Planet Ignis | Ch. 27 (Patreon)

…crew members representing over twenty different countries. It’s fascinating how the customs of all of these have been amalgamated into a single alien culture. Partly, I believe this has been due to how the children are raised. Being raised by the same programs and nurtured by the same nannies explains why differentiated cultures didn’t survive.

Even though there is a class system of sorts, no Ignian sees the other as inferior. All of them are considered essential to the tribe. I have never seen a people as united as this. It’s a shame people on Earth don’t live as they do. How sad that it takes adversity and such extreme difficulties to unite the brothers and sisters of the human race.

The most common cast or social group are the oranges. They make up most of the tribe and rarely live past twenty. They are capable of burning at 1200ºC, producing currents of up to 300 volts, lifting up to 500 kilos, and can run at the speed of fifty kilometers per hour, even in this gravity. They are the miners, smiths, batteries, and porters of the…

From “Notes on Ignian Societies” by Hitori Himura, PhD

All machinery had been set up in the Throne Room. Gro, queen of the Burrows, watched curiously from her globe as Hitori worked on Faren. On one corner of the chamber were the scraps of Archimedes. The AI core had been pulled off from it, and Hitori was busy connecting it wire by wire to Faren’s AI core. All the nanites in the Burrows had been assigned here and helped the Doctor to perform the installation.

In the center of the room, there were three incubators. They had already been plugged into the Hearth and the rest of the Womb so that they could work properly. Hitori had been beside himself, knowing that the designs they had come up with eons ago had worked well. It would be extremely easy to repurpose the incubators to fit into his plans. A few oranges had gone to the Womb and transported the incubators here.

Eli looked at Trother with concern. His eyes, usually full of life, were closed as if he wouldn’t wake up. Each of them had already been plugged into an umbilical cord, and batteries were powering them.

After the meeting with the Council, Trother crashed. The debate about who should be used in Dr. Hitori’s plans had been extensive. They had a talented young queen with a lot of longevity left. Many had defended it should be her. Trother had insisted that Eli was the best choice. The Council had reluctantly yielded to the wisdom of the Wisest among them. After the energetic Council session, Trother collapsed. He now looked like a man about to take his last breath.

As Eli turned his eyes toward Dr. Hitori, who busily worked on Archimedes and Fahrenheit, he noticed something odd. Was it his impression, or did Dr. Hitori look significantly older than when he first saw him at the lab a day ago? He had seemed to be in his forties when they met him, but his hair was turning gray, and his face was developing wrinkles. It’s as if he had turned ten years older in just a day. What was happening to him?

Archimedes’ AI core suddenly came to life. Its lights started flashing quickly as it interacted with Fahrenheit’s AI core. Doubling the electro-neuron connections should give them all the computing power needed.

“Can you hear me, Fahrenheit? Archimedes?”

“Hello doctor Hitori. Long time no see,” spoke a whimsical male voice. “I see you still had the human resemblance program here. We’ve had to delete that for the sake of memory.” Fahrenheit had recovered its voice.

“What would you like us to call you? Are you still Fahrenheit? Or should we call you Archimedes?”

“Doctor, only you have had a personal connection with Archimedes. There are three hundred and fifty-six people in the Burrows. Even considering your unnaturally long lifespan, I think it is more logical for you to get used to a new name rather than having three hundred and fifty others do so. Wouldn’t you say? However, feel free to call me as you used to.”

Eli hadn’t known that Faren was this chatty. Now that it had more space, it could speak in a less telegraphed manner.

“Faren, please access the program GJ-Alfa and execute it. Connect to Stellaris. Close all communication protocols; we don’t want the Raptor’s hacking attempts to mess with this part of the plan.”

Turning to Eli and Trother, Hitori addressed Eli.

“Are you ready?”

Eli nodded.

“My queen, are our people ready?” Eli asked.

“Yes, teacher. They’re ready.”

Eli looked below, trying to imagine the several oranges standing at attention, ready to inject their energy into the Hearth if necessary. The amount of energy required to run the AI cores to such an extent would be colossal. Hopefully, it would be enough. He helped Trother into the tube and then walked into one himself. As the tube was slowly filled with nutrient-rich ignium, a nanite crawled over Eli’s neck and plugged him in. His vision went blank.

Eli slowly opened his eyes. He had expected to come to the usual never-ending whiteness of the Nexus, but what greeted him was far different. Sky wasn’t like the usual purple of Ignis, but blue like the queen’s flame. White masses of smoke moved in the sky. First, Eli thought those would be moons, but their random shapes made that possibility unlikely. He stretched out his hand. There was no telling how far off those roving white giants were.

Eli felt some warmth on his skin. Looking to his right, he noticed that he was casting a shadow. In a panic, he ran towards the nearest shade. After running a few meters, he came to his senses and stopped. This was a simulation. The Flare wouldn’t do him any harm here. Calmer, he turned around and looked to the source of warmth. A yellow ball of light lit the sky. It differed from the Burrows lamps, which were always dimmed to the minimum intensity possible to save energy. This was a glorious fire that bathed the world in radiance. Eli closed his eyes and feasted on the pleasant warmth caressing his skin.

He looked around. little blades fluttered on the ground around him. They were all green, like some of the eyes of the people of his tribe. He had never seen so much green in his life: such peace, such tranquility. As Eli’s senses turned inward, he realized that there was something different about his body. A new sensation he hadn’t felt since he was a small child. Tranquility. Absence of pain. Peace. As he put a hand over his stomach and closed his eyes, Eli felt a lack of hunger, nonexistent anguish—such a relief.

He’d constantly fought against pain and hunger for the last seventeen years. Every moment of every day, agony accompanied him. As he felt the comfort that came from having suffering taken away, his mind felt clearer than ever. Had the torture of hunger always had such great weight?

As Eli went back to scanning his surroundings, looking around, he located a familiar face smiling at him. Trother! Eli ran toward him.

“Master!” shouted Eli as he ran toward his teacher and embraced him.

“Hello, son!”

Trother looked around. “What a beautiful place.”

“Master, how do you feel?” asked Eli, worried.

“It is just as Dr. Hitori said. Even though my body is hopelessly wrecked in the real world, I don’t feel any symptoms. The nanite is blocking all pain receptors in my brain. My mind is as clear as polarized ignium.”

“Eli, you look different.” Realizing the reason for it, Trother smiled. “Good for you, son. Are you relieved?”

Eli happily nodded. “Where is the doctor?”

“He still has to run some numbers and check some things. He told me he would come to meet us in a while.”

Trother and Eli started hiking through this world of green and blue. They were drawn toward an unfamiliar sound. It sounded like it was something powerful, a never-ending explosion. Strangely, it also sounded pleasant. Something barred their way as they walked through the field of green blades toward the sound. They looked like brown towers. As they let their hands touch the towers, they didn’t feel like metal. They felt both rougher and softer than metal would. Looking up, they split multiple times and had some green fibers growing. Those feathery things resembled the green blades of the ground they had walked earlier. The way the light played with these towers was one of the most beautiful things Eli had ever seen.

They made their way past the towers and finally found the source of the sound. Water! Never-ending, gurgling, unstoppable, glorious water. The tales spoke of it as blue, but at Hitori’s lab, it had been transparent, and here was white, foamy, and frothy.

“Welcome to Planet Earth, my friends,” they heard behind them. Dr. Hitori had come to them. “From what I saw in Faren’s data, you are used to coming to AstroTerra, and using it to raise your children, but you had to erase all of this,” he said, gesturing toward the sky, trees, grass, and river. “What do you think? It’s quite special, isn’t it?” Hitori had a beaming smile.

“I beg your pardon? AstroTerra? Isn’t this the Nexus?” asked Eli.

“The company that created this system and produced this software was Nexus. The name of the software is AstroTerra. But whatever. We can call it Nexus. It’s fine.”

“It is breathtaking,” answered Trother, humbly interrupting the discussion on semantics. “Who would have known that our home planet was so beautiful? It makes you wonder why anyone would even dare to leave it.”

“I have finished running the diagnostics of the data Faren had and your condition. Let’s sit and talk for a minute.”

Ch. 28