Pala and Quade deposited the Jack Squirrel in the cage and left, walking toward a group of cadets waiting for Quade at The Hawk. He suddenly stopped, putting his pale hand on her arm to hold her back. There was something in his eyes that she couldn’t quite read. With a deep breath, he pulled his gaze away, looking around the base. Then he returned his attention to her, searching her face. He lifted his hand and ran it gently across her black braids, speaking softly. “Be careful.” Then he walked away to join his waiting group without looking back.
“You, too,” she whispered after him.
Spying Physe walking across the camp, Pala hurried to head him off. “Captain Quade Justiss gave you clear orders to sleep. What are you doing up? Exhaustion isn't good for your immune system.” His face looked like so many others, pale with red-rimmed eyes.
He stared back at her, eyes wide, then grinned and snapped a mock salute, his wrist cocked with a comical upside down ‘V’. “I’d be happy to oblige ma’am, if you could just keep the ruckus down.” He shifted his raised hand and stifled the beginnings of a yawn as voices clambered from the cage area. Pala turned to see the IPC triage doc, in a sudden flurry of motion, snatch Denten’s arm and jerk him out of the Jack Squirrel’s way. Both men sprawled on the ground outside the cage. She bolted for them.
Fighting through the stun Quade had given it, the animal inside reared up on its hind legs and staggered around the cage, alternately changing colors to try to blend with the background. It sheathed and unsheathed long scimitar claws, hissing and spitting at the two scientists and whoever came near.
Abruptly, the creature's golden eyes focused on Pala and stopped dead still. It shuffle-hopped directly toward Pala’s side of the cage. When it reached the wall, it stopped and stared directly at her. It sheathed its claws and flushed a deep charcoal color. Lifting its chin, it uttered a high-pitched chirrup through its nose, watching her closely.
Pala felt her blood chill. They’d been told the planet was devoid of intelligent life. The schematics they’d been shown, even the recon vids all verified it: there were no clustered communities, no artificial structures, no communication traces or technology of any kind. No sentient beings lived on Colossus.
The creature trilled a series of notes at Pala. It settled to its haunches, its gaze still locked on her. One thing was sure, this was no animal.
CHAPTER
27
Pala stood at the end of Denten’s worktable while he examined the creature. Crimson circles were bright on the lower edge of the scientist’s pale brow from leaning against the eyepieces of the microscope. He moved with decidedly less animation than even a few hours ago. There was no escaping it: he was sick too. They all were. If they didn’t find an anti-virus they’d all die. A strange mixture of sorrow and determination filled her, building a glass-sharp edge within her chest. There had to be an answer, somewhere.
Pala regarded her male reptilian guest. If he was sentient, then they were in the wrong by shooting him. His anger was justified. She'd waited until he'd calmed completely, then let him out of the cage to show him she had no intention of harming him. His gaze had locked on her, following her every move. At first, she’d thought it was her skin color that attracted his attention, and that was why he’d turned that dark grey color. But he had shown no interest in Stastny, who was also dark-skinned and had been in the cage right next to him. Nor was the Jack Squirrel interested in any other female or anyone else who carried themselves with authority.
He was sitting on the end of Denten’s table, quietly rubbing long, slim fingers across a flat disc slide. The creature had hopped up on the table himself, the moment she’d swung open the cage door. As Denten had examined him, the creature had slowly let his skin color pale until it seemed to resemble the color of the scientist’s skin.
The color was definitely part of the creature's communication. Pala turned to Denten. “I thought we already classified these creatures as animals. Are we absolutely sure they aren’t?”
He lifted his head from the microscope and dropped a closed sample dish on the table. The creature picked it up, and after turning it over once, unsheathed one claw, slid it under the lid, and pried it open with a quick flick of his wrist.
Denten looked at Pala. “Positive.” He returned to his work, rubbing his thumb on the control pad.
“Monkeys can do that.”
He spoke into his microscope. “Pala, he tried to communicate with you. He reasoned how to open that dish. He’s not a monkey. Trust me on this.”
“Why communicate with me? He has no way of knowing I’m in charge.” When he didn’t answer, Pala continued. “All right, then. Here’s a question for you: Why would the IPC, more specifically General Grollier, tell us this planet is devoid of intelligent life? Even go so far as to fabricate false data? Do you really believe it’s just part of the virus test?” She stared at the creature, keeping her gaze locked with his.
Denten exhaled sharply through his nose, head still bent over his microscope. “I don’t know anymore. It seems a bit excessive, but it’s a secret operation we’re talking about. The IPC or the Miners’ Union. This is more your area than mine.”
“Operate on the fact that the bastards behind all this have tried to kill us as well. That they’ve lied about intelligent life, which they're apparently trying to kill off. That they’re probably lying about a lot of other things.”
“I'd say they want something here.”
Now she turned and looked at the scientist. “Exactly. It’s an old trick: find a resource, wipe out anyone who might have a claim to it, and establish ownership. Any ideas what that resource could be?”
“Not a clue. I’ll think about it.” He spoke distantly, focusing intently on the slides.
“Do that.” She turned back to her new lizard friend. He seemed to carry a sad overtone to his demeanor. No doubt he’d seen a few of his kind die from this virus. “Now, what was it you were trying to tell me?” She watched him intently.
The lizard creature softly emitted a series of clicks followed by a sharp trill at the end. His skin immediately turned a dark charcoal color again.
“Amazing. Denten, how do you propose we establish a dialogue?”
Denten didn’t speak for a minute, so engrossed in his microscope. When he did look up, his brow was furrowed in thought. “I honestly don’t think he’s capable of anything near what we speak. He’s built something like a bird with a resonating bone and hollow chamber. I also don’t think we’ll be able to converse in his sounds. It’s far too detailed for our ears. And I think his skin color is a part of his dialogue, too.”
“Well, we might as well start feeding The Hawk’s system a taste of his dialogue. It’ll take some time to get a passable understanding. Until then, we fall back on the universal language of hand signals.”
Pala needed the visor close to catch all subtle nuances of the language. Ideally, she would want it on her new friend, but under the circumstances, she thought it would be best to keep any fears from arising. She carefully handed her working visor to the Jack Squirrel, which he cautiously accepted, and dialed into The Hawk’s system. Then she put a hand on her forehead and clearly said her name. Her lizard friend responded brightly with a two-syllable “Bo-o” in a whistle-hum.
“Pala,” she repeated.
“Bo-o.”
That was probably as close as she was going to get. She slowly put her hand on the creature’s forehead. The firm flesh was dry and warm to the touch. She nodded once at him. He let out two clicks and a hum-whistle. She pulled her hand back to her forehead, repeated her name, and then put her hand back on him. He again repeated the two click hum-whistle sequence. She tried it. “Tik-who.”
The creature blinked at her. Pala resisted the urge to sputter her lips in frustration. It was obvious she was no linguist. She tried again. “Tik-who.”
Her new friend lifted his hand and patted her forehead. “Bo-o.” Then he placed it on his and repeated the two click hum-whistle.
This time, it sounded a bit different. She gently took the visor from her new friend and checked it. On a replay, she said to Denten, “Did you hear an ‘r’ in that?”
When he didn’t answer, she glanced over at him. He was twisting back and forth on his heels, dividing his attention between what showed in the microscope and the other slides on his table. Most likely he hadn’t even heard her. She turned back to the lizard-creature and tried the new combination. “Trk-who.”
The creature tried again, very slowly. The second click was harder than the first, and an unmistakable ‘ill’ emerged in the second syllable.
“Trk-ill.” It was hard to say through a hum-whistle, but she must have come fairly close. Her new friend rattled off a series of loud chirrups. She smiled. More fodder for The Hawk’s system to digest.
Denten straightened, frowning thoughtfully. He gestured at their new friend. “He appears to have been infected, but I won’t know for sure until the tests finish processing. The interesting thing is his cells don’t seem to die from the virus. Rather, it looks like he builds some kind of super-cell. It reacts like it might be based on an enzyme of some sort.”
“Something he naturally carries?” She took the visor from Trk-ill and turned it off.
“I don’t think so. I’d rather think it’s from something in his bloodstream. Possibly something he ate.”
The creature looked from one to the other. He let out a long low whistle. Glancing at the dimming sky, Pala nodded. “Okay. Wake Dr. Laramie and the four of us will go enzyme hunting. Any suggestions what kind of food it is and where we might find it?”
He shrugged. “I only know that the roughage in our new friend’s feces showed highly localized minerals found along the river.”
“Then that’s where we’ll start.”
As Denten went to fetch Laramie, she turned back to Trk-ill and turned on the visor again. Leaning down to be close to his level, she pretended to have something in her fingers as she brought them to her mouth. She made noises like chewing. “Food.”
“Whoo.” It came out like the wind whistling through the branches of a tree.
Pala straightened. She opened her free arm in an encompassing gesture. She brought her other hand again to her mouth and pretended to eat. “Food.” She turned and beckoned Trk-ill. He seemed to understand, because he scrambled off the table and followed her.
She looked down at him while they walked to the shuttle. “My friend, I’ll be glad when we have a common language. Unfortunately, that’s going to take some time.” He seemed not to notice she was speaking to him. But his skin tightened up its dark color where it had been lightening.
Denten and a groggy Laramie met them at the shuttle.
Laramie rubbed his eyes. “Don’t mind me. I have this problem called sleep deprivation.”
“This is important. We need our top brains on this.”
Trk-ill squatted and then pushed with his powerful hind legs, hopping up to sit on the wide back seat.
“And what is that?” Laramie’s eyes were wide open.
“A friend who will hopefully help us find an anti-virus.”
From his perch, Trk-ill investigated every seam he could find in the flyer. Pala handed a visor to each of the scientists, dropping her own in the pilot’s seat of her shuttle. “Gentlemen, you’ll need night vision. These visors take a little bit of understanding. They work like your microscopes, only they adjust the depth automatically. Also, the vision is a three dimensional panorama. I’ve limited feedback on them, but you’ll get some echo. You’ll feel disoriented and dizzy. They take a lot of practice, but we don’t have that kind of time, so a short tryout will have to do.”
She walked away from the shuttle. Turning around at a dozen meters out, she watched her scientists. “Now you try it. Walk to me.”
Laramie and Denten alternately stared from the visors to her and over to their new friend, Trk-ill, who sat in the shuttle watching them. Laramie muttered something to Denten, who nodded back, his face almost as pale as his blond hair. Then, they glanced at each other and slowly put on the visors.
Trk-ill picked up Pala's visor and pulled it on. She needn’t have worried about scaring him earlier. He leaned back and twisted his visored head from side to side. Laramie tottered and crashed to his knees. Denten stood splayed legged, arms stretched to the sides, and focused on one position.
Pala sighed. She supposed she should rescue them. She returned to the shuttle, pulled her visor off Trk-ill, and slid it over her own head. “All right, you two, hope you enjoyed that little introductory ride. That’s the worst it’ll get. Imagine this as surround vision. You’re an animal in the jungle and you can see every direction at once. Now look through your visor at the real me. Do you see me? Focus on my image.” In her visor, two sets of eyes slowly shifted her way. Laramie, still on his knees, was the last, moving his head with his eyes shut until the last second.
The feverish eyes and viewpoint of Denten’s image shifted from side-to-side as he carefully moved his head. He focused on her and smiled, squaring his shoulders. He walked unwaveringly to the rear of the shuttle and slowly turned around.
“Bravo. Do you feel comfortable using it?”
“Yep.” His voice was strained as he nodded his head. The view in the visor bobbed up and down and Laramie moaned and arced his back, retching. Denten reached for the shuttle to steady himself.
Pala put her hand on Denten’s arm. “Hold your head still. Please.”
He whispered hoarsely, “Absolutely.”
“All right, you can take them off for now. We need to get moving. Put them back on in the shuttle, though I’d strongly advise you not to look at the ground speeding past.” As they climbed into the shuttle, she turned to Trk-ill and brought her fingers to her mouth as if eating. “Food.”
“Whoo,” he affirmed and launched from the seat into the air. He spread his arms and legs, letting the air catch the large skin flaps, lifting him into the air.
Both scientists put their visors back on and she raised the shuttle off the ground. As the trees flew toward them in an increasing blur Laramie ripped off his visor. Denten leaned back in his seat with his hand braced against the side of the shuttle, staring straight ahead.
They flew away from the camp and followed Trk-ill down a long, brown snake of a river. The vegetation took on a brighter and brighter green. The gopher trees they passed graduated from dingy brown to their normal blue-green. The spike plants still bore their perfumed flowers. But there were no animal sounds, no flying creatures other than Trk-ill, no buzzing insects, no creeping or crawling, or bounding animals on the ground. Still, as they moved more into the living world, Pala felt her spirits rise, even as the fresh scent of still green plants rose around them.
Just as day eased into dusk and the multi-colors of the setting sun stretched across the sky, Pala felt a deep rumble vibrating through the air. It thrummed against her eardrums, not quite a sound yet. As they crested over the bank of trees at the top of a hill, the vibrations increased to a growl and then to a roar. In front and below them was an immense white, blanketing mist. In the center, the color emboldened into a deep magenta from the reflected setting sun. It towered above the rest, as if seeking escape from gravity, reaching the heights of the sharp rain gouges in the bluffs behind.
Trk-ill dove into the mist without any hesitation, his skin color softening to a dull gray-brown. Pala slowed the shuttle. “Visor or no, I’m not flying blind into that. We’ll go on foot.” She circled back to a clearing and dropped the shuttle to the ground with a jarring thump. Glancing at Denten, she noted the paleness of his face. Would they find an anti-virus in time?
Denten led the way into the pink cloud with Laramie behind, cautiously keeping his visored head facing straight forward. Pala followed, only catching glimpses of Denten when the mist suddenly swirled.
They moved slowly down the steep decline, checking each step with care. The distinct stench of rotting meat was mixed into the fresh-water hum
idity of the air. As the trees around them came into view through their visors, it became obvious they were in an infected pocket of vegetation. Most of the brush was barren, though bushes and trees still retained dry skeleton leaves or rotting mush clumps that had been blossoms.
They passed through a high wall of green, bamboo-like stalks. On the other side, the view opened up, and they were standing in front of a waterfall bullying from over the top of the next hill, crashing into the deep basin below. The throaty voice of the cascading water echoed from the sides of the chasm, deafening them. The speed and wildness of the turbulence made the width of the river look too small, as if a giant leaping tiger was seeking to break free and obliterate everything in its path.
At the base of these falls was a deep, dark pool with a rock-chip beach. It was from here that Pala smelled the rot. The pool, as well as the beach, was covered in a matt of silver fish-like bodies distorted with bloat and dead bug larvae. Giant piles of foam bordered around the edge of the pool, caught against sharp-edged rocks of the facing cliff side. Trk-ill, fastened upside down onto the side of one of the many surrounding gopher trees, chattering mournfully at the dead pool. The two scientists stood stoop-shouldered at the water’s edge.
It wasn’t just Pala and her men in peril. The whole planet might die if they didn’t find a way to stop this virus. She grimly turned away from the water. Masses of brown-crusted and mushy lichen covered the side of the trees facing the pool. Thick spines the color of green apples grew in the center. Jubilation flooded through her. If those plants could survive, then her men might also, somehow, someway. She shouted to be heard above the thunder of the water. “Denten. Laramie. Look.”
The two scientists turned from the water’s edge, and, seeing the lichen, went to begin harvesting. Trk-ill chattered non-stop while he alternately filled his pouch and handed lichen to the slower-moving Denten to stuff into collection spheres.
The sun was completely down and the valley was dark by the time they finished collecting samples. Carefully, they climbed through the mist again toward the shuttle. The two scientists crept along, still not used to the visors and the changes in vision perspective caused by the falling night. By the time they reached the shuttle, night was fully upon them. Denten’s heavy breathing surrounded them as they flew back to the camp. Trk-ill followed close behind.
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