Journey Iii: Return to Earth

By F. Thomas Warren

From "The Day the Earth Stood Still" to "War of the Worlds" and all the similar attempts to portray alien visitors to our world, the wonder of this genre will continue unabated.

"ET" appealed to the wonder in all of us for things out there. "Ghost" spoke to the hope we all have for life after death, the concomitant desire that love conquers all and that sinners ultimately pay.

Any message intended by "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" was unfulfilled in the wonderment and wizardry of the overpowering special effects. The portrayal of extraterrestrials in movies and television has either been the evil invaders or the mysterious entities, too esoteric for us to interface with.

Envision in your mind such repeat visitors that are real, with definite purpose, who reach out to Earth's common man and woman in fulfilling that purpose. By so doing, such a visit would be similar to that of an intelligent mankind's visit to other worlds. Envision such a purpose that regales the heart in explaining the soul and its possibilities, when corporeal life is no more.

Such a story is "Journey III: Return to Earth."

"Journey III" set in the world events of 1980 will appeal to the Everyman's dream-the dream to participate in the adventure and hope that lives in each of us.

Hang on.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 29, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504932585

F. Thomas Warren

F. Thomas Warren born April 30, 1938, in Bath, New York. Journey III is F. Thomas Warren’s first attempt at a novel. He has a second novel nearly complete (“The Blue Man”) and the outline for a third in progress as well. F. Thomas Warren is a semiretired construction executive whose primary writing background has been technical and business-oriented, with a great deal of published letters to the editor on a variety of subjects. With a tendency to write late-night visitations into diary form, there is a wealth of pages that beg to be developed—ah, someday, we say. F. Thomas Warren has lived in Vietnam, Thailand, New Zealand, Australia, Kuwait, Malaysia, and Bulgaria and traveled the globe for over forty years. He has four grown children, three of whom were born in foreign countries, as he and his growing family were on large-scale construction project assignments. F. Thomas Warren returned to University at the age of thirty-six. He became the director of the University Experimental College, a free university within a university that challenged his heretofore conservative lifestyle and opinions. While there, he created one of the country’s first mind-body-sport symposiums that included Michael Murphy (founder of Esalen), Timothy Galwey, George Leonard, and Will Shutz, among others. Science fiction favorites range from Heinlein’s “Space Cadet” and “Stranger in a Strange Land.” Ray Bradbury, Philip Dick, H. G. Wells, Arthur Clarke, along with “Blade Runner,” and the first three “Star Wars” sagas are some “keepers” in F. Thomas Warren’s library and mind bank. As he is at the mid-point of his seventh decade, it is with the hope that an open mind, life experience, travel and an undying curiosity will fuel more ventures into works of fiction. “Journey III” is wishful thinking, imagination and hopefully enjoyable for those who take the ride.

Book preview

PRELUDE

Man, mankind has forever looked upon the stars.

Looked up in fear.

In reverence.

Awe.

Man's recent past has embraced star gazing in the search of knowledge - knowledge of the stars themselves, the worlds in attendance, and man's world itself. Men have also looked to the stars for ... and found ... inspiration.

The records of man's past tell of the stars, and visitors - real or imagined - from these stars. That Earth and its people attribute considerable phenomena to such visitors is more fanciful ... hopeful, than realistic. Yet, in man's search, all such phenomena cannot be discounted. All sightings cannot be proven as of this world - natural or manmade. That beings from the stars have visited this Earth is a possibility that begs consideration.

- beings from the stars that have traveled to, and upon our unique world ... and will again.

Earth's largest population eagerly awaits.

Journey III:

Return to Earth

F. Thomas Warren

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© 2015 F. Thomas Warren. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  10/07/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-3259-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-3258-5 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twentyone

Chapter Twentytwo

Chapter Twentythree

Chapter Twentyfour

Chapter Twentyfive

Chapter Twentysix

Chapter Twentyseven

Chapter Twentyeight

Chapter Twentynine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirtyone

Chapter Thirtytwo

Chapter Thirtythree

Chapter Thirtyfour

Chapter Thirtyfive

Chapter Thirtysix

Chapter Thirtyseven

Chapter Thirtyeight

Chapter Thirtynine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Fortyone

Chapter Fortytwo

Chapter Fortythree

Chapter Fortyfour

Chapter Fortyfive

Chapter Fortysix

Chapter Fortyseven

Chapter Fortyeight

Chapter Fortynine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fiftyone

Chapter Fiftytwo

Chapter Fiftythree

Chapter Fiftyfour

Chapter Fiftyfive

Chapter Fiftysix

Chapter Fiftyseven

Chapter Fiftyeight

Journey IV - Return To Earth

JOURNEY III - Return to Earth

Chapter ONE

In the brilliant sun light only words could penetrate pain and despair.

Your body will not rest on this world.

The sun blazoned through the stone window portals and blurred Mark Thompson’s image of the orange-robed raisin of a man before him. Outside the rock walls a cool breeze wafted on the inky surface of the River of Perfumes.

Mark’s wounds prevented his movement as he sought to avoid the interfering glare. The stone floors beneath his stretcher were hard, but soothingly cool in the humid air of Hue. In the hills beyond the clouds hinted at the monsoon shower soon to arrive.

The old monk was persistent, and the sunlight shafts aided his intrusion.

We have traveled far… you and I, to do battle. You, with a dubious enemy you are bent on destroying. Me to bring both of you to the enlightenment that you are blind to see, while I do not need eyes to know you or your foe.

Mark’s physical pain was overwhelmed by the vivid anguish of mutilated friends, soldiers… his men… and the Cong.

There are few years left for me, and I will return to the soil of our world. You were born as everyone on this earth, but in death, you belong among the heavens.

Who are you? gasped Mark, and what the hell are you talking about?

My name is nothing now, but I was once known as Fa Xian. This journey you have made from America, and mine from near the Taklimakan Shamo in western China, are but footsteps compared to the journey I see for you before you die. My eyes have long been darkened, but the message in you is easily read.

Look, I’ve had my ass shot up. Lost more than eighty per cent of my company, and I don’t even know how you got in here. This is supposed to be a way station to the field hospital, explained Thompson.

This is the home of my time. My skills are many, and these skills are used for wounds and trauma of the body, but I can often ease pain in the soul as well, replied the Monk.

Why me? There are guys all around here hurt a helluva lot more than me,

They are being well cared for, but none of these others have cried out from inside the mind as you have, continued the venerable elder.

As the rains come to us over the Imperial Screen Mountain there beyond, let me tell you more of this land that you would conquer, and then I will speak to the story called to me from your restless sleep.

Why not, I’m sure as hell not going anywhere for awhile, replied Mark.

Yes, you speak the truth, but you will leave this land, and I will not, smiled the monk as he moved onto the floor next to Mark.

Your soldiers will fail to conquer these people as have so many before you. In your year 1789, the Chinese were crushed by the Vietnamese in the long remembered Battle of Dong Da. The white soldiers of the French sacked this capital city in 1885 as they began their occupation that endured until the Vietminh outlasted them to 1954. During the time of the French the Imperial troops of the Japanese overrode this land, and paid the terrible price of occupation when their evil starved two million by confiscating all the rice harvests. I do not think your mighty machines will fare otherwise, admonished the weathered monk.

"The Imperial City of Hue is a holy place of many temples, and you are near the Tomb of Tu Duc, a poet emperor who spoke of his country, and this city, as a place ‘where grief smiles and joy sighs.’ This land now has only brief smiles, and the sighs of death all around.

To the Vietnamese Hue is known as Hue Minh, and to you would mean the city of my body, of my self. The beauty of this city will endure war again as it has before. The stone mandarins that guard the tomb of Nguyen emperor Khai Dinh will outlast the steel that you bring from your country to do battle, and harvest death," the old man continued.

Before, the Citadel was built on the dragon hillside, and many armies fought and died. At the center of the walled city, Da Noi looks out upon the temples and pagodas, and the Heavenly Lady, Thien Mu, was built to teach the people the seven manifestations of Buddha. And now you bring the scorched earth plague back again. As war would have it before the French, with the Vietminh and the French, and now with you against the Viet Cong, the flames blacken the land, and the lonely bird sleeps on the cold, bare earth, droned the nodding relic.

What has all that have to do with me? exclaimed Mark, more to startle than to query.

Yes, yes, you are right, my mind travels many journeys, for in Vietnam one is never left alone to be lonely, whispered the monk.

As Mark watched the monk shift, and raise his head, a large, brown bat flew in the window from the near dark of the sputtering sky. It flitted from corner to corner in search of a way back out, and whisper winged through the window it had entered.

The old man had cocked his ear, and turned to Mark. You are truly chosen for that journey that is only a bright path before me. The visiting bat is a symbol of luck for you.

"Yeah, sure, I am one lucky bastard aren’t I? I let us fall into an ambush, got some good guys killed, and my butt is full of shrapnel. Where the hell was your lucky bat a couple days ago?’’ challenged Mark.

Do not let ‘menh’… your fate, be disheartened over this grief. You’re ‘than’… your physical being is very strong, and will carry you where only the Gods can go. Please, would you favor an old man the time to tell you an older story as you will be leaving soon for Japan, and then I am sure, back to America, intoned the frail man.

Mark could see the opaque eyes glint in the sunlight, and marveled at the wispy bag of bones before him in the faded orange cloth. Sure, go ahead. You said your name was Fa Xian, and you are from China, right? I studied Chinese history, and I can speak a little Mandarin, and read a few characters. Taklimakan Shamo, that’s a desert, isn’t it? asked Mark, becoming intrigued by the monk’s obvious interest in him. Write the characters out for me.

The old body reacted quickly, and produced a small sheaf of mimeo sheet rejects, and a ballpoint pen thicker than his gnarled fingers.

See? Taklimakan? chirped the monk as he sketched characters, and presented them to his audience of one.

I see ‘Tower’ and ‘trunk’ but… oh yeah, agate, but… carat… yes. Yes. It reads ‘Tower carat agate trunk, smiled Mark.

Very good. However, in the local language, it would read, ‘Once you get in you can never get out.’

You are not used to the bright sunlight, but it was always my tormentor, too. Until the desert took my sight, and God allowed me to see, related the old monk, as he squatted closer to Mark.

"My birth home was near what you know as Tibet. In my late youth the desert called me to explore the wandering lake near the lost city of Kroraina. Lost long ago to the scaled and horned shaped dunes of Taklimakan. We were told that my namesake, Fa Xian, had written more than a century before your western worlds were explored by your ancestors, of that warning to all who would seek knowledge of the Taklimakan."

Well, how did you lose your eyesight? asked Mark quietly.

So that I could see in other ways my eyes were burned while I was lost in the Taklimakan Shamo. As I wandered in the rising salt crests on the banks of Lop Nur, I could see formations as waves of a sea long ago disappeared. The footing was treacherous, and my fall left me broken and wedged to face the sky. When the wanderers found me… blinded, my leg and arms were later healed, but not my eyes. It was soon after that God called me, and my journey will end here in today’s Vietnam, and this ancient capital city of Hue, the monk continued.

What did you mean when you said my body will not rest on this world? interrupted Mark.

You have revealed much to me without words, and I know you will search as I have done, and your journey will be such that even you can not imagine, answered Mark’s new found floor mate. You have the soul of a wanderer more than an explorer, and your final travel will cost you more than you have lost here. You, as I, must follow the bright sun, but you will not be blinded by your journey

But, let me tell you more of the long ago Fa Xian’s warning, continued the monk.

When he spoke of the Taklimakan, he said that in this desert there are a great many evil spirits, and also hot winds; those who encounter them perish to a man. There are neither birds above nor beasts below. Grazing on all sides as far as the eye can reach in order to mark the track, no guidance is to be obtained from the rotting bones of dead men, which point the way.

I am your guiding dead man. I see your travel as filled with the beauty of birds and all manner of beasts… good and evil. You will cross a great void as I traveled my desert, but you will never return, concluded the withered monk. You will heal and forget this journey that brought you here. You will be enlightened truly beyond all that has come before, and as no other man has experienced.

As the old monk stood up, his spare body shielded Mark from the blinding sun. In that instant Mark knew that the old man’s story was ended, and yet he could see a glowing smile of fulfillment.

As quickly as the rain had come, the sun reached around and through the fortress wall portals again to blind Mark. When Mark raised his hand as a shield the monk was gone.

Christ, that sun is bright, thought Mark as he rolled to one side and dozed off.

*************************

In the days that followed the monsoon rains painted the air in gray and blue torrents with regularity, and arrived later each afternoon. Mark could see the locals preparing for the downpour with a certainty that confounded him.

The old raisin, as Mark had come to think of Fa Xian, tended to each new arrival that Major Terrill selected for the mental trauma evaluation and treatment rooms. Mark had asked the Major why the old monk was involved at all.

You know Mark, I have to admit that my life experience – and this fuckin’ war, has all but wiped out any of the mystery that religion – and God/no God, ever existed in my thinking. But that old man – there is something about him that circumvents the barriers to communication that our badly wounded usually arrive with. I’ve seen him get through to guys that our psych officers couldn’t get near without him. We have been able to get critical information we require for treatment by using ‘Fayan.’ I’ll tell you honestly that I am keeping a diary on mini-cassettes that I intend for a book if and when I get back.

Frank Terrill sat on the empty cot next to Mark’s and sipped on a Coke and gazed out toward the verdant hills with tired eyes and slumped against the cool stone wall.

Well, Christ Frank I was going to ask you what you know about him, but you obviously have a storehouse building. At least tell me a good bedtime story, challenged Mark.

Mark, there are two events that are at the top of the damned-if-I-understand in the three months I’ve been blessed with having Fayan here. I haven’t discussed this with anyone, but I did send a duplicate tape to Sally – my wife, just in case I don’t make it.

Frank held his hand up forestalling Mark’s automatic rejoinder.

Yeah, yeah Mark – Fayan will haunt me until I die. We had a kid in here that had taken two rounds in the throat – couldn’t talk, and his panic kept him from responding to our efforts to communicate. Kid lost all his buddies. His tags were gone. He’d been staggering through a kill zone when one of the Hueys spotted him. If everyone else hadn’t been dead I don’t think that even those guys would have gone down for him.

Mark could see that the Major’s recall was taking him back where his heart and mind was resisting. Frank Terrill looked out again at the now blue-black night chasing away the day.

We knew we were going to lose him and we wanted to know who he belonged to. Old Fayan came over to the kid and put his hand on the kid’s forehead and took his hand in his. Fayan mumbled to him – we could hear it was in English – and began to hum and sing ‘Jingle Bells.’ Soon he called him Johnny. Then he said ‘Momma Davis will be so glad to see you again.’

Terrill turned his face from Mark, gathered himself and continued.

Fayan sat and talked to the kid for nearly an hour. I was the only one who could stay – all the Meds had more casualties to work on. Even I could see the kid – Johnny was going to – was going to – going to go – to die. Fayan took both of the kid’s hands in his little gnarled hands, and told him: ‘Ah, travel well and enjoy your Christmas.’ Before Fayan left, I took him back to my office and asked him to tell me what he could about Johnny. Mark, he gave me the kid’s full name: Johnson Adam Milton; his hometown: Madison, Wisconsin, and that his Mom and Dad always made Christmas such a big deal when he was a kid that he never forgot it. Momma Davis was his dead grandmother. When I asked Fayan about ‘Jingle Bells’ he had no idea what it was – what it represented – he just said that Johnny wanted him to sing it. Johnny also told Fayan that he wanted to see the snow of Wisconsin this Christmas. He had promised his Mom and Dad – George and Gracie – that he would be home for the holidays.

Frank fell silent. Mark was stunned, but said, Shit, he told me I wouldn’t be buried on this world.

The Major stood up. Mark, if it was me, I’d believe him.

With help from Deserts of China A. S. Walker; American Scientist, Volume 70, July-August 1982, and from National Geographic, November 1989, article by Tran Van Dinh.

JOURNEY III - Return to Earth

Chapter TWO

The time is near.

In a world, eons across the quantum depths and breadth of systems known and unknown, a voyage unlike all before is in the final stage of preparation.

The voyagers are but two - two beings of a civilization in accord with itself since time immemorial.

The course of galaxies traversing the heavens, the movement of myriad star systems within the galaxies, the path of stars and planets within these systems have interacted to a point known to this civilization, but twice in their distant past.

In the previous instances of galaxial juxtaposition, one of the now-travelers had traversed the vastness to a unique world. The memory of that jewel-planet remained bright in the agile mind of the wizened Vajoheh.

The fervent anticipation of a New One, emblazoned deep beneath the placid exterior of this revered Elder. It would not do should the fawning masses suspect the rare passion that arose within Vajoheh to be underway, and return to his exquisite memory. To again view the world that cried out to his every fiber, as does a lost and lonely child in the deep of night.

Vajoheh and Luron awaited transmat to the convocation of the Paramount Assembly. This final meeting with the Assembly would be Vajoheh’s last with his peers. Upon Vajoheh’s return from the Jewel Planet, he would be beckoned to Alif. All journeys of now cease for the ultimate step into Union with all the Voran before me, sole-thought Vajoheh. The final step is the culmination of all living, but return to the Jewel Planet is the ultimate soul-experience, thought Vajoheh openly.

Yes, I can understand your pride in this voyage, Luron communicated. But for me, I hope it is the beginning of a span hopefully, as illustrious as yours, Vajoheh.

Forgive me my moments of inner-thought, Luron, but an old-one as I often dispenses with the courtesies of open communication without warning, I am afraid, responded Vajoheh. My sentiments are less prideful than they are of eager contemplation.

My impatience to depart burns me as would a Caladan Sundog. What can the almighty Paramount Assembly communicate to us, or we to them that has not already been recorded? Surely, your symbiotic-thought periods with Alif were shared by the esteemed Elder-Members of the Assembly, bristled Luron.

Yes, we who sym-speak with Alif share such knowledge, but it is detail not of importance to Alif, and thus not bridged with the others in sym-speak, calmed Vajoheh.

The matter transmitter whisked the atoms of the two Voranta explorers from the exodus base, across the galaxy to Voran itself, and materialized them at the priority bank of the Assembly.

Our meeting is for the people. Not for you, nor I. Not for the Assembly, continued Vajoheh. It is the sharing of the old records of Journey I, the records of Journey II - on which I traveled as you are on this, Journey III. You know that in the history of all Voran exploration, the Jewel Planet stands alone. By Alif, we must abide our People’s quest to share.

Luron felt the rebuke in Vajoheh’s communication, and closed himself in inner-thought after acknowledgement of his understanding.

Vajoheh knew that the elder conference was traditional discourse that he had administered to other explorer teams, but Luron had merely mind-synced the ceremonial records. Vajoheh had added to, edited and conferred the Explorer Edict and knew that the extemporaneous admonitions of these farewell occasions were a rarity of Voranta culture – something unexpected.

The Primary Council members listened to the rote of the Edict’s rules and regulation formulated from the initial explorations to this imminent departure of Voyage 68,315.

The Explorer Edict was simultaneously broadcast, flashed on the flowscreens and in symspeak with all who could receive.

In the pause of the Edict’s completion Luron openly expressed impatience with the ceremonial drivel as he described it.

Give it your respect, Luron. The words of the Primary Council should give you pause and reason to consider their words. The Primary Council speaks to every explorer and all who would be explorers as each team prepares to leave.

Vajoheh was confident that Luron’s sense of the tradition and innate pride would respond appropriately.

The first of the Primary Council members stood to speak to all of Voranta. Each was designated by a formal name, and each came from a system well beyond the