A/N: So sorry for the length of time since the last chapter. Initially, I wasn't sure how to continue this, then my other stories captured my attention and imagination. So, after a four month gap, I finally focused back on this one… and I know what I'm doing again!
Thanks to klipdoctor who kindly offered to beta this chapter.
Chuck and S'ra are nearing the end of the journey across the pink plain and are now ready to start to fly over the looming mountain range…
Exo
Chapter 17: Southern Mountains
Chuck and S'ra woke colder than on previous mornings. They had expected it, but the chill in the air was still a sharp reminder of where they now were.
Chuck thought the Kazmar mountain range felt closer than it had when they went to sleep. That was a ridiculous thought, of course. However, in the daylight they were certainly a very imposing sight.
"We will definitely start up the slopes today," S'ra said as she stood beside him. She looked at Chuck. "Will you miss this pink plain?" she teased.
He scoffed at that. "Not the pink itself, but certainly the memories of being with you and what we have done on this plain."
She blushed, thinking about that herself. "You are a wonderful lover, Chuck."
"As are you, S'ra." He hugged her tighter, then said, "I think we'll see this plain again. When we turn away from the glacier, we'll probably drop down from the mountains and be over it once more, just further to the west."
"You could be right," she replied. She linked her arm with his free one. The other was controlling the flier.
They got themselves ready to depart after a fairly quick breakfast, and then they set off.
They silently watched the mountains get closer for three hours, just enjoying the view. Companionable silence.
Neither were really worried about what they would experience when they reached the mountains. They had proved themselves to be resilient. That wouldn't make them complacent. They would be vigilant. This time over the pink plains was a brief and welcome respite from danger, but they both relished the experiences they would encounter. It was a thrill ride that would add to their memories. That sounded reckless, and maybe it was, but neither would admit that.
S'ra spoke first, "Are you still enjoying this?"
Chuck asked, "You holding me?"
She leaned away and looked up at him. She could see he was teasing her and chuckled. "No, the excursion."
He sighed. "I am. I love exploring, always have. Doing it with you makes it even better."
She snuggled close again, pleased with his answer.
"What about you?" he asked.
She held him tightly. "Being with you is always wonderful." They both chuckled before she added, "The views are great, too."
"You're not wrong," he replied, looking at the mountains rising in front of them. They were probably only two hours away now.
They decided to stop to eat and relieve themselves an hour later.
Chuck could see dark shapes moving over the mountains, probably xynth. "We'll need to fend them off," Chuck commented.
S'ra followed his gaze. "Xynth? Wild ones. Yes, we will."
They both fell silent, thinking of the domesticated xynth. "It would be a real achievement to domesticate one," Chuck said.
"Do not think of trying, Chuck," S'ra said. "We are too far from medical help if you get hurt."
He nodded, but couldn't stop thinking about it.
S'ra was flying as they reached the foothills. She started their climb.
The point they had reached, he saw no xynth, so they should be safe, at least initially.
Half an hour later, they encountered their first xynth. Or rather, xynths.
They had just passed a ridge of the highest mountain so far. They had been talking to each other about the mixture of green and pink moss on that ridge, something they had not seen before. S'ra had dropped them down to only a few feet from the ground so that they could look closer. They couldn't land on this terrain, so this was the best they could do.
In hindsight, they shouldn't have dropped so low as it hid what was beyond the ridge from them.
As they looked at the new view, a xynth with three smaller ones appeared directly in front of them, only twenty feet away. The creatures had obviously not been aware of them, so were equally surprised.
The larger one rose to shield the smaller ones, which just made the impact more certain.
S'ra was trying to veer to the right, but failed to avoid the collision. The flier clipped the creature's head.
Chuck looked over the side of the flier, and saw the xynth start to fall. The three smaller ones avoided being swept down by the larger one's wings, but then followed it. He realized they must be its young. The flier had knocked out their parent, their protector.
Without any hesitation, he took the controls from S'ra's hands and pointed the flier down.
S'ra gasped and looked at him. "What-"
He cut her off. "We have to save that xynth," he declared.
She gaped at him. "Why?"
"Because it's their mother," he hurriedly said.
She looked out as they raced past the young xynth. "How?" she asked.
"It's unconscious. I'll let it land on the flier and lower us to the ground."
She kept quiet after that. It was a risky enough maneuver without her distracting him. She didn't question why he wanted to do this, nor the riskiness of doing so. She just trusted him.
When he had passed the falling xynth and felt he'd gone far enough, he leveled off, but kept the flier dropping, just slower. "Hold on," he said.
The shudder of the flier as the xynth hit it was almost enough to pull her hands free. She was glad he'd warned her.
Chuck slowed the descent.
S'ra looked around and then over the edge of the flier. They were lucky. The mountain had a sheer drop on this side of the ridge. Had it not, they would definitely have hit. However, below there was a level piece of ground which was rapidly approaching. "Slow. Quickly," she snapped at him.
Chuck did so and the xynth was nearly released.
With S'ra's guidance, he was able to land the flier, but then decided to lift up again, raising the tip and the xynth slid off the back. He landed ten feet away.
Both grabbed spears, jumped off the flier and rushed to the fallen creature.
When they looked back at this in the future, they would think how crazy that was, but at the time they were just thinking about its well-being.
When they got to the xynth, the three young ones had landed and were poking at their still parent. As they approached, all three turned and started snapping at the two of them. The small creatures were less than three five tall, but obviously still posed quite a threat, particularly three together.
Chuck said, "Get some meat and throw it to them. Away from the parent."
S'ra knew he was right and rushed back to do what he had suggested.
Chuck moved to make the three follow him rather than S'ra.
S'ra was back in no time and threw the meat down.
It was almost comical how the three shifted from protecting their parent to hungry young.
What she had brought would not last very long, so she went back for more.
Chuck meanwhile, rushed to the parent. It was thankfully just knocked out. He checked its head and saw the wound. A long gash on the flesh of its skull. He felt it needed to be closed up.
S'ra looked quizzically at Chuck as he rushed in the opposite direction to her as she brought more meat. "Need to stitch the wound," he shouted.
"Tie its beak in case it wakes," she called back.
So, they found themselves playing vet to a xynth.
It woke as Chuck was finishing the stitching. Strangely, it seemed to know they were helping and didn't try to break free or fight them. It, she, just watched, as best it could. She had spotted her young feeding off to the side, which may have eased her worry.
When Chuck had finished and collected up everything they had brought, he told S'ra to step away, as far as possible. She did, but wasn't sure what he was going to do until he did it. He cut the rope holding the beak together and then stepped back himself.
S'ra had left meat next to the xynth and it raised itself up slowly and then snapped up that meat. It gazed at the two of them briefly, then staggered over to its young, opening its wings to envelop them.
Chuck and S'ra returned to the flier, washed their hands and sat to watch the family. Neither wanted to leave before knowing the creatures were safe. They sat and took in light refreshments, neither staying vigilant all the while.
After an hour, the parent xynth opened its wings, turned and walked toward the flier.
Both Chuck and S'ra grasped their spears, but didn't use them.
Once it was five feet away, the xynth stopped. It looked at them and lowered its head. Chuck wondered if the wound had reopened and it was asking for help, but that wasn't the case.
The head raised, the eyes bore into them and the creature turned its back to them. It squawked at the young. The four xynth opened their wings, flapped and took off.
"It must have trusted us, to turn its back on us like that," S'ra commented.
Chuck nodded. "I feel like we've corrected our mistake."
S'ra hugged him. "Corrected my mistake."
"You were just the pilot, S'ra. I was as much to blame."
They were soon in the air themselves.
All they could see ahead was mountains. All now were green, where moss covered their slopes, or just the bare rock coloring. There was no sight of the Shaxi glacier yet. They didn't expect to see that for a couple of days.
They talked about when they should turn away from it. S'ra thought they should as soon as they saw it, but Chuck felt they could get a closer look. He had no intention of crossing the boundary from mountains to ice. However, he still wanted to see it.
At the back of his mind, Chuck wondered if they would see evidence of what brought the Pradur fliers down. Traada had told them it was magnetic forces rising from the pole that caused it, but for some reason, Chuck doubted it. He couldn't say why, it was just a feeling.
The further south they flew, the colder it got. That was not surprising to either of them, but did mean they had to wrap up more.
The cold also meant that they saw less and less xynth. The creatures obviously didn't like the cold. That meant the two of them could relax and just enjoy the panorama that spread out before them.
However, they also needed to land as both had probably drunk too much when with the xynth family. Besides, it was about time for a change over so that Chuck would be the pilot.
Chuck kept an eye out for somewhere to land. Most of the peaks in this part of the mountain range were literally just that. Sharp peaks with no level ground at all. They were also very close together, so landing at the bases was not realistic.
Then, Chuck saw slightly off to the right several mountains that were staggered. Looking like exaggerated pyramid structures, with layers of flat ground. He directed S'ra toward them.
They were soon settled on the plateau of one of those mountains. Chuck stood guard while S'ra walked to the side to relieve herself and then she took her turn to do that for him.
Once together again, they surveyed their surroundings.
The plateau had no moss covering it, nor did the vertical slope leading up from it. When they angled again, it was like the slope below, covered in green moss. The ground was completely smooth, bare rock. It was almost as if something had come along and taken a slice out of the mountain, as with the others around them, but it was clear that the slices circled around each.
S'ra stopped looking after a while and turned her attention to her husband. She watched him getting more and more intrigued about the terrain. "You want to stay here and explore, don't you?"
Chuck grinned. "You know me so well!"
She grinned back. "I do."
They walked together over to where the vertical slope joined the ground. Both were armed with both spears and their guns. Although they thought no living creatures were this far south, they weren't going to take any unnecessary risks.
When Chuck bent down to closely examine the shift from horizontal to vertical rock, he concluded this really didn't seem natural.
Traada hadn't mentioned his people having technology that could achieve this, but that wasn't too surprising. There must be a lot they could do that wouldn't come up in such a brief conversation. He also hadn't talked about what they had done when exploring these mountains. However, this terraforming didn't feel like something explorers would do.
Then, Chuck realized he'd incorrectly used the word terraforming. He'd read that the term had been invented by Jack Williamson in a 1942 story, "Collision Orbit," in the Astounding Science Fiction magazine. It had been adopted by science and meant transforming the whole biosphere of another planet into one having the characteristics of Earth. This wasn't transforming the biosphere, just remodeling the landscape. And anyway, this wasn't Terra, it was Retith.
So, this was remodeling of the mountains. The deliberate actions of a sentient species.
He stood and turned to S'ra and shared his thoughts.
"What would be achieved by doing this?" she asked.
"I have no idea," he confessed. "But I now wonder if there will be any other evidence of their presence here, whoever did it."
She nodded, then smiled. "So, we'll be here for some time, then."
He quickly looked her way. "Is that alright?"
She grinned. "We're explorers, are we not?"
He grinned and nodded. "We are."
He grasped her free hand and they started walking around the wall.
They found several indentations to the wall abutting the ground. They were equidistant, about two hundred and thirty feet apart. However, after two hours, they could see the flier, so had almost completed the circuit. They had found nothing else by the wall. The walk had been quite quick as they were so high up the mountain, which both appreciated.
Walking away from the last indentation, notch as Chuck now thought of them, he approached the outer edge of the plateau. He had thought about what the notches could be for and wanted to check a theory.
When they approached the edge, his suspicions were confirmed. He didn't know what it meant, though.
"What are you thinking, my love?" S'ra asked. She had been watching him. Watching his mind at work. She loved doing that.
He turned to her. "I don't know why, but I think something was wrapped around the wall, held in by something in each of the notches, and, from each of those, a cable, or something like that, led out to the edge and over it, down to an equivalent attachment on the level below. As I said, I have no idea why this was set up or what it achieved, but the grove here at the edge fits the theory. This was built for some purpose."
"By who?" S'ra asked.
"Again, no idea," he replied. "Maybe the Pradur or maybe someone else. It must have been a long time ago as nothing else is left here."
She knew how his mind worked now. "A puzzle you can't solve," she said in a soft voice.
"Fascinating but also frustrating," he absentmindedly replied.
She pulled him down to her and kissed him, "Sorry, my love, but maybe that is the fate of all explorers."
He nodded his acceptance of her words.
They walked back to the flier and ate lunch quietly. She wanted to help her husband with this but knew that wasn't possible.
After they finished their meal, cleared it away and made sure they relieved themselves, they set off again.
The pyramid spires appeared again after a further hour and then again each hour. They seemed to run in both directions and Chuck suspected they encircled the glacier each time. That made him think there would also have been joins between the mountain, so that whatever the 'cable' was completed a circuit too.
His active imagination then imagined it created some sort of forcefield. Whether that was to keep things in or out wasn't obvious, but he suspected the latter. Of course, this was all wild speculation of both the concept of a forcefield and whether that was the purpose here.
Such an engineering project, if even possible, was mind-blowing. The scale was vast.
When they finally decided to settle down for the night, they found another of these pyramids. They were the only realistic places to land.
As they sat to eat what they prepared for their dinner, S'ra asked Chuck to share his thoughts. She hadn't asked while she was flying and he hadn't volunteered them.
He told her his crazy idea. She pondered that. The silence stretched and Chuck became convinced she was going to say he was mad to be thinking something like that. To be honest, he wondered himself, but her opinion was important to him.
"Crazy though it sounds, I think you are right," she finally said.
He let out the breath that he hadn't realized he was holding. "So, you do not think I am mad?"
She looked at him as if he was. "Only for suggesting that!" she replied. "You are the smartest and level headed person I have ever met. A strange combination, but true."
He pulled her into a tight embrace, kissing her face over and over.
S'ra loved it, but found it amusing as well. Her giggle just made him do it even more.
She finally pushed him away, and said, "Continue that and we'll want to make love and that is not happening here. It is far too cold to expose our bodies as long as that would last. Washing quickly and relieving my body is as much as I can cope with, and I suspect you are the same."
He had to admit that she was right. "Something to look forward to."
Her flashing eyes clearly showed she was.
"I cannot imagine how we could prove the theory," he finally said.
"Is that not the way of scientific research?" she asked. "Did you not say that on Urth it was believed that life existed on other planets, but no one could prove it?"
He sighed and nodded.
She hated the glum look on his face. "Maybe we will find someone who will tell us," she suggested. "Like we did with Traada about the Anzari."
He smiled at her attempt to brighten his mood, but was doubtful of her suggestion becoming a reality.
When they lay down to sleep, curled up together under several layers of blankets, he drifted off to sleep, dreaming of that engineering feat.
The night had been very cold. S'ra had faced away from him and Chuck had spooned her body with him. He knew that close body contact, naked, was supposed to be the best way to keep each other warm, but didn't suggest it. Stripping in this cold didn't really appeal.
They quickly ate breakfast and got themselves ready to depart.
They still hadn't seen the Shaxi glacier, but Chuck suspected it wasn't going to be long before they did. The circling pyramids were definitely curving noticeably. They hadn't asked the size of the glacier, though, so it was just a hunch, no more.
Three further pyramid rings passed them by. They were almost becoming boring.
However, as they approached a fourth Chuck noticed a difference. It was likely that others wouldn't have noticed it until much closer, but with his eyesight he could see clearer and further than others on this planet.
The difference was rock-colored lines between the peaks.
"S'ra!" he gasped. "The cables!"
She looked in the direction he was pointing. She couldn't see anything yet. "Your theory?" she asked.
"Looks like we are closing in on that proof!" he said excitedly. "We could land and see it close up!"
S'ra didn't share his enthusiasm, however. "What if that is what causes the fliers to crash?" she asked nervously.
Chuck hadn't thought about such a possibility, but now did. "You mean once we pass over that, it will exert some effect on the flier?" He looked at her.
She nodded. "Should we turn around now? Avoid that possibility?" she asked, then asserted, "I do not want to be stranded here."
Chuck wanted to avoid that as well, and certainly wanted to keep S'ra safe. However, his thirst for knowledge tried to make him continue.
"What if we can land on the ground before we reach it and walk to it to investigate the lower part?"
S'ra pointed out that they were unlikely to find level ground here, any more than they had before.
"We never explored that possibility around the pyramids, S'ra," he said.
She looked at his hopeful face for a while, then agreed. "We'll circle around and see if we can find anything," she said.
For S'ra, his grin certainly made her feel she had made the right choice.
They circled around, keeping the pyramids about four hundred feet to their right. They found nothing different for the first three hours and Chuck was becoming despondent.
"We'll circuit the whole way around, Chuck," S'ra said, placing a hand on the arm steering the flier.
He realized that he hadn't thought this through properly. "How will we know we are back where we started?"
She looked at him bemused for a while then remembered the difference between their two peoples. "Chuck, even at this distance, I still know where my city is located. When I'm facing directly away from the pyramids, that gives us a good indication we are probably near where we started to circle around."
He breathed out a sigh of relief.
That buoyed him up for a further hour. Then, he spotted a change just ahead.
"S'ra, look! A clearing!"
As they got closer, they could see the extent of the clearing. Just like the pyramids themselves this was obviously not a natural phenomenon. If it was possible to see through the pyramid, this would have been a circular shape. As it was, the flat wall of the pyramid cut off a segment of it.
The diameter of the circle looked to be nearly two-hundred-and-fifty yards across.
Chuck settled the flier down close to the vertically cut wall of one of the mountains at the far side of the clearing. They would have to walk the full distance to get to the nearest pyramid, over two-hundred yards. This felt safer than attempting to land closer. They didn't know when or even if the effect would occur. In hindsight, even flying this close might have been wrong, but they hadn't been dragged down.
They collected up what they would take. Water, weapons, torches and snacks. They took spears as well as their rifles and pistols.
"Why torches?" S'ra asked. "Are you expecting buildings or maybe tunnels?"
"You never know," he replied. "I don't want to come back here to get anything we forgot."
They set off. It wouldn't take long to cross the clearing.
As they got closer to the pyramid, they gained a better view of the cables, both those traversing the distance to the next pyramid and those running around the base of this one.
Chuck guessed that when originally built, long, long ago, the cable would have been the same color as the rock. However, it was now a slightly paler color. It would still not be obvious, unless one was looking for it as they had been.
The joins between the vertical and horizontal cables were seamless. Chuck hadn't been expecting that. The groves on the pyramid he had examined looked like that. He almost chuckled, imagining the cables like string knotted together.
What he hadn't expected was what looked like stone steps thirty feet to the side of that join. It looked like a rock bridge constructed over the cable or that a hole had been cut through the rock with the cable fed through it.
At the far side of that bridge, in the wall of the pyramid, was a dark hole.
They looked at each other. S'ra grinned at him. "Glad you brought the torches!"
When they got closer the steps up were quite tall. "Do you think the builders were giants?" S'ra asked.
"Looks like it," Chuck replied. "But we can still climb it easily enough, just higher steps than we would normally take."
He was right. However, they both felt exhausted when they reached the top. Fifty of those steps, each tall enough to make S'ra almost have the knee of the raised leg press against her breast to get up to the next level.
They stopped to rest before continuing. The top they had reached was flat and ran all the way to the hole in the wall. There was nothing on the surface. They were probably a hundred feet from the entrance, as they now saw what faced them. The walkway was twenty feet wide.
After a few minutes, Chuck turned to his wife. "Ready?"
She nodded and they set off.
Getting closer did not reveal anything beyond the entrance. Surprisingly, that was still true when they stopped, four feet away.
"It's as if no light can get in or out," S'ra commented.
"Like a black hole," Chuck said.
She turned to him. The awe in his voice suggested this was something significant. "A black hole? This entrance way is a black hole."
He came out of his trancelike state and looked at her. "Sorry. It's a term from Earth for an object in space where no light escapes. Nothing else does either, though, so the similarity doesn't extend that far."
"Do you think it's safe to enter?" she asked. "And will our torches work in there?"
"I doubt the torches will work, but let's see," he replied.
They each had their weapons either attached to their belts or strapped to their back. They both took their torches from their shoulder bags, switched them on and stepped forward hand-in-hand.
A/N: Another cliff-hanger! Evil writer, huh?
I will get the next chapter out much quicker than this one. Hopefully within a couple of weeks.
See you next time, folks.
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Glossary (pronunciation in brackets)
People:
Altia (Al-Tier) – green skinned woman saved by Chuck
Anzari (Anz-Sari) – golden-skinned people and now creatures
B'rack (Bur-Rack)– S'ra's previous boyfriend (we never meet him)
Chaldir (Charl-Dere) – governor of the city state Grillain
Thrace (Thrase) – military commander of the city state Grillain
Durban – (Dur-Ban) Air Sargent helping Chuck
Flack (Flack) – one of the generals under Commander Thrace
Frakku (Frack-Ku) – purple-skinned savages
Garron (Gar-Ron) – S'ra's father
Gralik (Grar-Lick) – second son of Praid
Kaldik (Cal-tick) – son of Commander Thrace
Langsta (Lang-Ster) – tribe of green-skinned men encountered
Pal'na (Paal-Nar) – wife of Chaldir
Pradur (Prar-door) – Pail-blue-skinned humans
Praid (Pray-Id) – governor of the city state Sanklin
R'lna (Rul-Nah) – wife of Praid
S'mia (Sur-Mere) – S'ra's mother
S'ra (Sur-Rah) – first person Chuck Bartowski meets on the new planet
Silva (Silver) – woman leading the Langsta tribe of friendly green-skinned people
Tald (TarlD) – first son of Prad
Thurgar (Ther-Gar) – warrior of the green-skinned people
Traada (Trar-dar) – leader of the Pradur settled on Graflir island
Verzian (Verr-iss-ien) – chief astronomer in Sanklin
Xaksta (Zack-Ster) – warlike tribe of green-skinned men
.
Plants and animals:
Clarek (Clar-Rek) – plant that produces leaves that people use to clean themselves
Conith (Con-Eeth) – leaves of this plant produce fast-acting, healing liquids
Deak (Dee-Ack) – small plants that manage to grow in the crevasses of rocks in the mountain ranges
Grakxar (Grak-zar) – Piranha-like fish
Gritch (Grit-Ch)– flesh of this plant used to clean teeth and breath
Ixtag (Eecs-Tag) – black-colored predator that live in forests
Krattak (Crat-tark) – terrifying, huge sea creature
Landic (Land-Ick) – deer-like herbivore
Pake (PayK) – plant, the flesh contains pain-killing properties and is used for that purpose
Ritti (Rit-Tee) – small yellow birds
Vetia (Vet-Ia) – leaves of this plant very flexible and used by Chuck to cover himself. Sap burns people from the planet but didn't affect him
Xaxic (Zacks-Ick) – foul smelling leaves of this plant used to ward off predators
Xynth (Zinth)– flying predator
Zryth (Zreeth) – stone-colored cat-like predator. Related to the ixtag
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Places:
Angarz (Ang-Garz) – the golden city
Caspan (Caz-Pan) – sea near Grillain
Flarzere (Flarz-Zere) - southern jungles
Garverd (Gar-Vert) - mountain range
Graflir (Graph-Lear) – main island in the chain near Angarz city
Grillain (Grill-Ain) – city state S'ra comes from
Kazmar (Kaz-Marr) – southern-most mountains
Niteth (Nee-Teth) – largest of three moons that circle the planet
Pallain (Pall-Lain) – neighboring city state
Retith (Ret-Teeth) – the planet Chuck was now on
Sanklin (Sank-Lin) – city state governed by Praid
Shaxi (Shack-Si) – glaciers at the southern pole
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Other:
Bract (Br-Act) – nutritious bars carried to eat when access to other food hard to achieve
Chendia (Chen-Dere) – powerful anesthetic, like chloroform
Flaxik (Flack-sic) – new drug created to induce ovulation
Merriclat (Merry-clat) - device for rebuilding and repairing lungs