Infinity (2 page)

   
Cruise Daxu, meaning Liberty,
was born on the planet Cassiopeia eight hundred, seventy-four thousand and
eight hundred years after the First Great War. That would have been signified
in earth years as the year 876,863.

   
Cassiopeia had been named
after the constellation of the same name, originally named out of Greek
Mythology. History and cultures had been well preserved. Cassiopeia was one of
the few major planets in the Rakudean Galaxy that had libraries of accessible
historical and scientific data. Many of the books and data of ancient times had
been lost, or stolen by collectors or treasure hunters looking to sell what
they could scavenge.

   
The English language had
been preserved as well as could be possible, considering the amount of time
that had passed since colonists first started leaving The Martian planet of Sophia,
as well as Earth, and Venus.

   
The language, however, had
been garnished with countless new and colorful expressions. Not only
vocabulary, but many idioms, verbs and adjectives had been added, and many
dropped. In fact, it kept changing, adding whatever other parts of speech,
grammar, hyperboles, and gestures had been necessary. The Quewythian race had
their own number system and written language. Although the colonists had
brought the ancient Earth languages from Earth, the Quewythians used the same
symbols to communicate by writing as they had for eons.
 

   
The humans had discovered
that they were not alone in the universe. Close encounters with many other
species of “Space People” as they were called, had become common.

   
Cruise’s father had been one
of those “Space People”, but his mother had been human, whose origins were
among the ancient red-skinned people of the Americas. His mother had passed
away hundreds of years before and his father had remarried, one of his own
kind, realizing that to marry another human would only bring more sorrow after
she passed away, having already had two human wives.

   
Koupiton Hoxenyth, Cruise’s
father, was originally from the neighbouring galaxy of Garethiea. He was the
ruler of two thousand solar systems that had habitable planets. That was a
small number considering that particular galaxy contained billions of star
systems. His home planet was called Quewythia. The Kriphiseon Galaxy was
further away and then the galaxies sort of made an ovular shape and came around
to Adastraya, Phorenas, Solemya, Aquaraleia, Diosuea, Cymopolea, Draconius,
Astryayak, and the furthest most remote was
Deltanaff-Nizz
. The word they used for galaxy was “kotesha”.

   
The words they used, which
literally meant “Liberating King”, was “Daxu Korth”.

Koupiton was five
thousand years old. He was of the Quewythian race. In the Human language, that
would be pronounced like the letter “Q”, and weeth.

   
The Quewythian race looked
every bit like humans. You could not tell them apart except they all had thick,
curly raven black hair that had a cyan lustre in the sunlight, blue eyes and
naturally tanned skin. The skin was of a different make up than normal human
skin. It was smoother, less hairy and had a glistening multi-colored tone; sort
of beautiful metallic lustre similar to scale-less fish that seemed to change
color depending which way the light was coming from. These were the Northern
Quewythians, who hailed from the mega planets of Laskaris and Quewythia in the
Kriphiseon Kotesha.

   
The Southern, or “Zohdani”
Quewythians, lived on the twin planets of Slatoid and Sheodel. Their
distinctive features included a lighter pigmentation of their skin with their
arms, foreheads and thighs being the darkest. Their eyes had no special color,
but were as diverse as the color spectrum. The men wore their hair long, but
not as long as the women. The women were adorned with hair of many colors, not
unlike their eyes. Their two planets were smaller than Laskaris, and presided
in the Zohdani area of the Kriphiseon Kotesha in a star system that was
comprised of twelve planets. Slatoid and Sheodel were the only inhabited ones.

   
Tens of thousands of years
before, both Quewythian races were at war with each other for the domination of
the Twelve Galaxies Cluster. The Northern Quewyths defeated the Southern
Quewyths with their superior weapons but spared their planets.

 
  
Since then, in return for the
mercy shown them, the Southern Quewyths vowed to always be true friends and
allies, even in battle. A truce was made and trade between the two diverse Quewythian
races began. This treaty had held for more than thirty thousand years, and was
revised more than three thousand times to include amendments allowing for more
freedoms, travel, and extended to all of the twelve galaxies in the Radiance
Cluster.

   
Only four thousand years
earlier, Southern Quewythian rebel assassins had killed the Supreme Ruler King
or “Welaik Korth”, Koupiton Hoxenyth’s father. They had been captured and
executed as traitors to the Twelve Galaxies Cluster, by Koupiton Hoxenyth, who
instantly became the new king. He used his new power to free the inhabitants of
the harsh conditions his father had inflicted upon countless planets under his
iron fist rule. Koupiton Hoxenyth was a hero among the multitude of races as
well as his own people. He then became known as Daxu Korth, which in the
original English tongue translates as “Liberating King”.

   
An uncountable number of
humans who originated from the Milky Way Galaxy migrating across the Quadrant
to the Twelve Galaxies Cluster had intermarried with the inhabitants of the
planets they settled on. Seeking out uninhabited planets to do terraforming had
ceased. Humans were now integrated into the workings of the whole universe and
had taken their place among the stars continuing to colonize their own galaxies.
Using their technology, they sought out planets that were already in the
habitable zones of their suns that needed no terraforming.

   
Cruise had a brother who is
five hundred years older than he and also half human, but from a different mother
who their father married earlier. Since their father was a king, they are both half-human
princes of the Kingdom of the Twelve Galaxies Cluster.

   
His brother, Arthos Daxu,
was in search of ancient relics that had been lost in the deep caverns of
Earth. It was reported by the accompanying ship that while they were in Warp
Drive and traveling one hundred times the speed of light, Arthos gave the
command for his pilot to push the Drive for all it was worth. That reportedly
propelled Arthos ’s ship five times faster than it had been going and the warp
was opened. Arthos’s ship just disappeared into the warp and then the warp was
shut. Arthos was gone.

   
Cruise was standing upon the
glass veranda made of gold with his hands upon the rail. His father and stepmother,
Dvora, were there.

   
“Son, I wish you would
reconsider,” pleads Cruise’s father. “I and your mother already lost one son.
We do not wish to lose another.”

“My brother is
not lost, Father,” replies Cruise. “We just don’t know where he is, but I will
find him, I promise.”

   
“But my son,” entreats his
stepmother Dvora, reaching up to place her hand upon his shoulder, “There is no
guarantee you will find him. The outer limits of the universe are uncharted and
dangerous. We both tried to tell your brother, but he wouldn’t listen.”

   
“I want you both to know.” Cruise
turns around to face his parents. “I cannot lose my brother. We are connected,
and I will find him, and the relic he went searching for.”

   
“I rule the Twelve Galaxies
Cluster,” Koupiton Hoxenyth replies. “I control a very great part of this
universe and yet...I am not able to control my own sons.”

   
“Father,” Cruise replies, “It
is in your name that I go; also for my birth mother. For Arthos it’s the same.
If we find that ancient relic, then it will lead us to the home of our
ancestors. Imagine the knowledge and truths we will uncover.”

   
“I see I have raised two
stubborn sons. Nevertheless, I will give you the biggest and strongest vessel
we have in our kingdom.” Koupiton retreats from the portico back into the
house. He had come to live on Cassiopeia to be with his wife and sons, and stayed
there after their mothers had died. He knew that the Earthlings were wild and
reckless and yet he married two of them and had sons with them. He foresaw the
trouble they might get into in the future, being half human and not able to
control their inner desires and impulses.

   
Dvora tried to comfort her
husband. “You know the Earthlings have a very ancient culture and they look
upon a sibling from a different parent as only a half brother or sister.”

“It’s not so
with our sons. They may be half human, but I have never heard either of them
claim to be only a half brother,” retorted Koupiton.

   
“That is what I am trying to
say, veki,” Dvora responds calling him the word in their language that means
love. “It is a strong bondage they have, and I believe it would be a mistake to
stand in their way.”

   
Preparations were made and Cruise
was given the biggest and strongest space vessel ever built just as his father
promised him. The ship’s name was Infinity. She was fully staffed with ten
thousand members of the crew hand-picked by Cruise, who was also the commander
in chief of all of the forces in the Twelve Galaxies Cluster. Out of all Twelve
Galaxies, one hundred of the strongest and most powerful vessels were sent to
accompany Cruise on his journey. More were being prepared in the event he
should need them.

   
Infinity was computer
operated by a voice commanded Artificial Intelligence. She was four times
larger than Shovaya, the capital city of their planet Cassiopeia. Being two
hundred Earth miles long and seventy wide: She was fifteen miles high at the
highest point, and then tapered off at an angle down her back until she came to
the rear point. Three of the largest and most powerful engines drove her. The
Treshtax engines each were fifty miles long and had a width of five miles at the
front and tapered off to four miles at the rear. Two of the colossal engines
were on either side of her and the third rested on top so that the rear of all
of the engines were flush with the end of the vessel.
  

   
From above she was viewed as
an oblong orb with a teardrop shape. Being almost flat, but rounded on the
bottom, she was streamlined from front to rear with her observation tower being
at the front. Besides being a window for stargazing and the astronomical
observatory, it also housed the officers’ lounge, meeting rooms, baths,
recreation areas, captain’s quarters and swimming pool.

   
There were one thousand
decks, each one precisely ten Earth feet high, except for the four bottom
decks. The bottom deck was fifty feet high and housed the energy, thrusters,
boosters, engines and every other mechanism that made it possible for Infinity
to travel and navigate across the galaxies. The next deck up was just above fifty
feet of solid Platainium, which was the hardest metal substance that had ever
been discovered up to that time. It was also the lightest metal and protected
the upper decks from radiation emitted by the engines.

   
The next deck up was a
virtual world of delight for the crew. It was divided into four sections that
represented each of the seasons on Cassiopeia that were very similar to Earth’s
seasons, except for the length of them. The Torrid Island resort, Frigid resorts,
Autumnal area and Temperate resorts
. Each one spanned its allotted fifteen
by twenty miles and were only separated by borders that when crossing,
gradually turned into the next season. It was a thousand feet high at the front
and tapered to the back.

At
the top, equidistant from all the sections, was a virtual sun that regulated
the temperature and weather of each seasonal resort as well as the temperature
throughout the vessel. For long periods in space it was necessary that the men
and women of the crew had plenty of time for extra-curricular activities to
keep them happy and healthy, as well as in tip-top physical condition.

   
Above the resort deck was
ten more feet of solid Platainium, and then there were houses, schools, streets,
buildings, hotels, factories, shops, restaurants; everything you would find in
a normal mega-city. Gravity was always regulated and simulated so that only
sudden jolts of jumping into warp speeds were only slightly noticed.

   
Each level was unique and
represented as many different cultures as well as religions from as many parts
of the kingdom as possible, including Earth, and what information had been
passed down about its history from colonists.

   
Infinity had its own police
force too, and also food manufacturing plants as well as all sorts of farms and
ranches for raising crops and stock.