The Death of the Universe: Hard Science Fiction (Big Rip Book 1)

by Brandon Q Morris

  A what? He must be confused. This wasn’t a rabbit warren, it was a ship. Zhenyi definitely had no pets. The rabbit hopped straight across the passageway and disappeared to off the left. Surely it was just his imagination. His nerves were shot. He really needed a good sleep followed by a nutritious meal. He went up to the junction, peered around the corner, and jumped back.

  There actually was a giant rabbit sitting there.

  The animal was half his size. It had very long hair, so that you could hardly make out its shape, and it seemed to glow from within.

  He had let himself be fooled by a hologram! Kepler was still breathing heavily, but the thought calmed him. That was the kind of surprise he could expect from his ex-girlfriend.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  The rabbit looked at him with huge, dark eyes, as though it was deciding which language to speak in. Or was it a hare? The ears were short. Does that make it a hare? The butler would definitely know.

  “Good day, Kepler,” said the rabbit.

  The voice didn’t come from its mouth, but from the walls around them, which somewhat ruined the illusion. It was a primitive hologram. The projector must be in the ceiling. Kepler waved his hand over the rabbit. The picture should change if he blocked the projection.

  The rabbit bent forward and bit him on the thigh. Even though he was wearing the spacesuit, it was painful. He recoiled.

  “Ouch! What was that for?” He glared at the rabbit angrily

  It glared back as fiercely. “You took me for a primitive hologram. I’m insulted! I don’t appreciate that kind of thing!”

  “But you can’t just bite me!”

  “You wouldn’t have believed me otherwise! Anyway, you behaved very presumptuously. What if I decided to crush your windpipe just to check if you had a biological body?”

  “But you can’t—”

  “You see now that I can.”

  “At least let me finish my sentence.”

  The rabbit closed its mouth. Then it looked down and pawed at the ground with its left leg. The sound of its claws was unnerving.

  “Okay, let’s make peace,” said Kepler.

  “Are you finished? I don’t want to interrupt you.”

  “Yes. Why are you so aggressive?”

  “You try wandering corridors for months without speaking to anyone, just because you have to wait for a particular person!”

  “Zhenyi stranded you here?”

  “It would appear so.”

  “And you were supposed to wait for me?”

  “Correct. Unfortunately.”

  “Why unfortunately?”

  “During my long wait I imagined our encounter. I would fulfill my heroic mission, wait for the messenger, and reveal everything to him. And then you come along and the first thing you do is question my abilities. That’s like Jesus’s disciples questioning his divine origin.”

  “They did. That’s what it says in the Bible.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know that, Kepler. I’m just a rabbit.”

  “A rabbit who’s supposed to tell me something.”

  The rabbit sighed. “Follow me to the control room then,” it said.

  The control room was the gloomiest place in the whole ship, probably because it was so huge, and it made him feel so small. The flashlight beam only just reached across it. Overhead it got lost among the beams. What could be the purpose of all those struts up there?

  The white rabbit hopped ahead of him until it receded from view. Then a statue appeared roughly in the middle of the room as though out of nowhere. Kepler slowly approached it. He had almost reached the statue when the rabbit showed up again.

  “I’ve switched Zhenyi on,” it said.

  “Thank you,” answered Kepler.

  The statue really did look like his ex-girlfriend. She seemed to have only aged a little, even though their last meeting must have been 100,000 cycles ago. Anything else would have been a miracle. Why had she made a statue of herself? Kepler looked at the figure. It seemed to be shimmering slightly at the edges. Another hologram!

  “A holo?” he asked.

  “Correct.”

  “And why isn’t she moving?”

  “Too much energy. Originally the hologram was supposed to greet you, but it requires four times as much energy as I do. I just wanted to show it to you.”

  “Thank you. Zhenyi is still very beautiful.”

  “Still? Was that another insult?”

  “No, rabbit. Please don’t bite me.”

  “Fine. I’m not supposed to waste time, anyway. Zhenyi is expecting you urgently.”

  “But where? I’ve been searching for her for days.”

  “On the light side, of course. One moment, I’ll give you the coordinates.”

  The rabbit tapped Kepler’s arm. A few numbers appeared on his multifunctional device. He checked the coordinates. The location was about 3,000 kilometers away from where they had last searched.

  “Good, I’ll get started,” said Kepler.

  “No you won’t.”

  “I won’t?”

  “You need a key. Wait a moment.”

  Of course, what else? Every search required a key. What would it be? The rabbit hopped away. Then the statue disappeared. He wasn’t supposed to drag that huge hologram around with him, was he?

  The rabbit tapped him from behind.

  Kepler spun around. “Don’t do that,” he said.

  The rabbit looked at him sadly.

  “Sorry,” said Kepler.

  The rabbit smiled again. “Here.” It handed him a device about the size of his palm. “This is the emitter,” explained the rabbit, “which you can use to project Zhenyi. That’s the key.”

  “Thank you. Did she say anything else?”

  “She’s made contact, whatever that means.”

  She’d made contact. With whom and why? Kepler instinctively knew there was no point in asking the rabbit. Its knowledge seemed very limited. “Then I’ll say goodbye,” he said.

  “Yes, too bad, I would have liked to roam the ship with you, you’re easy to annoy.”

  “Thanks, I’ll pass.”

  “And you taste good. I noticed that after the first bite. May I?” The rabbit stuck out a long, snaking tongue.

  “Stand down.”

  The rabbit laughed.

  Cycle ZB2.9, unknown system

  Kepler stood on the last step of the lander. He had set down at the location specified by Zhenyi. The landscape looked exactly the same as it did at his previous landing site. It could almost be mistaken for the same place—gently rolling, chartreuse-clad hills stretching to the horizon—except that the sun hung lower in the sky.

  He shivered. It was a few degrees colder here too. He should have been prepared for that. The spacesuit, which he had needed on the dark side, would be overkill here, but a long-sleeved sweater would have been practical. He reached for the hologram emitter in his pants pocket. The device was warm, and vibrated as though it knew it would soon be put to use.

  He carefully set his foot down on the scorched soil. His guilty conscience flooded back. Then he noticed there was no ash anywhere. The grass had obviously retreated far enough before he landed. The lawn began ten meters away. Clearly the vegetation could accurately predict danger.

  Kepler moved away from the spacecraft. He was in the mood for a bit of a hike. Hopefully the destination wasn’t too close. Then again, he wanted to track down Zhenyi as quickly as possible. From overhead he hadn’t seen anything that looked like it could be his destination. Zhenyi had probably camouflaged her accommodations. How would the hologram work?

  He took a step toward the grass. As usual, the stems retreated promptly. Very considerate. That meant he didn’t need to worry about hurting them. The sun warmed him from the side, the air smelled pleasantly fresh, and the grass guided him through a surreal, dreamlike landscape. For a moment he gave in to the pleasant feelings.

  Then he was standing in front of the landing c
apsule again. Finding Zhenyi clearly wasn’t going to be that easy.

  He took the emitter out of his pocket and turned it over in his hand. It was a totally normal holo emitter with a small energy reserve. It could create stationary holograms up to about four meters high. The battery should last a week or longer. Zhenyi’s template was stored in it, but what else?

  The power button was in a hollow on the side so you couldn’t turn it on unintentionally. He held the device with the emitter eye pointing away from himself and pressed the button. The emitter hummed louder as the cooling system started up. Then all of a sudden Zhenyi was hovering above the grass.

  Mystified, Kepler watched the way the grass reacted. An ordinary hologram like this consisted entirely of light. It didn’t move the air at all. But the grass still retreated. It must also have an optical sense. But the grass didn’t just move out of the way of the hologram, it formed a star shape around it. It looked like a greeting or homage ritual. But that was a human interpretation. The star could also symbolize total contempt. Kepler preferred to imagine it was a friendly greeting.

  He moved the emitter and the hologram changed its location. The star moved with it. If he lifted the emitter, and with it the hologram, then the star shrank. Could it be that the stems’ optical sense only worked at short distances?

  Then something very unusual happened. The grass formed two rows leading to Kepler. Had it recognized that he was the one controlling the hologram? That would have been an enormous intellectual achievement. Until now he had taken the grass for a living colony, similar to the primitive collective intelligence of ants. The grass approached him and even populated the scorched area of soil. So, the stems could grow there after all.

  For a moment he thought of the strange sight that had presented itself to him—the worms under the surface. They must be everywhere.

  The grass stopped at a distance approximately equal to his own height. Kepler now stood at the beginning of a kind of path that led diagonally up a hill past the hologram. What was it? It didn’t seem to be a warning, but rather an invitation. He shouldn’t hesitate too long or the grass might withdraw it.

  Kepler shook himself and started to walk. He left the hologram on just to be safe, even though it seemed strange to have an oversized Zhenyi leading the way, hovering above the grass.

  The path led directly to the next hill. At its foot, the grass formed a circle. He guessed he was supposed to wait for something here. Kepler looked up into the sky. Would his ex-girlfriend come from above? All he could see were a few solitary cirrostratus clouds far to the east. Then he heard a sound like someone shaking a sack of marbles. It was coming from the hill. About half-way up, the grass had retreated to reveal an area of bare soil that looked like a smiling mouth. It opened, a crack extending along its entire length. This wasn’t a smile anymore, it was an evil grin.

  What was happening here? Inside the crack was dark soil. Now and then something white flashed inside it. He thought of the worms again. The hill opened wider. The crack became a gash. Instead of clattering marbles, he now heard a loud groan overlaid with crunching sounds. The stems above and below the gash leaned away from the opening. It was as though they were tearing open the surface of the hill. The crack grew and grew. Was the hill about to give birth to a monster? Kepler involuntarily pictured a fat man tearing his belly open with both hands and groaning and gnashing his teeth as he did so.

  The hairs on Kepler’s neck stood up. This didn’t look like a friendly invitation anymore. Should he make himself scarce? No, that would be stupid. He’d come this far—he’d just have to wait.

  The crack was now almost as high as he was tall. He could see a dark passageway within. The hill had opened its mouth and was threatening to devour him. Kepler wouldn’t be surprised if the hill pounced and dined on him. Lucky he was always such an optimist. Soon an elastic tongue would whip out, encircle him, and pull him into the passageway.

  But nothing of the sort happened. The groaning stopped. A cave had opened in the hill in front of him. Whether it was natural or artificial, who could tell on this planet? A pleasant smell of fresh soil wafted out of the hole. Kepler had some idea what was expected of him, but he suppressed it. Instead he scratched at the ground with his feet and waited for instructions.

  The hill didn’t speak to him, nor did the hologram issue any instructions. He’d have to decide for himself. And what did a good adventurer do when he came across a cave? He went in. Should he quickly fetch the spacesuit? He’d be better protected in that. If the cave collapsed and buried him along with his body, then the thing he had wanted for so long would happen—he would be dead. But that would be pretty inconvenient just now. Zhenyi would have to rescue herself.

  No, he didn’t need a suit. You didn’t give a guy an invitation in order to kill him. The stems would definitely know how to hold a cave open. Kepler went up to the entrance and disappeared into the mouth of the hill.

  It smelled of soil, but the air was breathable. Kepler looked at the walls and roof. He would have preferred if they were made of rock, but that seemed not to be the case. He touched the wall. He could easily crumble the dirt away with his fingers. The fact that the passageway remained open was apparently due to the threads that ran taut across the walls. Maybe something like roots? The root networks of terrestrial plants could also be very stable. There weren’t any white worms to be seen, which was reassuring. Maybe he’d been wrong about them after all.

  The passage curved to the left after three meters and headed steeply downhill. The daylight didn’t reach this far. He hadn’t brought a flashlight with him, but he had the holo emitter. If he held the device in front of him, the laser beams painted the walls of the passage with a wild pattern in which he could recognize the occasional body part.

  He marched on for half an hour. Then a whole hour passed, one and a half, two. Kepler became increasingly nervous. He obviously had no connection to the spaceship. What had he gotten himself into? He had somehow gotten an anthill to open up for him, but how were the ants supposed to know what to do with him? Or perhaps they did know, and were leading him along the shortest path to their offspring’s feeding chamber?

  He couldn’t afford to drive himself crazy. So far he had only encountered one species, and that seemed to feed on air, water, and sunlight. But just because they didn’t want to kill him didn’t automatically mean he was on the right track. There hadn’t been any passages branching off so far. But he could turn around at any time and go back to the landing module, couldn’t he?

  Suddenly he wasn’t so sure.

  Kepler stopped, turned around, and illuminated the passage leading back uphill. He couldn’t see the end. He took a deep breath and decided it would be best if he convinced himself. Slowly, because it was steep going, he began to walk back. After two minutes he started sweating. After five the sweat was streaming down his back. Actually, that’s enough, he thought. He was thinking of turning around again when the light from the holo emitter fell on a dark wall where the passage should have continued. Shit! He stopped in his tracks, wheezing. That was impossible. He touched the wall. It was no less solid than the side walls.

  There was something on his head. He felt in his hair. There was soil in his fingers. It was sprinkling down from above, and even the side walls no longer looked stable. He felt with his fingers for the fine roots he had felt earlier, but there was nothing. Obviously the anthill was collapsing the end of the passage. The grass didn’t care if he was buried alive. Or did those creatures not know he was here? After all, did he know which parasite was currently hiding out in which fold of his intestines? Did the colony know where its inhabitant was scratching around?

  He turned and ran downhill. After three steps he stumbled. Shit! Shit! He fell down on his knees. He’d grazed them, and he’d lost the holo emitter. It was completely dark in the passageway. Where was it? Panicking, he felt around the floor. Hopefully it wasn’t damaged! Then he felt the plastic casing. It was the emitter. The power
button was in the recess on the side. He didn’t dare press it. As long as he didn’t try, there was hope. Soil rained down on his face. Thanks, that’s just what I needed, he thought. He mustn’t linger here. His finger pressed the button. The wall was lit up by a shoulder in an Asiatic dress. Zhenyi was there. He stood up and quickly but carefully followed the passage downhill.

  After another two hours his stomach was rumbling. He was annoyed at himself for coming down here so unprepared. How could he have been so naïve? He didn’t dare stop to rest. He had lost time taking a break earlier. He somehow knew the passage would cave in again behind him. But he also didn’t want to test the patience of his host.

  And what about his own patience? If Zhenyi had planned all this, why hadn’t she left even a single clue for him? It just wasn’t fair!

  Suddenly Zhenyi appeared. Kepler stopped in his tracks, which saved him. The fact that he could see the whole hologram again was not a good sign, because it meant that in front of him, or more precisely, diagonally below him, was obviously a cavern with enough space for the full projection, which he otherwise wouldn’t have seen.

  Kepler lit up the passageway. But there was no longer any passageway. About two steps in front of him was a hole in the ground that also extended upwards. It must have measured twenty meters in diameter, and at first glance appeared to be circular. The walls were not made of dirt. They glinted in the light of the holo emitter. Maybe a shaft for launching rockets? But that made no sense so far underground. He couldn’t fathom what this hole might be for. Still, something had led him here, so his presence must have a purpose. But what?

  It would be nice if the real live Zhenyi now rose out of the shaft in some kind of aircraft, thanked him for showing such mettle, and revealed the reason for her invitation. But everything was completely quiet, and he was alone. No one would come for him. He had to take care of himself. As the passage behind him was still closing in, he only saw one option—he had to jump.