by Lea Tassie
"Well, that’s a switch." The small green life form clicked and chirped in a distressed way. It was clearly upset at being near these new beings, and Dart could feel its alarm. "It’s okay, Snot, I won't let anything bad happen to you. You're the only friend I have." The little green life form seemed to understand, for it became quiet.
Dart closely examined the life forms in the huts. He decided to try changing his appearance, something that the science he once possessed could do. If he looked the way they did, he might be able to interact without alarming them. They were very odd to look at, bluish in color, with a single limb or stump to stand on, several arms without fingers but with pincers. They had stocky bodies that looked like Frisbees, along with what had to be eyes on the back and a mouth on the front. Dart focused his mind and listened carefully to the jabbering these creatures made. Slowly a discernible language of sorts emerged.
The closest creature said to one nearby, "Be bad glide stick was you afraid." Dart found the sentence perplexing. The other responded, "You like me saw glide stick scarier me." It was one thing to recognize the words they spoke, something entirely different to get the meaning.
"Brindle pop a rock and hide, glide stick yields fear," the closest creature stated, as if it were a command of sorts. "More others must come, demand glide stick not stay!" With this response from the other creature, Dart was slowly making sense of the conversation. It appeared he was the "glide stick," and they were afraid of his appearance and were contemplating gathering forces to fight him.
Two other small creatures arrived by rolling across the surface like tumbleweeds. There were now four creatures at the hut Dart hovered over. They spent a long time touching each other upon arrival, which Dart guessed was a greeting. The more he watched and listened, the more he understood, but decided it would be best if he observed for a few days before trying to appear as one of them.
He would occasionally turn the blinding field back on in random locations around the nearby huts. This would cause the creatures to jabber wildly, giving Dart more time to try and understand the pattern of their language.
He soon understood the comment, "pop a rock," for as Dart appeared suddenly, a small creature would attach itself to the ground by its single leg, appear to digest a section of rock, then hurl it at Dart. Therefore, to pop a rock was to gather up a stone and throw it.
As dusk faded and the planet returned to daylight, Dart enjoyed what seemed to be perpetual morning. It appeared that the planet was locked tidally to its small red star, having one side of the planet always facing the sun and the other in perpetual darkness. The life that had developed existed only in a small band of land that circled the planet where the temperatures were conducive to life forms. The world's slight wobble produced the day and night effect.
About twenty of the small beings had gathered at the hut where Dart continued to make occasional appearances. They all jabbered and reacted violently when Dart turned the blinding field on, and soon Dart understood why. On one occasion, just as he activated the blinding field, he heard a terrifying screech from high above his head.
Dart quickly discovered that this sound came from a predator which hunted in packs of three. Their bodies looked like large gas-filled balloons, and they floated in the upper atmosphere until hungry, then descended to hunt for a meal.
He'd learned in school that intelligent life forms arise from environmental conditions which encourage complex tasks, and that the resulting adaptation generates complex thought. His teacher had suggested that a water planet with an oxygen atmosphere could develop intelligent jellyfish. If these jellyfish could biogenetically convert water to hydrogen, they could then use the hydrogen to enter the atmosphere and use their bodies like balloons. Floating above the water, they could easily spot their prey. Then, releasing their hydrogen, plunge down upon their next meal like spears.
This was not a water planet and the predators weren't jellyfish, but Dart supposed the principle held. He'd had no idea that causing the small creatures to gather near the hut meant that they would become meals. The little creatures instantly set up a defensive position by joining bodies and gathering rocks. They were ready for a fight.
The first predator descended through the thin clouds and plunged full speed at the creatures. They hurled a barrage of rocks to drive it off, and then the second one attacked. It used the same tactic, swooping in fast and drawing fire, while the third predator came in from behind. The third predator ejected from its body a thin, wicked-looking proboscis and, like a vampire mosquito, struck one of the little creatures and sucked all the liquid from its body.
The chaos caused the creatures to turn toward the third attacker, and that’s when the first predator struck. In equally sickening fashion, the first predator struck and sucked dry a target. Then the second predator hit. Dart now realized why the huts were built so far apart. It was unsafe to gather in groups.
Dart felt awful at having been the cause of these creatures' deaths. He had gathered them together only to learn from them and instead, got five of them killed. He'd quickly blinked the three predators to the other side of the planet, but watched in sorrow as the small creatures displayed sadness and anger over the recent event, gathering the dried husks of their fallen comrades and committing them to a burial.
Dart had forgotten about Snot, and when he turned his attention back to his little friend, he was shocked. The small green creature looked like it was crying.
Planet B was very different from his own and yet so similar and familiar, with life forms that simply wanted to live in peace. Dart decided he had no business being here. He had caused enough grief, like his father, and he now understood how easy it was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. And make the wrong decisions.
He would find his way home to Earth.
Chapter 19 Charger R/T meets Charger
As Dart had planned, planet Earth materialized in a quiet corner of space, where it held prominent position around an average yellow star with a year-long ellipse, 365 day-per-year transit and a 24-hour-a-day rotation. On the surface of this green and blue jewel, in a grassy meadow sparkling with dew in the morning light, beside a wide river, sat a single box. As important as the Holy Grail had been to some people in the distant past, this box contained the answer to humanity’s continuing questions. Will Earth survive? Will humanity survive? And what will they become?
She emerged from the box shaking and cold, alone and pregnant but not afraid, the mother of humanity at age twelve. She would have time to construct her new world before she turned eighteen and began to give birth to the children of Earth. She was a message of hope from a species which had finished its course, corrected some of its mistakes and had relinquished the stage to a new people and a new way of life.
She now stood naked on fresh, wet grass looking out at the world she owned, with only a single companion. By her side was a small, hovering crystal shard, light blue in color and perhaps a foot long. It was the only piece of technology sent with the girl, but a powerful companion designed to help her survive.
Reader glanced around, and memories rose in her mind. "My mother had a kind face, and thick red hair, and she called me Elizabeth. I strayed away from her one day into the great forest. Though I was then lost and alone, I now stand as the one thing between darkness and light for the human race. Was I chosen for this task by the strange god who found me that day?"
No answer came from memory nor from the blue shard. The shard never spoke to her, but they shared information directly, mind to mind.
The blue shard began by creating a small fire for warmth, then persuaded the trees to provide wood for shelter. The first animal to arrive was a small brown rabbit, carrying fresh vegetables for sustenance. A red fox came next, holding a large bird in its mouth, and shared the kill with the girl. Several other animals gathered, all bearing gifts to ensure that she would survive.
Thus Earth responded to her needs, cradled and protected her, cared for and sustained her, gave h
er a place in the hierarchy of life, as it had to primitive humanity, hundreds of thousands of years in the past. She would be, not only the mother, but the queen of the new race of humans to come.
The shard, designed through a scientific understanding of all the known elements of the universe, could create anything, but provided only what the girl required. It appeared magical, but was, in fact, the highest and best of humanity’s science. The simple box she had been in became a small house. A garden grew quickly around this modest place, the world offering its beauty to her. Over the next six years, the girl watched as the shard created small villages with simple roads, beautiful gardens and healthy animals.
In her eighteenth year, she began giving birth to a new human each and every day. This was not ancient biology but a new aspect of science that produced these humans. She experienced no labor, and knew and loved every single child.
Three hundred and sixty-five children were born each year and the shard saw to all their needs. Though the girl was a creation of science, her children were as frail and innocent as any child of humanity had been. But they rapidly came of age and they too began to have children. The cycle of human life spun again, slowly, inexorably.
When the population reached one thousand new humans, the girl's task was complete. She was programmed for twelve more years of life, then she would be no more. She loved the children as they grew, and named them, and would kiss them as often as she could. However, she knew that before she died, she had one final task. She had to help Charger.
Charger R/T no longer had a purpose, for he had killed Abarth and Spyder and put an end to their madness. He had destroyed the giants and the black spheres. He had watched for many years as humanity struggled with wars and chaos, while his dislike for people grew and grew. And then he'd ended it by destroying the solar system. All he wanted now was to distance himself from the wretchedness humanity exhibited.
The girl reached back through time, found the beast in his restless state, and did her best to soothe him to contentment. Charger R/T would have none of it. He tried to drive her voice from his fractured mind, but the whispers persisted and she never realized the pain she caused.
One day he exploded in madness and decided to find his original self and end humanity for good. The arrow of time that bounced Charger R/T from century to century had brought him into the time line with his older, but younger in time, self. He knew that this older self was, at this very moment, walking the surface of what had become the world ship, on his way to die beneath a great tree. Charger R/T decided that if he could persuade his older self to join him, the two of them could easily wipe out humanity and put an end to the never-ending madness.
Reader called to him, whispered in his mind, begged him to listen and forgive the people who had abandoned him, but the beast would not be swayed. Charger R/T blinked to the world ship and waited on the trail he knew his older self would soon be walking.
The older Charger looked defeated, his armor worn and cracked, often bleeding and causing him great pain when it rained. His feet were soaked in blood from walking and the thought of what he had done to the small good people who had befriended him weighed heavy on his chest. He alone was responsible for the creation of the cannibals. He had, in a moment of impatience, not thought things through clearly and this mistake cost him the last of his pride.
Charger was a broken man when he walked the trail that led him toward a figure blocking his path. He stared long and hard, puzzled by the face this stranger presented. The Hyborg that blocked his path looked like a younger version of himself, strong and confident. It could only be an illusion.
Charger hoped the illusion would disappear, but it didn't. "Who are you?" Charger asked. The beast stood unmoved, looking fierce and wild, its face twisted and contorted. Charger distrusted illusions, and mumbled under his breath, "Great, now I'm nuts!"
The beast finally replied, "Brother, I have come for you, we have a great destiny to fulfill."
Charger stopped walking and pushed long graying hair back from his dirty, heavily lined old face. He stared into the younger face that blocked his path. After a few moments, the old vampire asked, "Do I know you?"
"We are brothers. I have come for you, for we have a task to complete." The beast replied, almost a command rather than a simple statement.
"I don't know who you are, or who you think you are. I don't care if you're real or a figment of my imagination, but I have served my time."
Charger was done causing grief and misery to a people that despised him. His blinding field had long since failed him and he did not care now if the humans of this world saw him. He would hide no more, for he only wanted an end. He would never again allow himself to be the weapon of humanity. He tried to step around the beast and go on his way, but the beast blocked Charger with a hand on his chest.
"This is no illusion," Charger thought, "this is real." The old vampire stepped back, perplexed.
"I killed every last Hyborg, and I don't remember you," Charger said to the beast.
It replied, "Yes, I remember."
Charger looked hard at this younger Hyborg, trying to place the face. He had not looked into a mirror for so long that he had forgotten his own appearance. The Hyborg seemed familiar, though.
"You called me brother. Did we serve together in the wars?" Charger asked, as he shrugged his shoulders to relieve the pain he often felt from arthritis.
Charger R/T looked at his older self and, for a moment, felt pity and a wish to clean up the old guy. "Let's sit and build a fire. I have a story to tell you. After you hear what I have to say, I'm sure you will want to help me rid the universe of humanity."
The thought of sitting at a fire seemed reasonable to Charger. He had been walking day and night for almost two months, and he could use a rest. Night fell as the two Hyborgs sat together, enjoying the heat of a small fire. The smell of smoke always calmed the beast. The old Charger listened as his younger self told of a future where his actions just led to more suffering and pain, a story so bizarre as to be almost unbelievable.
"Wait, so you're my son?" the old Charger asked his younger self, unsure of the time-lines.
"No, Dart is your son. Or my son, really," the beast replied with a growl.
"So if I help you, he will never be born?" The old vampire asked, still trying to make sense of this story.
"It is not about who gets born or who lives and who dies. It's about stopping the madness of humanity. Humans are a plague; they foul everything they touch; they are a sickness the universe can do without!" Charger R/T was finding it increasingly difficult to explain the future without expressing tension.
"So…" The old vampire started to speak, then took a long pause. "You’re me, but younger than me because you never age, and you are from the future. You've killed entire races of living beings and humanity ended up needing you to help them survive. You got a dead woman pregnant, and killed a couple of gods."
The old vampire took a moment to think about what he had just said, then continued. "Do you have a strange ringing in your ears? I mean, can you hear yourself when you talk?"
The look on Charger R/T's face was one of shock and dismay. Had his older self gone mad? The two sat in silence for a time, while the light from the small fire cast shadows that danced around them.
Unexpectedly, a whisper arose inside the old vampire's mind. Reader pleaded to be heard. She was reaching out across the vast expanse of time and space to get but a moment of the old Charger's time, a chance to explain the other side of humanity's story.
"Well, what the hell," the old vampire thought. He replied in his mind to the whispering voice, "I've heard this guy's story, why not hear your side?"
In less time than the single blink of a human eye, she explained the grace and majesty of humanity. She told the story of a great and wondrous journey that the people of Earth had to make, and how he was only a part of the true story of a magnanimous people. For all their faults, for all their failures, humanity
deserved the right to exist. Then the whispering voice asked the old Charger to do one final task that he alone could complete. He had to kill a god. He had to kill his younger self.
"Hey," Charger said to the whisper in his mind, "I am just an old man. I do not have the power to kill a god!"
"Take your blade and thrust it into his chest. I will give you a moment of my crystal shard's power," the voice said. "You must catch him off guard, for he has twice your speed and strength." She added, "I will do the rest."
Charger's broken and faded old armor seemed to hang like rags from his sagging shoulders as he let out a long sigh. "So I'm to be the weapon one more time," he thought. His aged face twisted with heavy lines as he pursed his lips and shook his head in frustration. Then he slowly looked up, his yellowed eyes meeting Charger R/T's over the dance of the campfire flames.
"Maybe you're right," the old vampire began, catching the attention of his younger self. "It does look like the rest of my life amounts to shit. I understand how you feel. Humanity created me as a weapon, used me, and then cast me out as a monster when I was no longer of any use. I can understand how you feel because what they did to you was wrong, too. I guess you have the right idea. We probably should end the insanity now, before it gets any worse."
Charger R/T was no fool and searched his older self's voice for any deception, but the old vampire was being truthful. His words were a genuine expression of honesty; he was agreeing with the madness of the younger Charger.
The old vampire continued to speak. "If you’re right, and I'm not saying that you are, but if you are right, and together we kill every human, what will happen to us?"
"Well, I guess I won't ever exist!" the younger vampire offered, then added, "You will still have your life; you can still grow old. However, you'll do it alone. Humanity will be forever removed from the universe and you will finally have peace."
