“Where are the strangers?” asked Dafid of the Third Vadryz.
“We believe they have landed around five days run to the south,” answered Artem, taking over from Vandiel, “although that’s pure supposition for the moment. The traces are very faint.”
“Are we even sure they’ll be on the same continent?” asked Thalia. She and Josei had examined the maps of all the known parts of the planet. When the Diaglon had investigated they had performed a partial reconnaissance, taking readings and marking out the planetary surface.
“The other continents are not as stable geologically speaking,” Artem informed them. “Or as pleasant to live on. For instance, the planet hosts no trees as such, only large bushes and only the small continent has them in any numbers. The small continent is the best and perhaps the only one suitable for a prolonged stay. And with the other two space ships arriving after the first three, we have to assume that a prolonged stay is what the strangers are intending.”
“Why is it the only continent like that?” asked Thalia.
< We believe the planet experienced an ecological disaster in its not too distant past. > The voice came through the speakers that were connected to the bridge. It sounded high pitched and tinny but Thalia recognised Susa Raknu’s voice.
< The growth, even on the small continent was not as prolific when we visited. The distance sensors report that it is developing, ecologically speaking. The planet was marked as a potential colony planet once it had fully recovered. The best landing areas are in the areas that we have talon-marked - in fact, the most easterly one is the spot where we landed. It will be your task to find out which one the strangers have utilised. We cannot remain in orbit. To do so would be to risk detection. >
“Does the planet have a name?” asked Cera.
< Tenha. It means ‘growth will come’ in our language. >
“Appropriate.”
< Indeed. On another note, in approximately a hundred tvans we will be close enough to get some detailed sensor readings. We dare not risk sending out a Boton. The strangers will undoubtedly have sensors of their own. >
“In that case, won’t they be able to see us approaching?” asked Artem.
< We approach on their dark side. Unless they have an orbital device they will not know that we are here. We can find no trace of any such device. >
“If they do?”
< The Atacarino will destroy it. If their orbitals are anything like ours they will always be malfunctioning. Do not fear. We Brai will get you on to the surface without any of the strangers being any the wiser. >
There was a click as the inter-cabin connection was severed.
“That’s that,” said Artem. “We’d better get started on our detailed planning.”
* * * * *
As Thalia and Josei prepared their personal equipment (in actuality Josei was doing what he liked to call ‘supervising’) the thought that had been percolating in the back of her mind burst forth.
: I still don’t understand why we are really here. I mean, sending the away team, us, like they have :
: What don’t you understand? It seems perfectly clear to me : Josei replied : No! Don’t put that firearm oil there! It might seep through to the travel rations! :
Thalia moved the oil to another pack.
: It’s just a thought. There must have been an easier way :
: And start a galactic war? If these space ships are hostile, or driven by those of hostile intent it is far better to find out about them before making a precipitous move. Also, if they are friendly and all of a sudden the Diaglon space fleet appears, might they not think we are hostile and open fire without discovering our benign intent? No, this is a far better way. A small team to investigate what they are about on the planet they have landed on. Friendly overtures. That is best :
: I hope you are right : ‘said’ Thalia, tying the knots on the food pack : There. That’s them all done. Weapons are ready - both kinds but I hope we don’t have to use them :
: Your hope is my hope also : answered Josei.
* * * * *
Chapter 5
Landing
As the Aikko continued in her rapid outer orbit of the planet Susa Raknu entered in the velocity order codes to make sure that their critical velocity speed was correct. The racoven was travelling so fast because the critical orbital velocity was thirty times the speed of sound. If the ship was travelling slower it would descend to a lower orbit under the influence of gravity and meet atmospheric resistance. The Aikko would lose energy and plummet to the ground.
About fifty tvans before touchdown, Raknu punched in the codes that would commit his ship to a landing. The Aikko travelled forwards, nose first and belly up. She was not flying as there was no atmosphere this high up. Raknu began to manipulate the small adjustments necessary to deploy the thrusters correctly, his eight digits moving as rapidly as he was able.
The ship emerged from this delicate manoeuvring in a perfect descent position, nose forward and slightly upward, and its bottom facing downwards. Now that her speed was below the critical orbital velocity she began to enter the atmosphere. Though rarefied and containing little oxygen, there was now enough external matter to undergo ionisation. The plasma flare began to form.
The entry angle was now critical. Raknu maintained it by continuously adjusting the thruster trims. At an altitude of eighty thousand velos, the direction controls at last became usable. He performed a series of s-bend turns, banking his ship at each turn.
It was seven tvans to touchdown, the Aikko was still thirty-two thousand velos up and on the underside of her belly close to the leading edges it was hot enough to melt steel. Plasma flaring had ceased and had been replaced by reactive hypersonic flow. Drag was increasing with the reactive deceleration.
* * * * *
There was a juddering bump as the Aikko landed.
Thalia, her hand grasping at the top of Josei’s head, gave vent to a huge sigh of relief. They had made it. When they had arrived on Tak she had decided then that the landing was far, far worse than the take-off and that hadn’t been pleasant either. Ever since they’d left Tak she had been dreading this but it hadn’t been that bad. Perhaps she was getting used to it.
: It is because you knew what to expect : Josei told her wisely and received a sour look for his trouble.
She busied herself undoing the safety straps.
“Hurry up,” demanded Josei. He didn’t like the feeling of being tightly restrained and had kept up a litany of complaints ever since the order had come to strap in for landing.
Thalia made haste to comply with his wish then jumped back on to her bunk as he rose to his paws and shook himself. There was barely enough room to move around in the cabin as it was and certainly little space for a full sized Lind to shake out his fidgets.
The speakers sprang to life out in the corridor.
< Prepare to disembark. >
“That’s us,” said Josei with a pleased wag of his tail. He couldn’t wait to get on to the surface and feel good, solid dirt under his paws again.
All was ordered confusion as Thalia opened the contraption that served as the door into the narrow corridor.
She drew her head in sharply as a vadeln-pair of her own Vadryz rushed past. One of the packs being carried over the tall, young man’s shoulder nearly broke her nose.
“Slow down,” she shouted out but they didn’t seem to have heard her. They certainly didn’t modify their speed. Another vadeln-pair followed, chelas clipping at their heels.
: No wonder : ‘said’ Josei, referring to Thalia’s near accident : It is like a hundred, no a thousand windstorms out there. I vote we wait until the all rushing around has stopped :
“No time,” said Thalia as she belted on her firearm and grabbed their gear : Ryzcka Vandiel said the Aikko must not remain on the surface for long. He called it, what was it again? Yes, a ‘window of opportunity’. The strangers must not know we are here :
Josei pok
ed his nose out into the corridor.
: There appears to be a gap after this one : he told her.
: Go! :
Thalia followed Josei into the corridor and they ran as fast as they could along the narrow space and down the ramp to the lower deck where the disembarkation doors were located. A Brai, she thought she recognised Falu the weapons specialist, was waiting at the controls beside them.
The hangar bay, when they arrived was slightly less chaotic than the corridor but not by much.
In her mind she heard Josei call for the seven other members of the Second Vadryz to report. The disembarkation procedures had been planned in meticulous detail by Vandiel and did not include tumbling out of the doors willy-nilly.
Zeb and Vya were the first to take up their position in front of them. Zeb’s face was alight with excitement and Vya (who was a lot older than him and should have known better) was rapidly lifting one paw after another.
“Right,” said Thalia. “Calm down everyone.” She could hear Josei telepathically using exactly the same words to the seven Lind. “Christel, what’s wrong?”
“I think I’m going to be sick,” the girl admitted. At eighteen she was the youngest in the Ryzck and was finding the excitement difficult to handle.
“Swallow it down,” Thalia commanded. “Now is not the time to let nerves get the better of you. Is everyone here?”
A series of affirmatives assailed her and she looked to where Vandiel was standing waiting for Raknu’s order to go. The huge bulk of Belu was beside him. The excitement was affecting even him, in Thalia’s opinion the calmest of the five Brai aboard; the ends of his wings were twitching and his stubby ears were revolving like spinning tops.
< Inner doors opening. >
: That’s it : Josei’s ‘voice’ resounded inside her skull.
Thalia mounted Josei, clipping the harness straps into place round her thighs and waist. She was aware of everyone else mirroring her actions. Even Artificer Max seemed to be settling himself on to Rsya’s back with a modicum of ease. She spied Mikey atop Slei’s back. His face was one giant beam of enjoyment and anticipation.
Adrenalin was mounting within Thalia. After her adventures that last year on her home planet she hadn’t thought anything would ever faze her again.
: You thought wrong : Josei’s dry comment was filled to the brim with irony.
< External sensors have located no danger. >
A tvan later and there was a judder along the deck underpaw.
< Outer doors opening. >
Thalia and Josei watched as daylight, real daylight began to seep into the hanger. With it came the first tenuous swirls of un-recycled air.
< Ramp descending. >
Thalia took a firm hold of Josei’s ruff. As soon as there was enough room between the hatch doors for them to squeeze through, the First Vadryz would go.
< Go. >
Paws and chelas flailing somewhat on the metal deck first Cera’s Vadryz then the others ran through the gap, down the ramp and down on to Planet Tenha’s surface. As Thalia and Josei were one of the last to leave they were very conscious of a heavy bump, bumpily-bump behind them as Belu raced after them. Before they were out of earshot they could hear the ramp engines revving and the roar of the Aikko as she started power-up. The less time she spent on the surface the less likely that their presence would be noticed.
It felt great to be out in the fresh once more.
Behind them they heard the two gurneys packed high with supplies being shoved down the ramp by Falu.
The Fifteenth Ryzck knew exactly what to do. They raced straight for the foliage. It was about three hundred lind-lengths away and without hesitation, they pushed their bodies inside. To their surprise they found that it was spacious under the living canopy, with large, gnarled, twisting branches weaving over and around each other to make thick stocks, almost like tree-trunks. They were different than the trees back on Tak or for those who could remember, on Rybak where, as Thalia commented that first evening to Josei, ‘trees were trees and bushes, bushes, not these in-betweeny things’.
The vadeln-pairs of the Third and Fourth Vadryz fanned out to secure the perimeter while the rest of the vadelns dismounted, and leaving their Lind on guard, came back into the clearing. With Belu and Falu’s help they pushed the gurneys over the bumpy ground back into the foliage. There they would remain hidden from prying, flying eyes until their permanent camp was established and they could come back for the food and equipment they carried. Thalia, as she grunted and heaved, foresaw a very tiring day or so ahead of them doing the transfer.
Once they had done this, Falu shouted out ‘goodbye and good luck’ then hurried back to the Aikko.
As Thalia remounted Josei she could hear the Aikko lifting-off. It sounded very loud.
Belu and Max were both carrying a space ship-to-ground communications device and she overheard Belu acknowledge that lift-off had been successful,
The Lind did not need any such contraption, being telepathic but Belu did so that he could keep in touch with headquarters when he flew scouting missions. He would not however, take to the air unless the Ryzck could not find any trace of the strangers. Only then would he fly out of the immediate vicinity, the immediate vicinity having been set at twenty thousand kellrans. As the Lind could run many kellrans a day, everyone thought it highly unlikely that Belu would have to place himself in danger.
They heard the crack as the Aikko pushed out through the atmosphere.
They were on their own.
* * * * *
“It seems like years since me and Larya got the chance to explore the unexplored. I’m not counting the first months on Tak. The maps the Brai gave us when we got there were pretty complete. This planet is almost entirely unknown,” said Artem to Thalia in a satisfied manner as they all took a series of deep breaths. “Seems like an eternity.”
Larya and Josei’s ears were taut, flicking around as they listened out for lurking danger.
“Don’t tell me,” she teased. “You’ve got the claustrophobia bug from the journey here and you can’t wait to get out there exploring.”
“Not so much me with the bug and yes, I can’t wait,” Artem replied with a grin that was all boy and not man.
“Larya more than you. I’m not surprised. The journey to Tak from Rybak affected the Lind more than it did us and although we have only been, what was it, a hundred and whatever days on board the Aikko? The days seemed as if they were all blending into each other and I’ve probably lost count.”
Artem nodded.
“One hundred and ninety-eight. It was still difficult. The confines of space travel are harder on them than it is on us. Perhaps we’ll get to stay here a good, long time. To be perfectly honest Thalia, if the strangers aren’t here I’d be more than happy to.”
“Not a chance Artem and you know it. They’re here. The exact here is what we’ve to find out.”
His lopsided grin was rueful. It resembled one that Mikey might have made after being denied a favourite treat.
They began making their way further into the foliage towards the area Ryzcka Vandiel, using the maps Susa Raknu had provided, had tentatively earmarked as the place they would make their headquarters. They rode with gauntleted hands on sword-hilts, ready for anything.
The Lind and the Larg found it comparatively easy to weave their bodies in and out of the foliage even though they were carrying some of the bulky supply packs but Belu soon began to complain. He was too big and too tall.
At last the Brai decided he had taken enough and called a halt.
“This is impossible,” he told Vandiel as he thrust aside yet another head-height branch of foliage. “I’m going to damage my wings permanently if I have to push through much more of this.” It was an exaggeration but Belu wanted to make sure he got his point across. He really wasn’t enjoying himself.
“Indeed,” Artem commented, looking back and wincing as yet another of the springy high branches hit Belu in t
he face. “What good are wings if one cannot fly?”
He called over to Vandiel.
“The Lind have sensed nothing in the vicinity. Perhaps he should fly above us. He’ll be ably to spy out the land much easier than we can.”
“That they have not been sensed does not mean that they are not here.”
“We’ll have to chance it. If Belu gets injured and can’t fly …” He left the rest unsaid but Vandiel got the point immediately. He gave Belu a terse nod.
“I go,” announced Belu, dropping the packs he was carrying before Vandiel could change his mind.
A few heartbeats later and they could all hear him struggling back the way they had come as he went to find a sufficiently clear space from which to take off.
: I hope he’ll be all right : Thalia worried as Josei began walking again.
: He wears nothing to indicate he is more than a large, native flyer of some kind : Josei answered with equanimity : Did you not notice? I did : he sounded smug : He took off all his metal things :
: Which one of us will have to pick up :
: Are you volunteering? :
The sun was setting and the ground beginning to rise underpaw and chela.
: Almost there : ‘said’ Josei, picking up speed : and its not as far from where the Aikko landed as I thought it would be either :
The climb continued.
: Iya and Larya! : Ail and Artem were riding point : They say that they are at the place. It has shelter and fresh water :
“Thank the Lai!” said Thalia aloud.
“And Belu is waiting! He arrived, has had a sleep and has been exploring.”
“Sleep,” exclaimed Thalia. “I wonder how long it will be before we get any.”
It was dark before the last of the tired but triumphant Lind (and Jvldr the Larg) arrived back at the dom laden with the last of the supplies.
Thalia was keeping a weather eye on the heat-pack rations (they had a tendency to overheat and thus burn their contents to the point of inedibility) and watched them come in.