Planets Falling (18 page)

"Fromer, I like the cryptic connotations as much as the next girl.  But I’m busy annihilating a planet and blasting myself across all of space-time.  What on earth are you doing here?  Or am I hallucinating?"

Fromer took her hand.  "All I’m here to do is convey that no matter what form we take or where we go, we are imbued with self-will.  You’ll have to choose your path.  It is the beauty of life."

"That still doesn’t help me."

"I doubt if the being you met during those missing moments on the Raven - recall when you reversed time and wandered with it - gave you a choice.  Taking the Raven permanently into infraspace was your only option, it said.  The creature offered you eternal peace in return.  Well, it succeeded in getting you to follow him but the reward won’t be waiting for you.  You’ll still find yourself at a crossroads.  Perhaps not at first, but it will come.  The answer is in your soul."

She laughed.  "Actually, I made the choice myself.  I needed to get away from my life.  Living means nothing to me.  I made the decision years ago.  It was you who helped push me along."

Fromer frowned, looking sadly at Melat.  "Life’s everything, not nothing.  I’ll see you again soon.  Until then, enjoy the ride."  He released her hand, turned and walked into a glowing portal.  It dimmed and he was gone.

She felt the Raven jolt forward and the drop began.  With no destination, it would never stop dropping.  In that void, Melat had an eternity to consider Fromer's words.

Chapter 41
– Nevermore

Iggy manned the helm while Gorian frantically tried to locate their stranded crewmates.  They marveled as an immense power fluctuation appeared on the shuttle's sensors - a clear sign that the Raven's quantum drive powered up.  They remained silent and stared at their consoles.  In fact, Gorian was unsure whether Iggy's communication interface was working properly.  His speaker crackled occasionally, but he uttered no words while they searched the flat, infuriatingly foggy plain where the crew was last contacted.

"Ig, I see something at these coordinates.  Let's head there."

He banked the shuttle and shot the vessel toward the location - a small valley cropped by scrawny shrubs.  Gorian scanned the bottom.  No sign of humanoids.

"Dead end, Ig.  Let's increase altitude and hover."  She paused and smacked her forehead.  "Wait.  I completely forgot about the drones.  Verat was holding drone three stationary above them.  It should be able to tell us exactly where they are."

She linked into the tech center back at camp and within seconds the coordinates streamed to her.  "Iggy, get going.  We have no time."

The shuttle sped forward and within moments they could see three specks in the haze.  Iggy dropped the vessel steeply and landed silently next to Grey, Minns, and Fen.  The hatched opened, Fen was tucked into an emergency capsule, and they rushed up the gangplank.  The shuttle door closed behind them and the ship lifted with a slight whoosh.

They ascended nearly vertically when the gravity sensor began flashing.  The shuttle shuddered and decelerated.

Gorian groaned.  "The planet's gravity is jumping.  The Raven must be dropping.  Iggy, our only option is to fire the ion thrusters now.  They might give us enough velocity to escape.  This is going to hurt."

Iggy flipped a switch and the shuttle lurched.  Minns and Grey fell back onto the floor.  Gorian held on to her chair.  The acceleration pulled their skin back.  Gorian’s head felt like it would split open.

The haze thinned and stars appeared.  "We aren't clear yet.  Iggy, is there any juice left in the thrusters?"

He nodded slightly, pressed a button, and they were in open space.

The rear view screen activated.  Nine had faded at its center, as if a dark storm appeared on its milky brown surface.  The clouds began swirling clockwise around the spot.  Flashes of light appeared all over.

"The lights – that’s the friction of the air as it is pulled down into the singularity," Gorian muttered.

On the surface, boulders, lakes, entire hillsides were blowing through the sky.  Within the collapsing debris, a small plaque swirled toward the rift.  An inscription on it said:

Planet C9:  Dedicated to my son Grey Ferris Commons and the founders of the Terra Institute.  May you find your dreams here.

From the shuttle, the crew watched in fascinated horror as the planet faded.  It thinned into a waxy haze - stars were visible behind it.  And then it was gone.  It had taken less than fifteen minutes for a planet to be sucked out of existence.

"What happened to everyone else?"  Grey asked.

Gorian walked up and hugged him.  "I'm sorry about Verat."

Minns stared blankly at the viewscreen.

They slept.  The shuttle exhausted its power reserves to escape Nine and was now only able to provide heat and recycled air.  They had to accept Grey's assurance that help would come when the Platform staff realized that contact with them ceased and that Nine was lost.

Without the vanished planet to anchor them in space, they drifted toward the local sun.  As they fell toward the star, it would become more difficult for searching ships to find them.  The shuttle generated very little power and would be barely discernable against the backdrop of radiation in space.  The mood turned from concern to dark gloom.

Fen clearly needed medical help that was unavailable on the vessel.  Minns slept constantly, rolled in a compact ball on her cot.  Gorian attempted to devise a makeshift beacon, without much luck.  Tools and parts were scarce on the shuttle.  Most of the supplies were sucked down along with the planet.  Grey stared out the window thinking of his father and Verat.  Gorian occasionally exchanged worried looks with Grey, but they seldom spoke.  Iggy slipped into another dormant state.  He hadn’t conversed since the previous day.  Gorian kept Iggy's spray bottle full for him. 

Provisions were not a concern in the short term.  The shuttle was loaded with food and water for a much larger crew.  When not sleeping, the crew picked at an array of compact, condensed food and drinks.  Grey adopted a guilty fondness for the grey slime that Iggy called nourishment.  Next to the notion of surviving perpetual isolation until they burned in the star's corona, their primary problem was boredom.  Shuttles were meant for trips of short duration, so entertainment was not a critical feature.  Gorian had brought a data tablet with music and a few games.  Fen, Gorian, and Grey hoarded their time on the gadget.  Even Minns took an occasional turn.  Fen looked frail but his spirits were loftier than those of his companions. Gorian and Grey appreciated his good humor.  Minns could care less.

A week passed with no sign of rescue.  Gorian occasionally scanned the infraspace receiver.  However, she could do no better than the computer, which found nothing out but static in space during its endless scans.  Iggy stirred.  Given the monotony, this was a moment of great interest among his crewmates.  He rose and walked to the cargo area.  A few moments he returned with a tube of viscous liquid and said over his crackling speaker, "Who has been eating my food?"

Fen and Gorian smiled and pointed at Grey.  Grey shrugged.  "What?  I like the texture.  There’s plenty to go around, especially if Iggy keeps going dormant." 

Another day passed.  Grey found Gorian in the cargo hold crying.  He sat down next to her and rubbed the stubble on his face.  "G, I’m so sorry it came to this.  You know, I was hoping that after all this, we could maybe take a trip together."

She grabbed his hand and held it tight.  "We’re going to make it."

"Was that a question or a statement?  We’ll make it.  To go through all that on the planet - we owe Verat and the others that much.  Perhaps we already had our trip.  What a vacation."

"Why haven't we seen a sign of rescue yet?"  She pulled on her hair.

"Well, Fen pointed out that there are some in the Institute that would like to have
seen Nine vanish.  If we know too much, they might find it convenient to let us disappear as well.  However, Fen assured me that there are others in the leadership that support us.  They promised him that they’d find us if anything went wrong."

"Where are they?"

"I think it may be difficult for them to rescue us without tipping the others off.  We just need to be patient.  Keep faithful, hope is the only thing we have.  At least we can grow fat and old in this box."

"Engineers aren’t fans of faith.  We like certainty.  And I know that we are falling into the star.  So, I’ll let you hope for both of us."

"You need to convert to science.  We aren’t afraid of a little uncertainty.  How else are you going to discover new bits of knowledge?"  He smiled a little and kissed her cheek.  He headed back to the communications station at the helm.

Minns lifted from her funk.  She was eating something that looked like creamed corn and sitting at the navigation panel.

"Welcome back," Grey said quietly.

Minns' face suddenly brightened.

"That's not for me, is it?"  Grey asked.

Minns pointed at the screen, mumbling with her full mouth.  A large object appeared about 100 kilometers below them.  They magnified the image.  It was a vast intergalactic transport with the name Fuerst in silver letters stenciled on its port bow.

The transmitter clicked.  "This is Etch, pilot of the vessel Fuerst.  Raven shuttle, do you require assistance?" 

Chapter 42 – Fuerst

Etch welcomed his guests on the Fuerst with a bottle of his finest wine.  Being full zenat, he didn’t drink, but realized that the crew would appreciate the token. Fen managed to sit up and join them as they sat around a table in the ship's galley, describing the events that happened.

"Etch, who sent you?"  Grey asked.

"Friends in the Collective told me that you were in need.  I am glad you survived.  You are truly a remarkable team."

At that instance, Grey realized that it was a collaborative effort that allowed them to escape. These were his friends. However, they had lost so many.  "Etch, I know that you were a colleague of Fromer.  I’m sorry for your loss."

Etch chuckled in a raspy baritone.  "Fromer is not lost my friends.  I talked with him just a few hours ago."

They exchanged confused glances. Grey spoke.  "You must be mistaken.  The last time we saw Fromer on the planet, he was saving us from the creatures.  We assumed that he ran to the Raven but didn’t make it there before the ship dropped and the planet collapsed."

Etch cleared his spiracles with a hiss.  "Fromer is neither here nor there.  He is no longer bound by what you consider reality.  In a way, he is like a pilot but does not need a quantum drive and a ship.  This is a very good thing, do you not think?"  He was greeted by blank and baffled looks.

"I see confusion in your faces - even the nauron looks perplexed with those enormous round eyes."  He laughed heartily and took a bite of something resembling sirloin.  "By now you all have deducted the true purpose of the planet, no?  Great power.  But it went horribly wrong.  Fromer found the good wandering the surface.  He followed this force and jumped in before the portal receded.  When he did that, he entered a realm that is not bound by the rules of the universe.  He can occupy this existence - our universe- and many others.  He is free to roam.  A pilot’s dream."  He sighed through the holes in his belly.

Minns sipped her wine.  She was feeling more fortified with each glass. "You said you just saw him.  Did he just appear before you?  Like a ghost?"

"Oh no.  I talked with him while I was dropping to the former location of C9.  He is able to move freely in what we call infraspace.  He intercepted the Fuerst and told me where you were.  I was surprised at first.  But I have been piloting for more than a century - my surprise quickly transformed into understanding, to the best of my ability.  How envious I am of him.  I have to wait until death.  And even then, I will never experience his freedom.  Death has its limitations.  He has escaped those shackles."

Minns was feeling very good, the alcohol humming in her veins.  "So, where’d he go after the drop was finished?"

"He was not clear about this.  He mentioned that his mission was just beginning.  That C9 was a noble effort but not the right vision for this universe.  It was creation corrupted by malice.  We sentients are not meant to dabble in these things.  He was going to start a new path.  And then he was gone and I had to rescue you."  He took another bite of meat – some poor beast that once roamed on the zenat home planet - and closed his eyes in contentment. 
"Enough talk for now.  We need to rest in preparation for the broad and long road ahead."

"I’m sure the Institute will want a full briefing when we return to the Platform." Grey sighed at the thought of the paperwork and long conferences.

"You cannot return to the Platform or to the Institute.  To them, you all died during the accident on Nine.  The official story will be that Melat went insane and used the Raven to destroy the planet."

"Well, yup, that’s pretty much what happened," Minns exclaimed.

Etch finished.  "And all hands were lost.  You were destroyed in the gravitational collapse."

Realization settled on all of them.

"Then what will become of us?"  Gorian asked.

Fen coughed and finished his glass.  "Etch, I’d better handle it from here."