Della

We blasted through the thick cloud layer into a crimson-sky. One of towering purple mountains and crystal cold crimson lakes. “I guess you should name it,” Della said.

“Should I name the place darling?” I asked her which would was odd because she was the ship, but over the long voyage she had also become my friend. Her systems were designed on the model of a friend of mine’s brain. Her name was Della Coleman. She was a brilliant scientist and had designed all the AI equipment on the ship.

It was the responsibility of the captain to name a new planet. “You do it Della,” I said.

“I’m not an explorer; I’m not even a good pilot.” She replied. “My last rating was pretty low. You know Barry, I’m not young anymore.”

“That’s not true,” I replied. Sometimes I forgot she wasn’t the real Della. Despite how gifted she was she had a bad heart which excluded her from the space program at least until she could get a transplant. She was on the list, and she was in her twenties so there was a good chance of her getting one in time.

The thick atmosphere had concealed a lot. Purple mountains majesty in the sky and rivers that ran crimson. Field upon field of giant white magnolia-like blooms.

A short moan came from the speaker. “Barry, what is this?” She asked. “You said the air was breathable. The atmosphere is way too thin for humans. It would be like living on top of Mount Everest.”

Something odd happened as I looked at Della on the screen, which of course was an automated image of the real Della, and I felt sorry that I had lied to her. After the storm we had to dump our load in orbit and repair the tug which I had named “Bug” after my first wife. The company wasn’t happy when you abandon your cargo and if nothing else Della was company.

Once we were down, I slipped out to check the struts. The reason I snuck was Della would never let me out with just an oxygen mask unless she had done a full analysis and a risk evaluation. There was no time for all that we had to go back up and capture our cargo. As far as the company was concerned, abandoning a load was worse than mutiny. You could get away with that as long as you saved the load. I had given the order to disconnect when we got hit by a micrometeor storm.

When I went down the emergency ladder Della’s first words were. “Barry, do you know you are outside against company policy?”

“Of course I do. I have bad news through the Bug will never fly again. The struts are completely gone along with the landing fuel tanks.” Liquid fuel was only used on the tug for landing and take offs after disconnecting from the barge in orbit.

“I have news too.” Said Della. “It’s raining.” I was under the ship, so I hadn’t noticed. “It’s red like blood Barry,” she said.

“Human blood?”

“Yes Barry.” She replied.

“Della, give me an analysis of the rain.”

“Plasma 92% and water 8%.” She replied promptly.

Human blood plain and simple.” I muttered.

Della double and triple checked her findings. It was true it had been raining blood. “Tomorrow, we are going outside to look around,” I announced.

The next morning, I woke up freezing. “Della?” I spoke. Della?” Nothing the whole console was dead.

Entropy from long term use of artificial gravity. The first day back with real gravity was always hard, but this was worse. It was a little bit heavier than Earth’s. Della’s system failure was way beyond me. I tried everything I knew. It was like somehow during the night something had burnt out everything. Della or no I had to explore my new home.

I went outside. The sun was warm. I don’t know why, but I took off my mask and took a deep breath. The air was so much sweeter it was like somehow the atmosphere had adapted to me. I must be losing my mind I thought. Atmospheric components don’t change overnight. It’s a basic law of physics. Change takes time like evolution, sometimes millions of years. I sat down on a rock, and it moved a little like it was uncomfortable with my weight. I jumped up expecting to see that I had sat on some small critter. But there was nothing there.

I got to thinking it might be a long, long, time before I saw anything but my own reflection. I was off the main space ways, way off. The storm had raised havoc with our navigation. They wouldn’t even know for a year that I was missing and then if they even bothered because of the vastness of space alone it would take years to track me down and the cost would be prohibited. It would be better to report the ship missing and collect on the insurance. This was absolutely the worst scenario for a barge operator. I would no doubt be alone for the rest of my life like that book my mother read me when I was a kid “Robinson Crusoe on Mars.” I just wish I hadn’t lost my gal Friday I missed talking to Della. I decided right then and there to build myself a home and that I wasn’t going to spend my life living in the rusted hull of the Bug. It would be good to start laying down some permanent roots. That way I wouldn’t look so lame just in case rescuers did come looking.

Claws skitter up and down the hull. I had wondered if there was any life on this world. “There is,” I whispered to myself as something really big shot up the hull past the portal. At sunrise I named my new home Della. “I christen thee Dela,” I said while taking my morning piss.

While eating my oatmeal outside I heard a bird that sounded like a Robin. Tears came to my eyes because I knew deep down, I would live out my life, however long that be, and die on Della all alone.

It was a bit of a walk back to The Bug from where I had decided to build my home on the crimson shoreline. Suddenly What I saw made me stop dead in my tracks. Footprints, human boot prints.

Was I dreaming? No one could know that hadn’t spent weeks alone what a shock it was. It had been weeks since I had talked to even Della I hurried back to my ship. Along with the excitement there was still a lot to fear.

Her eyes opened wide as they popped out one at a time. She was a real live person, it was Della. Smoke started coming up out of her clothes and then she exploded to smithereens right in front of me, right before my eyes. I wept. How could anyone be so cruel as to give her to me as a real live person and destroy her right before my eyes.

“Fuck it!” I cried. It was my second night camping at my new home and again I was having a nightmare about Della. In my dreams she was still functioning, and I had someone to talk to. I remembered everything about the real her in detail in those dreams even the one time we had kissed.

I sat there on a chair and stared out at Della world. Illuminated by the dim orange light of my electric lantern. The batteries were going quickly. They wouldn’t last and I had no way to charge them. I was being thrown into the stone age. Fire would be my only friend. It was almost alive. It meant most of the criteria for life that I had learned in school. It fed, exuded waste, and reproduced.

Suddenly, a noise! It sounded like a woman crying. My first thought was Della, but Della wasn’t a real flesh and blood woman she was just a program and programs didn’t cry.

The voice was right there. “Why?”

“Where?”

“Who?” I said.

I was not protected there like on the ship. They were all around me. Like buzzing flies or tweeting birds. They were filling my head with nonsense. They don’t want me here. I am an outsider. They don’t like outsiders. I’m not the first. No, there has been many like me. They come and try to live outside the body, but they cannot. They make them go away. “Stop!” I cried. “Too fast.”

I had no Idea how they were speaking to me it felt truly like I was saying it. To who? To me. The thoughts were completely alien but somehow, they were interpreting it for me. “Who are you?” I said out loud.

I didn’t answer me. Somehow, they had me going around in circles. They were tiny little insects which were on the big side of the Plank scale but on the tiny, very tiny side of the macroworld. They lived in the border land between the two. I had no idea how I knew that. Five minutes before I would have been a complete blank.

They were able to take Della quickly and they downloaded a virus into her systems. For some reason possibly intelligence they thought she had been in charge. I was like a dog chasing my tail. They weren’t a swarm, at least not how humans think of a swarm. They all had free independent thought, but they were of one village. It reminded me of that saying, “it takes a village.” It really did in their case. You couldn’t even see one of them alone.

Somehow, I had to let them know that my ship was broken, and I couldn’t leave. Meanwhile they explained that they were once nanobots created by these god-like beings. Of course, they were explaining things their way and my mind was breaking it down from some kind of binary code to about the level of a first-grade reader that was why I had yelled for them to slow down their feed. It was probably what had burnt out Della’s systems.

These god-like being had colonize the galaxy and beyond and they all died. They would have died too, but they left they abandoned ship.

“What killed them?” I asked because I couldn’t think it without saying it. But they didn’t know. They had tried to save the ones they could, but they couldn’t. It was as if their bodies could only evolve so far without shutting down. “So, year after year you’ve just been here?” I asked.

They had been there for millions of years. This was all very interesting, but it wasn’t helping me. They had warned me to leave. They had warned me they would never allow any ships to rescue me. They would shut them down just like they had Della.

“I’m stuck here my ship is broken.” I blurted out. “No, I don’t have wings,” and then they were gone. Just like that.

I climbed the rusted steps into the Bug. Suddenly I didn’t feel safe anymore sleeping outside, not that I imagined for an instant they couldn’t get through my hull if they wanted to. They had the same consistency in a lot of ways as tachyons, a certain kind of radiation that bombarded us constantly in space.

It was a warm night so later when I felt a little less violated, I decided to go outside and sit on the steps. To my surprise and shock at the bottom of them was a humanoid skeleton all draped in finery. I was confused. I didn’t know what they were trying to tell me. Was it a gift like when a cat leaves a dead bird on your doorstep or was it a warning that this is what happens to creatures who don’t obey.

Looking at it I couldn’t say for sure if it was human or just humanoid, but it didn’t matter because they felt we were the same species.

I sought somewhere else to be. I walked down the shore and sat on a rock. There was a bit of wind, and I wasn’t sure if it was that or the skeleton that was giving me the chills. Goose flesh ran up and down my arms like an expressway to my very soul.

I watched as a golden carp like fish caught air to snatch whatever insects flew by and wondered why they never attacked the swarm. They probably learned the hard way like I was learning now. It was my luck to be marooned on a planet where the intelligent life form was some sort of blood thirsty nanobots.

Suddenly out of nowhere a hand clutched my arm. I spun around on my heels, and it was Della. I jumped back. “What are you?” I cried.

Shocked and amused she said. “I am Della.”

“Like shit you are.” I growled. Della is back on Earth in a wheelchair waiting for a heart transplant.”

“No, I am here,” she said. “I don’t know how but it’s me. My body is new no more heart problems. One second, I was dead and the next I was here,” she said as she kissed me deeply.

In that moment I had no doubt that it was her. I had no idea how, or why, but the universe works in mysterious ways. “Take me to our new home.” She whispered.

THE END

Bio:Timothy Wilkie is a local hero in the Hudson Valley. From his music to his art and storytelling. He's an old hippy and a storyteller in the truest sense of the word. He has two grown sons and loves to spend time with them. His writing credits include Aphelion, Horror-zine, Dark Dossier and many more...

E-mail: Timothy Wilkie

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