by Dietmar Wehr
The air-jeep’s console showed a map of the area. Val Ky Ree had identified one of the Colony’s administrative buildings as being a worthwhile exploration target, and the map showed him where that building was in relation to him. It was about a couple of kilometers ahead, and the air-jeep wasn’t moving very quickly just in case he saw something of interest. So far, nothing but eerily silent and dark buildings, most of them small enough to be single family dwellings. As he listened to his own breathing, he wondered how difficult it would be for humans to adapt to this planet’s bio-sphere. His suit was filtering out all micro-organisms from the air he was breathing, but this planet wouldn’t support much of a colony if all the humans had to wear environmental suits all the time.
“Val Ky Ree, how did your people overcome the problem of fighting off harmful micro-organisms from planets like this?”
“We used carefully programmed nano-particles that were injected into each colonist. These devices continually monitored all cells that were exposed to the environment like skin, lung, throat, and attacked any micro-organism that did not match the criteria of approved organisms. Do your people have that technology, Troy?”
Ronson sighed. “We did have that kind of capability on Earth, but when it was destroyed, the technology and knowledge hadn’t been copied off-Earth in time, so we’ve lost that ability. Would you happen to have that knowledge in your databanks?”
“I regret to say the answer to that question is no. If your people try to settle here, they’ll be taking a big risk, Troy.”
“That’s a risk I think we’ll have to take. Living inside hollowed-out asteroids with the limited number of Earth plants and animals we managed to hang on to is going to be a tough hurdle to overcome. I gather from the information we’ve collected that the other Compact races all had tens of thousands of individuals living off their home planets, with stations and colonies that were well stocked with plants and animals from their home worlds. This world will hopefully have compatible food sources. I’m almost to the target now, Val Ky Ree. How’s the video pickup looking?”
“I can see what’s in front of you quite well, Troy. We should be able to complete this equipment survey in a few hours.”
“Good, and then my people will have a better idea of what colonists would need to bring with them versus what’s already here. Okay, I’m setting the air-jeep down in front of what looks like an entrance to the target building. Standby.”
Ronson circled the open area in front of the entrance once before gently setting down so that the air-jeep’s headlights were pointed at the entrance, which to Ronson’s surprise was open. As he got out of the vehicle, he quickly scanned around him with his handheld light. The powerful beam let him see things many meters away, but the darkness everywhere else reminded him of being in a long dark tunnel. The eeriness was compounded by the lack of noise. The only sound was from the wind rustling leaves of the trees. There were no noises from insects or animals, and part of him was glad about that. On the other hand, some noise would have been somewhat reassuring too. The overall impression of what he saw and heard, or rather didn’t hear, was that of being in a tomb.
“I’m approaching the entrance now. What did you say this building’s function was?”
“It’s the main administrative building that also served as a resource center for data, equipment and communications.”
“Aha. As you can see, the room on the other side of the entrance appears to be empty. I’m entering now.”
As he stepped across the entrance threshold, Ronson panned his light from one side to the other and overhead as well, just in case there were any giant spiders hiding in the ceiling. The fact that he felt silly doing it didn’t stop him from doing it. There were corridors down each side and one wide corridor up ahead. He decided to check that out first. The sound of his boots hitting the floor as he walked made odd-sounding echoes that seemed to go on and on. He had moved forward roughly 20 meters when Val Ky Ree’s voice made him jump in surprise.
“Troy! There’s a large animal moving around the air-jeep. It’s large enough that it could damage it if it tried to climb on top. I recommend you return to the entrance quickly and carefully.”
“Okay,” said Ronson in a low voice. He started to run to the entrance, and then, realizing that he was making a lot of noise, he slowed down to a brisk walk. When he got to the entrance and looked out, there was enough light reflecting off the building and back to the air-jeep that he could see something big and black on top of the vehicle. He raised his hand light and pointed it at the creature. The creature seemed to be startled by the beam, and as it turned away, the seat that it was standing on collapsed, causing it to panic and scramble away from the source of the beam of light. Ronson ran to the air-jeep while keeping the light pointed at the creature.
“What is that thing? It’s as big as a tiger, but it’s all black. I’ve got the light right on it, and I can still barely see it!”
“I’m not familiar with local wildlife, Troy, but it’s clearly a nocturnal predator. Scan your surroundings just in case there’s more than one. Is the air-jeep still operational?”
Ronson took a quick look around and then pointed the hand light at the inside of the air-jeep.
“Goddammit! That thing must have claws. The instrument panel is ripped to shreds from where it tried to support itself!” He heard what sounded like a growl, and it wasn’t coming from the direction the running creature had gone. He quickly pointed the light at the sound and gasped when he saw two more of the black predators calmly walking towards him, apparently not bothered by the bright light. “Shit!” He heard Val Ky Ree say something to him, but his attention was focused on pulling out the automatic pistol. Pointing it at one of the two creatures, he thumbed the safety off and pulled the trigger. The gun fired a stream of bullets, but as far as he could tell, most of them missed when the recoil caused the barrel of the gun to shift upwards. Then one of the creatures jumped, letting out a piercing scream, and Ronson knew that at least one bullet must have hit it somewhere. He watched it for a couple of seconds before realizing that the other creature was now running at him. He shifted the gun’s aim, pulled the trigger and prayed that he hadn’t already emptied the gun’s ammo clip. The burst of bullets ended almost immediately, but he must have hit the second target because the creature suddenly fell flat on the ground less than meter from the air-jeep.”
“Spearthrower is on its way, Troy! You’re too exposed out in the open! Get inside the building!”
Ronson didn’t bother responding verbally. He turned and ran for the entrance, hoping that none of these creatures were already inside. As he reached it, he turned and swept the beam from right to left. The wounded creature was still trying to figure out what was causing the pain in its rear leg, and there was now another creature carefully walking forward, its head looking from the wounded animal to the dead body to Ronson and back again.
“Do you have a spare ammunition clip, Troy?” asked Val Ky Ree.
“Yes, but in order to swap clips I have to put the light down! Fuck!”
“DO IT!” shouted Val Ky Ree.
Ronson hesitated for half a second and then quickly put the light on the floor. As he used his gun hand to thumb the ejection button, his left hand fumbled with the pocket containing the second ammo clip. “Come on, come on!” he muttered as the clip caught on some of the suit material and refused to come out of the pocket. After what seemed like an eternity, he got the clip out, slipped it into the gun and pushed the button that loaded the first bullet into the firing chamber.
“Leave the light on the floor about a meter from the entrance and move away from it in order to take up a firing position!” said Val Ky Ree.
“But what if one those things gets inside? I’ll be blind as a bat and it’ll be able to see me!”
“Your video camera can see in the infrared range too. Turn completely around and I’ll make sure there’s nothing already inside. When the predator crosses the threshold,
fire at it from the side.”
Ronson did as Val Ky Ree instructed and knelt about six meters from the entrance with the gun now supported by his other hand as well. He waited, conscious of the fact that he was panting and that his hands were shaking. When a dozen seconds had passed with nothing happening, he wondered if this tactic would work. Just as he was about to say something, one of the creatures leaped through the opening and landed with a terrifying growl on top of the hand light. As sturdy as the Aesirian-designed hand light was, it couldn’t support the weight and broke, the light suddenly going out. It all happened so fast that Ronson hadn’t pulled the trigger.
“FIRE, TROY!” yelled Val Ky Ree. He pulled the trigger, using both hands to hold the gun as steady as possible. The resulting shriek inside the building was deafening. “You’ve hit it! Run for the entrance! Spearthrower is about to land! The way is clear! Run!”
As Ronson approached the entrance, a bright light appeared outside. It was Spearthrower’s external floodlights. The craft dropped to a not-so-gentle landing, and the boarding hatch slid open as Ronson climbed the access ladder and threw himself inside. As the hatch slid shut, he could tell that the craft was already gaining altitude again.
“I think…we should…wait until…daylight,” said a panting Ronson.
“I agree, Troy. I’ll pilot Spearthrower and land it beside the ship. You might as well stay aboard her and then pilot her back when it’s light.”
Six hours later, a tired Ronson piloted Spearthrower back to the admin building. He landed it very close to the entrance and the air-jeep. The wounded creature was gone, and the one killed outside looked like the body had been attacked by scavengers. Ronson made sure his machine pistol was loaded with his last clip of ammo and took another hand light for use inside the building. He opened the hatch and stood at the threshold.
“Val Ky Ree, your people had to deal with those night-cats when they settled here. Would they have used the stun weapon you said we could try to reverse engineer?”
“Very likely, Troy. The stunned animals could then be transported far away from the colony.”
“Would there be a stockpile of those weapons in the admin building?”
“That is a highly likely possibility, although I would caution you not to expect to find any still in working condition. Their power packs are almost certain to have degraded after all this time.”
Ronson grinned. “Power packs should be a lot easier to replace than building a whole new weapon from scratch. Let’s try to find the stockpile first, okay?”
“Okay, Troy. By the way, while we were waiting for daylight, I sent some of my repair-bots over to Spearthrower. They can try to repair the air-jeep while you explore.”
“Good thinking. All right, let’s get this done while I still have the energy to do it.” He stepped out onto the access ladder and made his way to the entrance. To his surprise, there was no sign of the third night-cat shot inside. He did see a puddle of dark liquid with drops leading to the entrance and shook his head. That meant that there could be two wounded night-cats out there somewhere, and every hunter knew that a wounded animal was even more dangerous.
“Which corridor would you suggest, Val Ky Ree?”
“Take the main one straight ahead, Troy. It should lead to a central hub that may have a building directory.”
He eventually found the weapons stockpile after almost an hour of searching. There were hundreds of weapons, most of which were small enough to be held in one hand, but at least a hundred were what he would have called rifles. A careful check of several weapons chosen at random showed that none of them were still operational. That was disappointing, but it was easy to remove the power packs, and Val Ky Ree reported that a dozen new power packs were already being manufactured aboard the ship. As Ronson examined one of the rifles carefully, he saw some Aesirian letters on it next to some buttons.
“Ah, Val Ky Ree, am I wrong, or does this lettering say the Aesirian word for lethal? I’ll hold it up to my suit’s video pickup.”
“You are not wrong, Troy. It appears that the long version of the stun weapon is also capable of killing. I would venture to guess that the beam fired from such a weapon not only paralyzes arm and leg muscles but also the heart as well. Considering how large and powerful these night-cats are, employing lethal force against them makes sense from the colonists’ point of view. If these creatures are territorial, which is likely, then transporting them a long distance away would be only a temporary solution because they might eventually find their way back.”
“Yeah, that makes sense to me too. I’m going to bring two pistols and one rifle back to the jeep. Carrying more than that would be difficult. When I’ve done that, I’ll go back inside and see what other useful stuff we can find.”
After two more hours of searching, Ronson was bushed. He’d been awake for almost 21 hours and desperately wanted to sleep. Val Ky Ree agreed that it was time for a rest. The search so far had revealed a vehicle hangar with civilian vehicles for transporting people and cargo, construction equipment, etc., a communications center, data center, a hospital and a warehouse with lots of different supplies. Ronson wanted to go back there when he was rested to try to determine what kind of supplies it had. Some would clearly no longer be usable, but others still might be. Before leaving the warehouse, he managed to unlock a door that was wide enough to allow the air-jeep to pass through it. The data center was also an enticing find, but without power, there was no way to access its databanks to determine what they contained. When he got back to the entrance, he found the air-jeep floating about a meter in the air.
“I’ll bring the air-jeep back to the ship and have the weapons fitted with the new power packs, Troy. There’s no sense in bringing Spearthrower back to the ship if you’re going to do more exploring tomorrow, so I suggest you board her and get some sleep. I’ll make sure the hatch is secure.”
Ronson did exactly that, and when he awoke, he found that almost ten hours had gone by. It was now dark again outside, but dawn was only an hour or so away. By the time he had a shower, a bite to eat and got ready, it was already growing lighter outside.
“The air-jeep is on the way to you, Troy. In it you’ll find two functioning weapons, one of each kind. You can use the air-jeep to take you around the side of the building where the warehouse is located. That way you can bring back a considerable quantity of material if you wish.”
“Very good. Any sign of night-cats near Spearthrower?”
“None. In fact, I did not detect any night-cats at all during the night. It appears to be safe to exit Spearthrower now.”
Ronson did so, and as he stepped off the access ladder, he saw the air-jeep settle down to the ground a few meters in front of him. In it, as promised, he found a stun rifle and pistol with the accompanying holster. The holster felt strange when he put it on. It was clearly made to fit a thinner body. The rifle did not have a strap or any way to carry it other than by holding on to it.
“Try the rifle, Troy.”
Ronson found the safety button and turned it off, aimed at the side of the building and fired. A pale, blue beam of light shot out from the weapon and stayed visible for as long as he held the trigger down. With a little experimentation, he discovered that he could vary the width of the beam, at a distance of about ten meters, from very narrow to several meters wide.
“Very nice. Buck Rogers, eat your heart out,” said Ronson.
“Who is Buck Rogers, Troy?”
Ronson laughed. “I’ll tell you later. Right now I want to get back to the warehouse.”
A few minutes later, he was piloting the air-jeep around the building to the section where the unlocked door was. When he got there he said, “Oh hell.” The door that he had unlocked from the inside but left closed, was now partially open. “Do you see that, Val Ky Ree?”
“I see it, Troy. You should be prepared for the possibility that the night-cats have figured out how to open that door and may be inside the warehouse.�
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“Oh that’s just fucking great. With those high storage brackets in there, a night-cat could be waiting on top for something yummy to walk by. Shit! I have this sinking feeling that these night-cats are not just dumb animals, Val Ky Ree.”
“If they have opened this door, that would indicate a level of intelligence that is unusual in predators.”
“At least the four-legged kind,” murmured Ronson.
“What are you going to do, Troy?”
Ronson hesitated. “Well…if I can get this door opened the rest of the way, I can fly the jeep into the warehouse and make a careful scan of the tops of the brackets and maybe see where the cats are if any of them are really in there. With a little luck, we’ll discover that they checked it out and left already. The challenge will be getting the door open I think. It’s been closed for a long, long time. I’m kinda surprised the night-cats were able to push it open at all. You don’t think there’s something else running around here do you? Maybe something that walks on two legs?”