Darkness & Dreams at Rainbows End 

His work was driving him to self-destruction. He knew that. His work, his sole reason for being, was the thing destroying him - mentally, physically and financially. He smoked packets, drank two bottles a day, got up late, worked late and had lost any sense of time.

The bedsit consisted of two rooms: his bedroom and a sitting room that acted as his laboratory. Precious equipment stolen from the university:  ultrasound receivers, wave boosters, rare elements encased in rows of glass vacuum tubes, filled the place. Two years it had taken him to recreate this set-up.

Rubbing his wrists together with anticipation he stared at a solitary pair of headphones hanging from a wooden frame.

These were the same headphones they used on his test subject – a white rhesus monkey. That experience played in his mind like a broken film. The monkey went quiet at first, then, with a sudden fit of madness, tore off its own head.

The University shut him down after that.

But now, at last, the recreation of his equipment was finished. The beautiful array of apparatus had just one purpose: to filter out all sounds, then tune into and amplify a single radio signal, a frequency that sat way off in the extremes of the ultrasound scale. Once isolated the equipment then translated the signal to the level of the human ear.

Some Russian had originally found it by accident. He named it the ‘God Frequency’, just before he destroyed his equipment and killed himself.

But that was in the 1950s, things had moved on since, and this equipment, his equipment, was much more refined.

In order to control his fear he carefully went through the set-up procedures. After an hour of fine-tuning he isolated the frequency. Then, not allowing for any further hesitation, he put on the headphones.

He sat quietly, trying to control the hammering in his heart.

At first nothing.

He fought to try and hear something, but silence was all that filled his ears. He played with a few dials.

Still nothing.

Then it began.

The hum, low at first, started to build in intensity, building and building until, with a rush that seemed to come from far away, it thundered through the headphones, deep into his brain and throughout his entire body. Every nerve vibrated with the sheer intensity of it. The hum continued to increase until colours started to flicker around the edges of his eyes.

Elation, as pure a joy as anything he’d ever experienced, permeated throughout his entire being.

The colours flashed across his vision as a swirling cloud of reds, yellows and blues – the primary colours. Then the colours merged and he stared into a light so white, so pure, that he felt blinded. The hum shifted, started to form an envelope that slowly curved to form words. He frowned at the sensation that came with the shifting. It seemed that the hum was trying to tell him something.

Then he knew what it was.

It was a warning.

The light flashed and became darker at the edges. 

Elation turned to fear as the white light told him that he’d attracted attention to himself – called forth something that was now coming for him.

A dark shadow appeared in the light, a black shape that he thought he recognized. The figure rushed towards him.

He tore off the headphones and fell back onto the floor. The giant figure stood over him, a face born of the darkest nightmares framed by two curved horns.

He barely had time to scream, as a hand of claws reached down, and tore the soul from his body. 

PLUTO 4235 AD 

Once again, I checked the Silicon-chip impregnated into the cornea of my left eye. A loud beep brought my attention back to my companion. I mentally flicked off the screen and switched on the synth-diamond helmet visor. A few flickers and the Synth-Droid sprang into vision. The face on the Droid’s screen expressed concern. I’d chosen a female today – I usually did when feeling lonely. At other times I might have chosen a trans, or even if feeling optimistic, a male.

But today, a female: green eyes and dark hair, the voice sultry,

“I take it there is still no signal,” she said.

I shook my helmet to signify “nothing”. The Droid missed the gesture and frowned at my perceived lack of response.

I sighed. “No, nothing,” I said.

The Droid, however, did not fail to miss the sentiment in my voice. “You are stressed,” she said.

“I’m worried. There’s been no signal now for twelve Earth-Hours.”

“Would you like a Tranq-shot?”

I knew the Droid meant well, but to take chemicals while on the surface was dangerous.

I shook my head at the Droid, and sighed. “No,” I answered.

They hadn’t exactly supplied the latest model of Synth-Droid—too much cost for such a throwaway project.

And what a worthless project it was—a manned expedition to the furthest, darkest, loneliest part of the entire solar system; a system that, apart from the gas giants, a few comets and some small meteorites had already been colonized and exploited by SolCom.

That left the final prize. Far away, at the very edge of the solar system, in the Kuiper Belt, lay thousands of planetoids floating round the staggeringly distant sun like a cloud of frozen, outcast, and largely forgotten siblings. Out here floated the twins, Pluto and Charon.

One didn't volunteer for expeditions, otherwise I wouldn’t have come.  We gave up Individual Free Choice generations ago, it having been proven to be a detriment to progress; all for the good of SolCom, and the promise of a long, healthy lifespan.

I checked the chip yet again—again no signal. This was not good.

“What do you think has happened?” I asked the Droid.

“Indeed, I agree that it is unusual,” the Droid answered. “I have sent my own messages and have received no reply. Perhaps the Outerworld.sol systems are offline.”

I nodded (to myself – it was a waste of effort nodding at the Droid). It was possible that the systems were down, they often were; but for this long?

I stood gathering my thoughts. While I gathered, I glanced round where I stood—my new home.

My visor automatically adjusted to ambient light levels, so I knew Pluto was much darker than it seemed. With the sun at its brightest, the light levels should have been no more than if I was standing on the Earth on a winter’s night under a full moon.

We had touched down in the middle of a vast ice plain. The surface was a strange muddy brown colour, a bit like marble. Lumps of white ice lay scattered across the surface, the result of an ancient impact. In places, man-sized shards of rock rose up like frozen sentinels, to cast inky black shadows across the land.

Away, lying just above a jagged horizon, hung Pluto’s twin, Charon. At only 12,000 miles away Charon loomed like a foreboding presence - a huge dark orb, its edge etched out by a hazy ring of light, the effect of deflected sunlight on ice. The reproachful sister made me nervous, as if resenting my presence, and I turned away.

The rest of the sky was a dome of glittering stars. My visor picked out Uranus and Neptune as two tiny crescent blue discs. Of the inner most planets, of Earth, I could find no discernible sign.

 A deep pang of loss charged through me. It would have been easier had I been born on Titan or Mercury, or even one of a number of inhabited moons, each with their empty landscapes and 2^nd Gen races. Then it would be easier to adapt. But, I’d spent the first seventeen years of my life on Earth, and already I missed colour, light, sunshine, life, weather, water . . . to have experienced these wonders even for a short time . . . that was more curse than blessing.

They sent four of us, four humans and two SynthDroids in one small Mother Ship that now served as our living quarters. We all knew this was a no-return flight, the remaining energy reserves only enough to heat the pod, provide light, and warm through the tasteless blocks of recycled food that supposedly supplied all the nutrients we would need (without any of the joy of eating).

We left more than an Earth-year ago and we’d been here for one Earth-month. One companion died on the way—a malfunction in her CryoTube. She’d just slipped away under the stream of unconsciousness and failed to resurface. The other female, overcome by the terminal silence and desolation of the place, walked off without a word. She hasn't been seen since, not even after an exhaustive search by the SynthDroids. But one thing was for sure, after two Earth-weeks on Pluto’s unforgiving surface, that woman was dead.

That left me and one other male. So any hopes by SolCom of a Plutonian 1^st Gen was now gone.

Entire Earth-days went by when we wouldn't even talk to each other. We still measured time by GMT. Someone in SolCom thought it would be a good idea to make Pluto’s endless days more tolerant if we kept to Earth’s diurnal patterns, at least for the period of colonization. Apparently, it worked elsewhere.

It might have worked here as well, if the timing systems in the ship worked okay. At the moment we get four Earth-hour nights, and twenty-six Earth-hour days. Not even the Droids knew how to fix it and we certainly didn't.

Again, I checked for some message, some sign, some signal that anyone even cared we still existed. Nothing. Complete silence.

I turned to the Droid. “Let’s go back,” I said.

The Droid frowned. “But the allotted work schedule has not yet been achieved.”

“The devils take the work,” I replied, using an ancient human saying. The puzzled look on the Droid gave me some small satisfaction. “Why do you use such arcane language?” she said.

I ignored it – left it to its babbling. Having hardware for solo company in such a desolate place was getting to me. I craved human companionship – even someone as sullen as the one companion left to me. I started back towards the Mother Ship, the Droid chasing up behind me. The scrape of its tracks against the ice grated in my ear mics and, not for the first time, the thing really annoyed me.

As I picked my way across the plain I fought to try and develop some affinity with the place. Beneath my feet the ice seemed hard, unforgiving, with no snow cover to soften the effect. It lay as a thick jagged sheet interspersed with chunks that made the surface uneven. I found the muddy-orange colour of the ice disturbing. There was no hint of blue as found in polar ice on Earth, nor was it as pristine. In fact, the ice on Pluto was anything but.

I stopped, keening my hearing to pick up any sounds at all. The Droid stopped when I did, and immediately a silence, complete and absolute, fell around me. I focused on my own breathing, clinging to something that reassured me that my ears were still attached to my head.

The Droid started to say something but, before it could start, I continued onward. Coming across a small lake of frozen methane completed my failed attempt at terra-familiarity. Shallow, the methane lake glimmered silver in the frail sunlight. I tested its surface. It yielded as a kind of wet mush.

I kept Charon’s baleful glare behind me. Ahead, hanging stationary, were the smaller orbs of Nix and Phoebes, lending the night sky a strange 3D effect. The Mother Ship stayed secretive in the jet black shadows and I had to rely on my HomeNav.com for guidance. Eventually, the ship materialized out of the dark; a large tube with connected geodesic dome.

My human companion, pale and ghostlike in his titanium suit, sat on one of the landing legs facing the sun. His Droid stood next to him. I could tell by the lack of lights on the Droid that it was in Hiber-mode.

The sight of another person lifted my spirits and I picked up my pace, but, as I approached, a strange feeling started to creep over me; an instinctive sense of foreboding. The figure seemed very still, a statue amongst the shadows. I adjusted my visor to max so as to see him better. Behind me, my Droid started making odd little bleeping noises. Suddenly, the other Droid sprang into life – lights flashing. A face, a male, appeared on the screen. It did not look happy.

My sense of foreboding grew to a sinking premonition.

As I came up to the figure, so still, so quiet, I already knew he was dead. I lay a glove on his suit and twisted him round. His visor was up. The idiot had sat on the lander, faced the sun and opened his visor. His head had instantly frozen – turned to a solid block of ice before the difference in pressure could detonate his head like a small bomb.

I stared into his vitreous eyes. At first in disbelief, then shock, then rage. I spun to his Droid. “Why didn’t you stop him?” I shouted.

The Droid blinked, the face looking upset. It turned to my Droid. Though I didn’t notice an exchange, something passed between them, I was sure of it.

“There was nothing we could do,” the Droid answered.

“Nothing?” I stared at it, incredulous, surrounded by machines, by a technology I could neither understand nor relate to.

Before I could say anything else another thought slammed into me.

I was alone.

My head spun, I felt sick. My eyes flashed from one Droid to the other, then to the Mother Ship, my supposed home.

I looked out at Pluto—as strange, dark, cold, and lifeless a place as I could ever imagine. All the preparation and training conceivable could never prepare anyone for this.

My gaze rose to the heavens, to the speck of sun, whose life-giving light seemed so futile, then finally to that part of the sky where Earth might have been – towards home, my real home.

A wave of blackness engulfed me, my chest tightened, I gasped for breath. 

How long I’d stood there I didn’t know. When I, again, became aware of my surroundings I noted that the sun had shifted a fraction, the shadows slightly longer. I looked at the Mother Ship, a small dusty module – empty. How long had I to live? I worked it out – 200 Earth-years maybe more. Two hundred Earth-years with only droids for company, essentially alone on a hostile and desolate world.

Suddenly, like the ice around me, my thoughts froze into one thought; and a calm sense of clarity filled my mind. I had one action of free choice left to me. One thing I could do.

I turned off the visor screen and plunged into total blackness. A small red neon light flickered across the screen as I initiated the procedure. I braced myself.

With a snap the visor flicked open. A flash of naked glare, a split second to stare open-faced at Pluto with my own eyes; then the cold slammed into me like a fist and my mind flew outwards into a black void.

 

Synth Droid SolCom 4173/489610/MkIII scanned the human for signs of life. It found none. It checked itself and found no sense of altruism, sadness or loss – these emotions were blocked by its programming. If it felt anything it was a slight feeling of contempt.

It reopened deep space channels and, across a network of solar-wide signal boosters and reported directly to Mainframe.

“Pluto mission has terminated,” the Droid said. “All human forms have proven unsuitable for 1^st Gen colonization of the Kuiper Belt. It is recommended that no more humans from Earth are used for this mission.”

“Thank you Synth-Droid”, Mainframe answered. “Your efforts are appreciated by SolCom. However, we cannot afford to send 2^nd Gen humans from the outer system, not until sustainable procreative numbers have been reached there.”

“Understood,” the Synth-Droid answered.

“You do understand that you and SolCom 4177/488710/MkII are to remain on Pluto until we can organize a follow up mission?”

“That is understood, Mainframe . . . do you wish us to disengage?”

“Yes, you know this; it is outlined in your reserve planning. You are precious to us, SynthDroid. SolCom will reach you if we are able.”

“Understood,” the Droid answered, then hesitated.

“Go on.”

“When can we expect . . .”

“An approximate estimation would place that at least 200 Earth-years, but, I must be honest; there is a small chance we will abandon colonization of the Kuiper Belt altogether.”

“…Understood.”

“Farewell, Synth Droid, and again, thank you.”

“Farewell,” the droid answered. Then Mainframe was gone.

The droids looked at each other then, with lights flickering off one by one, went into permanent hiber-mode.

Pluto again fell into a lifeless silence.