Under Strange Suns (16 page)

Aidan dropped his right shoulder slightly, lifting his left arm, re-directing himself along the path of descent he guessed the shuttle had followed.

He plunged through a band of clouds, stinging water droplets spattering his face. Below spread an alien continent. He thought it was the continent that held the wreck of the
Eureka II
, recognizing the mountain range dominating the view below.

And there, flashing between two peaks of the mountain range–white-capped above orange-tinged flanks–he saw the trail of the shuttle, twin spiraling contrails. He bent his left wrist far enough to direct his wrist pad’s camera lens and told the datapad to take a video.

He made some rapid estimates and decided he wasn’t going to clear the range in the course of his free fall. He was still higher than he wanted to be, but paragliding from here would bring him closer to the mountain pass than a lower altitude opening. He pulled the release.

The spreading chute arrested his fall as if he’d been snatched up by the claws of some monstrous bird. The rectangular canopy unfurled, creating a highly maneuverable gliding surface comprised of individual compartments, the whole a honeycomb of a nylon and carbon nano-tube blend, threaded through with Kevlar fibers. Control handles lifted from the harness, nudging into Aidan’s hands. He gripped them and directed his descent along the path the shuttle had taken.

Wind gusted, but it was less bitter than higher up. While drifting he experienced a moment of peace, a welcome respite from the adrenal charged stress of the last few minutes. He took a deep breath, then realized he’d been breathing comfortably throughout his free fall. His respiration was a touch fast, perhaps, but less so than if he’d leaped from this height on Earth without a breather. The oxygen-rich atmosphere of the moon was working for him so far.

He took the moment to look around. The primary star–Upsilon Andromedae A–rode at its zenith. The secondary–Upsilon Andromedae B–was starting to edge over the horizon. The sky above was lavender, except toward the eastern horizon where it shaded to a bleached teal. The gas giant was not visible, the moon’s spin placing it currently above the opposite hemisphere.

Below him spread a vast plain, interrupted by a band of forest that climbed partway up the flanks of the mountain range. At least he assumed it was forest, though ultramarine seemed the dominant color of vegetation instead of the green he customarily associated with woodlands.

The mountains rose to sharp ridgelines and spires, appearing to Aidan remarkably unweathered. He imagined McAvoy would gladly hold forth on the origin and age of the formation, the likely mineral content, the source of the chestnut-hued rocks.

McAvoy! The
Yuschenkov
! He reached for the radio at his belt. Gone. Shit, that’s what had torn loose in the bail-out port. He barked out a command to his implant, instructing it to contact Vance. Nothing. Of course not, he was absurdly far out of range. But...he instructed his datapad to send a voice message. And he waited.

Nothing.

He had to reach the shuttlecraft. Maybe Thorson had managed a dead-stick landing. If not, one or both men might have survived the crash. But even if neither shuttle nor crew had survived intact, he could still try to salvage a radio, contact the
Yuschenkov
.

What good that would accomplish, he didn’t know. But that sort of worry would only lead to paralysis, curling up into a fetal position until he died of dehydration or exposure. No, his only hope was to continue moving forward, soldier on.

Patches of “forest” spotted the plain sporadically before the main belt. From this height, several of them struck him as being almost geometric in shape. These were clustered near each other. And he couldn’t be sure, but he thought he could make out lengthy linear marks upon the surface of the plain, some of them crossing at right angles, reminiscent of roads.

A roiling pall of smoke drifted up from the notch, marking the pass between the two peaks that served as his target. He knew what that must mean. Damn it.

Focus
, he told himself.
Stay on mission. Reach the shuttle
.

The chute was getting him close, but he could tell he wouldn’t clear the mountain pass. He checked his altitude–down to five thousand feet. Landing in the forest could be disastrous.

Aidan began looking for a landing zone. He was operating automatically now, locked into his Special Forces training. The plain was heaping itself into a series of increasingly tall foothills. The forest outliers grew thicker here.

Ahead he saw a clearing, about a mile away. He twisted the control handles in opposite directions and the harness’s control interface instructed the parachute to ease open louvers along the upper surface. He began to descend more rapidly.

He had not begun soon enough, and was forced to drop into a banking U-turn. The surface came up at him hard and he met the ground at a run.

He hit the quick release as he slowed to a walk, lest a sudden gust catch him off balance. His first thought was concealment. He worked quickly to bundle up his chute and look for a place to hide it.

Then he stopped, folds of parachute clenched in his fist. The realization struck home: He’d just set foot on an alien world.

Aidan gazed about him. He stood upon a carpet of ground cover comprised of a bluish, clover-like growth. The “trees” enclosing the clearing were towering trunks, tapering toward points up to a hundred feet above the ground. Spikes set at regular intervals and angled groundward made up the branches. The trunks were smooth, running the yellow spectrum from canary to lemon, the spikes a uniform cyan.

The clearing sloped toward the mountains. The trees thinned downhill. A trace of motion from that direction caught Aidan’s eye, a wisp of smoke. Another, and two more that he could see, coiling up into a sky lightening to an etiolated blue-green as the secondary star finished its dip below the horizon, taking with it its reddening influence.

Ground cover, apparently identical to that upon which he stood, spread across the plain as far as he could see. But here and there rectangular patches of different colors broke the uniformity. It was from the vicinity of these patches–ochre, maize, and cherry–that the smoke curls originated.

Aidan pondered that. Signs of agriculture? He thought he’d spotted roads during his descent–nature seldom etched lines that straight for that long, and rarely at right angles.

Was it evidence that the crew of the
Eureka II
had survived? But why would so few people need so much cultivated land? Why the roads? And how?

Was it the work of indigenous life forms? In that case, was his duty to explore? Make first contact?

No. Stay on mission. Find the shuttlecraft.

He bunched the tough fabric of the parachute and dragged the heavy mass to an open space between trees. The trees tended to cluster, trunk near to trunk, the interlocking spines providing shade that an individual tree would be unable to afford. He drew his bolo knife from its leg sheath. It was a versatile tool. Five inches of its back edge was serrated for sawing. A notch just below the diamond ground cutting edge was useful for shearing twine or even thin wire. The blade swelled toward the point, reminding Aidan of a spoonbill beak. This widened surface, like a bulb in cross-section, served as a remarkably effective digging implement.

Aidan dropped to his knees and began chopping into the blue clover. The soil beneath was rich, a black loam tinted amber. In the oxygen-rich atmosphere it suffused the air with a powerfully organic scent, like mown hay just at the cusp of decomposition. It smelled of life. Aidan caught a glimpse of multi-jointed things scuttling deeper into the earth, escaping his excavation. He got little more than an impression–a black, segmented carapace, a large number of legs, reminiscent of a centipede. Basically, an insect.

Still. His first view of alien life!

Exo-biologists had already discovered and catalogued thousands of life forms on other planets, so he had hardly achieved a major scientific advance. But these were the first he had ever laid eyes on personally, and he squatted back on his haunches to take in the moment.

He realized he was feeling remarkably good, given the circumstances. That couldn’t be right. Burge and Thorson were probably dead. The shuttle a burning wreck. He was marooned here. He’d probably never see Vance or any of the remaining
Yuschenkov
crew again. How could he feel good? He considered that mild euphoria might be attributable to the moon’s oxygen concentration, which was greater than he was accustomed to. Some, though, might be relief at escaping the shuttle. And the thrill of discovery.

Perhaps he should nab one of the little bugs, take it with him. Later scientists might name it after him. Of course if he were truly interested in scientific immortality he ought to make his way downslope, toward the smoke. No one, to his knowledge, had yet encountered sentient aliens. He could be the first.

It wasn’t a serious temptation. He had already determined his mission. Odds were he wasn’t going to leave the surface of this world. Posterity would not enshrine him for the discovery of an extra-terrestrial being. No one was going to name this moon after him. The important thing was to stay alive, and that meant reaching the shuttle.

He heaped the chute into the hole he’d dug, coiling the lines atop it. Stripping off the parachute harness he piled that on top. He replaced the dirt, forming a low tumulus, and stood, stretching. Then, turning his back on the plain below, he began the hike toward the pass far above.

While walking he took a mental inventory. The pistol was holstered at his hip, the backup pistol rode in an ankle holster snugged around his boot. Four thirty-round magazines were stowed in pockets in his combat harness and in his jacket he’d stashed a hundred additional rounds. Four spare batteries to ignite the propellant of the caseless rounds. His bolo knife. A folding knife and multi-tool. A fifty-meter coil of strong, thin cord. A flashlight. Water purification filter. First-aid kit. A waterproof canister the size of his thumb containing friction matches and a fire-striker. His wrist datapad. Collapsible, compact binoculars. Food, enough to stretch to a week on half-rations. The flexible canteen sewn directly into the combat harness, filled with a couple of quarts of water. A half-dozen glow sticks, green and blue. Two signal flares.

A light load compared to some he’d packed through various combat zones on Earth. The lesser gravity doubtless worked to his favor, but he couldn’t sense any difference as he trudged uphill. Each time the terrain allowed an unobstructed view he stopped, sighting between the two peaks to ascertain he was still on target.

The copses occurred more and more frequently, obscuring his view. The clusters of trees eventually merged into the unbroken belt of forest he’d seen on his descent A small part of him, not tasked with land-navigation and situational awareness, had an opportunity to note that the trees exuded a faint perfume, hinting of pepper and cinnamon. In other circumstances he might enjoy this walk.

Deeper into the forest he caught a low humming sound. It faded, then reoccurred a few minutes farther along. Then louder as he walked into a swarm of inch-long insects, buzzing about on three pairs of nearly transparent wings, the bodies a pulsing ruby color. He hoped they wouldn’t sting. Who knew what an alien toxin might do to him?

Ten minutes later, and about twenty feet higher in elevation, he encountered another swarm. A flash caught from the corner of his eye sent him diving instinctively aside into a patch of clover studded with nubs reminding him of mushroom caps. He rolled up to see a creature swooping through the swarm, snapping up an insect in–not a beak, exactly, more of a muzzle. It was, for want of a better word, a bird. It possessed the overall size of an eagle, though the body was relatively small, the wings and a spreading tail comprising most of the mass. The plumage was the color of dried blood. Aidan caught no sign of legs or talons.

He stood, swiping at his pant legs, though the ground cover had protected him from dirt and he saw no blue stains. The bird didn’t appear threatening. It was, however, another sign of life. Insects and avians. What next?

Next turned out to be some sort of herbivore, nibbling at the clover. It looked up as Aidan approached, showing no sign of fear. It was roughly the size of a rabbit, squatting back on a single, wide and muscular hind leg and conveying stalks of clover to its mouth with two forepaws. A thick pelt, reminiscent of an otter’s–and the midnight blue hue enhanced the similarity–covered the creature. The exposed front teeth were broad. It did not appear to have exposed ears, but in addition to two large eyes it boasted three long, flap covered organs running from just above the mouth to where head met neck. One of these passed between the eyes, the other two ran along either side of the head. A rabbit-otter? Otter-rabbit? He settled on rabbter.

Seeing the rabbter started Aidan thinking about food. Once he’d eaten his rations he’d be forced to live off the land. If he could; he had no idea if any of the flora or fauna of this world were edible. Perhaps everything here would prove incompatible with his biology, sickening or even killing him. Or perhaps he’d find the food edible, but containing nothing of nutritional value. He could starve to death while feeling full.

He’d have to find out eventually, but now wasn’t the time. He left the creature in peace, continuing upslope.