Comeuppance

The eleventh and final chapter of Elis Royd

Elis Royd

Chapter Eleven

Comeuppance

That falling star turned out to be the platinum-white lithium head of a flare, shot high into the night sky from a depression not far to the west. It was an emergency beacon, meant to summon surviving humans to the site while the clock was still running.

A chunk of land blew out of the depression, immediately followed by a radiant eruption of stones large and small. A wide glassy body rose into view above the depression’s rim, gradually revealing itself to be a ship larger even than Applications. A jittery neon arc leapt between that building and the ship, its incorporated triangular lights emphatically pulsing in the building’s direction. At the same time, Applications’ current and archival files were streaming from the building, ricocheting off a blinking satellite, and streaming back down, downloading to the ship.

An arcing flash, perfectly mimicking the one marrying building and ship, was triggered in a false fiber woven into the Administrator’s armband of honor. As one of EarthAd’s major players, his seat was electronically saved. The nearest royds made a litter of their shoulders and kicked out an egress corridor on the steps.

“Stand clear…” broke that same bland genderless voice, now emanating from revolving loudspeakers situated round a broad circular eave on Applications’ dome.

Came an odd vibration underfoot, unlike the quakes and slides they’d been fleeing.

“Stand clear…”

A brightly throbbing phalanx of glass-sheathed poles burst out of the veining earth, creating a building-to-launch site emergency lane. The royds respectfully hustled the Administrator down this lane to the ship, gaining in their fellows’ assistance all the way. It was a noble and moving march, a half mile and more, continually disrupted by falling, fagged supporters. At each passing of facing poles, a corresponding blip flashed on the Administrator’s armband.

The ship, hovering precisely ten feet above the ground, lit up with whirring emergency lights. A flat-bottomed deck descended from the ship proper, widening those precise ten feet as it lowered, at last revealing the antiseptic innards of a recently dormant hospital ship, buried under forty feet of soil groomed during EarthAd’s meticulous Terraforming.

Security cannons readied themselves as the mob made to enter. Rotating searchlights quickly picked up and steadied on a closing army of Great Roaches. The ship’s entire keel lit up, so that the immediate vicinity was brilliantly illuminated. An electromagnetic veil blocked that whole seductive ring separating deck from ship. The crowd was checked. A portal-shaped light shield hampered the Administrator’s entrance. A small voice came from his armband, its vibrations in perfect time with the shield’s:

“This ship and its medical bay are designed and reserved for human occupants only. However, as Administrator you may at this juncture override security and mission protocols. You have 00-00-30, wherein time is represented in particulars of--”

“Override,” the Administrator managed. “Override now.”

“Thank you.”

The veil dissolved.

The screaming crowd piled in, caught up in a mad dash for spots far removed from the rim, even as a huge hunk of real estate collapsed nearby. The ship was programmed to launch when search and rescue were no longer tenable: royds and humans stared aghast as Earth Administration folded; emergency lights, haughty walls, cruelly spiked turnstiles and all, right back into its own rude hole.

The ground kicked five feet in the air, a humongous roar tore out of the world’s bowels. The atmosphere began to pop and sizzle. They all stared out the narrowing space as Applications was swallowed whole.

Bay sealed tight. The cabin pressure quickly recovered. After thirty seconds of rapid ascent they’d stabilized, and the entire floor became a vast active screen showing the ground coming apart below.

No one said a word as they sat sprawled in each others’ arms, staring down between their knees at the receding debris of their pasts.

It all went so very fast. There was a scary half-minute of turbulence, then Elis Royd was just another wretched rock whirling to nowhere, and the ship might have been gliding on smoothed silk.

“All medical and security sensors align with Bay,” sang a canned voice. “Navigation link with Thrust.” A programmed crew of robot nurses and orderlies, popping out from behind panels rounding Bay’s broad central pillar, quickly maneuvered stainless steel drips and gurneys between the casualties. Now the ship’s ascent was all but unnoticeable.

Temperature scanners played over the crowd, laying a unique spectral aura on each gaping royd.

“Administrative Override logged,” articulated that familiar flat voice. The scanners retracted.

“I must--” the Administrator gasped, his armband sputtering and dimming in sync. “I must see his face.”

In that same ten-foot ring once marking the security veil there now throbbed a gray, Bay-encircling screen. A properly coiffed, even-featured 3D human talking head appeared, quickly replicating around the screen, meter-by-meter. Seconds later there must have been eighty or ninety of the things. “Welcome aboard the Nymph,” they said pleasantly.

A pair of royds gently raised the Administrator’s head. The old man was ice-blue, throat to forehead. In a moment his lids fluttered and he stared out of eyes like cloudy gray marbles. His cheeks and jowls shook. The strangest expression crossed his face. A breath later his eyes rolled up and locked in his skull. The armband went dead.

“This medical vessel,” the heads explained, “was implanted as a security measure in case of calamitous circumstances wherein a Terran or other rescue ship would not be able to reach Ellis Asteroid in sufficient time to perform its function.” The heads appeared to c**k in identical poses of query--archival data exported from Applications was updating the ship’s Library and restructuring the meet-and-greet file in real time.

The heads returned to vertical and an anemic monotone began.

“The Elis Royd project was designed as a stepping stone for refugees out of the Local Group Wars. This world was originally designated Ellis Asteroid, after a Terran point of entry named Ellis Island--Earth had a similar problem centuries ago, due to an international conflict rather than a galactic one.

“Ellis Island worked out very well; in fact some of the finest people on the globe were naturalized there, becoming prominent citizens of a great big wonderful country called the United States of America. You’ll be able to read all about it in the Nymph’s huge social studies library, once we really get under way.

“All those superior minds America absorbed elevated her to Earth’s predominant nation, with governmental and social policies that were triumphant throughout the Solar System, and eventually the Galaxy itself. But then she was embroiled in LGWI and II, after which she became the favored home world for countless refugees.

“In time the United Galaxy of America stabilized. Now war is a thing of the past. Differences were ironed out, everybody forgave everybody, and various species, races, and cultures were held up as models of valor and, yes, humanity, in the ever-extending family of man. The idealized inhabitants of Ellis Asteroid…that is, Elis Royd, are now recognized as champions--the brave and dignified poster children of extraterrestrials everywhere. You folks are heroes. The Nymph will bring you to the ceremony you deserve--you’re going to Planet Earth Herself, to be naturalized as Earthmen!

“And on that wondrous world you will not be hampered by any extraterrestrial physical handicaps. Ellis was a very, very big asteroid; almost as big as the planet Earth. Terrans wanted to make it as much like home as they could, so you would all be good to go when the time came. They wanted you to become what they call acclimated--ready to take up proper residence in the Solar System. So they brought in all kinds of Earth animals and plants; horses and trees, dogs and cats and pretty fish and birds. At first Earthmen thought there’d be problems with an artificially-induced rotation, with a lighter gravitational field, with recycled water and air, but as it turns out, bodies adapt, and beautifully. Muscles get stronger, the respiratory and digestive tracts alter ever so slightly--doesn’t matter where you’re from, so long as your cells use oxygen you can hold your own with any homegrown Earthman. Time heals all things.

“Then our wisest engineers brought in electronic tutors and librarian-simulations--the entire Books of Solar Wisdom resided, in a virtual sense, in the Records section of the Applications building.”

There was a moment’s pause. The heads appeared to ruminate.

“But at the very same time Earthmen were suffering the consequences of two wars unlike anything they had ever imagined. Those political men who red-lighted the Ellis Asteroid project were under a lot of pressure. Funds had dried up. There simply wasn’t the wherewithal, in any sense, to maintain this thing.”

The heads, cocking again, assumed faux expressions of deep remorse and belated compassion. “In retrospect, it was a very selfish thing to do. And that very selfish thing can’t be undone. But it can be remedied.

“You see, warfare of this depth and breadth taught humans a thing or two about social evolution. They learned humility. Throughout history, mankind’s tenure was marked by egocentricity, by hypocrisy, by lust and by greed. But they’ve grown up. They used to justify everything, as though values were temporary, and as though faith existed solely for the sake of expunging one’s conscience. They would fight: man to man, family to family, nation to nation; always pointing the finger everywhere but at themselves. There was no accountability.”

Now the heads appeared to cheer. Their narrative abruptly assumed the first-person.

“Then something happened. Our scientists tell us that we have evolved socially, rather than just physically, and that it took a great pair of wars to make it so. And those scientists tell us we are virtually a new species; grounded in compassion and charity, in foresight and fair play.”

The heads smiled efficiently.

A cartoonish background began to rhythmically swirl behind them: cheerfully grinning hausfraus, lunch pail-toting hubbies, mirthful children rolling with kittens and puppies.

“Come join us, fellow travelers; luxuriate in that glorious lap which has always been your destiny. Say farewell to this antique experiment and hello to the current exemplar, knowing that every world gets exactly what it deserves.” The heads re-oriented to default. Their grins threw white blips on the passing sterile bubbles of equipment and crew.

“So saddle up there, Earthmen, you’re going home!”

* * *

Tucked into Bay’s darkest corner, the seven foot Great Roach tentatively placed her upper dorsal antennae on the deck and slowly swept left and right.

To one side was bright artificial light. Voices could be felt, ricocheting off the white steel walls.

The other side was all shadows and silence. The broad vents of several open flues could be seen; wide tin tunnels leading from the heaters to all decks.

Riveted to a steel half-column was a brass plate with the boldly emblazoned legend NYMPH, followed by a number of smaller raised characters. She tested it with a long shiny mandible feeler, tracing the big letters. Her swollen egg-case seemed to ache in response.

The Roach raised her carapace off the floor by jacking up her anterior feelers. Although she was stimulated by the scents of oil and garbage, her basic maternal instincts compelled her to first find a place of dank safety. She hissed and deposited a pheromone-laced stain, then, with a quick sniff around, darted through the shadows like a thief in the night.

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