Solbidyum Wars Saga 5: Desolation (9 page)

I was staring at Lunnie’s face, and I swear she was staring me in the eye with a look akin to anger, and it nearly made me laugh.  I jokingly said, “All right, Lunnie, I’m sorry.  You know I am your daddy.”  To my surprise, she immediately stopped crying and looked at me with a calm and curious face.

“Here, let me have her,” Kala said as she reached for Lunnie.  “It’s about time for her feeding.”

“Do you need me to stay and help you, or can I go and check out the ravine for water and any signs of life?”  I asked.

“I think I can handle things here, but don’t be gone too long.  Reidecor likes to sleep, whereas Lunnie seems to hate sleeping, but as soon as he wakes up both of them will want attention at the same time, and your help will be appreciated.”

“I’ll try and not be more than an hour, “I answered as I headed for the exit hatch.

It was only a short walk to the ravine; it turned out to be deeper and wider than it appeared from the ship.  It actually was more like a slot canyon than a ravine, and it was larger than I had expected.  From the top where I stood it appeared to be about 15 meters deep and about 10 meters wide, and carved out of solid rock that seemed to lay only about a meter beneath the soil.  In the bottom of the canyon, I could see a small shallow stream of water, which varied in width from 600 millimeters in some places to nearly the width of the canyon in others.  I looked about for a way down, but all I could see was nearly smooth, vertical rock walls; surely there would be side channels that would slope down from the desert around me to channel water down into the canyon.  I would just need to look about and find one.  While I was looking down into the canyon, something caught my eye.  It seemed that one of the rocks was moving.  I looked closer and noticed a trail on the sand behind the rock and realized that it was indeed moving and dragging itself through the sand, leaving a trail behind it.  My first thought was it might be a turtle, but I saw no legs, nor did I see anything that resembled footprints on the sand.  Slowly, the rock-like creature reached the water, entered and soon disappeared beneath the surface, where the glare on the water obscured its path.  I decided to move in an upstream direction of the canyon in hopes of finding a smaller ditch that might slope down into the canyon.  I hadn’t gone too far when I came across an area strewn with rubble and clearly appeared to be a portion of a wall, made by some intelligent life form, which protruded out of the sand.  As I looked around I could see outlines in the sand that indicated that at one time a number of structures had stood in this location, and from the arrangement, it must have been a small town or city. 

I abruptly realized nearly an hour had gone by since I left the ship, and I had promised Kala I would return.  I took a shorter and more direct route back to the ship.  When I entered the hatch, I could hear a baby crying; this time I could tell it was Reidecor, as he had a clearly different sound from Lunnie.  I entered our cabin and found Kala pacing back and forth carrying a screaming Reidecor.

“Tibby, I don’t know what to do,” Kala cried… “He won’t stop crying.  The med unit says he’s fine, but he still keeps crying.

I looked at Lunnie, who lay quietly on the bed with her head turned looking at me, as though she too, was waiting to see how I would answer her mother.

“Ah, look, I’ve not had any experience with babies either.  I have no idea what to do.”  I said with a feeling of helplessness.

“Here, you take him and see if you can figure it out,” She said as she handed Reidecor to me.

Before I could answer she had thrust Reidecor into my arms.  I glanced over at Lunnie on the bed, and she still was staring at me and then abruptly she turned her head away and back again.  For some reason I can’t explain, I felt that she was trying to signal to me that I should turn Reidecor over.  I looked at him and then turned his body so his stomach lay along the length of my forearm with his head in the palm of my hand, his small arms and legs dangling over my arm.  Almost immediately, he stopped crying and squirming and relaxed.

“What did you do?”  Kala asked in an amazed tone.

“I’m not really sure.  I just felt that this is what I should do.”  I glanced over at Lunnie, who was still staring at me, and I swear she had a smile upon her face.  I glanced back at Reidecor and was surprised to see he had fallen asleep.

“See Tib, you’re a natural at being a dad.”

“Yeah, sure,” I responded as I glanced back at Lunnie again wondering if it was just a dumb lucky thing on my part that I had done the right thing, but in the back of my mind, I could not help feeling that somehow Lunnie had told me what to do.

For the next two days, I was not able to exit the ship during the light as solar flares bathed the planet with radiation.  After the sun had set only the light side of the planet was exposed to the flares, and it was possible to be outside the ship.  On the first night of the flares, I exited the ship for about 20 minutes to look around. Looking at the sky, I could see vast visages of auroras that draped the heavens like giant curtains waving in a gentle breeze.  I had expected to hear the sound of the wind, so I was caught off guard when I heard a chorus of sounds of many life forms on the planet making whistling and buzzing sounds.  I realized that so far I had merely observed just one native life form on the planet, but it was obvious there were a number of life forms here.  I didn’t know what those might be, nor if any of them were threatening, and I decided I would be better advised if I stayed aboard the
ALI
and used the computer to study up on the planet and its flora and fauna for the time being.  The first thing I discovered was the good news, there was nothing life-threatening to humans on the planet, the bad news was that some of the life forms could make someone real sick, as it was possible to suffer allergic reactions from bites, stings, or reactions to touching them.  However, none of these were fatal. 

I discovered that there were creatures that resembled trilobites from Earth’s ancient past that inhabited the planet.  These animals had hard carapaces that provided some protection from the solar radiation during solar flares, allowing them to move about in the daytime when most other life forms could not.  It was one of these creatures that I had seen on my first outing in the bottom of the canyon.  According to the ship's computer, it was called a boilatee, but unlike Earths  trilobites, boilatees didn’t have legs, and they could survive both on land and under water.  They had a soft-tissue underside that undulated in a way that provided motion across a surface.  If a boilatee got flipped over it was unable to right itself, and exposure of the underside to solar radiation was fatal to them.  The ship's computer also indicated that the boilatees were one of the creatures on Desolation that was edible; no mention was given about their taste.

One of the more interesting creatures on the planet I had seen but I didn’t realize it was an animal because it resembled a tree.  I had observed these treelike structures about outside earlier, they were not large by most planet standards and most were only about a meter or two tall.  They looked like a barren tree with remnants of dried fruits hanging from the branches; on closer observation, what I had thought was fruits or nuts were more like cowry shells from a sea creature that had lived on Earth.  I had assumed that the hard shells were some sort of dried fruit pits, of nuts that had remained on the tree when the plants had died. 

What I discovered from the computer was that the shells were actually living animals that survived on a tree by a colony of these shells, they were called Sisoma.  During the day, the creatures that lived in the shells retracted inside where they were safe and shielded from any solar radiation, but once the sun set, the creatures unfurled from the shells much like feathery sea worms from Earth.  After reading this, I could not wait until the sun had set to go out and see them for myself.

When I first came out of the ship after the sun had gone down, the life forms were still in their shells, but as the light began to fade into dusk, I began to see the feathery leaf like forms slowly emerging from the shells and waving to and fro.  It looked like they were waving in a breeze though the air was still.  From close up, I could see in the dim light that the colors of the leaf like appendages varied from one shell to the next.  Some appeared to be a bright red and others were golden yellow.  Every color of the rainbow seemed to be evident.  I was tempted to run my fingers through the feathery fronds, but I recalled that the computer said that their contact with human skin produced a fiery sensation and left welts that burned and itched for hours.

As twilight descended I looked across the valley to see it totally transformed as all the trees that in the light had appeared dead and barren were now covered in lush multicolored featherlike foliage.  I was startled to see them slowly begin to glow in all sorts of pastel colors; I inhaled deeply and then nearly gagged; I had expected to smell a luxurious fragrance from these beautiful looking life forms, only to discover that their smell had all the attributes of a deceased Earth rodent.  I was about to go back in the ship when something caught my eye, and I looked to see a flying creature, which had a round body about 200 millimeters in diameter, and two large bat like wings.  As one point, I observed it swoop down and grab one of the feathery creatures on the tree, yanking it out of its shell.  Immediately all the other creatures on the tree retracted into their shells as the ball/bat creature flew away with its prize in its mouth.  I went back into the ship and said to Kala, “You need to come outside and see this.  It’s beautiful!”  Kala looked at me with a concerned expression, and I realized that she had not been outside the ship since it landed.  She looked at Lunnie and Reidecor lying on the bed sleeping and then looked back at me.

“I don’t know Tib, what if they need me?”

“You don’t need to walk away from the hatch.  We can leave the inner hatch open, and if they make any sound, we can be right back inside.”

“Well, okay, just a quick look.”

As Kala cleared the hatch, I heard her gasp… “Oh, it’s beautiful!”  I exited behind her to discover the Sisoma all over the valley had opened, displaying their light, creating an image that reminded me of Christmas back on Earth with all the trees illuminated up with colored lights.

“Tibby, I’ve seen lots of beautiful things around the universe, but this has to be one of the most beautiful ones I’ve ever seen.”

I put my arm around her and pulled her close, and she laid her head on my shoulder as we looked out to see more trees across the valley light up.  We stood there a few minutes taking in the sight. Kala sighed and then sniffed.  “Eweh!” she said wrinkling up her nose, “what is that horrid smell?”  She sniffed at me and then, “It’s not you, I hope.”

I laughed, “No, it’s those plants or animals, whatever they are.  They may be lovely to look at, but they sure stink.”

“I agree.  Let’s get back inside before that smell permeates the ship.”  We had just started to turn around to go inside the ship when we heard a rustling sound off to our right.  By now, the darkness had settled over the valley, but there was enough light emitted by the Sisoma that in the dim light, we could see some creature about the size of an Earth cat moving from rock to rock and searching the ground as it did.  It either wasn’t aware of our presence or simply didn’t care about us, as it paid us no attention.  “What is it?  Kala asked.

“I have no idea.”

“Do you think it’s dangerous?”

“I doubt it; the computer said there wasn’t anything here that posed any serious threat to us.”

The creatures sat up on its haunches, and looked about and then got down on all fours and scurried off.  I watched in the direction it was running and I noted a smaller creature rapidly speeding away, but it wasn’t fast enough to avoid the larger and faster cat-like creature from catching it.  From where Kala and I watched we witnessed the cat creature take its prize over to a rock and observed as it picked up a smaller rock and smashed its captive between the two rocks.  Once it had dispatched and broken, what I assume to be a shell, it began picking through the pieces and eating whatever it was finding inside.”

“I think we should go in,” Kala said.  “I don’t want some animal sneaking in the door while it is open and we're out here, who knows what they might do to the twins.”

“Ah, yeah…,” I said as I continued staring at the feeding cat creature.  Once we were back inside I used the computer and began searching to find out what this animal was.  It took some time as I had no idea what to use for a search term, but eventually I found it.  It was called a Muralam, and it did indeed resemble a cat in many ways, only it was more like a cat with an Earth monkey’s body.  The head was definitely feline in appearance with sharp-pointed teeth, but the eyes were not like those of an Earth cat, instead it had large round eyes and huge pupils similar to many of Earth's nocturnal animals.  It also had small six fingered hands instead of paws like a cat.  The computer said that it had been reported that the Muralam demonstrated some semblance of intelligence and appeared to be able to communicate with others of their own species.  At times they had been observed working together, but they had never been thoroughly studied.  The scientists who had studied the planet many years earlier believed the Muralam to be the highest evolved native species still living upon the planet, but their notes in the computer indicated that they believed there were still many species of animals and plants undiscovered.

If the solar flares weren’t enough to keep us from going out on days when they were active, there were frequent dust storms as well.  One such storm lasted three days, during which the sand piled up on one side of the ship until it drifted over and nearly threatened to bury and entomb us completely, before the wind shifted and blew all the sand away again.  When it finally stopped, and things settled enough that I could go out and look about, I discovered the air glimmering in a bright golden light.  The fine yellow dust still remained suspended in the air, and caught and reflected the sunlight, making the air itself seem to shimmer with light.  Beautiful as it was, I hastily had to retreat back inside as the dust choked my lungs, making it difficult to breathe.  I wondered how long it would be before I would be able to go outside again, when it unexpectedly clouded over and began to rain.