Grailem by Gary L Beer (top 100 novels txt) 📖

humanoid's start to appear, dressed in a similar metallic material as the old man gives them the appearance of being new and fragile. The pale colour and obvious softness of their skin shows they have lived below ground all their lives. The skin looks smooth and artificial as it is blemish free reflecting their secure lives in this moon. It was obvious they have never experienced the feeling of the wind and weather in their faces. Teleported to the other side of the force field they stare at Grailem and disappear a second later. This behaviour continues for several hours until Grailem estimates that everyone on the moon has had a look at him.
Stillness follows for another half hour until the old man materialises on the other side of the force field. More old men, and some very elderly looking females start to crowd the tunnel as they are teleported in.
The old man steps forward and stares at Grailem's mechanical eyes; "Many of us do not believe your intentions, our history has taught us well of your kind. But there are also many who want to believe you, the younger generation admittedly, but they hold a strong voice. Before we proceed we would like you to tell us of your origin and your life."
Starting at his first awareness Grailem explains how he was created in a laboratory and integrated with the artificial body when he was an adult. Not telling them of his killing spree, he lies and says that due to his longevity he was to become a space explorer.
Grailem tells them that the spaceship he was assigned to accidentally blew up and hurled him into outer space. Convincing his listeners that he found god in the vastness of space his landing on an Arct controlled planet was an act of that same god.
To kill all of the Arct and free Mankind from slavery seemed ordained and as he hoped he would return to his home planet victorious. Destruction of the Arct was easy as due to their long domination of their part of the galaxy they had become complacent. No wars had been fought and the robot legions that Grailem now controlled, was the first army that had been formed for thousands of years.
The return to his home planet and the destruction he found he admitted was a great shock. The destruction had made him feel very alone and that is why he is here; searching for his own kind or somewhere he can live in happiness.
The tunnel the other side of the force field starts to clear as the elderly humanoids are teleported to who knows where. Eventually all that remains is the old man, he looks tired and frail and looks at Grailem's mechanical eyes with tears in his own.
"My heart goes out to you, but in many cases you have lied to us. Admittedly for your own preservation you have left out the many murders you have carried out. We cannot trust you, but the main reason you cannot stay here is the long life you have ahead of you. Our people live for only five hundred of your years; yet you will live for eternity. You will form bonds and friendships, even love, only to have those very people die before your eyes. How many could you endure to lose? Each death making you more lonely."
Grailem could see the wisdom in the old man's words, having never experienced friendship or love he could lose more than he could gain; and the unfamiliar emotions may effect his sanity.
Without a word, Grailem stands upright and turns and walks back the way he had come. Loneliness weighs heavy upon him, to have one friend, one person like himself who fully understood him and would live forever alongside him is all he craves.

Emerging onto the surface of the moon he barely acknowledges the green of the field as he walks quickly to the flagship. Calling in his security robots he secures the flagship and instructs the navigator to make for the next inhabitable planet.
The planet is in the same system and sensors show that the three moons in orbit around it are also capable of sustaining humanoid life. Putting the flagship in a high orbit around the largest moon Grailem eagerly scans for humanoid life. After five orbits without finding any trace of humanoid life though the sensors do show evidence of mammalian life, Grailem moves on to the next moon.
This also shows a negative humanoid result, as does the other moon and the planet below. Deeply disappointed Grailem instructs the navigator to plot a course for the next habitable planet.

Grailem and his robot legions spend the next seven hundred and forty years searching the cosmos for a companion of his own intelligence. Exploring more than two thousand worlds and an untold number of moons and asteroids meets with little success.
Life is abundant on all the worlds he explored; some held extremely hostile humanoid's and others had strange highly intelligent aliens. The alien species he came across, some in the shape of giant insects, had a different outlook to life compared to Grailem's and all the other humanoid's he had met. Many of the aliens had the thought they were the superior being in the universe and all other life was there for them to do with as they wished.
Some of the alien cultures he visited were very highly advanced, with cities and civilisations more advanced than man yet they still refused to recognise the individuality and intelligence of other races. Grailem tried to communicate with these strange beings but such was their outlook on life he could not be understood. That he was not trusted was obvious as most tried to avoid him. The dismissive attitude to the life around them brought a dislike in Grailem as deeply felt as his hatred for the Arct.
His long life and destruction of the Arct had shown him the awful cruelty that existed in the cosmos. Though he started to hate the aliens with a passion he knew that he would change little by destroying them also.
The hostile humanoid's, did not trust him either; possibly the same beings who had destroyed his home world and many others he had found, had visited these planets previously. Much of what they told him (when they would talk to him) had occurred thousands of years ago and most of the stories, or myths, had been passed down the generations.
Whether they were the truth or not, Grailem found that he was not welcome on any of these world's. Superstition, even amongst highly intelligent beings, seems ingrained and Grailem, feeling more lonely each time his visit proved pointless, would continue his search and move on to the next habitable world.

After a survey of the two thousand, four hundred and thirty second planet Grailem was beginning to despair. Much of the intelligent humanoid life he had examined, though hostile towards him, he had no desire for anyway.
The humanoid's appeared to live a humdrum existence. Robot labour was not used as extensively as in the Arct culture, and most of the work had to be done by hand.
Life seemed to exist of going to work, coming home to eat and sleep, and going to work again. Their immediate hostility to him on some of the humanoid planets he visited implied they were more than unhappy in their lives.
The appearance of Grailem, an alien on his own, was an easy target to take out the frustrations of their world upon someone who was obviously better. Visiting a solar system with only one inhabitable planet he discovered the humanoid's lived a primitive stone age existence. Electricity and explosives had yet to be discovered and the people lived in poorly made wooden huts.
Their main occupation was waging war on their neighbours and by all appearances would continue to do so. Studying them in orbit Grailem found a single tribe living on one of the small continents. They appeared peaceful as they had no neighbours to fight and Grailem felt that at last he would be able to make friendly contact.
Dressing himself in animal skins like the humanoid's below, Grailem uses the shuttlecraft to take him down to the planet. Landing twenty kilometres from the little village Grailem hides the shuttlecraft in a deep valley and walks across country so as not to alarm them.
Approaching the village causes a lot of commotion as the humanoid's arm themselves with primitive spears, flint knives and bows. Many of the women and children hide, leaving the big males to protect them.
Grailem approaches with a smile and greets them in their language. The response is one of hostility as they wave their weapons in his direction and shout at him to leave.
Standing fifty metres away from the village Grailem tries to reason with them, but the more he tries the more aggressive they become. Their desire to kill him becomes a strong force in his mind, the shock of such a rejection by peaceful humanoid's, who he considers beings like himself brings a deep anger.
Grailem's repelling field activates itself automatically when a large brute of a man runs forward and picks up a huge rock, weighing over a hundred kilogram‘s, and throws it at him.
The rock bounces off Grailem as if he was made of rubber and rebounds directly back to the huge brute. The force of the rock hitting him crushing his ribcage as it knocked him over and lands on his head.
The humanoid was obviously dead much to Grailem's dismay as he knew the humanoid's would now become more hostile – even though he as not the one to get violent first. Grailem made a hasty retreat back to his shuttlecraft and left the planet as fast as he could to the safety of his flagship and set course for the next habitable world; which he hoped for once, would be friendly.
Grailem kept searching in an ever increasing spiral out from his home world. Meeting with failure at every planet he visited he began to despair, the suicidal thoughts no longer occurred and the desire to live and find happiness began to become an overwhelming thought.


Chapter Eighteen

A star, many light years away at the very end of a long spiral of scattered stars and with no other stars near it seemed to draw Grailem's attention. The search he had made these past years had been in densely populated regions of space. Travelling from one world to another would only take a few months or years in hyperspace. The star that he was observing would take forty-seven years to reach. Deep field sensors showed that there were seven planets within the habitable zone and the whole system comprised of eighty four large planets.
Why this particular system should attract his attention Grailem could not understand. A sixth sense inside him convinced him that whatever, or whoever he was looking for, he would find it there. Instructing the navigator to plot a course for the distant sun Grailem feeds all the known information into the computer as the flagship enters hyperspace.

Reaching the solar system forty-seven years later