for a spell in his haunted mansion. He served afternoon tea and cucumber sandwiches. He planned to serve scones next, but he insisted that Silent had to leave after that.
The television crew had just returned to start filming the new season and he had a lot of chains to rattle and doors to slam.
The Government realized that a spaceship had landed on earth. So they sent the army to capture Silent.
Tanks and important-looking jeeps parked outside the haunted mansion right when Lowen was taking a tray of scones out of the oven.
A general in aviator sunglasses pointed and shouted. The tanks shelled the mansion. Not a splinter remained.
Silent’s spaceship had protected him with an energy shield that had already endured much more impressive displays of power than earthling fireworks.
Lowen had liked his haunted mansion very much and he was utterly enraged that it was now destroyed. The ghost started making plans to take over the world.
But before Lowen could enact his plans, Silent decided it was time to leave, so his spaceship bound Lowen’s ghost in a repo-beam and pulled him into a compartment that the Kharetie had made especially for capturing ghosts.
Silent was about to fly back to Khariton when he accidently heard a peculiar sound coming out of a small device that earthlings called “a radio.”
Silent had grown up listening to the Noise and to ancient mythological tales about how the Great Harmony had once been paradise. But in his hearts, he had never truly believed anything like that was possible. Harmony was a fairy tale as far as he was concerned.
So he was greatly surprised when the magical counterpoint in Bach’s Minuet in D Minor knocked him out cold.
The Government considered this a happy accident. They tied up Silent and then they strapped him down to an operating table.
They hauled him and his spaceship (with Lowen locked inside) to a place that they called “the Cellar.”
The Government then turned off the music for interrogation.
Silent tried to do what he had been programmed to do since his hatching: He tried to express himself by drinking their blood and by sharing some of his own. He longed to tell them all he knew about the Noise, about Lowen, about life on other planets, about everything.
But the Government was now very concerned about no longer being the only intelligence in the universe. And they worried about the sudden collapse of a mystical force that they called “the economy.”
Citizens of earth got wind of this commotion and panic broke out in the cities.
The Government assured them that they were still alone in the cosmos and that the spaceship they heard about was an old satellite looking for life on other planets.
“The alien,” the Government lied on national television, “was a space monkey.”
The Government did not know that he was called Silent, so they labeled him as the “Red Man.”
Next they brought in a team of scientists to euthanize and dissect the Red Man.
One of those scientists was Wyn, before he ever became the first Blood Vivicanti. He was the lead scientist on Team A and his team would study the Red Man’s body and blood.
The leader of Team B was a beautiful woman named Aemilia. She and her team would study the Red Man’s spaceship.
The spaceship was locked in Cellar-6 while the Red Man was locked in Cellar-7, where Bach’s music blared through loud speakers to keep him perfectly motionless.
Wyn and Aemilia did not see one another much – not at first.
The two Cellars were the most impressive laboratories that either had seen.
There was computer equipment so advanced that it did not appear to be from planet Earth. There were hovering spheres of light as large as beach balls illuminating everything, there were cybernetic spiders making repairs and upgrades to a few computer terminals, and there was even a food replicator in a wall like a dumbwaiter.
Google sponsorship was everywhere.
Aemilia and Wyn met once a week over coffee to
The television crew had just returned to start filming the new season and he had a lot of chains to rattle and doors to slam.
The Government realized that a spaceship had landed on earth. So they sent the army to capture Silent.
Tanks and important-looking jeeps parked outside the haunted mansion right when Lowen was taking a tray of scones out of the oven.
A general in aviator sunglasses pointed and shouted. The tanks shelled the mansion. Not a splinter remained.
Silent’s spaceship had protected him with an energy shield that had already endured much more impressive displays of power than earthling fireworks.
Lowen had liked his haunted mansion very much and he was utterly enraged that it was now destroyed. The ghost started making plans to take over the world.
But before Lowen could enact his plans, Silent decided it was time to leave, so his spaceship bound Lowen’s ghost in a repo-beam and pulled him into a compartment that the Kharetie had made especially for capturing ghosts.
Silent was about to fly back to Khariton when he accidently heard a peculiar sound coming out of a small device that earthlings called “a radio.”
Silent had grown up listening to the Noise and to ancient mythological tales about how the Great Harmony had once been paradise. But in his hearts, he had never truly believed anything like that was possible. Harmony was a fairy tale as far as he was concerned.
So he was greatly surprised when the magical counterpoint in Bach’s Minuet in D Minor knocked him out cold.
The Government considered this a happy accident. They tied up Silent and then they strapped him down to an operating table.
They hauled him and his spaceship (with Lowen locked inside) to a place that they called “the Cellar.”
The Government then turned off the music for interrogation.
Silent tried to do what he had been programmed to do since his hatching: He tried to express himself by drinking their blood and by sharing some of his own. He longed to tell them all he knew about the Noise, about Lowen, about life on other planets, about everything.
But the Government was now very concerned about no longer being the only intelligence in the universe. And they worried about the sudden collapse of a mystical force that they called “the economy.”
Citizens of earth got wind of this commotion and panic broke out in the cities.
The Government assured them that they were still alone in the cosmos and that the spaceship they heard about was an old satellite looking for life on other planets.
“The alien,” the Government lied on national television, “was a space monkey.”
The Government did not know that he was called Silent, so they labeled him as the “Red Man.”
Next they brought in a team of scientists to euthanize and dissect the Red Man.
One of those scientists was Wyn, before he ever became the first Blood Vivicanti. He was the lead scientist on Team A and his team would study the Red Man’s body and blood.
The leader of Team B was a beautiful woman named Aemilia. She and her team would study the Red Man’s spaceship.
The spaceship was locked in Cellar-6 while the Red Man was locked in Cellar-7, where Bach’s music blared through loud speakers to keep him perfectly motionless.
Wyn and Aemilia did not see one another much – not at first.
The two Cellars were the most impressive laboratories that either had seen.
There was computer equipment so advanced that it did not appear to be from planet Earth. There were hovering spheres of light as large as beach balls illuminating everything, there were cybernetic spiders making repairs and upgrades to a few computer terminals, and there was even a food replicator in a wall like a dumbwaiter.
Google sponsorship was everywhere.
Aemilia and Wyn met once a week over coffee to
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