Darkness: Humanz 2.0 by Igor Ljubuncic

Author:Igor Ljubuncic [Ljubuncic, Igor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-11-23T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6

I beg you take courage; the brave soul can mend even disaster.

- Catherine the Great

We sat there, together, yet worlds apart.

The Basil Station was too crowded, and it was impossible to keep us and the humans completely isolated from one another. Everyone worked in shifts, and so people—those fully alive and those tottering on the brink of scientific uncertainty—had to share time in the dining hall.

To allay the fears of contamination and infection, we had erected a nylon sheet partition around the small area where the humans had their meals. We could see them through the semi-transparent curtain, blobs of green and pink.

It had been only six days since we'd taken over the base. There were already symptoms.

Not of any disease. Of creeping panic and madness that would eventually obliterate logic and restrain and turn the station into a bloodbath. No one had turned. But two of the scientists had exhibited severe psychosomatic effects and had to be sedated. Another man had tried to kill himself with an overdose of painkillers. We all hoped he would pull through.

Professor Hodgkins blamed it all on me, of course.

The rest of his team went about meekly, like war camp prisoners, bashful, hesitant, swinging between feeble hope and paralyzing fear, all in the space of one wrong glance or awkward gesture. I wanted this to end soon.

Alejandro had done his job. He had presented me with a plan.

I didn't like it.

The simplest, most peaceful option called for our instant departure from the Basil Station. We still didn't have an alternative refuge. If we went, we'd sail into the unknown.

The idea was to take the humans with us and then let them go after we'd embarked and weighed anchor. We would take them to an isolated spot, far from the icebreaker, so they wouldn't really know how we got there, or the name or size of our transport. It was tenuous, risky, foolish.

The scientists would need about three or four hours to get back to the station, and probably another day or two for minor repairs to the careful damage my technicians would render to their communication array. It wasn't much time, but it didn't unduly risk their lives, and it would give us about a thousand kilometers of open-sea head-start. With some luck, it would take a while for the human navies to understand and verify the threat, and to organize a search. By then, we should be able to evade maritime patrols and satellites.

Nothing about this sounded right. But it was the most humane option we currently had. Alejandro's words reverberated inside my head. Perhaps we had already lost the war and we just didn't know it yet.

If he bore resentment, Alejandro hid it well. Still, Basil Station was awfully small, and my people could sense my dilemma. They weren't stupid. They all understood the implication of our action.

Naturally, their lack of knowledge fueled their imaginations in the worst ways. Neither Alejandro nor I had told them the full details. I couldn't do that.

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