The Blue of Antyllus

by Michael E. Gonzales

  The Unborn Galaxy

  Book Five

  The Blue of Antyllus

  Michael E. Gonzales

  The Blue of Antyllus

  Copyright© 2019 Michael E. Gonzales

  Cover Design Michael E. Gonzales

  Fire Star Press

  www.firestarpress.com

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  The Unborn Galaxy:

  Book One: Dark Moon Rising

  Book Two: The Battle of Broken Moon

  Book Three: Across a Sea of Stars

  Book Four: The Vampires of Antyllus

  Dedicated to my old army buddy “Top” Culver,

  whose love of science fiction is exceeded by few.

  Chapter 1

  PEACE IN OUR TIME

  Many light years distance from Earth lay humanity’s second off-world settlement. The distant world was known to the humans as Antyllus, but to the planet’s indigenous peoples as, Eya'Etee Ki Kee.

  First contact with the E’meset, as they referred to themselves, was not friendly, and though a delicate peace was established, it was tenuous at best.

  It was reported that the E’meset had started growing ill and were dying, presumably by some Earthly contaminant. A clinic was set up in the blue forest some distance from the settlement, where the colonists were told a cure was being worked on.

  The truth was far more sinister. An unknown element, incapable of being synthesized, found in the blood of the E’meset had the effect of curing all human ills from the common cold to cancer, broken bones to brain damage. And so, the E’meset were being farmed for their blood.

  The IIEA, the International Interplanetary Exploration Agency, had gotten the world’s many leaders addicted to perfect health and a greatly extended life span, using the serum, derived from the blood of the E’meset, to hold those leaders hostage to the will of the IIEA ― effectively controlling the entire world.

  It was LTC Kathy Selina, a new arrival from the home world, and her companions, who discovered the conspiracy, and led the war that liberated two worlds.

  The price, however, was very high.

  The first year after Fau'Paut'Us, as the E'meset called the war of liberation, was a very difficult year. The colony city of New Roanoke had seen much damage; however, Dave Mitchel and his wife Kathy Selina-Mitchel were on top of the repairs. The work kept their minds busy. The war had been very costly, and Dave felt the loss of each life weigh on him. Had it not been for Kathy, he was certain he would have gone mad.

  ○O○

  Dr. Eltanie Austrini, known as Tanny to her friends, had been among the last to arrive on Antyllus from Earth. Tanny now realized the truth of that statement ― she might very well be among the last humans to ever arrive here.

  The entire colony’s grip on life was fragile to say the least. They were dependent upon the city for more than just food and shelter. It was the largest of only four places on the planet with breathable air. The atmosphere outside, though similar to Earth’s, contained high concentrations of carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide which rendered it poisonous to humans. One breath could bring a human to her knees and result in the loss of the ability to breathe at all.

  Tanny was aware of this, not just because of her repeated classes and briefings, but as an exobiologist, she had studied both human biology and what little was known of the biology of the Umarraw, ― what the Earth scientists were mistakenly calling the indigenous population.

  After the battle, the colonists were released from the safe rooms where they had been sent by the Colony Defense Force. Tanny, like all the colonists, joined the indigenous people in the almost two-day long celebration that spontaneously erupted in the area immediately east of the city, just inside the gate in the city wall, near the site of the final battle.

  The indigenous people built a great many bonfires and prepared a large amount of food, inviting the colonists to join them in the celebration. They also produced a local beverage that had no taste of alcohol, but was, nonetheless, quite intoxicating.

  The colonists, who had to wear protective masks, set up several portable emergency atmosphere shelters. These were clear plastic domes into which twenty people at a time could enter and remove their respirators in order to be able to eat and drink in comfort before returning to the party.

  Tanny sat down in one of the clear domes with a plate of food and a mug of milky blue liquid all of which was entirely alien to her. She was excited to try everything. Almost since the day of their arrival, Tanny and all the non-military personnel had been secured in safe chambers under the city to protect them from the fighting.

  Tanny had seen very little of her new home, and so entered the field that afternoon filled only with second-hand stories of the planet and its remarkable people. She was breathlessly happy the war was over, and eager to aid in the exploration of this new world.

  Inside the dome, Tanny removed her respirator and tasted the odd-looking food; there was meat, fruit, and what could have been either a fruit or a vegetable. She found it all delicious. The drink, too, was remarkable, and the more she sipped, the lighter her spirits became.

  A man sitting nearby leaned toward her, “Do you like it?” he asked.

  “Yes, I do like it, very much,” Tanny replied in her sultry Italian accent.

  “Good. Our supply of rations from Earth is running thin. We’ll be eating a lot more of the local cuisine.”

  “I think I can live with that,” she said, smiling.

  “Just don’t ever watch the peacocks make sausage.”

  “I’m sorry, the what?”

  “Peacocks,” the man said and pointed at an indig standing just outside the dome. “We call them peacocks because of all their bright colors.”

  “Oh! Yes, the coloration of the Umarraw people is a natural defense against predators, you know.”

  The man just looked at her a moment. “You’re one of the newbies off that last shuttle, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I’m Dr. Eltanie Austrini.”

  “I figured…ya see, we learned that they call themselves E-lava E’meset, or something. We just call ’em peacocks. So, what shelter were you in?”

  “I was in chamber three, eighty-five,” Tanny said.

  The man extended his hand. “My pleasure, Doctor. I’m Clarence Talburt, a hydro-mechanical engineer. I was locked up in one, twenty. Good to breathe the free…I was going to say breathe the free air, but not sure that holds true here.”

  Just then, a woman walked by outside the dome without a respirator on. Tanny’s eyes grew large, and she pointed, exclaiming, “Look! How can she do that?”

  Clarence seemed nonplussed. “Oh. Well, she’s a SUB, isn’t she?”

  “A what?”

  “A Cybernetically Enhanced and Uploaded Human Being, called SUBs. Their bodies are complete prosthetic replacements of their original biological bodies. All that’s real about them now is part of their brains which are called Biotronic. If you ask one of them, they will be more than happy to give you the full, complete, and boring details.”

  “I heard of the proposal to construct a better cyborg to go places we can’t, like the bottom of the sea and out here.”

  “Don’t let them hear you calling them cyborgs, particularly Major Mitchel. They are SUBs, period. They take being human seriously.”

  “So, they’re not…like robots?”

  Cla
rence laughed. “Not one bit, and it’s very hard to tell a SUB from a bio.”

  “Bio? That’s us, I presume?”

  Clarence smiled. “For all you know, I’m a SUB.”

  Tanny smiled and said with a shake of her head, “No, sir, you are not.”

  “How do you know?”

  “You have a respirator at your side.”

  ○O○

  Not long after the celebration had started, a call went out to all personnel with any form of medical training to report to any one of the medical facilities within New Roanoke.

  After eating, Tanny donned her mask and wandered about through the throngs, she eventually found herself at the eastern gate, a huge set of concrete doors surmounted with a wall of reinforced razor wire. Beyond that was what the humans called “The Wild Blue Yonder,” or just “The Blue,” ― the vast, untamed and deadly forest covering the planet. The trees grew taller than on Earth in the lower gravity. The forest’s colors were various shades of cyan, blues, purples, and even black. Here and there were other colors such as orange, red, and green, but all dark shades. This was a result of the pale light from the planet’s red dwarf star.

  The low light required vegetation on Antyllus to possess more photosynthetic pigments to capture radiation in a wider range of wavelengths. These plants reflected little of the light that struck them; thus, they had adapted these colors as best for photosynthesis.

  Just outside the east gate and beyond the three-hundred-meter kill zone, the cyan wall of this alien forest stood witness over the site of the heaviest fighting. Bodies littered the ground. The bloody scene told the tale of the great violence that had washed over the area. The sight of the carnage horrified Tanny.

  The E’meset, who now numbered in the thousands, had sent several hundred onto the field to work with the humans to aid the wounded and recover the dead.

  Tanny noted there were two separate areas were human bodies were being gathered. Slowly, with a morbid curiosity, she advanced toward the lines of dead. Before she had gotten within twenty meters, a man in a Colony Defense Force, or CDF, officers’ uniform stopped her.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “Why, sir, are those people kept apart from the larger group over there?”

  “Those on the left are the bodies of SUBs. The decision has been made to…well, cannibalize them for spare parts. Not that we don’t have spare parts in the city, but we’ll probably not see resupply, so nothing is to be wasted.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “I agree, but I understand. The biotronic brains of the dead SUBs will be removed and buried in the cemetery we are going to establish northeast of the city inside the surrounding wall.”

  Just then, a two-meter-tall E’meset strode by carrying the body of a SUB whose head had been shot through. The CDF officer stopped him. Tanny watched as the officer placed a hand on the chest of the dead SUB. He paused a moment, then opened a pocket on the uniform of the unfortunate soldier and removed a PAT, Photo Album Tablet. He then looked up at the E’meset and said, “Key’Etos.”

  The CDF officer turned back to Tanny. “That was the body of Captain LeFabre, a SUB with the CDF.” The officer turned on the album and scrolled through the photos. “We’d become friends in the last few years. He and I were with Major Mitchel as we fought our way out of the city. The captain helped me get through that damned cave, and we were side by side in the fighting here at the city wall.” As Tanny watched the man’s face she saw tears well up in his eyes. “That bullet in his head was meant for me.”

  He then looked up and studied Tanny’s identification disk pinned to her left shoulder. “You’re an exobiologist, you should report to a Med Fac. You might be of help.”

  “Treating the wounded aliens?” Tanny asked.

  “Let me show you something.” The officer led her to the edge of the forest where he pointed out a large group of humans and E’meset. Several elaborately dressed shaman were removing handfuls of a glowing yellow slime from clay jars and rubbing it into the wounds of injured tribesmen and humans. All the injured were drinking copiously from bladders filled with a similar liquid.

  The officer explained, “These are the walking wounded. The worst of these will be healed by dawn tomorrow. The more seriously wounded are to be taken deep into a cave where that algae grows in great, glowing pools. What we have to do is stabilize the wounded until we can get them to the bottom of the cave.”

  “You mean that stagnant water in the bottom of a cave will heal these badly wounded aliens…and the humans?”

  “I do, indeed. The E’meset don’t need our medicine or our treatment. And one other thing you should come to terms with, miss: we are the aliens here.”

  ○O○

  After the scorching vision of the battlefield, Tanny no longer felt like partying. She wanted to return to her room in the city and bathe. She headed back through the gate and walked quietly through the celebrating crowd when she saw a personnel carrier picking up medical personnel to take back to the city. She immediately ran to catch it.

  Thirty minutes later, she was entering Med Fac 17. The place was a madhouse of people rushing about treating the wounded. There was blood covering the floor, and people screaming in pain. Five men rushed past her carrying those same clay jugs she’d seen the E’meset using out by the edge of the forest, and indeed, they were filled with the yellow algae.

  Tanny had never seen a hospital after a battle. It was horrible in the extreme. She was stunned and somewhat in a daze when a tall, black woman in a blood-stained lab coat bumped into her. The tall woman spun around. “Are you lost, young woman?”

  “I’m Doctor Austrini. Can I help?”

  “Doctor of what, exactly?”

  “Ah…exobiology. But I’m well versed in human physiology,” the stunned look on Tanny’s face was apparent to Doctor Bristol. Tanny noted the doctor’s identity disk on her left shoulder. Doctor Bristol was an anthropologist. She took Tanny by the arms and forced her to look into her eyes. “Doctor Austrini, I know this is hard, believe me, I do. You can be of help, but only if you pull yourself together. See that door behind me with the two armed guards?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “The wounded prisoners are in there. Doctor Echohawk is the attending physician. Go report to him.”

  “Prisoners?”

  “The people we’ve been fighting, the IIEA and their mercenaries. Now, go.”

  As Tanny approached the door one of the guards asked, “You’re not armed are you, ma’am?”

  “What? Uh, no, of course not.”

  “No weapons beyond this point, except by authorized CDF personnel.”

  “I understand. Excuse me.”

  Inside, there were gurneys set up, each containing a bloodied human being, generally in great pain. There were wounded lying on the floors, leaning against the walls, and sitting on tables and countertops.

  An orderly hurried toward her. Tanny stopped him and asked, “Doctor Echohawk?”

  “Over there.” The orderly nodded toward a middle-aged Native American man in bloody civilian clothes working feverishly on a shattered leg.

  She advanced toward him through what appeared to be a sea of bleeding flesh and mournful cries until she reached where the doctor was working.

  “Doctor, I’m—”

  “What?” he barked at her. “Can’t you see I’m…hand me that cauterization probe, quickly. On your right, girl! Yes, give it here.”

  With the flow of blood stemmed, Doctor Echohawk took a step back and wiped his brow with the back of his arm. “Nurse, can you close for me?” he spoke to someone across his patient’s body. “Thank you.”

  He removed his surgical gloves and turned to wash his hands. He seemed to see Tanny for the first time. “Young woman, what in the name of God are you doing in here?”

  “I’m Doctor Eltanie Austrini. I’m an exobiologist. I want to help.”

  “An exo— Okay, go see Nurse Mauldin, over there.”<
br />
  Tanny was given the job of checking vital signs, rather menial, but nonetheless necessary. As the night wore on, she was utilized in a number of capacities ― she went for supplies, relocated the wounded, changed bandages, aided in triage, and mopped up blood.

  Nine hours later, she was still hard at work. Now she was trusted to assist with minor procedures and the application of La Vat Ay, the glowing algae miracle cure-all that she’d been shown. It wasn’t until she had applied it to several injuries and watched the healing progress before her own eyes that she really believed it.

  Nurse Mauldin directed Tanny to take another load of instruments to be sterilized when the nurse suddenly paused and took the bundle out of her arms, “Have you had a break, had any rest or any food?”

  “I’m all right,” Tanny replied, wiping her brow with the back of her hand.

  “Tanny, when you have loaded these instruments into the autoclave, I want you to go get some rest.”

  “I’m all right, really.”

  “That’s an order, honey,” and Nurse Mauldin departed.

  Tanny put the last of the tools in the machine, closed the door, and pressed the start button. With that, she leaned back against the table behind her and let out a deep breath.

  “You work very hard to save the lives of your enemy.” The voice came from the floor. Tanny looked down to see a young man in bloody clothes. He wore the blue and black camouflaged uniform of the International Interplanetary Exploration Agency. He sat on the floor leaning against the wall with his left arm in a sling.

  “That is the difference between us,” Tanny replied. “I work to save lives; you, to kill.”

  “We IIEA security personnel thought we were defending the colony from a rogue military force. I only just saw this.” He held up a palmtop computer which held Major Mitchel’s report.

  “Where did you get that?” Tanny asked.

  “A CDF officer passed several out with instructions that we all read this report. It’s all true, I suppose.” The young man was dejected in the extreme.