A shocking pure fractal made in Apophysis 2.09 ...
Capt. Benjamin Banneker in his retirement loved planning B-movie weekends paired with documentaries to show the hilarious foolishness of science-fiction blockbusters, but Uncle Ben had two bionic legs to show for his real adventures before I was even born, and had to have two replacements before his niece my wife was born.
“Oh, I never watched science fiction movies or read books while I was out there in my career,” he said. “I did have a soft spot in my heart for that 21st-century reality show Survivor, though, because it really was more like that.”
Uncle Ben was never on the command exploration track in the professional consortium military fleet; he was on the science track that did the work that allowed for settling the planets that more famous captains discovered. The problem was, there were not enough men on the command track who went to the science side, so in practice, all captains and commodores often ended up doing the science after something in a new settlement went wrong.
Occasionally, Uncle Ben had messed up someone's plans and money by doing the science, and people have a long memory for that – so much so that I noticed the old captain and his friends always kept a certain vigilance that I emulated while assisting him through his recovery from a near-heart attack.
One late night, Khadijah and I were still up on an overnight visit to Uncle Ben, and I heard a soft tap on the door. Had it been the 21st century, one would have though a newspaper had hit the door; as it was, it was quite windy, and a small twig would have accounted for the sound. But everything in me was shouting, “NO. Check this out.”
I found the above item attached to the door, with a note attached: “Precious Memories from Giutuat 5.”
Khadijah, who had put in 17 years in the fleet, frowned as she read the note.
“Uncle Ben served on a mission there some years before I was born,” she said. “Half a settlement had literally collapsed and died on what seemed to be a near-paradise of temperate forest. Uncle Ben worked it all out and the settlement was abandoned.”
“Okay, so if this is a love gift, why 2:00am?” I said.
“I hate to wake Uncle Ben, but –.”
Then we heard a soft tone sounding – a not-too-alarming alarm, coming from inside Uncle Ben's room. He emerged in his robe about ten seconds later, in command mode.
“Back away from the door,” he ordered, “and then call 9-11. Tell them there has been a murder attempt at this house, and that they should send forensics, immediately, with poison control.”
We obeyed him, and he went to his closet and took out gas masks for all three of us before showing me something I didn't know about his thermostat.
“It's not a regular HVAC system; it has air filtration as well with alarms, because I knew this day would come.”
The beautiful plant on the captain's door grows as a harmless epiphyte on Giutuat 5 … it is an orchid of a world in which wood and stone are not much separated. The trees take up a profound amount of minerals, and the plant feeds on dead leaves and bark – but to these plants, Earth-wood, even that used for housing, is at about the same consistency as dead wood and bark of their world.
When the new settlers came, they brought Earth-wood to blend their new resort in with the surrounding landscape, and some brought that lovely plant as a wreath to their doors in single form while still small. What they did not know was that over time, that plant would consume the door and the front of a wooden home to a large degree, and eventually pump out enough hydrogen cyanide to kill anything in the enclosed space behind the door. The neighbors without such wreaths would wake up to see a double-wreath on one morning – much as above – and then in a week see the house collapse and find the dead inside.
One month after the settlement of Giutuat 5 was complete, the collapsing of homes began, and the mystery began because the bodies inside of the homes were much more decomposed than they should have been for the collapse of the homes to have been the cause of death.
Enter Capt. Benjamin Banneker, on his second mission in command of the Argent, who worked out that the native epiphyte was the cause of both the homes collapsing and the death of the settlers. His discovery spurred the Earth-led consortium to remove human and humanoid settlers from the planet. They were glad enough to go, their paradise having turned into an unspeakable horror.
Who were infuriated was the planet's developers, who had wanted a chance to see if they could find a work-around – but the consortium correctly denied their request, pointing out that if the developers had thought the fleet was moving too slow on clearing the full ecological report, they could have hired their own scientists and had the fleet just check their work.
So, since the developers couldn't get their way, they blamed Capt. Banneker, who when confronted by the news media said, “There are 145,678 living bodies because my crew and I did our work, and 135,876 dead bodies because the developers didn't. I think the public can judge who is at fault here.”
Capt. Banneker received one of his many commendations for his work on Giutuat 5, but one developer in particular became obsessed with revenge, and remained obsessed for forty years.
“I knew that he would hear that I had been sick, and try to finish me off,” Capt. Banneker said to Khadijah and me, “and since he is at least 5-10 years older than me, I know he feels desperate because he is running out of time. We may see something yet.”
Sure enough: when the authorities arrived and got things in hand, Capt. Banneker made a point of turning on one of his porch lights, filling a wine glass with grape juice, and going out under that light with his velvet robe that matched that juice, making the picture of aged African American male elegance with nothing in the world to worry about.
All at once there came a scream of rage such as I have never heard before and hope never to hear again as a pallid, frail old man forced his way through the back hedges and came stumble-rushing toward Uncle Ben – and got dropped by the police officer in the yard who was there for just such an incident.
“I belonged to the finest fleet in the galaxy as a starship captain, Mr. Thatcher,” the old captain purred as he sipped his juice. “I told you forty years ago that there is a galaxy of people who do such things as keeping people like you from hurting people like me.”
Mr. Thatcher, in his rage, confessed it all, and was taken away with his double wreath and the front door it was already eating into. Meanwhile, the fleet sent security officers on the honor guard out to put up a new front door and guard the captain's house until the trial of Mr. Thatcher was completed and he was put on house arrest on Mars for the rest of his life.
Uncle Ben finished his juice, brushed his teeth, reset his alarms, and went right back to bed, leaving Khadijah and I marveling at the steely nerves of the old veteran.
“Well,” I said, “we weren't asleep before and I know it's not going to happen now. Another round of dominoes?”
“Why not?” Khadijah said. “We needed to get to best two rounds of three anyway before that sad excuse for a murderer rudely interrupted.”