Space for Evolution

by Zurab Andguladze

  “I did not recognize it, but it was not very large; obviously smaller than the LC-1,” Fof answered him, and after a short pause she added: “I think it can be called a small land carnivore, I mean, SLC-1.”

  “It does not matter that you did not kill it: the beast is dying somewhere, or at least it will never come back to us,” Nim said confidently. “If the other animals saw it, they already know about our strength and are also scared.”

  “Yes, I think so, too,” the girl agreed.

  The young explorers again sank onto the leaf-covered sand, and meantime Seler rose above the forest.

  “The UD chemical analyzer has never detected bad water in the vicinity of the colony,” Nim said, after he’d swallowed water from his leather flask. “And what is more, the water almost always contains some minerals that are good for humans.”

  “This is because Neian microorganisms are neutral with respect to ours,” Ama reminded him.

  In the windless evening, the thermometers on their screens showed twenty-three degrees Celsius. They barely heard the sound of the surf from behind the hill. Still excited with their new impressions, they didn’t yet want to sleep, and the chatting started on its own. After all, wasn’t talking near a fire the oldest entertainment known to humans? Perhaps it was here that they first developed their speech and imagination, telling each other their embellished adventures—

  “As far as I remember from our lessons,” Nim continued his monologue, “on Earth, areas where the weather is always warm, the ocean is pleasant, and the water contains useful minerals are called resorts. People go to these resorts for a while to take a break from the places where they usually live.”

  “What does it mean?”Ama asked. “Is our whole planet such a resort?”

  “It is not surprising,” Nim confirmed. “Our ancestors have useless planets in their system, and it’s exactly because of that that they sent expeditions so far.”

  The young people pondered over the words of their comrade until Daf broke the silence. “Maybe not everything is so wonderful. If here, on Neia, the conditions have always been so perfect, then the local life has only improved very slowly, because it did not have to adapt to any changes. Therefore, during billions of years it has created only animals.”

  “Perhaps you are right, Daf. Future Neian scholars might establish this,” Memi suggested.

  The discussion on the Neian biosphere continued until Ama remembered: “I think it is time to set the line.”

  “What line?”Fof didn’t understand.

  Instead of answering, Ama began to reason, “There are six of us, and...” he looked at his screen, “we still have twelve hours before dawn. Let us assign three shifts of four hours each.”

  No one began to discuss his proposal; the young people simply cast lots with the help of sticks. Memi and Daf were the first on duty. All the rest spread their backpacks on top of the leaves and, making themselves as comfortable as possible, prepared for bed.

  Chapter 33

  Ama, lying on his back, looked up at the stars. To the right, closer to the horizon, the barely visible star Sol flickered. The Planet Earth revolved around it.

  Maybe right now someone was also lying on that planet, under the starry sky, and looking at the Milky Way and thinking about them. However, Ama immediately realized that it was impossible, because the first signal sent from Neia thirty years previously should only arrive on Earth twenty-six years later. There was still no one who knew about their existence.

  This thought deeply upset him, and it did not allow him to close his eyes until dawn. Then, when morning came, the stunned Ama saw an incredible picture. A spacecraft was approaching the ocean, and beginning to descend. The boy immediately jumped up, but instantly froze in place, for bewilderment had turned him into stone!

  The stunned youngster gradually realized what was happening: while their expedition flew, earthlings had mastered interstellar travel, and had now decided to see with their own eyes the result of the experiment of their ancestors.

  His mind refused to accept this; but, still, the ship’s hull at first seemed to crack, then one of its parts moved aside, and a ladder appeared from the newly formed opening. It reached down and slowly touched the sand. Soon, on the metal steps, Ama saw someone’s legs.

  The boy felt a great pain, and understood its reason at once: the colony had been founded in vain; the farm had been built in vain… Over the past three hundred years, people had really learned to travel among the stars, and now they did not need Ama, his comrades, or their primitive activities!

  Finally, the newcomer stepped on the sand. His golden, shiny suit reflected Ro’s morning rays and blinded the boy. The earthman approached Ama, looked at him arrogantly and said with a mocking voice: “So you want to create a new humanity? It is beyond your ability. We, people came here to do what we wish and the creatures produced by the machine are not needed here! You will have to look for another planet for yourself!”

  Amazement stunned the boy; he could not say a word; he just thought, where could he and his comrades find a suitable planet? The next moment he realized the absurdity of such a question. Meanwhile, the inhabitant of Earth came closer, shook the boy by the shoulder and said, “Ama, four hours have passed, now it’s your turn,” and for some reason the spacefarer said these words in Memi’s voice.

  The boy opened his eyes. In the quiet night he could only hear barely distinguishable surf from behind the hill. Seler was sending his golden rays directly into the teenager’s eyes, and had woken him this way. Memi, bending over, still held his shoulder. Daf stood next to him and was also looking at Ama.

  “We barely woke you. Nim jumped up as soon as I touched him,” she whispered.

  Ama gradually returned to reality. He shook his head several times and then got to his feet in one motion. Memi silently took his place, and Daf took Nim’s. Ama remembered his dream for a few more seconds, and then asked about the night’s events.

  “We did not see anything suspicious,” the girl answered shortly, in a low voice.

  Chapter 34

  The boy nodded, staring at the fire. His gaze was immediately chained to the tongues of flame. Ama felt that he was falling asleep again, and couldn’t free his consciousness from a hypnotic state. On the contrary, Nim, his shift-mate, looked fresh, energetically adjusting burning logs.

  “I will go to the ocean to wash my face. The water should refresh me—I still cannot wake up,” Ama whispered to his comrade.

  Nim looked at him and answered in the same manner, “What if something attacks you? Are not we forbidden to walk alone in the woods?”

  Ama thought a little and answered, “Yes, we are, but I am not going to walk in the forest; on the contrary, I will move away from it. Seler shines brightly; the visibility is almost the same as in daylight, so no one can sneak up on me.”

  Nim fell silent for a while, and then, apparently considering these arguments justified, nodded in agreement. Ama took his maser and headed for the ocean. Soon the boy overcame the sandy height and from there he surveyed the coastal strip. As he’d told Nim, in the bright rays of Seler he could see everything quite clearly. The teenager went down the slope, continuing to carefully examine his surroundings. Suddenly, in the middle of the sand strip, at a distance of about five steps from himself, he saw a big shadow. Some creature was pressed against the sand and was preparing to jump. The boy activated his maser with lightning speed and turned on the flashlight.

  The next moment, he breathed a sigh of relief. Ama realized that it was just a half-meter bulge protruding from the flat surface of the beach that had scared him. Now he remembered that in the afternoon he’d wanted to dig it out and clear up how it had arisen, but forgot to do so because other things had distracted him.

  The boy continued to walk, as before, attentively inspecting his vicinity. As before, nothing suspicious arose in his line of sight. He registered only one novelty—someone in front of him was breathing louder and louder. The teenage
r knew that it was waves falling onto the shore, but still he felt a slight excitement: he had never heard such a sound at night before.

  Finally, Ama went to the surf and entered it, without taking off his sandals. With one hand he lifted the maser hanging on his neck, and having bent down, with the other he washed his face. While the teenager had been walking to the ocean carefully looking around, he’d in fact completely gotten rid of his drowsiness, so now he refreshed himself just because he liked to splash in pleasant water; he even wanted to go deeper in, but he dissuaded himself. He reasoned that if it were prohibited to walk alone in the forest, the situation here was even worse— he saw nothing even near to his feet.

  The boy returned to the shore and stood motionless for some time; once again he studied the space around him, before heading to the camp. Walking with cautious but quick steps, he soon approached their stopping place. Here the picture he saw made him taken aback at first, when he saw that Nim was sitting and sleeping, with his head bowed on his chest, instead of keeping up the fire and looking around.

  Ama hadn’t even had the time to ponder on this scene when he detected movement in Nim’s shadow. The teenager was again surprised, wondering which of his comrades had shown such carelessness and moved so far from the fire.

  He looked at this person, and in the light of the dying fire, to his horror he saw not one of his companions, but two LC-1s! The predators had already crept up on Nim to within striking distance of their dangerous trunks!

  Ama felt dumbfounded! He completely forgot his weapon; that he could kill these animals simply by shooting them. The boy stood motionless, didn’t even breathe, as if something had mesmerized him and left him with only the ability to see. Meanwhile, the beast, ready to attack, didn’t notice Ama. It took another step and lunged its “spear” toward Nim’s stomach.

  This abrupt movement finally brought Ama out of his syncope. As a result, he immediately realized that in the next moment he would see how the claw of the beast would cut through Nim’s stomach, and how his companion’s insides would fall out. Just as it happened with domestic animals, which the colonists killed and cut up for food. Ama felt as if a pulse of strong current had pierced his body.

  Simultaneously he realized that he didn’t have time for useless feelings, and that he should act, not stay motionless. Ama managed to focus himself on the urgent task. The lad directed the radiator of his maser at the beast. He didn’t even try to aim, because he had no time to do so. In the next instant he understood that he should have shot earlier, before the predator attacked, and that now he was late. Indeed, he hadn’t yet turned off the safety switch of his weapon when the predator’s claw pierced Nim’s stomach.

  Ama expected to hear an unpleasant cry of agony, again similar to what a dying domestic animal would produce. Instead, in the silence of the night, he heard only the sound of a sharp blow of one solid object against another and nothing more. He was amazed again.

  Not seeing the desired result, it seemed that the predator was also confused. However, an instant later, it curled its trunk for the next attack. At that moment, Ama, instead of firing, simply shouted, for a reason unknown even to him. This unexpected and unusual sound clearly made the predator flinch; it lost a split second to understand what was happening. Ama didn’t need to analyze anything; he pressed the trigger button and released a pulse train during which the maser auto-focused.

  In the following seconds the beast fell, twitched a couple of times, and its motion calmed down. Ama realized with relief that the creature had died. In the next instant, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a second animal, which had jumped back into the darkness and running to the forest.

  Ama also shot it several times. The beast fell and tumbled over its head, but still jumped up, hissed and continued to run, now on three limbs. Its right hind leg dragged behind its body like a rope. The boy turned on the flashlight, accompanied the predator with a beam, and then released two impulses. The beast fell again, this time seemingly once and for all.

  Chapter 35

  Ama’s shout and the fizzling of the dying beast woke up Fof. The girl, who saw the claw of the animal in front of her face, screamed and jerked back, pushing at Memi. In the end, the noise had awakened the rest of the wayfarers and the other on watch—Nim.

  “What happened?” Memi rose to his knees and looked at his companions in bewilderment, still not noticing the body of the animal that Fof was involuntary screening from him.

  Meanwhile, the girl had realized that Ama, with his maser at the ready, was just standing and looking toward the forest. The creature lay motionless and it seemed that danger no longer emanated from it. However, the predator was so close—

  She jumped to her feet and answered Memi, pointing with her hand to the corpse of the beast: “Look here.”

  The young people, Memi included, turned their heads and as soon as they saw the dead animal, they completely shook off the remnants of their sleep. Nim, the last to wake up, stared in embarrassment at the motionless carcass.

  Ama moved the beam of his maser’s flashlight to the second creature, ten steps from the fire, and said, "Look there, too."

  “What is it? We were attacked?” Memi asked, perplexed.

  “Yes,” Ama answered, with anxiety and surprise feeling that his body was trembling.

  “How could they sneak up on us so closely?”Daf grasped the situation first. “Did you fall asleep?” She asked, turning to those on duty.

  Nim had completely missed the incident; he didn’t know what had happened and just stood speechless. Instead Ama, having arranged in his mind what he was going to say, told his tale about where he’d gone and what he’d done after returning from the ocean.

  The teenagers gradually understood how closely the deathly predators had approached their comrade. Having comprehended earlier than his fellow travelers that the beasts hadn’t succeeded in their attack, Memi asked the obvious question: “Wait, you said the predator hit Nim—then why did it not kill him?”

  “As I understand it, the maser saved Nim. It seems the claw stroke hit the butt of the weapon that was lying on his belly,” Ama replied.

  With these words, he took the weapon from the hands of his comrade and brought it to the already weakened flame. Still, its slackened light was enough to see what he was looking for. Ama put his finger against the middle part of the butt and said, “Do you see this scratch?”

  One by one, the travelers examined the maser, trying not to obscure the light. They all saw the subtle abrasion on the ceramic surface.

  “It is good that the predator hit exactly here,” Omis said in the end. “If it would have broken the radio amplifier or the germanium lens, this maser would have become useless. But with the batteries inside the butt, of course, nothing could happen.”

  “In my opinion, it really is good that Nim was holding a weapon in his hands during sleep, and therefore the beast did not kill him,” Fof said.

  At first the teenagers gazed at the girl thoughtfully. Then they began to nod, and even a weak smile appeared on the faces of some of them. The neighboring, blackened forest didn’t allow them to show more emotion. From that moment on they frequently cast worried glances toward the thicket and, in general, were looking at it differently. They no longer perceived it as just a cluster of plants. Now it seemed like a beast hiding in the darkness, and already it didn’t look like an ordinary one—familiar forest lit by daylight.

  Their sleep had disappeared; the travelers were peering intently into the darkness. Time flowed in a strained anticipation of a new attack. The boys and girls, holding their rifles at the ready, were listening to the sounds of the night.

  The anxiety lasted about half an hour. After that, seeing that nothing was happening, they gradually relaxed. Their healthy bodies and perfect nerves were quickly returning them to their normal state. After another few minutes, the excitement completely disappeared, and the need for sleep began to prevail over alarm.

  “There is no
sense in everybody being on duty,” Ama began reasoning. “Each of us should sleep a bit before tomorrow’s journey.” He looked at his wrist. “Almost seven hours remain before dawn. Let Nim and I extend our shift for another hour, because we interrupted it. Thus, the final shift will last only three hours.”

  His proposal didn’t meet any objections, as they all wanted to sleep. Nim and Ama resumed their watch, and the rest lay down on their backpacks.

  Fof and Omis took over the last watch. Nothing was happening around the camp. The girl and boy kept the fire up and watched the forest. In addition, from time to time they got up and turned on the night vision mode on their screens.

  Before dawn, some cautious movement began in the surrounding plants, accompanied with a hardly audible rustle.

  “Do you hear that?” Fof asked her mate.

  At the time Omis, lost in thought, was gazing steadily at the fire. Hearing the question, he instantly alerted his ears. The rustle was clearly growing.

  “Maybe we should wake them up?” Fof said hesitatingly.

  “First, let’s find out what is happening.”

  Turning the UDs to night vision mode again, the orderlies discovered that some rather small animals, not dangerous by sight, were making this rustling. They were wandering among the big plants and bushes. These creatures showed no aggression, timidly hid under the shelter of plants, wandering around the LC-1 corpses, and didn’t dare to approach them. During their shift Ama and Nim dragged the body of the nearest carnivore to that of the one farther from the camp.

  “It seems these are the same SLC-1s that came here last night, and you wounded one of them,” Omis opined.

  “Yes, I agree,” the girl said, and then added, “Let’s take a picture and then drive them away.”

  They sat motionless until the animals, moved by hunger, approached the corpses. After about ten minutes Fof decided that they were near enough and directed the lens of her UD at them. When she took a photo the flash of light scared the animals, although not so much; they ran away, but not particularly far.