involuntarily sucked in my breath, and with apprehension in his voice Jesse continued. “Well, it’s a very small hole in space, but three million times its weight is pressed down to the size of a speck.”
“Whoa!”
Jesse nodded his head and continued. “It stands at the center of our galaxy with a gaping open mouth appearing like a swirling dark vortex. There’s one in the Virgo Cluster now and we think it’s the one Roth may have come from. Where ever you see stars cluster you usually find one. Stars whip around it moving at huge speeds and anything that gets pulled in too close is sucked inside the massive black giant. I’ve seen rivers of gas and stars flowing into its greedy mouth. Only something supremely evil could withstand its pull.”
“Gosh!!! What can we do?” I whispered, terrified.
“Our only hope against it was uttered by the great philosopher Confucius himself when he said, “When darkness has reached its highest level it then it destroys itself and the light returns once more.” Jesse lightened a little as he went on. “ And, that‘s very true, cause one day when a Black Hole is compressed down to almost nothing after gobbling up Tellus and the entire universe, it then turns inside out and explodes in a white electrical mist like a Big Bang— and then everything starts all over again.”
“WOW! I exclaimed in fear and awe. “When will all this happen?”
Jesse lay back and nonchalantly pulled on some grass calmly remarking, “Oh, a Billion Million, Trillion years from now maybe.”
I surely then sighed, a great sigh of relief.
Then he added, “There’s also a theory that Black Holes can become dormant too.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Well, they just sort of die out and stop sucking stuff up, But they’re not really dead.”
“So Black Holes are kinda like a huge vacuum cleaner, huh?” I chuckled a moment and asked, “How do you know about these Black Holes and stuff? Can you see them through a telescope?”
“Well, nobody knows much about them now, but when my Martian friend Paulo invented his first Time Machine, the first place we went of course was into the future. They’ve discovered Black Holes in the future.”
Then Jesse continued on about Madman Roth, “Anyways, after Roth left Elysium, we heard that he had formed a huge army and was in league with the Ex-Robot Dictator of Sirus. The Lady Mordine said Roth had even considered employing ‘The Horrible Jovian Things” for his army, but decided against it cause they were just too greedy and argumentative, even among themselves. Also it was about that time that Tok Loor joined up with him.
“The dwarf pirate?”
“Yeah! Ya see Parker had been a good friend of Tok’s for a long, long time. They used to carouse and play poker together, but when Tok saw Roth’s power was growing he figured he’d better get in on the action ‘cause he didn’t want to miss out on any looting — I mean being a pirate an all, well, let’s just say it came natural. Anyway, together with Tok Loor, and the Ex-Robot Dictator, and a few greedy Martian Aristocrats, Roth attacked the Statosians. Tok had been a sworn enemy of the Statosians for thirteen generations and that particular skirmish caused Carter, an alien friend of mine who lives in Blackfoot Idaho and a Statosian by nature, to enter into the fray against them. —As Roth’s power grew he conquered one planet after another and made slaves of their citizens. You see, Roth’s goal is to conquer the entire universe! — Even Tellus! Anyway, that was the last straw for the Dragons.”
“The Dragons?”
“Yeah, even Erf, Merf, Bzwic and Frmx, who are the most tolerant of the Dragon world, had enough of him. When Moscovitch and I found out about Roth’s plan to conquer the universe, we tracked him down near the planet Nowese, and captured him. There was a quick trial and Roth was sentenced to death. We banished Tok Loor to the 13th dimension where you have to throw a ladder under a black cat to get in or out.”
Jesse then laughed at his little joke. “It’s not too bad of a place. You see, Tok’s crimes of pillaging and looting were far less serious than Roth’s crimes of enslavement. I mean the punishment should fit the crime. Anyway when we put Roth to death that day on the guillotine, the Lady Mordine said she saw Roth’s ego escape and disappear into a guy that was standing in the front row of the crowd. She said he was a funny looking guy with a small moustache and looks like that Hitler guy in the movie newsreels.
“Wow!” I gasped. “His EGO escaped? How’d he do that?”
“Well, he had such a big one, which might have made it easier. The Lady Mordine who is the psychic keeper of “The Sacred Book of Origins” said Roth had stolen the Scared Book from her when he’d conquered the Alpha Century System just a few years before. The book contained many secrets and spells and I’d guess that’s how he learned to “Ego Escape.”
“WOW! Where’s Roth now?”
“Well, no one really knows for sure, but Erf and Merf said they saw him that day on Nowese, the funny looking Hitler guy with the moustache that is, sneak off and get into a spaceship. They said he took off towards Tellus.”
“You mean he may have come here?”
Jesse nodded. “Of course that was before Parker and I had put up the Goodrum Screen.”
“What’s the Goodrum Screen?”
“It’s a translucent protective barrier that encircles all of Earth, a kind of almost invisible moving Warp Wave. Before Roth came along there wasn’t much need for the Goodrum Screen. We never considered Telluarians much of a threat, I mean the Earthlings were too busy destroying each other, in fact we realized Earth might need protection after the Roth incident, so a friend of ours, Charles Goodrum invented it to protect Earth, and me and Parker put it into place. Although it’s a little bit like closing the barn door after the horse has gone, if you know what I mean.”
I nodded. “So Madman Roth may have come here?”
“Yeah, but he’s never surfaced as far as anyone knows — not yet anyways. But, it is a pretty scary thought, isn’t it?”
“Yeah!”
“Before Roth disappeared he left orders for the greedy Martian Aristocrats and the Ex-Robot Dictator to have the Exiles driven off Mars.”
“Who are the Greedy Aristocrats?”
“Well, they were the Martians who were ravaging the lands and rivers for greed. Roth structured the greedy Martians into positions of power and they came to be called “The Aristocrats.” As Exiles, we went underground to fight them in devious ways, but we were small in number. You see, the majority of Martians were a kindly people and didn’t really understand what was happening. They were too busy leading their lives and having fun. They believed Roth and the Aristocrats lies because they didn’t want to think about bad things and just went on their merry way. The Exiles tried to get the truth out by running an underground news letter, you know, like “The Martian News Letter” we publish now on Tellus?”
I nodded.
Jesse continued. “Well, we were planning a revolt, but on the day it was to take place there was a surprise attack on our underground headquarters by the top Aristocrat running the whole show, a Mr. Varmit
