Having lost nearly an hour finding a suitable blaster rifle, I crouched behind a fallen tree. No breeze moved the leaves. I detected no sounds of birds or any other night life I had gotten used to; as if the structure’s very presence stilled all life to a respectful silence. The main building seemed carved from the very mountain itself. With its massive foundation and heavy fortifications it could have been a temple or a citadel, the high arch of its entrance and formidable walls meant to convey a mixture of awe and intimidation.
Twin sentries patrolled the main archway. The entranceway lit by a series of torches, illuminating an area leading up to it that provided no cover. Even at full sprint I couldn’t cover that distance and subdue the guards without raising an alarm. I skulked through the dense forest, circling the castle. At its side, a rivulet emptied into the lake below. Perhaps it was simply an underground stream, or a natural sewage line, either way my heart stuttered at the prospect of wading through it to make my entrance.
The force of the water’s current slowed my progress, each lugubrious step an act of determined will. Steadying myself against each tunnel wall, the water rose past my thighs. My visor digitized my surroundings as much as it could through murky dimness. The lights on my biomech suit didn’t penetrate the pitch. The cramped space pressed in on all sides, with no way to measure when my journey would end or if my progress would be halted by watery death. But I kept walking. Faith buoyed my steps. I had to believe in something, have a hope to grasp on to. No amount of faith could still the apprehension that gripped me as the water lapped my helmet. I only had a few more steps before the water overtook me. I couldn’t help but re-think my plan. It made sense why this passage wasn’t well guarded. Only a fool would chance this.
Water filled the entire passageway. The biomech suit continued to circulate air as the emergency supply automatically kicked in. A timer on my visual display counted down how many minutes of air I had left.
I continued to march deep within the compound. Scant seconds of air remained. Shafts of light stabbed the darkness ahead. I gulped one last breath of air. The passageway opened into a bay of sorts with a grate above me. I punched handholds into the wall to scale my way to the top. I bashed though the metal mesh and pulled myself up. The biomech suit was designed to augment its occupant’s efforts, but the work began with my own exertions. I collapsed, sprawled out along the floor while my re-breather unit replenished itself.
The room was a mechanical closet of sorts. Heat baked the room, a cauldron of molten metal rotated. Levers and switches cranked away. The way the cauldron revolved, its contents’ heat could be used to warm the complex or be hurled as a distance weapon. I left it for the structural engineers aboard the Templar Paton to puzzle out. The floor was connected to the walls, rigged to fall into the antechamber below in case of emergency. Advanced thinking. It began to make sense, even to my simple infantry mind. The Revisio, no matter how advanced, how evolved, couldn’t just drop tech into this world. Life on their own planet precluded them from building anything. To build they had to have, well, thumbs. They were essentially advanced minds. They may have evolved the Derthalen, but it would take a while to get their technology to the point where they’d have the tools necessary to advance their world. But it wouldn’t take long. Within a generation or two, they’d rival us. I could only imagine what they’d do on our world with our tools and technology.
Scrounging a loose bolt, I tossed it against the door. I listened for a few moments before I retrieved it and threw it again. A guard opened the door. I expected as much. It stood watch against anyone going into the room, not coming out. I yanked him inside. Another soul I would have to pray for. Later.
Flickering pools of amber from torches created puddles of shadow throughout the long hallway. The biomech wasn’t designed with indoor stealth in mind; however, it was built to carry armaments. I crept along the shadows as best I could, setting a charge as I went, praying none of the natives decided to turn down this way. I followed the sounds of garrulous chatter and laid two more charges. I may have lacked Samson’s strength, but blowing a support wall would collapse a room or two if it came to that. I hoped my escape wouldn’t come to another trek through the crawlspace. I took a measured breath then plunged into the room.
The room ran the length of a banquet hall, ringed by long tables. Behind them, male and female Revisio wore simple tunics of animal skins. In the center of the room, game roasted on spits. Musicians played in the corner while two women danced. Guards stood at attention by each table. My entrance halted the revelry. I fired once above Majorae Ha’Asoon’s head. My blaster scorched the wall before I trained my weapon on the leader. “Where are my people?”
“Is this more of your diplomacy?” Majorae Ha’Asoon sipped from a tall cup, unflustered.
“You have our diplomat. I, on the other hand, am not . . .”
“. . . very diplomatic. Do they not have manners on your home planet? You barge into our great hall uninvited and accuse us in our home.”
“Our rules of etiquette don’t extend to those who lay siege to a peaceful camp, destroy our property, and make off with our people.”
“You talk to us of peace? You come to this world armed with no regard for our plants and animals. You comport yourselves in the way of your world, imposing them on ours.”
“As you have with the Derthalen?”
“This is our moon. Our dominion.”
“I’ll ask one last time, where are my people?”
“We have . . . exchanged ideas. They have been welcomed into our tribe. There have been some . . . complications.”
“They better be unharmed.”
Majorae Ha’Asoon nodded and a member of his guard departed. The others shifted positions, not grouping to surround me, but taking up more defensive postures. I eyed on the nearest exit. Majorae Ha’Asoon’s attention focused on my weapon, studying my suit with the glint of greed in his eyes.
The guard led Novice Vidair to the area just before Majorae Ha’Asoon. The novice averted from my gaze, studying the ground. It had been not even half a day since the attack, but the novice’s belly distended. His face gaunt, flushed with a grayish pallor, his eyelids had swollen shut. Wizened fingers dug into emaciated arms, scratching at the red splotches that ran along them.
“Are you okay, Novice Vidair?” I asked.
“They infected us.” He upturned his hands. Maroon pustules blossomed on his palms like tumescent stigmata. When his eye spasmed, the muscle contraction tightened his entire face.
“We didn’t know what effect our introduction would have on your kind,” Majorae Ha’Asoon said.
“You mean as you force yourself on us,” I said.
“Your kind no longer embraces change.”
The full implications of what he intimated settled in. Perhaps we had evolved as far as we were able. I swept the room with my rifle, stilling the slow encroachment of the guards. Their movements were subtle, professional. “We resist you.”
“We’re the future. We build. We create. We define. We have no need of your God. Or your Order. We have studied your Scriptures and one ‘truth’ intrigues us.” Majorae Ha’Asoon returned to his meal. He waved his knife about, light glimmering from its edge. “Your chosen people were called to wipe out nations and peoples before them. That is where we find ourselves. Our story destroying the one that came before it. That is the ‘gospel’ message you have brought us.”
I watched the glint from the knife. And thought of my parents.
The first shot of my blaster burned a fist-sized hole in the center of Majorae Ha’Asoon’s chest. My next shot took off a quarter of the nearest guard’s head. I fired and fired, backing toward Novice Vidair. Before I could turn to shove him toward an exit, he leapt on my back.
“Too late for us.” His fists slammed into my neck attempting to divorce my head from my body. My biomech suit shuddered with the impact of his unanticipated strength. “We are joined. Not one of them. No longer us. We order y
ou to join us.”
I reached around and flung him from me as if tearing off a shirt I no longer wanted. Veins thickened and bulged along his neck. Peering with overly vesseled eyes, blood trailed from their corners like thick tears. He raked fingers across my suit, desperate to open a gash.
I raced down the corridor, pursued by a mad clamor of hoots and cries as the guards were let loose from their leashes. Back-tracking to the room I entered from, I barred the door and disabled the room dropping mechanism. My people had been biologically compromised by a hostile contagion. The Revisio had genocidal intent toward the Derthalen. Nothing remained of this mission except judgment protocols.
“They know not what they did.”
I placed my remaining charges around the massive cauldron.
Synchronizing the timers, I gave myself a thirty second window. I no longer cared if that allowed me enough time. God would see me through if I was meant to labor on. I dove for the grated opening into the waiting water. The torrent whooshed me along, flushing me from the compound like so much unwanted waste. The vibrations of the explosion rattled the passageway. I prayed the rough tunnel’s integrity would hold, as the only death I imagined worse than drowning was being buried alive while I drowned.
The hillside shook, its contraction excreting me toward the lake. I dug my biomech enhanced hands into the earth until I came to a halt. The remains of the building collapsed on itself. I doubted there would be any survivors, but I would wait. Each step became more difficult as the extensive damage to my biomech suit caused power loss. Eventually, it would be inoperable. I will salvage what I can, but I needed to send one final report. With my suit compromised and the vector of the Revisio’s transmission unclear, I submitted myself and this world as under bioquarantine.
From the cover of forest undergrowth I could study Species A, the Derthalen. A pod of them groomed one another, the adults sheltering the young. No one escaped agents of change. If God was already at work in their culture, as we purport to believe, then these people have earned the right to find their own way.
As have I.
In her action packed tale, Jaleta Clegg examines hazards which might arise for human colonists if indigenous life forms were unexpectedly sentient, in this case plants. Those who go ahead to prepare the way at potential colonies must survive these hazards or die trying . . .
ONE-WAY TICKET TO PARADISE
JALETA CLEGG
My first day on Eden wasn’t the paradise I expected.
“Ma’am, remember your breathing mask before stepping outside,” the pilot reminded me as I stepped off the shuttle.
I snapped the mask in place without comment. I knew far more than he did about such things. I was one of four environmental systems techs assigned to the new facility. Our job on Eden was to prepare it for the first wave of colonists, due in another six months. If one breath of free air killed me, it didn’t bode well for the colonists.
I jogged through Eden’s dense jungle. The fresh air tasted much better than the recycled shuttle air. The world hadn’t evolved animals yet, only plants and insects. I was tempted to explore, but duty required me to check in first.
The research facility spread up the side of a hill, the main glass atrium reflecting the morning sun. Levels split off either side, like branches of a tree. Four greenhouses sat on the far side of the facility. Jungle foliage crowded the base of the building, deciduous forests surrounded the greenhouses and upper levels. A narrow strip of land divided the two. It looked as if someone had hacked off the jungle right at the base of the hill. I hitched my duffel higher on my shoulder as I hiked the trail to the building’s main doors.
The plaza in front of the doors was new, a ragged line of bare earth along the edge. A thin film of yellow dust covered the plascrete surface. Footprints disturbed it in a path leading straight to the door. I stooped, running my finger through the yellow particles. They were all different sizes from sand grain-size down to a fine powder. A plume of yellow floated from the nearby plants. Pollen, I didn’t need a botanist to confirm it. If this was the normal level, the air filters were going to be murder to clean.
I joined the end of a line waiting to get through the airlocks into the main building. Standard protocol on a new world was to keep the world out until it had been tested. The colonists would be inoculated against any ill effects of the contaminants until they could adapt to the new world. So far, only a handful of worlds had proven too dangerous to colonize.
I stepped into the airlock with the tail end of the group. Air rushed past us, blowing away any loose particulates. The inner doors whooshed open.
Sound exploded around me, people talking and arguing, equipment haulers groaning under heavy loads, footsteps echoing on the hard floor of the atrium. Outside, I’d had the wind and insect chirps. I was tempted to turn back and exit the airlock doors, but I had to report in, so I hunched my shoulders and wound through the crowd to the appropriate table.
I spread my hand on the id scanner. “Talia Korman, environmental tech.”
The harried man behind the desk barely verified my credentials before shoving an id card across the table. “Women’s dormitory, level three, left and all the way to the end. You’re assigned to the greenhouses. They want you there as soon as possible. The filters are gummed up again.”
A gangly man took my place at the table as I took my card and stepped away. I headed up the stairs in the middle of the space. The fibermat in the level three hallway showed traces of yellow powder. I made a note to recommend adding foot scrubbers to the airlocks.
I found the dormitory room and used my id card to open the door. Four sets of bunks lined the far wall with lockers and cabinets between. I picked an unoccupied bunk as far from the others as I could. The last time I’d had this many roommates, I’d ended up sleeping in a janitor’s closet instead. I don’t like people much, never have.
The main greenhouse lay beyond another set of airlock doors at the end of the hall. A short enclosed passage separated the two buildings with branches leading up and down the hill to connect the other greenhouses. I entered the main one. Standard procedure had two greenhouses dedicated to crops, grains that would keep the colony functioning. Botanists experimented with varieties and growing conditions to test crop viability in the new conditions. The main greenhouse was used as a garden for the preliminary crew as well as an experiment for the botanists for all the other flowers, fruits, and vegetables the colonists might want. The last greenhouse, the one most separated from the others, was where they grew native plants, testing for edibility and toxicity.
Judging by the luxuriant growth surrounding me in the main greenhouse, Eden would prove very successful as an agricultural world. I stopped to sniff some yellow flowers spilling from a hanging pot.
“The greenhouses are closed to staff, at least for the rest of the week.”
I turned from the flowers to face the man who’d accosted me. “I’m Talia Korman, environmental tech assigned to the greenhouses.”
The man wiped sweat from his balding head. “Good. The filters are down again. That cussed pollen gets into everything no matter what we do. Wreaks havoc on our pollination programs. We’ve had to dump the tomato seedlings five times now. It mutates them in the weirdest ways. Brun Heimner, chief botanist for this project.”
He didn’t offer his hand to shake. I didn’t mind.
He walked as he talked. “Filters are on the far side. We keep scrubbing them and switching them out every twelve hours, but the fans keep clogging up. Suits are in the airlock next to them for when you go outside. We’ve got vines climbing up the filters. The things grow three feet an hour. If I could figure out how they do it, I’d make a breakthrough in plant genetics.”
I followed at his heels. It was all standard, just like the last six assignments I’d had, except for the sheer amount of particulates. And the vines. I’d never had to hack fast growing vines off the equipment.
The fans were silent and still when we reached
the far side of the greenhouse. Brun tapped the controls mounted on the wall. “We had to shut them down. Kept overheating. We’ve got the tightest filter they’ll give us installed.” He swiped his hand over the fan blade. It came away yellow. “If you can figure out how to stop it, I’ll put you in for a commendation.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
He hurried away as I ducked under the fans to check the filter screens.
I spent an hour scrubbing the four sets of double filters then slipped them back into the vents before flipping on the fans. Warm air, rich with the smell of the jungle outside, blew across my face. I debated for a moment about suiting up to go outside before deciding to save it for later. I hated the suits. Maybe I could get away with just a mask. I headed up the hill to the grain greenhouses.
Brun stalked the aisles of the first one, three assistants scurrying at his heels. The flats of grain seedlings looked sickly, twisted and yellowed where they weren’t black and rotting. Brun waved his hands over the ruined plants. “We’re going to have to replant the entire crop. Try the spelt this time, and the corn hybrids.” He caught sight of me near the entrance and gestured for me to join him.
A sour smell wafted from the decaying plants. I rubbed my nose, trying not to breathe it in.
“I want triple filters installed,” Brun said when I reached him. “And an extra set with fans in the airlock room. The native pollen kills anything we plant in here. You’ll need a laser cutter when you go outside. We’ve got shrubs taking over the air intakes. They don’t grow as fast as the vines, but they have thorns long as your finger. Watch out for the ants, too. They’re symbiotes with the bushes. As soon as you start burning, they’ll swarm.”
“Are they sure this world is worth colonizing?” I couldn’t help asking.
Brun glared. “They’re just plants and insects. Get moving. The upper greenhouse is in even worse shape. The only grain we’ve managed to get beyond sprouting is rye, and it’s infected with some nasty fungus. This world hates grasses. We may have to use cassava or potatoes instead of grain. We’re supposed to start animal trials next month, but we have nothing to feed them.”
Beyond the Sun Page 21