by Tanya Allan
After several days of tests, the senior science officer informed the captain that the air was breathable and unless there was something as yet undetected, their kind could live here with little or no difficulty.
“I have yet to conduct more tests, but we can venture out with just bio-masks. Once the other tests come back clear, we can inform the colonial authority that we have found the one!” he said.
It was a momentous occasion, and one that all six wanted to be part of. However, the captain insisted that only three would be outside at any one time, so they drew lots to see which team would be first. Things after that, however, did not go entirely to plan.
“They’re crazy!” said Jay Bee, closing the airlock and entering the main living cabin. “I mean, they’ll attack anything, either because they feel threatened or to eat it!”
“Or both at the same time,” said Heera, with some feeling.
“I thought this world would really be the answer, but unless we can deal with them, we can’t leave the ship or send for the colonists,” muttered Kayra, the leader of the small expedition, stirring some uninteresting looking food in a bowl.
“You decided to land here,” Heera said bitterly.
“Okay, but I didn’t hear you complain,” Kayra retorted angrily.
“Okay, quit this, it doesn’t help. We all decided that this looked like a good proposition. Shit, anything looked good after four years in this bucket. If only we looked more like they do, then they’d accept us,” said Jay Bee.
They lapsed into silence, each to their own thoughts. Kayra looked at one of the monitors to the other three crew members who were still outside, erecting a palisade. They’d landed on a small plain in the foothills on the edge of a large mountain range on one of the larger continents. There was a lush green valley below, similar to a tropical forest on their own planet; before their sun had gone nova and rendered all life extinct, that is.
They’d spent the first few weeks gathering samples and establishing that it was habitable, with sufficient oxygen and relatively harmless bacteria and micro-organisms. The gravity was slightly greater than they were used to, but by such a small margin as to have little impact. After the first six weeks, they’d ventured out without full suits for the first time. Morale was high and all six were in good spirits.
It didn’t last.
They’d discovered that the planet, apart from looking perfect and being almost ideal on the micro-organism front, also was host to a myriad of life forms, most of which were lethal, and that included the flora as well as the fauna.
Amongst the fauna, there were enormous beasts, quite capable of dismembering any of the crew with little difficulty. Then there were smaller, highly efficient killing machines that were equipped with high speed, teeth and claws that seemed designed simply to kill anything that moved, regardless of size. Some were mammalian, some flew, others were reptilian, while even more lurked in the water, ready to remove a limb or simply strip flesh from the body if one were foolhardy enough to venture into a puddle.
However, all these were nothing compared to the dominant species of mammal.
Nicknamed “the Brutes” by the crew, for they found them ugly and disproportionate. These creatures had a degree of bestial intelligence, the proof of which was their ability to design and adapt to their surroundings and to make and use crude tools. All their tools seemed designed to kill, rip, shred, dismember or otherwise cause death or harm to anything that was stupid or ignorant enough to get close enough.
The Brutes lived in family groups, often with as many as a hundred individuals ranging from the old and infirm to the very young. Some sheltered in caves, while others sewed the hides of their prey together and stretched them over frames of sticks to form crude shelters. They lived a nomadic lifestyle, not that different from the crew members' ancestors from pre-history, moving to new killing fields when the current one was spent. They ate nearly everything they came across: animals, birds, fish, reptiles, grasses, fruits, nuts, roots, berries, and probably each other if times were hard. The crew were intrigued whether their digestive systems would be so eclectic.
The very old were never that old, not by the standards of the crew, at any rate. This new species seemed to die in their third or fourth decade. A few lived longer, but many became infirm, so had to be left behind to die when the tribe moved on to find food elsewhere, having eaten everything in one place. Newborn offspring, if defective in any way, were simply abandoned and left to die outside the settlement. They never suffered for long, as there was always some helpful scavenger ready to put the little things out of their misery.
They had only a rudimentary knowledge of medicine, capable of dealing with broken limbs only by binding them in a roughly straight fashion. If deep wounds were ever inflicted, by deliberate act or accident, then more often or not the victim contracted some form of infection and died. Their whole way of life rendered the term, survival of the fittest, as very apt.
The few attempts at making contact had failed, as the crew had been attacked without hesitation, forcing them to use their weapons and retreat back to their ship.
It was with deep regret that the crew had been forced to use potentially lethal force against the Brutes, as this was strictly against the guidelines of the Colonisation and Exploration Program. Although they attempted to use such force only as and when necessary to safeguard their lives, they knew that one or two of the natives had died, or had certainly been seriously wounded. After all, their weapons were designed to kill, so it was little wonder that some died at the inexpert hands of the crew who were not highly trained in their use.
Their task had been simply to locate and identify a host planet where their few remaining people could set up a colony with a view to living in harmony with existing life forms, culminating in a joint existence that would benefit all.
There was no way they could live in harmony with these creatures. The wild beasts were simple to deal with, as already they had identified the predators and those who would kill to defend their young, but in the main the prime concern was this dominant species of mammal. For a start, they looked gruesome, they didn’t follow the same genetic pattern as the crew, and they seemed hell bent of destroying anything they didn’t understand.
Initially categorised as barely intelligent, it was this intelligence that turned out to be the most fearful, as the brutes learned surprisingly quickly. For example, they now knew the crew’s hand weapons had an effective range of only fifty paces. After the first few occasions when the crew had used the weapons, the brutes rarely came closer than that range. Instead, they would hide and try to ambush the crew at any moment. Their ability to blend with their surroundings terrified the crew, as did their accuracy with the lengths of pointed sticks used as javelins
“I’ve been thinking about that,” said Heera.
“What?” asked the other two in unison.
“Looking like them. I mean, how hard can it be?”
“Well, apart from the fact they’re taller than us, have a completely different skeletal structure, have unnatural gender configurations and all that fur,” said Jay Bee
“It’s not fur,” declared Heera.
“It looks like fur.”
“It’s hair.”
“Now you’re splitting hairs,” chuckled Jay Bee.
Heera threw an empty carton at Jay Bee who ducked and laughed all the more.
“I think the answer is in our weapons,” Heera said, serious once more.
“Our weapons, how?” asked Kayra
“Well, I’m not the engineer, so you’ll have to ask Graton, but I think the principle of Matter Disruption is the key.”
“I don’t see it, unless you want to blast holes in all those creatures. I think we’d need a hell of a lot more weapons.”
“Okay, what little I remember from my science class, matter disruption is an off-shoot of matter transformation, isn’t it?”
“Possibly, go on.”
“Well, each
of our blasters has a small reactor and a projector. The reactor creates and stores the energy and the projector simply discharges it, focussing the energy in a fashion designed to kill or disable the target. What would happen if you take out the reactor and, instead of attaching it to a projector, configure a transformer that transforms our physical shape to be more in keeping with the local aborigines?”
The other two stared at Heera with astonishment. Jay Bee started to laugh, but cut it short when he became aware that Kayra wasn’t laughing.
“I’m not sure it would be that easy, but you’ve possibly got something there. Go get Graton, and we’ll see if we can rig up something.”
Kayra was right; it wasn’t easy. Indeed, it took Graton, aided by all the others, a further six weeks to rig up a prototype that was too heavy to lift, let alone carry. But it worked, sort of.
The science was complicated, but based on the principle that all matter comprised of atoms, then once those atoms were identified and coded, then the power of the matter transformer could reconfigure any one atom to appear as another. This could work for one minute particle, or a series of particles that comprised a larger form, like a body.
The prototype was configured to a small mammal that they’d caught in a trap. Once initiated, they managed to change the appearance of the mammal into that of a fish, taking as a model another specimen that floated morosely in a small glass tank. The new fish then exploded, spreading intestines and goo all over the small laboratory on the ship.
“Shit!” said Graton with some feeling.
“It worked,” pointed out Kayra, wiping some slimy stuff from her face.
“Not for any length of time, I think the power needs to be turned down a little.”
“You should have put it in a tank of water,” suggested Heera.
“Then the mammal would have drowned before the change took place. I think we ought to limit it to similar species. It had to alter the DNA and I think that might have been the root of the problem.”
“Can you make the device smaller?” Kayra asked.
“How much smaller?” asked Graton.
“Small enough for us to carry, like a time piece or similar?”
“If I had a fully equipped lab like I had back home, maybe. Here, I very much doubt it.”
“Then we’re wasting time. Unless you can design something that we can carry unobtrusively, then we may as well not bother.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Oh, and how different are the brutes’ DNA compared to ours?”
“Without taking a sample from a captured specimen, it’s difficult to say. We have sampled some blood from that incident where we almost got killed, but there wasn’t very much. From the little we got, they’re not as different as our external differences would suggest,” the scientist said. “In fact, we’re closer to them than the fish was to that small mammal.”
“That’s encouraging, I think,” muttered Kayra.
“The main problem is that of gender.”
“You mean because they have only two and they’re permanent?”
“Exactly.”
“I can’t imagine having to exist as one gender for the whole of my life. It doesn’t seem fair that only fifty percent of the race ever experience the joys of childbirth.”
“As someone once told me, whoever said life was fair?” Graton said.
“Why do we need to align ourselves so closely to the brutes, can’t we just make ourselves similar enough to pass?”
“They’re extraordinarily astute, for savages. They’ll spot any differences and before you can react, they’ll attack. From what we’ve seen, even if they see other brutes just like themselves, they still attack first and then ask questions later. No, we have to be able to literally become like them, even down to the DNA. Once we get to that stage, we have to work on gaining the trust of a small group.”
“This is too much. The Colonial Administration would not stand for this on such a scale. Our people can’t live like this. We would be better employed leaving here and seeking an alternative world.”
“Or wiping out the brutes, that’d solve the problem,” said Jay Bee.
“No it wouldn’t. We’d have their death on our conscience and all our laws forbid it.”
“It wouldn’t bother me,” admitted Jay Bee. “They’re ghastly creatures, and don’t deserve this wonderful planet. If we leave them, they’ll ruin it in a few years and probably make themselves and everything else extinct.”
“I’m not sure another planet is out there, but I agree, logistically it’s a nightmare. However, if we could find a small part of this planet that is free from the brutes, we could set up an isolated colony and develop to such a stage that we need not fear them. By the time they spread that far, we would be numerically and technologically superior, and they would have to live in harmony with us.”
“Or be destroyed,” the captain said.
“Possibly, but you know how sensitive the Colonial Administration is about genocide. No, we’d have to be patient and just grow quietly without any contact with them.”
“That would take centuries. The Colonial Administration might not be quite so bloody politically correct if it’s a simple case of the survival of our entire race!”
“I agree, but what alternative do we have?”
“See if you can construct a device, if only to give us the time and opportunity to finish our preliminary tests. Then we look for a suitably isolated site.”
By this time, many of you may have guessed that the crew members were not human and that they now stood on the Earth during what is called the Stone Age, as the last great Ice Age spread from both poles.
They were beings that were neuter until puberty and then progressed to become male. This allows for the more adventurous and aggressive nature to be spent in sporting and keen business pursuits, after which they mature and settle down as females. The last phase before returning to neuter at what would be termed menopause is that of mamale. Having a wealth of experience, maturity and knowledge, they are ideally suited to rear the young that the youthful males and steady females wish to produce.
The female selects her mate from the host of willing males. Then after sexual contact, the fertilised egg is passed in a pseudo-sexual encounter to the infertile third party, the mamale. The mamale will allow the unborn child to grow in her womb and give birth, after which she will suckle the child for the two month period before they join its parents in the family unit until such time as that child experiences puberty and becomes male. This is the signal for the small unit to break up, as one or both of the genetic parents may well have changed to the next phase.
Graton, the science officer was the only mamale, while the Captain, Karya was a female. Jay Bee was the only male left, as all but Graton had been male when the ship had launched. Graton was now pregnant with Kayra and Jay Bee’s unborn child.
“Oh, and I’ll need a couple of brutes to work on,” Graton said.
“Live ones?”
“Yes, one male and female, and both must be alive.”
“That may be difficult,” the Captain said.
“Without it, I can’t do it.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Kayra said, leaving to see whom she could persuade to complete such a task.
* * * * * *
G’mom was tired, as he’d chased this deer for many days’ walk in but a few hours. Although wounded, the deer was big and strong, so had not gone down as G’mom had desired and expected after he’d thrown the spear. The weapon had penetrated the side of the animal, but had fallen loose after the first part of the chase.
He’d passed beyond his tribal lands deep in the forest, where his people lived among the trees. He was now heading up and out of the forest, in the land of the Lani. He, as a member of the Banna people, had no quarrel with the Lani, but if the deer fell on their land, they had first right to it, so he would be forced to return home with nothing.
At last, by a smal
l stream in a dell, he saw the deer collapse. He could see no Lani, so he pounced, killed and butchered the animal as quickly as he could. Normally he’d preserve the hide, but being so far from home, he used his flint blade to cut the hide into strips and squares to form parcels in which he could place the meat for his journey home. He’d just cleaned himself in the stream, drunk deeply and was preparing to leave when one of the flocks of birds in the trees took flight, apparently alarmed about something he could not see.
He crouched, spear at the ready, listening and watching, but nothing moved. After what seemed an age, he relaxed, bent and was picking up his load of meat when he felt a sharp pain in his left buttock.
Thinking he’d been stung by a striped insect, he glanced down to see a strange dart protruding from his behind. At that moment two of the most hideous creatures he had ever seen emerged from the bushes and advanced towards him. He roared his defiance and fear, raising his spear, but sank to his knees before being able to throw it, and then collapsed onto his face, unconscious.
JayBee breathed a sigh of relief and then, together with his colleague Fytin, they dragged the helpless human to the nearby ground car, placing him into the cage alongside the unconscious form of a human female they’d caught an hour previously.
Graton had his specimens.
It took several months, so it was soon after giving birth that Graton announced that the device was ready. The human specimens had been returned to a location close to where they’d been originally found. Now their DNA and brain patterns had been configured into the device’s memory chip.
The crew assembled in the small science lab and watched impatiently as Graton finished feeding the infant and placed it into a small crib.
“Right, by using the best micro-technology available to me, I have been able to construct a device that, I hope, will allow one individual to mimic a brute. I have taken a reactor from a weapon and with a transformer and a Direct-mind-control unit from a suit, I have come up with this,” Graton declared, holding up a distinctly odd device.
