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

- "Father," I said to him, "please don't be offended, but I would like to die in peace."

Charles Bukowski "The True Story of the Madman Who Lived with the Beasts"

CHAPTER SIX: THE FUNERAL

Semrik Sin was buried, as we said, with all possible honors, which was a little difficult, given that Charon was practically made of ice and rock and was quite a bit less dense than Pluto. In that sense, launching the burial capsule was problematic. But still successful!

We all watched with bated breath as the little burial capsule gradually rose, began to recede, becoming a very small dot, and disappeared into infinity - as if it had sunk into nothingness. Doesn't sound very romantic, does it?

After the ceremony was over, everyone went home. Only Von Blask remained, who had an overly thoughtful look on his face. And he definitely scared us with his bearish smile.

- "I have lost a very good friend of mine!," he said. "And you have lost a lot too. But you will only find that out later! I'm sure you don't realize it enough yet!" he added meaningfully."

And nobody saw or heard anything more of him. They would all have forgiven him if he had at least said goodbye, but he didn't. He had accomplished his mission, and henceforth it was to be entirely up to himself.

Supplying a space colony with all the raw materials it needs to exist is another serious challenge that's a little hard to explain. We didn't have access to the so-called elendorans, or hyras, that grew in abundance on a planet like Zegandaria. So we used greenhouses. But there was a serious problem here the space plague had brought some space parasites to our plantings. A friend had come across some footage from Earth - I didn't ask him exactly where he'd found it either, as everyone could harvest their own loot when searching the various debris that sometimes passed by Charon.

You'd ask yourself though what exactly was on them - well some weird phylloxera-like animal[1], just munching on plants. It was fun to watch, but not harmless. It was a real predator! It ate so greedily.

Viewing these materials almost caused a revolution in the colony. Our food depended on the space greenhouses - they were like a temple to us, and now it could all go to hell!

These magnificent facilities were the size of an envoran[2] pitch - or was it something like space football. The main crops we grew were ginseng, which generally came with quite specific requirements, but was quite sufficient for our survival. The greenhouses were polyhedron-shaped and adapted to withstand so-called space storms. And Charon was effectively Pluto's first line of defence against the fierce solar winds[3].

Strange how thinly our lives hung here - like horsehair. It is worth recalling, however, that Von Blask's departure was soon forgotten, which in itself is proof of how ungrateful people really are.

And he had tried to do his job well. I remember that I was one of his favorites, and one of the first he taught to catch meteorites. As quaint as it may sound, he was a man with a gentle soul - but most wouldn't understand that. It was just that life had made him hard and unfeeling, because he'd had his making-out with junk for most of it.

On one of those walks, which happened not long before the funeral in question, he told me the following:

- My boy, this life is full of scum. Especially nasty are those with power. Ah, we have enough of those on Charon. You'll see where this leads.

I would never forget those words of his that burned me like coals. Were we no longer living free? Was this not our land? Was it not God's design that we survive right here?

Charon, for some strange reason, had been passed over by the various colonizers and we could breathe freely. However, according to some, the will of the individual is fundamental and that is something special - I don't mean to sound like a drowning man, of course! Many of those who transgressed my orders were punished.

You could say that Von Blask appointed me as a kind of deputy. Not that I really wanted it - don't get me wrong! No, no, and no again! But sometimes in life that's just what happens!

You see, according to the old wisdom, "The road to Hell is strewn with good intentions," every good venture has failed morally, and that's no accident. On the contrary!

In essence, the death of Semrik Sin was the turning point in our history. I want you to know one more thing - in the depths of his consciousness, Semrik Sin left a certain amount of sadness and carried it to the grave, along with some secrets. And perhaps it was for his own good that he did not witness a lot of vile deeds that would have further embittered him and shattered his psyche. He went like a true warrior - with his head held high and his eyes closed.

[1] Phylloxera (Viteus vitifolii) is a very small aphid up to 1 mm in oval shape with red eyes that establishes in the root system.

[2] Envoran is a futuristic game that definitely contributes to maintaining a sustainable space colony, as the revenue from ticket sales is used for its economy.

[3] The solar or stellar wind is a stream of charged particles and plasma being ejected into the upper layers of a star.

CHAPTER SEVEN: THE GIFT

The Ufurgans had given Von Blask a number of useful gadgets and many interesting and valuable items, such as the famous Ufurgan poison. Believe it or not, this solved the bugger problem in negative time. But somewhere in there, there was a lot of plant damage left. Beautiful green plants with purple flowers were cultivated with special care. We used them to make a cosmic porridge, which in our language was known as cosondur. I definitely didn't like the taste of it, but there was nowhere else to go. That was the situation - it wasn't a question of what we liked and didn't like!

The Ufurgans were known for a number of quirks, but in this case they did an excellent job. Thank you, really thank you from the bottom of my heart!

Then the first big foul happened - I was already in charge of the colony only to realize what a screwed up lot I had drawn. And that's when the second plague wave hit, and literally gave the game away. There were all sorts of attempts to stop it, but it wasn't that easy. And I want to make something brutally clear - its impact on people's psyche. Imagine a person's mind as immaculately clean glass with not even a scratch on it - as the disease progressed, people lost their self-confidence and shrank inwards, which in turn meant that they got eaten up by their own fears and complexes. This made it even harder to help them. And some were sinking miserably.

When madness overwhelms you, you can do all sorts of stupid things. It's too bad that so many good friends went that way. But the wheel has turned and the demonic forces have left us little choice.

Few realized that the Unspeakables were coming to us in our sleep and trying to drink from our life juices to sustain their own survival. This process caused them pain, but they did not give up. Some were even about to disintegrate their astral bodies, which could only be seen more clearly by initiates as ordinary people tried to ignore them. But their influence was felt throughout the colony. Several times they tried to inform me of their strange and rather unpleasant passing, but I pretended not to know. Deep down I felt I had the strength to deal with them and try to rid the colony of the suffering they brought with them. But it could all very easily have been turned upside down.

Then MacDougle Enbright, one of the older elders, came over and tried to give me some friendly advice:

- "Bendo, my friend," he turned to him, "you know these bastards. You know about their dirty little souls. They don't want to be looked in the face because they are clearly aware of the deeds in their past lives. These vile creatures want to drive us mad. And it can't go on much longer."

- Remember, my friend, He that is born of flesh and blood is mortal... He cannot enter into the Kingdom of God because flesh and blood cannot inherit it.

- "But they are neither," he ventured to object.

The atmosphere was becoming distressing enough, and I did not want to refute my friend's opinion by wasting my time with such nonsense. Don't get me wrong, most of us here on this planet weren't close. Everyone was only looking into their own bowl. And everything had to happen that way. Everyone fought for their survival through certain techniques and didn't depend on others too much. And most often died alone and misunderstood.

Bendo was a big jolly fellow, and at one time a truly indispensable friend. He tried to be my shadow and looked out for me. Even too much.

Ever since I'd been in charge of the colony, my commitments had grown in an avalanche. But somewhere in there, I realized one thing. The people I'd once considered close weren't. That special period of maturation had shaped us as individuals. The Ufurgan poison had to be applied most carefully, and the Anzarani buffoon was soon exterminated, but then that cosmic phylloxera that told us the game swooped in. We never recovered after that. Both Bendo and I had a lot to live through. Side by side!

CHAPTER EIGHT: FALSE FRIENDS

While growing up in Semrik Sin, it was all too common for us to play different