The Biomass

Krogs of Sarteck

A young Krog living on Sarteck reflects on how the Biomass has impacted her life.

Date: 3 eons, 14,160 eras, 6 elapses, and 26,981 time units

It's almost the 7th elapse of the current era. Only 31,993 elapses to go until the next era and only 17,840 eras until the next eon. What happens after 32,000 eons? Probably the heat death of the universe, if it even takes that long.

And how are we celebrating? By installing all the equipment we need to live for the next era into one big bunker so that we can stay inside and never walk out.

It's bad enough that I have to wear three centidistances of lead just to walk outside. Soon I won't even have that privilege.

Dad has never been particularly clear on why he took us from our species homeland, Kapkurkonkus, to live on this absurd planet. I was only 2 kilotime units of age when we began the journey I was about 7 kilotime units when we arrived, so I don't remember much of it. Dad never told me why, but I've boiled it down to two reasons: either his sense of adventure took him, or his sense of fear. We left Akus just after the first reports of infection on Kkruk, so maybe that was when he realized that the infection would inevitably make its way to all five planets in the solar system.

Dad isn't clear on that, but then, he isn't clear on a lot of things. "Don't focus on the past," he says. From what I can tell, though, the past looks a lot nicer than the future. When I was a baby, I didn't live on a planet with so much radiation that you can guarantee yourself cancer after 5 minutes. Sarteck is for Pathrons, not Krogs. They evolved here, they're the ones with lead in their skin and iodine in their blood.

Dad works as an administrator for activities in the Krog community in our city, so naturally he's helping prepare the large bunker for us all to hide in. As we wear ventilators on the streets anyway since the atmosphere is bad for our health, most Krogs are uninfected. One of our neighbors was bitten, so she's in the special Biomass hospital. Other than that, we'll be pretty safe until the bunker is fully operational.

I hear other Krogs speaking of a time before the Biomass. Dad never does, because that was in the past. But one of the older men in the community has lived here since even before the infection arrived in Kon. He came here because he admired the Pathrons and wanted to spend more time with them. He even met Philok once. He has really nice things to say about them; their age gives them wisdom and kindness. They are strong in mind and in physical form.

I don't know. When you grow up with Pathrons around you every time unit of the day, they don't seem so special.

But he also talks about times before the Biomass. The GCS's biggest problem was finding faster ways to travel. It takes an elapse to get from one side of the galaxy to the other, and that's if you're really moving. He spoke of trying to find life in other galaxies, of monitoring developing species, of learning advanced forms of conflict management.

Another reason he came to Sarteck was for the greater species diversity. There are members of all nine sentient species at Kapkurkonkus, but there are even more of each here. He loved Gaspid art, because they can paint while flying. That allows them to produce massive paintings on the strangest terrain.

I would have loved to live in that time, a period defined by learning, discovery, relationships between species, and creation of art. But no, I live in this time, defined by desperately trying to survive the Biomass.

And dad says not to think of the past.

Maybe, in the grand arc of time, the Biomass will amount to nothing. Maybe 10 elapses from now someone will find the cure to the Biomass. Sarteck and Trillitus will be cured. They'll be able to reclaim Kapkurkonkus.

I guess there's also that one non-sentient species between Kapkurkonkus and Yog that got infected. I wonder if we would give them the cure or if that would be part of the "don't given them technology if they aren't mature enough to use it" deal.

Maybe when I'm old this will be something we look back on. Or maybe the next generation will look back on it. But the Biomass has defined my whole life. It's probably why I'm not in my home solar system. It's what I hear about on the news all the time. People my age are being taught careers on fighting the Biomass. It's why I have to go down into a bunker for probably the rest of my life.

It's why I lost my boyfriend. He used to live in one of the three cities that got infected after the big SPIRE blast. At first I kind of understood. He had to die so that we could get rid of the infection on Sarteck. But it didn't work. Now there are infections in 30 different cities at the north pole, south pole, east pole, west pole, and all the places in-between.

Obviously we've decided not to blow up everything. We'll take more of the approach that they did on Trillitus; our quarantines will be robust. We expect that to work better here than there because the virus cannot survive in water and the infection here is less virulent.

I just wish we decided to do that a little sooner.

And really, the number of deaths from us trying to contain the Biomass is less than the number of deaths from the Biomass itself.

Khyarokk wants us to vaporize the whole planet, but nobody's listening to her anymore.

Do you know what dad says when I talk about my dead boyfriend? Yup, that's right, you guessed it.

But whenever I look into the future, I see myself hiding in a building living off of synthetic food, losing contact with the outside world, and getting surrounded on all sides with green goo until I make my natural end.