Kaman's World

by Bartholomew Thockmorton

  “Well...this is not nearly so bad as I first imagined.”

  The bot rested on the sand at her feet, its tentacle-like legs retracted within its body to conserve power. It now extended two of them, swiveling its body till the optical orb faced the woman.

  “How so, mistress?”

  “When those tremors first hit, I feared we had perhaps stumbled upon the lair of some monstrous doodlebug!”

  “Ah...are you referring to formicaleo?”

  “If you prefer the Latin...more commonly know by the Greek myrmeleontidae.”

  “An ant-lion by any other name—“

  “Would bite just as quickly! They used to fascinate me...when I was a child, you see, back on Mars! So long ago...” Betty mused. She stared into the remoteness, speaking wistfully. “I had them backwards, can you imagine? I thought the large ends—their abdomens—were their heads, and the pincers were their tails! Imagine my surprise when I learned the truth...that the little buggers simply crawled backwards!”

  As she spoke, she slowly unsheathed her combat blade, strapped to her left thigh. She lightly fingered the control studs and the blade’s 40-centemeters of memory-steel remolded itself into a thin, tubular cudgel, the tip forming a small, round nub. Satisfied with the design, she carefully placed it on her lap.

  “But instead of an ant-lion’s slippery pit, we find instead a sophisticated, highly evolved tunnel system whose function is transporting unwary animals to an underground realm of wonders.” Her gaze shifted from examining the cavern’s far-away details and now focused sharply on the not-too-distant edge of the vegetation spread before them. The Charlie-drone too had heard the furtive rustle of movement within the underbrush, again swiveling its sensors to where Betty stared.

  “I can think of several interesting scenarios where selective adaptation might lead to such an environ,” continued the woman. “But any such development will likely have striking similarities—gatekeepers, for example—opportunistic vermin taking advantage of the...uninitiated, if you will.”

  As Betty softly spoke, covert shapes came into view, skirting the transition between deep shadow and visibility, advancing to the fore in increments, preparing to leave concealment and risk exposure only when all the pack’s members were in position.

  “Betty, if you wish, I can easily disperse them with sonics, or a well-placed laser...”

  “No, Charlie! Just hang back! They can’t harm you, and I want to gauge their strength and strategies for a reason. Besides, I need you to conserve your power for a little plan I’m working on!”

  So the spider-bot retracted its legs and observed Betty and the visitors closely, just in case his assistance was required after all.

  The creatures now moved into the open, the element of surprise carried as far as practical. The only thing remaining was dispersal around their intended prey and the coming attack.

  ***

  Marty at last scurried downward through widening tunnels. The treacherously, twisting ventilation shafts, where his sense of direction had for so long been stymied, now gave way to main thoroughfares. He could feel his mistress’s thoughts: they were calm and analytical despite the presented threat and possible danger closing about. Marty no longer paused when choosing his path; his course lay open and clear. However, there was no possibility of his reaching the woman before the others put her to task—and for this, Marty’s concern for her safety was dwarfed only by his smoldering rage.

  ***

  Sam fumbled through the control room’s medical cabinet, looking for the syringe kit. When he found it, he hurriedly injected himself with a large dose of stimulant as well as a powerful painkiller. His splitting headache vanished almost instantly, and he was again able to think clearly.

  “Charlie! Just what the hell happened out there?”

  “Something as unbelievable as it was powerful, Sam,” the deep, masculine voice paused as the main viewer flickered into life. “I’m just getting most systems back online! You’ve no doubt deduced all the drones deployed outside the ship have been completely and irrevocably destroyed! You have no idea how lucky we are Betty insisted on setting-down at this distance...any closer and we’d be looking at total systems’ failure!”

  “I got it!” snapped Sam, working the main board, running multiple system diagnostics. “Where’s Betty, and how do we get her back?”

  “Well...we probably need to take our lead from Marty...observe the viewer!”

  Sam watched as Charlie ran back the final minutes of the feed from the gantry-cam. Charlie employed a split screen with the exterior view on the left and a feed from the control room on the right, showing Marty in the co-pilot’s chair. Sam watched as the quake hit and the bottom of the pit gaped open, shooting a massive column of obscuring sand skyward. The view immediately switched to infrared and Betty’s form morphed into shifting, oscillating patterns of yellows, reds and violets, offset against a background of blobs and ripples delineating areas around her either warmer or cooler than her body. Sam watched helplessly as Betty lost her footing, engulfed by a descending wave of sand, sweeping her from her feet and washing her down the hole, immediately lost to sight. He played witness to Marty uttering his loud, shrill cries of alarm and rocketing from the control room. Charlie skipped footage to where Sam first turned at the creature’s approach and watched again as Marty launched into the hole, nonplused by the choking cloud of sand and dust. Then the playback suddenly went dead, only static remaining.

  “That’s it?” cried Sam, slamming a fist against the main board. “What hit me? And where’d Marty go?”

  “We can only assume he followed Betty,” replied the computer. “And you were struck by the same thing that cooked the drones—an electromagnetic pulse of unbelievable magnitude! But from the hole, or Marty, I cannot determine!”

  “So what do we do now?”

  “Why Sam, I thought that much would be clear! We locate Marty! If we can do that, we’ll surely find Betty, too!

  ***

  Betty advanced slowly, her weapon at the ready. She wanted to insure some clearance between her and the scattered boulders behind. She might need the room for maneuvering and could not risk tripping over obstacles when the creatures attacked.

  There were nine of them. They spread before her, moving with a grace belying their size—each easily massing at least fifteen-kilos and carrying their weight effortlessly. The trained biologist in Betty longed to analyze their physiology, to compare their internal structures to known species. She couldn’t decide whether they more resembled canines, or members of the cat family. It was difficult to judge—while their legs and the sleekness of the rib-structures reminded her of greyhounds, the long, curved claws and protruding fangs gave them a distinct feline cast. Their long, tufted ears constantly turned and swiveled, immediately picking up any sound from every quarter. That and the large, yellow eyes remaining unwaveringly locked on her as they shifted first one way, then the other, seeking an opening, a weakness they could use or turn to their advantage.

  But, the woman showed neither weakness nor fear. She knew they would sense it, smell it extruding from her pores, feeding on it like any predator would when sizing up their prey. The animal instincts gauging the odds, weighing the risks against the rewards of a clean kill. Of that they seemed confident; they moved closer by the second, no hesitation in their step or doubt in their demeanor.

  Betty was impatient, already tired of their confidence, their ignorance at just who presented the greater threat to whom. She abruptly stood from her defensive crouch, dropping her hands to her sides and turning her hands palm outwards.

  “Well come on then, you bastards! Show me your best!”

  As if the goad signaled the start of some primal competition, the beasts sprang at her in a staggered formation, the first wave intending to wound, throwing her off-balance, and the remainder to seize what opportunity presented itself.

  Betty stepped to one side in a blur of motion, taking three down her right si
de. Her weapon hissed through the air, slappity-snapping outwards twice in rapid secession, two of the passing creatures suddenly yelping loudly in surprise and pain, landing in wobbly motions, their senses scrambled by the blows to their skulls. The others were already in motion, too slow to grasp or gauge the significance of first blood going to their prey. But even though the attacks were mere fractions of a second apart, the woman’s speed proved greater; she moved into position for the counter-assault even before her attackers became aware of the danger.

  She pressed the advance, allowing them to come to her even as she closed on them. Their eyes flickering about, trying to register position and distance, their bodies unable to match Betty’s fluid motions, moving at and past them, her body spinning in whirls, her club dealing swift, punishing blows to their shoulders, heads, paws, hips, tails and whatever else passing within reach. In a matter of moments, the first sortie played through, and while the creatures wrestled with the impossible concept of a superior prey, or the contradiction therein, the woman had turned and passed back through their scattered ranks before their minds grasped their initial failure.

  Now the pack stood, or lay, in complete disarray. Although the wounds were not presented with the intention of maiming, or dealing mortal damage, they were crippling in the sense they fell on nerve centers, or to the tenderest spots judged most compatible to known creatures’ weaknesses.

  At some unvoiced signal, the creatures quickly gathered into a defensive knot, backing slowly, presenting a united front against the possibility of further counter-attack. They backed into the foliage, effortlessly blending into the shadows, and as quickly as they had first appeared, they were gone without a trace or hint of ever having been there.

  “Well! That was certainly entertaining,” said the spider-bot, moving to Betty’s side. “I must replay that later for Sam. He would be proud of you!”

  Betty made a slight, dismissive hiss as she sheathed her weapon. “You think that was impressive...you should see Sam in a bar-fight! Now that’s amazing!”

  ***

  Marty paused at the edge of the fungi forest; he could sense Betty’s victory even though she was quite far away—it was a testament to his speed that such a distance separated them. His confusing sojourn through the ventilation networks resulted in his current position on the opposite side of the immense cavern, the alien jungle lying between him and his mistress.

  He sat on his haunches, contemplating how he had misjudged her abilities, and how his assistance was required much less than he would have ever guessed. He looked about, trying to decide if his trip would be lessened if he skirted the jungle, following the jagged circumference of the chamber, or if he would reach the woman sooner if he went straight through the tangle separating them.

  He made a spitting growl of a noise in his frustration. If he could have put his feelings into words they probably would have been: “How the hell did I get way over here?”

  Chapter Six

  The Flipper-Doodle hovered several hundred meters above the pit-fall. Sam had placed the vessel there in hope of using sensors to probe the depths below, but everything he tried resulted in the same manner—complete failure. All attempts thus far proved insufficient in reaching through the seemingly impenetrable interference-field below.

  “Well that didn’t work,” Sam fumed, pacing the control room. “What do we try now? Gamma-rays?”

  “I don’t think that would be wise,” replied Charlie. “As far as we can tell, Betty is alive and well. Your mental-connection with Marty implies as much. But hitting the barrier with a GRB might work too well!”

  “Yeah...you’re probably right. But why won’t the main sensory array work? They function by gathering and focusing gravitrinos for crying out loud! They can pass through a light-year of lead! How do you block gravitrinos...or any neutrino for that matter?”

  “Perhaps it isn’t what we use...but how we use it...”

  “Thanks for the clarification, Mister Mud! Whet the hell does that mean?”

  “Well, you are absolutely right about the gravitrinos. There’s not suppose to be anything that can block them! After all, they oscillate in and out of normal space! If they didn’t, there wouldn’t be such things as warp-holes! Maybe we just need more of them...more than this system’s sun can produce...and tighten the focus...”

  Sam abruptly stopped pacing and looked to the nearest camera. “Sounds like you have an idea, Charlie! All right, spit it out...”

  “I was just wondering,” began the computer. “What would happen if we...”

  ***

  Betty and the spider-bot picked their way through the clearing they had come upon but minutes before. It was a welcome change from the taller vegetation they had been pushing and slogging through. The going was much easier for the bot, of course, it was smaller and able to pass easily through, and below, the taller tangles and between the thick trunks of the trees and shoots of smaller plants.

  But, the effort was different for Betty. She had to push through much of the inter-locking foliage forming barriers proving impassible much of the time. It wasn’t long before the woman correctly surmised the forest was rather different than those found on the surface—of Mars, Old Earth and Xanadu, that is. There were no tropical climes on Kaman’s World. Any approach towards the equator here led only to vast expanses of sand dunes and desert. The lack of surface water made the planet all but uninhabitable, except for those regions more towards the temperate latitudes. But even those lacked trees, savannahs or grassy plains.

  However, those characteristics were also absent here in this cavernous world below the surface. Everywhere, the dim, low-light conditions fostered growth of another type. For these plants could not rely on photosynthesis for their food production. Instead, like mushrooms and other varieties of fungi, the food chain here began with whatever organic matter fell to the cavern’s floor, be it plant material or animal flesh. And as evidenced from the creatures patrolling the jungle’s edge, on whatever leftovers from animals falling prey to higher forms. Additionally, in this world, some process as yet unidentified produced the oxygen in the air, and cycled the carbon dioxide levels below harmful concentrations. This different type of ecosystem life cycle gave rise to myriad smells of decay and mustiness.

  Even this field challenged Betty’s ability to compare the plants to known species. Instead of grasses, the growth appeared nothing less than giant, enlarged mold—the type found growing on bread, for example. Tuberous stalks of tough, spongy material sprouted all about them, reaching not much above Betty’s hips. The colors ranged from dingy browns to cancerous purples, and throughout, the stalks were mottled with zigzagging patterns sometimes found on common mushrooms. At the stalks’ terminus waved fist-sized bulbs, open on top, and covered in sticky sap that adhered everywhere Betty touched. Before she had covered half the distance to where the taller growth began anew, she was covered with goop containing the plants’ spores and bits of loose, slimy tissue.

  But, the woman doggedly stayed her course. She did not want to risk passing beyond the channeled breeze carrying the particular smell that had immediately caught her attention only minutes before. Its distinctness led her towards one particular portion of the cavern glowing with more brightness than in her immediate surroundings. What the brightness meant, she had not the slightest clue. But, she was certain the smell was as alien to this environment as her presence. Above the fecund odor of the forest, above the smell of rot and decay, wafted the nasal tang of smoke, leading her ever onward.

  ***

  The Flipper-Doodle streaked through the last vestiges of atmosphere and accelerated sunward. In the equipment storage hanger, Sam leaned inside the maintenance hatch of one of the System-Accentuation-Radar-Analyzers, as Betty called them, “Saras” for short.

  “Charlie...are you certain this is going to work?” asked Sam, his hands full of wires as he rerouted several of the probe’s critical functions. “I like blowing up stuff as much as the next guy. B
ut, unless we’re successful, Betty’s likely to have our heads! Well...mine anyway...even if it does do the trick!”

  “We’ll just have to hope she’s in the mood for a timely rescue,” replied Charlie. “Besides, you two have enough credits in the bank to buy thousands of replacements!”

  “Assuming our account hasn’t been frozen, you mean! What if the Navy locks us out of everything?”

  “Well, I wasn’t going to bring it up. No sense courting black clouds before the storm...”

  Sam crawled out of the access hatch and motioned to the spider-bots standing by.

  “Go ahead and close her up Charlie. I’ve finished the hard wiring, now it’s up to you to do the reprogramming. If we did the numbers right, we’ll be in position to launch within the hour!”

  ***

  Marty sat in utter disbelief, staring first to his left, then back to his right. If exasperation could be made tangible, the little creature would be absolutely buried in it. Ever since he had performed his noise-dive through the capture sphincter he had paralyzed with his bolt of mental energy, and wound his way through kilometers of ventilation passages, his luck had been of the kind only found within the imagination.

  The stream blocking his way was much too wide for him to jump, and the strange trees in this horrid cave weren’t trees at all. Besides, he had earlier tried to climb them as a way to bypass some of the thickets of tangled...whatever this stuff was, and had been covered almost immediately in the most repulsive goop he had ever encountered. Along with more pollen and bits of slimy, decaying plant matter than he cared to think about.