Trapped on Predator Planet, page 2
“Oh God. David,” I said his name with a wrenching cry. There hadn’t been a David for the year I’d been on the Lucidity. Nor for the year prior to that.
But then the attack. And the pod.
I didn’t want to open my eyes now. For a couple blissful seconds, my mind had believed David lay beside me, his warm skin just a touch away, and his kiss, just a breath.
But as soon as I opened my eyes, cold stark reality would stare me in the face in the form of the austere EEP’s interior, its clean lines and angles designed for comfort, ease of use, and efficiency.
“Greetings K-90 Miner 108,” the computer’s dulcet tone spoke. “Vital signs indicate you’ve reached consciousness. I have some good news and some bad news. Which would you like first?”
The computer’s question took me off guard. What kind of computer led with the good news/bad news question? I laughed in spite of myself. Only CeCe’s code would.
Clearing my throat, I blinked and rubbed my eyes.
“Bad news first,” I said. After David passed, everything was bad news. When grief was the filter through which one viewed life, life itself and its mundane properties took on a smoky gray cast.
“Your EEP landed on the sacred hunting grounds of the hunter warrior race known as Theraxl,” she said. “The entire planet teems with deadly flora and fauna, and as this planet and its twin are beyond known charts, you will live out your days with no chance of rescue.”
Stretching my limbs as I listened, I paused at her last words. “No chance of rescue?”
“I’m not finished delivering the bad news,” she said.
“By all means, continue,” I said, sarcasm polishing my words with bitterness. What was worse than zero chance of rescue?
“Thank you. The EEP now rests on a small island in the middle of a wetlands known to the hunters as the Agothe-Fatheza,” she said. “Translated to ‘night corruption’, the bog is home to numerous venomous creatures, poisonous plants, and questionable air quality. In fact, the entire planet’s atmosphere contains an airborne cyanobacteria deadly to humans.”
“I should have asked for the good news,” I muttered and sniffed my armpits. Unable to stand yet, I was sitting up and assessing my outward health after an undisclosed amount of time in cryosleep.
“I am getting to that,” the computer said. “However, there is more bad news I have yet to cover.”
“Good God,” I said and leaned forward in my chair, pinching the bridge of my nose.
“While I’ve manufactured a vaccine that prevents fatality, it requires the aid of a local band of hunter warriors who happen to be marked for death by their queen, the Ikma Scabmal Kama. As such, they roam the planet’s surface in search of human rescue pods and inoculate them from the pathogen as well as invite them to join in deposing the queen with the help of her traitorous co-governor, the BoKama.”
When the computer was quiet for a few seconds, I spoke up.
“Is that it?” I asked.
“I touched on the major points, yes,” she said.
Watching my boots as I rolled my ankles, I chewed on the frankly, indigestible, bad news for a minute, of which some of the major points involved death by algae, death by bog or predator, and/or death by hunter warrior queen.
“Was there good news?” I said.
“The health and good spirits of three other miners from IGMC who landed before you as well as their new status as life mates to the hunter warriors tops my list,” the computer said. “There are numerous smaller items that could be considered good news if one was of a particularly grateful mindset."
"Well, I’m not,” I said. “Did you say life mates?”
“As a machine-learning neural network, it is possible I made a mistake in mentioning the life mate situation,” she said. “Please strike that from your memory for now.”
My dry laugh echoed in the pod’s sleek chamber. “Oh no, Computer. That’s not how that works.”
“You may address me as VELMA, if you like, K-90 Miner 108.”
Eyes narrowing at the monitor I faced, I cocked my head. “Are you trying to change the subject?”
“Not at all,” VELMA said. “Ask whatever you like, and I will answer to the best of my ability complete with references, footnotes, video and audio archives, as well as access to near limitless information provided when my creators uploaded everything in the known universe into my database,” she continued. “I’ve also managed to access the archives of the Theraxl race. I am at your complete disposal.”
Rubbing the back of my neck, I grimaced. Not from pain, but from mental overload.
“Maybe we should start from the beginning, VELMA,” I said. “What do you know about the attack on the Lucidity?”
“Unfortunately, that information is not available,” she said. “However, I have recorded audio of your fellow miners discussing said event, if you’re interested in listening.”
“Maybe later,” I said. “Can you patch me into their comms right now?”
“That was the rest of the bad news,” she said. “Upon breaching the existing nanosatellite array encircling the planet, I was able to download all existing data related to the planet’s geology, weather, topography, atmospheric data and the like. I was also able to download a significant packet of information sent by my operating system on planet, initiated by Esra Weaver, K-90 Miner 105. However, all of my attempts at transmitting communications have failed.”
Taking a deep breath, I focused my exhale and closed my eyes, retreating to my secret inner world where David sat in a leather chair, a book perched in his lap with one finger acting as his bookmark while he looked at me with love in his eyes. I’d visited this mental image so many times that I could almost smell the leather from his chair, the damp loam from the many potted plants sitting by the rain-speckled window, and the aroma of old books from the room’s library shelves. It was difficult, however, to bring David’s specific features into focus, and I didn’t think I could ever forgive my brain for that. His appearance had started to fade from my memory as early as six months after his death, and I’d taken to carrying a hardcopy of his photo in my breast pocket as prevention.
Snapping out of my reverie, I patted my flight suit’s breast pocket, expecting the crinkle of stiff photographic paper.
With dismay, I unzipped it and reached inside with two fingers, but his photo was not there.
Lying back in my chair, I covered my eyes and stifled the sob that erupted unbidden.
The Lucidity’s doctor-cum-therapist had recommended I store David’s photo in the lockbox in my quarters. An exercise, if you will, he’d said. To practice spending time away from David’s memory as I made new ones with my Kerberos 90 mission coworkers.
Tears slipped out, and I cried silently, not wanting to explain to some emotionless software program what I couldn’t even explain to myself.
“I will continue my efforts to communicate with your fellow humans, Miner 108,” VELMA said, her voice subdued, as if she knew to tiptoe around my emotional state.
I had to admit, CeCe had written a damn fine neural network. I wondered if she was one of my “fellow humans” as VELMA called them.
Sniffing and wiping my eyes, I sat up and lowered my boots to the floor with ginger steps. I could rest my weight.
“Who are my fellow miners?” I asked.
“Esra Weaver, exogeologist. Pattee Crow Flies, mechanical engineer. And lastly, Amity Diaz, exobiologist.”
“No CeCe Pain, huh?” I asked.
“Do not give up hope,” VELMA said. “The humans have reason to believe there is a fifth pod as yet undiscovered, hidden somewhere on the planet.”
Three steps to the porthole, I looked out over a bright green bog. Bugs darted to and fro. Something big splashed into the green film, breaking up the layer to reveal black water beneath. It closed up in a fraction of a second.
Determination steeling my spine, I turned and marched to the console.
“VELMA, I’m creating a task manager file. I need you to use the mass spectrometer to scan as much of the bog’s surface as possible. Double check that there isn’t already an EEP down there.”
As I created a macro for ordering my days, I realized I had two options.
Allow myself to wallow in my horrible condition and die to hopefully meet David again. Or fight to preserve whatever I had left in this new world. I was tired of fighting, though.
But if there was one thing, one person, that could keep me tethered to life, it was CeCe.
If there was the tiniest nanofraction of a chance that she was out there somewhere, I was going to find her. And that meant I had to fight. I would fight like hell for my friend. Because she fought for David when I couldn’t.
Chapter 4
Joan
“It’s the humidity, isn’t it?” I asked VELMA. I was outside the pod looking up at its naked fuselage, the nosecone having shot off sometime during my landing weeks ago.
With the nosecone operating in Super Low Orbit, my pod was left with minimal transmission capability rendered useless by the thick atmosphere here in the bog. I wiped off a green film from the metal hull with my gloved finger and inspected it. Humidity or something else?
“I have adapted FM, EM and RF signals with the EEP’s available communication systems with no luck,” VELMA said. “While humidity does interfere with transmission, I suspect the chemical makeup of the Agothe-Fatheza’s habitat may have more to do with my inability to transmit.”
“Hm.” I peered through the pea soup, trying to see if Eunice had arrived for our morning chat yet, but the fog was too thick. “So, in addition to the cyanobacteria swimming around with the air molecules, there’s something else?”
“Perhaps you could take another air sample, Joan,” VELMA said. “I’ve been analyzing the sample taken by Pattee where the air particulate was significantly different. I’ve used the spectrometer in your helmet and the pod’s exterior scanning tool, but if you collected a local sample, I could do a more in-depth analysis.”
“Sounds great,” I said and gave the hull a knock. Back inside, I found the IGMC-issued particulate sampler in its cubby and assembled it. I’d been a miner for IGMC going on two decades; the air sampler was as familiar to me as a ballpoint pen.
Minutes later I was feeding the sample cartridge into the slot.
“Pattee’s initial sample took several days to analyze,” VELMA said. “As I was comparing her findings to known atmospheres within the Interplanetary Unification of Races’ catalogued planets. This shouldn’t take as long.”
The monitors inside the pod flashed with charts as VELMA listed the air’s properties. I recognized the graph showing a few of the Noble gases as well as another one with particulates. All the usual suspects were present such as dust and pollen.
What caught my attention were the toxins. I cursed.
“Are you seeing this?” I said, tracing a graph with my finger. “Amatoxins. What’s this green line represent?”
“The green line represents the cyanobacteria,” VELMA said. “The deadly algae rendered airborne and present throughout the entire planet’s atmosphere.”
“I have to be honest; this doesn’t look good.” A sinking feeling settled in my chest.
“Here is a recorded conversation Natheka and Amity had regarding this place,” VELMA said. One of the monitors lit up with an oscilloscope.
“Your friend said one of your companions was going to a place called … Agothe-Fatheza. VELMA said, ‘night corruption’ was the closest translation?” Amity asked.
“Ik,” Natheka answered her. “Another human has landed there in a pod. Raxkarax goes to fetch her.”
“Where is it? What’s it like?” Amity sounded half-afraid, half-curious.
“The Hunters of Ikshe avoid Agothe-Fatheza,” he said. “It lies to the north of the Great Waters, but south of Moon Shield and the Nesting Forest. The prey there is indigestible. Poisonous. Lethal.”
“So, it isn’t prey, then?” she asked.
“The creatures are small and slow,” he said. “Of occasion, the rokhural will venture to the bogs and kill and eat at their leisure. The inhabitants are prey.”
“But you don’t eat them,” Amity clarified. “Are they amphibious? Reptilian?”
“Hold, human, while your technology translates these terms.”
After a moment of silence, he answered her.
“The more numerous of the prey are what you call amph-i-bians,” Natheka said. “They proliferate in the bogs, coating the ground, the bases of the trees, and the bog’s surface. The air is thick with putrid, moist gases. These creatures: we call them theza-pax, because they eat waste. And to eat them is to eat waste. It is abomination.”
“What else is there?” Amity asked in a reverential tone. Clearly, Ikthe’s animal life fascinated her. Maybe that would happen for me, but with another glance toward the toxic air charts, I doubted it.
“The za-ronaxl bugs,” he said with resignation in his voice.
“Oh?”
“They are disgusting beetles, a hard-shelled bug about the size of my fist,” he said. “They devour anything that moves, including the theza-pax. Their mouth parts cut through the thickest flesh, the strongest bone. It is said that the Goddesses themselves would dare not step foot in the bogs of Agothe-Fatheza.”
“End of recording,” VELMA announced. The screen returned to the muted videos of my fellow miners and the hunters; I kept them on a loop to stave off loneliness, and turned up the volume when I had work to occupy my hands so I could listen to their conversations and banter.
Thoughts scrambled; I slumped in front of the other monitors trying to process all the graphs.
I’d been keeping myself busy for two weeks. I’d tried to be optimistic. But—I was exhausted.
Those beetles sounded horrific; I hadn’t seen any on the island. But God. The numbers.
“It’s not just the cyanobacteria in the air here,” I said. “The toxins at these levels are beyond deadly. I need to get off the island and out of the bog.” In spite of the danger I now realized encompassed me, I couldn’t summon the energy to move. What if the bog was too deep for me to cross? What if the airborne pathogens were corrosive to my flight suit or the pod’s electronics? That could explain the issues we were having with communication.
And the hunter named Raxkarax was coming for me. From what Natheka explained to Amity, none of the warriors ever entered Agothe-Fatheza. To do so was to die.
What was he planning? How did he feel about all this? What if he resented the fact I needed to be rescued? Who would voluntarily come here?
The weight of these circumstances crushed me like a fuel barrel.
Retreating to my reclined chair, I rolled to the side and squeezed my eyes shut, gripping myself by the arms. A shuddering breath overtook me.
“Do you require assistance?” VELMA asked.
“No. Thank you,” I said, my voice hoarse. Overwhelmed by everything, I shut down. Just like when I froze up when I should have been running to the escape pods. I wished it was easy for me to snap out of it, but I’d been this way forever, and I didn’t see it changing. Especially on a planet named Certain Death.
Chapter 5
Raxkarax
Swallowing a slug of water from my canister, I stared into the thickening woods south of the Barrens. My back against a huge stump, I considered my next obstacles. I approached the swampy outskirts of Agothe-Fatheza. There should be a dirt-tongue once I entered the wood.
Its body would provide the barrier I needed to traverse the bog. But the dirt-tongue was a solitary creature spanning large territories. My heart mate would need one for our trek out, and I would likely need another.
It was true, what my brethren spoke of the Agothe-Fatheza; none entered and lived.
But one.
One hunt many revolutions ago, when I had but four offspring and two dams to provide for, my kills had floundered. A series of unlucky turns had me scrambling to find enough prey to bring meat for the Sisters of the Court, let alone to feed those who depended upon me.
I trailed an injured rokhura up to the borders of the Agothe-Fatheza and watched in helpless dejection as my prey disappeared into the boggy trees.
For some rotiks I had bemoaned my loss until I realized the rokhura itself had revealed the mystery of its habits. Dragging itself through the swampy woods, it had stomped erratically and burrowed its snout in the mud at the base of trees. I’d witnessed its strange behavior, too fascinated to kill it until I’d understood it was not ill, but rather strategic. For I had learned it sought out the dirt-tongues, smeared the dead creatures across its legs and snout, and then tromped with boldness deep into the Agothe-Fatheza. It had taken me many long rotiks, but once I’d found a dirt-tongue of my own, I’d traversed into the night-corruption, eyes boggling at the horrific wonders within.
My helmet had filtered the noxious air while the blob of dirt-tongue carcass protected my armored boots and legs from the corrosive waters.
I’d found the rokhura hiding in a huge tangle of tree roots where I killed it without ceremony and dragged it through the bog to the less dangerous swamp surrounding it. Rinsing its hide, I found it was no worse for wear and would serve admirably for my meat offering. But more importantly, I learned the bog held secrets worth discovering.
Subsequent hunts had me studying its traps and pitfalls, its poisons and dangers, until I no longer feared it.
I considered it no small wonder that the Goddesses would treasure up my heart mate in the bowels of the one place no other Theraxl dared enter. But I feared for my heart mate.
Would I find them safe and waiting for me, or perhaps daring the corrosive bog to their detriment? Would I find but a pile of fragile human bones?
Shuddering at my morbid thoughts, I capped my water and stood with a grunt.
I also needed an acid-spitter and the spiny warted rock-climber.
“VELMA, had you any luck with my request?” I asked. I had hoped she might find a way to improve communications.
