We watched, helpless and frightened, as they scampered over the moss-covered terrain in ebony waves. They covered the ship, and for several terrifying hours, all of us feared they might eat through the steel plates.
After a tense night, the first rays of dawn sent them fleeing back to their underground dwellings.
When it became apparent that the swarm would not venture into the daylight, our shuttle leaders organized an exploratory team. Several men approached and asked me to join them outside.
Forty minutes later, a dozen of us, all dressed in space suits, stepped out from the shuttle’s airlock to join leaders and scientists from the other eleven vessels. Armed with measuring devices, we probed the land and air.
The more we learned, the more fearful we became.
The planet’s atmosphere contained high levels of carbon dioxide, along with smaller amounts of carbon monoxide, methane, and ammonia. Like Mars, the scarlet sky was devoid of an ozone layer, but unlike the Red Planet back in our end of the galaxy, there was no shelter on this desolate world other than our broken vessels, and no raw materials to access to gain a foothold.
After three hours, our teams returned to our respective vessels, the reality of our situation too overwhelming to bear. We were marooned on a world lacking fresh water, vegetation, and breathable air. There was no ozone layer to protect us from the alien sun’s ultraviolet rays, and in five months, our ship’s supplies would run out… assuming the nocturnal scavengers did not devour us first.
Two million years ago, our ancestors had managed to survive their own harsh beginnings in the jungles of East Africa. The first humans had migrated into new lands and faced life-threatening challenges. They had sought shelter in caves, and crafted tools to hunt with. They had learned how to harness fire and to farm, and had built thriving civilizations. Ever the explorer, man had eventually constructed great vessels, crossing dangerous oceans in order to satisfy both his need to improve his lot in life and his inquisitiveness.
And now, in a sense, so had we.
As Michael Gabriel, I had once remote-viewed a member of Christopher Columbus’s crew. Sharing Bill Raby’s consciousness, I could finally experience what these brave explorers must have felt as their voyage across the Atlantic grew more desperate.
The hopelessness.
The fear.
The constant bickering.
Twelve Earth ships had crash-landed in a toxic environment. Twelve ships possessing a limited supply of air, food, and water.
Twelve ships. Six hundred-plus opinions.
Long before we had launched from Earth, Mars Colony and its ten thousand chosen inhabitants had been preorganized into five districts. We had appointed representatives and even a newly elected president. The multiple party system had been tabled for the moment, but democracy would rule the Red Planet just as it had shaped America, with a new Constitution and a Bill of Rights.
None of that had any bearing on our present dilemma. We were castaways, forever separated from the collective. In space, the crew had called the shots, but now the ships were dead, and anarchy ruled the day.
If we had been a colony of ants, we’d have been working side by side before that second dawn. If we had been a beehive, there would have been no question of authority.
But we were modern man, cursed with ego, full of self. So before we could begin searching for food and fresh water, before we could start designing shelters, before we could see to our most basic needs
… first, we had to decide who was in charge.
Imagine twelve cramped space vehicles filled with hundreds of emotionally crazed passengers and a limited number of atmospheric suits. It took three hours of negotiations on the ship-to-ship communicators just to determine where the first council meeting would be held and who would attend.
Atmospheric scientists wanted to be heard. So did the geologists, horticulturists, medical staff, engineers, architects… in fact, everyone wanted to voice an opinion. It was an endless gaggle of babble, compounded by the hopelessness of our situation.
Finally, one man rose above the fray to bring order to the chaos… the only man who could.
Devlin Mabus.
Mabus? Father, was he related to Peter Mabus, the billionaire?
He was his grandson. Devlin’s company, MTI, had financed a third of the Mars Colony. His team had selected more than half of the survivors on our space vehicles. He had already been appointed to the president’s new cabinet as vice president and was easily the highest-ranking Mars official present among us.
More important, Devlin had boarded his private shuttle with two dozen heavily armed bodyguards, all loyal to the influential billionaire and his poisonous mother.
Devlin decided each ship would elect three representatives to serve as liaisons to communicate with the newly formed Council, over which he would preside. This hierarchy worked well enough… until the day one representative openly voiced his disagreement, causing a rift among the leadership. Devlin took it all in stride, then had the dissenter relocated to his own ship so that the two could ‘come to a political resolution on behalf of the colony.’
The dissenter’s opinions changed. Two days later, he went for a ‘stroll.’
The ‘stroll’ was a walk outside the shuttle without an environmental suit.
The ‘stroll’ was suicide.
This Devlin sounds an awful lot like his grandfather.
I have no doubt he was even worse, having met his mother, a woman who could manipulate a small nation with her beauty, and crush them in her evil embrace. She was as alluring and as deadly as a Venus flytrap, and she was Devlin’s best friend and only confidant. The two of them made quite the pair, and yet, as much as I feared them, our colony survived on the virtue of their combined strength.
With each passing day, our situation grew more hopeless. Exploration teams would leave every dawn in search of food and water, but could never venture too far, forced to return before the giant beetles made their nightly appearance.
Traps were set to capture a few specimens. We learned the insects were blind, existing on microbes found within the volcanic rock and moss.
Unfortunately, the alien insects were not edible.
As hope faded, the suicide walks increased. Sometimes it was an individual, sometimes an entire family. Depression spread like the plague. A limited supply of environmental suits kept most civilians confined to their ships, increasing our feelings of isolation.
Still, our colony was blessed with some of the best minds our species had to offer. Using spare parts, engineers were able to upgrade an unmanned aerovehicle one of the children had brought on board. Each morning our drone scout would venture forth like Noah’s dove, searching for salvation.
And then, on the afternoon of our forty-third day on the planet, we found it…
17
The light fades, and with it all my fear
The atmosphere’s electric, I can feel her near,
Her breath on my skin, her touch on my soul,
The spell has been cast, she has total control
The succubus, she comes to me,
Visits in the night;
Wringing the love out of me,
Our joined souls ignite
Quenton Morehead is alone with Lilith in his one-room church, the two of them repainting the pews. For the last two days he has kept clear of the girl, her sudden confidence and exhibitionism shocking the minister while turning him on.