Deathbed Disappearances (eBook)

Loverman

James Strode (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2021 | 1. Auflage
114 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-6678-0756-0 (ISBN)

Infos

Detective Charlie Grace doesn't get along with many, but his knack for solving Nashville's missing person's cases makes up for his social blunders. When a young woman disappears just days before her doctor believes she will die, Grace is immediately put on the case. He slowly uncovers the truth as another woman disappears under eerily similar circumstances. His search will lead him directly into a collision course with the mysterious 'Loverman.' Has Detective Grace finally found a case that he cannot solve? 'Deathbed Disappearances' is a dangerous mystery packed with fantastical turns!

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Detective Charlie Grace doesn't get along with many, but his knack for solving Nashville's missing person's cases makes up for his social blunders. When a young woman disappears just days before her doctor believes she will die, Grace is immediately put on the case. He slowly uncovers the truth as another woman disappears under eerily similar circumstances. His search will lead him directly into a collision course with the mysterious "e;Loverman."e; Has Detective Grace finally found a case that he cannot solve? "e;Deathbed Disappearances"e; is a dangerous mystery packed with fantastical turns!

Textauszug

Chapter 3

Island Universe

There is another beginning to this story, an earlier one, but isn’t that always true for every story. The actually beginning of anything is at least an infinity away. Let us go back to the year 1960 when one from beyond earth’s knowing was still many millions of light years away. He sailed alone on his ship, the Razor, that could outpace the speed of light by magnitudes unknown to me. He was desperate. But, he was also hopeful. For five years the solo pilot had been on a quest to find for his race, the Yedei, a new home, a place where they might begin again and succeed where they had failed. His time to search however was thinning out like the resources on his planet, and the extinction of his people was nigh. The Yedei needed space, space to live, breed, and breathe.

On and island universe called the Cluster, was the tiny, odd planet Ludo about the size of Earth’s moon. Ludo had nourished the Yedei for thousands of years but was rapidly failing. Ludo was a planet that could be compared to a battery, and like a battery it was losing its charge. The planet was cooling from the inside and steadily losing its ability to nourish the Yedei. The Yedei were in most respects, physically and mentally humans, but were a substantially hardier species. When the pilot left Ludo for the last time it was inhabited with six times as many Yedei as today’s Earth is populated with humans. The Yedei cities had become so crowded that oxygen making machines huge and small had to be used to keep the population with enough breathable air. Explorers were sent into space to find a new home or homes for the Yedei. And for what must have seemed beyond an eternity for the truly desperate, all of the explorers were luckless for five years, but now the Wyidae the Soloist had found palpable hope. Wyidae had discovered Earth. All of the tests of Earth that he could accomplish from his great distance away had been completed, and so far the Earth seemed to be more suitable for his race than Ludo had been even in their heyday. For five eternal years Wyidae had been searching for such a planet. He bounced the news of his findings back home but received no reply. Wyidae had not heard from Ludo for weeks. He had no choice but to ignore his worries and go to the Earth. He had to make sure that this newly discovered planet would sustain his people and only then could he hurry back to Ludo.

To better comprehend what has brought Wyidae the Soloist to quest for a new home for his people you must know something of the Yedei history. The early history of the Yedei is similar to that of the history of the humans. It was a time filled with technological advancement and stupidity, wisdom and war, goodness and greed. Ludo unlike the Earth had only one major land mass or continent and within its sea nearly one hundred islands over half of which were less than a square mile in area.

There being only one major land mass it was early in the Yedei written history that Ludo came under one rule. There were many rulers and many revolts ( a handful of which were successful). One Emperor in particular was responsible for bringing peace to Ludo. Iro Anki ( The Iron Hand) was Ludo’s second to last Emperor, one who had led and ended a successful revolt at the age of thirty five and founded the Eldei, a code of living that all Yedei were forced to follow.

The Eldei was a set of laws and ideals which were strictly enforced by the Iron Hand and his army. The new laws were developed with the intent to promote peace, a sense of oneness as a nation, and to prevent further desire of rebellion. To maintain high levels of honor, respect for others, and self sacrifice was to be the ultimate goal of each Yedei. A person would achieve renown only for contributing to society. It was law that no one in a community could go hungry or be without a home. It was law that all must share in society’s successes and hardships. If one were to amass wealth and be considered greedy there would be a public shunning in which such a person would not be able to buy or sell labor or goods. This would force the person to be more generous with what he possessed if he wished to be welcomed again into the friendly arms of society, or perish. Honor was sought therefore much more than personal financial gain which had in many instances lead to the ruin of a family’s name, fortune and place.

In the beginning the Eldei was enforced mainly by Iro Anki and his army but the acceptance of the Eldei into the Yedei heart came quickly and was followed by virtually all Yedei often to the point of fanaticism. Ten years after Anki became Emperor the thought of rebellion on Ludo was virtually nonexistent. The average standard of living had increased by forty percent. Advances in technology were constantly making life easier. The Yedei of Ludo became, for the first time, peaceful and content. Wan “AnOuyo “ (The Sinless) the firstborn of Iro Anki became Emperor when Iro, after 60 years of mostly benevolent rule handed over the throne to him. AnOuyo became the living embodiment of one who lived up to the standards of the Eldei and he was well loved and liked by the people of Ludo who had given him the name AnOuyo to honor him. After five years of rule AnOuyo relinquished the throne and set in place a structure, which already informally existed, of self rule by the people. AnOuyo lived the rest of his life among the rest of the Yedei and despite his wishes otherwise was held in more awe and respect as a leader of the Yedei when he no longer held any official title. The Yedei prospered with each passing year, maintaining a peace and code of ethics which could only be outdone by the imagination. For well more than a thousand years after the death of Iro Anki there was peace on Ludo.

The average life span of a Yedei expanded to one hundred and fifty years. An unsuccessful birth or untimely death was a rarity. A cold normally lasted no longer than a few hours, and diseases were simply not a problem. The Yedei body was sometimes capable of regrowing fingers, toes or other small parts of the anatomy. The Yedei had fantastic control over their bodies. The physical accomplishments of the ordinary Yedei would seem a miracle to a human. Technological advances and the lack of illnesses along with the efficiency and good will of the Yedei made manual labor nearly unnecessary. The Yedei therefore devoted much of their times to artistic and intellectual fulfillment. As on Earth athletics, musicianship and acting were the most popular forms of these endeavors.

Unfortunately in nature it is a truth that too great a success of one species can upset the more natural balance of life and that creature which has had such success must fail in some great way to bring back the harmony that once was. Ludo became overpopulated, frighteningly overpopulated. A Yedei male could fertilize a female from the age of ten almost until death and likewise the average Yedei female was capable of having a healthy baby for over a span of one hundred years of her life.

With life becoming much like a paradise in the years after the monarchy was dissolved some Yedei would have as many children as was possible. It was not uncommon in the early days of the paradise for females to have had fifty children and hundreds of grand children. But there was only so much space to go around. There was a limit to the amount of houses and buildings one could raise and after many centuries of unchecked population growth Ludo was reaching its maximum capacity of Yedei. The Yedei became so cramped for space that game reserves, recreation areas, and land previously thought to be undesirable was converted into housing areas. In time there was no structure that was not a several stories. If they could not find land the Yedei would build in the sky.

Where there was once only the barren desert one would find tumultuous overpopulated cites. Still the Yedei’s numbers grew as Ludo seemed to shrink. The Yedei reproduced much more quickly than they died. Children grew old enough to hold conversations with their Great, Great, Great, Great, Great Grandparents.

The first sign of trouble was a growing predisposition of the Yedei to argue instead of smile or say a kind word. And the people noticed the change in themselves and their knowledge of this change only made matters worse because they realized they quarreled because paradise was dying. And so, greater than the growing intensity of arguments among the Yedei was a great fear that no one wished to speak of because no one knew how to solve their dilemma. With time the situation became worse and arguments turned to fights, and fights turned to riots and it seemed that soon all peace would turn to chaos. Finally the Yedei decided to confront their problem and seek a lasting solution.

There was a theory developed, by Sagan a scientist of Ludo, that a galaxy was like a cell with a very tough but semi-permeable membrane. The universe was made of billions upon billions of these cells pressed together, creating an incalculable sea of ever moving galaxies. Sagan theorized that the ‘fluid’ between these membranes could be used as channels for travel and if one could build a proper ship, radiating at the proper frequency, one could slip, traveling inside and with this fluid using the pressure that galaxies exerted on each other, from galaxy to galaxy in the blink of an eye. Sagan’s theory proved to be correct. Building a ship, and finding a quick way to the edge of one’s galaxy to the fluid, and getting in and out of the fluid, proved difficult as one might imagine. With...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 5.11.2021
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Science Fiction
• ISBN-10: 1-6678-0756-0 / 1667807560
• ISBN-13: 978-1-6678-0756-0 / 9781667807560