Anomaly, Episode 7: Self Repair

[Editor’s Note: Read the Story from the Beginning]

Months after Natius had seen his assumptions about Reality torn to shreds, his life had settled down into a “new normal.” Though there was much about his old life that he missed, the process of building a new community from scratch was all-consuming. And, in a way he’d never experienced before, he had a voice in his daily life.

At the same time, the shared chores essential to survival in a low-tech society were exhausting. More than once he was forced to choose between getting enough rest and having enough to eat. And now his settlement, of some thirty-five homes, supported by a mix of hunting, trapping and agriculture, was ready to expand. It was time, in other words, to scout out new territory, especially as spring arrived and the village’s first children were already on the way.

So when Natius, who was still without a mate, was selected to join the community’s new scouting party, he was thrilled. Might some aspects of the technologically sophisticated world he’d left behind still exist somewhere on the planet? Based on his experiences so far, he didn’t think it was so improbable. If time had been shattered, why shouldn’t a few more modern updates have survived? And what, he wondered, if Camilan’s probes had created several isolated pockets of Time from different eras?

The next morning, following a fitful night’s sleep. Natius set out with six others to explore their surroundings. After a breakfast of dried fruit, they’d trek, and in the evening, sit around a campfire to consume dried fish, flat bread and other rough delicacies — including a sugary fruit wine. Though they trudged through acres of landscape that ranged from pristine fields to the broken remnants of bridges, roadways and small towns, they were three days out before they saw anything of real interest. Over the top of a small hill, they paused to gape in wonder. In the near distance, the ruins of a huge city rose out of long-untended grasslands.

“Who built that?” Natius said out loud without realizing it.

His travel companions didn’t answer. They were too busy clambering down the hill to investigate a shiny cylinder resting on its side and curiously equipped with mechanical limbs. Attached to one end of the cylinder was a clear tank full of fluid that contained a small, dark blue creature. Natius rushed down to join the others — in time to stop them from lifting the cylinder off the ground.

“Careful!” he called out. “That’s a Ghilostri. S/he might still be alive, though I don’t know how.”

At his urging, the others backed away a good ten feet and gave Natius enough space to crouch down beside the strange device. He put his face close to the cylinder’s clear tank.

“Can you hear me?” he whispered. “We’re friends here. Tell us how we can help.”

The creature in the tank, which until then had been swimming listlessly perked up and moved with more purpose. A quiet, staticky voice emerged from its battered sound system.

“Is that you, Mr. Tomlin?” asked the creature. “It is I, Camilan Draxilet. It appears I failed to prove my hypothesis.”

“Well, you did prove something,” said Natius. “I’m sure no one else has ever produced a … guess you’d call it an anomaly, like this.”

“You are kind,” said Camilan. “I was a fool. I would only ask that your companions not take revenge on me.”

“They don’t need to know about that,” said Natius. “None of us know anything about each other here. And we make a point not to discuss the past.”

“Does … does ‘the past’ still exist?” asked Camilan. “Never mind. Please see if you and your companions can lift me up. I need to know if my tank can still support me.”

Natius waved to his companions, who crept closer. The fear Natius read in their eyes made him worry for the safety of the Ghilostri.

“I know, this one looks strange to you,’ he said. “Try to remember that s/he’s another survivor like the rest of us. Do for Camilan here what you would do for me.”

Three members of Natius’ search party stepped forward and placed a tentative hand on Camilan’s smudged and scratched composite shell. Guided by Camilan’s voice, they pulled the mechanized structure up until its robotic feet made contact with the dry soil beneath their feet. At the Ghilostri’s urging, they took their hands away and stepped back.

The cylinder rose in fits and starts until its legs were fully extended. It was not a smooth rise. At one point, Camilan looked as if s/he would topple over. Natius’ hand shot out to steady the alien device until at last, Camilan was standing upright. Finally, after a few tentative steps, the dazed Ghilostri raised a mechanical arm and pointed to the ruined city they had admired a few minutes earlier.

“That was once our capital city,” said Camilan. “Because I am still functional, there may be sectors of the city that are also still active.”

“Well, you’d know,” said Natius. “Trouble is, we don’t exactly have a power grid here.”

“The city was built to be self-sustaining,” said Camilan. “And the ‘grid’ if I understand you correctly, was powered by geo-thermal mechanisms. If any part of the city is not too badly damaged, I can pull it out of sleep mode. Once power is restored, I may be able to initialize the city’s self-repair systems.”

It sounded hopeful. Nevertheless, Natius’ companions, who had been watching with a mix of awe and terror, were getting restless. Celia Paduan jammed her fists into her hips and spoke up sharply.

“Come off it,” she said. “Maybe you have repair systems for the electronics. Those so-called buildings, on the other hand, are a couple of windstorms away from turning to rubble. You can’t rebuild out of nothing.”

Camilan’s tank pivoted warily in her direction.

“Your observations are astute,” s/he said. “To rebuild the most severely damaged structures I hope to reactivate the large construction platforms that built our capital originally. They would extract the necessary raw materials directly from the planet’s crust and process them on the spot into the appropriate building components. It may, however, be too much to hope for.”

“Hope is all we have,” said Natius.

“Indeed,” said Camilan. “Though perhaps you can imagine that I need a higher level of technology to survive than you do. It will not be much longer, for example, before the fluid in my tank will need to be refreshed. At the moment, that is impossible.”

Natius nodded at his companions.

“You go ahead if you want,” he said. “I can’t let my new friend die out here. We should get going, Camilan.”

He began walking slowly toward the damaged city with the obviously weakened Ghilostri — and after he’d gone two meters, he saw that the others had joined him. Down the odd assortment of sentients went, into the shallow valley that held Yeltrex-Drobai in its geological palm.

The last thing they would have expected, of course, was that they were being observed from orbit by the Jolatrin research vessel Dohlfaleer. After poring over various images of the city at her workstation for several hours, an astonished Verthani let out a sharp yelp.

Athcarone, worried that she hadn’t turned up in the ship’s mess hall for the last two meals, had just arrived at her door and called out.

“What is it?” he yelled. “Let me in.”

After a delay, Verthani’s door slid open. Athcarone rushed in and over to her workstation, where she greeted him with a broad smile.

“That’s it,” she said. “Yeltrex-Drobai still exists and look, that’s a Ghilostri. It matches every description you found in your texts.”

“Hardly my texts,” said Athcarone. “Who, I wonder are the others? I see mostly humanoids, or is that one a reptilian?”

“Yes,” said Verthani, “Tell you what, though, I have no idea what that other thing is.”

“Tolerance, tolerance, my friend,” said Athcarone. “Lorneavi would be very angry with you right now.”

“Oh craters,” said Verthani. “What’s become of her?”

“Last time we spoke,” said Athcarone, “she was headed down to bless the engine room which, she said would take several rotes.”

Verthani’s personal comlink chirped.

“Professor,” said Captain Steretak, “if you’re planning to visit Ghilos 4, now would be the optimal time. Engineering tells me they can’t keep the ‘bubble’ we’re in alive for much longer.’

“How much time do I have?” asked Verthani.

“The Chief is saying two rotes, tops,” said the captain. “Experience tells me we need a margin of error, if you see what I mean.”

“That’s terrible,” said Verthani. “OK. I’ll have to bring down my holocrew and capture as much as possible in image files.”

“No go, Professor,” said the captain. “I can’t risk that many lives in a dangerous environment like this and keep my license. It’ll have to be you and maybe one other explorer. Engineering is rigging up a couple of encounter suits that should keep the two of you in the bubble. No idea if they’ll work.”

The link went dead. Verthani plopped down into her workstation chair.

“Bad news?” asked Athcarone.

“How good are you with a holocam?” asked Verthani.

Back on the planet’s surface, Natius, Camilan and the others had reached the outskirts of the city.

“We are fortunate,” said Camilan. “Though I must assume that spatiotemporal forces are out of alignment throughout this sector, generally, I believe that we are at the ‘eye of the storm’ as you would say.”

Natius nodded, though he wasn’t sure anyone said that anymore, especially on this fractured world.

“Where to now?” he asked.

Camilan led them across a swath of mangled concrete interspersed with high weeds, flowering plants and the occasional sapling that struggled to adapt to the planet’s fragmented ecosystem. Soon a series of large pipes loomed in front of them. Camilan identified them as belonging to one of several geothermal power stations in the region. Still wobbly, s/he approached a central podium set in the midst of the pipes and stared down at a broken control panel.

“Disappointing,” said Camilan. “However, we built everything with multiple redundancies.” The Ghilostri pivoted in search of another similar podium. Celia called out.

“What about over here?” she asked.

To save time, Natius and the other villagers, lifted the Ghilostri’s tank and carried it to the second podium.

“This one is still functional,” said Camilan. “Let me see.”

Natius watched as Camilan’s dexterous robotic hands executed a series of commands. A few seconds later, he was startled by a loud hum, that died down quickly into a steady purr. Camilan rested a metallic hand on Natius’ shoulder. and told him it was time to move into the city proper to see what else could be activated.

“You know, it is curious,” s/he said. “I wonder if my sensors have been damaged. Otherwise, there actually is an unidentified ship orbiting the planet.”

“Can we warn them?” asked Natius.

“I must assume.” said Camilan, “that if they have traveled this far into the system, they know as much as we do. Perhaps more. Come along please, I must bring the city back to life before my tank becomes uninhabitable.”

“Maybe we should split up and search the city for … I don’t even know,” said Natius, “What should we look for?”

After a few minutes’ discussion, Natius’ recently acquired friends spread out in pairs, while he stayed behind with Camilan.

 “Such cooperation is the essence of civilization,” said the Ghilostri. “We have always imagined it was our scientific achievements that build our world.”

“We’re all coming to the same conclusion,” said Natius, “a little too late. Hey, what’s that?”

Natius shielded his eyes against the planet’s sun and stared up at a small dot in the sky that grew larger by the second. Soon he could make out the contours of a lander, as it wafted down to a spot a few meters to their right.

“Any idea who that could be?” asked Natius.

“The stylized honeycomb symbol emblazoned on the ship’s hull suggests the Jolatrins,” said Camilan. “but when we knew them, they were barely space-worthy.

“Does that mean Time passes more slowly down here?” asked Natius.

If Camilan had an answer, s/he didn’t share it before the lander’s hatch opened. Verthani stepped out first, followed by Athcarone, who was weighted down with video equipment. Each was wearing a bright orange encounter suit.

“Don’t be afraid,” said Verthani. “We’re here to film the city. Have you been here long?”

“Looks like that’s a tough question,” said Natius.

“You’re in a real danger zone,” said Verthani. “My people say there’s a spatiotemporal anomaly, created by.…”

Natius put a finger to his lips and prayed it was a universal symbol for silence. Maybe not, but the little lunge forward that he made definitely caught Verthani’s eye. He pointed to Camilan.

“This,” he said, “is a Ghilostri survivor. If you don’t mind, I’d like to keep my friends over there from making him their scapegoat.”

“Curious expression,” said Athcarone, “I think I know what you mean.”

“Look, can you give us a hand?” asked Natius.

“Of course,” said Verthani. “As soon as we finish filming, I think you and your friends could squeeze inside our lander — if we all hold our breath.”

“That’s not it,” said Natius. “There are dozens of us and maybe thousands we haven’t met. We can’t leave them behind. Can’t you wait?”

Verthani explained that their departure window was closing.

“Then at least stay long enough to help Camilan,” said Natius. “He needs to reboot the city so he can get his mobile tank repaired.”

Celia called out from an opening in the ground that looked a bit like an artificial crater.

“Hey,” she shouted. “Over here. You gotta see this. It’s … I think it’s a ship!”

As Camilan eventually explained, they’d uncovered a Ghilostri hangar, whose protective dome had opened once the geothermal generator switched on. Natius stayed behind with Camilan while the two Jolatrins hurried over to where Celia and now the rest of Natius’ party were standing. Down inside the recess, Verthani and the others saw a broad, curved dome made of dark, light absorbing material.

It was studded with tiny devices that Celia told them might be part of a sensor array. The ship’s hull was also dotted with blinking status lights in various shades of red, green, blue and yellow. As they watched, a narrow antenna about a meter-and-a-half tall rose from the top of the hull and extended into the air. When it reached its full height, the ship issued a series of short beeps in different tones, ending in one long tone that slowly faded out.

“I’m no expert,” said Verthani, “though I could swear this thing is powering up.”

Camilan’s tank flushed pale blue.

“Yes, of course,” s/he said. “The ship has transmitted its ‘ready’ signal. Once inside, I can recharge, refresh and repair my mobile unit.”

Natius’ heart pounded. He helped Camilan negotiate the jagged stretch of terrain that separated them from their latest find. The Ghilostri walked haltingly to a small console attached to the launch pad’s outer rim.

“Let me see if I can raise it,” s/he said.

The ship’s engines fired a short burst. Everyone took three steps back and watched as the deep blue vessel rose into the air, lowered its landing gear and set itself down a few meters away on a patch of unusually flat terrain. Now, in the planet’s twilight air, Natius and the others could finally grasp the scale of the Ghilostri ship.

“Looks like it could hold thousands,” said Natius.

“Many more, in fact,” said Camilan. “You see, its interior is as close to a-dimensional as the laws of physics allow.”

“Wait, please,” said Athcarone. “No disrespect, but how can you be sure this ship is safe after lying idle for nearly two thousand cycles?”

“It has been held in stasis,” said Camilan. “We built our hangars to be self- sufficient, in case of emergency. This protective hangar has its own geothermal generator that operates independently of the city’s main power source. The generator has kept the stasis field constant, which means this ship has not suffered the effects of Time. Besides, there is reason to believe that this planet is, for now, the epicenter of the anomaly you must already have experienced. Time moves more slowly here. Yet given the inherent instability of this sector, we cannot expect that state of affairs to continue indefinitely.”

The tiny group stepped back as a side panel opened in the ship and an android climbed down a small ramp to greet them. Somewhat like Camilan, the android was a squat cylinder that walked toward them on four articulated mechanical legs.

“Come along,” said Camilan. “We can pick up as many survivors who are willing to evacuate.”

Natius and the members of his makeshift village who had arrived with him, hurried onboard. The Ghilostri ship lifted off on a graceful arc and vanished into the cloud cover above.

On the ground, Verthani turned to Athcarone and shrugged.

“I can’t blame you,” she said, “if you want to head back to the Dohlfaleer right now.”

“We’ve come too far to give up,” said Athcarone. “And based on what … Camilan … said, this is likely to be the last chance anyone will have to see Yeltrex-Drobai And who knows? Maybe that ship will pick up a few more surviving Ghilostri. If they put their tanks together, they might even come up with a way to repair the anomaly.”

Verthani laughed.

“I never figured you for an optimist,” she said.

“Of course not,” said Athcarone. “That would have required paying attention. Now come on, before my back gives out. This equipment is heavy. Can’t believe I left the gravity modulators beck on the ship.”

To be continued…. Read the Final Episode Now!

A new Episode of Anomaly appears every other Monday.

^^^

Mark Laporta is the author of Probability Shadow and Entropy Refraction, the first two novels in the science fiction series, Against the Glare of Darkness, which are available at a bookstore near you, on Amazon and at Barnes & Noble. He is also the author of Orbitals: Journeys to Future Worlds, a collection of short science fiction, which is available as an ebook.