To Devour a World

A Story from the Far Future

Friedrich Blys watched the 500 mile-diameter Extraction Platform assigned to Sector 3 devour a whole network of canyons carved by ten thousands years of river undulations in a single rotation. The dust spun to form clouds that would become typhoons on the southern hemisphere causing tsunamis and merging with earthquakes to become maelstroms, the last rage of a murdered world.

Perilon B was assigned its fate by Buckley Super-Heavy Industries, even its name was a mere designation derived from the blue star of the system, which would be the final celestial body subjugated in the Perilon system. Already the Interstellar Forges were churning out the required struts, girders, cabling, receptors, transmitters, and all manner of widgets to devour some other hapless planet.

The Extractor continued its grim whirl to the ocean, frothing and roiling as the force of a hundred Extractors churned Perilon B to its base components, ore, minerals, fuel, wood, stone, and earth, all consumed and sorted inside the mammoth machines. Earthquakes ravaged the planet. Volcanoes erupted in a continuous spurt of lava above ground and under the sea. Those too would be reduced to raw material. Eventually the planet would lose too much mass, the core rocked by seismic activity, and the gravity from the blue star would tear Perilon B apart. Until then, there was material to extract.

Friedrich Blys was not in the business of extraction. Heavy was his heart as he watched the once habited planet be churned up, consumed, simply to make slightly faster ships, more efficient datapads, and ever more Extraction Platforms. A trillion planets was merely a big number to the Overseers at Buckley Super-Heavy Industries. It may as well have been an infinity symbol on their ledgers. Another star system destroyed, its sun caged in a Dyson Sphere. Wealth, they'd say, riches. But where was the wealth in destruction, in consumption. Wealth was admiring these strange new worlds, uncovering their secrets, and being thankful for their bounty, not waging a war of destruction, of total annihilation, for a new shiny ship.

A gentle pinging echoed from his living module's comms terminal. It was time for his meeting with the Overseer Supreme, Ben Benison. He set down a book, Ancient Space-Faring Civilisations by Corio Iago, and took a swig of cold coffee. The orbital habitat thrummed along in static orbit of Perilon B, a train of tankers streamed from the surface to the Interstellar Forges a quarter orbital turn from the habitat. The Forge hung in the black, a moon of rigid lines and furnaces, all operated by twenty men, most of them metrics analysts.

Friedrich Blys left his cluttered module and dragged himself along the pristine white corridor that curved around the outer edge of the habitat. The Overseer Supreme's office lay in the centre, stationary as the outer modules spun in a slow clockwise direction. He'd rather be on the surface, frantically collecting artefacts and documenting what little of the planet's ancient civilisation remained. Instead he had a meeting to discuss how much time he had left, he knew it wasn't much. A couple trips at most.

He greeted Emma, always smiling Emma, outside Ben Benison's office. Her blouse had a plunging ruffled neckline neatly tucked into a size too small skirt. She skittered about the reception, her high heels clicking rapidly, from the coffee machine to the comms terminal and then back to her desk all the while chattering away to someone half the galaxy away. Emma held the palm of her hand over her right ear, covering the earphone and mic, 'Mr. Benison will see you shortly, have a seat, Mr. Blys.' She smiled with her eyes and carried on her conversation.

Friedrich sat facing Emma and the door to Ben Benison's office. The glass walls and sliding doors were frosted over but two shadows paced inside. His shuttle left in an hour and if he missed his window the trip would be cancelled, something about production targets. He didn't care, though he needed to but the anthropologist in him was profoundly bored by “business culture”, an oxymoron of the highest calibre, preferring the stories of dead civilisations and myths of living ones.

An hour till his shuttle became half-an-hour, his meeting with Benison now late. He paced to the coffee machine and felt annoyance at having only Buckley's own coffee grounds. A sad excuse for coffee only produced for Buckley Super-Heavy Industries locations. Shipping it all the way from Trepas K didn't help the flavour. Emma continued to chatter, one minute about business, appointments, schedules, mineral shipments, the next about galas, appointments, and food shipments. Was it all work? Was it all leisure? It didn't seem to matter, the two intermingled until only one remained.

The frosted glass doors parted as Friedrich's coffee finished pouring from the machine. Overseer of Tanker Co-Ordination, Benson Watts, came out and flashed a smug grin to Friedrich. 'All on schedule?' the Overseer asked, not stopping to hear an answer.

'As much as possible,' Friedrich Blys said, blowing on his coffee, though the Overseer was in the corridor with not so much as a look back.

'Mr. Blys, come on in,' Mr. Benison said. 'You know Mr. Watts, he was just sharing a report from Ula Henson, Overseer of Accounts and Metrics, about how much your little trips cost us. Now I know Buckley signed a contract with your little outfit over on Rashoti Prime but I've been giving it a read over and I think they missed a few things.'

The glass doors hissed and frosted over behind Friedrich, steam from his coffee billowed from the sudden breeze.

'The contract stipulates I can alter your schedule, so today's trip will be your last and your samples capacity must be halved. We can't have production slowed by your little jaunts to the surface. It's costing us too much, trillions, potentially quadrillions. Miss Henson has her team running the numbers as we speak.'

Friedrich Blys searched Benison's expression for an emotion, something to read, to latch on to, to respond to but all that met his gaze was a limp smile and glass-y eyes. There was nothing there, he'd given the news like someone telling their friend about the rain. 'Now wait just a minute, we had a deal, a contract, an agreement. You can't alter the terms on a whim, I know that document and nothing in it lets you alter my work so extravagantly.'

Ben Benison steepled his fingers on his pine desk, clear save for a name plate, with his job title on it, naturally, and a narrow cut-out where a monitor could raise. 'I thought you might think that so I had Emma send you a copy with the relevant sections highlighted. You should have received it when you came in.'

Blys checked his datapad, sure enough an email from Emma sat at the top of his inbox. Inside was their contract, the relevant passages highlights in sickly yellow. A quick glance churned his stomach. Vague terms and added sentences, supposedly after he'd already arrived at Perilon B stared back at him. 'You, your bosses, you've altered the contract.'

'All signed off by your little outfit.'

'Not by me.'

'Didn't need your signature, only that of your funders.'

'What did you do? What did you threaten them with?' This was pointless, Blys was wasting time even attempting to argue. His blood ran hot, his voice raised, but Ben Benison sat there limp as a fish with the smug expression of indifference.

'Decisions were made. I'm not privy to the details, I merely do my job, there are procedures to follow, Mr. Blys.' Responsibility absolved. There were no decisions, merely sums. Inputs and outputs.

'What does a few days difference make to your profits? There's no risk of Buckley losing money, a finger on every planet, ravaging it for all it's worth,' Blys set his undrunk coffee on the desk. 'This is pointless, I have a shuttle to catch.'

'Very well, Mr. Blys. Best of luck on your final search,' Ben Benison said with a tone of indifference.

Friedrich Blys stormed from the office and into the corridor, forgetting to wish Emma a good day. It didn't matter, she was chatting away about timetables and new hires, oblivious the world around her. What did it matter if Buckley Super-Heavy Industries had changed the contract? Wasn't like Blys or his funders at the museum could take the galaxy spanning corporation to court. That was impossible. The fees prohibitive even just to settle on which court in which system on which planet.

Running, Blys burst into the shuttle bay with two minutes to spare. He leapt aboard the automated tanker already stocked with cameras, labels, and crates for artefacts. The doors closed and the ship took off on its own, without even a word about seatbelts or turbulence.

The monstrous Extraction Platforms twisted like hurricanes beneath clouds of dust and vapour. Friedrich Blys watched the Forge above him, gaping maws of fire facing the planet with finished Extraction Platforms sailing out the rear. If there had been any inhabitants of Perilon B they'd have been right in thinking some devil had brought the apocalypse. What difference did it make if the monsters of the end times were steel or flesh, material or spirit?

The shuttle descended to a continent on the southern hemisphere, scheduled for extraction in twenty-four hours. The whole ten-million square kilometre landmass would be scooped out in a matter of hours, the sea rushing in to meet molten lava rising from beneath the mantle. Before then, Friedrich Blys had a few hours to collect samples and record evidence of a space-faring species thought to be thirteen-thousand years old. The shuttle rocked as it hit ground. Air hissed from the edges of the exit ramp and red lights blinked scanning the atmosphere. Once green the ramp lowered and three hauling robots rolled out to await orders. Ancient towers of steel rose all around him, whatever these buildings had been made from, concrete, bricks, plasteel, had long since decayed or been salvaged but the steel struts jutting out from the dirt remained. Beyond the forest of steel lay an ancient starship, its curved sloping nose in the dirt. A two headed eagle cast in gold was spread along the nose of the ship, coils of thorns reached down the length of the ship to culminate in a set of redundant wings, with feathers cast in bronze. Round windows were wreathed in flowers, the glass long since shattered by rogue vegetation. The propulsion system was two dragon heads, mouths agape. It was strange seeing a ship made with form in mind, made beautiful because it was to be seen rather than simply functional.

Blys stepped out and breathed in the tinged air, already the burnt chemical smog from the Extraction Platforms had reached the southern continent. He coughed. The horizon was one long uninterrupted dust cloud which the metallic goliaths peeked through every once in a while. The heart wrenching rumble encompassing Perilon B being consumed rattled his teeth and crowded out his thoughts. Were they draining the oceans too or where the operators too lazy to launch the platforms into orbit? Blys didn't know and didn't care but he knew it would impact him negatively. The noise batted his mind in an unceasing mechanical drone.

Ancient computers lay in the ruins, submerged in dirt and vines, grass and rubble. Curved monitors made from some heavy duty polymer, he hastily dug the most intact out of the earth, his shovel and brush catching against the screen yet not leaving a scratch. He set the screen on a hauler and searched for the rest of it. He found a shard of pottery, half an inscription on one side. Then there were thin steel implements, tools, that he couldn't identify, they joined the pile too.

An hour went by and the robot haulers had their baskets full of artefacts, most too alien to identify. Amongst them were copper cylinders etched with writings and a small box that Blys was certain was a computer. The hope of working was nil but its existence was enough. The thought he was wrong crossed his mind, it could just be a box.

He reached the ancient ship and loathed the fact he couldn't take it with him, too large, too broken. There was no obvious way into the vehicle so Friedrich Blys had to settle for documenting the exterior and capturing a few poor photographs through the windows. The interior of the ship was overgrown with leafy vegetation, the windows smeared with grime and condensation. His teeth ached as he peered through a cracked window, the incessant groan of the Extraction Platforms bored into his skull. Beneath the plants, the roots, and the vines there was a bone or at least something that looked like a bone. He squinted and angled his camera to catch a picture.

'Mr. Blys,' a man's voice crackled from his datapad, 'It's time to go. Extraction Platform 12 is en route to your location.'

Friedrich sighed and checked his datapad. 'The extractor isn't due for another six hours.'

'Change of schedule. Shuttle's programmed to leave in fifteen minutes. See you on the habitat, Mr. Blys,' the connection cut off.

Friedrich punched the hull of the ancient starship and cried in pain. He shook out his hand, the knuckles reddened already, and dropped down to the ground. A few firm taps on his datapad and the three haulers began their journey back to the transport. Two were near the shuttle already but the third was with him and refused to move any faster than a dawdle. There was no way it would reach the shuttle in fifteen minutes. 'Never again. Never,' he lied to himself. He would be on a habitat with Buckley Super-Heavy Industries again, collecting samples of lost civilisations while the planet was consumed, destroyed, for resources. If he didn't, who would? Too many planets and too few xeno-archaeologists. Friedrich sifted through the hauler robot stuffing figurines, styluses, odd carved trinkets no larger than his palm, old coins, and whatever caught his eye into his pockets. He grabbed a bust, severely weathered, and sprinted for the shuttle. The hauler would never make it.

'Launch commencing in ten seconds,' the shuttle announced.

Friedrich Blys leapt aboard as the ramp began to close. The last hauler was trundling behind him destined to be left behind. It stopped rolling along when the ramp was half closed, resigned to its fate. Blys set the bust on the deck and strapped himself in.

The rumble of the engine was lost in the booming sounds from the Extraction Platforms. He peered out a window on the port side. A single circular maw dominated the horizon, the very clouds swirled in its wake, the ground shook so hard trees were dislodged and gravel bounced a metre into the air. The outer layer of the machine rotated clockwise as a layer deeper went counter-clockwise. Layers upon layers spun counter to each other, chewing up the land, the sea, the air, sorting and storing each resource in silos deep within.

The shuttle broke through the atmosphere and into orbit, the sound vanished but the typhoons left in the machine's wake did not.

Three Extractors were in orbit already, three new moons dwarfed by the Interstellar Forge consuming vast quantities of ore, water, everything to build new Extractors for distant worlds. No human lifted a finger, no one pressed a button, it all simply ran as intended. Automated and observed by a handful of people simply “doing their job.”

The shuttle landed in the hangar bay with little aplomb. There was no grand welcome, no parade of thanks for Friedrich Blys. He stepped off the shuttle clutching the bust, his pockets bursting, with two haulers in tow.

Doors leading into the habitat slid open and Overseer Supreme Ben Benison stepped through, 'I thought you'd have more stuff. Not a great race if you ask me. What's the point?' Something passed across his face, an emotion, almost, an annoyance. A poor meeting perhaps?

'There were starships, entire cities, now lost because of you! Halving my time, my haulage allowance, cutting short my last trip, and you have the gall to speak of things you know nothing about. You have broken every agreement we had! Untrustworthy and dishonourable,' Blys stormed up to the doors and hoped to leave Benison in a cold fury. All he wanted was to examine the artefacts.

'Trust is a contract, honour cannot buy me a new starship or earn me a promotion,' his tone was matter of fact, bored even.

'You broke our contract,' Blys seethed.

'No you merely didn't read it carefully enough.'

'A snake's answer.'

Benison shrugged, 'I'm just here to do a job. My boss tells me to do something I tell my team to do it. There's nothing else to it.'

'Then you're no better than a machine,' Blys stormed out into the corridor, his haulers behind him. The doors slid shut without another word from the Overseer Supreme. Not that Blys could here over the ringing in his ears. His living module was as he'd left it, cluttered with artefacts, half-read books, dozens of drawings, charcoal impressions, and half-drunk cups of coffee. Perilon B hung in the black, decimated and howling. Hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, and erupting volcanoes wracked the surface. The southern continent was gone, four Extraction Platforms gathered in the centre of it and preparing for lift off. A giant crater, hundreds of miles deep, was all that remained. The oceans broke through the thin crust around the edge to meet magma pooling from the depths of the world. Perilon B bled.

Blys forced himself to watch, to remember the apoplectic rage that rang in his ears and blurred his vision. The four Extraction Platforms lifted off. The sea filling the crater turned to steam, pillars of obsidian poked through the new clouds. A crack appeared at the southern edge, a small thing from orbit but easily fifty miles on the surface, and it raced towards the bottom left Extractor. Lava burst from the fissure, widening it until a great crimson spike dove beneath the Extraction Platform. The blood of the planet leapt into the stratosphere piercing the Extractor. Buckley-steel melted on contact, smoke billowed and twirled. The Extraction Platform, 500 miles wide split into and crashed down to Perilon B. One half slammed into another Extractor sending it off course and blasting into the roiling sea.

Friedrich Blys smiled, tears streaming.

As the rest of the Extractors reached orbit the planet oscillated. Once green and blue was now brown and red, poked and scarred. The remaining sea evaporated. The atmosphere collapsed. The loss of mass caused the planet to wobble towards the sun. The western hemisphere splintered, shattering into a million asteroids to leave a long sweeping scar across the black. Those two would be mined and within months the new asteroid field would be no more. A blinding glow shone from within the planet as the surface rapidly cooled into a dusty brown and barren rock.

---

Thanks for reading! Check out my new serial, HUNTED.

If you enjoy my work consider buying me a coffee, thanks.