/ @ / Ghosts of the Antipode / @ /



.	.	/ < / << / Ashes In The Wind Maria Date: December 2642 Death. It was palpable. As she sniffed the stale, sulfur-tainted air, she shuddered despite the stifling heat. People had died here. Beyond that, even: everyone here had died. They lasted so long, so many futile years. As the Cybrids blocked off the planet, they fought, not against the mechanical monsters, but against each other as their food and air and water dwindled. This place was the last to die: Sa Thauri. Carved on a bulkhead in jagged letters: "The toughest rathole on Venus." Scratched elsewhere, in smaller, shallower letters: "I am the last." And beside that haunting message, a crumbling mound of acid-eaten flesh that had once been a human being. She looked around, at the shattered interior bulkheads. She had managed to repair the outer shell for this building, a heat dispertion tower. The spines of the microwave emitters would never again do their job of sending the world's heat back into space, but the shell was intact, and her fragile bubble of near-vacuum (as Venus's standards went) would last as long as the repaired seals held. She wondered how long she would need to stay here, how long before the Emperor was crowned and secure enough in his position he would not consider her a threat. Or, at the very least, until he decided she was dead. An Immortal's memory was rather longer than the proverbial elephant's, so she was resigned to a very long residence on this graveyard of a world. But how long could anyone live on a dead world, surrounded by the ghosts of a planetful of destroyed human lives? How long before the silence would drive one utterly, irretrievably mad? It was a question she dearly hoped she would not have to find the answer to. Sa Thauri was a small cluster of various buildings set on large platforms. The Venusian architectural style of tall buildings on platforms and wide buildings on the ground lent a spidery appearence to the arcology. This arcology, unlike many on Venus, was still in more or less one piece. Though the structures were scorched and some of them were acid-eaten, they still stood tall, defying the hostile elements. The same could not be said for many of the others, where the proud miniature cities were now little more than slag heaps. She studied the screen where the video feed from her Banshee was being downloaded. Siren sat resting in between two structures that were once gathering halls, sheltered from the worst of the easterlies that ripped at the planet's surface. Out on the surface without shielding from the wind, the small, discshaped vehicle would quickly be rolled end-over-end over the ground until it was ripped apart. And losing her transport off this rock was something she did not, most emphatically did not, want to contemplate. Besides, bringing the small fighter in through the Oberwind's turbulance had been hellish enough; it would be just too disgustingly ironic for it to shred itself after it reached the ground. The wind moaned over the two-meter-thick metal shell of the structure, with the sound of the roar of water through a river or perhaps the voices of Venus's million dead. She closed her eyes and forced the ghosts away. She would need to practice that if she had any intention of remaining sane here for any length of time. And now that she had completed her repairs for the time being, she desperately needed something to do. Exploration of Venus might be interesting, assuming she could ressurrect any of the vehicles in the still-intact hangar. Of course, the long, lonely walks between one place and another would not be much relief to her boredom. Her eye again caught the scratches on the wall. In the last days, it seemed the Venusians had devoted their efforts into preserving what they could of their struggle, for posterity, or perhaps for lack of anything better to do. She had no doubt that somewhere in the city there were archives, many of them, set aside for the day humans returned to Venus, whenever that may be. She studied the nearby scratches on the wall. The slashing zigzags of Japanese ideographics drew silver crosshatches along the nearest part of the wall. She studied the crosshatches, wishing she knew some written Japanese. She had learned a fair amount of spoken Japanese (and other languages) over the years, but she had never so much as seen Japanese characters before much less read them. She ran her fingers along the scratches, until she found one that was different. It was what appeared to be a diagram of the dispertion tower, with a small, deeply-scratched icon in the center, on one of the lower levels. Though she could not read the text, the implication was clear: something important was there. The icon had a few angled arrows pointing from it to various bits of the text around it. She experienced a moment of frustration as the unknown characters taunted her. She memorized the position, turned away from the wall, and went to locate the ladderway leading to the indicated level. It turned out to be in the building's core, cut off by bulkheads at every deck. She climbed down the dark ladderway, hearing the clang of her footsteps on hollow metal bars, seeing the faint light from above trickling down through the grilles and catwalks in the tunnel. Navigating this labyrinth of metal she finally reached the bottom five minutes later, and opened the door to the basement level that had been on the map. She stopped dead in the doorway, her eyes widening briefly, then dropping with respectful sorrow. It was a crypt. By the arrangement of the bodies, the crypt was not the work of the last survivors working to bury their dead. The bodies were arranged in cicles, hands linked, with the children in the center. The macabre scene was completed by the body of a single child, barely more than a toddler, in the very center, hands clasped around a box. Mercifully, the bodies were sufficiently destroyed by the vicious, acidic atmosphere that they were unrecognizable, that she was not forced to look into the faces of the city's dead. Or, at least, not more than their skulls. Jellied flesh had dripped from acid-holed bone, leaving piles of blackened mush in puddles around the collapsed skeletons. She stepped through the circle careful not to step in any of the gruesome remains, lifted the box, and opened it. Inside was a sheet of metaplas with white writing on it, in English, Japanese, and German. She read the English section, her heart sinking lower with each word. "We the surviving residents of Sa Thauri arcology, in light of the destruction of our world at the hands of the Cybrids, have elected to end our lives on this day, to spare ourselves and our children the slow, painful end that will soon fall when our last supplies run out. The vote by all the adults and children over the age of five, cast by sealed ballot on the twenty-third of January, 2624, was ninety-seven for the proposal and seven against. The seven will remain in the arcology for as long as they are able and so desire, and they have agreed not to disturb us until such time as we can be returned to Earth for burial. For us, we go to our fate with resignation but not fear or anger. We have fought, and we have lost, and we have died. And so we accept our fate and move on, to whatever lies ahead. To whomever finds this document, we only ask three things. One, that the arrangements be made to transport our remains back to Earth, as described in further detail in this archive. Two, that the archive, which contains our diaries, our logs, and the art we have created during these long years, be taken to Earth and be placed in the Omniweb as a memorial to us. And three, that Sa Thauri be rebuilt above us when humanity returns to Venus. Do not shun this place and waste this sacrifice; take what we were able to save and use it to build again. Farewell..." She dropped the sheet back into the box, her hands shaking, a quiet sob emerging from the back of her throat. The box fell from her trembling hands, falling with a quiet thud on the hard metal of the deck. The archive, a small, heavily-armored computer system, fell out of the box, along with a small package in a metaplas wrapper. When she finally looked down at the spilled objects, she picked up the package. It had three pouches, and they were labeled, "RED", "BLACK", and "YELLOW". She felt the small, round shapes inside, frowned, carefully opened the one labeled "BLACK". Small, dried orange fruit lay inside the bag. She pulled one out, and turned it over in her fingers. Roses. She placed the fruit back into the package and resealed it. Even as they went to their deaths, the Sa Thaurians had hope. They believed that one day roses would bloom again in this city that was now their grave. She placed them in her pocket and determined to plant them as soon as possible, in the hydroponics bay. She would have to do a lot of rebuilding, but it was a task she would accept gladly, for the sake of these brave men and women and (dear God) children. She picked up the archive computer and switched it on. To her horror, the screen flickered once briefly, with the image of a rose and Sa Thauri's flag, then died. No matter how she tried, she could not get the device to work again. At least some of the data still had to be there, or the image would not have appeared. With the I/O disabled, though, there would be no way to reach it except by taking out the memory and reinstalling it in some other machine. Her Banshee's computer would do, but the memory would have to be rewritten in the new code to be read. Lacking the proper translation algorithms, this would have to be done manually. She nodded gravely. It was a daunting task set before her, but she was determined to do it. It might take a year to finish the translation, but Venus's voice would survive. She owed that much at least to the dead whose graves she now inhabited. ----- "Papa? What will it feel like when we die?" I felt like my heart was being ripped out. Little Adel, always the one asking questions. How could a father answer such a thing? One answer, of course. Honestly. "I don't know for sure, son." And that was the truth. "What did Mama feel like?" Lara had been killed during the conflict with Sa Akane three years ago. We had food, they had water, each needed the other. So we fought. We won, or at least we won the water. I think we lost more than we gained, but I was biased. I had lost my beloved wife. "I don't know, son. She didn't speak of it. She was too busy trying to make me hurt less." My voice broke, but I did not let the sob out. I had to be strong, not for myself, but for my son. "They're going to breach the seals aren't they?" I nodded grimly. "It is the fastest way. It'll be quick. The air pressure will crush us before the acid or the heat gets us..." "So it'll be like getting run over by a tank," Adel said. I grimaced. Such a thing had happened recently, in the hangar bay. The tank's treads had malfunctioned and a worker had been smashed flat as the vehicle went out of control. "It'll be a lot quicker than that. It'll be... like sitting there and then suddenly falling asleep." Right. Perhaps that is what it would feel like, but that wasn't how it was. "Papa?" "Yes son?" "I'm going to miss you." "I'm going to miss you too, son," I whispered, and fled the room. I have avoided him for the last few hours, since he made that comment. I am too afraid of falling apart in front of him. Doubtless he thinks I am out here in the dispertion tower working on the final preperations, when in reality I am cowered in a closet crying my eyes out. When I go back tomorrow to spend my last day with him, I have to be over this. I have to be strong for my son. ----- The leaders want us to record something for the next people to come here to find. Fine, hear this: toasters bite me! The little rat-sucking tin can warform wannabes are too cowardly to come kill us, so they stand off and let us die slowly. Well [censored] them and the [untranslatable] they rode in on! I suppose something good did come outta this mess. I'm gonna die tomorrow, but this is gonna be one hell of a night. I have my sweetheart here, and we're going to make love like we have never known before. We have one chance, and we're gonna make it pure heaven. I met Reveka only a month ago, working on the hydroponics in the west building. I went to get some tomatoes and there she was. Wow. I must have been taking all the wrong turns not to notice her before. We got to talking, then I took her down to have lunch in the mess, and she showed me some of her paintings. She is an incredible painter. Even with the crap we have to work with here, she's made some murals in the south arbor that're just breathtaking. I sure hope they survive. If not, it's alright, there are pictures of them in the archive. I helped her with one of them, and I bumped into her and spilled paint on her. She batted me with her wet paintbrush and soon we were all a mess, throwing paint on each other like children. Then we kissed. I wish we had some kind of future. I wish we could get married and have a family together, on Earth or somewhere away from this rathole. Maybe we'll get married tonight, if we can find some rings. Or maybe we'll just make love all night long and go downstairs tomorrow so drowsy we don't remember what it is we're doing. But no, I can't think of that. Nothing is going to ruin this night... So damn the toasters, and damn death. I'm going to be in her arms tonight and that's all that matters. ----- I want everything shipshape. Who goes off to die and leaves a mess behind? This place is in one piece, but it's a mess. What'll the people who come here going to think of me when they find the place stuffed to the deckheads with garbage? I mean, doesn't anyone have any dignity? If this place is gonna be our grave, can't we at least have a clean one? Damnit... ----- Crying, must stop crying, can't go down there all messy like this! What would my mother think? But then who cares, she's probably already dead. My husband tries to calm me down but I push him away. No. We can't fight, not now. We'll never get the chance to make up. We can't fight! But we fight. We argue about what to do with this place, our funeral arrangements, what to do about the baby. Oh, honey, shut up please! Can't you see? This is our last day. We cannot spend it like this! We cannot! Something, I have to do something, to make this day better. So I'm gonna haul off and smack him, just to shut him up for once, and then when he stares at me I'm gonna push him back on that bed and do some things I'm damned sure he isn't gonna argue about... ----- At least it will be quick, which is more than we can say for starvation. I wish we would hold out to the last moment that we still have some supplies left, but they want to save some for the others that are going to go on. Scorch that. Why waste a minute of our lives so a couple cowards can live longer? Or are we the cowards, taking the easy way out? Damnit. I should have just found some Cybrids and kamikazed them when I had the chance. Then at least I'd be paying back the gearheads for our lives. Someday someone will obliterate the last of the metal scum, and on that day I'll roll over in my grave and dance. ----- Two words: posthumous publication. (Manuscript enclosed.) ----- Mayor? Oh, this is just a fun position to be in right now. "Thanks for nothing, boss," they'd say if they dared. Or perhaps not. Perhaps it's, "You first, boss." Why'd the toasters have to land on my scorching term? And why couldn't we just go the way of Sa Akane or Drachenscheisse, so everyone doesn't have this stupid idea to go out with a blaze of glory? Deliberately opening the seals? That's sick. More sick to elect a child to do the final job, but that's what they decided. A child is more fitting, they said. It sends a message. What message, that we're sick in the head? The children will die anyway, so why not let them do the honors? Take vengeance on the adults for letting them down. Damnit, I want all of us to survive. If not that, at least the kids. Or at least one of them, to tell Earth what has happened to us when he's rescued. For there to be a hope of any of them being rescued! I have to go find my daughter. She's five. She'll never see six. Damnit... Don't sink into despair, I told them in one of my stupid stirring little speeches. Great advice, but rather hypocritical... ----- She shut down the archive and looked away at the gray, metal bulkhead. She was sitting in the arbor. Some of the murals had indeed survived. Perhaps some of them were Reveka's. Perhaps some other artist she had not yet come across in her reading. The scratches on the walls were thinner here, as though the seven survivors had elected not to disturb the paintings. She ran her hand over the archive's interface panel, reactivating it. She had finished the translations of the plain-text files, which only took a few days. The pictures, the sounds, those would take awhile. A long while. At least now that she read some of the diaries, she was able to see the dead of this place as real people, with real lives. Whether that was better than the cold, impersonal aura of undifferentiated Death remained to be seen... ----- Typing away on the outdated, battered old machine that was Sa Thauri's mainframe, she managed to write the program that she needed to change the corrupted sound files to something the Banshee computers could recognize. She wished she could just use the Venusian computers, but while the main interface and computational systems were operational, the self-diagnostics were fried and there was no way the machine would be able to repair the corrupted files. Its fast interface and CPU made it ideal for the multitasking that was required. The multi-redundant "Oberwindows" operating system was easy to use and easy to rescue when it crashed, which unfortunately it did regularly. She shut down the last open iframe and watched the screen collapse into a pinpoint then wink out. Sounds, at last: music, haunting compositions of heart-wrenching pain, on every imaginable instrument plus a number she suspected were made up. But at least it was no longer silent. As she followed the soft cry of a single violin down to a quiet fade, she looked back at the screen. They always said Venus was the home of some of the best artists in the solar system. The isolation and gloomy off-duty hours between work and sleep, combined with the hellish, ill-lit twilight, stimulates something in the imagination. It was generally not a very positive stimulation, and Venusian arts were known for their dark, melancholy atmosphere. But they were powerful, and touched places in the heart the brighter and less-emotional Terran arts rarely reached. This piece was, according to the ID3 tag embedded in the sound file's header, written two years after the death of the last other arcology. Sa Thauri saw its doom then, in the demise of one of its neighbors, Kaze. The composer, one Adrianne Matsui, had died less than a week after finishing the piece, according to the attached data file. The cause of death was listed as "suicide, passive" which she interpreted as losing the will to live. She had completed her art, passed it on to the winds, and faded away secure in the knowledge that one day, someone would hear it and appreciate it. She set the composition to repeat once more, then leaned back in her chair. As the piano and bass began the first movement, she wondered what the reaction on Earth would be when "Ashes in the Wind" hit the Omniweb. If Terra had any heart left in her, the reaction would be a long, echoing silence. ----- The beginning of the new year marked one month since she had finished repair on the dispertion tower and pumped fresh atmosphere in to flush out the sulfur and carbon dioxide. Now, she had the main arbor, the command center, and several of the gas conversion towers online. She had decided not to reactivate any of the city's residential systems just yet: she had already disturbed the graveyard city more than she was comfortable with. One day, probably hundreds of years hence, when humans returned to Venus and found this partially-restored city, they would wonder. And seeing half of it rebuilt would make it easier on them to reactivate it the rest of the way as the Sa Thaurians had asked. And when they reentered the command center, "Ashes in the Wind" would be playing. She had tied a regenerative power source in to the control room's main computer system, and it could last for a thousand years barring any major mishaps. As she sat against the warm bulkhead in one of the gas-conversion towers, hearing the soft hum of incoming carbon dioxide and outgoing oxygen, she thought of Earth. It would be awhile yet before Petresun became Emperor, perhaps ten years. She had challenged the idea from the start, when the Brotherhood leader proposed it on the 'nets and began playing with popular opinion again. The idea of "one ruler" turned her stomach: such things never led to good, only sorrow. She protested openly at the Brotherhood council meeting, along with several others including her sister Rosalia. After the death of the war hero Gierling, and the subsequent "accidents" among members of the Brotherhood who had challenged Petresun, she had approached the old man and demanded an explanation. The cold stare that answered her, potent even though Petresun's decaying body gave him a frail, weak appearance, told her all she needed to know. And the anger in those eyes told her that her fate had been decided as well. She located Rosalia later that evening, on the way home from Nova Alexandria. She had a lot of difficulty, since she had recently taken up the habit of taking unscheduled, unplanned, and unwise transportation. She got in touch with her via her commlink, after half an hour of trying. Rosalia was in Monaco, and had arrived via a cargo submarine. She took the first flight she could get to Roma, then switched to a connecting flight for the final leg of the trip. Rosalia had beeped her and told her not to board that craft. So she waited and rented a hoverskimmer instead. Somewhere over the bay, she heard the announcement on the news that her flight had collided with an unscheduled flight out of the Alps, and had gone down with no survivors somewhere over southern France. An accident, it was called. She met Rosalia in Monaco, and they exchanged a look. "Petresun is insane," Rosalia said. "Indeed. He will lead us to ruin." "We dare not challenge him yet." "It is too risky. We have no support base." "In two hundred years perhaps we will." "If he does not destroy us first." "We must go into hiding at once." "If we don't we'll suffer the same fate as Gierling." "You can bet that Gierling is not truly dead." "Petresun is probably keeping the brain for future use." "That would be just like him." "As would killing us to ensure his rule." "Therefore we must flee." "But he could find us anywhere on Earth." "Therefore we must leave Earth altogether." "No one would think to look for us in the colonies." "Who in their right mind would go to the colonies anyway?" "They're mostly in ruins and the residents may not appreciate us being there." "Unless we do what we can to help them." "Or find a place where there are no survivors." "Venus." "Indeed." "How long will we have to remain?" "Until it is safe..." "Will it ever be if he comes to power?" The rapid-fire conversation, born of decades of practice and intimate knowledge of each others' thoughts, came to an abrupt end. Petresun was insane. Many of the Brotherhood agreed with this assessment: it was his neurotic terror of death that had led to the construction of Prometheus in the first place. It was a wonder the man could sleep at night knowing that his neurosis had led to the death of billions, to the destruction of half a dozen worlds. Or perhaps it only added to his insanity. The Brotherhood still did his bidding though, which proved they were not much better. The man should be committed, not be raised up to a higher place of power yet. But they had grown addicted to their powers as well, and saw Petresun as their ticket to greatness. And they killed those who disagreed. Rosalia shook her head sadly. "Sa Thauri was a strong city. Perhaps someone remains." "I will go there. And you?" "No. I have friends who can hide me for a few days while I finish up some business here." "Optimum window for Venus intercept closes tomorrow." Rosalia nodded, said bleakly, "I know. I plan to search the outer system, the Kuiper colonies, to see if there are any survivors." "You would let me go alone?" "Just for a little while. I'll catch up as soon as I return." "That'll be two, three years!" Rosalia shrugged. "Patience, sis. We're Immortal, remember?" Bitterly: "How could I forget?" "Indeed..." Rosa's comm beeped. She looked at it. "The Brotherhood's tracked us. We must go." They had disappeared into a nearby building, one of the many in the ancient city that was still riddled with secret tunnels from back in the Devastation. After several hours of navigating the narrow passages, they emerged near the docks. Rosalia had her small catamaran waiting, and they boarded, fired it up, and took off down the coast toward the Gibraltar locks. "Jocelyn," Rosalia said softly. "Indeed." "She has been silent." "She does not agree with Petresun either, but she does not speak." "Oh?" "She hates him. He has no concept of right-and-wrong." "Can Petresun see this?" "No. She hides it well. He trusts her." "So she is safe?" "As safe as anyone near him." "Should we..." "Tell her? She won't come. She wants to try to change his mind." "Is she mad?" "She cares too much..." "I see..." And so, their younger sister was not told. Rosalia left a time-delayed message on the Omniweb, to be sent to her in several weeks. "Sa Thauri," was all it said. It would be enough. Hopefully she would understand. ----- Sound. Footsteps clanking on the rattling metal steps in the stairwell. She looked up. Clank. Clank. Slow as the footfalls of a ghost. "So it begins," she said softly, as the keening notes of "Ashes in the Wind" underscored her voice. Two years of art and music, finally interrupted by madness. Or perhaps it was just the ghosts, come to drive her from their home. She had overstayed her welcome and now would be pushed out into the acid. Clank. Clank. Louder now. Echoing with the sound of her heart slamming in her chest. Her breath came faster. Perhaps a Cybrid infantry drone still survived, and had discovered Sa Thauri's new semi-operational status. Perhaps she would soon feel the searing heat of lasers burning her flesh. Clank. Clank. Clank. And it stopped, just outside the door. She cowered, pressing her body into the corner and curling up into a fetal ball. Clank. Ker-chunk. Hiss... as the door opened. She drew deeper into her shell. Felt a touch, flinched. Trembled. "Oh sis..." A hand, soft skin against her tear-stained cheek, gentle arms wrapping around her and pulling her close. "Ros...?" Her voice broke, and sobs shook her. Tears poured from her eyes, soaking her face, running down her sister's hand. "Shh," she said. "I'm here now. I'm so sorry I didn't come with you..." She held her sister more tightly, shielding her from the outside world. "They're--" "I know. I found no survivors either." "They're ashes in the wind," she whispered brokenly, and the tears of a world of lost souls flowed from her haunted eyes... / < / << /

Ashes In The Wind

Maria