Yakobe thought for a few moments before answering. “No, I can’t say that it does. I’ve never heard anything like that before. I hope I never hear it again either—if it ever stops! I wager that the Mwene can hear it all the way back at the Kwila.”
“Exactly! It’s like the prophecy by Isaikus.”
When drums beat across the sky
echoing loud for all to hear.
The shadow lengthens;
its soul released to feed the weak.
Guide the children of the stars.
Give strength, give aid, give skill.
For when the shadow’s grip is strong
The children bring new dawn.
“I don’t know what it means, but it sure does sound like drums in the sky and everyone can surely hear it.”
“Well,” coughed Yakobe, pausing to get a breath as they broke out of the trees. “I do remember hearing that one, but I don’t know what it means either. For one thing, shadows don’t have souls. Stars aren’t people to have children and we couldn’t do anything for them if they did. If you ask me, Isaikus was mad by the time he said that anyways. I’ll keep it in mind though, and let me know if you think of anything.”
“Move along you two,” the guard behind them growled. “You can stop to gab when we get there.”
With a sigh, they started off again for the observatory just a hundred paces away. They were herded past the observatory when they reached it, however, and saw just beyond it a portal opened to…somewhere.
“Where are you taking us?” Rakhabi asked fearfully. “We’ve done nothing but help. Can’t you just let us go on our way?”
The guard considered them thoughtfully. “The Mwene told us to usher you to the palace,” he said indicating the portal in front of them. “You are guests of honor of Mwene Crisópraso of Kipero. Where were you headed today?”
“To Kipero, but…”
“Then consider this a shortening of your journey and free room and board for your troubles. Now move along. It’s rude to make your host waste his resources just to banter about like this. They looked at each other echoing feelings of embarrassment and nodded apologetically to the guards holding the portal open.
The portal was semi-permanent really. The guards used only a trickle of energy to keep the anchor alive and hardly more than that to open it so they could enter. It would be maintained for a while until the debris could be picked through more thoroughly. Who knew what secrets lay there smoking in the underbrush.
The throb from the tunnel dimmed somewhat as they stepped through the portal. The structure of the palace absorbed and muted its rumble. They followed the guards that were now disappearing through a door into a corridor. There was a trail of red marking their route.
“It looks like alien blood runs red,” Yakobe directed at Rakhabi. “I hope our healers can fix them.”
Rakhabi grimaced. “They were beat up pretty bad, and their bodies don’t have the same resonance that ours do. They are the same basic two-legged form as we are, but their bone structure is of a different substance and as you can see, their blood is different too.” She indicated the trail of red that they were following. They’re going to run out of blood soon unless their bodies produce it much faster than ours does.
They slowed down as they drew close to the guards that were carrying the injured. When they turned into the room where the healers were, they were separated from each other and taken into different rooms. Rakhabi sat down uneasily on the edge of a bed that had been grown right out of the wall. It was crystalline just like the walls and ceiling and was very different from the wooden, natural look that she was used to back home. Crystal was rare and more costly in Kwilani where folks were skilled in growing and working with living nature. It was the exact opposite here. There were a few wooden items that she had seen, but the room she now found herself in had nothing of the kind. The cabinet on the far wall was the same material as the bed on which she sat, and there was no central light. Rather, the light seemed to come through everything. She idly wondered how they turned it off. Back home their glows were suspended from the boughs and vines, and any skilled could touch it and conceal its light if necessary.
Captain Gaston walked awkwardly up the sloping deck again to look out the front windows. There was much to do and nothing to do but wait all at the same time. He could see the tracks of the vehicles heading off to the east of the shuttle. He could just make out the tents that were being erected.
They had to be on solid ground there, but he could see no difference between the vegetation there and here where he had landed. One would think that with such a difference in density and composition that there would be an obvious boundary or difference between the two terrains. It should have comforted him that there was no way he could have known what he was getting himself into, but his frustration persisted.
He watched as the All-Terrain Rovers made their way across the muck. They formed a jagged line obviously offset from each other. “That’s smart,” he thought. “That way they won’t sear a deep grove in the muck.” Even as he watched though, one of the vehicles that wasn’t loaded evenly slowed to a halt and seemed to tunnel into the muck before tipping precariously forward and to the right. Once it had broken through, it seemed to just continue to sink in until it was up to its front windshield in the muck.
The captain wasn’t sure what he had done to attract attention, but the window from where he watched was now filled with on looking crew members that groaned collectively as the vehicle’s passengers crawled out of its back hatch only to sink waste deep themselves. They looked like a swarm of ants charging out of their anthill only to get stuck in flypaper. They watched in horror as another vehicle stopped to help only to begin sinking straight down into the muck until the only thing still above ground was the windows. Suddenly they could see another vehicle speed past the others and without stopping, redirected the traffic not allowing them to stop. It continued to circle the two vehicles until the rest of the vehicle train had passed. They watched as the people, stupid enough to have climbed out of the vehicle, were helped back on to their vehicles by the remaining occupants. When they had all been pulled to safety, the third vehicle sped away.
The captain was about to send Brent for the microphone when the vehicle sped into view again with an open bed truck close behind. It was much like watching one of those old silent movies Gaston had heard about. The truck was loaded with large panels for housing construction. It sped between the two stuck vehicles and the laborers on its bed pushed two large sheets off the back as they passed. They made another pass and shoved off two more panels next to the first set and then again adding another two panels in front of the previously laid panels. As it sped off, the third vehicle pulled onto the last of the panels that had been dropped. The now silent audience could barely make out Caleb as he and another guy arranged the panels. They were careful to stay on them while they did so. They quickly rescued the stranded occupants of the first vehicle and shuttled them to firm ground. The second vehicle, however, was a different matter. When the would-be rescuers stepped onto the roof to try to figure out how to get its occupants out, the vehicle immediately began to sink more. It was obviously in a much softer area. Only after much milling around were they able to retrieve the panels near the first vehicle and drag them over to the remaining vehicle. When they had broken out its windows, they began to drag people out of the vehicle. By the time they were done, they were ankle deep in the muck now oozing over the sides of the panels.
“Boy, what a mess,” someone said drawing the captain’s attention back inside the cabin. His wife Jasc stood just behind him trying to see around the crowd by the window. He stepped to one side, allowing her a better view of what was going on. Though he stood almost a head taller than her, they still seemed to fit together as a couple. Their children, when they had some, would probably be the smartest kids on the settlement. Jasc was in charge of the propulsion, and her intelligence easily rivaled that of Gaston.
“Interesting though this is,” she said looking at him with her almost amber eyes, “I have a problem that will need to be taken care of real soon. Sorry to bother you with yet another thing.”
“That’s fine Jasc, I’ll just expect a really good vacation when I’ve gotten it all taken care of. What’s the problem?”
Jasc paused for a second watching the last of the muddy rescuers climb into a vehicle and set off across the muck. “Seventy-five percent of the intakes on our propulsion system are now clogged, and we are starting to overheat. As you know, it generates a small city’s worth of energy for us to stay cool and for normal systems to remain functional. We need to shut everything off except for the most critical systems or we’ll have a big crater here instead of muck because we’ll explode.”
The captain sighed heavily. “O.K., we’ll go to emergency back up on everything except for ventilation. Will that get us down low enough?”
“It will gain us a few hours anyways,” she said. “I’ll keep you posted and when it gets too hot again, it will have to come down too.”
“O.K., Jasc. Thanks. We hope to have everybody off not long after nightfall anyways. We can only do what we can do.” He watched as she made her way out. Life was about to get much more inconvenient and uncomfortable!
Hours later the captain stood again in front of the wide bank of windows watching the colors of the setting sun flicker across the wispy clouds overhead. This would mark their first night on Magellan and it was turning out to be nothing like what he had expected or hoped. He hadn’t even left the shuttle yet. As the large orang-ish sun disappeared below the ocean’s horizon to the West, the stars began to blink into view. The suns never set the same on any of the planets he had been on. This was no exception. Golden hour here was less yellow and more orange. Darkness was slower to come with the other planet still visible overhead taking up nearly a third of the sky. It was illuminated like a huge light bulb overhead. He could see the shadows marching across its surface. It gained more visibility and definition as the sun set. No longer was it just a pale ghost in the sky. It was not a dominating feature.
Up there somewhere was life in a different form. It was exciting to think that after so many years of space travel they had actually found life. They didn’t know anything about it yet, just that it existed.
He gasped audibly as a huge shape passed between him and the far planet. It soared across his vision and on into the night headed out to sea for all he could tell. He barely recognized his voice as he mumbled under his breath. “What was that? It was massive!”
It reminded him of some of those old movies about the knights and dragons. That thought sobered him up really quick. His entire crew and all its passengers, except for the last load that would be leaving in about thirty ticks, was out there exposed on the open plain. If that beast was a carnivore, they could be in big trouble. “We’re just not prepared. We’re not prepared for this. All our training and constant preparation and still we are not prepared for this.”
With that thought chasing itself around his head like a dog chasing its tail, he went back to work closing the shuttle down. He watched as the bi-metallic shutters shut out the view in front of him chasing out everything but the eerie emergency lighting glow. The only thing electronic they had decided to leave on was the radio. It was now broadcasting to only the most common frequencies and was recording any traffic on those bands and more. Minimal emergency lighting would also be left on, but after 24 hours of no activity, the sensors would turn even those off as well.
Captain Gaston Pomme took one last look around the command center as the door slid into place. His life was going to be nothing like what it had been as a celestial space captain. He turned away from the now closed door and made his way through the dimly lit corridors to his personal cabin. He made one last note in the “captain’s log” and grabbing his backpack, locked the room behind him. The rest of his bags had already been taken across to the temporary campsite.
He had almost made his way to the door where the emergency staircase led to the lower level when the world shifted around him, slowly at first and then more quickly until he was all but flying down the corridor in the opposite direction. The whole shuttle groaned and creaked as it settled into the muck. It was no longer angled back to its rear, but now the nose was buried in the muck. Captain Gaston lay in a twisted heap at the end of the long corridor. His breathing was shallow and labored.
He was just recovering consciousness when Caleb opened the door to the stairwell at the far end of the corridor.
“Captain! Captain, it’s Caleb can you hear me?” He heard Caleb but was still too dazed to figure out what was going on. His whole world was bent and angled abnormally, and the sparse lighting from the emergency lights didn’t do anything to help him.
Caleb didn’t even notice him lying there until he was halfway down the corridor using a rope anchored on the stairwell railing to keep him from sliding too quickly to the bottom. He yelled back up to the grunt watching from the stairwell, “I’ve found the captain. He’s at the end of the corridor. I’m going to knot the rope here by the outside access hatch and make my way down to him. Tim, come all the way down to the bottom with me. I will need your help getting him back up to the access hatch here.”
“I’m right behind you, Caleb,” Tim yelled back.
Caleb finished off the half-hitch before scurrying the rest of the way to the bottom. “Are you O.K., Captain?” he asked, shining his cold torch in his eyes to check if they were dilating correctly. They were.
Captain Gaston was a bit more coherent now and managed to mumble out a question. “What happened? Who is it?”
“It’s me, Captain, Caleb. It seems the substructures we landed on finally collapsed. The main ramp is mangled and I had to close the inner lock so that the lower levels don’t fill up with that muck.”
“Did it crush your vehicle?” the captain asked, wincing as he tried to sit up straighter.
Caleb noticed the wince and felt the captain’s side while he spoke. “Ram was driving for me and just took the last load back to the base camp. He should be back any tick. Everybody is O.K. I think you cracked a rib when you fell, but we need to get you out of here. We’re going to go out one of the access hatches.”
Tim slid into the wall behind Caleb and together they helped Gaston to his feet.
Gaston’s world seemed to tilt and his chest felt like there was a knife between his ribs. He didn’t hear Caleb asking if he was O.K. until the dark dancing spots receded from his vision.
“I’ve been better, but I’ll be fine. We’d better do this before you have to carry me.”
‘O.K. then,” Tim said. “Try to hold onto the rope and use it to help keep you from sliding back down. We will support you from behind. You can even step on our feet to keep from sliding back down, too.”
Gaston let out a gasp as he tried to pull himself up with his right arm. He turned sideways and pulled with his left arm instead. His right arm he put behind his back, but still held onto the rope. “I can’t use my right arm to pull me up, but at least it will keep me in place as I rock for my next handhold. I can just brace my back on it while I’m holding onto the rope.”
“Whatever works, Captain,” said Caleb glancing sideways at Tim and taking another half step up.
By the time they had reached the door where Caleb had tied the rope off, they were moving at a snail’s pace and were exhausted. Gaston collapsed to the floor as he released the rope. Tim and Caleb joined him moments later and they rested for a few ticks before Caleb made his way to the pressure hatch. There were two hatches, one to the pressure chamber, and another to the outside. Because the power was off, all the safety features were disabled and the hatches slid back easily after he turned the wheels in the center of the hatches to unlock them. Gaston and Tim followed close behind and soon the three of them were looking out on a bleak dimly lit landscape.
Off in the distance, they could see the lights from t
he base camp bright against the dark landscape behind them. The light brightened measurably as the clouds rolled past the planet overhead. Just as more clouds covered the planet again, Ram came around from the back of the shuttle in the All-Terrain Rover. The headlights were bright, but the light from Ram’s cold torch blinded them as he panned it over the surface of the shuttle. They all shouted and waved to get his attention, thinking that he hadn’t seen them. They soon realized that he had sighted them when he circled around again yelling. “I can’t stop until you are down here, and then not for long. If I do, I’ll sink in.” He went around again before adding, “You need to come down as far as possible and jump in as I come by.”
They looked at one another with chagrin. “It’s a good thing we got everybody but us off,” said the captain. “This would have taken forever and we definitely would have had some injuries in the process. As it is, I don’t know how I’ll make it down there without killing myself. Caleb, there should be a tie off out there and there are some tubercles just above the hatch that should give you a finger hold to hold onto. See if you can make it up to the very top of the shuttle and follow it down to where the nose is buried in the muck. That may be a safer way to get down. It’s closer to the ground there.”
Caleb looked incredulously at him before shaking his head and silently looking down at the ground 40 meters below. “You’re crazy Captain, but then I guess that I am too because I’m going to do it. Tim, get the rope out of the corridor, and spot me here until I can find the tie off and this “finger hold” the captain says is out there.”
Caleb leaned out and managed to locate the tie-off ring that was set into the surface of the shuttle in such a way as to not impede airflow when the shuttle was flying. When Tim arrived with the rope, he hung onto Caleb while Caleb fastened the rope to the tie-off.
“O.K. Wish me luck,” he said as he looped the rope around himself and swung out of the doorway. He inched himself up the rope to where the tie-off was and then used his leg twisted around the rope to leverage himself higher still.
Solar Twins Page 9