WHAT PRICE PANTROPY?
by
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Prologue
…………… pain ……………
…………… excruciating pain ……………
…………… blinding white light ……………
…........ death …...... death ……... painful death ...……..
………. But whose death? ………. Mother’s? ………. Z’balek’s? ……….
No, that didn’t feel right.
Hawke’s? …………… Leahy’s? ……………
No, neither of them.
Who then? Whose agonizing death am I foreseeing?
Is this a premonition? Is it an alien mind reaching out to meld with my mind?
There it is again. Yes, with certainty.
…….... Pain …..….. Death …..….. Painful Death …..……
His vision was blurred by the whiteness swirling all around him. He felt acutely nauseated and disoriented. The room began to spin on its axis. The walls tilted, seeming to lose their solidity. The deck dissolved from his vision as he tried to focus his eyes. He felt light-headed, unsteady, confused, no longer in control of his thoughts. With his head swimming, he felt with terrifying dread the certainty of blinding and inexorable white-hot pain and, yes, ….. death ….. painful, painful death …… A pain so excruciating that it could never have even been imagined, much less experienced in his entire lifetime.
Z’alek of Zahri sat up very slowly. The high Zahri-like temperature in his cabin could not dispel the chill of icy fingers scraping up and down his spine. The Zahri meditation stone on which he had just been lying felt as cold as a glacier, as cold as death.
It came unbidden once again. Death … death ….. blinding white death …..
No. I am Zahri. I must negate these sensations, these irrational fears of dread and ominous foreboding. I am Zahri …. subdue ….. subdue …..
But no amount of Zahri self-discipline could dispel his terrifying thoughts and, yes, he would admit, the irrational fears. He realized that control over this terror was beyond his reach and his capability. Closing his eyes in resignation, he knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that nothing he did would be able to change the inevitable outcome of this forbidding vision.
Puzzled, Z’alek now stood beside his meditation stone, holding on to it for support. And then he realized with absolute certainty that the excruciatingly painful death that he had just foreseen was …… his own …………
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About the Book
Deep spaceship Explorer is ordered to transport a renowned bioengineer and his assistant to a far-flung planet being decimated by a devastating virus. The assistant is the Chief Medical Officer’s estranged daughter. Sparks fly as tensions mount on the ship and on the planet. Read What Price Pantropy? for the journey of a lifetime. A must-read for science fiction fans!
“If you love Star Trek, you’ll love What Price Pantropy?
About the Author
The author received her Doctorate Degree in bioengineering from the Zahri Academy of Science, having graduated at the top of her class. She dedicated her professional life to the Gamma Institute of Science where she made numerous ground-breaking contributions in her field. She authored numerous professional articles for which she was awarded the Cygnus Honorarium and the Aurigan Certificate of Excellence. She received the Qui’llen Prize from the Zahri Academy of Science for outstanding achievement in the field of bioengineering. After retirement at the age of one hundred and twenty five Earth years, she decided to try her hand at creative writing with What Price Pantropy? as her first work of fiction.
In addition to writing, she greatly enjoys spending hours under the bright red sky, tending her extensive gardens of prize-winning t’almans, Zahri flowers that resemble Earth roses. Using her knowledge of bioengineering and genetics, she is attempting to cultivate t’almans that have the scent of Earth roses rather than a fragrance more reminiscent of Earth’s cinnamon. She is also an excellent cook and beings come from light-years away just to sample her divine k’zenzill soup. She gives impromptu concerts many evenings, expertly playing her Zahri lyre for her guests. She currently lives in the city of EnBahr on the planet Zahri with her beloved pet snark named Mr. Z’wiggins.