by James Bow
Then I remembered the advance force. They’d come ahead of us. They had smaller, faster ships. Some of those ships could have brought the Elder’s people here, and maybe the Elder’s people had salvaged what they could from these shuttles and their storage containers to build their village. Okay: that was a viable explanation. But if we’d stolen the Elder’s world, why hadn’t we claimed it?
I was finally asking questions. Rachel would have been proud. I flinched at the memory, but I held it. What did she say I should do next? See where the questions led me?
I tapped the strut. I tapped it again. Then I stood up and walked deeper into the village. I ran my hands along the sheet-metal huts. Some of these were cobbled together, but some of them weren’t. Some were pieces of machinery lying abandoned. I came upon a rocket booster, half buried in the mud. I kept going, walking until the cliff face loomed out of the murk.
But it wasn’t the cliff face. It was metal. And it was as big as a city.
Above me, the painted-on flag had blistered with heat, and faded with time, but I could still see its white olive branches on the blue background.
I ran my fingers along the scorched metal surface and looked up. “Great Creator,” I breathed. “I’ve found the Icarus.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE FALL OF THE ICARUS
SIMON:
I followed the hull until I came to the airlock door. Around it were mounds of dirt, each twice as long as it was wide. There were far too many and they were far too regular to be natural. They stretched into the fog.
An airlock was still on its hinges, stuck mostly open. Black vines were using its struts as a trellis.
I stepped inside. The only light was at my back, filtering in from the outside. I stood a moment, letting my eyes adjust, and history swam into focus.
The Icarus bridge.
I’d seen it many times in picture books, paper crackling in my teacher’s hands. Walking into it was like walking into a dream.
It was tilted, and thick with dust, and so quiet … But it was real. There was the captain’s chair on its raised dais, facing the front viewing screen. To the left of the viewing screen was the science station, its computer panels smashed and the white surface blackened with soot and dust.
I stepped deeper into the room, through what must have been an emergency airlock, moving quietly, as though I didn’t want to wake a crew who might only be sleeping. I ran my hand over the navigator’s console, fingering the depression where he must have placed his hand —
Lights on the console flickered to life.
I jerked my hand back. There was a flash. A screen fuzzed briefly with static and then everything faded and died.
I tried touching my hand to the spot again, but nothing happened. I tried again. My hand came away black with dirt. Using my sleeve, I wiped down the console as best I could, then placed my hand on it again.
The console lit up. The screen flickered to life. The display was dim, and the screen responded sluggishly to my touch, but it responded. The Icarus. The Icarus was alive.
The screen solarized, resettled and flashed: Touch here.
I stared at that message. Not only was the Icarus alive, but it had something to tell me.
I touched.
* * *
A video began to play.
I know you’ve seen it: it’s now the most famous video in the world. But I’m told that a person’s reaction to news is almost as important as the news itself.
So, here’s how I reacted: I stared.
There was a man on the screen. I knew the greying hair, square jaw and creased face: the second Captain of the Icarus. I might not have been able to pick out my father from a lineup of photographs, but this man, I knew.
He looked tired; he needed a shave.
“Ship’s Log.” The Captain picked up a plastic notesheet and peered over his glasses at the text. “Day 26,298 of our journey from Old Mother Earth.” He looked back at the camera. “The advance force leaders are due back tomorrow. They’ll have the first reports from our new home. After seventy-two years in deep space, anticipation is high. I’ve reminded everybody that we still have work to do, but I can’t help feeling excited myself. I think the thing I’m most looking forward to seeing is what a sky is like.”
“The duty—” Then, as if the film had been snipped in the wrong place, the scene crashed to black, and something new spliced in.
“… this report.” the Captain said. He had different clothes on — a different day? — and a binder in his hand. “My clerks have examined every paragraph, and my security people have debriefed the advance force personnel. None of them can find anything amiss, but Tal’s people are hiding something, I know it.” He tapped his desk.
Tal, I thought.
“They used far more fuel than was budgeted, and Navigator Salk won’t look me in the eye.” He slapped the binder onto the tabletop. “But what can I do? Turn this ship around? Not a chance. If nothing else, I can’t leave behind the people we still have on the planet. Maybe when we get there, I’ll see what really happened during Tal’s year-long trip.”
He stopped. “Mark private,” he commanded, and his thumb loomed into view …
Again, a clumsy jump, and something new started. This wasn’t random; someone had assembled this.
“Ship’s Log, day 26,303,” said the Captain. “The final jump is scheduled for fourteen hundred hours. Navigator Salk is due to supply me with the jump coordinates.
“Earlier today, he slipped me a note, asking me to make the report drop a private meeting. Clearly, he wants to tell me something, and he doesn’t feel safe telling me in the open. I think I may be closer to figuring out what CMO Tal is hiding from me.
“It’s frustrating, though,” he added, “on the day of our final jump to our new home. If Salk has information that will scrub this mission, I’m not sure how the crew will handle the disappointment.”
Behind the Captain, there was a knock at the door.
“Mark private,” he said, hastily, and reached for the switch.
The next picture was of the bridge, as seen from over the Captain’s shoulder. Crew members bustled from panel to panel. The uniforms shocked me. So much colour, compared to our colony’s bleached-out clothes, so many dark blues and bright yellow insignias. They’d soak up light, those colours: they’d catch fire in minutes.
The Captain signed a clipboard and passed it off. The viewscreen showed a sea of stars. The babble of voices ebbed. Officers turned from their panels one by one. It had the feel of a ritual.
“All colony pods report ready, sir,” said a woman.
“Acknowledged, Lieutenant Dere,” said the Captain.
“Engines report ready, sir,” said a man.
“Acknowledged, Lieutenant Oall.”
Another man turned from the science station, and I flinched. For a moment, I thought it was Nathaniel. But then I realized that I was looking at Nathaniel’s father, Daniel.
“Bridge crew reports ready, sir,” he said.
“Thank you, Officer Tal,” said the Captain. “Navigator Salk?”
A young man looked up from the navigator’s station. “Sir. We have green board.”
“Punch up the final coordinates and display them on screen.”
The man the Captain identified as Salk looked nervous as he touched the control panel I now hovered over. On the viewscreen, a series of numbers popped up. Beside it, the image of a blue planet turned.
“Coordinates entered,” said Salk. “Ready to jump at your mark.” His hand hovered over a green square on his console.
The Captain cleared his throat. “Not that one, Navigator. The other coordinates. The ones you told me about earlier today.”
Salk blinked at him. “Sir?”
Daniel Tal and the other bridge officers looked confused.
“Just do it.” The Captain’s voice was like steel.
Daniel Tal stepped forward. “Sir? What is going on?”
Salk t
apped his console. The numbers changed, and the spinning blue planet vanished, replaced by a gleaming white one. The planet of Icarus Down, though it wasn’t called that back then. It had the designation V4647 Sgr-b. The green square flashed on his console.
“Recognize those numbers, Daniel?” the Captain said. All eyes were on the Captain and the Chief Medical Officer, now. “You should. From what Navigator Salk tells me, the advance force is intimately familiar with that location.”
Daniel Tal straightened up, his face grim. “Sir?”
“What Salk tells me explains a lot,” said the Captain. “Your excessive use of fuel, and the medical supplies. Please tell me what happened with the indigens was an accident, and you didn’t engineer the virus yourself.”
Daniel Tal clasped his hands behind him. He said nothing.
“Shall we pay that planet a visit, Tal?” The Captain nodded at the white sphere on the screen. “Have a look at your handiwork?”
There was a twitch in Daniel Tal’s face. It might have been a smile. “That would not be wise, sir.”
“I shouldn’t think so,” the Captain snapped. “I have to commend your pilots on their flying abilities, to navigate through enough solar radiation to kill the Icarus. But, really, Daniel? After all those indigens faced, you left them to burn?”
Daniel Tal said nothing.
The Captain lifted his chin. “Well, our pilots are going to have to be exceptional again. We are making the final jump to the blue world to meet the advance team. The pilots will go to the bright planet, rescue the indigen survivors, and put them back where you found them. Then we’re heading on our way.”
“Where do we go from there, sir?” said Daniel Tal.
“We’ll figure that out after we leave.”
“Seventy-two years in deep space, sir,” said Daniel Tal. “How much longer will you have our people wait?”
“That does not give you the right to commit the same mistakes we left behind!” the Captain shouted. “Chief Medical Officer Tal, you are dismissed. Hand over your weapon and leave the bridge.”
Daniel Tal stood there, his face impassive.
“Officer Tal, I have given you an order!”
Tal didn’t move.
The Captain’s jaw clenched. “Lieutenant Dere, escort Officer Tal from the bridge.”
The officer looked up from her station. She looked from the Captain to Tal, distressed, but she didn’t move.
“Lieutenant!” the Captain snapped.
“Navigator Salk,” said Tal calmly. “Re-enter the final coordinates and initiate jump.”
“Belay that, Navigator!” The Captain leapt from his seat. “This is my bridge! I give the orders here!”
Tal shook his head. “I’ll follow no orders that lead us back into the darkness.”
Another officer pulled a gun and pointed it at Tal’s head. “You heard the Captain!”
More guns were pulled, and suddenly there was a tense silence, as everybody realized what they were doing, and what would happen if somebody made the slightest mistake.
The Captain took a deep breath and spoke, his voice low. “Everybody, what we need to do right now is calm down. No one make any sudden moves—”
Someone grabbed Tal from behind. There were shouts. There was a melee of bodies. A gunshot rang out. Navigator Salk clutched his shoulder and fell backward onto his console.
The engines roared. The bridge shuddered. On the viewscreen, the stars became streaks of light.
The bridge crew froze. Everybody looked at the screen.
“Navigator!” Tal shouted over the engines. “Which coordinates did you enter?”
Salk was working frantically at his station, one-handed, even as blood from his shoulder made his dark tunic even darker. Sweat beaded on his forehead. “The bright planet, sir!”
The bridge crew looked in horror at the display showing the coordinates, and the white sphere of Icarus Down, still spinning.
“Arrival at jump destination imminent,” Salk shouted. “Arrival in five … four … three …”
“All hands …” The Captain struggled into his seat. “Brace for—”
The air flashed white. I shielded my eyes with a hand. On the speakers, people yelled.
“What the hell?”
“I can’t see!”
“Get the shutters down! Get the shutters down!”
“They are down!”
“Lieutenant Dere!” the Captain shouted. “Status!”
“We’re being bombarded by intense electromagnetic radiation,” Dere shouted. “Hull temperature rising! Four hundred Kelvin! Six hundred Kelvin!”
“Helm!” the Captain yelled. “Point us toward the sun. Get the colony pods in our shadow, now!”
Though it hardly seemed possible, the blaze of light intensified. Shouts turned to screams.
“Navigator Salk,” the Captain shouted. “Abort landing. Prepare to jump back—”
“We can’t, sir,” Salk shouted. “The radiation has killed our jump engines. It’s a marvel our computers still work. We can only move by rockets, sir, and not for much longer.”
“Sir,” Lieutenant Dere shouted. “Hull temperature is at a thousand Kelvin and rising; we are rapidly approaching melting points. We have damage reports coming in from the colony pods! We can’t take much more of this!”
Lieutenant Oall yelled, “Sir, scans confirm the planet has an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere; it can protect us from the worst of this, but we have to deploy, now!”
There was a pause then all there was, was shouting. Through it all, the Captain was silent.
“We have no choice, sir,” Daniel Tal shouted. “We have to deploy the colony pods, or we’ll have casualties.”
Another pause.
“Sir!” Lieutenant Dere yelled. “Sir! What are your orders?”
“Do it!” the Captain shouted. “Keep us aligned to the sun. Keep the pods in our shadow.”
I knew my history. This was the death sentence of the Icarus, flying it backward into the planet, taking the full brunt of the sun. But what I hadn’t been taught, what had been lost to history was this: they all knew.
I saw it on their faces. They knew they were going to die.
But no one questioned the order. What had been a babble fell to near silence as the heroes of the Icarus got to work. The only one speaking was Lieutenant Dere. “Launching colony pods now.” Her voice shook. She read out the litany of names, the cities they were dying to save. They came slowly. Too slowly. “Daedalon … Iapyx … Octavia … Perdix … Talos …”
A pause. I could hear them breathing. They were sweating, too: the ship must be heating up. In the pause, I shivered and pushed my hand hard against the console, as if this weren’t a settled matter, as if to urge them on.
Dere started to speak again. “Cocalon … Ariadnon … Theseon … Ovid … Latona … Scylla …”
Another delay. The light was too bright, even through the shields, even over three generations of history. I squinted. My hands hurt.
The pause went on. They’d launched eleven pods. There were thirteen.
“Herculon.” Dere’s voice rose to a shout. “Telamon! That’s it! Final colony pod away and in the atmosphere, sir!”
“Helm! Navigator,” the Captain shouted. “Plot course for the planet’s umbra; get us in its shadow—”
“Can’t, sir! Our engines are burned out. Our fuel is gone!”
“We’ve been caught in the planet’s gravity well,” the Lieutenant shouted. “We can’t control our descent.”
“All hands,” the Captain yelled. “Brace for impact!”
There was a noise. A moment’s darkness.
The recording stopped.
They died, I thought. That’s how they all died. I bent my head.
And the screen snapped back to life. I jumped, startled.
The recording was dim and staticky. It showed the Captain in his quarters. His face was scarlet with flashburn; there was a bandage over his eyes, like a
blindfold. “Ship’s log, UNS Icarus. Seven days since planetfall. The crew of the Icarus — let the record show that one hundred thirteen members of the crew of the Icarus gave their lives in the effort to save our colony pods. The balance of us: we are working to repair the ship.”
“We finally have internal coms back. We have not made contact with the colony pods. Radio transmissions are impossible, and we’ve not been able to send out reconnaissance teams. Conditions outside the ship are … difficult. It’s impossible to see more than three metres.” A faint, ironic smile, under the blindfold. “I’m told.”
He took a deep breath. “Chief Medical Officer Tal and his supporters are still serving under my command. We need all hands to repair the ship, contact the colony pods, and try to find some way — any way — to get back into space.”
“I can’t help but wonder if our citizens in the colony pods realize what’s happened,” he added. “Are they setting up their cities? There’s no way to know. And what choice do they have? Until they find us, or we find them, we won’t have the resources to leave this planet.”
The screen flickered, then resumed.
“Ship’s log, ten days after planetfall,” said the Captain. The blindfold bandage was gone, but his eyes were swollen and blinking: it gave him the look of a man who had been crying. “The indigens have found us. Security crews have reported shadows in the fog and strange noises — snapping and clicking. Today Lieutenant Dere disappeared.” He shuddered. “We found her body two hours later, torn to shreds.”
“Initial reports confirm Tal’s analysis,” he added. “These are intelligent creatures; there’s forethought here. They’re scoping out our defences — doing everything I would do if I were planning an attack. All attempts to communicate with them have been …” He grimaced. “… rebuffed.”
He took a deep breath. “Frankly, I don’t blame them. But my first duty is to the safety of this crew and this colony. I’ve opened the weapons locker and our officers stand ready. I don’t hold out much hope. Our supplies are limited, and the fog is a defender’s nightmare. Salk is working on plans to negotiate our surrender, but I don’t think it will help. These creatures aren’t interested in talking. If they attack in force …”