Dusk (19 page)

—
Well, they believe monkeys got into New York and
Washington D.C. by hiding on planes from South America, but some
probably got there from idiots smuggling them here for pets. The
story I heard of how they came here is that the monkeys here were
grown in pods in a lab, but one day, a group of people who thought
testing on monkeys was bad showed up outside a lab to
protest…

—
What’s protesting Dada?

—
Well, it’s when you don’t agree with something
that is happening, and you go in public and complain about
it.

—
Is that a bad thing?

—
Not necessarily, but these people were
particularly angry and weren’t thinking very well, and they broke
into the lab and let out somewhere between a hundred and two
hundred monkeys before they were arrested. Now usually, lab monkeys
are sterile, which means they can’t have kids, but these people
happened to pick a lab that was testing drugs that keep people from
having babies for a short time, so the monkeys needed to be able to
have babies to be tested.

—
Why didn’t they just catch all the monkeys and
bring them back or put them in a preserve?

—
Because monkeys are just as resourceful as us,
if not more so, and they are extremely hard to catch if they don’t
want to be caught.

—
But I don’t understand why monkeys are so
dangerous.

—
Well for starters, monkeys have long claws and
are stronger than they look, but worst of all, they can carry all
sorts of horrible diseases that don’t bother them, but wreck humans
plenty bad.

—
How did they get so diseased, Dada?

—
I think a lot of the diseases come from people
spreading out too far too fast. In the past, when people cut down a
lot of trees too fast, they began to discover all sorts of diseases
and problems they never had before. Also, people living on top of
each other and not keeping places clean helps generate disease.
It’s basically a side-effect of using the world like a lav
seat.

—
Well you can clean a lav seat to fight
germs.

—
Well, I think disease might be nature’s way of
cleaning the lav seat, only in this case, the monkeys and the
diseases don’t seem to be the germs—more often than not, it seems
we are the germs.

—
Well, Dada, I don’t want to be a germ, and I
definitely don’t want a disease, so I think I’ll make sure to clean
my own lav seat, so nature doesn’t have to do it for me.

—
That idea sounds like a winner indeed, Dari. But
in the meantime, stay away from infested street monkeys, and
especially stay away from Miss Hasabe’s window if you have fruit in
your hand.

—
Will do, Dada. Will do.

• • • • •

“How do you feel about leaving the ship?” Dr.
Villichez asked. This visit with Cyrus was an official counseling
session. “Many have had anxieties and apprehensions over
disembarking.” Jazz again played in the background, only the sound
was more to calm the visitor by quelling the inane humming of the
ship. Zephyr-like on the sterile air of the ship, the music was
decidedly less passionate this visit.

“So you’re concerned we’re all becoming a
little too attached to the ship?”

Villichez smiled, “Always analyzing the
analyst.”

“Well, no reason to worry about me. Leaving
this thing is no different to me than leaving anything else.”

“Please,” Villichez paused to cross his legs,
cupping his hands over his knee, “elaborate.”

“Guess I just never really felt in-place
anywhere. One place is just as awkward as the next.” Cyrus paused
for a moment, looking at the rug beneath his feet. Cyrus wondered
why he had not taken notice of the rug on his previous visit. “I
have to say, I feel like I can be myself here.” He smiled at
Villichez, who returned it, already knowing what was coming next.
“I guess that’s why you’re always giving me the stink-eye.”

Villichez looked amused, but then quickly
became detached and his gaze faltered as if someone had called his
name from another room. “You know this stink-eye you refer to is
not easy to come by. It is earned more than cast. In my country, it
is not customary to be combative with those you take under your
wing; a certain amount of reverence is demanded by the elder and a
certain amount of... tolerance is expected from those in his
charge. Often the indiscretions of the student or child are met
with a certain amount of parental vehemence, but that generally
arises out of frustration rather than an idea of necessity.”

The music took a livelier shift, but was
still too light to be taken seriously. Cyrus looked somewhat
confused, “I’m not sure I follow.”

Villichez shifted his weight, leaning forward
slightly, “Do you know why I signed on to this mission?” He paused
to take in a short breath, but did not wait for an answer, “I was
in Korea working on the avatar system with Dr. Jang when the
Yersinia swept through Manila. It was swift and deadly, and my wife
and sons were among the first afflicted. The lab where they worked
had been quarantined to protect the specimens and the researchers,
but ironically, it wasn’t exposure to rodents, or vermin, or even
others infected with the disease that got the best of them. You
see, we had felt fortunate enough to be able to afford pets,
especially our two dogs that helped protect the house from monkey
attacks, but evidently, those with pets had been more susceptible
to the disease. Ironically, it was the animals that had vigilantly
protected us from harm that had somehow become carriers for the
malady.” He sighed, almost straining to force the heavy air from
his lungs. “By the time the quarantine at the airports had been
lifted, my wife, children, and all our pets had already been
cremated. Omari, my eldest, a brilliant zoobiologist, had been such
a handful as a child. Too smart for his own good, and too full of
fire to be controlled by anyone who wasn’t as smart as him. I fancy
that’s why he had such an affinity for animals—especially primates
and predators.”

Villichez removed something from his desk,
moved his thumb across it, and the monotonous music stopped,
leaving nothing but the hum of the ship. “I am a man who takes
pride in his level of patience and diplomacy, but that boy could
push me to my limit as fast as flipping on a switch. It was as if
that boy had a remote control to my adrenal gland, and he enjoyed
using it. But as he became a man, I understood—I was frustrated
more by his constant reminder of my own transgressions as a young
man than by his indiscretions themselves, and every time he
reminded me, an uncontrollable look of disdain would arrest my
expression.”

The look of confusion was gone, but Cyrus
still had no words in response. There was a long silence magnified
by the oscillations of the metal and plastic that ushered them
through space at a rate that stretched the moment nigh unto its
threshold. Villichez looked at the ground, hand clasped across his
knee, frozen. It was if he had been left behind by the ship and
only his image remained, while Cyrus, still traveling close to the
limits of the universe, was moving too fast to comprehend the
reality that surrounded the wizened old man. But he understood. At
any speed, the thoughts that consumed the man before him, turning
his eyes to the floor, were as real and visceral to Cyrus as the
incessant hum in the walls. The weight of it all stooped Cyrus’s
head as well until Villichez overwhelmed the buzzing with his
voice, “You ever wonder why the greatest works of literature or of
art center around pain and strife?”

Cyrus only shook his head.

“It’s because happiness is easy. We get it.
It doesn’t need explanation,” Villichez smiled as if the thought on
the tip of his tongue lent him strength, “It’s misery that needs
examining, that needs purpose.”

Cyrus found the strength to meet Villichez’s
eyes. It took some effort, but wasn’t hard.

“I expected to find that purpose on this
trip,” Villichez’s smile was wide now, almost a grin, “so far, I
have not been let down.”

Cyrus let the words resonate in his ears and
settle in his head. There was really nothing left to say. He stood
from his chair slowly and extended his hand. Villichez stood and
took his hand in both his. Villichez shook it loosely, but it was
definite nonetheless. As Cyrus turned to leave, words of his own
finally made their way from his head to his tongue, “Didn’t feel
much like I would expect—the counseling and all.”

“Son, I don’t think you would ever
allow
me to counsel you. Not unless it was of your own
volition. Maybe not even then.”

Cyrus smiled and nodded as Villichez patted
his hand then released it. Cyrus approached the door and it slid
open to reveal Dr. Eisenhertz waiting, leaning against the outside
wall. Cyrus nodded to him and Eisenhertz returned the nod as they
exchanged places in the doorway. As Dr. Villichez greeted
Eisenhertz and the door slid shut, the air seemed lighter than
before, and a little less cold.

• • • • •

The morning was like any other—like any other
morning except the ship had been slowed to a speed measurable to
the average Novitiate with a datadeck. Everyone was packed into the
underused bridge of the ship, and for the first time in two hundred
and two relative years, the louvers were open enabling everyone to
take in the infinite breadth of space from a perspective never
witnessed by a mortal man.

They had approached the planet from the day
side. Set, the blistering orange ball of fusing gas that warmed
Asha, lay behind them. Four hours ago, they had run a medium-range
scan on the ‘morning’ edge of daylight. Cyrus, Milliken, and Dr.
Qin had examined the data and determined a place to land and set up
camp where they would have access to the underground freshwater and
where they could ensure at least twenty years of daylight. Cyrus
anticipated stepping out into the open barren of Asha, breathing
unprocessed air for the first time in three lifetimes. The ship’s
suncasters provided white light as energized as sunlight, and the
orange rays of Set would most likely be strange at first, but Cyrus
looked forward to the familiar feeling of charged photons cascading
over his skin from a natural sun.

Commander Uzziah was maneuvering the ship
into orbit in order to deploy the communications satellite in
geosynchronous orbit over the spot they had selected. Jang sat
fixated on the command unit, ensuring the data from Cyrus,
Toutopolus, and Dr. Qin had been properly processed by the
Shipmate. Toutopolus sat almost shoulder to shoulder with Jang,
both huddled over the holographic imager, both visibly shaking with
excitement in search of any unforeseen meteorites or debris in the
vicinity of the ship.

“Uh, have we deployed the satellite yet?”
Toutopolus asked, a barely perceptible vibrato in his voice.

“Dr. Tsuchiya hasn’t even suited up yet,”
Commander Uzziah informed.

The trill in Toutopolus’s voice increased as
did his pitch, “Then can someone please explain to me why it’s
floating by about fifty kilometers out?” Toutopolus moved aside to
give the scientists closest to him a better view of the hologram.
Sure enough, there was a satellite-shaped object about fifty
kilometers out in an orbit slightly closer to the planet.

“What the hell?” Cyrus intoned to himself as
he increased the size of the object on the imager.

“That’s definitely a satellite, but it’s not
one of ours,” Jang added amidst a now audible murmur in the
background. He pointed to the insignia emblazoned across the side
of the device as Cyrus continued to zoom. ‘Terrick,’ a hyphen, and
the Greek letter rho were now clearly visible on the hologram.

“Son of an uberhound,” Uzziah uttered,
closely examining the impossible three-dimensional image floating
in front of them.

“Uhh...” someone behind them muttered, “Uhh,
guys...” Dr. Eisenhertz was pointing at something along the horizon
line of the planet outside the window. They all followed his index
finger to the brightening glimmer at the far edge of the planet.
The sun caught the small metal object in the distance and it took a
moment to register the distance and size of the thing. They could
see a proportionally thin tether attached to it and Cyrus and Dr.
Qin instantly knew what it must be, even though it was
impossible.

“It’s an orbital elevator,” Dr. Qin said,
more to himself than everyone else.

“What?” Dr. Villichez puzzled, “How
the...”

“Hailing all frequencies! Earth vehicle,
surrender your controls, deactivate all scanning devices and
weaponry, and prepare for armed escort and conveyance,” a voice
with an elusive accent declared over the emergency hailing system
with bombast and authority. The imaging hologram zoomed out
automatically as the proximity alarm sounded. Two small spacecraft,
blatantly designed to intimidate, approached the image of the
Paracelsus from either side at menacing velocities.

Even Commander Uzziah seemed daunted in his
attempt to gain his bearings. The two attack ships matched the
orbit of the Paracelsus slightly below and on either side as the
satellite passed beneath the formation. The orbital tether grew on
the horizon, and its enormity became obvious as it grew much slower
than any object on the immediate horizon should have.

“What should we do?” Fordham asked as a din
of bewilderment and panic began to surface around him.

“We should comply. We are ill-equipped to
deal with this any other way,” Uzziah said, moving his hand to
disengage the ships scanning systems. As the hologram faded, two
larger vehicles approached from above and below and then the image
was gone. The ship shook suddenly, but the shaking quickly subsided
to a low oscillation as the hull vibrated in the magnetic grip of
their escorts.