On Mars Pathfinder (The Mike Lane Stories Book 1) (20 page)

First Contact

If anyone else had sent that message, I wouldn’t have had the body shivering chill hit my spine like an out of control locomotive. I jumped off the back of the rover and assumed a crouched position. As soon as my head popped up, over the edge of the rover deck, there was a brilliant flash of light coming from what I recognized as the “shimmer”; probably the one from earlier today. I ducked just in time. I swear I heard the crackling of electricity as the translucent energy ball passed over my head and exploded the ground only 10 metres from where I was crouched. I popped my head up quickly for a better look at the “shimmer”, but it wasn’t there.

“Frak me.” It was a very poignant thought at this moment that whatever
this
situation was going to be, I had to handle it quickly. There was no backup, there was no aid, and there was no one to rescue me if I got injured. I turned my body and head slowly to look for the “shimmer”. I thought about the energy weapons sitting in their secret compartment. They were certainly not going to do me any good in there.

I looked back at the W-Hab, but it was almost half a kilometre away. There was no way I could cover that open ground before the alien vessel could fire another round or four at me. I peered around the front end of Big Dawg; I was only a few metres from the first supply drop. I could make a dash for there, and maybe use that and the other drops as cover, but that was just going to wind up being a game of cat and mouse. I looked around the ground as I kept glancing upwards looking for the shimmer of the alien vessel. The only thing I had at my disposal was rocks, most of them a bit bigger than a hockey puck. I picked up one in each hand: they would have to do. I sighed, then muttered, “Just call me Grog, the Martian Caveman.”

Teviot Vallis

Located approximately 32 degrees south of the Martian equator and 83 degrees east of the Martian Prime Meridian, Hellas Planitia is easily visible from Terra with a telescope, even a cheap one. Unfortunately, it’s just slightly out of range of the optics on Mar-Sat and Jalopy-Sat, due to its relative position to Chasma Boreale, and the steep curvature of Mars surface. Hellas Planitia is an impact crater that is 2,300 kilometres wide. Its depth is from 4 to 8 kilometres below the Martian datum (sea level). It is 9 kilometres deep if you count the rim of the crater. Yes, I said
kilometres
. To put this in more perspective, the area of the Hellas Planitia impact crater is approximately 4.15 million square kilometres. The area of the United Kingdom is only 243,000 square kilometres. You could fit the entire United Kingdom inside Hellas Planitia, seventeen times. That makes it big enough to hold almost one half of Canada’s land mass, more than half of the United States of America.

On the eastern rim of Hellas Planitia, amongst the debris curtains, impact craters, and relatively smaller Planitias, Mons and plateaus, are three large valleys. These are regarded as the sources of the fluvial flow patterns and sedimentary deposits inside the Hellas’ impact crater. They are Dao Vallis, Niger Vallis and Harmakhis Vallis. Hellas Planitia is actually deep enough to allow sufficient atmospheric pressure at its deepest levels, that if there were water at the bottom of the crater, it could exist without boiling off. At the top off the southernmost Harmakhis Vallis, ostensibly a large tributary to Harmakhis Vallis, is Reull Vallis. This flow channel stretches eastward almost 1,500 kilometres, and is 7 kilometres at its widest point. About halfway along Reull Vallis, east of the head of Harmakhis Vallis, is the much smaller Teviot Vallis. Teviot Vallis is only 140 kilometres in length. It is barely noticeable compared to what is around it. Such inconspicuousness suited the Eridani just fine.

The Eridani settlement had existed in excavated subterranean tunnels and chambers on the western wall of Teviot Vallis for close to 700 years. Originally an outpost for secret propulsion experiments, it became an exo-biological research station that quickly rose to be the most prominent in this sector of the Eridani Dominion. Almost all of the Eridani warmongering came from their need to engage in biological research.

Critical to their needs, as it would be for anyone going to Mars, was water. Terran research missions and satellite measurements projected the terrain around this region is filled with water only a few hundred metres below the surface. The Eridani could confirm this, as they have an extensive drilled water system that supplied all their needs, it was the basis of the original propulsion research, and could supply a much larger footprint of consumers than it currently did. Without digressing too much further, I will say that in later years, their choice of location caused problems not only for themselves, but also for the colonist expansions. Thankfully that came later and not right now, as the region around Teviot Vallis, Euripus Mons specifically, was one that had been considered by the Corporation as a colony site!

While the Eridani had existed for only the last 1,500 Terran years, the genetic experiments and cloning process that originally created them hadn’t been perfected at the time by the Eben scientists responsible for it. There were mistakes, and genetic drift; and it wasn’t the type that brought about adaptations for the betterment of the new species. The original Eridani clones had a high incidence of Large Offspring Syndrome, and that condition persisted through the natural reproduction of the cast of Eridani Masters. It was also the chief cause of the statistically high maternal mortality rate during Eridani childbirth. Only three in twenty Eridani women survived childbirth, they had an 85% mortality rate. Needless to say, this was a very motivating factor in finding solutions, and in finding corrections. This investigation of biological and genetic solutions was, so far, the entire purpose of the Eridani society. Well, that and the headaches. Eridani males suffered what we call a migraine, almost constantly; from birth to death. Suicide was common amongst Eridani males, simply due to the lifetime of genetically inherited pain. They didn’t care about conquest; the Eridani cared about survival as a species. Planetary and territorial conquest was just a welcome by-product of this pursuit.

Eridani males, while only about 165 cm tall, had enormous heads. It was like looking at a pumpkin head on an anorexic. Actually, that’s quite an apt description of the Eridani males. They had no hair and very pale skin. In many places the skin was translucent enough to see the circulatory system at work under their skin. Their large and sunken eyes, along with their pointed and jutting jaws gave them a haunting, nightmarish look, which the few humans who had seen them never forgot. Even the humans who were memory wiped often retained nightmare images of the Eridani face, well after encountering them,.

The Eridani civilization, the Bsirutaeben (b-seer-ROO-tay-ben) in their own tongue (loosely, and politely translated as “Superior to Eben”), was initially created by Eben genetic experiments, hybridization experiments, and cloning processes about (as stated), 1,500 Terran years ago. Having a vastly superior jump start on species that simply evolved, the Eridani rapidly multiplied, and then took their independence from their Eben handlers, by deception. They then set out to grow and dominate the Orion Arm and the Sagittarius Arm of the Milky Way galaxy. Terra is located in the Orion arm, about two thirds of the way out from the galactic core. The Eben could have tried to stop them, but the fact that a cloned and hybridized life form had chosen to take their independence, was of more than a little scientific interest. The Eben put up a mild resistance to let the clones think they had actually outwitted their creators, and then the Eben spent the next thousand years watching the Eridani develop and grow as a society.

By the time the Eben began to wonder if they should do something terminal about the Bsirutaeben, they were too large in numbers for an easy campaign. Besides, the Eben had other newer pursuits to focus on. The ancient war that had almost wiped out the Eben was still a very present part of their cultural memory. While the Eben were considered by most races in the three galaxies to be amongst the most effective and fearsome warriors known, their numbers had reduced so much that they hadn’t had the political will to launch an assault on the Bsirutaeben. The Eben also hadn’t had the sociological will to pursue a war with the Bsirutaeben either. At the most recent count, there are over 50,000 Eridani Masters spread throughout the Milky Way galaxy. There are even more in neighbouring galaxies.

At this point in Eben history, the Bsirutaeben were a nuisance, not a threat. At least they weren’t a threat to the Eben. Lately though, relatively speaking, there had been closer scrutiny of their actions and the direction their research was taking. The Bsirutaeben were indeed a problem for the humans, and the Eben liked the humans, even though they kept the humans at arm’s length. While the Eben had stopped visiting Earth officially in the Terran year 1985, they still had assets on the ground, and they did have a significant presence at the Hybrid base on Mars. The Eben thought that humans had great potential. At a deep, sociological and philosophical level, the Eben found many similarities in the development of the humans to the ancient development of the Eben society over 10,000 years ago.

Eridani society has three casts, plus the drones. The upper cast is the Masters, the Voiya as they are called. They were the Eridani proper. They were the descendants of the original hybrids and clones. They were the shortest of the three casts, standing an average of only 165 cm tall. The Voiya were very sensitive about their height since they were almost as short as the average Eben male. In fact, the Eben were the only race known to be, on average, shorter than the Voiya. Within the other casts, the Trigla (pronounced TREE-la) averaged 40 cm taller than the Voiya. The Vesna (pronounced VESH-na) ran on average, about the same height as the Voiya, but without the Napoleonic complex. The drones, of course, were all much shorter than the Masters, but they were merely chattel, they were not real Bsirutaeben.

The Voiya always put themselves on elevated platforms, elevated walkways, or any position that would force others to look up to them,
literally
. Anything a Voiya could do to make itself appear taller than everyone around it, they considered it a good thing to do. At one point they tried mimicking the 70’s fad of platform shoes, but they kept tripping and falling down in them, so they gave them up.

Only about fifteen percent of the adult Eridani were females. This was because of the unrealistically high maternal mortality rate I mentioned previously. About 40% of Voiya adolescents were females, but their high mortality rate burdened, burned and infuriated Eridani Society in general. The resulting glut of adult males created the sociological necessity for Voiya families to be polyandrous. One Eridani adult woman would bear the offspring of fifteen to thirty Eridani males, simply because there were not enough adult females to go around. A Voiya female would give birth to over one hundred offspring in her lifetime. There was only one female adult Eridani on Mars, plus about twenty adolescents, six of them female. They were all from the same household or “House”. The current Eridani Mission on Mars simply wasn’t of such a scale as to permit more than one House.

Each male in the household considered himself kingly … no …
godly
in his own right. This probably leads to some pretty interesting dinner parties, I’m sure. Unfortunately, the Voiya and Vesna have no concept of God, or deity, or
final cause
within their understanding. It simply didn’t interest them to look at the origin of life and everything. They saw no gain or profit in such musings or theological considerations. Besides, the origin of life for the Voiya, based on appearances, was Eben scientists.

The next two casts were quite different from the Voiya. While the Voiya considered the Trigla and the Vesna to be equivalent, within those two casts the Vesna considered themselves to be superior to the Trigla. The Vesna knew they were superior to the Voiya as well, but they would never think that out loud. The Trigla, the servant cast, happened to agree with the Vesna on the point of their superior stature/nature, and were happy to agree. Any screw-ups were the fault of the Vesna, “hey, we were just doing what we were told”. The Eben actually considered the Trigla to be very human like in temperament and societal constructs; though much more laid back and easy going individually, and as a society.

The Trigla are those in service to the care and well-being of the Eridani Masters and the Vesna. The Trigla are household servants, cooks, chauffeurs, tailors, shopkeepers, builders, skilled factory workers, and professional warriors. They are also one of the species that the Eben had used in the original hybridization experiments that had created the Eridani to begin with. When the Eridani made good their escape from the Eben, as soon as they had built up their numbers and acquired some space travel, they immediately captured and subjugated the Trigla out of spite. The Trigla have been a cast within the Eridani society ever since. Needless to say, there are a great many hidden smiles and unshared mirthful thoughts amongst the Trigla when one of the Eridani Masters gets on about the superiority of their race, of their cast.

The Trigla look nothing like the Voiya. They average, as I said, about 40 cm taller than the Voiya, they have extremely long necks, and their heads aren’t as disproportionately large. The Trigla are actually a sensitive and compassionate race, for the most part. Compassion doesn’t dominate their thoughts, but they often feel bad about the things they are involved in; kidnapping other races and performing experiments on them, and so on and so forth. The Trigla have to keep these feelings hidden. There are stories of Trigla being thrown in acid vats along with drones, merely for showing compassion to one of the experimentation subjects.

The Vesna are a race with a single gender. There is no chromosomal difference in the Vesna, they are all female but have what humans would call male dominant traits. They have no outward sexual organs, and don’t engage in any form of sexual activity. Reproduction is an endocrinal induced asexual process and can occur at any time, with no warning, after a Vesna reaches maturity. Occasionally, a Vesna adolescent will begin to show female dominant traits, as humans would define them. Vesna adolescents that develop this
disease
, as they see it, are immediately terminated. They don’t have a problem with females in other races; they just see this trait as defective within the Vesna culture. The Vesna also have no skin pigmentation. Their epidermis is evenly gray-white throughout their entire race, though the skin of older Vesna tends to darken slightly. The tone of the skin is usually the easiest way to determine which of the Vesna in a pod of five (usually), is the Mahal, or the leader of the pod.

The Vesna are the intelligentsia of the three casts of Eridani society. The Vesna don’t “hate” the way the Voiya and drones do. They don’t suffer from compassion and caring the way the Trigla do. The Vesna are nature’s perfect embodiment of indifference; they are nature’s perfected example of sociopathic behaviour. Vesna have a well-defined concept of what is right and wrong, however, they simply don’t care about right and wrong. The Vesna are the scientist, the doctors, the researchers, the inventors, the architects, the engineers, the designers, and the warriors’ officers. The Vesna are responsible for all the mechanical, medical, and scientific advancements of the Eridani; including the genetic research that has been going on for more than a millennia. They are also responsible for the governmental and political machinations required by a large society. The Vesna come up with the ideas, the Voiya rubberstamp them, and the Trigla carry them out. It’s a perfectly symbiotic relationship without competition for primacy. The Voiya, the Eridani Masters, well, they generally just strut around imperiously and yell a lot.