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Babs came down from orbit to do some tourism with Jed and Dr. Lee. And besides, it had been a while since she took care of her little genius. She was missing the simpler times when she had the two Eversole boys to herself back in Roswell. All this conflict was not her thing.
The archeologists had in fact made a major discovery. In what could only be an underground parking structure, they had found some hover type vehicles and a giant mural along one wall. They had been perplexed at not finding any transportation units, but the mural explained a lot. A huge catastrophe was followed by an invasion that looted the planet and took survivors as slaves. Centaurs, Shaitans, Insectoids, and Amphibian creatures were shown loading humans with slave collars into shuttles. Machinery were being loaded into others. Then the grey snow followed by darkness with white snow and ice. The mural was not finished. A few lumps of organic material were found together. No doubt the artist and companions.
“Damn, that puts a lump in my throat and anger in my heart,” Dr. Lee said.
Jed said nothing but just looked from the dead artist to the vehicles behind him.
“I think my pacifism just dried up and blew away,” Dr. Lee muttered.
“Are you feeling alright Merry? You look ashen,” Babs said, concerned that the old man was not well.
“I’m fine my dear, just been overdoing it the last month,” he replied.
Jed walked over to a vehicle and pulled back a panel exposing the grav cells. “Two and four ply sheets like we use,” he said in a matter of fact manner. “I was talking with Zan before we left, and he described the hovercar grav cells back on his home planet,” Jed said. “We will win. Their technology has not advanced in three thousand years. I think humans were their innovators and they enslaved them out of envy. We will win.”
“So why are humans still subservient?” Babs asked.
Jed shrugged, ”Maybe they are too few or the other species are very good at keeping slaves. What I would like to see is a starship, but I doubt we will find any here. Maybe we can find a reactor underground in one of those cities that were wiped clean at the surface.”
“We have time,” Merry Lee predicted wrongly.
∞
LaShawn lowered the hovercar to the ground. He waited a few minutes to watch the nearby wildlife react to the car and each other. They did not even seem to see the car. It was outside their reality. He noticed a few rabbits fifty meters away freeze. A minute passed and a fast blur of reddish fur went through the middle. A fox had ambushed them and now had his dinner. As he trotted away half dragging half carrying his prey, the rest of the rabbits went back to browsing the prairie grass. The nearest treeline was a couple of hundred meters away with only short grass for cover between.
“Ok folks. It is safe to start,” he said to the scientists and their students.
They piled out and feverishly began assembling the seismic and weather station. LaShawn started his slow spiral walk around the work crew, Centaur pistol in hand and an M4 on his back. The natural beauty of the high plains made him catch his breath. Atlantis was a pristine wilderness. One could not say before man because the wildlife and man arrived in the same transport. But it had recovered from a near extinction level event without mankind around. The archeologists were saying the God of the Old Testament had brought them here. Who knows really?
Atlantis was obviously a transplanted world. LaShawn could see a distinct duality where some plants or animals were from Earth and others were... well something else. Regardless, they got on with eating and being eaten no matter the origin. True equal opportunity in the survival of the fittest. To an outdoorsman, the predictability was comforting.
This was his second week, and the place was really starting to grow on him. Definitely a place he could live, maybe raise a family. First, he needed to change his ways by finding a wife and not just fuck buddies. Still a wide Galaxy out there to visit after all. Later, there will be time enough for love.
He had spiraled out to nearly one hundred meters now and still no signs of big predators. The walk back was interspersed with sudden about faces to check the back trail. Nothing. Good. The dumbass big cat expert was nearly ambushed by a sabretooth last week. Strutting around without looking around. If Elle had not had her head on a swivel, he would have been cat chow. On the bright side, Elle has a sabretooth pelt which she promised to screw me on to within an inch of my life. And Crocodile Dundee refuses to leave camp. He will be gone on the next transport.
