Clam (Maura's Gate Book 1) Read online

  “You know, when I was at the park,” said Roland, “I checked the switches for several rides. They were all turned off. Somehow, Clam wants to run them. She must be lonely and missing the people—”

  “Hey guys, look what I found!” Mina called out at the entrance, holding a notebook in her hands. “It’s in English!”

  Kenton walked over to Mina, but she didn’t give it to him. She bypassed him and handed it to Devin. “Do you remember reading this?”

  The notebook was wrapped in a yellow synthetic jacket. The curved stripes on the cover reminded Devin of sand on the beach. He opened the cover and saw a name written on the first page—Joe Adams.

  He didn’t need to read the rest. The lost memories had all come back.

  Chapter 4 The Diary

  When Fine Galaxy was halfway home, its navigation system broke and the cruise ended up somewhere far from Earth. After a few more failed attempts, they encountered a ship from Mullos 17 b and were brought back to the planet by the Rhikings, a name the Earth people later gave to their saviors. An agreement was reached between the two races that the Earth people would stay there for ten years before they were sent back home. During the first few years, they quickly learned each other’s languages and cultures. Meanwhile, the Rhikings became interested in Leo’s space-growth technique and built a lab on Moon Au Daral’s orbit for him to continue his research.

  “So he made it,” Roland said in a low voice. “I suspected it when I first found out about those moving lumps beneath the skin. We once chatted about possible strategies for celestial living beings to perceive the environment. Our skin is packed with fine mechanoreceptors, but it’ll be too much for a moon-sized creature. One solution is to have gross sensations to roughly locate the external signals, and then mobile fine sensors that travel along to complete the job. At that time it was just an idea. I don’t know how he made it.”

  The images on the wall stopped changing and left a static picture of a beach in some kind of tropical area. The sky was a gentle blue. The wind must have been balmy. Adults wearing colorful swimsuits were half-buried in the sand, with shells on their sides and kids running frantically in the shallow water.

  “She’s missing home,” said Mina. “She wants to find out more about Earth.”

  There was a moment of silence before the four of them continued with the diary. Since Leo preferred to work with a creature he was familiar with, they decided on one of the clams that had been found in Fine Galaxy’s kitchen and was subsequently raised as precious Earth creatures. The project went better than expected. When Clam was the size of a football court, they started growing silicon crystals inside one of her valves and turned it into a solar-energy generator. Meanwhile, more and more intelligent programs were implanted in her body so that she gradually took over the responsibilities to grow and develop herself.

  “I could tell she’s becoming happier each day,” Leo wrote in purple ink on that page. He must have been happy too. “She enjoys learning new things. It’s true she doesn’t have a brain, but she thinks and senses throughout her body. She’s been studying the inserted programs, duplicating them and playing with the parameters. Meanwhile, she analyzes human emotions through interactions with the tourists. I teach her English. She works hard, especially fond of literature. Unfortunately I could barely come up with a complete poem …”

  In the end, Clam could not only sustain herself but also provide electricity to spaceships. Every year, eighty percent of all the high-efficiency batteries in the world were produced on this “live moon”. The Rhikings had also built museums, shopping centers, and hotels inside her. For a while everybody on the planet talked about Clam with pride. “Space is our backyard pond.” had become a popular slogan.

  But accidents happen. One day a major circuit board in the coordinating system broke, and Clam got overcharged by the sun. Immense energy began building up inside the generator and eventually forced an outlet. According to one of the witnesses who worked at the nearby space station, an enormous cylinder of light had been instantly formed between Clam and the Comastic Ocean on the planet. Hot steams shot to the sky and sprayed to the shores. Gigantic waves raged on the sea, resulting in the loss of seventeen ships and hundreds of lives. The tragedy evoked global panics and concurrent propositions of “getting rid of that monster moon!”

  Leo and those Rhikings who remained rational had tried to assure the majority that, with extra security systems implemented and sufficient caution exerted, similar things shouldn’t happen again. The public would not listen. After everybody on the moon, except Leo, had been evacuated, the assassination began.

  * * *

  “So Leo decided to die with his pet?” Kenton said in disbelief.

  “Which apparently saved his life,” said Mina.

  Devin thought he could understand. Leo created Clam. He must have felt that he was largely responsible for the situation. Devin took over the diary from Roland. He knew what had happened next, but he wanted to read it again, to relive the scientist’s last days.

  “They had to stay with conservative weapons with high penetrating power and low explosiveness, because if they broke her, it could be catastrophic to the planet. As I said, she’s a nice lady. She loves people …”

  The writing stopped, leaving the rest of the page blank. Devin flipped the page, and the date on the new page indicated that several days had passed before Leo wrote again.

  “After they began the attack, she quickly closed herself. She could easily fight back but she didn’t. In fact, she could easily destroy major cities in the world, just like what people had been afraid of. But she endured all the mistreatments. I know it sounds silly to talk about a clam’s virtues, but that’s what she had exhibited—tolerance, forgiveness, until one of the missiles penetrated her valve and exploded inside …”

  That must be the “wound” he and Roland had discovered, Devin reflected.

  “She opened up and fought back. She only fired once, but it was so unfortunate that her energy happened to hit Moon LaQuire. The small moon broke into three pieces, and one piece fell onto our largest continent.”

  “So there used to be another moon,” Mina murmured.

  Devin put down the diary and sighed. That was the ring-shaped continent he had seen earlier. Although he didn’t know what the Rhikings look like, scenes of them dying in earthquakes and tsunamis stabbed his heart. And he couldn’t bear to imagine the remorse Leo had to live with in the days that followed.

  “It’s all my fault.” Roland picked up the diary and continued the reading. “How dare I think I could manipulate life? A whole civilization was extinguished because of my invention. Before I started this project on the Earth, I was doing cancer research. Didn’t accomplish much but at least my work was constructive. I used to think that death is the worst nightmare for a human being. If that were true, I should be the happiest person in the world now. I have enough food stored here. I have TVs to watch, luxury hotel rooms to choose, and trains and roller coasters to ride on …”

  Devin’s chest ached so much that he almost asked Roland to stop.

  “If one day, any of my human fellows comes here and reads this, all I want to say is: Respect nature, and think carefully before you do things. We rarely make a mistake without paying the price.”

  * * *

  Devin and Roland sat quietly at the table, both immersed in their own thoughts. Mina picked up the diary from the table and browsed it through. She stared at each page for about a second. There was no way for her to read anything like that, but she had managed to go through all the pages when Kenton came back with a large stack of books held in his arms.

  “We aren’t staying for dinner, right?” The books shouldn’t be heavy due to the small gravity, but still it would be hard for him to keep balance when he walked. “I can’t read, but these looked like useful books. With enough time I’m sure our linguists will figure out the language … Can anybody give me a hand?”

  The others stood
up and headed to the living room.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea to take anything with you,” Roland said when he walked past Kenton.

  “Lieutenant Cheung!” Kenton called out at their back.

  Devin and Roland paused and turned back, perplexed.

  “What? Mr. Clifton?” Mina stopped but didn’t look at Kenton.

  “I thought you were on my side.”

  “When you are staying sane.” Her voice sounded unfamiliarly stiff. “As far as I’m concerned, Clam does not possess the ability of space travel. Anything that fails to pose a threat to our homeland security will lose its priority.”

  “You don’t think these books are important?”

  “Our soldiers don’t need to be mind-controlled,” Mina said with pride. “They are patriotic.”

  She walked for a few steps and stopped again. This time she met Kenton’s gaze and softened her tone. “How can I make you understand? You won’t be able to take anything with you. Haven’t you realized that Clam is highly intellectual? Besides, I don’t think the mind-controlling technique was invented by the Rhikings. Clam created it herself.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because if the Rhikings had owned that technique, they would’ve destroyed themselves long before the war broke.” Having said that, she left the three men and went back to the living room.

  Devin was still unable to accept Mina’s true identity, but he liked her theory.

  Chapter 5 The Camera

  The group went through the long hallway and arrived at the elevators. Within seconds, one of the elevators opened its door. They walked in, turned around to face the door, and waited. Time was flying but nothing happened. A few minutes later the door remained open.

  “Hmm, are there no buttons?” Kenton examined the cell, still holding his stack of books. “Guess who’s going to fix it if one of the elevators breaks?” he said with self-mockery. Then he must have decided to take a look at the outside. As soon as he stepped out of the elevator, however, the door shut behind him and the elevator began moving.

  The rest of them burst into laughter. They had no idea where the elevator was taking them, but somehow they were not worried anymore. After the movement had stopped and before the door opened, a line of text flashed on the door.

  Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none. William Shakespeare.

  “Wow, she does like literature!” Roland exclaimed as they stepped out onto a large outdoor parking lot occupied by a few ships.

  “But how?” Mina asked. “Does she have a brain?”

  “I won’t call it a brain, since her intelligence is scattered over her body. And the lack of a central control makes it hard to prevent accidents. But that doesn’t mean she can’t think.”

  It was bright outside, since Clam was now fully immersed in sunshine. Colorful light beams danced inside the silicon layer. She was happy, Devin could tell that. A life with self-consciousness should not be spent in illiteracy.

  “That’s our ship!” Mina pointed at one of the ships parked not far from them. As they walked over to Belief-II, Devin surveyed the other vessels. They were large and magnificent, apparently designed to accommodate a large number of people for short space travels, but now were forever deserted.

  The three of them boarded their ship and waited. Fifteen minutes later Kenton showed up, head-drooped and empty-handed. They took off their spacesuits and collapsed into their chairs. Nobody felt like talking or eating as the ship left the ground and headed out toward the outer space, although they should all be hungry by now.

  “How could I have forgotten about this?” Kenton suddenly came to his feet and moved over to a metal cabinet. He took out a camera from a drawer and walked over to the back window.

  “Mr. Clifton!” Roland sounded serious. “That’s not a good idea.”

  Flash.

  Devin left his station and stopped at Kenton’s side. Nothing was happening outside, except that the bouncing lights had disappeared from the silicon layer.

  Flash.

  Lights appeared again, but this time they were purely white lights, straight and steady. More and more lines were emerging throughout the upper valve and converging at the center.

  “That’s absolutely a bad idea,” said Mina.

  Devin ran to the navigation unit and sat in the chair. The ship jerked as he initiated a sudden acceleration. “Everybody buckle up!” he shouted but didn’t have time to check on his colleagues. They had to reach the edge of the lower valve before Clam fired. Then he would veer the ship downward and hide it under the valve. He pushed the manual speed control to its maximum and glanced back. The center of the upper valve was so bright that he had to avert his gaze.

  Now Kenton had also grasped the situation and seated himself with the others. The ship began vibrating, and a warning signal appeared on the screen in front of Devin: GRADUAL ACCELERATION RECOMMENDED. He checked the electronic map that showed their current location. The edge was ahead but they were not there yet.

  “How much time do we need?” Mina asked.

  “Eighteen seconds …” Devin knew that was too long. He knew it without having to look back. The whole ship was turned into white and blazing. He closed his eyes but couldn’t escape from the brightness. Everything was penetrated, mind and body. He was dissolving into a pool of atoms together with the rest of the ship …

  * * *

  “Dad,” Devin said as he pointed his little fingers at the night sky. “Are there aliens living among those stars?”

  “I think so.” The wind was becoming cooler, but his father’s voice remained warm.

  Devin stared at those stars. For a moment he felt he were no longer bound by Earth’s gravity. “Then wouldn’t it be sad if we never get to know them?”

  “Yes, but it would be sadder if we never get to know ourselves.”

  * * *

  Devin had no idea how long it had been before the whiteness finally subsided. The ship was left in complete darkness, and the hums of the machines had stopped. The only sound he could hear was his fellows’ heavy breathing. The oxygen level must be low.

  Then he heard a mechanical voice saying, “Emergency backup system triggered.” Lights flashed on inside the bridge and the machines woke up one after another. Devin supported himself up from his chair and looked around. For a while he had a drunken feeling—he saw and heard things, but the signals all came from remote sensors and barely registered in his mind.

  Kenton was sitting on the floor with his camera. He pressed a few buttons on the camera and sighed. “Twelve thousand bucks …” He threw the camera to a corner of the room.

  Mina remained in her chair holding her eyeglass frame, her shirt sprinkled with shattered glass. Seeing the ironic smile on her face and remembering the way she had browsed through the diary, Devin suddenly realized that it wasn’t really a pair of glasses. It must have been some kind of camera.

  He wobbled to the back window. The blue planet had dwindled into a basketball, and Clam was barely distinguishable at its side. Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none. She was indeed a nice lady. She could’ve killed them all. He smiled. What did Kenton say, twenty years? She could finally enjoy some peace, and hopefully the information he had brought over helped abate her loneliness.

  Then a question arose in his mind: were they going to lose their memories this time?

  He turned around and saw Kenton leaping up from the floor and dashing to a computer. The same thought must have occurred to Kenton as well. “Where should I start?” he murmured as his fingers typed on the keyboard rapidly. “So Planet Mullos 17 b used to have intelligence, but their whole race was destroyed in the war against one of their moons, which looks like … like a …”

  He stopped typing. His hand scratched his head and pulled the gray hair. Then he turned to seek help from the others. “I know this sounds stupid, but what does the moon look like?”

  Mina made no response, still holding her frame. Roland was making coff
ee for himself. He took his time adding sugar and creamer before he looked back at Kenton and suggested, “A lobster, maybe?”

  Devin tried to keep a straight face. Roland’s answer indicated he hadn’t lost his memory. Nor had Devin. At least not yet at the moment.

  But he was not going to tell anybody.

  (End of Book 1; Next, Chapter 1 of the next book in the series)

  Chapter 1 of ROSETTA, the Comet

  “Rose, I need to talk to you.” Leo appeared at the door with an open folder.

  “I’m leaving for the day.” Rose logged out the computer and briefly organized her desk. It was related to the donation, she knew.

  “About the Rosetta project …” Leo looked down at his folder and frowned. He had a sophisticated look when he frowned—she admitted—with neatly parted and moussed hair, well-kept figure, and the slick sport jacket that must have cost him a fortune. Yet whenever she saw him, the name of a four-limb reptile would pop up in her head, lizard.

  “We’ve given them seventy-five million over the past few years. Seventy-five million! My lady. And I just saw you added more last week. Why, why do we have to do this?”

  “You asked the wrong person.” Rose checked her handbag one more time to make sure the envelope was still there before she left her desk. She was a tall woman with springy curls and dark blue eyes—eyes in which men had claimed to see moons and stars, while she enjoyed staring back at them from the same level. “It’s from our Nebular Budget. Part of Nick’s will.”

  “Nick, my dear Nick. Yeah, I know it’s for science, but we are a profit company, and …” He paused as an ambiguous smile crept up his face. “I’ve heard rumors …”

  “Whatever rumor you’ve heard, I can tell you it’s true.” Having been a widow for five years, Rose had learned that the most effective way to stop gossip was to acknowledge it immediately.