by A. Omukai
“Are we in danger?”
“Not at the moment, I think. The system booted up just fine. Guess we’ll find out.”
He returned to his place on the bench and reached for his mug.
Deirdre hadn’t noticed that Cailean had stopped moving, and when she consciously reached out for him, they had shortened the distance to the Cu Sidhe.
He hadn’t changed his direction at all. Since they had moved in a straight line, they would have caught up with him, eventually.
Now, how should they handle it this time?
If Cailean was waiting for her, that meant they were close to either a place of power, or a phenomenon similar or equal to the one they had encountered last time.
Probably not the same thing. The vehicle hadn’t given out an error message like last time — yet. They just weren’t as close as last time yet. This was fine, she wouldn’t risk the Wisp.
“Please stop the car.”
Adams looked up at her for a moment, nodded, and switched off the engine without question. The distance to Cailean was longer than it had been the last time. A few hundred metres. She could walk over to him in only a minute or two.
“I should come with you again,” Adams said. He looked at her with a worried expression.
“I believe it’s best if we all go this time… after what has happened last time.” The doctor’s voice was unrelenting.
“Yes, please.” Them asking her saved her the trouble of having to ask them.
Together they put on their suits. Only Ailbhe wore hers already. Finally, they closed their helmets and left the Wisp through the airlock.
It wasn’t completely dark, but the light of the suns was still dulled. The only real darkness lay in the shadows. The mushrooms here were much taller than around the region they had landed in, some of them had almost reached the height of Earth’s trees. Apart from that, the area seemed to look almost identical. It was hard to tell in the twilight.
Deirdre and Adams walked side-by-side, followed by the Aes Sidhe. She was treading very carefully, as to avoid hurting the ground. That same mossy cover they found everywhere here.
What had he called again? She couldn’t remember.
Eventually, she found Cailean sitting on the ground, just a few metres away. Getting there had taken longer than she had expected. Probably because walking in this heightened gravity cost more energy and was slower. Eventually, they reached the Cu Sidhe.
“What is it, my friend?”
She patted his head. The eyes of the Aes Sidhe creature glowed in the twilight. He looked at her, as if he wanted to tell her something. Of course, not a single word came out of his muzzle.
“What does your dog say?”
“Nothing at all. He can’t speak.”
“Oh. I thought Brilann said he had talked to him and briefed him on the mission.”
“Long story…”
Her voice trailed off. How could she explain this to him without looking like a total failure?
Glancing at his face, she figured she didn’t have to. He showed enough tact to not dig deeper, or was just distracted by what was lying ahead.
She turned back to Cailean. “What’s up? Wanna move on?”
The Cu Sidhe didn’t react at all. He looked at her, then back in the direction he had been wandering before he stopped.
What on Earth was he trying to tell her?
There was only one way to find out. She shrugged, straightened her back, then strode onward. Cailean didn’t get up, but Deirdre moved on.
“We will wait here. I can feel something right in front of us, but can’t say what it is,” the marine said.
Doctor Moan nodded. “I feel it, too. Can’t tell what it is, but maybe it’s a good idea to stay here and give you cover.”
It sounded like a good idea, especially with Cailean‘s reaction, even though she couldn’t see anything dangerous just yet.
“Thanks. I’ll let you know when I need help.”
Step by step, not slowing down. Eventually she noticed something weird. Walking on this ground hurt her feet. She stopped and looked down, but everywhere looked the same, she couldn’t see a difference. She walked again, just a few steps, to see what was going on. The phenomenon repeated itself. Her feet hurt. When she heard a ping from her helmet’s speakers, she opened her AI’s system menu, saw the notification icon and opened the message.
“Temperature dropping rapidly.”
She looked at Adams, who returned the gaze.
Just like last time, only the warning message was different.
“What does this mean?”
The xenobiologist shrugged.
This planet mission was just one long chain of open questions and riddles.
She walked on, slowly now, carefully setting one foot ahead of the other. Every step hurt the soles of her feet, as if the ground was extremely hard, and as if she was walking barefooted. She looked around, but there was nothing unusual. The same mushrooms, the same mossy ground. A small brooklet lay ahead of her, not that far away. She’d walk over and look. There was nothing about this place that made it special, and no spot stood out. Might as well start her investigations with the brooklet. Another ping, another notification. She opened it.
“Temperature reached zero degrees Kelvin. Stable now.”
That temperature announcement didn’t tell her anything. She did not know what it was about. How much this was in Celsius. She was sure that this had been a subject in school, but this had been one of those boring topics that had gone in one ear and out the other, without sticking. If she couldn’t even remember learning about it all, there was no use to even try. As long as her suit kept working, she would be good.
“What does this notification say?”
Adams looked at her with a grave expression.
“It’s cold.”
“Yeah, I figured. How cold though?”
“It is as cold as outer space, actually even colder. Absolute zero. No movement on the subatomic level, at all.”
Deirdre shrugged.
She looked around again, trying to find something that could tell her anything. Any hint of what made this area different from the others. Reaching out with her magical senses didn’t return a result either. There was no magic here, none.
It was only an absence of magic, not a deficit, like last time, and it was devoid of magic, not life. Something about the atmosphere of this place was unsettling, but she did not know what that could be.
“Do your feet hurt when walking, too?”
Adams looked surprised, hesitated, then nodded.
“Indeed, they do.”
“What does it mean?”
“I don’t know either. I’m not a physicist.” He grinned apologetically.
Hadn’t she heard this line before? She grinned back.
When she reached the brooklet, the first thing she noticed was that there was water, unlike the small rivers in the blackened valley. However, it didn’t move at all. Deirdre kneeled down, stretched a hand out to touch it, but stopped before she could actually reach the surface. She hesitated. She didn’t want to make an error. If this place was as dangerous as the last one had been, she couldn’t afford to take unnecessary risks. What would a mistake look like, though? No way to tell. She counted to three, then moved her hand forward and touched the water.
Nothing happened, nothing at all. The water didn’t move a millimetre. It was hard as steel, possibly even harder. Only water, but massive like a diamond. She had no physical knowledge beyond some basics, but she realized how ridiculous this sounded.
Deirdre knocked on the surface, but no sound reached her ears, as if the air didn’t transport sound waves.
The thin hair on her arms stood up. All this was scary enough, despite being different enough from the other place, but by now, she was convinced that this was not a place of power either.
“Touch it,” she said, looking at the xenobiologist, who had followed her actions with a sceptic look.
He squatted next to her, stretched out his arm and did as she said. She watched him, but his face didn’t betray his thoughts. He stood up, wandered a few steps about, then sat down again, touched the ground and let his fingertips slide over the mossy thing with that name she just couldn’t keep in memory.
His poker face pissed her off a bit, but she couldn’t help but watch as he stood up again, then walked up to a mushroom taller than himself. His hand glided over the edge of its cap, the cap itself, his fingers poked the cap, the stem, then he shook his head.
“What do you think?”
“I’m not sure what to think. Everything here is as hard as that water over there.”
His movements had sped up while he was speaking, and she noticed the pitch of his voice rising along with his speaking speed.
“You sound funny,” she said.
“Hmm? What are you talking about?”
Now he sounded as if he had inhaled helium, and his movements reminded her of the mouse pet she had had when she was a kid, Pete. Quick and nervous.
“Yeah, something’s going on, I can’t quite-”
Everything changed at once.
He disappeared, and the next thing she noticed was Doctor Moan carrying her in his arms. They no longer stood next to the river either, they were back at the Wisp, outside the airlock.
She stared at him in shock.
“What?”
Then reality faded away, and she sunk into a dark hole.
15
A Temporary Goodbye
When Adams came to, he was back in the Wisp, with Doctor Maon standing over him, diagnosing him with various medical equipment he hadn’t seen him bringing in from the Tuatha De Danann.
“There you are. You’re quick, the lieutenant is still out.”
His head hurt, and he suppressed a moan.
“What happened? I saw Deirdre’s action slow down, speed up, slow down again…”
The doctor shrugged. “We’re not sure. You went silent on the comms, and when I checked your vitals remotely, all your body functions had slowed down so much, I had at first assumed you were dead. The AI made me aware that I was wrong.”
“How long were we in there? It sounds like that must have taken a while.”
“A little over two hours.”
“Two hours!”
Only minutes had passed for them. Deirdre and the river she had shown him. The extremely hard ground, and the temperature that had dropped like crazy, but not felt cold at all. Sounded like a crazy dream, not like reality at all.
Adams needed to move. His muscles felt cold and stiff, and his headache, while not bad, lingered in the back of his head. He also still hadn’t taken a lot of samples yet. The same fungus had grown in every area they had passed so far, except for the blackened valley. Nothing grew there. This was a good time to collect some to bring on board the Tuatha De Danann. His equipment here was just lacking, with so much of his gear here broken. He hadn’t told Deirdre, but the best thing he could accomplish here was to get as many good samples as he could and analyse them back on the ship.
Deirdre still lay on the bench, while Adams prepared to leave the Wisp. He put on his suit, grabbed his luggage and opened the airlock. Leaving the vehicle didn’t take as much time as entering it, since there was no need for the decontamination procedure on this way. The doctor accompanied him.
The outer airlock door closed behind them and Adams looked around.
They had parked the Wisp on a small plateau on top of one of the hills, surrounded by large steppes. The same landscape, as far as the eye could see. Fungi of varying sizes, with the mycelium covering a vast amount of ground. He would need samples of as many species as he could find and identify as unique. The variation in species, however, seemed to lack on this planet. At least as far as he could tell up to this point. Actually, it didn’t even look as though there was more than one species. This place seemed to be one gigantic colony.
“Not much variety here.” The doctor seemed to have read his mind.
Or he had just paid attention to where Adams had looked, and his facial expressions. The xenobiologist smiled.
“I’m wondering about that. See the mycelium down here?”
“Yes. It’s growing everywhere.”
“There isn’t a place it couldn’t be found that’s not naked rock. We have large mycelia on Earth, the biggest is in Oregon, Cascadia.”
“Never been to North America.”
“I was born in Cascadia. My parents fled when I was little. The situation with the neighbouring Holy State of Gilead was about to escalate.”
“I think I heard of that in the news.”
Adams looked around, wandered a few steps and picked up a fungus not much bigger than his thumb. It reminded him of Eringi mushrooms, a species of similar shape back home. Next, he carefully cut a piece of the mycelium out of the ground. He put it into another container, specifically designed to hold such samples of biomass. More and more, he was convinced that finding out more about the ecological system of this planet was the key to understanding how the individual parts worked, too. All plant life on this planet was fungus based. They all seemed to share the same ecological niche, without competing. Wherever he looked, he could make out about the same percentage of mycelium, large mushroom trees, and the various smaller species. The ratio didn’t change wherever he went. This was an interesting observation, too. Yeah, this looked increasingly like just one organism, not competing colonies.
“Man, I wish I had my laboratory,” he mumbled to himself, not expecting an answer.
“The transporter should arrive soon, then you can get back on board and get new gear.” Deirdre’s voice came out of his helmet.
He had thought she was still asleep, but when he checked the time, he noticed he had already been outside for over thirty minutes.
“What about you, are you going to go back with me, or do you want to stay here?”
“I’m not finished yet. I got some results, but not the one I need. The key point of my mission is still not complete. I can’t go back like this.”
“How do you feel?” Doctor Moan wanted to know.
“I’m good. A bit of a headache, but…” Her voice faded away.
“Take a rest until I come back. I’m on my way now.”
Adams could understand Deirdre’s sentiment. He himself had no choice, he wouldn’t get very far without new gear. She could just keep going. All that seemed to be necessary for her to complete her mission, was she herself, and the Cu Sidhe. He envied her.
Then again, considering what they had been dealing with those last few days, he wasn’t even sure about that anymore.
A curse on his helmet’s speakers. Moan had forgotten to turn off his transmitter, and he had stumbled and fallen down halfway back to the Wisp. A huge person like him fell extra hard.
“Are you all right, doc?” Deirdre’s voice sounded worried.
“I’m okay. Please wait a moment, I’ll be right—oh damn.”
“What?”
“My suit ripped.”
“How did that happen? Isn’t it virtually indestructible?”
The Fir Bolg laughed, stood up and continued his march back to the vehicle.
“Be sure to be extra thorough with the decontamination,” Adams said.
“I have an abrasion. I must examine it, anyway.”
“You’re the doctor, you know what to do.”
Adams still hadn’t been able to analyse the biosphere. Chances were that something had gotten under the doctor’s skin and would cause problems. Maybe he should take him back to the Tuatha De Danann when the transporter came back.
He wandered over to one of those rather tall specimens, plucked off small samples from the stem and its roots, put them in their respective containers, then stood up again and stared at the Gliese 667 Cf, which dominated the sky.
Planet F, the second candidate for colonisation in the system, was tidally locked. It also was surrounded by an asteroid belt.
However, this was not the belt in which the Tuatha De Danann was docked for repairs. That one was far outside, at the fringes of the system. How convenient it would have been to have their mother ship in orbit about the neighbouring planet. It could have assisted with various tasks, from scans to quick restocking of equipment, to hauling more staff to the surface.
Thinking about it, they had had exceptionally bad luck since the moment they had entered the system. Starting with the collision with the asteroid, the damaged transporter that had to drop them, and finally the disaster at both of the two spots they had visited, the supposed places of power. Even the parachute jump itself had been shaky. The druid had been frozen in fear, and would have missed the window to push the button which opened her parachute. That would have ended her adventure on this planet right there. Could he risk leaving her alone here, with only the marine to aid her? Then again, Sergeant Ailbhe made a reliable impression. Deirdre would be safer in her presence than in his.
Rethinking it like a scientist, all those events were completely irrelevant for this decision. They had been isolated incidents, not indicative of how the druid would fare when left alone.
He looked at his bag. He could be quite satisfied with today’s haul. Adams had taken samples of most everything he needed. Maybe not everything that was on this planet, but for now, he wouldn’t complain. Maybe another piece of the mycelium, maybe a bigger one than the tiny sample he had already taken. He took a specialised knife, cut out a piece the size of his hand, then dived about thirty centimetres into the ground, cutting its roots there. How deep did the mycelium grow into the surface? That was not something he could find out with the equipment he had here. Yes, he needed some specialised gear, to properly analyse the biosphere of this planet. He checked the temperature. It was cold now, minus two degree Celsius. During the day, it had hovered at over zero degrees, but now it had gotten freezing, and the night had just started. He expected it to get colder yet.