CHAPTER 6
Jason stepped down onto the top of the cargo container and just absorbed his surroundings.
The containers were on a sandspit on the south bank of the kilometer-wide river. To the north and south were virgin forests, the tallest trees rising to nearly a hundred meters. To the east were more forests and the river. The nearby Pallas Ocean was out of sight around a bend. To the west the river was nearly straight for several miles and Chindia Mons dominated the view.
The gargantuan stratovolcano filled the western sky. The mountain range at its lower reaches, nearly as extensive as the Alps, was out of view below the horizon. But Mons rose above it, seeming like a ramp to space. The forest line was barely above the horizon surmounted by a ring of snow and ice.
It was fall in Chindia so the monsoonal winds were blowing down the slopes and to the Pallas. They weren’t cool where he was, the day was hot and humid, but they felt nice on his face after so long in the station. That also meant there were no clouds to speak of though there was a storm visible on the upper slopes. That was probably where the insanely tall mountain intersected a high-level jet stream.
The air was filled with the smell of flowers and the distinctive and special smell of a river in full. It was fine wine compared to the station. There was a buzz of insects and dozens of bird calls, none familiar. The river was another source of sound as a school of fish upriver jumped to avoid some unseen predator. They were silvery and vaguely salmon shaped. He wasn’t sure of the species but they looked as if they’d feel good on a line.
“Potential threat,” Jewel said. “Upstream.”
Jason looked upstream again and realized that what he’d thought was a very large floating log was under its own power.
“Is that . . . a crocodile?” Jason whispered. It was at least three hundred meters away but the head and body were distinctive even at that distance. Which gave an idea of the size.
“That is, indeed, a crocodile,” Jewel replied.
The massive croc was slowly sculling downstream in their general direction. Jason wasn’t going to disturb it. He’d planned for lions, tigers and bears . . . He’d forgotten crocodiles.
“How . . . long? Can you tell?”
“It is approximately twenty meters in length.”
“Twenty meters?”
“Bit more,” Jewel said. “Say . . . seventy feet.”
“Okay,” Jason said after a moment’s thought. “What we’re going to do is not something to do with that thing around. Quietly and on the side away from the river, start breaking out the cargo. First, the medium tractor. Call him Herman.”
“Herman?”
“He looks like the head of a character from a TV show,” Jason said. “Then have all the drones come out, quietly as possible, the small tractor, call it Alfred, and have the flexmet hump itself out.
“Put two drones up at two hundred meters and find out how many more large crocs there are within four kilometers up and down the river. Put four drones up in a diamond around me, thirty meters out to the sides and front, ten meters behind, to watch for threats. Keep those around. That’s six.
“Have the rest begin surveying the forest to the south. Search for predators, herbivores and omnivores. Have the drones each carry a fist-sized chunk of flexmet. Sample all unknown or unrecognized plants including most especially fungi. Bring back samples later for me to taste test. Anything they don’t recognize, test for toxicity and take a sample for tasting. There’s going to be edible herbs that are unknown. Bring back small samples of known herbs if found. In general, find and sample for herbs, greens, nuts, anything plant-based edible. And we’d better find some edible mushrooms or Monica is going to be angry. We do not want Monica angry.”
“Understood,” Jewel said.
“Anything that has potential value, do not report,” Jason said. “That includes any species that has potential food value or any sign of mineral or useable stone deposits.”
“Roger,” Jewel said.
“Roger?” Jason replied.
“You commonly use it as an affirmative,” Jewel said.
“You can take the boy out of the airborne,” Jason muttered.
He thought for another moment and looked at his Garand. He’d loaded with 200-grain bullets, the biggest he had.
For this mother, 200 grain was probably too small.
The rifle you really needed for this planet was something with a round starting in .4 or .5, not .3. He’d checked what people were asking for rifles like that, which had been rare on Earth, and he didn’t have a firstborn to sell them.
“Get Alfred over here,” Jason said. “With . . . ten . . . twenty-five kilos of flexmet. Hurry.”
The croc was getting closer. Even with one of the really heavy hunting rifles like a .470, shooting it from the front would be a lost cause. The heavy skull would shed any bullet except, maybe, something from an armored vehicle or helo. Fifty cal would bounce. What you needed was a Light Armored Vehicle and a 30mm autocannon.
An Apache. Hellfire. A B-52 would be nice.
Holy moly, it was getting bigger and bigger as it got closer and closer!
Not a freaking .30-06!
“Alfred is here,” Jewel said.
He looked back and the bots and drones were deploying along with the flexmet. The squirmy movement as always made him feel a bit queasy.
“Flexmet,” Jason snapped. He had the flexmet form into a sling seat then thumbed for Alfred to lift him into the air.
“Up, up, up, up . . . ” Jason said, gesturing with his hands until he was fifty or so meters over the river. Now the croc probably couldn’t get him. “I need the flexmet to remain solid. A solid seat. When I fire, have a little give. But I need a solid, stable seat to shoot. I’m no Dev Gru. Got it?”
“Got it,” Jewel said.
He had thought of a solid seat but he could feel it firming up as he moved. He adjusted slightly for a seated shot and got a solid position.
“Do I have the same sort of ‘think of it and it happens’ thing with Alfred?” Jason asked.
“No, you’ll have to direct him verbally or with hand motions,” Jewel replied.
“Fine. Each command, wait till I say ‘Go’ unless it’s a preplanned command. Alfred, swing around until you’re fifty meters behind the croc and fifty meters above,” Jason said, waving in the direction he wanted to take. “Not too fast. Ten miles per hour until we’re behind then follow it at its speed. Go.”
As they took off, the drones obediently stayed in position.
“Leave the drones behind,” Jason whispered. “I don’t want to spook it.”
The bot slowly moved around behind the sculling predator and started to follow, Jason dangling underneath.
“Now, move up on it and drop slowly until we’re behind the head at about five meters up and back,” Jason whispered. “Stop there. Approach at two miles per hour faster than it’s moving. If it flinches, rears, speeds up or otherwise reacts, lift to fifty meters at three Gs. Do the same if I fire for any reason. Go.”
Two miles per hour was probably too fast but the croc didn’t react. The bot was quiet, barely a hum. And though a croc’s hearing was decent, they couldn’t see behind and up very well.
The bot stopped five meters up and back. Which was, in Jason’s opinion, far too close. At five meters, sixteen feet more or less, the croc’s massive size was unmistakable. The shoulders, not even the widest part, were wider than he was tall.
The thing would swallow him, whole, in one bite. And crocs could rear up half their body length and turn on a dime.
He was going to have to find a better way to kill them. Adventure was all well and good but this was like hunting a Cape buffalo with a pistol.
The back of a crocodilian’s head had a small kill point. It was a hole in the head similar to the temple on a human. Allegedly, it led directly to the brain stem. One shot, even from a .30-06, should kill it. Should. Though it was going to thrash.
Thus, the order to get out of the way. Fast.
He had already wrapped the sling around his left arm. A mental command added flexmet making the firmest position he’d ever held. Which was good because he was trying not to shake.
He wrapped his finger onto the trigger, took a breath and took the shot.
The 200-grain expanding bullet impacted perfectly.
As the gigantic crocodile began to thrash, Alfred simultaneously lifted into the air like a rocket.
Jason managed to hang onto his hat with his right hand as he looked down. The croc had indeed reared, though it seemed to be uncontrolled. It was also thrashing and rolling, turning up waves that easily reached both shores of the kilometer-wide river.
“Get Herman over here, stat,” Jason said as the crocodile’s death throes subsided. “Drop down to the tail end.”
The croc was starting to sink as they approached. Jason mentally ordered the flexmet to drop down and attach to the tail.
“Try to at least hold up the tail until Herman gets here,” Jason said. “If we’re getting dragged under, I’ll release.”
The hum from Alfred increased as it took the strain of the weight of the massive croc. Crocodilians were not naturally buoyant and the river was apparently deep.
Jason shifted the flexmet to the end of the tail as they were being pulled down but as he was doing so Herman arrived.
“Tractor beams would be a better choice than flexmet,” Jewel pointed out.
“Whatever works,” Jason said.
With the addition of the heavier tractor, they were able to keep the beast floating. The tractor beam looked like a wide blue laser. Herman had locked onto the base of the tail then brought its beam forward, revealing most of the beast. Its head dangled in the depths.
“You can release the flexmet,” Jewel said. “The beams of the two tractors have it.”
“We’ll back it up to the shore next to the containers,” Jason said, releasing the flexmet. “Downstream, and downwind, in the eddy area. Then see if we can do something with it. If not, we’re going to have to move the camp.”
The two tractors were necessary to get the croc to the campsite but Herman, alone, was able to drag it fully onshore.
“See if Tim’s available,” Jason said, waving to land on the back of the croc. “And get a drone up to get video of this thing.”
He cradled his trusty Garand as the drone flew up.
“Holy cow, Jason!” Tim said. “That’s a big-ass gator!”
“Crocodile,” Jason said. “And I think, absent just killing and leaving them, we’re going to be shipping mostly croc meat at first. Jewel, how many crocodiles so far in the survey?”
“In the two kilometers up and down river, there are twenty crocodiles so far spotted. No others were of this size. This appears to be the alpha male of the territory. But there are other females of similar size.”
“I’m going to see if I can butcher it and pack it,” Jason said. “There are groups that will eat croc meat. It’s no different than gator.”
“True,” Tim said.
“I’m going to have to reduce the crocs,” Jason said. “I can’t run a boat on the river: They’ll attack it. And they’ll attack any of the shrimp nets and fish traps I’d planned.”
“Up to you,” Tim said. “You’re the guy on the ground. It’ll sell but not as well as shrimp or fish.”
“Roger,” Jason said. “Out here.”
He considered the massive carcass for a moment then shrugged.
“Other threats besides crocs?”
“There are some nearby tigers,” Jewel said. “None very close. But as soon as anything scents blood it will be attracted. There are, as well, some deer as well as wild hogs. Drones have collected numerous unknown plant species. Also, there’s a rather large snake of unknown type approaching the area. It seems to be a type of constrictor but it is an unknown species and may be poisonous. There are no other immediate known threats.”
“Bring a drone over carrying eighty percent of its maximum load of flexmet,” Jason said.
When the drone arrived, Jason held out his hand.
“Length of flexmet,” Jason said. “Extending the flexmet, fly over and hover over the neck of the croc.”
When the drone was hovering, Jason mentally commanded a string of flexmet to drop down next to the croc’s neck then wiggle under it. Once it was under the neck he had the flexmet form into a loop, go extremely thin then close the loop.
There was no apparent cut in the croc’s neck—the flexmet had been thinner than a hair—but blood began to pour out.
“Can Herman lift the head, only?” Jason asked, stepping off the croc after a careful glance to ensure no major threats. He took off his hat and wiped his forehead with a rag.
“Herman can lift the head,” Jewel agreed.
“I want to keep the skull as a souvenir,” Jason said. “It doesn’t have to be lifted with this load but it will potentially make a nice ornament for the Brandywine offices. Suggestions?”
“Clean it up,” Jewel said. “Skin it. Remove useable meat. Open up the skull to extract the brains. Then bury it fairly deep so that natural processes can clean it. There’s not a good system on the station and the food processor plants aren’t up and running. Units.”
“Roger,” Jason said. “Make it so. Record that use of flexmet to cut off the head as ‘decap.’ That’s how we’re going to do most of the killing around here. Butcher the croc to fit in coffins. Only keep the skin and meat. Save the cases as much as possible. We’ll need them for shrimp.”
He tossed a line of flexmet to the top of the nearest conex and climbed up. Better safe than sorry.
With some input from Jason, the flexmet, two tractors and four drones slowly butchered the big male. Jason mostly watched from the top of the conex, taking a sip of water from time to time, wiping his head and thinking.
Each conex held forty-five coffins and each coffin held six cases for a total of two hundred seventy cases. He’d landed with eleven containers full of both coffins and cases. The lease on cases was one cent a month, coffins were six. He’d intended and said he was going to leave some of each for later pickup.
He was glad he’d brought so many coffins. The alpha male was going to fill half a conex even butchered.
As the time went by, so did the life along the river. A group of elephants appeared upriver, drinking and playing in the water. He knew that genetically African and Indian elephants were virtually identical. The “smaller” Indian elephant was a morphological change rather than genetic. These were the size of African elephants or bigger.
No more crocs came by but some of the ones sunning themselves had entered the river and were a potential threat.
“There’s a tiger approaching,” Jewel said. “It’s apparently smelled the blood. Coming from downwind.”
“What type?” Jason asked. “Sex, approximate age and size.”
“Young male,” Jewel said. “Moderate size based on other examples. Unmated.”
“Don’t kill it,” Jason said. “I’ll take it with the Garand.”
He didn’t have many of the 200 grain but he wasn’t comfortable just having the drones decapitate the tiger.
“Where?” Jason asked, after putting on imaging glasses.
“Showing you,” Jewel said.
The glasses showed a view from a shadowing drone with a sketch map giving distance. The tiger was about two hundred meters away. Plenty of time.
“Tell me when it gets close,” Jason said. He thought about trying to change to a smaller grain and smiled. Changing a clip in a Garand was major work. He needed something with a box mag with at least eight rounds.
A jackal appeared drawn by the smell of the blood and started barking and howling, darting in to grab a piece of intestine. A drone dropped down to shoo it off and it snapped back.
The sound of jackal barking was known to attract other scavengers and predators. This might be getting complicated. Also, it was annoying.
The blood flowing into the river had also attracted swarms of fish and his stomach growled, reminding him he was hungry.
“How we doing on potentially edible plants and mushrooms?” Jason asked. The butchering was sort of nauseating to watch but he’d butchered before and the wind down the river was taking the smell away.
“We have over two hundred samples so far including many potentially edible fungi,” Jewel said.
“Start bringing in samples,” Jason said. He really needed to start a fire at some point. Among other things, it would tend to scare off some of the potential threats.
As he was considering that, a croc suddenly burst out of the water and grabbed one of the chunks of male croc Herman was moving. The bot held on, though, and a tug of war ensued.
“Hold on to it, Herman!” Jason shouted. “Lift up a little! That’s a boy! Get a line around that croc’s head and decap!” The powerful tractor wasn’t going anywhere and if anything, the croc was being lifted out of the water. It gave Jason a clearer understanding of the power of the tractors.
Jewel was intuitive and once shown a process could determine the best methods to use it. And Jason’s command seemed to indicate that Herman should handle it. Herman had as part of his standard package some onboard flexmet. A tentacle of it slithered out, wrapped around the female croc’s head and neatly snipped it off.
No more tug of war.
One more croc to butcher.
“The juvenile male tiger is one hundred meters out, two more crocs are known to be approaching, possibly three, two more tigers and a wolf pack have been spotted, possibly on the way, the large snake of unknown species is now thirty meters away, and drones indicate that, yes, there is a shrimp run starting.”
It never rains . . .
“Type of tigers?” Jason asked.
“Adult female and large adult male,” Jewel replied. “Probably the breeding male for the area.”
“Have a drone decap the snake if it can get a noose on it,” Jason said. “Same for the wolves if they approach within five hundred meters. The crocs . . . let me think about it. We can’t have them just attacking without warning . . . Show me the juvenile tiger.”
The juvenile was at the edge of the forest watching the activity on the sand spit cautiously. It could smell food but there was also potentially threatening activity.
The jackals were less cautious, darting in and out trying to get to the meat.
“Decap the jackals,” Jason said. “Put the bodies in coffins separate from the croc. We’ll worry about pickup later.”
There was a conversion process to turn anything with proteins and sugars into print food. There was a potential value to even “junk” meat.
Jason lay down on top of the conex and lined up the shot. He could barely see the juvenile camouflaged in the foliage.
“Can these glasses enhance view?” Jason whispered.
The view suddenly sharpened with the tiger outlined in red. The kill points on the head and heart were highlighted in blue.
It was a seventy-five-meter shot. The 200 grain went right through the cat’s brain via its eye canal. It didn’t even thrash.
But the shot caused the thousands of birds in range of hearing to take off, shrieking. A flock of parrots flew overhead and he regretted not breaking out his shotgun. Parrot was reputed to be quite tasty.
“Pickup,” Jason said. “Just drop it in a coffin.”
Appropriate.
* * *
“Carrots,” Cade said.
He sat on a bench near the playground, facing the six “flowerbeds” he’d planted with Sam. The overhead lights were dimmed to produce the station’s artificial evening. Mabel sat with him, each of them holding a flexmet tumbler. Cade poured her a little of the green juice mixed with alcohol from a vacuum flask, and they both took a sip.
“This stuff tastes like antifreeze,” she said.
“It tastes like the stuff I’d try to sneak out of the liquor store inside an oversized coat when I was sixteen,” Cade said. “By which I mean, I agree.”
“We had cabbage seeds,” she said, “and cucumber. Why carrots?”
Cade shrugged. “They’re sweet, maybe. Also, there’s something satisfying about pulling carrots from the ground and shaking the dirt off them.”
“Is that why you farm, Cade? The satisfying experience?”
“That’s one reason.” He took another sip, pretended it was delicious. “Look, carrots come up, you plant another batch. Here, I’ll grow them all year round.”
“How much fertilizer do you have?”
“How do you feel about me collecting poop?”
“I approve of the carrots,” she said. “Don’t do the poop collecting in my house. I’m just wondering . . . what do you need to be happy, Cade?”
That conversation felt like a looming unseen iceberg. Cade let it lie off the bow untouched for almost a minute.
“I guess I’d like you all to be happy.”
“I am happy,” Mabel said. “I have most of my friends and neighbors here, both my children, and my husband.”
“Some kid that looks like your husband once did,” Cade said, and then realized how hurtful the words might sound. “I wish Sam was taking this all a little better.”
“Have you submitted your application to be a colonist?” she asked. “I heard the government might have grants for the transportation. I mean, for people it wants to get down there early.”
“It seems like sooner or later everyone is going to be down on the surface,” he pointed out.
“It could be later. We have enough to eat here. We have free time. When some of the neighbors start to go down as colonists, their compartments will free up. We should be able to get more space. What if we had three adjacent compartments, instead of just the one?”
“Colonists have started going down,” Cade said. “Soon enough, a bunch of our neighbors will be among them.”
“All the more reason to think there’ll be room.”
“The short answer is, yeah, I applied. They said not yet, I’m not what they’re looking for right now. I’m on a list, I’ll hear back when the time is right, and so on. And I suppose, if our slot came up, and you wanted to stay, we probably could delay. I could fake sick or something. That got me through high school.”
“Sam misses Julie,” she said. “He’ll get over her. Most likely.”
“I hope he hurries up.” Cade finished his drink and poured himself another. “Once he can adjust, maybe I’ll feel more at ease.”
Mabel was quiet for a while.
“Are you sure you don’t have that backward, Cade?”