Children of the Giants - I

A remote planet, a terrifying discovery, and a community of ascetics with no language to describe the horrors they have unleashed.

The following is the beginning of a full-length novel. It is not necessarily my intention to share the entire work here, as my primary goal with this publication is to continue with the nonfiction writing project I started in December—namely, the interviews with my father and our explorations of the intersections between science fiction and Christian theology.

However, I have met so many lovely fiction writers on this platform thus far, and their work and effort is nothing if not inspiring. Mindful that many of my subscribers are fiction writers themselves, I wish to peel back the veil ever-so-slightly and show a glimpse of my true face: an aspiring science fiction writer, just the same as them!

I hope that you enjoy this story. It already exists in at least one other place on the Internet, so it might as well exist here also. Please comment and let me know if you’re interested in reading more.

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News of the disaster reached the parochial lodge shortly after suns-up. Elijah Planter came beating at the door, his fist falling like a hammer against the wyrmwood frame. Reverend Abernathy, disturbed by the sound of Planter’s tractor rumbling down the lane, was already awake and ready to receive him. He smiled at the red-faced, red-bearded man as he opened the door, remarking that Planter’s Christian name, Elijah, was aptly given; all this huffing and puffing, one had to wonder if the steps leading to the porch numbered as many as those climbing Mount Sinai.

Planter, doubled over with fatigue, sputtered as he tried to catch his breath.

“There’s an old saying that I’m fond of,” Abernathy said. “A favorite of the island folk: when the Good Lord made time, he made plenty of it. Have you heard it, Elijah?”

“I’m sorry, Reverend. It’s just, there’s a – and it’s, well…”

A coughing fit seized the large man. Abernathy allowed him a moment to collect himself, then asked, “Has something happened?”

“I’ll tell you about it on the road, Reverend.”

“You’ll have to tell me now, I’m afraid. It’s hardly dawn. I haven't dressed or made tea. I’m certainly not about to go rushing off without knowing the reason for all this fuss.”

“It’s Gellman. He’s in hysterics. There’s something…” Planter rubbed his bloodshot eyes. “They found something under the old barn.”

“Ah, is that where Hiram’s been hiding his tithes all this time?” Abernathy said, reaching for his cloak, hat, and breathing mask. It was bound to be a hot day – the unusually high atmospheric pressure had been sustained all summer – but townsfolk would wonder if the Reverend appeared in their midst unfrocked. The mask was only a precaution; hardier men like Planter were adapted to the nitrogen-dense air, but off-worlders were liable to asphyxiate.

Planter had not answered. Abernathy chuckled. “I’m joking, of course. What is it they’ve found?”

“I, well – we don’t know. It could be a cave.”

“You came all this way to tell me about a cave? Am I meant to consecrate it for you? I can do that from here.” Abernathy touched his forehead with his right palm, then his chest, and made a slight bow of his head. “Go with God. But before you do, why not come in for a cup?”

“It could be–” Planter said, taking off his own hat and wiping sweat from his face, “–a tomb of some kind.”

“I think I would remember interring someone beneath the Gellmans’ barn.”

Planter remained unnervingly mute. Abernathy knew him to be a jovial, stalwart fellow, well-regarded in the community. His family had been with the colony since its foundation. He was no stranger to hardship or to fear. The Reverend’s good humor faded as he donned his cloak and followed Planter down the steps of the porch.

As he rode in the little cattle cart pulled behind the tractor, Abernathy’s mind wandered. Planter could tell him little of the discovery’s nature; it seemed that only Gellman had been present when the cave’s entrance had first been unearthed. The other village men had been out in the far fields, rigging their machines to haul the timbers to the site of the barn-raising. Gellman claimed he’d seen a shape down in the bottom of the pit. So far the men had prevented him from investigating on his own.

“Was it an animal?” Abernathy asked, raising his voice above the engine’s rumble. “Perhaps a stray sheep fell in?”

Planter shrugged. “Could be. But there are still people missing from Ultima.”

Abernathy frowned. He understood the man’s meaning well enough. More of the drowned turning up, swollen with sand and mud. He resisted an instinctual retch.

The damned sinkholes. As if the toxic clouds weren’t enough of an aggravation, they had to contend with the very earth collapsing under their feet. Even the roots of the wyrmwood forests struggled for their grip, churning the planet’s mantle with millions of finger-like tendrils. It was unwise to travel across the lowlands without sounding equipment, even when there was a proper road to follow. Vehicles, cattle and people could all vanish below in an instant. It wasn’t always possible to recover the bodies, but when they could, it was Abernathy who had to deliver the last rites. He was grateful that the victims’ families usually elected for a closed casket. It made it much easier to concentrate.

Ultima had suffered the worst collapse of any of the colonies not two summers past. Half of the town had been swallowed into the mire, in a single afternoon. They never should have settled so far from the Escarpment. Abernathy himself had listened to the other clerics’ debates over whether to expand beyond the relative safety of the Ridgelands during the annual inter-communal convocation. He hadn’t said anything when Reverend Bancroft had announced his intentions to move his colony further down, into the low country; having recently returned from an off-world conference and still recovering from the slipspace travel, Abernathy hadn’t the gall to test his credibility against senior clergy. Now he wondered what might have happened if he had.

Probably nothing. Bancroft was the firebrand type. He would have gone down into the hole believing either that heavenly judgement had been wrought upon his sinful congregation, or the Devil himself had taken them all.

“You said that Hiram’s in a panic,” Abernathy said. “What exactly has got him so worked up about this cave of yours?”

“Gellman’s well has had steady groundwater flow for the better part of a decade,” Planter answered. “It’s one of the reasons why his farm’s done so well these past few seasons.”

“Well enough to warrant raising a new barn, I take it? I suppose he’s worried about it being poisoned, then?”

Abernathy couldn’t fault him for that. Even if the body could be cleared away, the image of it – rotten, festering, bloated beyond recognition – would be branded in the imagination of anyone who drew from it again. Gellman would need to dig a new one, almost certainly.

Planter rubbed his tanned neck. “I suppose. But the things he was saying – I mean, they weren’t right, Reverend.”

“How do you mean?”

“He kept going on about… Not things a decent man should be talking about. I don’t want to repeat them.”

Had Planter’s shoulder been within reach, Abernathy might have reached out and patted it. Instead, all he could do was stare out over the hills and watch the heads of grain sway in the breeze.

The Gellman farmstead was nestled into a shady valley on the outermost edge of the Goodhope settlement, itself tumbling down from the rim of the Escarpment. The family was a reclusive bunch – Abernathy hadn’t been called out to the home since the wife had fallen ill some years ago – and the topography facilitated their eremitism. The valley was like a wrinkle in the fabric of a long flowing garment; the lands surrounding the Escarpment rolled and swelled, broad plains dotted with villages and ranches, but hidden between them were crooks and folds and narrow pockets. The Gellmans had sequestered themselves away in one of these over a decade ago, not long after Abernathy’s arrival. He didn’t think the two events were correlated, but he couldn’t be sure. Some might have said it was because they were uncomfortable with an off-worlder taking over their parish. But Abernathy knew the hearts of these people. What united them – faith – was greater than what divided them. Many of his parishioners had been relieved when he’d taken up the post. His appointment at the hand of the Sectorial Bishop had spared their village from being absorbed into one of the larger towns, like Penitence, with its seats of power far away, and all its courts and policymakers too preoccupied to pay any heed to the concerns of a far-flung backwater.

The forest grew thick as they trundled deeper into the valley. Light from the twin suns had difficulty penetrating the canopy. A hazy purple mist shrouded the path ahead, and Planter had to flick on the tractor’s lamps, even though it was past dawn. Travelling through the wyrmwood thickets always made Abernathy ill at ease. Up on the plains of the Escarpment, one could see the open sky, the brilliant stars – a few bright enough to shine even in daylight. The world’s stark beauty was on clear display. But in the dank glens, surrounded by a shifting labyrinth of crimson-foliaged trees, all the things that made it wonderful were choked out. Abernathy often had to remind himself that he owed his subsistence to the woods. The settlers relied upon them for survival, not only as a source of fuel and materials, but for holding together the very ground they stood upon.

Planter stopped the tractor as it pulled into an open clearing. Centered within the field was a cabin. The old barn and stables were nestled behind it. Abernathy spotted the worksite for the new barn right away – in one corner of the clearing were stacks of cut lumber, along with combustion-powered machinery and what appeared to be a system of pulleys and chains. A crowd was gathered near the site. Abernathy recognized a few faces as he stepped from the cart and approached. The doctor, Samuels, was here, as were several patriarchs and their sons. Impressive that so many had come out for the barn-raising of a recluse like Hiram Gellman. He appeared to be on better terms with the townsfolk than Abernathy had realized.

Samuels waved to him as he approached. “Reverend, you’ve finally made it,” the doctor said, shaking his hand vigorously. Abernathy nodded and forced a grin.

“I hear there’s been some trouble. Something about a cave beneath the barn?”

“I wish that was all of it. Believe you me, it’s a speleologist we need, not a holy man.”

“A what?”

“A cave-scientist. And a damn good psychologist. No offense to either of us, Reverend.”

“I’m inclined to agree with you, doctor. I’m not sure what good I can do here.”

“Nor I – speaking of myself, I mean. When Armin collected me this morning, I thought someone had fallen into the damn thing. I’d prepared myself for broken bones, head trauma, collapsed lungs.” Samuels swept a hand across the breadth of the crowd. “But look. Not a single injury among them. They’ve had the sense to stay a few meters from the hole, thank God for that. But what am I supposed to do with this? I can’t cure a fear of ghosts.”

“Ghosts?”

Planter edged closer to Abernathy’s side, keeping his eyes low.

“That’s what I was saying earlier, Reverend. About Gellman. He thinks he’s seen–”

The sound of shouting reached Abernathy’s ears. Hiram Gellman had emerged from the house, brandishing a rifle. His wife hung at the door, roaring at him to come back inside this instant, yet she seemed too afraid to leave the threshold and catch hold of him herself. A child was there, too, watching the crowd with owlish eyes. Her skin tone was dark, which sparked Abernathy’s memory.

It had been quite some time since he’d last seen the Gellman’s ‘miracle child’. She’d been only a babe when he’d attended her mother’s bedside to administer healing and absolution rites. Not long after, the Gellmans had retreated from public view. A decade past, or thereabouts, and yet still the girl was the source of much idle speculation among the townsfolk. The Gellmans claimed her to be their trueborn daughter, despite their pale complexions, while others espoused that she was a ward of theirs, a niece, or perhaps even a love child. Abernathy was inclined to believe the latter. The simplest explanations were most often correct.

“This is what I was saying,” Samuels said as Abernathy trod over to intercept the man, Planter dogging behind. “Exorcisms are a priest’s business, not a doctor’s.”

By the time Abernathy reached the edge of the throng, it was clear that Gellman meant to descend into the pit. Some of the men in the crowd were arguing with him and blocking his path. One even tried to wrestle the rifle from his hands before Gellman shoved him off, knocking him to the ground. Others closed in, their voices rising, eyes flashing. Abernathy pushed his way forward. Gellman shouted louder than any other, so it was easy to know in which direction to move.

“Let go of me! It’s bloody cursed, it is. A bloody cursed devil! I’ll not have demons and fiends staining my soil. What would you do if it was your land? Blast them back to hell, that’s what you’d do!”

“Hiram!” Abernathy shouted as he breached the center of the crowd. All eyes turned to him in expectation, but he froze – ahead of him was a gaping pit at least forty feet deep. Had he not already been on alert, he might have stumbled and fallen into its maw.

“Hiram,” he said again, less assuredly this time. “Put the gun down. There’s no need for that.”

The crowd quietened. Gellman narrowed his eyes, but he did as he was bid. There was a flurry of movement back at the house – Gellman’s wife had disappeared indoors. The girl was gone too, though he sensed her eyes were still peering down at him from somewhere within the house.

“Now,” Abernathy said, drawing the men’s focus. “Your friend Elijah woke me very early this morning, insisting that this cave business of yours could not wait. So here I am, gentlemen, at your disposal. If one of you could calmly – without being interrupted – inform me as to what exactly is going on, and how I can be of assistance, I would be most grateful.” Abernathy’s gaze fixed on an older man in the crowd, one he knew from community gatherings to be a wiser head. “Pruin, is it? Mr. Pruin. Perhaps you could speak.”

Gellman stepped forward and shouldered his rifle.

“This is my farm, I’ll speak.”

Abernathy gave a stiff nod. He motioned to the pit. “How did this happen?”

“Demons,” Gellman answered.

There was a rumble of displeasure in the crowd. The Reverend held up a hand for silence.

“Hiram,” Abernathy said, “what I see is a hole in the ground. An admittedly large hole, but just a hole. We see these kinds of things all the time. Was there not a new sinkhole reported at Cannemin’s Crossing just two weeks ago?” A few encouraging nods. “Indeed. There is nothing nefarious or unholy at work here. Only nature taking its course. We would do much better to discuss how we might fill it in, or–” he added quickly, realizing the absurdity of the idea given the pit’s size, “–choose a different location for your new barn.”

“You’d have me pretend like I don’t know what’s down there? Just go about my business, as if hell’s gate hadn’t opened beneath my feet? I have a child, Reverend. I have livestock. You think–”

“I’m sure that there’s nothing down there that we cannot rationally explain.” Abernathy stepped closer to the pit.

“Watch yourself, Reverend,” Planter said. “The ground’s still unstable.”

“Do any of you have a rope, or a ladder?” Abernathy addressed the crowd. “Have none of you gone down to see for yourselves?”

“We don’t need to go down to see it,” said Gellman. “It’s there, lying in the mud at the bottom. Waiting for someone to put it out of its infernal misery.”

Once again Gellman started for the edge of the pit. Several pairs of hands launched forward to catch him and pull him back into the crowd. There was a gunshot, followed by screams from the house. Abernathy’s head swiveled around – none seemed hurt. Gellman’s rifle was wrenched from his grip and tossed aside.

“The Reverend’s here now, man, will you be still? He’ll tell us what to do.”

Abernathy looked at the expectant faces before him. Among them was Planter, who had spoken last. His was a simple faith. At times Abernathy envied that about his congregants. Here, in their new Eden, they could live in innocence again. Abernathy – educated, ordained, called to this remote arm of the galaxy – had tasted the fruit of knowledge. He was painfully aware of the dilemmas that arose as one cultivated a deeper understanding of the world, the universe, and themselves. But that was his burden to bear, not these good people’s.

“In all likelihood,” Abernathy said, “what you saw at the bottom of this sinkhole is another body from the collapse at Ultima, washed downstream. It would be best if we investigate further. We could retrieve the remains, if possible.” A ripple of agreement ran through the crowd. “Good. I need four volunteers.”

Four came forward, Planter among them. One had previous experience delving into sinkholes, and the other three had been digging wells their entire lives. Equipment was brought out from the Gellmans’ storehouses, ropes were hooked up to a crane system originally purposed for lifting heavy timbers, and a simple platform was rigged to lower the party into the pit. Abernathy rolled up his sleeves and worked alongside the men. The task was complete in under an hour with so many hands.

When they were ready, the chosen four and Abernathy stood on the platform. A cheer went up as the gears turned and it descended. Abernathy looked across at the Gellman’s house and spotted the girl still at her perch, watching still. He thought he saw her smile. Surprised, he craned his neck to get a better view, but the mouth of the pit swallowed them. The light of the sky became a halo above their heads.

“Look at the walls,” one of the men said. “They’re smooth.”

The pit had none of the usual features of a sinkhole. Abernathy had never delved into one, but he’d been present for several retrieval missions such as this. The rock surrounding them almost seemed carved by hand, rather like a silo, instead of being rough-hewn and natural. He wondered if he should have waited for someone more qualified to arrive and investigate – perhaps Jepsen, the mortician, or Carowell, the stonemason. He’d made the decision to lead in haste; he didn’t want the crowd growing unruly once again, or Gellman spreading rumors and superstition. He had worked hard to rein in the more ardent members of his flock – to balance their passion with reason. Yet there were some, like Gellman, who were removed from his sphere of influence. It was best to resolve the matter before it grew out of proportion. A sinkhole and a corpse, that’s all it was – and all he wanted his congregants telling their families when they returned home.

The delvers were silent until the platform reached the bottom of the pit. As the gears creaked to a standstill, Abernathy held up his lantern – also borrowed from Gellman’s stock – and held it aloft. The pit had widened as they’d descended. A network of crevices and gaping chambers now appeared before them. The lantern pierced deep into the black, but not far enough to illuminate the entire cave.

Grotto was a better word, Abernathy thought. Murky pools coagulated at its base, and he could trace a current flowing from one end of the cave to the other. He was reminded rather unpleasantly of Jonah in the belly of the great fish. It must have looked much like this to the old prophet – the narrow throat opening into a dark and dismal abdominal tract; acid and water sloshing and churning together, dissolving the beast’s meals. Abernathy shuddered. God willing, the body would have been preserved beneath the mud. They still needed to identify the poor soul.

“There! I think I see something in the water!”

Abernathy swung his lantern in the direction Planter had indicated. The other men came alongside him, melding their light with his. The darkness retreated far enough to reveal a flat, rocky outcropping that rose from the largest pool. One of the delvers remarked it must have been the same thing Gellman had seen from above. Another tested the depth of the pool with his foot and reported that he could feel solid earth below. Abernathy warned him to use a tether. Everyone did so, attaching one end to the lift before wading into the water. The delver in front – a man named Rahm – sank up to his knees. After a few steps, the water was at his chest. Rahm remarked that it felt flat and smooth beneath his feet.

There was something atop the outcropping. It was lying flat across the surface, but the delvers had sunk too low to be able to make it out clearly. Rahm suggested they climb up to the ledge, then tie one of their ropes to the corpse and drag it out. Abernathy grimaced, but acquiesced. It would have been better for them to carry it out on a stretcher, or wrap it in a sheet, but they had no such equipment.

One by one, the delvers clambered up the outcropping’s face. The stone here was strangely smooth as well. Abernathy ran a hand along its surface as he climbed, feeling for grooves, but there were none.

Someone shrieked. There was a splash. Abernathy spun about and saw that Rahm had fallen into the water. He called out, scanning the waves of oily murk. A second later Rahm emerged, sputtered and coughing, but unharmed.

“What happened?” Abernathy shouted.

Rahm only jittered something incomprehensible. Abernathy glanced at Planter, who was a foot or two below him. The man’s eyes were wide with panic. Shivering, Abernathy pulled himself over the edge.

The figure atop the outcropping was blackened with age. Likely it had been submerged beneath the sludge before the cavern’s drainage, long enough to become petrified. Yet, the longer Abernathy stared, the less he was sure it was organic; it might also have been the lid of a sarcophagus, evoking the image of the one buried within.

Whichever was true, the creature was unlike anything Abernathy had seen – a twisted, desiccated husk, humanlike only the proportion of its head to its torso and the number of limbs. The arms and legs were both folded over each other, spindly as an insect’s, yet the palms were wide and fleshy. They covered what appeared to be a wide abrasion in the abdomen. Strange growths covered it from the neck downwards, and unnamable appendages stretched from the head – five in all, arranged like a horrid crown. Sockets where eyes might once have been set rounded the skull. The mouth was wrenched open in a bizarre grimace featuring two sets of teeth – one row embedded above the other.

Abernathy felt his knees buckle beneath him. He would have fallen had Planter not caught his arm. The large man stared down with an expression of sheer bafflement.

“Reverend?” he said. “What do you make of this?”

Abernathy collected himself enough to shake his head. He turned from the thing, rubbing his eyes. Its gruesome visage flickered in the veins of his retinas.

“Is it someone from Ultima?” Planter asked.

Abernathy opened his mouth, then shut it again.

“I think–” he stuttered, “it’s older than that.”

“How could that be?”

Abernathy had no answer.

“Look at this mark here,” said Rahm, pointing to the abrasion. “Like a birthing scar – a Caesarean. Is it a woman?”

“God forbid,” the last man muttered in the dark. “This demented creature? Can it even be human?”

“Gellman was right,” Rahm said.

“No,” Abernathy said, turning on them. “No, he was not.”

No one challenged him. Abernathy sucked in a breath, willing himself to be calm.

“What do we do?” Planter asked. “Should we go back?”

“No, we’re not going to do that either.”

The eyes of the delvers rested on him – confused, fearful, expectant. Abernathy remained silent until he felt able to offer a small smile.

“First, we are going to pray.”

The men were grateful for a reason to close their eyes. Abernathy led them in a subdued liturgy, and for a few moments they found peace in the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer and other sacred vows. When they opened their eyes again, Abernathy felt strengthened. He forced himself to see the corpse for what it was – a dead thing, mere dust and ash. The poor soul once dwelling within had departed long ago to cross the Great Partition and be with God.

“Now,” said Abernathy, fixing a smile to his face. “Let’s see if there is a way to remove this – this body. Can we lift it from the slab?”

“You want to pick it up, Reverend?” said Planter.

“With our bare hands?” Rahm added.

“Is there something I’m missing? Speak, one of you.”

Planter scratched at his ruddy cheeks. He avoided Abernathy’s eyes.

“Well, it’s just that, the old Reverend… You know, Reverend Hatchett?”

Abernathy nodded impatiently. A queer sense of dread churned in his stomach. He wanted to be done with this foul business sooner rather than later; with each passing moment that they remained in the cave, the warding effect of the prayer seemed to fade.

“Well, the Reverend Hatchett said – I mean, before he passed, he used to tell us about being made unclean.” Planter gestured toward the corpse. “For living flesh to touch dead flesh, without the proper sanctification.”

“Reverend Hatchett was a good man, who served God–” Abernathy said, choosing the next word with care, “–dutifully. But he could be somewhat rigid in his interpretations of the Scriptures. Especially the Old Law.”

“What do you mean, ‘rigid’?” Rahm said.

“He’d have objected to that lift we used to get down here, for one thing. This is a discussion for another time. Let’s focus on the task at hand: the mortician’s office at Penitence will need to examine the remains up close to identify the deceased. We need to get it out of this hole for that to happen.”

“With respect, Reverend,” Rahm said, stepping forward, “there are women and children up there. They don’t need to see this.”

“Then what’s your suggestion? Penitence must investigate, one way or another. You’d rather we leave it down here?”

“If it’s been here that long, a few more days shouldn’t make a difference.”

“And what about Gellman? This is his land. Would he agree to keep it here, beneath his home?”

Rahm set his jaw. “No. But it doesn’t change what I said.”

“I understand you wish to spare your families an unpleasant sight, but there’s nothing to fear.” Abernathy forced himself to turn and point down at the corpse, suppressing a twinge of revulsion. “Better they see this and know it to be one of their countrymen, strange as it may be.”

“More than strange. It hardly appears human anymore. How could such a thing happen?”

“This is still a foreign world to us. Who knows what might happen to a body left in the waters for so long?”

Rahm glanced at the corpse, grim-faced and dubious.

“You think bacterium could do this to a man? Some kind of…mutation?”

“We shouldn’t assume it’s human. Maybe it’s an extinct animal,” suggested the last man. The rest were quick to nod. It was the most palatable idea any of them had come up with.

“I’m not a planetologist, biologist, or any other kind of person who could speculate on the matter. Nor are any of you,” Abernathy said. “What I know is that we can’t allow rumors of demons and ghosts to travel back to town. Superstition spreading throughout the community would do more damage than this ever could.”

“What about a coffin, Reverend?” Planter said. “We could return to the surface, fashion one from the lumber stock for the barn. It wouldn’t take long. Then we can lay the body inside and carry it up to the surface without anyone seeing.”

“Good idea, Elijah. Do we all agree?”

There were no objections. They were eager to leave the charnel scene behind them. The men returned to the lift, rattled the chains to signal those topside to pull them back up, then stood and watched as the bottom of the pit sank from view.

All breathed a collective sigh of relief once sunlight touched their faces again. The elder of the two suns, Geisel, had risen over the valley now; it poured its light onto them, burning away the moldering gloom of the caverns below. Planter bowed his head in private prayer beside Abernathy. Rahm, standing across from him, gave a somber nod. Abernathy returned the gesture. He even tried to smile, but one wouldn’t come to him. That strange dread had resurfaced, and though he tried to push it from his mind, it wormed in deeper, nesting in the darkest recesses of his consciousness.

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