Dominion Rising: 23 Brand New Novels from Top Fantasy and Science Fiction Authors

by Gwynn White

  Above the altar itself, suspended from the rafters, hung a wooden sculpture of the crucified Christ, head bowed and crowned with thorns, arms outstretched on a cross made almost entirely of glass.

  This was my God now, an enigma impaled on a faith that could, at any moment, shatter.

  In the middle of the service, we had a visitor.

  We were on the final verse of Ave Maria, and continued singing as it entered the church.

  It was a stag, majestic, which paused at the south entrance on the left, which faced the woodlot. It stood for a moment, silhouetted in the grand arch of the doorway, its antlers perched on its head like two candelabra.

  As we finished the song there was silence.

  For some reason, around me there was the scent of almonds.

  The stag crossed the threshold of the altar and went up on two steps, crossing towards the choir on the right. As we watched, the stag turned, and took one more step up towards the altar.

  For a moment, it looked at the gilded proscenium, where the Communion hosts were ensconced, then turned to the casket where my mother lay. It took two small steps, looked inside, and breathed.

  The stag continued on, moving towards the doorway on the right, towards the outside light.

  Then it was gone.

  A murmur filled the church as the stag disappeared, but there was silence again as I stood up.

  I was the last of us, the only real family here, with Paul on a starship in the heavens somewhere.

  “My mother loved poetry,” I said, “She used to read them to me when I was a child. This is something that I read for her the night she died, a sonnet from an old poet. I don’t think she could hear it any longer when I read it, not with the ears that she was born with. I hope that she can hear it somewhere, and know what’s in my heart.”

  The Way the World Ends

  The world will come to an end tonight.

  Not with comets slanting through the rafters,

  Or tidal waves surging across the coast,

  Or the braze of volcanoes, unsubmerged.

  Not with the earth’s decimated orbit

  Spiralling it into a strangled sun,

  Not with the rush of spurious armies

  Turning fallow the scope of mankind’s dreams.

  But with the last of your kiss, fading

  From the sepulchre of these lips: it ends.

  And the night sky may as well be shattered,

  And the sun never rise again, or set,

  And the stars may as well burn to cinders,

  For all the worth they are, when you are gone.

  Part V

  Panther

  For Immediate Broadcast M6 40 96

  Exodus Transport Ship Arrives at Valles Marineris

  The first ship from Project Amethyst, the official United Earth Force (UEF) mission to covey the Earth’s population to a safe haven, arrived successfully at the Mars Aerospace Administration (MAA) landing facility serving the Valles Marineris metropolis, after a successful launch from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

  Project Amethyst began with a phase that saw the conversion of the UEF’s Arcturus-class troop transport ships into civilian vessels that would be able to accommodate over 15% more individuals than it is usually rated for. With the completion of that phase, the mission moved to implementation. A total of five Arcturus-class transport ships have already completed the evacuation stage of their missions. They are expected to complete their missions over the next period, with arrivals at the MAA aerospace facilities serving Valles Marineris, MetropolisX, Medusae Fossae, and Origin City.

  MAA Director Christopher Swardstrom noted: “This day we celebrate a significant milestone for this remarkable mission, and for this mission team. We’re proud of what our engineers and our troops have accomplished in order to support this unprecedented effort in the service of Earth.”

  Project Amethyst was accelerated to complement the comet deflection initiative for planetary defense, the Comet Redirection Project (CRP), which was not able to show a successful transition from concept development, numerical simulation, and preliminary design phase, to implementation.

  The next phase of Project Amethyst is the accommodation of incoming civilians by the cities. As the first to welcome the newcomers, Valles Marineris has established several Amethyst Transition Camps (ATCs) at the outskirts of the city, which will ensure that adequate provision is made for the needs of the travelers.

  “The hospitality of Marinerians is a reputation that has been well-earned, and we’re proud of that reputation,” said Stefan Wells, Governor General of Valles Marineris at the University of Arizona, Tucson. “We are sympathetic to the needs of our brothers and sisters, and have enabled a fast-track for the transition process so that lives can go back to normal.”

  Project Amethyst was the UEF response to the expected impact of Comet C/21B9 M2 DEMOS with the Earth, and is the first large-scale mission to evacuate large numbers of civilians from a threatened zone, outside of the normal missions associated with the Colonial War.

  18

  Baboon

  Whoever the hell decided to broadcast live video of the Comet as it speeds toward us on Earth should die. First.

  It was one thing for NASA and the UN and everyone else to be updating the impact estimates every day. One thing for still photos coming from UEF satellites and ships. One thing for simulated videos with cartoons of a blue planet and a comet.

  Now some baboon has a goddamn live stream with stats and a bloody countdown timer superimposed.

  19

  A Kangaroo Named Carrie

  The Zoo was fortunate. Out in the middle of a conservation area, we were left relatively in peace from the chaos engulfing the world. Religious cults sprung up to worship the Comet. Hoarders and militants mobilized. I was watching the descent of much of civilization into human baseness.

  There was still kindness and compassion, I reminded myself. Neighbors sharing rationed gasoline with neighbors who needed it more, the United Way still running charity campaigns and breaking records, farming cooperatives and grocery chains still providing the Zoo with meat and produce.

  Our keepers and volunteers continued their jobs, and from all over the world others still sent us FedEx packets of samples to add to our collection.

  Right after the funeral, before my leave was officially over, I went back to work, salve for the heart and head.

  Chloe was gone. We had been losing keepers very slowly, but hadn’t lost a single member of CIRCE’s core staff. Her desk and office chair were neatly in place. Her desktop and bookcases still had most her things—books and papers, a Galileo thermometer, a dancing mini-Groot flowerpot, a Swansea FC cup filled with an assortment of pens.

  But there was something missing—a small plastic kangaroo she’d named Carrie, after one of the roos she’d raised from birth.

  Judith looked up from her computer, surprised, as I barged into her office. “Zara? You’re back?”

  “Chloe—Did she tell you she was leaving?”

  She blinked, then saved what she was working on the file, and motioned for me to follow her.

  “Chloe’s out on fieldwork,” Judith said, as we went down the corridor.

  I followed her low tone back with a whisper. “Fieldwork? She’s not on any of the collection rosters for the week. I checked.”

  We entered the exterior room to the Ark and as the door slid shut behind us, she started putting on her gear and said, “No, she’s not on collection detail.”

  The Ark room seemed to be as it always was, massive, silent, imposing. Steel and cold. There were no cameras here, except a single solid-state device, trained on the three freezers, that fed directly into Judith’s office. It was a place not just to keep secrets, but to tell them.

  “Chloe wasn’t on any roster for this week,” Judith said. “You were.”

  Earlier in the year, the last of the military transports had left the Earth, but the despair that followe
d was balanced out by another announcement. Finally, the first of the newly-commissioned colony ships was ready for launch.

  There had been delays in the massive construction project, but with perseverance, intense public pressure—and a massive influx of Nether and Marscoin funding from the inner colonies, because off-planet firms no longer accepted Earth currencies—work on the Artemis series proceeded.

  It was a lottery with the selection from the general population, and it was a massive screw-up.

  The selection computers went down from denial of service and other hacking attacks. There was rioting in the streets. Names and addresses of people selected were published on open social media, and they were attacked, or their homes destroyed.

  The highways to the facility were clogged for a week before the scheduled launch. Crowds gathered around the perimeter wall, twenty feet high and studded with active sensors and deterrents, and they pounded at it with battering rams.

  On an appointed day, selected families were brought in by military air transport, flying over the heads of the crowds who were not selected.

  The Artemis 1 was massive, but the number of individuals transported—150,000—was still minuscule compared to the billions without a golden ticket. The ship symbolized hope, but it also fed the fires of a world seething with anger, jealousy, and despair.

  As the smoke of ignition billowed from the thrusters, billions of people onsite or watching on their viewers wished that they were the ones on the ship, wished they were the ones tapped for salvation.

  And then the Artemis 1 exploded on the launch pad.

  20

  Panther at the Gate

  Judith pulled out a remote, and the green light on the camera flicked off.

  “You were on the roster, but then you took a leave of absence. And then the Artemis 1 launch failed.”

  I frowned at her, not understanding.

  “San Diego was on that launch,” she said.

  “Oh my God.”

  There was only one thing she could mean. San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research, the one institution in the world that held a frozen collection as comprehensive as our own, our twinned cryo-preservation facility, had sent up its Frozen Zoo.

  “They only had the one chance, so they sent their entire collection. All of it.”

  And now it was gone. I felt faint, and leaned against one of the insulated tanks.

  “San Diego didn’t tell me their plans until about a week before launch. I had reservations, and I’m sure they did too, but it made sense.”

  “They must have a back-up plan.”

  “Their back-up is to pray we succeed.”

  She went to one of the freezers and opened it. It was empty.

  I must have gasped audibly, because she said, “It’s all right. Chloe has everything. Well, in truth, all the specimens from Freezer A, and some of the samples from B.”

  “But all the cryogenic equipment,” I said. “She’d need half this room!”

  Judith shook her head. “That’s why we built CIRCE to be a multi-disciplinary facility, remember? To innovate not just in the biological sciences—for cell extraction, preservation, species propagation—but in so many other technologies. Compact and efficient energy storage…”

  “Long-life batteries,” I continued. “Specialized photovoltaics, active heat sinks…”

  “Miniaturized sensors and actuators, numerical modeling and simulation, machine learning.”

  “To build better and better cryo-storage units.”

  She nodded. “We had been putting pieces of it together from the start. While you were gone, and when the Artemis 1 launch failed, I made the decision to freeze development to what we had at this moment in time, and to move to a finished unit.”

  She went to a steel cabinet at the far end of the room, and punched in a combination.

  “One-nine-eight-eight,” she said, looking at me.

  Inside hung a large CIRCE backpack, similar to the one I’d carried in South Africa, and on the floor underneath it was an aluminum box. She tapped the box, and the lid slid open. Immediately, a white mist swirled in front of the box.

  “A portable Ark,” I said.

  “One that can carry up to 20,000 of our samples in special vials. Fully-charged, and with continuous-charging from the active surfaces, the unit can operate for decades. Maybe even centuries, if it has to.”

  She tapped the box closed, and shut the receptacle.

  “My husband Louis, as you might know, was in aerospace and not in biotech like I was. Before we linked my company C-Analytics with his, Weston Aerolite was a contractor for Blue Origin and SpaceX in the early days of private aerospace.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Chloe has a portable Ark. She’s carrying half of our collection, and is now in Sao Tome and Principe, off the coast of Central Africa. Weston has a launch facility there.”

  I didn’t have time to respond. Suddenly, an alarm klaxon sounded, and we rushed from the Cryo Unit.

  Gwynn’s face appeared on Judith’s phone. “There’s a panther reported loose in the east parking lot. We think it might be Parisa.”

  “Get all visitors out of here,” Judith said.

  We took the spinner and headed towards the parking lot.

  “It’s not Parisa,” reported Gwynn. “Pavarti just called in that our girl’s still where she should be.” Pavarti was the lead keeper for the big cats.

  We stopped short of the parking lot, stayed in our spinner.

  There, along the walls of one of the enclosures, was a black panther. It was huge, muscled, and its tail flicked lest to right as it stalked forward. It was a male.

  “That’s definitely not Parisa,” said Judith.

  We could see some of the other keepers in a spinner on the far side of the enclosure, and we could hear some of the discussion over the radio.

  The thought was that it had come from Jungle Cat Preserve, Caledonia Zoo or one of the other zoos that were now understaffed.

  “We need to capture it,” someone said.

  “Tranq gun, I’m on it.” That was someone else.

  “Wait,” said Judith. “Are all visitors secure? Is everyone out or in a vehicle or building?”

  Gwynn’s voice answered, “All secure.”

  “Then let’s watch it’s going.”

  The panther kept a steady gait, occasionally stopping to sniff the air and look around. The keepers kept a safe distance behind it, tracking it.

  “Pavarti, where are you?” Judith said.

  “Right here, at my station.”

  “Good. I think it’s headed for the panther habitat. When it gets to the gate, open it.”

  Judith was right. Deliberately, the male made its way to the panther gate. From the cat keeper station, Pavarti raised the gate about a foot. The big cat slunk down and, sure enough, went inside.

  We still had no idea how the panther broke into the zoo.

  There were no reports of it passing through any of the conventional gates. There was a two-story security wall around the perimeter, much higher than the 16-foot height prescribed by guidelines.

  It was quite possible the panther used part of the wall’s support structure to help it scale the wall. Still, there was nothing on video to prove that this was the way it got in.

  We had tranquilizers ready when the new panther was safely in the enclosure, but Parisa seemed comfortable having a partner.

  We all relaxed, and went back to work.

  “We hadn’t finished our conversation,” she said when we both got back to CIRCE. “Let’s go back to my office.”

  When we got there, I closed the door. “Chloe’s at a Weston launch site with a portable Ark.”

  “Chloe’s launch is next week, for Valles Marineris. I’d like you to go up next.”

  I sat down. “What, how?”

  “We only had the one ship. Now I need you to go up on the Artemis 2.”

  “It’s a lottery, how are you going
to get me on that ship?”

  She sighed. “So many questions. I’ve bought a berth, of course. You just have to be at the launch site and meet with Tom, my contact, I’ll give you his number later. I’ve promised to transfer him ten million Nether once I’ve confirmed you’re on board. There’s more to know for when you reach Valles Marineris, of course, but—”

  “But what about you?”

  She looked at me, her eyes not wavering. “We’ve known each other for fifteen years,” she said. “I need to pass on the torch to someone I know and trust. Someone like family; and you’re about as close as it gets.”

  “I… I don’t know what to say.”

  “Actually, I was hoping you’d say yes.”

  I did say yes, of course.

  But I never spoke to Judith Weston again.

  She always worked late, later than anyone else in the building. When she was done, she’d lock up the CIRCE building for the night, and make her way to the staff lot, a good piece of exercise.

  Sometime earlier, the male panther tired of its dalliance, or Parisa decided not to respond to its advances. Whatever the circumstance, the big cat decided he had had enough of Glen Eden, and scaled the wall of the panther enclosure.

  By all reckoning, their orbits could have taken very different paths.

  But somewhere between the CIRCE building and Judith’s vehicle, their two paths crossed.