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

He was soon summoned before the Earth Senate, which severely reprimanded him and gave him an ultimatum to either find a solution soon or live out the rest of his life as a high-security prisoner in the elite Ebendhaus prison, which was practically named after him.

The indictment against him contained the following:

"For those who look beyond the permissible horizons in their attempts to achieve immortality, but harm the material and public interests of the Corollan Brew Corporation, the sentence should be as severe as possible, and their public image should be erased from the annals of history. Dear Rufus Ebendhaus, you have been sentenced to strict isolation in the elite Ebendhaus Prison Facility, which should serve as an example to those who lightly squander Earth Federation funds and undermine its authority."

The rest of the accusatory speech was more than dull and not even worth mentioning.

The scientist without whom Corollan Brew would never have set foot on Mars went into a tizzy, not so much over the fact that his public life was over, but that it was a clear signal that Corollan Brew was going to put his hand ahead of his other inventions and patents.

- "Honourable jurors, please note that ...," he began quite confidently, but was interrupted by the Earth Federation jury.

- "Enough, accused, your sentence is final and we do hope you will reconsider your sins as you will have too many years to do so," the three magistrates sternly addressed him.

He was taken away and imprisoned and very soon everyone forgot about him. It was as if he had never really existed and absolutely no one had known him.

During the first year of his imprisonment he wondered whether Korolan Bru was not a very hypocritical subject, who would have been able to profit by his skill and his qualities as a scientist and inventor for a long time to come, had he not been shut up between four walls to wreak his fate.

Rufus was no fool. If the law allowed and it wasn't for his extraordinary merits I'm the Earth government would probably have ended him much sooner. But he didn't stop making plans on how to get out. Like a caged tiger! So alone and at the same time, ready to kill! He had been betrayed by his own and was immersed in a grief akin to a hurricane that could submerge any individual with a normal psyche, but he was not of a normal psyche. Rufus had moved human evolution so much, and no one had cared to heal the suffering in his soul.

Darkness loomed in his soul, tormented by the perplexity of what was next - an eternity of utter boredom!

Rufus wanted and longed with all his heart to see that change in human society which would enable human civilization to truly reach a higher level of development without relying on handouts from any of his more advanced fellows.

All sorts of rumours naturally reached him in prison about the peripatetics of GH306, who had shown serious qualities of a leader willing to challenge the status quo. Somewhere in there, Rufus realized that this system was damn rotten, and even the mere assertion of it was too trite.

The other prisoners only felt fierce respect for this exceptional genius, locked away unjustly and a slave to his own inner demons.

But Rufus knew something none of the others had thought to ask him. In the depths of his soul, like the stalk of a young plant, a strange insight was beginning to sprout - the demonic computer viruses had been recoded, and no one was aware of what lay within. They could unlock the virtual reality with which to control the minds of the mass of lumpenized freaks greedy to live in their own twisted reality, but they didn't know that so much suffering had gathered in the madness of Doctor Gad ‘Di Enn himself, that before he died he had shared with his colleague - "I did all this to curb them, but I see I was wrong, they seek their own self-destruction, and that is a choice everyone should make for themselves!"

Rufus pounded his fists on his head, eager to see the light of Veoria again - where there was a chance to make something happen and he could give his intellect a chance to flourish rather than slowly wither away, staring into his own soul.

Suddenly he heard a strange voice:

- Are you the mad genius? That impressive superintellect who wanted us to go out into the real cosmos, not follow some dogmatic settledness in our own solar system?

Rufus was surprised, but fought him back:

- Someday it may become clear whether humanity is not solely to blame for its fate, and frankly I think that day is coming.

- But you haven't told me what you would really want from a Supermind, if it really exists?

- I think, dear, I don't know what to call you, that you are making a serious inconsistency and lack of logic in your reasoning, if we assume that this Overmind exists, then he should ask himself if this is not the possibility of an immoral mistake that might cost him too dearly next time.

- "I don't think I understand you," the man muttered. "And to keep you in the dark, my name is ..."

- "Actually, it doesn't matter in the slightest," Rufus interrupted him somewhat uncharacteristically, "my point is simply that yet another creation of an entire vicious circle of beings harnessed in their imperfect evolutionary processes...would call into question the fact as to whether it can be called a Supermind!"

- "Don't blaspheme, my dears, desperation is a bad counselor!" the unknown man tried to appease him. "Yes, the Earthlings are in a wild frenzy to achieve something extraordinary, but perhaps they will pay for it with their souls. It is inevitable."

- "For the same purpose a photonic quantum computer would probably do a better job, using its superposition[1] principle, you would get the answer you want. Look," Rufus started again, "the whole problem of existence is ..."

Suddenly the wardens came in and told him to get ready, because high-ranking members of the Senate had come to question him about something extremely important!

[1] Quantum computers are capable of using so-called qubits, which in turn allow them to perform several operations simultaneously.

CHAPTER SEVENTY: THE CHOICE

When he saw the senators with his own eyes, Rufus guessed that they had not come for good. They wanted to get something more out of him or they would have liquidated him by now. He struggled to recall their faces and if there was any hope at all that they could get him out of this hell.

Senators Bonhams and Kourmain were so smartly dressed you could just guess. Their black and green robes were too elegant and their black capes added an element of mystery about them. Without almost any preamble, they turned to Rufus:

Sir, not everyone in the Earth Senate is such a moron as not to appreciate the tremendous loss of our ship - what's more, we'll soon be faced with a moral dilemma about our own existence - and that's practically completely unnecessary! In that line of thought, we offer you a not bad deal, which I think is in your best interest to accept.

Rufus eyed these two aristocratic mollusks in a way that simply couldn't be described, but he tried to hide his contempt as he was clearly expecting some sort of offer that would make his exit from here possible.

The senators spent about a quarter of an hour explaining to him how much he would actually gain if he cooperated with them and that he should do so if he wanted to be rehabilitated as the greatest scientist who had ever lived on Earth.

- "Say outright that you want the demonic electronic viruses," Rufus put the question bluntly. "That would fix things too easily and clear things up. Besides, I guess you've realized clearly enough that someone else has already gotten to them, which is why you came here!"

The two men looked at each other in confusion - he had basically outlined the parameters of their offer.

Rufus had undergone a tremendous change in his time in prison, and he realized that somewhere out there, real retribution awaited him, and he wouldn't be able to jump the gangplank.

- "Sir, I think you're missing the point of asking us who we really are," one of the men's voice changed strangely.

Rufus was speechless, and if he had not been chained he would have fallen on his knees and wept and begged for mercy.

- We are the Light Creatures and we have clearly told you the price of your success!

- "And the smugglers?," he spoke in an inhuman voice. "Are they not guilty? All the trade and somewhat lesser discoveries associated with scientific and technological progress revolved around them."

- "Yes, because you made it so, Rufus," one of the strange creatures addressed him in an icy but kind voice. "On the other hand, even they revered us more than yourself, and yes, if judged, they would be entitled to another rebirth, but not you!"

- "Let me ask you one last question," said Rufus, his body trembling like an autumn leaf in fateful anticipation. "And was he one of you?"

- No, my dear senior associate of the almighty Korolan Bru Corporation, it was your ghostly doppelganger, who was only trying to tell you what awaited you beyond. I mean, well, you might actually already know...

- "But you ...," Rufus froze, wondering what to say back.

- "Whatever you do, the inevitable will happen, but as your guardian angel, I assure you that it is better to accept it with dignity and humility than to grumble and complain. Otherwise you will complicate your own situation. Your sentence has been passed in a much higher authority and even we have no right to comment on it," the Light Creature continued implacably.

- "And don't the guards hear us?," the oath-taker tried to buy some more time.

- "If I were you, I would try to settle my affairs on earth," the angel replied. "Who knows what might happen to you! Sometimes strange and inexplicable things happen at night!"

- "Where you lack logic, you must approach with faith," the other angel encouraged him. "The problem with you is that your case is hopeless!"

Rufus rubbed his eyes - they were gone and it was as if they had never been in his cell.

He thought deeply. As a scientist, he had always dismissed the existence of any superpowers and so on, but then he realized that he had actually been talking to ethereal creatures and a mad panic came over him. He felt like a sinner pinned to the ground, realizing that they were just telling him the very truth!

Rufus still had a considerable amount of money, and had bribed some of the jailers to bring him small rations, as there was virtually no sunlight in his cell to remind him of the world of the