Legend of Earth
Chapter 6: Another Mission

In the morning, Amper logged the conversation, shared it with Mygs, and sent it to Command. Mygs checked his dermiscreen and saw that Command had indeed issued them another mission after the circumference. They were to track the asteroid and replace it, and take samples and document scans and measurements of it.

“Doesn’t that just figure,” Amper muttered. “We were just warned by a nemectis prophet to not go near it.”

“Command will read your log entry this morning and probably issue an amendment to the mission,” Mygs reasoned. “The ship is two days away – We’re walking one more leg of the circumference where we’ll replace the beacon, then walk the diameter, and the P.S.S. Legendbound will be waiting.”

“Has anything interesting come up in the scan of the inner terrain?”

“Frankly,” Mygs shook his head as he glanced and poked at the table screen, “our circumference has been more eventful than anything we’ll likely replace in the inner terrain. We’ll know for sure once we finish the circumference and close the scanner’s loop barrier.”

“Let’s pack up and head out then.” Amper was excited to finish the scan of the area they’d circled, in case there were more anomalies like the podland or possible dips and hills that could indicate previous human structures. The hover homebase followed as the drifternauts trod past the caved-in podland, and Amper sent out one last “thank you” to Kilsh. In her last moments, she was trying to help a complete stranger.

Halfway through the day, Mygs received a message on his dermiscreen that the mission had indeed been altered. They were to take another drone, the larger one that flew rather than hovered, and keep themselves a good distance from the asteroid once they found it. The drone would use a multi-scan to glean what it could from the asteroid below, as well as drop electrominions that would measure what they could at a closer proximity.

“So, we’re still going,” Amper stated with some incredulity.

“Yes,” Mygs tapped his dermiscreen off as he led them through a thin glen of apathetic trees.

“After that warning.”

“Amper,” Mygs tilted his head in dubious thought. “They are not down here, and I myself am still having a difficult time grasping the reality of Kilsh’s words, so Command is going to have an even more difficult grasp. They’re hearing our adventures as a quaint story but not feeling the urgency or fear or even joy.” He looked at Amper, making his point blatant. “They are seeing the opportunities as scientist and as administrators, not as someone who has to live the story.”

“They don’t think we’ll die.”

“I think they believe there’s a smaller chance of it than we think there is. And knowledge from legendary Earth is worth any risk – especially for a ship safely in space. We are more expendable than the opportunities here.”

Amper sighed. He knew when he signed-up for this career that he would simply be a very intelligent pawn in the political and scientific game of Persevere’s social and financial network. He would have to swallow whatever disappointments and dangers were handed to him.

The rest of their journey to the beacon of their first camp was only singular in that another octosquirrel was seen, and another type of leaf of a nemectis was viewed. Amper took a picture of the large multi-pointed leaves with web-shaped veins. They found the beacon and retrieved it, closing the loop of the inner terrain scan. They made homebase and made the list for re-supplying at the Legendbound the next day.

Amper didn’t remember dreaming, but woke up because he heard Shhah communicating with him.

“Amper, wake up! You should go right away. Leave before the sun comes –“

He awoke and told Mygs that Shhah said they should leave before sunrise. They hadn’t made a campfire, and barely did more than remove their shoes to go to bed the night before, so within fifteen minutes they were hiking in the direction of the P.S.S. Legendbound. Neither voiced their concerns about Shhah’s rush on their departure. Did she mean they must leave the Earth right away? Did she mean they had to move from the spot in which they were resting because of an approaching danger? Did she mean they had to be at their ship in order to keep some natural disaster or unknown animal from sabotaging their mission? They simply trudged on in tired, tense silence. Mygs’ dermiscreen alarm went off as the sun shot beams through tree trunks.

“Time to wake up,” he mumbled, turning it off, and produced two pouches from a utility pocked of his vest. Simply known as 10%, when consumed each pouch triggers and increases the adrenaline output in the body by that much. He tossed one to Amper. They continued in silence and at a decent pace, until the dermiscreen began squealing an unexpected alarm.

“What’s going on?” Amper asked as Mygs stopped to examine his arm.

“It’s the Legendbound,” Mygs said in a breath, poking and swiping the screen in haste. “It’s under attack. From something… I can’t identify. Except it’s hairy, I guess.” He had accessed the exterior camera of the ship, and couldn’t properly view the thing that was running into and leaning forcibly against the hull. Whatever it was, it was very large, and close to damaging the ship’s ramp. “It’s ramming the ramp door, which is pretty sturdy... Oh no – it has huge teeth… Tusks!” He began running, and Amper kept up with him.

“What could we do against this thing?” Amper called to Mygs.

“I don’t know, but at least maybe we could distract it!”

There was still quite a distance to travel before reaching the landing, and by the time the men reached the Legendbound, they found scratches all over the front and one side of the ship. The manual signal control plate was dented-in and couldn’t be accessed, and one leg of the landing gear seemed to have been partially sawn-through.

“Do tusks do this?” Amper asked, feeling it with his fingers.

“Does a squirrel have eight legs?” Mygs replied wryly, shaking his head. “There’s no telling what animals are capable of on Earth now. Earth animals from our lessons are actually legends now. They don’t exist anymore. These are all new.”

“Did you see the hoof prints?” Amper turned and indicated the deep crescent-moon gouges where weight was pressed as the attack on the ship heightened. “Was there only one? This looks like the work of a herd!”

“I think I was only seeing one, and it was close to half the height of the ship. Thank goodness she’s wide as well as tall,” Mygs stated, patting the ship affectionately. “Let’s see if her ramp will open. We can spend the night inside tonight, and resupply for tomorrow.”

That evening they analyzed the vectype of the beast. Still-shots and measurements against nearby objects suggested that it was approximately fifteen high, and ten feet wide. It might have a tail, but what they saw could have been long hair waving, too.

The hair sported shades of brown, and grew anywhere from six to twelve inches long covering even its face. There didn’t seem to be a nose, and the ears could be hidden within the mass of hair, but out of each side of the head sprouted two three-foot-long tusks that appeared to be serrated on the front six inches. Six large knobs of bone protruded along the front edge of the faceless ‘chin’ of the head. It was created to cut and push trees, they deduced. It must feed on certain trees, or else use them to build something. With thick, solid legs about six feet high, it could certainly move and push.

Suddenly Amper jolted up in surprise. “Wait, look!” He pointed to the screen as it showed the creature walking away. The tail was nearly indiscernible because it was flat against the back of the creature’s legs. It lifted slightly like a wag of finality. It was done doing what it had to do.

“Was that a platypus tail?” Mygs whispered in wonder.

“Or beaver. Either way, we know what it wanted with trees…”

Mygs slowly turned to Amper. “You think it lives on the water?”

“Possibly building a dam. Maybe the tail just stores fat, or is a buoy for the huge beast.” Amper nodded. “But obviously it’s evolved to tear apart trees.” He glanced at Mygs, then did a double-take at the astounded face. “What,” he said in defense. “Should I ignore the obvious?”

“Can you imagine this thing in the rivers? I didn’t see the hoof prints of webbed feet.”

“Okay,” Amper smiled. “We’ll just report and let Command come up with ideas.” He chuckled and stretched-out onto his cot. “But I hope we don’t replace ourselves being carried to the closest river when we wake up in the morning. It looked part elifont. They lived in herds.”

“Eh-leh-fehnt. Not ‘font’. And we’ll be fine.” Mygs shut down the vectype and rolled onto his own cot. “But we’ll fortify the grounds before we leave tomorrow just in case.”

The night was uneventful for Amper, with a dreamless sleep that kept him from talking with Shhah. He wondered whether she’d lost interest in what he was doing, or perhaps the terrain or weather somehow kept her from replaceing him, or maybe the nemectes had some collective belief ritual during which silence was the practice. He stood outside the Legendbound with his coffee as the trees’ shadows retreated beneath the morning sun. Gazing at the looming, dark clouds that approached the morning’s light, Amper thought of Shhah and the other nemectes but subconsciously listened for thunder. However, the sky remained quiet.

Once Mygs was done showering they did a check on homebase, unpacked the flying drone and did a systems and performance test, and then Amper suggested that they stack forest debris around the Legendbound as far up as possible to perhaps disguise the obvious, metal foreign figure. If they’d had time they would have made a trench around it to discourage any fast charges from giant beasts. As it was, this disguise tactic would have to do.

Finally prepared for an outbound journey, Ampersand and Mygsolith set-off for the heading that blinked on the dermiscreen. Command had found where the asteroid was sitting, roughly seventy kilometers away. The satellite image from the ship above indicated that a river ran for about fifty-five kilometers in the same direction they needed to go. Amper expressed relief that they would have the water supply, as well as possible fresh fish, for the long trek. Mygs pointed-out that if they like being there for the food and water, so will a lot of other animals like the ones they learned of as kids on Persevere.

“Or worse, since they seem to have evolved in unpredictable ways.”

“We have our proj-rods, if need be,” Amper patted his vest-front.

“Keep it on ‘sleep’, we’re not supposed to kill anything big.”

They walked South, making a straight path to the river. They talked about the terrain, and how it compares to what they learned in school. According to the ancient maps, and the longitude and latitude of their landing, the drifternauts were crossing the buried city of St. Louis. It was chosen for the fact that the ancient scientist Alex Stiles had been born and raised there. The river they were heading for was not something on the ancient map of Missouri, it was a new river on a new layer of the Earth. They postulated on how far below them the city sat, and what sort of things might still be in-tact down there, cut-off from oxidization. Was there water damage to it that made everything corrode? Did some of the buried ancient human buildings remain sealed under the layers?

The sun was nearing the horizon when Mygs consulted his arm.

“The river is just a hop over that line of trees.” He gestured with his chin. “We should camp near this edge of them, and approach the river on the other side in daylight.”

They struck homebase, and decided to make a fire since they were so near a common source of sustenance for any manner of animal. The flames should scare anything off since fire is not common to the wilderness without humans, and only associated with threatening forest fires.

They sat in the homebase with the digital “before” and “after” Earth maps superimposed on the screen pad, and Amper shook his head.

“Is it sitting directly inside that sea?”

“I think that technically it’s an inlet.”

“The asteroid is huge!”

“It might be underwater, it might be on the edge. The charts from Command are pretty accurate, though, it seems like it’s underwater.” Mygs lied back, putting his arms up behind his head, and yawned.

“Depending on its size and the depth of the water, it might be an island.” Amper shut off the screen and headed toward the homebase door.

“We’ll replace out when we get there,” Mygs stood and followed.

They each ate mealpaste, not wanting to put a lot of effort into making their stay homey. Amper opted to sleep outside while Mygs settled on a cot inside. The fact that they had already finished one mission on the planet that wasn’t supposed to exist needled Amper with excitement, so it was difficult for him to sleep. Now they were on a second assignment, and after seeing the octosquirrels and… Platafant? - Amper nodded and smiled at the mixture of platypus and elephant. It would do for now. - He wondered what other strange animals they might replace near the river. Perhaps more Platafants, if they do depend on river life for sustenance. Would there also be versions of wolves? Even though they were in what used to be North America, would tigers or lions have evolved and somehow taken territory here?

Amper was contemplating the current land-map of Earth, with islands where there didn’t used to be, and seas where there used to be land, when he saw motion in the firelight across from him. He froze at the sight of a hand-sized creature that looked like it had eight hairy fingers. Grimacing, he recognized the legendary creature of horror stories on Persevere. “Spider,” he whispered, his skin prickling with ingrained fear. There had been different kinds, but Amper couldn’t remember the names. He did know this one was one of the largest. “Or is it?” he whispered to himself aloud. These had probably evolved as well. Were there others that stood even bigger? Amper glanced around to be sure he didn’t have any food nearby that would tempt it. He kept his sights on the arachnid that slowly wiggled its front legs at the fire, as though it were trying to warm up.

Amper glanced at homebase off to his right. “Mygs!” he whispered harshly. Mygs didn’t hear. Amper watched the spider. “Mygs!” he called louder.

Then the spider started, as though surprised to hear Amper. To the drifternaut’s horror, the hairy hand-sized spider had an exoskeleton that suddenly snapped open, revealing beetle-like wings that quivered as though wondering whether to make a move. Amper knew that if he were to move or make another sound, it would rise into the air, and there was no telling whether it would attack him or just fly away. The man and spider stayed stock-still, both quiet and waiting.

That’s when Mygs appeared at the door. “What, Amp?”

Amper jerked in fear, and the spider’s wings started humming. “No!” Amper gazed in alarm as it lifted into the air. Mygs saw where Amper was staring, at first thinking it was the fire, but finally seeing the movement of a creature hovering closer to Amper.

“Geez!” he hissed. “Tell me that’s not a spid-“ but before he could finish asking, the thing dove at Amper, missing him and buzzing toward Mygs in one fluid motion. The eight legs met at their tips like a hornet’s legs, dragging backwards with the movement. The Exoskeleton that protected the wings resembled a spider’s web made of twigs and leather, and the fire shone through the membrane briefly with a silver glisten as it passed Mygs.

In the stunned silence of the campsite, the buzzing hum of the flying spider receded and the two men took some time to steady their breathing.

Finally Amper took a deep breath. “Yes.” He looked at Mygs, eyes wide with fear. “That was a spider.” He smiled nervously, then laughed.

Mygs laughed too. “Not like any spider we ever read about!”

“God, no.” Amper chuckled and stood. “Uhh… I think I may sleep in the homebase tonight.”

“I don’t blame you,” Mygs smiled, turning to go inside. “We’ll put up the motion sensors for other animals.”

“And check the floors and beds…”

Amper opened his sight to the darkness of communication. The horizon of smoky colored light was entrancing and welcoming, a friendly feeling for Amper. Shahh’s light curled out toward him in white, yellow and green.

“Ampersand, it’s so good to see you here!” Shahh’s edges tinged pink before turning white.

“I wondered whether I’d hear from you again,” Amper emoted, seeing his own smoke turn yellow and white with some orange.

“You’re hurt. How did you get attacked?” she asked, her green growing more distinct.

“Hurt?” Amper couldn’t look down at himself, and turned gray and orange. Then he noticed that one tendril of his mist had a spot of black, like a floating knot of darkness. “Huh. I didn’t realize I was hurt. I don’t remember falling or scraping anything…”

“What did you do yesterday?”

“I was just hiking with Mygs. We’re supposed to approach that asteroid Kllsh warned me of. We have a lot of walking to do. Nothing odd during the trek.”

“And you’re not there yet – where you’re supposed to be attacked. So that’s not how you were hurt.”

“How could I be hurt and not have felt it?”

“Maybe it was a gradual pain – like the spit of an aranealis. It’s a flying hunter, like an arachnid, but with wings.”

“Wait! I saw one just before falling asleep!” Amper’s smokiness turned white with brown edges. “It flew at me, but went past and never touched me. It spits?”

“Like an arach’s venom that softens its prey’s body so that it can eat.” Shahh was turning blue. “The aranealis spits the venom because it attacks larger animals. Usually there’s a swarm of them that attack one creature, then they can all feed on it. You may have some painful spots where the venom landed.”

Amper turned almost completely brown with fear. He could have come so close to being a meal for dozens of those things!

“Don’t worry,” Shahh’s sworls turned yellow and green. Amper sensed she was laughing. “They won’t eat meat-eaters. They would only attack someone like you if you were threatening their nest.”

“A nest of them! I can’t imagine! Where are those usually, in trees? Under shrubs?”

“The way single arachs do it – in the corners and nooks of things like cliffs and yes, sometimes under shrubs or in larger trees.”

“That’s good to know.” Amper’s mist settled into a pale green. The darkness started lightening, and the horizon of nemectes spirits became less evident. “Before we go, Shahh. Is there a circumstance in which you and I would not be able to communicate? If I were underground, perhaps? Or if there’s too much distance between us?”

“Distance is a factor, but only because we rarely pinpoint and attach to a nemectis so far away. We usually hear of other places by way of vine-communication. I can communicate with you even if you were on the other side of the world. The only time our communication doesn’t work well, with all of us, is during a thunderstorm or sometimes a meteor cluster.”

“When meteors penetrate the atmosphere.”

“Right.” Her smoky tendrils began to retreat. “I’m so glad to have seen you, I missed talking to you,” Shhah’s tendril rippled pink and then yellow.

“Why haven’t I heard from you?”

“Thunderstorm where I am…” she disappeared and the darkness was engulfed by light.

Amper woke up.