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  THIRD MOON RISING

  E Z R A E M A N E S

  THIRD MOON RISING

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2013 by Ezra E. Manes, Jr.

  Cover image by Catherine A. Zocco

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission from the author.

  ISBN-13: 9781484954867

  ISBN-10: 1484954866

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2013915530

  CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

  North Charleston, South Carolina

  DEDICATION

  In memory of Anice Goetting Manes,

  who provided great joy,

  compassionate understanding,

  steadfast love,

  and a solid anchor,

  against the prevailing winds of time.

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: Siren’s Song

  Chapter 2: Zilia Revealed

  Chapter 3: Undercurrents

  Chapter 4: Mission to Zilia

  Chapter 5: Waking Dreams

  Chapter 6: Wake-Up Call

  Chapter 7: Revelations

  Chapter 8: Contact

  Chapter 9: Transitions

  Chapter 10: Arrival

  Chapter 11: Relationships

  Chapter 12: Confrontation

  Chapter 13: Understanding

  Chapter 14: Third Moon Rising

  Chapter 15: The AIB

  Chapter 16: Full Circle

  Chapter 17: Free Will

  Chapter 18: Encore

  Chapter 19: Seeking Direction

  Chapter 20: Surprising Observations

  Chapter 21: Supreme Meeting

  Chapter 22: Expanding Relations

  Chapter 23: Fatal Diagnosis

  Chapter 24: Fateful Decision

  Chapter 25: On a Prayer

  Chapter 26: Miracles

  Chapter 27: Candor among Friends

  Chapter 28: Emerging Prophet

  Chapter 29: Second Vision

  Chapter 30: Accepting Destiny

  Chapter 31: Déjà Vu

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Writing this book was a long, circuitous path, including some stops along the way caused by unexpected life-changing events. My heartfelt thanks go to family members and friends for their encouragement, patience, and constructive criticism.

  Any readers of Sir Thomas More’s Utopia will see some parallels to his work in the society described on a distant world. I have read with great interest various translations of his classic Utopia, which he completed in 1516. Any modifications and extensions of societal mores presented herein are solely the author’s responsibility.

  THIRD MOON RISING

  How precious life is in the cosmos,

  sparks igniting here and there,

  most extinguishing

  as fast as they come to light.

  Oh, so few and far between

  those that evolve to sentience,

  that rare thread of evolution

  into questing consciousness.

  PROLOGUE

  The stack of crates shivered. Carlos stopped climbing the ladder. It felt colder than before. He swallowed and his ears popped. Breathing was difficult.

  The stack vibrated as a loud hum permeated the shuttlecraft’s large cargo hold; the shuttlecraft was moving!

  He jumped to the deck, crouching like a cornered animal. Why was the far end of the cargo hold shrouded in fog? Goose bumps danced up both arms and circled his neck. He had to get back to the others!

  Carlos stood, holding onto the crates for support as the deck shook. He stumbled toward the ladder leading to the exit hatch.

  He lurched against the ladder, grabbed a rung, and started climbing. The rungs seemed farther apart than when he’d climbed down. The humming sound increased to a high pitch. The ladder was almost wrenched from his hands as it accelerated to his left. Ears popping, he held on for dear life.

  Gasping for breath, Carlos looked up at the iris hatch through the gathering mental fog. Was it closed? He lost sight of it as his vision blurred even more. Eyes watering, he fought for breath and futilely tried to climb another rung.

  He lost his grip and kicked backward to clear the rungs. Hitting the deck hard, he backpedaled to regain balance and slammed against the stack of crates. His head banged against an edge, and he almost blacked out.

  Slumping to the deck, young Carlos wished he had never slipped away from his classmates on a field trip to tour the docked shuttlecraft. But the mysteries in the huge cargo hold were enticing, and he just had to explore. His class was probably safely back aboard the space station.

  His fingers felt swollen, and it was becoming impossible to breathe. He no longer noticed the cargo hold vibration. The loud rushing sound in his ears, tears flooding his eyes, and pain surging throughout his body obscured other sensory inputs.

  Searing white spots appeared behind now sightless eyes and expanded into a large bubble radiating bright light. Carlos just wanted to sleep, to make this all go away, but the bright light commanded his attention.

  A figure formed in the bubble of light, then another. They looked familiar—his mom and dad. His mom’s wide smile was a beacon pulling on him, and her fine-featured face glowed with love as in his most cherished childhood memory. His dad smiled as well but still looked solemn.

  He liked this dream and imagined running into their outstretched arms, joining them in the bubble of light. His mom hugged him close. He smelled the light fragrance of rose petals, forgotten for so many years. Calming warmth spread throughout his body.

  “Carlos, we must act fast if you are to survive.” She turned him to face his dad. “Dad has a game to play with you.”

  Carlos loved to play games. Oh, how he missed those his dad used to play with him.

  His father squatted and grasped Carlos’s hands, applying pressure with long, strong fingers. He was spellbound by his dad’s intense, dark-brown eyes.

  “We have to get this right the first time, son. This is the most important game we’ve ever played.”

  “OK, Dad.”

  A display of several indicators, some like vertical slide gauges, others overlapping orbs, appeared between them.

  His dad pointed to a vertical slide gauge. “This first one represents your heartbeat. See how high it is? You have to concentrate to bring it down to here.” His dad pointed to a place almost at zero on the gauge. “Focus on relaxing and bringing the indicator down. Then we must change the other indicators.”

  His mom hugged him from behind and whispered encouragement. Carlos focused on slowing his heartbeat, concentrating on moving the indicator down.

  The gauge indicator began dropping.

  ONE

  SIREN’S SONG

  Severe coldness engulfed him, a dark shroud of nothingness. Exposed skin of his bloated body drew taut against the onslaught of countless needles of pain. He welcomed the spreading numbness, a balm countering the pain.

  Commander Sepeda, please…

  He strained to open his mouth, gasping for air where there was none. A scream built in his mind, desperately trying to burst forth.

  Commander, we have detected an anomaly.

  Carlos mentally grasped the persistent, intruding voice, a thin lifeline back to reality. He woke trembling from the raw fear of being in the cold vacuum of space.

  “Commander Sepeda, is something wrong?”

  Eve’s unemotional query pulled his focus back into the small com
partment where he lay alone. Eve must have heard him call out in his sleep.

  “Commander?”

  “I’m fine,” he croaked through dry lips, but what he thought was Go away.

  Carlos sat shivering on the edge of the bed. The small stateroom had become a private sanctuary where he wrestled with vivid dreams. They were occurring more often the farther the New Horizon traveled from the Messier Colony Space Station. But not the terrible dream just experienced; it had been years since that dream last occurred, a dream first stimulated at age eleven when he finally accepted how his parents died.

  The strain and tedium of being aboard a miniscule speck floating in an infinite void was taking its toll.

  He shook his head and ran fingers through thick black hair. What was it Eve had said, something about an anomaly?

  “Why did you wake me?”

  “Ship sensors detected a brief microwave signal coming from the direction of Democritus. It is similar to the burst signal detected by the Messier Moon Research Facility three years ago.”

  Carlos stood quickly, fighting a stab of dizziness, then grabbed clothes from the small closet beside his bed. The primary reason for this survey mission was that earlier detection of indecipherable telemetry signals thought to come from the outlying planetoid. Also, long-range assessments indicated Democritus was primarily metallic in composition. And this year, Earth year 2208, the planetoid was the closest to the planet Hope it would be for another 228 years.

  Carlos slipped on his traction shoes and headed for the narrow passageway leading to the command center.

  “What can you tell me about the signal?”

  “It is centered around 6.1 gigahertz, an X-band signal. It has complex modulation, and the signal is somewhat distorted. These factors and the brevity of the signal make it almost impossible to extract coherent information. The modulation…”

  “Enough detail,” Carlos said. The ship’s virtual interface unit, Eve, had the propensity to provide thorough responses. This nickname for the EVECI, the Electronic Virtual Extension Communications Interface, arose early in prelaunch activities back at the Messier Space Station. Eve monitored the crew and ship systems and controlled systems as authorized. Its voice was female and businesslike.

  “Make sure all sensors having X-band detection capability are focused on Democritus.”

  As Carlos approached the command center hatch, he added, “Provide a summary report to Mission Control, including the configuration of our ship sensors.”

  “In progress, Commander,” said the ever-present Eve.

  He found Samuel Osborne hunched over the communications console, so focused on details of a 3-D virtual display that Carlos’s entry into the center went unnoticed. No wonder he felt so alone on this mission. With only the impersonal Eve and the reserved engineer Samuel for company, he might as well be alone aboard the New Horizon. This, his first long-distance voyage, revealed the stark reality that he did not like being alone for extended periods.

  “What do we have, Samuel?”

  Samuel sat up straight and scratched his shaved head. “Hmmm, some kind of telemetry signal, just barely above our minimum detectable threshold. About all we can get from the short burst is its frequency and that it contains complex modulation. Either the signal is very distorted or it has a modulation scheme I’ve never seen. But there’s no question that it’s from a coherent signal source.”

  “What direction is the source?”

  “I’ve cross-checked Eve’s calculations. The signal definitely came from the vicinity of Democritus.”

  Carlos nodded. “We’ll keep all sensors monitoring the planetoid and space around it.”

  “I doubt we’ll get much more from the burst signal, but it sure is intriguing.” Samuel turned back to the communications console.

  Carlos eased into the commander’s chair and noticed the time was 0217. He had lain down about an hour earlier. They were on twelve-hour shifts, with his shift aligned with that of the primary “day” shift back at Messier Colony Mission Control. It was odd how the old Earth time was maintained while in space, even though a day at the Messier Colony on the planet Hope was slightly longer than Earth’s day.

  A low-level beep and flashing amber light on his control console indicated receipt of a message. Mission Control directed they keep all sensors focused on Democritus and report any additional anomalies. He smiled and replied affirmatively, suppressing the urge to say they were already doing so.

  He opened virtual image displays of Democritus and space close to the planetoid. It looked the same as when he’d viewed it last, just a lot closer now. An uneasy thought came to mind—what if the little planet hosted an outpost of another civilization? If so, he hoped they were peaceful. The New Horizon carried no weapons.

  The controls of the spaceship looked very familiar but were augmented with additional virtual controls and status indicators. Funny how they were blurred at the edges. A bright star was centered in the forward image display, with dots here and there that he knew were planets orbiting within the solar system.

  An eerie, sensual song came from the direction of a planet in close to the star. Carlos could not understand the language, but the siren’s song was clearly calling to him. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts.

  The inner planet now dominated the image display. The siren’s song reverberated in his head, rising to a crescendo, enticing him closer. He could just make out blurred features on the planet, giving the impression the land surfaces were desertlike. He leaned forward, willing his spaceship to approach the planet. But the planet faded like mist evaporating in early morning sunlight, and the siren’s song diminished to a faint echo in his thoughts.

  Carlos woke drenched in sweat. That intense dream again—he could never quite reach the planet before waking.

  Neither Eve nor Samuel had contacted him, so clearly no additional signals had been detected and no significant messages had been received from Mission Control. Over seventy-two hours had passed since the burst signal was detected. The small communication panel at the head of his bed showed it was almost 0700; he was to relieve Samuel in an hour.

  There was too much time to think on this mission. His restlessness had increased the farther the New Horizon pushed into the outer reaches of the Nepali A solar system, closing in on the small planetoid Democritus. Was it his feeling guilty for having free time, while those back at the Messier Colony were overworked? He was surprised the mission was authorized, considering the aggressive colony expansion activities on the planet Hope.

  Could the restlessness and dreams be byproducts of his embedded neural interface? It was his first, installed during mission training. Maybe it was just being isolated in this small vessel, coupled with worry about what they would find at Democritus.

  His first steps on a planet at age ten came to mind. He remembered how that trip to the surface of planet Hope from the orbiting Messier Space Station exposed him to the natural ecosystem for humans, a planetary ecosystem. But that was not his natural environment. He had lived most of his life in the huge, space station environment, his birthplace. Family and friends were always around in the close-knit society aboard the extensively modified former Messier spaceship.

  Mentally chiding himself for such ruminations, Carlos got up to use the bathroom. Some commander he was, acting like a kid having scary dreams. And to think, Eve monitored his vitals and reported his state of health to Mission Control. With the unit reporting any erratic behavior, this mission could be his last.

  He had to stay focused. They must meet all mission objectives, considering the difficulties getting the mission launched during the critical colony expansion phase on Hope. Transports were on the way from Earth—the colony must be ready for the massive influx of immigrants.

  Carlos stood relieving himself, wondering just how bad things were on Earth. His elderly friend, Dr. Stavonoski, had let it slip before launch that those in control at the colony censored all information about Eart
h, and had for decades. Before hearing that, it had been easy to not worry about Earth. After all, those in his generation, the first born in another solar system, had to focus on their own survival. They didn’t have time to worry about people twelve light-years away.

  Cold water from the washbasin helped clear his mind. Thank goodness for spin gravity and the amenities it brought. He paused and looked at the wet face staring back from the mirror. What a grim countenance.

  He tried to relax and smile, but it came out more a smirk, which did nothing for his fine-featured face. His brooding, dark-brown eyes reflected his mood. Strands of unruly, black hair stuck out in different directions. His high cheekbones accentuated the dark circles under his eyes. He needed good, restful sleep but so far had resisted taking sleep medication.

  Carlos took a quick shower, dressed, and went to the ship’s control center. Samuel was not there. With Eve monitoring all ship systems, he and Samuel had adopted informal watch standing. Samuel was probably in his stateroom, reading and remotely monitoring systems.

  Carlos checked the virtual status panels even though Eve would have notified him of any anomalies. Everything checked normal, as usual. Not that he wanted that to change, but boredom spawned restlessness. Still, in spite of all the personal unease, he would not trade being commander of the Democritus planet survey mission with anyone.

  “Eve, anything significant to report?”

  “No, Commander.”

  “Any progress in decoding the burst signal we detected?”

  “Neither Samuel nor I have any progress to report.”

  Was that a trace of irritation in Eve’s voice? Admittedly, his questions were unnecessary.

  It was natural to drift into thinking of Eve as a self-aware persona. The truth was, the integrated central processor, or ICP, he accessed through Eve was not a true “intelligent” system. The ICP was comprised of many integrated, expert processing modules, including advanced stochastic processors. Eve was an excellent interface program integrated with the ICP and a comprehensive memory archive. Even though Eve had impressive adaptive learning capabilities, the unit’s bounded reasoning and associative algorithms prevented its internal processes from evolving to intelligent self-awareness, to true self-referential thinking.