The Last Immortal : Book One of Seeds of a Fallen Empire

by Anne Spackman

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  “Will you look at that?” We heard Enessa Fulten exclaim one day as the rest of us came to the bridge; a dingy brownish-red planet filled the forward view.

  “Makes you homesick, doesn’t it Enessa?” Dasan Mira quipped, giving her his ridiculous, pearly grin. Enessa had come from Orian years ago, and the two knew each other from years of working together at the Inen Observatory. They got along well together for people who were supposedly enemies. Dasan was lean and lanky, with unusually dark brown hair and eyes alight with mischief.

  “It does not.” Enessa insisted. Mira wouldn’t have given up there, but we had reached our orbit already and needed to prepare the shuttle.

  The planet Hyksos lay in a yellow star system that had three inner planets and two giant outer planets, all in the early stages of planetary development. The second planet out in the system, Hyksos was slightly larger than the third planet, Dynarean.

  As the space shuttle descended through the clouds of Hyksos’ thick carbon dioxide, methane, ammonia, and nitrogen atmosphere, volcanoes erupting in high mountain ranges beneath our orbital path became visible. Then as we continued to observe the outside conditions on our holo-sphere monitors, a dark ocean rolled into view, reflecting the pink sky. The large shuttle touched ground on a chasma, a steep ridge at the farther end of the ocean, which bordered an expanse of crater-pocked rock plains. When we disembarked, the yellow sun appeared as a burnt orange globe high in the sky above us.

  We stayed on Hyksos two Tiasennian tendays. During that time, Mira finally admitted that even Orian wasn’t that bad compared to Hyksos. The atmosphere had proven unbreathable for all the crew, as expected; the biologists had attached special prana tubes to the atmosphere packs that left sore shoulders all around. The Tiasennian biologists had devised the special apparatus after analyzing the reports of the previous explorer mission, but they didn’t seem to have worried much about whether or not they were going to be very comfortable.

  Marine life on Hyksos consisted of single-celled metazoans and a rapid-growing, prokaryotic, oxygen-producing bacteria that was the main reason for the visit to the planet. We had been instructed to bring back a quantity to seed Orian’s oxygen farms. Once the biologists had finished conducting tests on the projected atmospheric evolution of Hyksos, we made ready to rendezvous with the Baidarka that had remained in geosynchronous orbit above the planet and to leave for Dynarean.

  The mandatory ten-minute trip through the decontamination chamber before reboarding the ship hindered speedy withdrawal. As the teams moved back and forth bringing out the various rock samples, they had to wait in the shuttle in the air lock for those ahead of them in line to be sanitized.

  Dynarean was more advanced in its evolutionary development and contained more oxygen and nitrogen than Hyksos, and a little methane, carbon dioxide, argon, and trace hydrogen in its atmosphere. The scientists could breathe the atmosphere of Dynarean for only short periods of time because the air pressure was low, around seven-tenths of Tiasennian air pressure in the valleys and plateaus.

  Dynarean’s gravity, weaker than Tiasenne’s, allowed the children to make ten multi-nariar leaps in front of the ship, and a few of the adults were successfully prevailed upon to join them. We soon discovered that Dynarean had primitive tree-like ferns about ten times taller than the flowering trees found on Tiasenne and Orian.

  Orian’s trees flourished for a brief spell in the cool season and were usually sandy brown, producing little oxygen. However, Dynarean’s ferns grew year-round, even at the present time in which Dynarean was at the farthest point in its revolution from the sun, at its perihelion. The ferns grew in green broccoli-like clusters and had huge, broad, flat segmented leaves sprouting from a torose, bloated stem.

  The canopy formed by the leaves shaded the watery base from the sun like an enormous parasol. Tiny knobby sporangia poked through the surface of the leaf canopy like sprouting shrubs. On Tiasenne the green leaves on every tree fell once a year; we saw none of that kind on Dynarean.

  We measured Dynarean’s air temperature, finding it a little milder than Tiasenne. It rained there frequently during our three week visit, producing a springy turf which grew in a carpet over most of the plains, great expanses of interlacing mosses and hornworts that surrounded the ship like a green ocean, and small ponds that were home to all kinds of soft-bodied, tube-like creatures. We collected specimens of Dynarean’s vegetation, in particular the Palie, the pond plants which were needed to continue Orian’s anti-bacterial research.

  The planet Dynarean was so beautiful that it saddened us to think that it was doomed to decay from the start. The planet’s initial mass when the system formed had been low, causing Dynarean’s weak gravity. Thus eventually its atmosphere would gradually be diffused into space. Only a thin carbon dioxide veil would be left, and lethal ultraviolet rays would penetrate the naked planet’s weak shield.

  Any life that had survived the atmospheric loss would be vaporized by the radiation. The oceans would evaporate, causing the hydrogen to float off into space and the oxygen to oxidize the rock formations and mineral deposits. All that remained would be silence and rocks and a graveyard of scant clues that once Dynarean had held life.

  Almost a light-year away from the two planets was the white star system that contained Bayria and eleven other planets. Only a few lifeforms existed on Bayria, the fifth planet in the system. The largest were complex creatures with bumpy, leathery skin, little horns on their heads, and tiny, fold-covered eyes, like reptiles. After several tendays mining malanite from the surface and loading Orashean’s supply of malanite on board our shuttle, we discovered a few small delicate creatures with dry shells similar to turtles and also large flying creatures with white flaps for wings, like bats.

  Bayria’s system was older than that of Hyksos and Dynarean, and the eternal rocks of Bayria itself revealed the planet’s age at well above five billion years. Though a few creatures had evolved to a significant level of specialization, no evidence supported the existence of superior intelligence, though Chiren argued in favor of the horned creatures, who seemed to spend most of the day sleeping, after we captured them.

  Before we reached Karona, several children were born on board. We decided to simulate video facsimiles of Tiasennian and Orian landscapes for them in order to make assimilation easier for them when we returned. Enessa Fulten made the task easier by lighting the simulation room with an artificial bluish-white glow like that of Rigell. But in the end, it was the homesick explorers instead of the children who spent more time in the simulation room.

  By the time we got to Karona, where we eventually obtained large quantities of priceless ores used in alloy production on Tiasenne, everyone was thinking more about leaving for home than completing the mission, but it was a good thing we didn’t just turn around. Karona was an orange-red world, the second planet in a red supergiant system of only two inner planets and seven gas supergiants. In the years since life had begun there, several varieties of furry animals with long claws and huge, lidless eyes had become its main inhabitants.

  Despite the hot-looking glow of Karona’s star, Red Sg 2, the planet’s cold and dim surface bathed in a perpetual purplish-red sunset during the daylight hours. Though about half human size, the furry creatures were fierce if scared or disturbed but otherwise seemed quite docile. We decided to call them chirites after one of the chemists, Diminian Chiren.

  The chirite creatures dug up small yellow plants and scraped masses of algae that were distinct from any form of vegetation the scientists had yet encountered, sitting back on great haunches to eat, holding out their food with their stubby arms. As we watched them, some of them clawed holes in the rock to pull out little, hard creatures with thick shells composed of scleratin to eat, and our biologists collected thousands of these and a family of the furry animals.

  The chirites proved hardy and adaptable on board and were able to breathe our atmosphere even though it contained far more oxygen and
less carbon dioxide than Karona’s. They grew more active as a result and became a great favorite with the children.

  Fortunately, nothing marred the tranquillity of the return home, though I had half expected some great catastrophe to keep us adrift. We had been away eight years according to our calendar on board when we re-entered Rigell’s solar system. As we slowly approached the beautiful cloud-covered blue globe of Tiasenne and the arid face of Orian with its vast sand dunes and fiery volcanic ranges, scientists and children alike rushed to the viewports to catch the first glimpse of their home worlds.

  Words failed and silence descended over the observation deck as the last person arrived, but this was more than a mere homecoming. Excitement permeated the air, but there was also a tense anxiety in it, too, a shared sense of anticipation we felt just before triumphantly reaching the safe harbor of Tiasenne’s welcoming skies. Then at last we could turn our backs on the stars and the deadly, pitiless void and begin to plan for our future lives.

  Give me where to stand, and I will move the earth.

  —Archimedes, 300 B.C.

  Chapter Ten