![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fruzicleThis installment is the second to last episode in the series titled Martian Chronicles I have created for LJIdol. To start at the very beginning, please go to https://furzicle.livejournal.com to the January 8th posting. In reading the two posted for the March 12th deadline, please read "Vigilance" (Part VIII) before you read "Truce or Dare," (Part IX)
Like a floating spider lying in wait for a targeted insect, the PEV (planetary exploration vehicle) with Takeda and her crew hovered in silent readiness over the Martian cave. Even the craft’s SM silent mode couldn’t calm the hammering of the crew’s heartbeats or the thickening adrenaline coursing through every body in the cabin. After an emergency escape from a plasma attack from aliens in the cave, the earth colony humans had beat a hasty retreat 1500 meters above the cave opening.
“OK, MariLuz,” Takeda said quietly, “Take her up another 500 meters. We’ve been observing them for forty-five minutes. Nothing seems to be happening. I don’t want to become complacent, but there doesn’t seem to be an imminent attack.”
“Forty-five minutes?!” A startled Dax blurted. “It feels like we’ve been peering down our sights all night!”
“And we would have shot them,” wryly commented Travis. “It looks like I could have eaten one after all.”
“Don’t even start,” growled Dax. “That’s the only reason we got into this mess in the first place!”
“Now, now,” shushed General Takeda. Everybody keep an eye on the monitors in front of you, but all but one can put down your weapons. Fillip, you stay on that task for now. We’ve only got another half hour ‘til daybreak. Charlie, you and Travis can take a power nap as soon as you’ve reported what you guys saw down there.”
“Well, they certainly LOOKED like they were gearing up for an attack. I swear, hundreds of them were working in concert to load up their craft. They were refueling and onloading masses of containers.”
“It looked like everyone in the colony was working on it,” added Travis.
“Of course, how do we know?” posed Charlie. “Yes, there seemed to be hundreds, but it could have been only fifty or sixty. Don’t forget, we never have seen what’s beyond that landing craft they have down there. Maybe a lot of them were hiding farther back in the cave. For example, they must have room back there where they park that huge ship we met the first day.”
“Maybe that’s where those giant ant-like beings live,” threw in Fillip.
“And where and how do they make all their equipment? Remember the rail that went down the middle of the tunnel?” Linsa reminded them.
“Gosh, I sure would like to explore down there farther,” Dax lamented. “Thanks, Layfield,” he sniped.
Captain Travis Layfield started to make a suggestion, but then thought better of it when Dax gave him a dirty look. “Who are you to advise us?” he accused, “after that stunt you pulled.”
A pained look passed over Takeda’s face. “Corporal, please,” she said to Dax. “Remember your decorum.” She turned toward Layfield, “Please, I’m sure you still may have some valid observations. Please share your thoughts.” Turning to the others, she invited input. “After Travis, I’d like to hear from the rest of you.”
Layfield spoke up again, “Well, I’m assuming they are more advanced than us since they have actually made the interstellar leap from their solar system around Alpha Centauri to ours. Heck, we’ve only made it as far as the first planet next to Earth in our solar system. Since they’re so advanced, I would guess that their equipment is similarly more sophisticated than ours.”
Everyone nodded. ”Good observation, Travis,” commented Takeda. “What else?”
“But you know how old technology becomes unusable as it becomes obsolete, you know, when everybody moves on to have the latest thing, next thing you know, nobody still has the equipment to retrieve any information from the older stuff. How many of you can still get anything from those DVD players from two hundred years ago?” Travis looked around the cabin at his nodding crewmates. “I have a theory. I think we may be able to sneak in by ‘flying under the radar.’ We don’t know what technology they’re using to watch us. Just like when we hiked in on foot, I don’t think their hi-tech equipment was set for such primitive techniques.”
“On the other hand,” pointed out Linsa, “what CAN they see? Can they spot warm-blooded bodies? Do they even know about being warm-blooded? Can they identify things out here from inside their cave that are metallic? Or moving objects that they can’t physically see?”
“Maybe they have advanced uber-radar technology that knows we’re here,” threw out someone.
“Or maybe they don’t,” retorted someone else. More theories, hare-brained and not were bandied about.
“Psst, hey. The ants are out,” alerted Fillip. “They’re back to moving rocks.”
“Now here’s a question. Do you think they can see us? Or hear us?” Dax queried the group.
Fillip answered. “Well, earth ants do not hear. They do feel for vibrations. I wonder if our PEV is truly silent enough to muffle any vibrations we are causing. And while they can’t discern detail, their compound eyes should be capable of detecting motion. Entomology 101,” he sheepishly added.
“That is if they even are like earth ants,” added Linsa. “Notice those big guys down there actually have eight legs. That’s certainly not going to get them a membership in the insecta class of animals. And they don’t look like any arachnids I’ve ever seen. Plus, they appear to be cave dwellers. Doesn’t that usually lead to an evolution toward sightless existence?”
“Hey, somebody zoom in on them!” urged Fillip. “They seem to be building patterns!”
As the crew peered down through viewing bays and mega-scopes, they watched the giant ant-creatures rearrange the boulders down below them. While at first, they all assumed that the pikas had their slaves doing some basic road work, after twenty minutes, it was obvious that the ants had a more specific sculpture in mind.
“Look! They’ve created a long row of really big rocks,” called out Charlie with excitement. I see one huge boulder and then, hmmm, one, two, three…eight smaller boulders. And there is a broad scattering of smaller rocks between the fourth and the fifth boulder.”
“How strange,” remarked Fillip. “What do you suppose they have in mind? Of course, we must remember that the pikas claimed the ants couldn’t think. So what is it the pikas have directed them to show?”
“Hey, look, now they’ve built three more large boulders a little off to the south. Oh, and a smaller one kind of near the first big boulder of that set.” Linsa was intrigued.
Everyone was enraptured even while they were mystified. For several minutes, they all stared without understanding.
“I get it!” called out Layfield in a quiet, but excited voice.
“What? What?”
“It’s our solar system, all the way out to Neptune, and including the asteroid belt. The three big piles on the south? Those are the suns of the Alpha Centauri system and one planet, presumably theirs. Astronomy 101,” he tossed out with a smile toward Fillip.
“The real question is, did they include Pluto?” joked Layfield.
“But what are they trying to say?” asked MariLuz from the cockpit.
Takeda responded, “Considering they have depicted both their solar system as well as ours, it appears they want to communicate with us.”
“Considering the animosity they sent us off with, I’m a little hesitant to rush back into their arms,” Charlie said in measured tones. “But it is curious.”
“I guess that answers the question of whether they know we’re here,” remarked Linsa ominously.
“Indeed,” replied Takeda. “Let’s watch for awhile. MariLuz, let’s hold our pattern for another forty-five minutes.”
“Whoa!” whistled Fillip. “Take a look at that.”
Everyone peered a little more closely at the opening of the Martian cave. Magnification on the uber-scope was set to max. To everyone’s shock, a pika had emerged from the cave and was strolling around. It peered up to the sky toward their exact location. However, it did little else. After about twenty minutes, it disappeared back inside the cave.
“Should we be leaving a message for them?” asked Dax. “Though how would we even do that? Spew out three puffs of white smoke? How would they interpret that? And what is it we would even try to tell them? ‘We’re sorry?’”
During the quiet observation time, Charlie had dozed off. He was awakened abruptly when a familiar high-pitched voice suddenly filled the space within their craft.
“We see you have not initiated further attacks on our citizens,” said the high-pitched pika voice in perfectly understandable English.
“It’s them! It’s the pikas again!” Fillip announced wide-eyed to the crew, though all of them were staring bug-eyed at each other with the surprising contact.
Takeda responded to her crew, “I do believe that one pika risked its life to stand as bait for our attack. When it didn’t come, they seemed to want to give us another chance.
“I’m going to make a proposal. Is there anyone here who is willing to make a matching gesture. Someone who would to go down and be available for further talks. You would be vulnerable. You would be demonstrating that we, too, are willing to take risks in order to continue this interstellar communication. Of course, this will be voluntary for whoever steps forward.”
Travis, whose rear end still felt the sting of a second-degree burn from the heat of the plasma blast, was cautious. “I don’t know,” he warned. It could be a trick.”
The others looked balefully at each other, soaking this in.
Dax thought over how upset he was when Layfield had kidnapped the pika. When he thought about the potential risk of stepping into a set-up, he reminded himself of how, ever since his girlfriend Kaia had died on the previous mission, his life just hadn’t had the joy it used to. He didn’t feel he was ready to die, but on the other hand, Kaia had made the ultimate sacrifice. In the interest of interstellar peace, he was willing to take the ultimate risk. “I’ll go,” he volunteered.
“Are you sure?” asked General Takeda.
Dax nodded.
As the crew helped Dax step into the extra-vehicular EV suit, Takeda peppered him with advice and instructions. Charlie and the others freely added reminders. As they lowered the space helmet into its micro-grooved setting over his head, Takeda asked again, “Are you sure you’re sure?”
Finally, when she assisted in attaching the jetpack super-structure to its mountings on the back of Dax’s EV suit, she asked one more time, “Really sure, Dax?”
All the crew gave Dax solemn wishes for good luck with the flight down, as well as the interaction with the Alpha Centaurians. Before he stepped into the airlock, all his crewmates began saying, “Thank you for your service.”
Then, as he took the last step before the pneumatic doors closed, General Takeda asked him one more time, “Are you really sure? There’s still time to back out.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied. He saluted her and his crewmates. They saluted back. Then Takeda broke protocol and stepped forward to give his bulky body a hug.
“Take care,” she said.
Dax thought he should have something more profound to say, but all he could get out was, “Yes ma’am.”
The pneumatic doors silently slid shut. Dax was all alone in the air-lock. He had just a moment to reflect first upon the risk he was subjecting himself to, and then upon everything that his colony had been working on for years to establish this remote Martian outpost.
Suddenly he felt, rather than heard, the hum of air being sucked out of the compartment. Distracted momentarily, he was just a tad startled to find himself dropping like a rock toward the surface of Mars.
Am I really ready? pondered Dax. He watched the rocky Martian soil zooming up to meet him.
Well, too late now. He toggled a switch to activate the rocket pack. He stretched out his arms Superman-like and made a wide curve toward Interstellar Peace.
What would happen next?
Martian Chronicles Part VIII
Vigilance
Vigilance
Like a floating spider lying in wait for a targeted insect, the PEV (planetary exploration vehicle) with Takeda and her crew hovered in silent readiness over the Martian cave. Even the craft’s SM silent mode couldn’t calm the hammering of the crew’s heartbeats or the thickening adrenaline coursing through every body in the cabin. After an emergency escape from a plasma attack from aliens in the cave, the earth colony humans had beat a hasty retreat 1500 meters above the cave opening.
“OK, MariLuz,” Takeda said quietly, “Take her up another 500 meters. We’ve been observing them for forty-five minutes. Nothing seems to be happening. I don’t want to become complacent, but there doesn’t seem to be an imminent attack.”
“Forty-five minutes?!” A startled Dax blurted. “It feels like we’ve been peering down our sights all night!”
“And we would have shot them,” wryly commented Travis. “It looks like I could have eaten one after all.”
“Don’t even start,” growled Dax. “That’s the only reason we got into this mess in the first place!”
“Now, now,” shushed General Takeda. Everybody keep an eye on the monitors in front of you, but all but one can put down your weapons. Fillip, you stay on that task for now. We’ve only got another half hour ‘til daybreak. Charlie, you and Travis can take a power nap as soon as you’ve reported what you guys saw down there.”
“Well, they certainly LOOKED like they were gearing up for an attack. I swear, hundreds of them were working in concert to load up their craft. They were refueling and onloading masses of containers.”
“It looked like everyone in the colony was working on it,” added Travis.
“Of course, how do we know?” posed Charlie. “Yes, there seemed to be hundreds, but it could have been only fifty or sixty. Don’t forget, we never have seen what’s beyond that landing craft they have down there. Maybe a lot of them were hiding farther back in the cave. For example, they must have room back there where they park that huge ship we met the first day.”
“Maybe that’s where those giant ant-like beings live,” threw in Fillip.
“And where and how do they make all their equipment? Remember the rail that went down the middle of the tunnel?” Linsa reminded them.
“Gosh, I sure would like to explore down there farther,” Dax lamented. “Thanks, Layfield,” he sniped.
Captain Travis Layfield started to make a suggestion, but then thought better of it when Dax gave him a dirty look. “Who are you to advise us?” he accused, “after that stunt you pulled.”
A pained look passed over Takeda’s face. “Corporal, please,” she said to Dax. “Remember your decorum.” She turned toward Layfield, “Please, I’m sure you still may have some valid observations. Please share your thoughts.” Turning to the others, she invited input. “After Travis, I’d like to hear from the rest of you.”
Layfield spoke up again, “Well, I’m assuming they are more advanced than us since they have actually made the interstellar leap from their solar system around Alpha Centauri to ours. Heck, we’ve only made it as far as the first planet next to Earth in our solar system. Since they’re so advanced, I would guess that their equipment is similarly more sophisticated than ours.”
Everyone nodded. ”Good observation, Travis,” commented Takeda. “What else?”
“But you know how old technology becomes unusable as it becomes obsolete, you know, when everybody moves on to have the latest thing, next thing you know, nobody still has the equipment to retrieve any information from the older stuff. How many of you can still get anything from those DVD players from two hundred years ago?” Travis looked around the cabin at his nodding crewmates. “I have a theory. I think we may be able to sneak in by ‘flying under the radar.’ We don’t know what technology they’re using to watch us. Just like when we hiked in on foot, I don’t think their hi-tech equipment was set for such primitive techniques.”
“On the other hand,” pointed out Linsa, “what CAN they see? Can they spot warm-blooded bodies? Do they even know about being warm-blooded? Can they identify things out here from inside their cave that are metallic? Or moving objects that they can’t physically see?”
“Maybe they have advanced uber-radar technology that knows we’re here,” threw out someone.
“Or maybe they don’t,” retorted someone else. More theories, hare-brained and not were bandied about.
“Psst, hey. The ants are out,” alerted Fillip. “They’re back to moving rocks.”
“Now here’s a question. Do you think they can see us? Or hear us?” Dax queried the group.
Fillip answered. “Well, earth ants do not hear. They do feel for vibrations. I wonder if our PEV is truly silent enough to muffle any vibrations we are causing. And while they can’t discern detail, their compound eyes should be capable of detecting motion. Entomology 101,” he sheepishly added.
“That is if they even are like earth ants,” added Linsa. “Notice those big guys down there actually have eight legs. That’s certainly not going to get them a membership in the insecta class of animals. And they don’t look like any arachnids I’ve ever seen. Plus, they appear to be cave dwellers. Doesn’t that usually lead to an evolution toward sightless existence?”
“Hey, somebody zoom in on them!” urged Fillip. “They seem to be building patterns!”
As the crew peered down through viewing bays and mega-scopes, they watched the giant ant-creatures rearrange the boulders down below them. While at first, they all assumed that the pikas had their slaves doing some basic road work, after twenty minutes, it was obvious that the ants had a more specific sculpture in mind.
“Look! They’ve created a long row of really big rocks,” called out Charlie with excitement. I see one huge boulder and then, hmmm, one, two, three…eight smaller boulders. And there is a broad scattering of smaller rocks between the fourth and the fifth boulder.”
“How strange,” remarked Fillip. “What do you suppose they have in mind? Of course, we must remember that the pikas claimed the ants couldn’t think. So what is it the pikas have directed them to show?”
“Hey, look, now they’ve built three more large boulders a little off to the south. Oh, and a smaller one kind of near the first big boulder of that set.” Linsa was intrigued.
Everyone was enraptured even while they were mystified. For several minutes, they all stared without understanding.
“I get it!” called out Layfield in a quiet, but excited voice.
“What? What?”
“It’s our solar system, all the way out to Neptune, and including the asteroid belt. The three big piles on the south? Those are the suns of the Alpha Centauri system and one planet, presumably theirs. Astronomy 101,” he tossed out with a smile toward Fillip.
“The real question is, did they include Pluto?” joked Layfield.
“But what are they trying to say?” asked MariLuz from the cockpit.
Takeda responded, “Considering they have depicted both their solar system as well as ours, it appears they want to communicate with us.”
“Considering the animosity they sent us off with, I’m a little hesitant to rush back into their arms,” Charlie said in measured tones. “But it is curious.”
“I guess that answers the question of whether they know we’re here,” remarked Linsa ominously.
“Indeed,” replied Takeda. “Let’s watch for awhile. MariLuz, let’s hold our pattern for another forty-five minutes.”
“Whoa!” whistled Fillip. “Take a look at that.”
Everyone peered a little more closely at the opening of the Martian cave. Magnification on the uber-scope was set to max. To everyone’s shock, a pika had emerged from the cave and was strolling around. It peered up to the sky toward their exact location. However, it did little else. After about twenty minutes, it disappeared back inside the cave.
“Should we be leaving a message for them?” asked Dax. “Though how would we even do that? Spew out three puffs of white smoke? How would they interpret that? And what is it we would even try to tell them? ‘We’re sorry?’”
During the quiet observation time, Charlie had dozed off. He was awakened abruptly when a familiar high-pitched voice suddenly filled the space within their craft.
“We see you have not initiated further attacks on our citizens,” said the high-pitched pika voice in perfectly understandable English.
“It’s them! It’s the pikas again!” Fillip announced wide-eyed to the crew, though all of them were staring bug-eyed at each other with the surprising contact.
Takeda responded to her crew, “I do believe that one pika risked its life to stand as bait for our attack. When it didn’t come, they seemed to want to give us another chance.
“I’m going to make a proposal. Is there anyone here who is willing to make a matching gesture. Someone who would to go down and be available for further talks. You would be vulnerable. You would be demonstrating that we, too, are willing to take risks in order to continue this interstellar communication. Of course, this will be voluntary for whoever steps forward.”
Travis, whose rear end still felt the sting of a second-degree burn from the heat of the plasma blast, was cautious. “I don’t know,” he warned. It could be a trick.”
The others looked balefully at each other, soaking this in.
Dax thought over how upset he was when Layfield had kidnapped the pika. When he thought about the potential risk of stepping into a set-up, he reminded himself of how, ever since his girlfriend Kaia had died on the previous mission, his life just hadn’t had the joy it used to. He didn’t feel he was ready to die, but on the other hand, Kaia had made the ultimate sacrifice. In the interest of interstellar peace, he was willing to take the ultimate risk. “I’ll go,” he volunteered.
“Are you sure?” asked General Takeda.
Dax nodded.
As the crew helped Dax step into the extra-vehicular EV suit, Takeda peppered him with advice and instructions. Charlie and the others freely added reminders. As they lowered the space helmet into its micro-grooved setting over his head, Takeda asked again, “Are you sure you’re sure?”
Finally, when she assisted in attaching the jetpack super-structure to its mountings on the back of Dax’s EV suit, she asked one more time, “Really sure, Dax?”
All the crew gave Dax solemn wishes for good luck with the flight down, as well as the interaction with the Alpha Centaurians. Before he stepped into the airlock, all his crewmates began saying, “Thank you for your service.”
Then, as he took the last step before the pneumatic doors closed, General Takeda asked him one more time, “Are you really sure? There’s still time to back out.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied. He saluted her and his crewmates. They saluted back. Then Takeda broke protocol and stepped forward to give his bulky body a hug.
“Take care,” she said.
Dax thought he should have something more profound to say, but all he could get out was, “Yes ma’am.”
The pneumatic doors silently slid shut. Dax was all alone in the air-lock. He had just a moment to reflect first upon the risk he was subjecting himself to, and then upon everything that his colony had been working on for years to establish this remote Martian outpost.
Suddenly he felt, rather than heard, the hum of air being sucked out of the compartment. Distracted momentarily, he was just a tad startled to find himself dropping like a rock toward the surface of Mars.
Am I really ready? pondered Dax. He watched the rocky Martian soil zooming up to meet him.
Well, too late now. He toggled a switch to activate the rocket pack. He stretched out his arms Superman-like and made a wide curve toward Interstellar Peace.
What would happen next?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2019-03-15 06:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-16 01:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-16 04:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-16 11:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-16 03:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-16 05:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-16 08:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-03-16 09:32 pm (UTC)