by Guy Haley
The drone came round the corner quickly. It was a metre long, nearly two across, the fuselage shallow, similar in appearance to a manta ray. Two ducted fans provided lift and direction. A sensor cluster was set in the middle of its forward facing, a bubbling of glass eyes and obscure metal probes. A small ion-stream stunner was mounted below that.
Dariusz flung the wheel at the drone, forcing it to dodge, and he dropped as it opened fire. A debilitating charge of electricity carried on a stream of ionised air cracked into the wall above his head. The drone was going fast, and could not correct its flight in time. Dariusz spun on his heels and leapt at its rear as it passed over him. He scrambled half onto it, grabbing the top of one fan housing. The machine was light, and struggled to bear the weight of a man, even under the low gravity. The drone pitched to the side.
Fans chopped at the air half a centimetre from Dariusz’s fingertips. He jumped up, pushing himself further on top, grabbing the drone with both hands either side of its sensor cluster. He wrestled hard with the machine as it bucked underneath him. “Halt! Halt! Halt!” the drone shouted, its siren wailing. It fired again and again, the air cracking and filling with the stink of ozone.
Dariusz gritted his teeth as he pushed the drone toward the bike. He forced it down, bringing one of the fans close to the upright handlebar. With a final effort, he speared the fan on the handgrip. The fan shattered, its remains tangling with the brake lever, cabling and handlebars. Dariusz sprawled backwards as the entire machine spun round, dragging the bike all over the floor. He kicked at it manically, his teeth gritted, driving it toward the side of the corridor. Sparks flew from the drone as it smashed repeatedly into the wall, breaking its remaining fan housing. Dariusz flung his arm up as shards of rotor blade whistled at him.
The drone was immobile, one fan jammed solid, the second whining pathetically, bereft of its rotor blades. Dariusz climbed to his feet, approached the robot cautiously, and kicked downward with his heel. The first blow smashed in its primary sensor cluster. The second destroyed its weapon. The main body was too tough for him to breach without a weapon or tool of some kind. Undaunted by its crippling, it continued to bellow warnings, the lights embedded in the fuselage still blinking. The drones were networked. There’d be more on the way. He had to hurry.
His heel hurt from where he’d kicked the drone, and he limped as he ran. His lungs burned. It was a hundred metres to the next radial shaft, an insurmountable distance in his condition. Only thoughts of his son drove him onward. The sounds of sirens and turbofans came from everywhere, hard to place in the curving corridor.
As he ran toward the second lift, two more drones banked around the slope of the corridor toward him.
“Halt! Halt! Halt!” they cried.
Dariusz quickened his pace and raised his hands, instinctively protecting his face. They shouted three warnings before firing. By the time they had finished, he was skidding underneath them. Their fans thrummed loudly as they swung around in the air, bringing their guns to bear again, but he was already through the door. Ion streams criss-crossed the corridor, as he slapped the door touch panel and dived in. The doors closed.
The lift was an open platform, the shaft walls exposed. The controls were simple – a big red button for stop, a big green button for go. Simplicity was a virtue on a ship traversing a dozen light years. He slammed the green button with his hand without getting up, and leaned against the control podium as the lift jerked into life. He panted, his muscles in agony.
The lift proceeded slowly. Below him, he heard the door open and the drones come through, but they could not get to him through the floor of the lift. He looked upwards. Orange doors lined the shaft, leading off to maintenance shafts and servicing bays. No drones came from above. He was nearly at his target. He watched the door to the nutrient monitoring room slide closer.
The lift stopped without warning; emergency override. He jumped to his feet. The bottom of the door was level with his chest. He jumped for its control panel, overshooting on his first try, propelling himself well past it in the low-g. On the second attempt, his fingers brushed the panel and the doors opened. The lift mechanism thunked underneath him, and he jumped again, grabbing at the open door. He hit his arm on the lintel, but managed somehow to clumsily scramble inside as the lift platform descended.
He activated the door’s closing mechanism and locked it, although it wouldn’t stop the drones. He folded his arm and drew back his elbow, then drove it hard into the glass touch panel that operated the door. The glass starred, but did not break; the pain was considerable. The lift had reached the bottom of the shaft. He swapped arms and tried again, and the cracks in the glass spread. The sounds of drone fans approached. The door chimed, unlocked, and began to open. He gritted his teeth against the pain and smashed the glass with two more swift blows. An alarm began a persistent complaint. He had the smartsuit lengthen its sleeve, covered his hand with it, then reached into the door mechanism and ripped out all the optics his fingers could find.
So much for leaving minimal evidence.
The door stopped, a quarter open. The wind from the turbofans of the drones stirred his clothes as they jockeyed for a clear firing position. He removed himself from the doorway, pressing his back flat against the wall.
He searched the room. It was small, a three-by-three-by-three-metre cube. His target was behind the panels lining its rear. He checked the line of fire from the half open door. The drones shouted their repetitive warnings and bumped like drunks into the door. If he stayed to the left of the panel, he should remain out of their line of fire.
He rushed over to the far wall, dropping to his knees and sliding as he did so.
The panels were attached by simple flip-up butterfly latches. One half-twist undid each clasp, and he had the access panel off quickly. Behind it, bathed in sterilising ultraviolet light, was the nutrient tube, passing through the small box on its way to the Mickiewicz’s biological brain, itself asleep and dreaming. A sampling junction, sealed with a plastic cap, projected from the tube. All he had to do was contaminate the computer’s nutrients with one drop of his own blood; the virus hidden in his body would do the rest.
He tried biting his thumb to release the blood, but could not force his teeth into his skin. He considered trying his arm, then remembered the door panel.
He went back to the door, keeping clear of the drones, leaned back on the wall, and darted out a hand to snag a piece of black glass from the floor. It was safety material, and had shattered into squares, but the edges were sharp enough for his purposes. He discounted his thumbs and fingers as too sensitive, instead scoring the skin of his left forearm with the glass. After three attempts, a single, ruby drop welled up.
He rushed over to the open panel again, ignoring the drones’ stunners as they fired unsuccessfully through the gap. He unscrewed the cap on the nutrient feed; another siren sounded in discord with the first. He dabbed his right forefinger into his blood, then dipped it into the nutrient gel. He resealed the cap, and the flow started once again. The alarm did not stop, but became shriller.
The blood was a brief dark tendril in the light blue.
He waited for a long time
For an hour, there was no noticeable difference, and he was afraid that it had not been enough. He decided to unscrew the cap again and introduce more of his blood into the system, but as he reached for it, the lights flickered. He glanced up at the ceiling. They did not blink again.
There was a clatter from outside, and the noise of the drones ceased. A rumble built, deep within the ship. Dariusz felt a push, different from the force generated by the ship’s spin.
The main drive.
The feeling did not last. The rumble faded again, and the Adam Mickiewicz continued on its long journey as if nothing had occurred.
Dariusz, feeling more anxious after his sabotage rather than less, headed back. He stopped at a random deck, scrubbed the contents of his outfit’s memory and slipped out of it. He took ano
ther smartcloth jumpsuit from a locker on the deck, along with a bottle to replace the one he had taken from his own deck. He tried to arrange the contents of the locker to look undisturbed, then did the same on his own deck. He took the empty bottle into his pod with him, and wedged it by his feet. He’d have to be quick to get it out before anyone noticed.
There was nothing he could do about his vomit. He hoped it would be overlooked in the confusion of the landing.
He lay back in the moulded pod. “Erase datalog, last three hours, Szczeciński, Dariusz M.,” he said.
“Comply,” said the deck’s voice.
He double checked the files. All record of his excursion had been expunged. He should not have the clearance for this. Perhaps Browning’s scheme had worked.
Uneasily, he activated the sarcophagus’ mechanism and returned to the realms of death.
PART II
The Crash
Time unknown
I say to you, my children, I say to you that it is the sacred duty of mankind to spread across the stars. Rejoice, for that sacred duty will soon be fulfilled! Have I not taught you, that the purpose of life is to create life? That that is God’s ultimate purpose for His creation? How better to spread it than establish a nursery of change and evolution, one that cannot fail to create clever beings who yearn to leave their cradle and go beyond? That is God’s will.
Since the dawn of time, man has pushed ever onward. We have been tested. We have been shown our darker sides. We have killed, and we have despoiled. There has been a heavy price for man and the Earth to pay. The great animals that once shared this world with us are no more, eliminated one by one as man passed into their territory. Now, the very systems that govern the Earth itself are in turmoil.
But do not mourn! Do not mourn, I say. This is the plan of the Lord God! These follies of ours have been sent to test us! These are the birth pangs of a great outpouring of life! As labour leaves a mother exhausted, so does our own elevation to an interstellar species tire our world unto death. This is the price we must pay to fulfil our holy duty, for leaving paradise is the task that God Himself has set us! This is the way it has to be! The Earth has suffered. Earth may die, but how many more worlds will now feel the touch of life? How many dead planets will we seed with the lifestuff of our home? How many more worlds will now give rise to intelligent beings, who may start the process anew? We are alone in the cosmos, we are unique. But it does not always have to be so. There are no others? So be it! God made us to make them. Let our children stand proud amid an extended family, let our children’s children straddle the stars where there will be room and plenty for all!
Do babies mourn the loss of their placenta? No! They are ignorant of its services, they are indifferent to the sacrifices that their parents make. Parents die, and so worlds die. All that matters to God is that life does not end, that the children go forth and beget more children, and thus the chain remains unbroken. We kill one world to seed an infinity; this is the holy purpose of man. Rejoice! You live, each and every one of you, in the time of the apotheosis of humankind.
– Sesele Maka, prophet of the Church of the Revealed Cosmic Truth
CHAPTER EIGHT
Dislocation
SAND BLINKED EYES gummed with sticky fluid. The window in the front of her sarcophagus was a grey blur. Sounds made little sense; her skin crawled in some places, and was numb in others. Her proprioception was confused. She did not recognise her limbs for what they were, finding them horrifying, inhuman attachments.
She screamed, and it turned into a racking cough. Fluid spilled over her chin.
She remembered where she was, she remembered who she was. Her sense of self returned. Anaesthetised and bewildered, she said, “Sand. I am Sand.” It hurt to do so. She spoke again, and her voice grew in strength. “I am Cassandra De Mona. Sand. I am Sand.”
Fluid flowed out of the drains at the bottom of her pod. There was a painful tugging at her arms as needles were withdrawn.
Through the fugue, she realised something was wrong. The hibernation pod was frantically going through its revivification process. This was supposed to be done slowly. Sharp tingles ran all through her limbs. She grimaced at the pain. Her muscles were heavy as wood.
“Pilot De Mona. Emergency waking protocols engaged. Remain still. Crisis activation. Report for duty,” a machine voice said.
Sound became clearer as fluid in her ears broke its surface tension and drained out. Shadows moved across the tiny window. She blinked, her vision sharpening as the machine pumped drugs into her body to reactivate long-dormant physiological processes.
Klaxons blared outside. There was a rumble. The ship juddered.
“What’s...” She coughed. “What’s happening?”
“Pilot De Mona. Emergency waking protocols engaged. Remain still. Crisis activation. Report for duty,” the machine said.
A loud bang rocked the vessel.
The restraints holding her in place retracted, and Sand pounded feebly on the sarcophagus lid. “Let me out! Let me out!”
“Prepare for emergency ejection in five, four, three...”
A shadow went past. It returned. A blurred face peered in, then moved away.
There was a loud clunk, and the lid of the sarcophagus flew up, spilling its remaining pseudo-amniotic fluids onto the floor. Sand slipped as she got out, and fell onto the floor. She lay groaning, curled in a foetal ball.
“De Mona! Pilot De Mona! Give me your arm. Damn it, Sand, give me your arm!”
A hand grabbed at her upper arm, and Sand batted at it. It seized her hard. The gentle, million-pinpricks sensation of a hypospray followed.
“De Mona! De Mona! Get up! Get up, damn it!” The woman shouting at her had some kind of accent. The ship’s personnel were Central Europeans; the fact flitted unbidden across Sand’s mind, along with a jumble of disassociated memories and urgent compulsions. She remembered: ESS Adam Mickiewicz, pan-national corporate group, engineered middle-Euro culture, Russian refugee contingent, faux-Russian American owners. The information crowding her confused mind was relentless. She fell out of herself, into a black tunnel. Her body went into spasm. A hand pulled at her. Another hypospray.
The convulsions abated, leaving Sandy’s senses reeling. The vortex retreated from her mind. She rolled over and vomited again, emptying lungs as well as stomach. Cold gripped her every muscle fibre, hard. Movement brought her arms and legs stabbing pain.
“Get up now, pilot! Now!”
Sand dragged her head upwards, blinking until the blurred figure standing over her resolved itself into the captain, Danuta Posth. Her shaved skull glistened wetly, her jumpsuit was smeared with amniotics. She was shaking with post-hibernation shock, her breath hanging in clouds on the chill air of the vessel, and worry hid in the creases of her face. Her air of authority, however, was undiminished.
Sand didn’t like Captain Posth. She thought her cold and overly officious.
“C-Captain?” She wiped her mouth. “What’s going on? Are we there yet?” She caught sight of her hand. Her fingertips were ugly with deep wrinkles, and her skin had lost its coffee brown colouring, become grey and blotched.
“Get up.” Posth was shouting to be heard over the alarms. She went unsteadily to a locker, pulled out a micropore towel and a uniform and threw them at Sandy. “We have an emergency.”
The Mickiewicz growled underneath them. The feeling of gravity intensified and slackened.
“Is the spin out?”
Posth was furious, fear lurking behind the anger. “Everything’s out. Something’s wrong.” She leaned in close before she spoke again. “Everything’s wrong. I can’t explain here.”
Sandy pulled herself to her feet. She dressed as quickly as her quivering limbs would allow.
She followed the captain along the curved floor of the hibernation deck. The crew were scattered throughout the decks in case of localised systems failure, and there were back-ups for each one. They pushed past opening hibernation pod
s. Gasping civilians were huddled all over the place. Some of the sarcophagi gaped open, sickly sweet stinks emanating from them. Still more were dark, their status panels red.
“What the hell happened?” Sandy said.
“I have no idea,” said the captain grimly.
“How can you not know, ma’am?”
Posth gave her a cold look over her shoulder. “Keep it quiet, pilot; we’re awake and we have a situation. I’ll brief you fully on the bridge.” Her eyes slid to a pair of shaking colonists being tended to by a woman in marginally better shape. “You,” Posth said to her. “Get everyone you can into the post-revivification lounges. The nearest is deck seventeen. Keep the decks clear.”
The woman wiped at her mouth, as if trying to massage her lips into operation. She nodded dumbly.
They reached the intersection of the deck with the lower spinal corridor. A stocky man was waiting for them there. Ludwig Brno, the ship’s senior operations officer. He frowned as a pair of colonists, one with his arm over the shoulders of the other, bumped into him. He said nothing until they were out of earshot.
“I’ve got a two-thirds complement for the crew, ma’am,” he said, falling in with the captain. The three of them headed for the bridge. His eyes were wide with disbelief, making him boy-like. “Hibernation failure’s well over thirty per cent.”