Sneak Peak at the Sequel...

One

Heavenforge

Scott Bowen had neither the body nor the temperament of a planetary explorer, but here he was leading a squad of terraform huskies across the face of a bleak volcanic waste a dozen v-jumps away from anywhere he’d be ready to call civilized.

This expedition wasn’t merely precipitous, in his opinion. It was downright stupid. But just because his parents had been in the colonial charter group that had set foot on Heavenforge fifty years ago, the mantle of hardy leadership had been laid on his shoulders. Despite his paunch and his sedentary preferences as to lifestyle, people looked up to him and treated him with a kind of reverential awe. In his more sanguine moments, he imagined that they saw some semblance of his forebears’ greatness beneath his flabby exterior.

In his honest moments, he realized he was just too much of a coward to admit to people how cowardly he was.

The environment suits the squad wore were ancient and cumbersome. As they picked their way through the craggy landscape, Bowen regretted more and more that they had left the city dome by way of a surface tracker instead of a shuttle. The signals they were following had seemed to originate among the stony columns of the eastern range, making a shuttle landing out of the question. But the wheels of the tracker began creaking and showing other signs of strain far earlier than planned and, naturally, Colin Dutko had insisted on continuing their search on foot.

Doctor Dutko was almost as volatile, to Bowen’s mind, as the planet itself. In the laboratory he was certainly a stable, quite competent scientist—one on whom the terraformers both here and on the other Spiral Gap worlds could solidly rely. But those who knew him well always hesitated to include him when a need for fieldwork arose. It was then that Colin became a risk-taking firecracker. He was one of those people who never were satisfied merely to limit their passion to their area of true expertise. Rather, he fancied himself a Renaissance man, equal to any and every task.

“Carefully…carefully, men,” Bowen said for the dozenth time. Dutko was a hundred meters ahead of the rest of them, but Bowen was hanged if the fool’s intrepidity would goad him into harebrained antics out here in the middle of nowhere. Whatever the beefier members of their squad thought of him, at least they had the grace to hang back with him, likely pretending they believed his caution was due to his concern for his men and not primarily for himself.

Tremors on Heavenforge’s surface were a fact of life. Bowen sent up involuntary prayers, in spite of the FANU doctrines he learned so well as a youngster, whenever the gritty soil began shaking under his wobbly legs. He longed for the reassuring feel of plasticrete beneath his feet, a comforting sensation that felt like another life entirely in his memory, though they’d left the safety of Petra City’s dome scarcely two hours before.

Another tremor made its way up his wide-spaced legs and again his eyes shut tight until it passed—not quite as bad or as long as the last one had been. “Careful, fellas. Everyone okay?”  He twisted around and took advantage of the tremor to rest and stretch while he took a head count. Twelve other suited figures fanned out in a curving line down the stony incline behind him. All twelve had their hands raised in reply to Bowen’s question, showing him that their audio implants were functioning properly. When he turned back to face uphill, he’d lost sight of Dutko.

“Colin! Colin? You still with us?” He tried his best to keep his voice confident and calm in spite of his panting and perspiration. 

“I read you, Scott. Hurry on up here, I found something interesting,” came Dutko’s clipped voice in reply. Doctor Dutko had a peculiar accent that Bowen never had quite identified as anywhere earthly. Perhaps it was some manner of speech he’d picked up on Mars or the Jovian system before he’d emigrated.

Doggedly, Bowen waved a beckoning arm ahead and plodded on. “We’re coming,” he puffed, “as fast as we can…” another puff, “given this terrain.” Something interesting? What was there that was so fascinating in this endless waste? Unless…

“Colin, have you found the source of the signals? The mechanism? What is it? Can you describe it?”

“No, there’s no mechanism here, but there seems to be a crater of some kind.”

“There’s nothing like that on our maps, is there?”

“You’re right. That’s what makes it uncanny. You’ll have to see it and judge for yourself, but it looks very recent.”

“Meteor impact, you think?” Bowen was feeling interested despite his fatigue.

“Nothing like that. More like an excavation that left no debris behind. Never seen anything like it.”

“I don’t like this, Colin. You better make your way back to us and we’ll check it out together.” Bowen would have been scratching his head if his helmet would’ve allowed it. This wasn’t what he’d expected at all. The intermittent signals they’d received in the Dome had indicated a fallen satellite or a soft-landed drone of some kind, but an excavated crater meant that there were definitely people involved. And unidentified, unauthorized people out here in the wilds could only mean trouble. Trouble that Scott Bowen had no intention of dealing with.

“Do you copy, Colin?”

Silence.

“Doctor Dutko, did you copy? Return to the squad. Copy that?”

Still there was only silence.

Fine. This was just fine. Leave it to Do-it-or-die Dutko to end up with a faulty com link at a time like this. Scott Bowen felt the combined stares of the twelve huskies behind him awaiting his next move. He felt frozen in his boots.

As inaudibly as possible, Bowen heaved a frustrated sigh. “Keltig! Beesom! Charge your weapons and come with me. The rest of you await my signal to proceed. We’ll make sure the good doctor is okay. Forrest, you’re in charge of the group while I’m gone. Copy that?” Forrest gave him the thumbs-up and the two terraformers he’d summoned advanced with blasters at the ready.

“Keltig, which heading are we making for?” Bowen asked, just to be sure. When he’d last seen Dutko, he was uncertain of what part of the ridge ahead he’d been standing on. Keltig pointed at a low outcropping about ten degrees to their left. Off the three of them trudged.

“Colin Dutko, do you read me?” Bowen called. They were fifty meters from the ridge.  “Doctor Dutko, please respond.”

Forty meters.

“Colin, come in. Do you copy?”

At twenty meters Bowen motioned to his armed companions that they fan out to the right and left before they crested the ridge. 

He checked the power gauge on his own small shock emitter and set it on its full dispersal setting. 

What was he doing here? Was he crazy? or just too cowardly to admit…

“Colin!” They had stepped onto the ridge and there was the crater.

The depression in the rock surface was perfectly round, like a meticulously sliced section of a sphere, incredibly smooth, with no residual debris around it, without even any dust perceivable at this distance. The crater was about fifty yards ahead, about thirty yards across…

…and the environment-suited figure of a man was lying exactly at its center.

“Colin! Colin, do you hear me?” Bowen tried to rush ahead, but one of the others was at his side holding him back. “Let go of me, blast you! He’s hurt!”

“But we don’t know what happened here, Mr. Bowen—we ought to make sure it’s safe before you go down there.” It was Beesom. Keltig was several yards ahead, scanning the area with his blaster in firing position. Bowen strained to get free, but Beesom was brawnier and his grip was unyielding. “At least get more men up here, sir. Until we know what we’re up against.” 

Bowen, nodding, relented and spoke clearly with his eyes still fixed on the human form in the crater. “Forrest, get the rest of the men up here. Doctor Dutko is…something is wrong and he might need medical attention. We need to make sure this area is secure. Everyone, power up your weapons and fan out your approach.”

“Yes sir, we’re on our way,” Forrest replied.

It was another ten unendurable minutes before the dozen men were deployed at points around the crater like figures on a crazy clock face. Bowen half-slid and half-stepped down the side of the bowl shape and made his way to the man form lying there. It was curled in a semi-fetal position with legs partially tucked upward and with arms slightly to the sides. The faceplate of the helmet was cocked at an angle toward the ground so that Bowen had to twist the head to see inside. When he did so, he caught his breath.

Tiny red specks covered Dutko’s face, as if a fine mist of blood had been sprayed upon it with an atomizer.

And one second later, it dawned on Bowen that that is exactly what he was looking at.  Drops of blood.

Dutko’s face showed no sign of pain or stress. It was passive, almost serene, and the body was relaxed. Absolutely limp. Gently, Bowen reached around his shoulders, lifted them slightly and shook them.

As if in answer, a planet-tremor began once again, coursing up from the crater’s floor, perhaps somehow magnified by the shape of the depression. Bowen felt the rattle and clatter of Dutko’s helmet against the stone-hard ground. Slowly, the tongue protruded from the seemingly sleeping face. It licked several of the bloody drops off the corners of his mouth. The mouth began to smile.

And then, all at once, the eyes popped open, causing Bowen to cry out in fright.

“Colin! My gods, what a relief! Can you hear me? Are you all right?”

“Yes, Scott…” Dutko’s voice seemed far away. “My gods…your gods…we all…we are all…gods.” The eyes closed with beatific bliss on the bloody face. “We are all gods…saved… saved by the blood.”