by Doug Goodman
8
Two Jedik-ikik climbed on top of the aqueduct. From far away it had seemed small, but on the ground and up close, it had at least a three-meter tall lip on top of a half-meter embankment. Two warriors climbed to the top of the lip. One went over and into the aqueduct. While the warriors lifted each astronaut up, the Jedik-ikik on top of the aqueduct lip grabbed them by their shoulders and lifted them over the wall.
Once inside the aqueduct, very little of the battle could be seen from within its steep walls. One of Renslot’s peaks came into view, and then they heard the monster venting his anger on Ximortikrim. Something exploded, and dirt and rubble were flung over them.
The Jedik-ikik pushed the astronauts forward. The aqueduct rose up in the sky before them like a roller coaster from Hell.
As they were marched up the aqueducts, Renslot continued his angry advance on the city. He found a hidden armory full of explosives, which blew up in his stony face. He stumbled backwards and then doubled down on his anger, plunging his monstrous face into the pyramid. It was full of Jedik-ikik. He opened his mouth, and a wave of cosmic radiation shot from his mouth. The light from the blast echoed out of the buildings windows and doors. He sniffed the building like a bear looking for honey. Unsatisfied with what he found, he dropped to all fours off of the building and moved on to the next colossal pyramid.
By then, almost fifty warriors were on his legs and feet.
At the center of the city, the warriors began their climb up on the giant monster. They’d taken one leg. They could take the other three. At least that’s what they shouted to each other.
As for the giant monster, he continued trying to destroy the Doomsday Engine. He tried reaching for the engineers. He was more effective in this than Renslot had been. One of his arms ended in a sharp mountain face, which he used like a shovel to dig into the dome’s innards.
The ignition sequence began.
In the bowels of the dome, a thick door opened, and an engineer wearing aluminized shielding entered the enclosed chamber. Above him loomed the rocket’s nozzle. Below him were caverns with a thin red line of magma very far below. Nervously, he walked out onto the stone support landing and approached the nozzle.
“Klilbit,” another engineer announced over a speaker system. Fumes spewed into the room. The engineer lit the stick in his hand. Showers of sparks shot from the stick like a Roman candle. He heard a poof, and then a THOOM as the fumes ignited. The blast knocked him back off of the landing next to the door. Already he could feel the intense heat burning out of the engines. Smoke plumed outward. Out of the smoke, two more engineers in heat shielding appeared, dragging him back through the open door and shutting it.
Clouds of exhaust burst out of the dome and all around the three-legged monstrosity. At the same time, the Jedik-ikik gave their pheromone command. Concussive blasts swarmed over the monster’s legs.
The creature shouted its fury, then spewed its fury all over its legs. Magma boiled and bubbled over his legs, melting the soldiers in their hiding spots. Unlike frozen K’tang, this one was accustomed to magma and easily stepped out.
Then a thought came to him. He smiled down on the engineers. He put his mouth over the cannon’s giant barrel and vomited magma into the core. Over and over he vomited until the magma was dripping out of the sides. Then he walked away from the dome.
The engineers knew there was no stopping the sequence. They tried to run from the dome, but did not make it to the door before the entire dome exploded.
A giant fireball shot into the sky.
A concussive blast rocked through the city, toppling statues and columns and doing more damage than the Rentok had ever done.
The blast was enough to knock the magma-belching monster to the ground, which created a giant aftershock that blew over the ancient city, knocking out windows and intricately tiled murals.
9
Exhausted, legs burning from the uphill hike, the astronauts arrived at the top of the Fire Path. Now they could see K’tang entombed in magma below them. A thick rope lay tethered to the end of the channel. They didn’t want to think about what was on the other end of the rope.
Three warriors hammered spikes into the channel’s floor while the other five held on to the astronauts. Only Mathieu was not standing. Back at the Old Devil’s camp, when these soldiers were ordered to hang them, the soldiers did not put Mathieu’s helmet back on his suit, so he had been breathing in carbon monoxide ever since. When they dropped him on the floor of the channel, his body fell limply. Emily wondered if there was any life left in him because some part of her still felt they could escape this. They were astronauts, weren’t they? They had trained to deal with any problem and improvise with whatever other calamity fell in their direction. And yet, another side knew that if he was already dead, his suffering would be over.
The soldiers started bashing in the helmet visors one-by-one and tying knots around the necks of the astronauts.
C.C., who had been quiet this whole time, shoved his shoulder into the body of the Jedik-ikik coming at him with a rope. The Jedik-ikik fell backward, and C.C. kicked him off of the channel.
A second soldier kicked C.C. off of the channel, and the rope snapped tight around his neck.
Suddenly, the dome exploded, and the fireball scorched the sky.
“Hurry,” one of the soldiers said to the others. “We must return to battle.”
Anna was dropped over the channel next. The soldiers moved Cole and Emily, who were trying to brace their feet against the floor to keep from being thrown over.
“That’s my wife,” Cole growled in Jedik-ikik. “Don’t any of you have wives?”
Then the love of his life was gone over the side of the channel.
The soldiers grabbed Mathieu.
“I have something you want,” Cole said. “The Doomsday Book. I will give it back to you, but first you have to pull my friends back up.” The words were coming easily to him now.
“We will find it, eventually. If not, we can rethink it.”
“Of course, because you are a scientific people. But you are also a people of words. I know words are important. I see them etched into your walls and sewn into your banners. Special words. Specific words.” He coughed. His head was starting to hurt.
“Words are only useful for transmitting information,” the soldier said.
“Information about science and technology. Yes. But also feelings and emotions. Thoughts and ideas. I want to recite you something from my people. Something that explains us, and if you still think we are here out of some unseen malice, then you can throw me over and I won’t fight you.”
The soldier moved toward Cole.
“We choose to go into space.”
The soldier stopped. Cole coughed.
“We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like all science and all technology, has no conscience of its own.”
The soldiers stood back.
Cole continued. He knew the words. Of course he knew them. Who in the astronaut corps hadn’t heard the speech at least a dozen times? The words came easily to his mind, if not from his lungs, which felt like syrup. “Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on us, and only if…we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say that we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his arms around this globe of ours.
“There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its…exploration…deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation may never come again. But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our
goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, thirty-five years ago, fly over the oceans?
“We choose to go to the Moon…Not because it is easy, but because it is hard; because...”
Cole stopped. He looked up at the sky behind the Jedik-ikik and coughed. They followed his gaze. Two giant, stone faces grimaced down at the soldiers.
The soldiers dropped their weapons and ran back down the aqueduct. The Rentok watched them go. Cole strained against the ropes to pull his friends and family back up. First, his wife. He wasn’t even sure she’d survived the fall, or if her neck was snapped. Fuck it. He refused to acknowledge the second thought. Hand over hand, her body rose back up. She squirmed in the rope as he pulled her over the ledge. He pulled the rope from around her neck, and she gasped for air. The unclean air might as well have been toxin in their lungs.
They kissed quickly and pulled Anna up. Then a giant hand appeared and carefully scooped the astronauts up out of the air and placed them back in the channel. Renslot growled pleadingly at Emily.
Ropes were pulled off.
Cole was seeing stars. His wife shook her head from some unseen pain. They needed to act fast or die. Wilderness expeditions in the mountains of Montana had prepared them for working together on life or death experiences. So had multiple failures onboard the Anchor during their trek across the galaxy to 51 Golgotha.
They each grabbed a piece of Mathieu’s AXES suit and began jogging down the channel to the giants’ feet. They didn’t pay attention to all the destruction on the horizon: the trails of smoke from fires, the smashed pyramids, the dead bodies lying in the streets of the dead city. They concentrated on getting to the door.
They just had to get to the door.
Inhale.
Cough.
Inhale.
Cough.
“Mellifluous,” Cole said.
Anna coughed. “Mellifluous,” she said.
“Calm,” Cole said.
“Calm,” the whole team repeated.
“Balanced.”
“Balanced.”
“Serene.”
“Serene.” Emily stumbled.
“Mathieu, C.C., and Anna can go fuck themselves.”
Emily laughed first. Then the others laughed. They were almost half-way down the aqueduct. Renslot gently placed his foot on top of the lower aqueduct. The stone splintered and cracked, then obliterated into dust.
The door opened.
The astronauts tripped on the stonework. Only the desire to live propelled them forward, step by step. Cole’s vision tunneled. He knew they were sleepy and tired and their heads hurt like the Jedik-ikik were beating their heads open.
“Mellifluous,” Cole said.
They reached the door and collapsed inside the small entry room. Cole remembered falling on top of someone, but he wasn’t sure who. The door was still open. He reached for it. So did someone else. Was it Emily? Everything was fading.
“Story,” he said, and fell unconscious.
Chapter Eight: Look Up at the Stars
1
IV-104 sailed into orbit around 51 Golgotha. The crew were less than half an hour from climbing into the DSMUs and beginning the final descent onto the surface of the exo-planet. But for now, Cole was content to be in the Anchor’s grand cupula, enjoying a serene view of 51 Golgotha a’s three moons, S 2042 G 1, G 2, and G 3, as they hovered over the Anchor like singular clouds floating across a west Texas skyline.
The grand cupula was one of the few weightless environments on the Anchor. While the living quarters and most of the ship remained under gravitational control, this part of the ship was sequestered by itself. This wing was sequestered because, as NASA psychologists had learned, astronauts missed the weightless environment and all the fun and unique experiences it provided.
Being able to float among the stars was one of the astronauts’ greatest pastimes during their long voyage to the exo-planets.
Cole Musgrove was soaking up the last of bits of weightlessness, sipping his coffee from a cup specifically designed to counter microgravity while he stared at the four planetary bodies in his view.
A different kind of body drifted up to him and put her hand on his shoulder.
“You have that faraway look, Cole. A penny for your thoughts?” He turned and saw that she was filming him.
“I was thinking about all the great weightless sex we’ve had onboard the Anchor. Totally unprotected sex, so there is probably space spooge seeped into everything around here. It’s a wonder the wires haven’t shorted. Oh, is that thing on?”
Emily’s face twisted up and she playfully slapped his shoulder. “You know it’s on, and look what I can do with the press of a button: Wow, it’s already deleted,” she said as she pressed a few buttons, then re-aimed the lens to her husband. “So really, what’s going on in that ‘oh so thoughtful and articulate’ head of yours?”
“I was thinking that we’re the first people from our planet to be here. Those three moons, and this beautiful planet that once harbored intelligent alien life. We live in an age of miracles, Em.”
“That’s much better for the camera.”
“Like the way you rocked my world earlier this morning. I think it’s a miracle I didn’t pull something.” Cole faked rolling his shoulder like he had pulled a muscle. This time Emily kicked him. He would have floated backward into the cupula if not for having a grip on a handrail.
“Stop.”
“We’re all so very fortunate to be here, Em. We are true Lewis and Clarks, untethered from the world we know. And I’m more fortunate than anyone else here because I get to share these moments with the love of my life.”
“That’s the man I married.”
Emily turned off the camera and snuggled into her husband. They floated curled up into each other and weightless in the cupula. Alien planets whirled around them.
That was when C.C. interrupted them. “Hate to bother you guys, but it’s about time to go. We are three hours away from our seven minutes of hell. Time to suit up.”
“Shh, C.C. I’m having a moment,” Cole said.
“Didn’t you guys already have a moment earlier?”
Emily kicked out at C.C., too. “Does everybody have to know our business?”
“Maybe next time don’t replace the injured linguist with your husband,” C.C. teased.
“That was a decision made by the director, not me. I fought against having him here. It’s bad luck to have a husband onboard a ship.” She pinched her husband’s cheek as she kissed him.
Cole pulled back. “Bad luck? I’m practically an American hero at this point.”
C.C. laughed. “Naw, dude. You’re just the language guy.”
The three pushed off and floated up the wide hall to the DSMU dock. Six DSMUs (one for each astronaut and an extra) stood in Descent stage on top of large concave platforms.
2
“So we’re alive, but we have no way home,” Cole said.
“No, there is a way,” Emily said from across the table at the Hab. “The Supreme Conqueror thought he’d marooned us here when he shot down the Anchor, but NASA prepared for that eventuality.”
“I’m with you there,” Cole said. “I remember that training.”
C.C. said, “I think what Cole’s saying is he doesn’t see how we get up to the satellites to build the ship to get us back to Earth.”
“Ahem,” Mathieu said.
“Sorry, Mathieu.”
Anna put her hand tenderly on Mathieu’s shoulder.
“Just trying to point out your lack of insight when it comes to these things.”
“Don’t be a turd.”
“It’s all I’ve got to look forward to. Get it? I look forward to it.” Mathieu smiled.
“Does this mean we have to listen to constant bad blind jokes from now on?” C.C. asked.
Mathieu recited, “I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.”
C.C. gave him the one finger salute.
“I see that, too.”
“Aw, come on. How’d you see that?”
“Hey, look on the bright side,” Anna said. “At least you don’t have that problem with ocular vision degradation any more.”
“Oh, I’m hurt,” Mathieu said in mock disdain.
“Back to the problem at hand,” Cole said. “How do we get to the satellites? The Ascent Vehicle’s destroyed, and none of the DSMUs have booster capability.”
Emily said, “But if we combined the DSMU rocket boosters, we could get one astronaut into orbit, and that person could reach the satellite, and then they could program the other satellites. I did the math. It works.”
C.C. said, “I saw your math. It barely works.”
“Barely works still works.”
“What about the CEV? If we reduced the weight, we could probably get it out of Golgotha’s atmosphere,” Cole said.
“That could work,” Emily said. “But we need fuel.”
“The ISRU station?”
“That is a possibility, if we are willing to wait five months to generate enough liquid oxygen.”
Cole didn’t like waiting any longer. There were no ruins left. He just wanted to get home.
Mathieu said, “I think there’s another way. Does anybody remember what the Supreme Dickhead said before he sent us away so that I could get worms placed in my eye sockets? He said that we were a people of the impossible because we could go into space. The Jedik-ikik could only send things into space.”
Anna snapped her fingers. “The Doomsday Engine. It had exhaust ports.”
“They used it to shoot the Rentok while they were still in space, and they used it to take out the Anchor. That means they must have some sort of fuel to power it. My guess is they’ve found a way to supercool helium, hey. All we need to do is hope that it is the right kind of fuel, and then pump it into the CEV. It should be enough to get one person back into orbit.”
“I think blindness is making you smart,” C.C. said.
“No. Blindness is just God’s way of bringing me down to your level. I could still do all the EVAs better than any of you. I used to do them blindfolded, and it’s all about muscle memory.”
