Eros

Do the gods alter the course of humanity from behind things we have chosen to ignore?

 

 

Eros Lost:

 

Louride levitated to a halt at Neuropia's western side. She wanted to be sun lit this millennia to she if it was suitable to wear at Nebute's formal gathering later, down dimension. The plump Lalandravoris waivered into existence and her nebulous eyes coalesced into two sunlight planets focusing on a worrisome stone rolling across space time toward the newly evolving lifeform.

All of the eldritch horrors watched the meteor she dislodged plummet into the emerging biomass floating on the cusp of two dimension sprawling nebulas between Louride and Neuropia. Lalandravoris chased a mirrored scale of numbers that was her tail around around the biomass not wishing to bump it and damage it's fragile climate and then drew upright, scattering the stars of a galactic core that suddenly appeared, drifting through the space time between these Eldest horrors. The nebula that comprised her body evolved on the galactic tides of time, the scattering stars swirling to clothe her in light.

The species they had hoped would evolve suddenly began disappearing. Suddenly, that is, based on a scale of geological epochs, by which these eldritch gods measured time. As they withdrew their attention to confer amongst themselves, the biomass glazed over and sparkled. The elders returned their attention to the ice-encrusted orb and as it thawed a similar species evolved almost replacing the dead one. It was such a shame, they were destined to evolve into master star-farers. Pieces of the biomass broke away and began to fly.

A large meteor, a piece of a planet that had destroyed itself long ago distances of space, this one having a large amount of the poisonous iridium as part of of it's shells icy composition, sparkled as it hit the planets surface, nearly ending the existance of the sauroids. On the drying scab covering the lifeform's wound, a group of mammalian tool users began to evolve on the dry plains where they could watch for predators while foraging for food at the base of the solitary tree.

At a thought from Neuropia, a steady beam of light traveled through evolution across space and time and diverted the intelligence struck upon the cleverly evolving humanoids. Nebute essence sparkled when he appeared placing the stricken life form between him and the others.

"Is it fouled, this construct of ours?" He would let them notice him, he usually didn't. The line of the cusp began lengthening through time, outlining Louride. He spoke, and a million crystalline memories the size of planets lauched toward the center of time.

"Not badly. The mammal's brain is capable of surpassing that of the sauroids, Nebute. However, they will never achieve the physical strength we require for this project without mechanical enhancements."

Nebute's gaze returned to focus on the galaxy tumbling through space illuminating the mysteries of the Universe that hung about them, not unlike the galaxies of our human knowledge. These humanoids would need the ability to hurry to become the star-farers that the ancient dimensional travelers needed to claim the portions of the universe they knew as their own. Nebute extended a thought that lightly touched the surface of the biomass. It quivered sending ripples around the biomass' circumference. Nebute pronounced to Louride.

"It seems warm." Lalandravoris's path glowed and the lifeform moved a few microscopic increments away from the nearby star. A flight of reflective gray trapezoids arced in the background as a gyroscope rose to encompass all of time before disappearing.

Neuropia blew a small plaque on the biomass as he muttered. "The humanoid excretions of the biosphere will now evolve to overcome specific problems in their development and become the means of marking our trail through these myriad dimensions strewn like boulders across time and space."

The thin skinned mammalian hominids that were evolving to replace the sauroids would just need to build better ships as they joined the other galactic species responding to the commands from the inter-dimensional travelers.

These beings from an alternate dimension knew how to manipulate the wealth of worlds they fished from the dimensional stream of the humanoid galaxy. From their current residence at a point in time where the singularity caused by their presence was causing this dimension the least harm. After all, they were eldritch Gods, travelers joined together by time next to a trans-dimensional stream.

The ice on the orb melted again as the gods of Chaos watched a new life form begin to walk upright.

Almost five billion years later, an out of control space ship broke through the atmosphere of a planet. The oddly designed Extrapolation ship was designed to be faster than light as well as being able to land on planet. Looking like a huge, air-borne seed The ship's life support and main crew areas and engine pylon and the mysterious Extrapolation hyper-drive engines nestled below that between the huge, reflective, horseshoe shaped wing hanging below them with looking like a huge stamen seeking a fertile spot in which to grow.

The Extrapolation Traders, traveling along the millenia-long journey of their race's expansion, had acted in haste when understanding this new species had used a defective part in one of the redundant systems. It was a super processing android. It could calculate jump coordinates and maintain the many systems of the ship. It was a standand item on all of the Ertrapolation Trader ships so they could pursue other matters, but the E.T.'s had unknowingly worked in an unseen short trying to design a synthetic human personality into one of their ship's computers.

Or so the story goes.

The human race had been in space for almost five hundred thousand years. At the speed of light, the slow-ships of early exploration of space rewarded the humans with a small string of colony planets along a rough curve toward the galactic center. Traveling along almost the same rough arc in the opposite direction, the Extrapolation Traders were during the same thing. Only they were a little faster.

The last planet the humans colonized wasn't exactly settled, but the optimum landing site happened to have a grounded starship with a group of Extrapolation Traders living out of it. It turned out that the E.T.'s were friendly and willing to trade with new species.

The right Honorable Horace Kelty was the political officer responsible for the humans conduct in the presence of the aliens. Judge Kelty usually mediated shipboard infractions and was responsible for maintaining morale as a high ranking member in the shipboard of command. The Captain wanted him to collect information about this contact before jeopardizing his ship or it's complement. So the planet side negotiations (on which the E.T.s insisted) fell upon Horace Kelty and a hand-picked assortment of personnel including a secretary/cook named Jessica who recorded everything, a medico-bot to find out what they were eating and a soldier/chemist named Cigaro to keep them out of trouble. When Kelty and his party landed and signaled that things were O.K., the captain stopped inching the ship into an escape orbit.

The Extrapolation Trader that met them when they disembarked their shuttle craft was called Gint. Nothing else, no title or surname, just Gint. He was accompanied by two of his creche mates.

"We don't need to run away this time." It was the first sentence that the translator deciphered.

Now, they were all seated in the shadow of E.T.'s ship. Cigaro was standing informally at Kelty's right shoulder. The E.T.'s had set up a comfortable setting with furnishings and electronic equipment on the unprotected surface of the planet. A small robot carried a tray with food as it hovered, first, next to Gint, and then, bot and finally to Horace Kelty. Kelty recorded the robot's movements on his communicator. Jessica was digitally recording eveything. Gint didn't seem concerned.

"We want you to colonize this planet." He said to Horace Kelty, who was looking at his personal screen and didn't bother looking up from it. He was so enthralled with the robot's actions and hadn't heard a thing Gint said.

When it began to sink in the right Honorable Horace Kelty almost dropped his communicator. "We could share sections of it with you, if that's not a bother." They were being given a planet by another species. The Trader's were friendly. Gint turned his head to one side and gave Kelty a quizzical glance.Jessica was looking for a place for her up-link transmitter

"We don't want any futher part of this planet, human. For us it is just a nice place to visit. We've already done the research of what you humans would need to get a firm hold on this planet, so the planet your's, Horace."

Horace Kelty felt a surge of relief.

"But it's not without cost." Gint said. Horace felt like the planet's gravity had increased. Maybe it was just space-lag.

"You must perform a task for us." Gint continued.

"It will take some time to study the planet before we could engage in any kind of manufacturing." Kelty stammered. The idea of management was right up his alley. Horace Kelty was also a businessman. The humans previous encounter with the Extrapolation Trader's placed the human race on a cautious approach to the new species. Both ships had identified each other as a new species and fled in the opposite direction.

"Besides managing this planet, your compensation will include the perpetual use of our engines." Gint added.

Also in the previous encounter, the humans had learned that the Extrapolation ship were much faster than there speed of light slowship.

The enclosed power kernel of the Extrapolation Trader's engine transferred matter from in front of the ship behind it through a enclosed series of telescopes and mirrors, for a lack of better words to describe the frictionless engine. The matter from in front of the ship served as its drive mass. The planet's sun was dipping toward the horizon.

"What is it you have planned?" Horace asked the Trader.

"It's just a small task", was all Gint said. "You're going to build an expedition for us into the next quadrant of space with the resources you find on this planet. When you are done with that task you should be aquainted enough with our engineering to construct a power kernel to power it as well as a high speed communication system with the other planets of your species." We are told that near the end of dimensional time there exists a black hole encased in the material of stars pulling forever a molecular seal against itself. It is a source of unlimited energy and anti gravity. Horace Kelty dutifully filed his reports and the council unanimously approved the treaty. The humans called the planet Terminus Prime because it signalled a new era of human consciousness. Five hundred years later, the mammalian species had begun their first trans-dimensional journey as the newly constructed human fleet was on it's way to another star system.

 

The ship had all but disintergrated when it impacted the planet's surface. Only the hardened deep space component hull save them. The craft's atmospheric configuration had all but disintegrated during the miscalculation of the planet's fierce windstorms that suddenly boiled into existence for no apparent reason. There was a sudden inexplicable increase in speed that the engineering department just missed correcting before the engines at the end their pylon caught on the ocean's surface. The engine fell off and pushed up an artificial island while the 100-foot engine pylon broke away and sent the saucer shaped command and control section. skipping across the tops of trees and furrowed ridges of hills.

When the engine broke away the remaining sections had pitched forward before skipping off the sandy shore and across the dense forest like a flat stone. Finally the planet's gravity pulled to rest against the foothills of a volcanic range. Plumes eventually settled against the foothills of a towering mountain range. Henderson remembered the ocean coming at him very fast and the first notes of the proximity alarm. His command chair had held together, even if it was tipped to one side on the wrecked bridge. Flames were licking at a broken section of the bulkhead composite. Off to his side, his engineer's, Osaka's, head was hanging at an unusual angle and there was light reflecting from something wet on his tunic. He couldn't see his android super-processor. Or his weapons officer. He wondered how the other sections of the ship had held out.

Henderson saw a tubular piece of wreckage and used it to pull himself from the chair. The screens he could see were running through test patterns that were reflected from the smoke of burning short circuts. Looking around through the smoke, he saw a leg sticking out from under a piece of the collapsed interior bulkhead. It was the android. Henderson was steamed. Now he'd have to think for himself on an alien planet. Something shifted in the pile. The android was moving. They where lucky not to have been skipped back into the depths of space on board the demolished ship. "Get help" was the only thing he could think of clearly.

"Crap. Polawski, sound off!" His head felt like someone had driven a screwdriver in it. He had hit something hard probably his chair's frame. He had twisted pretty badly so there was numbness in his hands and shoulders. He looked for blood on himself and sighed in relief when he didn't find any. The weapon's officer's voice was muffled. "Here, sir."

Henderson climbed over more dislodged equipment toward the voice. "Something has me wedged under the comm panel." It looked intact.

"Nice spot." Henderson quipped as he pulled the obstacle away.

"For a turtle." The lanky weapons officer said as she emerged from the wreckage; arm head and then legs. Henderson helped Polawski to her feet.

"Are you alright?"

"Caught my leg on something. I think it's scraped but not bleeding terribly. I took a good bump to my side during the last bounce.." Her face started to look stupid. Henderson grabbed her as her eyes rolled up and she began toppling toward him.

"S**t." He leaned her against a solid piece of the ship. He spied an emergency O2 canister that had broken free during the crash and fastened the mask to Polawski's face. Then he grabbed a fire extinquisher and doused the fire he saw before escaping from his chair. It wasn't hot enough to completely ignite the bulkhead. Satisfied he had accomplished something toward saving his ship, Henderson returned to Polawski. He noticed that the rise and fall of her chest was steady, so she was breathing.

He adjusted the mask's straps behind her ears and un fastened her flightsuit to see if he see any bruising. Polawski had seen some tight squeaks with him since joining the Messenger's Fleet departing from the human frontier, but they never experienced the crash of a ship on a distant planet. Until now. There was purpling across her ribs. Her ribs had to hurt. She grumpled something obscene and opened one eye as she pulled off the mask and closed the valve.

"I'm not bubbling so at least my lungs aren't punctured." She zipped up the flight suit. "Captain." She put he hand on his shoulder and pushed herself up. Henderson stood.

"Purely professional interests, my dear. I think Osaka's dead and the android's stuck. I forbid you to die. I wonder if any one else is alive." The pile of debris that had the foot sticking from started to move. Henderson grabbed a piece of duralloy composite and stuck it under a distorted rectangle. He levered the debris off the android it stood up and looked at him.

"Captain Henderson?" It said.

He acknowledged."Yes. Are you alright?"

"I will continue running my self-diagnostics, sir."

"Very good." Henderson roughly acknowledged the rudimentary intelligience. If he got a chance, he was going to sue the human manufacturer of the alien device for everything he could get out of them. If they got out of this mess. The processor was guaranteed for flight safety. Too bad the damn thing was also designed to be almost indestructible or Henderson would have shot it for dereliction of duty before suing the manufacturer.

Polawski depressed a tab on the communication console. The speaker crackled breifly before going silent.

"Come with me while let's see if we can do anything for Osaka. Then we can make our way to the science section. It's centrally located so it might not have been to badly damaged. Someone may have survived. Besides, any medical equipment we're going to need will be there." She said to Henderson.

Henderson's flight engineer was indeed dead, so he and Polawski made their way to the ship's science section. The ship's science guru, Dr. McGurney, was patching up his personnel with spray on bandages. One of them stood in the hatch to the science section administering anti-biotic and pain injections. Henderson noticed a bruise on her as she reached for his arm. he motioned toward Polawski. "Her first."

"Sorry, Captain Henderson, sir. What happened?" She touched the injector to Polawski's shoulder and the and her wand administered a computer calculated dose of antibiotics and a mild narcotic. She touched Henderson on the arm and repeated the injection process.

"Where is McGurney?" The orderly pointed the injection wand toward jumble of equipment. The science section wasn't badly damaged, really. Two men arrived supporting another between them.

"We were returning to the pylon elevator when the pylon broke free, sir. There's a big hole there now." The rating reported when he saw Henderson. "Travesty, sir. Sub-molecular Coolant Systems, First rating."

"Did you see anybody else?" Henderson was grim.

"We came forward through the auxillary systems corrridor. Didn't see any survivors or bodies, either. We had just finished correcting some over heating. Any one else would have been further down the pylon, sir." Travety continued. "Most of the recycled gases and fluids vented when the pylon broke free. Alot of broken pipes and electrical fires." The crew's quarters were on the pylon's 2-Deck.

Henderson slid himself under the arm of one of Travesty's injured companions. McGurney took the other one.

"Thanks Doc." The orderly at the hatch put down her wand and helped Henderson get the most seriously injured man to the exam table. Polawski had been busy. She was good with numbers and reported to Henderson as she guided Travesty to the edge of a table.

" All present and accounted for, sir. Besides us, the rest of the crew was quartered, or, on duty in the engineering pylon. And that's many miles behind us now." Henderson's headache was getting worse thinking about the necessity of an extra-vehicle mission.

"What about navigation?" The navigation system was located on the top of the wing and wwas the only place you could see the real world through actual portholes. It may have fared even better during the crash than the science section. He wanted another shot of painkiller for his headache.

Somewhere he had read in the ships regulations about the chain of command in the event the captain was incapacitated, but couldn't remember who it was. Henderson could remember McGurney outranked Polawski because he was a doctor and Polawski was just a glorified grunt. Henderson shook his head clear. Whatever his command might be, it didn't need petty rivalries. He signaled the orderly with the injector to dose him again and collapsed against a bulkhead. He was the captain, after all.

"What kind of rations do you have stowed away, Doctor?" He asked McGurney. The android had appeared in the hatch of the science section.

It said."Thirty eight kilos of non perishables."

Henderson glared. "Can you run any of your equipment off the robot, doctor? We should use it's power source to operate the necessary systems to get everyone patched up." Henderson told the android to stand in a corner and not say anything. He would figure out how to disassemble it later. Someplace in the wreckage were some powerful plasma cutters that might cut through the android's skin.

He said to the doctor. "Polawski can begin moving the equipment we can salvage out of the ship and setting up a repair area. We will need a goodly amount of our available power to improvise another power kernel. Let us hope we are timely." Polawski said she'd start recruiting volunteers. "I'll see what I find out about navigation."

McGurney grunted. "I can get by on whatever you don't use, Captain. We only have one seriously injured man so far and I can manage his recovery with only rudimentary instruments."

"Beside's we're going to need power for water purification and other hygiene, Captain. There's no saying what kind of microbes this planet has, and until I have access to a computer, I have no way of telling." McGurney had a bandage covering the side of his head."I could use an extra battery."

"File a report with me when you can, Travesty." The rating nodded and closed his eyes as he lay down.

Henderson wanted to rest.

"Do you think it was your robot, Captain?"

"Why do you ask that, Doctor?" The effects of the narcotic had begun to take hold.

"What else it could it be? " McGurney said. "We crashed. The robot was supposed to prevent that."

The android announced at the word 'robot'.

"Failure of human design structure."

"How long will it take to get everyone ambulatory, Doc?" Henderson's head had cleared enough for him to mentally begin restructuring his command. He knew didn't have much of it left.

"I'll let you know." At least the ship's design had saved it's so-called brains. What little lift was provided from the destroyed wings had shielded the science command from most of the shock of impact.

"We're lucky to be alive." McGurney pointed at a section of the bulkhead. The ceramic composite had a series of ripples running through it like rifling.

The anti-inertial drive sheilded as much of the ship as it had the power to do so. "There might not be any one else left alive from the engine pylon. The force from the impact might have crushed them. But enough will have survived to salvage a transmitter. The engine's back-up batteries are pretty much indestructible. They should have enough stored power to signal for help. One of Travety's mates wandered over to where the doctor and captain were talking accompanied by a doctor. His name was Jacque Cointreau.

"I'd be willing to search for the pylon section when we can work out a proper direction in which to start, Captain." Henderson told him that he needed technicians.

"Should be I'm a fully qualified Damage Control rating as well as a Circuit Replicator First Rating." Henderson looked quizzically at the doctor who had accompanied Cointreau and Polawski.

"He's fit for duty, Captain Henderson."

Polawski announced. "Cointreau's my first volunteer."

 

- To Be Continued -

Eros Lost: Part Two

 

The wavelets smoothed out the beach where it slid into the ocean. As the shoreline crusteceans scuttled across the beach following flies to the dead fish they gathered around, Wigwillikin lay at the top of the tide line, and watched through one eye as a bird swooped down and carried a crustacean off. Other birds began to gather. Wigwillikin felt that he should move before he was mistaken for dinner. Over his shoulder the three sections of the pylon stuck up from the shallow ocean at awkward angles. The engine itself had ploughed up a fair sized pile of ocean bottom. He could see the sun reflecting from it behind the new island. He was lucky he didn't get crushed by all the stuff that the impact's wave had dragged out to sea. No wonder he felt sore. He fought the need for sleep as he knelt on the sandy beach and undid the helmet of his spacesuit. It was a gesture of surrender. If the atmosphere was poisonous, his suits readouts couldn't tell him because they had burnt out. The birds swooped down to capture the shoreline crustaceans. It was all quite bucolic. He stood up and the smells of the ocean made him a little dizzy.

There was very little debris from the pylon. He and the spacesuit seemed to be it.

He walked up the beach toward the sun. Wigwillikin tried to theorize why the ship's hull had broken apart at it's stress curves that harnessed the energy of forward motion. He entered the forest and headed to where the trees had looked taller from the shore. There was probably a ridge. As soon as he could find a high point, Wigwillikin figured he could build a signal fire. The other survivors, if there were any, would be drawn to it's smoke.The alien trees at the edge of the beach were widely interspersed with a curious plant that grew to halfway up Wigwillikin's legs growing around their bases. As Wigwillikin followed a stream inland, the forest began getting denser following the depth of the eroded lava. The stream sprang from a break in what appeared to be an ancient lava flow that spread along miles of shoreline. Wigwillikin found a place were the stream had eroded the lava, leaving a fairly easy climb through the forest along the stream. It was an easy climb for a few yards, only rising gradually. Then the jungle floor began to rise quickly becoming a wall that rose in front of him. The sun was at its equatorial brightest now and it was getting hot.

"It's time to loose the spacesuit." Wigwillikin thought out loud as he stripped off the extra vehicular suit. The safety it would provide on the planet was only marginal compared to the health hazard extra weight the incapacitated suit would provide in the hot and humid jungle. He needed to get to a high point soon. He opened all of the suit's compartments and removed the compass and laser pistol. It could cut through anything and had enough power to last continuously for five minutes. He turned on his communicator and heard nothing.

"Hello?" He asked it. The communicator remained silent. Wigwillikin put it in his pocket. He got the chemical analyzer out of the suit last and made his way down to the stream's side. The water tested good for him and he drank his fill. It was on the cool side of tepid. He filled the canteen from the space suit an then began looking the escarpment over for an easy way up. He hadn't much experience with mountaineering so he was wary of climbing it into the forest canopy. He was in pretty good shape, though, so he could if wanted.

The stream tumbled from small break in the rock wall Wikwillikin was trying to pass. He could probably find plenty of handholds to climb it's canyon if there wasn't a more direct route. He hid the spacesuit in a location that would be easy to locate in some unforseen future.

He walked around a boulder on the forest slope of the same material as the wall. Wigwillikin was descended from long line of space farers and had learned about the chaos a planet goes through as it forms. There was probably at least one more flow on top of this one. He walked along the flow's edge in the opposite direction. The forest was fairly level along the base of the wall. It seemed like an obviously easy trail to follow. Any of the others might be injured and would do the same thing if they were going to follow the rest of the ship.

A nested retilian watched him as he arranged some branches into an arrow pointing and then as he began to follow the gently sloping canyon upwards. At the top he found a small chimney that he easily climbed. He looked out over the forest to the wrecked pylon sticking out of the ocean behind the new island. Besides the vegetation and the few small lifeforms, Wigwillikins hadn't any thing that would indicate other survivors or indigeneen lifeforms. A stack of flat rocks like stairs lead to a grotto with a spring and a small garden. It was as good a place as any to set up as his base camp. The sky showed at the top of another easy climb from the alien oasis of the grotto. Off to one side, a curiously shaped rock caught Wigwillikin's eye. He made a mental note to examine it closer. Wigwillikin scrambled to the clear sky to build his signal fire.

Wigwillikin could see where the rest of the ship had gouged a piece of a hillside as it skipped across the top of a terraced almost, garden-like valley. He started gathering vegetation and piling it up for his signal fire. He dragged a large amount of the fallen branches when he figured he had stacked it it would burn hot enough to make smoke he lit it with his laser. The fire kindled immediately, and Wigwillikin began throwing the succulent foliage of the forest on to it. A thick gray smoke began to rise. He watched the fire for awhile and realized he was hungry. He wondered what happened to the suit's survival rations and what kind of foraging was available as he climbed back to the grotto.

Wigwillikin examined the settings on the survival laser. It could be adjusted to emit a lethal pulse of energy, but each time he used it as a weapon, it would severly drain it's power source. He stuck it back in his pocket. The plant life around the cisterns supported a surprising variety of animal life. There were bugs and small fish swimming in them and there were many small birds flirtig about filling their bellies. He wondered where the reptilians were. A lizard called and from around a branch cast a wary eye on Wigwillikin before darting away into the cover of another branch. None of them looked very filling to Wigwillikin and all them were to fast for his nominal markmanship.

He snapped a limb off of a shrub and sniffed it as he walked alongside of one the cisterns in the grotto. It smelled citrine. Many of them had bushes growing from between the surrounding rocks covered with large amounts of bird droppings. A medium sized yellow fruit hung from some of the branches. The birds must like it because there were feathers and droppings scattered amonst the fallen fruit. Wigwillikin thought. His chemical analyzer advised caution about eating the fruit. He wondered how good the birds would taste. Wigwillikin cut more greenery and hauled it up to the signal fire. One more load of the moist wood and it should burn until sundown. He decided to take a breather and check out the unusual rock formation he had seen earlier.

It was as tall as he was, a curious formation centered in an alcove by itself. As Wigwillikin circled it he saw an opening in the alcove's wall. He took one step backwards and looked at the same spot. He could see only a solid wall. Wigwillikin cautiously circled the obelisk in the direction from where he had entered the alcove and felt a gentle force tugging him toward now visible door.The wall slid away to open on the interior of a passenger shuttle in what he had thought was a rock wall. Wigwillikin's knees buckled. He recovered from the momentary shock and entered the compartment. The door slid closed. A frame of lights around the edge of one of the chairs flashed on and off, beckoning him to sit. As a vibration began to fill the compartment, Wigwillikin hastened to comply. he had just gotten comfortable in the chairs cushion, when g-force made him feel microns thin and then meters thick before feeling normal as the door to the shuttle slid open again. It wasn't the grotto.

A wide walkway arched across a curving canyon of lights to a corridor of arches. As Wigwillikin walked across it's polished surface, he suddenly realized he was invisible among the stars. The corridor opened down the middle and a pair of beings grasped Wigwillikin's arms as he fainted.

 

Cointreau handed Polawski down to Travesty as they climbed out of the hole left when the pylon broke away. Henderson decided that he and the science crew would get a camp organized while Polawski went to look for other survivors.

"You should take plenty of food." Henderson told them before they left.

The forest from the wreckage to the top of the hill had been flatten and was littered with trees. The ship had slid uphill and flattened the ridge before sliding down the other side. They were standing at the top of the valley. Polawski peered through her magoculars. Further down the valley, a great area of trees was flattened where the ship had skipped across the forest. Sunward from the flattened forest a small column of dark smoke rose. Polawski guessed it was lower in elevation than she was and about twenty kilcks away. Beyond that would lay the ocean. Across the valley behind them and above the wreckage, towered a range of volcanoes. Judging by the wisps of steam being vented along their sides. Travesty wondered what would happen if the ship had hit one.

"That way." Polawski gestured at the section of downed forest. They picked their way across the litter of trees to the closest edge of the forest. Travel would be quicker through the standing trees. Chosing to follow the land's conture toward the column of smoke and the wrecked forest, Polawski ran into a wall across her path with eroded canyon running in the direction Polawski wanted to go. She led her volunteers through it. The tops of the canyons walls were topped with a fairly dense forest. There were rock mounds at regular intervals that had standing water. Vines fell like waterfalls to the next level of the canyon. As she and Travesty hiked along behind Cointreau along the wall toward the smoke, when an opening appeared in the canyon's south wall. It had been invisible, when suddenly an two meter-thick atmospheric seal had slid aside revealing the interior of a passenger shuttle. A sudden departure from reality stunned Polawski, Travety, and Cointreau. They were drawn in to the shuttle and guided to seats as it's compartment door slid shut. They were momentarily crushed flat before expanding to many times their size. The shuttle's door slid open on a huge ledge under a three dimensional map of the measurable space in front of them hanging over a polished ceramic platform. A telescope the size of a skyscraper sighted one the size of their ship. A series of workstations cast no doubt thaat this was an alien situation. It gave Polawski vertigo. Banks of monitors and consoles were manned by beings magnified sections of space, examined them and restored the to their proper places in the map of space.

At the platform's horeshoe edge, a dedicated bank of monitors microscopically aligned the focus of the ship's gravity engines many teratons of thrust. antenna's and telescopes. bank of monitors looked 'down' into the relative space beneath path the planet. An equation's plot demarked the boundary between to dimesions as a fine white line. It was only the light from a nearby star reflecting from a transparent atmospheric shield. The shuttle's hatch had closed to become a marker pointing at an inter-galactic north. From someplace an intricate array of pipes and wires ran through the floor, behind the door they had arrived through. As Polawski's depth perception started playing tricks with her when she realized that the pipes and wires were part of a firewall that extended across a high latitude of what Polawski assumed was the inside of the planet. It also served as the base for a huge screen. The platform quivered as it began cycling it's power. On it's surface the biosphere bonded into itself and condensing into an indestructible shell of star material millimeters thick. It's surface was frictionless so the edge of ir's shield wouldn't erode on the particles floating in the void. When the ship returned to what a human would consider real space it would restructure itself for optimal recharging. The human's wrecked spaceship would be isolated by the planet's immune system and reassembled from the inter-dimensional stasis shield so these creatures could be further examined.

"Pzzzahbqua polyoy." She pulled herself back to reality when one of the beings from the consoles quickly entered her perssonal space. It buzzed and Polawski felt warm. She shook free of the black stupor that had afflicted them prior to entering the shuttle. A large eye pulled away from her and bounced to examine first Travesty and then Cointreau. It's owner began examining Travesty and Cointreau. "Tres noma thra?" It poked Travesty. He grunted. The thing was strong. It shook Cointreau gently with an arm "A fs hed nam of you?" It asked as another arm lifted one of Polawski's breasts.

"Who are you?" It finally asked in a form they could understand. It was about six feet tall and reptilian with eight limbs, six of which served as arms. The thick stump-like tail just touched the floor. They were in a well furnished compartment that was floating in a sea of three dimsional changing colors. Cointreau shook himself free. Travesty blinked his eyes. Polawski blurted as she pulled away from it's reach. "What in the . . . . hell, how, who are you?"

"Interesting." The lizard said. "I am Anage, an inter species counselor. You must be humans that the Extrapolation Trading species told us about. The compartment they were standing in blurred a bit and reconfigured itself in a slightly more comfortable setting for the humans.

Anage said. "We have just entered an inertia-less state. This ship will reconfigure down the timestream in twenty-thousand of your years. During the time we travel we will have remained at this point in space allowing for one quarter of a galactic rotation. It's duration should be one of your creche years. You will be protected by an anti -inertia field inside these quarters. All your needs will be attended to shortly afterwards. Please pardon any inconvience." Wigwillikin stepped out from a swirl of color in the cabin's wall.

"Mister Wigwillikin has been with us slightly longer than you have." Anage said as he bowed and disappeared behind a vertical light strip. Polawski remember Wigwillikin from the ship yard.

"This is bloody marvelous." Wigwillikin saluted Polawski. "It's not an uninhabited planet, ma'am."

"Are there any others, mister Wigwillikin?" Travesty and Cointreau were attempting to outline the compartment. It was impossible. Like portraits, other rooms opened into more portraits and multi-colored depths. Wigwillikin couldn't begin to find the corridor he had just came from in the constantly swirling colors. "I couldn't say, ma'am. There were others in the pylon, but when I woke up on the beach, I didn't see any of the others. My first reaction was to seek higher ground. I was resting from building a fire to annouce my location, when I stumbled on the shuttle craft in the rock wall. I 've been here about a half ship's solar, I guess. As soon as I could, I badgered Anage for details."

"According to what I can understand now, Anage is able to the this ship, this planet, to reconstruct our ship from it's wreckage, by isolating it's chemistry, in it's entirety, at the point it was wrecked in this dimension, transport it to another, where it will be reconstructed in it's entirety before being returned to the point seconds after it's prior wreck, in it's correct timeline." He cleared his throat, having given his report.

The dimension they were stuck in didn't have a reference to space travel, anywhere, in any of the ' rooms' they had visited. What appeared to be a normal space-dwelling that humans where used to having, had the added benefit of flowing walls of color that had depth to them. Literally. Entrances to other rooms hung like portraits at varied distances around items of furniture useful to the humans.

Polawski walked to a console and touched a spot on it. A tonic appeared and she drank it. She pushed another button and a opaque glass door was high-lighted behind compartment's table. "At least it's programmed for bathroom facilities." She thought to herself. Travesty was using the familar touch pad to get food.

When she came back from using the bathroom, Polawski headed for where Wigwillikin was seated on a couch with a keyboard.

"Have you found anything?"

"Not yet. Our ship's frequency is silent." He touched a key. "Even sub-space and fleet frequencies are quiet."

 

Anage reappeared in the compartment from behind a swirl of violet blue of varying shades. The four humans were gathered in the dining area eating.

"I hope you find our preparations to your approval." The humans grunted and nodded affimation."Now we can discuss what will transpire as the ship travels through the dimensions."

Polawski asked. "What happens to the living stuff that was on the surface?" A table and chairs had configured themselves at a gesture from Anage.

"Please be seated." The reptiloid indicated that they should sit.

"We shall discuss those presently. Your ship will be reconstucted from the moment it first made contact with ours. Any alive at that time will be so then." Cointreau asked

"Are we prisoners?" Anage replied.

"Yes. Because your physical structures could not survive neither the ambient radiation or the gravitational tides outside of these quarters. Your imprisonment is merely a precaution for your own safety." He gestured at the compartment.

"When this ship reconfigures in one of your years, you will be transported back to the surface of this planet and reunited with the rest of your crew.

"What will happen then?" Travesty asked.

"You will be given a set of options."Cointreau looked at Polawski as she asked Anage what kind of options they would have. "When that time comes we will tell you. More about yourselves, please."

Travesty looked a the others and then started.

"We were part of an expedition from Terminus Prime to repay the Extrapolation Traders for the use of their engine. This planet was closet to our ship's position in the fleet so we were dispatched in investigate it. We had an android that was responsible for the ship's safety." travesty looked frustrated at the inability to supply more details.

"And?" Anage prodded.

Polawski answered for Travesty."As far as we can tell, the android failed and we hit the planet." Anage speculated on another possible cause for the collision.

"We were having engine difficulties, and had just shut it down to implement the necessary repairs. The speed at which we were drifting would have been substantial. As a planet, we would not have been on any of your star charts and your sensors, the one's the android relies upon for it's information, probably hadn't been updated in time to notice us before you crashed. Your poorly constructed android wasn't at fault." Cointreau shook his head.

"It really didn't seem possible that we would crashed like we did." Travesty added.

"The ship had been in space for several years by then, so the engineering gang pretty much had all the maintainence oversights worked out." Anage was amused.

"When we dig out your engine pod, it will probably still be functioning. As for the android. . . .we will examine it's programing when we arrive at our destination."

"Where is that?" Travesty queried.

Anage said. "It's isn't where, it's when."

"When is that then?"

"For me to explain what is transpiring in the mathematical realms would require your specifically studying inter-dimensional relationships for many years, as my learning the intricacies of your language would require just as many for me."It will be a point in time where we can reconstruct the wreckage that was not in our programing. Your fellow crew mwembers will be reconfigured by powerful artifical cell structures called nanites, designed to repair speciific cell damage, when the biosphere reconfigures itself. Your ship will be reassembled space-worthy as well as your fellow crew members. The second you came iinto contact with the biosphere your atomic masses was memorized by the nanite cells. The level of atomic similarity allows a quicker storage time in this ship's computer." Anage looked at the end of one of his arms. He had caught himself proselytizing. Human was contagious. He was going to have to be careful with it.

"So it will seem to you that you will have suffered no casualties."

"It's always a matter of language. Wouldn't we be reconstructed when the ship is?" Polawski didn't feel like meeting her clone. It was a scarey thought.

"The nanites can't replicate anything inside the ship unless they are specifically programed to do so. You no need of worry in that department." Travesty was curious now.

"Is our food nanites?"

"As an acceptable combination of chemicals, it may be. I will find out for you. More likely it is from the hydroponics farms and transported from within the ship. Is that acceptable for now?" Anage chittered a laugh in his native tongue.

"Your language says that we should provide you with a certain amount of chemicals each cycle. Your call it food and have a certain manner of preference about it's appearance. Is this correct?"

"Yes", was the human consensus.

"We have ways of preserving food so we can carry it with us." Polawski stated. The humans conversed among themselves as Anage fiddled with a console.

"Perhaps we should eat what we have brought with us." Cointreau had carried a large pack just loaded with food.

"We don't have enough to last a year." The weapons officer stated. Travesty quipped.

" Maybe they'll use the nanites to make us into androids."

Polawski grimaced. "We have to trust they won't."

She looked at the lizard standing and fiddling with the one of the compartment's consoles. He turned to them.

"Yes, you do. However, we are actually quite civilized by your standards. Please, remember we are responsible for your safety on this journey, so sit back and relax. It's a part of the repair service offered by Extrapolation Traders, Ltd. to their business partners."

Anage made a suggestion. "I can place you in stasis so you won't consume all of your foodstuffs. If you would prefer to do that, please tell me."

 

-To Be.Continued -

 

Eros Lost: Part Three

Urban Renewal

Again the growing alignment of stars Nebute had been visulizing, stirred other smaller planets like sand, as Nebute's glowing string of lights unraveled before Lalandravoris. Neuropia walked upside down against the galactic rotation in an opposite plane.

 

 

"They were supposed to have been educated." On a small planet, a powerful leader reasoned a solution. Neuropia was adamant that the new species was clever enough to figure it's way out their new dilemma.

"Their own existance has become a paradox for them." Louride observed. A pulse of radiation from the nearby star caressed the quivering life-form on the planet between them. "They will be in a position to observe themselves discovering a lifeform similar to themselves, when the reassembled ship is left alone in that dimension of space."

On this planet of discussion, a scientist working in a remote labratory successfully develops a photosynthetic virus that can only reproduce by repairing genetic damage. When the virus was introduced into the bioshphere the sudden surge of health among mammals nearly created an ecological disaster. The noticeable increase in life expectancy that occured, resulted in increased breeding among the non-hominid lifeforms, and a passive mental attitude developed between them and the creatures they were using as food. Lalandravoris pointed at a string of numbers and one of them changed. The animals began to know terror of the two-legged predators. The entity Lalandravoris then asked. "If they were not as mindless as the sauriods, can their repression of feelings be reversed? Even with their animal interpreters they were vicious."

The entity known as Lourides presented a positive number [of lines] intertwined with their [negative] number. "It will work itself out as this dimension, because it has to."

Neuropia. "As always it becomes a matter of language and the interpretation of their ideals. When they realized that they all were speaking a common tongue when they found that sunlight begats the photosynthetic change of carbon dioxide to oxygen and perpetuates the continuing cycle of nature. The more they have, the more vigorous they will become."

"It will make them more cooperative." Lalandravoris rotated an orb. It's numbers glowed faintly and a colossal meteor struck a holographic image of the planet. In the motion picture of the eldrich horrors, the planet disappeared leaving only a holographic starfield. Nebute got their attention as the memories of the existance of ten million suns coming and going, that he was currently wearing, sparkled with the essence of time.

"Perhaps you should have taught them about their roots in stagnation, Neuropia." She colored the wave of radiation from Nebute's appearence and bounced it away. It vanished into the galaxy.

"Mayhaps I would do better if I wasn't so constantly bedazzled, Nebute." Landralavoris circled the planet with a null field, protecting it from more stray particles, as she turned a number line. Neuropia's current form rippled red in one of the dimensions it spanned.

"You should be ashamed." Nebute shot some comets at Louride.

Flowing counter to that whirlpool of the universal flow's vanishpoint, a conceptual mathematical constant a vanishing point of a black hole where nothing escapes, a source of energy, Louride met the others and glanced at the planet where it lay cradled in the warming soup created by their agreeing amongst selves, something these four seldom did.. Another infinitesmal passage of time and the spinning dance of the myriad stars formed another picture. In the center of the swirling galaxy, a solitary star glowed veiled by the light of million others. Time welled forth and flowed backwards beneath Louride reclining form.

 

The sun was setting beyond the distant ocean at the end of the high plateau on that planet, where the survivors desendant's of the cataclysmic collision had gathered at the tower they had erected thanking the new moon for their preservation and then engaged in the collective meditation that lasted a full planetary rotation. The speaking of the incantation was the high spot of the ceremony. The incantation was said to remind the blood of the sacrified slaves contained within the tower's bricks, that they must pass their knowledge of the past and distant systems from whence they came down to any species that took time to study them.

"This will poison you for some time." One line of the priest's incantation went.

" It will never poison me, I can never die.", others echoed from the background.

The overhead sun reflected off the silvery script and geometrical lines that told the story of the intergalactic-trans dimensional ship that collided with the newly calved moon crashing it into the planet eventually called Sog, nearly finishing the extermination of the greatly reduced population left after the moon took it's place in the sky.

The inscription went on and told about the cataclysms that began when the ship's molecular displacement shield generated enough negative polarity through time and space and pull the mass of the moon away from it's evolving parent mass. They told about the ancient powers and the dimensional posssibilities they could reach if they would only consider what they had been.

The writings taught about the circles of life that placed the slaves under a geas to return and teach whoever spoke the incantation all the knowledge the vanished time-travelers could teach. Intertwined with all of saurians scientific knowledge the new species began to venture forth and seek sustenance from the planet.

This ascended species once again stood by the ancient tower and stared at the sun as it set beyond the immense impact crater the exploding ship had made in time and space. In the fore-front of creation, the sun would be gone, and the precise ranks of saurians could see the stars of their destination from so long ago shining from the depths of space beyond it's vanishing glow.

-finis-

 

 

 

Part One

Reviews

[Karen Ingram]

Kudos on the Lovecraftian references. I've always loved the word "Eldritch."

An observation: In places, you use too much description. Yes, there is such a thing. You don't have to weed out all the fifty cent words, just bear in mind who your target audience is. If you're catering to the masses, you may want to cut back a little so you don't sound like you're showing off. Readers don't want to feel dumb, they want to be entertained. If the target audience is people with above-average vocabulary skills, such as English professors, by all means pad it up. This is not necessarily a complaint, and you don't have to change a thing if you don't want to. :o)