Achron would and did save those children. The Apodids were and would be, for Achron, as humans were for Prime. They would appear together on the great pyramid and usher in the new age of the universe.
* * * *
The Great Pyramid of Gliese 221
Prime was tired. She felt only the most tenuous of connections to the woman she had once been, to the dream of humans on another world. She had been to all the colony worlds, and nowhere had she found anything that matched her antiquated dreams. Humans had moved on from their bodies and left behind the many worlds of the galaxy for other species to inherit.
It was time for her to move on, but she wasn’t ready. She had searched for her dream without success, so this time, she would do better. She would create her dream, here on Gliese prime. She built a great pyramid and filled it with all the history of humanity. She terraformed the surrounding planet into a replica of ancient Earth.
She called for Achron.
“Are you ready for the humans?” Achron asked.
“Almost.”
Together they decorated the pyramid with statues of humans and, at Achron’s insistence, the sentient orange birds of 51 Pegasi b. On a whim, she sent Achron to retrieve the sentient trees from the hanging gardens. It was not Earth, but it was good. The work was peaceful, and Prime was comforted to know that Achron would always exist, even after she had moved on.
“I think it is time,” Prime said. Time for the new humans. A new beginning as she approached her end. “What was it like to reach your end?”
“I am outside of time,” Achron said. “I know my beginning and all my winding middles and my ending simultaneously, and always have. I cannot say what it will be like for you. We are always together in the times that you are, and that will not change for me.”
“Bring the humans.”
Achron took ten thousand humans from the Mausoleum at HD 40307 g. Stole them all at once but brought them to Gliese in smaller groups. The oldest ones Prime raised, for though the bodies were grown, the minds were not. After the first thousand, she let the generations raise each other to adulthood of the mind. The humans began to have true infants, biological babies, carried in their mothers’ wombs and delivered with pain.
Achron brought the Apodids from 51 Pegasi b. They lived among the trees of Beta Hydri, their bright orange plumage lovely against the dark green banyan leaves. Prime taught the humans and the birds to live together in peace. She did not need to teach the trees. Peace was in their nature.
There was one final surprise.
“I have something for you, inside the pyramid,” Achron said.
It was a stasis pod, and inside was Mei. The body was exactly as it was when she had left it, nearly four billion years before, on the icy moon of Europa. Achron had brought it through time, stolen it away like the bodies from the Mausoleum. No. The body on Europa had been contaminated with radiation, and this one was not. “You reversed the radiation?”
“I didn’t take the body from Europa. I took tiny pieces from different times, starting in your childhood and ending the day before you went up to the observation tower. A few cells here, a few cells there—sometimes as much as half a discarded organ, when you went in to have something replaced. The body comes from many different times, but it is all Mei.”
“It is a nice gesture, but I am too vast to fit in such a tiny vessel.”
“No more vast than I was when I entered an Apodid,” Achron said. “Take what you can into the body, and leave the rest. It was always your plan to have your ending here.”
Prime sorted herself ruthlessly, setting aside all that she would not need, carefully choosing the memories she wanted, the skills that she could not do without. She left that tiny fragment behind and transcended beyond time and space.
* * * *
Mei opened her eyes and looked out upon a new Earth, a world shared with minds unlike any Earth had ever known. What would they build together, these distant relations of humankind? She watched the sun set behind the mountain of the Great Pyramid and contemplated a sky full of unfamiliar constellations.
Prime had left her enough knowledge of the night sky to pick out Earth’s sun. It was bright and orange, a red giant now. Earth was likely gone, engulfed within the wider radius of the sun. The icy oceans of Europa would melt, and the lighthouse would sink into the newly warmed sea. Entropy claimed all things, in the end, and existence was a never-ending procession of change.
It was only a matter of time before the inhabitants of Gliese returned to the stars. Mei stood on the soil of her new planet and studied the constellations. Already, she dreamed of other Earths.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CAROLINE M. YOACHIM lives in Seattle and loves cold, cloudy weather. She is the author of dozens of short stories appearing in Fantasy & Science Fiction, Clarkesworld, Asimov’s, and Lightspeed, among other places. Her debut short story collection, Seven Wonders of a Once and Future World & Other Stories, was published by Fairwood Press in 2016. For more about Caroline, check out her website at carolineyoachim.com.
OUR SPECIALTY IS XENOGEOLOGY
ALAN DEAN FOSTER
They found the artifact by accident.
They were leaving Timos IV, where a preliminary robotic scouting report noting the presence of non-synthesizable rare earth deposits had proven fiscally unjustifiable, and making preparations for the next jump. Had they not chosen to depart the Timos system along the plane of the ecliptic, they would have missed the artifact. Had their wide-arc scanner not been directed at the system’s outermost planet at just the right moment, they would have missed the artifact. And had Bannerjee not decided to make a quick check of the last downloaded scanner files prior to their ship engaging jump, they most surely would have missed the artifact. But they did, it did, and he did, and so . . .
“I may have something interesting.”
Cooper looked over from her station. “You’d better have something interesting. I don’t like recalibrating a jump.”
Sasmita made a rude noise. “The ship does the recalibrating. You’re just another meatbag backup, like the rest of us.”
“Quiet.” Oldman, who wasn’t, swung around to peer across the projection-filled control room. “What is it, BJ?”
“It’s big, and the quick spectrographic scan is a bundle of interesting contradictions.”
“Like for instance, it’s maybe more than just rock or water ice?” Despite her initial disdain, Cooper was now mildly intrigued.
“There’s a lot of metal.” Bannerjee’s deft fingers sorted through floating projections like a card sharp in a history hotel.
Sasmita shrugged. “Nickel-iron asteroid?”
Bannerjee continued working without looking at her. “No nickel. No iron. Lot of combinations that are new to me. Could be alloys. Sophisticated alloys.” He had everyone’s attention now. “Exotic ceramics and glass states. No plastics that I can find. And it’s very, very big.” He froze a virtual, read the resultant number.
Oldman let out a long whistle. “Better go have a look.”
Up close, it was immediately apparent that the artifact was an artificial construct. Whether it was a ship or not, they could not tell. The gigantic jumble of dark projections, spheres, arches, and rhomboidal flows had no recognizable bow, stern, or middle. It hung in orbit above Timos IX, silent, brooding, and immense, an alien enigma of vast dimensions replete with a hundred unspoken possibilities.
“So,” Sasmita finally said into the silence, “when do we go in?” She and her companions watched Oldman, waiting on the commander’s decision.
“We have to go in.” Cooper was quietly emphatic in her support of the other woman.
“That is self-evident,” Bannerjee added.
“Nothing is self-evident,” Oldman finally said. “There are four of us. Our specialty is xenogeology. Not first contact.”
“You mean first contract.” Sasmita indicated the projection that showed the artifact. “So far, humankind has made con
tact with only two other sentient species, both lower on the intelligence scale than ourselves, neither having anything to offer other than reassurance that we are not alone in the big starry backyard. Here, we’ve finally got something whose builders might very well have advanced beyond us. It looks abandoned. No telling what we might be able to bring back. I’m tempted to open up a preliminary patent file right now.”
Oldman frowned at her. “The owners might not take kindly to visitors making off with souvenirs.”
“What owners?” Of the same mind as her crewmate, Cooper gestured at the hovering projection. “Whatever that thing is, it’s dead. I’m not reading enough energy to power a stylus. You know how this will work if we don’t take a look. We’ll make a report, government will get all over it, the grateful company will give us a month’s paid vacation, the media floats will momentarily be full of our individual images, and that will be it.” She nodded at Sasmita. “Let’s at least see what we can find, first. If there’s nothing we can pick up, nothing portable that might be worth claiming, then the government crabs can scuttle all over it to their hearts’ content.”
Outnumbered but never outvoted, Oldman considered. Eventually, the temptation was too much even for him. “All right. We go in, look around, make recordings, see what we can ascertain. If it’s full of alien doubloons, I suppose they’d have some collector value, and that wouldn’t be anything that would cause the xenologists to hyperventilate. Suit up.”
Initially, they were afraid they wouldn’t be able to find an opening. Oldman was about to order them back when Bannerjee happened to pass in front of a smooth section of what appeared to be solid olivine, only to have it iris open. His sharp intake of breath caused everyone else to look in his direction and then to mosey over.
Beyond the now-revealed opening, a corridor stretched inward. It had a flat floor, an arched ceiling, and walls that appeared to have been fashioned from a single continuous pour rather than having been seamed or welded. As they stared inward, light brightened within the corridor, though there were no visible appliances.
Now that the opportunity they had discussed had actually presented itself, Cooper found herself suddenly hesitant. She looked at Oldman. “We still go in?”
Before she had finished her query, Sasmita was already moving down the corridor. Rather than call her back, Oldman followed, as did Bannerjee and, eventually, Cooper.
The deeper they went, the stronger was the pull of internal artificial gravity. Soon, they were walking instead of floating. Oldman slowed their advance as the pull became greater than Earth-normal. But when the increase ceased, he indicated they could push on. Walking now took a bit of an effort, but not a threatening one.
After a considerable hike, the corridor opened into a dimly lit chamber with a soaring, domed ceiling. Elephant-size bubbles, opaque and rose-colored, bounced slowly against the ceiling. Each time they made contact, a portion of the dome emitted a brief but brilliant silent flash. The visitors worked their suits’ instruments. It was Bannerjee who spoke first.
“It’s an ozone generator of some kind. The ceiling material is permeable and there are static charges involved, but I don’t see how it works. Or why.”
Sasmita’s response was characteristically mercenary. “Anyone got any idea what the market might be for an alien ozone generator?”
“I’m more interested in what the ozone is used for.” Oldman was studying the several new, larger corridors that ran off in different directions from the one they had just traversed. Knowing that, if necessary, their suits could provide them with nourishment and drink for several days, he was not concerned about spending some sleep time within the artifact. “I’d still like to find out if we’re inside a ship, a cargo container, a museum, or what. Also some clue as to what the builders were like.”
“More walking. I’m up for it,” Sasmita declared. “As long as there’s no further increase in the gravity. Feels like walking in mud as it is.”
The gravitational drag did not increase as they made their way deeper into the artifact. Before long, the new corridor opened into another chamber. This one was filled with hundreds of floating, steel-gray ovoids. Each was enveloped in a pale green light. None made contact with another. They varied in size from no bigger than an egg to some large enough to contain one of the rose-colored ozone-generating spheres.
Sasmita immediately reached for one that was about half her size, only to have Bannerjee grab her arm. She shook him off and shot him a warning look.
“We came to look for stuff. Here it is.”
“Look,” Bannerjee reminded her. “Not necessarily touch.” He was passing his hand scanner over the gleaming mass. “Locus of supporting energy field appears to emanate from the surface of the object itself. It’s omnipresent and shows no source point. Interior is unreadable.”
“Maybe we should—” Before Cooper could finish, Sasmita had reached for the object a second time. Intent on his instrumentation, this time Bannerjee was unable to react quickly enough to intercept her. Nor did Oldman’s warning shout cause her to pause.
Her gloved hand made contact with the pale energy field, at which point it began to fade. The last hint of green glow winked out at precisely the same time as the ovoid touched down on the floor. The commander was not pleased and said so.
“We can’t just go grabbing and playing with everything we encounter, Alee.” He indicated their surroundings. “This isn’t an entertainment venue.”
She grinned up at him. “How do you know? For all we know, that might be exactly what it is.”
“Why am I not amused, then?” Cooper muttered.
Reaching down, Sasmita touched the ovoid again. When a seam suddenly and unexpectedly appeared along the top, she stepped back in momentary alarm. Like the two halves of an egg, the ovoid opened up. The walls of the gray container were scarcely thicker than a sheet of paper, though plainly far stronger. When nothing more happened, the quartet of explorers cautiously advanced.
Lying within the now-open ovoid was an irregular construct of bright yellow marked with black inscriptions and maroon highlights. The vivid colors were in striking contrast to everything they had seen thus far. Sasmita looked at Oldman, who looked at Bannerjee, who shrugged. The commander nodded at Sasmita before taking the precaution of retreating several steps. So did Cooper and Bannerjee.
Their companion made a face at them. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“You’re the one who wants to get rich off alien relics,” Cooper told her. “So—go ahead.” She nodded toward the revealed relic.
Thus challenged, the smaller woman had no choice but to pick up the now-exposed whatever-it-was. Bending, she gingerly lifted it with two hands. It was solid but not heavy. The black inscriptions, if that’s what they were, held no more meaning for her than the tea leaves left at the bottom of a cup. She ran a forefinger along the side of a twisting tube, the material of her suit preventing her from receiving any tactile response. One finger slid across one of the maroon-hued bands.
In response, the object began to reform itself. Startled, she dropped it and retreated. A moment later, the thing put out a single tubular leg and straightened. Pouring from a small curved orifice, a dark liquid began to fill a conical portion of the device. As in the chamber of the giant rose-tinted bubbles, there was no noise. As soon as the conical container was full, it detached itself from the rest of the mechanism and floated over to Sasmita, coming to a halt a few centimeters from her left hand.
At once awed and wary, Cooper gestured at the hovering container. “It’s a coffeemaker. Have a sip.”
Sasmita eyed the waiting cone uncertainly. “It could also be a synthesized machine lubricant, or a propulsive fuel, or a liquid explosive, or an industrial corrosive.”
“Whatever it is, it’s waiting for you to do something,” Bannerjee pointed out. Moving closer, he tentatively extended the business end of his scanner. The results were informative.
“The liquid is organ
ic in nature, though the combination of amino acids and other components is new to the catalog.”
“Well, that resolves it, then,” she snapped at him. “It means it could be a synthesized lubricant, a fuel, an explosive, or an industrial corrosive. Thanks for that.”
“Or it could be coffee,” Cooper murmured thoughtfully. “Alien coffee.”
The conical container, finding itself ignored, returned to its point of origin and locked itself back in place on its home device. The dark liquid remained in the cone.
Turning, a speculative Oldman indicated a larger ovoid. “Let’s try another. That one there, since the only apparent distinguishing trait here seems to be size.” When Sasmita stepped forward, he put out a hand. “No, I’ll do it. A test to ensure that these things aren’t tuning to a single individual’s heartbeat, or something.” If only we had a xenobiologist on board, he thought. But no; they were all rock people. Rocks and minerals and metals.
He felt nothing through the suit as he pushed his right hand into the enveloping energy field. Gratifyingly, the procedure initiated by Sasmita was repeated. The field faded like a dispersing green fog, and as it did, the ovoid within lowered gently to the ground, split, and opened.
Within lay several dozen grungy, brown, blanket-sized, furry rugs. Oldman and his companions leaned close for a better look.
Four of the rugs rose into the air and came undulating toward them.
As they batted wildly at the swarm, a strange feeling of contentment came over Oldman. Looking around, he saw that arms were being lowered as his companions responded similarly to the proximity of the rug-things. Half-compliant, half-resistant, he found himself relaxing. Settling itself on his shoulders, his rug gently attached itself to his back by means he could neither see nor feel. The intervening presence of the suit did not matter.
What did matter was that he suddenly felt wonderful. Better than at any time since the start of the voyage. Whether the rugs generated some kind of beneficent field, or penetrated his suit with a gas, or injected something into him via a technique he could not imagine, didn’t matter either. He felt great.
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