4
Charlie and Aelfwyrd climbed to the fifth floor of the building and then out onto a large veranda which overlooked the entire marble city. The sky was continuing its rolling and waving motion. It looked to Charlie like each line of green and purple flowing energy was an electronic river moving above them.
A series of buildings across from the one they were in reminded Charlie of a white and gleaming collection of Taj Mahals. He couldn’t imagine buildings like these could be built without years of planning, designing, imagining. They were high art.
“Is the whole ship like that?” Charlie pointed at the sky.
“I don’t know. My briefing didn’t cover those sorts of details. I suppose Umbra would be the one to ask about that. She’s supposed to understand the propulsion systems.”
At this point Aelfwyrd felt his hand run over the notebook in his back pocket, the one which had been written by the other David Aelfwyrd. He took it out to see what the other him had been doing before he died.
The pages were all blank.
Aelfwyrd held the notebook out to the captain. “You said that I had been writing in this book? The pages are empty.”
Charlie glanced over. He was visibly surprised by what Aelfwyrd was showing him, but he shrugged it off. “There are too many mysteries all at once. We have to prioritize. We’ll worry about why you wanted to kill me once we take care of the things who want to kill us right now.”
“But, when you saw this notebook, it had writing in it? Words in it? You saw the other me writing on these pages?”
Charlie waved the questions off. Far below, among the statues and the white architecture, he could see at least three dozen of the monsters. They were swarming and searching through the gardens and the walkways.
“How do we reactivate their collars?” Charlie asked.
Aelfwyrd slid the empty notebook back into his pocket. “Yes, yes, that would be the best option. But I have no idea. Asking me is like asking Isaac Newton to fix your television. I’m a smart guy for my time, but the technology is centuries beyond me. With the exponential nature of progress, I wouldn’t even attempt it.”
“You compare yourself to Isaac Newton?” Charlie raised an eyebrow and scoffed.
“Certainly,” Aelfwyrd replied with sincerity.
“Whatever.”
“You ever want to make Newton blush? Tell him he’s as smart as Aelfwyrd. When we find the rest of our crew, ask them what history says about me. You have no idea.”
“Alright, then use that direction-of-the-human-race-altering brain and give me your recommendations. There must be hundreds of those things searching the ship for us,” Charlie ordered, suddenly sounding like a commanding officer.
“Yes, sir. I’ll do my best.”
“Isaac Newton isn’t on the crew, is he?”
“No.”
“I could have used his powers of gravity detection. Where’s the command center?” Charlie asked.
“You really don’t remember anything from orientation, do you?”
“No. Not really. Where is it?”
Aelfwyrd pointed out past the door they had walked out of with Allambree. There was a large white circular building without any decoration just past the Genesis Chamber. It was several stories taller than the building they were currently inside of, and the roof was decorated with a great curved spire, like a seashell. A series of blue circles, which might have been or might not have been windows, rounded the building about half-way up.
“Maybe we’ll find the rest of the crew there?” Aelfwyrd suggested.
As the two men watched, the door of the Genesis Chamber opened. Allambree walked out again, wearing the same long white and gold robe they all woke up wearing. It took just a heartbeat for the monsters to see him and for him to see them. He turned around and ran back inside. They began to follow him, moving more quickly than before. One walked in through the door and a second behind it. Every single one of the monsters seemed aware of Allambree’s presence and they were all shuffling in the direction of the Genesis Chamber.
“He’s as good as dead again,” Aelfwyrd whispered.
“You’re right, and we’d better be careful. If we die, we come back in that room and they get us over and over again.”
Aelfwyrd nodded. “The capital then.”
“Sorry?”
“The, uh, command center – the capital.”
Charlie and Aelfwyrd slowly and quietly made their way back down to the third floor where an exhibit of medieval knights and wizards was interspersed with religious tapestries. Charlie looked around for a few moments and then picked one of the suits. He kicked it over and the various pieces of plate and chainmail rolled and clanged all over the floor.
“What are you doing? They’re going to hear us.”
Charlie smiled. He bent down and picked up a sword. He chuckled as he drew it from its scabbard. “Ha ha. I knew they wouldn’t bother with cheap costume stuff. These are real weapons.” He indicated a polearm on the wall for the doctor.
“I don’t know how to use anything like this. And you don’t either.”
“Sure I do. I spent my childhood pretending to sword-fight with my brothers. I even used a crow-bar a couple of times as an adult in real fights.” Charlie swung the sword around, testing its weight.
Aelfwyrd set to work getting the polearm loose from the wall. “I’m not a combatant.”
“You’re whatever I need you to be. Otherwise, I’ll just kill you again and see if the next Doctor David Peter Aelfwyrd is more compliant.”
Aelfwyrd frowned as he hoisted the weapon, but found himself smiling like a little boy when he finally held it up like a real warrior.
“There you go,” Charlie nodded at him.
“It’s just a big scalpel.”
Charlie and Aelfwyrd moved more quickly than quietly down the rest of the stairs. Aelfwyrd banged the end of his polearm against the hard floor a few times. He wasn’t used to the big weapon. The metal scratched against the stone.
They un-barred the front door and carefully stepped back into the street. A couple of the monsters could be seen reasonably nearby, but not so close that there was any immediate danger. Aelfwyrd was becoming noticeably agitated.
“Something’s wrong. This doesn’t really make sense.”
“What’s that?” Charlie asked, keeping an eye on the monsters.
“Some of this technology is god-like. This city is…godlike. It’s incredible. But, where are the robots? Where are the computers? Where is the cloud of defensive quantum love-nanites which should be disassembling any invaders? There’s technology missing.”
“Robots are not a good idea,” Charlie said in a serious voice.
“Yes, I understand. You had your historical problems with them, but that was a long time ago. Maybe a thousand years ago. We’re well past that. Even in my day, we were past that. You and I shouldn’t be holding knives from the Dark Ages. Where are our disintegration tubes? Where’s the crap which wasn’t dreamed up yet in our day?”
“Yeah, okay. You have a point.” One of the creatures was moving closer. Charlie wasn’t sure if it saw them yet. “They’re weird. What kind of a planet would they evolve on?”
“They’re amphibious,” Aelfwyrd explained. “They’re used to less gravity and they’re used to spending most of their time under water. I imagine they would zoom along at terrifying speeds if you submerged them. This is not an ideal environment for them.”
“But you think we brought them here as a work force?”
“We may have had limited options. And it all depends on how badly we needed the labor.”
“That’s another good question: what would we need them to do? Surely the people who built this ship would have given us any resources we needed. And I don’t think we would have needed an army.”
“No. They’re dangerous, but they’re not meant to be soldiers. They would have weapons or augmentations in that case. Maybe they’re just simple servants? No, that seems unlikely. Yo
u wouldn’t want one of them making your tea. I think they’re a traditional workforce: labor. Maybe we needed to dig or build or repair, something simple yet strenuous.” Aelfwyrd’s mind was working.
“I would never agree to that.”
“No, you wouldn’t. Not unless the need was serious.”
“Not even then.”
“Charlie, you can’t know what the other Charlie went through. You haven’t lived his life.”
“Yeah, I don’t buy it. I don’t believe any experience would change me that fundamentally. Enslaving those things is the opposite of everything I believe.”
“Well, you’re imagining they’re people just because they walk upright. Do you have a problem with riding horses? How do you feel about zoos? Or dolphin shows? I don’t see any reason to suppose they’re as smart as dolphins. Slavery is just not the right word to describe work animals.”
At that point two of the creatures began moving quickly in the direction of the two men. Charlie pointed so that Aelfwyrd would see. Aelfwyrd almost dropped his polearm turning in the right direction. Charlie steadied himself and got ready to fight.
Then he rushed forward, past the doctor and right up to the first of the two beings. It began to slowly swing its arm at him. As it did so, the flesh reached out beyond the normal shape of the body towards Charlie.
He struck his opponent in the head with the handle of his sword.
It staggered and bent down.
He hit it again and the monster lost consciousness.
Aelfwyrd had cautiously followed his captain forward and was about to face the second of the creatures. He held up his weapon and was waiting for his opponent to get close enough for him to strike.
Which meant that the creature was not facing Charlie.
Charlie ran towards it and then leapt into the air. He came down crashing the pommel of his sword into the being’s skull.
It spat blood, then white fluid, and crashed to the floor senseless.
At just that same moment, Aelfwyrd had found his courage and was striking out at the creature. The polearm was above Charlie’s head and racing down. He had to quickly strike up at the heavier weapon with all of his power to deflect it. As it was, he took a softened whack to the side of his shoulder, which was sure to leave a bruise.
“What are you doing?” Aelfwyrd shouted as he dropped the polearm.
Charlie grabbed his shoulder in pain, “It occurred to me that, if I wasn’t going to be a complete hypocrite, I should try to avoid slaughtering them if at all possible.”
Aelfwyrd started spastically shaking his head. “No, you’re crazy. No. No one could really be that ….idealistic.”
Charlie smiled smugly, and then winced from the pain.
January 2168
Doctor David Aelfwyrd found himself spending hours every day in the Martian stables with the Queen’s horses. He didn’t feel like they were hers. He had raised them. More than that, he had designed them. He had raised their parents, and designed them as well. The project was funded by the crown and it was all at Her Majesty’s request, but he had a hard time really feeling like the horses belonged to anyone but him. The animals themselves certainly viewed Aelfwyrd as their father. He knew that much for sure.
The beasts had been featured on two HY-NUS Balls. Everyone on Earth knew about them. Everyone on Mars did as well, but that officially represented barely a thousand people. Bowie City was a small place, as beautiful it was. Even with the best of modern technology, you could only make the domes so big. You could only fabricate so much air and potable water.
He often found himself brushing Winston’s hair as he worked on the calculations in his head. His horses calmed him. They allowed him to concentrate in a way which he found very difficult to do in his office.
The Queen’s horses could breathe the Martian atmosphere. Their skin had been designed to protect them from the radiation and strange rays which made the naked surface of Mars deadly to unaltered Earthlings. The dust was the only problem which persisted for them. When the horses went outside for more than a half hour they developed problems breathing, and their eyes swelled up.
Edris came and found Aelfwyrd in the stables. He knew by now where he would be. Normally, Edris did not have the right to enter the royal stables, but the guards understood why he was there and let the assistant through.
“Doctor Aelfwyrd, we need to leave. The shuttle to Albion is waiting.”
Aelfwyrd took a few seconds to come down and become aware of his surroundings again. “Yes, thank you, Edris. Have you packed my personal bags?”
“It’s all on the shuttle already. I have a change of clothes for you here.” Edris held out a folded suit which he carried on his arm for the doctor.
It took about two hours for the shuttle to move Doctor Aelfwyrd and his office from Bowie City to Albion. Albion was the second functional city on Mars. Unlike Bowie, it was not public. It could not be seen from Earth or from any angle in space. It had been built under complete shadow inside of one of the larger Martian canyons.
No one could know about the work being done in Albion until it was finished. When it was complete, Doctor Aelfwyrd would be known as one of the greatest heroes in the history of humanity, but if anyone learned about his project before it was done, they would condemn him as a criminal. The Queen would disavow him. She had told him so when she approved of the project. They knew his name on Earth. He was already a celebrity because of the horses. His animals’ faces appeared on fanatical teenagers’ shirts. They were carved into their young bodies with necro-tats. He was risking everything.
In the shuttle lounge, Aelfwyrd sat with Edris, Susan, Michael, and Fae. They drank a very old vintage of whiskey and dined on goose, which had been harvested on Earth less than a month prior. Huge picture windows allowed the scientists to see the alien planet rushing past them in real time, but Aelfwyrd chose to use the slow-motion option to re-play the landscape at 1/10th speed. They wouldn’t get to see the entire length of the journey, but it allowed everyone to really look at the strange world they had immigrated to.
There was native life on Mars. It was sparse, but hardy. A grey and orange fungal moss grew in patches here and there where the shade was thick enough to protect it from the sun. And the orgal weed, as they called it, tumbled back and forth like an American tumble weed, never rooting in the soil, but subsisting entirely on the dust and cosmic rays which buffeted the planet. Edris played a game with the other scientists, each taking a drink when they could spot a patch of moss, and two if they spied the orgal weed. Doctor Aelfwyrd didn’t play. He believed it was inappropriate for him to participate. The doctor simply watched. He had vast samples of the rare Martian life forms already gathered and waiting for him in Albion. They were going to continue to be very important in the course of the continued work.
As the shuttle approached Albion, Doctor Aelfwyrd returned the windows to real-time. Beneath the station, he could see the roofs and holding pen where the patients were being kept. His morning update had told him that there were five thousand men, women, and children waiting for him already. The facility could comfortably fit more than ten times that number, and he had serious concerns about whether that would be big enough when all was said and done. He supposed it all depended on what the turnover rate worked out to be.
5
PRESENT DAY
One of the monsters which Charlie had knocked to the floor was beginning to stir. The second one, which had bled out on the marble so much, wasn’t moving at all. There was a decent distance between the two men and any of the other creatures, but at least two of the beings seemed to be aware and slowly moving closer.
Charlie grabbed Aelfwyrd by the shoulder and pushed him in the direction of the command center. He then jumped in front and led the way.
“You don’t remember being President at all?” Aelfwyrd asked.
“Not really.”
“Do you at least remember writing the Accomplishments of Humanity?”
“I’m not really a writer. If I had something to say, it would be a song.”
“Fascinating. I feel like I know who you are better than you do. Imagine if you had a conversation with Da Vinci and he said he didn’t have any interest in art yet. You have been plucked out of time before you actually became yourself. There must be glimpses. Do you have any memories which don’t quite make sense? Pieces?”
“Buddy, you have no idea what I just went through. I fought a war. I killed a giant robot – no, not just a giant robot, I killed the king of giant robots. I don’t know what the powers that be told you about me, but I’d be hard pressed to ever do anything as important as that.” Charlie smirked.
“Yeah, that was important, but you redesigned society. Your writings -”
They walked past a white and red sculpture of a dragon. It was about ten feet high. There were dozens of miniature people riding the animal, all carved into the stone together. At the base of the dragon there was a cloud which spilled out onto the ground. From behind the dragon there was movement and one of the monsters could be seen trying to find his way around to get at the two men. The stone was between it and the men, but the enemy was only about four feet away.
Charlie peered at the pacing creature through the openings in the design. He tried to lock eyes with it. “Can you understand me at all? Do you speak? I don’t know what happened to you, but I don’t want to fight.”
The alien hissed at him, like a cat or a snake. It threw its body against the statue so hard that it seemed like the creature might knock it over or break it. The marble didn’t budge. The creature threw itself against it again. The second time looked like it hurt, and the monster started howling like a baby.
“He can’t understand you, Charlie, and that screaming’s gonna bring them all down on us.” Aelfwyrd readied his polearm, and took a step away.
“Darn it. I don’t know what to believe. You were trying to kill me a little while ago. Yesterday I was freezing to death in Alaska. The day before that my…friends were still alive. I’m not just a gun that strange forces can point and make me kill. I’m not that man.”
The creature was bleeding from cuts and scrapes on its arms, face, and chest. Leaning against the dragon’s body, it began to find its way around the carving.
Behind the men, two more of them were much closer than expected. Yet another could be seen about ten meters to the right.
Aelfwyrd growled. “I don’t need to know anyone’s politics to know that people who try to eat us deserve to get put down. If we survive, we can talk about the plight of the endangered Alaskan Cthulus till we pass out. Let’s just get there.”
The creature behind the statue had finally found his way around. He threw his arms and head up triumphantly and howled. As he did so, the loose and groping flesh lashed to his bones billowed like a sail in the air above him.
Aelfwyrd ran forward. He rammed the medieval weapon deep into the alien’s belly. He struck so hard that he momentarily lifted the creature up off of its feet. And when he let go, he fell forward just in front of the monster. His hands were bleeding. The creature was spasming, vomiting, and dying.
Charlie helped Aelfwyrd to his feet and pulled him away from his victim.
There was then a sound like an electric synthesizer and a burst of heat. A flash of blue so quick that neither of them were sure they actually saw it caused both men to whip their heads around.
Another one of the creatures lay dead only a short distance away. A large metal spike, about two hand-spans long, had been driven through its face. The monster wasn’t moving.
The men watched as a second spike was fired at the next creature. It shot out along a line of blue electricity and sliced through the neck of the alien. As the projectile traveled, it made a sound which made Charlie think of old fashioned techno music, like his grandma used to play.
“Captain!” a woman’s voice shouted out.
There were two women up ahead next to a fountain. One of them was a short busty woman with brown hair. Her hair was held back in place by dark over-sized goggles. She was holding a rifle of some sort, which suggested she had been the shooter. She was dressed in tight battle-armor, like a space-age SWAT.
The second woman had long curly black uncombed hair, a bee’s nest of knots and tangles just this side of qualifying as dreaded. Her skin was an unnatural deep red, like a bloody sunset. She looked Mediterranean - underneath the alien coloration. She wore some of the same armor as the first woman, and held one of the same guns, but her armor wasn’t latched up in the front and she didn’t bother with half of the pieces. She wore a white blouse under her armor which was open all the way down to her belly-button. Her hair and the fabric of her blouse blew dramatically in the breeze, as if she had just walked out of a 20th century music video. She was a little overweight, but carried herself as if she didn’t care. At first Charlie didn’t notice, but as they talked for a while he could see that she had a thin red tail, hairless except for a tuft of black hair on the end.3
The brown-haired woman aimed her gun again off in the distance and fired again. The men couldn’t see her target, but it cried out when she hit. In five seconds she had fired three more times and made three more kills at distance.
Aelfwyrd pointed at them and whispered to Charlie. “Based on the briefing, I would guess that the one with the gun is named Sally Brightly. She was an explorer. The second woman is probably Kalligeneia Athanas. I…. I want to talk to her. I understand she was involved in genetics a long time after my day.”
“Yeah, she looks like her genes were spliced with a tomato.”
Aelfwyrd smiled. “A rather sexual tomato, obviously.”
The two women walked slowly over. Without breaking stride for more than a heartbeat, Brightly took aim and downed another one of the creatures as they approached.
Sally saluted the captain. Kalligeneia smiled flirtatiously at him, as if she thought they shared some inside joke. Her teeth were bright white. Her tongue was purple, in contrast with her crimson skin. As she smiled, Charlie had the impression he was coming face to face with a predator.
“Captain. Sally Brightly, 2232. We’ve been looking everywhere for you. I see that you’ve regenerated,” Sally sounded eager, energetic, and by the books.
Charlie saluted her back. “I’m sorry. I don’t know any of you. My briefing -”
Kalligeneia sighed. “Yes, we all know about the holes in your memory. We’ve been through this before, and we can see you’re wearing your birth gown again. Well, I’m Kalligeneia Athanas, 2362. It’s always a pleasure to meet you for the first time, Charlie. I hope death wasn’t too painful this time.”
“What’s happening? What are these creatures?” Charlie asked.
Kalligeneia explained, “We call them Mud Men. We found them living on the beach on a nearby world. They were chewing and biting and ripping their way through a green ocean filled with alien flesh. We brought them here, improved them, and set them to work. We taught them to be gentle, to work, to clean, to use the kitty litter. The control collars seem to have malfunctioned.”
“Can we make the collars work again?” Aelfwyrd asked.
“You’re the one I’d ask about that,” Kalligeneia smiled. “They’re yours. You built them.”
Aelfwyrd nodded. “In that case, I’ll need to see my notes.”
Kalligeneia laughed. She had a big and healthy laugh. She explained, “When we die, everything we’ve written disappears too. There are no notes, no books, no records. We can only read what we have safely tucked between the folds of our brains.”
“I thought this was supposed to be an exploration mission?” Aelfwyrd asked.
Sally looked at him sympathetically. “That’s what we were all told. But when we die, our writings are gone. But in any case, there’s no way to ever send any messages back to Earth, so if this is an exploration mission, it’s a message in a bottle. We will never get to report back. Earth will never learn anything about what we do.”
r /> Aelfwyrd looked at Charlie. “The capital then?”
“No. We’ve got to go and get Allambree first, and whoever else might be trapped in there. Sally, there’s a large Australian man trapped in the Genesis Chamber with those monsters. Are you up for a rescue?”
“Ready and willing,” she beamed.