Trapped on Predator Planet, page 15
“Evolution,” she said.
“In what way?” I said, watching as she pulled herself over a fallen log and found stable ground on the other side.
“Well,” she said with a smile, watching me step over the log as if it were a branch. “The reason I asked about your fuel.” Her eyes lit up, and I found myself transfixed at the enthusiasm I saw there. “Earth was once very similar to Ikthe. Populated by huge reptiles with sharp teeth and covered in tropical jungles and mossy bogs. Over time, the bogs were buried due to geological events or climate events, whatever. And this dark green mess that we’re tromping in?”
She lifted a boot and let the green mud drip from it. “It pressurized into carbon. Natural gas deposits, petroleum. These substances were humans’ primary sources of fuel for hundreds of years. Until massive pollution and scarcity. Prior to the Accountability Years, humans were developing wind, solar and geothermal energy sources.”
“But what has this to do with a human befriending a devil dog? One such could bite you in two,” I said, once more scouring the surrounding trees for telltale signs of its white fur.
“I admit, not much,” she said with a small laugh. “But rather as an illustration of events happening over long periods of time. Because Earth once had a devil dog species of its own. The ancient gray wolf, distant cousins to a dire wolf. And there’s evidence that early humans lured the wolves to their campfires with bits of cooked meat and domesticated them. Their descendants became beloved pets that accompany humans across galaxies."
Grunting again, I considered the ramifications of a slavering devil dog prowling about. Mayhap without its pack it would pose less of a danger. But what if it joined an existing pack? What of its instinct to mate? Would it not heed the call of its feral ancestry and kill everything in its path to win the chance to mate?
“I gather from your silence that you’re skeptical,” Joan said, interrupting my thoughts.
“Ik,” I said with another small grunt. “I have lived too long battling Ikthe’s inhabitants to imagine a different way of coexisting with them.”
“That’s fair,” she said. “But VELMA requested we use caution if we encounter it. She can identify him because she’s been able to track his movements across regions. She’ll let us know if it’s him.”
“I have not successfully identified the animal you’ve spotted,” VELMA announced in our helmets.
“We’ll be careful,” Joan answered.
“Ik.” Anything less was folly.
Chapter 36
BoKama
Wearing my light armor, I moved through the forms of the Iktheka in my private rooms. Weapons flanked the walls and assorted polished stones of varying weights and shapes lined the perimeter of my practice room.
Bare feet squared against an invisible opponent, my head, neck, torso, arms, and hips flowed from one shape to another until it was time to reposition my feet in a fluid exercise that mimicked intense hand-to-hand combat.
It also served as a meditation.
The maikshel and I had given up hope that anything could bring the Ikma back into the realm of sanity. Their latest mixture had been a desperate combination of the sedative herbs grown in the fortress garden and a generous dose of the Holy Waters of Shegoshel mixed with clay.
Today was the first day in several moon passes I’d seen a flicker of the old Ikma. What would have been joyous was now a conundrum.
Too many had witnessed her unjust deeds. Sending the Lottery Five, as Ikshe’s citizens had dubbed them, to retrieve woaiquovelt and Holy Waters had only sparked a frenzy of speculation. The violent sight-captures had dwindled as the hunters died, or so the populace believed.
It had taken many furtive meetings and coffer donations to keep the Ikma’s trip to Ikthe from popular knowledge. If the people knew both of their sister queens had traveled to Ikthe, civil unrest would shake the foundations of our society. I found it ironic the people would close a prey eye from the Ikma’s violent rages and demands, but the very idea of an Ikma Scabmal Kama digging toe into Ikthe would foment revolution.
Ikthe was known to be deadly, and members of the Royal Court were never to step foot upon its sacred ground, lest they corrupt it—or be killed—leaving the people without governance.
But not only had the Ikma shown instability in her hasty judgment and the growing awareness of her obsession with bedding the Ikthekal, but her treatment of the Royal Court and our devoted servants had disintegrated into beatings, abuses and exploitations that couldn’t be hidden.
Walking the capricious line between loyalty to the people and loyalty to the Ikma had been the most dangerous exercise I’d ever participated in. The Ikma could have demanded the raxfathe at any time in the last few revolutions around the suns. I’d had to play my hand most judiciously.
But recent weeks would have allowed me to summon a swift Tribunal by escorting the Lottery Five back home. I’d delayed, hoping to steal away for a day.
Our last trip ended in the death of the WarGuard and the supposed death of Naraxthel, though I wondered if the Ikma herself believed he was gone. When I reentered my ship, she was poised to fire upon every hunter in sight, but thank the Goddesses, she had no knowledge of how to trigger the weapons.
The landquake, surely a blessing from the Goddesses themselves, had precipitated our next actions. Taking flight, I convinced her destroying Naraxthel’s ship would prove most useful; how could he survive without his ship? And in her anger, she agreed marooning him, if he had survived the WarGuard assault and the landquake, was in her best interest.
I hadn’t known the location of the hunters’ heart mates, however, and suffered great anxieties over the next days, beseeching the Goddesses for intercession if we had unwittingly slain them.
“VELMA, greetings,” I said in my helmet. If anyone entered, they must not know of it. “There has been a development with the Ikma Scabmal Kama,” I said, my arm arcing above my head while the other pushed outward, my hand curving down and then sweeping toward my abdomen. “Until I know what to expect in the coming days, I am unable to return to Ikthe. Mayhap you could gather helpful information from my planet. Keep you to the archives and the hidden passageways under the ship, fortress, and sight-capture systems. Mind you alter nothing, lest the sisters who manage these systems mark your presence.”
“Of course, BoKama,” she said. “Is there anything specific you would like me to search for?”
“I don’t know,” I said, bringing my right arm toward my heart home while my left drew behind me, the claw at my elbow drawing an invisible line through a foe’s abdomen. “What I thought was impossible has transformed to something so unexpected, I cannot pursue my original course. I am at a loss. Tell the hunters I won’t give up.”
“I will,” she said and left as silently as she appeared, and I finished my forms. Removing my helmet and grabbing a cloth to wipe my face, I saw blood on the cloth. Frowning, I swiped a thumb under my nose and pulled a thin layer of blood with it. I hadn’t had a bloody nose since I was a child and Taxma hit me in the face with a run ball. It must have been the explosive sneeze from this morning. Dabbing at my nose with the cloth, it took several jotiks for it to stop. I sensed when the Ikma entered.
“The offspring of the Iktheka I murdered?” she asked, her voice loud in my preserved silence.
“I have assigned a hunter to them and provided a month’s stores,” I said, wiping my face of annoyance or censure. “It was hinted that a diseased rodent was seen in the fortress, and he perished from its nasty bite.”
Holding my helmet under my arm, I turned to face the Ikma and discarded my cloth in the collection bin.
“Thank you,” she said and bowed her head. When she met my gaze again, her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “I tire. Will you attend me as I fall asleep? I fear the nightmares will return me to madness.”
“Of course, dear Ikma,” I said. “If you don’t mind the scent of my exertion.”
She chuckled but said nothing, and I followed her to her chambers, her bandaged feet whispering across the flagstones.
Her skin sagged; her movements were slow and burdened. Perhaps the madness left her brain to finish its assault on her neglected body? I did not know. The hunters and their heart mates must be wondering what course lay ahead for them. I did not know how I would help them next, only that the return of a sane Ikma may complicate their future.
And mine.
Chapter 37
Pattee
Pleased with the dugout’s progress, I paced the perimeter where I wanted to create a barrier. The others resolved to follow the robot’s trail and find Raxkarax and Joan. Amity stayed behind with me, transfixed with whatever she was reading from Raxthezana. She carried rocks and dirt, but I could tell her mind was elsewhere, solving a problem or untangling a puzzle. I knew she would volunteer what she was thinking about when she was ready and not one minute before.
As the suns crossed the sky, our property took shape. As far as homesteads went, this would not be the spot I chose for a longer-term arrangement. It was too far from water and too close to the southern borders of the Agothe-Fatheza. But it would do for now.
I couldn’t explain it: the compulsion I had to hunker down and create a base of operations. But everyone had agreed and helped, and now we had the workings of a decent place to set up camp. Once we finished the barrier wall, we could breathe a sigh of relief. Of course, the landquakes could be a problem. But with VELMA giving us fair warning, we could exit the dugout in time to avoid being buried in it.
The wall would go quicker when everyone returned, so I paused that project and chose to build up the firepit instead.
As the second sun set, Amity and I sat with our backs to the fire, staring into the desolate forest we’d left a few days ago.
“Raxthezana never expressly forbade me to say anything to anyone, but I’m choosing to keep his confidence,” Amity said in my ear.
We kept our helmets on, just one of many safety protocols we’d learned to follow since landing.
“Of course,” I said.
“But I’ve heard the others talk about the infant burial disease, so I think he won’t mind if I mention that,” she said.
“Okay.”
She cleared her throat.
“This disease started escalating about forty years ago, from what I can gather,” she said. “At least, that’s what this volume suggests.” She held up the leather-bound book. “I’ve asked VELMA to look for similar accounts in the Theraxl archives, and what she found suggests the earliest reports of infant burial disease started a hundred years ago, but no one made comparisons as the deaths seemed unrelated and a fluke.”
“Okay,” I said, alert to the sounds of the forest.
“Obviously I haven’t had time to do a deep dive into Theraxl physiology,” she said then laughed. “Don’t say it!” She nudged me with her shoulder, and I chuckled.
“I wasn’t going to say a single thing,” I said.
“Good.” She took a breath. “But what I’ve been able to deduce based on specific questions I asked VELMA and Natheka, is that these guys are extremely long-lived—but only if Ikthe doesn’t kill them. We’re talking three-hundred eighty, four-hundred-year lifespans.”
“Are you taking into account the faster revolutions?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, her voice somber. “Obviously, blood tests would help, but when you consider their tissue regeneration and symbiotic relationship with the Shel, it appears they age much slower than humans.”
I bit my lip but said nothing.
“I know,” she said, reading my mind. “I was afraid of that, too. But let’s cross that evolutionary bridge when we come to it, right? Anyway, I’ve been trying to figure out the symptoms and timeframe of the disease based on anecdotal evidence. That’s all this is,” she said, indicating the book. “Raxthezana must have interviewed all these families. Can you imagine? They have interplanetary travel. Phenomenal medical advancement regarding wound care. Scary weapons. And even a rudimentary internet network with wi-fi capability, but no World Health Organization? No federal or global association regulating medicines or medical practices?
“They don’t quite have a press, either. They have global sight-capture technology and the capability to spread information planet-wide but use it primarily for sight-capturing events from Ikthe, spreading the latest statistics on their most popular Ikthekal, and if the Ikma Scabmal Kama conducts a raxfathe ritual.”
“It sounds like you’re saying they have the cultural equivalent of the Roman Republic,” I said.
She made a noise in her throat. “I guess so, yeah. Not to judge! I think with their incredible health, they never needed to make disease study or prevention a thing. Although ….” Her voice trailed off.
We could hear the nonsense bugs making a racket all around us, as well as the crackling of the fire as it burned down.
“Well, I’m not actually sure yet, but I think the females may not live as long,” Amity said. It felt like I could hear the gears turning as she chewed on that. “Raxthezana made note of their population numbers. The most they ever had was also forty years ago.”
Letting her words roll around in my head, I stretched out my legs and leaned back.
“When you’re ready, you’re welcome to plug in all those numbers into my CMM,” I said. “It might help you to see a 3D rendering of your information. Maybe detect a pattern.”
“Yeah, that would help a lot, actually,” she said. “In the meantime, I’m trying to wrap my head around the fact that none of these mothers thought the hunters cared about the infants who had died. Almost every interview Raxthezana had, the dam says something about not telling the hunter, or assuming the hunter wouldn’t care, or would be mad if he knew. That they hadn’t fulfilled their purpose as a dam or a Theraxl female. That’s to say nothing of the emotional toll.”
“Do you ever think we should stay completely out of this situation with the Ikma Scabmal Kama?” I asked, my voice harsher than I intended. I touched Amity’s arm to soften my question.
“Oh, absolutely, Pattee,” she said, patting my hand in response. “Can you say, ‘cultural misappropriation’? I have no desire to waltz into Theraxl communities and say, ‘you’re doing it wrong’! So, the issue with the queen is a huge mess. And just because humans do families a certain way doesn’t mean every culture should adopt it!
“I just can’t read these accounts and not think about Natheka,” she said. “He lost a baby sister to the disease. He obviously cared about it. And he talks about his boys incessantly, which is adorable.”
Sitting back up with my arms around my knees, I canted my head. “Hivelt lost a baby sister, as well.”
Amity groaned. “Most of the babies are female. I don’t know how I’m going to solve this mystery. We need a virologist or epidemiologist or something.”
I took Amity’s hand in mine, and we leaned into each other as the fire flickered out behind us.
“I disagree,” I said. “I think we—they—need you. I think you’re exactly who the Goddesses had in mind to help.”
Amity sighed. “I feel so inadequate.”
Our helmets clunked when I nodded. “I know the feeling.”
“Why don’t I take first watch while you try the dugout?” Amity offered. “I won’t be able to fall asleep for a while anyway.”
“Thanks,” I said and gave her a quick hug. “If Diablo comes around, stay out of my ice cream.”
“I would never!” Amity smashed her hand over her chest and fake-gasped at my insult. Chuckling, I pointed at her.
“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”
Chapter 38
Pain
Pain is an interesting phenomenon. You would think scientists had it all locked in by now, the 2570s. Humans conquered intergalactic travel. Managed a semblance of world peace. Eradicated cancer and several genetic disorders.
But the concept of pain remained elusive.
Everyone understood intuitively that emotional pain couldn’t be measured, compared, computed, lessened or eradicated by artificial means.
But not even physical pain could be sufficiently dissected, forgive the pun, or understood with artificial means, such as with diagnostic machines. Sure, modern-day scans such as the fMNT could “measure” pain levels and pathways, just like ancient fMRI had helped researchers better understand chronic pain sufferers.
Even so, no current medical professionals, pharmaceuticals, nor diagnostics like the functional Molecular Neurotransmitter Test were any closer to advancing humans’ understanding of the pain experience. In the absence of cancers and degenerative disorders, there were still plenty of opportunities for people to suffer and endure pain.
IGMC had an entire department dedicated to pain management and mitigation, considering their employees encountered it at astronomical levels across galaxies. Pain-free employees were productive employees, and all that. Mining accidents, repetitive use injuries, and of course, injuries and diseases people were likely to incur when exploring new worlds all fell under their umbrella.
That’s probably why the EEPs were decked out with dozens of helpful gadgets in addition to the ordnance. I always maintained a sidearm and ammunition would have been a better choice for the occupants than the fractionated quark bomb—far more economical too! —but what did I know?
Nevertheless, the provisions found in the EEP would have been invaluable. The supply team had done a great job, as well as Pattee Crow Flies with her ingenious design.
VELMA, too, had turned out more phenomenal than I could have predicted, although I’d been reasonably sure the programming would do its job.
I would sigh, but sighing cost more pain tolerance than I had the chits for at the moment.
Instead, I rehearsed phrases in my mind until I had the pronunciation down. And I wrote my treatise on pain management and the human experience in my head. And I replayed the last twelve hours I’d been on the Lucidity on a continuous loop, retracing my steps and wondering if there could have been a better way, but I remained convinced I’d made the right decisions in the right order.
