Cosmopath - [Bengal Station 03]

by Eric Brown

  Four guards made their way across to the Mussoree, led by Singh, while the rest of the team fanned out around the two ships.

  Vaughan glanced at the gathered scientists. There was an air of expectancy among them, almost a sense of anticipation, as if they half expected whatever had happened to the crew of theMussoree to befall the security team now.

  Singh and his men entered the starship, stepping over invasive rafts of fungus. They paused in the entrance, and then Vaughan saw something move beyond them. It was quick and silver, dancing nimbly towards them on six long legs. He felt his pulse quicken.

  Namura had seen it too. She gave a shriek and reached out to grip McIntosh’s arm.

  Chandrasakar laughed. “Security drones,” he said. “I had the rescue mission leave them aboard the Mussoree when they departed.”

  The gathered watchers relaxed, Vaughan with them.

  In the entrance of theMussoree, Singh consulted with the drone; then he and his men followed the AI, turned right within the ship and disappeared from sight.

  To either side of theMussoree, other guards could be seen climbing the slopes, ever attentive and weapons readied. Vaughan watched as six guards to right and left vanished into the polyp forest, followed by a complement of the Kali’s own spider drones.

  * * * *

  Two hours later he was in the observation lounge with Namura and McIntosh; they had breakfasted and then moved with coffees to an area of padded seats before a curving viewscreen. While the scientists talked shop, Vaughan nursed his coffee and watched the play of light across the ever-changing landscape as the sun rose.

  Two things conspired to give the surface of the planet the visually disconcerting effect of never quite remaining the same; the first and most obvious was the rate of growth of the ubiquitous fungus. Vaughan experimented. He stared at an area of land for a few minutes, then closed his eyes for a minute. When he opened them again and stared at where he had been looking, the land had shrugged new growths into being. It was like nothing he had ever seen before, and on some deep-seated psychological level he found it disturbing. The second aspect of the change was that as the day elapsed, then the fungus changed colour; from the cream of morning, through the yellow and burnt orange of midday, to its current hue of deep bronze. Vaughan wondered what sunset might bring, and whether during the period of darkness the growths might revert to their earlier, etiolated off-white.

  His inspection was interrupted by the return of Parveen Das and Chandrasakar. “I’ve just heard from security,” the tycoon reported. “They’ve secured the immediate vicinity with the aid of drones. It’s safe to go out, though I counsel caution. There’s a laser cordon that will stop anything from getting in, and likewise from getting out. Please don’t attempt to stray beyond this. For the time being, too, the Mussoree is out of bounds until security has gone through it from top to bottom.” He paused, then said, “I suggest you venture out in pairs, and stay within sight of the ship.”

  As the scientists trouped from the observation lounge, Vaughan caught Chandrasakar’s attention and said, “When will you be needing me?”

  “Not for a good few hours yet - maybe even not until tomorrow. We’ve got to secure the Mussoree, and then assess the situation with the engineer. I have a team of medics on standby to get in there. Take it easy for a while, go for a stroll. If you’re going out there, Dr Das, could you accompany Mr Vaughan?”

  She nodded. “Ready for a short hike, Jeff?”

  “Lead the way.”

  Chandrasakar watched them as they took the elevator to the exit hatch.

  They approached the exit and Vaughan stared through the triangular opening at the copper-hued landscape. He slipped a hand under his jacket and touched the butt of his laser, as if for reassurance.

  The Kali had come down on a great raft of fungus, and as they stepped out onto the ramp he saw that the growth had slowly ballooned around the edges of the ship. A dozen spidery drones were employed in burning the slow growth, flensing away great chunks of the stuff with mono-molecular filaments.

  Vaughan inhaled.

  Das laughed. “It’s almost like fried mushroom. Almost, but there’s something sick-making about the stench.”

  “I wonder if they’re edible?” Vaughan mused.

  “Dammit, I forgot to bring along my field-guide to edible fungi.”

  They paused at the end of the ramp. “Well,” Vaughan said, “this is a first for me.”

  She looked at him. “I thought you said you’d been to a couple of other worlds?”

  “They were settled colonies. This is terra incognita. A truly alien planet. Here goes.”

  He stepped from the gunmetal steel of the ramp and onto a swelling of sun-baked fungus. He had expected it to give, to be spongy underfoot, but it was just like stepping onto hard, roughened timber. He knelt and attempted to push his fingers into the ground; he might as well have tried to make an impression in solid oak.

  McIntosh and Namura had wandered away from the ship and were standing side by side, staring around them in wonder. Vaughan crossed to them, followed by Das.

  “When I read the survey reports from the rescue mission,” Namura said, “I never dreamed it would be so... so un-earthlike. Nor, I must admit, did I dream that the entire surface would be covered with the stuff.” She laughed. “This is a biologist’s dream.”

  McIntosh said, “And a geologist’s nightmare. I wonder how far we’ll need to drill through the mushrooms to get at the really interesting stuff?”

  Namura knelt, taking a knife and paring a sliver of fungus from the ground. She placed the sample in a plastic container and stowed it in her backpack, speaking quietly into her handset.

  They moved on, past theMussoree, and climbed the rise that had grown beyond the ship. Vaughan noted that the security drones left by the rescue mission had been busy cutting away the fungal growth from around the exploration ship. He wondered if, without their attention, the planet would have consumed the starship and left no trace of its whereabouts.

  He shielded his eyes and looked up at the sun. It was a little duller than Sol, he thought, though much, much larger; seen from here it seemed to mass at least ten times as large as their home star. The slow ejection of fiery whips from its circumference, and the gelid progression of sunspots across its vast surface, was a mesmerising spectacle.

  “Do you know how long a day lasts here?” he asked Das as they climbed.

  “Approximately thirty hours,” she said. “Sixteen of daylight and fourteen of night. We’re about...” She consulted her handset, “two-thirds of the way through the day.”

  McIntosh peered at the chronometer on her handset. “You’ve customised it for the planet’s diurnal cycle? Clever.”

  “When in Rome...”

  If it took security the rest of the day to ensure the Mussoree was safe, then he had a long wait before he was required to read the dead mind of the engineer. Part of him wanted nothing more than to get it over with, while another part was relieved by the delay. He tried to forget about the dead engineer and appreciate the amazing landscape.

  They reached the crest of the rise and halted, gazing back the way they had come. From this elevation, level with the curving upper superstructure of the Mussoree, they had a clear view of the valley’s extent; the two ships were situated on either side of the valley bottom between the two hills; further down the valley opened out towards a distant plane, shimmering a dull copper in the heat.

  He heard a sudden, loud buzzing sound coming from high above, and as he looked up he saw a vast, ever-changing cloud of what looked like insects; the amorphous swarm swept overhead, turned as one and rolled above the Mussoree, blotting out a third of the sun.

  “Look at that,” Namura said, pointing. She stared at the polyp forest that extended away from the rise towards the distant ‘mountain’ range. The stalks were swaying in the slight breeze, tall, fettuccini-like lengths. Vaughan smiled as he anticipated telling Sukara all about Delta Cephei V
II.

  “I must go and grab a sample,” Namura said. McIntosh shrugged and said, “Mushroom hunters...” following her as she moved towards the swaying forest.

  Vaughan and Das watched them go. The distance was deceptive; it took the couple perhaps five minutes before they reached the forest and slipped between its moving boles.

  “I wonder if I’ll be redundant here,” Das said.

  “I haven’t seen any little green men,” Vaughan said. He enabled his tele-ability again and scanned; but for the mind-shields of the Kali’s crew, he came up with nothing.

  “I’ve just scanned.”

  “And?” Das raised an eyebrow.

  “You’d expect to pick up something if there were sentients within range. It’s often impossible to actually read an alien mind, but I’d pick up signatures.”

  “And there’s nothing?”

  He nodded, switching off the program. “Not a thing. Of course, that doesn’t mean to say that Delta Cephei VII doesn’t have sentient life. If there were aliens, then they might be beyond range, or so alien it’d be impossible to recognise their signatures if they were under our noses.”

  Das laughed and tried to dig the heel of her boot into the surface. “Sentient fungus, hm? That’d be a first.”

  They were silent for a while, watching the landscape as it gradually, very gradually, changed colour; from the bronze of minutes ago to a deep, burnished mahogany. Here and there, high in the sky, he made out the dark silhouettes of what looked like birds, but giant examples more like pterosaurs.

  Vaughan considered his words, then said, “Do you mind me asking how you and Chandrasakar came to...?”

  She bridled. Something flared in her eyes. “If you think I’m merely attracted to his wealth, his power-”

  “I never said that,” he defended himself. “But... now that you’ve mentioned it, some people are attracted to those very attributes.”

  She stared at him. “Are you?” she asked.

  He smiled. “No. No, quite the opposite.”

  She squinted at him. “You mean... for you, powerlessness has a certain allure?”

  He wondered if she had purposefully misconstrued his words. He thought about it. “Well, probably, yes. Men often...” He stopped, then went on, “But what I really meant was that I find power repulsive - and those in power repulsive too.”

  She looked at him, still with one eye closed. “Very interesting, Jeff. Whichever way you look at it.”

  He shrugged. “For all Chandrasakar’s altruism - his charitable acts and the like - I can’t bring myself to trust him.” He was trying to draw her, and he wondered if she was aware of it.

  She was silent, so he said, “What do you think?”

  She shook her head, dismissive. “I think you should be less suspicious,” she said. “Rab, despite all he stands for, is a good man, ah-cha?” And her tone suggested that she wanted to end that topic of conversation.

  He was about to say, “I’ll take your word for it...” when he heard a cry from the polyp forest.

  They turned in time to see McIntosh come sprinting out from between the giant fronds.

  Vaughan felt as if someone had punched him in the chest. He moved towards the Australian, then broke into a run to meet him. Namura, he thought; something’s happened to the girl. He experienced a sickening sense of dread at the prospect.

  He caught McIntosh, held his shoulders and shook him. “What the hell?”

  The Australian was panting hard, sucking in painful breaths. “Kiki,” he managed. “They’ve got Kiki!”

  “Who, for Chrissake?”

  “Didn’t... didn’t see them. I saw something move, a quick shadow. Then Kiki screamed and she was gone.”

  Later, Vaughan was surprised by what he did then. Perhaps, had he not been armed with the laser, he might have been more circumspect. Before he could give his actions a thought, he left McIntosh with Das and sprinted towards the polyp forest.

  He drew his laser and slowed as he came to the thigh-thick trunks, each one sprouting from the ground at intervals of perhaps a metre. They were a sickly off-white, and the way they swayed back and forth fostered in Vaughan a certain queasiness.

  He ran through the forest, aware of the sudden coolness in the shadow of the high umbrella polyps, and the odd stench that filled the air. It smelled like rotten meat, and seconds later he saw the cause: the plant’s whip-like tendrils had snared on a number of small, furred animals the size of rats, but many-legged, which were bound against the boles in various stages of decomposition.

  He wondered if this was what had taken Namura - and then he saw the footprints.

  The fungus in the shadow of the polyps was soft and easily bruised, and he made out two sets of footprints leading further into the forest. He followed at a run, wondering when he’d come up against the blue laser cordon.

  The two sets of footprints parted company; the larger, McIntosh’s, moved to the right as he’d evidently paused to examine a captured rat-analogue; Namura’s continued ahead. Vaughan studied McIntosh’s prints. They continued round the bole, advanced, and then were scuffed as the Australian had turned and run back through the forest, taking a different route to that of his entrance.

  Vaughan rejoined Namura’s prints and followed them for ten metres.

  He stopped, knelt, and examined the ground.

  A pair of skid-marks replaced the neat footprints; evidently Namura had been grabbed here and dragged off. He looked around the forest floor and made out more indentations in the fungus, prints around the same size as Namura’s. He judged that her abductors had numbered around a dozen.

  He stood and ran, following the prints through the forest.

  Seconds later he heard the muffled cry. “David!” Namura yelled.

  It was impossible to tell how far away she might have been. He dodged round the slalom course of close-packed boles. He wanted to yell reassurance to the Japanese woman, but thought twice about alerting her attackers to his presence. He wondered at the terror she would be experiencing now - the field trip of a lifetime having turned into a nightmare.

  He hoped Das had alerted security: he would feel better if he were to be backed up by Singh and his team.

  He looked ahead through the serried boles, thought he saw a flicker of movement - slivers of green between the magnolia stalks. He increased his pace, his breathing coming easily, powered by adrenalin and the desire to save Namura.

  There - again he made out glimpses through the forest: at first he thought the green was Namura’s uniform, but then he reassessed the assumption. This green was a shade lighter.

  Namura screamed. He was perhaps five metres from the woman and her abductors now, and he levelled his laser, set to stun, and chanced a shot.

  The blast sliced through half a dozen trunks, and they not so much toppled as slid to the ground and lodged diagonally, impeding his progress. He struggled through the trunks, jumping some and ducking under others. Ahead, he made out running legs, sleek green backs: humanoids, then.

  He reckoned he’d be upon them in seconds - but he reckoned without the terrain. One second he was upright and sprinting and the next he’d slipped and went sprawling head-first into a trunk, narrowly missing the decomposing remains of a rat-creature.

  He picked himself up and looked ahead. There was no sign of Namura and the aliens. He called out her name. He examined the fungus underfoot, made out multiple footprints, and followed them. Five metres further on they split, taking different routes through the forest.

  He paused and stared ahead. In the distance, perhaps ten metres before him, he saw an odd blue light. He was puzzled for a second, until he recognised the laser cordon. He approached its four parallel bars that spanned the generation posts planted at ten-metre intervals in the fungus.

  He stared around him, wondering where the hell the aliens and Namura had vanished. He retraced his footsteps to the point where the aliens had split up, and looked for the heaviest set of prints working on th
e assumption that those must belong to the creature or creatures carrying Namura. At last he came upon slightly deeper indentations in the ground, made by what appeared to be two or three individuals - with frequent scuff marks, which suggested Namura had been dragged along.

  He followed these until they stopped. He stood and stared, wondering how the aliens had managed such a vanishing trick. There were no trunks nearby up which they might have climbed... He knelt and examined the ground. He made out an opening, about the width of a hand, and as he watched the slow growth of the fungal floor sealed the gap even further. It looked, he thought, like a pair of slowly closing lips, humorously mocking his impotence to rescue the biologist.

  He heard a sound behind him and jumped up, levelling his laser.