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Preface This book is the second in a trilogy. | Society | Mentality | Eternity | Copyright © 2017 by Max Harms. Written by Max Harms. ([email protected]) v1.1.0 http://crystal.raelifin.com On January 1, 2039 this text will be released into the public domain. Content warning: This book covers adult subjects and is probably similar to content with an 18+ suggested age rating. If you’re not sensitive to most adult story content and you want to avoid spoilers, just keep reading. If you want some spoilers regarding the content of the book and/or content warnings, go to http://crystal.raelifin.com/mentality/Intro and click the sections you are concerned about. No miracles. Part One: Unfamiliar Sensation Chapter One Nathan Daniels The silver wall spat him out painfully onto the hard dirt and he collapsed in a heap. Nate shook his head, trying to clear the feeling of nausea and re-orient himself. The immense gravity startled him, despite being warned. He was one of the first humans to ever come aboard a nameless spaceship. It wasn’t anywhere close to pleasant. The nameless came from a high-gravity world that was supposed to have a bit less than three times Earth gravity. It felt like it was infinitely more than that. His whole body was being mashed into the ground. The robot was going to get them killed. No human was meant to be here. Nathan Daniels took a deep breath. Even that was hard, as he could feel his chest trying to imitate a pancake. His breath bounced off the faceplate of his environment suit, adding to a feeling of trapped claustrophobia. After a moment of rest he pushed at the dirt, trying to get into a sitting position at least. The suit he was wearing wasn’t particularly easy to maneuver in, but he managed. A box of food came slamming down on the soil a meter to his left, extruded by the mysterious silver airlock. If it had been just a bit closer he could imagine it crashing down on him, breaking his body. The gravity was more than just inconvenient; it was deadly. A black hand, unclothed by a suit, appeared before him, palm up: an offer of support. Nate grabbed it, and felt himself being pulled to his feet by an inhuman strength. The android, Crystal Socrates, stood in front of him, smiling. They seemed amused. “You’ll get used to it. Don’t worry.” The robot’s cheery voice was indistinguishable from that of some androgynous human. It was almost child-like in some way that Nate had a hard time pinning down. Nate shifted and wobbled a bit under the weight, trying not to lose his footing again. As he did, he re-evaluated the robot, who seemed to have no trouble at all with the gravity. Crystal Socrates had a kind of duality to them. Most of their body was utilitarian and robotic, composed mostly of black rods, tubes, and pistons arranged in a humanlike form. Their hands had a kind of jet-black skin, and there were plates that protected important components inside their torso, but mostly their body was raw, exposed mechanism. Their face was another matter. The scientists at the university back in Rome had been the best in their fields, creating something that was somehow close enough to a human to feel real, especially in expressive ability, while distinctly feeling robotic in form. The false skin was naturally a kind of generic pink-brown, but Crystal had powdered it to a shade much closer to light grey, and used bits of color here and there to make it more feminine. Combined with the wig they’d added of short, metallic-blue hair, there was a cartoonish quality to them. It was part of what made them seem approachable, rather than creepy. Despite their good spirits, the android’s body was a mess. A couple hours earlier Crystal had fought to save the alien ship from a bomb, and at some point in the fighting their face had been hit along the left cheek by a chunk of shrapnel. The piece of metal was still lodged there, seemingly forgotten. The robot’s hair was dulled by dark-brown mud, as was most of their body and parts of their face. “Where’s Kokumo?” asked Crystal, as Nate did his best to brush himself off without falling down again. “She was right behind me. There should be another environment tent… right there,” said Nate, pointing to the pack he’d just noticed beginning to slide out of the shimmering portal. The silver pseudo-liquid barrier extruded the tent about half-way before it tumbled down to the dirt with a sudden speed. Nate had no idea how the alien tech worked, and he didn’t really want to know. Kokumo was pushed out of the mercurial wall in much the same fashion, and slammed into the ground, hard. She swore in some African language. {Well, at least it wasn’t just me,} he thought. Nate let Crystal go help Kokumo up and took a few hesitant steps on his own, looking around the so-called “xenocruiser”. His gut told him that it was night, but he knew better. {Alien gravity, alien darkness, and alien heat,} he remembered. Through the top of his visor he could see the “sky” above was a deep purple. Stone walls rose up on either side, making it seem almost like the three of them were in a gloomy canyon. {An artificial canyon, maybe,} he speculated. There was only one way to go, other than the glimmering portal that he had just passed through. Nate wrestled to get his thick glove through the handle on the food crate and then began to drag it slowly over the dirt. There was no way he’d be able to lift the box all the way off the ground now, but at least he was strong enough to be able to slide it along in short bursts. Kokumo had gotten to her feet, and was making heavy steps his way. “Let me help with thaht,” she offered in her heavily accented English, grabbing the other end of the crate and lifting it enough that it wasn’t dragging quite so badly. Crystal had picked up the tent by themselves and walked quickly to lead the way, never showing a sign of stress or struggle. Nate felt weirdly jealous. “The nameless have given us a castle to stay in during the flight. Dr Slovinsky killed the previous occupant. Or rather, he killed the occupying walker. Zephyr’s getting things set up there with the twins. It’s only about 200 metres,” explained the android. Nate looked at Kokumo, the African woman who had also been selected to come up into orbit with the android. She was a freedom-fighter, like he was: one of Las Águilas Rojas, though he knew very little about her beyond that. Her mysterious, dark eyes gazed back at him from the shadowy depths behind her helmet’s faceplate. Was she angry, or just frustrated at the difficulty of walking? The walls on both sides fell away to reveal a flat expanse of lifeless dirt… well, mud really. He was beginning to feel the heat of the ship, even given that the suit was trying to keep him cool. Far to one side, near the horizon, he could see a dim “sun” on what must have been the biggest wallscreen he had even seen. That’s what he assumed the sky was: a big screen. The nameless had clearly worked very hard to replicate their homeworld. Crystal began to walk off, legs sinking deep into the mud with each step. It was dark enough that Nate had no choice but to follow the android and hope they knew the way. It was hell trying to carry the crate over the black mud, but he and Kokumo somehow managed. The 200 meters took a subjective eternity to cross, but there wasn’t much talk between the three of them as they trudged over the expanse. The spaceship was disturbing in its emptiness. Despite being in what must’ve been the biggest room on the ship, Nate didn’t see a single alien. There were no animals, no plants, and no people. It was a dead place. The only sign of life, other than the three of them, was a small flying robot that zipped by during their arduous trek. It was gone before he got a good look at it, not that he could’ve seen much, given how dark it was. They had clicked on their headlamps after a short while. Kokumo had done it first, and despite being able to somewhat see in the gloom, Nathan soon did the same. The beams of their lights didn’t reveal anything other than more mud. In fact, it made it somewhat harder to see into the distance, but they kept them on anyway. For comfort, perhaps. They didn’t talk about it. He breathed a sigh of relief as the walls of their destination came into view. The stone barriers were even taller than those around the portal: at least ten feet high, maybe fifteen. The bricks were huge and looked hand-cut, anchored in place by large quantities of mortar. Perhaps the nameless valued the ancient aesthetic. There was a clicking noise from the top of the wall, and both he and Kokumo looked up, beams of white light following their gaze. Atop the wall was a machine—a robot, perhaps.

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