Tales From the Trenches - Hekkathi Vignettes

[Kyoki Chudoku]

Charybdis
Marazhi Trench

Charybdis.

It lies within an empty expanse. The swirling dust of the interstellar void is the closest thing it has to an atmosphere. Its frigid surface is nothing more than a shadow, a blackness cast upon the cosmos for all the ice upon its crust. It tumbles aimlessly through the celestial abyss, careening towards inevitable oblivion on the same path it has followed for billions of years. More than anything it is alone. For Charybdis is a rogue world lacking even a moon to its name. It orbits no star, it follows no system. It only swirls at a glacial pace, eons of entropy eroding away what energy it retains.

From orbit, a grim portrait of oblivion.

On the surface, an empty husk of ice.

Within the ocean beneath, a passing glimpse of looming death.

The last fragments of heat to escape the withering core begin to fade away. The last vestiges of life desperately cling on for survival. Predators do not exist here, not beyond the microscopic level. For greed is self-destruction. Violence is irreparable. All life cooperates or dies. And at the forefront of this symbiotic hierarchy lies the most primitive of Nexus races, not even the faintest rudiments of technology in their grasp- the Hekkathi, the nurturers of the dark.

Amidst one of their colonies, a shapeless globule is released. It spirals into the depths, lost in an endless maze of ocean, a floating seed and a drifting hope for a new beginning. The energy it feeds upon is devoured at a glacial pace- such is the metabolism of their kind. Charybdis lacks the cataclysmic storms and tectonic upheavals of those violent planets that breed what are considered the most resilient species. It brings a different apocalypse. Not Armageddon, but Ragnarok, the final winter that will bring an end of all life that so desperately subsists off of any scraps of warmth it can acquire. Within the next few generations, the final macroscopic organisms will perish. A few eons after that, and even microbial life will be reduced to crystallised capsids and encysted archaea, destined never to awaken as entropy claims its final victory.

The drifting globule does not know that- but the mind within it one day will. A fragment of a nervous system suspended in freefloat. Hibernating, empty, for if it were not it would taken by the cold embrace of death. It does not so much sleep as it remains unborn. But still it floats. And over the course of what to other races could be perceived as weeks, the faintest gasp of heat touches the bundle’s skin. So, in a time shorter than a conscious thoughtspan of an adult, a single choice is made- and the faintest glimmer of a metabolism flutters into life.

It nestles in the sediment. Tenuous grains of sulfur pulse from a fading refuge of geothermal activity, fuel for the engine of life. But that engine is slow. On a world such as this it would die if it were not. At the rate that water erodes the rocks below, thin tendrils begin to form, reaching like the roots of a tree. They grow closer to that life-giving warmth. Closer to the spark that will animate this complex of molecules into a sentient being. Fronds extend like villi, the dying embers of a fading gesture offering them energy’s caress- the gift of life.

The signal pulses down a series of chambers. A single spark of electricity that would barely register on a voltmeter. And yet to this creature, such a spark can mean the difference between a chance of life or a predestined death. It is unconscious. A reflex of biological programming. But in a sense, it is the being’s first thought. And with confirmation of a source of energy, the second stage of development begins.

It does not happen quickly. Ages go by. On distant worlds, touched by the caring light of a star, empires rise and are toppled. Great men live and die. Outer planets complete a circle around their stars. Generations pass. But on Charybdis, all that time is only enough for the very beginning of a treacherous existence. For that heat could die at any time. And should the cold strike, this sole creature is defenceless. It knows nothing. Feels nothing, save the temperature around, save the faintest touch of the abyssal water that surrounds it. That is all it needs. Sight is worthless in the dark. There is no particle to smell, no food to taste. All it consumes is raw heat, its drive fuelled by an intricate network of proteins, powered by chemistry more than even instinct.

Minute fluctuations go by. The slightest changes the the vent’s output. It teeters on the edge of destruction every time the heat grows just a fragment colder. For the mind within is not yet born. The roots graft themselves into lifeless soil, and begin the next phase of their existence- pushing downwards, reaching further. The tepid heat begins to grow warmer. But that is not enough. Calcified armour begins to form, the last resources drained from the globule’s original form. Not a cell is wasted. And it is close. For the heat, once so absent, now blazes furiously against skin. A single crack in the armour could spell a sudden demise.

It lives.

And with the following surge of energy, new structures begin to form. A gelatinous mass expands across the surface, beginning to transform raw rock into useful materials. Gelatinous spindles grow from the creature’s top, the first of its sacs inflating with fluid. The roots grow wider, deeper, the foundation of its continued existence. It cannot afford to be wasteful. But it has enough energy to survive. And so, for the first time since its inception, the Hekkathi’s brain pulses with electrical activity. Only for a moment. Only a glimpse of a thought.

For a single, fleeting moment, it conceptualises its body. It notices its situation. It processes its senses. But the tissue that now flares into action is not new. It is a captured fragment of another of its kind, and so old thoughts come to life anew. Its first true thought is a deafening echo of foreign memories, blazing like a seizure, countless reminders rushing all at once- discarded in seconds as it slumbers for an eon more.