by Darrell Bain
The shaking noise lessened but now it felt as if it were inside the ship, boring into its metal and composite beams, braces and bulkheads. He had no idea how long it could stand up under the stress it was going through. No one does, he suddenly thought, because no ship like the one we're in has ever been subjected to such strain. He didn't know how long they had been descending then remembered the chronometer. He looked over at it.
0:05:56 it blinked and continued counting down the seconds until landing as he watched. 0:05:55, 54, 53...
He continued staring at the numbers as if mesmerized, wondering how Sissy could possibly stand the tension of knowing she might have to assume piloting duties any minute, any second. And as if his thought had brought it on he heard her murmur, “Uh oh!"
Her hands flew to the manual controls as the ship jolted, flinging his body against the straps of the safety harness. He bounced back, feeling the ship's noisy movement change again as if crying in despair from a chassis ill-suited to its environment. It staggered through the air in protest while Sissy's hands danced over the controls she and Terrell had built into her chair. She never quite lost control despite the extremely bumpy ride the rest of the way down but she never had full command of the ship either. It ended in a terrific collision with something and a tearing, crashing series of noises that went on and on as the ship bumped and scraped while pitching and yawing from side to side. It finally came to rest with the control room at a slight tilt. Creaking sounds ensued for another moment as gravity pulled at a hull and its supporting structure that hadn't really been made to hold the liner in that position. He kept still until all movement ceased and he was sure they were going to live.
“Watch that first step. It's a bummer!” Sissy said shakily.
“We're down, I take it?”
“Yes, and thank whatever gods or powers you want to that we made it—and still have power! The computer went bonkers when we were down to the last few kilometers and I had to take manual control. God, Travis, I almost lost it there for a minute or two.”
No one even noticed that she used his name rather than title.
“How far off?” He just assumed they hadn't landed exactly where they had intended.
“Not too far, I think. We'll have to wait on a satellite pass to get our bearings from its timer.”
“Hell, why wait? Let's just look outside!” He punched the release on the safety harness and stood up on wobbly feet. He looked around the control room. Jimmy was standing watch as the alternate while Masters, Terrell, Grindstaff and other senior officers were scattered through various parts of the ship. He had dictated sealed contingencies for each to act on in case he was killed during the landing. He chuckled gratefully to himself, knowing now they wouldn't have to be opened.
“Jimmy, check the other departments and see how they came through. I'll be in my office. Sissy, you did a great job! I wish there was some way to reward you other than saying thanks.”
She smiled. “I'll think of something.”
* * * *
An hour later all the reports were in. The ship had come down a good dozen miles from its intended resting place. It was situated on a slight rise that looked down on a moderate-sized river. He shuddered. If they had landed there, it could have been a disaster. A miss is as good as a mile, though, he said to himself. From his cabin different viewscreens showed a sweep of prairie on one side that became the beginnings of a forest on the other. The vegetation there looked somewhat like thick clusters of green cotton candy but farther off became taller and fuller with palmate leaves waving in a light breeze from multiple twisted trunks. A long swath of mangled vegetation marked the path of the crippled ship. The river wound through part of it then disappeared into thicker forest.
Travis invited Sissy, Brandon and Addie into his office to watch the army's six-man exploration team as they left the ship. All were heavily armed and watchful. They were not wearing environmental suits since there was no point to it. Whatever dangers the planet might hold, it did no good to worry about the air or microbes nor flora and fauna, for that matter. There was nowhere else to go.
Addie was in contact with Sergeant Miles Patterson of the weapons platoon who was leading the team. Occasionally she spoke, telling him to look at one thing or the other that, if not plants, were certainly plantlike. Soon though, a small furry eight-legged creature came into view. It saw the invaders and raised its body and two front appendages off the ground for a better look with its two perfectly normal eyes. It decided the strange new creatures might be dangerous and skittered away, moving amazingly fast.
“I'd hate to run into a big carnivore with eight legs that could run like that,” Brandon said with a theatrical shiver.
“I'm wondering if that's going to be the pattern,” Addie said.
“What?”
“Eight legged or variations thereof.”
As if deciding to affirm her conjecture, one of the troopers stirred up another animal somewhat larger than the first. It had enormous hind legs, two pairs of long thin middle legs and kept the front pair and its long-necked head in the air. The feet were all clawed as they saw shortly. They shot out of the three digits at the terminal end of the first two pair of legs. “Nothing like a thumb,” Addie commented. “Probably not intelligent.” She had Patterson pan in for a closer look. “And something else. It looks as if the claws were extracted from a sphincter rather than a sheath. That's a curious adaptation I haven't seen before. I'll bet they prove to be bones.”
“How do we tell whether or not the things are intelligent?” Travis asked. “I'd hate to have us shoot something we should have been talking to.”
“We'll just have to be careful at first.”
The explorers halted at the edge of heavier growth that rapidly expanded in size as it burgeoned into a forest in the near distance. They conferred a moment then two of them cautiously entered the edge of it nearest to them, a finger of the heavy vegetation jutting from the rest that had been cut in two by the ship's path of destruction as it crash-landed. The two soon disappeared from sight.
“Brrr,” Brandon said. “I don't think I'd want their job. First ones into a strange forest and not knowing what kind of monsters might be lurking? I'd be a nervous wreck in two minutes.”
Travis didn't care to admit it but he wouldn't have wanted the job, either. The unknown was almost always scary and here everything was new and threatening.
“Go ahead and kill it,” Addie said, obviously speaking to the lieutenant. “I need to start some dissections.”
“Tell him to examine the prairie grass or whatever that stuff is before they come in and see how easily it burns. Or if it does. Tell them to be careful, though. We don't want to start a fire and let it get out of control.”
She nodded and repeated Travis’ instructions.
“I need to check on the tender so we can get those convicts off the ship,” Brandon said.
“Go ahead,” Travis agreed. “I'd like be shut of them as soon as possible. And good riddance.”
* * * *
Two days later, the first larger party was ready to debark. The explorers had found surprises but nothing so far that could impede settlement. In the meantime Brandon had to recruit a work crew to roll the tenders out of their bays and rig a crane to lower them to the ground. Somehow that contingency had been overlooked. The job was almost completed, needing only to use both of the tractors onboard, along with a bare minimum of thrust to drag them away from the ship. The tractors had been unpacked and serviced while the other part of the heroic job was underway. They had originally been designated for one of the new colonies that had yet to develop heavy manufacturing capability and where horses didn't thrive.
The exploration parties had brought many specimens back to the ship for Addie and the other scientists and agriculturists. Travis stopped by for a time to watch her dissect one of the octapedal creatures.
“I think we're going to find eight legs is the norm, at least on this continent,”
she told him. “Of course there will be an almost infinite variety of adaptations from the basic model. Probably we'll find some where a pair or more of the legs have disappeared or grown into something else, tendrils maybe.”
“Why so much deviation?” he asked.
She looked up from the dissection table for a moment. “Animals evolve to fit their environment and to create a niche for themselves in it. It's the same on all the worlds we've explored. However, evolution doesn't necessarily produce the best solution for a particular environment. It's satisfied when something works well enough for the species to survive. Have the exploration teams found anything new the last few hours? I had to get some rest before starting this if I was going to make any sense out of it.”
“Not that they've reported to me. No, I take that back. They did run across one big carnivore we'll have to watch out for. Something resembling a cross between a grizzly bear and an octopus.”
“Wow. You wouldn't want to let something like that get in close, would you?”
“Not in my lifetime! Two pair of legs with big razor-sharp claws and two very muscular tentacles with barbs on them. By the way, is that thing you're cutting on good to eat?”
“I don't know yet. I still have to send the organs and muscle and nerve tissue through a chemical analysis. Probably, though. The first little critter I looked at turned out okay so far as I can tell. It would be nice if we had some test animals like mice to use.”
“Mice? You need some mice?”
“That's what I said but unfortunately I didn't know I was going to a completely new planet. I didn't bring any.”
“How many do you need?” Travis grinned mischievously at her.
“Now where in hell are you going to get ... oh, shit!” She almost slapped her forehead before remembering her hand was in a rubber glove spattered with ochre-colored blood resembling liquid rust.
“Right. Every damn ship in the galaxy has them. Somehow they come aboard during construction or with supplies despite everything we do to prevent it. I'll talk to the cooks and see if they can live trap some for you.”
“Thanks. I guess I didn't get as much sleep as I thought, forgetting something like that. Shucks, I've even read the story.”
“Story?”
“Yes, sir. The Men in the Walls. It was published about a hundred and fifty years ago and was revived when our ships began carting mice all over the galaxy. I've got a copy if you'd like to read it.”
“I would. Science fiction, I take it?”
“Uh huh.”
“Okay, whenever you get a chance.” He left while thinking the conversation had been punctuated with only one “sir” and no “captains". Perhaps it was a harbinger of him no longer having a ship to command, although come to think of it, he now had a whole planet on his hands, at least temporarily.
* * * *
“Is that far enough away?” Travis asked dubiously. He was outside the ship, purportedly checking on the readiness of the tender that was to transport the convicts but more for some fresh air. It smelled strange and a bit strong to nostrils adjusted to the ship's odors for so long.
“Yes, sir,” Jimmy said. He would be piloting the tender with the convicts. “It'll be fine. I'll have a clear path for takeoff and I'll have it pointing away from the ship when I add thrust to climb. No problem at all. In fact, the jets will even help clear a little of the prairie.”
“Well, that's a damn good thing,” he said, shaking his head ruefully. “That stuff is tougher than steel. Or seems like it anyway.” He reached down and attempted to pull a knee-high strand of the pale green growth from the earth. It resisted as if it had roots longer than him. However ... he pulled his knife from its sheath and cut off the top portion of it. Even that took a little effort, sharp as the blade was. He held it in his hand and examined it. “I wonder if this part is good to eat?”
“I wouldn't know, sir.”
Travis wondered if Addie or any of her staff had examined it yet. As tough as the stem was he could crumble the oddly-shaped top of it in his fingers. It looked like a crumpled piece of thick wax paper but broke or tore easily. The inside was a pinkish meaty color. He sniffed. No particular smell. Shrugging, he dropped it and went on his way. He decided to mention it later but most likely the scientists were already investigating it. He gazed down over the small rolling hills covered with the stuff. It went on and on for miles, broken only by a few small streams or rivers. In the distance a herd of something grazed, looking more like ants on a carpet from so far away.
Already he found himself liking the planet. New Earth was a good name. Looking into the far future he could see where the present settlers and their ship might be relegated to myth, as if they were indigenous to the world and the “New” part of the name forgotten. The continents were being called Little Con and Big Con. He supposed that would do as well as anything for the time being. Besides, colonists almost always changed the first designations of surface features on planets. Explorers had given up trying to name mountains or rivers after themselves.
As he headed back to the ship, he saw Sissy coming toward him and began to smile. They hadn't repeated their tryst aboard ship but he couldn't see any good reason not to now, other than perhaps avoiding jealousy on the part of other men who were not yet paired off or who hadn't made arrangements similar to Sandy Johnson and the army twins.
“Good afternoon,” he said cheerfully as she drew to a halt in front of him.
“Good afternoon, Captain. Or should I say, Mayor?”
He laughed. “How about Travis? Or Mrs. Callahan if we continue with the naming arrangements popular on earth.”
“I have no objection,” she said promptly.
“Then let's go inside. Until we can find someone to marry us, we'll just have to live in sin.” He put his arm around her waist as they headed toward the ship, not caring who saw it.
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* * *
Chapter Nine
Fondez jostled Montingham out of his way and looked around frantically for an escape but the drawn firearms of the seven guards, six army and a security service woman, caused that hope to quickly die. Besides, where could he run to? He'd already heard talk of the carnivores that preyed on the herds of beasts that roamed the prairie and others that lurked in the jungles. He could see examples of both environments by looking in opposite directions now that he was finally outside the ship but the vistas were soon taken from him.
“Move,” Esmeralda Wong told him. “Inside. Buckle down with the straps or you'll wind up breaking some bones. And don't think we'll bring you back for treatment if you do because we won't.”
He glared at her. A fucking halfbreed. Wong, her name tag read. Chink and Mex to look at her, but regardless of her origins he had no choice but to comply. The bay of the tender had been provided with padded straps affixed to the numerous grommets and attachments for loads of any size or shape. He doubted they had ever been designed for human cargo, though. Goddamn that fucking Callahan, he thought. Tied down with a bunch of sordid convicts and being transported to God knows where.
He fastidiously brushed off a spot on the cargo blankets covering the part of the bay they were in, drawing a laugh from the convict beside him.
“What's wrong, fat cat? Scared to get your britches dirty?” a convict with a scarred face said to him and laughed.
Fondez lay down without answering but then began to think furiously. Whatever happened, he was going to be stuck with these convicts so he'd better be polite. They were killers, rapists, thieves and maybe even worse. He'd heard all kinds of stories about them. How would they treat a politician once they had been abandoned? Poorly, he'd be willing to bet unless he laid some groundwork right now while he had a chance. He glanced sideways at the con next to him while tightening the straps across his legs. He was an ugly bastard for sure but there was a sly, cynical grin on his face.
“They haven't heard the last of this,” he said, not that he had any immediate hop
e of doing anything about their situation but he thought it best to start the conversation on a positive note.
“You got that right, Fatty.”
“Yeah? My name's Joe Fondez. What's yours?”
“Crag Morehill, but I doubt it's going to matter to you.”
“You might be surprised. Do you know what I was thrown in here with you for?”
“No.” Morehill fastened his chest strap before replying further. He'd heard the two politicians had tried a mutiny and failed. “What's the difference?”
Fondez lowered his voice so neither of the two guards in the bay with them could overhear. “I have a following in the ship. If we can take over the tender, it might help.” He didn't think he needed to tell the convict how small that following was.
“What've you been popping?”
But Fondez could see him begin wondering. He wasn't fitting the stereotype of politicians he knew most people carried in their heads.
