Nightborn, page 5
“It’s just . . . Jesus Christ.” He draws in a deep breath. “That’s one hell of a responsibility.”
She chuckles. “It’s not a lifetime appointment. Just for the first year. A colony needs to have one person in clear authority at the beginning, so that it can respond to unexpected events without squabbling over who’s making decisions. How you run the colony is up to you. Rigid hierarchy, loosely organized commune, or anything in between. You call it. Or you can even delegate power to other people, if you want, and just sit back and watch them run things for you. But in any emergency, any disagreement, yours will be the final word. And when that first year is over, you’ll hand things over to whomever the colony chooses for long-term leadership.” When he doesn’t respond right away she presses, “It’s a process that’s worked well in the other colonies. And everyone will agree to those rules before they board the seedship.”
“What if someone doesn’t?”
“Then they get to stay here on Earth until they change their mind. No one has a guaranteed right to exomigrate, Leon.”
He shuts his eyes for a moment. They want him to be in charge of safeguarding two hundred people when he couldn’t even protect one. Don’t they understand how deeply Julian’s death affected him?
Maybe they do, he thinks. Maybe they think this will help him.
“I understand your hesitancy,” she says. “A responsibility like this is no small thing. But it’s only for a year. After that, the colony will vote to institute whatever kind of government they want. Maybe that will include you, or maybe it won’t. Either way, you’re under no obligation to play a leading role after that point.” She pauses. “I know this is a big step. I understand why you’re hesitating. But our leadership algorithm says you’re the best person for the job, so just think about it for a few days, all right?”
“And if after thinking I say no?”
“Then we move on to our second choice. It won’t disqualify you from the colony, if that’s what you’re asking. But the colony would be better off if you accepted.”
Duty, again. Always duty. A man could drown in duty. Or he could have his soul rent to pieces when he failed to fulfill it.
“I’ll think about it,” he promises.
The lab was brightly lit when Leo arrived, and in the center of it, on a stark white exam table, lay Tia. So pale. So still. Lise had draped a cloth over her midsection so Leo wouldn’t have to see what she’d done to her by way of autopsy. Even so, the sight stirred memories of other bloody bodies he’d seen, and it took him a minute to focus on what was before him.
Lise had called in Ted Carver and Pravida Rakhi to assist with the autopsy. The presence of an ecologist and xenobiologist made sense, given the circumstances, but the fact that she hadn’t also called in other members of her medical team was an ominous sign. Ted and Pravida were both members of Leo’s inner circle, and could be trusted with secrets he might not want to share with others. As for Lise herself, she looked exhausted, physically and emotionally. Little surprise, given the circumstances.
She nodded to Leo as he entered. “All right. Bearing in mind that none of us are forensic specialists—it appears we don’t have one of those in the colony—this is what we’ve been able to deduce from Tia’s body.” She looked down at it. “First, there are no signs of damage outside of the central wound. No scratches or bite marks or bruises anywhere else on her body. This confirms my initial assessment, that she likely walked to that location on her own and was killed so quickly she had no chance to respond.”
“Or something immobilized her,” Leo said. “Then the killing wouldn’t have to be as quick.”
“We checked her blood for toxicity. There was none, at least that we recognized as such. We also checked her body for entry wounds like stings or bites, her breathing passages for any suggestion of foreign matter . . . every delivery method we could think of, by which she could have absorbed something that incapacitated her. Granted, our capacity is limited, since we have no data on local toxins, but I didn’t see anything suggesting she’d been poisoned. Everything except the wound in the middle of her chest looks exactly like it would if she was just out for an evening’s stroll. As for the wound itself . . . . ”
Her words trailed off into silence. Leo waited. Finally she said, “Her heart was ripped out of her chest.”
He blinked. “What do you mean, ripped out?”
“Literally. Something reached into her chest, shattering every bone in its path, then grabbed her heart and pulled it out, so hard that arteries and connecting tissues were torn loose. That was the only organ that was taken.” She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “I know of no kind of animal that would do that. Or could do that. Not on Earth, anyway.”
Ted cleared his throat. “There are predators on Earth that target the internal organs of their prey. Orcas eat the livers of sharks, for example, and sometimes even their hearts.”
“Which they access through soft tissue,” Lise said. “Whatever removed Tia’s heart went in through the ribcage, breaking enough bones to make a neat hole. Then it grabbed hold of the heart and pulled it out. At least, that’s what her remains are telling me.”
“And she never fought back,” Leo muttered.
Lise nodded. “Hence my suggestion that she never saw it coming.”
“Or that she welcomed it.” Leo was remembering the emptiness in Tia’s eyes the night before. Had her grief been so great that if she crossed paths with something deadly, she might welcome an opportunity to join her beloved? The possibility couldn’t be ruled out. “Jesus.” He rubbed his forehead. “This is so . . . so . . .”
“Alien,” Pravida supplied. “There’s nothing like it in reports from the other colonies, so whatever manner of creature killed Tia, it’s not like anything humans have encountered before, on any planet.”
Lise looked at Leo. “Are we going to share that part with the others?”
The question startled him. He’d been so focused on the mystery of Tia’s death that he hadn’t even been thinking about what would come next. “People know she was killed. They saw the wound. The nature of the threat will be obvious, as will the precautions we should take to make sure nothing like this happens again. As for the odd nature of the wound, the removal of the heart?” He paused. “Maybe it would be best to save those details until we can offer some kind of explanation for them.” He shook his head. “I don’t know. I need time to think about it.”
What little training they’d given him for this job hadn’t included a situation like this. And there was no guidebook to help him choose the right course, no notes from previous colonies to offer insight. He, Leon Case, would be calling all the shots here, with no precedent to guide him. And if he screwed this up, he could well trigger a wave of panic.
“Well,” he muttered, “so much for Paradise.”
Commander’s Personal Log
Year One
Day Three
Tia’s death is hard to absorb, even harder to know how to respond to.
I told everyone that she was killed by a wild animal, which ate her internal organs. As far as we know, that’s the truth. I’ve ordered that any group going into the forest must include at least one armed person. Some have expressed concern for the hunting team that left yesterday, before we found Tia. I reminded them that “Team Paleo” (as they insist on being called) is well-armed and is alert for animal activity; it’s unlikely anything will surprise them. Meanwhile, since the attack was at night and in the forest, most people seem to feel safe enough inside the camp during the day.
Power tools are charging. Tablets are charging. Lanterns are charging. In this season of long days, with the summer ahead of us, we can meet the colony’s needs, but come wintertime, we may need to ration our energy use.
Between the light from the galactic core and three moons, it seems like it’s never really dark here. It’s hard to sleep when your body doesn’t believe that night has fallen. Johnny says we’re due for a few minutes of real darkness soon. He seems quite excited about it.
TO DO:
We’re holding a vote to name the moons.
Some of the colonists arranged stones around their tiny cemetery, to delineate its border, and then prepared a grave for Tia’s body. At its head was a gravestone designed by Alicia Bergen, which the sculptor had printed in polymer the color of granite. It had a simple cross on it with a dove on each side. The curve of the wings subtly suggested the sweep of Tia’s eyes, and the overall design was graceful and dignified.
Some wanted to bury her in a traditional casket—or at least a shroud—but others insisted that Tia would not have wanted them to use up a share of their precious fabric stores on her. In the end the team producing disposables wove soft mats out of grass that had been culled from the meadow, and a fragrant green blanket was laid beneath her body, then folded over the top of it. She had been Catholic—albeit not overly religious—so Dani offered a traditional prayer, followed by a brief statement about how the God of Earth watched over all His children, and surely whatever angels served Him in this distant place would guide Tia’s soul to heaven and reunite her with Michael. She closed with a prayer in Tagalog, to honor Tia’s Filipino heritage. Then each colonist came to the graveside to say goodbye, casting a handful of soil onto the body. Leo saw Ted Carver pause as he did so, studying the soil in his hand as if looking for something in it; he seemed disturbed by the result. Finally he allowed the dirt to trickle through his fingers, like sand in an hourglass, into her grave.
This was the point at which, in a normal funeral, people would have offered condolences to the family of the deceased. But if Tia had any relatives they were twenty thousand light-years away now, and so many generations distant that any family connection was purely theoretical. So some people came to Leo as a substitute, needing to say, “I’m so sorry for your loss” to someone, to complete the ritual of mourning.
Ted stood off to one side, his posture suggesting he was waiting for a chance to address Leo privately. When the last well-wisher was gone, Leo waved him over. “Did you want to talk to me?”
“Privately. Is that possible?”
Leo glanced around, saw that no one was within hearing distance, and looked back at Ted with a question in his eyes. The ecologist said nothing. The man’s right hand was twitching nervously, soil-stained thumb rubbing against adjacent fingers as if he was still sorting through dirt. Looking for what? Leo would be hard pressed to say exactly what about the man’s posture or expression disturbed him so much, but something did.
“My office,” Leo said.
The field between the burial site and his drop pod was strewn with tractor parts, and colonists were working assiduously to get everything removed from the packing crates and properly sorted. After that, the vehicles could be assembled, outfitted with solar-collection canopies, and allowed to charge. Tomorrow, God willing, Leo would be able to send out fully functional tractors to retrieve the supply pods that had missed the landing site, some by more than a mile. He’d feel a lot more confident once all their supplies were safely inside the camp.
As they entered the office pod, Leo reflected upon how many times in the past twenty-four hours he’d wished for a cup of coffee. Now he wished he had two of them, so that when they sat down he could give Ted something to do with his hands other than twist them nervously in his lap. During the funeral the man had looked calm enough, but now that they were alone that façade was gone, and he was nakedly nervous.
“All right,” Leo said, leaning back against his makeshift desk. “What’s up?”
Ted drew in a shaky breath. “Yesterday, at the autopsy, there was something that bothered me. I didn’t mention it then because, well, I wasn’t really sure about it. And we were focused on other things. But I checked the module’s database this morning to confirm my concerns, and yes, there’s something I think you would want to know about.”
Lips tight, Leo nodded. “Go on.”
“There were insects on Tia’s body. Not insects, really. Little creatures that fill the same ecological niche as insects on Earth, but structurally they’re not the same. Pravida calls them ‘CCs,’ short for creepy crawlies.” He managed a weak smile. “She says it’s a technical term. Anyway . . . Lise picked them out with a tweezer and bottled them up for Pravida to study later. She even found an egg sack.”
Leo frowned. “Are you saying that Wayne was right, and an alien species was taking over Tia’s body?”
“Oh no no no! I mean . . . well, yes, but not in a way that’s significant. The same thing happens on Earth. Once a body starts to rot, all sorts of opportunist species move in. It’s part of the cycle of life. But . . . there were too many of them, Leo. She’d only been out there a few hours at most, and hadn’t yet . . . I’m sorry, I have no better way to say this, but her flesh hadn’t rotted enough to draw that many insects to her. It’s the smell of decomposition that attracts them. But with Tia, it was like they’d honed in on her the moment she died.”
“This isn’t Earth,” Leo reminded him.
“No, but according to the theory of convergent evolution, similar environments produce similar adaptations. The first four colonies all reported that the life-forms on their planets functioned similarly to Terran ones. So I wondered if the discrepancy might be significant. I checked with our database on the progression of insect activity in a Terran corpse, to confirm my observations, then started looking at other insects—sorry, other CCs—in our environment, for comparison. And inside the camp . . .” He hesitated. “There aren’t any.”
Leo raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t any what?”
“CCs. None at all. No pollinators, no ant-analogs, no grubs, no web-weavers—nothing to fill the ecological niches that insects fill on earth. So I left the camp and took some more soil samples, but all those all looked normal. The land surrounding us is full of CCs, just like you’d expect. But not inside our encampment.”
Leo remembered how he had studied a handful of soil at the gravesite. “You think all the insects . . . what, left when we arrived?”
“Leo, I couldn’t even find worms! It’s like every small-bodied species that was capable of leaving our encampment did so. I mean, I know there’s supposed to be a honeymoon period with alien insects, because we don’t give off the right odors to attract them, so they don’t bother humans at first. But ants on Earth don’t abandon their nests just because a new animal moves into the neighborhood. Least of all every single insect species in a given area, all at once. It makes no sense.” He paused. “That’s worthy of concern, right?”
For a moment Leo said nothing. He was remembering Ian’s report. And Tia’s gruesome corpse. He felt like someone had dumped a pile of puzzle pieces in front of him, but every piece was from a different puzzle so none of them fit together. Hell, he didn’t even know what kind of picture they were supposed to create.
“Leo?”
“Ian found evidence of a botanical anomaly unique to this planet. Tia’s death was like nothing Terrans have seen before. Now this. If there’s some common thread here, damned if I know what it is.” He sighed. “Let’s meet tomorrow morning. The ten of us.” A shadow passed over his face. “Sorry, nine of us. Maybe the others have made observations they haven’t reported yet and can shed light on this one. Meanwhile . . .”
“Yes?”
A corner of Leo’s mouth twitched. “You’re probably going to hate me for this, but I’d like you to check out the latrine area. See how many CCs are buzzing around our shit. If there aren’t any, that’s important data to have.”
Ted smiled wryly. “You’re right. I do hate you for that.” He stood up. “I’ll get my team on it right away.”
When the ecologist was gone, Leo stood in the doorway of the pod, looking out across the insect-free camp, wondering what the hell was going on.
By the time dinner rolled around—hopefully the last meal that would consist exclusively of energy bars—the tractors were all lined up by the southern gate, drinking in the bright Ernan sunshine. Eight small ones, two large. Earth had sent enough that when the settlement finally divided the new camps would be well supplied. But until that point they might as well use all the equipment available.
When everyone had finished eating the evening’s ration, Johnny called them over to the newly named Speaker’s Rock, the granite perch Leo had used earlier. He waited until everyone was gathered around him before announcing, “Ladies and Gentlemen, the lunar voting has ended. Thank you all for participating. I have the results.” He looked overhead, where a long, thin crescent arced like a scythe across the darkening sky, impossibly large by Terran standards. “Our largest satellite will henceforth be called ‘Domina,’ for reasons that seem kind of obvious.” He grinned. “Our middle satellite—which first welcomed us to this planet—will be called ‘Prima,’ to commemorate that historic sighting. And the smallest moon, which travels in the opposite direction of the others, and so—it has been suggested, embodies the spirit of human obstinacy—is to be known as ‘Loki,’ after the Norse god of mischief. Their cycles will be named longmonth, midmonth and shortmonth. I trust you can figure out which is which.”
There was a bit of laughter and some scattered applause, but he reached out his hands to shush the crowd. “Now, I’ve been analyzing the lunar orbits, and I’m pleased to announce that we’re in for a surprise. Two surprises, actually.” He gestured toward the sky. “You may have noticed that it never gets completely dark here. With the galaxy opposite the sun and three moons orbiting the planet, the only time the sky goes black is when all those bodies are positioned so that they aren’t visible from somewhere on the surface, either due to the timing of their orbits or a well-timed eclipse. We have one such event coming up, in two more days. That’s Saturday, for those of you who are calendrically challenged. 11:13 P.M. We’re going to experience true darkness, for four whole minutes. And again a week later, twelve minutes that time. This is honest-to-God, Terran-style darkness we’re talking about, like we had back on Earth. Even darker than on Earth, because here there’s no city light bouncing off the clouds, and at that time of night there won’t even be stars visible. A true night, if you will. In other words, people . . .” his smile broadened, “it’s gonna get fucking dark.” He spread his hands wide. “Welcome to Erna, everyone.”
