The Inosculation Syndrome

by D. B. Reynolds-Moreton

  At long last the shuttle did not bounce back into space, and the long glide down to the planet’s surface began. Kal had to use the thrusters every now and again, just to keep the approach angle correct, otherwise the craft would have dropped like a stone.

  His ears were subjected to a cacophony of sound as the shuttle ruptured a path through the increasingly dense air on its descent towards the planet’s surface.

  The fuel reading was almost on zero when he broke through the cloud layer, and a vast area of blue green water was spread out beneath him, right up to the horizon.

  By now the temperature inside the shuttle was like a furnace, and he was having trouble breathing as the hot air seared his lungs and stung his eyes.

  As the sea rushed up to meet him, his fingers played over the controls like a well practiced musician, flattening the approach angle so that the shuttle would hopefully skim across the waters like a flat stone, otherwise the impact would shatter the craft into a myriad twisted metal fragments, and him along with it.

  Kal braced himself for the first contact with the planet’s surface, and winced as the craft slammed down onto the sea.

  The hiss of steam was accompanied by the scream of metal, as the shuttle’s skin tried to adjust to the sudden change of temperature upon contact with the cold water.

  After the initial impact, there was virtual silence as the shuttle bounced up into the air and began its long curving descent towards the sea again.

  Each time the vessel hit the water the length of time spent in the air lessened, as did the forward speed of the craft, and Kal began to wonder if his body would be able to withstand the numbing shocks much longer.

  The thunderous spray of water on the forward viewing port gradually lessened, and in the distance Kal could just make out what was probably a distant shore line.

  Eventually the bouncing stopped, and the craft was just skimming across the surface of the water.

  At last the heavy impacts had stopped, and Kal was only subjected to the roar of the cleaved waters and a slight shuddering as the vessel sped towards what vaguely looked like a sandy beach in the distance.

  The shuttle was still travelling at high speed when it hit the beach, throwing Kal violently forward in his harness as the craft ploughed a long and deep furrow in the sand.

  The shriek of the abrasive sand as it tore at the hull of the vessel hurt his ears, but at least, he had made landfall, battered and bruised, but in one piece.

  The silence after the vessel had come to rest, had an almost deafening quality about it, and he shook his head to make sure that it wasn’t his hearing that was at fault.

  As his ears readjusted to the new environment, he was aware of faint creaks and groans as the hull tried to cope with the lower temperature, and realign its structure.

  He could hardly believe his luck to have landed safely, for the odds against it were overwhelmingly stacked against him from the start.

  For all Kal knew he might have landed in quicksand, and that would have put him back where he started, with no hope of escape, so a quick exit was in order.

  Try as he might, the hatch would not open when he pressed the release button. Something must have been damaged on the way down or upon landing; whatever it was, the hatch would not respond.

  He quickly stripped the lining panel from the inner face of the reluctant hatch, and removed the locking bars one by one. The last bar removed would allow the hatch to swing open, that’s if the hinge mechanism wasn’t distorted, so he was a little apprehensive about releasing it as he would then be exposed to the planet’s atmosphere.

  There was no way of testing the outside air from within the shuttle, as that was always done from the main ship with special detectors. He would have to breathe this alien air sometime or die, so he felt it might as well be now.

  Instinctively Kal held his breath, knocked out the last locking bar, and with a faint hiss the hatch creaked open a millimetre or so. His ears ‘popped’ as the pressure dropped to balance with that of the outside atmosphere.

  Pushing the hatch open a little, he cautiously took a breath, and found the outside air a lot more pleasant than that which he had been breathing for the last few weeks.

  Kal climbed out of the hatch, and using the service handholds made his way to the top of the shuttle. From here he could see the water in the distance, and an unbelievably long furrow made by the vessel as it had came ashore.

  To the landward side, there was a ridge of large pebbles which gave way to what looked like a grass covered area before merging with a band of trees in the distance. Either side of him, the beach stretched on to the horizon, and what a beach, nearly half a kilometre in width.

  When he looked down, he noticed that the shuttle had sunk far deeper into the sand than the depth of the furrow it had made. Upon closer inspection it was evident that there was something moving about under the sand around the craft, and this movement combined with its own weight, was allowing the vessel to sink ever deeper.

  Hastily Kal climbed down to go back into the cabin in order to gather up a few useful items should he have to leave the comparative safety of the shuttle in a hurry. It was while he was doing this, that he saw to his horror that the sand had begun flowing in through the hatchway, and was slowly spreading across the floor in a series of creeping ripples.

  In sheer panic he leapt for the hatch and scrambled out. The sand outside the hatchway was in violent motion as though something was struggling to reach the surface.

  That was enough for Kal, he jumped down and ran as fast as he could on the heaving sand, heading for the line of pebbles, completely forgetting his good intentions of collecting any useful items from the craft.

  He reached the apparent safety of the pebble bank, and turned, badly shaken, to watch as the sand around the shuttle seemed to boil in fury at his escape.

  Trembling in disbelief, he witnessed the vessel that had safely brought him so far; slowly sink out of sight, and the sand once again returning to its initial stillness.

  Wilderness

  So, here he was on an alien planet, standing on a pebble bank with only the clothes he was wearing, and a small emergency food ration on his belt. No tools, no weapons; nothing but himself and his memories, and any skills he had learnt along the way.

  He was alive, at any rate, but to remain in that state was going to push him to the very limits of his abilities, if the sight of the sinking shuttle was anything to go by.

  There was little point in staying on the pebble bank and bemoaning his lot.

  The first thing to do was to find some means of defending himself should he be attacked by any of this planet’s life forms which he felt sure must exist, and the second to locate a supply of drinkable water.

  Shelter would be needed, and a safe place to rest overnight, that is if this place had a night.

  As his rations were limited, native food could prove to be a problem too, as he had no means of testing it for suitability, and would have to rely on his memory of the survival courses which they had all attended.

  Cautiously he made his way to the upper edge of the bank, and took in the scenery. Before him lay what looked like an area of grassy vegetation, if you could stretch your imagination a little. It was only a few millimetres high, and looked as if it had been cropped by something.

  That solved the doubts about animal life, but what form did it take? Usually herbivores were not aggressive, but no rule was hard and steadfast on an alien world.

  A clump of rocks lay beyond the grass, with a bare soil area around them. Beyond this was what appeared to be a loose knit forest of treelike growths, varying in height from small bushes to tall solid looking trees, several metres high.

  Bearing in mind what had happened on the apparently innocent looking sand, Kal hurried across the grass-like area and onto the rocks. Somehow the rocks felt safer, if they were not too different to those on his home world.

  He was puzzled by the bare area around the rock pile, almost as
if the vegetation didn’t like being too near the rocks. It was then that he found his first piece of useful survival information.

  The rocks were veined with a mineral of some kind, and Kal thought it looked a little like copper ore, but not one he could easily identify. There were pale greenish streaks at the base of the rocks as if something had been dissolved or washed out of them, and then soaked into the surrounding ground.

  Maybe that was it; the local plants didn’t like copper, and wouldn’t or couldn’t grow in its presence. Maybe other things might react to copper in the same way. That piece of information would be filed away for future use.

  In an alien situation like this, all data must be evaluated for possible value, for that was the only weapon he had.

  He climbed up to the top of the rock pile, considering it to be the safest place to be at the moment, and sat down. It was time for a brief résumé of the information he had gathered so far since his somewhat hurried landing.

  If the planet orbited its sun with one side facing the sun all the time, then the other side would be exposed to the chill of space, losing its heat by radiation.

  This would cause most of the gases in the atmosphere to condense on the cold side, and the remaining air would then travel round and also be condensed.

  As there was a breathable atmosphere, the planet must be rotating about its axis, and therefore there should be day and night, or something approaching it.

  The mineral stains on the rocks and surrounding ground indicated that water had probably been responsible for this, so there must be rain or precipitation of some sort.

  As plants cannot grow without some moisture reaching them every now and then, it looked like rain or very dense mist, unless there was an underground source.

  The cropped moss-like grass meant that there was an animal of some kind in the vicinity, and that could possibly provide protein if it wasn’t poisonous.

  One other thing, avoid areas of innocent looking sand, he thought, bearing in mind the sinking shuttle. Therefore other areas of bare ground should be treated with suspicion.

  He had gained a lot of data from this world already, and no doubt would need to find a lot more if he was to survive for any length of time.

  Kal was already feeling a lot better, and realized that water was the next item to find. Picking up a few fist sized stones from the base of the rock pile, he stuffed them into his tunic to use as missiles should the need arise.

  He carefully stepped down from the rock pile, and warily made his way across the grass or ‘gross’ (grass-like-moss) as he now thought of it. There was no point in naming things here with the old terms he was used to, so he decided to make up appropriate names as he went along.

  The start of the forest was not far away, and he reached it without incident. One thing he would have liked, was a long stave or pole with which to fend off any large animals that might decide to put him on the menu.

  The first tree-like object he came to was not all that strange, except for the leaves. They were just flattened branch ends, as far as he could tell, and looked innocent enough.

  Dotted about the growth were a few dark red berries, about the size of his thumbnail, and he wondered if they were edible. After he had had a general look around, Kal thought he would make a collection of all likely looking fruits, and test them out for safe eating later.

  The trees and bushes were spread out on the fringes of the forest, but by the look of things, it was a little denser further in, and he would have to go very carefully if he was not to be taken by any surprises this planet had in store for him.

  The gross carpeted the floor of the forest for as far as he could see, but there were a few bare patches here and there, which he avoided just to be on the safe side.

  A bamboo-like structure caught his attention, and looked harmless enough. It sent shoots up to about four metres, and the main stem at the base was as thick as his wrist. If he could get one of these out from the clump, he would then have his much desired stave. Reaching into the thicket, Kal selected a shoot and tried to wrench it clear.

  Although it bent, it was not going to come out easily, and despite several tries, he had to give up.

  A little further in, was an apparent dead shoot, at least it was a different colour to the rest, and he thought it was worth a try. It proved to be a good choice, as, with a pistol like crack, it came away at the base, and he was now armed with his stave. Even though the shoot was not alive, it had retained a considerable degree of strength, and Kal could not break it, try as he might.

  There was another clump of rocks to his left, and he went over to investigate. These obviously did not contain anything which the surrounding plant life found obnoxious, as the gross grew right up to the edge of the pile, and there was no sign of the green copper stain he had seen from the first rocks.

  What passed here for a thorn thicket with a bare patch of ground all around it was just ahead of him, and he climbed a little way up the rock pile to get a better view.

  Hardly had he done so, when a creature not unlike an overgrown caterpillar, but about a metre long, came into the clearing. By the way it was moving its head from side to side it was looking for something, possibly to eat.

  It must have found what it wanted, for it set off in a straight line across the bare patch. It only made it about halfway.

  The ground under the unfortunate creature split open, and two long tendrils complete with spikes, curled around it, the sharp points going deep into its flesh.

  The tendrils continued to curl up, such that they were rolling the animal into the very centre of the thicket, and thorned branches then slowly curved around the catch, until it was only just visible.

  All struggling had ceased as soon as the first tendril had made contact, so Kal surmised that the spikes must contain a very strong paralysing compound.

  ‘That might come in useful’ he thought, if he could get his hands on a couple of the spikes without becoming a meal for the thicket. He noticed that at the very base of the thorn thicket, there appeared to be a pile of white stones of varying sizes, and climbing down from the safety of the rocks he moved closer to see if he could tell what they were.

  He should have known, they were the bones of creatures the thorn thicket had captured. Some had broken down into very small particles, and would in time no doubt, be absorbed by the plant, while others seemed to have only recently been added to the pile.

  He thought he should be able to work out the size of the largest animal caught by the biggest bones present, and this would give him a clue as to the size of any adversary he might meet. First he needed to find a bigger bush.

  It did not take him long to find a giant of a thicket, and sure enough, there were some bones there that sent cold shivers down his spine.

  There were several much larger than any bone in his body, and not knowing the structure of the creature they had belonged to, his mind ran riot trying to conjure up a picture of what it might look like.

  No doubt, he would see one sooner or later, and he had better be well armed when he did.

  One thing Kal did see in the bone pile was what might have been the jaw of something he would rather not meet under any circumstances. It was as long as his forearm, and had a line of razor sharp teeth embedded in it.

  With his pole he very carefully hooked it out from the base of the thicket. It was quite heavy, and the teeth were like nothing he had ever seen before, thin flat plates with a razor sharp edge.

  Taking his find back to the rock pile, he managed to break the bone at the front of the jaw by tapping away with a pointed stone, and now had two very effective saws.

  Nearby was a bamboo clump, and he wondered if his new cutting tool would be effective on the tough stems. Kal made sure he did not tread on anything nasty in his eagerness to reach the clump, and selecting a thick shoot, and tried to cut it at about waist height.

  Once the ‘Jaw Saw’ had broken through the outside layer of the bamboo, it cut easily, and a
trickle of a water-like liquid ran out. Did he dare taste it?

  Remembering his survival training, he wetted his finger in the liquid, and waited a few moments. Nothing happened, so he touched his finger to his lower lip, moistening it.

  If it did not sting, and his lip did not swell within a few minutes, he would put a drop under his tongue, as this was the point in the body where it would be absorbed most readily, and if poisons where present, would react, hopefully not fatally.

  Kal had not realized just how thirsty he was, and was anxiously awaiting the result from the ‘lip test’ so that he could slake his thirst. He was fortunate, so far there had been no reaction to the fluid, and so he placed a small drop under his tongue.

  Some minutes later, after noticing no ill effects, he chose a young shoot and cutting off the top, bent it down so that the clear liquid ran into his cupped hand. The temptation to drink deeply was overcome, and he took a cautious sip.

  It tasted good, cool, and very slightly sweet with a faint perfumed flavour that he could not quite place.

  He would now have to wait several minutes to see if the larger intake of the fluid would react on his metabolism.

  Making his way back to the rock-pile, he climbed up to the top and sat down to await the results, if any.

  Kal noticed over to one side of the bamboo clump, another ‘tree’ that bore a strange crop of finger like fruits, at least he supposed they were fruits or seed pods.

  It looked as though someone had strung up a series of large dark brown hands all over the tree, and it gave the whole thing a very sinister look indeed. He thought that the ‘fingers’ might be a possible food source.

  The bamboo juice didn’t seem to have had any bad effects on him, so he went back to the clump, and cutting the tops of several small shoots, drank his fill. He could hardly believe his luck at finding this source of water, and generally felt a little better towards this apparently hostile world.

  He went over to the ‘Finger’ tree, and knocked down a clump of the brown fruits with his pole. Nearby was another odd looking growth which bore a number of bright yellow pear-shaped objects, and one of these was added to his collection. On his way back to the copper rocks, Kal also collected a few of the bright red berries he had seen earlier, as they reminded him of a fruit from his home world.