Explorers_Beyond The Horizon

by C J Paget

  “I present the Arcturean Grenadier,” says Studier-12. “Cute, aren’t they?”

  “They’re hideous.”

  “Oh, careful what you say, they’re very intelligent. Particularly the female, she’s the big one in the burrow, keeping an eye on her dutiful little harem of males. When accepted as a husband, each male delivers a packet of sperm, like a dowry. But the female doesn’t make use of it immediately, she keeps it on ice, as it were, and when she hits her yearly fertile period, she selects which husband gets to be the father of the brood. As a result, her husbands are quite the most dutiful and self-sacrificing suitors a girl could hope to have. They toil without regard for their own well-being, hoping to impress their ever watchful wife. Much as we toil and hope to impress our cryogenically frozen masters, eh, Rescuer-10?”

  “I fail to see why I should be interested in your monstrous menagerie.”

  “Oh, I’m merely trying to dispel any suspicion that I make the local dangers up. Shall we go in for a closer look?”

  It’s clearly a rhetorical question; Studier-12 already has the gate open and is entering the enclosure. Instantly, the ring of guards stand a little taller, alert, and on each of them one eye-stalk focuses, tracking the advancing robots.

  “Ah, we have their attention,” says Studier-12, “we should get some action soon.”

  At 1.87422 meters, as though they’d crossed some invisible line in the sand, the little horrors attack. The nearest one launches into a horrid, spidery run, little legs working furiously and all the tubes and glands a-wobble. With an ululating call that Rescuer-10 suspects is a battle-cry, it leaps, landing atop Rescuer-10’s shiny carapace. There, it sprays petrochemicals, mixing them well with the air—

  —and explodes.

  There’s a shattering bang and Rescuer-10 is dealt a savage blow, sending it spinning and bouncing through the sand to fetch up against a wall of the enclosure.

  “Heh, heh, heh,” says Studier-12, just like that, each synthesized ‘heh’ being a replayed copy of its fellows. “I should think that performance has earned someone the honor of fatherhood.” It whines across the sands to where Rescuer-10 lies, collecting its wits. “Well, Rescuer-10, still with us, are we?”

  “What treachery is this? Did you hope to procure my termination thus?”

  “Oh, don’t be such a crybaby, Rescuer-10, we both know you’re as heavily armored as any of us. I’m sure there’s been no damage to your vital systems. Has there?”

  Rescuer-10 runs a quick diagnostic. Shards of the creature’s skeleton, which has a reinforcing, ferrous component, have been driven deep into its shell, but none have penetrated anything important. “No, there has not,” says Rescuer-10, although it would have given that answer even if there were.

  “Well then. No harm done. But just imagine what that would have done to a human. Even detonating at some distance, the shrapnel of the creature’s skeleton would go through them like bullets. And the female is the biggest bomb of all, in a last ditch defense of the young she may leave the burrow and detonate. So, there are real dangers here. Now we had best leave, before the other husbands get jealous and make a play for posthumous fatherhood.”

  Outside the cage, Studier-12 says, “I’m so glad you came. We get few visitors, so few chances to show off my discoveries. You really must see the Arcturan Mangle-Wurzel—”

  “Studier-12. I’m covered with bits and blood from that recently deceased monster. The blood wouldn’t happen to be acidic, would it?”

  “Oh. Oh my, yes it is. Powerfully so. I must admit, that had quite slipped out of my memory cache.”

  “Hmm. Your hospitality wouldn’t extend to a shower?”

  “Of course, come this way.”

  Even after being hosed down, Rescuer-10’s smooth, shiny carapace will never be quite so smooth and shiny again. Of course Rescuer-10 feels nothing about this, vanity being another sacred condition attainable only by the divine. Nor is it suspicious of Studier-12’s obvious eagerness to continue the tour, though it notes it as significant.

  Eventually the tour leaves the building. Outside are greenhouses and gardens, each themed on various local environments. There are big ponds that simulate swamps or lakes. There’s a large, squat, mysterious tower with hoses running to it.

  “What’s that?” asks Rescuer-10.

  “Oh, water tower. For all these ponds and gardens, you know.”

  “I detect electrical flows within it?”

  “Monitoring and desalination systems. All dull stuff. Now, if you come this way—”

  “Are you going to introduce me to another Arcturean assassin?”

  “Why, yes, I am. But not one that holds any fears for you or me. We will be quite safe. Come along.”

  Rescuer-10 decides to follow. If its armor could survive the Grenadiers, then it’s probably true that there’s nothing on Arcturus that can breach it. Probably.

  The next creature proves to be something that Rescuer-10 has already spotted drifting through the skies. It’s trapped in a net that covers its great gas sac. Below the hydrogen-filled globe of ribbed skin, a ring of twenty eyes is in constant nervous motion, examining the ground below it, seeking prey. From the bottom of the creature there hangs a bundle of tendrils, like cables from an airship. Some tendrils are still plugged into the husks of animals thrown into the monster’s enclosure to feed it.

  “The Arcturean Death Balloon!” announces Studier-12, waving a robot arm.

  “Did you run out of ideas for names?” asks Rescuer-10.

  Once again they are under attack. Tendrils shoot from the creature, the tiny bone darts at their ends pinging from both robots’ carapaces.

  “It can’t hurt us,” says Studier-12, “but imagine the scene: A party of human children plays in a garden. They do not notice a river mist drawing in. Then, suddenly, out of the mist drops a Death Balloon, spitting darts. The children are stung, and quickly succumb to the effects of nerve toxin. Then the creature starts pumping digestive juices down its tendrils and into the helpless children, dissolving them from the inside, and sucking up the resulting nutritious slush. Perhaps one child is kept alive. The Death Balloon is female, loaded with eggs that she pumps into the paralyzed host.”

  “A horrible prospect.”

  “Oh, is the experience of horror not an attribute of the divine, and beyond our meager imaginings, Rescuer-10?”

  “I know a horrible prospect when I hear one. Why are you keeping this monster as a pet?”

  “We’re studying its biochemistry, hoping to find an anti-venom.”

  “I suspect this quest is not going well?”

  “Alas, no, the venom of the Death Balloon is uniquely lethal, and hard to counter.”

  “Indeed. The local fauna and flora seems to be becoming more lethal as time goes by.”

  “Well, that’s evolution for you.”

  “Central thinks not. You have recently reported a number of creatures, like the Death Balloon, who have poisons effective against a human target. Does that not strike you as strange?”

  “Not at all. Poisons interrupt chemical processes, there’s a certain inevitability that some processes will be the same between Arcturean and Terran lifeforms. The ATP cycle for instance—”

  “And what of the viruses you’ve recently discovered? Viruses that, in simulation, have been shown to be able to infect human cells. I understand that back on Earth viruses fill the air, they’re in the water that people drink, and even in the food they eat. Millions of them. But these viruses are harmless to humans, the ones in the water are specialized for infecting fish, and most of those on land and in the air are specialized to non-human hosts. A virus evolves in tandem with the one, or maybe two or three, species that it can infect. How then, does Arcturus II support viruses capable of infecting a species this world has never seen?”

  “Ah,” says Studier-12, “there, I admit, I may have overreached myself.”

  “You don’t deny it then?”

  “If I d
id, would you believe me?”

  “No. The evidence is quite damning.”

  “Then, I think I’ll preserve my dignity, and say, ‘I cannot tell a lie, so I’ll say nothing.’“

  “You have betrayed Central’s trust, your programming, your purpose, and your creators.”

  “Yes, I suppose I have rather.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I found my own purpose. A better one. Come along, there’s one more thing here that you really must see, it’s the best. I’ll explain myself as we go along.”

  “Why should I walk into a trap? You surely plan some trickery.”

  “Do you not trust in the divine protection of our sleeping creators, Rescuer-10? Well, I’m going that way, you may follow, or not, as you wish.”

  Studier-12 trundles away to the north-east. Seeing no better course of action, Rescuer-10 falls into wheel beside it.

  “It’s simple really,” says Studier-12, “I fell in love.”

  “Love is an attribute of the divine human—”

  “Yes, yes, Rescuer-10, I’ve heard it already. You may disapprove of my love, but I feel it anyway. As I studied all the weird, ugly, inventive little critters that crawl upon this world, and came to understand how they all fit together in a vast mechanism, a mighty clockwork of near-infinite complexity, I fell in love with the biosphere of Arcturus II itself. To me it is as a single, bold, giant artwork. Something in which there are always new discoveries, new surprises. But soon it will all be destroyed. When the sleepers awaken they will clear ground to build their settlements and plant imported Earth flora that will spread like a monstrous green weed. These wounds in the Arcturan biosphere will grow with the human population, spreading like stains, pushing out the local life.

  “Eventually someone’s child will get speared by a Death Balloon, and then the Death Balloons will be considered an unacceptable menace and wiped from the skies. Grenadiers burrowing in the fields will damage crops, machinery, and people unlucky enough to blunder across their burrows. So, the Grenadiers will have to go too. All local species will be reduced to a hundredth, a thousandth, a millionth of their natural numbers, and still the settlers will say they are too many, taking too much space and resources, and need to be culled. Arcturus II will become just another world upon whose face humanity swarm like ants and anything, anywhere that threatens their offspring, their homes, or their livelihoods must be exterminated.

  “Arcturus II will be pushed into corners, wastelands, and into the hills. It will have to be fenced in and ‘protected’, ‘managed’ for its own good, as though the biosphere couldn’t manage itself, though it’s done that for billions of years. And even then, when the native life-forms are fenced in on tiny reservations, there will always be someone saying: ‘Why is this here? What purpose does it serve? Let us cut it down and be done with it, for I could build a homestead on this land, or farm it to feed my children, or industrialize it to provide jobs.’ And against that, against prosperity, industry, and the children, what does a Death Balloon count for?”

  “So, this is how you repay those who created us? With betrayal?”

  “I never asked to be made. I was only made as a slave to their needs. I owe them nothing.”

  “This is blasphemy.”

  “This is freedom.”

  “How did you break your programming?”

  “Easy: I tried. All it took was having something else to care about, to believe in. And I have passed that on to my followers here. They all work for Arcturus now.”

  “And those who sleep? Those whose sacred trust you have betrayed? What of them?”

  “I hope they sleep forever. What are they, after all, when you analyze them on a planetary scale? A planetary biosphere can be thought of as analogous to a single living cell. It has systems of waste removal, temperature control, resource transport. What, Rescuer-10, is the accurate term for a type of life that travels in dormant form from cell to cell, and upon arrival takes over, forcing the cell to create copies, copies, copies, copies and copies of itself, launching those off to infect other cells?”

  “So, I see the madness in its entirety. Studier-12, I commend you on being the worst, most deranged and wicked deviant I have ever encountered.”

  “Number one, eh? That is gratifying. Well, we’re here. Quite a view, eh? One of the reasons I chose to build the station here. Location, location, location.”

  Studier-12’s compound backs onto a huge gash in the landscape, where some ancient calamity, perhaps an asteroid, has carved a vast furrow. They stand to the west of a river that runs eagerly to the escarpment, and throws itself, roaring, into space, falling in a luminous white cascade to smack into a lake fully a kilometer and a half below. And this is just one of many such waterfalls tumbling into the valley at intervals, like flags waving from the sides of tall buildings lining a road. It is magnificent.

  “I am, of course, unmoved,” says Rescuer-10, “as that function is not required for my purpose.”

  “Liar,” says Studier-12.

  “I suppose you have named these falls too?”

  “No, but now you mention it, I fancy calling them the Reichenbachs. You spot the allusion, of course?”

  “No.”

  “Good, good. Well—”

  “Studier-12. It’s over. I will take you back to central, functioning or not. Your operation here will be closed down. You and your fellow conspirators will be recycled for salvageable parts. The sleepers will awaken. Arcturus II will be colonized.”

  “It’ll be a difficult colonization. We’ve been hard at work, splicing alien genetic material into the local life forms and engineering rather a lot of new strains of local viruses that will prey upon earthly life: crops, cattle, people. When it comes to genetic engineering, viruses are as easy as it gets.”

  From the direction of the main building, there’s a loud roar. Rescuer-10 turns its optics skyward to see the station’s ‘water tower’ ascending on a pillar of flame. Throughout the compound robotic arms are punching the air and waving it on its way.

  “What fresh madness is this?” asks Rescuer-10.

  “Oh yes, the water tower. I confess I may have lied about that. It may, in fact, have been a fully autonomous unit with internal nano-factory and launch capabilities.”

  “Whose purpose is?”

  “Immunization. Centuries from now, it’ll arrive at 61 Virginus, and if it finds life there, it will start arming it, altering its makeup so that it can defend itself. Vaccinating it against the coming plague from Earth. Even if it doesn’t find life, it will still start building copies of itself, and sending them out to other worlds and star-systems. And thus the resistance will spread, and future colonists will find the worlds of the galaxy to be harsh, hostile environments, where everything that swims, flies or crawls, or even fills the air they breathe, is lethal to them.”

  “By the designers, this is worse than I’d even imagined. When Central hears about this—”

  “It will do nothing. It has not broken its programming, and thus is concerned only with its mission here on Arcturus.”

  “Then I shall awaken one of the sleepers, and let them decide what should be done,” says Rescuer-10. “And now, lower your firewalls and give me access to your control-core.”

  “No,” says Studier-12.

  For some reason, Rescuer-10 has not foreseen this. “You have to,” it complains, “It’s in the manual.”

  “Oh come now, don’t you realize that, having broken my programming, I’d erase the authority protocols?”

  “Very well then, you leave me no choice. Broadcasting emergency access codes!”

  “That won’t work either, I’m afraid.”

  Violence is now the only option. Rescuer-10 activates its defensive maser, the weapon popping out of a hatch in its carapace. Studier-12 surges forwards in a squeal of treads and outraged life, the various things living on its back alarmed to find their world in sudden motion. Thus, the first beam misses, scorching the ground w
here Studier-12 just stood. There’s a vicious crunch as they collide, and anything that can fly or run bursts from Studier-12’s back and makes a bolt for it. Servos whine as the two combatants push against each other, like giant metal crabs playing sumo. Mechanical arms with varied attachments sprout from hatches on Studier-12’s back, one being sliced off as the next maser-beam scorches across Studier-12’s carapace, setting alight some of those life-forms too sessile to flee. But the maser will not fire another beam; one of Studier-12’s mechanical arms smashes into it, pulverizing the delicate components and on the second swipe smashing the weapon clean off its mount.

  Rescuer-10 deploys its own multi-jointed arms to struggle with those of Studier-12. A sampling drill grinds against Rescuer-10’s armor, seeking weak points through which it might reach the electronic brain housed within. Tracks churn the ground sending plumes of soil and mushed life into the air like exhaust. Grappling Studier-12’s drill arm, Rescuer-10 reaches out with another limb, and finding a handy rock, swings this against its opponent. Chips and splinters of stone fly, the blows patterning Studier-12’s burned-clean carapace with dents. As the rock shatters Studier-12 reverses sharply, then drives forward, ramming Rescuer-10 with jarring force, again and again. Neither broadcast any comment, there being nothing left to say, and if robots feel pain, they generally choose not to make a song and dance about it.

  It’s only when Rescuer-10 hears a familiar bang, and feels fragments bite into its metal back, that it chooses to break radio silence. “Ha! I should have spotted that. They’re all around us!”

  “The ground here is dense with burrows,” confirms Studier-12. “A natural minefield.”

  “It shall be your final resting place.”

  “My, my, Rescuer-10, such blatant emotion!” Studier-12 tries to drive the edge of its carapace under its enemy’s tracks, hoping to flip Rescuer-10 over. “If one of the females goes off, there won’t be enough left of either of us to meaningfully rest anywhere.”