"2570-18" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jerome Bigge - Warlady 8 - The Queen Of Time)THE QUEEN OF TIME 2570 A.D.! A TALE OF ADVENTURE IN THE SECOND DARK AGE By Jerome B. Bigge Chapter Eighteen "Planet's `warmer' than it should be," Tais spoke, the var- ious "colors" displayed on the screen meaning next to nothing. Amethysta at my side watching, keeping her thoughts to herself. It was nothing more than a little "blob" up there on the screen. The neutron star itself being so small that it was "invisible" although the effects of its terrible gravity could be "detected". "Perhaps it was captured when the neutron star went through the solar system," one of the Priestesses "ventured", it having been determined from its course that this was what had happened! The star having ripped through the solar system back in 2648 A.D. "Just outside `Roche's Limit'," Tais now mused thoughtfully. "`Breakup point' due to gravitional stress," I explained to Amethysta, who didn't understand me either from the look she had! "Earth size planet," Tais breathed, studying the indicators. "Surface temperature of course far below that of freezing," she added, the planet from what I could see of it just a frozen rock. "But there is `warmth' where there shouldn't be any," Tais added. "Are you going to `investigate'?" I asked, "wondering now"! "We'll go into low orbit, take a closer look," she replied. "Map coming up," Tais breathed, the Gaia circling this rock from a height of perhaps a hundred miles. There had been "some- thing" odd about the planet. None of us voicing the thoughts we all shared that THIS was the EARTH! A dead frozen lifeless EARTH now circling a neutron star over sixteen billion miles from Sol!! "It's the `Earth'!" I heard one of the Priestesses now gasp! The thought going through my mind as it did no doubt through the minds of all of us that we were now looking at a dead world here! "No evidence of `human activity'," Tais mused thoughtfully, watching a series of "indicators" there before her on the panel. "Only atmospheric gases those that freeze out at extremely low temperatures," she noted as we circled this terrifying "iceball"! "Mankind is `gone'?" Amethysta breathed, looking at Tais. "There would have been `warning'," Tais now smiled back. "There are other `worlds'," I said then to Amethysta. "And we do have ample `time' to prepare..." Tais said. "Back home in our own time," Tais smiled, the "jump" having been apparently successful, the Earth floating there before us. I felt as if I'd just been shown my own death, the "knowledge" of the world's end something "sobering" to everyone aboard the Gaia. Even Amethysta, who had understood "little" of the Priestess' own awesome technology, had understood that we'd witnessed DOOMSDAY!! "What is the population of the Earth," Amethysta asked then. "About half a billion," Tais answered, watching the screen. "Can you transport that many people somewhere?" she asked. "If `we' wished to do so," Tais replied, the implications of her words leaving no doubts as to what she felt about Mankind... Tais having once voiced the thought that much of Mankind had now reverted too far back into barbarianism to be worth "salvaging". A viewpoint that left no doubts in my mind that Tais did share to a considerable degree the same opinions of Mankind as did Aurora. "A bit different from the Gaia," I smiled at Amethysta, who viewed Black Lady with a bit of understandable "distrust" here... "I know `what' an airplane `is'," she smiled back at me. We'd spent the night at Shalimar, resting up from everything we'd seen, experienced. I was starting to "like" Amethysta, although she was certainly a "barbarian" by my own 20th Century standards! "And I have `confidence' in you," she added, making me "smile"... "I think I `prefer' the Gaia," Amethysta said, looking down. "Their `magic' to `mine'?" I teased this blonde "barbarian" from a time now only pages in some musty history book. She was in her way "as out of place" here as I'd been five years before!! "I am glad you `survived' the arena," Amethysta said to me, a low hanging cloud like a fluffy mist floating back over us now. The mountains on both sides rising up even "higher" than we were. The thought that the Earth would be destroyed in another eighty years something sobering, although I knew I would not live to see it "happen", nor I suspected, would Amethysta here beside me now. Neither Amethysta or I had spoken much of it, knowing that Man- kind's own fate was now in the hands of the Priestesses of Lys. "Back in the 20th Century I used be like a `Priestess'," I smiled to Amethysta. "I listened to people spill their souls..." Amethysta's azure blue eyes holding the darkness of mine as she nodded back, as aware as I was that we'd have to eventually face up to what we'd seen there aboard the Gaia sixteen billion miles from the sun. That frozen "iceball" of a planet that had once been our own Earth. The very world we were now flying over here! "Last night, after you fell asleep, I went and looked out the window at the stars and for the first time in my life, `felt' afraid to look up into the darkness, knowing what was `coming'," she spoke, looking at the airplane's instruments in front of her. "I suppose the Priestesses could send everyone `back' in time," I mused thoughtfully. Half a billion people scattered over centuries of time wouldn't have too much of an effect upon things, especially if they were sent into eras with about the same level of technology that we had now. Mars might be able to "absorb" a few million, although neither the Lorr or the Women would welcome such "colonists" to their world, I suspected here! It was also doubtful however from what Tais had said there on the Gaia that the Priestesses had any intentions now of saving every- one. They would no doubt be "selective" in their "choices" here. The thought going through my mind as it has before that for some reason "civilization" had been rebuilt only in certain places... "That's Trelandar down there," I smiled, looking down now. "Yours, not mine," Amethysta answered, looking away then. "My daughter Gayle will be its last Queen," I answered. "We must trust in Lys and her Priestesses," she spoke then. "Who will be the ones to decide who is to live and who is to die," I answered, looking out through the windshield ahead of us. "Trella," I said, the sun now in my eyes as we came flying over the fields and forests towards the city, the ocean there be- yond gleaming in the sunlight. Amethysta quiet there beside me. "Must feel good to be `home' again," she said to me then. "Tais sometimes forgets how people `feel'," I said to her. "No doubt she had reasons for doing what she did," Amethysta answered, looking down at the city as I came banking around now. "Looks like we have a `visitor'," I smiled to Amethysta as I saw the Astarte, Sharon's own flagship, there at anchor as I now brought Black Lady down for a landing. The rake of the three masts and the slimness of the hull leaving no doubts that it was a vessel of Dularnian design, one designed by Maris herself here! "I wish I'd treated you `better'," Amethysta "grinned" back. "Good to see you again, your majesty," June Colt said to me, her dark face glowing with a warm smile of delight as I took her hands in mine, thinking of how much "different" she was from the "blacks" of the past. Proof, I supposed, that it was a matter of "culture", not "race" here as such. Maybe we'll do "better" next time, although Mankind has always needed a "nigger" to do his "dirty work" that no one else wanted to do. The enslavement of native Africans having begun back in the time of the Pharaohs... "Good to be `home'," I smiled, wishing I could give her a hug, but that would doubtlessly cause "rumors" here I had no wish to start, there being enough such about my own "appearance" here. The fact that I am rather "mannish" in my looks does not mean I'm a lesbian despite whatever anyone may happen to think of me here. "That `black' woman is `more' to you than just the `captain' of your guards," Amethysta noted with a smile as we climbed into the carriage that would take us to the palace, the location being of course the same here as it had been back in Amethysta's time. "An excellent swordswoman too," I smiled back at her then. "I think you are thought a `good' Queen," Amethysta smiled. "There are certain political radicals who don't think so," I grinned back, thinking of "one" who was a real "pain in the rear" to me. The sort of a politician who did nothing but "criticize" everything I did, constantly complaining that I was but another "Darlanis"! Claiming that the "working" people of Trelandar were really not all that much "better off" with me than they'd been when Darlanis had ruled Trelandar with her own Lords and Ladies. "Sometimes such `matters' are best resolved with `steel'," she smiled back, her eyes glowing into mine as I nodded, well aware of the sort of stuff that had been done by previous rulers. By Darlanis herself against Sanda's "Free Trelandar Movement"... The "executions" without any "trial", all the rest of the stuff. "At least you serve something `stronger' than fruit juice," Amethysta "grinned", swirling the brandy there in her cut glass goblet, the Priestesses of Lys being "opposed" to "strong drink". "Looks like Princess Tara is up to her `old tricks' again," Sharon said, getting down to the "reason" she'd come to see me. Telling me of the political radicals in her own country who were now trying to stir up trouble between the Empire and the Dularni- an Federation over the political status of Orgon, which was still yet a "part" of the Empire, not a semi-independent nation like my own Trelandar was. Neither Amethysta or me having mentioned any- thing about what we'd "seen" aboard the Gaia, well aware that it would do little good to needlessly concern my friends here of it! "Or Maris Marn," Sanda grinned, her opinion of the "Queen of Dularn" something that hasn't ever changed over the past years! Maris having at one time been a slave girl on my estate who had seduced Sanda's own husband, although I don't think he'd loved the golden haired slave girl except maybe just as a "plaything". "Maris is well aware of the `consequences' of such actions," I pointed out. I was aware of the "friendship" between Darlanis and Maris, but even so Darlanis would not tolerate "losing" Orgon to Dularn, regardless of who was "responsible" for the loss here! And to her any "vote" to do so too would be "rigged" in her eyes! "There are a lot of people in the northern half of Orgon who feel more `Dularnian' than `Californian'," Sharon commented then. I suspected too now that they preferred Dularn's lower tax rates. Dularn being more "libertarian" a society too than is the Empire. The "role" of government in people's lives being much less too. "Maybe I'd better have a talk with Darlanis," I smiled back. Fly up with Sharon to Sarn, and see what Darlanis thought here... "You should start letting `others' take these `risks' for you," Jon said to me as he saw my latest collection of "scars" as we got undressed for bed. In this time I'd been gone for three days, not the couple weeks I'd spent there in the 24th Century. "I'll still be around to bounce my grandchildren on my knee," I smiled back, slipping down my strap so that I was naked. I do have a fairly good figure, rather slim and muscular, but I'm rather badly scarred due to the "adventures" I've had here in the past five years, scars that bring back memories of so many adven- tures I've had both here on Earth and there too on the planet Mars. The marks of Sisa's claws, the scar from the laser burn I took when Aurora made her "revolution", those from various sword blades that I didn't quite parry in time, all mark me as "what" I am. A woman who has become a "living legend" in her own time... "I'll never have another wife like you," Jon smiled back. "I should hope not," I laughed back, kissing him then. THE QUEEN OF TIME 2570 A.D.! A TALE OF ADVENTURE IN THE SECOND DARK AGE By Jerome B. Bigge Chapter Eighteen "Planet's `warmer' than it should be," Tais spoke, the var- ious "colors" displayed on the screen meaning next to nothing. Amethysta at my side watching, keeping her thoughts to herself. It was nothing more than a little "blob" up there on the screen. The neutron star itself being so small that it was "invisible" although the effects of its terrible gravity could be "detected". "Perhaps it was captured when the neutron star went through the solar system," one of the Priestesses "ventured", it having been determined from its course that this was what had happened! The star having ripped through the solar system back in 2648 A.D. "Just outside `Roche's Limit'," Tais now mused thoughtfully. "`Breakup point' due to gravitional stress," I explained to Amethysta, who didn't understand me either from the look she had! "Earth size planet," Tais breathed, studying the indicators. "Surface temperature of course far below that of freezing," she added, the planet from what I could see of it just a frozen rock. "But there is `warmth' where there shouldn't be any," Tais added. "Are you going to `investigate'?" I asked, "wondering now"! "We'll go into low orbit, take a closer look," she replied. "Map coming up," Tais breathed, the Gaia circling this rock from a height of perhaps a hundred miles. There had been "some- thing" odd about the planet. None of us voicing the thoughts we all shared that THIS was the EARTH! A dead frozen lifeless EARTH now circling a neutron star over sixteen billion miles from Sol!! "It's the `Earth'!" I heard one of the Priestesses now gasp! The thought going through my mind as it did no doubt through the minds of all of us that we were now looking at a dead world here! "No evidence of `human activity'," Tais mused thoughtfully, watching a series of "indicators" there before her on the panel. "Only atmospheric gases those that freeze out at extremely low temperatures," she noted as we circled this terrifying "iceball"! "Mankind is `gone'?" Amethysta breathed, looking at Tais. "There would have been `warning'," Tais now smiled back. "There are other `worlds'," I said then to Amethysta. "And we do have ample `time' to prepare..." Tais said. "Back home in our own time," Tais smiled, the "jump" having been apparently successful, the Earth floating there before us. I felt as if I'd just been shown my own death, the "knowledge" of the world's end something "sobering" to everyone aboard the Gaia. Even Amethysta, who had understood "little" of the Priestess' own awesome technology, had understood that we'd witnessed DOOMSDAY!! "What is the population of the Earth," Amethysta asked then. "About half a billion," Tais answered, watching the screen. "Can you transport that many people somewhere?" she asked. "If `we' wished to do so," Tais replied, the implications of her words leaving no doubts as to what she felt about Mankind... Tais having once voiced the thought that much of Mankind had now reverted too far back into barbarianism to be worth "salvaging". A viewpoint that left no doubts in my mind that Tais did share to a considerable degree the same opinions of Mankind as did Aurora. "A bit different from the Gaia," I smiled at Amethysta, who viewed Black Lady with a bit of understandable "distrust" here... "I know `what' an airplane `is'," she smiled back at me. We'd spent the night at Shalimar, resting up from everything we'd seen, experienced. I was starting to "like" Amethysta, although she was certainly a "barbarian" by my own 20th Century standards! "And I have `confidence' in you," she added, making me "smile"... "I think I `prefer' the Gaia," Amethysta said, looking down. "Their `magic' to `mine'?" I teased this blonde "barbarian" from a time now only pages in some musty history book. She was in her way "as out of place" here as I'd been five years before!! "I am glad you `survived' the arena," Amethysta said to me, a low hanging cloud like a fluffy mist floating back over us now. The mountains on both sides rising up even "higher" than we were. The thought that the Earth would be destroyed in another eighty years something sobering, although I knew I would not live to see it "happen", nor I suspected, would Amethysta here beside me now. Neither Amethysta or I had spoken much of it, knowing that Man- kind's own fate was now in the hands of the Priestesses of Lys. "Back in the 20th Century I used be like a `Priestess'," I smiled to Amethysta. "I listened to people spill their souls..." Amethysta's azure blue eyes holding the darkness of mine as she nodded back, as aware as I was that we'd have to eventually face up to what we'd seen there aboard the Gaia sixteen billion miles from the sun. That frozen "iceball" of a planet that had once been our own Earth. The very world we were now flying over here! "Last night, after you fell asleep, I went and looked out the window at the stars and for the first time in my life, `felt' afraid to look up into the darkness, knowing what was `coming'," she spoke, looking at the airplane's instruments in front of her. "I suppose the Priestesses could send everyone `back' in time," I mused thoughtfully. Half a billion people scattered over centuries of time wouldn't have too much of an effect upon things, especially if they were sent into eras with about the same level of technology that we had now. Mars might be able to "absorb" a few million, although neither the Lorr or the Women would welcome such "colonists" to their world, I suspected here! It was also doubtful however from what Tais had said there on the Gaia that the Priestesses had any intentions now of saving every- one. They would no doubt be "selective" in their "choices" here. The thought going through my mind as it has before that for some reason "civilization" had been rebuilt only in certain places... "That's Trelandar down there," I smiled, looking down now. "Yours, not mine," Amethysta answered, looking away then. "My daughter Gayle will be its last Queen," I answered. "We must trust in Lys and her Priestesses," she spoke then. "Who will be the ones to decide who is to live and who is to die," I answered, looking out through the windshield ahead of us. "Trella," I said, the sun now in my eyes as we came flying over the fields and forests towards the city, the ocean there be- yond gleaming in the sunlight. Amethysta quiet there beside me. "Must feel good to be `home' again," she said to me then. "Tais sometimes forgets how people `feel'," I said to her. "No doubt she had reasons for doing what she did," Amethysta answered, looking down at the city as I came banking around now. "Looks like we have a `visitor'," I smiled to Amethysta as I saw the Astarte, Sharon's own flagship, there at anchor as I now brought Black Lady down for a landing. The rake of the three masts and the slimness of the hull leaving no doubts that it was a vessel of Dularnian design, one designed by Maris herself here! "I wish I'd treated you `better'," Amethysta "grinned" back. "Good to see you again, your majesty," June Colt said to me, her dark face glowing with a warm smile of delight as I took her hands in mine, thinking of how much "different" she was from the "blacks" of the past. Proof, I supposed, that it was a matter of "culture", not "race" here as such. Maybe we'll do "better" next time, although Mankind has always needed a "nigger" to do his "dirty work" that no one else wanted to do. The enslavement of native Africans having begun back in the time of the Pharaohs... "Good to be `home'," I smiled, wishing I could give her a hug, but that would doubtlessly cause "rumors" here I had no wish to start, there being enough such about my own "appearance" here. The fact that I am rather "mannish" in my looks does not mean I'm a lesbian despite whatever anyone may happen to think of me here. "That `black' woman is `more' to you than just the `captain' of your guards," Amethysta noted with a smile as we climbed into the carriage that would take us to the palace, the location being of course the same here as it had been back in Amethysta's time. "An excellent swordswoman too," I smiled back at her then. "I think you are thought a `good' Queen," Amethysta smiled. "There are certain political radicals who don't think so," I grinned back, thinking of "one" who was a real "pain in the rear" to me. The sort of a politician who did nothing but "criticize" everything I did, constantly complaining that I was but another "Darlanis"! Claiming that the "working" people of Trelandar were really not all that much "better off" with me than they'd been when Darlanis had ruled Trelandar with her own Lords and Ladies. "Sometimes such `matters' are best resolved with `steel'," she smiled back, her eyes glowing into mine as I nodded, well aware of the sort of stuff that had been done by previous rulers. By Darlanis herself against Sanda's "Free Trelandar Movement"... The "executions" without any "trial", all the rest of the stuff. "At least you serve something `stronger' than fruit juice," Amethysta "grinned", swirling the brandy there in her cut glass goblet, the Priestesses of Lys being "opposed" to "strong drink". "Looks like Princess Tara is up to her `old tricks' again," Sharon said, getting down to the "reason" she'd come to see me. Telling me of the political radicals in her own country who were now trying to stir up trouble between the Empire and the Dularni- an Federation over the political status of Orgon, which was still yet a "part" of the Empire, not a semi-independent nation like my own Trelandar was. Neither Amethysta or me having mentioned any- thing about what we'd "seen" aboard the Gaia, well aware that it would do little good to needlessly concern my friends here of it! "Or Maris Marn," Sanda grinned, her opinion of the "Queen of Dularn" something that hasn't ever changed over the past years! Maris having at one time been a slave girl on my estate who had seduced Sanda's own husband, although I don't think he'd loved the golden haired slave girl except maybe just as a "plaything". "Maris is well aware of the `consequences' of such actions," I pointed out. I was aware of the "friendship" between Darlanis and Maris, but even so Darlanis would not tolerate "losing" Orgon to Dularn, regardless of who was "responsible" for the loss here! And to her any "vote" to do so too would be "rigged" in her eyes! "There are a lot of people in the northern half of Orgon who feel more `Dularnian' than `Californian'," Sharon commented then. I suspected too now that they preferred Dularn's lower tax rates. Dularn being more "libertarian" a society too than is the Empire. The "role" of government in people's lives being much less too. "Maybe I'd better have a talk with Darlanis," I smiled back. Fly up with Sharon to Sarn, and see what Darlanis thought here... "You should start letting `others' take these `risks' for you," Jon said to me as he saw my latest collection of "scars" as we got undressed for bed. In this time I'd been gone for three days, not the couple weeks I'd spent there in the 24th Century. "I'll still be around to bounce my grandchildren on my knee," I smiled back, slipping down my strap so that I was naked. I do have a fairly good figure, rather slim and muscular, but I'm rather badly scarred due to the "adventures" I've had here in the past five years, scars that bring back memories of so many adven- tures I've had both here on Earth and there too on the planet Mars. The marks of Sisa's claws, the scar from the laser burn I took when Aurora made her "revolution", those from various sword blades that I didn't quite parry in time, all mark me as "what" I am. A woman who has become a "living legend" in her own time... "I'll never have another wife like you," Jon smiled back. "I should hope not," I laughed back, kissing him then. |
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