with newfound respect.

  I may be an old man, but now, with renewed purpose, I feel young once more.

  THE BEGINNING

  to be continued in Music of the Spheres…

  About the Author :

  Valmore Daniels has lived on the coasts of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic Oceans, and dozens of points in between.

  An insatiable thirst for new experiences has led him to work in several fields, including legal research, elderly care, oil & gas administration, web design, government service, human resources, and retail business management.

  His enthusiasm for travel is only surpassed by his passion for telling tall tales.

  Visit ValmoreDaniels.com

  Also Available:

  The Interstellar Age

  Forbidden the Stars

  Music of the Spheres

  Worlds Away

  Fallen Angels

  Angel Fire

  Angel’s Breath

  Earth Angel (TBR)

  Angel Tears (TBR)

  Angel of Darkness (TBR)

  Visit ValmoreDaniels.com

  __________

  Helix

  by

  J.L. Bryan

  Copyright 2010 Jeffrey L. Bryan

  A newly hatched chickadee will hide from the shadow of a hawk, though it has never seen a hawk before. Like the chickadee, each of us is born with a silent inner knowing that steers us through our lives. And like the chickadee, each of us is born prepared to see monsters.

  Dr. Abraham Cohen

  The Book of Life

  First published 2361

  Nicholas Vermeer watched his city roll past from his seat in the open-air streetcar. All around him, a maze of cobblestone alleys turned at tight angles around warm brick façades. New Amsterdam's urban zone was packed with high, narrow buildings, bridges, and canals, reminiscent of the original Amsterdam back on Earth.

  Brilliant flowers erupted from window boxes, and flowering vines bursting with tulips of every hue climbed the corners of the buildings. Their leaves were a very dark green. The ubiquitous growth helped keep the colony's atmosphere rich and nourishing.

  A consortium of Dutch businessmen had contracted the original design for New Amsterdam colony four centuries earlier. The architects took pains to recreate a classic, idealized vision of their home city.

  Unlike his ancestors, however, Nicholas and his fellow citizens lived in perpetual springtime. He could not imagine suffering through the harsh winters of Earth's Netherlands, thousands of kilometers below the orbital colony of New Amsterdam.

  Nicholas had fifteen minutes to spare--he would just make it to the temple on time. The Aescelan priests frowned at tardiness, and he didn’t want to make a bad impression today, with so much at stake. The priests had probably made their decision days ago anyway, but Nicholas saw no reason to take risks.

  Since he and his wife Kemala were both born to devoted Aescelean parents, the priesthood already possessed complete maps of their genomes. Both Nicholas and Kemala had themselves been carefully screened and engineered by the priests when they were embryos.

  Still, this was the most important day of their lives, and Kemala had insisted on dry-cleaning his police uniform and polishing his three medals, a
ll of them for training or community service.

  He’d pointed out that it didn’t matter, that they would stand before the Council draped in the blank white robes of supplicants, but Kemala wasn’t interested in listening. All day, he’d been uncomfortably aware of drinks and crumbs, wanting to keep his uniform pristine. Nicholas doubted the priests would bother to notice such petty details, but Kemala would give him her most critical eye when they met at Temple.

  His earpiece crackled, and he heard the voice of the police dispatcher:

  “Unit 41, please respond.”

  “I’m here, Hendrika,” he said. “No time to chat. I’m almost to the Temple.”

  “Forget that. We have an emergency, code 12-C. Near your location.” 12-C meant an unauthorized nonresident had invaded the colony.

  “Buzz Jaarl. He likes the rough stuff.”

  “Too late. Medics picked him up already. The 12-C shattered five of his ribs.”

  “Armed?”

  “Negative. He broke Jaarl against a streetlamp.”

  “By the Great Man!” Nicholas was on his feet now, his training taking over. He touched the emergency strip overhead and the streetcar screeched to a halt on its tracks. Several passengers groaned, but they saw his police uniform and offered no complaints.

  Nicholas jumped off the streetcar to the cobblestone sidewalk. “Description?”

  “You’ll know him when you see him.”

  Nicholas looked along the street. The Temple Plaza lay only two blocks ahead, dominated by a marble statue of the Great Man that stood ten meters high. He could still make it on foot.

  The idea of offending the priests, even by tardiness on police business, frightened him. He was twenty-six years old, and had lived a well-ordered life on New Amsterdam: temple, community, family. Rarely did his duties conflict. He felt his stomach twist into a knot. He did not dare offend the priests. At the same time, he could not let a dangerous outsider run loose in the colony he’d sworn to protect.

  Shouts erupted behind him. A police hovercraft streaked a few meters above the pedestrians, who screamed and ducked. Officer Pieter Jansen, Kemala’s least favorite among his friends, leaned out the side, blond hair streaking in the wind, and fired repeated blasts from an electric shockgun at a figure running down the street.

  Pedestrians and street florists shouted and dodged aside as the shockgun’s bolts cooked the air around them. Jansen’s quarry moved in a fast zigzag down the avenue, crashing through tourists and overturning carts brimming with New Amsterdam's famous genetically-engineered flowers—good for decorative, agricultural or industrial use.Nicholas gaped at the intruder. He was huge, a little shorter than Nicholas but exceedingly wide. Judging by the intruder’s speed, not much of that width was wasted on fat. The man’s face was a blur. So were his legs. From here, a city block away, Nicholas could hear the intruder’s deep, grunting snarls whenever he ploughed over an unfortunate bystander.

  The monstrosity hurtled directly toward Nicholas, crossing dozens of meters in a few seconds.

  Nicholas drew the chemical pistol at his hip, let his hand and his eye aim, and squeezed off two smoking tranquilizer balls—he doubted one dose would be enough for the giant intruder.

  The first shot missed entirely. The intruder cut abruptly to one side to dodge a sizzling bolt from above, and the smoking tranq ball grazed past his ear. The other ball smacked into the back of the intruder’s thick hand and erupted into a puff of orange smoke.

  With any normal person, that much contact would be sufficient. The expanding gas vapor would hit his nose or mouth and drop him cold. The intruder seemed unaffected, though, protected by his unusually wide anatomy, his hand being so far from his face. The orange smoke curled harmlessly through his meaty fingers.

  The intruder, still running, looked ahead and saw Nicholas waiting for him with chemical pistol raised. For a moment Nicholas’s gaze locked with the intruder’s small, black eyes, and he felt his stomach lurch again. Something was wrong with the man’s face, especially around the jaw and mouth…

  And the intruder was gone again, a blur of motion turning and darting down a narrow alley of apartment buildings.

  Overhead, the hovercraft twisted to purse, and it nearly crashed into a flower-drenched brick façade. The driver slung the craft aside at a sharp angle to skim along the building wall, tilting so sharply that Pieter and the driver would have spilled out and fallen ten meters to the sidewalk without their harnesses.

  Stupid, Nicholas thought. The alley amounted to little more than a paved footpath, allowing residents easy access to their apartments; it had never been intended for any kind of mechanized vehicle. Nicholas’s earpiece crackled: Pieter.

  “Vermeer, pursue on foot; we’ll circle around and cut him off,” Pieter said.

  Obviously. “Understood,” Nicholas replied. He dashed after the intruder, pistol high. He hoped the narrow alley would grant the intruder less room to escape from the tranq gas.

  Nicholas darted into the cool shadows of the alleyway, distantly aware of the mingled scent of spring flowers and baking bread. Recessed doorways, the entrances to private citizens’ homes, lined the narrow corridor of the alley. The intruder could have hidden in any of these and ambushed Nicholas, but he hadn’t. Nicholas knew this because he could see the monstrously wide man ahead, at the far end of the alley. He’d run through to the next block in less than two seconds.

  Nicholas chased after him, sucking air in deep gulps, boots thumping the pavement. Why today? New Amsterdam was a peaceful colony with almost no violence, mostly known for the delicate and exotic flora it cultivated for decoration, food and medicine. The pursuit of this strange giant was, by any measure, the most exciting police event of the year.

  He could already see Kemala’s soft brown face, the gentle frown, the hardness creeping into her dark eyes. She would understand the importance of his work, of course. That wouldn’t stop her from resenting it. Especially not today.

  Nicholas emerged from the far end of the alley, already well behind his quarry. Pieter and the hovercraft would never make it around in time.

  The alley opened onto another wide avenue, Rembrantstraat, thronged with tourists and costumed street performers and bisected by a dark canal where wooden boats drifted along, bearing even more tourists.

  The hefty intruder shoved through the crowd, heading for the canal. The crowd of tourists aboard a wooden mock-Viking drakker stared and pointed as the intruder pounded towards them. The enormously wide man lowered himself onto his massive legs, and then leaped towards the mock-Viking boat.

  Nicholas raced to the edge of the canal. He glanced overhead. No sign of the hovercraft.

  The intruder jumped high above the canal, impossibly high for any person, especially one so massive. It was a miscalculation on the intruder’s part, though. He was going to land well past the boat.

  “Pieter?” Nicholas said. “Pieter, where in the prophet’s name are you?”

  “Be there in a second,” his earpiece crackled.

  Nicholas watched the enormous man’s long descent. His massive, oddly rounded feet extended before him, guiding him to the street on the far side of the canal.

  “Not possible,” Nicholas heard himself say. The massive intruder crashed into the cobbles across the canal, sending broken chips of stone flying out in every direction like bomb fragment. A loud crack boomed across the canal, echoing off the brick walls behind Nicholas. Pedestrians drew back, screaming, some of the bleeding from the wave of cobblestone shards.

  The intruder’s feet had shattered the cobbles like crystal. His feet! The man’s thick legs ended in hard black hooves, each hoof wider than Nicholas’s shoulders. He could crush my skull with one stomp, Nicholas thought.

  “Hold it!” Nicholas shouted across the canal. “Police!”

  A deep rumbling rolled out of the thing's mouth—either laughter or snarls.

  Nicholas finally got a full look at his quarry. He felt his grip on his gun slip. The int
ruder was not human—not entirely, anyway. His skin was a rough, wattled gray, bristling with sharp hairs, stretched over muscles the size of boulders. His hands looked like they could crush bricks into powder.

  It was the man’s face, though, that caused Nicholas to touch the sacred caduceus hanging from his own neck, an act of prayer. The creature’s eyes were small and solid black. His nostrils flared at the front of a wide, flat nose—the snout of an animal. Cruel-looking tusks curled up out of either side of his mouth, forming a permanent devilish smile.

  Nicholas recognized the blasphemy that had occurred. Someone had created this beast by applying the Great Man’s teachings in a forbidden, heretical way. Nicholas would try to take the monster alive; surely the Aescelan priests would want to learn where it had come from and who had made it. Righteous fury surged inside Nicholas—creating such a thing was a grievous sin, strictly prohibited by the Great Man himself.

  “Don’t move!” Nicholas said. The arched bridge over the canal was twenty meters away. Nicholas tried to determine how fast he could edge toward it without giving the man-beast an opening to cut and run.

  It was imperative to stop the thing immediately, and not just for the public's sake. Behind Nicholas stood a row of art galleries, cafes, and a small playhouse, all of it in the decorative brick required by the colony’s strict urban building codes. Across the canal, the hog-faced monstrosity stood just outside the peristyle enclosing the United Nations courthouse, the highest law on the colony. If the beast injured the U.N. magistrate or her staff, there could be repercussions all the way from Earth.

  The massive creature opened its great jaws and bellowed. The deep, angry, frustrated sound reverberated through the streets; Nicholas wouldn’t have been surprised if all ten million New Amsterdam colony residents heard it.

  “What in the lifeless void is that thing?” Pieter’s voice crackled. The hovercraft swept into Nicholas’s line of sight, flying towards the canal.