Maddrax: Volume 1 (English Edition)

By Sascha Vennemann, Manfred Weinland, Michael M. Thurner and Néstor Taylor

When a comet struck Earth, Matthew Drax found himself sent 500 years into the future - only to find civilization in ruins. In a world filled with barbarians, hostile mutants, and lost technology, Drax and co. cross the globe in search of adventure. Having recently saved the world by restoring the moon from its falling orbit, an accident in proceedings causes pockets of parallel worlds to dot the globe. What new dangers await Matt and his travelling companion, the telepathic warrior queen Aruula, as they cross these strange gaps in time and space?

• Language: English
• Publisher: J-Novel Club
• Release date: Oct 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9781718329409

Book preview

The Story So Far

By Ian Rolf Hill

This introduction is meant to give you a quick insight into the MADDRAX universe. For those of you who want to know the whole story, please check the extended synopsis at the end of the volume.

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On February 8th, 2012, the comet Christopher-Floyd crashed into the Earth. United States Air Force flight commander Matthew Drax was deployed to observe the comet’s approach. When Drax and his squadron made contact with the Comet, however, they were flung five hundred years into the future.

During this time, the world as he knows it changes drastically: human civilization undergoes extreme degeneration, to the point of now resembling the Bronze Age: the world’s once-great cities lie in ruins, there are no longer any official forms of government, and people regress to living in clans and tribes, moving through the wilderness like nomads and calling themselves the Wandering Folk. Earth’s plants and animals have also mutated in bizarre and dangerous ways.

Upon exiting the timeslip, Drax crashes alone in the Alps. His passenger, the scientist and professor Dr. Jacob Smythe, triggered his ejector seat out of panic and is now missing. There is no trace of Drax’s other comrades.

Attacked by mutated, semi-intelligent giant rats called Taratzes, Matt is saved by a barbarian warrior named Aruula. As she finds his name, Matt Drax, difficult to pronounce, she gives him the nickname Maddrax. A telepath, Aruula is instantly able to understand Matt, and the two form a connection. Soon after, Aruula falls in love with Drax and remains by his side throughout his adventures.

In London, Matt and Aruula meet a group known as the Technos, whose ancestors survived the comet’s impact in bunkers beneath the city. By avoiding the immediate aftermath of the disaster, the group has not only retained its twenty-first-century intelligence, but continued to invent and innovate. However, this knowledge has come at a price: due to their centuries-long stay in the bunkers, the Technos have depleted immune systems, and are only able to visit the surface in protective suits. The community in London offers to connect Drax with other Technos around the world. The journey brings Matt and Aruula to America, now known as Meeraka in the language of the Wandering Folk.

Along the way, they encounter the Hydrites, an anthropomorphized species of fish-people. Later, it is revealed that they are not mutants, but rather an alien race who initially settled on Mars, where they were known as Hydrees. When Mars began losing its atmosphere hundreds of thousands of years ago, the Hydrees traveled along a tachyon-based time beam to Earth, where they took the name Hydrite and settled the undersea frontiers.

One of the Hydrites—a man named Quart’ol—begins traveling with the pair, ultimately sacrificing himself to save Matt’s life. In the aftermath, Matt and Aruula are separated before they can reach Meeraka. While Aruula is forced to travel with the neo-Barbarian Rulfan (son of a London Techno and a barbarian woman), Matt Drax reaches the coast of the former USA.

In Washington (now Waashton), Matt learns of another bunker-based civilization, one calling itself the World Council and claiming to be the true global political leaders. The council’s president—General Arthur Crow—is a power-obsessed dictator looking to cement his grip on the world. A rebel group, the Running Men, seeks to thwart his plans. The Running Men are led by Mr. Black, a clone of the last US President (and a certain beloved action movie star).

During the clash between the World Council and the rebels, an outside consciousness takes control of Matt Drax. This turns out to be Quart’ol, who at the moment of his death, transferred his soul into Matt’s brain. Quart’ol brings Drax to an undersea city of Hydrites, Hykton, in order to have his consciousness implanted in a clone of his original body.

Matt returns to Waashton where he reunites with Aruula. Together, they are forced to flee from the World Council and end up in Los Angeles (now called El’ay). There, they meet the android Miki Takeo, who becomes one of their closest friends.

Meanwhile, the World Council plans a mission to the ISS, where they hope to find information about the comet’s impact. Matt is forced to travel on a repaired space shuttle to make the trip and recover the data. From space, Matt is able to see that life began evolving much faster near the site of the comet’s impact in Siberia than in other locations.

Together with Miki Takeo, Matt organizes an expedition to Crater Lake. The World Council also catches wind of the discovery and a team is en route. On the long and dangerous journey to Crater Lake, Aruula is possessed by a strange consciousness which calls itself GREEN and is a type of plant-based hive mind. Upon Matt and Aruula’s arrival at Crater Lake, the warrior reveals that she is pregnant, and that her child also possesses plant DNA. GREEN has apparently manipulated the embryo’s development, whereby its gestation is changed. Cruelly, Aruula’s child is taken from her womb by an unknown creature before she can give birth.

Shortly thereafter, Matt and Quart’ol make a shocking discovery: Comet Christopher-Floyd was actually a spaceship!

The ship was an ark belonging to an alien species known as the Daa’mures, who were searching for a new homeworld and crashed on Earth. The Daa’murian consciousness is stored in green crystals, whose energy is not only responsible for humanity’s degeneration, but also the mutations of other species. Their motivation is clear: the Daa’mures are using the mutations to find ideal host bodies in which to rehouse their minds. A further surprise comes in the form of information that the spaceship is also a cosmic being, known as an Oqualun or Wanderer.

When Matt accidentally destroys a Daa’murian egg, he is instantly declared enemy number one. Together with his friends, he flees to Russia. There, he meets with a group of Technos who have created an immunity serum from the blood of Mr. Black, allowing various bunker inhabitants to visit the surface without protection. They also confirm that Matt’s body has been flooded with tachyons, which slow down the aging process—possibly as a result of the time slip.

Matt annihilates the Daa’mures’ mutant army and couriers the immunity serum back to London, where he forms an alliance against the Daa’mures with General Crow.

The Daa’mures succeed at reactivating the Wanderer, which sends out a planetwide electromagnetic pulse (EMP) and takes all remaining technology on Earth out of commission. Chaos breaks out, and the Technos are forced to flee their bunkers without protection. As if that were not enough, Matt and Aruula learn that the Daa’mures themselves are only one of countless servant races created by the Wanderers to protect themselves from their enemies: the Warriors, cosmic hunters of unimaginable strength.

Matt and his allies are able to hold off the Wanderer, but the Warrior is quickly on his target’s trail. In order to overcome this threat, Matt searches beneath the Antarctic ice to find a long-lost legendary weapon created by the Hydrees: the Surface Reamer. A grand artifact of unimaginable destruction, it is naturally being pursued by General Crow as well. He attempts to force Matt to fire the Reamer at Washington, hoping to eradicate the Running Men in the process.

However, Matt manages to change the target coordinates at the last second. Instead of hitting Washington, Matt targets an area in the Appalachian mountains, where General Crow was operating a factory building organic robots. The shot effectively exchanges a region five kilometers in diameter with a bubble containing its counterpart from almost million years into the future, The Earth is left defenseless against the Warrior.

With the help of a converter that harnesses the Earth’s magnetic field, Matt is able to reload the Surface Reamer, only for it to backfire when the Warrior comes into range. The Warrior destroys the Earth, and Matt only has one chance left to fix things: entering the time bubbles created by the misfire, which lead to both the past and future.

While traveling through various parallel worlds, Matt meets the archaeologist and time traveler Tom Ericson in the year 2304. Ericson works for a group of evolved humans from the future who call themselves the Archivists. Their goal is not only to collect technical achievements from the parallel worlds but also to remove any dangerous timelines and continuities from existence. Matt, therefore, gains an opportunity to quickly reload the Surface Reamer and defeat the Warrior. Unfortunately, too late, and the Moon is launched from its orbit into the Reamer’s firing path, threatening to crash into the Earth.

Matt and Aruula travel through a wormhole at CERN and are sent to a far distant ring planet system. There they meet another alien species called the Kasynari. They offer to assist humanity with the evacuation of Earth through the use of a portable wormhole generator. In reality, their goal is to feed off the mental energy of human brains. Only by doing so they are able to maintain the camouflage required to protect their home planet.

Ultimately, it is revealed that the true threat is another Wanderer: like the Daa’mures, the Kasynari are servants of the Oqualun. However, their plan fails and the camouflage screen is nullified. In order to help the Kasynari and save the Earth, Matt and Aruula make contact with the species from whom the Kasynari adapted the wormhole technology: the Pancinovas. With their help, the pair are able to transport the Surface Reamer from the Antarctic to the ring planet system and give the Kasynari a weapon to use against the Warriors pursuing the Wanderer.

And that’s not all! The Pancinovas manage to perform the impossible: They create a gigantic wormhole that sends the moon back to its orbit, saving the Earth before returning to their own solar system. However, the wormhole passage to the ring planet system has collapsed. Contact is lost between Earth and the established colony on the moon Novis.

Before the collapse, a military hardliner named Colonel Aran Kormak also had a lucky break and escaped the collapsing wormhole. Doing so triggered a chain reaction with unexpected consequences: all across Earth, regions measuring exactly fifty kilometers in diameter have been replaced with their counterparts from parallel worlds, surrounded by near-impenetrable forests of thorns.

Time Quake

By Sascha Vennemann

It was bright as day. The glistening light of Earth’s satellite filled the whole sky. Never had the moon come this close to Earth. Matthew Drax felt a slight tremor caused by the celestial body’s gravitational pull. He felt a clinging body at his side. Aruula was pressing herself against him.

Then he heard a command from Hycius, the Pancinova, coming through his headset: Now!

Almost instinctively, Matt’s thumb found the touch panel. If his calculations and preparations were correct, he was going to save the world. If not...this was going to be the end. Of everything.

I’ve got to see it with my own eyes! Matt thought. Come with me! He reached for his partner’s hand and dragged her to the amphibious tank’s rear ramp.

A storm raged over the Very Large Array in the desert plains of New Mexico. Accordingly, you could only make out the outlines of the gigantic radio telescopes—witnesses to an era that had ended five hundred years ago.

Not many people had survived the comet catastrophe in the year 2012. A post-apocalyptic dark age had followed. And while the planet slowly recovered, it became inhabited by mutants, barbarians, and creatures whose origins lay in the depths of space.

Matt Drax had literally been catapulted into this time. The comet named Christopher-Floyd had hurled the United States Air Force pilot from Riverside, California through a time anomaly into the year 2516. It was a completely different world, where he had met the telepathically gifted Aruula, who had rescued him from his stricken jet. She also gave him the name Maddrax.

Nineteen years had already passed since those events—plus roughly sixteen more from another time jump. Matt wasn’t entirely sure himself because he had spent the past few years in a distant planetary system where time passed slower than on Earth. Now it was the year 2549.

However, neither he nor Aruula had aged very much. A tachyon cloak had prevented any bodily decay. Later a journey through a wormhole had neutralized the time particles; afterward they began to age normally again.

Matt’s thoughts scattered when the ground shook. Somewhere in the distance, people were screaming. Matt suspected that they were Encantos—a group of nomadic indigenous people who had helped them prop up the two of the radio telescopes. They had been precisely aligned to generate a wormhole through which the moon was supposed to fall and move back into its old orbit.

This Project Moon Jump was a collaboration with the Pancinovas, an extraterrestrial species who were considered to be the architects of wormhole technology. But even to them, a transfer of this magnitude was breaking new ground. And they only had one try—this one!

I am scared, Maddrax! Aruula shouted over the noise of the storm. Will we meet again at Wudan’s banquet? Matt pulled her even closer without saying anything. He had never understood the Wudan faith.

The man from the past looked up. The moon now filled the whole sky. Directly above him floated the Mare Cognitum—the sea of knowledge—and it continued approaching rapidly.

Out of all the fantastical things that I’ve witnessed, he thought, this moment is the most beautiful and terrifying at the same time.

Blinding lightning flashed through the atmosphere, branching out and coming back again. Crackling discharges moved between the two connected radio telescopes near Matt, creating a reddish whirl in the process. Matt felt like he was staring at hell itself. He imagined seeing fiery columns circling around themselves in an eternal dance. If this whirl was the wormhole that was supposed to move the moon, then now was the decisive moment.

Whatever was about to happen, he had done everything within his power to save his home planet—and with it, those whom he loved and called his friends. Some of them had fled into a distant planetary system, so either way humanity was going to survive. Among those people were Matt’s former partner Xij, their daughter Xaana, and his friend Tom Ericson.

Matt held his breath and closed his blinded eyes. It seemed like the light was everywhere. The noises of the storm died down. He could hear his own heartbeat and the blood flow in his ears.

I love you! He focused intensely, hoping that Aruula’s telepathic sense would intercept his thoughts.

The silence persisted. Lost in the moment, Matt only realized how much time had passed when his body forced him to breathe in and out again. Confused, he opened his eyes. The ground was no longer shaking. The storm had passed. Only a few dust clouds were still drifting over the plains.

It’s...dark! The realization struck Matt. Well, not entirely...

The landscape was covered in a silver gleam, an indirect light that only partially drove away the shadows. He had seen this glowing light countless times before during cloudless nights. Slowly, Matt looked upward. He saw stars sprinkled across a dark sky. And far up there was the moon. Exactly where it was supposed to be. It was still missing a piece in its upper right quadrant, where the petrified, cosmic being called Warrior had crashed and caused an explosion.

Aruula! Matt panted. Look!

His partner let go of him. The tears on her cheeks glistened in the moonlight as she raised her eyes and eased her tension with a sigh. Matt also cried—out of happiness and relief.

We did it! he screamed into the eerie silence. We really did it! He once again looked up at the moon in the sky. He could not get enough of this view.

Once more Earth had a future. No more unnatural earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, storms, or tempests which made entire areas uninhabitable. Now the world would recover, and humanity could start rebuilding.

A loud crunch snapped him out of his ecstatic joy. Startled, Matt turned his head towards the source of the sound. It came from one of the two radio telescopes which they had used to open the wormhole.

The Encantos! The thought popped into Matt’s head. Together with their biisons they had prevented the telescope from falling over at the last moment by stabilizing it with a rope. Now gravity started taking its toll. The telescope was tilting! The Encantos and their animals had exhausted all their strength. Even Proto, Matt’s multipurpose tank, was not going to be able to hold the structure with its rope winch.

Damn it! Matt murmured. The Encantos need to get to safety—quick!

Aruula briefly nodded and rushed over toward the members of the nomadic people. Meanwhile, Matt already heard the tank’s wheels scratching the sandy ground. Proto wasn’t built to withstand the weight of two hundred tons.

Matt hurried to the rope winch at the vehicle’s front. He cast a quick glance back. When he was certain that no one was in danger anymore—the nomads were already herding the biisons in front of themselves and away from the telescope—Matt released the lock.

At the same time, the telescope’s struts burst with a tearing noise that resembled the cry of a primordial beast, and the enormous dish tilted. When its lower edge hit the ground, a large crack appeared across the semi sphere. Its cladding flaked off and splinters flew about. Instinctively, Matt cowered, but Proto was far out of reach of the debris.

The Encantos were safe too. They fell to their knees and started a chant that sounded like a prayer. Presumably, they mourned the radio dish which had been one of their sacred relics. Matthew was going to thank them later. Following some initial misunderstandings, the Encantos had proven themselves to be selfless helpers without whom the whole Project Moon Jump would have failed.

He smiled at Aruula, who had just returned. They embraced and kissed. She looked at him with her large brown eyes. I am so happy that we made it through this together, she said quietly, then kissed him again.

Matt nodded. He knew exactly what she meant. And now we can move on, he replied. It’s a new beginning.

Aruula released her embrace and looked around. Nearby Quart’ol and the Pancinovas stood next to the wormhole generator, and also stared into the night sky. The Hydrite and the aliens appeared to be just as overwhelmed by the operation’s success.

We should go over there and pinch them so that they know they aren’t dreaming. The barbarian laughed.

Matt grinned. Once again, he looked up at the moon, the bright disc in the night sky, which had completely lost its menacing aura.

***

Different time, different place

Julian Springs really didn’t like thermal studies. To make matters worse, Professor Lindbergh’s dry-as-dust lectures took place at eight o’clock in the morning; usually Julian only just started to wake up around that time. Maybe that explained his mediocre test results for this study unit that was considered important for all airship pilots.

Bored by the lecturer’s droning, Julian only listened with half an ear while drawing a couple of circles onto the sketchbook in front of him. He had already copied the diagram from the blackboard a while ago: it showed the schematic structure of the steering wheels which could be found in smaller zeppelins as well as larger airships meant for intercontinental travel. A mechanism of gears and rods relayed the pilot’s adjustments to small wing areas, which allowed the airship to ascend to higher altitudes or pushed it to the ground during landing.

We already know this, Julian thought before sighing quietly.

Just like his fellow students, he knew the basics of air travel. Only the best and most talented of them would come to enjoy the privilege of flying for the big travel companies. But everyone wanted a job there—it came with a great salary and a lot of prestige. Becoming an airship captain opened a lot of doors that stayed closed for others. Except maybe for steam pioneers, the tireless inventors who almost on a weekly basis incessantly advanced modernization.

Julian’s gaze wandered over his fellow students, most of whom didn’t pay much attention to the lecture. It was only young men between the ages of twenty and thirty taking classes here at the L.I.A.: the Lancaster Institute of Aeronautics. Their clothing revealed that they mostly came from the upper echelons of society.

Julian brushed a hair from the sleeve of his dark blue velvet jacket which his father had given him. He hadn’t been born with a golden spoon in his mouth. His old man had worked hard as an airship mechanic for their moderate family wealth. If Julian managed to graduate from L.I.A., their family would finally ascend to the upper class.

But he was not quite there yet. With his middle-class background, it was difficult just to get accepted to L.I.A. in the first place. The family had saved every penny to pay for his tuition and fees. Therefore, Julian wanted to give his best! He forced himself to concentrate. However, it wasn’t long until he got distracted again and looked out of the window.

The morning sun was shining upon the institute’s airfield, where a steam car was pushing a mid-sized training ship from one of the hangars out into the open. The cigar-shaped, gas filled balloon must have been twenty meters long. The gondola was roughly half as long and rested on four steerable wheel axles. The cylindrical gas bag’s buoyancy was currently too small for the ship to take off. It was going to be fixed to the ground with retaining cables at its starting position, and then moored there until the crew boarded the gondola. Julian estimated that it would be another half an hour until the ship was going to take off into the sky.

I wish I could join them, he thought wistfully as he observed the senior cadets approach the airship together with their flight instructor.

Well, he wouldn’t have to wait too long. The curriculum’s next practical lesson was on Monday. Today was Friday and the weekend was right around the corner.

At the age of twenty-two Julian had already been on many flights as a passenger, but he had only spent a few minutes as a pilot on his training tours over the nearby Pacific Ocean. But those moments had convinced him that this was the right job for him. He had almost felt at one with the airship, virtually sensing the wind on his skin as it rocked the gas cells back and forth and made the gondola’s suspensions creak.

He also felt something now—an elbow roughly prodding him in his side. Surprised Julian turned around and stared into the fat face of his fellow student Theodore Dwyer, who pointed towards the airfield with his chin.

A real beauty, isn’t it? murmured the shipowner’s son, who was only one year older than Julian. My father has fifteen of those standing in his hangar for domestic trips to the Midwest and New York. Dwyer briefly looked over to Professor Lindbergh, but the lecturer was currently writing something on the blackboard with his back facing the auditorium. The new quadruple propeller engines can make it to the East Coast in only two days, even against a headwind, Theodore continued. The pioneers refined the steam-powered drive shafts’ gear train performance even further. High speed with less steam pressure and less consumption!

Impressive, Julian mumbled, just barely refraining from rolling his eyes. He knew all this. After all, his father had helped install the new components into the Dwyer family’s fleet.

Theodore was a huge braggart, the same as his father who flaunted his wealth like no other. Everything from the gold-plated tips of their city residence’s fence to Theo’s ivory white vest, which was covered in intricate embroidery that must have taken up months of the seamstress’s time, displayed the Dwyers’ wealth. In that same vein, Theo’s observations regarding the modernization of their domestic fleet weren’t rooted in enthusiasm for new technology. He just wanted to remind Julian that the Dwyer family was rolling in money. When Julian didn’t say anything else, a smirk came over Theodore’s face. He must have assumed that his fellow student was admiring him.

He leaned over and whispered into Julian’s ear: Are you coming to the Wells tonight?

Julian instinctively winced. The Wells was a popular pub among the L.I.A. students located in the downtown of Lancaster. He had arranged to meet with some friends from the course there—but Theodore wasn’t his friend. How did he know about the meeting?

Another student must have mentioned it and Theo just invited himself to join our night at the pub, Julian smirked. At least there was one upside: they wouldn’t have to pay a single dollar for drinks. Theodore was going to take care of that to earn himself some grateful pats on the back, approving nods, and several toasts.

Sure, Julian whispered back. He looked back at the airship and let his gaze wander over to the rooftops of the nearby city.

Smoke rose from several tall chimneys along the skyline. The rising sun shone through the gaps between the buildings and past the connecting cables and pipelines running between them, casting a shadowy net across the ground. The smell of wood and coal fires was omnipresent. Steam-powered cars of all sizes rattled over the cobblestone, over which hovered fumes and steam. In the distance, a large airship moved across the sky—a post ship from Los Angeles heading out to the East Coast.

A familiar rattling shifted Julian’s attention back to the auditorium. He looked over to the large bell hanging on the wall above the blackboard. The mechanical noise sounded every time the institute’s central clock signaled the end of the lecture.

Finally! Theodore Dwyer puffed. He threw his writing utensils in a leather bag and stood up. See you tonight, Springs! he yelled while jostling past the other students toward the corridor.

Yeah, can’t wait, Julian murmured with little enthusiasm. He wrote down some of Professor Lindbergh’s annotations which he had missed when he had zoned out. His father was probably already outside with the steamer. Julian didn’t want to needlessly keep him waiting.

***

After Matthew and Aruula had congratulated the Pancinovans Hyicus, Agnetis, and Lutrae on the successful moon jump, and Quart’ol had joined the festive handshaking and back patting, it was time for all parties present to discuss what was going to happen now.

While Aruula talked with the Pancs, Matt turned towards two Encantos who had approached their group. After the radio telescope’s collapse, the heavily tattooed nomads had retreated with their caravan and draft animals.

The caravan consisted of approximately thirty families. According to their leader, the Katsina, it had been the will of the gods for all life on Earth to walk the road of the bones at the time of the moon fall—a metaphor for the way to the afterworld. Therefore, they had tried to keep the troublemakers away from the bowls of the gods. Only later had the Katsina realized that the gods didn’t want to end life but preserve it. It was she who now approached Matt. She was accompanied by a young Encanto whom Matthew knew as Josee.

Our mission is accomplished! the speaker of the gods declared festively. The Uwanami have shown us the right way, and the Encantos will continue to accompany all those who embark on the road of the bones.

Matt took a light bow. It is all thanks to you that we were able to save Earth. We cannot thank you and your gods enough.

The Uwanami have sent the Katsina a new vision. They want us to go beyond the mountains. Josee pointed at the mountain range on the horizon. We will leave shortly and wanted to bid you farewell.

We won’t stay much longer either, Matthew replied. Soon your sacred site will be left in peace again.

The Katsina stretched her arms towards the sky. Thus, everything is right again. Farewell! She waved at Aruula, Quart’ol, and the Pancinovas, who reciprocated the gesture. Then Josee and the speaker of the gods turned around and walked off. In the background the biisons mooed as they were harnessed to coaches. Matthew watched the two Encantos for a while before returning to the wormhole architects.

Hyicus, Lutrae and especially Agnetis, the head engineer, seemed very pleased. To mark the occasion the tall, plump aliens, who lived a partially amphibious life on their home planet Cancriss, had taken small canisters filled with a gelatinous substance out of their food supply, and poured the contents over their bald heads with great relish.

Hyicus shook himself. All calculations were correct! he proclaimed with delight. The biggest wormhole project in the history of the Pancinovas was a complete success.

Lutrae jiggled her container to pour the last drop on her head and bubbled in agreement. The data we’ve obtained should keep our researchers busy for a few aeons.

Agnetis fixed Matt with a serious look. We completed our part of the agreement. Now, we will return to Cancriss and cut off all contact with Earth.

Matt just nodded. The Pancs preferred to keep to themselves. They had agreed to help save Earth in return for a valuable compensation. In their world, telepathy didn’t exist. Implants linked to an omnipresent online network, the so-called gestade, connected all Pancinovas to each other. However, some of them weren’t compatible with the system. By decoding the genes behind Aruula’s telepathic sense, they hoped to make it possible for those excluded to access the network. Originally, Aruula had volunteered to be their guinea pig. Later, Eileen had replaced her in this role; Eileen’s telepathic sense had gotten out of control, and she hoped that the Pancinovas could heal her while studying her.

It would be nice if you could keep the humans on Novis up to date about Eileen’s condition, Aruula spoke up, as if she had read Matt’s mind.

Agnetis contemplated. I’ll try to convince the committee. However, we would prefer to cut off all contact with the outside world again. She turned to her conspecifics. Pack up the mobile wormhole generator and the other equipment. We’re leaving!

Hyicus and Lutrae got to work, and Agnetis excused herself too.

Quart’ol clapped his fin hands and looked at Matt and Aruula. What about us? What should we do next?

The barbarian laughed. Does that mean you want to accompany us?

The Hydrite nodded. I think we should first return to Sub’Sisco and the Oasis of the Hundred to spread the good news. Right? After half of old San Francisco had sunk into the sea, it came to be known as Sub’Sisco. It was now home to the Oasis of the Hundred where their android friend Miki Takeo lived.

Matt shrugged. Miki isn’t blind. He can see that the moon is back in its orbit. But we should contact him via radio.

It took half an hour until the Pancinovas were ready to leave. They had also rolled up the connecting cables for Proto and the radio telescopes as well as restored the amphibious tank’s programming to its default settings. When Hyicus, Agnetis and Lutrae were sure that they had left nothing behind, they activated the mobile wormhole generator and at a safe distance opened up a portal which was going to take them back to their world.

Matt felt an ecstatic joy come over him, but he managed to keep this so-called joy spasm under control. Wormhole radiation had a euphoric effect on human organisms, which could lead to a loss of self-control. In the past this had gotten them into trouble more than once.

Hyicus shouldered the deactivated wormhole generator. Their device had created a passageway to their home planet, which was now kept open from the other side on Cancriss. The Pancinova held up his four-fingered hand. It was goodbye forever.

As soon as the gate closed behind the wormhole architect, Matt’s euphoria subsided, and his head cleared up. Suddenly, the plains of the Very Large Array appeared lonely and deserted. Matthew looked around. The night was still young. In the pale moonlight, he could make out some lights moving alongside the Encanto trail. Matthew Drax, Aruula, Quart’ol, and the amphibious tank were the only remaining evidence of a recent struggle for the planet’s survival. It was the end of a big adventure.

But Matthew sensed that the next one was already waiting for them right around the corner...

***

Matt sat down in the driver seat of the amphibious tank, which Aruula, Xij, and himself had once found in a bunker in Scotland. He leaned back and closed his eyes for a moment. He hoped that Xij and Starnpazz had made it to the ring planet system through the wormhole in San Antonio before the passageway had closed. Xij had wanted to return to her family on Novis, and Starnpazz had wanted to rejoin his conspecifics.

It’s impressive how much we’ve achieved in the past few weeks, Matt thought to himself.

Everything had started with an unexpected journey through a wormhole, which had been generated by the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Switzerland. It led to a distant star system whose central star was orbited by a planet that was surrounded by twenty moons and a debris field. All of a sudden, Matt and Aruula had found themselves on one of those moons. After jumping between moons via the so-called transfer towers, they slowly uncovered the system’s secret.

The ring system was ruled by an indigenous species whose appearance surprisingly matched late twentieth-century people’s image of the so-called Grays. The species called themselves Kasynari—and they abducted other races to test their compatibility with an apparatus they referred to as the mental umbrella.

This mental umbrella was maintained by the abductee’s brains, and it protected the ring planet—which was in fact only a disguise! Matt still couldn’t believe what was concealed inside: a Wanderer, a cosmic being just like the one that had crashed into Earth over five hundred years ago as the comet Christopher-Floyd, and that had catapulted Matt and his squadron into this dark future.

The universe was full of strange coincidences—and dangers. In horror, Matt remembered his encounter with one of the Warriors, cosmic beings who hunted Wanderers. Ultimately, their fight against the Warrior had forced Earth’s moon out of its orbit and steered it onto a collision course with Earth.

And so, we’ve come full circle, Matt reflected.

Thinking about it more carefully, he realized that he and his partners had been extremely lucky. First, they had prevented the Kasynari from helping themselves to human brains for their mental umbrella. They had been assisted by the Hydrites, who possessed sophisticated cloning technology. The Kasynari now produced soulless clones on a terraformed moon in the ring planet system to feed fresh brains to the umbrella.

Next, he had managed to find the Pancinovas, from whom the Kasynari had acquired wormhole technology centuries ago. They were the only ones capable of moving the moon back to its original orbit. Luckily, they had agreed to help for the small price of conducting research on a telepath!

They had even come up with a backup plan. In San Antonio, Texas, there was a stable connection between Earth and the ring planet system. Transport capsules could have taken some humans through that wormhole to the moon Novis, which was already home to a human colony of several thousand individuals.

But as expected, some humans had felt the need to elevate themselves above others. Accordingly, there had already been several power struggles on Novis, fanned by disputes among the Kasynari themselves. This back and forth reminded Matt of unsightly scenarios that had played out in former European colonies on Earth in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. He sighed. History tended to repeat itself—even in a different solar system.

Aruula and Quart’ol had cleared the Proto for action, cleaning up the mess in its rear storage area. Now they joined Matt in the cockpit at the front.

Have you reached Miki Takeo or Novis Prime? Aruula asked as she threw herself into the passenger seat. Quart’ol remained standing between them.

I haven’t even tried yet, Matt admitted honestly. Quite frankly, he was happy that he had taken a moment of reflection for himself. He sat up and activated the amphibious tank’s radio, which was already set to the right frequency. Over the past few days, he had continually sent status updates to the Kasynari. If Xij had made it through the wormhole in time, they would be able to reach her too. When Matthew tried activating the connection, the on-board computer squawked.

Huh? Matt leaned forward and investigated the error message.

Puzzled, Aruula looked at him from the side. What’s wrong? she inquired.

Matthew once again tried to contact the Kasynari on the ring moon, but the connection failed. The call doesn’t go through, he murmured in surprise.

Maybe the gate is still closed, Quart’ol speculated. After all, it was supposed to close during the moon jump to avoid any interference with the Pancs’ wormhole.

Possible, Aruula agreed. But didn’t they plan to reopen it shortly afterward?

Matt nodded. Let’s try to radio the glider and then the Oasis of the Hundred, he suggested and changed the frequency.

But these attempts turned out just like the others. Neither Xij nor Miki Takeo responded. At least the former’s silence suggested that she had made it to Novis together with Starnpazz and Trischberger before the gate had closed. If everything had gone according to plan, the librarian Fritz Trischberger and his family would have boarded