Swank
and debonair
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2022
- Messages
- 1,962
I would like some feedback on this story. All comments are welcome, but I am less concerned about specific grammatical errors as much as overall feel and flow. I'll leave it untitled for now. Thank you.
Naturally occurring reactor piles are rare mysteries; the symbiotic biology and volcanism thought to be entirely self-regulating. The pile found on Tarma confounded all predictions when it blew out a mountainside and filled the local environs with radioactive fallout. The timing couldn’t have been worse for the recently arrived science mission - the crew was poisoned in few hours while their ship was partially crushed by falling ejecta. The ruined ship’s final sentient act was a distress call that arced through transit space to a loan sliplighter forty years away. The ‘lighter pilot relented to the alarm, changing course for a reconnoiter and rescue.
Enough time had passed en route that local radiation had dropped to nonlethal; Luka Bei left the e-suit in ‘lock. Hardy vines and snot-like flying invertebrates had come back to the detonation site, but most life would remain absent for decades to come. Her lugged soles widened for stability on the crumbling soil as she trekked to the shattered husk of a research ship. The blue hull was just visible in the gloom when she stumbled over the first castaway.
Sun, bacteria and time had reduced the body to parchment covered bone, jumbled in disorder. Luka brushed dust from the skull to find the white cap growing on top. Scanned, verified, plucked, then ‘bottled’ in stasis: The life, memories and cognition of physicist Becca Samuels drawn into the little crimini that grew from her brain as she lay dying. Luka had never been killed herself, but had watched a friend slowly rebuilt after the mushroom holding his soul was recovered - Becca Samuels would be reincarnated as well. She continued on toward wreckage.
Luka stepped out of the blue hulk an hour later with a second rescue in her pack, the locations of all the remaining victims, and dull eyes. She wound a seemingly arbitrary path between them, saving one for last, harvesting precious fungus as she went. Night came.
A very different night; wet, not dusty. Different constellations overhead. Alec, the only boy Luca’s age on Esicaal, has a theory. “The mirak aren’t afraid of us, and will keep testing our limits until they get some sort of pushback they understand. Or they might kill someone.”
Whether mirak actually perceived people at all was a matter of debate - they had three striding and three grasping forelimbs, but no discernable sense organs on their three meter bodies. It wasn’t clear if they were aggressive or oblivious. “Oi; they don’t even have ‘behavior’ as we know it! Leave the analysis to the exopsychs. You theory is nothing more than anthropomorphizing.” But Luka liked to imagine Alec boldly lecturing the settlement trustees on his alien anthropology theories, rather than just his fellow teens. She found his confidence ridiculous; attractive.
Six nights later, she hefted his broken body onto her shoulder. The enraged mirak had ripped Alec’s left arm off entirely - she picked the limb up as well, but left his sapphire knife behind, wedged in the dead alien. When he had gone missing, Luka followed her gut to the mirak’s usual road crossing and the aftermath of Alec’s ‘pushback’. Now she carried him, tears streaming. Taking on a creature of such size and power! She could not imagine that level of physical bravery, foolhardy or not. Luka imagines the incident validating Alec’s disobedience - possibly saving the settlers in the long run.
She had seven full bottles on her back when she located the eighth and final crewman in the crusty soil. “Hi, Alec.”
Luka crouched next to his bones. In time, tears came, and went. “You and your family left before the Research Trustees ID’d the miraks’ low frequency song. You should have read the transcripts: They have lovely souls, Alec. Peaceful, lovely souls.” She stayed crouched for what seemed like hours, weight of the full stasis bottles on her back, nudging her toward responsibility.
Bending low, she blew the dust off the skull. Half immersed in the dirt, on its side, facing away. The cap rose from the high point, somewhere behind the left ear. Like the others, it’s anchored by cilia that grew through the dying bone from the inside. The pinnacle of life-saving bioengineering, the mushroom encodes every part of a human life into its cellulose structure as the brain shuts down. Every thought, experience, cognitive ability, memory, gene and sensation trapped in a deathless fungus - waiting patiently to be plucked, read and spun back into new flesh. Alec and his crewmates are neither alive nor dead: They are potentially alive. Luka’s back aches with all that potential.
A second sun glows weakly on the horizon. Luka doesn’t know the local time, but UT winks in her vision, along with more insistent rad warnings. She’s been here a full night. With the utmost care, she breaks the cap away from bone against woody resistance. Once freed, she cradles it in two hands, crunching her way back to her sliplighter. It isn’t far.
The ship portrays stern upset at her exposure, demanding she eat a med dosed meal. “This, first,” as she heads down the corridor to deep storage. Each bottle is tagged, the contents scanned and finally vaulted. She picks up everything else and heads to the galley.
Noting the skillet Luka pulls out, the sliplighter simultaneously lifts off the barren plain, heads to Transit and produces raw egg, onion, ham and green pepper. It can fabricate anything, but the pilot likes to cook for herself when so clearly pensive. The omelet ingredients are chock full of anti-rad medication to meet crew safety protocols.
Luka chops, sautés, whips and folds. The sliplighter boosts, course corrects and translates to T-space. The omelet slides on the plate, the plate on the table. Chewing, slowly, her eyes altogether failing to focus on the galley counter where she dropped her gear. Taking her plate with her, she stands over the counter for whole seconds, then wanders out and down the center corridor. Still chewing, she glances around the ‘lock foyer without stopping. At the Vault console, she confirms seven bottles with precious human cargo in storage.
Her fork finds the last morsel of omelet. She stares at the dark flecks in the egg, nods to herself, chews and swallows. She’ll need to keep the food down for the medicine to work.
Naturally occurring reactor piles are rare mysteries; the symbiotic biology and volcanism thought to be entirely self-regulating. The pile found on Tarma confounded all predictions when it blew out a mountainside and filled the local environs with radioactive fallout. The timing couldn’t have been worse for the recently arrived science mission - the crew was poisoned in few hours while their ship was partially crushed by falling ejecta. The ruined ship’s final sentient act was a distress call that arced through transit space to a loan sliplighter forty years away. The ‘lighter pilot relented to the alarm, changing course for a reconnoiter and rescue.
Enough time had passed en route that local radiation had dropped to nonlethal; Luka Bei left the e-suit in ‘lock. Hardy vines and snot-like flying invertebrates had come back to the detonation site, but most life would remain absent for decades to come. Her lugged soles widened for stability on the crumbling soil as she trekked to the shattered husk of a research ship. The blue hull was just visible in the gloom when she stumbled over the first castaway.
Sun, bacteria and time had reduced the body to parchment covered bone, jumbled in disorder. Luka brushed dust from the skull to find the white cap growing on top. Scanned, verified, plucked, then ‘bottled’ in stasis: The life, memories and cognition of physicist Becca Samuels drawn into the little crimini that grew from her brain as she lay dying. Luka had never been killed herself, but had watched a friend slowly rebuilt after the mushroom holding his soul was recovered - Becca Samuels would be reincarnated as well. She continued on toward wreckage.
Luka stepped out of the blue hulk an hour later with a second rescue in her pack, the locations of all the remaining victims, and dull eyes. She wound a seemingly arbitrary path between them, saving one for last, harvesting precious fungus as she went. Night came.
A very different night; wet, not dusty. Different constellations overhead. Alec, the only boy Luca’s age on Esicaal, has a theory. “The mirak aren’t afraid of us, and will keep testing our limits until they get some sort of pushback they understand. Or they might kill someone.”
Whether mirak actually perceived people at all was a matter of debate - they had three striding and three grasping forelimbs, but no discernable sense organs on their three meter bodies. It wasn’t clear if they were aggressive or oblivious. “Oi; they don’t even have ‘behavior’ as we know it! Leave the analysis to the exopsychs. You theory is nothing more than anthropomorphizing.” But Luka liked to imagine Alec boldly lecturing the settlement trustees on his alien anthropology theories, rather than just his fellow teens. She found his confidence ridiculous; attractive.
Six nights later, she hefted his broken body onto her shoulder. The enraged mirak had ripped Alec’s left arm off entirely - she picked the limb up as well, but left his sapphire knife behind, wedged in the dead alien. When he had gone missing, Luka followed her gut to the mirak’s usual road crossing and the aftermath of Alec’s ‘pushback’. Now she carried him, tears streaming. Taking on a creature of such size and power! She could not imagine that level of physical bravery, foolhardy or not. Luka imagines the incident validating Alec’s disobedience - possibly saving the settlers in the long run.
She had seven full bottles on her back when she located the eighth and final crewman in the crusty soil. “Hi, Alec.”
Luka crouched next to his bones. In time, tears came, and went. “You and your family left before the Research Trustees ID’d the miraks’ low frequency song. You should have read the transcripts: They have lovely souls, Alec. Peaceful, lovely souls.” She stayed crouched for what seemed like hours, weight of the full stasis bottles on her back, nudging her toward responsibility.
Bending low, she blew the dust off the skull. Half immersed in the dirt, on its side, facing away. The cap rose from the high point, somewhere behind the left ear. Like the others, it’s anchored by cilia that grew through the dying bone from the inside. The pinnacle of life-saving bioengineering, the mushroom encodes every part of a human life into its cellulose structure as the brain shuts down. Every thought, experience, cognitive ability, memory, gene and sensation trapped in a deathless fungus - waiting patiently to be plucked, read and spun back into new flesh. Alec and his crewmates are neither alive nor dead: They are potentially alive. Luka’s back aches with all that potential.
A second sun glows weakly on the horizon. Luka doesn’t know the local time, but UT winks in her vision, along with more insistent rad warnings. She’s been here a full night. With the utmost care, she breaks the cap away from bone against woody resistance. Once freed, she cradles it in two hands, crunching her way back to her sliplighter. It isn’t far.
The ship portrays stern upset at her exposure, demanding she eat a med dosed meal. “This, first,” as she heads down the corridor to deep storage. Each bottle is tagged, the contents scanned and finally vaulted. She picks up everything else and heads to the galley.
Noting the skillet Luka pulls out, the sliplighter simultaneously lifts off the barren plain, heads to Transit and produces raw egg, onion, ham and green pepper. It can fabricate anything, but the pilot likes to cook for herself when so clearly pensive. The omelet ingredients are chock full of anti-rad medication to meet crew safety protocols.
Luka chops, sautés, whips and folds. The sliplighter boosts, course corrects and translates to T-space. The omelet slides on the plate, the plate on the table. Chewing, slowly, her eyes altogether failing to focus on the galley counter where she dropped her gear. Taking her plate with her, she stands over the counter for whole seconds, then wanders out and down the center corridor. Still chewing, she glances around the ‘lock foyer without stopping. At the Vault console, she confirms seven bottles with precious human cargo in storage.
Her fork finds the last morsel of omelet. She stares at the dark flecks in the egg, nods to herself, chews and swallows. She’ll need to keep the food down for the medicine to work.
