Terraformer: Epic Sci-Fi Adventure at the Edge of the Galaxy by James Scholes

Author:James Scholes [Scholes, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-06-05T22:00:00+00:00

When Kole was young, he had loved watching the older boys race their speedsters. Flying cars that sounded like a thunderstorm as they raced past; young girls screamed at them, waved their hands over their heads in support. It was always summer, or so it felt. The sun was tinged red and orange as it dipped below the horizon. There was a beautiful girl standing on the balcony opposite the street from where Kole was cheering. Her skin was bronzed and brown, and her hair was curly and bounced on her head as she jumped up and down.

She wasn't wearing a shirt.

The speedsters roared past and their scream kicked dirt into Kole's eye. He fell, looked at the horse that had just bolted past him. Horses? Where were the speedsters? Where was the girl? But the city was gone and he was standing in a field. Memories... I'm dreaming... More horses roared across the green plains. Wild beasts, of course—there was no need for domestic horses anymore—and they were huge and powerful. The sky rumbled overhead, the dull morning light was broken as a jagged bolt of lightning snaked across the sky.

Kole saw the bolt of lightning, but he didn't see the horse. It crashed into him, its heavy hooves broke him and he fell. He felt ribs that were broken and a lung that was punctured—had to be punctured. His pelvis was broken in two and his leg was twisted. His head didn't feel right... It felt as though his left ear was hanging down around his neck, and he couldn't feel his jaw.

Bright-blue light and bubbles everywhere. The anti-bac tanks held him, made him new again. He opened his eyes, still floating under the liquid, and he saw the robo-medics fusing new skin onto his chest. They worked in a hexagonal pattern as they stitched him up, and the joins were a dull grey against the paleness of his new skin. Outside the tanks, he could see his parents, blurry and indistinct but he knew it was them. It had to be them.

Later... Lying with Liliana, both of them naked. Covered in sweat, and her hair was splayed across his shoulder—her hair was his now. He was hers. They were each others.

“No!” Kole cried out. “My memory! Mine!”

“Don't fight it. It hurts if you fight it.” Liliana? No, the voice was male: Brax. The clone. Kole fought it.

School. Exams. Football and gladiators. His first space-walk and the jump between asteroids. Struggling to breathe in a harmful atmosphere, and the anti-bac tanks once more.

“Breathe. Slowly. Slowly.”

The sweet smell of oxygen. Clouds billowing under an alien sun. Comets of ice bombarding a planet, making it rain. A platform in space, where he might as well have been God. Colony ships stretched out behind him like a million ants, waiting for their hive to be ready for them. And it was ready. Their new home, all thanks to Kole and his team. A long time ago—back when Liliana was alive.

Liliana...

The sickness that came for her.

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