Reaper

REAPER

A SHORT STORY

BY

NAM SOHANTA

EMAIL: coolnam@btinternet.com

(c) Copyright 2000 Nam Sohanta

"And Lo! Before me stalked the Reaper!
Eyes aflame with evil intent!
And I, in the blinking of a Cosmic Eye
Plunged to a icy virgin world,
In cold surrender to a dismal fate,
I wait, three million years,
Oh God! Three million lonely years . . ."

"Memories, Dreams, Lives!" by Professor Ether Starman,
historian, philosopher, Nobel Prize winner

In 2010, humanity crawled to a lingering, painful end, and the
towering pinnacle of its achievement--civilisation--crumbled in the
slow shock waves that followed. Few had predicted it, save the prophets
of doom that had long harassed bemused and startled shoppers in the
High streets of towns and cities of the world. Yet, even these
harbingers of doom could not have predicted that the cataclysmic events
leading to the destruction of most life on Earth would start in the
bleak wilderness of the Antarctic Peninsula . . .

. . .

Professor Ether Starman sat opposite Thomas Jacob, the head of project
"Black Hole". Starman casually flicked an imaginary speck off his
trousers and affected a bored countenance. Rawlins, the British
Antarctic Survey security chief, stood still and erect by the door,
clutching an automatic.

'Caught the professor rigging explosives to the main generator, Sir,'
declared Rawlins to Jacob.

Jacob jumped up and paced the room. Nikolai Tesla had also done this,
thought Starman, when he was agitated.

'Jacob,' said Starman, 'this insane project will decimate life on
Earth. It must be stopped! You underestimate the danger you're
facing.'

'Confound it, old man!' said Jacob, rejecting the assertion with a
wave of a hand. 'A remote possibility we've already considered and
rejected. You underestimate me, professor. While I'm in charge nothing
can go wrong.' Jacob glared at Starman, then slumped back in his chair.
Starman ignored him and scanned the office. The four grey walls and
harsh white light conspired to produce a sterile clinical ambience,
like a mortuary. Appropriate, thought Starman, as Jacob may die within
these four walls. Behind Jacob hung ageing framed certificates of his
awards and achievements--paraphernalia most people discard after a
while. Not Jacob, his pride would be his downfall. One photo, slightly
faded, showed Jacob receiving second prize at the Scott Polar Research
Institute Awards Ceremony in Cambridge. He looked disgruntled, as if
annoyed he hadn't won first prize. Behind him a shelf groaned under the
weight of books: glossy biographies of explorers; maps of Antarctica;
survival manuals.

'Professor, you made a fool of yourself at the St. Petersburg
conference,' said Jacob, trying not to smile. 'I don't understand you.
Poet, philosopher, Nobel Prize winner, historian--yet your Dickensian
eccentric mannerisms and quaint attire impress no-one. A lone voice
that cries wolf at the first sign of danger.'

Starman glanced at the window, dismayed at a dark, brooding snowstorm
rolling in over the ocean. He noticed his reflection in the window.
Under the regulation Parka was a small neat man arrayed in Oxford
tweeds and a red silk bow-tie. He had modelled himself on the neatness
of Sigmund Freud, the eccentricity of Alan Turing, the persistence of
Thomas Edison, the genius of Albert Einstein. But, was Jacob right? Was
he indeed an anachronism in this hi-tech scientific community? Perhaps
it was time for a younger, dynamic identity to reflect this new
scientific order.

'Hells bells!' cried Jacob. 'You're not a qualified glaciologist,
marine biologist, or even a geologist. You're a damn history professor
for God's sake! A science dilettante--with a passing interest in
Antarctica. A Nobel in Literature for a somewhat personal view of
history doesn't admit interference with my project. Project Black Hole,
professor, is my Nobel Prize, so please spare me wild speculations
about imaginary dangers.'

Jacob rose and poured himself a mug of hot Colombian. The rich aroma
wafted around the room, the steam causing droplets of condensation on
the windows. Starman decided reluctantly to reason with Jacob.

'Jacob, listen to me,' said Starman. 'This lake you're drilling was
covered over by a glacier three million years ago. In that time, Lake
Vostok has been airtight, the pristine environment never having had
exposure to the outside atmosphere. So, why drill it? There's been
three million years of evolution down there, radically different from
our own. Who knows what dangers lurk in that cold dark water.'

Jacob smiled. 'I say, professor! Are we talking Loch Ness monsters!
Dear, oh dear! We're not aborting a multi-million-pound project because
of some Kraken!'

'No,' said Starman calmly. 'Not Kraken. Something else.'

'What then? Bacteria? A deadly virus? I know there are 100,000 deadly
viruses on this planet currently in a dormant state, professor. And, I
know that many have the potential to wipe out humanity. But, we've
taken precautions. Every drop of water will be filtered and analysed.
After all, that's the point: to investigate evolution down there.
Anything dangerous will be detected.'

'To quote a man of insight,' muttered Starman, 'there are more things
in heaven and earth then-'

'-Hells bells, Starman!' Jacob's brow creased. 'Stick to history
professor, leave science fiction to the writers.' He slumped into his
chair. 'Throughout history pessimists like you tried to halt the march
of scientific progress: Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Darwin,
Oppenheimer, have all been criticised, only to prove their detractors
wrong when their theories were proved correct. We would still be in the
dark ages if we'd listened to the critics. Well, not me, professor!
Main base has been informed of your attempted sabotage. You're to be
airlifted back in a few hours. Go back to your dusty academic office,
professor, sharpen your pencils and work your theories, but leave the
real science to us.'

Jacob grinned. Starman knew that grin. He had seen it once before on
Temujin, a young Mongol prince still dripping red with the blood of his
enemies after his victory, as he took the title of Genghis Khan in
front of a massed army of his followers.

Jacob nodded at Rawlins. 'Lock him in the storeroom.'

Starman rose slowly to his feet. 'Jacob, stop this project, or
everyone will die.'

Rawlins seized Starman before Jacob could reply. He was marched to a
small storeroom at the end of the dark corridor. He scanned the room.
Rawlins, noticing his keen interest in the window, confiscated his
regulation issue Parka, scarf, and gloves. Rawlins left, closing the
door with a thud. From outside came the sound of a key, turning.
Starman looked around; the window was large enough to climb through,
but only a madman would venture into the sub-zero wilderness outside
without the minimum standard issue clothing.

. . .

Ten minutes later Ether Starman had prised open the window and crawled
through. Outside, loomed an overcast sky, shredding grey-white snow,
driven diagonally by a harsh, chilling wind. The screaming blizzard had
reduced visibility so that the horizon was now an ominous curtain the
colour of dirty dish-water, encircling the research station in a cold
embrace.

Shuffling through ankle-deep snow, Starman experienced the first
biting tendrils of pain clasping his extremities. Ten minutes without
regulation clothes, he thought, and pain was already making his
acquaintance. His wrist thermometer flashed minus twenty. Breathing had
become arduous. The air was coating his nostril hairs with frost--a
curious sharp sensation, like sucking sulphuric acid through your nose.
Suddenly the screaming blizzard ceased as if somewhere a switch had
been thrown, to be replaced by the deafening heaving of his lungs. He
felt strangely trapped in this open icy wilderness as if suddenly
agoraphobic; a deep-sea diver wading the ocean floor after losing all
connection to the surface.

A wise and courageous face of an old friend came to mind. Had Robert
Falcon Scott also felt trapped when he spoke those immortal words:
'Great God! This is an awful place.'

With chilled hands clutching pocket binoculars, Professor Ether
Starman scanned the station buildings. There stood the enormous
multi-faceted insect eye, the huge Plexiglas heated geodesic dome--the
hub of the research station. Within, the twin gas-powered giant screws
of the drilling machinery pumped ceaselessly. Around the drill stood
shadowy figures: scientists and engineers with orange, British
Antarctic Survey thermal bodysuits. Behind them, the glass-enclosed
control tower stood like an incongruous minaret in the freezing
Antarctic snow.

His plan: destroy the control tower. He checked the Semtex, then with
a new determination pulsing hot in his veins, began the long
trudge.

He remembered the long hot days island-hopping in Indonesia, lazing
under droopy palm trees, dipping toes in the warm blue-green waters of
lagoons, making slow love to lithe and smiling island girls. He felt a
gradual increase in body temperature--mind over body. Techniques learnt
in Tibet, before the invading Chinese crushed all metaphysical and
esoteric teachings.

Starman spied a side door. With near-frozen hands he struggled with
the handle then stumbled into a dark passage. He kicked the door shut
and collapsed shivering while the icy wind moaned outside the door--a
siren lamenting his escape from her deadly clutch.

He struggled to his feet, shuffled towards a door ahead, up a narrow
flight of steps, and approached a door marked 'Control Room: Authorised
Personnel Only'. He untied the Semtex from the inside of his right leg,
prepared the detonator--and froze. Against the back of his head was the
unmistakable feel of a cold metal gun barrel.

'Got you Starman!' said Rawlins. He confiscated the detonator, knowing
the plastic explosive was useless without it, then frisked Starman.
Satisfied that he was safe, Rawlins said, 'Go in, Starman. Easy now,
don't try anything. Tom's expecting you. We followed you on our
surveillance cameras.'

Starman entered on leaden legs, in a mood darker than the sky. Inside
was a large dim room, humming with banks of computers. A dozen men in
B.A.S. overalls sat huddled over an array of glowing monitors. From the
speakers screeched a constant chatter of techno-babble between the
control room and the drill platform.

Jacob, eerily lit in the dim ambience, face an unsmiling severe mask,
approached Rawlins.

'The sly bugger had more explosives, Sir,' said Rawlins, displaying
the detonator.

Jacob shook his head. 'Dear oh dear! Still playing games, old
man?'

Starman resolved to try a final tactic--the truth. 'Jacob,' he said,
'cease this now. There's something you should know about Lake
Vostok.'

Jacob waited silently.

'You're . . . er, correct, of course. There's no threat from
micro-organisms, but you wouldn't have believed the truth.'

'Truth, professor? What is this truth?'

'There's an entity trapped down there. It mustn't escape. It's
intelligent, dangerous, vicious.'

Jacob threw arms in the air. 'Balderdash! We're back to the Kraken!
Listen, old boy. If there's something down there why haven't we found
it?'

'You will, when you reach the lake.'

Jacob grinned. 'But, we already have, professor. Following your last
sabotage attempt, we rescheduled the drill time, and began the final
stage--early. During our little chat in my office, we drilled through
and dropped a remote probe. And--I might add--we found no
monsters.'

Starman stared with wide eyes. 'You fool! What have you done!'

'Calm yourself, old man. Look over there.' Jacob indicated a large
screen displaying the view from the probe remote camera. The probe
lights illuminated darting flecks of tiny bioluminous fish.

'Amazing, isn't it! Life!' cried Jacob. 'Be thankful you're here to
see it, professor. We've seen the ubiquitous krill, or course. Also,
albino Nototheniidae--completely blind, like the other creatures. But,
no monster.'

They stared at the screen, transfixed by flashes of light and life. A
transparent shrimp-like creature swam into view, then was gone. A sea
snake, flashing bioluminous shards of pink and green, wriggled across
the probe. A moment later a transparent jellyfish, practically
invisible in the darkness around the lights, fluttered past.

Ether Starman's head dropped to his chest. 'I . . . I don't
understand. It must be there.'

'Never mind, professor,' said Jacob smiling. 'We are all allowed a
mistake or two.'

'Tom,' said the probe operator, 'there's something on radar. Moving
fast. On main screen now.'

A dark amorphous blob, the size of a tennis ball, darted across the
bright probe spotlight, then, turning abruptly, came closer to
investigate.

'It's here,' said Starman, and slumped into a chair with dismay.

Jacob turned a puzzled look to a man on his right. 'Henry, old chap,
you're the marine biologist, what do you make of that?'

Henry shrugged his shoulders. 'A shadow perhaps? Or a camera
malfunction.'

'There's no malfunction,' said a technician behind him. 'All video
systems are working correctly.'

The dark entity shot towards the hole in the ice.

'Track it,' ordered Jacob. The main screen changed viewpoints as
cameras tracked the entity, until finally, it emerged from the ice
sheet, hovering a foot above the drill hole.

'Impossible,' said Jacob, 'It's floating in air!'

The voice of a drill engineer crackled on the speakers. 'Tom, are you
seeing this!'

The company turned to a screen, displaying the drill platform where
the engineers stood confused, watching the dark entity. It floated for
a minute, as if in contemplation of its surroundings. Suddenly,
silently, it rushed at an engineer, disappearing quickly through the
thermal body suit. His body glowed blue then collapsed, drained of
life, his face horror-stricken.

Jacob smashed a fist onto a red emergency button. The room pulsed with
flashing red lights. A loud wailing screamed around the research
station.

Jacob spoke into a microphone, 'Red alert! All personnel evacuate the
dome section then seal it!' He turned calmly to Rawlins. 'Get to the
radio. Inform the Norwegians to remain on standby--we may need help,
then check the evacuation vehicles.' He faced the others. 'Evacuate
please, gentlemen! You know the procedure.' The stunned, bewildered
scientists stumbled out of the control room, leaving Jacob and Starman
alone.

Together they watched the surveillance monitor. The dark entity
emerged from the dead man's nostrils, hovered for a moment, then flew
after another. The man screamed, crashed to the ground, thrashed arms
and legs, finally became still.

Jacob turned to Starman. 'Professor, what in hell's name is it?'

'That Jacob, is the Reaper--an ancient entity, far worse than the
fictitious monsters dreamt of by your science fiction writers. You want
the science? It's an electromagnetic life force. A polymorph, feeding
on bioelectricity generated by the brains of complex multi-cellular
organisms.'

'Good Lord! How do we stop it?'

Starman shook his head, sadly. 'Too late, Jacob. The chance is
squandered, gone! The creature's liberated from its cold, dark
imprisonment!'

'Damn it, Starman! There must be some way to stop it?'

'No! The "Reaper" is no misnomer. Once it's "harvested" the life here
it will continue to main base. In a month, it will be in South America.
In 3 years, the only high-order mammals left on Earth will be those
with a weak life force--weak from the collapse of civilisation,
diseased, or too old or young. Meanwhile, your great scientific
progress will have been halted. Your culture--arts, literature,
music--all will be forgotten. The only activity will be the frantic,
desperate scramble for survival.' Starman gazed through the window.
'You desired greatness, Jacob. Congratulations, you have it! The
destroyer of humanity!'

'How in God's name do you all know this?'

Starman stared at the sky. The blizzard had gone leaving a night sky
twinkling with a thousand stars. 'Somewhere amongst those points is my
home. I remember a day in the distant past when I left to begin the
hunt. My people, on a far world in the Orion Cluster, had named it the
"Reaper", after it had destroyed countless worlds. Then it attacked
mine. The population was annihilated except for those that were somehow
immune from its touch. I was one of them.'

Jacob pointed an accusing finger at the professor. 'Are you telling me
you're . . . aliens? Nonsense!'

Starman's body glowed gas-blue; a grey fog encased it. The fog
cleared. In place of Professor Ether Starman, stood a small grey-blue
humanoid creature. It stared at Jacob with large black eyes, above a
slit of a nose and mouth. Long thin arms hung low to the sides. The
creature spoke, without words, using direct thought transference.

'Oh my God! What manner of beast are you!' spluttered Jacob.

'Beyond your understanding,' said the alien. 'We survivors made a pact
with other intelligent life-forms in the Cluster to eradicate "Reapers"
from the populated sections of the Universe. This one escaped my trap.
I pursued it with a vengeance, through the star systems of the Virgo
Cluster, past the populated worlds hanging on the rim of The Milky Way.
Often I thought it lost as I weaved through asteroid belts threatening
to tear my ship asunder, dodging exploding stars, losing navigation
sensors in immense gas clouds.'

'Three million years ago,' continued the alien, 'a supernova shock
wave sent us hurtling to this remote solar system where we crashed on
the third planet. The Reaper sunk into a lake in the Antarctic and
became trapped beneath a glacier. I landed in what is now called the
Rift Valley of Africa and was unable to repair my ship. I scanned the
surface and knew there was emerging life on the planet. The conditions
were optimal for evolution of an advanced multi-cellular organism. So,
with no other options, I waited for life, civilisation, and technology
to develop. Three million years I've waited. With my long lifespan,
it's seemed no more than three eventful years.'

The surveillance monitor crackled, an image appeared: Rawlins,
futilely shooting the Reaper. It rushed at him. He hurled the gun in
panic, then fled the room. A moment later he lay dead.

'Once on a clear day,' continued the alien that had been Starman, 'I
saw a four-legged creature in Central Africa rise shakily on hind legs
and gaze with longing at some object in the distance. And in that
determined look I saw the beginnings of humanity. A realisation that a
walk would achieve its goal; a calculated plan--the awakenings of
intelligence. Homo Erectus had arrived and my twin hearts were filled
with joy.

'Then, 200,000 years ago, shaggy man-beasts roamed the vast
continents. The new Homo Sapiens, afflicted with wanderlust, dispersed
from their birthplace.

'Usually, I would roam the planet as a creature, quite often a black
eagle. I saw tools used for the first time in Japan, then later, the
ecstatic expression on a man daubing coloured earth on a cave wall in
France.

'Gliding over Sumeria I chanced upon a commotion: a group of people
stood in awe as a man rolled a round object on stony ground--the wheel
had been invented.

'I saw the building of the walls of Jericho when war was born and men
cried for mercy at the point of a sword. And from my eagle eye I
marvelled at the magnificent city of Mohenjo-daro in the Indus Valley
with its straight torch-lit roads, sewage system and communal baths. I
have pondered over Stonehenge and been dazzled by Troy. I have
contemplated the mysteries of the pyramid at Giza and listened to wise
Solomon at his Temple in Jerusalem. I have seen Rome rise from the dust
and marched with Emperor Shi Huang-ti along his Great Wall.

'And I have known the wise. In human form I sat in still meditation
before Gautama Siddhartha under a Bo tree when he blossomed into the
Buddha. Later I listened with rapt attention to John the Baptist at
Galilee. The words of Muhammad in Mecca were nectar to my ears and Guru
Nanak taught me the ways of the pious man at Amritsar. In China,
Lao-Tzu and Confucius taught me how to live with the elemental forces
of nature.

'I witnessed the beginnings of religion when the screams of sacrificed
humans rent the blood red sky to please the almighty Gods. I saw the
beginnings of numbering and writing when priests in Egypt and Sumeria
recorded the reigns of the kings.

'I have shed tears of sadness when Socrates drank hemlock and Crassus
crucified the Spartacists along the Appian Way.

'One cloudy day in the Jewish month of Nisan I watched a man from
Nazareth crucified on a hill, and I thought my sadness complete until
centuries later I heard the screams of innocent people tortured and
killed in his name.

'I saw leaders of men rise and fall: a young smiling Tutankhamen
ascend the throne of Egypt with all the glory of heaven; Alexander of
Macedon whom all the world feared; Ceasar, Charlemagne, Kublai Khan and
Hitler, bloated with their own importance until grim death knocked on
their doors.

'And since the dawn of mankind, I have moved among you as a man--yet
not a man: an outsider. I watched, I listened, and sometimes, educated
and enlightened--in subtle ways so that I would not be branded an
unnatural or demonic being. Leonardo da Vinci, Copernicus, Isaac
Newton, Einstein, Dalton, Hawkins--I have known and influenced them
all.

'And my purpose always was to move scientific progress to the day when
man could build spaceships that would return me to my home world. The
Reaper has the ability to travel vast distances without a ship--I have
no such luxury! And so, here I am. And, once more, I must wait until
humanity again reaches this level of technology.'

The surveillance screen showed the Reaper entering the control tower
through the heating vents.

Thomas Jacob watched the screen, then rose slowly and marched to the
door. He turned to the creature he had once known as Professor Ether
Starman. 'I . . . I'm sorry prof. . . er, old chap. I hope you can
return home someday.' Jacob straightened, held his head high, and
strode out to meet his fate.

The creature that had been Starman disappeared in a grey fog. When it
cleared, a Polar bear stood in its place. For a moment, it stood
looking through the window at the twisted and contorted bodies, in
grotesque rigor mortis. Everyone was dead. He was alone once
more!

The bear bounded from the control room, down the stairs, out into the
darkness. It glanced at the twinkling stars and the gibbous white moon.
As it gazed at the stars a sound that may have been a sigh escaped its
white lips.