Chapter Text
Back when the Sahara was green...
A man walked through the tall grass near the banks of a lake, the blades pricking at his skin. Mud seeped between his toes, each foot pressing his human seal into a novel that will one day tell this quiet, simple story of his long trek home. Gnats buzzed in his ears. Grasshoppers sprang like darts through the air, their bodies clicking in frantic chorus. The wind carried the scent of the lake – thick with algae, warm and sweet-rotting – and the sound of the giant warthogs, bellowing as they wallowed in the mud by the bank. The man’s body glistened with sweat as he picked at the lice crawling between the black strands that covered his chin. He spoke in a string of complicated clicks, harsh consonants, and few vowels; but now he was silent, his eyes watchful as he surveyed the land around him, fully aware of the dangerous beasts that hunted in the dark.
He glanced up at the sky, searching for the star that never moved, the star that would guide him home.
Above him the pricks of light glittered like diamonds; some glowing white, others red– fat-bellied giants that would one day be named Betelgeuse, Arcturus, and Antares. They hung suspended in silence above his world, beyond reach, beyond reason.
But tonight... something new. A color that did not belong.
Green.
It pulsed in the heavens– a heartbeat in the sky, strange and trembling. As he watched, it swelled. The sickly green light brightened until it rivaled the sun at its fiercest, revealing everything in its path: she-lions crouching in the grass, birds shrieking from the tree tops, the giant warthogs standing stiff-legged and snorting in the reeds, confused and afraid. The man stared in wonder. His jaw hung slack. The light caught in his corneas, burning a memory he would never understand, but would carry for the rest of his days in dreams and terror.
And then... it was gone. As quickly as it had come.
He waited. A minute. An hour. A lifetime. But the green star did not return. The night resumed its endless hush.
Time passed. The Sahara grew dry and dusty. Tribes rose and fell. Languages were born. Religions dreamed stars into gods. Aphrodite, Inanna, Lucifer– those gods of the Morning Star. But no one knew that, centuries later, long after man made cities and steel, the green would return– not as light, but as stone.
It would fall from the sky in a rain of glass-sharp shards in the year 1250, bringing with it a long, cold winter that lasted for years. Crops failed, famine struck, a green dust lingered in the atmosphere, and not a single soul would guess that it all began in the days when prehistoric beasts still prowled the green Sahara, and one man, nameless and barefoot, stood in the grass to watch a planet die...
6,500 lightyears away there once was a planet called Krypton. Krypton was tidally-locked, bound forever in slow rotation around its red dwarf star. Along the planet’s prime meridian – where it was neither day nor night, but a perpetual crimson twilight – lay Kandor, a city of stone spires and mirrored glass, curled beneath an ever-boiling sky.
In one of its quietest quarters, nestled beneath black-leafed foliage and pale, white flowers, a man sat in a garden. The leaves brushed against his skin as he tilted his face to soak in the cool infrared light filtering through the violent storm clouds. Jor-El, a scientist, had once crossed the sunward wastes and had seen with his own eyes what their god-star Rao had done. Their planet’s crust was beginning to split, volcanic plumes erupted from fissures, and above his head lightning cracked. Krypto, the little zorhund Jor-El had given his wife as a present several years ago, trembled beneath the garden bench with every sky-rending boom of thunder.
Jor-El coughed as the stench of sulfur invaded his nostrils. Somewhere, just beyond the garden wall, he could hear a news-holo playing. “–Krypton has experienced periods of extreme volcanic activity in its past,” one woman was saying. “This is completely natural. If you look at the chart here we can see that–”
The sound cut off abruptly. Then came the softer patter of feet against tile and a pale hand brushing against his face. “I’m tired of waiting,” a voice said. “How much longer?”
Jor-El reached up and slipped his hand into his wife’s. He rubbed his thumb against Lara's knuckles. “Maybe a week,” he answered, and turned his head just enough to press his lips against her pinkie. “This has been going on for a long, long time now. A million years. Now that it’s reached the point of no return... it won’t be long.”
“They said on the news there’s something in orbit... an alien ship. It’s not... they haven’t realized what we’ve done, have they?”
“No, no, Kal-El's ship is beyond orbit now.”
“What do you think it is then? Have the Guardians changed their minds? Maybe they’ve come to help us.”
“The Guardians turned their backs on us long ago,” Jor-El answered. And then, a little under his breath, said, “With good reason.”
Lara was silent for a moment, and then she asked– “Where is he? Can I still see him?”
“He’s somewhere... there! Can you see it between the clouds? That large star?” Jor-El pointed up at the sky. “That’s him.”
“He’s so close... The debris won’t damage his ship, will it?”
“I don’t expect it to. He’ll be long gone by the time it happens. His ship is programmed to find the nearest exoplanet. Hopefully, it will be a habitable one.”
“And if it isn’t?”
“Then he’ll continue to sleep, and his ship will move on.”
“I wouldn’t mind sleeping.”
“If you’re tired, I made you something. I left it on the table beside the bed. You don’t have to take it if you don’t want to, but... it’ll be easier. Quicker.”
“I am tired,” Lara said again with a note of finality, her tone almost defiant in its insistence. She shook her long, black hair. “I’m going to bed. Are you coming?”
“Soon.”
Her hand slipped from between his fingers, but for several long minutes he could still feel her phantom touch. How acute the senses become when one knows the end is near! He could see every black blade of grass, smell the lingering traces of his wife’s perfume, hear the whispering prayers of a billion people as they prayed for deliverance. They still prayed to Rao, even now. As if the star could hear. As if it cared. As if it weren’t the very thing killing them, ripping them apart at the seams with the force of its gravitational pull.
Jor-El stood up and went inside. He hummed a little as he grabbed a piece of meat and stuffed a handful of pills inside of it. It was a mindless tune, high-pitched with anxiety, and he didn’t even realize he was making the sound as he wandered back out to the garden. “Here, boy, look what I have for you,” Jor-El coaxed as he bent down to where Krypto was hiding. The zorhund didn’t take the offered treat with his usual zeal; he continued to lay in a tight ball, his white hair standing on end, every muscle trembling with violence as he stared up at Jor-El with large, terrified eyes. “It’ll be alright, boy,” Jor-El whispered as he placed the drug-laced meat next to Krypto and gave him one last pat.
Jor-El left the garden and went upstairs to the bedroom. He found his wife lying draped across the bed, still and unmoving. Two of the pills he had made for her were missing. Jor-El took a couple for himself, swallowed them dry, and settled in beside her, still wearing his shoes. He thought for a moment if he shouldn’t get up and unlace them, but he was already feeling dizzy and it didn’t matter anyway. He drew the blanket up around his shoulders and wrapped an arm around Lara’s waist, pulling her body close as his eyes drifted shut.
The red eye of Rao hung above them in the crimson sky, staring down in displeasure at His creation.
SHIP LOG: PLANET HABITABILITY RECORDS
PRIMARY DIRECTIVE: Locate stable, carbon-based, oxygen-rich biosphere within the habitable zone of a red dwarf or yellow dwarf star.
[ENTRY 001: ORBIS-99c]
Class: Super-Planet
Status: UNSUITABLE
Reason: Planetary gravity 3.2x standard Kryptonian threshold. Organic life present but compressed to subcrustal layers. Surface pressure lethal.
From the Commentarii Celestium Signorum, c. 1252, attributed to Thomas Aquinas:
In the year of our Lord MCCL, during the season of sowing, there appeared in the heavens a prodigious light of verdant hue, as though the firmament itself had been opened and the fire of paradise revealed. This light endured for the space of a day and night entire, waxing neither warmer nor colder, but casting an unnatural radiance upon the land. And on the third day, there fell from the sky many stones of glass-like aspect, green as the sea in storm, and sharp as the blade of a Saracen scimitar. The fields where they fell grew barren, and even the beasts refused to feed thereon. Some brothers of the order who touched the stones became afflicted with a pallor and trembling in the limbs, as if fevered by a spirit.
I have inquired whether these stones be signs from Heaven or deceptions of the Adversary. It is written in the Book of Job: “He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.” Thus it is not contrary to reason that the Lord may permit such marvels to awaken the hearts of men. Yet neither must one rashly conclude these gemstones be gifts from the Lord on High, as some peasants say, nor the wrath of God made manifest. For if their light brings sickness and confusion, then they may be the fruit not of Heaven, but of that which falls far below it.
Translated from the original Latin.
[ENTRY 037: THAUMIEL-7a]
Class: Ice Giant Satellite
Status: UNSUITABLE
Reason: Oxygen atmosphere present, but trace ammonia levels exceed tolerance. Ambient temperature remains below -140°C. Indigenous microbial life exhibits acidophilic respiration. No native magnetic field — high exposure to stellar radiation.
“The Plowman’s Tale” from The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, c. 1390
Whan grete shoures felle out of hevene’s hoord, And fyr and stoon rained doun with thonder’s roord, I was a-ploughyng nygh the wode of Wyght, Under a skye al grene with ghastly light.
The foulest mirk ther shoon with ferlye gleem; The shep herd’s dogge did whynne and flie the streem. The oxen lowed, the cock his crowing lost, The air was thick with smaragdine-coloured frost.
At evensong, whan mists the medew bounde, Cam two small chyldren creeping o’er the grounde. They hadde no tongue that any wight coude ken, And skyn of greene, nat lyk to mortal men.
Their eyen bryghte as starres that newly falle, Their haire as flame, y-gold and yet withalle, They looked al shiv’ring, hungréd, sore adrad, And clad in cloth ne mortalle hand hadde had.
The folk dide crye, "Beholde the angels lorn! The fendes y-fled from Hevene ere the morne!" The parson spak of signes and of sinne, And seyd these sprites wer of the devil’s kin.
The children fled ful swift unto the wode, And some men swore, for right of holy blood, To purge the land of witches fallen lowe, And after them with hound and horn did go.
But whan they cam to Wulpit in the weald, The town was brent, the croppes y-lyen in feeld. The houses stode, but emptye was the strete, And greene dust laye like moss at every fete.
No wight livéd, nor founde they chyldren twoe, But echo in the air and ravens' rowe. And summe men swore they sawe a shadowe’s trace, Of two small ghostes, that fledde with elvish face.
Now, lordes, taketh hede, and do no shame: For mercy lacketh not in Cristes name. Though straunge they semed, these chyldren hadde a soule, And cursed be he that sholde thus condoule.
The grene light felle, but greter fel was pride, And from swich synne, God shilde us ever bide.
[ENTRY 102: IONE-4]
Class: Desert planet
Status: UNSUITABLE
Reason: Atmosphere composed primarily of xenon and silicon vapor. Temperatures exceed structural tolerances for infant vessel. No hydrosphere detected. Solar intensity lethal at surface level. Geological scans reveal signs of recent mass extinction.
Report of Don Francisco de Orellana to His Most Catholic Majesty, Charles, Emperor of the Romans and King of Spain, on the Province of the Emerald People
Year of Our Lord 1541, in the third month of our expedition beyond the River of the Amazon
To His Majesty, our most exalted and sacred sovereign, Defender of the Holy Faith, Servant of Christ and Scourge of the Heathen:
I, Don Francisco de Orellana, loyal subject of Your Majesty and captain of fifty souls under the flag of Castile, humbly set forth this account of a most curious people and their accursed city of stone, which we discovered beyond the thickest jungles of the southernmost territories.
We came upon this place after much suffering—half our number dead of fever and jaguar, and the rest pierced with darts or afflicted by spirits unknown to Christian men. The natives we captured called the city Yanaquiro , meaning in their tongue “place of green fire.” It lies beneath a mountain carved with faces of their demon gods, where temples rise from the rock like the bones of giants. Upon entering, we beheld an unnatural light issuing not from sun or fire but from the very walls themselves—stones green as new spring wheat, yet glassy and sharp as a blade. These they have set into statues of men with elongated skulls and great staring eyes, their faces fixed in torment or supplication. One idol bore a crown of this emerald flame and was called “Yura-Muru,” which we were told had descended from the stars in an age before their sun knew fire.
The stone is unlike any jewel we have seen, being foul to the touch and strangely warm, and in one case caused trembling in the limbs and sickness of the heart to a man who bore a shard from its setting. The natives worship this stone as sacred, believing it to house the spirits of gods who fell from the heavens. They offered blood before it nightly. I ordered the greatest of the idols toppled and cast down, for it seemed to possess a devil’s glamour, and the men were afraid to sleep.
I have taken with me several pieces of this strange green glass for Your Majesty’s study, though I advise the utmost caution, for I know not if its poison lies in matter or spirit.
May God, who rules over all Creation, grant Your Majesty wisdom in this and all things.
Your faithful servant,
Don Francisco de Orellana
Captain of the Expedition to the Eastern Provinces of Peru
Translated from the original Spanish.
[ENTRY 200: GLIESE-581e]
Class: Ocean world
Status: UNSUITABLE
Planet covered 98.7% in saline solution. No landmasses. Oxygen present, but atmospheric density insufficient for respiratory assimilation. Subsurface leviathan biosignatures detected. No viable ecosystem for humanoid adaptation.
From La Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Salon de 1752 — April Edition
“On the Distasteful Excesses of L’Enlèvement de Proserpine by M. Chevalier du Pin”
It is with no small measure of consternation that we are compelled to remark upon the recent exhibition of L’Enlèvement de Proserpine, a work whose merits — if one may call them that — lie not in composition, nor draughtsmanship, but in the unholy novelty of its materials. The painter, a certain Chevalier du Pin (a name not heretofore uttered in serious company), has elected to render his mythological scene in a hue so garishly unnatural that one is tempted to believe he has eschewed paint entirely in favor of alchemical mischief.
We speak, of course, of the pigment he calls vert de météore — “meteor green” — which he claims to have obtained from a “heavenly stone” shattered in the fields near Limoges. A more vulgar shade has never affronted the noble walls of the Académie. It glows with an eerie, phosphorescent quality even in darkness, giving the impression that the canvas is alive — or rather, that it is ailing. The drapery of Proserpine appears less like cloth and more like the scales of a lizard caught in an apothecary’s fire. Her flesh, tinted faintly by the reflected green, calls to mind that of a cadaver in a charnel-house. One half expects her to twitch.
The effect is neither sublime nor grotesque — merely ghastly. The painter’s intent, presumably, was to dazzle with the exotic. Instead, he has cast his lot with the theatrical charlatans of the fairs, whose colored lanterns and false ghosts amuse the rabble but serve no place in the temple of Apollo. That the committee permitted such an aberration to hang alongside the tranquil studies of Greuze and the noble designs of Vien is a scandal we trust shall not be repeated.
Art is an imitation of Nature, not a provocation against her. If the Chevalier du Pin wishes to traffic in colors not found upon Earth, he might do better to join the players of the Opéra-Comique, who, at the very least, know they are jesters.
Translated from the original French.
[ENTRY 202: ATRAMENT-2]
Class: Toxic mesoplanet
Status: UNSUITABLE
Planet encased in sulfurous smog. Ambient electromagnetic activity interferes with navigational integrity. Cultural artifacts detected: derelict satellites and charred cities. Civilization lost. Radiation exceeds maximum tolerance. Possible nuclear self-extinction.
The Daily Star
Wednesday, October 31st, 1883
Fashion, Fortune, and Fatality: Miss Langford’s Green Masque Ends in Tragedy
By Edith Trammel, Society Correspondent
Metropolis has seen many a spectacle, but none quite so resplendent — or so tragic — as the masquerade ball held Saturday last at the Langford estate on Fifth and Elmridge. The event, hosted by Miss Clarabelle Langford, sole heiress to the Langford shipping fortune, was the social apex of the season, drawing guests from as far afield as Boston and Charleston, with every milliner, couturier, and florist in Metropolis conscripted into service for what was intended to be a Bacchanal of Beauty.
The grand ballroom was strung with gaslight and garland, the ceilings draped in gauze of Venetian gold, and a twelve-piece orchestra (imported, we are told, from Vienna) filled the air with lilting waltzes and mazurkas until well after midnight. But it was the hostess herself who outshone them all — and perhaps, if one is permitted to say so, burned rather too brightly.
Miss Langford arrived fashionably late to her own fête, descending the grand stair in a gown unlike any seen before. Styled after the Roman goddess Aurora, the dress was a marvel of modern invention: pale ivory silk beneath an overlay of netting stitched with gold thread, and all of it dyed in an impossible hue of green — a luminous, spectral shade that seemed to shimmer of its own accord. Whispers rippled through the ballroom that the dye was not from any known aniline process, but rather a new mineral discovered in the Rockies, said to glow faintly even in darkness. Indeed, guests reported that when the gaslights were dimmed for a set of waltzes, the hostess still glowed.
Her tiara, matching the gown, bore a cluster of uncut green stones — “more radiant than any emerald,” gushed one guest — said to have been purchased through a mysterious European dealer of exotic gems.
Alas, what began in marvel ended in mourning. Near the stroke of one, as Miss Langford was dancing the final reel of the night with Lord Cranleigh (yes, the very same!), she faltered, clutched her side, and collapsed. At first it was thought she had swooned — the corset was formidable, and the room notoriously hot — but within moments, it became clear something more serious was amiss. A physician in attendance declared her dead not fifteen minutes later.
Speculation, of course, abounds. Some whisper of a weak heart; others of poison. But the more superstitious have pointed to the dress itself — that strange green fire, so unnatural, so alluring. “She looked as though she had stepped out of a ghost story,” said one guest, “and then dropped back into one.”
The Langford estate has refused comment, and the gown — we are told — has since been removed and placed in storage under lock and key. It may yet be examined by scholars or scientists in future. But for now, society mourns a radiant young woman extinguished too soon — the belle of Metropolis, who danced herself into legend.
[ENTRY 530: HELIA-RA]
Class: Tidally-locked habitable candidate
Status: UNSUITABLE
One hemisphere incinerated. Other hemisphere encased in glacial darkness. Terminator zone unstable. Solar winds pierce exosphere. Species observed living in thermal fissures — blind, photosensitive, non-humanoid.
Lot No. 114 — “The Emerald of the Rakshasi”
An Unusual Green Pendant Necklace of Eastern Provenance
Circa: Estimated 18th Century, Rajputana, Northern India
Provenance: From the private collection of Col. Algernon Beckwith, late of the Bengal Lancers
Comprising a heavy gold chain of traditional Mughal filigree, set with a large uncut green gemstone of unknown composition, roughly pear-shaped, of peculiar translucence and possessing a faint phosphorescence in low light. The central stone is encircled by twelve smaller cabochons of similar hue, set in rosettes and linked with fine gold wirework. Weighing approximately 132 grams.
Reportedly removed from the palace vaults of a late Maharaja of the Shekhawati region during the disturbances of 1857, the pendant passed into the possession of Col. Beckwith, whose descendants now offer it for sale. An accompanying letter, penned in 1889 by the Colonel himself, describes the item as “most unnatural in colour and oddly warm to the touch,” and includes reference to a native superstition, wherein the jewel was thought to house the spirit of a rakshasi — a she-demon of Hindu lore, said to bring ruin to any man who dares to wear it.
The so-called “curse” is almost certainly apocryphal, yet curious anecdotes do abound: the Colonel’s manservant is said to have suffered fits when attempting to polish the piece, and a lady guest of the household reported dreams of green fire and voices speaking in tongues. While these tales are, no doubt, the usual trappings of Eastern fancy, collectors of curiosities will find the stone's strange luminescence — said to persist even in a closed drawer — worthy of study.
Stone composition undetermined; mineralogists consulted describe it as “neither emerald, peridot, nor any known beryl.” Tests indicate brittleness unsuited to cutting. Possibly meteoritic in origin.
Offered with a velvet-lined teakwood presentation case of Anglo-Indian manufacture.
Starting bid: £38.
[ENTRY 700: OUREA IX]
Class: Super-Planet
Status: UNSUITABLE
Gravity exceeds tolerance. Bone deformation projected. Surface covered in basaltic peaks and toxic geysers. No life signs detected.
✦ SCHOTT’S TOYS – EST. 1869 ✦
“Where Imagination Takes Flight!”
NOW PERFORMING: THE INCREDIBLE LUMINOUS MAN!
A Marvel of Muscle, Motion & Modern Science!
Straight from the Big Top and into your parlor comes Schott’s most astounding invention yet — The Luminous Man! With just a few cranks of the key, this gleaming champion twirls cannonballs , lifts iron weights , and somersaults clean over toy buildings with clockwork grace!
Painted in our patent-pending SchottGlow™ phosphorescent enamel — a brilliant, green-hued pigment derived from a mysterious new mineral — the Strongman dazzles after dark with an eerie, emerald glow. Watch him shine as he performs feats of strength and speed that have made him a bedtime legend in homes across the nation:
“Faster than a speeding bullet!
More powerful than a locomotive!
Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound!”
He may be made of tin and springs, but The Luminous Man captures the spirit of a modern Hercules — a protector, a performer, a parlor-room powerhouse!
Yours for just $1.50, handsomely boxed and accompanied by a lithographed circus poster. Accept no imitations — look for the Schott’s lion seal!
“For children of great strength and greater dreams — Schott’s.”
[ENTRY 2008: SOL-3 (LOCAL DESIGNATION: EARTH)]
Class: Terrestrial
Status: SUITABLE
Atmosphere within breathable tolerance. Gravity near optimal. Magnetosphere stable. Ecosystem diverse. Sentient species present. Yellow sun detected — unknown effect on Kryptonian biology, if any.