Gondwana
Featuring Ix’len Stargazer
A note on the next: this story is slated for a collection entitled “Mythria,” tentatively scheduled for the first quarter of 2027. It and the essay “Speaking of What’s Next: The Boundaries of Climate Fiction” are intended as to be the lead entries.
Tracers and Star Dust
For Ix’len and Isaac Asimov
Tracers and star dust in the short dialogue
and the long cold imagination of the stellar jumps.
Where do lonely minds go?
There is one after another and then another
voice is waiting to interrogate and fail
intentionality’s hurdle in the arrival’s lounge.
Tracers and star dust and enemies turned to pebbles.
They are themselves alone and encumbered
with the logic of halves of death in the long war.
Let me read Plato with you like uncertain wine
for a vintage of village hope
and a giant’s causeway in Samos’ tides.
Embrace all points on the compass if the words
are meant for defenders and the psalm singing
of God’s future mysteries and dreams.
There is the foundation’s edge and currents
and the starvation of empire
through the chorus of the seanstress and the martyr.
—
The Billionth Part
For Banjo Number 6 and Miguel de Cervantes
There are sparks and sparks and gleams
and the billionth part plays no part
except to demand your death
and its own surrender
in the same breath.
And the stars do not heave
the platinum and gold
but go rather to their own blinking
finality in obedience to God’s law —
transcendent from the first
unanswerable quickening.
And I drilled a stare into insomnia’s
old carbon paper, picking a part
the dots in the final ceiling
and tilting at my first burning
blades from the mill:
“I will be in love then,
until I’m in love again.”
What does sacred mean?
What does sacred mean
when Altair and Solaris
swallow green leaf life
and the cracking metal
in the moments of nova?
The same two eyes.
The same two eyes every morning
had been my answer.
—
Gondwana
For Ix’len Stargazer, Stephen J. Gould, and John le Carré
Offered before and under the One God
Ix’len stepped out of the cyro-sleep unit with a loud and heavy exhale, shaking his lumbering frame to get his blood moving again. He instinctively looked around for a clock but the closest electronic timepiece was a fuzzy mass of pixels. There were three chambers to his right, all empty with purple fluid oozing out.
One of the three had its glass smashed from the outside. Ix’len did a quick mental inventory of the crew that ought to have been with him and then started in fright. How had he survived? His own chamber door was cracked but not completely smashed open. The cryogenic fluid was draining properly with a low gurgle.
There were burn marks on the far wall to his left, leading him to suspect that one of his own had escaped and destroyed whatever had tried to tear them from their long sleep. He shook himself again, anger and fear comingling to get him moving. Despite the evidence of a catastrophe, a set of clothing was still neatly hung on his rack. He gratefully grabbed it and covered himself, saying a quick word of thanks to the master that had gifted it to him.
The gurgling was not just coming from the chamber drains. The slow sound of a decrepit jaw opening was creeping into the room from the passageway. He looked around for his electric whip but did not see it.
Was the ship even moving? He took a breath and started toward the door. Rounding the first corner in the dark he saw the outline of a bestial form sprawled on the ground, white pus oozing from its ears. It was unmoving but the gurgle was come from its chest. A similar stretch of burn marks scarred the walls down each side of the passageway.
The firefight had clearly spilled in this direction. A blaster was blinking intermittently at the side of the dead thing. Ix’len picked it and examined it thoroughly, not want to risk the sound a test shot. It appeared to be working. He took another breath and strode more purposefully in the direction the gun battle had progressed.
After a few minutes, he paused at the top of wide set of stairs that circled down a level, slowly tossing the blaster from hand to hand and listening for further signs of life. The misshapen thing in the first corridor had ceased gurgling and seemed to be finally, fully dead. The control room was the best first target he’d decided and it was about ten more minutes at a slow pace.
How long ago had the firefight occurred? The dead beast looked like a badly mauled form of one of their senseis, the robots that glided about the ship adjusting various systems at regular intervals. There had been talk that these were beginning to malfunction before the cyrosleep.
And just how long ago had it been since he’d entered that state of suspended life? He had no idea. He dropped to his knees briefly and deliberately heaved from deep within his stomach and lungs, expelling clear mucus on the ground in front of him. His breath began to slow and he cleared his mind as best he could for a long minute to bring his fear under control.
“My crew and my master have gone to eternal sorrow.” He repeated the mantra three times and then stood up, staring down at the blaster and depressing one finger on the power toggle. It required an energy boost but ought to see him through a short fight for the control room if it came to that. No sound at all was coming from below and he began a careful descent of the stairwell.
Smoke drifted up and around from cracked vents and the blackened walls continued to show signs of a fierce struggle. Ix’len slowly began to intuit that the Stargazer had either come to rest or settled into an orbital pattern slow enough to be imperceptible. His fear ebbed and his breathing returned to normal, the ship’s airflow still being sound. It was clear that no meteor collision had caused the calamity: either a brutal misunderstanding or deliberate sabotage by the senseis had devasted the greatest undertaking of his race. Storage chambers and electrical control rooms leading up to the main control deck were standing open, irregular beeps and light alerts confirming that at least partial function remained.
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When it came within view, he saw that the large, blunt steel of the control room door had not been cracked or blasted open. Water stations had been working along his short walk and he settled on his haunches beside one now, slowly bringing fluid to his mouth and staring with a mix of fury and trepidation at the heavy door. It occurred to him that he might be utterly alone on the Stargazer. He pressed thick fingers against two of the tusks that protected his mouth and nasal cavities, a sensitive gesture that provoked a sharp, mental keening. He very likely had descendants or at least distant cousins still alive at the moment on his home world but the entirety of the Stargazer crew might well have been lost to eternity. A huge swelling of rage at the senseis began to boil within him.
He had not verbalized a command that might alert the ships computers or punched in any control codes but he felt the risk was now worth taking. If he was to die himself today then he would join his master and crew in eternity. If not, perhaps some beacon could be set up for his people. Keeping his blaster ready he moved to the control room door and punched in the entry code. It slid open and a smooth exhale of air greeted him, still pungent with lead and moisture. Across the room he could see the slumped, unmoving body of his engineering chief with blaster marks creasing his torso. Two of the mishappen senseis were also lying completely motionless on the floor of the control room. Both were covered in their own blaster scars and one had had its neck snapped and half-ripped from its body.
The scene of horror did provoke one spark of comfort within Ix’len: his crew had not gone to their deaths like blind wretches. “We fought well. We fought well.” The remainder of the control room showed the same pattern as other components of the ship. Some panels were working and some not. Lights blinked intermittently and tendrils of smoke were still in the air. Judging this and the hint of moisture, Ix’len concluded that the main fighting had concluded within the last day or so. He was not looking at a scene frozen for centuries and it would have been unlikely that any survivor, friend or foe, would have missed his cyrotank for so long. It was still possible there were others alive onboard.
He decided to leave the control room door open and exit through a smaller side hatch that branched into smaller corridors and living chambers. He was inches from this second exit when a low, small voice startled him from behind. He swung around and dropped to a firing position with his blaster. A four-legged form near the main door observed him and scurried frightened behind one of the banks of computers. It looked like one of his senseis but it was too small, with a mishappen left shoulder and one ear oddly contorted. The senseis were able to move on all fours but usually did not as the crew found it off-putting. He heard it begin whimpering and he decided against immediately attempting to kill it.
He decided to leave the control room door open and exit through a smaller side hatch that branched into smaller corridors and living chambers. He was inches from this second exit when a low, small voice startled him from behind. He swung around and dropped to a firing position with his blaster. A four-legged form near the main door observed him and scurried frightened behind one of the banks of computers. It looked like one of his senseis but it was too small, with a mishappen left shoulder and one ear oddly contorted. The senseis were able to move on all fours but usually did not as the crew found it off-putting. He heard it begin whimpering and he decided against immediately attempting to kill it.
As Ix’len moved through the second door the thing approached within about ten feet, following him. He allowed this, observing it every half-minute or so as he wound his way down through the common sleeping quarters toward the kitchen. The mutated sensei seemed to adopt an attitude of calm, keeping a steady pace behind him, vocalizing every few seconds, but not making jerky or threatening movements. The kitchen area was mercifully bright lit, confirming his suspicion that the catastrophe was recent. The shelving units slid open with a low rush of air like usual and after some brief rummaging he found dry food packets and ate a meal’s worth of vegetables and carbohydrates. He settled on his haunches as he ate, watching the sensei. It kept within view and actually appeared hungry itself, whining as he took bites. He continued to carefully avoid the usual verbal commands that ought to activate obedience routines, fearing its reactions. When almost done eating he threw a handful of dry peas in the direction of his odd companion.
It moved forward on two feet, upper limbs held up uselessly, and then consumed the peas and settled down into a lotus position. He felt neither pity nor anger watching it but a low revulsion at the strangeness of its form relative to the helpers that had accompanied the outward leg of the Stargazer’s journey. There had been talk amongst the crew that the senseis had somehow begun to self-replicate outside of the repair chambers controlled by the Seq’odae, his people. Any desire to kill it was dissipating at least and after the calories from the meal worked their way through him, Ix’len stood up and began the second half of his planned reconnaissance, to the escape pods.
There were direct view windows adjacent to the pods where the crew could spend time watching the stars speed by over food and conversation and a certain excitement began to build within him. The slower sense of movement and lower background hum of the ship increasingly convinced him that we was in orbit. He might be the first of his kind to view the surface of another habitable planet and see its sun rise in full. That he might also be the last provoked a melancholy for which he had no words. “Fear is its own death. I thank my parents and my masters for helping me defeat it.” He began to repeat these words from his academy days in the slow drawling rhythm of Seq’odae as he advanced forward.
Atop a low rise of five steps, the view rooms contained single circular benches with a diameter between them about twice the length of his body. The wide shutters opposite the steps were closed by default. The first room had soft lighting below the communal bench in good working order. The codes were well-known to the crew but Ix’len still hesitated, fearing he would see only a black starscape on a now decelerated ship, confirming his death in deep space. He dropped to his knees again in the centre of the circle, repeating his prayers while bringing to mind favourite moments on his home world. Dinner at the edge of the jungle canopy was his last memory of his brother: the sap of the hibiscus rolled together with fruit between large leaves and roasted. The smoke curled up in his mind and their laughter with it as they imagined their grandchildren speaking between star systems.
There was his graduation day. He closed his eyes to remember the proud groups of marching apprentices: medicine, construction, history, agriculture. Massive raised walking plazas encircled and danced above the jungles the Seg’odae preserved. His own masters walked at the front of the parade that day with the proud, new Stargazers leading the other graduates with their pennants of past and future triumph.
Ix’len opened his eyes with his reminisces done, took a breath for courage, and punched in the codes of the shutter. It opened without any obvious mechanical error and the greatest relief of his life washed over him. It was not the beautiful vistas of his home world but it was not the inky blackness of interstellar nothingness either. Below him stretched long streaks of white atop a blue-green atmosphere. Almost half of the globe was visible to him with the clear tendrils of a large star extending out into the heavens. Despite the fighting, the Stargazer had safely reached the orbit of a habitable planet. Whether he was watching a sunrise or a sunset he could not know but it was a stirring sight and his first sense was of a star similar to his own. He settled on one knee for another moment. “To my brothers and fellow apprentices, I offer this triumph. Death shall not defeat us.”
He rose and turned to look back down the steps. The shrunken sensei was sitting where he had left it, watching him carefully and without its earlier jumpiness. “If the ship can reach orbit then the ship can land.” It was the first the words he had spoken at normal volume since coming out of his cyrosleep. The sensei reacted by standing up and moving about in front of the door, continuing to watch. Knowing he was safely in orbit, Ix’len decided he did not immediately need to activate an escape pod or take any other drastic measure.
The question remained as to other life onboard. Had any of his crew survived he’d likely have sensed them, he decided. Provisioning, sleep in a safe place, as well as at least one day-night cycle around the new planet all seemed prudent. He moved carefully through the escape pod areas, checking on the individual launch ports. Some were damaged but some were completely unscathed in whatever catastrophe had befallen the ship. He tried to push his grief aside to allow his imagination to race ahead to the planet below. They sought not only a sufficiently bright star but a non-binary and that seemed too have been achieved. His first view of the atmosphere suggested that were was a good amount of water and plant life. Normally, a probe could be sent for an atmosphere reading, which would require at least a few days coordinating. Did he want to remain on the ship while awaiting these results or take his chances below?
He ate another meal, staying in the closest adjacent hab chamber and allowing himself short naps. He barred the entranceway with a working electric lattice weapon to keep the sensei from approaching; it would be repeatedly stunned if it approached too closely. Without intending it, he eventually slept four hours straight, waking with a jolt of fear and then a moment of relief in looking at the electronic clock. He’d gotten some rest and nourishment. A check in the viewing room showed a darkened orb below. He had been watching a sunset and the parking orbit of the Stargazer was successfully following the planet’s rotation.
Ix’len turned on lights in the working chambers adjacent to provide himself some sense of normalcy and a morning routine. He repeated his mantras and ate once more before attempting a download and print out of bridge controls. The Stargazer was stable but he would attempt a further descent maneuver before trying an escape pod directly. The sensei continued to watch and follow him at a distance, occasionally turning over supine on its back and seem to satisfy an itch along its spine. He decided killing it would be wise when he eventually departed the Stargazer if he could not establish a workable form of communication.
The bridge was as he’d left it. It seemed clear by this point that no member of his crew or other sensei was trailing him anywhere. If they’d gained the ability to self-replicate it had been destroyed in the fighting. Two escape pods were unaccounted for and four of the nine remaining appeared to be fully operational. Both the working sensors and his own body’s balance and weight told him the orbit was stable. He could, in complete boredom, remain onboard until the food ran out but he decided against this. He would initiate a partial descent, take two extra day night cycles to confirm stability, and then take his chances on the surface.
The remaining sensei settled into a holding pattern of its own, never getting too close but never fully departing either. He avoided giving the verbal commands that they were supposed to obey but did talk to himself at points while performing routine tasks to avoid total silence. The sensei seemed to hear him, tilting its head as if listening and giving out a faint caterwauling sound from time-to-time that never cohered into full sentences. After a few hours it began eating some of the food Ix’len left for it.
The descent procedure was surprisingly easy, particularly because command-level authorizations seemed to have been completely removed during whatever struggle had occurred on the ship. Anyone capable of working the control keyboard would have been able to guide the Stargazer closer. Atmospheric read outs came back partial. There was not a peep out of the control computers as he accessed the information but redaction constraints had been placed on it unlike the interface controls themselves. He wondered if the struggle had included some attempt to obfuscate the planet’s environment while initiating a crash. They had began to worry the sensei’s were homicidal but had never suspected one or more might initiate complete self-destruction. It was impossible one of his crew might have done his except under complete duress. He’d come around repeatedly to the likelihood of his own starvation and decided he would accept it there were no means of subsisting on the surface.
Atmospheric constituents showed heavier carbon dioxide and nitrogen levels then he required but within the bounds of recycling by onboard surface suits. The descent procedure called for a drop from 80,000 to 30,000 meters over twelve hours. He decided to sleep for most of that period and then spend another day providing a good store of supplies. With only one passenger, he could load up more than a month’s worth of food. As he sensed the ship begin its tilt toward the surface another task began to weigh him: should he search for the bodies of crewmates? A majority of chambers were sealed and he had yet to see any.
His second sleep was longer but more fitful than his first. Nightmares of his struggling out of the cryochamber and of lost comrades wakened him repeatedly. The sensei maintained its turgid vigil, prowling behind the electronic lattice. He determined the descent had proceeded successfully both through onboard readings and through a sweeping vista of clouds tops approaching the Stargazer. He could see gleaming teal shorelines and green continents from the escape pod windows.
The view heartened him and he decided some tour of the chambers was necessary. The sensei followed him at a distance of a few meters as usual as he made his way down a level, determined to work backwards to his chosen sleeping quarters. He stunned the sensei quickly at the bottom of a descending pathway by lassoing it with an electronic whip and then killed it with a few quick smashes against a wall. He lanced the body with a simple knife for good measure. It’s presence had become utterly gruesome and he suspected, knowingly or not, it was capable of producing others of its type from material within the ship.
Difficult hours followed. Ix’len knew single and multiple chambers by heart and could mentally cross out crew numbers as he proceeded. He found the first body of his kin in the second chamber. It had been shot through with laser blasts and its limbs mutilated. Decay told him he hadn’t been wrong about a recent skirmish and how lucky he was. He felt renewed pangs of survivor’s guilt. Certain chambers could not be opened and he assumed the worst in each case. He did not stop to examine corpses further beyond a quick count. There were no sign of sensei bodies as such aside from congealed, greyish sludge in rooms where fierce struggles had obviously taken place. The scenes bore all the hallmarks of a planned massacre.
When he reascended to the opposite end of his own level he found the first signs of hope. Three chambers in a row with no slain comrades that had clearly been organized to allow for packing and flight. Two more were discovered half-an-hour later. The assault had begun in the lower decks and the crew had managed a successful stand closer to the escape pods themselves. Enough had successfully launched that a viable group landing might have been achieved. He whispered the names of friends from the organized chambers quietly as he returned to his other tasks. He wanted to temper his hope with realism. In its lassitude and blinking, empty sounds the ship itself was becoming an enemy.
With hope restored, Ix’len set back to work with renewed energy. He wheeled dried vegetable and dense bread rations to his chosen pod over the course of the nex twelve hours, hyper-alert for disturbances in sound and shadow that might mean mutants acquiring new shape. His own nightmares took on quick, waking lucidity and he realized prolonging the departure could prove fatal to his mental health if not his body.
With water, the rations could stretch weeks. Months, if some vegetable matter on the planet proved edible; chemical testing kits and medical supplies had survived the battle. He set-up the electronic lattice despite the first mutant form having turned into a sticky puddle and made it through another five-hour sleep cycle, tossing and turning.
He took in one last vista of the planet before setting down to the launch codes. Closing his eyes, Ix’len thought through and spoke anew his mantras: “To my master, my family, and crew: I owe you the debt of learning and life. I place my hope in the purposes of eternity that I may see you again.”
—
Proverbs 3:11–12
My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline,
and do not resent his rebuke,
because the Lord disciplines those he loves,
as a father the son he delights in.
