Destinations And Captain's Choice Read online

  Her story sounded familiar, and Halloway did not like that familiar sound. He could feel something strange slither over his body beneath his suit, and for a wild moment, he wondered if it was the crazy fucking planet—the “entity,” as the woman had called it. “Do you have a name?”

  “Sasha,” she said then. “We thirteen aren’t the only ones here. There are other groups of humans, and then there are other species—aliens, in the same position.”

  “I don’t understand any of this—” Halloway began.

  But Sasha cut him off. “The Entity was lonely. It is a singular species. It needed animal life here. It took animal life to here. It’s been doing this for thousands of years. Every so often, it takes more, for our benefit too. We have had children, and there are thousands of us humans now, but we could use some new genetic material occasionally.”

  “I don’t want to hear this,” Halloway said in a rough voice. “I want to bury my dead and get the hell out of this crazy place with its crazy people. Someone pulled us in here, and it wasn’t a planet.”

  “But it was,” Sasha insisted. “Do I look like I did it—like I have the capability?”

  “For all I know,” Halloway said, “all of this is fake, and YOU are the alien.”

  Sasha sighed softly and blinked. Then she finally said, “Come with me, and I’ll show you the remains of my ship.”

  “I’m not going anywhere till I bury my crew,” Halloway snapped.

  “Do not bury them,” Sasha said then. “It is not necessary.”

  “I don’t give a shit,” Halloway snapped again, his eyes briefly falling on the carts where the blanket-covered bodies were. “I want to do it.”

  “Please—just leave them here for now. You’ll see why later,” Sasha said, before turning around and walking toward the horizon.

  Halloway groaned under his breath; then he and his crew followed Sasha and her people toward a valley-like area. They all stopped on the crest of a hill, staring down over the land below. It was beautiful; it was gently misty and full of reds and greens and yellows, from all the plant life. However, buried among that life was the inanimate curve of a silver shell, a ship’s shell.

  “Sometimes I visit the inside,” Sasha said now, her blue eyes fixed on the shell. “That way I don’t completely lose a connection with my past, with my history or the history of humanity.”

  Tyler was looking at his device again, and Halloway heard the beep of its scanner function. “I’m reading that the hull’s perfectly intact,” Tyler said. His eyes went right to Sasha. “Is the inside damaged?”

  Sasha turned her head and slowly shook it at him, her golden-yellow skin briefly glowing orange as a shaft of sunlight struck her face. “No,” she said now, “other than the initial damage when the systems started failing in The Carvine Layer.”

  Tyler frowned. “So why didn’t you signal Space Force or whoever back then, and make repairs after you landed?”

  “There is no signaling from here,” Sasha said.

  Halloway had his suit’s line open to his crew on the Rover, but now he struck a button that would connect him directly with his communications officer, Jamie. “Have you heard anything back from Space Force?”

  “Captain,” Jamie said quite breathlessly, “I was just about to contact you: the message I sent hasn’t even gone anywhere—it bounced back shortly after. I keep trying, but, apparently, nothing’s getting through the atmosphere.”

  Halloway still had his gun out, pointed down at the ground now. But he felt a strong urge to lift the gun and start randomly shooting at the sky. However, right now, he wanted answers more than he wanted to let off steam.

  He clicked off with Jamie and looked at Sasha again. “So, you’re telling me you crashed here, just blithely accepted that, and never tried to leave? What kind of manual for captaining a ship did you read that in?”

  At first, Sasha just stared at him in silence. Then she finally said, in a slower voice, “I never said we didn’t try to leave, just that we have never left. Several of us tried to leave, but we have all still remained.”

  “Why?” Halloway persisted, his blood pumping faster through his body till he could feel a too-strong beat in his neck.

  “We were given a choice,” Sasha said. “It is the same choice you have: this planet is alive and perpetually lonely. You can either stay here, have your dead friends back and live for forever, or you can leave as you are, mortal and minus your dead crewmembers.”

  Halloway’s stunned eyes were still fixed on Sasha’s face when he heard a few gasps from his crew.

  “Captain—” someone said.

  But Halloway shook a fast silencing hand at his crew beside him. “What about having my friends back; then going as we are then? Isn’t that an option?”

  Sasha’s head shook from side-to-side. “No. Those are your only two choices: stay here for forever with everyone alive again, or leave as you are.”

  “How do you know those are our choices?”

  “Because once you are here long enough, The Entity can speak to you—it’s like a feeling you get and it propels your words. It’s a line of biological communication.”

  “What the hell kind of entity tells people what to say and forces people into making a sick choice like this?”

  “The Entity is not like us humans, at least like some of us,” Sasha said. “Haven’t these things happened before in humanity’s past—impossible choices given to people by other people? Sometimes I think The Entity read our minds, delved back into our history to give us a choice that we’re familiar with. Or maybe that’s just life: filled with impossible choices. It would have been no matter what humanity’s history was. All living things go through it.”

  “Except for this living thing,” Halloway said, one of his arms pointing at himself, the other shooting outward, at the planet. “I don’t have to accept your terms, your planet’s terms—whoever.”

  “Then you’re free to go as you are now,” Sasha said.

  Halloway ground his teeth together. “This isn’t something I’m discussing with you anymore. I need to speak to my crew about this. Alone.”

  Sasha slowly nodded at him; then she and her companions turned around and began walking down the hill, toward the valley where the shell of that ship waited.

  *

  “Robert, what are you doing?” Annabel said as she stepped outside the Rover.

  Annabel was the Rover’s doctor; Halloway and the others had pushed the carts back toward the ship, and Halloway had just called Annabel to outside. “What did you mean when you said you’re bringing the bodies back in?” Annabel said now.

  Halloway slid off his helmet and pushed it to behind his neck, then passed a white-gloved hand across his sweaty forehead. “We’re leaving as soon as we can. We’ll—we’ll have to freeze them—”

  “But, Robert,” Annabel persisted, “we heard what’s going on. You said you would discuss this with us.”

  “I said that to that Sasha person. But, as far as I’m concerned, there’s no discussion. We patch up the injured, clean up the shit that got tossed around inside, reload the reactor fuel-rods, etcetera; then we lift off.”

  “But she said forever,” Annabel replied now, her brown eyes staring off into the distance.

  “And how do you know she was telling the truth?” Tyler cut in. “We only have their word for it.”

  Annabel turned to him. “Did you run any scans, Ty—to test their ages?”

  “Yes. I ran scans for Sampson aging markers. The woman Sasha appears to be the age she looks. Young. Most of the others with her are young too. But, my other scans showed the ship appears to be the age they said; my scans also revealed…the name on their ship, and I’ve just run it through the historical database in the Rover’s computer….”

  Halloway’s head whipped toward Tyler’s. “And?”

  “The Rayleigh disappeared seventy-five years ago,” Tyler finally replied.

  “It could still be fake—” Hall
oway said “—two things that aren’t related but are being used to look related. That ship could have crashed here decades ago, but these people could be newer here.”

  “I know,” Tyler said, but his words did not contain the same level of zeal as his statements to Annabel, or Sasha. And now Halloway wondered about the softening in Tyler’s tone.

  *

  As soon as Halloway got back onto the Rover, he called a meeting with all of his crew.

  Standing in the center of the Rover’s big shuttle bay, Halloway explained the two options the “entity” had said they had. Then Halloway took a vote: almost two-thirds of his crew wanted to leave the planet; the rest either wanted to stay or were undecided.

  Halloway knew he should leave; he knew he should accept the deaths of his friends, and he and his crew should go back to doing their job. However, their job was exploring, and now a carrot of immortality had been dangled before them.

  Freedom or immortality—it was a terrible choice, but wasn’t it also one worth exploring? Wasn’t it better to stay alive today and think about what to do tomorrow, than be dead today and have no thoughts at all tomorrow?

  Either way, some of Halloway’s crew would have to make sacrifices. Who was he to say who those crewmembers should be?

  At the same time, he was the captain, and, again, mapping this layer was his job. Remaining on this planet was a part of that job. Maybe The Entity would wind up having a lifespan. Maybe someday Halloway would think up a way out of this situation. Or maybe there was something the planet had overlooked. Gene was one of the most intelligent people Halloway had ever known. So maybe Gene could figure out how to get them all off the place, if Gene were alive again….

  A voice broke into Halloway’s thoughts—Jeremy’s voice. He was the pilot and mechanic of the Rover’s shuttle bay. This was his workspace, and his sure voice now reflected that. “I’m sorry, Captain, but I think this is crazy—that anyone would even consider staying here.” Jeremy’s head turned around the large hangar, his brown eyes looking directly at one person’s face after another. “We don’t know what’s going on. We should get up and go.”

  “And our jobs are?” Halloway said, his eyes right on Jeremy’s now.

  Jeremy’s mouth moved a little, but only to finally sigh.

  Annabel had been standing near Halloway, and now he watched her wide face twist into a thoughtful frown. “Captain…I’ve been thinking: we were supposed to be out in space six months this time. Couldn’t we spend some of those months here? The people here said forever—but we could stay just a little longer; then if what they said isn’t true, if we don’t stop aging, we could leave then.”

  “But,” Jeremy said now, moving closer to Halloway and Annabel, “what if what they said is true? The planet won’t let us leave then. The immortality is conditional on our staying here.”

  Annabel turned to him. “What I meant is: can’t we stay and not have the others alive again? What if we did it that way—could we? Then we wouldn’t be agreeing to what The Entity demanded; we’d at least be doing this the way we want.”

  Halloway thought for a moment, his eyes narrowing. “That’s a good point. I didn’t think to ask that specifically. The whole thing seems so nuts to me too, believe me—and that’s why I wanted to think on this more. Maybe what you said, Annabel, would give us more time to do that.”

  There were grumblings of assent around Halloway now, so he took a second vote—and this time, most of his crew thought the new option would be preferable to either of the old options.

  *

  Later that day, Halloway decided to go see the planet’s people again; from inside the Rover’s engineering bay, Tyler had continued doing scans of the planet, and he’d located a large settlement of humans about three miles from where the Rover was.

  Alone and in his brown captain’s uniform now, Halloway moved on foot toward the settlement. He’d thought of taking one of the Rover’s shuttles, but he was afraid of what the planet might think if he got into a shuttle….

  He wound up not having to walk the whole distance down into the valley, alone. Right before he reached Sasha’s ship, she showed up. She had apparently been inside.

  “I had to see it again today,” she said as she stopped before him. “Your being here has brought the past to the front of my present mind.”

  “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” Halloway asked.

  And Sasha replied, in a slow voice, “I’m not sure.” She was in the same deep-orange robe as earlier, and he realized now that the color made her blue eyes look even brighter and her long dark hair look even darker.

  Halloway straightened up more and looked at her more directly. “I’ve come to talk to The Entity. I have a proposal: what if my crew and I stay here temporarily, maybe a few months, without our friends back. Then we’ll see how we feel after that time—if we want to stay forever and have our friends back, or if we want to go. I’m basically asking for a delay of the decision. Will The Entity go for that?”

  Sasha didn’t reply straight away, but when she finally did, it was in an almost somnambulant voice, and her eyes looked as if they were fixed on somewhere only her mind could access. “That would be acceptable, yes.”

  “Great!” Halloway said, feeling a moment of gladness for the first time that day, for the first time that long day.

  He looked beyond Sasha, at the gradually sloping valley. A pinkish mist hovered above it and, going on the even warmer color of the sky above the mist, it seemed it would be night here soon.

  Halloway thought of turning around and going back to his ship; instead, he clicked the communicator on his brown belt and got Jamie on the line. “They’ve agreed to the delay—so we’ll carry on here and decide later.”

  “That’s great, Captain,” Jamie said in an eager voice.

  “Sasha’s with me,” Halloway continued, his eyes right on her, “and I’m going to ask her to take me to the settlement nearby. I’ll be back in an hour or two.” He clicked off his communicator. “So, what do you say, Sasha—can you show me around, captain-to-captain?”

  “It would be my pleasure,” she said, and there was warmth in her cheeks and around her mouth when she spoke.

  *

  To Halloway’s surprise, up close, the settlement seemed quite large. That mist over the valley had apparently hidden the depth the civilization stretched into the distance. The atmosphere had also obscured that the civilization here wasn’t primitive. Halloway saw communications towers above the buildings, and while the buildings weren’t modern, they also weren’t three-hundred years before modern; they were more like fifty years before modern.

  “There are quite a number of kids here,” Halloway said as he moved beside Sasha through the settlement. They were walking along a road of reddish pavement, through a busy area that seemed to be shops. “I expected to see nearly all adults.”

  “Our young here mature normally toward adulthood, but individuals can ask The Entity to stop their maturity at whatever age they want.”

  Halloway smiled at her a little. “So you mean a person can stay a kid forever?”

  Sasha looked at him sideways now, a bit shyly. “Yes.”

  “You said you have children—can I meet them?”

  “Oh—they chose to become adults years ago. They live in another settlement.”

  His head shifted toward hers. “How many settlements are there here?”

  “As many as we need.”

  Halloway stopped walking and frowned. “What?”

  “We can grow as much as we want. Only biology limits us, not The Entity.”

  “When was the last time someone came—was pulled into here?” Halloway asked her, and he couldn’t help the touch of sourness in his tone.

  Now Sasha said, “I don’t know because I don’t have access to everywhere. But The Entity grows to accommodate.”

  “How the hell can it do that?”

  Sasha’s mouth turned down a bit. “As far as I’ve been able to fi
gure out, both as myself and as what The Entity suggests when it links up with me, The Entity consumes the energy of space itself. This layer is indeed infinite, and The Entity can eat space for forever.”

  Halloway didn’t like the sound of that. “Earlier you said there are thousands of people here.”

  “That was just a figure of speech, really. The Entity doesn’t reveal all. I know there are thousands because of this settlement and two others. But there could be millions of humans.”

  Halloway’s eyes sharpened at her now. “Then you don’t really know?”

  “The Entity takes care of that. I don’t need to know everything because I have everything I need here in this area of the planet. Life is peaceful and the plants are plentiful, both for eating and for studying. I also sculpt, and I listen to the music some of us make.”

  “Are you married?” Halloway asked—then he felt his face redden at his words.

  But going on Sasha’s mild expression, she hadn’t noticed his embarrassment—maybe not even his question, for she changed the subject now.

  “Because you’ll be here for a time, you and your crew will need to use our resources. We will show you around, and you will mingle with us,” she said finally, and her blue eyes were right on Halloway’s face.

  *

  Days passed and the few minor injuries Halloway’s crew had sustained during their “crash landing” healed rapidly. Then weeks passed and it became apparent that the planet had been affecting the crew.

  “I can’t explain it,” Annabel said to Halloway inside her medical bay one day. “I’ve not detected any Sampson decay in any of us. And, normally, the older a human gets, the more Sampson genetic decay accelerates. Pedro and Maggie, for example—they’re both over 55, but, again, I haven’t been able to detect any decay in their genetics for the past six weeks.”