Gethsemane

by James Wittenbach

  Taurus Rook grabbed his arm. “You don’t have to fix it this time. Just get your friends together and come with us.”

  An hour later, 85 children were gathered outside the Aves Prudence, eating nutrition bars while the team examined them. Prudence had noted a piezo-electric energy spike in the planet’s magnetic field, but had been insulated against its effects.

  Medical Technician Vakapuna took Taurus Rook aside. “Their clothing and hair are infested with parasitic organisms. I also detect signs of intestinal parasites. We will have to decontaminate them before we can transport them to Pegasus.” Taurus Rook looked up at the bright star in the southeast, bearing down on the planet.

  “Don’t take too long,” she ordered. “So’Oto, Richter… bugs.” So’Oto sighed and picked up the portable parasite eliminator. Richter called for the children’s attention. “All right, we’re going to give all of you new space clothes. But first, you’re going to have to take off your old ones, and let my friends, Mr. So’Oto and Mrs.

  Vakapuna shoot you with their… um… space guns to … um… prepare you for transport.

  It won’t hurt. Let me show you.”

  Richter let So’Oto fire the decontaminator at him, which bathed him in intense purplish-green light. The then began dividing the children into groups for decontamination.

  Taurus Rook tapped her COM Link. “Port Gethsemane Command Base, this is Mission Commander Taurus Rook. We have 85 survivors. I am clearing them for direct transit to Pegasus. Can anybody there give me a lift back to the base?” It was Johnny Rook who answered. “Hoy, honey. Good to see you. Your daughter’s been cranky.”

  Taurus Rook sighed, “Lovely, can you send me a ship?” Husband Rook smiled his killer smile. “I think we have one that’s not doing anything.

  Stand-by for dust-off.”

  “I’ll be here,” Taurus Rook answered.

  She felt a little hand tugging on the hem of her jacket. The boy who had greeted her, Shorpy, had separated from the group and approached her from behind. He had been the first to go through decontamination, and his skin was bright and clear after a double-treatment with the sonic scrubber. He wore off-white coveralls with green stripes on the legs and the sleeves. “You cleaned up nicely,” she told the boy.

  “Are you leaving?” he asked her.

  “I am afraid so,” she told him. “But I will see you back on Pegasus.”

  “I want to stay with you,” Shorpy cried, and clung to her legs.

  “But I have other children to save,” she explained to him gently. “But I will see you on Pegasus very soon. I promise”

  “No, I want to come with you. Please?” He looked at her with brown eyes that seemed to have expanded to cover half his face.

  “All right,” Taurus Rook agreed. “You can stay at the Command Base with me. But don’t wander off, and stay out of trouble.”

  Gethsemane – New Jacinto – Warfighter (Auxiliary) Andorra Terrasmith was leading the search and rescue operations for Team Joshua Six, operating in a city that had once been called New Jacinto, located in the northern desert of Gethsemane’s largest continent. This city had apparently been a resort destination, and its sprawling city-center was dominated by the abandoned remains of large hotels, casinos and sex malls. Many of Gethsemane’s departing population had passed through on their way to the Gateway for one last wild spree of partying. While the other cities on Gethsemane had declined during the evacuation, New Jacinto had actually boomed.

  But between the transient nature of the population and the planet’s imminent demise, the population had not been very much interested in children. Warfighter Terrasmith’s search squads had so far brought back only fifteen, the oldest was a girl of about 14, the youngest a boy of about six. They had come across the first survivors playing in an abandoned fountain in the forecourt of the hotel. Although frightened at first, the children were lured into a rescue vehicle with promises of food and offered no resistance.

  They had come across another group of kids living in a different abandoned hotel. They had run and hid in the rooms on the thirteenth floor. A squad had to go in, corner, and stun each child individually. Getting all six of them had taken over three hours.

  A top-to-bottom search of a seventeen story hotel on the main strip had yielded only three survivors, who had also had to be stunned. Teams were carefully checking the remaining hotels, scanning them first with life-sign detectors to determine if they were occupied.

  The children they had found had been gathered into a reception terminal at the city’s air station. Most of them slept, those that were awake ate the food they were offered, or sat smiling creepily as the dermal patches maintained their brains in a state of artificial calm and well-being. Medical technicians examined them and eliminated some parasites and infections that had turned up.

  Out on the tarmac, a pair of Aves, Joshua and Drake, were parked to evacuate them.

  Overhead, a trio of Accipiters flew in formation, a few hundred meters above the city, scanning for more signs of life.

  As she completed her day’s report, one of her patrols returned in their Road Warrior, bearing a young boy and a young girl, still stunned. Terrasmith summoned a medical technician to apply a calmative patch to each of the children.

  She first noticed that the light units that lined the runway were beginning to sway. She was just beginning to wonder how this could be when she felt the ground quaking beneath her. Her crewmen scrambled to protect the children, who did nothing but stare and giggle as the groundquake rolled through.

  Then, the ground snapped and shuddered violently, hurling Terrasmith to the pavement with a force that almost knocked her unconscious.

  A fissure had opened in the ground, splitting across both of the runways of the air base.

  And the air turned bitingly cold.

  Smoke and a stench of sulfur rose from the fissure. Her vision was blurred from the blow to her head, but the smoke seemed to be taking on the shape of a horrible mask, or a face, a face that leered at her with malevolence.

  “You are all going to die,” a voice roared through her ears.

  Pegasus – Main Bridge – Lt. Commander Alkema had the command watch when the latest series of groundquakes began rumbling across the planet.

  “I’m reading seismic disturbances in nineteen different areas of the planet,” reported Technical Specialist Keane, who was monitoring planetary telemetry. He put up a display that showed areas of the planet’s crust shaking and splitting open in real-time.

  “Are any of the disturbances near our Search and Rescue teams?” Alkema demanded.

  “Two,” Keane reported. “Area 63, designated New Jacinto, and Area 21, tricities of the Kanesh River Delta. No reports of injuries.”

  One of the other technicians on the Bridge gasped, “Commander…” She put up a display of a city being completely swallowed by the rift that had opened up underneath it. Buildings toppled and the streets disappeared into the gaping maw.

  “Where is that?” Alkema demanded.

  “Area 11… it was cleared two hours ago. No teams there,” the Technician reported.

  “The seismic activity is subsiding,” Keane reported. The red areas of the planet cooled to orange and then yellow.

  “Get me status on all ground teams,” Alkema ordered.

  Hardcandy Banks entered through the doors at the rear of the Bridge and crossed over to Alkema. “I need to speak to you… now!”

  Alkema waved her aside. “It will have to hold. We just had nineteen simultaneous groundquakes. The rogue planet must causing tectonic stress…”

  “The rogue planet is still too far away to be causing that level of tectonic shift,” Banks told him calmly, bringing up her seismic scans of the planet and correlating them to the energy lines that fed the Gateway. “It’s not the rogue planet. These quakes are caused by Gateway activation.”

  Alkema didn’t understand. “The Gateway is causing this?” Banks sat at an empty bridge station and began
calling up her modeling studies. “Not exactly. Whatever power source they tapped into to feed the Gateway is causing this. The Gateway takes a huge amount of energy, comparable to what Pegasus discharges when we open a portal into hyperspace. But the source they’ve tapped into has so much energy, it spills over into the planet’s crust.”

  “Wait,” Alkema shook his head. “They’ve been running that for fifteen years. Their whole planet should be in ruins.”

  “The energy spikes have only been breaking through into the crust in the last few days,” Banks explained. “I suspect the forces have built up over time, and the crust has gradually weakened, but I am still trying to work it out.”

  Banks summarized. “The point is, these energy spikes are starting to tear the planet apart. It’s a race to see if it even lasts long enough for the rogue planet to destroy it.” Alkema sighed and looked at the display that listed the 52 Aves and the rescue teams currently on the planet. “This mission just got a little more dangerous.” Chapter 13

  The Keeler Estate: Pegasus Keeler woke lying on top of his bed in his underwear, hungover, and with no recollection of how he had gotten from Zorg Patterson’s to the estate.

  Ah, that took him back.

  He rolled off his stomach and stared at the ceiling. He didn’t recognize the mural, but he was sure he was one of the guest rooms in the south wing, where he would be shielded from the afterdawn sun… if it was even still afterdawn.

  He checked the back of his hand. His green sigil was still yellow. He had only a few hours left. How much time had he wasted unconscious? Had he dreamed? He didn’t remember dreaming.

  He rose from the bed and showered. When he got out, he noticed his bed was made and a suit of clothes had been laid out for him. It was the little things … like an army of servants to do his bidding like this … that he missed most of all back on Pegasus.

  He made his way downstairs to the private kitchen without changing from his fuzzy yellow bathrobe. He hoped they had waffles.

  He was surprised to find that the kid was in the kitchen, his kid, the son he never had.

  The boy sat in the breakfast nook with a stack of waffles in front of him. He was also wearing a fuzzy yellow bathrobe.

  Pegasus Keeler sighed and took a seat across from him. The kid asked, “Are you my dad, or his evil clone from another universe?”

  “Evil clone,” Pegasus Keeler answered. “Pass me the syrup.” The boy slid the syrup across the table to him. Keeler realized, regrettably, that the boy had inherited more of his genes than his mother’s. The boy’s sullen face was round and placid, and his hair was straight and brown. He was not going to get through life on lady-killing good looks.

  “My dad says you claim you’re the commander of Pathfinder Ship Pegasus.”

  “That’s me,” Pegasus Keeler confirmed. He pulled out his lapels. “You should see the bathrobe I wear when I’m commanding that baby!”

  Kyte passed him the syrup. “There’s episodic entertainment based on the Pathfinder ships. It’s called ‘Worlds Apart.’”

  Keeler scoffed. “What idiot came up with that title?” Kyte became rather more excited as he explained the concept. “It’s about the Pathfinder Ship Dauntless and its crew. The commander is named Commander Bear, his son is the Flight commander.”

  “How realistic,” Keeler muttered as one of the kitchen staff brought him a plate of delicious waffles.

  Kyte went on. “And, on the first mission they go to a planet called Darkside. And Darkside is run by this, ah, guy named um, Xobeem. But his daughter, Zara, is secretly part of the rebellion. And so, um, Commander Bear takes her on his ship. And she helps him steal the Quantum Pulse drive, so his ship can actually go faster. But Xobeem vows to kill them all.”

  “Sounds like it was written by a Panrovian,” said Pegasus Keeler before starting to shovel pieces of waffle in his mouth.

  Kyte continued. “It’s really dark. Their ship gets beaten up pretty bad in the first episode, but they’re afraid if they use the Quantum Pulse drive to get back to Sapphire, Xobeem will follow them and destroy the planet.”

  “They should go to Republic then.” Pegasus Keeler gestured for the serving girl to bring him some hot kava.

  Kyte was indifferent to Pegasus Keeler’s lack of enthusiasm, and continued to relate the story. “But it turns out the Quantum Pulse drive is unstable. They can’t control where they’ll jump to when they use it, or how long they can stay before the ship jumps out again.”

  “Uh-huh,” Pegasus Keeler mumbled through his waffles.

  Kyte went on, “On the second episode, they go to an all-female planet…” Pegasus Keeler interrupted him, “I’ve been to that one. Believe me, kid, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

  Kyte tried again. “And there was this other episode where they got caught in a temporal loop, and were repeating the same day over and over again. Did that ever happen to you?”

  Keeler nodded. “Yeah, but we weren’t in a temporal loop. It turns out I was just really, really bored.”

  Kyte frowned. “You don’t sound like you’re happy you got to go on Pegasus.” Keeler was not sure how to finesse this. “I guess I’m lucky, I got to see some remarkable things. But it’s very hard for me to be back here and see everything that I have missed at home.”

  “Like, there’s no me in your universe,” the kid said.

  “Not yet anyway,” Keeler muttered. He took a drink out of his glass of mauve juice and grimaced. There was nothing but mauve juice in it. He tapped the glass insistently with his grapefruit spork, hoping someone would bring him some Janx Spirit or Borealan Wildtail.

  The kid crunched away at his toasted pastry. “For you, I guess, this is kind of like, you know, that old holovideofiction drama they broadcast at Christ Solstice Mass? The one where the guy wants to commit suicide, but the ghosts of his ancestors appear and show him how his life would have been like if he wasn’t around? You know what I’m talking about?”

  “No clue,” Keeler lied. “Look, kid, I’m not trying to be an assol about this, but I don’t know if you even really exist. I’m only still talking to you because, as you probably know, insanity runs through our family like a herd of Borealan Taurbeasts.” The boy seemed taken aback by this. “You don’t think I exist?”

  “I don’t know what to believe,” Pegasus Keeler conceded. “I believe these waffles are yummy, but I don’t know if I believe they exist either.”

  “You’re a waffle!” the kid shot back, rather non-sequiturishly.

  Tolkien Xerox entered then, and spared them both further awkwardness. “Master Kyte, the Bollock brothers are waiting for you at the front gate.”

  “I gotta go,” Kyte said, and with that the boy all but leapt from the table.

  “Kid,” Pegasus Keeler called after him. The boy stopped and turned. Keeler took a deep breath, and told him, “The real Pegasus journey was nothing like your fiction-drama, but it’s still been a pretty good ride.”

  The boy looked puzzled, but then turned and exited the kitchen, leaving Keeler with a noticeably uncomfortable Tolkien Xerox.

  Keeler dismissed him, saying, “You may go as well,” and a visibly relieved Xerox left him. When both were gone, Keeler discovered he no longer felt like finishing the stack of fruit-stuffed waffles that had been placed before him. Still in his yellow bathrobe, he left the kitchen through the back doorway.

  Outside, the sun was high and warm. Maybe because of his breakfast with Kyte, Keeler decided to go to the Watchtower, which had been one of his favorite places to play when he was a boy.

  The tower had been built by yet another colorful ancestor, Milorad Keeler, way back in the 64th Century. Milorad had wanted a clear view of New Cleveland, and especially of the main road that connected the estate to New Cleveland. On a related note, there was a tunnel at the base of the tower that led to the estate’s boat dock. One might call this paranoia, but in Milorad’s case, it was just good planning.

  Pegasus Keeler climbe
d the stairs to the top of the tower. The view of New Cleveland was remarkable, taking in all of the towers that lined up along the shoreline of the peninsula.

  It was a beautiful city, he thought, leaning on the guardrail (that had not been added until the 66th Century, and then only after a series of unfortunate drunken accidents and one completely sober “accident”). Was it more beautiful, though, than Presidio Capitat?

  More beautiful than Xiyyon? Or even, in its own gaudy way, the Nettwerk Megaplex? Did he romanticize his hometown overmuch, like he had apparently been over-romanticizing his entire life back here?

  Keeler was not so lost in reverie that he didn’t notice when Delia joined him at the top of the tower, saying, “I know it’s a cliché, but I knew I’d find you here.” Keeler didn’t turn, but kept his gaze focused on the city. “Where’s the other me?”

  “Still sleeping off last night.” Delia came and stood beside him at the rail.

  “Sapphire,” said Keeler. “Jewel of the Perseus Quadrant. Of course, Esmerelda colony also claimed to be the jewel of the quadrant. So, did Flame Opal. So did Zirconia…”

  “Stop,” she said. He paused, they both looked out over the peninsula. “What happens when you leave.”

  “A tunnel of light opens, I walk into it,” Pegasus Keeler explained.

  “What happens if you don’t?” she asked. She had bought a thermos of tea with her, and she began sipping from it.

  “Don’t worry, I will,” Commander Keeler assured her. “At first, I thought this might be heaven. It made sense. It’s the place I’ve longed to be, ever since I left. And seeing my loved ones, people who’ve been dead for at least three hundred years, that made sense.

  “But the other me doesn’t make sense. The boy, even less. I am not sure what this place is, but it is not my heaven. Maybe, it’s my purgatory or something.

  “Whatever it is, it doesn’t need me in it,” he concluded.

  “Is that what you came here to discover?” she asked him.

  Pegasus Keeler shook his head so hard it almost dizzied him. “I don’t know, but I’ve discovered that if I had remained here, I would have accomplished nothing of consequence, and my friends would all be twits. And yet, leaving on Pegasus is almost as bad, I’ve found that my mission means nothing to anyone here.