An uncountable number of humans who originated from the Milky Way Galaxy migrating across the Quadrant to the Twelve Galaxies Cluster had intermarried with the inhabitants of the planets they settled on. Seeking out uninhabited planets to do terraforming had ceased. Humans were now integrated into the workings of the whole universe and had taken their place among the stars continuing to colonize their own galaxies. Using their technology, they sought out planets that were already in the habitable zones of their suns that needed no terraforming.
Cruise had a brother who is five hundred years older than he and also half human, but from a different mother who their father married earlier. Since their father was a king, they are both half-human princes of the Kingdom of the Twelve Galaxies Cluster.
His brother, Arthos Daxu, was in search of ancient relics that had been lost in the deep caverns of Earth. It was reported by the accompanying ship that while they were in Warp Drive and traveling one hundred times the speed of light, Arthos gave the command for his pilot to push the Drive for all it was worth. That reportedly propelled Arthos ’s ship five times faster than it had been going and the warp was opened. Arthos’s ship just disappeared into the warp and then the warp was shut. Arthos was gone.
Cruise was standing upon the glass veranda made of gold with his hands upon the rail. His father and stepmother, Dvora, were there.
“Son, I wish you would reconsider,” pleads Cruise’s father. “I and your mother already lost one son. We do not wish to lose another.”
“My brother is not lost, Father,” replies Cruise. “We just don’t know where he is, but I will find him, I promise.”
“But my son,” entreats his stepmother Dvora, reaching up to place her hand upon his shoulder, “There is no guarantee you will find him. The outer limits of the universe are uncharted and dangerous. We both tried to tell your brother, but he wouldn’t listen.”
“I want you both to know.” Cruise turns around to face his parents. “I cannot lose my brother. We are connected, and I will find him, and the relic he went searching for.”
“I rule the Twelve Galaxies Cluster,” Koupiton Hoxenyth replies. “I control a very great part of this universe and yet...I am not able to control my own sons.”
“Father,” Cruise replies, “It is in your name that I go; also for my birth mother. For Arthos it’s the same. If we find that ancient relic, then it will lead us to the home of our ancestors. Imagine the knowledge and truths we will uncover.”
“I see I have raised two stubborn sons. Nevertheless, I will give you the biggest and strongest vessel we have in our kingdom.” Koupiton retreats from the portico back into the house. He had come to live on Cassiopeia to be with his wife and sons, and stayed there after their mothers had died. He knew that the Earthlings were wild and reckless and yet he married two of them and had sons with them. He foresaw the trouble they might get into in the future, being half human and not able to control their inner desires and impulses.
Dvora tried to comfort her husband. “You know the Earthlings have a very ancient culture and they look upon a sibling from a different parent as only a half brother or sister.”
“It’s not so with our sons. They may be half human, but I have never heard either of them claim to be only a half brother,” retorted Koupiton.
“That is what I am trying to say, veki,” Dvora responds calling him the word in their language that means love. “It is a strong bondage they have, and I believe it would be a mistake to stand in their way.”
Preparations were made and Cruise was given the biggest and strongest space vessel ever built just as his father promised him. The ship’s name was Infinity. She was fully staffed with ten thousand members of the crew hand-picked by Cruise, who was also the commander in chief of all of the forces in the Twelve Galaxies Cluster. Out of all Twelve Galaxies, one hundred of the strongest and most powerful vessels were sent to accompany Cruise on his journey. More were being prepared in the event he should need them.
Infinity was computer operated by a voice commanded Artificial Intelligence. She was four times larger than Shovaya, the capital city of their planet Cassiopeia. Being two hundred Earth miles long and seventy wide: She was fifteen miles high at the highest point, and then tapered off at an angle down her back until she came to the rear point. Three of the largest and most powerful engines drove her. The Treshtax engines each were fifty miles long and had a width of five miles at the front and tapered off to four miles at the rear. Two of the colossal engines were on either side of her and the third rested on top so that the rear of all of the engines were flush with the end of the vessel.
From above she was viewed as an oblong orb with a teardrop shape. Being almost flat, but rounded on the bottom, she was streamlined from front to rear with her observation tower being at the front. Besides being a window for stargazing and the astronomical observatory, it also housed the officers’ lounge, meeting rooms, baths, recreation areas, captain’s quarters and swimming pool.
There were one thousand decks, each one precisely ten Earth feet high, except for the four bottom decks. The bottom deck was fifty feet high and housed the energy, thrusters, boosters, engines and every other mechanism that made it possible for Infinity to travel and navigate across the galaxies. The next deck up was just above fifty feet of solid Platainium, which was the hardest metal substance that had ever been discovered up to that time. It was also the lightest metal and protected the upper decks from radiation emitted by the engines.
The next deck up was a virtual world of delight for the crew. It was divided into four sections that represented each of the seasons on Cassiopeia that were very similar to Earth’s seasons, except for the length of them. The Torrid Island resort, Frigid resorts, Autumnal area and Temperate resorts. Each one spanned its allotted fifteen by twenty miles and were only separated by borders that when crossing, gradually turned into the next season. It was a thousand feet high at the front and tapered to the back.
At the top, equidistant from all the sections, was a virtual sun that regulated the temperature and weather of each seasonal resort as well as the temperature throughout the vessel. For long periods in space it was necessary that the men and women of the crew had plenty of time for extra-curricular activities to keep them happy and healthy, as well as in tip-top physical condition.
Above the resort deck was ten more feet of solid Platainium, and then there were houses, schools, streets, buildings, hotels, factories, shops, restaurants; everything you would find in a normal mega-city. Gravity was always regulated and simulated so that only sudden jolts of jumping into warp speeds were only slightly noticed.
Each level was unique and represented as many different cultures as well as religions from as many parts of the kingdom as possible, including Earth, and what information had been passed down about its history from colonists.
Infinity had its own police force too, and also food manufacturing plants as well as all sorts of farms and ranches for raising crops and stock.
The crew and their families were residents of Infinity. Each crewmember had a mandatory period of time of military service to fulfill. Infinity also carried travelers and colonists who wished to move to another planet or galaxy within the kingdom. Non-military citizens were not legally allowed to travel outside of the kingdom perimeter without documents.
Infinity led the way as the prince of the kingdom and commander of the forces addressed the crews of all vessels as to what their mission would be. They were not told before they came for the sake of security. If word got out to the enemies of the kingdom through spies, it would put the whole mission in jeopardy. One hundred vessels from a hundred different planets, all of them with a part human population that dominated half of the planets, but were ruled by either a mixed couple or couples originating from that world.
The crewmembers manning the vessels were partly human, but most of them were either half human or full-blooded natives of their worlds.
Fifty years had passed since Cruise s
aid farewell to his brother Arthos as he ventured away in search of the lost relic with only one vessel accompanying him. The technology and knowledge usually doubled every five years and the scientists on Cassiopeia, the best in the kingdom, had been working to develop faster and more powerful drives for the vessels.
Of the vessels that Cruise took, five of them were equipped with all the latest technology and driven by Vareilum crystal ore. The Varelium gave the vessels that had it the speed to reach one hundred times the speed of light. The scientists warned, though, that exceeding that speed could tear the engines and vessel apart, ending in a massive one thousand terra-ton explosion that could devastate any nearby planets.
“Take us out, Infinity.” Four words from Cruise was all it took for Infinity to rev up her engines and take them out far beyond their own solar system in less than two earth seconds. In several Earth hours they had crossed a quadrant of the kingdom and were leaving it far behind.
Chapter 3 Treachery
Dvora leaves her husband’s presence and flies across the megacity of Shovaya in her hovercar to the location of her villa high on Oukrecan Pinnacle in the Rocky Verutian Mountains. She was to meet her daughters there to plan a surprise party for Daxu Korth. Before she enters the villa she notices something very strange out on the lawn.
“A glowing rock has fallen from the sky,” she says to herself. “It’s such a beautiful blue stone. I’ll make a pendant out of it and wear it around my neck.” She picks up the small rock, about the size of a fig. Fig trees were plenteous on Cassiopeia. Figs had been brought there from planets that had been colonized by Earthlings ages before. She walks towards the villa and a funny feeling comes over her. She gets dizzy and faints. She was unconscious for a short instant and then she comes to. She sees that she had dropped the stone and bends down to pick it up, but now the stone isn’t glowing anymore. It has lost its glow and also its color. Now it just looks like an ordinary stone.
“Well, what kind of precious stone is that?” she flings it into the garden pond. She enters the villa and proceeds to a transporter that looks like an elevator, verbally commanding it to open.
The camera-like lens scans her whole body and utters words in perfect Quewythian. “Qfymmamt...STU...rojtojh...libxz.” “Scanning...DNA...searching...match.” “Stu xudromiat.” “DNA...confirmed.” The elevator door opens and Dvora steps in. The door shuts and Dvora is transported a mile down in just a few cycles. She steps out of the transporter into a well-lit office with connecting laboratories, hallways and rooms.
The doors on the rooms all have numbers; Quewthian numbers. She walks over to the door that has the number seven on it.
The character used for the number seven looks like a palm tree with seven branches protruding from the trunk. Dvora enters the room to an oval shaped table made of wood from the best Quewythian trees on her home planet Laskaris. It was harder and more beautiful than Mahogany retaining a natural redwood lustre.
“Mother,” says a young woman named Kyn, the eldest daughter of Dvora, speaking in the traditional Quewythian language. “I and my sisters are pleased you could join us.”
“I am also pleased you received my messages and came speedily from the planets you are ruling.”
“Please sit, Mother,” says Kathara, third eldest, gesturing her hand towards the head of the table; the place reserved only for a Queen. Dvora takes her seat proudly and then greets her other daughters in sequence of their age, raising her left hand in the traditional greeting and bowing her head as she says each one’s name. Kyn, Vaneza, Kathara Sarita, Emedria, Ophelia and my baby daughter, Yeralai I am pleased to see you all.”
“We are pleased to see our mother as always,” replies Kathara, as the eldest daughter must do. “Everything is in place we trust.”
“It is, my daughters,” replies Dvora, as she looks around the table at each one. “By the time of our next dawn, when the morning Magenta sky turns to Cyan and the twin suns are high, it will be finished. Koupiton Hoxenyth will be dead from the most powerful wuocuj in the Twelve Galaxies Cluster; the poisonous Quewythian Klinaberry.”
“But Mother,” responds Ophelia, “What are you talking about? We thought we were to plan a party for him and now you talk about killing him. What’s gotten into you?”
Valenza, the oldest speaks. “Have you lost your mind, mother? Father cannot be killed with any poison, even the most powerful of all wuocuj, Klinaberry.”
The queen responds in anger. “Yes, I am aware of that, Ophelia. But he shall be dead to us and the universe. If the antidote is not administered, he will be catatonic.
This will give us the opportunity to take over the Twelve Galaxies Cluster and declare the usurpers and half-brothers Cruise and Arthos traitors. We will all testify that they jointly planned and commanded the poisoning of their father, and unlimited powers shall be granted to me...and my birth daughters.”
Her daughters were not able to resist their mother’s demands. They seemed to have had no will of their own. She seemed to be controlling them somehow. Just as Dvora had explained to her daughters, the next morning after the Daxu Korth, ruler of the Twelve Galaxies Cluster had his morning meal, he became sick.
“I’ve been poisoned.” He knew right away. The doctors confirmed his suspicions and at once administered an antidote. “Bring Dvora to me at once.” The antidote worked only partly as that particular poison was very powerful.
“We have to have a stronger antidote made in the laboratory,” says Physician Ochacia, the head doctor and surgeon commander of the planet. He called his assistants by cyber phone at the laboratory and gave them instructions on how to make the antidote. “You must rest. I will keep giving you doses of the antidote I have, but if the stronger antidote does not get here soon, within two phases you will fall into a catatonic state.”
“But I can’t go to sleep for two nights,” replies Daxu Korth, slightly delirious, using the earth English language term for two phases.
“Where is Dvora? I sent for her,” the king muttered. Daxu Korth lived in the Citadel from which he ruled the Twelve Galaxies. It was a virtual city in itself in the mountains outside of Cassiopeia’s capital city of Shovaya, but considerably smaller covering an area equal to five thousand acres on earth.
The Citadel guards stood their ground. Twelve of them surrounded the inside of the room and twenty-four more were standing outside in the hallway. Fifty more guards surrounded the house.
“What has happened, my veki?” Dvora enters the room running up to the king, who looks at her with suspicion.
“As if you didn’t know,” he mutters, now gaining a little strength from knowing the woman who wanted him dead was there, and he would have justice.
“What are you talking about?” Dvora giggles as if she had no idea whatsoever.
The king then asks for his prosecuting director, who had Dvora’s mountain villa bugged and hidden surveillance cameras installed. The bugs that recorded all conversations were so tiny they could go unnoticed even if they were in plain eyesight. The cameras had been placed in every corner of the ceilings and were transparent, the size of a pinhole. The king asked the prosecutor to turn on the device just above the king’s mantle; on top of his fireplace.
“Dvora,” mumbles the king, “I’ve been having your villa monitored for the past twenty cycles. Yes, believe it or not, our planet has circled the twin suns twenty times already. Time comes and is gone, and soon too.” That’s when my agents discovered it in the Rocky Verutian Mountains.” Dvora’s face dropped in astonishment and shame. Her eyes widened in fear as she heard her husband reveal the truth; that he had been spying on her for the past twenty years. “Let’s see if you conducted any secret meetings there recently.”
A screen that covered the entire wall above the fireplace mantle was activated by the prosecutor’s voice. He then fast forwarded the audial visual and set it to stop whenever there was a conversation. When he played it back, the king saw the faces of Dvora and all of his stepdaughter
s and also heard their devious plans.
He was weakening even more now, but managed to sit up, being helped to his chair by two maidens; house servants. Dvora just stood there, her eyes darting around the room as if searching for a way to escape. The king turned to the guards. “I want six of you to go and fetch my stepdaughters, all seven of them. Find them wherever they are.”
“No,” cried Dvora, “You mustn’t bring them here. It was all a misunderstanding, my veki.”
“My ears did not misunderstand what I heard with my eyes and saw with my ears,” seethed the king. “You know our law. The eyes and ears of two or more together are enough of a witness to condemn you. Guards, seize her.”
Dvora hoped and prayed to the Goddess of Darkness Velrshenah that the king would keel over and slip into unconsciousness before the stronger antidote arrived. That would eradicate the charges brought against her by her husband. She as the reigning monarch had legal immunity. She could not be charged with any crimes as long as she reigned and neither could her birth offspring.
The king also knew this of course, and so did the doctor. Physician Ochacia rushed the order to make the stronger antidote and ordered it transported by Quantum Action. It arrived instantaneously. Quantum Action did not work on living things as of yet, but the king had brought all of the best scientists in the Twelve Galaxies Cluster to the royal Citadel laboratories two thousand years before to improve it. Quantum Action had come into use for emergency situations only. The king made it a law confirmed by the Royal Council of the Twelve Galaxies Cluster. It was a highly guarded secret and was still under testing for distances. The doctor administered the stronger antidote in time, with only minutes left.
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