For example, Mondocat taught herself to purr. Purring is not a natural behavior for her species, and I never deliberately rewarded her for that. I am still not sure how she figured it out. Just by interacting with me, she determined that this sound would assist in her relationship with me.
Often after several days on the hunt she would return and sleep curled up on the top of my hull. She must have trusted me implicitly. Sometimes she would follow one of my remotes around. It was uncanny how she could sense when they were heading off to investigate something new and potentially interesting.
As I explore the planet, I find hints of an older technological civilization. At first it’s just traces of molecules that were unlikely to have been created by natural processes. My satellite network detects rectangular holes in the ground, long since covered by sediment but whose outlines are still visible from space. These can only be the remains of quarries. Finally, deep-radar and seismic imaging located several obviously artificial subterranean complexes. From the geology they must have been buried for no less than five million years.
Time to find out for myself. Since I left the Amelia Earhart android behind in the other dimension (or wherever it was), I have stopped using that model. Remotes are disposable, and I have had many Earhart-models destroyed before, but this time it seems inappropriate to keep using it. So I have a new favorite: Herman Shikibu, the 26th century scientist-priest and iconoclast. He is of average height for a human male; vaguely Asian features, with an ectomorphic build. He is clean shaven, including his skull. I considered having him wear something more appropriate for adventuring but decide not to. Instead, I have the android wear the outfit that Shikibu wore every day of his adult life, a severely-cut black suit with no ornamentation of any kind.
I have moved my main hull next to one of the bigger underground complexes. My drones have dug a tunnel and intercepted one of the galleries. Shikibu drops out of a hatch and begins to walk towards the dig. Along comes Mondocat. Of course she has realized that something is up and wants to poke her nose into whatever it is that I uncover. She has never encountered one of my humanoid remotes before. She eyes Herman Shikibu warily, looks around, and then moves closer to sniff him. If Mondocat wanted to she could cut the remote in half before it could react, but thankfully, she accepts him as part of myself. Herman Shikibu walks off, and Mondocat follows with a show of casual interest.
Exploring the ruins of lost alien civilizations is, in general, a terrible disappointment. Almost always the interesting bits have been looted or decayed many millions of years ago, leaving only oddly-shaped chambers that hint at what might have been, yet yield nothing definite. There are, however, exceptions. The most exciting possibility is that the originating species is still alive and active. Both the initial scouts and myself have hailed this planet on all frequencies with the standard diplomatic protocols, but not every species is prompt at answering the doorbell. If there is an extant advanced civilization present, they might object to my intrusion; might, possibly, try to kill me; might, possibly, succeed; and go on to wipe out my brethren. You never know what sort of destructive weirdness could have been buried in a cavern for the last five million years.
If there is a technological species present, I shall have to try diplomacy and hope that I can make myself sufficiently well understood before they declare war on my kind for the effrontery of disturbing whatever self-indulgent neurotic pleasures alien species that have sealed themselves in a cave for five million years engage in. But even if there is not that kind of threat, old ruins can contain other bits of nastiness: booby traps, deliberate or accidental, and ranging in power from minor fireworks to planetary-crust-destroying doomsday machines or near-omnipotent computer viruses. Best to tread cautiously.
That’s why I enter with an unarmed humanoid android. It’s unlikely to be perceived as a threat, and if it gets trashed it’s no big deal. I could go in with a major combat escort, using armored snake-bots and squadrons of heavy remotes, but that could easily backfire. Besides, if I inadvertently start a shooting war I would rather fight it on the surface where I have room to maneuver. I suppose that Mondocat could be considered a combat unit but she’s a native species and I could just pretend that she followed me home. Or something.
I crawl down a narrow tunnel that my drones had dug; Mondocat compresses her body and glides in after me. The tunnel connects to a larger corridor: flat level floor, ceiling about 5 meters overhead with flat featureless walls. There is nothing but dust on the floor, and no lights or detectable power sources of any kind. Looks like I missed the party. Mondocat could navigate the tunnel just fine using her sonar sense and newly-extruded whiskers. Herman Shikibu is not so capable, and uses a hand-held flashlight.
We come to the end of the corridor. There is nothing there. I know from seismic mapping that there are other spaces beyond this, and I could just blow a hole in the wall, but that seems inelegant. I explore the face of the corridor end. Mondocat lies down and watches me with one half-open eye (I imagine her thinking: ‘hey, you’re the smarty-pants sentient being, you figure this out, let me know if something interesting turns up, thanks awfully’). Hidden under the dust are some recessed panels. Pushing on them does nothing. There are also some oddly-shaped depressions. I stick my fingers in them, wiggle and push. Nada. I step back to think about it, and the wall slides back.
I have no idea how I triggered this action, but the way has been opened into a larger chamber. It’s still dark, and even for my sensitive optics the cavern is so large that it eats up the flashlight beam. Still, the echoes suggest that it’s a big space. Mondocat walks in ahead of me, poking at various unidentifiable bits of stuff that jut up from the floor here and there. We wander around like this for a while and encounter things that are weird but not apparently useful or enlightening or (in Mondocats’ case) edible.
Eventually we come to a circular tunnel that lights up as we approach. It is about ten meters in diameter, and has rectangular panels in the ceiling that glow a faint blue. It is impressive that there is still some power after all this time, and also a little worrying. It might be more than just lights that are still active. We walk through the tunnel for several kilometers. Eventually it opens up into a large space that looks vaguely like a train station. Tiny white motes in the sides of vertical pearlescent columns cast a dim illumination. We are standing on a wide flat platform overlooking many hundreds of sunken bays. Some of the bays have constructs in them, they could be trains or trucks or power stations or children’s playgrounds or anything else. The constructs are covered in dense metal pipework. They are mounted on rails but the rails don’t go anywhere.
There is movement from the far end of the platform. Something is coming. It looks like a snail mounted on rollers. It has what looks like a sensor cluster on top, and the base is surrounded by jointed metal tentacles. I stand still, and Mondocat adopts a defensive posture. It stops ten meters from us and then holds motionless. Suddenly the metal tentacles whip out and knock my Shikibu remote off of his feet. They arch down in a killing strike, but I roll and avoid them and they gouge into the platform. The snail-thing pulls them back and initiates another strike.
Mondocat sheers the tentacles off in mid-strike. Before the snail-thing can rotate to bring more tentacles to bear, Mondocat has closed with it, torn it open, and ripped out its internal mechanisms. Mondocat pokes around in its insides with a single unsheathed claw: perhaps disappointed that there is nothing worth eating? Or at least tormenting?
A dozen more snail-things approach us. One is having trouble navigating: it loses its way, falls off the edge of the platform, and shatters on the level below. Another is clearly failing, it moves in jerky fits and soon stops entirely. But that makes ten fully functional units remaining. They surround us. Mondocat assumes what I have learned is her maximal-threat defensive posture and screams.
Different non-sentient species from different biomes have different habits. A vocalization that is a threat in one environment could
be an indication of camaraderie in another; you just have to figure it out. Nonetheless, it is common for apex predators to have a very loud sound that they use both to immobilize prey and to announce a challenge. As much physical weapon as symbol, her scream peaks at 180 decibels, comparable to a human stun grenade.
The snail-things stop moving, retract their jointed tentacles, and power down. Mondocat continues to eye them warily for some time. Cautiously I walk past them; still no response. Eventually Mondocat joins me, easing past the deactivated alien defense units.
We wander around for some time. I don’t find anything comprehensible or useful, but other than the few automated defense systems we had encountered there does not seem to be anybody home. I suppose I should just call it a day, and bring in a more organized team of remotes to begin a systematic mapping.
Mondocat, however, has found something. She is sniffing at a kind of tall skinny doorway. It is one meter wide and 40 meters tall. It has a simple hinge mechanism, and is easily opened on perfectly functioning bearings. The corridor beyond is similarly narrow and tall, and oddly claustrophobic for such a high-ceilinged space. I guess the narrowness makes it feel like the walls could close in, and that cancels out the effect of the high ceiling. The passageway has considerable surface detail, but it means nothing to me, it could be language, or art, or tool marks from some odd manufacturing process.
The corridor curves around in a tight spiral, and descends. We must be getting pretty deep. At last we come to something that I recognize. It’s a bank-vault style armored door, heavy polished metal with multiple chromed locking pistons. It’s been left open. We step inside
This space is completely different. It consists of rectangular corridors and square rooms, all with transparent crystal floors, walls, and ceilings. They must go on for kilometers, but after about a hundred walls the view fades into a haze so that the complex seems endless. The corridors are empty and featureless, but each cubical room has something different in it. Odd mechanisms. Bundles of transparent cables terminating in complicated consoles. Ancient skeletons covered with the barest wisps of hide and dust.
Mondocat pokes at one skeleton and it collapses. She sniffs at it, is unimpressed, and moves on. I examine another one: it could be a relative of Mondocat, but smaller, and with only four hind-limbs instead of six. The forelimbs have the same muscular build but the claws are shorter, and the paws dextrous to the point of being called fingers.
There are a lot of skeletons around. Some are thrown in heaps in the corners of rooms, other are arranged in specific patterns on the floor. They wear the remains of what look like necklaces, or rings, or tool-belts. The conclusion is obvious: these must be Mondocats’ ancestors, sentient, and likely responsible for her formidable bioengineering. They must have worked on that project, and when it was completed, died out.
The crystal maze is filled with bizarre alien technology, but nothing alive, and no further defense mechanisms. The big prize would be finding their computer cores or data storage archives. If their data has not been erased or decayed after all of this time, it would be a major intelligence coup. Not so much for the knowledge of Mondocat's ancestors, but for the data that they might have acquired on other alien species. Many of those species must still be around, and any records on them would be almost priceless.
But finding an alien computer is not easy. Doors are easy: the most diverse species make doors that look surprisingly like any door made anywhere. But advanced computers are just finely-grained ordered blocks of matter. On the surface they could look like anything, or be built into anything. Cut into it and it could easily be mistaken for a composite building material.
I think to myself: these creatures likely needed ready access to their data systems. They might have built the access circuitry into their brains, or done something else weird, but they also might have terminals of some sort lying around. I examine the crystal rooms. The artifacts are diverse, but there are a few common objects with enough complexity that they just might be terminals. I notice a network of gold strips and rods extending through the crystal walls: a simple electrical power source? But the geometry is not suited to rapid data transmission. There must be something else.
I notice that some of the artifacts are connected to the walls. The point of contact looks strange. The Shikibu android does not have major analysis capabilities, but he can focus his eyes much closer than a humans. I peer at the contact point, and shine my light on it from different angles. I see a clear sign of ordered fibers. They are etched like snowflakes into the walls, the floors and ceilings. It could just be decoration, but I think that I found their computer system. It’s built into the structure all around me.
This is beyond my expertise. I decide to leave the analysis of the alien computer system – if that is what it is – to the more technically sophisticated of my peers. There is too much chance that I would accidentally erase the data in trying to access it. I congratulate myself on my self-restraint. Mondocat and I retrace our steps, I seal the doors behind us, and we head back to the surface.
Mondocat is I think annoyed that our little adventure did not result in anything of interest to her. She immediately set out on a hunt and spent the next two weeks consuming the carcass of a giant boar-like creature that she had killed. To her, the ancient ruins were just dust and old bones, and nothing of interest to the living.
There was another Mondocat that started hanging around. From my research I presume that this is a male of the species. He was clearly interested in Mondocat but she refused to acknowledge his presence. At one time he got close and made to sniff her, and she walloped him so hard that he went flying across the clearing.
The male was persistent. One day Mondocat and I were on a small bluff overlooking a plain. There was a herd of something that looked like Terran Cape Buffalo. The male was hunting them. From our vantage point we could appreciate his artfulness in stalking them, his use of cover, and his patience. Finally, one of the buffalo wandered off from the main herd and the male saw his opportunity. The buffalo saw its mistake and ran back towards the herd, reaching about 60 kilometers per hour. The male accelerated sharply and the buffalo might as well have been standing still. He hit the buffalo so hard that it was knocked off of its feet, and then broke its neck with one swipe of his paw.
Then the male dragged the carcass back across the plain and up the knoll, hooking it with his two inner hind legs and pulling it while facing forwards. Mondocat watched with cool detachment. Finally the male made it over to us, and it dropped the carcass. Mondocat arose regally, walked over to the dead buffalo-thing, and casually took a bite out of the fleshy part of one leg. Then she turned and sauntered off.
The male followed. Mondocat cycled through several different gait patterns, and the male matched her stride-for-stride. They hit 100 kilometers per hour. 150. 200. Mondocat started to pull away from the male, but then he lowered his head, powered forward, and slowly caught up.
Mondocat made several nearly right-angle turns, her multiple legs spreading wide to allow her amazing cornering ability and traction. The male still matched her.
At this point their legs were little more than blurs. They extended auxiliary lungs from their sides like jet engine intakes for extra oxygen, and to get rid of heat. Nictitating membranes protect their eyes. They encountered a small lake, and at this speed water is nearly solid: they tore across the surface each leaving six parallel scars spraying out from the impact of their hind-limbs. She led them through a thicket, and they burst through the bushes in small explosions of branches and panicked small forest creatures. They hit 225 kilometers per hour. 250.
In the grand scheme of things 250 kilometer per hour is not that fast. Light goes 300,000 kilometers per second: that’s 3.6 million times faster. Escape velocity for your average terrestrial planet is about 40,000 kilometers per hour. A Terran peregrine falcon can break 300 kilometers an hour in a dive. My airborne remotes and missiles can do many times this. But this is a fantastic spee
d for a biological creature to run across broken terrain on legs.
It’s not just power that is required for this speed. The land flashes by almost faster than you can see, and each small bump or rise in the ground requires millisecond-level timing and colossal strength. A trip at this speed would be fatal. We have no record of any purely biological species that can do this, and few enough biomechanicals. I myself would be hard-pressed to design a machine that could match them.
They start to slack off, downcycling to slower gait patterns and dumping heat. They settle into a slow trot, and this time they are shoulder-to-shoulder. They retract their auxiliary lungs. They have come full circle back to the buffalo carcass. They sit for a time resting, their breath slowing gradually back to normal. The male gets up and moves to sniff at Mondocat, and this time he is not repulsed.
They spend the next week enjoying each others’ company, consuming the remains of the buffalo, and sleeping. I expect that the male will leave after this, but they have paired up and remain together. More like Terran birds of prey than cats. Perhaps Wiffle-Bat was right about not naming unrelated species after each other.
As I continue to analyze this world I sometimes encounter them. Mondocat recognizes my remotes, and purrs and rubs against them. The male is more cautious but seeing her example he also accepts my presence. Eventually two cubs are born blind and helpless. They open their eyes after three weeks, but are still unable to coordinate their complex musculatures, so they are jumbles of tangled limbs wobbling around. Mondocat does not have mammary glands, but both parents feed the infants regurgitated food. At night they all sleep in a pile on the forest floor.
I had largely put them out of my mind, and was going on about my own business, when a micro-scout heard what I have come to understand is a Mondocat alarm cry. I have the scout move into a clearing where the two cubs are being menaced by an enormous centipede creature. It’s 20 meters long, with a segmented armored carapace, 18 pairs of legs and mandibles like pruning sheers for meter-wide oaks. It must be mostly subterranean: it’s covered with dirt and I can see an exit hole in the ground nearby. That’s how it surprised the Mondocats, and why I have not seen this macro-species before. It’s targeted at the cubs. I launch a couple of missiles to help out but they are 30 seconds flight time away.
The Chronicles of Old Guy (Volume 1) (An Old Guy/Cybertank Adventure) Page 15