The Zygote Crystal

by Ashley Thomas

  The Zygote Crystal

  By

  Ashley G. Thomas

  An Inspector and Cat Adventure

  Copyright © Ashley G. Thomas

  First Published June 2018

  The right of Ashley G. Thomas to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author.

  DEDICATION

  For Tom and Ashley and all those who cared

  Chapter 1 - The Mud Lizard Outrage

  The Explorer mission to Zeta-1157963

  McBeckHam survives and names the planet

  Exploration continues

  Going up the mountain

  An interesting arrival

  Mud Lizard tongue

  Let’s try to make friends

  The rest of the Explorer’s crew get annihilated

  Chapter 2 - Battle over Plasmolidium

  Earth’s armada sets sail

  Onboard Lucifer

  A new Executive Group for the mission

  Plan of campaign

  Scanning the surface of the planet

  A change of tactics

  The food fights back

  Return to Earth

  Chapter 3 - Interstellar War

  Mosquitoes on Earth

  Plague

  Earth’s invasion fleet

  Addressing the plague

  Azz-Lex shows up

  News for the World

  The fleet goes back to Plasmolidium

  Exile on Amora

  Chapter 4 - The Inspector, The Cat and The Time Miner

  Looking back

  An Intergalactic Tax Inspector (ITI)

  And Cat….

  Waiting for our next mission

  News of our next mission comes through

  Tin mines

  Cat explains about time

  Joosthava X Minot

  Planet X

  Joosthava X Minot continued…..

  Joosthava appears out of thin air

  Where did Joosthava go?

  Joosthava explains about time and space some more….

  Cat wash

  Confusion reigns in my head

  To the lightship

  Minus Joosthava again

  And she’s back!

  Back on the ground

  Chapter 5 - Dealing with the Aftermath

  Coping without him

  Abraca-Joosthava

  Cat’s story

  Cat’s continues his tale

  Tjoorbaert Morabitz and Azz-Lex

  The Azz-Lex transposon

  Joosthava’s story

  The time travelling infant

  Joosthava continues her story

  Messier 31

  Oh Lord, what should I do?

  Unbelievably, off to Messier 31

  Oh heck, I’m in charge?

  I need a plan

  Chapter 6 - Messy at Messier 31

  Managing without Cat

  Another time vault

  Where am I?

  Waking up Joosthava

  An explosive situation

  The black box

  Back to Cat

  Behind you…….

  Don’t panic

  Too many time vaults…..

  I’m still alive

  Getting back on mission

  Arrival at Messier 31

  Cat and I consult

  Krokus Joe

  Krokus spills the beans

  The Mud Lizard’s eMDaDD machine

  Chapter 7 - The Zygote Crystal

  Back in time

  Ready to go?

  Off at last

  A hairy experience

  Jurassic Mud Lizards explained

  The Zygote Crystal

  Joosthava picks up the tale

  Stepping out of the eMDaDD

  In the poo

  Taking the urine

  A brief moment of cleanliness

  The disappearing inspector

  Jurassic Mud Lizard abuse

  Cat to the rescue

  Joosthava congratulates me

  The Inspector pow-wows

  More parlay

  The Inspector sums up the situation and Cat plans

  Cat pronounces

  Back in the eMDaDD

  Back at Messier 31

  Thinking is such hard work

  The Extermatron

  Getting ready to fire

  Time vault to Plasmolidium

  Plasmolidium

  Where were we now?

  Joosthava’s concerns

  Alone with Mud Lizards again

  Being authoritative

  Could this be Yakh or Ulth?

  I know, I’ll intimidate them

  Time passes

  Cat in the head

  Cat in his box

  Sparks and bright Colours

  Bang goes the box

  Giant Cat

  Chapter 9 – Going Home Without Him

  What just happened?

  Cat’s aircast

  GoGLEs and Mud Lizards

  Going home

  A dangerous weapon…..

  Chapter 1 - The Mud Lizard Outrage

  The Explorer mission to Zeta-1157963

  Since around 2160, the International Space Agency (ISA) had known of a planet in the Trappist-1 star system that had all the essentials for ‘life’ as we knew it on Earth. The ISA’s interest in this planet had grown after several un-crewed expeditions gathered data and samples that supported the view that rudimentary life did exist there. Plans to send a crewed flight to the planet started to be developed from around 2165. At the time the planet was referred to as Zeta-1157963.

  As a consequence of the plans, the lightship Explorer left the ISA’s Moon Base for a 4 month journey, in hyper-light speed, to Zeta-1157963 in early-2169. Though it was considered that the planet had potential for advanced lifeforms all attempts to make contact, with anything intelligent before the mission, had failed to realise any response. So, the first human visitors to the planet did not really expect to encounter complex, highly evolved organisms.

  Once the crew had left the Earth’s solar system and had placed themselves in short-stasis within their hyper-sleep pods, the journey, carefully monitored by mission control, was largely uneventful. Two or three times Explorer was predicted to pass near to ‘space debris’ or meteors, but auto-course corrections had been possible on all occasions. After almost 4 months, and as they neared Zeta-1157963, the crew of 24 were roused from stasis by the artificial intelligence in charge of the ship in their sentient absence.

  Around 36 hours after awakening, the Captain of the Explorer, Dougall McBeckHam, programmed and input the landing plan. As he did this he thought with some pride how happy his clan would be to hear of his successful arrival at the planet. He was after all the first McBeckHam in decades to do anything other than produce reality aircasts or play in overly violent intergalactic championship football matches. Dougall’s thoughts did not have long to mature as the Explorer made its way to the planet’s surface quite smoothly and quickly.

  Initial forays from the ship found little other than a very breathable atmosphere and, as expected, some lower life forms. The scientific team on the Explorer had great fun, apparently, identifying several new species of bacteria and other unicellular microbes. Then, well into the second week of surface exploration, Captain McBeckHam encountered a problem. Whilst walking a few hundred metres from the Explorer he became aware of a buzzing noise that grew rapidly in in
tensity. After turning in several directions to try to work out where the noise was coming from, a flying object about the size of a pigeon hit him full on in the face. He immediately fell to the ground from the force of the impact, before quickly managing to pull the offending ‘flying thing’ off his face. As he held it in his hands at arms-length and focused his eyes, he could see it was a winged insect-like creature. It had big bug eyes, long multiple antennae on its head and a ‘dribbly drooly’ mouth from which a tongue like structure kept flicking out towards his face, making a cracking noise as it did.

  Given the tenacity of the creature in his hands, the Captain had little choice but to squeeze as hard as he could to crush the beast. The flying creature eventually popped like a balloon in the Captain’s hands. A significant volume of thick yellow green gunk engulfed the Captain’s face, filling his eyes, nose, and creeping a little into his mouth. He struggled to his feet, coughing and spluttering as he sought to spit out what was in his mouth and wipe away what was covering his eyes. By now the Captain had been joined by his Chief Officer, who had run to his aid from a few hundred metres away as soon as he realised the Captain was on the ground.

  “Are you OK Captain?” gasped the Chief Officer.

  “No,” spluttered the Captain, “I’m not. I’ve been bitten by a giant flying bug and now I’ve swallowed some of its guts.”

  “Eeeueuw, not nice,” exclaimed the Chief Officer, as he looked nervously around him for signs of more of the flying beasties. As it turned out this seemed to be a lone flying beastie, though the Chief kept a careful watch whilst other crew members flew, using jet backpacks, over from the Explorer. Meanwhile the Captain had started to feel a little unwell and was now lying down on the ground. He had lacerations to both sides of his face where it looked as though the insect had bitten or scratched him, possibly with the tongue like structure he had had sought to avoid when he held the thing at arms-length.

  “I’m starting to get very hot Chief,” said McBeckHam

  “Stay cool Sir,” said the Chief, “The crew are on their way. We’ll soon have you in the MediLab. Stay cool.”

  “I can't,” said the Captain, “Like I just said, I'm starting to feel very hot.”

  Almost immediately after those words the Captain started to convulse and lost consciousness. No more than 5 minutes later he was in a PhysiBed in the Explorer’s mini-MediLab. A MediDroid was attending to him and running, as one would expect, a range of diagnostics. The Captain had a high fever, was sweating profusely and shaking almost uncontrollably. A very quick conclusion was reached based on the symptoms and genetic analysis of a single celled organism found in high numbers in the McBeckHam’s blood. The Captain was infected by a parasite virtually identical to Plasmodium, the organism responsible for malaria on Earth. This startling discovery surprised scientists, not just on the mission, but on Earth as well when they were told. It seemed remarkable that the genetics of a microorganism, on a planet 40 light years away, could be so similar to one indigenous to Earth. The body of the now so-called ‘mega-mosquito’ that had attacked McBeckHam, was preserved for return to Earth and subsequent study.

  McBeckHam survives and names the planet

  Captain McBeckHam responded well to the standard treatment for malaria and within a couple of days was up and about again on light duties. As he whiled away time in his day cabin bringing the ship’s reflective log up to date, he had a moment of inspiration regarding the name of the planet. He decided to suggest to Earth that they should name the planet after the astonishing discovery of the Plasmodium parasite. If the ISA accepted his suggestion it would make writing his myriad reports so much easier. He had lost count of the number of times he had needed to repeat the current name of the planet to his DictaDroid. Now, if Earth agreed, he and everyone else could just refer to the planet as ‘Plasmodium’ which was surely a great deal easier to remember and say than Zeta-1157963.

  His suggestion to rename the planet was agreed by mission control at the ISA and a naming ceremony was organised. Unfortunately the official ceremony was scheduled for the early morning after a birthday celebration for one of the crew, Ensign Jinko Graff. Jinko was only just 18 years old and whoa, did the crew down a lot of the on-board brew, Octanox, during the evening of Jinko’s birthday celebrations. As a consequence, the Chief Officer had a bit of an issue saying Plasmodium clearly to the ceremonial DictaDroid the following morning. Due to the Chief’s enunciation problems, and after several slurred attempts, the name ‘Plamolidium’ rather than ‘Plasmodium’ was what actually came to be recorded in the official records on Earth. At that time little did anyone know just how infamous the name Plasmolidium would become.

  After the naming ceremony and with the Captain's return to full health, the crew of the Explorer pushed on with their programme of settlement and exploration. The intention was to stay on the newly named Plasmolidium for the equivalent of just under 12 Earth months. During this time the crew would build a fully functioning and habitable settlement. However, at this stage there were no plans to leave any humans on the planet, but instead to have the settlement run and maintained by a small complement of artificial intelligences (AIs) or Droids. Subsequent missions would then stay on the planet for longer, living in the already built and maintained settlement.

  The following months passed by with no more significant unexpected events. The construction team worked continuously to erect the shell of the permanent settlement. This was made up of a number of separate but interconnected habitation modules. As each of the modules took shape structurally, so the engineers would move in to add services and amenities. Much of the work was done by pre-programmed Droids or with the help of Bio-AIs. The Bio-AIs were skin like suits that when worn by a human gave that person the strength and stamina of a Droid, without the limitations of programming still inherent in Droids.

  There was the occasional error as ever with ‘fit-out’ of the habitation modules, but by and large the building of the settlement went to plan. Almost 3 months after landing, a self-sufficient base capable of sustainably accommodating the basic needs of up to 100 people, was ready for use.

  Exploration continues

  Whilst construction and engineering staff supervised the erection of the settlement, daily exploratory trips in Explorer’s fleet of hovermodules continued to be made to ever increasing distances from the landing site. Almost every trip would result in an excited biologist finding some new species to bring back to base for study and cataloguing. In all cases the species discovered were unicellular or plant like in nature. No advanced lifeforms were encountered even after several weeks-worth of trips. None of the exploratory missions had come across another of the mega-mosquito creatures that had attacked Captain McBeckHam.

  Then, on one mission from base that had been ongoing for several days and travelled nearly 1000 miles, the crew spotted not one but several mega-mosquitoes. Circling above the top of a notably pointed mountain the bugs kept disappearing and then re-appearing, as if they were periodically flying into and then out of the top of the mountain. Sometimes as many as a dozen were seen circling the mountain top and at other times there were none or no more than 2 or 3. The crew of the hovermodule had noticed the bugs shortly before darkness, so decided to camp at the base of the mountain and make conduct investigations the following day.

  There were 6 in the hovermodule crew, two security personnel and four scientists. Their plan was to tackle the ascent of the mountain at dawn. The hovermodule they were travelling in was not capable of easily reaching the height of the top of the mountain, so the crew would use hoverpacks to get to the summit.

  Going up the mountain

  Just after dawn the following day, 3 of the crew took off from the base of the mountain ready to make the 2000 metre or so ascent to the top.

  Led by Sergeant Guy Dance, a veteran of 7 deep space missions, they rose at slow speed approximately 10 metres away from the side of the mountain. For the first half of the ascent the sides of the mountain main
tained a very smooth rock like appearance. The two scientists were very taken with the apparent uniformity of the surface and one remarked how it almost looked as though the structure was artificial. At this point in the mission they made no attempt to stop to even try to take a sample of the mountain’s surface, but simply continued their steady rise upward. Due to the known hazard posed by the mega-mosquitoes, all 3 of the crew were armed. The two scientists carried standard Extermatrons whilst the Sergeant wielded a heavier weapon. This not only fired the kind of energy pulses that the Extermatron did, but also had an array of other ‘death and destruction’ options on its side and along its length.

  As they hovered above the 1000 metre mark the mountain’s side started to take on a perceptibly different nature. Rather than being smooth, the surface became rougher and more uneven and also began to shift to a noticeably ‘earthier’, more organic form. As they got to 1500 metres this change was more obvious and they began to see the occasional plant growing out of the mountain’s side.

  At 100 metres or so further up, the surface of the mountain began to be dotted with small holes that became larger in diameter as the crew ascended. Occasionally a mosquito would appear, sometimes just at the entrance to a hole but sometimes flying right out of a hole and up. The crew backed off to around 50 metres from the side of the mountain, not wishing to encourage an attack, with weapons at the ready just in case. They also at this point switched on their body armour that included full torso protection, including the head.

  As they neared the mountain top the mega-mosquito activity grew, not so much in numbers but in the frequency with which mosquitoes would appear and then disappear. Finally, the crew reached the summit and flew over the top of the mountain. Looking down they could see into what appeared to be a hollow centre to the mountain structure, through a perfectly regular circular hole in the top. Using remote sensing and imaging apparatus built in to the cameras on their hoverpacks, they determined that the entire diameter of the circular hole was teeming with mega-mosquitoes. Periodically some mosquitoes would soar up into the air a few tens of metres, before returning to the semi darkness of the cavity of the mountain. Deeper scans suggested that the entire internal cavity of the ‘mountain’ was filled with a heaving mass of mosquitos. After a short period of filming and recording, and as a few mosquitoes seemed to be getting a little more adventurous with their short flights up and out of the mountain top, the crew decided to return to their hovermodule.