Leaving Earth

Leaving Earth

The Entity Chronicles Book 1

by

Cooper Hill

Copyright 1991 Cooper Hill

Revised 2015

Smashwords Edition

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1 -- Eli

Chapter 2 -- Kate and the Watery Blue Planet

Chapter 3 -- Honey

Chapter 4 -- Leaving Earth

Chapter 5 -- First Forever Friends

Chapter 6 -- The Entity

Chapter 7 -- Purple Icosahedrons

Chapter 8 -- Rejection

Chapter 9 -- Lost in Space

Chapter 10 -- The Commander

Chapter 11 -- Kate-the-not-so-Primitive

Chapter 12 -- Transitioning Matter

Chapter 13 -- Adaptation

Chapter 14 -- The Trident's Denial

Chapter 15 -- The FRAN

Chapter 16 -- Srin-the-Lost

Chapter 17 -- Boxes and Blocked Humlines

Chapter 18 -- Sacrifice and Letting Go

Chapter 19 -- Honey's Apple

Chapter 20 -- Two Entity-I's

Chapter 21 -- Chasing FRAN

Chapter 22 -- Eli-the-Taken

Chapter 23 -- Falling Through a Shunt

Chapter 24 -- Kate-the-Missing

Chapter 25 -- Resolutions and Yrangian Beer

Chapter 26 -- Death Claws

Chapter 27 -- Rescue in Time and Space

Chapter 28 -- Requiem

Sample Chapters: Phoenix Rising, Book 2 The Entity Chronicles

Chapter 1A -- The Phoenix

Chapter 2A -- Disobeying Orders

About the Author

Chapter 1

There he is! Get him, Wakowski!

But Wakowski fell, stunned by a blow to the chest and their prey suddenly disappeared into shadows. Captain Yohst swore under his breath, blaming government cutbacks in the electric grid for the minimal security lighting, inside and out. Spread out. Find him. Seekers on stun.

Two Enforcers split off from the squad down a back hallway, and barely visible themselves in their night uniforms, advanced slowly around a dimly lit corner. Do you see him? Terry, the lead Enforcer whispered.

No. Where'd he go? Joey, the nervous and younger of the two whispered back.

From behind, an arm snaked around Joey's throat and quickly choked him into unconsciousness, lowering him silently to the carpeted floor.

Hey, Joey--, Terry turned back to say something.

Eli-the-hunted lashed out with a sharp blow to the head, pulled the two unconscious Enforcers around the corner, then raced down the long hallway and out through the exit doors with his stolen security passkey. Staying to the shadows of tree clusters and tall shrubs until forced onto the open, groomed grass, Eli made a final desperate run for the fence and the safety of darkness.

* * *

Captain! Here! Enforcer Harry spoke into his wrist unit. Northwest hallway. He took out Team Two.

Yohst ran up and knelt to feel the pulses of the two unconscious men. Stay with them Harry, and call in medical. The rest of you, with me, he snapped and ran down the hall, leading the charge as he swiped his security card and burst out through the exit doors.

There he is, Sir, Willan pointed a moment later, spotting the intruder, Over there! At the fence!

Release the dogs! Yohst shouted angrily. We're not losing this one!

* * *

Eli leapt up, and using forward momentum he grabbed the ten-foot vertical support pole in the chain length fence to vault up and over the top of the razor wire. He sailed high, missing the wire by at least a foot, somersaulted and landed lightly on the other side, as if he'd been a gymnast. His turned from his pursuers, and ran, his long legs racing over the short stretch of flat open ground beyond the fence, straining to reach the woods, to put distance between him and certain death.

But everything seemed to work against him this night. The bright white light from a rising moon chased away the deep shadows he needed for escape. Sharp briars and low hanging branches snagged and tore at his clothing, slowing him when he needed speed. Even the air on this planet--so thick and heavy with its fetid odor of decaying life--took enormous effort to drag in and out of his lungs. It was like breathing water, torturing him in ragged gasps. Definitely not the chilled, rarified air his long thin body was accustomed to.

The sounding bay of the mecha-dogs and their armed owners thrashed suddenly closer. They'd made it to and through the back gate faster than he'd anticipated--and they'd already picked up his scent! An inexplicable fear suddenly overwhelmed his normally calm center, creating a space-cold dread that sent his two hearts pumping wildly in response.

This is the last straw, the onboard companion from his ship proclaimed through the implant, When you actually begin to think and feel like one of them, take on their emotional characteristics, assimilation has begun and you've been here too long. It is imperative that you leave this planet. NOW!

Yeah, yeah. I hear you, Eli muttered, but not just this moment. I'm sort of busy.

Behind him, an Enforcer's seeker whined up to full power and shot a fiery iridescent ball out into the night. It arced wildly, seeking his scent trail of fear, then screamed straight for Eli, whipping around obstacles at astonishing speed. For the first time since the nightmare chase began, Eli's instincts and training took over. He assessed, stopped instantly, stilled himself, and became the holo-image of an oak tree. He threw out fear and haste, permitting no thoughts to enter his mind but the complete utterness of being a tree, neutral, calm, imaging the slowing of his blood to the flow of sap, his skin to that of aged rough bark.

Too late! The odor of fear left hanging in the air guided the seeker directly to him, through the left shoulder-turned-faux-limb, and out the other side. It circled the tree several times, then fell, a glowing ember on the forest floor, and died.

The seeker had badly damaged him, but with Enforcers closing in only seconds away, Eli had no time to stop the rush of life-fluids streaming from the wound. With his energy field disrupted and broken, it took all of his strength and will to keep the tree projection going. It was a simple holo-projection and the amplifier implant continued to work well in spite of the trauma, giving the appearance, feel, and even the odor of an actual tree to the untrained observer. But he could not hope to hold the illusion for long. He already felt disorientation seeping in from the searing pain in his shoulder.

Enforcers whistled in the mecha-dogs to heel and closed in eagerly, their weapons on stun, readying for the capture. But as they entered the tiny clearing, the men uttered oaths of frustration at finding no one there.

Well, I'll be! Captain! Come look at this, said Sgt. Yorel, anger and bafflement in his voice. That stupid seeker shot a tree, he exclaimed with disgust, lowering his weapon.

The other Enforcers were nearly invisible as they approached. Even under the bright light of a full moon, the material in their unadorned black uniforms, gloves and boots, absorbed the ambient light without reflection, giving them the appearance of disembodied heads floating in the moonlit darkness. The unbelieving group surrounded the tree and stared at the green sappy stuff flowing down the trunk.

What's going on, Captain? one of the new recruits dared ask, bewildered.

The Captain shook his head, forced his breathing to slow on a heavy exhalation in the humid, polluted night air. The three junior members of his team were hardly winded, the Captain noted, pleased with their stamina on their first sortie, while his Sargent wheezed, hard pressed to keep up.

Captain Yohst puzzled out loud for their benefit, Now what the hey? A seeker never misses its target. He double-checked the settings on his firearm, his men quickly following suit.

Finding nothing wrong with his weapon, the Captain swore another string of oaths, Hell's bells and Damn Dissident Bastards! The box induces fear and the seeker follows the scent. It's NEVER missed a target in all my years on the force! Those rebels have come up with a defense against a seeker. Damn it to space and back! There'll be the devil's own come-uppin's if we don't find him and bring back somethin' the tech's can tear apart.

Turning slowly to reassess, he carefully gathered up the charred remains of the seeker, scraped off some of the green sap from the tree and placed it all in a techie-bag.

Regrouping, he followed procedure and pointed back in the direction they had come, May have doubled around on us. Sgt. Yorel--you, Burk, and Theo head back and search, slowly, in a fifty-meter perimeter, all the way to the fence if necessary. Check up in the trees with your scanners to make sure he didn't rabbit up one on the sly. Turn your sensors up on full and listen close. I want to know if a June bug so much as flutters its wings. Willan, Corbit, you come with me on ahead. We'll find that traitor before the night's out!

C'mon lads! Whorreeet, he whistled to the mecha-dogs. Seek!

As they separated and left the clearing, Captain Yohst glanced one last time at the tree, a southern live oak, he noted, and then out the corner of an eye, caught a faint blue-green glow pulsing around the base of the trunk where the sap slowly collected. Startled, he swung back around to face it full on, but the glow disappeared, and after circling the tree and searching for life or movement in the branches with his scanner, his dark brows furrowed with a sense of disquiet.

There was something not right in this clearing, something he couldn't quite pin down, more than the rising moon reflecting off the bark. His gut told him something was off, and there was a tingling at the back of his neck that brought the hackles up in wariness and distrust, but he couldn't latch on to it.

Hell, he thought, imagination is going to be the death of you, Yohst, and you're wasting time. Have to catch up with your men. But he left the clearing reluctantly, against instinct, and silently vowed to be back at first light and take a closer look at the tree that bled--on his own time.

Chapter 2

Eli wanted off this merry blue, watery planet. Marooned here by an anomaly, a failure in his meson-drive nearly a full Earth-year past, half of one of his own solar cycles, he felt a desperate need to be back among his own, among familiar things and beings that made sense. Culture shock didn't come close to describing the alienation he'd felt here among this earth-bound race. He didn't understand them any better now than the day he'd arrived. And he was so close to leaving, to repairing his transport drive and claiming those elusive words: Escape and Freedom!

While he waited for the Enforcers to clear the area, his mind went back for the plus thousandth time to the moment. There had been a bright flare off this system's sun, not unusual of itself, but something huge had appeared out of nowhere, overtaken his small craft and siphoned off most of its power in a matter of seconds, even corrupting it's ability to regenerate.

He'd reviewed his use of standard protocol for the sling-shot procedure off this out-of-the-way sun to his next target--over and over--but could discover no error. But, no matter now. His craft was still disabled and in a deteriorating orbit around this Ona-forsaken planet with its tawdry, dreary Earth-humans. And no matter how often he'd calculated, the ship still had sufficient energy only to send him the one trip down to the surface, and then hopefully enough for the one trip back aboard. It had taken him all this long year to devise a new power nodule from the primitive tools and materials available on Earth.

He'd worked his way into various Mother Company plants, never staying long, probing, acquiring, spending late hours fabricating substitutions, hiding behind his illusion projector with the look and feel of an Earth-human, changing his appearance with each infiltration.

Frustrated constantly in his attempts to obtain what he needed, time had finally run out. The ship's energy reserves, and his own energy-barrier-packs against earth-born pathogens that he had no resistance to, were all critically low. The year's collection of parts was stored in a bag under a smaller illusion projector in a shallow cave he'd hollowed out by the fence. He'd lacked only the large synthetic crystal now tucked safely into his uniform pouch.

Awaiting cover of darkness, he'd accessed a restricted area of the plant this final night, purloined the crystal, and been on his way out to safety and a return to his ship when the alarms had sounded. A full company of Enforcers had appeared suddenly out of shadows in the entry hall and onto his trail. Forced to render several of the guards unconscious, he'd broken yet another Keiratus rule of non-intervention and non-violence and run for his life and cover of the woods, his precious cache abandoned in the cave, untouched. If he could only survive long enough–

These thoughts raced through Eli's mind at third level until he felt it safe to relax the tree projection. The noise of Enforcers grew ever fainter as he listened. He sniffed and not sensing their immediate presence in the air, he released the tree-holo from his mind. He allowed his more normal planetary human-projection-appearance to return and quickly pulled a bandage from his pack. It was entirely too small to cover the large open wound still leaking his life-force onto the ground, but better than nothing. He stilled his mind, sent healing energy to the area and managed to close the outer surface, though he knew it was a temporary measure at best, then wrapped the bandage tightly over the hole. Listening intently, he moved painfully into shadows at the edge of the clearing.

Eli took a solitary step toward the fence line and his hidden supplies, but the quiet calm in his center stopped him. It wasn't safe to go there, not now. Giving in to his inner guide, his connective tie with the Universe and all that had brought him to this point, Eli, this-young-blue-Lorind-being-of-light-becoming-pure-knowledge, became a shadow, melting from tree to rock to tree in the wrong direction.

* * *

Eli stumbled, wracked with pain.

You must stay focused, the onboard spoke to him, encouraging. Center. Find your center.

He pushed on, his shoulder burning like fire. Forgive me, Icrypz, but I've never been wounded before, and I don't much care for it.

His thoughts began to wander from his discipline and mission, to the past year of surviving amongst such a primitive, regressed people. How could a race of beings once bound for the stars have stifled all imagination and creativity for the opiates of entertainment and an enforced peace? There were better ways. You didn't have to toss the meson-drive out with the garbage!

The illusion of being Earthian for a year had required enormous energy to maintain, in fact had weakened him. He yearned to use his energy for more important pursuits, all he had been on quest for when his ship's energy had been siphoned off by what he had come to think of as the thing. There were higher life-forms to discover, mysteries to solve, especially the mystery of the FRAN. But his first mission was just a quoram vision if he couldn't repair his meson-drive. And what would the Ona say about his prolonged absence, of his abject failure on his first solo assignment and pilgrimage? He hoped he would actually return to find out. Even punishment by the Ona was better than this.

Eli stopped abruptly, his hearts beating rapidly again in fear. Enforcers had doubled back and were flailing about noisily in his direction. Turning to run, he bumped into a tree branch and a shooting bolt of pain threatened to overwhelm him. Struggling to stay conscious, panting, Eli angled to the right and pushed on into the night.

* * *

Kate came up slowly from deep meditation, troubled in spirit. She sat staring out the open window of her upstairs bedroom, trying to find gratitude and joy in the crisp fall air, in the glorious play of colors from the sun's rays filtering through the early morning mist on fallen leaves; in the lush green grass of her small lawn; and in the heavy scent of fall flowers in her tiny flower beds, at their zenith of beauty. She listened to the soft melodious sounds of a new day, the beginning of bird song and life stirring in the nearby forest, seeking peace--and failed, wishing more than ever she were somewhere else.

Kate yearned with all her heart to be away from the mediocrity and daily death of this mundane life. People didn't laugh at simple things, in fact they hardly laughed at all, unless it was at some crude, mindless tri-D. Imagination and creativity had been replaced by entertainment geared for the lowest common denominators of society, dragging all of humanity down into the morass of endless games and programmed activities.

Even language and vocabulary had become dull, limited to a mere few thousand acceptable words, with conversations rare, shallow and meaningless so the Mother couldn't read sedition into them--and punish. The world had been scrubbed clean of magic--and worse, individuality. It had room no more for heroes or heroines, only for technicians and technocrats, rules and regulations, and the Mother Company. The Mother controlled everything from birth to death, and all that existed in between.

Kate chastised herself out loud, Look, you were chosen for the most flexible, independent, and isolated station available by being an artist and sculptor. You already have the greatest degree of freedom allowed any individual in the society. What do you have to complain about? There's a world government, common world language, world peace, no more wars. The Great Conversion accomplished all this and more, she thought, reciting her early video-lessons silently. Good things, in and of themselves. But why did the Company not allow for the occasional rebel or creative thinker?

She knew she'd been identified early as a spontaneous, free spirit, and encouraged, pampered even, to keep her work, moods, and temperament light, always reflecting a child-like approach to life. Mrl Darin had sponsored both her and her art from a young age, creating a protective cocoon around her, and it had paid off royally for him as her patron. Not that she wasn't grateful. She loved what she did. Her art was color-filled, powerful, and sought after because her gift of natural spontaneity carried through into her work, bringing special life in stories and myth to her creations.

Mrl Darin had wanted her to continue her education after her initial training, but she regarded the rigid methodologies and formulas of advanced university degrees as something to be avoided, a threat to her very nature and she'd refused, something no one ever did, setting her apart even from other artists.

The soft chime of the tel-alert interrupted her thoughts. Annoyed, Kate turned away from the myriad hues of deep green forest, the perfect manicured lawn that never needed tending, and depressed the speaker-com by the single bed, knowing it could only be Mrl Abbot from the Artist's Board of Inquiry at this early hour. She pulled her long thick honey-colored hair quickly through a squiggle to trail down her back, and put on the bland look of an obedient citizen, then pressed for visual, Good morning, K.O. Lightfeather speaking.

Mrl Lightfeather, the oily voice said, Mrl Abbot here, his pasty, unpleasant, heavily lined face shimmering onto her view screen, the drab beige background of his government office matching his skin tone and persona. I hope I didn't disturb your meditation-time?

Kate knew that was exactly why he'd called so early. She didn't answer immediately, keeping her oval face schooled to passive, knowing he was watching for even a miniscule reaction on his own oversized screen. Letting the silent seconds tick away long past polite etiquette, she finally spoke quietly, Not at all. How may I be of help to you this morning, Mrl Abbot?

He cleared his throat with a wheezing hhhhummphezz sound, disappointment showing in the smoky grey eyes and quivering weak chin. We've reached a consensus on your latest work, the Phoenix Rising. The Board rejects your third defense and gives you three days for a final revision or withdrawal. I'm afraid such seditious and controversial material cannot be allowed to reach the public eye without major modifications. You will submit revisions in triplicate as usual for us to review, or be reprimanded with a copy in your permanent record. Do you have any questions?

Kate shook her head slightly, but maintained her silence, her features immobile, tawny brown eyes flat.

You can't simply ignore us, Mrl Kate, he rumbled, working up to a snit, using her first name as an insult and sign of disrespect. "We ARE here for a reason, Mrl Abbott seethed, seeing no response on her visage. His bloated face flushed an angry red, at disagreeable odds with the flat dung-colored uniform of the technocrat. A gleam of cold decisive superiority came into the resentful grey eyes and he slashed out at her with an icy control, And that reason is to keep rebellious souls like you in line. You are always pushing, always at the outer edges of acceptability. You've enjoyed favor up till now merely because you have a friend on the board. But Mrl Darin is old and won't live forever. And then I will break you, Mrl Lightfeather, as surely as the sun rises, I will bring you to your knees. Your work won't be shown even in a public toilet, and I will see to it that you are outcast in disgrace for your lifelong sedition and impudence," he raged.

Kate's face and tone remained bland, as she'd been schooled to deflect such tirades. Thank you Mrl Abbot, I shall certainly keep that in mind.

A look of pure hatred flashed across Abbot's features, but he quickly covered it with the passive mask most citizens wore in public and modulated his voice to a constrained wheeze, lest he be charged with harassment or coercion and lose his privileged position. His quivering chin was the only remaining sign of barely suppressed rage, Three days, Mrl Lightfeather. No questions, then? I thought not. Good day!

Kate kept her facial muscles relaxed and the insolent defiance in her mind only until he rang off, but a rare anger boiled up in her as the smug image disappeared. How could they have refused her defense? She'd already revised the sculpture three times! Hateful accusations that her art contained seditious material were an affront, an attack on her character. Defense takes all the joy from work and life, she thought furiously. Why can't they just accept my art without proof or critique, just once! And what could possibly be seditious about a hero rising from the ashes of destruction when it's a myth from our past?

Kate felt her stomach knot in protest and forced her thoughts away from censorship and the jealousy behind it.

From her infrequent contacts with other state-supported artists at showings, she knew that they too, worked under such harassment and within the same narrow limitations, but that didn't make it any easier to swallow this morning. She mentally shrugged off the rare bad mood, trying to return to the bit of the joy she'd found in the meditation this morning, and focused on the muted browns of the bare walls before her.

Breathing deeply, Kate stretched through a Tai Chi-An sequence then concentrated on the new canvas project. Work always made her feel better and she directed her energy and thoughts back to it, turning an idea over in her mind, smiling to herself at the images playing in her head. She wondered if the colors would blend well, glancing down at the ancient illustrated manuscript on lease from the Great Library lying open on her soft, hand-made blue-green bed-cover. The material contained in the manuscript had cost her half a month's salary to procure, but it had been worth it. The exquisite illustrations and colors never failed to draw up a sense of joyous wonder and calm from her center each time she studied it.

But resentment at the Board's stifling repression kept sneaking back in, past her defenses, festering, growing, threatening to ruin what peace she could find in the day. Why had the rich tapestries of religion, myth and art been replaced with colorless devotion to the Company?

To still her thoughts before they had her too churned up to work, she returned to a meditative Qi Gong stance, imaging the negative thoughts as a cup of water being poured into a wide river, clear and pristine, absorbed, cleansed, carried away.

Uncharacteristically, the cool water and the peaceful river turned into a fiery red haze of anger and the errant thoughts refused to leave, flooding back in the moment the meditation ended, overwhelming her until she felt tears well in her eyes. Opting for a different tack, she tried to reason her way out of the strange mood.

Obscene over-population had brought about this one-world government and the Mother Company, she reflected. Greed and unwillingness to honor the natural laws of carrying capacity had seen her race withdraw from space exploration, from educational and spiritual advancement and the untapped worlds of quantum energy.

Instead, the World Government of the Mother had poured its energy into regulating all life from birth to death. Human Law was now everything. Kate recited the tenants of The LAW bitterly which applied to her specifically: Communal relationships interfere with the creative spirit. Thus, artists, clergy, musicians and healers, and a few select other professions which require great periods of concentration for their work and to be defined by the Mother, are not allowed relationship or intercourse, to marry or have children. They are to be identified and isolated as children, and are decreed to live solitary, protected lives. For this self-sacrifice to the state, they are compensated with special privileges, the privacy of a personal house away from the lights and distractions of the cities, a degree of travel freedom, study and autonomy away from public scrutiny, and an independent income.

But Kate knew from personal experience that one was allowed to be creative only within a narrowly defined band, and even that came with a great price. Due to this segregation from the masses, she and others like her had grown in the minds of the general populace to represent forbidden fruits. An image of innocence, separate from society, a myth to fantasize about, but never consummate or fulfill. One who had been sanctified, celibatized, and isolated by The Mother was both alluring and fascinating, as her training had warned. She'd been taught how to deflect advances, defend against them, yet still, she felt violated at showings of her work, when the eyes of men and women dwelt too long upon her. They surrounded and clung to her as if they owned her, probing her mind, body and spirit with their intrusive questions and stares, curiosity and desire buffeting her in tangible waves, living off her ideas and energy instead of their own.

Of late, Kate found herself longing for a revolution, a spark of insurrection and a way out. Where were the rebels? Where had all the causes gone? Where was the awareness of life outside mediocrity, of other worlds, or even of the perpetual enemy, the antagonist which man had used for so many eons to overcome weaknesses in himself, to push his boundaries ever farther along the path of knowledge and enlightenment to freedom. Where were the myths, the heroic tales, the adventurers themselves? She alternately wept for her race and raged at them for making visionaries and freethinkers the villains.

Kate glanced in the mirror and laughed at the frown on her face. Careful, Katie girl, she wagged a finger at the woman laughing back, You'll make those lines permanent. Besides, she chided, you turned thirty this year, a bit over the hill for a heroine, at least from what the forbidden texts she'd discovered in the bowels of the Great Library had described.

She appraised her reflection with a hypercritical eye. She had an ordinary, lanky body, not heavily muscled, not gaunt, or blonde, or fair-skinned or anything like the tri-D models. Not short or tall, she was average everything and her tawny brown eyes, dark-honey hair and olive skin weren't exactly heroine material. She tugged at the baggy white T-shirt and black Qi Gong