Circumspector

Captain Angel is single-minded in his goal, despite the immense consequences it may have. But when his faith is tested, the Circumspector steps in to finish the job.

Circumspector

 

The Angel fixed the last button on the pressed seam of his collar with thin, nimble fingers, careful not to pull too hard on the delicate fabric strained around his neck.

 

The well-polished brass buttons gleamed in the low, orange light, and the golden arcs on his shoulders protruded like a pair of gilded wings. He smiled and leaned in closer to the mirror, his careful eye scanning the folds and creases of his handy work.  

 

There was a driving need for purity in Angel, something that had been seared in him like carbon scouring from a bright burst of light. His milky white hand gripped the curve of his slender face as he felt for any stray hairs that might have escaped his razor. Nodding with satisfaction, he gave himself one last cursory glance, looking over the features of his bald face.

 

Angel’s skin had an alabaster quality to it now, after spending so long in the sunless depths of space. It wasn’t the kind of sickly white from a lack of melanin that normally afflicted the deep space pilots of the fleet; it was a kind of waxy colour, like liquid snow, formed and molded into the shape of a man. Whereas the rest of his crew normally spent a fair amount of time in the sun-simulation lighting, Angel spent most of his time in his quarters, by himself; and he liked it that way.  His features were cut from ivory with a diamond tipped drill, and his eyes shone with the only ounce of colour that marred his face; a juvenile green.

 

 

Happy with the perfection of his appearance, he began tapping his wrist with a boney finger and activating the remote that lay buried just beneath the skin.

 

The door of his bathroom slid open and the lines on the wall began glowing a fluorescent white.  Symbols and words flooded the screens on either side of him as he crossed the floor of his humble Captains quarters.

 

Just as he was throwing his jacket over his shoulders, a face appeared on the wall screen, fuzzy and out of focus. It took a moment for the bridge cameras to adjust and reveal the gaunt, darkened face of his First Lieutenant.

 

“…morning…. Captain Angel.”

 

“Good Morning to you as well Lt. Szilard. How was your sleep?” Angel replied with a curt smile as he pulled his arms through the sleeves of his coat. He kicked his polished shoes on the hard deck floor to make sure they were on tight.

 

“Oooh I can’t complain…that stuff you gave me…the Temazapam, it really knocks you on your a*s.”  

 

“Language Mr. Szilard.”

 

The image of Szilard stiffened in his chair. “My apologies Captain.”

 

“How is our vector doing?”

 

“The Oppenheimer’s Soft thrusters are burning still, but all our main propulsion is on cool down cycle. You can see the planet on our forward optics. Circumspector is waiting for your orders.”

 

Angel nodded along, a satisfied smile spreading on his silvery face. After so long, they were finally within reach of their destination.

 

“Give me two minutes, I’ll join you soon.”

*

 

The bridge of the Oppenheimer was built like the bridge of an industrial airliner; utility coming first, comfort second. It had to be that way, otherwise a ship their size, of such monumental importance, would never have crossed the vast gulf to arrive at their target.

 

It was the size of a gymnasium and filled with just as much strange equipment. Hard metal catwalk met Angels navy boots as he took his first step onto the bridge, the steel beams shaking with ever footfall. Ensigns and military officers were scattered across the bridge in a wide semi-circle like a city council, each absorbed in their own massive, machine-like interface. Like coiling snakes of wires and steel that draped down from the ceiling, the interfaces were monsters of technology and biology, fused together in a strange, elegant display.

 

Angel was glad to see them all absorbed in their work, but his eyes would not linger on them for long. In the center of the bridge, sat a creature of such horrific magnitude, that it ate the scope of his vision as though nothing else around it existed.

 

The lord sat upon his throne; a gossamer, flowing thing with wires and steel rebar melting into flesh and circuitry. But as the throne was alive with movement so was the body of its master; a patchwork of natural and artificial machinery melded together through estranged science. His long arms were of iron bars and hydraulic pumps mixed with muscle fibers and the translucent, glistening slime of exposed cartilage. His body sat slumped into the throne, invisible behind a mesh of different gears and pistons and organs, all competing it seemed, to escape the crowded confines of his body. Upon this lumped mass of writhing electronics and nerves, was a head that was all too big for its body. Long coils of electrified power cables attached to a powdery white skull, slick with the strange dark yellow of sanitizing alcohol solutions. Sinewy ropes of spinal column and muscle pulsed as they reached up to the darkened ceiling above.

 

“Good morning Circumspector, good morning everyone.” Angel quipped as he entered the bridge of the Oppenheimer. The giant, machine man turned and his face was a grotesque techno-mass of ocular implants, sensors and clusters of delicate instruments.

 

“Good day to you sir. Ready to initialize Stage One.” Its voice was an electronic gurgle that erupted from a black, grill-like speaker rammed into its mouth.

 

As he crossed the bridge catwalk towards the central chamber, massive shards of glass began to drop down on him from above. But rather than flee from the danger, Angel raised his arms to the ceiling and suddenly, the glass slowed in its descent. Crystal displays, like shavings of pure light, floated down and settled in invisible wires in a halo around his head. They met him just as he stepped onto a central raised platform, hanging about his crewmen down below.

 

Thin, strong arms reached out for a glass shard, and long fingers tapped it gently as it hung in the air. The glass came alive with holographic displays, words and symbols flashing by at incredible speeds.

 

“Captain, Oppenheimer has begun cursory scans of the planet, would you like me to direct the feed from our forward cameras to your station?”

 

Angel looked across from his platform at the giant man, sitting in his writhing chair of violent movement. He smiled eagerly.

 

“I should think so Circumspector, bring it up for me please.” Angel replied with a growing enthusiasm. He could feel a thrill of excitement shift him as he leaned forward to pluck one of the displays that hovered in front of his face.

 

“Transmitting Captain.”

 

And there it was, glittering on his display like a sapphire caught in the light, Gliese One. The planet was still fairly far out, but the Oppenheimer had optics that could magnify nearly any object within two-hundred millions kilometers. It shone like a prize in front of him, close enough to touch; it made Angel shiver with anticipation.

 

“A prise worthy of humanity.” Angel whispered to no one, but his bridge crew heard it, and they glanced up at him with excitement on their faces.

 

 “Should we begin our arrival checklists Captain?”

 

“…Thought you’d never ask Circumspector… Let’s do what we came here to do.”

 

Among his crew, Angel found the haggard eyes of Lieutenant Szilard, still staring starkly at the display in front of him. Szilard looked apprehensive, fidgeting in his seat like an overactive child.

 

“Something on your mind First Lieutenant?” Angel asked, staring down at the anxious looking man in his pressed naval uniform. Szilard did a double take, before he realized that the Captain was speaking to him.

 

“No Sir…Ready to work.” He replied after a moment, rolling his shoulders. Angel wasn’t convinced though. He turned and started down a staircase that brought him down to the other crewmembers on the bridge. The hue of Angel’s skin shifted in the artificial light, changing at once from pallid white to a tinted lime-green.

 

“Now Lieutenant…this is a mission of the utmost importance. I need to know the thoughts of every one of my crewmembers. I need to be sure that everyone is ready to do what we need to do here today.”

 

Szilard shifted uncomfortably in his seat as the other bridge crew looked up from their displays to scrutinize him.  The Circumspector lifted its massive head and looked over the edge of its seat, its pillars of spear-like optics pointing downwards at Szilard’s head.

 

Szilard’s eyes glanced upwards nervously, a bead of sweat rolling down his bare forehead.

“Captain…I was doing a thermal scan of the planet on our earlier gravitic pass…and I found some…unusual readings.”

 

Szilard fiddled with the controls at his station while Angel walked briskly over to his side. The captain hovered over his shoulder with his hands clasped behind his back, as Szilard brought up a digital reading that buzzed with translucent data.

 

“Initial readings from our probes suggested an abundance of organic heat, indicating the presence of a thriving ecosystem on Gliese One, as well as a sophisticated and intelligent species. But my own personal scans revealed a lot more when we entered the system. Far more organic heat than we initially anticipated.”

 

Angel puzzled over the data with a careful eye. “A civilization….a fully-fledged civilization….” He muttered into the recycled air. Szilard looked over his shoulder and up at the captain.

 

“Doesn’t exactly match our previous estimates.”

 

The Circumspector’s black faced grill buzzed with electronic static. “Captain Angel sir, my instruments detect that there are in the range of four to five billion individual heat signatures from sentient species. Large concentrations of populations consistent with urban habitats.”

 

“I guess we were wrong…” Szilard whispered. But whereas his crew balked in awe at the raw data flowing in from his ships instruments, Captain Angel stood like a soapstone statue, unfazed and unaffected.

 

“It changes nothing.” He concluded, straightening back up and stepping away from Szilard’s station. The bridge crew’s eyes followed him as he circled their central display.

 

“Sir? It doesn’t?” Szilard asked after him, but Angel didn’t turn back.

 

“No. It does not.”

 

Szilard screwed up his face and stuttered angrily. “But…but -”

 

“- We all knew setting out on this mission that there was a native species on this planet. It changes nothing about our mission; we still have people counting on us. People who need a home.”

 

“May I remind you both that we have forty-thousand souls aboard the Oppenheimer in cryogenic sleep status, awaiting Stage Three for reanimation and awakening.” The Circumspector’s mechanical voice screeched from out of its voice box.

 

Szilard gulped down his rising anxiety, before turning back to the Captain. “Sir…not to undermine you sir…but it seems wrong…to colonize a world that already has a sentient species on it. Isn’t it?”

 

Angel stopped and turned to face him, his eyes fierce and serious.

 

“Yes, I imagine so Lieutenant….”

 

“Then why go through with this?”

 

“Why should we not?”  

 

The bridge crew looked up at their Captain expectantly as he circled them, looking each of them in the eye.

 

“The survival of our nation…of our species…relies on this crew… the pioneers of the stellar frontier. The future of our peoples is staked in the alien soil of that planet out there.”

 

Angel pointed a pale finger at the display hanging in the air that still glistened with the spinning sapphire image of Gliese One. The bridge crew followed the line of his finger and stared wistfully at the dream-like picture, hovering over their heads.

 

“Our people have landed on hostile shores before…they have settled on difficult lands…lands that were not always empty. But always they were able to come to a compromise… a conclusion, whether peaceful or destructive, that saw them lay the foundations of a new home. I believe that we can do the same here. We must, do the same here.”

 

“Our scans have reached completion Captain, gravity is zero-point-ten-seven Earth-norm. Atmosphere is Hydrogen-Oxygen based. Active liquid metal core with a stable magnetosphere.” Glass displays flittered around the Circumspector’s head as he gave out his report, his optics flashing red with a sinister light.  

 

Angel turned on his heels to look up at the giant man. “Excellent news, I would like you to begin the pre-checklist for initiating Stage One, if you would please Circumspector.”

 

The flesh-wire mass nodded its bulbous head and began running through a number of protocols on the tiny displays. “Stage One pre-checklist initiated.”

 

Szilard shrank back from the giant monster above him and shook his head gloomily. “Captain we cannot compare what we are doing to anything that has come before.”

 

“These aliens will learn to share their new home with us, as other have done in the past.”

 

“And when the fleet hears about how we went ahead with Stage One? Despite the difference in data that we” �"

 

“�" the fleet will not care. It is a trivial matter to the admirals, what matters is finding new grounds for their investment.”

 

Szilard raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Captain our initial instruments were incorrect, surely we need to at least give more time for our strategy to adapt to the new data? Humankind has never colonized another planet before. Other continents of Earth, to be sure. But never another world.”

 

The Captain shook his head. “Yes, but I see no real difference Lieutenant. We are in the same position as our forefathers were thousands of years ago.” Angel looked up at the ceiling as he considered this thought, but the idea didn’t seem to bother him. 

 

The Circumspector looked up from his displays. “…Captain, the pre-checklist is finished. Stage One requires your key codes and DNA identity signature.”

 

Angel nodded his acknowledgement, before giving one last glance at his sulking Lieutenant.

“Relax Lieutenant Szilard; I am in command of this ship and its crew. Whatever happens down on Gliese One is my responsibility.”

“I know that.”

 

Angel stepped back up on to his raised platform above the others, looking across the open space, staring into the chaotic face of the Circumspector still sitting in his chair. One of the Circumspector’s giant hands came up, its steel prod pointing towards one of the floating glass displays.

 

“Please place your hand on the display sir.”

 

Angel reached out and set his hand flat against the glass, feeling the heat from the fiber optics running against his skin. The display scanned his flesh, picking up his unique DNA identity signature and running it through the Oppenheimer’s data-banks. With is other hand, he tapped a series of numbers and letters into one of the other displays.

 

“Is that all we need then?” Angel asked.

 

“Please allow a moment for the data-computer to affirm your signature and codes sir.” The metallic voice responded.

 

Szilard fidgeted in his seat, a strange anxiety taking a hold of him. He found that no matter how the Captain reassured him, he still felt a powerful reluctance to go throw with their mission. IT was not long before he had to speak his mind again.

 

“Then are we to go ahead and stake our claim? Are we going to colonize this world? This world that isn’t ours?” Szilard tapped at his bottom lip with the shaven nail of his index finger, picking anxiously at the skin.

 

Angel sighed, flicking away the consoles that hovered around his head with a bored gesture. He looked down at his Lieutenant and frowned. “We are here to colonize this world Lieutenant, and we have made a great journey to achieve that end. Shall we turn around? Give up on the eve of our goal, because of an inkling of apprehension?”

 

The other bridge crew looked to Szilard, hungry for an answer to the Captains question. He crossed his arms and scoffed, rolling his eyes at the ceiling.

 

“Captain I have no answer to your question, I am merely positing that our mission requires a deeper consideration before we begin Stage One.”

 

Angel looked down at him, but instead of being angry at his stubborn colleague, he smiled. He grinned down at him and leaned over the edge of his platform.

 

“And I am thankful that you are here to suggest it Szilard…you have a strong moral center and a strong mind.”

The Circumspector leaned down in his seat to look over the edge, down at the tiny humans conversing below him. His black box coughed with static as he spoke.

 

“Stage One is ready Captain. You need only give the command.” Circumspector’s voice buzzed through the bridge, hissing in Captain Angels ear like a humming insect.

 

“Thank you Circumspector.” He turned back to Szilard.

 

“Lieutenant, the time for considering our mission is long…long since passed. We cannot waver on the edge of our great achievement. ”

 

But the young Lieutenant looked into the distant green eyes, past the face of chiseled ivory and found the human man within. He saw the fortress of resolution that Angel had built around him, the walls of complicated justification, and the gates of absolute surety. He knew that Angel believed hard, never willing to follow through his actions to the consequences that lay on the other side.

 

And so it’s time I say it. Szilard thought to himself. Lay all the cards out on the table.

 

“The people of Gliese One will not welcome us. The Admiralty will shame you, and blame you. If we do this we will start a war, Captain. You will have started a war.”

 

Angel looked away, staring into the deck plating as he listening impassively to the warning. He wavered on the spot, leaning apprehensively on his front foot, his hands clasped behind his back. His lip twitched and a small smile spread on his lips.

 

“That would not be my wish…”

 

“Captain.” The sudden, crepitate boom of Circumspector snapped him back into focus.

 

“Stage One is ready sir.”

 

Angel teetered on the edge, leaning from one foot to the other, as he looked inside himself for the answer. Circumspector’s electronic crackle rang in his ear, but Szilard’s warning would not be drowned out. His smile disappeared behind a look of fear, and a bead of sweat marred the top of his ghostly white forehead.

 

“We….our achievement…worthy of humanity…”

 

“CAPTAIN. STAGE ONE IS READY SIR.” Circumspector’s optics and antennas stabbed downwards to point accusingly at the Captain, standing beneath him like a paralyzed bug.

 

The crew of the Oppenheimer all crowded around his platform, looking up at their Captain.

But Lieutenant Szilard’s eyes were drawn to the ball of blue sapphire, spinning on the display above their heads.

 

“Is our need greater then there’s? What right do we have?”

 

With the captain frozen with indecision beneath him, Circumspector’s yellowish cranium snapped towards Szilard below him. The flashing red lenses zoomed in on the terrified face as he stood under the scrutiny of their gaze.

 

“We have the right of our arms, the right of our strength. And for me Lieutenant, that is enough. Humanity sought a home, here is a home. Whether it is inhabited by other, lesser creatures is of no concern to us. We will do our jobs, we will accomplish our mission and it will be us who save humanity.”

 

The ship shook with a growing intensity as Circumspector sat back in his seat, his hands returning to the displays in front of him. Machine whirring filled the bridge with its staccato sound, the engines spooling up and making the whole ship tremble with their power.

 

“Stage One is now underway.”

 

Captain Angel looked up at Circumspector, his face flushed with a sudden fearful fever. “ Circumspector! Stop this! Stop this now! I have not given the order!”

 

“And you would never give the order Captain. You are too weak. I am taking control. Stage One is now underway.”

 

As Circumspector repeated his last dispatch, a great thumping reverberated throughout the bridge. The crew panicked and looked around for the source of the sound, but the Captain already knew what was happening. He rushed over to one of the glass displays, grabbing it by the edges and gripping it in his sweating fingers.

 

The whole crew gathered behind him and looked at it, that shining jewel, encrusted with a solid civilization, built deep into its roots. A people, a species, not unlike their own grown up on that world that was so far behind them. Perhaps, they were less fortunate than those who stared through glass mirrors to look down at them, but no less alive.

 

“What a shame it is.” Szilard whispered behind him.

 

*

Stage One of the colonization had begun. From under Oppenheimer’s hold, a dozen thermos-nuclear Hydrogen warheads erupted and blurred through space towards the surface of Gliese One. Each was packed with enough glittering atoms to annihilate an entire continent. Angel and his helpless crew watched as the missiles blazed through the blue-green atmosphere and spread out in a star shape, streaking through the clouds to find their targets. The image of Gliese One wrinkled and melted; a sheet of fire rose into the air and the dust cloud rippled around the planets convex surface. Billions of lives were incinerated in a fraction of a second.

Thus ends Circumspector. Did you like it? Did you think he was a cool character? I thought he was cool. But who am I, just the guy who wrote him into existence. To be honest I actually really like the character of the Circumspector, and will probably continue to write about him in the future.
At any rate, if you enjoyed the story, give it a Vote, or leave some Comments to help me improve upon these characters. You can also follow me for more cool short stories like this.
Love you all,
-ADKD

Author's Note

Review at your leisure