Rhea's End

By Adam Howell

Three people are forced to land on the planet Rhea. A world now known as the planet of the damned. What happened to this once great civilisation is clouded in rumour and legend. A cautionary tale for those who wish to hand their lives over to machines. The crew take the opportunity to explore the planet and, in doing so, they uncover exactly how much of the nightmare is still in play.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adam Howell
• Release date: Feb 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301463596

Adam Howell

Currently broke and living in a dustbin. Please stop depositing your rubbish in my living room. This bin operates under a finders keepers policy, and the following items will not be returned: Unshredded bank statements, your favourite hat (which your partner hated), and the growing collection of old socks (delivered by your washing machine every Tuesday). I do not, however, have any need for body parts and would be thankful if you removed the remains of Mrs Simmons and disposed of her elsewhere. Furthermore, I find your frequent use of expletives, whilst attempting to carry me and my home to the side of the road every week, highly offensive. I do not weigh a ton, and, due in part to your less than desirable cooking, I have lost a number of pounds since moving here. I am not running a charity and my tolerance of your anti-social behaviour has limits. I am, however, willing to make an effort. Should you give me £1 for a cup of tea, I will, for the sake of community cohesion, endeavour to overlook your less than neighbourly behaviour. Yours faithfully Adam Howell

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Rhea’s End

By Adam Howell

Copyright © 2013 Adam Howell

The right of Adam Howell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Acknowledgements

Thank you Lootheen http://www.furaffinity.net/user/weiro/ for drawing the terrific front cover for me, and thank you to my family for all their help and support.

Part 1: Built As Angels

Chapter 1

The planet Rhea was abandoned by civilisation centuries ago. They left only the immortals behind. Remnants of ancestors which ‘morality’ prevented from being turned off. Crispy thin creatures, completing their day to day activities, oblivious to the world as they were hoisted along by their internal enhancements.

Their minds switched off long ago, they shuddered about, limbs pulled and twisted from within, as they ran through their scheduled tasks. Instructions to carry out day to day activities all offloaded onto autopilot many lifetimes ago. Stale flesh, muscles withered away to nothing, thin skin, bright yellow, as if discoloured over time - all kept alive for the sake of existence.

Our ship was forced to land after an accident. A fault in the new spatial location system, acquired at great expense by our preacher. The preacher had more than likely pocketed half the cash and spent what was left on a defective piece of scrap, but I wasn’t going to cause an argument - not when stranded. I could make him compensate me when we were successfully back at Mapheus.

We landed in Rhea’s old capital, Cetus Park. The buildings were well maintained, the lights were on, glowing from out of the biodomes. It seemed as fresh as any modern city. But the shriveled bodies, lurching around from building to building - they were the only sign something was wrong.

I’ve travelled the nineteen planets, experienced the harshness of the most extreme habitations, I’ve seen people in many shapes and sizes. Humanity has molded itself to differing environments.

The people of Rhea formed a nightmare. A warning of how we must value our minds.

The bodies walked their preset patterns along the roads; paths they would have travelled for centuries. A computer controlled race of human remains - the immortals - their minds no longer touched by the reality of their situation.

There were three of us. It was a controlled landing in a favourable atmosphere. There was me, Raul Hampher. I held the honorary title of captain - captain of a ship which would never fly again.

Then there was Florina Jesp, an artist and passenger. She made balloons out of fruit. It was meant to speak of our physical transcendence. She should have taken the opportunity, on Rhea, to make a balloon out of an immortal. That would be a message I’d understand.

Her sight recognised eight primary colours, none of which were visible to me. This was a modification granted to her by her parents, who had decided, before she was born, that she’d make a talented artist. She had dark charcoal grey skin and light grey hair, as was the norm on Ruk.

Then there was Hayden South, our preacher. He displayed an impressive knowledge, especially of the value of things on the black market. There could be no theft or scavenging here on Rhea. The immortal’s autopilots fulfilled every role of society, even the police - pointless as it would normally be.

If you were to get arrested you might end up stuck here. There were many stories about Rhea. People landing and never being heard of again. Hayden would have to control himself.

He had rough skin with short bristly hair. I’d seen similar skin adaptations many times before. It gave away his desert planet origins. All the humans, on all the worlds, have taken the opportunity to modify themselves. Rhea - although their method was synthetic rather than genetic - was one of the first worlds to really make dramatic human modifications. They walked into their fate blindly, bit by bit.

It’s a harsh world on which to live - heavy gravity and hot humid weather. I was the only one of us who didn’t seem to mind the conditions. The other two were driven on by excitement, but I could see the strain put on their bodies.

At first the people here - if you can call them people - were useful. They attempted to repair our ship for us, though our technology would be centuries beyond theirs and they’d have no spare parts. We’d launched a transmission pod before we hit the atmosphere. A rescue would be less than a week away. We just had to knuckle down and wait.

The immortals gave us shelter and a supply of freshly farmed food. Their voices were sloppy. Their enhancements struggled to push the bodies into the shapes needed to make sound. Their lips would be shoved to the side and pried apart by synthetic muscles. Unnatural expressions would be stretched across their glazed faces.

They spoke without personality; deadened eyes gazing into space. They listed starting times for dinner and instructed us about the activities available in town, the countless tourist destinations that would have gone centuries without a single guest.

They put us up in a hotel, each with separate rooms. They'd already helped us transport our possessions from the ship and they said that they’d send the rescue party to us, when they arrived.

Florina told me that she thought the city was beautiful and I agreed. Several centuries of ancient architecture layered upon each other. Giant luminous biodomes and pillars reaching down from the sky. Most of the planet was falling apart, but this city’s population - though now merely automatons - was sufficient to maintain everything. A time capsule