Asrael

 

David S. Lehmann

 

Raphael.

Die Sonne tönt nach alter Weise

In Brudersphären Wettgesang,

Und ihre vorgeschriebne Reise

Vollendet sie mit Donnergang.

Ihr Anblick giebt den Engeln Stärke,

Wenn keiner sie ergründen mag;

Die unbegreiflich hohen Werke

Sind herrlich, wie am ersten Tag.

 

Gabriel.

Und schnell und unbegreiflich schnelle

Dreht sich umher der Erde Pracht;

Es wechselt Paradieseshelle

Mit tiefer schauervoller Nacht;

Es schäumt das Meer in breiten Flüssen

Am tiefen Grund der Felsen auf,

Und Fels und Meer wird fortgerissen

In ewig schnellem Sphärenlauf.

 

Michael.

Und Stürme brausen um die Wette,

Vom Meer aufs Land, vom Land aufs Meer,

Und bilden wüthend eine Kette

Der tiefsten Wirkung rings umher.

Da flammt ein blitzendes Verheeren

Dem Pfade vor, des Donnerschlags;

Doch deine Boten, Herr, verehren

Das sanfte Wandeln deines Tags.

 

J. W. Goethe, Faust - Prolog im Himmel

 

Raphael.

The Sun sings out, in ancient mode,

His note among his brother-spheres,

And ends his pre-determined road,

With peals of thunder for our ears.

The sight of him gives Angels power,

Though none can understand the way:

The inconceivable work is ours,

As bright as on the primal day.

 

Gabriel.

And swift, and swift, beyond conceiving,

The splendour of the Earth turns round,

A Paradisial light is interleaving,

With night’s awesome profound.

The ocean breaks with shining foam,

Against the rocky cliffs deep base,

And rock and ocean whirl and go,

In the spheres’ swift eternal race.

 

Michael.

And storms are roaring in their race

From sea to land, and land to sea,

Their raging forms a fierce embrace,

All round, of deepest energy.

The lightning’s devastations blaze

Along the thunder-crashes’ way:

Yet, Lord, your messengers, shall praise

The gentle passage of your day.

 

J. W. Goehte, Faust - Prologue in Heaven

 

Book 1 - Welcome to Ketar

 

Chapter 1 - Jubilee

 

Space. The final frontier.

 

Jubilee was a Trekkie and usually that little mantra calmed her down. The television series and its numerous iterations belonged to an age long gone, but for her it seemed like yesterday. She used to watch their adventures in space and wished for nothing more than to explore strange new worlds and boldly go where no man had gone before.

 

But instead of that comforting emptiness of space there was an irritating disorder all around. Distorted flashes of lightning penetrated the black void. As if frozen, they were suspended in space in a random arrangement and twitched slightly at unpredictable intervals. They formed an intricate pattern. A delicate net of ruptured vacuum which covered her little spaceship in a soft blue gleam.

 

Jubilee turned her gaze from those unsettling lights and focused on her navigation computer. Her task was clear: Find out what was going on. Find the source. She suspected she would find some answers at the center of this phenomenon. The exact location was not easy to determine since that apparition kept growing in erratic patterns. She was at least able to pinpoint a rough quadrant in one galaxy and was now combing through a cluster of ruptures light day by light day.

 

Her onboard sensors did not show anything interesting for 26 billion kilometers. Those ruptures did not emit radiation or background noises. In a diameter of space which light travels through in a day nothing was moving or happening. No star, asteroid, or a single grain of dust. She visited lots of remote corners in different galaxies before, but here the universe outdid itself in inhospitality.

 

She closed her eyes and massaged her temples to push that looming headache back where it came from.

 

“A relaxing bath would be just what the doctor ordered.”

 

Her own voice sounded hoarse and strange. She cleared her throat and asked herself for how long she has been wandering through that three dimensional spider web of some unknown elemental force. One month, maybe two? There was probably nothing out there and she was wasting her time and to make things worse she started talking to herself. Shiny!

 

Her spaceship jumped to the next coordinates. The display on the main screen slightly changed. New fractal forms of this abomination which her brother most certainly would find fascinating. She was glad he got a different assignment otherwise his unwavering enthusiasm would have killed her. For him everything was a big adventure. She could not help but smile thinking about some of those adventures.

 

The sensors chirped informing her that there was nothing interesting to be found here and automatically the spaceship jumped again.

 

Something tore her back to the present. At first she was not able to put her finger on what was different. All of a sudden the computer made noises like R2D2 as lots of alerts started to show on her display. Jubilee did not pay attention to those alerts but kept staring at the main screen showing the outside view of her vessel. She was looking without seeing, without comprehending. After an eternity she took a deep breath, blinked and forced herself to focus on that thing in front of her ship.

 

In the distance there was a binary star, but in the foreground her attention was drawn to a small blue orb. Her subconsciousness was still reeling but before the realisation hit her that those ruptures were gone, the com system told her that there was an incoming call from that planet:

 

“Welcome to Ketar. Welcome to paradise.”

 

After recovering from her initial shock Jubilee slowly took her fingers from the trigger of her railgun. She scanned for other ships or space stations but she only found a tiny beacon which sent the automated message.

 

As far as she could tell she had not been actively detected yet. That suited her fine. She activated her shields and went into stealth mode just to be safe. A little scouting from the distance would be sufficient for now.

 

Just a few klicks closer and she would have gone down in the history books of Ketar as its first contact with the universe, but instead she became its witness only a couple of hours into her surveillance of that little blue jewel. First, she scanned for lifeforms on the surface of Ketar and found most of its continents to be inhabited. After that she reached out to those moons belonging to Ketar and found life on one of them. Nothing else was orbiting or moving outside of Ketars atmosphere. She almost thought that without any shuttles or other vessels it was safe to move closer as suddenly a tiny tin can rose from the surface of the moon. It barely managed the distance to the main gravity well. Her computer's analysis of the beacon and that vessel told her that the technology involved was of different origin.

 

This could become interesting.

 

 

 

Chapter 2 - Ben

On Ketar a young man was pursuing his very own - nonetheless completely imaginary - adventures. In reality he was an intern with lots of things to do at the local observatory sitting high above the city. But right now his imagination occupied him elsewhere.

 

To that fact Ben was infinitely grateful. It was his escape from this epitome of boredom called Ketar. Sure enough this was a paradise, but nothing ever happened here. The trouble with this paradise was the lack of conflicts, war or dangerous diversions for over a few millennia. So since his earliest childhood he prefered to live in his own little world.

 

He was leaning back in his chair staring absentmindedly out of the window. His eyes looked many miles into the distance. Beyond the marbled city Hantikor at the foothills of the Zarfet Mountains he could almost see the entire Uhube plane with its woods and the Inverted Mountains. The fertile vegetation was cut in half by the river Tubundo. Its fountain originated not far from the observatory, gained strength throughout the plane and broke forcefully into the valleys of the Inverted Mountains. Now at sunrise a glistening band of light wound its way as far as Ben’s eyes could follow.

 

His thoughts exited the office, climbed a stony path behind the egg-shaped observatory and went not far to the highest elevation of the Great Continent. To the east he could almost peek inside the Inverted Mountains. To the west the ocean surged against the foot of the mountain.

 

Behind the great sea where the Stony Islands and in the south lay another mountain range stretching all the way to the other coast of the Great Continent. The Baalic Ocean with its waves, fog and storms was the vast border between Ben and the other noteworthy continent of Ketar - the Grey Continent. But most Ketari lived on the Great one and in its capital Hantikor. It is an enormous and green city resembling an inhabited park. Tall trees and monumental buildings from all ages that only fade the higher those snuggle up to the Zarfet mountains. Here alcoves open like pores in the mountain containing residents, restaurants and recreational facilities. Above all thrones the observatory on top of the crest near the summit.

 

Ben was a Husru. His best friend Honta a Human. In the past they were hiking up here quite frequently. Sometimes they met the third intelligent race of Ketar while roaming and climbing through the beautiful landscape. Ben missed those days.

 

Now he saw less and less of his friend, but the more of his boss - a Jofaid.

 

The Jofaids seemed out of place on Ketar. Delicate and tall, absent minded and quiet, intelligent and irritating. Whereas Humans find similarity in mammals and the Husru are related to amphibians, the Jofaids had nobody and nothing like them on this planet.

 

Their origin is unaccounted for but no Ketari really cared to ask about the beginnings since they never have been confronted with their end.

 

The daily life and culture is shaped by the ethos of the Jofaids. Thanks to them the Ketari learned what they know about the purpose of life and death. It is a philosophy of conditional opposites and the knowledge of the advantages that brings a life in harmony with each other and their environment.

 

Ben was not all too happy about their need for harmony. In his opinion a little more variety would go a long way. But he seemed to be the only one to complain about too much peace and tranquility on Ketar.

 

The Jofaids are telepaths. The Humans and Husru also learned this ability through their effort. Telepathy is an integral feature of their communications and technology. A telepathic network filled with the cumulative knowledge of Ketar controls every machine and technology on all three continents. By the power of their thoughts every user could operate a vehicle, make toast or communicate over short or long distances with anybody on Ketar. That was not only useful, but mandatory for the Jofaids since they had no mouths or vocal chords.

 

Jofaids are without gender and seemed to possess a genetic inability relating to violence and dishonesty. Their influence on the progress of Ketar was not circumstantial. So to this day there are approximately 2 billion people living peacefully and happily together on this planet.

 

This meant for Ben that he had to go to different places to find his adventures. His mind turned automatically towards the moon.

 

 

Chapter 3 - Ben

 

Ketar has five moons but only one without a name. There are Rang, Ian, Nar and Mar, but the biggest and closest one to Ketar was left unnamed out of consideration of its inhabitants. They probably already had a name for their home, but because of an abstruse hands-off policy nobody on Ketar ever cared to find out.

 

Nobody except for Ben and Honta. As kids they wanted to become spacemen, to barely escape Ketars gravity and other calamities and to discover strange countries and aliens. They were drawing sketches of spaceships and thinking of adventurous scenarios like saving their home world and strange, but beautiful female lifeforms from certain death in distant space.

 

During the day there was not much more than a pale blue disc in the sky, but at night through the telescope the marvelous display of this mysterious sphere would unfold in front of Ben’s eyes. It would always take his breath away. The moon was glistening like an invaluable gem. Dark blue were the deep regions of its oceans, white the shores, dark brown and bright pink the rock formations sculpted by years of erosion. All these colors let the moon sparkle like a quartz crystal lost in microgravity. A striped agate grounded to an orb.

 

After his studies Ben came to the observatory in the hope of shedding a little more light on the history of the moon. He would have loved to stare for endless hours at the surface of the Agate trusting that he would find waving people ready to establish the first contact. His area of responsibility was restricted to archiving the observations of his mentor Osande Kilion.

 

Osande is a lean and slow moving Jofaid and since those only communicate by telepathy it usually was rather quiet in the observatory.

As his mentor was doing his rounds somewhere Ben was often alone. His fantasies kept him company taking him on adventures on Agate. Today it started with a big explosion on the moon visible from Ketar with the naked eye. There was some great commotion on Agate. In his mind they looked like humanlike insects. Lower bodies like spiders with human upper bodies. The explosion caused severe volcanic activity on Agate but many managed to find their way to their spaceships despite streams of lava and pyroclastic fallout.

 

Right in front of his eyes he saw one of those shuttles changing its course heading straight to Ketar. They surely hoped to find help or refuge. Here in the observatory was the best place to spot the visitors. An approaching object would automatically show up on the meteorite detection system. It was slower than a meteorite on a direct course towards the Great Continent. Ben thought he was in the middle of a lucid dream. He saw the warnings on screen, heard the telescopes realign. They would lock on the object, analyze and identify applicable countermeasures waiting for his confirmation to shoot down the possible threat. He was awakened by a telepathic knock on his head.

 

“Ben!” His mentor had appeared out of nowhere. Ben heard him loud and clear. They were facing each other but Osande’s voice came from the backside of his head.

 

“Wake up! It seems like this meteorite wants to disturb your nap.”

 

If Jofaids had a mouth you could have seen Osande smile. Now only somebody used to their company would recognize a treacherous twinkle in his black eyes.

 

“But it’s too slow for a meteorite.” The words caused a deja vu in his mind. He almost wanted to run outside and check for the big explosion of his dream, but the telescopes were already showing pictures of the moon and the approaching object.

 

A spaceship was advancing on their position. A misshapen barrel to be exact. Without a point of reference the dimension of the ship was hard to guess but the meteorite warning system met its responsibilities. According to the computer the vessel was 20 meters long and about 10 meters in circumference. One side was flattened, probably the bottom. The exterior was made of 90% aluminum and a few other impurities. The confirmation for countermeasures was still waiting.

 

“What do you think, Ben? Would it be impolite to throw our visitors back into space with our force field? Yes? Then why don’t you kindly deactivate the shield?”

 

If Ben had had clairvoyant abilities the age of war might never have happened. He finally would have done his heroic deed and satisfied his need for an adventure. But no premonition cautioned him and his fantasy of neighbours in search of help still prevailed.

 

“Welcome to Ketar.”

 

 

 

 

Chapter 4 - Honta

 

While Ben was still sending a telepathic greeting to the spaceship, his friend Honta had to devote himself to the no less enjoyable task of playing the postman. He called himself a pizza delivery boy. Normally he transported scientific equipment for a renowned laboratory of his university, where he was now an employee. From particle accelerators and fusion reactors to nano-accumulators and miniature medical robots, he carried everything that was too expensive or dangerous for the usual transport service.

 

It was so much fun to stay in touch with the academic world and to keep up to date with their latest toys that he almost forgot that he would have to find a real job in the near future that suited his qualifications.

 

The society saw in the humans the reliable and workaholics, in the Husru the innovative and adaptable and in the Jofaids the beautiful-minded and philosophers. So it was expected that he would soon turn to more productive fields in order to integrate into the producing backbone of the Ketarian society. The adventurer in him fought hard, but his modest income as a pizza delivery boy for expensive toys undermined his rebellious determination.

 

But if he had been completely honest with himself, this was not the only reason why he was openly wasting his time here. He was afraid of the responsibility, afraid of failing. He had successfully completed his medical studies with a focus on genetics, but playing God with Ketarian life or any other DNA made him doubt his qualifications.

 

He also had nightmares. In these dreams reality had cracked. The universe was in danger of breaking apart. He slept restlessly ever since and woke up in a sweat. These dreams had such an effect on his consciousness that he suffered increasingly from depression during the day.

 

His present job distracted him a little and also secured his plans for a warm dinner. The scientists of the Star Needle always tipped well and it did not hurt that he had wanted to visit the home of all Ketarian astronomy again for a long time.

 

The architect probably had a column supporting the sky in mind when he designed the still highest building of Hantikor. The column screwed itself into the sky for almost a kilometer, ending almost at eye level with the observatory.

 

Its base is a continuation of the highest elevation, which is situated in front of the foothills of the Zarfet chain. It is a lonely watchtower that keeps the gate to the capital of the Great Continent in view. The base is a huge hall, which today houses the first and only spacecraft of the Ketari. Named after its Jofaid constructor, the Inidium stands there in the shape of an ellipsoid and with its total length of 50 meters quite lost. The inner dome of the hall already has a radius of 500 meters. For which purpose this building was originally intended, nobody knows today, but in this epoch the further dome halls offer space for planetariums over the whole diameter of the column in which several school classes can marvel at what the Inidium has found out on its odyssey to measure this solar system.

 

But apart from the aforementioned school classes no one else gets lost in the Star Needle. Only at the very top, two floors are reserved for a handful of scientists, who seem to be forgotten by the world, who were enjoying themselves with rock samples and the evaluation of the collected data of the Inidium, which nobody else seemed to share.

 

Honta was just about to ask Ben who he meant by "Welcome to Ketar" - for good friends who grew up together, it's not unusual for their telepathic connection to become so strong that they can hear each other over great distances - when someone came rushing out the door. Completely ignored and almost overrun, Honta narrowly avoided a panic-stricken something.

 

He could not, for the life of him, have said whether the rapidly receding apparition was a human being or Husru. In any case, it was no Jofaid with their typical serenity. A little dazed he peered through the open door into the hall behind. Somewhere here he suspected the recipient of his mail.

 

Countless workstations. Desks, computers, laboratory tables, cupboards and large screens dominated the picture. But astonishingly, not a soul was in its place. Honta dared to enter and since there was no one there who could have been interested in him, he strolled on through the hall. He passed screens with data, pictures and diagrams of our solar system. Large boards with formulas and notes clustered concentric rows of chairs around them. Here an orbit, there an analysis of the atmosphere of the fourth planet. The remains of an interrupted snack announced the hasty departure of the staff that normally works here.

 

From a corner of the hall, which was round and flooded with light through stained glass windows in red and yellow, a swelling discussion between several groups of people could be heard. This explained the general absence, and since they were behind a semi-circle of room dividers, they had escaped his first sight. Even telepathically a pure hullabaloo arose which ran the risk of drowning out the acoustic communication.

 

Until now Honta had not concentrated on the meaning of the conversations, since he was still travelling in an official capacity. Suddenly, however, he understood a single word that made him listen attentively. "Spaceship" and somewhere also "alien" and "from the moon". He almost laughed out loud and searched for the author of this joke, when a glance at the screen was enough to make him forget his real intention. The red-hot underside of a spaceship entering the atmosphere was recognizable, clearly not from Ketar.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 5 - Jubilee

 

The telepathic network resounded with joyful anticipation. The inhabitants of Hanitikor converged on an open area of the city park when it became apparent that the visitors were about to land. They transmitted pictures and comments to the network and everyone could follow the First Contact with an alien species live.

 

Jubilee had hacked into the network, but refrained from following everything directly via livestream in her head. It would have had the advantage that she could follow everything from her own perspective, but she was afraid that she would be discovered.

 

Instead, she had them all transferred to the main screen and stared spellbound at the strange scenery. Because of the many overlapping video streams she could have moved freely through the park, but from her current position she could watch everything from a distance.

 

The picture was sharp and stable. She could see faint wafts of mist floating out of the small forest into the park and heard the voices of excited birds and the expectant silence of the Ketari.

 

A colourful mixture of humans, Husru and Jofaids stretched their necks to the sky and heard a murmur that became louder and louder. A glowing ball of fire came closer and closer and dragged a dark smoking trail behind it.

 

The noise of the landing still echoed when the hatch to the hull of the spaceship opened and the first passengers got out. They were clearly human beings with only slightly different physiognomy than the people on Ketar. A particularly important looking stranger stepped out of the spaceship and inspected the spectators with a disparaging expression. He raised a hand as if in a greeting, whereupon the present Ketari broke out in shouts of welcome and cheers.

 

He lowered his hand and his men took position and brought their weapons into position. The general cheering faded away when the alien spacemen started to shoot at everything that approached them at more than 100 meters.

 

Jubilee held her breath. She had not expected to witness a massacre. The Ketari were as stunned as they were helpless. Only a few took flight. The majority were frozen in bewilderment. The projectiles of the invaders, mowed through the rows of onlookers and when the person whose viewpoint Jubilee shared finally understood the seriousness of the situation, the transmission from the park broke off.

 

There was no one left to transmit anything. But the panic spread through the net like an epidemic. The shocking images were transmitted millions of times, so that within moments every Ketari knew what had happened in Hantikor.

 

In her small spaceship over Ketar, Jubilee did not know what to do next. Her thoughts seeped through thick tar and only slowly dissipated from the shock. She almost didn't even notice the new messages on her computer. More flying objects rose from the surface of the moon. After the successful landing of the shock troop, the rest of the fleet set off for Ketar.

Chapter 6 - Ben

 

Osande's face was as white as chalk. His individual face markings stood out even more contrasting than usual. He was marked by a serpentine line from forehead to chin that resembled the plasma flashes that traversed the surrounding galaxies. In this manner, every Jofaid had his own personal fingerprint in the middle of his face.

 

Ben studied his mentor carefully as he waited for instructions. Someone telling you what to do was immensely reassuring, but Osande didn't budge. An irrational thought crept over his mind thinking that he had conjured up this disaster with his fantasies, but this absurd apportioning of blame was interrupted by a new alarm from the meteorite warning systems.

 

A flashing object appeared on the screen. Then another, and then more and more. His hand hovered over the input field to cancel the countermeasures until his brain registered what he was about to do.

 

He turned to Osande.

 

"Surely we could use the shields to stop the alien ships?"

 

Osande tilted his head slightly and only confirmed his student's suggestion with a slight nod.

 

"I mean, the shields are strong enough to deflect meteorites as big as the moon, so these puny spaceships should squash on them like bugs."

 

"These people will all die," Osande reported from his trance.

 

"Either them or us. They obviously have no peaceful intentions and do not respond to a greeting. We must act now or they will be out of satellite range."

 

"The shield is not designed to cover the entire planet, but only to fend off individual rocks."

 

Ben focused on the screen. He knew the shield was only a mile across. That was enough to push away even the largest meteorites. The enemy fleet, however, flew a wide formation and most of them would just pass the shield.

 

"I will simply realign the shield by hand."

 

The computer gave him the individual distances and Ben entered the coordinates of the next spaceship. That which was only a fading signal on his screen detonated in space with immense force. The drive accelerated the spaceship against the impenetrable barrier until it was a flattened can and the fuel tanks finally disintegrated. The occupants were crushed before being pulverized by the explosion.

 

Only seconds later Ben had entered the next coordinates and this time he hit 2 ships at once. His fingers flew across the touch screen and more lights went out one after the other. The alien pilots reacted very slowly or maybe their ships were just slow, but gradually the remaining attackers scattered further and further.

 

"There's too many," Ben said to no one in particular.

 

More than half of them were already caught by Ben, but there were still 11 ships approaching. Ten, then still eight were holding their course. As they left the defensive system's range, five ships were on their final approach to the Great Continent.

 

Chapter 7 - Ben

 

In contrast to the heroic bliss when he had victoriously lived through one of his daydreams, a cold shiver ran down his back. The extent of his deed could not yet be foreseen, but he undeniably had these creatures on his conscience.

 

He had been promoted from a humble observer to an actor. It was what he had always wished for, but instead of rejoicing, he would have to throw up in a moment.

 

It was his fault that the Agates were here. It was his fault that they had shattered on the force shield. It was his fault that the others, whom he had not caught, would kill more Ketari.

How could he have overlooked all this, the Agates' space ability, their deadly intentions, the danger for Ketar. It was all his fault, because hadn't it been his task to observe and recognize these facts early?

 

Great intern. Great Husru. His species was ultimately the poster child for innovation, adaptability and pragmatic perceptiveness. But that had escaped them. In their evolution from their amphibious ancestors to intelligent, land-based species, such carelessness could have quickly cost them their survival.

 

Colloquially called Ichthyo Sapiens, the Husru consider themselves to be true amphibians. They live both lives simultaneously. Water and land are not separate for them, but symbiotic components of their being. Their adaptability is shown in an evolutionary development of a biomechanical respiratory system, which prevents their gills from drying out in the air. To achieve this, a water cycle circulates through their body, which is enriched with fresh oxygen by means of ventilation, a form of lung breathing.

 

Physiologically, they hardly differ from humans and the only thing they have in common with the Jofaids is their black eyes. Their bluish shimmering skin and the phylogenetic features of their breathing at the neck are the most striking attributes. Not quite as visible is their emotional high sensitivity. One could call them highly sensitive, although this is not a negative characteristic. On the one hand this made them more receptive to the telepathic guidance of the Jofaids and on the other hand it made them the sensitive link of society.

While Ben was still struggling with his shock and thinking about where to look for a new job - because he was definitely rid of it - Osande had to listen to some questions from the Curator's office that resembled Ben's thoughts. But Osande was indeed entrusted with this task, and Ben unjustifiably blamed himself for his omission.

 

"Until that day, no activities were discernible that could have even suggested an impending space flight. There were no large construction sites, no launch pads, no test flights or rocket launches, not even satellites or a dedicated observatory. Not even a single living thing looked up."

 

The last remark was an exaggeration, but even this was excusable due to the general shock. Of course the observation of the moon was no longer the top priority of the Ketari. The times when the moon had been mapped with cameras and telescopes were long gone. One had a rather exact idea of the infrastructure, the existing technology and topology. Afterwards the observation had been reduced from a resolution of less than one meter to about 200 meters, because otherwise much more than just one intern would have been necessary.

 

"Can they at least determine in retrospect where they started from?"

 

"We've traced their trajectory, but there's nothing there, especially since they could have changed course after they took off - and no, surface scans haven't found any launch pad or other spacecraft yet."

 

"Which is not to say that there may not be other spaceships. We absolutely must extend the meteor shield."

 

"We'll need more satellites for that." Ben had overheard the last sentences when he entered his mentor's office. "But that'll have to wait."

 

The Curator's secretary looked curiously out of the screen in Ben's direction. "And why is that?"

 

"Because the shield is also our only weapon against them at the moment."

 

"You mean as a weapon against a possible rearguard?"

 

"I believe my young intern is also referring to a way to counter the invasion force that has already arrived." Osande greeted Ben with an appreciative blink.

 

Honta and Ben had already gone through countless similar - albeit fictitious - situations in their childhood. Among the friendly visitors of foreign galaxies, from time to time the less charming occupiers also came along. Of course, they were beaten back every time, sometimes with more luck than sense, but mostly by great plans of the two protagonists. And of course, in the course of their epic exploits, they had devised quite a few weapons with which the invaders were put in their place or rather their own galaxy. Not infrequently, however, the protective shield of the meteorite warning system - which the two friends prefer to call a force field - was deployed to repel or even capture the attacker.

 

He would spare the secretary of the Curator the details.

 

"The shield can be positioned anywhere in space and even moved. The automatic system usually just lets the meteorites bounce sideways, but sometimes we put a field around a meteorite like a glove. We push it to the side rather than let it bounce off when there is a danger of the meteorite breaking and becoming even more unpredictable.”

 

"And how is this going to help us here at Hantikor? Do you want to push the invaders back to their moon?"

 

Osande's eyes smiled. "Dear Secretary, it is more an opportunity for us to isolate the aggressors, to lock them up if necessary, so that we can engage in diplomatic efforts without endangering Ketari."

 

Gradually, the secretary seemed to understand when he received the message that the intruders had set themselves in motion.

 

"How long before the satellite system can be deployed in the manner you suggest?"

 

"All we need to do is realign a few satellites. Maybe half an hour."

 

"Do this. I must notify the Curator."

 

Osande wanted to point out to the secretary that the protective shield only works outdoors, but he had already disconnected the call.

Ben also preferred not to mention to the secretary of the Curator that the force fields could be used in an even more fatal way. It had always been his weapon of choice when they used to wallow in their daydreams. Honta's favourite would have been an option too, but Ben didn't believe it was really an alternative in reality. Besides, Ben's variant used the given resources and was much less expensive. But he should be wrong about reality.

 

Chapter 8 - The Agates

 

A total of six spaceships had landed on Ketar. Another one had landed on the field in the city park of Hantikor, the others were spread over other cities of the Great Continent.

 

12 ships and their crews had fallen victim to the shield. But the remaining soldiers had other things in mind than to mourn over 150 souls. The camp of the 40 men in Hantikor was secured and there was no sight of resistance from anywhere.

 

At nightfall they set off. From their camp to their destination it took them about 20 minutes. They were moving fast and apparently knew where their path was leading them. From their point of view, the city was deserted. They had expected a little more resistance. Nevertheless they hurried now, because the more time passed by, the more opportunity the Ketari had to overcome the shock and organize countermeasures.

 

In a side street a Husru couple who had just fallen in love thought they were safe. They were strolling along a quiet alley in some distance to the landing place when they saw 20 or 30 shadows passing by at the next crossing. Who would have expected that the strangers would start moving again after they had made themselves so comfortable at their landing place. They got away with a fright, and the friend of the young Husru girl was just able to calm her down before she had a panic attack that would have drawn attention to them. They moved away as quickly as possible in the opposite direction in which the strangers had disappeared, away from the central sanctuary of the Jofaids.

 

Via radio they reported their arrival at their destination to the commander in the camp. A circular arch with a diameter of 50 meters opened the view into the mountain for them. The archway disappeared into the ground at the lower eighth and was flanked by two differently shaped columns. On the right the pillar of life, on the left the pillar of death, light and darkness, knowledge and ignorance, joy and suffering, peace and war - the eternal, mutually dependent opposites. On the right the artfully decorated column was organic and yet symmetrical, grown and formed, beautiful and simple, breathtaking and complex. The column on the left was just as artistically designed, but grown together, without system, directed against itself and dark.

 

As admonishing guards they now looked at the intruders and urged them to become aware of their mortality, their ignorance and the resulting suffering, but they broke free from their awestruck rigidity and entered the monumental entrance hall of the temple. Along the wall overlooking the center of the circular hall were images of the Jofaids carved from stone. With an impressive height of 15 metres, they appeared titanic to the observer and all 60 looked at a spherical monument in the middle. A sphere from which a segment was cut out, so that it gave a view of its interior. The sphere was perhaps 3 meters in diameter and shone in a green metallic glow.

 

In order for the viewer to be able to look into it from above, it lay in a recess. A mysterious city in miniature with towers and temples, streets and rivers, plants and trees. One almost expects to see small creatures in this model city, but of course this monument only reflected the past. A long time ago this was perhaps one of the first cities of the Jofaids or even their original home, but maybe the 60 guards with outstretched arms warned of their fate.

 

Today only few know about the true background of the scene immortalized in stone and metal and the Agates were not interested in them, after all it was only the entrance hall.

 

Opposite the archway was a much smaller opening, deeper into the mountain. This opening was closed and only the Jofaid priests had access. They were considered advisors and moral guardians of the Ketarian civilization. The Agates were obviously no Jofaid priests, but wanted to enter nevertheless.

 

Chapter 9 - Ben

 

Ben was exhausted. It had taken them two hours to rewrite security protocols, modify the software, and run tests at the Uhube Plain outside the city gates until they managed to maintain a field of their choice, which remained in place without drifting and stable enough for their purposes. The Curator called them every 10 minutes and finally they could tell him that they were ready.

 

"Three objects are still in the camp. The rest are in the temple below the Prytaneion. Can we secure both groups immediately?"

 

The question was more of a challenge, but Ben's mind was spinning.

 

"Are they taking a tour of Hantikor?"

 

Osande greeted the Curator with an apologetic look for his young intern.

 

"As I tried to explain to your secretary: we can only generate the containment fields in open terrain."

 

"Then we'll just lock them up in the temple," Ben said, earning another one of those looks from his mentor. He turned again to the Curator.

 

"Besides, at the moment we only have capacities that allow us to maintain a single field for a long time."

 

"How long does it take to generate multiple containment fields?"

 

"We would have to re-program the orbits of the remaining satellites first, which is a lot more complicated," Ben told him. "So far we've only been able to realign a few of them and even that took us several hours."

 

"I see. Then the option "Lock them inside the temple" is definitely out, because the temple has many entrances and exits, connected to a cave system that is not even fully mapped." With these words the Curator frowned, so that his markings in the form of hieroglyphics seemed to take on a new meaning. Obviously, he had stumbled upon some unpleasant consequences.

 

It was decided to capture the camp guard. Although there was no alternative, applying the force field to a manageable group and cutting off the only escape route seemed to be the most pragmatic solution.

Chapter 10 - Bondise

 

The Curator interrupted the connection to the observatory and thought about its location. The other landing parties were located before Ravim in the south and Kordu in the north. They had not yet left their camps and so there were no casualties there.

 

Therefore the highest priority was to neutralize the troops in Hantikor. But how to deal with the prisoners, nobody really knew. He, the Curator of Hantikor, least of all.

 

137 Ketari had died a violent death in a single day. More than in the last millennium combined. In his entire tenure as Curator, he has had only two accidental deaths. For 607 years, that was not a bad average.

 

Curators were always Jofaids and often held this office for several centuries. Exactly how long the life expectancy of a Jofaid was, few knew, but since the life spans of the Husru and humans were by far shorter, they regarded the Jofaids as a continuous matter of course.

 

Bondise could only laugh scornfully about the simplicity of the humans and Husru. He had never fully understood what his brothers found so fascinating about these life forms. For him humans were a raw species, uncultivated and aggressive. The human invaders confirmed the obvious and showed where their race would inevitably go if they were not controlled and domesticated by the Jofaids, as here on Ketar.

 

Now he had to fix it. His responsibility was for the city and its protection. While he thought about what to do, Bondise stepped onto the balcony of his office. His legs were already heavy from all the running up and down, but he would only take a break when he knew how to handle this crisis.

 

His gaze wandered over the city's slowly darkening carpet of lights until his eyes caught on the brightly lit Star Needle. A flash of inspiration passed through him. Through his black eyes he saw a lighthouse that should show him the way.

 

In the Star Needle there were usually countless scientists busy evaluating the results of the Inidium mission and the moon observation. Consequently, all those were gathered there who had the necessary competence for this situation in one way or another. At that time the possible scenarios in dealing with the neighbouring population on the moon were drafted there and the decision to let them develop in peace was decisively initiated by those scientists.

 

There one could coordinate the joint action and perhaps even bring about a quick solution to this crisis. Bondise liked the idea of a crisis management team and his hope of fulfilling the task of a Curator in this extraordinary situation gave him new strength.

 

 

 

Chapter 11 - Honta

 

To be less conspicuous, Honta had put on one of the smocks lying around and had been thinking about the situation for quite some time now. Here he sat now, a small courier, in the attic of Hantikor.

 

While the dusk outside slowly gave way to the milky almost darkness of a big city, Honta could not really explain how it had come to this. He had almost believed in fate and had a presentiment of what it seemed to intend for him. But he knew how to successfully block this train of thought from his childhood on its path to manifestation.

 

Almost all his life he was sure that he would encounter a mythical enemy. Fears, apprehensions or dark premonitions? He had never followed this entity to its source for fear that an unstoppable darkness would find and overwhelm him.

 

Ben had a keen sense of his human friend's emotional state. It was he who distracted him from his troubles with ever-new adventures. Honta faced countless facets of his personal phantom - the worry to fail without power, means or will in the middle of a crisis. He did not dare to imagine whether this dark enemy could be found outside, in his immediate surroundings or in the depths of his soul.

 

A myriad of outer constellations Ben had thought up and mastered together with him. They had fought aliens, interstellar disasters (supernovae, black holes, meteorites) and the inevitable fate over and over again, often almost failed and finally always won.

 

Now reality broke into his daydreams with cold immutability - or were his daydreams about to push themselves to the surface of reality? Whatever the case, here and now Honta was sitting with people who were dealing with a problem he had already solved (admittedly fictionally, but nonetheless) hundreds of times.

 

Scientists who had been exclusively concerned with the astronomical intricacies of the Gemini Solar System until then were simply not familiar enough with the finer points of super weapons, diversionary tactics and heroic deeds.

 

A few minutes ago, the Curator had stormed into the Star Needle. He had vented hot air, babbled something about a crisis team and countermeasures, and disappeared as quickly as he had appeared. Obviously not a man of the people.

 

The only useful information was that the observatory was working on a defensive strategy. When he heard about the misuse of force fields, he knew that the idea must have come from Ben. This realization gave him relief. He knew his friend was at his side. He had heard him when he greeted the strangers in surprise and now he was in the middle of one of his own adventures. Honta, however, was still sitting at the edge of the field, well, actually right in the middle of it, but still only as an observer.

 

The atmosphere in the big attic of the Star Needle wavered a little towards order. Someone had remembered his analytical abilities and asked the assembly of about 2 dozen researchers to organize themselves into groups. On a hastily wiped clean blackboard, the words "Current Status", "Moon", "Possible Implications" and "Measures" were framed by the remains of the elliptical orbit of the eighth planet and its satellites.

 

"What is your area of expertise, colleague?"

 

Honta was startled when he was suddenly approached by a "colleague". He looked around and answered his counterpart without thinking: "Genetics.

 

"Well, I don't know which group would be best for you."

 

Chapter 12 - The Agates

 

While the mobile invasion troops penetrated deeper and deeper into the temple of the Jofaids, the camp guard slumbered by the invaders' spaceship. The exhaustion of a strenuous journey had triumphed over the caution of two Agates and the third was about to accept defeat. These pitiful Ketari had left anyway, screaming, so why torture him if the motion detectors would wake him up screaming anyway when a curious victim approached at 500 meters.

 

The supposed victim, however, did not even need to come within 30,000 km of it. In a geostationary orbit, three of the nine satellites of the meteorite warning system realigned themselves. Their common focal point was directly in the soup bowl of the soldier on duty and before his eyes could completely close, he noticed a short flash of light in the air. Like a large cloth the air, only a few meters away from him, had reflected light or was glowing by itself.

 

He must have imagined it, but despite this reassuring realization he was wide awake again. Thereupon he decided to stretch his tired legs to wake up his circulation as well and set off with his lantern. As he passed by, he heard the commander and his bodyguard sleeping unsuspectingly and continued to patrol along the spaceship. Everything was in perfect order and yet he had subconsciously noticed some change, which now made him watch the surroundings with a watchful eye. Nothing.

 

Had he perhaps smelled something suspicious? After he had sniffed in different directions a few times, he was convinced that it couldn't have been that either. There was absolutely no wind and apart from the smell of the campfire, of which now only the embers were left, no other aromas were carried to his nose. He walked on and wanted to see the camp from a distance. Windless? Hadn't there been a steady stream of air blowing earlier?

 

Probably a change in the weather that had woken him up. Content with this flimsy explanation, he banged with full force against the force field. His nose bone crunched and his eyes went black immediately. This also woke the commander and his bodyguard. They ran to their comrade with their weapons drawn. In pursuit of an imaginary Ketari, they briefly lowered their eyes on the unconscious man in passing, saving them a broken nose. Both hit the invisible barrier with knee, gun and head at the same time and fell to the ground dazed.

 

The commander had made a thick bump on his temple, his bodyguard on his forehead.

 

The commander sat up and inspected the situation with wide-eyed disbelief. The bodyguard rolled onto all fours and remained in this position to gather his strength. The unconscious man was breathing at least regularly and now the bodyguard again searched the surroundings for her attacker. With his weapon at the ready he could not make out anyone despite a bright night sky.

 

A warning shot, diagonally upwards, came back unsolicited and tore a small crater right next to his right leg. He stood up carefully and fumbled slowly forward until his hand met with resistance. It was neither cold nor warm, smooth or rough, hard or soft. It just wouldn't go on. The commander was now standing next to him as well and wondered about the blockade. As if his arm would stop working at a certain point and then they both suddenly saw two people coming out of the shadows.

 

Chapter 13 - Ben

 

Osande had been persuaded to take Ben with him, since it had been his idea after all. Besides, they didn't know if the strangers were capable of telepathic communication and so an acoustic interpreter was also an advantage.

 

In addition to his curiosity and excitement of being present at the First Contact with extra-ketarians, he was worried that his plan would not work. Although the computers had confirmed a successful initialization, this was the first time a force field had been used in this way and there were no guarantees that it would hold.

 

Osande and Ben hid behind a lush grove of trees and waited for a clue that the force field was working properly. In the twilight not much of the surroundings could be seen. The irregularly distributed elevations around the intruders' camp merged with the black background. The connection between this hilly landscape and the 137 corpses still lying here in the park made it difficult for Ben to swallow. Should the force field work, the fallen would be paid due respect before the dawn of a new day. They would take their bodies away and give them to their family for burial.

 

Ben almost laughed out loud in this horrible place when he saw the first Agate crashing against the force field completely unaware. With Agate number two and three it wasn't any better, it was even funnier. With their astonished facial expressions they almost killed Ben, but Osande told him to keep silent with a punishing look.

 

They walked leisurely towards the small group when Ben recognised a sudden horror on the face of the Agate with a bump on his temple. The fractions of a second stretched to a terrible slow motion, Ben followed the look of Temple Bump and guessed what Forehead Bruise was up to. But before anyone could have warned him, let alone stopped him, Forehead Bruise fired and at the same moment was hit in the stomach by a ricochet that was set diagonally downwards and hurled him backwards.

 

Dismay was written in Osand's eyes.

 

"Don't shoot!" yelled Ben, "You are in a closed force field."

 

Ben's initial amusement had turned into deep concern and he would blame himself for this dead Agate as he had done with their victims.

 

When they had almost reached the two Agates that were still alive, they slowed down their pace again and kept a reasonable distance so as not to share the fate of Broken Nose.

 

"Please don't shoot any more," Ben begged, raising his arms in appeasement. "You are trapped in a force field, a cage. We don't want more deaths, we just want to talk."

 

Ben didn't know if Temple Bump understood him, but as the unconscious man gradually seemed to regain consciousness, his comrade ran to Forehead Bruise and found him dead. Thereupon he came back to Ben and Osande with an outstretched hand. He began to walk along the force field, letting one hand slip over the barrier. First slowly and then faster and faster and since the force field was in the form of a dome over the Agates, he described a circle while running and after a short time he came back to his starting point.

 

The circle had a diameter of about 50 meters, maybe a little less, and enclosed the entire camp including the spaceship. Ben still assumed that they did not understand the language of the Ketari and took out his computer to communicate by means of pictograms when Temple Bump turned to Osande:

 

"Release us immediately!"

 

His voice sounded calm but confident, his accent a little playful.

 

"My name is Ben and this is my mentor, Osande. You have attacked us and are now in our power, therefore we will be making the demands here. So who are you?"

 

Ben always wanted to say that. It was as if he had become part of his own play. The Agate still scowled darkly at Osande, but then slowly turned its head towards Ben. He looked at the young Husru and gave him a scornful look. He pondered for a while until he finally spoke again.

 

"My name is irrelevant. My clan, the Torsh, are here on an important mission for our home planet, and if you don't let us go, we will not only overthrow the Jofaids, but also wipe out your people, whatever you may be.

 

"What is this mission and how do you know our language?"

 

Ben had a thousand other questions, but he confined himself to these for now. How did they know the Jofaids but not the Husru? Why did they want to overthrow the Jofaids? Where had they gained the necessary knowledge for manned space travel and these weapons? Somehow their primitive appearance did not fit the state of their technology.

 

"We have our sources, and our mission will reveal itself to you soon enough. However, I advise you not to be here when my men return. They will destroy this cage and kill you."

 

With these words he left Ben and Osande, picked up his comrade who was still bleeding from the nose and carried him to the ship.

 

"I think we should leave," said Osande and put his hand on the shoulder of his confused intern.

 

"But we still don't know what they really want."

 

"Enough to plan further steps. They are clearly hostile to us, they have a higher purpose in their attack, and we both should not be here anymore, in case the Curator should fail to deal with the remaining invaders."

 

Reluctantly, Ben was led away from the force field. It was so frustrating. In his daydreams, first contacts with alien life forms were highly dramatic or solemn. The friendly-minded introduces themselves extravagantly and the hostile-minded at least had the decency to name their names and reveal their plan in detail. But Osande was right, they had to leave here and they would not return to the Curator without new clues.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 14 - Jubilee

 

Jubilee cursed her timing. She was definitely in the right place, but at the wrong time - it wasn't the first time.

 

On several occasions in her extremely long life, she had been tempted to interfere with the history of human cultures. What had worked quite well in Egypt backfired with the Maya and Anasazi.

 

As a companion of Menes and later worshipped as a goddess, she was not entirely uninvolved in Egypt's rise to high culture. Later, when she tried to repeat similar things with the Maya, the whole thing ended in their downfall. When only a few hundred years later history repeated itself with the Anasazi, it made her think. She swore never again to interfere in the affairs of entire nations. Her intentions did not last long, but in the centuries that followed, her interference was limited to individuals rather than civilizations. They managed to perish quite well without her help.

 

She suspected that the recent events could not have anything to do with the cracks in space, since they had appeared long before. Anyway, they had disappeared here or were not active, which she had to investigate. Maybe she found the solution to this problem in this solar system, maybe the cure for the universe was right under her nose.

 

She simply had no time for local banter now.

 

She scanned for anomalies and singularities in this sector, but the only remarkable thing were the enormously powerful telepathic transmitters of the Ketari, which were distributed in regular intervals on the surface.

 

The three strongest were located in the major population centres of Ketar.

 

She was able to extract any interesting data about these locations from the telepathic network. She ignored a list with history, population development, climate and geographical location, as well as all the places of interest. Something completely different was interesting though.

 

The current news about these places grew every second. The invasion by the strangers from the moon coincided with the locations of the transmitters. Hantikor, Ravim and Kordu. There's no way this was a coincidence.

 

She located the exact coordinates and learned from the network that the telepathic transmitters were each located in a Jofaid temple and one of these temples had just been taken by a squad of the invaders.

 

Gradually a suspicion arose in her. Maybe she had to take a closer look at the whole thing after all.

Chapter 15 - Honta

 

In the Star Needle high above Hantikor sat 14 Husru and 10 humans, one of them Honta. The absence of Jofaids in general and their lack of interest in space was a bit strange and had extended over decades to most humans and Husru. Exceptions were only those present here, as well as Ben, Osande and Inidi Kilion.

 

In spite of their persistent striving for knowledge and the permanent search for knowledge about the meaning of life in this universe, they ignored the vastness of their own and all other galaxies in a blatant way. Infinity seemed to bore them straight, as if they had seen everything there was to see, tried everything there was to try and already brought a souvenir for their children.

 

When Inidi had started to build a spaceship on Ketar many years ago, the other Jofaids and not a few of the humans and Husru looked at him very critically.

 

What was there already, what Ketar would not have to offer. This planet harbors more beauty and life than on all other planets of the Gemini and the ten nearest solar systems of this galaxy together.

And yet Inidi spoke of a primal longing that drove him on his return into space.

 

No one had ever put his choice of words on a gold scale; it was much more suspected that he had long since constructed his Inidium in his mind and had thus already travelled the solar system countless times. As far as one could remember, there had never been a Ketari in space before. Inidi was the great pioneer and at the same time the last of his kind.

 

Nowadays you don't see him often anymore. Sometimes you could watch him taking a little walk through the big hall at the base of the Star Needle, caressing his beloved and giving her a sad goodbye look. He had never visited his brother Osande at the observatory. Maybe it just wasn't the same to look at the moon through a telescope when you had seen it from up close out of the window of your own (cloaked) spaceship. But maybe Inidi was afraid to see something he had always feared and which had come true today.

 

To the same extent that they punished space with ignorance, they showed unsurpassed love for genetics. There the picture was completely different. While the Star Needle contained only humans and Husru, the genetic labs were mainly occupied by Jofaids. In this field they had developed to luminaries across the board and left hardly a secret unveiled.

 

Honta was all the more surprised when his proposal met with such resistance.

Chapter 16 - Bondise

 

Meanwhile it was shortly after midnight. Curator Bondise walked through the groups formed by the researchers one by one. He didn't even look at the "Moon" group, because he hardly assumed that these two Ketari really had something interesting to add to his extensive knowledge about the Ketarian satellite.

 

The group "Momentary Status" had been busy reformulating the obvious, but at least they had recorded what resources Hantikor currently had at its disposal. A great achievement for half a dozen scientists.

 

Most of them were apparently attracted to the "Possible Implications" group. Here they speculated to their heart's content what the aggressors wanted here, what their next steps would be, how they would react to different reactions from the Ketari and what it would probably mean for the future of research in the Star Needle. He gave this 13 Ketari a full ten minutes as a courtesy, although he could already imagine why the invaders were here.

 

Two Husru and one human formed the group "Measures" and these also caused the Curator the most headaches. He sat down with the two Husru in their light blue coats and looked expectantly at Honta at the blackboard.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 17- Honta

 

A short overview was projected onto the surface of the board and Honta came straight to the point.

"Dear Curator, you have two options: First, you conduct diplomatic negotiations with the invaders, give them what they want and surrender to about 100 underdeveloped neighbors. Your second option is to resist. This will lead to a violent clash between the foreigners and the Ketari. Unlike yesterday's massacre, the attackers no longer have the element of surprise, and we are vastly superior in numbers and technology.”

"I agree, so what do you have in mind?"

On the board, the word "diplomacy" disappeared and more items appeared under "resistance". Honta felt electrified and enjoyed the thrill of finally being active and useful.

"After a cursory analysis of their attack, they possess only basic energy and short-range projectile-accelerating weapons. The penetrating power is low, but effective in the sense of lethal. They have a decisive advantage: they are well organized and trained. Since we must assume that these intruders are only the vanguard, we must find a long-term solution."

"Have you considered the containment fields? We could keep enemy reinforcements away and lock down the unit already landed until they surrender."

"We considered both, but we would need technology far more sophisticated than the existing meteor warning system. It is currently very limited in capacity and extremely slow. We have also lost the element of surprise in this tactic and would not be able to prevent spontaneous action."

Bondise's eyes wrapped themselves in contemplation. The adrenaline in Honta's system sent his heart racing. He was pleased with himself, knowing that the real challenge lay ahead. He had to convince the Curator of his train of thought in a field where the Jofaids had unrestricted dominion.

"So you want to equip the inhabitants of this city with weapons. Do you think that wise?"

"Under no circumstances. It would probably do more harm than good. The overall placidity and lack of experience would not turn an army of thousands of Ketari into a serious threat to a small, battle-hardened force."

To add weight to his closing statement, Honta paused for a brief rhetorical intermission.

"I would go so far as to say that the Ketari lack a genetic predisposition towards violent conflict. Therefore, it is our proposal to use the existing facilities of jofaid gene therapy to optimize volunteers to become soldiers. This would give Ketar an army bred for this purpose, which, equipped with our technological advantages, would definitely be able to master the situation and this within a very short time. We've estimated the effort and it only takes 36 hours to respond."

Now Honta took a breath. This was his weapon of choice when their adventure fantasies were about protecting Ketar. Honta knew the necessary background and facilities of the Jofaids through his study of genetics. They needed gene therapy at regular intervals to counteract the physical deterioration they had caused themselves over eons by neglecting their physicality in favor of their psyche.

The Curator considered him insane through and through. Incensed, he paced up and down the hall of scientists. ‘What he was thinking', 'how he wanted to keep control over something so dangerous' and 'if the Jofaids hadn't thought of something when they had taught the humans and Husru the way of harmony', he wanted to know from Honta without waiting for an answer.

The other scientists had long since formed a curious cluster around Honta's explanations and were themselves no less surprised by the suggestion of their 'colleague'. Was he actually new here? A substitute? He probably had simply been inconspicuous otherwise. In the absence of a need for social contacts, it lived itself excellently undisturbed in the presence of like-minded loners. Of course, they had often seen this eloquent representative of their guild drinking coffee and greeting him in passing, hadn't they?

 

Of course they would stand by one of their light blue coats. What had he said earlier about his specialty, genetics? No wonder he had so little to do with astronomers and engineers. Yes, that must have been it.

Chapter 18 - Bondise

 

Bondise had hoped for more. Something harmless, like a virus or a smart bomb. Instead, this human suggested he should be given the keys to destroying the Jofaids. He would not allow history to repeat itself.

 

The Jofaid High Council, however, disagreed. In the telepathic conference all other 59 members were connected with him and discussed the young human's proposal.

 

Some were in favor of simply waiting until the problem would resolve itself. Others thought it wasn't so bad that they didn't have to take care of it themselves, because if there was one thing humans understood, it was the destruction of their fellow beings.

 

Bondise was boiling with rage inside. His brothers had become soft over the millennia and had apparently forgotten what had happened the last time. He pointed out that after the last great disaster, the continued existence of mankind was subject to conditions. Their aggressive behaviour patterns had been removed from their genetic material and their lifespan had been limited in order to be able to control them better. If they were now allowed to play on their genes, it was quite possible that they would discover the intervention in their genome.

 

A rebellion and worse was in store for them, but nobody would listen. When asked about possible alternatives, he also had no answer. At least they complied with his demand that a fuse had to be implanted in this ominous army.

 

The senior officer gave the final word and arranged that Dr. Gin Hazaget should take care of the execution of the plan. Gin was the head of the genetic research department and was very familiar with the human genome. He asked for the human Honta as an assistant and left immediately to make the necessary arrangements.

 

When the connection was broken at the end of the session, Bondise could only stare at the whitewashed wall opposite him in disbelief. He hoped Gin knew what he was doing, but an uneasy feeling remained in his bowels.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 19 - Honta

 

Outside it was still dark when Honta entered the monumental building. The huge, black crystal pyramid stood on the northern outskirts of the city, overlooking a Jofaid residential area. He had often been in the entrance hall of the genetic research center.

 

Many of his seminaries had taken place in the lecture halls on the ground floor, but today he again looked with the same reverence through the all-dominant sculpture at the higher floors as he did on his first visit. A metallic triple helix spiralled past offices, laboratories and quiet storage rooms until it ended just below the glass pyramidion. The base triplets in between were made of crystals and served as lighting elements for the immense entrance hall.

 

He felt like a miniature researcher who was shrunk to the size of a nanometer to study the DNA strand of a Jofaid from the inside.

 

He became dizzy and his neck began to hurt. He set off again to find Dr. Hazaget's office somewhere in this building. He already had quite concrete ideas of what they had to do. However, the timeline worried him. If they had a few days more time, the necessary modifications to the incubators of the Jofaids and the development of targeted therapies for the volunteers would be easily feasible, but the invaders were already in the midst of them.

 

He hoped that Ben would be successful with his idea in order to give them enough time.

 

After getting lost a few times in the maze-like corridors of the research center, he finally found himself at Gin Hazaget's door with the help of contradictory directions.

 

"Come in," the telepathic voice called him through the closed door.

 

Honta entered and faced a celebrated luminary in his field.

 

"Don't worry, I won't bite," joked the Jofaid with his characteristic tattoo, which consisted of a fan-shaped arrangement of triangles.

 

"Dr. Hazaget. It's an honor to meet you," said Honta

 

"Call me Gin. I have taken the liberty of making the necessary preparations."

 

He pointed to an incubator that was a little further back in his office. Honta was about to go out to present his ideas to Gin, when he interrupted him with a gesture of his hand.

 

"I know your suggestions, young human, and if we can find some volunteers now, we can start right away."

 

Honta was speechless. They still had so much to do, to simulate and to fine-tune at the incubator, that he didn't know where to start to contradict Gin. Instead, he babbled out the first thing that came to his mind.

 

"We already have seven volunteers, but...", he tried to find a diplomatic way to express his disbelief, "but I think we should run some simulations before experimenting with Ketari."

 

"Believe me, I would not manipulate even one base without taking the necessary precautions. Especially not on more advanced species. This isn't the first time we've had this kind of operation here. Trust me, I'm a specialist in this field."

 

"But the DNA of Jofaids and humans are fundamentally different. We need to isolate the alleles to be modified..."

 

"You misunderstood me, young human," Gin interrupted him, "I wasn't talking about Jofaids. We have accompanied humans and Husru since their first evolutionary steps, and I know your genetic peculiarities inside and out. As I said, this is not the first time."

 

Honta still did not understand. The race of the Jofaids was much older than the humans, but with Gin it sounded as if he was almost as old.

 

"I see that you have some questions, but if I understood the Curator correctly, time is of the essence. I need your help to rebuild more incubators following this pattern here. Seven in all, right?"

 

A nod was all Honta could manage.

 

"If we hurry, we can be done tonight."

 

As it turned out, he was not only referring to the reconstruction work on six more incubators, but also to the creation of the first Ketarian army.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 20 - Ben

 

Ben had had a fitful sleep. Yesterday the Agates had landed. Yesterday 137 Ketari and many Agates had died. In his nightmares, it was he who had killed them. But he had also woken up a few times after good dreams. Dreams in which Honta and he had once again saved the world. But as soon as he tried to remember how they had succeeded, the dreams slipped away from him like wafts of mist.

 

As the morning dawned, he gave it up to look for restful sleep. He had spent the last night at the observatory for the first time. His regular intern life had never made this necessary before, but now he was glad that there were some small on-call rooms with uncomfortable beds.

 

When he stepped out of the room, he noticed Osande at a desk near the large telescope, affectionately called "Fat Berta". Jofaids slept little and Ben suspected that his mentor had been working all night.

 

A telepathic "good morning" accompanied him on his way to the observation deck. Yesterday the glider of the Curator stood there at irregular intervals. The last time they had met was after Osande and Ben had returned from the Agate camp. He had told them about the efforts in the Star Needle and was on his way there again when he left them.

 

The Curator hoped for first constructive suggestions from the scientists and Ben and Osande should visit the camp again under the protection of daylight to learn more about the Agates and their mission. The remaining invaders were still in the temple's cave system and would announce themselves long before they were to make their way back to the camp. They had evacuated the corridor between temple and camp and posted scouts at the known exits to inform Ben and Osande telepathically about the impending danger.

 

The viewing platform protruded far beyond the steep slope of the Zarfet. A breathtaking view was offered to Ben as the sun set out over the Uhube plain to climb the amber morning sky. Ben followed the long shadows towards the city and involuntarily got stuck on the Star Needle. Its intricately twisted facade made it look alive and the kilometre-long shadow made it into an oversized sundial. Its hand pointed exactly in his direction, this was his hour.

 

The burden of responsibility almost seemed to overwhelm him when he saw smoke rising near the Prytaneion (the Curator's office). The Prytaneion was on another slope that Ben could not see from his position, but he knew without a doubt that the source of the column of smoke was one of the temple's cave exits. There was no wind and the smoke rose straight up until it met an inversion and spread over Hantikor as if the warmer layer of air was an invisible dome over the city.

 

This inevitably made him think again of the force field that had been faithfully performing its duty since last night without interruption. A force field required three satellites. There were a total of nine satellites for the meteorite warning system, which in their geostationary orbit were completely sufficient for external shielding.

 

However, in order to generate additional force fields in the immediate vicinity of Hantikor, they would have to recalculate and realign the positions of the remaining six satellites. That alone would take some time. But apart from that, the limited fuel supply of the satellites was a much bigger problem. In geostationary orbit, they rarely needed adjustment, and if they did, it was only minor corrections. This saved space and weight. Two elements that were not exactly wasted on satellite launches.

 

Two ways of solving the problem went through Ben's mind. Either they'd send more satellites up, or send the Inidium on a courier mission. More satellites made sense in the long run, but were time-consuming. It could take weeks to build and prepare.

 

The Inidium would be operational again within a few days. As far as he knew, it was still regularly maintained and was fully equipped inside the Star Needle. It could also take satellites into orbit, but these would still have to be manufactured.

 

More and more he favored the option to use the Inidium to collect some of the remaining six satellites and have them brought to their new destination. He would have preferred to fly up there himself, but there was still a lot to do at the observatory and if they didn't get support soon, they would collapse under the load.

 

Maybe Inidi could be found somewhere and Osande could certainly help with that, but another thought came to him. Honta would be predestined for this "courier trip". However, he had no idea where he was at the moment. Surely he, just like Ben, had followed the landing of the Agates with excitement.

 

 

Chapter 21 - Inidi

 

Inidi Kilion liked to stay underground. Silence and darkness were only two of the many comforts he found here, far away from the hectic crowd and incessant noise of the city.

 

The cave system was a dangerous labyrinth by its gigantic dimensions alone, but many hidden corners and caves, as well as collapsed corridors would have meant certain death for any inexperienced lost person.

 

If one entered the caves through the temple, the first thing one did was to enter the monumental entrance hall. Past the round of the 60 Jofaiden and the city in the sphere lay a now destroyed, stone gate. The invaders had gained access and had chosen the " Path of the Librarian" - right hand down.

 

The "Path of the Light Bearer" went up on the left hand side and had not been used for centuries. The passage led up to an opening near the observatory and was in a rather bad condition.

 

The "Path of the Librarian" was maintained regularly and on the smooth polished marble floor the footprints of the Agates were clearly visible for quite some time. The dust of the explosion revealed to the visitor the direction they had taken for many hundreds of meters. At crossings footprints went off into different corridors. Sometimes he could see how they returned because the path had turned out to be a dead end.

 

He was confident that the intruders would get lost here for hours. This should give him enough time to retrieve his little treasure in peace and disappear unnoticed through one of the many corridors.

 

After twenty minutes, the passage ended in a cavity connected to many other caves. The library.

 

Inidi liked to be in the library. Not only knowledge, but also art and history, insights and anecdotes surrounded the receptive mind. Treasures of poetry and science stood close together in many small halls. Connected by wide corridors, they housed shelves of cut blue crystal and were carved into the mountain as a three-dimensional honeycomb structure. Inidi fervently hoped that the strangers would not destroy any of it, since many unique specimens would be irretrievably lost.

 

He paused for a moment and eagerly listened for the intruders, but heard only the gentle sound of the draught. A circular corridor ran around the library, from which entrances to the library and further corridors into the mountain branched off again and again. Inidi decided to go around the library and listen at the junctions to see if he could hear the intruders.

 

After a few steps he stopped, but this time because he realized how foolish his plan was. What would he do if he actually heard them? He was completely unarmed and they had already killed many Ketari on their arrival without hesitation. He considered his situation and then went on. Curiosity drove him and the fear that they would find what they were looking for. He gained a little more self-confidence by remembering a game he and Osande had played many years ago.

 

During their idealistic phase together they had often taken long walks on the outskirts of Hantikor and had had endless discussions. In doing so they passed the time by throwing stones. They were both quite telekinetically gifted and thus additionally underlined the arguments they threw at each other.

 

In the course of time they became better and better and their telekinetic abilities became stronger. So they often walked 10 to 20 meters apart and talked telepathically while throwing a nice round pebble telekinetically back and forth. Catching was much more difficult than throwing, because all you had to do was accelerate the pebble by a shock wave. Catching meant moving a braking field along with the stone for the last few meters, but after a lot of practice they could fully concentrate on their discussions, while throwing and catching the stones was just a gimmick on the side.

 

With the help of said shockwave, they had also moved stones just as far as possible into the open plain and Inidi hoped that it was strong enough to be of use to him in defense against those full-grown invaders.

 

By now he had already walked around the library almost halfway when he smelled fire. The smell didn't come from the library, for which he was more than grateful, but from a passage deeper into the mountain, which didn't let him suspect anything good.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 22 - Honta

 

The modifications to the incubators were quickly completed. Gin had programmed them, while Honta instructed the seven volunteers. The scientists were excited, but not afraid. Maybe it was because they didn't know what they were getting into. They didn't know about wars and didn't know what it meant to take a human life. Or maybe it was their exploratory nature as researchers that made them stand up without hesitation when Honta asked for volunteers. Self-experiments were not uncommon in their circles, but of course they were much less dangerous.

 

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