The Trilisk Supersedure (5 page)

Cilreth
had discovered that even a huge ship was still an enclosed microenvironment.
She often roamed through virtual worlds, which fed her advanced mind, but some
primitive instinct in her brain still cried out for a real planetary surface.

“What
do you think?” asked Telisa, bubbling with enthusiasm.

“I can
see why you enjoy it,” Cilreth said neutrally.

“You
like it, too,” Telisa said. “The excitement of checking out a fresh, new world!”

“Yeah,
well, so far so good, but where’s the dirt? The leaves? And Shiny said there
were dangerous things here.”

Telisa
shrugged. “I don’t know. We can find out.”

Something
made a noise to their right. It sounded like a clicking or grinding on the
rocky ground. Telisa raised her weapon. “Magnus.”

“Telisa,”
Magnus replied and turned. Telisa indicated the direction of the noise.

“Check
your feeds,” Magnus said, turning away. “That’s one of ours.”

“Shit,”
Telisa said. Cilreth checked her own scout information and finally found the
one Magnus had mentioned.

He’s
good at that. Must be military training.

The
scout robot came into view, checking the dark holes in nearby rocks with a
measuring laser and an ultrasonic probe. Cilreth checked its data. The larger
plants it had investigated had created underground fissures in the rock filled
with softer material. She thought all the surface particulates might have been
washed into the resulting holes.

Self-made
plant pots?

Telisa
and Cilreth walked after Magnus. The first of the ancient houses they found
were broken open and destroyed. Cilreth thought of them as houses because they
were small and isolated on the outskirts of the ruins. The structures were
always cubical. Each house held the rubble of its own broken walls and ceiling.
Nothing had really survived on the surface of the original furniture or decor,
if there ever was any. They continued on toward denser groups of buildings
visible on the hillsides ahead, jutting above the strange plants that grew from
every crevice in the rocks.

The
plants had thick trunks like bamboo plants, but they quickly split into three
branches that in turn split into three again. Each branch then terminated in
clumps of greenish material three or four meters above the ground. Each clump
looked like moss or hair. The effect was odd; in fact, if they hadn’t been on
an alien planet, Cilreth might have suspected herself to be in a children’s VR.

She
spotted a flash of bright red on a plant stalk.

“Wait,
stop, I see something,” Cilreth said.

Telisa
turned back to look. Cilreth pointed at the red shape wrapped around an alien
plant. The plant stood more or less alone amid a pile of spiky reddish rock.

It’s
probably just a flower and you’re making an idiot of yourself.

Magnus
turned as well. He pointed his rifle and backtracked the way he’d come. Cilreth
glanced around to see if anything else looked odd while she pulled out her stunner.
Soon Magnus had interposed himself between Cilreth and the plant where she’d
glimpsed movement.

Typically
male of him to step to the fore as if he has to protect us. But it makes sense,
too; he is the most experienced with dangerous environs.

“I see
it,” Telisa said. The nebulous red shifted. It was hard to follow. “But it’s
hard to track. I feel like there’s something wrong with my eyes when I look at
it.”

Whatever
it was reared up from the plant it encircled. It emitted a half hiss, half buzz.
Cilreth saw the creature was partially transparent. Once armed with that
knowledge, what she saw started to make more sense.

“It’s
mostly transparent. That red part is…inside,” she said. “You’re pissing it off.”

Telisa
kept glancing behind herself, though Cilreth couldn’t see why. Magnus stepped
back.

“Perhaps
best avoided,” he said; then the creature attacked.

The red
ribbon of color coiled then launched itself at Magnus. It seemed certain to
connect with him, yet it fell short and to one side. Its impossible trajectory
confused Cilreth for a second.

What?
Oh. A Vovokan sphere intercepted it.

Magnus
staggered back a step. Telisa didn’t hesitate. She was at his side in a flash,
her tanto drawn.

“Back
slowly,” he said. His voice was rock steady.

Crap,
he’s calm.

Cilreth
had access to his vitals as an expedition member, but she didn’t have time to
check at the moment. The creature launched itself again. This time three of the
orbiting spheres, two from Magnus and one from Telisa, intercepted the line of
flight and deflected the sinuous attacker.

Magnus
leveled his weapon and fired it once. The creature started to whip wildly back
and forth across the rocks. The Terrans backed away, then resumed their
previous course. The creature had been injured or at least cowed. Cilreth lost
sight of the thing as it struggled.

“I
assume that will be a fatal wound, unless it’s a particularly tough creature,”
Cilreth said.

“How
did you spot it?” Telisa asked. “I didn’t see anything when I went by.”

“I don’t
know. Just caught sight of the red, just for a moment. Why did you keep looking
behind yourself back there?”

Telisa
looked surprised by her question. “On Vovok, we encountered a few mostly
harmless creepy crawlies. But dealing with a few brought lots more. We kind of
stirred up a hornet’s nest. I guess I’m paranoid about it happening again. Of
course I know, different planet, different dangers.”

“Makes
a lot of sense. You’re learning from your experiences.”
Or failing to get
over your bad experiences
, thought Cilreth’s cynical side.

“I keep
telling myself I’ll get used to it like Magnus,” Telisa said. Magnus ignored
the conversation, as he was checking some input in his link. Cilreth checked
his recent biomarkers through her link. She was a little encouraged to see his
heart rate had increased 20 percent. Telisa’s had increased a bit more, while
her own had skyrocketed along with her adrenal spike.

He’s
human, at least.

“A
scout found something interesting,” Magnus announced.

Cilreth
had access to the many roving eyes of the scouts, but she found it hard to
concentrate on her own movements across the rough terrain and watch the scout
feeds at the same time. Cilreth loved the machines intellectually, though the
way they moved creeped her out. She did not much care for Magnus’s PV interface
to them either, though that was hardly surprising given that Magnus was not as
experienced with software as she was.

Magnus
led them toward another ancient building. The structure looked to be in better
shape than the outlying ruins. They walked up to an intact reddish wall. One of
the scout robots crawled nearby.

The
stone wall held a thick ceramic grille or window at the level of Cilreth’s
stomach. She estimated it to be a little over a meter square. Its color looked
slightly more brownish than the red rock surrounding it.

“So
what is it?” Cilreth asked. “A vent, I think.”

Telisa
took out a light and shined it through. “There’s a room beyond. Mostly empty
from what little I can see. There’s another vent like this on the far wall, but
that one doesn’t look like it could lead directly outside.”

“I don’t
see any other entrances. We can skip it and check another spot.”

“But
this building is intact,” Telisa persisted. “Maybe this is a door. It looks
like a vent to us.”

“Great
door it must have been. It’s full of holes.”

“Maybe
they needed ventilation. Maybe the weather is always good.”

Magnus
checked the grille for opening mechanisms. His hands went around the perimeter
of the vent, pressing and prodding.

“It
feels solid,” he said. He took out his own light and checked beyond, then
grabbed the ceramic lattice and pulled.

“Either
wedged or solid as designed,” he said. “This wall is old, though. I think we
could force our way in.”

The
scout robot approached. Magnus stood back, so Cilreth backed away, too. The
spider robot started to attack the wall with the sharp tips of its front legs.
Each time it whipped a leg into the wall, a chunk of material fell away. The
little craters accumulated until a deep, crumbling hole grew at one corner of
the grille. Cilreth was impressed at the strength of the Vovokan-designed legs.
The scout robot was strong.

“Something
odd is happening around the corner here,” Magnus said. He held his rifle ready
in his hands, though his voice was calm.

“What?”
Telisa asked. Cilreth followed them to the corner of the building with Magnus
in the lead. When she turned the corner, Cilreth saw the red rocks on the
ground were covered with creeping green worms. Hundreds of them.

“Whoa!
What are those?”

“They’re
coming from that tree thing,” Telisa observed. Cilreth followed the same visual
trail as Telisa. More of the green, caterpillar-like bugs were running down a
stalk from the dissolving green blob at the top of the stalk.

“Wait a
sec, are they coming from the plant—or maybe they
are
the plant!”
Cilreth said. The creatures were exactly the same color as the green pom-pom–like
mass of the leaves. She looked closer. The entire mass left at the end of the
stalk writhed.

“Well,
I guess our assumptions that these are like Earth plants is off,” Magnus said.

“Yes,
neither plant nor animal, the distinction may be irrelevant here,” said Telisa.

Magnus
kicked one away as it neared his foot. The green worm did not appear to have
any legs, though it reminded her of a furry caterpillar.

“Dangerous?”
asked Cilreth.
We walked right by dozens of those green clumps. I walked
under several.

“Doesn’t
look bad,” Telisa said.

“Neither
do army ants, at first,” Magnus said. “Besides, it’s alien and we have no idea.
Let’s head back to the opening.”

“What
do you think it’s doing? Or should I say they?” asked Cilreth.

“Maybe
that spot ran out of nutrients,” Telisa suggested. “Or maybe it hunts that way.
Maybe we should grab a sample?”

“Good
idea,” Cilreth said. She took a small container from her pack. She put the trap
in front of one, encouraging it to slide inside. Just in case, she held the
clear plastic so her hand was shielded by the container. Magnus watched the
entire operation intently. The capture was uneventful. Cilreth captured another
one and then sealed the container.

They
turned around and put space between themselves and the expanding ring of worms.
Magnus stared at her captive creatures for a moment.

“Let’s
leave the container out at camp for a while. Make sure those things can’t get
out of that.”

Cilreth
nodded. “Good idea,” she said.

“I’ll
never look at those trees the same again,” Telisa said, checking the horizon. “There
must be billions of them. What if they all crawl off the stalks at once?”

“Then
we’re getting the hell out of here,” Magnus said. “Maybe I need a flamethrower
module for the scout robots.”

Telisa
laughed and Cilreth joined in.

“What?
I’m just trying to be prepared,” Magnus said.

“Now,
where were we?” Telisa said, walking back toward the building’s grille.

The
scout machine had made good progress on the opening. Magnus ordered the scout
back with his link. Then he stepped forward and grabbed the exposed corner.
With a huge heave, he ripped the vent from the wall.

“So
much for the door. If it ever was one,” Cilreth said. “Who’s first?”

But
Magnus was already crawling through. Telisa followed with Cilreth in the rear
again.

Some
ambient light already filtered in through another vent from above as well as
the open hole behind them. Cilreth took out her own light to get a better look.

A
series of metal frames were set into the floor, three of the walls, and the
ceiling. The frames held old metal machines with gears and rods, but no wires.
The only empty wall lay toward the outside where they had forced their way in.

Cilreth
shined her light on one of the metal frames on the floor before her. At first
glance they all looked to be the same type of machine. Four metal struts rose
from the floor to secure the one she examined.

“Okay.
I can’t place this thing. But it’s simple, primitive,” Cilreth thought aloud.

“Yes.
Something was being rolled through it, or around it. Paper? Cloth? It could be
a place where pre–electronic age books were created, or a clothing factory.”

Cilreth
looked at Magnus. He shrugged. “As you say. Something rolled or pressed. Could also
have made wire or thin metal foils, or could have been used to squeeze water or
liquid out of something. This is not very advanced stuff, unless some of the
machines have rotted away and we’re just looking at the structural skeletons
that remain.”