Solbidyum Wars Saga 5: Desolation

by Dale C. Musser

  I followed the tracks for about a half a kilometer to a place where it neared the ravine. There I found what I had been seeking days earlier, a narrow sloping groove eroded out of the rock that gradually widened into a gully sloping down into the slot canyon. My first thought was to enter the gully and follow it into the ravine, but my instincts told me that until I knew what the creature was that left the tracks and had a better idea just were it might be, that I might be better off staying out of it. I did walk over to the ravine and looked down into it, hoping I might get to see the animal that had left the tracks, but I saw nothing but the stream that wound itself through the gorge. Though I did think I could see a few tracks in the sand at places along the stream, I was too far away to know for sure. As I returned to the ship, I decided that in future forays, I would bring along one of the assault rifles from the arms locker just to be on the safe side.

  I wanted to get a better idea what was going on outside the ship at night, but with external ship’s sensors damaged, I didn’t see any way I would be able to do so without actually spending some time outdoors, and I didn’t feel too comfortable doing that after seeing the tracks earlier that day. I tried the computer to see if I could find any information on the animal that made them, but there was nothing in the computer that matched the tracks. Kala entered behind me carrying one baby in each arm.

  “Tib, could you take one of these two? My arms are getting tired.”

  “Certainly,” I said as I turned, and she leaned down handing Reidecor to me.” No sooner was Reidecor my arms than Lunnie began crying.

  “There, there now, we’ll have none of this.” Kala said to Lunnie. “Your brother deserves time with his daddy too. You can’t have him all to yourself.” I know that babies at this age are too young to understand what people are saying to them, and certainly too young to know what is going on. However, Lunnie stopped crying and gave Kala a hard look before looking at me and sort of whimpered. Reidecor on the other hand, simply lay in my arms with his eyes moving about randomly looking at the lights around the control room and acting just as one would expect any normal baby to perform.

  “What are you searching for, Tib?” Kala asked once Lunnie had quieted down.

  “I’m trying to find out what animal made the tracks I found today,” I answered, “they’re much too large to be any of the animals listed on the computer as being a native here.”

  “It’s possible it may be an animal that was missed in the original surveys.” Kala replied, “The study that was being made here was 600 years ago at a time when the solbidyum wars were taking place, and from what I read from the reports the planet survey was cut short because of the war. There are parts of the planet that they never really got to. It’s very possible that your track maker is an animal they missed in the survey. It might be rare or at least scarce at that time and has since increased its numbers. Do you think it’s something dangerous?”

  “I’m not sure, but I got a very uneasy feeling looking at the tracks that this was something I didn’t want to mess with. I wish the external visual sensors were still working. I would like to see what’s out there at night without actually being outside."

  Kala rocked Lunnie in her arms as she said, “You could put a remote visual sensor outside.”

  “Where would I get it from?” I asked.

  “There should be one in the supply locker; most ships have at least one for emergency repairs.”

  Kala paused her rocking of Lunnie, who was now asleep, just as Reidecor started fussing. I began trying to rock him in my arms as Kala said. “He needs a changing, not rocking.”

  “Oh! How can you tell?”

  “By the way he is crying, and by the way he wrinkled up his face, also by the smell. How could you miss that?” she said with a grin.

  Much as I hated the task, I honestly didn’t think it was fair passing diaper duty to Kala all the time, so I headed to the replicator to get a fresh diaper. Baby diapers in the Federation were similar in function to those on earth but were shaped more like a small pair of underwear than diapers. They were made of a light material but were extremely absorbent and thickened as they absorbed liquid and most solid waste. This usually meant that very little manual cleaning was required, and then only a wiping with a damp sterilized cloth, also provided by the replicator. I say usually, but young Reidecor seemed to be an exception to the rule, if I didn’t know better I would have believed that someone had spread a very sticky peanut butter like substance over his bottom.

  As babies went, Reidecor and Lunnie couldn’t be more different. Reidecor seemed content to eat and sleep and showed only passing interest in things when he was awake. Lunnie was the opposite, she seemed to never sleep and when she did it was only for a brief period, and she seemed to study everything intently. Lunnie was always twisting and turning looking at things while Reidecor was content to lie in your arms, staring at your face until he fell asleep again.

  By the time I had finished cleaning Reidecor up and had him into his second fresh diaper, (he’d managed to mess the first one up before I got it on him completely), Kala had gone to the supply locker and returned, still carrying Lunnie in one arm, but now she had a small case in her other hand. “Here, Tib, you should be able to set this vid sensor up outside and view the images on the screen in the control room. It has a light amplification unit so it will be able to work at night and let you see what’s going on outside.”

  By now, Reidecor had fallen asleep again, and I took him into our cabin and placed him on the bed, although he hadn’t reached the point where he could roll over on his own, I placed a pillow on each side of him to prevent him from rolling off the bed should he unexpectedly learn to do so. Lunnie, conversely, had somehow learned how to roll over far sooner than was normal, or at least so I thought. Once Reidecor was safe on the bed, I took the case Kala had handed me outside and looked for a good vantage point where I could set the unit up.

  The vid unit was quite small. Only about the size of my thumb, the tripod that held it up was another story. It was a sturdy piece of equipment that could adjust the camera height from 1 meter to 4 meters off the ground. I decided that 3 meters might be the best to try. Vid sensors have no lenses. I’m really not sure how they work or record images. From the little that I could understand, the surface of the vid sensor acted just like any light sensor would in a digital camera back on Earth. However, unlike cameras of earth where a lens focused the image, a tiny computer inside the sensor assembled the images from the data it received; this resulted in being able to get visual images in all directions at once. The sensor could produce a 360 degree display on a screen, or one could isolate the view down to a specific direction; views from the underside were achieved by a small piece that extended through a hole in the center of the tripod.

  With the unit assembled, I headed back inside to await the setting of the sun. I had intended to spend my time until the sunset, scanning data in the ship’s computer about the life forms on the planet, but I must have been tired, because before I had begun I fell asleep in the chair at the console.

  I was not asleep long before I had a dream that I was back in the Navy on Earth once more, performing my duties in the catapult room on an aircraft carrier. The scene changed and I found myself standing on the flight deck as planes were taking off, and I wished that more planes could take off at once and get into the air quicker. While I was thinking this, the planes on the deck of the ship transformed into Federation mirage fighters and patrol ships, and the aircraft carrier itself began transforming into a spaceship that was not like any I had seen in my life so far. It was smaller than the giant starships, but larger than a frigate and was closer to the NEW ORLEANS in size.

  Four large tubes ran along the hull fore and aft, two near the top of the hull and two near the bottom. Above the top set of longitudinal tubes, two tubes ran across the ship, one set near the bow and the other near the stern. This pattern was repeated below the bottom longitudinal tubes. The hull of the s
hip seemed to wrap itself around these tubes so only the open ends of the tubes could be seen. As I observed this ship, I could see mirage fighters and other ships flying out of the tubes on one side and into the tubes from the other side; I realized that these were hangar areas and flight decks for the many ships aboard this space version of an aircraft carrier. On the underside of the ship between the network of launch tubes I noticed a large open hangar bay that only extended part way into the ship, where Frigates and Corvettes were docked. I watched the ship move away from me toward three points of light and just when it seemed to be centered between them, it instantly vanished, and I woke.

  I immediately realized that this was the type of war ship the Federation needed. While the huge star ships of the Federation served as carriers and war ships, they also had become more like luxury liners and though they carried hundreds of patrol ships and fighters, they were limited in their ability to launch and retrieve them quickly. The design in my dream would allow the continuous launching and retrieval of ships in a combat situation with no delays. As for the three points of light and the vanishing ship, I had a pretty good idea what that was, and I made a mental note to get with A’Lappe as soon as we were rescued. While I was mulling over the ship in my dreams, Kala entered, “I thought you were going to check out the nightlife outside.”

  “I am, as soon as the sun sets.” I answered.

  “Tibby the sun set over an hour ago. Have you been sleeping?”

  “Aww, I guess I was.” I said as I turned on the vid screen and tuned to the signal of the monitor outside. At first, everything appeared dark until I set the light sensing level to bring the images into view, as though they were in day light. The first thing I noticed was how many Sisoma trees now appeared around the valley. It seemed like a forest of them had sprung up in the past several days, and I began to wonder if there were all newly produced trees or if these trees had migrated into the area from some other place. I still call them trees, even though I knew now that they were actually animals, or rather a collection of animals. The trunk or host animal had a symbiotic relationship with the budlike leaf animals that lived on it. It sucked up water from the ground that it moved up its stalk-like body and delivered it to the leaf animals. In turn, the leaf animals filtered pollens, insects and airborne nutrients in the dust that they converted into food, which they digested and produced wastes which benefited the stalk plant. How the buds and stalks found each other and became attached was a mystery the scientists who had studied the planet before had never figured out. As I looked, I could see the ball-like bat creatures flying around and swooping down from time to time, trying to grab one of the leaf creatures while it was exposed. Most of the time the leaf creatures sensed the attacking ball/bat creature and rapidly retreated into their shells; those that didn’t make it in time were quickly ripped from their shells and eaten. I was so absorbed in inspecting the Sisoma trees that I nearly missed seeing a muralam moving stealthily about the base of the Sisomas, digging in the sand around their roots. I would see it pick something up and place it in its mouth, sometime eating what it discovered and other times spitting it out.

  “What do you think it is finding?” Kala asked.

  “I have no idea, some sort of seed or small animal, I suppose.”

  All of a sudden, the muralam sat up and looked about, its ears twitching and turning as it did. I could also see that it was sniffing the air. Then, abruptly it dropped to all fours and took off running away from the area. It only took a minute to see what had caused its rapid departure, a larger creature, nearer the size of an Earth tiger came bounding across the desert heading in the direction the muralam had gone. As it got closer to the vid sensor, I noticed that while it appeared to have a mammal-like shape and movement, it also looked like it had scales. Its overall body color was a light tan, but it had dark black stripes that were thinner than those of a tiger and fewer in number than a tiger would have. The head was massive and looked like a cross between a cat and a wolf. Its ears were larger than one would expect for its head and were long and pointed and stood erect at the side of the head and seemed to rotate to focus in on sounds.

  Kala gasped and said, “I don’t remember seeing anything like that on the vids of this planet.”

  “Neither do I, I have a hunch though that the tracks I saw earlier were made by a creature like this. It doesn't look too friendly.” I had barely gotten the words out of my mouth than the creature stiffened and sniffed the air as it raised its head peering off in the direction the muralam had run, and then it took off in a burst of speed. In the distance, the muralam apparently had spotted its tracker, and it now was running away hastily. While the smaller creature was more agile in making turns, dodging and weaving, than its pursuer, there was no doubt that the greater creature was faster. Just as I thought the larger animal was about to catch its prey, but then the muralam precipitously dropped from sight.

  “What the…?” I exclaimed, and then I realized that the place where the muralam seemed to have vanished was at the edge of the canyon. “It must have jumped over the edge.” I watched as the tiger sized creature came to an abrupt halt at the precipice edge and peered over the side. It stood there a while gazing down into the canyon before turning and retracing its tracks back toward the ship. It walked right up to the vid sensor and sniffed around the base of the unit and my tracks in the sand, and then it looked in the direction of the ship.

  “What’s it doing?” Kala asked.

  “I think it’s trying to figure out what my scent is. We’re probably as new to this thing as it is to us. I just wonder if it has seen us and been observing us or its just now discovering us. As I said this, the animal sat up on its haunches, and sniffed at the vid unit, providing me a terrifying view of its head. This was not an herbivore by any means. It had teeth that reminded me of a cross between a killer whale and a shark, both creatures of my home planet. I also noticed that it had large, flat molar-like teeth about half of the way back its long jaws, and I imagined that these were easily capable of crushing bones. The creature backed away from the vid sensor and moved off toward the ship, its head swinging and looking from side to side as it walked.

  “Tibby, I don’t want you leaving the ship without a weapon. I don’t think that animal is very friendly.” Kala said with a concerned tone.

  “I’m inclined to agree with you,” I answered.

  As we watched, the animal followed my tracks right up to the hatch at the side of the ship. It sniffed around on the ground and the side of the ship, then it did something that made my jaw drop. It crouched down and leapt a good three meters through the air and up onto the curved hull of the ship. “Wow,” I exclaimed, “I never would have thought that it could leap that far. I’m definitely going to need to maintain distance between me and it, if I ever encounter it in person.”

  “I would prefer you never encounter it, Tibby.” Kala said in a worried tone.

  The animal walked down the length of the hull pausing to sniff here and there and at one place, it pawed the hull like it was trying to scratch it. “It looks like it’s trying to figure out what the ship is,” Kala observed.

  “Yes, it’s definitely showing some signs of intelligence beyond that of most animals.”

  Kala said, “It reminds me of a creature from scary stories my dad used to tell Lunnie and me when we were kids. He called a woewe, and he used to tell us it ate small girls. My mother used to get really angry with him when he told us these stories, as Lunnie would always get scared and wouldn’t sleep all night.”

  “Do woewes really exist?” I asked.

  “No, I don’t think so. Mom always said there was no such thing and that dad just made them up to scare us.”

  “Well now, they do exist because from this day forwards that is what we will call this beast, a woewe."

  After sniffing about some more, the woewe jumped down from the ship and ran off in the direction of the gully where I had seen its tracks the day before. I finally lost sight o
f it when the ship blocked its view. About an hour later, after watching some of the bat-like animals feeding on the Sisoma trees, I observed a couple of small animals that reminded me of armadillos back on Earth, only these animals didn’t have any tails, and their noses were longer and articulated like an elephant’s trunk. They possessed feet with long claws, and I could see them digging with their feet and prodding around with their trunks, under and around rocks. They also prodded at the roots of the Sisoma trees. While I assume they were foraging for food, I never saw them actually eat anything, if they did find something. I also saw a few of the trilobite type creatures moving about through the sand. One was particularly close to the vid sensor when a muralam came rushing into view carrying a small club that he used to hit the animal. The shell cracked and immediately the muralam rolled the animal over and whacked it again, then it began picking the meat out of the shell and eating it while it looked about, obviously watching out for predators.

  “Amazing, isn’t it?” I said to Kala. “During the day everything out there appears to be dead and lifeless, but once the sun sets things come to life, just the opposite from most other worlds.”

  “There are a number of nocturnal worlds throughout the galaxy,” Kala responded. “Most of them are mining worlds where the sun is too hot or the radiation too high during the days for exposure, but once the sun has set it's possible to move about and accomplish things outside. Granted, they are not the norm, but they are not that rare, either.”

  “I guess that makes sense, it’s just one of those things I never really thought about.”

  From back in the ship we could hear the sounds of a crying duet. “Sounds like its feeding time again. I swear, Tibby, your children want to eat all the time. I’m glad we have a food synthesizer, because I don’t think I could produce enough milk to satisfy those two.”