Deadly Artifact: An Original Sci-Fi Novel

A new and original science fiction historical/adventure novel by Eugene Allen Wilson
(400 years in the making)

Greetings my fellow science fiction enthusiasts,

     Vernon Clark, Ronald Clark and Victor Maurice Williams are three urban high school teenagers residing in Anonwood, a Northern Californian coastal city located in Humboldt County. Unfortunately, these teenagers are in serious trouble with the police. You see, two Air Force military officers have “alleged” that these teenagers have stolen a military grade communications device. Thereby, if caught, these teenagers could face a stiff prison sentence.

     Actually, the teenagers are in possession of two devices. The first device is indeed a highly advanced form of a communications device. The second device is a weapon, a weapon inconceivably more powerful than any other weapon, conventional or nuclear, known to earth military science. Due to frightening events surrounding this fearsome weapon, international tensions between earth’s most powerful nations are rising and the potential for all out thermonuclear war is high. Panic is beginning to spread.

     You can see why these teenagers are in serious trouble. Aside from the fact that their own lives are being thrown into upheaval,  their possession of these devices is causing international political turmoil on a massive scale. The situation worsens however. Two powerful, yet opposing alien forces are on their way to earth to retrieve these same devices. So far, over 1000 physicists, scientists and technicians have perished horribly behind the operation of this second device. The outcome of this situation sets into motion a series of events that will, within several centuries, push the entire inhabited galaxy toward its deadliest conflict.

     You may be astonished to learn that this entire situation had been set into motion by the tragic deaths of two individuals. On Monday, September 17, 1860 near the small mining town of Carbonwood, both individuals were killed after their brief encounter with each other. Three sample scenes from chapters 2,6 and 32 are provided below.

     Dear reader, your traditional view of science fiction historical adventure is about to be challenged in a manner that few people would have dared to imagine as possible. One individual and his insatiable thirst for absolute power and another individual and her fierce fight for justice are the dynamically opposing elements that drive this crisis. Thus, a 400-year epic journey, beginning on September 17, 1860 and ending September 17, 2260, begins.  

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     Now, the thought of becoming very rich and famous does not seem so far-fetched to him after all. He pulls the language-translating device out of the case and examines it carefully. Silas feels unnerved at the sight of this strange creature. As he scratches his head, Silas is trying his best to determine who Daljik Ra’as is and where he comes from. Then, he sees Daljik regaining consciousness. Silas places the language-translation device on Daljik’s chest. Upon awakening, Daljik finds himself in a dimly lit cave staring at an overhead ceiling. He becomes fearful as he sees Silas standing over him. “Where am I?” Daljik’s voice is weaker. Silas is amazed in hearing two distinct languages. Along with hearing Daljik’s native language, he hears an English version emanating from the language translator.

     From Silas’ perspective, Daljik’s native language somewhat resembles Akan (Twi), a language spoken by a group of women who descended from the Ashanti tribe located in the West Afrikan country of Ghana. Silas remembered hearing this language as he was listening to several slave women converse among themselves. He was 17 at the time. “I brought ya’ inside a tunnel. I wasn’t sure ‘bout what I could do after you collapsed.”
     Daljik’s breathing is becoming irregular. “I am afraid that it will not matter. I may not survive much longer. Please, I need my auvisuon.”
     “An au-what?” Silas asks as he notices the container holding the other devices. He carefully slides the container toward Daljik, who struggles to remove a small rectangular device. Silas watches intently to see how Daljik works the device. Daljik begins manipulating a few keys on the device, putting it into emergency distress mode.

     In addition, he makes a few additional adjustments that will grant anyone else complete access to specific information contained within the device. Daljik fervently hopes that either the alien human standing over him or someone else may be able to understand the selected information. He feels that this plan has the highest probability of success. However, before he can switch the auvisuon from data request mode to high-resolution visual mode, he screams as a sudden sharp pain in his chest forces him to drop the auvisuon.
     “C’aint your friends or whoever ya’ know come and help ya’?” Silas asks with increasing concern.
     Daljik waits for the pain to lessen before answering. “It is of no use. I am dying. I am truly grateful for your help. Who are you?”
     “Suh, mah name is Silas Jeremiah Baldwin.”
     “Silas Baldwin, I am privileged to have met you. I regret that I will never have the opportunity…to see my daughter.”
      “Daughter? Did you say ya’ have a daughter?” Silas feels helpless as Daljik struggles to talk.

     Daljik feels sick at heart, as he knows that he is dying. He finally realized his mistake of programming the wrong spatial destination coordinates into the Illasius' navigational computer. The system error message had been a dire warning. He felt certain that the Illasius would re-enter normal space surrounding his home star.   Unfortunately, such was not the case. Again, the Illasius had re-entered normal space in an uncharted solar system located in an entirely different region of the galaxy. In addition, the Illasius re-entered normal space far too close to another alien planet-an inhabited one. With minimal piloting skills, he worked feverishly to guide the still out of control Illasius to a possible safe landing. Despite his best efforts, the Illasius’ outer hull began overheating after plunging into the upper atmosphere.

     Amid the dangerously high internal cabin temperature, toxic smoke and imminent structural failure, Daljik had just enough time to perform several short functions before making it to the only working escape pod. With profound sorrow, he forced himself to take one last look at his long time friend lying dead on the floor. At an altitude of 75,000 feet, he initiated the separation command. Unfortunately, the barely functioning escape pod refused to respond to computer commands. Daljik then initiated a forced manual override. Forty-five seconds from crash impact, the spherical escape pod separated from the burning and disintegrating Illasius. Even after Daljik had fired the retro thrusters, the escape pod hit the ground with considerable force. The roughly spherical pod tumbled wildly before hitting a sizable boulder. “Yes, she will be born soon. Yet, I fear I have made a seriously tragic mistake. They…will be coming. Your world and worlds like yours are in great peril. Only the extraspatial otivicon can stop them all. You must warn…must warn—” Daljik never completes his sentence. 

    “Mistake? Who’s coming? Warn who and about what?” Silas asks with great perplexity. Saddened, Silas comes to a decision. He has no choice other than leaving the corpse and closing the entrance. He picks up the translator and forces it into his right pants pocket. He places the auvisuon back into the green case. With the thought of becoming very rich and possibly famous, Silas is certain that he has all the time he needs to discover the function of the other devices and use them to find gold. He reasons that once he is wealthy, he can move back to San Francisco to pursue fame and political power. After laying the case down some distance from the corpse, he peeks inside. The first device he pulls from the case is a silvery-blue, one-foot long, four-inch diameter metal cylinder. After examining the device, he notices that images of white dots are imprinted on the metal surface. Losing interest, Silas places the cylinder back into the case and pulls out another device.    

     “Now what could this other dang contraption be?” Silas asks himself as he walks toward a wall past the entrance. He takes careful note of the roughly rectangular device. “Looks like a strange gun or something,” he says to himself. He slowly rotates the device in his hands. The comfortable handgrip is roughly oval shaped. The upper portion of the device has a flat, rounded rectangular body eight inches in length and two inches high. Even as a feeling of nervousness begins descending upon him, Silas realizes that he may be holding a type of weapon. “I know this thing don’t use bullets,” he remarks while staring directly into the discharge end of the device. After turning the device to its other end, he notices that his right thumb can move over four pressure-sensitive contacts at the end of the device.

     A fifth and longer contact is below the other four. He presses the left-most contact. The contact illuminates. The device emits a raspy, dual-tone signal. Silas is shocked. He presses the contact next to it. As that contact illuminates, the signal becomes a few decibels louder. His curiosity compels him to press the third contact, which illuminates as well. Again, the raspy signal increases in volume. He turns and points the device at a nearby wall. After pressing the fourth contact, the results are the same. The signal level is at its highest.

     “Dang! This is fascinating!” Silas says aloud as notices the lower and fifth contact. Nervousness aside, Silas assumes that the fifth contact must do something special. He raises the device again and presses the contact. His assumption was right. The alien weapon fires a bluish-green energy packet. Silas had unknowingly set the weapon to maximum. The highly luminous energy packet speeds toward the cave wall at 7,800 feet (1.48 miles) per second. A few microseconds later, the energy packet impacts the wall resulting in an explosion. The impacted section of the wall shatters producing high-speed, red-hot shrapnel. Taking nearly the full brunt of the explosion, Silas’ entire body is shredded to many pieces of flesh and bone. In addition, the primary explosion causes a secondary explosion of the energy weapon. Weakened by the two explosions and the accompanying shock waves, a portion of the tunnel ceiling near the entrance comes crashing down, sending up an enormous amount of dust.

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Shumen Mountain Historic State Park
Carbonwood, California
Saturday, 6 July 1974 (Late Morning)


     After crawling back into the tunnel, they re-enter the cave. Vernon and Ronald see their best friend shining a light beam on the floor by a wall farther away. As they walk closer toward him, they see Victor shining a light on a second skeleton. In horror, Vernon and Ronald look down at the skeletal remains partially buried under a heavy layer of dust and stone debris. All notice the tattered, dry-rotted clothing on this particular skeleton is unusual. “Now this is really getting spooky,” Ronald states. “So who was this poor guy?”
     “I don’t know,” Victor replies. “However, look closer and tell me what you notice about this skeleton.”

     As Ronald and Vernon begin examining the skeleton, they take note of some unusual aspects. The skull has a thin long narrow bone that extends from the center of the forehead and continues across the top of the skull all the way behind it. The skeletal jaw is open. The ribs, attached to a double sternum, are proportionally smaller to human ribs, all twenty-six of them. The shape of the skull is considerably elongated toward the top. “Man! He must have been one ugly mother,” Vernon states. Victor backs away and swings his light beam. Near the other side of the cave, he sees a deep jagged hole in the wall, along with signs of blast damage. As he points his own beam in the same direction and downward, Vernon sees numerous stone fragments strewn across the floor. He nearly jumps after shining his light beam on a third set of skeletal remains. The third skeleton, however, has been shattered into numerous fragments.

     Victor and Ronald walk up behind Vernon. “My God! What could have happened here?” Ronnie asks in near panic.
     “This is grotesque,” Victor responds. “We now have the remains of three people and I guess a dynamite blast?”
     “This makes no sense!” Vernon concludes. “I wanna know what happened here too.”
     “Frankly, I don’t care!” Ronald protests. “Let’s get outta here! This place is freaking me out!”
     “Still, why is that second skeleton different from the other two?” Victor asks. He walks back to the second skeleton. 
     “Vick! What are you doing? Let’s go! It’ll be dark soon!” Ronald yells.
     Ignoring Ronald, Victor continues looking at the skeleton before he comes to a fearful conclusion. “Guys! This is not a human skeleton.”
     “Say what?”
     “Vernon, I said this is not a human skeleton.”
     “I know what you said,” Vernon replies with disbelief. “I just wanna know what you are implying.”

     “All I am saying is that whoever this guy was, he was not a human.”
     “Then…what was he? And if I think what you’re thinking, how did he end up in this cave?” Vernon eagerly awaits Victor’s answer.
     Ronald becomes just as perplexed.
     “I…I don’t know,” Victor replies. All are mystified by this gruesome discovery. Victor kneels down for a closer look. The dry-rotted top garment is made of a blue silk-like material. The tattered pants covering the skeletal legs are made of a metallic blue-green material. In addition, Victor notices considerable burn damage to the clothing. He stands up and steps away. Unimaginable conclusions are beginning to form in his mind.

     “Ronnie, hold the light here,” Victor asks as he reaches into his backpack. He pulls out a Hawkeye II Instamatic camera. After inserting a magnesium flashcube, he takes three pictures of the skeleton. The flashes illuminate the area long enough for Ronald to see a half-buried cylindrical case a short distance away. “Obviously, you’re telling us that this dude is an extraterrestrial,” Vernon concludes.
     “Well…yes. But for now, I have to make some sense of this first. Let’s get out of here!”
     “Vick! You go on ahead,” Ronald tells him, “I have to talk to Vernon in private about something. It’s really, ya’ know, personal.”
     “Okay,” Victor replies after hesitating. After retrieving his backpack, he walks back outside. Ronald walks over to the case. He motions Vernon to whisper softly.

     On opening the case, Ronald aims the light beam down and sees two objects. Vernon is equally curious. Ronald pulls out two dust-encrusted objects, places them into his backpack and closes the flap.
     “Ronnie, what are you doing?”
     “What does it look like I’m doing?”
     “Stealing! Again!”
     “Hey! They’re not complaining. They’re all dead too. Now, let’s go!”
     “Aren’t you going to tell Victor this time?” Vernon asks.
     “No! And you better not either.”

     On reaching the base of Shumen Mountain, all three hurry back to Old Carbonwood. All the other visitors had long left. The deserted town looks foreboding in the waning sunlight. They jump into the car. During the drive home, Victor is troubled by a host of questions.
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The Sawyers Residence
Wednesday, 7 August 1974 (12:00 PM)



     After hearing the chime, Michelle walks to the front door. As she opens the door, she becomes excited at seeing one of her former elementary students standing outside. “Hello Eunice, come on in. I have some Krispi Kreme lemon jelly doughnuts waiting for you. You’ve grown some too.
     “Thanks Mrs. Sawyers,” Eunice begins. “I know this is unusual, but I had to see you about a very important matter.”

     Michelle invites Eunice in. Both women sit across from each other at a coffee table. “Eunice, I understand your concern in this. You were always deep into these things.”
     “I love studying history,” Eunice tells her. “I am seriously thinking about becoming a history teacher.”
     Michelle is surprised. “That would be an excellent choice on your part. These are the 1970s and times, as well as people’s attitudes are changing.”
     Eunice agrees. “It sure looks that way. During my first year at Anonwood Central High, I saw some crazy things that you wouldn’t believe.”
     “Oh, I believe it,” Michelle tells her. “Anyway, I found the information on the question that you had asked me over the phone. It took a while.” Michelle rises, walks over to a desk and opens a drawer.

     She pulls out two books, walks back to the coffee table and sits down. Eunice eagerly removes both books from Michelle’s hands. Old and worn, the first book, Ancient Egypt: An Illustrated History, had been published forty years earlier in 1934. Michelle continues. “You were always the smartest girl in class. Some of the other girls, especially Gail Lyles, were jealous of you.”
     “I wasn’t trying to show anyone up,” Eunice mentions. “This is just who I am.”
     “Yes, I can see that. Now, why are you interested in these old books? It took me nearly an hour of searching before I finally found them in the attic. My father gave them to me when I was in the fifth grade.”
     Before answering Michelle, Eunice focuses on the front cover of the first book, which has a gray scale photo of the temple ruins of Pharaoh Seti I located in the city of Abydos, considered by the ancient Egyptians as the holiest site in the world.

     “Do you remember,” Eunice begins, “when you had that discussion about ancient Egyptian pharaohs?”
     “Yes, I had a difficult time keeping half the class awake. Most of the students were thinking only of the weekend.” Both women break out in a short laugh.
     “I know. It was on a Friday afternoon,” Eunice says. “You used this book as a reference source. You also made mention of the author, Abdul Maugoud and an Egyptian archaeologist named Tigab, I think.”
     Michelle pauses to think. “Oh yes. Actually, his name was Nasar Tiyab. You’ll find him in chapter thirteen.”
     Eunice opens the book and scans down the table of contents before focusing on chapter thirteen, which is entitled An Unusual Discovery.

     She flips through subsequent pages before coming to the thirteenth chapter. Her heart begins racing as she flips over three pages. As she continues reading, she slides her forefinger down to a specific paragraph. “This is it! The nova! This has to be it!” Eunice states excitedly.
     “The nova? What about it?.” Michelle asks.
     “September 18th, 1889,” Eunice continues, “is the corresponding date!”
     “I still don’t understand. The corresponding date to what?”
     Looking up at Michelle, Eunice realizes that she cannot fully divulge what she knows. “I was arguing with a guy about something. He’s always, like, ya’ know, trying to prove me wrong. You know how some men are.”
     “Yes, I do. I’m married to one.”
     “I heard that,” Michelle’s husband shouts from another room.

     “Just kidding, Paul. I love you my darling,” she shouts back. Both women break out in a muffled laugh. Eunice shakes her head in disbelief.
     “Now why are you so interested in this particular nova?”
     “Mrs. Sawyers, I didn’t think too much about this event until I ran across some information that I discovered yesterday. Actually, it’s the date of the nova that interest me the most.”
     Although Michelle is still puzzled by Eunice’s interest in this stellar event, she nevertheless had decided to grant Eunice’s request.
     “According to the historical account,” Michelle begins, “Nasar Tiyab and his team were finishing up some excavation work at the temple of Rameses II. This was when the nova appeared. Interestingly though, Nasar indicated that this same star had flared briefly the previous night.”
     “That’s odd. Yet, I bet it got worldwide attention,” Eunice surmises.
     “I wouldn’t say that it was world news in 1889 as it would be now.”
     “Why not?”

     “Only a few people during that time may have seen it. In September of 1918, this nova was seen again and was recorded in the Journal of the British Astronomical Association as a recurrent nova.”
     “This is amazing,” Eunice states.
     “Know what else is amazing?” Michelle asks.
     “What’s that?
     “In the early 1900s, the British Astronomical Association allowed women to be members. Elizabeth Brown was among the first women.”
     Laying the first book down, Eunice slowly opens the second book, The Turbulent Heavens, which was published in 1940. “In the class discussion about Deborah Michaels the following Thursday, ” Eunice continues, “you indicated that the sexism that Deborah and the other women endured at the university was horrific.”

     “Yes it was,” Michelle agrees. “The Women’s Suffrage Movement of the early 1900s and the Women’s Lib Movement of today underscore the fact that many women are still fighting for social and economic equality.”
     “I couldn’t agree anymore,” Eunice tells her. Often, she is irked by the fact that many men treat intellectually-minded women, regardless of their looks, with disdain. Conversely, she notes, women who act like simple-minded bimbos, be it deliberate or otherwise, are much more popular with many men, provided these women have the desired body proportions.
     “Mrs. Sawyers, I want to know if I could use The Turbulent Heavens for a while. I need to research a few things.”
     “Be my guest,” Michelle replies. “You may return it at your earliest convenience.” 

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The ebook version of Deadly Artifact (just $3.99) can be downloaded from the following websites: www.amazon.com or www.barnesandnoble.com
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Also, check out these two Youtube video presentations:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zquBDAF44kE
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Edited by Eugene Allen Wilson - Nov-06-2015 at 5:23pm

Thank you very much for your kind reply. As a determined writer, as well as a lover of science fiction galactic adventure, I am working very hard to produce this serial novel. Peace.