Symbios

by Jack Kilborn

  Symbios

  Excerpt from ORIGIN by JA Konrath

  Excerpt from TIMECASTER by Joe Kimball

  Exclusive Ebooks by JA Konrath

  The closest I’ve ever come to hard science fiction. I wrote this back in college, and then polished it up a decade later when it was published by Apex Digest. It was originally called Star Vation, but I wisely changed the title.

  Voice Module 195567

  Record Mode:

  Is this thing working?

  Play Mode:

  Is this thing working?

  Record Mode:

  This is Lieutenant Jehrico Stiles of the mining ship Darion. I’ve crash-landed on an unknown planet somewhere in the Eighty-Sixth Sector. Captain Millhouse Braun is dead.

  I suppose I’m Captain now.

  Captain Braun’s last VM concerned the delays we’d been having due to a micro meteor shower while mining Asteroid 336-09 in orbit around Flaxion.

  A lot has happened since then. The Brain caught the Madness.

  I told Mill a thousand times we shouldn’t have used an Organic, but he was willing to take the risks, as long as he had extra cargo space to carry more ore. You know the sales pitch. Why have an interstellar processor that weighs twenty six metric tons and takes up gads of space when an Organic Brain with nutrient pumps can navigate the ship while weighing only three kilograms?

  Well, we did fit more ore on the ship. And now Mill and the rest of the crew are dead. When the Brain went bad it thrust the ship into Wormhole GG54 and I got spewed out here.

  Mill and Johnson and the rest of the crew were fried when the Brain misfired the photon props. One moment I was watching them on the console viewer, drilling into the asteroid’s cortex, and the next moment they were vaporized and the ship was being hurtled toward the wormhole.

  The trailer detached before I went through, sending millions of credits worth of iron on some unknown trajectory.

  I survived re-entry because the ionic suppressors run automatically and not on Brain power.

  The Brain wasn’t so lucky. It’s dead now, the nutrient containers smashed when we hit the planet’s surface. But the Brain had enough juice left in it to seal every hatch and cargo hold before its functioning ceased.

  Nothing on the ship works. The com-link is dead. The homing beacon is dead. I can’t even open the steel doors to the pantry, and my unrefrigerated food supply is rotting away without me being able to get to it.

  The oxygen systems have malfunctioned, but the planet I’m on has an atmosphere I can breathe. The nitrogen level is high, and I’m light-headed a lot, but so far I’m still alive.

  The temperature is also hospitable to human life. A bit chilly, but mostly pleasant. Days last about forty hours, and nights about twenty.

  I’m surprised this Voice Module still works. It’s got a crack in the case, but the batteries haven’t leaked. I figure without a recharge, I’ve got maybe two hours of recording time left.

  I’ll have to use it sparingly. I’ve salvaged all I can from this damn ship, and I can’t find a lousy pen.

  Voice Module 195568

  Record Mode:

  This is my fourth day on the planet, and I made an impressive discovery. The terrain here tests high for ferrite, making this planet worth a fortune. If no one has staked a claim, I could get funding and mine this place until it’s just as gutted as earth is. The planet is large enough that it might even end the Ore Crisis, perhaps for a few years.

  The only problem is that I’m starving.

  There’s a water stream nearby, brackish but drinkable. I waded in deep and searched for hours, but couldn’t find animal life in the water, or the surrounding area.

  Plant life abounds. At least I think they’re plants. Maybe they’re fungi. They’re reddish in color, lacking chlorophyll, and they have appendages that resemble leaves. The landscape is littered with hundreds of different species, some as high as buildings, some the size of grass.

  None have been edible. Everything I’ve plucked so far contains an acidic enzyme — concentrated highly enough to burn my fingers and my tongue. Swallowing any of it would tear a hole through my stomach.

  But at least I have water.

  I haven’t scouted very far yet, only a few kilometers. Maybe I’ll be lucky and there will something to eat on the other side of that big hill that splits my horizon.

  Hunger is starting to weaken me. I can’t stay awake for more than seven or eight hours. Tried several times to pry open the steel pantry doors, but can’t budge them a crack. I think I broke my big toe kicking the panel in frustration.

  I hope for rescue, but know the odds against it. If this is truly an undiscovered planet, then no one knows it exists, and no one knows that I’m here.

  And I have no way to tell them.

  Voice Module 195569

  Record Mode:

  My hiking boots were a gift from my mother, and came with genuine antique pig-leather laces.

  I boiled and ate the laces this morning. My boots won’t stay on now, and I’ve got — I know this sounds funny — a terrible knot in my stomach. But there’s nothing else to eat. The only other organic thing on the ship is the Brain, and I’m not touching that. I’d rather starve to death. I’d rather die.

  Morals are what make us human.

  Voice Module 195570

  Record Mode:

  I met my new neighbors today.

  They are only knee-high, and somewhat resemble the extinct species called dogs. They’re covered with a short, rough fur, have pointy ears and yellow eyes, and walk around on underdeveloped hind legs.

  I was sleeping in what used to be the control bay, dreaming about food, when I felt something poke me in the ribs.

  I opened my eyes, startled, and found six of them in a circle around me. They spoke to one another with high pitched yaps.

  None wore clothing or carried weapons. And even when I stood, towering over them by some five feet, none seemed afraid.

  One of them yipped at me in what might have been a question. I said hello, and it cocked its head, confused by my voice. I can’t recall reading about any life form like these back in school. For all I know they are an undiscovered species.

  They half-coaxed, half-pushed me out of my ship and led me further than I’d previously scouted, over the hill.

  They took me to their home. There were no structures, just a collection of holes in the dirt. When we arrived, dozens of little brown heads popped up out of the holes to stare at me.

  A short time later, I was surrounded.

  A kind of collective humming sound rose up within the group, and they all came to me, holding out tiny paws to touch my legs. They took turns, their eyes locked on mine.

  For a moment, I felt like a god.

  When I reached out to touch them they weren’t afraid. And when I did pat a head their dog lips turned into grins and they wiggled their tails.

  It was like being around dozens of well-behaved children. For a while I completely forgot how hungry I was.

  Voice Module 199571

  Record Mode:

  They eat the plants. Somehow they’re immune to the acid content. They eat many different varieties, raw. Then, out of their droppings, new plants grow.

  Nature’s perfect symbiotic planet. Ironic that I’d wind up here, considering how my own species has trashed the earth, and the planets of the surrounding star systems.

  Perhaps this is a penance of sorts.

  I stayed for most of the day in the village, watching the puppies play, patting small heads. I’ve counted eighty-two dog people in this settlement. Maybe there are other settlements, elsewhere. Staring across the huge landscape with nothing to see but kilometers of horizon, I have to wonder.

  Later I left them and tried once again
to pry open the metal door that locks away all of the food in the ship’s pantry. Once again I was unsuccessful.

  Voice Module 199572

  Record Mode:

  I’m dying. My clothes hang on my body like sheets, and I know I’ve lost at least fifteen kilograms.

  The dogs seem to understand that I’m deteriorating in some way. They try to do funny things to make me laugh, like cartwheels or jumping on me, but I can’t laugh.

  In fact, when I look at the dogs for too long, I start to salivate.

  I wonder what they taste like.

  Like that synthetic meat, locked away in the ship’s pantry?

  I’ve never had real meat. Could never afford it. My father had a cat steak once, and said it was delicious. My grandfather remembers when he was young and there were still a few cows left, and he used to get meat on holidays.

  What do these little dog people taste like?

  If I wanted to I could wipe out the entire village in just a few minutes. They have no weapons. They don’t move very fast. Their teeth are rounded. I could kill their entire population and not even get scratched.

  But I don’t. I can’t. I won’t.

  Voice Module 199573

  Record Mode:

  I ate the Brain today.

  I thought it would be rotten, but there was no decay at all. I have a hypothesis why. Decay is caused by bacteria, and perhaps this world has none.

  I boiled the Brain, picked out the glass shards, and ate with my eyes closed, trying not to think about what it was.

  But I did think about it.

  It shouldn’t matter. After all, the Brain had ceased operation. Tissue is tissue.

  Even if the tissue is human.

  Besides, the volunteers who sign up for the Organic Processor Program are elderly, near the ends of their lives. Running a starship gave a brain donor dozens of extra years of sentience, of life.

  And, important point, this one did go mad and kill my crew and destroy my ship.

  It owed me.

  There wasn’t any taste to it. Not really. But when I was finished eating, I cried like a child.

  Not because of what I had done.

  But because I wanted more.

  Voice Module 199574

  Record Mode:

  I can’t eat an intelligent life form. Not that the dog people are particularly intelligent. No tools, no clothing, no artificial shelter, though they do have a rudimentary form of communication. I even understand some of their words now.

  I can’t eat things that speak.

  But all I’ve consumed in the past fifteen days were two shoe laces and a soggy, very small Brain.

  I have a few solar matches left. I could spit-roast one of these doggies using a piece of pipe.

  What did my grandfather call it? A barbeque.

  The village has named me. When I come by, they yip out something that sounds like “Griimmm!”

  So to the dog people I am Grim.

  They sleep next to me and hug my legs and smile like babies.

  Please let a rescue ship find me tonight, so I don’t have to do what I’m planning to do.

  Voice Module 199575

  Record Mode:

  I ate one.

  When I awoke this morning I had such a single-mindedness, such a raw craving to eat, that I didn’t even try to fight it.

  I went to the dog people’s village, picked up the nearest one, and as it yipped “Griiimmm!” with a smile on its face, I broke its neck.

  I didn’t wait around to see what the others did. I just ran back to ship, drooling like a baby.

  Then I skinned the little dog person with a paring knife.

  It was delicious.

  Roasted over an open fire. Cooked to perfection. I only left the bones.

  When I was done, the feeling was euphoric. I was sated. I was satisfied.

  I smacked my lips and patted my stomach and knew how grandfather must have felt. Real meat was amazing. It made the synthetic stuff seem like garbage.

  Then I noticed all of dog people around me.

  They stared, their eyes accusatory and sad. And they began to cry. Howling cries, with tears.

  When I realized what I had done, I cried too.

  Voice Module 195576

  Record Mode:

  Two months on this damn planet, and that’s according to these sixty hour days, so it’s more like half a year. I haven’t recorded anything in a while, because I haven’t wanted to think about what I’ve been doing.

  I’ve eaten fifty-four dog people so far.

  I’ve stopped losing weight, but I can count my ribs through my shirt. One a day isn’t enough nourishment for a man my size.

  I try to make it enough. I have to ration. And not because of any moral reason.

  The population is dwindling.

  I don’t know why they haven’t run away. Packed up and left.

  But they haven’t.

  They don’t fear me. Maybe they don’t understand fear.

  The young puppies still hug my legs when I visit the village.

  Everyone else stays inside their holes.

  I try not to take the young ones. Instead I dig with my hands and pluck the adults from the ground. They don’t fight. In fact, they try to hug me.

  I think I’m a little insane at this point.

  When I grab them, and they look at me with those sad eyes and say my name…

  Sometimes I wish they would run away, leaving me to starve. So I couldn’t kill any more of them.

  It’s like eating my children.

  Voice Module 199577

  Record Mode:

  There are just three left.

  They don’t even go underground anymore. It’s almost as if they’ve accepted their own deaths.

  I wonder sometimes if I deserve to live when so many have died.

  But the hunger. The terrible hunger.

  I know when my food supply here runs out, I’ll have to search for more.

  More children to eat.

  How can something that sickens make my stomach rumble?

  Voice Module 199577

  Record Mode:

  A ship!

  I saw a ship orbiting.

  It was night. I was staring at the constellations, trying to remember my astronomy so I could pinpoint where I was in the galaxy.

  One of the stars moved.

  It circled the planet twice in three hours. I hope against hope it’s a manned ship, not a damned probe. Please let there be people on board. I can’t last too much longer.

  There is nothing left to eat. I’ve consumed the entire dog village, boiled their bones and eaten the hides, hair and all.

  I’m so thin I look like a skeleton with my face.

  Voice Module 195578

  Record Mode:

  The ship landed several kilometers away. I ran most of the way to it, my euphoria bordering on hysterics.

  It turned to hysteria when I saw the ship.

  Nothing human made it.

  It was spherical and grey, like a giant pearl. At first I thought it was some type of meteorite. There were no portals or exhausts, just smooth grey curves, reflecting the world around it.

  I hadn’t gotten within a few steps when it opened. A hole just sort of appeared in its side. Small and blurry at first, but soon several meters wide. I hid behind an outcropping of rocks.

  Then something came out of the hole.

  It was twice my size. Vaguely humanoid, but lacking a head. Six yellow eyes stared out from behind the clear visor encircling its chest. The eyes moved in different directions, scanning the terrain. No arms, but under the trunk of the body were four legs, thick and each ending in three long toes.

  Its skin appeared reptilian; black scales that shone as if wet.

  On the lower half of its body, it wore a bizarre version of pants. Above the eyes was a large and impressive mouth. I instantly thought of old hologramsI’d seen depicting sharks. The rows of triangular jagged teeth encircled the t
op of the creature like a bastardized crown.

  As odd as its appearance was, it seemed to exude a kind of peace. I felt as if I were looking at a fellow intelligent being rather than an enemy from space.

  I took a step toward it, and it reared up on its two back legs and waved its front legs at me, making a snorting sound. I suppose my appearance unnerved it. My features probably were just as strange and grotesque to it as it was to me.

  “I won’t harm you,” I told it.

  “I won’t harm you,” it repeated, imitating my voice perfectly. It lowered its front legs and took a cautious step forward. I also took a step.

  “Zeerhweetick,” it said.

  I tried to imitate the sound as best I could. It relaxed its legs and squatted when we were within a meter of each other. I also sat down.

  “I won’t harm you,” it said again.

  I recalled my astronaut training. Intelligent Lifeforms 101 was an entirely hypothetical class about the possibility of communication with an intelligent alien life form. It was in the curriculum because the World Assembly demanded that all space travelers have that training. They believed if we ever did encounter a new race, the first meeting between species would set the tone for all future relations. Making first impressions and all that crap.

  Everyone considered it a joke class — we’d visited hundreds of planets, and never encountered any life form smarter than a cockroach.

  Now I felt like that was the most important class I ever took.

  I began by using words and miming motions. Pointing to myself I said, man. Pointing at its ship I said, ship. And so on.

  It watched, and repeated, and within an hour it had picked up several verbs and began asking questions.

  “Man here long?” it said in my voice. Then it pointed to the ground.

  “Fifty cycles,” I said. I flashed fifty fingers, then pointed at the sun, slowly moving across the horizon.

  “More men?”

  “No.”

  “Ship?”

  “Broken.” I pulled up a nearby weed and cracked it in half, illustrating my point.

  It gestured at its own ship with a three fingered leg and also yanked a plant from the ground.

  “Ship broken.” It ripped the weed in two.

  “Man,” I said again, pointing to myself. Then I pointed at it.

  “Zabzug,” it said, pointing at itself.

  “Hello, Zabzug.”