A Short SF Vignette
Black Moon Widows
(The Kerberos Narrative) 2048 A.D.
Kerberos, orbits 60,000-km
planet Pluto; Pluto which has five moons, and in comparison in distance, Earth
being 93-million miles from the sun, Pluto, is 4-billion miles from Earth. But
Kerberos is where our story leads us. It
is the most obscure of the five moons I do believe, all being nearby the Kuiper
Belt. Kerberos’ largest lobe is but 8-km across and its smaller lobe being only
5-km across.
Because of its isolation from the other moons, and its small size,
asteroids being larger, this dwarf moon has a weird inhabitants—and perhaps for
good reason was selected over the other four moons, and not by accident. They
harbor the Black Moon Widows (spiders as large and some larger than those old iron frying pans my
mother used to use when I was just a lad of ten; you could cook a whole chick
in that frying pan, it weighed six-pounds, no kidding).
The
moon is so infested with them, they constantly are bumping heads, so the last
report read coming from the spacecraft, Enceladus, named after Saturn’s moon
for whatever reasons. So comes the information, via, to me from the Space
Center in Louisiana.
The Narrative
The moon’s light indicated to those of the spacecraft
Enceladus I (Earth Time, 10,000 B.C.), that it was to a certain degree a living
moon, and thus, provided an atmosphere, thin as it was, there was one. Although
the moon has darkened over time, a result of chemical changes triggered by
sunlight, cosmic rays, and the mass of Black Moon Widows, or spiders, those
that have survived the invasion to multiply in the ten-thousand years since
Enceladus I, dropped those creatures off, to its astronomical figure of one
billion now, and now being the year 2048.
Let me say, and in saying, get ahead of
myself, which will do this account no harm, that the Widows, they kill their
male mates, for a song and a dance, and when hungry, are a strain that
contaminates wherever they are, whatever they touch, and like a hard-shelled
cockroach, hard to kill, and therefore could not be allowed to remain on the
far-off planet beyond Earth’s solar system by the crew members of the
spacecraft Enceladus I.
It
might be of interest to the reader, this spacecraft that was being monitored by
the Louisiana Space Center Enceladus II, now in the year 2048 A.D., came from
what is referred to as the Dark or Black Galaxy; via, a wormhole. The planet is
referred to by its acronym, SSARG, which has two moons.
That
said, it was horribly ominous for the Captain of the Enceladus II, and the
spacecraft’s crew, after 10,000-years down the road to go back to that moon,
like opening up a can of worms, or like opening and closing of a funeral, long
forgotten, —what did they expect to find? Other than, spider corpses. I mean,
we have a 10,000-year separation a huge gap in time, one thousand spiders (dropped into what
they thought was an endless well, with explosives caving the walls in on the
Widows) had turned into one billion in that gap of time. Interplanetary
breeding, that was not the plan, but for the spiders to die, and they didn’t,
perhaps one hundred escaped, and colonized the moon, by cannibalization perhaps.
Had
you asked the Captain of the spacecraft, Enceladus I, 8000 B.C., that this tiny moon would contain a billion
spiders of this size, he’d had said,
“It’s not believable” but we must now stick with Enceladus II, and the year
2048.
The
Enceladus II, had returned as what might be called a routine trip, to investigate
this tiny moon, for future possibilities. At this juncture, the spacecraft’s
captain knew nothing of its inhabitants, blotted out by all nearly all light
now, and only shadows reflecting of the moons higher or more pronounced
geological structures, such as craters and mountains, and valleys. Hence, the
dark Widows covered per near every inch of the moon, making it even darker, as
if the terrain was of some dark soil, or rocky material. With the knowledge of
the previous voyage, and the rock hard surface that it was, they landed.
Instantly there came a clambering, on the ship outer surface, a horrible
droning and hammering, it brought a chill to the crew of astronauts, deadliness
overwhelmed them.
Henceforward, the Captain seeing only the dark mass as gravel outside
his porthole, weapon in hand, life
support suite on, threw open the door—and the Widows had a feast, and the
spacecraft, still remains in Limbo.
#4926/11-22-2015 (Reedited and revised
slightly, 12-27-2015)
