Chestha

Kohric tied a thong made of braided grass around the base of the redeka tooth. He insisted I keep it with me, but he couldn’t articulate why. He just didn’t have the vocabulary. He did clutch it to his throat, perk his ears, and threw his head up and back and forth.

I figured he wasn’t trying to say the tooth would improve my dancing. I think he was trying to tell me that it will give me energy, or perhaps vitality.

Or extreme raver powers.

Regardless of the reason, I was grateful for the gesture. I was so shaken from the attack that I spent the rest of the afternoon jumping at every sound around us. Kohric didn’t seem as concerned, but I did notice he would rock back on his haunches and scan the horizon with an intensity he hadn’t shown since I’d met him. Maybe he was a little rattled too.

My canteen’s top had broken from my lucky redeka sucker punch. I lost about half its contents to spilling, but I didn’t want to go near any more water sources to fill it. By late afternoon my head was starting to ache from mild dehydration. I was also starting to cough a lot.

Minervan air and water is rich with chemicals that are very rare compared to Earth, and they aren’t that good for human health. Chlorine is one of them. There isn’t more than a trace of it in the air, and it isn’t enough to cause you problems from immediate exposure. But human physiology doesn’t really like chlorine, and long term exposure messes with your respiratory system. And it makes your eyes itch like hell. Fortunately my life support kit includes medications and reagents that protect me from long term exposure to chlorine, and the other nasties in the water and air. About two thirds of my entire pack’s contents are taken up with my life support kit: anti-toxins, vaccines, antibiotics, and testing equipment. Minerva was never meant to host human life. We need all the help we can get.

During our next rest stop, I took the opportunity to do a quick diagnostic on my vitals, dosed myself with my tri-daily hit of anti-chemical-death-juice, and waited for my lungs to stop itching. I’d been an idiot and not dosed myself this morning like I was supposed to. Laziness punished. I wonder what the Azu-nah have that protects them from chlorine.

We had chosen a high hill to take our rest. I only needed two pit stops today, instead of my four yesterday. Hah! Improvement! Anyway, the hill gave us a really nice view of some of the surrounding territory. Kohric pointed to an area near the horizon where the trees became a little denser. Nothing you would call a forest, but enough that it really wasn’t what you’d call open.

“D’Keda is there,” he said, his ears were high and his lips curved up a just a bit at the corners, with his mouth open just a little. (This was an Azu-nah grin, I discovered. We’d had a grunting, gesturing exchange on our walk, and he’d managed to explain it to me a bit that ears play a bigger part in Azu expressions than the mouth in most cases.) Tomorrow mid-morning we’ll reach D’Keda’s current encampment.

Between our hill and the distant camp was a herd of creatures I hadn’t seen yet. I sketched one after a good long look through my binoculars. Kohric calls them “chestha.” Apparently they are “good food” and “very fast-turning”. I think that probably means “agile.”



These things have three sets of legs. They move like nothing on Earth. The only hexapods we have are insects, and their leg structure is sprawling; totally different from the chestha. These guys have a long, rolling gate. They have at least one foot on the ground at all times, and the legs on one side move one after the other, in a row. Front-middle-back on one side, then front-middle-back on the other. I only saw one of them run, and only for a second, but it was incredibly fast. I’ll bet they’re hard as hell to catch.

We watched them for several minutes and then continued on. We made another couple kilometers before it started to get dark. Now I’m sitting awake, bundled in my sleeping bag, and staring out across the hills into the night. Minervan creatures are making their alien sounds again, and every once in a while there will be a flash of blue-green light somewhere out in the darkness. Kohric is sleeping next to me. I've got the redeka tooth in my hand. It's soothing to run my thumb across while I'm thinking.

I wonder if I’ll be welcome in D’Keda. Will I ever get enough vocabulary under my belt to communicate better than a two-year-old? I’m going to be depending on them for so much. I’m literally the only one of my kind within a thousand kilometer radius. It’s exciting, usually. But tonight, I feel naked and alone.

Making Water

Today began the second day of our journey. Kohric said we should be at D’Keda tomorrow morning. I was told only two days, but I guess I can’t ask for a refund.

I freaked Kohric out this morning though. Would you believe Azu-nah don’t pee? I didn’t intend to have him be partial to that particular part of my morning ritual. I sneaked behind a thing that looked rather like a bush, and was mid-stream when I heard a sharp…er.. I guess you could call it a squawk. It transcended species. I knew it was a sound of dismay.

Kohric came charging up to me. I, still with my pants around my ankles and desperately trying to finish up, tried to look as calm as on could in such a situation.

“You make water! Tee needs … needs doc-tor!”

Oh for the love of… How exactly does one explain taking a piss to an alien?

“No, no!” I waved my free hand in a negative. “This is normal for humans. This is… er.. how I … er. Removing waste…. It’s peeing! I’m fine!” I hurredly hauled my pants back on. “It’s okay, really.”

He seemed a little mollified, but still eyed me like I was going to grow a second head from my ass. “Not sickness? Tee safe?”

“Safe. Healthy. It’s okay.”

All at once he seemed to make up his mind. He shook his head vigorously and bobbed it up and down several times. “With Azu-nah, making water is sickness.”

Note to self—See any Azu-nah having a morning pee, immediately call for help.

~~~~~~~~~~
Several hours into our hike, we came across a thin stream with a great deal of trees and scrub surrounding it. Kohric lead us to it for a drink. I sat down and slowly filled my canteen, grateful for the rest. Kohric took quick, nervous gulps, looking up and around after each sip. His ears never stopped moving.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

Something suddenly exploded on the opposite side of the creek. A huge dark shape splashed across toward us. Kohric leapt straight up, did a half turn in mid air, and landed running. I shrieked in terror and scrambled to my feet, my heavy pack making me much slower than Kohric. I had a half second to register something the size of a horse careening toward me, when my logical mind shut down and whatever bit of my synapses dedicated to survival kicked on.

I swung my arm hard toward the thing’s face, whipping my canteen at it by the strap. My canteen was full, and I heard it crack across the thing’s muzzle. The creature made a sound that was half hiss, half yelp, and backed away. Something wet and hard hit my cheek and bounced against my collarbone.

I didn’t waste any time. I didn’t look back. I bolted after Kohric at a dead sprint. We slowed after a time, but kept walk-trotting for another several kilometers.

Finally, I couldn’t go on anymore. I flopped into the grass. I could barely see straight, and my breath was ragged. “What was that?” I wheezed when I’d finally gotten a little breath back.

Kohric looked solomn and reached toward the front of my shirt. He plucked something white and oblong from where it had wedged between my pack strap and its padding. It was smooth and pointed at one end, ragged and coarse on the other. A broken tooth.

“Redeka,” Kohric said, staring at the tooth. “Was redeka.”

Tachivenator astrocirros

To my credit, I did not scream like a little girl when it happened. I did jump, I hit my head on the top-most tent pole, kicked over my pack, and definitely said a few words that are less than appropriate for polite company. My adrenal system is probably fried for a good two months.

I’m getting ahead of myself.

So, this morning, I encountered the locals. Or, perhaps it should be said they encountered me. I’d been sleeping lightly all night. The night sounds on Minerva are creepy as hell. Things kept whooping and booming and shrieking in the dark. I didn’t know whether they were Minervan equivalents of owls, or whether it was some flesh-eating terror that would descend on me and eat my entire camp, tent and all, in one go. So I slept with one hand on my survival knife and my emergency comlink under my pillow.

It was just barely getting light when I heard rustling in the grass. It didn’t sound all that close, but it made me jumpy just the same. So I crept to the door of my tent, flipped the silencer on the zipper (gods, am I grateful for that innovation), and opened the flap.



So, yeah, totally didn’t scream like a girl. Just swore enough to curl paint and shrivel plant life.

“Good morn-ning!” it said, and showed its teeth in a horrific grimace.

I don’t remember exactly what I said in response. It was something intelligent. “Urrhh.. “ I wiggled my fingers in a pathetic wave.

“A D’Keda yalalea,” it continued, slowly mimicking me by wiggling claw-tipped fingers. I finally managed to coax my heart back down into my chest, and my brain slowly registered that it was saying “welcome.” Things that plan to eat you don’t welcome you first, in my experience.

My voice didn’t even shake that much. “Kaganu,” hello, I said. “Doku oki Tee.” I’m Tee.

Its grimace widened, and I finally realized it was trying to give its best human smile. I found myself grinning. E for effort, dude. “Doku oki Kohric,” it continued, and turned enough for me to see that its mane ended in a tuft between the shoulders. Really was a dude, then. He was gesturing, pointing to me and the tent, and then out over the hills ahead. “Come. Tee to be with D’Keda, yes?” He had a very odd accent, and spoke English very slowly. “Tee and Kohric go. Come!”

For all that he seemed to be in a hurry, he was very patient while I broke camp. He watched everything I did, sticking his long snout into every pocket of my pack, grappling at every piece of equipment, and even went so far as to lick my computer pad. Gross! And how do you deal with that? He was as tall as a Saint Bernard, but you generally don’t make good diplomatic relations with someone when you treat them like a dog. Down! Down! Bad sentient alien! No treat for you. Yeah, great. I plucked the computer from his paws with a smile fixed on my lips and tried to distract him.

“Is D’Keda far away?” I asked.

He flicked his enormous ears and looked blank. I pulled up my woefully insufficient dictionary and tried again. “Is D’Keda tay?”

This time I knew he got it. “Tay. Far. Tay. Hai! Yes! Hai. Two days. Come! Tee and Kohric go!”

Oh great.

I finished breaking camp and we headed out. After about two hours I was huffing like I’d run a 40K marathon. Kohric stopped and stared at me intently. He reached out one hand, pointed to my chest, then swung his finger up to point at my mouth. “Tee has weak breath?” he asked. He said it like you would say “Tee has botchulism?”

Awesome. Less than a day in and my guide already thinks I’m a first class weenie. “Breath strong in a few days,” I said, hoping he wouldn’t think I was a total charity case. I tried to slow my breathing and fixed my posture. “I’m fine. It’s okay.”

“We rest much until breath strong,” he said, and flopped down into the grass.

Damn.

Three rests and some unholy number of kilometers later and we stopped for the night. Kohric seemed disturbed when I went to set up my tent again, so instead I unrolled my sleeping bag and set it down right in the grass. I hoped there were no Minervan equivalents to scorpions running around.

Kohric seemed to be pleased that I was sleeping out. He pointed to the sky. It was a beautifully clear night. "Azu," he said, gesturing to the sky.

"Sky?"

"No," he said, and pointed again. "Azu." He shifted his hand and pointed again. "Azu." Then again. "Azu." I realized he was pointing at the stars.

"Stars," I said, feeling triumphant.

He did his horrible human smile imitation again. "Yes." I seemed to have made him happy.

The scientific name for the Azu-nah is Tachivenator astrocirros. It means "swift hunter from the orange star." The word star seemed to be in their name for themselves too. Sometimes I think life has more of a sense of humor than we realize.

First Encounter?

This morning the short-range shuttle from Ground Zero station dropped off first Ed, then Dr. Sutherland, then me on Minervan soil. We couldn’t take the Marco Polo into the planet’s atmosphere. Sub-light ships are specially designed for their purpose. They’re built to go fast, and if you ask for anything more complex, like, say, being able to land, or even just functioning in an atmosphere with significant drag, the ship doesn’t do so hot. Well, it blows up, actually. Hence the shuttle.

(Damn, are those things cramped. I mean, I’m not a big person. I’m only about 1.6 meters tall, and I was having a hard time standing upright. Poor Ed’s over two meters. He looked like a toy someone had smooshed into a box after playtime was over.)

The shuttle took a round-about course across the planet. We’ve each been directed to interact and learn from a specific Azu-nah tribe, each in a different environment. Ed was dropped off in an area that seemed to vaguely resemble a rain forest, except it wasn’t really hot at all. Dr. Sutherland is going to be plunked down in a desert. Don’t ask me why the planet scientist guy chose the place with the least plants. Guess desert slim molds are hot stuff.

I’m going to be in an environment that we don’t really have an Earth analogue for. It’s a bit like a prairie or pampas, a bit like a temperate forest, with a little chaparral thrown in the mix. It’s a hilly, sweeping environment with long swatches of grass and short, shrubby plants. There are individual trees that dot the grassy areas every handful of meters, and then there are larger more forest-like patches of large vegetation and trees near rivers and streams. It has distinct wet, dry, and snow seasons. Wacky biome if you ask me.

I’m to meet with the resident clan from this environment. My reference material says they’re called the “D’Keda” clan. I don’t have a clue what that means. Actually, I have so little info on the Azu-nah that it’s almost laughable. Here, this is the detailed species synopses they gave us.



Isn’t that sad? There’s no information! Who cares how tall they are! I want to know what not to say so they won't feed me to the closest carnivorous plant! The species info came with a very little, very basic Azu-nah vocabulary (like, I can say hello, goodbye, yes, no, and “where is the bathroom” and that’s about all). I’ll be lucky if I move past pointing and grunting in the next month. Fortunately the first contact team spent a little time with D’Keda, and left them with .. well.. basically kids learning toys to help them pick up English for the last couple years. Hopefully that’ll help. But those things are basically glorified Speak-and-Spells. I have a feeling there will still be a lot of Me Tarzan, You Jane talk for a while at first.

I spent the afternoon hiking across a high, hilly ridge, looking for them. The clans tend to be semi-nomadic, and range across a home territory. So while I know they’re somewhere in this area, I have no idea exactly where. So I’ve been just kinda wondering and looking for signs, while trying not to step on something that’ll bite me.

Being on an alien world is disconcerting like you would not believe. Have you ever been to another country? Or another part of the world that’s different enough that few or none of the trees, plants, and animals are familiar to you? It can be exciting or frightening, seeing so much exotic stuff. But the trees still look more or less tree-like, and the birds are all pretty easily identifiable as being birds. New bugs can be kinda freaky, but you’ll still always know a spider when you see one.

Minerva is different. If you don’t pay too much attention, it seems very Earth-like at first glance. There’s stuff on the ground that looks more or less like grass. But it isn’t Earth grass. Some of them have tiny nubby fruits on their underside, or little whip structures that flick back and forth in the wind, and some will suddenly twist shut, like a roll of wrapping paper when you get too near. One of the trees I passed today sounded like it was breathing. It had a deep, rhythmic sound, like an enormous bellows, and I know it wasn’t the wind. There are little creatures in the grass that look half bug, half chipmunk, and they make loud clicks like some weird bird. The sky isn’t the bright blue that I’m used to. It has a faint green-ish tint. And the sun is just a little too orange. Even the air is different. It's denser, thick with Argon, but with less oxygen than Earth. There's enough oxygen to support human life, but it's like I spent my whole life living at sea-level only to suddenly move to the Colorado Plateau. Five minutes into the hike and I was wheezing like an asthmatic. Hopefully my lungs will adjust soon and I won't have to use my rebreather. Every single thing I look at reminds me that this is NOT my world, and just how very alien Minerva really is.

I made camp for the night on one of the highest hills around. The sky is mostly blue now that the sun is setting. I think I may be getting close to D’Keda now. I was looking through my binoculars a few minutes ago before settling in for bed. I’d caught movement a few hills away. It was only there for a second, before disappearing behind the hill, but it looked close enough to the species info for me. Perhaps they’re watching me before saying hello? This is what I saw.



I’m calling it my first encounter, anyway, even if they haven’t seen me yet. Tomorrow I see if I can introduce myself.

Orbiting Minerva

We’re here! Eleven years, even if it feels like a month to me, and we’re finally in orbit around Minerva!

Look!



It’s RIGHT THERE! That’s another planet. It has alien life on it. Intelligent alien life! How friggin’ cool is that? We make a few sweeps from orbit, and then I get to explore that sucker!

Okay, fangirling over.

We spent about a week at GZ Station. It took a while for our various bits and pieces to remember how to work properly. Lots of rounds on the treadmill and free weights and we convinced our muscles to remember how to be muscles, and our digestive bits finally figured out how to work with more than that puree-of-nutrients color-of-barf soup slop they feed you the first couple days out of cryo. We aren’t staggering around anymore, and while I miss the entertainment of watching Ed crash into bulkheads, it’s nice to not find new bruises every night before bed.

Speaking of Ed, I should probably mention the crew. Also, it was an excuse to exercise my sketching (did I mention we’re on a tight budget? Going to have to document a lot of stuff the old fashioned way, since all my life support tech will be sucking the generator dry). There’s only three of us, but we’ve been working together, training, learning, everything for months before this little space jaunt.

Ed Bannik’s actually a behavioral scientist. He’s one of those super green types who loves to wander out in the woods and try to figure out what animals are thinking. I think he may have super-glued himself to the Marco Polo’s hull just to get to Minerva. No, seriously. He really may have, if he could have figured out how to deal with the no-oxygen-in-space dilemma.

Dr. Sutherland is next (his first name is Jerry, but he’s one of those serious scholarly types, and you can’t help but forget he has a first name). I caught him in a rare moment without his hat. He’d shit a cat if he saw this. We suspect he wants everyone to think the hat’s been attached since birth. And that “Doctor” is his first name. Anyway, Dr. Sutherland is a plant biologist. I think his first paper was titled something like “Growth Parameters of Granite-Based Rock Lichens and Their Effects on Slime Mold” or something equally riveting. He’s a nice guy, and I really like him. But his interests baffle me.

So then there’s me, Teagan Dodge. Eww. Why are self portraits so hard to do? Meh. Anyway, my degree’s in anthropology and environmental science. Nice combo, huh? Apparently someone thought so, because I somehow manage to land this job. Guess the eleven year road trip was a turnoff for some people.

So that’s our crew. We’ll each be working with an individual Azu-nah clan once we’ve landed on the planet, so we won’t see much of each other, but we’ll be in contact via simple visual lansat comlink. No long heart-to-hearts, but we can give a shout for help if we need to each other or to Ground Zero.

So that’s all for now. Tomorrow’s the full sat imaging profile of the planet. Then we pack….

Then we land.

Epsilon Eridani

Ugh. Whoever invented cryostatis needs to get a swift kick in the cajones. Or at least whoever forgot to make aspirin strong enough to whack the massive, feels-like-a-30-year-frat-party-hangover headache you have when you wake up. Damn! “You may feel some mild discomfort.” I’d hate to see serious discomfort, then. Ugh. I woke up yesterday, and the data screens are still making my eyes feel like stabbity death.

Thankfully I won’t have to go through that for a good chunk of time, though, ‘cause we’re here!

The Epsilon Eridani’s solar system, man! 10.5 light years away from Earth! I wonder what folks a couple hundred years ago would have said if they knew humanity would travel such ludicrous distances, or see star systems other than our own.

Anyway, according to our current course chart, we actually entered EE’s space yesterday. We missed seeing the outermost planet, unfortunately. Too busy puking up that nasty nutrient fluid they make you drink before chryo. So we missed seeing Bacchus. I wanted to see the Drunken Planet! Heh. Ah well.

For those of you who don’t know much about the Epsilon Eridani system, here’s the figure from my old Space Science textbook.




See why it’s called Bacchus? Even scientists can have a sense of humor sometimes.

So, as you can see, we’re up to our butts in asteroids right now. By 0800 tomorrow we should be passing Oceanus. The beacon probe in orbit around the planet is already transmitting some gorgeous shots of the planet. Oceanus is named for, well… take a wild guess. You already know about Bacchus.

Next is Ceres. I’m not sure why they named a monster gas giant, with boiling storms of hydrogen and helium all over it after a relatively benign goddess. It’s actually even bigger than Jupiter. But it doesn’t have that cool red spot. Instead it’s got these wild green and brown swirls. Maybe that’s why it got named after the goddess of agriculture.

And then, yes, there’s ANOTHER goddamn asteroid belt! It’s actually amazing there's anything left of Minerva with that nearby. But the planetary scientists say that between Ceres’ huge mass pulling some of the loose belt bits towards it, and with Iapetus running interference for rogue monsters, Minerva is supposedly pretty well sheltered. But they still get loads of meteorites. How cool must the night sky look on a clear night?

I gotta hit the gym. I haven’t had a good workout in years! Har har. I’ll leave you with a photo of Oceanus to oogle. Next stop? Ground Zero Station, Iapitus!

I can’t wait.

Launch!

Personal Log: Teagan Dodge
WRC: Minerva Team
ID: 87310634

I don't know if I'm going to get used to this talking to a computer pad. Okay. So, this is my personal log. I'm ... heh. I feel like I'm at an AA meeting. "Hi, I'm Tee, and I'm going on a mission to another planet." "Hi Tee!" So long as no one makes me do a circle of hugs or something, I think I can manage. Heh. So...

So this is it!

I feel like one of the ancient pioneers. It's exciting. But at the same time I can't keep my palms from sweating. I'm kinda freaked out by the whole thing. I'm on one of four near-light speed capable spacecraft known to man, and we're headed to one of our closest stellar neighbors, Epsilon Eridani. We're going to be settling into the cryo beds tonight, so the next time I wake up it will over eleven years later. Eleven years! That's nearly as long as I've been an adult. It takes less time to earn a PhD! Crazy! Those kinds of numbers really bring it home how flippin’ far apart stars are from each other. When I wake up I'll be so far away from the Sun that it'll look like a tiny yellow dot, just another star in the night sky. That blows my mind.

And right now we’re so far from Epsilon Eridani that it’s hard to see except on clear nights. It’s easiest to spot in the winter night sky. Here:



Next time you’re out, look for the constellation Orion. Right next to him is Eridonus, the Great River. Epsilon Eridani is right in there.

Okay, so the whole purpose of this journal thing. Most everyone else on this tub is headed for the second planet of the Epsilon Eridani system, Iapetus. The planet is loaded with rare earth mineral deposits. We’re talking zircon, platinum, lanthanum, the works. There are also a lot of minerals the geologists say are great for cosmetics, and clown-faced women will practically kneecap each other to get the stuff and keep hiding their wrinkles. Iapetus is a corporate bigwig’s wet dream.

The corporate guys aren’t completely running things, though. Me and a handful of others aren’t going to Iapetus at all. Thanks to the World Research Counsel, we’re headed to the first planet in the EE system, called Minerva. Minerva is everything Iapetus isn’t. Minerva is an Earth-like planet. It has whole oceans of liquid water on its surface, and it’s practically oozing life. Some is even intelligent. Not a whole lot of monetary value on Minerva, but the World Research Counsel is frothing at the mouth to get at all those new plants and animals to catalogue. Nothing like new taxonomy to really get the scientists fired up.

And then there’s the intelligent life. The First Contact crew has already been and gone, so I’m not the first to meet them. But I’ll be one of the first to spend more than a few months with them, and I’ll be living with them directly. They’re called the Azu-nah, and we barely know anything about them. We know a few words of their language. We know they’re pretty friendly, but told the FC crew flat that they’ll start killing humans if we pull any Conquistador crap. Yikes. It’s exciting, but that’s pretty intimidating, you know? I really hope this goes well. I’ll be with them for the better part of the next decade. Hell, it’ll be the next decade next “morning”.

Speaking of which, I’d better get into the cryo hall…

… see you on the other side!