CHAPTER 44
ICARUS
WHAT WE KNOW
Icarus teleported to Atlas’s RV. It was currently located on one of the quieter sections of Titan. It was overlooking a field of grass that was genetically engineered to look purple in autumn.
“You know, you should have decked this bus out to look like the Magic School Bus,” Icarus said. “No one on this planet would get it, but if they did, it’d be a nice Easter egg.”
The Ship of Atlas chuckled. “We’re trying to be inconspicuous as we travel around your planet. That would be like holding a giant sign above our heads announcing our location at all times.”
“I might travel around in the Magic School Bus. It’ll give me a chance to see my planet again,” Icarus said. “You know, this part of the ring up ahead with all the changing-color grass was built in honor of the Dottien aliens. There’s going to be a new section constructed about the Penquins.” Icarus knew Atlas was going through a time of rediscovery. Atlas hadn’t been too comfortable with the idea of building a weapon to attack the Atua and Penquins. From what Icarus had learned, he was quite shaken up by the prospect and was traveling around Titan to get over the melancholy. Icarus suspected Atlas was also torn between doing something his oldest friend had asked for and harming another sentient race.
“What about the alien world?” Peter asked, interrupting Icarus’s thoughts. “What was the world like? Did you find out anything about when they might attack us?”
At this point, Icarus was becoming good at retelling the narrative. He had retold the story so many times. He was about to retell his story of exploration when he looked around the room. He noticed that both Peter and Ange had worried looks on their faces. They were still in the mindset that this was an evil empire of aliens. The truth was completely different.
“So the aliens we met aren’t the Atua,” Icarus began to say. “There’s actually two intelligent alien species on that world.”
Ange’s eyes opened wide. “OMG, have they conquered a world?”
Icarus shook his head. “Nothing like that. The two aliens have a symbiotic relationship. They coevolved together. I call them the Penquins and the Atua.”
“So we met the Atua?” Peter asked.
“Well, kind of. This is going to give you xenomorph vibes … The Atua are squid-looking aliens that tunnel into the Penquins’ chests. They sort of take over the Penquins’ bodies so that they can move more freely out of water.” He was met by a room of squeamish stares. “It’s not all one-sided though. The Penquins gain all the knowledge of all the previous host Penquins. It’s kinda like getting an upgrade to their intelligence. And it changes the gender of the Penquins too, so it’s the only way they can reproduce.”
“Is that why these aliens felt so comfortable with brainwashing all the humans on Earth?” Atlas asked.
“That’s exactly why. It’s part of their culture. They see themselves as gods, as the caretakers of the Penquins.”
Ange raised an eyebrow. “How do the Penquins feel about it?”
Icarus smiled at Ange for asking that question because it was the part he found most fascinating. “It’s almost impossible for us to grasp their relationship with each other. Humans never coevolved with another species as smart as us. For hundreds of thousands of years, the Penquins and Atua were interdependent. They both need each other to survive. It’s a great honor among the Penquins to be chosen by the Atua. We can’t be anthropomorphic; the majority of them don’t see this relationship as a bad thing. It’s what they’ve evolved to want. Although there are a few of them wanting to find a way to reproduce without the Atua, almost everyone we spoke to is happy with their current arrangement.”
Hezekiah lifted his head away from against the window of the RV; he was looking out onto the purple fields below. “Are the Penquins slaves?”
Icarus considered the question for a good while, opening and shutting his mouth a few times as he thought over it. “If one race of humans did this to another one, then yes. I think we’d consider this relationship to be a form a slavery. But to the Penquins it’s not.”
The Ship of Icarus looked up, mouthing the words pet and analogy.
Ship was referring to the closest human analogy they had, the idea that humans and pets had coevolved together.
“Ah, yes,” Icarus said. “A good way to think about their relationship is by looking at us and our animals. If a dog could talk, I don’t think they’d considered themselves slaves. I’m sure they would think of themselves as part of the family. Even working dogs, before we had robots to automate a lot of things, I don’t think they’d be upset by what they did on farms. I think they’d see that as what they contribute to the family.”
“Isn’t that just because we selectively breed them to be like that?” Atlas asked.
“Exactly, we did. Remember how I told you the Penquins need the Atua to reproduce?”
Everyone nodded so Icarus continued. “All Penquins are female at birth. Once a Penquin is chosen by an Atua, they change into a male. And from there they can reproduce with any of the other Penquins. But there is a process to being chosen by the Atua. I’m not sure what’s involved, but they do enter the minds of the Penquins. In a way, the Atua are selectively breeding the Penquins.”
“If the stories we learned while there are true,” Ship added. “They, the Atua, became intelligent first and selectively chose Penguins that were more intelligent.”
Atlas finishing typing in a new destination for the RV, and they began to move. “Is this why the Atua saw nothing wrong with their approach of enslaving humans inside a simulation?”
“I suspect that’s true,” Icarus said. “They probably believed that, after a while, humanity would come to appreciate them and love them the way the Penquins do.”
The team continued to pepper Icarus with questions about his visit. Icarus continued sharing his experience on the alien world before the conversation moved to Icarus’s escape. He made sure to embellish his skills in the ordeal and skim over the fact he’d almost died.
Stolen story; please report.
Peter picked up on what Icarus was leaving unsaid in his information. His face looked like he had seen a ghost. “Are you saying they know one of us visited them? They know it was a human?”
Icarus nodded.
“That’s an act of war! Essentially, you just proved that we could sneak a nuclear bomb onto their planet without them knowing. They will have to respond to that. Simple game theory.” Peters face suddenly turned angry. “I hope I’m wrong and they don’t retaliate.” He looked around the room at everyone. “The people in this room have way too much power. These decisions are not just impacting us; they have the ability to impact every living human around. We should not be making decisions like that. None of us should have the ability to put the entire human race in a position of war with another alien species.”
There was an awkward tension in the air. Icarus felt like he had just been told off.
In a way, Peter was right; he had made the kind of diplomatic decision that should have been made after consulting others. But in another way, when he’d made the decision, there wasn’t anyone else to really speak with. It was, to put it bluntly, one of the perks of building a planet. One of the perks of being immortal. And perhaps, it was simply one of the cruel long symptoms of being stuck on a planet for hundreds of years working slowly to terraform it without speaking to another human or Ship.
That was a lonely torture that changed him—for better or worse, he wasn’t sure.
Atlas noticed the strange silence around the large van too. He broke it by pointing out the window. “Hey, look, there’s four friends all walking down through the meadows. Let’s stop in and say hi. See if they need anything.”
Icarus knew Atlas and Ship had been on a long adventure around the Rings of Titan. They were going through a period of discovery and were stopping in and talking to as many people as they could. He knew that Atlas was using it as a way to understand what the ordinary people of the planet cared about.
The RV began slowing down. At first, the four wanderers were looking up at them cautiously, constantly looking upward, then almost hurrying forward. One of them pointed a device at them, as if to say, If you do anything to us, this is all on camera. But then as they got closer, something changed. The one with the phone began pointing at it and showing the others.
Their demeanor changed to one of excitement. They began waving and motioning them to dock down nearby.
Atlas nodded, and Ship guided the VR to an open space about twenty meters in front of them. The grass around them was shifting colors slowly. From the air, the grass looked like a solid-purple color. But up close, it was a mosaic of different hues. Some of the plants were changing from the deep-purple color to a rich-orange one. It added so many layers to the beauty.
Traveling the ring was almost a rite of passage to the people of Titan. The last census had said over 97 percent of people either wanted to complete a loop around the planet or they had actually completed it.
There were many different ways to do it. There were those who used transport, the most common of which was on large blimp-like cruise ships. And then there were those who walked.
The ones that walked were seen as the true intrepid travelers. It was often described as the most rewarding but hardest personal challenge to ever complete. It was a many, many-year journey, one hundred times longer than walking the entire circumference of Earth. In fact, there was a dedicated team of rescuers in each city who’s only job was to save travelers who couldn’t go on farther.
Atlas motioned for Hezekiah to jump up from his seat. “Sorry, there’s a gift box under your seat I want to grab out.” Atlas lifted up the seat and grabbed out one of the several large baskets full of various things. Icarus saw basics like water, MREs, and toothpaste. But he also saw other things like a tent, a solar shower, and rope. “A lot of these travelers have a habit of underpacking. I like to give them a couple of things to keep them going.” He lifted the basket up and carried it out the door.
“Atlas,” one of the four travelers yelled out as they ran toward the RV. “I knew I recognized your bus. You know, it’s all over the wanderers forums.”
Wanderers was a term the people of Titan called anyone on the journey around the planet.
“This is for you,” Atlas said, placing the basket of gifts on top of a dog-sized ANT that popped out from under the RV. It looked well designed to carry the basket of goodies. “The ANT will carry these goods for as long as you need. And when you’re done, it’ll fly everything back to the RV.”
“Thank you,” the four wanderers began saying before their mouths gaped open as everyone in the RV began to pile out.
“These are my friends,” Atlas said as he pointed. “You probably know of my Ship. This is—”
“Oh my gosh, oh my god, that’s Icarus.” The only girl in the group began squealing.
The tallest of the four people looked at his friend as if to say, Act cool. “Everyone knows who he is.” He was a good head taller than the others, and he had the kind of bulging arm muscles that made Icarus think he’d just started this journey because surely there weren’t any gyms nearby. “My name’s Matt and this fangirl over here is Esme. And these are my two friends Victor and Justin.”
Esme was a tiny, almost-Asian-looking woman. Victor and Justin looked like close relatives, maybe cousins.
“I told you it was a good idea to walk,” Justin said, addressing his friends. “There’s no way any of us are ever meeting one of the founders, let alone all of them.”
The four of them looked a little starstruck. They constantly kept drooling over the fact they were meeting Icarus, Atlas, Trillion, and one of the Ange’s Angels. They weren’t too fussed about Peter, Hezekiah, or Unity until they found out they were from Earth, too.
“We’re about to set up lunch,” Atlas said. “Do you want to join us?”
Icarus had never seen people come to an agreement so quickly. They looked like they’d won the lotto. Icarus found it cute. He also started to feel quite special seeing his people responding to their presence. He was starting to believe Atlas had the right idea with traveling around the planet talking to locals. Talking to real people—not the politicians or businesspeople they were used to speaking with.
Atlas reconfigured the RV into an outdoor kitchen. He began setting up for a BBQ.
While that was happening, everyone chatted among one another. It wasn’t until the four wanderers had food in their mouths that they started to get over their stardom and start treating Icarus and the team like normal people.
When Icarus felt they were finally relaxed enough to answer deeper questions, Icarus asked, “So what do you want to do long-term?”
“I want to visit other planets,” Justin said. “I wouldn’t mind going on holiday to the Penquins’ planet you talked about Icarus.”
“Oh, and I’d love to go see some of your planets, Ange,” Victor added.
Icarus wasn’t that hungry, so he was drinking a coffee instead. “Do you mean you want to become simulations like us and visit other worlds?”
All four of the wanderers’ heads shook in unison, and Icarus thought he saw a flicker of disgust in their faces, as if the idea of becoming a simulation was somehow gross.
“Not like what you all are is wrong or anything,” Matt said. “At the time, it’s the only technology you had to live forever. But now, modern medicine solved all that. We’re immortal too.”
Icarus looked at them all curiously. “But you can’t travel between stars as a biological. Traveling at the speeds to traverse space multiplies the radiation. At those levels, it would kill you.”
“I’m hoping someone will solve those problems in our lifetime,” Matt replied.
Icarus thought he saw all four of them look toward Atlas when Matt made the comment about solving the issue with radiation.
Icarus liked these people. They reminded him of them when they were younger. Full of life and hope. And also against the idea of becoming simulations, which could be considered mildly contrarian.
“What made you two start the beta explorer program?” Justin asked.
Peter began retelling stories of his time back on Mars.
Icarus looked around the circle and smiled as he found himself in the middle of a moment that made him extremely happy. He was surrounded by his oldest and closest friends, and he got to relive old memories in front of people who found every word they shared fascinating.