Cemetery Planet: The Complete Series (7 page)

3.

“DeepSix, this is an urgent message from Harvey Crane, Cemetery Planet caretaker number 1830. Interstellar shuttle has disintegrated. Escape pod has returned me to Cemetery Planet. Awaiting word on my course of action. Please advise. What the hell am I supposed to do!”

Harvey filed his report right away, though he was sure they knew about the shuttle being lost, and was also sure they were sending an alternate shuttle, or something, to get him off this godforsaken planet.

The train’s computer had all the functions as any other, and should have worked just fine to get the message out. Only it didn’t seem to get the message out.

“Something’s wrong,” he said aloud.

“What is it?” Lea’s faint visage fluctuated on the screen.

“They’re not answering. Something’s wrong.”

“Maybe it just takes a little time to get the message to them. We
are
light years away, aren’t we?”

“That might have been a problem eight hundred years ago. The ionic stream allows for real-time messaging, across almost unfathomable distances. No, something’s wrong, and I don’t like it one bit.”

“Communication is out,” Lea said. “And the shuttle…it was in the ionic stream when it was destroyed, right?”

“Yes, why?”

“Maybe it has something to do with this ionic stream itself. Maybe something’s happening to it.”

“It can’t be,” he said. “Nothing like this has ever happened before. The stream has always been reliable. This doesn’t make sense.”

He couldn’t get it off his mind the whole trip back to the visitor station, which took quite a chunk of time. Zone 6 was about as remote as it could get on an already remote planet, and every kilometer the maglev train put between it and Harvey was a little less he had to worry. Never again did he want to go back to Zone 6, and he vowed he never would.

The ride to the visitor station brought up a whole new set of concerns. The alien predator was dead, but it could have friends. Vindictive friends. That thought left Harvey positively wrecked. However, he had no alternative, and instead of allowing it to consume him with fear, he let Lea’s soft voice soothe him. She spoke of her life, her childhood in Northern California, and how her mother and father divorced when she was very young. He sat in the observation deck, in his favorite chair, and let her words lull him to sleep.

Upon arrival at the visitor station, Harvey woke up to an audio and video alarm. He gave the voice command for the message to play, and a robotic voice read:

DeepSix Command to Harvey Crane. Received message about your circumstances but cannot send alternate shuttle. Ionic stream experiencing unprecedented fluctuations. No indications how soon abnormalities will subside. In meantime, you are ordered to follow protocol and return Cemetery Planet to full working order. Restore disturbed gravesites. Implement any and every repair necessary to infrastructure. Most importantly, dispose of extraterrestrial remains by means of incineration and burial. DO NOT, repeat DO NOT examine extraterrestrial organism. Risk of disease too great. You are to begin immediately. Bonus pay is one billion geos. DeepSix out.

“Those bastards!” he slammed the armrests. “They can’t do this!”

“Harvey, try to relax,” Lea faded onto the screen. “Getting upset about it doesn’t help. We’ll get through this.”

“But they want me to risk my life out there,” he couldn’t look, but the train terminal sat directly adjacent to Section A-1, where most of the graves had been exhumed and where the piles of bones were most grotesque. “There’s no telling how many more of those-those monsters are out there. The damn sensors don’t pick them up.”

“Then don’t do it,” she said indignantly. “You said it yourself. Screw those DeepSix bastards. What are they going to do, come and fire you? Kick you off the planet?”

They both laughed at that.

“You’re right,” he puffed his chest. “I’m not doing it!”

“Right!”

“I mean, can you imagine? They actually want me to go out there…with that alien. No way!”

“No way!” Lea imitated him.

“And those graves the damn thing dug up…do you realize how much work that’s gonna be? Sorting through all those bones? That’ll take forever! Forget it!”

“Forget it,” she agreed.

Then Harvey reread the message from DeepSix, particularly the part about the one billion geo bonus.

“Then again,” he pursed his lips. “I could use that billion. Imagine that. Me with a billion geos. I could finally get an autoserve of my own. One that I can program to make a decent bowl of ice cream.”

“Money isn’t everything, you know,” Lea’s image became sharper in the display.

“That’s easy for you to say,” he answered her. “You’re a…well, you know.”

“A what? Say it, Harvey.”

“A spirit.”

“And does that make you feel any different about me?”

“No, no! Of course not,” he raised his palms. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what
did
you mean?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

She appeared even brighter, sharper, as she spoke her next words.

“I don’t know either, Harvey. I don’t know what’s happening, why you’re still here, or why I’m here for that matter. I don’t know why I’m able to talk to you and be near you and…and…” she hesitated. Harvey wanted to say something. More than that, he wanted to be closer to her, touch her. What she said next only made his feelings stronger.

“Neither of us knows what fate has in store, but one thing is clear. Fate has brought us together, and for that I’ll be eternally grateful. I’m a spirit. But you’re a spirit too. We both are. This planet is forbidding and horribly, horribly lonely. But we’re here together. We have each other.”

Lea’s declaration put a smile on chapped lips. When he gazed into her smoldering eyes, everything dissolved away. No more DeepSix. No more jumbled mess of corpses. No alien threat. No lonely and monotonous existence on a forgotten rock in a forgotten part of the galaxy. Lea was right. They had each other, and, as he allowed himself to think about it, he felt like he could conquer just about anything that was thrown at him as long as she was with him, as long as she loved him. He considered this his finest moment, and couldn’t think of anywhere else he’d rather be.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

“You know what?” he said. “I know DeepSix doesn’t deserve this, but dammit, I take pride in my work. Hell with it. I’m not going to shirk my duties.”

“What are you talking about?” she sounded nervous. “You’re not talking about going out there, are you?”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about. I’m the caretaker on this planet. It’s my job to take care of the residents here. That’s what I’m going to do!”

“Then I’m going with you,” she insisted.

“Lea, my dear. There’s nothing I would enjoy more.”

4.

DNA scan complete. Skeletal remains identified. Gordano Roma. Plot number 456853. All remains present and accounted for. Okay to commence reburial?

“Okay,” Harvey gave the verbal command, and the digger, a brute of a machine if there ever was one, began burying the skeleton of Mr. Roma. Harvey couldn’t help but notice the job was a lot easier than he’d expected.

“This is really strange,” he let his sights roam across the gently sloping valley. Grave after grave after grave had been opened, violated, molested.

“Strange doesn’t even begin to cover it,” Lea said. Harvey heard and saw her in his helmet’s communication system.

“No. I mean the bones look like they’ve been thrown around randomly, but that’s not the case. They’ve all been placed in piles pretty carefully, as if that alien was…”

“Was what?”

“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “When I first saw the alien had dug up all these graves, I thought maybe it was eating them. But now, looking closer, it just doesn’t make sense. The bones aren’t damaged in any way. In fact it seemed quite the opposite, almost like they’ve been handled meticulously,” he scanned the piles of bones. What at first appeared an unorganized jumble was actually a thorough inventory of each site.

“You know what?” he said. “This reminds me of the kind of work an archeologist does. Careful and detailed. A scientific research study. That’s the impression I’m getting.”

“I don’t think so, Harvey. If that alien was only doing research, then why did it try to attack you?”

He had no answer to that. His only solution was an examination of the alien’s corpse.

He decided to operate the digger on manual and take care of the dead ET himself, against DeepSix’s orders, against Lea’s protestations, and against his own better judgment. He couldn’t help it. Curiosity was in control now, and he let that curiosity get the best of him when he rolled to the other side of the space elevator and, with the digger’s massive jaws, scooped up the alien.

“DNA scan,” he commanded the computer.

“What are you doing that for?” Lea asked. She sounded curious too.

“Just checking something.”

“Well I wish you’d just bury the damn thing. It gives me the creeps.”

“Just hold on,” he said. The computer signaled that the DNA scan results were imminent.

Scan complete. Results negative. Life forms negative.

“Life forms negative!” he pounded the steering controls. “How can you keep telling me there are no life forms when the damn thing is right here…it’s right here!”

“Harvey,” Lea was serene and sweet. “Please don’t get excited.”

“No!” he slammed the switch that opened the hatch. “I’m tired of these damn scanners always screwing up!”

Harvey climbed out the hatch and made his way to the front where the alien’s leg, crushed and lifeless, dangled over the edge of the big metal jaws. Lea was in his helmet, and begged him to stay away from this thing. But he couldn’t stop. He had to know. The riddle of this mysterious alien was driving him mad, and the solution was right in front of him.

He inched ahead, suddenly reticent at the sight of the scaly and muscular limb. A thick, strangely-colored hide covered the contours and sinew of the deceptively large creature. Harvey could only picture the thing in all its living splendor, rising over him and wielding its razor-sharp talons. In that split second he was back in the moment, when he’d nearly lost his life to this savage and mysterious beast. Now he just wanted to know what this thing was, and swallowed down his terror long enough to peel back an area of its torn flesh. Maybe with a look at its soft tissue, Harvey could determine something about it.

But he didn’t see soft tissue. No bone either. What he did see shook him to his foundations. Optic fibers. Actuators. Metal components. Circuitry. The thing was artificial. A machine made to look like an extraterrestrial being. An alien cyborg.