That evening, when up on the conning tower, Brentford asked his Executive Officer, Smithson, what he thought of the little creatures they had found on the floating island.
“You know XO, I just can't get my head around finding those little people - surely they can't have originated on the island - it would take thousands of years for that to have happened.”
“I agree, sir,” Smithson responded. “I think they must have developed on a land mass somewhere, and somehow found the island, or got washed up there. That means there must be a land mass, and we need to find it - before the food runs out - and that's if we find any, and can eat it”
“Oh, and there's something else,” said Brentford, “one of the crew dipped a can on a cord into the sea, and said it didn't taste salty - what do you make of that?”
“Well, on Earth, the sea evaporates, rain clouds form and wash out minerals from the ground which then goes back into the sea - over time this gets concentrated, making the ocean salty. Here there is no ground to get washed, so to speak, at least we haven't found any, so the ocean will only contain that which is leached from the ocean bed, and once that's done, the rest of the minerals are lying below that protective layer. If it had been salty, I would have felt a bit more confident that we would find land. Come to think of it, I haven't seen any clouds since we've been here - and there should be - the ocean must be evaporating with all this sunshine.”
Just then a bright light lit up the evening sky, curving down towards the ocean - and then there was mighty flash, and it was gone.
“I think we had better get below, that was a very big meteoroid, and it hit the ocean - hence that big flash of light. There's going to be a big wave coming this way soon.”
“Thanks XO, we'd better dive then,” Brentford said.
Once they were back inside the submarine, the order to dive to one hundred metres was given, together with an explanation of why. Some moments later the submarine bucked like a bronco - amid curses from those of the crew who lost their footing, and the rattle of a few loose objects which hadn't been secured away.
“I don't see how we would have survived that if we had been on the surface,” said Brentford quietly to Smithson. “Thanks again for the tip.”
“You are welcome. Must admit, I didn't expect quite such a big jolt - the meteoroid must have been a lot bigger that I thought - on Earth it would have made one hell of a mess; fortunately, the ocean acts like a shock absorber, dissipating most of the energy.”
With the sonar and radar searching for anything solid up ahead, the night wore on, but nothing was located. But something had located the submarine.
It was decided to augment their food supply with some of the local fish - if they were edible. The only fish they had seen were in two locations - one being the bubbling volcanic vent, and no one liked the look of them, and the other was around the floating islands. Although Smithson hadn't actually tasted the offered sample, he said it certainly looked like cooked fish, and didn't smell too bad.
So the search was on to find another island, and try some fishing. By midday, a smudge appeared on the horizon, and they headed for it, having to go around another giant jellyfish on the way. There was much discussion as to why the first island they had found seemed to be anchored to the huge crawling ‘stone’ creature - and were all islands so attached? No one had come up with a reasonable explanation so far.
As they approached the mass of floating vegetation, it was obvious that it was another very large one, and there was much speculation as to what would be found. The C.O. and XO. climbed aboard the inflatable, along with four new members to the exploration party - there were no lack of volunteers for this job.
With the marker balloon up, armed, and equipped with their probing poles, they climbed onto the floating mass of wicker work, as it was fast becoming known.
For the first few metres, it looked the same as the other island, except for the top covering - this time it looked and felt like a thick layer of a moss-like growth - soft and spongy to walk on, but tough, as they found out when one man decided to pull some up.
Several clumps of the bamboo plant could be seen in the distance, but they were much taller and thinner than those seen on the other island, with the leaves only at the very top. A similar collection of crawling and slithering creatures in various sizes and colours were in evidence, although they were a little different to those seen before.
They had only gone a mere hundred metres when one of the crew called out.
“Hey, that looks like a blob of jelly.”
About the size of a small orange, a spherical lump of translucent pale yellow lay glistening in the bright light of the sun. To get a closer look, the sailor dropped to his knees, and bent over the lump.
“Good God, it's got a sweet smell,” he said, “just like a scented flower.”
As he gained his feet, a four legged beetle-like creature hurried across the moss towards the lump, and tried to bite a piece out of it. The lump responded by extruding two pseudopods, which firmly gripped the beetle's head, and the pair slowly disappeared into the moss. Without thinking, the sailor pulled the moss back to expose a forty centimetre dull grey sphere with an open mouth. The blob was part of the creature's tongue, and both tongue and beetle slipped into the mouth which promptly closed. A single unblinking eye surveyed the men gathered around it, and then closed. The moss slowly wriggled its way back to cover the creature, and after a few minutes there was no sign that anything had happened.
“You know,” said Brentford, after a moments pause, “I'm beginning to think each island has developed its own variation of life forms, and if so, evolution must have speeded up to one hell of a rate, much faster than on Earth. We didn't see anything like that jelly thing before, and the bamboos are different, so we'd better keep a sharp lookout, God knows what else there may be.”
The party walked on, carefully probing the ground before them, and then treading in each others footsteps.
The occasional mounds were much bigger than on the other island, and one adventurous member of the party offered to climb to the top of one, to get a view of what lay ahead. With permission given by Brentford, he began the climb, and having reached the summit, promptly dropped flat. Slowly he wriggled backwards, and then scrambled down the slope to join the others.
“What have you seen?” Brentford asked.
“God knows what it is,” he replied, breathlessly. “I've never seen anything like it. It's about the size of a very fat cow, four legs, no tail, a big head with a flat snout, and it seems to be covered in scales. It looked as if it was eating the moss. It must have heard me, ‘cos it lifted its head and turned towards me as I dropped flat.”
“Generally speaking, herbivores don't attack humans - unless provoked, so let's see if we can skirt around it,” Brentford ordered.
They moved off to the left, trying to keep the humps in the ground between them and the new creature they had come across. When they considered a safe distance had been placed between them, Brentford climbed a mound to get a look at the creature for himself. Through the binoculars he could see extra details, which had been missed before. The creature was indeed as described, with a very wide mouth, and was ripping up the moss-like growth in huge mouthfuls. The body was covered in a thick scaly armour - each section on the main trunk of the creature being about the size of a dinner plate, with smaller sections on the legs.
As it moved forward, it deposited a copious amount of dung, which was promptly set upon by a mixed array of beetles which seemed to have appeared from deep inside the moss, and having consumed the steaming pile, retreated back out of sight. Brentford was just about to leave the mound when the creature looked up, and their eyes locked. He knew he was far enough away to appear an indistinct blob on the mound, but it was unnerving just the same. He retreated back to the waiting group below to tell them what he had seen.
“One thing worries me a bit,” he said, thoughtfully, “for a creature to develop such heavy a
rmour, there must be something else which is a threat to it - and we don't know what it might be. I would like a vote as to whether we go on, or return to base.”
Only one sailor voted to go back, and received disapproving looks from the rest of the party - so they carried on into the interior of the floating island.
The further in they went, the thicker the bamboo clumps became, and the more numerous; several times they had to go out of their intended path to get around a huge mass where several clumps had joined together, with those in the centre of the mass reaching heights of twenty metres or more. Once behind the clumps, the marker balloon was no longer visible, so Brentford decided to return to the submarine as they had no other means of navigating. Trying to retrace their footsteps proved useless, as the moss had rearranged itself, leaving no sign of them ever having been there; but their chosen direction was accurate, and the marker balloon soon reappeared straight ahead of them.
The party was about halfway back, when they were confronted by a group of ten humanoid forms, but different to those they had seen on the previous island. These creatures were just over a metre in height, covered in thick fur of a deep brown colour, and mean looking with it.
“I'd say they were monkeys,” offered one member of the party, “except they have no tails or ears, and walk upright like us.”
Before anyone could comment, two of the group simultaneously hurled sharpened bamboo poles straight at them. The distance between them was sufficient for the intended targets to dodge to one side, but one of them tripped on the spongy moss and fell down. Thinking they had scored a hit, the rest of the attackers surged forward.
Smithson raised his rifle and fired, putting two shots into the moss just in front of the leading attacker. The moss erupted as something large and powerful beneath the surface writhed in agony, emitting a screech of ear piercing proportions. The attackers clapped their hands to their heads, turned as one, and raced away. Whether it was the gun shots, the scream, or the heaving ground which drove the attackers away, was open to question, and was still being discussed many hours later.
They gave the ruptured moss area a wide birth as it wriggled and writhed about, trying to regain its former pristine condition. Whatever was beneath the surface, was now still, either licking its wounds, or dead.
They continued their way back to the submarine, watching out for anything which might pose a threat - and that of course, meant everything. As they boarded the inflatable, one of the group used a boat hook to try and pull up some of the spaghetti like strands which hung down below the edge of the island.
The strands seemed to have a life of their own, wriggling away as soon as the hook touched them. The conclusion was that they had reacted to the touch of metal, something which didn't exist in their normal environment. By spinning the hooked end of the pole around quickly, a few strands were recovered, but these went limp as soon as they fell off into the bottom of the inflatable; before the astonished eyes of the onlookers, they exuded water, shrinking all the time, until all that was left was a thin thread of pale grey, and then that dissolved into the puddle of water, leaving no trace of what had been.
All thoughts of fishing had long been forgotten, until someone mentioned it, and then it was decided to put it off until they came across a small island - with hopefully less aggressive creatures on it. The inflatable returned to the submarine, and as usual, the crew listened enthralled, as the day's adventure was told in fine detail.
Brentford and Smithson were up on the conning tower, watching the sun go down in a blaze of colours, and enjoying the cool of the evening.
“I'm beginning to get a funny feeling about this planet,” said Brentford, “apart from that which you'd normally expect. It seems odd that each island has its own selection of life forms - that last one, with the monkey like creatures, got me to thinking; life couldn't have evolved on each island to the degree it has, from scratch - there wouldn't have been enough time. I know it seems crazy, but I think these islands have been seeded in some way, to try out different life forms, or to see which ones would become dominant on their own island. But I don't understand how it was done, or why.”
“I've had similar thoughts too,” Smithson replied, “especially after that last island. If we find another island with different humanoids, that would more or less prove it, I would think. I can't think of any other explanation, but we are on an alien world, so we can't judge things based on the standards we're used to.”
They talked on until long after the stars came out, and the triple moons had raced across the sky several times.
“You know, I think the men have accepted the situation very well - we've had very little trouble, much less than I expected,” Brentford mused.
“Well, we do have the best of the bunch,” Smithson replied, “so I'm not all that surprised. Mind you, the idea that we'll never get back to Earth may not have sunk in fully yet.”
“Hmmmm” said Brentford.
They all had a peaceful night, except for those on watch; towards dawn, radar reported something on the horizon, and the whole submarine came alive.
Brentford ordered full power, and the submarine surged ahead. As the island came into view, Smithson checked the charts recording their progress since sighting the first island, and rushed up to his C.O. on the conning tower with the results.
“Good morning sir, I've just checked our line of travel, and we have been travelling in a straight line since the first island sighting, apart from a few diversions. The islands themselves are all in a straight line, so something must be guiding the rock like things they are attached to down below - and that seems a bit odd.”
“Thanks for that, XO, last night I checked the depth recordings, and it would seem that the ocean we have been travelling on so far, is at a constant depth; this would imply no tectonic plate movement, therefore no up thrust of land, so perhaps this was a flat dry world, and it acquired its water from passing comets in the past.”
As they approached the island, it looked much the same as the others they had visited, except for some very tall trees, not unlike the pines of Earth. The inflatable was launched with a crew of six, all well armed and with probing poles.
The scramble up the outer edge of the island resulted in one member of the party losing his grip and falling into the water. Eager hands reached down to him, but heave as they might, they couldn't pull him out.
“Something's got a grip on my legs,” he yelled, “and they're stinging.”
One of the men lay down with a blade in his hand, while Smithson held onto his legs, gradually lowering him down to water level.
“Bloody hell,” he exclaimed, “his legs are covered in those long worm-like things - I'll try and cut ‘em off.”
Slowly the drenched figure was hauled up, the other man slashing away at the long tendrils which had attached themselves to his legs. Eventually, he was pulled up onto the island, and they all stood around, amazed, as the tendrils, one by one, dropped off, and withered as they watched. The unfortunate man's legs were covered in tiny red pin prick marks where the tendrils had pierced the skin to get a grip.
“How do you feel?” Brentford asked.
“A bit woozy, sir, but I'll be alright. I don't want to go back to the submarine.”
“Good man,” Brentford replied with a smile. “If you feel any worse, tell me.”
The party moved inland a few metres, and stopped to survey their surroundings. The ground cover was different, much like scaly lichen. Smithson managed to break some free, and peel it back to reveal the familiar ‘wicker work’ of the other islands. It had a rubbery feel, and was about twenty centimetres thick; the bottom surface was covered in tiny hooks, which, they supposed, was to hold it firmly in situ. Smithson released the lichen, allowing it to fall back into place - with no sign of having been lifted free, after a few moments.
There were the usual mounds dotted about the landscape, and then they came across the first group of trees. Twenty to thirty metres high
, they stood tall and proud, covered in fine needle-like leaves. Smithson reached up and pulled one off to find it unfurled in his hand to form a conventional oval shaped leaf.
“Maybe it unfurls at night,” someone suggested. “Could be the night air contains something not present during the day.”
A close inspection of the bark of the tree revealed another surprise - it was like soft rubber, and when pushed, left a dent which slowly recovered; but underneath there was something more solid, which Smithson found when he removed some of the outer covering with his knife. The tree had a solid core of some material much harder than normal wood, and Smithson's knife blade hardly left mark on it.
They left the clump of trees, and walked inland a little further to see what other strange things the island had to offer. So far, they had seen no sign of the usual beetle-like creatures, or for that matter, no other life forms of the mobile kind.
They saw the first sign of intelligent life on the island as they went around a particularly large mound, and there before them was a very neatly woven hut, constructed from long thin sticks. They stopped and looked around, but there was no sign of the builders, but to one side was a large patch of the tall slender reed-like sticks which had been used for the hut.
“Good God, it looks like a giant up-ended basket,” one of the men exclaimed, “and beautifully woven - its even got a bit of a pattern in it. I couldn't do that.”
They approached the hut cautiously, in case the owner was at home, but it was empty. Inside were two woven chairs, a table and a shelf woven into the inside wall, on which an assortment of shell like dishes were neatly stacked.
“It looks as if we have some real intelligence here,” said Brentford. “Better be very careful how we handle this if the owner shows up.”
“We've got company,” one of the men said.
In the distance, two tall thin humanoid figures could be seen striding along confidently, each carrying a woven basket. As they neared the explorers, they stopped, said something to each other, and then carried on walking towards the group.
Flight of the Tristan Page 3
