Introduction

 

The empty void is the natural order of things, the default. Light and sound even air are interlopers, arriving with great flash but always destined to end. Only the dark emptiness of the void is eternal and only those who conquer it can truly be called Masters.

Virgulino Ferreira DaSilva,

First Commander of Finders

 

The girl's round eyes opened with a start only to encounter more darkness. The air felt heavy, more like a liquid than a gas. She tried to move, but her arms were tied over her head. She was barefooted; she could feel the smooth rock under her feet.

Her first thought was ... nightmare, but as the seconds passed, she realized this was no dream. Her captor had spirited her to this place and put her in this bondage. The logic caused her to panic and she fainted then woke and fainted again. Each time she woke her hysteria was diminished until even oblivion was unavailable.

He sat listening to her sounds, to her heartbeat; sensing the way her body stirred the air. He didn't need light to see. Light made people lazy and overly dependent, he thought; it created dangerous shadows; it bleached the beauty out of things.

She knew he was there only when he touched her. She screamed and kicked out wildly but to no effect. He drew his knife and made short work of her clothes then sat back again on the ground.

She stood naked and breathing heavily. Faint echoes of her screams still flew through the cave's darkness like ghosts. Slowly, she calmed. She knew what was coming; she knew he was waiting for her to accept it. He was a predator and she was his prey.

No, not just a predator, she thought, a Finder, a demon risen from the underworld to snatch away her life. No villager had such inhuman patience, no villager could see in the dark. She had watched them in the high caverns, dressed in their shiny black suits, sitting by their small caves, staring at the girls as they passed. They made everyone uneasy. Only forty years and they were already different, already a breed apart.

She cried out then turned her long body on her toes trying to locate him. Her nipples seemed to sense movement, to feel a difference in temperature in the air, but she wasn't sure. Despair returned the subsided, the waves continued. After a time, terror was replaced by pain--she had been on her toes for hours--and curiosity. Her calves, her shoulders, her feet were burning.

Still more silent time passed until she began to pray for an end, any end.

It was startling to finally feel his warm hand on her ass pulling her to his groin, but it was also a relief. Another hand slipped past her face to the nape of her neck and pulled her full lips onto his. She could feel the longing in him, the strength. Unconsciously, she opened her mouth and admitted his tongue. She could feel the muscle ridges in his arms and stomach and thighs. He was breathing hard in desperate gasps. She was overwhelmed by the urgency, by the hardness of him, or his organ.

Suddenly, she didn't want to resist. Suddenly, she embraced his power, welcomed his great need. She finally understood the power she wielded. This great and immensely strong creature was now under her sway, desperate to feel the ecstasy only she could give. In a way, he was now her slave.

She pulled herself up with her arms and wrapped her long legs around his waist. He used his hand to guide her over his enormous member. A short fall and she was impaled. There was no possibility of escape. The only way off was for him to go limp and that wasn't going to happen until...

They consumed each other, copulating with the unstoppable ferocity of wild beasts. There were no thoughts, no calculations; they could only feel; instinct moved them now. It was a transformation, a life-changing moment for both, a revelation as powerful as any miracle.

She was the first village woman to be taken to the deep caves but not the last.

 

Chapter 1

 

Hans Ergot, Norway's Prime Minister, stood looking out over the crowd. More than 150,000 well-wishers had crowded in the massive Narvik Space Hanger for this final shuttle flight. He glanced at the video cameras knowing another three to four billion were watching on TV.

This was the last shuttle flight to the Space Ark Genesis. After more than 40 years of preparation, the ark was ready to go. Technically, it was still an asteroid, he remembered--Asteroid 19 Fortuna. She wouldn't be the ISA Ark Genesis until her powerful engines were propelling her into space. He just couldn't think of her as a rock anymore, maritime naming convention notwithstanding.

He still could not believe they were finished, that the ark was truly ready to fly. They had been building it since he was a boy. The asteroid had been the center of his life for 40 years. His great mane of white hair blew gently in the breeze. The hanger was so big it had its own weather. He tapped on the microphone and the speakers banged like the hammers of Hell.

"People of Earth...," he began, his voice rolling through the cavernous space like approaching thunder.

"I have the great pleasure of declaring the ark finished."

There was a huge roar from the crowd. It was a frightening sound.

"With our determination, we have achieved the impossible. The great ship that floats over our head will carry our people across the universe to a new land, to a new Earth. There, they will start a colony.

Another massive cheer rose up from the crowd. Ergot waited.

"To get here, we have implemented solutions that just a few years ago were called science fiction even science fantasy. To get her, we have invented entirely new branches of science and engineering. To get here, we have plumbed the depths of the human body and the human psyche in ways never before achieved."

He paused to more slightly diminished applause. The last point was controversial, many called the selection and child-rearing processes copies of Nazi social engineering. Ergot didn't care. Like most of those in the crowd, he had spent his entire careers working on the ark. He was proud of what they had done ... what they would do.

"Our ark will carry more people farther and faster than anything ever built by man. Genesis will eventually travel at near the speed of light, at God's speed, and reach our new colony of New Earth in 208 years."

There was another huge roar of applause. Ergot held up his big hands for silence.

"We have only one remaining hurdle..."

People looked up, slightly surprised. Speeches like this were not supposed to include "hurdles." POTUS, the President of the United States, leaned in and whispering something to the old man.

"...to unravel the mystery of the human heart."

The President was still smiling, but now his smile looked more like a rictus, a death-head's grimace. Ergot lowered his voice and plowed ahead.

"We all know our hearts can be filled with love or hate. As a species have the capacity for kindness and cruelty, for courage and fear ... for power and for submission. No other animal can make the same claim. Unfortunately, we have almost no control over what lies waiting in our hearts. Our ability to control our own anger, envy, pride, hate, and a hundred other feelings, good and bad, is quite limited."

The President leaned in again to the podium and said something more insistently. Ergot smiled and nodded then ignored him. This was his moment and he wasn't going to be denied.

"I put these thoughts on the record because our ark is filled with 100,000 imperfect human hearts. Although they are the best of us, darkness will still exist in them. It is the fate of humankind to carry our Original Sin with us no matter how far we go."

"He paused but there was no applause only silence.

"Light and darkness are two sides of the same coin, neither can be denied. Let us not be fooled into believing that evil will not show itself on the ark at some point."

It was a strange coda for a moment of such victory.

"With God's help, our children will populate the New Earth colony and prosper, but let us not express the arrogance that they will do this without birthing pain. All life must start with suffering."

The President was on his feet again moving towards Ergot, but before he arrived the old man turned towards Captain Robert Manning of UNSEC (UN Space Exploration Command) and held out his hand. The steel-jawed captain stepped forward and took a firm two-handed grip. He seemed right out of central casting. The President stood awkwardly nearby.

"Captain Manning, we, the people of Earth, Christen the great ark over our heads ISA Space Ark Genesis and entrust it to you and your crew. We charge you with the welfare of the colonists you will transport across the universe. We pray all aboard will retain humanity's best values."

He grabbed the campaign bottle hanging nearby and smashed it with surprising strength against the shuttle's side then he lowered his head as if in prayer. Everyone on the stage was forced to do the same. Ergot turned suddenly to the crowd and the cameras.

"God, we are flawed but help us in this work to increase your domain."

Ergot turned and left the stage. He died six months later.

His speech became iconic on Earth as a most dramatic farewell to Earth's greatest mission of exploration. Surprisingly, the speech didn't have the same impact aboard the Ark Genesis. In fact, it was rarely viewed. People found it ... disturbing.