by Jerry Aubin
Rilee beamed at the girl. “Very well done. Thank you. We always refer to that event as Adan’s Destruction, so we never lose sight of the fact that one man nearly shattered our entire planet. I will never understand why ten billion people allowed a single individual to gain such destructive capability, but we did. If you learn nothing else from me today, I want to be sure you take away how critical it is that we never again entrust such awesome power in the hands of one person. Everything we do as a society from this point onward will always be done with that lesson in mind, and as the first generation of children you must learn it especially well to ensure you pass it down successfully to those who come after you.”
After making eye contact with each student to cement the importance of her words, Rilee asked her second question.
“Why did we finally begin raising children again?”
Rilee acknowledged a boy in the front row. When he rose to speak, he bounced on the balls of his feet.
“Thanks to you, ma’am, the surface is coming back to life. You created and bred the fungus that has been clearing radiation for hundreds of years. You started with an experiment that used a rocket to disperse spores across a small area just outside of the Ark, but now the surface radiation has been cleared for two hundred kilometers in every direction. In the years ahead, we’ll need more and more people to do this work if we’re ever going restore the entire Earth.”
“You’re mostly right. The fungus has brought local radiation levels down to where it’s often safe to spend extended time on the surface. As a result, we’re expanding our cleanup efforts further and further out. What hampers us the most are rainstorms which recontaminate everything by dropping radioactive fallout that originates from elsewhere around the world. The only way we’ll ever make the planet fully habitable again is if we spread the fungus across the entire globe. Once it has transformed all of the radioactive energy into safe and stable biomass, we’ll start reestablishing the planet’s original flora and fauna.
“We have all the genetic material in storage we need to recreate the species present in the decades prior to Adan’s Destruction, but before those will be able to survive, we’ll need to introduce new participants at the very base of the food chain. These new organisms will be engineered to take advantage of all that fungal biomass and convert it into a food source that can be safely accessed by those higher up the food chain. Of course, this will include humans, so we need to be sure that any and all traces of radiation are eradicated.
“Where you’re wrong is the idea that we need more people to do any of the work required to rebuild the environment. Humans will remain far too precious for far too long to use them for anything so mindless and labor intensive. We actually need all of you and many, many more to grow up and help us rebuild something almost as critical as the planet—our culture. Even before Adan’s Destruction, humankind had made many mistakes that had left our planet on the verge of collapse. Chief among those was a long history of violence that left humanity constantly waging war against itself. We’ve been given a second chance on Earth as a species, and the twenty-seven adults alive today are determined to do things much better this time around.”
The boy had continued to bounce on his toes while Rilee spoke, and when she paused he raised his hand again. She nodded at him.
“Ma’am—if people aren’t going to do all of the work to restore the environment, how’s it going to happen?”
“Thanks for asking. My answer has two parts. First, the spreading of the fungus will be accomplished with drones. Now that we’ve seen such lasting success, we’re finally prepared to invest our precious resources in building a fleet of autonomous drones which will span the globe high enough above the clouds to run off solar power. These drones will traverse the planet for the next hundred years and disperse the spores that will establish the fungus across the globe.
“As for the manual labor that will eventually be required, we’ve come up with some helpers who I suspect you will all be excited to meet.”
Rilee knelt down and opened the top of her case. She reached inside with both hands, and when she revealed the contents the class all jumped up and rushed towards her in excitement.
“Don’t all crowd me at once, children. You—with the red hair—you may hold it first.”
The girl approached with her arms extended and Rilee handed over her precious cargo. The creature was unlike anything that had roamed the planet previously. Derived in large part from the DNA of Amazonian ants, it still retained many of their key physical and behavioral characteristics. Its segmented body with six legs was colored a dark green with brown stripes. Knowing she wanted the children to have an opportunity to interact with the specimen, Rilee had administered a mild sedative in advance to keep it calm. It wouldn’t have been the least bit dangerous otherwise, but would have been far too active and squirmy for the children to hold.
“Stay calm, everyone. All of you will get a turn with it. This one is only half a meter long and barely two kilos, but we’re intentionally breeding them small right now. We want to be sure they’re intelligent enough to perform all of the work we need and that we can effectively manage them. Once we’ve proven all of that, I’m confident about our ability to scale up their size and make them even more useful.”
The girl holding the ant looked up at Rilee. “Ma’am—how are we going to control them?”
“Well, I’m going to save those details for another day. We’re getting close to figuring it all out, but we’re not there just yet. Let’s wait until we know for sure, and then I promise I’ll come back to show you.”
The group let out a collective groan, but their disappointment was soon forgotten as the next child reached for the bug and the rest eagerly awaited their turn. Rilee could not have been more pleased by the children’s reaction. Some of her fellow survivors had found the creatures far too disturbing given their memories of smaller ants, so Rilee was relieved when the children reacted so positively. Human acceptance of the insects was critical. She was confident that if she attained the level of control she envisioned, the human and bug relationship would prove far more beneficial than that of any of the other creatures people had domesticated in the millennia prior to Adan’s Destruction.
18
Let’s crack this thing open.
“Please confirm the coordinates again, ma’am.”
Rilee managed to stifle her sigh. Five hours en route with a pilot who was as annoying as he was clueless had left her at wit’s end. The only thing that kept her from telling the halfwit to return to base so she could swap him out was her excitement at what awaited them at their destination. The numbers were ones she had retained by memory throughout her absurdly long lifetime, and she repeated them for the pilot yet again.
“37.234332, -115.806663”
“Roger that. ETA sixty minutes.”
Outside the cockpit glass, the clouds parted as they crossed the coastline. What had once been the world’s largest megalopolis stretching for more than a thousand kilometers was now virgin land. The coastal plains ran up to inland forests that had matured quite nicely in the five hundred years since Rilee had last visited.
Twenty million people now called the eastern portion of the continent home, though it was impossible to have any sense of that simply by flying overhead. Only the most advanced ground-penetrating sensors would reveal the new habitats that had been built deep below the surface. The Collective Pact imposed strict limits on any new settlement’s environmental impact, so the vast majority of people resided underground when they weren’t Uploaded. Earth’s newly restored surface was guaranteed to remain an unspoiled green-space where the population regularly experienced and enjoyed the natural world.
As part of the celebration that marked the end of the second millennium since Adan’s Destruction, Rilee had been rewarded for being part of the First Thirty-Six with special dispensation to live wherever and however she wanted to. She retained a position on the Leadership Council, but
she took full advantage of the freedom her general lack of responsibilities provided and escaped back to her family’s ancestral lands.
Not even Rilee could get permission for something as environmentally invasive as genuine cattle farming, but she received a special waiver that allowed her to maintain a few dozen head. The small herd provided sufficient work to keep her favorite cattle dogs from becoming bored. Of course, her herd wore the same mark on their hides as Rilee wore on the forearm of her personal Pattern. The symbol, a circle in the middle overlapping two additional circles on each side, always brought a bittersweet smile to her face by reminding her of a life from two thousand years in the past.
Having played such a large role in restoring the planet to its former beauty while also developing a culture that would not risk destroying it again, Rilee charted a new course. It was time to let a new generation focus on Earth, a generation that wasn’t tainted with firsthand memories of what had come before Adan. She had no intention of disappearing for good, but concluded the next best use of her skills would involve even far more travel than she had experienced back in her days working for the General Secretary. To that end, she worked her charms with the Council until she won approval for an archaeological expedition that she had always envisioned. She wasn’t entirely sure what they would find once her team had dug deep enough, but she was excited to finally determine what lay far below the desert.
Rilee closed her eyes for what she expected to only be a moment, but proved to last much longer as she was startled awake by the transport’s wheels hitting the ground. The pilot grinned as he spoke.
“You were too peaceful for me to wake you up any sooner. Kalyn is waiting outside.”
“Thank you. I understand you’re to remain here until I’m ready to leave. Please grab your gear and report to the main hall. You’ll find a reception desk and someone to help get you settled. I’m guessing I’ll be ready to head home within forty-eight hours, but it might just as easily be two or three if we’ve struck out.”
The pilot nodded in reply, and Rilee exited the cockpit. She stopped at the storage locker to grab her gear and then strolled down the transport’s exit ramp. Kalyn greeted her with a warm embrace. She was the only person alive who Rilee had known prior to Adan’s Destruction, and, in the countless years since, Kalyn had become Rilee’s closest and most trusted friend.
“It’s good to see you. How was your flight?”
“Don’t get me started. The pilot was annoying enough to make me regret the decision to not just Upload into a generic Skin to get here rather than take the time to travel and experience the dig from inside my personal Pattern.”
Kalyn grinned. “Well, I honestly don’t understand why you cared so much about flying here for this when you could have just Uploaded, but after two thousand years I’m smart enough to not argue with you about something like that.”
“How can you even say that number aloud? I can’t believe that I’m still around after all this time. We realized unlimited lifespan was possible when we figured out how to Upload, but no one actually imagined what it would be like living that long. Sometimes I wish I had checked out years ago like so many of the others from the First Thirty-Six.”
Kalyn grabbed Rilee’s hand. “Come on. You’re going to forget all about that kind of crazy talk once you see what I have to show you.”
With Kalyn leading the way, they walked across the landing zone towards a large tent shielding the entrance to the shaft they had excavated. Rilee followed Kalyn’s lead and grabbed a safety helmet before stepping onto the lift within it. Two minutes later, the gate opened and they emerged into a tunnel that led up to a chamber with a set of giant doors on the far side. The doors appeared to have never fully closed as an ancient pile of rocks had settled into the half meter gap between them. It was dark on the other side and nothing was visible. Two dozen members of the team were milling around along with an equal number of worker ants. The bugs stood off to the side, perfectly still, and waited. Rilee pointed at them as she spoke to Kalyn.
“Who’s on ant duty?”
“A new guy. He’s really solid though. It took us a lot of time to find the right spot, but once we did he had them digging as fast and efficiently as anyone I’ve ever seen.”
Rilee nodded approval. “Good to hear. I appreciate how you all waited for me to arrive before you cracked the doors.”
Kalyn grinned. “My last instructions made it clear you would make me beg for death if anyone caught a glimpse of anything interesting down here before you did. I’ve come to trust threats like that from you after two thousand years.”
Rilee grimaced and shook a clenched fist in mock frustration. Kalyn reached for her communicator.
“The boss is here. Let’s crack this thing open.”
A couple of seconds later, the ants moved in lockstep towards the doors. One group remained on the floor and aligned themselves to push against each one of the doors, while the others scurried up to the ceiling and assumed the same position from above. The bugs were silent and nothing happened at first. A nearly imperceptible change in their posture suggested a greater degree of effort was being expended, and after a few more seconds a tremendous screech of metal rubbing against metal echoed through the cavern. As the doors parted, the rocks which had wedged them open for thousands of years spilled out on to the ground. With a final heave, the ants created a three-meter gap between the doors. The ants walked through in single file while the people remained to the side so Rilee could approach and be the first human to enter.
Handheld lights sprang to life and one was pressed into Rilee’s hand as she approached the gap. She stepped through, flanked by Kalyn on one side and a man she didn’t recognize on the other. The remainder of the team followed closely behind. As their lights swept the interior space, it was clear they were in a control center of some sort. The wall was covered with large displays and workstations sat on most of the surfaces. The equipment, despite having been entombed in the dry desert soil, was derelict. Someone bumped against one of the workstations and it collapsed into a cloud of dust.
The more she took in her surroundings, the more Rilee lost hope about the utility of anything they might find within the underground complex. The facility had once been among the most well-funded and technologically advanced of its time, and if it had reached such a state of decrepitude there was not much hope for whatever artifacts it might contain. They moved through the command center into a passage beyond. The ceiling was low and the hallway was narrow, so it required the ants to pass through single file on all six legs rather than walking on their hindmost legs at their full three-meter height.
They took series of turns until they entered another large space. The echoes of their feet suggested it was far larger than the first cavern outside the door. Rilee probed the darkness with her light until something shiny reflected back and she called out.
“Everyone—there’s something over here. Come shine your lights!”
Scrambling footsteps approached and the object was bathed in a larger and larger circle of light. Finally, it became clear what was in front of them.
A spaceship.
By its appearance alone, the craft was something that had not been built by human hands. Its alien origin was further confirmed by the fact that it literally sparkled in the light. Whereas the entire cavern was covered in dust and the human equipment scattered around was in as much disrepair as the materials back in the control room, the alien craft was dust-free and reflected a rainbow effect when their lights hit its skin at a certain angle.
Rilee stood speechless and admired the craft. Thanks to information the General Secretary revealed during their last conversation, she had always been confident about what they would find once they explored the area. She had been forced to push her curiosity aside for a long time, however, while they struggled through the early years of Earth’s restoration. Even after they had healed the planet and rebuilt their society, Rilee had forced herself to ignore the
stars and focus all her attention on their homeworld until she was convinced its survival was certain. Two thousand years after Adan’s Destruction, it was finally time for those he left behind in ruin to raise their gaze above the horizon. Footsteps shuffled behind her until Kalyn’s arm draped around Rilee’s shoulders. Her friend leaned in and spoke softly.
“You were right all along. Now what?”
Rilee paused, even though a reply had sprung instantly to mind. She took a few moments to roll the words around in her mouth and savor their taste before finally speaking them.
“We find that asteroid.”
19
How may I repay you?
The view from the bridge of her flagship, Oceania, still brought a smile to Rilee’s face three millennia after their mission first departed Earth. Though the spacecraft bore its original name on the hull so many years later, to call it the same ship was misleading. The crew was constantly inventing new technology, so the vessel had been fully rebuilt at least a few dozen times, albeit one small section at a time. The overall effect, when one considered how the level of technology had improved through the years, was as if one of the ancient Earth mariners had set out in a wooden sailing vessel and landed on a distant shore moments later in a spacecraft.
In addition to its name, the only other constant throughout that time was the markings the vessel prominently wore. As soon as the Leadership Council gave Rilee full command of the ship and its mission, she had sprinkled the usage of her family’s symbol throughout the spacecraft. The overlapping circles were featured everywhere, from crew uniforms to the hulls of support craft. There were still countless times when she missed Earth and her ancestral lands dreadfully, but such frequent sightings of the ancient mark kept Rilee focused on the purpose and value of their mission.