The Inosculation Syndrome

by D. B. Reynolds-Moreton

The crushed and distorted body fell to earth with a sickening thump, whilst another wave of disorientation hit Kal, and he was back in his childhood, playing with friends at home. The scene faded as quickly as it had come, and he was plunged back into the same terrifying situation again.

  Another member of the team had been caught by the creature, and after being crushed by the entwining whip like tentacle, was flung towards the missile launcher.

  The operator instinctively ducked, unfortunately jamming his nose straight into the shielded recess of the firing button, with a sickening crunch.

  Fortuitously for the rest of them, his nose was a perfect fit for the recess, and the firing button was depressed, the missile streaking out from the launcher tube and heading straight for the writhing creature before him. The missile entered about half way up the column, and disappeared inside with a dull plop.

  A split second later there was a deep muffled cough, and the column ballooned out in the middle, to then slowly collapse in on itself, the monstrosity falling over on its side.

  The rest of the creature heaved itself out of the hole, and around the now exposed base there were what amounted to several stumpy appendages, which it used to move around on, and probably dig its hiding hole with in the first place.

  The team had gathered together around the missile launcher, which had been reloaded, and most of them had sat down, mentally and physically shattered at the unbelievable series of events which they had just experienced.

  The creature was obviously near death, having sustained such colossal internal damage, and was now relatively still, except for a series of strange undulations which seemed to be going on under the wrinkled hide near the base end.

  No one wanted to go any closer to it at the moment, so they didn’t see a small number of slits appearing at the base.

  The alarm was raised when one of the more adventurous members of the team had strolled over to take a better look at the dying remains of the hideous creature, and came streaking back with a look of horror on his face, and his voice several octaves higher than normal.

  Led by a very worried Kal, the armourments team grabbed their weapons and rushed over to the base of the hulk, where they were confronted by several four metre long replicas of the original, but thankfully not yet fully formed.

  The creature, in its death throes, must have triggered off the birthing process in a desperate attempt to propagate itself into the next generation.

  The stun tube was used to incapacitate the duplicates, and this was followed by a ferocious attack with bronze tipped spears. The team were still remembering their two lost companions, and Kal was glad he wasn’t on the receiving end of it.

  When the monster was finally still, and all the offspring had been rendered lifeless, they went over to the hole from which the creature had come. It was a massive excavation, and went down some twenty metres.

  At the base they could just see several smaller cavities going into the side of the hole, and wondered if these were where the base appendages went, or were they tunnels which were used to attract an underground food supply.

  No one was going down to find out, so they were left to speculate on the matter for now.

  They checked once more to make sure that all was lifeless, and decided to return to the base camp to rest. They had achieved what they had set out to do, but were totally overwhelmed by the events which had ensued.

  At Kal’s suggestion, they all spread out in a single line about ten metres apart, the idea being that as they made their way back, they could check the ground for any more of the creatures which lived in holes, and if they found none, then this strip of the plateau could be declared safe to travel on.

  The testing of the ground was quite easy, and involved little effort on the part of the searchers. All they had to do was walk twenty paces and kick a stone. If it moved, then they were on solid ground, but if it was stuck down or part of the surface, then they could have a problem.

  They made it back to the main building without mishap, and all breathed a sigh of relief at not having to fight another hole dweller, just yet.

  Later that evening, they had recovered enough to eat a meal, but without the usual enthusiasm, and began to discuss the horrendous happenings of the day.

  Combining their observations and knowledge, they were able to work out what had happened to the earlier exploration team which had disappeared, and probably the original miners who had fled the area so inexplicably.

  They reasoned that the creature dug itself a hole in which it lived for most of its life, creating on its head a flattened area, duplicating the surrounding terrain.

  Here it lay in wait for a suitable meal to approach, whereupon it raised itself from its layer, radiating some kind of mental energy wave which caused its intended victims to hallucinate scenes from their earlier memories, so causing a paralytic confusion.

  The creature was then able to scoop them up at will with its long tentacle like arms, and eat.

  What they couldn’t understand was how such an enormous creature could sustain itself on the meagre picking of the almost barren plateau, for they had seen no other life forms above ground at all. The only explanation Kal could come up with was that it either had a very efficient metabolism, or there was another food source, probably underground.

  Either way, it wasn’t the sort of thing one would want to come up against on a dark night, and it wouldn’t have to be very dark.

  Sleep that night was fitful for all, judging by the bleary eyes next morning, and no doubt a few nightmares were experienced as a bonus. Kal still wasn’t happy that the creature was the sole reason the others had left.

  He thought it was unlikely that the creature was just a solo experiment of nature, and there were likely to be more of them around. If they were to operate in this area, and they needed to for the extraction of the new minerals, then they would have to find some way of detecting the creatures, before they were detected and converted into nourishment for the next generation of horrors.

  This problem would have to be given some thought when they got back home, and perhaps some more efficient weapons developed, specifically for this kind of creature.

  They had got over their initial shock of meeting the hole creature, and as far as they could tell, there were no more dangers at the hole site, so Kal asked for a few volunteers to accompany him to gather a little more information from the tattered remains of the monster.

  Arriving at the hole, the first thing he wanted to do was determine the structure of the ‘lid’ or top of its head. It was now canted over at an angle, and easily accessible to them, so he began by trying to ascertain the thickness of the hard outer layer, which would then give them an indication of how to penetrate the top layer, and do some damage below.

  It had to be organic, as it was part of the creature, but the hardness of the surface and the accurate duplication of the detail of the surrounding ground, was quite amazing.

  Kal found that the tough outer surface was nearly a metre thick, and below this there was a honeycombed section of bone-like material which supported the top layer, and gave it its rigidity. Many metres below this was the mouth of the creature, now clamped shut, and just as well, he thought.

  The missile had ruptured a large internal section of the middle of the creature into a pulp, and from this area they were unable to gain much information.

  Below the damaged section, there was one more surprise. The carcass had split open near its base where the young had been expelled, and some of the internal working could be seen. A little cutting here and there with a long knife revealed a little more detail, and it was from this that they were able to understand how the creature was able to rise so quickly from its hole.

  Near the base, there were a series of large bag like structures, very thick and tough, and even a knife couldn’t cut through the outer layer. These seemed to be connected to tubes of the same material, which went up the trunk and into another series of bags, one above the other. />
  Somehow or other, the creature either gulped air or generated a gas from some sort of chemical reaction, which was stored under pressure in the lower chambers.

  When it wanted to rise quickly from its hole, it released the compressed gases from below, inflating the upper bags, and the whole main column then expanded, pushing the top portion up out of the hole like a rocket.

  They were in for an even bigger surprise when the research team they later sent, returned with details of how the creature really achieved its amazing feat.

  As there was little more they could do at the hole or the mining site, it was decided to return home and devise some easy means of detecting the creatures, and dispatching them with the least amount of danger to themselves.

  Kal already had a few ideas on the subject, and these no doubt, would soon be improved upon somewhat by the engineers, and the problem would be solved.

  The flight back was uneventful and quick, as was to be expected, and a group of engineers was hurriedly put together to solve the problem of the menace at the mining site.

  The device for dispatching the creatures was simple enough, and was comprised of a framework holding a self propelled missile, which would blast downwards and into the head section.

  Just below the main missile, there was to be a group of three smaller ones, which would be fired off a split second before, ripping out the tough upper top surface, and exposing the honeycomb section below, so that the main projectile could then penetrate on down through the layer, and into the internal working of the creature.

  ‘A thoroughly nasty device for a thoroughly nasty creature’, Kal thought, hiding his grin, lest he had to explain it.

  Finding the actual hiding place of the creature was another matter, and this proved to be a little more difficult, unless large numbers of volunteers were willing to march across vast areas of the high plateau in lines, putting themselves at constant risk. This was not a very popular option, and was shelved as a last resort.

  The smelters had managed to extract metal from an ore found in one of the plateau mines which Kal hadn’t seen before. It seemed to be very much like steel but didn’t rust, and was extremely tough.

  Metal turning lathes of quite a sophisticated nature were now to be found in the metal workshops, and he wondered how they had been developed in such a short time, with no basic suggestions from him.

  The discovery and learning curve of the little people was on the up again, or maybe it always was, and it was Kal who thought it had slowed down somewhat.

  The engineers came to him a few days later, bringing two electronics experts with them. They thought they had solved the problem of locating the ‘creature in the hole’.

  The idea was to build a machine which would rake the surface of the ground with sprung tines, such that as it progressed along, the large gravel and smaller stones, and there were few bigger that Kal’s fist, would be pushed into lines about five metres apart.

  Having traversed back and forth across a selected portion of the plateau, a small wing could then over fly the raked ground, and any circular areas without lines of stones on them would denote stones which couldn’t be moved, and a possible ‘hole creature’ beneath.

  Kal was most impressed with the design, but wondered who was going to ride the machine. The little team looked at each other, grinning, and said ‘No one’.

  When Kal looked blankly at them, they hastily tried to explain that they had worked out a way whereby they could control the machine remotely.

  The machine would go forward a certain distance, say one kilometre, turn back on itself, and return, having moved over to run parallel to its first track by its own width. This way a large area of the plateau could be checked for anything under the ground without putting anyone in danger.

  The electronics team were quite happy that they could build a simple memory unit, so that the machine would know where it had been, and where it should then go.

  Now Kal was now not only impressed, but quite staggered by the resourcefulness and skill of the two teams. He agreed this was the best way to rid themselves of the creatures, and he wanted to go on the first trial run.

  The team members suddenly looked very serious, and muttered among themselves for a few moments, until one of them burst out laughing, and, joined by the others, said they had guessed he would want to go.

  They had agreed among themselves to look a bit doubtful about his request, for a bit of fun. This was the first time a straight forward example of a sense of humour in the little people had manifested itself to Kal, and in a way, despite having been taken for a bit of a ride, he was very pleased, as it made them a little bit more like him, and gave them a bit more common ground to express themselves.

  The hole hunting machine was ready before the missile set up had been completed, which surprised Kal somewhat, so he went along to see how they were doing with the project.

  The main difficulty seemed to be that they couldn’t be sure of getting the projectile to explode at the correct depth within the creature. They had decided that they didn’t want to blow it to pieces, but just to kill it, leaving it as intact as possible so that they could take it apart themselves to see how it worked.

  ‘These people are full of surprises’ Kal said to himself. They had worked out where they thought the missile should explode in order to kill the creature outright, using a small charge, but if they didn’t get the depth of penetration right, it would only be injured, and could possibly still be a danger, as they had no defence against the ‘mind wave’.

  Kal suggested that they have a coil of very strong wire attached to the projectile, and the other end of it fixed to the launch frame. When all the wire, which would have to be of the correct length, had been pulled in behind the projectile, it could trigger the firing mechanism when fully stretched.

  The idea was taken up immediately, and he was thanked profusely for his contribution to the project. It was a little while later when Kal began to wonder if he had been taken for another ride perhaps. Why hadn’t they come up with the wire idea, as they were quite capable of it?

  Had they set it up to allow him to add his ideas to the project, and if so why? The solution to the problem had been too easy, so it looked as if something was going on, but Kal could make no sense of it.

  The wire firing system was tried and proved most successful, the wire singing out to its predetermined length, and a small charge exploding to signal the fact. A short while later the launcher had been completed. Kal watched a demonstration of the remote control searcher machine, and although it didn’t find any ‘holes’, it did leave a very even series of lines, and seemed quite happy to trundle up and down the test area without any supervision apart from being told when to start and stop.

  The whole system was loaded up on the wing, and would fly out next day for an actual trial on the high plateau.

  That evening, Kal was requested to attend a meeting of the Council of Elders, and found that their numbers had decreased somewhat since his last meeting with them.

  There was the general discussion of how all the different projects were going, with the heads of departments being called in when necessary to give any extra information the Elders needed, and then when he thought the meeting was about over, they turned to him and asked how he felt about being the leader of the whole community by taking their place at all meetings, and virtually having full control of all that went on.

  Kal was surprised and honoured at the request and wanted to know why he had been asked at this particular time.

  The reason given was that the numbers of the original little people had been dwindling since the crossbreeding program had begun, and no more of the original little people had been born since that day.

  The Elders knew that their days were now numbered, and although they were very clever, the new breed hadn’t reached the degree of maturity they had expected, and so were concerned for the level of stability and guidance of the future Councils, and hence the race as a who
le.

  Kal understood their concern, but felt it was not right to take up the post offered, but agreed to act as a moderator on the Council, having a veto vote until he felt they were fully capable of running things themselves.

  This was finally agreed upon, and just before the meeting broke up, Kal expressed his sorrow that the original little people would soon be no more.

  ‘You have not fully understood our motives for the breeding program, or you would not feel sorrow for us’.

  ‘Some of us realized long ago that we did not belong here, we have no racial memory of arriving, and no history which makes any sense. Very long ago we realized that we could not survive here for more than a few generations more, and your coming was the saviour of our people’.

  ‘Through you, we shall live on, a little of you mixed with a little of us, generating a new race with the best of both our peoples, will subdue this world.’

  Kal felt a moistness in his eyes, and tried to hide the lump in his throat which he felt sure was visible to all, despite the soft light of the evening.

  ‘It is we who should thank you for your contribution to the project, although we had to use a little subterfuge in the early days. Without you, we wouldn’t be here now.’

  ‘We had sensed rather than knew that there was something dormant in us which you somehow released when you showed us how to defend ourselves, and later began the various research projects’.

  ‘So you see, we owe you far more than we can ever repay, as you would see it.’

  It was a somewhat contrite and humbled Kal who went to his bed that night, thinking of these people’s selflessness to the common good of their race, willing to give up their own identity for a greater purpose.

  He had seen no sign of crime in any form, so real anger, only frustration when understanding failed them. No one had to be ordered to do anything, it was just done by the most able to do it, because it was necessary to be done.

  All worked for the greater good of the whole group, and seemed to consider it was the correct thing to do, and he doubted if they even considered that! They just did it.