Chapter Four of my current wip. All and any comments very much appreciated

Canipse couldn’t control his teeth, jammed tight and grinding, but he did try not to clench his fists. That would have been altogether too noticeable. That Zem – Jess, whatever-his-name was – had spoiled his first day. His first flaming day! A day he’d always set aside for exploring, not ramping-well working. But he’d then seen the Zem leave the camp, which meant that Canipse could reinstate his original plan.

He delegated his stock-taking task to a subordinate – why else have subordinates – and with a glance over his shoulder and a nonchalant air, he walked out of base-camp, screened by the hives. The land around the base-camp was rocky, the soil thin. Useless for farming. But that wasn’t Canipse’s interest today. That stony soil was the ideal hunting ground for interesting stones, stones that caught the eye and might yield special considerations in certain quarters.

He wasn’t intending a far-hike. He didn’t yet know the dangers of the planet, and this place in particular. He’d just go far enough to investigate that water-cut gully he’d seen during the landing, where the trees and flora hadn’t yet taken hold.

Eyes down, intent more on sighting a precious stone than avoiding fauna, he was almost at the gully’s head when, ahead, he registered movement. He froze, fear for the moment drenching him. Something, bipedal, the size maybe of a Tech – and they seldom reached half the height of the Obs and Ops – was weaving between the outcrops of pale naked rock. He caught a full glimpse before it saw him, and quickly hid.

Bipedal. Sand-coloured hide, lacking fur. Forward facing eyes giving it binocular vision. Maybe a snout. Definitely a lip-sealed mouth. This had to be one of the breeding pool. But what in the name of the ancient mothers was it doing here?

Canipse backed away, not knowing how dangerous the creature might be. Zems attended briefings, Ops did not. Ops must wait for the Zem to relay it on, and most told only on a need-to-know basis. It wasn’t till he could again hear the rumbling sounds of the busy base-camp behind him that he turned. Then he ran.

*

The only Tech Canipse could find was out at the fly-port. He supposed at least one other was controlling the Obs’ flier. Since the base had only been allocated three, that left one other, and that one was probably shuttling the Textile ops to their units. Three fliers, three Techs. Never mind, this one would do. He noted the Tech’s number: 37982. Without that number he wouldn’t know one from another.

“I thought this camp secured against pool intruders?” he demanded of Tech37982.

“As always, there is a perimeter of holos,” the Tech said.

Canipse knew that. Though he’d never seen a holo, he knew they were set to trigger at the approach of a pool-sized being. It remained debatable whether the resultant hologram would deter any other fauna; it was designed only to warn off the breed pool.

“Well, I have to report one of your holos isn’t working. I saw one…whatever you call them here. Over by that gully north of the camp.”

Shit! He realised now he’d have to explain what he was doing out of camp when the Zem had set him a duty. Yet the Tech didn’t ask.

“Describe,” said the Tech, despite hive-talk rumbles that Techs knew exactly what others were thinking.

Canipse described what he’d seen.

Before Canipse was yet half through it, the Tech already was nodding. “A Sanki.”

“A Sanki?” Canipse asked, to be sure he’d got it right.

“Itamakku, they call themselves, but we Techs call this breed pool Sankis – for the colour of their skin. And don’t complain, for you Pinkies started it,” the Tech added as if suddenly aware of having said wrong. “You call us Greylegs, we call you Pinkies. And here we have Sankis.”

“But we shouldn’t have… Sankis?… here,” Canipse said. “Your holos are supposed to deter them. Are they dangerous? It seemed like an oldster to me. Diminutive size like you Techs.” And everyone knew the Techs were ancient.

The Tech up-tipped his chin to enter a comms-trance. Within two gasps of the mountain air, two more Techs had appeared. It took Canipse several long bits for the significance of that to fall into place. Three Techs allocated to Cluster 6, and all three were here, therefore… who was controlling that flier he’d seen leave with the Zem and his pets? Not one of the Obs? Canipse shuddered. Something here didn’t feel right.

The three Techs slapped the stun-guns holstered to their sides. Canipse hadn’t seen them do that before. Were they checking the issue? Was it some form of silent comms? An agreement of what must be done?

He started to follow them away from the fly-port, skirting east of base-camp until one of the Techs turned back to him. “Have you no duties, this First Day, Catering Overseer Canipse?”

“I…yea.” With reluctance, Canipse turned his step back to base-camp. Yet as if his thoughts were entangled with those of the Techs, those thoughts went with them.

Before he’d even returned to base, images formed in his head. Images of capture. Of slaughter. Of disembowelling and deskinning. But Canipse was a Catering Ops, used to butchering meat, and these Sankis were little more than beasts. Besides, didn’t it serve the Sanki-beast for being where it shouldn’t have been. All the same, his belly queasied. But he dismissed it; nothing unusual to feel off-colour on the first day of waking, with the flying, the set-up, everything involved with a new place.

*

When the Techs ferried the Obs and Ops to the required destination they hyper-jumped via the tetraspheres. Jess, however, stayed within the endosphere – or the warp-and-weft-sphere as he’d heard it called. Not only was it essential if they were to observe the breed pool’s range but also Jess couldn’t access the higher spheres. Flying to west of the base, he watched between his knees as the mountainous terrain gave way to lowland plains, grasslands dotted with copses: these were gardens, Jess told his Obs, relaying information had from the Briefing.

“They’re that developed?” Armar remarked. “It’s the first we’ve had.”

Jess glanced round at his team. “This could be the one to reach that bar. I can’t say all the pools across the planet, but this breed pool, yea.”

“Then what happens?” Brib asked.

Jess felt Armar’s and Kookka’s eyes on him. They’d discussed this eventuality during their last tour together, on Absin delath. But it had seemed such a distant attainment that they’d set the discussion aside.

“Well?” Jess prompted Antel. As the team medic this was more his territory.

“I guess then we get the breeding trials,” Antel said.

“The Breeders are gone, we are left only with Phantasms and Dreams,” Joel murmured the quote from a popular poem.

“And the Techs will control them – the trials?” Brib asked.

Jess looked round at his team. Even a Tech would have sensed the tension in their silence.

“Control the trials or not,” Antel said into the quiet, “it’ll be ex utero. Think about it.”

“Because they wouldn’t expect us to…” Miax said. But hand to his throat, he couldn’t continue.

“Antel’s right, it’ll be ex utero,” Jess said to quieten his jittery team. “Because to us, it’s a death sentence.” And in answer to the querying looks, he added, “An oldster told me when I was working the mines. Enter and die.”

“Enter?” Zeke grimaced. “You mean like…like base beasts?”

“Now I’d say we’ve discussed that enough. It’s not our concern.” That was one aspect of the GM Programme he was happy for the Techs to control. Jess changed the subject.

“Below. Skein One. Mine to observe. It’s nearest the base so I’ll never be too far away. With me I’ll have Kookka, and you, Joel.” He’d a good notion that the bud had good stories to tell with his last tour being on Adamzal.

He took the flier over the ridge and assigned three more Obs to Skein Two: Armar, with Brib and Miax. That partnered both the buds with experienced observers. Turning south, over the lands of Skein Three, he allocated the other three. “Zeke, skein leader, with Shelek and Saker. Any questions?”

Of course it was one of the buds who asked about Antel.

“I’m team medic,” Antel said. “I float.”

“He goes wherever he’s needed,” Jess said.

Turning the flier south to return to base, Jess decided now was a good time to take a closer look at the terrain closer to the camp.

“Is that a volcano?” Zeke asked. “And it’s billowing its foul smoke over my skein’s lands.”

“Can’t be,” Jess said, though if any had looked they’d have seen the crinkling of amusement around his eyes. “According to the Techs at the Briefing, that volcano is quiescent.”

“Er?” Brib queried.

“Dormant,” Kookka explained.

“Dormant volcanoes don’t billow smoke,” Zeke said. “I’m not having my skein destroyed by some Pendoling volcano!”

“What, you want us to move them?” Armar asked him. “No contact, remember.”

“Swap you skeins,” Zeke said.

“Woah, cut the humour back there. This looks serious.” Jess swung the flier around, bringing it low over the western plain to take a closer look at what he’d just seen.

Set at the edge of Skein 1’s range, just before the land changed from rolling foothills to the mountainous terrain that hid the Observers’ base-camp, was what looked like a leafless tree. From it hung something red and raw.

“So, they’ve progressed that far too,” Armar remarked with a turned down mouth.

But Jess shook his head. “Look. Further out from the tree. Forming a ring.”

There were probably most of the members of Skein 1, adults, juveniles, oldsters. He flicked a switch on the panel above him and sounds from outside filled the flier. “Would you call that rejoicing? Beseeching? Or is it wailing?”

“I’d call it distressed,” Kookka said.

“And confused, like they don’t understand,” Jess said.

He swung the flier around, heading once again to the base. He had questions to ask of the Techs.

---

to be continued…