Over the course of weeks, the long sunset on Maratha faded into a half year of night. Anton Colicos would remain here for the full season of darkness, the only human on the planet with a handful of Ildirans. He looked forward to the solitude.
The skeleton crew left to watch over the empty resort city, however, viewed it as a long-term prison sentence.
Though this world was under his personal charge, the Maratha Designate had gone back to Ildira for the funeral of his father and the ascension of Jora’h. Designate Avi’h had made no secret of the fact that he wouldn’t return until the sun shone again and vacationers arrived.
Anton tried to encourage his rememberer friend. “Let’s make the best of it, Vao’sh. If these Cannons of Darkness are as spectacular as I’ve heard, then we’ll have a whole new repertoire of experiences for storytelling. It happens only once each year, right?”
The old Ildiran rememberer had at first been glad to receive this assignment to maintain the spirits of the skeleton crew, but with the onset of long night, Vao’sh had his doubts. Anton planned to shoulder more of the entertainment work, by sharing Earth legends.
The fleshy lobes on the alien historian’s face flickered through a palette of emotions. Wry amusement? Resignation? Anton still couldn’t interpret all the shades of colors, the nuances of their meanings. “All right, Rememberer Anton, let us go look at the Cannons of Darkness, as you suggest.”
Anton eagerly followed him as they suited up near the exit hatch of the domes of Maratha Prime. Outside, Maratha’s temperature was already dropping toward the extreme cold of the night season. Their protective garments, which used Ildiran thermal technology, were thin and flexible, but warm.
The planet rotated slowly, like a devoted sycophant always staring at the gleaming majesty of its sun. As a result, for nearly half the year Maratha Prime basked in golden sunshine, followed by a month-long sunset, and the remainder of the year in endless night. The majority of Maratha’s population evacuated as the sun slowly went down.
After nearly two centuries of success as a resort world, Maratha was about to open an identical luxury city, Maratha Secda, in the opposite hemisphere. A construction crew of Klikiss robots was even now toiling in the brightening new daylight of the Secda job site to complete the gigantic city. As sunset fell here, dawn would be rising over there.
The two suited men stepped out into the dimming twilight. Though the deepening sky still provided plenty of illumination, Vao’sh quickly switched on all the glowstrips affixed to his shoulders.
Before Anton and Vao’sh could climb aboard a small ground vehicle that would take them to the Cannons, another Ildiran male called out, “Wait, I wish to accompany you!” Anton recognized the lens kithman, Ilure’l, who was staying as counselor and adviser to the members of the skeleton crew. “The Cannons of Darkness are remarkable, and I always feel . . . inspired when I observe them.”
Lens kithmen had faint telepathic powers with which they could supposedly interpret the realm of the Lightsource. Considering the palpable gloom and depression setting in among the skeleton crew, Anton hoped Ilure’l could serve as both priest and psychologist to the remaining Ildirans.
“Please, join us.” Vao’sh’s voice carried an edge of fear at going too far from the others. “Please.”
Anton volunteered to drive the simple vehicle out toward the shadowy horizon. “Should we ask Mhas’k and Syl’k if they’d like to come? They might want to get out of their agricultural domes.”
The lens kithman looked quickly at him. “They have work to do.”
Behind them, the gemmed domes of Prime glowed bright, a scream of photons against the nightfall. Three honeycombed structures sat like satellites on the outskirts, shimmering with natural greens from the well-lit plants inside.
Under searing lights, the two agricultural kithmen tended stacked crops within fertilizer troughs and hydroponics channels. Agricultural kithmen grew food; that was all they knew, all they cared about. Curious about Ildiran ways, Anton had been eager to learn more about the farmers’ way of life, their inbred service to the Mage-Imperator. But when he’d tried to talk with them, both had been quiet. When they spoke at all, they kept their heads down, eyes fixed on the ground. Their fingers deftly worked in the planters, touching leaves and stems, monitoring moisture levels. Mhas’k and his mate Syl’k seemed to communicate better with growing things than with people.
They were such an utterly perfect match that they reminded Anton of his own missing parents. Margaret and Louis had been like two sides of the same coin, always working together, sharing the same passions and interests. He wished he knew where they were. . . .
Vao’sh explained. “Most Ildiran kiths do not have the same curiosity you exhibit, Rememberer Anton. Mhas’k and Syl’k must maintain the greenhouse domes and grow our food. For them, that brings joy and satisfaction. They have no need for sightseeing.”
Now, as the vehicle sped across the ground, the dusk grew darker. Ilure’l adjusted the internal lights so high that Anton had to squint to make out their course. Up ahead he could see white plumes like exhaust from the towers of an industrial fabrication plant.
Ilure’l said, “Each year I come to observe this.” Vao’sh’s face swept through a symphony of colors, expressing with tints and hues what he could not yet put into words.
Anton stopped the vehicle where he could watch the curls of mist boiling upward like steam from an alien teakettle. He was the first out of the vehicle and into the crackling cold. A low reverberant rumble made the ground vibrate from the continuous boiling of water deep beneath the rocks. “Can you hear it?”
The steam fogged the air around them in the abrupt darkness. Moisture settled out in snowflakes that dropped to the ground, building spires of encrusted ice around the open mouths of fumaroles.
According to engineering and seismic surveys, the ground underneath Maratha Prime was riddled with aquifers and thermal channels. Hot springs bubbled into the city itself, for the enjoyment of the Ildiran visitors. As temperatures dropped with each sunset, thermal plumes that normally vented invisibly into the hot daytime air suddenly became prominent, booming explosions of heat and moisture. Within weeks, the exhaled steam would freeze and form a cap over the geysers, silencing them until they were explosively reborn the next dawn.
Vao’sh and Ilure’l remained by the safe illumination of the ground vehicle, while Anton strode fearlessly into the shadows where he could better see the pearly white mists. “I have always been interested in natural wonders, but transient phenomena like this are so much more . . . poignant.”
“A wilting flower is more beautiful than an enduring statue of our Mage-Imperator?” Ilure’l sounded skeptical.
“In a different way, but . . . yes. Knowing you’re about to lose something demands that you value it before it is gone.”
“Rememberer Anton has a point,” Vao’sh said.
The lens kithman was troubled. “The thism is beautiful because it never changes and always endures. By its perfect reliability, it inspires faith. While I can admire the natural uniqueness of these formations, I find them less beautiful than the Lightsource, by virtue of their very evanescence.”
“Humans believe there can be two or more ways to interpret a story,” Vao’sh pointed out.
Anton smiled. “Arguing over such things has kept many of my . . . esoteric colleagues in university jobs for their entire careers, and generations of predecessors before them.”
Ilure’l seemed disturbed by the discussion. “When I interpret the thism, Rememberer Anton, I do not want other Ildiran kithmen to draw their own conclusions. Too much discussion creates questions, not answers. When I give an answer, then the matter is settled.” After looking at the Cannons for only a few more moments, the lens kithman turned to climb back into the vehicle. “If you are ready, I would like to go now.”
As Anton drove off toward the glowing domes of Maratha Prime, he tried to placate the agitated lens kithman. “With all Ildirans connected through thism, maybe you can give absolute answers. But when I’m retelling one of our legends, it’s . . . just a story.”
Now Vao’sh’s face flushed with multicolored alarm. “Rememberer Anton, nothing is ever just a story.”