The Long Way Home

by Darrell Bain

A few minutes later, a strip of cloth lay on the ground with the pseudopod of the amoeboid still attached. Jeremy bent down to get a closer look.

  "It's a good thing we got it off. It was beginning to eat the cloth. I've never seen a critter that could do that."

  "I suspect it wanted to eat me along with it. Thanks, Costa. Now analyze it and see if we can use it for organics. If so, I have an idea."

  Two hours later, a method had been worked out for enticing the protean creatures out of their holes without becoming prey to them, as Casey Dugan almost had. All it took was for the engineer and his new helper, Siegfrer, to fabricate a long-handled probe and a wheelbarrow-like affair with a scoop attached. As soon as the creatures exploded from underground, they were scooped into the container and flooded with paralyzing chemicals. It was a quick and easy way of getting a lot of new organic material into the recyclers with little danger.

  As he continued his work, the XO came out of the boat and wandered over toward him. After pausing to look at what he was doing, she stared at the explorers at work killing blobs and taking them to the boat. While she did so, he took a surreptitious glance at her, again thinking how attractive she was.

  "How come so many of the damned things are in this one area?” Trammell asked him as she watched another capture. She and Brackett never left the boat at the same time. He had heard her several times offering to stay and let the Commander have some time outside, but he seldom ventured far from his cabin or the control room. So far as Jeremy knew, he seemed interested in planets only so far as they were suitable to stock the ship.

  He shrugged before remembering that it was the XO who questioned him. He thought rapidly. “I guess maybe it was part of something to do with the lake here, ma'am. It looks as if the area on this side was cleared in the past. Maybe those who did so had a purpose at one time, but when their civilization was pounded into the ground the organisms multiplied, because no one was watching or taking care of them."

  "As good a guess as any,” she said and began to move away.

  "Ma'am!” he called.

  She stopped. “What is it?"

  "Uh, I just have to wonder what they feed on. There's sure lots of them, and they're pretty big."

  "Good point, Costa. Maybe something that roams at night. We'll try to finish up by then."

  His question resulted in the guards being pulled back into the ship when the long thirty-four hour day ended. Night vision and infrared scopes showed that things did indeed roam at night. Some very big things. When a single amoeboid caught one of them, others came from the ground, bunching up on it. The horned and clawed beast struggled, but it was no match for the oozing life that flowed over it, entangling and sticking to it relentlessly. Digestive enzymes did the rest.

  Anything new and exciting was a change for the crew. Those who weren't too tired from the day's work watched the night life on a screen in the dayroom.

  "Damned vicious devils when they gang up on something, aren't they?” Chiquita Luna commented.

  "What I'd like to know is why they didn't attack any of us. Hell, we were right out there with them, and they never moved until we started aggravating them,” Franica Bzinski said. She looked at Jeremy with eyes as blue as the water of the lake.

  "I'm not sure,” he admitted.

  "No idea at all?” She seemed intent on pinning him down to an answer of some kind.

  He shrugged. “It's just a guess, but maybe the way we sliced off the spirals when we harvested the bushes distorted their perception in some way. The spirals are mostly nerve tissue, you know. Remember, we started at the edge of where they grow and worked from there. Then, when Danny probed below ground with his knife, it set that one off.” He shrugged. “Shucks, maybe the spirals are disposable—sort of like a cat's whisker."

  "How come the others didn't jump in like they did with that big devil thing they attacked last night?"

  "Heck, Fran, I don't know. Every world is different, and we just got here. Remember how fast the first one exploded out of the ground and how fast they come out when we poke at them? But when they ganged up on that big fellow, they oozed out. Quick, but not like that one that went for Chief Dugan and Danny, or like they did when we harvested them. I'd guess if something is different enough from their normal environment, the novelty inhibits the others. Or maybe they don't come out in daylight unless attacked. There could be lots of reasons. I'm just glad we caught it before someone got hurt. Or worse."

  Fran nodded at him and smiled, telling him plainly that she knew as much as he did and was just making talk. She had been on several cruises. She wasn't as pretty as Juanita, but she had a pleasant enough face and figure. And her smile's enticing, he thought. She was an E5, but since his promotion there wasn't any difference in their rank. Knowing that she had been sleeping with Nguyen the spacer before his death, he wondered if she had recovered from the loss yet. He stayed in the dayroom talking with her until she told him goodnight and left. But she seemed interested, he thought. Maybe in a while. We sure aren't going to be home tomorrow.

  * * * *

  There were skeletons everywhere in the ruined city except in the crater caused by the kinetic weapon. The Tiger squad did the exploring along the edges of the ruins where most of the domed buildings were still intact, although some of them had been crushed by falling spires. Commander Brackett and Lisa Trammell followed them on the big screen in his office. It was a real-time feed provided by a recording from EO Maria Teha. Chief Martin was leading the squad with him and providing some commentary.

  "Some of these skeletons don't show any sign of injury. It's like they just came outside to die,” Martin said. “Judging from the numbers, they had a very high population density in the cities.

  Teha panned in close to one of them. The inhabitants had been humanoid but certainly not human. The arm and leg bones all had four joints with bulbs of brown bony growth enveloping each one. Both the hands and feet had seven digits, and those joints were bulbed, too. The skeleton they were looking at measured better than two meters as it sprawled face up, displaying a mouth with two canines top and bottom on long snouts. The forehead bulged out over three sockets, where presumably eyes or other sense organs had been. The spine had only four thin vertebrae, but it looked as if it might have had cartilage or something similar attached along its length.

  "See? Not a mark on it, Skipper,” Trammell said.

  Brackett nodded but didn't comment. He leaned in closer to the screen as the view shifted. It showed three more remains lying together as if on display. One of them was a smaller version of the other two.

  "Nothing there, either,” Trammell said. “No cuts or breaks on the bones. It's like they came outside to die after the kinetic weapons hit."

  "Why do you say that? Perhaps it was a toxin ... a nerve gas ... most anything."

  "Could be, Skipper. Something that came with the bombardment, maybe? If those damn Monkeys did this, they just got a lot worse in my book."

  Nodding, Brackett spoke through his com to Teha. “Maria, is there a way into any of those intact domes?"

  "Nothing we've found so far, sir. They look like golden bubbles buried in the ground. Maybe the doors are down below?"

  "Have you seen any stairs—any way to go down and see?"

  "No, sir. I can try burning an entrance into one."

  "Do it, then."

  "What are you looking for, Skipper?” the XO asked. She noticed how intent he was.

  "Weapons, primarily. Technology we can understand that would help us fight the Monkeyclaws."

  "Whatever these people might have had, it didn't seem to help them much."

  "They had no defenses. No space travel. No satellites."

  "No defenses that are still intact. No, you're right. We haven't seen any evidence of space flight at all. No remnants of satellites. Could they have been a species not interested in anything beyond their planet?"

  "I don't know, Lisa, but they built well. It won't hurt to look. There's a lot o
f technology here."

  "We're in, Skipper. No problem at all,” Teha said, interrupting them. He was standing beside a scorched opening in the dome that had been burned out with lasers. The material was thin and looked as if it had cut easily. “It's lit up in there, too."

  "Search inside,” Brackett ordered.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Chapter Fifteen

  "Look at that!” Charlie Vane said. He was with half of the Dragon squad inside, while the other half guarded in a loose half-circle around the side of the boat facing away from the lake. All of Tiger Squad was in the city ruins. The ones in the boat were following the Tigers from a feed to the big screen in the largest dayroom.

  "What?” someone in the crowd asked.

  At first, Jeremy didn't see it, either. Then he did. The lead explorer was advancing cautiously along a path through machinery of unfamiliar shape and unknown use that appeared to grow out of the floor. He was looking all around but not above, where the ceiling was lost in darkness.

  "Look out, man!” Johnnie Lann screamed a useless warning.

  The explorer must have received a word of caution through his com, though. He stopped abruptly and looked up just in time to see a circular disc floating down toward him. He raised his rifle and held it ready. Behind him two other explorers were in sight. They, too, halted their progress. The plate came into perspective as it floated down and came to rest near the lead man. It looked to be a bit more than a meter in diameter and was a pale pink color. It had no obvious features.

  "I wonder what they'll do?” Russell said.

  "Whatever the Commander orders them to,” Chief Dugan said. “He's on the com with them, and it's his show. I'm wondering what set that thing off.” She tapped her forearm and spoke to someone quietly.

  "What's he looking for?” Jeremy asked, still watching the hesitant explorer.

  "Information. Weapons. Technology. Anything that will help us avoid the Monkeys and get back home.” Dugan looked up to answer sharply, and then went back to speaking to someone not present.

  Jeremy nodded to no one in particular. It made sense. Every time he saw the flicker of the Monkeyclaw icon on the screen, he remembered the flash of light from behind the rim of the giant planet when Sam Johnston had been destroyed. He knew it could happen to them if the aliens tired of following the Hurricane. The icon representing the alien ship on the big screen had been clearer this time. It seemed to portend a meeting sometime in the future. He wondered whether the Chief had been speaking in general or specifically. The presence of a shadowing Moneyclaw ship wasn't supposed to be known, but, as happened with most of the other information, he supposed that fact might have leaked to the crew.

  "Look, he's stepping on it,” Lann said.

  The explorer got one foot on the disc, and then another. The disc rose a couple of inches and then settled back. Taking a small step, he moved to the center of it. Slowly it rose again, to about waist high, before it began moving forward, deeper into the maze of odd-looking machines. When the disc came to an intersection, it turned a quarter-circle, allowing Jeremy to identify who it was doing the riding. It wasn't a man at all, but Kena Basalla, the tall, dark-skinned Tiger who studied so much that she and he were now being compared.

  The other two followed Basalla as she rode the disc and a fourth explorer came into sight. The disc turned the corner and was concealed from sight for a moment by a tall piece of machinery with what looked like an ancient computer atop it. Lights glowed from that part of it, and E4 Marshall Binglee was examining it.

  Glancing back toward the explorer who had just come into view, Jeremy saw that it was Chief Martin. He was just in time to see the Chief drop screaming down a two meter circular hole that opened beneath him. The scream seemed to go on forever, diminishing in volume but not intensity. Then it abruptly ceased. There was no sound like a body landing from a long fall. A yell came from Bassalla. The disc suddenly zoomed toward the ceiling of the dome, carrying her with it until she slid free and dropped. There was the sound of a thud that time. She got up limping and recovered her dropped rifle. The disc floated back down. Two rifles pointed at it.

  "Goddamn, Goddamn, Goddamn,” Russell said, a litany of helplessness at his inability to be there.

  Jeremy felt the same way. His teeth were clenched tightly, and his hands closed into fists. Was the place a deliberate trap, or had Binglee somehow activated machinery that was carrying out a normal but unknown function? Probably, burning the entrance cut or activated a circuit somewhere, he thought.

  The explorers backed off, leaving the disc in place. All of them clustered by the machine with the glowing lights, except for one who held a light probe over the hole into which Martin had dropped. Marshall was still fooling with the device, apparently acting on orders they hadn't heard. Jeremy remembered that Marshall was a mechanical and electronics specialist. Sure—no wonder he examined the lit artifact.

  "I think...” Marshall said as he looked up. The disc began drifting toward them. “I've got it!” He caused the disc to go up and down and backwards and forwards while he grinned hugely.

  "I bet he caused that hole to open, too,” Buford Russell said spitefully.

  Jeremy had had the same thought, but he wasn't about to voice it. Marshall would feel bad enough if he figured it out.

  "Aw shit, Buford, he couldn't have done—huh! We've lost the feed!"

  The screen had indeed gone blank. It stayed that way for almost an hour. No one left or went to bed, no matter how tired. Their friends and comrades and in some cases their lovers were out there, inside that innocent-looking golden bubble. When the screen finally lit up again, Teha's recorder was focused on two explorers beside Martin's body, one kneeling, one standing. The others held rifles ready.

  "We lost communication for more than thirty minutes,” Teha said. “Marshall doesn't know what caused it. While the com was down, we looked around some more. We found some other units of machinery with lights on top like the first one, but we couldn't make them do anything. For that matter, all Marshall has been able to do is play with that first disc. It was a second one that brought Juan's body back up from that hole he fell into. It looks as if he was electrocuted by something, rather than killed by the fall. The disc that brought him back up then moved over and settled over the hole ... a perfect fit. It was probably the same one that dropped away so abruptly when Juan stood on it.” He shrugged, ending his abbreviated report.

  "Mister Teha, look!” Marshall said. “I've disconnected the box from the machine, but it still works the disc. Isn't that peculiar? Where's it getting its power from?"

  "From the same place that's providing lights here after all this time. We've been here long enough, I think. I'm ready to move on."

  Jeremy thought they would come out of the dome, but instead EO Teha led them farther in. They stayed for hours longer and found some machinery with lights on but nothing else that could be made to work. When they returned to where they had left Martin's body, they found that it had disappeared. Marshall brought the disc and its controller out with him.

  * * * *

  Brackett called his officers together a week after Martin's death.

  "This place needs a complete engineering and electronics science team and years of examination. We don't have time to try figuring out why the lights went on in that one dome and not in the other two we cut an opening in,” Brackett said. “We also have no idea yet of how Martin's body disappeared, although we suspect that some natives must have been responsible. Does anyone here or any of your people have any ideas that might pay dividends soon?” Commander Brackett gazed around the conference table in the officer's dayroom. All the officers were present except Trammell, who was standing watch in the control room and following the conference from there.

  "I take it that disc of Marshall's is still working?” COB Shinzyki asked.

  "Yes,” Lieutenant Wong said. “The power appears to be inherent in the disc and the controller. I have no expl
anation as to why we couldn't get the others to work, nor why Martin was killed, or what happened to his body."

  "The goddamned place is dangerous!” Whistler said.

  "The universe is dangerous, Lieutenant Whistler,” Brackett said. “What else do you have for us, Terrell?"

  "That was about it, sir. Patrols have gathered what we hope is a representative sample of their technology and tools, but most of the items are inoperative or nearly so. We've found signs of the natives, but it is obvious that they are avoiding us. I suspect they think we are the ones who bombed them."

  "Makes sense. Is there anything you've seen that might be classified as a weapon?"

  "Nothing other than a limited amount of what Terrell believes are small arms, sir, but none of them are working. From what we've seen, I suspect that their world was either united politically, or they were a non-warlike species. At any rate, I've seen nothing we can use. I believe most of their industry and machines and instruments are, or were, self-powered."

  "What do you mean, Lieutenant Wong?” Shinzyki asked. A glimmer of an idea formed in his mind—something that might help to combat the Monkeys.

  "Well ... from what I can see and from what the explorers who specialize in engineering tell me, or what examining the machinery shows, we think the inhabitants of this system built all their machinery, tools and instruments with inherent power sources rather than drawing power from a central location, as we do. They use manufactured inorganic catalysts inside everything needing power. The catalysts cause power to be generated when needed, but the catalysts never get used up. We think it's an off-beat cold fusion process, but it's very difficult to determine exactly how it works because ... well, most everything seems to have used up its power and shut down for some reason—probably just a matter of it being a long time ago."

  He spread his hands and shrugged. “Not a very elegant explanation. If we were to stay here a while, I'm sure we could find some other things still working, like the disc, or figure out how to get some machinery and tools in operation. Or we could cut up the disc we have while it's in operation and examine it, being careful to do so outside the ship. We might learn a lot like that."