Still Human- Planet G

by Jerry Underhill

  Huston looked around the room. There were baskets and grinding basins, but not much else. Exiting, he randomly chose another home, most of him still thinking about the presence of Cavers here. This home was built above ground in the cabin-like style of the central structures, though much smaller. Only two of its walls were made of logs, the other two sides, adjacent to each other, were constructed with much thinner branches latticed together and with several layers of large leaves piled between. As he entered, he immediately noted that they could be lifted to stand on wooden poles- like awnings.

  This house was as severely decorated as the other was nude. An animal-hide banner hung next to the entrance inside, with an odd symbol, what looked like two sets of horns clashing, scrawled in green in the middle. The beds were raised off the ground and piled high with thick furs. Bird feathers decorated the walls like wallpaper, and jewelry of shells and polished stone hung from one of the bed corners. Aside from the baskets and grinding basin, the only other items in the room were spears of varying lengths and points, and a small tuft of something like cotton laying on the floor next to one of the beds.

  The minister turned to leave but looked back at the cotton. Startled, he bent to pick it up. Closer, he saw that twigs had been pushed through the patches of cotton and some sort of resin had been used to bind it all together. Lifting a broken twig to restore its shape, he cursed silently in recognition. It was a doll. A child’s doll, probably. More than that, unless his bias was proving itself mettlesome, it was a Cloud doll.

  Setting it down on the bed, he walked silently out of the house. He could spend all afternoon counting beds and cataloguing the styles and decorations of the many, many homes. But he knew what he thought he needed to know. For now. Walking back along the trail toward the two central structures, he was too distracted by thought to pay attention to much more than the ground.

  “Hey.”

  Huston looked up quickly.

  “You guys got here fast! I thought you weren’t coming ‘til the morning!” He smiled to two familiar faces.

  The man in front, dressed in maroon pants, a white shirt, and a purple scarf, wrapped him in a bear hug for several seconds.

  “Randy.” Huston said warmly. “Glad you’re ok.” He finished, ruffling Tarma’s hair as the man released him.

  Whereas Tarma was tall and reasonably fit for a middle aged man, he was puffy in the places a chubby kid would be. He was also hairy.

  “I’m here on business, shaman.” Tarma responded, pushing past Huston with a heavily tattooed forearm to film the large buildings.

  He was tough to like.

  “He’s got all the charming gangle of a mime on stilts.” A growling voice spat.

  Huston looked to the second man.

  “We got somebody doing tattoos now?” He asked.

  “No,” Cooper replied with a strong handshake. “He drew those on the ride here.”

  “I thought they looked familiar” Huston laughed, looking down at the man’s left forearm. “Enjoy it while you can. Kids don’t always want to copy their fathers.”

  “Can you imagine being that guy’s dad?”

  Huston laughed again. The second man was much fitter and had none of Tarma’s child-like charm to his appearance, owing mostly to the grisly scar on his neck and the hard set of his jaw, but his gait and the trouble making spark in his eye hinted at the boy beneath the military background.

  “I didn’t even hear you coming up. How’d you guys get here so fast?”

  “Scott’s got the fleet of quadcopters fired up for the deployment of remote turrets. Things are crazy quiet. One landed us at the gate to this place on its way out.”

  “I didn’t know he was prepared to do that yet.”

  “He’s pushed concerns over upsetting native life for the moment. Said he needs to take the map before that’s too costly to do.”

  “Well, good. It’s really good to see you too, Cooper.”

  “Minister.” He closed his eyes and nodded. “Apparently you’re a priority for Scott.”

  “Beyond my actual value.” Huston responded, turning at the sound of a third person as they joined the group. Nerves spiraled in his stomach as he recognized who it was.

  “Kit!”

  “Hey Huston!” She smiled widely, rushing in to kiss him on the cheek.

  Her long light brown hair swept into his face with the breeze. It smelled like she shampooed with oranges.

  “I didn’t know you were coming down to Port Wallace already! Or that Scott was sending you! Didn’t even know you were an option. Perfect.”

  “Yeahhh, I really wanted to. I’m also a little scared, to be honest.” she began, letting go slowly, her right hand lingering on his shoulder. “Scott wanted some ground-truthing done. Drone imagery can only see so much.”

  Huston smiled. Her bright blue eyes always made him smile. They were as comforting as they were electric.

  “So all your worries that a geographer was unnecessary…?”

  “Still there, until I find something we couldn’t see from the sky. Hope I can help.” She laughed with an embarrassed glance toward the others.

  “You already crawled around out here!?” Huston smiled in appreciation, looking at the dirt on her khaki outdoors pants and moisture wicking skyblue long sleeve. “Natural resources expert. You’ll see things we can’t.” He added excitedly. “Tarma too. There’s a story here. Telling it will help us see it.”

  He doubted anyone else could look the way she did in such a simple outfit. An angel covered in dirt.

  “I’m the story,” Tarma said from the doorway.

  “I’ve thought of you each time I saw a flower out here. Excited to start your project?” Huston asked Kit as he led them into the barracks. She was going to author a study on the planet’s wildflowers.

  “I still think you should help me make my documentary. Narrate it.” Tarma replied quickly, looking at her intensely.

  “I don’t think they’ll give me a PhD for that.”

  “Sometimes you gotta sell out, Kit.” Huston advised with a significant look at Tarma.

  “Me?” Tarma yelled.

  “You’re the only person on the planet who is sponsored.” Cooper responded matter of factly.

  “Drink less.” Huston laughed, patting Tarma’s shoulder. He was happy to see Kit smiling too.

  He wished he could tell her there was nothing to be afraid of. He wished he could tell them both. Tarma’s eyes had been darting toward every glimmer. Huston was still surprised Tarma had come, or that he’d been allowed, given that Scott’s estimation of him didn’t match Huston’s.

  Maybe that’s why he’d been allowed.

  Cooper was surveying the village from the doorway. Slyly grinning, he walked to Huston and pulled something from his bag. “Scott told me you like guns.”

  Huston accepted the weapon from Cooper with a grimace and attached its holster to his belt. Cooper had several weapons slung on his back. He recognized a few as Wallace’s newer microwave and laser prototypes.

  “What’s in the other one?” Cooper asked, pointing toward the other large building.

  “I’ve been thinking of this as the barracks, maybe.” Huston replied. “And that as the ceremonial building.”

  “This our spot?”

  “Works for me.”

  Huston looked to the others. Kit sat on a bed. Tarma was filming from one of the beds in a far corner. He was focused.

  “What do you think of the site, Coop?” Huston asked.

  “They never saw it coming.” He looked at the awning Huston had opened and walked to open the other side. “Even as limited as that outer gateway is, there are no signs it mattered. No damage to the walkway we took, no indication from the bodies that an organized defense was mounted, and why aren’t there bodies here?”

  “I haven’t found any here or in the smaller shelters out there yet.” Huston paused as Coop took his pack off and sat down on one of the beds near him. He watched Kit settle
her stuff on the other side of the fire pit.

  “Maybe they were out hunting or whatever when the attack came. We should search the woods for bodies.” Cooper said as he began unpacking some of his supplies too and laid them on the bed. “Opened the other side to help us hear anything going on outside.”

  “Yeah.” Huston said, sitting across from him.

  “And the bodies of the attackers were removed to add to the mystique of it. It’s smart. An unseen and invincible hand came down here. Psychological.” Cooper finished.

  “Or maybe they bury their own?” Huston added.

  Coop nodded, looking over at Tarma. The documentarian had moved to the fire pit. He held the camera on the ground and shone a flashlight from the floor next to it, illuminating the structure of sticks to cast light shadows on the ceiling. Huston furrowed his brow and walked over.

  “What does that look like to you?” He asked, shining his own light toward a different arrangement of branches.

  “Claws. Vines. Gross veins.” Tarma responded. He turned off his light and sat down with his equipment on a bed next to Huston’s.

  “I call this one.” He said sternly.

  Huston looked in silence at the two men. Coop had watched the shadow display, but had returned his attention to his bag. Tarma was busy writing in his notebook. They’d donned professional demeanors since their lighthearted arrival. He understood. The whole thing was alien. It was hard to get your bearings here.

  “Thank you for coming, guys. Scott didn’t tell me much. How are things in space?” He asked, directing his attention to Kit.

  “Really quiet. Pretty empty up there now. I’ve mostly been helping the agro team with their crops. Managing the flowers and pollinators, doing whatever I can to help. They’re obviously good friends with Knux, so I’m sure they’re pretty upset.” She said.

  “I was glad to come. This was Tarma’s suggestion, actually.” Coop said, nodding toward the filmmaker.

  “Scott was going to send us anyway. Volunteering made it easy.” Tarma looked up. “If this isn’t what I’m here for, I don’t know what is. Somebody has to film you guys getting attacked while he runs away.”

  Huston sat next to him.

  Tarma smiled and threw his arm over Huston’s shoulder.

  “How are things at Port Wallace?” Huston asked Cooper.

  “Things are a bit excited back there. Scott’s trying to calm concerns even while ramping up the wall’s defenses. Like I was saying, he’s dropping turrets in some remote spots, but already has several in likely approach corridors.” Coop said.

  “Microwave?” Huston asked, looking at the experimental weapon on Coop’s bed.

  “No, but he wants me to test the efficacy if I find reason to. The turrets are kinetic, so they’ll be of limited use. Only meant to be the tip of the spear.”

  “What are they like? The Clouds?” Tarma asked. He’d taken his arm from Huston’s shoulder.

  Huston was silent for a moment as he stared at the floor.

  “The video of them bothered most of us.” Kit inserted.

  “Ya know,” he finally began, looking between the three of them, “before Scott saw ‘em, I’d started to wonder whether I’d just imagined them. That’s what they’re like.” He paused again. “But the Cavers are real.”

  He locked eyes with Cooper. His eyes rested on the arsenal he’d spread across the fur matting.

  “He wants you out here. He wanted you protected. I wanted you protected by me and anything I could carry” Cooper said, answering his gaze. He considered it for a second. “And I think he wanted a military perspective.”

  Huston appreciated the gesture, and thought he understood the hesitation. Scott would’ve talked to him about Huston’s reservations. He looked to Tarma, who was now unpacking his own gun and several clips.

  They’d all been rushed through essential combat training as part of their team-building exercises in the lead up. Huston hadn’t loved the emphasis at the time, but it was as indispensably practical then as it was now. He hadn’t wanted it a part of the colonists’ repertoire of dispositions, though without it, feeling unprepared could’ve compelled dangerous overreactions if the colony ran into trouble.

  “He didn’t want Tarma to come at first. He was convinced by the argument that the colony, and mankind in general, deserved visual evidence of our efforts to engage in good faith.” Kit added.

  “Felt like the kind of stupid sounding thing he’d say.” Tarma added. “That’s called salesmanship.”

  Huston laughed.

  “What’s Ling and his squad doing?” He asked Coop.

  Ling was the commander of the private security group brought along by Wallace. They were smart, experienced soldiers, and followed orders. Scott had been extremely thorough in selecting them. Back on Earth, the entire operation was an ocean’s worth of personnel and resources, but the small stream that actually came here and responded to the world would be irreversibly influential in shaping the future of the world. Huston and Scott had talked a lot about that and the history of colonization. The soldiers had to be incredibly disciplined personalities, and they were.

  “Some are out with engineers, building physical hindrances and armaments at vulnerable approaches. Some are sharpening the combat readiness of the generalists, agro guys and others who spend time out in the field, for whenever Scott lets them go back out. And others are busy being as visible as possible on the wall.”

  Huston nodded as Coop spoke. It would all help the colonists feel good. Feel confident.

  Though Cooper was officially part of Wallace’s personal attaché and formally disconnected from the security team, they’d maintained a good relationship. It was a sign of Ling’s professionalism that Cooper’s presence as a personal security advisor and guard to Wallace didn’t bother him.

  He really needed to find the Clouds. He needed to capitalize on Scott’s blanket of calm before something happened that sped things up again.

  “I’m going to finish getting a look around.”

  “Let’s do it.” Cooper replied, hopping up and grabbing his weapons. Huston imagined the man was brimming with interest, having only just arrived to the world.

  Tarma had jumped up too. The man looked beside himself with excitement, but Huston suspected he was also excited to stay as close to Cooper’s skills as possible.

  Huston stood aside to let them walk out, catching Kit’s eyes as he gestured for her to step out before him.

  “Have you been to see Knux?” He asked her.

  “No,” she sighed, pulling her hair into a pony-tail. “They wouldn’t let us. I heard he was asking for you, though.”

  Huston stifled a frown.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “It goes without saying that anything poppa films out here will win awards.”

  “Stop yelling.” Coop said. He’d been diligently looking and listening into the surrounding woods for the past hour.

  Huston was kneeling beside a small pond they’d found nestled amidst a young cypress dome. The channel of water feeding it seemed engineered in it's nearly perfectly straight path to the swamp some 100 yards away. It was also curiously full of thin stalks they’d remembered seeing scattered along the sides of the swamp on the way in. The minister pulled his notebook while the other two continued their own pursuits.

  Day 23: Evening

  We’ve nearly lost all daylight. On our way back to the barracks, we found a small body of water. I’d first guessed it to be a freshwater source conveniently dug into the rear of their village. It’d be a safer source at night, potentially cleaner, etc. But we found another small pond dug out on the other side of the village as we finished our sweep of the perimeter. That one’s canal, likewise a straight path from the pond to the swamp/river, was filled with rocks. There aren’t many nearby besides those large boulders at the gate, so they might have a quarry around here somewhere. Assuming that one is meant for drinking, this one, with it's stalks, seems to be meant for cultiv
ation. I think the plants are a food source. All evidence indicates that these beings, ‘the Fisherman’, were remarkably resourceful in developing a variety of food products to support their entrenched existence here.

  Unfortunately, we’ve also found more bodies. These appear to have been mowed down. Their skulls are crushed and their bodies have been left heaped as they were, seemingly running away. These weren’t burned. I think Coop’s guess is going to be right: the majority of the bodies will be found where they were bustling about their responsibilities at the time of the attack. Who would’ve attacked in the middle of the day, and how? Why? We still haven’t found signs of entry.

  Huston dropped his pen to lean back and watch the rhythmic return of nesting birds. He was forced to slap at the rhythmic return of biting bugs, too. He’d never liked swamps much. Not after the sunny parts of the day, anyway.

  “I’m gonna get the fire going.” Huston said as he stood up. “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking I’m hungry enough to tear the soul out of this thing’s nose.”

  “Tarma?” Huston joked, repressing a grimace.

  Coop had found an old fish trap and salvaged some use out of it by placing it near the mouth of the feeder canal. He’d caught a few small ones, but kept the largest of the day in a cistern they’d found in the granary. It leaked a bit, so he’d set it in the water all day. Huston preferred to eat from grains they’d scavenged and his replenished stock of nutrient paste, but they had no idea how long it would take to find the Clouds, or if they could at all. It wouldn’t make sense to use up their supplies.

  A few more bites from his neck and Huston couldn’t keep from rushing Tarma along. He hoped the smoke would be enough to keep the bugs back that night. Though there was plenty of mud if they needed it, and mud-crusted faces would probably add to the film Tarma took of them that night anyway. The drive to escape bug bites felt almost primal in it's fury sometimes.