How to Rescue a Dying Planet

The evening’s haze diffused the fading light of the setting sun beautifully as my craft descended and landed safely onto the planet surface. Thank the Gods.

I was the first of my kind to set toe and claw on this blue rock. The first Lameer to visit. The first lizard traveler to claim an unclaimed and massive salvage. If all goes well I will be rich.

What I didn’t know at the time was that I had been tracked and that I was being hunted.

Tactical:

I checked the dials on the console before trying to take my helmet off. Oxygen and nitrogen filled the cabin along with radiation that would end me in less than an hour without my meds, but I couldn’t make the first injection until I got the suit off.

First I slipped the safety catch under the chin. Then the second catch at the back of the neck. Then I pushed the release catch up and forward as the manual said. But the manual was wrong. My helmet wouldn’t budge.

Personal:

It took me far too long to figure my way out of that oppressively heavy piece of safety equipment, my prison for ninety-seven and a quarter turns.

Academic:

The air was dry and breathable outside.

Personal:

Wet and dank inside my helmet.

Private:

It smelled like three months of bad breath, body odor, and stomach gas mixed with synth air and whatever these engineers called food.

Father:

I arrived ahead of schedule. You were right about the sunset. I wish you could see it. The planet is vibrant. These living colors do not exist on our world. I ask you, would a God know how much we enjoy their work if we do not stand still to appreciate it.

Tactical:

The planet was virtually unoccupied. An excellent candidate for a forward outpost; either that or this dying blue rock could be stripped and sold for parts. The Military, The Exchange, The Academy—they were all going to line up to pay me for this find. I fully intend to claim this planet, but first I had to clean out this radiation.

Opinion:

The sheer number of bombs they dropped on themselves is hard to contend with.

Personal:

There was once clean water here. There will be again.

Tactical:

After the helmet, the suit, the inoculations, and an equipment check, all I needed was to set up the processors and get rid of the locals.

Father:

Tell the boys I won’t be staying long. This is going to be a quick trip. Just long enough to clean the air, start the water processors, and collect a few samples. I’ll be back before you know it, and don’t worry, I’m in very little danger.

Tactical:

My first priority was survival.

There was once a civilization here. There still remained scattered life forms, remnants of intelligence. They do not travel through time. They no longer travel in space, and they cannot save themselves, but they are dangerous nonetheless.

Opinion:

These aren’t the bloodthirsty killers the Iuhuh were. Their records indicate evidence of xenophobia, self-hatred, and global superpowers who effectively ended their own history. Wealthy sociopaths who controlled the media and convinced the population to vote against their best interests, and a generational hatred and mistrust of their neighbors. It was a civil war. It was a suicide. It was a bloodbath.

Father:

I can’t get over how beautiful this place is. I believe this is a dead planet, but the colors are very much alive.

The fallout from the radiation in the atmosphere gives the air a slight sparkle. It’s magnificent. Kiss the boys’ snouts from me, if they’re still up when you get this.

Personal:

I can tell there was a great deal of love here, as well as creativity and a thirst for knowledge.

Opinion:

These were magical creatures once, but they never learned to work together. They were taught in school that everything was a competition.

Reptilians learned to work together. Insectoids had no choice. Big cats, as dangerous as they are, were mostly loners, but still served the greater good, while all the monkeys ever did was fling their poo at each other. It was the same thing with the canine races and the Avians. There was too much pride.

They fought wars over a crown. Brother killed brother. Father fought son. Neighbor attacked neighbor.

Private:

Imagine killing your roommates over a freaking hat. That would be insane.

Opinion:

I believe it was the absence of magic that killed this world. They stopped believing in gods, in the sciences, in goodness altogether.

The only thing they believed in was the power of wealth. But having money didn’t stop them from destroying themselves; it made it easier.

They needed to believe in magic.

Personal:

It made me appreciate the way I was raised.

Private:

It was a nice hat though.

Tactical:

I pulled the medical kit from one of the smaller closets in the back of the cockpit and prepared an inoculation.

The radiation from multiple nuclear strikes was no problem for the boys at the academy.

I would have to give myself an injection each solar day. I had more than enough serum for six lunar months, and if the terraformers didn’t give me any problems…

Personal:

I don’t like needles. Any sharp object near my underbelly makes me want to curl into a ball. I do not like to stick things into it on purpose.

Tactical:

The Iuhuh always struck from behind. It was instinctual. They were a stealthy and intelligent race of cats, if you could call cats intelligent. That’s pretty much all we ever called them.

Not many Crocs outside of the scientific community could even pronounce the word Iuhuh.

It was e-hue, the second syllable being a breathy whistle that was difficult for most lizards.

It was that hissing sound the cats made before fighting. They shouted the name of their species before battle.

Opinion:

You’d think after decades of war, we’d at least know how to pronounce their fucking name. Delete that.

COMMAND FAIL

Then keep it then. Fucking engineers.

Tactical:

Even though their claws can’t penetrate our scales, and the terrible Iuhuh were all instincts, and their instincts were bad, our front flesh—the underbelly—was a major weakness.

I’ve never heard of anyone going claw to claw with an Iuhuh and surviving. Not one.

Opinion:

We were the most scientifically advanced species in our little section of the galaxy. Not even the deliciously crunchy insectoids with their emotionless hive mind could match the scientific superiority of the reptiles.

Personal:

Talking about insectoids always made me hungry.

Private:

If I ever saw a big cat, I’d probably shit myself and roll into a ball and hope that the smell of desperation and feces put it off its lunch.

Tactical:

They rarely hunted in packs.

Personal:

They like the way we taste.

Father:

A planet like this one, with its polluted natural resources and its strategic location, is quite a find. If I could just get this damn suit off.

Private:

Engineers are loathsome creatures.

Tactical:

There are a few primitive reptile species here. The archives show that a massive reptilian known as Godzilla once terrorized their cities, but the reports are contradictory and the simulations are crude but entertaining.

There is no evidence that the kaiju survived. The reptiles that remained were little more than animals. Perhaps they were our ancestors, but I think I will leave that out of my report.

Delete.

COMMAND FAIL

Fuck off.

Academic:

There is some evidence that the insectoids may have sent their own expedition but left after deciding that this world was still inhabited by intelligent beings.

It was probably too close to call for the hive mind. They did not make rash decisions. And no species wanted to answer to the Overseers.

The Galactic Overseers were the defenders of universal law and paradox. No other species could claim an inhabited planet with intelligent life without severe consequences.

If a timeline was set and the Galactic Overseers deemed an action paradoxical even in the slightest, they could erase a violator or an entire species from existence. They were not to be trifled with.

They called it Universal Correction. And nobody wanted that sort of attention from that particular department.

Private:

I hope they don’t catch on to what I’m doing.

Academic:

I did the proper assessment from orbit. In my opinion, there was not enough life left on this orb to warrant a complaint from the Overseers. There was less than one hundred million semi-intelligent creatures left; it was possibly a grey area.

Private:

I mortgaged my future for this, and if it doesn’t pay off, I will be paying off that loan for three generations. The ship, the transformers, the atmospheric processors, and the unprecedented use of a paradox engine were expensive details for this mission. The Science Academy sponsored parts of it, but the rental fees alone would break me if I’m not erased first or eaten.

Father:

There is so much water here. If it were clean and radiation-free, I could see you and the boys bathing in it. Tumbling and turning like we used to do when mom was alive.

You once said that coincidence is the language of the universe, that it’s how we communicate with God, but it’s also how the universe communicates with us. This place reminds me of mom, and it’s one hell of a coincidence that the experiments I’m doing could bring her back without paradox.

Personal:

The average space suit, flight suit, or crash suit has two short legs and one larger leg to accommodate an average tail. I have a very large tail when compared to most Crocs my size, and I hadn’t stretched in months.

Private:

These suits were not made for lizards of my… stature.

Fucking engineers again.

Delete that.

COMMAND FAIL

Opinion:

The engineers figured it would take less effort to keep a suit filled with air than to keep an entire ship filled with air, but none of them had spent three months in that thing. My poor tail was aching the entire way.

Father:

Didn’t Grandpa say, “The Gremwiles were well known for their massive tails.” He was right.

Observation:

In the past three months, I have not spoken to anything but my ship logs, and I may be losing it. I feel like I’m being watched, but my instruments show nothing.

Personal:

A lot of lizards say you can go insane out here by yourself. Eat your own tail is what they called it at the academy.

Private:

I do not want to eat my own tail.

Personal:

I’ve been adrift for too long. I’ve been alone for too long. I’ve been away from my children for too long, and I miss my wife.

Opinion:

We have to end this war.

Tactical:

Once I’d unwrapped my tail and stretched it to its limit, I let out a bellow that would have been heard for miles had there been anyone to hear it.

Personal:

I hope there was no one around to hear that.

Question:

If a reptile roars on a distant planet and there is no one around to hear it, is he still only talking to himself.

Private:

I think I’m losing my mind. There is something wrong with me.

Tactical:

I grabbed a second canister of inoculate and held it in front of me. I took a pair of magnifiers from the landing kit and rested them on my snout. I read the fine print.

May cause drowsiness.

This came along with a ton of other warnings that had a lot to say about operating heavy machinery.

Fucking engineers!

Delete that.

COMMAND FAIL

Fuck!

Academic:

Did no one think that because I would have to inject myself every day and this stuff caused drowsiness, and also that I would be working with complex and heavy machinery, that perhaps they could have warned me with more than a tiny label on the can?

Personal:

I may be intoxicated, not by choice but by engineering oversight. How are we even winning this war? It made absolutely no sense.

I slapped my claws together and decided this would be a great time to take a look at my new office.

Tactical:

I made my way down to the equipment bay from the cockpit. There were two levels on the Z-1 science vessel, the most advanced in the fleet: the cockpit level, which included living quarters, the main sensor, and the computer array, and the equipment level, which ran the entire length of the ship, seventy-five feet long.

The aft hatch on the science vessel was large enough to drive a small truck through. It opened slowly when I flipped a switch at the back of the bay. I had three processors, two transports, a paradox engine, and eight—count them—terraformers.

I had two extra formers in case there were mechanical errors. This was an expensive trip.

Private:

And I was drunk.

Equipment Check:

I had two temporary shelter kits and one permanent shelter kit that generated its own energy.

I wouldn’t need that one.

I had two rifle carbines that I wouldn’t need either. Two communicators and one TNP, or time and progress recorder.

Father:

The only threats I face here are from engineering blunders, radiation poisoning, and loneliness.

“That’s stupid,” I growled.

Delete that.

MESSAGE DELETED

Tactical:

I checked the time and progress recorder for flight damage. It was fine.

It was in the infinite wisdom of the mighty engineers to send me with only one TNP. Without it, there would be no bringing the temporally disconnected pieces of myself back together.

Personal:

I didn’t feel any different. A third of me was one hundred years in the past, another third was two hundred years in the past, and here I was, a third of myself, and I didn’t feel any different.

Private:

I probably didn’t taste any different either.

Observational:

I had two communicators for a one-Croc expedition? Who was I going to talk to? Myself? I get the logic behind it. What would be the use of one communicator? It made logical sense. But what made even more sense to me was the ability to return in one piece and not splintered through time.

Academic:

The time and progress recorder, or TNP, was an interdimensional powerhouse that did not operate over short distances. It could send data at warp speeds across time and space. It was a very important piece of equipment, and a very expensive one.

Personal:

And that’s why I had only one.

“I hear you, engineers. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

Academic:

There were three versions of this TNP, each a hundred years apart. They communicated over astronomical distances of time and space. They reconciled changes to the past by recording and synchronizing them. It was the only way we would be able to reintegrate. If all three timelines in all three boxes were the same, then we could be the same person again, but I brought along a paradox engine just in case.

Tactical:

I loaded up six of the eight atmosphere terraformers, one of the temporary shelters, and both of the rifles in the back of the larger transport. I still felt like something was watching me, so I wanted to be heavily armed.

Observational:

Unlike other bipedal races, Lameer did not need to sit in chairs. We rarely sat at all.

The engineers split the transport’s cabin into two large bins: one for the driver and another for the passenger, with enough room behind for even a tail as large as mine.

Personal:

I need to stop. I don’t have a large tail. I have a prominent tail. It’s bigger than average. It’s good for balance. It’s all I have right now because none of this shit belongs to me.

Tactical:

I put the TNP on the floor of the passenger side of the front cabin and set out for the first location. I needed to keep it close. I didn’t want to lose two-thirds of myself to the past.

There were six marks all along the equator on my global positioning map and monitor. I had to place the machines equidistant around the globe.

The transport could travel at the speed of time, so I never bothered to go stealth. If there was anything out there, it wouldn’t be able to keep up.

It wasn’t the distances that made this a long job. It was the days it took for each terraformer’s probe to reach the recommended height for a planet this size and the months they would take to do their job.

Father:

The landing zone I picked for my vessel was once a desert. It was now a wind-swept sheet of marble and glass. I saw the rising moon reflected off its shining surface and nearly cried a tear… a real one.

Observational:

Terraformers were noisy and powerful machines, like giant wind turbines. They processed the atmosphere from twenty thousand feet. They pulled in particulate matter—whatever they had been calibrated to filter, from gas to virus to radiation—from the equator to the poles, expelling it out of the atmosphere and into the vacuum of space.

They also radiated intense heat. Small errors in calibration could destroy a world this small and kill all the fabulous fauna that remained and the last of the monkeys in their glass dome cage.

Father:

You once said that not everybody who has a body is a being. And I didn’t understand what you meant because all I could think when I was a young croc was, of course they were.

I think I understand what you were talking about now. It was awareness. Without awareness, a being was not a being but just a body.

Academic:

What my temporal experiment will address is if identical clones from the same scan that have different bodies are, in fact, the same being, or if each clone had an entirely separate consciousness.

If they are split like I have been through time, then were they different sections of the same book? Something that could be read out of order and still make sense? Or is each one a different incarnation? A different soul?

Question:

Would different humans who are part of the same continuum but plucked from different points in the timeline still register as the same being?

Father:

I’m going to see if there’s a significant difference between God, science, and magic. Because I don’t see any difference at all.

And I’ve already got my three samples picked out.

You’d like them if you met them. They are so different but all the same. They remind me of mom.

Private:

They remind me of myself.

Tactical:

I arrived at the first site. It was a flat surface. It was sure to be the least difficult of the six installations. I jumped out of the transport and went around to the back to lift the first machine from the cargo hold. They were perfect cubes about three feet across, but dense. They were very heavy.

I left the rifles in the cab.

I placed the first cube on the ground, clearing away the sand from the hardened glass with a sweep of my tail, and then I pushed the magic button.

The calibration was the hard part. The activation was easy. They had made these things idiot-proof. One-touch installation.

Personal:

Engineers always found a way to insult their customers. Always thinking the equipment is more important than the preparation. This thing without me is nothing.

I’d delete that, but apparently I’m not allowed.

Tactical:

The lifeless cube with the big red button produced a loud, wide hum, and I hopped back to see the firework display. The button flashed a three-second countdown before the aperture opened and it extended, rising from the ground. It was not a button at all but the top of a red egg-shaped probe that floated for a moment above the opening of the base unit and then shot straight up into the air.

I pressed the far side of the cube, and a blue readout appeared on its side. Next to that, a control panel. The probe would reach its recommended height a little before sunrise. I just had to wait for it.

Personal:

If I was being hunted, it was likely that my stalker was waiting for me at my base camp. I had to come back, and that made the most tactical sense. But at this point, it could have been paranoia. It could have been radiation sickness. It could’ve been a side effect from the anti-radiation shots. It could also have been me eating my own tail.

Tactical:

I pulled the temporary shelter from the cargo bin. This was a hot climate—way hotter than back home. But the night temperatures dropped way below survivability, and the wind-swept conditions were brutal on equipment. After no more than fifteen minutes in this environment, there was sand everywhere and in everything.

The shelter poles drilled down into the sand and into the hard surface beneath and held in place.

I placed the poles far enough apart to cover the transport. I didn’t know what a full night and day in the sand and sun would do to my ride, but I had some idea, and I didn’t want to know for sure.

When I placed the last pole, all four began to hum—the same humming as the cube. It didn’t have to make a sound. The engineers, my old friends, made it make that sound in order to inform a non-engineer that it was time to step back. That was nice of them.

A force field slid out from one side of the pole and connected to the next pole, forming a wall. The first side, and then the next, and lastly all four poles connected at the top, forming a roof across it. In thirty seconds, it had formed an invisible shelter that could warp light, and if I had, for some reason, driven my transport into one of the sides at full speed, it would not have even budged.

It was a military shelter designed to survive a direct hit and completely undetectable. But who was I hiding from? The only humans left couldn’t leave their walled city with the weather as it was, and I still wasn’t sure if I was being hunted.

I used the remote to open the shelter on one side and drove the transport in. I closed the opening I had just made and prepared to send my first day’s reports.

Personal:

Being a scientist meant recording every little thing, no matter how innocuous. But reporting to the military meant telling them what they wanted to hear. Reporting to the academy meant feeding them just enough to keep them interested in financing me but not enough to snatch the project away, and lying to my family meant I loved them and didn’t want them to worry.

Opinion:

The Lameer were an advanced reptilian race, but they lacked compassion. And they did not accept failure well.

Personal:

I wrestled with the idea of not including the remaining human population in my report. There weren’t enough of them to pose a threat to even one heavily armed Lameer squadron, let alone the twenty that would be stationed here if the Military paid me for the privilege.

But as a scientist, first and foremost, I could not and would not contribute to the extermination and extinction of even this primitive simian species. Surely, I could save a few of them—at least three.

The military budget was bottomless, and the support from the academy felt less like they were watching my back and more like they were looking over my shoulder, checking my work.

Official:

Earth, day one, complete. Dr. Thaddeus Gremwile jr. reporting. Class M planet. Twelve thousand miles in circumference. Third planet from a G-2 star. Eighty percent water. Rich in nitrogen and oxygen. Two moons. More readings to follow. See attachment.

Father:

After one day, I can safely say Earth is nothing like where we’re from. Earth is a planet where life is cheap and has been for some time.

Official:

The Earth has a good reptile-friendly climate and is easily defended. Life forms on the planet include thousands of insect species, but none larger than the average egg, and though I haven’t sampled them yet, I’m sure they’re delicious.

Earth is also home to a vast aquatic array of both intelligent and lower life forms, though none have achieved any scientific advances and do not rise to the level of temporal significance.

Supplemental:

There is evidence of creativity and attempts to explore their own solar system, but instead they used scientific advances in space exploration to find better ways to wage war.

There is a significantly low enough number of these humans left to be considered, at least virtually, extinct. A handful or so have survived despite the harsh environment, and millions of clones claim to be the last of the human race, but by galactic law clones cannot hold ownership of a world, and once my work is done, I am currently in the process of cleansing the resources and conducting several experiments, I will be accepting bids for the use, sale, or dismantling of the planet Earth.

It is my recommendation that the remaining humans be transplanted to a smaller, out-of-the-way planet—one capable of sustaining, maintaining, and containing their species.

In my humble opinion, the benefits of saving them outweigh the costs. They no longer have the capability of space travel and do not and will not constitute a threat to the Lameer, nor would they be a factor in our war with the Iuhuh.

I assumed that would be good enough to help me sleep tonight, to help me continue with my work without feeling like I had betrayed my profession and myself. Not all Lameer were without compassion.

Tactical:

It will take another fourteen days to get everything up and running. And one hundred eighty-two revolutions to be prepared for reintegration.

Personal:

Failing at a mission this important would cost me my family, my fortune, and probably my life.

I can do nothing but succeed, and unless I were able to reimburse the military and the command for the cost in labor and energy and for my strategic and military failures and the equipment rental…

I didn’t have that kind of wealth.

I would have to succeed.

Private:

I’ve studied the Earth from a distance for three months while I was in transit, but now that I’ve seen its beauty up close, I have fallen in love with the place.

I love the stories of the people, their music and art. I love the ways they love and the way they overcame everything but their obsession with money and an irrational need to compete with each other.

I’d actually hate to see this planet strip-mined and sold for parts, but I don’t have any other options. I will do my job.

Father:

Kiss the boys goodnight. My day is done.

Personal:

I will earn the respect of my peers by conquering space, time, and death.

Private:

I am frightened. I do not know what the future holds, and most of my energies are in the past. I do not know what I am doing, but I know that I am the most qualified croc in the universe to do it. I am flying, tail tucked, by the seat of my pants, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. ||