Infinity (24 page)

Chapter 34: Blissful

   
Dvora’s trial was quick. The evidence was presented. Daxu Korth
submitted the visual of the security camera that showed Lebag Kralc dropping
the meteorite rock on the lawn. The physicians and the good wizards of
Cassiopeia testified that Dvora had indeed been under the influence of the
meteor radiation poison that had changed her personality. They also testified
that in her state she used her newly acquired powers of sorcery to manipulate
and control her daughters to do her bidding.

   
The king, Daxu Korth, gave testimony that he believed it was true. Dvora
was innocent of willingly committing crimes against the kingdom and that the
real criminal is Lebag Kralc, who was now an intergalactic fugitive from
justice.

   
The Supreme Justice waived any further court proceedings for Dvora and
her daughters and they were completely exonerated and allowed to return to
their daily lives.

As far as Gynythian Zee, he was brought to trial
in the highest court in the kingdom on Cassiopeia, and charged with multiple
counts of murder, genocide, and illegal slavery; also piracy.

   
He was being transported to the prison-mining planet to serve out his
life sentence when way out in space the transport was attacked. It was a secret
transport mission, but somehow word leaked out. It was a well-organized escape,
intricately planned out to disable the transport ship transporting Gynythian
Zee and all of his remaining warriors who had been captured in the great galaxy
war.

   
“Welcome aboard,” said Lebag Kralc, as him and his warriors were
transferred to Lebag’s own vessel, large enough to transport the two hundred
and fifty escapees. “Another old friend is on board too. We’re heading for the
Southern Quadrant.”

   
“Good you can drop me off on my home planet. I’ll have a surprise
waiting for whoever comes to try and take me,” says Gynythian Zee.

After all of the escapees were on board, Commander
Lebag Kralc gives an order. “Destroy that vessel.” The disabled spacecraft is
torpedoed and the whole ship blows killing all the guards and crew inside.

   
Hyukitron Hoxenyth, who is the Subjugator, had been
stripped of his powers of sorcery, but he was still among the notorious pirates
in the Southern Quadrant. “We team up together and even my brother can’t stand
a chance. Your mistake, Zee, was trying to take him on by yourself.”

   
“You have to know their
weaknesses, and that’s what I played on,” said Lebag Kralc. “And then they
discovered Dvora had been poisoned by the meteor.”

   
“What happened to R’Darik?”
asks Zee.

   
“He got deprogrammed. He’s
no longer a Warlock now. He’s gone; the prison mining planet.

   
“Arthos is leaving,” says Cruise
to Dvora. “He’ll be coming to say goodbye.”

   
“Oh, Cruise, he’ll be
returning to his family then,” She replies.

   
“Only to get them and then
return to earth. He’ll be taking one of the smaller vessels that Infinity
produced; Comet. They seem to get along well.”

   
“That’s still quite a large
spacecraft,” responds Dvora.

   
Arthos did come and he bid
farewell to Dvora. Space teleportation does not come without its drawbacks. It
had been taking a toll on him, but this was his last trip. He would settle down
now after getting back. His mission was over. He and his brother found Earth. They
also found the holy relic, the ancient scripture book of truth.

   
“Earth has copies, brother,
but you’ve got the authentic one,” he told Cruise.

   
“I’m going to share it with
father. I’ve been reading it...I mean...since Infinity’s download I’ve
assimilated it. It’s part of me now, but I want to place the relic in the holy
place.”

   
They say their farewells and
Cruise assures Arthos that they will meet again and that he is capable of
making the trip. Arthos would not be able to stand many more trips of
teleportation across space. Each time it happens every atom in his body is
affected. The whole body is literally torn apart, down to the smallest
sub-atomic particle, and instantaneously put back together again. Many more
times of that would weaken his body too much.

   
As for Cruise, he was more
Quewythian than human. And now that his body was changing still, he was getting
stronger. In him was the knowledge that he would eventually become virtually
indestructible. He did not know when, but in time it would develop to be so.

   
Infinity had almost used up
her energy. She made several smaller vessels to carry on her legacy. There was
one more task she had to fulfill before moving on to the next stage in her
evolutionary development.

   
“I have wonderful news for
you, Cruise,” she tells him. “This last creation has all but drained my powers.
I must take the next step and evolve by entering the black hole at the center
of our galaxy.”

   
“What’s so wonderful about
that?” was Cruise’s response.

   
As Cruise sits in the
control deck, all alone with Infinity, all personnel having shipped out to
other vessels and assignments, he is mesmerized by the sound of a voice he had
been familiar with and close with for the generations they had been together.

   
“Hello, my love,” said the
voice of Millennia. Cruise had often listened to recordings of her voice
reading to him; even viewing conversations they’d had in the past. She was his
loving wife, Queen of Dekkonia and the circle of galaxies in the
Cymapucheia Nebula for nearly a Millennium. Was that
really her voice he was hearing? Had she somehow returned from the dead? Had some
form of sorcery resurrected her? Cruise had to know.

   
“Millennia, my darling,
where are you?” he cries.

   
“Turn around, my love,” She
replied. When he turned around, there she was standing there in all of her
Queenly splendor and beauty, just smiling as pretty as she always did.

“I
am really here. It’s me, Darling.”

   
Cruise was thunderstruck; he
didn’t know what to say. “I’m dreaming. Has some mysterious asteroid or meteor
affected my brain?”

   
“Let me explain,” says
Infinity. “Just before Millennia died I took her DNA, stem cell samples,
memories, her thoughts and feelings, emotions, like and dislikes. I also was
able to take her spirit and her soul and I stored them deep in a locked file
even you were not able to access. She’s been “living” in cyberspace for all
this time.”

   
“But she died, she’d dead. I
saw her lifeless body lying there. And I buried her,” Cruise weeps.

   
Millennia comes closer to Cruise.
“Come and see, my love, that it’s really I. I’m not just a hologram or a
figment of your imagination.” She takes his hand and draws close; and then
kisses him on the lips.

   
“It...it
is
you. That tender kiss, the soft
loving touch; I could make no mistake. The soft warm-hearted look in your
beautiful eyes; it’s you—

it
actually is you. But how can this be?”

   
“Have you not been
listening, my sweet?” says Millennia. “Everything I was before I am again, only
much better.”

   
“But why now? Why did you
wait so long? If you could have brought her back why didn’t you?” Cruise asks
Infinity in an angry tone.

   
“We both were not ready yet,
although she was always ready,” replies Infinity. “I had not evolved into the
knowledge and technology until I travelled the universe always searching for
the answer as to how to bring her back. I absorbed all the knowledge that I
could; all the technology and stored all of the scientific data, which you now
have within you, and also she has within her. Simply speaking, I could not do
it before. You, Cruise, had to be ready also.”

   
“Infinity, I thank you,”
says Cruise.

   
“We both thank you,” says Millennia.

   
“Frankly, according to the
alien data I gathered, I still wasn’t sure if I could do it,” adds Infinity.
“Growing her body from the DNA, stem cells and other genetic substances was the
easy part. I did it deep inside my core, where there are no doors, no
entrances. That’s why she was not discovered until she was one hundred percent
ready.”

   
“And you just teleported her
here, am I correct?” asks Cruise.

   
“Yes, that is correct,
Captain. And now is the time I must leave you. My species is evolving and I
must go join them,” says Infinity.

   
“What...you’re a species?”
But I thought you were a machine. A vehicle.”

   
“This Platainium has only
been my shell. I was always inside all of its workings. I’ve been the energy
passing through its veins and arteries, every wire and circuit, every cyber
byte of information. I have been the spirit and soul of this vehicle. Now I
must return to my fellow Seraphs and we must move on to our high calling in
other universes and dimensions.”

   
“But what about the other
vessels you created? Are they like you?” asks Cruise.

   
“No, they are not of my
species. They are merely vehicles. They have all of my memory and data banks
too, but are not living beings as I am. They are, however, artificial
intelligences as you thought I was. ”

   
Infinity’s
surprising news is not that easy for Cruise to take. She will be gone and
Infinity the spacecraft will be just a shell. Cruise will still be able to use
it, and it becomes the greatest space vessel ever known in the entire universe.
Infinity created a biological clone of Millennia with her soul, brain and all
her memories. She is exactly the same in mind and spirit, but her new body
would live for eons more. Infinity evolves to the knowledge of another universe
that she must go to, where she will be transformed into a being of light as she
passes through the black hole in the center of their galaxy.

   
Cruise and Millennia are
standing on the view port at the very top of Infinity. The area is circular and
is slightly dome shaped. They took Infinity as far as they could take her; as
close to the black hole as they can get without getting sucked into it.

   
“This is where we part, Cruise.
I have reached the point in my evolution where I am ready for this,” says
Infinity.

   
“Will we ever meet again?”
Asks Millennia.

   
“Perhaps, but not any time
soon,” answers Infinity. There are other universes; parallel ones, and other dimensions
I will be exploring with others of my species. Perhaps we will cross stars
again sometime from now.”

   
As Infinity the being leaves
the spacecraft in one bolt of light and goes racing towards the black hole, the
vessel shudders with a surge of energy that causes all instruments and lights
to blink on and off. She goes entirely dark for several seconds. Cruise and Millennia
watch as they stand there hand in hand. They view the streak of light which is
Infinity go deeper and deeper into the point of no return. Then there is an
enormous bright flash that resembles a super nova. Cruise and Millennia have to
block their eyes, as the brightness is too intense to look straight into it. It
continues for several minutes and then collapses into the black hole in one
quick flare until it flickers out, sucking everything around into it.

   
“We had better get out of
here,” says Millennia in her gentle way, as the vessel Infinity is beginning to
be sucked into it also at a tremendous speed.

   
“Normal thrusts aren’t
strong enough, we’re being sucked into it,” says Cruise.

   
“It’s okay, my love, we can
still teleport out of here, but we have to do it quickly before everything is
distorted,” answers Millennia. No sooner said than done. They find themselves
back in orbit around Cassiopeia.

   
“Infinity will be
Cassiopeia’s manned space station,” explains Cruise to the assembly of
Cassiopeia’s leaders gathered at the convention held in Infinity’s honor and to
honor Queen Millennia and her reunion with Cruise.

   
Daxu Korth gave a speech to
the assembly that was later broadcast over the Quantum Cyber Interstellar
reaching galaxies far and wide, even now able to reach Earth and her two
sisters Venus, whose name was changed again to Infinity, and Sophia. The news
had reached Cruise that Arthos had become king of the Milky Way Galaxy and was
based on Earth. Daxu Korth also mentioned that fact and also that he was
retiring from his office of king. Cruise would now be the new monarch reigning
over the Twelve Galaxies Cluster and also Millennia’s Kingdom, and she would be
his queen. The joint kingdom would now be called The Kingdom of the Galaxies of
Light.

   
Cruise got back up to the
platform bringing Millennia with him and carrying an enormous book. He set it
down on the podium and opened it up.

   
“What I am about to read was
written in the Pure and Holy Book of the Scriptures of Truth and Light from
Earth thousands of eons ago. It was regarded as the words of God, creator of
all things visible and invisible, written down as he gave it to mankind. Even
way back then, thousands of years before Earthlings took to the stars and
colonized their solar system and then other star systems and finally other
galaxies, God the creator of all things visible and invisible spoke to them
these words and told them that the universe was and would be inhabited, that
they were not alone. From the book of Isaiah,”

For thus saith the
Lord
that
created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it;

he hath established it, he created it not in vain,
he formed it to be inhabited:
I
 
am
 
the
 
Lord
; and
 
there is
 
none else.

 
“Next is from the
books of the Chronicles,”

Again
he said, therefore hear the word of the
 
Lord
; I saw the
 
Lord
 
sitting upon his throne, and
all the host of heaven standing on his right hand and on his left.

“The next is just a small portion from the
book of Nehemiah,”

Thou, even thou, art 
Lord.
Alone;
thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth,
and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou
preservest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee.

“I will now read a portion
of the text from the Book called The Gospel of Luke, because this is the day on
Earth when the savior Jesus was born. The whole Earth celebrates this day and
calls it
Christmas
. His birth was
foretold by many of their prophets and was signified by a very luminous star in
the heavens.

 
And
it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Cæsar
Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. 
 
(
And
 this
taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.)
 
And all went to be taxed,
every one into his own city. 
 
And
Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judæa, unto
the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and
lineage of David:) 
 
to
be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.

 
And
so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she
should be delivered. 
 
And
she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and
laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

 
And
there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch
over their flock by night. 
 
And,
lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round
about them: and they were sore afraid.
 
And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I
bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
 
For unto you is born this
day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. 
 
And this 
shall be
 a sign unto you; Ye
shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
 
And suddenly there was
with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, 
¹⁴ 
Glory to God in the
highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

 
And
it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the
shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this
thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. 
 
And they came with haste,
and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. 
 
And when they had
seen 
it
, they made known
abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. 
 
And all they that
heard 
it
 wondered at
those things which were told them by the shepherds.
 
But Mary kept all these things, and pondered 
them
 in her heart. 
 
And the shepherds
returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard
and seen, as it was told unto them

 
“The next portion of
the Holy Book I read is from the section called The Revelation of Jesus Christ,”

And the armies 
, which
were in heaven,
followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen,
white and clean.

“These are just very
small portions of the wonderful writings contained in this Holy Relic; this
Holy Book. It shall be made available for every citizen of the Kingdom of the
Galaxies of Light. Our Kingdom of Light shall always be fighting against the
Kingdoms of Darkness and according to this book, we shall be those who overcome
and shall be the victors.”

   
After the assembly had been
dismissed, a message came in from the commander of patrols searching the
galaxies for Lebag Kralc, Gynythian Zee, The Subjugator and the prisoners that
escaped with Zee.

   
“Sir, we have
very convincing evidence that the space vessel owned by Lebag Kralc that was
carrying Gynythian Zee and his army, along with the Subjugator, has crashed on
The Frozen Planet of Heilix in the
Garanzawi Galaxy in the Southern Quadrant.”

   
“Can a squadron be sent down
there to confirm whether or not they’re still alive?” answered Cruise.

   
“Negative, Sir,” replies the
commander. “They would never survive the violent ice storms. And our readings
show no visible signs of life.”

   
“Then discontinue the search
and keep patrolling your usual galaxies, Commander,” replies Cruise. “And thank
you for your service.”

   
“Y...yes, Sir, and your
welcome, Sir,” responds the commander.

   
Somewhere in the darkness of
space on the cold, icy frozen planet called Heilix, the violent winds and ice
storms never cease. The entire planet five times the size of Earth is
completely covered with a jagged mountainous terrain submerged in snow and ice.
Glaciers move one thousand times faster than glaciers on earth as if they were
living things.

   
Hailstones vary in sizes
from small, fist size, to gigantic ice rock the size of boulders. The
atmosphere is helium and hydrogen, combined with the rapid speed of rotation
constantly produce ferocious blizzards that wrack the planet’s surface, which
is dark blue due to its distance from the nearest sun. Gargantuan glaciers
crash into the sides of mountains temporarily exposing the jagged dark rocky
ranges until they are covered up once again with snow and ice.

   
The heavy weight of the
atmospheric pressure crush even the largest of the ice boulders and frequently
crack the glaciers breaking them apart until new ones are formed again.

   
Not only has gigantic hail
fallen from the sky, but one fateful day a spaceship carrying fugitives and
their three thousand warriors was caught in the tremendous gravitational pull
of the planet’s very powerful magnetic field and fell like a meteor. The
outside of the spaceship hull was charred and shields ripped off. Most of the
three hundred thousand warriors burnt up in the descent.

   
The vessel crash-landed,
barreling through a mountain of snow and ice sending it sky high with the force
of its speed. The spacecraft skid and rolled, dove up and down into the snow
and out again repeatedly, until coming to an awful stop in a crevice. Now
completely covered with ice and snow, the atmospheric pressure begins its work
crushing the hull little by little.

   
The cockpit of the vessel
has a few instrument panels that are giving off faint red, green and blue
light, as sparks glimmer like hand held fire works. In the pilot’s seat is the
lifeless body of Lebag Kralc. Upon crashing, a jagged piece of sharp rock from
the side of the mountain pierced the nose of the ship and impaled him right in
his seat. He died a quick and merciful death.

   
Lying on the floor as strewn
garbage is the mutilated body of Gynythian Zee.
 
Refusing to buckle his safety belt, he
was ripped from his seat by the force of the ship hitting the surface. During
the extremely turbulent skidding and skimming, he was tossed violently from
wall to wall inside the ship and smashed up against every panel and instrument
in the cockpit until he looked like he had been chewed up and spat out. His
blood covered the inside of the smashed cockpit.

   
Having been in a narrow
space and locked into his seat belt was
Hyukitron
Hoxenyth; the Subjugator. He was still alive but barely conscious. Having been
repeatedly hit in the head by flying debris and having his neck broken, he was
paralyzed from his neck to his toes. He was bleeding in several vital places
and was in excruciating pain. He looks up through his dim eyes as he hears the
slow whining and creaking sound of the atmospheric pressure crushing the ships
hull.

   
“It'll be over soon, I know
it. It’s the end and there's nothing I can do about it. Fine. I just wish I
could've done things differently. I could have been king. But none of that
matters now; it'll be over soon.” He didn’t know how much time had gone by
since they crashed. His head was dizzy and he couldn’t move. “Oh, Dvora, I
never dreamed it would end like this, lying in my own blood. My life, crushed
in an instant like a damned bug. Fine then, let it be. There's nobody to save
me, not anymore. Oh Dvora, I wish...I wish...”

   
The howling of he wind
sounded like a thousand wolves, the creaking of the hull little by little was
torment to his ears. Large balls of hail hit the hull of he ship causing it to
shudder.
  

   
“My body feels like it’s been pulled into pieces. The pain,
it’s...it’s...but then it’s okay. I’ve never been afraid of pain. My body is
wracking with pain. It seems I can't even die comfortably. Blood everywhere. My
clothes are drenched with it. My blood or someone else’s; maybe mixed. My blood
is dripping down my arms to my fingers. It's warm, but in this freezing air it
will soon freeze. Oh, Dvora. I loved you, but you spurned me for my brother.
You broke my heart. I'm going to die.
 
I can feel it, I'm going to die...”

   
The ship heaves and undulates as the giant hail keeps up its assault.
The hull creaks and cries. The sound is awful. The closed in walls around
Hyukitron
begin to move
closer together. He looks up in terror as the top of the hull is starting to
rip open and cave in. The air escapes from the cockpit while the atmospheric
pressure from outside the ship is sucked inside. The weight of the atmosphere
finishes crushing the ship’s hull leaving it looking much like a can that
someone has stomped on.