Wrath of the Shaitans

by Sudipto Majumdar

  In most places in the universe where life starts, it rarely grows beyond the microorganism stage. Many places do have multi celled organisms, but they would still be very small visible only through microscopes. The number of places where life gets bigger gets fewer and rarer as the body size of the organisms increases.

  There is a perfectly logical Darwinian reason for this. Larger bodies, higher up in the pyramid and food chain of life, require greater and greater population of organisms lower in the food chain to support them. The evolutionary niches get smaller and smaller as the body size gets bigger and bigger.

  You need an incredibly rich and large ecosystem to support the body size of a dinosaur or a whale. Earth is one of those few lucky enough places to have such a large ecosystem available. Majority of life in the universe takes hold in moons. Life starting on planets is rare. On these moons the conditions of life are usually marginal, where life clings on precariously. Thus it is rare to find a large and rich ecosystem like Earth. Most life limits itself to microorganisms that can be sustained by the environment.

  This is the condition the Shaitans found, when they arrived on the moon. A moon with warm burrows, streams of flowing water and an atmosphere with reasonable levels of oxygen. They made it their home and have lived there ever since. This is a young colony by the standards of the Shaitan people, the newest and youngest in fact.

  It is also the furthest colony from their origin world. Being a relatively new colony, the level of infrastructure of this Shaitan world was rudimentary. Shaitan economy does not run the same way as humans, but they do have the equivalent of an economy. The economy of this Shaitan world is stable but small by the standards of some of their major colonies or their origin world.

  That was the reason the Shaitans had come the first time in such an unprepared state. When the Shaitans had discovered the existence of humans, there had been no serviceable migration vessel available to them. The small Shaitan economy could not support the building and upkeep of a migration vessel without any immediate need for one. War ship was something they could only dream about at that time.

  Even the sole orbital ship construction facility was in disrepair, incapable of building large vessels. The only vessel available to them had been a tiny research vessel, which had been repurposed as a scout vessel. The situation was not to stay that way for long.

  Chapter 2

  Ménage à trois

  Titan

  June 2061

  The two friends sat on opposite sides of the passage on the floor, with their backs resting on the rough wall. Both of them had their legs stretched and a coffee mug in their hands. They were not even looking at each other. They were looking down, tired, despondent and defeated.

  Mischa just handed them the mugs and quietly moved away. It was best to leave the men alone when they were in this mood, she knew from 20 years of experience. She knew them too well. They were big boys, they can handle themselves.

  She had confidence in the brilliance of the two men, they would figure things out eventually. Mischa knew that the men had hit too many dead ends. They had tried everything they could think of, and it had not worked. They were simply out of ideas.

  Mischa had tried helping the two men with whatever ideas she could think of about the Shaitan psychology. It had helped a bit here and there in getting minor breakthroughs, but not enough to bring any significant progress. All they had achieved was to rule out a lot of possibilities, but no major breakthroughs.

  Significant progress of her own work depended on the success of Ramesh’s work. To that extent she had a vested interest in his progress. So against her better judgment, she turned back and decided to nudge and speak words of encouragement to her husband and his best friend, despite their foul mood.

  In her experience of nearly two decades of marriage, her best intentions of comforting her husband when he was in such a foul mood did not usually end well. More often than not they ended up fighting over some silly stupid thing, all because he was in a foul mood.

  She went and sat next to her husband, but did not try to get too cozy. She knew that right now it would only irritate him. Ramesh looked up a bit and gave her a half smile to acknowledge her, before looking down again. Jorge had not looked up or given any signs of acknowledgement.

  “I hope you boys remember that I am a trained psychologist. I mean not just an alien shrink, but certified to get into a human head.” Mischa said to no one in particular.

  Ramesh looked up and gave another half-hearted smile. Jorge raised his arm and put it across Mischa and drew her closer. That was always a good sign. Then after taking a sip of his coffee he said. “I would like to see your license Doctor, before I let you inside my head.”

  Mischa leaned into Jorge’s ear and said softly. “I don’t need to see your license to let you inside me Doctor.” She then gave a soft and discrete but suggestive kiss on his ear.

  That perked up Jorge like no amount of caffeine could. Sex always worked in getting the attention of a man. God had cursed the human male by linking their brains to their penis. They were too easily manipulated. At a neurochemical level, she knew what was going on in his brain right now.

  His brain was releasing some amount of the neurotransmitter dopamine, responsible for both motivation and sexual arousal. The anticipation of sexual gratification was automatically releasing some amount of neuro-inhibitor endorphins responsible for blocking pains and lifting the brain from a state of depression.

  Jorge looked at her and gave her a smile and a wink. Men are so predictable! She had done her shrink thing and gotten Jorge out of his blues. She had cheated a bit though and probably broken her Hippocratic Oath, but it was a grey area as far as husbands were concerned she guessed. Now though she had to get back to business, pleasure can wait.

  “For the record I am no longer speaking as a shrink, but simply as Mischa. My dad used to bring this huge jigsaw puzzle every Christmas for me and my sister to solve. When we would get stuck at any particular piece, struggling for a long time to figure out where it fit, my dad used to tell me and my sister to simply leave it alone and move to another piece.

  That way, he would say, we can come back to the piece later with a fresh mind and figure it out faster. It would also become easier as some more pieces would have fallen into place by then. But I and my sister would be too obsessed with the pieces we were holding. We could not let them go, so we didn’t listen to our dad. Instead we found another trick which helped us solve that particular piece first.

  We simply exchanged the piece we were holding. We found that most of the time both of us were able to solve the piece the other was holding and struggling with. It is amazing when a fresh new perspective is shone on a problem. So why don’t you boys try swapping pieces?” Mischa said trying to drum up some enthusiasm.

  Ramesh looked at her incredulously and said. “Let me get this straight. You want me a computer scientist to crack how an advanced alien nuclear fusion reactor works. The same reactor which one Dr. Jorge Sterner, leading physicist of earth, along with some of the most eminent physicist in the world including Nobel laureates, working on video and data links have not even been able to scratch the surface of?! Did I miss any new shipment of marijuana from Earth Jorge? For I am sure I have not smoked anything in a while.”

  Mischa laughed. Ramesh was joking, that was a good sign that he was also getting out of his blues.

  “Nope Ramesh. The wife never shares with me the stuff she smokes. I guess we will have to make do with some moonshine. Mr. Gupta said it is fairly trivial to brew ethyl alcohol from the organics in the Methane Rivers flowing here. Can you imagine a better paradise for alcoholics than Titan?

  Rivers of booze flowing across the land. Yeah baby! Who needs the Pearly gates, when you can enter the eternal flowing bliss of Titan? I would definitely need a strong dose before I start handling those icky, yucky, gooey, slimy brain parts that you call a Shaitan computer.” Jorge was getting back to his normal ‘spirits’.
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  “Seriously guys, it would be fun. We have been looking at the same thing for too long. We may not achieve anything serious, but we all need the break. How long have we been at the same thing without a break… huh?” Mischa said with a manufactured tone of fun and enthusiasm, which honestly she did not feel herself. She simply wanted to get these two men she cared so much about, out of their depression.

  “Twenty seven days precisely. Twenty five of those in two 6 hour shifts inside suits every day.” Ramesh replied promptly, obviously he was keeping count of his days of failure, including the agony of working long hours inside suits. Thankfully since yesterday they had been working without suits. I had been a huge relief, and it was believed that the increased comfort would lead to better ideas and a breakthrough. It had not happened yet.

  They had been allowed inside the Shaitan habitat without suits after Violet had certified, after over 3 weeks of rigorous testing of the atmosphere as well as detailed sampling of every conceivable surface, that there were no known pathogens harmful to earth based life. The emphasis was on the word ‘known’.

  Dr. Violet Manning’s lab had been repaired and brought back to working order, but it was impossible for one single xeno-biologist working with limited equipment and cultures to even sample all the nooks and crannies, let alone test everything for harmful effects. She was fairly certain that the atmosphere would not kill humans, at least not in the short to medium term, but that was all they could be certain about.

  She had found alien microbes, lots of them. It seems that microbes are an integral part of any ecosystems, as can be expected. After all life evolves first as microbes before it becomes complex creatures like us and the Shaitans.

  Earth microbes carried specific molecular machinery, which attached to specific parts of our body and released specific proteins that attached in very precise and specific ways to our own body proteins to create a reaction. Some were helpful to our bodies, while others were harmful. This specialized and precise molecular machinery had developed over billions of years for all the Earth animals and plants evolving together.

  The Shaitan microbes also had molecular machinery, but they were so alien compared to ours that when an Earth animal, including humans came in contact with those microbes, they ignored each other and passed off as inorganic, inanimate objects, like tiny bits of dust. The molecular machinery had no way to attach to each other.

  Violet and most microbiologist on Earth were confident that due to this vast disparity in the molecular machinery, humans were not in danger of alien infection. However nothing could be said for certain. Microbiology was treading into unprecedented and unknown territory. No one could know the long term effects of exposure, it would have to be observed over years.

  During normal times, biologists and immunologists would have recommended years of isolated study on Shaitan germ cultures. Slowly testing them from lower animals to higher ones, then mammals and finally on human cells before allowing even a single human to come into contact with those Shaitan microbes.

  These were however not normal times. These were times of war. Not just any war, a war for the survival of human species. Humans took higher risks during times of war, and short circuited many procedures. Violet had submitted her final test reports to Earth after 22 days of non-stop work. She had finished every test that was possible with the resources she had on Titan.

  While nothing harmful had been detected, and the theory said that nothing could be harmful, there were many more test possible and even necessary to confirm safety of exposure to the Shaitan bugs, but all of those would require equipment and cultures not available to Violet on Titan. So the military and the political establishment had to make a decision.

  They could wait years for samples to be transported and studied properly on Earth. Scientists were however recommending that the Shaitan bugs should remain isolated on Titan, and testing equipment should be sent to Titan and all tests carried out in the sterile atmosphere of Titan. Both the options meant waiting years, perhaps as much as 5 years before proper access could be had to Shaitan technology.

  Some work could be done by scientist using suits, but it would be severely limited. The scientists and technicians would eventually get exposed to Shaitan bugs working in suits anyway within a few weeks. The suits will have to enter the human camp, and the outer skin of the suit will be touched by human hands.

  So a decision was made, which many would find unethical, but extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. In a way, the surviving members of the Titan expedition were to become guinea pigs. They would get exposed to the Shaitan bugs by working in the Shaitan habitat without suit.

  The team would be isolated on Titan for another 10 months, after which they would be on board a space ship for another 10 months. The returning expedition and the crew would be kept in isolation for another 4 months. This would provide 2 years of observation on human subjects. This was enough as far as humans were concerned.

  If the Shaitan pathogens were harmful to humans, they needed to know as fast as possible. It would open a completely new vista of warfare possible – that of biological warfare. Humans would have to prepare for it as early as they can. Conversely if the humans could study the Shaitan biome, then perhaps humans could design pathogens to wipe out the Shaitans.

  While this was never officially stated, since it would freak out greens, pacifists and other so called ethically minded people, who clung to bizarre notions of human ethics applied to aliens bent on making us extinct, the military quietly authorized the study of ways to harm the Shaitan biome biologically and chemically.

  Thus the guinea pigs were out of their suits for the second day, roaming around in the Shaitan habitat with plastic protection coveralls, but otherwise face open. The Shaitan air inside the habitat was cold, about 15°C. The humidity level was comfortable, but the oxygen level was low – 16%. The air pressure was also lower at about three quarter of sea level on Earth.

  All this made working inside the Shaitan habitat tiring. It felt like working on the highest mountains on Earth. Low oxygen and low atmospheric pressure made you breathless and dizzy with the slightest of exertions. However it was a hundred times more comfortable than working inside those thick clumsy suits.

  It was hard to believe that the humans had fought a major land battle wearing the same suits, padded with Mr. Gupta’s foam. When it comes to survival, humans ignore any inconvenience and fight for their lives. Jorge’s biggest gripe however was that coffee could only be heated to about 70°C before it started boiling in this low air pressure, an then it cooled too fast in this damned cold air.

  Jorge drank his coffee fast before it turned cold. Then he gestured towards Ramesh and said. “Drink up before it turns to Irish cold coffee. Dr. Computer genius, you are having a look at the Shaitan fusion reactor, while me and the wife here are going to spend some quality time playing with the alien goo that is allegedly a computer.”

  There was a mischievous twinkle in Jorge’s eyes which indicated that he was up to no good. Mischa suspected that the Shaitan computer was the last thing in Jorge’s mind. He had naughtier things in his mind, once he was alone with Mischa. She gave a fake stern look. Well… what the heck… men need their incentives from time to time.

  Ramesh shrugged as he got up gulping the rest of the coffee, the damn thing had gotten cold in just over 5 minutes. What was the harm he thought? He was wasting his time in front of an alien computer, now he will waste his time in front of an alien fusion reactor. He realized he knew as little about the alien computer as he would be expected to know about the alien fusion reactor, so how did it make a difference?

  The fusion reactor was placed bang in the middle of the habitat, at the mid-levels. Either the Shaitans were very casual about safety, or the reactor technology was such that there was no danger of an explosion or radiation leaks.

  The reactor was running, that much they could make out, since the entire habitat was fully powered. They had taken the Geiger
counters right next to it, and it had shown no appreciable levels of radiation. So it was safe for humans to approach right next to it. Ramesh stood in front of the spheroid reactor nearly 3 meters in diameter.

  The upper hemisphere was covered with a hemispherical metal cover, and the lower hemisphere was embedded and resting on a huge square block. The hemispherical cover was shiny metal, but the block was covered in slimy goo like almost all equipment on this Shaitan habitat. He was sure he would never want to share a room with these disgusting creatures.

  The humans had not dared to open up anything in this large room. They knew that the reactor was running, and they had no clue how to shut it down. They didn’t dare do anything silly with a nuclear fusion reactor running in the room.

  It had taken them almost 2 days to simply identify this as the fusion reactor. They could only confirm it by tracing and tapping into the electrical wiring, to confirm that all power had just one source – that sphere in the center of the room. The electrical wiring around the habitat surprisingly was very conventional. Any electrician on Earth would have recognized it.

  He circled the reactor, noting with disgust at the slime smeared liberally across the entire square block. There was speculation that the slime on the bock was meant for lubrication. The other theory was that it may be used for some sensory purpose, like sensing the temperature of the reactor. The soldiers thought that the aliens had simply shat on the block. It must remind them of their toilets.

  Notwithstanding the soldiers’ jokes, Ramesh wondered about the other two theories. There was no moving part in the reactor. It didn’t even hum. It just lay there like a block of metal. It had taken them quite some time to figure out that the damn thing was actually running and generating electricity. So if there are no moving parts, then what is the need for lubrication?