2193 - The Khryseos

GRAYSON STOOD OVER THE LIDLESS BOX, staring into the darkness gathered unnaturally in one corner. Image after grotesque image paraded through his memory, corpse after desiccated corpse left in the wake of its hungry existence. Seeing the thing made his gut wrench and his pulse quicken, but it was so much worse to look into the box and find it missing.

Shade put his paws up onto the rim of the box and peeked inside, his tail twitching in anticipation.  When he saw the shadow, his ears flattened back against his skull and he let out a low, almost inaudible growl.

"Yeah, it’s still there buddy," said Grayson as he scooped up the cat and turned away from the terrible reminder that they carried death with them wherever they went. Shade nuzzled his forehead against Grayson’s scruffy chin, as if he were eager to forget about the creature. But Grayson had no such luxury, haunted by guilt and worry as he helplessly waited for its next victim to meet an untimely end.  At first he hadn’t connected the cattle deaths on his ranch to the box.  He’d kept it in the barn for the first few months since Cara wouldn’t allow it in the house.  For some reason, she couldn’t stand being near it.  Said it gave her "the willies". Even though she was raised Catholic in the states, before leaving the old world Cara’s childhood had been filled with her grandmother’s fairy stories.  She was always superstitious, claiming there was an evil magic at work in the box.  After three centuries of studying the creature, Grayson still didn’t have a better word for it.    

He’d thrown every bit of science humanity had to offer at the problem and had very little to show for it. Using shell corporations to maintain anonymity, Grayson had funded research in quantum physics, metallurgy, microbiology, genetics, and a host of other fields in an attempt to understand the nature of the creature.  His own personal research in cryptozoology, legends, and ancient cultures had convinced him many of the vampire myths scattered throughout history were linked to encounters with the life-draining being.

Grayson reached down to give Shade a scratch right between the ears, thinking about the first time he made the connection.  In the late 1990’s, several ranch animals had been found dead in Puerto Rico, the bodies mysteriously shriveled to skin and bones overnight. The outbreak of these "chupacabra" attacks across Central America matched the creature’s habit, and the timing overlapped precisely with his research trips to the Aricebo observatory and several ancient Mayan sites on the mainland. Ironically, the same internet that facilitated the wildfire spread of these stories also enabled him to begin researching similar cases throughout history. He pieced together the earliest stories of lilitu in Mesopotamia, izcacus in western Asia, and finally later versions of the shtriga in Albania and strzyga in central Romania dating from the early nineteenth century. More recent legends in that part of the world seemed to all be a re-mix of the original myths, so Grayson figured shortly before his encounter the creature must have made its way to North America. 

Or was brought there, to be more accurate. Someone had left its nesting box in the cave, after all. There were a few American folk tales that might have been inspired by the thing, but nothing he considered definitive.  Whoever brought it over must have stayed on the move—it was naive to think the shtriga could exist anywhere without leaving its mark on local history.  His own experience had proven that.

After Cara’s murder, he had little else to live for other than trying to understand what had brought about the events.  There had been no sign of a break-in, nothing stolen from the house.  When he found her, she looked so peaceful he thought she had simply laid down under the big pine tree out back for an afternoon nap.  But when he saw the two-inch blade wound between her ribs he realized she’d never wake.  At the time he was filled with too much panic and despair to think, but he later concluded the work had been done by someone experienced in bringing a quick and quiet death. With no other information to go on, however, the assassin’s motives escaped him. Everything about his life had been ordinary.  Well, except for the creature that woke to feed on his herd a couple of times a year.  

Without a single lead on Cara’s death, he decided to unearth the box and try to learn where it came from.  So he returned to the ranch and retrieved it, the thing that had so altered his life.  He’d had more than a few drinks through the years pretending he’d never found it, but there was no closure in wishing the past away so instead he focused on understanding.  Tesla’s experiment had given him hope—false hope, it seemed. But it set him on a path, gave him something to work for. Even decades later, the results had been impossible to duplicate. His last idea, the only hope he still held onto, was to fabricate a new lid from the same metal-stone alloy.  Through extensive study, he had determined the chemical composition—primarily iridium and traces of other metals rarely found on earth, with a moderate amount of carbon and silicon. Unfortunately, none of the research he funded discovered a suitable process for manufacturing an alloy with the same properties as the box.

Ultimately, Grayson realized he would need to find a natural source for the material.  Given its combination of rare elements, in concentrations not found on Earth, he realized the original material for the box must have come from a meteorite that impacted long ago. So, in the 1960’s he started making financial investments in the fledgling space industry, slowly building the technology and business case for harvesting natural resources directly from the main asteroid belt.  It was another hundred years before space mining was mature enough to continue his search, but the industry soon took on a life of its own. Driven by the need for a quick return on shareholder capital, his personal wild goose chase didn’t pay the bills. Besides, it had been difficult to explain why he needed a sample with such a specific composition.

Another hundred years of technology development and compound interest on his investments, and he was finally able to go personally.  He could take his own ship, the Khryseos, without all the corporate oversight.  Unfortunately, the market was now so tightly controlled by SIMCo, he couldn’t hire one of their crews without the bureaucrats back on Earth finding out. And he definitely wanted to keep a low profile from SIMCo. He’d been forced to find an "independent contractor" as they liked to be called.  Black market sounded illegal, he guessed, even though there wasn’t really a law-enforcement body in deep space.  Security was provided by those in power, which in this case meant SIMCo or the Mayor and his goons.  Unfortunately for those who lived and worked this far from the sun, security was paid for with freedom. Hundreds of years later, humans had only found more advanced ways to take advantage of each other. 

As much as Grayson hated the way SIMCo treated its workforce, he had decided not to get involved.  A handful of board members, the Partners, called the shots at SIMCo now.  So, he did his best to stay out of their way by keeping a low profile and running the search on his own.  A search that had brought him here, to LS2, where he hoped to hire a small crew that would operate off the books.  He already had a lead on a pilot who was willing, but just needed some time to prep his crew for the risk involved.  Apparently, undercutting SIMCo was a great way to get your flight status permanently revoked, leaving the crew in debt for their training expenses.

Grayson instructed the ship’s AI to request a personnel transport, then finished packing everything he’d need for his stay on LS2.  "We need to get back to the station," he said, turning to Shade, who was perched on top of Grayson’s clothing in one of the open crates. "Do you have all your gear?"

He responded with "brrrreow?" and a flick of the tail, then commenced one of his tedious grooming sessions. He obviously had everything he needed.