by Gregg Vann
It’s why they were here.
“You realize, of course, that anything you broadcast will be monitored and logged,” Greywin told Dura. “And believe me, I don’t want to know what you’re up to—”
“No. You don’t.”
“…but, if the Collective doesn’t approve of your actions, and somehow I get the feeling they won’t, you’ll be shut out of the system within two or three minutes.”
“That’s all I need,” Dura replied.
“Then it’s done,” Greywin announced. He handed the device back to Dura, tensing up as the Warden examined his work.
Dura checked the override channel to make sure Greywin hadn’t issued a positioning alert, hoping someone would show up to rescue him. But everything was clean, so Dura sent a warning message out to every Warden in the city, telling them about the Collective’s plan to eliminate them. Then he triggered the emergency assembly protocol.
“That’s it,” he said to Greywin. Dura turned off the transmitter and put it back in his pocket. “Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“No. But it will be when my superiors get a hold of me. Can I go home now?”
“Of course you can. I keep my promises. Just do me one last favor and make sure you don’t tell anyone about this. They’ll find out soon enough on their own.”
“If they come looking for me, I’ll just say that you forced me to do it and then knocked me unconscious.”
“Good,” Dura replied. “You know what? That’s actually not a bad idea.”
“Wha—? Wait!” Greywin exclaimed. “What do you mean?”
“Take him home,” Dura directed his men. And then he pulled a capped syringe out of a side pocket and threw it to one of them. “And make sure he gets a good night’s sleep.”
Dura smiled and Greywin’s already pale skin blanched further.
“A full ten hours should do it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Stories
As they entered the clearing a little girl ran out of the house, stopping dead in her tracks when she saw Barent and Tana.
“Go back inside, Ilin,” Draly said, emerging from the tree line right behind them. But the girl just stood there—frozen not in defiance, but disbelief.
Barent examined the child with interest, finding that she had the same overall features as her parents. But there was one rather notable exception.
She was smiling.
“What are they?” Ilin asked enthusiastically.
She ran up to Tana and the little girl’s smile grew even broader. “Your skin is so pale. Are you a ghost? I’ve read about ghosts in stories. Are you both ghosts?”
Tana smiled back at her and pointed at Barent.
“I’m not. But he is.”
“That’s funny,” Barent said. “I’m glad to see you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”
“We’re not really ghosts,” Tana explained. “Everyone where I’m from is the same color, more or less. That’s what happens when you have a small gene pool—some of whom were genetically engineered like him, and ended up as white as snow. Add in the environment on this planet, and an extended period of time…”
Tana paused when she saw the confusion on the girl’s face. Ilin was terribly interested in every single word, but had absolutely no idea what Tana was talking about.
“Ah, never mind,” Tana told her, and then they started across the clearing.
If Ilin was disappointed, she didn’t let it show. In fact, her smile never waned as they all filed into the little house. Calif motioned them toward a table near the center of the room, and the others took a seat as he stepped over to a collection of shallow shelves mounted on the wall—all neatly stacked with eating utensils. There was a large window installed just above the shelving, providing an expansive view out over the clearing, and Barent could tell by the bent metal framework around the outer edges that the glass had been repurposed from another part of the ship.
He also observed that the table, chairs, and most of the furnishings were metallic—appearing to be standard colony issue—but the house, the few cabinets and shelves he could see, and a simple sofa pushed up against one wall, were all constructed out of wood. Barent spied two closed doorways off to the side of the main room and determined they probably led to the family’s bedrooms.
Calif returned carrying a pitcher and four cups and poured water for everyone. As he sat down with the others, a rotund cat lazily strolled underneath the table and brushed up against Tana’s leg. It started purring and she jumped, frantically sliding her chair back away from the animal.
“What is that?” Tana exclaimed.
“It’s a cat,” Ilin replied. “You’ve never seen a cat before?”
“No. I haven’t.” Tana looked back down at the strange creature and one of her eyebrows rose. “Can you eat them?”
“Why would you eat a cat?” Ilin asked, bewildered.
The little girl picked the animal up and sheltered it under her arm protectively, and then she gave Tana a strange look before carrying the cat to the other side of the room.
“It’s a pet.” Barent chuckled, unable to conceal his amusement.
“What are they for?” Tana asked.
“That particular type can be very amusing…infuriating as well.”
“As I’ve often said,” Calif agreed.
"I heard rumors that cats were included in with the livestock,” Barent said. “But I really didn't believe it. Not until now, anyway.”
“There were only a few,” Draly explained. “And we try to keep it that way.”
“I bet,” Barent said, and then he steered the conversation in a more serious direction. “So tell us about the Olin. How many people live inside the ship?”
Draly and Calif shared an anxious look, and then Calif replied, “All in good time, Sergeant. Why don’t you tell us what happened to the Le’sant first.”
“It landed,” Barent stated matter-of-factly. “Exactly as it was designed to do. The city deployed as planned, but no other ships arrived afterward bringing the colonists meant to inhabit it.”
“So they just abandoned us?” Draly said.
“We don’t know what happened,” Barent replied truthfully. “There’s been no contact with Earth since the landing.”
After a moment’s silence, Calif said, “And where is the Le’sant?”
“Down inside the crater. Almost dead center of it, actually.”
Calif looked at Draly. “That would explain how they got past our sentries. If they came up from the crater floor they must have emerged somewhere inside the perimeter.”
Sentries? Barent pondered. Watching for what?
But he tabled that question for later in favor of others crowding his mind.
“Haven’t you ever explored out beyond the vicinity of the Olin?” he asked them.
“Our ancestors did,” Calif replied. “They travelled far out onto the plains—in all directions—but the crater wall was too steep to descend safely. A few of them tried to hike down it and fell to their deaths, while others attempted rappelling to the crater floor and were never heard from again. The severe winds, slippery ice, and extreme angle of the slope, makes any attempt treacherous—futile, really. Our books tell us the original colonists always suspected that the Le’sant might be down there somewhere, but they eventually abandoned all efforts to reach it.”
“What about the ruggedized snowcraft the Olin was equipped with?” Barent asked.
“If there were such things, our ancestors never spoke of them.”
“The hangar where they were stored is probably on the underside of the ship.” Barent realized. “If so, there’s no way they could’ve gotten to them after the crash. Not with limited power and equipment.”
Calif shrugged his shoulders. “That’s possible, I guess. What I do know is that our hunting parties set out on the plains for weeks at a time, and they’ve peered down into the crater from every accessible spot on its rim. But they have never seen
any trace of the Le’sant, so the Olin people gave up on it a long time ago.”
“Le’sant gave up on the Olin as well,” Barent said. “But it appears we were all wrong.”
“Tell me something,” Tana interjected. “Why didn’t your ancestors use the comms to contact Le’sant before the ship lost power?”
She’d directed her question at Calif, but Barent answered instead. “Long-range comms can’t cut through this planet’s atmospheric interference—only short-range frequencies work. The Olin was carrying a pair of satellites to launch when it first reached orbit—to provide the colony with long-range communications and weather monitoring systems. But obviously, that didn’t happen.”
“But we picked up the Olin’s emergency beacon,” Tana said. “And we weren’t all that far from Le’sant at the time. How’s that possible?”
“The beacon is just that,” Barent answered. “A high-powered, low-frequency, pulsing locator signal. It can send a single tone out a great distance, but not a signal complex enough to communicate through. It also has a self-contained low-draw energy supply, one that could conceivably last for centuries.”
“Okay. But why didn’t the First Ones detect it?”
“I’m not sure,” Barent replied. “But I do have a theory.” He turned his attention to the Olin. “How long have your people been here…on Torvus?”
“The books tell us almost three hundred years,” Draly said. “Why?”
Tana’s jaw dropped open. “But Le’sant was founded more than five hundred years ago.”
“That tracks with what I suspected, then,” Barent said. “The damage we saw to the engine assembly is inconsistent with striking the mountain. And the scorch marks where it was ripped away from the fuselage look like they happened during atmospheric entry—as if the angle of descent had been thrown off slightly by the engine’s absence. I saw no trace of the missing pieces on the surface either, and they would be huge, and difficult to hide—even with centuries of snowfall.”
Barent took in a deep breath as he put the last pieces of the puzzle together, and then he continued.
“I think the Olin collided with something en route to Torvus. And whatever it was, it damaged one of the engines and caused the ship to slow down—making it arrive two hundred years after the Le’sant landed. The colony ships were designed for constant propulsion, ramping up speed all the way out to the halfway point between Earth and Torvus. Then the engines were reversed to slow the vessels back down on the second half of the journey, preparing the ships for arrival. The damage must have occurred before that transition, or the Olin would never have made it at all. With an engine out of commission during the deceleration phase, the ship wouldn’t have been able to bleed off the speed from the first part of the trip—and it would have overshot the planet. So whatever happened kept the Olin from reaching its maximum speed in the first place, as well as affecting its deceleration. That same damage probably kept the ship from deploying its satellites when it finally did arrive at Torvus, and screwed up the approach to the crater, leading to the crash.”
Barent looked around the table and saw tentative agreement on the faces present; their expressions also urged him to continue.
“When the Olin struck the mountain,” he said, “the emergency beacon activated, just as it was supposed to do. But by that time, two hundred years had already passed in Le’sant. Who would be looking for an antiquated signal on an old and unused channel?”
“No one,” Tana answered. “But your five-hundred-year-old comm unit still was…”
“Yes,” Barent agreed. Then he shook his head. “With an engine missing, it’s a miracle the Olin even made it to Torvus. For the people and animals to have survived the journey is even more remarkable.”
“It’s as good an explanation as any for what happened,” Calif said. Then he leaned forward and looked at Barent—closely examining his features. “The books tell us the original colonists were pure white, just like you. And your ID card says you’re from that time period. But how can that be?”
“That, is a very long story,” Barent replied. “But the short version is that I was in cryo-sleep up until just a few days ago.”
“And Le’sant really has power?” Draly said.
“It has access to unlimited energy,” Barent confirmed.
“The Olin has none, whatsoever.”
“Nothing at all?” Tana said. “That hardly seems possible. What about portable lighting units and hand tools? Or weapons, even. Surely there must be something.”
“Absolutely nothing,” Draly said. “The first generation had power—their devices are everywhere—but when those finally went dead that was the end of it.”
“The damaged engine assembly would have crippled power generation,” Barent explained. “And as we’ve seen, the ship tried to deploy as a city after it went tumbling down the mountain. There was no way the Olin could accomplish that lying on its side, and the effort undoubtedly drained every last bit of stored energy.” Barent’s expression turned somber. “The cryo-chambers were programmed to open up as part of the landing sequence, so the people and animals would have woken up in the middle of all that chaos. I can’t even imagine…”
“But what about the battery-driven systems?” Tana asked. “It’s only been three hundred years since the Olin crashed, but you showed me charging stations in the hideout that are still functioning after five hundred.”
“That’s because they haven’t been active the entire time. In constant use, they might have lasted fifty years, at the most.”
“So when the Olin’s all went dead…”
“Yes.” Calif understood. “That was the end of it.”
“But if there’s no power, then where is all of this heat coming from?” Tana asked. “The ship should be frozen solid. And completely covered in snow.”
“Take a look,” Calif said, pointing up. “Some of the support framework punctured through the ship’s hull right above the house. You can even see a few of the panels.”
Tana peered through a thick pane of glass installed in the ceiling—covered in a thin film of dust—and high above them saw twisted metal sticking down through the Olin’s secondary fuselage. Barent followed her gaze, noting several black panels wedged between the rips in the hull and the metal framework.
“That would do it,” he said. “It looks like the ship’s solar collectors tried to deploy.” Tana looked confused by the revelation so Barent explained. “It was a system designed to channel minimal heat throughout the ship’s base structure—pushing it up through the buildings as a temporary measure until the geothermal systems were attached and online. I watched them take the Le’sant’s apart and reuse the materials once the permanent system went active.”
“Did you say minimal heat?” Tana remarked. “It’s hot as hell in here. Not that I’m complaining, mind you.”
“That’s because there is a lot more sunlight up here than down on the crater floor,” Barent said. “And remember, the system was designed to heat an entire city. But because the Olin is only partially deployed, the solar array’s self-powered fans are pushing the heat into a smaller area, comparatively speaking, and the majority of it seems to be channeled down here into the core section—mostly empty now that the buildings were pushed forward in the botched deployment. The fact that the Olin is resting on its side isn’t helping things either.”
Tana looked out through the back window of the house and down toward the spires. The reflective glass windows on the tall buildings were all spun out at different angles—frozen in place as the power failed. And bright sunlight poured in through huge gaps in the hull where the buildings had pushed through, sending light refracting off the oblique surfaces of the windows and throughout the interior of the Olin.
“I think I understand all of the light in here as well,” she said, pointing it out to Barent.
“I believe you’re right,” he responded.
“The conditions are perfect for the plants,” Draly
said. “They love the heat and humidity. And there’s no shortage of water either; it runs off the Olin’s skin and is channeled into a small river near here.”
“A river,” Tana repeated.
Draly smiled. “The snow melts as soon as it hits the warm outer skin of the Olin, and there are staggered openings between the half-formed buildings and the inner and outer shells of the ship—where excess heat can escape, and melted snow drizzles down like rain.”
“An accidental ecosystem,” Barent said in amazement. “And from the small part of it we’ve seen, it’s an effective one at that.”
“Not entirely accidental,” Calif said. “Our ancestors crawled up into the spires to break away and reposition some of the glass—so they could control the lighting, and vent more of the heat outside. It was very hot in here in the beginning. They also hauled in tons of the native soil over the years—treating it with additives they brought with them, and spreading it around to extend the amount of arable land inside the Olin. In time, the entire interior of the ship was converted into what you see now.”
“I wonder if they tried to retool the solar collectors to provide energy for other things,” Barent said.
“If they did, they must have been unsuccessful,” Calif replied. “And unfortunately, the knowledge of how to work on the machines died along with them. But without power that knowledge was useless, and there were plenty of new skills to learn once it was gone.”
Barent nodded his understanding. The earlier generations of Olin had to teach themselves how to survive on this planet without any of the technology they’d relied on their entire lives. It must have been an incredible challenge for them, but they’d done it. Barent was looking at the proof of their success right in front of him.
Tana’s gaze drifted out the window again as Calif refilled their cups, and she got a good look at the squat creatures they’d spotted when they first discovered the homestead. A few of the animals were lumbering around the pen aimlessly, pushing their noses through the dirt like they were searching for something to eat, while others were lying so still on the ground that Tana wasn’t sure if they were dead or alive. But the one thing they shared in common was that all of them were covered in mud and partially eaten vegetables. Draly noticed Tana’s interest, and also the confusion on her face.