In the ostracization of the Nanites (STAR-DUST 4) E-Book

Jens F. Simon

• Herausgeber: epubli
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 86

Beschreibung

Sigurd Westall and the organic ship Paurusheya, which presents itself as the material hologram Alethea in human form, share more than just friendship. Together, they face new dangers. When Life-Int-Ltd. is infiltrated by aliens, he quits and, together with his former boss Sir Arthur Newcraft, founds the MBF organization based on Saturn's moon Japetus. Joining him are his old colleagues Mark Merlin, Selin Wiegand and Amanda Lerch. The organization is supposed to monitor and control extraterrestrial activity within the solar system. When Sigurd visits the Venus base TRISHARANA, the first confrontation occurs. Two huge alien ships appear near the Pluto orbit.

Leseprobe

STAR-DUST

Under the spell of nanites

Volume 4

In the ostracization of the Nanites

© 2024 Jens F. Simon

Illustration: S. Verlag JG

Publisher: S. Verlag JG, 35767 Breitscheid,

All rights reserved

Distribution: epubli a service of neopubli GmbH, Berlin

ISBN: 978-3-818715-55-7

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.

Table of content

Trouble with Life-Int-Ltd.

Sir Arthur Newcraft

Space alarm

The Venus Station

The ultimate reality of the universe

PAURUSHEYA intervenes

The kidnapping

The path is the goal. Never be aimless, for the world is turning even if you have not yet found the path of life.

In a person's love, imagination and feelings are of great importance. If a man loves a woman, desire is a part of longing for her. However, if it turns out that love encounters limits that constrict it, feelings are put aside in the ultima ratio. What remains is the imagination to continue the path of love.

The highest reality of being lies in the innermost part of man. To reach it, a certain spiritual preparation is required. 

Trouble with Life-Int-Ltd.

I sat in front of my glass of sherry and mused to myself. Of course, once again I was much too early. That seemed to be a habit I couldn't break. At every appointment, at every meeting with friends and acquaintances, I simply had to arrive half an hour before the agreed time.

It was somehow an inner compulsion. I stared at the glass that was on the counter in front of me and my thoughts wandered.

I had gotten into the habit of always having a glass of sherry before dinner, just as I had with my boss Sir Arthur Newcraft.

Sir Arthur could rave for hours about his sherry or his port.

"The main characteristic of all sherries is that they are first made from a dry white wine, usually from the palomino grape. This wine, once fermentation is complete, is blended with brandy, increasing it from its original 11 to 12 percent alcohol to 15 to 19.5 percent. It is then air-aged in unsealed 600-liter barrels. All sherries are thus originally dry. To sweeten sherries, wines from the Moscatel or Pedro Ximenez grape varieties are added before bottling. The grapes of these varieties are not pressed immediately after harvest but are first dried."

I still listened to his explanations, like the first day I sat in front of him, and he eyed me.

I looked up from my glass, and my gaze wandered through "Comme Chez Nous," currently the hottest restaurant in Brussels' old town.

The walls were covered with fine, dark ebony and reminded me of Sir Arthur's office.

The office walls there were also covered with dark wood. It was about 8:00 p.m. by now.

A lot had happened in the last few weeks. I sat at the counter of this noble establishment and wondered for the umpteenth time why Alethea had not come with me.

After all, she had become a very close part of me in the meantime and after all, she had contributed a lot with her commitment to the fact that my friends and colleagues had made it back to Earth safe and sound and that the aliens had left our solar system.

Alethea had spent the last week together with me in my old home.

I was still amazed that she had simply let herself be talked into it. It had been a nice and relaxing few days, together with my old classmate Delian and his wife Anisha.

I would have to report back to my Life-Int-Ltd duty station tomorrow.

Sir Arthur Newcraft was waiting for me back from a short vacation. He had made some strange insinuations on the phone that had more than irritated me. But he had also not wanted to come out with the language further.

If only he had remained silent. Since the conversation with him, I had been wondering.

Sir Arthur had become something like a father substitute, even if I didn't want to admit it to myself. On top of that, we were keeping a secret together.

Although my new colleagues, with whom I had been on Saturn's moon Japetus, of course knew about me in detail by now. After all, they had witnessed how I had used my telekinetic abilities.

But what they didn't know so far, and that should remain so for the time being, was the fact that also Sir Arthur Newcraft, our all boss, also had the same extraordinary ability, as I had.

As if by chance, I once again looked over to the entrance when Amanda Lerch entered the restaurant. She looked directly over at me and was already waving at me.

She had ordered a table for us at eight o'clock sharp, and it had just become eight o'clock.

All respect. She sauntered towards me when the 'Chef de Rang' was already eyeing her curiously and in turn approached her.

"Hello Amanda, good to see you. You must have reserved a table, right!"

"Hello Sigurd. Of course, you know me. Everything is right with me."

She turned to the waiter. "Lerch, Amanda Lerch. There's a table for four reserved for me at 8 p.m. sharp!"

A thin smile showed briefly on her face.

"Good, I was beginning to think we were going to have to grow old here at the counter!"

The 'Chef de Rang' looked at me somewhat indignantly, went through the name card in his hand on the fly, nodded briefly, and pointed with his left outstretched arm to a table by the long window front.

"Four people, 8:00 p.m.!"

Then he simply left us standing and hurried off to meet another guest.

"He refused to let me sit at the table any earlier."

I took my glass of sherry from the counter and sat down at the same time as Amanda at our assigned table.

"I thought there were five of us?"

She looked at me a little sheepishly.

"Sammy sent me a text. He quit!"

Had I understood correctly? Samuel Darius Sultan had left Life-Int-Ltd? I must have looked quite puzzled because Amanda repeated her last sentence again.

"Yes, Sammy has resigned. He is in psychological care, at least that's what I gathered from his rather terse message. He apparently didn't take the attack on him and the severe injury so easily. Thanks to PAURUSHEYA, his body has been restored but his mind has suffered." 

I couldn't really explain his behavior at all, after all he had always been so full of life.

"Why didn't he contact me too?"

Amanda shrugged her shoulder. Just then the waiter approached our table as Mark Merlin and Selin Wiegand entered the restaurant.

I waved to them, and they came to our table. Mark and Selin acted very reserved, I noticed already when they sat down.

They let eye contact with me at first. Amanda, on the other hand, seemed to be particularly excited today.

Again and again her look crossed with mine.

The waiter brought the appetizer first.

"We haven't talked to anyone about this yet, even though it was so hard for us," Mark blurted out.

"No one would believe us anyway. Besides, the confidentiality agreement you signed with your employment contract still applies," Selin countered.

A brief silence fell again.

"We have given our report to Sir Arthur. Everything else is up to Life-Int-Ltd! What will happen to us, to you?"

Amanda spoke clearly what had been going through my mind for days as well. I shrugged my shoulder.

"Sir Arthur has ordered me to report tomorrow. It's the only one I've come clean with and been truthful about our experiences."

"What is PAURUSHEYA doing, I mean Alethea?" Selin looked at me a little sheepishly.

"Is everything all right with you?"

What was I supposed to answer? Falling in love with an organic spaceship was one thing. After all, there were enough people on Earth who loved their cars more than anything.

But if this car were to present itself overnight as a material hologram with the appearance of a female mannequin, which had now also fallen in love with its owner, things would look quite different.

I had a liaison with an alien organic spaceship. Alethea tried for some time to give herself like a woman of the earth. Alethea, the human embodiment of the starship PAURUSHEYA, which stood for human in reference to the language Sanskrit. We did not know where she came from, nor how she was created, born or who knows what. That was the other side of the coin. Even if she looked human, she was not human. But she was alive, she had feelings. She was special in the truest sense of the word. Mark nudged Selin lightly from the side.

"He's dreaming about his space princess, look at him!"

As if under a liberating compulsion, my three friends started laughing at the same time and I joined in. In fact, I had probably put on a very dreamy look earlier that had not escaped their notice.

"Let's toast to a future together, a future that we can create ourselves through our new opportunities and that will bring us many more fantastic experiences."

I raised my glass and we toasted together.

"It's just too bad Sammy won't be there!" Amanda had thought out loud for a moment.

"He's decided for himself. We should accept that. I would have liked to meet him again, too, to at least say goodbye to him. But as it is, he had been advised by his therapist to cut off all contact with us, with Life-Int-Ltd. immediately. I don't know what details he passed on about his experiences in the Gunzenhausen plant, in any case he didn't get to know the flight to Saturn's moon and the events there at all, after all he was in an artificial deep sleep in the infirmary the whole time." I nodded in confirmation to Amanda.

"No one could have foreseen the magnitude of what we experienced. Even Life-Int-Ltd. doesn't seem to be fully aware of alien activity yet."

I made way for the waiter, who was now serving our ordered meal with two other waiters.

"Sigurd, my boy, first take a hearty sip!" Sigurd Westall was sitting relaxed with section head Sir Arthur Newcraft in his office at the European headquarters of Life-Int-Ltd.

Sir Arthur was handing him a glass of port.

Across from them, the fire was burning in the open fireplace and crackling away. Every now and then a spark jumped over the too small protective grate that stood on the tiled floor in front of the actual fireplace.

Sir Arthur sat down in the old wing chair that stood a little to the side next to Sigurd. Both looked into the flickering flames, while they almost simultaneously brought a glass of port to their mouths.

"Vintage Port, 1959 vintage, one of the best vintages ever!"

Sir Arthur quietly sipped the wine and rolled his tongue. A full three minutes passed before he got on the subject.

"Thank you for the detailed report, my boy!"

Sigurd listened up. Sir Arthur had always called him "my boy" when the conversation got a little more personal, but it hadn't happened as often as it had today. He braced himself.

"I'm really struggling, but with my 78 years I've been able to gain enough experience to be clear about some things before I act."