Little Cherine Book 11 - BPost044

arthur.grafo13(54)

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#sfandf-fiction

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1955

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9 min

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Amazed at his honesty she asked, “He would not agree with you, he’d side with me?”

“No love, he would agree with neither of us. He would say that he does not have the right to risk all other species for the sake of one and would accept that this is an evil that must be done and take the guilt to himself. If that is all that is left, I’ll do the same.”

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Arthur! You’re back!

This is Robert. When Sam saw the chapter heading she burst into tears. How long have you been away your end?

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Robert looked both deflated and stunned. “You’re telling us that we were only a story until now?”

Robbie laughed. “It was true for us also. I admit it does take some kind of crazy shift in thinking to adjust to the idea. Robert, Cherine, for us you only now came into existence, at the moment Arthur changed his font. However, his assuming does not make your reality suddenly come into existence. He assumes it began in the distant past and if we asked Freddie to take us back ten million years you’d find alien civilisations in existence.” Robbie gave a gentle smile. “Give yourselves time to adjust, don’t drive yourselves crazy trying to understand.”

“Robert, about Rea…”

Robbie cut her off. “We’re grateful to Bobby, he saved us from having to deal with her and her family. Cherine, sometimes ethics and morals conflict with survival and I can’t honestly tell you with hand over my heart how I would have solved that ethical problem.” He forced himself to look Bobby in the eyes. “You are a very brave young man and your family are lucky that you love them so much.”

We allowed them to read the diary and when they read their part of it we could all feel how it messed with their minds.

Arthur, you and I are the main reason we stayed home for two years. Some of it is good, but I do have some bad news for you. Our Earth (and most other alternates) went ballistic when we returned with all the Cherinians of the boxee reality. Mostly the adulation was directed at Bobby. Despite Bobby’s eyes still showing hate when he loves, hundreds of millions say they love him. In the end, we did have to isolate them. With everyone else, whatever their species, if they want to walk around on Earth, they only have to project or ask the Sparklers for a Terran body. We can’t do that with Bobby, his eyes and features are wired to use the set of hate when he feels love. At first it was only our family who are children and can ignore the message our senses receive who could play with him. The next were the Akiards and then children of other species. No other Terran children. He’s never had friends apart from Birshima and he has blossomed.

Talking about blossoming – their Cherine has had a strong impact on all of us. She is a tough girl and Haven and Jade adore her (Goldi also). She has caused all our healers to alter and now we also can heal as fast as they do and from a distance. On the other hand, in certain aspects our healers helped theirs grow also. Solomon tells us that the boxee Sparklers have also had an effect on them and all their alternates. We’ve debated the possibility that you only wrote Boxee so as to effect these changes on us without us feeling you are writing for us by using our font. If so, we are grateful

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Ntchizi and her people received a mixed reception. Far too many people, even Cherinians, dislike the idea of someone living in their minds so much that they cannot relax and make her feel welcome. They only seem to be capable of thinking of her as a mind parasite. Luckily she understands and accepts that it is part of what makes us aliens to her people (both races). I like her very much, but I do not know whether I could do as her Cherine did. Under the same circumstances I guess I might have, but not as I am now.

Once they had spent nearly two months with us, we returned to their reality five hundred years after leaving (we had left Kinytians to watch over their cities). We all gasped as Freddie showed their planet on the screens. It doesn’t have even one desert anymore! It must be just about the most beautiful Earth we’ve ever seen. The Inguel are ecstatic and because of them we debated the possibility of the terraforming (or healing) teams being taught how to use their healers so that they can complete their jobs faster. We do realise that time will still have to be spent on returning to the past to gather all forms of life for transplanting into the future, but using their healers the new way could speed things up.

The Inguel and other scientists examined the planet and after a number of private meetings between themselves, they announced that we should not land. They’ve asked Robbie to return to the past so that they can bring some of the life forms missing and they want enough time be given for them to securely establish their existence.

Since Arthur is rather on the plump side and my toes are dainty, I’m going to have fun answering him, just for the pleasure of depriving him of his kinky ecstasies. Our…no, I don’t like calling him ‘ours’, the prime Earth Campbell totally ignored the nice Arthur and did not reply to efforts made to arrange a meeting between them. It seems he has changed his mind after all or else he is worried what the boxee Arthur will think of him. The boxee Arthur is really pissed off with him.

I should have mentioned that when author Arthur returned to us after his (our side) protracted absence, the date on Earth was February PC43. We departed early May, so it is now PC44.

Robbie decided it would not be nice of us to jump back five hundred years and return directly, so, we collected a team, took them back in time to collect the fauna and dropped them back in the previous time and then we left. Robbie wants to give our boxees a grand tour and show them a lot of what they have only dreamt about till now.
He’s disappeared again! Robbie had to change his mind and we returned to our Athens home. I’d been writing for Arthur a number of times without him responding and, his previous absence coupled with a bad feeling I had about his absence this time, turned me moody. I wanted to be in Athens to watch his image at the Cherinian Embassy in case it shows a change. I was told repeatedly that it will not change, because of it being in stasis, even if Arthur dies, but I was convinced otherwise and they could not jolly me out of my mood.

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Now that I know he is still alive, it is too late, as we’ve taken them back to their home world and they are working hard to start off a Cherinian Earth without causing any damage to the environment this time. I find it amazing that not even one of them has shown any interest in becoming an Ipohin.

I’ll try, but you’re not going to like what I have to tell you. As I said earlier on, the coming of the boxee Cherinians had its good side and bad side. I’ve hinted at a few of the good points so I’ll tell you of the reverse now. Arthur, we’ve spent the last two years fighting to stop our species from turning you into their god. Bringing to life an entire reality and seeing the boxees in person just made it too obvious what you are to us and as you know, under these circumstances, people have only two choices. Either they have to hate you (out of fear) or else they have to idealise you and turn you into a god.

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I’m relieved, I’d thought Arthur would take the news badly. I guess he has mellowed a bit because of the pain he feels as he sees his own dreams for his people die. It also means that it is no longer enough that we try to bring him to us; we must take with us all the species who can help so that we reverse what has been done - and hand those evil ‘elite’ monsters to the people, for them to decide what they want done with them.

* * * * *

I’ve been missing Efineh, but since we are back in Athens because of me, I did not feel I should ask to go to her. I did my best to hide my yearning, but with Dommi around, none of us stand a chance of hiding how we feel for long. She must have let Robbie know, for he announced that we are leaving in five days to visit Efineh. Robbie and Vincent are busy stocking up Freddie while us girls are in a rush to visit as many friends as possible. Where we sense a strong yearning to be invited to join us in Freddie, we invite them.

We’ve delayed leaving as Robbie wanted to hold a Cherinian meeting. We met in the Sparkler World and we showed everyone what you wrote. It was unanimously decided that not only do we adopt the rule officially, but that teams from every species will examine all other aspects of life where the rule can be extended. As an aside, I should mention that Robbie also invited the Ipohin and Arthur Campbell and his group. Neither of them contributed to the meeting and remained silent, but I think the Ipohin will discuss this in their own forum and follow your lead.

Arthur, we are rushing off to a new reality. The Robert of RT discovered it and needs our help. Something from space has killed off the entire population of that Earth! I’ll write once we know more.

It seems that space repeats the ecology of our planet. If we are to liken Ambros to our dolphins, so would it seem the attacker of this Earth is the equivalent of a shark. It is also made of energy as Ambros is, but the energy is far more concentrated and when it touches a planet is destructive beyond belief. The energy is not selective and all life has been exterminated.

We will only bring the teams for repairing the planet once we have found a way to neutralise the space-shark, as we cannot be certain it will not return to this solar system if we don’t. Robbie, of course, is determined not to kill the space-shark and is hoping that if we manage to communicate with it, it will understand what it did and be more careful in the future. We did visit Ambros in the Sparkler World, but he affirmed his total lack of knowledge of such a creature. Could this be the real reason his species are so rare?

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