Starmada Comics

Cabell gestured around himself.  “You can see how barren this place is.  We managed to make a go with the aqueduct for many years, but after about 5 years anything more complex than simple machines, anything with electronics, failed.  When the aqueducts began failing we began terrace farming, to some success, but eventually much of the crew left for the lower valleys, out of the rain shadow we’re in.”

The Spitzers stared at the city that sprawled around them, rising to the lower slopes and filling the valley from side to side.  In the distance to the east they could just make out a promontory where terraces had been cut into the sides.  In the distance they could see billowing cumulonimbus.  A crack of thunder caught their attention and they could see another cloud bank coming at them.  Cabell soldiered on in his explanation.  “Haven’t heard from them in years.  Probably dead.  It’s not an easy world we live on.  The short day plays hell on your sleep cycles, that’s for sure.”  He hitched his cloak about himself as the thunder boomed, closer.  “Well, come on, all of you – come in out of the rain.”

The crew walked along, following Cabell.  Walking carefully around the ever present rubble, the crew made their way through the ruined metropolis.  As they passed what could easily have been a Zesucuto or Xintò shrine they were faced with triangliform architecture that baffled their senses and didn’t even seem to obey the laws of physics.  “I’d just look at the ground, if I were you.  Ver’disorienting.  If I had my way, I’d ask you to phlog this neighborhood from orbit.  It’s an ugly bugger of an eyesore.”

Within a few minutes Cabell had begun grumbling ot himself.  “Where’s the route out of here?”  He turned, abruptly down an alley.  “S’what I get, trying a short cut.  I knew better’n to enter this blasted quarter, but here we go – Little Sagittaria.”  The were soon enough through the neighborhood – and it was apparent as they passed that it had been some hundreds of years since Sagittarians had lived there.  After ten minutes of walking, they had passed through a Koorxani district, and rounded a curve only to face a large plaza, filled with small fractal sculptures.  In the center stood what appeared to be a vast tree, springing from a small point maybe the thickness of a man’s thigh.  As the crew approached it, it became more and more clear that it too was a fractal, an immense sculpture that had grown some 15 meteres up and into the sky.  The Spitzers exchanged a worried look, and the Aquico’s gasped in a small show of fear.

Cabell looked at the asian women.  “Yes – that one worried us, too.”  He shook his head.  “It hasn’t changed in the years we’ve been here, hasn’t weathered, hasn’’t aged.  Hasn’t grown either.”

“Is it Zeniak?” Ellen Spitzer stood near Cabell’s shoulder, mesmerized in awe and fear for a moment, as she scrutinized the fractal branching.

Cabell waved the crew on and started to pace away.  The others were compelled to follow.” We thought so at first.  It’s a million Earth years old.”

“How can you know?” Louise Spitzer spoke, incredulous as Cabell waved the crew to a stop before a large pile of rubble.

“While Columbian was still in orbit, we did some scans, and we scanned it yearly until about five years ago, when the scanner finally broke.  The one thing that we didn’t really need, and it broke last of all.”  Cabell smiled at here.  “We weren’t left helpless.”  The elder man spryly began jumping up the large blocks.  The enormous pile seemed to rise interminably from the valley floor, yet the man leaped as confidently as a mountain goat.  “Come on.  This is an uplift fault.  Fortunately the building that was here collapsed into a heap that made it easy to negotiate a path to the higher city.  It’s the only way up for miles in either direction.”  He jumped a few more blocks up to what seemed the top, where he danced a jig.  “It’s solid.  We’ve poured cement into the crevasses and only put some loose rubble as a disguise.”

Cabell waited patiently as the crew mounted up, and when the last had reached to lip and surveyed the city to either side, he clapped his hands and they were off again.  A few streets down Cabell turned sharply, marching them toward a hole the size of a man which had been blasted or rather, melted into the wall.  The glassy-blue of the phlogiston-infused sandstone caught Ellen Spitzer’s attention as she stepped through.

“Your ship had reported an attack by Zmorite raiders, and that they were lucky to escape with their lives!”

Cabell moved onward, unphased.  “Just in those caves there.  That’s where most of my crew are living.  We heard the ray blast and knew we’d have guests.”

The Spitzers had stopped stock-still, arms crossed, waiting for his answer.

The old man waved his hands at them.  “Yes, fine, it was in part a lie.  The system is designed to blast any ship coming to orbit.  If your ship left and returned, we’d have another set of clones.  As Captain we decided we couldn’t risk it.  We’d had a skirmish with pirates who had somehow gotten hold of Zmorite weapons.  We figured it would cover our absence, and hopefully prevent more Starmada personnel going through this.”  He sighed and looked each woman in the eyes for a moment before continuing.  “Would you force someone to this fate?”