Doomsday Minus One

by Andrew Dorn

  “The text is open to interpretation, of course. But most experts agree that it must describe a dream. One that relates an encounter with an egg falling from the heavens. An egg of great importance to the land’s sages since they all bowed down to its brilliant brightness.”

  “An egg? Falling from the sky?”

  “Yes, kind of makes you think of the Seeder, no?”

  Simon stared right ahead. It wasn’t hard to put himself in the Sumerian’s shoes. If the ancient sages had been in contact with the Zeru the way he had been, they surely would have made every effort to record the experience with the tools they had on hand. In their case, it meant engravings in stone, the most reliable technology available.

  “How old is this tablet?”

  “It’s estimated to be more than 6,000 years old.”

  “Wow.”

  “But that’s not the end of it,” Emmeline said, delighted to share the information she had unearthed. “The text then goes on detailing how the vehicle of life, the Gishtil, deposited a single tiny seed. One described as being invisible to the eye, but, get this, visible to the soul.”

  “My God,” Simon said, his mind whirring with the implications.

  “And guess what the Sumerian word for seed is?”

  Simon stared at her, waiting for the confirmation he felt was forthcoming.

  “Zeru.”

  Emmeline saw the spark of recognition in Simon’s eyes. They had spoken at length about their experiences. Simon’s encounter had been more metaphysical, almost spiritual while Emmeline judged hers as physical and a test of her mettle. They both, however, agreed the experience had forged a bond between them. An indelible bond which they regarded as a gift.

  A gift from the Zeru.

  The extreme complexity of the nanolife was a difficult concept to describe, to put into words, a fact Simon struggled with ever since their return to normal life. The way Emmeline understood the Zeru was a step away from Simon’s innate comprehension of what they were, what they had been. The intimate contact he had shared with them, at the end, had been a transformative event not only for him but for the Zeru as well.

  On the plane to Cleveland, Simon had speculated on the Seeder’s use of The Big Gun. Could it be possible the cannon was in fact a launch tube to propel themselves back to the Stars? Emmeline argued against it, but Simon wasn’t so sure. They were so alien, so different in every imaginable sense. The great chasms between galaxies were nothing compared to the ones between Humanity and the Zeru. It went beyond physical form, spiritual beliefs, lifespans or intelligence. It was a difference spawn out of the primeval fires of the young universe and of Time itself. An irreconcilable difference to end all irreconcilable differences.

  “What’s on your mind?” Emmeline said.

  “Oh, nothing. You know, the regular stuff. The birth of the universe, the death of the universe, the usual.”

  “Oh, I see. The mundane stuff.”

  Simon stifled a burst of laughter.

  “It’s too bad the Zeru went away...” Emmeline said, shaking her head, “perhaps we could have done great things with their knowledge. Use it to guide us on the path to enlightenment.”

  He turned his head to her.

  “You know,” she went on, “we could have found a cure for cancer, or develop perpetual machines that work on air, or found a way to share food to those in need. You know, game changing stuff.”

  A smile appeared on his lips.

  “Yes, it’s too bad.”

  Simon patted his shirt pocket the way he always did. Emmeline had watched him do it a dozen times, it was his most visible nervous habit. He was always babbling about the things he kept forgetting, like his sunglasses, his notebook, or his watch. Except this time, she thought she could distinguish, at the extreme limit of her optical perception, two super tiny, but brilliant, pinpoints of golden light between the textile fibers of his shirt.

  Of course, she realized with a shrug, there was the likelihood it was just a case of her overactive imagination.

  Afterword

  Thank you for taking time to read my work, I hope you enjoyed it. Please consider leaving a review, or telling your friends about it, to help me spread the word. Doomsday Minus One was a labor of love and I hope the care I put into it shines through and ignites your imagination.

  My next Science Fiction novel will be book one of a new series called Dark Adaptation and should hit the virtual shelves summer 2017.

  So stand-by for new adventures!

  Andrew Dorn