Harbinger

by Stephen Christiansen

  On top of that, why did Earth command have to put him on a junk ship to start with? If they would have put him on something that would have at least held together then they would have at least made it to Phoebe. And what about the fact that the government allowed singularity engines to remain under a grandfather clause? It should have been mandated that ships should have been retrofitted and those that didn’t comply would have their ships scuttled.

  And how about giving him a decent crew? Most of the scientists had proved to be useless and at least one of them was trying to bring back a, what did Cleo call it, a Xenoamorphopseudopod. What was she thinking? If one of those got loose on Earth then...well the result would be catastrophic.

  But why did he need to care about Earth’s population and anything that happened on that planet? They were the ones that had polluted the sky, the air, the ground, and the water. They were the ones that had made Earth unlivable. They were the ones that had stripped the recourses and they were the ones that had corrupted the governments.

  Eric struck out against one of the nearby trees. He struck hard again and again. He kicked and hit over and over.

  “It’s not fair!” Eric screamed. “It’s not my fault! I shouldn’t be here!”

  It was when exhaustion kicked in again did Eric feel the pain coursing through his hands and feet. The adrenaline that had started during his fit had worn off. Eric fell to the ground sobbing again.

  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Time had passed. Again, it was hard to tell. The sky hadn’t changed.

  Eric no longer had his rage. It was gone. He was no longer angry at his loss and no longer angry at the course of actions that had caused it. He had come to the realization that there wasn’t anything he could do to change what had happened. It was out of his control. It was out of everyone’s control. Or was it?

  Eric fell to the ground upon his knees and looked up toward the sky. He had heard of many religions who had prayed to some greater deity and he had often scoffed at their religion as something used as a crutch. Now, he wondered if any of it was true. He didn’t know how to begin or what to do, but he had suddenly found himself speaking.

  “Look, I’ve never been good at this, and don’t know what to say or if there’s anyone or anything that can hear me, but I need help. I can’t do this alone. Please...I’ll do anything, just please.”

  There wasn’t an answer. Eric didn’t know what to expect. Would his pleas be heard? Would they be answered? He honestly didn’t know. But he did know that he would do anything, anything to be back home, in a nice warm bed with real food.

  Time passed and nothing changed. There wasn’t a wind that had picked up nor had the ambient light changed. There hadn’t been a rescue ship show up and he hadn’t woken up realizing that it had all been a bad dream. Really, didn’t know what he had been expecting, but he had hoped that something would change. Nothing had.

  It was then that Eric realized that he would have to accept the role that fate, or circumstance, or by design, had given him. There was no denying it. There was no running from it, no crying from it, no amount of anger and no amount of wishful thinking or bargaining that could take place that would change the fact that he was here. He would have to face the fact that he was alone and stranded.

  The emotional rollercoaster had finally ended. Eric remembered, somewhere in some study that he had, back in high school or college even, that there were several stages of loss. He hadn’t really paid attention to that class, only long enough to memorize the stages for the upcoming test. But, even then, he didn’t believe that this knowledge would be beneficial to anything in his life. Now, he wished he had remembered the lesson; it might have helped him through his transition of accepting his fate. It might have helped him accept the fact that he was lost, alone, and stranded on an alien planet with no way of contacting anyone and with no help on the way. The best thing that he could do now was…

  Eric suddenly heard it and turned to see...

  Chapter: 46

  The sound came on like a horrible beast. It was like some old fashioned train coming down the tracks some distance away. But it wasn’t a sound that seemed to stay at a distance. It came on stronger with each passing moment. It was a ship’s engine coming to life. It was…

  Eric could only look on as the massive trees that he had meandered through, that he had been lost in, that had towered over him, bent as if some hand of god had pushed against them. With the exception of the landing craft that he had come in on, the one that had come in so fast and hard through the atmosphere, Eric couldn’t believe that anything could push these trees to any degree. The large behemoths seemed like the massive Redwoods that he had heard about back on Earth, or even the great Sequoias. Now, they moved like wheat in the wind.

  The snapping of limbs and the moaning of the trees added to the howling of the air that was coming at him fast. The deafening sound was beyond anything that Eric had ever heard, yet as it rushed at him with incredible speed it only got louder. He was sure that the sonic blast would tear him apart if the gust of wind didn’t do it first.

  From behind the great wind that was coming at him, came the light, the light of some great engine or explosive that had happened. For one moment Eric was sure that some catastrophe had happened. Perhaps it was some explosion like a bomb or missile or perhaps a meteor strike.

  He had registered all of this in a heartbeat. His mind processed the information between the split seconds that he heard it and the moment that he felt it.

  The air blast blew Eric off of his feet and sent him flying backwards. His body went airborne for ten feet or more before he came to a free fall and splashed down into the river.

  Eric’s form became completely submerged and he started to sink. The swift current bounced him around and dragged him under. He tried to kick and bring himself to the surface but as soon as he did, he was dragged under again.

  Eric felt his body being pulled down stream. He lost all direction. As soon as he found the bottom of the river, he kicked up again and was able to catch his breath before being knocked about yet again. His head struck a rock and for one moment the world around him spun more than it had while being tossed about by the raging river. Consciousness threatened to fade.

  It was only out of desperation did Eric throw his arm around the large boulder and pull himself out of the water. His body was soaked and the weight of his suit filled with water felt like lead. Yet, he knew that if he let go, he would be swept away and any chance of survival would be swept away with him.

  As he clung to his rock, Eric took in deep breaths of air. The oxygen to his lungs and his brain felt good, especially after almost drowning and especially during the night of not having enough…

  His thoughts stopped at that. Both realizations hit at once. The first was the fact that he could breathe better. It was as if he were in an oxygen enriched area. It was like a drug entering his system for the first time. His mind was clearing, his body felt better, his muscles were responding. The atmosphere had changed from a dormant state to an awakened state, as if the forest had gone to sleep during the “night” and was now waking up. There were flowers on Earth that would close at night and reopen in the morning. There were flowers that would stay dormant for years before opening up. Why couldn’t trees on another planet go dormant?

  This made sense and explained the sudden rush of wind. This was a bloom of oxygen being released all at once by these massive trees. That would also explain why the trees were so big, only a large plant like these would survive the oxygen bloom, anything else would be blown away. It could also be the way the trees send their seeds in all directions.

  The second realization was the fact that “morning” had come. He had no idea how long the night had lasted in hours that he was used to, but it had finally come. This was the bright light, the explosion of light, which had come upon him.

  He would have to keep these things in
mind. The night would last longer than he was used to and would have less oxygen. He would have to preserve his energy during the night time and get as much done during the day as possible.

  This brought another point to mind. If the atmosphere was lacking in oxygen at night, so much so that the fire would burn slower, he wondered if the day time would have the opposite effect. Would fires burn brighter and out of control? There was much to learn about this planet if he wanted to survive. But, first thing was first.

  Eric slowly pulled himself from upon the large rock that he had been smashed into and out of the river that was still threatening to drag him back under and sweep him away to parts unknown. With as much effort as he could manage, he crawled upon the shore. There, he lay breathing in an attempt to gather his strength.

  It took some time to pull the wet, soaking space suit off. It clung to him and his garments as if they were glue and it had been harder to take it off than he had suspected.

  In the end he felt twenty pounds lighter as he looked upon the silvery suit that had protected him. Now, he would probably have to abandon it. The space suit would only slow him down and what little oxygen that it had was more than likely depleted. The suit was also ripped and torn in several places making it all but useless in protecting him. On top of that, even without being wet, the suit was heavy and cumbersome.

  His next thought was concerning the clothing that he still had on. They were also still very soaked and felt very heavy on him. Since the sun had come up, the temperature on this planet was starting to rise and he wondered if keeping his wet clothing on would not only give a limited protect to his body, but would keep him cool if the temperature rose any higher.

  The sudden crack of thunder split through the sky and rumbled through the air. The sound waves shook the great limbs of the trees.

  Eric had never heard such a sound before. It seemed to reverberate through his chest and travel through his body. He felt his bones ripple. Then, he felt something else.

  There wasn’t any warning with the exception of the loud boom that had been overhead only a few moment’s ago. Eric had no idea what to expect. There had only been a moment’s heartbeat between the thunderclap and torrent that followed.

  The rain poured out of the sky as if had contained a full ocean and had decided to dump it all at once. The downpour was unlike anything that Eric had ever experienced. It was a deluge of water that beat down upon him with force of its own. The raindrops were large and thick with water, their frequency was constant. The shower was dense and intense. The raindrops fell with such an intensity that they bounced off of the forest floor only to come back down again. Each droplet came upon him with such ferocity that they actually hurt.

  Then there was the sound of the rain. It sounded like a waterfall overlapping the sound of sizzling bacon. It was constant and nearly deafening.

  Eric went from being wet to being soaked in seconds. He was sure that he had been drier in the river. Down and down the water came. It came in buckets and torrents and in an apocalyptic flood deluge. On and on it came, without stopping, without relenting.

  He had heard of such a thing back on Earth. He had heard of places where it rained so hard that nothing could fly and hardly anything could move. He had thought such rumors to be false since there were far too many places on Earth that needed water and were bone dry. He had even thought them to be untrue since he couldn’t even imagine such a scene. Now, he was in the middle of it.

  Eric put his back to the nearest tree and tried his best to take as much shelter as he could from the branches above him. Yet there was no real relief from the constant downpour.

  It didn’t take long before the ground took all that it could and started to flood. The dirt turned to mud and the mud turned to sludge. Eric’s body began to sink in the thick ooze that was starting to surround him.

  He turned to another low branch, jumped, missed, and jumped again. On his second attempt he was able to catch the branch, but couldn’t catch a grip due to it being soaked. He gave a third attempt and put everything that he could into the jump despite no longer having any solid ground. It was then that he was able to wrap his arms around the limb and pull himself up.

  The rain kept coming as he sat there, his back against the trunk. He had to shake his head at this. Although he wasn’t the meteorologist, he should have known better. The sudden increase of wind would have affected the weather patterns in this area. And, although he wasn’t the biologist, he should have figured out that these tall trees needed a lot of water to live. It was probably like this every day. Each morning there would be an incredible rise in oxygen that would blow the seeds far from the parent tree to give it a chance to grow. This would then be followed by a torrential downpour that would soak the ground and let the seeds drop into the soil.

  Eric had no idea how much time had passed, it seemed like hours. His muscles hurt from staying in one position for too long and his constitution had been hard pressed from the constant torrent.

  Then, almost as suddenly as it had come, the rain had stopped. There was no letting up, there was no slight decrease. There was only a sudden stop.

  Eric found his way back down the tree and gave himself a stretch to get the kinks out of his muscles. It was good to no longer be up in the tree and better yet to no longer be rained on.

  He let his mind wonder about his surroundings. He had to take everything into consideration before moving on and making a decision about his survival. Everything was different here and he couldn’t take anything for granted. Even how quickly the ground was soaking up the water and drying was unlike anything he had ever experienced.

  However, before he was able to make any decision, the sound caught his immediate attention...

  Chapter: 47

  “Skweeeeek, squaaaawk…”

  Eric turned toward the direction of what had only crossed his mind as some giant parrot or other type of bird. He had forgotten the possibility of life on this planet besides the obvious large trees that towered over him. He hoped that the creature, whatever it was, would be small and harmless. He was wrong.

  At first, Eric didn’t see what had caused such a ruckus. In all fairness, he thought to himself, he really didn’t know what he was looking for. However, once he saw it, he knew exactly where the source had come from.

  Off in the distance, between a few of the trees, was a very large bird-like creature. It must have been at least six feet tall. It long legs reminded him of those of an ostrich; they were long and thin and held the bulk of the creature high above ground. The claws, from what he could tell, looked more like talons, like that of a bird of prey, perhaps like a hawk or an eagle. The wings were short, in relation to the bird itself, and were tucked close to its body. Eric doubted that the bird would be able to fly, however, with the powerful legs that it had, he doubted that it need to. The bird’s plumage was a mixture of bright colors ranging from brilliant blue, to majestic purple, to energetic yellow and finally to vibrant red. There was no mistaken the presence of this creature. On top of the bird’s main body rose a long neck, again reminding him of an ostrich. But, unlike that now extinct bird, this one had a fairly large head and a curved beak, again like a hawk or an eagle.

  For the briefest of moments the two of them simply stood there, looking at each other with wide eyed expression. Then, without warning, the terror bird fluffed its feathers out, making it look twice the size it actually was. Its muscles tightened as it dropped its neck lower, as if to make better eye contact with the creature it had never seen before.

  “Squaaaawk!”

  This was the only warning that Eric had before this massive predator started its charge. Its massive legs kicked and propelled the beast quickly along. Its short wings went out to the sides of its body making it look larger than it was and acted as balance.

  In a moment’s thought, Eric came to the realization just how fast this bird could travel. And it wasn’t just its speed, but its maneuvering ability was incredible. It was a
ble to dodge between the trees without hesitation. On top of that, it was able jump up and over fallen tree branches that had come down during the morning torrent of air.

  That moment, the single moment of shock and disbelief, was a moment too long. The terror bird had closed half the distance and was gaining speed. Eric doubted that he could put up a good fight against this creature. All it had to do was hit him at full speed and it would be similar to being hit by an oncoming car. Even if the impact didn’t crush his body and shatter every bone that he had, he was sure that the bird’s claws and beak would rip him to shreds. There was only one thing Eric could do.

  With as much speed as he could muster, Eric turned as sprinted. His legs carried him as fast as he could make them. His arms pumped as quickly as he could force them. His heart raced. His blood flowed. Sweat spilled upon him.

  Eric turned and dodged between the trees in a desperate attempt to use them as cover. He hoped that he could at least have a better turning radius than the beast. A look back told him that he was right. The bird couldn’t turn as sharply and in one attempt to do so had only sent the creature sprawling upon the forest floor and in another attempt sent it bouncing off of one of the great trees. However, it was still no use. The terror bird was still gaining ground fast and it didn’t seem as if it were letting up any time soon.