Koban: Rise of the Kobani (30 page)

The most significant discovery was made by one of the other Spacers, former Captain Francis Alaway, selected to be Marlyn’s first officer. She originally commanded one of the cargo ships the Krall had captured and towed to Koban years ago, and who now lived in Hub City, having just ended a marriage contract, with no children. She was an SG looking for an adventure.

Francis stopped the video playback she was studying, and called out to Marlyn. The large conference room on the Flight of Fancy was filled with volunteers for the exploration mission, examining places where they might choose to land first.

“Captain, I found other structures besides the domes. They’re located in a tall forest, not very far from one of the domes. They look more recent and well maintained, and I spotted them by what I first thought was fog drifting from the woods, but appears to be smoke.”

Everyone promptly crowded around her small screen, until Marlyn told Jake to put the image on a larger wall screen. Within the zoomed-in scene Francis had selected, there were walled and roofed structures visible, built not on the ground below the trees, but up in the trees themselves. They were built around the massive trunks of very tall trees and were spread along their larger limbs at the higher levels. At mid tree trunk height, with no limbs present, there were multiple levels, with bridges or walkways strung between trees. Smoke could be seen coming from roof vents of many of them, drifting on the wind between the trees. The area had been recorded at dusk, and it was too dark to see much detail, but a number of indistinct figures were visible on the walkways.

Marlyn saw what appeared to be several objects together on a walkway. “Jake, can you try to clear up this cluster of figures here?” She touched the screen, knowing Jake was observing her by camera.

“Yes Mam, but there is little contrast in the gloom of the trees.”

The image sharpened slightly, but the recording was from nearly overhead, and the forms were still indistinct. It was impossible to tell how tall the creatures were, or what they looked like. In the dusk and tree filtered light, there were no elongated shadows to suggest height. Except for some patches of lighter color on them, which could be clothing, skin, or fur, there were no clues. However, one thing was obvious from the narrow dimensions of the figures as seen looking down on them. These were not bulky, heavy bodied Krall, tiptoeing on fragile-appearing, suspended walkways through the forest.

The next afternoon the Beagle lifted off with a much larger complement this time, and executed a thirty-second Jump to a hundred fifty mile equatorial orbit. Marlyn still referred to the planet as the Morning Star, reserving her right to choose a name later, based on what they found.

The forest village, seeming too small to call a city, was in morning daylight this time. There were fewer of the inhabitants on the walkways than there had been closer to sunset, but there wasn’t any doubt as to what species they were. The Krall had left behind members of their slave race of builders, which they had called the Prada.

Marlyn managed to record one large one leaping from a branch to land on a walkway, and had a profile view frozen on screen. From head to toes, stretched in mid leap it had brown fur, and was over seven feet long, although that was with legs and long arms extended. Kap said it would be about five feet tall when standing, bipedal, with a triangular face and large side ears that protruded slightly higher than their skull. The Prada in mid leap had a relatively furless long tail that was thicker than that of Earth monkeys. This corresponded to Jake’s records of the Prada having a prehensile tail, as described by a Krall Translator.

The fur colors on other Prada varied between brown, tan, black, or gray, always with white markings on the face and chest. The hands and feet looked hairless and black, as was the pointed nose. They were furred, shoeless, and unclothed, but all of the adults appeared to wear tool belts or sashes, and some had small pouches strapped around their waists or to their backs. They had narrow shoulders and long arms, and somewhat shorter legs. Their heads appeared a bit large for their bodies, suggesting a high brain to body weight ratio, often indicative of greater intelligence.

There were quite a few small to medium ones, presumably children, dashing around the heights recklessly, seldom wearing a tool belt. They watched a somewhat blurry video of several smaller ones apparently engaged in a game of chase, and noted that they used hands, feet, and tails to grasp branches and ropes to dash about, without any apparent fear of the couple of hundred feet to the ground if they fell.

These had to be the builders and assemblers, the slave race the Krall had said were the most human-like to them. The humans themselves didn’t see the resemblance all that much. The closest shaped animals they found in a search of images were certain representatives of the nearly extinct Lemurs on Earth, the New Dublin Howlers, or the much larger Lesser Yeti of New Tibet. The latter was a very large, yellow-furred, black-faced hot climate jungle animal, which did not like cold, despite the name.

The Lemurs and Howlers were often arboreal, and some were nocturnal. The large yellow eyes, with black fur rings on the Prada suggested they were well adapted to low light, but this morning they were active in broad daylight. The adults visible appeared to weigh-in at between one hundred to one hundred thirty pounds. Sex was difficult to determine, with fur covering where evolution of a primate style creature might have genitalia. However, two small children were seen clinging to the backs of adult Prada that were indistinguishable from other members of the group, but which could be their mothers.

Everyone was excited to have a chance to meet a non-hostile intelligent species. The Raspani had been a huge disappointment, when they all appeared to have regressed to an almost pre-sentient level. There were flashes of intelligence, sometimes revealed briefly by Mind Taps. However, those images seemed to be deliberately submerged, as if the poor creatures were afraid to release a mind that could think. What creature would want to face life as a thinking meat animal, facing slaughter at any time?

There was no doubt that they would approach the tree village, but they would not do so by landing the Beagle anywhere close. It was externally a Krall clanship, after all. The plan was to land much farther away, and approach in a human made shuttle, which looked and sounded different from Krall models. They would allow the Prada to see that the occupants were not Krall. They were hoping curiosity would draw the Prada to a historic First Contact meeting. There had been no signs of the second major slave race, the Torki, and other than searching coastal areas, they didn’t know where the intelligent crabs would live.

There was almost another week to wait before the members of the expedition would be adjusted well enough to the latest genetic modifications to use them. There were new plans to be made and possible trade goods to consider, necessary preparations before trust and language learning could commence. Mind Taps should help that to go faster.

Kobalt and Kit were going, but would stay well clear of the Prada tree village. Bradley, Marlyn’s son, who was going along, had all of the Koban genes, which were still becoming fully active. Nevertheless, he said he could now scent a ripper from a mile away if the breeze was in his direction. They had no way of knowing what Prada noses might be capable of detecting.

Until they had experienced the Mind Tap, the aliens couldn’t be reassured that the rippers were no threat. Even then, it might not be believed. Prada had obviously been to Koban in the past, because of the dome and wall construction, which the Krall certainly would not do. There was no way to know if any forerunners of the people on the Morning Star planet had ever worked on the domes humans now used. No signs of tree dwellings had ever been found, which made sense, because the Prada would be small easy prey for nearly any predator.

On Koban, the Krall had probably housed their builders in the domes as they were constructed. There were faint mind images from the wild ripper prides, of unusual small upright prey that may have been Prada, from the remote times when the domes had been built. However, the memories were old and fragmented, because that was several hundred years ago, based on the scientifically measured ages of several of the domes. Only
important
pride memories were reinforced by frequent sharing, and this prey wasn’t in that category.

Finally, the last of the new mods were past the stage where the recipients were physically uncomfortable, and all that was needed was practice, and Mind Taps from previous TG1s to help them along in their muscle learning. The multitude of new nanites, particularly those for the nervous system were going to shorten and improve the gene mods implementation. The newest upgraded expedition members were proof of that.

The Beagle lifted from the Prime City tarmac, and entered Jump Hole shortly after leaving atmosphere. The White Out at the Morning Star came before some even released the breath they had held from the excitement.

Marlyn entered atmosphere several hundred miles from the tree village, then at low altitude, to stay below the horizon, flew to within thirty miles of the forest, on the far side of the decaying dome, itself located several miles from the edge of the huge trees.

The first task after landing was to put out an armed landing party, to check the local area and ensure there were no immediate threats. They had seen startled animal herds below them break and run as they flew low, and some apparent predatory stalkers of the herds that stayed in a pack when they ran. They were over twice the size of large wolves, and grey and brown in color.

There were far more flying creatures here than they usually saw on Koban, at least where Prime City and Hub City were located. Most of the fliers here certainly resembled birds, or their evolutionary equivalents, as found on nearly every planet humans had found. Perhaps ten percent of them appeared to be either a flying furless animal, or a reptile, or at least they did not have a feathery appearance.

Those worlds that had a biosphere with a dense enough atmosphere, and greater oxygen content for the higher metabolisms needed, always had some fliers that the settlers invariably called “birds.” Wolfbat colonies and their intelligent predation, at least near the human occupied domes on Koban, had greatly suppressed most bird populations. Not so here, where they appeared to be plentiful.

The rumble of the thrusters and their heat had driven any animal with a survival instinct away from the immediate landing area. Although a number of mounded burrows were spotted in the open grassy area, which suggested animals that would fit in their six-inch diameter holes lived there, and had likely retreated down them.

The TGs (1s and 2s, but the simpler term was easier to say), were proceeding cautiously as if they were on Koban, even though no one anticipated animals as dangerous here as at home. Because none of this world’s animals had ever seen humans, it was hoped they would be cautious, and would not automatically see people as a threat. That was seldom the case on Koban, where everything acted as if humans were a threat, because any animal their size that wasn’t eating grass or leaves was a killer of animals that did. Koban life was ultra-competitive and aggressive, when compared to animals on any of the other human worlds.

Kobalt and Kit were in heaven, with the glorious new scents and colors to stimulate their senses. They had been strictly warned not to eat any animals here until the science teams had cleared them for toxins. That didn’t prevent them from stalking prey for fun, to “taste” their terror when caught, via frilling, before releasing them. They vanished into the scrub to do just that.

If this system ran true to dual habitable planets found in multiple other systems, there should not be a serious problem. When one planet had a preponderance of safe edible plants and animals for humans, the companion planet did as well. Planetologists found that it was apparently a function of the original solar disk’s chemical and elemental makeup when the neighboring planets formed. The eventual emerging life on each followed similar evolutionary paths. If one world’s sugars, proteins, enzymes and such, were bad for Earth life, then both worlds were bad. The same held for a pair of worlds when one was suitable for Earth life. Koban was extraordinarily good for humans nutritionally, so this world was likely to be safe as well. Not universally, of course.

The Death Lime thorns were one of many plant products that were deadly on Koban, yet its fruit was completely safe. Many things were expected to be safe for consumption here, but obviously not all. The massive job of testing and cataloging an entire world of new plants and animals would start today.

****

Rushing through underbrush, Kobalt delighted in how light he felt as he smashed through or leaped over bushes of odd colors, startling birds and small animals that had been frozen and in hiding, as he and Kit thudded their reckless way past them. They were not hunting now, but gathering the multitude of new scents that intrigued them, and relishing the colors that were different from home.

The hunts in the place their human pride named Jura was exciting, and dangerous, even for them, with the giant predators with the huge jaws. However, the smells there were still in the family of scents they were used to, it was just another part of
home.
This was completely different smelling, and mysterious. The animal and bird smells were obviously different from the equally strange smelling plant life, but they had no mental images from generations of pride experience to draw from, to know what they were sensing here. It was exciting to bound, as if they were nearly able to fly, leaping at one point completely over a low tree that was higher than the electric fence around the home den of their pride.