Scorched Earth, Alien Wonders
Chapter 8: Unspeakable cruelty

I was awakened at dawn by sharp, loud, popping sounds. For some reason I recognized the intense noise and it made my heart pound with panic. I literally screamed for my team, who should have been close by sleeping in their fluffy, dirt beds...but no one came. I moved toward the topside entrance, thinking maybe the others decided to go out the back exit to see what was causing the ruckus. Hearing one sharp pop after another, I slowly raised my head to look over the edge of the burrow’s mounded entrance. I recognized what I saw as shadowy, human figures holding weapons and shooting at the emerging town-folk.

Where was my team?

I felt an insurmountable desire to flee, run and hide, but I forced myself to stay where I was, and watched helplessly as the furry little PD characters we had come to know were being slaughtered one by one. I lowered myself back down the hole to hide. I covered my ears to block out the sounds of screaming and death. It seemed to go on forever, and I could barely control my emotions and confusion. Why was this happening? What had our friends done to these humans? I’m sure if they knew what it was they would apologize and make it right.

Finally, the sounds stopped. There was nothing but eerie silence. I peeked up from the entrance again. I strained to hear even the slightest sound.

Nothing...

I waited and waited, but my feeling of dread only increased with every lingering minute that passed. Finally, I gathered the courage to slowly emerge and stand on my hind legs to survey the area. It seemed the hostile, marauding humans had done what they came to do and left.

What I saw was horrifying.

Small, dead, bleeding bodies of town-folk mothers, fathers, children, aunts, uncles and grandparents from within Suburbia’s communal society—were lying motionless on the dirt in the morning sunrays, with dust still settling all around.

I thought I recognized Buster and Sally laying on top of their four pups in a bloody heap like they had tried to shield their young ones, but they were so damaged I couldn’t be sure if it was them or another family.

I ran to an injured prairie dog nearby that was moving slightly.

Ah, holy fica-hell, it’s Daisy!

Her face was covered with blood, but I recognized her silver earring. My heart was breaking and tears of grief filled my eyes. I kneeled down at her side, and took her little head in my pawed-hands. She whispered two words, “killing contest,” then she closed her eyes and died. Everything was dark and swirling and my head was dizzy with confusion.

Off in the distance, I saw humans at the edge of town picking up dead prairie dog carcasses to put into wheeled carts they were pushing in my direction. I heard them laughing as they held up mangled bodies of the young and old to throw them without conscience or dignity onto the mounting pile.

At that moment, I awoke from my horrifying NIGHTMARE to look into the stunned faces of my team; Moore, Brown, Davis, Doc and Jones.

“You were making loud, weeping, pitiful noises!” said Moore, anxiously pulling at his left ear.

Doc still had the mini-binocs in his hand. He had given me the medical once-over, and apparently didn’t like what he saw.

But I didn’t care. I jumped up and looked around wildly. I couldn’t believe it was just a dream. It was so real. I climbed up the entrance to cautiously gaze around at the rising town-folk venturing out to go about their daily chores and hunt for scrub brush to eat.

Everything was completely normal!

Not even the inescapable, scorching heat could burn away the intense joy I felt at that moment. I was profoundly relieved, but still stunned from my experience. I lowered myself back down into the burrow to consult with my team.

“I’m afraid something is very wrong here, captain,” said Doc looking at the medical diagnostic lenses. “Your synthetic prairie dog DNA and subroutine seem to be failing.”

“What? What does that mean?” I asked, still shaken.

“I’m not completely sure,” he answered. “This is new ground for me, but I believe if it reaches total failure, you could revert to your Rosenian body before we get back home...or...most likely, you could be stuck as a prairie dog.”

“You can’t be serious, doc!” I said, laying down flat on my stomach on the dirt floor, stretching out all four pawed extremities. “That would be a disaster. If I revert to Rosenian form it will blow the mission...and I simply can’t stay in this prairie dog body one minute longer than I have to on this planet from hell.”

“And”...Doc continued.

There’s more?

“I believe the disturbance in your synthetic form is what caused your nightmare,” said Doc. “Or I think a better description would be a flashback while sleeping.”

“Are you saying the prairie dog DNA from his program brought back some kind of memory from the past?” asked Jones with typical scientific curiosity.

“It’s possible,” injected Davis. “If one of the algorithms somehow got damaged during our transport there could be several undesirable consequences.”

Oh bat-crap, I don’t like where this is going.

My team stood there looking at me like I was a creature doomed to purgatory.

“Are you saying that the captain’s dream was a memory from a real situation that occurred in this place, but at a different time in the past?” asked Brown in disbelief.

“Yes,” Doc and Jones answered simultaneously.

I jumped upright and onto my hind feet, suddenly feeling so much energy I didn’t think my small body could contain it. I desperately needed my team to understand.

“I felt emotions like I have never experienced as a Rosenian!”

“I cried...I mean there was saline water pouring out of my eyes...I felt fear, panic, anger, and by the way...did I mention FEAR?”

I knew I was babbling, but I couldn’t help myself.

“I have never felt anything so paralyzing. Not even when I was attacked by the two-headed, poisonous, anti-jeffers on that asteroid a year ago! Last night I got a firsthand experience of how terrified innocent animals must feel when they are under attack.”

Everyone stood there not knowing how to respond.

“Let’s go talk to Daisy,” I added. “As the town historian she might know something about what happened!”

I grabbed the mini-binocs and headed to the exit with everyone close behind. I remembered that Torie had not been released from binoc form since early yesterday, and he was probably going to be cranky.

A short time later, after dashing over to the Rabbit Hole, we all stood gathered around Daisy in the middle of the empty chamber panting from the heat that we would never get used to in a million years. Torie was flying around the semi-dark chamber showing off as the owl again. After Doc explained my nightmare situation to Daisy, I asked her my burning question.

“If this was a malfunction of my prairie dog DNA based on a fragmented memory from a real event in the distant past—how could you have been there?”

“There’s no way I could’ve been,” answered Daisy.

“But I saw your earring on the dying prairie dog I held.”

“Well...that only tells us that she was the mayor of that ancient town, because all mayors are female and they all wear the symbolic earring.”

After taking a minute for that information to sink in, I asked this question:

“Okay, when the other mayor in my dream-reenactment of the past said, ‘killing contest’...what did that mean?”

Daisy hesitated then she reluctantly offered her explanation.

“There was a very dark time in our history. Before mankind became so obsessed with saving their own race, when some humans hundreds of years ago were brutally cruel to animals they considered bothersome and worthless.”

She went on to tell us in a reserved tone about the wildlife killing contests often done for prizes and recognition to humans who were the most prolific animal killers. They shot down coyotes, wolves, pigeons and thousands of prairie dogs over decades of time, all in the spirit of what they called “sport”, which they justified by saying the animals they disposed of were a nuisance.

Annoyance was a reason for humans to take pride in killing defenseless animals?

In addition, she explained, ancient humans had no conscience about destroying animals they viewed as pests even if they weren’t doing it for prizes or glory. They would kill rabbits, skunks, possums, squirrels, otters, raccoons, foxes, rats, mice and any other creatures they felt were beneath the dignity of having the right to exist.

“In some cases, they even armed their children, and turned all the shooting into ‘family’ fun, entertainment and sport,” Daisy explained.

Oh.That’s.Just.Great

How was I going to explain this dark history to suspicious Rosenian leaders itching for an excuse to drop-kick human explorers out of our region of space? Admittedly, my team and I had become rather fond of humans. At least the ones we saw at the Rabbit Hole.

But, dammit...maybe they deserved to be blocked.

A few days later, as morning sunlight filtered down through our burrow entrance, I finished up a conversation with Qualdron topside. I told him I no longer wanted to wait for humans to come to us and I planned to start leaving the edge of town in search of the elusive subjects, and if they were out there, we would replace them.

“I think it’s time we ventured out to see if any humans remain on this desolate planet at all,” I told him and he agreed. But back in the burrow that morning I was reluctant to tell my team.

It meant we would be subjected to hours of energy-draining, brain-sucking, tortuous heat as we explored every geographical section surrounding Suburbia, where there wasn’t even a giant, dead tree to provide a scrap of shade. The only alternative would be doing a night search, but the difference in temperature was hardly worth losing sleep or missing entertainment at the Rabbit Hole. Torie was impervious to the heat in any form, but I had no intention of sending our best asset out alone. So, I decided we would search as a team, and we would do it during the day.

Surprisingly, I didn’t get any resistance from anyone, not even Jones, who was endowed with more heavy fur than any of us. I sensed impatience to get the job done no matter what kind of heat-induced torture we had to put ourselves through, but there was a feeling of anxiety, too. What would we replace; savage bastards, a benevolent tribe, gun-toting fanatics, bullies and brutes or a dozen things in between?

We lingered a while that morning, watching Torie as the dazzling, blue dragonfly feverishly darting from side to side in the middle of our burrow. Doc had examined my subroutine again earlier and said everything seemed to be stable, which was a big relief. Still, I noticed my sense of smell had become heightened, which wasn’t always a good thing on a dead planet. The truth was I wouldn’t feel out of danger until I had my handsome, three-toed, Rosenian feet back on my frosty, home world.

That morning, as we all watched Torie and delayed leaving the shadowy comfort of our burrow, we talked about the killing contests Daisy had explained to us, and we were conflicted on how to proceed. The dragonfly landed on a dead root protruding from the side of the compacted dirt wall to have a rest.

“What do you guys think?” I asked, still watching the hypnotic dragonfly.

“I’ll tell you what I think, top dog. I think it’s pretty simple. We should tell Qualdron about the cruel nature of humans, and let the council vote to block mankind from our quadrant,” said Moore, who had picked up the nick-name given to me by the town’s pups. “Then we can go home... simple...easy...let’s just go home.”

“But those people existed over a century ago,” replied Brown. “Even Daisy said the world’s remaining humans have evolved in more recent times to be more respectful of what life forms are left on the planet.”

“Yeah, she said they have been in constant survival mode for many decades, and could have started killing prairie dogs for their dinner plates if they wanted to, but they didn’t,” agreed Davis.

“That doesn’t mean they won’t start if they get hungry enough,” responded Moore, ever the pessimist. “If there really are people living nearby waiting to be relocated to another planet, how long will they have to wait? How much food supply do they have?”

Doc joined the conversation, “I like the humans we see at the Rabbit Hole, but they are only fictional characters, and we shouldn’t let that confuse us. We should probably tell Qualdron the truth.”

“But if we judge humans based on what their ancestors did without coming to learn their true character in the present, then we are going against our own code of ethics,” Brown argued.

I liked Moore’s reasoning. The killing contest news might get us the green light to go home, and no one wanted that more than I did, but dammit, ultimately I knew that Brown was right.

Besides, the rollerball tournament was already over and I lost my bet.

“Jones, you have been awfully quiet lately,” I said, looking at the monkey we all had come to accept as one of our own, in spite of his wiry, simian exterior. “Got anything on your mind?”

He was sitting off to the side on his rump, drawing doodles in the dirt with his bifurcated tail, while listening to our conversation. He took a minute to respond and when he did, I couldn’t believe what he had to say.

“Yeah...yeah. I think it’s time I told you guys the truth about the real reason why I was pushed into this mission at the last minute, and it has nothing to do with how humans might be treating their wildlife.”

“I knew it! Something really stunk about that whole last-minute thing,” I shouted, feeling vindicated.

Apparently, Jones was told by one of the techs the night of our arrival, there was an ulterior motive for our mission. Jones was essentially bribed to join our exploration team covertly in order to give a report upon his return of any evidence observed to support a certain theory. He was told that he would get funding, and his own research lab for quietly going along with the plan. I didn’t try to conceal my annoyance at how tasteless it all was.

“Glad you were willing to hop on board this mission for no other reason than getting yourself a new lab,” I said. “Okay, if we aren’t here to replace out if our future neighbors are badass savages or compassionate cohorts, then what’s the real reason we were sent to this blazing rock?”

“Actually, the way I see it, the mission remains the same, it just has an added element,” responded Jones then he continued his story.

“The tech said that human interest in our quadrant wasn’t just the search for a new home. They found out that settlements on Mars could actually be doubled if mankind discovered a new source for the ore that’s needed to build the climate and gravity control systems.”

Mankind, Jones was told, wanted what we had in abundance that they didn’t...and they were willing to invade our planet in order to get it.

Hmmm...that’s believable since Earth’s history is full of war stories.

Apparently, aluminum, a common element on Rosen, was once so prevalent in layers of Earth’s crust it was deemed practically worthless until it became the primary material needed on Mars to build the settlements.

“I recall something about a broad-ranging business,” said Brown. “I think it was called Drake Industries. They had hundreds of divisions all around the world. And they mined every natural resource that had any value.”

I was still mulling Jones’ confession and it really rankled my sensibilities. “Same mission? Maybe...but it’s one thing to observe how humans treat prairie dogs and it’s quite another to investigate rumors of an invasion against Rosen for the ore needed on Mars.”

“That’s where my talent comes in,” injected Brown.

“Could be,” said Moore. “But how are we...as Rosenian’s disguised as PD’s, supposed to replace the right humans and get you close enough to do a telepathic link?”

“Especially, when we haven’t seen a single person and don’t know if humans are still living on this crappy-ass planet,” injected Davis, without a hint of humor.

“Good point. That’s the first thing we need to confirm,” I said, quickly thinking of how this new information changed the strategy of the whole operation. “Besides, if people are still here and we replace someone who might know about any invasion on Rosen, we always have Torie. He can quite literally be a fly on the wall if it came to that.”

Suddenly we heard muffled tones of excited voices from the town-folk outside.

“Torie!”

In a flash the bot-shifter was back in mini-binoc form. I hung them around my neck, and we all headed to the surface to replace out what the fuss was about.