The retainer flashed a wide smile and ran a hand-held scanner along the baby’s eyes, causing their soft green to flutter momentarily. He took a step back and then nodded to the doctor on his right. The man opened up an index and seemed to select an entry randomly. He cleared his throat and then addressed Adelle sternly.

“What is the Division, Class, and Order of the flowering plant: Actaea pachypoda?” The new parents held their breath, worried. The baby’s eyes darted back and forth quickly, finally resting on her mother’s face. It licked its lips.

“Well?” The doctor frowned. His brows furrowed deeply and he risked a quick glance to the retainer, who shrugged uneasily.

“The flowering plant Actaea pachypoda belongs to the.. uhm.. Magnoliophyta Division… Magnoliopsida Class… of the Order Ranuncl… Ranuncul… Ranunculal-” Adelle stuttered.

She winced at her mother’s reaction, and began to cry. Her father took the bundle of blanket and offered it back to the retainer, stepping back and grabbing his wife.

“How could this have happened?” The man demanded. “Your warranty guaranteed a child of at least average intellect! This… This thing is addlebrained!” He was shaking now, clutching his wife’s shoulder with white knuckles. The doctor waved his technician away with the baby and attempted to calm the young couple down, as he punched in the request for a new child into a terminal. He apologized profusely until his assistant returned with a new order.

© Shannon Peil, 2009

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On the equator of the planet, at the highest point in it’s bulge, an extractor ship had been basically ripped in half. Well, it wasn’t ripped at all. It just lost its entire midsection and floated off into space as soon as the hull was breached. But it wasn’t torn apart, or shot with anything, it simply lost pressure as a large section of the ship disappeared. What replaced the previously occupied space was a thick, glass-like capsule that popped into existence on the planet’s surface at this exact point, the Zero Point. A new capsule has appeared in this spot every 26 hours since Terracorp’s arrival, usually filled with junk, but interesting junk at that. After the accident that killed the entire crew of the excavator, they stopped mining operations and instead built a research center outwards from the ZP and started cataloguing every item sent through.

These items include technologies we haven’t managed to get working, marked with indecipherable characters, alien flora, the occasional bowl, or vase, all made out of unheard of material. It was basically interplanetary extraterrestrial junk, as no one could figure out a use for it besides pure interest.

As far as the specialists can figure, every 26 hours, the space gets replaced with a carrying device filled with one object at a time. They have been unable to answer any questions about where the objects come from, how the ZP functions, what any of the objects are for, and whether they are being sent to us manually by another race or not. They also haven’t been able to answer whether the point is two-way or not. That was my main fascination, and the reason I accepted this labor job here on the site. See, the ZP is curious and all, but working here has some heavy drawbacks. No one working in the facility is allowed to leave, due to containment of the by the Alien Contact division of Terracorp.

With thousands of planets colonized, and still no contact with another race, or any proof of one’s existence, the ZP was immediately locked down as a possible threat of alien influence. Most people were excited about the prospect of finding another race, rather than frightened, but that didn’t keep the bureaucrats from setting up a perimeter around Sigma II and hiring contractors with huge pay scales, but no promise of ever being allowed to spend it. The vast majority of people working here are sending money back to their families and essentially said goodbye to anything they ever knew in order to do so. And then there’s people like me; people who really don’t need the money, but had nothing else going for us to make the thought of being stuck on Sigma II forever very daunting.

Anyway, voices were screaming through my headset, which I had previously tossed into the bottom of the capsule. I was sweating from the heat inside, after sealing the glass back up with its new cargo. People were rushing around the antechamber just outside, screaming at me, trying to get equipment to move the capsule out of the ZP before it was too late. I just smiled. I had planned this much too well to allow them time to ruin it. The capsule was sealed up, me inside, sitting on the ZP, without about a minute until Arrival. No one had ever made a scheduled Departure, so I had planned this very carefully. I had been here, stuck on Sigma II for months, wondering where the space that occupied the ZP before Arrival went to, if anywhere. That was the thought that kept me up at night. What if it didn’t go anywhere? What if it just ceased existing? What if it was sucked into a black hole?

Well, I was going to find out.

Piece also posted (as ‘Zee‘) by 365tomorrows.com here.

The Daughter looked sullenly around the council, at the hopeful eyes of politicians, bureaucrats, magistrates, men of wealth, and their chosen suitors, all knelt before her. She nodded to the back of the room, and they began to filter out slowly, risking glances over their shoulders at the four boys prone before Her in total reverence.

“And close the door.” Her eyes scrunched up in irritation as she heard the door latch.

Her name was Zee. The very Last.

When the men had left the boys with her, She returned to her seat, floating feet above the prostrate supplicants with their eyes on the floor. Beads of anticipating sweat had begun to form on their perfectly manicured brows. The boys were beautiful. She knew they had the most aesthetically pleasing features, healthiest immune systems, strongest physiques, and highest IQ’s that the last batch of humanity could offer.

“Stand.” She had never once said the word, ‘please.’ When the boys rose to their feet, She imagined having them for a lifetime of servitude. Even so, She knew – even if She produced a good amount of offspring – and God willing, that they were healthy, it was next to impossible that one would be a Female before Zee reached menopause, and unable to try further.

“And why are you here?”

The boys looked nervously at one another and continued staring at the floor just below Her feet. She enjoyed this. Leaning forward, She raised the cutest boy’s chin with a long fingernail. He gulped deeply and shook when their eyes made contact. Males always swooned over the Last.

“Making Me repeat Myself is never a good idea.” Her words dripped with disdain, but  She held his gaze as he blinked rapidly and framed his answer. The silence broke with his inevitable reply, the one She expected. That same boring answer.

“Because, Daughter.. -” He scrambled for his thoughts and barely collected them in time. “Because you are to be humanity’s new Mother. You are the Last and our only hope as a species. The three of us have been selected,” he glanced to each side at the prone boys beside him, “to try to give you… Give everyone another Daughter.”

Zee sighed, traced Her fingernail back off his strong chin and stood, whirling Her robes as She kicked her chair across the room. Watching it float gracefully towards one of the long windows overlooking the city, She turned back to them. She commanded the boys to stand as the window shattered, glass sprinkling the city below.

“And why – why on Terra would I want that?” They looked quizzical, they always did. The males never understood how this could be anything but all She wanted. They kept quiet, but kept their dumbfounded looks on like masks. Finally, Zee continued.

“Why would I want to do that?” Her harsh exterior was visibly fading, replaced with sorrow, a dull resentment for the years leading up to this, knowing Her fate from the moment She was old enough to listen to her Mother – and her servants. One of the boys cleared his throat, and the Last turned to look at him. His eyes met Hers again and for once, a male seemed to understand Her pain.

“Miss Zee. Your duty is that of a Mother. Like Terra itself, it sacrifices its all for its children. To allow them to grow, continue their cycle. If mankind were to die out…” He trailed off and once again trained his eyes on the floor. A tear dotted the floor silently.

“If humankind were to die out,” She continued for him, “then Terra would be able to continue her cycle.” And with that, the Last stepped through the broken window, and slid silently downwards toward the city proper.

© Shannon Peil, 2009

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