Outcasts of Gideon

Kishan Saanvi : Part 4

Kishan stepped down from the vehicle. Mihr wasted no time piloting upward. While Kishan activated his own, he could see Mihr's hover blend into the dark sky above. He piloted his own transport closer to the ground, leaving behind the faint glow of the markers.

Kishan finally settled the hover on a subtle rise. Stepping out of his vehicle, he trained his goggles toward the distant ore field.

The ten minutes came to an end, yet nothing happened. The dark landscape was unchanged. Then a small, intense light erupted. Within moments, a scattering of mist or smoke enveloped the proximity of the light. Kishan could see this in the distance, assuring him of a normal start to the process.

The cloud of gasses grew more dense. They spread in an almost perfectly formed dome. He estimated that the dome reached beyond the width of the field. The gasses thickened to a point of complete whiteness. These were all good signs. Things were progressing as they usually did in his simulations. Before long, he expected to see the gasses dissipate, the deed done. Very few of his simulations did otherwise.

Kishan heard something. A lifetime in and out of vacuum had made him more sensitive to sound. It was a constant listening for something that was never there. This time, something was there. It was a noise which he had heard only once before, the tearing of metal.

His mind jumped back to a ship traveling past the inner planets orbiting Canopus. He was on a salvage mission with a band of pirates. His crew saw an opportunity to take down a cargo vessel. That was before they encountered a debris field. Floating fragments from a prior explosion littered the space. Wreckage ripped through large sections of their vessel. The protective exterior was torn away. He still had nightmares punctuated by that sound. It was as close to death as he had ever come.

Here was that noise again. In the vacuum of space on a small, dusty planet. It was a sickening rending of metal. It sounded as though a great vessel was being disemboweled. Only sound didn't travel in vacuum. Yet here it was, telling him otherwise.

"Do you hear that?" came Mihr's voice.

Kishan was surprised to find that he hadn't shut off his comm. It was an oversight. Mihr's voice accompanied the sound of tearing metal. "Where the hell are you?"

"I'm watching from above. Can you hear that? Is it supposed to do that?"

Talkers take risks.

"You have to get out of there." Kishan shut off his audio to see if the sound originated through Mihr's comm. It didn't. Could it be the phaethonium? It was the only reasonable explanation. None of his simulations included anything like this.

The sound grew louder, sending a shiver through him. He turned his comm back on to catch Mihr saying "...things happening." In the distance, he could see the gas dome collapse. This brought the most violent crash of grinding metal he'd heard. The sound was so intense, he felt it vibrate through him.

Then, silence.

A violent ripple surged through the planet, shaking him from his feet. He fell to the dusty ground, his hand reaching out for the hover. Steadying himself, he rose.

In the distance, a light erupted. It was so intense, he had to turn away. He held up a gloved hand. Through his fingers, he caught sight of objects falling toward the light, drawn into it. Have I created a singularity?

The ground shuttered again. This time he held onto the hover. The tremor lasted several seconds. Then, just as quickly as it came, the piercing light vanished.

Kishan stood motionless, scanning the horizon for signs of movement. He checked his comm, calling out to Mihr. There was no response. Several minutes passed. He steadied his breathing, hoping to calm his racing heart. As he felt more at ease, he turned toward the hover and climbed in.

He raced back to the ore field. The landscape on the way was little changed. Until he arrived, he found no signs of the event.

The site had indeed changed. A perfectly formed crater, smooth and featureless, was carved into the planet. Its depth kept him from getting too close. Had he fallen in, he might not be able to climb out. Stepping toward the edge, he was careful not to cause the ground to give way.

Beneath his feet, a small area of phaethonium had escaped the reach of the projector. It still glowed in the darkness. He scanned around him, finding that it extended into the event area. Over the crater, the material hovered as though moored to a particular point in space. It stretched as far as he could still see, its glow undisturbed by the recent cataclysm.

He knelt beside the crater and reached into the space above it. Grabbing for some of the floating phaethonium, he swept it toward him. What his glove didn't capture fell into the chasm as dust, its luminescence fading as it dropped. In his palm, the metal resembled the dust of the planet's surface, exhibiting none of the telltale glow.

Kishan retrieved a few containers from his hover. He filled one with the glowing phaethonium from the surface. In the other he placed the disintegrated metal captured from above the crater. He put each of them into the storage compartment of his hover, climbed in, and piloted away from the site.