by Barry Kirwan
She knew he must be right. This past month she’d been having premonitions of Eden – that some terrible alien was there, waiting to kill them all. And the fact that it was in a desert, and her dead sister – what was that all about anyway? And of course the face. She hadn’t told Zack that part, it would have upset him. In the last few seconds before the monster reached him, its face had changed into a human face: Zack’s.
Shaking her head, she attempted to sit up, but her arms were jelly, and she collapsed back down. She tried again, slower this time, and realized how sweaty she was. Definitely time for a shower. She crawled out of the cot. Her legs quivered, weakened from stasis. All that running, she thought, and laughed.
Setting the shower-head to "Rain", she let the hot water cascade over her head and body. As she relaxed, she remembered a detail she’d forgotten – it hadn’t seemed important at the time. But she’d studied dream psych at college, and you almost never saw yourself from above – except in near-death experiences – not in dreams or even nightmares. And that top-down viewpoint – whose view was it? The creature had attacked it, no longer chasing the Kat figure on the ground. She didn’t know what that meant, but somehow the thought chilled her. She shivered. But she didn’t believe in anything metaphysical. Zack was right. Just a dream, nothing more. Dreams don’t have to make sense, and don’t have to mean anything. She set the water to very hot, adjusted the nozzle to "Needle", and turned around, leaning her head against the misted cubicle door, hoping the pinpricks of steaming water would melt the shivers from her spine.
The cockpit was more cramped than usual: they’d had to adapt Zack’s pilot chair due to his leg being in a cast. Kat’s area, directly behind Zack’s, was now squeezed. She envied Blake’s position, and Pierre’s science station looked positively spacious. Real estate was a prime commodity on a space-ship, she thought to herself, and laughed inwardly – space ship – now there was an oxymoron!
She watched Zack rig up for decel. He operated a compound joystick and neural interface connected to an oculometer, a small device that fit like glasses, which shone an infrared beam onto his right eye. It allowed him to make rapid course changes if necessary, simply by looking in a direction he wanted to go and uttering a sub-vocal command through his throat-mike.
Kat envied his pilot skills – not many people could use this kit at all, let alone with his precision and response speed. She knew it came from his battle experience: dodging heat-seekers and blister-mines that took out half of all aircraft in the War.
They were nearing visual sighting of Eden. Zack, his leg propped up on a non-functioning part of the console, had been making minor course adjustments for the past two hours to get them there in the fastest possible time. All the calculations and contingency plans had been prepared and triple-checked manually. She noticed more instrument lights were on than when the virus had first hit; Blake and Pierre had been busy while she’d been in stasis. They’d managed to restore thirty per cent of the software, so they’d have good sensors, and alarms would sound if they were too steep or shallow on orbit intercept. But for the rest, they were in Zack’s hands.
It was quiet, the only sounds occasional thruster burns, Zack’s wincing noises, and the "beep" that occurred very two minutes confirming they were still on target and lined up for Eden.
Kat felt a subdued excitement. After all they’d been through, they were finally about to reach Eden, the salvation of humanity. And they had oxygen to breathe, at least enough to get them down to the planet’s surface, where they could replenish supplies for the trip home.
As astronauts, it was the ultimate dream: to reach a new, habitable planet. The first major step had been that of Neil Armstrong, onto the moon’s surface. Then there had been Yanni Sorensen, the first man to set foot on Mars, and Carlita Fernandes, the first woman to place a foot, or a fin as it had turned out to be, into the icy quagmire of Europa, floating around the awesome spectacle of Jupiter. But none of these worlds had been remotely habitable. They could build stations there, but the resource requirements meant they were unsustainable, and all such stations except a couple of so-called strategic bases on the Moon had long since been abandoned Post-War, due to the sheer cost, with almost nothing in return except abstract scientific data.
Their mission was different. Everything had fed forward to this point. Over a century of space exploration had been building to this moment. The whole crew sensed it, and despite being cut off from Earth, those back home would be aware that they were nearing Eden. Better still, they were out of harm’s way, the Alicians couldn’t touch them. Despite ghosters and viruses, they were going to make it.
She studied Blake, his eyes fixed outside the spaceship hunting for Eden, seeking it out in amongst the millions of points of light, a look of resolve welded onto his face. He’s willing us to Eden. They picked the right man for the job.
Zack interrupted the silence and her train of thought. "Okay, folks, this is it. Time for decel. Buckle up!"
They all fixed their harnesses including forehead straps. Kat didn’t have to be told to do it properly. The first experiments on deceleration from dark matter drives had been wildly successful and simultaneously catastrophic for the crew, who had ended up splattered all over the cockpit, their internal organs shredded by the decelerative forces before they had escaped the body’s fickle confines. The harnesses in fact were a minor part of their survival kit. Most of the work was done by the Schultz-Piccione inertial dampening system inside the ship. She was relieved when its tell-tale thrum kicked in. Her body started to tingle, then vibrate, as its pitch rose. Pierre had told them once, over dinner, that if the sound rose to roughly high C, it meant that it was failing, and they were about to explode, but that they would probably lose consciousness. Pierre wasn’t one to take along to dinner parties, she’d decided a long time ago.
Kat shook so much she finally realized how a cocktail must feel: she felt her abdominal organs moving around, though she couldn’t tell which. Speech, and even yelling were impossible. It was advisable to keep her mouth clamped shut – the nearest dentist was a long way away. But soon enough it began to die down. Her relief was blanketed by nausea. She hit the harness release buckle, eager to see out of the cockpit, and stood up, leaning on Zack’s burly shoulders, staring forwards.
"Welcome to Eden," Blake said, as they all gaped at the main viewscreen. It was still some way off, a medium-sized disk, a silhouette in front of its own sun, some hundred and forty million kilometers away on the other side. They were still travelling relatively fast, but decelerating at a speed that could now be handled by the inertial field. She felt a thrill run through her, even though they couldn’t see much yet.
It had been so long just seeing stars, dots of white light, that she’d forgotten what it was like to see a whole planet again. The last one they had seen had been Saturn, before the slingshot out of the Solar System. She felt a lump in her throat, and apparently Pierre also was moved, because he placed a hand briefly on her shoulder – at least she hoped that was the reason.
Zack chimed in. "She sure is a sight for sore eyes! Hang on to something, this’ll be worth it!" He moved the joystick forward, and the ship gave a spurt of acceleration – catching Kat off-balance, so that Pierre caught her. The ship veered outward in an arc, placing the sun initially behind Eden, creating an eclipse, and then showing the sun burst out from behind, forcing them all to shade their eyes until the screen polarized. Kat regained her balance.
For the first time they could see color on Eden. The lush forest green and Mediterranean blue, after so much black, silver and white made Kat gasp. The continents were very different to Earth’s, and two small polar caps blazed like icing on a spherical cake.
"My God, it really is Eden!" She wanted to whoop.
Blake nodded to Zack. "Well, my friend, you’ve got us this far, take us into orbit. Kat, Pierre, take your stations."
She felt a cautious happiness, like a small animal daring to come out of its hole
into the sunshine. So much of her personal life had gone badly wrong.
Pierre jarred the mood. "That’s unusual."
She turned back round to catch what the other three were now staring at. At first she didn’t see it. But as they headed further to the sunward side of Eden, it was unmistakable. A circular orange-brown patch decorated one of Eden’s continents.
"Looks like a desert," Pierre said, "but it wasn’t there when the Prometheus came two years ago."
Kat glanced at Zack’s face reflected in the screen, but he didn’t return the look. She gazed again towards Eden. It was a desert alright. No question.
Blake broke the silence. "Okay, we’ll figure it out later. First things first. We get into orbit and then prepare for descent. Stations, please."
They all sat down and busied themselves. It proved trickier than they had thought, but they achieved a stable orbit on the first attempt. Kat glued her eyes to the console, not wanting to face Eden right now, nor Zack. She wondered if she should tell the Captain or Pierre. But it would seem ridiculous, and wouldn’t help anything. For the first time in a while, she thought of her faraway lover back in Eden Mission Control.
A red light on her console flashed, her earpiece automatically activating. Pierre swung out of his chair and leant over her shoulder – he had obviously picked it up on the science console, too. Blake turned around. Zack was using the neural interface and oculometer, so couldn’t even deviate his eyes to see what was going on.
"Report," Blake said.
Kat’s stomach turned to ice when she heard the com-message.
Pierre waited for her to answer, but when she didn’t, he offered what he knew. "It’s a com signal, Sir."
She turned her right palm towards her and stared at it, in case she was in the nightmare again.
"From Earth?" Blake asked.
Her breath sounded raspish in her ears. She listened again, praying she’d misheard. She regained control. "It’s… from Eden."
The ship veered slightly, then recovered. Blake stood up, faced Kat, and placed a steadying hand on Zack’s shoulder, leaving it there.
"What does it say?" His voice was quiet.
Kat removed the earpiece and handed it to Pierre.
Pierre cleared his throat. "It says, Captain, that is, it keeps repeating…" he looked out toward the planet below, which was now occupying most of the screen, then back at the Captain. Blake didn’t say anything, just waited for him to compose himself. None of them had ever known Pierre hesitate before. He cleared his throat again.
"It says, 'Do not land here. Eden is not safe. Eden is a trap.’ Then it repeats."
Everyone held their breath. Kat gazed up at Blake. His face locked itself down, serious. "Where is it coming from exactly, on the planet’s surface?"
Pierre returned to his station and ran a triangulation algorithm to fix it. Kat slumped in her chair. Pierre was getting an answer from his console. But Kat already knew, and spoke, her voice uneven. "It’s from the desert, isn’t it?"
Pierre gave her a sideways look. "How did you know?"
She didn’t answer, just stared at her console, wanting to punch it. She remembered her dream, the running, running to save her life, running to save everything. It was all going to come true, somewhere down on the planet’s surface. And when it did, she knew this time she wasn’t going to wake up.
PART TWO
EDEN
Chapter 17
Furnace
Micah’s heart pounded up into his throat as he stared into Rudi’s dark-ringed eyes, peering at him over the barrel of a pulse pistol – what sort he couldn’t tell, but at this range it hardly mattered. Rudi’s hand wasn’t steady. Micah didn’t know if that was a good or a bad sign.
He was strapped into the Optron chair with safety harnesses. His arms were free, but he couldn’t reach the release buckles which Rudi had moved to the back of the chair.
"Rudi, what is this? I was just –"
"Save it, Micah, I know you’ve been inside my world. So you’re a smart guy, you know at least part of what’s going on, enough to put me in prison."
Micah saw a movement behind Rudi, in the corridor, someone bending down. Maybe he could attract their attention. Or stall until Louise arrived.
Rudi’s usual smooth tones took on a ragged edge. "Did you like what you saw? Not what you were expecting, eh?" He appeared to be gloating.
Micah thought fast. He’d always been seen as the clever one, the higher ranking of the two of them; that must have irked Rudi over the years. Low-level flattery might buy some time.
"To tell you the truth, I was impressed. And the mirror? Real smart. I would have hit it except for…" He stopped. Did Rudi know about the simulacra?
Rudi tilted his head to one side. "Except for what? And how did you find out about the mirror – you should have slammed right into it and exited the program immediately. There was a bio-feedback loop installed to create an energy build-up in the Optron if you hit it. Would have knocked you out, at the least."
Micah tried to work out the ramifications of telling Rudi about the Kat simulacrum. In any case, would Rudi really kill him? Here in the lab? Somewhere else? He noticed the Optron was still on, fully powered.
"Rudi, listen, can I get down from here, I’ve been here for –"
"Stay put buddy, you’re not done yet."
So that was it: Optron overload, rigged to kill or mind-wipe. His time was running out. Could he overpower Rudi? Not a chance, tied to this chair. He took another tack.
"Where’s the third program, Rudi, the third interface? You get the real data, mine sends back spurious shit – but what feeds my program?"
Rudi lowered the pistol, but gestured to Micah to stay put. He strutted around in front of Micah, never taking his eyes off him.
"You were always the intellectual. The natural pattern recognizer, manipulator of equations. The geek, Micah, you fit the part perfectly. But I was smarter, I had any woman I wanted, pretty much. Life was good, but I didn’t fit the profile. I had this idea, years ago, but couldn’t express it in math. They wouldn’t listen. Thought I was a good guy to have a beer with, but not the real deal. I was going nowhere, fucking nowhere. And then someone did listen, someone who understood my talents. One thing led to another." He shrugged.
Micah had never thought of Rudi as a friend, had never been out with him for drinks, but never thought of him as a spy. Now it all seemed to fit. Rudi had enough character traits to fit the role. But still, he never thought Rudi had it in him to be a traitor.
"Alicians?"
Rudi laughed. "Do I look that dumb? Bunch of fanatics! No, I’m working for another corporation. They helped me with the mirror simulation. It’s a beaut!"
There was a gleam in his eyes. Micah recognized the old Rudi he’d met four years ago, cocky but full of ideas. But it crumbled, like all of Rudi’s ideas over the years. Rudi had finally gotten his dream to come true, but Micah knew that without recognition it wouldn’t soothe the pain. The old Rudi was gone, which meant Micah’s situation was grim.
"What does the other corporation want?" He guessed the mirror was the third interface, even if he had no clue how it worked. Still, it would need an access portal out of the Eden Mission, through the firewalls. "Which corporation, and why?"
Rudi glanced at his watch, then at Micah and the Optron. "Sorry, Mikey, out of time." He raised the remote control and pressed a button that moved the boom to connect to Micah’s head, pinning him to the chair. Micah started to panic, reaching for the Optron headset, but there were no wires to pull, only cold, implacable carb-steel. The auto-electrodes clamped onto his temples.
"Rudi, for God’s sake, you can’t do this!" he yelled, the loudness of his own voice sending him further into panic. He kicked aimlessly.
Rudi’s previously confident voice now sounded strained, but laced with bitterness. He glanced towards the door.
"You’re right, Micah. I don’t have to do it. But I will. I’d say sweet dre
ams, but we both know that would be a lie. I’ve switched you back to my world. Before brain death, the carrion birds will eat you alive. It won’t be real of course, but you’ll feel it just the same. So long, little big shot."
Rudi flicked a switch and the Optron emitted a low hum, climbing in pitch.
Micah fought helplessly, squirmed, kicked, and screamed "No!", and then he heard a small gasp, and something heavy slump to the floor. He was unable to turn his head. The Optron gleamed in front of him, and he felt himself being sucked in. He didn’t want to die, not like this. And for the first time in his life, in his mind he called out, not for his mother, but for his father, to help him. Then he felt something touch his neck, and a tingling coldness spread like a freezing cobweb across his face and down his arms; an icy chill that squeezed him out of consciousness.
He awoke on a dusty floor in a dark room, little bigger than a broom closet. He’d been roused by a clanging, but he couldn’t make out where he was. He couldn’t move. He tried to get up, but nothing happened. He opened his eyes with a massive effort. Then he heard movement – someone else was there, maneuvering around him. He felt a sharp pricking sensation in his neck. Nausea surged through him; tremors wracked his body, then vanished. He fell forward and vomited, remaining on all fours, trying to recover his breath in between spasms of retching. A graveyard voice came from behind him.
"Your colleague is dying. What awoke you was the sound of the furnace chute door closing. He is burning to death below. He will be gone in a few moments. In such a predicament fear and pain usually trigger a heart attack before the burning boils the brain. I am a Cleanser. We believe that death, and in particular the pain of death, is a necessary cleansing process before meeting the Maker of all things. I drugged him so he will neither move nor scream, but he will still feel everything."
