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Expedition Nereus

Page 12

by Ilya Martynov


  His mind pictured cruel violence being inflicted on peaceful creatures, but he quickly shrugged away such scary thoughts and focused on making a flight plan to collect samples. He wanted to do as much as he could before the day was over.

  31

  After breakfast, Jack submitted the request to the Avant Light's computer to allow him to adjust his course and take a few samples of plants and mushrooms that he had seen a week prior but was unable to collect.

  After a short period of silence, the computer approved the lieutenant's suggestion. The airbike took off and surged through the thick air that was warming up under the heat of the morning's rays. Once Jack finished taking samples, he turned around the airbike and flew towards a low rolling hill where plants that resembled Earth trees were growing. Nereus didn't have what were commonly known as forests, but once in a blue moon, Jack could make out hills covered in tall trees. It could be called a forest out of convenience as the plants that gathered remotely resembles those of Earth's forests. Tall trunks emerged from the ground, and the leaves were more like long thorns whose brownish-green leaves brought to mind images of blades.

  Thick, flat, ball-shaped mushrooms could be seen near the trees. However, as the probes reported, they were not mushrooms, but rather animals that looked like mushrooms. Their outer shell had a crunch frame like a cracker, and the roots expanded into a sophisticated network that connected many specimens together.

  Jack carefully got off his airbike, trying to move as smoothly as he could over the soil, which was extremely fertile from all the compost. Slung over his shoulder was his backpack, which carried some fruit inside that was picked at the previous sector, just in case he met some herbivores. He saw purplish-red ball-shaped mushroom caps everywhere. They were closely pressed against each other in some spots, and in other spots, they were quite remote, sometimes several meters apart from each other. Every inch of this forest floor was filled with incredibly different life forms of flora and fauna: microscopic caterpillars, spores of venomous rhizomatous plants, prickly ferns, snakelike vines, and a great number of other different organisms, which Jack absolutely had no idea about. He saw that some had been cataloged in the scannergram's samples, which had been taken by the probes earlier.

  Jack took a starfish and placed it on the ground to explore the territory. At first, the starfish patiently crawled forward, its limbs slowly moving, but at some moment Jack was blinded by a sudden flash before seeing the starfish start smoking. Its surface was covered in small, sharp splinters that quickly peeled off. T

  he smell of burnt rubber filled the air.

  Grabbing a fruit, Jack tossed it towards the star. Another lightning spark flashed, one that was less bright but no less ominous, across the whole surface of the almond-shaped fruit.

  At the same time, Jack felt something prickling his legs. Looking down, he saw small black needle-like splinters that were sticking to his thin boots and the lower part of his trousers. His gut instinct urged him to run away. No sooner had he lifted his second foot from its place when a lighting flash struck his boot. Jack momentarily lost his sense of direction. He just started running in a random direction, not looking at where he was going, becoming completely lost.

  The mushrooms, or rather the animals that looked like mushrooms, rapidly shot small, thin needles coated in a toxic substance. After stunning their victim, they shocked their target using electricity sent through the root network. This method of hunting allowed them to weaken their victim before dispatching their prey with electricity. Such tactics suggested the small creatures were hunting, but Jack was definitely not in the mushrooms' plans.

  Still, the dose of toxins that entered his bloodstream was high enough to make him dizzy for some time. He pushed ahead, each step becoming increasingly slower, almost like a heron's stride. His legs felt like lead while his head was spinning like a merry-go-round. Toxins reached his main bloodstream, and now he needed time so that the nanobots in Jack's body could neutralize dangerous substances. The part of Jack's mind that worked normally calculated that his liver and kidneys wouldn't be capable of getting better so quickly without nanobots.

  As he recovered, Lieutenant Sallenge looked around and realized that he had run into some desert location where rare limestone columns rose, resembling large termite mounds. The airbike tracked the lieutenant, following him all this time. Looking up, Jack tried to estimate how high he would need to jump to overcome the relatively low planetary gravity and reach the airbike. Taking a few clumsy steps with his head tilted up, Jack didn't notice he stepped on something until his foot became wet. Glancing down, Jack managed to see through his blurred double-vision that he had stepped on some ovular stone, which was now leaking a transparent purple liquid.

  Limestone fragments that resembled the shell of a big ostrich egg were lying near his foot. Jack lifted his foot and stared at the dripping mucus with a dazed look. It was obviously something organic, which had been living. Close by, there were two more termite mounds and a few ovular rock formations, each being about 20-30 centimeters in diameter.

  He picked up one of the stones and looked at it in the light. He could see something pulsing inside through the thin limestone shell. A small beast whose features reminded Jack of a small round crab seemed to be rotating around some center. Jack resolved to examine this stony object once he returned to the pavilion. He picked up a few more of the same life forms and placed them all into the cargo compartment of the airbike.

  "I'm definitely not going for mushrooms today," Jack thought, laughing. "At least I'll have this strange thing... I just hope it won't be dangerous... Though it seems a bit scary, almost like it's a larva."

  On the way back, Jack still felt mildly dizzy, his mind foggy, and he had the sudden urge to visit the bathroom. He stopped the airbike, jumped off, and unzipped his trousers. A saturated yellow stream splashed onto the blueish-green sand of the sandy plain. The nanobots, liver, and kidneys had done their job as urine washed out the toxins.

  Reaching home, Jack placed the samples into the quarantine chamber and went to take a nap. He fell asleep the moment his head touched the silky pillow. Special biothreads woven into the silky material absorbed some of his sweat, preventing the material from sticking to his skin. He dreamt his body was being shocked by red and blue lightning sparks. They surrounded him around, as though he were caught in a trap. He waved these electric shock off. Each flash resulted in a stabbing pain in his shoulder. He was barely able to fend off the burning flashes when he saw arrows flying by the dozen towards him. They pierced the thin membrane of his clothes with their sharp points, stunning his hands, legs, and neck. The rest of his dream Jack spent falling somewhere, trying to hold on to the handle of his loyal airbike the entire time.

  32

  He woke up from his exhausting nightmare. His elbows rested on the wet bedsheet. Jack was sweating so much that the biothreads couldn't absorb all the moisture. His body was trying to get rid of the remaining toxins from that afternoon's attack by the mushroom-shaped creatures. Jack stood, switched one of the windows into mirror mode, and looked at his pale, tired face. He rubbed his eyes and decided that he needed to work a little more. He estimated he had been sleeping for about three hours.

  Evening would soon fall outside so Jack went out. After a hot day, the air still remained warm and saturated, but the cool dampness of the land was starting to make its presence known. On the top of the quarantine container, condensation of transparent droplets accumulated, under which frequent red waves signaled that the quarantine inspection of the objects had not yet finished. According to the instructions, which Lieutenant Sallenge knew by heart, if the entire lid was red, that meant there were some organisms or substances that should stay away from the pavilion.

  Jack decided to take a stroll around the area and find his old friend, the wartstone. Just in case, he took the electro-photonic plasma rifle. Breathing in the last remnants of warm air, he headed out on a walk about the neighborhood, of which the atm
osphere was teeming with alien life. Jack tried to avoid walking too far away, so he always made sure to turn back and check his position relative to the pavilion where he had left the lights on and made the panels transparent. For him, it seemed strange not to hear the sounds of civilization. All he heard was the sound of sand shifting under his feet. He hadn't taken idle strolls for the pleasure of it in a long time. Under the last light of the sun, which already dipped below the horizon, the steppe, the deserts, and the landscapes filled with rare plants didn't seem so alien to him.

  The darkness hid their details, deceiving an unsuspecting human eye. He could even imagine being on some steppe on Earth, believing that somewhere behind the hill, he'd see a gentle slope that led to a road where droids transported different goods to cities whose skylines could be spotted on the horizon. He remembered his hometown Aeronaut City with its branching viaducts, fixed after the skyscraper cataclysms, the big park around the Academy, and, of course, a long winding highway that seemed endless to him during childhood.

  Aeronaut City once was quite inconspicuous. During history class, they had been told that a few hangars were situated there to house airships in the 20th century. In the latter half of the same century, the plans were abandoned when people realized such aircraft were highly volatile. The town had almost completely emptied, but they returned to airship production. The military department took an interest in them and the city started to revive again. Many engineers, mechanics, and aviation specialists began to move there. It was at that time when the city received its name, Aeronaut.

  After the floods that occurred in the middle of the 21st century became a real challenge for the residents of the whole planet, the city was miraculously left untouched by water. Survivors congregated on the remaining dry patches of the surface. The hangars were turned into storage rooms.

  Time passed and the world was changing. The borders between states were washed away by water forever. United coalitions appeared. The population became mixed and more diverse. After advanced neurotechnology appeared, humanity was on the verge of language extinction. Many claimed that no one needed language anymore. Interfaces that registered brain activity suggested a seductive trend of mental images.

  But they encountered another neurophysiological problem. It turned out that it was impossible to form a thought quickly and capaciously without using special words to name objects. Visual lines worked slowly. Despite the fact they were gradually improving, the decision to preserve language was made at the international forum held at the beginning of the 22nd century. They even implemented a law called “The law on human language and cultural preservation."

  When the second wave of cataclysms, this time magnetic instead of water, challenged in the middle of the 22nd century, many things changed again.

  All countries changed their priorities. It became clear they needed to look for the ways to colonize other planets. The borders between all countries finally disappeared. Aerospace engineering enterprises appeared in cities. Aeronautics was given its "third breath." The city rapidly grew, becoming one of the most populated cities on the planet. At the beginning of the 23rd century, it was already a huge industrial center. All financial departments of the United Western region, including the European part of Eurasia as well as all of North America, relocated there.

  Aeronaut City became the biggest space center on Earth. People from all over the world went there to study and work. Over time, everyone who flew into space became known as aeronauts. This name became more used than all others and resolved all arguments about whether participants on space missions should be called spacemen or astronauts. It should have united everyone.

  In his childhood, Jack felt the atmosphere of space flight permeating throughout the city like honey. Elders always talked about the importance of understanding cosmology, the history of the Universe, and shipbuilding. He thought that everyone lived like this all the time. When Jack got a little older, he seemed to understand that the older ones romanticized about this idea too much.

  His own views started changing greatly, influenced by what Sam used to tell him. It looked like a revelation, like someone important opened massive global secrets to him, a small, tiny human. Jack was filled with doubt. This revelation both attracted yet terrified him with its truth.

  "Is it really true that the government thinks no one needs flights anymore?" he thought on his way back from another walk with Sam.

  He and the other guys were usually punished when they returned from school too late. He remembered his mom’s strict expression whenever she reprimanded him.

  "You're grounded for the weekend and you'll help me. Go to dad's clinic tomorrow. You'll be doing the droids' job."

  Jack obediently went to his dad's work and helped his mom. The main thing was to never let anyone know where he was. If his parents learned, his dad would "prescribe" a few shocksticks to his rear. It was one of the most unpleasant feelings he'd ever experienced. Fortunately, it had only happened a couple times in his life.

  They were in store for a far worse punishment if someone ever found out about how Jack, Sam, and a few more students ran away to the city suburbs to walk there for hours and scour around the rubbish that fell from the cargo holds of cleaning droids. Sometimes they came across some sophisticated objects among all that junk, such as a shuttle's outer panel or a burnt-out green crystal. At night, the crystals glowed as some strange liquid seemed to dance around inside. None of them knew their purpose, nor did they need to. They had fun snatching the crystal from each other, tossing it from hand to hand.

  Only when they were studying at the academy did Sam and Jack learn that the crystals were used to collect high density energy. Each crystal was the heart of ultra-powerful gravitational weapon. He and Sam were shaken to the core for a long time, thinking about their brush playing with death. At that time, everything was still ahead of them, and they couldn't afford to think about such things back then. No one would ever toss the remains of a high-powered weapon into the junkyard for no reason.

  Once they found a strange rectangle with buttons and a panel underneath. They scanned it, but they could find only plastic and metallic connections inside. Sam took it with him to show the technology teacher the next day.

  Mr. Quandiff, a white-haired, thin, and sharp-nosed man with glasses, examined the rectangle with buttons for a long time. Then he smiled, raising it up before the whole class and exclaiming, "My friends! The era of long-range wireless communication started with the invention of this object!"

  Quandiff dedicated the next twenty minutes of the class to discussing radio technology, telling about the invention of the radio, the first portable radio transmitter prototypes, and then satellite and cell phones. In the end, his conclusion wasn't simple, but it was understandable.

  "Such tranking radial-zone systems that provide an automatic spread of connection channels between people are used nowadays, but in a more advanced form."

  Then the final words followed, making Jack incredibly delighted.

  "By doing this, such technology connected billions of people, creating a single, powerful stream of thoughts, ideas, and images. The power of modern humanity is because of the unity given by this information field."

  Mr. Quandiff spoke these words with genuine sincere tenderness, like his entire body, down to every single cell, was filled with this incredible concept. Even though it looked naive like any other artificially created ideology, it was beautiful, magnificent, and genuinely exciting. What else would a 14-year-old teenager want at that moment? He aspired to find something supreme and sacred. Something that one could dedicate his life to. This "unity given by the information field" was pretty appropriate for this. It was something he could do without end.

  Jack constantly looked at the College of Advanced Technology and Information. Walking nearby, he saw students rushing out from the central portal of the college with mysterious helmets on their heads, surrounded by strange flying droids that looked like crescent moons. They see
med to be living in some different world on the other side of reality. Other residents were prohibited from approaching. The students weren't worried about Aeronaut City's problems, nor were they keen on flying missions to other planets. Their main passion was to study the planet's information network. Jack didn't know for certain whether there was some sort of deep meaning, but he wanted to be a part of their society and discover what was beyond their reality.

  In time, with the help of his dad's influence and mom's tacit approval, Jack began considering the career of a research pilot. The government created quotas for positions at the Academy for particular specializations. Government officials were encouraged to take on research jobs. Severe challenges brought on by new cataclysms dictated their own requirements for survival on Earth. The planet didn't already seem such a safe paradise corner in their corner of the Universe, as it had been recently considered just a couple hundred years before. Now humanity faced a complicated choice. Either stay and rebuild what they lost or look for a new habitat. As a young adult whose time came to part with his parents and start his own independent life, humanity was flipping between the desire to stay home, hiding in a corner, and the need to keep a stiff upper lip and face their new destiny.

  Jack made the reluctant choice for the latter. He confessed to himself many times that he went to the Academy only because the job of an aeronaut-researcher was in high demand in society, and all pilots, engineers, and scientists were secure for the rest of their lives. Deep in his heart, Jack remained a teenager by nature, one who was ready to hide in a corner in his parents' house, despite the fact that sometimes he didn't agree with them to the point of rebelling and threatening to leave his home planet.

  His dad, more perceptive than Jack, who was very young back then, persuaded him to choose a major in genetic engineering. At first, Jack resisted like any other teenager, but the exciting stories of his dad still managed to kindle his interest in biological and medical sciences. The older Sallenge often took his son to the clinic and showed him many things from his medical practice. His dad gifted Jack an opportunity to gain priceless experience.

 

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