Escape or Die!

Planet Gebb was doomed. He would be burnt to a cinder.Millions of humanoid Gebbians and countless other life forms were likewise doomed. Their life-granting star Atenn was dying but not a quiet, peaceful death. The Watchers of Atenn charted her inexorable death spiral ? increasingly violent pulsations separated by shrinking time intervals. Experts debated the timing of her demise. Experts debated its cause. No experts debated the harsh reality.Politicians and experts alike pondered...
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Planet Gebb was doomed. He would be burnt to a cinder.Millions of humanoid Gebbians and countless other life forms were likewise doomed. Their life-granting star Atenn was dying but not a quiet, peaceful death. The Watchers of Atenn charted her inexorable death spiral ? increasingly violent pulsations separated by shrinking time intervals. Experts debated the timing of her demise. Experts debated its cause. No experts debated the harsh reality.Politicians and experts alike pondered what to do. The choices were brutally few. Do nothing and almost certainly perish. Do something and perhaps survive. The stark choice was obvious, but sniffing the right path to follow was not.Escape or die!The Great Leader and his lifelong friend the Vizier battled in their own ways to save Gebbian civilization. Each Great Leader handpicked the Vizier. On rare occasions the Vizier officially ascended to Great Leader. Most Gebbians believed those days were long past. But the Great Leaders remembered. And so did the Viziers.The line of Great Leaders was tainted and failing. It began in the dim histories of Gebb as an assortment of Princes of various petty tribes. Their powers ebbed and flowed along with those of their Wizards who served them. Great Leaders rose to prominence with the often overt assistance of their Wizards-cum-Viziers. The line of Viziers was dwindling. It extended from the present day back before the time of Unification. Then they were called Wizards due to those mystical artifacts they wielded during wartime. They served their Princes well and faithfully, more faithfully than their Princes treated them.The current Vizier worried only a few might escape Gebb. He would fight Atenn. He might need to fight his old friend too. Perhaps the family illness was befalling the Great Leader now. If so, the Great Leader must be dealt with.The Great Leader did suffer from the family illness. The noise in his ears was growing progressively louder. He almost heard words and thought unseen people were speaking. He covered his ears to silence the unhinging sounds.