Steel Beneath the Skin

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘What do you think of your first planet?’ Ella asked. Gilroy was there too, both of them at the science station. Gilroy had the seat and was busy examining the early telemetry from the ship’s sensors.

  ‘Well, it’s alien,’ Aneka replied, ‘but I have seen a planet before. Just… not from space.’

  Drake and Patton were sat back in their chairs watching the displays set before them, apparently quite happy to let the ship do the work. Aneka figured it was not too different from a passenger jet from her time; they were capable of taking the entire flight from take-off to landing, and the crew was there to handle emergencies. The computers on the Garnet Hyde had to be vastly more advanced than the flight computers on a jet.

  ‘What’s with the haze?’ Aneka asked. ‘That atmosphere doesn’t look especially breathable.’

  ‘Upper atmospheric dust,’ Gilroy replied. ‘There’s a fairly high amount of volcanism on the southern continent. It probably keeps the atmosphere in check. The surface averages over three-hundred Kelvin as it is. Without the dust to reflect solar radiation it could have gone greenhouse.’

  Aneka watched as a data window appeared in her vision translating degrees Kelvin to Celsius; about thirty, quite warm enough. She leaned forward slightly to look out toward the world’s sun, looking dim through the automatically shaded viewing port. It still looked larger and more orange than the Sun did.

  ‘It’s a K-Two main sequence star,’ Ella supplied. ‘Larger than the star you’re used to, and a bit cooler, which makes the light more orange.’

  ‘So the light quality down there is going to be a bit weird.’

  ‘You’re unlikely to have any problems,’ Gilroy told her. ‘Generally a combat body like yours will come with multi-spectral visual sensors.’ As she suggested it, the computer which Aneka had begun calling Al popped up a fairly complex display showing a graph of frequency and the band her visual sensors were currently operating in. Aneka had no clue what half of it meant, but she knew a few radio frequencies and she could see those at one end of the scale.

  ‘Apparently I have. I guess I can see in infra-red. That could be useful down there.’

  ‘Orbital insertion velocity matched,’ Patton announced. ‘Course correction in five… four… three… two…’ There was no additional sound, but the ship’s orientation shifted slightly, perhaps a degree in yaw, two in pitch. ‘Course correction complete. Orbital insertion and retro burn in five minutes, twenty seconds.’

  The globe of Alpha Mensae IV grew steadily in the window ahead of them. They were coming up on the night side, toward sunrise, and it made the atmosphere glow a brilliant crimson, but… ‘It looks kind of… small,’ Aneka commented.

  ‘About three quarters of the size of New Earth,’ Gilroy agreed. ‘Gravity is point-seven G. Atmospheric pressure is basically normal, oxygen-nitrogen composition. Quite breathable. Aside from the heat it should be quite comfortable for working down there.’

  Aneka took a last look out at the red and orange globe. ‘Can’t wait. I’d better get back to checking the sensors so I can set foot on my first alien planet.’

  Alpha Mensae IV, 1.10.523 FSC.

  It was actually the following day by the time the Garnet Hyde’s shuttle settled onto an open area just to the south of the site of the “mining town” the first survey team had located. The slim, aerodynamic vessel was designed to function as a mobile science facility as well as providing bunk space and shelter. There were only four bunks, and no privacy, but there would always be one of the facilitators awake so that was not an issue. Given that Aneka appeared to be able to survive on about four hours sleep a day and could see in the dark, she had stated flatly that Bashford and Monkey should get a good night’s sleep and she would handle the night shifts.

  Before Bashford would allow anyone to start doing close-up work, he wanted a perimeter set up. Aneka had expected the two scientists to balk at the delay, but they were disciplined about it, even Ella. Besides, while Bashford and Aneka went out to lay down perimeter sensors all the way around the town, Monkey was on the ship piloting a remote drone through the town. It was the first chance the two scientists would get to look at their site as well as an important security survey.

  If Aneka had to guess, they had landed on what had passed for a landing field for the town. There was concrete under their feet, broken by plants which had forced their way through the rafts. It was there, however, and it was keeping the local plant life back. The local plant life seemed to be pretty good at growing. Beyond the concrete plaza the undergrowth was dense and finding a way into it to begin setting up the sensors was far from easy.

  ‘Are there any large animals on this rock?’ Aneka asked as she found a track she could use leading into the jungle. It looked like the interior was actually more open, probably due to the canopy above allowing less light to plants under the trees.

  ‘Initial survey has none,’ Bashford’s voice replied over her radio, ‘but the track I found suggests something wants hunting tracks. Be careful.’

  ‘Huh. I’m the one with the armoured skin. You be careful.’ She heard a chuckle cut off by the audio-pickup and grinned as she walked further through the undergrowth, glad that she had added to her outfit. The leotard was still there, but she now had a bolero-style jacket in heavy Plastex over it, and gloves, all in black with red detailing. The jacket was fitted with mounts for a backpack, which she was using to carry the sensor units she was placing. Important for the current conditions was her leg-wear; heavy boots with thick soles and armoured toes and shin guards, with Plastex and Ultraskin leggings under them that covered most of her thighs. According to her reading, Plastex and Ultraskin were basically the same stuff, just different compositions. Plastex was thicker and more opaque than Ultraskin, but they were both forms of “bio-plastic,” a semi-living material capable of a form of photosynthesis; given carbon-dioxide and ultraviolet light, a bio-plastic could repair itself.

  She started fitting sensor units at roughly one hundred metre intervals. The track she had entered by followed a loop around the town at about the right radius, so she walked along it, her eyes scanning the surrounding forest as she went. Out of the trees the light did, indeed, have a red-orange tint to it. In here, under the dense canopy, it was just dim, but Aneka could see perfectly. In fact, she could see better than perfectly. Spreading her eyes’ frequency response to include infra-red light was letting her see much better in the gloom, and turning up the sensitivity gave her effective low-light vision. What she could not see was whatever had made the track through the jungle, however. It had to be something which still existed, given the apparent rate of growth of the plants. The town had been dead for nearly as long as she had been asleep, and the track would have overgrown long ago if the miners had cut it. Besides, why would they bother?

  She stopped on the track mid-way past the town and looked around. She had taken the eastern side of the circle and there was a side-track branching off from the orbital one, heading off to her right. She pulled up the map they had of the area in-vision and then overlaid it with locators for the shuttle and crew.

  ‘Bash, are you seeing a track heading west from where you are?’ she asked. Really she had to get used to not vocalising when she used her radio.

  ‘Haven’t seen anything yet. You are?’

  ‘Yeah. I’m going to place an out-of-band sensor here, a little way up the path, and then get back to the circle.’

  ‘Agreed, and interesting.’

  Aneka walked down the track around fifty paces. Ahead of her the forest was thickening, but the track continued into it. It did not look like the best place to go hunting without proper preparation. On her right was a tree she could mount the camera on so she pulled one from her bag, pulled the cover from the setaestrip on the back, and pressed it to the smooth bark.

  It occurred to her that it was not exactly “bark.” That was probably the best word for it, but the things she was calling trees were not quite like trees, and their skin w
as not quite like the bark she was used to at home. It had a more fibrous quality to it. Maybe the trees were built more like palms.

  Checking the sensor unit was working, she turned back the way she had come to continue the half-circle.

  ~~~

  ‘Sensor net is up,’ Monkey reported as Aneka walked back up the big rear ramp of the shuttle.

  ‘Good,’ Bashford replied from the console on the other side of the ship. ‘Spot anything on the drone survey?’

  ‘The Doc and Ella did a lot of oo-ing and ah-ing over it, but I saw nothing suggesting a security issue.’

  ‘I think if there’s a security issue,’ Aneka said, ‘it’s going to come from that track in the forest.’

  ‘I’m looking at some of the feeds from the PESA units out there now,’ Gilroy’s voice came from further up the central bay. ‘Was there any indication of what could have made it?’

  ‘Nothing I could see,’ Aneka replied, looking at Bashford, who just shook his head. ‘I’ve seen tracks like that before on Earth, but this is an alien planet with no large predators.’ She paused. ‘Supposedly. Though a predator large enough to make that trail should have a substantial prey population and even if the initial survey missed the things with teeth, they shouldn’t have missed herds of alien cows.’

  ‘Something else then,’ Ella commented.

  ‘Drake and Patton might discover something from the orbital survey,’ Bashford said, ‘but it’ll take them a couple of days to go from basic topology and mapping to high definition analysis.’

  ‘I’ll be interested to see whether those sensors pick up anything,’ Aneka commented. ‘I’m also surprised our charges aren’t out there already digging holes in the landscape.’

  Ella swung her legs out from her station and climbed to her feet, picking up a box of some sort by its strap and slinging it over her shoulder. ‘Now that you’re here, we are. Bash thinks you should be our escort since you’ve got an enormous… gun.’

  ‘Actually,’ Bashford said smoothly, ‘I said that since you have better senses and a body that can stop a charging bull, we should have you cover Gillian and Ella.’

  ‘You hear that, Doc?’ Ella asked, a smirk on her face. ‘Aneka’s going to cover you?’

  Gilroy slipped out of her own seat. Like Ella she had added to the ship-suit she normally wore with smooth, high-density plastic boots, an equipment belt, gloves, and a sort of plastic balaclava with attached radio headset and shades which doubled as a HUD. The hood-like garment covered her short, wavy, brown hair and the shades obscured her dark brown eyes. There was little of her light brown skin on show, aside from her face and what could be seen through the thin fabric of her suit. She had opted for looking a little older, though not nearly as old as she was. Her breasts were a little on the heavy side and her face showed a few crow’s feet, but basically she was a good-looking woman and Aneka simply could not imagine going to bed with her. She looked thirty, tops, but came over more as a kindly aunt.

  Which made her reply all the worse. ‘The chance would be a fine thing, Ella. When would she get the time with you around?’ Smiling down the aisle at Aneka, the doctor picked up a box of her own and walked past. Aneka found herself happy that blushing was now a voluntary effect.

  Aneka turned on her heel and followed Gilroy out, allowing Ella to follow. ‘What’s the plan?’

  Gilroy patted her box. ‘Terahertz radar survey of the town.’

  ‘And that does what?’

  ‘Terahertz radar will penetrate the plants, even the thinner walls, and give us information on where to start looking. It’s relatively short range, however, so we’ll need to set these up in a grid to cover the whole area thoroughly. Then the computers can stitch the map together and we can go over the data to select targets.’

  ‘And then,’ Ella said, coming up alongside them, ‘you guys get the cutting gear out to clear the plants back for us. The whole town is covered in vines and there are shrubs around most of the buildings.’

  ‘Given the growth at the jungle edges, I’m not surprised,’ Aneka said. ‘I’m actually surprised the whole area hasn’t been swallowed back up by the jungle.’

  They had reached the edge of the buildings, or the lumps with plants on them which were probably buildings. Gilroy stamped her foot down, the heavy sole making a solid noise even through the light grass. ‘Some form of hard surface, compacted gravel, perhaps with a sealant. The plants have had trouble regaining a foothold. My guess is that the entire area has been blanketed with dust, volcanic and windblown, and the seeds have managed to propagate in that.’

  Aneka grunted. ‘Don’t sit still too long. Something might decide to grow on you.’ The two scientists laughed. ‘Anything I can be doing besides making sure you don’t get eaten?’

  ‘Keep those high-tech eyes peeled,’ Gilroy replied. ‘You never know what you might see which we can’t.’

  Aneka shrugged and, more or less on a whim, instructed her eyes to expand their frequency response to full range. The world became a strange place. She was seeing everything from infra-red through to ultraviolet, and even some longer wavelengths coming in from stray radio waves bouncing off surfaces. She walked onward, trying to get a proper handle on the image she was seeing. The visible spectrum, it seemed, was an incredibly narrow band and seeing everything just made the world enormously confusing. A pop-up appeared in her vision and she blinked, which did nothing to make the pop-up go away. Initiate false-colour overlay mapping? it said. Well, it sounded like an idea, yes. Her vision changed again. Now she was seeing the normal world, but on top of that was a bluish overlay of ultraviolet sources, and a false-colour red-scale of infra-red, and what seemed to be like an edge map showing the passive radar input. Still a little confusing, but much clearer.

  Gilroy stopped at a crossroads and began to set up her equipment while Ella continued onward. Aneka looked around, seeing nothing dangerous, and followed Ella. About four hundred metres up, Ella stopped and began to place her radar gizmo, and Aneka looked around, checking that Gilroy was still there and okay.

  ‘And off we go,’ Ella said behind her, and suddenly the world lit up like a Christmas tree.

  ‘Holy shit!’ Aneka exclaimed.

  ‘What?!’ Ella squeaked, bolting upright and looking around for the monster bearing down on them. There was no monster.

  ‘I can see… everything,’ Aneka replied as the radar images outlined walls, road, even some of the building interiors. ‘I must be picking up the signals from your radar.’ She stopped, her eyes catching a shape under some undergrowth at the edge of the road. It appeared nothing more than an oddly shaped lump under thick grass-like vegetation and creepers, but her vision was showing something else. She raised her voice. ‘Doc? You might want to come over here.’

  Stepping toward the lump, Ella cautiously following, Aneka pulled her combat knife from the back of her belt. The incredibly fine edge parted the vines easily and she pulled away the grass. Ella let out a gasp as a pair of eye sockets looked blankly back at them.

  ‘Oh,’ Gilroy said, coming to a sudden stop from her running pace.

  ‘I don’t think this place was abandoned,’ Aneka said. ‘Most people don’t just leave corpses lying in the street.’

  ‘Ella,’ the doctor said, ‘could you go back to the ship and get the lidar scanner? Aneka, if you could clear the rest of the vegetation? If there’s evidence of how he died, I’d like it quickly. Perhaps this world does have something dangerous on it after all.’

  ~~~

  With the rear hatch sealed shut and Monkey watching the security monitors, everyone felt perfectly safe. Everyone else had gathered around the science station with various pre-packaged food stuffs in plastic trays, except for Aneka who had decided that if she did not need to eat much she definitely did not need to eat plastic food. They were watching as Gilroy went over the evidence they had uncovered so far.

  ‘We’ve unearthed and scanned seven skeletons.’ Holographic images of each of
the skeletons cycled past on her console as she spoke. Aneka watched them, noting damage patterns. ‘Cause of death varies. One was undetermined. Two had crush damage, skull, and-or rib cage. The others show trauma to the bones consistent with xinti anti-matter weapons.’ She nodded to the pistol slung at the side of Aneka’s right thigh. ‘Probably bigger ones than that. We’re running a dating sequence, but I expect it to come back with a date around the end of the Xinti War.’

  ‘So the Xinti took this place out,’ Bashford said. ‘I’m surprised the site isn’t flattened.’

  ‘Possibly they were planning on reusing the structures,’ Gilroy replied. ‘If we thought it was a good place for a mining station, maybe they did too.’

  ‘What about the radar survey?’

  Gilroy tapped a couple of virtual keys and the display changed to show a slowly rotating topographical map of the town. Basically square, it was laid out on a grid. Two main thoroughfares crossed through the centre, then each quarter was divided up again by smaller alleys. At the north end of the site, furthest from the ship, was a single, longer building which capped off the end of the north-south main road.

  ‘We have three primary targets,’ Gilroy said, tapping keys again. The large building lit up in red along with two smaller ones, one in the centre, the other on the western edge. ‘The large block was probably an administrative building. We may find useful data there. We want to check the other two to confirm a standard layout.’ She glanced at Aneka. ‘These mining outposts were often flat-packed, slot together kits. They often have a very standard layout with commercial buildings in the middle and habitation on the edge.’

  Aneka nodded. ‘Tomorrow we get the strimmers out?’

  ‘I’m not sure what a strimmer is,’ Bashford replied, ‘but we go in and cut back the foliage so these two can get in and see what’s to be seen.’ He frowned at the model for a second. ‘We’ll clear the admin building first and then you can go in with Gillian and Ella while Monkey and I carve our way into the other two buildings.’