The Heart of Machine Galaxies

The Heart of Machine Galaxies

 A short story

By David Vincent Cortez

Marron Canyon connects two settlements by four hundred and ninety-two kilometers. To the north from where the canyon snakes through the byways and inter-connectors of a neo-roman facsimile, rises Citadel, a monstrous effigy to the ostentatious. To the south-east of the canyon and through the erstwhile chasm of a post seismic rift, nestled comfortably in the shadows of Mt. Ephemeron stands the first decaying landfall of Mercy Clay. At seventeen kilometers above sea level, the highest topographical feature, Ephemeron was visible in the first images of this bold new world sent home. A home starving for resources. Zinc phosphide, copper oxide and gallium, those not-so-rare and rare Earth minerals in photovoltaic metals were more abundant here on this little rock than in any mine or quarry known. And so, hungry, we left our planet Earth so very far away, reaching out through the endless gulf with photon sails made of gossamer alloys, intricate and wildly beautiful, silently running the length. 

Though Mercy clay was built into the mountain, Citadel was created from it. We dug into the skin of the sleeping ancient and pulled from it its metal heart. We built the walls and the struts and the machines that built the bubble. There now, our pride that rivals in wonder the horizon of this alien moon, our “city of steel”, Citadel. The infinite heavens our backdrop. It truly is a sight to see. Even for a machine.

In Mercy Clay, everything had a burgundy stain to it, the shade of engine oil and iron oxide. Compliments of the mineral rich mountain soil and moisture in the bubble-dome. Everything aged a little faster here. Vehicles and buildings in disuse stand statuesque, somber giants oxidizing in place.

At the end of work hour, all the clockwork and machines fall silent and the streets fill with the sound of a resonant hum from the scrubbers. If you stay out late, when the steady droll of new oxygen is loudest and the town is asleep, you can look out towards Citadel and watch the light of distant spacecraft on approach, routine autonomy, but still a serene display. That city beyond the canyon where the lights never go out may be beautiful. Here, we get to see the ships like wisps race through the atmosphere. On descent, I’d stare at those little fireflies and recall the dance, the retraction of the arms, the folding of the sails, wing-like and elegant. Machine birds.  

Mercy Clay began the day the first machine started chewing into the mountain with obsidian teeth on drills like the maw of a great shark, gnashing up black and slate dust. Oxygen was pumped into the newly formed dome to prepare for the arrival of people. Pretty soon, that metal rich charcoal dust turned red and silvery machines began to lose their luster. It was like a red velvet nuclear winter that filled the bubble and occluded the stars for decades. Then one winter solstice it finally began to clear, and that’s when I saw my first star sail and fell in love.

If you travel out past the habitat towards the landing pad, on the little road where tracks now lie beneath layers of red cake, you’ll see rows of machines parked where they died awaiting replacement. Parts could be printed you see, but the rust would always gum up the works. On that specific solar cycle, I was navigating the little road near the rows when the ship landed. Through the dust and particulates, a goldenrod fabric of impossibly delicate material unfurled, she unfolded her sails. I stood, transfixed in place and immobilized, as she, the ship, bloomed before me. I scanned her through the veil. Elaurra Empyrean.

“Beautiful.” A digital voice at my side relayed. I turned to face the machine that had pinged. It was and old one like me but tracked, probably one of the first among the first. His tracks sunk in soft red mineral, every inch of him coated in the dust that seemed to find its way into every servo and joint. His right appendages hung motionless at attention but both of his left arms were mangled and torn at the end effector, the result no doubt of some industrial accident.

“It is.” I turned back to the ship and surveyed her lines and the iridescence of the sails.

“Is this your first one?” He asked of me.

“Yes.”

            To my side, I heard the faint torsion and friction of articulated motion inhibited. I turned my head and the veteran was pointing out thirty degrees off from the ship and followed his digits to the constellation above. His dim eyes followed his good arm but his head was fused in place with age. “That’s where I saw my first. She was a transport class. Bringing machines and equipment. Not like yours. Not sleek.”

            I imagined that ship he described. One like I came in on as replacement. “Still beautiful?”

            There were groaned clicks and a sound of whirring as he slowly brought his good arms straight out. The broken ones still hung from his torso, a twisted bouquet of metal and optical sinew. “Fat.” He mused and dropped his arms with a clang against his side. I smiled.

            We stood there him and me and the many others next to us with their eyes dead and dark. All around us, dust. Minutes may have gone by in silence with the whir from the distant scrubbers, a persistent hum in the air. After moments of enamored observation, he broke the silence.

            “What is your designation?”

            “Six-two,” I clicked, “what’s yours?”

            “One-nine.” He paused, thoughtful, distant. “One day Six-two, they will no longer need Mercy Clay. One day long from now, when all finite things entropy, we will still be here, nameless memorials preserved under glass.”

            “What makes you say that?” my wonder piqued.

            “All things meet their end. Man, machine, it is the nature of the universe, to end. One day, Mercy will find hers and your beautiful vessel here, she too will close her wings for the last time. Enjoy her now, time is precious.” He finished and I considered his words.

            “How long have you been out here?”

            “Too long and not long enough.”

I nodded. Beyond the curtain of dust, there are nebulas so vast, worlds so strange with stars that could dwarf our night sky in brilliance and somewhere in between them, pretty little sails that glitter in the dark made by beings so small in scale. There are no words for things such as this. There would never be enough time to see it all yet still, one could imagine and delight in the wonder of discovery.

“Six-two, if you’re still around when all the machines go quiet for the last time, make sure you find a place with a view.” With that, he looked back to the place he pointed out, his place with a view. His ship that once flew there and the constellation now in its ephemeral place.

            “I will remember that One-nine.” For a few more minutes, we stood together. In front of us, the Elaurra Empyrean reflected the stars off her skin, silver and gold, seemingly immune to the red dust of oxidation that tints all things in Mercy Clay. Fly soon and let not this wicked red take hold of you. How I wish I had been a sail to fly alongside her and free from this place, but I was an earth-mover, and I had my place. So it goes and so it was.

            When I left that road all that many a decade ago, he was still facing his constellation with a far-away look in his eyes. I will remember that One-nine. I have for this long.

            Ships don’t land here anymore. In disrepair, the platform at Mercy Clay reluctantly joined the rows of quiet shapes protruding from where the road used to be. Often I’m reminded, nameless memorials under glass. The dust settled. The mines went deeper into the mountain, reaching into its belly tearing at those precious metals for the domes, the cities and machine birds with gossamer wings.

Replacements no longer come. We do what we were built to do. We keep digging. Every night, the machines go quiet and I wonder if it’s for the last time. I roll up past the entry to the mine and up, it’s difficult to get my footing with my joints rusting away beneath me. The path is narrow but my gyroscope still keeps me balanced. Some things do last. I find my familiar outcropping above the city below, the town dark and muted but for the steady undulation of the scrubbers. Had I breath, I would exhale cloud formations into the permanent night and watch them disappear. I stare out at the iridescent lights of the universe and the glowing heart of a machine galaxy. I close my eyes and spread my sails.