The Naked Planet

"I would love to," she said, as she smiled proudly at Noa and brushed a hand against her cheek. "Nothing would warm my heart more than to leave this place and spend the rest of my years with my daughters. But my time is growing short; every second is too precious to waste when there is still so much more work to be done."

"And the girls," Caleb said, nodding at the occupied stasis pods. "Are they part of your work?"

"Not in the way you think, Dr. Caleb. I know it appears as if the girls are in suspended animation, but they are not."

"What do you mean?"

"I think it would be better if I start at the beginning," she said.

"Three centuries ago, a philanthropist who'd learned of my work in genetics approached me. He told me of a theoretical astronomer who'd discovered a planet more than four light years away that he believed to be capable of supporting life or, more specifically, human life.

"His plan was to gather up one hundred of the Earth's leading scientists and visionaries into a group -- one half male and one half female -- and transport them by generation ship to the planet, more than two and a half centuries distant by the technology available for space travel at that time.

"Of course, generation ships were meant to find HET class planets, which we intended to do. However, ours was a one-way trip. If successful, we had no intention of returning to Earth to let the people know of our new planet. We'd seen what humanity had done to the old Earth and we had no plans of letting them destroy a second one.

"Our vision was to create a new Earth, populated by our offspring and taught not to repeat the mistakes our ancestors had made. To cover our tracks we erased all information pertaining to the planet in the interstellar archives and databases, so that it would appear as empty space on any galactic charts. And when we reached the edge of Earth's system we sent back a false distress call, followed by a signal that we knew could only be interpreted as the destruction of the Temple by a galactic storm.

"And then we settled in for our long journey, a two-and-a-half century long dreamless sleep. But while we'd left Man behind, we should have known that we could never leave behind the evils that men do.

"One of the men woke up early, two years earlier than planned. And he overrode the controls to wake up one of the other passengers, a very beautiful young woman who looked exactly like Hannah.

"Hannah's mother?" Caleb said.

The old woman smiled. "In a way, but...please...let me continue.

"He woke her up and told her that the ship's stasis support systems had failed during the long voyage. Her boyfriend -- he'd been so young, so handsome -- was now a skeleton in an otherwise empty pod.

"He told her that they were the only ones who'd survived, told her that, like Adam and Eve, they'd have to repopulate this planet on their own. In her grief, she believed him, and for the next month he had his way with her.

"But she started to notice things. The men were all dead, but what about the women? All of our pods were still filled with golden liquid. Our readouts showed we weren't dead -- we were still in deep sleep.

"She was too close to the truth, so he attacked her. Stabbed her in the neck with a vial of the same golden liquid that kept the rest of us in stasis, and after she blacked out he returned her to her pod.

"Because she was right, there hadn't been a failure of the ship's stasis support systems -- they'd been sabotaged. He'd intentionally programmed them to shut down all of the men's pods a month after we went into deep sleep.

"He knew we were headed to paradise, and he didn't intend on sharing it with any other men. He then woke up the next woman and told her the same lie. And when she saw through it he attacked her too, forcing himself on her before finally injecting her and returning her to her pod.

"Like a fiend he worked his way through the women. Some of them he didn't even bother waking up. The ship's recordings show him climbing into their pods, having his way with them while they were still in deep sleep.

"My god," Caleb said, "he must have been a monster."

"He was, and we were trapped alone in the depths of space with him. But one of the women he woke, she suspected the lie as soon as he spoke it. And when he came at her with the needle, she was ready for him. She wrestled it from his grasp and managed to plunge it into his own neck. She wanted to kill him, but she knew he was the last man. For the sake of humanity and our new Earth, she spared him and returned him to his pod."

"Was it you?" Caleb said. "Were you the woman?"

She shook her head and smiled sadly at him. "Unfortunately, no. I wish I had been though. I wish I could have taken the place of every single one of those women, so none of them would have been forced to suffer through the pain he inflicted upon them. But he never tried to wake me up. Can you guess why, Dr. Caleb?"

When he didn't answer, she sighed, and said, "That monster was my husband. And it was my fault that every other man on this ship was dead."

Caleb shook his head. "You can't blame yourself for what he did."

"Oh, but I can. You see, he should have never even been on that voyage in the first place. When he told each woman how he'd play Adam to their Eve, no greater lie was ever told. For one of the prime requirements for our new world was fertility, and it was my job as chief geneticist to test every candidate and make sure they were suitable. But I lied. I knew my husband was sterile and, thinking I couldn't live on a new world without him, I falsified his fertility records.

"We'd only been married for two years, but he fooled me, oh, how he fooled me. I never knew the nightmare that slept beside me, never realized the pain he would cause.

"But that's in the past. By the time we landed here he was dead; you are the first man to ever step foot on our planet."

Caleb glanced at Hannah and Noa. "But if there were no men, how..."

"How were our daughters born? Right here," she said, and tapped one of the golden pods.

"What do you mean, they're clones?" Caleb said.

"No, they were conceived, but these pods were their wombs. Have you ever heard of parthenogenesis?"

Caleb shook his head. "My field was hydro science."

"The word means 'virgin birth'. Normally, forty-six chromosomes are necessary for life; one half of them from the mother and one half of them from the father. With parthenogenesis however, it's possible to combine two female eggs to provide the forty-six chromosomes necessary for life.

"It took me decades to perfect the process, but eventually, using eggs from the other women who landed here with me, I created embryos and used the pods -- "

" -- to create children!" Caleb said, as he turned to stare at both Noa and Hannah.

Dr. Bell smiled proudly. "Precisely, and aren't they beautiful? Made in our very image, but better...so much better.

"When I restructured their DNA during the parthenogenesis process I made a few changes. We would no longer be the weaker sex. I discovered a way to make them faster...stronger."

"What about the others?" Caleb asked. "The other women who landed with you, are they all...gone?"

"Sadly, yes. I'm the last survivor of the Temple. The rest of them died years ago, the last just a few years after the first girls were born. Alone with my work, I couldn't spare the time to play with them, to teach them.

"They were forced to live on their own, to survive on their own. I would watch them from the ship's monitors, and relied on the girls to care for new daughters as they emerged from the Temple. But I was never able to spare them the time, or the love, that they deserved. I was never able to be a real mother to them.

"I wanted to, but I couldn't. After what my husband had done, I knew I had a debt to the women of the Temple to make sure that our original vision of a new Earth succeeded. And I knew for it to succeed, my work would have to go on after I'm gone.

"That is why I have chosen those four girls in the pods. My time is growing short, so I have adapted the stasis support systems to input data from the knowledge banks of the Temple directly into their brains, allowing me to give the four of them a lifetime of learning in less than a year. When they emerge from those pods they will be able to run the generation ship on their own, so that it will keep producing children long after I'm gone."

"But you don't need to worry about that anymore," Caleb said. "I can use my ship to send a signal back to Earth. Settlement ships can be here within a year."

"I'm afraid that's not possible," the old woman said.

"But it is," he said. "I can use the Temple's quantum computer to override the one on my ship. Then I can go back through the wormhole and let Earth know about this planet."

Her voice turned icy cold. "You misunderstand me, Dr. Caleb. What I mean is that I won't let it happen."

"But you have to -- even if those girls know how to run the pods after you're gone, this place will never survive. With only females being born, the population will die out as soon as the generation ship breaks down or runs out of power. It will only be a matter of centuries before your new Earth is wiped out of existence."

"Maybe so, but I would rather have my daughters enjoy a few centuries of paradise than an eternity of hell."

Caleb blinked in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about men, and how I won't let them poison this place. You know, Dr. Caleb, that the last man I saw was my husband. Why is it my bad luck that the next man I meet had to be a murderer too?"

Her words hit him like a thunder bolt, stunning him. She knew.

"Did you think I wouldn't find out, Dr. Caleb? Like I said, as soon as your ship entered our system it automatically broadcast a warning about its passenger -- you."

Hannah glanced between the two of them. "What is...murderer?"

The old woman gave her a look of pity. "There is a snake in our garden, my dear, and I don't mean that thing between his legs. I'm afraid your friend is a killer, Hannah. And he has killed many, many people."

"No!" Caleb said. "It wasn't like that, I -- "

"Please, Dr. Caleb!" the old woman shouted. "Don't try to feed me your lies, too! I recognized the spacecraft as soon as I saw it on my screens as a convict ship."

She glanced at Hannah and Noa, and said, "You see, girls, the old Earth is a very, very bad place. They're not only killing their own planet, they like to kill each other too. So to kill two birds with one stone, as the old saying goes, they've come up with a solution for both problems.

"They've designed deep space capsules called HET ships to search for habitable planets. But knowing that such a voyage is essentially a suicide mission, as no ship has ever returned, they came up with a novel approach to find volunteers to man the ships -- they use inmates who have been sentenced to death for their crimes against their fellow men.

"If their mission fails, they get a slight reprieve before their eventual death sentence is carried out in the depths of space, and if they succeed they're promised a pardon."

"I'm not a murderer," Caleb said.

The old woman laughed, her eyes filled with disbelief. "I saw the readout myself: Damian A. Caleb -- charged with over three thousand counts of murder -- and found guilty on every single charge. I believe they call that genocide."

"No," Hannah whispered, shaking her head from side to side. "Caleb would not kill."

He turned to Hannah, hoping to explain, but before he could speak the old woman continued:

"Do you know what I did when they woke me up and told me what my husband had done, Dr. Caleb? I went to his pod and opened it. I knew the other women wanted to keep him alive, thinking that we couldn't survive without a man. But I knew we could; nature always finds a way. So I strangled him...strangled him to death with my bare hands.

"I was his executioner, and now I feel no guilt at being yours too, carrying out a sentence long overdue."

She reached behind her, and when her hand came back around she aimed the weapon in it at his chest. Caleb instantly recognized the disruptor pistol. The gun was ancient but he knew, if functional, it would still be lethal at this range.

He put his hands in the air. "Please, listen to reason."

Dr. Bell shook her head. "Move away from him, Hannah. My hands are old, and a little shaky."

Hannah tried to move closer to him but Caleb put his arm out, pushing her back. "Please, Dr. Bell," he said, "don't shoot.

"I know people died -- many, many people died -- but I didn't murder them. You have to understand, it was an accident...a tragic accident. Please let me explain."

He turned to Hannah, and said, "I told you before that on my planet, we don't have water like you do here. We once did, but we took it for granted, and we realized too late that water was the most precious resource we had. By the time we did, ninety percent of it was undrinkable. It's funny now, but they used to think the biggest problem facing Earth was overpopulation; we fixed that.

"It was my job, as a water scientist, to try to figure out how to make the water usable again. And my people desperately needed a solution, as thousands of people were dying of thirst every day. I was working on a compound that would have made the polluted water drinkable again, a compound that made sure a drink of clean water wasn't a perk only the wealthy could enjoy.

"But the government wouldn't approve it. They demanded another year of clinical trials, and until those were completed actual human trials were out of the question. And all of this time, more and more people were dying of thirst every day.

"The bureaucracy, the red tape that the government made us wade through, drove my assistant crazy. She figured that, if these people were going to die anyway, why not give them the option of trying our compound? I refused. I could see her logic, but I couldn't risk any illegal trials being discovered and having our funding pulled.

"My assistant didn't care. She refused to sit idly by while thousands died; she was sure we'd perfected the compound. But I still said no, I knew we couldn't risk releasing it without at least one successful human trial -- so she gave me one.

"She took a vial of toxic water, so toxic that one sip would have killed any human, and she added our compound to it. The water cleared, the toxins vanished. But I told her there was still no way of telling if it was safe. So she drank it...she risked her life and drank it. I watched helplessly, horrified to see her put her life on the line to prove her point. But it worked. The water was safe. I can't describe how we both felt, not only relieved that she'd survived, but knowing the lives that our discovery would save.

"She was so excited, but I knew her demonstration meant nothing. The government still wouldn't approve the trials without further testing. So she took matters into her own hands. Without my knowledge, she produced a batch of the compound and sent it to a refugee camp, telling them it would make the water safe for them to drink.

"And then she got sick. It was weeks after she'd drank the vial, but we both recognized the symptoms right away as water poisoning.

"Because the compound hadn't removed the toxins, it had just temporarily neutralized them. And somehow, when the compound worked its way out of her system, the toxins remained. She died. Thousands of people in the refugee camp died.

"I went from a savior to a monster overnight. I was sure I could fix the compound, I just needed more time. But there wasn't any more time. Someone had to pay the price for what had happened. I told them the truth, but they didn't believe me and found me guilty of the murder of my assistant and all of the victims in the refugee camp.

"They sentenced me to death and forced me into the convict ship. But I'm not a criminal...I'm not a murderer."

The old woman gave him a look of pity. "I believe you. It's sad that so little has changed on Earth in the three centuries since I left."

Caleb felt a flash of hope. "So you'll let me return to my ship? If I don't send that signal, if I don't let them know about all the water here...our people are doomed."

"They are no longer my people, and they were doomed long before we were even born, Dr. Caleb. And while I sympathize with your plight, I'm afraid I still must do what's necessary," she said, and raised the disruptor pistol.

Hannah recognized the weapon as similar to the one Caleb had killed the fish with and rushed forward. "No, no kill!"

But he held out his arm and pushed her away, out of the line of fire. "Stay back, Hannah. I don't want you to get hurt."

"And neither do I, Dr. Caleb," the old woman said. "You seem like an honorable man, but the sins of your sex seem to follow you. You have been on our planet less than a day and you have already taught my daughters shame and tempted them with your lust.

"I thank the stars that the Temple detected you when it did, so I could send my other daughters and the younger girls to the far end of the valley, away from you and your taint -- the taint of Man."

She steadied the disruptor and aimed it at his chest. "If I don't do this, others will follow you here. I'm sorry, but it's the only way."

She fired the pistol and as the gun flashed Caleb instinctively threw his arms up in a futile effort to protect himself. But nothing hit him. At first he thought she'd missed, and then he lowered his arms and saw Hannah lying lifelessly on the floor in front of him.

He knew instantly what had happened. Hannah must have moved toward him at the last second, and Dr. Bell, who'd probably never fired a disruptor pistol in her life, hadn't realized the weapon's aim assist had locked onto her instead of him.

"No...no!" she screamed. "You see what you've done!" She raised the pistol, ready to take a second shot at Caleb, and he knew this time she wouldn't miss.

But then Hannah moaned in pain. They both looked down at her in amazement; no human could withstand a full force blast from a disruptor pistol. Then Caleb remembered -- Hannah was much more than human.

"Hannah!" the old woman cried. With a surge of relief, she lowered the pistol and hurried to her daughter's side.

Caleb knew this was his chance. He ran toward the doorway and hit the interior door control on the way out. The door slid shut behind him and he raced naked down the corridors of the Temple, heading for the quantum computer control room he'd seen on the schematic.

He heard the whoosh of the door opening behind him, but he wasn't worried; he knew he was far enough ahead that the old woman wouldn't be able to get a shot off at him. Then he heard her shout: "Noa, stop him!"

Caleb looked back in fear. He heard Noa's bare feet pounding down the corridor as she pursued him faster than any human possibly could.

He looked back and saw her coming around the curve of the corridor, her eyes narrowing as soon as she saw him, like a hawk seeking her prey.

Caleb had reached the control room. He ducked inside and slammed his palm against the interior door control. But just before it slid completely shut he saw Noa's fingers appear, curling around the side of the door. He cringed, expecting the force of the hydraulic door to amputate them. But it didn't. And slowly, inexorably, she started to pull the door open again.

Caleb's jaw dropped, he knew the hydraulic force on that door had to be nearly a thousand pounds. But Noa was stronger.

He raced to the quantum computer console. He knew he only had seconds before she'd be through the door. He tapped commands into the screen and was relieved to see his spacecraft's data appear on the monitor. Dr. Bell hadn't terminated the connection after linking to his ship's onboard computer.