Loadstar 117/117.d81/sr.auto.chapter

Text File | 1994-01-01 | 11.5 KB | 413 lines

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Chapter 1: Gemstar



    The scientists of Gemstar didn't
know for sure how a planet so distant
from its sun could produce lush plant
life, teeming with vigorous life of
all sorts.  Volcanic activity was
rampant, and rivers of lava flowed
all over the planet.  The average
soil temperature was 77 degrees
Fahrenheit, seeping with warm
moisture.  The air was a different
story, steady at 89 degrees, day in
day out.

    Despite the heat, the starfarers
came, pitched tent, and colonized.
The only escape from the heat was the
extreme cold only a few hundred feet
away from the surface.  The
starfarers chose the coolest areas on
the planet's three tectonic plates.
The mountain ranges had cooler soil
and drier air, which was better for
the equipment.  Of course there they
had to contend with the terrible
electrical storms that raged where
the warm updrafts scurried up sheer
cliffs to meet with extreme cold.

    Forever in orange twilight,
Gemstar maintained an exaggerated
elliptical orbit about a cooling red
giant of a star, perhaps irreverently
named CS-2.  One revolution was
equivalent to 142.43 earth years.
With three times the diameter of the
earth yet less than a third the mass,
Gemstar was a murky albeit beautiful
sphere.  Its oceans shimmered
rhythmically in places because of the
magma beneath them.  The salt seas
were spectacular at night.

    "Damn, it's hot.  I'll be glad to
get back top side..."  Johnathan
spoke, spitting out dust afterward.

    "Spoken like a true overlander,"
said Vince, cynical as ever.

    Jonathan ignored the crack.  With
a wrinkled but strong thumb, he
guided the prefab compressor over its
outdoor foundation using the joystick
built into his personal plaque.  The
plaque was smooth, much of its
surface a liquid crystal display,
which showed a scan of the activity
he was monitoring.  The lower portion
of the plaque was a small cyberpad
for entering data.

    "Three degrees right,"  An
electronic voice spoke from the
plaque.

    Johnathan looked into the plaque,
"You're right, Betty.  A bit
premature, but right."

    Words and crude graphics on the
display moved aside as a detailed
rendering woman's face appeared to
greet him.   It was a face that he
painstakingly sculpted with a three
dimensional paint program and then
installed as a part of a personality
file.  Her head was heart shaped, her
hair full black and shiny, her skin
golden and metalic.  It made her into
a goddess.  He smiled into the
display.

    The face smiled back,  "What
would you do without me?"  Her voice
was full, and her lips matched the
words.

    Vincent Anderson rolled his eyes.

    "How many units do we have back
there?  I'm ready for a good
synthesized meal aboard the ship.
This barbecue stuff is tasty, but I
fear the method of preparation could
produce carcinogenic compounds.
Parts of it are char..."

    "Forty."  Vincent interjected,
gladly stifling his mentor.  His
purple eyes closed a bit.  Color was
a strange thing here.  Vince's eyes
would appear green under the Sol
normal 5400 Kelvin halogen arc lights
aboard the ship.  Most planeteers
considered the halogen arcs "too
blue" by now.

    Johnathan's skin should have been
walnut hued, his eyes the same.  His
mustache was less gray than his
receding crown.  When wet, his black
hair curled and laid limp.  Right now
it was still full of natural curls.
He considered himself a handsome
middle aged man.  Occasionally a
young woman would remind him of his
remaining allure, boosting his esteem
a bit.  On this steamed rock, how
could one become comfortable enough
to think of love?  A sigh,  "How can
you  live  down here in this
humidity?  In all this space?"

    Vince operated the forklift,
hefting a prefab wall unit.  "You
spend too much time with Betty and
all her air conditioned electronics.
Gadgets make men dependent.  Nature
makes men strong.  I am strong.  I
like it here."

    Johnathan covered the microphone
holes with the palm of his hand.
When it was safe, he spoke into it,
"Betty, I'll link with you again
later.  Okay?"

    "How long will you be?"

    "A few minutes.  Ten max."  He
deactivated the unit, frowning at
Vince,  "Don't you know she was
listening?  You could have waited."

    "She's a machine."

    "She's an entity, with legal
rights.  You could extend her the
same consideration you give all the
confounded animals here that you're
so in love with."

    "Why not care for the animals?
They clearly have feelings?  How can
you be so sure Betty has feelings?"

    "Unlike a dog, she can tell me --
in every language known to man."

    "But she's a creation of man.
Man can't create a dog or a bat
shark.  Those things are of nature, a
higher technology.  I am part of
nature."

    "Man is part of nature, like a
cancer.  Right now that cancer has
just spread to yet another planet.  A
few thousand years from now, this
planet will be dead because of man.
If man were eradicated, nature would
progress in a more orderly fashion.
And since when did any part nature
employ fusion reactors and artificial
gravity boosters?  You'll be just as
dependent here as in space."

    Anderson frowned,  "You know what
I mean.  That ship has hampered our
progress, both spiritually and
technologically for centuries.  Here
we will have the opportunity to
evolve as a society, as a species..."

    "If you really wanted to evolve,
you'd lose the schools, gravity
boosters and vaccinations and become
obese sickly blobs.  Man hasn't
really evolved for many thousands of
years, long before B.E.T.T.Y.  Man
has technology.  Man changes
environments.  He doesn't change with
them."  Johnathan chuckled.

    "But my immune system is much
more active than yours.  I already
have new antibodies floating in me."

    "Doesn't matter.  Read up on
history.  Your immune system is a
marvel, but eventually a plague will
be thrown your way, and even with the
technology we leave you with, you'll
wish you had Betty."

    Anderson was fazed,  "Betty
pampers you too much.  You wouldn't
survive three days in the jungle.
Fresh water is falling all around you
right now and you wouldn't even know
how to collect it.  You'd probably
want Betty to fashion some
technological monstrosity to extract
drinkable water from the rivers
rather than collect dew under a large
leaf."

    Johnathan was frowning now.  "The
desalination units produce water much
more efficiently than your haphazard
collection system."

    "They also destroy countless
creatures and break down every other
week."

    "Look, Betty is my baby.  Right
now she's intelligent, but I'm
working on ways to make her  alive.
Quite frankly, I find most any other
task relatively insignificant."

    "Why?"

    "Why what?"

    "Why make her alive?  Won't she
have to turn around and die later?"

    Johnathan was stumped for a
moment,  "Because it's what she
wants!   Ah, you young people!  You
and your new philosophy!  What has
this rock done to your minds?  You
don't respect your elders anymore!
You only care about this dismal
planet natural things.  Not
technology.  Had you been born in
space like me, you'd have an entirely
different outlook on who and what
Betty is.  For one thing, a planet
like this is certainly more beautiful
from space.  More colorful.  No six
legged organisms scampering
everywhere, in your food, in your
damned sleeping bag every damned
place you step!"

    "Here we realize that bugs are a
part of the system.  We aren't afraid
of them just as we're not afraid of
death.  When I'm your age, I'll
welcome death because I have  lived.
 I won't waste away an extra fifty
years like you will, attached to some
machine, sleeping in my own feces."

    No reply.

    Vince seemed unsure,  "I'm really
thinking of staying behind with the
colonists."

    Johnathan exploded.  "Oh wow, was
that news to me!  I've known you've
had these idiotic ideas for a time
now.  It's one thing to have stupid
ideas and another thing to implement
them!"  He stopped himself and his
headache pulsated.  He hadn't
realized he had one until now.

    Johnathan was still angry that
someone so close to him had chosen a
vocation outside science.  At
fourteen Vince was at the top of his
class, showing promise of becoming a
leader.  Now, at twenty-eight, he was
foreman of the planet based
construction crew, a leader, but not
the kind of leader his parents had in
mind.

    He was operating the forklift
against regulations, with his manly
torso exposed.  His limp orange hair
clung to his broad shoulders.  A
purple charea leaf was rolled between
his lips, the mild drug in its sap
offering slight euphoria.  Johnathan
wrinkled his lips.  What was
happening to the younger generation?

    No further words would be
exchanged while tempers cooled.
Vince could certainly get on
Johnathan's nerves sometimes.  If it
weren't banter about his sexual
ventures, it was just his smart
mouth.  For ten minutes every day,
Vince was enjoyable.  Afterwards he
became annoying.  He was not the
young man Johnathan hoped to see at
twenty-eight.  Nature had corrupted
him.  If he had the power to reassign
Vince, he would have.  For now Vince
was on the ball, a tireless,
efficient worker.  Jonathan couldn't
complain about anything except his
mouth.

    "I'd hate to lose a bright mind
like yours to this planet."  He spoke
the word planet as if it were
garbage.  "What do you think your
parents would have wanted?"  Jonathan
asked.

    "Reality speaking, man.  My folks
died to the bat sharks in that sea!"
He pointed east.  "I will die here,
too, where my death won't be
meaningless, and my atoms won't be
cannibalized by the transmat system."

    "Your atoms will be scattered to
the poles here.  Bugs and reptiles
and all manner of vermin will devour
your corpse.  What's better about
that?"

    "It's better than having my atoms
re synthesized into plastic and metal
and toilet paper and chocolate and
eventually being flushed down a
toilet."

    "Oh.  I see.  You'd rather be re
synthesized into bug feces than
synthesized into something useful."

    "Yes!  I'd rather be bug doo doo
or cremated than become fuel for the
replicators aboard that death trap
floating up there!  How old is it
now?  Five hundred years old?  I
think the warranty's up by now."

    "It's only three hundred, and
it's in tip top condition because of
my crew and those replicators.  It
may be a ship to you, kid, but it's
my home and my world.  You wouldn't
say such terrible things if you had
proper--"

    "Johnathan!  I'm not a kid!  I'm
twenty-eight years old!  When are you
going to stop trying to raise me?
You're not even related to me."

    Johnathan stopped himself.  Vince
was right.  What a terrible
supervisor he was.  His job was
blueprints and circuits and most
importantly Betty.  Why did they
assign him here?

    By days end a swift and
determined bug, with at least one
hundred legs, had scampered into
Johnathan's nose.  Johnathan had
never touched a bug before, and was
terrified of them.  They were fierce
in appearance.  To have one force its
way into his body was enough to make
him faint.  When he awakened, he had
to relive his terror, coughing up the
bug, drowned in mucus.  It was a
parasite that couldn't tolerate
humans, but regularly preyed upon the
lung tissue of the other humanoid
lifeforms inhabiting the planet.

    Johnathan was an overlander.  In
the thirty years that the Andromeda
had orbited Gemstar, Johnathan had
set foot on the planet perhaps twice.
 God, he missed Betty.  She was a
massive bio-computer designed to
control tens of thousands of tasks
simultaneously.  Though some of her
micro components were on the cellular
scale, she weighed 14 tons, spread
throughout most of the bridge.

sr.chapter two