Cemetery Planet: The Complete Series Page 4

  “From what?” they locked stares. “What was out there? What was it, Lea?”

  “I don’t know!” she tortured her own hair, pulling and squeezing large clumps in frustrated anxiety. “It was something…something I can’t explain!”

  “I can explain it,” he tried to remain calm in the midst of her tantrum. “It’s you. You’re making this thing up to have an excuse for what you really want, which is me.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. And you want me here, on this godforsaken place with you forever.”

  “No!”

  “And you’d do anything to keep me here, with you, forever…even if that means killing me!” his eyes felt on fire as he shot an accusing glare. She stumbled two steps backward and held her own chest.

  “Harvey. How could you think such a thing? I love you, Harvey. Can’t you see that? I’d never want to harm you, ever. It’s not me. But it’s something. Something’s here, and it’s trying to hurt you.”

  He wiped his cheeks and runny nose on his suit. “I don’t know what to believe anymore,” shaking his head, he looked at her CPU again. “The things you’ve been doing lately…No,” he straightened and exhaled hard. “No, I have to do this.”

  “But…but what’ll happen to me?” she looked at his hands. “When you unplug my power, where will I go? Will I die?

  “I-I don’t know…I’m sorry.”

  “Harvey, please!” she threw herself onto him, blinding him with her projected light. He squeezed his eyelids to slivers and held the power connectors firm. “Don’t do this, Harvey! Harvey, I love you!”

  “I love you, too, Lea. But I can’t let you kill me,” he yanked the wires free, severing the connection cleanly. Sparks erupted, and the projected image folded. A distorted, wavering last memory of the one person in existence with which he’d ever truly felt a connection. Her twisted expression of agony flashed by as the diffuser powered down, accompanied by a mournful, “NO!”

  The mausoleum turned more still and quiet than he’d ever remembered. No sounds of Lea, singing some ancient serenade. No glowing sight of her prancing on her toes to her own melody. She was gone. The polarity coupler shorted out her processor when he pulled the plug. Fried her brains like bacon.

  In the darkest, most isolated seat of the temple, with the memory of her swirling, lingering, he leaned his head against a clenched fist and bawled. And bawled. And bawled.

  12.

  The next several nights went by with mind-numbing sluggishness. His routine, after almost a whole Earth year (six hundred and seventy two Cemetery Planet days) had been engrained into him to where he could do it with his eyes closed. Testing the visitor center auditorium presentation, inspecting the interactive maps, riding the personal motility devices, and fighting with the autoserve food printer for a decent dish of ice cream. He kept up his entire daily schedule, all but one thing—the holomemorials. He refused to look at another one. Outside, and especially in the mausoleum. He hated that place, that world of the dead, and wanted it erased from his memory, starting now.

  He thought he had it beat, his loneliness, his fear. He thought, when he got to within three days of his departure, three days until his contract was up, he’d be home free.

  Then he started having hallucinations. At least he wanted to believe they were hallucinations. The alternative was too illogical, too unreasonable, too crazy.

  The first one woke him up. In the dark, beside his bunk, he caught a glimpse of a face. No body, no hair or other features, just a face. It appeared and disappeared just like that, and Harvey nearly blinked and missed it, yet he saw it, and when it vanished, a ripple of recognition crested into a tidal wave of realization. He knew that face. Lea.

  He saw her a second time in the food court. As he tossed his used tray into the recycler, there she stood, this time a complete form, albeit not much more than a slight layer of steam, colorless and weak. But she was there. And he knew by her expression she was pleading with him, just as she had the last seconds of her existence.

  The final time she made herself seen, he was in the theater, running the Welcome to Cemetery Planet presentation. He saw someone sitting a few rows down from him, and his skin crawled. He blinked and the person vanished. Then he looked to his left and she was in the chair next to him. She reached for him and he became so terrified, he fell over his seat onto the floor. When he popped up to his feet, she was gone again. At that point, he lost his patience. Something had to be done.

  13.

  For the first time since he’d pulled the plug on her, Harvey ventured into the twelve-level, subterranean catacombs known as the Cemetery Planet Mausoleum. He’d told himself he never wanted to set foot in this place ever again. Only a few more days left. A short timer. He could afford to let his duties slide. He’d had it. No more graves, no more vaults, no more holomemorials. But…Lea. He had to know once and for all if he was just seeing things, or if somehow she’d survived, if her processor still had life.

  A thorough inspection rewarded him with only a further belief he might have been losing his mind. A fried processer, roasted memory blocks, a wad of melted optic fibers. All beyond repair, totally and hopelessly. No way could any sort of processing be taking place in there. To be sure, he tried booting up the system. Nothing. No sound, no lights, not even a flicker of residual voltage from the auxiliary power source.

  “That’s it,” he sighed. “It’s official. I’m nuts. This place has driven me absolutely bonkers,” he slammed the holomemorial control panel and his every skin cell tingled with icy pinpricks at what he saw to his left, far away, down the vast corridor. Lea. He knew it was her. A distinct pattern of wavering light and shadow.

  “Harvey…” her voice carried on some unknown wavelength, outside the range of human senses. The unnatural timber made his hair stand on end. The image, the vision. It was real, not his mind filling the lonely void. Clearly, though, she was not a holoprojection. No holoprojection could do the things she did, or sound the way she sounded. She said his name again, beckoning him to come to her. Without a thought, he obeyed.

  When he got halfway, Lea’s spectral image moved into an interconnecting hall, disappearing from sight. Walking became jogging, then sprinting, to the end of the passageway. There, he saw her again, but only fleetingly. She vanished past the next junction, dodging left, as if playing a game. He had no taste for games. Still, curiosity ruled his actions, and he followed her to the next passage, and the next, each time catching but a glimpse of her lustrous glow. Soon he discovered Lea had led him out of the mausoleum and into the concourse, where a large observation porthole allowed visitors to gaze over a good percentage of Section A-1.

  Lea’s shimmering form hovered near the window, and he rushed to be by her side. He knew that’s all she really wanted, to be with him one last time. She stood silent and still, sights locked on the infinite span of gravestones. The closer he came, the less he saw of her. Her airy appearance became even more diffuse against the background, until, like the end of a rainbow, she went away completely when he made it to where she’d been standing.

  Perplexed, he looked outside, and caught a veritable boneyard. Pile after pile after pile of uprooted dirt, multitudes of spoiled, looted, desecrated graves. Coffins opened and sullied. Cement lids thrown aside and crushed. And, littered about the demolition, were human remains. Skeletons ripped apart and flung into haphazard heaps.

  His only thought came swiftly. The darkest, most dreadful thought imaginable. Lea. She wanted him to stay, desperately, and without any moral obstacle. And though he’d destroyed her CPU, somehow she’d transferred enough of her algorithms into the network. She’d gotten control of a gravedigger again, and this time she meant business. One grave or another, he thought, she was going to bury him.

  He backed away from the sight, contemplating his next move. Getting in the space elevator now and waiting it out in the shuttle port up top became his prevalent opinion. Then he had second thoughts about the mess he was goin
g to leave for the next caretaker to clean up, God help him.

  A red flashing light and a deafening alarm made his decision for him. He found the nearest computer terminal immediately, and discovered some disturbing news. Life support systems, specifically the heating, cooling and oxygen, had been compromised. Severely. Levels were low, and dropping steadily. He had minutes. Screw the next caretaker. This place had problems. Serious problems.

  He took nothing, made no mad dash to his living quarters to pack a thing. He didn’t even grab his logbook. He wouldn’t need it. The memories of this place would be etched permanently in his mind like chiseled granite. Get to the elevator. That was his only thought.

  Rounding a curved hallway, he saw out a porthole. Rising above the perpetual expanse of graves like a church spire, were the space elevator’s thin exotanium cables. He made it three steps. Then an explosion of blinding light forced him to his belly. The sound came next, deafening and quick. Then the ground rumbled and the ceiling swayed. He feared standing again, but did anyway. His way out, his only way out. Ruined. At the base of the elevator, sparks flared up from several places. Then the lights went out, the glow from the binary star system casting multiple shadows in the devastated graveyard outside.

  14.

  Space elevator out of order…power transformer damaged…remedy: replace transformer.

  He listened to the voice prompt, reading word for word what it said on the screen and ruminating over the prospect of having to go outside again. He really wanted his days of wearing a damn spacesuit to be over. Especially now, with all those exhumed graves. It gave him an unnatural sense of dread. Then his rational mind took over. Without restoring power to the space elevator, his chances of getting off this desolate place anytime soon was at flatline.

  So he squeezed on a suit, dealt with the discomfort, and went out through the utility bay airlock. When he reached the outer walls of the space elevator, he found the power generator housing. He scanned the couplings, taking a visual inventory, searching for any damage. After spotting nothing out of the ordinary, his thoughts began drifting, so when he saw the oddity, it didn’t register. He snapped out of it quick, though, responding to an internal alarm. Scratches. Deep and long, in the exotanium shell. An alloy made mostly of exotite, exotanium was stronger than any other metal known to man. Once, Harvey had seen a guy back a freight transport right into the side of a storage pod made of exotanium. The transport crumpled like a tin can. The pod didn’t have a scratch. Whatever put these types of abrasions into the space elevator’s side had to be strong.

  As his helmet lights followed one of the deeper, more pronounced scrape marks, he noticed another out of place item imbedded in the metal. With his gloved right hand, he pried on the black, semi-lustrous projection. No luck. The object had too much of a hold on the exotanium. With a pair of power pliers from his suit’s toolbelt, he managed a tight grip and a good tug, forcing the thing from its hiding place.

  One good, close look, and he knew what he had. Ten centimeters long, bent slightly, with a smooth, transparent surface and a needle-point Harvey was afraid to touch. It had a concave shape, and the narrow, curved part was compacted with soil and rock and metal from scratching the outer wall. No doubt he’d found a claw, and he wanted no part in meeting whatever owned it.

  His mind began spinning with the implications. What kind of creature could have left such a monstrous talon? Not only that, what possessed the strength to cause such damage to the pod’s virtually indestructible shell? Then he heard a rumble, felt it too, and came back to the present with a disconcerted start. The grinding, squeaking and whirring identified itself before he twisted to see what was behind him. Still, the sight, when he did get turned around in his bulky suit, alarmed him—a gravedigger, its toothed bucket lifted to eye level, speeding straight for his head.

  He had only enough time to drop and roll onto his shoulder. As he did, the large scoop smashed into the side of the elevator pod. The wall held firm, but the collision produced a nasty screech and a burst of blinding sparks. Harvey surprised himself with how quickly he got back to his feet in that unwieldy suit. Every bit of his own self-praise vaporized when he got sight of the gravedigger, and what it did next. Swiftly, so swiftly he had no chance to react, the big rig swung its mechanized arm his direction, catching him square in the chest.

  He flew a couple meters before a hard landing, punching the air clean out of his lungs. He wheezed to regain his breath, then noticed the alarm and message in his visor display. Life support system offline. Oxygen levels critical. He had to get back inside the main pod. Now.

  Sitting up, he felt a sharp dagger in his lower spine so severe, he just wanted to lay down, curl up, and rest. The screaming alarms in his helmet made him try again, and the two-ton excavator headed his way provided all the incentive he needed.

  Harvey backed off a step. Then another. Then he stumbled and found himself horizontal once again, staring at the bejeweled sky. He had no time to enjoy the alien twilight. The gravedigger sped at him with callous unrestraint, and he couldn’t move.

  Then, a curious thing. The gravedigger’s steel-plated tracks whined to a stop, and the quiet motor became even quieter. His audio sensors picked up sounds of movement inside the cab. The hatch disengaged. The seams popped, releasing a burst of steam, and out stepped the strangest thing Harvey had ever laid eyes upon. It looked small, but his vision must have been deceiving him, since it had to literally unfold itself from the gravedigger’s cockpit. It had pale gray, dry spiny skin with all kinds of dark blemishes, patterns really. The more he looked at it, the more he realized it was a sort of natural camouflage, color and light which allowed it to blend in with the background. That was why it looked so small. He couldn’t see it, not completely, not without looking just to the left or right of it, catching it in his peripheral vision.

  The being’s outer appearance, when he got a good look at it, conveyed a lifelessness. Cold. Dead. All but it’s eyes. They sparkled with intelligence and vibrancy reserved for the only most enlightened of beings. It had to be intelligent to drive the gravedigger. Something else burned in those eyes. An ancient hunger. An insatiable appetite. Harvey realized right then this creature was the one responsible for the mass grave upheaval, and that hunger was the sole motivation. Now, the thing wanted him. Fresh meat, was all he thought, as if picking up on the creature’s intent.

  He thrashed his legs, a feeble attempt at putting distance between him and this alien predator. The enigmatic monster moved much quicker, more at home in the diminished gravity and freezing temperatures. It bounded toward him so fast, Harvey had a hard time keeping it in his sights. Its camouflage blended into the night sky, and he lost it for a quick second. Then it was on top of him. He had time to fill his lungs once as the creature pierced his visor. The already steady alarm inside his helmet went crazy, then, suddenly, it died, and Harvey felt the penetrating cold against his cheeks. One lungful of air was all he had. Then it would be over.

  “HARVEY!” a voice rushed like a gale-force wind. The creature stood straight, its erudite eyes surveying the area. Did Harvey detect a hint of fear from this thing? Then the voice called out his name again, and the alien being snapped the other way, then straight again. It let out a monstrous wail so ground-shaking Harvey’s ribcage rattled. The display of bravado didn’t seem to work. The creature’s breathing became erratic. It stepped away from Harvey, and that’s when he saw Lea. She was only a wisp of light and fog and distorted space. An ethereal tornado. The glowing, dancing haze went straight for Harvey’s attacker, forcing it away even more. Harvey tried to get up, tried to get himself into the station. The cold had traveled into his suit already, and, almost immediately, his joints had stiffened, his muscles refused to work. He needed to exhale, but had nothing left to take in again. It wouldn’t be long until he suffocated.

  The creature’s throaty cries bounced across the headstones. It swished its long, stout arms in the air as if trying to swat at a swarm of in
sects, crying out in agony and anger at the same time. The cloud of tempestuous light had it encircled, and had coalesced into several shards, sharp like blades, spinning so fast they looked like lightning. Back, back, back the creature stepped, until it let loose a determined grunt and marched straight for Harvey once again, its ravenous sights set firmly on a meal.

  The shapeless veil of electric dust blended into a human shape. Radiant with her own energy, Lea had the look of a desperate animal, her eyes gleaming with restless passion. She watched the alien monster take one step, then shot like a laser toward the gravedigger, and it roared awake instantly, lights blaring, pneumatics recharging. Harvey kicked his legs hard one more time, readying for what he knew was coming next. Raised high, the gravedigger’s massive arm swung quickly and the bucket dropped straight down on the creature.

  Harvey closed his eyes as the spray of viscous fluids hit him, splattering his suit and getting into his helmet. He couldn’t breathe, and for a second thought that might have been a good thing. The creature’s blood was revolting. The shrill alarm rang again and again in his ear, as if he needed the reminder. He knew. The gripping cold. The razor-thin atmosphere. The foul air. The gasses sent a wave of nausea through his system, blackening his vision to the point of near blindness. The last thing he remembered, moments before succumbing to utter oblivion, was the massive metal jaw maneuvering beneath him with surprising nimbleness. Gently but quickly, he was swept to the utility bay, where he got his first taste of oxygen in a long, long time.