The Embryo of the Star Read online

“Oh, what fancy dreams. . .. Your Highness, let’s not be obsessed and deceived by religion’s false hope: it may only deliver us into disarray. . .. Let’s bear in mind that we’re now in the ultra-high-tech generation wherein scientifically, nothing is impossible!” The economist chuckled after unloading the fiery bomb shells.

  “Let’s put aside this sheer fault finding . . . character assassination. . .. It will only create more harm than good. Rather, let’s have some more productive ideas, folks, and evaluate swiftly the pros and cons,” the noble leader persuaded.

  “Sir, a great deluge isn’t a tantamount concern. . .. As a necessary precaution we will let our people aboard the ships.” Stressed the professor. “There are also barges available at the wharf.”

  “Your Highness, I’ve no desire to jeopardize the motivation of this assemblage to achieve. . .. The only thing that I could share is my faith in the Divine Creator, praying that He will guide us into the right decision,” reminded the downhearted reverend and crumpled into his seat.

  “Is there any objection regarding the colonel’s proposal?” the emperor asked, however, nobody responded. They were still evaluating the viability of the proposal and its negative effect, nevertheless, the noble leader couldn’t wait any longer.

  “How about you, Rev’rend, some more arguments you may want to raise?”

  “Your Highness, if that’s the mainstream judgement of the majority, then I’ve no other choice except to abstain.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, it seems that the colonel’s proposal satisfies everyone except the reverend . . .. Unless someone would show up and present a more viable solution──feel free it will be entertained──to avoid panic to our people don’t disclose our plan, but rather inform them that we will perform a powerful nuclear test and expect a major earthquake to shake the Earth and tsunamis can’t be avoided,” the emperor urged.

  II

  Devil Bomb

  Sargasso—a gleaming semi-cosmopolitan city of nearly 140,000 inhabitants—buoyed from the bottom of the sea during the nuclear war. It is situated southeast of ancient Florida. It has fertile land; the people raised protein-rich earthworms as their substitute for other animal meat. They planted leucaena trees, whose nutritious leaves were used to feed the cultured earthworms while the seed pods and flowers were part of a favorite Chinese salad recipe, and the seeds were also utilized as a substitute for granulated coffee. The people likewise cultured mushrooms and soybeans.

  The calm sea was no longer the domain of edible fish and other marine life. It had a warm temperature, but a thousand miles away the main geyser was already freezing. In the city’s main corridor, one could find some innovative goods, both locally produced and imported from other planets. Peace and order as a whole reigned. The crime index was very low. With no burglars to fear, the inhabitants could leave their doors unlocked. Their key to survival was hard work. The economy survived through the export of their gold products, precious stones and rare earth metals.

  With this high revenue the people were availed of the essential commodities such as: free hospitalization, schooling, shelter, and electrical power. The city boasted a marvelous museum and a fiberglass domed sports complex, in the adjacent wings the planetarium for kids. Churches of different religious sects were built closer to each other──it’s a pity but they attracted few believers. An ordinary citizen could criticize the people who ran the government without any fear of reprimand. You couldn’t find policemen moonlighting around, a reminder of a very peaceful community.

  A few hours after the emergency meeting was adjourned, the military choppers flew around the city and suburbs announcing the impending delicate situation, urging the citizens to take the precautionary measures envisioned by the government.

  The following day thousands of people queued up to board the anchored ships. Some who had smelled troubles ahead opted to leave for good. The reverend and his loyal constituents stayed in the hilltop church, fasting and praying. In the facade, the reverend, was holding a high power binocular, watching the panoramic view of the ongoing evacuation when something caught his attention. He saw a young fellow in his middle teens gathering some medicines from the shelves of a drugstore situated in the deserted ghetto.

  Subsequently, the young guy hopped into his turbo-powered buggy and skidded away towards the cool wilderness. This moved the reverend. Without wasting precious seconds, he drove off his turbo-powered sled that hovered three feet above the ground. After attaining a maximum speed, aided by a powerful sound wave transmitter, he was able to keep track of the young guy zooming away and cruised a vast plain of brilliant white snow, meandering through the narrow glacier canyon.

  A few minutes passed, the sound waves transmitter system lost contact with the fast buggy. The reverend slowed down and skidded on the snow; severe cold penetrated the inner part of his body. He looked around and he noticed the foot of a hill. A foggy environment had blinded his naked eye to the hill’s crest; his eyes combed the other side of the hill but found no sign of life. Uncertainty prompted him to abandon the search before death overtook him, but his Christian compassion didn’t allow him to do otherwise.

  He decided to climb the hill by foot. Gasping and exhausted, he dropped to his knees and decided to rest, squatting on the ridge shoulder, turning his head 180 degrees and then looking upward, studying the steep trek ahead. He heard a weird sound from afar, but as the seconds passed it grew and he figured out what he had seen in an old motion picture, in which a helpless hunter was slaughtered by a violent creature in the jungle. At this moment he had no recourse but to face the reality and defend himself from the possible violent attack. Unknown to him, the creature was already positioned to his rear, sniffing at him. If it decided to attack, he should be an easy prey.

  “Grrrrr!” snarled the unfriendly husky. The reverend was determined to fight it out to survive. He turned around to confront the creature, but the creature leaped high and charged at him. The reverend’s right hand was able to grip the animal’s neck, preventing the creature from using its sharp jaws. He held the creature at bay for a long scuffle, but fatigue overcame him; he was losing strength. The sudden thrust of the creature sent his body off-balance, subsequently, his body rolled downward at a faster rate. Zigzagging the shallow gulley, he almost felt his heart burst upon reaching the hill’s foot. But the encounter could not stop him from investigating what was up there.

  He then drove his sled upward, accelerating at high speed at a sixty-degree climb, and reached the flat top peak and saw a dark entrance about two yards in diameter. For self-defense he removed a sled strut, a two-and-a-half-foot-square bar weighing about three pounds, and he scouted around to clear the area from possible danger, yielding a negative result. He then elected to explore the inner portion of the portal, but he encountered a big problem: it was closed. But as he approached closer to the wall, it just automatically slid sideways. The interior was illuminated with bright light encased within a rectangular plastic light diffuser. It had an acoustic-board ceiling suspended from an aluminum T-runner. He felt warm. The floor was built of glazed marble tiles and a yard-square brass lining forming a symmetrical pattern. The wall had an ivory white Tyrolean texture.

  Silence surrounded the room and the reverend shouted, “Anybody in here?” and he heard something drop in the adjacent room and his feet brought him there. To his surprise, he was greeted with a hair-raising scene; about a half a dozen cadavers were covered with tiny coiled cobwebs and could be mistaken for the famous Egyptian mummies. One cadaver was holding a disposable cup from which it appeared about ready to drink, while another one was sitting cross-legged on a revolving chair; still another one had a cigar pipe.

  Their position remained intact due to the spiders' knitting yarn over their bodies. Operating a famous German-brand computer was a slim cadaver that could easily be identified as that of a woman; it wore a feminine golden watch used mostly by elite women of the twentieth century, and hanging on the neck was a sparkling, gleami
ng diamond pendant. On her table was a picture of a pretty blond lady with a blue pair of eyes. Lower on her right bust was a readable inscription: “Dear Annette, I LOVE YOU! . . . Love, Poul. P.S. ’til the end of time!”

  The reverend felt disgusted at their fate. What struck him most was the uncanny situation of this people. They had been viewing something on the TV video display terminal when a sudden death agent entered the room. On the woman’s side was a pocket-size remote control. The reverend was about to pick it up when he heard something that sounded metallic being dragged toward him. He held the steel rod with both hands and turned his body at right angle and saw a limping outmoded twentieth-century robot. The head and the left arm were jerking while the other leg lagged behind, dragging on the floor.

  “Good morning’, stranger,” the limping robot greeted the reverend. “What strange force brought you up here?”

  “I’m James Reginald, a religious authority,” the reverend responded quickly.

  “Perhaps your religious teaching has nothing to do with my existence," replied the metallic humanoid mechanism. “I’ve got absolutely no soul to care . . . I deeply regret to tell you, Rev’rend, for your comfort feel at home; you can do anything you want,” and the robot offered his hand for a handshake.

  “Nice meeting you," the reverend greeted the robot.

  “It seems that you are thirsty, there’s kargasuk tea at that coffeemaker.” The robot operated the coffeemaker placed on top the glass table. “A proven therapy for a longer life.” This was followed by a teasing smile. “And don’t be afraid of these people; they were once, my close associates. . .. For the meantime, I’ll leave you here. I’ve got a patient to attend to; I'll be back after fifteen minutes.”

  The reverend felt complete relief in the present scenario. He had zeroed in to the whereabouts of the young guy, he then grabbed the opportunity to take the remote control and activate it, poking at the Japanese colored television set and VCR. It began to show a color film: “And now the Romanian gymnast will attempt to break the existing Olympic record, . . . a beautiful young lass who the other day equaled the existing Olympic records of perfect scores of 10s, ladies and gentlemen; Lucia Yanovicci, ironically, the record holder, is her compatriot,” the enthusiastic voiced of the ABC sportscaster intoned.

  The pretty lass stood on the corner of the canvas preparing for the floor exercise event. She then faced the SRO spectators and threw a wild kiss, to which the spectators responded with wild applause; moments later she positioned herself. Deep in her heart she knew that a minimal fault would be a disaster and would deprive her of a perfect 10 and a new Olympic gymnastics record, her passport to becoming an instant darling of the sports world who could be the envy of her fellow women.

  The music began to play a signal for her to start; she breathed deeply and then she started to run in the middle of the soft rectangular cloth and leapt high and her featherweight body performed a somersault and dropped to the canvas edge flawlessly, thereafter, she dances and exercised to the beat of the soul music, to the excitement of the crowds. A moment later the music faded. She then faced the spectators, who greeted her with a standing ovation and showers of red roses from the boys in approval for her extraordinary feat.

  “And now the moment of truth: the score.” Suddenly the screen went blank. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re very sorry to interrupt this coverage to give way to this news bulletin. Just an hour ago a populous city of northern China was leveled by a nuclear bomb!” A tear fell on the cheek of the sobbing woman announcer while she was showing some film footage. “As of this hour, the casualty toll has reached 1 million and is still rising. The city is densely populated, with 3.5 million people as of last year’s head count conducted by the national census and statistics surveys. Experts believes that the monsoon wind will carry the radioactive fallout and eventually wipe out the population of the northernmost urbanized area. A photograph taken by an American orbiting satellite shows the center of the city gouged with a quarter-of-a-mile deep crater with smashed houses and other buildings around its periphery. The Chinese authorities could not ascertain the origin of the bomb. Back to our Olympic games coverage. . ..” Again, the film showed the sport arena, where the athletes and officials were converged in front of the Olympic flame.

  “As president of the Olympic Committee . . . I declare that all the games are canceled indefinitely . . . as a strong protest of the barbaric act committed by some irresponsible people who mercilessly dropped the powerful nuclear bomb . . . on the northern city of the People’s Republic of China. . .. This tragic incident happened just an hour ago . . . killing instantly millions of our innocent Chinese brothers!" This announcement placed the Olympiad in dire jeopardy.

  “Who did it, the Americans or the Russians?” was the common question being asked. The Chinese contingent had become very hysterical and furious upon hearing the sad news and elected to hurl charges to the American and Russian group.

  “You Russians, why did your government do this to our people?” they began.

  “How could our government do it when, in fact, we subscribed to the same brand of ideology once? We’re the saviors of the poor nations, comrades. . .. It’s only the Americans who had the brazenness to use that forbidden bomb; they were the ones who used the bomb first, on Nagasaki and Hiroshima!” the Russian official declared.

  “You bloody bastards!” an angered Yankee wrestler confronted the bulky Russian. “It’s your country whom our Chinese brothers here are blaming. Why in the world divert it to us?!”

  Consequently, the heated argument erupted into a violent brawl and transformed the once peaceful yet exciting Latin American sports arena into a bloody mess. Athletes and officials formed into a triad of warring groups by simply identifying their nations’ main allies. Hundreds of cops responded to the call of duty, armed to the teeth. Wearing faded khaki uniforms and gas masks, with white helmets and checkered black-and-white rectangular steel shields, armed with a truncheon on the right hand and tear gas canister hanging on the leather belt, the riot cops stayed behind a half-dozen fire trucks. The firemen then pulled out the three-inch-diameter hose and stretched it near the fight scene. Two cops held the stainless-steel nozzle and jetted highly pressurized water and the groups began to disperse. Thick gas smoke filled the vicinity.

  When the smoke began to fade, hundreds of corpses were lying on a trimmed green for just a short span of time.

  Meanwhile, responsibility for the killer bomb had been denied officially by both Washington and Kremlin authorities and every country possessing nuclear weapons followed suit. This could be a real pain in the neck for the newly elected black United Nations secretary-general, Jobo Robo.

  “We have here an updated report from our Asian correspondent in Beijing, Tony Yu," an announcer proclaimed.

  “Hello there… this is the second day of our coverage of the earth-shaking China tragedy. So far, there's no definite information yet regarding the origin of the bomb. The death toll has risen abruptly from 1 million, yesterday, to 1.5 million this morning and is still rising. Hundreds of thousands are suffering from third-degree burns and blindness. Children cry in the nearby villages, looking for their mothers one way or another. Medicines and foods are very essential, because at present supplies have become scarce. Meanwhile, Xinhua News has confirmed for the first time that among the victims were the household members of the young chairman, his three children, his beautiful Tibetan wife, and his ninety-year-old mother. The atmosphere here has become somber; all foreigners have been given twenty-four hours to leave Beijing.

  “The International Red Cross and the Order of Mother Teresa were denied access to the disaster site, but instead they were told to exit the capital. The UN Security Council has vowed to solve this tragic incident by all means and determined to pinpoint the real offender. Nobody will be spared, especially as the giant members are the main suspects. ‘The truth shall prevail,’ the Security Council assured us. Meanwhile, the Vatican has appealed to all p
eace-loving people of the world not to be carried away by their emotion as what happened at the Olympic games yesterday, where 357 souls lost their lives. The pontiff has condemned those people who’re behind the forbidden button, saying, they will have their day in the hour of judgment. . ..

  “According to the Pravda editorial, last year Russia attained its historic economic prosperity, the natural gas from Siberia has remitted a huge fortune to the national treasury. A well-managed economy has played a major role in elevating the standard of living of the Russian citizens, including its starving Third World allies. Above all, it has relieved the EEC nations from huge fuel expenditures from the well-fortified traditional fossilized-fuel traders . . . and their economic wizards have expressed a foregone conclusion that in the next decade Russia will become an economic giant of the world second to none. . .. For this simple reason, our rivals are contemplating that they will soon lose their influence in Western Europe, the developing countries, and the Third World. That’s why some powerful group has initiated a provocative measure; well, they’ve successfully created a bottleneck in order to derail the surging advances being realized by the Russian people and blame any upheaval to the Russians,” the influential news agency said.

  The US. government retaliated for Pravda’s make-believe modern-day version Pontius Pilate. The US. secretary of state issued an early press released. The United States of America has long been fighting poverty in the Third World, by extending to them economic assistance with slight chances of being paid back. “We’re tired of this monotonous set-up. The heavily burdened taxpayers have made mountainous complaints to the White House and the Capitol, so the United States of America welcomes the emergence of Russia as the next economic giant of the world, so that our present burden in the Third World will be minimized or they will find new champions, the Russians. Unfortunately, their economic wizards have committed a fatal blunder: They’ve opted to settle their border dispute in a violent way. They cannot just wash away their dirty linen; they must be held liable for their misdeeds,” the US. secretary of state unloaded a vicious attack.