Not only did they see signs of life but an actual city! That city was modern in every respect but something didn’t look quite right about it. “Is it my imagination, or does the city look sort of small? I mean, maybe it’s just our altitude but the buildings look like miniatures,” said Shana.
“It’s not your imagination,” said Gemma. “Everything is about half the size that it ought to be. Let find some native wildlife and get some DNA samples to see what we have here for evolution. We don’t want to repeat the error we made before!”
“Agreed,” said Shana.
They moved to a forested area about a hundred miles from the city settlement and looked for native creatures. It didn’t take long before they spotted a sort of bovine creature grazing in an open area. They landed as close as they could without spooking the herd and, once Gemma had analyzed a sample of grass to verify that the DNA matched theirs, gave them the ok to leave the ship. They stepped out into fully breathable air.
“The humidity feels extremely high,” observed Tanya. “It almost feels like it’s raining. Do you suppose, with the cloud cover, it always feels this way?” She looked up at the sky; there was no break in the swirling cloud cover.
“Possibly,” answered Elton, although they were all just guessing. “Let’s just get some blood from one of these creatures and get it tested. We don’t know what else may be lurking nearby.”
Shana realized she hadn’t even thought about the possibility of predators that might be stalking the herd and promptly unholstered her pistol. The creatures were much the same size as the cattle they’d brought with them from Earth, which made her somewhat surprised, considering the size of the structures they’d seen at the city. She realized she had expected everything to be miniaturized, and then laughed at herself for making any assumptions at all about an alien planet.
Kelsan was the first to stun one of the cows near the fringe of the herd and in only a few moments time they had the DNA sequence. “They’re pretty much identical to the DNA of both Earth and Reesh,” announced Gemma. “I’ve also scanned the plants and gotten enough data to confirm that their evolution is very close to our own.”
Tanya pointed toward the trees at the edge of the clearing, and held up her binoculars. “There are some fair sized monkeys in the trees watching us,” she said quietly. “They seem curious but don’t look like they’re about to come down to say hello.”
Shana, who was now examining their surroundings alertly, remarked, “They look to be about the size of monkeys on Earth. Now I’m more curious than ever to find out what species built that half-sized city. What has evolved here that was able to survive in a world of creatures that were this much larger than them?”
“We definitely have more questions than answers at the moment but we should be able to settle things shortly,” said Elton enthusiastically.
“I think we need to see if we can spot a residence of the city dwellers that’s not in the heart of the city,” said Shana, “to avoid being seen.”
“Now that’s a good logical approach,” said Tanya. “You would think the octo-bots could have warned us we had even more neighbors.”
“I didn’t get the feeling they were that concerned about us,” Kelsan said.
From the air, flying low, they spotted a wide variety of animals both mammal and reptilian. The most threatening looking was a large almost T-Rex looking creature. Its temperature reading, at least based on the distance sensor, suggested it was mammalian. It stood about twenty feet tall and had razor-like teeth as it roared at them; as they moved off it settled down and appeared to be lounging in a puddle of sunlight on the grass.
“It’s hard to believe that any civilized race could survive around those beasts,” said Tanya. “Especially if they’re as small as their city structures suggest.”
“Perhaps they’re the saucer people, and didn’t evolve here at all,” suggested Shana.
It was a thought that hadn’t really occurred to them up to that point but in reality, should have. “It’s true that they appear to be only in one area of the planet and we know the system is younger than any of the systems we’ve inhabited so far,” said Elton. “Perhaps they are a colony just like ours. If on the other hand, they are the Saucerites, perhaps their mining robots let them know we were coming.”
As they approached the city, they began circling to find an outlying farm or building but had no luck. On a farther pass, Shana spotted something promising. “Look at that! It looks like a beaver hut except that it’s on dry land. Just there beyond those trees.”
“Yeah,” said Tanya. “It’s definitely something made rather than natural. Maybe a shepherd’s hut or something.”
They decided to hover in a little closer they might be able to see what lived there, but saw no immediate activity.
“There has to be someone there,” said Elton. “That’s anything but a natural formation of sticks and grass. It has to be one of the city dwellers, I’d bet on it!”
“Let’s move off a little and see if anything comes out of the trees or the hovel itself,” said Shana. “We may be scaring the pants—or possibly loin cloth—off of any resident,” she added, laughing at her own joke.
Everyone chuckled at her comment along with her. They all seemed to be infected with a form of humor that only occurs when you’re relieved at finding something more or less familiar. It looked like they might actually be able to get some real information about their neighbors, without risking offending the Saucerites.
After five minutes they were about to leave when they saw a very shaggy head peek out of the hovel. It looked straight at them and ducked back out of sight.
Kelsan was the first to speak. “Was it human? Did anybody get enough of a view?”
Gemma put it on screen for them to examine more closely. It had a head roughly human-shaped, two glassy dark eyes and a nose-shaped mound covered in hair; the mane of hair was thick and ubiquitous; it was difficult to say anything for sure except that the head looked vaguely humanoid. It hadn’t come out far enough to get a look at its body, but the head was a least five to six feet above ground level, so they speculated that perhaps it was a bipedal creature. There was however, no way to tell if it was standing at ground level or even hanging from the ceiling. If it was standing, it was likely not a city dweller, but perhaps another offshoot of the same race.
“We’re going to have to coax him out if we’re going to get any more information,” Gemma said. They spotted a place just big enough to land within sight of the hut and set the Curiosity down. There was still no activity around the hovel but they decided to watch and wait for a bit.
“Hopefully we won’t scare the occupant away,” said Tanya. “I’d really love it if we had neighbors we could communicate with, even if they’re primitive. We could maybe even help to bring them up to our technology, like with the Fenninz back on New Reesh.”
“I’m curious about why they appear to be so anti social with the city being fully modern in such close proximity,” answered N’ixie, as if her feelings were hurt. “We’re not that frightening, and this is certainly nothing like the welcome we got from the Untrans.” Although N’ixie had not been on Untra herself, she carried Pixie’s memory of the place.
“On Earth, certain kinds of apes stay isolated except during their mating season,” said Elton. “Perhaps their social evolution hasn’t progressed that far yet; or they simply have different mores than we’re used to. That’s part of the excitement, to learn about new people! I’m more sure than ever that the city is not the native population or I think they would have influenced this hut dweller long ago.”
“Let’s have a bite to eat and if we don’t see any activity by the time we’re done, we can go and knock on the door,” said Tanya with a touch of humor that was unlike her.
Maybe this trip’s been good for all of us after all, thought Shana, inwardly smiling at the thought. Humor had been in extremely short supply for a very long time. It was definitely good to be away fr
om the daily responsibility for a while at least while knowing that everything back at the colony was in competent hands. Unlike earlier explorers, they were in communication with the colony at all time and that gave them the freedom of considerably peace of mind.
While they ate and kept an eye on the hut, they sent communications of all they’d found so far to the colony. Zak reported back that all of the children were really excited by the new information. Everyone was dying to see the large crystal in its webbing.
They finished their meal, but were disappointed that no friendly native had shown its head from the hovel. “I’ve detected movement inside the hut but only very little,” Gemma reported. “The entire inside of the hut appears to be heated uniformly somehow—it’s very unusual— so I can’t get a thermal scan on the shape of the creature, or how many are there. All I can say is it seems to be too timid to show itself.”
“Maybe we should approach the hut with a holo first in case it’s hostile,” suggested Tanya. “Gemma, perhaps you could go dressed in furs so as to appear to be from a primitive culture? I mean, we have to do some pretty major conjecture, but we know they’ve got shaggy hair, and we can mimic the fur of some of the bovines we saw earlier.”
“Well, we clearly can’t wait forever for the thing to get its courage up, so let’s do it,” agreed Shana.
Almost immediately Gemma, with dirty, shaggy hair and fur/animal skin garb stepped out of the bushes in front of the ship. They all watched on the monitors. “You look quite enticing dressed like that, Gemma,” said Elton jokingly. “Perhaps you should make that your normal appearance.”
Gemma rolled her eyes and they all chuckled. Gemma crossed the clearing to within about ten feet of the hovel’s entrance. “Hello,” she said into the air. Suddenly, the creature sprang from the doorway directly at Gemma, moving so fast they could barely see it, and tried to wrap its eight hairy legs around her; luckily, there was nothing solid there and the creature tumbled, confused, to the ground.
“It’s a god damn spider!” Exclaimed Kelsan in surprise, as Gemma’s hologram appeared back in the cockpit, with her usual appearance.
N’ixie grimaced. “Look at that horrible long neck and humanoid face; how creepy!” Then she glanced down at her Exostrider body, with its spider-esque form and laughed. “Okay, joke’s on me. But that thing is way creepier than we are.”
“It’s not even a contest,” Elton croaked, looking pale. The great spider-thing had righted itself and was shuffling back into its hovel, clearly disoriented by the insubstantiality of its prey; it’s strange furry face turned back and forth on its long neck, as if bewildered. They could now see that the furry exoskeleton over the face hid scales that lifted to show multiple additional eyes; the two at the top of the face may have even been decoys.
“I’m certainly glad we didn’t go out there in person,” said Shana in stunned disbelief. “That thing wasn’t shy. It’s a variety of recluse trap spider!”
As they watched the creature stuck its face out the door of the hovel again, then pulled it back and seemed to slam the door on them.
“I’ll bet it’ll think twice before trying to eat a lady again,” said Tanya with a nervous little laugh. “Should we presume that this was not an offshoot of the sentient life in the city, or write this world off as a loss?”
“Let’s go back to the city and take a look,” Shana said with a shiver.
Elton said, “Well, between the T-Rex and the spiders, that certainly explains why the city dwellers seem to stay within the bounds of the city, without any outbuildings or farms. Let’s face it; we’d have to do the same thing if we stayed here. It’s funny though; I don’t recall seeing any sort of wall around the city. We’ll have to assume they have the same technology as the Saucerites for defense.”
“Well I suppose if we’re going to make contact we’ll have to find a place to land in the heart of their city, then,” suggested Kelsan.
“Before doing any such thing, I think we should try to communicate,” said Shana, still feeling a little dazed from the surprise attack of the recluse. They’d seen a sentient spider race before, but this was different. She had thought it was going to be a human, like the Untrans, perhaps; and instead it was a predatory beast, like the scorpions of Narcissus.
“Communicate how?” Zo’Rak asked.
Shana shrugged. “If they are the saucer people who run that moon, they know our language already. The fact that they didn’t warn us away from here implies that they don’t find us to be a threat or didn’t have time to attempt communication themselves; but landing in their town square might change their minds.”
That seemed a logical approach to all, so they tried several methods of sending messages and waited to see if they received any response at all. They sent the messages in several forms and on every frequency they knew of and still no response.
Meanwhile they viewed the city’s layout onscreen, looking for a suitable landing site hoping that they wouldn’t scare the population and that they wouldn’t be fired upon. Unlike the space ships in old Earth movies, they had no sort of shielding against aggression. They had to turn off their meteor shielding in order to land because it would attempt to repel the planet.
The city was alive with activity, and there were land vehicles that looked sort of like pods, the same on either end. There were streets and thoroughfares, though it was impossible to tell if these things were being driven or if they were completely automated. It was quite a large city and they finally caught a glimpse of the inhabitants.
“They look almost human,” observed Shana. “Other than color and the fact that they can’t be much over two and a half feet tall, they look like blue hobbits with orange hair,” she said, thinking of an old Earth fantasy story.
“And look! Teddies!” N’ixie cried out. It was true; there appeared to be Teddies scampering here and there along the streets of the city, sometimes with the Blue people, and sometimes shuffling along on their own, or scurrying into make-shift caves between buildings. “They must be like us, at least in some ways, if they have Teddies!”
“I guess we still aren’t succeeding in communicating though,” said Tanya, discouraged by the lack of response to any hails.
“It’s a bit weird the way there are no outlying buildings or roads or even fields,” observed Shana. “Doesn’t that seem a little strange to anyone else?”
“There’s something else odd here,” said Elton. “If I wasn’t seeing it with my own eyes, I’d be questioning it. The vegetation I’m seeing inside the city’s parks and lining some of the streets; it’s completely different from the plants on the rest of the planet. We’ve established that this is a fairly young planet, for the most part primeval, but the city is almost like a piece of a more advanced planet; like a transplant. And the Teddies are even weirder. None of the vegetation or wildlife is an exact match for Hope, except the Teddies.”
Gemma interrupted there discussion; “There’s another anomaly here. I can’t lock a real scan on the city. On the original fly over I had some sensor readings but never did a laser scan until we’d made a check of the rest of the planet. Our laser scans as well as our radio signals are bouncing off of some sort of atmospheric anomaly that reads almost identically to the readings over the mining area on that moon where we got the crystal.”
“What does it mean? Are we looking at some sort of . . . bio-dome?” Tanya asked.
Elton leaned forward thoughtfully. “What if these are the saucer people, creating a piece of their home world here, near their mining operation? And they liked the Teddies so they borrowed some from Hope?”
Zo’Rak said, “Or a race transported by the saucer people to save them from extinction perhaps?”
“Why do you suggest that?” Gemma asked, and it was strange to have her asking a question for once.
“Well, it’s nothing particularly logical,” Zo’Rak said with an exaggerated shrug. “It’s just that, there are no visible space craft, and when we flew over, n
ot a soul looked up at us even though we were definitely low enough to be visible. If we are invisible to them, and our radio signals don’t get through, perhaps there is a force field that shields them from not just physical incursion, but also sensory input from the outside world. Like a protective bubble.”
“A race able to create the shield barriers on that moon could certainly do that,” Shana agreed. “Although, Zo’Rak, I think you are getting fanciful in your old age.” Zo’Rak laughed at this.
“Well, I am almost twelve.”
Kelsan grunted, “You conjecture that these people may be refugees, rescued by the Saucerites. Perhaps they are, instead, prisoners or an experiment. We don’t have any reason to imbue the Saucerites with good intentions.”
“Except that they gave us a present,” N’ixie said.
“A major present,” Tanya concurred.
“And apparently they like the Teddies, as they’ve either transplanted some from Hope, or to Hope, from this planet.” Elton pointed out.
“We could find out more if we could just talk to them,” Shana fretted. “I don’t think we’ll be able to land in the city with that shielding but perhaps we can land outside the perimeter like we did at the mine?”
“I very much doubt we’ll find it any different from the mine; if you’ll recall, we couldn’t actually get through there either,” said Gemma. “I have the distinct feeling that these creatures are being protected.” She shot a wry glance at Kelsan. “Or, in any case, corralled, so we won’t be able to interact with them.”
Kelsan grumbled, “So what do we do, just leave and wait until the day when the Saucerites contact us and tell us what to do?”
Gemma answered for them all, stating flatly, “I don’t really think we have any choice in the matter.”
That sobered them up.
“I’m inclined to agree,” said Elton. “There are certainly a lot of questions I’d love to have the answers to but I don’t think this is the right time to press the issue.”
Starborn Odyssey: Voyage of the Lost (The Starborn Odyssey Trilogy Book 3) Page 21