Breaking Point

Chapter 10: The Light-bringer Prophecy

Thirty sleep cycles had passed since Zaid had destroyed the ripper nest.  Zaid didn't know if they were equivalent to earth-days; he never bothered to ask and it wasn't important to him.  It just felt right as far as wake/sleep times.  It had supposedly taken about half of that time just to scrape out the dead queen from the radome it occupied.  After the queen died, apparently all the rippers quit functioning.  They weren't necessarily dead immediately, they just didn't respond to anything at all, not even reflexively.  Killing them and disposing of them was trivial for the command center occupants.

Mostly one by one, family by family, with random arrivals, almost everyone living there had stopped by Zaid's hospital room to thank him.  Some of them came regularly to check up on him.  Zaid appreciated it more than he realized.  He especially loved that as his lower leg was growing back, it started as a tiny little baby foot and gradually grew bigger, and the younger children giggled with glee at the sight of his tiny leg.  Hyun-woo's young daughter Cho in particular loved to see it and was disappointed that it was growing back to full size.  Hyun-woo of course was fascinated by the regrowth and took great care documenting the whole process including daily blood samples.

Bitgaram explained to Zaid that the rippers had a unique ability to manipulate gravity around them locally.  This ability had been reverse engineered and duplicated across much of the asteroid's facilities, but the command center being among the first of them didn't implement it.  There was no need as it was already designed to use centrifugal force as artificial gravity.  Zaid figured it also explained how the one on earth had been able to cling to the ceiling since it was so big.  Bitgaram had no idea how it actually worked; any literature documenting artificial gravity had been purged long ago, along with a lot of other technical documents.  It had been a lot of years since anyone from any other module had visited.

It wasn't the monsters that had kept everyone separated.  It was the people.  Mistrust was widespread.  Each module was an isolated tribe and nobody trusted anyone outside their own tribe, even if they spoke the same language, he explained.

"Well then why did you trust me?" Zaid asked.

"Because nobody had turned on the lights in the medical module for longer than I've been alive, and you turned them on, and you are not from the other tribes and you are a Titan," the engineer replied.  "And with the result you have gotten for us, our trust was well-placed.  You have freely sacrificed yourself to save us from deadly pest.  Some of us even revere you like all powerful father, or sent by all powerful father."

"All powerful father?"

"Yes.  Religious garbage.  I believe no such thing but some cling to old ways.  But even though I do not believe in that, I know you have saved us from something that has frightened us for generations, and for that I trust you with anything you say you need."

Trust, thought Zaid.  Would they still trust me if they knew why I was really here?  Zaid didn't really know much about them at all.  He wasn't sure he cared to know.  I don't deserve to know.  I just need to complete my mission.  "How's the antenna repair coming along?"

Bitgaram sighed.  "I'm doing my best but I think some of the components may be too damaged to use, and we do not have viable spare parts for them.  The parts can be made in the Foundry but it is has not been safe to go there for many years.  Terrible things happened to the Foundry crew."

"Terrible things?  What kinds of things?"

"You should speak with Hyun-woo about them because it frighten me too much.  In the meantime I have a gift for you if you can receive it."  Bitgaram was holding a small black box with a computer connection on it.  "I hope you are not offended.  I took measurements of your body and made you a new armor design.  I search through whatever Titan files were there and found armor research.  Your old armor uses hard pieces on ball bearings for mobility.  If you use the foundry, it can make more flexible and sliding pieces that absorb and redirect impact better and move better with your body.  No more get stuck in corners.  I also add computer and holographic interface which should be useful."