Planet Bound

by R. A. Mejia

  The reality of the situation hits me all at once and I start to shake and hyperventilate. I almost died! It wasn’t from starvation or dehydration or suffocation either. It was something I had absolutely no control over. Something I could not have foreseen or prevented. A stupid accident almost ended me. I close my eyes as I think of how close I came to losing everything and never being able to see Annie and Marie again.

  I sit up and try to collect myself by taking deep breaths and rest my head in my hands only to notice that my new right hand feels cool to the touch. I can feel pressure and temperature when I touch with my right hand, if not to the same degree as my left. I know in my head that SAI saved my life, but the fact that she made the decision to give me a replacement arm without even talking to me is slightly disturbing. I’ve known for a while now that she has more free reign than any other artificial intelligence I’ve ever heard of due to our unique circumstances. Would she have been able to save me and replace my arm if she didn’t have this level of autonomy? Or would I have died while she waited for permission from some crewman on the ship? There are so many unanswerable questions. What I do know is that she saved me and has given me another chance to see my family. For that she has my gratitude.

  That thought helps to calm me and stop the shakes. I’m still here. I still have a chance to see them again. “Thank you for saving me, SAI. I’m surprised by the new arm, but I know you did what you thought was best given the circumstances.”

  “I’m glad I was able to save you, John. If you had been any farther from the ship, or if we hadn’t already made those robots, I may not have been able to.”

  I contemplate just how many things could have gone wrong but shake my head to clear it of the ‘what ifs’. “All of life is a gamble, SAI. I’m alive. I’m still moving. That’s what matters.” I try to swivel to get off the bed but hiss in surprise when I feel a sharp pain along the right side of my chest.

  “Slowly, John. I told you: The nanites are still repairing your broken ribs.”

  I move more slowly and the pain recedes. I gently get off the medial bed and feel my bare feet brush against the remnants of my space suit. SAI must have had to cut it off of me to perform the surgeries she mentioned. The cut-up suit has lots of dried blood, and I wonder if we can still deconstruct it to make a new one as I walk out of the medical bay and head to my room to rest.

  Chapter 10

  I spend most of the next day sleeping to give the nanites in my body a chance to finish their repair work. It never ceases to amaze me what modern medical science is capable of. Ever since humanity made contact with alien civilizations, it seems like our technology makes leaps and bounds every year. When I was still a kid living on Earth, I broke my arm, and my mom took me to the doctor. The latest technological breakthrough at the time put my arm in a cast that used sonic vibrations to reduce the healing time from 3 weeks to 6 days. Then, when I broke my leg trying to impress some girl in college, the doctor injected me with nanites, and I was back on my feet in only two days. Now, a life-threatening injury can be repaired aboard a cargo ship in hours.

  While I heal up, SAI goes over some of the limitations of my new arm. She based her designs on a normal artificial limb that she found in the medical database but modified it due to our resource limitations. She also included the enhanced-strength technology from my space suit design in the micro motor system, so my right arm is technically stronger than my original. She mentioned that she thought about adding in other features, but considering that I have to wear the engineering space suit to leave the ship, decided it would be redundant. The arm runs off a battery system that has to be recharged every 12 hours, although SAI did add induction recharge capabilities, which means that my arm can run off the battery power of my space suit.

  The next day, after the medical nanites in my body have been flushed out and I feel like my old self again, I have a conversation with SAI.

  “SAI, we need to have a talk.”

  “Yes, John. What about?”

  “While I rested, I found myself with time to think. We have been improving the ship like we plan to stay here for a long time, but our original goal was to find some way to establish long-range communications with a ship in the system or a way off this planet. I don’t regret the time I’ve spent helping you with your personal projects. As a matter of fact, now that I don’t have to do everything on my own, I expect our plans to accelerate. We need to find the portion of the crashed ship with the communications array. I know there’s the cargo section somewhere too, but I think the communications array is our best shot. Even if it’s not functional or parts have broken off, we have a fabrication system that can repair it given time and the right resources.”

  There’s the pause that I’ve come to associate with SAI thinking, and she says, “I agree, John. We no longer have to worry about gathering and processing resources for your immediate survival, and I can fabricate enough robots to scout and gather resources on my own. As a matter of fact, I’ve been hard at work doing just that while you were recuperating. Here are our current resources.”

  The display screen on a nearby wall turns on, and a list of elemental abbreviations flows across the screen along with how many kilograms of each we have in storage. In particular, I note that our iron and oxygen resources are the highest I’ve seen them. A quick mental calculation tells me that the 62 kg of oxygen will last me something like 13 weeks.

  “As you can see, we’ve hit our storage limits on several resources, and we’re not lacking in any other area either. My robots can work all day and night, but my control range is limited. I think you are correct to state that we can move onto our next goal of finding the communications array. With our additional resources, you can upgrade your suit, and I can direct one of my robots to carry extra supplies for you on the journey. Once we get to the part of the ship with the communications array, I can interface with it and see what repairs are needed.”

  “You said that the communications array was over a day away. Can you control a robot that far out?”

  “I’ve been testing a repeater system that would extend the range of both our communications system and my ability to control one of the robots. If I genuinely needed to, I could also download my program into one to control it, but that would leave the ship without an AI to run it.”

  “So, we’re going on a road trip! Let’s get things organized.”

  For the next thirty minutes, SAI and I discuss what we’ll need for the trip. SAI’s estimates of the trajectory of the fallen communications array put it at least 23 hours away from us. That means we’ll need some kind of camping gear or space for me to safely sleep. I’ll need enough replacement batteries and oxygen pods for at least 50 hours, and that includes getting back to the ship. SAI points out that upgrading the oxygen capacity of the suit will mean having to carry fewer replacements. I ask for a weapon of some kind, but SAI argues against it and points out that I’m more likely to hurt himself than anything else since I’ve never had any weapons training.

  Designing and upgrading my Engineering suit so that it can accommodate enough oxygen and battery life takes SAI a full day. It takes her another day to design a rolly-polly robot that can replace my oxygen pods and batteries in the field. Even after recycling my level 2 suit, it costs us most of our stored carbon and hydrogen to get the upgrades. In addition to the expanded breathing and electrical run times, we also add the second enhanced movement upgrade. I forgo the optional armor or strength upgrades since I’ve yet to need anything beyond what I already have.

  Engineering Space Suit Level 3

  Oxygen: 552 liters

  Energy: Battery 4 - 4,000 Amp Hours

  Suit Integrity: 150/150

  Life Support: LSS 1 - 100 Amp/hour

  Motors: Enhanced Movement 2 - 40 Amps/hour

  Enhanced Strength 1 - 25 Amps/hour; 25 Amp/sec Boost mode

  Tools: Gravity Beam 1 - 50 Amps/sec

  Sonic Power Tool - 5 Amps/sec

  Laser
Cutter 1 - 15 Amps/sec

  Sensors: Scanners 1

  Upgrades: Magnetic Boots, Light Armor 1

  I take an additional day to plan out our route from the information we have and to fabricate the repeater rods and the replacement oxygen pods and batteries. The next morning, with the preparation done, I have one last fancy meal of steak and mashed potatoes. Then I suit up and head north away from the ship with the rolly polly robot at my heels. In addition to wearing my space suit, I’m also carrying a backpack with the extra rations, oxygen, batteries, and the repeater rods that will let SAI and me communicate beyond her normal range and allow her to control the robot remotely.

  Traveling across the alien landscape occasionally proves challenging, but it’s no more difficult than a long walk through one of the wilderness parks on Earth. Every couple hours--or about every 10 km--I hammer a repeater rod into the ground with my sonic hammer. The landscape changes from a desert-like pink sandy sea to harder rocks. We pass through a field of knee-high clear crystals that refract the light of the sun into a prism of colors. It’s a little disorienting to travel through, but it’s also one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. I only wish that my wife was here to see it with me: she always appreciated these kinds of things more than me.

  I have to rest for the night in a small cave just beyond the crystal field, and in the morning, I’m able to change out the batteries and oxygen pods with the help of the robot. Farther along, I actually see something I’d never thought I would: a forest. Or this planet’s equivalent. Black trees with spindly white leaves grow out of the ground fifteen meters high. There are so many trees that the canopy blocks out most of the light, giving the land beneath a perpetual twilight feel. SAI scans the trees and leaves and warns me not to touch them. The trees are oozing some kind of liquid that would be deadly to me, and the white leaves are actually some kind of crystal that is sharp enough to cut through my suit if I’m not careful.

  Within the forest, I find the now-familiar tripods. They crush the fallen tree leaves with their tough feet and eat the remnants. I avoid the herd since they’re numerous enough to trample me if they decide I’m a threat. Additionally, I spot the familiar holes in the ground that I’ve come to realize indicate the presence of the underground tentacled predator I saw eat the tripod. Having seen what happened to the unwary creature, I’m careful to avoid stepping in any of those holes.

  Another few hours through the forest, and SAI spots the first signs of the crashed forward section of the ship. A gradual increase in light leads us to a huge break in crystal canopy. The hole, obviously caused by something crashing through, has knocked down several trees and left burn marks along the ground. Following the trail of destruction leads us to the section of the ship we were seeking.

  The force of the crash has created a massive crater in the ground, but something about the crust of the planet must be different than Earth’s. Instead of impacting the solid ground and skipping off, the wreckage looks like it’s half-buried under the ground. It’s like someone sawed the front section of the ship off and stuck it into the ground like a dart. The nose of the ship is buried underground and the open bisected end sticks up in the air seven meters off the ground. The ground around the crash site is scorched, but the rest of the forest around it seems undisturbed. The shade from the canopy above covers the area with the exception of the ship-sized hole that lets in enough light to see by.

  The hull of the ship, or what’s left of it, is mostly intact, although a trail of wreckage and debris can be seen from where the ship impacted to where it finally settled. As we I get closer, I notice an unusual growth on the outside of the ship. White vines have grown on the hull of the ship and area surrounding it.

  The rolly polly droid beeps once as I walk closer, and SAI comes on over the comms. “Be careful, John. The scanners show that those vines are composed of the same structure as the underground predator you saw near the Annite pillars.”

  It takes me a moment to remember what she means. “Do you mean to tell me that the white vines covering the ship are part of another graboid?”

  “They could be part of the same creature as far as we know. We don’t have enough information to speculate about the creature’s behavior or hunting territory.”

  While I wait and watch the ship, a small lizard-like creature no bigger than my hand runs out of the forest towards the ship and leaps over several of the vines lying on the ground. It barely touches a vine, and instantly, the ones on the ground come to life and start to wave in the air like a pack of snakes. The critter tries to stop its next jump, but it cannot arrest its movement, and it hits another tentacle. The tentacle reacts instantly, wrapping itself around the poor thing like a boa constrictor and then pulls the doomed creature along the ground and into the massive hole the ship has created. The other tentacles all merge on the area of movement and seek blindly through the area on the ground and in the air for more to latch on to, but not finding anything else, they soon return to their resting state along the ground and on the hull of the ship.

  The entire incident took seconds, but I’m shocked by how efficient a trap hunter the graboid is. The larger hole in the ground created by the ship must allow it to set a much larger trap area. What I’m confused about, however, is why the creature is here in the first place.

  “SAI, do you have any ideas about how we’re going to get to the ship? The entire area is covered in those things. If I step on any of them, I’m toast.”

  On my display screen, she highlights in red every tentacle, and there are even more than I thought there were. “I’ve scanned the area, and while I know that you’re nimbler since you upgraded the suit, you’re not nearly as agile as that creature that got taken.” SAI then highlights in blue the ship and draws a line from ground to edge of the sheared off lip of the ship sticking up in the air. “Even if you could get past the tentacles on the ground, you could not make this jump to the ship before the creature underground detected you.”

  The rolly polly robot rolls around me as I sit down under the shade of one of the trees on a hill safely outside the range of those vine tentacles and try to think. Watching SAI direct the robot from tree to tree, scanning each one, I briefly consider sacrificing it as a distraction. I discard the idea, though. At best, it would only buy me a couple of minutes, and like SAI said, I’d still have the problem of climbing up to the ship somehow. From here on the hill, I can see the open section of the ship. It sticks up at a thirty-degree angle, the very edge seven meters off the ground. The open section shows exposed insulation, wiring, ducts, rooms and a main hallway right down the center that would lead into the ship. The graboid tentacles have completely covered the part of the crashed ship that touches the ground. However, they spread out more widely over the rest of the hull of the ship but do not extend inside. There’s actually an area near the top of the of the exposed section completely clear of the vines that I could stand on if only I could get up there. I wish I had some rope or something to climb with when an itch above my ear distracts me for a moment. I try to scratch my head, but the gloves of my suit only scratch the outside of my helmet, and I mentally chastise myself for forgetting that I’m wearing it. Sometimes, I get so used to being in it that it feels like an extension of my body. I look at my left suit arm, and it clicks. That’s right, I’m not relying on just my own power.

  “SAI, how good are you at calculating parabolic arcs and physics simulations?”

  “John, I plot our ship’s course through multiple star systems, taking into account a wide variety of spatial and gravitational variables.”

  “Uh, so you’re good then?”

  There’s a moment of silence, and I think I can hear a sigh of frustration, but I may be imagining it. Still, she answers, “Yes. I’m good at it.”

  “Great!” I proceed to explain what I want to do and how she’ll need to help.

  “John, that’s either completely stupid or kind of brilliant. We’ll have to see if you can pull it of
f before we decide. My calculations give it a 78.24% chance of success, but those are under perfect conditions.”

  “Darnit, SAI, never tell me the odds.” It clicks that the odds are in my favor this time, and I amend my statement. “But this time, they’re kind of reassuring. So, thanks.”

  “I’m ready to do my part when you are, John.”

  Standing up on the hill, I feel the adrenaline running through me. SAI has already plotted my path in my helmet display using green dots on the ground. I shake my arms and legs to get the jitters out and take a few deep breaths. You can do this, John. Remember: Annie and Marie are waiting for you. This may be your best shot at getting to that communications array and getting a message out. Don’t think; just do it!

  With that last bit of self-motivation, I focus on the planned path down the hill, lean forward, and run toward the ship and the waiting tentacles. Each step is a little bit awkward, but the suit’s strength and movement upgrades help me run faster than I would normally. I see the white tentacles on the ground start to quiver, and the thought that they might sense the vibrations in the ground caused by my running passes through my mind, but I instantly return my focus to the green dots I see on the ground. Just stick to the plan, John.