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- Herausgeber: Spines
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
Maze is about pleasure planet far in the future circling a blue sun. It is the story of a few people and a family traveling there, their adventures and misadventures. Because of Maze's blue sun, it is more favorable for people of color to spend time there. However, it is discovered that there is a shape-shifting creature consuming some of the visitors and the authorities are baffled as to how to contain it. An indigenous creature relegated to a specific area, enlists the help of a space exploring woman (Candra) and a man from the GBI, (Brian Bicks)(Galactic Bureau of Investigation to track down the killer but no one is sure if the indigenous creature is killing the visitors or the shape shifter. Also, there is a concern by the governing authority on how much money will be lost because of the killings.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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MAZE
HAROLD DEAN JAMES
Harold Dean James
Maze
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2023 byHarold Dean James
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Published by BooxAi
ISBN: 978-965-578-368-1
for
Kay Francis Byrd
1947-2018
and
Jesse Charles James
1948-2018
“There is love in me the likes of which you’ve never seen.
There is rage in me the likes of which should never escape.
If I am not satisfied in the one, I will indulge the other.”
“It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world;
But on that account we shall be more attached to one another.”
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
CONTENTS
Author’s Note
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Maze is a futuristic pleasure planet. Because of its blue sun which is hazardous to fairer skinned individuals, almost all the characters who live or visit Maze have dark skin with the exception of some of the characters inside of Lillum tanks. Lillum tanks are explained during the course of the novel.
1
Through the lens of her magnoscanner, Candra was able to watch on every continent of the earth-like planet, obscenely tall buildings collapse onto each other, uniform and smooth pavements and streets break and separate into craters wide enough to require bridges to cross, and mile-wide tornadoes lifting and hurling everything out of their destructive path. This was all expected when an alien world was nearly colliding into the formally occupied planet that she watched from a safe distance. What was unexpected, was the lone dog trying to avoid the omnipresent harms.
“Oh Kos!” She exclaimed, “that poor dog. Arnie, isn’t there anything we can do?”
Arnie, the ship's computer, popped up on a screen near Candra. He had a dark complexion and His upper body displayed a cleric’s hat and white collar.
“All we can do is pray for it my dear. That’s why we’re this far away. Safety parameters, you know.”
Candra ran her bronze fingers through her gold, curly locks.
“I can’t watch anymore. Why would anyone leave a poor, defenseless puppy alone to face this nightmare?”
“You know you have a penchant for rescuing things in hopeless situations.”
“Oh, I was wondering why I was with you. I’m going in.”
Candra got up out of the com chair and started to remove her chainmail dress but was interrupted by Arnie’s exclamation.
“Oh dear.”
She turned back to the direction of one of the many screens showing the same catastrophic dance. The dog, after having hidden itself in a subway car, was lifted by a tornado from its home world onto the surface of the invading alien planet. The atmosphere was deteriorating there as well but at least there were no earthquakes or tornadoes. The dog limped out of the car sniffing around for something, anything, familiar but that seemed like an impossibility on its strange new home. It crawled back into the broken subway car.
“At least it’s alive.”
Arnie responded by piping in Staying Alive from Saturday Night Fever up all over the ship and Arnie now appeared in a white suit doing the familiar dance moves from the movie. Candra’s spaceship was ten thousand miles above the too-close-to-each-other-planets, and resembled a large insect in space. It was green and yellow with silver wings and had an inscription on its side reading: O.R.E.S. 1600. The metal mandibles in front of the ship noiselessly and quickly ingested debris that had drifted away from the two planets, sifting through thousands of yards of remains, searching for anything of value. Inside the bug, a vast array of computers quietly hummed like monks chanting in a near coma while analyzing the debris. All the computers lit up on the rare occasion that it captured an item of interest or of value. The spacecraft estimated and recorded its monetary value, then stored the item. Afterwards, the computers all eventually returned to their dull lighting and low humming. Candra took off her dress which electromagnetically compensated for the non-gravitational effect inside the ship and pulled her slim but well-endowed body into her Lillum tank. As soon as she was inside, the computerized gas inside the tank generated gold medieval body armor on her with a helmet to match. Across from her, a half human, half reptilian green-skinned woman of larger proportions displayed her long tongue while licking her long sharp teeth. She was accompanied by two other similar creatures standing behind her who also licked their smiling chops while occasionally hissing. Fire poles lit up the night sky accompanied by a small ground fire separating the two warriors on a barren field of red dirt. The two women unsheathed their swords attached to their sides and the reptilian woman took several swipes at Candra who not only easily avoided her opponent’s attempts but inflicted a few cuts on the scaly creature’s arms and legs. Eventually, they locked blades with intense grins close enough to feel the heat from each other’s breath. The reptilian woman displayed her array of long pointed teeth before speaking.
“I’m going to eat your pretty face Caaaandra.”
“Well,” Candra responded,
“that should at least improve your breath.”
The reptilian woman dropped her sword, grabbed Candra’s wrists and slammed her to the ground. Candra got up complaining.
“Damn! That hurt!”
Candra side-kicked the woman in the gut and jumped to her feet. Both had lost their swords. The larger woman charged. She wrapped her arms around Candra lifting her off the ground, trying to squeeze the life out of Candra and at the same time, attempting to eat Candra’s face. In a surprising show of strength, Candra forced the woman’s arms apart, grabbed her head and brought both of her knees into the woman’s chin. The woman fell backwards to the ground. Candra quickly rolled her body into an upright position. Her opponent rose more slowly but charged again. This time Candra slid underneath and tripped her. Before she could get up, Candra landed several blows to the other woman’s head with both of her fists. The reptilian woman viciously kicked Candra’s right knee. She went down screaming. Her opponent grabbed a nearby sword, aimed it at Candra’s head to deliver the final blow. Candra swerved out of the way. After avoiding a few more fatigued swings, Candra kicked the woman in the midsection. She followed with a series of blows to the head until Candra could barely distinguish her green facial features from her green blood as she lay motionless on the ground. Candra retrieved her sword and held it close to the reptilian’s throat.
“Concede?” The reptilian grinned weakly.
“Next time human.”
The reptilian’s two friends helped her get up and walk away. Candra took off her helmet and smiled. Her mood was interrupted by the sight of Byryn limping towards her. He was tall like her, had a slightly darker complexion partially hidden by blood dripping from several places. She ran the short distance to him as he barely got the words out.
“Took your time….”
Byryn passed out and Candra lifted him off his feet.
“I should have killed that bitch!”
A chime sounded and Candra looked up.
“What is it?”
Arnie’s ubiquitous voice from the night sky responded.
“Incoming star-mail, alpha one origin, priority one.”
Candra gently placed Byryn on the ground and stroked his hair.
“Transmit.”
A remarkably old, thin and sickly male face with metal gear and tubes attachments appeared in the night sky. He spoke with a partially mechanical voice.
“Hello Candy, long time no see or hear. I understand you’re out in Yarr country near the Rylan cluster. Times must be rough. Anyway, I have an assignment for you, that is, if you’re interested. Rumor has it that you’ve lost interest in our little club. That would be a pity for everyone but mostly you. I’ll send the details of the assignment via com-link. The usual commish plus five points and please, don’t forget the regular installment. Also, don’t make me send another pi-one star mail to you. You know how expensive that is, and you know I’ll bill you for it. Miss you Candy.”
The man laughed but ended up coughing before his image faded from the night sky. Exhausted from the battle, Candra spoke in a half whisper.
“Kos damn son of a bitch bastard! Cease program.”
Byryn and everything around her faded to black. An opening appeared and Candra, now garment-less, stepped out of a chamber and was propelled into the non-gravitational field of the ship. The ship mechanically fitted her into the bright silver, chain-mail dress which enabled her to walk normally inside of her ship. The side of the chamber Candra had stepped out of read ‘Lillum gas simulation tank model A77ZXB58493-CNTP.’ Candra walked over to the com and studied the compu-spectral graph.
“Oh come on Arnie, why are you bothering to store this crap?”
Arnie responded petulantly.
”As per your orders Madame, all common and uncommon artifacts, valuable, unknown potentially valuable”…….
”All right, fine! Doesn’t mean I can’t bitch about it.”
“Besides” Arnie spoke up, “you haven’t scanned the collection in its entirety.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Candra replied, “what the hell is this?”
You could hear a suggestion of pride in Arnie’s voice. “Byrinium Crystallo”.
”Candra could not contain her excitement. “Byrinium crystals!”
“The same.”
“Great! You found something of real value.”
Arnie played back Candra’s voice. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
“Arnie, if you don’t stop that I’ll delete you!”
“Careful, I might voice-mail that threat to my lawyer.”
“You go right ahead. By the time they find you, you’ll be completely program wiped.”
“This is being recorded, you know.”
Candra gave Arnie the finger. “Record this!”
Candra looked over the spectral image of the crystals. “Arnie, what’s the selling rate in B.R. credits for those crystals?”
“Low bred. I think you know Balkin Red credits are illegal in all three-hundred and forty-seven par-secs.”
“Look” Candra fumed in a pretentious rage. “If I want a mother, I’ll rent one. Answer the question!”
“For all you know, you may have one already and your rent is way overdue.”
“Very funny.”
“About time you acknowledge my clever wit. The crystals can be sold as Balkin red credits in the Catan Prine region and on planet Vree in the Dagron colony.”
“Dagron colony, who the hell wants to go there?”
A translucent, crystalloid, three-dimensional face appeared above the com-screen.
“Not I, I assure you.”
“Arnie, would you stop with the faces?”
“Stop with the voices, stop with the faces.”
“Please, not now.” Arnie’s face popped out of view. “Get a location on the nearest Betan trade merchant.”
“Anonymous inquiries?”
“As per usual.”
“Time limit?”
“No, just let me know when the com link arrives.”
“As per usual.”
Candra pushed a few buttons on the com and had her garment removed. Without gravity, she pulled herself back into the Lillum tank. After she was in, a new face appeared above the com. Arnie tried a few different colors and hair styles before selecting one that simulated a blue Elvis Presley. He admired his new face and then smiled to reveal multi-colored teeth and finally, a long, pink tongue emerged that was shaped like a flute. Tiny appendages grew from the tongue and Arnie played a short selection from symphony number 40 by Mozart. He laughed at his accomplishment and his laughter and face slowly faded from view.
Millions of miles and moods away, a different face could be seen on large viewscreens. It was a dark-skinned human wearing heavy eye make-up and a laurel crown whose voice could be heard throughout an enormous disco arena. On stage, the singer was dressed like Julius Caesar with many knives sticking out of his back. The other band members, two guitarists, a drummer and a keyboard player, were wearing red leather in various styles. There were ten-foot stone statues of gladiators on either side of the band. Hundreds of people were dancing to the band’s music or just watching them. All the people had dark skin. Across from the stage in a secluded area was a long, dimly lit bar. The bartender looked almost human but mostly looked bored. He was staring at a beautiful woman with big eyes accentuated by colorful makeup which included long eyelashes. The woman had long red hair with sparkles in it and wore a see-through cowgirl outfit which made it easy to notice her large breasts that didn’t seem to be affected by gravity. A man who was terribly sunburnt with dark red splotches on his Caucasian skin, sat next to her. He was wearing the kind of suit cops wear, looked extremely ordinary but was trying to fit in. The woman looked at him, smiled, and he felt obligated to respond.
“Buy you a drink?”
“Do I look like I need one?”
The man looked at her half full glass. “No, not really.”
She took a few sips and commented on his skin tone. “So, having fun in the sun?”
Robert’s face became even redder. “Yeah, went out without my sun suit.”
Not a very smart cowboy, are you?”
“Well, I didn’t believe all the hype about this being a non-white people's planet.”
“Made a believer outta you huh?”
”Sure as hell did.”
While taking another few sips from her drink, the cowgirl’s left breast began to move on its own. It slowly worked its way partially out of the bra, grew a small face and winked at the man. He stood up wide-eyed and she turned to him slightly raising her cowboy hat and smiled.
“What’s wrong?”
The breast returned to normalcy. “Uh, your uh, your… nothing.”
She stood up and he noticed her above average height. “Wanna dance cowboy?”
“Uh, Robert.”
“What?”
“The name’s Robert. What’s yours?”
“Look cowboy, you wanna dance or not?”
“Sure, love to.”
Robert and the cowgirl walked out to the dance floor just as the band finished a song. The crowd cheered and clapped enthusiastically but the lead singer gave a thumbs down to the audience and they become silent. One of the gladiators made of stone looked over the crowd, he then stiffly walked out to the middle of the floor. As he pointed his sword at several people, it emitted a beam of light that scanned their bodies. Their images were translated to the screens and the large crowd watched the selected people in the transmission get eaten by lions on the big screens. The crowd went wild. The music began again while the crowd yelled repeatedly,
“Hail Caesar! Hail Caesar!”
The cowgirl danced wildly and fluidly. Robert was stiff and awkward. He did not notice that she had left the floor until she was almost back at the bar.
“What’s wrong, you didn’t like the music?”
“No,… you can’t dance.”
“Oh, yeah,…. sorry.”
“Can you fuck?”
In a much smaller and darker room, a woman was yelling,
“That’s it cowboy! Ride me! Ride me like a rough rider! Hang on! That’s it! Oh yeah! Oh yeah!”
It was the cowgirl yelling, and Robert was on top of her with nothing on but her see-through cowboy hat and a scarf. A pained expression inhabited Robert’s face as he tried his best to satisfy the woman he met at the disco arena. She placed her hands on his bare buttocks and her hands melded together. Robert started to moan with ecstasy, but his moans soon become screams as his body slowly dissolved into the cowgirl who now resembled a giant luminous slug with four translucent antennae sticking out the sides of her larger, rich, dark chocolate human head. Tentacles grew from the side of her slug-like form and removed her hat from him while immensely enjoying Robert dissolving into her as if it were the most incredible sex she ever had. Her irises were now bright green as she finished consuming him. The physimager changed back into her human form, dressed herself and grew a few more sparkles into her face and hair before leaving Robert’s room with a smirk on her face.
“You can’t fuck either.”
CHAPTER 2
Leaning her pole against the cave wall, Candra used the gloved back of her left hand, moist from humidity, to wipe sweat from her brow. She paused in the thick atmosphere to watch large green and black lizards crawling between narrow paths of molten lava that emitted sulfurous smoke and red glowing light. Her tan khaki shorts and shirt were soaked with sweat. Candra took a length of rope from her waist, cut it and tied her machete to the pole to use it as a weapon. As she came upon a wide path of lava, she sized it up, took a dozen steps back and used the pole to vault over the hot flow. Unfortunately, there were five hungry lizards waiting for her. She crushed one landing and killed two with her improvised spear. One lizard bit onto the spear but she managed to push it into the lava until only its head remained. The surviving lizard decided to find a less difficult meal and crawled away. Candra saw what she came for in this hazardous cave, a tall black tree with few branches and no leaves.
On the branches, were a few pieces of bright blue fruit. Climbing up on a mound, she untied the machete and tied the remaining rope to the end of the pole and hurled it high up into the tree. The branches of the tree caught the pole while a mouth formed and the tree started to consume the pole. When the slack in the rope was diminished, Candra held onto it and swung towards the tree with the machete between her teeth. The branches tried to capture her but she used the machete to discourage them. She climbed to a point where she could pick the blue fruit, did so, and jumped away from the tree. The tree vibrated violently, grew spears and used its branches to hurl them at her. Candra managed to avoid the spears, quickly hiding behind a boulder.
She studied the flow of lava nearby, too wide to jump across and gathered several spears to throw them into the burning river. When the black tree’s spear throwing slowed, Candra ran to the lava river and used the upper part of the spears to hoist her way across the molten lava. Just as she landed on solid ground, a spear hit her in the back. She fell forward onto the hard, red ground and could hear Arnie’s familiar giggle.
“Real fucking funny Arnie.”
Candra took the small bright blue fruit, raised it to her dry lips and squeezed out a few drops. She then decided to take a nap while the fruits juice worked its magic.
Half an hour later, Candra saw the spear that had been imbedded in her back, lying next to her. She felt no pain and could not tell where the former injury was. She looked with pleasure at the healing fruit before placing it in her pocket. When she looked up, she saw one more lizard smiling who foolishly thought she might be its next meal. Candra took up her machete. After another thirty minutes, Candra was back near the fire poles. This time, the full moon added to the existing light. The last lizard Candra had encountered was still smiling but roasting on a spit. She administered a few drops of the blue fruit into Byryn’s mouth and his breathing slowed and became normal. His wounds began to heal and he was finally able to utter words.
“You saved me again.”
“That’s my job.”
“Some job you have.”
Candra ripped a piece of meat off the spit. “Try and eat something.”
Byryn started slowly but as more healing occurred, began eating like the food deprived person he was.
“Easy tiger.”
Saliva was dripping down his mouth as he spoke. “This is really good. Where’d you get it?”
“You don’t want to know.”
Byryn slowed his eating pace. “Let me guess, some place where you almost get killed again.”
Candra watched Byryn relax and approached him with water and a smile. “You’re worth it.”
“Yeah, well thank you but I don’t want to do this anymore.”
“What! What are you talking about?”
“Ahh come on Candra. Our whole existence is you rescuing me! What kind of a life is that? You do the fighting. I do the running and hiding.”
Candra gently placed her left hand on Byryn’s slightly bearded face. “That’s all we do?”
Byryn blushed.
“Well, no. But come to think of it, why is it that the only time we have any peace and quiet is when we’re making love?”
Candra smiled broadly. “I don’t know, perhaps we’re not making love enough?”
The thought had not occurred to Byryn and he stopped eating. “Really?”
“I think it’s worth investigating.” Candra took off her top. Byryn stood up and started taking off his clothes while admiring the view standing in front of him. “You might be right.”
CHAPTER 3
Captain Helance Mozilli looked at the picture of Robert Callins on the com screen in his dimly lit office. He slid his wide fingers across the screen to get a few different views of the only white man on Maze, now presumed deceased. Mozilli’s face looked like a combination of unremarkable slits that seemed to express that he was indefinitely in pain. He looked away from the screen and up at the two detectives standing across from him. Observing them seemed to increase his discomfort. Nevertheless, he turned the screen towards them.
“Either one of you see this guy before?”
The men looked at a picture of the severely sunburnt man after he was released from a first aid clinic. Felker spoke up.
“Isn’t that the white guy who stepped outside without a sunsuit?”
Mozilli shook his head. “By god Felker, you are a detective aren’t you?”
Felker, whose nose and lips were too big and always looked like he was never really awake always spoke for the two of them.
“He’s not on the missing tourist list, is he?”
Mozilli sighed. “Yep, and he’s G.B.I.”
“G.B.I.?”
Wex blurted out. Mozilli looked at him with annoyance because when he rarely did say something, it was as if he were underwater. It was bad enough that he looked like a fish, enormous eyes, long narrow head and ears that seemed to be slightly twitching all the time. But if fish could talk Mozilli thought, they would sound like Wex.
“Now don’t get your feathers all ruffled fellas, special agent Callins was here like everyone else, having a little fun, just.… as a tourist.”
