The Loneliness of Stars
Page 26
~Captain Jeremiah E. Korzos, in an interview shortly before leaving on the Ambassador Expedition
After breakfast the next day, Vincent called the promised meeting, and assigned us all to groups. There were twenty-seven of us left, not counting Fineas or Gerald. We were divided into five groups of five, with Vincent and Michaela remaining on the ship with Fineas and Gerald. I was placed in the second group, led by Jeen. Also in my group were Daniel Oldman, Adam, and Fetiz Calepernas. We were ordered to go out and search for life.
Jeen led us out from the ship in a direction we estimated to be the equivalent of north. The light of Antarct was especially bright, and we found ourselves squinting whenever we passed out from under the shelter of the trees. When I looked back towards the ship after five minutes of walking, my heart sank into my stomach. I couldn’t see it. I looked around nervously, waiting for the cloaked figure to appear and tell me to turn back. When he did not come after ten minutes, I relaxed a little. Perhaps he didn’t mind me disobeying his orders when I was with others.
As we looked, I fell to the back of the group, walking beside Adam. I hadn’t talked to him since my visit to the hospital wing. I gathered enough courage to speak to him after several minutes. “I see you finally got released.”
Adam grinned. “Aye, that I did. When Michaela made her rounds on that night, she came and got Gerald. I was still pretending to be… out at the time, but Gerald decided to check up on me one last time before he went to go show his support for our captain. He prodded me in, um, certain places. I was quite surprised, and I leapt out of the bed and almost threw him on the ground. He handled it quite well, though. So did Michaela. They just asked me if I would stand behind Vincent, despite my suspicious behavior, and I said yes. Then they told me to follow them while they got the rest of the crew.
“After the mutiny was over, it became abundantly clear that I wasn’t one of the saboteurs, and was in fact one of those trying to stop the sabotages.” His grin turned into a cynical smile. “Not that I was any good at that, but it’s the thought that counts.” He sighed. “It’s good to not have to worry about that damned spy business anymore, though. That was rather stressful.”
“I can imagine.” He smiled at me, but did not respond with words.
After that, we didn’t talk much as we carried out our search. No one expected to find anything; we had no real idea as to what we were looking for. Tracks? Droppings? Actual aliens? We found nothing after hours of searching. Jeen led us very far from the ship; much farther than I would have dared go by myself.
After an hour or two, the trees began to thin. We continued walking forward, and soon the trees vanished entirely, revealing a vast expanse devoid of trees. The dirt – or “regolith” as the more scientifically inclined among us called it – became finer and more sand-like as it carried on into the plains before us. In the distance I saw what appeared to be massive dunes, and even further was what appeared to be a mountain range. In the absence of trees, the dirt had formed into countless small mounds, scattered randomly across the landscape.
As we all stood at the edge of the forest, staring out towards the horizon, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, near one of the mounds. I turned my head to face it, but I saw nothing. I stared at the spot for a few moments.
Something blinked at me. I jumped. There were two eyes in the mound, barely visible under the red dirt that made it up. They looked distinctly feline, but instead of the yellow commonly associated with cats, the eyes were a dark red. As I stared at them, unbelieving, they closed again, the eyelids blending in perfectly with the dirt.
I turned to Jeen. “I think I saw something – it looked like some kind of eyes underneath the dirt over at that mound.” I pointed.
Jeen’s eyes followed my finger. “Eyes? Under the dirt you say?” He gave me a look of disbelief, and I just shrugged. He sighed. “Alright, let’s take a look.” We all walked over to the mound and surrounded it. Jeen then pulled a large knife out of his pocket and stabbed the mound. He hacked and slashed at it, until half of it had been destroyed, and it only came up to our knees.
Wiping the dirt off his blade, he looked at me. “Still so sure about your eyes?” I shook my head. Adam gave me a sympathetic look at Jeen’s sarcastic words. He really was much nicer when he wasn’t interrogating you.
Once Jeen sheathed his blade, we began to head back in the direction of the ship. As we left, I took one last look at the mound. My eyes widened as I saw the strange green-cloaked man standing behind it, his clothing moving gently in a silent breeze. A small, furry, weasel-like animal stood by his side, looking at me with red, feline eyes. I blinked, and they were gone. I shook my head and turned around, paying attention to what was ahead of me.
After another three or so hours, Jeen gave up and we turned around. He told us to keep looking for any signs of life we may have missed as we made our way back. I wondered if I should report my discovery of the roots; it had not occurred to me before to do so. After a moment of thought, I decided that it would be better to not to. What had happened down there was between me and that strange man.
There was no one outside the ship when we got back, so we walked through the cargo hold and into the ship. We headed towards the bridge, where Vincent had told all of the groups to make their reports to him.
When we arrived there, all of the other groups had already returned, and were gathered around something, Curious, we approached. Jeen shouldered his way through the group and looked down at the ground. “God damn, what is that?” I heard him say. Upon hearing his words, the rest of us pushed our way through as well. I followed behind Adam, and stood on my toes to see over his shoulder.
On the floor of the ship was one of the strangest looking beings I had ever seen.
It had what appeared to be the head of a four-eyed pink alligator, set on the end of a long, worm-like neck. Its body was covered in what looked like blue artificial plastic hair, and it had six chitinous legs. The front two legs had vicious claws, and were about half as long as the back four were. The middle pair of legs ended with what appeared to be hooves, and the final pair had what looked like paws, similar those that you would find on a dog. It had no tail. On its back were rows of extremely thin purple spines, shimmering with some sort of inner light.
Vincent was standing on the opposite side of it. He answered Jeen’s question. “I have no idea.” He smiled. “Well, that’s a lie. It appears as if we have found the first alien animal on this strange planet.” As he finished speaking, I looked back down at the thing.
It opened its eyes.
24
“And if the aliens we meet are hostile? Well then, we’ll just show them exactly what humanity is capable of.”