The trunklike mouth extended another half meter toward him, rotating teeth straining to reach the soft flesh that remained just out of reach. He scrambled effortlessly over a recumbent boulder and waited to see what the creature would do. The stout, cumbersome legs looked no more adapted for climbing than did the rest of the beast. As it advanced, it continued to probe the air with its fang-lined proboscis.
Her rapidly beating wings filling the air with a hum like the mother of all bumblebees, the increasingly aggrieved minidrag darted down at the sluggishly advancing predator, striking repeatedly at its back and the place where a head ought to be. Her own much smaller teeth were, of course, unable to penetrate the glistening sheath of crystals that covered its bulk. Flinx made an effort to reassure her.
“It’s all right, Pip. See how slow it is? I could walk, much less run, circles around it.” He stepped out from behind the rock, his eyes already looking for another resting place. “If its presence bothers you that much we’ll go find another spot to sleep right now.” With a wave, he bid farewell to the probing carnivore and turned to go.
Whether it was the act of turning his back on the creature, or ignoring it with his eyes, or some other factor that triggered the unexpected reaction, he did not and probably would never know. Regardless of the cause, the consequences were as immediate as they were unanticipated.
The mass of crystal-coated stone directly in front of him erupted, rising to a height of seven meters or so, and thrust a saw-lined snout the size of an escape hatch directly at his face. Several things flashed through a startled Flinx’s mind at once: No wonder the small creature at his back had been curious about him. It was normal for the infants of most species to be curious about all new phenomena. The adult that now towered before him was less inquisitorial. It intended to macerate him first and evaluate his nutritional potential later.
The massive buzz saw of a snout struck at him. As it did so, something bright of hue and swift of wing darted down to spit a stream of toxic venom at the creature. Striking just above the proboscis and its fine coating of brown crystals, the corrosive liquid hissed as it dissolved mineralogical camouflage and underlying flesh alike. The hulking brute flinched, the fanged snout retracting slightly, as smoke rose from the site of the strike. Then it lumbered forward once more, advancing sluggishly but on monumental legs each of which was taller than Flinx. Not speed but stride rendered it far more dangerous than its inquisitive, smaller spawn.
Still, having now been alerted to its presence, Flinx felt he could outrun it despite the restraining bulk of the survival suit. Turning, he vaulted an eroded layer of stone and was preparing to break into a run when a sharp, hot pain raced up his right leg. Jerking his head around sharply to look down, he saw that a flexible, moist tube had penetrated the survival suit and was gnawing methodically into his calf. For the first time since he had risen from his place of intended rest, fear overtook his initial curiosity.
In his haste to escape the adult, he had forgotten about the infant.
Rotating teeth tore at his skin. Behind him, a sonorous rumbling heralded the approach of the laggard but long-legged parent. Its much larger proboscis could snap off his head as neatly as he would twist and pluck an apple from a tree. He wrenched forward with his right leg, putting all his weight into the effort. The silent infant came away with a large chunk of tough fabric in its snout that it promptly chewed up, inhaled, and regurgitated. This alimentary rejection did nothing to lessen its interest, nor that of its hulking genitor.
Trailing blood from his injured leg, Flinx broke into a harried limp. In a long leg pocket lay the small firearm that might have stopped the infant but that he knew would only irritate something as massive as the adult. With each stride, his injured leg responded more favorably. The wound he had suffered was messy, but shallow.
Unexpectedly elongating its proboscis to twice its apparent length, the adult struck him squarely in the back, knocking the breath out of him and sending him crashing to the ground. He could hear as well as feel the rotating teeth tearing into the back of the survival suit. Idly, the ever-speculative part of him wondered how long it would take for those spinning fangs to cut through the durable material and begin slicing into his spine. Knowing it would probably be futile but refusing to go down without a fight, he fumbled for the pocket that held the compact survival weapon. He had trouble getting a hand on it because as the creature was working to consume him, the muscular snout was also dragging him backward across the rocks.
The minidrag dove again. In the absence of eyes, she struck at the only orifice that presented itself. Caustic venom entered the upper, exposed portion of the tooth-laden snout. A puff of noisome smoke accompanied an audible hissing sound. Emitting a throbbing, almost subaural vibration, the alien proboscis gave a sharp jerk and released its intended prey.
Scrambling to his feet, Flinx staggered momentarily and stared as the limber appendage thrust upward, exploring the air for the tiny winged thing that had been responsible for the hurt. Pip could have avoided the clumsy probe on one wing. Without waiting to see how long his winged companion could maintain the diversion, Flinx turned and stumbled up the nearest slope. He was battered and bruised, but the flow of blood from his leg had slowed. Within minutes he had put reassuring distance between himself and the remarkably camouflaged local predators. Pip joined him shortly, fluttering anxiously about his face, examining him out of slitted, reptilian eyes. Able to read his emotions and therefore sense that he was hurt but otherwise all right, he knew that she would soon relax and settle down.
Which was more than he could say for himself. He was angry. He ought to know better by now than to be beguiled by exotic beauty or the alien bizarre. Had he learned nothing on places like Longtunnel and Midworld? The fact that this biosphere appeared deficient in life-forms did not mean that it was. Heretofore he would be more careful, would respect anything and everything as implicitly biotic and therefore potentially hazardous no matter how inert or inactive it might initially appear to be. On a new, unfamiliar world, one should not trust even the clouds.
He counted himself lucky, having escaped with only a slightly injured calf and a torn pants leg. The latter would greatly reduce the ability of the suit to keep him cool and comfortable unless he could figure out a way to seal off the damage below the knee. But the tear hardly constituted an environmental crisis. At worst, he could solve the problem by the simple low-tech expedient of binding the torn material up in a simple knot.
By the time he had put the deceptively inviting hillside and its voracious but sluggish denizens far behind, he was feeling much better. He resolved to find a place to sleep that was not already occupied. With his lips, he took a sip of cold water from the suit’s distiller.
A tiny, almost apologetic red telltale materialized before his eyes, warning him of an occurrence he would greatly have preferred to ignore. Feeling the effects of the long day, he could not keep the irritation out of his voice. Not that it would matter to the suit.
“Yes, what is it now?”
The synthesized reply was spasmodic and full of dropped vowels. In the electronic background, underlying the response, reverberated a series of intermittent twitters, as of a metallic mouse gnawing on steel cheese. Worrying sounds.
Worrying words, as well. “Suit integrity has been infringed.”
Glancing down at his right leg while maintaining his forward stride, Flinx smiled ruefully. At least the bleeding had stopped. “I can see that. Anything else?”
“Unfortunately, yes. The Parc Nine-Oh electrostatic distiller has been damaged.”
Flinx pulled up sharply, and Pip had to tighten her grip to keep from sliding off his shoulder. A torn suit he could deal with. A broken distiller . . .
“Can it be repaired?”
“Yes,” the suit informed him encouragingly. “A new outer coil and condenser unit will restore the unit to full functionality. There are two of each required replacement component in aft supply bay four.”
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“On board the Teacher.” Flinx’s tone was flat.
“On board the Teacher,” the suit confirmed.
Looking down, Flinx scuffed idly with one booted foot at a patch of delicate dark blue azurite crystals. “That’s not very helpful, since I have no way of contacting the ship.”
“It does present a problem,” the suit agreed.
“Have you any suggestions as to how to compensate for this difficulty?”
Advanced cogitation was not the suit’s forte. It was, after all, nothing more than a tool. “Drink less.”
Nodding to himself, Flinx chose not to reply. Sarcasm would be lost on the unit. It required an advanced AI to appreciate irony. Examining his surroundings as exhaustively as he could, he chose the inner curve of a dry wash for his new bed. The underside of the slight overhang where he lay down was ablaze with enormous red-orange crystals of vanadinite. He noted the fiery display without appreciating it. He was not in the mood.
Carefully disrobing, he laid the survival suit aside. Now that it was off, he could see the true extent of the damage it had suffered. Not only was the distiller ruined, several other built-in components lay exposed to the elements or had otherwise been damaged. The spatial sensors were still operational, which would allow him to continue to monitor the location of the landing party from the Crotase by sensing the faint emanations of their electronics. He no longer calculated the distance to the site in kilometers, but in swallows of water. The suit’s tank was full, but in the heat of the day its contents would not last long: a few days at most, provided trekking conditions remained amenable and he could avoid any more ticklish encounters with the local wildlife. What he would do for something to drink when he reached the encampment he did not know.
He had to repeat the order three times before the damaged suit complied with his request to shut down its internal cooling system. If he ran it at maximum while leaving the faceplate open and the torn leg flapping as he walked, thus admitting air, some water ought to condense on the cooled interior. He would make certain to gather those precious droplets as best he could, saving the water in the suit’s insulated tank until he had no choice but to drink from it.
Walking at night would be cooler, but not easier. The suit’s internal illumination was limited. Unable to see very far ahead, he could easily step into a dark crevasse—or onto a relative of the slow but exceedingly well-disguised predators he had left frustrated in his wake. Better to wait until sunup, when he could at least see and identify any potential obstacles.
Also, he was exhausted. In the morning he might need water. Right now, what he needed more than anything else was sleep. He would deal with rocks, however fantastic their formations, and their protoplasmic mimics tomorrow. Stretching out beneath the unfamiliar sky on smooth, flat stone that took no pity on his bruised self, he wrestled with his worries until sleep overcame them. As it turned out, he need not have concerned himself with rock and crystal at all.
Ahead of him lay nothing but sand.
With the faceplate locked in the up position to admit moisture-bearing air to the now near-frigid interior of the suit, whose cooling unit he had manually set on maximum, he stood shielding his eyes from the morning sun. As he had hoped, dampness condensed on the now exposed inner lining. Lowering his head, he licked tasteless condensation from the material. It did not kill his thirst, but it slaked it. Enough, he decided, so that if things went well and his resolve held, he could put off until midday taking a real drink from the suit’s tank. Pip slithered down his chest, her tongue gathering moisture from lower down before she emerged from the hole in the suit’s leg and took to the air.
He had never seen dunes of such color. He wondered if anyone had. Scraped and worn by the wind from the spectacular copper cliffs and valleys of Pyrassis, dunes a hundred meters high marched eastward in banded tones of dark green and purplish blue, fervid orange and pink and red. It was wonderful to see. If only death by thirst was not following a few paces behind him, he might have been able to properly appreciate their beauty.
Striding down from the last of the solid stone, he felt his boots sink a centimeter or so into the soft green sand. He made better progress than he expected. The sand had packed down over the centuries, providing unexpectedly solid footing. It was slower going than walking on bare rock, but neither did he sink up to his knees in the multicolored grains as he initially feared he might.
The homing signal within the suit remained a constant and comforting companion. Provided he could maintain his present pace, he should reach the Crotase’s encampment in four or five days. He did not linger over what his options might be should the landing party from that vessel decide to depart before then. At this point, making contact with them was his only option. Perhaps by then the sophisticated AI that was the heart and mind of the Teacher would wonder at the lack of communication from its master and come looking for him.
He could not worry about that now. His thoughts were centered solely on surmounting the next dune. Not for the first time, he found himself envying Pip’s wings. Hard flat stone or soft undulating sand, it was all the same to the soaring minidrag.
Climbing the dunes was akin to ascending waves of rainbow. Like the colors he had encountered in the rocks, the hues were manifold and fantastic. Reflecting the prevalence of copper in the planet’s crust, every imaginable shade of green and blue was present, streaked with startlingly bright bursts of yellow and red, or more somber purple. The first night he spent on the dunes, in the blissful absence of wind to stir the sands, was a complete contrast to the near-fatal encounter he had suffered among the crystal-bearing rocks. The sand was soft and warm. Nothing emerged to disturb his rest. By the time he awoke the following morning, refreshed from an unexpectedly sound sleep, Pyrassis’s sun was already high in the sky.
The morning after that brought visitors.
Something was crawling up his exposed right leg, making its way past the shreds of torn material in an attempt to reach the interior of his suit. Most of his life had been spent in awakening quickly for fear that something, or someone, might be after him. But so comfortable was he on the tepid sand that his reflexes were slower than usual, and he failed to react in his normal prompt fashion. The tickling sensations that now afflicted his skin brought him to an upright position quick enough, however.
There were three of the visitors. The largest was as big around as his thumb and twice as long. Tiny dark protrusions near the front were elementary eyes. Mouths were wide, flat, and protruded slightly from the region that might be considered a head. Boldly tinted forest green with alternating stripes of dark blue and lavender, the trio of alien trespassers inched their way forward on dozens of minuscule, barely visible legs.
His initial reaction was to scramble backward while reaching down to slap them off. He had not survived an adventurous and difficult life, however, by slavishly conceding to initial reactions. Tickle the trio of advancing creatures might, but other than waking him from a sound sleep they had so far exhibited nothing in the way of inimical behavior. Hand poised to strike, he eyed them speculatively.
There was a flash of pink-and-blue wings as Pip glided across his leg. When she settled to the sand, it was with one of the pseudoworms in her mouth. Dividing his attention between the two crawlers still ascending his leg and the one that had become prey for the minidrag, he watched as she devoured it headfirst. Other than by strenuous wriggling, the striped alien made no move to defend itself, and was soon consumed.
Exhibiting no ill effects from her meal, Pip rose, dive-bombed his leg a second time, and settled down to devour a second pseudoworm in less urgent fashion. Reaching down with tentative fingers, Flinx plucked the surviving caller from his leg. The flattened, protruding mouth made tiny sucking noises while multiple legs churned furiously. He wondered if he would find the writhing, thick-bodied creature as nutritious as Pip apparently did. Making a face, he decided such drastic experimentation could wait awhile yet.
Placing the
pseudoworm back down on the sand, he waited for it to start toward him again. Instead, taking no chances with its newfound freedom, it immediately burrowed into the sand, throwing up a spray of granules in its wake. Watching it work, he wondered uneasily what other invertebrates might be living within the dunes, meandering sinuously beneath his vulnerable backside even as he sat there contemplating the astonishingly swift disappearance of the many-legged worm. The images thus conjured induced him to stand, a posture that would expose less of him to the sand.
As he straightened, he felt something slide down his right leg. Their cylindrical green bodies swollen with fluid, two more of the sand burrowers fell out of his suit. Mouth agape, he watched as they imitated their less successful predecessor in tunneling expeditiously into the dune slope.
He felt no pain, but that did not keep him from scrambling out of the suit. Many parasites and predators secreted substances that numbed the area where they chose to feed. Clearly, the pair that had fallen from his upper regions had engorged themselves on something. Horrific thoughts raced through his mind as he feared what that might be, and what he might find.
But no wounds, circular or flattened, showed on his body. Standing naked in the hot sun, wishing for a mirror, he examined every square centimeter of himself that he could reach or see. All of his skin and flesh appeared to be intact. Relieved but bemused, he climbed slowly back into his clothes and the damaged suit. It took him a moment to realize that something had changed.
The suit’s cooling unit was chugging silently away on maximum, but the interior of the suit, instead of being lined with cold damp, was bone dry. The pseudoworms had not been after his blood. They had come looking for, and had found, more easily accessed moisture. The condensation on which he had been relying to supplement the remaining water in the suit’s tank had been stripped from the suit’s inner lining. What would the three ascending his leg have done, having penetrated the interior of the suit only to find that those that had preceded them had vacuumed it dry? Would they have started on his blood? It was just as well he had awakened when he had.