dark domain - the artpacks.acid.org collection/darkdomain.iso/artpacks/1994/mist1194.zip/EO-ICE.LIT

Text File | 1994-11-21 | 17KB | 299 lines

                                     ICE  PLANET

        He stood in front of the twisted heap of metal, surveying the grey
skies and icy terrain. Why, of all the tropical planets available, did he have
to crash on a snowball??

        It was cold. The winds carried small snowflakes along with them,
scraping his exposed face like sandpaper. He drew a gloved hand across the
cold skin, and for a moment his cheek was warm. But the cold reclaimed his
cheek, and covered the rest of him, tickling his nose, nestling in his
eyebrows. His fingers were going numb.

        Anger welled up inside of him, and for a moment it was strong enough to
warm his body. Anger at the star-hopper, for failing. Angry at those who had
sleek star-racers that didn't break down. Angry at himself, for not correcting
the error in time.

        The anger faded, almost as quickly as the snowflakes on his skin. All
that was left were the awful feelings of helplessness, despair, and loneliness.
And his fingers were still cold.

        The winds whistled impatiently. "Go away, mortal, you are in our
domain!" He scowled at the distant mountainous range, which could be hiding
some secret paradise from his tired soul. He narrowed grey eyes, which matched
the planet, and turned away.

        His ship. A star-hopper, yes, but a reliable one. Its decals were
frosted over and smudging. Even the name, Astriqu seemed ironic and foolish,
since it meant star-follower, and here he was, stranded on a planet, with the
stars laughing down at him. He kicked the ship. Hard. His numb toes tingled,
but they didn't hurt. They were beyond that.

        His mind suddenly cleared, as if it had been damaged in the crash and
was only just recovering. "Get out of the cold!" it screamed at him, as if
wondering why such an intelligent brain as itself had been saddled with such an
incredibly stupid body. He shook his head, letting snowflakes drift off him and
on to the ground.

        The ship. His mind kept coming back to that. His ship. How damaged was
it, really? The crash had felt like his ship had been ripped apart and slammed
back together, the seams held with krazy glue. But now that he looked at it
again, the crash was only lingering bruises, and it seemed only a bit damaged.
Was the door jammed? Probably. He tried it anyways, and it opened easily, as if
it hadn't been fully closed in the first place. Of course. It hadn't been
closed. As he opened the door fully and stepped in, the memories came rushing
at him, organizing themselves in a sketchy sequence of events in his mind as
he closed the door.

        First there had been the warning. A blinking light, rousing him from
his sleep. Then the urgent message droning through the empty corridors, "Losing
velocity. Prepare for crash landing." He hadn't been able to correct the error,
hadn't been able to pull the ship up.

        He remembered the shaking, the noise, every bolt of the small ship
screaming as it spiraled down to meet the planet surface. Then there was the
crash, jotling every bone in his body. And then there was silence, as he
wondered if he was alive or not. Then the pain, assuring him that he was. And
after that, the curiosity, the dazed need to explore...Getting up slowly,
opening the door, and walking out onto what he'd hoped would be an inhabited
planet.

        And now he was back where he'd started. Cold, lost, and alone. Was he
still in the Gamma-Triacus quadrent? Or had he crossed into the Krita solar
system? Or had he gone through time instead of space, and ended up before his
birth? In that case, no one would know he was missing.

        Now he searched the dead ship for a blanket, rations, anything to keep
his scramled mind occupied. Finally, he found the way to the small room that
served as both sleeping quarters and leisure area. It had a few blankets,
tossed from the broken bed, and a half-built refridgerator, empty. He'd been
assembling that old Earth-style fridge for a month, occupying his ample spare
time aboard Astriqu. He'd assembled and disassmebled it so many times, and now
its insides lay strewn across the grey floor. He noticed a fridge-schematic
crumpled unhappily under the massive appliance, which had probably rolled over
many times during the crash.

        He half-heartedly fiddled with the cooler mechanism, but his thawing
hands shook, and he dropped it. He was hungry. Rations, rations, where were
rations? Food first, then work. Eat, then see if Astriqu could be fixed. Yes,
it seemed perfectly normal. Food was always a priority.

        He searched the small capsule strapped to the wall. To be used in case
of emergency, he'd scrawled underneath it in perma-ink once. It had amused his
girlfriend at the time, Dexar, was it? Dexar, Dexlar, Delar, Delara. Dlara.
That was it. Dlara. The one from the Kuhsmo system. A history student whose
hobby was studying Old-Earth. She'd showed him the phrase, which had been
applied to an old-style fire extinguisher. Not a flame-bubble, to encase the
fire and put it out. One filled with water. Earth sure had been backwards
before the Dawning!

        Now he opened the capsule, and rations poured out. His stomach thanked
him as he unwrapped a Grafbar and began munching on it. Yum. It was similar to
an old-earth snack, one popular in 1980 P.T.(pre-technological age). A--choklit
bur? Chocolate bar, that was it! Although a Grafbar was much healthier, and
tasted better. Chocolate- Dlara had liked chocolate. Smoking, too. The bad
habits of old-earth were her passions. Eating food that wasn't good for her,
and tasted bad too! No wonder he'd dumped her. She was just too weird.

        But he hadn't dumped her. She'd left. Just got up and left. They hadn't
even been arguing. He'd forgotten her birthday, and he'd promised her a
holo-trip of old-earth which he'd forgotten about. She'd gotten all quiet, and
then just upped and left. He didn't try to stop her, her being a
Kuhsmo-Harishi. Her strength was many times his, and to go after her would have
been to be slammed against the wall.

        He trodded back to the bedroom/hobby room, munching the Grafbar sadly.
The refridgerator's dissassembled parts stared up accusingly at him, and so he
heaved a sigh and sat down. He picked up the wires and plugs and began fitting
them together, the motions so familar and yet so awkward. As his hands took
over and his brain rested, he had the strange feeling that he'd forgotten to do
something. He pondered this while trying to force an unyielding coupling, and
then his plan of action flew back to him.

        Plan of Action. 1. Eat  2. ? He thought about this for a moment,
dropping the coupling to concentrate. Eat, then what? Certainly not eat and
then assemble a refridgerator! Maybe eat and sleep, then? He shut his eyes for
a moment, but found that although he was cold, he wasn't tired.

        FIX THE SHIP! boomed his awakening brain. He scrambled to his feet,
scattering fridge parts across the floors with a series of melodious clinks
and clanks. Dizzily, he cursed himself for his forgetfulness. Imagine
forgetting that the ship had to be repaired! By now, any remaining power could
be dwindling away to nothing....

        He left the small room and entered the adjacent one, which served as
the bridge. It had two black, comfortable chairs, facing a huge computer
screen. A few smaller screens lined the room, and there was the usual
assortment of lights, knobs, buttons, dials, and touch-panels. He strode over
to a small computer terminal, and flicked it on. Then he called up a general
maintenance report. Soon the screen read:

Ship class: Star-hopper
Name: Astriqu
Registration: QUASTR3
Captain: Ray Rejak
First-in-Command: Ray Rejak
Master of the Universe: Ray Rejak
(he smiled at this, he'd hacked his name into every position of power.)
Energy Level: 3
Time left until shutdown: 2 Earth-hours
Damage: Severe damage to all systems
Repair procedures: impossible

        He quickly turned the computer off. Two hours of energy left, two Earth
hours... damn that Earth-obsessed Dlara! What was that in standard? He thought
it over, doing the math in his head, and came up with 11 units. 11 units until
death. Or, more urgently, 11 units until the heat went off!

        The ship was small, and he walked through its corridors quickly,
shutting down all devices that needed power. Even life-support. He'd live-
just not in comfort.

        He routed all the power to a gen-box, which he clipped to his belt.
He would keep the energy with him, and find a use for it!

        He journeyed back to the bedroom, and got to work on the fridge. It was
boring. On a mad impulse, he decided to take some parts out of the ship to make
it a little more interesting. "It's a dead ship," he muttered. "I killed it, I
may as well do an autopsy." The mere thought gave him immense delight; it
seemed a fitting punishment for the ship that had gotten him into this
situation in the first place.

        Giggling softly to himself, he wrenched off the nearest wall-panel and
began pulling its insides out.

        Five hours later, he was bored. Bored and cold. Bored, cold, and a bit
disgusted with himself. Why had he taken his beloved ship apart? Why? He'd
taken his anger out on it, and now he regretted it. Sort of. After all, it
wasn't the ship's fault. Or was it?

        He shook his head and looked around. His ship was a shell, really,
parts hanging out of every place imaginable. Even three of the smaller computer
terminals had been ripped from their positions and left on the floor.

        He was tired of himself, tired of going over the crash and all that
happened after it again and again in his mind. He had to do something, explore
something! Anything was better than tinkering with the building blocks of a
ship!

        He made up his mind, and began packing a cloth backpack. He was going
to explore the planet. Snowball or not, it still had to be more interesting
than the empty inside of Astriqu. In the bag, he put food bars and the ship's
emergency kit. The kit had everything that he could possibly need: a soil
analyzer, a mini-computer, and a repair kit complete with welding laser and
space-material patches.

        It also had a communicator, which he'd discovered when gathering the
"basic needs" equipment together. When he tried it, there had only been static,
as if no one was there. Was he really so far from civilization? Surely there
had to be an inhabited planet within a few light-years! He tried it again, with
the same result.

        Now he threw it back it the bag, and slipped on an temp-suit, which had
enough energy to operate for a few days on low. He set the controls for 'hot',
and then slipped the cloth backpack on, first remembering to put the gen-box in
it. Now all he was holding was the temp-suit helmet. He was ready.

        He pushed open the door, struggling a little because of the winds
pushing against it. Then he slipped out, shut it behind him, and put on the
suit-helmet. The helmet's visor was hot, so the snow didn't pile on it, and he
was able to see clearly. He moved slowly at first, finding the wet snow a bit
slippery. He was very glad not to feel the cold, although the wind still hissed
at him angrily, foiled by mankind's technology.

        He removed the backpack and took out the welding laser. He pointed it
at a patch of snow and turned it on. It hummed, and a barely visible beam of
light shone out and onto the snow. The snow wavered, as if it had been a
reflection in a pond and someone had dropped a stone into it. It melted and
evaporated, and the light beam went to the next layer of snow and did the same.

        After half an hour of this, he had discovered land. The ice had been
so thick; he was now standing in a hole so deep he'd have extreme difficulty
getting out. But for now he turned off the laser and took out the soil
analyzer. A small sample of the earth, and the computer would run a scan and
estimate where he was, and in what time, too.

        The little machine whirred, and finally the small screen read:

Type: Earth
Specific: Hidden Mountains, North America
Age: 1 million years
Estimated Date: Earth during its first Ice Age.

        It shocked him, to say the least. He was on his home planet, before his
birth! He had travelled not through space, but through time! He hurriedly
packed his bag and scampered up the ice wall, slipping down repeatedly.
Finally, he took out a few small ship-repair patches and etched out footholds.
After that, it was a simple climb and then freedom!

        He trekked back to the ship, and got back in. He shed the suit and
slipped off the backpack, letting both fall to the ground. Now he headed
straight for the bedroom, knowing exactly what he had to do. No way was he
about to stick around on Earth, alone, until his death! He intended to do
something about it.

        For the next solid week, it was constant work and minimal relaxation.
He toiled endlessly on the refridgerator, adding things and getting rid of
other things. He also worked on the temp-suit, fiddling with its controls,
modifying it subtly. Finally, he was done, and just in time, for his food
supply had run out the day before.

        He slipped on the temp-suit and helmet. After checking the ship for
any useful materials, he took everything he needed outside. Then he used a bit
of the gen-box's energy to keep the ship alive long enough to carry out a last
command: self-destruct.

        He focused a portable tractor beam on the refridgerator, using some of
the percious energy from the gen-box to fuel it. Then, carrying the small
device behind him (which in turn kept the fridge suspended in midair in beams
of blue) he left, making tracks as fast as he could. He was sheltered behind a
particularly strong ice-mountain when the ship blew, but the sound created a
small avalanche. He managed to outrun it, and keep the fridge hovering beside
him all the way.

       He searched the land for the whole day, and finally he found what he
was looking for. A mountain, whose peak poked out of the ice. He melted the
snow around it until, an hour later, he was almsot at its base. Then he
searched what he'd uncovered so far, and found the perfect cave. It was big,
and high enough that no person would be finding it in the next few centuries.
Besides, he knew for certain this was Hidden Mountain, the one who had been
ignored in favour of the massive Rockies, and had not actually been explored
until his twenty-first birthday, which had been a week before he'd upset Dlara
and she'd walked out on him.

        He walked into the small cave, which he estimated was 500 feet away
from the ground. The tractor beam on the refridgerator was wobbling, and so he
had to move faster. Somehow, he manuevered through the twisted, hollowed out
path, and reached the small, six foot area that was its end.

        There he set the fridge down on its back. He turned off the tractor
beam, and clipped it to the pocket of the temp-suit. He had not brought the
helmet, only the suit. Now he opened the refridgerator and lay inside it.

        The inside of the door was much different than a typical refridgerator.
It had a butchered computer panel on it, and it was all ready for instruction.
He entered:

Current Time: Ice Age
Revival Time: Thursday, August 2, 2304. Earth time.

        He then pressed a button equivilent to 'on', and closed the door,
sealing himself in. Cold air swirled into the unit, and with it came a soothing
gas. He would fall asleep soon, and be kept in suspended animation until the
day the cave was discovered. Then he'd still have time to prepare for Dlara's
birthday!

        But as he drifted off, anxious questions rebounded in his mind. Would
he even be able to be born if he wasn't there? Would there be two of him?
Would Dlara know him? Would it work? What if he was discovered too early? He'd
rigged the energy to travel in a loop, recharging itself, in a sense. But if
that was disrupted before the programmed time, the energy would be lost, and
there'd be no going back.

        But before he could worry anymore, he was dreaming, a dream that would
last for millenia. At least he would be well-rested when he woke in 2304. If he
woke.

                                      THE  END
SAUCE00Ice Planet                         Eoanya              MiSTiGRiS           19941024A

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