Green Comet

Continuing the serial release of The Plainsrunner under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license – (CC-BY-SA).

Blunt gets medical treatment and they get a tour of the big thing.

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rjb

Chapter Forty-Nine – The Square

“Once again, I’m sorry,” said Archie. They were standing around an unmoving Blunt, the excitement wearing off and introspection setting in.

When Archie came through the door carrying a big sack, Blunt had drawn his weapon in a frightened, defensive reflex. Just as reflexively, the great ship’s defense system engaged to eliminate the threat. The result was startling and effective, and now Blunt was unconscious, lying on a bed with his arm in something Archie called a healing sleeve.

After the cracking noise, Blunt was immobilized, his mouth open wide in a soundless scream. It was as if his arm had been struck by an invisible bolt of lightning. There was minimal visible damage to his suit, but they could tell there must be severe damage to his arm inside it.

Archie had dropped the sack and rushed forward. Seeing where Steel’s hand was, he said, “Please don’t draw your weapon. I warned you. I told you the Prime doesn’t like weapons.” He got close enough to see the damage to Blunt’s arm. Blunt cringed away from him, protecting his injury. Archie said to him, “We can fix this. We have the facilities to repair the damage to your arm. To stop the pain.”

Blunt’s conflict was clear in his face and body. He desperately wanted to stop the pain and heal his arm, but he was suspicious and afraid. He looked at Steel, pleading.

Steel made it easy for him. He said, “You have no choice, Specialist Blunt. I need you whole and healthy to complete the mission. I’m ordering you to allow these people to treat you.”

Blunt slumped with gratitude and, with a great show of reluctance, submitted. They got him out of his suit, fortunately after an application of analgesia, and carried him out of the airlock to a small room with a bed. There he was sedated and the healing sleeve wrapped itself around his badly burned arm. Archie apologized yet again and they all looked down on Blunt’s inert form for a few minutes before leaving the room and heading back to the airlock.

There they removed their pressure suits and stowed them in the Emissary, along with their guns. Blunt’s suit they kept out because Archie told them they could repair it. Then he finally picked up the sack again. He said, “As I was about to show you, we have setae on our hands and feet which allow us to grip things. The ones on our feet allow us to stick to the floor and walk, after a fashion.” He pulled something out of the sack. “We made these for your feet, to allow you to do the same,” he said, showing them some booties that would slip over their hooves.

Tallgrass volunteered, raising a hoof, and Archie bent and slipped a bootie over it. It fitted itself, snugging itself down and sealing. Archie handed him three more and gave four each to Steel and Wayfarer. The sack held four more for Blunt, when he was ready.

Tallgrass reached down and pressed a hoof to the floor, then tugged. He was surprised when it pulled his body down, and he threw his other three feet down to stop himself. Now all four feet were stuck and he couldn’t pull them loose. He looked at Archie.

“If you give a little tug laterally, it breaks the seal, and you can lift your foot. See?”

Tallgrass tried it, and it worked. He showed his mates and the three of them spent the next few minutes awkwardly sticking and peeling their way around the airlock. Watching each other, they began to laugh, helplessly before long.

Archie had another treat for them. He took them out of the airlock again and down a long passageway, past Blunt’s room and on for what they estimated to be a kilometer, at least. In his mind’s eye, Tallgrass visualized them moving inward, traversing about a thirtieth of the width of the great ship.

“We keep the living quarters well inboard,” said their guide. “We like to keep lots of mass between ourselves and the hazards out there.”

“Hazards?” said Tallgrass. “Like asteroids?”

“Yes,” said Archie. “You saw them stuck to the outside, didn’t you? We tried avoiding and diverting them at first, but soon realized that we could solve the problem for good by catching them. There’s hardly anything floating loose any more, and nothing bigger than a meter.”

“So you’re safe now,” said Tallgrass.

“Yes, except for random bolides passing through, and of course, cosmic rays. We need to be shielded against them, too.”

They were almost at their destination when they passed a robot going the other way. It had four legs and four arms attached to a caterpillar-like body that was horizontal for the legs, and curved up to vertical for the arms and a rudimentary face. The face had a diagonal stripe of damage across it, and the rounded dome of the head had a deep, vee-shaped dent, slightly off-center.

“Hello Scarface,” said Archie. “These are our guests.” He introduced them, while the robot looked on blankly, saying nothing. When he dismissed it the robot continued on down the passage, reaching far in front of itself with one pair of legs, and pulling itself along surprisingly rapidly. They watched its diminishing form, then turned to carry on.

“Scarface?” asked Tallgrass.

Archie chuckled. “It’s a long story,” he said. “There were about eight hundred of those on board when we found the Prime. He was the first one we met. They’re built on the body plan of the Makers, the ones who sent the Visitor.”

“The Visitor? The Makers?”

Archie grimaced. “Like I said, a long story. There will be plenty of time for that later. For now, though, we’re here.”

They were standing in the entrance of a vast space. The passage they were leaving was five meters across. They were looking into a cube that had to be a hundred meters on a side. They saw motion, and looked to see more of the winged creatures flying across the big room. They spotted the newcomers and swooped down to land in front of them. To Tallgrass, they looked like twins of Archie.

That changed by the time the introductions were over. Up close he could see that the one called Coracle had lighter colored eyes, while Magellan’s covering was darker and covered more of his forehead. They were both bigger than Archie, too. Coracle turned out to be a female.

“Archie,” said Tallgrass, “I have a question.”

“Yes?”

“I hope this isn’t too rude,” said Tallgrass. “Your covering. It’s not clothing, is it? It’s something like our scales, right?”

“Of course it’s not too rude,” said Archie. “Our customs are obviously going to differ greatly, so the concept of rude doesn’t apply yet. As for the covering, yes, it’s like your scales. We call it fur, or hair.”

“I thought so,” said Tallgrass.

“On our world,” Archie said, “we had different kinds of coverings. We had fur, like this. Some animals had scales, something like yours. Others had what we called feathers. They were all different, but they all served the same purpose.”

“To protect the skin,” said Tallgrass. “We don’t have anything like fur or feathers. We just have scales. All animals have scales.”

“To be fair,” said Archie, “your flying animals have scales that are something like feathers. Bigger. Lighter. More mobile.”

Coracle and Magellan were staring. There was no other word for it. Coracle’s hand kept creeping out, wanting to touch, but she kept snatching it back. Wayfarer noticed and peeled and stuck her way over. There, she held out her arm for Coracle to touch. Then Coracle held out her arm. “It’s soft,” said Wayfarer. “And thick.” She looked at the wing tops visible over the shoulders, and Coracle turned and extended one. Stretched out, it was about a meter long. Leathery skin covered long, light bones. The fur was thinner than body fur, especially on the underside. She let Coracle stroke the scales on her back.

Wayfarer said, “What a coincidence that we both have six limbs.”

“Not really,” said Archie. “We induced the wings genetically. The fur too, to thicken it. They’re both suitable for living on comets.”

“Comets?” said Tallgrass.

Archie chuckled again. “Another long story for later. For now, I want to show you the window.”

“Window?” said Tallgrass. “A kilometer from the hull?”

“That’s just what we call it. It’s actually how we communicate with the comets, and the rest of our people.”

“But,” objected Tallgrass, “am I correct in assuming that they are at other stars?”

“Yes, and some between stars.”

“Light years away?”

“Yes, but don’t worry. It’s instantaneous.”

“But …” Tallgrass shrugged and let it go. If he got hung up on every thing he learned, they’d never get anywhere.

The window was on the wall to the left, about halfway down, and five meters off the floor. It was ten meters wide and three meters high, and just looked like a black hole in the wall. They floated there, Archie anchored to the wall by one setaed hand, and the Grasswindians using a bootied foot. Tallgrass was relieved. He couldn’t believe how tired his legs could get in microgravity. All that unaccustomed locomotion, he presumed.

Archie did something and the window lighted up, all thirty square meters of it. They were looking into a space at least twice as big as the one they were in. On the opposite wall there were big green columns marking entrances, and the same to the right in red, and the left in yellow. They could see more furry creatures flying around, but more interesting were the ones right on the other side of the window. Tallgrass pulled himself close and put his hand on it. One of the people on the other side, one with golden eyes and golden-brown fur, put its hand up against his. Unless this was a trick, he thought, we’re reaching across light years of space and time.

Continuing the serial release of The Plainsrunner under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license – (CC-BY-SA).

Can Blunt resist pulling his weapon?

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rjb

Chapter Forty-Eight – Weapons

Three of them looked down at the pistols on their thighs, then Steel looked at Blunt’s hand on the grip of his. He said, “Easy, Blunt.” Then he turned to the little creature by the door and said, “Yes, they are. It’s just a precaution, given the, uh, situation.”

“I understand,” said their host. “It’s all right. You can keep them, but please don’t use them.”

They could see now that it wasn’t actually speaking the words. At least, the sounds they were hearing weren’t matching the movements its mouth was making. There must be some kind of translating device around. Steel said, “We don’t intend to use them, but we will keep them, thank you. We don’t intend you any harm.”

“It’s not myself I’m worried about,” it said. “The Prime doesn’t like weapons and it reacts badly to their use.”

“The Prime?”

“This vessel. That’s what we called it when we first discovered it.” It made a sound that they took to be laughter. “That turned out to be a joke on us.”

“Discovered? You didn’t build it? You discovered it here?”

“No. We discovered it in our own solar system, after …” It waved its hands to brush it away. “That’s a long story and can wait for later. Right now is the time for meeting, and introductions. My name is –” It made a sound that the translator interpreted for them as “Archie.” It went on, “Like your species, we have two sexes. I’m male, as are three of you.” He addressed Steel directly. “You must be Supervisor Steel.”

“Yes,” said Steel, surprised. “How did you know that? The radio transmissions from Mission Control?”

“Yes,” said Archie. “That, and the message pods. What you call the gliders.”

“The gliders?” said Steel. “Are you saying you sent the gliders down to listen to us? To gather intelligence?”

“Yes, sort of …”

Blunt interjected loudly, “You sent them to spy on us!” His hand wandered toward his pistol again.

“Not exactly,” said Archie. He put his hands up as if to hold things back. “There is obviously much we need to talk about, but let us finish the introductions first.”

“Of course,” said Steel, formally. “As you already said, I’m Supervisor Steel. On my left is Mission Specialist Blunt, whom you have already kind of met. On my right is Mission Specialist Wayfarer. And finally, farther to the right, Mission Generalist Tallgrass.”

“I am pleased to meet you all,” said Archie. “Very pleased at last, after all this time.” He looked directly at Tallgrass. “So, you are Tallgrass of Sage. It is an honor to meet you in person. Your mother’s trek impressed us all here. We’re only sorry for the part our message pod, or glider, played in her banishment.”

“Thank you,” said Tallgrass. Then he stopped, his mind spinning with questions he wanted to ask. The silence dragged on uncomfortably, so he picked one at random and asked, “How much can the gliders, the message pods, hear?”

“Quite a bit,” said Archie. “Depending on conditions, background noise and so on, they can pick up normal conversation at anything up to two meters. As your mother discovered in the Professor’s laboratory.”

“But, she …” began Tallgrass. “Ah! The vibrations. Her experiments showed that they vibrated when someone spoke within two meters of them.” His eyes widened. “Did the vibrations have something to do with it? Maybe that was them transmitting.”

“Almost,” said Archie. “They can actually transmit silently. We put the vibrations in deliberately to pique your interest.”

“Oh,” said Tallgrass. “Then that means that you … that you sent the messengers down not just to gather information.” He was getting excited, and he unconsciously moved forward. Then he caught himself and looked at Steel. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You go ahead.”

“Not at all,” said Steel. “You’re doing so well that I think I’ll just appoint you to speak for us now. For us and for Grasswind.”

“What?” Blunt burst out. “You’re going to let the Runny speak for us?”

“Yes,” said Steel, “and remember what I told you. You either use his name, or the Runner if you must. Is that clear?”

“Yes, it’s clear,” said Blunt. “It doesn’t mean I agree with you appointing him, though.”

“That’s fine. You don’t have to agree. If you don’t like it, you can wait outside.” Steel turned to Archie. “I’m sorry. Please continue.”

“Thank you,” said Archie. “I believe Tallgrass was just about to discover the real reason we sent the messengers down to your planets.”

They all looked at Tallgrass and he got flustered. He put his hand up to rub his nose, but it bounced off his helmet, which made things worse.

“Oh my goodness,” said Archie. “Where are my manners? Standing here talking before making my guests comfortable.” He spread his hands. “You can take off your pressure suits. The air here is quite breathable for you.”

They looked at each other, uncertain, then Tallgrass said, “Permission to remove my helmet, sir.”

Steel looked at him without really looking at him, obviously thinking, then said, “Permission granted.”

Tallgrass started working on his helmet, and Wayfarer came over to help. They broke the seal and lifted the helmet free.

As they worked, Archie said, “Tallgrass is right. It’s true that we sent the, uh, gliders down for more than just information gathering. Although that part was important, too. It’s how we learned enough about your language to prepare the translator, for instance.”

Tallgrass had his helmet off and under his arm. “But you sent them for us to find, too, didn’t you?” he said.

“That’s right. To find. To wonder about. To encourage you to look up again.”

“But there’s only a handful of them. How many did you send?”

“Hundreds,” said Archie. “Hundreds to each planet. On your planet, Grasswind, we aimed for the coast and the prairie. But we don’t have great control over the accuracy, what with winds and so on. We consider it a success if it lands within a ten kilometer radius.”

“So it was just luck that one landed near my mother’s village.”

“Yes. I’m sorry once again that it got her in trouble. We had no idea that there would be such a strong taboo against them.”

“That’s okay,” said Tallgrass. “I’ll pass that on. I’m wondering about something, though.”

“Go ahead.”

“Earlier you said the vibrations were to pique our curiosity, right?”

“Right.”

“Then, what about the harmonics?”

“The what?” Archie tilted his head.

“The harmonics. When you get two gliders together, their vibrations produce interesting harmonics. Were they to pique our interest, too?”

“Harmonics,” said Archie. “I remember now. Your mother and the Professor found them.”

“Yes. And a student.”

“That’s interesting, but it wasn’t us.”

“You didn’t put them there?”

“No,” said Archie, laughing. “We didn’t know. It’s just a case of unintended consequences, I guess.”

“Hmph,” said Tallgrass. “I’ll have to tell my mom.”

In the lull, Steel asked, “How are you feeling, Tallgrass?”

“Fine,” said Tallgrass. He sniffed, his nostrils flaring. “It smells a bit different, but I think the oxygen level must be about the same as ours.” He noticed Steel’s penetrating look, and added, “I don’t feel my body reacting to anything, like toxins or pathogens.”

Steel nodded, and Archie said, “There aren’t any. We wouldn’t try to poison you, and we’ve studied your microbes.”

“How?” said Tallgrass. “Have you been to the surface?”

“No,” said Archie. “The gliders again. They were able to sample a lot of your environment and send the results up to us. We think it’s safe to say that we won’t be harmed by each other’s microbes.”

Steel nodded, but made no move to open his suit. Neither did Blunt. But Wayfarer said, “Permission to remove my helmet, sir.”

He looked sharply at her, but said, “Permission granted.”

Tallgrass helped her, giving her his mass to work against while they removed her helmet. They had nothing to brace against, and no gravity to stick their feet to the floor, so it wasn’t as easy as it could have been. As Wayfarer tucked her helmet under her arm, and Tallgrass plucked his out of the air where he’d parked it, he once again noticed how Archie’s feet seemed to stick to the floor quite firmly. He remembered the odd sticking and peeling gait he’d used to walk, so he asked, “How do you do that? How do you get your feet to stick like that?”

Archie looked down. He wiggled his toes, five appendages projecting forward from his feet. They looked tender and vulnerable to Tallgrass, unlike his hard, solid hooves. In fact, they looked a lot like the hands on the upper limbs, which also had five appendages. But the hands had evolved for grasping, while the feet had obviously evolved for walking. Archie looked up from his feet and said, “Setae. Of course! Wait here. I have something for you.”

He spun and spread his wings, jumped and flew out the big door. It was abrupt and startling and even Steel’s hand moved toward his gun. Blunt was gripping his, and when Archie rushed back in, wings flapping, something in his hands, the weapon came out of its holster.

There was a loud cracking noise, Blunt cried out and his gun floated harmlessly away from him.

Continuing the serial release of The Plainsrunner under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license – (CC-BY-SA).

Now the big thing wants them to bring their ship inside.

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rjb

Chapter Forty-Seven – Inside

Tallgrass reached out with his left hand and gripped the edge of the opening. He pulled himself over to where he could see further inside, but there was nothing to see. The room was cubical, about fifteen meters on a side, and it was bare. He stuck his head inside, eyes wide, all four of them, and had a quick look before snatching it back out again.

“Tallgrass,” said Steel, “are you all right? What did you see?”

“Nothing,” said Tallgrass, laughing shakily at himself. “It just felt weird sticking my head in there. The room is completely empty. Those arrows are the only thing going on.” He took a couple of breaths, then said, “I’m going in.” He pulled himself through the opening and floated into the center of the room.

Steel didn’t have time to protest, so he just said, “Be careful. What do you see?”

“Still nothing,” said Tallgrass. “The room is cubical, about fifteen meters across. The surfaces are plain and smooth. I don’t see any markings, or anything else, on the walls. On the right hand wall, though, I see an outline of what might be a door. It’s about five meters high by three wide.” He moved in that direction, going out of their sight. “I’m going to have a closer look.”

“Careful, Tallgrass,” said Steel. “We might lose contact if we lose line of sight.”

“Testing,” said Tallgrass. “Testing, one-two. Do you still read me?”

“Loud and clear,” said Steel. “We must be getting some reflections.”

“Maybe,” said Tallgrass. “It sounds normal to me. And this door, or whatever it is, doesn’t look as if you can open it from this side.” He pushed off from the wall and flew back to the middle of the room. He looked at their faces in the forward port and said, “I don’t think there’s anything else to learn this way. I think you should bring the Emissary in here.”

Steel was silent, and Tallgrass heard Wayfarer draw a surprised breath. Blunt, though, didn’t hesitate. “No way!” he said. Tallgrass could see him talking to Steel. “You can’t do that,” he said. “Tell me you’re not thinking of doing that.”

Steel looked at Blunt, who subsided. He looked at Wayfarer, who looked back calmly. Then he looked out the port. He looked at the glowing glider, which seemed to have turned out to be both a doorbell and a key. He looked at the arrows beckoning them in, and he nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Take us in there, Blunt.”

“No,” said Blunt. “No, sir. We can’t. It’s too dangerous. We don’t know anything about this. It could be a trap.”

“We know plenty about it,” said Steel. “We know they, or it, or whatever, was expecting us. We know they’re inviting us in. And we know that they could have destroyed us many times over without this elaborate trap, if that’s what it is.”

“What if they don’t want to kill us? What if they want to take us alive for, I don’t know, experiments or whatever?”

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take. We didn’t come out here on a holiday cruise. We have a mission to explore and learn. If you don’t want to do it, I’ll have Wayfarer fly us in.”

Blunt slid narrow eyes at his fellow mission specialist, and muttered, “No, I’ll do it.”

With tiny puffs of thrusters and attitude rockets, he deftly brought the Emissary, a five meter padded sphere, to the middle of the room and down onto the lighted target there. As soon as it stopped, the ten meter door slid shut and sealed itself behind them.

Tallgrass flew over and put his hands on the big door. He couldn’t see any way of opening it, and he was about to fly back to the Emissary when he felt something. His hand was still on the door and he could feel a rhythmic thumping. For a crazy moment he wondered if the Sunward ship had arrived and they were knocking to get in. He chuckled at himself, shaking his head, and lowered one foot to the floor.

“What’s going on?” asked Steel. now at the aft port.

Tallgrass looked at him, feeling the thumping through his foot now. “I’m not sure,” he said, “but I think they’re pumping air in.”

“Air?” said Steel. “So, do you think we’re in a big airlock?”

“Could be,” said Tallgrass. “Yes. The air pressure is increasing. I can feel it in my suit. It’s shrinking.”

“Right,” said Steel, turning away from the port. “Suit up,” he said. “We’re going outside.”

Half an hour later the four of them were out of the ship, exploring. The thumping had carried on for much of that time, with them being able to hear it transmitted by the thickening air during the later stages. As it faded away, Steel said, “So, what now I wonder?”

“Well,” said Wayfarer, “if I was writing the story, this is when the bug-eyed monster would come out.”

Blunt said, “If I see a bug-eyed monster, I’m blasting it.” He had his hand on the pistol strapped to his front right thigh.

“On my orders only, Specialist Blunt,” said Steel.

“I don’t know why you guys brought the guns,” said Tallgrass. He was the only one without one, not having taken one when he took the glider out.

“It’s a reasonable precaution,” said Steel, “given the circumstances.”

“The circumstances don’t seem that dangerous to me,” said Tallgrass. “It feels more like we’ve been invited in for a visit.”

“That may be,” said Steel. “In fact, that’s what it feels like to me, too. Still, it’s my duty to protect my vessel and crew.”

Tallgrass nodded. “I know, sir,” he said. “It feels weird, though. Being here like this.” He raised his hands to indicate their surroundings, and more.

“I agree,” said Steel, “but when things get weird, it can be good to have procedures to fall back on.”

Tallgrass nodded again, and fell silent. They were all quiet then, thinking their own thoughts. Wayfarer was turning in slow circles, eyes wide, face open. Blunt was the opposite, with narrow, suspicious eyes. He kept his hand near his gun, and if anyone had looked closely they would have seen that it was trembling. It closed on the grip when they heard the noise at the door.

They all turned to face it, and saw it separate from the wall and slowly swing open. They hovered, four abreast, all dealing with their own thoughts as they waited for whatever would come through that big, five meter opening.

Tallgrass wondered what could need a door that big. Maybe it would be a big bug-eyed monster after all. What would it think of them? Would they just be little primitive animals to it? He had a fleeting regret that he didn’t have his gun, but then snorted softly, scoffing at himself. He wouldn’t know what to do with a gun, his training notwithstanding. He was pretty sure that in a situation like that, he would hesitate long enough to make a gun useless. So he waited, watching the opening, trying to prepare himself for whatever would come through it.

It seemed like a long wait, but couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, when something appeared in the doorway. They had to drop their chins and bring their eyes down, because the creature there couldn’t have stood more than a meter and a half tall. They all relaxed, except Blunt.

It walked through the doorway with an odd gait that seemed to stick and peel its feet on the floor. It looked bipedal, walking on two limbs, with another pair extending from up near the head, and ending in something resembling their own hands. The head was on a short neck above the upper limbs, and it had features on it resembling a face. There were two forward looking eyes, like their predator eyes. Below the eyes was a small fleshy nose, its two nostrils hooded and facing down. Below that was a mouth, and on the sides of the head, two barely visible ears.

The entire body, except the hands and feet and the area around the eyes, was covered in something brown and soft looking. Either clothing or some kind of natural body covering, something like their scales. On its back, with bits showing at the sides and above the shoulders, Tallgrass could see something that he guessed were wings.

They were shocked when it spoke in their own language. It said, “Greetings. Welcome to the Prime. Are those weapons?”