"Parfrey, Kyle - The Globe" - читать интересную книгу автора (Parfrey Kyle)

The Globe by Kyle Parfrey

The Globe
by Kyle Parfrey

The sphere streaked past the field of boulders . It was large for its type, one of the dislocated outer belt objects that was pulled towards the star. It accelerated. Soon long bright streaks appeared out of every crevice on its surface , thin trails of bright yellow gas. The object reached the end of the atmosphere and crashed into the small planet. Huge showers of rocks and dust were thrown up , and a large chunk of material extended up from the surface , moving swiftly away from the planet. The chunk was caught by the planets gravity and began to circle it slowly. In the interior of the chunk tiny colonies of micro-organisms stirred, the primeval ancestors of life. Then they bred.
"This is JEV Bright Strike calling Tokyo Central , we have something to report for once. We have noticed a small vent near the crater Copernicus that was not present on last survey. We are descending to investigate. Bright Strike out". The exploration vessels port attitude trimmer flared into life, brightening the dull exterior of the conical shaped ship. It did a short flyby of the area before landing a safe twelve imperial miles from the site. A small Lunar Land Vehicle came out of the belly of the vessel and began the journey towards the site.
" What the hell is this?", asked Dr. Te Zinfra, the geophysicists assigned to the mission, " It looks like some sort of reinforced tubing ". The team of three were looking at the Anomalous Non-predicted Feature , a hole in the ground about ten meters across that seemed to extend into darkness. It was perfectly circular in shape and the inside surface was an unidentified metallic substance. Zinfra returned to the Bright Strike for survey equipment and the others remained.
"Te Zinfra to Ming Wal, do you copy?" There was no response from the other end. Zinfra was in the communications room of the Bright Strike trying to get through to the others at the ANF. Static.According to Emergency Regulations the pilot started up the ship , heading for Tokyo Central and lots of form filling. Two more loses .
Meanwhile the rays continued to pour out of the anomaly. The bodies of the dead crewmembers lay strewn around it. It had begun.
Southern Italy: The farmers looked out at the rolling fields of their crops. The wheat was not normal, no the usual golden yellow but a strange shade of red. The first farmer pulled off a head of wheat and bit it . There was a sharp taste and the farmer returned to the house . Three days later he was lying on his deathbed , his nerves corrupted and paralyzed. He looked at the roof of his dingy house and closed his eyes.
Darwin, Australia: The International Advisory Committee on agriculture to the Global Voluntary Government Authority convened an emergency meeting at 2am. The groggy eyed politicians and agri-scientists filed into their hard chairs and began. "My country is in chaos, this can not continue. There must be answers." It was the political delegate from Italy. Others nodded but kept quiet until an unnoticed woman in the corner of the pentagonal room coughed. When everyone was watching she began.
"These widespread crop devastations are happening at a time of drastically increased high frequency radiation from extra-terrestrial sources", a few people jerked awake and she tiredly continued, " not aliens – just from undiscovered radiation sources from space" . A general feeling of disappointment. " I have talked to the Spatial Research Institute and they believe that the rays are killing the crops."
"Well, dammit these rays must be stopped!". Much agreement and the committee left the room , heading for the GVGA chambers. The ball was rolling.
 
Three days later: "Zinfra, Dr. Te, passphrase Will the Wild Wildebeest ". Beep. He entered the room, tastefully decorated with carpet and wallpaper ., not like the boring stainless steel chambers just going out of fashion. He was here for a new assignment . Just then the near door opened noiselessly and the Japanese Space Minister glided to his desk.
"Ahh, mister Zinfra, I’ve been hearing so much about you." When he realized he wasn’t going to get a response he continued, " Straight to the point, we want you to return to the ANF immediately. The council thinks it might be a secret American or Chinese project. Both have sent large transports to the lunar surface recently. You will command the JIV Torch , nice and big, and will be equipped with the Model Five Investigation Module. Check it out, report back. The new Special Powers Act applies, if it looks dangerous, kill it. Now get out!"
" Yesssssir". Zinfra jumped up and out, heading for the transport carriage to the Departure Zone. Stupid ,incompetent , government paper shuffler – he would have preferred an Action Vehicle rather than the Investigator Class. Especially if Americans were involved.
Bright lights blinked on. A painful whizz was felt until the engineer-samples specialist got it under control. Everyone had to have double functions to save space. Bip. Bip. Bip. Bip. Bip. Bip.Bipbipbipbipbeeeeeeeeeep…. The anti-graviton engines kicked into life and quickly pushed the craft away from the earth. Four hours passed. The double engineer switched off the anti-graviton engines and powers up the multi-graviton systems, pulling the craft towards the distant globe. He went to bed.
Engineer Hosing was woken up by the approach indicator. He then got up and woke his sleeping commander down a short hall and up a bulkhead. The two returned to the nose and the two safely piloted the craft to the surface. Checking his bearings from the lunar positioning network he assessed their position as twelve miles from the anomaly, ground centre radiation town.
The module was ready for deployment twenty minutes later. The four person team slipped through the narrow hatch , entering the primary hull. A secondary fixture, for various sensors and the crafts small number of weapons was a arranged on top of the primary. Engineer Hosing remained with the larger vessel to act as a switchboard for communications to earth. Zinfra went to the commanders chair and the other three took their places at navigation , propulsion and various operations (VO) ." Detach, open chamber doors, lets go." The navigator pressed some buttons and the module was on its way. The small ship, not much bigger than 7 meters in length, skimmed over the surface ,heading straight for ANF17.
" High levels of extremely short wave radiation, alternating in frequency and wavelength every 30 nanoseconds. Could cause some computer failures, I don’t know. ". It was System Commander Tayan Lapita, working at VO .Zinfra responded to her report by ordering low level power shielding to be activated. The craft was momentarily enclosed in an ellipsoid of white light. He didn’t like this, now ray sensory output was reduced to half power definition. Even the simple viewing monitor was seen to be warped in random patterns. "Decreasing velocity to standard mark 2.35. Responding normally. " The approach pattern was being followed and the small crew was using Extreme Vigilance Procedures; a tiresome repetition of the obvious but sometimes showing up the tiniest of problems.
" Graded stop, navigator" . The ship stopped , a mere five meters from the anomaly. They waited. Five minute. Ten minutes. Commander Te Zinfra was thinking. This pipe or tube was emitting radiation. There was nothing happening . The module could take it. No use coming all this way for nothing. "VO , prepare a outboard sensor buoy. Put it down the hole." The cigar shaped probe was seen to disappear down the hole. "Nothing yet ,sir. Just the identified…wait! Transmission has ended." She swiveled round. " We have lost contact." He was thinking again. The buoy was brittle. The ship would survive. No use coming for nothing. " Nav, prop. Prepare to take up down the tube."
The module would have been seen to glide over to the edge, pause and slip into the pipe; if there was anyone to watch it. At that time every major survey observatory was offline on earth. The Japanese Special Purposes Squad had seen to that. No one knew.
The craft accelerated slowly through the hole . There was plenty of room but they weren’t taking chances- if the shielding shorted after slamming into the side they could all die because of the radiation exposure. The side surfaces were rock and they continued on like this for some time. Then suddenly a bright flurry of colour was seen ahead. Then sides seemed to be coated with a metallic substance and the reflection of the searchlights off it as well as the shield distortion combined to produce a rich kaleidoscope of flashing light. "Radiation levels increasing , approaching maximum shielding acceptance level" interrupted SC Lapita into the quietness after the colours appearance.
" How much longer can we stay?" responded Zinfra ,anxious that there mission would not end with more questions and less answers.
"A this rate of increase, fifteen more minutes". They all stared at the viewing monitor, hoping for some development to give them something to work with. The light on the monitor grew in intensity as they approached their final few available minutes. " Dim screen by one third" ordered Zinfra.
Then the module began the shake. " Propulsion!" yelled Zinfra.
" Its not us sir, the engines are operating normally " answered the young engineer. Then the image on the screen quickly shifted and the crew felt the pull of acceleration. The ship was pull in one lightning fast movement out of the tunnel. They found themselves following a smaller tunnel, with not much room on either side. "Cut engines". Even as they did so they went faster through the second tunnel.
" Radiation levels drastically decreasing, its becoming almost undistinguishable from the output from our onboard systems." Te Zinfra wanted to be relieved but instead he had to worry about their unexplainable change of direction. The four bewildered people watched helplessly as their vessel took on a mind of its own, careering down a tight passage by its own will.
Then they were out . The module exited the second tunnel , out into a giant spherical cavern. The massive area was completely empty and the investigation module of the JIV Torch came to a halt in the centre. "Well that was fun. I think I handled that very well ! " commented the navigator.
"Rotate viewing angle around the cavern" , The crew watched as the monitor showed the interior of the hollow. There were holes in various positions along the sides. Glowing segments extended pale green arcs of light . Out of one of these dim arcs appeared the three spheres. They moved towards the module. Inside the people watched. Then they noticed a blinking light on the wall behind the spheres. Their shields fell. The spheres crept to within a few meters of the nose the craft then stopped. They were huge. Each one had a diameter of up to twelve meters across and bulged across the middle. They were different colours , the center one was black and the other two were red and indigo. Then ,as the occupants of the module watched quietly , ripples began to evolve on the surface of the sphere. They started small and grew larger, sliding along the top of the shape. Zinfra watched, and thought he noticed something. The sphere seemed to be contracting slightly, the diameter was decreasing.
The contraction halted , the ripples rapidly petered out. Then the shape glowed and a small pop was heard from inside the craft. The crew turned and found themselves looking at a miniature black sphere, hovering at the rear wall of the little ship. More ripples appeared but these were much larger, swelling and subsiding around the object. The ball began to take a new shape, an ellipsoid with a large indentation in the bottom third. Te Zinfra watched and thought it looked like a human face. The indentation began to contort and the sound of a distorted voice, gradually clearing up, was heard in the module.
"I have been watching you these past four hundred or so years." , the mass said in perfect Japanese. " We have much to discuss". The four people looked at it in silence for a few moments, and then Commander Zinfra of the Japanese Space Exploration and Development Organization cleared his now dry throat and replied formally.
"I am Commander Te Zinfra ,JSEDO , an we are ,uh, pleased to make your acquaintance on behalf of ,well, all of us." Tayan Lapita looked blankly from the other side of the craft. The propulsion and navigation operators had sat down and were fidgeting nervously.
"I have been watching you" repeated the mass.
" Uh, who are you?" replied Zinfra , at a disadvantage to the others knowledge.
" I am you and you are me. We are the same.I have been watching you and know about you."
" What do you mean by "we are the same" ?" he answered ,puzzled.
"Don’t you know?"
"It seems not"
"We are of the same, us together. We will go know and we will show us other things to do with us as a whole." With that the module quickly accelerated from a standstill into a speedy dive through one of the holes in the cavern. They arrived in a much smaller chamber. " I have been watching and waiting." The four members of the crew of the module found themselves outside the craft, standing on the floor of the hall. Zinfra panicked , he tried not to breathe in. He held his breathe until he thought his cheeks would shred into tiny strips. His body forced him to breath. He did. There was air. He suddenly noticed that they were in normal earth gravity. The others were also realizing this.
" I was watching and have prepared."
"I see."
There was a pause, uncomfortable for the humans. Zinfra decided it was time he showed a little initiative , and turning to one of the other spheres asked, " Why are we here, what is the reason for us being brought here?" The answer came from the black sphere "You are here so I can show you something important, something you will have great interest in. Follow me, there is a view panel at the other side of this chamber." The humans followed it silently, Lapita thought that the way it switched between childish non-compliance to perfect language use was a little strange. But then this whole ill-conceived adventure was bordering on the insane side of bizarre.
They found themselves looking at an oval VDU . The sphere began to explain." You and I are made from the same organic matter. Eons ago we were separated by a comet. We developed differently, I arrived at your stage of development, roughly, about 2 million years ago. This was because this planet had no life destroying meteorites or competing species. I was the only one that developed. I have lived in the inner core of this planet, safe. But about three thousand years ago I realized something from the research into myself that I had been doing. It seemed that my organic makeup , at the most basic level, was not complete. Since then I have been watching your species and have noticed that you too are not perfect. We are two hemispheres of a single sphere, incomplete in ourselves. I have been watching and thinking. I have developed a method of purification, when both our deepest organic imprints will be combined to complete the single perfect being. The process has started."
The other two silent spheres floated through the thin atmosphere towards them. Appendages grew from their central bulge. They entwined these elastic tubers around Te Zinfra , hopelessly thinking of a way out. "What are you trying to do?" he demanded hoarsely. "I am going to fuse you with some of me."
The process was simple. A silver canister was brought in by one of the balls while the other held the other three crew members against the fat wall. The big black sphere opened the large canister and removed a very small ball of gelatinous mass. He extended a tuber and with it made a small hole in Zinfras middle. He felt no pain and looked with wonder at the tiny circular hole, no blood was coming out at all. The black sphere took the green tiny jelly like ball and placed it in through the hole. He then used some type of bottled sealant to cover over the wound.
Zinfra lay on the floor of the chamber. He stared at the ceiling, the mirroring surface allowing him to see the green tint of his stomach. The hole for the implantation of the ball was invisible and there was a small swelling in the areas the foreign substance had reached. He turned his head and saw his crew, the restraining spheres replaced by a clear screen partitioning the room. They sat unnaturally , held in position by small straps.
The black sphere glided into the chamber, moving over to speak to the immobile man on the floor.
"The transfer has been successfully completed. You will be unable to move until the new matter has integrated itself with your system, it will probably take around four hours. We’ll talk then." The black sphere was gone and Zinfra was pulled into an artificial sleep.
" Wake up, integration is finished." Te Zinfra sluggishly looked down at his body and was surprised to see that his form was totally different. His neck connected to a long greenish oblong, with two whip–like arms extending from his "shoulders". He had no legs at all. "I see you notice the changes to your physical person. I have left your brain and its accompanying
casing unchanged, although this may be perfected as well in future developments." Zinfra was hoisted up by the dark globe and found that he floated as it did above the surface of the chamber. " You will become accustomed to the modifications. Now, follow me."
Zinfra watched as the globe moved off towards the opening to the chamber. He hesitantly tried to move and glided unsteadily after it. As they passed through corridors and open spaces, Zinfra thought. He thought about the spheres and his recent metamorphosis into some bizarre mongrel of human and this strange new species ahead of him. Then they arrived. This new room was very different from the previous one. It was enormous. He could hardly see the far wall in the dim light and the ceiling was an almost black gray high above his head. A large square tile in the center of the room lit up and Zinfra followed his guide over to look. It showed an image of the other crew members having small balls of different colours inserted into their stomachs. Then the picture changed , replaced by a view of the earth.
" You are the first of your kind to be purified. Soon all the inhabitants of the earth we be made clean and our two beings will be as one. Unfortunately the atmosphere around your planet is hostile to me , so the radiation emissions that brought you here are changing it so I can return. You are the first and many more will follow the path you lead."
" Your radiation is hurting people, possibly even killing them. How can you pretend to be helping us like this?", Zinfra demanded. He had forgotten about the rays and the people on Earth since they were submerged in this deep pool of the new civilization hidden to them since the great collision all those thousands of centuries past. In response the globe ascended high towards the ceiling , disappearing through an invisible gap in the surface.
Te Zinfra waited. It was some time since the departure of the mysterious thing that claimed to be his peoples savior. The huge area was empty, the viewing tile dark, and his mind roamed free as he watched every shadow at the ends of the room, thought about his new form and its implications for his life, if his uncertain future was to be a life in the conventional sense. Then there was a low noise and his two crewmembers were escorted into the hall by one of the spheres. They were like him, but different in the important in area of the head. They didn’t have one. Their new friends must have found a way to incorporate the human brain into their hybrid engineered organic architecture without damaging the essential functions of this most precious of organs. To Zinfra they could as well be standing on their collective heads because the absence of landmarks made these new creations vertically symmetrical. "Lapita, is that you?" he inquired.
A deep voice resonated from the blue body, on the left. " It is me , here sir. The process appeared to be the same as what happened to you. I don’t know what happened to Lequa, he isn’t talking to me." Zinfra glanced at the white shape next to Lapita. Then the top of his "head" began to change colour, from white to a deep blue to a bright red to speckled brown. The shifts speeded up, the upper portion of Operator Lequa became a blur of contrasting , flashing colours. He was twirling slowly in a wide circle, making no noise . Then the sphere appeared and removed the now uncontrollable man-thing from the room.
" I don’t think they have perfected the protein transfer method, or whatever they are using to change us. That’s the second time he’s done that,"
said Lapita. Zinfra found it disconcerting talking to someone with no mouth.
They waited for longer still, until they were weak for want of food and water ,and weary for need of rest. Zinfra thought it was about four hours when the three spheres returned to the room. The two helpers places a bowl of standard Japanese off planet rations in front of him. They must have gotten them from their little ship. Lapita ingested fluid through a tube which resembled an IV. When they were finished they were led silently out of the chamber. They floated along and soon were in a huge conical bay, with the narrowest section at the top. Twenty ships ,about three times the size of the module they had come in, were spread in circular pattern around the ground. The ships were spherical, mirroring the shape of their occupants. Each had a round doorway towards the bottom of the hull, and were coloured in a wash of merging shades. The two once-humans followed the large black globe into the ship in the center of the circle. The door closed noiselessly behind them. It was then that Zinfra realized there was no atmosphere in the bay. Even though he had a mouth and nose he had subconsciously stopped breathing , his body not needing air. It felt strange when he focused on it.
The ships took off , heading towards the hole in the lunar surface. They arranged into a three-dimensional pattern around the lead ship and turned to face the steadily growing earth. The ships, Zinfra noticed, had no instrumentation or piloting interface, they were completely bare inside, controlled by the globes through a suspected telepathic link. Zinfra wondered about his friend on the moons surface , possibly still waiting for a signal from the investigative module . There was probably a search on for them, but a greater danger was the trigger happy nations of Britain and South Africa. Britain had large space orientated nuclear missile bases in New Essex, near the city of Dublin,and South Africa had shown a readiness to blast any threatening unidentified object when it destroyed an Australian surveillance jet passing over the Cape of Good Hope on its way to photograph military installments on South Africa’s southern boundary.
As the formation neared the planet Zinfra began to notice a difference to the last time a looked upon it from space, before entering the large dark hole. He wondered what it was. The ships were changing colour in the intense heat of atmospheric entry. They neared the surface when suddenly they broke off , each heading towards a predetermined landing point. As he floated in the alien craft Zinfra realized the difference he had spotted earlier. The planet was brown. Where before there was large expanses of green fields and endless grasslands there now was struggling plants amid vast deserts of baked mud. A window appeared in front of the occupants of the craft and they watched as the ship approached a city and landed on the outskirts. It was the city of Bonn ,the creatures having decided that it would be the center of their quick purification of the entire human species.
Or what was left of it. As they moved around the planet watching the spheres change the populaces to the new way they grew ever more certain in their knowledge of the demise of a substantial portion of the worlds population. Many had died when the beings had changed the atmosphere to suit their own life systems. People had trouble breathing and the earth’s plant life had not lied the shift in percentages of trace elements present. The earth was fast becoming a dead world.
Also the sphere had trouble with the purification protocols . Despite their massive knowledge of everything to do with earth stemming from millennia of careful observation they still had problems with seemingly basic human physiology. Just as the loyal crew member of the JIV Torch had died from complete cranial imbalances so too did millions of others. As the two once humans glided down the streets of the worlds cities they saw new structures where experiments to stop the neural degradation were being carried out, along with the disposal of the people who had experienced the rapid colour shifts in the region of the "head" that were the harbingers of their downfall.Still, the people gave themselves willingly to the transformation, believing the persuasive mental images of great lives on the moon flash across their weak minds by the spheres. Of course, some resisted and they were destroyed by clean military style telepathic incursions into their fragile heads.
Eventually all the people were converted or dead. They were loaded into huge transport vessels that had appeared on the earth surface and were flown to the moon. As the large formation neared the moon a massive door opened in the lunar surface. It slided open into a circular opening a quarter of the moon diameter. The fleet entered and passed through a short section of passageways before emerging into a gargantuan open space. The space was so large it was as if half the moon mass had been excavated and removed leaving this hollow. The doors of the fleet opened and the thoughtless masses were shepherded towards the middle if the area. When they neared it they saw that in the center there was a massive sphere, twirling around in the inner core of its planet sized home. All the helper globes moved towards it , merging with it, becoming part of it. Then the once human population were drawn in, as if on immeasurably thin strings. They noislessly and painlessly joined to the whole , losing all individual consciousness. Commander Te Zinfra was the last to enter, his primitive skull collapsing ina brief flurry of incredible pain. Then all was still.
The enormous sphere moved, and the moon disintegrated around it. It broke off in neat sections and the sphere was left alone. It thought to itself
IT IS DONE
The sphere began to move ever so slowly , accelerating until it would have been a blur to any human eyes that were left, except there were none. It turned and started its much anticipated voyage, towards what the archaic humans would have called the Beehive Cluster. Then it was gone and the space was empty around the dead planet.
Once again the twins were reconciled to the whole and the last vestiges of fury and panic died down, and it was once again quiet in the mind of the void.
The End

The Globe by Kyle Parfrey

The Globe
by Kyle Parfrey

The sphere streaked past the field of boulders . It was large for its type, one of the dislocated outer belt objects that was pulled towards the star. It accelerated. Soon long bright streaks appeared out of every crevice on its surface , thin trails of bright yellow gas. The object reached the end of the atmosphere and crashed into the small planet. Huge showers of rocks and dust were thrown up , and a large chunk of material extended up from the surface , moving swiftly away from the planet. The chunk was caught by the planets gravity and began to circle it slowly. In the interior of the chunk tiny colonies of micro-organisms stirred, the primeval ancestors of life. Then they bred.
"This is JEV Bright Strike calling Tokyo Central , we have something to report for once. We have noticed a small vent near the crater Copernicus that was not present on last survey. We are descending to investigate. Bright Strike out". The exploration vessels port attitude trimmer flared into life, brightening the dull exterior of the conical shaped ship. It did a short flyby of the area before landing a safe twelve imperial miles from the site. A small Lunar Land Vehicle came out of the belly of the vessel and began the journey towards the site.
" What the hell is this?", asked Dr. Te Zinfra, the geophysicists assigned to the mission, " It looks like some sort of reinforced tubing ". The team of three were looking at the Anomalous Non-predicted Feature , a hole in the ground about ten meters across that seemed to extend into darkness. It was perfectly circular in shape and the inside surface was an unidentified metallic substance. Zinfra returned to the Bright Strike for survey equipment and the others remained.
"Te Zinfra to Ming Wal, do you copy?" There was no response from the other end. Zinfra was in the communications room of the Bright Strike trying to get through to the others at the ANF. Static.According to Emergency Regulations the pilot started up the ship , heading for Tokyo Central and lots of form filling. Two more loses .
Meanwhile the rays continued to pour out of the anomaly. The bodies of the dead crewmembers lay strewn around it. It had begun.
Southern Italy: The farmers looked out at the rolling fields of their crops. The wheat was not normal, no the usual golden yellow but a strange shade of red. The first farmer pulled off a head of wheat and bit it . There was a sharp taste and the farmer returned to the house . Three days later he was lying on his deathbed , his nerves corrupted and paralyzed. He looked at the roof of his dingy house and closed his eyes.
Darwin, Australia: The International Advisory Committee on agriculture to the Global Voluntary Government Authority convened an emergency meeting at 2am. The groggy eyed politicians and agri-scientists filed into their hard chairs and began. "My country is in chaos, this can not continue. There must be answers." It was the political delegate from Italy. Others nodded but kept quiet until an unnoticed woman in the corner of the pentagonal room coughed. When everyone was watching she began.
"These widespread crop devastations are happening at a time of drastically increased high frequency radiation from extra-terrestrial sources", a few people jerked awake and she tiredly continued, " not aliens – just from undiscovered radiation sources from space" . A general feeling of disappointment. " I have talked to the Spatial Research Institute and they believe that the rays are killing the crops."
"Well, dammit these rays must be stopped!". Much agreement and the committee left the room , heading for the GVGA chambers. The ball was rolling.
 
Three days later: "Zinfra, Dr. Te, passphrase Will the Wild Wildebeest ". Beep. He entered the room, tastefully decorated with carpet and wallpaper ., not like the boring stainless steel chambers just going out of fashion. He was here for a new assignment . Just then the near door opened noiselessly and the Japanese Space Minister glided to his desk.
"Ahh, mister Zinfra, I’ve been hearing so much about you." When he realized he wasn’t going to get a response he continued, " Straight to the point, we want you to return to the ANF immediately. The council thinks it might be a secret American or Chinese project. Both have sent large transports to the lunar surface recently. You will command the JIV Torch , nice and big, and will be equipped with the Model Five Investigation Module. Check it out, report back. The new Special Powers Act applies, if it looks dangerous, kill it. Now get out!"
" Yesssssir". Zinfra jumped up and out, heading for the transport carriage to the Departure Zone. Stupid ,incompetent , government paper shuffler – he would have preferred an Action Vehicle rather than the Investigator Class. Especially if Americans were involved.
Bright lights blinked on. A painful whizz was felt until the engineer-samples specialist got it under control. Everyone had to have double functions to save space. Bip. Bip. Bip. Bip. Bip. Bip.Bipbipbipbipbeeeeeeeeeep…. The anti-graviton engines kicked into life and quickly pushed the craft away from the earth. Four hours passed. The double engineer switched off the anti-graviton engines and powers up the multi-graviton systems, pulling the craft towards the distant globe. He went to bed.
Engineer Hosing was woken up by the approach indicator. He then got up and woke his sleeping commander down a short hall and up a bulkhead. The two returned to the nose and the two safely piloted the craft to the surface. Checking his bearings from the lunar positioning network he assessed their position as twelve miles from the anomaly, ground centre radiation town.
The module was ready for deployment twenty minutes later. The four person team slipped through the narrow hatch , entering the primary hull. A secondary fixture, for various sensors and the crafts small number of weapons was a arranged on top of the primary. Engineer Hosing remained with the larger vessel to act as a switchboard for communications to earth. Zinfra went to the commanders chair and the other three took their places at navigation , propulsion and various operations (VO) ." Detach, open chamber doors, lets go." The navigator pressed some buttons and the module was on its way. The small ship, not much bigger than 7 meters in length, skimmed over the surface ,heading straight for ANF17.
" High levels of extremely short wave radiation, alternating in frequency and wavelength every 30 nanoseconds. Could cause some computer failures, I don’t know. ". It was System Commander Tayan Lapita, working at VO .Zinfra responded to her report by ordering low level power shielding to be activated. The craft was momentarily enclosed in an ellipsoid of white light. He didn’t like this, now ray sensory output was reduced to half power definition. Even the simple viewing monitor was seen to be warped in random patterns. "Decreasing velocity to standard mark 2.35. Responding normally. " The approach pattern was being followed and the small crew was using Extreme Vigilance Procedures; a tiresome repetition of the obvious but sometimes showing up the tiniest of problems.
" Graded stop, navigator" . The ship stopped , a mere five meters from the anomaly. They waited. Five minute. Ten minutes. Commander Te Zinfra was thinking. This pipe or tube was emitting radiation. There was nothing happening . The module could take it. No use coming all this way for nothing. "VO , prepare a outboard sensor buoy. Put it down the hole." The cigar shaped probe was seen to disappear down the hole. "Nothing yet ,sir. Just the identified…wait! Transmission has ended." She swiveled round. " We have lost contact." He was thinking again. The buoy was brittle. The ship would survive. No use coming for nothing. " Nav, prop. Prepare to take up down the tube."
The module would have been seen to glide over to the edge, pause and slip into the pipe; if there was anyone to watch it. At that time every major survey observatory was offline on earth. The Japanese Special Purposes Squad had seen to that. No one knew.
The craft accelerated slowly through the hole . There was plenty of room but they weren’t taking chances- if the shielding shorted after slamming into the side they could all die because of the radiation exposure. The side surfaces were rock and they continued on like this for some time. Then suddenly a bright flurry of colour was seen ahead. Then sides seemed to be coated with a metallic substance and the reflection of the searchlights off it as well as the shield distortion combined to produce a rich kaleidoscope of flashing light. "Radiation levels increasing , approaching maximum shielding acceptance level" interrupted SC Lapita into the quietness after the colours appearance.
" How much longer can we stay?" responded Zinfra ,anxious that there mission would not end with more questions and less answers.
"A this rate of increase, fifteen more minutes". They all stared at the viewing monitor, hoping for some development to give them something to work with. The light on the monitor grew in intensity as they approached their final few available minutes. " Dim screen by one third" ordered Zinfra.
Then the module began the shake. " Propulsion!" yelled Zinfra.
" Its not us sir, the engines are operating normally " answered the young engineer. Then the image on the screen quickly shifted and the crew felt the pull of acceleration. The ship was pull in one lightning fast movement out of the tunnel. They found themselves following a smaller tunnel, with not much room on either side. "Cut engines". Even as they did so they went faster through the second tunnel.
" Radiation levels drastically decreasing, its becoming almost undistinguishable from the output from our onboard systems." Te Zinfra wanted to be relieved but instead he had to worry about their unexplainable change of direction. The four bewildered people watched helplessly as their vessel took on a mind of its own, careering down a tight passage by its own will.
Then they were out . The module exited the second tunnel , out into a giant spherical cavern. The massive area was completely empty and the investigation module of the JIV Torch came to a halt in the centre. "Well that was fun. I think I handled that very well ! " commented the navigator.
"Rotate viewing angle around the cavern" , The crew watched as the monitor showed the interior of the hollow. There were holes in various positions along the sides. Glowing segments extended pale green arcs of light . Out of one of these dim arcs appeared the three spheres. They moved towards the module. Inside the people watched. Then they noticed a blinking light on the wall behind the spheres. Their shields fell. The spheres crept to within a few meters of the nose the craft then stopped. They were huge. Each one had a diameter of up to twelve meters across and bulged across the middle. They were different colours , the center one was black and the other two were red and indigo. Then ,as the occupants of the module watched quietly , ripples began to evolve on the surface of the sphere. They started small and grew larger, sliding along the top of the shape. Zinfra watched, and thought he noticed something. The sphere seemed to be contracting slightly, the diameter was decreasing.
The contraction halted , the ripples rapidly petered out. Then the shape glowed and a small pop was heard from inside the craft. The crew turned and found themselves looking at a miniature black sphere, hovering at the rear wall of the little ship. More ripples appeared but these were much larger, swelling and subsiding around the object. The ball began to take a new shape, an ellipsoid with a large indentation in the bottom third. Te Zinfra watched and thought it looked like a human face. The indentation began to contort and the sound of a distorted voice, gradually clearing up, was heard in the module.
"I have been watching you these past four hundred or so years." , the mass said in perfect Japanese. " We have much to discuss". The four people looked at it in silence for a few moments, and then Commander Zinfra of the Japanese Space Exploration and Development Organization cleared his now dry throat and replied formally.
"I am Commander Te Zinfra ,JSEDO , an we are ,uh, pleased to make your acquaintance on behalf of ,well, all of us." Tayan Lapita looked blankly from the other side of the craft. The propulsion and navigation operators had sat down and were fidgeting nervously.
"I have been watching you" repeated the mass.
" Uh, who are you?" replied Zinfra , at a disadvantage to the others knowledge.
" I am you and you are me. We are the same.I have been watching you and know about you."
" What do you mean by "we are the same" ?" he answered ,puzzled.
"Don’t you know?"
"It seems not"
"We are of the same, us together. We will go know and we will show us other things to do with us as a whole." With that the module quickly accelerated from a standstill into a speedy dive through one of the holes in the cavern. They arrived in a much smaller chamber. " I have been watching and waiting." The four members of the crew of the module found themselves outside the craft, standing on the floor of the hall. Zinfra panicked , he tried not to breathe in. He held his breathe until he thought his cheeks would shred into tiny strips. His body forced him to breath. He did. There was air. He suddenly noticed that they were in normal earth gravity. The others were also realizing this.
" I was watching and have prepared."
"I see."
There was a pause, uncomfortable for the humans. Zinfra decided it was time he showed a little initiative , and turning to one of the other spheres asked, " Why are we here, what is the reason for us being brought here?" The answer came from the black sphere "You are here so I can show you something important, something you will have great interest in. Follow me, there is a view panel at the other side of this chamber." The humans followed it silently, Lapita thought that the way it switched between childish non-compliance to perfect language use was a little strange. But then this whole ill-conceived adventure was bordering on the insane side of bizarre.
They found themselves looking at an oval VDU . The sphere began to explain." You and I are made from the same organic matter. Eons ago we were separated by a comet. We developed differently, I arrived at your stage of development, roughly, about 2 million years ago. This was because this planet had no life destroying meteorites or competing species. I was the only one that developed. I have lived in the inner core of this planet, safe. But about three thousand years ago I realized something from the research into myself that I had been doing. It seemed that my organic makeup , at the most basic level, was not complete. Since then I have been watching your species and have noticed that you too are not perfect. We are two hemispheres of a single sphere, incomplete in ourselves. I have been watching and thinking. I have developed a method of purification, when both our deepest organic imprints will be combined to complete the single perfect being. The process has started."
The other two silent spheres floated through the thin atmosphere towards them. Appendages grew from their central bulge. They entwined these elastic tubers around Te Zinfra , hopelessly thinking of a way out. "What are you trying to do?" he demanded hoarsely. "I am going to fuse you with some of me."
The process was simple. A silver canister was brought in by one of the balls while the other held the other three crew members against the fat wall. The big black sphere opened the large canister and removed a very small ball of gelatinous mass. He extended a tuber and with it made a small hole in Zinfras middle. He felt no pain and looked with wonder at the tiny circular hole, no blood was coming out at all. The black sphere took the green tiny jelly like ball and placed it in through the hole. He then used some type of bottled sealant to cover over the wound.
Zinfra lay on the floor of the chamber. He stared at the ceiling, the mirroring surface allowing him to see the green tint of his stomach. The hole for the implantation of the ball was invisible and there was a small swelling in the areas the foreign substance had reached. He turned his head and saw his crew, the restraining spheres replaced by a clear screen partitioning the room. They sat unnaturally , held in position by small straps.
The black sphere glided into the chamber, moving over to speak to the immobile man on the floor.
"The transfer has been successfully completed. You will be unable to move until the new matter has integrated itself with your system, it will probably take around four hours. We’ll talk then." The black sphere was gone and Zinfra was pulled into an artificial sleep.
" Wake up, integration is finished." Te Zinfra sluggishly looked down at his body and was surprised to see that his form was totally different. His neck connected to a long greenish oblong, with two whip–like arms extending from his "shoulders". He had no legs at all. "I see you notice the changes to your physical person. I have left your brain and its accompanying
casing unchanged, although this may be perfected as well in future developments." Zinfra was hoisted up by the dark globe and found that he floated as it did above the surface of the chamber. " You will become accustomed to the modifications. Now, follow me."
Zinfra watched as the globe moved off towards the opening to the chamber. He hesitantly tried to move and glided unsteadily after it. As they passed through corridors and open spaces, Zinfra thought. He thought about the spheres and his recent metamorphosis into some bizarre mongrel of human and this strange new species ahead of him. Then they arrived. This new room was very different from the previous one. It was enormous. He could hardly see the far wall in the dim light and the ceiling was an almost black gray high above his head. A large square tile in the center of the room lit up and Zinfra followed his guide over to look. It showed an image of the other crew members having small balls of different colours inserted into their stomachs. Then the picture changed , replaced by a view of the earth.
" You are the first of your kind to be purified. Soon all the inhabitants of the earth we be made clean and our two beings will be as one. Unfortunately the atmosphere around your planet is hostile to me , so the radiation emissions that brought you here are changing it so I can return. You are the first and many more will follow the path you lead."
" Your radiation is hurting people, possibly even killing them. How can you pretend to be helping us like this?", Zinfra demanded. He had forgotten about the rays and the people on Earth since they were submerged in this deep pool of the new civilization hidden to them since the great collision all those thousands of centuries past. In response the globe ascended high towards the ceiling , disappearing through an invisible gap in the surface.
Te Zinfra waited. It was some time since the departure of the mysterious thing that claimed to be his peoples savior. The huge area was empty, the viewing tile dark, and his mind roamed free as he watched every shadow at the ends of the room, thought about his new form and its implications for his life, if his uncertain future was to be a life in the conventional sense. Then there was a low noise and his two crewmembers were escorted into the hall by one of the spheres. They were like him, but different in the important in area of the head. They didn’t have one. Their new friends must have found a way to incorporate the human brain into their hybrid engineered organic architecture without damaging the essential functions of this most precious of organs. To Zinfra they could as well be standing on their collective heads because the absence of landmarks made these new creations vertically symmetrical. "Lapita, is that you?" he inquired.
A deep voice resonated from the blue body, on the left. " It is me , here sir. The process appeared to be the same as what happened to you. I don’t know what happened to Lequa, he isn’t talking to me." Zinfra glanced at the white shape next to Lapita. Then the top of his "head" began to change colour, from white to a deep blue to a bright red to speckled brown. The shifts speeded up, the upper portion of Operator Lequa became a blur of contrasting , flashing colours. He was twirling slowly in a wide circle, making no noise . Then the sphere appeared and removed the now uncontrollable man-thing from the room.
" I don’t think they have perfected the protein transfer method, or whatever they are using to change us. That’s the second time he’s done that,"
said Lapita. Zinfra found it disconcerting talking to someone with no mouth.
They waited for longer still, until they were weak for want of food and water ,and weary for need of rest. Zinfra thought it was about four hours when the three spheres returned to the room. The two helpers places a bowl of standard Japanese off planet rations in front of him. They must have gotten them from their little ship. Lapita ingested fluid through a tube which resembled an IV. When they were finished they were led silently out of the chamber. They floated along and soon were in a huge conical bay, with the narrowest section at the top. Twenty ships ,about three times the size of the module they had come in, were spread in circular pattern around the ground. The ships were spherical, mirroring the shape of their occupants. Each had a round doorway towards the bottom of the hull, and were coloured in a wash of merging shades. The two once-humans followed the large black globe into the ship in the center of the circle. The door closed noiselessly behind them. It was then that Zinfra realized there was no atmosphere in the bay. Even though he had a mouth and nose he had subconsciously stopped breathing , his body not needing air. It felt strange when he focused on it.
The ships took off , heading towards the hole in the lunar surface. They arranged into a three-dimensional pattern around the lead ship and turned to face the steadily growing earth. The ships, Zinfra noticed, had no instrumentation or piloting interface, they were completely bare inside, controlled by the globes through a suspected telepathic link. Zinfra wondered about his friend on the moons surface , possibly still waiting for a signal from the investigative module . There was probably a search on for them, but a greater danger was the trigger happy nations of Britain and South Africa. Britain had large space orientated nuclear missile bases in New Essex, near the city of Dublin,and South Africa had shown a readiness to blast any threatening unidentified object when it destroyed an Australian surveillance jet passing over the Cape of Good Hope on its way to photograph military installments on South Africa’s southern boundary.
As the formation neared the planet Zinfra began to notice a difference to the last time a looked upon it from space, before entering the large dark hole. He wondered what it was. The ships were changing colour in the intense heat of atmospheric entry. They neared the surface when suddenly they broke off , each heading towards a predetermined landing point. As he floated in the alien craft Zinfra realized the difference he had spotted earlier. The planet was brown. Where before there was large expanses of green fields and endless grasslands there now was struggling plants amid vast deserts of baked mud. A window appeared in front of the occupants of the craft and they watched as the ship approached a city and landed on the outskirts. It was the city of Bonn ,the creatures having decided that it would be the center of their quick purification of the entire human species.
Or what was left of it. As they moved around the planet watching the spheres change the populaces to the new way they grew ever more certain in their knowledge of the demise of a substantial portion of the worlds population. Many had died when the beings had changed the atmosphere to suit their own life systems. People had trouble breathing and the earth’s plant life had not lied the shift in percentages of trace elements present. The earth was fast becoming a dead world.
Also the sphere had trouble with the purification protocols . Despite their massive knowledge of everything to do with earth stemming from millennia of careful observation they still had problems with seemingly basic human physiology. Just as the loyal crew member of the JIV Torch had died from complete cranial imbalances so too did millions of others. As the two once humans glided down the streets of the worlds cities they saw new structures where experiments to stop the neural degradation were being carried out, along with the disposal of the people who had experienced the rapid colour shifts in the region of the "head" that were the harbingers of their downfall.Still, the people gave themselves willingly to the transformation, believing the persuasive mental images of great lives on the moon flash across their weak minds by the spheres. Of course, some resisted and they were destroyed by clean military style telepathic incursions into their fragile heads.
Eventually all the people were converted or dead. They were loaded into huge transport vessels that had appeared on the earth surface and were flown to the moon. As the large formation neared the moon a massive door opened in the lunar surface. It slided open into a circular opening a quarter of the moon diameter. The fleet entered and passed through a short section of passageways before emerging into a gargantuan open space. The space was so large it was as if half the moon mass had been excavated and removed leaving this hollow. The doors of the fleet opened and the thoughtless masses were shepherded towards the middle if the area. When they neared it they saw that in the center there was a massive sphere, twirling around in the inner core of its planet sized home. All the helper globes moved towards it , merging with it, becoming part of it. Then the once human population were drawn in, as if on immeasurably thin strings. They noislessly and painlessly joined to the whole , losing all individual consciousness. Commander Te Zinfra was the last to enter, his primitive skull collapsing ina brief flurry of incredible pain. Then all was still.
The enormous sphere moved, and the moon disintegrated around it. It broke off in neat sections and the sphere was left alone. It thought to itself
IT IS DONE
The sphere began to move ever so slowly , accelerating until it would have been a blur to any human eyes that were left, except there were none. It turned and started its much anticipated voyage, towards what the archaic humans would have called the Beehive Cluster. Then it was gone and the space was empty around the dead planet.
Once again the twins were reconciled to the whole and the last vestiges of fury and panic died down, and it was once again quiet in the mind of the void.
The End