The Last Day Before Forever
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About this ebook
Avoiding lidscans and thought watchers, Bragen races back and forth through time, in the process finding a past that is never over.
James Bailey Blackshear
James Bailey Blackshear is an award-winning author, historian, professor, husband, father, and grandpa who loves reading, writing, autumns in Texas and summers in New Mexico. His history books and journal articles focus on nineteenth-century Northeastern New Mexico, yet as The Last Day Before Forever attests, his writing interests are varied. He believes reality is often found somewhere between fiction and non-fiction, between an everchanging past and future that is just as elusive.
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The Last Day Before Forever - James Bailey Blackshear
Somewhat reluctantly, all the children but Misla began to back away. Still holding zas hand, she led zam up the steps. Feelwin held the door.
I have to go now,
she said.
Bragen could see inside. There was someone else there, but otherwise the building seemed empty. Zie looked back. The children were walking across the field toward another building. Like a soft breeze, a hollow feeling passed through zam. Misla squeezed zas hand.
It is ok,
she said.
As she spoke, the ring around her neck faded, then turned a brighter orange. She looked up at zam. Bragen bent down. Those hazel-colored eyes seemed to suck something out of zam. Her mouth turned up. Bragen knew this was something pleasant, like a language, but could not relate it to anything zie knew.
Where will you go now?
Zie asked.
Back to school. I will be with my friends there.
What do you do there?
Learn.
Bragen knew the word, but only within an animal context. How a rooker learned to fly. A baby sly-tail’s first venture out of its ground hole. How forest and desert animals adapted to their individual environments. That was what Misla was talking about, but probably something more. What?
Still bent over, zie asked, So, what could you teach me that you have learned?
Misla reached over and placed her arms around zas neck and whispered, Not to be afraid.
Praise
Awards from previous publications:
Will Rogers Gold Medallion Award
Westerner’s International Co-Founders First Place Award
The Last Day Before Forever
by
James Bailey Blackshear
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
The Last Day Before Forever
COPYRIGHT © 2023 by James Bailey Blackshear
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: info@thewildrosepress.com
Cover Art by The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
PO Box 708
Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708
Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com
Publishing History
First Edition, 2023
Trade Paperback ISBN 978-1-5092-5209-1
Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-5210-7
Published in the United States of America
Dedication
For Barbara
Chapter 1
The report came in during the tenth hour of the third moon. A scorptor spotted bones tangled up in a growth of blueweed on Mythgarden Point. Bragen swung away from the Dimensional and looked up at Vatch.
Bones,
zie said, trying to shield zas thoughts. I should know this. What kind of bones?
Well, you tell me,
Vatch replied. The scorptor followed protocol and let your genius, what’s zas name, Cloyden? Let zam know. Zie was over there pretty quick, and took some samples. Zie’s your archy. You didn’t know?
We take samples of some sort every day,
Bragen replied, avoiding a direct answer. I was finishing up your permits when the digaspatch came in. How did you…
Zelio. Zie met Cloyden on the beach. Saw zam pull them out of the vines. The ones with the thorns. What is it again?
Blueweed,
Bragen answered.
Yea. That. Zelio is my site supervisor.
I know,
Bragen said.
"So, then your supervisor left. I got the report, same as you, the only difference being I opened mine. Non-definitive. On bones. I thought you would be there by now."
The message was only a few minutes old. Vatch’s office was just down the hall. Bragen opened it. A nondefinitive bone reading alluded to unknown DNA, which was ridiculous. Among archys, non-definitive was code for mitochondrial. Such readings were impossible, as only lower species, such as mammals contained mitochondrial DNA. Found in both males and females of several sub-species, only females could pass this genome to the next generation. Females. Archodials usually ignored nondefinitive readouts and ran them through the lab before reporting anything. Vatch messed that up. Which meant a pile of red tape awaited zam.
Bragen studied the screen. The Dimensional was in its third cycle, blipping back images of the aerodrome. Zie watched as a parade of dozers and grinders rolled out of the transport’s belly. Several were already lined up on the tarmac, ready for delivery to Mythgarden Point.
That’s not possible,
Bragen said. Zie had led this project for five years, now just days away from completion. Zie watched blue and silver rays wash interstellar particles off the heavy equipment.
I know,
the construction czar agreed. Vatch ran New World Designs, the company contracted to complete ten lifeways on Apollis. Mythgarden Point was the first. A long delay could ruin my projections. Not good.
Cloyden doesn’t make mistakes,
Bragen said, as much to zamself as Vatch.
The supervisor raised zas hands and stepped back. Don’t blame me. You have to fix this and quick. You know the implications.
Yet if your teammate, Bragen thought, had not been so quick to stick zas nose in it, I could have managed this. Zie visualized the topography around Mythgarden Point. Most of that region was made up of canyons, arroyos, and dunes. Desert terrain. But not the target zone.
Irrelevant,
Vatch said, reading zas thoughts. What?
Bragen shrugged. No one had to tell zam what this meant. Cloyden was just doing zas job. Still, the issue had to be dealt with. Who else knew? Zie studied the construction czar’s awkward stance, a sure indication of impatience. To this point, Bragen’s day had been filled with successful operations, final assessments, visualizations, and approvals. All done post-haste as a part of zas final duties on this sun-blasted planet. Bones in blueweed? A disaster.
Bragen stood and stretched, avoiding Vatch’s probe. An hour earlier zie’d anticipated the snap-back that awaited the conclusion of this project. Zas next post, Romo, already took up a lot of zas thoughts. Now? Zie had to pull a grommit out of zas hat. Not the first time zie had done that. Zie looked back at Vatch. Let’s go.
I can’t believe it,
Vatch thought. The equipment is arriving at this very moment! Six crews will be here next week. This doesn’t require a remboot. Someone needs to be cleanwaved.
Bragen closed zas mind and organized zas thoughts. Let’s see for ourselves.
On the way out, zie grabbed zas visor brim and the tharsonome that hung on the back of the door. Together they walked down the tubular metal hallway toward the hoverdeck. They passed the same digitals of construction sites zie’d seen five years earlier. All Vatch’s projects, from Menomis to Lark.
Stellar Law governed what happened before colonization. The Council promulgated a series of edicts meant to ensure that grinders and other machines did not destroy evidence of previous life forms. The same law applied to every planet. Funding allowed archodials like Bragen, archy for short, to perform full-blown colonization assessments that generally took five years. After completed, the real work began. Phase One analysis included green-lighting construction of the aerodrome, the dormitories, and onsite labs. Phase Two included the lifeways. Bragen was finishing up those reports.
Shortly after receiving this assignment, many of Bragen’s peers intimated that zie would never return. Being sent to this largely uninhabitable planet was zas real punishment for the earlier fiasco. Afterwards, Bragen was given two options: do the five years on Apollis or go in for a remboot. Zie’d preferred not to start over. Now the job was done. Or almost done. Zas cohorts were wrong. Yet a non-definitive could screw that up. Maybe Vatch was pranking zam.
A billion silver stars punctured the yellow-green sky. The third moon would soon disappear and the red morning would begin, bringing the heat.
A two-seat Silverstream hovercraft floated on the tarmac, orange steam rising off its lifters. The signal waved them forward. On approach, a small metal step sliced through the craft’s jellyton-like skin. Bragen and Vatch slipped into the vehicle. The hatch closed behind them. The lead archy pulled on the visor and placed the tharsonome in the compartment next to zas seat. Two seconds later they passed through the last vestiges of the atmosphere and entered deep space.
Despite the heat, Apollis was an interesting planet with plenty of unexplainable anomalies. Bragen led the spade work, peeling back the top-soil and cutting trenches across the lifeway. Despite the scuttlebutt concerning zas supposed banishment, zie’d enjoyed those early years. But the bloom was off that rose. Zie was ready to move on.
As thought-prompts prepared them for arrival, Bragen recalled zas first meeting there. Five years earlier Acendor, a member of the Council, placed a piece of amalgamated metal and a few fossils on the display table. Both were found by anthrogenecistmavwa2209, a part of the Solient Expedition. The fossils reminded Bragen of those zie had found on Lark, and brought up files concerning an earlier discovery on that same planet. The Silverstream’s Dimensional brought up an image of Mythgarden Point. They started their descent.
Cloyden greeted them on the tarmac. A few moments later they were in the tunnel that led to the lab. Zelio was also there. On the way, through a series of body movements, Bragen cautioned zas lead to be careful. While the Warp was not as strong on Apollis, the Local worked just fine. Using slight movements of zas own, Cloyden acknowledged zie understood.
The new bones were on a folding table in the middle of the brightly lit room. Vatch gave them a cursory glance, then stepped back. Bragen’s grad work was completed on Arion, which included Uhlman and early Synthon biochem. Zie was an experienced archy, having completed field surveys on three other planets. While no anthrogenecist, zie loved paleontology. Zie squatted down for a closer look. Not much there, but what zie did see gave zam pause. Part of a skull, mainly the cranium and what looked like an orbital socket. A femur. A few teeth. Teeth. A tingle went up zas back. They did not look right. Not quite dormant. Or dormant enough. Zie kept zas eyes small and zas thoughts flat.
Bragen was fortunate enough to have visited the Mawoan Exhibit before it was shut down decades ago. Castigated by most but visited by nearly everyone in the field (until it was removed), the theoretical skeletal conceptualizations displayed there were considered fantastical at first, and later deemed unthoughts. Similar to early Uhlman skeleture there were certainly outrageous differences, particularly when it came to teeth. As a student zie was most interested in the sessions that focused on pliable membranes, called sinews, that were attached to the jaw line. But zie remembered the teeth.
Now in Cloyden’s makeshift lab, zie stared at the teeth. They were too big. One appeared to be an incisor. Which was impossible.
Where was the scorptor?
Cloyden pointed at the Dimensional. A red star glimmered on a narrow beach that lay at the bottom of a sheer cliff. Zie ran zas finger across a crease that seemed to cut into the rock. Right here in the blueweed. There had been a solar storm during the first moon. Not long after, several large waves swept into this space and apparently flushed them out.
Bragen stared at the screen. So… There is a cave there. We knew that, right?
Yes. The blueweed was trapped in the crevice that led out to the beach. Beyond the crevice is a small cave. It is in our early reports. We gave it a Phase One two years ago. The storm pushed enough water into it to wash out a pile of debris. Riverin is in there now.
Bragen put on a pair of skin gloves before removing the tharsonome from its case. Each fossil, grayish-white, was the color of the second moon. All the fossils were slightly pitted. The edges of the skull-fragment were delaminated. Zie ran the tharsonome over the teeth. The device turned green. Zie looked at Cloyden, who nodded. It never turned green. Zie turned it off, then back on. Zie ran it over the femur. It turned green. The same with the skull fragment.
Without speaking, Bragen popped the reader open and retrieved a clamp-like device and inserted it into the handle. Then zie slipped the device over the orbital socket fragment. Barely perceptible metal pins penetrated the bone. The tharsonome turned green. That was the first time Bragen had ever seen that. Nonspecific DNA. Everyone knew what that meant. Not Uhlman. Certainly not Synthon.
Damn!
Vatch cursed. If these readings were verified, New World Designs’ projected goals were out the window. And much more than that. Non-specific DNA did not exist in the Prometheus. Officially, Mawoans were fiction. Lore concerning such a race existed, but for the most part remained outside the Warp. That was why the exhibit was shut down. Much of what Bragen knew of such creatures came from unthoughts, always shielded. Being caught participating in such activities could damage one’s career. It was the same with any profession, yet was particularly so within the archodial field.
Vatch continued to complain, This means I’ll have to hold off on the crews.
They all looked at the Dimensional. An image of Mythgarden Point appeared.
What goes where?
Bragen asked.
Vatch pointed to the screen. A blue star appeared on the top of the cliff. Several ran down the edge to the beach. The apartments overhang the cliff and run down the escarpment to the shore. This is where the waterdrome goes. Was going to go. Council designated this spot for the capitol building. They’ll want their own eyes on this.
Bragen knew that. Zie thought of Lark and the Genesis Investigation. Their own eyes. In other words, an oversight committee. Right,
zie thought. Well, you take the hovercraft back to the base and do what you have to do.
You’re not going back?
Not yet. Cloyden can bring me later.
Vatch frowned. They will want to talk to you.
I know. Tell them I wanted to study this a little deeper before I report.
Vatch looked at the fossils and the tharsonome. More than this?
Bragen turned to Cloyden. Your team is in the cave?
For a couple of hours now.
Half-joking, zie said. Let’s go find some Mawoans.
Already on zas way to the hovercraft, Vatch stopped and looked back. For a moment it looked like zie was going to say something, but then waved dismissively in their direction and said, Zelio, you stay with them,
then left.
****
Synthons evolved from Uhlmans. Rawnswawn argued that Uhlmans evolved from Mawoans, making that clear in zas digibit, Escaping Extinction. This work detailed the excavation that made zam infamous. It occurred during a much earlier dig on Lark. This anthrogenecist claimed the twelve-thousand-year-old bones zie found there established this outlandish link. Rawnswawn’s findings rocked the Prometheus, yet subsequent investigations on Lark did not corroborate zas findings. Over time, academian’s, anthrogenecists, and archodials began to deride the Mawoan to Uhlman
argument for two reasons. One, no one could replicate zas findings. Two, Rawnswawn went beyond zas original argument and made another.
Zie claimed zie had found trace amounts of an admixture that included mitochondrial DNA. The anthrogenecist’s new theory posited Uhlmans were linked not only to Mawoans, but to an unknown species, which meant Synthons were too. Which meant Rawnswawn was arguing Synthons were related to beings who bore their own offspring.
Like a great tidal wave, zas conclusions washed over the scientific community. Most immediately discounted this more extraordinary claim and looked for ways to blank-spot it. Even so, a select few secretly pondered zas theories. Over the years Rawnswawn developed a following that argued, while the Mawoans probably never existed, it seemed likely that Uhlmans were once procreators. Such ideas often circulated surreptitiously through the Warp, letting loose what the Seers called contagions detrimental to the Common Benefit. One by one, such ruminations were eradicated from the Flow. In the beginning, Inducers pointed out the errors that made such conclusions ludicrous and made sure everyone knew of the consequences for participating in unthoughts. At great risk, discussions concerning mitochondrial DNA persisted. Such whisperings eventually made it to both Watchers and Inducers, which took actions to blank-spot them.
Long ago, the Stellar Council replaced Rawnswawn’s report with one of their own, deemed, The Final Report on the Lark Discovery. This document explained that the DNA in question was contaminated by improper handling practices, which led to an embarrassing mistake. While the anthrogenecist’s original work remained important, zas conclusions were wrong. All thought-flows regarding non nonspecific DNA were banished from the Galaxial Warp. Over time, Rawnswawn became something of a joke. Eventually, the story changed. The readings were not a mistake, but a part of some fantastical hoax that became embedded in the collective memory.
The Galaxial Warp shaped the One-Thought, the Flow that permeated the Prometheus. Legitimizing any thoughts concerning mitochondrial DNA were banished. Current thinking on the subject was formalized in Sarkasian’s treatise, Mawoan Myths and other Fables. This tome castigated Rawnswawn’s theories, arguing that anyone who followed them were practicing black-market thoughts. Sarkasian, a hard-core centralist, took the anthrogenecist’s research apart line by line. Most importantly, the theories concerning procreation were eliminated from serious thought and regulated to the world of flips and whispers. Few of Bragen’s peers knew who Rawnswawn was. One had to be careful.
****
Cloyden’s base station was set up on the beach. Shyden and Loydback were busy tacking down tarps that led to the crease. Riverin stood by the vehicle and waited until Bragen and Zelio dismounted. This was where the blueweed was found. Together they walked toward the two archys.
Anything new?
Bragen asked.
It doesn’t look like they were just washed out of the cave,
Riverin replied.
What?
Riverin pointed into the five-foot wide opening that ran up the edge of the cliff. They fell out of the cave’s ceiling.
Zie pointed to the red tag at the mouth of the crevice. This is where the bones were found, stuck in the blueweed. Follow me.
Cloyden walked toward the splintered face of the cliff. The five-foot wide opening narrowed as it neared the top. Several cart-loads of soil and rocks were piled near the entrance. One held orange bags of tagged artifacts.
Cloyden nodded toward the bags. There are more bones in there and some other stuff we have not been able to identify. Larger pieces.
Zie walked into the crevice. If not for the solar storm…
Bragen knew this. So, it’s a cave-in.
Yes.
More non-definitive readings?
Yes.
A minute later they passed through the crack in the cliff and stood at the mouth of the larger opening, and looked up. Cloyden said, We’ve installed a shoring brace, but watch it.
More a void than a cave, its height was lost in the darkness until a lightglobe floated by, revealing a weirdly twisted column protruding out of the top of a partially smooth ceiling that did not look natural. The pole ran down at an angle, penetrating the slick floor.
What is that?
Zelio asked, as much to zamself as anyone else.
Bragen took a closer look. It was shiny and wet, swirling rills of blue-black metal wound its way up, the lightglobe’s shimmer reflecting off its surface. While the object was completely alien, zie remembered one of the artifacts presented to zam on zas first day on Apollis looked like this material. That piece of metal had been found about five miles east of Mythgarden Point.
Other protrusions jutted out of the roof of the cave. Only where the column penetrated the ceiling did the surface appear too smooth. None of it looked stable. Cloyden said, That’s a lot of weird stuff. It is one-hundred feet to the top.
Bragen nodded. Zie understood why the pattern sweep had missed it. Too deep. Very intriguing. This was what an archy lived for. Zie looked back toward the beach, then up. We need to get on top.
Right,
Zelio agreed, looking around. Not sure how stable this is.
Bragen ordered another geomorph stability shot of the outcrop. Zie needed a better idea on what was in there before they proceeded. Zelio, reading zas thoughts, nodded.
There was no mystery as to why Mythgarden Point was chosen for colonization. A massive outcrop that pushed into the sea created the formation that rose above the cave. Heat was not much an issue along the shore, but that was not the case a mile or so inward. The draw was to the west. To the ocean. Spectacular views of the Aguila Coast ran north and south, its white beaches dotted with granite boulders once a part of the cliff face that ran for miles in each direction.
Highland Red Grass ran east away from the point, descending toward the mainland. Not more than a short walk east, the grass began to wither. Two miles inland the fertile top-soils were replaced with sand and rocks. At that point the rusty colored land began to undulate, its rolling surface broken by jagged arroyos and shrub covered hogbacks. Apollis was the closest planet to the sun that had been designated for lifeways. Most of it would remain uninhabitable. All the designated colonies would be established along the sea.
Once on top, Bragen started to visualize a new base camp, one devoted to finding a connection to the cave. Something had to be there. Cloyden began to shoot the geomorph. A strong wind rippled through the grass.
As was the case anytime Bragen began a new project, zas mind forgot about the Warp and concentrated on the task at hand. Putting aside the delays such a discovery entailed, zie began to organize the new work schedule. The archy started a new thought, then shielded it. Not worth it, even within Apollis’s weakened Warp.
Like all Synthons, zie was always aware that an Inducer’s presence was a possibility, and tried to compensate for that. But if the fossils were nonspecific, which was of course, an impossibility, zie could not help but think about those crazy fables. And the wizened.
Standing in the midst of a brief flip, zie recalled those fantastic conversations about smell and food. Conversations that could get one a remboot. Long ago the Stellar Council ingrained in zam that the past was not the past unless you could hold it in your hand. Zie removed the flip.
Bragen stood midway atop the outcrop looking toward the Aguila Sea. The point was approximately two-hundred feet wide. Zie noticed that Vatch had jumped the gun. Several construction flags jutted out of the ground, indicating where zas grinders would start.
Inspecting the ground, zie kept in touch with the outputs Cloyden’s geomorph accumulated. The sound of the sea and the soft undulation of the grasses flowed past zam. Zie turned and walked east, toward the sandy plains.
The Silverstream sat on a flat spot near a low dune. Shyden was running a rayrake back and forth across the area. While they established a safe zone away from the outcrop, Riverin and Loydback continued their work down below, sending Digitals and artifact details back to Vatch. Bragen was not ready to return to base. Zie wanted a little more time on the ground. Once back