Planet of Graves

by Marc Everitt

  As he sat in his quarters, the small radio on the sideboard relayed a newscast from the lunar newsrooms, “….and in other news, a religious group, calling themselves ‘The Prophets of A New Dawn’, have seized the American Embassy in New Tokyo, Mars Colony. Our sources tell us these individuals are holding a group of diplomats and are refusing to release them until the whole of Mars agrees to sign up to their religion. We understand their policies of total peace and brotherly love between all races and peoples were detailed on the list of demands which police security forces received early this morning. These claims are being taking with a pinch of salt however, as they were written in blood on the chest of the decapitated US ambassador which they threw out of a window to police security forces below – with the head following shortly afterwards inscribed with a couple of points they had earlier forgotten. Comment on this story now from our religious maniac correspondent, Chuck Berko….”

  Taylor switched the radio off with something approaching contempt. It was little wonder to him that the human race had only colonised a hundredth of a percent of their galaxy when the whole of the species’ concentration was introverted upon itself rather than outwards towards the stars. Who cared what was going on within the closed social structures of the colonies when new worlds were waiting to be discovered and new races were no doubt waiting to greet them.

  Not for the first time, Taylor wished he had enrolled in the Deep Space exploration programme when he was younger. However, this would have meant him starting the intensive training at the age of twelve, and at that time he had plenty of his own concerns to worry about. Notwithstanding the usual dilemmas of an angst-ridden youth, his was a childhood that was unlike any other.

  ***

  Rising from his chair, he walked over to the door, grabbing his favourite jacket from the hook on the wall as he did so. ‘Oh well,’ he thought to himself, ‘no time like the present.’ With this in mind, Taylor West left his room and marched out towards the door, which led to the courtyard, the fence and beyond.

  ***

  “You wanted to see me, Major?” sighed Alan as he walked disconsolately into the control room. The usual whirring of machinery and blinking of lights greeted him as it always did.

  Lana Maxwell was monitoring the equipment as her husband finished his lunch in the canteen some twenty metres away. The Major was looking particularly smart that day, thought Alan with dread as this meant he would be in a particularly bureaucratic frame of mind as well. Bracing himself for tedium, Alan stood facing the pacing Major and waited. Eventually, Major Hastings stopped his wanderings and whirled round to face Alan.

  “A quiet word if you please, Johnson.” With that, he indicated with his hand that Alan should follow him to the far side of the control room. Lana saw this movement but did not really care enough about what it may be about to bother eavesdropping.

  “Now both of us know Shanks’ death was unfortunate,” began the Major, “but what I would like to know is whether you think these new fellows could have upset him in any way.”

  The look of concern of the Major’s face seemed to Alan to be entirely genuine, but it was hard to tell. ‘What did he think he was going to say in reply to him?’ thought Alan. ‘Yes, Major, I think they depressed him by saying they weren’t big fans of his favourite author.’

  Sometimes, the Major really did appear insightful, but today was not one of those days. Alan tried to work himself up to give an answer that would not sound too insulting.

  ***

  With the fence power temporarily switched off by a time delay of his own devising, Taylor stepped furtively through the barrier and outside into the compound. As the gate shut behind him and the power switched back on after the twenty-second delay he had set, he walked on out into the desert plains searching for answers. The voice command activator for the fence’s power circuits had definitely been set for his vocal patterns. He had checked that most thoroughly before stepping through. It should be a simple matter for him to get back into the compound. He shouldn’t really have left but he never did care too much for rules. Not when they got in the way of a mystery.

  The ground beneath his feet was like sand, but he was sure it was not what it appeared to be; too smooth, too fine. Besides which where was the evidence of the weather systems needed to create sand? Graves’ World was as dead as a doornail, but still managed to suffer from earth tremors and quakes. With his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his favourite battered old jacket – a dark brown three quarter length suede jacket that had seen better days when he had found it in a second-hand shop over ten years ago.

  He shuffled his feet over the terrain. Warily but at the same time confidently he strode deeper towards the horizon, his mind firmly set on answering the question of what was going on with this planet. He sighed as he thought over the multiple mysteries he was trying to solve - the identity of Shanks’ and Hanley’s killer? How had the Swamp Creature got there? Why did the planet suffer from unexplainable tremors that seemed to come and go at random?

  He surveyed the bleak landscape before him and thought, ‘What’s out there?’ He almost took another step before he heard a voice in his head, booming and ethereal. Instantly understandable yet utterly alien, one word rebounded around his brain in exactly the way he occasionally picked up stray thoughts from others with high psi-ratings. Never before, however, had he been able to pick up a message without being in close proximity with the other person. Taylor looked around him, knowing full well what he would see before he did so. “Nothing,” he muttered under his breath. He was totally alone as far as the eye could see. Just him and the memory of that one clear word, “Soon.”

  Appendix One

  Earth history: bias- socio-political restructuring

  Chapter Three: The Origin and Development of the Company

  By the year 2150, the Old Earth nations had reverted to two basic forms of government. Those being the countries who laboured under the yoke of a communist totalitarian ideal (and these were rare by this time and only found in small nations where the natural tendencies towards capitalism could be subverted in some way), or those nations (and these were far more common) who laid some claim towards democracy.

  In actual fact, the vast majority of these nations were more akin to an Oligarchy or some form of multi-layered republican social structure then they were to any true Greek interpretation of democracy. There were simply too many people being represented by too few elected representatives. Compromise was the inevitable outcome, and the lofty ideals of a true democratic governing system was lost between the mass of voters’ feet. The only other form of government in existence by this time in mankind’s history was one involving the distribution of cheese and this was only found in certain counties in western Britain so we can, by and large, ignore it.

  So, it came about that the last communist states fell beneath the stampeded of capitalism (these nations being Cuba, Venezuela, Mongolia and Ireland). While, at the same time, the supposedly dedicated advocates of democracy began to realise they could not please all of the people necessary to claim democratic status and that too many were being left out. World governing bodies met in 2154 to discuss a new option of world government where they could set aside the differences of individual nations in favour of a more holistic, unilateral, approach.

  Speaking amongst these delegates was the Spanish president Maria Gonzales, a lady in her late-forties but with the drive and energy of a much younger woman. She has been historically credited with the suggestion of an all-encompassing conglomerate to take care of the world as if it were a business. After all, she is supposed to have reasoned, it has been proven that only through a capitalist supply and demand economy could the wants and desires of the masses be satisfied and resources fairly distributed. Following on from this train of thought, the conversation developed into a discussion of ways in which to run a united earth state as a business proposition.

  However, the objection was raised that a business must have an o
utside agency to either trade with or compete against. To this end the newly formed Company decided that the exploration of space should begin in earnest. Vast craft were constructed and sent forth into the heavens, to destinations both distant and wondrous. Unfortunately, these destinations were also uninhabited. To their credit, the associated board of the Company did not let this dissuade them and went on pouring hundreds of millions of credits into pushing deeper into space and stretching Man’s empire further in the quest for intelligent life to make money out of.

  Chapter Five

  Damsel in Distress

  Eli sat in his quarters, looking around at the furniture, and wondering where the hell Taylor had disappeared to. He had returned around ten minutes earlier and, having found the room empty, had quickly looked around the station in a vain attempt to find his friend. All along, he knew deep down in his bones that he would not find him because a man like Taylor West did not like to be fenced in. Eli had known that it was only a matter of time before Taylor had sneaked outside the compound for a look around. ‘God only knows what he hopes to find out there’, thought Eli, but that was Taylor West for you. A piece of the thoroughly disgusting re-hydrated chicken had managed to ensconce itself in his back teeth and had just made its presence felt to Eli’s roving tongue.

  Eli walked over to the bathroom and picked up a small box of wooden toothpicks from the cabinet, which was open. Once he had removed the food from his tooth he replaced the box and closed the cabinet door; and was surprised to see a small note attached to the door. The handwriting was flamboyant and elegant, definitely not Taylor’s (who he knew from experience was not the sort to leave little notes about the place). It simply said, ‘Mr Jackson. Please meet me in the stores room at 8’. No names attached, or reason given.

  Eli’s mind worked overtime, who could be writing to him and why? It was not a mystery how the person had got into the room as Taylor never locked the door when he left; he felt he had nothing worth stealing. When he was in the room he locked it, but when he wasn’t he didn’t really bother. Picking the note off of the door Eli walked back out of the bathroom, frowning and a touch disconcerted. He looked at his watch; it was already a quarter past seven so he would soon know whom the note was from. He wasn’t sure that he wanted to know though. He could sense trouble just around the corner.

  ‘Oh, where is Tay?’ he thought for what would not be the last time that day.

  Deep inside its desert hideaway, the creature stirred. It was more than two hours earlier that it had usually been waking since it was brought to the strange dark place by its master. Being a creature of limited intelligence it had no real concept of time or of its own self. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle would have felt the beast not to be sentient, and would probably have been right. However, the creature would have more than likely felt Aristotle to be lunch wrapped up in a bed sheet; so who can say whose point of view is more valid.

  The creature did, to its credit, have an incredible sense of instinct and desire to exist and this was all it really needed. It had felt no desire to enter the compound as it had some days ago when it had caught some noisy food, it had merely been hungry. Similarly, when it returned and tried to eat again – but had found its prey able to keep it at bay until the ground began to move and it had fled in terror – it had been directed towards the food by its master.

  Once it had the food in sight, it had no need for further direction; its instincts had taken over. As it slept it saw images of its past fill its primitive mind. The swamplands it called home, its fellow kind and the sudden arrival of strangers. Falling from the skies had come a large, loud shape unlike any tree it had ever known; and from inside it came things. Quietly, cautiously at first and then in greater numbers, they began to wander further from their silver shape. Each of them had been smaller silver things with pink things inside and strange branches which could spit some sort of sunlight; only far stronger light then it had ever seen, even on the hottest of days.

  At night, when his kind had tried to attack the silver shape, they had found it too hard to be broken open, even with their claws. Later, as the weeks passed, the silver shape had become commonplace and the creatures in the swamp had started to forget that it had ever not been there. It had become part of their swamp. A shinier part, but a part of their world nevertheless. The creature itself had been taken prisoner whilst out hunting, not realising it was entering a trap. A brief struggle ensued before it had been clawed by some sort of hard sharp claw and had begun to feel very tired and sleepy.

  When it had awaked, it was in a new place, all silver and strange. Its master had begun to feed it, never any of the other silver creatures, except they had now become pink in more places than before and were slightly smaller. One of the other strange creatures had tried to hurt it, tried to kill it with one of the silver branches that spat the sun, but his master had struggled with the other and had ended up killing them. This was doubly good for the creature as it not only was saved from death by its master but also got to have its first taste of a new food. It had tried to stay asleep as much as it could during this time, it was very scared by the things it saw but couldn’t understand.

  When it woke, which was rare, as its body adjusted to a kind of hibernation, it saw strange things and heard weird noises. More than once it saw its master arguing with the other silver and pink things, often very loudly. The creature had barely had time to get used to its new home when it woke one day in another new place. Hot, dry and not a tree in sight, it had been left there by its master and was only visited occasionally. It had found out that it was best to stay under the ground in the hole it had managed to claw open. There seemed to be liquid beneath the surface but it only had time drink from the hole once - a strong sickly water - before the hole had healed over with rock afresh and the liquid was covered once more.

  No matter how hard the creature had tried to dig, after that the liquid seemed to be impossible to get to. It had learned that if it didn’t attack its master, who seemed very strong for a thing of its size, then it was bought food, not much but enough to keep it alive. It had also been brought some sort of drink, which seemed alive in the creature’s mouth and had badly scared it at first. The silver pink master was still pink in the same places, but had turned a darker grey colour where it had been silver before. The creature thought that this must be sign of its master getting older, like creatures in its swamp, which it thought must be many days walk from the place it slept, did as they got older.

  The creatures in its swamp were born pale and grew darker with age, and this was what it thought must be happening to the master in the places where it had been silver but now was not. The creature stirred in its slumber but did not wake, although it thought it smelt food nearby and almost returned to consciousness to hunt, but thought better of it as it had been fed recently. And so it was that Taylor West had his second lucky escape with the same creature in the space of a couple of days. He had no way of knowing that, for the creature, it would be third time lucky.

  He heard no further voices in his head as he walked along, but Taylor was sure he hadn’t been imagining it. The word had been so clear, yet he felt as if it had not been a specific reply to his unspoken question but a general response to his psychic ability from some life form nearby. He had just picked his pace up to distance himself from a small cave that he had just passed. It had piqued his curiosity and he had neared it to see if he could find the being that had connected with him moments before, but had only seen the sleeping form of a creature very like the one that had attacked him in the compound the previous day.

  Taylor was sure that such a beast couldn’t have any sort of mental power and was busy trying to decide which of the dozen or so alien species mankind had discovered on its travels it was. Under the guidance of the Company’s colonial systems the human race had found worlds with alien creatures living on them, but nothing intelligent, only animals which could be trained and bred.

  Trained, Taylor had
thought to himself as he peered into the gloom of its abode, much like this one seems to have been. He had been trying to decide whether the creature was a Mateusan Claw Beast or a Rodlean Swamp Creature when he had seen it stir in its sleep and had decided he had seen enough. He had thought it best that he should retreat slowly and quietly away before the thing woke and tried to make a snack out of him. Before he had left, he had noticed an object out of place – a silver tray had caught his eye on the rock floor.

  He walked swiftly but silently away, always looking over his shoulder and ready to run if he had to, he had realised that the object was a tray from the research station canteen. Now he was some distance from the sleeping creature, which he was now sure was a Rodlean Swamp Creature, he could think about what the presence of the tray meant. Sure, someone was feeding the creature, but why and who?

  As he walked, he felt an object fall from the knees of his trousers, a small shaft of rock. He had obviously knelt on it when he had been looking in at the creature and it had stuck to his overalls and had stayed there for a few minutes until gravity overcame cohesion. ‘Ah’, he thought, ‘now this could be very interesting’. It was so hard to get a decent rock sample on this planet unless you wanted to study tiny grains of sand-like rock. Those were no good to any geologist, as they had no complex interlocking structures from which to study their formation. They were merely the remains of a geological process and as such were insufficient as scientific data.

  But this sample was of a decent-enough size to contain the lattice-like strata of rock particles which would give Taylor a clue as to the rocks origins and the state of the planets developmental stage. It would seem to be an easy matter to take such a sample for analysis, but the rocks merely seemed to crumble when they were cut; so to find a sample of this size was quite important to him. Taylor thought to himself that he would have to show it to the other members of the team, which would cause questions as to how he had come by the sample. But he was sure they all knew he was outside the compound by now in any case.