Planetfall For Marda

by Zenka Wistram

  Night 41

  Dear Marda, So, tomorrow, fishing.

  Today I'm still to rest, stay away from pregnant people, and take it easy. All of those things seem implementable; Elyan came over with a basket of food to eat and some pictures from Catrin to look at.

  You guessed it, pointy Trevor and just as pointy Liberty. I'll attach them before I sent this. That's right, he brought a basket of food – I am back home in our little crate. The floor's set and I can start moving things around how I like, which I will start to do the day after tomorrow, because I am going fishing.

  The kitchen's set up already, though, and one of the folding chairs. Clearly someone's been in here taking care of things while I was back at Doc Raines trying not to puke out anything crucial. It's odd, you know, it doesn't bother me that someone was in here while I was gone because I know everyone well enough that if they needed something and I wasn't here, I'd want them to help themselves and because I can trust this group enough that no one's going to take something they don't need. No one's going to rifle through our belongings, no one's going to steal. Far too easy to get caught – much more accountability when everyone knows you and knows where you've been today – and far too hard for most people to make eye contact with someone they've harmed in some fashion. You can avoid looking in the face of someone you've robbed in a town big enough you'll never know them and they'll never know you; not so here.

  And I feel touched and glad to know that someone – and I am guessing it was Udo Jalloh for some reason – was concerned enough about me that they didn't want me to come home from being sick as hell and have to assemble my kitchen.

  This is that community thing. Crazy.

  Anyway, still a bit tired and wobbly. Think I'll see if Udo wants to go fishing with me tomorrow. You won't mind if I lend him your fishing pole if he doesn't have one of his own, will you?

  Goodnight, Marda. Send me fishing luck!

  Night 42

  Dear Marda, I feel like I owe you some extra letters or something. I told you when I left you behind to get in that shuttle and start my journey here that I would write to you every single night after planetfall, and here you've been cheated out of two letters. Two and a half if you want to count that piece of crap note about being sick a few days ago as half a letter instead of a whole one.

  If you think you'd like, I'll take some more pictures of our new town to send to you to make up for it. Speaking of which, the floor in the new town hall is cured, so tomorrow I'm dragging bunk pieces up to the town hall, and we'll get set up and have our first official town meeting! Like a real town and everything.

  One of the things we'll discuss is what to call this town. My suggestions are still the same; Mardabell after you, or Femi's Bay after Femi Jalloh.

  Anyone who can look at little Ayo's big, big eyes and not name a town after his lost mother has almost as hard a heart as I do. Almost. We also put in our first order, as a town, for stuff for Edgerift to drop for us. Once the things we ordered are ready, Edgerift will send a shuttle to fly by and drop things off. We've cleared a decent landing pad to the east, behind the storage dome. Shuttle will pop in, drop things off, get sent back – all robotic, all handled by people back at the landing zone.

  For some reason, some part of me is disappointed a person won't be coming out to see us, but next time there'll be actual human contact. We can put in an order every six weeks unless there's an emergency, and every other delivery period someone will come out and lay eyes on the settlement.

  So I ordered some actual food. I hate to cook, you know I do, but I ordered actual coffee (which may take longer to get here, I may have to wait until the next drop off to get it) and oatmeal and soups. And I ordered us a real bed – still puffgel because there's a space limitation, but an actual, thick, comfortable mattress and an old fashioned bed-frame to put it on, with flexible support under the mattress.

  Ok, the mattress isn't actually thick at first, but it will puff up very quickly, and it will stay puffed up until we suck all the air out of it with the air setting widget. Udo and I did go fishing today, and his boys came down and joined us in the afternoon, after they'd finished up their days' schoolwork. Tau is a very diligent and responsible older brother and saw to it everything was done as it should be. Kojo may like to clown around – and may resent his brother bossing him around any time Tau does so – but you can tell watching the boys together that Kojo very much wants his older brother (and his father) to be proud of him.

  Ayo, of course, is energetic and endlessly kinetic. He got quickly bored with us standing there on the spit and throwing our lines in and instead raced back and forth up the spit and to the rocks until he finally wore down enough to walk along the shoreline, poking dark spots with a piece of driftwood.

  So, you see, there is wood somewhere on this planet. We caught eleven total fish (or fish-like creatures); four of the long green and blue eel-looking things, the rest a mixture of four different kinds of fish and one thing that looks insectile, none terribly large. Of course we can't eat any of them, but we carried them in buckets up to the science building for study.

  The largest is about a foot long and had to be dumped into a bucket headfirst to see if we could keep it alive. It must have worked, the thing was still wriggling when we got up to the science building. There were no gills on these “fish”; Soren tells me this evening they filter the gases they require from the water by way of what looked like a decorative fin to me – a long, ruffled, translucent, colored ribbon starting near the crown of the head and trailing back toward the back fin, getting more and more narrow until disappearing completely.

  The sea bug is segmented and armored and the size of my hand – that's my hand in the picture for you to compare. It seems rather like a pill-bug; it rolled up anytime we bothered it after it was in its bucket. Once it unrolls itself, long legs uncurl and start sifting around. That little bugger kept nearly getting out of its bucket; the first time Ayo saw it pulling itself up over the edge of the bucket and raised the alarm. After that he'd come back now and then on his endless races and carefully poke it with his stick so it would curl back up and drop to the bottom of the bucket.

  The rest of the fish were all similar in shape to the largest; only the color, size and basic width varies.

  I've uploaded pics of these things already. Tell me which one looks like it'd be best with a little beer batter, ok?

  Goodnight, Marda. Love you.

  Night 43

  Dear Marda, Was a heavy fog day today. Just rolled in off the ocean like a ghost army charging in utter silence, over the rock wall above the shore and as fast as that up through town and over the hills behind us. If I were the type to get creeped out, I might have thought it spooky.

  I checked in by dash com with Huw. He didn't want anyone wandering around in that fog unnecessarily, though he wasn't going to forbid it. Everyone had put their fences back up, he said, just to keep from wandering too far from home and having to wait until the fog lifted to get home or be found.

  “I've already checked in with Phenni Almaric,” he said. “They're keeping a close eye on Bennie. He's coloring in his room as of the last update.” “Ah, the Benjones Report,” I said and he laughed. “I'll sign up for that too. I'm farthest south, I'll want to be on alert if the little devil gets loose again.” I didn't mention that I was also the closest to the ocean; neither of us wanted to think about Benjones wandering off toward the sea in this fog.

  “Let's hope his pooka has an earnest wish to see him safe,” was all Huw said. I couldn't help but agree. Whatever part of his brain that pooka represents, it did keep him at home all the long day as we were all cut off from our neighbors, unable to see even the next home over. For a while Toondie took Ben outside and let him amble around with a length of rope tied securely into a harness and leash.

  “It's a new game,” she told me. “It's called 'Fast Puppy'. He just runs around like crazy barking and if he tries to get out of the rope, the game is over.”
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  “Clever!” I said, and she giggled.

  “Nah, just desperate to let him burn off some energy before he drove us all crazy.” Late afternoon, Catrin called me up on the dash com to ask for another story about faeries. She said she was feeling lonely for her faery friends because they won't go into houses, and she didn't want to go out in the fog at all.

  Huw told me later, well after dark, that she'd actually started crying hysterically anytime anyone stepped outside their dome-and-crate.

  “Cadell keeps wanting to go outside with his sword and it makes me cry,” she said after I told her a story.

  “His little plastic sword?” I asked. “Why would that make you cry, kiddo? Are you afraid of the fog?”

  “He wants to kill the fog monster,” she said, and I immediately pictured that little bug he was so enamored of.

  “The Fierce Fog Monster?”

  “No,” she said tearfully. “The big one. It hunts faeries and it eats the herd animals, and it could eat people too. Trevor said to stay inside in a big fog like this, it means the monster is hunting.”

  I admit, despite my tough and proud manliness, I shivered a little.

  I wonder if the poor, scared kid had seen a picture of Estoper NS C10.

  “There's no monsters here, little one,” I told her. “Only animals, some who eat plants and some who eat other animals. Your father will keep you safe from the animals. Just mind him, ok?”

  “Trevor called it a monster,” she insisted after a sniffling pause. “Well, think about it, little one,” I said, trying to use an encouraging tone that I know was a bit rusty. “Trevor is very small. An animal big enough to hunt and eat from the herd would seem like a pretty big monster to him, wouldn't it? But to us, just another animal. One we need to respect, but just an animal.”

  “She's nodding,” I heard Alis call in the background.

  I bit back a chuckle so Catrin wouldn't think I was laughing at her.

  “So we use our tools and our knowledge to keep safe. We have our fences, and our safe houses, and you have a wise mother and father there who will keep you all the safe you need. Right?”

  “She's nodding again!” Alis called. “I mean, yes,” Catrin said, and I was glad to hear the sniffling was gone.

  I listened long into the dark for that carrying, hooting growl. I never heard a sound.

  I don't want to sign off with that, so I'll tell you about what I've whittled – mostly birds to hang from the gazebo. Lots of little song birds. Cho's gazebo is up, and she's diligently fastening the woven grass to it. That little bird I carved on the trek here is already hanging from the frame, at least now it will have some companions. Looks like the living grass is entwining with the woven grass already; I suspect we'll have a shaded, living little pavilion for gatherings.

  Goodnight, Marda. I love you.

  Night 44

  Dear Marda, I woke up this morning and the fog was lifted, rolled back to past the bay of the ocean and up over the hills, leaving us our customary hole in the mist that is our home. Thankfully, because today we started discussing what to call our little town, and discussions are more functional when we're all in the same room and not just a bunch of voices on a com and tiny faces on a screen.

  Which reminds me, the com net is set up and functioning as it should. Beside the front door of every home is a dockable com complete with screen and voice. Harry Randolph finished it up while I was fishing, but is now down with the stomach virus Doc Raines has identified as the Jan Spring flu that ran through the stations last year. It's not a true influenza, at least, just leaves people down with cramping and intestinal ills for a few days. Bennie had it already, but little Blaines had not.

  So anyway, back to the events of the day. I get up earlier than most, sleep less than most, too. Some of that is age, some of it's just how it's always been, as you know, having found me many times pre-dawn sitting up reading something or other on my pad or whittling in the garage. So I was up at the town hall before anyone else, thinking I'd go out back and hang some of these damned ugly little whittled birds up in the gazebo before the meeting started.

  And there in the gazebo – which was damaged - was the torn body of one of the chompers, the catgoats.

  Something had made itself quite at home while it munched away on the poor animal. The gazebo had some damage that looked like the predator had climbed around on it and had torn the grass loose from the bindings, and some damage that just looked like the predator had grasped it and yanked on it in parts.

  It held up pretty well for all that.

  Looks like Catrin's fog hunting monster has made its appearance. I called up Soren, Laure Carver and Basilio Carlo (you remember, the engaged ecologists) to let them know we had a sample, then called Huw to let him know he should come have a look and maybe delay the meeting until afternoon.

  I thought it would cement, if not make worse, Catrin's fear of the fog if she saw what had happened. By the time Alis and Cho brought lunch up so we could all eat before the meeting, the five of us – the scientists and Huw and I – had the gazebo cleaned up and all relevant samples hauled over to the science center, including some scat left behind by our visitor.

  Huw's calling it the hunter, and that seems right to me. The hunter in the fog.

  Name creeps me out a little, putting it down that way. I'm turning into one of those mystical, superstitious old harbor men. It's sickening.

  But still, little creeped out. “Looks like the hunter was playing with this,” Huw said, hushed, working to repair the gazebo where it had been pulled on. “I don't like ascribing human motives to animals or anything, but some part of me wonders if it was trying to show us what it thinks of our town.”

  “Don't bother too much over it,” I said. “Probably more like a cat curious to see what it can mess up.” But I was glad Huw'd said that out loud, because I'd been thinking it in the back of my mind too, and hearing it out loud made it clear how ridiculous it was. Besides, if the hunter wanted us to see that it didn't like our town, then it would be better off crapping on town hall or something.

  Huw's not one to hide things from his kids, so once we were all gathered, he told them that we'd had a visit in the night from one of our home's new animals, that it had been in the gazebo and had some lunch, but that it was gone now and things were safe.

  Catrin just looked up at him solemnly, all big eyes. After that we temporarily fenced off the space between the town hall and the storage dome, which includes the gazebo, so the kids could play outside. Much like the hunter the night before, more than a few of the little buggers were soon climbing on the gazebo. I thought about calling them down from there, but Cho just caught my eye, smiled, and shook her head.

  We left the back doors of the town hall open to the yard and held our meeting. We all sat on benches at the four tables and Huw walked up to the podium in front of the whiteboard. “First, Alis and Randi wanted to say it's a Thursday today, and school will start on next Monday. They've sent around a tentative schedule, so anyone involved with that should check it out and get back to them so it can all get hammered out properly.”

  After we all nodded our understanding, Huw went on to take suggestions for the town's name. To make it anonymous, we just sent our suggestions to the whiteboard, which collected all the suggestions, then posted them in a random order. After everyone's pad was down and the names were all up, Huw read them all aloud so we could hear what they sounded like.

  Then we picked our pads back up and put a tick mark beside the names of any that sounded like a good possibility, then kept the five that received the most tick marks.

  Next Thursday we'll vote and decide. Looks like Thursday's town hall day. I like having a schedule again.

  The five potential names for our little town are “Liberty Bay”, “Amity”, “Aurora”, “Bucklebury” (I swear I didn't submit that one), and... “Mardabell”.

  How about that, Marda?

  By the time you arrive, you could be coming to a
town named after you. We did pass a resolution to call the bay itself “Femi's Bay”, which left Udo a bit touched and grinning. I noticed Toondie's response to this was to clasp her hands happily in front of her mouth, she looked as pleased as Udo was.

  See, I said this was a young woman who could allow a little room in her heart for a ghost. I would bet money that even if she falls in love with Udo Jalloh, she isn't going to feel jealous of his lost wife, but appreciative of Femi's time in his life, and her children.

  I could live with all the new names. Amity is good, friendship is good and Amity is a name you'd want to go to for trade. Aurora's a little precious, in my opinion, but the idea of a dawn and a new start is appropriate. Liberty Bay – well, my guess is Catrin asked her father to submit it, and it seems solid as a name.

  I will be amused as hell if it ends up being Bucklebury. I'm not the only Tolkien reader around here, it seems, and a hobbit town name for a town of hobbit-hill-like domes covered in rambley grass seems appropriate.

  I'm glad, too, that Ayo's lost mother has a physical presence here now, that the Jalloh boys will be able to look over the bay named for her and know even here, she matters.

  After the meeting, being a nosy old man, I ambled on over to the science facility to see if they needed anything and what they were hoping to figure out from the remains of the chomper. “Well, we don't have much for organs left,” Soren told me. “But that's normal, predators like organ meat. It's full of good vitamins and minerals they're not getting from vegetation if they don't eat vegetation. But we've got DNA, and most of the skeleton, and all kinds of hair. Plenty to learn a bit more about the chompers, as you call them. And we can even get DNA from the saliva. Even more information in the scat.” He fell silent for a moment. “I have to say it surprises me there's this much missing. That's a lot for a single animal to eat in one sitting. It's possible once we've done the DNA of the predator we'll find more than one was here.”