Ghost of the Argus

by E. R. Torre

  More wooden beach chairs were folded to the side of the stairs and a small cabin housed fresh towels. A computer panel above the towels awaited input. Beside the towel station were large his and hers bathrooms. The sand extended for at least two hundred yards from the base of the stairway to the shoreline, enough to occupy a very, very large group of people.

  B’taav removed his shoes at the base of the stairs and stepped onto the sand. It was comfortably warm. He approached the old man, examining him along the way. The man was thin and frail. There was little hair left on his head and what there was was gray and stringy. He was dressed in heavy clothing and had a thick towel wrapped around his shoulders and neck.

  “You must be tired,” the old man said when B’taav reached his side. “Please, have a seat.”

  B’taav accepted the offer. Once seated he drew a deep breath and took in the fresh scent of sea water.

  “You have questions,” the old man said.

  “Who are you?” B’taav asked. “Where is Inquisitor Cer?”

  Before the old man could answer, a small, rectangular robot rolled to B’taav’s side. Monitors on the robot’s body displayed a list of drinks and foods.

  “Can I interest you in something?” the robot asked.

  “Go ahead,” the old man said. “Don’t be shy.”

  “Water,” B’taav said.

  One of the monitors on the robot’s body slid down and a sealed cup slid out. B’taav took it and the robot rolled away.

  B’taav pulled the straw from the cup and took a sip.

  “How are you feeling?” the elderly man asked.

  “Better,” B’taav said. “Where is Inquisitor Cer?”

  “She left.”

  “Where?” B’taav said. He abruptly rose. The effort made him to stumble.

  “Easy,” the elderly man said. “You still have time.”

  B’taav’s grimaced.

  “Time for what?”

  “Time to catch up to her,” the elderly man said. “If that’s what you want to do.”

  “She took the Xendos?”

  “No. Your ship wouldn’t let her. Perhaps your invisible passengers didn’t want her to go alone.”

  “You know about the nano-probes?”

  The old man smiled.

  “That and a few other things. Inquisitor Cer was determined to leave but had to take my shuttle. It’s bigger and so much slower. You’ll catch her before she reaches her destination.”

  “Her destination?”

  The elderly man chuckled.

  “Where are my manners?” he said. “I didn’t mean to overwhelm—”

  “Why were we brought here?” B’taav asked.

  “You were brought here because both you and Inquisitor Cer were needed. She should have waited for you to get better but you were so very sick. It’s why she went alone. Very noble on her part.”

  “Where did she go?” B’taav yelled.

  The elderly man stared deep into B’taav’s eyes. There was deadly seriousness in them and, despite his age and frailty, it was clear he was the master of this craft and had the means of taking care of the Independent, should he become too unruly.

  B’taav lifted his hands.

  “I’m sorry,” B’taav said. “I didn’t mean to get so emotional. It’s just that—”

  The old man waved him off.

  “I’m just as concerned as you are about Inquisitor Cer,” the old man said. “I was hoping to see both of you at the same time, instead of separately.”

  “You knew we were coming?”

  “Not you specifically,” the elderly man said. “I knew someone was coming.”

  The elderly man extended his hand.

  “My name, by the way, is David Desjardins.”

  B’taav frowned. He reluctantly grasped the elderly man’s hand.

  “Pleased to meet you.”

  “Don’t be so sullen,” Desjardins said. “All right then, here it is: The ship you’re on board is the super-juggernaut Thanatos. She’s a Phaecian craft, a prototype of the Luxor, the starship that destroyed Erebus and ended the Galactic War before it began.”

  “Phaecian?” B’taav said. “But this ship’s design is almost exactly that of the Argus. The Argus was an Epsillon craft. Did the Phaecians steal her?”

  “No.”

  “Then… they stole her design?”

  The smile returned to Desjardin’s face.

  “Or was it the other way around?”

  “Neither,” Desjardins said. “These ships were made at roughly the same time and by scientists in each Empire that were completely unaware of what their rivals were up to.”

  “The design similarities can’t be a coincidence.”

  “They aren’t,” Desjardins said.

  “Then, how…?”

  “There were those who knew the Phaecian and Epsillon Empires would eventually come into conflict. That’s why the super-juggernaut program was initiated. The end goal was always meant to be like what happened at Erebus.”

  “The Galactic War was anticipated?”

  “Yes. Hundreds of years before the fact. The Luxor completed her mission and destroyed the Erebus Solar System along with the backbone of both fleets. The two Empires’ power was wiped out. Everything but the Argus. Years later, you and Inquisitor Cer took care of her.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “I have access, limited though it is, to what happens behind the curtains,” Desjardins said. “Now I’m giving you a peek. You still listening?”

  “Go on.”

  “The Epsillon Empire’s first super juggernaut prototype, code named Blister, was a disaster,” Desjardins said. “There were serious problems with her power core and during her second trial run her engines malfunctioned while she was in the gravitational field of a small star. The ship and all hands were lost. At about that same time, the Phaecians were readying their prototype, the Thanatos. She was put together in a solar system as far from the edges of the Epsillon Empire as possible.”

  The elderly man wrapped the towel tighter.

  “Like the Blister, the Thanatos was built and intended to be used immediately. A test, if you will, of its destructive power. She was to be taken to an even more distant and unoccupied solar system and detonated. That day came and the Thanatos was launched. She was escorted to a specially modified Displacer, one capable of fitting a ship her size. On the other end of the line was another oversized Displacer and another group of military escorts. All was clear and ready. The Thanatos and her skeletal crew took her out of her metal cocoon and headed for the Displacer. The Thanatos sped up, for the energy required to maintain the Displacer was great. She entered the energy field and then, just like that, she was gone.”

  “At the Thanatos’ destination, the solar system meant to be destroyed in this test, the Phaecian military waited for her arrival. The Thanatos didn’t show. Thirty minutes later, the military was in a full panic. They checked and rechecked the Displacer logs but found no anomalies. By day’s end, the Thanatos was declared lost.”

  “The existence of this vessel was buried along with the best kept secrets of the Phaecian Empire. Her makers moved on and built the Luxor. They planned to test her, but rising hostilities led to her first, and final, trip to Erebus.”

  “You’re telling me the people who designed these ships made sure each Empire had one?”

  “Yes,” Desjardins said.

  “They hijacked the Thanatos while making sure the other two vessels were used to force peace between the Empires.”

  “Correct.”

  “What… what did Cer think of this?”

  “About the same as what you’re thinking, I imagine.”

  “How did you get here?”

  “I can’t rightly say,” Desjardins replied. “I woke up some fifty odd years ago and here I was. My best guess is that I was brought here.”

  “By who?”

  “You familiar with Saint Vulcan?”

  B
’taav’s breath caught in his throat.

  “I just came from Pomos.”

  The elderly man nodded.

  “So you did,” he said. “Well, she either had me flown here or I was birthed in one of the many thousands of rooms I have yet to explore on this vessel.”

  “Birthed?”

  “I’m not really David Desjardins,” the old man said. “At least not the original.”

  “You’re a construct?”

  “A clone.”

  “Clones are illegal,” B’taav said.

  “As soon as we get back to the Empires, I’ll make sure to turn myself in.”

  B’taav shook his head and smiled. The smile faded.

  “Clones are also not supposed to last more than a couple of years.”

  “This body begs to differ.”

  “Who was David Desjardins?”

  “A highly decorated Captain of Saint Vulcan’s fleet, way back in the years when she was still considered a Saint.”

  “He worked for her?”

  “As did his –my– wife,” Desjardins said. “I was the highest ranking of the twenty starship Captains in vessels around Pomos when it was destroyed. My wife… my wife died with everyone else on Pomos.”

  “Saint Vulcan had control over your weapons,” B’taav said.

  “I know,” Desjardins said. “Just before initiating that massacre, she contacted the fleet Captains and told us what she was about to do. I was the only one who saw her actions as not only justified, but something which had to be done.”

  A single tear ran down Desjardin’s cheeks.

  “Though I gave no command and was not in charge of my vessel, I felt just as responsible as Saint Vulcan for killing every person on Pomos, up to and including my wife. Years later, when I was as old as I am now, Saint Vulcan appeared in my apartment.”

  “So she is still alive?”

  Desjardins shrugged.

  “At this point, I don’t know,” Desjardins said. “The Saint Vulcan I saw that day hadn’t aged at all. Maybe I was talking to a clone of her. She offered me a second chance. A chance to be with my wife.”

  Desjardins pointed to his right. There, at the far end of the beach, was a small mound of sand. B’taav hadn’t noticed it until that moment. The mound, he realized, was a grave.

  “My wife and I lived here. We grew old. We were… happy. She passed away in her sleep last year. She had a smile on her face.”

  Desjardins rubbed his eyes and stared out at the water.

  “Saint Vulcan didn’t do all this just so you could re-live your life.”

  “No,” Desjardins admitted. “My wife and I were brought here to look after the Thanatos while she made her way to her destination. We checked her systems every day and made sure she was ready.”

  “For what?”

  “The one thing this craft was designed for,” Desjardins said.

  B’taav’s blood ran cold.

  “Why… why does this solar system need to be destroyed?”

  “Because one its planets is infected with an ancient evil. One that needs to be exterminated once and for all.”

  “Where are we?”

  “We are parked in a small solar system in the Ulinda quadrant,” Desjardins said.

  “The name is familiar it’s…”

  Chills rose up and down B’taav’s spine. Though the Holy Texts were dismissed as fairy tales by the Epsillon Empire, he heard the stories and was familiar with the legends. He knew of the cursed lands and he knew of the Exodus.

  “The planet we’re orbiting around,” B’taav said, recognition dawning on him. “It looked so familiar.”

  “It should,” Desjardins said.

  “Jupiter.”

  “Yes, B’taav,” Desjardins said. “But the planet this ship was brought here to destroy lies far closer to this system’s sun. The Thanatos is here to destroy Earth.”

  42

  B’taav shook his head in disbelief. Desjardins continued:

  “’Destruction of the Homeworld was upon us and the means of salvation lay in the stars. Three Arks took us from our home to those stars. The first Ark flowered into the Epsillon Empire. The second, the holy empire of Phaecia. The third Ark was lost...’ ”

  The elderly man chuckled.

  “Or so say the Holy texts,” Desjardins said. “The scripture, it would seem, wasn’t entirely right. Earth was not destroyed. It lies only eight hundred million miles away.”

  “What happened?”

  “It is better I show you,” Desjardins said. He pressed a button on his arm rest and a female figure appeared before them. She was middle aged and had black hair accented with gray strands.

  “Saint Vulcan,” B’taav said.

  “Not quite in the flesh.”

  “How may I help you, Captain?” the hologram asked.

  “Tell our companion what this is about.”

  The hologram nodded.

  The glorious view of Jupiter in the tinsel glass roof above them faded and was replaced by the image of a planet, one with sparse clouds and a brown, desert surface.

  “Few have seen this,” the hologram said. “It is among the last pictures our forefathers took of Earth before the Exodus.”

  B’taav’s mouth hung open as his eyes absorbed the image. The planet had degraded terrain along with choked up cities and desolate interstates.

  “Earth’s population settled into a dozen large cities while the environment around them died,” the hologram said. “The Earth was poisoned and could no longer sustain humanity. This was not the product of overdevelopment and environmental ignorance. It was part of a plan.”

  “Plan?” B’taav repeated. “You mean Earth’s citizens intended to poison their world and make her uninhabitable?”

  “Not the citizens,” the hologram said. “One man.”

  “One man was responsible for all this?”

  “Yes.”

  “By the Gods, why?”

  “It had to do with the question most asked after our ancestors settled and produced the Phaecian and Epsillon Empires: Why, after all these years, have we not found any other intelligent alien life forms? How is it conceivable the human race appears to be the only advanced life form out there?”

  The image on the tinsel glass changed. It displayed lakes and forests, animals of all kinds and, finally, human beings.

  “The emergence and survival of life forms is subject to adaptation and evolution. Simply put, those who adapt to their environments are the ones most likely to survive while those who don’t risk extinction. On Earth, the human race was at the top of the evolutionary ladder. We created mighty cities and harnessed tools to cure illnesses, healing what in previous generations were fatal injuries. The blind, the infirm, the crippled… all benefitted from procedures that not only allowed them to survive, but thrive. There were those who theorized humanity had triumphed over evolution itself. Yet millions of years before humanity’s first appearance on Earth, reptiles were at the top of that planet’s evolutionary chain. Their end likely came from space in the form of one or more asteroids.”

  The hologram folded her arms.

  “Like the dinosaurs, humanity also faced an outside threat. Instead of asteroids, they were targeted by a force so advanced from our own they made humans and their technology look like children’s toys.”

  The glass above them changed again, this time displaying strange alien worlds and even stranger war machines.

  B’taav was shocked. They were a vision from a nightmare.

  “The aliens had no formal name, though our ancestors eventually called them the Locust Plague,” the hologram continued. “Their means of existence lay in pillaging and absorbing entire worlds. They traveled from system to system and planet to planet and stripped each world they visited of its nutrients. They fed off living creatures, intelligent or not, and when they were done, the world left behind was nothing more than a husk. A little over five thousand years ago, they were on the verge of arriving on E
arth.”

  “Precious few knew of this coming danger,” the hologram continued. “One, a very clever man, was given this information with the hope he could fashion some kind of response. This man soon realized there was not enough time nor enough resources available to stop the invaders. Humanity would lose any battle against them and Earth, therefore, was doomed. However, this clever man came up with an equally clever plan. As fearsome as the Locust Plague were, they needed to feed to continue their travels. Therefore defeating the Locust Plague was as simple as starving them to death. And the only way to do that was by poisoning the Earth. The Locust Plague would arrive to an already ravaged planet, an Earth they could not feed off of. They would starve. Humanity’s only hope for survival was in fleeing their home world.”

  “The Exodus,” B’taav muttered.

  The image on the tinsel glass shifted. Images of scientists in laboratories working on an incredibly large machine filled the glass. B’taav instantly recognized the machine.

  “That’s a Displacer.”

  “Contrary to what history journals say, we did not develop and refine Displacer technology,” the hologram continued. “That same clever man who intended to poison Earth gained access to information the Locust Plague amassed from other alien cultures. With the discovery of the Displacer, he found the means of getting humanity away.”

  The images shifted. Wars and nuclear explosions were displayed.

  “Now with the means to get people out, humanity’s savior became the Earth’s executioner. He singlehandedly brought the world’s powers into conflict and forced them to use their nuclear devices. The Earth was rendered a radioactive, sterile desert while waves of people were simultaneously sent to the space arks.”

  “He built the arks?”

  “No. They were the last remnants of the same alien race that developed the Displacers. It was theorized they built these ships to escape the Locust Plague, but ran out of time and abandoned them.”

  “The man who destroyed the world –the man who saved humanity– is he the same Unknown Hero the Holy Texts talk of?” B’taav asked.