Welcome to the world of Julius R. Jones - Author

"Ball of Silence" is a "classic" space opera with mysterious aliens, space ships, numerous colonized planets (there are currently 95 planets in the "Human Unity") and a protagonist with a special ability:

Star ship captain Jaiah Sufford can hear everything, literally. He was born with a heightened sense of hearing that turns the slightest whisper into a roar.

Searching for the quietest spot in the known universe, he finds a mysterious crystal ball that only he can hear singing. To his horror, he discovers that the crystal comes from the Heelith, an alien species humans have fought for centuries.

Suddenly, he has to make contact with the dreaded alien enemy, while escaping from anti-Heelith terrorists who want to kill him for trying to talk to the aliens.

In electronic format you can read the
"Ball of Silence" for free on wattpad.

Ball of Silence - Book One of the Voice of the Universe Series

Artwork by Naoyuki Katoh

Ball of Silence - Exerpt

Chapter 1

     Space stations stink. They reek of too many people, booze, and food. You can buy station air for your ship or scrubbed air to freshen up your own recycling systems. No matter how broke that I’ve been so far, I’ve always bought scrubbed air. Too much station air already pours into my ship, the Voice of Silence, whenever the station airlocks cycle open and close.

Flin and I enter the fanciest and most expensive restaurant of Baslam’s station. I don’t plan on paying for this lunch.

The place is reasonably quiet, which makes me aware of water dripping inside the pipes behind ceiling panels. Something is odd about the dripping. I concentrate and hear what’s wrong: insect feet. Two cockroaches chase each other on the smudgy film of dirt and grease that coats the pipes. The roaches’ tiny feet make plopping sounds when they pry them lose from the smear. I don’t need to see the roaches to know that they’re big.

I tried to find out what Blan Friscus, who invited me for lunch, is doing on Baslam’s station, but without success. I suspect he has joined the military, which would suit him: Drill Sergeant Friscus, the biggest asshole in the company.

A waiter leads us to the private room Blan has booked. The restaurant is Old Earth, Africa themed, with exotic masks and tapestries of savannas. Have Old Earth savannas really looked like that? Impossible to verify that now. 

The private room has five masks to offer, one on each of the four walls. The fifth mask, the ugliest one, awaits us on a chair: Blan.

He jumps to his feet as Flin and I enter. He definitely looks like Blan Friscus, but the years have been unkind to him. When we were thirteen-year-old boys, Blan was the open, funny, and straightforward kid, so pretty with his blond hair and freckles. I was the weird boy with ear problems, average and boring with my black hair and brown eyes, a percentage of Asian blood like half of the rest of humanity.

Now Blan is fat around his ass and belly; I’m not. He’s balding. He still has freckles, but on his oily skin, they look like dirt. He wears neutral black pants and a black pullover. A black jacket hangs from a wall hook, next to a mask with an oversized mouth and a tremendous tongue hanging down for half a yard.

“Jaiah, hey, so good to see you. Thanks for coming.”

Blan stretches out his hand. I refuse to shake it. Instead, I leave on my leather coat and sit down at the flat table that dominates the room. Flin sits down next to me.

“Hi, Blan,” I say.

He withdraws his hand with a contemptuous chuckle. His buttocks smack while sitting down. Even his sounds are abhorrent.

Every human generates a certain noise, like a signature. The beating of his heart, the sound of the blood rushing through his veins, and the noise of his breathing. They mingle with the signature sounds of Flin and of my own heart, breath, and blood, which I hear all the time. Never quiet. I hear how my bones crack, how my muscles contract and expand, and how my skin stretches and tightenes over my muscles when I move. I hear the digestive rumbling of my stomach and the movements of gasses through my guts. As I sit next to Flin and opposite Blan, I hear all that triple-fold.

Blan stares at Flin.

“That’s Flin,” I say.

“Hi, nice to meet you.”

Flin nods without a word. I’ve asked him not to say anything during my meeting with Blan. As usual, he takes what I tell him a bit too literally. Flin is seven feet tall and built like a tank. He has a two-foot long club dangling from a rivet-spiked belt. Firearms are forbidden on space stations.

“So, how are you doing, Jaiah?” Blan asks.

“Fine, thanks.”

“Is the room quiet enough?”

I can’t hear the roaches anymore. The restaurant has no background music, luckily. Though waiters bustle about in the corridors, glasses click, and people talk in the adjoining room, none of the noises hurt me.

“Yes, no problem.”

“How long has it been since we last met?” he asks.

“Exactly twenty-one years,” I answer, knowing he remembers that damn well, too.

“Jeez... time flies, doesn’t it?”

Amazing. Uncertainty trembles in his voice. He seems uncomfortable and intimidated by our meeting.

“It does. What are you doing here on this station, Blan?” I discard the possibility that he joined the military. He’s too fat and unconditioned for that.

“Oh, I’m a member of a society you probably haven’t heard of. It’s called the ‘Natural Life Society’ or ‘NLS’. We promote a non-technological lifestyle.”

“What does that mean?” I’ve never heard of this society.

“We oppose technology wherever we can and propagate and encourage a planet-bound life in a natural environment.”

“Just what you would find on a space station,” I say, and he smiles condescendingly. Ah, I know that smile. He had it as a child and scared the shit out of me with it.

“Indeed. I’m a missionary, Jaiah. I’m talking to people on space stations, trying to convert them.”

“Aha.”

Blan shifts his weight from one half of his ass to the other. “And you? You’re a trader?” he asks.

“I am.”

“Wow, I thought you’d retreat to the Hillyborne Mountains back home where it’s quiet.”

“They’re not quiet enough. Trading helps with my search. I’m looking for the quietest spot on the quietest planet in the universe. If your NLS finds it, let me know.”

“Oh, I will.” His condescending smile deepens.

Someone approaches our door and opens it after knocking. I’d flinch at the loud noise without earplugs and my hearing protection headphones. I never go anywhere without them. Sometimes the headphones are counterproductive; people tend to shout at me. They think I’m listening to music.

A waiter brings in two drinks and two plates of green salad.

“Ah, thanks,” Blan says. “I ordered lunch sets for us.” He turns to the waiter. “Could you bring another set? We’ve become three.”

“Of course,” the waiter says. He places the dishes onto the table much too loudly, but I refrain from wincing.

I don’t touch my glass or the salad after the waiter has left, Blan neither.

“Did you... fully recover after...” Blan trails off.

I stare at him until he looks away.

“I did,” I finally say. “After two years.”

I feel Flin’s worried glance on me. He doesn’t know what Blan has done. I’ve never told him or the rest of my crew.

“You know, I met your bender in the space bender bar and--”

“You did what?”

All my cool puffs away. Blan talked to Sina? What the hell for?

“Oh, we just talked. She’s really cute. I couldn’t believe it when she told me you’re her captain. I--”

“So you already know that I’m a trader. What’s this show about, Blan? What do you want from me? And what did you do in the space bender bar?”

“My job, trying to convert people. It felt so awkward talking to Sina, you know. She didn’t know who I was. You never told her, did you? I... meeting her made me realize that I’m really sorry, Jaiah. I am, believe me. I did a very silly and bad thing back then. And I’m glad to hear you recovered. I wanted to apologize to you for a damn long time, you know. I met an extraordinary woman when I moved to Brisham for my first job. She was blind, born without eyes, and yet she was the assistant director of the company I worked for. She made me realize how badly I had wronged you and--”

“Oh, I’m touched.”

Blan opens his mouth to speak again, but the waiter returns. I hear him long before he knocks. He brings in a salad and a drink for Flin.

I don’t believe one word Blan says. Normal people don’t go to space bender bars. Of course, it’s not forbidden to go there, but no one does. The benders usually stay to themselves. Sure, they bring a non-bender friend along sometimes, but that is rare. I have to talk to Sina as soon as possible to warn her about Blan.

After the waiter leaves, I speak up. “Blan, we can’t undo what happened. I’m happy you realized that what you did was wrong. But we haven’t met in twenty-one years. I won’t embrace you now, pat you on the back and forgive you. I was in the hospital for three months. I couldn’t stand because of vertigo. I lay in bed for another two months at home. I missed a school year. I frequently collapsed from vertigo attacks for a year after the incident. For two years, the noises in my head were so loud, people had to shout at me to be heard.

“I wanted to know why you asked to meet me, that was all. I appreciate that you’re apologizing, but I won’t become your best buddy now and... thinking about it, I don’t want to have lunch with you. Have a nice life, take care of yourself, and don’t hurt people anymore... and good-bye.”

I get up and Flin gets up with me.

Blan jumps to his feet. “Thanks for coming, Jaiah,” he says, but I don’t look back.

I have to get out of the room. I try to suppress the trembling of my fingers, my entire body. I want to jump over the table and hear the crunch of his larynx under my hands, in sweet revenge for those hours in the cellar and everything that he has put me through. And sure as hell, I don’t want him talking to Sina.

Out in the corridor, Flin places a hand onto my shoulder to steady me. “I know a nice diner here where we can have lunch,” he says.

“Sounds good.”

#

want to read more? Check out the "Ball of Silence" on Amazon 

or read it in electronic format for free on wattpad