The Nihilist Ranger

The Friday Challenge for 2/27/09 was Nihilists in Space.


Jack486 emerged abruptly from his dream and rolled out of his sleeping net. The ship’s alarm was screeching stridently and unceasingly. He strode forcefully into the control center and looked for indicators to tell him what the problem was this time. It wasn’t going to take too many more of these early morning episodes for him to get to the point of dismantling the alarm, no matter what headquarters said.

There it was on the proximity warning screen. A system with planets was about two days away. He punched the buttons that told the alarm he had seen the warning and was complying with the directive. It shut off immediately. He rubbed his eyes and waited for the com unit to connect.

A scene from his interrupted dream floated into his thoughts. What was that thing, anyway? It was a vine with thorns, and it had a very thick, strong stalk. He always dreamed about plants, either plants fighting each other, or else himself fighting off a gang of plants. And always the dream ended with the Cleaner destroying all the other plants.

The Cleaner was the ultimate weapon that he carried from planet to planet. It was a superplant, stronger and more virulent than any other plant that had ever existed. Its job was to clean up planets whose sentient inhabitants had socially imploded. He would seed it over the planet, and in a few days, it would cover the surface. After a decade or so, there would be no sign of civilization, no evidence that any other entities had ever been there, whether animal or vegetable.

But the best thing about the Cleaner was that after about a hundred years of being the only thing alive on the planet, it would get sick of itself and mutate. No one could predict what creatures would spring up on any planet. It was different every time. There would be a wide variety of plants and animals and eventually, sentient beings. And then the process would start all over again. Each new planet would begin with eager virility, but after thousands of years they all ended the same way. They would give up on their goals and dreams and turn on each other, becoming more and more self-destructive until they finally reached the implosion point, and society died.

“Jack?” The com unit had connected with headquarters.

“Yes, I’m here. I’ve received a proximity warning of a system with planets.”

“Have you attached your monitoring device, yet?” The voice was female, and he could swear he caught some motherly overtones. That was probably on purpose, to get him to obey orders. A slight smirk touched his lips. She hadn’t read his file yet, if she thought he would respond favorably to a reminder of his mother.

“No, I haven’t done anything but wait for your voice, HQ.”

“That’s good, Jack. You may get out the device and attach it now. Let me know when you are ready to test it.”

He pushed another button, this time on the door of the monitor dispenser. The door opened, and one monitor popped out. He scooped it up and pulled the strap over his head, positioning the little gadget so a sensor plate was over his temple, and a tiny tube was next to his ear. He didn’t really want to know how it worked, but he knew it measured him in hundreds of ways, from temperature and heart rate to what he was thinking and feeling.

“Ready for testing,” he said.

“Beginning calibration,” the HQ voice replied. There was a short pause. “Your temperature is a bit low, your pulse rate is a little high, your bladder is full, and you are feeling irritated. Did the alarm wake you?”

“Yup. Again,” he said emphatically.

“Is there anything unusual? Are you feeling well?”

“Nothing unusual, and I’m feeling fine.”

“What are you thinking about the planets up ahead?”

“I wasn’t thinking about them. I was thinking I want some coffee.”

“Your attitude is not very cooperative this morning. You know this is to help you as much as it will help us. We are trying to find out why planet checkers are disappearing.”

“Yes, ma’am, sorry.” He tried to say it as cooperatively as possible. No use getting HQ on his case.

“So, what are you thinking about the planets up ahead?”

“Nothing unusual. I feel ready to check them and carry out all functions necessary to the situation I find. I’m not having any strong emotions about them, and I hope I don’t have any. I’d really rather this was another routine case where nothing goes wrong.”

There was a slight pause, then HQ asked, “Are you feeling any fear or reluctance to approach the planets? This is the first time you have expressed a preference not to experience whatever may be happening to others in your group.”

Jack thought about it for a few seconds. “It’s possible that the lack of any concrete information about these disappearances over such a long period of time is making me a bit apprehensive. We’ve been monitoring for almost two years now, haven’t we? And there are no answers yet.”

“That’s true, but we do have a great deal of data, and statistical analysis of that data is beginning to provide some common threads. I have no doubt we will eventually find answers.”

“Okay, well, I just hope I won’t be one of the contributors of that data. I want things to go on the same as always.”

“Test complete,” was HQ’s response. “Your monitor is calibrated and recording. I have turned on your ship’s hourly reminders. You are ready. Any questions or comments before I go?”

“No, ma’am. I’m good.” Really ready for coffee, too, he thought to himself.

“Then good luck, and enjoy your coffee.” The com unit clicked off.

Guess the mind reading part is working, thought Jack.

An hour later, when the first reminder started, he was on his third cup and reading the report he had retrieved about the nearby planets. So far he had discovered only one of the planets had any life on it, and that planet had been Cleaned about two hundred years ago. He would get to see the beginnings of a new world. Or rather, a renewed world.

“This is your hourly reminder.” The ship’s voice was smooth, calm, and confident. And male. Nothing disturbing. “Have you noticed anything unusual? Are you feeling different in any way? Please report to the monitor.”

Jack automatically spoke aloud to give the monitor something to record. “I feel normal. I have not noticed anything unusual,” then returned to his reading. The monitor perched above his ear buzzed for a second, then the com unit clicked on and off again. Report sent.

A few minutes later, the com unit clicked on. “Jack486?” This voice was male, but not smooth, calm, or confident. It was more interested, maybe a trifle irritated.

Jack was startled. Now this was something unusual. “Yes? Who is this?”

“This is HQ. I was reviewing your report, and I see you were noticing something unusual, but you didn’t report it, something about two hundred years and a new world. Please explain.”

Getting over his momentary surprise, Jack explained that he had been reading information about the planetary system he was approaching. He read that part of the report to HQ. “Is that unusual? I know I’ve never been near a planet that soon after Cleaning, but I assumed other people had.”

“You are right, other people have observed planets after Cleaning, but what is unusual is that your ship has plotted a course to this system much earlier than necessary. It takes at least a couple thousand years to get to the implosion point.”

“Oh, oh yeah.” Jack was thoroughly embarrassed. “Sorry, that didn’t even occur to me.”

HQ didn’t seem to notice his discomfort. “I want you to run a diagnostic on the ship’s directional program. In fact, run diagnostics on all programs. When you get the results, send them through.”

“Sure, right away.”

The com unit clicked off.

“Hey, wait! I noticed something unusual. HQ called me. That’s unusual. And I felt embarrassed. That’s very unusual.”

HQ was already gone, but his monitor buzzed for several seconds, and the com unit clicked on and off. Report sent.

He stood there nonplussed for a moment, and then he grinned from ear to ear. “I noticed something unusual. And that is that I noticed something unusual. And the monitor reported it.” The monitor buzzed and the com unit clicked on and off. Satisfied, Jack486 prepared to run diagnostics.

* * * * * * * *

Two days later, Jack stared at the screen showing the planet’s surface as the ship passed over it. This was supposed to be the planet that had been Cleaned two hundred years ago, but it was not what he had expected to see. It was uniformly covered with the Cleaner, but instead of strong, healthy plants, they were wilted and had brown tips. Here and there, he saw open patches, where nothing grew.

“Uh … I am seeing something un…,” he began. Just then the hourly reminder broke in, asking for the umpteenth time if he had noticed or felt anything unusual. “Yeah, yeah, yeah…..give me a chance, will ya?”

Then he gasped. A crashed ship had flashed by on the screen, in the middle of one of the bare patches. It was a ship just like his, manned by a planet checker. He rapidly pushed buttons and started programs to look for life forms and remnants of civilization. He didn’t have any programs specifically designed to look for crashed ships, but they would be included in remnants of civilization.

The readout streamed data so fast he could barely keep up with it. It reported ship after ship, all crashed in the bare patches. The Cleaner plants were reported as life forms, but that was it. Nothing else was alive on the planet. He kept looking until the report started repeating. Hundreds of ships had crashed here, but not a single planet checker had survived.

He knew it was a lost cause, but he turned on the com unit anyway, to listen for SOS signals. His jaw dropped in amazement. There were hundreds of SOS recordings, so many that he couldn’t make out the individual messages.

“Ship, separate out one signal,” he demanded.

“Which signal?” asked the ship. “The signal from the life forms, or the signal from the remnants of civilization?”

“Wha…? The signal from the life forms.” It was wishful thinking. There were no living inhabitants of those ships.

Nevertheless, the ship was broadcasting the signal. “There is nothing. All life ends in nothing.” The message repeated over and over, while Jack sat horrified, eyes on the screen showing the planet’s surface. The plants streamed by, endlessly wilting, lamenting the death of all life, refusing to begin again one more time.

The ship shuddered. Jack looked around wildly. There were red lights flashing and alarms buzzing all around the control center. It was about to crash!

His last thought was that the monitor was overdue to report to HQ. It had failed to report that he had noticed and felt unusual things. It had reported nothing.

The ship crashed into a thick bunch of the Cleaner plants. There was a small flurry of activity, which soon subsided. By the time the next planet checker came along, Jack’s ship was in a bare patch, and it was broadcasting an SOS message. “Task finished, Jack486 logging out. There is nothing to be done here. There is nothing here. There is nothing.”