by Cynthia Lore
“It’s beautiful.”
What Rae did not realize at the time, was that she did not actually see that much beauty in the sphere, what with it’s jagged scars, but only that the concept of another planet teaming with life on it was beautiful to her. The land itself, she would find out, held more terror for her than delight.
The First Descent
It had been about a week, according to Rae’s sleeping habits, and Markar and her were finally preparing to descend to the new world. The time they had spent together since their last kiss had gone by surprisingly fast. Rae, who was a loner by nature, found Markar’s quiet disposition pleasant, and even though the two didn’t talk constantly, she still found that his attention usually centered on her. She would catch him watching her out of the corner of his eye most times, and he wasn’t hesitant to initiate a casual physical contact between them anymore. Rae often found Markar brushing up against her as he walked past. They were still sleeping in the same bed, and every night the man seemed to be inching closer to her.
Rae was uncertain how she felt about the intimate actions. On the one hand, as a social creature she craved the physical contact of another being and the comfort it could provide, but she wasn’t sure how much of her acceptance over the situation was her natural fondness for Markar, and how much of it was forced through their odd situation. She was of half a mind to accept it all with open arms, and the other half wanted to fight off her feelings with tooth and nail. Either way, Rae felt her emotions twisting inside of her with the force of a hurricane. She just didn’t know which way the storm was headed yet. She glanced uneasily at Markar when Rae realized in which direction her thoughts were turning. “
Is that a sword?” she said in disbelief.
“Yes.” Markar was hooking a large broadsword onto his belt. They both had put on bodysuits to protect themselves from the elements of the planet they were to descend to. Apparently, what him and Rae had been running around in were essentially Morian underclothes. Yet again Rae was unsure how he had found a suit in her size, but she was grateful for it. The fabric was loose enough to move around in comfortably, but fitted. If she had to wear one in Markar’s size, she would be drowning in material.
“Why are you bringing a sword? Wouldn’t it be easier to bring a gun?”
“You never know what you will face when encountering a new planet. It is standard protocol to bring a sword, among other things, for the first descent.” Markar replied automatically as he continued to prepare.
Rae’s mouth dropped open in sudden understanding. “No wonder nobody on Earth took you seriously.” she muttered to herself. Markar had apparently heard her, because he glared in her general direction. The alien had come to her world claiming only peace and alliance, but no one had believed him. Her superiors had spent months trying to wring his real motives out of him, to no avail. After spending so much time with Markar, Rae was convinced that they had been wrong. He really had come in peace, and only peace. But it was understandable that no one would believe that of an alien with a broadsword.
Markar held out a short sword for Rae. “What’s that for?” she asked, before taking it from him and examining it.
“It is your sword to carry, although, it is actually just a long knife. While you are right, and the carrying of a sword on the first descent is mostly tradition for us, there have been times when these items have saved Morian lives. Not all planets are peaceful, and not all creatures wish to form alliances.” Rae nodded in understanding. She was never one to turn down a weapon, no matter how outdated. The knife and its sheath were light in her hands, and beautifully crafted. She hooked it onto her belt, on her left side. Her right was reserved for the gun and holster Markar had given her.
The two of them gathered up the rest of the supplies needed for the trip. Since Markar was unable to pick up any signs of intelligent life from the new planet, the two of them would have to go on foot to make sure there were no civilizations on the world. He explained to Rae that it could take a long time to fully catalogue the land to the satisfaction of Morian protocol.
Rae was no stranger to wilderness. Having grown up on a farm in the middle of nowhere, she wasn’t daunted by the thought of camping or hiking. In fact, she enjoyed that kind of thing and was excited by the thought of exploring. After she had risen in rank in the military, Rae hadn’t seen as much action as she was used to. She was tired of being a pencil pusher, even if it was a safer, and higher paying job. She wanted adventure!
“Now, how do we get off this bucket-of-bolts!” Rae said excitedly when they finished packing for the trip. Markar looked a little confused at her use of language.
“There is not a ‘bucket of bolts’ anywhere near us, but if you mean my ship,” at that he glared at her. “We will use the Transport System- the particle beam.”
Rae felt some uneasiness at the idea of having pieces of herself beamed to another planet, but she figured the Morians knew what they were doing. Markar led her to a room in the spaceship that she hadn’t seen yet. It was bare except for one wall that had controls and a video feed set into it. The surface of the floor was a shiny black with textured octagons spaced throughout.
“Do I have to stand on one of these?” she asked as she did exactly that.
“Hmm? No.” Markar was distracted at the control panel of the room, and only glanced back at her for a second. “You can stand anywhere in the room.”
Despite his answer, Rae planted her feet firmly on the octagon of her choice. Hefting her bag onto her shoulders, she was extremely relieved to be bringing the advanced technology of the Morian’s on this trip, and not military issue camping gear. Her backpack was so lightweight, that she could easily see herself marching for weeks with the thing on.
Markar had also given her some boots to wear on the trip, somehow in her perfect size. When he had brought them to her, he had started laughing hysterically at how tiny the boots were, until she had ripped them out of his hands and informed him that he was just freakishly big.
“Okay. Are you ready, Rae?” Markar turned away from the control panel to look at her.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.” she replied crisply as her adrenaline kicked in. Because of her military training, the adrenaline didn’t make her anxious, it only made her eager for action.
Markar frowned at her word choice, and walked over to where she was standing. Positioning himself in front of her, he did one final visual check of their preparations. “You might feel some unbalance in your center of gravity.”
Rae nodded in response.
Markar didn’t do anything that might have alerted her to the fact that her particles were now being beamed millions of miles away. In fact, he didn’t move at all. The only notice Rae got was that his appearance began to flicker before her eyes, like some sort of apparition.
She felt as if she was falling, and her heart lurched in her chest in reaction. The sensation of gravity disappeared, and then reappeared so drastically that she was left completely off balance. Pin wheeling her arms to try to stay upright, Rae fell ungracefully on her ass.
“Damn that hurt!” she exclaimed while pushing herself awkwardly to her knees. Markar leaned down and helped her the rest of the way up. After brushing herself off, she assessed her surroundings, and gasped in shock.
She was standing on earth, but it was not Earth. Rae took in the sights around her with child-like awe. The planet looked much like what she was used to, with only slight differences. But it was those differences that only emphasized how truly alien the world was.
The sky had a purple cast to it, and it seemed restless, as if a storm was brewing. The trees and foliage looked foreign: wrong shapes, and wrong shades, but they were green. Rae remembered that most of the planet looked like very dense forest, but the area they were at was a higher altitude and rocky. The mountains around them were strangely colored, yet again with a distinct purple hue. She could see the forests surrounding them, and there were scattered trees that towered higher than t
he mountains of the planet. Rae was broken out of her wonder when Markar spoke.
“It looks like a nice planet.”
She had forgotten his presence, and was startled by his words. Looking over to him in curiosity, she wondered what he had to compare this world to. “What is your home planet like?”
He looked off into the distance and sneered in disgust. “Not so nice.”
“How so?”
“It is a very cold planet, and because of that it doesn’t have as many things growing on it. Almost none, if I remember correctly.” Markar’s eyebrows came together in confusion, as if the memory was a very distant one. “Our star is dying and doesn’t warm like it used to.”
It sounded horrible to Rae, no matter how nonchalantly Markar had mentioned the immanent death of his solar system. “I’m sorry.”
“Do not be. We have known about the end of our star for a long time. We no longer need it, or our planet to survive. Even if most of our population did not spend the majority of our lives traveling, there are many planets like this one that we have found to colonize.”
Rae nodded in understanding, but in the depths of her soul, she knew she didn’t truly comprehend. It seemed as if none of the Morians had anywhere to call home. Markar spoke so casually about a concept that would horrify most humans. Both Jakar and him usually reacted so humanly, that Rae wondered if there weren’t emotions that Markar had buried deep inside of himself about the loss of his home.
The two of them made their way down the mountain in silence. They were both busy scanning the landscape around them, Rae in amazement, and Markar looking for signs of intelligent life.
A few hours later, they stumbled upon a small lake and decided to set up camp for the night. In the dimming light, Markar set up a perimeter around their campsite that would keep any unwanted guests out. He pulled out a small cube that popped open to a very large metallic dome tent. After a few seconds the dome slowly changed color to match the surrounding scenery. “Wow.” was all Rae managed to say.
Sitting at their fire, the two waited for true nightfall. They told stories about their families and their previous lives. It sounded to Rae as if Markar had grown up in a type of orphanage, with only his brothers to show him what family love was. She would never have admitted it to him but his story, told so casually, made her sad. The Morians didn’t seem to have very fulfilling lives to her. They worked from the time they were old enough to set out into space on their own, until they were too elderly to adventure anymore. The older Morians stayed on their cold, barren planet and watched over the younger ones.
When they both finally settled down for sleep, Rae stayed awake for long hours; trying to assure herself that her own life was nothing like Markar’s.
Fire and Water
The next day, Rae was having a hard time waking up. She had stayed up late into the night thinking about the direction her life had taken and how similar it was to the stark Morian lifestyle. Groaning in defeat, Rae rubbed her eyes as she forced herself to finally get out of bed.
When she left the tent she found that Markar had already made breakfast and was in the process of picking up the campsite so they could get moving. He gave her an odd look when he saw how tired she still was. Usually Rae was an early riser; a trait she had picked up while in the army. Stretching her stiff muscles, she sat down to eat the food he had made.
As she slowly chewed the lukewarm meal, Rae began to wonder if she still wanted her life the way it was. Since she was little, she had known what she wanted and had pursued it with single-minded purpose. Like a bullet speeding towards its intended target, Rae’s focus was sharp, but anything else around her had been ignored for her one goal. To join the military and rise in rank, to be the best soldier she could be, these were the things she had chased down and claimed, but last night she had realized how truly empty life still was for her.
“Markar?”
“Hmm?” he responded.
“Do you like your life?” Rae asked.
Markar stopped gathering the invisible force field that he had set up around the campsite last night to keep unwanted creatures out and turned towards Rae. Wrinkling his brow, he seemed to think the question over. “There is nothing wrong with my life.” he finally answered uncertainly.
“But if you could change it, would you? Do you ever think the work you do isn’t enough to keep you happy? Don’t you ever wish you could share more of your life with other people?” Rae was honestly confused why anyone would want to spend their entire lives practically alone.
Markar looked away as his eyes surveyed the land around them. He stooped down to continue his work collecting the small conical devices that had created the force field. Rae didn’t mind that he hadn’t responded to her questions. She was lost in her own thoughts, wondering what her own answers were. She had achieved her one goal in life, but had ignored any others that she might have had.
As the two moved relentlessly down the mountainside towards the lush forests of the planet Rae could see the sky darkening again. A deep purple began to interweave into the lighter lilac color that the atmosphere usually was. She could hear thunder rolling down from the mountain peak that they were descending. Looking behind her, Rae could see flashes of lighting amid the growing purple and black clouds.
Turning back to Markar, she saw that he was looking at the landscape below them through some binoculars he had brought. “See anything?” Rae asked in curiosity.
Markar shook his head in response. “There are odd structures in some of the trees, but other than that I see no sign of any intelligent life forms. In fact, I have not seen many life forms at all.” He frowned at the thought.
“Well, we’re still on this mountain. A lot more creatures probably live on the forest floor.” Rae’s words were rational, but they rang hollowly and fell flat even within her own mouth. Markar nodded at her observation, but it was obvious that they were both disturbed at the lack of larger life forms that they had seen.
Descending the mountain at a more leisurely pace, Rae put aside her personal thoughts to survey the land around them more carefully. There were stretches of earth where plant life had overcome the rocky mountainside, but Rae began to notice that some of these areas had long scorch marks going through them, as if someone had taken a flamethrower to the land. There were places where the grass was only lightly singed, and darker concentrations where fire had more thoroughly destroyed the living things around it.
As their path took them away from the barren rocky slopes of the mountainside, and ever closer to the forest below, small animals could be seen scurrying about. Creatures that looked like some sort of rodent fled across the grasslands, and birds took wing and flew upwards. Still there was no sign of any animals bigger than a rabbit or a swallow. Rae intently studied the world around them looking for some larger grazing animals, but even though she was still at a high enough altitude to see for miles around them, she couldn’t spot anything. In the back of her mind she knew she was also desperately searching for the predators she knew must exist on this planet, before they could find her.
Markar’s longer legs carried him in front of Rae, but she noticed that he always managed to keep her within sight. With him taking point in their small formation, he was the first to see the strange creature flying above the great forest. “There.” Markar said as he indicated the animal far off into the distance. “What is that?”
Rae saw the impossibly huge animal flying above the tree line. It dipped down occasionally into the foliage, and then would emerge suddenly, making the trees below it tremble from the beating of its giant wingspan. Its cry carried over the mountains and seemed to echo within Rae’s mind. She felt some prehistoric fear rise within her in response to the eerie call of the huge beast.
“It looks like a pterodactyl.” Rae said in awe as they watched the giant flying creature plunge in and out of the forest. Suddenly, from underneath the canopy came an explosion of flame. The top of the burning fire sprouted above the tre
es, and then the flame was gone just as quickly as it had appeared. The creature emerged from the leaves and ascended into the sky, something dangling limply from its jaws. It flew into the distance, heading for the peaks of another mountain.
Markar turned towards Rae, his body posture intense, as if preparing for battle. “What is a pterodactyl?” He said the words delicately, with measured precision.
Rae took a nervous step back when she saw the yellow color of Markar’s eyes flair to life. They almost seemed to glow, but then she realized it was only because his pupils had reduced to the size of pinpricks, that his eyes seemed so strange. “It’s a dinosaur, an animal that lived on Earth a long time ago. I’ve never seen a live one, only the fossils.”
“It is not intelligent is it?” Markar asked, the intensity still contained in his voice, but his body had relaxed.
“Not that I know of.” Rae watched as Markar turned around to stare off into the direction of where the creature had retreated.
“We should be wary of that animal.” he said, almost as if he was talking to himself. Rae nodded in agreement, even though Markar couldn’t see her. The two descended in silence towards the forest once again.
The trek was long, but relatively easy because it was downhill. Even though they didn’t stop much to rest, Rae didn’t mind. After her promotion in the military, she hadn’t had many chances to get out in the field, but she tried to stay ready by keeping herself in shape. The march down the mountain, therefore, wasn’t that hard for a soldier like Rae.
Before nightfall, the two set up camp once again by another small lake. Over dinner, they talked about the creatures they saw during the day. Rae told Markar all she knew about pterodactyls, which wasn’t much. He seemed not quite disappointed, but more thoughtful.