Once there, he used two of the gripper arms to manipulate the vine shoots until they were looped up against some of the upper ridges of the shell. Then he used a specialized synthetic glue to bond them to the shell. Leaving the greater part of their length to drape back down into the trailing foliage mass. Next he used the primary cutter arm to gently carve a series of grip points, that a WayWalker could use, into some of the ridges on the BranchCritter's shell. Taking great care not to penetrate into the delicate tissues below it.
Once the pattern of grip points reached the less hazardous center of the ShellWay he locked in an automatic ‘shallow cut’ program. That he had written to continuously seek and cut a much longer series of grip points. That would be more than secure enough to stabilize a WayWalker, against the relatively slight movements the BranchCritter might make, this close to it's own grip on the great trunk he was approaching.
His program allowed him to do this at a much faster rate than would otherwise be possible. It would even automatically cut a few special anchoring grip points, each suitable for parking a WayWalker on the other side of the central ridge of the ShellWay. Soon the TreeCrawler was rapidly traveling along the top of the BranchCritter.
When he reached the trunk, BillSong would need to slowly crawl up or down it to an adjacent BranchCritter. While carefully carving a connecting BarkWay path in the thick iron hard trunk bark. Suddenly, just before BillSong was ready to slow down, a large angry SnarlClaw jumped down from the foliage, that was hanging from another nearly adjacent BranchCritter. It landed on the ShellWay directly in front of him. The beast seemed determined to fight off this noisy intruder to it's territory.
BillSong had just a fraction of a subcyclet to choose which action to take and he didn't like his choices. He could hit the emergency stop. Which would bring him to an abrupt stop so close to the SnarlClaw as to invite it to attack. In which case he'd have to hope that the powerful predator didn't rip apart very many control circuits. As it tried to claw it's way inside the TreeCrawler's hull.
Or he could turn aside. Turning aside would probably cause the TreeCrawler to slide off the the edge of the ShellWay. With no chance of carefully transferring the machines weight to the outer vines below. So he'd have to hope the grippers could grab onto enough vines, hanging down from the neighboring BranchCritters, to arrest it's fall before it smashed against another BranchCritter's shell. Or worse, fell all the way to the forest floor. As far as he was from the established TreeWays BillSong could be in real danger if he was left stranded.
Then BillSong realized, that thanks to the recent ruling of the ship's counsel on the local life form's lack of sentience, he had another option.
So instead of slowing down, he swung the main cutter towards the menacing SnarlClaw. It was powerful enough to almost instantly cut through even the thickest of VineCores. The main cutter's manipulator arm might be damaged by the initial impact but the main cutter itself would cut the SnarlClaw to ribbons. So the damage would be confined to components the colony could manufacture.
BillSong should then be able to backtrack up the trail he had just cut. He wouldn't need to use the cutter to reach the camp. He would of course be held responsible for the damage to the expensive TreeCrawler. He might even lose his job over it but he would be alive and there were other ways to make a living on XenDar.
Then the cutter smashed into the SnarlClaw's chest. Just before the impact sheered the cutter arm's primary mounting bolts, the priceless cutter assembly itself crumpled into useless junk. It wasn't until he felt jolt of the impact that BillSong knew that the cutter's sonic resonator hadn't initialized. That's when he realized that the computer hadn't identified the sensor readings of the SnarlClaw's massive bone structure as a type of VineCore. So it hadn't known which sonic frequency to use. Had the Resonator already been running it wouldn't have mattered which frequency pattern it used but it hadn't been active and BillSong hadn't had time to manually initialize it. Thus instead of shredding the SnarlClaw beyond recognition. It had impacted on it's massive rib cage.
The SnarlClaw was, of course, mortally wounded. Though it was not yet dead. It's rage was now beyond anything BillSong had ever encountered. The SnarlClaw threw itself at the TreeCrawler with such ferocity that the damaged cutter arm was torn from it's remaining mountings. It then smashed into the leading trimmer wheel, causing the wheel to shatter.
Then the SnarlClaw tore itself to bits against the remaining two trimmer wheels. Warping both of them to the point where they seized up. Worse still, the impact had ripped the TreeCrawler's grippers, from the BranchCritter. So that the brute force of the SnarlClaw's attack was enough to send it spinning over the edge of the ShellWay.
The TreeCrawler struck the edge of another BranchCritter's shell. Smashing all six of the gripper arm mountings on that side of the falling wreck. Then BillSong was momentarily elated, when the remaining grippers automatically grabbed hold of some strong looking vines and the falling TreeCrawler started to slow down. Unfortunately before it's downward plunge came to a halt, it's nose crashed into the middle of yet another BranchCritter. The world went black.
Slowly BillSong began to wake up. He was hanging forward against his safety harness. The early morning twilight was just bright enough to see that the remains of his TreeCrawler dangled, just above the ForkHub of a cluster of three large BranchCritters.
He now began to realize the full extent of his plight. The primary communications array had been mounted on the main cutter arm. The auxiliary communications system just didn't have the power, to push it's signal through all the dense VineCore material between his current position and the established TreeWays.
It was unlikely that anyone would ever pick up his distress signal. Besides which his situation wouldn't get much better now even if, by some miracle, he was rescued. The irreplaceable main cutter assembly was smashed beyond repair. It's synthetic cutting disk assembly, which combined razor sharp edges of a synthetic metal with a specialized sonic resonator in order to quickly chew through VineCore material, was irreplaceable. It was one of only 17 the colony had been able to manufacture from certain key parts of the old ship's defense systems. He would be lucky if they didn't arbitrarily throw him out of the colony.
With working gripper arms on only one side of the TreeCrawler it wouldn't be possible to crawl across the length of any of the BranchCritters. Never mind, to crawl up or down the near vertical surface of any of the great trunks they lead to. Neither the BranchCritters below nor the one from which grew the vines his remaining gripper arms clung to, intersected with any known TreeWays. So the WayWalker, that normally served as an escape pod, wasn't going to be of much use.
BillSong switched to full manual override. Then he carefully released one of the remaining gripper arms from the vine it was attached to. The TreeCrawler sagged a little closer to the ForkHub. As the vine, relieved of the TreeCrawler's weight, swung upwards. Next he tried to use the gripper to get a secure grip on one of the ridges of the ForkHub below. It took three tries.
Then he released the grip of the second gripper arm from the upper foliage but it had apparently been damaged in the fall. As it didn't respond to his attempts to move it into position to grip the ForkHub below. So he tried the third arm and won another grip on the ForkHub.
When he released the fourth gripper arm however, the root of the single vine that the remaining two grippers were attached to, had been so weakened from the shock of halting the TreeCrawler's initial plunge, that it began to rip out of the underside of the BranchCritter above.
The TreeCrawler lurched to one side with a sickening thud, as the unsupported side hit the shell of the ForkHub. BillSong barely had time to get a third grip on it. Before the massive weight of the foliage structure, that the vine's roots no longer supported, nearly ripped the TreeCrawler's tenuous grip from the ForkHub. BillSong started to release the the remaining grippers from the dead weight of the vine but as soon as he released one of the grippers there was a final jolt. As the
last gripper arm was torn off by the weight of the falling vine.
The TreeCrawler was now sitting on the thick part of a ForkHub. Which connected 3 massive BranchCritter segments. BillSong decided that trying to move the TreeCrawler much further was too dangerous. So he only manipulated the four remaining gripper arms enough to drag the TreeCrawler's remains just far enough to one side, that there was enough room for the WayWalker to safely pick it's way past the wreckage. Then he set out to explore the area.
Because it had to cut it's way past several vine clusters, that had draped across the BranchCritter from above, it took nearly two cycles for the WayWalker to reach the junction. Where the BranchCritter was fastened to the nearest massive trunk. He wasn't really surprised that there wasn't any sign of any forgotten old BarkWay. That he could have used to reach another BranchCritter. He didn't have to cut through any foliage on the way back. So it took only one cycle to return to the TreeCrawler's remains.
It was nearly midday by the time he got there and the heat of the sun was enough to cause the WayWalker's environmental control computer to route 40 percent of all available power to the cooling systems.
He was surprised to see what looked like a man sitting on the remains of one of the broken gripper arms. The figure before him was wearing a loose fitting one piece garment of some kind. He couldn't quite decide what color it was but it blended in so well with the background. That if he hadn't seen the thermal image, provided by the WayWalker's sensors, he might have gone by without noticing the man at all.
The man's face and hands looked purple. His hair was blue. BillSong brought the WayWalker to a halt about 10 arms away from him. At which point the stranger stood up and waved with some kind of stick.
“Hello there,” he said. “Did this use to be, ‘your’ TreeCrawler?” Then without waiting for an answer he gestured towards the overhead foliage and added, “What'd you do, hit a SnarlClaw?”
“How'd you guess?” BillSong replied. “Yeah it's my wreck. But who or, ah, what are you?”
The man bowed slightly.
“I've been called many things,” he said. “But you can call me Seeker. As to how I guessed about the SnarlClaw. Frankly, I couldn't think of anything else on this planet that could do this much damage. By the way, I'm looking for a driver called BillSong. Would you happen to know where I can find him?”
“Yeah, I suppose I might,” was all BillSong said before he powered down the WayWalker and popped open the hatch.
They stood, nearly motionless in the oppressive heat, facing each other for a couple subcyclets. Then BillSong wiped the sweat from his brow and broke the silence.
“There's a whole list of things I don't yet know about you,” he said. “That includes where you came from, how you got here and why on XenDar I should tell you where to find BillSong?”
Seeker laughed.
“I'd have thought that it was fairly obvious,” he replied. “That I came from another planet. Believe it or not, I mostly walked from the hilltop I landed on. As it happens my database says the ID number I found on this wreck, belongs to a TreeCrawler. That was most recently assigned to Colonist ID XenDar#135757693124. So I don't really think I need you to tell me where BillSong is. Do you?”
BillSong thought about it for half a subcyclet.
“No I guess you don't at that,” he finally said. “What could you possibly want me for? Badly enough for you to come way out here?”
Seeker reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a small cloth pouch. Which produced a distinctively sweet aroma when he opened it. Then he extracted a palm sized pipe from it that appeared to be carved from a piece of quartz.
“Shall we discuss that over a bowl of my finest weed?” he asked.
Then he proceeded to stuff some of the aromatic blue leaves into the pipe. BillSong took a deep breath, savoring the smell. Asulrod wasn't banned on XenDar but it was so hard to grow that it was a rare luxury. The blue leaves of the female asulrod had a reputation for promoting honest business negotiations. By making it hard to say things the speaker didn't believe. As well as for inducing a mellow mood. Which tended to help prevent any disputes from escalating to violence. Yet for all of that, it didn't usually interfere with rational thought and if anything, it promoted better memory recall.
BillSong hadn't had any for a long time.
“Sounds good to me,” he said. As he pointed at the remains of the TreeCrawler. “But I think we'd be better off inside where it's somewhat cooler.”
BillSong adjusted two of the seats so that they faced each other. He dropped into one of them and leaned back.
“Do have a seat and tell me about it,” he said.
Seeker smiled and sat down. Then he pointed at BillSong with the stem of the unlit pipe.
“It's my understanding that you found a couple unusual things,” he said. “Somewhere around here I'm told.”
BillSong abruptly sat forward.
“Well not exactly around here,” he said. “But yeah, I found something. How did you hear about it?”
Seeker put the pipe stem in his mouth and held his thumb and forefinger over the bowl. Then it looked like an arc of electrical energy jumped between his finger and thumb. The arc curved briefly down into the bowl, igniting the blue leaves. He took a good toke on it. Holding it in as he passed the pipe.
When BillSong sucked in his first lungful he was mildly surprised. That he didn't have to resist an initial urge to cough. Meanwhile Seeker slowly exhaled. Then he explained.
“Actually,” he said. “You showed the disks to a guild employee 52 standard days ago. He described the markings to the local master guildsman. Who recognized the significance and filed a report... Say, you wouldn't have them on you, would you?”
BillSong hesitated for a cyclet. Then he reached under his shirt and pulled out a small leather pouch by it's drawstring. Which was looped around his neck. From the pouch, he removed a cloth wrapped bundle that he handed to Seeker.
Seeker carefully unwrapped and examined the contents. Gently, he held one of the two crystal disks up to the light. Then he did the same with the other. He carefully rewrapped them in the soft cloth and handed the bundle back to BillSong.
“They certainly seem genuine,” he said. “I don't suppose you'd consider selling them?”
BillSong shook his head.
“Not a chance!” he said.
BillSong had said that in a squeaky voice as he tried not to exhale much of the smoke, from the second toke he'd taken while Seeker examined the disks.
“Oh well,” Seeker replied. “I guess it was worth the trip to XenDar just to see them. But what I'd really like is to see exactly where you found them. I'd make it worth your while to take me there.
Should I turn up anything to convince me that the Kindred were ever really here, I'll make you a very rich man. But time is short. I need to leave XenDar in about 90 of your local days.”
By this time BillSong had exhaled his lungful. He passed back the pipe, which had gone out and watched more closely to see how Seeker would relight it as he replied.
“I wouldn't mind being rich of course,” BillSong said. “But I'm on the hook, for wrecking the TreeCrawler. I kind of doubt their going to let me out of the lockup anytime in the next 180 days, never mind 90.”
Seeker didn't relight the pipe until after he replied.
“True enough,” he reasoned. “They wouldn't take kindly to losing that cutter assembly now would they. But what if you showed me the site before they throw you in the slam?”
This time BillSong was sure that Seeker used an electrical spark, from his bare hand, to light the pipe.
“First of all I'm not all that sure how I'm even going to get back to the TreeWays,” BillSong rebutted. “Second as much trouble as I'm in, it'll be much worse if I don't turn myself in right away.”
Seeker handed him the pipe.
“And if the reason for the delay was to secure a replacement for the cutter?” he asked. Then after a brief pa
use Seeker added, “Even if I decided that somebody else left the Kindred artifacts here. It'd be worth the cost of a replacement cutter just to rule out XenDar as a former Kindred world. I've the means on my own ship, to build you a new cutter. So if you show me where you found them. You could bring a replacement with you when you eventually turn yourself in. But heck, if the site's genuine. I'll even get them half a dozen brand new guild built TreeCrawlers. On the condition that they let you off the hook.
BillSong was shaking his head as he took the last hit from the pipe. When he had first heard the offworlder say something about replacing the cutter he had almost started to hope that the man's offworld resources might just provide a way out of the worst of his troubles.
When the man started raving about several whole new TreeCrawlers however, he was sure that this Seeker was just wasting his time. Who, after all, could possibly even afford the guild shipping costs just to get them here.
Upon that thought however, BillSong finally remembered where he had once before heard the name ‘Seeker’. Only it wasn't exactly a name. It was an alternate form of a certain title of elite rank in the most powerful interplanetary organization he had ever heard of. He choked and coughed for nearly a full subcyclet. Before he could again manage to talk.
“No! You couldn't be...” he objected. “A ‘questor’ of the ‘Cosmic Sailor's Guild’. Or could you?”
Seeker just smiled. Then he plucked his pipe from BillSong's hand. He held it in the palm of his hand, so that BillSong could see it liquefy and reform into an oblong pellet. Then he put the nano-morphic pellet in his pocket.
“Well at least you got the guild's name right,” he said. “You wouldn't believe how many people still think of us as the ‘Star Traveler's Guild’.”
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