Still Human- Planet G

by Jerry Underhill

  He lay there for moments, hours, in a sleepy daze beyond his ability to tell time.

  Suddenly, Huston was yanked from his sleep by loud and pulsating low-frequency sounds carried into camp from a distance. The calls were joined in their plaintive vibrato by others; all sounded like they were coming to the village, though in his half-sleep state, it felt more like the edges of a dream.

  A loud screech outside of his tent tore his eyes open in panicked realization. Quietly scrambling for his pack and the light assortment of weapons he carried, Huston froze. Knife and bear mace in hand. Sounds of rustling came from a few yards behind his tent again, but quieted. Barely breathing, he remained motionless. The only thing he could see outside of his tent was the faint line of orange coals from the deadened fire pit. More horn sounds erupted all around him, met instantly by a throng of screeching, reverberating bellows- their wet echoes sending shivers down his spine.

  Looking to the tent opening and feeling grateful he’d fallen asleep before zipping it closed, he steeled himself. Predators weren’t to be run from, but he didn’t know what was out there and didn’t want to find out from the trappings of his tent.

  Besides, there was no hiding from the superior senses of wild things- particularly not those built to kill.

  He slowly crawled out of the tent. The night air dark enough to blanket sight in any direction. He peaked around his tent, trying to will his eyes into finding their footing. It was moving closer, whatever it was, as were the steps of dozens more. Suddenly, his sight exploded with blinding, pulsating white. Stumbling back, he threw himself in what he hoped was the direction of the staircase. As his eyes calmed, he could make out explosions of light from all around, like flashbangs illuminating small bubbles at a time, in lightning succession. Disoriented, he covered his peripheral vision and stared down.

  Cursing as his sprint neared the staircase and he saw that it’d been lifted, he continued running away from the unholy chorus of native cries behind him. The undulating vibrato of Cloud siren calls from above were equally discombobulating, seeming to paint the forest with a deep humming echo.

  Seeing a climbable sequence of branches, Huston moved as quickly as he could to an unreachable height, he hoped, having no idea whether the attackers were good climbers, and finally turned to survey the scene.

  He waited in blind panic. His thudding heartbeat counting the seconds as he held suspended against the trunk twenty feet above the ground. The flashes of light had ceased, rendering the woods empty of sight and sound- save for small shrieks, which to his surprise, sounded far off and as if they were moving away. Breathing deeply, he glanced to the sky, gauging from the last speckled flourishes of starlight that sunrise was approaching. Climbing back down and looping his belt through his knife sheath, he set off toward the tent. He didn’t have to look up to sense unrest in the canopy; the majority of the Clouds seemingly felt alarmed, though not as alarmed by the creatures as he’d been, nor as afraid.

  Putting water in his kettle, his hand trembled slightly still as he sat it directly atop the still smoldering embers in their central hearth. He looked to the canopy and found Komorebi, his escort, and a flurry of agitation from several Clouds huddled around them, and returned a slight tilt of the head from the leader with a nod of his own. He had no idea if the leader had actually nodded, but he needed to believe it in the moment.

  He hoped they’d understand the message he was leaving in not bringing his tent with him.

  It didn’t seem likely that they’d leave the site the next day- not as spring ended and summer began, and not given the game biologists expected to move into the area in the coming weeks. But he didn’t know what they ate. Outside of the moss they piled near the fire, he hadn’t seen them interact with the landscape, so couldn’t feel sure they’d still be here.

  Doing his best to somehow share the feeling that he’d return in 4 days, he poured the kettle’s slightly heated contents into one of the few dehydrated meals he had left and walked off in the direction of Port Wallace- shoveling steaming breakfast into his mouth as the night’s chill began thawing from the imposition of morning.

  Chapter Four

  Huston laid flat on a bed of needles. He’d been hiking toward the colony from the treetop village when Scott called him. Apparently they’d just completed repairs to the satellite relay and could make calls now. The Chief Planetary Officer had told him of the meeting requested by the Caver beings, as he was calling them, assumedly because they lived in caves, and asked Huston to meet him along a waterway to be picked up.

  There were a variety of airborne methods he could have travelled, but Huston reckoned the boat was fast enough to be practical, gave Scott an intimate chance with the colony’s surroundings, and was relatively inconspicuous. Maybe Scott hadn’t told the colony about the Cavers or the meeting, or maybe he was trying to hide the tech from their new neighbors until it became necessary.

  The sound of the boat’s engine stirred the birds from their roosts over his head as it came close. Huston walked to the shore to wave him down.

  “Scott, you old pirate.” Huston greeted over the idling engine. The wake from the boat lapping mildly against the bank.

  Huston smiled and threw his stuff aboard. Scott grabbed his hand to give him a surprisingly strong pull up the last step of the ladder off its rear.

  “Good to see you, man.” Huston said, clapping Scott on the back with a one armed hug.

  The old man was radiating excitement. Tall, physically fit, and looking as if being away from Earth politics had shed 15 years, Scott was the most intelligent and competent person Huston could imagine, and a natural choice for the assignment. While Wallace’s brazen brilliance was singularly stellar, the CPO was a breadth of knowledge and shared none of the inventor’s mania. He was wearing his deep black uniform. The familiar logo of the Copernica Corporation, and now flag for the colony itself, sat stitched into the fabric over his heart. As Officer, he wore black. The inferior subsections of ranks and assignments likewise wore their associated uniform color. It wasn’t strictly necessary, everyone was quite familiar with each other, but it was a happy overture to structure and comfort for those times when the haze of the moment required quick recognition, and for when future loads of colonists were carried into the atmosphere from Earth.

  The logo itself was of Huston’s own design, back before he’d grown uncomfortable with the relationship between a symbol and his church. The circle represented the Sun. Beneath it was an archway that was meant to combine the appearance and meaning of the mathematical symbol for Pi and a Japanese Torii, which could be found marking the transition from ordinary to sacred at entrances to Shinto shrines. But the circle also represented the soul’s interaction with earthly existence. He’d designed it so that beneath the circle the archway’s posts slightly overlapped the curved line they supported. It was a reflection of the peace he found in staying within the spectrum of those lines: too far to the right, a fixation on material and sensory experience; too far to the left, what was considered by those who pursued it to be ego or psychic death, what was and is synonymous with the Buddha’s Enlightenment, which was to Huston’s estimation a radical experience of the end of consciousness’ reign, and not something he visited often.

  It’d been decades since he’d allowed Wallace to co-opt the symbol. The image still resonated with him and he held it dear.

  Scott also wore a gray cape, which Huston hoped was a nod to their mutual love of Lando Calrissian, and not something he’d taken to wearing in the days since Huston had left. It flapped obnoxiously even in the calm breeze.

  “I think i’ve made my point.” Scott said, tearing off the cape.

  “I liked it.” Huston commented, thankful that it’d been a joke.

  “Listen to this.” The CPO’s voice sounded ecstatic as he smirked. He led Huston to the cockpit and handed him a comm unit. “Just press play.”

  Huston did. The voice of Knux, the head chef and lead agricultural scientist
, shot out immediately.

  “That was awesome. This is… This is everything that I came out here for.”

  Huston paused it.

  “You sent Knux?”

  “I needed somebody I could trust and somebody who I could count on to not overreact to the situation. I know you trust him and I knew he’d be the least likely to overreact to surprises. Annoying that way.” Scott responded.

  “And not wise to go yourself. Yeah, that’s a good call.” Huston said, resuming the recording.

  “I got to meet them. I’m on an alien planet and I just met aliens. I talked to aliens. I don’t think they understood me, but I met them.I still don’t know why I was chosen, but thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I think it all went well.

  There were so many of them. Hundreds, I think. I don’t know if you know already, but they’re absolutely strange. Like a weird cross of a… human and a bug. Like something out of an old sci-fi B movie, but real. They stand on two legs like us, but not like us. Their movement is weird and strained - like they’re hunched over.

  I didn’t notice it at the time, but Julia wanted me to make a point of telling you that they weren’t all the same. A bunch of them were bigger, almost as big as us, but some were smaller and kind of awkward. I thought they were something like minions or maybe children, but she was going on about deformities. Like their arms or legs and stuff were messed up. She said she has some pictures she’ll put into a report for you.

  We started noticing them as we got closer to the meeting spot. They didn’t seem hostile or anything like that, but there was definitely a growing presence of them following us as we got closer.

  I’m still in shock about this whole thing. You know - I used to always draw aliens and spaceships in art class, always made fun of. And now…

  There were hundreds of them. As we approached the location near the lake, there was a clearing in the woods that was ringed by them. They had it arranged so there was this little rockface across from our point of entry. We tried to walk up slowly and bow, try to be respectful, but I don’t think any of us had any idea how they would actually interpret anything.

  All they did was just stare back at us. So I got out the little projector, played through our slideshow showing that we come from Earth. They made some noises during the pictures meant to show we come in peace - particularly the picture of the bird nest.

  Immediately after we finished, several of the taller aliens came forward. Closer up, I noticed that they were sort of flashing lights at each other. Julia said she’ll have more for you on what that might be. The turned to face that same rock face, and projected a hologram onto the rock themselves. Like, out of their heads or something. It was a 3d map showing the entrance of a cave system, at the base of the mountain nearby.

  After the map, the image changed to something more simple. It was us, the group, with our faces crossed out. They showed a crude image of a crowd of small things, like stick figures - surrounding a taller multi-colored flashing figure. All the other figures faded out, except that bigger one. I think they want a leader. I think they want Scott. I think that’s enough of a recap for now. Absolutely unbelievable.”

  Huston looked to Scott, who’d been focused on piloting the boat the whole time but whose face was set in a broad grin.

  “Aliens.” he said.

  “Light projections!?” Huston exclaimed.

  Scott just shrugged.

  “Where is the meeting?” Huston asked after a few seconds.

  “I’ve got a picture of the map there.” He responded, reaching over to pull up a file with the map and several images of the beings.

  Huston hadn’t seen them clearly the night before, but recognized the Cavers from Knux’ description and the images in front of him. They looked like something in the middle of evolving, like the oddity of how the first amphibian may have appeared, but insect.

  What he was most drawn to was their hands. He couldn’t stop looking at them, even as Scott continued talking about the map, his mind remained fixed on their menace. Their palms were almost the circumference of bicycle tires and meaty like an expensive steak, but the fingers that sprouted to dangle below were thin and implied a level of dexterity. With the obvious exception of primates, most beasts of the wilderness on Earth allowed the illusion that your hands could somehow be an advantage in that you could grip, pull, and twist your way to survival. There was an innate sense of being different because of them. Here though, he was looking at hands that could seemingly seize and domineer the soul from within his beating chest, which only escalated the sense of that very concern as he’d experienced it the night before.

  “These are the things that scared me last night.” Huston said quickly, scrolling to the images of the inferior Caver beings and noting the deformities Julia had referenced.

  “What? Where were you? What have you been doing out here?” Scott shot back.

  “Meeting aliens.” Huston told him, returning Scott’s smile with one of his own as he told him of the Clouds and their village.

  “You know, I don’t think I hear any of the wildlife in the background.” Huston said, hopping down from the boat to splash in ankle deep water. They’d driven ashore. In front of them was a field of shoulder-high grass leading to a fairly dense forest and a trio of mountain peaks. The cave, as they’d deduced from the map, was about a quarter mile away near the base.

  “I’m going to tie up to the tree here.” Scott walked to a powerful looking broadleaf and secured the rope around its trunk.

  “You notice that, right? It’s silent.” Huston repeated.

  “Scared by the cave in the creepy mountain that’s full of screeching cave-man-bug-aliens?”

  Huston looked across the field. He wasn’t afraid of the Cavers -- at least not more than he felt he should be— but they didn’t have a right to feel confident about their place in the energy pyramid here. This world hadn’t been forged around humans for thousands of years. And they hadn’t brought the cavalry.

  The sun was still rising behind them. That had a way of making the daunting seem manageable. But they hadn’t entered the cave system yet. He didn’t imagine the psychology of the sun would matter; the only light they’d find in there was what they brought with them. He was afraid, he admitted to himself.

  “You didn’t see them out at the Cloud village.” He finally responded.

  “No, you’re right. I can’t hear anything.” Scott answered as he finished readying his pack. “Don’t see any of our Cavers either. Not entirely sure if that’s a good or bad thing. I mean - looks aside, Knux and everyone who has come into contact with them has reported that they’re friendly. I have no indication that they’re hostile - aside from what happened at your village. I don’t know what to make of that.”

  They started walking. The sun reflected off the water behind them for their first few steps, shining a flickering yellow hue across the blades. Their sight and sound was quickly engulfed by freckles of floating fibers dislodging from the top of the grass, and the swishing of their legs against standing mats of green.

  “I suppose it could be a different group. Different faction, tribe, species, nation…” Huston began, trailing off in consideration. “Also possible that they intend to either capture or kill you, or both of us, but they’ve had opportunities to do that if they’d wanted to. I think it might be time to wake up Wallace, though.”

  “I’m not sure if that’s going to be possible right now.” Scott replied with a frown.

  “You mean that he’s…”

  “Not in a revivable condition at the moment from what I can tell.” Scott finished. “Guy is still stuck up in orbit in a metal box. Last week, they were all happy to provide details on their timetable and what they were planning to do. Now all they tell me is status quo - and nothing more. Can’t afford to shuttle up there and see for myself, but like I said, Cooper is coming down with the stage 2 resource shipment soon. I should also mention that we found some old bodies, seemingly Ca
ver skeletal structures. They’re being examined now.”

  “Where?” Huston asked, surprised. Skeletal remains might reveal the anatomy behind their light emission abilities.

  “Agro team found ‘em in field 4. Knux did, actually.”

  “Find anything else?” Huston was hoping for more information on the species. Artifacts would’ve been interesting.

  “Not yet.”

  Huston was about to ask him who he’d placed in charge of the archaeological effort when a sharp shriek rent the air. Goosebumps climbed his legs and arms. If there was any doubt he’d met that noise the night before, it fell from his face in an instant.

  Scott noticed.

  “I think we’re keeping our cave friends waiting.” He said, taking Huston’s expression as confirmation.

  Huston twisted his pack over his chest to pull the bear mace to a side pocket. He’d always drawn comfort from its limited ability to protect him, particularly as the mace gave him a non-lethal, ranged deterrent. If it was enough for bears, maybe it would be enough for alien eyes.

  “I brought a spare handgun for you.” Scott said, pulling two guns from his bag and holstering his own.

  “Don't think my bear mace and blade will do?” He half-joked, trying to calm his fear. He wasn’t that happy about feeling eager to take the weapon, but the diplomatic cause for coming without members of the security team didn’t mean they shouldn’t arm themselves, and his last encounter with the Cavers still caused his stomach to clench. Not bringing a firearm into the wild had been largely born of his belief in the power of vulnerability to connect. He’d wanted to feel the spectrum of raw sensory and psychological experiences the nature of planet G would present. That was different than this, though.