Stars of Charon (Legacy of the Thar'esh Book 1) (2 page)

Chapter 3.

I was
a child, small, hobbling, fresh on my feet. The shadows that watched me were
protective. Most of the interesting objects in the room were frustratingly high
and out of my reach. I smelled something sweet wafting on the air and
instinctively followed the scent.  There was a fire crackling in the far end of
the room with a large pot slung over it. Steam was rising from the pot.

My
mind was filled with singular intent as I began to walk toward it. My childish
steps were small and clumsy as I toddled. Closer. Closer. My mouth was watering
as I got near the source of the sweet scent. I was mere paces away when I was
swiftly lifted into the air by a firm and protective arm. I made a sound in
frustration as I was hauled back to the far side of the room. The faceless
shadow that had grabbed me set me back down, handed me a wood-carved bird, and
patted me gently on the head before turning away.

I woke up
confused. I strained to sort out my dreams from my memories. I was still lying
in the bed. I recalled my hunger on the day I left the cave, and watching the
ship come. After it left the people and machines behind, I had hid in the
forest and had found some berries on a bush. Starving, I ate them by the
handful, and then, later that night, came the pain. It was like a stone in my
stomach, leaving me in agony throughout the night until, eventually, I’d slept.

I
recalled voices of the three people in the forest. And then the face of the
woman called Kella. Whoever they were, the people from the sky were taking care
of me. This was a place for healing.

Though my
body had felt so strong and young, now I felt weak. I listened as other healers
spoke. The healers wore white coats, and the patients, like me, wore thin blue
gowns. As the days passed, they often came and stood over me as I hovered
between waking and sleeping. I listened. As I listened, the words connected to
meanings in my mind, and I began to see the patterns in the language.

They said
that my stomach wasn’t functioning. Though my organs were in order. My liver
was fine. My pancreas was healthy. Scans showed my gallbladder was normal.
Whatever a gallbladder was. The problem was that my organs were just sitting
there. They weren’t storing, creating, and transporting the insulin and bile
and cocktail of chemicals that my body needed to break down foods and function.
The healers kept me alive with injections. Whether the medication kept me
drowsy, or if my condition denied me energy, I wasn’t sure. But I could do
little but lie there and exist in the moments between waking and sleeping. So I
watched. I listened. And I thought.

As they
tried treatment after treatment, I found that I wasn’t a prisoner, not quite.
After a time, they extended the force field around my bed so that I could prop
myself up and sit. Though the healers were kind, but I could sense they were
all being cautious around me. I never spoke, and was so weak I could barely
move. I don’t know if I could have spoken even if I was brave enough to try. I
wasn’t being guarded. But I was closely observed. I determined that I wasn’t a
prisoner. I was a mystery.

One
morning I awoke to see a sea of faces surrounding my bed.

“Approximately
16 years old, human male,” one of the healers announced with a brisk staccato
tone. He was a small man with a bald head that the others called Chen. “Genetic
tests say he’s 100 percent Earthborn genome. So he’s no hybrid. Generally
healthy, strong muscle tone, steady heartbeat and blood pressure. The primary
issue is that the patient’s bile-producing organs, stomach, and digestive
system are non-functioning.”

“Did you
say ‘non-functioning’?” It was the gravel-voiced older man who had found me on
the edge of the forest.

“Um,
well, yes sir,” Chen responded, flustered. “You may recall that when you found
him he’d been eating raspberries. At first we thought it was food poisoning or
an allergy, maybe something wrong with the terraforming. But the berries are
fine. We tested them. I even ate a few myself. Tart, but not bad. I conducted a
full allergy panel, but it came back negative. The issue is that when he ate
and swallowed them they just sat there in his stomach. It was a bit of a mess.
The berries began to rot, and there was an infection. We had to pump his
stomach to clean it out then flush him with antibiotics. But we still haven’t
managed to address the root cause. We are trying a variety of treatments to
stimulate proper organ activity and jump-start his system. Until then, we’re
injecting nutrients directly in his bloodstream to sustain him.”

“Do we
know why?” the other man asked.

“Why his
system isn’t functioning?” Chen shifted, avoiding eye contact. “No sir. Our
guess is that he was in a ship that crash landed before we arrived. Most of us
believe that he may have been in some kind of stasis pod, and that the revival
protocols weren’t followed properly. That would possibly explain why his organs
are healthy, but dormant.”

“Scans
haven’t found any signs of a wreck, or stasis pods,” the older man rubbed his
thumb against the greying stubble on his chin.

“As I
said, it’s our hypothesis,” Chen replied. “Medically, stasis is the only thing
that seems to make sense. They could have crashed into the ocean, or the river,
or somewhere deeper in the mountains.”

The older
man paused, considering.

He looked
down at me intently. “You, where did you come from?” he asked.

“Oh,
sir,” Chen broke in. “He doesn’t speak. Though our scans show that he has high
level of brain activity, we don’t think he is cognizant or cogent enough to
understand what is going on around him. Whatever happened to him, it left him
in a severe state of shock.”

“Not
cognizant or cogent?” the old man chuckled. “Look at his eyes Chen. He may not
be responding, but he’s far from catatonic. No, he’s choosing not to respond.
I’ve seen men in shock. Their eyes have a glazed unfocused intensity, but not
his. Oh he’s cogent alright. If I were him and had been lost, naked and
confused, and found by some strangers on a newly minted Eden, I’d be playing
dumb too.”

He
disengaged the force field and leaned over me. His breath smelled faintly
acidic.

“Enough
of your silence boy. Speak. How did you get here?” He questioned me with the
quiet and self-assured intensity of a man who was not used to being disobeyed.

I took a
slow breath, and spoke.

“I, I
don’t know how I came to be here,” I’d been working on shaping the sounds of
the language quietly at night, I may have muddled the words, but the man seemed
to understand.

“See
there?” The old man grinned with self-satisfaction as he stood back up.
“Alright lad, we’ll sort you out in time. For now, you need a name. The entire
settlement is calling you ‘Twig and Berries,’ and I thought you would want
something a bit more dignified.”

Name. I
hadn’t asked myself what my name was. I searched my mind, and tried to sort
through the shadows and fragments of my memories. One idea came, so I made it
into a sound.

“Elicio,”
I spoke the name like a question.

“Elicio?”
The man considered a moment and shrugged. “That’s a new one, but it’s as good
as any. I’m Lee McCullough.”

“You’re
the chief?” I responded.

“You
could call it that,” Lee answered. “Though officially I am the Governor of this
colony, I prefer just Lee.”

I nodded
my head up and down, a gesture I had seen the nurses use. He nodded back and
patted my shoulder, the warmth of his touch lingered.

“Elicio,
hmm, that’s much better than Twig and Berries. When we found you, you were
confused, frightened, starving, and alone on a freshly terraformed rock a few
dozen light years from the closest civilized star system. The MineWorks
Corporation just cleared this place for habitation, so you couldn’t have been
here long.” He paused watching me intently as he spoke, searching for signs of
recognition. “I contacted the MineWorks orbital monitoring crew just before
they left, they claim that there hadn’t been any anomalies, and that no other
ship, aside from our own and the three other colony dropships, had been seen in
system. Yet, here you are. And here I am, charged with helping the 1,934
colonists in this town to secure, build, and survive.”

My mind
was absorbing his words:
terraforming
,
corporation
,
colonists
.
All of them were unfamiliar to me.

“So, you
see I have a bit of a problem,” Lee continued. “When I was in the Protectorate
Fleet, I had one rule: simple is safe. If you avoid complications, anomalies,
and mysteries, you avoid problems. You, you’re a mysterious complex anomaly.
The trifecta of bad luck. So I’m going to ask you this question once and only
once: where did you come from?”

“I...I.”

There was
something dangerous in his placid calm. Lee was not a man to trifle with, but
somehow, I felt there was also something in him I could trust. His words and
motions were calculated. He exuded self-control. As my mind reeled in fear and
uncertainty, his confidence drew me in like a moth to the flame. I couldn’t
help but trust him.

“The
first thing I remember is pain, horrible pain, and then I woke up and walked
out of the cave. I don’t know how long I wandered, hours. Maybe more. But then
I saw the fire from your ship, your colony ship. I saw it come down and land. I
started to go toward it, but I was afraid and tired and hungry. So I hid
watching you. Then I fell asleep and woke up to those others arguing, then you
found me.”

“And
that’s all? Nothing before? Your home world, your family? Nothing?”

“Nothing
that makes sense,” I responded slowly. “I have memories, but they are strange
and broken into bits and pieces. A valley with blue-green grass, a village on a
river, and grey sunsets. But not much else.”

“Blue-green
grasses, grey sunsets. Could be one of a dozen worlds across either the
Earthborn Protectorate or the Domari Collective.” He considered me for a long
moment.  I held his gaze. I wondered if he knew I was holding back. I dared not
mention that the village in my memory was on the very spot where we now sat,
and that the edge of the forest where they had found me had been a field of
blue-green grasses.

“Could
the Draugari have had him?” The voice belonged to Kella, the nurse who had
sedated me when I first arrived.

“The
Draugari?” Lee repeated with a scoff. “We are a long way from Draugari raiding
territory. What makes you ask that, any signs?”

“No,” she
responded. “Nothing physical if that’s what you mean.  No scars or cuts. I’ve
just heard stories.”

“The
Draugari may be half-human savages,” Lee responded. “But they fight with honor
of a kind. Abduction isn’t their way.”

“Yes,
well,” Chen interrupted, gesturing Kella to the side, moving in front of her so
that he stood between her and Lee. “It was a theory. For now though, I can say
that the boy seems normal by all measures. Aside from the non-functioning
organs, that is.”

“Very
well,” Lee straightened up and prepared to leave. “We can make it 1,935. Chen,
do what you need to do to jumpstart his system. I know our supplies are
limited, but if you need to use some of the synthetics to replace his organs,
do it. He may not be telling us everything he knows, but I don’t see any harm
in young Elicio here. He has a strong back and a quick enough mind, both of
which are things we need. Give him a Slate and access to the archives, maybe it
will help jog his memories.”

He turned
back to me, “When the docs have you up and ready, we’ll put you to work. You
can stay, but you will have to carry your share.”

And he
was gone.

Chapter 4.

“Beyond
the stars?” It was my own voice speaking through the shroud of a memory.

“No,
not beyond them. To them. The stars do not just hang above us as if on a sheet.
Look at them. Some are brighter, some are darker. Some rise, some fall. They do
not hang above us like a tent, or dome us like a roof, they are out there, each
independent, flaming as distant from each other as they are from us.”

I
stopped and pondered the thought while my teacher poured another steaming cup
for us to share.

“No, there
is more out there beyond our own sky. There are worlds and people. Some may be
sitting as we are now, looking from the other side of those stars. Who knows,
Elicio, there may be creatures out there who have learned to leap beyond the
mountains, bounding from star to star, and world to world. Some may be good and
kind, others may be driven by a ravenous need to devour and destroy. But they
are out there.”

“You
really believe that?”

“Yes,
yes I do. Our people have memories of it. They are tired and ancient memories,
which some teachers are charged to carry and guard. They are the stories of our
people, handed down through generations. Some of them are memories of flying
through the stars.”

“Will
you tell me?”

My
teacher smiled and patted my hand gently, “perhaps someday Eli, those will be
your stories to know, but not today. It’s not a story to be told with words.
It’s a part of the Charon. The Charon is a memory legacy, which is fully formed
and whole, and passed on only in death. A Charon is a story that is told all in
one gulp rather than tiny sips. Perhaps someday you will be the one to take my
place as teacher and carry mine on. But, that day is not today. Now we must
continue your lessons—”

The Slate
was a fine thing. Kella brought it to me after Lee left, and explained how I
should use it. It had thin transparent screen, like glass, and fit easily into
my hands. The Slate responded to the slightest touch of my finger and the sound
of my voice. I could ask it anything and it would show me the answer. Learning
the letters of the language came to me easily. I began to study the words and
names that I’d heard since coming here.

I said
Lee’s name and it showed me his picture. The photo was some time ago, Lee was a
young man, uniformed and unsmiling.
Enlisted in the Earthborn Protectorate
in 2409. Assigned to Alpha Centauri regional garrison in 2414, decorated for
bravery at the battle of Alpha Centauri in 2419, demoted to Lieutenant
Commander 2426. Retired 2427. 2432, contracted to be Governor of MineWorks
Corporation’s Eridani III colony
.

“Eridani
III colony,” I said quietly.

As I did,
Lee’s picture disintegrated and reformed into the shape of a planet. There were
nine large and irregularly shaped green and brown landforms surrounded by a
deep blue-green ocean. I slid my finger over the screen and the planet spun on
its axis. I tapped again and the image came to an abrupt halt. As I did, an
additional window expanded and hovered above the image:

Eridani III: Class M
planet, 23 EH/D, 432 ED/Y, gravity near Earth normal. Initial environmental
scans indicated atmosphere breathable, native vegetation minimal and protein
structure uncertain. Biological scan and observational protocols were bypassed
by approval of MineWorks Senior Vice Presidential of Advanced Projects and
Analysis group, Mr. Hoonan Growd.

Notes: Upon initial
survey, Eridani III met all requirements of a Stage 3 terraformed world, and
was determined to be an optimal target for terraforming at minimal cost.
Technicians instituted Stage 4 terraforming procedures to ensure maximum
success of colonization. Biochemical terraforming operations executed to
replace native flora with Earth-standard vegetation, and seed Earth-standard
fauna using an accelerated 15-year growth cycle condensed into a two week
treatment.

Terraforming completed
4.3.2432 and Authorized for immediate colonization to support refugees from the
sixth planet of the Lagrange system, which was deemed unsafe for continued
habitation resulting from unintentional industrial pollutants being released
into the atmosphere.

Terraformed.
I’d heard that word before, something Lee had said. My hands shook as the
realization slowly began took hold. I closed my eyes again and saw flashes of
blue-green fields, the strange alien faces, the quiet city settled on the
delta.

“Terraforming,”
I spoke, this time my voice was barely more than a whisper.

The
Slate’s screen changed again, illustrating the scientific process of
terraforming:

Earthborn
Terraforming
is
achieve through the execution of four discrete stages (Note: full four-stage
terraforming is prohibitively expensive and rarely executed, most terraforming
occurs on uninhabited worlds that already meet the base-environmental
requirements for later terraforming stages to reduce associated costs and time
delays.)

Stage 1 Magnetic
Shielding:
An
expensive and difficult process of charging the planetary core to create a
magnetic shield which protects the planet from solar winds and other
interstellar phenomena.  A variety of methods are used involving large scale
orbital operations and intensive sonic manipulation to optimize the planetary
core environment. Prohibitively expensive and rarely employed. Process may take
up to ten years.

Stage 2 Atmospheric
Balancing and Acclimatization:
Terraformers use large-scale deployable and reusable surface factory modules to
process existing gasses and generate carbon, nitrogen and oxygen to build an
earth-standard breathable atmosphere. During this stage robotic workers may be
used to locate and unlock (thaw when frozen, or chemically create when
necessary) liquid water for the planet. In some extreme circumstances,
asteroids containing vital minerals and/or frozen water are diverted to the
planet to provide a rich source for liquid water. Process typically takes
between four and twelve years.

Stage 3 Carbon
Seeding:
An Earth-Standard
terraformed world requires an abundant source of carbon, often in the form of
biomass. When a terraformed world lacks native vegetation and carbon deposits,
large amounts of carbon is imported in the form of biological waste, and
deposited throughout the planet. Depending on available shipping resources and
proximity to nearby carbon sources, this process may take from two years, to
several decades.

Stage 4
Environmental Optimization:
Environmental
Optimization (EO) process is the final stage in the terraforming process, only
instituted after the magnetic field is established, an Earth-standard
atmosphere is in place, and adequate liquid water and carbon exist on the
surface. The EO process uses a series of high-atmosphere explosives to disperse
aggressive viral nano-genes throughout the planet. The nano-genes perform
restructuring of all carbon-based material, seeding the planet with
earth-standard flora and fauna. By drawing upon a full genetic library of
balanced earthborn genetic options, this process is able to rapidly disperse
and provide an incubated growth period, aging all plant life fifteen years
within the short period of the EO. After the process is complete, usually in
two to three weeks for standard sized worlds, the planet will be fully
vegetated.

After the flora is
seeded, the terraforming ship will then seed the world with cryogenically
frozen fauna, including insects, birds, fish, and small animals to populate the
newly formed world.

My hands
began to shake. I flipped back to re-read the article on Eridani III: “
Eridani
III met all requirements of a Stage 3 terraformed world, and was determined to
be an optimal target for terraforming at minimal cost. Technicians instituted
Stage 4 Terraforming procedures...
”

I was
having trouble breathing.

“Stage
four terraformed,” I said it aloud to myself as a whisper. The Slate heard me,
the screen changed again:

Stage 4 terraforming is
a complete and absolute process. Scientists have verified conclusively that it
is impossible for any biological forms, including single-celled organisms and
all native surface and subterranean life up to 600 feet below the planet
surface, to survive the process intact. During this process, all carbon-based
matter is eradicated and replaced with Earthborn standard varieties.

Eradicated.

The
slices of a life I remembered. The village. The world. The teacher. The life.

My life.

My body.

Dissected,
destroyed, and rebuilt.

Replaced.

My hand
went to my face and felt the soft skin.  The horrifying reality overcame me.
Whatever I had been—the strange purple-eyed faces in my memories—had been taken
from me. I was left with only fragments of the mind I used to have. And what of
the world? What of the others? The faces in my memory?

I
pictured the village from my memories, and imagined the sky changing and going
dark. The beautiful polished wood buildings, the men, the women, the children
playing in the fields, they all turned to dust before my eyes. The dust swirled
in the air and turned into shapes. It turned into seeds, and grass, and trees.
What was here once was now gone.

My
muscles tensed and convulsed against my will. My eyes burned. I turned on my
stomach, my face into my pillow, and I wept.