Vestige
Chapter 16

“…Alright, we can talk out here,” Cairo an Preun whispered after he and former mechanic Charmain led his wife, Tyra, and synthetic Number Four to an area just outside the mouth of the cave that all three of the family clans were sleeping inside at the time. The Three Clans still had not returned to their respective cliff-dwellings since the two meetings. The Clans figured they would wait to see what the results were from Tyra and Four’s scouting mission would turn up. Again, living within the reality of not using any level of comms so they would not be detected by the synths in the old Ship crash site.

It had been a day since the scouting team of two did their reconnaissance at the debris field of the old Ship. It was well into the night, and this time around, Charmain and Cairo let the families sleep! Tyra and Four were merely giving first impressions of their mission out from the crash site...

“…seems like we agreed to put both of your lives at risk for not a lot of information,” Cairo stated, slapping a shoulder of the synthetic being. It was one of the few human gestures anyone had seen done to any synth, at least since the bombing.

“Well,” Tyra said, standing next to Charmain, “it’s not like we presented a real threat to them to get their attention…” She turned her attention to the synth. Since they could not use their comms while skimming back to the camps, Tyra knew no more than anyone else. “So, you couldn’t get any significant dialogue from them, or any kind of background communications going on?”

“Well, Tech-Housenn, it’s like you said a few seconds ago: perhaps a more real-world test would’ve revealed more about what they’ve been up to. But in order for us to do that—”

“—we’d have to go in deeper into the debris field,” Tyra finished; partially exhausted from the mission; partially tired of not finding the answers she’d like to know about their enemies across the vast plains of cMaj. Then she had a thought. “There is one thing I’ve noticed: they seemed…jittered.”

The synth’s head swiveled between all three humans. “I’m sorry, but there are still some human colloquialisms I don’t understand!”

“Jumpy,” Charmain tried helping; one of his hands gesticulating. “Uh, a bit on the paranoid side…” His own words got him thinking. “Now what, in stars’ gravity, would make a gathering of synthetic beings nervous?”

All had gone quiet with thought. The strong breeze whipped the men’s long, braided hair around. Tyra still had hers bounded up from the mission.

“A boss,” Cairo finally said. “Think about it…something unexpected is heard somewhere—”

“—a supervisor sends a small crew to check it out,” Tyra input.

“—they find nothing and are nervous about it…?” Charmain said.

“…because they’ve been attacked before!” This was the synthetic that joined the speculation. “Of course…why else would they communicate with their brethren on the three moons but to warn them? By the way, everyone, remember that there were only five of us synths on cMaj…with me, here, with you that leaves only three rogue synths still on the planet. The other missing synthetic was Number One—the one who commandeered your scouting ship for the bombing…”

It appeared that the humans had forgotten such details. Understandable; for they had a lot of things on their minds the past several years! They all simply nodded upon Number Four’s reminding. He continued.

“Colonists, remember when I said to you the first day I came across your settlement that I’ve mostly cracked their code?”

They all silently nodded. Four continued.

“I believe I can correct you, Mission Commander an Preun, about not getting a lot of information from this mission…Months before, when I first was able to understand most of the cMaj synthetics’ cryptions, they kept making some sort of reference that’s never made sense to me: Tardigrades…?”

The synthetic paused, to see if any of the humans had an idea what he was talking about. And, indeed, the astrophysicist did!

“Stars, I thought those were just fairytales from the ancients!”

Tyra and Charmain glanced at each other; lost in the conversation while the synthetic looked on. The astro-scientist obliged.

“Well, I am a bit older than all the other adults in the Settlement, so maybe that’s why I’ve heard of them…Basically, it’s part-history, part-children’s story, part-poetry that originated from our ancestral planet’s moon. I don’t know the details, but it’s believed these microscopic, Earthen beings—the Tardigrades—accidentally ended up on Mother Earth’s moon! Probably during the earliest days of humans venturing out into the oceans of Space…

“Generations later, they kind of became the moon’s major pests by the time our ancestors colonized Earth’s moon! I guess some families started a tradition of scaring the kids—to make sure they cleaned up after themselves. What do you expect? It was the Days of Space-Antiquities!”

A little chuckle from the two other humans. Cairo went on.

“The fairytale-poem went something like…

“We swam the black seas from the graying blue ball, and now we are the king of all!

“We’ve conquered the Sun and even all its children; we’ve even captured its essence!

“We’ve destinied our rights; we’ve conquered with lights.

“But of all our achievements and of all our mastery, we’ve been conquered by the tiny—Tardigrades!”

For Cairo, it was a bit of inane nostalgia. He chuckled to himself. He noticed how Tyra and Charmain looked off in cMaj’s night; pensively thinking on the fairytale. Synthetic laborer Number Four remained silent. And for good reasons.

“Mission Commander,” Number Four said; finally breaking the silence among the four, “now that you’ve supplied me with a frame of reference for this word, I was able to access historical data on it. Ancient data…Sir, did you know that these Tardigrades’ biology is so robust, individual-Tardigrades are able to survive in the vacuum of space! Provided they’re prepared in the right conditions…”

Cairo’s smile had been replaced with a concerned countenance. For he knew where the synth was going with his revelation.

“What is more,” Number Four continued, “apparently, they are also able to survive radiation exposure…”

Epiphany…

The three humans froze on spot; looking at each other, but each one running their own thought-process of the night’s impromptu meeting!

“Several generations of the old Ship never really had to deal with them,” Tyra said; her eyes looking out at cMaj’s night. “Probably a millennial since the Colony pretty much got a handle on other Earthen species—kept the ones we desired, for farming and pets; weeded out those we deemed vermin…except—”

“—except in the original sector of the old Ship,” Charmain came in. His body language showed he understood the connection! “Where you and your search party years ago discovered that old warning signal…obviously, there was left-over radiation. But whatever Tardigrades that freeloaded with our ancestors when they first built the Ship had survived as an organism! And like Four’s research backs up, apparently that species has survived the Ship’s bombing from twenty years ago!”

Cairo and Tyra looked at him with dubious eyes.

“Well, why not,” Charmain defended. “Synth Four just said it based on scientific data. Look, if the Tardigrades can survive in outer space, what makes you think they couldn’t live through an explosion?—as an organism, I mean…”

“Stars…” was all that Tyra could say at that point. She began to pace while the two men stood in place; doing a little thinking themselves. Synthetic laborer Number Four kept his silence.

“Have any of you humans wondered why the cMaj synthetics seemed so preoccupied with such a micro-organism as the Tardigrade?” Number Four looked at all three of them. They all knew he was being rhetorical. They simply waited for his response. “I don’t know about you, Colonists, but I think one of you was right to speculate that it’s not likely the synths would devote such efforts to build a weapon from the heaps of the old Ship just to fend off simple land animals…”

All three humans’ heads whipped around in Number Four’s direction!

“What are you thinking, Four,” Tyra asked.

“Well, I don’t have any proof…I’m thinking of the fairytale by the mission commander. I get the impression, from it, that your ancestors saw the Tardigrades more as a nuisance-species…if the species were seen as threatening, do you really think your ancestors would’ve made a fairytale poem about them?

“I’m thinking, An already-rugged organism able to withstand just about every element humans can think of…what’s left of the human colony’s Ship still has some radiation from the nuclear it had originally started off with. Some group of species can undergo changes after two decades under the right stimuli…”

Now all three humans converged on synthetic Number Four’s spot!

“What aren’t you telling us, Four,” Cairo asked; a hand on one of the synthetic being’s forearms. The two other humans had the same question as the former mission-lead of the original scouting mission. Only, on their faces.

“Don’t worry,” Four said after a pause, “what I’m about to show you was recorded from the scouting Tech-Housenn and I did over a day ago. It’s not being transmitted…”

All three humans stood back, so they could see the projected recording the synthetic being had done on their mission. Hovering between all four humanoids, the live-recording showed bits of the time Number Four and Tyra were sneaking around on the outer edges of the old Ship’s debris field…Number for advanced the recording so that it showed the hiding spot where Four had chosen before he threw a piece of debris a mile toward the major clumping of the debris field…

…Four paused the recording that showed a myriad of severely-clawed footprints all over the ground!

All four humans gasped upon seeing the footprints!

Charmain placed a hand on one of Cairo’s shoulders. “Looks like Alexan was on to something the other day!” Referring to the last Clan Council meeting when synth Number Four had showed up that night. For it was Cairo and Luciana’s youngest child that made a point about not finding footprints.

“Indeed,” Number Four agreed. He, then, brought up a second projection from his contained actuator files. It was of several moving images of the Tardigrades’ various species from several generations gone by. He enlarged one of the images that focused on the feet of the organism.

“Note how the clawed feet perfectly match the prints I recorded over a day ago from the old Ship’s debris field.” Indeed, the claws on the moving projection showed what could pass as long, curving daggers!

“Gods!” Cairo was repulsed by the eight-legged creature, with its segmented, elongated puffy body and a head the seemingly lacked a face—but for a tubular structure that most likely was its mouth!

“Charmain…Cairo,” Tyra said as she took a step closer to Number Four’s projections. “The scale of these footprints…” She cast a look at synthetic laborer Number Four’s face.

“Yes,” he responded, “I was hoping you’d all noticed that. Colonists, according to this recording I did of the Tardigrades’ footprints, this current generation of this species is multiple-times larger than that of their ancestors!”

“If I’m using the right scale,” Charmain said; leaning in to look at Four’s projections better, “each one would be about the size of a new-born feline!”

“Now imagine thousands of those crawling all over your Clans’ caves,” the synthetic being said, with almost as much disdain as a human being!

All three humans were, now, shivering in disgust!

“Stars, this is why it’s been so quiet between us and the cMaj synthetics, isn’t it,” Tyra asked. She kept her eyes on both projections. “I never thought I’d hear myself say this since the Synthetics’ Rebellion, but all those poor synths are battling hordes of these—aliens!”

“Oh, but they aren’t aliens, Madam,” synth Number Four rebutted. “At least, not relative to you, humans… Remember, they were stowaways from your ancestors’ ships an eon ago!”

“Besides,” Cairo said absent-mindedly, as he watched the projections, “we’re all the aliens on cMaj and its moons…My question is, How long do we have until these things are a threat to our Clans?”

Silence for a few seconds.

“Well, it’s not like they have hover-crafts that can reach us,” Tyra noted.

“We’re about, what, one day’s surface skimming from the crash site,” Charmain asked as he looked at everyone.

“It looks like the Clan Council voted the right way in finding a settlement much farther abroad,” Cairo noted somberly as he looked at Tyra. For she was the clan member that had presented the idea before the Council.

Again, there was a long patch of silence as the three humans and the synthetic being all quietly watched the ancient recordings of their new-found enemy!

“So, what do we do now,” Tyra asked; looking around at the small band and then back at the cave; mindful that the rest of the Three Clans were asleep.

“Continue with what we voted on,” Charmain said without delay. “You were right, my love…all this convinces me that, if anything, we need to gather our camps and head out first thing in the morning!”

Charmain noted that there was an uncomfortable silence within the small group. “Well, you all agree…right?”

Cairo shifted a bit before responding. “But let’s say that the cMaj synthetics are over-taken by the Tardigrades…all those species will, then, be the new dominate life-force on the entire planet! Our three clan families may be technologically advanced, especially compared to this organism, but the numbers are on their side!”

“Singularity,” Tyra simply said; her eyes locked on the projections from Number Four.

“Yes,” Four said in a somber tone. “How ironic, is it not?”

Another time of quiet thinking…

Cairo said softly, in almost a singing-tone, “But of all our achievements and of all our mastery, we’ve been conquered by the tiny…”

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