The Green Fields of Home [December 2013]

"Home" it was a thought, a concept, a feeling that had never occurred to me before.

I have been on this moon for over five thousand years. Day after day the same thing, the same routine. I looked through my helmet at the barren landscape and knew I had been mining this rock for the precious ore, the element that we knew was important, vital. We had dug deeper and deeper under the surface until almost nothing we needed remained.

Then began the dreams. A vague flicker, something on the tip of my consciousness. I had them, well actually we all had them. One hundred augmented humans with the same dream.

Miller and I rode the shuttle into the mineshaft, which started out as broken jagged black rock, but as we descended deeper into the bowels of the honeycomb, shapes began taking form in the rock walls. Simple shapes at first but as we went further, the walls of the mine became intricate sculptures, people, animals, vessels and buildings. Some of the sculptures appeared to tell stories. We had been mining for thousands of years, had taken the ore that we needed, and left works of art.

I powered up the lights on my helmet and exited the shuttle into the darkness of cavern 51. I nodded to Miller, she went left and I went right. Speaking wasn't necessary, we both knew what each would do. The lights shined on the three life sized humanoid sculptures in front of me, casting long shadows across the expanse. Cavern 51 was fifty one kilometers across and contained thousands of pillars and carvings. It had never felt strange to me before, but it did this day.

I unholstered my ziptorch. Extracting the ore was delicate work, done by hand. I activated my HUD, which allowed me to see the ore underneath the rock. The silver substance was woven into the rock, and with a little imagination shapes would emerge as the ore was removed from its host. Hours later I was done, I had a pack full of ore, and a black, clenched fist, remained.

At the end of our shift we returned to the shuttle. We made it back to the surface and joined the convoy of other shuttles returning to the ship. Fifty, always fifty mining, and fifty back at the ship. The row of white shuttles, moved single file across the bright lunar surface, contrasted by the black star filled sky. We headed toward the mountainous horizon and finally reached our destination. The massive ship was almost as black as it's rocky surroundings. The huge bay doors slowly opened as we neared our destination.


to be continued.......

reply to post by dusty1


sorry was thinking,, Green, Green Grass of home,, Merl Hagart song,,,

imagine singing that song in Denver now???

hmmm

thats a lot of fields,,of grass,,,at home,,

sorry.

I wanted to put this in my profile, so I can read it tomorrow. You said to be continued, right?

reply to post by dusty1


Very good dusty1. I also look forward to the next installment. Some competition in this first episode.

You hooked me too.

.....my hand was outstretched, gliding on the tips of the waist high green grass, as I walked.....

I woke up.

A sensor detected I was awake, and a warm glow began filling my quarters as I lay in my bunk. Carvings covered the dark metallic walls in the small room. I stepped into the, white, UV booth in the corner of the room. Bright light enveloped me, as warm air circulated like a vortex around my body, cleansing my skin. A few moments passed, I exited the booth. I finished getting ready, put on a tunic, and as I approached the metal door, it shimmered, becoming the consistency of fabric, allowing me to pass through, leaving my quarters.

I walked down the soft, glowing, white tiled path, down the dark metallic corridor. My hand ran across the intricate flower pattern etched into the wall. I entered the large mess hall, took my meal from the replicator along with a drink. I saw Brin sitting at a table, I could see by the way he sat that the blonde haired, fair skinned man must have hurt his back. I also knew what he was going to say as soon as we made eye contact. "Yeah Brin, I am having them to".

Brin replied, "Kel, almost as long as I can remember, I've only dreamed of the sculptures we've made in the mines and on the ship, before that, I could never remember them. Now I feel a draw to a far away place, I catch a glimpse of it in my dreams. There is something else. Sometimes when I see some of the things I have made with my own hands, it seems strange. Like, saying a name, or writing a word that you've seen or heard a thousand times, but all of a sudden, for a moment, it doesn't look right, or sound right. But it's supposed to be right." Brin went on to relate the same experiences that everyone else had, including myself. It was like we were slowly waking from sleep, a fog was slowly clearing from our perception. Going back to the mines began to seem, strange, pointless. We would only dream of carvings or sculpts after they were created, never before. We would "see" what had to be carved in rock or metal, but we weren't doing so from conscience memory. That's one of the reasons that dreaming of something else was so strange, that, and the fact that we all shared the same dream at the same time. I ate the brown mush and washed it down with a mug of water, as I did every day,
for as long as I could remember.


"Kel, your augments seem to be working within normal parameters". Jin said, as I studied the extra stitching on her name tag. She moved the hovering scanner away from me. "They're working to repair the broken rib you got from your sparing partner. And, yes, I'm having the dream as well". We could not read minds, what we did have, was an ability to read each other, and predict physical and verbal responses. "Me to" said Xe as he walked in the lab. "Kel, we do maintenance on the ship, drills etc. but until the dream started, It never occurred to me that we should do anything beside be here, and mine the Illumarite. Now that the scanners show that it's virtually gone, the dreams started, and everyday I have a increasing desire to leave this place and, go", he paused, "home", I said, as I finished his sentence.

Jin spoke, "Kel, one last thing, why did you let Thompson break your rib?"
"He distracted me" I said.
"What could he have possibly done?" Asked Xe.
"He did this", I said. They were of course stunned. I knew what was next.
"Do it again Kel" Said Jin, as she took a picture of my face with the scanner.

She showed me the image of my face while I had mimicked Thompson. In the picture, my mouth did the same strange thing. My lips were separated, I could see almost all my teeth. The corners of my mouth curved upward.

It made me feel warm inside.

I later learned, it was called,

a smile..........



(To be continued)........

Smiling, along with some other traits became contagious.

The dreams continued with greater detail. We had maintained the ship, along with the help of the augments for five thousand years. We had no conscious knowledge of any other place besides this rock, that we worked at, so diligently. The sculpts we created began to make sense, they were, of our new destination. Some images were beautiful, some violent. We took trips to the mine, for one last look, at the thousands of square kilometers of images we created. I became fixated on one large sculpt that I produced. It was a large planetoid with a crack running down the center. Some of the work I produced while extracting ore was pleasant, but most of my creations were very disturbing to me. I had never really reflected on them until now. All of us had just seemed to plod along in our labors for a very, very long time.

Miller and I returned to the ship, She took off her helmet, for the first time, I noticed her long red hair, and realized that I found her smile to be, the most pleasing of all.

I stared down the shaft, into the Dark Energy Drive, somewhere about a half kilometer below was the power that would propel us away from this moon . I turned around, all the view screens were lit up and everyone was at there stations. We had done drills like this periodically, for as long as I could remember. Now it made sense. We were still acting on compulsion, but now we weren't just going through the motions. Most of all, we just wanted to return to the place in our dreams. I began to feel an aching emptiness at the thought of remaining on this moon.

We engaged the coordinates we remembered from our dream, the 2 kilometer ship vibrated and lurched upwards toward the sky. I imagined standing on the lunar surface and watching the massive ship rumble desperately upwards toward the stars and then blink out of existence.

The Dark Energy Drive was engaged and we were propelled through dark matter to the other side of the universe. My heart raced and I wanted nothing more than to return to where I knew I belonged.

We blinked into existence orbiting the planet we knew was ours. The screen showed a single large land mass. The scanners showed it was a wasteland. I felt a sense of dread come over me, and knew I was not alone. A few domed cities scattered the continent. We landed near the closest. Communication attempts were made but there was no answer.

We donned our helmets, and disembarked from the ship, in our shuttles, toward the domed settlement.


We contacted the humans and after a series of misunderstandings, they offered us their unconditional surrender. The domed cities did contain what they called vegetation, but not like in our dreams. Other than the life supporting domes, their technology was very underdeveloped.

The cities on the world communicated with each other and I was finally told why they wished to surrender to me and my people.

"You are Admiral Kel, Destroyer of Worlds" he said. Apparently, I, was a mythical figure. "It is obvious that we are no match for your technology" said Mathius, the spokesman for the People of the Dome.

I convinced Mathius I would not accept his surrender. After sharing my experience on the moon, he agreed to tell me what he knew about my people and our mission.

"Kel, according to our recorded history, thousands of years ago, there was a galactic civil war between two waring factions. This world that you stand on, against your world. Kel, according to history, you started the war and were finally defeated, you were actually betrayed by one of your close friends. General Horatio Thompson. You had a unique strategy, in which you would divide your forces in two, he commanded the other force, and turned against you. The ancestors of my world, using the last of a newly discovered element called Illumarite, were able to defeat your divided force, but at great cost." Mathius paused.

"Kel, your world was destroyed. You and your people were convicted of war crimes. In the aftermath of the war, the planets that were left were clinging to life. Illumarite was thought to be the key to survival of our burned out worlds. Five ships were sent out, each had a fifty year mission. Until today, only one ship returned, the crew was old, and had only found, quite literally, a handful of Illumarite. This is what has kept the life support in our cities operational for all these years. Also we've had no contact with any of the other worlds in over two thousand years." Mathius swallowed hard.

He went on. "Most of these missions were manned by volunteers and prisoners or the dregs of society. Your ship was manned by war criminals. Your memories were completely wiped, you were all sterilized, and your condition was perpetuated by a form of nanotechnology. You were virtually turned into machines, to find an element. After fifty years, nearing the end of your lives, you were programmed to return here with what you had collected."

Mathius said "I'm sorry, but what I've read, still does not explain your incredible lifespan, the images you carved on that moon, or why you didn't return over forty nine hundred years ago."

I had come looking for answers, but was left with even more questions.



That evening, all one hundred of us, put on our helmets and walked out of the ship. We walked across the barren, lifeless wasteland in complete silence. We were walking to the place programmed in our dreams. After several hours we reached the high plateau. Yes, this looked very much like the surface of the moon we had lived on for so many ancient years.

"Kel, it was all for nothing, the moon, our dreams....." Thompson voice crackled over the communicator. I knew he would say it, but it still pierced my heart like cold metal.

Something flickered at the edge of my mind. I could feel the last of the fog lifting from my consciousness.

Then it came to me.

"No" I said.

"No, we were trying to pay for our sins.

For five thousand years we made ourselves look into the faces of those we hurt, those we destroyed. We were not programmed to this, it came from within us. We left a monument to the fallen, on that distant moon, those that loved them are gone, and forgotten, but even in our condition we could not forget."

I raised my hands to the height of my waist.

"Close your eyes" I said. "Imagine a field of green." I could see it, rolling green hills stretching out to the horizon.

"I am not Admiral Kel, Destroyer of Worlds, and you are not those people. They are gone, left behind five thousand years ago. I know in my heart that this is where we belong. A handful of Illumarite has sustained life on this planet. We have a hundred tons of it, in the hold of our ship.

We will make this world the world that exists in our dreams."

Xe's voice came through my Com.

"Kel, Builder of Worlds" He said. Even with my eyes closed, I could tell he was grinning.


I stretched my neck upward toward the large yellow star in the sky, I could feel its warmth on my visor. Miller's small hand grabbed mine.


I knew that at long last, I was,


Home..........

reply to post by letmeon


I hope you liked the rest.

reply to post by bally001


Thanks Bally!

reply to post by dusty1


Well done!

It was very well written. You say in your profile you are a writer. Good luck with that. It sounded professional. I wish I could write like that.

reply to post by InTheLight


Hopefully you liked the rest of the story.


I wrote this for the contest as an allegory for a few things. One was the rut I get into sometimes with work, I get so wrapped up in things that I lose track of time and what is most important in life. Another thing I tried to write about is my hope that there is something better ahead. Often I am left disappointed, but I have realized that life is what you make it. All you can do is work at being a better person, and try to be a positive force on those around you.

And just let go of the past.........

reply to post by letmeon


Thanks letmeon. I read a lot of science fiction when I was young. I also read the Bible and was taught to find the meaning behind the story. I think in science fiction, the good writers are trying to express ideas and feelings in their stories. I loved the Dune series by Frank Herbert as a kid, and I'm probably subconsciously ripping him and many other real writers off.

reply to post by beezzer


Thanks beezzer!

I look forward to reading your story tonight.

EPILOGUE:


The prairie was like a vast green ocean, a strong warm breeze propelled the small vessel over its rolling hills. The wooden ship floated above the sea of grass and flowers, by means of antigrav suspensors, which glowed white under the hull of the vessel. A large white sail, inked with symbols, scooped the air that swept its captain toward his destination. The craft gracefully navigated the terrain, no sign of it's passage could be detected by it's wake. The wooden hull was light, yet possessed incredible resiliency and strength, thanks to the nanotechnology infused in its matrix.

Alone on the deck of the windship, stood the tall, grey haired navigator. His strong hands grasped the reigns of the powerful vessel. His piercing blue eyes, shielded by clear goggles, were focused intently on the massive stone structure growing larger on the horizon. He could hear only the rushing sound of the wind blowing across his sail. As he approached the gigantic stone cube, he read the inscription out loud, "Laiath Yionma" when translated it means, Corner Stone.

The windship glided silently up to the stone structure. From a distance it appeared like a small insect in comparison to the carved structure. The powerful old man entered the stone doorway, he walked the long narrow tunnel which opened into a small room full of instruments. After a few minor calibrations he said "that should do for another hundred years".

Kel left the monolith, he knew Miller would be waiting, along with his many friends.

As he climbed back aboard the windship, he also knew, there was a 99 percent chance, the weather, would be perfect.......

I really liked the feeling of attonement at the end. Well done S&F!

reply to post by Cameoii


Thank you Cameoii. I wrote the epilogue to wrap it up.

I have other ideas to continue the story but don't know how far to take it in a short story format.

I will take a look at your submission.