Alternating Worlds (STAR-DUST 24) E-Book

Jens F. Simon

• Herausgeber: epubli
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 90

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Sigurd meets the mysterious insectoid human Takaarrath. He too carries a secret, but he himself knows nothing about it; he is the last descendant of the Neensziss people. Aliens who once built the 'City of a Thousand Stars' on Venus and who simply disappeared around 200 years ago after the Great War. Together they set off in search of the legendary AREA 51, where the path to the "New Worlds" is said to be located.

Leseprobe

STAR-DUST

Under the spell of nanites

Volume 24

Alternating Worlds

© 2025 Jens F. Simon

Illustration: S. Verlag JG

Publisher: S. Verlag JG, 35767 Breitscheid,

All rights reserved

Distributed by: epubli a service of neopubli GmbH, Berlin

ISBN: 978-3-819055-19-5

The work, including its parts, is protected by copyright. Any exploitation without the consent of the publisher and the author is prohibited and will be prosecuted under criminal and civil law. This applies to electronic or other reproduction, translation, distribution and making available to the public.

The soul is firmly connected to the human body. However, the spirit, the mental I, is something separate, something independent in the Christian faith. If, by chance, the firm connection between soul and body should ever be severed, it is unalterable that there is no going back. Is that so?

We are often not aware of how much we are influenced by a person's appearance. Only when we also get the opportunity to look inside, we will find the truth. But is it really the whole truth?

Table of content 

Dangerous journey

The old guy from Greenside

Muhlork ‘s scouts

Desert fellows

Restricted area

Ghosts

Takaarrath's secret

The gondola of stardust

Dangerous journey

Takaarrath went ahead and I followed him. He knew the mountain pass and its access kept secret by Sgrull.

The morning was still quite cool, and the few clothes I had been given by Majenna and the daughters of Fammer, which I wore on my body, were not warm.

Out of the corner of my eye, I glanced briefly at the insectoid human walking to my right.

He wore only a single coat of fur over his chitin-like body armor. I wondered again how his body could compensate for major temperature changes.

Did he even have something like a blood circulation and a central nervous system?

In any case, he did not have such a bone structure, as it was present in vertebrates and of course in humans, but an exoskeleton, which was normally only found in insects.

I increasingly got the impression that he somehow did not fit into this world. I quickly blocked my thoughts.

I had remembered almost too late that there was a special mental connection between the two of us. When I concentrated on Takaarrath, it was possible for me to read his thoughts and vice versa it was also easy for him to perceive my thoughts.

Unless I blocked them beforehand. I had practiced blocking again and again in the last days, so I could do it instinctively.

But every now and then, individual trains of thought still seemed to elude my control.

The lush foothills stretched to the horizon. Among the clod-like sand and rock layers, sparse tufts of grass grew as far as the eye could see.

Takaarrath seemed as unenthusiastic as I was. Each was absorbed in his own thoughts.

We had only been on the road for about half a day, and already I couldn't get Majenna out of my mind.

Had it been right to leave her with the mutant family? Had it even been right to just leave?

I just had to realize that there was no real alternative for me there.

Then there had also been the constantly recurring dreams. I suffered more and more from the loss of my memory and in my dreams the path to the new worlds appeared again and again.

Something about this designation really fascinated me. And I associated this path with the mysterious AREA 51.

It was the only right decision to look for the way there, I abruptly disciplined my drifting apart trains of thought.

A cotton wool-like feeling slowly drifting in the back of my mind told me that my thought block was still active.

But what I hadn't noticed, Takaarrath was no longer walking by my side. He had suddenly just disappeared.

I looked somewhat irritated over the barren and very straight plain that still stretched to the horizon. Only there, at the very end, I could make out a darkly appearing elevation, the mountain range.

Otherwise, only tufts of grass that sprouted less than half a meter from the dry and cracked ground.

Where could an insect-like creature over six feet tall possibly be hiding here?

I spun around once and tried to strain my eyes, but in vain.

I could not make out the slightest irregularity on the ground.

I was on the verge of contacting him telepathically, but then decided not to. He was his own master, after all.

The day was already ending, and I reached the foothills without incident. The plant growth increased, which was probably due to an underground water source.

When I reached the first tree stumps that marked the beginning of an area overgrown with light green pines, I took a rest.

I gazed pensively at the vast expanse of conifers that stretched across the slopes of the nearby mountain range.

The ground had taken on an anthracite color, broken up only by the pines, which were about two to three meters tall.

Around the tree trunks, the ground had turned beige. This hue caught my attention.

I pulled the backpack Majenna had given me full of provisions off my back and put it down next to a rock.

Then I took a closer look at the spot under one of those spruce trees. There was a lot of dust when I stepped on the bright spot on the ground.

A fine cloud of ash was rising. The dark layer of soil all around consisted of dark lava rock.

A gigantic slide of a volcanic debris avalanche must have taken place here once. The only strange thing was that there was still light-colored lava ash wherever a pine tree grew out of the ground.

I was so distracted by contemplation that I did not notice Takaarrath until he was already standing in front of me. I was not startled, however, strangely enough.

I did, however, realize that the visible chitinous armor of his body had changed to match the color of the ground.

I noticed this chameleon effect now for the first time. Only the parts of the body that were clothed in fur made Takaarrath stand out from the immediate surroundings.

"Here is a good place to rest and spend the night. My stomach is full and I'm ready to meditate for a few hours."

A loud roar from the steppe behind us made me flinch for a moment before I replied, "So that's why you snuck off to fill your jerkin. All right, let's rest here."

Again I heard a loud roar, followed by many other animal voices. Barking, trilling, quacking, and growling sounds suddenly assaulted us and made the hair on my arms stand up straight.

"Let's make a fire, it will keep the beasts away!"

Takaarrath walked purposefully toward one of the dry and dead pines, of which there were enough in the near vicinity to provide the necessary wood.

I sat down on the ground next to the backpack, leaned against the boulder, and took out a large piece of dried meat.

The setting sun made the sky appear blood red. Again and again I heard animal cries from afar.

I was drinking a sip of water from a water hose made of animal skin when Takaarrath returned, fully loaded with dry pieces of wood.

I looked toward him expectantly, not having even a shadow of a clue as to how we could get the wood to burn. Takaarrath, on the other hand, appeared confident.

With a dagger-like knife, he split a particularly thick branch and laid the wood on the ground in front of him with the cut side up.

He then used the knife to drill a recess with an adjacent notch in the center of the wooden board. Then he took a small wooden stick, which he pulled out of some pocket hidden on his body and placed it with the tip in the previously drilled hole.

In a calm manner, he now sat cross-legged in front of the piece of wood, cracking it suspiciously twice in the joints of his legs, and began to turn the small stick with both hands. Slowly at first, then with light pressure, getting faster and faster.

"Sigurd, take from the branches the withered foliage, grind it in your hands, and drop it as tinder on the glowing wood flour!"

I had been watching him silently all the time as he did this, and now did as I was told. When the first small flames shot up, we hurried to add some smaller branches before the larger logs followed.

In no time our campfire was burning in the last glow of the setting sun.

The animal sounds diminished as the sun disappeared completely behind the horizon. A starry sky looked down on us all at once.

Fascinated, I looked into the glittering sea of the infinite number of suns, observed the brightly lit star clusters and galaxies.

I wondered where I knew all these terms from. It took me some time just sitting there looking up at the starry sky.

I was not surprised that I was so impressed by this sight.

It was almost like magic. Before I started dreaming about traveling among the stars again, I literally forced myself to lower my head and face the flames.

"Takaarrath, have you ever dreamed of entering other worlds?"

In my mind, the idea of the path to the new worlds was already creeping in again. When Takaarrath fell silent, I sought eye contact and found that he was no longer there.

The place where he had been sitting a moment ago was empty.

I resolved to bring up this habit as soon as he was present again.

It made me downright nervous when he just disappeared like that, and I didn't know that about myself at all.

I added a log and was about to lean against the boulder when three figures suddenly appeared out of the darkness.

They moved noiselessly and silently around the fire towards me. At first I thought I was dreaming.

"Hey you there! Who are you and what do you want?" I was about to rise when I could see the faces better now in the glow of the fire.

"You don't have a face," a thought flashed through me. In fact, the nose, mouth, and eyes were almost unrecognizable. Then everything happened very quickly.

"Sit tight, I'll take care of it," I still heard the telepathic message from the insectoid human.

I didn't have time to give my opinion, he had already acted. The three mutants, without making a sound, simply fell to the ground where they stood.

Now I also recognized what they had held in their shovel-like hands.

They had been pointed, small stilettoes, which now flashed brightly in the firelight as they slipped from their hands.

Takaarrath had abruptly appeared from the ground behind them like an avenging angel, and with his mouth spike, some thirty centimeters long and shooting staccato from his triangular mouth, had stabbed each of the three fellows several times through the neck from behind with improbable speed.

"Was that necessary? Why did you have to kill them in the first place? We could have captured them!"

"You don't know what forces they really had at their disposal. There was an actual danger situation due to unknown parameters. I had already noticed them when it was still light. They might as well have made their way around our camp. It was their decision!"

Takaarrath just contradicted himself.

"Danger recognized, danger averted," a thought popped into my head. We could have captured them after all.

"The decision is already past, why still think about it. Here take these two stabbing weapons to yourself. They are no substitute for my mouth spike, but then you will at least be a little more defensible in the future!"

He picked up the two most glittering stilettos from the floor and held them out to me.

I reached out telekinetically and levitated them right into my hands. "Do you really think I would be so defenseless?" No retort nor contradiction came back.