by Paul Anlee
She spent her remaining ammunition on a long burst at the beast. She opened her energy beam ports and blasted Lucifer with everything she could muster. She turned her propulsion ports toward him, supported herself against the ground with her tentacles, and ignited her MAM propulsion.
The blasts slowed the beast, but he merely grinned, bared his fierce, long fangs, and pushed forward. He could have gone around or over, but he didn’t try. He calmly walked straight at Rebecca, without damage, without pain, without fear.
When he was a few meters away, she deactivated her rockets, converted her tentacles back into deadly scythes, and flung herself at him, yelling savagely into the ether. Her manipulators, tipped with needle points and razor edges, thrust and slashed at the beast. She attacked his stomach and chest, his arms and legs.
The beast stood his ground, taking her jabs and slices, laughing in defiance at her pitiful efforts. His arms reached out quicker than her ultrafast sensors and processors could register. He grabbed two of her six extended tentacles and ripped them from her body.
Rebecca registered the mechanical report of damage but felt no pain. The shock, however, shook her to the core. She pulled away, trailing loose wires and nano-electromechanical muscle fibers.
“I can’t stop him. You need to get out of here. Now!” she sent to Alum and Trillian.
She watched the two men jet away; they were moving too slowly. If she couldn’t delay the beast, they wouldn’t escape. For the first time in her life, failure mattered to her. Alum would be lost.
I can’t let that happen!
She sped back toward the beast. Bobbing and weaving to avoid his grasp, she turned her energy beams on his talons, beams capable of drilling holes in solid asteroid cores. She flew around him as fast as she could, trying desperately to avoid his clutches.
The beast howled as he returned her beams with fiery blasts of his own. He wheeled to follow her, bellowing in frustration.
Rebecca’s blasts passed over his skin and claws harmlessly, doing nothing more than irritate him.
The beast took one final swat and jumped over her, landing some thirty meters closer to the two men, and kept heading toward them.
The men retreated as fast as they could but it didn’t matter. The devil was going to reach Alum in seconds.
Rebecca had one last, desperate idea. The core of her energy source consisted of two lumps of mercury; one was normal matter and the other, antimatter. The simultaneous release of both from their protective magnetic containers and the resulting explosion would destroy much of the habitat. No human could survive such a blast.
But if she were to unleash that force directly against the beast, on the side opposite Alum and Trillian, the explosion might kill the demon while his near-invincible body sheltered the two men from the blast. If she did nothing, they were surely dead.
Rebecca searched through her technical specifications. There was no way for her to bring the two mercury reservoirs into contact. It was something her designers had desired to avoid.
Well, there is one way—she thought. The only way to save Alum would be to destroy herself. If she smashed the containment bottles inside her, it would destroy their isolation fields.
She raced toward the demon, energy beams on full. By the time she reached him, she’d be going fast enough to ensure her own destruction in the crash and, hopefully, his as well.
Irritated by the tickle of her fire, the beast bellowed angrily and ran to meet his foe head on. Fire burst from his maw.
Rebecca smiled. Her tough carboceramic shell and metallic insides would not withstand the coming collision; she would die in a fiery ball of destruction.
She transmitted a final “WOOHOOOOO!” and plunged into the beast.
* * *
Two kilometers away, Trillian and Alum witnessed the impact. Trillian froze the scene and they moved in for a closer inspection.
Rebecca’s cracked and crumpled shell pressed into the demon’s gigantic stomach. Her Securitor body’s antimatter mercury had been released from its protective shield. It was microseconds from contacting the surrounding matter and releasing a torrent of energy that would destroy the entire habitat.
“Remarkable. You really outdid yourself, John.”
“Thank you, sir. The simulation seems to have drawn in the Cybrid mind completely.”
“She believed. No doubt about that.”
“To the point she was ready to sacrifice herself and this habitat for a chance of saving you.”
“Yes, that might have been a bit overdone.”
“I could tone down the fanaticism a little, balance it with better judgement about the consequences of the Securitor’s actions, if you like.”
“They are not likely to encounter Satan in physical form in the universe, are they?”
“You’re not suggesting Satan isn’t real, are you sir?” Trillian’s lopsided grin showed he still felt comfortable enough to tease the younger Alum.
Alum didn’t return the smile. “Oh, Satan is real enough—as a concept of evil, in any case. But it’s highly unlikely the Securitors will encounter any real, physical threat quite so devastatingly invincible among the colonists.”
“The advantage of controlling your own virtual world.”
“Exactly. I think we can leave the concepta virus algorithm exactly as it is for now. I don’t mind a little enthusiasm in those who will enforce our laws.”
“Very well. Shall I begin the Securitor modification program right away, then?”
“Yes. I suspect we’ll be needing them before too long,” Alum replied, a hint of sadness in his voice.
“As you wish.” Trillian waved his hand and they returned from the virtual world to the Cybrid mind lab.
Alum sat forward, breaking contact with the lattice induction plates in the back of his chair. He rubbed his eyes and looked at Trillian as if seeing him for the first time.
“Sometimes your imagination frightens me, John.”
Trillian laughed off his Leader’s comment, but in truth, he was pleased.
16
“Come on, you guys! Hurry up or we’ll be late! The loop station’s still another twenty minutes south.”
Rick had spent the past two minutes working out which way was “south” so that he could indicate the direction to his wife and her friends with confidence. He was ashamed to admit that after all this time in the habitat tunnels, he still hadn’t mastered an internal sense of “north” and “south”.
Directions were never his forte, and with no sun sliding across the sky or any of the old familiar Tennessee landmarks to cue him, he was lost.
They’d told him, various times, “Just face into the direction the asteroid’s rotating, and North will be on the right.” Problem was, he couldn’t feel the direction of rotation any more than he ever felt pull of magnetic north back on Earth. He doubted anyone else could, either.
Fortunately, the Administration had anticipated the problem of waves of new colonists trying to navigate the long, linear cities.
Streets were laid out in grids that respected the axes of the major directions, and direction signs were posted everywhere. North and South ran the length of the habitat tunnels, following the narrow rivers, while East and West were determined just like on Earth. Face North, and East is on your right. Or just follow the street signs.
At least, he was getting used to the weird “sun” that ran the length of the habitat like a giant fluorescent tube bringing “daylight” for fourteen hours a day and dimming for ten hours every “night”.
The Administration decided to keep the antiquated twenty-four hour clock in spite of the growing number of people arguing for a more natural twenty-six hour day. Since the Bible didn’t specify exactly how long God had made the days to be, there was room for arguing both sides.
Rick and Lorene had grown up in small-town Tennessee, married, and never saw reason to leave the region. Living “all crowded up” in a city packed solid with apartment towers over f
orty stories high took some getting used to. But space was at a premium in the habitats, so nobody got their own house. Even though every decent, God-loving, hardworking American had a right to a home, as far as Rick was concerned.
Whoops, there I go again. Not all of God’s children are from America. Most of us, but not all.
In the two decades preceding the evacuation, the YTG Church had spread like wildfire around the globe. So when Yeshua saw fit to save his true followers from being swallowed up by the terrible darkness of Hell, Alum plucked them up from the Americas, Europe, Asia, and even that funny place with the kangaroos and cute little bears, and He delivered them all to the safety of the asteroids.
Rick guessed it must be okay, if that’s what God wanted, though the wisdom of it was beyond his understanding. After all, wasn’t America the best country of all? What was the point of all those other weird countries with their weird customs and their weird languages? How was anyone supposed to understand what they were saying?
“There it is!” Janice exclaimed. She clutched Lorene’s arm and pointed ahead to the lineup outside the loop station. The two women had been inseparable since grade school in Libby, and Rick had invited Janice and her husband Leonard along as their two guests without giving it any thought. Of course, had he considered any other candidates, his wife never would have forgiven him. That made the decision easy.
Altogether, about a million people were expected to travel from their various temporary habitats to a brand new tunnel being opened by Alum on Pallas today.
Rick wasn’t exactly sure where Pallas was situated. He knew there were three colonies located on different asteroids, and each asteroid had half-a-dozen habitat tunnels, give or take.
He also wasn’t sure why they had to go to the loop. Didn’t they need some kind of “rockit” to travel from one asteroid to another? Ain’t no air in space—his daddy used to tell him. Gotta use a rockit. How else would you get around?
Well, except for that trick Yeshua performed when he answered Alum’s prayers and reached down and “moved” all His people from Earth at once. But that was different; that was a miracle.
Rick trusted Alum to get them to Pallas, but he had no idea how this was going to work. Loop trains weren’t no “rockits” as far as he was concerned.
By the time they joined the back of the line, there were at least a thousand others ahead of them. Can’t blame them; I was hoping to get ahead of the crowds, too—Rick thought.
Supposedly, half a million individuals received the coveted direct email invitation. Each invitee was permitted to bring two extra people, if they wished. That’s gonna add up to a whole lot of people!
He wondered what so many people all in one place was going to look like. Good thing the new habitat is so big: four hundred kilometers long and seven klicks across. About two-hundred miles by four miles, or so—Rick did the conversion in his head now. Standing room only, but Alum says we’ll all fit.
He and Lorene had watched the video teaser on the public broadcast system over and over last week, and could hardly contain their excitement.
A special public square had been prepared for today’s event; the expansive open space between the north and south halves of the city was ready to welcome the one million or more special souls expected today.
Ten times that number would be watching the sea of joyous faces from public and private viewing panels scattered throughout the three colony habitats.
He’d hoped to arrive early enough to be among the front-most hundred thousand visitors. Rick felt honored to be one of the privileged few who would soon be in Alum’s presence, even if his chances of getting close enough to see the Leader with his own eyes were slim.
Now, if only I could get Lorene, Janice, and her husband moving. You’d think they could move a little faster now they don’t weigh so much.
Rick knew a bit about gravity, knew it was what held you to the surface of the Earth. He’d proudly rejected the Flat Earth nonsense folks were pushing ages ago. I ain’t stupid—he declared to his neighbors. I seen the curve of the planet, myself, from the plane that time we went to New York City.
He liked to point out to them how the YTG Church supported knowing about things, unlike some churches which claimed all everyone needed to know was written in the Bible. A number of his neighbors just shook their heads, but many of them followed Rick and Lorene into the YTG Church and his status grew in the community. He liked that.
He wasn’t quite sure what held them on the ground inside an asteroid but he’d heard it was like being pinned to the outside of a spinning merry-go-round. Anyway, they’d told him at the Introductory Lecture that the asteroid spun slowly enough that everyone felt quite a bit lighter in the habitats. He figured Janice and Leonard would appreciate that, seeing as they tended to the heavy side.
The foursome shuffled along until they reached the front gate of the loop station. Eager attendants verified their tickets, and they queued up for the first train with enough room to accept them.
“Did you know that these loop trains are based on the old hyperloop transport systems that California built thirty years ago?”
Leonard was a history buff and a bit of a tech geek, but Rick liked that about him. He even knew how to replace damaged boards in some of them old computers.
“And now, here they are in outer space—imagine that! Well, I guess you don’t need to imagine because here we are.”
Leonard paused to gauge the interest of the others. “I’m sorry; I’m running on again. This kinda stuff gets me revved up, is all.”
“That’s okay, we’re excited too. Aren’t we, Rick?” Lorene made eye contact and waited for him to agree. Rick nodded.
“See? Carry on,” Lorene encouraged. “It’ll help pass the time.”
Leonard jumped back in. “Well, the idea of an electromagnetically propelled train in an evacuated tunnel is actually even older than that but, on Earth, getting a full vacuum is—I mean, was—hard. Here on the asteroids, that isn’t a challenge. The vacuum of space is all around us. The trick is how to survive in said vacuum.”
Rick blanched a little. He tried not to think about traveling where there wasn’t any air. On Earth, it had never occurred to him that the loop train tunnels didn’t have much air in them either. While achieving a vacuum state was great for the loop, it was the enemy of the asteroid habitats and the humans living within them.
I guess they are a little like ‘rockits’ after all—he thought.
Rick casually inspected the seals on the set of double-thick, diamond-coated synthetic quartz doors that stood between the people in the habitat proper and the loop train. Those were all that kept him from being sucked into a fast and horrifying death in the depths of space. He read the discreetly displayed shiny safety stickers.
Great. Millions of us out here, all counting on these doors to live up to some engineer-type claiming that they’re “good to over several hundred pounds per square inch.” What if they aren’t? What if they blow? What if they develop a crack? Has anyone thought about that?
Since arriving on the colonies, Rick tried not to think about such things too much. Thankfully, between his assigned work, setting up a new home, and settling into a new community he was usually too busy, too distracted, and then too tired, to worry much about what-ifs.
Another pair of smiling attendants directed them through the doors and into an air-locked boarding room. The first set of doors slid securely closed behind them, and a second set of doors across the space opened to admit them to the train.
Rick had been right in his thinking about loop trains only being able to transport people and goods between habitats on the same asteroid. Thanks to the evacuated loop tunnels, the trains could move at speeds in excess of three thousand kilometers per hour. Travel within and between the habitats on any single asteroid was measured in minutes. The trains could circumnavigate all of Vesta in under an hour, even allowing for stops at every station.
For today’s spec
ial event, Alum had connected “shifting” devices to a few of the main routes. No one other than Alum knew this. Few on Earth had ever known about the existence of the shifters. Only Greg, Kathy, the Reverend LaMontagne, and eventually Alum had known how the technology worked. Even the technicians who’d installed the devices along some of the loop tracks were ignorant of their purpose. The shifters would instantaneously move trains from the Vesta or Ceres routes to a track on Pallas, without the passengers noticing anything out of the ordinary.
Little did the commuters know they’d already experienced this technology; it was the very same one used when they migrated from Earth to the asteroids.
Despite the expensive and frequent spaceships that flew between Earth and the asteroid colonies, people had mostly been moved across such interplanetary distances by shifting. One second you were somewhere, the next, somewhere else.
Except for the YTG members accepted among the earliest colonists in the original competition, everyone who came from Earth in Alum’s coup, came by shifting technology.
Rick and Lorene pushed onto the standing-room-only train car, dragging their friends behind. The train set off, accelerating quickly and smoothly. Rick stared out the window into the tunnel.
The exterior darkness was broken intermittently by lighting inside the loop tunnel. Without paying conscious attention, he could tell when the train stopped accelerating and when the rate of the lights passing in the outside tunnel settled into a steady rhythm.
Likely because of my musical training—he thought. He’d played base for a while in his younger years and been told he had an impeccable, inherent sense of timing.
It was the sudden change in rhythm that led him to imagine the train had been magically transported into a different tunnel. The interval between one pair of lights was slightly shorter than the previous spacing. After that single difference, they immediately settled into a set rhythm.
“Won’t be long now,” he muttered to Lorene.
