Chains of loss, p.1
Chains of Loss, page 1
237 Robert Sier Chains of Loss
Wednesday, October 26, 3481.
Time: Early morning.
Location: Crater in wilderness, claimed by Overarchy. South of Worldsedge.
The light blinked every three point two seconds, and for some reason Derek found it riveting.
He was not in the habit of staring at blinking lights, but this one was all he cared to look at. It wasn’t until higher portions of his brain began to function that he began to wonder, what exactly is that light?
Now that the question occurred to him, he wanted an answer. The light was actually a number of lights, each in a distinct shape. No, some of them repeated.
A few more neurons jostled back into position and began to fire. Suddenly he remembered what letters were. Yes, the lights were definitely letters. This raised a new question: Why couldn't he read?
He tried again. Critical…brain…damage. Please…stand…by.
Derek found himself unsurprised. He was damaged enough that he’d forgotten how to read.
Prompt, he thought. The light flickered in response. Status.
A basic diagram flashed into view.
Spreck. What happened? His brain was blinking between white and grey status, indicating cybernetics that were hard at work, trying to put him back together. The rest of his body was between white and yellow status.
His carefully-trained – if battered – mind went to work deducing the pattern of his injuries. He'd suffered a major concussion along with blunt force trauma to his entire body. There were no major lacerations, though, and he had suffered very little blood loss, which allowed his repair cybernetics the opportunity to work at full force. More, if his brain was being repaired, that meant that Shadow was fine and supervising the rebuilding. The AI just hadn’t realized that Derek had found his way to a form of consciousness.
Time to let him know. Shadow.
There was a moment of silence before the AI responded. [Hey. Tired of snoring while I’m pulling you back together?]
…snoring? Derek consulted the diagram again. His lungs were definitely too torn up for him to actually be breathing right now.
[It looks like your sense of humor died in the crash.]
Sorry. I just…nevermind. What happened and where are we? Crash?
[Yeah, crash. We went down hard.]
Hold on. What could we have hit? Derek struggled to remember where he had last been, and came to a horrifying possibility. Did we pancake into the side of Prometheus Station? If so, he would never live it down.
[No. I’m still not sure what we hit – at least, to start. But we’d better start at the beginning. What’s the last date you remember?]
Going to bed last night, in guest quarters at the station. It was Tuesday.
[Not too bad. I’ll do another run on your short-term memory; you’re only missing a few hours, but they were…eventful.]
Okay. So fill me in.
[Seneca declared a full-colony alert due to NSW - that’s some kind of technical term. Means ‘I dunno what to call it, but we’re about to get squashed.’ Our orders were to gather supplies, abandon the planet’s surface, and ride it out. Full briefing was to follow the event – that’s usually code for ‘we might call this a drill if nothing happens’.]
With you so far.
[Well, that’s the last thing I have to tell you that makes sense. Zero hour came and the entire ship went crazy. Thermal readings all over the place, an impossible gravity flux…I have no idea how it happened, but our sensors were reading twenty Kelvin when we were scorched badly enough to fuse the hull. Then we got an exit wound on our port side. We lost two gyros, but there’s no entry wound anywhere – like whatever hit us came from inside the ship. After whatever-it-was scorched us, we did a full space to ground nosedive with single-digit engine function and no maneuvering gyros. With the hull fused, we couldn’t even deploy wings.]
Derek’s mind wandered for a moment, then jumped on a fact that happened to shine through. Two hours, fourteen minutes.
[Huh?]
We were at L1. Two hours, fourteen minutes to the lunar surface. Isn’t that right? He hesitated. I’m assuming you meant that we hit the moon.
[Negative. Whatever we hit had atmosphere – and we were less than three thousand kilometers from Prometheus Station. Total time from last sensor reading to impact was fourteen minutes. We didn’t hit Artemis or Elysium.]
Derek’s brain, overtaxed by the reconstruction, ground to a complete halt. If we didn’t hit the moon or the planet, then what DID we hit?
[Still working on it – and there’s been no contact since before the scorch. And our comm gear worked until we hit the ground; we squawked out a distress call the whole way down, and we didn't get a single response.]
Weird. Well, how’s the ship doing?
[That, at least, is something I can report on. The Nicobar got a quick refit to Leto-class for the evacuation. We’re carrying a lot more gear than normal, and while most of our systems are hosed, with a few weeks of both of us working on it, we might be able to get it space-worthy again. Most of the ship got beat to pieces, but the computer survived without a scratch. Not much we can do with it, but it’ll fix itself up in time.]
Derek stepped up his consciousness level to a low-quality simulation so that he could scratch his chin, or at least a reasonable facsimile of it. Okay. What do we know about where we are?
[Right now, about all I can tell you is that it has atmosphere and it has a gravity level of .997 g’s. That’s about .4 g’s lower than anywhere on Elysium. Anywhere in the system, even.]
…check again? For the first time, Derek felt fear creep into him. A shattered body was nothing he couldn’t handle if he had a few hours. But if he wasn’t in the system, how would he get home?
He added a basic room to the simulation. Four walls, a roof and a cozy chair that he could sit in, drawn into existence without detail to cut down on the processing required.
[Checked and confirmed. We’re nowhere in the New Athens sphere of influence. My best guess? Well, you’re not going to like it.]
Hit me.
[Well, gravity's very, very close to 1.0 g. You know what planet has that as standard.]
Yeah. Earth. But we can’t be on Earth…it’s a few centuries’ worth of travel away!
[So’s any other planet outside of the system. And we can’t be on any planet in our home system, so we’re at a stalemate: we are quite clearly nowhere.]
Okay! Okay! You win. We might be on Earth and outside the system. How soon can I get up and look around?
[About two hours. Until then, you should probably get some sleep.]
***
Two hours later, Derek was awake and alert. He could even move a little, and use his real eyes to look around. The ship’s sensors were trashed but there was enough flexibility in the hull left for him to create a small porthole.
It was one thing for his Shadow to have assured him he wasn't on his home planet, and another to see plants growing wild. Though his people had been working for centuries, their homeworld was still barren – at least, outdoors. His father had kept a well-cultivated garden, complete with imported weeds and pests, for added authenticity.
The world he saw was obviously not in his home system, but some of the plants looked familiar. He broadcast a request for the ship's computer to help out.
It instantly identified seven separate species before his eyes; twenty-six others were flagged unknown. The speed at which it responded gave him pause when it occurred to him that he was cut off from Clotho, the data administrator. That meant that he was limited to what was in his ship’s databanks. He sent a thought, asking the computer what other files it had, then spent a moment blinking at its terse response: All of them.
It was a completely literal response. The ship’s computer contained a full record of all public information. He could picture Seneca’s avatar, with that smug little smile and a wink, spouting his familiar motto, ‘Just in case.’
Derek found himself trembling as he faced what ‘in case’ constituted this time. He was somewhere out in space, now. His ship was crippled. Whatever phenomenon had thrown him an impossible distance may have destroyed his home as well.
He pushed down the fear and forced himself to focus. What did the computer have that could help him, right now?
The files included a briefing on why Seneca had ordered an evacuation, but it shed no light on the situation. Seneca had detected an incoming disturbance years ago, but the AI hadn’t found cause for alarm until he had seen its effects on an outer planet. The monitoring satellites which had recorded the event had survived unscathed but the planet had been ravaged. The solution was obvious: get everyone to go into space.
Related files included details on the refit his ship had suffered. It was comprehensively equipped. A full construction suite had been packed into the ship - enough tools to build an entire colony.
Another file, flagged for his attention, revealed that he currently possessed a firearm. Lacking other things to do, he ran himself through training simulations while he waited for other systems to come online. Especially his stomach; the ship had begun feeding him intravenously before he’d regained consciousness, but in their desperate need for fuel, the nanites had stripped his body of almost all its fat.
[Most of our internals are nominal; we just have a number of fractures to repair. ETAs on repairs on the ship include the environmental assessors in 43 hours—after which we may be able to go outside without the suit, which I wouldn't recommend until we kno
There were no screens; the visual feed went directly into Derek’s mind as new fields of vision. He panned his focus around slowly, taking in the crater his landing had produced. The subsequent fire had spread little but still smoldered. Beyond the burn line were trees; monoliths that reached up a good ten to twenty meters with vast layers of green leaves bearing just trace hints of red and yellow.
Derek made note of the species as tagged by the scanner. Only about a third were identifiable; the rest were clearly labeled as non-Terrestrial.
So is this Earth or what?
[Everything’s just a little off. Gravity is very close, but if this is Earth, it’s very little like the Earth our ancestors left. For one, even if we landed in a nature preserve, we should be swarming with people by now. It's possible that something happened—Hold up.]
What now?
[A human just came into scanning range. Headed right towards us.]
A New Athenian?
[Definitely not.]
Let’s see him.
[Her, actually.] A window opened up a real-time display of the approaching human. Derek gaped.
She was definitely human, but her resemblance to anyone he had ever encountered ended quickly. Her skin, though tanned from exposure to this world’s sun, was slightly paler than Derek’s own, and she was dressed in crude garments of material he had never seen before. She carried odd implements, and moved through the rough terrain with a surprising—and, to Derek, unsettling—ease. Her right eye was covered by some form of thong; the other eye was continuously scanning the forests around her, as if she anticipated an encounter with someone, or something.
What in Tarus is she wearing? And carrying? And what's that thing on her face?
[Checking. Never seen it either…okay. The computer’s database says that the material she is wearing is most likely boiled leather.]
What’s leather?
[Skin stripped off of dead animals, processed so that it doesn’t decay.]
Spreck. She’s a barbarian or something.
[Or something. Other parts of her clothing are analogous to organic silk. Some of the things she is carrying are weapons; others appear to be crude mechanisms designed to help her survive.] The A.I.’s voice was suddenly very puzzled. [Despite the low technology of her equipment, some of the metal she's carrying is titanium-steel alloy. Compared to the sophistication of the rest of her gear, it's several orders of magnitude more advanced.]
A mannequin-like representation of the woman appeared. [She appears to be carrying bladed weaponry concealed on her person in these locations.] Red outlines appeared on the woman’s outfit. Derek shook his head in dismay. What kind of person was this?
[Also, for your last question, the leather thong on her head is covering up her right eye socket because she is missing that eye. ]
Why?
[Scanning. The wound looks recent, and also included the dye that colors that half of her face. It doesn’t look like a tattoo of anything I’ve ever seen. Just looks like some kind of splotch on her face. It was uncommon, but not unknown, for primitive cultures to include ritual self-mutilation as an expression of personal fortitude. Or it could have been accidental.]
Derek had no response to that other than shocked disbelief. He picked up the gun and checked the clip, finding enough gel for fifty flechette rounds, plus six high explosive bolts. He put the weapon down and swallowed hard. Technically, every citizen of New Athens was a soldier. He had basic weapons training, but he’d chosen the common route of opting to get his pilot’s license for his advanced studies. He knew he could use the gun, but he wasn’t sure that he could actually shoot someone with it.
[Derek, she’s here.]
What? How did she know we were here?
[Well, either she’s tapped into a satellite feed and has been watching us the entire time, or it’s the fact that we’re sitting in a giant smoking crater.]
Oh. Uh…let’s see her.
The strange woman was studying them, biting her lip. She circled the crater carefully, examining the craft from every angle. She looked back at the trees that had snapped as the craft landed, then, shrugging, examined the ground around the craft.
What is she doing?
[I am not sure, but she looks…uneasy.]
Well, I’d better let her know that I come in peace. He hesitated briefly. Her presence and those plants imply that I can breathe the atmosphere, and I have to make first contact one way or another.
[Go ahead. Probably safe, all things considered.]
He broadcast the manual release for the craft’s side door. The woman crouched, her weapon raised into ready position as the door slid open.
For a moment, Derek and the woman looked at each other wordlessly. He estimated her height at about a meter and a half, and probably a third of his mass. She had dark brown hair reaching a little past her ears in the back and drifting down on the right side of her face, which was streaked with purple around the eyepatch. Derek smiled and sent out a standard greeting broadcast.
The woman did not respond. Did we get a ping off of her?
[Negative. Scans are revealing that she has absolutely no cybernetic hardware whatsoever.]
Well spreck. Going to have to do this the hard way. Derek turned off the suspension system, took a deep breath, cleared his throat, and froze. He quickly dialed back his perception of time.
So. I talk to her...but what do I say?
[How do I know? I've never talked to anyone in the flesh before. People have done it for millennia. Figure it out.]
Derek settled on something to say and popped out of the rush.
“Uhm. Hi. Could you tell me what planet this is?”
The woman raised an eyebrow. “Earth,” she said tersely.
Shadow called him back into the rush. [Great, great! Now, ask her what year!]
Why would I do that?
[Well, you're trying to figure out what happened to us, so that might just help. Remember, we just apparently traveled faster than light – which is supposed to be impossible. Theoretical physics says we might've gone through time and space.]
Fine.
“Th-thanks. What year is it?”
“Six ninety-four.”
[Oooh, good good good!]
Why? We're apparently in the distant past!
[No, we're not. They didn't speak English in six ninety-four, and actually didn't widely use the common era year system until seven thirty-one. But, if you assume the people of Earth adopted a new calendar after something big happened, and go back about seven hundred years, we get back to what event...?]
Derek didn't need any further prompts. Last Transmission. Something must've happened.
[No spreck.]
So, what do I ask next?
[Hrm. Probably no point in asking why she speaks English – seven hundred years is a long time for language to change but she’s understood us so far.]
Why not?
[Just a hunch but she doesn’t strike me as a linguist.]
…fine. What to ask next?
[Your turn. You figure it out.]
“I was wondering if you knew what happened that people set the calendar after? I mean, it was a while ago but I thought...” He trailed off. The woman was glaring at him with one green eye. It was the grumpiest look Derek had ever seen, and it set him back for a moment.
“I'm sorry,” she started, her voice thick with sarcasm and a slight accent Derek had never heard before, “but it sounds like you fell out of the sky in order to ask stupid questions.”
“Stupid questions...? Well, what would be a smart question, then?” Derek tried to disarm her glare with a friendly smile.
“Where am I? Are we safe here? Are flesh-eating monsters coming to burn me to death or is it safe to sit around talking? Of those questions, only the third's important because the answer is yes and we should get going before they show up.”
He stared at her dumbly as she scowled. “You've heard of orcs, right?”
“No...”
[You really never read that much mythology, did you?]
Why? You know what she means?
His perceptions slowed again as Shadow uploaded information to his brain. [Depends. Orcs are fictional, but that doesn't mean that people who encounter something similar won't use the name. Considering her agitation, it's probably based on their attitude.]
