Vox astra, p.6
Vox Astra, page 6
part #1 of Vox Astra Series
~*~
Atwatunde: I’m better now. You understand? Better than you, better than anyone else. Yes, yes, I was always better than you all, but the cube made me even more so. You’re not fit to lick my shoes now! I must be patient with you like a parent with a feeble-minded child. I’m superior to you all. I never belonged on a planet as primitive as Earth, much less that toxic wasteland, Titan. I belong in the stars, out there, with them, on other worlds, better worlds humans will never reach. I’ve always known the truth in my heart, but I suppressed it out of fear humanity would reject or ostracize and condemn me. I was never meant to be part of you! I only need to prove it to the Healers, and then the Box will take me to the better life I was born to live. I’m never going back to living on that cloud-choked hell of a world. The only good thing ever about Titan was that it wasn’t Earth. I’m going to prove myself by healing the colony, healing Earth, healing all of you!
~*~
Dr. Armitage’s recent observations of the Black Box place Atwatunde’s words in an alarming context. She has tracked several changes in the Box’s orbit, culminating in steady motion on a trajectory predicted to intersect with Titan within two days as of this writing. This morning, Sanchez removed her spacesuit.
In the ensuing chaos, she injured two council members and several security personnel.
~*~
Sanchez slammed her fists against the small tabletop in her quarters.
The council investigators seated across from her jumped.
“Please calm down, ensign,” Council Member Isadore Bartlett said.
Beside her, Council Member Takeshi Verde offered a sympathetic expression. “If you’d only talk to us. We want to help you. We want to understand.”
“Let me leave. That’s all you need to understand,” Sanchez said.
“Remove your suit, and we’ll do what we can to persuade the council to approve your request,” Verde said. “Surely you understand their reluctance since you’ve told us so little of your experience inside the Box, while Dr. Okahara has been most cooperative.”
“Don’t trust Okahara.”
“Why not?” Bartlett said.
“Let me out,” Sanchez said.
Verde shook his head. “Remove your suit. Let us see how the Box affected you.”
Tension filled the room for long seconds before Sanchez stood and raised her hands to her helmet. “You know what? Fine. There’s no time left for this. I tried. I really did try to do this the right way.”
She disengaged her helmet and raised it.
The atmosphere in the room changed as gasses bled from within her suit and mixed with those outside it. Sanchez gasped, struggling to breathe the air with human lungs reduced in size to accommodate new ones the Box had grafted into her. The council members coughed as the filtration system kicked in to correct the shifting nitrogen-oxygen balance.
Sanchez’s spacesuit fell away. She stepped out of it and stretched, raising her arms. Fleshy pink membranes pressed flat against her inner arms unraveled from her wrists to armpits and snapped taut. Her coarse and thickened skin scraped and rustled with every move. Five magenta squares, each made of smaller squares, hung from her waist on a belt of square links.
“I’m going to Utica Dome now to heal them. Please don’t try to stop me,” she said.
Her voice, much deeper than it once had been, resounded in the small room.
Bartlett and Verde recoiled. Sanchez sensed their instinctive disgust at the shock of her transformation. She saw, too, the equal fascination in their eyes, the slow return of control as they formulated questions she had no will to answer. She hated the way they looked at her, hated their repulsion, their curiosity, their excitement at her altered body. She needed the one who’d understand it best. She would hold him again and make him like her.
Together they’d put things right; they’d fix the broken toy.
Sanchez flipped the table at the council members, knocking them both to the floor.
Bartlett screamed for the guards posted outside.
Three burst through the doorway and froze at the sight of Sanchez.
She used their surprise to her advantage, pushing the upended table at them, crushing all of them aside, then fleeing. Her new shape and metabolism slowed her down, made her awkward, but no one tried to stop her. They stood rooted to the ground and gaped as she passed them, the squares bouncing at her hips. She made for the nearest airlock and relaxed only once the inner doors sealed behind her and the vents switched on. External air blew in, surrounding her in a haze. She looked at her altered shape, shadowy in the yellowish light, thankful for the mist, grateful it hid her from the peering eyes at the porthole window, that it hid her from herself.
The outer doors opened.
She inhaled deeply, her old lungs closing, her new lungs rejoicing.
The cold barely penetrated her new, tough flesh.
She stepped out, spread her arms, leapt—and flew.
~*~
Mission Analysis Overview, Colonial Xeno Council, February 28, Terran Standard Time
This investigation can offer no substantive explanation for Sanchez’s altered physiognomy. The attached videos show her active and surviving on Titan’s surface without an environmental suit. She flies in the same manner as our winged hot suits, relying on Titan’s low gravity and gliding through the dense atmosphere. A security team has monitored her since she exited the colony, keeping a distance to avoid sparking another violent outburst. In the hours since, she has unearthed twenty-eight of thirty-seven corpses from the Utica Dome wreckage and gathered them at the far edge of the ruins. Sub-freezing temperatures appear to have greatly slowed their decomposition, although several of the bodies show signs of grievous injury, limb loss, and decapitation. After completing her efforts, Sanchez removed small cubes from the five strapped to her waist and placed one upon each body. As she depleted her supply, the leftover cubes reconfigured themselves into two smaller cubes at her waist. The dispensed cubes soon enlarged by an unknown means until each one fully contained a single corpse. The magenta sheen of the cubes then faded to amber.
At this time, Dr. Armitage alerted the council to an abrupt increase in the speed of the Black Box, reducing its estimated arrival time from forty-eight hours to twelve.
From the observation deck, the full council watched the shocking occurrences in what remained of Utica Dome. After eleven hours of “incubation time,” the amber cubes thinned, grew translucent, and allowed all to see movement inside. Though no one wished to accept it, no other explanation seemed plausible but that the cubes had miraculously reanimated the dead colonists. Over the next hour, the cubes dissipated into Titan’s haze, exposing twenty-eight healed colonists, limbs restored, bodies altered in a manner similar to Ensign Sanchez’s. Thick-skinned and deformed, they walked openly in Titan’s atmosphere. They jumped and glided. For a while, they simply moved, testing and adjusting to their transformed bodies.
They later gathered around Sanchez, who singled out one among them, recognizable as Mission Specialist Landis Kozinski. The two embraced. The others encircled them, reverent in their presence until they parted, and the group then set to salvaging debris, creating makeshift shelters.
At the council’s order, the security team approached.
Sanchez, Kozinski, and three others quickly turned them back.
They promised they meant no harm to anyone and would allow them to inspect Utica Dome once they prepared it sufficiently, citing a lack of time before an important event would occur. At this time, the Black Box appeared to the naked eye in Titan’s sky, beating out all of Dr. Armitage’s estimates. Okahara, who had remained in quarters during these events, advised the Colonial Council to prepare for conflict.
Okahara: That will be Piotr. He’s here to destroy us all. I told you the Box healed and enhanced. It rebuilt the wounded to better prepare them to meet their goal. Imagine soldiers focused on a single objective, falling into the box, then emerging better equipped to concentrate and deal with the ever-changing conditions of combat. Your enemy has a secret weapon? One survivor returns to the Box and updates the programming to make all those healed later resistant. Your enemy is physically superior? Not so after the Box fixes you. Your adversary holds an intellectual or psychological advantage? The Box corrects for that as well. It did no less for each of us. But ask yourselves this: What did each of us perceive as our objective or opponent? Because the Box only sees things in terms of conflict. It didn’t reveal who made it or how it came here, but that much was very clear. Sanchez wanted to make her life on Titan. Piotr wanted freedom from the limits of his humanity. He overlooked the irony that he received it from a war machine. And, yes, I see your question. What about me? I love humanity, and I love Titan. When Piotr lands, I’m going to take the Box from him and use it to heal everyone and set all humankind free.
~*~
The Council ordered a security team to take Okahara into custody. As they approached her, she emitted an unknown form of energy that killed the entire team instantly. Okahara stated their deaths meant nothing because they would be healed and restored once she seized the Box from Atwatunde. She then killed most of the Council to stop them from interfering with her. She did the same to any who opposed her. Only three members of the Council escaped. We complete and transmit our report to Earth in hopes of warning you. The power contained within the Box relates purely to conflict. It heals only to better destroy. We cannot explain its origins or how it came to orbit Saturn. We cannot guess how the conflict about to begin here on Titan will end. Whatever the outcome, Earth must prepare.
~*~
Standing atop a shattered wall at Utica Dome, Sanchez watched the Black Box descend through Titan’s clouds. Landis joined her, taking her hand in his. Behind them, others of their new kind gathered. Sanchez unleashed an ardent cry that carried deeply through the air.
The Black Box touched down, swirling the yellow haze.
Sanchez leapt and spread her wings. Landis launched at her side.
The others like them followed, each one echoing her defiant call.
The Law of the Kuzzi
The boys hunkered low on the sheet-metal platform and waited for the next chromatic eruption to illuminate the night. They weren’t supposed to climb so high up on the narrow catwalk that topped one tower of the New Dodge dew wells. The fragile array of thermal reactive sheeting, strung on hinges between several makeshift framework structures, captured condensation and funneled it into low, squat tanks in the valley below. The settlers had salvaged the sheeting from the Triumphant’s massive cooling system, and despite its durability, its reactive coating eventually grew stale with wear. After more than four decades on Byanntia, they had little left unused in storage. Bad enough, the danger for the boys climbing around on the lightweight structures untended in the dark, but lately, the dew wells had proven barely adequate to bolster the community water supply. Damage to even one tower could jeopardize lives.
Such thoughts, though, remained as far from the boys’ minds as Byanntia was from Earth. Tonight was a celebration, fireworks the trio had anticipated through months of hard toil and rigorous schooling—ever since Thom Horton and Mick Busco had announced finding the necessary raw materials to make explosives. In each boy’s pocket nestled a rare cigar, pilfered with care from the storehouse where they’d spent the past several decades in nulltemp storage, doled out in miserly fashion to celebrate new births and other momentous occasions. Despite some of the farmers’ efforts to cultivate tobacco crops, the addictive weed refused to take root in the Byanntian soil. Thus, they could only obtain fresh smoking supplies on the periodic trade vessels from Earth. The next ship, due in two weeks, would replenish the humidor. The boys hoped the new stock would cover the three missing stogies.
Although they knew the importance of the dew well arrays, the boys felt confident that they could come and go without harming them. Not only did the tower offer a secret place where the three friends could savor their booty free of adult interference, it provided the best unobstructed vantage point for the pyrotechnics. Up here, the boys were eye-level with the fireworks.
A screaming whistle sheared the dry air, then went silent while sparks of gold fire scintillated across the black sky. They blotted out the endless twinkling stars above and left afterimages floating in the boys’ eyes. The next rocket shrieked upward, producing a palpable concussion and a rainbow of shimmering, metallic flickers. The third turned the world crimson and tangerine and illuminated the landscape like a miniature red sun.
That’s when Frank Duncan spotted the long, dark shape trundling over the eastern hills. “Hey,” he said, jamming his elbow into Colt Bukowski’s ribcage. “You see that?”
“See what?” Colt asked. “Fireworks are damn near burning out my retinas.”
“Man, quit griping, already, will you?” Grant Drasinovich said. “It’s always something with you.”
“We’re not even supposed to be up here,” Colt said. “We get caught, and you know we’re spending the next month digging trenches for the irrigation system overhaul.”
“No one’s going to find us,” Grant said.
Three rockets erupted with a rhythmic crackling, their green-and-amber light painting the air.
“There it is again,” Frank said. “Way out there. Up in the hills.”
“I don’t see anything,” Colt answered.
“Wait,” Grant said. “I see it. Up on the ridge near that willow sapling, right? Looks like some stray kison calves—oh, damn, I lost them.”
“No, not there. Lower.” Frank palmed the back of Grant’s head and turned it.
“Oh. Coming down the eastern trail. Looks like a Crawler,” Grant said. “Is that smoke coming out of it?”
Frank squinted and shielded his eyes with his hand as an electric champagne burst brightened the shadows and thrust the damaged Crawler into stark view. It trundled toward New Dodge. A column of dark smoke wafted from its rear section. The gentle burbling of its motor reached across the plain.
“Who could be out there? Everyone’s in the town square for the party,” Colt said, now seeing the vehicle. “We better tell your dad about this, Frank.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Frank said. “Let’s go.”
“What about the fireworks? And the cigars?” Grant said. “It’s probably someone coming in late from Verdi’s Plain. Geddy McCarthur herds his kison out that way sometimes, and you know he’s always late for town events.”
“No way, man. I saw Geddy dipping into the punch with old man Matson before we left.” Frank raised an eyebrow and pitched an impatient glare his friend’s way. “Besides, that Crawler look like any model you’ve ever seen before?”
Larger than any of those in New Dodge, the Crawler looked extra heavy, mounted on strong treads with reinforced siding. The boys had seen that much in the tide of light coming from the steady bombardment of cheerful explosions.
Grant shook his head and grunted. “No.”
A moment later, the boys scrambled down the latticework toward the dusty earth. They leapt the final four feet to the ground, each rolling to his knees for an instant before they raced off toward the lights and voices of New Dodge.
~*~
In the foothills, the Crawler continued its slow progress toward the settlement. Behind it, tall, slender figures crested the ridge, topping the lone, young willow there by several feet. They stood in silent appraisal of what filled the once-empty valley: the building and lights of New Dodge, all of it as alien and unwanted as the short, baldish creatures that dwelled there. They were disturbing, these beings who draped their bodies in patches of cloth and fiber, who worked the land in strange ways, grappling and struggling with it, forcing it to their own ends, rather than living in accord with the natural rhythms. Even the cycle of the Gr’nar, among the most powerful natural forces on Byanntia, had not cowed the obstinacy of these brash and defiant beings called “men” and “women.” Tonight would be different. So it had been decided in the hearts and minds of the stealthy watchers. On this night, the frail human parasites would glimpse the soul of Byanntia, and their true measure be revealed.
~*~
Far from the darkness of the hills, picnic tables cluttered the town square. The people of New Dodge feasted on fresh kison, whole-grain breads, young stinger leaves, and cakes and pies baked with the meager surplus of sugar, cream, and dried fruit donated by the surrounding ranches and farms. From the walls of the school, the medical center, and the administration building—which most people called “Town Hall”—hung strings of glowing lanterns dripping soft light onto the festivities. A makeshift band of fiddle, guitar, horns, and drums played a fast-paced song that set many party-goers to dancing.
The entire day had been spent this way, given over to eating, drinking, relaxing, and laughing. It was a rare occasion in the hardworking community, one that delivered an invigorating break from work and routine. A true holiday, a fête of distinctly Byanntian nature, different from those times small groups of settlers paid their respects to their origins by observing the holidays they’d carried with them from Earth. This day, this observance, held meaning only on Byanntia and only for the people of New Dodge.
Back on Earth, before the settlers left, before even they built the Triumphant and gathered their equipment, charted and planned their journey, uprooted their lives, and cast upon a new course, scientists and researchers had issued an analysis of their chances for survival. It came in the form of a one-hundred-gigabyte document that contained instructions, guidelines, and databases designed to increase their chances of founding a permanent settlement in thirty-seven different environments. Among all that information, a single statistic imprinted itself on the minds of the settlers: the scientifically derived fact that their chances of success rose from 22.7 percent to 64.3 percent if they lasted for eighteenth Byanntian months.
