Entry tags:

medium: manga

I know I said I'd do this over two posts, but as I was looking it over, I couldn't find a good place to cut it that didn't end in the middle of a scene or render one or the other of the posts pointlessly short. So, this'll be a bit of a big'n.

It's also a bit choppy, since there weren't as many huge swaths that could be cut as in the first part.

First part is here.

So, last time, there was an explosion...it tore a hole out of the side of the ship, near where Dr Fr Chavez was...



One more dead....

(Sorry, the next bit's in slightly weird order. I've rearranged it a bit so it flows a bit better out of context, but the sequence is intercut between Chavez and the rest of the crew, so the flow is hard to get right. It works better in the book.)






I'm sure the clues are clear enough that everyone's figured it out, right? So, altogether, now:

Antimatter!



So, eventually, Chavez is released from sick bay, and is told what they've determined about Lucifer. He says that that has revitalized him a bit. He and Cleaver discuss what's been done, and what's going to be done next.




While they continue arguing (Chavez pointing out the practical problems, Cleaver the potential uses), the people doing actual recording of the planet spot something in the rings. Something very interesting...



Life forms (long dead), frozen within the ice that makes up Lucifer's ring.

But, yeah, sorry icon_uk, that speech balloon in the last panel is exactly what it looks like.




No! Bad Pope! Bad!

So, the Vatican and some other religious groups start trying to put pressure on the various governments of Earth to stop the exploration. Pressure those governments refuse to give in to.




Meanwhile, back on the ship, Dr Fr Chavez is exercising the first of those professions...








And that's why the ice chunks that make up the ring have life forms frozen in them.



Who is that mysterious figure, and what is he doing?

And what is Chavez doing while this is going on?




Meanwhile, back at the lab...

Things get a touch...strange.




Then the water pipe blows, and a high pressure spray of water hits the twins. They drown.


Where Karloff is is in a pod, heading toward's Lucifer's ring.


Chavez and Cleaver take another pod out and try to intercept him, meanwhile, Chris tries to contact Karloff to warn him off.

He fails to contact him.



While he's flying, Karloff sees a fragment of anti-ice coming toward him...he thinks he's doomed. But, suddenly, a flash, and the ice is deflected away.

The same thing happens to Chavez and Cleaver's ship:



Did the electron shield fail them?

No, a comet from the oort cloud collided with Lucifer, leading to enough of an annihilation for them to see the flash, but not enough to harm them. (Karloff's fine, too.)

Cleaver, ever the scientist, started thinking aloud about the consequences of this.



... Chavez puts two and two together, and gets 'murderer'.




That last panel is Riu who came on the pod without Chavez and Cleaver knowing, since she suspected, having spotted Cleaver's attempt to stop the killing of the twins.

She talks him down, reminding him they're out there to stop Karloff from accidentally killing them all. So, they do that - putting on space suits, because they're currently in a very dangerous situation. But Cleaver can't resist arguing with Chavez.

He presents a theory. The gamma rays caused by the ancient comets hitting Lucifer, the ones that stopped it being an anti-sun...what if they were what caused the extinction of the dinosaurs? And, more importantly...what if they were what caused the mutations in the proto-humans' DNA, that allowed them to evolve into us?



Can't answer that, can you, God Boy? Huh? Huh?



It seems he can.

So, Cleaver does some thinking, both moral and practical.





It's not clear if this was an accident, or if Cleaver decided to commit suicide, out of guilt. Either way, Chavez, Riu, and Karloff (and the entire rest of the ship and crew) are saved by his last action.





I leave the final interpretation up to you.

26 and a half pages out of 80.