Anno Stellae 1918: RetroStar Chronicles, #1

By R.D. Ginther

       Still undetected by the planet's species of "tiny creatures", the Alien Star-Jewel inspires the corporal who will become the wannabe world-ruler Adolph Shickelgruber, the Fascist dictator of Germany. 

 

       Before the cataclysm of world war II gets going, however, showing a deep, pathological interest in ancient cultures the Alien Entity digs up "King Tut" the boy-pharaoh and his fabulous tomb in Egypt's Valley of the Kings. Moving on, it ruins the world's first experimental giant ATV, the Polar King-- the brainchild of a University of Chicago professor, who thought he could conquer the world with a gadget able to run over and crush almost anything in its path.

 

      The Alien Entity also visits Hollywood, and seemingly finding the enviroment to its taste builds a full scale pyramid on the set of a Garbo-Boyer film being made. Continuing on its quixotic tour of the planet, the Alien sinks a U.S. aircraft carrier, and explodes a Stanford University's cyclotron. All this, and still no one has caught on to the Alien Entity's presence.

 

      The question is: Will Earth ever catch on, before it's too late?

 

This question you will find out once you delve into this Sci-Fi mystery thriller that promises an enjoyable read. Anno Stellae 1918 Volume 1 Chronicle 3 is another exciting book, although only 50 pages long, satisfies any die hard fan of Christian fiction with a delicate hint of fantasy. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: K.A.Edwards
• Release date: Feb 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393969549

Book preview

1  The East Gate

Though the Alien saw no place in its present agenda for the planet, once upon a time its Guardian and Mentor had invested considerable stock in not only it but its pre-Adamic twin.  Dabbling in the psychology of a little Cuthbertson here, a little Shickelgruber there—that was child's play compared to the Grand Design of Destruction that empowered its sacred genius.  So too this odd attachment to past civilizations.  Because of former association, perhaps, it could not resist revisiting its Keeper's old haunts, and what could be older than Egypt? If Sumer, at the head of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, that land of fabulous ziggurats and walled Ur, Lagash, Kish, and Eridu, was no more.  If China, yes, she had the Great Wall, Forbidden City, pagodas, bird's nest soup and so forth, but she was more a muddled product of the 17th to the 19th Centuries, painfully scratching a path from long-lost past glories into the 20th, with its borrowed Western science and technology.  If—no, the Alien had it right in turning to Egypt, known as Misr, or Mizraim, in ancient times, a land, in Napoleon's estimation, still without peer.

Once there, the mindset of its Mentor locked on to the data and...it was the first indication the world, and Egyptologist Harold Carter, who was fated to commit the most dastardly crime of the century, might ultimately be set for relentless, catastrophic Rewind.

No, no, my dear boy,  Davis, the officious, condescending,  elder archeologist,  remarked to Carter when approached on the subject.  What we've found is not what you wish to think.  They're only the things robbed from the tomb I've just discovered, stored in this pit by necropolis guards.  There's no more to look for here, might as well move on to greener pastures!

But there is infinitely more! Carter's heart shouted at the time, only it was best to keep that feeling private, he knew.  There has to be more, you blind, old goat!" he had thought at the time, stuffing down his indignation at being so brutally slighted as an inferior and junior member of the archeological team.

The artifacts from the pit were forwarded to the Metropolitan Museum, New York.  The Curator of the Egyptian Department, Mr. Herbert Winlock, examined them and came to a different conclusion, a less conservative view than Davis's.  Since the world of working archeologists, particularly Egyptologists, is a small one when it comes to sharing ideas, it soon got round to Carter that Winlock thought the pit find was highly significant.  Carter wired him immediately and got an answer, a telegram that gave his hands what felt like an electric charge:

T. DAVIS ITEMS EMPLOYED IN TUTANKHAMUN FUNERAL.  SOME USED BY EMBALMERS.  OTHERS USED IN BANQUET.  EIGHT PEOPLE ATTENDED THE BURIAL. DOES THIS HELP YOU ANY?  H. E. WINLOCK, NEW YORK

So here was proof Tutankhamun was buried in the Valley, in a tomb no one yet had uncovered!

Unfortunately, despite his hard-won credentials as an Egyptologist, he hadn't what it took to follow this now confirmed, exciting lead.  He needed money, lots of it, to really unlock Egypt's rich hoard of secrets.  Professor Theodore Davis was well-heeled and financed his own digs, but Davis wasn't interested any further in Tutankhamun.  So close, yet so far! Carter's frustration was indescribable.

The only option left was to find a patron with deep pockets.  But that species was a rare one, indeed.  And if you were poor or of modest income your chances of hobnobbing with the upper echelons, where you might find a prospective patron, were equally slim!

Yet he wasn't at a total loss for thinking of a prospective set of deep pockets.  It was by recommendation of Lady Amherst that he first got his job as archeological draughtsman and assistant with Newberry.  She had seen his drawings at an exhibition, met him standing nearby and from that chance encounter formed a good opinion of him and his work that led to his being hired in Egypt.  Lady Amherst, of course, was no longer a possibility, having died two years afterwards.  But she had made favorable mention of his talents and character to a certain Anglo-Scottish earl, Lord Carnarvon.  The earl had gone so far as to write to him some encouraging words, to apply himself most energetically  and selflessly in that most exciting land of fabled Antiquities, Desertine Egypt in a badly smudged, much blotted letter that also described the Earl's disability brought on by a riding mishap while hunting fox. 

I'm afraid I am little good for anything now, the earl lamented on pale green paper with the Carnarvon family coat of arms in gold, except for light reading of popular [blot] detective crime books and collecting curious old things that strike my fancy.  I've quite filled the [blot] house here at [blot] Highclere and now resort to the outbuildings to [blot] store them all.  My housekeepers are quite over-worked, having to dust so many trifling things...

Lord Carnarvon's personal, more than passing interest in him had struck Carter as promising at the time, enough so he put the letter carefully away in his private papers after sending a brief reply on plain commoner paper.  Promising, yes, but these older titled men who took personal interest in bright, young men—one had to be a bit careful of them, he thought, knowing of some unsavory gossip about Oscar Wilde and his young titled friend, and also certain dukes and poor, struggling students such as himself.  The Earl had even invited him up to hunt the Earl's own herd of red deer in a fenced deer park (artificially-kept ice free with underground steam lines) on the estate lands, though saying he had eschewed hunting altogether since his accident.

But Carter had no taste for hunting animals or keeping his host’s company, and thought the Earl a trifle barbaric and out of touch with modern youth like himself anyway, so he put the letter and its invitation away and forgot it.  Now with the Davis find fresh in his mind he got the letter out and read it through.  Was the Earl still alive?  He must be, Carter decided. Noblemen, even the gouty ones, don't expire prematurely of reading penny thrillers and collecting expensive knick-knacks.  That type—unlike the risk-taking gentleman-sportsman—was known to hang on almost indefinitely. 

As he had back then, he thanked the Earl for the interest shown him, as if no significant time had elapsed.  But he also brought the noble gentleman up to date on his work with Professor-Archeologist Theodore Davis, the Museum of Cairo, and the Egyptian government.  As Inspector of Monuments Carter now had impressive credentials, and a prospective patron needed to be apprised of them.  As for coming out with his reason for writing a second time—that he desperately wanted a patron to finance radical excavations in the Valley—he decided that would be just too bold,  too forward an approach.  Better just a notification that he was working hard in Egypt—that he was one Briton who did not shirk his duty to bring glory to his country  if he possibly could.  If the Earl responded in a friendly fashion, then he could be approached on the matter dearest to Carter's heart. 

Still it was a mild shock to receive a letter with the same spidery and much blotted writing as his first crumpled specimen.  Passing time had rendered the writing far more spidery, in fact.  It was almost like a ghost of yesteryear speaking to him. But the spirit behind the delicate writing was manly enough.  Lord Carnarvon said how pleased as punch he was to see how well Carter had conducted his affairs since he left Britain for foreign shores to make his mark.  He knew Carter could do it!  But he was a little confused, evidently, as to the object of Carter's second letter.  Was Carter in need of anything?  He feared Carter, as a young gentleman of vocation and enterprise, was too reticent and did not wish to make his needs known to an older man of the world and one so retired in habits as he.

Come out with it [blot], dear boy! wrote the earl.  "I'll either say yea or nay.  And it's not bloody likely I'll turn a deaf [blot] ear to such a promising Egypto