Expedition Nereus

by Ilya Martynov

  45

  The flight home took him over the base of the volcano. Jack slowed down to observe the lush ecosystem. The dense growth where tiny creatures moved to and fro seemed rich in life compared to the other more deserted landscapes of the planet. The dark shadow of the airbike, surrounded by the transparent forcefield, smoothly slid over the tops of bushes and big boulders, all of which would someday be consumed by lava flows. Jack noticed familiar places, the ones where he had collected samples from.

  Flying another couple hundred meters forward, he saw a dark, motionless spot It really turned out to be the corpse of the pilertongue. The dark body lay motionlessly near a small group of short bushes. The airbike's forcefield displayed a warning about a seismic anomaly, but Jack ignored it. He was too immersed in the melancholic scene he was viewing.

  Not believing his own eyes, Jack descended to a height of around five meters. Switching the forcefield off, he fired two kill-shots at the animal's legs. Two balls of plasma struck the pilertongue's limbs, but there was no movement. The creature was dead.

  Judging by the state of decomposition, it had died recently, maybe no more than a few hours before. The terrifying spider-like scavengers didn't inhabit the area near the volcano, so the pilertongue's body had to decompose without help. Sooner or later, microorganisms would break down the predator's corpse, restoring the organic elements to the planet.

  Yet for some reason, the predator's dark skin made it seem alive, which frightened Jack. Even herbivores gave a wide berth to the deceased pilertongue, as if it could somehow threaten their lives despite being dead.

  The creature used to be a real threat to local wildlife, but it had been soundly defeated by an alien from Earth. Recalling the animal's shorn off pincers that were now stored in his home, Jack sadly concluded he had been right about the animal's soon to be realized fate. The pilertongue was unable to catch food anymore.

  Giving in to impulse, Jack hopped down next to the carcass and quickly put protective gloves on. Spending a few minutes examining the body, he knelt down and touched the stump where two dangerous claws had been. Now the area was covered by a dark-green scab. Jack grimaced, glancing at the predator's body once more before getting on his airbike when he heard low, deafening sounds that seemed like explosions.

  "What the hell is that?" Jack exclaimed, unable to hold back, although no one could hear him.

  Smoke rose from the base of the volcano, followed by another plume, and one more. Finally, Lieutenant Sallenge spotted the red flames raging over short trees. The volcano had suddenly woken up.

  Then Jack heard a thump. His eyes opened wide in sheer terror and his blood ran cold. Two huge pilertongues rushed out of the bushes towards him. Scared to death, Jack started shouting. His legs carried him to a nearby bush. He could feel the heat hitting him from behind. The fire was rapidly approaching, devouring everything, both living and non-living.

  He chanced a glance behind him. He saw the airbike had moved aside, possibly because its tracking sensors were being affected by the extreme heat. With his peripheries, Jack watch the two pilertongues fleeing right past him, mere meters away. Under siege from flames and hot magma flows, the two large predators didn't even consider hunting some strange bipedal creature. Other huge animals were running away, trampling bushes in pairs or alone.

  The fire had caused a stampede that decimated the local idyll. The volcano's base fractured, spewing magma, creating a boiling red river that burned stones, bushes, and animals alike. Jack was sprinting at top speed, trying not to look back or around. The lava and fire were starting to heat his back. He was running like that for about ten or even more minutes. At times, he bounded almost a meter high, flying three or even four meters. In moments like those, he was grateful to his Academy coach who ingrained him with the habit of jogging regularly.

  Strange thoughts about destiny invaded the officer's mind again, as well as people struggling in vain to achieve their goals. Seeing a small hill in front of him, Jack summoned all his strength and leapt on it. The lava hadn't yet reached this place, but everything was already aflame just fifty meters away. He could hear the sorrowful cry of herbivores, the crackling of flames, and screams of tiny predators. They were all equals in the face of fire, and Jack was no exception. He couldn't hope to oppose such powerful forces of nature. Hovering in the distance, barely scraping the tops of bushes, the airbike was almost surrounded by flames.

  Raising his plasma rifle, Jack switched it to signal flare mode and fired a few times into the sky. He hoped to attract the attention of the aircraft's sensors, but nothing happened.

  "Just what I need. Come on, wake up!" The lieutenant shouted. "Damn it! Why isn't it reacting to my flares? Come on!"

  He checked once again to see if the mode was correct. The plasma rifle displayed SIGNAL MODE.

  "Flares are loaded... everything's as it should be! The shots are purple..."

  The lava flows rapidly spread towards the hill where Jack was standing, quickly surrounding it like a bunch of snakes. The temperature suddenly skyrocketed, becoming intensely hot. Small islands of lands still not covered by lava could be seen. The lieutenant estimated that the lava wouldn't reach his legs, but it would be impossible to escape the flood. Hesitating at first, Jack aimed and shot at where the airbike was hovering. The aircraft froze in the air for a moment, and then spun around some invisible axis. It reminded Jack of a broken toy, like an electric spinning top that wouldn't stop at all. Gritting his teeth, Jack fired again, turned, and jumped to the ground to run further. It was dangerous to stay in one spot. The officer's legs propelled him forward. His throat was burning, and ash filled his mouth and longs.

  "You thought that you'd be flying the entire time, but now you have to get used to running... That's how people survived in ancient times," he told himself.

  Small hills loomed up ahead where, according to his memory of the map, a steppe plain should start. Approaching the closest hill, Jack began slowly clambering up. His body was exhausted, and he couldn't control his weakened legs after such a long run. He slipped time and again, feeling how rocks were crumbling down. Reaching the steep peak, Jack looked behind at what was unfolding.

  Fire had engulfed about a third of the magnificent plain. Animals were fleeing as fast as they could, trying to escape the powerful lava flows. The smoldering treetops looked frightening, and the airbike's silver frame was nowhere to be seen.

  Jack started to panic. He spun around and strained to find something in the distance. Desperate, he tried to figure out his next course of action. He imagined himself walking across the steppe, dying of thirst and hunger, chewing dried branches in the hopes they contained some lifegiving liquid. Then he would stop, shiver through cold dark nights near the fire, and die a lonely death of starvation.

  Glancing about, Jack resolved to push forward away from the lava. Climbing the hill, he tried to make out the airbike's silhouette, but the thick curtain of black smoke blanketed the area. Frustrated, Jack set out for the steppe plain. Now the hills were separating him from the lava. The endless sandy steppe expanded in front of him. Small but long mountain chains that resembled skeletons of petrified snakes could be seen on the empty, smooth surface.

  Looking at it, Jack felt his strength drain. Water, a day's provisions, GPS devices. Everything was in the airbike, which flew off to some unknown destination.

  "Maybe it lost control, crashed, and is lying completely burnt," Jack imagined, though he hurried to suppress such a disturbing train of thought so as not to lose the rest of his strength.

  The airbike was programmed to follow Jack if he went more than thirty meters away, recognizing him by the numerous marks on his suit, as well as distinguishing the officer's facial features. But possibly due to the air current, the signal was distorted and the airbike couldn't orient itself. Jack could only rely on his shooting and attracting the airbike's attention.

  "Maybe the temperature prevented the sensors from detecting the shots. I hope the airc
raft's AI can analyze the data," Jack hoped.

  The location was getting more and more flat as he moved forward. He could see some small hills and dark hillocks in the distance. Getting closer, Jack recognized a narrow stream by its gleam in the sun. Small plants lined up along the water. He could see that the dark-brown hillocks looked like sphere in some places. They were about a half-meter high and a meter in diameter. Jack was too tired to look closely at the local flora. He just wanted to cool down with the water from the stream as fast as he could. He knew that he shouldn't drink the water, but the temptation was so strong that Lieutenant Sallenge caved in to his desire, taking a few deep, greedy sips.

  Sitting down next to the stream, he splashed some water across his face. The pleasant coolness of tiny streams rolled down his neck, getting under the collar of his hiking thermojacket. Jack felt some relief. He dipped his head into the stream in order to rinse his hair. His mind gradually started to clear. The events of the ill-fated flight started whirling inside his head. He couldn't stay out under the open sun. He needed to find shelter to protect him from the solar rays as well as local predators.

  He set his plasma rifle down beside him. As he stepped, Jack felt his boots sink into the soft wet sand around the stream. He absolutely had no wish to stand up and go anywhere further. The slow, leisurely flow of water calmed him mind, washing away distressing thoughts. Such a stream could be found on Earth as well. Jack pondered once again about how universal the laws of nature were in the universe.

  Comprehending these constant laws allowed people to predict events and forecast what would happen in one place or another in the Universe. And the more the inviolable laws of nature were studied, the more precise the forecasts. That's the gist of humanity's scientific culture.

  Thinking about the lofty goals of humanity, Jack didn't even notice something was moving beside him. Four tiny holes punctured the skin of the legs, where the lower rim of the trousers had ridden up over the walking boot, remained out of sight. Only the slight burning sensation and his desire to scratch his leg made Jack pay his attention to the horrifying reality of his situation. A long, branch resembling a narrow tentacle protruded from a dark brown hillock and latched on to his leg.

  But now Jack realized it wasn't a hillock but an entire meter-long cupola of some predatory plant. The blood was being sucked out of his leg by a large tube covered by leaf-like clover-like branches with suckers at the ends. Sharp, scalpel-like teeth were in each sucker. They pierced the skin and sucked the fluids out of its victim. The shoot began at the point where the fleshy petal was turned back. Jack didn't even manage to determine if the organism was a plant or an animal, but the rotten smell of decomposing proteins indicated that the creature obviously led a carnivorous lifestyle.

  Lieutenant Sallenge jerked his leg back, causing the suckers to fall away and four streams of blood to run down his skin. The sprout started retracting back into the plant as smoothly and noiselessly as it extended out a few minutes before. Then the fleshy petal raised up, tightly covering the side hole of the cupola. Jack stumbled away in a hurry from this creature. Washing off his leg in the stream, he cast a sideways glance at the predatory plant to memorize its appearance. The fleshy, colorful petals, dark-brown with lines of alternating yellow and brown spots, formed a cupola like the tent of an ancient circus. The base was covered light-green sand, making it impossible to look at the lower part. Thanks to its merger with the landscape, it was indistinguishable from a natural hillock. Lieutenant Sallenge decided to name this organism a "dome bloodsucker."

  Jack surmised that the dome bloodsucker regularly drank the blood of unsuspecting animals that stop for some water. It was likely that the suckers emitted some sort of anesthetic substance, allowing the suckers to remain unnoticed.

  "I wonder if it liked my blood?" the lieutenant smiled wryly.

  Thoroughly washing his leg a few more times, Jack noticed that the round wounds almost didn't bleed. The nanobots were hard at work redirecting blood cells to form clots to block the holes.

  With the sun setting, Jack had to hurry to find shelter. His eyes scanned the steppe space, sometimes nervously glancing at the roughness of the landscape where it looked like there were hills or mountains. He went a few more kilometers until he saw a group of rolling, rocky hills. Examining a few croppings among the ridges, Jack decided he found one that was suitable to spend the night in.

  Looking out of the chosen cropping, he watched the alien sun fall below the horizon. The red rays of the sun spread across the sandy rocks and climbed up hills and ridges in shapes of darkening blue.

  Half-asleep, his brain tried to process the answer to some question buried deep in his mind. Trying to open his swollen eyelids, Jack noticed magma flows making their way through the darkness. His shelter was filled an unpleasant and painfully familiar smell.

  "Sulphur! Of course! The sulfur coming from the fractures is oxidized. That's why there's so much oxygen in the atmosphere. Why didn't I think of it earlier? The planet had to have volcanic activity! Why was I so foolish..."

  He opened his eyes and realized that there was neither sulfur nor lava. He had hallucinated again. Something like synesthesia.

  He climbed out of his shelter to take a closer look at the sunset. There was nothing to do anyway, and he needed to take a breather and relax. Used to constantly carrying out strict orders that followed one after another, Jack had a hard time relaxing and getting his mind of work. This happens to people, who lose control of themselves and transformed into aspiring, ambitious hard workers that never tired. Such people work for days, months, years, and even decades. When they resign, they quickly fade away, losing the meaning of their existence.

  One day Jack heard Sam's dad state that people get old not because of retiring, but because they stopped feeling that society needed them. He remembered this phrase very well. This was spoken by a person who was the model of success, and such a comment left a big impression on the young Space Academy student.

  Jack recalled how he and Sam had once stayed in a suburban forest overnight. They flinched almost simultaneously at each rustle, unable to fall asleep. In the morning, they cheerfully laughed at their own fright and agreed that they were both scared-y cats. Lieutenant Sallenge didn't consider himself to be a brave man, especially now, but he regretted that his loyal friend wasn't beside him. He envisioned how scary and sleepless the upcoming night would be, but he tried to suppress his worries before he got too carried away.

  When the disk of the star hid behind the highest rocky ridge, Jack raised a muzzle of his plasma rifle and shot straight up into the air twice. Electrophotonic balls almost bathed the dark grayish-green sky in violet. The balls of the red-hot plasma Lieutenant Sallenge's last hope that the airbike would locate him. No trace of the aircraft could be seen. Standing for a few more minutes and carefully listening to the sounds of the upcoming night, Jack turned around and crawled into the cleft of the rocky hill. For the first two hours, he lay practically motionless, alert to the sound of every rustle happening on the night steppe. His heart raced from fear time and again, then pounded wildly as if trying to break out of his chest. An hour later, he felt cold drift into the hole from outside. The air temperature was rapidly dropping.

  Jack seemed to fall asleep a few times, but he always awoke with a start, consumed by blind fear at the slightest noise. A few night predators were already out hunting, looking for a new victim. Although they weren't interested in Jack that much, he still felt that blind terror. But he wasn't ashamed of his fear, despite being an officer. He believed that many people would feel the same if they found themselves in his shoes. Jack finally drifted asleep at dawn, curling his knees up until he was like a small ball. His neck became swollen from the uncomfortable position lying on the cold sand, but his fatigue overcame him, sending the young lieutenant to sleep.

  As he woke up, he felt a draft of warm air. Light softy filtered inside, blinding Jack momentarily as he had gotten used to the total darkness
at night. His stomach growled unpleasantly, and his mouth was totally parched. His tongue was coarse, and lips chapped. He was dehydrated. The acid-green numbers on his cuff displayed "8:54” local time.

  Holding his plasma rifle at the ready, Jack emerged from the cleft. The sun warmed his frozen body after the cold night with its morning rays. The change in temperature made him shiver and straighten his shoulders. A pack of some tiny rodent-like herbivores whizzed at the foot of the ridge, vanishing into a thicket of dry stems. Trying to suppress his yawn, Jack strode forward towards the neighboring hill to fire another signal shot. But he didn't need to. He saw the glass cupola of the airbike shining in the sky to his left. The light whine of engines cheered up Jack, who couldn't believe his own eyes.

  His evening shots in the sky weren't in vain. The airbike's sensors registered the electromagnetic energy emission and calculated the source's coordinates. The aircraft had been circling the area for several hours, scanning the location, hoping to find its pilot. Lieutenant Sallenge smiled, pressing his hand to his forehead when the airbike gracefully descended towards him.

  Jack never thought it would be so simple. Powerful technology saved the small, miserable human once more, rescuing him from the brutal grasp of alien nature.

  When he reached home, Jack drained several bottles of water, unable to satiate his thirst. By the end of it, Jack imagined he looked like a giant sponge that was attempting to absorb all the moisture in the world. After having downed four small containers of water, Jack felt better. Deciding to clean up, he undressed, took a dry shower, and took a nap for some time. Although he slept curled up in a ball, he couldn't relax.