Minx Ep. 06: Three Worlds

"What, if anything, in this universe is unnatural? If you mean did an intelligence do them in, then I don't have sufficient data for an answer. Certainly something eradicated them from existence. I do not know whether it was a virus, radiation, an attack or just a general despair over all they had lost. You should be napping."

"I told you..."

"Yes, yes..."

She heard his bare feet crunch sand as he walked toward her. She peered at him as he stretched out on the sand beside her.

"That's better," she lied. She closed her eyes and tried to slow her breathing and heartbeat.

Time passed. His breathing was steady and slow. She risked a comment from him and peered through half-closed eyes at his face. To all appearances he was completely relaxed and likely asleep. She frowned at the thought that her bodyguard was slumbering through his duties. Despite his assurances she still felt a presence on the island, watching her.

A rustle in the undergrowth made her sit up alert. She tensed and mentally debated waking Dragon, then decided against it as he had seemed very confident the island was safe.

Listening carefully, all she could hear were the gentle waves. She briefly wondered what the tides would be like, and whether she could wade out and spear a fish for their dinner. Then, another noise in the vegetation made her quickly turn about and search the greenery for animal life. There were no signs of movement, and no further sounds. Could something have been watching her and then frozen in place, perfectly camouflaged when she had turned about? The strangeness of the vegetation also made her a little uneasy, with the leafless ferns, upside down carrots and bizarre half-opened tree trunks supporting enormous-leafed canopies. Minx decided there was only one thing to do. She quietly rose to her feet, grabbed one of Dragon's tools - it looked a bit like a telescope but felt weighty in her hand - and crept into the wall of vegetation.

After over fifteen minutes of searching she had found no signs of animal life, including no trails, no scat, no prints and no scratches. The only further sounds she had heard had been made by her pushing through fronds, branches and tendrils, and by her bare feet crushing the dead and dried vegetative debris beneath her bare feet. She was sure she had heard something while she'd been on the beach. Could she have imagined it? Was the hyperman correct that she was still living and behaving as if she were on Arachne's planet?

Consciously, she was confident there was nothing dangerous on the island, except for her and Dragon, yet some deep instinct still warned her of peril. Slightly embarrassed, she made her way back to shore then resumed her position on the blanket. Dragon had not stirred.

"Find anything?" he asked once she was fully reclined, had her eyes closed and completely confident that he had been none the wiser to her small expedition.

"Shut up." She shook her head in exasperation.

"I'm patient. Take your time in recovering."

"I thought I heard something. There was nothing there," she added sheepishly.

"You went through a lot, Minx. It will take time for you to become yourself again."

Minx rolled on to her side, draped an arm across his chest and let out a deep breath. Soon she was sleeping. Her dreams were peaceful.

Within three days of her forced vacation she wasn't awakening suddenly and full of alertness in the middle of a relaxing sleep. Within four days she was perfectly content to let Dragon prepare all the meals and serve her. Within five days she was asking him to bring her things; a reading tablet, a pillow, whatever came to her mind. Not once did he complain. He responded with patient acquiescence to any question or comment she made. It began to seem perfectly natural that they should behave so. After all, she reasoned, hadn't he been pursuing her? He was supposed to do his best to make her happy, to serve her. Wasn't he?

On the sixth day after their arrival he announced that he was leaving for a little surveying. After grabbing what equipment he thought essential he walked away along the shore as a surprised Minx stared after him.

"But...what am I supposed to do..."

"You'll make do, Minx. You won't starve while I'm gone."

It was several hours before thirst compelled her to walk over to their supplies to find something to drink. Dragon was just returning as she swallowed the cool water.

"I wasn't away long, was I?"

"I had to get my own drink..." Her voice trailed away as she said the words. She had been far too lazy the last few days, and she had just realized that she had treated Dragon horribly.

"I can read your mind, my dear." He tapped the underside of her chin affectionately. "Don't worry about it. You were in need of rest and you've been getting it." He set down his equipment, then took her hand and led her back to her blanket.

"What did you find?" she inquired, not really curious.

"The whole island is artificial; doubtless made by that extinct race I had mentioned. There are no signs of any archaeological evidence, though. I suspect the race may have been amphibious."

"Hm-mm." She picked up a handful of the perfect white sand and let it slowly slip through her fingers. The uniformity of the colour was odd, as was lack of variation in particle size. She thought she recalled some information about most beach sand on Earth being fish poop and then she wondered where the sand on this beach had come from. Hephaestus' sensors would surely have picked up schools of fish.

"Why don't you lay yourself down and have a nap?"

"That sounds good. Wake me for dinner?"

He gave her a kiss. "Of course."

Chapter 3: Looting the Past

About an hour after a brief and lazy swim with Dragon Minx now laid upon the warm, dry sand, completely at peace with herself and the universe. The air temperature was just a little too warm but the light ocean breeze that caressed her bare skin and now-dry bathing suit cooled her to the perfect temperature. Though there was strange vegetation above the high-water line on this island there were no strange odours to disturb her; nor did any insects exist on this world. She was at peace and it was a welcome change from the harrowing adventures she'd undergone in Arachne's World.

The tranquility ended abruptly as Dragon nudged her thigh with his toe.

"It is high time to get busy again," he explained.

She did not open her eyes. Concentrating on both relaxing all her muscles and listening to the gentle and cyclic wash of the ocean waves upon the sand she hoped he would take the hint and let her continue resting. Perhaps she could spend another month upon this beach before he bothered her again; after all, he had been so patient with her since they had arrived.

He nudged her again, this time a little more forcefully.

"You've been recuperating for a full month now, my dear. It's time you were active again...and I have a mission for us." His voice was soothing but she could hear an almost-perfectly concealed hint of impatience in the tone.

Her eyes opened as she sighed. The reddish sun, swollen and filling a quarter of the sky, dominated her view. She turned her head to the side and took a brief look at her companion, his muscular physique only covered by shorts of silver. Dragon was a very attractive man, she thought, or would be if he weren't so unwilling to bend to her will. She gave him a suggestive smile.

"If you're alert enough for that," he said while returning the smile, "then you're alert enough for the mission."

She sat up with another sigh. "I'm recuperating. You know that. Arachne's planet was hell on me. Another month on this wonderful planet you brought me to should be enough to mend all my bruises..."

"You are completely healed, physically." She secretly agreed with his diagnosis but had become used to indolence on this tropical world that orbited a dying star, and they both knew it. "Mentally is another matter, however. Trauma from your more distant past and from your recent excursion across Arachne's planet will not be repaired by sleeping your life away upon this beach." With a smirk he added: "That sun, there, should explode within three hundred years."

She snickered. "I don't intend to stay on this beach that long. Imagine the sunburn."

He stepped away, kneeled down and activated some small device that appeared much like a child's pogo stick stuck in the sand a couple of metres from her. "You know very well that the ultraviolet radiation from that star is completely filtered out by the atmosphere on this world. You can lay on that spot for a thousand years and never sunburn, though the electromagnetic radiation and particle storm that will hit this planet when the star explodes will sterilize the surface, yourself included should you still be here."

"Three hundred years!" she exclaimed, stretching her arms above her. "Let's test your theory. There's no reason to go anywhere else. We have enough food and supplies to last our lifetimes while we wait for that star to explode."

He ignored her descent into indulgence and his eyes opened wide very briefly. She recognized the facial expression that followed, his eyes slightly unfocussed and his brow furrowed ever so slightly, as an indication that Hephaestus was sending him data over their link.

"Let's go for a swim in that ocean again, Dragon," she suggested hopefully. The last thing she wanted to think about was returning to work, and they had begun daily swims a week earlier. They made a good pair, she and Dragon, and she believed they would be a very successful bounty hunting team when it became necessary, though she found that her love for her occupation was fading.

He pulled the pogo stick from the sand and placed it beside the containers which preserved their food supplies. "An ocean swim is precisely what I was thinking of or, rather, some scuba diving."

She realized he was too stubborn to be distracted from anything but his precious mission. "Didn't we come here to recover? Was this all a sham?" She stood and brushed the sand from her swimsuit and bare skin. "First you want to take over the galaxy and then you proceed to drag me into your life's work. I just want to relax for once."

"When I first discovered this world I had thought of establishing a medical base here, one that I could slink away to should I be grievously injured. Initial scans revealed ruins offshore of this lone island. My investigations just now have established that the ruins extend up onto this island, though they are buried. Whatever civilization flourished here, did so thousands of years ago and was amphibious. There were other rocky planets in this system yet this is the last surviving, the others having long ago been swallowed up by their star. These beings fled those worlds and established a base, a lifeboat, upon this water world. Yet it did them no good in the end. I'd like to find out why."

"Morbid curiosity?" she asked, growing curious. "Or is there some deeper, hyperman purpose behind this investigation? You already told me about the history of this world."

He flashed a smile at her teasing. "A little of both? I'm trying to determine how many Great Barriers there are and what I can do to bypass them. Our long-term survival may depend on it."

"You've given up your plans of galactic conquest and are now concentrating on survival?" Minx was incredulous. He had stated his intention to rule the galaxy too many times to throw away the plan casually.

His arms were suddenly around her. "Can't I change my mind? Do you think I'm lying to you now?"

Her own arms went about his shoulders and neck. He felt good against her, strong, firm, yet yielding. "I know you're not lying to me." Through some unknown intuition she could somehow sense the reorientation in his thinking was real. His galactic conquest was on hold, for now. That would mean her friends on Anima were not going to be conscripted into his army as he had originally planned. She was grateful for that, but curious as to why he had changed his life's goal. "What's this Great Barrier?"

"Ah." He kissed her on the lips, briefly and tenderly. "Long ago there was a scientist who asked the question 'where is everybody?'. It had been known for a long time that flight between stars, or at least communication from star to star, should be possible, though very time consuming and difficult by the technology available to humans in that primitive era. Yet humanity had not been contacted, nor had they discovered any signs of any alien civilizations at that point. The galaxy was immense with stars in every direction in the night sky. It seemed reasonable that many of them would have planets, and potentially life. So, where was everybody? It puzzled the great thinkers for decades. One theory that was developed was that there was a Great Barrier, some event that destroyed any and all advanced civilizations before they could be detected by their neighbours. There were many ideas as to what this could be, and some were very mundane while others were quite far-fetched."

"Okay. I follow your thinking. You're talking about Enrico Fermi? But, I thought they figured out nuclear war or an asteroid strike destroyed civilizations before they became advanced enough to be detected, and human civilization just got lucky."

He gave her a last quick kiss and then stepped away from her. Bending down, he opened a small container then handed Minx a smooth, narrow tube that was about two centimetres long.

"There is no such thing as luck. However, it is possible that only one in a million or billion civilizations survive the Great Barrier and humanity just happened to have been one of those few. We had our own theories. Clearly humanity has spread across the galaxy, yet we have only found a dozen or so alien civilizations and none as advanced as ours. Another three dozen destroyed civilizations have been uncovered, yet no clearly identified Great Barrier has presented itself to the human race in what's left of their ruins. That is a very small number of civilizations for a galaxy of hundreds of billions of habitable worlds. Human civilization is obviously one of the first expending societies to emerge in the Milky Way, perhaps the first one. Even if we are truly the first galactic civilization, it is worthwhile to watch out for potential civilization-ending Great Barriers. The search goes on..."

"Hyperman paranoia." She shook her head in dismay. "If we've spread across the galaxy then we've survived this Great Barrier. There's no need to worry. Can I resume my vacation now?"

He nodded his head in acknowledgement. "Perhaps. Perhaps the Great Barrier arises once a civilization has spread across the galaxy, and eliminates almost all evidence of their existence. Wouldn't you rather know for sure? What of our children and grandchildren?"

"Are you so sure we'll have any?" she asked, trying to prompt a playful argument that might end in some lovemaking. She gently slapped his bottom.

"Whether we do or not we should still investigate why this civilization was wiped out and why humanity has survived. Perhaps our species has faced the Great Barrier and overcome it without recognizing the momentous occasion. Perhaps we have temporarily bypassed the Great Barrier. It may be that we're the only civilization in this galaxy to crawl our way past the Great Barrier, perhaps in the entire universe." He gave her a curious look for a few seconds. "And this is part of your recuperation. Doctor's orders."

"Does hyperman society even have doctors?" she asked pointedly. "How do you know that saying?"

"Monitoring of human communications before I met you. I've collected many idioms, though I use few. Your people complicate your various languages at an alarming rate. The Great Barrier may very well be some galactic-wide Tower of Babel scenario."

He placed the tube in his mouth and made a show of placing it between the teeth and his cheek in his lower jaw. Minx copied him. "It's a breather," he explained. "Water that enters your mouth will have oxygen pulled from it and injected into your throat. Breath in through your mouth and out through your nose."

"I've used one before," she stated, placing the device in her mouth expertly. "They're called scuba pills."

He looked at her in surprise.

"Didn't think I'd realize you had stolen the technology from some human planet?" she asked coyly.

"No. I wasn't aware that your people had access to hyperman technology."

She shrugged. "Two people independently designed and built the same piece of technology. It's a big galaxy."

"Perhaps. Where did you see them in use, Minx?"

"Earth. Are we going swimming?"

"Soon. What were the circumstances?" At her bored look he added: "Humour me."

She crossed her arms over her chest. "It was early on in my career as a bounty hunter. A target had eluded capture by living with his friends near one of Earth's aquatic cities...New Alexandria, I think. You could only travel between the city and his hideout by a small submersible that one of his acquaintances owned. There were known to be underwater defenses and some dangerous currents in the area. Two other bounty hunters had ignorantly hired the submarine and paid with their lives. My investigation revealed the danger and a previous mission had made some executives in Star Research indebted to me. A little hacking of their system while I was on contract with them had revealed they had the scuba pills and I asked for one for my mission. It allowed me to swim to the hideout, where I was able to incapacitate and recover my target."

"Star Research?" prompted Dragon. He seemed very intent on what she was saying.

"A company that does a great deal of scientific research around Earth. Although, most of it is done in orbit and focusses on new energy sources. If we return to Earth I'll arrange a tour of one of their orbital stations...or their moon base! I've heard it's a paradise, a resort set up for their top executives. I might still have a few favours to cash in, though I think you probably have the means to pay for a visit to that moon base. I forget what they call it..." She tapped her chin in thought.

"Maybe another time, Minx. There appears to be a horizontal structure, just offshore, that stretches out from the island. Let's follow it and see if we can gain access to the ruins underneath the island from there."

They waded out into the lapping waves. The water was cool and she knew from experience that it was not salty. She cupped some in her hand and sipped it.

"Why isn't it salty? It is an ocean, after all."

Dragon hesitated briefly to point out the direction of the structure. "Not enough of a continental land mass, I suppose. This world had originally been an ice world, one far enough from the others that it lacked tidal heating. All of its warmth came from the distant sun, too distant before it swelled up to provide heat for water and life. As their sun burned through its supply of hydrogen it swelled, destroying the inner worlds and finally bringing just enough heat to this world for life to survive. The ice melted, revealing a water world with a rocky core. I would guess our ancient and now-extinct friends built a Noah's Ark, of sorts, and transferred as much life as they could from the inner worlds before they were destroyed."

"And this explanation will answer my question...when?" she asked as the waves washed around their midsections.

He smiled at her. "Without rain and other weathering forces pulling salts from a continental mass the sea, here, hasn't had time to build up an appreciable concentration of salts. This ocean will eventually be salty, but it might take tens or hundreds of millions of years of leaching salts from the sea floor to accomplish this."

"Okay. And you told me the rest of that information because...?"