Ano Stellae 2457: RetroStar Chronicles, #2

By R.D. Ginther

      In Chronicle 28 Volume 2, Anno Stellae 2457, more and more destruction of planets and galaxies ensued as Sagittarius A ravaged its way towards Earth II. Only the moon stood in its path, it had somewhat shielded Earth II…but only for a brief moment. In the meanwhile the sun was drastically increased in size threatening to become a supernova due to the cosmic explosions of the solar  system planets. The red star a.k.a. the Alien Entity a.k.a. the OP (Opposing Player) at the helm of all this destruction, and always seemed one step ahead in the Wargame.  If these disasters weren't enough to be disturbing, even greater threats are coming from the human sectors!

       On Earth II, Queen Diana, self-appointed as 'Empress of  Argentina,' sent off an expedition in search of gold in the appropriately named Golden Mountains of South America's Andean mountain chain.  Dr. Celman declined the opportunity to be one of the Empress' lovelorn explorers on the new Atlantis ship—all dying to win her hand. He had other plans in mind, namely to dethrone the Empress Diana. The explorers made amazing discoveries but they also experienced life-threatening, catastrophic events that would alter not only their lives but the path of Earth II forever. Thankfully the Non-tethered Butterfly representative of the Cray Supercomputer in Dr. Pikkard's Wargame, Wally IV, intervened with his un-militarized strategies. Otherwise, human lives would have been completely wiped out as Earth II would have been annihilated.

      Chronicle 28, a nifty book of  147 pages, is the definition of a page turner. Filled with twists and turns, curve balls and mind blowing plots, your official guide through the mysterious maze of Earth II R.D. Ginther, really reels you into his ongoing saga. You can never guess what will happen next and at the same time you are satisfied with what happens next!

• Language: English
• Publisher: K.A.Edwards
• Release date: Jun 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201341312

Book preview

"So we will honor these old Argonauts, and

Listen to their story as it stands, and we will

Try to be like them, each of us in our place;

For each of us has a Golden Fleece to seek,

And a wild sea to sail over, ere we reach it,

And dragons to fight ere it be ours."

Charles Kingsley, Br. Author

CHRONICLE 28

VOLUME 2

ANNO STELLAE 2457

1  Diana’s Expedition

Wally III  proved presumptuous regarding the Cray recruit from Tutasix, the world Genotype Archives ion Atka Island in the Alaskan Aleutian Chain.  Neophyte  Wally IV, despite what he was told, had not missed much action.  In fact,  after some brief, initial skirmishes involving six planets,  the Asteroid Belt, and a Galaxy-gobbling SAWBH,  the Wargame had really only begun.

It was a terrible situation for the Zoobs,  caught between the grasping Sphinx and an equally grasping Komodo dragon in London and later the Caribbean named Sir John Canoe, as he replaced Sir Francis Clarke and figured he ought to take on lordship as well.  Fortunately for them,  the Reverend NaSmyth—who styled himself Emperor of South America—got into serious trouble with the Indians. He conscripted and indentured them as laborers in his vaccine factory and they did not like forced labor and a food allotment that was little more than a small sack of half-rotten manioc roots apiece.

One day news by spies came to the court at B.A. that NaSmyth had vanished.  There were conflicting reports, but when time passed and he did not reappear they realized he must be dead. Good riddance! That was the general response. Anyone who conscripted Paraguayans, though mostly all Indians, and worked them to death on starvation wages was a beast in their view, thoroughly disapproved in  South America’s mostly downtrodden population.  And he treated the elites and royalty with the same contempt and superior, colonialist attitude. 

That was both good and bad news for B.A. They still needed the vaccine he had produced. So King Zoob,  recalling his buccaneering days,  sent a raiding party up to NaSmyth’s capital,  New Amsterdam,  took it from the Chillwah Indians who were camping out there again after running away into the jungle to save their lives from the Reverend NaSmyth,  and seized the vaccine.  Though they did not get the formula,  they got enough supplies of the drug to last them for years.  Any gold  or treasure on the property had disappeared by this time, unfortunately.  But at least they had the means to maintain their health against the plague.  Not only that.  They could play the game just as well as Clarke,  Canoe, and NaSmyth.  Having cornered the market,  they raised the price for the vaccine astronomically.  But almost all the Mestizo people were impoverished by this time.  If the Indians did not give them the native herb,  they simply had to go without medicine and die.  Death was cheap.  Life was too expensive.  So the Zoobs got little from their act of greed and trying to capitalize on the people’s distress.

It was at a banquet thrown to celebrate the successful raid that King Zoob fatally over-indulged on barbecued,  pineapple-artichoke-and-anchovy  stuffed Capybara. 

A few people whispered at the state funeral that it was nothing for the king to consume an entire capybara at one sitting,  so he must have been poisoned since he had only gotten half-way through the  succulent dish before collapsing. 

But whispers counted for nothing much in B.A. 

Queen Zoob’s creamy white hands (which she kept that way with frequent milk baths!) held firmly to the scepter. Hardly a novice in old Cornwall, she had learned a great deal—particularly about men—since leaving Mount St. Michael’s, which she had found very stuffy, pious, and tiresome under Lady Anne’s watchful eye.  It would take far more than whispers to loosen those Cornish dairymaid fingers from the helm of the exciting life she was now living, with no restraints imposed on her.

Having once held the scepter in a strange land that had afforded her a new lease on life, as she saw it,  the woman could not let go.

Loathing widow’s mourning black laid against her lily-fair skin,  Queen Diana Zoob cut her period of mourning for her king rather short. 

When the expedition sailed, it would be only six months since he succumbed at table.

The night before the expedition team gathered at a nobleman’s home.  Though invited by the queen,  Dr. Celman excused himself,  saying his studies could not be laid aside at that time without injury to the cause of science. 

Disappointed,  Queen Diana had to give in,  particularly since she had entrusted to him some very important scientific papers—composed by the late Dr. Pikkard of New Amsterdam,  Holland America.  What a handsome man he was, she considered, unusually so, for a man of science and learning.  It would be a great loss not to have him contribute his learning and science on her grand expedition—he would have been the cynosure as the expedition commander, with his dashing, good looks!  In order not to be deprived of him, she was even considering accompanying the expedition on her own royal yacht.

Dr. Celman knew physics and astronomy and mathematics and conducted experiments in a laboratory in his house,  she had been told by Señor Lafcadio Florentino de la  Moreno, the court historian.  So,  glad to get the papers off her conscience and hands,  she gave them to Celman, saying he could study them for as long as he liked and then report anything he thought might be of interest to her.

Yet could she accompany the expedition?  Without him,  whom she had set her heart on appointing the expedition commander, she had to make do with lesser, less attractive men.  Celman might be gone for months.  But when he decided not to go, she was relieved, as despite the great asset he would have been, he was a greater asset to her at home. 

There were so few educated men in Buenos Aires,  it was difficult for her to make up a proper expedition, however.  Señor Moreno had been very helpful, of course, in the selection.  Even he was going, since an account of the undertaking had to be made that only he could write.

It bothers me that Dr. Celman will be staying behind when all you brave men set forth into the most dangerous country,  complained Diana to Moreno.

It bothers me too,  Your Majesty.  His skills are badly needed.  Why,  now we only have a cartographer, medical doctor,  captain, commander,  artist,  and the four foreigners who are mining engineers and mineralogists.  Not including myself, the scientific aspect,  as you can see, will be severely diminished by his absence.  But then you can appoint me commander in his stead, and I shall gladly do everything in my power to make the expedition a suc—"

Oh, no, I don’t want you to soil your hands with such work.  I want you to be free to look for gold,  my dear.  We need gold more than we need more science.

Certainly, Your Majesty!  I fully understand your wishes.  We will seek out all valuable metals and minerals,  as well as open up trade routes to the Pacific if possible.

Yes, I like that—a trade route to the Western Ocean.  I am so very tired of  the old dreary Atlantic and this big, muddy river they say looks like silver but is brown, brown, brown! Besides a little fish for the table, this country and the river haven’t gotten me anything valuable.  I am having to pay for most everything out of my own pocket!

In the way of revenue,  Your Majesty?  Water-borne commerce hereabouts is almost non-existent,  I agree.  But if we can break through to the ocean and coastlands in the west,  there is no telling what revenues can be gained.  The natives on that side will surely want things we have over here where it is so civilized.  Think of the trade!  Buenos Aires will boom!  This city, your great imperial capital,  will take on a new lease in life!  Population will increase as many as the stars of heaven—

"Oh, Lafcadio,  Lafcadio,  what would my Meridianalis do without you?

And so it went at the court in the highest circle. 

At Celman’s  mansion,  the men were drinking, and had been drinking for quite some time.

The four long-legged, blond-haired, muscular Finns,  virtually indistinguishable and taciturn creatures who managed to be mining experts capable of  identifying any profitable ore the old Earth could still boast, displayed the greatest capacity for drinking and showing absolutely no sign of it except that they became even more statuesque and tight-lipped, if that was possible.

We’re very sorry you aren’t coming with us, said Dr. Garcia,  the expedition doctor to his friend  and colleague of long standing.  Won’t you change your mind?  You would have made a great commander, other than the one I have heard has been selected due to your abstaining.

Celman looked at him with raised eyebrows. But why are YOU going?

Garcia looked amazed. My friend, the queen and your queen commands it!

Celman looked disgusted. That silly, brainless doll from a foreign country!  You let her likes rule over you and curdle your intellect?  She got this bright idea stuck in her head by Moreno. You know that.  She needs hard cash by the barrel full.  Money is her only reason. For without it she knows she cannot control this wretched rump of a country a moment longer!

Garcia glanced around before drawing Celman aside to an alcove filled with potted palms. 

Shouldn’t you be careful about expressing such things publicly,  my friend?  You are a brilliant man.  We all acknowledge it.  But she is the queen, after all.  She has a dream, too, of this grand empire called Meridianalis, with this city established as the brilliant gemstone at the heart of it.  A woman with a far-reaching, potent dream is something to be reckoned with, in my humble opinion.  It may be a bit dangerous to speak of her like that.

Garcia flashed a smile. Besides,  she is the most beautiful woman in the world, no?

Celman shrugged.  It’s one thing to look at a beautiful woman.  It’s another to sit under her brainless rule day after day.  I just don’t like it.  I believe all her European titles are bogus—just things that gushing sycophant Moreno cooked up to help legitimize her as ruler after Zoob was assassinated, drowned in his bathing pool by servants at her order.  And she can’t even speak pigeon Spanish!

Garcia,  growing frightened and not merely uncomfortable,  excused himself.

I need another drink,  the former priest said, and moved away.

Later in the evening,  it was Celman who dragged Garcia away from the party.

What is it?  said Garcia. 

Celman put his face close to Garcia's,  and eye to eye.  You’re going to have to decide!  You’re no fool, not like all the others.  That is why I hosted this expedition of madmen and nincompoops,  so I could get full access to you.  I speak to you as one thinking man to another,  one freedom-loving Argentine to another!  She is a cheap, little, gold-digging foreigner!  We can’t let her rule over this beloved homeland of ours the rest of our days!  Now are you going to join me and do something about it?  Or are you going to play safe as a lady’s man and a  lickspittle stooge, like that odious Moreno, who would serve a Frog Princess with his loves if it paid him?

Garcia looked sick,  ghastly pale and greenish under his olive complexion.  He pulled away from Celman. I cannot decide right now.  I must think about it.

Celman seized Garcia by the shoulders. "But there is no better time!  It’s getting late—the eleventh hour!  I’ve approached you on this before and you postponed your decision.  You have thought about it enough!  Now will you play the man and stand up against this odious woman?  I don’t care how beautiful she is.  She’s a  petty tyrant of foreign blood and Zoob,  before her,  had no right to rule over us either when he is only the viceroy and a usurper.  Now will you help me and those who have already joined to throw her back into the river?  There’s no gold,  no treasure in the jungle!  This absurd expedition, it will bring you nothing but trouble if you desert the true cause of Argentine freedom!  Say, man, that you’ll join the  brave, loyal forces of  the grand republic! 

Garcia looked like a man under thumb-screws. I cannot,  he groaned. I cannot do that to her.  She—

Celman released him.  A cold look clamped down on his features.  He stood away,  rigid and correct like a tin soldier.

All right, keep your tiresome, greedy little queenie.  We don’t require your services.  And concerning this conversation—

Oh, I won’t tell Moreno,  if that is what you mean,  said Garcia hastily.  I’ve never liked him much. And he is too chummy to the commander of the queen’s guard, Hernando Suarez.  Something is being cooked up between those two involving the Throne.  I suspect the pair are lovers.  So you have nothing to fear from either, as they want other out of the way more than they want you removed.  Besides, your looks appeal to such men as much as to certain women—

Celman gave him a withering look, then stalked away,  while Garcia looked like a family member had just died. 

Everyone else at the party was enthusiastic to the point of euphoria about the expedition’s chances. The euphoria was alcohol fueled. Anyone with sober eyesight could see the signs of general decay and decline in Argentina. Their thinking went that no doubt the expedition would turn things around dramatically. It would precipitate the dawn of a new, glorious era for the empire!

Helping that opinion gain deeper root with frequent resort—Dr. Celman’s fine cigars and liquors, while the host stood by regarding them with deep irony and pity in his keen, dark eyes.  He had just tried to inject some cool reason into several possible men,  challenging them  as to what they stood to gain by the expedition, then suffered a loss of dignity for nothing when they stoutly defended the queen and the undertaking.

At least they will be out of the way,  when it’s time for real men to act! he reflected.

Too spirited to notice the scientist’s cool reserve,  they sang the national anthem, after which they joined in shouting God save the Queen! while Celman substituted Incompetent for Queen beneath his breath.

Arm in arm,  the jolly ones linked with the four, not-so-jolly-looking Finns left the mansion while their host,  silently, wished them all god-speed to oblivion. 

Those who wished to celebrate further—for a scholar’s house lacked certain things of the feminine kind a saloon offered in abundance—continued on to La Boca.  There, at the Happy Gaucho and other places they toasted the upcoming expedition all night and most of the morning as Gypsy women hung on their arms and necks.

Orfeo  Villa-Lobos, the young expedition artist and life and soul of every La Boca party  was  the last to crash into bed in Dr. Celman’s residence. On the floor rug  sprawled the Finns,  without a snore sleeping like  giant babies curled in a  fetal position when he stumbled into the room.

2    Dr. Celman And The Papers

After  the expeditioners left,  Dr. Celman retired to his study, passing beneath KNOW THYSELF,  a classic Greek inscription over the doorway. With the house quiet, the celebrants gone and his servants in bed,  he stood with an unlighted cigar gazing abstractly at the busts of  Greek and Roman philosophers, while his mind raced over the details of preparing for a revolution.

He wasn’t really a man of action—for all his brave words. All his young manhood he had escaped the sordid realities of  life by spending his time with fine old books—most out of print for centuries and barely legible, they had crumbled in his hands as he read them.  To save the best,  the most idealistic,  for himself and his educated friends,  he had done reprints and hand copies at his own expense. 

Moving past the bust of Plato and a death mask of David Hume, the great mathematician and logician,  he went to a cluttered desk.  Piled high with treatises he himself had written on many subjects,  it also held his latest rare book,  actually an unbounded monograph the queen had given him to look  at.  Detailed, it focused on one main question with numerous researches—what was causing the global decline, and, specifically, the retrogression of society and technology and climate?

He had taken it with ill grace at the time, since the mildewed bundle looked like some old  rubbish Moreno had spurned as beneath his lily-fingered notice.

You are a recognized man of science,  Señor Celman,  she remarked to him in a private audience. I think you should have these writings to study them, not any other man.  I was advised by my lady-in-waiting on the voyage to Buenos Aires to give them to a true man of science.  Poor thing, she was quarantined at the Flores Islands and did not survive, due to her decline in health.  Señor Garcia is only a physician, after all, so he is not suitable, though he will be useful on the expedition medically as assistant to Dr. Perez whenever he wishes to call on him. And the others are wonderful, vigorous men in body, true,  but—

Grumbling as he went from the palace,  he had taken the papers home and thrown them in a corner.  Weeks later, he felt very restless and could not sleep, so he went down to his study and looked about for a