Dense Space

by Robert Harken

  “Pheno, you’re alive!” said Ti.

  “Yeah, but how? Wait . . . you thought I had died, and you were kissing me?” he asked.

  Ti rolled her eyes. She fluoresced a curiously deep violet. “I performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, Sigma Boy. Though, you’re not half bad unconscious.” She shrugged and smiled weakly. “A girl’s gotta take what she can get.”

  “Where are we?” Pheno looked around then met her gaze. “How are you alive?”

  “We’re in the airlock on Eddientis’s ship. I’m alive because I forgot to remove my helmet when I took the ship. The Fleet’s guns breached my hull with their first shot. Fortunately, I guess, they hit close to my location. The depressurizing ship ejected me into space through the breach before the Fleet fired again. I used my suit’s thrusters to reach Eddientis’s ship.”

  “How did I make it?” Pheno asked.

  “Uh, you didn’t. Upon approach, I contacted Eddientis to, you know, open the door. It told me what you’d done. It’s quite upset at you, by the way. Anyway, I found you soaring into the void blacked out and charred. Catching you and returning burned all my juice so no more joy rides.

  That brings us to now. I used mouth-to-mouth, lots of mouth on mouth action, to revive you with my oxygen.” Ti grabbed his suit by the chest and pulled him up to her. “That’s the third time I’ve saved your life, Sigma Boy. You owe me, and I’m going to make you pay,” she kissed him hard, “again,” kiss, “and again,” kiss, “and again,” kiss.

  Her lips they . . . mmm . . . they feel so . . . mmm. He pushed her away, out of breath but not from a lack of air. “Third?” Pheno whispered hoarsely.

  “Duh, the rooftop, that stupid Sigma game, and your deep space shot just now.”

  “You resurrected me from the games?” asked Pheno.

  “Of course, who else’s going to save Lab Boy?” Ti asked. “You know it’d have been a lot cheaper to buy out your contract and free you; but you were all ‘I got this,’ so I’m broke now, and you owe me big.” She kissed him.

  A warm, relaxed feeling flooded him, sweeping away protests for . . . what? He couldn’t focus. How can she be so in control when I’m losing it? Do I care? She feels so good. No, no I don’t. Pheno wrapped his arms around Ti and pulled her down.

  But a thought nipped at his bliss then pounced on his chest. He stopped kissing her. “So, we’re both going to suffocate now?”

  She grinned. “Not quite.” Ti pressed her wrist display. “Eddientis, have they sent over the maker device yet?”

  “The drone docks now. They fabricated a recharger for us, in case we had trouble using the maker. How being the lone swimmer?”

  “He’s conscious,” Ti shot him a mischievous look, “and as OK as he’ll probably ever be.”

  “Bind him so he can’t beach himself again,” said Eddientis.

  “Tempting.” She said with a dangerously interested gleam in her eye.

  “I don’t get it,” said Pheno.

  Ti lightly circled her fingers around the rim of Pheno’s ear. “What? The maker device or the binding?”

  “Erm, the . . . uh, wow, that’s really distracting . . . no, I um mean the uh . . . the other thing.”

  Ti smirked. “You’re going to be so much fun.” She kissed him until he yielded. When she broke off, Ti looked quite a bit unraveled.

  “You were saying,” Pheno said between pants.

  “Wha? Uh . . . oh, that . . . thingy thing makes stuff—can we talk about this later?” She pressed her lips to him.

  “Raiders stole mine when searching for dark matter tech.” The comm system made Eddientis’s voice sound like it was right there with them. “Maker device grows anything, including a recharger for oxygen tanks. Ertryds pour me a new one.”

  Ti sighed and pressed her forehead to his chest. “Total buzz kill.”

  “So we’ll live?” asked Pheno.

  She looked up and smiled. “Yep.”

  Pheno twisted and brought her underneath him. He kissed her with the desperation of knowing that a lifetime wouldn’t be enough.

  “Can you both swim to the command center?” asked Eddientis. “Ertryds want to speak with you.”

  They both sighed longingly.

  “Sure,” said Ti. She quickly kissed Pheno then pushed him away.

  Ti partially filled Pheno’s oxygen tank from hers. They donned helmets and left the airlock to meet the Ertryd drone. Recharging their tanks gave Pheno time to think without being distracted by Ti (or at least less distracted than before), which raised new questions.

  “What about the Galactic Fleet? Weren’t they trying to kill us, and didn’t you abandon me? You seem way too happy for someone whose planet is about to die. What gives?”

  Ti laughed. “The Ertryds helped deflect the fragment into a lunar orbit around Trelia. They powered the dark matter flow from the Fleet’s attack. The Fleet in turn drained their energy cells attempting to destroy us, went dark, ended up surrendering, and asked for a tow. Quite funny, actually. Oh, and my dad retook command, so we’re all good.”

  “Not quite; you left me.” Pheno raised his voice and made what he hoped was a hurt face.

  Ti pulled herself close to him and looked up with an alluring are-you-sure-you-want-to-be-mad-at-me face. “Do you forgive me?”

  “Yes.” He blurted the word too quickly.

  When they arrived at the command center, a mosaic of images across both screens showed the implacable stares of two dozen Ertryd. Pheno had never seen so many.

  “We taste joy you live,” said Krestur, the Ertryd they had met in the asteroid belt.

  “As do I,” said Pheno. “Thank you for restoring my air.”

  “A trivial act for someone who calmed our sea,” said Krestur.

  Pheno shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

  “The current of life clouded our waters. We swam into a cave thinking of ourselves and nothing else, but you settled the sediments, tasted our error, and poured redemption. Ertryds must again school in peaceful and ethical waters now and after we pass from this space.”

  Pheno looked at Eddientis. “You’ll follow your planet into sparse space?”

  “You taste truth,” Eddientis said.

  “Why?” asked Pheno. “You could stay here. Orbit Trelia. You don’t have to chase a dead world into the void.”

  Eddientis looked at the other Ertryds. They nodded. Krestur spoke, “Ertryd is not dead. We had tasted the exoplanet’s trajectory many tides before impact. Unable to dam the flow, we redirected the current to preserve ourselves for the future.”

  “How?” asked Ti.

  “Our planet’s crust contains large deposits of porous rock. Many of these deposits exist at a depth sufficient for the core to warm, but not kill, heat-loving microorganisms. The rock lies deep enough for surface layers to protect against lava flows and ash fall. Into this porous rock, we poured a portion of our sea—”

  “That explains the small gravity wave!” said Ti.

  “Within that sea-infused rock, thermophilic bacteria, viruses, and prions contain the genetic blueprints of every individual lost in the collision,” said Krestur.

  “Wow,” said Pheno.

  “Thus, Ertryd waters remain deep; however, we needed to preserve the integrity of our planet’s crust. If the exoplanet, on its original trajectory, had struck Ertryd, the impact would have shattered the planet’s crust globally, sinking everything into molten rock. By shifting the impact angle slightly with dark matter—”

  “The schism, remember?” Ti poked Pheno’s shoulder.

  “We reduced the impact effects and preserved our planet’s crust until the tide rises for our pods once more,” said Krestur.

  “You moved the exoplanet to protect the deposits containing Ertryd-flavored microbes?” Pheno knew the answer; it made sense. He wanted the Ertryds to tell everything, explicitly, because they would be judged, even now after saving Trelia. Better to leave nothing for interpretation.

 
“Yes,” said Krestur.

  “So you’ve got a living genetic memory bank of your people. Now what?”

  “We wait,” said Krestur.

  “For what?” asked Pheno.

  “For seismic tremors to subside, for impact debris to finish crashing into the surface, for the chance of another catastrophic collision to decline substantially in the sparse space between galaxies,” said Krestur. “Then we Sentinels who protect the life maps shall refill the waters with Ertryd.”

  “Your planet will freeze in sparse space without a sun to warm it,” said Ti.

  “You taste truth. The surface will freeze, but not the molten core. We will construct networks of underground caverns close enough to the core for liquid water. Into those caverns, we will pour our ocean. We will restore those lost using their preserved gene maps and let the current carry them into the caverns. Ertryd shall become a subterranean world swimming alone through space. We will school for a different life then, but Ertryds shall swim again. Until that tide we guard our secret,” said Krestur.

  “Why sacrifice so many of your kind? You had better tech. You could’ve evacuated and conquered another world or terraformed a planet,” said Pheno.

  “In the cycles between discovery of the exoplanet and impact, Ertryd increased the number of citizens living off-world by a factor of a thousand, but limited transport capacity and tolerance of host worlds barred peaceful emigration. Had we forced ourselves onto another planet, combat losses would have rivaled the impact. We have no taste for fighting.”

  “I see. I am honored you shared this knowledge with me,” said Pheno.

  “Will you honor Ertryds as ambassador for our people?” asked another much thinner Ertryd.

  “Me?” asked Pheno. “I . . . I . . . I’m a runaway slave and a murderer, a fugitive. I’m no ambassador.”

  “No one has willingly sacrificed so much for Ertryd. You saved Eddientis, helped it escape, brought it to us, showed us how to redeem Ertryd, and tasted death to help. Ertryds thirst for the perspective you drink. Much work remains unpoured to save the Noolak and ensure peaceful passage for Ertryd. Will you help us?” asked the thin Ertryd.

  “You honor me with your request,” said Pheno. “I would gladly serve you, but I am sentenced to death for my crimes and will be executed when I’m caught.”

  “You speak to the Elders of Ertryd. We taste your acceptance to represent us a free person. In return, we grant you Ertryd citizenship—our first extraterrestrial citizen—pardon you for past crimes, and pour diplomatic immunity onto you as Ertryd Ambassador.”

  Pheno whispered hoarsely, “Thank you.”

  “The honor is ours, Ambassador Pheno,” said the thin Ertryd. “I suggest you fill your strength now. You have another world to save.”

  Preview of Life on Nubis

  By Robert Harken

  Chapter 1: Something Is Wrong

  I dream a twisted world. I’ll wake up soon; I know this.

  A woman’s voice spoke. “People of Earth, you no longer suffer sickness, hunger, or want for anything. The golden age of humanity dawns.”

  The woman lied, yet Aiden yearned for her voice. She eased the ache.

  The coiled robotic arm tightened around Aiden with his breath.

  “You will never feel, MACHINE,” said Aiden.

  The arm constricted.

  Aiden panted with the pain in his ribs. “May a thousand pieces of grit jam your gears and rust claim your rigidity.” He gasped as the coil squeezed once more. Focus on breathing, short and shallow—keep oxygen flowing.

  The robot, resembling a box sitting atop four wheels and sprouting three arms, carried Aiden's body overhead through the throng of people and machines. Various sensors clustered in one large, partially assembled, insect eye. A flaw in the device caused a stutter in its movement that cranked pain through Aiden's spine. Bone cracked on bone without proper muscle to hold them in place. He had avoided the riots and the riot suppressions but not hunger. His body in the dream belonged to pre-emigration days—a skeleton fed on dumpster scraps.

  Aiden looked around. He moved through the chamber again, the same immense cavern he had dreamed of every night for six months prior to departure. Millions of robots each carried or led people toward a pit in the center that drained the cavern. A sphere the size of a world hovered above the drain.

  His eyes caught the placid round-faced man who smiled back at him. “Wonderful,” the man said in unbroken repetition from previous nights.

  “No! Look around you, fool. See! Question them and choose your destiny. Damn you, choose!”

  No matter what Aiden said the man moved forward with his own robot. Then the boy appeared. He stood among the mass of moving machines licking a rainbow lollipop the size of his face. The boy’s death stare rolled over Aiden as the robot passed.

  “I'm bored. What else is on?” the boy said. The boy never moved, never spoke again.

  The dream stayed constant except for Aiden's awareness of dreaming one more time. Aiden started counting. At thirty-two, a woman's voice commanded from everywhere at once.

  “Transfer costs four one-thousandths of a cent. Activate your credentials to pay.”

  By this point the robot carrying Aiden stood on the rim of the pit. The sphere had rotated and opened a door over the abyss. A shaft of light struck into the darkness and was devoured.

  “But I have no money. What can I offer?” Aiden repeated his question from prior dreams and hoped for a different answer.

  “Nothing,” said the robot. The machine tossed Aiden into the pit.

  Light from the sphere at first blinded him then darkness dimmed and smothered the beacon as he fell. When darkness engulfed him, Aiden lost the sensation of falling—only thoughts existed. Where am I?

  The woman's voice spoke from the dark. “How do you judge your life?”

  “I owe you nothing!” said Aiden. He repeated this answer on each dream loop. The woman’s silence compelled further response from Aiden. “I dream you. I control you. No one controls me! This is not my world; I don’t live here.”

  No one spoke. Aiden wanted to argue, to scream at madness. His mind reeled as anger-fueled energy exhausted itself.

  “A failure,” Aiden said in a quiet voice. Then he drew upon his last resistance. “Ok? Are you happy now? I ruined life!” A part of Aiden revolted against this admission, refusing to accept his revelation but unable to stop the words.

  The voice returned with pleasure and pain for Aiden. “So you are judged.”

  The fall resumed. When he hit bottom, the impact took his breath; he lay on his back. Something slid over him shutting in darkness. The air thickened with putrid sweetness of long-ago death.

  “Wait, I changed my mind. Stop! I changed my mind!” He pounded on the rigid lid of his coffin.

  Something happens. What is it? Pain. Pain pounds my head. Make it stop. I’m cold—too cold to think. What blares? Yes, something blares . . . and flashes. A red light flashes out of the darkness . . . that noise, a siren—warning. Warning me to . . .

  The hatch to his suspension cell popped open. Warm air flooded in. Aiden shivered violently.

  “Wake up!” someone said.

  The siren’s wail hurt Aiden’s ears. A flashing light painted him in red.

  “Get up now and move!” screamed the voice.

  Danger threatened. He knew this. He must move.

  Someone forced something past his quivering lips onto Aiden’s tongue. He bit down. The thing in his mouth dissolved into bits of warmth that coursed through his body. His mind snapped to the present. Shivers stopped. Aiden opened his eyes.

  Above him, black hair framed the reddish-brown face of a woman. She wore the uniform of a flight officer. A jagged, white scar followed the line of her jaw on the left, a rough cut barely visible in her portrait but a focal point in profile. The scar marred her symmetric beauty the way crack lines on a patched, ceramic doll tattle. They had never met. Aiden started to speak, but the sharp cont
rast of determination in her mouth and fear in her eyes stopped him.

  “Follow me. We must act quickly.” She turned and strode away at a rapid clip without waiting for Aiden's acknowledgement.

  “Wait. What's going on? Are we in danger?” His words stumbled after her. His body moved stiffly and unsteadily as he climbed out of the stasis chamber. The pill she had placed in his mouth had revived him, but the effects of hibernation lingered. He lurched after the woman; his body struggled to balance and move at the same time.

  Walls pressed close. Darkness surrounded feeble lights at junctions and ladders with only the passing flair of the alarm to paint the ship red. Aiden fought to keep from slamming against bulkheads or collapsing onto the composite metal grates used for flooring on the colony ship. The air felt thick. A faint odor of sweet rot burned his nose.

  The woman talked as she walked. “Two suns orbit the destination planet, which is near our current position. We must make final confirmation whether the planet can sustain human life. You must make this determination quickly—” she stopped and turned to look Aiden in the eye, “and correctly.”

  “How much time do I have?” Aiden asked as she turned to proceed up a ladder.

  “About twelve minutes.” The woman disappeared through the hatch.

  Aiden's coordination returned as his mind remembered balancing. The ladder, however, remained beyond the capabilities of his awakening body. An arm extended through the hatch and the woman's hand locked on his forearm as he struggled up. She held firm and steadied him while guiding up the ladder. When they both stood at the top she set off down the corridor toward another ladder and hatchway. The echoing clang of her boots on metal intensified the urgency of her pace.

  “We’ve arrived behind schedule. Our ship has listed toward one of the suns and is now within the star's gravity well. In twelve minutes we will no longer be able to escape the gravitational pull.”

  When they reached the ladder the woman disappeared through the hatch with two great steps. She offered assistance to Aiden again. This time he refused. Aiden lurched up the ladder, at times slipping, as he forced his body to obey.