Mission: Harbeasts of Mars Read online

  Really? I wished I hadn't asked. I was getting ready to say something and thought better of it. I didn't really want to continue this line of conversation. He suddenly shuttered and went into a fit of convulsions. He cried out suddenly as if in pain. All of this only served to put my already frayed nerves even further on edge. Even though I'd found him cryptic before, I sensed that Furat was different now. The first time I'd met him, he was enshrouded in a quiet menace. Not so this time. He'd gone through some sort of mental transformation. I lay down and watched him through the corner of my eye. My captor, for that's how I now saw him, seemed as mad as a March hare.

  “You seem. . .different,” he said out of the blue after what seemed like hours of silence, echoing my own thoughts of him.

  “What do you mean?” I muttered.

  “I don't know what it is, but you seem different from when I last met you, Robert of Earth.” After he said this he turned around and took out a large lasergun and placed it at his side. Far in the distance, somewhere we could hear the long, baleful wail of a harbeast.

  “Go to sleep, Robert. I will stand guard over the camp,” he said quietly and hoisted his gun over his shoulder and climbed out of the crater. This last declaration did not give me any sort of confidence that I would be alive the next morning. I would either be eaten alive by the harbeasts or attacked by my captor.

  Unfortunately, my body would not allow me to stay awake and remain vigilant and I fought sleep all the way down to the moment my exhausted eyes finally dropped closed.

  . . .

  I woke right before dawn with a start so violent that it induced a headache. I heard the echo of laser fire. Furat was shooting far into the distance at the harbeasts, keeping them just at bay, away from the camp. I wondered in anguish how far this would go before something in this pitiful situation caved. My throat was now crying out for water. I felt so hungry and thirsty that every sense, every nerve and tissue in my body seemed on fire and ready to rebel against me. Furat, fully awake came back down into the crater to stand over me, a wild look in his eyes. He briefly started to shake and shudder again and I could see that whatever he was going through, it was causing him great pain.

  “What's the matter with you?” I asked, nearly as wired as he was from fear, adrenaline and the confusion of only just waking.

  “I. . .need. . .to. . .eat.”

  “Surely you have some rations-”

  “Not food!” He snapped. I shrank back in a chilling realization. Somehow, I already knew what he meant. He took a wide step forward toward me. And his face darkened into a vicious snarl.

  “Do you want to get out of here alive?” He threatened. I nodded without uttering a sound. “then get up. It's time to go.” I wondered when he would eventually cave in and try to feed on me, or kill me. His eyes had a weird light in them when he glanced at me as we prepared to leave. I thought furiously on how I might have to use my useless guns as some other type of weapon.

  We gathered the glow sticks and the collapsible gate, packed them up and climbed onto his speeder bike and made our way north again. I wondered would we make it to a station before he succumbed to his predilection for human bone marrow. How he would extract it out here in the open air without hastening my death was a mystery to me. But perhaps it shouldn't have been. He would just kill me and strip me of all my bones, I would think, leaving a boneless carcass of flesh for the harbeasts to savor.

  As we rode along I looked back. I couldn't help but feel as if this place would be my graveyard. I knew at some point if I continued to involve myself in all this alien stuff that such a day might come. My real anguish was not necessarily for my own hide but for the loss of my wife and children. I wondered what they were thinking if they thought I'd died somewhere out here. Or worse, abandoned them. It seemed my fate was headed in a cold, desolate place, an empty hell.

  You've managed to stay alive so far! Quit the mournful death-talk! Just stay alive until you find a way out of this mess!

  After an hour of traveling, I noticed at some point that my helmet's readings were registering safe breathing air – proper oxygen levels for human life. We had entered a biosphere or environmental dome. I stared up at the sky and noticed the barely perceptible flicker and faint color tinge of the biosphere's surface barrier. Either we were getting very close to a station or we'd come upon some unknown city or major outpost. It was odd. It seemed to be a very large biosphere and I didn't see anything up ahead in the way of civilization. The effort of searching made me dizzy. I held tighter to the straps in my seat behind Furat. I was getting very weak. My mind was reeling with thirst and hunger, my body burning with the need for sustenance. And I thought ruefully that Furat was struggling with a hunger as well. I couldn't ignore that interesting fact, even in my own misery.

  Around a sharp column of rock ahead of us we turned around and there, in front of us was a small, nondescript building.

  “Station. Outpost Terra,” he said, with difficulty. With just a few small spaceships and a beat up looking road speeder parked outside, it looked nearly deserted to me. Around the back, I saw a ship stationed in the small loading bay with two aliens loading metal boxes into the ship.

  He brought the vehicle to a rumbling halt right outside the front entrance. I scrambled off and fell over. I got on all fours and then stood up slowly, panting.

  “Water,” I said. I couldn't form any other word. Furat unstrapped his oxygen tanks and mask and placed them in a lock box attached to the side of the speeder. He gave me an odd look at first and what followed was a sinister smile.

  “Come. There's plenty of water here. There is no use in you being dried up like bleached out bones.” His comment seemed ominous but I was so focused on my own parched throat and body that I let it go. I stumbled behind him into the building.

  Inside it looked more like a spacious and well-lit trailer. It could have done with a thorough cleaning though. There was a film of red dust on almost every surface. I'd noted that near the station was a large water generator and purification system with a reservoir connected to the station underground, from what I knew of these distant outposts. There were a few people here already, mostly aliens. I took my helmet off, panting like a dog. Sitting down at a table, my mind became clouded. I couldn't concentrate on anything other than my overpowering thirst for water. A tall, cold, slim metal canister of ice water was set in front of me, of which I promptly slurped noisily down. As I finished another was placed in front of me. I slurped this down as well. I also licked up the little droplets of water on the canister that slid to the table, ignoring the grit of dust between my teeth. When my thirst was slaked, I sat back, exhausted. Furat was watching me closely.

  “What? You've never seen someone who was thirsty before?” I said, feeling irritated that I was caught out, looking weak and desperate in front of him.

  “Need any more?” He asked. I shook my head at first and then midway through, I nodded.

  “Yes. More water,” I demanded. He got up and ordered another canister of water for me, a larger one this time and handed it to me. So, they order water here like one orders beer elsewhere. I grabbed it and drank it down until it was all gone.

  “Satisfied now?” He asked. I shot him a wary look. I detected something smug, even cruel in his voice. It was barely there and I'm not sure anyone else would have caught it. He seemed to find some kind of personal amusement in my discomfort. I couldn't understand why, given his own situation nor did I understand why he even bothered to help me. But I didn't ask. What I needed to do now was find a way to get my weapons powered up and working. Perhaps from here I no longer needed him. He could go his own way, and I, mine.

  “Thank you,” I muttered.

  “You're welcome,” he said with that disturbing smugness. I got up from the table and found my way to the front counter toward a towering, grizzled looking Miku female with tentacles curled up around what looked like sharp bones sticking out of her cheeks and she had numerous scars on her face. She looke
d like she'd been in one too many fights and had come out the loser in half of them. But she did cut an imposing figure. And she was keenly watching something on a large data pad that I was about to interrupt.

  “Excuse me.” She glanced sideways at me. “Is there a room where I can bunker down for the night here? And how much?”

  “Of course. Rooms are free unless you're staying longer than a night. Not much to look at though. Only an inflatable mattress in most rooms. You can take the one all the way down to the left at the top of the stair. One night only is free for wayfarers. Then you pay,” she gruffed, giving me a last, curious sidelong glance. I thanked her, heartily glad that I was going to get some proper sleep.

  “Eh. Ya,” she muttered dismissively, reaching for a row of old, slim key cards under the counter and cracking one of them down on the counter for me. She then went back to watching some kind of sport on a holoscreen generated from her data pad.

  I felt tired and ragged. But I was still alive. I dragged myself up the stair and to the room which turned out to be little bigger than a large closet. But it was good enough. There was at least a small window in the room. I ate several meal pellets, not satisfying in the least, but they kept my stomach from complaining, for the time being. I peered out the window. All around I saw tiny shrubberies, the greenery of hardy looking, cactus-like plants, earthly and alien. Above, high in the sky I saw the occasional ship fly by and below on the ground in the distance were rovers and tankers trundling through the area. After my initial surprise at seeing such wildlife blooming on Mars, and the pondering on this miracle afterward, I'd decided that I was pleased. A feeling of hope soon filled me. Transformations were happening not only among the humans and aliens living and working here but of the planet itself. I wondered what other creatures were living here out in the wild of the Martian landscape besides hungry harbeasts, mutant rodents and giant, disgusting spider creatures.

  I felt my body force a yawn out and I felt it shutting down, needing deep sleep. I threw my bag and weapons to the side of the inflatable mattress and locked the door. And then I checked the bed sheets. They were musty smelling and slightly dingy but at least they weren't filthy. I put my bag at the head of the mattress as a pillow, curled up and went to sleep.

  A disturbed, dreaming sleep.

  I felt warm and comfortable, floating as if encased in a cocoon. I heard something outside myself. A voice? Some strange, inaudible wail? I opened my eyes only to see the black expanse of space and a hole blacker than space approaching. Light from the stars orbiting this maw cascaded and flew off like vast mists down a great waterfall. Yet something was trying to come out, trying to escape from it. I heard the sound again. It was a voice. I turned slowly only to see Her, so bright with light it burned my retinas. My eyes bled as she pointed toward me.

  What? What do you want? My mind screamed. I instantly knew who She was. She merely pointed toward the darkness eating the light of the stars surrounding it. She pointed and smiled cruelly.

  “You could have joined with me and stopped this. But you chose to be a fool. Look! The doom of humanity is coming.”

  5

  The next morning I prayed silently for some minutes before rising. The dreams weren't letting up. They were becoming darker. And there was nothing I could do to make them go away, either.

  Furat possessed vague prophetic powers and he saw the doom of humanity as well. With a little too much glee for my taste.

  Once up and about, I didn't see Furat anywhere in the station. There were two other alien travelers who were studying an overlay map of the Olympus Mons area and the ill-tempered station manager, who seemed utterly disinterested in anything except her widescreen data pad. She gave me a quick, sharp look, presumably, to see if I was going to bother her for something. I had no wish to and said nothing to her, and she went back to her entertainments.

  I stepped outside and for the first time fresh Martian air greeted my lungs, or what passed for it under a large bio-dome. For once, I could appreciate it. I took deep breaths and exhaled slowly. The air was slightly humidified by the engineered plants growing in the desert under the dome. The miniscule dust particles and even what I thought I could sense were the faint and delectable scents of flowers gave me a comforting semblance of breathing the air on Earth. I was surprised at how warm it was here. But I was under a biosphere, where the extremes in Martian weather in a localized area under the dome could be somewhat blunted. This place was the farthest north I'd ever been. I imagined that had I traveled any farther and I would eventually see snow and ice.

  I relaxed and marveled at the arid beauty of the red desert contrasting with the tiny patches of green dotting the landscape. I walked, feeling the soft sand beneath my boots and luxuriating in it for the first time. I made a short trek to the reservoir and growing behind one of its great support columns I saw a large, purple cactus-like plant, about knee high. I even saw a tiny winged insect alight upon it and drink from one of its thick arms, full of liquid and gel. It smelled sweet and pleasant. I carefully touched one of its branch offshoots. As my hand came near it, it began to glow from inside an even deeper purple color. I backed away, wondering what it meant or whether it was poisonous to humans. It certainly wasn't an earthly species that I'd heard about. Or perhaps it possessed the genes of some earthly deep sea creature. It was possible. I heard someone hail me from behind. I turned to see a short, rotund, friendly looking man in a gray suit carrying a bag full of tools with a menagerie of tiny, ancient looking labor mechs, trailing behind him. I took it that he was employed around here.

  “That is a quayillera plant with some aloe genes spliced with it. Some classify it within the Aloe genus and others consider it to be a brand new species. It's both Earthly and Erautian.”

  “Really?” I asked fascinated. He smiled.

  “Yes. Quite beautiful, don't you think? There's a few more around here near the station and some farther out. That one is about ten years old which is why it's so large. It provides moisture to the dry desert air and they're also extremely hardy. Built tough and rarely need water. They generate much of their own moisture and light and can be an important source of moisture for anything living in the desert that needs it. I hear they're good for the soil too, though it'll probably be two or three generations before people can successfully farm out here.”

  “Do they generate heat?

  “Very, very little. The light coming from them is phosphorescent. A quality native to the Erautian quayill plant.”

  “What is the quayill plant?”

  “It's actually a genus from the family of succulent, flowering plants native to the major Erautian border savannahs on its two southern continents. But they can grow in tropical, desert and temperate regions. That's what I was told from an alien traveler passing through some years back. She said that she descended from a long line of shamans and herbalists before her latest ancestors took to the Mothership.”

  “That's fascinating. Where did it come from? Who plants the vegetation out here?”

  “Oh, they came from the North Lab, which is about a hundred miles from here. Although, in the past few years they haven't planted anything. Not sure why. What you see here and along the desert from Terra Station to the south were planted nearly a decade ago. Besides keeping the place working around here, I do my best to keep the plants healthy and watered when they need it, which is maybe once every three months. Like I said, they don't need much. I think these plants are helping to transform the sand into something akin to valuable soil.”

  “And you don't have to deal with pests?”

  “Not yet. Not enough critters out here.”

  “And I'm guessing the animals out here are. . .”

  “Yup. They come from the North Lab as well. Engineered, like the greenery, to live out here in the harsh Martian desert. I've seen some of the weirdest creatures out here too,” he said.

  “Have you ever run into a harbeast?” I asked. The man made an exclamation of fear.

&
nbsp; “Once. Nearly crapped my suit! I had a security mech working with me that scared it off with a canon laser gun. Learned my lesson that time. Don't go off too far out there without security or weapons with you. Usually though, they don't come near the stations. They don't like being around humans or Erautians if they can help it. A lot like wild animals on the home planet.”

  “Except when they're hungry. I've had my own run-ins with them.”

  “Well, I'm glad you lived to tell about it.”

  “Me too. Say, do you know where I can charge up my weapons?”

  “There's a small ammunition’s station where you can take care of that inside. It costs fifty Martian credits, or two hundred U.S. credits to use or buy anything there.” Hot damn! I had no money on me.

  “Seems a little steep,” I said casually.

  “That's because it is steep. I wouldn't trust the station manager as far as I could throw her. She's as crooked as a winding lane. Basically runs this station into the ground. Wrings every credit, drop of metal and any other thing of value she can get out of it. Without putting much back into it.” No kidding. I thought. The musty, dirty rooms and the bed sheets that could have used a good cleaning or replacing were a testament to that. I heard a beeping sound coming from a comlink device mounted on his side. He checked it.

  “Well, I need to move on. I've got a lot of stuff to finish up before work is done for the day. Take care, and uh,” he looked around quickly and lowered his voice a little which surprised me, “be a little careful. Folks that come here can be the unsavory sort. You seem like a good guy. It's best to keep to yourself around here.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” I said appreciatively and with that he went off, his flock of little mechanical helpers trailing and twittering after him.

  I watched the light traffic of trailers, speeders, and small ships come and go from the station from wayfarers like myself or those who had some type of business to conduct here, and then went back inside the station. I saw a fellow Suwudi wayfarer sitting at one of the tables nursing a drink and decided to greet him and ask him a question.