Sidereal Quest

by E Robert Dunn

  “Eruption columns can be enormous in size and grow rapidly,” Moela added. “Reaching more than twelve kiloretems above a volcano in less than thirty macronodes. Once in the air, the volcanic ash and gas form an eruption cloud.”

  “Eruption clouds will pose a serious hazard to aviation,” Retho mentioned.

  Nicraan sighed in realization. “More obstacles …”

  “There’s one thing more,” Retho said, calling up a graphic representation of the surrounding crash site and its relationship to the surrounding volcanic chain. “The area affected by a blast from our neighboring volcanoes can be subdivided into three roughly concentric zones.” Pointing at the hologram before them, Retho finished up his report. “They are: Direct Blast Zone, Channelized Blast Zone, and Seared Zone.”

  “What determines each?” Dara asked.

  “The first zone is the innermost zone, averaged about eight kiloretems in radius, an area in which virtually everything, natural or sentient-made, is obliterated or carried away. The second zone is an intermediate zone, extended out to distances as far as nineteen kiloretems from the volcano. The last zone, also called the “standing dead” zone, the outermost fringe of the impact area, a zone in which foliage remain standing but are singed brown by the hot gases of a blast.”

  “Let me guess,” Capel breathed pessimistically, “we’re not in the last zone.”

  “Nor the second,” Retho replied. “We are in the Direct Blast Zone of at least three volcanoes along this area’s chain.”

  “Any indications of any of those three blowing their tops soon?” Nicraan had to ask.

  “In all honesty, once the planet begins to feel the affects of the breakdown of this solar group’s suns, any and/or all volcanoes could begin to erupt,” Retho sighed. “We are in immediate danger even as we have this discussion. And, of course, there’s still the matter of that ancient, abandoned deep-bore well some 125-kiloretems down in the planet’s crust. A global fissure has been forming around the planet’s circumference for some time now. I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole world just ‘cracked’ in half when everything starts to happen.”

  “We must leave this place as soon as possible, without delay,” Dara urged.

  “Yes,” Retho agreed. “I’ve already begun a pre-emptive harvest of the hydroponics garden; placing whatever hasn’t matured into the ship’s reclamation network.”

  Capel agreed. Things would have to be done ahead of schedule; sleep stints would be the first sacrifice. His soar body bitterly reminded him of the sacrifice it would personally be.

  "Fine," he said, after a moment to collect himself. "We start immediately. I want Operation Evac concluded... Now!"

  CHAPTER EIGHTTEEN:

  Capel Perezsire looked out on the horizon from his vantage point in the Pioneer Pod 4's upper deck's command-apse. He saw a sickly-looking primary sun following its distant twin star along their trek across the alien sky. The planet's parental star was impaled in a mirage of fumes engulfing the horizon. The valley seemed to be disappearing beneath a cavity of light; light permeated with pall, air-borne dust, and a new darkness at dusk. The croplands had been wiped out, food was in short supply, and water reserves were contaminated. As the primary sun touched the jagged mountains that formed the valley's crater-like rim, it seemed to be overtaken by a huge ring of vomitus corona-like substance from steam-blast eruptions as superheated water flashed and fanned out over the horizon.

  Quickly, darkness set on the valley.

  The air was cold and damp and heavy with twilight. Stars pricked the limpid royal blue with points of light. This system contained only a single planet and no moon. All its sky's stars should be fixed, never changing their relationship to one another.

  Retho helped Nicraan move the packed away components of Base Camp's backlot up the aft strut and into the ship's hold. He was about to hand the pilot the last supply crate when the night rumbled; the ground shook. In the distance, the planet echoed the quake. Beyond the perimeter of the crash site, a fault split the plain into halves, and then rammed the halves one against the other. One edge rose like a tidal wave, overwhelming and crushing the other, which subsided beneath it. The sheer faces of stone ground against each other with the power to form continents.

  A wash of illumination flooded ground and sky. A brilliant aurora echoed the earthquake lights, and ozone sharpened the air as the red giant's incandescent surface washed the planet's upper atmosphere with lethal radiation.

  The planet was dying, as the Saarien had died, as every person Retho and Nicraan and the others had cared about had died, as they expected, soon, to die. They turned away to gaze into the looming, sparkling curtains of the aurora. Even above the rumblings of the quake, Retho and Nicraan could hear the electric sizzle of the aurora discharge. They watched and marveled even though their mental undertones revealed fear.

  Instead of fading, the quake intensified. Fissures shot like lightning bolts through and across the earthscape. The massive gourd trees that lined the desert's outer sector rocked. The loud snap! of breaking stilt branches reverberated across the plain. Retho and Nicraan looked around, realizing that the world about was no longer safe.

  The ground heaved. It flung a massive gourd tree completely free, ripping it up by its stilted roots and propelling it from the promontory onto the bare desert below. The basaltic spires that had stood for millennia like sentinels across the landscape now filled with fissures and broke and fell under their own weight, sending a rain of razor-sharp fragments to pepper the vibrating, rippling sands. Eventually the huge blocks of vulcanized stone fell and shattered with an explosive impact.

  Several of the ancient lava beds crumbled and fell inward like trapdoors. A zigzag split appeared across the center of the crashsite’s backlot perimeter, widening until it swallowed both halves of a fallen rock monolith. The naturally-carved stone faces slid over the edge and vanished into the depths of the dying planet.

  The two echelon stood huddle together, terrified as they stared about at the abyss that had formed behind the grounded Pod. Collecting their wits, they picked their way across the ragged, trembling surface toward the aft strut. They gasped for breath. The heavily ionized air burned in their throats.

  With a powerful seismic shift, one towering perimeter rock edifice shuddered, looking like the spire of an enormous sky scraping belfry. Letting out a chorus of groans, one of its sides buckled. A stony façade gave way, pulling in hundreds of rectangular facets to collapse in a roar of geologic thunder.

  In the distance, another wide, dark fissure tore the surface of the desert and swallowed more and more dirt and collapsed rock into the depths. Sulfurous steam blasted upward from the hot, exposed wound. With a shrieking cry of distressed stone, more and more of the giant craggy pinnacles collapsed, slumping over next to each other resembling tossed game blocks.

  A line of yellow-tinged lava gushed from a newly opened crack just outside the podship’s grounds. As the quake increased in its violence, giant sinkholes opened. More and more of the giant obelisk stones slid down into the ever-widening sink craters; all the while, liquid fire sprayed higher and higher. Hot winds laden with ash and dust tore at Retho and Nicraan like a hurricane from hell. The desert plains were on fire from the eruptions; in the remote distance, whole mountains were being swallowed up.

  The auroras blazed overhead and lit the clearing with a ghastly glow. Retho looked up involuntarily to see the shimmering bright display, but then realized his mistake and looked away before the light could blind him. The light he could look away from, but the sound, the overwhelming sound -- there was nothing he could do to shut that out. The noise redoubled, louder than ever, and the ground bucked harder, nearly knocking Retho over.

  The Pioneer 4 was bouncing on its aft landing jack, riding its shock absorbers. Unseen by the two echelon, their crewmates inside the saucer were knocked around from their duties as if they had been standing on a shaken rug. Within no time they lay amidst chaos like fallen dolls.r />
  Outside the podship, the sky and the earth continued to rumble. Retho moaned as he tried to stay gripped to Nicraan, the distant gourd trees groaned and cracked, and in the background the aurora rustled, soft and eerie. The two echelon held each other tightly; Nicraan caressed Retho’s face, his amber hair so beautiful as it danced around his eyes, his cheeks. Matasire’s eyes were clear, and even with all of the desert in uproar around, he saw only Retho, only his face. The lieutenant seemed to glow in the red lava-light filtered through the sheen of ash. In some ways, they wanted this moment to last forever.

  Matasire leaned forward to kiss Retho, shutting out even the catastrophe with their love. They closed their eyes, and the world seemed to settle around them. Separating from each other, Retho staggered with Nicraan around to the far side of the ship and got to the rear support's ingress ladder.

  As the duo reached the strut, the earthquake dissipated away into a whimper. Pausing to collect themselves, Retho and Nicraan had their attentions drawn upward. The sky was a luminous backdrop, a curtain of wavering aurora light pierced intermittently by stars.

  "This world is lucky if it sees another sunsrise," Nicraan sighed, helping Retho with the fallen crate and then up into the ship.

  Once inside and the supplies were neatly stowed away, Retho tugged gently on Matasire’s nearest arm. “Come,” he said simply. “There is something I want to show you.”

  Inside the laboratory, beside its computer bank, there was a sealed unit. Efficiently, Retho operated an unlocking mechanism. As the panel slid away, the glowing interior dominated the clinical surroundings. Glistening clusters of fibrous material were coiled in the familiar pattern of a double helix, the structure of the genetic code of the life principle. This feature poised itself on top of a flat, oblong casket that held glowing nuclei. It was a gene bank.

  Retho said, “Our mission is to survive this voyage, but I felt it should not just be for our sake, yet but also for this -- this planet’s gene bank. It contains the undamaged genetic material of this planet’s many species.”

  Nicraan replied, “The Double Helix. It is also the basic genetic brick of our species.”

  “Then you will understand how important this is to me. I have kept it screened from the radiation that irreparably damaged this planet’s plants and animals. With it I figure we can build up any planet we may settle on. Pure, healthy life forms. This way their deaths will not have been in vain.”

  “How noble of you,” Nicraan responded, accompanied by a gentle kiss to Retho’s unblemished forehead.

  “It was a project Lunon and I had started together, several months ago. Neither one of us wanted this planet to be forgotten. We somehow wanted to save its remaining inhabitants from extinction.”

  “Well, this will definitely guarantee their survival and perhaps our future.” Then Nicraan’s tone changed from one of compassion to complete frankness, “However, it will be all in vain if we do not get this ship spaceworthy. Next stop is Engineering.”

  Retho nodded and closed the gene bank unit, turning he said, “Point the way, and I shall follow.”

  Nicraan’s quick look to Retho was his first unguarded act. It did everything to reassure Retho. Both spun on their heels and stalked out of the laboratory.

  Capel made his way along the upper deck, steadying himself after the earth tremor had faded away from its subway roar to complete silence. It was a sweltering night and looking out the unshuttered bowport’s view he could see that there was a low ground cover of mist developing, no more than thirty retems high.

  The night was also alive suddenly with a mass of flying insects. At first Capel thought they were cotton balls, or gossamer cobwebs drifting in the breeze, but then he recognized in the dim lighting that had diffused through the viewshield to the outside the migratory flurry of wax wings and hairy tibia, a grotesque diversity of claws, antennae, and the telltale mosaic of spattered parts against the syntheglass. For Capel, who was not fond of insects, this was a bad dream.

  The remnants of Base Camp were faint and mussy behind the locust-like swarms. There was an odd odor in the air, Capel noticed. A medicinal-like odor, of an antiseptic. The outside air was thick with the continuing flight of organisms. And, Capel, thought, the whole ship sounded different.

  "Dara," he called, taking his spouse in his arms when he got to the lower utility deck. "Where is everyone?"

  "About the ship. Doing pre-flight checks and packing. Why?" she asked, her voice taking on a thickness to its tone. She left the Infirmary's storage shelving and its inventory pad to study Capel's face fully.

  "Have you seen what's going on outside?" he asked, leaning against a nearby wall.

  "What's going on outside?"

  "Insects. Lots of'em. You haven't seen it? Stand by the rear strut's egress. Look."

  She had been preoccupied for nodes. She walked to the aft exit, opened the hatch, and saw what he was talking about.

  "Good Ancients!"

  Dara stared briefly, and then activated the closing mechanism, making sure the door shut tight. She returned to her mate.

  "Maybe the insects are also leaving," she mused.

  Moela was closing the maintenance bay when she suddenly saw a large pair of eyes staring at her from the edge of the workbench. Fascination and horror choked her reaction and she simply watched it, eye against eye, as it slowly approached her.

  "An arachnid," she whispered to herself in amazement. "The most humongous thing I've ever seen..."

  She was now glued to the thing's advance and slowly returned an inventory data pad to its wall-positioned niche. Just as her hand stayed on the cladding for an added micronode of determining time, she felt something, flung her hand away, jettisoning the data pad, only to see her hand covered in minute bugs she'd never seen before. They stung.

  Screaming, shaking in paroxysms, Moela hurled herself toward the inner hatch.

  Dara was just reaching down to refasten a medical storage wall panel when she heard her daughter in the garage. Capel lunged from the auxiliary control room, racing toward the screams.

  He carried Moela into the Infirmary, yelling for his son and spouse. Dara was there, but Retho -- who was with Nicraan in the engineering compartment down the deck from them -- heard nothing above the din of the test-drive simulators that the ship's pilot had programmed for a pre-flight run-through.

  Capel placed Moela on the exam-bed. Her face and arms were red and peppered with sudden blisters. Then he noticed hundreds, thousands of little midge-like creatures swarming over the floor. Capel stomped the deck in a futile rampage. Tears welled in his eyes where the creatures were sucking him dry.

  Inside the engine room, a flood of organisms, each harboring a stinging proboscis, attacked Retho and Nicraan. The two threw up their arms, drowning in pain, crashed into the bulkhead, and escaped to the outer deck, where they collided with the others in their desperate hurdles into the lift and up the stairladder. Retho was breathing rapidly, clinging to the stair rungs, clawing at himself, then tumbled onto the upper deck in panic.

  The bugs were storming, biting at everything in sight. Beyond the thick transparency of the bow viewport, the crew saw a wave of hysterical furry bats in a fulminate with insects. Their ship was under siege.

  "The shuttle. It's been sealed!" Nicraan screamed.

  They all dashed across the polished deck for the mini-hangar's bulkhead, ignoring the river of worms, ants, roaches, and other creatures pouring onto the deck from the ventilator ducts.

  The crew ran desperately, the deck seemed to be a surface that was in motion, an imperceptible spleen, in the form of things swarming with an equal fervor on the plasticrete.

  The hangar hatch slid aside and beckoned welcome to the panicked fivesome. What seemed like an eternity past before the last of them were secured inside the safety of the Recon Shuttle.

  "What are we going to do?" breathed Moela, trying to relax as Dara administered triage treatment to her wounds.

  "Those inse
cts will overwhelm the ship, we'll never be able to take-off!" cursed Nicraan, wiping the sweat that beaded his stung forehead.

  Retho thought a moment, and then grinned with satisfaction. "There is a way!"

  The others stared at him with a mixture of hope and doubt.

  "A beryline radiation shock burst," he said, moving to the shuttle's science station.

  "What? The only source of beryline radiation on this ship is from the engine core," Nicraan reminded Retho, closely following him toward the interface panel. "To achieve a shock burst, the engine core pressure would have to be raised to almost critical. Do you realize a beryline radiation shock pulse of that magnitude would create a subatomic particle shower all over this ship?"

  "A beryline subatomic particle shower is fatal to organic tissue!" Dara interjected, stepping beside her son.

  Retho nodded, saying in response even as he began programming commands into the interface, "Yes, if unshielded!" Finishing his task, the young scientist looked to his superior asking, "Sire?"

  Capel did not hesitate to give his endorsement with a simple, yet meaningful, nod.

  "Thank you." Retho then called out to the automatic voice pick-up to the ship's brain, "Computer?"

  The genderless voice came immediately. "Request?"

  "Computer, seal the Pioneer Pod Four, then create a level five containment field around the Recon Shuttle Eland, and then activate a beryline burst sweep of the Pioneer Pod Four. Expose all areas of the ship except the interior of the Eland. Clearance security code: Lieutenant Retho Capelsire, Authorization, Alpha One Omega zero one point two."

  "Voice-print identification verified. Command received and acknowledge. Requested beryline shock pulse sweep will take approximately forty-five macronodes. Commencing in Tee-minus one macronode, mark."

  Instantly a humming rose from outside the protective shell of the shuttle's hull, a shimmering appeared in the space around the Eland. Moments later it settled down into a hazy, thin blue blur that cocooned the shuttle -- forming a hemisphere of light-reflecting sapphire glitter.