“What is going on?!” Lord Pearian yelled as he was being unceremoniously carried back to the alien battleship’s cell block.
The most undignified part about all of this was that the nunser guard carried him by biting the side of his shirt and lifting him up! It made him feel as if he was a naughty kitten who had to be carried back to his nest by his overprotective mom cat!
Unfortunately for the first-class scion, the armored guard remained completely unmoved by his pleas. Perhaps the nunser soldier’s helmet didn’t contain any translation modules that allowed him to interpret standard human language.
The robed and masked figure of Jugal Meren no longer assumed an extremely undignified cattle-like posture anymore. The proud cosmopolitan held his back upright as if he had nothing to be ashamed about.
“I do not command authority on this homeship.” Mr. Meren replied in his synthesized voice. “The Trampler of Stars has instructed his men to return you to your cell, so that is what will happen. I suggest you remain as still as possible to make your journey more comfortable.”
He didn’t know what happened and why that strange alien relic prompted the Trampler of Stars to go berserk, but he was not stupid. He could make a few guesses.
Maybe rescue was on its way after all. It just took a lot longer than he thought for assistance to arrive.
Though the man’s thick robes and solid mask pretty much made it impossible to read the man’s body language, Pearian tried to recall all of the lessons he learned about other people.
Pearian observed and mentally recorded many different variables. Despite all of the cosmopolitan’s attempts to hide his body and form, the man’s gait, reaction speed, posture, distancing and so on could not be obscured.
The first-class scion couldn’t rule out the possibility that the figure underneath the robe was a remote-controlled android, though it was rather unlikely that the Trampler of Stars would tolerate speaking to a robot construct rather than a flesh-and-blood human.
A man who possessed all of the associated functional reproductive organs could easily turn himself into a full woman after a single day.
Other biological alterations such as removing mass, increasing one’s length and adding more physical strength could all be performed with ease as long as the technological facilities were advanced enough.
Cosmopolitans were one of the most hated and reviled groups of humanity. They even ranked below pirates and violators of the taboo against warships and weapons of mass destruction.
This was because the deranged followers of the Cosmopolitan Movement directly threatened the survival and continuation of a proud, strong and independent human civilization!
Though Pearian could trust almost nothing about what he observed from Jugal Meren, he still dared to make a few conclusions based on the time he spent with the cosmopolitan.
This suggested that Meren was fairly old. The silver-masked man definitely conveyed himself as a member of an older generation than Paerian, but not old to the point where the cosmopolitan carried himself as a legendary figure who has experienced an entire age.
The man was also truly a man underneath all of his disguises. Though Jugal Meren made an extensive effort to hide his true identity, Pearian guessed that the cosmopolitan still possessed enough pride in himself that he disdained altering his own body.
It was this particular conclusion that also allowed Pearian to extrapolate Meren’s possible origin.
“You’re a Terran, aren’t you, Mr. Meren?” Pearian abruptly spoke.
Much to Pearian’s disappointment, the suspected Terran member of the Cosmopolitan Movement declined to respond at all. It was as if the accusation fell into the depths of space without producing any further ripple effects.
“Sit tight and wait until this incident is taken care of. I cannot say when you will next have a chance to prove your worth to the Trampler of Stars, but he will only call you when he desires to see you. As you are not a particularly important captive in his mind, that may take weeks, months or even years.”
The scion could tolerate being belittled, but he could not accept being forgotten! That was a fate worse than death in his opinion!
The robed figure didn’t respond. The diplomat’s posture conveyed so much distance and lack of sympathy that it seemed as if he cared nothing about his fellow humans.
Pearian decided to switch to another strategy. People often liked to boast about successes. He wondered whether Meren could resist the temptation.
“They are.” Meren freely replied. “No one can stop us from uplifting the local aliens. Even if many of them are not receptive to our appeals, there are still enlightened groups such as the Red Cabal that can look past our appearances and recognize our goodwill towards them. Under the lead of these cooperative alien groups, their entire societies are about to undergo an extensive metamorphosis which will allow them to unite and form a proper resistance against the Big Two’s unjustified incursion into their territories.”
The cosmopolitan remained stoic. “We have accounted for that and more. Of all of the species we have studied, we understand humankind the most. We know its strengths, its weaknesses, its beliefs and most importantly its fault lines. We are hardly alone in our mission to free the human race from the hegemony of the Big Two. The mechers and fleeters have made many enemies, more than you will ever know. Together, we can topple the two giants. We only need to provide the catalyst that can trigger this inevitable rebellion!”
“In my viewpoint, you are the ones who are sick in your minds..” Mr. Meren stated. “The mechers, the fleeters, the Terrans, the Rubarthans and almost every other member of human civilization has completely fallen into the trap of human supremacy. My fellow cosmopolitans and I are the only ones who are sane enough to recognize your collective insanity. Forgive us for our actions, but we recognize that only the most extreme shocks can wake you all up in the nightmare that you have embraced.”
The silent nunser guard left as well, leaving Pearian alone in his isolation once again.
He experienced too much in this brief period of time. From meeting a cosmopolitan for the first time to almost getting trampled by an overgrown quadruped alien warlord, Pearian never imagined that his adventure would expose him to the darker side of reality!
He idly scratched his wrist and tried to fall back into his thoughts.
His wrist stung harder. This was odd because there was no reason for him to feel this pain at this moment.
As he tried to do his best to control his heartbeat and other physical indicators, his wrist started to sting multiple times. Though the pain was frustrating, he couldn’t care about that at the moment.
It was old-fashioned Morse code.
Though it was a primitive and not that sophisticated method of communication, there were times when simplicity was enough to do the job.
Pearian guessed that whoever was communicating with him had slipped a tiny batch of nanomachines in the alien artifact that the aliens had retrieved and brought before the Trampler of Stars.
The violent outburst from the Trampler of Stars even created the perfect opportunity for the nanomachines to move without tripping any alarms!
LORD PEARIAN YORUL-TAVIK.
IF YOU WANT TO LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO EMBRACE FREEDOM AGAIN, YOU MUST COOPERATE.
THIS IS NOT A JOKE.
YOU WILL DIE.
IF YOU WANT TO LIVE, BELIEVE IN HELENA AND RECEIVE HER GRACE.
YOU WILL NOT BE ALONE.
P.S. THESE NANOMACHINES WILL SELF-DESTRUCT AFTER REPEATING THIS MESSAGE FIVE TIMES TO REDUCE THEIR CHANCES OF EXPOSURE.
“…”
