Humanity's Echo
It was waiting for him.
Only a glimpse of movement from the corner of his eye and his reactions saved him from a blow that could've ended him. As the creature skidded to a halt, its claws dripping gore from the strike on his left arm, he drew his plasma gun from its holster with his free hand and drilled a gaping cauterised hole through its sternum, followed by another that removed much of its head.
Carefully checking to make sure no other mutants were around, he dragged the still smoking body into some nearby bushes and wrapped a hasty field dressing around his arm. Moving cautiously into the security of the walled compound area, he reset the energy fields behind him as he went and looked out at the land beyond for long minutes to make sure he was alone once more.
It had lain in wait on a low tree branch close to the compound gate, its mottled skin blending perfectly with the shadows. This was new and disturbing. The creatures had hitherto shown little in the way of intelligence other than pack behaviour similar to some of the raptors of old Earth. Perhaps they were beginning to evolve again. Maybe the virus was mutating, prompting another evolutionary change for the worse.
He shook his head trying to dispel the negative thoughts and sealed the final door behind him, looking around his home as he did every time he returned to make sure nothing was amiss.
It had been a tough few days.
He seldom ventured too far from the protection of the enclosure, preferring to stay close to his supplies and home. But his self-enforced routine meant that every so often one of his jobs was to check the power flow from the bioengineered trees whose photovoltaic leaf cells kept the enclosure, among other things, running. He'd also checked the satellite receiver, even though he knew full well he shouldn't be expecting any sort of reply for several years, let alone any company from representatives of the Council back on Earth.
Placing his equipment back in the well-stocked racks on the wall, he paused and looked out of the window at the dying town that lay beyond the compound walls.
It was the latest of many colonies. This one had been promoted as the Council's ultimate utopia: Planet Asimov. Named to engender a sense of pride in its colonists: pride they could perhaps be the ones to facilitate a galaxy-spanning culture to rival Asimov's imagined Foundation. The planet Asimov, a place of learning and peace where the ideals of the ultimate belief could rise to conquer a new world and be the crowning glory of the achievements of the Council.
But Asimov was different from those colonies that had gone before. Rather than finding habitable worlds and settling them as they had before, new technology had been used and the planet was terraformed. Probes had found a promising young planet on the verge of becoming habitable and Council scientists had engineered it from scratch to form a bespoke world, one that echoed the vision and ideals of the ultimate society.
It failed.
All that was left now were the degrading remnants of a colony and an unforgiving world drifting endlessly through space under the forbidding gaze of its binary suns.
He stared at the crumbling transit station that had formed the hub of Galileo Town, once a thriving and happy little community but now only home to occasional mutants and himself.
Many years prior to their arrival, seeding bots had planted the forests conceived in the Biolabs, so that when they awoke from hibernation on arrival at Asimov, all they had to do was feed the cables back to G-Town, as it had quickly become known, and they could immediately harness the power of the suns to help the new colonists continue to work their magic on the lands that surrounded them.
As well as the trees that harvested the sun and crackled energy through their roots, verdant fields of perfect crops had lifted from the soil: wheat that could produce plastic as a by-product of the stalks, fruits that stored ethanol ready for fuel in their juices and staple pulses carrying the full complement of vitamins necessary to maintain human health and vitality. The bioengineered crops were harvested by the bots who were the servants of Asimov man.
Everything was perfect until the viruses began to mutate.
Mankind was imperfect and managed to carry some form of virus with him wherever he went throughout the galaxy. Despite the rigorous screening prior to departure and successfully colonising countless planets over the generations, humans had still carried germs and bacteria wherever they went. This had never presented a problem before, but Asimov was different. One virus responded to the terraforming technology and mutated along with the planet, the unusual radiation from the twin suns adding to the speed of the evolution. In mere months, the entire population had succumbed and Adam had watched powerless as his friends, colleagues, and superiors had changed beyond recognition to the raptors that now rampaged across the continent.
One of his friends, a medical doctor, had been one of the last to succumb. She had examined some of the early mutants, performing myriad tests on both living and dead specimens, before concluding sadly that their humanity was utterly gone, and mindless snarling animals were all that remained: animals that were hungry.
As more and more mutated, ravaging packs of them ripped through G-Town forcing the few sickening survivors to barricade themselves in the makeshift compound that he alone now lived in. Emergency messages had been sent back to Earth Council, but all of them knew it was pointless. They were on their own. Messages would take decades to reach Earth and return, and ships and crew far longer. They would have no backup, just a cleanup crew.
Maybe.
Helen had known intimately what was going to happen to her when she started to change. He watched helplessly as the skin on her arms began to bubble and crack, watched as despair lit her eyes with its fevered glow, and was left helpless as she walked calmly to her doom.
Months before, she had begun to teach him the guitar, marveling at the speed at which he picked up the chords and progressions. She had stopped teaching him when the changes started though, and the last time he had seen her she was a different woman from the happy-go-lucky woman who had been so kind to him. Determined to try and save the remaining colonists and unwilling to risk killing her friends, she had walked out into the rain on her own, just a plasma grenade clutched in her hands. As the mutants came for her in a snarling bestial mass of hunger-driven insanity, three plasma bolts had struck her just before the creatures did, the grenade dropping from her nerveless fingers, ripping apart her already dead body and those of her attackers.
A few weeks on and he was the only one that remained, the others having taken the same walk out into the bestial darkness and rain as Helen had done before them, only he had not been able to shoot them as they had shot Helen, the rifle clutched impotently in his hands as the final man had taken the walk. His dying cries as the raptors ripped him to shreds still echoed around his mind.
Yet decades later things seemed to be changing again.
The following morning he was up early and checking radiation levels, another of the self-appointed weekly tasks he stuck to in order to give his life some purpose and perhaps provide some useful data to the Council, if and when they ever returned. There was little fluctuation, but he diligently added the figures to the long-running list contained in his log.
He sat on top of the hill above G-Town looking out over the valley below. The slightly bluish tinge to the suns' twin rise washed the landscape in a pale and almost monochromatic light that did nothing to lessen the beauty of the world before him. The Council had indeed created a utopia for the plants and creatures that inhabited it, all except the humans. A geothermal energy plant, half-constructed and now falling gently back into the soil around it lay at the base of the hill below him, mocking the endeavours of man. Casting his gaze still further, he looked up to the sky where the giant ship that had brought them to Asimov still orbited.
At the start of the outbreak, some of the colonists had made a bid for escape, taking one of the shuttles back to the ship in the hope that distance from the planet might bring them safety from the virus that rampaged below. The last transmission from the Ark had dismissed that notion with brutal efficiency when the last human voice from space had been cut off with a scream as a mutant had cut her down. The Ark was now an endlessly circling tomb to the mutated corpses of the last of his colleagues to venture back into the blackness of space.
But what did that mean for him now if those who remained on the planet with him were mutating once more? The one that had attacked him had secreted itself in the tree. It was definitely lying in wait. He had pondered that premise more as he removed the tree that had given it a hiding place, removing that and many more to clear a space around the compound to prevent future occurrences and create a killing ground that the newly placed plasma cannon could utilise if required.
If they were developing some sort of rudimentary intelligence would they begin to plan attacks, and use tools? Could they succeed where the virus hadn't? Could they destroy him?
He knew the largest of the feral mutant packs had swarmed to the south of the small continent where G-Town had been formed, chasing down the remnants of the wild herds of bioengineered oxen roaming the continent. Soon, that particular food source would be exhausted, so it would then become a race for extinction between the as-yet-sterile raptors and himself.
What if the next accelerated evolutionary step for the mutants was to develop procreation? The thought chilled him and made him stand abruptly, determined to make the compound even more secure than it already was.
As the suns drifted down over the horizon, the lights inside the house automatically lifted to match the decrease in ambient level. Adam strummed the final sequence of the song with a flourish of his fingers and placed the acoustic guitar back in its case, satisfied he had performed well for the ghostly audience of his deceased colleagues. The years had passed inexorably, and like a good technician, he had continued to take his readings, maintain and improve the compound and his life, and keep a detailed diary of the changes in the environment and the world around him.
He smiled wryly to himself; he was the best musician in the solar system. His smile faded, for all he knew he might well be the only musician left in the galaxy. Shutting the case with a click he glanced out of the window a millisecond before the proximity alarms went off.
A mutant was sniffing cautiously at the front gate of the compound, its lizard-like appearance a dark shadow in the waning light. As he watched, another joined it, the second extending an exploratory claw to the gate. A brief blue spark arced across the energy field and it leapt back, hissing in surprise and pain. Adam nodded to himself in satisfaction, he had worked hard to make the compound secure. He hadn't seen a mutant for months; their population slowly decreasing over recent years as food sources became scarcer. Their rate of mutation seemed to have slowed too, their appearance stabilising to a camouflaged predatory form that ran erect on two powerful legs, two clawed hands, and powerful jaws making it look like a tailless velociraptor, but with a smaller muzzle and, to his eyes, obviously human origins due to its build.
This behaviour was something different again though. As the mutant who had been injured by the energy field retreated, cradling its damaged arm, the other cocked its head and looked at the gate, appearing to consider the recent event. Disturbed, Adam leaned forwards tensely, his fingers gripping the table, the guitar forgotten as the light changed, darkening further into shadow.
The mutant's hand reached down and plucked a stone from the earth, the elongated, poison-tipped fingers flicking the pebble toward the energy field that covered the gate. There was a brief blur of energy and the pebble bounded back to fall at the beast's feet. It retreated a few steps and then looked up, its obsidian eyes finding those of Adam's a story above. For long seconds, the gaze was held and then the mutants turned and melted back into the bushes.
Adam stared out of the window for many long minutes after they'd gone. They had evolved. They were showing signs of intelligence and tool use after all the long years he'd been watching them. The accelerated process of the terraforming and the technology that had implemented it was still working, even on creatures who had evolved as part of a virus mutation, and they obviously considered him an enemy. He was grateful now for the long hours he had put into stocking up the compound with the things he would need to weather the storm that might yet come.
He sat, leaning gratefully into the upholstered seat at his desk, reclining and commanding 'music' to the house computer, his mind awhirl with recent events. So much had happened in one day after so little had happened for years.
The message that morning from Earth Council had both reassured and scared him. It had said simply "we're on our way." His outward message all those years ago had been comprehensive and detailed, and he had followed it with regular updates and information streams which the ships coming to find him would receive more and more regularly as they approached Asimov. He hoped he would receive messages over the coming years reassuring him in return, but given the brevity of that message and his background, he suspected he would not. The Council never gave too much away in their communications.
Many years ago he had shifted the communications relay to the roof of the house and had stripped a nearby building of its solar cell windows to provide him with a secondary source of power should the bio-trees or their cabling be disrupted. Although this continent had been chosen for its lack of seismic activity, it was always good to have a backup. The only way the cable could be broken really was if...
As if powered by his unspoken thought, the lights dimmed, the classical track hitching momentarily until the automatic systems kicked back in, switching almost seamlessly to the house solar cells and he lurched upright in his chair.
... the only way the cable could be broken was if someone or something broke them.
He moved swiftly to the window, throwing it open to let the cool evening air stream over his arms, and caught the dying screech of a raptor. He could repair that tomorrow but would have to install additional energy fields over the various grids that covered the power nodes.
He was under attack.
So, it was a race then, evolution and mutation versus his technology and ingenuity. He watched silently as the creature dragged the corpse of its fellow back to the gate, depositing the still-smoking form there for him to see. Once more there was a meeting of eyes and then, as Adam abruptly broke the contact to look for a rifle, the thing melted into the bushes.
He'd need some sort of detection device too and to check the computer systems to see where any useful materials might be found in the warehouses and then see about salvaging them. He closed the window and checked the house systems. Once satisfied that all was well he settled back into his chair, the subtle strains of classical guitar music echoing around the house
His eyes strayed to his guitar. At least Helen had given him something to master. He held out his hands, lifting them to the light. The skin on them was mottled and slightly grey in places, but it was still living flesh. His left forearm still bore the scars of the attack many years before, but the flesh had managed to repair itself, his rudimentary medical knowledge sufficient to counter the effects of the strike. He'd worried about the greyness when he'd first shown signs of the virus, but thankfully it had progressed no further and Helen had assured him that he was fine.
He liked his skin.
Although he could live without it, playing his guitar would not be the same without the nice little pads of organic material that allowed the subtle pressures his alloy frame would not. His positronic brain was more than capable of playing all the great masterpieces, but mastering the feeling and the passion behind them was taking decades. He had the time, but the virus might yet evolve again to claim his vague covering of bioengineered humanity even if it couldn't claim the rest of him. Only the mutants outside, mechanical failure, or some sort of accident could do that.
"They are no longer human. Look after yourself."
They were two of the last lines that Helen had spoken to him before she had walked from the compound. She was one of the few who had bothered speaking to him other than to command or instruct, interested in the capabilities and independence of the first independently thinking tech-bot to be sent on a colonial mission. She had always seemed intrigued as to whether his humanity was deeper than a mere layer of skin and indeed whether he could evolve to encompass not just the look, but the 'feel' of a human.
Those two lines had become his mantra. They were not human, therefore they could be killed and he could protect himself. He could shoot them, unlike Helen and her colleagues who had 'walked'. He had been unable to shoot them, the Laws resonating through his programming – a robot may not injure a human being - and yet other humans had killed a human and he had not prevented them from doing so. That argument had played endlessly through his mind, the circular loops almost crashing his positronic net on several occasions. Finally, the mantra of the two sentences had surfaced providing him with a lifeline and source of continued sanity. Other humans had killed so the few might survive.
But only he had survived in the end.
He had been ordered to look after himself, so he had. He would carry on as he had until now, until new representatives of the Council arrived. Hopefully, they would be happy with his work.
If not, then he would be terminated.
"We're on our way."
What did those four small words actually mean? They knew or thought they knew what he was, and what he was capable of, so they wouldn't waste words on something they considered a mere tool?
We're on our way to what? Start again? Clean up and move on? See what the results of the new experiment had been? Were the human colonists the experiment? Could they tolerate this failure?
Was he the experiment?
He had the time. Perhaps. Decades would pass before the Council representatives or their armed units would arrive. Patience was inbuilt, and as the creatures outside might continue to evolve, maybe he could too.
He already seemed to be able to worry and had picked up several affectations from his long-deceased colleagues. He caught himself doing them sometimes; the slight shakes of the head, half smiles, and inclinations of posture and expression gleaned from imitation, but now used unconsciously as a bodily excretion of his thoughts and ideas.
The Council were on their way.
Until they arrived though, he would play his guitar and keep alive the memories of those who had perished by keeping himself functioning until those memories could be passed to other humans. Those memories might or might not be well received, but with none of the original colonists left he was all that preserved the echo of lost humanity on Asimov, a mere binary collective in a non-human brain.
~~~ The End ~~~
This story was originally prompted by four photos as part of a SciFi Smackdown run Ooorah in the clubs back in 2011. It was also included in a publication by Interstellar Fiction in Sept 2012 which was kinda cool. The version above is tweaked a little from the original, but I still think this one has the potential for a much longer piece of work one day. We'll see.