Part 31: Absolute Zero Rules, 0K

Chapter 26: Absolute Zero Rules, 0K



The chance to study the native fauna of Dezo should have been the opportunity of a lifetime. I would gladly have borne the cold, the gas and the long overland hikes if only I had had the chance to spend some time here as part of a proper team of naturalists. Instead, I have found myself exterminating unique life forms left and right as I followed Rolf on his mad crusade.



Consider the mastodon: a beautiful animal perfectly adapted to its environment, with a large body to conserve heat, tusks to ward off predators, and a thick layer of fur for insulation. A perfect specimen attacked us when we strayed onto its territory, and we were forced to kill it.

What purpose does all this destruction serve? We can no longer claim to be protecting anybody; we've done all we can for Mota, and the natives of Dezo are more than capable of looking after themselves. We are only here because of Rolf's misguided conviction that some conspiracy lies behind Mother Brain's recent failures. The simplest explanation is the most likely: all complex systems decay over time without regular maintenance. No person in living memory has understood the totality of Mother Brain's systems well enough to conduct comprehensive maintenance. Therefore, Mother Brain has become senile.



The final town we would visit on Dezo was mercifully close to Skure. I held out no hope of finding any answers there; my only hope was that Rolf would keep his promise to abandon this fruitless search once we were done with this town.



We could do worse than to settle down in one of these native towns. Our best chance of survival was to stay under the radar, and Dezo was as far under the radar as we could go. If Mother Brain's systems continued to deteriorate, the people of Mota would suffer increasing hardship, but what could we do about that? Our attempts to stop the Biomonster scourge and repair Climatrol had ended in disaster, and our efforts to prevent a flood in the wake of the Climatrol incident resulted in the destruction of a planet. We had done far, far more harm than good by meddling with Mother Brain.



According to Rolf, the natives wanted nothing to do with us. That might be true, but it was very convenient for one of them to mention it just as Rolf was trying to discourage us from staying in a native village. The cap which translated the natives' language only worked when Rolf wore it, and so we were reliant on him to relay to us any information that the natives gave. Could he be trusted to report their words accurately? If he had not successfully negotiated to purchase supplies from the natives, I would suspect that the cap had no powers at all and Rolf had simply gone insane. The way he talked to animals certainly did little to dispel that suspicion.



All of a sudden we were hearing a great deal of information about exactly the subject Rolf wanted to hear about. Either this was an incredible stroke of luck, or Rolf had resorted to outright lies to justify continuing our search.



What's more, these phantom refugees supposedly had mysterious supernatural powers -- perhaps, Rolf suggested, the kind of powers we would need in order to divine the source of Mother Brain's errors. How convenient this all was turning out to be.



Based on reasonable assumptions about native ideas of beauty, I could only assume that the man of which this one spoke (if in fact he spoke of such a man) was very old and suffering from a severe skin disorder.



A man who had been here for decades, but who still appeared young? Rolf would never concoct a lie so implausible; the natives were clearly having some fun at his expense.



Even the town's shops had little to offer: the only items new to us were a pair of boots, sized for a woman, and a gun inferior to the one Rudo already possessed.



At Rolf's insistence, we set off for the crevasse to the west.



Our progress was hampered by foes both biological and mechanical. Such a large number of combat robots could not have been mobilised in the short time we had spent on Dezo, especially with Mother Brain's systems in such disarray. Perhaps rumours of these mysterious refugees we sought had reached Mother Brain long ago, and she had sent robots to hunt them just as she now hunted us? It seemed implausible, but I could think of no better explanation.



A set of steps, roughly-hewn but nonetheless clearly artificial, led down into the vast crevasse. Somebody, probably the natives, had lived or worked here once, but there was no sign of their continued presence.



The icy walls were an effective windbreak, providing much-needed shelter from Dezo's pervasive chill. Regrettably, many of the predatory animals of Dezo also came here to seek refuge from the cold, forcing us to further disrupt this delicate ecosystem.



A path led up and out of the crevasse, only to end in a cul-de-sac with high icy cliffs surrounding us on all sides.

"It would appear," I said to Rolf, "that the natives' stories may have been nothing but rumours after all. Perhaps we should turn back?"

Rolf shook his head angrily. "We haven't explored the whole crevasse yet! There must be another exit!"



I could hardly hope to survive the trip back to Aukba alone, and so I had no choice but to follow as Rolf led us deeper into the crevasse, down a set of stairs and onto an open ice plain.



Remarkably, more of Dezo's elephantine creatures had managed to squeeze down here. They were surprisingly common for such large and hungry animals; the nearby forests must provide a rich source of food for them.



Another path led out of the crevasse, but only disappointment greeted us at the other end. I was not the only one dissatisfied with our futile wandering.

"Enough is enough, Rolf," Rudo said. "Whatever you're looking for, you won't find it in this wasteland."

Rolf's mood had steadily shifted from determination to desperation. "Please, just give me a little more time! I'm sure the people we're looking for are nearby. I can hear them calling out to me."



I continued on, increasingly concerned for our leader's fragile mental state. Was he delirious from hypothermia? Did he honestly believe the nonsense he was talking, or did he intend for us all to die out here?



The crevasse seemed endless. My legs ached unbearably, and the rest of my body was numb from cold. I tried one more time to reach out to Rolf.

"Please, Rolf, listen to reason. Nobody is living on the other side of the crevasse."

Rolf answered me in strained tones. "We're so close now! I won't turn back! Just a few more minutes... a few more steps..."



Well, I'll be jiggered.