by Piers Platt
“Yup,” Falken agreed. “We’ll get to that. But the proxies are made up of synthetic flesh and muscle, sepcially formulated to have the same nutritional content as the dragon’s normal prey. And we’re careful to limit the number of safari trips to the surface, so we don’t disrupt their natural hunting behavior too much. Other questions about your proxies, or the sensory displacement units … or anything else?” He saw one of the brothers raise his hand. “Yeah – Kuda.”
“Will we see other tour groups down there?”
“We may,” Falken said. “There’s another operator up here in orbit with us, and there are only a few hundred dragons, who all live in and around the aerie. It’s a pretty big place, as you’ll see, but … we do see their trucks and proxies from time to time. But I’ll have a radio link with them once we’re on the ground, so we’ll try to stay out of their way, and vice versa.”
“I think I’m scheduled to tour with them next. Is that the Adrenaline Junkies?” Raynard asked.
Falken nodded. “Yup.”
“My colleague warned me that their tours get a bit wild,” Raynard said. “He said they’re a bunch of cowboys.”
Falken glanced at Greban, who cleared his throat. “We don’t like to comment on the business practices of our competitors,” he said, smiling evenly.
Chapter 5
“This is a dragon,” Falken said. On the screen, a video showed a leathery brown creature perched on a rock. As they watched, it stretched its neck and nibbled at a fold of skin along its back, then yawned, displaying a mouth full of jagged teeth. “The Latin name is ventiraptor olympus, which means ‘wind hunter.’ They don’t really fit into Earth’s animal kingdom structure neatly – they’re cold-blooded, like reptiles, but give birth to live young like mammals do, and have hollow bones like many species of bird – that helps them fly, of course.”
The dragon crouched down, then launched itself into the air, spreading its wings wide. The camera followed closely, zooming in on the dragon’s head.
“As you can see, they have no eyes, but their sense of smell is fairly good – much better than humans. And those large ears give them excellent hearing and echolocation, like bats. They hunt by noise, and once they get in close, by scent, too. Your proxy is designed to give off minimal odors, so the name of the game is being as quiet as possible.”
The view shifted, showing a large vehicle hovering several feet above the ground. It had a clear canopy, under which sat a driver’s station, and behind it, three rows of seats, each mounted slightly higher than the one in front of it.
“Once we displace to the surface, we’ll all board a safari truck that looks like this. It’s a hovercraft, but we’ve modified it to be nearly silent, and we also use active noise cancellation devices to ‘hide’ our movement as we travel around. Summoning the dragons is as easy as turning off the noise cancellation – they know the engines mean food.”
The screen changed again, and a three-dimensional terrain map appeared, with a steep-sided, circular mountain at its center.
“The dragons all live on Mount Olympus itself – it’s an eight-thousand foot volcanic peak located about eleven miles from our base camp area. Don’t worry, the volcano isn’t active anymore. The dragons live right up in that volcanic crater at the peak – we call it ‘the aerie.’ We won’t be going up there, but don’t worry – they’ll come to us. And that brings us to our safety brief.”
Shep snorted. “‘Safety brief?!’ Aren’t we supposed to get killed?”
“Yup,” Falken agreed. “But not until I say so. We only have a limited number of proxies built for you down there, and I wouldn’t want you to use them up too fast. So, day one – that’s today – you’ll stay inside the vehicle at all times. I might get out, but you do not.”
“What if we get attacked?” Vina asked.
“That canopy on the truck was specially designed – it will protect your proxy, you just need to sit tight.”
“Hell, I hope we do get attacked!” Kuda laughed.
“We will, soon enough,” Falken said. “But the first trip this morning is mainly for orientation. I want everyone to get comfortable with sensory displacement and the proxies, and just sit back and enjoy a little sightseeing. Then this afternoon we’ll head closer to the aerie, and get a good, close-up look at the dragons. It’s mating season right now, so they’re very aggressive. We’ll probably see some fights, which make for some great photos.” Falken pointed at Raynard, who nodded eagerly.
“So when are we allowed out of the truck?” Kuda asked.
“Tomorrow,” Falken said. “We’ll head back to the mountain first thing tomorrow morning, but this time we’ll dismount. Before we do, I’ll give you some tips on how to maximize your time on the ground – in order to evade the dragons a bit longer. Pay attention, because when your proxy is killed – and notice, I didn’t say ‘if,’ I said ‘when’ – then you’re stuck back here on the Ecolympus, and you have to sit around twiddling your thumbs until the afternoon trip to go back out again.”
Greban clasped his hands together and smiled. “And with that, folks, I’ll ask all of you to make a quick trip to the restroom in your cabins, and then make your way to the sensory displacement room for your first safari.”
*
Vina finished tying her brown hair into a bun, and then took Falken’s hand, stepping into the sensory displacement pod.
“There you go … just sit back,” Falken told her. “Now I’m going to tilt the pod, and you’ll feel the gel start to flow in under you. It’s nice and warm.”
She nodded, and Falken saw her shiver in nervous anticipation. She squeezed his hand suddenly.
“Does it hurt?” she asked, her eyes wide. “Not the pod … the dragons. When they … get you.”
Falken shook his head. “No. The proxies don’t have pain receptors. But … you’re still experiencing the attack. Seeing it, hearing it … it can be a little traumatic.” He took her hand and squeezed it. “If you don’t want to dismount, you don’t have to – you can definitely stay inside the truck the whole time.”
“I’m worried I’ll even be too scared for that!”
“Well, how do you break the connection with your proxy, if you feel like you need to get out?” Falken asked.
“I bite down three times, and that breaks the connection and wakes me back up, up here on the ship,” she recited.
“Right.” Falken smiled. “So you’ve always got a way out, if you need it. And I’ll be right there with you.” He squeezed her hand back. “Remember: it’s not really you down there. And once you see Olympus, you’ll be glad you went.”
“It’s that pretty?”
“It is,” Falken said. He reached over and tapped on the pod’s diagnostic menu, verifying that it had made a good connection to her proxy. “Ready?”
*
Falken opened his eyes and found himself standing in the proxy hangar. Ahead, sunlight filtered through the clear geodesic dome of Ecolympus’ base camp facility. The hangar was little more than a shipping container with one side cut away – along the wall behind him, production robots sat idle, waiting to assemble the next set of proxies when needed. Falken stretched and shook himself, spreading his green fingers as he lifted his arms over his head. Then, satisfied that the proxy was responding to his commands, he stepped out of the hangar, boots crunching in the gravel.
The rest of the tour group stood in a knot near the safari truck, watching as Shep ran laps between the truck and the edge of the dome. As he turned back from his last sprint to the dome, he saw Falken and grinned.
“I’m not getting tired!” he yelled.
Falken laughed. “That’s because your proxy’s got a lot more stamina than your real body.”
“Will it ever get tired?” Raynard asked, flexing his green-tinged arm muscles experimentally.
“Eventually,” Falken said. “The proxies are powered by an organic battery which does run out, but we’re not really down here long enough t
o exhaust them.”
The truck was parked atop a large charging pad near an array of solar panels. Falken opened the driver’s door and flicked the vehicle on. It rose several inches off the ground with a slight, high-pitched whine. Falken activated the vehicle’s noise cancellation, and the whine disappeared.
“All right, guys,” Falken said, pulling open the passenger compartment door. “Hop in and let’s go for a ride.”
While the group climbed aboard, Falken unzipped a field pack lying next to the driver’s seat. He flipped the pack’s lid up, and mentally inventoried its contents, verifying, as he did before every trip, that everything was in there.
Laminated backup map, camera, spare radio, emergency rations, first aid kit.
“Is that a medical kit?” Vina asked. She had picked the row immediately behind Falken, sitting on the right side of the truck.
He nodded. “Yup. Not for us, don’t worry.”
“Who, then?”
Falken shrugged. “A few years back we had an incident here – an unauthorized landing, if you can call it that. Bentun, I think the guy’s name was. He was dealing with some stuff, according to the investigation – depression, suicidal tendencies – anyway, he decided that he wanted to get killed by a dragon. He rented a ship and got himself shot down by the drone patrol up there, then rode an escape pod down to the surface. But when he saw the dragons he had a change of heart. I was out on tour when he landed, but I didn’t have a medical kit on me. So,” he patted the kit, “I carry one now, just in case. You never know.”
“He died?” Ed asked, speaking up for the first time since breakfast.
“I couldn’t get to him in time,” Falken said simply. “So remember: your proxies are shooting video continuously – everything you see and hear is getting recorded, so you can watch the tour again later. But if you want to do some more serious photography, in the pouch in front of your seat, each of you will find a camera that you can use while we’re down here. As with the proxies, everything you shoot is automatically uplinked to the Ecolympus, so we’ll be able to watch all the photos and videos you shoot as soon as we get back. Raynard, sorry – it’s probably not quite as fancy as your usual equipment.”
“No, this is a good little rig,” Raynard said, sliding his camera out of the pocket and selecting a telephoto zoom lens for it.
“All right,” Falken said. “Let’s get going.”
He turned back to the truck’s controls and pulled smoothly off the charging pad, heading for the dome. A section of the clear exterior slid up as they approached, creating an exit door. Then they were outside, in the wilds of Olympus.
The guests were silent, peering around them in awe at the planet’s terrain. Circular gray stone formations rose from the ground at random intervals – some were just a few inches tall and a few feet across, while others rose several stories high. All were dotted with multi-colored patches of lichen and mosses, and mushrooms of various sizes and shapes sprung from the ground in thick clusters. Many of the rounded plateaus had waterfalls cascading over their sides, fed by underground springs that bubbled up to their summits and then spilled out over the edges. Small streams mingled at ground level, joining here and there into larger waterways, whose white rapids rushed between smooth boulders. The sky above was clear and blue, the sun high over the horizon. Falken’s practiced eye scanned the sky automatically, but it appeared empty.
“It’s beautiful,” Vina said quietly.
Falken smiled over his shoulder. “Told you.” He pointed the truck toward a narrow road carved amongst the stone mesas.
“The round rock formations you see are rarely found on other planets – geologists are still trying to figure out exactly what caused them. Their best guess is some combination of volcanic activity, mixed with erosion from the water. But they haven’t been able to determine why they’re perfectly round.”
“Kind of looks like a giant hammered a bunch of round pegs into the ground at random,” Shep commented.
“That it does,” Falken agreed. He maneuvered the truck around the edge of a particularly large mesa and then sped up, splashing over two small streams before pulling off the main roadway. He slowed the truck as they passed through a glade of tall mushrooms, their white stems waving gently as the truck hovered past, the broad caps flecked with brown and green. The stand of mushrooms thinned, and Falken pulled to a stop at the edge of a steep precipice. A deep, wide canyon spread out in front of them. On the far side, myriad waterfalls poured over the cliff’s edge, turning into a fine mist before they reached the ground far below. Falken set his foot on the brake and waited, letting his guests take in the view.
“Welcome to Olympus, guys. The ancient Greeks believed that Olympus was a mythical mountain, home to their gods. I think the initial explorers here chose this planet’s name well. And this afternoon, when you see the dragons, I think you’ll agree.”
Raynard straightened up behind his camera, pausing from shooting photos. “It’s so picturesque; it’s surreal.”
“It almost feels like a simulation,” Vina agreed.
“It’s not a simulation,” Falken said, a wry smile touching his lips. “Trust me on that.”
Chapter 6
“Olympus Research Center, this is the Liberty Belle,” Captain Muir called, speaking into her headset microphone from her seat on the ship’s bridge.
“This is the Research Center, Luthena here,” a female voice replied a moment later.
“Roger. Morning, Luthena. Ah, we’ve completed resupply of Adrenaline Junkies, we’re beginning Olympus approach now,” Muir said. “Please advise of conditions on the ground.”
“Stand by,” Luthena said.
“Hey, Liberty Belle, Adrenaline Junkies,” a male voice broke in a second later.
“Yes?” Muir asked.
“That ass is looking fine from this angle.”
Muir rolled her eyes and snorted. “Quiss, are you hitting on my ship?”
“No, no,” Quiss told her. “We just docked with you for almost an hour. I’m spent, baby. You gotta give me some time to recover.”
Muir chuckled. “I’m going to have to start charging you Junkies a sexual harassment surcharge on every resupply,” she said.
“Oh, come on, girl,” Quiss replied. “You know you’d miss me if I wasn’t around to whisper sweet nothings to you over the radio.”
“Doubtful,” Muir replied, smiling. “I’m going to report you to your boss, see what she thinks of your behavior.”
“She says if she has to dock my pay any further, I’ll be owing her money each month,” Quiss relayed.
Muir laughed.
“Liberty Belle, Research Center,” Luthena called. “Sorry for the delay, I just wanted to have a look at the latest sensor reports. Weather’s clear – sunny, a few clouds, light winds.”
“And the dragons?” Muir asked.
“No activity at this time,” Luthena said. “Keep your distance from the aerie as usual, and you should be fine. Ecolympus are out on safari right now, but they’re just doing morning orientation, not trolling for dragons yet.”
“Sounds good,” Muir said. “See you in a few.” She cut the connection, and nodded at her pilot, in the seat below hers. “Take us in, Talus.”
“Roger,” he said. The ship’s nose dipped toward the planet, and slowly, the green-gray landscape filled their entire view, looming closer.
Muir kept one eye on the altimeter, and the other on the holographic heads-up display superimposed on the Liberty Belle’s forward viewport, but Talus flew the bulky craft with smooth precision, as usual. A warning alarm sounded, and Muir spotted the drones of the patrol screen converging on their path, their laser rangefinders lighting up the hull of the Liberty Belle as it approached.
“Planetary defenses detected,” the ship’s computer cautioned, as the drones oriented their weapons toward the ship, and then queried the ship’s transponder for the proper authorization codes.
“Open sesame,” Ta
lus murmured, and after a tense second, the drones dispersed, zooming apart to create an open corridor through to the planet’s surface.
Talus guided the Liberty Belle down through the upper atmosphere, gripping the controls as they hit a patch of turbulence. “Starboard thruster’s a little feisty,” he commented.
“‘Feisty’?” Muir asked.
“Or, I dunno … twitchy. It’s acting up.”
“How so?” Muir asked.
Talus considered this. “It’s giving me more power than I’m asking for.”
Muir frowned with concern, gauging their distance to the landing pad. “Can you land?”
“Yeah, easily. I’m just being picky,” Talus assured her.
“Do we need to take a look at it on the ground?”
Talus shrugged. “In person? Hell, no. You know my rule.”
“‘Never leave the ship,’ ” Muir quoted.
“Damn straight. But I might take a peek remotely with a nano-drone while you offload stuff, if it’s okay with you.”
“Sure,” Muir said. She watched as Mount Olympus pulled into view ahead of them. Out of habit, she scrolled through several sensor modes on her computer display, checking for signs of dragons, but Luthena had been right – the creatures were nowhere to be found this morning.
Good. No matter how many times we do this, it always makes me nervous when they attack the ship.
The Liberty Belle slid through a wide curve around the mountain and then pulled up, hovering in mid-air, before Talus brought them down for a soft landing on the research center launch pad, surrounded by high, razor-wire fences. The ship’s landing struts crunched into place on the gravel of the pad, and Muir saw a wide docking tube extend from a hole in the fence, reaching out to make contact with the outer hatch of the Liberty Belle. Muir unbuckled her safety harness and patted Talus on the shoulder.
“Nice one. See what’s up with that thruster. I’ll get us docked.”
“On it,” Talus said, already flipping through screens at his station.
