“Whoa. Did you hear that?”
“We’re back online!” Ravi yelled.
They received the text messages in a flurry. Communication had finally been established, if only temporarily.
Theo and Ravi’s attention both went to a message from their father.
COMMUNICATION ENTRY:
From: [email protected]
TO: [email protected]; [email protected]
Hello guys,
We trust and hope that this message finds you safe and healthy. As you may have figured, magnetic atmospheric disturbances have been keeping communication offline. We hope that each day there will be a cooperative window of opportunity for a link to be established. As I hope you’ve figured by now, you have landed slightly off target, twenty-two and a third miles from the Discovery Site. When you get to the site, we want you to drill, hopefully to find water or life. To do so, follow Protocol 111 to the letter.
Your mother is here with me on the shuttle with me. In fact, she’s right here over my shoulder…wishing…and hoping…and praying for your safety.
We’re coming to be with you. It will happen. We’ll all be reunited.
You mother wants you to know that we are bringing real vegetables. Tomatillos. Peppers. I’ll make salsa for you. Real, organic salsa and we’ll have your favorite, carne asada burritos. I promise. No more blue nutrient tablets, no more freeze-dried anything.
Please be safe down there. Please! We’re almost there. And know that Genesis is on its way. I know we’ll see you all soon. Stay strong. All of you. Stay positive. Stay together and work together. We’ll stay in touch.
God speed.
Dad and Mom
ENTRY COMPLETE.
CHAPTER 17
PROTOCOL 111
The Positives all were awake in the Pod, sitting around the common room table. It was almost dusk. All of them were thirsty and hungry but preoccupied by the messages that had been received late into the night.
They had not come upon a plant or any new sightings of creatures or animals or a tree or anything they could label as unique or different than what they had already seen. They gathered many soil samples and tested each for microbiotic life. None was found in any of the samples.
Outside the winds were settled into a steady though less dramatic twenty-five miles per hour and visibility was clear for almost half a mile. They saw the dull, gray gleam of the first light of sun. Everyone was now awake and reading the same text message from Doctor Starling.
Ravi had his goggles still over his eyes as he looked up into the stars through the moon roof window.
“Dad is only nine days away now,” Ravi said.
“Anything can happen to us in eight days,” Sam said.
“What is Protocol 111?” Ellie asked.
“A drilling program,” Ravi answered. “It is a project aimed at developing the blueprint for exploring GidX7’s subterranean strata. Which is a mixture of soil, shale and limestone. Much like Earth. What works there, we hope will work down here on GidX7,”
Theo added. “From the first images from the first probe to GidX7, we’ve always known the surfaces of this planet looked so familiar, so common, so like the deserts of Arizona or Utah. If we want to know about where we came from, then we only need to study these places.”
“So, we’re looking for water in a desert?” Sam asked.
“Yes, we’re trying to confirm a hypothesis that under the surface of this desert is something amazing and life supporting,” Theo said.
“Maybe the Yin-Yang Twins live underground,” Ravi said
“And maybe they don’t,” Sam said, “and maybe there’s something else down here.”
“Doesn’t matter. Odyssey is telling us to run Protocol 111 and that’s what we’ve got to do,” Theo said.
Theo rubbed his hands through his hair and turned his attention the medical program. He was getting tired.
Nearby, Sam sat on the energy bike. He tried to pedal but every few seconds he reflexively scratched at his chest.
“Didn’t you read Ms. Esparanza’s white paper report?” Ravi asked.
“Which one?” Sam asked.
“The Fertility and Possibilities of Future Life on GidX7,” Ravi said.
“Oh yeah,” Sam answered, “totally read it, mutant, but could you give us the Cliff Notes version?”
“By accessing and analyzing soil and other material from tens of meters under the surface, the investigation should help answer our questions about the development of life here. As I understand it,” Ravi continued on, “numerous chemical reactions are possible in an ammonia solution. It is a close cousin to water. Life is a self-reproducing system. Terrestrial life usually exists within the melting point of boiling water.”
Theo interjected “See, we have long suspected that there is an active underground water table here on GidX7.”
“Then why haven’t we found any yet?” Sam asked.
“Cause we’ve been drilling in the wrong spot,” Ravi said.
“So let me get this straight. We’re hunting for water. And we’re hunting for a cure and a creature,” Sam said.
“Exactly,” Ravi said.
“I don’t know. To me that sounds like a lot of hunting for a needle in a haystack and it’s just a skeleton. That’s all. It’s not proof, you know, that there’s anything really alive down here. It could be a GidX7 extinct dinosaur.”
“Where there’s a skeleton, there once was and probably still is flesh and blood life. That’s what I believe,” Ravi said with a careful look out the viewing window. “The skeleton once ate and drank here, so by bringing running water to the surface, we hope to draw the creature or creatures out into the open.”
“I’m heading out there to get the drill positioned correctly,” Theo said.
Theo grabbed his goggles and headed outside to begin Protocol 111. This involved detaching the outside panel where a drill apparatus the size of two full-grown men was being stored.
Inside the Pod, Ellie got ready to run a set of commands needed to prepare the Pod for the drilling procedure that would cut down into the planet’s layers of soil. The Pod had a robotic drilling arm that detached from the main structure and rolled on wheels. It looked something like a four-wheeled robot with one large drilling arm was made of titanium reinforced with a carbonite tip of the highest order. While it was only six feet in length, it had been developed to reach hundreds of feet into the hardest of surfaces. It was a mobile device.
The robotic arm wasn’t built to dig a wide-open hole – rather it was designed to extend a narrow pencil width hole at least two hundred feet straight down into any consistency of soil and solid stratification.
Laying down in the soil, Theo bent down to unlock the storage panel. Pretty soon, Theo was sweating. Beads fell into his eyes.
Soon, Protocol 111 was beginning to shake and rumble the outer panels of the Pod. Beneath one long set of panels a robotic arm unfurled from its resting place.
The slow burn of the robotic arm of the Pod drilled down into the golden brown soil. They watched the progress of the drill and every few feet Ravi announced the depth.
The drill powered down into the soil.
According to Ms. Esparanza’s white paper, “The Fertility and Possibilities of Future Life on GidX7,” finding water on GidX7 was a slim, though statistically hopeful proposition. Her forecasting model had placed the probability at about 12%.
A couple of cool hours later the new planet’s sun crept up over the horizon. It was a haze of white yellow, through the gray of the sky and then it was gone and night had returned.
At the console, Theo monitored the drilling program and watched the data blips and dots swirl with slow and steady progress.
In the window seat with a view of the drilling site, Ravi read up on vegetable and plant gardening in desert soil. It was his protocol to see if GidX7’s soil could sustain any food but he couldn’t stop looking outside.
They were feeling slightly l
ess than normal. All had the starts of a fever. Painful aches rippled through their muscles.
Stretched out in his bunk, Sam tried to work on his laptop computer. He tried to assemble his most recent collage of photos but every few minutes he felt an uncontrollable itch on several parts of his body. The only caption Sam could think of in his impatient and cranky state was Planet Suck!
Like always, Harry Wolf was curled up in a sleeping position near Theo’s feet.
Theo had read dozen of messages from his father and some of the other big brain science guys back at the Ark. Most were about infectious diseases and vaccines and the history of malaria and parasitic desegregation. While it was very important information and a great science lesson, the only few things that stuck in Theo’s mind was the fact that natural selection means that only the strong survive.
Reminded of this, Theo was frightened by the creeping and lasting awareness of how temporary everything in life really was, how easily all that was good and right and safe could just slip away in a few moments.
Theo was a child when he entered space. He was something else now, more than just a boy, not quite a full-grown man. He was in between two lives, apart from his past, searching for a future where he would be strong enough to survive.
Even with this dose of optimism, Theo knew the whole thing was a total shot in the dark, just a needle in the golden brown haystack of sand and wind. There were so many what-ifs and unknowns and so much dust in the wind.
In his ear buds, Theo heard the voice, as if a ghost whispering in the alien night. It was soft and warm and comforted the darkness. It was his mother, gone from life yet remembered in death and stored in digitized form in a series of a hundred and forty-four separate videos from her last five months of life. Most were only about two or three minutes long. When she got diagnosed, she started to record them. His mother, on the video, sang a lullaby he had heard many nights. But now, on this planet, it took on a new meaning.
No more darkness. No more night. No more pain. No more fright. Oh yes, your Mama loves you. Yes, she does.
Despite being surrounded by the others, Theo had never felt more alone in his life.
COMMUNICATION ENTRY:
FROM: [email protected]
TO: [email protected]; [email protected]
Dear Mom and Dad,
When you think about this situation, all of it began when man looked up into the stars and asked: are we really alone? And now we bloody know.
I say that because I have already seen two creatures. With my own two eyes, I saw them both. No one believes me about the larger one. Not even Theo. But I’m not crazy. I saw what I call a slake. It was huge. Moving the hills. I only saw it once but it’s out there. I know it is. We tried to follow. Couldn’t find it. It just bloody disappeared.
Then we were almost attacked by these camelbacks. They’re smaller. They have these three humps in the middle of their body. Amazing bloody things you’ve ever seen. And fast. Almost like ugly, short gazelles with three camel humps.
If I were a betting guy, though I’m not, I’d guess that the camelbacks are our skeletal discovery. They’re low to the ground and looked to have the right skeletal proportions. On other news, we’re still alive. That’s the good news, right?
Now, about those two huge skulls, I don’t know at all what they bloody are. This may sound crazy but I’m a land lover. I’m having the time of my life. And I’m not scared. I can jump ten feet in the air. And I should feel guilty, right, but down here I can jump ten feet in the air. It’s like I’m flying. This would be great if I could fly high into the air and spot our cure or some creature or a river of water. But no matter how much I run and fly around this planet, I still haven’t seen anything that’s going to help us.
Maybe it’s foolish for me to think that this communication will get to you, but I’d rather be foolish than dead. I know the others call this a dustbowl hell. Not me. This is the most fascinating place that I’ve ever seen.
The most interesting part of the planet is the mountain range on the northern plains. I’m calling that area Mount New Acadia (you know because it has that pinkish orange tinge just like the rocky coast of Maine). Sam wanted to call the whole place Planet Suckz but not me. I want to call it New Acadia. That’s where we now live.
You know that if ever got to visit Earth I always wanted to go to Maine. I now know that’s never going to happen. I’m just a star kid. I always thought I would be. Down here, I might become a land lover. I’m now a new world explorer just like Columbus and his Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria. And now, we’re kind of like Vasco de Gama and Montezuma. They set out in their ships and hoped and prayed they would find a new world. Rather than seeking gold or spices, we’ve always been seeking iron, ore and argon or water or oil or E.T. life.
But now, we’re LOOKING FOR LIFE! And we’ve found it!
How bloody cool is that? It is so awesome, Dad. Really. I can study my wikipedia entries until I’m blue in the face, but nothing is better than experiencing it. Down here, breathing the air, running the hills. I really love it down here. Don’t tell Theo or the others, okay? I love it. Seriously. No wonder we’ve been looking for a new world since we screwed up our own. I pray we live long enough to find a cure and we don’t bite the dust before we can find the creature or a cure. Both of them have got to be down here, right?
I don’t want to die!
But I fear that we all will.
I’ve been re-reading your posts. We’re here at the heart of the problem, the heart of this place. To find the cure you have to go where the problem lives. All living things have an enemy close by, lying in wait. Biology, especially the unseen to the naked eye kind, is a constant battle between us and them.
We have to win. Right?
And as you always say Dad, the unknown is not be feared; it is to be understood. You also say that preparation is the opposite of fear, and somehow I feel prepared for this mission.
To be prepared, Theo has us filling up any available storage container with the liquid methane-ammonia with a mixture of sand. He says they’re our weapons, sort of improvised explosives devices. I don’t know how we’re going to use them, or if we even need them, but I guess it’s good to be prepared for anything. We haven’t tested one out yet, so who knows if they even work Theo said that when a flood is forecasted, you pack as many sandbags as you can. Hopefully, these improvised explosive devices are our sandbags.
I am the only one who saw this crazy looking creature down here. The others think I’m going nuts. While this whole situation is crazy, I am definitely not going mad and I know what I saw. I’ve sent a drawing. Maybe one of the Big Brains can tell us where to find it, cause we drove for hours and didn’t see any trace of the creature. All we have is my word, the bones and hope. We still have that and a couple of stun guns. I sure hope we know what we’re doing.
Sam’s temperature has started to rise. He has been drinking twice his daily share of water. Perhaps our bodies are able to fight the infection better than you all think. Perhaps, we’re just not all that similar to rabbits. We’re stronger, healthier, able to resist whatever the crazy things want to do in our bodies. Perhaps this crazy quarantine is overblown and we can get back to our normal lives back on the Ark. Harry’s been on edge. It might just be the wind and the atmospheric pressure messing with his equilibrium. Who really knows?
There’s also blood in Sam’s pee and he has trouble even sitting up in bed. His abdomen is tender to the touch. He’s never been very nice to me but his condition is just hell. He’s just the first, right?
As we all know, though, based upon the forecast model, he isn’t going to be the last. So, please, get here soon. That’s it for now, I guess. Get here soon!
Your loving son,
Ravi
ENTRY COMPLETE.
CHAPTER 18
THE MADNESS
Sam’s mouth was dry, parched and craving any liquid. From his sleeping bunk, he rose while the others slept. His eyes
were bloodshot. His hands were clammy. His eyes were totally bloodshot.
The medical program recorded all his symptoms for posterity. His health was not a pretty picture. In addition to the excessive rise in temperature, Sam had some dizziness. He had already had terrible fits of nausea and vomiting. All of this and more had been recorded on the mission’s computers. His kidneys were tender to the touch.
Sam lifted his shirt. He had a red rash of marks on his skin, near his love handles and he knew his body was losing the battle against the invisible invaders.
In the common area, Sam crossed in front of the computers and went to the right corner of the Pod to the supply closet.
Every few seconds, Sam scratched his head and his chest and huffed and puffed with a nervous wheeze. There was blood running down from Sam’s nose.
He opened the door. In the supply closet there were two stun guns and a stockade of first aid supplies and blue nutrient pills. Sam took both guns.
The others were still sleeping in their bunks.
Harry Wolf was the only other one awake and he barked at Sam’s heels.
It was a blessing and a curse that the Escape Pod was so well designed for comfortable and quiet sleep. Each bunk was self-contained and sound proof. This design provided sophisticated and silent slumber, which meant Sam did not startle anyone awake when he left his bunk area and headed to the supply closet. There was a faint blue glow from the computer consoles that fell across Sam’s face. The madness had begun. He took both the taser guns and then went to the consoles.
As soon as Sam hit override on the night security program and opened the Pod door, the alarm went off. It woke the whole group from their sleeping bunk closets but already it was too late to keep Sam from leaving the Pod with both taser guns and a head filled with rage.
Sam had a compulsion, uncontrollable and urgent. Get all the taser guns. Get outside. Do some damage. Do some hunting.
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