Domus Read online

  “Sí! We are live, Doctor Yun,” she says with a smile. “The systems made the transit completely unscathed and fully intact. There isn’t a single mark on the screens. There is just one thing I need you to do - set up the perimeter with the beacons. I would, but I need to sit down for a minute. I’m cansado. I mean, I’m beat.”

  I agree to the task. Barros is one scary señorita when she wants to be. And I had just watched her unpack a whole laboratory on her own after all.

  Part of me wants to go and retrieve a gun from the armoury, but the other part tells me to prove a point to Simon. If I go out armed, and he sees, he will question the research we have done prior to landing, and he will mock me for being scared of the big heat signatures. I decide to go without.

  There are three beacons in total for me to place. They are just orbs stuck on the end of sticks that can be driven into the ground, but they globes are full of tech. Not only do they offer audio and visual, but they also have built in sonar, heat and vibration tracking. Nothing, no matter how cold or hot bloodied, will be able to pass without it registering on the system.

  The three beacons will also bounce a relay up to the Marauder, with the ship itself acting like a transmission satellite over the triangulated area on Domus. This will allow constant communications on the ground and with Racker on the ship. He will be our eye in the sky.

  The first beacon needs to be placed at the shoreline. They are all waterproof in the event of high tide or heavy rain. Then the second and third beacons need to be placed at the forest line, equal distances apart to create an equilateral triangle with the one by the sea. Everything inside the triangle, and a small area around, will be under the beady eyes of Racker, and his eyes are always shifty.

  I nod to Doctor Barros, and she smiles at me. The top button on her silver-blue Seeker uniform is undone, and I can see the frill of her bra. Barros seems confident, even flirty, around me. It might just be a European thing, but there is a part of me that wants her to want me. After Doctor Lawson’s passing, I face the choice of either being alone forever or cradle-snatching one of the other Seeker’s children when they come.

  I leave Ximena to rest and head towards the sea first.

  The sandy beach here is just like those we had back home before the seas swallowed them whole. I can taste the salt on the air and hear the swash of the waves as they break. I take off my shoes and my socks, and I’m in the sea before I know it. The cold water swirls around my toes, and I sink slightly into the wet sand.

  This is home.

  I hear birds caw, and a colony of what look like seagulls land on the water maybe a mile or more out. I cannot fully make out their details, but it does not stop a wide smile from crossing my face. I stand for a few minutes just to take it all in.

  The beacon is pushed into the sand at the water edge, and the automatic locking arms drill themselves deep into the ground. There is a bleep, and a single green light illuminates. One down, two to go.

  A wave had crept up the beach when I was frolicking, and it has dampened my socks, but I don’t care. I am floating, drinking in all the sights and noises. I don’t even put my shoes back on anyway. I walk barefoot to the next location, running my hand over the rugged bark of every tree I pass.

  It’s a good walk, but I do not tire of Domus. The beacons will be spread half a mile apart, and all at the centre of the triangle will be our home, the Dweller. I near the next location, and the thrum and chirp of crickets and other insects fills my ears like music I thought I would never hear again. I can see old cobwebs spun by arachnids in the trees, but find none of the spinners themselves.

  I push the beacon into the ground and wait until I hear the arms lock into place. There is a bleep and a green light; one more left to go.

  The sun is just starting to set behind the mountain range. Our tests showed that the days here are also twenty four hours, and the nights on this section will be as cold as they were at home. I start to jog to the next location, taking in the bird and insect noises and scanning every spider’s web quicker now. I reach the final destination and ready the beacon.

  It drives into the ground easily. The arms lock and then the bleep. I stop suddenly, my breath caught in my throat. I can feel eyes upon me from the forest. Something is watching.

  There is a flash of brown-green skin speckled with feathers. It rustles a small shrub, and then the scuttling of footsteps in retreat. The green light brings my attention back to the beacon, and the thing is gone.

  Part of me wants to chase. I didn’t get a chance to see it properly. I knew that there would be life here but not what kind of life. Its colouring and approximate size suggests a large lizard, a Komodo dragon or something similar maybe.

  I stand for a while more. I’m scared but also intrigued and excited. The irrational part of me, the part that decided not to visit the armoury, wants to chase whatever it was deeper into the vegetation. I am an astrophysicist first, and a keen biologists second.

  But I am alone and unarmed, as my sensible side keeps reminding me.

  I think no more of it and what it could have been. I have no gun and no way of contacting the other Seekers if the thing was hostile. And how Simon would love to say, “I told you so,” if they were. The Englishman’s sarcasm hits a nerve more times than not, whether it was intentional, I don’t know.

  The task I set out to accomplish is complete regardless, and it is time to return home to the Dweller. I will not tell the others what I have seen. I do not want to set in any panic before we know what is out there.

  The trees seem more ominous now. Their bark seems darker and their leaves sharper. Wind comes through them as a whisper, a warning. I start to shake again, and my addiction is suddenly at the forefront of my mind. I leave the trees. I jog back to the Dweller, never looking back.

  Sarah Moore

  It has been nice to spend some time alone with Simon at last. Evangeline has been muscling her way in on my chosen one for twenty years now, rubbing my face in it just to annoy me. She doesn’t like Simon, not really, but she knows that I do.

  Simon has promised me I am his now. On this planet, on our new home, we will start a family together, and there is nothing Evangeline can do about it. The Seeker Project had chosen him as my chosen one. Our personalities were compatible, our interests similar, our knowledge and education comparable, and the qualities we look for in a mate are to be found in each other.

  Of course, the pairing was based on results of questionnaires and tick boxes, but it does not matter, we all signed a contract! Evangeline would be a sinner if she ever did anything more than flirt with Simon. And sinning against the contract is punishable by death.

  It’s harsh, but this is survival, and she is jeopardising it. I hope that if it ever came to it, Captain Reed has it in him to punish her by the full penalty of death. I would see to it, in fact.

  Hopefully, it will not come to that. Simon has promised me it will be different now. It will be exactly as I hoped it would, as our Seeker contracts stated it would be. I had no choice but to take him at that word, for now.

  Our scouting has been fruitless so far. The forest line is dense, and when you are only a few feet in, it seems to continue forever in all directions. We have seen distant birds through the canopy breaks and a few bugs on trees, but no prey worthy of a feast yet. Still, the Dweller has enough supplies to last years. I just want my own nest sooner rather than later.

  And nests were aplenty on Domus. Wings flap through every break in the canopy, but they are too quick to get a sight on them. And when I did see a bird right off in the distance, Simon stayed the hand that was reaching for light rifle. And rightly so; it was a long shot, a good mile away at least. The light rifles shoot bolts at the speed of light, but my long-range aim isn’t the greatest.

  Simon seems so awed at Domus. Every view and large tree is greeted with an “ooh” or an “ah.” Maybe I just don’t feel as excited about a planet that is the same as ours was. Maybe I’m the only one that a
lready misses the internet, cars, hair straighteners, and proper toilets. Am I materialistic? Yes, but I had never thought the Seeker Project would be this hard. The world’s superpowers funding this project, billions and billions spent, and was a real toilet seat on the Marauder so much to ask for? Yes, yes it was.

  We will be going back to year dot. Once the tech on the Dweller fails or runs out of juice, we will all be just a group of humans scuttling around in the mud of a foreign planet. For a team so smart, it baffles me that I am the only one with this concern.

  Sure, we have been taught how to hunt, skin and gut. Yes, we have all had training on how to dig a sanitary toilet hole. Hell, I know how to make water safe for drinking with just some sticks, leaves and a flame. But the truth is, I think that I am the only one that doesn’t want to. I can only hope that bearing Simon’s seed will help give me more purpose.

  I’m sure that the men are already looking forward to the “Me man, you woman,” and “men make fire and cook meat,” scenarios. I bet Simon is counting down the days until I offer to wash his smalls and serve him his dinner. Well, he can ask Evangeline if that is what he wants in a woman.

  All I wish is that our habitation of Domus could be sped up a little bit. Not to a point where we are destroying it like home, but maybe just to a point where I have a real toilet seat, and maybe a small car and a coffee shop. And that is what frustrates me the most; I will not be alive for the future.

  We will be gone when it starts to get any good.

  “Why the face?” asks Simon. “Is it Evangeline?”

  “No. It is this place. I had looked forward to this day for over twenty years, and now I am here, reality has hit me. This place is going to be…boring. There are only so many wild boars I can look forward to clubbing over the head.”

  “The Seeker Project isn’t about fun, Sarah. We are here for one thing - to ensure the survival of our entire species! For all we know, the six of us and Racker might be the only humans left in the whole universe!”

  “There will always be Evangeline. When I die, she will be presiding over hell and waiting for me with a hot poker.”

  Simon laughs. He has such a beautiful laugh. He has a beautiful everything, actually. I suppose I have one good thing to look forward to. Mating with Simon and starting a family with him will certainly be far from the mundane. Our children will grow and fornicate with the other Seeker’s children, and the circle of human life starts anew.

  It is a perfect plan. Provided I can blunt Evangeline’s claws before she gets to Simon first.

  The sun has started to retreat over the mountains, and we agree to call the scout off for the day. There appears to be nothing hostile in the immediate area around the Dweller, at least. Every bird and bug we have seen, even from a distance, appear to be the same we would have found walking in any surviving countryside at home.

  The walk back towards the sea is pleasant. Unseen birds call out overhead, and bugs hum in the background. I might even lay on the beach for a while tomorrow to see if that magnificent sun can colour this pasty body. Simon and I joke, and we flirt a lot.

  When we finally break back through the forest line the artificial lights on the Dweller greet us.

  I’m amazed with how soon they have got it all set up and running. I can see the med-bay wing, the glass-roofed botanical garden wing that had survived the entry after all, and there is the observation wing, the four living wings, the armoury, the recreation wing, and my favourite - the garage. The garage is the pinnacle of tech. It has a system known as the auto-fix; robotic arms controlled by CETI that can fix our equipment, chop wood for construction, and even build things for us.

  Inside the garage sits a forklift, a boat, and a small quad bike loaded with tracking equipment and recon gear and a forklift. The quad is my baby, and I cannot wait to take her for a spin. It is the only thing I have to look forward to besides falling pregnant.

  The outer door is locked, but I know Captain Reed, and I know what the code will be. I punch in the letters - D - O - M - U - S -, and the door opens with a bleep and a bloop. The other Seekers are already gathered in the brilliant white recreation area with glasses of chilled fizzy wine in each hand.

  Captain Reed rises to his feet and hands us both a filled glass. “Simon, Sarah, anything to report from the scout?”

  “Nothing,” says Simon with a smile. “We headed fairly deep into the jungle, but we found nothing but insects and greenery on this continent. There are birds here, too, but they are wary enough not to come too close. From what I have seen, I would say that the life here is a mirror of home. Has anything registered on the beacons?”

  “Not yet. They are in place, but they won’t be calibrated until first thing tomorrow. I have communications with Racker, but nothing more at the moment. For the time being, we are celebrating being home.”

  The laughter lingers late into the night. The other Seekers are jubilant. They cannot get the smiles from their faces. I can though, and I do. I’m bored already. Even cooking the night’s meal with the help of CETI did little to lighten me. It was my favourite too: aluminium space-pouch filled with mystery meat and twenty-year-old dried vegetables.

  I seem to be the only one who wants more than this.

  The black sky is my cue to call it a night, and I retreat to our living quarters, Simon’s and mine. When I had left him, he had been sat next to Evangeline with her claws gripping his arm like a grizzly bear with a salmon.

  I undress and look at my body in the mirror. Sure, my shoulders and hips are broader than that bitch’s, but I am not ugly. I have good curves as well as the bad ones. I loosen my ponytail and climb into bed naked. I will show Simon what has been under my Seeker uniform this whole time. If he wants it, he can have it. The Seeker contract said that fornication could commence as soon as we had found a new home. And the sooner I have something more to occupy my time the better.

  In the bed we should be sharing, I wait for him with one eye open. I fight off sleep for as long as I can, but he doesn’t come.

  When the alarm sounds in the early morning hours, I am the first to be torn from my sleep. There is a constant screeching of bleeps coming from the observation ward that only I seem to have heard. I climb out of our bed, leaving it empty now. I slip back into my silver-blue uniform and head towards the observation ward.

  There is a small comms button flashing red and beeping. I press it, and Racker’s voice fuzzes over the speakers, “Do you read? This is Racker, does anyone on the Seeker Dweller read me?”

  “I read you, Racker.”

  “Sarah, is that you?”

  “It’s me, Racker.”

  “Sarah, you have to wake the others. You have to go and wake them now!”

  “What is it, Racker?”

  “The beacons have calibrated and are sending their feed right up to me in the Marauder. I can see for a small distance beyond the beacons, a small circle all around the Dweller… Sarah, there are heat signatures everywhere. Some of them are huge, and they move so quickly. Wait… one is approaching the Dweller now. It is coming from the sea, Sarah, and it is big! Wake the others and get to the armoury, GO!”

  I didn’t need to wake the other Seekers. The speaker system transmits all the way through the Dweller, and the others were finally stirring. Captain Reed and Doctor Barros came from one living quarter and Doctor Yun from another. Simon and Evangeline are already stood in the observation ward door. I never saw where the two of them had come from.

  Every one of us has our Seeker uniform on.

  “Ready yourselves,” orders Captain Reed. “No need to explain, Sarah. I have Racker on constant feed.” He taps the ear piece lodged deep into his canal. “Now, every Seeker head to the armoury and load up. Let us see what Domus has to offer.”

  I catch up with Simon on the way to the armoury. “Where were you? I waited up most of the night, but you never came. Where were you?”

  “I fell asleep on the sofa. I drank too much wine, and it went to my hea
d. I’m sorry.” I just glare at him. He knows what I am asking. “I wasn’t with her, I promise you. I got too comfy and fell asleep when the others called it a night.”

  “You promised me it would change when we landed. When you signed that contract you promised not to sin with a non-chosen one.”

  “I didn’t sin, Sarah, I promise.”

  I can see the smile on that bitch’s face from here. Even if they didn’t, my reaction has pleased her more than what actually doing it probably would.

  The armoury light flickers on, and I lift my light rifle. This one is my own; I developed her myself. Along the shock-purple coloured barrel is her name - Widower. The others pick their weapons, too, all of them standard gun metal grey apart from the Captain’s. Captain Reed has designed his own gun too. He named it Ex Materia, and it is coloured in brilliant white with a gold trigger.

  The Captain folds his ear piece back into his ear so he can liaise directly with Racker up in the Marauder. He is our eye in the sky, and we are the fodder on the floor. Racker never said just how big this thing is, but then, he never had to. The tone of his voice had said it all.

  Locked and loaded, we all leave the Dweller together.

  The six of us Seekers gather on the beach under the stars. The sky is clear bar the occasional wisps of cloud lit up blue and purple by Domus’ satellite, her moon. It is big in the sky, full and pocked with craters. There is a light breeze on the air, and the dark night allows me to see only the first few feet of the sea.

  “How far now, Racker?” asks Captain Reed.

  I cannot hear Racker’s response, but we all raise our light rifles towards the sea, ready. Out of the darkness, life will come. All the Seekers wait for the Captains word. We wait for our order to kill whatever is coming for us in the night. I can feel my aim shaking with my hands and legs.

  “How far now?” asks Captain Reed. “Okay, Seekers, this is it. Weapons live.”