Anno Stellae 2113, Anno Stellae 2145, Anno Stellae 2146, Anno Stellae 2155, Anno Stellae 2165: RetroStar Chronicles, #1

By R.D. Ginther

In Chronicle 13 Volume 1, the scene has shifted to a very disturbing 10 year old called Master Chillingsworth, who has the most bizarre yet macabre hobbies. What changed this once sweet and innocent little boy into the beast he has become? So disturbing were his hobbies that he was arrested by the police. This finally caught the attention of his parents that these 'hobbies' of his were not merely growing pains that their son was experiencing. But rather something else that was dark and foreboding. They immediately whisked him away to military school, but is it too late?

 

Chronicle 14 volume 1, Chillingsworth grows up but somehow this awkward genius has changed into that menacing character he once was in his youth. But this time his gruesome hobbies have been fine tuned into a weapon that can alter life as we know it. He seems to be on a path of destruction, and not even his parent can stop him this time.

 

Chronicle 15 Volume 1, unlike Chillingsworth with his gruesome ideas and an even more grotesque creation, another character has arose amidst this ongoing saga and he proves to be the most ideal nemesis for Chillingsworth. He is definitely not on board with Chillingsworth ideologies, therefore Honorable Judge Nilsson plays by his own rules which are unorthodox and they get the job done. It is this unpredictable behavior that keeps Chillingsworth on his toes. Nevertheless this just slows Chillingsworth down, a little, not stops him. Chillingsworth is a very persuasive character and soon he has the right people on board with his fanatical plans. Nilsson too must create his own 'board' or rather a committee of Chillingsworth's adversaries. Not everyone wants a world leader, especially one with the likes of Chillingsworth. Nilsson realizes that he needs to meet fire with fire but the conventional 'fire' is unable to put this maniac's 'fire' out. Nilsson will have to seek answers and advice from undocumented sources in order to stay well beyond the tentacles of Chillingsworth's reach.

 

Chronicle 16 Volume 1, Chillingsworth achieves his greatest victory to become world leader. But Nilsson achieves his greatest victory too, to become Senior Judge in the world court, which makes him untouchable. As annoying as this is to Chillingsworth, he does not stop his plans to continue stomping out the rebels and to claim as many leadership positions as possible, feeding his lust for ultimate power and control. On the other hand, Nilsson proves to be the worthy arch-nemesis that on a number of occasions, was able to thwart and even hinder Chillingsworth's plans. But there is something afoot. An unsuspecting turn of events that will rock the very foundation of the brilliant Dr. Nilsson. Will he be able to recover and resume his attack on Chillinsworth?

 

Chronicle 17 Volume 1, although Dr. Nilsson was temporarily set back by certain turn of events, he was able to re-assess and continue his assault on Chillingsworth and his world domination. As Chillingsworth's empire grows, so has Nilsson's opposing empire which is growing, simultaneously. Both now are devising ways of taking the other down even with collateral damage which is deemed necessary. However, despite this ongoing rivalry between these two foes, there is a third enemy rising in the ranks.

 

These five Chronicles, Chronicles 13 through Chronicles 17 in Volume 1 are a lovely set together totaling 115 pages of nonstop action and excitement. The Alien Entity seems distant in the first few Chronicles, but not for long. It is making its presence felt and soon earth will have a much bigger problem than Chillingsworth to deal with.

• Language: English
• Publisher: K.A.Edwards
• Release date: Mar 14, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393686576

Book preview

CHRONICLE 13

ANNO STELLAE 2113

1  A Childish Phase

By the time of the 22nd Century,  the world crisis had spun off  bizarre scenarios, which most people considered quite normal—difficult, admittedly, but normal.  Scientists, facile and adaptable creatures that they are  (Global Warming was discreetly relegated to the trash-bin), engineered the means to keep things going.

Food went up literally—into the very skies—since growing crops was impossible in former rich farm-belts.  Industry—upscaled in technology—put an impressive, glittering and sophisticated glaze of  progress over conditions that were increasingly reminiscent of  both the Stone and Ice Ages.

This process of continued retrenchment might have gone on indefinitely, except the alien had other plans, which  crystalized in yet another Man of the Hour,  this one at least twice as remarkable and thorough-going as the one the red star first fingered in ANNO 1918.

May 3,  Sutton Place,  the geodesic-domed London estate and chief seat of the Chillingsworths.

Gardeners, no longer able to hold back, complained to their supervisor of the dead animals they found on the grounds—pets, it appeared, of young Master Chillingsworth.  The problem quickly came to a head two days later.

McFie the head gardener caught Master Chillingsworth dunking a baby rabbit at the poolside. 

You wouldn't be meanin' to snuff it,  now would you, laddie?  said the Scotsman. 

Master Chillingsworth turned abruptly, the struggling animal in his clenched hand.  His eyes shone hard and round, like pieces of glassy stone.

Leave me alone!  It's for a scientific experiment!

Oh, no, you don't.  You're no scientific.  It takes a big deal of  schoolin' and trainin' first.  And that's not the way you treat little critters, not on mee garden patch, nosir.

You can't stop me!  cried the rich man’s brat.  I'll snuff you too if you get in my way!

The well-meaning gardener took the screaming rabbit-snuffer in hand and with some trouble got him to the mansion. 

The butler, as starched up in appearance as V. R.  Cuthbertson's had been, looked at them both with great disapproval.

Unhand him,  McFie!  How dare you mistreat the child!  he reprimanded the head gardener.

But, man, he was a'murtherin'  the po’ rabbit he has and he's nabbed in the act!

I don't believe it!  And a rabbit is no cause to make the little master so upset.  You’ll be sorry for this, McFie!  You ought mind your posies, not the master’s son, which is not your business!

The door slammed in McFie's face.  A moment later it opened a crack and a boy's tongue, with white cake frosting on it, protruded.  I'll get you for this,  McFie!  Master Chillingsworth hissed.  Just you wait!

As it happened, there was no long waiting period.  Swift vengeance fell on the most helpless.  Gardening and maintenance staff continued to find pet animals,  many mangled apparently while alive,  by the looks of  agonized contortions. 

Mr. McFie gritted his teeth and said nothing, so they too said nothing.

Master Chillingsworth,  whenever he passed the head gardener, smirked,  made rude noises, and repeated his threat to snuff him.

Lady Chillingsworth came to know of the problem afresh when she was having a  January garden party while a blizzard beat against the dome.

A kitten tied to a rock sinker came free of the pink ribbon and floated up among some swimming duchesses. 

The butler finally divulged what he knew to the lord and lady.  The head gardener was summoned immediately.  Master Chillingsworth was nowhere in sight.

Why were we not informed?  they demanded.

A gleam in his eye, the head gardener explained.  He had tried but was blocked by the butler.

The butler, however, was not one to bear such injustice and defamation of character from a mere gardener.

But Madame!  You could hardly expect me to take a gardener's word over your own boy's! 

The mother ignored the butler, who looked daggers at Mr.  McFie.

Later, aside in an alcove without servants present, she turned to her husband.

He's always been so kind and gentle toward his pets!  she protested to the father.  I just can't believe he's turned so malicious.

Yes, little Marcus has been a gentle, kind chap as you say, observed the scion of the  Chillingsworths.  I'll never forget how on our country place at Mousehole—or was it Edzell?—anyway,  he wept rivers when he saw that hawk snatch a vole off the grounds in its talons.  He also nursed that half-grown wild hare back to health after it got its ears clipped by the robo-mower.  But that was then.  If the report is true, he's certainly not so sweet and tender now.  I have a mind to call for professional counseling, but I feel, if we don't make an issue of it, it will soon pass of its own—like melting ice in Mock-spring.

It's only a childish phase,  you mean? said the wife hopefully, as if temperaments could change as facilely as  British weather,  from iron-fisted winter to the thawing of  Mock Spring and back again to savage winter.

Exactly.  What else could it be?  He's only ten.  His character can't possibly be set yet.

Oh, but it was!  Events soon proved the fact.

McFie, on leaving, heard a familiar hissing behind his back and turned round.  Mud smacked against his face.  Master Chillingsworth was behind a bush, about to throw some more when the gardener chased him out.

The boy ran toward the house,  stopping to pipe back.  You can't stop me!  I'll get you turned out yet!

So there the matter came to rest.  It was one dirty trick after another against McFie.  The head gardener still found dead and mutilated pet animals on the grounds, but he gave them quiet burials from then on, thinking of his job and hopes of  paid retirement.  After all, the family policy was clear:  if left alone, the boy's problem of mistreating animals would pass of its own.  His problem was only a phase, it would go away in time.

A maid was not so wise as the resigned McFie.  She started to move some things in a collection of certain rocks and stones and a scroll that Master Marcus had found at Castle Edzell,  to dust them better.  Master Marcus, seeing her,  let out a howl that brought the whole household.  And he kept at it until his parents had to reprimand the young woman.

Madame, I was only trying to dust up his things a bit! wept the maid.  I've got to do my job, don't I?

No, she was filching them!  I caught the dirty little thief in the act!

The young lord and future first world president would not be satisfied and stop screaming, however, until further action was taken.  The still protesting maid was let go.  It had to be to maintain peace in the household.  Later, informed of her rights,  she sued and won a good piece of compensation.  The family, of course, was mortified and tried to put a good face on things.

After a fire started in his quarters on the estate and destroyed all his belongings,  the head gardener saw the handwriting on the wall.  Like thousands had already done, he signed a long-term contract and emigrated to an orbiting food factory—the ultimate escape from Earth’s various ills that included Master Marcus Chillingsworth.

2   Reformed

Master Chillingsworth , with McFie his chief antagonist gone, grew more bold with research experiments.

He rapidly progressed beyond crude throttlings, dismemberings,  organ transplantings, drownings, burnings, and freezings. 

At the Chillingsworths'  domed, seaside estate in Wales,  Castle Edzell,  officers were tipped off by staff.

Here I run down to the boat shed for some paint for the porch, reported a maintenance man to the horrified parents, and done found Master Chillingsworth doin'  the Airedale bitch's  pup somthin' tar'ble with my laser torch!  Why, he had the  po'  scared critta in a champagne ice bucket,  half-frozen, to keep it steady, I suppose, while he carved up the po' little beastie with the laser!

Understandably, the man lacked education and thought he saw a laser torch rather than Master Chillingsworth's clever adaptation networked with several other maintenance tools.

The boy had tried to explain his wonderful device to the man.  It was no torch but a flaw detector that could work on animals instead of  pipes for lawn sprinkler systems.

See this?  he had said as he pushed a button on the portable rig.  His childish voice seemed to carry itself with an authority and intelligence beyond his years.

A ray shot out of the helium-neon laser and struck a sample piece of sprinkler plumbing.  The tiny dish captured whatever was reflected back. 

You see only part of the ray.  I've split it, and the part you don't see is directed by little mirrors inside to a holographic glass plate with special properties.  I had to order the plate, of course.  Waves of light form a pattern on the plate which is recorded and becomes the hologram.  The image, normally, would be applied to the bonding in question, so that you might find the exact spots to cut away and replace with new pipe and bonding.  Well, connected to a  simple video camera and a pre-arranged hologram, I can even identify flawed things at a distance and—

Master Chillingsworth was about to demonstrate another part—the one that had shortly before shot out another laser ray and badly scorched the  flawed puppy in the champagne bucket—when the maintenance man grabbed the flaw detector away before the puppy could be done even worse than it was. 

Despite Master Chillingsworth's best attempts to stop him—kicks, even several wolfish bites—the maintenance man got the invention to the house as proof of the inhooman deviltry  he was up to.

Despite the boy's protests that it was yet another scientific experiment and the animal's life was not being taken irresponsibly or cruelly, he was actually jailed.

A terrific blot on the Chillingsworth escutcheon,  the affair was settled out of court because of  his extreme youth, though animal rights groups wanted him tried as an adult after receiving information that he had sadistically maimed and slaughtered dozens of animals in the recent past—one activist going so far to douse her clothes with petrol and ignite herself  before cameras in a public mall to focus public attention on the case. 

His parents, at their wits end,  committed him to counseling services, which got nowhere with him.  He somehow always slipped from their control and went back to mistreating animals with his hologram-camera flaw detector, as he called his ingenious invention.  People feared he might even think of trying it out on children and even adults.

Loch Lyman Military Academy, a rough, rural Scottish school for Disfunctional, Disoriented Youth of  Means  finally provided the answer.  Like the geosynchronous food factories, it too provided a last resort for both victim and victimizer. 

Dome-less, set on a treeless island in a deep, very cold tarn,  it could not be easily escaped.  There was only one launch for the thirty young detainees  enrolled at school,  and it was kept locked up in a maximum-security-walled boathouse night and day.

Typical establishment of that type, rules  and privileges  were strictly enforced.  Stripped of all personal possessions except toothbrush and a couple changes of scratchy woolen underwear and stockings, he was stuffed in a  brown and orange jumper-style uniform and made to run laps and plunge afterwards in near freezing, brownish,  loch water.  That was just a start.  Yet, understanding it could get worse,  he calmed down immediately as a result of this and other disciplines and began to obey superiors. 

Six months in the juvenile rehab slammer took twenty city-bred, cake-fattened pounds off  the over-indulged boy—during which, as agreed with the parents,  he could not write home and complain of  icy baths and the unheated sleeping quarters of  the dormitory where ice regularly formed on the blankets an inch thick, measured by Master Chillingsworth of course.

Armed with significant data,  the headmaster met with the nervous and anxious parents.  He gave them the full treatment. First, he had them seated properly in his dark Tudor-style office with the huge portraits of former deceased  headmasters either looking down disapproving at adoring hounds, or standing, with elbow cocked at the belted waist amidst Kansas moose and Faroe Island polar bears. 

For the comfort of guests, this concession:  coal-and-peat fired  stoves inset in the fireplaces kept at full blast night and day. 

But knowing this was to be more than upsetting an interview, the headmaster allowed further concessions.

Care for a pick-me-up? he inquired.  Tea?  Coffee?  Mineral water?  Hot cocoa? Chilled tannic acid?

No, thank you,  said Mrs. Chillingsworth,  nervously plucking a