Stonefall

By theidiotmachine

Edgar stared out at the sky as the stones fell. The machines whirred and beeped behind him, calm in the storm; and the habitat windows rattled as rocks bounced from them. He took out a cigarette, and hating himself, lit it, and the blue smoke curled around him and caused the air purifiers to spin into overdrive.

'That'll kill you, you know,' Derek the AI said.

Edgar was silent; he tried to savour the hot, sharp smoke as it sank into his lungs.

Outside, everything was sinking in gravel as the sky poured its anger onto the land. With a pathetic bleep the communications array gave up, the last antenna destroyed by the stone fall. There was no one to speak to, so it didn't matter, but it probably meant something.

Edgar pulled on the cigarette. The tip hissed and glowed.

He had three left.

'Oh. That's what this is about,' Derek said. 'A year since she... Edgar, as your friend, I really think that you should... do... something. It's not healthy.'

The clouds replied for him, stones thudding from the walls and windows of the dome, each landing with a reprehensive bang. The habitat shook around him.

Edgar took a final drag on his cigarette, enjoying the crackle of the tobacco and paper, the way the nicotine rushed into his lungs and brain; then he stubbed it out onto a metal tray and leaned back, exhaling and imagining he was somewhere else.

The storm broke and the sky cleared; and a weak, blond sun bathed the habitat in a bleak light.

#

The sea was only half a day's walk. That's why he'd come here, set up this habitat, slogged across half a continent: to see the sea.

Gravel crunched under the sled's runners, the pebbles that the sky had spat yesterday. The sun was low and uncaring, and the stone clouds hung far to the north, pelting somewhere else. Edgar didn't care, and the sled loved this kind of terrain; its simple mind was full of glee at the way that its skids clattered over the rocks and grit.

After an hour, he could smell the sea. Fifteen minutes later he could see it, huge grey waves crashing haplessly over a stoic stony beach, everything grey and blunt and primal.

'Edgar, I wanted to say that I'm sorry,' said Derek, his tinny voice sharp in Edgar's earpiece.

Edgar unpacked a scoop and waders from the sled. He pulled the long yellow boots over his feet and legs. The colour looked incongruously bright in the grey dawn. He pressed a button on the scoop's handle and it hummed to life.

'It wasn't your fault. This planet is strange. I know they died on the day that you argued with Mira, but those two events aren't linked. They can't be. That's not how weather works.'

Edgar walked down towards the shore, where the grey water flopped onto piles of stones. The acid rain would fall tonight, eroding the limestone; and then through some process he didn't understand, the calcium-heavy water would be swept up into the sky and form into pebbles, and it would rain stones again. It had been doing this for exactly a year.

He splashed into the water, the cold pervading even through his boots. The noise and smell of the sea filled his senses, the white noise of the waves almost obliterating Derek's voice.

'I know that you think that you were responsible, Edgar. But you're not. It was just one of those things.'

Dipping the scoop into the water wasn't hard, but he didn't want to lose his balance and fall; so he used as much care as he could, inching the long metal rod down before pressing the button and capturing a sample. Then he turned and trudged back up the shore to the sled, his boots covered in scummy foam, his legs cold.

He shivered. He couldn't face the nightmares, the sounds of them screaming in their little tent as the stones smashed down from the sky above.

'Edgar, please talk to me...'

He put gloves on, and then unclipped the sample container from the end of the scoop. He cracked it open and poured it into a little hopper on an analysis device he'd lashed to the back of the sled. Then he pressed a handful of buttons, took off his waders and gloves, stowed away everything; and sat on the sled and imagined smoking.

The cigarettes had been Mira's. He wasn't much of a smoker, but it seemed as good a way as any to mark the anniversary. He couldn't justify smoking a second today.

Distant thunder rumbled in the south, and lightning arced over the sea. The acid rain would be here soon enough.

The analysis device pinged. It was finished.

'What are you doing, Edgar? Please, talk to me...'

He leaned over to the machine. The screen was cracked; it had been with the team when the first stonefall had happened. But he could see well enough. He zoomed in on the lazy tendrils floating in the sea water.

Inconclusive.

He sighed, and looked up from the grey beach to the grey sky, and imagined what it would be like to see a bird there. What it would be like to be a bird.

'We're going to get another sample and get back to the hab, Derek.'

'I... Okay.'

#

The stones rattled off the habitat's roof. A long time ago, in another life, it would have been restful. But every thud and ping reminded Edgar of death, of hands clawing through a savage downpour of gravel; of fractures, pleading, blood, organ failure.

He shivered, and imagined himself smoking.

The scanner here was more sophisticated than the portable one he'd taken to the shore. But with that came more options, and longer consideration, over more samples. He sat, and stared at the pale noon sun, pretending to be at peace.

'Edgar...'

The machine's front flashed green. He tapped some buttons and waited. It beeped, and spewed information faster than he could read. He scrolled back up.

Well.

He'd wondered if he'd see something like this, but this was incredible.

'They're cryptoneurons, Derek. The whole sea is full of them. The sea is saturated with a protozoa which, in sufficient quantity, can think, because it can self organise into a brain.'

'I don't understand,' Derek replied.

Edgar took his packet of three cigarettes, and put it on the table. He drew one of them out, and set it down, on its own.

'This is a cryptoneuron. It is an organism, floating about on the monitor over there. It fucks and has babies and dies. Out there, in the sea, there are billions of them. No... quintillions.'

He pulled out the other two cigarettes, and put them next to the first.

'This is a cluster of them. As well as being individual creatures, they have a symbiotic relationship. Each one can act as a neuron in a nervous system. Then can send each other messages. Their dendrites connect and they push electrical and chemical signals to each other. They form a colony, and that colony reacts to events on its borders by processing data with the collective.'

He stood up, and stretched, and walked away from the desk. The pebbles hammered on the plastic roof, and he tried to pretend that he didn't still remember screams, tinny over the radio.

'I don't have enough fags for this bit. Imagine what happens when a hundred billion of them connect.'

'There are about that many neurons in a human brain,' Derek replied. 'You're saying that there's a sort of distributed sentience, floating in the sea?'

Edgar nodded, trying to hold back the tears. 'How does an intelligent creature defend itself?' he asked.

'I... I don't know. It builds things? It uses its intelligence to find solutions?'

Edgar picked up the cigarettes, treating each like a relic. He replaced them in their box.

'It fucks up anything and anyone in its way,' he replied. 'Animals coexist. People destroy. That's what we've evolved to do.'

'I like that you're talking again, but I'm really not sure...'

'You told me that Mira was having an affair.'

The AI fell silent.

'The whole team was on that expedition,' Edgar continued. 'Everyone but me. And you told me that she was having an affair with Grant.'

'Conflict within a team is best resolved...'

'I screamed at her over the radio. Everyone knew. The whole planet knew. Those radio signals bounced off everything, this angry, nasty message which filled the air and the space, and woke up anything and everything listening.'

'I was doing the right thing. Honesty means that interpersonal dynamics can be aired...'

'You stupid machine. It wasn't just Mira and the rest of the team that heard. That did, too.'

Edgar gestured towards the scanner screen, where the protozoa drifted in their little cup of seawater.

'You think that you alerted a... sea-dwelling distributed consciousness to our presence on the planet.'

'And it did what all intelligences do. It moved to destroy its rivals. And its been raining stones ever since.'

Edgar put the cigarettes into his pocket and stared at the scanner. As he did, two of the protozoa entangled, their tendrils hooking together. They flashed as they sent electrical signals across the join, little flickers passing over their surfaces. Edgar imagined the sea lighting up at night while the super consciousness drifted through the waves.

Maybe it was a coincidence, he thought. I guess it would have noticed us at some point anyway, even if I hadn't sent that message. In some ways this is better; instead of raining stones on a whole colony it just fell on us. At least we know that this planet is uninhabitable. It's just a pity that Mira and the rest of them had to die to find that out.

He wiped away tears, and looked up. The stonefall was letting up, and the sun was coming out again.

'I'm sorry, Edgar,' the AI said.

He smiled, for perhaps the first time in a year.

'It's okay, Derek. I'm sorry too.' He took the cigarettes back out of his pocket, and looked at them; then he reached forward and dropped them into the bin.

'You know what: I think that I'm going to give up smoking.'