Authors: Richard Gohl
Shane looked at Alia, who said, “I’ll be back.” She returned with Madi and Sylvana.
“So you were the eye specialist all along,” said Shane. “I’ve been looking for you for years. Remember we don’t want to murder him.”
“Why not?” said Madi.
“We just want to stop him from using their Iris network…” said Shane.
“So which one is the boss?” asked Madi. She walked over to Pato. “We won’t have to worry about this one….. looks like he’s gone already.” She prodded him with her toe.
“The other one,” said Alia. “He was just about to drain my blood.”
“Really?” said Madi. She grabbed Jeffery by the feet and said. “OK let’s go!” and dragged him out of the lab.
Sylvana followed Madi into the adjacent lab leaving Alia and Shane to finish Magellan’s transfusion.
Cleanup
MAGELLAN’S TRANSFUSION WAS successful. Jeffery survived his eye operation but all the other Napeans were gone.
An invisible cosmic sludge had stopped N.E.T. from working. The Nano-bots had become “lazy” and struggled to deliver hormones and nutrients to the cells of the Napeans who simply began to slow down and fade out. They became slower, weaker; reduced in every way and in a haze, had fallen into a sleep before the lights went out, permanently.
Shane made an announcement regarding the epidemic and the demise of the Napean population—that there were only three survivors and that the condition was not contagious.
After the initial panic came the euphoria. They were free. Finally, justice had been served. The ship was opened. A party ensued; food and drink were consumed as if it were to be their last day.
Then there was the hangover. While the adults recovered, the children roamed free over the ship, exploring the previously forbidden Napean bow of the ship. With hushed voices, small groups of them wandered through Napean corridors and common areas leading through to cabins where they were horrified to see the contortions and twists of hundreds of Napean bodies. The children were morbidly fascinated to see what “on-board gravity” had done to the deceased. They looked like mummies: the fluids having drained to the front, side, or back of their bodies, depending on how they had been lying in their final moments.
The children fled back to their rooms, and a quiet fell over the ship.
Feelings of elation that they had outlasted the Napeans soon gave way to a sense of foreboding. Real people had become dependent on Napean control and the Napean routine.
Alia made an announcement that she and Shane would be taking joint command of the ship—with the surviving Service official Magellan as an advisor. The first task, she regretfully informed them, would be to clean up.
It took several days to shoot out all the corpses.
Shane found Charles just where he had left him—he was still sitting there by his bed, eyes open in quiet contemplation. The body was rigid, the face drawn and hard, completely drained of softening fluid. N.E.T. fluid seemed to set under the skin like resin.
“Come on, old man.” Shane dragged him onto the trolley and covered him over. Charles was one of the last to leave. As the body was bundled into the evacuation hatch, some tears appeared. Shane wiped them off almost indignantly. Was it sadness or guilt that he had failed Charles? As if the situation wasn’t bad enough, the body wouldn’t fit in the hatch sitting up; it had to be lying down. Shane had to place one foot on his shoulder and the other on the leg to flatten it. With a crack and a creak the torso jerked backwards, prostrate.
The clunking noise that the corpse made as it collided with the hull on exit was too horrid. And then there was the terrible vision: the incongruity of a small human body adrift in the vast blackness, arms akimbo in anticipation of some final embrace.
Magellan
MAGELLAN WAS REVITALIZED by the transfusion. He and Shane talked.
“Look at me,” said Shane, “and look at you. You’re wasting away.” Magellan’s body had started consuming itself. Shane continued, “I started doing it as a little experiment on myself. Food. At first I couldn’t keep anything down… but I’m sure it’s the reason why I’m okay. Why don’t you start? It’s been a slow process, but I guess I’m partly real now.”
Magellan asked, “How long was it before your body could process food?”
“As soon as I could keep it down,” said Shane. “There was an immediate change in my metabolism.”
“Incredible,” said Magellan. “We always saw food as retrograde and toxic.”
“Well, it wasn’t my idea,” said Shane, and explained how Ryan combined both lifestyles. “Good. I’m glad he’s well,” said Magellan.
“You’re glad? Why did you never say anything, speak out?”
“I did in my own way, but I believe things work out of themselves.”
“How can you be a man of science and believe in fate?”
“It’s not fate; merely an acceptance of unseen forces.”
“What does that mean?” asked Shane
“There is always something out of reach, beyond our control. Fight hard, certainly, but accept the truth. You are not God.”
“So you believe in God?”
“I spoke metaphorically.”
“You must have felt like a god… at times—in and out of peoples’ minds, working out how universal sources of energy and …errr… eternal life…” asked Shane.
“Ha…well… hmmmm, that didn’t work out too well in the end, did it?” said Magellan with a smile.
“Well, you’re still here,” said Shane.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves… and let’s not forget, you too have done quite well for yourself—quite possibly one of the oldest humans in the universe. When were you born?”
“2130,” answered Shane.
“Only a hundred and forty-four...”
“Only? How old are you?” asked Shane.
“I was born in 2045. I am two hundred and twenty-nine. I don’t know where the time’s gone,” Magellan said in barely a whisper.
“Who was the eldest?”
“Jeffery, by three years. Pato was the youngest of the three of us. He was a mathematical genius. Jeffery was a geneticist—turned engineer. I guess you could say we were all linked by the world of physics—micro, macro, and nano.”
“And you?” asked Shane.
“My specialty has always been astronomy and space—astro-physics, which makes me responsible for this whole disaster.”
“I think it might be one of those situations which is ‘beyond your control.’ Physics, astronomy, and space travel… we’re all glad you’re here, though!” Magellan was starting to look his age. He thanked Shane, who then asked, “What about Earth? You must know.”
“I suspect there are many survivors. But what was true of the Earth’s climate before would be far worse now,” said Magellan.
The two rested in silence for a few moments before Magellan spoke. “Speaking of Jeffery…”
“What’s that?” asked Shane.
“He locked the network,” said Magellan. “Is that a problem?”
“The ship is set to eventually go into orbit around Remus. But nothing else can be done after that without access to the network.”
“We need to talk him into showing you how to unlock it, ” said Shane.
“That is the other problem…” said Magellan, his mouth opening wide to show horror and focusing his deeply set eyes on Shane, and then down at the floor.
“Why?”
“He’s dead.”
System Down
THE SHIP WAS still several months away from Sirius.
Shane explained Ryan’s ability to perform telepathy and how he had gained entry to the network.
“Ah, the organic user,” said Magellan, “that explains a lot.”
Madi and Alia came up to the Service deck with Ryan in tow. Magellan stared at the child.
Shane said, “This is Matt Magellan.” Ryan looked up at the tall man in wonder. The two women ignored him.
‘So,” said Alia, “network information is not just stored in the Napean brain, then?”
“Ask the expert,” said Shane, referring to Magellan. “He’s right here.” Neither woman looked at him. Magellan gestured toward the large white round unit in the corner of the room. It was several feet high with a fist-sized light in the center and a rim of light around the top edge. There were what looked like handles attached to six wedge-shaped drawers—like a giant pie.
“That’s all we have left. Everything you need is in there,” he said. “Detailed instructions regarding what needs to be done to journey to the surface, managing on board resources, the carrier capsule, how to leave the planet and get back to the ship—everything.”
Madi interrupted him and, looking directly at Shane, asked, “So we have no control over the ship.” It was more of a statement than a question. Magellan didn’t notice her attempt to ignore him. He answered.
“The ship is programmed to fly over Romulus and then orbit Remus… for as long as required. If we can access the network, you can then decide on a course of action.”
They took Ryan over to one of the long bench seats at the side of the deck under the large windows.
“It’s okay. You can go,” said Ryan to the women. “It’s probably better,” agreed Magellan, “if you leave.”
Madi bristled visibly. “Actually I’ll stay. I’m his mother.”
“Fine. Ryan you will need to lie down and follow my instruction,” said Magellan. “I’ve got to start him off,” said Shane.
“Dad, I can do it by myself.”
Ryan found it easy now, with the transmitter so close, to access the ETP frequency. After a short period of searching for the “hexagonal space,” he found himself in the middle room of the network structure.
Magellan spoke. To Ryan, his telepathic voice and presence were very strong—he could almost see him standing there watching him. Magellan said to go forward and he began walking, again, in the strange artificial twilight world of the network.
Ryan could see the small dark archways; the openings to other spaces. Magellan guided him, left and right: Now step through. Ryan remembered the bizarre feeling of being dragged through the portal.
Whuuuupp!
Without moving his feet he was sucked through to the next hexagonal space.
After passing through two more openings, Ryan felt he knew where to go. In each passing section there were different configurations of three-dimensional panels, blocks, switches, and all manner of built-in objects completely foreign to him but a part of the structure of the wall.
Ryan described where he was. Magellan replied:
Face left and go to the wall. Open the final security module by pressing the large rectangular panel. Inside there are five rods. One is vertical; turn all to the vertical position. Follow my voice back out.
As Ryan opened his eyes, everyone was smiling—something he had not seen for a long time.
Magellan said, “The network is active, open, and can now be projected and used collaboratively. Well done, Ryan.”
Drive by
The Black Sapphire powered closer and closer to its destination, Sirius. The two planets, rarely in complete darkness, swung in an elliptical orbit around the giant star. Sirius orbited its big sibling once every eight years, while the twin planets did it in less than three.
People on board the Star Sapphire spent a lot of their time watching the two suns and the slow gradual movements of the huge astral bodies circling them.
Now, on the sixth day of watching the spectacle, they flooded onto the Service deck, with its expansive viewing platforms and windows, as their new home finally came into sharp focus. At first all they could see was just the sublimely perfect circle: the dark outline of Remus. But as they grew nearer, and with the light of Sirius now off to one side, they could see that it was a green planet. There were maybe half a dozen circular, small blue patches spread about randomly on its surface—seas or lakes—and there were white clouds gathering in thickness around the central belt of the planet. The people pointed and chattered excitedly at many of these recognizable features.
As they headed away from Remus, on the far side of the planet, they saw, suspended like tadpole eggs, a dozen tiny black spaceships of the Napean fleet. They cried out and hugged each other such was their excitement on seeing their fellow travellers after so many disasters and over such a long journey.
Magellan slowly entered the room, tall and majestic in his huge cloak and with barely enough energy to walk. People stopped talking. Shane had come to be accepted, had gotten to know people individually. But Magellan represented something entirely different—many innocent people had been killed under his watch, at his command—they feared him, hated him. Shane broke the moment by saying, “We rejoin the rest of the fleet after Romulus.”
Attention soon turned to the vastness of Sirius which, from Earth, had been to the ancients the nose of a dog belonging to the Greek hunter Orion. The Sirius star system was bathed in light and heat and as their eyes adjusted to the glare. They saw to their port side a little yellow planet, shining like wet clay. Twenty minutes further around Sirius, there were cheers as Dog Star B. provided a bright backdrop to another two planets. One was orange and covered in dark cracks, while further out was a larger, clearly terrestrial, dry-looking planet, light brown in color. Soon they were close enough to see landforms: there were canyons, mountains, and myriad serpentine markings across its surface—evidence of the presence of water, at least at some stage. Thin clouds were dispersed widely across its surface. Magellan leant over to Shane and said, “The twin planet.”
Shane announced: “There it is… the twin planet.” People frowned at each other and shook their heads. This was no twin! They couldn’t believe they’d come all this way for a desert.
“Yes, indeed, that is Romulus—not green, not blue, but brown. But don’t be fooled! It has a breathable atmosphere, a perfect temperature… and water.” Shane had slipped into sales mode.
“Water?” people were saying, shrugging their shoulders. “Where?”
As they flew closer, veering to the starboard side, it seemed he was right. Dark rivers trickled into speckles of blue lakes. There was even a broad sea reflecting brightly, the white light of Sirius.
Kristina and Ryan had been sitting at the front of a group of adults at the base of a large window. “Look,” said Kristina with her finger on the window. “There, near those black crack things… all those tiny squares!”
“Oh yeah,” said Ryan. “And there’s another one, all green in the middle!” He, too, was pointing now, and soon, so was everybody else.
For a few minutes there was chatter. Magellan was clearly surprised. He had not seen this before. In fact, until the pictures of the Remus creatures, he had always been skeptical of the likelihood of any two species evolving simultaneously in different galactic locations. Yet apparently, there it was, again.
All eyes turned to him for an explanation. “He knew all about it…” a man yelled out.
Magellan was extremely cool under pressure. It was that, or exhaustion. Shane couldn’t tell. Magellan spoke:
“We knew there was life—plant life, and simple organisms—but there was nothing to indicate intelligent life, no…” Many of the people laughed ironically in disbelief. Magellan was not fazed. “If, in fact, that is what we’re looking at… nature often builds structures using what we think are exclusively human geometrical patterns. It seems certain structural techniques are universal.”
“Speak English!” a woman yelled. There was scattered laughter.
A man responded, sarcastically, “Oh, so they’re not buildings –they’re just mountains!” There was more widespread laughter at this.
“Mountains of what?” asked the woman, cuing the man. He dutifully responded. “Mountains of bullshit!” This was made all the more hilarious because it was what real
people had always wanted to tell Service officials.
Magellan waited for the hilarity to subside. “In the last sixty-odd years of Telesync, we attempted contact with fifty thousand different communication paradigms but received no response.”
“Whatever they are,” said Shane, “we leave them for now because that’s not our planet.”
The ship continued on its journey around Romulus and, indeed, the further they went, the more of the square structures they saw. Their fly-by of Romulus soon to be over, Magellan used a telescope projector to provide a close up of one of the structures. The image was projected onto the internal wall of the space ship. Whatever it was, it had come out of the landscape itself, from local material—being the same color as the surrounding rock, hence the initial difficulty in seeing them. Each one was made up of a larger, central square, divided up into many smaller ones. From each corner of the middle square black lines radiated outward to the point where there were twelve external squares, similar to the middle one but slightly smaller. The area between the central square and the external ones was green, with some form of plant life, so everyone assumed.
Although Magellan had neither confirmed nor denied what they were looking at, the general consensus was that they were cities.
But there was no sign of movement.
“Tonight we head back to Remus and in seventy-five hours will make contact with our comrades in the fleet. Questions can be answered then. It’s most urgent now that we all rest,” said Alia.
“Who put you in charge?” It was the comedian again.
“Do you have a problem with that?” asked Alia, taking a half step in his direction. The man scratched the back of his neck.
“Everyone alive on this ship wants us to be settled safely on this beautiful planet as soon as possible. We all want the same thing, and your skills and talents will be required in getting there—that means everyone here.” She waved her arm, indicating Shane and Magellan.
After waking up the next day, Shane had begun studying the navigational features of the Sapphire and had called for Magellan to join him on the deck. After receiving no response, Shane walked to his apartment, only to find that someone, four or five hours ago, had stolen into Magellan’s room, put a pillow over his head, and cut his throat.
He called Alia to meet him on the deck and, after explaining to her what had happened, said, “I want you to find who did this.”
“How? Pretty much everyone wanted to do that. And people have been wandering all over the ship for the last forty-eight hours...”
“We needed him. He was a good guy,” said Shane.
“He was Service. He had blood on his hands. It was revenge.”
“Well, if I find the guy who did it… he’ll be free-styling in zero gravity.”
“Don’t do it. Let it go.”
“And what if I’m next?” he asked her.
“You’re lucky,” she said, stepping close to him. “Lucky you’re popular.” She put a hand up to his chin and took it between her thumb and forefinger. “Lucky I’m looking out for you.” She put her other hand behind his head. His hair had been growing wavier, thicker and lighter, his eyes no longer black but showing color. She pulled his face forwards, her tongue slipping in between his lips.
He paused to breath. “We’re really on our own now,” he said, shaking his head. Alia kicked the door shut.