Things you do not wish to...
An Alpha Centauri fan fiction by Shade
I say this only once before beginning. I don't own Alpha Centauri, owning myself is difficult enough. I intend no harm. Now that we're clear about this, let us begin...
7) Rediscover
'There is no denying it anymore', thought Zakharov as he walked through the corridors of the newest building in his city, 'I've definitely stopped aging. I still look the same as when I came out of cryosleep.' His thoughts came to a rather abrupt end when he took a turn and bumped into someone.
"E-excuse me, Academician." The timid voice of Tamar, who had by now become a trustworthy colleague and somewhat of a friend - though she insisted on calling him 'Academician' whenever they met.
"What brings you out here? Wasn't your research group placed in one of the older buildings?"
"Yes, but we need a construction bot. Assistant Nilsson said he can reprogram them, so we thought it would be worth a shot... but all the bots seem to have miraculously disappeared."
"Hmm, I find that hard to believe, Tamar. But I'll go see the engineers and ask them to build you a new one - with the new metals that we mine, we can build about a thousand." The assistant's face brightened. Whenever Zakharov went to see the engineers, he was sure to make them uncomfortable one way or another - a dislike they shared. She tailed him when he went to the building across the street, where the industrial research was being carried out. The engineers that saw him cross the hallways to the robotics laboratories shuddered. They respected their leader more than anyone else, but feared his moody disposition towards them more than anything. He nodded at them and was friendly, however, surprising even Tamar as she wondered what made him so gentle to them.
"Ah, here we are... Good day, gentlemen! I need another construction bot for some tests and was wondering whether you could make me one ASAP." The engineers gaped at him, not knowing what to say as they were totally taken aback by the uncommon kindness of the Academician - Zakharov used this to his advantage. "No problem, you say? Well, then: I expect it in my lab by tomorrow afternoon. A fine day to you, gentlemen!" And he was off again, smiling broadly, followed by a laughing Tamar.
"You know how to beat them in their own game, don't you, Academician?"
Zakharov sat down in his quarters. The past ten years, their numbers had increased significantly, to the point where two colony pods were already sent out to found new settlements in the wilderness to the west - with the frequency of the mind worm attacks on those who ventured within a mile of the fungus forest, no one dared go nearer than they already were. He was waiting for a report from the governor of Gagarin Memorial (their second city) when suddenly a message came up on screen.
Rereading of private logs recommended - files damaged - read?
With a sigh of defeat - 'even my computer wants me to work non-stop' - he set to work on his personal records of the years past. The first files weren't corrupted, but they brought back memories of things long gone: their first gains in agriculture and science, their first losses to the mind worms... and the dreams of Deirdre as they were then. Now, in the tenth year of their stay on Chiron, the dreams had begun to lead a life of their own. She worked and laughed, she cared - she was alive and with him. He wished for it to be real, if only to be sure that she was alive. The uncertainty was a burden that grew heavier every day. The files of the later years, until the fifth year, were filled with that uncertainty, and it pained him to know that his hopes diminished.
And then he came to a particularly emotional piece, written a year before, that showed him exactly what he had overlooked.
Lal's discourse has proven that he knows of no others in his neighborhood. It worries me that nine years have already passed and the only other survivor I know thus far is Lal. But perhaps she is also out there. It could be that she is further off - even Lal has not much knowledge of his surroundings. If only we could find a faster way to move, then we could send out reconnaissance troops that could cover double the distance and still take as long as they do now...
He punched in a few numbers on his commlink and Tamar's face appeared.
"Yes, Academician?"
"Tamar, talk to assistant Nilsson for me and tell him that I have a condition for him. The construction bot will be his if he speeds up all research done on mobility. Find me a way to move faster, so we can cover more distance."
"Got it. Move faster is the word, Academician!" With that, she signed off, and left Zakharov to wonder how much more efficiency he could expect of her.
The research he had ordered had been fruitful and the first recon rover, manned with four men carrying hand blasters and two flamethrowers, was out on their first mission: to chart the land in a twenty-mile radius around each settlement. They were due back that night, and Zakharov's anxiety was rising by the minute as he sat with Tamar. The younger assistant sighed.
"You're pining for her, aren't you, Academician?" Zakharov, lost in his daydreams, looked up. "You're being awfully quiet and distracted ever since they left: you're hoping they'll bring back news of her, aren't you?" They had talked about the subject a few times, and Tamar was understanding. She smiled ruefully as he nodded softly.
"Is it foolish to hope?" He looked at her: his eyes were filled with contrasting emotions - above all, there was a deep sadness in them that made them watery.
"Was it foolish to believe we had a chance to survive back then? No, it wasn't. Just try to keep calm. ...Hmm, there's a cloud of dust that seems familiar..." Zakharov rose with a speed that belied his age and winced as he felt his knees protest. He wasn't young. But at the horizon, a dust cloud rose and grew: soon, the rover team was visible, nearing the base with great speed. By now, men and women were trooping together near the gate and the guards had a hard time clearing the way for the arrival of their reconnaissance troops. Zakharov walked quietly to the meeting room where the men were sure to go.
After he had spent five minutes walking around nervously, the door opened and one of the men came in, led by Tamar.
"Greetings, Academician.", the man said, announced by the assistant as lieutenant Robbins, as he walked over to a table and sat down. "The area around each base has been mapped. We've set up sensors at ten miles of each base in the four directions. Oh, and I've seen something odd as well, sir."
"What did you see?" Zakharov was all ears since he hoped it would pertain to Deirdre.
"While mapping the area, we came close to the border of our land and Commissioner Lal's. But a third faction's land seems to border ours, for we saw the most oddly impossible sight..." Urged on by an impatient Zakharov, the man continued. "There was another base at about twenty miles from the border. We've observed it for a while, and saw nothing save vehicles carrying a strange insignia entering the base. But then someone exited. Truly, I didn't believe my eyes - it was a single man, with at his feet about thirty mind worms, crawling in front of him as he went out to do battle with another troop of mind worms. Another man followed shortly after him, taking care not to come in the way of the mind worm boil. And then... The man with the mind worms went up to the other troop. There was no attack: instead, the second boil went over to the second man and followed him as they retreated into the city."
"I-impossible...", Zakharov stammered, shocked and unwilling to believe that it was possible. He pondered in silence on the new revelation for a while, then returned to the matter at hand. "And what about the insignia?"
"It was a strange one. It looked like a green square, edged with thorns, and within it some kind of crescence symbol - a seed or something." This startled Zakharov, who quickly dismissed the man and went to his quarters, leaving behind a stunned-looking Tamar at the door - obviously caught eavesdropping by someone... Once in his study, he dialed the outside code, then the code of Lal's private quarters. The screen immediately showed the other man.
"Ah, greetings, Prokhor! With what can I be of any assistance?"
"There's another faction that borders both of our lands. Did you know?"
"Hmm... Oh! I know who you mean! Wait... let's see... Ah, here we are! Dial this code and see for yourself who it is..." Lal sent the code through their datalink and closed the commlink connection, leaving Zakharov to look hesitantly at the little piece of paper his printer had blurted out.
"Lal, what are you up to now?", he wondered as he dialed the code. The screen went black for a while, and when it flashed on...
"Prokhor?"
Deirdre's colonizing endeavours went on as she meant them to, and within another five years, she had established two more bases and was sending a third colony pod to another spot her recon troops found ideally suited for settlements. She sighed: her duties pressed heavier on her by the year, and she was yet to find a solution for Eliza's problem with psy-training.
The young girl had assisted in the research that had been taking place immediately after the discovery of 'brood trainers' as they called themselves, and she was now calling out for a centre that taught people with a high sensitivity to psy how to defend themselves and/or attack. And, what was infinitely more important, a centre where soldiers could learn how to channel their psy-energy as to gain control over a mind worm boil. She herself had volunteered as future brood trainer and was eagerly 'learning' from those that already had control over a mind worm boil. Which, of course, was not to Sean's liking. At all. Her brother had been sulking all week, and there were less occasions when both were conspicuously missing from their duties at the same time. Deirdre smiled as she remembered her 'little talk' to her brother, who had blushed from beginning to end and had given her the slip as soon as he could: even so, he had heeded her wise words and took care not to be careless.
"...and this makes no sense." Voices drew near her quarters. Then, a knock on the door.
"Enter!", Deirdre called as she made sure not to look idle. To her relief, it were Sean and Eliza. "Oh, it's just you guys. What's the matter?"
"Eliza, you say it." Deirdre raised an eyebrow at that, since there was nothing her little brother would not dare tell her - or so she presumed. Yet there was something they needed to tell her and... 'Oh gods', she thought as her stomach clenched unpleasantly.
"Lady Deirdre... We, um, that is to say... We wanna work in the labs." Upon hearing this, Deirdre relaxed visibly.
"You both already work in the labs...", she said, but Sean interrupted her.
"Yeah, but we mean real work. As assistants. Full-time, to learn."
"Well, of course you do." Deirdre was proud of her brother's want of study, and she was happy that Eliza should choose the same. "Where do you want to work?"
"Well, I'd like to study from the biologists...", Eliza said hesitantly, "the brood trainers tell me that it's essential to know as much about them as you can..."
"And I want to work with the physicists, Dee, you know I do!" Deirdre snickered: it was true, he had expressed his wish to work as a physicist in her labs more times than she could remember.
"Hmm, I'll make sure everything's arranged. Wait here." She dialed a code on her commlink and a familiar face appeared.
"Lady Skye, greetings!"
"Hello, Zeke." Her chief of science, Ezechiel Waters, was a strict but reasonable man who had a fondness for Deirdre - probably because of his age and the fact that he lost a daughter which had looked a lot like her. "I've got two new assistants for our ranks. First, assistant-biologist Eliza Verduyn - aged twenty-four C, and next assistant-physicist Sean Skye - aged twenty-three C, both resident here."
"He got you to approve now, did he?" Deirdre raised an eyebrow, wondering what the older man meant. "He's been working here for years now - unofficially, of course - and now he's finally become an employee."
"Yes, well, he'll soon suffer from it, I'm sure." She closed the commlink and turned to the two in front of her. "Right, now to settle the question of your living place..."
"Huh? Living place? What ques-"
"She means that we can't live with our families anymore now that we've got jobs and all, dumbo!" Sean winced, but didn't look surprised. 'Those two devils only wanted me to let them work so they can live together... well, probably only one of them did', she thought as she saw bewilderment on Sean's face, followed by realization.
"Yes, you'll need a place to live so you can easily go to work and such. Until you have one, you can stay with your family, Eliza - and Sean, you know you can stay with me - but you'll need to get your own place soon."
"We'll be on the lookout for it. Come on, Sean!" Eliza dragged the young man off, and it surprised Deirdre that - though they were in their twenties - they still seemed to be teenagers at heart. 'And in body', she added - an unsettling thought, because she, too, didn't seem to age anymore. The doctors were riddled, but she found it rather pleasant - her mother had had deep wrinkles that would deepen when she smiled, and Deirdre had always secretly wished she wouldn't look like her when she grew up. She pondered on for a while - and then was rudely disrupted when her commlink screen flashed on and showed the face of the governor of Razorbeak Wood, the first of their other settlements. As she was quickly engaged in other matters, all thoughts of age faded from her mind to be replaced by duller matters.
The next week began with the moving out of Sean and his moving in with Eliza in what they soon began to call their 'den': a small house between the labs and one of the many nurseries. Their increased worktime brought an additional benefit with it, it seemed, for after only three days, the physics group reached a major breakthrough in its research and discovered a way to build hydrofoils from the materials that were available. Sean was the one who came to make the news known to Deirdre and she gave them all a bonus for their quick work - Sean's eyes widened and he started to blush.
"Well, now, get back to your work, all of you. If you keep up like this, I'll expect major discoveries from you every week!" She laughed along with them, then nodded as they went out. She liked to reward her colleagues once in a while. 'Hmm, maybe I should go tell the transport production units to start building ships... but what use is that here? ...Maybe in Razorbeak Woods? ...Maybe. I should contact the governor...'
Incoming commlink message. Sender unidentified. Her computer flashed a message in front of her, which startled her. Pressing her hand to her heart, she answered.
"Hello, this is Deirdre Skye, who is it?"
"Deirdre! It's me, Pravin Lal." She saw the image of the Indian man appear in front of her and smiled.
"Lal! You've landed safely as well then?"
"Yes... as have you apparently. Quite busy colonizing already, I see..."
"Yes, well, the people need to live somewhere, don't they? And besides, my town here is only little, but it's big in the hearts of those that follow me."
"You too, eh? The people in my city call me 'Commissioner' nowadays, as if it's some honorary title. And they call themselves the 'Peacekeepers', with which I fully agree by the way... You?"
"I've been Lady Skye of Gaia's Stepdaughters for a while now. But how did you get my commlink frequency?"
"The governor of your city gave it to me. Velvetgrass point, is that right?"
"Hmm, could be... the settlement there was said to lie near a rather large hill." The two leaders talked for a while, then Lal checked something that bleeped to his right.
"Excuse me, Deirdre, but I've got to go, I've got another call. I'll see you again sometime, maybe to negotiate over something. Lal out." The screen went black, leaving Deirdre with mixed feelings. She knew Lal was safe, but when she answered the message... she had hoped for it to be someone else. She had hoped that it would be Santiago, or Prokhor. The thought that they could be dead was never far away whenever she thought of them. 'It has already been ten years and still, only Lal has contacted me so far. Wouldn't Lal know anyone? ...No, he would've told me... wouldn't he?' While she was lost in thoughts, she vaguely heard her commlink bleep again. 'It should add Lal's frequency to the database, but he keeps telling me that it's an unidentified sender... hmm, faulty computer...' She accepted the message and was amazed to see not Lal's face appear on screen, but someone else.
"Prokhor?"
They meet again! (Well, they see each other again on the commlink screen, at the very least). Ahem, explanations...
- the C in the ages of Sean and Eliza stands for Cryosleep - meaning that they are older than they look. Which is about sixteen, I should guess.
- Lal is in fact patronizing Deirdre a bit, but he can't help it. Notice Deirdre refers to him as Lal (I do, too, because the man is ancient) and Lal calls her by her first name and not 'miss Skye' or something. But it's more a term of endearment than a sign of superiority, really.
- and, lastly, the research may seem a bit hurried, but I figured it was about right in the beginning, plus I needed a bit of scientific discoveries to liven up the story. And for the plot, too.
Enjoy the story, and don't forget to tell me what you think. It helps me rewrite the chapters.