Tales of the Talking Picture

by Tom Slemen

  Something pricked his left wrist. SD-11 was inserting the needle of an anaesthetic gun into him. Before Danny could pull his wrist away, the gun hissed and shot a microscopic tranquillizing pellet into his arm.

  Danny got to his feet and discovered his balance was already affected by the tranquilizer shot. A rapid wave of numbness descended from his head to his feet. He shuddered and fell, but SD-11 caught him and placed the unconscious spaceman in his chair.

  A month passed, and Danny woke to the stench of foul air. The craft's leaking oxygen supply was nearing exhaustion, and the carbon monoxide levels were dangerously high. He looked about and noticed SD-11 sitting in his chair, inert, in energy-conservation mode. Danny took a slow deep breath, then leaned forward and pressed a button on the control panel, and as he did he noticed his nails had been cut and manicured by the robot, which had also shaved his face as he had lain out cold. A long rectangular metal drawer that contained a service blaster gun protruded from the panel. Danny grabbed the laser-powered weapon, flicked off its safety catch and aimed it as SD-11 The robot stood up and advanced. It was still holding the tranquilizer gun."You should be resting."

  Danny pointed the barrel of the gun at the approaching robot and paused for a moment until he was sure he could hit the machine without blowing a hole in the hull of the ship. A concentrated ray of infra-red light created a two-inch diameter hole in the robot's head. SD-11 fell onto its knees and then onto its face with blue smoke billowing from its chromium temple.

  The massive globe of an unfamiliar world filled the fore windows of the craft. This was it. The planet's gravitational field had captured the craft and was already pulling it down to a certain fiery death; unless Danny acted in time. He had met challenges like this in the safety of the training simulators in the academy on Earth. But this was for real, and even the simulations couldn't have prepared him for the daunting task of landing a spacecraft without the aid of a computer.

  The inertial neutralizer fastened itself around Danny. He pushed the control column forwards, and the craft nose-dived into the planet's upper atmosphere. Falling at a speed of 26,000 miles per hour, the craft's ablative heat shield started to take the brunt of the frictional heating caused by the air of the world below hitting the high velocity spaceship. The curved purple horizon of the planet beyond the fore windows started to shimmer with the heat, then gradually became totally obscured by the ionised yellow glow from the heat shield. Danny remembered the drill, and began to count to twenty. When he reached that number he gave the braking retros full throttle for a full minute. This reduced the craft's rate of descent to just under 100 miles per hour. The heat from the ablative shield started to die down, and a shimmering desert landscape could be seen through the windows. Danny Judged the altitude to be around 30,000 feet, and he decided to deploy the craft's three emergency helium-inflated drogue parachutes to reduce the rate of descent. With the ground approaching fast, Danny fired the braking retros one last time - and ten seconds before touchdown, the fuel ran out, and the craft crunched into the desert sand and crumpled. The impact tore a huge gash in the side of the craft, but Danny was saved by the inertial neutralizer frame; otherwise he'd be blancmange now. He was a bit shook up, but alive. He lifted the padded restrainer frame, ran through the gaping gash and jumped down into the desert sand, fearing an explosion, but there was none. He looked around at the vast arid territory and breathed in. The air seemed more rich in oxygen than the atmosphere of Earth.

  Under the dim orange-red sun he walked around the ship and surveyed the damage. Even if he could find enough Helium 3 to fill her tanks, he still wouldn't be able to raise her. The damage was just too extensive. She was no longer space-worthy. Somehow, he would have to survive in this inhospitable wilderness.

  During his first night on the alien world, Danny looked up and studied the constellations. It took him some time, but he gradually worked out where he was from the star-patterns. He noticed a yellowish-white star just to the left of the W-shaped constellation of Cassiopeia. That star was the Sun. And that meant that he was on one of the seven worlds orbiting Proxima Centauri. He looked down at the small fire he'd made from the torn-up pages of the hard copy of the ship's log and held his palms to it. He was becoming peckish, so he opened a plastic-foiled ration package of bacon squares and filled his plastic cup with water. He then started to think about fixing the damaged sub-space radio transceiver, when his thoughts were interrupted by a hooting noise that sounded like an owl. But there were definitely no owls about in this environment. Danny grabbed his gun and looked about. He crawled backwards through the cold sand towards the craft.

  Several small figure were approaching from out of the darkness towards the fire. Danny thought they were children, and he stood up, relieved at the sight, ready to walk towards them. Ten of the childlike figures came close to the fire, and Danny saw to his horror that they were not children. They had long-hair and swarthy bearded faces. They were dwarves. Danny remembered the videos he'd seen during his anthropology studies at the academy. These people belonged to the Jund. The primitive hostile tribe of Stendek.

  One of the dwarves suddenly shrieked as he spotted the crashed craft nearby and pointed it out to his friends. The other nine became excited and followed him to the craft. Danny panicked and fired his blaster into the sandy ground in front of them. The crowd stopped dead upon seeing the ensuing sparks and dust and the small smoking crater of sand turned into molten glass by the blaster's intense heat-ray. They all ran off into the darkness in a state of fright. Danny waited for hours, tensely expecting more of the Jund to return, but none came, and in the end, he fell into a light sleep. The sleep was soon disturbed. The world of Stendek spins on its axis faster than Earth, and its night only lasts three hours. The sun was soon rising again, and this confused Danny's terran sense of time.

  He opened his eyes and squinted at the red rising sun. His mouth was parched. He climbed into the craft through the gash in its side and drank some the rationed water directly from the three-litre thermos container.

  The cool water trickled down his chin. After the drink, he looked out of the craft through a side window and saw about fifty members of the Jund approaching. He looked at the blaster gun in his hands. That would have to be the last alternative.

  The Jund tribe halted fifty feet from the craft, but one lone member with red hair continued to walk towards the craft, Danny watched him curiously. The dwarf was apparently unarmed. He kept on walking, and slowed as he neared the craft. He climbed through the gash and found himself looking down the barrel of the blaster gun.

  "Hold it!" said Danny, nervously targeting the dwarf.

  "You speak English?" said the dwarf.

  Danny was surprised. "Yes, I do. " he replied, and lowered the blaster.

  "My name is Zagamor," the dwarf offered Danny his hand.

  Danny grasped the little hand and shook it.

  "Are you from Earth?" Zagamor asked.

  "Yes. My name' s Danny, Do you belong to the Jund?"

  "Yes. They want to know why you are on their planet."

  "I crashed here. I was on my way to explore an asteroid, and the ship developed a fault, I jettisoned out in time in this craft. Look, how did you learn English?"

  "I learned French, English and German from the Earth people who came down to stay with us a long time ago. They just dug holes everywhere then left." said Zagamor, his big blue eyes blinked as he talked.

  "They must have been geological surveyors looking for ores and minerals. " Danny glanced out of the side window, "I see most of your friends are carrying spears."

  "Yes, I'm afraid so. The Jund think fighting is always the solution. Things are not so good at the moment. The crops have failed again and the water holes have dried up. Many have died."

  "There's a month's supply of food in the ship. Not much water though. " said Danny.

  As Danny talked to Zagamor, a long transparent vorga snake slithered into the ship. The glass-like scales of its sk
in caught the sun and twinkled red and green. The venomous vorga's four heat-sensitive eyes focused on Danny and Zagamor, and was spoiled for choice. It opened its fanged mouth and reared up into its attack posture, ready to pounce on its warm-blooded prey.

  "Look out! It's a vorga!" Zagamor pointed to the barely-visible snake.

  Danny opened fire on the vorga and missed by a quarter of an inch. The snake retreated through the gash in the hull of the craft and fell onto the sand below, where it squirmed and slid into the shade. Ten members of the Jund who had heard the blaster being discharged attacked the craft, thinking their go-between had been shot. One of the diminutive warriors grabbed Danny's blaster and tried to wrestle it from him while another bit his fist.

  "No! Stop it! Stop the fighting!" shouted Zagamor, but the little warriors were already swarming over the terran spaceman. Two of the Jund clubbed Danny. He fell to the ground unconscious. Danny was dragged out of the craft and brought before the Jund leader, Mavron, who quickly passed judgement on the foreigner.

  In Jundi, Mavron said hysterically, "Put him before Zammadar! He will be pleased with the sacrifice and will make the crops flourish!"

  "No! Leave him! He comes in peace!" protested Zagamor, pushing through the crowd carrying Danny.

  One of the Jund who had taken Danny's blaster from him approached Mavron and presented him with the laser handgun. Mavron studied it then fired it at a cactus. The desert plant combusted instantly. The Jund cheered.

  Four stakes were hammered deep into the heat-cracked ground, and Danny's wrists and ankles were tied to them. The Jund retreated to a rocky hilltop and watched the dark cave entrance. Something moved within it.

  Danny opened his eyes and moaned. His swollen head pounded.

  Zammadar came out of the cave and approached the sacrificial offering carefully, noting how unusually large he was.

  "Oh, Zammadar," whispered Mavron. He bowed in the direction of the giant creature. The rest of the Jund did the same.

  Danny heard a strange clacking sound getting nearer to him. He lifted his aching head as much as he could and saw a twenty-foot long grey-coloured insect with eyes of dull gold. Its shelled body was spotted with red polka dots, and between the insects eyes there was a yellow diamond-shaped patch. It was Higgledy. Or Zammadar, as the Jund called the creature.

  "My God. I don't believe it. Higgledy. Higgledy! It's me!" Danny looked at the insect in disbelief, then wondered if it could be some sort of hallucination, some mirage of the mind. Then Danny had a terrible thought; was it just some other matured Rigelian beetle?

  Higgledy was equally confused. It tilted its head and looked hard and long at the face of the young man tied to the stakes. Then suddenly, the memories came rushing back, Higgledy emitted its unmistakable warbling sound, then proceeded to sniff Danny's feet, Danny laughed out loud.

  "How did you get here?" Danny watched as his old friend chewed through the ropes around his ankles. "Here too boy!" Danny shook his bound wrists and Higgledy's mandibles severed the ropes and freed him.

  Mavron and his tribe were utterly amazed. Who was this off-worlder who could command Zammadar? The tribe leader continued to watch in disbelief as the terran mounted Zammadar and rode him, lode, the Jund's respected mystic regarded the events as the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy.

  "It is the Saviour from the sky, foretold by the prophets of old. He has come to save us from famine and drought." said Jaddin. Mavron trembled at the mystic's words.

  "Hail the Sky Saviour!" Mavron got on his knees and bowed at Danny and Higgledy.

  "Hail the Sky Saviour!" chanted the Jund.

  A sonic boom in the heavens interrupted the chant. It was perceived as another omen to the Jund, but to the eyes of the terran spaceman, the intruder was identified as a class nine Federation scout ship. The triangular ship roared overhead and left a vapour trail behind it as it circled the lower reaches of the stratosphere, spiralling down towards the area, It finally hovered over the ground near to the crashed remains of Searcher Seven, then landed gently on its three legs in the cloud of sand its VTOL engines had whipped up. Danny sat upon Higgledy' s back, watching the landed scout ship. A hatch in the belly of the ship slid open and a ladder whirred down. A few moments later, a blue-suited girl in a baseball cap climbed down the ladder and inspected the wreck of the Searcher Seven. She seemed oblivious to the Jund and Danny and Higgledy.

  "Hey!" Danny shouted to her, then turned with a wide grin on his face and said to Higgledy: "C'mon boy!" He rode his long-lost pet over to the young lady.

  The girl was startled by the enormous Rigelian beetle, and she drew a laser pistol from her hip holster.

  "It's okay! This thing's tame!" Danny jumped off Higgledy's back and approached the girl.

  "I take it you're Daniel Thurber, Interstellar Surveyors?" the girl slid her gun back into its holster.

  "Yeah. How did you find me?" Danny saw that the girl was quite attractive from close quarters.

  "We saw the flash when your ship exploded. We tracked you on long-range radar for over four months, then we lost you as you approached Stendek. I was assigned to search for you. I'm Sergeant Smith; Star Rangers," said the young woman.

  "Thankyou, sergeant. I thought I'd never see a human face again." Danny shook Smith' s hand.

  "Well, we'd better get back then. They'll be waiting for us in the mother-ship. It's orbiting Stendek's moon. We've found neutronium deposits on it," Smith said. She turned and began to walk to the scout ship.

  "I don't want to sound ungrateful sergeant, but I'm staying here for a while!' Danny shouted after her.

  Sergeant Smith turned and looked at the spaceman, dumbfounded.

  Danny explained his reasons. "These people are dying. There's a drought here. And this creature here, is, well - never mind. Anyway, I want to stay on here; just until they can get on their feet again." Danny glanced at the curious faces of the Jund tribe, who were slowly wandering towards the sergeant' s ship.

  "And how can you help them?" Smith folded her arms and waited for the answer.

  "Well, I can't help them on my own. I need help; equipment. Perhaps you could help me."

  "Me?" Sergeant Smith's blue eyes opened wide with surprise. "Look, Thurber, I'm a Pathfinder, not a relief worker. What can I do for them?"

  "We just can't abandon these people. They'll die. But we have the equipment to save them. All we need is a few of the specially bred trees that we used to transform the Sahara on Earth, and a couple of solar-powered drills and pumps to extract water from the ground." Danny awaited Smith's answer.

  "I don't know. I'll have a word with my superiors; I can't promise anything. In the meantime, I'll radio the mother-ship for a supply of food and water to keep the tribe going for a few months," said Smith. She turned, walked to the scout ship and ascended the ladder into the interior of the craft.

  "Thankyou Danny," Zagamor said, standing behind his terran friend.

  Danny turned and nodded to him.

  Fifteen long minutes later, Sergeant Smith returned with the news. "I've had a word with the Captain. He said he'll be able to deploy a special terraforming unit to work on this area in two days, He's appointed me to be the overseer. We've only got three months to complete the job. Then we move on to Rigel," said Smith, with a trace of a smile on her lips. She liked the challenge of her new task.

  "That's great. Thanks," said Danny.

  "I'd like to thank you on behalf of my people," said Zagamor.

  "No problem," said Smith, looking down at him. She looked at her service watch. "Well, I'll see you in a couple of days then."

  "Yeah, bye now, sergeant," said Danny.

  "Why don't you come up to the ship with me and get cleaned up?" Smith asked him.

  "No, It's okay. I'll stay here," replied Danny.

  "Bye then." Sergeant Smith walked back to the scout ship. She halted on the way and turned. "The relief supplies will be here in thirty minutes."

  Danny waved as he watched her c
limb back into her ship. The class-nine Federation ship whined and produced a cloud of sandy dust, then lifted steadily for a couple of hundred feet. It then nosed upwards at a phenomenal speed into the hot purple sky until it could no longer be seen.

  And the ships came, as Smith promised they would. Hundreds of them. Great vessels carrying forests of special trees genetically engineered to thrive in desert conditions. Such trees had long turned the Earth's sister planet Venus into a rain forest world they named Eden.

  For three solid months, a thousand men and women laboured to transform one hundred square miles of parched desert into a life-sustaining oasis. In the third week of the project, a team using a solar-powered oil drill hit a water well half a mile below ground. A fountain of pure ice-cold water erupted like a cool geyser, producing 80 gallons per second. This source was used to irrigate the eroded land. The trees flourished, and produced the much-needed shade that would stop the rays of Proxima from evaporating the water in the soil. Groves of exotic fruit trees would later cover the land to bear the fruits from over eighty different planets. The trees - which the Jund considered sacred - thrived and the desert grew progressively cooler and more fertile for crops.

  And at the end of the miraculous mission, Sergeant Smith rewarded her workers with a day of celebrations before the return to the mother-ship that would soon be departing for a world that was light years away in space. During the festivities, she found Danny in a sombre mood in the wreck of the Searcher Seven escape craft.

  "Everything okay, Thurber?" she said, climbing through the large gash in the vessel's hull.

  "Oh, hello, sergeant. I thought you'd be out there, enjoying the festivities. You'll be leaving later, won't you?" said Danny, He was standing near the remains of SD-11.

  "Yeah, at twenty-three hundred hours. We're off on a seven-month journey to the Rigel star system." Smith puffed and took off her baseball cap to reveal her hair. It was golden and combed up into a bun. "Boy, it' s hot."

  "I don't suppose you'd know anything about electronics?" Danny asked her.