The Tabit Genesis (28 page)

In the view from orbit, there was no planetary curve to Zeus. There was only an infinite, flat orange disc whose horizon met the absolute blackness of space. In the opening moments of descent, there was no visual cue of falling. As the sled accelerated, the horizon gradually disappeared, and the first jolt of the metal cage announced stratospheric entry. As wisps of ammonia condensate streaked past the canopy, the roiling cloud tops of the troposphere far below gave the first immense perspective of height.

By the time the platform emerged into view, Adam had spotted a dozen large hunters circling nearby. And instead of following rigid patrol patterns, their movements were playful – lazy tracks punctuated by the occasional ‘hang tail’, in which one would fully extend its flaps to hold stationary in the wind current for a few moments before freefalling, converting that sudden momentum in a series of loops.

With two kilometres remaining, Adam spotted the cause of their elation: an enormous school of sturgeons was approaching. The shimmering effervescence of their spines was bright enough to cast shadows on the rig. By the time the sled doors opened, Adam could see hunters gracefully darting into the swarms and emerging with a sturgeon or two in their grasp, absorbing the meal through their transparent mandibles, the carcasses merging and disappearing into the hunters’ gelatinous flesh.

Zeus was thriving with life. And Adam was dead inside.

As the otherworldly alien scene swirled around him, Adam muddled through his routine devoid of emotion. He knew neither happiness nor sadness, anger nor love, regret nor hope. He knew only the Rig, and Helium-3 Production, and Pressure Differential Calculations, and Parts Per Million Samplings. Adam had become an organic machine; an intelligent, self-aware mining mech. The rig had never been more productive; every intake was running at optimal efficiency, wasting none of the ‘noble gold’ in their path.

His mother and sister loved to count it all, and both seemed happier now that Dad was dead. Their indifference to his passing was evident by the manner in which he was laid to rest: cremated in the trash disposal and jettisoned into orbit along with other atomised flotsam. Aside from a few pictures and corelink recordings, there was no evidence of his existence anywhere on the rig.

A sudden radio noise startled him.

‘Brat Face,’ Abby squawked. ‘Mom wants to know when you’re installing the radars.’

The neglected equipment was sitting on the platform deck, still packaged in original factory crates. Mom and Abby were taking their newfound profits and reinvesting them into the rig to it more attractive for sale, the added benefit of which was that they could keep a closer eye on what he was doing.

‘I’ll get to it later,’ Adam said.

‘You said that yesterday,
and
the day before that, you little shit.’

‘Then come down here and install them yourself,’ Adam snapped, slamming a tank filled to capacity with Helium-3 onto the deck. He was tempted to heave it over the side.

‘That’s out of character,’ Abby said, in the most condescending tone possible. ‘I’m sorry you’re upset. But the radars are for your safety. It’s dangerous to mine without them.’

‘My safety?’ Adam mocked. ‘What do you care? Dad was the only one who did.’

As he resumed work, he noticed a change in the hunters’ behaviour. Instead of playful beasts, they had become curious sentries, showing more interest in the platform than the bountiful herds of sustenance nearby.

‘It’s a difficult time for all of us,’ Abby said. ‘But we’re so close to being able to move on.’

‘To what?’

‘Anything else.’

‘I’ve got a say in that!’ Adam shouted, dismissing another subtle change in the hunters’ behaviour. ‘Dad said I would!’

‘Adam, you’re just – too young.’

‘But not too young to be down here?’

‘We’re grateful for your bravery,’ Abby said, exasperated. ‘But Mom and I make the important decisions now, because that’s what we’re better at.’

‘You’re not better at it,’ Adam said. ‘Not even close.’

‘Okay, you want to be a grown-up? Here’s a clue,’ Abby hissed. ‘The sooner you accept that Dad is gone, the easier this will be for everyone. So install the fucking radars. Please.’

She cut the line.

In that moment, Adam hated his sister so much he wished she was dead as well. And then, realising what he had just hoped for, he felt horrible shame. The darkness in his heart was getting worse. He had never felt more lost. Even the hunters and sturgeons had abandoned him. The sky was clear and he was alone in the clouds of Zeus once again.

He felt like crying, but was too exhausted to find the tears. Adam sat the mech down, and then onto its back. Gravity felt so good; he considered sleeping here instead of floating in a tethered bedroll. Looking up at the yellow clouds, he closed his eyes, and fell asleep.

What awoke him was the
tapping
.

A steady cadence of metal striking metal drew him from a fitful dream about his father.

Then came the realisation that it was darker than usual, followed by a revolting awareness that the mech’s arm was being lifted and dropped onto the deck by something other than his own impulses.

Sitting upright, Adam saw Pegasus suspended above the rig, held in place by hunters, its expansive underside awash in a torrent of electrical activity. One of its enormous tentacles gently released its grip on the arm of Adam’s mech.

The console was filled with its attempt to communicate with him.

ADAM

AWAKEN

Adam keyed the radio on, locking out the channel that his sister was using. It was good to see Pegasus, even if its menacing, overwhelming appearance turned his stomach into a ball of ice.

‘Uh … hello,’ he said, shrugging in disbelief. ‘How are you?’

A different pattern of flashes appeared, originating from four different locations on the beast’s underside. Adam recognised that two were counting off letters; one forward, the other in reverse; the second set was numbers, one counting forward, the other in reverse.

Pegasus was offering a more efficient way to communicate: four simultaneous pulse channels instead of one.

‘Okay, I understand,’ Adam said, as the creature ceased its light show. ‘I need a few minutes.’

Adam shook away the surreal circumstances and began typing changes to his decoding algorithm. When he was finished, he got up slowly.

Pegasus began to speak, and the hunters swayed in unison with the winds.

MOTHER KNOWS SADNESS

‘She does?’ Adam said, confused. ‘I’m sorry …’

The creature’s language bathed the deck in strobes of light.

AS SHE IS

FOR YOU

‘Why would she be sorry for me?’

DAD

An unwelcome burst of tears erupted from Adam’s eyes.

WE HEAR WORDS

WHEN HUMANS FALL

WE

ARE SORRY

‘I don’t know what to say,’ Adam stammered. ‘What
are
you? Who is “Mother”?’

MOTHER IS ZEUS

SHE LIVES BELOW

AND WATCHES ALL

‘You mean literally? Beneath this platform?’

THE DEPTHS

Adam considered the possibility that there were variants of the Arkady that neither he nor anyone else had ever seen before.

‘How long have you … or Mother … been here?’

MOTHER KNOWS NO TIME

ONLY WHAT THE VEIL GAVE HER

‘What did the Veil give her?’

HUMANS

OTHERS

THEIR LANGUAGES

THEIR KNOWLEDGE

THEIR MACHINES

‘So, you know humans … like me … from listening to us talk, from the Veil?’

WE LISTEN

FEEL

LEARN

The massive tentacle coiled and gently tapped the deck again. Adam took a deep breath.

‘Are you saying that when something … falls from the Veil, into Zeus … that you can learn what that object is?’

MOTHER LEARNS

Adam could scarcely believe his eyes. Could it be that the countless bits of mining debris, from discarded waste to the accidents that sent men and machine to their deaths, made literal contact with ‘Mother’ somewhere along the way to implosive doom? Probes, satellites, rigs, entire
starships
had crashed into Zeus during the colonisation era. From what Adam knew about the Battle of Brotherhood, this was the final resting place for hundreds of ruined warships left adrift in the planet’s iron grasp.

Mother
’s grasp. Mother Arkady.

The hunters simultaneously broke their rhythmic sway as pulses of excited light chatter exchanged between them and Pegasus.

‘What just happened?’ Adam asked. His eyes were beginning to hurt from the rapid fire strobes.

STRANGER SPEAKS

WITH ABBY

‘My sister?’

ANOTHER FROM THE VEIL

APPROACHES

‘What? Another ship?’

ADAM

TAKE US THERE

PLEASE

‘How?’

Adam winced from a painful blast of premonition. Lethal danger was imminent.

MOTHER CAN SHOW Y CD A B

The underside of Pegasus erupted in a searing burst of light, blinding Adam and sending him staggering backwards. Blinking away phosphenes, he heard loud, dangerous
bangs
on the deck nearby. The hunters were going insane; most had released their grip on the railing and were flailing wildly. Pegasus was drifting away, its underside a coruscating fury. The four beacons flashed a hasty message.

A C

GO

A

The hunters had turned on themselves. Furious leviathans with unimaginable strength lashed out with their tentacles, carving off chunks of flesh from each other.

Adam jammed the throttle to run as fast as the mech could. Behind him, the deck was getting bashed to pieces.

Just before reaching the sled, he switched radio frequencies. When he turned around to step inside, he gasped.

The hunters were attacking Pegasus, and the gentle giant was breaking apart as gaping wounds were opened in a relentless, barbaric attack.

‘Hi, Adam!’ Abby said, in sarcastic cheer. ‘Did you install the radars?’

‘Who are you talking to up there?’ Adam said, failing to keep the fear from his voice.

‘No one, why?’

‘You liar,’ he whispered, cutting the line.

Adam slammed the launch trigger. The sled rockets ignited.

The wind tore Pegasus in half, and then the hunters quartered the carcass, decimating the last slabs of flesh.

Adam watched the disintegrating carcass as long as he could. The horror spread more darkness through his young heart.

They were waiting for him in the hangar.

‘Hello, Adam,’ the stranger said. ‘My name is Captain Mohib of the Merckon Research vessel
Lycidas
.’

The mech’s cockpit hatch had barely opened before his mother led them all in; Abby, who appeared anxious; this captain; an armed Merckon security guard; and an exotic-looking woman who kept her distance from the main group.

‘This is Doctor Viola Silveri,’ Captain Mohib finally introduced her, ‘the brightest xenologist in Orionis. Her speciality is Arkady research.’

Adam climbed down to the deck, avoiding eye contact.

‘They’re not with Ceti,’ his mother explained. ‘They want to help us.’

Adam began stripping off his survival suit, still sweating, and shaking. It wasn’t from the cold.

Abby cleared her throat as he strapped into his mag greaves.

‘He’s shy around strangers,’ she offered.

‘Do strangers come here often?’ Captain Mohib asked.

‘Just the ones we owe money to,’ Abby blurted.

‘Which is to say no one comes by at all,’ his mother interrupted. ‘We are free of debt and profitable, thanks in large part to Adam’s efforts.’

‘He’s a brave boy,’ Captain Mohib said, flashing a disingenuous smile. ‘That hunter tentacle you found spawned a legend. That’s why we’re here. We just had to meet the roughneck who took the beast down.’

Adam mashed the suit into his locker and slipped into dry clothes.

‘Adam,’ his mother said. ‘These people have some questions they’d like to ask …’

The only one not blocking the exit was the ‘doctor’, and thus she was the only person in the room he decided not to hate. There was something trustworthy about her appearance, beneath her stunning, unnatural beauty. Her eyes were violet with traces of orange in them. They were unique, and held the only expression of concern in the room.