Harvest End

by Max Dane

  Julian ran forward, “Alex, thank god; what are you looking for?”

  Nath started to say something, and Alex hit him again. He slumped back to the floor while Alex rifled through his pockets.

  “Alex, was that necessary? What are you looking f- ”

  “Here!” he said, jumping up. Alex whirled around and shoved a small, silver controller at Julian. “Take this; it must be the control for the transmitters. Get out of here, and fix them. Go now, Julian!”

  “But- ”

  Alex shoved him out of the sample room, hard. Julian spun to the floor outside as the door shut. Alex activated the door panel, while Nath turned over and tried to get up on his hands and knees. “Computer, lock this door, activate the biohazard seal, and enable command override: ‘Alex One’.”

  Julian scrambled to his feet and ran to the long window of the sample room. Over the ship’s comm, he heard Finn call, “Julian, we’ve been monitoring your situation, and security will arrive shortly. Right now, your immediate priority is to reverse or shut down the EM transmitters; do you understand me, Dr. Yates?”

  Julian looked down at the remote control in his hands, ‘How could I have missed this?’ Looking up again, he could see Alex talking to the computer inside the sample room, but for some reason the door was vacuum-sealed. Alex was speaking, but he couldn’t make out what he was saying. Nath looked hurt; blood spattered the floor around his feet. Alex was moving towards him again. Torn between the scene unfolding in the sample room and staring at the silver box in his hand, Julian stood motionless. Time seemed to slow to a stop.

  “Doctor Yates! Julian, can you hear me?!” shouted Finn from the bridge.

  “Yes, Sir; I-I’m okay. Finn, it’s Alex, he’s- ”

  “Julian, turn off the EM transmitters immediately!”

  Coming to his senses, he ran out of the room in search of the closest workstation. With a last glance back, he saw Alex grab Nath roughly by the shoulders and pull him to his feet.

  Inside the sealed room, Nath was hunched over, trying to catch his breath. “I don’t understand, Doctor Stiles. You should be helping me.”

  “So you think you understand where I’m from; where my home is?”

  “Yes, Alex, you know the words and the signs. You also bear the red diamond of the Scion, do you not? Like me, you are one with the eye that looks away.”

  Nath coughed; blood and spittle fell to the floor.

  “It’s true. As a child I was raised to become like you, a scientist in the employ of the Scion. And you’re correct, I do bear his mark.”

  “Then why have you done this? Release me now. It’s not too late.”

  “Ah, but it is. I left the dissident movement as a young man, long ago. I would rather make my own way, than follow another’s path. I will not help you.”

  “Heretic! Betrayer! Most unclean- ” Nath yelled, only to fall into another coughing fit. Blood covered most of his face now and dripped down the front of his shirt.

  Wiping his face with his sleeve, Nath watched as Alex pulled from his pocket a polymer cylinder about the size of a man’s fist.

  “What is that? If you are going to kill me, then just get on with it.” Nath snorted, sending a spray of blood droplets across the floor, “I am not afraid.”

  “I would like to, but first you will tell me where the next jump is, Dr. Nath.”

  “I will not.”

  Alex disconnected a battery on the top of the container and dropped it on the ground. Then he hurled the container to the floor, where it broke to pieces.

  “This is a sample of the scourge, Dr. Nath. I have just released it into this room.”

  Nath stumbled, scrambling backwards to the far side of the small room. He turned and pushed the door release, but it would not open. Turning back, his eyes wide with terror, he cried, “It cannot be true. You would not release them aboard your precious ship.”

  Alex stood quietly, and in a calm voice said, “Look where we are, Doctor. This is the sample study-room of the harvester research laboratories; this entire room is in a magnetic bottle.”

  Nath shrieked and ran to the window, but no one was there to help.

  “Alex, be reasonable; I cannot betray our people.”

  “Are there any left, Doctor Nath?” Alex screamed. “You see, you’re right Nath; I do know what it means to work for the Scion, to bear his mark. And I know that the only reason you can be here, is because there must have been no one left to stop you.”

  Alex crossed the floor and grabbed him by the collar, nearly pulling him off the ground. “Tell me the truth, Dr. Nath. You are the last, aren’t you? They’re all dead, aren’t they? Your worlds, your people, they’re all dead.” Alex dropped the crying man to the floor.

  “I give you this chance to redeem yourself, as I shall try as well. Tell me where the last jump is.”

  Nath wiped his sleeve across his face and mumbled between tears, “It doesn’t matter; I’ve killed so many. My fate is already sealed.”

  Alex stormed back and picked the man up by the neck, “My sin is greater than yours, Doctor. Countless millions died due to my recklessness, my stupidity, my arrogance. There is a place in hell where the devil has made a bed for me. I am most assuredly damned, sir, but I will have this one thing, this last act of redemption. You will give me the coordinates of the jump, so that my friends might stop this plague and save the lives of countless billions. You will answer me, Doctor!”

  Nath nodded, and Alex dropped him to the floor.

  In barely a whisper he said, “Declination 45, right ascension 12 hours, 70 degrees.”

  Alex walked to the door panel, “Computer, activate comm, release code: Alex two.”

  Suddenly Finn’s voice came through loud, “Alex, get out of there, now!”

  “I’m sorry, Finn; I can’t. Did you get the coordinates?”

  “Yes, we heard them.”

  “Please scan that point now, and tell me what you find. I imagine we have very little time in here, so please hurry, Finn.”

  A moment passed, and then another.

  “It’s there, Alex; we can see the distortion. Nath told the truth.”

  Alex smiled and slumped to the floor.

  “Very good, Doctor, perhaps you may find peace yet.”

  But rather than answer, as he watched, Nath’s arm collapsed, and as it did, his whole body struck the floor, reduced to the dirty white sand of the scourge. Then Alex felt his legs begin to tingle. Quite suddenly, the fear crept over him. “C-Captain, can you h-hear me?”

  “Alex!”

  “Tell Julian it’s n-not in their home world, the a-answer is in the sun. Tell him to- ”

  And without a cry, an abrupt silence filled the air.

  On the bridge, Finn called his name again, but there was no response.

  Julian, somber and mournful, broke the silence with slow, careful words. “Finn, I’m sorry to interrupt. I thought you should know; I’ve repaired the EM transmitters. They’re back to the original design spec and operating normally.”

  “Thank you, Julian.”

  Finn fell back into his chair, stunned by what happened. Looking back at the screen, the harvester cloud had already dissipated. He stood and turned to Micha, “You have the bridge.” Then he left, walking slowly and deliberately to the lab where Alex, just moments ago, had saved them all. When he arrived, Julian was standing at the window looking inside. He stepped up next to him to see the face of Alex still holding its shape, amid a pile of sand and clothes.

  “Did you hear his message at the end?”

  “Yes.”

  “What does it mean?”

  Julian slowly shook his head, “I don’t know.”

  The night cycle had begun, and the ship was quiet.

  Finn sat alone on the bridge.

  The crew at the stations around him had cycled to the next shift hours ago. Micha wouldn’t leave, until finally he ordered her to get some rest. The engineering teams had already finished the repa
irs on the damaged ship, and had long since gone to bed. Julian’s research group had taken their final readings and assembled the data for integration into the harvester model. The ship and the crew were ready to leave.

  ‘But to where?’

  Now, in the late hours, he sat alone in the semidarkness of the ship’s command center. Unable to sleep, he chose to stay where he was most comfortable.

  This day was a hard one, uglier than most.

  A good man was lost, and the grief weighed heavy in the night.

  He had come to think of him as a friend, in a time and place where they were hard to come by. ‘Was it necessary, Alex? All those things were not your fault. Couldn’t there have been another way? Security wasn’t there in time, I wasn’t there, but you were.’ The man, who survived everything, finally met his end, in a single moment of bravery and sacrifice. He would make certain that Alex was remembered, when they got back. ‘If we get back, and if, when all of this is over, there’s some place left to go.’

  The bridge door opened and then closed again with a soft whirring sound.

  Footsteps behind him, approached very carefully.

  He didn’t look over his shoulder, didn’t move at all, only lifting his head a moment to say, “Micha, I told you to go get some rest- ”

  “Finn, it’s not Micha.”

  Startled, he turned to look over his shoulder, “Oh, Julian. It’s late; you should try to rest.”

  Julian sat down next to him.

  “I miss him, too.”

  “I barely knew him, Julian. He was an anomaly, a real-life riddle. You do realize that he beat astronomical odds, just to be here, in the right place at exactly the right moment. He survived everything, just to be on this ship… and to save us.”

  “Finn, I think he died the day he realized what the Juliet had done. He thought, no he believed, he was responsible. Since that moment, I think his life was about redemption. And he found it, here.”

  “I enjoyed having him with us as part of the crew, here on the bridge. He was always ready to help. Even in the short time I knew him, I came to trust him.”

  “So did, I.”

  Finn heard the clink of glasses and turned to see Julian pulling two small glasses from a pouch at his side. He set them up and produced a bottle. Pouring two drinks, he handed one to Finn.

  “To Alex, a friend and a colleague; he saved my life.”

  Finn held his glass up, “To Alex, the bravest man I ever knew. He saved all of our lives, and maybe the lives of everyone.”

  They drank in silence.

  The next day, Finn arrived late, making his way onto the bridge amid the clamor of his officers. Micha was directing the activity like the conductor of an orchestra, raising the volume here, lowering it there, and changing time when it was appropriate. Without interrupting her, he made his way through the flurry, to slip quietly into his chair. It wasn’t long before they realized he was there.

  “Captain, engineering reports that the barrier field is repaired, as are the points of heat damage in the aft sections,” said Micha, taking a seat next to him.

  He nodded, “Thank you, Commander. Mr. Eton, what is our position?”

  “We are holding position in front of the jump, back to Bunda.”

  Micha leaned over to say, “Julian is on his way here, and I think he wants to show us the results of his project.” And as if on cue, Julian entered the bridge and headed to the science station.

  “Good morning, Captain, Commander. Would you care to see the harvester home world model?”

  “Of course, Julian, put it on the big screen.”

  Julian’s fingers moved rapidly over the controls, and within seconds, the hologram of the galaxy appeared on the display. He set it to slowly rotate, adding an arrow for each harvester cloud path, one at a time. And as each new arrow appeared, more stars dimmed. Until finally, only one constellation remained lit, Ursa Minor.

  Julian crossed his arms, smiling as the model turned slowly.

  “Ursa Minor, the Little Bear, also called the Little Dipper. It consists of seven stars, including Polaris, the North Star.”

  Finn studied the highlighted constellation, “That’s excellent, but which one is the specific star we’re after?”

  Julian looked embarrassed suddenly, “I don’t know.”

  Micha said, “There’s only seven to pick from; can’t you try them all?”

  “Well, I haven’t figured out yet what it is exactly, that I should ‘try’. I was hoping the star system itself would provide some clue that would help.”

  “Julian,” said Finn, “can’t you narrow it down to the exact star?”

  “Not without another cloud path. I need more data. And without it, we are left to study the characteristics of seven complete star systems. It could take years to study them all.”

  “We can’t wait until another colony is harvested,” said Micha.

  “No,” said Julian with a shake of his head.

  “We can’t use the data, as it stands,” said Finn, glancing at Micha.

  “No.”

  Finn took a deep breath and let it out slowly, “You want to look for the dissident colonies, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Through the unmarked jump point, that Nath said was there.”

  “And whose presence was confirmed by our own sensors,” said Julian. Very quickly, he exchanged the image on the screen with a top-down map of the Deneb system.

  It displayed the jump to Bunda, the Athena, the Lester Colony, and then two gas giants. Just beyond them all, and below the plane of the solar system, a final dot appeared, labeled ‘unknown jump’.

  Finn rubbed his chin and studied the map. “Mr. Eton, how long for us to reach that jump, avoiding the cloud around the colony?”

  A moment later, he said, “Captain, at three-quarter speed, the Athena could make the trip in just over a day.”

  Finn looked from Julian to Micha, and shrugged. “If we don’t finish this, our whole mission will be for naught. I think we should try.”

  She nodded, “I agree, Captain. We paid a high price for this information; I say we should go.”

  Finn stood up, “Mr. Keating, take us to that jump. Let’s finish this.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The Athena Rising gathered speed as it hurtled past the Lester Colony, moving smoothly around the cloud wafting up from it, a tiny, silver streak moving past the planet’s last dance.

  Later that day, Micha joined Julian in the wardroom for lunch. As they sat down, she noticed how alive he seemed and wondered if he was going to miss this when it was over.

  “Julian, what do they do with it all?”

  The servers arrived, bringing settings and drinks.

  “Do with what?”

  “The harvesters,” she said, “what do they do with all the matter they’ve collected?”

  Leaning back, he closed his eyes. “I can imagine a gigantic forge across space, orbiting an alien world with rivers of harvesters arriving from all directions. As each one arrives, it drops its atom into the furnace where it is combined with billions of others. I see aliens that can produce any element, in any quantity by simply wishing for it. They build ships and homes, not on the scale we would think of, but on a galactic scale. With vessels that move like worlds, they might even travel between galaxies.”

  “Are you going to try to contact them?”

  He opened his eyes again, “No, not unless the opportunity arises.”

  “Then what are you planning to do?” Their food arrived, and he began to eat, still not answering her.

  “Julian?”

  “Oh sorry, Micha, I was still imagining the aliens. They might be too advanced for us to communicate with. But we might not need to anyway. If we could simply make our presence known, they might try not to kill us inadvertently. Something similar to how we might try to save a new species.”

  “Or, an endangered one,” she said.

  “Yes, or that.

/>   He ate slowly, “That’s an interesting idea, Micha. How could we let them know that we’re here? Some benign act of proof.”

  “A radio signal?” she said, sipping her drink.

  “The closest star in Ursa Minor is still well over a hundred light years away. Any signal we send will take exactly that long to reach them.” He took another bite, “We could piggyback some kind of message on the harvester clouds, but that would take even longer.”

  She paused and set her napkin down. “Any kind of flare or explosion might be misinterpreted as a natural phenomenon.”

  “Yes, and it would still take over a hundred years for the light of our ‘beacon’ to reach them.”

  “It’s a riddle.”

  He looked up, “It’s funny you should say that; Finn described Alex as a riddle.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean to bring it up.”

  “No, it’s okay. You know, Alex actually left a riddle for me. He said that the answer was not going to be found by studying the alien home world; he said it was in the sun.”

  “Our sun?”

  “I’m not sure, but I think he meant their star, their ‘sun’.”

  He finished and put his drink down.

  “We won’t know anything, until I can pinpoint the exact star system.”

  “Have you considered that Nath might have lied?”