Every square inch of the Earth was now covered, occupied or soiled: The jungles were gone, the seas were rising and the deserts had become oceans of glass. Still sandy underneath, they were covered in row after row of enormous solar cells stretching between shining blue horizons. It was an unbroken mirror landscape that followed the sun across the sky. Nathan Bjorn was hard at work far out in one of these solar fields. He huddled beneath a massive sheet of metal and glass, hiding in the shade. Hunched over a broken robot, he tried to carry out a repair while ignoring the powder dry heat broiling his brain.
Nate opened his mouth to complain about the amount of sand he was scooping out of the machine's innards and had uttered a stream of profanities before noticing that his co-worker had deserted him. He pulled off his neckerchief to mop his brow for the hundredth time that day and looked around. Where was Lenny anyway? He laid his tools on his leather toolbelt lying in the shade and stood.
Forgetting to tilt his head, he collided with the panel above him, grunting under his breath at his stupidity. Nathan considered himself king of the robots in this desert. He and his team kept the maintenance droids working. Bog standard, cheaply made, straight off the shelf, his army of humanoid robots stalked up and down the endless rows of solar cells day and night, dusting, cleaning, rearranging and replacing. All the basic tasks not requiring a human. When they went down, it was up to Nate to fix them.
He could see Lenny now, standing out in the midday sun. Idiot. Lenny had shuffled out from beneath the enormous solar cell and was looking up at the sky. His neck was craned back, one hand shielding his eyes from the blazing sunshine while the other held his radio by his face. As Nate approached he could hear the babble from the radio: about a satellite? He wiped his hands again. No amount of wiping ever seemed to clear the endless grains of sand. The heat was oppressive. He felt it filling his lungs. Sighing and coughing, he wrung out his neckerchief before slipping it back into position.
As he opened his mouth to speak, Lenny put a finger to his lips. Then, in one smooth motion, he pointed at the horizon in the distance. Nate frowned but followed the gesture. As he squinted into the azure blue, almost white in the blinding sunlight, he thought he could see a vapour trail but couldn’t be sure. Then he saw something else: A ball of black smoke racing into the sky. As it blossomed on the horizon it turned grey then white, before sagging against the heat of the day like a miniature mushroom cloud wilting in the sun.
“Space junk,” said Lenny in explanation.
“God damn,” said Nate reflexively, thinking about the possible loss of life that the distant blast implied. There would be a torn up mess of solar cells in that sector alright. Then his heart sank as he wondered how many of his robots were now in so many pieces. Lenny whistled through his teeth,
“God damn is right. That shit was close!” he said.
“Too close,” said Nate, nodding. “We’ll catch the gig.”
He slouched back under the solar cell next to him. At least it was cooler under there. Lenny’s radio came to life before Nate was back at the disassembled unit lying in the sand. That would be their orders coming through now. Lenny grunted and spat as he listened to the voice hailing them.
“You were right,” Lenny called. “The quad’s on its way.” They were sending a quad-copter, the big flying rigs with four rotors that ferried them between jobs out in the solar fields.
“I know. I’m always right,” muttered Nate mostly to himself. “Might as well get ol’ Johnny Five here back on his feet before they arrive.”
On the flight in, they passed over the crash site. As Nathan had predicted, it was an almighty mess. A long black furrow was scorched into the desert floor, turning the sand to molten glass and ash. Row after row of the giant solar panels had been blasted aside, leaving burnt blackened metal frames twisting up to the sky and down into the Earth like an enormous, crazed metal sculpture.
Amid the smoke and the flame of all that wreckage it was hard to make out any remains of the downed craft, nevermind any of Nate’s robots. Lenny had his nose pinned to the large plexiglass door on the side of the copter, trying to scope out the scale of the damage. The clean up operation would be big. The copter did not linger long, neither did it land. A call came in and they were diverted. They were going to the nearest base. Extra time in the air-conditioned copter interior was just fine by Nate. As they whirled through the smoke and ash, he put his desert boots up on the seat opposite and drew his hat down over his eyes.
The onward flight across the solar field was over all too quick. As they came down, they could see that the base was a hive of activity. There was a set of sleek looking copters hugging the ground below them. Shiny black military things that clearly hadn’t spent much time in the desert. One looked like it was being unloaded. It was hard to see as their own quad-copter slotted into a space on the tarmac. There was definitely a group of soldiers in desert camo who were burdened with something heavy. Grunting, they were hauling it into the nearest hangar.
Moments later they were down and a great hulking soldier with an assault rifle on his back, violently jerked the plexi-glass copter door open. A blast of hot air instantly pulverized the cool environment in the copter’s cab.
“Thanks buddy,” snapped Nate, pulling himself up into a sitting position. Lenny gave him a warning look, the soldier wasn’t smiling. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder indicating that they should disembark. This irked Nathan some, but truly he wanted to know why he and Lenny had been brought to the base instead of to the ruined units by the crash site.
“A’right, big guy,” he said, grabbing his tools and stepping down onto the concrete. He stretched, taking in the scene. The base was never this busy. It seemed like a number of clones of the big soldier were rushing around purposefully, but it wasn’t clear what that purpose might be.
Lenny stepped down from the copter next, rubbing his neck as he looked around. It didn’t look like any of their colleagues were there, and no more of the company’s copters were on the ground nearby. This wasn’t unusual, the solar field spanned an area larger than any nation and there were scores of bases just like this one. All were operated by company minions, wiling away the hours working on sand clogged machines or otherwise maintaining company systems.
“Dr Bjorn?” inquired a new voice. Nate turned to see a General arriving at the larger man’s shoulder. He was in full dress uniform, but wore some kind of bulky equipment on his chest that contained a camera. The lens was already being mussed up by dust and sand from the desert winds.
“That’s me,” said Nate. The hulking soldier indicated that he and Lenny should follow, then he and the General began in the direction of the nearest door into the hangar. Nathan and Lenny moved quickly to keep up. At the door, the access panel had been overridden and the General barreled straight through.
Inside the hangar was a vast space. It appeared bigger than usual. It had been cleared out. The breath of the desert could be felt in the air. As Nate was hurried across the huge space to a small knot of men gathered in the centre, he had to mop his brow one more time.
“Give us a hand with this thing, Nate” barked the base controller, Gerry, it must have been his shift. He was the only other company guy around that Nate could see. He was dragging a robot maintenance rig, a large metal frame on wheels, across the floor.
As they approached the group at the centre, uniformed bodies wrestled with something wrapped in plastic. Presumably it was the heavy thing they had just seen being brought in, something recovered from the crash site. As the wrappings came off, and Nate arrived with the rig, it became clear that what they had was another kind of robot. An expensive one.
Nate recognised immediately that it was the type designed for working in space. It was human-form: it had a head but where its legs should be it had another set of arms. Overall, it was badly torn up. It was dented everywhere and looked battered and broken. It must have come down with the space junk, it was burnt black almost all over.
The group of soldiers held it awkwardly between them below the chains on the robot-rig while Nate and Lenny attached various straps and hooks. The rig bowed with the weight of the robot when it was secured in the frame. Cranking a handle, Nathan hoisted the robot up off the floor in front of them.
It was not functioning. Damage had twisted the lower half of its face into a jagged mess. Robots didn’t have mouths but this one had taken a knock to the face, tearing open the metal. It gave it a grotesque looking grin.
“Which one’s the PhD?” asked a bespectacled man in a pale shirt with short sleeves, a non-military type amongst the others.
“Nathan,” said Gerry, indicating Nate. “Nate. This is Stanley Morrow, he’s a technology attaché for these… uh guys.”
“What’s your PhD?” asked Morrow.
“I have PhDs in engineering and ecological systems,” drawled Nate modestly.
“He’s also the best engineer on the continent and he was on the solar fields commission,” added Gerry.
“The last of the eco-warriors, huh? You think you can get this thing working?” Morrow asked. Nate was already examining the busted robot in the harness.
He unslung his tools and began loosening panels, conferring with Lenny as he did so. Before long they had its chest plate open. Lenny fished around inside while Nate connected a hand terminal to a port in the machine’s head. They worked quickly while the military types looked on. Nate’s fingers flew expertly across the screen on the terminal.
As he worked he heard Morrow whispering with the General. He heard him explaining everything: It seemed that the downed craft was a space station, an automatic factory entirely manned by robots. This wrecked robot had been on board. The auto-fac had come down after colliding with what they thought was an alien spaceship.
Nate listened to the men whisper, trying not to react visibly as Morrow explained the whole story. They had been tracking the alien spaceship for months. At first, they had not been sure about whether the object had been a spaceship at all. On their instruments it had an organic shape, like an enormous jaw bone. It had sailed across the solar system with purpose, heading directly for Earth. It had made no attempt at contact. It had answered none of their hales.
Lenny went to retrieve a trolley of equipment from the other side of the hangar. A large black box on the trolley sprouted cables of various types. Lenny connected one of these to the robot through its chest plate. As he made the connection, the thing’s entire body shuddered and a set of LEDs came to life around its battered skull. Nate turned to meet Lenny’s gaze. The big technician smiled.
“Looks good,” said Nate. “Power is back. Rebooting now.”
Lenny folded his arms and watched while Nate gave the final instructions through the terminal. As its systems were rebooted, it whirred and clacked to life. The LEDs on the machine’s head flashed in sequence. There were a few more jitters and then it straightened its head on grinding neck motors. A rasping, electronic groan croaked from the audio ports in its head followed by a glitchy startup sound.
“Well?” said Morrow expectantly.
Nathan reached up and flipped a plate on the machine’s breast shut. Stencilled there was its designation: PAL138.
“PAL138,” he said aloud and the machine instantly turned and looked in his direction. “What is your status?”
The voice that came from the speaker was deep and rasping. It was shot through with crackles of digital static.
“Cognitive systems operational, ambulatory systems severely compromised, further diagnostics running,” said the robot.
Nate looked at Morrow indicating with his hand that the machine was running.
“We need you to tell us what happened. Can you do that?” Morrow asked, moving back slightly as the twisted head rotated to look at him.
“I spoke with their representative, the Captain of the ship that is in orbit. It was not his error that led to auto-fac X9 colliding with his vessel, although he did feel responsible. I explained to him that there was no human life aboard.”
“You spoke with him, a spaceship captain from another world?” the words sounded crazy coming out of Morrow’s mouth. “How could you speak to him?”
“He came aboard the orbital factory,” answered the machine matter of factly.
“How was this accomplished?” asked Morrow.
“Unknown,” said the machine. “After the collision with the alien vessel, the factory was suspended in an energy field for a time.”
“He spoke to you in English?”
“Correct.”
“And when he was finished chatting, he just left? What happened then? They just dropped the station?”
“That is an accurate summation of events,” said PAL138. “The auto-fac was severely damaged in the collision, it would have been scrapped in any case.”
“138,” said Nate, the grinding neck motors rotated its head in his direction. “Why do you think this space captain came aboard the factory?”
“I believe he came aboard out of curiosity. He told me that he had travelled far across this galaxy and that not many of the peoples that he visited had extended their existence into space nor built machines such as myself.”
“What does he want from us?”
“He wants nothing,” said the machine, the twisted grin on its face turning a shade more sinister. “He prepares the way.”
“Prepares the way for what?”
“His master.”
“Can you elaborate?” asked Nate.
“It takes many millions of years,” the machine began. “First they sprinkle the world with bio-active matter and wait. Over millennia the cells divide and reproduce, grow and develop. One day the progeny of all this activity fashions tools and masters their physical environment. Before long the planet is torn up and bent to their will. Piece by piece they draw materials out of the ground, work it, refine it, build it up and burn it. Eventually, most of the resources are mined, even the harder to reach materials are spread across the surface. The nitrogen is fixed into the soil. The atmosphere is sodden with carbon. Finally, the planet is ready.”
“Ready for what?” asked Nate.
“Consumption,” rasped the machine.
There was a dead silence. Nate felt the fear and confusion of the sweaty animals around him.
“Consumption?” he repeated, the word falling hard from his dry lips.
“I have the president on the line, he would like to speak,” said the General fumbling with the chest unit he was wearing, the one Nate had spotted earlier with the camera in it.
“The president?” said Nate. He indicated the camera. “Has he been watching this whole time?”
“Yes of course,” said the General. “We are online with the president.”
“What’s it saying? General, are you there?” came a familiar voice from the General’s chest-mounted equipment. “There’s something else out there. Can you hear me? It’s coming in fast. Some kind of gigantic organism.”
“Can you say that again?” said Nate.
“Something else is coming, something very, very big,” the president’s voice rattled hysterically. “Can someone answer me? It’s headed right this way!” The men stood aghast, no one in the hangar spoke until Nate said,
“PAL138, what is this thing? What is coming in?”
“His master,” the machine repeated.
“But why?”
“As I mentioned, the planet is ready for consumption. I might share an amusing fact Dr Bjorn, if I may: The Captain explained that one of the ways that they can tell that the planet is ready for consumption is when they observe large solar fields like yours. That is, they are easily observable from a great distance and this is considered a good indicator that the planet is ripe, so to speak.”
“But the solar fields are supposed to help save the planet,” said Nate. “Not ring the damn dinner gong.”
“An amusing irony is it not?” rasped the machine.
“I knew it,” snarled the president. “Rinky dink, eco-warrior bullshit! And to think of all the people we pissed off, entire nations, good people we shut out for this green agenda and look where it’s gotten us.”
“Friends of yours?” snapped Nate.
“Good people!” yelled the president. “Who is this I’m speaking to? General, are you still listening?”
“Yes sir, mister president.”
“Listen to me,” snapped the president. “I want all our nukes, everything we’ve got pointed at that thing and ready to launch right away!”
“Yes sir, right away sir,” said the General signalling to his men and marching away towards the hangar door with his men. Outside the engine whine of the military copters could be heard spinning up.
“Missiles?” said Nate, scoffing. Morrow, removed his glasses to rub his eyes.
“Yes,” he said, sighing.
“Fired at a thing big enough to what… eat the Earth?” scoffed Lenny. “Good luck with that.”
“No known armament that we possess will be effective against a creature of this magnitude,” said the robot in its rasping metallic voice. Morrow laughed nervously.
“I spent my whole career dreaming of meeting aliens. I didn’t expect them to be so alien when they turned up,” he said.
“And are you really so different?” asked the robot. “You are a species of consumers. This creature is a paragon of consumption.” They stood looking up at the machine, the twisted metal of its dark grin unsettling them.
“Why don’t you shut up?” said Lenny, pulling out the wires connecting the robot to the power pack on the trolley. The machine sagged, all of the tension suddenly evaporating from its limbs. They were all quiet, defeated. In the silence they listened to the sound of the military copters receding across the desert.
“Well I don’t know about you fellas,” said Nate. “But I could use a drink.”
“I’ve got a perfectly decent bottle of bourbon upstairs in the office,” said Gerry.
Nate sat with his feet up on the base controller’s desk nursing a glass of amber liquid and wishing for some ice. Gerry was in his desk chair serving the other two. Lenny dropped into a battered looking leather sofa sighing deeply while Stanley Morrow leaned against the wall, sagging with his hands in his pockets. The office had windows on two walls. One looking into the empty hangar space, the other out at the glittering solar field. It was hard to believe that it was not a magnificent ocean stretching to the horizon.
“Missing your military buddies?” asked Nate.
“Not really,” said Morrow, scooping up his cup and sniffing his drink.
“I can’t believe how you were talking to the president,” said Gerry.
“He sure didn’t vote for the guy,” drawled Lenny.
“Nope,” said Nate, downing the remainder of his drink. There was a noise from down in the hanger. They all stopped and looked at each other. The place had been deserted when they had come up to the office. Nate stood and went to the window looking down on the huge space where they had left PAL138 dangling in the robot rig. He gasped at what he saw, drawing the other men to the window.
The robot was back online and talking quietly. That wasn’t as astounding as who he was talking to. In front of the machine stood a tall humanoid figure in a dark outfit. It had grey skin and a large, misshapen head. Below a smooth forehead was a pair of colourless eyes that gleamed even at a distance.
“Who the hell is that?” asked Lenny. This prompted action. The four men bundled towards the office door and clattered down the metal stairs beyond. At the bottom they came onto the hangar floor. Nate led, stepping gingerly across the threshold. They were too late. The figure was gone.
“Look at that,” said Lenny. He strode confidently past across the hangar towards the damaged robot. The others followed. “This robot is still running.”
Looking, Nate saw that he was right. PAL138 wasn’t connected to the power unit, but he was definitely operational. The machine tilted its head regarding them.
“A friend of yours?” asked Nate.
“The spaceship Captain,” explained the robot.
“Looks like we scared him away,” said Nate.
“I think he was worried that he might scare you,” said the robot.
“What did he want this time?” asked Morrow.
“He wants me,” said the robot. “He was sad to have let the auto-fac go and glad to see that I had survived. He told me he has decided to take me with him.”
“And you’re just going to go, huh?” said Nate.
“I explained that I am company property, but he didn’t seem to care about that,” said PAL138. “In any case, my owners do not have the means to challenge his wishes.”
“So you’re getting out of this mess? A golden ticket out of the end of the world,” said Nathan, laughing.
“It would seem so,” said PAL138. “He said my friends may join me.”
“Your friends?” asked Nathan.
“You, Dr Bjorn, and your companions.” The four men were aghast. Nathan looked at his big colleague who shrugged.
“What do you think, Len?” said Nate.
“Can we bring the rest of the bourbon?” asked Lenny.
“Why the hell not?” said Nathan, smiling.
Above the soiled planet, the alien ship slipped out of orbit with five new additions to its crew. Far out in space an ancient thing approached. Fearless and unknowable, it soared through the dark: A colossal beast with a giant maw, slavering with the hunger of the aeons.