CHAPTER 12

CLEAR WATER

Conservatory Chamber

John and Jing started off on a path that would take them to the centre of the chamber, keeping the elevator shaft behind them. The other teams would make their way along the edges. John looked around and saw a herd of animals grazing on a hill in front of them.

'Jing, look at that, I recognize those!' John said, pointing.

'What are they?' Jing asked, pulling out a small handheld tablet computer.

'Soci is what they're called, I believe. They come from the colony of St. Patrica.'

The pair walked to the base of the hill. One of the creatures stopped and stared at them. It was standing on four short legs with a short brown fur coat covering its body. It had an eye on either side of its wedge-shaped head. The top of the head tapered up in a single central horn that curved backwards. It had short ears, which it turned toward the pair.

'Don't make any sudden movements; we may spook it,' John said, his voice a whisper.

'How do you know what they are?' Jing whispered back.

'I had an Aunt that lived on St. Patrica. My parents dropped me off to spend a month with her when they went off to make a cargo run in dangerous space. The freighter fleet we were part of desperately needed repairs.'

'Did the run go all right?'

'Well enough I suppose. The fleet lost a ship due to system failures, but the haul was enough to pay for repairs on the rest. Unfortunately, I may have cost my Aunt a few years of her life. I was not a stationary child. Which is why I know about these guys here, I ran across a herd of them and got them mad enough that the oldest one charged me. Blasted thing chased me all the way home,' John said with a smile on his face.

The creature looking at them resumed its grazing.

'They don't look that dangerous,' Jing said.

'The horn hurts a lot. Almost anything is dangerous if you get it mad enough. Come on, let's keep moving, we'll move around the base of the hill, and give them space.'

'Right.'

The pair moved around the hill, moving toward the right.

'Are Soci known for anything?'

John glanced at Jing. 'Hmm?'

'The Soci, do they have any economic value?'

'Meat animal mostly. They're very common on St. Patrica.'

'So, nothing exceptional about them?' Jing asked.

'No, why do you ask?'

'If this is a poacher's facility, it wouldn't make sense they'd capture common herd animals.'

John nodded, 'I see what you're saying.'

They made it to the other side of the hill. John stopped and looked out over the chamber again. There was a rocky outcropping a short distance away from them, with a grove of trees around it. He saw water coming from the rock formation.

'Let's go check out that formation. It's got a water feature.'

They walked toward the rock formation. A trio of dark feathered birds with four wings let out piercing screeches before pushing off of the tree they were in and flying off. Jing watched them go. He walked up to the nearest tree and put his hand on it; the bark seemed to twitch under his touch. Jing bent down and examined the roots. The tree wasn't anything he recognized, the roots were like fine locks of hair disappearing into the ground, and the foliage was a dark shade of orange. Jing pulled out his tablet and stood back. He turned on the camera and recorded a short clip of the tree. When he finished, he turned on his communicator built into his suit.

'Ise, you there?'

'I hear you, Jing.'

'I've just recorded a video of a tree. Is your link with Lenny still active?'

'It is, but he's still dark.'

'Would he be able to cross-reference it with the archive without going bright?' Jing asked.

'Hang on a moment, I'll check.'

Jing looked at his tablet again and checked a setting. The tablet showed the other similar devices carried by the rest of the crew as all in range.

'He can, but it'll take him longer, he'll have to keep power usage to a minimum.'

'All right, I'm sending you the video to your tablet now.'

'Roger that, I see it. I'm downloading it now. I'll send it to Lenny when it's done.'

'Thanks, Ise.'

Jing closed his link and slid his tablet back into its compartment on his suit. He walked over to where John was.

John was squatting next to the stream of water and was holding a small cylindrical probe in the water, the other end connected to his suit.

'How's it look John?' Jing asked.

'This is some of the purest water I've ever seen.'

'Or it just has things in it our probes can't recognize,' Jing suggested.

'The probe has given no warning of unknown particles.'

Jing walked a few paces away from John and went close to the rock formation. He stepped onto the rocky outcropping and leaned in close to where the water was bubbling out of a hole. He reached up to his neck and pressed on a point on the side of his suit. His helmet unfolded itself from its half ring position on the back of his neck and reformed around his head. He activated the ring of lights around the view plate and leaned in closer. He caught a gleam of something from inside the hole.

'There's a pipe feeding this spring. I wonder where the filtration system is?' Jing asked, his voice being broadcast to John's communication system in his suit.

'Maybe the one we saw up top,' John said.

'No no, that one was old and cheap, I don't think it'd be filtering water this effectively,' Jing replied.

Jing stepped back and folded his helmet back up. He glanced around the area around him and spotted another rock cropping on a raise a few hundred meters away from them, toward the centre of the chamber. It was much larger than the one they were next to and had a significant amount of water running down its face.

'And I don't think the stuff we saw upstairs could handle that much water,' Jing said, tapping John on the shoulder.

John stood up and looked at the formation in the distance.

'I think I'll agree with you there. Shall we go check it out?'

Jing nodded, and they started toward it.

***

Conservatory Chamber

Victor watched a huge and utterly alien creature amble by in a nearby valley between hills. The creature was bowl shaped, with eight legs spaced along the edge of its body. It had a single eye on a stalk that came up from the centre of its mass. Its eye was focused on Ise and Victor, who stood on top of a nearby hill. Victor was having difficulty making out any features such as mouths or ears on the creature. It seemed to stare at them.

Suddenly it lowered itself flat and changed colour, turning into a shade of green that matched the grass. Small tendrils popped up along its body, blending in even more with the green until only its eye stalk was visible. The eyestalk turned orange near the top. Victor frowned at the odd change in colour for the eye and looked around, he noticed some plants that looked like the orange eye stalk scattered around the hill he and Ise were on, suggesting more creatures hiding in the grass.

'Ise, come look at this.'

'Hang on; I'm downloading something for Lenny to cross-reference.'

Victor pulled out his tablet and recorded the camouflaged creature. As he did, he saw a small skinny lizard. It was a matte grey colour, had two large blue eyes, and a whip-like tail. It scurried along on four legs, weaving through the grass. It would stop from time to time and look up at Victor, but its eyes always went back to the orange eyestalk in the grass.

Victor watched its advance until it got right up to the eyestalk.

Victor flinched as the disguised alien snapped it's body up around the eye stalk, trapping the lizard with its body. The legs that had been around the bottom edge of it all wrapped around themselves, sealing its body closed. Victor could see bulges in the body of the creature being pushed around as the lizard thing struggled to escape, letting out muffled screeches. The bowl creature seemed to squeeze its own body tighter and tighter around a central axis, stretching itself into a cylinder with a bulge near the bottom. The bulge stopped squirming, and the bowl alien fell over, laying on its side. Its body unfurled, and it untangled it's legs, retaking its original bowl shape. Its eye stalk looked back at Victor as its large form shuffled over the twisted and unmoving shape of the lizard. It lowered itself down and flattened itself over the carcass. Though Victor couldn't see anything, he heard an unsettling squelching noise. The creature seemed to be feeding.

Ise walked up beside Victor.

'You missed quite the scene,' Victor said.

'I heard it. Something feels off though; I don't think the owners of this place would want their animals eating each other,' Ise commented.

'It's a more natural way of doing it.' Victor said.

'But it means they have to keep a breeding population of the meat animals,' Ise said, 'Which requires an even larger enclosure. I can't say I understand any of this though. It seems too elaborate.'

'Keep your eye open for any reptilian creatures. If we spot more and see enough, it may answer the question about if there are breeding populations of the meat animals.'

'Yeah. Anyway, I've got an analysis to carry out with Lenny. Keep watch.'

Victor nodded.