‘What’s the wind speed?’ I asked.
‘Three knots where the tank landed,’ said Anna.
It had been nearly three days since our arrival at Bella and I’d had us wait until Anna’s and my entities were able to reproduce again. I didn’t want Anna and me to descend to the surface and leave no enhanced human on board Pathfinder. Now, Anna, Bill, Stroya and I could descend and an enhanced Mary would stay behind with Chan.
The weather on Bella was somewhat less predictable than Earth, but we’d chosen a temperate area about fifty-five degrees north. It should be not too hot and during the time we’d been observing, there had been very little wind at the surface even though the upper atmosphere marshalled some complex jet streams. We’d be buffeted on the way down. The landing site was a slab of rock, about a quarter of a mile square.
Now, it was important to get to the surface, secure the tank and see what we could learn about this gorgeous planet. It appeared to have everything we could ever hope for in a habitable world.
Our Rimor fired its jets, then reversed its direction and got into position for the atmospheric entry. As Bella was a larger planet than Earth, we expected to be battered about during the descent, but with Anna at the controls, we were all confident.
Unlike our landings on Keradrol and Arctur, much of our approach was through turbulent cloud. We were thrown about during the first encounters with it at thirty thousand metres, then we experienced a smoother flight path until we started to drop through the lower clouds at about five thousand metres. Anna fired up the jets and we were buffeted and tossed around as if in a major storm. The land beneath us became visible, the gales slowly died away, and the flightpath smoothed in the calmer lower atmosphere.
‘Thick forest beneath us,’ I said as Anna banked the Rimor around and towards the tank landing site.
‘Coast coming up,’ she announced and turned us north to follow the coastline towards the plain we’d chosen as the base camp.
‘There’s the tank!’ called Stroya and we all looked northwards. The bright orange structure stood, like a beacon, awaiting our arrival.
‘Two thousand metres,’ said Anna.
‘Look!’ shouted Bill. ‘Animals.’
While Anna concentrated on our destination, the rest of us looked down in awe at a herd of squat brown creatures, like pigmy hippopotami, as they charged eastward away from our engine noise.
‘Hundreds,’ said Bill. ‘Hope they’re friendly.’
The Rimor was now skimming over the tops of what looked like a forest of acacia trees, then over the water before turning inland towards the tank which stood securely on a large featureless sheet of rock – possibly granite or schist – specially selected for it providing good visibility between the Rimor and tank. It stood almost central. On the northern side, at some time in prehistory, there’d been a landslip and the slab had sheared off. A fast-flowing river ran swiftly west towards the sea.
‘Any choice of landing location, Mark?’ asked Anna.
‘There’s a forest to the southwest side of the rock,’ I said. ‘I’d rather not be too close to that until we know a bit more about the wildlife. Can you park us between the tank and the western edge, which looks sheer, so should be defensible.’
‘Sure thing, but it’ll mean we’re only eighty metres from the tank,’ said Anna.
‘Okay,’ I said, then to Bill, ‘You and I had better suit up quickly. I want to get the tank secured in case we lose this calm weather. Stroya, can you accompany us with a rifle, we’ll take pistols.’
‘Right,’ she said. ‘You think those animals we saw could be dangerous?’
‘No, but whatever eats them could well be!’ I replied.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Fully suited, weighing twenty per cent more than we did on Earth, walking to the tank was hard work.
A number of invertebrates, like crabs or scorpions, seemed to call our slab of rock home. They scurried away as we walked and showed no curiosity about us. That indicated to me that they probably had their share of predators. All three of us kept turning to be sure we weren’t being approached by anything larger.
We extended the ties so that the structure was well and truly secured in position. I constantly scanned the land for any threat and kept an eye on Stroya, who looked most fearsome in her ready for action stance with the M16 assault rifle.
Once the tank was secure, I breathed a sigh of relief and we turned to walk back towards the Rimor. Whether it was the sound of stapling the tethers to the rock which attracted them, I suppose we’ll never be sure, but Bill and I both became alert when Stroya said, ‘We have a couple of visitors south.’
I didn’t see the second one immediately as it was behind a tree, but the other creature was not trying to conceal itself.
Bill and I were close to a hundred and fifty metres from the animal, so could not see too much detail. We’d be able to see it more clearly from the cameras later. It stood the height of a large dog. The outline was distinct, suggesting either no hair or a tight coat. Certainly, no shagginess. The four legs were close together meaning that there was almost no torso and the head rose, on a sturdy neck from the centre of the short body. There was no resemblance to any animal I knew. It was difficult to see the eyes or other facial features, but its movement was distinctly odd compared with Earth animals. It was doing a side shuffle with its four feet while the head kept its position observing us.
I fired a shot into the air from my pistol. I wanted to see how fast they were. The second animal just concealed itself, but the first ran directly away from us, its head swivelling on the strong neck. It was fast. Perhaps it could look and run in any direction without turning its body. I seemed to have scared it and we didn’t see it again.
Walking to the western side of the rock slab we found a sharp clifflike rockface. It fell to a sandy plain maybe fifteen metres below. There seemed to be little danger from that direction.
Stroya helped Bill set up the biological station while I took the rifle from Stroya and took a look at the sloping rockface north of us. The river beneath me had rapids. It emerged from the forest about four hundred metres eastwards.
I didn’t want to investigate the southern boundary of the rocky plain owing to the animals. Trees grew close to the slab and a predator could easily be lurking there. We’d explore that later… perhaps.
I returned to the bio station and started to take readings.
There were microorganisms in the atmosphere, but no trace of any airborne viruses. The air was breathable, but we dare not risk it without a lot more work.
Anna came down the ladder and began her inspection of the landing craft, all of us staying alert. I linked the bio station to the Rimor computer and once we’d all had enough exercise, we retreated into the Rimor to view the cameras remotely. We had two on the tank, two facing the woodland from the rock slab, two looking out towards the sea, and two others at the northern edge – one looking down into the river and the other scanning the forest from where the rapids tumbled along what looked like a gorge.
It didn’t take long after we returned to the Rimor for our inquisitive creatures to reappear from the woods. Five of them this time.
The camera zoom showed us that the greeny-blue body was almost circular with legs at each corner like a weird animated pouffe with legs. It had fur, very tight to the skin like a short-haired cat. The head did rise directly out of the centre of the body and it soon became clear that they did not have to turn to change their direction of travel.
One approached a stapled tether. It did so by coming four or five steps forward and two or three back, seemingly ready to run if there were any unexpected loud noises. I watched another suddenly run to the left and its foot came down on something, It had caught a crab-like invertebrate. The foot became a hand and scooped it up, lifting it to the centre of the underneath of the animal. Was the mouth there?
Within forty minutes, more than a dozen of them were investigating everything we’d put on the rock slab. One circled the bio station several times, without changing the motion of its body – it certainly walked in any direction without facing the way it was going. After a few minutes, it jumped almost vertically onto the desk, at least twice its body height.
Now we could see the head clearly. It was able to rotate full circle, the sinews in the neck stretching as it turned each way. The head was not quite a sphere. A flattened pumpkin might be a good description. On the side with the eyes, there were a pair of fleshy folds of skin, possibly ears. The eyes were large in relation to the head – the size of Jackie O sunglass lenses. The eyeball had a hint of green. The main feature was the iris which didn’t look unlike ours, just much larger and with a slit for a pupil rather than a circle.
Everything on the bio station was firmly attached to the table with clamps, so it shouldn’t be able to do any harm to the equipment, but the head dipped and swivelled to look at each item. It seemed almost mesmerised by the seismometer which reflected its movements on the table with wavy lines. When it stood still, it stared into the device. Was it seeing its reflection in the screen?
‘How’re we going to leave the ship with them all over the landing site?’ asked Bill.
‘I guess the guns will frighten them,’ said Stroya. ‘They didn’t like the sound of that pistol shot.’
‘True,’ I said. ‘I wonder if they’re dangerous.’
‘They look more like a middle-sized prey than a predator,’ said Anna. ‘The way it ate that crab-thing suggests they are a source of food, but you’d expect anything preying on these things to be much more substantial.’
‘Nothing has shown up to challenge them,’ said Stroya.
‘Okay, let’s observe for a while,’ I said. ‘I must admit that I don’t fancy any expeditionary work. That would require a specialist group. We don’t really have any options other than to kill them.’
‘That’s a shame,’ said Bill. ‘Fancied a walk in the jungle!’
I looked at him sharply, then realised he was joking.
‘We’ll stake you out as bait,’ I said.