16

The Darkside

The suits were not too difficult to make, and even less difficult to test. Panthro, deemed as the most fit of them, was selected to test the suits that were made up. They were light and durable, tear resistant, with an energy source that kept any outside gasses away. He'd gone into the forest itself, sensors attached to his body in places of little fur (and he complained about them itching the whole time on the communicator) and Tygra watched the readings very carefully. Several hours did Panthro stay in there, even venturing close to the meteorite. None of the mist got to him, and even the radiation from the Thundranium was diminished somewhat.

There were five suits, as only five of the Thunderians would be doing along.

Tygra would be doing with his sensors and gauges. The twins, because it was their doing that had led to all of this (and they would just have found a way to go along anyway had they not been allowed.) Cheetara with her sixth sense and her speed, in case of trouble, and Lynx-O had asked if one of them could go along also. They had seen so little of the planet, and this did concern them after all. Lion-O had readily agreed, and Lynx-O told Pumyra and Bengali to choose between themselves. Lynx-O could visit the place at any time beyond if it was safe. And so the two younger cats had drawn straws, and much to Bengali's aggravation, Pumyra won.

Lion-O tactfully cheered him by telling him they likely would not be making only one trip, and the three larger suits would fit him fine. He could go next time. Nodding in agreement, he asked if he could watch on the monitors, and Lion-O said of course he could. Tygra was bringing one of Panthro's floating ball-cameras.

A few days later, after the suits had been tested a few times, they were ready. They would be on foot through the forest, except for the twins, whose spaceboards would maneuver easily through the dense trees. the little group took supplies for a few days just in case, and strapped these to the twins' boards, and off they went.

"Make sure you report if anything happens!" Snarf called for the fiftieth time, it seemed. Lion-O had already gone over it, but the worrisome nursemaid couldn't help repeating it.

"Yes, Snarf," Tygra said patiently as the twins rolled their eyes.

They had an idea of how many miles of forest they would have to go through before they hit the rocky atmosphere of the Darkside. Their sensor sweeps had gotten that much. They'd been able to tell the terrain, little more, as the Thundranium had interfered a great deal with their scanners. Rock, mostly.

It was unseasonably hot for the time of year, and soon the little exploration party was wishing they could shed their suits. But of course they would not, not after knowing what the forest had done to their countrymen. And who knew what Darkside would be like?

The group moved in silence at first, trekking along at a steady pace. As hours passed, Wilykit griped about the covered hood of her suit, thought, until Tygra told her if she didn't stop complaining, he'd tape her breathing filter shut. He too, was very hot and getting irritable as the day wore on. Wilykit stuck out her tongue.

It was late afternoon before they got there, and everyone, including the usually good-natured Pumyra, was irksome. But finally, and all of a sudden, they were looking out on a vast expanse of rocky terrain. The forest did not thin, it simply ended, almost as thick at the edge as in the midst.

"What the..." Tygra frowned and looked back, glancing down at his sensors. "Now that's odd. I never saw a forest that just ended like that, except for that near water. This Third Earth is a strange place. Such sudden changes in soil and climate."

"You're not kidding!" Wilykat's irritability was suddenly gone, now that they had finally arrived at their destination.

As Tygra bent down to examine the way that the soil of the forest gave way in a mere yard or two to hard stone, Wilykat and Wilykit hopped down off of their boards. "And look, the mist only comes out a little ways," Wilykat said. It's like it evaporates or something without the trees around."

"You may have something there, Wilykat," Tygra said.

"Can we explore now?" he asked excitedly, hopping from foot to foot.

"Hold on a moment. I want to see why this greenery isn't expanding, why the rock' not being broken down into soil. It may give us a way of controlling this place."

The other four waited patiently (except for the twins, who shifted back and forth the whole time) while Tygra did a series of readings on the trees and rock at the very edge of the woods. After bout twenty minutes of this, he turned around, looking rather excited. "Kat, you were right!" he said.

Wilykit blinked. "I was?"

Tygra chuckled. "Yes. I've run a series of scans on these trees, and I can't explain it, but they're giving off an energy. A binding energy, it's keeping the gasses contained within a few feet of the trees themselves."

"So," Pumyra said,. "If we stop the expansion of the trees, we stop the spread of the mutation."

"Exactly." Tygra looked very pleased, as he always did when he'd solved a puzzle. "What I need to do is see if this stone is keeping the forest in check the whole way; the Darkside borders the woods on two sides, Fire Rock mountain being on one of them."

"And we'll stay away from there," Cheetara said with a laugh.

Tygra nodded, then looked to the twins, who both looked as if they were going to explode with the desire to explore. "All right, all right," he said amusedly. "I need to take a bigger look at this place anyway. Let's explore."

"All right!" they exclaimed together, hopping on their boards.

"But we stay together!" Tygra reminded them. "We don't know what's in this desolate place."

And it was a desolate place. If there was any life here, it was not showing itself. It was a place of rock, with crevices and pits. Outcroppings and jutting rocks everywhere. It was a landscape of alien shapes, casting eerie shadows from the red glow of the nearby volcano. According to sensor readings, the volcano was active, but they intended to stay far enough away to be safe. The surrounding landscape formed a natural barrier, a moat of sorts, protecting most of the surroundings from its liquid fire.

They moved slowly, held back by those on foot. But that was fine with the twins, so long as they were moving. And what a place. They examined the rocky wastelands until the sun went down and then some, the glow from Fire Rock Mountain shedding enough light for the felines to see in. And still, they saw no life except insects and some kind of bird that Tygra said he thought was a scavenger. And even those were few and far between, as what was there to eat except rocks? And there were not many animals that could eat rock.

More than once, someone was startled by shadows, or rocks looming up seemingly out of nowhere. Even the kittens, while excited to be in such a strange new place, were spooked. But at least Tygra had deemed it safe enough to remove their suits, which everyone was glad of. The hot suits came off, and everyone was left in their light clothing, the warm breeze cooling the sweat on their skin and ruffling their fur. There was a collective sigh of relief.

"I can't feel any life anywhere," Cheetara said, shivering a bit. "I've never felt, or seen, anywhere that was so devoid of life of any kind!"

Wilykat nodded. "Yeah," he said, he'd been talking in a low tone. As in the village, it seemed odd to talk loudly here. "It looks like some meteor or something blasted the land, and got so hot that it fused everything to rock."

It did seem like that in places. The rock was charred, burned, twisted into grotesque shapes. Nervously, he glanced at the volcano. ":Tygra, are you sure that if it erupts we're not gonna get caught in it? Maybe that's what burned all this land."

"That may just be so," Tygra said. "And yes I'm sure. There's a ravine between us deep enough to hold an ocean if it needed to, caused by a landquake perhaps. We're safe."

The boy nodded, but did not look quite convinced. He glanced nervously at it once more, then continued on.



Part 17: Firerock Mountain

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