The Trilisk Ruins (8 page)

The loading ramp was extended from the
belly of the ship, and everyone sauntered out onto the forest
floor, absorbing the alien forest scenery. The plant life looked
spiny, like species in arid areas on Earth, but they grew in a
jungle-like density. They saw a wide variety of plants but only a
few creatures. The animals appeared to be crabs or snails that
moved slowly through the trees. The ship had cleared a small area
of the forest, felling trees and blackening a spot in the lush
green wilderness.

“
Wow, look at that,” Thomas
said and pointed.

Telisa looked into the forest where he
indicated. She saw that a thickset tree with a bare trunk and a
wide, spiky crown supported an identical tree on top of it. The
roots of the piggybacking tree intertwined with the crown of its
supporter.

“
There are several of them
doing that,” Magnus said. “They must be getting some kind of
competitive advantage.”

“
Maybe the crown collects
water. It’s very wide,” Telisa said. “The tree on top sends water
down to its own roots, and the extra heads down to the tree below
it. They deprive water from those below.”

“
Or maybe the top one even
helps feed the one supporting it, who knows?” Thomas said. “The
supported ones probably get more sunlight.”

Jack nodded. “Well, if you’re this
fascinated by the damn trees, I can’t wait to see you guys when we
find the ruins.”

“
They won’t spot this mess
from orbit?” Telisa asked, looking back at the damage their landing
had caused.

“
Got it covered,” Thomas
said. “Looks the same from down here, but I have us cloaked from
above. Our equipment should fool any but the most sophisticated
sensors. If they don’t have a scouting vessel in orbit, we should
be hidden for now. Well, unless some scientist just happens to have
a specialized satellite for some experiment that can notice an
anomaly.”

Telisa didn’t comment on that.
Apparently there were risks everywhere that she hadn’t realized
they would have to be taking. It must be part of the routine for an
interplanetary artifact smuggler. She looked around the landing
site again, wondering if there were predators out there. She hoped
the noise and destruction of the landing had scared any bigger
creatures away.

The group moved into the forest. Telisa
looked over her shoulder at the ship before the view became blocked
by vegetation. The fat ovoid shape had settled just below the
surrounding treetops. She wondered if it would still be there when
they got back. What would happen if they became marooned on the
planet? Would they be able to survive? Would it be worth living in
such a desolate place? She checked her link and realized the nearby
ship and her companions’ link chips were the only devices
broadcasting services here. The planet was truly empty
wilderness.

Thomas indicated the direction and then
Magnus took the lead. Telisa asked for a link from Thomas and got
it. Now she could see a map of the surrounding landscape in her
mind’s eye, with the destination clearly marked. They fell into a
line behind Magnus with Telisa in the rear.

“
Stay alert,” Magnus said
over his link. “The flora and fauna are largely unknown. If we get
in over our heads there won’t be anyone to save us.”

Telisa acknowledged the message and dug
out her stunner. She attached it to the webbing on her belt.
Normally the webbing held onto the stunner firmly, but if she
touched the weapon with her hand, it weakened so that she could
tear the stunner away easily. Then the separated fibers would
intertwine again as good as new. She scanned the surrounding
vegetation, searching for anything that might be
dangerous.

Looking at the native trees made Telisa
itch. Their trunks were covered in so many tiny spines they almost
looked hairy. The spiny leaves added to their greenish shaggy
appearance. She saw now that most of the spines were soft,
liquid-filled leaves, but a few of the plants did have truly sharp
spikes like a cactus. She saw three more of the piggybacking trees,
this time arranged with two specimens leaning together on the
bottom to support another on their heads.

The spines didn’t seem to inhibit the
native lifeforms’ ability to make their homes in the trees. Telisa
saw a large variety of mollusk-like creatures climbing around. Many
sported extra protection of some sort, mostly flat plates of armor
or complete spherical shells. Telisa got a good look at one hanging
from a nearby limb. The creature was a round ball with holes placed
randomly around it, from which tiny green legs poked out and
retracted as needed. Telisa committed some images of the trees and
the creatures to her link memory.

The hike continued. When Telisa began
to sweat she opened the vents in her camo suit. Her every stride
pumped air over her torso and sent it down to vents at her feet.
Despite the added cooling, she felt the strain of walking on the
uneven ground, pushing through the heavy foliage.

The hours went by quickly while Telisa
occupied herself with making her way through the alien ecosphere.
She saw several more odd local creatures but nothing larger than a
small dog. They broke for a light lunch at midday, with the alien
sun blazing down directly overhead. The trees afforded some
protection, their spines blocking a great deal of the light. Still,
the humid forest seemed like the inside of an oven during the
middle of the day. Telisa drank a lot of water. She wondered if
they should have taken the trip during the night, but the thought
of trying to make their way in the darkness with all sorts of odd
creatures creeping about was not pleasant either.

As soon as they had eaten and rested
for half an hour, they returned to the trek with a vengeance.
Telisa had time to think about how close she really was to
discovering new Trilisk artifacts. At one time the Trilisks had
actually lived upon this planet and created installations or even
cities. A race more advanced than mankind, yet strangely absent
from the current galactic stage. What had happened to them? What
could have possibly caused their civilization to be destroyed?
These questions and more drove her forward.

They forged on for several more hours.
Telisa was glad she had been working out regularly, even if the
exercise was quite different. She wondered how long Thomas and Jack
could continue this level of exertion, although she figured Magnus
could probably outlast them all. Her questions were answered when
Jack spoke up.

“
Okay, let’s take another
break,” Jack said. “This hiking is killing me.”

Telisa was exhausted. The sun was no
longer visible above them, although the light level told her that
it hadn’t set.

“
Are we there yet?” asked
Telisa, smiling at her delivery of the classic question.

Thomas frowned. “Actually we’re barely
halfway. I underestimated the speed we could make out here. I
suppose we should find a spot to hole up while it’s still
light.”

Magnus nodded. “We could sleep in the
trees.”

“
That would be safer on
Earth,” said Jack. “Here, who knows? Maybe the trees are more
dangerous than the ground.”

“
The ground should be okay,
unless this planet has some particularly nasty nocturnal
predators,” Magnus said. “Unfortunately, we can’t use a campfire
without risking detection.”

“
How about over there?”
Telisa suggested, pointing to a slight rise in the terrain. They
moved over to the area she had indicated and set their packs on the
ground so they could prepare the makeshift camp.

Everyone arranged their tiny one-person
sleeping tubes in a circle with the zippered entrances facing
inward towards each other. Magnus and Telisa gathered a bunch of
arm-length needles that had fallen from nearby trees and arranged
them facing outward around the area for defense.

Telisa looked at the failing light
filtering through the trees. “Only a minute or two to spare, I’d
say.”

“
Yes, just in time,” Jack
agreed. “Should we have someone awake all the time? Take shifts
staying awake?”

“
If anything comes around, I
think we’ll hear it,” Magnus said, looking at the camp perimeter.
“I think setting watches at this point would be overly paranoid. We
have the spines, the tents, and a fair amount of
firepower.”

They each crawled into their sleeping
modules and sought sleep. Telisa opened a vent to let fresh air in
and then sprawled out, resting her aching muscles. She fell asleep
quickly.

At some point later, Telisa bolted
instantly awake. Something was wrong. She listened for a moment and
realized that something moved towards their camp, breaking branches
and rustling in the leaves of the forest floor. She sat upright,
reaching for her pack. She brought out her stunner and unzipped the
opening of her tiny sleeping tube.

Magnus stood in the center of their
little clearing, holding a flashlight pointed out into the forest.
His slug thrower was level with the ground, the barrel pointed out
into the darkness towards the noises. Jack and Thomas seemed
content to watch from their tent flaps. Telisa scrambled to find
her own flashlight. The noises outside were getting closer. She
forced herself to calm and found the light.

Telisa clambered out of her tube and
stood to Magnus’s right, clutching her stunner. She added her light
to Magnus’s and saw some kind of bluish tentacle waving through the
brush at the height of her chest. She took a deep breath and forced
herself not to shoot.

The thing pushed aside Magnus’s
sleeping tube with another blue tentacle. A huge shell pushed
through the spiny branches, revealing the rest of the creature. It
had spiny legs and about a dozen tentacles. It moved slowly out
into the clearing, its tentacles wavering as it searched for the
next shrub.

Suddenly Magnus yelled maniacally and
kicked the ground in front of him, sending a bit of forest floor
debris flying at the creature. The thing flinched away, moving in
slow motion, and then it altered its course. It pushed its way
though the spines on the perimeter and crawled away.

Everyone let their tension drop. Then
Thomas started to laugh. The laughter spread. Even Magnus started
to chuckle.

“
Well, I guess we showed
it,” Thomas said. “That’ll teach it to disturb us.”

“
I don’t think I can go back
to sleep after that,” Telisa said.

Magnus nodded. “I probably can’t
either, but I don’t want to try and walk in the dark. Let’s just
try our best.”

Telisa crawled back into her tent. She
could still hear the giant shelled thing moving away through the
brush. She tried to go back to sleep. She tossed and turned for a
while. Her legs itched. Telisa scratched, then she felt a small
bump on her leg. She dug out the flashlight and examined herself in
the tent. Her legs were covered in welts. Some of them had tiny
splinters in them.

She picked at the wounds for a short
while, convincing herself that they were nothing but a minor
irritation. Apparently some of the plant’s spines were able to
penetrate the chameleon suit. By this time Telisa became groggy
again, and she turned off the flashlight and went back to
sleep.

In the morning they repacked everything
and moved out about fifteen minutes after sunrise. Telisa’s legs
were stiff, and walking sent shooting pains through them for the
first few minutes. Her pain must have been minor compared to Jack
and Thomas, who were complaining loudly.

“
Oh, my legs! They’re gonna
fall off!” Thomas groaned.

“
Mine too. And be careful,
some of these spines can go through our suits,” Jack
said.

“
Yes, my legs are full of
them,” Telisa agreed.

Thomas nodded. “Me too,” he
said.

“
How bad is it? Do you feel
sick?” Magnus asked.

“
They just seem like
splinters I got on Earth,” Telisa said. “What, you didn’t even get
one?”

Magnus shook his head. “Momma
Veer...”

“
Argh! I should have
known.”

Not only did he seem unaffected by
yesterday’s hike, but he had been spared the needling as well.
Telisa shook her head. Somehow none of it surprised her. In the
short time since she had met him, he had given her the impression
of invulnerability. It wasn’t the kind of bragging,
pretend-out-loud sort of toughness, but a quiet, understated
acceptance of the world’s problems without slowing down. Telisa
found herself attracted by it, but she put those thoughts aside
again. There were the artifacts and getting back
alive...

They spent more hours moving through
the forest as in the previous day. Telisa tried to stay alert
through it all, even though the constant scanning became tedious as
they moved through the forest. She challenged herself to spot as
many of the local creatures as she could. Sometimes the things
would ignore the intruders, other times they flashed into their
shells, falling back onto a lower branch or even to the
ground.

For the first time Telisa found a
disastrous-looking arrangement of the trees that grew atop each
other. A single strong specimen drooped under the weight of two
piggybackers. It seemed that the behavior didn’t always work as
planned. Telisa wondered if somewhere, a chain of three or four of
them stacked on each other extended high above the surrounding
forest. At least until the whole arrangement came crashing down
like a house of cards.