Ancient Astronauts

There is Only One

Alyonna's eyes opened slowly. No flickering this time. The first night on the surface she was surprised to discover she'd slept at all except she hadn't performed a natural sleep cycle in over fifty years. That was months ago, but some habits never went away. Instinctively she reached out a hand and felt the place next to her.

It was cold.

Slowly she got out of bed and threw open the curtain. A flood of pale morning light fell across the floor. Her eyes closed slightly, enjoying the feeling of sunlight on her skin. After fifty years in cryo, little pleasures like having the sun kiss her skin in the morning were precious, even though it was a different sun.

Hesitantly, she cracked open the sliding glass door. She knew it was safe. She'd been on the surface for more than two months, but there was a strangeness to this planet that gave her pause. 

The air that flowed through was clean and perfectly balanced. It was the only thing that had needed terraforming. Even that was only a slight adjustment. She supposed there were also the double moons. She didn't really understand the physics of how those got here, but NASA had managed it.

Everything was so Earth-like, yet different. Eleven continents slowly drifted across the planet's surface graced by eight oceans and countless islands. Fish swam in the waterways, animals roamed the purple, green and yellow colored forests, and small winged creatures flew through the air...some of them tasty, as Alyonna found out when her breakfast was brought to her by the military domestic staff. She already knew it was good. Gareth Ramsden was a hero to chefs on two worlds now.

She ran a hand over her gently swelling belly, and for a brief moment worry threatened the peaceful morning. She pushed it away and gazed out over the river. Children could be seen playing while their parents labored to construct the first human settlement on Proxima-B. Aly blinked. No, there were no children...not yet.

Hans had wanted to call it New New York, a throwback to the first Dutch colony in their time's New World, New Amsterdam, later dubbed New York when the British seized it. That idea had been shot down. The colony was being called Second Chance instead. Alyonna thought it was lame. Hans couldn't give his opinion.

She'd been given the house built for Hans. As the captain of the Astral Ark and admiral in the US Navy, he also had the privilege of occupying the role of governor until the city was built, communications with Earth re-established, and elections organized. Everything was perfect. Everything except that Hans was still in a coma.

His responsibilities were being carried out by his first mate and navy buddy, Tyrone Hunter, who was doing a great job, in Alyonna's opinion. She firmly held to the belief that Hans could do it better, yet wisely kept that opinion to herself. Tyrone was smart, capable, and generally pretty cool, but could also be blinded by his ego. Although he may have grown out of that. He was forty-one when the Astral Ark departed. That would make him ninety-one now.

Alyonna turned away, closing the door. She wasn't so pregnant she couldn't work, and she pulled on her uniform. 

The first day on the surface, she hadn't left Hans' side in some vain hope that he would wake up right away and immediately ask if she'd walked into any more brick walls lately. She'd sighed then. He had no idea. Though technically he was partially responsible. They had both ignored the moratorium on sexual intercourse prior to the voyage.

The paralysis hadn't lasted long, and she reported to the crop development lab which the Agricultural Development Team had set up on the second day. Alyonna had never been fond of acronyms for government institutions, or rather with the number of them. She felt like you could pick any three letters of the alphabet and boom, now you have a government agency. But she had to admit they were useful and didn't protest when they started calling themselves the ADT.

She was the newbie in the group, but also the senior specialist on astroturf cycling. She was never idle after that. Her life depended on it, and she was already a day late to the party. Every day counted. The colony could starve in only a handful of them.

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Dr. Alulim paced the halls of his home alone. It had been a long time since he had shared it with anyone. Sometimes he preferred it that way, but this was different. He missed his family dearly. Where they were, he did not know. He may have left them on Earth or they may have been on the ship. It felt like there was a hole in his memory that grew with each passing year.

He stopped in a room full of artwork and ran a hand carefully over one of the images as though willing it to remind him. But he remembered nothing. He did not even know whether they lived. So it was every day.

He left the room, the dull padding of his footsteps the only sound accompanying his thoughts. The only thing he did know was that the people who took his family from him were here on Proxima-B. It was here, he might find answers or at the very least, revenge.

His pacing took him past two tall statues of Anubis hounds guarding the door to his hall of Egypt. He ran a hand down one of their belly's as though it were a pet. There was, of course, no response from the artifact. He continued down the hall, passing countless objects he'd seen a thousand times, deep in thought.

The people he was up against were extremely dangerous. He was too, yet there existed a hole in his plan, one that must be filled by another. He came to a stop on the balcony of his home overlooking the Volba River and plucked a date from the bowl on the table. He raised it to his lips, and paused as a sharp bitter smell filled his nostrils.

Behind him, a figure approached shrouded in the shadows of Ahriman's dimly lit home. Steel glinted against the evening twilight as it drew near. The blade plunged forward and sliced thin air. The cowled figure barely had time to turn its head before a powerful hand seized its jaw and forced the poisoned date down its throat.

The grip did not loosen until the foam pouring from the twitching, gasping figure's mouth ceased to flow and it hung still. Ahriman laid the body carefully down on the floor to avoid knocking over any of the ancient artifacts adorning his home. He pulled back the cowl.

It was a man, dark haired and young, gazing up at the clay ceiling with cold, sightless eyes. Ahriman used a cloth to wipe the foam away from his mouth and picked up one of the corpse's cooling hands. Upon it was a black ring embossed with gold cuneiform.

"And so they try again," Ahriman grunted, "But there is only one."