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admitted de Sagres It had been www.pro-beton.de a long, hard year The Horror was being brought under control, but slowly, ever so slowly Nearly a quarter billion people had died www.pro-beton.de in Latin America alone A terrible, agonizing tragedy De Sagres could feel the awful grief and misery that spanned the world To him the deaths were www.pro-beton.de not merely statistics, they were brothers and sisters who had perished, his blood, his km He had gazed deeply into the well of anguish www.pro-beton.de A lesser man would have given up hope and run away to hide But it has been only one year, his star brother replied Less www.pro-beton.de than a full year And the death rate is dropping fast now De Sagres thought of the changes that were already taking place across www.pro-beton.de Latin America and the rest of the world Humans accepted the alien inoculations because they were terrified of the Horror Then they found www.pro-beton.de that they carried star brothers and star sisters 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creatures are linked, united into www.pro-beton.de a single form of life that spans Mother Earth Yet her star sister expanded even that insight all living creatures are linked even among the www.pro-beton.de far-scattered stars All life in the universe is one That vision had nearly destroyed Lela The guilt and shame she felt over her www.pro-beton.de murder of five men almost drove her insane Almost For months she could not face another human being She lived in the preserve with the www.pro-beton.de great apes while her star sister gradually, patiently helped her to understand her own depths of fear and hatred Now she stood beside Nkona, ready www.pro-beton.de to take her place in the world of imperfect men and women once again The old man gave her a fatherly smile Lela was stronger now www.pro-beton.de than she had ever been The wound in her spirit was healing, the scar would always be there, but she would be all www.pro-beton.de the stronger for having suffered the wounding and surviving Men and women were imperfect, it was true, but they were striving toward perfection Nkona www.pro-beton.de believed with all the fierce passion in his soul that each human being was truly perfectible Less than fifty kilometers from where they stood, www.pro-beton.de outside Nkona's modest home on the fringe of the university campus, several hundred gorillas lived in peaceful contentment at last No one had www.pro-beton.de even tried to bother them, not since the star brethren had shown all who received what Lela had known from the beginning In Bangladesh it www.pro-beton.de was nearly morning Walking slowly along the sandy shore, Chandra Varahamihara turned his gaze from the gently lapping sea to the dark forest that lined www.pro-beton.de the beach with tall swaying coconut palms and thickly gnarled goran mangroves He was a lonely figure, this frail bald-shaved lama in www.pro-beton.de his saffron robe But he was not alone Within him dwelled a star brother, and he sensed all the hundreds of millions, www.pro-beton.de the billions of humans who also shared their blood with brethren from the stars Once this region where the five mighty rivers www.pro-beton.de met the sea was called the Plain of Death The rivers would flood and thousands who had no dwelling place except miserable shacks along www.pro-beton.de their banks would be swept away The sea would be heavy with drowned bodies for weeks afterward Now, in his mind's eye, Varahamihara www.pro-beton.de could see the mighty dams far to the north in the mountains of Nepal that controlled the flow of the rivers And the forests that had www.pro-beton.de been planted to hold the moisture of the monsoon rains and pre- vent the erosion of the soil that the people needed to grow their food www.pro-beton.de Almost, he smiled Nepal was becoming a rich nation, selling its hydroelectric power not only to Bangladesh but to India, China, and even the www.pro-beton.de Soviet Union But the smile never came to his lips The Horror had been particularly cruel in the great Indian subcontinent Its ravages www.pro-beton.de were diminishing as the visitors from the stars joined in the unity of life, but what a terrible, excruciating toll it had www.pro-beton.de taken Yet perhaps such pain was necessary The wheel of life is lubricated with human blood, it seems At least now the www.pro-beton.de teachings of the Buddha were becoming the true frame of reference for all the people of Earth Yet he wondered What changes will come when all men and women are linked with star brothers and sisters? |