This is a draft version of a chapter from John Saye’s book, Longevity and Other Stories. If you are daring, why not subscribe to my newsletter (they come few and far between), and I’ll send you a PDF copy of the book?
I sat on the edge of my seat, well it’s a throne, made of white marble, and edged in gold in what’s called the Halls of Mars. It’s not on Mars, actually on Venus, but that hardly matters at this stage. The Hall is giant and built into the side of a mountain, dug out like a giant ice cream scooper that came down from the sky and carved out a great bowl straight from the rock on the mountain’s side.
The opening was covered with stained glass. Heavy, thick stained glass, and it was reinforced to keep the Venusian atmosphere at bay, which it did a wonderful job of, even though you couldn’t see out the window at all. Deep in the confines of the cave were vast works of iron and steel, and air conditioners that kept everything breathable as well as light and frosty, even though the temperatures outside would kill you in a heartbeat.
I liked the glass, but the throne had gotten to be a little too much lately. I might have to downgrade to the one made of wood with the lion’s head carved into the back. That and a nice pillow or something. Something springy. Springy and nice.
The stained glass left the floor, and everyone else was covered in a twisted pattern of blue and orange squares all the time.
I should have that replaced. Then again, why mess with it just when I’m enjoying it?
I could call for one of my wives, or husbands. Of course, since I came to power, it’s been mandatory for all planetary leaders to take up at least seventeen wives, and to have as many children as humanly possible. I think right now I’m up to a hundred and thirty-five, but I’ve lost count.
The problem with living this long is that eventually, everyone is in power. It wasn’t long before just stayed in the same spot long enough. I became a council elder, and not long beyond that, a mere fifty years, I was the local high priest. It wasn’t a terrible job. Among the first thought about getting the treatment, I’m perpetually older than almost everyone that I know. You’d think they’d oust me and tie me up and let me live on an asteroid somewhere just for being as dang strange as I am all the time. No one even likes my funny hat. Seriously, I should just quit and become a hermit living in the south of Los Angeles Proper.
There was a knock at my chamber door.
I turned and Bill, my butler I suppose, though that’s only close to what he does come in, with two of my wives with him. Angela and Carmen laid into me about the statue of Venus. I thought they were here for something else.
I could hear them. The words were passing my ears. I could feel their hot breath and feel the tiny raindrops of spittle that were spewing forth as a fine mist. The words were there, pounding on my eardrums and I could not hear what they were. After a few moments, they came to a halt, apparently waiting for some kind of reply from me, and I didn’t have one for them. They huffed and caught their breath. Their breasts heaved a little, but it didn’t phase me.
I waited until they had stopped, and then I turned to them. I kissed Angela on the lips, hugged her, and told her I would think about it. Whatever it was. I’d heard her, which I hadn’t, and I would take her advice as if it was from one of my closest advisers, which, of course, it was.
Carmen, I took them into my arms in a huge embrace and told her I loved her and that I treasured every hair on her head. I took off my hat, a fuzzy thing with a random number of horns on it, put it on her head and hugged her again before returning to my marble throne where I told them I would carefully consider everything they had said to me, whatever it was, then I posed in a very thoughtful position, and said “Hmm” a lot and closed my eyes occasionally and shook my head every once in a while, until that no longer seemed sincere, which it wasn’t. Then I curled up, my feet tucked under me, and pretended to meditate on their complaints until they all eventually went away and I was left alone.
But then, I was never alone.
I saw them beside me.
They were always there.
They stood, seven feet tall, dark green bipedal life forms, totally smooth on their surface, and uniform.
They turned their faceless faces toward me, and I could feel their minds working their way into mine. They were giving me a chance to breathe and speak my mind, which they only did when they wanted something from me.
I could feel their questions in my mind.
Who were they?
“They are two of my wives?”
What do they want?
“I don’t know. I couldn’t hear them with you controlling my mind.”
I fell to the ground.
Their thoughts bore into me, and it was hard to take after a couple of minutes.
When will you give the next order?
“Whenever you want, you’re in control already, aren’t you?”
My body fell, twitching.
I pushed up on my elbows, but they gave out.
One of them broke from the pressure of one of their minds alone as I pushed up again.
I let it lay face down on the ground.
They forced me to sit up.
We have work to do.
I already knew that, though.
Soon I was on my feet, and walking toward the hallway outside my chamber. They were invisible to everyone else, but each was in control of my next right and left steps.
They guided me into my shuttle, and I took the controls.
Soon I was airborne, lifting my little craft over the clouds of Venus.
Behind me, the two creatures sat in the rear seats. I could do nothing to turn my head and see them. Instead, I just piloted the little craft up over the city. Over the years we’d raised an enormous dome over it, and though the clouds surrounded us in a sickly sky all the time, the land beneath it was lush and beautiful and green. We rose closer and closer to the stained glass canopy that covered the capital and I pressed forward as I got closer and closer to it until we broke through, glass shattering all around me.
I zoomed up into the sky over Venus and sped through the clouds until I could see nothing else. I gunned it, swerved around, and then came through them and out over the open sky. I must be up really high.
“What do you want?”
We want everything.
“Why do you care?”
Because you do.
“Where are you from? Why do you want any of it?”
They were silent.
I pressed forward. It wasn’t the first time they’d taken me on a trip like this.
Ahead of me, I could see the dawn coming up. Before long, I’d be in virtual darkness. Below me, any of my cities would be so far under the clouds that you’d never see the lights from them. Maybe a glimmer or a slight glow from them, but nothing like seeing a city from orbit on the Earth.
My comm opened up with a burst of static.
“Sir, is that you up there?”
I touched the controls like nothing was happening.
“Yep, just me, up for a brief flight.”
“Very well, sir. You keep us informed if you need anything.”
“I’ll do that,” I said and switched it off.
I burned through the clouds, which whipped around me and did a barrel roll before turning the ship towards space and flying out into the stars, where I saw them approaching for the first time.
There would be no warning.
They have arranged a series of battle cruisers, both from Earth and from Mars. They were here to wipe us out.
My little black ship went unnoticed, but the patrol ship behind me, who had recognized me earlier, was more clearly marked, and when they opened fire, he was their first target.
They swooped down. The earth ships were bulky, but full of fighters that whipped this way and that, and ran screaming down onto the planet to destroy my cities.
The Martian ships were more specialized. They weren’t creatures of mars as they were the descendants of Human settlers like Venus was.
My home, at least now anyway.
The Martians had huge gas vacuum ships I’ve seen used out on the gas giants, and they were sucking up Venus’s atmosphere. Then they waited for the fighters to fly in and bomb the city and take out my defense towers before the gunships rained down on them with death beams that finished them.
I could only watch.
I only had this flier. It wouldn’t make it even back to Earth. I flew it over to the command ship, a long and dangerous vessel, covered in spikes and turrets, and landed it in the main hanger, right in the middle.
I watched as my little one-man flier was surrounded by army and navy troops. Guns up. Alert. Ready to kill.
I opened the hatch.
Certainly, they were expecting a single mercenary or something.
When they saw it was me, all their guns faltered.
Below us, my planet was coming to a swift end. The war, if it could be called less than genocide, was the end of my people. People who had traveled with me from the beginning when no one thought anything could live there were all dying. Some of them, many of them hundreds of years old.
I was the first and the last of us.
They lowered their weapons.
I stepped down the ladder, and walked through them like they were nothing, and marched up to the control deck. I knew where it was. I’d designed the ship.
Before I could get there, Garrison was running down the ladder.
“Jacob!”
He grabbed me in an embrace.
“Jacob, you weren’t down there!”
I grabbed him by the neck and hugged my cousin. He was out of breath.
He tugged me up to the command deck.
When I walked into it, everyone ducked. They dived under their desks and knocked over the furniture. I strode in, with Garrison behind me. Everyone jumped to salute him. Clearly in charge.
When I turned around, he was kneeling before me.
“Jacob. I can’t sit by while they do this here.”
“What?”
“I surrender to you.”
He held out his pistol to me, a small beam weapon. Nice and deadly.
“I accept.”
“You know the custom, then.”
“I do.”
Garrison fell to the deck after I fired the weapon.
The crew looked at me.
“You can join me, or you can get out. Your choice.”
I kept about half the crew.
The other half got into pods and shot out, and were quickly picked off by the surrounding ships, who must have realized what was going on by now.
The battle below was all but over already.
We fired, taking out one of the larger ships where we concentrated our firepower.
We took damage, and the armor on the ship was pretty much toast, but it was still worthy of travel, so I ordered a jump. We needed to get far out and quickly. Then perhaps we’d survive.
They were about to surround us when we jumped. In a flash of light, we left them all behind. We were supposed to be out near Jupiter. Instead, we were closer to the orbit of Pluto, but it wouldn’t be here for another couple of years yet. Then I realized I was wrong. We hadn’t gone out into the solar system. If there was an up and a down to the celestial disk where our planets all rotated, we had gone as far up as anyone had ever gone, and then some.
The sun was nothing more than a spec, and all around us was nothing.
In the months that followed, I tooled around as best I could, mostly avoiding the government ships. Venus was no more, and I wasn’t that much better off. I blasted out into the outer planets and spent a good deal of time orbiting Neptune, where no one wanted to go. There was little left for me on Earth, nothing on Mars, and a destroyed colony for me on Venus. I couldn’t deal with it anymore. I was just ready to leave. I’d seen what I wanted to see, and I’d done more than I could think of to do, and that’s when the idea hit me to just leave the solar system altogether. There wasn’t anything left for me.
I knew others might feel the same way. I discussed my ideas with the crew, and they were interested, but fewer of them wanted to stay, and I couldn’t blame them. I let most of them off on Titan and sent out the call. There weren’t any actual laws out on Titan yet, and no one was gunning for me here. Most of the people back on Earth thought I was dead, but the governments and leaders knew better. Not because they had intelligence on me or anything, but because I called and offered to give them back their spacecraft. I did it on a couple of occasions while we were in the dock at Neptune, and nobody wanted to spend the money on the fuel to get out there to get me.
I can say I tried, though, and that was enough for me.
The creatures in the background were still buzzing around, and one day, I just had it out with them.
I told them to get out of my life and leave me alone.
They said they wanted to show me something very interesting, but we couldn’t quite get there yet.
I told them to get to the point, or I was through with them for good.
They agreed to upgrade the engines and sent in a couple of technicians to help me take care of it.
I said to prove it, and they did.
That was when I lost almost everyone else.
I was virtually alone on the ship. Sensors could still pick up a couple of people, that were scattered here and there. I chose not to force them off the ship or to seek them out. I just checked on them every once in a while, and occasionally I’d use the ship’s comm system to call out to them and tell them that the kitchens on the fifth and sixth decks had been restocked for them.
They never went up too fast, but they always did. There were probably ten or fifteen in total aboard besides me, but I never saw them.
They came aboard, in a small shuttle, and brought in a new engine, silver and bright, and they would only ever say “because we want to show you something,” when I asked them.
One thing you could still die from as a practically immortal being was starvation, and I would forget to eat, all the time watching them install the new engines. The retrofit took about three years, and while I was stranded on Neptune, I took to watching the surface of the giant. I called it watching the ocean, because of the ways the bands swirled around each other. I took readings, did an analysis, and used all the instruments that were left working on the ship. I also ate a lot of takeout food from a local space station. Even after a while, your synthetic kitchens are no good anymore, and you have to eat something else.
One morning, I walked down to the bridge to hop in the hammock I’d put up in there, and they were standing there.
It’s time, they thought.
“We can run it now?”
Yes.
“Let’s do it then.”
I sat down in the captain’s chair and let them do their thing. They hit knobs, and opened switches, and turned dials, and the whole place lit up. We pulled out of the space station, and the ship turned towards the starry sky of space, where we could no longer see anything of Neptune but a faint blue from behind us, and they turned on the new drive.
Around me, the night sky blazed into a million streaming points of light. The ship was breaking apart. The whole place was shaking and rattling, and spinning in every direction as we sped by the stars at speeds that were supposed to be impossible. If it’s one thing that is true, it’s that saying something is a limit on how fast you can go is like telling a cat that they don’t like tuna sandwiches. It’s just not helpful, and nobody likes it, and somebody is always going to be out to prove you wrong.
We came to a halt, all the stars came back into place, and though I couldn’t recognize the patterns anymore, all became still.
Then I realized that I’d been standing for the entire flight in the same place as if I bolted my feet to the floor.
I looked down, and my clothes looked brittle and dusty like I was some kind of exhibit, then I reached down and found the long beard attached to my face, easily two and a half, maybe three feet long in places, and stark white.
I threw up on the deck, and fell flat on my face, and learned how to breathe again.
When I pushed myself up, they were standing there before me again.
“Are we there?”
We are close.
“Where are we?”
Look.
I looked out the windows of the bridge and below us was a huge alien planet, lush with vegetation.
“Can we land?”
They nodded and then vanished.
I commanded the ship to land, and it found a suitable spot, and glided down into the atmosphere, shaking all the way.
As I stepped off the platform onto the planet’s surface, I heard them say in my ear. “You can never go back.”
The ship could no longer handle its weight and cracked, and busted and fall apart behind me.
Turning, without so much as a lunch box, I found myself face to face with what I always imagined a dinosaur would look like.
It scratched the ground with its talons and charged.
