Genesis Quest Lom Seel fought rising panic by recounting ways in which he’d been a fool. First, one never flew a shuttle alone, which he had. And you never flew in bad weather unless qualified, which he wasn’t. Finally, a qualified pilot wouldn’t have wrecked the reaction control grids by slamming down onto the planet’s rocky coastline, which he’d also managed. Lightning flickered beyond the ports. Thunder grumbled as the storm lumbered off towards the ancient city. There had been no logical reason for his return; all the important work was done there, the data analyzed and recorded. Something elemental had drawn him back though. After all the millennia of searching and hundreds of light cycles from the twin suns Toy and Sarus, his species had finally found the world of its origin. For the first time in his life, on the surface of this dead world, he felt that he belonged. Through a pall of heavy rain he gazed at the ruins. A very long time ago a magnificent city had been there, not unlike thousands of others Toysarian scientists had excavated throughout the galaxy. This world, though, was different. The fractured and crumbled walls; the warped and blistered pavement of once broad thoroughfares; the towers of steel now little more than time-devoured remnants… All of this had drawn him back one last time, but nothing more so than the ghosts of the people who had built a grand planet-wide civilization. Tragic that it had been their very resourcefulness and creativity which had destroyed them and their world. The bloated star above testified to that universal frailty. Nothing remained now but a barren, blasted planet. He pressed closer to the port and peered upward. Nothing but churning clouds. Unlikely that he could spot the orbiting ship anyway. So dark out there, barren and featureless. Even time here seemed frozen. Fear wormed deeper and he cringed away from the port, forcing his thoughts elsewhere. They’d found answers here, and learned about the supreme global species of this lost world. Long ago a frail craft had lofted into space upon which they’d wistfully placed a plaque telling of themselves, their world, and where it was in the galaxy. Also on that primitive wanderer, and more important than anything else, had been a crude recording of sounds and voices. Incredibly, imbedded among the sounds, was one that linguists identified as an aboriginal form of the Toysarian tongue. No one knew just how long Toysarus had searched the galaxy. But then, suddenly, along came that time-battered space probe. More was known about its origins and builders than about the Toysarian species itself. All that could be said with certainty was that within the seas of Toysarus they’d flourished and advanced. Sentience united with intelligence and, in time, they’d recognized how truly unique they were. And how alone. Nowhere did there exist one fossilized scrap of bone, lingering cell, or DNA signature that could be called the fundamental beginning of the Toysarian species. They had simply, at some point millennia ago, appeared beneath the light of the twin suns. Back in his seat he vainly tried the radio again. Useless of course. His so-called landing had destroyed that too. Nothing to do but sit, wait, and hope. He squirmed uncomfortably. His skin was getting drier, irritated and itching from being away from a soak tank too long. Before anything else, when…if…he got back to the ship, he’d treat himself to a long session in his tank. Next to rescue he wanted nothing more than relief for his chafed skin. Thoughts of that delicious comfort even diminished the expedition’s great achievement of being the first Toysarians in eons to touch the Genesis Planet. Lom Seel’s mind suddenly filled with the familiar rush of co-mentality. "Lom Seel… Lom Seel…this is Fel Meesh." He rushed back to the shuttle port. "Meesh…! Yes, I’m here." He pressed his face against the cold sylex, eyes straining skyward. "Ah, so there you are," his friend responded. "And just what may I ask do you think you’re doing down there?" "I’m in trouble, Meesh." He tried to match Meesh’s casual tone but couldn’t. "The shuttle is wrecked. So is the radio." "Oh, is that all? Did the shuttle somehow wreck itself?" "Meesh, this is no time for your twisted sense of humor. Get me out of here!" Already the mental link was weakening as the ship plunged toward the horizon. "Stay calm, Seel…we’ve got a general fix on your location." He tore his gaze away from the sky and focused on the surface outside. Through the rain and fog he just barely made out the ghostly white of wind-torn waves crashing against black rocks. "Can you see?" he called to Meesh. "This is where I am. Do you see?" There was no answer. He paced the cabin for a few moments, then returned to his seat at the control station. There was still much work to be done. Preliminary exploration was complete. Next would come a global and minutely detailed investigation of the oceans. All along Seel had believed that the seas here, pitiful and threatened though they were, should have received the first thrusts of research. The genetic existence of his specie hadn’t begun in the oceans of Toysarus, but tracing their path backward always led there. Even today every Toysarian was linked to it in myriad ways. But would he be around for that crucial research? No, he mustn’t think like that. His time could best be spent planning ways to solve the final part of the Toysarian genesis mystery. How had they gotten from this world to Toysarus? It had always been hoped, when they found the planet of their origins, that they’d encounter the people who had transported the Toysarian progenitors off to their new home. Perhaps even a Toysarian core population would remain. It was not to be. The planetary civilization that had once thrived here never made the technological leap to interstellar space travel. Nor, Lom Seel suspected, would any artifacts or fossil remnants of some highly advanced Toysarian population be found. He called up a computerized checklist. Maybe he’d overlooked some emergency procedure that could save him. As he studied it, another part of his mind picked at a haunting question: why? Why had his species been chosen for that star-spanning transfer? Why not the more technologically advanced life form? Thunder rolled, closer now. That’s all he needed…another violent squall. His sense of isolation and loneliness intensified. He paced the cabin frantically. Rushes of fear tingled through him like an electric shock. It was a bad time for an alarm to go off. Lom Seel jumped when the nerve-grating buzz filled the cabin. He rushed back to the control console where a yellow light flashed. He jabbed a button and a display readout gave him the bad news: the shuttle only had 30 tags of air left. It would be at least another 25 tags before help could arrive from the ship. Terror flashed into panic. Get into a torus was his only coherent thought. He stumbled around the cabin, unable even to remember where the torus platform was, and when he did find it his shaking hands were nearly useless for activating the controls. He sobbed with blind desperation. Finally there was but a single pad to touch and the machine would activate, generating the quantum field that would sheath his body in an impenetrable flux. Just as he reached for the last push pad he sensed a subtle change; his mind seemed clearer, less fogged by the witless rush of thoughts. A warm tranquility flowed through him. His panic eased, abated, then was gone. "Fel Meesh?" The query emerged from his mind and raced off. "Is that you? Are you there?" There was no response, nothing but the familiar touch of some consciousness blending with his own. Lom Seel returned to his seat and waited quietly while the tags ticked away. "Who is this?" His call went out but there was no answer, just the warm serenity. When the control panel light changed from amber to red he rose and returned to the torus platform. As he prepared the system a strident alarm blasted into the cabin, but he hardly noticed. Invisible flux fingers rippled through his body. A vague glow shaped itself around his hairless, smooth head, moved swiftly down, sweeping into the recessed sockets around his eyes, encasing his bulbous nose, tickling the corners of his lips where ancient genetics had inscribed a perpetual grin. Within moments he was completely encased in the protective field. Outside the shuttle he paused. Lightning from the oncoming squall flickered across a landscape of jagged lava rock. To his left the ocean beat itself against the bleak shoreline. "Are you there?" Lom Seel asked, but again sensed no intelligible answer. A sound came then, a low hum in the sky. Briefly through the clouds he caught a glimpse of the descending shuttle. For a moment more he lingered. "Are you there?" Still no answer came, and with one final search of the rocky shore and churning ocean he set off towards the shuttle’s lights. Behind him in the sea, a glistening form broke the tossed surface. Gray and shining wet, the creature pivoted in the water, watching Lom Seel until he disappeared into the darkness. Beneath dark eyes a graceful elongated snout extended, and the thin lines of a broad mouth turned upward in a fixed grin.
Copyright © 2002 P Garrett Weiler |