Third Rock

by S E T Ferguson

  Beryl watched as the bullet tore through her father’s back, then exited out his stomach, hitting the ground after passing through his body. He began crumpling to the ground, but before he could even hit the ground, a second shot rang out in the chamber.

  Beryl turned to Vlad, expecting to see him fall to the ground, dead.

  What would she do then, if she lost her father and Vlad? She couldn’t lose the two men she loved.

  And she knew it then.

  She still loved Vlad.

  Beryl prepared to see Vlad dying in front of her as well, but instead, when she turned back to Wolf, she saw he had his gun pointed at Oly.

  Beryl turned back to Oly.

  As she did, the Civitian woman dropped her gun to the ground, and it hit next to the spot where Beryl’s father now slumped in a growing pool of blood. With her now empty hand, Oly clutched her stomach, trying in vain to keep in the blood that now spurted from the gaping wound.

  She seemed to see the gesture was futile and looked to Wolf, hoping for some sympathy from the man who had just shot her.

  There was no sympathy on Wolf’s face.

  “We needed him!” Wolf half-growled, half-shouted at the woman dying on the ground in front of him.

  Oly looked like she wanted to speak, but instead, a drop of blood dripped out of her mouth. The rest of her fell to the ground, next to Beryl’s father.

  “Put the gun down!” Beryl screamed at Wolf. He looked at her, and his shoulders drooped, before he dropped the gun and put his hands over his head in a gesture of surrender. As soon as he did, Vlad jumped up, pulled Wolf’s hands down, and tied them behind his back.

  Beryl kept the gun on Wolf the entire time, until Vlad nodded at Beryl that he was done.

  As soon as he did, Beryl dropped her arm and ran to where her father had collapsed. She dropped to her knees next to his head and screamed.

  Like the bullet that had just ripped through his body, her scream echoed through the room.

  She had lost her father—again.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  The first strange thing about the situation Vlad noticed was that there seemed to be very little blood beneath Whit.

  It might not have been so noticeable, but for the giant pool around Oly’s body. She was next to Whit, which made the difference all the more noticeable. It seemed that most of the blood around Whit had actually come from her, instead of from the gruesome wound he had suffered.

  The second strange thing Vlad noticed about the situation was that Iris was standing back from the scene.

  If Iris had already examined Whit and seen that he was gone, it would have made at least some sense for her to leave Beryl some time together with her father. Even as Whit’s best friend, this would have been a moment for Beryl. But Iris had not examined Whit.

  Vlad knew something else had to be going on.

  Back on Columbina, during the first attack of the drones, Iris had known Vlad’s brother, Mannie, had injured his shoulder. She had known that, even though she had not been there to see it. On Columbina, she had, had some way to tell what had happened to Mannie then. But here on Libertas, the communications barrier would keep Iris from being able to access anything like their phones or the ship above them, to figure out what was going on. Even if Iris had some method of knowing about their injuries, it would likely not be working now.

  Vlad looked at Iris again. She was focused on Whit, but the look on her face suggested not so much concern, but like she was waiting for something. She was even twisting her hands together.

  “Iris, what’s going on?” Vlad asked her.

  “Nothing.” She lied, badly.

  Vlad looked at the scene around them. Heming was moving Wolf to a side of the room where he had already taken the other Civitians, trying to be useful while Beryl dealt with her grief. Oly’s dead body remained where it had fallen, no one wanting to disturb it. If they disturbed Oly’s body, they would also have to disturb Beryl.

  And, of course, there was Beryl herself, crying over the body of her dead father.

  There was no “nothing” about the situation they were in.

  “Damn it, Iris, what is going on? You suck at lying.”

  “I told you, nothing.”

  “Iris?” Beryl spoke now, though she didn’t look up from her father. “Something is ging on. Something not normal.”

  Iris moved toward Beryl, and Vlad did the same, looking over Beryl’s shoulder to Whit’s body. From this distance, Vlad could see that where the bullet had exited the front of Whit’s body, it had also torn through his shirt.

  Beneath the torn shirt, Vlad could see the open wound. Up close, it didn’t look bloody at all.

  Vlad had not seen a lot of actual gunshot wounds, but he knew enough to know that this was definitely not normal.

  As Vlad watched, the hole on Whit’s chest seemed to move.

  Vlad knew it couldn’t be true, but it looked almost as if something was moving and healing the wound from within.

  Vlad ran his tongue over the newest teeth in his mouth, which had somehow regrown after being knocked out. They were now the same size as the ones they had replaced.

  His teeth hadn’t just regrown, they had done so within hours of having been knocked out.

  Then there were his other injuries at the hands of the Civitians. Those were injuries that should still have been visible as, at the very least, cuts and bruises. Some of them had likely involved broken bones as well.

  The same should have been true for Beryl, but she looked like the picture of health.

  Almost better than she had before the injuries.

  And, of course, there was Heming. There was no way he should have been walking at this point, let alone dragging tied up bodies around a room.

  “Heming’s ankle,” Vlad said out loud. “My teeth.”

  Iris was clearly trying not to make eye contact with any of them, but Beryl finally turned away from her father and toward Iris. Vlad could see she had been crying, but she was not crying now.

  “My gunshot wound. Our phones.” Beryl’s eyes were sparkling. Vlad knew it wasn’t from tears. This was how Beryl looked when she figured something out.

  “To be fair, the phones are slightly different,” Iris said. “That was my doing. This is all Whit. And I’m not even sure how well his technology works. What about your teeth?”

  “Wolf knocked several of them out, but they regrew back in.”

  “Interesting,” Iris said.

  “Interesting? Iris, I think we’re well beyond interesting.” Heming walked over to where the rest of them were standing and kneeling next to Whit’s body. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Nanotechnology. Or something like it. It’s more of a combination of the biological and artificial intelligence on an extremely small level. I would probably call is something like an artificial biological intelligence. Whit didn’t get the full specs on the technology uploaded to me before everything cut out, so I’m not entirely sure about the details.”

  “That’s basically it,” Whit sat up. Beryl shrieked out of surprise and jumped up as everyone turned to the man who had just been shot.

  Whit should have been dead.

  And now he was sitting up as if nothing happened.

  “How…how is that possible?” Heming stared at Whit, like the man had risen from the dead.

  Which, it seemed to Vlad, he had.

  Actually, he had now risen from the dead twice, if you included him being alive after having been left for dead on Libertas years ago.

  “Like Iris said, it’s a form of something like nanotechnology, but a partially biological and partially artificial intelligence. I like the idea of calling it an artificial biological intelligence. The phones are just artificial. I won’t get into the details, but that’s more of a permanent implant than anything else. Iris has been using that sort of technology since…”

  Iris interrupted Whit as if she didn’t want him to give away all the details of what
she had been doing. “Since a long time. All babies born on Hodios and in the colonies have gotten that technology for years. Most of it is meant to prevent various diseases, which is perfectly within my purview and that of the other intelligence systems, as that helps me keep you safe. Same with the part of it that lets me know what sort of an injury a person has even without an examination. Being able to hear the phones in your heads…well, that might not be entirely kosher. But seriously, you people and your phones are so fucking annoying. I was just sick and damn tired of hearing cat videos at all hours of the day because people refused to wear headphones. Ugh. But what Whit has done, that’s well beyond what I thought I could do. Not so much for what it does, which I think would be OK, but for how it does it.”

  “And as you can see,” Whit motioned toward the Civitians, “It’s not something to take lightly. You can still get killed with this technology—it’s not going to regrow your head if someone cuts that off, and well, explosions are also not something you want to deal with—but it does make you a lot harder to kill. I haven’t really tested the limits of it.”

  “But when…” Vlad cut himself off. He had wanted to ask when they had gotten the technology, but he knew exactly when it had happened: the drink Iris had given them. The one Heming had downed, thinking it was a shot. The one Iris had said would keep them safe from some of the unknown dangers on the planet.

  And so it had.

  That also explained why Quince was still injured and not seeming to heal like the rest of them.

  “The longer you have the tech inside you, the better it works. The artificial parts of the technology alter the biological parts to better suit your own, personal needs. Those teeth you grew back, Vlad? In a few days, those would grow back within minutes. It’s why I healed so fast now. I have had the technology for years.”

  “But what about the future? How long does it last? And do we all have it?”

  “I don’t know about the future. But I will say I feel younger than anyone of my age should feel. And yes, you all have it. At least, assuming Iris gave you all the drinks. And Camp, too. Based on Poydras, I would guess it will make a huge difference in his aging. You see it with the dogs earlier than you see it in humans, because they age so much faster than we do.” Vlad realized this was why Poydras was still alive and looking like a young dog, instead of the ancient dog she naturally was.

  “How far can we take this? What are the limits you don’t know?”

  “I guess we’ll head to Earth and find out.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Unlike so much of Libertas, now covered with jungles, the place where Whit had Vlad land the Bird was entirely different.

  Here, the landscape of the planet looked like Beryl had remembered the planet looking like as a child. Rolling hills stretched across the horizon, with a slowly waving lake in the distance. Grasses blew lazily in the slight breeze, making the surface of the planet look like it was slowly rippling.

  It was exactly the sort of place she had been looking for.

  Beryl held her father’s hand as he led her out the back of the Bird. Vlad let them be, content to stay in the Bird and play his small part in the ritual.

  The two dogs, however, ran out ahead of them across the surface of the planet, excited to see a part of the planet neither had visited in a long time.

  Neither Whit nor Beryl spoke as they walked to the top of one of the hills. It wasn’t the tallest in the vicinity, but it wasn’t the shortest either. To Beryl, it seemed like the perfect place for what they were going to do. It wasn’t ostentatious in any way, but fit into the world around it perfectly.

  “Is this OK?” Beryl asked, even though she knew her father would approve of the location. He had been the one to suggest this part of the planet.

  “Rona would love it here. It’s perfect.” Beryl’s father looked around them, as if double checking that his words matched his thoughts.

  Beryl untied a small bag from her belt. It was small—small enough that the Civitians probably hadn’t even noticed it. If they had…well, Beryl knew it would not have survived the last few days of their lives.

  “Do you want to say anything?” Beryl asked. She was at a loss for words. She was not good at this sort of thing.

  Beryl’s father looked out at the horizon, as if he was trying to think of the perfect thing to say in the moment. “Not really. I think that’s what Rona would have wanted, though. She would have wanted us to be present for the moment, rather than feel obligated to say something.”

  Hearing her father say those words, Beryl smiled. It was what her mother would have wanted.

  Beryl put the bag in the air, ready to empty its contents into the breeze and let them float over the Libertasian soil.

  “Wait. Not all of the ashes.” Whit put his hand on Beryl’s wrist, physically preventing her from emptying the contents of the bag as she had intended to do. “Save some.”

  Beryl didn’t say anything, but she was sure her father could see the questioning look on her face.

  “For Earth. When we’re done with all of this, we’ll spread the rest of her ashes there. She would have loved the idea of having a final resting place on Earth.”

  Beryl smiled. Her father was right.

  When they finally ended this fight they hadn’t wanted and that had killed a woman both she and her father loved, they would spread the rest of her ashes on the planet that had brought the fight to them.

  It seemed incredibly appropriate to Beryl.

  *

  The giant ship hurtled through space, operated by a limited intelligence system, much like the much smaller communications drones that traveled between the settled planets on a daily basis.

  Although the ship could easily hold several thousand people, this particular ship only had five passengers, all secured in small rooms of their own, unable to communicate with each other. Several times a day, drones delivered the five men aboard the ship food.

  It would be several weeks before the ship reached its destination, but as the people who had sent it on its way to its destination knew, that would be plenty of time for those at its destination to determine what to do with the men on the ship.

  For those five men, the next weeks of their lives on the ship they called Ivy would give them plenty of time to think about the punishment they would face when they got home to Civitas. Not just for what they had done on Libertas, but for what they had done on Civitas as well.

  None of them were optimistic about what they would face when they got home.

  *

  Another giant ship hurtled through space, operated by one of the smartest beings ever known to have existed.

  Although the ship could easily hold several thousand people, this particular ship only had seven humans and one very human-like intelligence system as passengers.

  It would be several weeks before the ship reached its destination, but it would be more than enough time for everyone on the ship to worry about what they would face when they arrived at their destination.

  For those eight individuals, the next weeks of their lives on the ship they called Rediviva would give them plenty of time to think about what they would face when they reached humanity’s home planet of Earth.

  None of them were optimistic about what they would face when they got to Earth.

  But they knew they had to go there and finish the job they had never expected to have to do.

  Can’t wait for the next book in the series? Click here to join the S.E.T. Ferguson mailing list and get immediate access to a short, prequel story on the deadly animals of Columbina. After that, you will get regular updates on future books, giveaways, and 1 to 2 short stories per month in the Earthbound Series (and series to follow).

  ***

  Coming Soon on Amazon:

  The Earthbound Series Book 3: Terra Incognito.

  About the Author

  Find out more about the author at setferguson.com or on Facebook.

  Copyright Informationr />
  Copyright © 2018 by S.E.T. Ferguson

  All Rights Reserved.

  Published by Tchop Street LLC