Cold is the Absence of Heat

Commander John Forebear re-enters the airlock to Novac 3 and takes his place at the bridge's command module. No sooner is he settled in than his headset sparks in static.

"It's a blue line here, John. Ice to every horizon, kind of mist-like, an artic blue, mythical. It's really something."

The Commander smiles. Just like my science officer to admire the view. I love him, but it's another thing to keep him focused on the task at hand.

"I can see," the Commander replies. "Your visuals are coming in fine, but you're not on vacation, are you Officer Aaronson?" The monitor displays the surface of planet 87689-B, no longer the ice blue marble seen growing over the last eighteen months, but white arctic plains, endless mountain ranges, and red-ironed rock on knife edged peaks.

The Commander's headset crackles again from Aaronson. "You need to smell the roses more often my friend..”

The Commander laughs. "You've never smelled a rose; you've never even seen one."

"I read books. You should try it."

The Commander laughs again. "I do read books."

"You read manuals on rocket technology. Those aren't books."

Aaronson is on the surface, the Commander thinks. Back to business. "Let's get on it, Science Officer. Have you centered the vein?"

"Affirmative," Aaronson answers, coming in clear. "Data confirms crystal spectrum 2.5 klicks below the surface. Deploying the drill." 

On the ship's monitor, the Commander zooms in. Standing much larger and taller than the robotic derricks on Absolon 9, the drill first extends vertically. Once the upward extension completes, the blades spread out at the base, slowly expanding to thirty meters, reminding the Commander of the wings of a teeth mantis. The blades begin turning, spinning, ice flies as it grinds through the ice. The high, piercing sound of the drill fills the audio, and ice blocks spin off the blades as the diamond edged wings cut, tear, bore a hole in the planet. 

Soon the derrick has drilled itself out of sight from the command module. On the surface, Science Officer Aaronson puts on a propulsion vest. The tiny thrusters fire a blue flame, a throated growl as they lift him. Aaronson disappears as he descends the newly dug channel, a vertical mineshaft.

An hour later, Aaronson patches in. "You need to get down here, Commander. You won't believe this."

Descending the drill shaft along with Security Officer Dickens, the Commander realizes they don't need headlamps. The ice walls are a translucent aqua glow, almost an ocean effect, the glow derived he suspects from its own organic energy source within the fabric of the ice. His gloved hand slides down the edge of the mineshaft. Clear, he thinks. I can see at least three meters into the ice. The purity of it.

The Commander is not a worrier, but he worries as he descends. Not because of the shaft or the mine. He has mined all over the Federation, dozens of planets, and even if this shaft is twice the size of the largest, he still has the experience. It isn't the cumbersome size of the derrick either. It's what his security officer had said the night before. They had been together on the observation deck and it was about his friend Aaronson. The same subject Dickens had been harping on for the last year.

"To mine the ice is nothing," Dickens had said, the reflection of a dark red nebula on his scared face. "It's the softness of that Aaronson. He's not like us; he lacks the killer instinct. When the time comes, Aaronson will be the weak link. Trust me, I've seen it before. We need to mine the ice, and I'm not letting him get in the way."

Always the paranoid security officer, thinks the Commander. But he's my security officer, and I like him being paranoid. It's safer. His job is to protect all three of us, after all. He pours himself two fingers of scotch from their dwindling supply into his crystal glass. The blue planet hovers below in its own shimmering light, the plains, the mountains, the stars ablaze above.

Dickens grabs the scotch bottle with a flick of his eyes. "Have you seen his right earlobe? It's the mark of a mystic. He hides it, but it's typical of his kind, his race. He swears, what a joke, there's some kind of life on the planet. He says he dreamed about them. Hallucinating is what I think. And we scanned for planet heat, nothing. The entire planet is absolute zero. If there's a THEY, can they be absolute zero? There's a reason Sector 12 threw out the mystics you know, why you don’t see them. They shipped them off, good riddance I say.

The Commander throws back his scotch. Corporate's command was simple. Go to planet 87689-B, mine as much of what you can, bring back the mythical ice that doesn't melt. Imagine the repercussions of a product with endless refrigeration? Fill the storage bay, bring it back. Zing, Pop, we're all rich. Or, I'm rich. Corporate is already rich. The commander puts his hand on Dicken's arm to assure him. "We mine the ice, fill the payload. Then we get the hell out. Aaronson will be fine." And once I'm rich, I can retire to Absolom 7, the furthest from the insanity of the Federation I can get, a place without thought control, a place with hardly any people at all. What's going on at Sector 12 is really not my business.

***

As the two men descend, their propulsion vests hold the descent, a hissing sound from the fuel, a blue flame. At the bottom of the shaft, Aaronson waves up to them in the blue glow, the channel now carved out at the bottom like a cathedral. It's then the commander realizes the protruding vein of ice in front of him IS the core product, the color of the distinctive blue giving it away. The ice gives off a ghosting blue, fog like, the surface seeming to have a thin frothing skin. Ice that won't melt. Corporate could mine this for decades. Who knows how long?

Aaronson's voice breaks in the Commander's headset. "I'm at your two o'clock. You have to see this. I've run the carbon dating spectronics."

The science officer is standing at the entrance to one of many spidered tunnels off the base of the main dig. Behind him are the images of a junkyard of random space debris, dozens of pieces of metal embedded in a clear ice wall, as if a human expedition on a prior mining exploration had abandoned their probes, a launch vehicle, digging equipment, backhoes, mining tools. Ancient technology embedded in clear ice.

The Commander joins Aaronson in front of the ice wall. "I've never seen equipment like this. What's the reading?" 

"2.5 million years. Our earth was not yet civilized when these artifacts were brought here Commander."

Aronson puts his hand on the ice wall in awe of what they'd found. "It's a shame we can't stay. Imagine what we could learn. And there are inscriptions on the equipment. There, on what looks like a backhoe, do you see?"

Just looking at artifacts from so long ago sends a shiver through the Commander, a déjà vu, a murmur, a whisper from an ancient past.

Aaronson speaks quietly to the Commander. "You sense it, don't you? Can we stay?"

Dickens looks disgustedly at Aaronson. "No way science man. We're not here for your witchy bullshit. If there's intelligence, we're in danger."

Aaronson ignores Dickens, his eyes on the Commander. "Give me just three days to complete an archeological study. All I'm asking is three days, John."

"Pfff," Dickens snorts. "You've been whining about missing your family for the entire trip out. Now you want to stay?"

"I do. But there's more." Aaronson hesitates like he was holding back. "You both need to come with me."

They follow Aaronson down an ice blue tunnel and enter a cavern opening up with caves on an ice cliff. Ice ladders access what looks like homes, abandoned cliff dwellings. Structures in ice of all sizes, a blue sheen to the ice, ghostly, present, unknown. But what really stands apart are the carvings. Circular discs of etchings, sculptures of some abstract design. Like Picasso of ages long past, or Phillips on Horizon's Horn in the 8^th Quadrant. The brightest spot is a centerpiece on a small pedestal. There sits what looks like a pulsating diamond, sparkling white, about 20 centimeters tall. Around it is an artistically designed ice carved shrine. The diamond hums, it glitters organically.

Aronson puts his helmeted face inches from the diamond. "This is ice but like a queen I think. See how she produces ice from the base like tiny glaciers. The ice is the eggs. They don't melt, we know that, but the queen is this diamond of ice, birthing the ice. This shrine is to worship the ice diamond, is my guess."

Dickens picks up the diamond, examines it. "If they can't protect it, they don't deserve to keep it. Why are we only taking the ice when we can also take, as you say, the queen?"

Aaronson steps in front of Dickens. "We only came for the ice. We don't know the ramifications. We need to study it."

Dickens glances at the Commander who gestures to return the ice diamond. He sets the crystal diamond back on the pedestal.

Returning to the derrick, the three men prepare the container for some hours, collecting ice, storing it for the transfer.

The Commander closes the portal on the container. "Ok Aaronson, trigger the container to ascend to the surface. I've programmed the ascent to Novac 3."

Aaronson and the Commander strap on their vests. Dickens joins them. Before he triggers the propulsion, Aaronson stops Dickens.

Aronson raises both of his hands. "He's hiding the ice diamond in his pack Commander. Not a good idea Dickens. There's more to this than you realize."

"Don't tell me science boy, we can take this. But… but…" Dickens grabs his helmet with both hands. Whatever is in his helmet eats on his face, his flesh is breaking up like black microbes gnawing on him.

He draws his laser sidearm, fires at Aaronson, whose chest lights up with a red flash. The charge dissipates in an electrical charge, Aaronson collapses to the ice. Dickens falls to his knees next to Aaronson and his hands desperately claw each side of his helmet. His screams pierce the Commander's headset as the whites of Dicken's eyes go black. His face in the clear visor helmet DISSOLVES, the flesh of his face dripping away, blood flowing down his cheeks with the white bones of his skull protruding. Finally, his mass slides down into the interior of his suit like sludge in a drain and his suit crumples on the ice.

The Commander thinks in a second. It was so simple. Go to planet 87689-B, mine as much as you can, fill the storage bay with a ton of the stuff. Bring it back. He takes hold of the pack. Carrying Aaronson, he stumbles to the main channel and fires his vest. The weight of two men may be too much. He turns the nozzle full on. But he's rising too slowly and falls back a meter for every two he ascends. Aaronson moans on his back. As they rise up the channel, the sides of the shaft begin cracking like a crevasse closing in on them, the ice splintering, cascading down the channel. Pieces of ice reach out to strike at his legs, his arms, the iced sides moving in on them like a closing fist. The planet itself knows I have the queen. 

Once on the surface, the Commander lays Aaronson in the shuttle. As they take off, the gravity of the planet seems to bend with an aurora of light, blues and pinks reach for them, a colored gravity aching to pull the shuttle back. But they dock on Novac 3 and soon all of the ship's engines are firing, blasting in a blue-red fire, but the planet strains to hold the ship. 87689-B is not giving up. It seems to scream to pull the ship back, like a mother fighting for the return of her children, her queen, the ice. Finally, the planet lets go, spent with exhaustion. The planet gives out a collective gasp of loss. Novac 3 snaps into space, the stars streak by.

***

Two months later, Aaronson still hasn't died. The commander has set him up in sickbay, the portrait of his wife, his two young children taped to the bulkhead above him. He has no consciousness, thinks the commander. He's dying, a coma. He'll never last a month, certainly not a year.

As the days become weeks, the Commander holds Aaronson's sweating head in his berth. He feeds him food carefully ground so he can swallow. He washes Aaronson when he needs to be washed. And finally in desperation he lies next to his friend, begging to transfer his own heated life force. Wake up, Aaronson. Wake up. You're the only friend I've got.

But strangely, the Commander meets him in dreams, an apparition in his sleep, coming to him out of a blue iced fog. "The ice melts," Aaronson says in the dream. "Melts". But how can this be? The ice does not melt, the crystal births more ice. But Aaronson says over and over, "The ice is the absence of heat," his eyes unfocused, the light in his irises dying. There must be a message. Novac 3 rockets through space and the Commander drinks scotch on the observation deck, first two fingers, then four, then he's out of counting fingers. He just drinks. There is no day. The nebula of greens and browns and pinks, the infinitum of space, silently watches. He drinks until the day he looks in the mirror of his cabin and examines his red-veined eyes, his face. Then he knows what to do.

********

Aaronson's near lifeless body lies in the outstretched arms of the Commander. He stumbles with the weight, falls, rises again. He struggles on, the weight heavy. The propulsion vest he wears can hardly hold them both from plummeting down the mineshaft. He finds the ice caves, the ladders, the art. He then lays Aaronson carefully down at the altar where the ice diamond used to be, the queen. After taking his pack off, he removes the ice diamond and places it on the pedestal and kneels in front of it.

Behind the commander stands a blue presence, at least ten feet tall, a figure in raw ice, nothing more. The man is clear blue, the ice of his body shimmering like the planet itself. There is a crackling, like tinkling ice, as the man's arm moves. He places a hand on the Commander's shoulder, his arm joint re-forming as the ice breaks and splinters. Lights like nail-heads shine from his eyes. His head turns, a crinkling in his neck, a thin frothing crystal skin. Your man will be fine. He’ll get to stay, study us as he wants. Then we can get him back if he chooses. But not for you. Yours is a different path.

The commander turns. Half of his face is blue ice, he is transforming. He knows in his heart that soon the suit won't be necessary. He smiles to himself. But what will happen when Novac 3 reaches the frontier of the Federation, passes the ashen worlds destroyed by war, the planets stripped of all resources and lain to waste? What will happen when the sickened and bitter society discovers the ice that won't melt? He's completed his mission. The ice is overflowing the container within the ship, and in another eighteen months it will reach the frontier. They will harvest a rare commodity, solving the refrigeration needs for the Federation. 

Now he more than smiles, he laughs. The ice has a little surprise, he thinks. A little gift to the Corporation. It will spread throughout the Federation of Planets. And then he remembers his dream on Novac 3. He remembers the dream asking him, what is the absence of hate? He now knows the answer. The ice will spread, and those who have the emotion of anger, or vengeance, or loathing, or bigotry, or so many other tortures in the souls of humanity, will, like Dickens, MELT.