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August 11 1996This was writting by my wife Butercup, who happens to love doom and quake
August 11 1996This was writting by my wife Butercup, who happens to love doom and quake
Joshua looked stern. He spoke immediately and urgently. "We have picked up a distress beacon. We are very concerned it may be from a ship belonging to one of our kind." Although the Ahhsisi were fanatically obsessed with peace and charity, it extended only their own kind. "We are not familiar with this planet since none of the family have interests there. Sensors register an atmosphere suitable for humanoid kind, but the surface appears barren. We do not know how long this beacon has be broadcasting and we are picking up no life signs." He meant, of course, no Ahhsisi life signs, their sensors register no others. I knew not to speak, to ask, why I was called, but my implant began to itch. I'd learned long ago not to scratch. "In the event the bodies of our kind need to be retrieved, or the possessions of non-persons brought to safe keeping, we are sending you to assess the seriousness of the situation. The ship/surface pod you'll be sent in is equipped for survival, including weapons."
A look of exasperation passed over his face as he saw the obvious joy pass over mine... I would handle weapons again! The implant itched terribly, but I ignored it. "Yes, Yes," he struggled to regain a peaceful composure, "I suppose that is why the Keeper chose you. Your implant has not been always effective and would make it easier for you to adjust to having your Pax flow reduced... necessary only for the duration of your purpose on the surface. It may be necessary for you to protect the bodies of our kind, or my property..." He meant me or the non-person spoils I might find at the location of the beacon..."from harm. We do not know what non-persons may be down there."
"I must have passed out on entry into the atmosphere," Konrad thought to himself. Thinking more clearly now, he reached up and flipped the switch that would link his communications to the ship. There was only silence, no buzz of acknowledgment. "Hello? Hello?" he called out in the darkness of the pod. Only silence. Konrad reached for the handle, yanked, and felt hot, humid air rush into the pod from the crack in the port, nearly suffocating him. He doubted Joshua knew what he was talking about when he said the surface was suitable for humanoid life. In the light which accompanied the thick, damp planet air, Konrad could see the pod had been damaged. Whether on entry, or on landing, he didn't know, but felt an ancient emotion he had not felt since he had been bought by the Ahhsisi... anger. He leaned back in the straps and savored the feeling. Feeling the hate grow with the anger until he could take it no more and violently flung himself through the port, landing hard on the ground beside the pod.
Amazement quickly overwhelmed his anger as he stared around him. Inches from his foot the ground was burned, blacked by the light that shown on it. His eyes following the beam of light upwards, he covered his eyes from the pain caused by the intensity of the light. Konrad turned his head aside and blinked away the blindness. "Like trying to stare into the Hulavian sun..." he thought. Looking across the horizon he saw the sky was brown, the color of mud. He pulled himself to his feet and looked around, feeling alert and powerful without the large doses of Pax in his veins. "No..., it's not the sky... I'm in a cave... or something." But what a strange cave it was, since thick vegetation grew all around him. Towering trees, vines this way and that, bushes of huge leaves blocking all but his immediate surroundings from sight. There were so many strange colors to delight his senses after the austere ship of the Ahhsisi that he stepped from the side of the pod and walked into the lush flora, pushing the leaves aside as he wandered. It seemed an unceasing jungle until his hand brushed an unyielding surface. Tearing the vines aside, Konrad was confronted with a wall that seemed to reach all the way to the sky, though he could not tell for certain since the tree tops clustered overhead.
The wall was as solid as any in the ship, but was rough to the touch. It seemed to be glowing, as some light filtered though it like the plass cover on a lamp. He followed it, his hand ripping through brush and vine as he gripped the contours of the wall. After a while he looked up from the monotony of the ground where he was picking his path through the grasses and saw an area of bright light. As he neared, Konrad noticed the vegetation got thinner and thinner until at the source, what seemed to be an opening in the wall, there was not growth at all. He felt curiosity and was suddenly dazed by the feeling. It was another emotion Pax suppressed. It felt good, but drove him almost at a run toward the light. At the edge of the clearing he stopped. From his previous experience with the light from the hole his pod must have punched in the ceiling of this cave, Konrad knew he could not approach the light without some protection from it's severity. He pulled, with some difficulty, a broad leaf from one of the nearby bushes, and with his smallest finger, punched two eye-holes. He wrapped it around his face and tied the stem to tip, adjusting it so he could see. The heat, humidity and exertion had made his skin slick with sweat and the mask slid down his face as he walked toward the opening in the wall. Pushing it up for the third time, he peered outside from the safety of the shadow at the edge of the portal.
"Holy gods of Hulav and above!" he exclaimed, squinting against the light despite the mask. What he saw immediately was an open area like a forecourt of the apartments on the ship, but it was what was beyond that made him cry out. Mound after mound, hill after hill, to a horizon of white, bleach by the light of the sun. The barren surface Joshua spoke of was the outer world of what was hidden beneath, the lush forests he navigated! Konrad decided to return to the pod for more protection before exploring the burned exterior of this world... what fascination he felt... his own decisions! Once again in the shadow of the cave, for a bright as it was, it did not compare with the blinding light outside, Konrad follows his broken-branch path back to the pod.
With forethought, he cuts away the broken debris on his way back. He may need to take this route again, and as fast as the flora was likely to grow around here, the cutting would ensure he'd find the way again. Just as he nears the place were he first found the sky was a wall, he finds a tube which was hidden by the newly stripped grass. On the side was a panel. Sliding it aside, he catches a brief glimpse light before...
Konrad woke in great burning pain and scrabbled frantically away from the source. Still half dazed, he squints in to a tremendous bright light and realizes a hole has been cut in the wall. The exterior light is burning the trees and grasses wherever it shines... and had been burning him as he had lain there unconscious. Konrad hurries back to cutting his path, fearful of the forces that may have caused this breech in the planet's protective shield.
Reaching the pod, Konrad crawled inside to establish communication with the ship. The interior seemed dark after the blaze of the exterior light. Remembering the light that came out to the tube, he pulls it out and slides it open. The light shines to every corner of the pod. He feels a great immediate need to be at peace and fell into a stupor half in and half out, hanging over the rim of the port. How long he lay there he was not sure, but when he felt awake again, he hauled himself the rest of the way into the pod. Again the communications response was nil. This was a very bad thing, both because by not reporting in he was disobedient and because the only way to return the pod to the ship was by code activation in the bay on the ship. He needed contact to ask for the return code to be activated. Initiating the locator, he at least consoled himself it worked and he could find the ship he was sent to find. It might have functioning communications for his return to the ship. Hopeful, Konrad reviews the inventory of the supplies and weapons in the pod. Both were extensive.
Packing a travel pack, Konrad carefully surveys what he can take with him and what he must take with him on his journey to the lost ship. Carrying supplies to help him survive the interior and exterior of this world, he chooses his direction and sets out. The direction the locator sends him in is off by thirty degrees from the location of the opening he discovered earlier. Hopeful that he might find a new opening, he follows the locator's directions.
As the light from the walls begins to fade, Konrad considers camping for what seem to be an oncoming night. So far there have been no breezes, no sounds but his own progress and his panting breath. Konrad is resting against a tree, sucking on a hydropac, wondering if this might be a comfortable place to sleep when he thinks he hears a noise, a rustling in the leaves. He eases himself behind the tree away from the noise, "... what could this be..." before the thought is finished, the creature moves again. In concentration, Konrad peers into the growing darkness. He gropes in his bag for the light tube and slides it open...
However long later, it is still dark, Konrad awakens for a second time in the short period he has been on the planet. He springs to his feet, "... the creatures!...", but all is silent. The stench hits him next and, shining the still bright tube light around, he sees them, in charred, stinking bits around him. More than the violence of the carnage, Konrad was confused by his second memory lapse and that he may have played a role in what had happened.
Konrad eventually realizes that opening the tube light will cause the implant to either release a massive dose of Pax and deliver him into a stupor, or cut off the flow altogether and throw him into a beserker rage, since his body can't cope with the complete withdrawal of the drug after thriving on it for so many decades. After his implant's reaction to the tube light being opened, it simply is a light, without any further affect on him. It had totally debilitated him at the pod, but he power the condition produced at the wall was unparalleled, and had saved his life against the intent of the creatures. He'd seen only the aftermath, but shuddered to think what they were capable of whole. It was a twice edged weapon... one that he would keep.
After locating the lost ship, Konrad finds the owners to be "non-persons" like himself, all dead. There are eggs like elsewhere on the planet, but look as though they all hatched long ago. The non-persons' ship/surface pod does not require activation from an outside source and has its own navigational system... he can return to his master's ship under his own power. Other than additional weapons, there is nothing to salvage for Joshua's pleasure. Konrad is, however, no longer concerned with Joshua's pleasure. The lack of constant Pax dosing has opened a world of freedom to him which he intends to keep, but not trapped here. He can easily overwhelm the Ahhsisi, with their peacekeeping mentality, they will not be prepared for the violence his revenge will wreak upon them.
(when he gets there, he finds the ship dead and infested with eggs like the ones on the planet... another adventure begins)