Castaway Planet (8 page)

Chapter 11

“The seven wilderness survival principles,” Melody said, obviously looking at her omni’s display, “are positive mental attitude, first aid, shelter, fire, signaling, water, and food.”

“Not a bad list,” Sakura said, dusting off a nearby chunk of coral-rock to sit on, “but some of that won’t work. Signaling isn’t going to be something we do any time soon, if we can do it at all.” She didn’t like thinking about that, but it was true, and avoiding it wouldn’t get them anywhere.

“Still, let’s go through that list and talk about it,” said her father. “Positive mental attitude—that’s an excellent point for us as castaways. If we focus on what we’ve lost and on what terrible things could happen, we’ll be undermining ourselves every minute. We talked a little about that on our way here, but that little list reminds us about how important keeping that attitude is, even when things set us back—like now.”

Mom nodded. “It’s not always going to be easy, I know that, and I want any of you who start feeling it’s too much to come to me right away about it. Depression will rob any of us of our strength and our courage, and . . .” she looked back at the stretch of empty water where
LS-5
had once been, “. . . it would be perfectly understandable for any of us to get depressed after this.”

“Okay, Mom. I think we all get that, right?” Caroline looked around to the others, who all nodded. Even Whips gave a bob up-and-down that he used for a nod.

“Okay, so next is first aid. All of us are okay right now, so we finished that part of the list.” She smiled and patted the broad circular silvery pad she and several of the others sat on. “We’ve got the emergency shelter right here and it responds right to signals, so we can get it set up in a little bit. So that’s covered, right?”

“For now,” her mother agreed. “We’ll have to find something more permanent eventually, but those shelters were meant for use while people built themselves real houses at the colony, so it’s actually exactly the purpose for which it was designed.

“For the other points on that list . . . I think we need to look at what we already have.”

“We’ve all got omnis, Mommy!” Hitomi said brightly.
I don’t think she’s quite understood that this isn’t like an extended camping trip,
Sakura thought. “That’s good, right?” Her expression shifted to a slight pout. “But mine’s not connecting to the Jewelbug app.”

“That’s because there’s no server in range, Hitomi,” Melody said; Sakura noticed that Melody did try to minimize her “sarcastic know-it-all” tone, which was good.

“But her point’s very good,” Whips said. “We
do
all have omnis, which means at least some computation and data storage and, for some of them like Dr. . . . I mean, Laura’s and Akira’s, sensor capability.”

“Something even better,” Sakura said, finding that as they talked it out she was feeling more and more her old self. “Communications. Okay, there’s no satellites or relays here, but still, our omnis will have some comm range, right?”

“I would think so,” Akira said, “but I admit I’m not sure. Melody, is that a piece of trivia you know?”

Sakura grinned as she saw Melody straighten up even as Melody tried to hide how proud she was that her father was asking her for that kind of information. “Um, yes, Dad. Most omnis have about a kilometer or two range, depending on what gets in the way. Yours and Mom’s are probably pushing the two-kilometer range—mine too because you got me the top model just before we left, I think I might get three kilometers—while Hitomi’s is probably below a kilometer. If there were satellites we could link to them even from much farther away, but there aren’t any.”

“Very good. What else do we have?”

Sakura dug into her pocket and pulled out what looked like a handle attached to a small cube of metal with clear crystals on either side. “I have my Shapetool!”

“I was hoping you did,” her mother smiled at her. “I have mine, too.”

Melody looked crestfallen. “Oh, darn. I left mine in our cabin on
Outward Initiative
.”

“I still have mine, too,” said her father. “Anyone else?”

No one else had one of the transformable multitools, but Sakura thought that having three of them was pretty good as a starter. Akira went on, “I’ve got my pocket laboratory, too. Laura—”

“I did not forget my little black bag,” her mother answered immediately, and Sakura relaxed a little bit more. It sure wasn’t as good as having a real medical facility, but it was a heck of a lot better than nothing.

“We’ve got some food,” Sakura said, looking at the small pile of material in the center of the flattened shelter. “Those are compressed reconstitutable . . . how much is that, anyway?”

“More than a week,” Hitomi said brightly. “I counted when we were piling them up. Three for each of us a day, except Whips who gets
twelve
a day. That’s thirty per day, and there were three hundred and fourteen in the load we’d brought with us, so that’s about ten and a half days, right?”

Sakura’s renewed optimism took a sudden dive towards depression and worry. A week and a half of food, on a planet they’d only just landed on?

She could see that both her mother and father had similar thoughts, but their expressions barely flickered. “That’s all right for now,” her mother said, pushing back a lock of her chestnut hair, “but it definitely makes finding food and water a priority.”

“Water shouldn’t be a terrible problem,” Caroline said. “We’re in a latitude where I’d expect fairly frequent rain showers. We just landed in one, obviously. Given that we see forests of some sort and there are storms like the one we landed in, I’d think there are probably streams and ponds and such a little farther inland, as well. I think we saw a fair number of those when we did our orbital survey. All we need are containers; I’m sure we can figure something out. I’ve seen things that look sort of like seashells, so if there’s any big shells for snail or crab type things we’ll be set for that, anyway.”

“And we’re forgetting one other
big
resource,” Sakura said. “Whips.”

“I’m not sure if I should be pleased or insulted to be noted as a ‘resource’ along with multiform tools and food packages,” her friend responded, with a shimmering pattern that showed his amusement.

“Be pleased,” Akira said. “Sakura’s very right. We’ve already heard something large approach us—and be scared off by you—and you are undoubtedly much bigger and stronger than any of us humans. And of course you can work underwater, which we cannot for any length of time. On a world like
this
,” he gestured to the surrounding ocean, “I think that makes you terribly valuable.”

Over the local link Sakura could sense Whips’ embarrassment. “Well . . . thank you, Mr. Kimei. I will do whatever I can to help, you know that.”

“We need to be organized about this,” Caroline said briskly. “Let’s lay out what we need to do and start figuring out how to do it. I’ve already made a list while we were talking and I think it’s in order of priorities.”

That was Caroline, always a list and a set of orders. But Sakura guessed she was right about doing this in an organized way.

“First, fresh water. That’s probably covered. We already have some, and I don’t think we’ll have trouble getting more as long as our floating continent doesn’t go too far out of these latitudes.” She frowned. “That’s so hard to imagine. Continental drift happens over millions and millions of years, not in human time. But drift and shifting of continents—and weather patterns—will happen in real-time here.”

“Let’s focus on the immediate term, Caroline,” her mother said.

“Right, Mother. Next pretty much
has
to be a defensible shelter. Like Dad said, we know there’s some pretty big
somethings
on land already, not to mention,” she gave a visible shudder, “. . . whatever that thing was that we saw in the ocean.”

“We’re not defending ourselves against anything like that, though,” Sakura pointed out.

“Of course not,” Caroline said, slightly nettled. “The point is that while our portable shelter is reasonably tough, and we can protect it some by erecting it in this overhang here, but it probably can’t take any serious attack by something hostile, unless the lifeforms here are a lot weaker than I think they are.”

“All right,” said Whips. “So we have to figure out a way to build, or locate, a shelter that we can defend from something pretty big wanting in.”

“Right. And one pretty close to the water so that you can stay with us.” Caroline’s eyes defocused momentarily, looking at her invisible list. “Okay, so next is food. We really need to figure out how to get new food fast; a week and a half isn’t very long.”

Hitomi looked suddenly worried, but her father hugged her reassuring her. “I think the best course there is fishing, Whips. If anything here is edible, I expect it will be more likely to be animals, or at least that a larger proportion of the animals will be edible. Whips and I together should be able to get a sample of things living under and upon the shoreline. This coral island does seem to have many characteristics of regular islands, so I would expect a shoreline ecology of some robustness.”

“I hope you’re right, Dad. Anyway, the next thing is tools and weapons. Right now we have no weapons.”

“Not quite,” her mother said, indicating the SurvivalShot 12mm. “And Whips is something of a weapon by himself.”

Caroline cracked a smile at that, and Sakura grinned at Whips. “You’re right, Mom,” Caroline said. “The SurvivalShot uses evolved hydrogen to propel anything you can fit down the barrel, so it’s a great weapon. But we only have the one, and at most you can fit a dozen objects into the magazine. If there are hostile creatures, we’ll want more weapons than that. And we’ll need all sorts of tools—knives, levers, hammers, saws, all that kind of thing—which means stuff to build them from, and to make
other
things from.”

Sakura suddenly smacked herself in the head. “Duh! Caroline, we’ve got tons of stuff to make tools from.”

Melody’s bored expression vanished. “Oh, yeah! The
LS-5!
”

“Um . . .” their mother looked puzzled.

“I know the main shuttle sank, Mother,” Melody said quickly. “But what me and Saki mean is that when we crashed there were huge pieces of
LS-5
ripped off. We go back along this trench in the ground and I bet we’ll find metal, composite, ceramics—all sorts of stuff we can use.”

Both her mother and father looked simultaneously chagrined that they hadn’t thought of it, and relieved. So was she. Even if they weren’t ideal materials, there’d be a bunch of stuff that would be better than sharp sticks.

“The next item,” Caroline said, moving on, “might be a problem in a while. Clothes.”

Sakura paused in mid-thought. She hadn’t thought about that.

“That is a challenge,” admitted Laura. “But probably not for a while. These outfits we’re all wearing are pretty tough. But you’re right, we will have to find some source of clothing—a way to make cloth and similar materials. Anything else on your list?”

“Just one,” Caroline said. “Signaling for rescue.”

Melody snorted. “With what, a fire? Spelling out our name on the beach?”

“Don’t be sarcastic, Melody,” their mother said sternly, and Melody immediately fell silent; when Mom used
that
tone she was not joking around.

“Melody may have a point,” Whips said after a moment. “I mean, even if we had a radio and it was powerful enough—and it would have to be very powerful to make sure anyone noticed—it would take years for it to get to the nearest colony. If we are somehow halfway to our destination, I think the nearest colony is well over ten light-years away.”

“But
Outward Initiative
may not have been destroyed,” Caroline pointed out. “And if they
do
come back looking, we need to be ready to show them where to look.”

Sakura frowned. How could they even try to signal them? If they put all their omnis together they’d barely be noticeable even for someone not too far away looking for it. A comm satellite could link to them, but that was a specialized system no one was going to be putting up unless they were planning on using it.

“I agree that we should keep it in mind,” her father said. “But that will definitely be a long-term project; we’ll have to figure out how it might be possible to do this, with anything else we might find.”

“But we do have some clear priorities,” her mother said, smiling. “And it’s time to get on them.”

Sakura bounced to her feet. “Yes, Ma’am, Captain Mommy!”

Chapter 12

“No, Akira, you keep it,” Laura said, pressing the pistol into her husband’s hand.

Whips could see he was still reluctant. “But you’re the one going—”

“I’m the only one here who actually knows how to fight. Police background, remember? And Whips is coming with me and Sakura on the scouting expedition, so that means that you’ll need something to protect yourselves with while you get things set up here and start scavenging the crash scar nearby. Tomorrow you and Whips will do your fishing expedition, and then I’ll take the gun.”

Akira nodded, and looked over to Whips. “Keep an eye on them for me, all right?”

“Of course, Mr. . . . Akira.”

“Come on, Mom!” Sakura was already at the top of the ridge of earth carved out by
LS-5
.

“If you keep trying to get ahead of us, Sakura, you will stay behind with your father,” Laura said bluntly. Sakura immediately froze. “Honey, I’m glad you’re enthusiastic—God knows we need all the positive attitude we can get—but you can’t go running ahead much. We have no idea what we’re getting into out there, and staying together is vital. You understand?”

Sakura nodded—but with a bit of a stubborn tension, Whips thought.
We are a lone pod now, Sakura,
he said over their private link.
Don’t be angry that your mother wants us all safe.

The young girl’s shoulders relaxed slightly, as both Whips and Laura came up next to her. She turned to her mother. “Sorry, Mom.”

“It’s all right.” She lifted her head and looked up and out. “Now that’s quite a view.”

For the first time, the three beheld the floating continent they stood on clearly. Sparse shrubs or something like it were scattered here and there nearby, with serrated, split leaves of the same brilliant Lincoln green that Hitomi had noticed and named the world after. There was also short-cropped ground cover of multiple sorts, most of it the same shade of green but occasional spots of blue, red, and purple. Shimmering and brightly colored somethings moved through the air, glittering with the iridescence of dragonfly wings. None of these things came near them yet.

Perhaps half a kilometer off, larger, treelike growths began, drooping what seemed spiral leaves nearly to the ground and standing closer together in what swiftly became a forest of deep emerald and aqua, with splotches of brighter color. Something much larger than the little things near them darted up and in and out from the trees, soaring and diving like ventsprites on Europa.

Farther out the terrain spread out and rose higher, stretching towards the sky. Now that he realized that the entire thing was a floating mass and not a continent, he was astounded by the size. Hundreds of meters above meant at least that much below.
“These things are bigger than anything like them on Earth, aren’t they?”

Caroline answered over the omni’s link. “Masswise? This one probably outmasses every coral reef on Earth put together. I’m betting that when I go through the actual structure it’ll turn out to have a lot of carbon in it, used as natural reinforcement fibers or something.”

“All right, we’re off,” Laura said briskly. A brief wave of static drowned out her next words, so she paused and then repeated, “As I said, we’re off. Akira, I don’t intend to go very far outside of that two-kilometer maximum range, but with interference we might well be out of communication for a while.”

“I promise not to panic,” Akira said. “Just be careful, all of you.”

“We will.”

The three began walking—well, in Whips’ case sort of dragging
—
inland, keeping along the edge of the scar left by
LS-5
.

At first, Whips tried to keep as much of himself off the ground as he could, and he noticed that the others were stepping as carefully and gingerly as they could. Finally, though, he sighed. “I
can’t
keep this up all the way while we’re exploring. I guess I have to assume that the ground’s not much more dangerous than it is on Earth or our planned colony, right?”

Laura laughed, as did Sakura. “You’re right. If it’s really that much worse, we’re in real trouble. Just keep an eye out for, oh, the equivalent of snakes or something.”

He rippled assent, and focused his two lower eyes on the ground. The upper eye, though, could keep watch ahead, and he noticed something that seemed to stick out. He stretched out his topside arm and pointed ahead of them and slightly to the side. “What’s that, do you think?”

Lying on the ground a hundred meters or so away was what appeared to be a very large broken column, slightly tapered, wound about with vines.

“What is that?” murmured Sakura. “A
building
?”

“What?” Akira’s voice and the others echoed the startlement.

“Calm down, everyone,” Laura said, not without a smile. “Sakura, it does look interesting, but I would bet that it’s natural.”

It took a little longer to reach it than Whips had expected, because it was much bigger than he’d thought. The wider portions were over four and a half meters across, and the whole thing was well over thirty meters long. It was clearly recently broken, with sharp edges around the visible white-pink exterior. The twining vinelike stuff seemed oddly . . .
plated
, Whips thought, but it didn’t react to prodding or, after a moment’s hesitation, cutting, when Sakura tried a Shapetool blade on it. “It’s broken off here at the base,” Laura said musingly. “Except I don’t see the actual base it broke off from.”

Sakura pointed off to their right. “In the trench, Mom!”

Sure enough, there was a squat circular something in the trench which seemed the right size and showed the same bright white-pink material. “Oh,” said Whips, understanding, “we must have hit it during landing and made it fall.” From this angle he could look back and see down the center of some of the pieces; the column was hollow. “It seems to be a floatcoral structure of some sort, not engineered. Sorry, Sakura.”

“Darn. Still, it is pretty impressive.” From her greater height the young Kimei squinted ahead. “You know, Mom, I think that some of those trees in the forest are actually some of these columns.”

Whips raised himself on his two lower arms and focused all three eyes in that direction. “I think you’re right. There seem to be some scattered trees that actually don’t have those top fronds.”

“Well, let’s go take a look at the forest. We haven’t seen anything that I’d want to test as edible yet—experience shows that it’s the plants that tend to be more toxic, and I’m not quite ready to try catching the equivalent of ants for dinner,” Laura said. “How’re you doing, Whips?”

“Not bad, Laura,” he answered. He realized he meant it. Despite the panic and confusion earlier today, he felt better now than he had in a couple of weeks. It was amazing what a couple dips in a real ocean had done for him. “Really. I know I look clumsy on land, but I can keep up with you guys for quite a while. Don’t worry about that.”

“It does look harder than walking, but I guess you should know. Just make sure you tell us if you’re getting tired enough to turn back; remember that we’ll have to walk all the way back, too.”

“I know. I will.”

As they approached the forest, the undergrowth became higher; Whips found himself plowing through it, and then paused in startlement.
What was that?

“What is it, Whips?” Attuned to his movements and moods, Sakura had noticed his reaction first.

“Wait.” He concentrated and relaxed, reaching out with that sense which was usually so useless above water . . .

And there it was. A faint chime, a tiny vibration in the world. He pushed experimentally at one of the thicker “plants” he’d been shoving through, and the chiming increased slightly, shifted in tone. “Wow. Sakura, Laura, some of these probably are plants, but some aren’t. These things,” he nudged the shiny-stemmed, multibranched object with what seemed greenish threads trailing along the branches, “they’re alive more like we are. They react fast, they’re like some of the animals in the ocean. They look like plants, but they’re not.”

“You mean like hydroids or barnacles or something of that nature?” came Akira’s voice faintly over the comm. “That’s a surprise. There are definite limitations to such creatures out of water, and I would think that would prevent colonization. Or at least that the land-dwelling forms would lose the harder shells which must be very energy-intensive to form.”

“I don’t know, sir, but I know what I sense. Skinsense is pretty good about that, and if I can feel it at all here out of water, it’s actually an active sender, not just passive.”

Laura bent over, studying it. “Here’s some images, hon. You can look them over while we keep going.”

“Thanks so much, Laura. Oh, my, this is fascinating. Melody, take a look at this . . .”

The three explorers moved on; Whips felt a little sorry about mashing things under his admittedly broad belly pad, but there weren’t any paths. None of the squashing seemed, so far, to be dumping anything irritating onto him, but he still was nervous about running over unknown creatures.

A
tap . . . taptaptap . . .
sound ahead under the trees caused all three of them to halt. “Sounded like something walking,” Laura whispered. Whips bobbed his agreement as Sakura nodded. The three of them waited to see if the unknown creature would approach or flee. After a moment, Whips made a single heaving step forward; there was an explosion of tapping steps that dwindled into the distance, and Whips relaxed slightly.

“If it runs,” he said, “it’s less likely to try to attack us.”

“On the downside,” Sakura pointed out, “if it knows enough to run, it means there are things it expects to run from.
Wow!
”

He turned his gaze up just in time to see something disappear into the foliage far above, the spiraling leaves rippling for a moment. “What was it?”

“I . . . don’t know.” She played her omni’s recording back, showing them something zipping from one tree to another. It seemed to have a long, pointed head, two pairs of wings or something like them, and two or maybe even four tails. Unfortunately, the images were blurred. The omnis were in lower-power mode, and so high-speed image capture was disabled by default. Even with high-efficiency solar cells the omnis would take a bit to charge and no one wanted them to run out while they were separated. “Looks like it was about a meter long. Probably won’t bother anything as big as us, but we’d better keep an eye on the trees, too.”

It was really becoming clear to Whips that he had to treat this like an expedition into an unknown vent region on Europa. Even now, a hundred years after contact, most Bemmies still explored their world with spears and courage and not much else, and you never knew what was hiding in the next crevice. And up here, he had no skinsense, and the soundsense was pretty limited too. He could do a sort of acoustic ranging at ten meters or so, but nothing like the sonar his people were accustomed to. On the other hand, he
could
still use a loud enough soundpulse that it could hurt at close range, and he was much better at tracking sounds and getting direction out of them than his human friends.

“Well, now, this looks more promising.” On a tall bush, or low tree, were growing several teardrop-shaped blue-purple things. “Whips, is this a plant or an animal?”

He reached out and touched it gingerly. Nothing. “I’m pretty sure that’s a plant. Do you think those are berries?”

“They might be. Worth a sample, anyway.” Laura reached out with gloved hands (her medikit had several reusable pairs, Whips knew) and plucked one cautiously. There was no reaction, so she dropped it into a sample bag which had been one of the ration packages.

As they turned to move on, something lunged partway from a hole in front of them and
hissed
.

Whips didn’t think about it. He just saw jaws with black-blue teeth extending towards Laura and reacted. One arm shoved both Laura and Sakura back, and the other two lashed out, griptalons extending, whipping around and
pulling
.

The thing was braced in its burrow, but Whips’ talons struck deep. His over two hundred twenty kilograms of mass far outweighed the target. It flew from its hole, trailing soil, and Whips spun, smashing it into the scale-shining bole of a nearby tree. It shrieked and fell limp, twitching slightly. Above, the foliage rustled as other creatures fled in startlement.

Laura was just recovering, eyes wide; Sakura was helping her to her feet. “Are you all right?” Whips asked.

“Fine,” she answered, a bit shakily. “I . . . you know, I don’t think it was actually attacking.”

“Probably not,” Whips admitted, feeling a little embarrassed now. “It was a threat display, as Akira would say. I just . . .”

“. . . reacted to protect us. Thank you, Whips.” Laura looked down at the creature he’d just killed. “And honestly, I don’t think I would have wanted you to wait.”

The thing was over two meters long and thicker around than Laura’s thigh, with multiple legs spaced in four rows down its sides. It had four eyes, one pair top and bottom, and a mouth like a spiky four-section door. In general nastiness it reminded Whips of a smaller version of the huge miremaws, ambush predators native to Europa.

But the thought of miremaws, which were as delicious as they were savage, did bring to mind the other question. “I wonder if it’s edible?”

Laura smiled. “Worth a sample or three.” With the Shapetools providing maximal blades, it didn’t take very long to cut sections from the creature in several locations. The blood, Whips noted, was red-purple in color. As they cut it apart, Laura reached out and carefully pulled out one of the dark fangs. “Hmm . . . yes, Whips, take a look at that.”

The very tip of the fang had a small hole in it. “Venomous.”

“Yes. And a quick analysis indicates a nasty neurotoxin. A good thing you killed it before it could fight back. That means we need to be very careful. These creatures could easily kill any of us—including you.”

“Can’t you make an antivenom?” Sakura asked.

“I might, and certainly our medical nanos will do their best to prevent untoward effects, but everything has its limits.” He could read the concern on Laura’s face. “Remember, honey, all I’ve got is my kit. I did—at your father’s advice—have a lot of extra nanodust made up, and I have some of it here, but we have to remember there aren’t any hospitals, no medbays, nothing but what I carry with me.”