Gods of Titan- The Cosmic Constants Read online

  GODS OF TITAN

  GODS OF TITAN

  THE COSMIC CONSTANTS

  DAVID CHRISTMAS

  YOUCAXTON PUBLICATIONS

  OXFORD & SHREWSBURY

  Copyright © David Christmas 2018

  The Author asserts the moral right to

  be identified as the author of this work.

  ISBN 978-1-912419-61-6

  Printed and bound in Great Britain.

  Published by YouCaxton Publications 2018

  YCBN: 01

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the author’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  YouCaxton Publications

  [email protected]

  In memory of my father,

  Henry Christmas (1925-2018)

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  He stood silently on the exposed eastern flank of the hillside, gazing pensively at the storm-clouds as they scudded across the sky and shivering slightly from the cold north wind. It was a night to fire the imagination. The insipid light reflecting from the small, lonely moon that circled this most lonely of planets cast an eerie glow over the scene and conjured demons from the shadows. The rocky outcrop near the top of the hill seemed to grin at him through a death’s head mask, and the ancient, twisted branches of the few stunted trees groped skywards like skeletal fingers.

  He was standing in a small hollow where that autumn’s fallen leaves had gathered and partly rotted, and at one point he almost lost his footing in the slippery mess. He smiled. It wasn’t the sort of night to be out and about, yet for all that, it served his purposes well. The eons had been long indeed, and time was fast running out. His short period of corporality would end all too soon, and so would this last opportunity to experience the bodily sensations that had faded into a memory so distant it was almost no memory at all.

  He was not alone. There were others who had embraced corporality for the all-too-brief time that was available to them before the end of everything. It was only a minority, it was true, but a minority that possessed a hardwired imperative to immerse themselves in the rich sensations of the flesh; to seek out the physical discomforts that it brought, and to feel once again the long-forgotten, but still potent, fear of the dark. It was a timely reminder of what they had abandoned in exchange for eternal life.

  He contemplated once more the irony of that. Eternal life. That had been the deal. For millennia, it had been the reality. Their energy-bodies had cavorted among the galaxies, surfing photon wave-fronts, bathing in gamma-ray showers, and acting as midwives to the birthing of new stars. They had become forgetful of their lowly origins and had comported themselves as gods. In the heady realms of eternity, it was so easy to forget, and only the onset of The Darkness brought home the uncomfortable truth. Nothing is truly forever.

  He gazed over the plain that stretched away into the darkness at the foot of the hill. The only evidence of the sprawling homesteads that covered the land up to and beyond the far horizon, were their lights, but those lights seemed to shout defiance into the encroaching darkness of the universal night. They were uplifting, echoing the determination of a people to endure, whatever the cost. It hadn’t been like this for many millions of years. Only now, at the end, did the desire emerge, strong and irresistible, to experience once more the dimly-remembered time when the universe was young and there were still mountains to climb.

  He gave a deep sigh and sat on a fallen log. Ignoring the discomfort of the wind and the damp that soaked through his clothes, he stared with a heavy heart at a sky he no longer recognised. The storm clouds had dissipated, and in their wake they left an emptiness that seemed to leech into his very soul. Gone were the familiar constellations of his youth. Gone, too, the faint cloud of interstellar gas that once spread across the sky like a vast, illuminated blanket. Now, all was black. No star shone. No star in this entire universe save for the small, dying sun that continued to cast its forlorn light on this special, lonely world. Here they huddled. Here they would either make the transition to the next phase – or they would die.

  He mused on that last thought. The memory of how they had deceived themselves was still painful. They had been so confident in their haughty arrogance, bending the forces of nature to their will and deluding themselves that they had conquered death itself. Flesh, blood, and the inevitable call of the grave had been contemptuously discarded, and they had become as one with the quantum fields of creation.

  Yet immortality had been qualified, a Faustian deal that had always promised a final reckoning had they but considered it. He remembered the onset of The Darkness, the shock and horror as they had watched the stars die and realised that there would be no new ones to take their place. No matter their god-like powers, they remained constrained by entropy and were fated to become as one with the cosmic background radiation. Regardless of how far they had come, they were still children of the universe. And the universe was dying.

  A hint of light appeared on the distant horizon, and he stood, eagerly awaiting the coming of dawn and the limpid light of day that he hoped would briefly banish his dark thoughts. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d witnessed dawn from the surface of a planet, and he gazed in awe as the sky flared a deep flame red, then vibrant orange, and finally pale yellow. When the sun finally appeared, it was an anti-climax, the small, geriatric orb hauling itself slowly upwards as if with a profound weariness. And there, like some celestial rodent ulcer clinging to its face, was The Device.

  The Device – his Device – was, in fact, several millions of miles distant from the sun’s corona, and represented their best chance of escaping the cold-death of the universe. He had been responsible for both its conception and its design. It was his creation, based on his original idea. The desperation to avoid the true death had been almost palpable among the people, and he wondered now whether he had been right to rais
e expectations. He had known at the outset that success was far from likely, and he had taken pains to stress the unpredictable nature of the forces with which they would be dealing. It had made no difference. Hope is, itself, a powerful force and his idea had been seized on as the only possible path to salvation.

  He waited on the hillside a while longer, until the sun was visible in its entirety and its baleful glow provided him with sufficient illumination to carefully pick his way over the treacherous ground. His mood remained sombre as he slowly descended the hill and considered his plan. Would it work? It was far from certain. There were an uncomfortable number of different ways it could fail. He pushed such negative thoughts away. There was nothing he could do to change it now. The Device was complete. It would either work or it wouldn’t. Despite their god-like powers, they remained unsure as to the outcome.

  Only one thing was certain. The last day had dawned.

  Chapter 2

  Mars was unrecognisable. The familiar orange-red orb that had firmly established itself in Humanity’s collective psyche over so many millennia had gone forever, and in its place was an entirely unremarkable murky grey-brown disc over which a planet-wide storm howled and moaned. Superheated eddies and whirlpools towered high into what was left of the atmosphere and deposited a swirling mix of ash, soot and dust in a thick layer over every square metre of the surface. The planet had suffered, that was clear. In fact, for many planetologists, it was a miracle it was still in one piece. The entire mantle had trembled when the fragment of Titan had impacted eight weeks ago, and there had been speculation that a new asteroid belt was about to form. It hadn’t happened. Mars appeared to be remarkably resilient – though it would never be the same again. It was a post-apocalyptic nightmare.

  Deira MacMahon stood silently on the bridge of the CFR survey ship as it entered its final approach vector that would take it into orbit round the planet. She skimmed through the official report once again, still staggered by the forces that had been released by the impact. First there had been the kinetic energy release that had melted rocks for many kilometres beyond the impact zone, releasing superheated steam from hydrate stores and resulting in a rapidly-spreading magma that had soon covered an area equivalent in size to the continental United States. Then had come the plasma burst – a sudden and massive release of highly energetic charged particles that stripped the electrons from the hydrogen in the superheated steam, fusing their cores into helium, and causing Mars, for one spectacular moment, to shine with its own astral glory.

  Even that hadn’t been the end. As the light from the hydrogen fusion reaction faded, it gave way to an atmospheric firestorm, fuelled by the oxygen released from the steam and the heat-generated hydrate release. The ravening flames rolled around the planet, consuming the oxygen as they went and leaving behind a mass of soot, ash and dust. Though the flames finally died, the storms did not, and Mars was left to glow into the night like a vast cosmic ember.

  Finally, there was the issue of Phobos. The fragment of Titan had passed very close to the small moon, avoiding a direct impact by the narrowest of margins, but critically disturbing its orbit. It had been known for many years that Phobos’ orbit was slowly decaying and, at some time in the future, tidal forces would eventually cause it to break up or crash into Mars. Recent events had speeded this process up considerably, and projections now suggested the moon would crash-land in around six months. Nobody could predict the effect of this on an already over-stressed Mars, but a new asteroid field was increasingly looking like a strong possibility.

  Deira looked up from the report and gazed at the swirling maelstrom through the forward viewscreen, wondering, not for the first time, why she’d come. Intellectually, she’d known it would be like this. She’d watched the video feed from the first drones sent to investigate, and they’d all shouted the same message – if there had once been something alive down there, it was sure as hell dead now. Despite that, within the blasted wastelands of her emotions there remained a small seed of hope, a refusal to believe that Sol had truly gone, and she had known she would never find peace until she’d witnessed first-hand the scene of his final mission.

  And now? Now that tiny seed lay crushed by cruel reality. She turned away, her natural pragmatism beginning to reassert itself. This had been a colossal waste of time. There was nothing to see, nothing even to imagine, because everything was truly dead – including Sol.

  ‘Orbital insertion achieved.’ The helmsman’s tone was matter-of-fact.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Forbes.’ Captain Sleeman made an entry in his console and glanced up at Deira. ‘So, Agent MacMahon, what are your thoughts now you’re up close and personal? Was this what you were expecting?’

  ‘Everything – and then some.’ She caught the Captain’s eye. ‘Please call me Deira.’

  She’d been trying to break down the barriers between them ever since she’d set foot on the ship, unsuccessfully for the most part. It was bad enough that she felt guilty at using her celebrity status to hitch a ride, but it was made worse by the fact that the Captain clearly resented her being here. He was pleasant enough in public but resolutely refused to call her by her given name and made no effort to socialise when not on duty. He frowned and looked back down, apparently absorbed in his console once more.

  ‘That wouldn’t be appropriate, Agent.’

  Deira gave up. She couldn’t force him to loosen-up if he felt more comfortable keeping her at arm’s length. She turned back to the viewscreen, trying to imagine what it must have been like for Sol immediately before the fragment struck. What would he have been thinking? He must have been desperate, thinking about Juliette on Mars and not knowing she was safe on Earth, thanks to the heroic efforts of Hector Monroe.

  Deira hadn’t known how she would feel when she finally got to see Mars for herself. All she’d known was that she had to make the journey – a pilgrimage, if you like – so she could finally lay that part of her personal disaster to rest. She’d been worried she might lose it completely in front of the bridge crew but, now she was here, she found she was able to take in the sight with comparative ease. It had been two months since the catastrophe that had taken two of her family, and she had done with grieving. Though she was well aware that the hurt and emptiness within her would likely linger for many years, and might never go, at least she was able to confront it now. She controlled it. It no longer controlled her.

  She watched Mars a little longer, scanning the churning chaos for she knew not what and reluctant to tear herself away. Was she still trying to convince herself that Sol was alive somewhere down there? She shook her head and turned away. The bridge crew were all absorbed with their work and she felt like an interloper, the Captain’s attitude not helping. She wondered round aimlessly for a couple of minutes, then returned to her cabin. This was no good. She’d seen what she needed to see, and it hadn’t brought the closure she’d sought. She should move on.

  She considered what her next moves should be. Back on Earth – the Earth that could so easily have ended-up like Mars had Josh not stopped that final asteroid – the young agents were trying, unsuccessfully, to re-establish contact with the Eich. They had confirmed that the barrier around the Eich settlement was the same folded space construct that Josh and Tao had found surrounding the Cthon city. To circumvent such a construct, a time-fold was required and, since none of them had yet reached that stage in their mentalic development, all their efforts remained futile.

  Deira couldn’t help them with that. In fact, she wasn’t sure what she could help with anymore. Everything appeared to require either mentalic abilities far beyond her own, or a deep knowledge of sub-quantal science. Perhaps she really was past her sell-by date. On an impulse, she put in a call to Juliette, her mood lifting slightly when her daughter’s smiling face appeared on the screen.

  ‘Hi Mum! How’s it going?’

  Juliette had bounced back with the resilience of the young, a resilience Deira envied. She was a very different person
from the haunted young woman who had accompanied Deira to the Moon only six short weeks ago. That person had been in a very bad place indeed – a place that even Deira had been unable to share. Now she was almost her old self again and, while it was clear she hadn’t completely recovered from the loss of her father and brother, her enthusiasm and general joie de vivre had returned. At least one of them was moving on with their life.

  ‘Okay, I guess.’ Deira pictured again the swirling hell that was Mars. ‘I’ve seen what I needed to. It wasn’t much. No more than you’d see on the tri-vids any night of the week.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper and she looked down at her feet. ‘I don’t know what I expected.’

  Juliette looked troubled. ‘You were hoping for a sign that Dad might still be alive, weren’t you? You must know that’s impossible.’

  Deira’s head jerked up. ‘Like Adam still being alive, you mean? We all thought that was impossible too.’

  ‘Yeah, well …’ There was no answer to that. Adam suddenly popping up in Tao Chen’s body had been so totally unexpected it would have left them reeling if their emotions had not already been lacerated by the loss of Sol and Josh. ‘Has seeing Mars up close been of any use then? Or has the trip just been a waste of time?’

  ‘I don’t know. Seeing it like it is should be enough. I should be able to move on. And yet – there’s something.’