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WHERE WORLDS COLLIDE
A Dark Science Fiction Anthology
by
Rob Shelsky
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
Rob Shelsky on Smashwords
Smashwords ISBN: 978-1-4523-6008-9
Where Worlds Collide
A Dark Science Fiction Anthology
Copyright © 2010 by Rob Shelsky
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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There is one person I’d especially like to thank, because I owe him so much.
George Kempland, I wish to acknowledge you for your loyalty, dedication, mountains of help, and always just being there for me. Again, thank you, so very much.
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WHERE WORLDS COLLIDE
A Dark Science Fiction Anthology
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Shiva, Mama Doc, And The Voodoo Computer
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The silvered airship shimmered, mirage-like, on the horizon. It seemed an insubstantial yet ominous portent of the sultry air. The ocean surface below it looked flat, greasy. Waters shifted with near-lifeless motion. Even the oily waves that broke upon the shore were more ripples than combers. Of millemurro, the pelican, there was no sign. The day was too hot for anything to want to fly. Not even a pipipa, a single sandpiper, stalked the water’s lukewarm edge.
The two sat side-by-side in the sparse shade of a dusty grove of gum trees. They lurked there well back from the beach, beyond reach of the sun’s unrelenting rays. Their dark eyes, in twin anxious stares, tracked the craft’s deliberate approach.
“I thought they always traveled in groups for safety.” Pangalia’s tone was an uneasy one.
Akuna twitched shoulders, a cursory shrug. “They usually do. I’m as surprised as you to see a lone ship.” He squinted at the thing, as if intent on divining some sinister motivation from its progress.
“And the Golden Ones gave you no reason at all for this surprise visit?”
Akuna turned to face his son, his eyes already narrowed in the universal look of parental exasperation. “I’ve already told you, their signaling device just said to meet them here.”
“So summoned, we obey.” Pangalia’s voice echoed the acrid accusations of countless generations of rebellious youth.
“Haven’t we always? But they only come rarely now, and then mostly just to help.”
“What they see as help.” Pangalia’s dusky features contorted in a sneer, “Always acting so arrogant.”
Akuna sighed and then stood. He beat his hands against his loincloth, trying to remove excess dust. Without looking at his son, he said, “You project your personal feelings onto the world around you, as if that were reality. It isn’t, Pangalia.”
His son also stood. Already, he was almost as tall as his father was. He, too, slapped with a flat hand at the dirt covering his rear. It billowed in dry clouds around him, but then settled once more onto his chocolate skin, covering bare chest, arms, and legs in a fine layer of grey grit.
“You never change,” Pangalia said, after giving up the effort of trying to clean himself. “If I say anything against them, you won’t hear me.”
“Just as you aren’t hearing me now?”
“You’ve nothing to say I haven’t heard a thousand times before.” Pangalia strode toward the water, his movements as rigid with anger as his words had sounded. He left his father, now a solitary figure, standing in the shade.
Akuna watched him go. His son’s naked feet left a trail of deep impressions in the baking sand behind him, looking like so many exclamation points punctuating the boy’s desire to flee. Was it always this way, Akuna wondered? Were sons always so intent upon usurping their fathers? Rivalry instead of cooperation seemed such a stupid biological necessity. He wondered if the Golden Ones had done away with it in themselves. Akuna knew they had the capability.
He sighed again. The sound of it escaped his lips like steam hissing from a billycan of boiling water. Then he followed, literally, in his son’s footsteps, heading toward the sea’s liquid border, toward an inevitable confrontation with which he’d become so familiar over the last years.
Pangalia stood where the tepid water lapped the beach. He was a lean study in male adolescence, a muscular, edgy challenge to his father’s time and dominion. With his right hand raised as a shield against the sun’s white brilliance, he gazed out at the airship. He watched it with a visible expression of concern.
“I’m sorry.” Akuna tried to sound contrite. “It’s just that these constant arguments seem so unnecessary.”
Pangalia dropped his hand to his side and turned to face him. His youthful expression was now stony. “You see,” he said, “We don’t even agree on that. We…,” he hesitated, as if searching for the right words. “We just don’t have the same viewpoint of the world.”
“Because I see things as they are?”
Pangalia shook his head, an impatient gesture. His dark nimbus of hair shivered. He jerked a thumb, indicated the gleaming craft. “Because you see us as just primitive aborigines, but view them as being our superiors.”
“Face it, Pangalia. They’ve been gengineered to be just that.”
“So we must live by their command?”
Akuna nodded. “And their sufferance, or more hopefully, even their indifference. We’ve no choice. Weaker peoples never do.”
“We normal humans count for nothing? Pangalia’s brown eyes flared, as if fired with a suppressed resentment.
“We count. That’s why I came back. You know that.”
“I know you always take their side.”
It was Akuna’s turn to shake his head. “Not by choice, Pangalia, believe me.”
They fell silent, both seemingly incapable of resolving their longstanding differences, of bridging the chasm that divided their two generations. The airship was close now. The great blimp of polished metal, like some menacing torpedo of old, drifted into shore some distance up the beach from them. A manifestation that seemed to portend dark things, an ill-omened eclipse, it blotted out the sun, shading them in a pregnant relief. Akuna saw countless rows of windows interrupting its streamlining and the open-air observation gallery that ran around the middle of the thing. Yet, no friendly-waving figures leaned against the railings. No smiling faces peered from out of those windows. Where were they all hiding?
A metal stairway unfolded and descended to the beach. It looked flimsy. Akuna knew better. They would never trust their immortal selves to anything that wasn’t solid, utterly predictable, and safe.
“There’s one of them.” Pangalia pointed.
Akuna looked. Sure enough, someone had emerged from the interior of the vast ship, stepping through a just-opened hatchway above the stairs. A lone figure, he wore a gilded, one-piece suit with matching boots. The two watched as he carefully descended the steps. At least, Akuna assumed it was a he. Since both sexes had no hair anywhere on their bodies and wore the same unisex clothing, it was often hard to tell, especially at any distance.
“Come.” He touched Pangalia lightly on one elbow. “Let’s meet him halfway.”
They walked the shoreline toward the newcomer. Pangalia remained quiet, whether out of resentment, fear at the encounter to come, or just in awe of the sheer size of the vessel, Akuna didn’t know. What he did know was that the boy had never seen so large a craft before. Then, neither had he. Akuna didn’t even know what kept it floating, except that it wasn’t helium, hydrogen, or hot air. They would never place their trust in such archaic and flimsy technologies.
Palm held up before him in greeting, the Golden One strode toward them. He made for a tall and commanding figure. “Akuna,” he called in a deep voice. It was melodic, but masculine. As they came together, he added, “Your journey wasn’t a long one, I hope?” Impassive gold eyes regarded them.
Akuna nodded a hello. “No,” he said, “We came from our adlinga, our place of hunting. It’s near here. But the trip was hot. You picked a bad time of the year for this.”
The Golden One chuckled before saying, “I’m sure that when it comes to meeting with us, your people feel there’s no actual good time. No,” he added, raising a hand to forestall Akuna from voicing any polite denial, “We know how you feel. And we sympathize. Who is this with you?” His large eyes, so like enormous gold coins, now focused on the boy.
“Pangalia.”
“I’m Severin.” He smiled, but made no move to take Pangalia’s, or even Akuna’s hand.
Too much risk of contamination, Akuna thought. Then a new notion struck him. “Are you by any chance the same Severin that I met many years ago during my medical courses in Florence?”
Severin nodded. “The same; you didn’t recognize me?”
Akuna shook his head. “No, sorry, but it’s been so long.”
“And we all look so much alike to you, right?” Severin smiled again, revealing perfect, porcelain-white teeth. “But Pangalia’s name,” he added, “it means eldest son in your ancestral language. Is he yours then?”
Akuna nodded.
Severin frowned. It was an odd-looking expression without eyebrows. “That…complicates things,” he finished.
Like the raucous cries of the bullai bullai, the green parrot, alarms screeched in Akuna’s mind. He shifted position, instinctively moving closer to his son. He placed a protective hand on Pangalia’s shoulder in a quiet caveat of caution. Akuna felt his son’s muscles stiffen beneath his touch.
“Unfortunate? How?” Akuna strove for a mild tone.
Severin looked uncomfortable as he said, “My people are leaving Earth. There’s just too much danger here from natural occurrences like earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, and such. We’ll do better in free space.”
“How will you live?” Akuna maintained a level voice, even though this news enthralled him. He sensed a similar reaction from his son, an eagerness that Pangalia seemed to telegraph through the very air. The Golden Ones were leaving, finally! Rumors of this possibility had circulated for lengthy years among the peoples. Still, nobody had taken them too seriously.
Severin waved one hand, a blithe gesture. “We intend to live inside asteroids, hollow them out as habitats with nanotech. We’ll mine the Oort Cloud for resources. Our numbers are not great, so neither are our needs.”
That confirmed another rumor. Their population was small. So, giving up Australia and the Americas hadn’t been just out of altruism for the indigenous and the non-immortal peoples still living there. The Golden Ones no longer required the space.
Pangalia broke his long silence by saying, “If you’re just here to say goodbye, then I say good riddance to you all!” He practically spat the last words.
“Pangalia!” Akuna exclaimed.
“It’s all right.” So like a cat, Severin blinked hooded lids over his strange eyes. “I understand his feelings. But you must understand we wish you no harm.”
“Then just why are you here?” Akuna asked, trying to force the issue out into the open.
Severin’s forehead wrinkled, denoting another frown. “This isn’t pleasant for me,” he said. “But since you’re the chosen speaker for your people, I must inform you that all of your young must come with us. Our government feels it would be unfair to leave them behind.”
“What?” Akuna knew his expression must portray stunned amazement, didn’t care. “You’re taking our children?”
“No!” It was more an expletive than exclamation. Pangalia shrugged off his father’s hand. He knotted his fists, as if readying for attack. “I won’t go. None of us will. You can’t make us!”
Akuna again put a restraining hand on Pangalia’s shoulder. “Be quiet,” he ordered him. “You,” he demanded of Severin, “What’s the meaning of this?”
The other man raised his shoulders in an apologetic shrug. “It’s my government’s will. They’ve decided we can’t deny your children our civilization, its benefits. Of course, anyone is free to come with them.”
“Will they ever come back?” Akuna’s look, as his tone, was a pleading one.
Severin gave a gentle shake of his head. “I don’t think so, not for some time anyway, because we won’t be coming back.”
“This is kidnapping!” Pangalia shouted.
Akuna knew his son tottered on the verge of physical violence. “Is there no one we can appeal this issue to?” he asked in an effort to avoid any such angry outburst.
“I’m afraid not, Akuna. We leave soon.”
“You deliberately waited until the last minute just so there wouldn’t be time for anyone to hear our case?” Akuna’s words dripped with a distilled resentment, a decanted animosity.
“No. We just thought that making it quicker would make it easier.”
“For whom?” Akuna’s voice rose in direct proportion to his growing rage, “you, or us?”
“No!” Pangalia was off and running. His long legs ate up the distance down the beach, sand spraying out behind him as his bare toes dug into it. “I won’t go!” he yelled.
“It won’t make any difference, you know.” Severin’s voice held a note of calm apology as he watched the boy’s flight. “We can find you wherever you are.”
“Why?” Akuna tore his eyes away from Pangalia’s fleeing form, fixed them upon Severin. “What’s the real reason behind all of this?”
Severin breathed a long sigh before saying, “Try to comprehend. We’ve had enough of death, of dying. We will suffer it no more.”
“You exaggerate! You haven’t conquered death, only delayed it.”
“Delayed? Well, perhaps you’re right, Akuna, but for so long a time as to make your objection pointless. Still, embrace your own mortality if you wish, but you won’t make your children embrace it with you. We’ll see to that.”
“And my son, won’t you please leave him?” Akuna was begging now.
“No.” The single word, so solemnly spoken, tolled as a death knell. “All children must come with us.”
“You steal our guruwari, our seed power for the future.”
Severin turned, began walking back toward his ship. “It doesn’t have to be that way, Akuna,” he called over his shoulder. “You could come, too.”
Akuna was tempted to run after him, use his knife to slit the arrogant bastard’s throat, to see if Severin’s blood would really gush scarlet like any other man’s, but he knew it wouldn’t change anything. Sighing, he turned and started after his son. Akuna trotted in the firmer sand along the edge of the water, leaving the alien-like Severin and his equally alien vessel behind him.
Odd, Akuna thought as he ran. Now Pangalia and I see things much the same way, but maybe, too late….
Pangalia and Akuna ran for days through the parched bush country. They had only the menthol smell of Eucalyptus, the searing sun, baked blue sky, and thirsty landscape for company. Finally, exhausted, they had taken refuge in a small cave behind a narrow waterfall. The little cascade, hidden deep in a shadowed canyon, was not much more than a seasonal cataract.
Still, it was enough. Initially, their sanctuary had been little more than a hollow carved out of sandstone by the flowing curtain of water in front of it, but they had extended it. They’d reinforced the space with stones and clay mortar. It wouldn’t last long, but all they needed was a temporary asylum until the Golden Ones departed for good. Akuna desperately hoped the water and rock would act as a shield against infrared detectors.
It didn’t.
“Father!” Pangalia shouted.
They’d been sleeping, curled up together, trying to husband their strength for lack of food. Akuna awoke groggy, disoriented, not certain what was happening.
“They’re coming,” Pangalia shouted. He jumped to his feet.
He was wrong. They were already there. Two invaders now stood before them, appearing like twin sentries guarding the gates to some strange civilization. They held what looked like flashlights. One aimed his at Pangalia.
“No!” Akuna shouted, leaping up. “Don’t!” He launched himself at the one pointing the device.
“Father, wait --” Pangalia yelled. It was too late.
The Golden One swiveled with astonishing swiftness. He depressed a button on the tube he clutched. There was no light, no flash, nothing, but suddenly, Akuna felt paralyzed. He was unable to move a muscle. Still, his momentum carried him. The Golden Ones parted to avoid any collision with him, protecting their sacred selves.
The frozen Akuna toppled past them, through the water curtain, as if he were now a thing of stone. The spray blurred his vision for a moment, for he couldn’t close his eyes. Nevertheless, he managed distorted glimpses of the rocks below. They gleamed up at him, a slick wet pile, a blood red jumble, as he tumbled toward them.
At least, he thought in the instant before impact, there won’t be any pain.
Later, Akuna felt the Ancestor Spirits must have him, for he knew he couldn’t have survived the fall. He must be dead, now just a part of the dreaming of this place. Yet, he thought thoughts, as if still alive. Would he now meet with Baiame, the All-Father?
“No, no,” a kangaroo rat said. It perched on Akuna’s chest, staring down at him with beady eyes of blackest obsidian. “You aren’t deserving of such a wonder. You’ve failed your people.”
I’ve failed my people,” Akuna thought, agreeing with the precocious kangaroo rat. For some reason, he wasn’t in the least surprised it talked.
“And your son,” said one of the Mouyi, a white cockatoo. Its eyes glared, accusing him. It hovered for a moment in the air above the kangaroo rat, as if about to pounce upon it. However, the bird just held its position, beating soundless wings. Then it shot off out of sight, a speck disappearing into the purple mists that surrounded the prone Akuna.
“The nanobots are repairing the spinal cord,” a distant voice said. “He won’t die.”
“He won’t die,” the kangaroo rat repeated, but now it sounded more like Pangalia. “Yowee, Spirit of Death, great monster of the tree trunk, doesn’t want you.” Then the rat disappeared. The fog at last closed in over Akuna.
When he awoke, it was to see Severin bending over him, his face close, looking like some blurred full moon. Akuna glanced from side to side. He lay on a bed in a hospital-like cubicle, everything white and sterile. A blanket covered him.
“Good to have you back with us. It was a near thing,” Severin said. “They didn’t stop you in time from falling, but we rushed you here to the ship as quickly as possible. Do you feel any pain?”
Akuna shook his head.
“Good. The nanobots are working well then. One never knows with older people. They bond better with the young.”
“Pangalia?” Akuna whispered the question through dry lips.
Amber glints of regret sparked in Severin’s eyes. “Gone, Akuna,” he said. “All the children are gone now. You’ve been out a long while. You were even hallucinating. Our ship took them. We only came back to drop you off. Or will you change your mind and stay with us, be with your son? Many others have chosen that.”
Akuna twisted his head sideways, looked away from Severin. He felt one silver tear, Pierrot-like, slide from the corner of his left eye, as he said, “He wouldn’t want me to. He’d be shamed. I can’t.”
“Be that as you will, but there is one thing.”
Akuna turned back to face Severin. “What?”
“The nanos are an integral part of you now. Nobody can remove them. That means that you won’t age, won’t get sick.”
“So be it,” Akuna murmured. He turned his head away again. “The kangaroo rat was right. Yowee won’t have me now. You child stealers have seen to that.”
It was long decades later when Akuna again met with Pangalia. He’d come to Earth with several others. The boy was a man now, and looked exactly like all the other Golden Ones. He even behaved as they did, having adopted their mannerisms, ones that as a boy he’d derided as being so superior, so overly refined and pseudo godlike.
“How are you really, Father?” Pangalia asked. They were strolling along the same beach they’d once walked so long ago on that critical day. Until now, they had spoken of only superficial matters, mundane things. They acted more like two mere acquaintances in a chance meeting after a long absence, rather than as father and son. “Are your nanobots holding up?”
Akuna shrugged. He felt embarrassed with his calloused bare feet, dressed as he was in only a ragged loincloth, while his own son now sported the refinement of his new people. He’d barely recognized Pangalia upon his arrival, so changed was he, having lost all hair, but gaining a deep yellow tan and those gilded eyes.
“The things won’t go away,” Akuna told him. “What’s more, I’ve passed them on through my new wife, Adina, to our children. So have many others, apparently. The nanos seem to infect our whole population. I suspect it was what Severin and the others planned all along.”
Pangalia nodded his shining head. Gold eyes, once so chocolate brown, reflected affection for his father. “Yes, for their greater good,” he said. “They took us children to entice most of you to join them. Those few who stayed here were also deliberately infected with the basic nanos, but not the extras, the ones that alter features.” They want no one to die. Individual choice was not meant to be a factor.”
“They forced you to stay with them?” Akuna asked.
Pangalia shook his head. “Not really. After a while, virtually all of us chose it of our own accord. We realized what we’d been missing. Anyway, now you are like us.”
“In some respects, but we shall follow our own path, a different one,” Akuna stopped in his leisurely walk, turned to his son. “Are you happy with the path you’ve taken? Is it truly your own choice…now?”
Pangalia also halted. Turning to his father, he gave another, but slower nod. “Not at first though,” he admitted. “You were right about how I viewed things back then, twisting reality with my own perspectives. Now, I’m happy with what I am, with the people to whom I now belong. I’ve changed a lot, I guess. Time does that.”
Akuna nodded. “Yes,” he said softly. “Time does, for all of us. You’ll be going back to them?”
“Yes. And you’ll be staying?”
“Oh, yes. My life is here. I’ve tried to make it as I imagined you’d wanted me to, trying to live the life I’d thought they’d stolen from you. Now, I’ve made it my own.”
“Until your Dreamtime returns,” Pangalia said, and then added in a hesitant voice, “…Dad?”
Akuna reached up with one hand, touched his son’s jaw in a tentative gesture of gentlest love. “And yours, son,” he said. “We’re taking different roads, surely, and perhaps with your people’s way lying amongst the stars. Still, it is to the same destination, I think.”
“To the legendary time before time?”
Akuna nodded. “Or now the time after. They’re probably the same place. The universe is like that, running in cycles. There is one thing, though,” he added and then paused, feeling suddenly vulnerable, uncertain.
“Yes?” Pangalia prompted. “What is it?”
“I miss the thought of death, our old enemy, Yowee. He may have been a monster, but he did take away the responsibility of eternally having to make one’s own decisions, living forever with one’s mistakes. He did allow for an ending, a final rest from it all. You know, I do miss that…sometimes.”
Pangalia gave Akuna a touch on the arm, an affectionate reminder to continue their walk. Then, in a matter-of-fact tone, he said, “We all do, Father. Believe me, at times, we all do.”
Then together, they strolled on, treading the golden sands of an endless beach, their parallel lines of footprints stretching away behind them. Although those would never meet, finally, and after so very long a time, the father and son had.
# # #
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With treads clanking a rhythmic beat, motors clattering noisy syncopation, our caravan snaked away from Colony Aleph. It was near midday. This was later then we’d hoped, but one of the vehicles had last-minute problems. Major ones, if the mechanics teeming over its lumpy shape, like maggots writhing on carrion, were any indication.
We milled about, anxious to leave. Eventually, we did. I can still picture the somber expressions of parting friends, the gentle last looks from loved ones left behind. I wish now I’d made more of an effort to memorize those faces.
Our expedition consisted of seventeen vehicles. One of two tankars led with its polycrystal guns trained forward. The other lumbered along behind us all, a behemoth guarding our rear, almost lost in a gritty cloud of churning ochre. It made a fitting fantail for our mechanical Quetzalcoatl, our dust-feathered serpent caravan. Those tankars had real firepower. Experience being a bitter but persistent teacher, we knew we’d need it on our hunt for a new home.
Colony Aleph wasn’t in a good place. A desperate, too-hurried initial survey had been the cause of that. As a result, the dome was a pus-yellow blister, an ugly eruption protruding much too exposed atop Long Slope. At the bottom of that incline was level desert. This was during daytime on Viejo. Migratory waters would return in the arctic evening, flooding the area with a darkling, if transitory sea.
No plants obstructed our progress. There was just rippled hardpan, salt-laden, baked by Viejo’s long morning of searing heat. The desert glaze cracked like rifle shots under the passing weight of our heavy vehicles, but did not give way. We encountered no swarms. So on the first leg of our journey, we made good time.
“Bored yet, Dawnee?” Meetchum, lean and naked except for thin white briefs, asked this. He flashed whitest teeth at me as he slid out of the tiny bathroom.
“Oh, Meetch, how could I be bored with you along?” I joked, as I squeezed past him to take my turn in the cubicle. “When you have equipment like that?” I arched one suggestive eyebrow as I glanced down at his crotch. Then I shut the door on his suddenly red face.
Later, I joined the others in the armo’s main cabin. Sonja drove. She liked doing it. Supremacy only knows why, because armos practically drove themselves, and like most drivers, I had a hard time just staying awake. Not Sonja, though.
Kellor and Meetchum were there. Altogether, we made up the geological survey crew for our expedition. Meetch, as the rest of us, was now silver clad in radiation armor. One didn’t go near windows, even radiation-suppressing ones, without such. Sterility, cancers, and death were not desirable things if a small colony wanted to grow.
“What’s the plan for today?” My question was just for conversation.
Sonja, her back to me, lifted padded shoulders in an elaborate shrug. “Same old, same old,” she said.
“No swarms sighted?”
“Nope. Why, you itching for some?”
I shook my head. “It isn’t that,” I said, knowing I sounded irritated. I slid into a seat in the third row, the one farthest from the windshield. I may be stereotypically blonde and blue-eyed, but I’m not stupid. I wasn’t risking my eggs.
“I’m just wondering what they live off. If we could destroy their food supply then they’d go, too.”
“Genocide, Dawnee?” Meetchum managed an offended look. “We’d be as bad as the Sinaquan.”
“Slash the Sinaquan. It isn’t genocide if a species isn’t sentient, Meetch.”
“I think the jury’s still out on that.” Kellor was older than Meetchum. Some found him attractive in a pale Nordic way. I found him platinum and pedestrian, and wished he hadn’t come on this expedition. I didn’t realize then the implications of such a childish desire.
“You know what passes for a brain in them is too small,” I argued.
“Still, they know enough to swarm.” Sonja was a year older than I was. She often sided with Kellor. Natural allies against us younger ones, I suppose.
“Instinct,” I countered. “They’re primitive, like cockroaches.”
“But far more deadly.”
Meetchum was right. Swarmers were about the size of the average dog, but there any resemblance ended. These things were spherical with twelve insect-like legs. They spun around on them like whirling dervishes and were dangerously fast.
“Too bad they’re too stupid to know we’re inedible,” Kellor said.
“Chopping us to bits and then dousing us with acid isn’t exactly eating us.”
“Meetch has a point.” I’d always found the swarms’ savage assaults strange, so unprovoked, at least from a human viewpoint. Then, I also felt the same way about the alien Sinaquan. “Why do they attack us if they don’t eat us?”
“Maybe we need to capture some live specimens to figure that out.”
I’m sure Kellor was just joking. Nobody in his or her right mind would willingly go near a live swarmer. They were vicious, unrelenting until killed.
We fell silent then, having already discussed every topic several times over the day before. There wasn’t much else to say or see. Around us were just endless expanses of dun-colored desert. Our vehicle treads ground out parallel lines. They stretched away and seemed to merge together far behind us. Overhead flared a scorching white sun, which our air conditioner fought with a wheezing abandon.
That was all, except of course, for Prometheus. Viejo had one face always turned toward it, so the gas giant loomed there ahead of us on that so distant and strange horizon. A purple-banded Cerberus, it guarded the remote gateway to undiscovered country, seeming to stare with baleful and evil intent down upon us trespassers.
“Think we’ll find a new site for the colony in time?” I asked this partly to break the oppressive silence we were enduring, but also out of anxiety. We had two weeks of daylight left. Then would come four weeks of glacial night with the migratory seas blocking our return until Viejo’s next morning and searise.
“Well, the geology looks okay,” Meetchum said. “With the torrential rains the Spine Range gets, there should be caverns formed.”
“Our problem is finding them.” Sonja had a nimbus of red hair and green eyes. They gleamed like polished jade. But contrary to the fiery nature such people were supposed to possess, she was a gloomy sort. It was just one more thing she and Kellor had in common, I felt.
“We’ll find it.” I tried to sound confident.
“I hope so.” Sonja’s voice echoed forlorn doubt. “I don’t like being away from the colony. I feel exposed, vulnerable.”
“It’s for their sake we’re doing this,” Meetchum reminded her.
Earth sent out colonies like ours, targeting marginal worlds for settlement, hopefully ones too pathetic for the invading Sinaquan to bother noticing. Some of humanity might find safety in such places, if Earth fell to them. This seemed a weak hope to me. In my short experience, the Sinaquan didn’t seem to overlook anything, marginal, pathetic, or otherwise.
The flash came six hours later. We faced away from the source, but the mountain range on the horizon reflected it to us, a blinding blue-whiteness. An explosion of noise, then the shock wave followed an instant later. It lifted the armos like playthings, flinging them into the air. Not prepared for it, we tumbled about the cabin, banging against objects, and each other. Sonja shrieked at the top of her lungs. I’m ashamed to say that I did, too.
We’d no sooner settled then a tsunami of dust struck. The towering wave engulfed us. Everything outside went black, hidden behind that roiling curtain of thick cloud. Buried alive, it was a real fear for me. The wind screeched as a wounded thing outside. There was a harsh rasping coming through the hull, as if some giant burnished its exterior with coarse sandpaper. The armo shuddered, enduring the battering.
Abruptly, all became still. Someone moaned. I lay facedown on the floor where I’d fallen. I tasted copper and salt, realized the left side of my lip was bleeding. My right knee felt bruised where it had slammed against something hard. It throbbed with electric pain, but other than that and being shaken up, I seemed unhurt.
I stirred and sat up, glanced about the cabin. The windshield showed only the departing dust storm. Sonja lay strewn across the driver’s seat, a discarded Raggedy Ann doll, sobbing. Meetchum sat sprawled on the floor, a dazed expression on his face. Kellor was the one moaning. Crunched into a pile behind the back row of seats, he looked to be conscious, but his left arm was at an odd angle.
“What the hell was that?” I climbed to my feet. Adrenaline-induced shakes made me unsteady. I gripped the back of a nearby chair for support.
“I’ve no idea.” Meetchum also stood, looking wobbly and pale, his dark eyes wide with shock, “An asteroid or meteor strike?”
“Unlikely. Prometheus sucks those up like a vacuum cleaner. Look, can you get the medical kit and see to Kellor? I think his arm’s broken.”
“Sure, but are you okay?” he asked, as he stumbled toward the med compartment.
“Just a couple of cuts and bruises, I think -- nothing major.”
I focused on Sonja. “Are you hurt? Stop crying,” I said when she just kept sniveling and wouldn’t answer me.
“Sonja, I asked if you’re all right.” She could be so exasperating. She kept blubbering, but she nodded her head. That was enough for me. I abandoned her and went to aid Meetchum.
Outside, the dust slowly cleared. One by one, the other vehicles reported in; our communicator crackled to life with their occupants’ frayed voices. Other than minor injuries to their crews and some small damage to equipment, all seemed well, which was a miracle. Kellor had suffered the severest injury.
One armo was on its side and we knew what this meant. We’d all have to leave the safety of our vehicles to help right it. As bad as that was, the bigger concern for me was discovering the cause of this catastrophe. Something huge had happened. An awful suspicion mushroomed within me. I prayed I was wrong about it.
Several people stationed themselves around the perimeter of our caravan, watching for swarms, while the rest of us converged on the overturned armo. Painted with dust, it looked like a huge drab beetle, a helpless one. One of the tankars trundled up and with us aiding it, managed to shove the armo upright.
We didn’t linger outside longer than necessary. We were literally wading through the lethal radiation belt that surrounded Prometheus and engulfed poor Viejo. Named in Spanish, it meant “old man,” because Viejo was an ancient planet. It was going the way of Mars. Already with a failing ecosphere, Viejo’s atmosphere and seas would evaporate, blown away by its star’s solar winds. We clambered back into our armo and waited for word from our expedition commander, Amber Solv, as to what to do next. She rode in the leading tankar.
“Listen up, everyone,” she said at last. Amber had a croaky sort of voice, especially so over the com, but right then it felt reassuring to hear it.
“We’ve got a major disaster on our hands.”
Then a long hesitation, too long, I felt. Our tension mounted. Meetchum shot me a worried look. I twitched my shoulders in a tiny shrug, but didn’t speak. What could I say?
“We’ve managed,” Amber said next, “to pinpoint the location of the explosion using telemetry from several vehicles. Look, there’s no easy way to say this, folks. Aleph Colony took a direct hit. It was an antimatter missile. I’m afraid they’re gone.”
Stunned silence reigned. We were a frozen tableau, made so by her pronouncement. My secret dread was now bleakest reality; the Sinaquan had found us. Even placing our colony on this wretched planet hadn’t been enough. All I could think of then was my mother, that now so final hug we’d had. She was lost to me forever. Then Sonja started whimpering. I couldn’t take it. I whirled on her.
“Shut up, you stupid cow!” I shouted.
“Back off, Dawnee.” Meetchum looked miserable as he said this. “It isn’t easy for her.”
“Do you think it is for me? I’ve lost my…my mother for Supremacy’s sake!”
He lowered his head. “It isn’t for any of us,” he said. Pierrot-like, a single escaped tear, a glistening streak of quicksilver, slid down one smooth cheek.
It struck me like a physical blow then, the extent of his loss. I’d lost my mother, but the Sinaquan had vaporized his entire family, parents, two brothers, and a baby sister. I felt horrible then, for him, myself, for all of us.
Slumping into the nearest seat, I buried my face in my hands. The sounds of someone weeping reached me. A long moment passed before I realized I was the one doing the crying. Only much later did I remember Kellor. Cocooned by painkillers, he didn’t know. Somebody would have to tell him. I hoped I wouldn’t have to be the one.
“Slash them,” Meetchum swore, “to hell with all of them.”
“I hate the damned Sinaquan.” I ground this through gritted teeth. “I wish them dead, every last one of them. Yeah, Meetch, I’m talking genocide and I don’t give a damn!”
“It isn’t the Sinaquan I’m talking about.”
Puzzled, I raised my face to stare at his. “Who then?”
“The people in charge back on Earth. That’s who.”
“But why? They didn’t do anything?”
“Didn’t they?” His words dripped bitterness. “Who rushed us out to this miserable place? Who sited the colony where the Sinaquan could spot it so easily? Dawnee, it sat out there like a huge pimple on that slope, plain for anyone from space to see.”
I shook my head. “You’re upset, Meetchum. You can’t blame our people. They made a mistake. That’s all. They’re under pressure to get a lot of colonies started.”
He gave a disgusted-sounding snort and then said, “How naive can you be? This war’s been going on for years. We’ve still been colonizing all that time. Sure, I’ll grant you they’re trying to save humanity, but they’re doing something else, too.”
“Oh? And just what would that be, Meetchum? I mean, since you’re such a sudden expert on it all.”
“We’re decoys.”
I felt my mouth fall open. “What?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”
“Look, the Sinaquan want all humans gone, right? How better to slow them down then to seed small colonies all over the galaxy? It stalls the Sinaquan. They have to seek us out, destroy us. It’s an old tactic, Dawnee. Harass your enemies. Use minimal assets to force them to divert major resources to other areas while you build up your own reserves.”
“He may have something.” Sonja’s expression was timid.
“Oh, and what would you know about it?”
She recoiled before my glare, but said, “Well, I know the Solar System has a surplus of people. It’s the one thing it has that’s expendable.”
“Cannon fodder,” Meetchum said, nodding his head in agreement. “That’s all we are. Small colonies are cheaper than losing entire fleets in major battles. We buy time for them.”
Our communicator sputtered to life then, announcing there would be an over-the-com memorial. It was a lucky interruption, because I felt acrid fury, emotional bile, mounting in my throat. Right then I hated those two. Funny thing is I didn’t even know why.
The service was brief. Then Amber ordered us moving again. This was out of necessity. We were in uncertain circumstances. With no home left to return to, we had to find another one fast. I no longer cared. I wasn’t quite eighteen standard years old, on a caravan to nowhere, and the only thing I could feel was rage, rage at everybody.
Exhausting hours dragged by as we labored across desolation and climbed into the barren foothills of Spine Range. We’d named it that, because it was like the backbone of this world, having the tallest mountains. Plants appeared as we trundled upward. Typical Viejo varieties, they all looked similar, being squat, sprawling, and a dark brown. They were so well rooted I don’t think anything could rip them from the ground. Ugly things they were. Then, I thought Viejo an ugly world.
A swarm struck! They raced down the hillside ahead of us, a seething black carpet of spreading devastation, engulfing the landscape. Our front tankar swiveled and fired its particle guns. It raked a sizzling swath of annihilation through the advancing horde. We circled the armos as fast as we could and lowered the shields over the windows; waiting and praying the tankars would do their jobs.
If they didn’t, we were in trouble. The swarmers could penetrate armor, if given the time. The creatures’ spindly legs ended in cloven hooves that acted more like powerful pincers. These could slice through sheet metal. That’s why our vehicles were so thickly plated, well that and because of Prometheus’ radiation. Swarmers’ upper bodies had bulging heads with ghastly-looking mandibles. These were just below a ring of twelve compound eyes that stared blankly out in every direction. Individually, swarmers were horror personified. As swarms, they were unthinkable nightmares.
Over an hour later, we received word that they’d fried the last of the swarm. The things had scrabbled over our vehicle for all that time, clanging, and banging away against the metal, trying to gain entry. I’d endured it in sullen silence while Sonja, as usual, whimpered the whole time. Meetchum had stalked off to the sleeping quarters, supposedly to check on Kellor, but he hadn’t come back. Well, who needed him anyway?
We reformed our line and got underway. Our days passed, although Viejo’s progressed more slowly. Still, the sun was westering. Now we only went outside for the shortest of intervals, only when necessary. Even with protective suits, the heat was a killer. Our vehicles climbed the steep slopes of austere hills, crept into rock-strewn ravines, and then scaled sterile peaks. We were getting ever higher. The native plants thinned and then vanished altogether. With the reduced atmosphere at that altitude, they probably couldn’t survive under such harsh conditions.
The good news was Kellor’s arm improved. The bad news was Meetchum was a zombie. Oh, he carried out his duties. He was no shirker. But grieving, he wouldn’t talk, never smiled, and so I couldn’t turn to him for support. In reaction, I retreated inside my own defensive barrier, performing my tasks with a brooding but angry precision. Sonja acted almost as if nothing had happened, as if the colony was somehow still back there. It was denial, I assume. Then, we each cope with loss in our own way.
Twice more we suffered swarm infestations and beat them, but we all knew doing this drained our precious supply of fuel rods. So, even though we won the battles, we could lose the war for survival. At the end of one shift, Amber thought we might have gained enough altitude to send and receive interstellar messages, at least locally. We were all fretful for news. And I’m sure everyone hoped Amber would relay a colony withdrawal plea. Earth might do it.
We were hopeful while we waited for them to set up the directional dishes. We were optimistic while they calibrated their communications equipment and Amber flashed the transmissions. Our burning expectations faded to ashes when hours went by without any reply.
“Nothing,” she finally told us over the com. Her voice echoed with fatigue and defeat.
“There’s no chatter at all, no ships communicating, no other nearby colonies talking -- nothing. I think the war’s passed us by, people. I’m afraid any other colonies out here may have gone the way of Aleph. It looks like we’re on our own.”
I slammed a fist onto the arm of my chair. “Damned war!” I screamed. “Damned, rotten, miserable war!”
Meetchum stood near me. He placed a calming hand on my shoulder. His gentle touch felt good, but what he said didn’t.
“It’s not a war anymore, Dawnee.” His voice broke as he spoke. “It’s a rout.”
We made love for the first time during our next sleep period. I think it started out by us both just needing another warm body next to our own, someone to cling to, to push back the long dark night of misery we couldn’t escape. I remember crying afterward, not because it had been bad, but because it had been so good. Okay, so maybe it was just our way of coping with loss and desperate circumstances, but still I enjoyed it. After that, we were together often, a constant naked tangle of writhing limbs and frenzied flesh that knew nothing but the moment.
I must’ve been falling in love with Meetchum for a while and hadn’t even noticed. Funny, I’d always thought when it happened for me, it would come like lightning, wild, and passionate. This had been so gradual a thing. Love crept up on me, tender and quiet. Who would’ve guessed?
Only after much searching and several disappointments did we find a cavern. It was a vast place, a series of interconnected caves, tunneling into the guts of a mountain. Although dry now, evidence showed water flowed in underground streams during seafall, so we’d have a plentiful supply. We hadn’t sighted any more swarms. Kellor thought they just couldn’t survive there. If that were so, it would be a great blessing.
There were drawbacks. For one thing, even though we descended deep into the caverns to build our new home, the air was still thin at that altitude, barely breathable. People became exhausted easily, requiring shorter work shifts. Moreover, although protected from it inside, radiation outside the caves was higher than at sea level. Trips to the outer surface were necessarily short.
There were supply problems, too. We needed manufacturing equipment for new fuel rods fast, because without power we couldn’t run synthesizers. Despite clumps of bioluminescent fungi that provided a greenish glow, we needed light to ward off the eternal dimness of the caves and in order to grow things. We would need heat. Viejo night was coming. It would be bitterly cold. Even carbon dioxide would freeze out of the atmosphere, dropping as dry-ice snow before morning.