General Stuff #1
Expedition: Being an Account in Words of the 2358 A.D. Voyage to Darwin IV
Archive: 13 posts
A few years ago, I transcribed, in its entirety, this amazing book about life on other planets.It's not my story, but it certainly inspires me creatively, so I figured I would share it with the rest of you who may not have read it  I hope you enjoy it as much as I do  Warning: Some content may not be suitable for children. Introduction When I was a small child many years ago, my great-grandfather would take me on his knee and tell me wonderful tales of places and creatures long ago. His were not the usual tales of knights and dragons or fairy kingdoms. No, his were stories his own great-grandfather had told him, vivid tales of the creatures that once roamed freely all over our globe. He would tell of great herds of graceful Giraffes, Antelopes and Zebras that would cover a plain from horizon to horizon; of titanic fish-like Whales that swam the ocean depths battling huge multi-armed Squid; of majestic Elephants that care for each other with tenderness and intelligence; and of hundreds of other animals. I was engrossed and my child?s mind would play with these images long after the stories were done. But beyond the telling of the tales, my great-grandfather was always teaching me, for he would always end his stories sadly, by reminding me that the creatures he had described no longer existed in the wild and that they would never return. His teaching had its effect, for as I grew from a carefree boy into a serious man, realizing along the way that I was committed to art and natural history, I also became bitter at the indifference, cruelty and selfishness that caused the mass extinction of almost an entire planet?s animal population. What would have happened to Earth if its flagrant abuse had continued? No one can say, for, as we all know, over a hundred years ago a benevolent, starfaring people came to our aid. Whether it was out of love for all life or simply a clinical desire to mend something broken, the Yma took our seared world in hand and began to teach us how to repair it. Today, Earth is very far from being healed. True, the Yma have worked wonders?as a result of the Yma/Human Accord of 2231, following the last Rainforest War, we no longer manage our world?but, because of the extent of the damage, the improvements in our ravaged ecology and climate are very gradual. And the results of our centuries of short-sightedness are striking. Hosts of chemically-mutated insects, larger and more aggressive than their natural forebears, crawl and fly through our toxic cities. These children of the poisoned night are the legacy of toxic waste, defoliants and acid rain. As for terrestrial vertebrates, nothing larger than the Norway rat (which is quite abundant) exists outside the few pitiful zoos that still survive. The oceans, thought of in the distant past as a limitless resource, and more recently as an open sewer, are virtual garbage and chemical broths, contaminated and nearly lifeless. The skies, too, are empty and gray. With this degree of global devastation, it is only a small comfort that humanity walks, alongside the almost-parental Yma, through its blighted and ill-tended garden. With the discovery of the Darwin binary system and its six planets, a sense of hope arose in the breasts of those anachronisms, like myself, who were lovers of Nature. The Yma sent an unmanned probe to that distant system and began planning for a bi-species expedition under their guidance and auspices?an opportunity for humanity to both enlighten and re-educate itself. They assembled a broad-based team of explorers, scientists, technicians and surveyors for a three-year odyssey. I was chosen to participate as wildlife artist on the strength of my paintings and drawings of extinct Earth fauna. I was to provide a ?more subjective and atmospheric impression of Darwin IV and its lifeforms? than the Expedition?s host of conventional holographers and photographers. I leapt at this amazing opportunity, as did many more renowned personages, such as Sir Hideyoshi Gunn of the Titan Expedition, Drs. Otillia Steadman and Cayley McCarthy of the Olympus Mons Ascent, and Professor Hsien Cho of the ill-fated Great Red Spot Descent. The Yma carefully screened us to determine our feelings regarding solitude and our ability to leave Darwin IV exactly as we found it. We would be solitary observers, wandering above the surface of the planet in small one-man hovering capsules, like airborne seeds on the wind. The Yma devised a network of artificially intelligent microsatellites that would spread above Darwin IV, keeping all lone explorers in constant touch with three huge orbiting motherships. These vessels, known as Orbitstars, would serve as expedition headquarters, repair, and maintenance shops as well as research facilities. Preparations for the Expedition began in 2355. The Yma parked their Orbitstar designated for human occupancy (nicknamed ?Starfish? by Terrans) in orbit and proceeded to Darwin IV in the two remaining ships. One year later, after supplies and equipment were loaded, we left Earth and began our nineteen-month journey at conventional speed to the edge of the Solar System. My fellow Expedition members and I were tucked into our sleep-pods. Once past Pluto our Yma pilots engaged the main drive, and in the blink of an eye we traversed the 6.5 light years to the Darwin system. We attained orbit above Darwin IV on January 6, 2358. From an altitude of roughly 39,000 kilometers we had a splendid view of the planet we had come to explore. With an equatorial diameter of 6,563 km, Darwin IV is somewhat smaller than Earth. Its predominant color is dusky ochre, relieved by a sparse mottling of red and two crisply defined polar caps. The fourth planet and its two small moons circle the F-class binary at a distance of two AUs, taking two Earth years for one complete revolution. These two stars, quite different in size, are so close together as to frequently give the impression of a single star; this proximity almost completely eliminates the odd daylight optical effects that occur with a more pronounced double-star. The Darwinian day lasts for 26.7 hours. Great open grasslands, which many in our party believe to be ancient seabeds, are home to the overwhelming majority of Darwin IV?s fauna. Many species have evolved into giants, a phenomenon believed to be a result of the planet?s relatively low gravity (.6 of Earth) and the oxygen-rich atmosphere. The plains support a wide assortment of fauna ranging in size from small ground-burrowing scavengers, through the browsing tripedaliens and the predatory bipedalien liquivores, to the immense air-sifters, each delicately situated in its ecological niche. Darwin IV?s largest and most famous lifeform belongs to another biome, the Amoebic Sea. This bizarre and misnamed region is blanketed by a gelatinous, ten-meter-deep organism covering almost five percent of the planet?s surface; it is, in fact, the largest single colony animal known. The Amoebic Sea is home to the huge Emperor Sea Strider, the enormous, implausible organism seen stalking across an unnaturally smooth plain in the Yma probe?s most celebrated sequence of transmitted images. Possibly because of the shock absorption and weight distribution qualities of the jelly-like ?sea,? the Sea Striders have attained truly behemoth proportions. No known creature rivals them in size. Darwin IV?s montane region almost completely encircles the globe along the equator. While not impassible, the mountains present many problems for the planet?s huge migratory herds. Storms and fogs claim thousands of individuals every year as they traverse the difficult and often icy mountain passes. As there are no oceans or seas on Darwin IV, the polar caps are the largest concentrations of water, in the form of ancient ice. These glaciers recede and advance with the seasons; as with Mars, the southern cap grows larger than its northern counterpart du to the prolonged southern winter. Evidence in the form of countless fossilized tree stumps scattered throughout the plains had led our chief botanist, Dr. Dorothy Kay, to postulate that Darwin IV was a far warmer and more humid planet. At present the pocket-forests account for only about five percent of Darwin IV?s surface vegetation; even so, they presented the Expedition with its greatest challenge to exploration. Giant plaque-bark trees, with their massive trunks and twisted boughs surrounded by dense underbrush, made penetrating the forests via hovercone impossible. We had to content ourselves with following the occasional stream a few hundred meters into the woods, or more often, simply circling and probing with our instruments. Due to its near-flawless performance, a few words about the Yma?s marvelous vehicle, in which I spent so much time, seem appropriate. The Mark IVA Obspod (observation pod) hovercone was developed some twenty years ago by Yma engineers with human pilots in mind, with sensors that would augment and heighten human senses. With a weekly reprovisioning and refueling, I traveled across Darwin IV in splendid climate-controlled comfort and in constant touch with the Orbitstar. As I sat in my Universal MSB-III seat, I had every control and monitor at my fingertips. And as I peered through the 360-degree glass canopy, I could see and hear things no ordinary human could. A deluge of images and information would play across the liquid-crystal-augmented glass, showing me navigational information as well as infrared and magnified images. The audio system, in addition to providing Mozart for my quiet times, could amplify ultrasonics or filter out extraneous sounds. Beyond the hovercone?s capabilities, I was equipped with a battery of remote flying Video/Audio Pods (VAPs), with which I could explore in four different directions simultaneously. In all, it is hard for me to imagine a sturdier, more versatile craft than the ceramalloy and titanium Obspod. Darwin?s vegetation varies to a lesser extent than Earth?s did before it was blighted by man?s pollution. Succulents are by far the dominant class of plant life. The plains, arid as they are, are blanketed with thick tube-grass, a stalky pencil-thin succulent that grows astonishingly fast. This tube-grass and its cousins, fodderball weed and bladder reed, are the forage of the herbivorous plains-dwellers, providing a ready source of necessary moisture. In a sense the succulent-rich savannahs are the closest Darwin IV comes to true oceans, for the quantity of water trapped in the plants is vast. Only when approaching the mountains or forests do the succulents give way to other plant forms. Impenetrable underbrush, composed of sticklebush, whisperbrush, and grenade vine, with its explosive pollen sacs, begins to dominate the landscape. These in turn give way to towering plaque-barks, the lords of the plant kingdom on Darwin IV and the principal tree of the planet?s limited forest lands. The sub-polar region?s flora is limited by the demanding environment. Low, ground-dwelling, lichen-like plants cover the almost frozen soil in a gray-green mantle that is broken by spidery, blue whipweed and the tiny flowering polardots. This is a biome in which the mechanisms of nature are at their most fragile. In addition to ground plants, Darwin possesses seemingly limitless quantities of tiny air plants, the aerophytes that make up the primary diet of the herbivorous air-sifters. Along with their animal counterparts, the abundant and varied microflyers, these aerophytes can, at times, darken the sky with their numbers. Darwinian vertebrate morphology is quite different from its terrestrial counterpart. Most of Darwin IV?s larger inhabitants fall into one of five classes: floaters and flyers (no real locomotive limbs to speak of); monopedaliens (one powerful saltatorial, ricochetal limb); bipedaliens (two-legged cursors); tripedaliens (three-legged cursors); and quadrupedaliens. Cursors are agile ground runners, whereas saltators are hoppers. In some cases, such as most of the air-sifters, the rear limb has become a passive skid to support greater weight. Mass is usually supported by a hollow, thin-walled bone structure similar to that of the birds of Earth?s past. This lighter structure predominates among Darwin?s larger fauna and allows large predators to maneuver and run quickly; some Raybacks, for example, have been clocked at almost fifty kph and the fastest of Darwin IV?s animals, the Gyrosprinter, frequently tops ninety kph! Food-gathering and ingestion are, especially for predators, radically different from old Earth carnivora. Liquivores, which secrete digestive juices into their victims (alive or dead) abound. Absent are powerful, fang-lined jaws; in their place are a wide array of scalpel-sharp extensible tongues, each designed, as if by some master armorer, to pierce a particular skin or bony armor. With blinding speed these lethal tongues, guided by hyperdeveloped accelerator muscles, can pass completely through a medium-sized animal, injecting paralyzing digestive fluids on impact. Actual feeding, with broken-down body fluids being siphoned through the tongue, often begins even while the prey is still living. One of the most obvious and significant points of departure from Earth?s ancient fauna is the planet-wide lack of true eyes. Optical sensory organs are absent, having been supplanted, through eons of evolutionary selection, by a battery of sonar and infrared faculties. These senses are, in most cases complemented by a sophisticated lateral line system of sensitive, subcutaneous pressure receptors which, in conjugation with numerous, tiny infrared receptor pits, gauge both the surroundings and the proximity of other creatures. In addition to this somewhat difficult to discern receptor system, Darwin IV?s creatures possess biolights, heat-radiating bioluminous spots that appear quite vivid to infrared sensors. These light arrays (which probably aid in herd member or enemy identification) are especially important during courtship, when subtle color shifts and the dramatic overall brightening we call ?flaring? occur in the mating pair?s biolights. This mating beacon can attract mates from as far away as ten km. To the creatures of Darwin IV, temperature, not visible light, is the sole means of determining between night and day. As a result, the concepts of light and dark are meaningless, and activity is predicated on relative temperature variations. Temperature regulation through metabolic activity and insulating layers of fat has eliminated the need for fur in Darwin IV?s temperate climate; indeed it is doubtful whether any denizen of Darwin IV ever had fur, as the sonar and heat transmitters and receptors must remain uncovered. Sonar projectors exist in all of Darwin IV?s inhabitants. Though they vary in size and form, the basic structure is the same from species to species. A large frontal cavity filled with dense fluid serves to focus the ultrasonic pings produced by a complex larynx-like organ. Because of the high frequency of the sonar and its concomitant short range, Darwin IV?s creatures are forced to ping in a steady stream, making the planet a rather noisy place to one able to perceive the signals. We humans are not so equipped naturally, but the amplifiers in our hovercones can ?hear? the sounds of the creatures around us. These highly developed senses endow their bearers with a very precise and complex view of their world. It is the Expedition?s best guess that animals who had developed these sensory organs proved too formidable for those creatures with rudimentary optical abilities struggling for life and dominance in Darwin IV?s thick, primordial mists. Now the mists are gone?but so are the optically-sighted animals. With notable exceptions (such as the Sac-backs), most higher organisms are hermaphroditic, and mating can lead to impregnation of both partners. The participants? genitalia are always identical: a long suspended tube hanging horizontally behind. During mating, these fleshy tubes unroll about halfway and clasp each other. Fine grooves or channels carry the sperm/egg mixture back and forth, mingling it for as long as ten minutes, depending on the species. Coupling is achieved in a dorsally aligned attitude, which, it has been suggested, allows for mutual defense. My colleagues and I saw many matings continue while the participants fought off attackers. Darwin?s higher lifeforms are not mammalian. Though they are for the most part warm-blooded, they do not nurse their young. Young can be born alive, as with the Daggerwrist and Sac-back, or can hatch from eggs laid underground, as with the Grove-back and Keeled Slider. Great variation exists as to the amount of care and attention young receive immediately after birth. Generally, the egg-born young are precocial?that is, able to fend for themselves?and live-born young are altricial, or in need of care. Exceptions to this rule exist, such as the nurturing Keeled Sliders whose egg-born, altricial young are in the parent?s tow for about two years and need much attention. Strange crossovers also exist, as in the case of the Emperor and Lesser Sea Striders. The eggs of these huge creatures are dropped onto the ?sea?s? undulating surface, where they remain until they hatch. Upon emerging from the eggs, the nymphs must find their way back to their parents until they are fully independent. Certainly the most remarkable of Darwin IV?s assortment of wildlife is the floaters. They constantly evoked a sense of otherworldliness in us all, Yma and human alike. These magnificent beasts?huge, finned, and covered with breathing float-bladders?dot the sky in great sailing herds, gliding lazily through the warm breezy air. Manufacturing hydrogen from water vapor in the atmosphere, through some form of organic electrolysis, the floaters drift ceaselessly, descending only to hunt. At night I often watched their beautiful arrays of biolights drifting silently overhead. They are bizarre, placid creatures of poetry, graceful and ethereal. The Expedition?s visit to Darwin IV lasted about three Earth years. During that time I traveled continually, covering a considerable amount of territory; but by no means do I feel that the planet yielded more than a fraction of its secrets. Our supplies depleted, we left Darwin IV on March 24, 2366. Absorbed in our own very personal recollections, we watched from the windows of the Orbitstar as the small, ochre world diminished to a point of light. On many levels our expedition had been successful in achieving its goals, not the least of which had been to leave Darwin IV exactly as we had found it: wild, beautiful and untouched. Since our departure the entire Darwinian system has been off-limits and is patrolled continuously by Yma robot drones. Five years have passed since our return to Earth. Since then I have been hard at work in my studio which, lined with sketches and mementos, has become a veritable shrine to Darwin IV and its creatures. Outside, a defiled planet is trying to cleanse itself while I, in my sanctuary, have tried to select those images that might best depict another, healthier world. The Yma are considering a second, possibly larger Expedition, and it is my hope to help advance that goal. It is toward that end that I dedicate these field studies and paintings, limited to the larger and more dramatic Darwinian fauna; in the hope that they might give you, the reader, the sense that you traveled with me on our voyage to Darwin IV. And might wish to join us in the future . . . Wayne D. Barlowe New York City, 2367 The Grasslands and Plains Rayback and Gyrosprinter On January 11, 2358, the First Darwinian Expedition began launching its 180 hovercones toward the planet?s surface. We had all agreed that we should begin our explorations in what appeared to be the most easily navigated part of the planet, the grassy savannahs or plains. After a textbook descent to the Planitia Borealis, I impatiently ran through my regimen of systems checks and links to the Orbitstar. As I awaited final clearance I gazed out at the world around me. It was a beautiful afternoon; the rich, blue sky was dotted with feathery cirrus clouds, and a gentle breeze riffled through the rubbery, brownish grass that extended as far as the eye could see. I was hovering about thirty meters above the ground, nervously playing with my navigational controls when my clearance came through. With that final go-ahead I tentatively punched in a random course on the navigational computer and sat back as I began to move forward smoothly over the prairie. Nothing in the hovercone flight simulator could have prepared me for the elation I felt as I traveled that first day. Indeed, this elation lasted to varying degrees throughout most of my stay, but it was never again at quite the euphoric pitch of that day. I was captivated by the sheer miracle of movement over a new world. Nearly an hour passed as I crossed about sixty kilometers of waving grass and drier flatlands. In the distance, a dark line indicated the outlying foothills of rougher terrain, a small chain of low mesas. I set these as my first goal and had covered another ten kilometers when I spotted my first Darwinian inhabitant. It was what we came to call a Rayback; and it was, as I came upon it, squatting close to the ground. As I drew to within fifty meters, the creature got to its feet and began to walk in the direction of the hills toward which I was heading. I was ecstatic. This was the most bizarre creature I had ever laid eyes upon. It was a leathery-skinned biped with four elongated spines protruding from its broad back. Most intriguingly, it did not appear to have any eyes on its triangular head. How did it perceive its surroundings? And clearly, perceive them it did. As I incautiously drew closer, the Rayback quickened its pace to a fast trot, leaping over broad ravines and pushing through the thick grass with ease. I dropped back, and instead of slowing the creature stopped short. While following the Rayback I had imprudently dropped to about five meters above ground level, and without warning the creature wheeled and ran straight at me. I reached for the console and pushed a wrong key, which brought me face to face with the enraged animal. In a panic, I found and pressed the right key; instantly I was gaining altitude. The Rayback, knocked off its feet by my ?cone?s nozzle-wash, lay sprawling in the grass. How had this eyeless creature sensed my presence? In moments it was a small, dark, angry dot in a sea of grass eighty meters below. I checked my ascent and, slightly chagrined, dropped back to about ten meters. I thought this would be a height acceptable to my ill-tempered Darwinian companion, but it was not. Once again it charged, and once again I brought my ?cone up. We repeated this maneuver a number of times until my altitude was acceptable. We settled on thirty-one meters. The first encounter was to prove unusual. By far the majority of Darwin IV?s lifeforms were totally unaware (or unimpressed by) our presence and went about their daily routines uninterrupted. In the future, however, I would be more careful. As I resumed my observations of the Rayback I noticed a new determination in its gait, and I wondered what could have caught its attention?and how. In a moment of revelation I turned on my interior speakers, which were connected to the ?cone?s external mikes, and was immediately greeted by a barrage of high-pitched pings, which were obviously coming from the Rayback. It was using sonar! By now it had brought its speed up to a formidable forty-five kph and was covering the terrain with great leaps. From my greater altitude, I could barely make out a small shape some four-hundred meters off, running through the tall grass. When it broke out of the grass onto a flat stretch of ground, its speed increased and I was sure the pursuing Rayback would not be able to catch up. I was right. The pursuit, accompanied by incessant sonar pings, covered almost five kilometers, with both animals careening in wide turns and bounding over rocks and depressions. Even though I clocked the Rayback at forty-five kph, its intended prey was racing at nearly twice that speed and maneuvering wildly. Had the chase begun at closer range the outcome might have been different, but on this day the Rayback lost. With heaving sides it broke off the hunt and trotted to a halt; then it kneeled and rested in the same position as I had found it. My interest was piqued by the Rayback?s elusive quarry, and I set my computer to track the still-running animal and accelerated to the pursuit. What thirteen-odd tons of hungry bone, muscle and gristle could not do, I, in my hovercone, achieved in air-conditioned comfort. The ?cone shot out, turbo-fan whirring, and the grass was a brown blur beneath me; minutes later the computer?s acquisition bell chimed. I slowed down to match speed as I caught up to the running animal. It was every bit as large and as strange-looking as the Rayback had been. Tiny biolights glowed on its hairless body. Two large nostrils gaped on its back. A disproportionately small head bobbed ever so lightly on the end of a long, sinewy neck. It had two muscular legs which were joined as if, perhaps eons ago, there had been four. The creature moved with an almost rubbery ease as its legs rhythmically flexed and extended. This impression of fluidity was enhanced by the flexibility of the animal?s body; its stretching spine seemed, at times, to almost detach itself from its internal shoulder and hip joints, further lengthening its stride to what I estimated was an unbelievable fifteen meters. It seemed obvious that the animal was built for speed. It had one other very odd feature. Situated above and behind its neck were a pair of post-like organs that remained absolutely horizontal regardless of their owner?s position relative to the ground. I deduced that they were organs of balance, a vital necessity for a biped with such a leg arrangement. They were so striking that I took the liberty of naming this animal, the second I had encountered on Darwin IV, the Gyrosprinter. It charged along, oblivious to my proximity, intent on putting as much distance between itself and the Rayback as possible. I spent a quarter of an hour following the Gyrosprinter across the plains, until, finally, it slowed and, like the Rayback, dropped to rest in the grass. I ?parked,? brought out my pad and treasured antique pencils, and began sketching. The Gyrosprinter was a most willing subject, hardly moving for the better part of an hour. After finishing a few studies of the animal, I decided to leave it in peace and relocate the luckless predator it had left behind. I found the Rayback wandering not far from where I had left it. My heart went out to it in a moment of anthropomorphism, for I felt that it looked dejected. It was walking along a dry riverbed, pinging occasionally in what I took to be a half-hearted manner. I could not have been more mistaken. Suddenly I saw the object of its interest. The predator was stalking yet another Gyrosprinter, which I had failed to notice concealed in the high grass. Now sympathizing with the prey, I felt a sudden urge to alert the Gyrosprinter to the danger that stalked it. But I caught myself. I was not on this planet to interfere with its workings. The kill took place with blinding speed. The Rayback leaped forward and, too late, the Gyrosprinter reacted. There followed a short one-hundred-meter race which ended with the Rayback using its short, knife-like proboscis to slice a huge, crippling wound into the side of its prey. The Gyrosprinter, now trailing its entrails, collapsed in a cloud of dust. The triumphant Rayback trotted up to it and hunkered down to feed. Because of my angle, I could not see how this was accomplished, but I later learned that the liquivore had inserted its tongue deep within its victim. Persistence had paid off for the hungry Rayback, and I was later to appreciate the fact that it was rare for a Darwinian predator to go through a night of hunting without at least one kill. I myself felt well nourished artistically as I sketched the feast. Thus ended my first day on Darwin IV. Prairie-Ram The powerful, liquivorous Prairie-ram is one of the more ubiquitous predators of the Planitia Borealis. Death for the Prairie-rams? victims is always by thoracic impalement, a method which affords the hungry killer quick ingress for feeding. These creatures are so strong that many have been observed, heads imbedded in gory viscera, carrying their impaled prey across the plains for kilometers. A strange sidebar to the Prairie-ram?s killing technique was the elegant pair of skeletons I came across one evening. The predator?s cephalon was still buried in the rib-cage of its prey, locked in between the ribs and vertebrae of an internal puzzle that it could not solve and would ponder for eternity. Arrowtongue and Thornback Late one afternoon I ?parked? my cone above a stretch of dried-up riverbed in Chasma de Salle that twisted in ghostly oxbows across the plains. Hovering at twenty meters above the rocky ground, I quietly reflected on the sudden loneliness that I had, that day, begun to feel. As I watched the pale blue sky deepen to a pink-tinged azure, all that I wished was that my wife and child could be with me to share in the beauty of the moment. Below me, the shadows of the plant-topped hillocks lengthened and blended into one another as the light faded and the luminosity of the scattered flora increased. Soon the world around me was bathed in a wash of evening blue. The herds in the distance seemed a twinkling, tattered carpet of pink and blue lights, while in my immediate vicinity, brilliant Rainbow Jetdarters flashed through the foliage in small, scavenging schools. These sights, indeed beautiful, awakened in me an aching need to share them with those I loved. Even the sounds from outside depressed me. From my speakers I could hear the breeze sighing in what seemed a most doleful way, heightening my sense of aloneness. It was odd, considering the number of creatures browsing around me, that I could feel as isolate as I did. There were at least two major herds, each composed of about a hundred individuals pinging and eating not more that six hundred meters from where I hovered. Five small pods of tripedalien Thornbacks had broken away from the main herds. They meandered around the dusty ravines, searching, I supposed, for the round, rolling succulents that made up their usual forage. These common plants of the plains, which our botanist named fodderball weeds, are small spheres formed of thin, water-rich branches emanating from a central axle. Their lightweight construction puts them at the mercy of almost every breeze, which carries them great distances across the ground. I have even seen fodderballs airborne, though they were traveling neither very far nor very high. A few kilometers to the west, a colony of electrophytes opened up with a flickering display of miniature lightning bolts. This in turn triggered neighboring stands of the red, stalky plants to sympathetically fire their charges, which created a vivid chain reaction across the horizon. These plants are endowed with the unique ability to protect themselves with strong electrical discharges, often of sufficient intensity to kill small animals. Amidst this dazzling light display, I noticed a small cloud of dust rising into the air. Almost simultaneously I heard the warning pings of some unseen Thornbacks and I quickly realized their danger. Within that shifting cloud of dust, I could barely distinguish a large, dark creature stalking purposefully along the rocky riverbed, obviously the source of the electrophytes? agitation. A moment later, a pod of eight frantic Thornbacks burst into view, racing at full gallop through the maze of the riverbed, kicking up a roiling cloud of dust. In attendance was a school of Jetdarters, the small flyers opportunistically sensing an immediate kill. As the Thornbacks reached a rockier portion of the riverbed, the dust subsided and I had a better look at their pursuer. It stood about eight meters tall and looked to me as lethal and threatening as any predator I had seen on Darwin IV. Its black-hided body was muscular and tight, and was surmounted by a large, pointed head which continuously swung back and forth in a meter-wide arc. With each swing it emitted a pair of shrill, grating pings that I knew were targeting the fleeing Thornbacks. Darting from its bony head was a red arrow-tipped tongue, serrated and glistening with saliva. I named the animal an Arrowtongue. As it ran toward me I thanked the stars above that I was not its quarry. The Thornbacks were getting closer. Their clattering hooves seemed to barely touch the rocky riverbed. I could see the animals? dorsal nostrils puckering and flaring as their foamy breath moistened their armored backs. They ran as one, instinctively knowing that security lay in their joined efforts. Running in a mass with only their horned backs exposed, they provided their pursuer with a confusing sonar image. Without a single target to focus upon, the hunter could only follow its prey and hope for a killing opportunity. The Arrowtongue did not have long to wait, however. As the pod of Thornbacks passed below me, one of them lost its footing on the loose rocks, colliding with a second and sending them both down. The Arrowtongue, for all its bulk, was enormously quick and was upon the before the stunned tripedaliens could regain their feet. Its long tongue lashed out and speared one Thornback through the dorsal nostril with such ferocity as to send a geyser of dark blood a meter into the air. The tripedalien collapsed with a gurgling sigh as its killer quickly retracted its tongue, turned, and with a flick of its head, knocked the second beast sprawling. Again the red blur of the predator?s tongue found its mark; and this time, without withdrawing the organ, it crouched down and began to feed. Powerful muscles rippled on the Arrowtongue?s sides and throat as it sent powerful digestive juices into the Thornback?s chest cavity, and then withdrew the liquefied contents. Over the next half hour this process was repeated several times until the juices had completely cleaned the organs out of the dead animal?s body. Apparently the Arrowtongue?s diet consisted of only the broken down viscera of its victims, for it left the Thornback?s carcass intact for the scavengers While the liquivore had been eviscerating one animal, a dozen or more Jetdarters had been feeding on the other, leaving bloody tracks across the second Thornback. Thick black blood was still bubbling from the Thornback?s gaping nostril-wound, and it was here that the Arrowtongue again inserted its tongue. After another half hour, its belly distended, the glutted creature rose somewhat unsteadily and slowly strode off about twenty meters, then lay down and rested. It had been a successful hunt and the fortunate Arrowtongue could now sleep through the night. Butchertree and Prismalope Late one afternoon, during the course of my southern desert exploration, I decided to get a closer look at the curious ?trees? we had observed during our medium altitude passes over the Chasma Cook. Opinion was divided as to their botanical or animal lineage. Their tree-like appearance was belied by their behavior we had witnessed from our altitude of two hundred meters. These sightings had shown us a possibly predatory organism very different from any tree we had ever seen. On several occasions I had watched one of the ?trees? folding and opening its long, sharp limbs in a grotesque slow-motion pantomime of a kill. Often, too, I had seen dried carcasses stuck on their spear-point branches. When one day I found myself in a position to investigate the bizarre ?trees,? I jumped at the chance. I had been on the move for a week with three other Expedition members, and we had stopped only to sleep. I was delighted by the opportunity to ?park? after our lengthy peregrinations and did not even watch the shrinking specks of my fellow travelers as they disappeared over the horizon. I set my radio on ?Emergency Only? and hovered near a small stand of the ?trees.? My first task was to run a series of scans on the organisms in order to determine their true nature. Within minutes I had my answer: I was unequivocally watching a group of animals. One large ?tree? was surrounded by four smaller ones. Surrounding their wide trunk-bases were a number of yellow lanceolate growths, seemingly rooted beneath the rocky soil. An hour or so into my vigil these growths started to move, swaying on some imaginary zephyr (for there was no wind). Then, riding on the still, warm air, a small flyer insinuated itself amidst these dancing growths. The flyer blended in remarkably well, its color, shape, and movements causing it to disappear in the surrounding yellow fronds. The cause for this mimicry became immediately obvious when a splendid tripedalien bounded over a nearby hedge in hot pursuit of another identical flyer. This flyer, too, hid itself among the waving fronds. The Prismalope (as we had named the creatures when observing them in herds from the air) skidded to a halt. It was panting hard through the eight vents on the sides of its massive, bony head. It paced delicately around the base of the trunk, pinging slowly and flicking out its two grasping tongues in a parody of bewilderment. The rapid pacing spiraled into tighter circles until the creature was quite close to the largest ?tree?. The flyer was difficult to spot under the hanging branches. Its flying pattern alternated between freezing near the fronds and darting rapidly from one frond to another. When it froze it was very difficult to tell from the growths. The Prismalope was clever, though, and drew closer, pinging more rapidly as its confidence grew. It could probably already taste the airborne treat. So absorbed was the tripedalien in its small prey that it failed to see the lightning descent of the spear-like arm. The limb pierced the Prismalope with such force that a full meter was exposed on its other side, dripping with blood. The flyer darted back out of sight. The powerful arm lifted the kicking beast high into the air where, for the next three quarters of an hour, it died, as its fluids were slowly drained. I saw the beautiful colors on the dying creature?s body fade; I saw its carcass shrivel perceptibly as pores in the impaling arm sucked it dry. It became apparent that the tree-like predator was finished when the remains were tossed down to land, in a cloud of dust, near the desiccated corpse of another Prismalope. In the remaining three hours before dusk I watched as the Butchertree (for I so named it) dispatched five more of the beautifully-colored tripedaliens. And with each kill the lure was, again, the small yellow flyer. One Prismalope, chasing the wily flyer in circles, caught its tongue on the barb near the base of one of the yellow fronds. I was surprised to see, in the ensuing struggle, that this frond was attached to the trunk by a stretchy, underground tentacle. Not that this mattered to the Prismalope, which was still impaled and hefted into the air; apparently this position allow the fluids from the dying animal to flow more easily down its gullet. At one point three of the luckless prey were simultaneously held high in the air, in various stages of desiccation. It was a gruesome scene that is still etched on my memory, the tree and its victims silhouetted against the darkening sky. My interest was piqued by the underground tentacles, and I ran another series of scans. I discovered that the largest of the Butchertrees was connected to the four smaller ones by thick umbilici. Since only the larger one had made kills, I surmised that it was probably still sustaining them with nourishment until the day their own limbs were powerful enough to kill prey. We later learned that this takes about two years, depending upon the size and migratory patterns of the herds, since during periods of decreased prey, the Butchertrees? metabolic level drops leaving only passive systems, such as the infrared receptor pits on its sides, active. I remain, to this day, uncertain as to how these odd, stationary creatures mate. The intimacy that the Butchertree shares with the yellow flyer led me to speculate on a few possibilities. The flyer may be nothing more than an opportunistic symbiote gleaning morsels from the Butchertree?s kills. But somehow I am not convinced. My guess is that the flyer is, in some way, responsible for the continuation of the species. It acts as a lure for the Butchertree; this is its most obvious contribution. It is also, however, an ideal candidate to carry sperm or eggs from one Butchertree to the next. Or (and this is my favorite theory) perhaps the flyer is itself the second sex, a sexually dimorphic extreme. Unfortunately, the Expedition did not collect enough data to confirm any of these theories. The Forest and Periphery Grove-back I was awakened late one night by the alarm beeping on my hovercone?s open radio channel. Dr. Vindagrov, one of our geologists, had detected a seismic disturbance in the Sinus Columbus, the great pass through the equatorial mountains. Because I was nearer the moving ?epicenter,? he asked me, very politely, to investigate it. He claimed that the tremors were local and steadily moving toward me. In his opinion, this intimated a non-geological origin and possibly zoological source. He apologized again for waking me, asked me to keep him informed, and signed off. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and trained a couple of my instruments in the general direction of the tremors. The geologist?s conclusions were correct; a very large creature, some seven kilometers distant, was headed toward my ?parked? ?cone. Infrared and sonar confirmed this. After converting my warm bed back into a not-so-warm chair, I synthed a cup of tea and a doughnut. I sat back in the chair and stared into the moonslit darkness, waiting. Forty-five minutes passed as the ?tremors? grew in intensity. Not much, however, had changed outside. The moons were a little more separated, and a long flight of glowing Diskflyers had passed in front of me. But the gloom had not yielded anything more. Suddenly, coalescing out of the darkness, I saw the red biolights of an Arrowtongue as it headed toward me. The powerful bipedalien was coming from the direction of my expected guest, and as it padded down the slope in front of me I could barely see its dark head swinging back and forth in the characteristic manner of its kind. It was pinging continuously. Clearly this animal was not responsible for the ground-shaking tremors I was monitoring. As it disappeared into the night, a second Arrowtongue strode into view, followed closely by a third and a fourth. A hunting pack? Other predators, such as Raybacks, had been seen hunting in packs, but I had not personally seen social behavior in Arrowtongues. Then I heard, in the distance, a faint scraping. It was a low sound, but growing against the background of slow, ground-trembling thuds. I decided to climb to a greater altitude to get a look over the hills that obscured my vision. As the ?cone climbed to one hundred meters I realized that I had been prudent to move when I did. Before me, pulling itself over the crest of the hill and blotting out the moons behind it, was a huge, dark form. Silhouetted against the noctilucent clouds was a gigantic wedge-shaped creature, biolights aglow, supported on two thick pillar-like legs. I estimated that it was at least sixty meters tall, but the darkness made an accurate appraisal impossible. It hesitated at the top of the hill, almost as if it were gathering itself for the downward plunge. As I watched, another Arrowtongue darted into view between the behemoth?s legs. Just then, the larger animal started forward and caught the Arrowtongue under the enormous skid that made up the rear of its body. The Arrowtongue was crushed like a grape and passed over without the slightest notice from the looming giant. As the beast came down the hill, I could see more clearly the enormous skid that carried the rear two-thirds of its body. I realized that it was this plow-like growth that I had heard scraping over the hilly terrain. But the most remarkable aspect of this already remarkable beast was the dying forest of young plaque-bark trees growing out of its dorsal carapace. At first I speculated that this might be some kind of protective adaptation that would enable it to hide; this seemed unlikely, though, given the creature?s bulk. I later learned that once the Keeled Grove-back (for so I called it) reached this size and age it had no true enemies and did not fear predation. As the Grove-back topped the next hill, I could very clearly hear the suction of its breath as it inhaled the luminous clouds of minute, airborne animals that made up its diet. These tiny creatures are consumed in prodigious numbers by Darwin IV?s placid air-sifters. Born pregnant, these microflyers complete their life cycles as eggs in the excreta of the animals that eat them. My questions about the Arrowtongues accompanying the Grove-back were soon resolved. A predictable side-effect of the travels of so large a creature as the Grove-back is the flushing of enormous quantities of game?even at great risk to themselves. I found this commensalism in a predator as fierce and independent as the Arrowtongues fascinating, and watching them dart and stab into the moonslit undergrowth, I gained a new respect for their adaptability. The Grove-back, for its part, placidly continued on its journey, raising and lowering its broad ax-shaped head, unaware of the dramas being played out at its feet. The creature?s breath whistled out of generous gills aft of its nose. The trees on its back cracked and rustled with each ponderous, lurching footfall, while the enormous skid turned the ground with a clatter of upturned boulders. The noise of the animal?s passage was substantial and, when I finally gave up my pursuit, I could hear it receding into the distance long after it had dropped out of sight. During my three years on Darwin IV, I had several opportunities to observe this extraordinary creature and to piece together the stages of its life. It was my good fortune to come across a nesting Grove-back during my second spring. It was submerged in a pit and grown over with underbrush and small trees. Had I been skimming the ground under treetop level I would have passed it by. It looked like nothing more than a small, tree-covered hill. Based on the growth of the trees, I estimated that the animal had been buried and immobile for at least ten years. In fact, I scanned the Grove-back for vital signs, not entirely convinced that the animal was a live. My instruments? readings were so weak that I had to conclude that the animal was hibernating. During the course of its prolonged stasis, small creatures, as well as plants, had accumulated on the behemoth?s porous dorsal shell. Infrared indicated a large colony of Bush-jumpstars as well as a polyhedral Cobalt Jetdarter hive. I monitored this particular specimen for two and a half weeks. Each day I returned to find the faint life-signs growing stronger. On the ninth day I was surprised to find that a fifteen-meter-long tunnel had been excavated beneath the animal. Its long ovipositor was slowly squeezing eggs into a small chamber at the tunnel?s end. Five days after laying its eggs, the Keeled Grove-back rose shakily amidst a cloud of debris and soil. Its stiffened legs, trembling under the immense, forgotten weight, tentatively took their first steps in more that ten years. The tangled forest on the creature?s back shook like reeds in the wind as it moved forward. After the Grove-back departed, I hovered over the nest-site for a few days, alert to observe the infants as they hatched. Nothing happened. I returned a week later and still nothing had changed. I had other objectives, so I gave the coordinates of the site to the Expedition members at large in the hope that some passer-by might be in the vicinity at the time of the birth. And that is just what happened. Dr. Brangwyn, one of the Expedition?s geologists, chanced by the site just as the birth occurred. He described each small Grove-back emerging from the sandy soil, covered by sticky amniotal fluids and pinging feebly. An hour after hatching, the young, which have three functional limbs, dart off in all directions. They are fully independent and seem to delight in their speed, an ironic counterpoint to their slow-paced parent. Only later will their hind limb atrophy to be replaced by the familiar skid, as with the other keeled inhabitants of Darwin IV. It was only after I encountered the peripatetic Grove-backs that I realized that the odd twin fecal trails I had been noticing strewn about were their product. These ruddy, ropey excresences lay on the ground, on either side of a deep trench, like double weals, often a meter high and many meters long; and before becoming aware of their true origin, I had suspected them of being an artifact, possibly of intelligent creatures. They frequently spiralled into tight coils or perfect ovoids, which I saw as a sign of their artificiality. To me they seemed like lures meant to direct and trap unwary game. It was with more than a little embarrassment that I was proven wrong, and I received many good-natured jibes from my fellow Expedition members who had, of course, developed their own fair share of not-quite-accurate theories on Darwin IV. Flipstick While sketching in the northern moors near Lacus Parry one afternoon, I received word from Dr. Evan Tenbroeck, head of the Geological Survey Team, of some extraordinary creatures twenty kilometers downrange. Since Dr. Tenbroeck was not known for his excitability, I dropped what I was doing and pointed my navigational grid toward the GST?s transmitted coordinates. Three kilometers from my objective I spotted the creatures in question. Standing at an impressive height of sixty meters, four very odd tubular animals were swaying and bending slightly in the gentle breeze. Their globe-tipped balance-organs were easily the most developed gyroscopic mechanoreceptors I had seen and for a brief moment I wondered why the animals needed them. Then, as I drew to within a thousand meters, I saw the great beast?s fleshy feet begin to wrinkle and compress, and I heard a rushing of air as of a great, deep inhalation. Without warning, the four cylindrical animals launched themselves into the hazy sky. Backlit by Darwin IV?s twin suns, their darkened sides flickered with rainbow biolights as they performed complete somersaults and landed upright. I understood the necessity for the overdeveloped balance-organs; it was an incredible display of coordination. No sooner had the Flipsticks, as I termed them, landed than they were airborne again. This singular mode of locomotion was what had undoubtedly excited the unflappable Dr. Tenbroeck. I, too, was impressed. The object of their activity soon became visible as I saw a cloud of small micro-flyers trying to elude the tubiform predators. The speed of this chase was remarkable, due to the distances covered with each bound, and I was hard-pressed to keep up. Then I saw one Flipstick, after some incredible maneuvering, plunge straight through the swarm of flyers. It unfurled two giant umbrella-like scoops, which had been previously folded flat, and simultaneously emitted an oscillating sonar jamming tone. The tone created enormous confusion amidst the swarm so that they fell easy victim to the vacuuming scoops of the air-sifter. In seconds, three-quarters of the swarm had been sucked into the animal while the rest dispersed in chaos. As the clouds of micro-flyers headed in every direction, the Flipsticks resumed their precariously balanced stationary posture. Fearing that I might alarm them, I ?parked? about three hundred meters away, near a circular stand of curious, post-like plants which had a puzzling gnawed look to them. Strangest of all, a large, intact Arrowtongue head lay in the center of this ring. It almost seemed to have been seized and twisted off, as there were claw marks on the dried skin and bone and ropy tendons trailed from the stump of the neck. The long, barbed tongue was missing, evidently wrenched free by the same unknown creature that had decapitated it. I watched over my shoulder as I sketched this scene, nervous about meeting a creature that could so easily dispatch one of Darwin IV?s fiercest liquivores. During the course of my high-speed chase, I had notice an especially large Grove-back stumbling across a meadow. At the time, the creature?s difficulty with the easy terrain had not registered on me, as I was caught up in the chase. Then I circled around and found the Grove-back struggling feebly to negotiate a small rise. At once I realized that the behemoth was sick, possibly even dying. This was something I had not yet encountered upon Darwin IV; I had never before witnessed a death by natural causes. The Grove-back repeatedly attempted the two-meter rise, never quite getting its enormous foot high enough. It paused and I saw a tremor pass through it. Suddenly, with a great, roaring exhalation, the huge animal pitched forward, digging its massive head into the loamy soil. Brittle trees cracked and flew, javelin-like, from the animal?s back. It seemed to take forever for the beast to settle into what I knew was to be its final resting place; its feet pawed sadly at the ground until at last all was still. I decided to sketch this poignant scene, to honor so great a creature?s passing. Short moments after the Grove-back?s death, an Arrowtongue appeared, the first of many opportunistic liquivores to arrive at this easy banquet. By the time I was finished sketching, at least a dozen larger animals and hosts of smaller scavengers were feeding, all in apparent harmony. The Flipsticks were just as I had left them an hour earlier. I studied the Flipsticks for about an hour as they rested on their compressed feet, their six-sided mid-bodies heaving rapidly from their recent chase. Now that I was closer I could see that their bodies were of very light construction, with a latticework of muscles apparently lying in thin layers over the surface. I found myself distracted by a pair of lumbering Gel-suckers that had stumbled into a patch of jelly-bladder plants. With greedy abandon, the awkward creatures ripped into the wobbly bags of vegetable gel and drank their fill through their hyper-extended proboscises. It was not long before the first bladders were shriveled husks, their liquid drained or spilled. The glutted Gel-suckers then moved methodically from one bladder to the next, ripping them apart, apparently for sport. Gel tumbled and cascaded out in big chunks, melting into lumpy puddles on the ground. As each jelly-bladder was destroyed, dozens of small, pinging Hoppercones appeared from their tunnel nests to snatch pieces of semisolid bladder skin. A group of silvery, barrel-shaped Finlegs waddled into view, headed toward the motionless Flipsticks. I decided to follow them, to see how close I could get to the huge monopedaliens. I thought that if I stayed behind the Finlegs, they might not notice me, so I skimmed at a low altitude of ten meters. I was sure that my plan had been successful as I came to within thirty meters of the giant tubes. Suddenly all four creatures compressed, inhaled, and leapt into the air. They were gone in a moment, tumbling and twisting toward the horizon, and I kicked my ?cone into a fast and furious pursuit. Five minutes into the chase, however, a chime rang to warn me that I was in danger of running out of fuel. I broke off my pursuit and thus saved my pride, for I probably did not have a chance of catching the Flipsticks. I transmitted my coordinates to Orbitstar Control and waited for them to synchronize the descent of a fuel pod and arrange the rendezvous. Two hours later the pod dropped down within a kilometer of my position. Forest Glider and Gulper Darwin IV?s many small pocket forests proved to be our greatest frustration and largest failure. We were grossly unprepared for exploration within these tiny, dense woodlands; our hovercones were far too bulky for us to wend our way through the mazes of vines and tree-trunks. One day, however, I did manage to penetrate a stand of plaque-barks to an unprecedented distance of four kilometers. Once within the emerald confines of the forest, I discovered the magical nature of these pocket biomes. Golden filtered light pierced the shadows, picking out clusters of leaves, patches of bark, or the foliage-carpeted floor. Small, four-winged flyers fluttered in out of the sunslight, flashing vivid blue against the forest?s gloom. Enhancing these and other images were the delicate xylophone tones of thousands of striker-nuts, the bell-like seeds of the plaque-bark tree. Each of these is formed with two small bark strikers that beat upon its shell, eventually loosening the nut and sending it to the forest floor. The sound of these nuts is like some beautiful arboreal symphony. I decided to follow a small stream, reasoning that the foliage would be less dense above it. I also felt that my chances were good of encountering creatures on the rocky banks. As I guided my ?cone deeper into the forest, I was rewarded with the sight of two creatures shambling to the waterside. I ?parked? the ?cone and watched as the larger of the pair sniffed the air with its purple, hyperextended oral tubes. The animal seemed aware of me, and yet, as with so many of Darwin IV?s creatures, ignored me totally. This behavior, in which of course any naturalist would delight, is a result of the animals? inexperience with outsiders. Pleased by this indifference, I settled down to observe this pair of Forest Sliders, as I came to call them. I speculated that this was a parent and its offspring, and noticed that between them there was a discrepancy both in size and in the number of limbs. The parent possessed only two legs and a skid, but when it turned I noticed a dangling, wrinkled flap of tissue where one of the juvenile?s hind legs was to be found. This apparent deformity held my interest even as a trio of Hook-tailed Flyers burst out of the foliage overhead and startled the Forest Sliders. The parent lurched backward into a tree, scraping the ?deformed? leg completely off. Unperturbed by its loss, the animal shook itself and headed back to the water. Amazed to see that there was no wound, I concluded that this growth had been the neotonous remains of a limb used during the creature?s early life, before it gained the control of its pronged pelvic skid. The three Hook-tails dropped to a sun-dappled branch, hooked it, and dangled inverted, folding their leathery wings around themselves. On the bank below, the juvenile Forest Slider hobbled after its parent, which was drinking copiously midway out in the stream. Wet sides heaving as it sucked down water, the larger Slider began to emit warning pings as its child approached the slick rocks of the bank. Warned, the child went no further. After a quarter of an hour, they both disappeared into the forest?s gloom I took my ?cone out of ?park? and slowly continued my journey, hovering seven meters above the stream. Branches and vines whipped across the glass, leaving pollen in a sticky, yellowish filigree. The screen-clean spray did little to improve viewing conditions, which left me no choice but to switch to remote video. As I debated whether I should press on, I heard a strange ululating cry which seemed to be a true vocalization rather than the sonar calls to which I had become accustomed. I was intrigued, and resolved to continue my journey to find its source. As I floated along the heavily overgrown banks, watching the underbrush moving with the passes of furtive, unseen creatures, I could see luminous biolights fractured by twigs into strange abstract patterns. I passed a stand of short, glowing stalks with alternating black and red stripes that pulsed rhythmically; they were, in turn, surrounded by a moving carpet of tiny blue lights that, on closer inspection, belonged to a huge colony of nearly transparent Ghost Brackenhoppers. They seemed to me a phantom army in a dark sylvan kingdom; there were hundreds of them circling the stalks, which they eventually cut down and carried off into the green darkness. Each stalk still glowed as it was borne away, a diminishing red effulgence in a river of blue creatures. I continued downstream, pausing at intervals to peer into the murky forest, until I arrived at a shadowy, tree-circled clearing. There, lying still amidst the leaves and detritus of the surrounding plaque-barks, was a large, bloated organism. It was about three meters high and fifteen long, the bulk of its length composed of a thick, intestine-shaped tail that lay curled on the ground. Above and behind the creature?s distended, yawning mouth, a pair of shrunken winglets beat the still forest air in an almost comical manner. The entire creature was an unlovely shade of yellow-green, translucent in the mouth cavity, where the dappled light touched its wrinkled skin. While I observed it, the creature roused itself with a series of rippling shudders that shook fallen twigs and leaves from its back; the silence was broken by the same wailing cry I had heard upstream. It seemed that a series of nostril-like holes inside the creature?s oral cavity produced the strange keening, for even as I watched they puckered, drawing in air, and burst forth with their incongruous lament. Along with the cry, a fine cloud of pungent gas was exhaled to drift through the trees. In a manner of minutes, either the cry or the scented air, or both, had attracted a blue-headed Spade-nose, a small barrel-bodied creature that came snuffling and pinging to within a meter of the prone organism. This latter barely moved; only the barely perceptible expansion and contraction of its sides betrayed the fact that it was alive. The small mouthlets silently puffed out a thin stream of gas that enveloped the Spade-nose?which, without further deliberation, marched directly into the open maw! Within seconds its feet were stuck to the floor, trapped in some glutinous secretion. As I watched the small beast struggle, its captor?s mouth snapped slowly shut. I could discern two sounds from within: the pathetic, muffled pingings of the frantic Spade-nose, and the gurgling of digestive fluids. Soon both sounds ceased, and the forest surrounding the beast I decided to call the Gulper was again silent?except for the incongruous bell-like tones of the striker-nuts. Perhaps affected by this brief drama, I was beginning to feel claustrophobic within the dark, tangled confines of the woods. I felt a growing desire to be in the open, so at the next relatively open area I began to ascend slowly through the branches. When I broke through the leafy forest canopy, I was greeted by a strange vista of buoyant green bubbles, each tethered like a child?s balloon to the crown of a tree. Superimposed against the expanse of leaves, these two-meter-wide bobbing floatballs, as we came to call them, gleamed in the afternoon light. I remain to this day uncertain if they are plant or animal, or if they might be some kind of tree parasite or spore sac. M | 2010-04-14 22:02:00 Author: claptonfann  Posts: 228 |
| :O this is huge clap! I can't read it now but I'll probably print myself a copy and read it. Thanks for sharing | 2010-04-14 22:17:00 Author: Chump  Posts: 1712 |
My avatar is a picture of a Grove-back and an Arrowtongue  Wayne Barlowe's book is FULL of illustrations, but I'd have to attach them separately | 2010-04-14 22:41:00 Author: claptonfann Posts: 228 |
| The Tundra Arctic Sedge-slider and Tundra-Plow Tragedy overtook the Expedition shortly after I left Darwin’s montane region. I was traveling north with the idea of joining my fellow explorers, Drs. Ysud and Ysire, over the arctic wastes. As I skimmed above the boggy, pre-tundra moors I listened over long-range radio to the incomprehensible, untranslated conversation of the two alien xenogeologists. They were in separate ‘cones some five hundred kilometers downrange, floating over the glacial shelf toward the magnetic pole. All seemed quite normal; the scientists’ conversation was steady and seemingly lighthearted, punctuated by the rapid clicking I had come to recognize as the laughter of the Yma. I enjoyed listening to their strange language, all whistles and harmonics, as I sped toward the rendezvous point, I estimated that I would join them in about an hour. And then, quite without warning, the radio became silent and the Homing Distress Indicator began blinking on my screen. At first I assumed that the two xenogeologists had simply ended their conversation and one had accidentally activated his homing distress beacon. But as the minutes of radio silence accumulated I grew more concerned. I ran a check on their position and discovered that it had not changed since my computer’s last update, ten minutes earlier. This was ominous. It would be at least thirty minutes before I reached them; until then I could only sit and nervously watch the sub-arctic terrain streak below. The flat tundra landscape of Darwin IV is an almost uniform olive-brown in color. Scattered patches of low-growing white and blue vegetation soften the bleak and monotonous aspect of this barren biome. Innumerable rounded boulders dot the ground in growing numbers as one approaches the vast icecap. Both of Darwin IV’s poles are covered by glaciers of immense proportions. Glacier Cap North, toward which I was heading, differs from its southern counterpart by its greater thickness and by the jagged mountain peaks, B14 and B15, near its center. Glacial Cap South has no such visible peaks. As the kilometers fell away, I began to discern a thin white line on the horizon. Brilliant against the gray-green clouds, the edge of the glacier appeared artificial, like an improbably long, whitewashed stucco extending to both horizons. I gained altitude and I could see the polar cap extending into the distance, a milky white ocean of ice shining in the suns’ diminished light like a cracked and roughened lamina of ceramalloy. Even as I watched, a dense white cloud of frozen vapor began to steal across the surface of the ice, obscuring the suns and the icefields from view. Within moments I, too, was engulfed in a turbulent, hail-spitting cloud of total whiteness. I began to feel a growing sense of disorientation. In a state of near-panic, I called up the computer’s topographic horizon; its graphic linear display afforded me some measure of comfort. It was all too easy for me to visualize what might have happened to my two associates: they would have been in close formation, performing their bi-instrument seismic surveys, when this squall or one like it roared down upon them. I could picture the two light ‘cones thrown together, impacting, disintegrating . . . I hoped I was wrong, but as the storm grew in intensity around me I began to fear the worst. Hovering at fifty meters I was buffeted about like a snowflake on the wind, with fine-grained hail blasting my windscreen. My ‘cone’s gyros strained to keep me level, but the artificial horizon projected on the windscreen pitched wildly. Then, almost as suddenly as it had appeared, the storm was gone. Below, the olive tundra became more and more distinct, while above the suns once again shone in the cobalt sky. With the departure of the squall, I regained contact with the homing signal, and about ten minutes later was floating above the scientists’ last coordinates. The evidence of their fate lay scattered on the ground and ice at the glacier’s edge. Thousands of confetti-like bits of ceramalloy and titanium, orange-painted and twisted, lay in a broad smear about one hundred meters long. The two massive Yzar turbo-fan engines lay tangled together, their rotors interlocked. I saw no bodies, not even a shred of orange flight suit. I patched-in to the Orbitstar and relayed the sad news of my discovery and the coordinates of the crash site. I was told that an investigation party would be down within the hour. Two hours later, after being fully debriefed (which included a complete download of my computer’s records) I was sent to continue my explorations. As I pulled away from the crash site I could see on my rear screens the cleanup team’s hoverpods, already in action. After they finished there would be no physical trace of my colleagues on Darwin IV. They would, I know, have appreciated that. I had not really known the two xenogeologists very well, yet I was sorely depressed by their deaths. My mind kept wandering back to the crash site and its scattered remains. Instead of heading out to explore, I “parked,” put Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony on the speakers, and sat back looking out over the stark tundra. It was, perhaps, my attempt at a memorial service. When the symphony ended, I got back to work. I decided to float along the edge of the glacier, surveying its fissured surface as I went. Its blueish, icy face rose to varying heights, sometimes reaching thousands of meters, while other spots were no more than a few meters high. Strewn on the ground before it were fields of broken iceblocks calved off the fracturing parent glacier. These blocks, carved by wind and suns, attained the most bizarre forms. The tundra resembled a vast chessboard with hundreds of white, spired pieces slowly devolving in the thin, arctic sunslight. About an hour out from the crash sight, I rounded an outlet glacier and came across a half-dozen black creatures slowly dragging themselves along the near-frozen ground. They left behind grooves that etched the tundra’s surface for hundreds of yards. With these furrows in mind, I named the creatures Tundra-Plows. Two heavily-muscled arms terminated by flippers pulled the three-meter-long body with deliberate strokes, leaving both the furrow and small piles of dirt in its wake. Every stroke brought forth the creature’s nostril a tall plume of vapor that froze on contact with the frigid air and rained down as snow upon its back. Its heavy, black tegument glistened with this moisture as it heaved its laborious way along. It seemed a creature uncomfortable with its own method of movement, yet I knew that its very survival in this harsh environment proved me wrong. I must have watched the group of Tundra-Plows (for so I was to call them when I learned their true nature) for at least an hour. They traveled very slowly. On occasion an individual would approach a clump of arctic cactus or polardots, and these would disappear from sight as if plucked from below; this puzzled me. Ten meters apart and parallel to one another, the beasts traveled only about forty meters in the hour I watched them, squealing and belching vapor and turning the soil like harrows. It was not until some time later, when I came across the mummified remains of a long-dead Tundra-Plow, that I understood that a significant portion of the Tundra-Plow’s body remains unseen while the animal is alive. A large bony plow, triangular in shape, travels just below the surface, cutting and pushing the soil into six waiting mouth-grooves for moisture filtration. Extending from an opening in the bottom of the plow is a hollow, rigid tongue, terminated by a vertically hinged ovoid structure. This extensible mouth-pod is unquestionably the organ responsible for plucking the small arctic plants from below. My examination of this mummified specimen was only moderately satisfying, since I was enclosed in a vehicle. My hovercone contained a complex battery of sensors and receptors designed to measure the vital signs of living creatures, but the Yma had not provided ways to examine and preserve dead tissue. Perhaps this was an oversight, or perhaps it was part of their philosophy; at any rate, I felt that this moldering specimen might be a good candidate for collection and further study. The only possible source of conflict was the minimal microbial life within the carcass. But when I called the Orbitstar to ask permission, I inadvertently involved myself in a long-standing and bitter controversy. I was unaware that other members of the Expedition had made similar requests. They had all been answered with a flat refusal; and so was I. I remember spending a good ten minutes muttering about the inflexibility of bureaucracy. Though we all thoroughly agreed with the Yma’s objective of “preserving Darwin IV untouched,” there were instances that pointed to a certain stubbornness within Expedition Control. Certainly Darwin IV was now and forevermore touched by the deaths of Drs. Ysud and Ysire. A few kilometers from the crash site I heard some extremely loud pings; a few more kilometers and I came upon their source—three lumbering Sedge-sliders, their enormous pink biolights shining like lanterns in the gloom of the receding storm. At first they appeared headless, but as the sky grew lighter I saw small dark beaks appear from beneath their anterior flaps. These gradually extended until an entire head was visible. The newly-emerged black heads steamed for a few moments in the frigid air until they cooled off. These large creatures had evolved a unique means of keeping their bare heads protected during arctic storms, by retracting them deep into their insulated body cavities. The Sedge-sliders were anything but quick, pulling their ten-meter-tall bodies across the crunchy ground with laborious strokes of their huge, hooked feet. They were among the noisiest animals I found on Darwin IV, slamming out their pings with deafening regularity. I found the clamor annoying even after I shut down my internal speakers. The vibrations seemed to rattle every loose item within my ‘cone. The Sedge-sliders were placid animals, digging peacefully in the frozen arctic soil for the subterranean snowbulbs that comprise their diet. As they moved along I had the impression, looking at the ground behind them, that some indecisive paleontologist had been at work, digging here and there and leaving shallow holes all about. A half hour into my sketching, I discovered the need for the creatures’ exceptionally loud pingings. Because of the proximity of the glacier, the Sedge-slider has developed the ability to ricochet sonar signals off the ice wall; in fact, this seems to be its preferred means of echo-location. Over the hour or so that I watched the Sliders feed, one of them was always stationed near the glacier wall bouncing his pings off into the tundra while the other animals remained silent. My sonar analysis indicated that these were not single but multiple pings that reached into a number of directions simultaneously. The complexity of the returned signal must have been considerable, explaining the huge sonar bulge atop the creatures’ bodies. Nature, as opportunistic as ever, had taken full advantage of the glacier and its acoustic capabilities. My annoyance with the loud pings turned to admiration at the wonderful evolution that provided these creatures with so complex a survival mechanism. It must certainly be a clever arctic Bolt-tongue that catches any Sedge-slider unawares. Unth and Mummy-nest Flyer The sub-arctic biome presented me with more biological enigmas than any other region on Darwin. I came upon one such puzzle early on a spring day, while I was following a migrating herd of Unths across the flat tundra near Promunturium Weddell. The Unths, so named for the loud sighing sound that accompanies each heavy footfall, were heading for their spring calving ground to the north. The herd numbered about two hundred individuals, and their nervous energy was almost palpable. Most of the creatures were of breeding age and many displayed the distended bellies of pregnancy. It had apparently been a hard winter; the number of young was reduced and all the herd members appeared underweight. Even so, they were an impressive sight treading through the sedge. I could not help but remember an experience I’d had with these same creatures during their fall rut the preceding year. An early snow had covered the ground and a lowering gray sky seemed to presage the hard winter to come. The bulky, six-meter-tall Unths, tails and backs filled out with their summer’s stored fat reserves, clustered in pre-courtship groups. Because there is only one sex among them, the only members of the herd exempt from the ritualistic displays were the very young, the sick, and the aged. The remainder of these creatures were jabbing their tusks into the snow and earth or stamping about trumpeting. This bugling, which emanates from the eight openings on their flanks, is a deep and beautifully four-toned peal, rich with pained desire. It was easily heard for miles around. I was hovering over the herd, sketching a couple of juveniles, when I saw two large Unths engaged in the preliminary biolight flaring of ritual combat. Standing in place, they were rotating rapidly, throwing up clods of snow and earth and pinging loudly. Abruptly, they would stop and face each other, tossing their heads and scratching the ground with their tusks. Sometimes mild pushing matches and tusk-clashing contests would ensue; moments later, they would begin rotating again with renewed energy. The sounds of their combat echoed in the frozen air. This pattern would repeat itself until one of the creatures lowered its head in defeat, or charged. Whatever was the triggering element in the threat display (I certainly would not call it love), it was sufficient to create a mating pair. For copulation to occur, each partner had to withstand, and match, its potential partner’s aggressive posturing. Combat is the final test of an Unth mate’s compatibility and, I believe, a necessary element of the animals’ sexual stimulation. Combat seems to release pheromones from both creatures that activate the urge to copulate. I watched many threat displays, many of which ensued in incompatibility. Sometimes, if combat ensued, the loser would be injured or too tired to engage in sex; in these cases they were left where they dropped. More often, though, the two creatures would copulate, creating offspring bred for strength and hardiness. The fall rut lasted for about three weeks during which time I recorded most individuals participating in at least three combats. Afterwards, the herd moved on to its wintering range. Calving, I knew, would occur in the middle of spring. Spring in the circumpolar tundra is a time of reawakening, when the water, trapped for months in the spongy soil above the permafrost, begins to melt and bestow its life-giving qualities. Everywhere the low, hardy tundra plants begin to show signs of life. Gently glowing buds, in unthinkable numbers, appear upon the dark ground like a carpet of stars. The melted snow and softened ground also free the vast hibernating populations of Diskflyers, which take wing and ascend in swirling clouds into the air. Larger fauna, too, seem more alive in their warming surroundings. The suns’ rays touch the arctic like a remembered caress, charging plants and animals alike with the excitement of rebirth. Clearly the boisterous Unth herd below me felt the excitement of seasonal rebirth; of the pleasure of their cold-stiffened hides and joints flexing more easily, and the irresistible force of reproduction that pushed them across the barren tundra. Filling the air with their instinctive hollow sonar, the Unths walked ten or twelve abreast toward their ancient calving fields. Three days into my pursuit of the Unth herd, I saw the herd split to avoid an obstacle in its path. From my vantage point, one hundred meters behind the beasts, I couldn’t quite make out what this obstacle was. I was not even sure if it was an animal or some inorganic formation. Then I saw that it was topped by a dim yellow biolight, which meant that the object was organic—or once had been. It was now a withered, flattened husk that more resembled some sun-dried vegetable than an animal. But in this case it was the merciless arctic wind, not the suns, that had brought the creature to its desiccated state. Strange surface features became more apparent as I drew nearer: serpentine tubes twisted over and through furrowed folds which circled sphincter-like holes. Its bizarrely baroque texture shed little light on the creature’s original appearance. Larger features, such as a dorsal whip-like appendage and a frontally situated leg-like limb, were equally mysterious. I circled the tree-and-one-half-meter-tall mummy until I arrived at a position directly in front of its “head.” There was a dark opening just beneath the dimly glowing biolight. I shined the ‘cone’s narrow-beam spotlight into the hole and the emptiness seemed to confirm that this was nothing more than a mummified carcass. But why was the biolight still glowing? I was soon to find out. I began to pick up the shrill pinging of a flyer as it headed rapidly toward me. In a moment I could see the small creature as it circled the mummy and me. It seemed agitated (or perhaps I was anthropormorphising) and I decided to withdraw a few meters. Within a minute of my backing away, the black flyer swooped down; with blurred wings it hovered, then landed upon the mummy’s “head” and disappeared into the hole. I waited a full hour for the flyer to reappear, but it never did. It had not occurred to me until then to take an IR reading of the carcass, so convincing was its moribund appearance. In spite of the biolight, the frozen husk appeared as wind-desiccated as any dead creature on the tundra. Only after I finally took my readings did I realize that this cryptobiologic mummy-nest was providing warmth and shelter to the little flyer. My final task was to try to reason out of the relationship between the nest-creature and the flyer. Difficult as this may seem, I had been presented with one small clue when the flyer had entered the husk. As it backed into the “head” cavity I noticed that its configuration seemed to line up with the rim of the opening as if the two had been joined. This led me to speculate that the flyer and the husk were one and the same animal, separated at some point in the flyer’s development. I concluded that the husk remained alive through the flyer’s tending and served to protect it from the harsh climate. I have no proof to support this theory, and as this was the only individual any Expedition-member encountered, I will never be certain of the answer. I did, however, take the liberty of naming it the Mummy-nest Flyer. I resumed my travels with the Unth herd and stayed with them for several weeks, taking notes and doing a number of pencil studies. During these weeks a worrisome rumor began to circulate amongst the Expedition members. According to the rumor, a spy had leaked the coordinates of Darwin IV to an alien hunting cartel. The rumor went on to say that some Expedition members had spotted remote hunting drones. (These are usually linked to orbiting vessels filled with “sportsmen” who sit at plush armchair controls and choreograph the kills.) I had never seen anything that aroused my suspicions, but I was sickened when I thought of the implications. The herd below me was, of course, oblivious to these rumors. Every few days the Unths would come to a halt on finding a field that was rich in their forage, the dark-leafed snowbulb tubers. These shallow-rooted, fleshy plants which grow just beneath the top layer of soil are quite pervasive in the circumpolar region. Using their tusks, the Unths turned over acres of topsoil to get to the plants, which they sucked dry with their long feeding tubes. Eventually, after a few weeks, the Unths reached their destination, a plain just a few kilometers from the glacier’s wall. I could see no difference between this part of the tundra and any other, yet the weary Unths seemed relieved and content. Ever vigilant against arctic Bolt-tongues, Skewers and other predators, they proceeded to scoop out large cavities in the ground that I (correctly) assumed would receive their young. Into these cavities the Unths regurgitated large quantities of snowbulb pulp acquired from a nearby field. The pulp would solidify and provide an edible, cushiony nest-lining for the active infant Unths. Soon the air was filled with the sounds of birthing. For days pings, groans, and sighs bounced eerily off the nearby glacier and carried for miles into the open tundra. The breeding ground became a noisy nursery for scores of tiny, tuskless Unths. Dutiful parents went in shifts to gather food for the demanding infants. The activity and noise were ceaseless, and through it all I felt that I was witnessing behavior that had not changed for hundreds of centuries. During my many weeks of observation of the arctic Unths I found them to be completely at ease with my presence. These were among my most enjoyable and peaceful weeks on Darwin IV. The loneliness I felt for my wife and child was assuaged, rather than increased, by the pleasure of watching the young Unths and their giant parents playing and nuzzling at the edge of the ice. It was only when I hovered too near the breeding ground that I began to sense that they were unhappy with my proximity; and rather than chance, any incident that might put the young at risk, I decided to withdraw. As I pulled away I left my speakers on and I listened as the sounds of new life on the tundra faded in the distance. Icecrawler and Rimerunner I spent quite a few months circumnavigating the great northern glacier cap that covers Darwin IV’s northern pole. After the tragic loss of our two scientists, and due to the unpredictable nature of the arctic weather, I had been warranted (but not ordered) not to attempt any cross-glacial explorations; I therefore contented myself with exploring the tundra fields of the Planum Hudson. Most of my travels took place during the months of Darwin IV’s arctic twilight. The perpetual dusk made spotting animals considerably easier, as the creatures’ biolights were in constant evidence. They were, however, not the only beautiful sources of light. Often, high above the massive glacier, I could see vast, crackling auroras flickering and shimmering, providing a glorious backdrop to the crags of B14 and B15. The wonderful play of light reflected upon the icy back of the glacier seemed to imbue the ice with a lambent semblance of life. For days I floated over the patches of low, blue whipweed and pontillistic beds of polardots, keeping the glacier to my left. Frequently I found areas that were crisscrossed with drag marks not unlike those of the foothill-dwelling Keeled Sliders. The scale of the tracks and the forelimb strokes were dissimilar, however, and I guessed that the two species would be as well. Early one evening I was gazing out over the foreboding expanse of the glacier’s surface when I noticed a series of tiny specks some fifty kilometers away. At this distance I could not tell if they were blocks of ice or lifeforms; I altered the ‘cone’s canopy to magnify the image but because of the gloom, the resolution was poor. I ate dinner, relaxed a bit and then revved up the turbo-fan. I was well aware of the dangers inherent in traveling over the glacier, but I rationalized that I was not going to be journeying very far. I climbed to clear the one-hundred-fifty-meter edge of the glacier, the surface of which seemed to glow with an eerie, milky-white light. As in my earlier flyovers, I noticed innumerable small tunnel openings in the ice cliff. They occurred in clusters but I could see no obvious pattern to their distribution. As I approached the thirty or so “irregularities,” I began to see that, just as I had suspected, they were not features of the ice but were, instead, immobile, ice-dwelling creatures. Each was imbedded in a translucent sac which, in turn, was frozen to the glacier’s surface. These sacs were roughly three meters long, smooth, rigid, and ovoid. They appeared to have been in place for some time. Though the sacs were somewhat translucent, I could not discern the shapes of the core-creatures within. Something could be seen to stir, but my scanners gave back only the weakest of signals, most of their beams bouncing off of the strange, impermeable sacs. Over the next hour I made little headway with my investigations. Finally, admitting defeat, I swung my craft around and headed back out toward the tundra. Weeks passed before I returned, out of curiosity, to the spot on the glacier where the motionless creatures had been. It was the beginning of the arctic spring and the suns were low and pallid on the horizon. Of the thirty-odd individuals I had spotted earlier, only five remained. All but one of these were free of their sacs and their transformation was remarkable. Instead of the cryptic, featureless ovoids that had confounded me, I was greeted by four armored creatures busily ingesting their outer sacs. Each had positioned itself over the discarded and shriveled sac and unseen mouth parts sucked the membrane down until eventually nothing remained. The fifth creature had waited, it seemed, to demonstrate the discarding process to me. As I watched, its somewhat deflated sac began to expand. Apparently inflated by the creature’s exhalations, the sac grew to startling proportions before bursting, with a comically flatulent roar, in a cloud of frozen vapor. The internal pressure must have been considerable; a twenty minute rest, accompanied by much vaporous panting, was evidence of the animal’s exertions. The Icecrawlers fully revealed were almost as enigmatic as they had been in their sacs. No legs or feet or even head were visible; each animal was covered with tightly-joined yet flexible armor plates. With no features to guide me I could not even distinguish head from tail. As the creatures finished eating, they began to move over the ice with surprising speed, each one leaving an unnaturally slick trail behind. Only their movement gave me any clue as to which end was the front. As they moved off I noticed that there were many straight trails etched into the ice, corresponding, I assumed, to the twenty-five absent Icecrawlers. I had trouble keeping up with the two-meter-long animals as they slid their way over the ice in very unpredictable patterns. Their speed, approaching thirty-five-kilometers per hour, seemed incredible for an animal with no visible legs or propulsion system. I followed about thirty meters behind them as they zigzagged across the surface of the glacier. I guessed that they were heading toward a patch of brownish algae-rich ice some three kilometers away. When they reached the patch, I was gratified to see them slow to a halt. I increased the magnification of my canopy glass, but to no avail. As in the case of their invisible limbs, I was now treated to invisible feeding organs as the Icecrawlers began to browse on the algae, leaving strange scalloped grooves behind them in the ice. While I was engrossed in the grazing Icecrawlers, another creature suddenly cut into view. I had a blurred impression of a dark animal speeding over the ice, and I quickly reset the canopy glass magnification to get a better look at it. The newcomer was a Rimerunner, an ice-dwelling monopedalien that I had heard about but never yet encountered. As it dashed across the glacier, I realized that this might be my only opportunity to observe the elusive creature. I resolved to follow it and leave the Icecrawlers to their feeding. I pulled my ‘cone back a few meters to get a better idea of where my quarry was heading, and then gunned my turbo-fan. The Rimerunner was bounding in the general direction of B14, a destination I was not about to add to my list of conquered territories. I was imprudently far over the glacier already, and because of this I allowed myself only a limited chase. The Rimerunner is, like most of Darwin IV’s monopedaliens, a ricochetal saltator, equipped with one powerful leg attached to a complex pelvis. This small species, unlike its ground-dwelling cousins, was not particularly fast, a fact I put down to the problems inherent in traveling over ice. Its dark, dorsal markings gave it a hooded and somewhat threatening appearance. As it lifted its broad, three-toed foot I could see one adaptation that increased traction upon the ice. The padded sole of its foot was deeply channeled and grooved, and with each footfall I could see the pad expand and grip the ice. Each fold probably possesses some additional micro-structure to further enhance traction. The most singular aspect of the Rimerunner is the nearly independent “sensory packet” that proceeds the animal as it moves about. I was, at first, confused by the parachute-shaped structure; it looked like some unfortunate prey that was in imminent danger of being caught by the Rimerunner. Indeed, the monopedalien halted only after its “face” had split vertically and the “victim” had been sucked within. But my assumption that the beast had fed could not have been further from the truth—presently the animal ejected its “prey” and began to run again! When I magnified and carefully studied the image, I learned that the domed, orange structure was attached to the Rimerunner by the thinnest of neural cables. I also saw numerous siphon holes on the flattened rear of the structure, each puffing continuously to keep it ahead of the trailing body. It is a marvel of physiological engineering and, even now, I am not entirely certain of its function. The Rimerunner’s sonar was clearly emanating from its body, and I imagine that most of its other senses were as well. Looking closely at the structure of the floating organ, I noted a tiny, iris-like opening at the front of the organ, and I reasoned that perhaps it was a primitive light-gathering structure. Whether it was evolving or degenerating, whether it was a radical advance in Darwinian senses or an antiquated vestige that was in the process of being discarded, I had no way of knowing. I could not help but feel that it was vestigial. As the Rimerunner, oblivious to my observations, dashed headlong over the ice, I noticed a few purple, tube-like oothecae attached to its leg, and realized that this specimen would probably be dead within a few weeks. The barb-tipped eggs belonged to an extremely aggressive variety of ectoparasitoid flyer, the appropriately named Carver-wing, and would, upon hatching, waste little time in devouring their host. Even now the eggs were sapping the Rimerunner’s strength. Though I was sensible enough to understand the reality of parasitism as fitting into the scheme of nature, it saddened me to see an animal in its prime destined for such an end. I followed the Rimerunner for an hour, breaking off my pursuit when I reached my distance limit. As I watched it run toward the mountains I saw it stumble and fall and then rise again. Perhaps I had miscalculated how long the creature had to survive. I returned to find my small group of Icecrawlers, but they had moved on, leaving the glacier sculpted by their scalloped feeding tracks and locomotion marks, and littered with their fecal coils. I turned my ‘cone south and left the glacier behind. The tundra stretched out below me like a velvet gray-green carpet, dotted with wind-carved boulders. The softening ground basked in the warmth of the newly risen suns. The Air Skewer and Symet I rose early one autumn day, eager to explore the golden-blue morning air above Darwin IV. I would never get used the contrast between this pure air and the fouled ashen skies of Earth. The grasses of the Vallis Przewalski which stretched endlessly around my “parked” ‘cone, were washed in the distinctive gray-greens of fall, and a light dew made the sunslit scene a glittering spectacle. While I ate breakfast I punched in the preflight programming for the Video/Audio Pod, or VAP, a small remote that I planned to use to track the winged denizens of Darwin’s skies. Pre-flight checks went routinely and the pod’s lift-off was uneventful the voice-activated remote’s camera lids snapped open at three hundred meters and, eyes glued to my monitor, I settled into my chair for a day’s vicarious exploration. Visibility was superb; the grasslands appeared in wonderful clarity as they flowed far below my speeding VAP. Eventually they gave way to the desert, which stretched away like an ochre ocean with low, rough waves of rocky hummocks. Scattered among the hills were spindly purple flex-firs with thin trunks so supple that their crowns touched the ground during windstorms. Here and there an occasional Butchertree stood twitching and snapping its arms, surrounded by its grisly leavings. Far off in the bluish haze of the horizon, a dark smear indicated a herd of migrating bipedaliens picking their way among the low hills and filing the air with their distant chorus of pings. Without warning a small flight of Violet Follow-wings darted from behind the VAP and swept on ahead. I increased the pod’s speed and pursued the two-meter-long flyers as they banked and turned with startling precision. I began to feel that, as far as manual guidance was concerned, I was out of my depth and ordered a computer lock-on in an effort to stay with them. Within ten minutes we were considerably closer to the large bipedalien herd. It was heading toward a wide river that oxbowed sinuously across the desert. A huge cloud of dust hung over and behind the herd, lingering in the air for miles. We dove into it. Suddenly my VAP’s proximity indicator flashed as two huge flyers dove in front of my Follow-wing companions. Instantly they slowed and fell in behind their immense cousins, veering and banking as the larger flyers did. Their apparent goal was the herd and, as we vectored near, their ultra-high frequency pings became more rapid. I pushed the VAP ahead in an effort to get a better look at the huge flyers that had so effortlessly taken the lead. They were thick-bodied creatures, powerfully winged and equipped with long, curved lances protruding from their heads. They exuded an aura of frightening potency. I could almost feel the tension of the animals below as they heard the targeting pings and became aware of the pair and their retinue of Follow-wings. The herd members, however, wasted no time in useless panic. En masse, the entire herd started to trill in an effort to jam the hunters’ sonar. The din was such that I was forced to reduce the volume of my internal speakers. Undaunted, the two large flyers, or Skewers, as I came to call them, contracted their corrugated, leathery wings and began an awesome power dive. They had targeted a pair of stragglers which had not kept up as the herd was fording the river. The herbivores were curious animals that appeared to have a head at either end of their trunk, and as the Skewers plunged toward them, they began to turn in place, rotating rapidly in a gathering cloud of dust. They stopped and I realized why nature had equipped these animals with a head and tail of almost exact shape and size: I could barely tell which end of the beast was which. To a creature relying on sonar recognition, they presented a confusing image. The direction of their imminent flight was completely conjectural. I named them Symets for their protective symmetry. I pulled the VAP back at the moment of attack, and I was rewarded with an all-too-clear transmission of the kill. As percentages would have it, one of the Symets leapt clear, its would-be killer veering off to regain altitude for a second pass. The other was not so fortunate, taking the full impact of the Skewer’s wicked lance below the spine. The blow lifted the two-ton creature off its two kicking feet, driving it down the lance’s length, while the Skewer pulled sharply up, away from the desert. The scavenging Follow-wings were in a frenzy, darting forward to nip at the impaled Symet with their vertically hinged jaws. Bits of flesh fell from the animal to be snapped up by other Follow-wings. The soaring Skewer took absolutely no notice of the scavengers, absorbed as it was in sucking the carcass dry. A few minutes later, the Follow-wings were presented with a fluidless husk as the Skewer let it fall. Without hesitation the scavengers peeled off and dived after their meal, making so many passes at the body that little more than bones hit the ground. No other predator evoked the same sense of dread and respect in the Expedition members during our relatively brief stay on Darwin IV. Mating on the wing, belly to belly, the Skewer is totally at home in the air. Ranging over ninety percent of the globe, it is unparalleled in its ability to hunt and kill. Virtually no animal is safe from its attentions, including, according to an amazing eyewitness account, the Emperor Sea Strider. Hunting in pods of up to thirty or more individuals, these predators can overcome even the largest of Darwin IV’s inhabitants. With my VAP almost out of range, I punched in auto-return and settled back to wait. The pod would find and re-engage my hovercone on its own. My experiences had whetted my appetite for more aerial adventures, and I launched another VAP later that day. Some weeks later I had the opportunity to study a newly-crashed Skewer that I found jammed in a cliffside crevice. I came upon it by chance while exploring a dryland canyon. The flyer’s wings were shorn off from the crash, and it had been gnawed by scavengers, but, happily, the large head remained relatively intact. I found it to be of very sturdy yet light construction, with bony structures buttressing the formidable lance. The lance itself was a marvel of design, being hollow, internally braced and as strong as titanium. I also believe it was, like the best blades, quite flexible. Since my first encounter with Skewers, I had periodically watched them hone their lances in numerous passes on volcanic “whetting spires.” But this ancient predator’s lance was beyond whetting; the forward portion was broken off, a condition that undoubtedly contributed to its demise. As I examined the broken lance, I discovered a batter of pointed, chitin-tipped tongues, each one capable of boring into flesh. This, then, was how the Skewer fed on the wing. Upon the impalement of the prey, these tongues would snake out of a dorsal groove on the lance and penetrate the body to suck it dry. Here was a classic irony of Nature: a massive, powerful animal whose existence depended upon a fragile anatomical structure. This revelation made me respect the marvels of evolution all the more. Rugose Floater I could not resist following these two heavily wrinkled floaters for about ten kilometers in the air near Mons Burton. They were lazy creatures, in no particular hurry, and they flew in wide, slow circles that afforded me an excellent view of them. I dubbed the Rugose Floaters. They were in many ways archetypal floaters, but I was particularly intrigued by the small globules which trailed their enlarged upper and lower fins; globules which I scanned and discovered to be egg masses. These light ova-globules break down and scatter on the wind, spreading the floater’s tiny progeny through the planet’s middle atmosphere. When I thought about it, I surmised that the slow, circular flight path probably afforded the creatures the widest dispersal of their eggs. When spawning is complete, the floaters regain their more graceful profile, their fins being reduced to the original crescent shape. During my observations I could find no evidence of external gyro-stalks and concluded that these floaters have internal balance organs. If true, this would make them unique among Darwin IV’s floating species. Another feature I found extraordinary about the Rugose Floater was its surprising ability to change color. This also is a unique characteristic among the creatures of Darwin IV, which are not optically equipped. I sometimes speculate whether there might be a correlation between the Floaters’ color and scent, and courtship scenes I witnessed seemed to support this theory. While I studied three of the creatures, floating roughly five kilometers apart, I detected color shifts that seemed related to their growing sexual excitement. Mystery aside, the sight of these Floaters changing their colors from brown to red to purple was beautiful and supremely alien. Eosapien A fortnight before my departure from Darwin IV, I was sketching a high-altitude study of the Amoebic Sea. It was a perfect morning, golden and fresh. Fluffy clouds skimmed around me in a slow race toward the brilliant, newly-risen suns. Far below, in the purple gloom, the sunslight began to pick out the gentle crests of the gel-waves as the luminous layers under the surface began to dim. As I floated in the warming winds, I realized how much I would miss this alien place and fantasized about how I might return to continue my observations and artwork. My reveries were broken by a blinking orange light on my screen, indicating that the sonar perimeter of thirty kilometers that I had established had been broken. A brief analysis showed that an array of approximately fifteen two-meter-long flyers were vectoring directly toward me. My computer informed me that they had originated from one floating source roughly one hundred kilometers downrange. Even more enigmatically, this source seemed to be moving! For an uneasy moment I wondered if I had been targeted by some unknown assailant’s missiles. I flashed a querying sonar beacon in the direction of the mysterious floater, and was answered almost immediately with an identical beacon, hollow and echo-like. Shocked, I contacted the Orbitstar to determine the whereabouts of my nearest fellow explorers. Simultaneously I launched a VAP straight toward the flyers and received a partial explanation of the mystery. The probe acquired two of them sixteen kilometers downrange and flooded me with data on airspeed and direction. But the visuals were by far the most interesting data I received. The flyers were not incoming missiles, as I had irrationally feared, nor were they true flyers in the biological sense. They were, instead, some kind of organic projectiles, vaned and streamlined for subsonic flight. On their dark, chitinous surfaces I could see tiny teardrop-shaped blisters, the purpose of which I could hardly guess. Located toward the back of each projectile were four recessed holes, each complemented by an oval vane mounted on a thin stalk; these vanes would twitch fractionally to alter course. My VAP trailed them closely. It scanned them as it flew, probing deeper with it IR sensor and sending back a thermal impression of its dart-like quarry. I discovered that though the projectile’s exterior was cool, the interior indicated a single, small lifeform with a high metabolic level. The thermal image was vague, but I did get an impression of joined chitinous plates, arms and bladders, all beautifully fitted within the narrow confines of the projectile. I locked the VAP’s tracker onto one of the pair and busied myself with setting my ‘cone on course toward the unknown floater that had released them. Periodically over the next hour I checked my VAP monitor and found that the projectile was slowing, and changing its outer conformation as it did. The tiny blisters were expanding and filling with what I presume was air. Eventually the formerly missile-shaped object was four times its original size and was drifting at the mercy of the winds. Meanwhile, I was on a direct heading for the unidentified giant floater. It was moving at a leisurely rate through the clouds, pinging in a way oddly different from anything I had so far observed. There was a decided complexity to the sounds, and to the responses that were coming in. I felt as though I were overhearing a conversation. As I approached contact, I grew more excited, eager to confront the source of both the ambiguous sounds and the strange projectiles. I plunged into a golden, diaphanous cloud bank, pushing my ‘cone as hard as I dared. The ‘cone started to brake automatically as the acquisition bell began to chime. The clouds parted and my eyes widened with surprise as I stared at the huge pinging creature floating absolutely motionless less than a hundred meters before me. Looming a full twenty meters in height, it was a veritable study in alienness. Its cuticle-covered body was an intricate collection of ridges, folds and curves, flanged and wrinkled so as to almost defy description. Here a pair of moisture-dampened openings quivered and flared, while behind floating bladders pulsed and expanded with inrushing air. A web of glowing biolights surrounded the small pair of recessed infrared pits. Two swinging, orange sonarbooms stretched from beneath enormous, overhanging fins. Above them, a pair of gyrating balance organs oscillated in a blur of constant movement. Surmounting the forward, vertical portion of the organism’s body was a great translucent bladder that seemed to be its principal organ of buoyancy. Running throughout this vast sagittal sac was a fine tracery of veins, delicately backlit by the glowing clouds behind. But most remarkable of all, two muscular arms, terminating in dextrous-looking hands, hung from the creature’s sides; in disbelief I stared at the giant club that the creature carried. It was botanic in origin, and gave the appearance of having been gnawed into shape. The floater shifted its formidable cudgel a bit to enable its long, toothed trunk to “chew” uneasily on it; tiny bits of plant-matter dropped away as we hung regarding each other. My finger was poised over the emergency acceleration button, though somehow I knew that this was an unnecessary precaution. Here was the most singular creature I had yet encountered on Darwin IV, and considering the strange lifeforms I had seen, this was no small distinction. I was given the impression of some degree of sentience, for the floater seemed in no particular hurry to disengage from our mutual observations. Instead it hung before me, as if probing my ‘cone with its alien senses. I named the floater an Eosapien, or Dawn Thinker, since it seemed wonderfully appropriate on that glorious morning to encounter a creature seemingly on the threshold of intelligence. The Eosapien began to slowly circle the ‘cone, its twin siphons puffing and pushing it smoothly through two revolutions. I can only guess what its conclusions might have been. My ‘cone radiated a significant amount of heat, and the Eosapien may have believed it to be alive; or it may have detected my presence within the craft and come to the correct conclusion. In any event, it was clearly intrigued. As the creature circled, I glimpsed a long tail, beneath which ran an elongated, sheathlike growth. It was from this orifice, I later learned, that the projectiles I had examined—in fact, airborne oothecae or eggs—had been launched. The suns’ radiation in those rarified levels of the atmosphere is somewhat instrumental in their hatching. Throughout the initial part of our meeting, the Eosapien had remained relatively quiet, only occasionally emitting short pings. With the completion of its second orbit around my capsule, however, this near-silence was broken by a loud series of pulsing signals directed out to the clouds. Ten minutes later my sensors had picked up fifteen distant Eosapiens on a convergent course with us. They were moving quickly through the clouds, and soon I was witness to a thrilling and disturbing sight. Fifteen floating giants, all with great clubs, arrayed themselves in a tight semicircle behind my companion, which was directing a steady flow of signals in their midst. They squeaked and pinged attentively, shifting a club here or a sonarboom there, never drifting more than a meter out of formation. Each bore a unique pattern of biolights that seemed to distinguish one individual from another; and some wore what might have been Arrowtongue vertebrae strung on fibrous chords, hanging from their tails like trophies. They were solemn, dignified and, above all, aware. After a few moments of silence my companion reached out a rubbery, nailed hand and stroked my ‘cone’s glass canopy. My heart raced in the uncertainty of the moment. Yet I stood fast, recording everything, more and more aware that I was the alien on their planet. The hand very delicately explored the surface of the ‘cone and then withdrew. Its tactile inspection complete, the creature slowly backed away into the floating throng. Each individual then came forward and performed the same examination, probing with the same mixture of delicacy and caution. The air around me was filled with signals which started as irregular, staccato pinging and grew into a very pleasing, rich trilling. This trilling lasted a quarter of an hour as, one by one, the Eosapiens dispersed into the clouds. I was alone again. I had two more encounters with the Eosapiens before I left Darwin IV. The mood of these meetings was quite different from the first. That had been a large array of inquisitive individuals, and what I followed now was a low-altitude hunting party of eight. It was a day much like the one on which I had encountered the Emperor Sea Striders. Ragged, dirty-looking clouds scudded through the darkened sky as I tried my best to keep up with the adroit floaters. The Eosapiens were remarkably fast. They were in pursuit of some unseen victim on the ground far below, adjusting and readjusting their immensely powerful sonarbooms. Each floater carried the new familiar club-like implement, which I soon discovered was a huge flechette. Upon targeting their prey, the Eosapiens released their missiles with such a rapidity that I was sure a kill could only be attained by chance. I was shocked when, following the party down to fifty meters, I saw the frightening precision of their aim. They had followed their victim, a large Symet, into a ravine where, with their missiles, they had penned it. The desperate Symet threw itself against the deeply-sunk missiles, but they did not move. Within moments the floaters were upon it, some holding the hapless beast down while others wrenched its two muscular legs from its pelvis with sickening pops. It was a terrible sight, redolent of primitiveness and savagery. The still-alive Symet was carried aloft, as were its detached legs, leaving, calligraphic trails of black blood on the rough ground below. That same night I followed a trio of Eosapiens on another hunt. The chase was far less frenetic, as the floaters were trailing a slow and aged Rayback. The pursuit came to its inevitable tragic conclusion as the Rayback faltered and fell. Without ceremony the floaters descended to either side of the terrified beast and, grasping its kicking legs, twisted them off. As quickly as they had dropped down, they had ascended again, leaving the steaming carcass in the darkness. These encounters left my with my last impressions of Darwin IV. They underscored the dramatic contrast between the strange beauty of the planet’s life forms and their savage habits. Departure It was time to leave orbit. An Yma medic was quietly running through the many preparations for hibersleep. My return trip to Earth would, he assured me, pass like the “briefest of silver dreams.” A slight exaggeration, I knew. As I hung weightless in the sleep-chamber, I peered through the clear sides of my plastic chrysalis. The dozens of pods under the glowing ceiling looked eerily like the interior of the Amoebic Sea. Within our suspended pods I could see the shapes of my fellow Expedition members, some of whom I suspected were already asleep. My vision was becoming somewhat impaired and I remembered from my first experience with hibersleep that this was one of the early indications that I was succumbing to the alien drugs. I was naked, shaved and very cold and, to make matters worse, a roaming Yma technician came around every thirty minutes and blasted me with a frozen vapor from a backpack that, to me, resembled a huge scorpion. My sleep-pod was sealed and it slowly began to fill with a cold, gelatinous liquid. Gradually I began to notice that I could not feel the ends of my extremities. To take my mind off these unpleasant sensations, I tried to recall as much as I could about my home on Earth. The images that appeared in my mind were of a gray, tired planet filled to overflowing with gray, tired people. I thought of my wife and baby and our small home in the heart of New York’s sprawl. They were waiting for me and I ached to be with them. They were my oasis of life on Earth. My thoughts drifted back to my travels on Darwin IV. Suddenly my mind was swimming in a gentle stream of pleasant recollections. My mind began to jump from one amazing animal encounter to another. Again I followed that crazy band of Stripewings across the Amoebic Sea, and held my breath as the leviathans of Darwin IV, the Emperor Sea Striders and giant Grove-backs, plodded through my mind like creatures from some wild hallucination. I realized that I was losing the battle against sleep. I suddenly recalled the titanium stele that the Yma had left on the plains of Darwin IV as the guardian and monitor of the planet. Its silver sides, etched with the names of the Expedition’s personnel, hid a myriad of micro-systems linked to a planet-wide system of intruder alerts. The robot police-drones patrolling the Darwin system would regularly pick up and forward the accumulated data. I felt comforted knowing that Darwin would be so well protected. As my eyelids grew heavy, many more images of Darwin IV and its fauna came to mind. What an incredible, wonderful world it was, brimming with life, unforgettable for its stark beauty. How could I exist again in my congested, chaotic world now that I had tasted the freedom of Darwin IV’s rolling plains? How could I compare the strange and verdant beauty of Darwin’s pocket-forests to the stripped wastelands that used to be Earth’s great woodlands? What would I tell my daughter? How could I explain to her that we squandered her world? As I drifted off into hibersleep, I realized that my tales of Darwin IV would seem as far away to her as the tales my great-grandfather had told me of Earth’s extinct life. Well, I thought, at least there is a place for her to dream about . . . And there's the rest of it. Cheers | 2010-04-16 04:05:00 Author: claptonfann Posts: 228 |
| I have 137 photos from the book in stock if'n y'all wants a gander at 'em | 2010-05-12 21:32:00 Author: claptonfann Posts: 228 |
| I'll probably try reading this at some time but I find myself constantly busy with endless inanities so um yeah. By the way, this should be in the Creative Writing section | 2010-05-12 22:01:00 Author: dawesbr  Posts: 3280 |
| It's not my creative work, and Wayne Barlowe's book is full of artwork. If I were to put this in Creative Writing, I would be placing it there as if it were my original work :c | 2010-05-13 01:58:00 Author: claptonfann Posts: 228 |
| This is really good, artwork would be great. | 2010-05-25 16:48:00 Author: resistance1  Posts: 812 |
| http://www.lbpcentral.com/forums/album.php?albumid=1519 Ok, so actually 133 | 2010-06-14 10:25:00 Author: claptonfann Posts: 228 |
| They're really good, I've only had time to see the first 70 or so, but they really add to the book. Well done, this must have taken a lot of work. | 2010-06-14 19:04:00 Author: resistance1 Posts: 812 |
| Yeah, I had to upload the pictures individually (and backwards) so that they'd all be in order. Uploading them all at once just jumbles them up :S UPDATE: Comments added to pictures. | 2010-06-14 19:42:00 Author: claptonfann Posts: 228 |
| I'm really grateful for all of the effort you've put into showing us this amazing book. I would never have the patience to do anything like that. | 2010-06-16 22:36:00 Author: resistance1 Posts: 812 |
| Fascinating documentary loosely based on "Expedition" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSWKKE4Jc8M&feature=related) | 2011-01-05 19:35:00 Author: claptonfann Posts: 228 |
LBPCentral Archive Statistics
Posts: 1077139
Threads: 69970
Members: 9661
Archive-Date: 2019-01-19
Datenschutz
Aus dem Archiv wurden alle persönlichen Daten wie Name, Anschrift, Email etc. - aber auch sämtliche Inhalte wie z.B. persönliche Nachrichten - entfernt.
Die Nutzung dieser Webseite erfolgt ohne Speicherung personenbezogener Daten. Es werden keinerlei Cookies, Logs, 3rd-Party-Plugins etc. verwendet.
Die Nutzung dieser Webseite erfolgt ohne Speicherung personenbezogener Daten. Es werden keinerlei Cookies, Logs, 3rd-Party-Plugins etc. verwendet.