"WNER" - читать интересную книгу автора (Filippone Christopher)

When Nothing Else Remains by Christopher Filippone
Chapter One
Aimlessly he wandered, tired and thirsty, over broken glass and torn earth. The road he walked on barely resembled a road at all. Although it was a long way from the last massive attack, it must have been struck by far flung debris, ripping it apart. To reach safety, he had to get clear of the blast zone first. The boy knew that, so he kept on walking.
When his mother shoved him and yelled at him to run away, he did. He ran as fast as he could into the hills just behind his house. He ran for nearly a whole day without looking back. That was over six days ago. He was exhausted now. He could run no longer. Somehow he found the strength to stay on his feet.
The hot blazing sun screamed waves of heat on his young body. The strain on his weak frame became too much. He collapsed in a heap on the broken pavement. Now face down on the ground, the boy used his trembling limbs to turn himself over.
The burning sun took no pity on him. It reached down and stung his eyes. On instinct, he rushed his hands over his face. He took his hands away when he felt the aerie warmth of his own blood oozing onto his face. The scrape on his hand hadn't healed yet. He tried to remember when he cut it. He couldn't remember. His mind was numb. His memories were a blur.
Somehow the young man, barely twelve years old, found the energy to lift himself on his elbows, raising his head enough to look at the mountains. The tall ridges of white and purple cut the sky away from the land in magnificent arks and rough stokes. Just beyond them lies the valley of his childhood. It was where he was schooled. It was where he played. It was where he lived with his mother and father and sister.
He thought about them - his family - and slowly his memories flooded back. They were all enjoying a happy moment together. Happy moments were rare ever since the war came upon their world. Their joyful moment was shattered when the black mist came. The black mist always signaled the coming of the death troops. The images of smiling and laughing faces of his family were suddenly replaced by twisted expressions of utter terror.
It was not long before the black cloud covered the land and blotted out the sun. His father nervously ran to the house for some way to protect his family. His mother had other ideas. She was drenched with fear, but not for herself. She feared for the lives of her children. With tears in her eyes, she screamed at him and his sister to run. His sister, two years younger than he, clung to her mother, screaming in trembling with fright. She didn't want to leave her mother, and she said so though stained hoarse cries. Mother pulled her off and yelled at her to run. With a body petrified with fear, the young panic-stricken girl stumbled off, crying loudly all the way.
The boy didn't run either at first. He stood in front of his mother, frozen in place. His mother turned to him. With every ounce of air left in her lungs, screamed for him to run, but the boy still didn't move. Gritting her teeth, she ran over to him and gave him a hard shove. As he lay there now, remembering, he could still feel the pain in his back from her hand hitting him. Her push was the urging he needed. He began to run. He didn't run in the same direction as his sister. He ran without thinking.
Halfway up a small nearby hill, he heard his mother scream in a way that made the hair on his body stand on end. He turned to see her on the ground. Dark figures surround her broken body. One attacker turned its large grotesque head toward him. A streak of white hot fear ran up his spine. He didn't look back after that.
Still on the ground, and free of his terrible memory, the boy took a moment to observe his immediate surroundings for the first time. He was alone. There was no one in sight - not even a hint of life. The trees were all withered and black. The land was dark and scorched. No birds sang. No insects buzzed.
Then, from the mountain ridge, he saw something. Rolling over the hills was the black mist. It was coming in his direction. It was coming for him. He let out a loud terrible cry at the sight of it. In a Panic, he struggled to get his trembling body to his feet. He tried to walk, but his body would not obey. He fell back to the broken ground. Face twisted with dread and wet with tears, he began to crawl. He dug his fingers into the hot earth and scraped his exposed knees over the torn chunks of glass and rocks. Grunting and crying, he raced as fast as his worn body would move.
He looked back. The mountains were gone. Completely covered in a cloak of blackness. Amid the shroud, he could see weird figures moved about. The mist was getting closer. It would be on top of him soon. He cried for his mother for help. He screamed for her between deep sobs. Oh how he wished she was here. He wished he could see her once more before the end.
He continued to crawl, slower now, as his terrified body succumbed to shock. He was about to collapse when a hand reached down to him. He looked at the hand. It was slender and inviting. He looked up. The hand was attached to an arm. The arm led to a whole person. It was a beautiful woman dressed in a white gown and wearing a thin white veil over her face. The woman, smiling gently, nodded her head, urging him to take her hand.
The boy was awestruck by her presence. He wondered why she wasn’t afraid. He wondered if he was dreaming her. Maybe she wasn't there at all. Hopelessness replaced fear. It didn't matter if she was real or not. He reached up and took her hand anyway.
A spark pricked his fingers the moment his hand touched hers. His hand didn't recoil from the shock. It sunk into her warm hand without hesitation.
She tugged at him. Without knowing how, the boy felt the weight of exhaustion lift off him. Without any difficulty, he stood up. Now on his feet, he quickly looked back at the mountains. He needed to know how close doom reached. As his eyes surveyed the land, a dizzy feeling fell over him. His surroundings had magically changed.
The mountains were still there. So was the rumpled land he once laid upon. And yet it all looked different. The land, the hills, everything seemed drained of color. It was as if a blanket of white fog was suddenly draped over the land. He wondered if he was inside the cloud of black mist. Maybe they got him, and the girl too. Anther thought struck him. This one sent a shiver through every cell of his body. He looked up at the beautiful veiled woman standing before him. As he struggled to hold back his tears, he looked up the and woman and asked, "Am I dead?"
Releasing her grip on the boy, the mysterious woman raised up her hands and lifted the thin veil from her face. Without the shroud, she appeared even more beautiful. Her face was young and without contours of concern or worry. Her skin was smooth and milky white. In contrast to her pale skin, fiery red hair wound into tight curls covered her head. A few loosened coils of hair hung down over her forehead, dangling just above eyes of deep green. She pursed her red lips for a moment then said, "There is no death here."
The young boy covered his face, hiding the tears rolling from his eye. "I know where I am. Where's my Mother and Father? Are they here too?" he whimpered, "I just…"
The woman's thin red eyebrows pushed together, forming a small rare wrinkle in the delicate skin of her forehead. "Where do you think you are?" she asked in a tone slightly above a whisper.
The boy looked up at her, trying tin vein to wipe the dampness from his face. "You mean this isn't Heaven?"
The woman staggered back a bit, shocked by the boy's query. After a short moment, her concerned expression turned to one of joyful surprise. "Oh my," she said with a giggle. "I haven't heard that word in a very long time. Is that where you think you are?" She knelt down, with her hands on her knees, and wriggled her nose at the boy. "Oh how quaint."
"Then where am I?" he asked. After each word, his body twitched with a sob. His confused mind began to turn his stomach. The idea that his short life was suddenly cut short filled his soul with boundless sorrow. But, with every word from the angelic woman, he became more confused. Exasperated, he flung his arms down at his sides and let out a deep sigh. Something inside told him needed to talk - review his memories aloud. So he began to talk.
The young boy took a deep breath and began to speak, more to himself than the female standing before him. "I don't understand," he began. As he started, the tears began flowing again. He didn't try to stop them anymore. He continued speaking without interruption. "Me and my sister were coming home from class when we saw mom and dad outside waving to us. Dad said he was gonna go look for some food for us when the attack started."
The young man took another breath and shook his head sharply, trying to suppress the violent images in his head. His mind obeyed him. It slipped back to a time before the last attack. It took him back to a happier time. He gathered himself in that memory before continuing.
The memory comforted him a bit. It encouraged a tiny smile to appear on his dirt covered face. The memory was so precious to him he felt he must share it. "My mom would always tell me and Glo about the old days - before the war started. She used to tell us how wonderful the world once was. She told us how people used to live together in peace and happiness in great cities made of glass and metal. She'd tell us how people would go from place to place in cars that went on the ground and in the air. She'd tell us how special machines high up in the sky would send shows and music to homes all around the world. And she told us how some people traveled across great distances in space - even to other worlds.
"My Mom and Dad are always telling us not to worry - we'd all see such wonders again someday." The memory ended and reality held him again. He looked up at the woman, barely containing his sense of grief and doom gripping his heart. The thoughts and emotions he fought hard to suppress began to return. His face washed over with tears and twisted from a kind of pain that left no visible scar. The boy fell to his knees and shook his clasped his hands at her. "Please tell me where my mom and dad are. Is my sister with them? Please tell me they're all okay."
The beautiful woman stood up straight again and folded her arms across her chest. "No, I'm sorry. My sources inform me that the life forces of your mother, father and sister dissipated approximately six rotations ago during a terror-attack by the Melos." As she gave him the dreadful information, she spoke in a cold aloof manner, oblivious to the young man's clearly fragile emotional state.
Most of the words she spoke didn't make much sense to the boy, and yet he understood what she was trying to say. His worst fear had come to pass. His family, the people he loved most in the world were gone. The weight of overwhelming anguish pushed him down to the ground. A new river of tears coated his face. Succumbing to his grief, he wailed with a sorrow he never felt before. He pounded the ground with trembling fists as his mind filled him with the faded images of the family he had lost.
With red swollen eye and clenched teeth, he suddenly turned his focus on the calm woman in white "How do you know if they're alive or not?" he screamed in a ragged voice. "If this isn't heaven, then you're not God. Only God knows for sure. You can't know it. You can't!"
The calm lady tilted her head to one side. "God? No, I am not the physical embodiment of any fictitious deity. You are young. Therefore you would not understand fully who I am and how I know what I know. Let me just say that I, and others like me, are known as the Fabricators. We make something from nothing. We make everything from nothing. We created the Universe and tend to it from time to time.
"We rarely get directly involved with its affairs, but, in this case, we're making an exception. You see, your species, your people, are on the verge of extinction. Very rarely is one species completely eliminated by another. Knowing this, we began to wonder: is it justified for your race to be eliminated - erased from the Universe? So we decided to judge for ourselves. We randomly selected someone from your species - you - and one from the Melos species. We intend to question you both in order to find the answer. If you can justify the right for your race to survive, then we will intervene. If you cannot, then we will not stop the Melos from reaching their goal.
"So, if you're nearly through doing whatever it is you're doing down there, please get up and come with me."
 
Chapter Two
The young man changed to a kneeling position at the feet of the radiant beauty. He looked into her deep green eyes for a morsel of kindness and comfort for his aching heart. There was none. Her cold detached nature only deepened his loneliness in his heart. Slowly he began to understand that, whoever this woman truly was, she was not from his world. Wherever wondrous place she was from, it must surely be filled with people far better than himself.
Methodically, his young mind began to absorb some of her words. The analytical processes of his brain began to take control, oddly soothing his emotional state. It was surely some kind of mechanism his mind had for handling overwhelming stress. The boy didn't fight it. His body craved something to fill the emptiness. As he sat there thinking, the boy gently wiped the tears from his red swollen eyes. He looked at the woman with a questioning expression and softly asked, "Ma'am, who are the Melos?"
The mysterious woman rolled her eyes down to meet the boy's. She paused a moment, then spoke in a quick monotone manner. She stared intently at him as she spoke, as if receiving the answers from the dark portions of his eyes. "The Melos", she began, "are a very powerful race of beings interested only in conquest. Their ultimate goal is to be the sole inhabitants of the universe. An exploration craft from your planet reached the Melos home world four years ago. Before that time, the Melos did not know of your planet. Once the Melos learned of its existence, they set out to exterminate your species and claim the planet for themselves."
The young man ran his hand roughly under his nose, wiping away the last remnants of his tears. "Are all the people on my world going to die?"
"If the Melos are allowed to continue, yes. They will completely exterminate your race in a little over seven weeks."
"But you're going to stop them, right? You're not going to let them kill everybody, right?"
The beautiful woman in the long white gown let out a small, exasperated sigh. "Only if you can offer good cause. If you cannot offer a substantial reason for us to stop them, we will have no choice but to allow them to continue waging war with your planet - eventually killing everyone."
The boy dropped his head and shrugged his shoulders. "But what can I do?"
The woman rolled her eyes upward and sighed again. "Are you not paying attention, young man?" she said in a harsh manner. "You must try and convince us to intervene. If you are successful, we will stop the Melos and spare your planet."
He turned his head up, facing her once more. "I understand," he answered softly.
"Good. Now, you must come with me."
"One more question."
"What is it?"
"If I can give you some good reasons to save my world, will you also bring back all the people that have died?"
She shook her head in the negative. "I'm sorry," she said. "That will not be possible." The beautiful woman then bent down a little and held out her left hand for the boy to accept. "Come along now."
Timidly, the boy stood up and placed his hand in hers. It sank gently into her soft warm palm. With his hand in hers, she twisted her wrist, turning the back of her hand toward herself. The action drew the boy close beside her. He was so close to her, he could feel the delicate lace of her snow -white gown against his bare arm.
With the boy tucked close beside her, the woman waved her right hand around in a circle. As she did so, a swirling spinning whirling turbulence grew ever larger in front of them. Right before the boy's astonished eyes, the swirling spinning whirling slowly transformed into something solid. It was a doorway. A high arched doorway standing in the middle of the road.
When the doorway seemed solid enough, she stopped waving her hand and began to walk through it, boy in tow. The boy hung close to her, following her inside without hesitation.
The boy didn't know what he expected to see once he crossed the threshold, but what he did see was more than he could have imagined. The landscape that once surrounded him was no longer there. He was now in a great domed room. The surface of the dome was transparent. A cloak of blackness surrounded it. Tiny twinkling specks of light shown through the velvety darkness. Confusion clogged the boy's head. Before passing through the door, it was daylight. It appeared to be night from inside the room.
Something else bothered him - the land was missing. Surely he should be able to see the horizon through the glass dome. His eyes drifted downward. The floor was transparent too. Only one object grabbed his eyes. Below his feet, a small shining blue-white globe hung in the blackness. The boy knew what it was. It was his home. Somehow the woman had transported him past the clouds, high above the planet.
His senses were overwhelmed. His body told him he was falling, but his mind told him the opposite. A thick cloud of dizziness fell over him. His knees buckled. His legs got soft. He was about to fall to the floor, when his female companion tightened her grasp. She tugged his arm and pulled him back up.
"You're all right," she said. "You're not going to fall. You're safe inside the bubble." She tapped her foot against the transparent floor. The floor answered with an odd click. "See?"
Slowly, his mind began to win the argument with his body. His legs regained their strength and his knees stiffened once again. "Okay, I see now," he answered in a raspy voice. "We're in space, right?"
A thin smile arced across the woman's face. "That's right. You've been in space before."
"No, ma'am. I've seen pictures. I've never been in space."
"Maybe you have, but you just don't remember. That's more likely."
Her comment confused the young man, but he didn't let it plague him for too long. He dismissed it with a shrug. She began to walk again, so he followed.
Slowly they made their way across the dome's floor. As they walked, the boy twisted his head in all around. His wide eyes needed to absorb as much as of his surroundings as possible. He didn't know how long he would be up here. He didn't want to forget anything.
Hand in hand, she led the boy to a place near the middle of the room, but not quite the center. There she tapped her foot once on the hard floor. In response, a circular pedestal, about half as tall as the boy, rose up from the floor.
The woman turned her hand over, palm up, and offered the seat to the boy. "Please take your position."

The young boy reluctantly removed his hand from the woman's soft palm and proceeded to take his place. It was a bit of a struggle for him. The seat was a bit high. Nevertheless, with a single grunt, and no assistants from his companion, he placed himself comfortably on top.
The woman then made an odd hand gesture, ordering a thin transparent disk to rise from the floor beside the young boy.
She then turned her head toward the top of the dome and said in a booming voice, "Send in the Melosian."
Beside to the young man, on the other side of the floating translucent disk, a being of unimaginable ugliness walked through a door from the opposite side of the room. As it strolled over toward the center of the room, a pedestal seat rose from the floor to meet him.
An icy chill of sheer terror ran the boy's spine at the site of the horrific being. It had a large head perched atop a spindly body. The head resembled that of an insect's, black and furry with large green bulging eyes.
The terrified youngster jumped from his seat and started to run. He didn't get very far. The beautiful woman in the white gown knelt down in the boy's path. He ran, without watching his direction, into her outstretched arms. He struggled against her, trying to break free. He screamed with fright, "He's coming to get me!"
"No," she answered in a cool manner. "You are in my realm. No harm can come to you here. Please calm down now and return to your place." Soon enough she felt his muscles lose their tension. When he stood up straight, she opened her arms and led him back to his seat.
Back on his perch, the boy couldn't help but stare at the monster seated not far from him. Its horrific appearance was nearly more than he could take, and yet his eyes were transfixed. As he stared, the same questions danced circles in his brain: "Was this thing the same one that killed his mother and father and sister? Does it know me? Does it recognize me?"
The strange being sat there beside him, staring back at him. Its shoulders twitched and an odd squeaking echoed from its mouth. Beads of cold sweat spread across the boy's forehead when he realized what it was doing; it was laughing at him. Its eerie laughter gave birth to new terror in the boy's heart.
Then it spoke. A deep guttural noise came from deep inside the thing's chest and belched out from its odd shaped mouth. The sound of the creature's strange language vibrated over the translucent disk that hung between it and the boy. The disk somehow reordered the strange language so that the boy would understand. The metallic voice of the translating disk was dull and deep. The boy did not know if the creature was man or woman, but from the artificial voice, he perceived it as man. From the odd cold tone of the disk came the words: "You are afraid of me. It is good that you are afraid. Soon enough you will be gone, like the rest of your race. Only then will your lowly planet be cleansed of your kind and suitable for the Melos."
As the boy listened to the creatures menacing words, a lump grew in his throat. He wrapped his arms around his small trembling body and lowered his head, weeping silently. The monster's words made him feel small. Smaller than he actually was. He began to feel insignificant, meaningless, useless.
The creature began to speak again, but not at the boy. He now turned his attention to the beautiful woman presiding over them. He said, "As for you, Fabricator, you should fear us as well. Not long from now, we will be the greatest force in the universe. At that time we will come for you."
The boy looked up quickly enough too see a fire spark behind the green eyes of the statuesque female Fabricator. He could almost see her flaming red hair burn ever brighter, manifesting her anger into something tangible. "Do not threaten me, Melosian!" she said in a booming voice. "The Fabricator are, and always will be, the sole guardians of the Universe. Our powers are absolute! If we so desire, we could remove your species from the universe with a twitch of a finger. And, if we chose to eradicate you, the process would be so pervasive that not a single shred of your existence would remain."
The Melosian chuckled softly. He was on what he considered enemy territory, therefore he had to be diplomatic. Diplomacy was a skill the Melos did not practice. Nevertheless, he said nothing in response to the insolent female. Discretion, he decided, was the proper tact.
The boy, quiet through the irate exchange, perched his chin atop his round fist. He first looked over at the Melosian and then rolled his eyes back to the Fabricator.
The woman folded her arms in front of her, cleared her throat, and then spoke. Her loud voice resonated over the entire surface of the dome, seemingly calling on invisible spectators to offer their attention. "We are here to decide the fate of the Alban race. The Melos intend to eradicate them entirely from the Universe. Below us rest the planet Alb. It and its inhabitants are what hangs in the balance. Does one race have the right to erase another? That is what we are here to decide."
The Melosian spoke up. "If I should win the right of my race to complete our mission, then I want to take boy with me. I hunted him on the planet. He is mine."
The Fabricator waved a dismissing hand at the Melosian. "Your statement goes unrecognized for the time being. You will now only speak when asked to do so. I am known as Cassandra. I am the moderator. With the eyes of the Universe upon us, I now call the proceeding to order."
 
Chapter Three
In an odd gesture of some importance, the female Fabricator, acting now as a moderator, raised her hands, with palms facing down, above her head. By her command, a bright white light shot down over the boy. A similar light blanketed the Melosian as well.
Satisfied with the results, she dropped her arms back to her sides. The lights above their heads stayed on. Neither the boy nor the Melosian knew what the light was for sure. Perhaps it was used for detecting untruths. Perhaps it was merely part of the ceremony.
"I will pose the first questions to the boy," said the Fabricator. She then took a few steps in his direction and affixed her gaze upon him. "You are from the planet Alb, are you not?"
The boy squinted up at the light, then back to his inquisitor. His heart was beating fiercely in his chest. He placed his hands under his legs, hoping to hide they're shaking. He looked up at her, and opened his trembling mouth to speak, but nothing came forth.
A stiff -lipped smile arced across the woman's face. She looked down at her feet for a moment and clasped her hands together in front of her. "There is no need to be nervous, young man. You have nothing to fear from me."
Her words comforted him. However, he already knew he had nothing to fear from her. It wasn't she that upset him. The tyrant seated next to him frightened him the most. The boy knew what the consequences were if he failed today. He only hoped he would speak the right words. Nonetheless, he did find some small amount of consolation from her reassurances. His heart quieted a bit. His shaking calmed. In a clear unwavering voice, he answered her again. "Yes, Cassandra. I am from the planet Alb."
"What is happening on your world right now?"
"We are at war with people from another planet. The entire surface is being destroyed. All of the big cities are gone. All of our advancements are gone too. Worst of all, the people are dying."
"Do you know who stated the war?"
"No, ma'am," shrugged the boy. "It started when I was just a kid. I don't remember much from back then. I just remember me and my family getting out of the city and heading for cover in the hills. We've lived there for about seven years now."
"But you were safe in the hills, right?"
"No ma'am. We and many many other people ran for safety in the hills, but we didn't find any there. The one's attacking us from space came down and began killing everyone they found - killing for no reason. Those people were innocent. They weren't part of the space force. They were just people trying to survive. My family kept on the move. Were finally felt safe at the base of the smaller mountain. We didn't see or hear of anybody getting killed for over a year. We thought we were safe, until the black cloud came." After that, the boy said no more. He dropped his head and sighed sorrowfully.
The female Fabricator new the boy was slipping out of reality somehow. She had one more question for him. She needed to pull him back. In a sharp booming tone, she asked, "Boy, listen, what will be lost if the people on Alb are all killed?"
The boy looked up at her, a single tear clinging to the lower lid of his left eye. He wrinkled his forehead at her and asked, "What?"
His questioner became impatient with him once again. She folded her arms and stared sternly at the boy. "Your race, which has existed for millions of years, will soon be erased from all existence. Isn't there anything of significance the Universe will lose if your race dies out?"
A look of utter shock spread across the boy's face. His eyes widened and his skin turned chalky white. "Uh, well, we are a kindly people. We've had very few wars in our history. We found ways to accept our differences and live together in peace.
We invented new treatments for disease as well as perfected new and better ways of living without polluting our planet. We have many artists too. Great music and art. We once had great theater performances too, that were viewed by people all around the world. Great writers and actors created performances, both serious and funny. It would be wrong to lose it all for all time."
The translation disk hummed to life. The Melosian began to speak. "The boy's people are a lazy, shiftless, race. They are ethnocentric. They only care about themselves. They've had the technology to explore and defend their planet for hundreds of years, but didn't until now."
In a weak quivering voice, the boy spoke up, "We were concerned about the people suffering on our own world first. Once we found the ways to better help those less fortunate, we then turned our abilities to outer space."
"The boy makes my point for me, Moderator. They were quite content to spend their time tending to their sick and old, rather than expand their minds through exploration. Such a race offers nothing for the rest of the Universe. I submit to you that they deserve to die off."
The boy's focus darted between the Melosian and the beautiful Fabricator in a frantic manner. He was loosing the debate - he knew that. Panic was taking control of him. He felt as if he were drowning. He drew air into his lungs, but it didn't help.
The Fabricator glanced at the boy, holding her hand up at him in a manner suggesting to him to calm down. She then turned her full attention to the Melosian. "What makes you think they deserve to die?"
"Isn't it obvious? They are a weak people. They're limited view of the Universe makes them so. We, the Melos, are strong. The strong shall conquer the weak. It is the way of the Universe. The strong survive. The weak do not. For that reason, the Alban race deserves to be eliminated."
The radiance of the lovely Fabricator seemed to dim as she turned away from the Melosian. "You make a good point," she said with her head down, eyes focused on the small globe of blue and green floating below them. "Natural selection is the way of all life in the Universe. It is how it's meant to be." Without turning to face the boy, she asked him quietly, "Do you have anything to offer in rebuke, young Alban?"
The boy knew he had lost. His heart sank. A wrenching sense of doom replaced the part of him where hope once thrived. He too focused his gaze on the planet floating below his feet. He did not answer. He merely shook his head in the negative.
The Fabricator did not see his answer. Her back was still facing him. However, she already knew what is reply would be before she even asked the question. She let her arms fall to her sides; tightly clenched fists took the place of the soft gentle hands she had before. "Melosian, you and your people have won. We will not interfere with the Melos' conquest and eventual extermination of the people of Alb. As you requested at the start, the boy is yours."
Before he knew it, the hideous Melosian was on top of the boy. It grabbed him by the arm with its dark clawed hands and dragged him off the pedestal.
The boy screamed in terror. He struggled to break free of the creature's grip, but couldn't. With tears in his eyes, he called out to her. "Please, ma'am. Don't let him take me. Please!"
She didn't turn around. She didn't move. She did nothing. It was as if she didn't even hear him. However, she did hear him. Yet she did nothing to save him. As the creature dragged the boy, kicking the floor and screaming, toward the doorway, she began to wonder:

Was she just as guilty of passiveness as the Melosian accused the Alban people of being? Because she can intervene, does that give her right to intervene? Should her power require her to interfere - to save the Alban race?

Then something caught the corner of the wistful Fabricator's eye. Perhaps it would not be necessary to contemplate the philosophical questions she was posing herself after all. Just as the Melosian was about to toss the screaming boy though the open door that led to his realm, the stoic Fabricator yelled, "STOP!"
The translator disk still suspended in the middle of the room echoed to life. "What? You said you would not interfere, Fabricator. You gave your word."
She turned to face the Melsoian, an expression of superiority covering her face. "Release the boy."
"What?"
"I said release him. It seems the question of extermination is moot. His race will not be eliminated after all."
"And why not?" roared the Melosian.
The Fabricator raised her hand and pointed to a location in space. "See there? A fleet is approaching. It was dispatched from a planet known as Earth. They have come to defend the planet and rescue the Albans." She pointed again. "Look, the battle has begun. Your ships are taking heavy damage. You will need to pull back your fleet."
The Melosian let out another angry roar and threw the boy down to the ground. It hovered over the terrified child belching burning words of disgust at him. The translator disk didn't resonate his words. Perhaps it didn't know how to convert the words. The words were outside even the translator's understanding. The Melosian then turned and walked out the high arched doorway and disappeared.
The boy picked himself up off the glass floor and settled himself down. He turned to see the fleet from the planet he never even heard of. These Earth people were trying to save his world. With wide eyes he watched the flames busting over the dark and fearsome ships from Melos. The gleaming white ships of Earth were taking the offensive.
The beautiful woman in white turned to the boy. "We did not detect the presence of the Earth ships until this very moment. Perhaps there is something to this God of yours after all," she said with a warm smile. "You must go now, boy. Go home to your world. You will be needed there."
The young boy didn't need to be told a second time. With a wild grin and a giggle on his lips he raced cross the dome and through the doorway that led back to his planet.
End

When Nothing Else Remains by Christopher Filippone
Chapter One
Aimlessly he wandered, tired and thirsty, over broken glass and torn earth. The road he walked on barely resembled a road at all. Although it was a long way from the last massive attack, it must have been struck by far flung debris, ripping it apart. To reach safety, he had to get clear of the blast zone first. The boy knew that, so he kept on walking.
When his mother shoved him and yelled at him to run away, he did. He ran as fast as he could into the hills just behind his house. He ran for nearly a whole day without looking back. That was over six days ago. He was exhausted now. He could run no longer. Somehow he found the strength to stay on his feet.
The hot blazing sun screamed waves of heat on his young body. The strain on his weak frame became too much. He collapsed in a heap on the broken pavement. Now face down on the ground, the boy used his trembling limbs to turn himself over.
The burning sun took no pity on him. It reached down and stung his eyes. On instinct, he rushed his hands over his face. He took his hands away when he felt the aerie warmth of his own blood oozing onto his face. The scrape on his hand hadn't healed yet. He tried to remember when he cut it. He couldn't remember. His mind was numb. His memories were a blur.
Somehow the young man, barely twelve years old, found the energy to lift himself on his elbows, raising his head enough to look at the mountains. The tall ridges of white and purple cut the sky away from the land in magnificent arks and rough stokes. Just beyond them lies the valley of his childhood. It was where he was schooled. It was where he played. It was where he lived with his mother and father and sister.
He thought about them - his family - and slowly his memories flooded back. They were all enjoying a happy moment together. Happy moments were rare ever since the war came upon their world. Their joyful moment was shattered when the black mist came. The black mist always signaled the coming of the death troops. The images of smiling and laughing faces of his family were suddenly replaced by twisted expressions of utter terror.
It was not long before the black cloud covered the land and blotted out the sun. His father nervously ran to the house for some way to protect his family. His mother had other ideas. She was drenched with fear, but not for herself. She feared for the lives of her children. With tears in her eyes, she screamed at him and his sister to run. His sister, two years younger than he, clung to her mother, screaming in trembling with fright. She didn't want to leave her mother, and she said so though stained hoarse cries. Mother pulled her off and yelled at her to run. With a body petrified with fear, the young panic-stricken girl stumbled off, crying loudly all the way.
The boy didn't run either at first. He stood in front of his mother, frozen in place. His mother turned to him. With every ounce of air left in her lungs, screamed for him to run, but the boy still didn't move. Gritting her teeth, she ran over to him and gave him a hard shove. As he lay there now, remembering, he could still feel the pain in his back from her hand hitting him. Her push was the urging he needed. He began to run. He didn't run in the same direction as his sister. He ran without thinking.
Halfway up a small nearby hill, he heard his mother scream in a way that made the hair on his body stand on end. He turned to see her on the ground. Dark figures surround her broken body. One attacker turned its large grotesque head toward him. A streak of white hot fear ran up his spine. He didn't look back after that.
Still on the ground, and free of his terrible memory, the boy took a moment to observe his immediate surroundings for the first time. He was alone. There was no one in sight - not even a hint of life. The trees were all withered and black. The land was dark and scorched. No birds sang. No insects buzzed.
Then, from the mountain ridge, he saw something. Rolling over the hills was the black mist. It was coming in his direction. It was coming for him. He let out a loud terrible cry at the sight of it. In a Panic, he struggled to get his trembling body to his feet. He tried to walk, but his body would not obey. He fell back to the broken ground. Face twisted with dread and wet with tears, he began to crawl. He dug his fingers into the hot earth and scraped his exposed knees over the torn chunks of glass and rocks. Grunting and crying, he raced as fast as his worn body would move.
He looked back. The mountains were gone. Completely covered in a cloak of blackness. Amid the shroud, he could see weird figures moved about. The mist was getting closer. It would be on top of him soon. He cried for his mother for help. He screamed for her between deep sobs. Oh how he wished she was here. He wished he could see her once more before the end.
He continued to crawl, slower now, as his terrified body succumbed to shock. He was about to collapse when a hand reached down to him. He looked at the hand. It was slender and inviting. He looked up. The hand was attached to an arm. The arm led to a whole person. It was a beautiful woman dressed in a white gown and wearing a thin white veil over her face. The woman, smiling gently, nodded her head, urging him to take her hand.
The boy was awestruck by her presence. He wondered why she wasn’t afraid. He wondered if he was dreaming her. Maybe she wasn't there at all. Hopelessness replaced fear. It didn't matter if she was real or not. He reached up and took her hand anyway.
A spark pricked his fingers the moment his hand touched hers. His hand didn't recoil from the shock. It sunk into her warm hand without hesitation.
She tugged at him. Without knowing how, the boy felt the weight of exhaustion lift off him. Without any difficulty, he stood up. Now on his feet, he quickly looked back at the mountains. He needed to know how close doom reached. As his eyes surveyed the land, a dizzy feeling fell over him. His surroundings had magically changed.
The mountains were still there. So was the rumpled land he once laid upon. And yet it all looked different. The land, the hills, everything seemed drained of color. It was as if a blanket of white fog was suddenly draped over the land. He wondered if he was inside the cloud of black mist. Maybe they got him, and the girl too. Anther thought struck him. This one sent a shiver through every cell of his body. He looked up at the beautiful veiled woman standing before him. As he struggled to hold back his tears, he looked up the and woman and asked, "Am I dead?"
Releasing her grip on the boy, the mysterious woman raised up her hands and lifted the thin veil from her face. Without the shroud, she appeared even more beautiful. Her face was young and without contours of concern or worry. Her skin was smooth and milky white. In contrast to her pale skin, fiery red hair wound into tight curls covered her head. A few loosened coils of hair hung down over her forehead, dangling just above eyes of deep green. She pursed her red lips for a moment then said, "There is no death here."
The young boy covered his face, hiding the tears rolling from his eye. "I know where I am. Where's my Mother and Father? Are they here too?" he whimpered, "I just…"
The woman's thin red eyebrows pushed together, forming a small rare wrinkle in the delicate skin of her forehead. "Where do you think you are?" she asked in a tone slightly above a whisper.
The boy looked up at her, trying tin vein to wipe the dampness from his face. "You mean this isn't Heaven?"
The woman staggered back a bit, shocked by the boy's query. After a short moment, her concerned expression turned to one of joyful surprise. "Oh my," she said with a giggle. "I haven't heard that word in a very long time. Is that where you think you are?" She knelt down, with her hands on her knees, and wriggled her nose at the boy. "Oh how quaint."
"Then where am I?" he asked. After each word, his body twitched with a sob. His confused mind began to turn his stomach. The idea that his short life was suddenly cut short filled his soul with boundless sorrow. But, with every word from the angelic woman, he became more confused. Exasperated, he flung his arms down at his sides and let out a deep sigh. Something inside told him needed to talk - review his memories aloud. So he began to talk.
The young boy took a deep breath and began to speak, more to himself than the female standing before him. "I don't understand," he began. As he started, the tears began flowing again. He didn't try to stop them anymore. He continued speaking without interruption. "Me and my sister were coming home from class when we saw mom and dad outside waving to us. Dad said he was gonna go look for some food for us when the attack started."
The young man took another breath and shook his head sharply, trying to suppress the violent images in his head. His mind obeyed him. It slipped back to a time before the last attack. It took him back to a happier time. He gathered himself in that memory before continuing.
The memory comforted him a bit. It encouraged a tiny smile to appear on his dirt covered face. The memory was so precious to him he felt he must share it. "My mom would always tell me and Glo about the old days - before the war started. She used to tell us how wonderful the world once was. She told us how people used to live together in peace and happiness in great cities made of glass and metal. She'd tell us how people would go from place to place in cars that went on the ground and in the air. She'd tell us how special machines high up in the sky would send shows and music to homes all around the world. And she told us how some people traveled across great distances in space - even to other worlds.
"My Mom and Dad are always telling us not to worry - we'd all see such wonders again someday." The memory ended and reality held him again. He looked up at the woman, barely containing his sense of grief and doom gripping his heart. The thoughts and emotions he fought hard to suppress began to return. His face washed over with tears and twisted from a kind of pain that left no visible scar. The boy fell to his knees and shook his clasped his hands at her. "Please tell me where my mom and dad are. Is my sister with them? Please tell me they're all okay."
The beautiful woman stood up straight again and folded her arms across her chest. "No, I'm sorry. My sources inform me that the life forces of your mother, father and sister dissipated approximately six rotations ago during a terror-attack by the Melos." As she gave him the dreadful information, she spoke in a cold aloof manner, oblivious to the young man's clearly fragile emotional state.
Most of the words she spoke didn't make much sense to the boy, and yet he understood what she was trying to say. His worst fear had come to pass. His family, the people he loved most in the world were gone. The weight of overwhelming anguish pushed him down to the ground. A new river of tears coated his face. Succumbing to his grief, he wailed with a sorrow he never felt before. He pounded the ground with trembling fists as his mind filled him with the faded images of the family he had lost.
With red swollen eye and clenched teeth, he suddenly turned his focus on the calm woman in white "How do you know if they're alive or not?" he screamed in a ragged voice. "If this isn't heaven, then you're not God. Only God knows for sure. You can't know it. You can't!"
The calm lady tilted her head to one side. "God? No, I am not the physical embodiment of any fictitious deity. You are young. Therefore you would not understand fully who I am and how I know what I know. Let me just say that I, and others like me, are known as the Fabricators. We make something from nothing. We make everything from nothing. We created the Universe and tend to it from time to time.
"We rarely get directly involved with its affairs, but, in this case, we're making an exception. You see, your species, your people, are on the verge of extinction. Very rarely is one species completely eliminated by another. Knowing this, we began to wonder: is it justified for your race to be eliminated - erased from the Universe? So we decided to judge for ourselves. We randomly selected someone from your species - you - and one from the Melos species. We intend to question you both in order to find the answer. If you can justify the right for your race to survive, then we will intervene. If you cannot, then we will not stop the Melos from reaching their goal.
"So, if you're nearly through doing whatever it is you're doing down there, please get up and come with me."
 
Chapter Two
The young man changed to a kneeling position at the feet of the radiant beauty. He looked into her deep green eyes for a morsel of kindness and comfort for his aching heart. There was none. Her cold detached nature only deepened his loneliness in his heart. Slowly he began to understand that, whoever this woman truly was, she was not from his world. Wherever wondrous place she was from, it must surely be filled with people far better than himself.
Methodically, his young mind began to absorb some of her words. The analytical processes of his brain began to take control, oddly soothing his emotional state. It was surely some kind of mechanism his mind had for handling overwhelming stress. The boy didn't fight it. His body craved something to fill the emptiness. As he sat there thinking, the boy gently wiped the tears from his red swollen eyes. He looked at the woman with a questioning expression and softly asked, "Ma'am, who are the Melos?"
The mysterious woman rolled her eyes down to meet the boy's. She paused a moment, then spoke in a quick monotone manner. She stared intently at him as she spoke, as if receiving the answers from the dark portions of his eyes. "The Melos", she began, "are a very powerful race of beings interested only in conquest. Their ultimate goal is to be the sole inhabitants of the universe. An exploration craft from your planet reached the Melos home world four years ago. Before that time, the Melos did not know of your planet. Once the Melos learned of its existence, they set out to exterminate your species and claim the planet for themselves."
The young man ran his hand roughly under his nose, wiping away the last remnants of his tears. "Are all the people on my world going to die?"
"If the Melos are allowed to continue, yes. They will completely exterminate your race in a little over seven weeks."
"But you're going to stop them, right? You're not going to let them kill everybody, right?"
The beautiful woman in the long white gown let out a small, exasperated sigh. "Only if you can offer good cause. If you cannot offer a substantial reason for us to stop them, we will have no choice but to allow them to continue waging war with your planet - eventually killing everyone."
The boy dropped his head and shrugged his shoulders. "But what can I do?"
The woman rolled her eyes upward and sighed again. "Are you not paying attention, young man?" she said in a harsh manner. "You must try and convince us to intervene. If you are successful, we will stop the Melos and spare your planet."
He turned his head up, facing her once more. "I understand," he answered softly.
"Good. Now, you must come with me."
"One more question."
"What is it?"
"If I can give you some good reasons to save my world, will you also bring back all the people that have died?"
She shook her head in the negative. "I'm sorry," she said. "That will not be possible." The beautiful woman then bent down a little and held out her left hand for the boy to accept. "Come along now."
Timidly, the boy stood up and placed his hand in hers. It sank gently into her soft warm palm. With his hand in hers, she twisted her wrist, turning the back of her hand toward herself. The action drew the boy close beside her. He was so close to her, he could feel the delicate lace of her snow -white gown against his bare arm.
With the boy tucked close beside her, the woman waved her right hand around in a circle. As she did so, a swirling spinning whirling turbulence grew ever larger in front of them. Right before the boy's astonished eyes, the swirling spinning whirling slowly transformed into something solid. It was a doorway. A high arched doorway standing in the middle of the road.
When the doorway seemed solid enough, she stopped waving her hand and began to walk through it, boy in tow. The boy hung close to her, following her inside without hesitation.
The boy didn't know what he expected to see once he crossed the threshold, but what he did see was more than he could have imagined. The landscape that once surrounded him was no longer there. He was now in a great domed room. The surface of the dome was transparent. A cloak of blackness surrounded it. Tiny twinkling specks of light shown through the velvety darkness. Confusion clogged the boy's head. Before passing through the door, it was daylight. It appeared to be night from inside the room.
Something else bothered him - the land was missing. Surely he should be able to see the horizon through the glass dome. His eyes drifted downward. The floor was transparent too. Only one object grabbed his eyes. Below his feet, a small shining blue-white globe hung in the blackness. The boy knew what it was. It was his home. Somehow the woman had transported him past the clouds, high above the planet.
His senses were overwhelmed. His body told him he was falling, but his mind told him the opposite. A thick cloud of dizziness fell over him. His knees buckled. His legs got soft. He was about to fall to the floor, when his female companion tightened her grasp. She tugged his arm and pulled him back up.
"You're all right," she said. "You're not going to fall. You're safe inside the bubble." She tapped her foot against the transparent floor. The floor answered with an odd click. "See?"
Slowly, his mind began to win the argument with his body. His legs regained their strength and his knees stiffened once again. "Okay, I see now," he answered in a raspy voice. "We're in space, right?"
A thin smile arced across the woman's face. "That's right. You've been in space before."
"No, ma'am. I've seen pictures. I've never been in space."
"Maybe you have, but you just don't remember. That's more likely."
Her comment confused the young man, but he didn't let it plague him for too long. He dismissed it with a shrug. She began to walk again, so he followed.
Slowly they made their way across the dome's floor. As they walked, the boy twisted his head in all around. His wide eyes needed to absorb as much as of his surroundings as possible. He didn't know how long he would be up here. He didn't want to forget anything.
Hand in hand, she led the boy to a place near the middle of the room, but not quite the center. There she tapped her foot once on the hard floor. In response, a circular pedestal, about half as tall as the boy, rose up from the floor.
The woman turned her hand over, palm up, and offered the seat to the boy. "Please take your position."
The young boy reluctantly removed his hand from the woman's soft palm and proceeded to take his place. It was a bit of a struggle for him. The seat was a bit high. Nevertheless, with a single grunt, and no assistants from his companion, he placed himself comfortably on top.
The woman then made an odd hand gesture, ordering a thin transparent disk to rise from the floor beside the young boy.
She then turned her head toward the top of the dome and said in a booming voice, "Send in the Melosian."
Beside to the young man, on the other side of the floating translucent disk, a being of unimaginable ugliness walked through a door from the opposite side of the room. As it strolled over toward the center of the room, a pedestal seat rose from the floor to meet him.
An icy chill of sheer terror ran the boy's spine at the site of the horrific being. It had a large head perched atop a spindly body. The head resembled that of an insect's, black and furry with large green bulging eyes.
The terrified youngster jumped from his seat and started to run. He didn't get very far. The beautiful woman in the white gown knelt down in the boy's path. He ran, without watching his direction, into her outstretched arms. He struggled against her, trying to break free. He screamed with fright, "He's coming to get me!"
"No," she answered in a cool manner. "You are in my realm. No harm can come to you here. Please calm down now and return to your place." Soon enough she felt his muscles lose their tension. When he stood up straight, she opened her arms and led him back to his seat.
Back on his perch, the boy couldn't help but stare at the monster seated not far from him. Its horrific appearance was nearly more than he could take, and yet his eyes were transfixed. As he stared, the same questions danced circles in his brain: "Was this thing the same one that killed his mother and father and sister? Does it know me? Does it recognize me?"
The strange being sat there beside him, staring back at him. Its shoulders twitched and an odd squeaking echoed from its mouth. Beads of cold sweat spread across the boy's forehead when he realized what it was doing; it was laughing at him. Its eerie laughter gave birth to new terror in the boy's heart.
Then it spoke. A deep guttural noise came from deep inside the thing's chest and belched out from its odd shaped mouth. The sound of the creature's strange language vibrated over the translucent disk that hung between it and the boy. The disk somehow reordered the strange language so that the boy would understand. The metallic voice of the translating disk was dull and deep. The boy did not know if the creature was man or woman, but from the artificial voice, he perceived it as man. From the odd cold tone of the disk came the words: "You are afraid of me. It is good that you are afraid. Soon enough you will be gone, like the rest of your race. Only then will your lowly planet be cleansed of your kind and suitable for the Melos."
As the boy listened to the creatures menacing words, a lump grew in his throat. He wrapped his arms around his small trembling body and lowered his head, weeping silently. The monster's words made him feel small. Smaller than he actually was. He began to feel insignificant, meaningless, useless.
The creature began to speak again, but not at the boy. He now turned his attention to the beautiful woman presiding over them. He said, "As for you, Fabricator, you should fear us as well. Not long from now, we will be the greatest force in the universe. At that time we will come for you."
The boy looked up quickly enough too see a fire spark behind the green eyes of the statuesque female Fabricator. He could almost see her flaming red hair burn ever brighter, manifesting her anger into something tangible. "Do not threaten me, Melosian!" she said in a booming voice. "The Fabricator are, and always will be, the sole guardians of the Universe. Our powers are absolute! If we so desire, we could remove your species from the universe with a twitch of a finger. And, if we chose to eradicate you, the process would be so pervasive that not a single shred of your existence would remain."
The Melosian chuckled softly. He was on what he considered enemy territory, therefore he had to be diplomatic. Diplomacy was a skill the Melos did not practice. Nevertheless, he said nothing in response to the insolent female. Discretion, he decided, was the proper tact.
The boy, quiet through the irate exchange, perched his chin atop his round fist. He first looked over at the Melosian and then rolled his eyes back to the Fabricator.
The woman folded her arms in front of her, cleared her throat, and then spoke. Her loud voice resonated over the entire surface of the dome, seemingly calling on invisible spectators to offer their attention. "We are here to decide the fate of the Alban race. The Melos intend to eradicate them entirely from the Universe. Below us rest the planet Alb. It and its inhabitants are what hangs in the balance. Does one race have the right to erase another? That is what we are here to decide."
The Melosian spoke up. "If I should win the right of my race to complete our mission, then I want to take boy with me. I hunted him on the planet. He is mine."
The Fabricator waved a dismissing hand at the Melosian. "Your statement goes unrecognized for the time being. You will now only speak when asked to do so. I am known as Cassandra. I am the moderator. With the eyes of the Universe upon us, I now call the proceeding to order."
 
Chapter Three
In an odd gesture of some importance, the female Fabricator, acting now as a moderator, raised her hands, with palms facing down, above her head. By her command, a bright white light shot down over the boy. A similar light blanketed the Melosian as well.
Satisfied with the results, she dropped her arms back to her sides. The lights above their heads stayed on. Neither the boy nor the Melosian knew what the light was for sure. Perhaps it was used for detecting untruths. Perhaps it was merely part of the ceremony.
"I will pose the first questions to the boy," said the Fabricator. She then took a few steps in his direction and affixed her gaze upon him. "You are from the planet Alb, are you not?"
The boy squinted up at the light, then back to his inquisitor. His heart was beating fiercely in his chest. He placed his hands under his legs, hoping to hide they're shaking. He looked up at her, and opened his trembling mouth to speak, but nothing came forth.
A stiff -lipped smile arced across the woman's face. She looked down at her feet for a moment and clasped her hands together in front of her. "There is no need to be nervous, young man. You have nothing to fear from me."
Her words comforted him. However, he already knew he had nothing to fear from her. It wasn't she that upset him. The tyrant seated next to him frightened him the most. The boy knew what the consequences were if he failed today. He only hoped he would speak the right words. Nonetheless, he did find some small amount of consolation from her reassurances. His heart quieted a bit. His shaking calmed. In a clear unwavering voice, he answered her again. "Yes, Cassandra. I am from the planet Alb."
"What is happening on your world right now?"
"We are at war with people from another planet. The entire surface is being destroyed. All of the big cities are gone. All of our advancements are gone too. Worst of all, the people are dying."
"Do you know who stated the war?"
"No, ma'am," shrugged the boy. "It started when I was just a kid. I don't remember much from back then. I just remember me and my family getting out of the city and heading for cover in the hills. We've lived there for about seven years now."
"But you were safe in the hills, right?"
"No ma'am. We and many many other people ran for safety in the hills, but we didn't find any there. The one's attacking us from space came down and began killing everyone they found - killing for no reason. Those people were innocent. They weren't part of the space force. They were just people trying to survive. My family kept on the move. Were finally felt safe at the base of the smaller mountain. We didn't see or hear of anybody getting killed for over a year. We thought we were safe, until the black cloud came." After that, the boy said no more. He dropped his head and sighed sorrowfully.
The female Fabricator new the boy was slipping out of reality somehow. She had one more question for him. She needed to pull him back. In a sharp booming tone, she asked, "Boy, listen, what will be lost if the people on Alb are all killed?"
The boy looked up at her, a single tear clinging to the lower lid of his left eye. He wrinkled his forehead at her and asked, "What?"
His questioner became impatient with him once again. She folded her arms and stared sternly at the boy. "Your race, which has existed for millions of years, will soon be erased from all existence. Isn't there anything of significance the Universe will lose if your race dies out?"
A look of utter shock spread across the boy's face. His eyes widened and his skin turned chalky white. "Uh, well, we are a kindly people. We've had very few wars in our history. We found ways to accept our differences and live together in peace.
We invented new treatments for disease as well as perfected new and better ways of living without polluting our planet. We have many artists too. Great music and art. We once had great theater performances too, that were viewed by people all around the world. Great writers and actors created performances, both serious and funny. It would be wrong to lose it all for all time."
The translation disk hummed to life. The Melosian began to speak. "The boy's people are a lazy, shiftless, race. They are ethnocentric. They only care about themselves. They've had the technology to explore and defend their planet for hundreds of years, but didn't until now."
In a weak quivering voice, the boy spoke up, "We were concerned about the people suffering on our own world first. Once we found the ways to better help those less fortunate, we then turned our abilities to outer space."
"The boy makes my point for me, Moderator. They were quite content to spend their time tending to their sick and old, rather than expand their minds through exploration. Such a race offers nothing for the rest of the Universe. I submit to you that they deserve to die off."
The boy's focus darted between the Melosian and the beautiful Fabricator in a frantic manner. He was loosing the debate - he knew that. Panic was taking control of him. He felt as if he were drowning. He drew air into his lungs, but it didn't help.
The Fabricator glanced at the boy, holding her hand up at him in a manner suggesting to him to calm down. She then turned her full attention to the Melosian. "What makes you think they deserve to die?"
"Isn't it obvious? They are a weak people. They're limited view of the Universe makes them so. We, the Melos, are strong. The strong shall conquer the weak. It is the way of the Universe. The strong survive. The weak do not. For that reason, the Alban race deserves to be eliminated."
The radiance of the lovely Fabricator seemed to dim as she turned away from the Melosian. "You make a good point," she said with her head down, eyes focused on the small globe of blue and green floating below them. "Natural selection is the way of all life in the Universe. It is how it's meant to be." Without turning to face the boy, she asked him quietly, "Do you have anything to offer in rebuke, young Alban?"
The boy knew he had lost. His heart sank. A wrenching sense of doom replaced the part of him where hope once thrived. He too focused his gaze on the planet floating below his feet. He did not answer. He merely shook his head in the negative.
The Fabricator did not see his answer. Her back was still facing him. However, she already knew what is reply would be before she even asked the question. She let her arms fall to her sides; tightly clenched fists took the place of the soft gentle hands she had before. "Melosian, you and your people have won. We will not interfere with the Melos' conquest and eventual extermination of the people of Alb. As you requested at the start, the boy is yours."
Before he knew it, the hideous Melosian was on top of the boy. It grabbed him by the arm with its dark clawed hands and dragged him off the pedestal.
The boy screamed in terror. He struggled to break free of the creature's grip, but couldn't. With tears in his eyes, he called out to her. "Please, ma'am. Don't let him take me. Please!"
She didn't turn around. She didn't move. She did nothing. It was as if she didn't even hear him. However, she did hear him. Yet she did nothing to save him. As the creature dragged the boy, kicking the floor and screaming, toward the doorway, she began to wonder:

Was she just as guilty of passiveness as the Melosian accused the Alban people of being? Because she can intervene, does that give her right to intervene? Should her power require her to interfere - to save the Alban race?

Then something caught the corner of the wistful Fabricator's eye. Perhaps it would not be necessary to contemplate the philosophical questions she was posing herself after all. Just as the Melosian was about to toss the screaming boy though the open door that led to his realm, the stoic Fabricator yelled, "STOP!"
The translator disk still suspended in the middle of the room echoed to life. "What? You said you would not interfere, Fabricator. You gave your word."
She turned to face the Melsoian, an expression of superiority covering her face. "Release the boy."
"What?"
"I said release him. It seems the question of extermination is moot. His race will not be eliminated after all."
"And why not?" roared the Melosian.
The Fabricator raised her hand and pointed to a location in space. "See there? A fleet is approaching. It was dispatched from a planet known as Earth. They have come to defend the planet and rescue the Albans." She pointed again. "Look, the battle has begun. Your ships are taking heavy damage. You will need to pull back your fleet."
The Melosian let out another angry roar and threw the boy down to the ground. It hovered over the terrified child belching burning words of disgust at him. The translator disk didn't resonate his words. Perhaps it didn't know how to convert the words. The words were outside even the translator's understanding. The Melosian then turned and walked out the high arched doorway and disappeared.
The boy picked himself up off the glass floor and settled himself down. He turned to see the fleet from the planet he never even heard of. These Earth people were trying to save his world. With wide eyes he watched the flames busting over the dark and fearsome ships from Melos. The gleaming white ships of Earth were taking the offensive.
The beautiful woman in white turned to the boy. "We did not detect the presence of the Earth ships until this very moment. Perhaps there is something to this God of yours after all," she said with a warm smile. "You must go now, boy. Go home to your world. You will be needed there."
The young boy didn't need to be told a second time. With a wild grin and a giggle on his lips he raced cross the dome and through the doorway that led back to his planet.
End