“It’s gone under my mask!” moaned one of the men. “It’s burning me! It’s burning! Aaaah!” The other three watched their comrade in horror as he dropped, screaming in pain, to his knees, and his body began to convulse. Another volley of yellow globs spattered onto him, and his screams rose in intensity.
“We’re going to take it out!” yelled Chuck. “Fire after me if you get a clean shot but don’t hit the tanks!” He took aim and fired a single shot just below the moving forest of eyes. The spider leapt off the tanks and hit the ground, running straight for Chuck. “Fire now!” he roared and automatic fire ripped into the spider from three sides. It rolled into a grotesque ball, legs flailing, crashed into a tree, and lay trembling. “Koh, guard the spider! Kharkov, go and help Spencer! I’m going to check the booster unit.”
When he returned a few minutes later, his three companions met him halfway. “Spencer’s dead,” said Kharkov.
“The spider’s stopped moving,” said Koh.
“The booster unit is OK,” said Chuck quietly, and they walked back to where Spencer lay under a tree, his head propped up on his pack, mask removed and shirt ripped open. The flesh of his neck, face and chest was scarlet and covered with angry, bleeding blisters; his eyes, full of terror, were still open. Chuck knelt and closed them with the fingers of his gloved hand, then reported the grim news to his CO.
“Colonel, we have a fatality,” he said. “Spencer has been killed by poison the spider spat at him. It got under his mask and caused his skin to break into open blisters. He died within a couple of minutes.”
There was a long silence.
“Merde!” said Henri under his breath. “Where’s the spider now?”
“It attacked us and we opened up with automatic fire. It appears to be dead.”
“OK. Do you have video of the attack?”
“Yeah, you should have that on your system already. I’m just walking over to the spider now so that you’ll have full coverage from my helmet camera.”
The three men walked warily around the spider’s body, weapons poised.
“OK, I’ve got it,” said Henri. “You weren’t exaggerating about its size! Can you turn it over?”
“We aren’t going to touch it, Colonel,” said Chuck. “We can use the winch that’s on the carrier to do that, but we’ll get the booster unit righted and ready to roll first.”
“Copy that,” said Henri. “I’ll be watching you. Get Koh to remove his helmet camera and leave it focused on the spider so that we can keep an eye on it while you’re working.”
The three of them turned their attention to the carrier and its cargo of tanks and electrolysis equipment. Chuck Connolly walked slowly around the stricken vehicle, examining the damage. As far as he could see the tracks were still intact although badly distorted by the impact with the trees. The problem they had to resolve was to get it off the tree trunks without inflicting further damage.
“Any suggestions, Colonel?” enquired Chuck as he completed his inspection tour.
“I’m just having the carrier design specs checked,” responded Henri, “but I propose you loop the winch cable around a strong tree trunk and then attach the hook to the top of the tripod structure that supports the main ’chute housing on top of the tanks. The winch is on a gimbal, so it will adjust itself automatically to the direction it needs to pull in.”
“Got it,” said Chuck. “That tripod had to support the weight of the carrier when the ’chutes deployed. It has to be strong enough to pull the lander over.”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s OK,” confirmed Henri. “Proceed.”
The winch cable was run out to its full extent, looped around a tree trunk and the hook returned to the carrier. Kharkov was dispatched to shin up the tripod and fasten the hook to the top.
“Well,” said Chuck to his CO, “it was a truly screwy idea to put the booster unit down in a forest in the first place, but at least it’s provided us with a source of anchor points to solve the problem we created for ourselves.”
“That’s your job, soldier,” was Henri’s response.
“Stand well clear of the cable!” yelled Chuck to his detail, and started the winch motor. He watched intently as the cable took up the slack and then bit hard into the bowl of the tree it was wound around. The tracks groaned and squeaked as they were dragged off the broken tree trunks but they were lifted clear without incident. Chuck cut the motor and the three men crowded round to inspect the tracks and driving gear.
“Nothing serious,” was Chuck’s comment. “I’m going to start the motors and see if we can get her to move forward.”
The carrier’s tracks began to churn into the earth, and the cable tore into its anchor point, but the great craft inched forward. Chuck walked behind it, remote controller in hand. Progress was painfully slow, but the winch cable held and the carrier eventually moved clear of the broken tree trunks that had impaled it. He stopped the motors and activated the winch, lowering it slowly back on to an even keel. There was a little cheer, and then they set about the sad task of consigning Spencer to a body bag and loading him onto the carrier. Strangely the corpse had not attracted any insect life, despite having lain in the open air for the past hour. Chuck took notice of this fact, and concluded with a shudder that the spider’s toxin was probably potent enough to keep all wildlife away.
They returned to where the body of the spider lay, grotesquely propped against the tree on its head where it had come to rest, its long legs splayed in the air, huge yellow fangs prominent below its eyes. Pale blue fluid seeped out of multiple wounds in its body. It stank hideously.
The three men eyed the creature tensely, clenching their weapons.
“Aaah, it’s moving!” shrieked Koh, and delivered a quick volley of shots into the creature. A slimy black bug, the size of a dinner plate, slid down the belly of the spider and scooted over the ground between them. All three jumped aside, yelling in surprise.
“Ugh!” said Connolly. “Some kind of parasite in the spider’s fur! Let’s get out of here.”
The little party scrambled onto the carrier and it lurched back into the forest as fast as its battery-powered motors would allow. Koh and Kharkov sat at the back, their weapons trained on the spider’s corpse, grimacing and unable to get the sour smell of it out of their nostrils.
For the crew members back at the base camp, the sight of the carrier slowly emerging from the trees, its tall white fuel tanks shining in the sunlight, was an immense relief. Here was their ticket back to the comfort and security of Prometheus; without this booster unit, and its capacity to turn water into rocket fuel, Lander 1 was stranded, no more than a temporary, immobile shelter.
For Arlette and Henri, however, it was a sombre affair, and the slow pace of the vehicle as it made its way towards them was reminiscent of a hearse. Together they walked out to meet it, each in turn thanking the three men for completing their task and commiserating with them over the loss of their comrade. They just nodded in return, still deeply shaken by the horror of their encounter.
The carrier was brought to rest next to Lander 1, ready to be linked up to a water supply. Then Koh and Kharkov carried the body bag containing Spencer back to the base and handed it over to the duty doctor.
The findings of the autopsy surprised no one. Spencer had died of respiratory failure brought about by a central nervous system toxin not dissimilar to those found in the venom of poisonous snakes on Earth. The nature of the irritant that had caused Spencer’s skin to blister and puncture so quickly could not be immediately established, but the combination was clearly lethal to mankind, and probably to most of the other creatures on Ceres.
On hearing the news, Arlette retired to her office with Henri and called a video command meeting with Marcel, Julia and Chang, who had watched the spider attack in real time on Prometheus as it unfolded. Arlette read out the autopsy report in full and asked her colleagues for comment.
Chang was the first to respond. “We are very distressed by the dea
th of Spencer and concerned that the animal life we see on Ceres could prove to be dangerous to humans,” he said. “We have been examining our scans and have found nothing to contradict our original findings that mammals and reptiles seem to be absent. There is life in the seas but we don’t see shoals of fish. What we do see frequently on land is groups of six-legged creatures somewhat like scorpions, but about the size of an elephant, and large, tightly packed herds of ant-like creatures, individually about as big as a large dog. Both these species are obviously carnivorous given the carcasses lying around in their vicinity. We think they are feeding on the herbivorous life, of which there is a huge variety of running and hopping creatures of all sizes. On top of that there are numerous species of very large flying creatures somewhat like wasps and beetles, but also elephantine in size. We think they are also carnivores.” He sat back and turned to Julia, who was clearly anxious to get in on the debate.
“Commander,” said Julia. “We don’t rate this as a particularly serious threat in the context of planetary exploration. We will obviously have to keep the herbivores out when we start to develop agriculture, and provided we can do that successfully, the carnivores should have no interest in us. What we need to avoid is surprises of the kind that cost Spencer his life. The toxins developed by these creatures have got to be pretty potent given the size of the prey.”
“Surprises are kind of inevitable in exploration,” said Henri, “but I think we can improve our kit and discipline to protect our people a lot better.”
“Marcel, do you think we are adequately equipped at present?” asked Arlette.
“Well” he said slowly, his head on one side, “it was always going to be a process of learning from experience. I am mortified that we lost Spencer but it was a terrible price we had to pay not to be arrogant about our supposed superiority. I would have made the same decision as Henri in trying to scare the spider off, but we have to remember that its reaction was not unreasonable given that we are much smaller creatures than it was, and it has never experienced anything like a bullet and so had no fear. It was just chasing some impudent little interlopers off its territory. If we learn to think in the right context about these creatures, properly protect ourselves from stings and venoms, and always carry arms, we should be fine.”
“Assuming these creatures have the kind of instincts we’d expect,” chipped in Julia, “they will stick to the diet they are used to. They may see us as interlopers, but not as food.”
“Isn’t that begging the question?” asked Chang. “We are all assuming that these creatures have similarities to the insects we know on Earth. It’s pretty far-fetched to assume that there is any shared ancestry, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but not impossible,” said Marcel, “but that’s not really the issue. Here is an ecosystem populated with creatures with very limited intellect, interested in surviving and procreating, and not impacted by any kind of civilisation. If that’s all it is, it should not be hard to predict behaviour. They won’t be mindlessly aggressive unless we threaten them, or their young, or their territory. Oh, and by the way,” he went on, “your Phase 2 packages will be arriving in eight minutes.”
Arlette, sensing that Chang was about to challenge Marcel into a lengthy discussion of how shared ancestry could have come about, grabbed the opportunity to close the session.
23
Phase Two
“Well, Henri,” said Arlette, “hadn’t you better get your boys running around after parachutes?”
Henri grinned. He sensed a hint of a thaw in their relations and he gave her a shamelessly appreciative head-to-toe look. Arlette saw it and savoured it. She rose, inhaled and looked down her nose at him. “Off you go, then.” Henri remained seated.
“We’re eight hours into twenty-three hours of daylight,” said Henri. “I’d like to discuss our priorities for the rest of the day.”
“That, Henri, will very much depend on the successful recovery of the Phase 2 supplies, won’t it?” She was still looking down her nose at him.
“We can assume…”
Arlette interrupted. “No, we can’t assume anything until they are safely on base.”
Henri rose to his full, considerable height and let one of his stunning smiles loose on her.
“OK, Commander, I’ll be back shortly,” he said.
She watched him leave, her eyes lingering for a moment on his elegant butt. “A bottle of champagne from nowhere, the cunning bastard,” she said to herself with a grin.
The three Phase 2 parachute clusters were already visible as Henri walked out into the sunshine. “Chuck?” he called out.
Chuck Connolly came trotting up to him.
“I want three armed men on each package. They’re coming down on the west of the base where it’s flat and treeless, but we’re taking no chances. Everyone is to be fully kitted and masked.”
“Yessir!” said Chuck. He trotted off, then stopped and turned. “There’s a touch of a breeze now. What if we get a water touchdown?”
“You swim!” came the reply. “All the packages are designed to float. The water’s OK, just rather strongly saline. You take a cable out, hook it up and get it done.”
“Yessir!”
A few minutes later the three details were heading out, cheered on by the rest of the base crew. The first two packages landed just a few hundred metres from the perimeter, but the third one drifted just off the shoreline before it landed with a huge splash in the sea, accompanied by a groan from the spectators. After a few seconds it rose to the surface and righted itself, water streaming off the bright orange casing that enwrapped it.
The three-man detail assigned to recover the package could be seen laying their weapons and helmets aside and running into the water, one with a cable around his waist. There followed a great deal of excitement and arm waving, but they soon applied themselves and, goggles flashing in the sun, made the hundred metres or so to the package, hauled themselves up onto it and secured the cable. Sensing that they were being watched as they hauled the cable back in, they all waved vigorously to their distant spectators as if their little exploit fully deserved recognition. The carrier came to rest about twenty metres away from dry land as its tracks crunched into the pebbles on the sea bed. Somewhat to Henri’s surprise, the three happy passengers did not promptly engage the carrier’s motors but jumped into the water and frolicked around, shrieking and whooping. After a while they seemingly tired of this unscheduled recreation, and the whine of the motors could be heard as the craft inched its way onto dry land.
In twenty minutes they were back at the base alongside the other two carriers and their bright orange cargoes. Kropnik, who had led the detail, advanced towards Henri with a furtive smile. “Colonel” he said, proffering a kit bag whose contents were clearly moving, “I bring you a gift from the seas of Ceres.”
Henri eyed the soldier cautiously and peeped inside. What he saw would have been a very familiar sight in another context, but even on Ceres it was unmistakable. It was a large, dark green lobster.
While the maintenance crew unloaded the cargo on the three newly arrived carriers, the lobster was taken off to the first aid room and cautiously examined by both the duty doctor and his biologist colleague Matt Kirby. Henri dropped in twenty minutes later. “Well?” he said.
“Without having the luxury of comparing this animal’s DNA with that of its apparent relative on Earth, I would say that this creature is undeniably what we would call, back on the coast of Maine, a very fine lobster,” said Kirby.
Henri sensed an opportunity here but asked the doctor, “Did you find anything toxic or biochemically dangerous in the flesh?”
“Nope,” said the doctor. “I agree with Matt. I’m not going to recommend it as sashimi right now, but properly boiled with lemon butter sauce on the side, I think it will make someone a fine dinner.”
“Thank you,” said Henri with a smile. “I have an appropriate recipient in mind, but I’m going to ask my guys to collect a
nother sixteen so that the whole team can have a treat. Could you please supervise them and ensure that everything they catch is edible?”
“Will do,” was the laconic reply.
Henri went straight to the kitchen, where he produced the lobster. “This one’s for the Commander, but I’m asking my guys to collect another sixteen so that the whole crew can have a bit of a break from cultivated protein today,” said Henri. “Can you handle that?”
“Colonel, it will be a real pleasure,” said the cook, his eyes sparkling.
The unloading of the infrastructure packages generated an intense level of activity. Power was soon available from the nuclear generator, water from the desalinator, and drainage and a waste disposal plant were installed. Within four hours wall panels were erected around the flimsy inflatable structure of the camp, water and sanitation made available and basic furniture installed. The militia, instilled with new confidence with the arrival of their personnel carrier, truck and mechanical digger, took to strengthening their defences in earnest.
With nine hours of daylight still left, Henri announced that dinner would be served on trestle tables in the shade of Lander 1. It took almost an hour to get the entire base crew washed up and seated, then Arlette got to her feet and silence spread around the tables.
“Please stand and spend a minute in remembrance of Lieutenant Derek Spencer, who lost his life today defending us. He was a man of courage and humility, and an example to us all. He will be buried here tomorrow with full military honours.”
Absolute silence reigned.
Then Arlette spoke again. “If I could bring myself to believe in a deity, today would be the day I would thank Him for granting me the privilege of standing here now. But we are here because of the fabulous ingenuity of the human race and the skill and dedication of every member of the Prometheus crew. Look around you at this beautiful planet, and savour this great moment in history. You are the first of the Ceresians and your accomplishments will never be forgotten. And now, enjoy your dinner. Colonel Bertin tells me we are having a surprise!”
Omnipotence: Book I: Odyssey Page 17