Of Earth Foretold

by Kenneth Bulmer

Genres: Science Fiction; Alien Contact; Space Opera

Synopsis

The Prophets of Earth slept crated in their thousands. They filled the ship's bomb-bays, lying quietly waiting in their machine-gleaming metal sheaths. Each one was destined to cover a world. Each individual one lay there, quiescent in its capsule, awaiting the master command that would send it, after the one before and preceding the next in line in strict mathematical order, out over a new and unknown world to plunge down to its destined consummation.

Release date: July 25, 2013

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 157

Sample

THE Prophets of Earth slept crated in their thousands.

They filled the ship’s bomb bays, lying quietly waiting in their machine-gleaming metal sheaths.

Each individual one was destined to conquer a world.

Each individual one lay there, quiescent in its capsule, awaiting the master command that would send it, after the one before and preceding the next in line in strict mathematical order, out over a new and unknown world to plunge down to its destined consummation.

They were all alike and each one epitomised the embodiment of the Perfect Man.

Made by the cunning hands and brains of men they yet possessed the chilling power of striking awe into those charged with their care and protection and delivery. The knowledge that these godlike beings were composed of steel and plastic, of synthetic flesh and bones and blood, with memory-sponge brains and nuclear battery hearts, did not dispel that cloying aura of unease and dread.

Prometheus raised fire for man and paid the price, and if from that fire man dared to raise—other beings—would he in turn have to pay an even greater price?

Quietly the Prophets of Earth waited. Unawakened they lay, crated in their thousands, ready one by one to arise to the challenge of a new world and to go forth rejoicing and to proclaim the Word—which was the Word of Man.

The fear took him unawares as he leaned over emptiness.

The bomb bay hived with activity. The keynote was speed. A hectic rush and hurry possessed all the crewmen sweating there. Movement flickered. Smells of sweat, acrid on the pumped air, of thick machine oil, of bearings smoking, all the tang of highly trained men busy about a task that had one end and one meaning.

And the smell of fear clogging in his nostrils, the taste of bile in his throat.

The speed and the fear, hurrying along together, to coalesce as he pressed the button to evacuate the bomb bay.

Speed. The dully shining steel flank of the capsule rolling on oiled bearings. Rush. Surge of meters as power tapped from the engines buried in the ship’s core swamped from generators, subtly altered, to the terminals waiting on the capsule. Hurry. Check everything, check connections, circuits, resistances, anti-grav—check and triple check everything that would take capsule out into space and from thence down on to the planet.

So little time!

“Move it along there, Adams. Get with it.”

Himself shouting orders. Himself, Abd al-Malik ibn-Zobeir, dispatch chief, bullying these men, hustling them along, riding them.

“Make it snappy, Zimmerman!” and “Get the lead out of your spacesuit, Lee Wong!”

So little time!

In three thousand years every second was precious.

Beneath him floated greenly-grey and white stippled the sickle of the planet. The planet had no name. No name, at least, that men knew to record in their Galactic Almanacs. Perhaps in three thousand years or so when next men cruised in from space again to this planet they would have given it a name, or perhaps they would use the name the people living down there used. If the plan was fulfilled the name they used would be Terran whichever way it was derived.

The ship, The Solarian CDB ship Isabella, had fleeted in from the stars following her pre-computed flight path, had completed one orbit about the planet during which the crew technicians had carried out all their checks and sampled, docketed and filed every detail it had been possible to obtain in the time and at the distance—and now, as she straightened on to a course that would take her out into space and on to the next stellar system, the Prophet of Earth trundled along in its capsule, slipping a little on the bearings, positioning itself over the bomb drop.

The dropping crew were all clad in space suits of the heavy-duty type that were common in deep space. In a scientific civilisation which could mass produce such marvels as the Prophets of Earth to spread the Word of Man, it was considered fitting that the last few final checks should be carried out by humans. Solterran scientific resources were strained almost beyond the point of containment by the Dissemination Project and so the ship used trained crewmen because even their fantastically complex, lengthy and expensive indoctrination was cheaper than using androids of robots. Especially for this sort of job, when they were away from Earth for years on end.

“All checked. All clear. Ready on signal.”

The reports flowed in over Abd al-Malik’s headset. He gave a last long look-round the bomb bay, scrutinising every detail of the pre-drop layout. Then, holding off the fear alive within him, he pressed the lock button. The bomb bay inner doors were already closed above the dispatch crew’s head; at the pressure on the button the cycling light glowed and, smoothly, without draught, the bay evacuated of air.

The outer bomb bay doors opened.

Between himself and Space lay—space.

The glimmering sickle of the planet far beneath hung so that he could reach out a gauntleted hand and pluck it from the night sky, brushed with stars. He swallowed, fighting the fear. This was just routine, just another drop, just one more in the regulation five thousand, just another duty call in a life that had been trained and drilled to do just what he was doing now. The capsule containing the Prophet of Earth would be jettisoned, the light would blink the all-clear, and he would close up the bomb bay doors and the blessed air would gush back into the bay and he could shuck his space suit and go back to his quarters and forget that he had been standing perched over nothingness.…

Only—now he was hanging over emptiness—now.

“All okay, Abdul?” The voice in his helmet startled him.

Again he swallowed, thankful they were not using throat microphones. A dispatch chief wore a golden symbol—a gold thread capsule and silver-thread spaceship—on his right sleeve. That meant something. That meant he had worked and studied and kept in line for his promotion—and it meant these men of the dispatch crew jumped when he said so.

“All okay,” he said harshly. “Prepare to drop.”

Now arrived the moment.

As crew chief he had personally to superintend that the capsule plummeted through the opening precisely to the micro-second. His own all clear had gone via miles of wiring up to the bridge. Up there the officers and techs had computed the exact co-ordinates for dropping. They would align the ship, ride her up to the dropping area and—right on the dot, flash for capsule away.

After all that, it was up to him, personally, to see that the capsule was released, was set free at the exact predetermined time. That was why he wore the golden and silver symbol on his sleeve.

He could hear his crew’s breathing over the headset. There was a waiting, animal alertness in the quiet rhythm. He tried to control his own unsteady breathing and only made it worse. His helmet wipers were already working, clearing the sweat away. His stomach was somewhere aboard Isabella but he doubted that it was anywhere near himself.

On his crew chief’s panel the green light flickered, changed to amber. His tongue rasped over his lips.

The red light came on.

No sound came in the airlessness from the capsule clamps. But the first two went up, the thick metal bars smacking home against their retainers. The second pair followed, triggered fractionally later by the signal from the bridge so that the capsule could drop cleanly end on. The second pair …

One hung up.

He stared at it, knowing what it meant, understanding that if man played at being God a sacrifice must be found—his training took over then, blasting aside the dark superstitious doubts and fears. He went scrabbling out along the supporting rail, his wrench ready, everything in him aimed at knocking that release clamp over and getting rid of the capsule.

He swung the wrench in a calculated, skilful blow. The release resisted. He tried again, slamming the wrench in hard. They could bust him for this, break him right down to capsule oiler, send him to bunk in cheerless crew quarters far removed from his own little cubby—they could strip off his sleeve that gold and silver symbol.

One more good hard shrewd knock—the wrench slammed again at the clamp. It must have been partially freed by his earlier blows. He had used far too much power. The clamp flipped over smoothly and the wrench savaged around, pulling his arm with it, twisting his shoulder in the space suit, tugging at him.

Clumsy in the big suit he toppled off the rail.

Without thought, the black fear in him blanking all reason, he hooked one arm and leg into the capsule’s handling rings.

Capsule and man went out the bomb bay together.

He had one single lucid thought that pierced him with its sheer pitiless logic.

A sacrifice had been needed.

He had known this would happen from . . .