Colony (Terran Chronicles Book 3)

by James Jackson

  Emma grins like a little school girl and ignores his comments. She pokes her head outside, gazes upward through the leaves, then says, “The storm clouds seem to be affected by the mountains. They’re swirling around and around, and building up in intensity.”

  “Like a cyclone?” He says, becoming alarmed.

  “No. This entire valley has a natural updraft caused by the ocean breeze that comes inland...” her voice trails off as she thinks.

  Rain continues to strike the tent, while wind gusts billow its sides. Peter stares at the flexing walls and grimaces. He does not like being at the mercy of the weather, and feels very exposed in what suddenly seems like a flimsy tent.

  The rain quits as swiftly as it started. The clouds move over the mountains, allowing the sun’s rays to shine through. A massive rainbow arcs its way across the sky.

  Emma adds her thoughts to her notes, then says, “The days are getting longer. I wonder if this is the beginning of a rainy season?”

  Peter shrugs his shoulders, then gets out of the tent. He packs it away, while Emma wanders around taking more photos.

  Fifteen minutes later, the pair continues their trek around the lake. Now they have to navigate hundreds of small rivulets that flow from the mountains toward the lake. They do not get very far before it is time to set up camp for the night.

  Boredom blurs the days for John. What should have been a single day’s jaunt, is taking much longer. He understands that this is Emma’s first real chance to explore the forest, though he does wonder if Peter’s presence is encouraging her to take her time.

  When the Cat’s Away...

  Patrick and George push themselves harder and harder. Between the makeshift repairs to the Liberty, work on the town’s unique buildings, and Walker’s special requirements, the two men end each day thoroughly exhausted. Even with the use of their suits, the sheer number of hours they are working begins to take its toll.

  George is so busy, he hardly has any time for his wife or son. Fortunately, Robert has taken Johnny under his wing as his photographic assistant. And as for Lisa, she spends a lot of time with Henry. Knowing where they are is comforting to George, and he dives into each day’s work knowing that the sooner it is done, the sooner he can spend quality time with his family.

  Cindy finds, to her dismay that taking over Emma’s responsibilities has been unexpectedly demanding. She stares at yet another report on some insect that has been discovered, then decides that it can join the growing pile of such reports. She was supposed to be gone for a day, not spend a week in the woods with Peter. Cindy closes her eyes for a moment, then opens them to find Henry standing before her. She did not hear him come in, and glances at the open doorway in surprise, “Yes,” she says.

  Henry states bluntly, “We have a new problem.”

  Cindy sighs, “And I guess it can’t wait?”

  “No, it can’t, and you’re not going to like it either.” Henry retorts.

  “Pull up a chair then,” she says reluctantly.

  He sits down and begins, “It seems that the minute Emma took off, a bunch of men decided they wanted some buffalo meat.”

  She shrugs her shoulders, “They did the same thing last time. Emma’s analysis at the time concluded that they’re safe to eat.”

  “Well, these clowns decided to shoot one that was falling behind the rest of the pack.” He sighs, then adds, “They still insist it was a mercy killing.”

  Her eyes narrow, “And you’re going to tell me it was sick?”

  Henry puts a hand to his chin, “I have just quarantined three men, and isolated seven others.”

  Cindy stands up, then walks to the windows, and wonders aloud, “Why is it always something?”

  He walks over to her, “I think you and Emma should examine this when she gets back.”

  “That good, huh?” Cindy asks.

  “It’s not a pathogen, so it’s not exactly contagious.” He sighs, then sadly adds, “The victims are infested with worms of some sort, and if we can’t eradicate them, the victims will probably die.”

  Cindy frowns, “Worms? Didn’t they cook the meat?”

  “Yeah they did, that’s the problem.” His answer comes as almost a groan.

  “That is a problem,” she says with concern, “This planet’s buffalo are supposed to end up being our protein source.”

  “Emma’s team is already studying the worms, while the medical staff is doing what they can for the infected.” Henry informs her.

  “Okay, show me the carcass.” She looks at Henry and adds, “I think Emma has had enough time exploring. I will get John to bring them back right away.”

  She casts her gaze to the clouds above, then after a few moments of reflection, adds, “I’m glad she finally got a chance to investigate the woods though.”

  Cindy contacts John, then after a brief discussion, follows Henry to the animal carcass. After only a few seconds of examination, she says, “Are these people idiots?” She points at the animal’s skin, “You can see where it’s infested, and they still ate it!”

  “True, but I would expect that cooking it would kill those things.” Henry explains.

  Cindy stares again at the animal’s skin, “But they didn’t cook all of it at once, it was slow roasted on a massive spit.”

  Henry stares at the cooked animal then his jaw drops, “Oh my. The worms simply moved through the subcutaneous fat, to the cooler side, which means,” he slides a knife into the upper portion of the carcass, “we should find a whole pile of those things, still alive.” He cuts downward, sharply and powerfully, slicing off a huge slab of fat and meat. Sure enough, live worms slither out from the animal’s fat layer. “Medium rare meat is not something we should eat here, obviously.”

  Cindy stares at the worms in fascination. Each is as long as her hand, flat as a finger nail, yet as wide as her thumb. She leans down to get a closer look, then says, “Do you remember when the wolf-cats were chasing the buffalo?”

  “We both read the reports, but we didn’t actually see them.”

  “Eyewitness accounts said that the wolf-cats killed the buffalo to eat later.”

  Henry shakes his head, “The reports also said that not all of them were eaten, in fact the slowest were not the ones being targeted.”

  “Do you think the wolf-cats sensed which ones were sick? And either didn’t kill them, or at the very least, didn’t eat them?”

  “If that’s true, then those animals are smarter that some of our own people,” he responds.

  She places her hands on her hips, “It is a good thing the Liberty brought a full medical team.”

  Henry nods in agreement, then recalls another troubling issue, “There is something else I have been meaning to tell you.”

  Cindy raises her eyebrows, “Yes?”

  He takes a deep breath then says, “It seems that a number of people are unable to acclimate to this environment,” he pauses then reluctantly adds, “So far I have seventy-three confirmed cases, including Lisa.”

  Cindy stares at him in shock, “Lisa? George’s wife? That’s why I haven’t seen her around!”

  “Yes. I am sending her, and the other confirmed cases, back to the Terran for further study.” Henry confirms.

  Cindy is still processing what this means to the colony, “They can’t live here at all?” she finally asks.

  Henry shakes his head, “Not unless we find a way to counteract this planet’s effect on them. Everything is slightly different here. Some people’s bodies are just unable to adjust to living in different climates, let alone a different planet.”

  Cindy closes her eyes for a moment, then asks, “Does George know?”

  “No, and in Lisa’s case, it could possibly just be that her immune system is weak at the moment. She suffered a severe case of travel sickness, then on top of that, received a bad bout of the New Earth virus,” he states.

  She asks, “So, you want to take these people up to the Terran, get them back to full health, t
hen see how they cope coming back down here?”

  “Exactly!” He replies enthusiastically.

  Cindy turns and stares at the carcass for a moment, then says, “After Emma has conducted her research, destroy that.”

  “Will do,” he says, then after a brief pause, asks, “Do you want to see the infected?”

  Cindy takes a deep breath and lowers her head, “Sure, we were doing so well too.” She looks directly at Henry, “Things just got serious, that’s for sure.”

  The two of them walk in silence to the hospital. Like many of the town’s essential buildings, the hospital’s exterior facade is surrounded by scaffolding. Inside, the building is clearly unfinished. Henry leads Cindy to the isolation unit, where he motions through massive windows at the people inside. A handful of the twenty beds have people laying stiffly on them. Three others wearing bio hazard suits, make their way from bed to bed. A myriad of medical equipment lines the walls, completing the scene that confronts the pair.

  Cindy indicates the men on the beds, “Drugged?” she asks.

  “Yes.” He then adds optimistically, “The surgical team that came with the Liberty really is made up of the best in the world.”

  She is saddened by the sight, “I can tell the difference between remedial and hospice care.”

  Henry cringes, “Yeah, I thought you might. Okay, here is my assessment,” he looks at Cindy with conviction, “those that become infested will die. This makes these parasites the most dangerous things we have faced here, yet.”

  “A one hundred percent mortality rate,” she pauses, deep in thought. Staring into the room, she adds, “We should throw as many resources at this, as we would if it were a pathogen.” She runs a hand through her long hair, “What we need though, is a method of easy detection.”

  Henry gazes into the room through the protective glass, “I was thinking along the lines of T.B. testing.”

  Cindy turns back to Henry, “Put a team together, and do whatever you have to. Either find a cure, or come up with a detection process.” She adds, “Until then, all wildlife is off limits.”

  Henry waves a hand at the bedridden victims, “I don’t think even the contractors will have to be told twice.”

  Meanwhile, John lands the shuttle near Peter and Emma, then brings them up to speed. The pair is walking toward town when he picks them up, thus Emma’s foray is not cut short by much at all. While they fly back, John wonders how to raise a rather obvious issue. Finally he says, “I am pretty sure Cindy can wait ‘till you guys freshen up.”

  Emma blinks, not sure what he means, then all of a sudden realizes what he’s referring to, “That bad huh?” She says while gazing at her soiled clothes, suddenly aware of just how dirty she is.

  John glances back, his mind screams out they reek, but he casually replies, “Yeah!”

  Peter has had his share of lengthy missions, and even he is looking forward to a long hot shower. He gazes at Emma’s filthy shirt and jeans, then smiles proudly. John drops them off at Emma’s residence, then runs the shuttle’s filters at maximum before parking it for the night.

  Once the pair is cleaned up, Peter gives Emma an unexpected kiss, then says, “Gotta run and find out what’s been going on around here.”

  She grins, “We will have to do that again sometime.”

  Having stalled their duties for long enough, the two of them head off in separate directions. Peter strolls to his house to drop off his gear. Once there, he sits down in a comfortable chair, and promptly falls asleep.

  Emma, on the other hand, grabs a few things and walks to the construction team’s encampment. She arrives and stares at the carcass. After a few moments she moves closer and carefully examines the deep slice. Using a pair of large tweezers, she extracts a worm from the animal’s fat, then carefully puts it into a plastic biohazard bag.

  Henry arrives just as she is sealing the bag. He puts his hands on his hips, “Your people did that already.”

  Emma nods, but says nothing as she is focused on examining the worms. After a few more seconds she stands, looks at Henry, and says, “It is good to see you. What kind of a mess do we have here?”

  He tells her what he knows, then adds, “We need to come up with some sort of detection process.”

  She crouches down, peers at the slab of meat on the ground, and cautiously examines the holes in the animal’s fatty tissue. She stands, then frowns, “By living in the layer between the skin and the internal organs, these parasites could thrive for a long time.” She gazes at the charred hide and notices some deep scars. “It looks as though our buffalo felt itchy and rubbed its body against trees, or rocks.”

  Henry leans in to get a closer look at the scars, then turns to look at her. He thinks, damn, she’s good, but says, “You could be right.”

  Emma walks toward a group of workers nearby, and says, “If any of you ate that meat, you had better speak up, ‘cause if you don’t, you will die.”

  None of the men say anything. They seem more focused on what one of them is doing with his hands. Being curious, Emma moves to get a closer look, then stops in shock at the sight before her. A ten legged spider is crawling from one of the man’s hands to the other, to get a piece of processed food.

  Emma gasps, and says, “That creature is not a pet! It’s dangerous!”

  The worker with the spider crawling on him says, “Oh shucks, this ‘ere is Spike, he’s our mascot.”

  “You can’t have a poisonous spider as a mascot.” Emma’s disdain is evident in her voice.

  “We found it in our room. Eating that processed meat right out a can, it was. Only thing in the universe that likes that stuff, I swear,” the man replies sheepishly.

  A few of the men chuckle. The variety of meals offered is diminishing, along with their food supplies. The colonists are far from starving, but meals have begun to get dull as time marches on.

  Emma puts her hands on her hips, “You will return that creature to the wild.”

  The man continues to let the spider crawl over him, “It’s not really dangerous, its spike is on its back, not in its mouth,” he says nonchalantly.

  She shakes her head in exasperation, “If you get poisoned by it, you only have yourselves to blame.”

  Henry cuts off anything else she may have been about to say, “Emma, we have bigger fish to fry right now.”

  She storms off, the workers’ stupidity bothers her greatly.

  Emma’s people work tirelessly with the medical teams, but to no avail. As Henry predicted, the ten men die, in addition to two more who thought they were okay. The deaths cause a ripple effect of panic. This is heightened by the installation of dozens of sonic devices along the canal’s edge facing the forest. It does not take long before the colonists begin pressing for answers.

  Chapter Nine - Seasons Come and Go

  It has been weeks since Emma’s trek around the lake, which has since been named, Lake Mystery. With no more wolf-cat sightings in the valley, and the discovery of a small pack living on the far side of the mountains, the fear of an attack has all but faded into obscurity. Cameras placed at the cave entrance feed live video straight to Emma’s team, just in case the wolf-cats venture back into the valley.

  George stands the edge of the canal examining his latest effort. He puts his hands on his hips, grins, then calls out to Emma, “What do you think?”

  Emma stares at the sonic devices that line the waterway, “How do they work?”

  “The cameras at the cave have motion sensors attached,” George says proudly. “Anything that comes through will set these off. They can also be remotely activated by your team.”

  She gazes up and down the canal, nodding in approval, “Sounds great.”

  “So has anyone come up with a solution for the infested buffalo?” He asks.

  Emma nods, “Yes. The medical teams have succeeded in coming up with a safe detection method for those infested with worms.”

  “That’s a relief,” he replies.

>   Emma says hesitantly, “Well, the process is easy, but time consuming.”

  “Go on,” George prompts.

  “Well, each one that we kill has to be visually inspected, and have a blood sample taken. Only after it’s passed both tests, will the animal be deemed fit to eat.”

  “Ah, is that why Cindy authorized Hawking’s first official butchery this morning?”

  Emma nods, “Yes, that way we have a specific team dedicated to checking each and every one.”

  George gazes across the canal into the woods, and says, “I have heard that there are quite a few objections to us farming them.”

  Emma nods again, and responds, “There were, but not so much anymore. Once I explained that this is no different than killing cows, the protests pretty much stopped.”

  “That’s good to hear,” he says, then adds, “Well, I have work to do. So unless you need me for something else, I am off.”

  Emma smiles, “George, thank you, I know you’re busy.”

  He motions across the canal, toward the sonic devices, “It had to be done.”

  George spends his next few days working with Patrick, and his nights on the Terran with Lisa. Her inability to adjust to New Earth’s environment, though disconcerting, does not worry him. He never had plans to stay in Hawking, and is looking forward to returning to Earth. His son Johnny, on the other hand, is thriving. The teenage boy is growing up fast, and spends most of his time with Robert. George and Lisa have discussed at length, their concerns for their son’s education. They have agreed that in the short term, the experience of being involved with Earth’s first space colony is invaluable. George, however, is so busy, he hardly has any time to himself.

  Barbara has never been a really patient woman, but she accepts that her radio telescope is not a high priority. She stares up at the mountain top where her facility is to be built, and watches as yet another shuttle lands near one of the wind generators. Becoming exasperated, she walks to the Town Hall looking for Cindy.

  Cindy looks up, and is surprised to see Barbara standing in the doorway. I wish they would stop doing that! Knock or something, she thinks, as her heart races.