by Drew Wagar
‘So … you’re going to shut yourself down too?’
‘Yes,’ Ira confirmed. ‘Low level automated systems will continue to function in the interim, but higher level facilities are not required under normal circumstances.’
‘But … Esurio is safe?’
‘Not withstanding any unexpected events,’ Ira replied. ‘Yes. Obelisk and AMS functions can be reactivated should any unforeseen circumstances occur.’
Meru paused, looking around the facility, taking in the screens and displays, remembering them from long ago.
When she was here with me. All behind me now, one last task to do.
‘Then this is a goodbye too,’ Meru said. ‘Thank you for what you did for us … for all of us, Ira.’
‘Your appreciation is acknowledged, Meru,’ Ira replied.
Meru smiled.
* * *
A few spells later he settled himself in the dropship.
Compared to the other vessels he had been transported in, this was the height of luxury. There was a huge amount of room inside, it was clear the ship had been designed to ferry people and cargo down from above. He had brought a pass’ supply of food and water with him, though he didn’t believe that he’d need it.
‘Communication uplink is confirmed,’ Ira said, her voice sounding from all around him. ‘Launch window approaching. Maximum acceleration will be three Esurian gravities.’
Meru settled back in the couch he had selected.
Moments later a rumble shuddered through the craft. Through the windows he could see the ground dropping away in a flurry of dust. Then, the Obelisk itself fell away below. The craft tilted upwards and there was nothing but the azure of the sky, and a pressure pushing him back in his seat, a sensation of extreme weight. He could feel his heart hammering now, painful, his breath gasping and short.
Before him the sky was fading to a darker hue. He watched and waited. He knew what to expect, but the sight drew a gasp from him anyway.
Blackness, pin-pricked with impossible tiny sparks of brightness. They were utterly immobile, their light cold and steady in the dark.
Stars …
The acceleration was fading now. Another sensation overcame him, almost like sea-sickness. Again, he knew to expect it, but the feeling was disorienting, as if he was falling.
Which I am, even though it doesn’t seem like it … now it’s me … I’m in an orbit!
He was tired now, and knew it would be a while before anything further happened. He slept until a gentle buzzing roused him. He blinked awake and sat up.
There, through the windows of the dropship, was the sight he had waited most of his life to see.
He already knew it to be vast, marks wide and dozens long, the most stupendous of humanity’s constructions ever to have been built.
Built though, not really the right word.
The Du Maurier hadn’t been built. It was an asteroid, dragged into orbit of the original homeworld and then mined, trimmed and hollowed out for the purpose. Its shape, close up, was an irregular cylinder, with superstructure jutting from the rocky shell as requirements dictated.
He had first seen it in his youth, just a bright point of light far off in the sky. Now he could make out vast domes jutting from the rocky sides where once food would have been grown, huge banks of cargo storage, fuel pods, scaffolding running the length of the vessel. Vast panels jutted from its side, cooling fins for the unfathomable energies contained within.
The final section of the vessel was composed of the mighty engines, bolted on to the rear section of the asteroid, that had long ago wrenched the ship from its orbit around a distant star called Sol and sent it on its way to Esurio.
‘Du Maurier proximity telemetry confirmed.’ This time it was Sandra’s voice. Meru remembered how he’d named the disembodied voice long ago. ‘Docking in progress. Please secure harnesses for approach.’
Meru did as he was told, feeling the dropship turn and move around him as it oriented itself against the vast colony vessel.
With a faint series of thumps the dropship came to rest.
‘Pressure equalised. You may disembark.’
‘Thank you, Sandra.’
‘You are welcome, Administrator Meru.’
Meru unclipped the harness, moving forward, free of the grasp of gravity, only to see something that no resident of Esurio had ever seen before. The ships were in a high orbit around Esurio. The darkness was fading, a glow spreading out on the horizon. The stars were already gone. Meru gasped as the light reached him.
Lacaille … Sunrise!
* * *
He had written up all his findings and … the word was ‘transmission’ apparently … sent them down to Ira far below to ensure they were safe and would be passed on to others. He’d barely touched upon the content and artefacts stored, but he had constructed an index with many samples.
Such a bitter tale. Others will have to write it up in detail.
The Du Maurier had set out into the darkness after humanity had rendered their own planet uninhabitable. Meru had read the transcripts and watched the films recorded by their ancestors of long ago. It was strange to see those people, alive and unaware of what would happen to their legacy, talking and speaking as if they were just in the next room.
The Du Maurier had been captained by Admiral Gregory Drayden, a stern military man from Earth itself. It seemed there had been quite some rivalry between the crew and the colonists on how Esurio was to be administered.
He had wound back through the archives. It was the older history that interested him. Earth itself.
That planet, humanity’s home, looked very strange to his eyes. Everything was a bright garish green or blue, with the star a sharp yellow or even white in many of the images and videos. There were few of the soft and comfortable reds and oranges of his home. The vegetation too was an unfamiliar green colour throughout, and he saw many strange and wonderful beasts. None of them were present on Esurio, it seemed they had all failed to adapt.
It was a world of oceans, far bigger than those of Esurio, land was at a premium. Meru saw astonishing feats of technology, buildings of grandeur and sophistication that dazzled him with their design. But the records had not hidden the darker side of all the technological advancement. There was devastating pollution, animals dying by the billions, extreme weather that ripped up coastlines and ravaged crops.
Yet the shocking truth was that the damage had been self-inflicted.
Humanity had been consumed by its own consumption. The atmosphere was filled with toxins, the seas and land covered in debris, effluent and pollution. The records catalogued the efforts of those who tried to stem the tide before it was too late. Almost a century had passed from the problem being understood until it was dealt with in any meaningful way.
But it was too little, too late.
Rising temperatures had been what most had feared. Sea levels had risen and storms were worse, with many areas blighted by heat. Then, too complex to understand, the biosphere had turned in upon itself.
The Earth plunged into a winter of unimaginable cold, the oceans freezing and snow covering everything to a depth of many hands. Meru well recalled his many traipses along the edge of the frozen wastes that ringed Esurio and shuddered to think of what must have happened. The population of the Earth had been reduced from billions to mere thousands in a short span of time.
War and famine had marked those final stretches … or days, as they were called on Earth.
But there were many brighter moments. The Du Maurier contained more records than he could ever view; music, books, films and artworks, all of which demonstrated a more hopeful and optimistic people than the calamity would otherwise have shown. There had been a massive effort to preserve the best of what humanity had created, even if they couldn’t save their home.
And they had been explorers, that was certain. The history files showed that humanity had first charted their own home, and then explored the worlds in their ow
n system. Those instincts had served them well when they had been forced to leave and travel into the darkness.
Now the story of their origins could be told from beginning to end. The exodus from Earth, the struggle to reach Esurio and how people had been adapted to live upon the surface of this new world. How they’d tried to leave much of the technology behind, keeping only what was essential. How the gift had been given to women to act as administrators and caretakers, and how it was all lost when the first flare had struck, breaking the nascent civilisation and sending it into rounds of darkness from which they were only just emerging.
It was the last record of the departure that gave Meru a chill. He already knew about it, but, up here, it seemed more imperative, as if the stars were watching.
The Du Maurier wasn’t a lone vessel. It was one of many, despatched to worlds not too far away from the stricken Earth.
There might be other survivors out there. Humanity’s descendants spread out amongst the stars in the void. What stories might there be? What calamities might have overtaken them? Esurio’s people had survived, but their culture had regressed over many rounds. Others might have been more, or less, fortunate.
What might humanity have done if it had been able to build on the foundation of the technologies he had seen? Or was Esurio the only remaining outpost of humankind?
There was equipment aboard the Du Maurier to transmit to other stars. The flight plans were all stored and recorded. Dozens of ships had left Earth, all with distant destinations.
I could send a message out. It would take rounds for them to respond, Esurio has been silent for more than two thousand rounds. It’s probably marked as a failure. I could tell them we made it!
But the enthusiasm cooled. Who was to say what two thousand rounds of separation had done to humanity’s descendants? Perhaps some had retained their technology and had fleets of ships ready to expand and conquer. Perhaps Esurio’s isolation was best kept that way.
And we have enough challenges living up to the legacy of what our founding colonists intended and we’ve only just managed to deal with our own despots. No need to risk looking for more of them! Our ancestors wanted to leave the technology behind anyway …
Esurio, in all its golden richness, rolled beneath the viewports.
It’s so beautiful. Our world, our legacy. Let’s keep it for us.
He sat, buckled into one of the flight chairs on the Du Maurier’s expansive bridge, staring at it, his breath coming in short sharp gasps.
Lacaille’s light faded overhead, the Du Maurier entering the shadow of Esurio. The stars appeared again, cold and sharp against the ebony backdrop of space. He cleared his throat and asked the last question for which he wanted an answer.
‘Sandra,’ he said. ‘Can you show me the location of Earth?’
‘The star Sol is visible from the Du Maurier’s current attitude and inclination,’ Sandra replied. ‘Will that suffice?’
Meru smiled, his voice a whisper. ‘That will be fine.’
Above him, somehow projected beyond the transparent viewports of the bridge, a small targeting reticle appeared, framing a moderately bright star. There was nothing particularly special about it, though the yellow colouring was distinct. Above it were a series of stars that formed a pattern like a cooking pan, or perhaps a herg-drawn plough.
Sandra was saying something.
‘Spectral classification G2V, distance 10.74 light years, absolute magnitude …’
He lost concentration and closed his eyes, his chest hurt.
I’ll just rest for a moment …
Meru.
He smiled.
Kiri?
There was a brief moment of pain, but it was short. He hardly noticed.
Epilogue
Round 2936, Third pass
People stood, looking into the air-conditioned glass cabinet. Within was a skeleton, well preserved; its bones for the most part all intact other than some missing ribs on the left side. The skull was complete, with a set of regular teeth in place. A few other items were laid alongside; a tarnished metal staff some ten hands long, a tiara, a necklace and the remains of a black leather glove.
Visitors to the museum passed it by on a daily basis and the curators were on hand to answer questions about the time period from which the skeleton had been dated; a turbulent era in the history of Esurio.
This batch of visitors was little different, other than the rapt attention of a young girl. She was gazing at the skeleton with more than passing curiosity.
‘Our prize exhibit,’ the curator said, noticing the girl’s interest. ‘A very special woman from a time long ago. Would you like to know about her?’
‘Who was she?’ the girl demanded.
The curator smiled.
‘We don’t know her name,’ he replied, ‘Only the first letter of it. We call her Kate, but there’s no way to know what she was really called.’
‘What did she do?’
‘We believe she was one of the priestesses that worked in the court of Queen Zoella Tiamoi,’ the curator explained. ‘She may have even known the queen.’
‘How do you know she was a priestess?’ The girl continued her questioning unabated.
‘Look here,’ the curator said, pointing at the skeleton’s neck vertebra. Around it was a metal chain, a necklace, with a pendant in the shape of an isosceles triangle. ‘That was the mark of a priestess. It’s a stylised representation of the Obelisk that links our administrators today. Back then they thought it was a religious power, they worshipped it. The priestesses were the only ones who could control it … and they sacrificed especially selected women to it in a strange ritual called the tearing.’
‘How horrible!’ the girl said. ‘How long ago was this?’
‘Oh, this was six hundred rounds or so. All ancient history.’
The girl looked back thoughtfully at the skeleton.
‘The priestesses served the queen then,’ the curator continued. ‘Though really they were a private army. The queen would use them to carry out her orders. Queen Zoella was the first monarch of a new age after the chaos that occurred after the collapse of the Voren Empire two hundred rounds earlier.’
‘She changed things?’
‘Yes. She lived in a dark time, as another flare hit our world. Many people died in wars, famines and conflict, but Zoella brought peace to Esurio, her reign marks the end of what we call the dark rounds. She established control and brought people together. Many people wrote of her wisdom; they called it a golden age. The historians mark it as a major turning point in our understanding.’
‘So she was a good queen?’
‘I think she was one of the better rulers,’ the curator said with a laugh. ‘We don’t really know too much about Zoella, as her home, the city of Viresia, was destroyed in an earthquake seventy rounds after her death. This woman’s casket was found buried within the ruins, it survived the destruction. It was made of metal you see, very unusual for the time. It would have been incredibly expensive. It’s from this skeleton and some of the other items that were found nearby, that we know most about Queen Zoella’s reign.’
The girl didn’t answer, but continued to stare at the skeleton. The curator wondered what she was thinking. He had spent many long spells himself staring at the empty eye sockets of the skull, wondering what sights the woman had seen, what she had done, what kind of person she had been.
If only she could tell us. What secrets about the past might she reveal? There’s so much about this era we don’t know.
‘Zoella was the only queen too,’ the curator added. ‘It was all Kings after that and then the monarchy was abolished a hundred and fifty rounds after her time. Some of her descendants weren’t quite so forward thinking as she was.’
The girl turned her attention to the skeleton.
‘What happened to this priestess?’ the girl asked.
The curator looked at the skeleton.
‘It seems she likely died of a stab t
o the heart,’ the curator said. ‘See how the ribs are broken and missing? We think this poor woman was killed in a fight, she may have even fought to defend the queen from her enemies.’
‘She was a warrior? She could fight?’
‘Oh yes,’ the curator said, with a nod. ‘And she would have been very good at it. There are many signs of the fights she had. The broken ribs for a start. There are signs that many of her bones were broken at times and healed in between. There’s damage to the leg too, and look – can you see the bones in her fingers and left hand? See that pattern?’
The girl leant over and looked, before nodding.
‘At some point something broke this woman’s hand badly,’ the curator said. ‘She was buried with that black glove on that hand – it was likely badly disfigured from the wound. This staff you can see was her weapon. It was called a kai, and she would have been an expert in using it.’
‘How old was she?’
‘Carbon dating shows she was only about twenty three rounds or so – very young, but she would have been extremely fit, you can see how strong her bones still are even now.’
‘Now,’ the curator said. ‘You must see this; the mysterious plaque. It was found on the outside of the casket when it was discovered.’
The curator pointed at metal plate inside the cabinet at the bottom of the display.
‘What does it say?’
‘We can’t read some of the words, unfortunately the metal is too badly corroded in places, obscuring the text, but what we can make is translated there.’ The curator pointed at a small label. ‘They used different symbols for language then.’
The girl looked and read aloud, stumbling over the gaps in the text.
‘Here lies K … she who was s … of Queen Zoella. S? What does S mean?’
‘We don’t know,’ the curator said. ‘Servant … soldier perhaps.’
‘So why is she wearing a tiara?’ the girl asked. ‘That’s so pretty.’
