New Frontiers- The Complete Series

by Jasper T. Scott

  “Back the other way. Looks like our friendly giant turned around here, but he wasn’t happy about it. There’s a trampled area and some freshly-busted foliage. I think he tried to force his way in.”

  “Did he?”

  “No gaps big enough to suggest that, and his footprints reappear again going back the way he came.”

  “Why was he so desperate to get into the jungle?”

  “Chasing smaller prey would be my guess, sir. And there’s something else. I’ve got a reading on sensors that could be Max.”

  “What? Why didn’t you say so sooner?” Alexander scanned his sensor display, but there was nothing flagged. “Where? I don’t see anything.” The Cheetah’s sensors were much more powerful than the rover’s, so that wasn’t too surprising.

  “About one klick in. Something metallic—small but dense.”

  “It could just be a ferrous rock.”

  “It could be, yes.”

  “So what are our options?”

  “We go out on foot and check the coordinates,” Stone said.

  “And if the jungle eats us?” Alexander asked.

  “We shouldn’t all go. Just one or two of us at a time,” Stone replied.

  “I’m going,” Korbin said.

  Alexander shot her a look. “Hold on. No one’s going anywhere yet.”

  “Based on the size of the anomaly, we could be looking at Max’s helmet,” Stone said, “and if we find that, we’ll probably find out what happened to him.”

  Alexander’s eyes narrowed to slits. “That, or a we’ll find a useless hunk of rock. Have you tried contacting him?”

  “I’ve been broadcasting an automatic message since we set out. If he has a working comm system, he should have picked up our signal and replied by now.”

  Alexander sighed and looked to Korbin. “You can’t go.”

  “Why not? My purpose with the mission is to replace you if the need arises. Other than that all I do is manage the crew’s emotional well-being.”

  “Because I’m going, and as you pointed out, you’re my replacement if something happens to me.”

  Korbin opened her mouth to object, but Alexander raised a palm to silence her. “No arguments. Any other volunteers?” he asked, turning to the rest of the crew.

  “I’ll go,” Cardinal said. “I know plants.”

  “Not these ones.”

  “Which is why I need to take samples.”

  “All right.” Alexander keyed the comms. “Stone—”

  “Sir?”

  “Grab your rifle and dismount. You’re coming with us.”

  “Aye-aye, Captain.”

  * * *

  The rover’s airlock hissed and squealed as it matched pressure with the air outside. Alexander waited, his eyes on the status light above the outer door. His right hand fell to his waist and he drew the high-powered laser pistol he’d strapped there. Projectile weapons were typically longer-ranged and more efficient at killing while in atmosphere, but when it came to fighting plants, the heat generated by a laser bolt would be much more useful. Bullets would probably just tickle a giant tree, but a searing bolt of light would set the whole thing on fire. If any trees tried to eat him he’d turn them into matchsticks.

  The light above the door glowed green and a tone issued from the airlock just before the doors slid open. Hot, humid air swept in, and Alexander’s faceplate fogged up. He wiped it on his sleeve before following Cardinal out. Rather than carry a weapon of his own, the botanist had a large sample container open and at the ready, along with an entire pack full of matching containers just waiting to be filled.

  Alexander jumped down onto a pile of shredded, water-logged black wood. He spied a spiky purple ball not far from where they stood and wondered if it was alive. It didn’t move.

  “Stone?” Alexander commed.

  “Coming… sir…” Stone replied, sounding distracted.

  Alexander gazed up to watch the tree canopy. Black branches and wide red leaves all but blotted out the dusty purple sky. What spaces they left were filled by fat black mushroom caps that rose high above the canopy. Between all of the foliage, sunlight streamed down in thin white beams, revealing clouds of rising vapor and something else… what looked like soap bubbles rising with the vapor. He saw one or two of the closer ones suddenly contract, distorting into an elliptical shape before making a spurt of movement. He was reminded of the balloon-shaped birds they’d seen on their way down. Were these the miniature versions?

  “Wow…” Cardinal said. “No shortage of wonder on Wonderland.”

  Leaves rustled in the breeze, the sound transmitted by his helmet’s external audio pickups. He turned to look and saw tree branches snaking down to greet them. The leaves weren’t rustling in a breeze, he realized, they were rustling with the trees’ movement.

  “We’ve got incoming!” Alexander said, aiming his pistol at the nearest group of branches.

  “Hold your fire, Captain,” Stone said. “They already got to me. The trees are not hostile. Repeat, not hostile. Can’t promise they’ll still be friendly after you shoot them, though.”

  Alexander cringed as the nearest branch swooped down and slithered over him, feeling him up from head to toe. Then it withdrew and seemed to regard him with giant purple flowers with yellow and black centers. Now he was sure those flowers were some kind of eyes. Alexander stared back. The tree branch remained where it was, flower-eyes still watching, smaller branches writhing like worms while the larger ones undulated slowly.

  “These trees sure the hell are creepy,” Alexander said.

  “Literally creepy,” Cardinal said.

  Stone walked up beside them, covered in blood.

  Alexander flinched. “Medic!”

  Stone shook his head. “It’s just tree sap,” he explained, reaching out to wipe a blotch of matching crimson gunk off Alexander’s suit.

  “Actually…” Cardinal said, wiping more of the same off his own suit and studying it in his hands. “Since these trees move, the sap might actually be the trees’ blood. I’d need to study both the sap and one of the tree branches to know for sure.”

  Alexander’s brow furrowed. “So they’re bleeding all over us? Are they dying or something?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Well, take some samples and let’s get moving,” Alexander said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Turning to Stone, Alexander asked, “You have a fix on the sensor anomaly?”

  “I’ve got a bearing on my direction finder,” he said, hefting the handheld device. “Two hundred and fifty five degrees.”

  “Compasses work here?” Alexander asked while another branch surreptitiously wiped more sap on him.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And they still point north?” Cardinal asked, walking up to them with two sample containers full of vegetation.

  “Magnetic north, yes. Compasses always point to magnetic north.”

  “Right. I must have plants on the brain,” Cardinal said.

  Alexander nodded to Stone. “Well, so long as we have a heading, we shouldn’t get lost. Lead the way.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And keep an eye out for anything that might be dangerous.”

  “I’ll just watch everything then,” Stone said.

  “Exactly.”

  They walked past Stone’s Cheetah, standing sentinel at the line of debris that marked the end of the devastation caused by the tsunami. Here the debris was thicker than ever. They climbed over half-dead trees and branches that writhed and slithered as they were stepped on. All three of them hesitated when they reached the dense wall of red and purple foliage. The jungle looked impossibly dark. There could be anything in there, and if the trees suddenly decided to become hostile, no amount of laser fire would be enough to save them.

  “I don’t like this,” Alexander breathed, panting over the comms as he balanced on top of a piece of driftwood the size of the rover.

  “We could turn back,” Stone sa
id. “No one will blame us for leaving him. If we had contact with Earth I bet they’d order us not to go any further.”

  Alexander frowned and took two steps closer. The jungle reacted to his approach by reaching out with leafy branches and feeling him up once more. This time they didn’t leave a sticky trail of sap, and they withdrew after just a moment. Alexander took that as good sign.

  Shrugging, he turned to regard Lieutenants Stone and Cardinal. “I was never very good at following orders. That’s why they made me captain. Let’s go.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  They walked in, gently pushing tree branches aside. Once they were below the canopy, daylight vanished. The darkness was suffocating, but not absolute. Some of the ground cover radiated its own light—glowing blue ferns and fuzzy yellow growths sprouted from tree trunks. Clusters of crystalline rock glittered on the ground in all the colors of the rainbow, pulsing out beams of shifting light.

  The soap bubbles they’d seen earlier floated everywhere, glinting in the shadows.

  “This deserves a hologram,” Stone said while stepping through a curtain of glowing purple vines. “Where’s Max when you need him? Wasn’t he supposed to be documenting this trip?”

  Alexander watched the vines react to Stone’s intrusion. Hairlike tendrils stood on end, feeling him, while the length of the vines furled and unfurled restlessly.

  “What kind of evolutionary purpose is there for plants that move?” Alexander wondered.

  Cardinal crouched down beside one of the blue-glowing ferns, but it shied away from him, turning out the lights and furling up its leaves. “Protection maybe?” he suggested. “Movement could also be justified and reinforced by active food and nutrient gathering, a result of plants vying with each other for limited space. Reproduction is another possibility. Maybe that sap isn’t their blood, but rather some kind of reproductive fluid?”

  “Way too much information, Cardinal,” Alexander said, regarding a sticky red stain on his uniform with a wrinkled nose.

  “Agreed,” Stone put in. “Let’s get to that sensor anomaly and get out of here before we start growing baby trees.”

  The comms crackled with Korbin’s voice. “How’s everything in there?”

  “Nothing hostile so far,” Alexander said. “Jungle is pretty dense, and a little too much on the touchy feely side, but no problems yet. Our heading is 255 degrees. We have one klick to cover before we get to the anomaly. At the rate we’re going, we should stumble on it in about half an hour.”

  “That long?”

  Alexander grunted as he climbed over a wall of tree roots as tall as he was. “Maybe longer. We’ll be in touch.”

  It actually took forty minutes before Stone held up his hand and called a halt. He was staring as his direction finder and shaking his head.

  “What is it?” Alexander asked.

  “Whatever we saw on the sensors has to be around here somewhere,” Stone replied, turning in a slow circle and searching the ground cover.

  “I don’t see anything,” Cardinal said.

  Alexander didn’t either, but it wasn’t easy to see through all the phosphorescent ferns. “Let’s sweep the area. Push aside the ground cover wherever it’s obscuring the ground.”

  “Roger,” Stone said.

  “What’s that?” Cardinal said, pointing up to a hanging curtain of crimson vines. They were rolling down to the ground like a roller shade. As the vines unfurled, Alexander saw a familiar flash of reflective white fabric—fabric that had been designed to stand out against the black of space.

  Cardinal gasped. “Is that…”

  “Come on,” Alexander said, already running toward the vines. By now they could see arms and legs, and Max’s wavy blond hair.

  “Where’s his helmet?” Cardinal asked, crouching down beside him to check for a pulse. “He’s alive,” Cardinal said a second later. Max’s eyes were shut, and his face was pale, but otherwise he appeared fine.

  Stone called it in. “We’ve found Max. He’s alive, but he lost his helmet somewhere. That must be what we picked up on sensors.”

  “Is he hurt?” Korbin replied.

  “As far as we can tell he’s fine,” Cardinal replied. “He’s just unconscious.”

  “Then he’s not fine,” Korbin said.

  Alexander commed back, “You’ll have a chance to examine him soon. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you have a crush on him.”

  “I cherish life in all its forms, Captain. I don’t need a vested interest to care about my fellow man.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “How are you going to carry him back?”

  “There’s three of us. We’ll figure something out.”

  “Let me know if you need anything, sir.”

  “Will do.” Alexander glanced up at the vines. They were busy furling back up into the trees.

  “What do you think they were doing with him?” Stone asked.

  “And why did they drop him here when we arrived?” Cardinal put in. “You think they realized he’s one of us?”

  “Let’s not get carried away,” Alexander said. “Get over here and grab his legs.”

  Before Cardinal could move to follow that order, Max’s eyes flew open. He sat bolt upright and screamed at the top of his lungs.

  CHAPTER 24

  “Max!”

  Max went on screaming as if he hadn’t heard, his eyes glassy and unseeing.

  “Max!” Alexander slapped him. “It’s us! What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

  The diplomat shut his mouth and turned to look at his aggressor. It took an extra moment for his eyes to focus. “Captain?”

  “You’re safe now. Are you hurt?”

  “We need to get out of here!”

  “Why?”

  Instead of answering, Max looked around wildly. His blue eyes were big and black in the dim light of the jungle.

  “What are you afraid of?” Stone asked.

  “I… you didn’t see it? It was chasing me.”

  Alexander nodded. “We saw the footprints. Don’t worry, it didn’t follow you in here.”

  “That’s because the jungle kept it out. They drew blood, and it killed one of them.”

  Alexander remembered the sticky red sap the trees had been wiping off on them, and suddenly he realized what it was. That had been the creature’s blood.

  “They who…?” Cardinal asked.

  “The trees! That monster turned one of them to splinters!”

  “What did it look like?”

  “A dinosaur is the closest thing I can compare it to, but it wasn’t reptilian. It had black fur all over its body.”

  Alexander traded looks with Stone.

  “Like a hairy T-Rex?” Stone asked.

  “You saw it?” Max asked.

  “Just a lucky guess.”

  “We need to go,” Max insisted. “Before it comes back.”

  “How did you get caught up in those vines?” Cardinal asked.

  Max shook his head. “What vines?”

  “You were rolled up in a bundle of vines when we found you. They dropped you on the ground when we arrived.”

  Max frowned. “I fell asleep on the ground…” He looked up, his eyes darting between the trees. “You don’t think they were going to eat me, do you?”

  Cardinal shook his head. “If what you said about them defending you is true, they might have been trying to protect you.”

  “Can you walk?” Alexander asked.

  “I think so,” Max said.

  “Good, then let’s get out of here. You have enough samples, Cardinal?”

  “No, but I’m out of sample containers, so it’ll have to do for now.”

  “You still have my rocks, right?” Stone asked.

  “Yes, I still have your rocks, but maybe you should carry them.”

  “Sure. I’ll just put my rifle down so I can do that. If we run into Mr. T. you can pat him on the head and tickle his tummy.”

  “Never mind,” C
ardinal muttered.

  “Move out,” Alexander said. “Stone you’re back on point. I’ll take the rear.” Mentally activating the comms, Alexander said, “Korbin, Max is ambulatory. He woke up. We’re on our way back.”

  Korbin breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s good to hear.”

  “Any sweet nothings you want me to whisper to him for you?”

  “Ha ha.”

  Alexander smiled. “Just checking.”

  * * *

  By the time they reached the shuttles, the sun was high in the sky and so hot that they could feel its heat radiating through the rover’s hull.

  “So this is what it feels like to be in an oven,” Alexander muttered. Up ahead they saw Stone’s Cheetah taking long strides toward the shuttles, kicking up sand and bits of sodden vegetation.

  The comms crackled and Stone said, “Captain, there are more of those footprints up ahead.”

  “Leading to the shuttles?” Alexander asked. He studied the gleaming hulls in the distance, but none of them appeared damaged.

  “Around them. Headed for the ocean. Should we check it out?”

  Alexander’s first impulse was to say no, but they were safe in the rover. Besides, it would be better to find out what these creatures were like now, rather than wait for them to come sniffing around the hab complex.

  “Go for it. We’ll follow you.”

  They didn’t have to go very far. The footprints converged on a large pile of red, black, and white vegetation. As they approached, Alexander began to doubt it was vegetation. A frown wrinkled his brow and he keyed the comms once more. “What is that, Stone?”

  “Not sure. Magnifying…” A burst of static came over the comms as Stone made a noise of disgust. “That’s the beached whale we saw.”

  Korbin leaned forward in her seat, her eyes wide. “Poor thing.”

  It was a grisly sight—black whale skin clinging to jutting white bones. Bloody red meat and pink whale fat were scattered all over the beach.

  Alexander found the sight curious. That whale had been so similar to an Earth whale that it could have washed up on a beach on Earth and no one would have batted an eye, and now with its innards exposed, that was no less true. Besides the balloon creatures and moving trees, life on Wonderland seemed a lot like life on Earth. Was that a coincidence? Animals with red blood and white bones, and trees with leaves and trunks. Evolution had somehow picked a similar path twice. Very curious.