Fiction!

Hello, everyone. How are ya? I hope you're well. I'm doing alright for the most part.

I'm going to post a short story I just wrote for my creative writing class. It's science fiction. The story is fairly simple and straight forward; no real surprises, but after reading it myself, that's not what I found important about it. What's important, to me, is the message and the characters and whom they represent. I'll see if you can figure out who they are. The message or lesson, or moral, whatever, is an idea, a rather cynical one I think, that I held at some point prior to this time in my life. The reason I wrote a story about it now(I think, because someone who writes from the heart never really knows for sure why [s]he writes anything; the story just sort of flows out of you.) is that I still think it's an important idea to heed or at least pay attention to, although by all means I don't think it should be taken to heart or used as a driving social more. Cynicism is generally a negative thing. Positivity is my ideal way nowadays.

Anyway, it's a little longish so you can read it if you want to, or not, if you don't. It won't hurt my feelings. I do appreciate constructive criticism though. Here goes:

Under the Venusian Sun

It’s a sunny day at the Long-term Research Outpost Gamma, or L-ROG, as its only two inhabitants like to call it. The research center is situated near the equator on Venus, the second planet from the sun. It was established some seventy-five years ago to study the sweltering planet’s atmosphere and soil composition in order to determine its life support potential. The atmosphere is composed mostly of carbon dioxide with thick clouds of sulfurous gasses surrounding the planet almost ninety miles deep. It often rains sulfuric acid. The thick atmosphere and high carbon dioxide levels have resulted in a ground-level atmospheric pressure ninety times that of Earth as well as a huge green house effect that pushes the surface temperature as high as seven hundred fifty degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to melt lead. Some may find it ironic that the conditions the cause such an inhospitable environment are a current threat to Earth, yet human kind looks here and elsewhere in the Solar System for refuge.

The two post-human research technicians are sitting in the shade enjoying each other’s company, or what passes for enjoyment, anyway.

“It sure is hot today,” Carl, the one on the right, says with a meager sigh.

“Now, don’t start that again,” says the other, Joseph. He shoots him an annoyed glance.

“Well, it is.”

“I know it is, Carl. It’s exactly 456.7 degrees centigrade. You know that just as well as I do.”

“Yes, but can’t you just feel the heat?” says Carl dreamily.

“No, I can’t. You need flesh to feel heat. I haven’t had skin or bones for nearly fifty Earth years, as long as you.” Joseph looks out at the barren, rocky, smoldering surface. He observes the odd fact that the clouds are parted enough to let sunlight through. “The only reason it’s so hot is because the sun is shining. The last time that happened was five point four periods ago,” Joseph notes.

“Ah, I know,” says Carl. “Isn’t it beautiful?” He looks up at the gigantic orange ball that’s partially visible through the yellow-brown clouds. It’s twice as large as it would appear from Earth. The light reflecting off the near-by rocks and dirt is too bright for organic eyes to see.

“Beautiful, Carl? All we do all day long is look at numbers and rock samples and stare at this dun and bare wasteland. How can you remember what beauty is? You are a brain in a metal box. You have no business worrying about beauty.”

“This heat really makes me thirsty,” says Carl after a few minutes go by. “I wish I had an iced tea.”

“That’s impossible.” The two of them sit in silence for a long time. Joseph is probably going over figures in his head or thinking about the next assignment in his daily routine as Carl takes in the view. The daylight begins to fade to its usual dark orangy-yellow as the rare cleft in the cloud cover closes. Carl lets out an audible sigh.

“That’s too bad,” he says.

“Just in time,” Joseph remarks. “We have work to do anyway.” He and Carl stand-up and begin to return to the port hole as a signal sounds in their internal alert systems.

“I wonder what that’s all about,” says Carl.

“It’s a perimeter breach alarm!” The two cyborgs turn to look into each other’s gray, featureless faces.

“It could just be a meteor that landed near the structure,” Carl says. They turn and shuffle toward the entrance of the outpost. It hisses and opens as they approach and allows them to enter the airlock. “It’s not impossible. If you remember, it happened once before.”

“Of course, I remember.” Joseph says in his usual moody tone as the two of them make their way down the narrow corridor toward the main instrument room. They arrive and inspect the alert panel.

“There is an alert for sections four and five,” says Joseph. He hits a switch and the alarm shuts off. Immediately, another one sounds. “…and section six? This is most unusual.”

“I’ll check the external cameras,” says Carl. He moves to a bank of monitors and switches them all on. On screens five and six there is a large, dark red object. It almost completely fills screen six. “Did it roll?”

“Meteors don’t roll. They leave craters.”

“Well, this thing is obviously moving,” says Carl as he motions to screen seven. The object has appeared in its lower left corner. “Let’s go outside and take a look.”

“It could be dangerous,” Joseph says.

“Oh, so you feel fear, now?”

“No, let’s go.” Joseph shuffles toward the door. “It’s probably just a dust cloud.”

“Thick enough to set off a perimeter alarm?”

“Come on.” Carl glances at the monitor once more then follows Joseph through the hatch toward the section six air lock. After Joseph pushes the button the atmosphere cycles and they step outside. If robots could scream the sound Joseph made would have shattered human ear drums. The thing that stood before the two research technicians was much more solid than any cloud of dust or gas. “W-what the hell is it?!”

“…I don’t know.” Carl’s voice is light and wispy like a silk scarf caught on a mild southerly wind. He shuffles slowly toward it, his electronic legs making no more sound than the pneumatic motors would allow. “It looks like- Do you remember what a pill bug looks like? You know, Joseph, a roly-poly?”

“Yes, I remember,” says Joseph. His voice is shaky. “Don’t go so close, Carl. It might be dangerous.”

“It’s much too magnificent to do me harm.”

“No, Carl. Magnificent things can hurt you, too.” The thing is as large as a house, deep red, and has a shell that looks like hundreds of St. Louis arches stacked together going from one end to the other, first small to big to small again. It has at least fifty elephant-like legs jutting from under its carapace spread evenly around its whole structure as if to give even support all around. It has no discernable head or tail. Carl comes close to it and reaches out a hesitant ,spindly, metal arm. He spreads his fingers and places them on the thing’s right flank. It begins to shudder. Carl lets out a gasp and stumbles back.

“It’s sensitive to touch,” he says. The giant thing stops shuddering. In a motion that is the epitome of harmony and choreography, the creature picks up one foot after another all the way around its immense body and puts each down in the same order in a synchronous dance that results in a one meter step forward. “Is it an alien?”

“Carl, we are the aliens.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Do you think this is life?” Joseph asks.

“Of course, it is,” Carl replies. “But it can’t be like any life form found on Earth. It can’t be carbon based. It has to subsist on nothing more than the minerals found in the environment.”

“Yes,” says Joseph. “It probably doesn’t conform to most of the rules we use to define life. I wonder where it came from. How could we have never seen anything like this before now? We’ve been here for so many years…”

“Perhaps they are mostly or only active when the sun comes out. That would explain the infrequency,” Carl says.

"We must study it!”

“Yes, we must. I wonder if it’s the only life form on the planet. If so, it would turn up-side down our ideas of evolution.”

“How do we capture it?” Joseph asks.

“Capture it?!” Carl turns to look at Joseph. “No! We have to study it in its natural environment.” The giant creature stops its harmonious dance and begins to turn so that its broad right flank is perpendicular to the arguing technicians.

“Think about all the things we can learn from its anatomy,” says Joseph. “This is an invaluable opportunity.” The creature begins to rumble again, but less severely this time.

“I can’t believe you want to cut this beautiful thing into pieces!”

“How else are we suppose to learn about its internal biology?” The center of the creature’s flank begins to slide upward like a garage door, revealing a semi-fleshy area with what might be a mouth.

“Look at this thing. This is possibly the most important thing humanity has ever come across. This is proof that the meager creatures of Earth are not all that live in the universe!” the thing that might be a mouth begins to split apart to reveal a red, sticky looking tube. “For all we know, this thing could be intelligent. Self-aware. And you want to destroy it?”

“I don’t want to drive its whole population to extinction. I just want to learn about this one specimen,” says Joseph. The tube extends from the mouth-thing and begins to make a melodious sound not unlike a woodwind instrument.

“Look there, Joseph! It speaks!” Carl exclaims as he turns and steps toward the gigantic red creature with arms out-stretched.

“Carl, we still don’t know if it’s dangerous or not-”

“And you want to kill it!” The creature sings a deep rhythm. If robots could cry, tears would be streaming down Carl’s face. “You want to kill this magnificent singing beast-” Just then as Carl stepped within a few yards of the creature, the large tube bent down and sucked the cybernetic technician inside like a giant vacuum cleaner.

“Oh my God, Carl!” Joseph screams. The creature lets out another deep reverberating sound. If robots could feel pain, Carl would be screaming as the sulfuric acid in the creatures stomach began eating away at his metal and plastic body.

Joseph runs to airlock and goes back inside Long-term Research Outpost Gamma. If robots could feel remorse, Joseph would be contemplating the idea of a long and lonely existence here on Venus without his one and only companion.