Free Stories 2011
Page 25
Cragsheep
A reclusive species referred to as a cragsheep has been spotted by aerial survey in the mountains defining the eastern border of the region that, based on photographic evidence, looks to be in the 100 kg range. The species itself follows the hexapedal body plan, but with the middle and forelimbs somewhat geared for grasping and climbing. The rear limbs and mid limbs allow the species to make impressive leaps, and it is native to the uplands and hilly regions. It is not known if it is an egg-laying or live birth reproductive animal, but given its size, it is assumed to be live birth. While the cragsheep is an herbivore, there appear to be no analogs to it native to the lower regions on the western side of the mountains.
Near Beaver
A Sphinxian mammal that appears to be distantly related to the chipmunk, these creatures live in aquatic and swampy biomes, and are omnivorous, but eat predominantly vegetable matter. In length, they are approximately 50 centimeters long, and their dentition is what gives them their name, though their body plan is less streamlined than a terrestrial beaver’s. The near beaver does bring down trees—avoiding the rockwoods—to make dams and convert sloughs into ponds. Subspecies of near-beaver have been found in every biome on Sphinx that humans have visited to date, save for the tundra and ice cap regions.
Range Bunny
The range bunny is the pseudomonotreme competitor for the niche occupied by the chipmunk; like the other Sphinxian pseudomonotremes it lays egg at the first rainy season, burrows, and hibernates on top of them throughout the winter. While not as active in the winter, and not as opportunistic, the range bunny is capable of fairly rapid population growth every spring, and is of some concern to the Royal Agricultural Services as a possible pest eating human food crops. Its range of diet includes most leafy plant structures, and it is not as tied to the picketwood biome as the chipmunk is. The range bunny is known for its two stage loping gait, and it relies on speed to get away from ground based predators. It naturally avoids the picket woods if it can, due to the threat of arboreal predators such as the condor owl.
Wood Rat
The wood rat is prey species of the crown oak biome, and is roughly 2 kg in mass. They are distinctly arboreal, and resemble mammalian six legged skinks in some ways. They are full-year active placental in their reproductive strategy, though there are anomalous reports calling them marsupials. It is not entirely certain if they’re native to the Tannerman Gulf biome or are immigrants moving with the increased range of the crown oak; they bear roughly the same resemblance to Sphinxian chipmunks that Terrestrial rats do to Terrestrial chipmunks. The creatures will gnaw on wood to keep their incisors sharp, and have been known to do damage to lumber products used for human use. The water-seal compound used for terrestrial lumber appears to be a candy lacquer for them, though it also kills them due to enzymatic incompatibility and intestinal blockage.
Tuskelope
The Tuskelope is a cold-weather adapted prey species, vaguely resembling a six-legged cross between a musk-ox and a boar; they stand anywhere from 1.3 to 1.8 meters high at the shoulder for an adult, with a peak weight of 350 kg. They have large tusks that they use to break up ice pack and to dig up roots. Their primary defense mechanism is to flee into scrub that larger predators cannot pursue into, and to turn tusks onto predators only when flight is not an option, or when faced with a predator that is taller than they are.
Tuskelope population densities are too low to support the hexapuma sightings in the Tannerman Gulf region. The best working hypothesis is that the hexapumas are recent interlopers, and the tuskelopes provided them with the calorie sources to spark a population boom, followed by a tuskelope population crash.
Condor Owl
The condor owl would strike any native of Old Earth as a particularly egregious case of “name does not fit the physical description of the animal.” It was, however, originally named by a xenoiologist from the Hesier System, where the original names had already been applied to some very strange creatures. Needless to say, it does not, in fact, resemble either an Old Earth condor or an owl—or, for that matter, a bat or a flying squirrel, which it more closely resembles. The condor owl is a crepuscular gliding or flying predator that attempts to swoop and catch prey, then drop it on rocks from a great height. It is a hexapedal Sphinxian mammal, with the fore-limbs specialized into wings, and folds of skin that give additional gliding and lifting surface when the midlimbs are extended, with the back four limbs holding grasping talons. The eyes are very large and forward facing, and are the most owl-like of its features.
A typical condor owl has a body mass of under 6 kilograms and a total body length in excess of 150 centimeters, and a wingspan of nearly twice that. The hide is covered in down, and the animal lays eggs and estivates over them through the winter. The condor owl often hunts in social groups of six to eight, and they have been known to arrange rocks with the jagged points up to better finish off dropped prey, a precursor to tool usage that bears further investigation.
Hexapuma
Hexapumas are the best indirect evidence that biomes have shifted recently. A hexapuma has a body length that can reach five meters in length, as much as half of that tail, and the largest specimens encountered have weighed 800 kilograms or more. Sphinxian Forest Service biologists class hexapumas as the native wildlife most dangerous to human inhabitants, in part because so little is known about them, save that they seem to have a shortage of prey animals, and have no compunctions about treating humans as a remedy to that problem.
What is currently known about hexapumas is that the range in size between (apparently) mature individuals is quite wide—in the Tannerman Gulf area, they routinely run 3.5 meters or longer in main body length, while closer to the equator, genetically related samples are as small as 2 meters long and half the body mass; it is thought that there is severe selection pressure on hexapumas to have smaller children to deal with a prey pattern shift to smaller prey animals; there are numerous adaptations on the hexapuma, ranging from the depth of its coat to its foot construction, that indicate it was originally adapted to a much colder climate.
The advisories on hexapumas are to avoid them if at all possible, and to notify the Sphinxian Forest Service immediately if one is sighted, or if scat or other indicators is known. In particular, the Sphinxian Forestry Service is interested in finding out what they eat, and how often they mate and where they raise their young.
Mountain Eagle
One of the handful of bird analogues of the planet Sphinx, the mountain eagle may in fact be an oviparous mammal that has evolved quills that function nearly identically to feathers. They are true flyers, as opposed to the condor owl, and have only been seen at a distance; they have two pairs of wings that between them make a single lifting surface, and in their flight patterns, tend to be gliders. They appear to be carrion feeders or opportunist feeders. Due to the higher temperatures on the eastern side of the Copperwall Mountains, they are more common there, and the eastern edge of the Tannerman Gulf region appears to be the westernmost edge of their range.
Peak Bear
The peak bear is found near the southern edge of the Tannerman Gulf area, and is native to the mountains forming that edge of the biome. Very little is known about the peak bear aside from the fact that it can locomote in a centauroid gait, and that it doesn’t seem to regard humans as much of a threat. It appears to be omnivorous, though the portion of its diet based off of plants versus prey animals is unknown at this time. Specimens that have been photographed have stood nearly 1.4 meters tall at the mid-hip, and 2 meters tall at the top of the head when in centauroid posture—overall body length has been in excess of 4 meters total. Peak bears may be the competing predator causing hexapumas to range farther north. While current land grants are more than 100 km away from the peak bear’s estimated range, it does represent a concern for the future expansion of human colonization.
SFS Advisories
Welcome to Sphinx
The Sphinxian Forestry Service h
as compiled a list of advisories for Sphinx so newcomers don’t get injured. Sphinx is a largely uninhabeted planet, with nearly 230 percent of the land area of Old Earth. These are advisories, the planet is untamed and there’s a lot we don’t know.
That being said, there are a number of things we do know, and they are dangerous to you.
Gravity, Geology and Atmosphere
Sphinx’s surface gravity can be dangerous to newcomers unaccustomed to a heavy gravity world. In addition to feeling that you’re carrying a third again your own body weight, your reflexes are going to be off. Things will not only take more effort to move, but will fall faster in a given span of time. It is entirely possible for a healthy adult to break their neck from falling out of a chair, or to injure themselves getting into bed. When estimating the dangers, think of the fall as being from 75 percent greater height than you would on Earth. Personal countergrav units are strongly recommended, but they won’t reduce the risks of objects falling on you.
Sphinx has an unusually thick mantle compared to planets of similar mass and diameter, which means it has lower tectonic activity than Meyerdahl and significantly lower tectonic activity than Quelhollow. This does not mean that the tectonics are as mild as Old Earth’s however. The Stubleford Traps in the northern hemisphere are estimated to be less than a million T-years old, and Richter scale 2 and 3 temblors are a weekly occurrence near many of the Sphinxian mountainous regions. Even in relatively stable locations like Tannerman Gulf, new construction for Sphinx needs to be properly quakeproofed, and the routine precautions of “When the ground shakes, be in the air if possible, and away from heavy objects if not” always applies.
While Sphinx has a higher atmospheric density than Old Earth’s, the higher gravity means that the rate of change in pressure as altitude increases is steeper. Normal Earth atmospheric pressure occurs at roughly 1600 meters. The upper range of human breathable atmosphere is around 3,000 meters, which is nearly 3,000 meters lower than the breathable threshold on Earth. Do not let your experience with atmospheric conditions on other planets put you at risk.
Be aware that leaving a high atmospheric pressure world will give a mild form of the bends as dissolved nitrogen is released from your blood. Sphinx’s CO2 percentage is higher than Earth’s, or Manticore’s, and can cause rapid breathing when someone isn’t fully adapted to the native atmosphere. If you suffer from any respiratory ailments or related issues, please ask your doctor about nanotech treatments to alleviate the adaptation discomfort of changing environments.
The other effect of Sphinx’s atmosphere is that sound will travel farther than you’re expecting it to, especially lower pitches, which can be disorienting for new arrivals.
We strongly advise the use of countergrav gear while you’re acclimating to Sphinx. Sphinx isn’t such a high gravity planet that countergrav is always necessary for mobility or comfort. It is still strongly recommended. Countergrav units are available to all new arrivals.
Wildlife
Over 90 percent of Sphinx is uninhabited, and much of the planet remains unexplored. Because of the very mountainous terrain, there are lots of pocket habitats and biomes. What we know about them is small, and humans are newcomers to Sphinx. Wildlife will surprise you, and even if you live in a large community, you’ll be encountering it daily.
Many Sphinxian animals are territorial, have large hunting ranges, and high caloric needs. Stripped of its scientific terms, this means that a hexapuma weighing 650 kg (some specimens are larger) needs to consume about 60 to 70 kg of meat per day. To you, a hexapuma is a six limbed predator that’s longer than a groundcar. To the hexapuma, you are a smallish single serving prey animal. To a peak bear, you are but a snack.
Humans are interlopers. Most Sphinxian predator species do not have millions of years of selection pressure to recognize you as a threat. In general, do not make eye contact, and understand that a predator that is looking at you is sizing you up as a meal, not trying to make a friend, and it may not be startled or terribly intimidated by a gun fired in warning.
There are a number of Sphinxian animals which have protected status, due to conservation efforts, concerns about species displacement with terrestrial imports, or because they merit further scientific study. The penalties for hunting protected species are quite stiff.
The Elysian rules, about minimizing the impact of humans on local wildlife and biomes, are in full effect on Sphinx. In over a thousand T-years, refinements of this policy have prevented large scale disruptions of planetary ecologies, and it forms the core of the Sphinxian Forestry Service’s ethos.
As a reminder, if you must shoot local wildlife, do it with a camera. If you encounter something you haven’t seen before, take photographs or video footage. You may use lethal force against an unknown animal only when human lives are in immediate danger. If you can move away, or fly away with countergrav, you are not in immediate danger.
Do send video footage and photographs of anything you encounter to the Sphinxian Forestry Service. We pay small bounties for documentation of new animal species.
Importation of Offworld Species
Much ink can be written about the hazards of reckless species introductions into new biomes. With Sphinx, all species stocks being introduced must have full genome transcriptions submitted to the Forestry Service for assessment of their biological impact parameters. Introduction of a prey animal without a predator to balance it can cause terrific strain on a biosphere; even something as innocuous as the introduction of fertile rabbits can cause a species dislocation, which will cause predators to change their ranging patterns searching for suitable prey. Because Sphinx has undergone a geologically recent species extinction period, this is of particular concern, as there are already a number of large predators seeking new prey ranges. Don’t let them think your homestead is one.
The majority of Sphinx’s native plants are non-toxic to humans, and Sphinxian animals can survive off human feedstocks. Sphinxian native plant stocks are less opportunistic than earth-based ones. Sphinx’s summers are long and cool on the coasts; inland they are hotter and drier, but do not reach the same levels of hot-and-dry that Old Earth does. Currently, the Sphinxian summer only produces five distinct growing seasons for terrestrial plant stocks; further agronomical research looks to take full advantage of the longer growing season by adjusting terrestrial crops to better match local conditions. Consult the Royal Agronomy Service if you wish to contribute to this project as a researcher, or by growing plots of test crops.
While there are ongoing attempts to domesticate Sphinxian herbivores, these are research projects at this time, and it’s expected that the bulk of the meat eaten will be from terrestrial imports.
Of particular concern is the introduction of ground covering plants like grasses. There is a lot we don’t know about Sphinxian plant life. We do know that grasses are not native to Sphinx, and that there is nothing on Sphinx adapted to eating them natively. We also know that grasses spread across Old Earth in a geological eyeblink 66 million years ago, and that spread left profound biome disruption in its aftermath. With the exception of the pig, every terrestrial meat animal has adapted to grassland living . . . and at the very least, introduction of grasses can cause soil to dry out, and, in large areas, change rainfall patterns. Please consult with the Sphinxian Forestry Service before introducing grasses outside of controlled areas; we have a number of varieties that have been tailored to be digestible to local wildlife with minimal problems, and which have slow germination patterns so that we can keep the intrusions under control.
Disease Risks
The Star Kingdom of Manticore has suffered a population drop due to two bouts of a “virgin field introduction” plague. A native Manticoran pathogen similar to a coronavirus has crossed over and proven infectious to humans. There was an initial outbreak outbreak of a respiratory illness roughly forty T-years ago. While it proved dangerous to the elderly, it was deemed to be no more severe than the common cold or a light infl
uenza. What was not understood then, but is understood now, is that this pathogen was able to mix DNA with existing human coronaviruses; most of these mixes proved unstable and unable to reproduce. One of them proved to be both infectious and to have a protein shell that triggered extreme immunoglobin responses.
This more dangerous infection caused widespread fevers and pulmonary obstructions, as it infected the lungs and was airborne. As there was an extensive reservoir not only in humans, but in pigs raised for farm animals, it proved difficult to combat. The initial outbreak was in 1480 PD, and vaccines were cultured in 1484. A second outbreak of a new strain occurred in 1487 PD, which proved immune to the 1484 vaccine. A third strain emerged in 1489, but was less immediately dangerous. There is now a multi-strain vaccine that has proven to be more than 99.99 percent effective; this vaccine is part of your immigration inoculations.
While we deem it unlikely, we cannot rule out the possibility of another crossover virus. The Star Kingdom takes outbreak reports and new disease reports very seriously, and has extensive quarantine procedures, shown in pamphlet SKM-RNG-1490-PQ.