The Trial of Extinction

by Stan C. Smith

  Infinity frowned at him. “Maybe they’ll come early. If you have a better idea, spit it out.”

  Eagleton shook his head. “I’m not disagreeing, just stating facts. They’re coming at noon. Not only that, but the bridge-in site is three miles away.”

  Infinity glanced at the debris cloud again. “Then we’d better move our asses.”

  2

  Waves

  April 10 - Morning

  Desmond Weaver had considered himself lucky. After all, he was one of the few survivors of his species. But now his luck had run out. He was witnessing—for the second time—what appeared to be the destruction of an entire world.

  The group he had been living with for the last nineteen months was still reeling from the tragic loss of four of their fellow colonists. Now they were down to only sixteen. He and Infinity were leading the survivors northwest, toward the bridge-in site. If they made it there alive, they would still have to stay safe long enough for Armando Doyle to bridge in and then somehow bridge the entire colony out. Which Desmond had thought was physically impossible until Armando had unexpectedly appeared yesterday.

  So far, the group had traveled perhaps a mile, but progress had been slow because they frequently had to steady themselves against violent tremors and occasional seismic surface waves that buckled the ground and destroyed every framework hill in their path. Desmond’s observations over the last year and a half had led him to conclude that these framework hills were probably thousands of years old, created gradually by the secretions of a specific type of moss that lived atop the girders. But now every one of these once-magnificent structures, stretching as far as he could see, lay in ruins.

  Infinity nudged his arm and nodded toward the west. “Another one.”

  He followed her gaze. Perhaps ten miles away, a massive spire of rocks and dirt was flying straight up, the explosive result of a volcano or some other cataclysm. If such an event were to occur within a mile or two of the group’s location, the colonists would no doubt be buried in falling debris or swallowed by fissures in the ground.

  Desmond scanned the horizon for other eruptions, and his gaze lingered on another cloud, this one only about a half mile away. At first it appeared to be smoke, but he had spent enough time on this world to recognize that it was a swarm of the remarkable hive creatures that lived here. In fact, based on the location, the billions of flies making up this cloud were probably the collective intelligence he knew as Laghollow. As bizarre as it seemed, he had become friends with this hive mind, as well as several others. But now Laghollow’s home, a framework mound, had almost certainly been destroyed along with all the other mounds. Desmond wondered if the hive minds would perish.

  Fortunately, the route to the bridge-in site didn't require them to traverse any major hills—just the moss plain. With the framework mounds already destroyed, the colonists wouldn't have to worry about falling rocks or debris as they made their way to the northwest. All they had to do was get to the site and stay alive until Armando showed up.

  After the group had traveled another half mile or so, they encountered an obstacle—a herd of isopods moving steadily west as quickly as the hippo-sized creatures could walk. But this wasn’t like the isopod herds Desmond was used to seeing, which typically numbered thirty to fifty. This was a continuous stream of them, perhaps forty yards wide, with no end in sight to the east or west. The creatures were walking so close together they were constantly bumping into each other.

  The colonists stood staring at the impenetrable wall of biomass for a few minutes. Eventually, Lenny said, “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but hell, we have to go through them.” Lenny was still carrying Daisy, and the little ten-month-old was somehow sleeping in his arms.

  “We can’t,” said Isabelle. “Look at them. They’re panicked. They’ll crush us.”

  She was right, they were panicked. But even so, they were walking no faster than the average human could walk. Still, the creatures weighed at least a ton each. The thought of Lenny carrying Daisy through the herd made Desmond’s stomach lurch.

  “Lenny’s right,” Infinity said. “We have to get to the bridge-in site, and this herd isn’t going to pass by any time soon.” She stepped forward and proceeded to the nearest lumbering beast. She then leaned into its side while keeping pace with it. The creature’s fourteen legs scuffled for a moment as it shifted direction slightly, but then it bumped into the isopod next to it and went back to its original path. Isopods were generally docile animals, but this panicked herd was too densely arranged for the colonists to be able to clear a path.

  “Look,” Lenny said, “I’ve hunted these lumbering oafs long enough to know they won’t run over us.”

  Desmond eyed Lenny, a friend he had known and trusted since long before their version of Earth had collapsed. “You sure about that?”

  Xavier, another long-time friend of Desmond’s, had been standing next to his partner Celia, but now he stepped forward and spoke to Lenny. “Dude, you need to be really sure.” He nodded toward Celia’s bulging belly. She was six months pregnant, and everyone in this colony understood how precious each new life was.

  Lenny smiled, a strange gesture under the circumstances, even for him. “Watch and learn,” he said. Still cradling Daisy in his arms, he approached the edge of the herd, waited for a gap to appear, and then stepped directly into the path of one of the isopods. The creature’s antennae, each as thick as a human arm, tapped Lenny’s ankles, and the isopod stopped abruptly, which halted the isopod behind it, as well as the one behind that one. After the beasts had paused for only a few seconds, they changed course and skirted around Lenny and Daisy.

  Lenny turned back to Isabelle and smiled, apparently to reassure her. He then carried his daughter deeper into the herd until he was blocking the path of yet another isopod, causing the creature and those behind it to change course slightly. He looked back at the colonists and smiled again. He was now completely surrounded by the massive, shoulder-high isopods, with only his head still visible. “The trick is to not let them intimidate you,” he called out over the tectonic rumblings and the scraping, shuffling sounds of the herd.

  The colonists glanced at each other nervously.

  “Let’s do this,” Infinity said. “We need to get to the site—we have no other option.”

  As if to emphasize her point, a new roar rose above all the other sounds. The group turned and saw a plume of the planet's crust shooting skyward a few miles to the east.

  “Alright, everybody listen," said Desmond, almost shouting to be heard. “Celia and Chloe are pregnant, so we need to form a circle around them so they don't get knocked over by the isopods.”

  Celia looked like she was about to protest, but then she and Chloe nodded and moved into place.

  “We’ll all stay together as a group,” Desmond said. “Like we’re one large animal. We want to give the isopods every possible reason to go around us.”

  “You coming or not?” Lenny was now at the center of the river of monstrous bugs.

  The others tightened their formation, crowding around the two pregnant women. Gideon and Steven were still helping Alexander, and the three of them positioned themselves at the rear.

  “Move slowly, but also with confidence,” Infinity said as she pushed Richard and Poppy closer into the group. “Now, follow our lead.”

  She and Desmond began backing toward the herd and encouraging the group to follow.

  At the herd’s edge, Desmond’s heart began pounding. What if bunching up like this was a mistake? Maybe they should split up and enter the herd one at a time.

  He was about to voice his rising concerns, but then Infinity stepped into a gap between isopods, and the rest of the group followed. Two of the isopods detected the humans’ presence and paused, creating a traffic jam behind them. But the creatures quickly adjusted their path and began walking around the group, snuffling the ground with their low-slung heads and rhythmically moving their numerous feet.

>   Desmond’s eyes met Infinity’s, and he nodded, trying to appear more confident than he felt.

  She nodded back and turned to wait for another opening. A few seconds later, she guided the group into another gap, with the same result—the isopods paused and then detoured. The colonists continued making steady progress with only minor jostling from the passing beasts.

  “You’re almost through!” Lenny shouted. He was now clear of the herd, standing on the other side with Daisy still sleeping in his arms. Suddenly, he snapped his head toward the east and said, “Oh, shit!”

  Desmond started to turn and look, but then he was nearly knocked off his feet by a ground tremor. Several of the other colonists fell to their knees. The entire isopod herd stopped walking, as if bracing for another shockwave. Once Desmond had regained his balance, he looked out to the east and felt his jaw drop. Just as his mind was beginning to comprehend the immense scale of the new rising cloud of debris, the sound wave arrived, drowning out every other sound with its gut-clenching roar.

  The isopods began moving again, this time even more panicked than before. One of them jostled the group of humans from the side and knocked everyone to the ground. But the giants still appeared to be altering their course as their antennae detected the writhing pile of humans. Desmond pushed himself up and got to his feet, all the while fighting the urge to shield his ears from the deafening onslaught of sound.

  He needed to help the others get up, but his eyes were drawn to the east. This new eruption was less than a mile away, and the wall of rising debris seemed impossibly high. Yet it was getting higher and wider by the second. He squinted at the cloud. Among the rising specks he could make out boulders and chunks of blasted earth, but there was something else—hundreds of dots, all of them uniform in size. He swallowed as he realized what he was looking at. The dots were isopods. The explosion had occurred directly beneath the herd. The cloud was expanding. Isopods and chunks of rock and soil were flying out in every direction.

  Desmond shook off his stupor. “Get up now!” he screamed at the others. But it was no use—they couldn't hear him over the noise. He saw that Infinity was helping the colonists get to their feet, and he joined in the effort, grabbing elbows and hoisting people up.

  The isopods surrounding the colonists were now spreading out, abandoning their tight formation, apparently due to their renewed agitation.

  Steven took over the job of assisting Alexander, and Gideon joined Desmond and Infinity as they prodded the colonists through the herd until they were beside Lenny. Daisy was crying now, although Desmond could barely hear her over the constant rumble.

  Infinity pointed up at the expanding plume and yelled something unintelligible.

  Desmond glanced upward. It was now clear that the cloud was going to expand far enough that the debris would soon start raining down on the colonists. The plume was far too expansive for them to have any hope of getting out of its way.

  Someone shook Desmond’s shoulder, and he pulled his eyes from the horror above. It was Infinity. She yanked him closer and shouted in his ear. “No way to outrun it! Tell the others to spread out. Tell them to watch the falling debris and be ready to move out of the way!”

  She pulled back and glared into his eyes. He nodded. She then moved to Gideon and started yelling in his ear, presumably giving the same instructions.

  Desmond stepped over to Xavier, filled him in on the plan, and told him to help spread the word. One by one, they communicated the instructions to the rest of the group, although some of the colonists shook their heads, apparently not liking the idea of separating. But Infinity’s reasoning was sound. As one of the few remaining colonies of surviving humans from Earth, they couldn't risk losing everyone at once.

  The group reluctantly began spreading out. Infinity waved for them to continue moving apart even farther, until they were all at least twenty yards from each other.

  Desmond positioned himself as near to Infinity as he thought she would allow and then turned toward the sky. Although chunks of earth were still spewing upward from the source of the volcanic energy, the outer debris was now on its way to the ground after having been propelled well over a half mile into the sky.

  Desmond's adrenaline was in full surge, and his muscles were tight. He scanned the area and saw that Hayley and Alexander Millwright were huddled together on the ground with their arms covering their heads. Why weren't they watching the sky? At this point there was no way to get their attention. He looked over at Infinity. She met his gaze and then pressed two fingers to her eyes and pointed upward, signaling for him to watch the sky.

  Desmond took a deep breath and turned his gaze skyward. A massive field of falling debris was now only a few hundred yards above him. It was still too soon to tell whether anything was headed straight toward him, so he simply stood in place. Several seconds later, he spotted a massive incoming object. He darted to his left. A two-thousand-pound isopod struck the ground where he’d been standing and exploded. A piece of carapace glanced off his shoulder and knocked him down. Lying on his back, he guarded his head with his arms and watched as debris rained down around him. Most of the objects were small. The few boulders and additional isopods he could see were falling to the east, closer to the initial eruption. After about thirty seconds he decided it was safe to get up and take his eyes off the sky.

  Most of the other colonists were still on their feet and appeared to be unhurt. Hayley and Alexander were still huddling together with their faces down, and Desmond ran over to them. Unable to speak to them due to the constant roar, he put a hand on each of the Millwrights’ shoulders and shook them. They uncovered their heads and looked up, apparently unharmed. Desmond and Hayley helped Alexander get up and stand on his one leg.

  Desmond scanned the sky once more for falling debris and then counted the colonists. Everyone was there. Emily Sanchez, one of the guardsmen, was holding a hand over a bleeding wound on the back of her head, but when Desmond pointed at her she nodded, indicating she was okay.

  Infinity made her way over to Desmond and leaned close to his ear. “Have to keep moving. Bridge-in site. Now!”

  He nodded and they both waved for the others to follow. They all began making their way northwest with renewed urgency.

  The next mile or so of their journey was punctuated by numerous tremors and ground swells knocking the colonists off their feet, but finally the group found themselves approaching the bridge-in site. Desmond had begun to worry that they wouldn’t be able to find the site. With the framework mounds reduced to rubble, the once-familiar terrain now looked like an alien landscape. But then Infinity pointed, having spotted something ahead. She was pointing at a symmetrical object about a quarter mile away. It appeared to be a green cone with its narrow end pointing toward the sky. Tubular ribs—or perhaps pipes—were arranged vertically around the curved exterior, converging at the cone’s tip.

  Desmond turned to Infinity, and she shook her head and shrugged. Desmond's best guess was that the object was something Armando intended to use for bridging the colonists off this world. Considering he had previously thought such a feat to be impossible, why should he be surprised that some bizarre piece of equipment was needed? Perhaps it was even a portable bridging device, constructed entirely out of bridgeable organic components.

  The constant roar of distant eruptions was still loud enough to make conversation impossible, so the colonists began stumbling their way toward the green cone. As they approached the structure, Desmond realized it was larger than he had estimated from a distance, standing at least thirty feet tall. Its surface was uniformly forest green, with no features except for fifteen or so evenly-spaced cylindrical pipes or conduits running from bottom to top. Armando and the Marines were nowhere to be seen, which wasn’t surprising since the colonists had arrived at least an hour early, by Desmond's estimation. Considering the planet seemed to be self-destructing, and at an alarming rate, even an hour was far too long to wait.

  Infinity nudged D
esmond’s arm and pointed east. He followed her gaze to the nearest collapsed framework hill. Scurrying aimlessly around the jumbled pile of girders were hundreds of skitterbugs, the green, lobster-sized creatures that had once inhabited the mound. In fact, it was probably the same swarm that had attacked the human refugees minutes after they had originally bridged to this world over eighteen months ago. One of the refugees, a historian named William, had disappeared during the attack, never to be seen again. No one knew for sure, but everyone assumed the skitterbugs had eaten him. Desmond felt no pity for the now-homeless creatures.

  The colonists had nothing to do but wait. That, and hope Armando would show up before they were all crushed by falling debris or blasted a half mile into the sky by an eruption beneath their feet. Most of the colonists stood staring out at the now-countless distant eruptions, while Desmond walked around the green cone, looking for clues as to its purpose. He saw no visible hatches or control panels—no way to get inside. He rapped his knuckles on the surface. As he had expected, it was hard, but the background noise made it impossible to hear whether it sounded hollow or solid. He pressed an ear to it. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he heard humming resonating from within. Whatever the object was, it seemed to be doing something.

  As Desmond finished making his way around the cone and returned to his original position, a group of figures appeared out of thin air about thirty yards away. They were all men in black fatigues, the Marines who had accompanied Armando the previous evening. The men teetered for only a few seconds before regaining their balance. Their eyes widened as they took in the huge columns of blasted material in the distance. Several of the dozen or so men instinctively covered their ears against the assault of noise, releasing their weapons to hang loosely on the slings around their necks and shoulders.

  The men glanced around until they spotted the waiting colonists. They started making their way over, but their eyes were drawn to the green cone. They exchanged frowns and puzzled glances.