The Silence of Zegandaria by Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov (book recommendations website txt) 📕

The deeper we went inside the ship, the clearer it became that we knew extraordinarily little about the development of other alien civilizations. And the Korolan Bru Corporation had to include the Ervanans in their calculations, with their subterfuge based on tremendous foresight.

Not that the corporation hadn't reached enormous levels of development, quite the contrary. By the way, I think it's time to clarify some details about the contact between the alien civilizations. Or rather aliens as we used to call them. Earthlings used their own terminology to refer to any higher intelligence outside their planet - something that I think only emphasized their narrow-mindedness, or more accurately, their unwillingness to convincingly transcend themselves. It wasn't that Korolan Bru only copied foreign achievements of more advanced civilizations - the corporation had a huge amount of its own developments, but the spirit of discovery that was willing to really go to that far beyond was in my opinion with them a bit "artificially imported or cultivated". But not to digress. The ships of the Ervanans would no doubt have revealed more secrets to us if we had been willing to plunge deeper into that world of stubbornness.

Few would appreciate the mortal peril of losing consciousness in a place like this - and I don't mean the terror that had gripped us, but the secret feeling that crept in that no matter what move we made we would still be screwed.

I had no friends at the colony except Jake, but here I really felt alone.

"What the hell is the point of your fucked up life when you have no long-term goal? Where are you going, loser?", I was trying to find an answer for myself.

These and similar questions were going around in my head, giving me no peace. I was clearly aware that maybe this was the end of the road, or at least the beginning of the end, but just in my mind I was trying to imagine it as a kind of adventure that I, as the leader, had to lead until the end.

In order not to waste your time with idle talk, I would like to say one last thing. If you ever want to end up in a really creepy place, just get on an Ervanan ship!

After the cryptovonium chambers, which stored all the bionic parts for partial or near-complete regeneration, to be assembled and bonded with wounded bodies, we decided to open the next compartment, which was also sealed - and most carefully at that. It was obvious that the level of security was at a higher level than I had ever expected.

Lozur Ban was so strong that if the door had been made of any other material than neon alloy, he probably would have wrenched it open with ease and without much explanation.

I would like to bring to your attention an interesting paradox - just as a part of life. If you existed just fine in the previous reality, are you sure you will exist just as well in the new one, or if you will exist at all?

For me the world was an illusion at least as far as the perceptions of others were concerned - I saw everything as if in a dream. And I was counting corpses. It left me in a sad place like Charon.

We finally managed to open the second door, which led to a well-insulated eborian chamber, which was obviously hiding something interesting.

After the bionic arms - much more advanced than their Earth equivalents - I expected to see everything.

Lozur Bann set about opening it, but I made a special sign to him. He was smart enough to know something was up.

The other members of the team had fallen into a strange state. The mental thought activity of those who had survived was beginning to worry us. Perhaps this universe resembled the white light that could reflect the other colors and their hues. And I had tuned my own consciousness to a certain frequency.

We found some of their weapons in the chamber - apparently they had hidden them in a more secluded location out of concern for their sanctity.

The Ervanans used advanced Femovian weapons that could alter reality in ways that even we pureblooded Zegandarians were incapable of. The basic idea was that if this universe was one giant hologram, that is, every part of it contained the information of the whole, it changed things too much. The Ervanans had the ability to isolate that particular particle and make it so that in the next time slice that object or person simply did not exist for that reality! Sounds a bit crazy, doesn't it?

By the way, even the earthlings were very familiar with the concept of a holographic universe. It wasn't anything really new or all that original. But in this case it was about recoding the existing reality.

Lozur Bann rolled his eyes and began to realize the thing that was bothering me as well. We might never be able to leave this ship!

We decided to go back, but there was simply no one to replace Emborio Sikur. We decided to look through the well-insulated cockpit compartments - at least that much we could do without risk of re-pressurization. Yes, Charon's surface was as calm and dead - as usual. Nothing distinguished it from what it had been, say, an hour or two before. The others near the eborian chamber really weren't themselves.

- "Had they caught some strange new space sickness?," she turned questioningly to Lozur Ban himself, "And where the hell had Sikur gone? He's barely breached the ship's neomanium walls and gone for a free ride around Mordor Macula!"

Perhaps you haven't forgotten that the only woman we took was Jessica Edwater - apparently out of consideration for how useful she could be to us.

Jessica was perhaps more intelligent than Lozur Ban, who I thought was the benchmark of innate intelligence - he may have looked like a giant rock or a barbarian, but his deductive abilities were legendary. But he, who knows why, was in no hurry to jump to conclusions!

- "Jessica," I decided to assert my authority, "when we were attacked by the Invisibles I managed to get a grip on myself, when I had to organise the space smuggling to feed the colony for a few months - also when we had to cross almost half of Charon we lost a lot of people, but now it doesn't even feel like time travel. What the hell is going on?"

- Have you heard of the so-called quantum family tree vision," she asked slowly, obviously expecting some sort of response from me.

I stand and watch her. Of course I was aware of such situations in psychology!

- 'You need to stop seeing yourself as a victim,' she told me, 'You need to investigate the source!

- The source!", I screamed amidst the murderous silence of this alien ship.

- 'Yes,' was her curt reply, 'that is the best solution, and I think you are very close to reaching it and seeing the truth you are trying so hard to escape!

I looked around. Lozur Ban seemed to be frozen. His muscles would have stood like chiseled if it weren't for the supermassive spacesuit that covered his body.

I was immersed in an endless repetitive cycle.

I knew that if I died, the transmigration of souls would be a kind of continuation of my current life. But those who had lost their reason were hanging around. I wondered if the Ervanan ship was affecting them that way or if there was a much deeper reason!

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE: EMBORIO SIKUR

It was then that I realized why Sikur had wished to stay inside-not out of fear or any apprehension, but out of sheer pragmatism. Beria Clistewas a roasted scoundrel and a brutal savage, capable of destroying anything in his path, and Sikur had had a make-out session with him in the not-too-distant past, when the two had tried to build their criminal empire on the backs of the late Enbright and his sidekick, Zerilia Cox. They felt that Enbright was playing retail like a real fool who was too short-sighted about the huge profits that lay on his own nose.

The two had strong connections where the phosphorus of Nanjagar was mined. How had this come about? Brutus had been informed by his masters, the Ervanans, by purely telepathic means, that the phosphorus deposits would soon be discovered by an expedition of the Earth Federation, which had set out on routes far divergent from the usual ones, in a ship they had taken from the Ervanans! Brutus was amazed! It had happened relatively soon before he had died, or rather fallen victim to his arrogant attitude and traitorous nature himself.

His relationship with Sikur and the very brutality among brutes as Beria Clistewas called was based on pure suffering. Our freedom of choice is determinative of taking on the masses of suffering that would elevate us. It sounded a bit ridiculous, but the late Brutus wanted to receive a kind of absolution by the way as there was a Last Judgement waiting for him somewhere. Such a brutal situation that could not be avoided.

Sikur was a lanky young man who wanted to prove himself because his youth had passed on Charon's colony and he didn't harbor much hope for some super glamorous future. He accepted the foolish offer of the demon commander Brutus himself on the assumption that he would be able to make it and somehow secure his so-called extra karma. It sounded rather strange, but Brutus wanted to pour this suffering on himself so he could succeed in becoming a martyr after the fact. Except that Light creatures didn't act that way.

Emborio Sikur would have easily been broken and crushed brutally in his desire to blackmail Brutus.

When Brutus himself had once taken him secretly with him on Haumea to his cruel patrons, Sikur had told him in no uncertain terms:

I appreciate all you have done for me, my lord! You are a man of God!

Brutus had the urge to even scream at the mention of such words, but he had been instructed by the High Priest of Haumea, since by the way the Ervanans also had religious leaders, that the only way to clear his cosmic karma was suffering.

So he was killed, but Sikur was returned to Charon in a special capsule prepared by his guardian. Yes, Brutus knew about Charon's colony, but he pretended not to see or hear because that was how he got away with it. The Ervanans didn't want to be tracked by a technologically much more advanced civilization, which we actually were.

Sikur had become a mute witness to the communication between Brutus and the other Ervanans, who whispered secrets and mystical words to him, trying to lure him further and learn the secrets of the human psyche.

But why didn't Sikur remember anything about that meeting? Very simply - his mind had been brainwashed!

Brutus was a sneaky bastard who wanted to make sure he experienced the suffering he needed before he died. Soul transgression wasn't such a simple matter!

Sikur returned without showing any signs that anything significant had happened.

Brutus had properly stopped him and hoped his plan would work, but there were others who thought otherwise!

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