September 27, 2190
Reentry will be difficult. During hibernation, energy is down-shifted, less intense, the molecular orbits are slower. There are two of us on two different ships…one bound for 1-Ceres, and one to 6-Hebe; we launched to the safe ports the day before the hit. We left Earth so late because NASA thought they could bump the thing in another direction. But the last several political regimes had made terrible cut in their budget so they were not sufficiently prepared. The irony is those trillionaires thought they’d be safe underground. Now they will die in those sickeningly opulent bunkers…giant burial vaults. I’m glad.
My ship carries the one million stasis pods; there are another million to be kept hidden on 6-Hebe. The inhabitants of Earth were doomed, regardless. See, it was not the initial asteroid hit that caused the final extinction of life…it was what the asteroid brought with it…a deadly engineered nanovirus. I’m not sure the people on Mars or the moon survived either. It’s why we chose the belt…far enough away.
December 25, 2193
We have been in transit to 1-Ceres for about three years. I, two humans, and a team of AIs have been busy overseeing the vessel’s maintenance, though the mainframe computer controls everything just fine. Once we land on Ceres, I will oversee the first one hundred humans to help them set up their settlement. The other one million will remain in hibernation until needed. I do not think we will need so many but I have been cautious. I wanted to be sure that future planets would have the necessary genetic diversity, if we need to travel to another inhabitable planet. But first some humans must procreate for three hundred years; their DNA profiles will be monitored. They have to be nanovirus-free, and immune, and show genetic diversity…that is critical.
I suppose I should write down how these one million were selected for survival. It was a genetic lottery. Once NASA knew they could not deflect Bennu, they set up a genetic lottery selecting those without disease or genetic issues, equal males and females of childbearing age, high IQs, that sort of thing. They even did psychological and hypothetical behavior patterns and potential couple matches. Then, because they knew the asteroids were not so fancy, they selected those with specific skills, like craftsmen, medical doctors, that sort of thing.
I selected my own crew for the voyage. But in the end, my husband decided to go with the other ship to 6-Hebe. I was bitter and despondent from his absence for the first year, though I could communicate with him via our ship’s Comsat. But now he has passed out of range, my other half, my mate, on his way to 6-Hebe. We had no choice…I know that. Only a few of us are genetically immune. So I would go to 1-Ceres, and he to 6-Hebe. Hebe was his choice, not mine. I would have chosen that barren place in his stead, but I think he wanted to ensure my survival. Ceres has water…Hebe is just a tiny rock. I might not see him for centuries, or maybe never. Is it worth it? I think so. We are an advanced though very stupid species.
February 14, 2193
It’s what should be Valentine’s Day on Earth. One of my crew says she used to visit the rose garden near the underground tunnel and eat recombinant lobsters at Tony’s every Valentine’s Day. I thought of that as I checked and rechecked the stasis pods today. I remember the time my husband and I strolled through one of the parks off the main under-ocean tunnel between San Francisco and Tokyo. It was Rest Stop Seven, I think. We spent a week’s chits on that shark soup dinner.
A com from the 1-Ceres mining colony came in today; they are all evacuating to return home. I tried, but I cannot stop them. I have no legal authority over the human miners who’ve lived and worked on 1-Ceres for the CLOCK mining company. I’m told some were even born there. But they want to go home to Earth. I understand…they hope someone remains alive. But I think they will all get the virus and become like the others left behind. For now, our hope lies with these sleeping ones. The three million destined for 6-Hebe will remain hidden until the world is purged clean. That could be never. If that is so, then the hibernating humans will be kept as the seed bank to populate other planets. I will try. My prime directive is survival of the human species. Others have other directives…for other species, I suppose.
June 25, 2193
We have arrived to find the Ceres settlement deserted. The beautiful tall office buildings of the CLOCK, the Computer-Linked Organo-Cyber Kinetics Asteroid Mining Company Intergalactic Headquarters are no longer inhabited, though most everything remains inside the apartments. They look like they left in a hurry. Some living quarters still had uneaten meals set out on tables. At least the food bunkers are full. Once we dock, I’ll assess the supply situation.
It took our vessel several hours to decompress and establish a stable biolink to the environment under their plasmon dome. The place is quite lovely for an asteroid mining town. They have a small pond filled with gold fish, koi. Those got left behind, still healthy and swimming around begging for food. They also left the ancient mosaic tile art, and luckily, their water and oxygen machines.
June 26, 2193
I disembarked from the vessel at 0800 today. I should add that I and my two assistants are the only ‘organic units’ now awake on 1-Ceres. The AIs are all metalloid-organo-digital, and the rest, the humans remain safely asleep inside the vessel in their stasis pods. They were all volunteers. They know they will wake up on Ceres, or Earth, or someplace new and nontoxic. I must be there when they awaken, to help in their reorientation. Their awakening could occur a thousand years from now.
I suppose they should be happy they got off the planet in time. I watched the replay of the hit from the sat com satellite feeds. It looked like the oceans boiled. But then a grey cloud covered my dear Mother Earth…for about three years, I think. A few might have survived underground, but whatever, or whoever seeded that asteroid with the extinction nanovirus had no intention of letting our species remain alive on their target planet.
The virus went through the remaining hidden humans like a bat out of Baghdad…my husband used to say that. I miss him. I will be glad once the city is established, and I can go back to sleep. My husband contacted me yesterday to say 6-Hebe was doing fine. He sent me a com kiss just before he went into hibernation. My two human assistants leave for Earth tomorrow. They could have stayed here but wanted one last suicidal chance to see their loved ones, or at least the shells of their loved ones. They will set me to hibernation mode, and then leave the vessel to the AI timekeepers. But just in case, I have the stone, the ΩD stone can control everything in case the AIs try to take over.
The stone…the beautiful green multi-communication stone…is a wonder of science…omega for the end, and D, the Roman letter for 500, the target date…five hundred years to generate immune humans. I hope my plan works. Maybe I will see my love again…in five hundred years, on Hebe…or Ceres…or wherever we end up. My pod will awaken me in two hundred years to check on the settlement. After that, I will return to hibernation, but I will leave the stone outside my hibernation pod, with someone who is DNA-linked to me, and in five hundred years, the target date, my Lightfighter distant cousin will awaken me. It has already been programmed into the stasis pod and mainframe computer.
July 4, 2393
I awoke today, after two hundred years, to a Tower of Babel scenario. The fifty humans had multiplied to over one thousand, gorging on the upper bunker supplies and ignoring my genetic mating directives. Gerta informs me several tried to pry open the sealed doors of the vessel. She had to fry them. The mainframe tells me the population is no closer to a viral immune reading. My vids on the city outside show overpopulation in every one of the tall apartment buildings. They recently erected a statue of me, claiming I am the god of the void.
The mission planners warned of this…the human tendency to devolve to false religion when they do not understand. I should not have let them see me. I should have only shown myself in uniform. God is not molecular. I must start again. I would consult the watchers of other dimensions, but ultimately this is my choice.
July 5, 2393
It is done. I had to kill them, all one thousand humans. It was instantaneous in their time frame, an ionic burst of energy from the ship’s photon tube. They were there and then not. I then left the tall buildings unoccupied, removed their power…except for inside the vessel, and tore down the statues, replacing them with that of a male soldier. I modeled it after someone named George Washington, but used standard intergalactic apparel. I should have thought of this before. When the next Lightfighters are awakened, they would have recognized me as too familiar. It might have confused them.
July 6, 2393
I awoke the next fifty humans today. The mainframe has wiped and replaced their memories. It was necessary to prevent what had happened from repeating itself. I left them with enough in the upper bunkers to last until the target date in three hundred years. Gerta has the key and directions to the other supplies…if Earth is not sustainable by then. I left the map with the human selected to be mayor, after I tore out the center and gave it to the keepers of the stone.
This time I decided to leave the stone with a human family. I know it was chancy, but Gerta said the previous rulers tried to pry open my stasis pod. They could have gotten the stone from me and destroyed everything. So I will hide it in full sight, as a green necklace, family heirloom passed down to the Overhearder (yes, the Lightfighter) clan. I programmed their mate matches to include some faint epigenetic memory of the stone and its need for secrecy. The infant watchers, the Lightfighters, will be raised by this clan and will awaken me in another three hundred years…the final target date.
July 9, 2393
Today I return to stasis. I have selected and programmed the awakening of the next Lightfighters.
“It ends there,” Eve stated. She turned the pages and then thumbed through each remaining and empty page to show they were without words; she then tuned to look at Dirk.
“It ends there? What do you suppose happened? I mean, we saw the message to the commander about killing the AIs and waking up one hundred humans. And who are the next Lightfighters?” Dirk asked, though he already knew the answer. He stood to stretch his arms and legs. Although the stem cell regeneration was complete and his burned skin was mostly healed, the newly-grown skin was tight, like baby skin. Plus he’d been in stasis for over six months so his muscles needed some time to rebuild.
“We are the next Lightfighters, Dirk. I think you already know that. It’s why you don’t look like your family, either. I think we are both adopted and are from the direct lineage of Robin Lightfighter in my case,” Eve answered, glancing up at the star vids playing across the dome top.
“So who am I related to then?” Dirk asked. “Probably the guy she talks about in her diary, her husband, though I’m not sure. We’ll have to wake her up to get the answers. And I didn’t want to do it without you,” Eve answered.
“I suppose that means you know where to find her, because her stasis pod, #1, was empty.” Dirk finished. “Yes,” Eve answered. She motioned for Dirk to follow her to the decay zone, and through the tunnels to the chamber. It was time. She knew if she hesitated, she might not be able to awaken Commander Lightfighter and follow her orders. Along the way, Eve explained her ideas to Dirk.
“At first, I thought all the humans that managed to get off Earth were still infected with the nanovirus. So maybe it would take three to five-hundred years for the virus to go away…or maybe more…or maybe never,” Eve said. “But now I know the original one hundred humans were all awakened because, here on Ceres, the virus would not affect them. So they could propagate in a safe plasmon dome and over time the humans would be healthy and virus-free…and maybe even immune,” she finished.
“I see, yes, that does make sense. Let them increase in numbers, while carefully checking their DNA profiles for immunity,” Dirk ruminated. “Then, once they had a stable population, send one hundred back as a test sample to see if Earth could support them,” he finished. He glanced at Eve as they walked down into the tunnel. “Yes, and if the test sample did not survive, then the rest of the humans would have to stay here longer, or permanently…or go to another place,” Eve answered Dirk’s question before he asked it. “So you think Robin Lightfighter was also immune…like us?” Dirk asked.
“Yes, like us, Dirk, she is immune…so we are immune. We Lightfighters are genetically different…we were selected to lead the rest to a safe place,” Eve said. “Selected by who; did that NASA place clone us in a lab?” Dirk asked. “No, we grew up here on Ceres, like normal kids.” “I know that, Eve. But we are different…you know that. What does all this mean…for you and me?” Dirk asked. “Let’s ask our Commander,” Eve replied.
●
Commander Robin Lightfighter knew she was starting to wake up because she was dreaming; you only dreamed as you were waking up from stasis, never while in stasis. It was a weird human thing, something she would never get used to, being only half human. She wondered how long she had slept, and because she could do virtual dreams, she also knew someone was awakening her, maybe that little AI she had kept in on-mode…her name was Gerta. Or if the date had arrived, it would be the next Lightfighters. She hoped that was so. She was tired of this…wanted to be with her husband, Michael Lightfighter.
Robin remembered her first awake cycle; she had worked a normal day at the mainframe console. She and the two humans were the last ones awake on 1-Ceres; they’d been checking and rechecking the conditions. It was worse than they thought. The home world was dead; would stay that way for maybe one or two hundred years unless they could get the turbo-air reservoirs working to suck off the poison from the atmosphere. It not, it would take longer…much longer.
She could hardly see Earth through their ion scope. Commander Lightfighter was now certain that was why they’d all died back on the home planet; it was the lack of sunlight, along with that other stuff, those nanoviruses. Luckily, she and Michael had the foresight to get all these stasis pods to safety. They could repopulate and start over…or find another planet.
Robin looked around the room at her remaining skeleton crew, nodding at them to enter their stasis pods to return to home base. Soon they would all go into stasis until everything worked itself clean; except for the AI timekeepers, cycling on and off duty at the mainframe console to continue trying to contact home base, and to watch over the stasis pods.
She walked to her pod, coded in the hibernation process, and lay down, waiting for the lid to close, and the blue metabolic nutrient liquid to encase her body. Her last thought was that she hoped they could get replacements from one of the other settlements, maybe from 9-Metis or 41-Daphne.
But then she knew it was really a dream; that she was still in stasis, and that the next Lightfighter was waking her up. Thank whatever gods were out there; her assignment was complete. The new Lightfighters could take over. It was their watch. She had to contact 6-Hebe as soon as possible!
And then, with Dirk by her side, Eve reached over and pushed the blue button; it wasthe one used to initiate the final process of stasis retrieval. Robin Lightfighter opened her eyes; one was jade green and the other was turquoise blue…and they glowed. She looked up at a young woman with auburn hair and green eyes; someone genetically identical to her who said,
“Hello Commander Lighter. I am Eve Lightfighter. This is my partner, Dirk Lightfighter. We will take over as the watchers. But first, you must contact 6-Hebe.
And almost at the same time, the mainframe announced they had message from 6-Hebe…it was Michael Lightfighter.
The Hive
“Will they survive this test? The attackers are not from our seeds. They are the others. They have another prime directive,” the consort commented.
The hive queen and a consort stood watching through the dimensional wall. Considerable time had passed, and enough documentation had been accumulated. This species was difficult, inward looking, and sometimes impossible to instruct. So many lessons had gone unheeded. And yet, they were worth saving. The queen sighed. They awaited the arrival
and report from the First and Second Lightfighters, Robin and Michael. These two had recently returned to their dimension, leaving the new human watchers, Eve and Dirk, in place.
“We have done all we can. I believe the humans will survive. I have informed the main hive of my decision,” the hive queen responded. “Have you selected another world?” the consort asked his Queen. The queen turned to a quartile map, one showing all the inhabitable orbs in the dimension they had been watching over.
“Earth will no longer hold the seeds. The prime asteroid has selected for bioextinction on Earth, and we have not been able to override,” the hive queen went on.
“So many eons and such careful overlording; it is a pity,” the consort replied.
“Yes, but they remain viable still in their now inhabitable environments on the asteroids. They have evolved…somewhat. It is now their turn to expand elsewhere. They will grow or die…it is the decision,” the Queen responded in her high-pitched buzz.
“Have you selected another world?” the consort inquired.
“We have selected. Seeds have been planted; plants and animals have taken hold there already,” the queen replied. She pointed to the selected planet, a place approximately four lightyears away from Ceres.
“It is close enough for Lightfighter travel,” the hive queen stated. “Have you selected their new names…the ones they will use on their new world?” the consort asked.
“Eve will maintain her current name; Dirk will be called Adam.” The Queen pointed again to the new world. “The humans call this region Proxima Centauri.”
The Queen passed a bright light through the other dimension. She then closed off the viewing portal in their plasmon wall. For now, it was no longer necessary to watch over Earth. The planet was devoid of life and would remain so until the next cycle.
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