by Bob Blanton
“Any particular location?”
“Somewhere close to the coast and the equator,” Dr. Teltar said.
◆ ◆ ◆
“Catie, you planned this, so lay it out for everyone,” Blake ordered. They were gathered for the final review before they launched the Lynx and began setting up the base camp.
“Aye-aye. We’ll have two Foxes, one to fly cover, the other will ferry the cargo pod to the landing site, then it will join the first Fox and provide cover as well. The away team will take the two Lynxes to the site. Our security team will provide protection while the rest of us raise the fence around the Lynxes. We’re setting up a three-hundred-meter perimeter for this site. The fence will be electrified, so try to avoid it once it’s up. We’ll all be wearing exosuits; we need the armor since we don’t know what we may find down there.”
“Do not breathe the air from the planet until I say it’s okay, so no popping your helmet off while you rest,” Dr. Pramar said. “And that will take at least three weeks of testing.”
“Right,” Catie agreed. “The cargo pod will also carry what it takes to build a small structure to house our lab and some apartments and living spaces. Once the perimeter is up, we’ll assemble that. The building will be environmentally sealed with an algae tank to convert the CO2 to oxygen. Once we get it up and charge the air, it will be a place where you can take off your spacesuits, shower, and rest. If you’re inside the perimeter, you can dispense with the exosuit.
“Kasper, I want you to fly the Fox that hauls the cargo pod. It won’t be very aerodynamic, so you’ll have to rely on the grav drives to steer it.” Two of their Foxes had the new grav drives developed by Dr. McDowell. The new drives had enough power to allow the Fox to transport the heavy cargo container down to the planet. It wouldn’t be able to bring a full one back up, but they weren’t planning to do that.
“Oh joy,” Kasper replied.
“Captain, are you coming with us?” Catie asked.
“I’ll let you get it set up first,” Blake replied.
“Okay, then Liz, you fly Lynx one, I’ll fly Lynx two. Georgie, you take the second Fox. Once we have the perimeter established, Liz will fly Lynx one back up to get the captain and our scientists.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“Our landing site is three klicks in from the ocean,” Catie announced. “Kasper, the location should be marked on your map. You go in first and drop the cargo pod.”
“Thanks, I feel like I’m flying a blimp,” Kasper replied. Everyone was giving him a wide berth. He was handling the Fox-pod combo well, but it just didn’t look like it could fly. The cargo pod was bigger than the Fox, so better safe than sorry was the watch phrase for the other three pilots.
The landing site that Dr. Qamar had selected was a flat plain three kilometers from the ocean and about one kilometer from the jungle that covered most of the area. It was covered in a high grass that they would need to remove to avoid having various creatures be able to sneak up on them. This area of the coast was flat as a pancake, with just a slight rise between the ocean and the jungle.
Kasper dropped the cargo pod, then sent his jet screaming into the sky to take up his guard position.
“That’s better,” he said, reveling in the power and maneuverability of the Fox once he’d shed the cargo pod.
The two Lynxes immediately landed on each side of the cargo pod, leaving fifty meters for unloading and maneuvering. Catie and Liz had arranged to step off their Lynxes at the same time, thereby both being the first humans to step on a planet orbiting a different sun than Earth.
◆ ◆ ◆
“Explain to me why we’re going to be driving the fence posts?” Liz asked.
“Because I don’t want to have to wrestle the fencing,” Catie said.
“Have you ever driven a fence post?”
“No.” Catie grabbed the end of the first post and tilted it up; it was five meters long, so even though it was made of lightweight polysteel, it was heavy and unwieldy. The first half-meter of it was tapered to a point. Catie put a box on the other end then tilted the post until it was mostly straight up and down.
Catie let go of the post and stepped back. The post righted itself and made a few adjustments until it was perfectly vertical, then it sank into the ground one meter. Catie used a stick to pop the box off the top of the post. At four meters high, it was well above her reach. She caught the box as it floated down to her and moved to the next post.
“How did you do that?!” Liz asked.
“Mini gravity drives,” Catie said. “It levels the post, then drives it to the depth you set. I’ve got this one set for one meter.”
“Clever.”
“Daddy thought of it,” Catie said. “He did a lot of research on how to explore in the wilderness. A lot of his research came from old explorations of Africa and South America. He used the stuff we read about how the Paraxeans set up a colony, too.”
“When does that man sleep?” Liz asked.
“Not much,” Catie said. “He never needed much, but since he found the Sakira, it seems he can get by on just a few hours a day. He sometimes will go two or three days with just a nap here and there.”
“And I thought you were a freak, needing only four to five hours a night,” Liz said.
“That’s not very nice of you!”
“An adorable freak,” Liz corrected.
“Grab the next post.”
It only took Liz and Catie an hour to put up all the posts; they had to stop and recharge the post driver twice. They had one of the crews spacing them out in front of them, so they just had to walk up behind and drive them into place. The team rolling the fence out was keeping ahead of them, but the team lifting the fence into place and tying it to the post was not even keeping up. Eventually, the crew laying the posts out finished and went back to help them.
“I thought you were crazy volunteering to drive the posts,” Gary said. “Then I saw you using that gizmo and thought that the rest of us were robbed.” Gary was the crew chief for the maintenance team on the Roebuck. Everyone was gathered in the Lynxes to rest up and eat lunch.
“Hey, it was just good planning,” Catie said.
“I think sneaky planning,” Gary shot back.
“Catie always has a good plan,” JoAnn said from the galley, where she was finishing up the lunch for the away team.
“What job did you pick for yourself when we’re putting the building up?” Gary asked.
“I blew that one,” Catie said. “I should have assigned myself the flight back to pick up the captain and scientists. I don’t know what I was thinking when I gave that to Liz.”
“You were thinking that we have Krav Maga practice tomorrow morning,” Liz said.
“Oh, maybe that’s why,” Catie said with a laugh. Liz was Catie’s martial arts trainer and was known to take her frustrations out by tossing Catie on her butt a few times during sparring. Once the building was up, they’d be able to practice inside it and have the benefit of the planet’s 0.95Gs.
“Anyway, I should head out,” Liz said. “The captain is probably anxious to get down here and see what’s going on.” Liz got up and headed for the airlock.
“I noticed that he scheduled his arrival for after all the work was done,” Gary said.
“He’s herding that gaggle of scientists,” Catie said. “I’d rather do the work, but I’ll let him know you’re interested in a more administrative role.”
“Oh, please don’t. I hate paperwork, and I hate herding cats,” Gary said. “I promise to work extra hard; I’d even take a flogging over that, Ma’am.”
“I forgot about floggings,” Catie said with an evil grin. “I’ll have to put that on my list of disciplinary methods. I’m sure I’ll get a quicker response to my orders after the first two or three.”
“Gary, can’t you keep your mouth shut!” Mary shouted as she threw a bread roll at him. “Now we got us a second mate with aspirations of being a right tartar,” Mary was usin
g her best imitation of a cockney accent.
“Thanks for the roll,” Gary said as both he and Mary burst out laughing.
◆ ◆ ◆
“I think that’s the captain,” Gary said as they heard the sound of a Lynx landing.
“And we’re still sitting here resting,” Mary said. “We’d better get moving before the second mate decides to start flogging us. She told us not to tarry.”
They quickly got up and put on their exosuits and prepared to exit the Lynx. Catie had left a few minutes before, after admonishing them that they didn’t have much time before the captain arrived.
“Welcome, Captain,” Catie said as Blake exited the Lynx.
“You’ve made a lot of progress,” Blake said.
“Yes, we should have the building up in another two hours. We just finished our lunch break.”
“Fence is electrified!” was announced over everybody’s Comm.
“Oh good,” Catie said. “Now the security detail can rotate through for lunch.”
“Hi, Liz. I assume you’ve brought our probes.”
“Yes, they’re loaded in the back. Dr. Teltar is checking them out now.”
“Hello, Catie,” Dr. Pramar said once he’d exited the Lynx. “I’d like to collect some soil samples now.”
“Sure, go ahead,” Catie said.
“I need to exit the perimeter.”
“Why?”
“You will have contaminated this area; I need to gather samples at least one hundred meters away. I’ll also need to gather samples from the jungle.”
Catie sighed, “Can’t you wait? The security team hasn’t had a break since we landed.”
“Oh, I can just go by myself,” Dr. Pramar said.
“Nope, anybody exiting the perimeter has to have two security guards with them. I’m not losing someone on our first away mission,” Catie said, but she was really thinking ‘my’ first away mission.
“I can go with them,” Mary said. “I’ve trained as backup security.”
“I’ll go as the second guard,” Liz said. “I ate while they were loading the Lynx, and I’ve just been sitting around.”
“Okay, we’ve got the laser rifles over in the cargo pod,” Catie said.
“Do you have anything better than a laser rifle?” Mary asked.
“The laser rifles are an M4 with the laser attached. You can flip a switch if you need more firepower. But the lasers have more range,” Catie explained.
“Oh, right, I remember now,” Mary said.
◆ ◆ ◆
“Kasper, the cargo pod is almost empty, are you ready to come pick it up?” Catie asked as night approached.
“If I have to.”
“You have to,” Catie said with a chuckle. “We have to get it loaded so we can start setting up the next basecamp in two days.”
“I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
“You heard that, get the rest of that stuff out of the cargo pod,” Catie ordered the crew that was still unloading the pod.
“Aye-aye,” echoed across the compound.
“So, what’s on deck for tomorrow?” Blake asked. He’d been wandering around checking out the various jobs being performed, trying to encourage the hard-working crew. He’d even managed to be of help a time or two.
“Hunting,” Catie said. “Dr. Teltar has launched his probes. Once he has the videos back, he’ll be able to identify the animals that he’s interested in getting samples from. So tomorrow we have to go catch them.”
“That sounds like fun.”
“It should be,” Catie said.
“And for tonight?”
“We’re setting up the surveillance cameras and the relay station. Then we’re all heading back to the Roebuck.”
“You’re not planning to leave anyone down here?”
“Seems like an unnecessary risk,” Catie said. “The fence should keep any animals out, and if it doesn’t, I think we’d rather deal with that tomorrow than in the middle of the night.”
“Good thinking,” Blake said.
◆ ◆ ◆
Kasper hovered over the cargo pod while everyone jeered at him. His Fox looked like a hummingbird trying to sit on an ostrich egg. Everyone except him thought it was funny.
“Can you hurry and attach the damn thing!” Kasper snapped.
“We’re working on it; don’t get your feathers ruffled!” Gary said.
“Very funny!”
“I thought so. You’re hooked on; let me get down, and then you’re clear to go,” Gary said.
Kasper used the security camera on the new building to watch Gary as he crawled off of the pod. Just as he was getting ready to hop onto the ground, Kasper had the Fox lift up quickly, spilling Gary from the pod.
“Hey, that’s not funny,” Gary said.
“I thought it was!” Kasper replied as he continued to accelerate into the sky.
Two hours later, the last Lynx lifted off from the compound and started to make its way to the Roebuck.
“Good job,” Blake told Catie.
“Thanks. I hope everything stays safe tonight.”
“Why don’t you have a Fox hover over the compound. You can switch them every four hours. They should be able to drive off anything that the automatic defenses can’t handle.”
“Oh, that’s a good idea,” Catie said.
◆ ◆ ◆
“Where are the dinosaurs?” Catie asked after they had finished reviewing the images that the probes had taken of the animals last night.
“You know we didn’t see any when we were doing the flying survey,” Liz said.
“Yes, but I figured they were just hiding in the jungle. Maybe they don’t like sunlight,” Catie said. She was clearly disappointed. “I can’t believe we don’t have some dinosaurs or at least some really cool looking animals.”
“It’s vampires that don’t like sunlight,” Liz said.
“I’d take a vampire.”
“I’m pretty sure we won’t be finding any vampires. And we’re unlikely to find any dinosaurs either,” Dr. Magor said.
“This planet is just coming out of an ice age,” Dr. Teltar added. “Large reptiles don’t do too well with big climate changes. It is doubtful that any of the large lizards you call dinosaurs survived the planet’s entry into an ice age, much less its transition out of it.”
“I would think they would like the climate getting warmer,” Catie said.
“Cold-blooded animals don’t handle any kind of climate change. And once you had small mammals and snakes, they probably were struggling to survive anyway.”
“Why’s that?”
“Dinosaurs evolved in a world of plenty; they never really had to worry too much about survival, that’s why they grew so large. But once there was competition, they had already spent the evolutionary capital, so to speak. The small mammals and snakes would have feasted on their eggs, and since they didn’t evolve very good techniques to protect them, that would have been devastating. And when the foliage started to change, they would have starved. It takes a lot to keep a big body fed, and when they couldn’t find their usual food, they would have starved before they could adapt to what was now growing, or move to a better environment.”
“What about the carnivores?”
“With the big herbivores dying, they would have had a hard time finding enough to eat. Sure, they did well in the short term, but when they were forced to hunt a larger area for their food, they weren’t equipped for long, arduous hunts,” Dr. Teltar said. “No, mammals would not have taken long to emerge as the dominant class of animals.”
“So, it’s going to be just like Earth?” Catie asked.
“Not exactly, but carbon-based life tends to fall into a limited spectrum,” Dr. Teltar said. “Bipeds, quadrupeds, snakes, fish, and birds. It’s all about efficiency, so like I said before, no six-legged animals.”
“But we might find a unicorn,” Catie said.
“A single horn, it does occur. Almost all an
imals are symmetrical. On Earth, you have what you call sponges that don’t have any symmetry. They’re not very advanced. But of course, you can have symmetry around a single horn like you do around your nose.”
“The twins are going to be so disappointed,” Catie said. “I promised them I’d bring back pictures of dinosaurs.”
“We still have another planet,” Liz said. “Plus, two more continents on this one, so who knows, we might find something interesting. Who’s going hunting?”
“Captain’s prerogative,” Catie said as she smiled at her Uncle Blake.
“Is my jeep ready?” Blake asked.
“Loaded up and ready to go, sir,” Catie replied.
“Do you want to come?” Blake asked.
“No, I’ll stay here and finish setting up. We want to be able to move on to the next continent tomorrow.”
“How big a team are we leaving behind?” Liz asked.
“The Paraxean specialists will be staying, plus enough support staff to protect and take care of them,” Catie said. “They should finish up here about the time we have the next camp prepared.”
“Sounds like they’re getting the easy end of the deal,” Liz said.
“Well, they did get those fancy degrees and all,” Catie replied.
◆ ◆ ◆
“Dr. Teltar, is this cat really worth all this effort?” Blake asked. They were climbing up a rocky hillside, following the tracks of a big cat. It was a steep hill, and with the rough terrain, Blake was getting tired.
“Yes, it’s important to get samples from the big predators,” Dr. Teltar said. “And it seems that around here, they all have their dens in these cliffs, so we just have to keep climbing.”
Blake shook his head and slung his rifle over his shoulder so he could use his hands to help himself up the rocky hillside. Hopefully, the drone flying overhead would warn them before one of the big cats decided to demonstrate how unwelcome they were.
The roar of a big cat echoed down the hill. “There he is,” Dr. Teltar said, pointing across the ravine they were traversing. “Can you get him from here?”
“Not with the stunner,” Blake said. “I could kill it with the M4, but the stun setting doesn’t have that kind of range.”
